Monolith. Buy a print.
Stitched from 5 handheld images. Nikon D600, Nikkor 24-85 f/3.5-4.5 at 24mm, f/11, 1/40s, ISO 100
On flickr. On facebook.
Showing posts with label Eldorado Canyon State Park. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Eldorado Canyon State Park. Show all posts
Friday, October 26, 2012
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Eldorado canyon sunset
Eldo sunset. Buy a print.
Extreme resolution composite from 9 images from D600, Nikkor 24-85mm at 50mm, f/11, 1/15s, ISO 100
Eldorado Canyon is a hidden gem just south of Boulder. I went out this evening to play with my new D600 and shot a few images of which this is one that I stitched from 9 images taken using my normal method for high resolution composites resulting in a about 180MP image that I finished off in Lightroom 4. On a large print you will be able to count 10's of climbers scattered all over the rocks.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
More fall color in Eldorado Canyon State Park
This image was taken two weeks ago in Eldorado Canyon State park (for earlier pictures from the same outing see here and here). This was quite a while after sunset while I was walking back to my car and the yellow trees were positively glowing.
Blast. Buy a print.
Boring technical data: Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 mm at 11mm, ISO 200, f/11, 8.0 seconds. Two different developments in Lightroom of the image were combined in enfuse to balance sky and foreground.
Same image on Flickr. Google+ post.
Blast. Buy a print.
Boring technical data: Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 mm at 11mm, ISO 200, f/11, 8.0 seconds. Two different developments in Lightroom of the image were combined in enfuse to balance sky and foreground.
Same image on Flickr. Google+ post.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
More fall color in Eldorado Canyon
This image was taken at dusk. I have some nice images looking out over the rock formation with sunset glow on them that I will post at a later time. Now fall color is still topical so I'll show that here. This is a followup to the previous post. This waterfall is fairly easy to find right at a pullout to a big bouldering boulder. You have to scramble down a little through some brush and there it is. There are many nice waterfalls in this area but it is often difficult to get a good angle on them. I think this one works.
Dusk fall. Buy a print.
Technical: Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 mm at 11 mm, f/11, 1.0s. 3 stop grad ND to darken the sky. Processed in Lightroom (no HDR).
Relevant Google+ post. Image on flickr.
Dusk fall. Buy a print.
Technical: Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 mm at 11 mm, f/11, 1.0s. 3 stop grad ND to darken the sky. Processed in Lightroom (no HDR).
Relevant Google+ post. Image on flickr.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Fall in Eldorado Canyon State Park
Yesterday, I dropped the little boy off with mom and sis who is selling tickets as a fundraiser for the awesome organization she rides horses with - The Westernaires. She is close to having sold 400 tickets now, which means she will have two chances to win that horse that we have little idea where to keep but we'll deal with that if it actualy happens. I am very proud though that she is working this hard to accomplish her goal with actually fairly little help from us except for giving rides and keeping her company. She is a better sales person than me. Anyway, I did a quick evening run after this to Eldorado Canyon State Park, a very nice park just southwest of Boulder that is famous for its climbing. I posted some winter images from this place before. The picture I will post below is quite different from those images. Even though as I showed before the high country of Colorado is getting snowed on already, the foothills are still in full fall mode. So I went to Eldorado Springs to hunt for a waterfall surrounded by fall foliage as well as to recreate a sunset shot I did with my phone a while ago but with better gear. The latter didn't pan out as I had hoped (I'll post some images anyway when I get to them), but the waterfalls wwere great. The below is one of those images I found.
Fall in Eldorado Canyon State Park. Buy a print
Technical data: Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm at 11.5mm, f/16, 0.4s, 3 stop ND and 3 stop grad ND filters to slow down the water and darken the sky. Edited in Lightroom (no HDR here!).
Relevant G+ post. The image on Flickr.
Fall in Eldorado Canyon State Park. Buy a print
Technical data: Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm at 11.5mm, f/16, 0.4s, 3 stop ND and 3 stop grad ND filters to slow down the water and darken the sky. Edited in Lightroom (no HDR here!).
Relevant G+ post. The image on Flickr.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Cellphone or DSLR?
What do you think? left or right?
I was inspired to post this comparison by shuwenwu's comment on a flickr image of mine. Click for bigger. Of course these are not exactly the same viewpoint but I just wanted to illustrate the amazing results you can get from cellphones. I carry an iPhone nowadays, which has a surprisingly good camera built in. Examples below:
I was inspired to post this comparison by shuwenwu's comment on a flickr image of mine. Click for bigger. Of course these are not exactly the same viewpoint but I just wanted to illustrate the amazing results you can get from cellphones. I carry an iPhone nowadays, which has a surprisingly good camera built in. Examples below:
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Winter on the flatirons : visit to Eldorado Canyon State Park
Last weekend we had a lot of snow around here. Very much contrary to this weekend where we are seeing temperatures around 18 C (65 F for those accustomed to more archaic units). As people say in Colorado: "If you don't like the weather, wait one day". I spent some time trudging through the snow in Eldorado Canyon state park (a hidden gem south of Boulder). This park is famous for its climbing on the edges of its flatirons. In winter conditions you'll see hardly anybody in there. I liked the look of the snow on the red rock and the trees so I shot some images there.
This is a view of the main rock formations from the Fowler trail (click for bigger)
Assembled from 9 images shot at 35 mm, f/11, 1/15s. Will print with exquisite detail even as large as most homes' walls.
This is a detail from this view which I liked because of its geometric shapes where the trees reflect the rocks.
Single image at 35 mm, f/11, 1/15s.
This is my favorite from the hike. a rear view of the rock formations. I composed the image to have the rocks go diagonally on the right to the right corner. This is the image I used in the previous post about the very high level of detail in images such as this.
Assembled from 9 images shot at 50 mm, f/11, 1/15s.
There is a black and white version of this image here.
A look up
Assembled from 9 images shot at 35 mm, f/11, 1/15s.
Rockslide
Single image at 11 mm, f/8, 1/25s handheld.
Glassy
Single image at 11 mm, f/5.6, 1/15s handheld.
I also put up a set of images on flickr with some cellphone images in it too for you all to enjoy. The full set on smugmug where you can see larger versions is here.
This is a view of the main rock formations from the Fowler trail (click for bigger)
Assembled from 9 images shot at 35 mm, f/11, 1/15s. Will print with exquisite detail even as large as most homes' walls.
This is a detail from this view which I liked because of its geometric shapes where the trees reflect the rocks.
Single image at 35 mm, f/11, 1/15s.
This is my favorite from the hike. a rear view of the rock formations. I composed the image to have the rocks go diagonally on the right to the right corner. This is the image I used in the previous post about the very high level of detail in images such as this.
Assembled from 9 images shot at 50 mm, f/11, 1/15s.
There is a black and white version of this image here.
A look up
Assembled from 9 images shot at 35 mm, f/11, 1/15s.
Rockslide
Single image at 11 mm, f/8, 1/25s handheld.
Glassy
Single image at 11 mm, f/5.6, 1/15s handheld.
I also put up a set of images on flickr with some cellphone images in it too for you all to enjoy. The full set on smugmug where you can see larger versions is here.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Resolution of stitched images revisited
I was recently asked while shooting at Mesa Arch by a fellow photographer who saw me use my wooden panohead jig what using this contraption gained me. I was reminded of this going through some shots from yesterday. I went to Eldorado Canyon state park in the snow storm to shoot some images of the awesome rock formations there (I'll post images later). I compared a guide image with a stitched image and was struck by the amazing amount of extra detail.
Here is the full image to guide you. On the left the guide image, shot at 18 mm, f/11, 1/15s and ISO 200 using my 18-55 mm kit lens. This lens is amazingly sharp if used correctly. On the right, the assembled pano, rendered at 65 MP (Full rendered resolution is about 95 MP, but I rarely render the panos that large) from 9 shots at 48mm and same settings as above. This is a 12 MP Nikon D300.
Guide image. The screenshots below are slightly left of the center.
Of course at this size, there is no way to see any difference. It just illustrates how well this technique works. The guide image is almost identical to the stitched pano zoomed out this far. This is essential to me as it is otherwise very hard to compose shots. In this case, I wanted the lines of the awesome Fountain formation rocks to diagonally go to the right bottom corner. To compare resolution, I upscaled the single shot NEF file to the 65 MP resolution and show the comparison below at 1:1 (click on the image for full resolution - you might have to click again to get it at 1:1 on your screen).
Left: 12 MP image upscaled to 65 MP. Right: 65 MP stitched image of the same composition.
Even at the zoomed out size of the screenshot that I placed inline above, you can see the enormous difference in resolution. Note that if you look at this screenshot 1:1 by clicking on it, you are looking at the equivalent of a 65"x100" print (I am assuming your monitor is about 100 ppi - the reduced size image inline above is equivalent to a 27x42" print). I don't need to tell you how well the stitched image holds up even at that size. Because this is crazily large, I was curious how well this translates to smaller prints. So I downscaled the stitched image to the same resolution as the single 12 MP shot. Again, click to see a 1:1 image.
Left: single 12 MP image. Right: 65 MP stitched image downscaled to 12 MP.
Amazingly, even here you can see better detail in the stitched image. This is happening because of the Bayer mosaic used in the sensor of this camera and some lens softness. It cannot actually record as sharp of an image as it pretends it can, making a downscaled 65 MP image look signifcantly better than a native 12 MP one. Note that the 12 MP image was sharpened appropriately in Lightroom. At the 1:1 size, you are looking at a print of about 28x43" so this is still quite a large print. It is hard to show this on a screen, but when I make test prints from these images at smaller sizes than 28x43", say 16x24" I still see an obvious difference. Of course, to many people that might not be that important. It is also not unlikely that only a fellow photographer will notice it at smaller sizes and normal people would have to be pointed to the difference. To me, the print gains a large amount of presence and reality. This method can be applied to almost any landscape situation - even waterfalls! - to improve resolution.
Here is the full image to guide you. On the left the guide image, shot at 18 mm, f/11, 1/15s and ISO 200 using my 18-55 mm kit lens. This lens is amazingly sharp if used correctly. On the right, the assembled pano, rendered at 65 MP (Full rendered resolution is about 95 MP, but I rarely render the panos that large) from 9 shots at 48mm and same settings as above. This is a 12 MP Nikon D300.
Guide image. The screenshots below are slightly left of the center.
Of course at this size, there is no way to see any difference. It just illustrates how well this technique works. The guide image is almost identical to the stitched pano zoomed out this far. This is essential to me as it is otherwise very hard to compose shots. In this case, I wanted the lines of the awesome Fountain formation rocks to diagonally go to the right bottom corner. To compare resolution, I upscaled the single shot NEF file to the 65 MP resolution and show the comparison below at 1:1 (click on the image for full resolution - you might have to click again to get it at 1:1 on your screen).
Left: 12 MP image upscaled to 65 MP. Right: 65 MP stitched image of the same composition.
Even at the zoomed out size of the screenshot that I placed inline above, you can see the enormous difference in resolution. Note that if you look at this screenshot 1:1 by clicking on it, you are looking at the equivalent of a 65"x100" print (I am assuming your monitor is about 100 ppi - the reduced size image inline above is equivalent to a 27x42" print). I don't need to tell you how well the stitched image holds up even at that size. Because this is crazily large, I was curious how well this translates to smaller prints. So I downscaled the stitched image to the same resolution as the single 12 MP shot. Again, click to see a 1:1 image.
Left: single 12 MP image. Right: 65 MP stitched image downscaled to 12 MP.
Amazingly, even here you can see better detail in the stitched image. This is happening because of the Bayer mosaic used in the sensor of this camera and some lens softness. It cannot actually record as sharp of an image as it pretends it can, making a downscaled 65 MP image look signifcantly better than a native 12 MP one. Note that the 12 MP image was sharpened appropriately in Lightroom. At the 1:1 size, you are looking at a print of about 28x43" so this is still quite a large print. It is hard to show this on a screen, but when I make test prints from these images at smaller sizes than 28x43", say 16x24" I still see an obvious difference. Of course, to many people that might not be that important. It is also not unlikely that only a fellow photographer will notice it at smaller sizes and normal people would have to be pointed to the difference. To me, the print gains a large amount of presence and reality. This method can be applied to almost any landscape situation - even waterfalls! - to improve resolution.
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