A spring time in our garden

Two hyacinths flowers just emerging in our garden are the true sign of the approaching spring.

Date: January 20th, 2012.

Gear: Nikon D80, Nikkor 17-75 mm.

Maciek.

My town at dusk

Porto old town view at dusk.

A story behind: Most of the times even our most modern cameras simply cannot 'see' the same way our eyes see. Our camera's sensor does not record anything close to the full 'dynamic range' of the human eye, meaning it can only capture so much difference between the darkest and brightest parts of an image. This means we must frequently control or moderate the light entering the camera into a more narrow range of tones which the camera will be able to 'see' as it should.

But sometimes we need to do the opposite. By setting long exposure time camera can record the images that are impossible to capture by the naked human eye. Just look above: smoothing the water surface with long shutter speed gave a great effect.

The picture was made on Sunday at dusk.

Gear: Nikon D700. Nikkor 16-35 mm. Tripod.

Aperture: f/22

Shutter speed: 14 sec

Exposure bias: 0 EV

Focal Length: 16 mm

ISO: 320

Place taken: Porto, Portugal.

Date Taken: Sunday, January 22th, 2012, 07: 36

Maciek.

The winter sea

The late afternoon at the Granja beach, Portugal.

A story behind: The ocean has always been astonishing me. Two photos from the same spot are never the same. Just a simple walk with a camera results in a diverse collection of seascapes. It is never, ever, predictable.
That night the particularly interesting cloud formation was hanging above the stairs in Granja. I knew, as soon as the dying sun began to illuminate the cloud, it was going to be a nice sunset.
The bright sky spots and some over-cast sky was nicely balanced with a 2-stop, soft-step ND Grad. Even in the age of digital blending and fine tuning in post processing, these filters offer something you simply cannot accomplish on the computer. I knew that brown stone stairs make a nice foreground element, so I sat down on the beach with my 16-35 mm lens and framed this scene. The 3 seconds long exposure and fast moving water added a lot of commotion to the scene. The shutter speed turned out to be long enough to smooth out the distant water, gave a fast wave movement, but short enough to maintain some structure in the clouds.


Gear: Nikon D700. Nikkor 16-35 mm.

Aperture: f/20

Shutter speed: 3 sec

Exposure bias: 0 EV
Focal Length: 16 mm

ISO: 50

Place taken: Porto, Portugal.

Date Taken: Sunday, January 15th, 2012, 18: 34

Maciek.