Clouds Over MDI

We invited the Lawrence family out for an afternoon cruise on the boat.  Vince suggested going around the Cranberry Islands; he's never seen the other side.  Just as we were rounding Baker Island, I looked back and saw these clouds in the sky. I put the boat in neutral, grabbed my shiny new Fujifilm X100S and snapped a couple of shots. As always, I'll share my post-processing. 

 

Clouds Over Mount Desert Island, Acadia National Park, ME

The original RAW image from the Fujifilm X100S. 

Clouds Over Mount Desert Island, Acadia National Park, Maine.

In Nik Viveza I increased the blue in the sky and added structure to the clouds.

Clouds Over Mount Desert Island, Acadia National Park, Maine.

In Nik Color Efex Pro, I applied the Tonal Contrast filter, the Skylight filter and the Detail Extractor filter. I removed the Detail Extractor from the water area. 

For the final image, I leveled the horizon and cloned out a few distracting foreground buoys in Lightroom.  Then I popped the image into Nik Silver Efex Pro and applied the Full Contrast and Structure filter and darken the blues 10%. I'm loving what I can do with the little X100S! 

Clouds Over Mount Desert Island, Acadia National Park, Maine.

Bear Island Bell

I was boating near Bear Island Lighthouse just after sunset and snapped this shot of the bell buoy with my new Fujifilm X100S rangefinder camera. The camera's about a week old and I'm still trying to figure out the buttons and settings. I shot this at f/2.0, which was unintentional - but produced a creamy foreground that I'm enjoying. 

 

Bear Island Bell, Mount Desert Island, Maine

Here's the first JPG (not raw) straight out of the camera. 

Bear Island Bell, Mount Desert Island, Maine

A quick crop in Lightroom.

In Nik - Color Efects Pro I added Tonal Contrast and Skylight filter. Thankfully I didn't have to clone out sensor dust spots, the Fuji X100S is a fixed lens (no dust gets in :-).  This little camera is producing some great results for the first week.

Bear Island Bell, Mount Desert Island, Maine

EXIF data: Fujifilm X100S, 23mm, f/2.0, 1/60 sec, ISO 250, 08/27/13, 7:36 PM

 

Winter Harbor Lighthouse

We decided to cruise (go by boat) over to Schoodic this past weekend. I saw the puffy white clouds and lighthouse and started snapping away, while Brenda was piloting boat. I was saying: Get closer to the island (I really need a 300mm lens). I snapped this image thinking the whole time, "I'll just crop out the boat".  What a happy accident capturing the boat window. I love the reflection on the window. Below are my post-process steps.

 

Winter Harbor Lighthouse,  Schoodic Peninsula, Maine

 

Here's the raw image:

 

Winter Harbor Lighthouse, Schoodic Peninsula, ME

Winter Harbor Lighthouse, Schoodic Peninsula, ME

There were a bunch of steps, probably could have condense a few steps. I'm fighting a cold and my head's a bit fuzzy. Here's the crop in Lightroom, just a smidge off the top. I played with more off the top, but it didn't feel right. 

Winter Harbor Lighthouse, Schoodic Peninsula, ME

In Nik - Viveza, I gave the sky more blue and added some structure to the clouds. 

In Nik - Color Efex Pro, I added Tonal Contrast and a hint of Skylight Filter (4%). 

That 'tonal contrast' setting always makes the sensor dust pop.  You'll notice at least one spot in the upper right corner (take the intersection of the flag pole and where the boat leaves the frame).  So the last step was to clone out the sensor dust stops with Photoshop's content aware cloning tool. 

Perseid Meteor Showers

I took a nap from 9:00 - 11:30 pm and awoke to take some night sky of the Perseid Meteor Showers. I wasn't fortunate enough to capture interesting meteors. I started shooting around midnight at Sand Beach, moved to Ocean Drive at 1:00 am and the final destination of Cadillac Mountain around 2:15 am. I found some nice folks star/meteor gazing and thought they would make a nice photo under the stars. They are Tricia, Amanda, Matt, and Kasey from Buffalo, NY and they were craving chicken-wings at 2:40 am.

Under the stars, Cadillac Mountain - Acadia Photo Safari

I'll take you through the post-proccess of this shot.  This is straight out of the camera. I use tungsten for my white balance setting.

 

 

Under the stars, Cadillac Mountain - Acadia Photo Safari

I started Lightroom with toning down the foreground and leveling the horizon. Then I brought the image into Nik - Define to smooth out some graininess, my ISO was at 2500. 

 Under the stars, Cadillac Mountain - Acadia Photo Safari

Now it's time to bring out the details with Nik - Color Efects Pro:
   -  Tonal Contrast gives the image a little punch
   -  Detail Extractor brings out the detail in the stars and foreground

 

To finish this image, I did a tad more in Lightroom: took down some highlights in the blanket, cloned out some odd lights or sensor noise, added skin-tone color to the faces. Here's the finally image.

Under the stars, Cadillac Mountain - Acadia Photo Safari

EXIF data: Nikon D800, Nikon 24-70mm @ 24mm, f/2.8, 25 sec, ISO 2500, 08/13/13, 2:41 AM

 

Bar Harbor Fog Bank

Bar Harbor Fog Bank, original image

I was fortunate to attend the George B. Dorr Society event held by Friends of Acadia yesterday.   This year they decided to take us on a cruise to "The Hop", only accessible at low tide from Long Porcupine Island. It was a great intimate event with David MacDonald and Sheridan Steele among the participants. I had a great time and got to eat as many lobster rolls as I wanted! Back to the photography - on the way back to Bar Harbor we were headed into a fog bank with the prominent island mountains protruding from the fog. Here's my shot and the post-processing that followed.

Bar Harbor Fog Bank, with Nik Viveza

Using Nik Viveza: 

  • Added structure and saturation to clouds and sky
  • Added structure to the water
  • Add 4% warmth to overall picture

In Lightroom (I usually edit in Lightroom first, but I wanted to see if the image had potential - so I jumped right into Viveza):

  • Straighten the horizon
  • In Photoshop cloned out (with content aware) two lobster buoys

Bar Harbor Fog Bank, with Lightroom and Photoshop

The final image after editing with Nik Color Effects Pro using the 'Howie trio' of: Tonal Contrast, Skylight Filter, and Detail Extractor (DE - only on the sky, the water was fine just the way it was). Also a touch of post-crop vignetting in Lightroom.

Bar Harbor Fog Bank - Final Image, after Nik Color Effects Pro

EXIF data: Nikon D800, Nikon 24-70mm @ 27mm, f/13, 1/160 sec, ISO 320, 07/29/13, 1:06 PM