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Malibu Sunset

Captured during the Malibu photowalks +Lori Hibbett and I organized last month.  I shot in Aperture Priority mode at f/16 for depth of field with a 16mm lens.  I was losing light so I left the aperture shut and I also kept the ISO sensitivity low to get a long exposure.  The range of light in the scene was extreme, so I used a 3 stop Cokin #121 graduated neutral density filter to better even out the exposure between the sky and the reflected light in the foreground surf.  I ended up with a 13 second shot at f/16, ISO 100.  I bracketed exposure due to the extreme range of light, in case I might need to use a brighter exposure to reduce shadow noise, or use a darker exposure to eliminate blown highlights.  Multiple exposures also enable me to consider multi-shot techniques like HDR.

There still was too much dynamic range in the scene to have the single exposure look natural straight out of the camera.  I brightened the shadows and darkened the highlights in  Lightroom, but that made it look flat and too low in contrast.  Often you can restore a natural look at that point by adding contrast or adjusting the tone curve, but I couldn't find the right balance of adjustments in Lightroom, so my intention was to simply set it aside until I could try HDR in Photomatix, other other multi-shot methods of recovering a usable result.

Since I hadn't been able to adjust the colors close to what I remembered, I fired up the brief Nik Software trial I had downloaded before the trip, and I used the Lightroom plug-in to Color Efex Pro 2 and was able to produce a better result.  I generally prefer to use a single exposure when I can, so the image is done for now.

Our trip was to gather site information for the guide book I'm working on, a few new sites and revisiting past ones where I had missed access trails or other details on prior visits.  I thought that I had uploaded this during the trip, but I ended up getting pretty sick for the rest of the trip, so   I was in a bit of a daze.  I thought I just had food poisoning from sushi after this photowalk, so I kept thinking I was getting better, but it'd come back the next day.  After a few days like that it was clear that I must have picked up a flu, probably while out shopping for supplies for the trip.

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75 thoughts on “Malibu Sunset”

  5. Kurt Alderman
    Reply

    I just started using ND filters, and thus still working on the art of their use. If I could ask how you metered this, and roughly how many exposures did you take before you decided you'd gotten your keeper? I'd really appreciate it!

  10. Jeff Sullivan
    Reply

    Thanks!  This was a difficult shot to recover.  I'm adding more shooting and processing details to the note above so you can get some insight into the workflow including trade-offs and decisions, from start to finish, exposure through post-processing.

  16. Jeff Sullivan
    Reply

    The light changes so quickly at this point +Kurt Alderman, I use the camera's built-in meter, set up exposure bracketing to expose a dark frame to get highlight detail and a bright frame to get shadow details and color.  The dark frame is by far the most critical of the three.  We never see blown out areas as we look around… if it's that bright we look away.  We do have light get too dark for our eyes, so dark shadows are not a problem.  So if the center exposure blows out in the highlights, it's critical that you have a darker one to either use as your one exposure, or to pull the highlight detail and color from (via HDR or other technique) to save the shot.

    I'll try to set aperture to get the depth of field I want, while adjusting ISO to manage exposure time (motion blur) and noise.  So I'm reviewing my results every shot.  Some people like using the RGB tone curves to analyze their exposure.  I'm a logical, analytical person in many situations, but for photography I prefer to be fully engaged in the moment and firmly rooted in the creative lobes of my brain.  Thinking about menus and the camera display would take me out of focusing on the composition and the light; my review of the three exposures on the rear LCD is brief and visual.

    If I can use the middle exposure and produce my result from one shot, that tends to work and produce the most natural result about 95-98% of the time.  But I still have the three shots in case I want to try HDR or some new technique later, or wait for better processing techniques for multiple exposures in the future.  It's a form of shot insurance, raising my shot to shot success over the long run.  I definitely have good results when I go back 4-5 years in my digital archives and re-process old files with newer post-processing tools, and I assume that'll be no different in the future.

    To use the camera's meter during that process, I have to pick an area of the composition and consistently use that sort of light consistently for the next few compositions, or the bracketing gets all off.  I'll typically leave the camera in manual focus and set it close to a hyperfocal distance, with some margin for error.  That gives me one  less thing to worry about as I change compositions and monitor exposures.  If I move the composition from 60% foreground to 60% bright sunset sky, I shift the exposure compensation to move the whole exposure bracketing sequence to accomodate the new metering point.  It doesn't really matter what you meter off of, as long as you manage aperture and ISO and watch the exposure time change, review the results when your composition changes in character (lighting), and adjust the exposure compensation and bracketing accordingly.

    So my approach with a digital camera is very different from the way I'd shoot with a film camera, but I think that I can shoot faster and more fluidly using the characteristics and immediate review capability of a digital camera, instead of metering all around the scene (as in the film camera days) and trying to pick a reasonable compromise for exposure.

    However… as it gets dark you do have to sacrifice aperture and depth of field, move up in ISO, use longer exposures, and eventually the built-in meter of the camera fails to give consistent results from shot to shot.  At that point you simply switch to Manual exposure mode and continue to adjust settings to deliver more light (or ISO sensitivity) to the sensor as twilight gives way to night.  Fortunately with landscape photography we're often shooting with ultra-wide 14mm to 17mm focal lengths, so you retain decent depth of field even as aperture heads through f/8 towards f/2.8 (in this lighting scenario it's good to have a general knowledge of hyperfocal distance at wide focal lengths and wide apertures).

  18. Jeff Sullivan
    Reply

    Thanks +Amy Heiden.  As always, the coolest part was sharing it with other photographers.  Give us a shout if you see a chance to come up this way again.  We saw an abandoned house nearby a couple of days ago which has your name all over it, and there's a lot more in the Mono Basin to keep you busy as well.

  21. Amy Heiden
    Reply

    We're nearing the busy season for work, so my weekends are bound to be stolen. I always enjoy shooting with you two though, so if I get some time, I'll let you know!

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