From RAW to FINAL: Panoramic Long Exposure Photography

Hello everyone,

here's another post in my series: From RAW to Final, where I show you how I take an image all the way from RAW to its finished, final, look.

Today, I would like to share an image I took last week as I was traveling and photographing in the Canadian Prairies. This image, entitled "Prairie Train Cars' was photographed near Calgary, Alberta.

Image Details: Cambo WDS camera with 35mm Lens. Phase One Digital Back. Panorama from 2 images, 300 and 538 second exposure time. Merged in Autopano Pro.

I was on a 5 day trip, starting and ending in Calgary. We spend between 12 - 15 hours each day travelling and photographing the Prairie landscape and communities such as Lethbridge, Oyen, Drumheller etc...

The focus of this photography tour was to discover, and photograph, the wooden grain elevators and grainaries dotting the landscape.

We found these train cars, apparently parked in this location for undetermined amounts of time, near the grain elevator of Herronton. When we arrived, our attention shifted away from the grain elevator (we also photographed it, of course).

The clouds and weather conditions were simply amazing, I setup my Cambo WDS camera so as to take 2 images that I planned to merge to a panorama.

Using panoramic images, not only do I get images with higher resolution, but I also get a wider angle of view without having to buy a wider angle lens. On my Cambo camera, the 35mm lens I was using is very wide on its own already, but merging 2 images gave me an even wider perspective. While working on my composition, I wanted to make sure to place the 'Canada' train car close to the middle so that it would serve as the focal point.

The wideangle perspective allowed me to include generous amounts of sky and negative space around the train cars. The foreground was simple gras, which also helped draw the viewers eye into the scene.

STEP 1: So let's get started and first take a look at my 2 RAW files:

Note that I have converted the original RAW files to DNG format. This allows my panoramic program of choice, Autopano Pro, to read my RAW files coming from my Phase One Digital Back. If you're shooting with a DSLR you won't need this step as Autopano can read most RAW file format from major manufacturers.

Also note that I made a 'mistake' as I did not use the same exposure time for both images. Because if this, I will run into some merging troubles later on, and you'll see how I addressed it. In a perfect world, you want to make sure you'll use the same exposure time for all images you plan to merge into a panorama.

STEP 2: Merge images into a panorama using Autopano Pro Software:

In the image above, you can see that cropping to a 2:1 panoramic aspect ratio will result in only a small loss of original resolution. In my workflow, I usually crop in Autopano Software, and then export the image for editing in Photoshop later.

STEP 3: Editing in Adobe Photoshop and Nik Silver Efex Pro Software:

You can see that I 'only' needed 5 layers to get this edit done. The biggest adjustment, if you want to call it that, is that I split the sky and clouds in half and then mirrored it and put it back into the image.

I also use 2 other essential techniques in my Photoshop workflow, namely a Dodge and Burn Layer, and a selective sharpening layer using the Hi-Pass filter.

I decided to record a video showcasing my entire workfow for this image. I think this will go a long way to explain what I was doing.

The video is uploaded and posted on Vimeo. Take a look:

Marc Koegel Photography -- From RAW to Final: 'Train Cars' image from Marc Koegel on Vimeo.

Please be so kind and leave me some feedback on the video. Do you want to see more like this? Do you have any additional questions? Anything I missed that would improve this effort?

Thank you for reading/watching this post.

More tk...

Revisiting the Ghost Town of Dorothy!

Hello everyone,

so I spend the day yesterday retracing some 'old tracks' photographing the great Prairie Landscape near Calgary, Alberta.

I took my students to many sites, from rows of trees to granaries (big and small), to churches and, of course, wooden grain elevators. There is a lot that this area has to offer, and guess what, you don't have to travel far and wide to 'exotic' destinations to discover this. Calgary is within a few hours travel from most Canada and US cities.

There is a lot of history here, and it's a playground for photographers interested in sharpening not only their technical skills (aka long exposure landscape photography) but also their compositional skills (aka minimalist, simpler vision).

We toured for about 11 hours, and covered nearly 300 kilometers yesterday. That's what I call a full day of photography!

Here is a quick edit from our shoot yesterday. It's a site I have visited many times before.

Dorothy is a small ghost town located near Drumheller. It has 2 old churches (which we photographed as well) but the main attraction is this very photogenic wooden grain elevator silting in a field.

Image details: Cambo Wide DS with Phase One Digital Back. Schneider 35mm Lens. Exposure 120 seconds @F8

On my website you can see the image I took on a previous trip several years ago. We had some fabolous clouds so I couldn't resist sharing this new image.

I will be travelling through the Prairies for 3 more days with my small group 'Canadian Prairies Tour' Photo Tour.

Before I go, here you can see our 'line-up of tripods' as we photograph at this location:

The best part is, despite the fact that we all photographed from a very similar angle, I bet all of our images will turn out rather different.

Looking out my window this morning as I am typing this, it looks like another great day with some awesome clouds! Can't wait to get out there with my camera!

Stay tuned as I continue to post from along the way this week!

Regards from Calgary!

Marc

Less is sometimes more. When it comes to exposure time that is!

Hello everyone,

I left Vancouver and now heading back on a much anticipated roadtrip to the Canadian Prairies with the aim to photograph more of the vanishing historic grain elevators in Alberta and Sasketchewan.

I made this photograph near Lethbridge yesterday:

Image Details: Nikon D800e, 24mm Tilt/Shift Lens, Exposure 60 seconds @ F11

It was raining hard for most of the drive yesterday. When I got to this location, which I visited twice several years ago, I had a glimpse of hope that the rain would slow enough to allow me to setup my camera and take a shot. Sure enough after waiting for about 30 minutes, I was able to do so. Being from Vancouver I am used to working with an umbrella anyway :-)

The image was taken with an exposure time of 60 seconds at F11, using 13 stops of ND filtration. The clouds were moving fast, but did not have much definition. It was a very grey day overall. I made a few images using various exposure times, raging from 30 seconds to 8 minutes. After doing such an image series, I found that extending my exposure to beyond 1 minute resulted in much less defined skies. 

My students often ask me if 'longer is always better'. Well, in this particular case, you have an example where extending exposure time further results in less definition in the sky. With the clouds moving rapidly, exposing for several minutes will leave the sky 'blank' and grey. It was important for me to preserve at least some details in the clouds, so that's why I decided not to extend my exposure time further than 1 minute.

I will be in the area for the next 10 days, teaching a workshop and leading a photo-tour back-to-back. I will be posting more images from along the way.

Regards from Swift Current (SK),

Marc

New Colour Work and Master Workshops with Michael Levin!!

Hello everyone,

I am sure many of you are familiar with the photographic works of Michael Levin.

A fellow Vancouverite, I have been following Michael's work and career for many years. It has provided a continued source of inspiration for me.

Over the past 2 years, we have started to get to know each other better, and in addition to aforementioned photographic inspiration, Michael has given me many valuable pieces of business advice as well.

Michael came over to my studio a few days ago, bringing with him a copy of the freshly released 'Victor', the prestigious hard-bound edition put out bi- annually by Hasselblad and sold world-wide. It`s an elite book, over-sized, and beautifully designed. Over the years, it has featured many acclaimed photographers work.

'Victor' marks the launch of Michael new photographic works in colour!

Here's an excerpt, taken from Michael's website, of what he has to say about his 'move into color photography':

After the sharp edges and bold clarity of his black and white work, Michael Levin has bloomed into a colour photographer revealing a languid interpretation of how light and colour dissolve through space. Though cast in a soft, ethereal luminosity reminiscent of 19th century Romantic landscape paintings - or Delft seen by Vermeer on a cloudy day - the muted colours, vast perspectives and minimalist phrasing in these new photographs recognise a contemporary desire for contemplative awareness. There is a meditative aspect to each of the images, an allowance to situate ourselves amidst the atmospheric effects so we can gain a better appreciation of our place in this still big and rapturous world.

I am very excited to see this new work by Michael, and wanted to use the opportunity to give Michael a feature here and introduce you to his new work.

  Please visit Michael's website to see more of his photographic works!

I also wanted to point your attention to the fact that I will be organizing the only 2 workshops Michael will be leading this year. And, there are no plans for workshops in 2014, so if you've been thinking about learning from Michael, this is your chance.

We will be hosting 2 weekend Master Workshops, both in an intimate seeting of maximum 15 attendees. The first one will be held in Vancouver and second in Toronto.

• Vancouver Master Workshop with Michael Levin, May 18th + 19th, 2013
• Toronto Master Workshop with Michael Levin, June 29th + 30th, 2013

Michael writes that what matters most to him in his workshops is the ability to provide all participants with a more detailed understanding of how they can take their work to the next level.

He find participants respond to the informal atmosphere of the workshop, and value the insights he's gained in building my career step by step.

While knowing the technical aspects of long-exposure photography are important, Michael's workshop addresses the larger goal of creating images that are compositionally impressive and personally expressive. The workshop also focuses on the business side of photography, drawing from his unique perspective of having built a successful business exhibiting, selling, licensing and publishing his photographs.

Michael's workshop provides ideas and inspiration that will help each participant achieve their unique goals.

I hope you take a moment to be inspired by Michael's new work.

Thank you for reading!

Marc

Crystal Pier - Black & White and Color!

Hello everyone,

I finally made it down to visit San Diego last week. I've been wanting to explore the California coast for a few years now. I made it down to San Francisco before, travelling along the Oregon coast, but going further south to Los Angeles and beyond remained on the bucket list until last week.

I was down in L.A. and was fortunete to visit Paris Photo before travelling to Palm Springs to check out the Palm Springs Photo Festival. The trip was more then worth it for these two events alone, but I was able to carve out 2 extra days to go shooting on my own as well.

I have seen many images from San Diego, and knew the area is famous for its great sea-scape shooting opportunities. So although I did not re-invent the wheel here and found 'new' locations, I still enjoyed myself tremendously visiting the famous Crystal Pier and the 'Children's Pool'.

Today I want to share 2 images I photographed at Crystal Pier:

Image details: Photographed with Hasselblad H4D-40 and 80mm Hasselblad Lens. Exposure is 256 seconds @ F5.6 ISO 100

I got to the beach adjacent to the famous pier when the tide was pretty high. In a perfect world, with more time to visit, I would have preferred to come with the tide being much lower, as this would have allowed the use of a wider angle lens. Due to the high water line, I couldn't walk out towards the end of the pier very far. Luckily I had an 80mm lens with me, a focal length I normally don't use very often. It's equivalent to about a 63mm in 35mm camera format, so it's slightly longer.

Those of you who know my work and have been reading this blog for a while know I prefer to work with wide-angle lenses of 24mm and wider, but the image above is an example that you can 'never have enough lenses in your camera bag'. Well, despite this image, my wife is still not buying this statement :-)

While out on the beach there, I also took a shot using my Cambo WDS camera fitted with a much more wide-angle lens. I decided to leave this image in color:

Image details: Cambo WDS camera with 35mm Schneider Digitar XL lens. Phase One P25+ Digital back. Exposure is 900 seconds @ F8 at ISO 50

You see the much wider view in the image above, coming from the use of a 35mm lens that is about 22mm equivalent to 35mm camera format. I shot this with my old Phase One P25+ digital back. The image is a result of 2 individual captures that have been stitched to create the final panorama (the black and white image above has been cropped to get the final panoramic aspect ratio).

I very much like the color coming from the Phase One back, so I decided to not convert to black and white. To get the final color 'treatment' I processed the image in Nik Color Efex 4 (using Photoshop CS6).

The longer exposure rendered reduced detail in the sky, and I particularly like the bottom of the frame where the waves came really close to my tripod legs. You can actually see a bit of beach sand where the waves did not reach.

I had to take a few shots, as people walking by continued to leave their footprints in the sand. Even though the long exposure made the people invisible, the foot prints remained. Yes I could have taken care of this in Photoshop, but in this case it was a lot easier to simply wait until the 'traffic' calmed down and some bigger waves washed the footprints away, leaving the beach pristine.

Before I go, here's a shot of behind-the-scenes, showing my camera setup. You can see how close the waves came to my tripod -:)

As always, your comments are appreciated and encouraged. More images from this trip will be posted soon!

Have a great weekend everyone,

Marc