A calm, autumn night along Chicago’s lakefront.

Back Story

This past weekend, we were back out at the Museum Campus in Chicago, to get another take at shooting the Chicago Skyline at dusk and at night. There were a few good images that came out of the evening, including a few where I was testing out a new FL-W filter I picked up recently, but this was the one I decided to feature first.

I was out shooting for only about 90 minutes, and probably could spend another hour or so there next time. 90 minutes may seem like more than enough time, but for awhile there I was shooting panos from one end to the other, and bracketing at the same time. Testing different exposures, I found myself doing one bracketed pano with 8″, 15″ and 30″ exposures each. Round that up to a minute for all three shots, and then factor in about 15 frames (shooting vertically) moving across the lakefront, and you can see the time goes.

Touch of Pink

You may notice that the top of the Sears Tower (yes, I still say Sears Tower) and the nearby buildings look a little pink. Well, that’s because their lights have been switched to pink to support breast cancer awareness month in October. It may only be subtle in this shot, but it was very apparent in person.

– Kris

Earlier this month, a friend of mine sent me a link to an Adorama Learning Center article by Bryan Peterson about shooting night/dusk shots with an FL-W filter. It looked very promising, so I picked one up (at B&H, ironically, because Adorama was out of stock) and waited for my chance to try it out.

Which takes me to this past weekend, where the weather here in Chicago was extremely gorgeous – again – and more importantly, the winds off the lake were especially calm. That meant, heading back down to the Museum Campus and getting some shots of the Chicago Skyline just after dusk and as night fell.

The After Shot

I know, you’re supposed to start with the before shot, but just check this out:

That’s just about right out of the camera, with the Hoya 77mm FL-W multi-coated filter sitting on the front of my lens. Sure, it’s a little dark, but that’s because I kept the exposure settings the same as the before image below, as to do a straight comparison.

You can easily tell that you lose a little light with the filter, but nothing a quick exposure adjustment can’t fix.

This was a 2 sec. exposure, shot at f/11 and at ISO 200. The same can be said with the before image without the filter, seen below.

The Before Shot

In all fairness, the before shot without the FL-W filter doesn’t look that bad, either. With the calm winds and the 2 second exposure, the water of the lake smoothes out rather nicely, too.

Yet, the color you get from the FL-W filter when switching to a white balance of Daylight really gives you a creative option you otherwise wouldn’t have on location like that.

Side-by-Side Comparison

Although it’s seemingly a night and day comparison already, here’s a quick side-by-side look I threw together with the Diptic App on the iPad:

More Images

I’m only getting started with testing this guy out, admittedly not being able to go out and shoot scenes like this as often as I’d like. The joys of being a new parent.

I do have a few other images from the shoot over the weekend posted on Flickr, which I’ll also be featuring here on the blog in the coming days as well.

We’re also heading up to northeastern Wisconsin this weekend, and there’s at least one or two spots I’m already thinking of shooting with this guy. So stay tuned for those next week.

– Kris

Mama and Christian posing in front of Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park.

Back Story

Over the weekend, we took our son downtown for the first time since he was born. Although both my wife and I have lived in the Chicago area our entire lives, we don’t make it downtown as often as you’d think.

This shot was taken in front of Buckingham Fountain, and although the temperature and cloudless sky all day was gorgeous for walking around by the lake, it was the definition of harsh for snapping a few portraits. That said, we must have saw at least 3 wedding parties with photographers trailing behind them as they hit all the sights and photo ops.

The Technique

But on to the technical stuff. I took this around 11:30am, so you can imagine how bad the shadows were with the sun overhead. Despite the light, I knew I could still get a keepsake shot for our family album by using a speedlight to – as they say – overpower the sun.

So, I did a few test exposures of the fountain itself while our little guy was still tucked away in his stroller. That let me get a decent idea of what I’d have to shoot at in order to get enough of the background lit by the sun alone. I ended up with f/11 and 1/250th of a second at ISO 100.

Then, I threw those settings into Manual mode and powered on my flash (Canon 430 EX II). Keeping the exposure settings where they were, I experimented with the Flash Exposure Compensation to add/reduce the amount of fill lighting my lovely models until I got the mix I wanted.

Adorama TV Video

Here’s one of the videos from Adorama TV that first introduced me to this technique. It goes into more details of what’s happening.

Although I still need a little practice with the technique, I’m still happy with this result.

An artistic look at the Field Museum – HDR image consisting of 15 frames at 1/3 stop intervals.

Back Story

This image was one of the few I captured during the 4th Annual Scott Kelby Worldwide Photo Walk.

The image itself is an HDR composite of 15 individual exposures, spanning 5 EV stops. By far, it’s the most number of frames I’ve shot for a single HDR scene (not counting panoramas) and I was very happy with the amount of detail that resulted.

My own personal taste for HDR images is staying photo-realistic and not going overboard, but I’ll be the first to admit this one is pushing that boundary pretty hard. I may end up creating another version, but given the age of these buildings in downtown Chicago and the history behind them, I felt a little grundgy, edgy feel was rather fitting here.

What do you think, too much?

About the Walk

It was my first year attending this event, and despite being a little unprepared for the harsh wind off the lake (we were warned, though) I think it was a nice first start. Looking forward to shooting this route again – even if that may mean waiting until spring.

You can see a few other photos from this walk in the Kelby Worldwide Photo Walk – 2011 gallery page.

– Kris

We have yet to make it to the Big Island of Hawaii to see the lava flows in the volcano, but when we were walking around Buckingham Fountain in Downtown Chicago this summer, I watched as the sprays of water changed colors with the lights and thought this one had a familiar glow to it.

In the typical short cycle of winter weather that we’re used to here in Chicago early in the season, the decent dumping of snow we received last week is just about gone thanks to slightly warmer temps and rain.

However, this was the scene outside of my office window earlier in the week. I’d say there were about a dozen Canadian geese outside trying to pick at whatever grass was still accessible while the blowing snow was still coming down steadily. I snapped this with my SX110 since our office frowns on setting up tripods with DSLRs and telephoto lenses on them next to the windows.

Any Relation?

I’ve seen these birds year after year but never really thought about grabbing a shot of one of them. That is, of course, when there’s a whole group of them crossing the street and stopping traffic.

Anyway, it was because we saw their somewhat-related cousins, the Nene bird, last September at the Maui Photo Festival. Here’s another shot of one of the distinct relatives, you can sort of see the resemblance, no?

I find it intriguing that these birds are found about 2,500 miles apart from each other, and how the Nene bird from Hawaii is considered such a rare bird in the wild (less than 1,000 as of 2004 per Wikipedia).

Leave it to me to find reminders of Maui is the oddest places during cold, Chicago winters.

In addition to the fireworks last week at the Taste of Chicago, I decided to have a little fun and setup this time lapse shot at Buckingham Fountain. Good thing I was using my remote shutter so people notice I was snapping these shots every second, otherwise they would have been stopping and waiting for me to take the photo.

What a beautiful day it was, if only a little late in the afternoon to wash out some of the colors. Still fun to watch, though.

Enjoy.

I hope everyone had a happy 4th of July this past weekend. After an impromptu excursion into downtown Chicago two weeks ago, we decided it would be fun to go checkout the Taste of Chicago fireworks in Grant Park this year. Of course, I had all my camera gear in tow, and have posted the results in a new photoset on Flickr: Taste of Chicago Fireworks ’09

This was my first serious attempt shooting a fireworks display, and I was generally happy with the results. I had a pretty decent setup with my travel tripod only about a foot off the ground, my angle view finder for the initial focusing, and my remote shutter release for the no touch, no camera shake firing.

Since the majority of the photos were taken with the same focal length and composition (the trees at the bottom of the frame) the Flickr slideshow view of these photos has a pretty nice effect. All in all, I think it was a great evening, and I look forward to taking in the show again next year, and any other fireworks displays I might find during the remainder of the summer.

More Photos

The next photo I wanted to share from our little trip downtown last weekend. This is one of the lion statues out in front of the Art Institute of Chicago.

A close-up shot of Buckingham Fountain at Grant Park in downtown Chicago.

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted new photos, so here it goes.

Last night, the wife and I decided, on a whim, to drive downtown into the city (Chicago) and walk around. Of course, I always try to have one of my cameras with me, and last night was no exception.

This is one of my favorites from the few I took last night, and I will feature the others throughout the week.