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Behind my dad's condo here in Vero Beach runs the Indian River. By day, the Indian River is a superhighway for both humans and wildlife. At night, however, it's as tranquil as a monastery. After a long day spent dealing with our family situation, I wandered out through the jungle to an old dock and experimented with some time exposures using the D700. These were shot looking west, toward the mainland. Each shot was about 8 minutes, at ISO 200.
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I suspect the process was more profound than the results. As I was shooting, a mother Barred owl took her 2 chicks out for hunting lessons, "hooting" back and forth from the telephone line beside the dock, and a large pod of porpoise passed by, their exhales echoing across the water, so clear in the still night they sounded like they were whispering in my ear.
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Technically, the D700 did an OK job. I found a lot of "hot" pixels, which may be a result of long time exposures on the Nikon sensor. Also, I got more barrel distortion with this Nikon 17-35/ 2.8 lens than I would have liked. I'll have to look into that. But, you know, spiritually, it was a complete success.
DN
Another great report! Keep 'em coming.
ReplyDeleteI get my nature fix vicariously through you.
I've gotten a bunch of emails, asking me what time of night this was, and how much I tweaked or "stepped on" the images.
ReplyDeleteThe answers:
Midnight, and, not too much tweaking, but some.
I adjusted the exposure very slightly, pushed the "Clarity" 20% and pushed the "Vibrance" 20%. Also quite a bit of healing tool to deal with hot pixels, which, as I've learned, are a common issue with long exposures and digital sensors.
Finally, I used "Noise Ninja" to handle the overall picture noise for a final print size of 24 x 36 inches.
These exposures are 8-10 minutes.