Army

The US Army dropped in on the Houston Texans' football game this afternoon.

This was shot handheld at 105mm, f/18, ISO 400, and exposed for 1/40 sec. Motion blur added in CS4.

You may want to click on this image to see it larger.

-CGTTL

Versailles Ceiling

This two image, hand-merged, vertical panorama was shot in a ballroom in Versailles Palace outside Paris in 2007.

Can the French aristocracy do ceilings or what?

I shot the component images handheld in available light (...under the nose of an uppity French guard who wouldn't allow a tripod) at an effective focal length of 27mm, at ISO 400, f/4.0, and exposed for 1/30 sec.

After photomerge failed to produce a workable image, I resorted to hand blending in CS4. Whew!

I'm stuck by the marked drop-off in quality, when these large, raw, blended images are converted to lower resolution JPG's for display on the internet.

-CGTTL

Buckeye

I shot this image of a Common Buckeye Butterfly today on the North bank of Buffalo Bayou, just West of downtown Houston.

I shot it handheld in available light at an effective focal length of 105mm, f/4.0, ISO 400, and exposed for 1/400 sec, through a Singh-Ray LB Color Combo Polarizer filter. No close-up lens was used. I'd like to say I used a Lensbaby on this shot, but the radial blur on the background was done in CS4.

This very cooperative butterfly posed about 12 inches from the tip of my lens.

-CGTTL

Virgin Prairie

In the early 1820's new arrivals traveling from Galveston to San Antonio commented in their journals about the landscape they passed through: no trees and monotonous prairie day after day with grass as high as a horse's belly.

I shot this six-image, CS4 photomerged panorama this morning of some of the only virgin prairie left in Texas at the University of Houston Coastal Center, located between Galveston and Houston. The trees on the horizon are invasive Chinese Tallow trees.

The component images were shot handheld in available light at an effective focal length of 24 mm, using manual exposure, set at f/11, ISO 100, and underexposed by 2/3 stop for 1/160 sec.

Click on the image to see it larger.

-CGTTL

Giant Redwood

Just in case you missed this magnificent photo of a 300 foot tall redwood tree in the October edition of National Geographic Magazine, here it is. Click on the image to see the larger version.

This image was stitched together from 84 different images. Here's a link to the National Geographic video on how it was done.

-CGTTL

Loblolly

I suggest you click on this image to view it in a larger size.

I'll let it speak for itself.

-CGTTL

Morning Prayers

I shot this image very quietly from the back of a small chapel in Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris in 2007.

It was shot in available light from a small tripod with a Canon 20D (1.6 crop factor) and an EF-S 17-85mm f/4.0 IS USM lens set at 17 mm, f/4, ISO 400, and exposed for 1/6 sec.

Because of dynamic range issues, I've never edited it until recently, when I finally used Photomatix Pro 3 to produce this three-image HDR version. Detailed edits of the HDR image in CS4 included skew transform and barrel distortion corrections, and adjustment layers for selective desaturation, selective black/white, selctive local brightness and contrast, selective vibrance , selective sharpening, and a dark vignette.

The challenge was to capture this image without intruding on the moment and without being disrespectful of the circumstances. As far as I could tell, I wasn't noticed by anyone.

-CGTTL

Sunflower

This may be my last sunflower macro image for a while.

This was shot pretty much like the others I have posted recently, but I processed it differently in CS4. I duplicated the background layer, made it a smart object, and added Gaussian blur in overlay blend mode, followed by a curves adjustment layer in luminosity blend mode to brighten the resulting image. A soft layer mask reduced the Gaussian blur and brought back a bit of sharpness around the center of the main subject.

I intentionally used an unconventional centered-subject, square crop in an attempt to take advantage of the leading lines in the flower petals and the S-curve provided by the background flowers.

-CGTTL

Color Burst

This burst of color is a slap zoom of a sunflower.

Canon 40D, available light, f/32, aperture priority mode, Ev=-1/3, ISO 100, EF 70-200 F/2.8L IS USM, 500D close-up lens, center focused and slap zoomed from 200mm during the 1/3 sec exposure.

Simple post processing in CS4.

-CGTTL

Fall Mushrooms

Lots of mushrooms popped up in the woods, after recent rains.

These were shot in available early morning light from a tripod using a Canon 40D camera, 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM and 500D close-up lens, set at 70mm in aperture priority mode, Ev=-1/3, cloudy white balance, f/8, ISO 400, 1/60 sec.

Post in CS4.

-CGTTL

Woolly Croton

I'm always amazed at the beauty and complexity of the natural world that continues to emerge, not only without the help of human beings, but in spite of everything we seem to do to screw it up.

This macro shot of this Woolly Croton was shot in available early morning light on an overcast day with a Canon 40D with a 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM lens and 500D close-up lens set at 145mm, f/8, 1/200 sec, at ISO 100, white balance set at cloudy, in aperture priority mode with auto exposure set at -1/3.

CS4 was used for post cropping, tonal adjustments, vibrance, sharpening, and a simple square vignette.

-CGTTL