...and back to the rain...

A little while ago I did a blog post on the importance of concentrating on weather phenomena and making it the actual subject of the image when photographing common travel subjects. Over the past few days the weather here has gone from snow to sun and now to rain. The candid opportunity in the photo below presented itself yesterday, and I quickly grabbed it with a Nikon D750 that had a Nikon 135 f/2 df lens mounted on it. Pays to have cameras sitting around ready to use. Whenever I put a camera down I reset its exposure mode so it is always ready to grab a shot if I need to use it quickly.

After the snow came the sun

After the snowy sunrise of my last blog post, I was treated to a crisp, sunny day with the kind of clarity and sharp contrast so typical of winter with the sun  low in the sky. I almost always have my X-T1 equipped with the 18-135mm zoom whenever I am walking around the city on errands. With that combo I am pretty much prepared for any photo opportunity that presents itself.

In the later part of the afternoon with the sun very low on the horizon the shadows were deep and the lit areas extremely bright. I kept looking for juxtapositions of light and shadow that would create interesting compositions in stark contrasting tones. Below are a couple of shots I picked up.

The Chrysler Building in the background is juxtaposed with the foreground details of an old office building and both are set off by the deep shadows that formed geometric patterns against the lit areas. 

The steeple of Marble Collegiate Church on Fifth Avenue was in deep shadow, its shape contrasting with the brightly lit facade of the Empire State Building behind it. 

Capturing a snowy scene with the Fuji X-T1 and its EF-X8 flash

The day broke today with snow falling and clouds moving through the city causing the building to fade in and out of the haze. It was still dark when I began photographing, but the day brightened quickly. I wanted to capture the effect of the snow flakes against the muted city, and decided to use a flash to light the nearby falling snow and allow the background to go darker.  With the camera set manual mode I could vary the ratio of exposure between the actual scene and the flashed flakes. To vary the exposures I used the ISO, varying it between 200 and 400. The snow was being over lit with the flash so it was consistently white throughout these changes. I used the aperture wide open to maximize the blur on the snow flakes and keep them as large as possible.

Here I wanted the darker effect of night time so I kept the ISO at 200. The lens was the Fuji 10-24mm set to f/4.

The clouds were in close and moving rapidly, and I began to time them so that the top of the Empire State Building would be partially enveloped. Here I opened the background exposure by increasing the ISO to 400. 

To change thing up I zoomed in tighter to a 24mm focal length. In addition to tightening the shot, this decreased the depth of field and had the effect of rendering the snow flakes larger and more out of focus. I also enhanced the color by pushing the blues, and, finally, added a levels layer in Photoshop which I used to increase the contrast by deepening the blacks and opening up the whites. 

Using the gradient filter in Photoshop to combine two images

This final image of Kent Falls is a combination of two photos: One at a slow shutter speed to blur the falling water, and the other at a higher shutter speed to stop the motion of the moving ice paddies in the foreground. 

On my recent trip to Connecticut I photographed the Kent Falls on a cold day. Water flowed heavily over the falls, but ice was beginning to form on some of the nearby rock facing and also began forming round, floating ice circles in the pool of water. As usual with a waterfalls, I wanted to capture the falling water as a motion blur with the rest of the scene sharply focused. The ice paddies in the foreground pool were constantly bobbing about so a slow shutter speed to blur the falls would also create a blur in the moving ice.

At the slow shutter speed to blur the falling water there is too much motion blur in the floating ice paddies as they bobbed about in the water.

At speed of 1/30 - 1/60 of a second I was able to capture some images where the motion of ice paddies was stopped and their detail was sharp enough.  At this speed, however, the motion of the background falling water was stopped too much to make an interesting photo. 

I took a series of exposures at various shutter speeds ranging from 1/2 - 1/60 second -- the slower speeds to create motion in the water falls, and the faster speeds to stop the bobbing motion of the foreground ice flow. The reason I varied the speeds was to provide some variety for a smooth combination of images in post-processing. If the background was too blurred in comparison to a super sharp foreground, the photo would look false. It was important to obtain just the right balance of shutter speeds.

Needless to say, a tripod was mandatory in this situation not only to register the two images later, but also to obtain the ultimate sharpness in the rest of the scene. No matter  how good image stabilization might be, it will never beat placing the camera on a tripod. Additionally, it allowed me to work at the very lowest ISO to achieve maximum resolution.

The two images were stacked in Photoshop with the blurred falls on top and sharp ice on the bottom. I created a layer mask on the top image, and, using the Gradient tool, created a soft line of demarcation between the top and bottom parts of the image.

This is the gradient mask created in Photoshop for the top layer.

Once the mask was created, I simply tweaked it a bit by painting black or white with a soft brush to smooth out the transition of top to bottom images.

This shows the two Photoshop layers with gradient mask in place. The top image had the blurred water falls, while the bottom image had the stop-motion ice flows. 

Third-party Battery pack available for the Nikon D750

It was only a matter of time before third-party companies in China would begin manufacturing accessories for the Nikon D750. At the time of this writing, the official Nikon MB-D16 battery pack for the D750 is still not available, and when it does hit the market, it will sell for $369.95.  Last week I needed extra battery power for my D750 to do some extended time lapse photography. I went online, did some research, and quickly came up with alternative packs ranging in price from $39 to one including several accessories including a remote timer for $89. While some had different names, most seemed to be coming from the Chinese manufacturer, Meike.

Add caption

I needed to get mine quickly so I opted for the $89 model with extra timer from Amazon because it would arrive in only a day or two.

I am often wary of third-party accessories that have displayed shoddy workmanship ending in poor fit quality. This one by Meike is really quite nice. Its finish blends in cosmetically with the camera despite the "Meike" name stamped on it, and at a fraction of the price of the real thing it is an exceptional value.

The higher priced model comes with several accessories that include a 2.4G wireless remote control, wired cable release, and two battery compartments -- one for the standard Nikon D750 EN-EL15 battery, and the other for six AA batteries. 

The instructions that usually accompany third-party Chinese accessories are usually cryptic at best. Fortunately, a battery pack is pretty much self-explanatory. The wireless remote, on the other hand, took me a few reads to figure out.

The good news is: This pack is available now; it costs a fraction of what the real thing will sell for; it works well, looks good and has the added benefit of including several other useful accessories.

If you are planning on buying this accesspru, you can help support this site at no extra cost to you by clicking the link and purchasing from one of our affiliate sellers listed below -- and thanks for your support.

The $89.99 battery pack with accessories for immediate delivery can be ordered from:  Amazon
The $39.99 battery pack only for a Nikon D750 can be ordered from:  Amazon

First snow of the new year in New York

The city is barely visible through the falling snow that turns the scene into a Pointillist landscape of subtle, dotted color. The images were captured with a Fuji X-T1 and 18-135mm lens, a weather resistant combo that I continue subjecting to the abuses of weather -- first rain, now snow.

The Empire State Building barely visible through the snow.

Traffic on a side street. 

Marble Collegiate Church on Fifth Avenue. 

Four taxis at an intersection.

Two taxis at an intersection. I wasn't quite sure which of the two taxi photos I liked best. 

Happy New Year!

First photos of the new year:

Early morning light on a barn, Kent, CT, 2015. Taken with the Fuji X-T1 and 18-135mm lens.

Morning sun and ice on a stream near Kent Falls, CT, 2015.  Fuji X-T1, 18-135mm lens, 8.5 seconds at f/10.