• The Baby Blues With Venice Views • [EXPLORE #2: 9/29/16]

            When I went to Venice last week to shoot, I had planned to mainly ditch the neutral density filters and slow shutter speeds and instead focus on panoramas and reflections along the shoreline at sundown. I came relaxed and organized (for a change) and managed to avoid running from the boardwalk to my spot on the beach, even after I got past the buildings and finally had an unobstructed view of the sky. I also stayed surprisingly patient despite having some difficulty getting both shutter speed and my timing correct early on.  A handful of times-- with shutter speeds too slow-- a great shot was ruined by a well placed blur or blob but at least it wasn't too tough to fix that with some quick adjustments.

Back in Maryland, it never occurred to me to try panoramas. In fact, it wasn't even on my radar. I simply assumed panorama was a cropped landscape. I had no other references. I think when you are teaching yourself manual photography from the ground up, there's a tendency to try a lot of things at once but really only practice whatever has your main interest at that particular moment.  For me, the progression started with some of the very basics of manual photography. I started shooting with a tripod and remote shutter first and then tried to learn a bit about night photography and how to deal with low light conditions. This led to a more concentrated focus on the time around sundown and sunsets became my primary subject. This also marked when I started bringing my camera and tripod everywhere since I was in the car a lot and seemed to always be driving when the sun started to fade. I tried to learn how to be more efficient and began going on longer and longer roadtrips with Scotch, marking areas on my GPS to return to and taking some notes on observations and conditions. It's easy in the beginning to underexpose sunsets and lower light shots but it was still a lot of fun working out the kinks on my own. 

Next up on my list was long exposures since it was the first time photography started to seem more like art to me and the amount of control over the results seemed endless. My interest came initially after I got more involved on Flickr and was able to see how incredible and unique long exposure photography could be. That obsession became my default setting by mid August of 2015 and I always tried to get a long exposure more than anything else, even if fundamentally unnecessary. I'd often remove my lens cap and still have whichever ND filter I was using last on it. The interest in long exposure led me on my search for water and waterfalls which accounted for most of my shooting from early Fall through mid December. I'd been getting a little frustrated that, despite the ND filters, I couldn't always get the exposure length I wanted during the day so I purchased a 10 stop ND filter for my trip and most of my standard ND filters have been collecting dust in my bag since. 

Fast forward to now and besides the reflections on shorelines, I've had a huge desire to try and create a fuller framed image by merging 2-3 wide angle shots into a panorama so I can showcase as much of the sky as I possible without having to post 2 separate but extremely similar images. While the novelty of long exposure will never become old (or a novelty) for me and I still intend to focus a lot on that when the cloudy skies return, I finally decided it was time to try and learn panoramas a bit better. I never spent more than a few thoughts on them in the last 6 months and typically I'd be in a great location and think "i'll pan a bit to the right and left and see if they will merge later" and that was that. In the beginning, 3 out of every 4 half hearted attempts ended with "...unable to merge" pop ups in lightroom. I got lucky with Venice back in the beginning of the year when a few tries worked pretty well and it seemed that Venice was one of the few beaches I visited that afforded this opportunity. The long, straight pier served as a great common object for the pan and the detailed clouds, sky and flat reflective shore made merging fairly easy. The only issue was timing the waves. 

Last week I focused mostly on fast shutters and tried to give myself 3-5 overlapped scenes for merging and I often took 4 shots at each position, hoping to get a full set done within 2 minutes. It was always so frustrating before when everything worked great in the pano merge except the waves and surf were so off, it would be impossible to blend. Most of the attempts from Monday matched well enough to only require a tiny jab with the healing or clone stamp to completely blend. 

With all that said, this was a 3 shot panorama from just beyond the start of the pier to well beyond the end, facing the ocean where the sunset is just beginning to creep into scene. The first two frames were no problem and fortunately 1 of the other shots matched up with the 2nd panel so I could include more of the colorful sky. As much as I'd love to have added even more sky to the right, it just didn't really work and the perspective and distortion was quite distracting. In this image, I managed to get a couple walking their baby in a stroller off in the distance on an otherwise empty looking mirrored shore. Most of the people were just behind me facing more towards Santa Monica for the incredible sunset which I also enjoyed as soon as this couple passed by me. The golden hazy days out here aren't much to look at but when there's a colorful, cloudy sunset, Southern California is extremely hard to beat. 

▪️WHERE & WHEN▪️
•Venice Beach and Pier
•Venice, California
•September 19th, 2016

▪️SETTINGS▪️
Canon T4i
•EF-S 18-135mm IS STM
•3 shot panorama
•@18mm
•ISO 200
•f/8
•1/8th second
•CPL



   

Taken on: September 19, 2016

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Wilkof Photography « less

Sets appears in: • Panorama • oceanscape more » • Maryland to California With A Dog: 3,600 miles over 10 days • Explore • Sunrise Sunset « less

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Camera: Canon EOS REBEL T4i, f/8.0, 1/8 sec, 18mm, ISO 100 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Canon EOS REBEL T4i
Lens:	EF-S18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM
Aperture:	f/8.0
Exposure Time:	0.125 sec (1/8)
Focal Length:	18mm
ISO:	100
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Manual
Exposure Mode:	Manual
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	Uncalibrated
Software:	Adobe Photoshop CC 2015 (Macintosh)
Show full info

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