Well, until today, winter has been a no-show here in Grimsby, Ontario. I kept saying how much I wanted some winter to photograph. Be careful what you wish for. Anyway, after a lot of whining over the preceding weeks about not getting out in the dull winter light to date, last Saturday morning I decided regardless, to try and get some ice-covered groyne shots over at Fifty Point, a beach area on Lake Ontario’s South shore at the boundary between Grimsby and Winona (actually the regional City of Hamilton but I prefer the old names). I knew it was cold out and the weather forecast suggested possible dawn light that might be interesting. So I headed out to Fifty Point. As I got out to the beach, the wind that had been insignificant inland, came on full force. I scrambled to get some photos as my fingers proceeded to become numb from the cold, even with my nice warm gloves. You just can’t operate a camera properly with gloves on, no matter how well they are designed for such purposes. Well, the light didn’t really happen and I had to use the 10-stop ND filter to get long enough exposure times to smooth out the water. The result was near-monochromatic but with some processing to restore some of the snap that was visible at the time but which did not quite get captured by the camera, I got this result. As for winter, I finally got what I wished for. Now to go dig out the cars. Enjoy - JW
Date Taken: 2017-03-11
Tech Details:
Taken using a tripod-mounted Nikon D7100 fitted with a Nikkor 12-24mm lense set to 14mm and fitted with a 10-stop Neutral Density/ND filter, ISO100, Auto WB, Manual exposure, f/8.0, 25 sec (exposure determined from test shots and histogram). PP in free Open Source RAWTherapee from Nikon RAW/NEF source file: scale image up to 9000x6000, bring overall exposure correction to 2/3 stop above/brighter than as-shot, enable Graduated Neutral Density/GND filter tool and darken sky to get its tonal range to better match the lower part of the frame, adjust/increase contrast and Chromaticity in L-A-B mode, enable shadows/highlights tool and significantly increase highlight recovery and slightly boost shadow detail recovery, slightly boost vibrance, sharpen, save. PP in free Open Source GIMP: duplicate the image to a new top layer and give it a transparent/black layer mask, paint in the groyne using a large, soft-edged white brush to allow the mask layer to be used to adjust the groyne with no impact on the background which will be seen from the layer below, adjust the tone curve of the mask layer (not the mask itself but the image part of that layer) to produce better tonality in the posts and also the ice, in the lower layer adjust the tone curve to get a better tonal representation of the sky, water and beach without impacting the groynes, create a new working layer from the visible result, make some minor adjustments to overall contrast, use the dodge/burn tool to dodge/brighten some of the ice on the groyne, sharpen, save, scale image to 6000x4000, sharpen slightly, add fine black and white frame, add bar and text on left, save, scale image to 1800 wide for posting, sharpen slightly, save.
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