Fuji X-T2 - Fuji filters in Lightroom

Art at the Allen Institute, Lk Union, Seattle, Wa.

Fuji X-T2, XF 35 f/1.4, 1/10 sec, f/7.1, ISO 200, ACROS +R

Seattlescape

5D Mk III, EF 70-200 f/4 L IS, f/9, 4 sec at 111mm

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Two shot panorama of Seattle at dusk. Processed in Lightroom and CS6.  I like to shoot a city scape just after sunset at dusk, the city lights are visible and the sky has not yet turned black. Seattle is still my favorite city to shoot, there are many locations that offer excellent views like the classic one above, Kerry Park on Highland Ave.

More of my Seattlescapes can be found here

Ross

Images In Light

Nightfall Picture used on BBC television show

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 This photo was chosen by the BBC for "Natures Weirdest, Series 2" television show.

Ross

Images In Light

The so called Blue Hour

Image: 5D Mk III, 24-70 f/2.8 L II, f/10,  20 sec

 
Image: 5D Mk III, 24-70 f/2.8 L II, f/ll, 13 sec

In a new light

Image: from 2010, 5D Mk II, 16-35 f 2.8 IS L, 25 mm at f 11, 1.6 sec, -.7 ev.

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Image: from 2009, 5D Mk II, 16-35 f 2.8 IS L, 16 mm at f 11, 3 sec, -.7 ev.

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The Pergola at the Seattle Center, a great place to shoot, new much brighter lighting was installed over the last year some time, making for better contrast at this iconic Seattle location.

Strange though, I don't see a lot of people shoot here, the center has lots of options, but I seem to be drawn here, its great at sunset but dusk is the best time to shoot here, light from the setting sun lingers while the Pergola is light up by its own lighting.

This time I wanted to incorporate the space needle and not shoot as wide as the last time, I didn't get the clouds but the new lighting helped out with the contrast.

Ross Murphy Images In Light

Old Images

Image: Seattle, 5D Mk II, 70-200 f4 IS L, 200mm @ f11, 5 sec.

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The weather has pretty well sucked the last few weeks, so I have not been out shooting much and some times it pays to stay home on those rainy days and go back over old image files, this one I took in Feb 2009 and didn't do anything with it, however I decided to process it this time and turns out it makes a great print, some times you can go back and re process old images with new software and it can make quite a difference, maybe you have learned some new tricks or got some new software, try it, it may pay off.

Ross Murphy Images in Light

Implied Motion

Image: Rush Hour, 5D Mk II, 70-200 f4 IS L, 85mm, f9 for 13 sec.

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Seattle from the south, this 13 sec. exposure allowed the car lights to streak, giving this image a feeling of motion or activity, a nice change from very static images. Some times you can benefit from longer shutter speeds. Single exposure, no filters used.

Ross Murphy Images In Light

Take advantage of Puddles :)

Image: 5D Mk II, 24-105 f4 IS L, 45mm, f16, 20 sec 2 stop soft GND.

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Take advantage of element's that can add to your image, here a simple puddle after a rain storm gave me the opportunity to add foreground interest to this image of Seattle, I took a few images and the one with the planks leading into the puddle proved to add a little more than just the reflection on its own. Simple little things can mean a great deal to an image. B and W conversion done in Lightroom and CS4.

Ross Murphy Images In Light

More About Panoramas

Image: crop from image just below this. click image to view larger.


Image 5D Mk II 70-200 f4 IS L, 5 Shot panorama. click image to view larger.

Image 5D Mk II 70-200 f4 IS L, 2 Shot panorama.

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Here is a good reason not to shoot panoramas to wide, if you plan on framing the top, 5 shot panorama, it would cost a fortune at 17" x 62" which is where you would need to be to have a decent height where the lower 2 shot panorama could be printed at a much more manageable size of 17" x 31", it is also much better for viewing on line, I try to max my horizontal panoramas to 3 shots with overlaps. Now if I do portrait mode panoramas I will do a minimum of 3 to 5 shots and preferably 7 seems to be about right in portrait mode and I would have done it here but the water was to rough and there was no reflection to speak of. Shot on a Gitzo 3530s tripod with a BH-1 ball head, stitched in CS4. The big one is fun to view on 2, 20" monitors though I must admit, the detail is pretty amazing. Glass size also comes in to play, limiting my images to about 42" in length, without inducing massive extra cost.

Ross Murphy Images In Light

Black and White

Image: Seattle B and W, 5D Mk II, 16-35 f2.8 L II..

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Image: Mt Baker, 5D Mk II, 17-40 F4 L, 3 Stop GND soft. B and W in Lightroom and CS4.

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Black and white is something I have become fond of lately,the images evoke a different emotion than color and I'm at a stage where I want to experiment a little more and try to put more feeling in to my work, I am not yet happy with the way I process the images, but I am experimenting with different ways, the above image was taken B and W in camera and processed with DPP and CS4, my other options include Lightroom, but I am yet to come up with a combination I like for my final work flow, so a little more research and some playing around I hope to come up with the right recipe. Getting just the right look and feel to a black and white image is harder than color images in my opinion. The best thing that digital has given me is the ability to experiment with out the cost of film.

Ross Murphy Images In Light

Sharpest zoom ever ? - Canon EF 70-200 f4 L IS

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Photo: 5D MkII and 70-200 f/4L IS, 2 shot panorama

Maybe,
One of the eternal questions for Canon owners is which 70-200 should I get ? Of the 4 to choose from, they are all very good, but with a range in cost of $500 to $1700 how does one choose ?, I have had the 70-200 f2.8 L, 70-200 f2.8 IS L and presently the 70-200 f4 IS L. All three of these len's where sharp. I purchased the original back in my film days and enjoyed it, at one point it was stollen so my re-purchase was the 2.8 IS version (at the time there was no f4 IS), the "IS" or image stabilization is an amazing feature that works exceptionally well. So I had a trip comming up and this caused a problem, which lens's to take with me ? I realy wanted to take the 17-40, 24-105, 70-200, 300 f4 and one body, but these would not all fit in my bag of choice, not to mention the weight would be prohibative to pack around all the time. My solution ? buy the 70-200 f4 IS, try it out and sell the loser. keep in mind that for me the bokeh of the f2.8 was not that important, I have other lens's for portrait shots and the 1 stop differance between f2.8 and f4 is not enough to matter for low light shooting, for that you want f1.4 len's. So after recieving the f4 IS version and trying it out on a skyline shot of Seattle I became convinced, at half the weight, a $600 savings, one stop better image stabalization and getting a sharper lens, to me there was no competition, I sold the f2.8 IS version, in a perfect world I would have kept both, but in these times of economic turmoil, not going to happen. Oh and this allowed me to fit all the lens's I wanted in to my carry on bag, and made my life a lot easier.
So if you want one of these lens's you need to juggle, weight, cost, speed and image stabilization, as far as IQ is concerned, they are all very nice and you can't go wrong there. If its portrait work, its got to be one of the 2.8 versions, I think for most other applications f4 should suit most people fine. Photography has always been about trade offs, this is just another one those.

My recommendations are as follows:

for portrait work: 70-200 f/2.8L IS II

for all other work: 70-200 f/4L IS

for cost saving: 70-200 f/4L



Update: the newest member, the EF 70-200 f/2.8L IS II, at around $2300 trumps them all, yes its worth it, I upgraded to the EF 24-70 f/2.8L II and it is also well worth the money.

Kai says it all here 

Ross Murphy

Images In Light

The Digital Picture Review