- I think Lighthouses are so cool! Love the light in this! - TeresaH12~~~bizzyazabee
Light Source - Pigeon Point Lighthouse, San Mateo County, California
The Shot
The lighthouse at Pigeon Point is one of the tallest lighthouses in the United States at 115 feet
tall and is approximately 50 miles south of San Francisco along a
rugged stretch of coast in San Mateo County. Saturday night was the
138th anniversary lighting of its first-order Fresnel lens which is
comprised of 1,008 prisms. This lens is massive, standing 16 feet
tall and 6 feet in diameter while weighing 8,000 lbs.
Last year, due to budget cuts to California's State Park system and insufficient funding from donations, the lighthouse lighting did not occur in 2009. I almost missed this year's event, but several fellow photographers made sure I didn't. Ultimately, I headed up for the event with none other than JaveFoto, Diego Tabango, Joshua Cripps, and the lovely Miss Kendra Karr. While there we ran into none other than Miles Morgan from the PNW. I made sure to sabotage his camera so we'll see if he ever posts any images from this night. ;) Many other flickr folk were there I'm sure, some of whom I met. In fact hundreds of photographers from all over attend this unique event. As Aaron Reed would probably say, "this is the largest frame bang along the California coast!". Indeed it was!
The Gear
Nikon D300
Nikkor 12-24mm @ 15mm
30 sec @ f5.6, ISO 800
Markins M20 ballhead, Really Right Stuff clamps & plates
Gitzo GT3531 carbon fiber tripod
Software & Editing
RAW file imported with ACR as 16-bit file: main adjustments included
clarity and recovery increase. The RAW file was processed 3 times
total for multiple distortion problems then layered, and blended
together. Being close to architecture like this and shooting with a
wide angle zoom lens creates all sorts of wonky distortion. I spent a
lot of time correcting it.
In Photoshop CS5, layers included noise reduction, a Basic Mid-Tones
luminosity mask for contrast, a Vibrance mask to increase saturation,
a Saturation mask to reduce saturation (great tools by Tony Kuyper),
and some color balance for some harsh green light in the doorway.
Dodging through a Burn/Dodge layer with a Light Lights luminosity mask
to enhance the beams a little more. I did extensive cloning for the
"artistic" sake of removing the ugly chain link fence at the
bottom of the image. I chose aesthetics over 100% reality. Nik
Sharpener Pro with Local Contrast only as a layer with selective
masking to define stars and beams more. Another Nik Sharpener Pro
layer mask to selectively sharpen parts of the lighthouse only. Resize
for web with custom action to downscale, sharpen, downscale again,
convert to sRGB, reduce to 8-bit, and embed basic file info (my
copyright, name, web, email, etc).
Comments and faves
Mareluna73, ~JustJayne~, mrperry, Carlos.A, and 982 other people added this photo to their favorites.
Jim Patterson Photography (31 months ago | reply)
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maxxsmart (31 months ago | reply)
I was waiting to see if you made it out.... I think this is the best I've seen from this year. I didn't make it, but glad to see so many others did. Nice clouds on the left by the way.
Jay Rajamanickam (31 months ago | reply)
Beautiful work!
~JustJayne~ (31 months ago | reply)
Fabulous!!!
silvarshooter [deleted] (31 months ago | reply)
That's just crazy!
Kerry Wah- Crazy time at work! (31 months ago | reply)
Impressive!!! Beautiful image.
Carlos.A (31 months ago | reply)
Excellent!
mjmalone54 (31 months ago | reply)
Great shot. Well done.
mrperry (31 months ago | reply)
Excellent! The moon turned out great in this shot! I was hoping to get a shot like this as well, but it always seemed like there were tons of people around there.
JFid1 (31 months ago | reply)
Very cool shot!
Jeff Swanson -- www.interfacingnature.com (31 months ago | reply)
That event sure did draw a high density of flickr-talent!
Love your take, Jim. I didn't know the moon had a Fresnel lens. :)
Tommaso Renzi (31 months ago | reply)
simply awesome!
Mark Schwall (31 months ago | reply)
Stupendous image making Jim! Thanks for sharing all of the post-processing information. Always nice to see how great photographers arrive at their final amazing images.
tobey308 (31 months ago | reply)
Awesome almost sums it up Jim.... wow!
Rachel16857 (31 months ago | reply)
Brilliant image, excellent work Jim!
MJSFerrier (31 months ago | reply)
Top Banana!
wilBignal (31 months ago | reply)
Massively impressive undertaking and result Jim.
Jagdey (31 months ago | reply)
Excellent capture!
photofanman (31 months ago | reply)
great capture! sad i missed the event
JaveFoto (31 months ago | reply)
Awesome framing, shot and PP here Jim. The framing is awesome which allowed great balanced with the beams also great job calming the highlights here. I also noticed you didn't get any of the shadows of the chimneys that were created by the flashlights. Going to attempt my process mine soon, nice work man and it was cool hanging out, hopefully we can hook up in Tahoe. Jave
Jay Tankersley Photography (31 months ago | reply)
Damn I missed it again! Guess I need to mark my calendar for next year. Wonderful job. This came out great.
Sir Francis Canker Photography © (31 months ago | reply)
Cracking shot..
Faved!
Diego Tabango (31 months ago | reply)
And one of the reasons why I didn't post mine. My cloning skills are pretty bad.
This looks awesome just as I anticipated. The enhanced rays really make it work.
Good times dude!
René... [deleted] (31 months ago | reply)
Wow!!!
Exploring Earth (31 months ago | reply)
Man everyone made it up here for this...love the shot Jim
Francisco J. Rivera (31 months ago | reply)
Great
D Breezy - davidthompsonphotography.com (31 months ago | reply)
Sick nasty!!!!!!!!!!! Done!
nlwirth (31 months ago | reply)
awesome shot. though I think you should have kept the fence in! :-)
JDenault (31 months ago | reply)
Great capture Jim, I like the angle
Max婚禮紀錄平面攝影 (31 months ago | reply)
so cool!!!!
Jim Patterson Photography (31 months ago | reply)
Zphotography! (31 months ago | reply)
Awesome !! another amazing capture Jim.
N.J. | Photography (31 months ago | reply)
Brilliant final image. Thanks for sharing all of this information so extensively.
TheRealMichaelMoore (31 months ago | reply)
I'll have to go and set up closer to the lighthouse next year (or some year). This is a killer shot!
TexCalMiPhotog (31 months ago | reply)
That is awesome!
c e d e r (31 months ago | reply)
I think Atkeson was there too - both your shots are amazing. Good to get a closer one here, and thanks for the processing info! Great result!!
NicK152 (31 months ago | reply)
wow!
fantastica
David M. Cobb (31 months ago | reply)
Frame-filling fantastic Jim.
delfry (31 months ago | reply)
Gorgeous shot!
Yankis (31 months ago | reply)
Amazing photo! Everything is perfect! Exposure, composition, tones. GREAT JOB!!
hazarika (31 months ago | reply)
Brilliant!
itsm.e. (31 months ago | reply)
that´s awesome. i love the light, great work
tzargregory (31 months ago | reply)
Holy moly - this is spectacular!
Duncan George (31 months ago | reply)
Surreal scene and nice work. Love the starburst
Hark Lee Photography (31 months ago | reply)
Fantastic shot, Jim, love the idea of incorporating the moon. I was there too, but way far from the lighthouse. : )
- Hark
hjm.dk (31 months ago | reply)
Fantastic!!!
Marcel Cavelti (31 months ago | reply)
Fantastic work
Ian.I (31 months ago | reply)
Looking good here Jim. I reckon any passers by be it in boats or on foot could not miss the light beaming all over. Wish i had one locally that lit up. You'd think being the largest continent that surely i would have one close by ;~)
Ian.
Moved to: http://flickr.com/photos/russellbarnes [deleted] (31 months ago | reply)
I've actually seen several versions of this scene today from various contacts, but this is unbelievably good. Fantastic work as always Jim!
arka02 (31 months ago | reply)
Great angle! I like It.