In The Moment #4 - Rodeo Beach, Marin Headlands, California

Portfolio & Services

--The Shot--
I've been trying my best to get my image archives organized and as I was passing through last year, I realized it has been a year to the day that this amazing sunset happened at Rodeo Beach in the Marin Headlands near San Francisco. I've had this one on my edits as a monochrome, but decided to go ahead and process it in color. Looking forward to the winter storms and more dramatic light!

--The Gear--
Nikon D300
Nikkor 12-24mm @ 12mm
Nikon MC-36 cable release
0.6sec, f22, ISO 100
Singh-Ray 3-stop Daryl Denson reverse graduated neutral density filter
Markins M20 ballhead
Really Right Stuff lever clamp and L-plate
Gitzo GT3351 carbon fiber tripod

--Software & Processing--
In ACR, adjusted brightness, exposure and white balance for sky only and then again for the foreground only. Blended the two 16-bit tiffs in PS CS5 by hand.
In CS5, layers included:
-Basic Mid-Tones luminosity mask with Curves adjustment
-Vibrance mask for saturation increase
-Saturation mask for saturation decrease
-Burn/Dodge layer with 50% gray and layer mode Soft Light using two different luminosity mask selections to even out the light a little more.
-Noise reduction selectively masked with Noise Ninja
-Sharpening selectivel masked with Nik Sharpener Pro
-Crop to square
-Custom action for web sizing, sharpening, conversion to 8-bit, sRGB, and embedding personal info into exif
-Total time on image about 30-40 minutes