Zuiun's photostream  

So this lake at Pioneers Park is usually pretty nasty. However, today, what with the right mix of snow and cold temps, it turned into this half frozen / slush / green tint thing that is probably the most epic this lake ever has or will look.

Ok, so I don't do a lot of these composite shots - even though I like them a lot....

Here's how it happened:

The background is a 9 exposure HDR shot on a 50mm lens @ f/11.

Sam was shot in my living room on a 35mm lens @ about f/8 or so.

Lighting on Sam was two Alienbee 400's @ 1/2 power shooting mainly at a white backdrop, but angled slightly to give some spill onto Sam's sides.

The main light was an Alienbee 800 @1/2 power in a softbox high in front, slightly camera right.

In post, I masked out Sam (trying to keep a little shadow information from the floor) and positioned her in the shot, then adjusted levels and color to try to fit her in (warming up the light on her to better match the background). I burned in some additional shadows on her and also enhanced the ground shadows.

The lighting in the background wasn't quite dramatic enough (byproduct of the HDR process), so I used level adjustments to blow out the background a bit.

I certainly wouldn't call this a perfect composite (I should have used a 35mm lens to get my background plate, for one thing - but I didn't own it yet), but I think it turned out all right for an impromptu shoot and about an hour in post.

I'm open to any suggestions on it.

"It look like murder, all right. Plain as the nose on my face. Third one this week. Killer is taunting us. Who is he? What does he want? Why these women? It's a vexing case and I'm vexed."

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Same shot as the previous one: Canon 35L at 1.4, shot at 1250 ISO. Black and white conversion in Lightroom, with some added details pulled from the hat, coat and cigar and masked in.

The more I play with this lens, the more I love it.

This was shot at ISO 1250 at f/1.4 with virtually no light - just the porch light behind and some flames from the chiminea.