As I was driving home this afternoon from onOne, I could immediately tell that tonight would be an epic sunset just based on how gorgeous the sky was at that moment. And sure enough, as I was sitting in my office taking care of some work, my spidey sense started tingling. I swiveled my head to see what was going on from my balcony and immediately started grabbing gear from my bag. I grabbed my Canon 5D Mark II (my Mark III is in with Canon for some TLC – gotta love Platinum CPS!) and slapped on my Canon 70-200 lens. Given the shift in tonal range, I knew that I’d have to bracket but my new Really Right Stuff tripod was in the car! No worries, though. I happened to have Nicole S. Young‘s Joby Gorillapod Focus and Ballhead X right next to me (she graciously let me borrow it when I went down to Death Valley).
With the gear all set and sitting comfortably on the rail of my balcony, I was able to nab the brackets I needed (courtesy of the amazing Magic Lantern firmware hack - http://www.magiclantern.fm/). I immediately imported the brackets, processed the image and am uploading it now. :)
In terms of processing
This is a nine exposure tone-mapped HDR image using Photomatix Pro. I applied a tiny bit of Magic Sunset and Radiance in Perfect Effects 4 by onOne Software. I also added a warming graduated filter on the upper half of the frame and a cooling filter on the lower half using Lightroom 4.3.
Beautiful!
So many layers of fantastic. In the negative cloud space, I see the underside of a shark swimming in from the left…
tl;dr da clouds look like a shark, eh?
wow! stunning picture!
Great composition!
Just a good balance, a wonderful view of Downtown PDX with those fiery clouds:)
some of my fav things-
1 how trees layer the foreground adding depth and a mystery for me- also love how sharp their silhouettes are
2 I kind of identified with the story – how often do I find myself in photo/light ecstasy in the everyday crowd, commute, walking along – just busting at the seams in a photographic reverie dreaming of trying for the exposure – and then getting it.
PS: I want to take a chainsaw to the trees on the left next time this happens ;-)
How do you like Magic Lantern? I'm tempted to try it but my camera is still under warranty. Let me know what you think about it +Brian Matiash
Beautiful! I don't like living in a city of lights, but I love shooting in one!
+Willy Aona I've used it for years (until switching to the 5D3) and cannot praise it enough. Of course, use it with a grain of salt but as long as you have the proper canon firmware installed first, you should be just fine. It blasts open the flexibility of that camera.
Honestly, Canon should be embarrassed and slapped around for limiting the camera like that. The fact that some pioneering developers wrote the hack firmware is amazing and just illuminates how much Canon actually cripples its cameras. The again, it also shows just how much our cameras are actually capable of.
I think we need to roam your neighborhood late at night with a chainsaw or two.
Surrel
I luv it
Stunning! +Brian Matiash
nice pic
nice!
beautiful
Very nice pic
fabulous photo Brian
nice;-)♥
This is one of the most wonderful photos I have ever seen, congratulations
Simply artistic.
Thank you +Brian Matiash for clueing me in to Magic Lantern! I just downloaded it today and I'm already amazed. Agree with you 100%!