Tech Info: Single exposure from Nikon D300s using Tokina 12-24 @24mm with Hoya NDX400, ISO 100, f/22 for 61 sec.
The tech info that you see is not a typo. The exposure was indeed 61 seconds and that too just after noon. The reason I was able to get such a long exposure time during broad daylight is by attaching a Hoya NDX400 filter to the lens. This filter reduces the light by 9 stops and thats a huge amount of reduction in the intensity. Also I stopped the lens down to f/22 and reduced the amount of ISO which I generally use; from 200 to 100.
Before I headed out to this location, I actually wanted to take a shot at the old fishing pier which is right next to this bridge. Getting under that pier (with my broken back) is little risky. So I wanted to have a friend keep a watch – not just on me, but also to the skunks, raccoons, cats that frequent this area. Ok, did I say “cats” there? I’m actually not that afraid of them, but you never know…one might just jump on me or something.
Till my friend arrived at this location, I wanted to try that filter and had a composition which included some foreground element. But during post I realized that since the bridge was my actual object, why not crop the entire foreground out and I’m actually pleased with that crop. So went ahead with processing that.
Processing:
- Import the image to Lightroom and do the basic adjustments.
- Export to Photoshop and did some cleanup. The filter had some dust on it and I was too lazy in the field.
- Cropped the foreground.
- B&W conversion layer using Channel Mixer.
- First curves layer to brighten the overall image.
- Second curves layer to get some contrast to only the bridge.
- Third curves layer only to the water for some luminosity increase and contrast.
- Fourth curves layer for the clouds.
- Fifth curves layer for vignetting effect.
- Flatten the image and resized for web.
- A smart sharpen layer and Added border and copyright.
- Added metadata and keywords through Bridge.
Before:
After:
