David's Images of the Day Photoblog
Views of the land around the world
The following image is a combination of two NIK tools, HDR Pro and Silver Efex 2. The images were taken with a Nikon D3s camera and 14-24 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 200, 16 mm, f/11, various shutter speeds) during a photography workshop one-year ago in Yosemite National Park.
NIK just released version 2 of their Silver Efex Pro plugin for Photoshop and Lightroom. I have been using version 1 of Silver Efex since it was released for converting digital images to monochrome (black & white). The new version has the look and feel of NIK’s HDR plugin. The first image is the original taken a year ago during the “Yosemite in Winter: A Season in Contrast” photography workshop (RAW image processed with Capture One Pro, and sharpened with Focus Magic in Photoshop CS5), the second is the B&W version converted using the new Silver Efex 2.
The following image is a composite of five 30 minute night sky exposures taken during a Elderhostel/Road Scholar photography workshop at Kelly Place outside of Cortez, Colorado in 2008. It was really dark other than the Christmas lights at the main building, and you could see a lot of stars in the sky. I moved the tripod as far away from the lights as possible and decided to do this series with a fisheye lens that would give a 180° field of view. The five images were combined using Startrails. This program is old (only works with jpg or 8-bit tif files) but works better than when I try to merge the images as layers in Photoshop.
Individual images in this slide show can be viewed here.
The storm was forecasted. The township and the power company sent e-mail warnings for everyone to be prepared. When I woke up the power was going off and on, and finally at about 08:30 stayed off. I don’t know how long the power will be off and if I will be sleeping in the RV tonight where I have a propane heater. In the morning I took a number of images with a Leica D-Lux 5 camera. Later as it warmed and turned to rain, ice and branches started falling. There will be a lot to clean up this spring.
Individual images from this slide-show can be viewed here.
We are still sitting in a hotel in Puerto Natales. The roads continue to be blocked, and we have no idea when we will be able to get to the airport in Punta Arenas. In essence we are being held political prisoners since we are not able to leave this small town and this country. Does anyone remember “Missing”.
Update as of 3 PM local. We were looking at an option to return to Argentina and fly back from Calafate. A bus would bring us to the road block and we would have to walk across with our entire luggage. Another bus would pick us up on the other side. The protesters told the driver we could walk across the line, but they would then destroy the bus. So we are probably spending another night in Puerto Natales. The harbor was also closed due to the strike, so that also was not an option.
Update at 5 PM Local. We just checked back into the Hotel.
22-January-2011 edit: Check out Thom Hogan’s blog about being held hostage in southern Chile.