I mentioned Trona in my last post. This image is from what is called the Trona Pinnacles. There you will find Tufas much like those at Mono Lake but without the lake. For this image I used two Singh-Ray filters, the 10 stop Mor-Slo along with my LB warming polarizer. Using a polarizer with a Mor-Slo can be a challenge as you can’t see what is going on. To get this to work, I simply held the polarizer in front of me and rotated it as I looked through it until I saw the desired effect. I made note of where that was by a reference on the ring of the filter. I then screwed the filter on and rotated it to the pre-determined reference mark. Using the polarizer achieved two things, one it polarized the sky and two because its a LB (Lighter Brighter) polarizer, it gave me another stop plus for a much longer mid day exposure.
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Love the fact that you are so clear in your set up process and are so willing to share! I do have a question, did you know when you set this up that you were going to process in BW? Often I think some subject may look cool in bw, but when I get home I am hopeless in my processing of the shot. Do you have any particular things you look for and how do you process your pictures once you get to that point. Obviously I am a novice and any help would be appreciated. I see your dune shots and understand the stark contrast between light and shadows are very dramatic in black and white, however when I see something like this shot I do not understand the thought process. I love the result!
Well, my personal taste is that most long exposures look best as B&W images. But that is my personal taste. As to the processing, that has taken me some time to develop a workflow that works for me. I often use Nik Silver Efex Pro 2.0 but then use some dodging and burning techniques after that in Photoshop.
Thanks John for your input. I have been using Nik also. As always I appreciate you kindness in answering my questions. You are a teacher in the best sense of the word – someone is enamored with his subject and can communicate that in such a way that the student can understand! ( Making me more excited about the subject in turn!)
You’re welcome Diana. Thanks for following along on the blog.
I was there last week I know how hard it is to get a good photo yours is awesome – there were no clouds while I was there so we waited for sun set hoping to get a good shot – we drove around trying to get in the perfect location – warning don’t go off road without 4 wheel drive – we got stuck in the sand almost spent the night!
Good point Leslie, 4 wheel drive and high clearance would be advisable for Trona. You can access the near side easily with a car but beyond that it would be a challenge.
stopped in to a local photo shop a few years ago to get a polarizer. 4 guys shooting’ the bull with the proprietor when I walked up. Turns out that the only person other than me that recognized the numbers all around the outside ring was also an xPan user. None of the others ever used a RF.
Lovely image
Yup, good point Dick. Us RF guys had to do it this way!
Read about the Trona Pinnacles when last out that way, but didn’t have time for the side trip. Now I’m sorry. Fabulous image JB. One question, was this taken with your Canon?
This happened to be with my Nikon Dorine only because I didn’t have the 10-24 for the Fuji yet. If I had, I would have used it.
Can’t wait to see what you capture with that!
Magnificent. Would love to know the settings you used when shooting this.
f/19 30 seconds ISO 100.
Thanks! I was guessing pretty close on the SS and aperture. Really awesome image!
Great shot, John. I think you showed me that trick when we were there together. The other thing that helps is to use a mirrorless camera or live view on your digital SLR. However, if there’s too much light blocked, it won’t show up on your screen.