Shooting the Pentax 16-85 on a tripod (Finally) and some COOL Temple Photos!

 I would have to say that one of my primary focuses in photography is/are LDS (Mormon) Temples. They are beautiful buildings, often in scenic locations, and often they produce images that I can sell.

This temple was built close to where my father and his brothers and sisters grew up. I have wanted to photograph it since it recently opened and finally got my chance. It was also the perfect chance to really test the sharpness of my new Pentax HD DA 16-85 f3.5-5.6 DC WR lens. (Sheesh what a mouthful!) I can never truly see how sharp a lens is until I use it on a tripod with cable release and focused with live view. After looking at these images... it is just plenty sharp! And the colors aren't half bad either! I had not planned to shoot from this field nor did I know it existed having only been to this temple in the dark before. It certainly caught my eye as I drove up though. I caught the good light just before sunset, and the field was just the right color.

After working my way through, over and around the field, I headed out to the west side of the temple to catch the last light on the clouds and shoot directly to the side. I hate trying to make buildings straight and level when I am at an angle, it just never seems to look quite right. Shooting straight on means I only have to correct perspective and level the dang thing. MUCH easier.

Both of these are HDR shots, processed in Photomatix. There was no way to get a lit temple and the much brighter clouds in a single exposure. Just not happening. I left just a little bit of the perspective distortion uncorrected, if you get it exactly square, the buildings look just a bit off.

I hope you enjoyed the photos!

Can't Help Myself.....

You give me a day with pretty clouds, I will want to take pictures of the Temple.

Spring Glorious Spring!!!!!

Ahhhh..... Now I feel better. Despite my earlier post on the obligatory nature of photographing flowers I really do enjoy them as subjects. They will sit there with a dumb look on their face until you are done. Don't have to ask them to smile or get their attention by jumping up and down. They were blowing around a little bit which made a bit of a challenge but I persevered and got a few I liked. I was on a photo expedition with one of my daughters, she was using my DA 35mm f2.4 and I wanted to match the focal length. Just had a thought... would she be "Some Gal With a Camera"? Hmmmmm.... will have to ask her

On a technical note, these were taken wide open at f3.5 using my K5 and a Pentax SMC 35mm f3.5, what I call my "Poor Man's Limited". Pentax makes a fabulous line of small (tiny really) lenses that they label as "Limited" they are pricey but worth it. Seeing as I cannot afford them, this old manual focus lens that is quite small works just fine in their place as far as I am concerned. I think the bokeh is even pretty nice for a lens that is only f3.5 at it's widest end.

This is the spire of the Jordan River Temple, these flowers were on the grounds of the temple and I could not go there without taking at least a couple shots of the temple too. This was taken at f11 or 16 trying to get ultimate depth of field.

These last few shots were taken because I liked what the background looked like as much as the in focus stuff. By the way, the out of focus areas of a photo are the areas where a photographer is concerned with bokeh. Bokeh refers to the quality or pleasing character of said blur. It can be used effectively with "Fast" lenses, such as lenses that have a maximum aperture of f1.4 or even f1.2. Slower lenses can also have that ability to isolate a subject and blur the back and foreground but you typically have to resort to getting REALLY close to the subject.

In this shot I deliberately put the only in focus things on the very bottom and stopped down to f5.6... I think... allowing the color of the flowers to drift off into a pastel sea that has form but not sharpness. I really REALLY liked how it ended up looking, especially when you can see it on a full screen.

The backlit petals drew me in to these, I don't know that the composition is the best but it makes a pleasing wallpaper on my computer monitor.

Learning By Making Mistakes.....

Have you ever learned something then because you are lazy, you forget to keep doing it? I learned it the semi hard way, by making a correctable mistake that cost me only time.

Early on, cannot remember when, I read an article about HDR processing that encouraged converting and sharpening your RAW files before running them through Photomatix. I did that for awhile, but found the process tedious. On a recent evening I ran over to my local LDS Temple to get some shots with the rising full moon in the background. After returning home and being chronically busy I had Photomatix do the RAW conversion. I processed everything and was liking the colors etc... but when closely examining the photos I realized that they were not as sharp as is my usual work.

Curious as to whether I could do better with converting to TIFF using ACR and sharpening prior to running the files through Photomatix, I took the time to do the conversions, improving the White Balance and doing the Lens Corrections/Sharpening I usually do.

Below is a comparison of the results. The top photo was using the RAW converter in Photomatix and the bottom using ACR first. The bottom is quite a bit sharper and will print MUCH better in larger formats, also note that I was able to get the WB better. (Just trust me, I see this temple a lot) I also feel that I was able to pull more detail out of the brighter areas as well. Overall just a nicer image.

So here now are the photos processed the right way, and without the vignette I used on the first ones. They are just a bit better, especially on a calibrated monitor.

This was shot the same night just a little later, my main problem was that I had rubber ends on my tripod not my spikes and at 300mm I got just a bit of tripod movement when I had it sitting on the grass. Now I know though...

Three nights later I did some more work as part of a date with my wife. Dinner and Temple Photography is always better than Dinner and a Movie. I wanted to experiment with changing perspective and focal length. Of note, all of these were multiple bracketed exposures, converted in ACR with lens correction Profiles, WB correction & Sharpening. The HDR settings were kept essentially unchanged for all of them. My final post processing consisted of straightening (leveling) and perspective correction and cropping. One trick of perspective correction is to not over correct, I tend to leave it just short of perfectly corrected which seems more natural to me.

This at 17mm.

This at 15mm, portrait orientation.

This at 10mm and in Landscape orientation.

10mm as above but closer. I like this one the least as the perspective makes the sides away from the entry too large and makes the building look out of proportion.

Finally at 8mm with my Fisheye from essentially the same spot at the 10mm. (This was straightened but not perspective corrected.)

A Few Recent Temple Photos

Whenever I think I have gotten as many photos as I need of the temple, I find I need more. Why? Because I do. Just because. These first three are HDR and maybe a trifle over the top. Doesn't matter to me, I like them. Neiner neiner!

In this series I was trying to duplicate a prior success and in part I did, I have wanted to toy with backlighting on the temple for a long time. Looking for drama I suppose. It definitely challenges a lens to shoot directly into the sun though.

Getting a little CRAZY with things!

Sometimes I find myself wanting to push things a little bit, I try to not alter reality too much, in fact I try to use the manipulations I can do to create images that look more realistic than the camera can capture in a single exposure. This particular trip into downtown after work I decided that I wanted to just let it all hang out and capture the weirdness of the clouds.

This shot is actually flipped, it is a reflection in a pool that just begged to be turned so that it looked like the actual thing. The reflections made for a cool look once run through Photomatix, HDR is pretty much a have to use with this kind of backlighting. Makes it look like the temple is on fire!

If you could term any of my HDR's to be conventional this is more that way. Still pretty crazy.

These used to be used as the main entrance to the temple, I wonder how many hands have used these knobs!

I stooged around waiting for the sun to get DIRECTLY behind the spire, then I stood in the slightly wrong spot and slightly missed it. Like the effect a LOT though!

This is my FAVE!!!! I truly want to print this one. Maybe Canvas????

Mixed Lighting is a CHALLENGE!!!

One of the hardest things to deal with when photographing temples, or other buildings at night, is the color of the light. Which is why I always, ALWAYS use RAW files, that way I can adjust the appearance of the colors to more closely match what my (and your) eye sees. When there are two or more light sources that have different colors things get really really REALLY tough. Which setting will give me the best mix and look to the photo? This temple has stymied me, I always end up with too much green when everything else looks decent. I have started doing multiple layers and desaturating the green/aqua and masking/blending to finally get something that looks semi decent. I don't think I have it perfect yet, but I am getting closer!

Technical notes: All these are HDR composites, with exposures up to 30 seconds. The clouds are real. As always, shot on a tripod with cable release and in RAW, using either my Sigma 17-70 or 10-20 lenses.

Stopping on my way home from the Temple gave me an opportunity to try a shot I have WANTED for years. I think I am getting closer. Both of these with my SMC 200mm f2.5 lens.