Malibu Sunset

Captured during the Malibu photowalks +Lori Hibbett and I organized last month.  I shot in Aperture Priority mode at f/16 for depth of field with a 16mm lens.  I was losing light so I left the aperture shut and I also kept the ISO sensitivity low to get a long exposure.  The range of light in the scene was extreme, so I used a 3 stop Cokin #121 graduated neutral density filter to better even out the exposure between the sky and the reflected light in the foreground surf.  I ended up with a 13 second shot at f/16, ISO 100.  I bracketed exposure due to the extreme range of light, in case I might need to use a brighter exposure to reduce shadow noise, or use a darker exposure to eliminate blown highlights.  Multiple exposures also enable me to consider multi-shot techniques like HDR.

There still was too much dynamic range in the scene to have the single exposure look natural straight out of the camera.  I brightened the shadows and darkened the highlights in  Lightroom, but that made it look flat and too low in contrast.  Often you can restore a natural look at that point by adding contrast or adjusting the tone curve, but I couldn't find the right balance of adjustments in Lightroom, so my intention was to simply set it aside until I could try HDR in Photomatix, other other multi-shot methods of recovering a usable result.

Since I hadn't been able to adjust the colors close to what I remembered, I fired up the brief Nik Software trial I had downloaded before the trip, and I used the Lightroom plug-in to Color Efex Pro 2 and was able to produce a better result.  I generally prefer to use a single exposure when I can, so the image is done for now.

Our trip was to gather site information for the guide book I'm working on, a few new sites and revisiting past ones where I had missed access trails or other details on prior visits.  I thought that I had uploaded this during the trip, but I ended up getting pretty sick for the rest of the trip, so   I was in a bit of a daze.  I thought I just had food poisoning from sushi after this photowalk, so I kept thinking I was getting better, but it'd come back the next day.  After a few days like that it was clear that I must have picked up a flu, probably while out shopping for supplies for the trip.

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