Photo Tutorial: Kihei Sunset
Posted on December 11, 2009 by Andy in Featured Photoglers | 4 Comments
Camera: Nikon D2X
Exposure: 0.2 sec (1/5)
Aperture: f/16.0
Focal Length: 29 mm
ISO Speed: 100
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: No Flash
How I got this shot:
This panorama was created with four exposures on a tripod with a 3-stop ND grad set on the horizon. I used the sun as a reference point and simply panned from left to right. I had to do this quickly, as the sun was moving and I wanted it to occupy the same relative spot in all the frames. I used an ExpoDisc to set the white balance beforehand and locked the focus and exposure.
From Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.5, I loaded the four frames directly into Photomerge in Adobe Photoshop CS4 and processed the panorama using the default settings. After flattening the resulting image, I used the Ruler Tool to straighten the horizon (I didn’t have time to make sure everything was level during the shoot) and did the final crop.
Then I saved the image as a TIFF, closed it and reopened it in Camera RAW, so that I could adjust the overall exposure and use Fill Light to open the shadows in the rocks. I saved the image again and imported it back into Lightroom, where I manage all my photos. As a finishing touch, I burned in the edges slightly using the Vignettes feature in Lightroom.
View Peter Liu’s Flickr Photostream
4 Comments to “Photo Tutorial: Kihei Sunset”
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[...] panoramas, and decided to do one while I was shooting a sunset a couple of weeks ago. Check out Photogler for details on how I produced the [...]
Great shot, Peter! Sounds like it was a lot of work, but the end result was definitely worth it – nice job.
Just curious – why did you do the last exposure and fill light work in Camera Raw instead of just doing that in Lightroom?
Aloha Mike,
You’re right. I could have done it in Lightroom. It just seemed logical to me, since I was already working on a separate TIFF file, that I might as well embed the exposure and Fill Light changes in the file. It’s not something I’m likely to undo. I just decided to make the TIFF my master version. It was a judgement call.
The Vignette touch at the very end is something that Lightroom does better than Photoshop, so I decided to do that there.
Thanks for the kind words!
All I can say, is gosh that’s gorgeous!!