River of Gold - Panther Beach, Santa Cruz (Explored #3 - Thanks!)

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All Californians know that we have been getting pounded by weather the past week and a half. I heard the Sierras received 8 feet of snow from this one storm alone. This is awesome news for our thirsty state, but it makes it tough on us photographers. Finally the storm broke yesterday so Jim, Diego, and I flew up the coast to finds us some photos. (I'll let Jim tell the story of how he forgot his camera though :)

We stopped at our old faithful Panther Beach where all of the rain we'd been resulting in some awesome creek flow down on the beach and some super wet, reflecty sand. I gotta say the conditions were pretty awesome: great light, great water action, low tide, endless comps. It's fair to say we were all pretty jubilant.

So anyway, here's my "warm-up" shot from the night. I have another photo from later than I am really excited about, but I'm still trying to get the processing just right.

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Tech Notes on this Photo
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Nikon D300s
Tokina 12-24 mm
ISO100 - To buy me a longer shutter speed and glass out the water as much as I could while still keeping my aperture at f/9
f/9 - sharpest spot on my lens but still provides sufficient DOF at 12mm; helps defocus scratches, drops, and dust on my filters/lens
0.25 sec
12 mm
Lee 3-stop and 1-stop soft GND Filters, handheld at an angle in order to match the transition from sky to ground

Post-Processing
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In Raw Converter (Nikon Capture NX2), converted single Raw file once
- Very slightly warmed up image to enhance the golden reflections in the foreground
- Global contrast for added pop
- Slightly darkened and added contrast to the sky to add oomph
- Brightened very dark rocks in midground (view full size to see the detail there)
- Brightened foreground water and added some contrast to emphasize the ripples and reflections
- Local brightness/contrast adjustments to the crashing wave to tame the highlights

In Photoshop:
- Noise reduction via Neat Image
- Selective sharpening of sand, rocks, and bluffs
- Curves layer to slightly darken and enrich the sky
- Curves layer with s-curve adjustment for global contrast

Thanks for looking!

~Josh

Taken in: United States / California / Majors (show map)

Taken on: December 22, 2010

Tags:

panther

beach

cruz

california

usa

pacific

ocean

sea

landscape

seascape

sunset

gold

reflections

ripples

creek

wave

crashing

rocks

cliffs

joshua

cripps

blue

orange

sand

light

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Sets appears in: • 100+ faves

Groups appears in: • Outdoor Photographer Magazine (Unofficial) • Total Photography (No AI or SL) more » • California Landscape and Seascape • Nikon D300 Users • Flickr's Best Landscape Photographers (Post 1 Award 2) • Images with Filters • [ Wonders of Nature ] • Davenport, California • Photo Infos • Louisa's Landscape Gallery « less

Camera: Nikon D300S, f/9.0, 1/4 sec, 12mm (=18mm) (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Nikon D300S
Aperture:	f/9.0
Exposure Time:	0.25 sec (1/4)
Focal Length:	12mm (35mm equivalent: 18mm)
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	No Flash
Exposure Program:	Manual
Exposure Mode:	Manual
Metering Mode:	Spot
White Balance:	Manual
Light Source:	Cloudy
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows
Show full info

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