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Perpetua Glow
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Perpetua Glow

by Scott Smorra

Gallery: LandscapePosted December 9, 2012611 views12 comments
Sunrise light at Cape Perpetua, Central Oregon Coast, August 2012.

This is another image from the morning I spent at Cape Perpetua last summer. The early morning light on that morning was beautiful and I really liked how the water picked up the same color as the sky.

Nikon D800, Nikkor 14-24mm at 14mm, no filters
0.4 sec at f/16, ISO 400. Single Exposure

I'm amazed by how much detail the D800 can hold in the shadow areas with very little noise. This image was a bit of experiment for me, since I had been reading how well the D800 handles detail in the shadows. For this image I created one exposure which was properly exposed for the sky. This left the shadows quite dark, but the histogram showed very little clipping on the left side. LR4 and CS6 allowed me to open up the shadows, which had lots of detail and very little noise. I purposely kept the final image a bit dark, because I didn't want to lose that feeling of the very early morning light I experienced here.

Thanks for taking a look and for any comments/suggestions you have.

Please check out the larger version.

Comments

12 comments
Comment posted by Nick Bristol on December 9, 2012 at 12:25 PM
Scott, This is beautiful! I love the colors and the water looks fantastic! Wonderful detail in this and you really captured the mood in this image! An impressive scene so well captured!! :toast:

Nick Bristol
Lone Rock, WI
Registered on February 1, 2004, 752 Posts, 14140 Comments
Comment posted by Mark Seaver on December 9, 2012 at 1:56 PM
Scott, The details here are great, especially in the larger version. I'm also really attracted to the wave action and pink clouds on the right hand side, by contrast, (pun accidental :smile: ) the sea and sky on the left feel heavy. I wonder if some further dodging over there would add to the balance.
Registered on January 23, 2011, 1103 Posts, 17270 Comments
Comment posted by Mark Pelton on December 9, 2012 at 2:04 PM
Beautiful image, Scott. I like your decision to keep this dark, because that gives that early morning feel. Amazing detail in the shadows as you point out. This is a great example of what you can do with one exposure with the D800 and LR4 or CS6. impressive dynamic range.
Registered on November 25, 2003, 380 Posts, 4647 Comments
Comment posted by Lon Overacker on December 9, 2012 at 2:13 PM
Scott,

The texture and motion of the turbulent sea is captured perfectly! I love it. Keeping this semi-dark really works here, especially when viewing the larger version. I think the smaller version some of the detail gets lost, but not the case in the larger view.

Terrific sky and color. And excellent coastal image.

Lon
Registered on November 24, 2006, 521 Posts, 19147 Comments
Comment posted by Brian Schrayer on December 9, 2012 at 2:49 PM
Scott, your images always have a wonderful looking vibrance and luminosity that is at the same time aesthetically pleasing and realistic and transports me to the scene that you are photographing. There is so much to like about this with the color in the sky and the perspective of your composition but I think what really makes this shine is the reflected color in the foreground water. The luminosity here adds a nice glow to the image.
Registered on May 28, 2004, 114 Posts, 2890 Comments
Comment posted by Bill Fach on December 9, 2012 at 3:06 PM
Scott: One of my favorite places on the planet! My grandmother lived on the Yachats Beach road when I was a boy and I loved my summers there. Whenever I get back to Oregon the cape is one of my must visit places. This is a marvelous scene superbly captured and rendered. >=))>

PS: For some reason it hit me yesterday that with my new 24mp Sony A77 that even on the larger version image I'm discarding 96% of the image info that the sensor collects. With your D800 its more like 97% or more! These are indeed impressive instruments.
Registered on November 1, 2003, 1805 Posts, 26981 Comments
Comment posted by Vlad Sadovsky on December 9, 2012 at 3:26 PM
Impressive colors Scott, and I love the waves texture.
Registered on November 12, 2010, 48 Posts, 358 Comments
Comment posted by Morris McClung on December 9, 2012 at 5:17 PM
Just a great mood and feel to this one, Scott! The mist adds that ethereal effect, and the colors are gorgeous. :toast:
Registered on May 7, 2007, 670 Posts, 19650 Comments
Comment posted by Robert Dayton on December 9, 2012 at 5:29 PM
Serenity, Scott. I like the composition and your post-processing results.
Registered on November 11, 2008, 281 Posts, 3958 Comments
Comment posted by Tony Kuyper on December 9, 2012 at 7:42 PM
Very, very nice, Scott. The dark textures are indeed wonderfully presented and preserved. Looks very natural.
Registered on November 1, 2003, 364 Posts, 22328 Comments
Comment posted by Daniel Rappaport on December 9, 2012 at 8:07 PM
Nicely composed. The water capture is perfect.
Registered on September 9, 2009, 294 Posts, 2006 Comments
Comment posted by Dean Sauskojus on December 12, 2012 at 2:52 AM
Awesome atmosphere Scott! I really like the misty background and of course the reflective colors in the water. Presents a nice feel to the image. Nice work as always.
Registered on September 29, 2009, 137 Posts, 2659 Comments