Winter's First Strike

PlanetStarbucks · Oct 28, 2012

The first of what I hope is an eventful winter hit earlier this week. I got home from work just in time to grab my gear and head up to one of my favorite places. I shot a superwide panorama, so to do it justice I'm posting it in halves.

I hung out up there for a bit in the freezing cold to get another one later in the night. Shot this about 40 minutes later...

When I was working on that one, I noticed something odd. A little streak of weird light. Upon closer inspection:

BUSTED!!! The cops love that street... they are always camped there catching people coming off the highway. It gave me an idea to try and capture that in better detail but might be tough to pull off. Your input is always welcome. I think the second pano needs work, I feel like it doesn't have enough of interest in it to make it. I'm much happier with the first, but if you've anything that might help by all means let me know.

runnah · Oct 29, 2012

What did you use?

I like them! That is such a good vantage point.

spacefuzz · Oct 29, 2012

I like #1 the best, good comp and that cloud makes the shot. Crazy weather!

jfrabat · Oct 29, 2012

GREAT CAPTURES!

nmoody · Oct 29, 2012

Wonderful! and the police tied into it makes it even better =) I love finding little things later.

PlanetStarbucks · Oct 29, 2012

runnah said:
What did you use?

I actually shot the first two as a bracket of nine exposures for HDR. I usually do that when I have time to set up. When I looked at them though, I thought the straight exposure was pretty decent, and decided to forego the digital trickery. Basically just used the tools in lightroom to get the color and contrast right and then stitched them in photoshop.

For equipment, this was my first full use of my new EF-S 17-55 lens. I'd had it for a month or so, but these are the first real shots I got with it. I must say that I'm really really really happy with this lens. At f8-f11 it is ridiculously sharp. At f11 you start getting the star flare and at f14 (what I shot the night one with) you get that great 14 point sparkle on the highlights. The closeup of the police chase is at 100% to give you an idea of how accurate the lens is (100 ISO).

Thanks for the kind words, everyone.