Here is a new series I have been working on. Backgrounds were shot in various locations from Scotland, Arizona and Montsfield park in London. The “pods” were photographed in Hawaii and were part of the observatory on Mauna Kea. Taken out of context they become a sort of futuristic habitat and a bit surreal. Various cameras were used to photograph the elements including the Can 5DMKII, a Canon G10 which serves as a great walk around and my personal favorite and most recent acquisition the Sony A7r. For the type of work I do the Sony is well suited…36MP, no AA filter, super sharp Zeiss lenses all in a very compact lightweight yet robust camera body. I have done side by side comparisons with my Hasselblad H3DII and found the Sony produced images with far better dynamic range, less noise and equally as sharp. The images also have a more dimensional look. The camera utilizes an electronic viewfinder and I honestly prefer it over an optical viewfinder. I rarely if ever “chimp” which is the practice of taking an image and immediately lowering the camera to inspect the lcd display to see what’s there as there is no need to… the image in the viewfinder is what you will get with no surprises. A histogram with real time update and the ability to zoom in for precise focus make it a pleasure to use. The images were composited and graded in Photoshop.
aWesoMe 😉
Hi Chris. I love this pale effect – would you please explain how you achieve the effect.
The pale effect is achieved in a number of ways starting with exposure, and curves adjustments. I sometimes use a duplicate layer of the combined image layer and adjustments, desaturated and layered in “overlay” or “soft light” mode in photoshop. The key is to play around with the image until you achieve a satisfactory result. Some images do not lend themselves to this technique…helps to have fairly high key subject matter of lesser contrast.
Thanks very much, Chris.