Caught in Pixels

A photography blog by Jacob Surland

You can buy photos by Jacob Surland at http://www.caughtinpixels.com.

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Jacob Surland > Disneyland Paris - The Space Mountain
This is one of the very first HDR shots I shot. It is shot hand held with my old Canon 400D and the old 18-55mm kit lens. I think this photo is a proof that it doesn't take professional gear to make great photos. I shot three exposure bracketed shots (-2, 0 and +2) and merged them in Photomatix Pro.

Jacob Surland > Blue Hour Water - using a ND filter
This could look like ice, but it isn't, it is a long exposure of water on a fairly windy day. It's in a narrow bay, the waves don't get big, but they had a little white foam on top. I took this photo using a tripod and because it was very windy, I dug the leggs into the sand on the beach. Otherwise the camera wasn't steady enough for a long exposure.

But how to get a long exposure of 20 seconds around sunset? I did three things:

1) First of all I turned the ISO down to 100. If I had shot it at ISO 200, the exposure time would have been cut in half to 10 seconds, and at ISO 400 only 5 seconds. So to maximize the exposure time I set it to the lowest ISO I could, which was ISO 100.

2) Then I also set the f-stop low (remember that low f-stops are high values) - I had it at f/16. Had I shot it at f/4, which is the highest f-stop the lens will go to, I would also have cut the shutter speed in half a few times. That's why you call a lens that has a very high f-stop like f/2.8 or maybe even f/1.4 a fast lens, because it gives shorter shutter times.

3) The last and equally important step was that I attached a Neutral Density Filter (ND filter) to the lens. A ND-filter is like a pair of sunglasses that blocks the light. ND-filters comes in different flavors that are more or less dark. In this case I attached a ND density filter that stopped down the light two full Exposure Value Steps. Or in plain english it doubled the shutter speed twice, which brought the shutter speed from 5 seconds to 20 seconds.

And that is how I made the water look this way. It came as surprise to myself, that it looked like ice, I had anticipated a smokey look on the water. But I guess it comes from the fact, that it is shot in the blue hour, which adds a blue color to the water.

Jacob Surland > Sunrise on the way to Keflavik.

I have really been wanting to go to Iceland for a long time. Having seen the beauty of Iceland captured by other photographers it has drawn my attention. But you can’t be everywhere at once, so I’m seeing the world in small pieces, bit by bit. But a window opened for three full days in Reykjavik and me and my family went off to see a small bit of Iceland.

Ideally if you want to go to Iceland I would say you should have time enough to drive all of the way around on Iceland and give yourself time enough to see and experience Iceland. Like New Zealand Iceland has a lot action and adventure options, that really should be tried. I have spend one month in New Zealand in November 2012, driving around and one month is not nearly enough to get all of the way around New Zealand and see try all the great fun stuff they have. Iceland is much smaller and I would like to go for two maybe even three weeks at some point in time to experience Iceland.

But an extended weekend in Reykjavik is really a great option. If you stay in Reykjavik you are within driving distance of several of the main attractions in Iceland, like Thingvellier, The Blue Lagoon, Whale Watching, Gullfoss waterfall and Geysir. So if you rent a car you can get to see a lot of the interesting things. The Icelandic horses are everywhere, so you can’t miss those either. So in three days you get to see a lot of the essence of Iceland.

Iceland was hit severely during the start of the financial crisis and that has changed a lot up there. Eating out is really cheap, compared to Denmark, and they really do make great food up there.

Jacob Surland > Breaking the Ice

Jacob Surland > Jacob Surlands portfolio photo

Jacob Surland > Amsterdam Castle

Jacob Surland > Jacob Surlands portfolio photo

Jacob Surland > Church of the Good Shephard

Jacob Surland > The tip of the peninsula

Jacob Surland > No Moeraki Boulders in Kings Garden

Jacob Surland > A Moeraki Boulder

Jacob Surland > Curly Tree In the Sunset

Jacob Surland > Rembrandt Plein

Jacob Surland > Gone

Jacob Surland > Shoe Boat

Disneyland Paris - The Space Mountain
This is one of the very first HDR shots I shot. It is shot hand held with my old Canon 400D and the old 18-55mm kit lens. I think this photo is a proof that it doesn't take professional gear to make great photos. I shot three exposure bracketed shots (-2, 0 and +2) and merged them in Photomatix Pro.

Jacob Surland > Disneyland Paris - The Space Mountain
This is one of the very first HDR shots I shot. It is shot hand held with my old Canon 400D and the old 18-55mm kit lens. I think this photo is a proof that it doesn't take professional gear to make great photos. I shot three exposure bracketed shots (-2, 0 and +2) and merged them in Photomatix Pro.

Disneyland Paris - The Space Mountain
This is one of the very first HDR shots I shot. It is shot hand held with my old Canon 400D and the old 18-55mm kit lens. I think this photo is a proof that it doesn't take professional gear to make great photos. I shot three exposure bracketed shots (-2, 0 and +2) and merged them in Photomatix Pro.

original size: 3876px x 2553px |

Current: 600px x 395px |

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Keywords: lines sky colorful clouds machinery hdr science fiction disneyland paris high dynamic range

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