High-Dynamic-Range – Real Artists Ship
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Real Artists Ship Photography Blog By Neal Grosskopf

Technique: High-Dynamic-Range

Neal Grosskopf

Au Train Falls, Upper Michigan

Before & After

This particular shot is one of my favorites I’ve ever taken mostly because of the way the processing of it turned out (I feel it looks most like the photographer’s photos who I admire), but I also think I got the angle/composition of it pretty good.

Location

Taken at Au Train Falls in Upper Michigan which are only a short drive from Munising, MI. I was staying up here for a fall colors trip and on my way home stopped at Au Train Falls. The falls have a dam behind them that regulates the amount of water that will be going over the falls so it may vary depending on the time of the year. To access them you pull off on to a gravel and drive a short distance down a hill. It isn’t necessarily a park but you are allowed to visit them. I would recommend bring some rubber boots along if you visit as it opens up the possibilities for different angles of shots you can get if you’re able to walk around in the shallow water.

Composition

When I arrived there were a few other people walking around near the falls. Since I had my rubber boots with me, I headed into the shallow water and scouted out compositions. The sun was starting to get low in the sky so I had to find angles where the sun didn’t create too much of a reflection in the water. I had my circular polarizer with me to deal with that as well. The cool thing about Au Train Falls is they are these very long and wide falls and if you moved 5 feet in any direction it totally changes the photo. There’s so many great photos to get here. It’s really one of the most photogenic waterfalls I’ve shot at and I will post a few more photos from the trip here later.

I took this shot towards the end of my shoot as it was one of the few angles left that the sun wasn’t overpowering. I got down real low and put a couple leaves in front of my lens for a foreground element. Then I turned my camera at an angle to lead the water into the frame. Then, I took 3 bracketed shots at -2ev, 0ev & +2ev. I also took another set like this with the focus set on the foreground so I could focus stack it later.

EXIF Information

    Post Processing

    As you can see in the before and after, this photo is heavily post-processed. It’s been awhile since I last processed it, but I believe I started in Lightroom, then exported for Aurora HDR. After that brought it back to Lightroom and sent it to Photoshop where I did most of the edits. Then, I wrapped it up in Luminar. I also used Raya Pro to add an orton effect. One of the few things I use Raya Pro for now.

    Software Used

    Aurora HDR
    Lightroom
    Luminar
    Photoshop
    Raya Pro

    Techniques Used

    Focus Stacking
    High-Dynamic-Range

    Have a Question?

    Neal Grosskopf

    Potato River Falls – Gurney, WI

    Before & After

    Here’s a long exposure I took at the Potato River Falls near Gurney, Wisconsin. These are one of the bigger falls in Wisconsin and are sized similar to Michigan’s Bond Falls. Surprisingly, not many people seem to visit these falls which I suspect is because they aren’t a state park.

    Location

    The Potato River Falls are about a 25 minute drive from Ironwood which is a great place to start if you’re looking to check out a lot of waterfalls in the area. Access to the falls requires a drive down a mile or so gravel road so prepared to have your car get a little dirty. Once there, you’re presented with a couple paths. The path on the left will take you to the smaller, upper falls. There’s technically two sets of falls over that way. Both of these falls have pretty heavy flow and because of that, don’t make for very good long exposure photography.

    The falls that you typically see in the pictures as well as mine are the much larger lower falls. Take the path on the right to access these. On the way down the trail there’s an old damaged overlook that a tree took out as well as a very very steep cliff. Ignore this area. Head down some steps and keep going. Eventually you’ll come to a nice overlook. At this overlook, you still can’t see the falls the best so now it’s time to get off the trail a bit.

    I came prepared with a 50ft rope that I tied around a tree and then used to scale the cliff walking backwards. The cliff is only about 10-15 feet tall and isn’t straight down. You could probably slide down it, but then you’d have to find a way to get up again.

    Depending on the conditions you might not need the rope, but I find it helps me get to tough places. Another thing you might want to bring are some rubber boots or in my case, dry pants (made for kayaking). You’ll need to cross the river to get to an island and from there hop across some rocks to finally get to the base of the falls. With my dry pants I can just walk through the river the entire way there. The dry pants also allow me to try out pretty much any composition I want without having to worry about getting wet.

    Composition

    Once I was setup and had my gear sitting on some small rock islands, I started looking for compositions. One thing that helps with waterfalls is to observe where the white foam is flowing. Wherever this flows, with a long exposure you can get some nice leading lines which is what I did. I also used a polarizer to allow the water in the foreground to be clear and expose the rocks below. The sun was starting to get low in the sky which lit up the face of the falls nicely. After awhile the sun dipped below the tree line and started casting a green tint on the falls. At this point I decided to leave. I pretty much had the place to myself other than a couple who sat at the top of the falls for a little while.

    EXIF Information

      Post Processing

      For post processing I took my 3 bracketed exposures and sent them to Aurora HDR which is my new go to HDR processing program. After that I sent the photo to Photoshop and added an orton effect to the trees in the background. After that, I brought it back to Lightroom and did my typical process adding adjustment brushes to different areas to add more contrast and color changes.

      Overall, I’m happy with how my Potato River Falls photos turned out especially after having issues even finding the falls the first time I went there. Thanks for reading!

      Software Used

      Aurora HDR
      Lightroom
      Photoshop

      Techniques Used

      High-Dynamic-Range

      Have a Question?

      Neal Grosskopf

      Lighthouse & Sea Smoke – Algoma, WI

      Before & After

      Every day as I drive to work, I see a photo similar to this one on a billboard. I’ve always wanted to take a stab at shooting this myself, but I typically don’t take a lot of photos in winter as I use that time to process my photos from the rest of the year. Where I live, it’s typically cloudy all winter as well. To get this type of photo, I needed three conditions to happen:

      1. It needed to be a clear day so the sun could illuminate the sea smoke.
      2. It needed to be a real cold day, early in the season so that Lake Michigan wasn’t frozen over and the water was still warmer than the air creating the sea smoke. For this day it was -10 degrees out!
      3. Finally, the ice in the harbor needed to not be frozen so far out that the sea smoke was no longer near the lighthouse.

      Location

      I shot this photo in Algoma, WI at the lighthouse there. This particular lighthouse is one of the closer ones to where I live which is about an hour and 15 minutes away. One nice thing about sunrises in the winter is you don’t have to wake up so early for them. The sunrise on this particular day was 7:25am. Also I found that it was best to wait another 20 minutes after sunrise where the sun was starting to get above the sea smoke clouds.

      The Algoma harbor offers many different angles to shoot from. For this one, I used the traditional one from the center parking lot. In a couple other shots I took, I included more foreground which is lacking in this photo.

      I found that shooting in the winter can be tricky vs. the other times of the year. For instance, I put a tripod plate in my mouth and the metal froze to my lips! Also, when I’d use my viewfinder, I would breath on the back of my LCD screen it with would turn to frost. Finally, the viewfinder/LCD auto-toggle feature on my Sony A7 camera stopped working so I had to use a custom button to flip between the two.

      Composition

      I took a lot of shots on this morning, but since it was so cold out, I feel like I didn’t put as much thought into composing them as other times of the year. I was trying to keep the lighthouse offset via the rule of 3rds in most shots. In many of my other shots, I also left the sun outside of the frame as it was too bright, but for this particular shot it was just starting to rise above the clouds so I included it.

      The Algoma harbor offers great leading lines with its catwalk out to the lighthouse so I always like to include that in the photo leading to the lighthouse.

      EXIF Information

        Post Processing

        This photo, as well as a few others I took this day included a lot of post processing. So much, that it involved using four different pieces of software to make it. I started out taking my three bracketed shots taken at -2ev, 0ev & +2ev and opening them in Aurora HDR. I’ve pretty much converted over to Aurora HDR from Photomatix now since it came out for Windows. It does a much better job than Photomatix and also includes a few other non-HDR filters you can use to enhance a photo.

        After getting a properly exposed image in Aurora HDR, I brought the file back into Lightroom. Next I made my basic changes with white balance, contrast, clarity, exposure and saturation. I also use a lot of adjustment brushes to change different areas of the photo such as the ice and sky.

        After that, I sent the photo to Luminar which is another program I just bought. In Luminar I used a couple more filters that are only available in it. I used a really subtle Sun Ray filter in this on as well.

        Finally after all of that, I sent it to Photoshop and added an Orton Effect on the ice.

        Software Used

        Aurora HDR
        Lightroom
        Luminar
        Photomatix
        Raya Pro

        Techniques Used

        High-Dynamic-Range

        Have a Question?

        Neal Grosskopf

        Tahquamenon Falls State Park

        Before & After

        I’ve always wanted to visit Tahquamenon Falls State Park, but unfortunately they’re 5 hours away from where I live which means I wouldn’t get to spend much time at them during a day trip. Instead I made a trip up to Munising, MI and stayed a few nights there to photograph the fall colors and I made sure Tahquamenon Falls was on my places to visit during this trip.

        Location

        There’s two distinct areas of Tahquamenon Falls State Park. The upper and lower falls. The lower falls are kinda boring and the falls you see in all the pictures are the upper falls. It seems like most people go to the lower falls first mistakenly as that seems like the official entrance to the park and they must assume that’s where the more famous falls are. Once at the upper falls there are several vantage points to see them. Many have some tree limbs in the way so if you’re short on time, I recommend going down the steps to the base of the falls as that offers the best view and is where I took my pictures from. Once there go to the far left as that offers the best view of the face of the falls.

        Make sure to bring a tripod, ND filters and a wide angle lens (16mm). I’m always surprised how many people have giant DSLR cameras at waterfalls but have none of those pieces of equipment.

        Composition

        I arrived just at sunrise which worried me as I usually try to get to places before that. Fortunately the best time to shoot the falls is for about 10 minutes after the sun rises above the tree line and illuminates the face of the falls with nice diffused light like you see in my picture. I was trying to get a shot that showed both the falls and the river beyond. For many of the shots I tried to keep the sun out of the frame, but for this one I kept it in and took a wide spread of bracketed shots. In this case, I used the following: -6ev,-3ev,-2ev,0,+2ev+3ev.

        I also played around with different shutter speeds. A lot of times I like to take different speeds for the face of the falls and the water below and then blend the two later. The face needs to be shorter or else it loses definition while the water below should be longer or it gets too distracting. For this particular one, since I had so many bracketed shots, I just used the same for all. For this one, I believe I used my 3-stop ND filter and a Polarizer for it which resulted in a 1.6 second exposure.

        EXIF Information

          Post Processing

          For post processing, I used Aurora HDR which is a new piece of software I recently purchased. It was just released for Windows. In the past I would have used Photomatix. I’ve noticed sometimes Photomatix gives me weird blue colors in the shadows. The nice thing with Aurora HDR is it gives me a lot more sliders to use while doing the HDR aspect. Often times I just leave it at the default though and then do everything else in Lightroom which is what I did here. Really all I’m after is a evenly exposed image where the highlights aren’t blown out and the shadows are still visible. I’m not really after that super clarity looking HDR look when taking the photo out of any HDR software. Usually the photo looks pretty boring at this point which is fine.

          In Lightroom I made a bunch of changes like contrast, color and sharpening. I use a lot of adjustment brushes as well to give more emphasis to different areas of the photo like the falls and trees.

          After that I sent the photo over to Photoshop and added an Orton Effect using the Raya Pro panel. This is something I’ve been doing a lot more of lately. It seems like what the pro guys like Ted Gore do. It seems counter-intuitive to purposefully make your image less sharp (as that’s what people in message boards obsess over) but it actually does help the image look better. I applied the effect to the grass in the front and some of the distant objects. I find it’s really nice to add to leaves in waterfall images. If they look too sharp it becomes very distracting looking at them.

          Overall, it’s an image I’m really proud of and I’m happy I made the long trip up north to see the falls!

          Software Used

          Aurora HDR
          Lightroom
          Photoshop
          Raya Pro

          Techniques Used

          High-Dynamic-Range

          Have a Question?