Autumn foliage in Hautes Alpes forest

Autumn foliage in Hautes Alpes forest

Landscape around Serre Ponçon lake

I can't explain why but this image done in 2005 in the Hautes Alpes mountains is one of my favourite landscape photo and i realized 2 days ago that it was not on this blog :)

Dusk light on Serre Ponçon lake

Dusk light on Serre Ponçon lake

An image from the archives ...

Serre Ponçon dam was built from 1955 to 1961 on the Durance river.
The lake is the third biggest artificial lake in Europe.
It's a famous place for tourism with the mountains all around and also for sailing and windsurfing because of special winds blowing here.

I spent two days here for work in 2005. This photo is one of the first i did arriving on the place and the morning after i did another one which is still one of my favourite landscape and which doesn't seem to be one this blog :)

HDR in the mountains of the Oule Valley

Autumn landscape in the Oule Valley

The 3 exposures used in this image where done in 2007. I processed them yesterday with the following workflow i think i will re-use often :

- NEF files converted to TIF with Silkypix.
- TIF files combinated to a HDR file with Picturenaut.
- HDR image tonemaped with Picturenaut and saved as a new TIF file.
- HDR image tonemaped with Photomatix and saved as a second new TIF file.
- Manual blending of the two tonemaped TIFs giving most of the weight to the one done with Picturenaut.

And don't forget, you can have a look here at my general tips for HDR landscapes.


This will certainly be my last post befor our departure for Corsica on next tuesday. Tomorrow i'll start to pack all the computers, cameras and other photographic gear we need to carry ...

Some other autumn leaves

Autumn leaves in the Hautes Alpes forest

Some autumn news

Agnielles river in autumn - Hautes Alpes

So, i left this blog untouched for about one month for many reasons :

• I spent many time in october meeting clients and planning things for next year.

• I wanted to work on my french website patmo.net

• I moved to make some autumn shots. The place where i live is beautiful but most of the trees here are ever green and that's really not the best place for making images of autumn colors.
  So we decided to take some days to move to some alpine regions. We took the van and went first to the little Agnielles valley in Hautes-Alpes. We arrived by night and the next day we could could discover that the place was beautiful (really beautiful) but cold (really cold). So after one day exploring and making photos we decided to leave and move to the Drome region where some friends live. It's not a hot place in october but at least my wife and daughter could stay at friend's home while i was hiking in the cold.

Mountain landscape near Die - Drome

The heart field

Heart field in Provence Alps

Just after dusk, we were walking with my daughter on a little mountain road when she noticed this field on the other side of the valley. She told Look at it, it looks likes a heart. After a little time (going back to the van to take some photographic stuff) we took this one. It was almost a night shot.

Some clouds over the mountains

Hautes-Alpes landscape near Notre Dame du Laus

Another one from our recent trip in the Alps, done just around our van parking :)

Just back

Forest path in Provence Alps

At the end of the past week, my wife had to go to the Provence Alps and we decided that i would also go with my daughter.
The place where we had to go was lost in the mountains and we spent four days in our van at the top of this little path. Although i was not there for work, i took a few forest images and also some rural landscapes.
I went back during this night and have just processed this first file. You'll see the other ones during the weeks to come.

HDR landscape in the Oule valley

Paysage HDR dans la vallée de l'Oule

I think i'm going to play a little more with HDR.
I was keeping the 3 shots used to build this photo for 5 months, since my last trip in the Alps. I've just processed them one hour ago.

When i took these photos in october, it was the end of the day, the light was beautiful on the mountains but the valley was in the shadow.
Combining 3 shots allows me to have very detailed and noise free shadows, beautiful midtones and respected highlights on the cliffs.

About the technical things :

• The 3 shots were done with a Nikon D100 and a zoom Tamron 17-50.
• The 3 raw files were converted to HDR and the tonemapped with Photomatix
• The resulting image was saved as a 48 bits TIF file and re-processed with SilkyPix for color and contrast adjustments.

A larger version of this image can be seen here.

I can't tell why but i love this photo

Rural landscape in the Oule valley
Paysage rural dans la vallée de l'Oule

Last week, i went in the south of the french Alps to make some autumn mountains landscapes.
On saturday, after two shooting days in other places i moved to the Oule valley. In the second part of the morning, i sarted to hike the hills to find a nice point of view for afternoon photography. After a few hours i thought i had the good place. In the middle of a field on a big hill i had a very nice view on the other side of the valley with great mountains covered whith autumn forest. Guessing the light would be nice on these mountains at the end of afternoon i left the place and returned to the van for a little lunch.
At 5pm, i came back on my hill and after a litlle wait the light became very nice on the mountains and i started making photos.
A little time after one cloud came just over the valley. The cloud itself was not a problem but its shadow was very disturbing on the forests ...
I decided to wait that the cloud leaves this place and looked all around to see if it was the only one. Looking behind me, i saw on the top of the hill this fence and yellow grass shining in the sun. I left my place, climbed the hill with my tripod and camera and made two or three photos of the fence and field. My prefered is this one with the fence and rocky mountain in the opposite corners.
To make it, i installed my tripod just near the first fence stick and used a wide angle lens.
Two things were a little tricky to manage :

• The focusing point because i needed a great depth of field and wanted the wood stick to be perfectly sharp. It was so near my lens that if i had focused on it the depth of field would have been to short for the rest of the scene. If had focused too far of it, it wouldn't have been very sharp ... In such a situation, you can't rely on a DSLR viewfinder to see if the foreground is really as sharp as you want. The only solution is trying to use the hyperfocal and guess it will do the job ...
  
• The good moment : The day was a little windy making the grass moving. Because of the depth of field i had to shut down the lens and so the shutter speed was very slow. I had to wait an instant with absolutely no wind, focusing done, finger on the shutter release.

Three days after, back at the office i started to process my raw files and "falled in love" with this picture. I found everything perfect : nice colors, shining grass, stick sharpness and no disturbing blur due to the wind.
That's not the kind of landscapes i usualy do, that's not the photo i had plan to make in this valley but i love it !

Just back from holidays

From August 24 to September 5 i left the south of Provence to the Alps with my wife and daughter for a little holidays.
As usual, we traveled with our van so we can stop where and when we want.
After a few days in the north of Provence, we stopped in this wonderful place in the south of french Alps.

Green fields, blue sky, wonderful mountains and rivers. It was a nice place for photography, for playing and for hiking so we stayed there about 10 days.

As i was not there for work and didn't want to carry some heavy equipment i just took my D100 with one brand new zoom : Tarmon 17-50 XR DiII and one light and small tripod.
About the Tamron, i've to say that it's amazing : not expensive, light, small and very sharp. I think it's a perfect only lens for holidays. The focal range permits some nice landscapes and family candids and i was nicely surprised by the raw files sharpness.

Something else about this lens :
I shoot some panoramic landscapes with just one tripod and nothing to set up the nodal point. When stitching in PTGui Pro some files shooted with the shortest focal the optimizer's diagnostic was always very good. It seems that the nodal point is not so far in front of the lens. Nice !