Clinton River Beach Rocks, panoramic macro
I was able to do a little exploring this morning to some areas I had never been to before. It was simply a matter of parking my car and deciding to head off to the east instead of the west. The major river near here is called the Clinton River – which is pretty consistent in having a mud bottom. The riverbanks if any are a mixture of sand and mud. Rarely do I encounter much else.
Today I actually stumbled upon a rocky “beach.” Normally if I want to photograph beach rocks, it is about an hour drive away to get to Lake Huron or Lake Erie. Finding this spot made it possible to do some work with beach rocks within 20 minute drive from my front door and a short hike. The short hike involved having to cross a 5 foot wide area of the river by walking over the top of a fallen log, but I was curious at what might be on the other side.
My reward was this beach area with a lot of different stones. Scenic-wise, I think it will be better when some fall color arrives, so instead I concentrated on some macro work. I tried something a little different. I have been trying to gain experience using my tilt-shift 45mm Nikon PC-E lens. It takes a bit of practice to learn how it works. However, I didn’t realize that it focuses really close.
Beach rocks along Clinton River, Michigan – panoramic macro
One perk of tilt-shift lenses is that they make it quite easy to create panoramics by just shifting the lens position to each side. So I had an idea to try this with macro. What I ended up with are some very large macro files to deal with. Stitching together 3 D800 files and then trying to do any layer work with them really brought my 2008 MacPro to its knees. After cropping, these are essentially 80-90 MP images. I actually had to flatten my layers in one of the files because I got a Photoshop error of exceeding the 2 GB file save limit.
These might look pretty cool if I ever take adavantage of all those pixels someday with a very large format output. Until then, it has me moving up that ram upgrade on my to-do list.
I can say, unequivocally, that these are the prettiest beach-rock shots I’ve seen. The composition, color and textures are just stunning.
Thanks much Ingrid!
I love the fact that you are featuring details/macros within your landscape work- its just as important a part of landscape photography as the larger vistas, in my opinion. Thanks for sharing 🙂
Mark, I very much like your representation here. The tonalities are soft which creates a nice contrast to the extreme sharpness. It has a certain sensitivity to it that is appealing.
Paul
Thanks very much Paul.
Lovely images, Mark – I do love beach rocks too! And a D800 AND a tilt-shift lens? You are inciting deep gear envy in me, sir! :^D
— Jack
Thanks Jack. No gear boasting intended! 🙂 I am still very much learning how to use tilt-shift effectively. I questioned the purchase initially because I didn’t realize the possibilities at the time. As I learn more, I begin to appreciate what these lenses can do.
Great work, Mark! Macro pano is something I want to try for longer time but I never really got to it. Beautiful colours, excellent details in both photos.
Thank you Tomas. It is an interesting format to explore. Usually in macro we are trying to isolate a specific subject. With pano I find it a creative challenge to see how I can work multiple elements together.
I really like the colours of the pictures – i can relax, when i look at them 🙂
Thank you Stefan.
Mark, Interesting assortment of rocks, shells and even blue/grey leaves? 🙂 They are beautiful and I’m sure there’s no justice done to them with these web images. A 6′ x 10′ print would be stunning…but don’t consider this an order for one!
Well, you are just going to have to get a 6’x10 monitor. :-). Thanks Earl.
Love the first image with the leave. The overall gray feels good to me. It’s nice that you’ve found a closer location for your images. Now we need to see them. Good luck on the upgrades. Seems like we are always facing those upgrades.
Thanks Monte. Yes, seems our digital lives are in a constant state of change if we want to try to keep up.
And so the upgrade path begins! Maybe you should have waited for the D600! 😉 Those are some beautiful shots of the river stones, Mark.
Maybe I should downgrade? Sell the D800 to Earl? 🙂
I’d need to confirm you didn’t get one of those D800’s with left side auto-focusing issues and then I’d need to find out how deep a used discount your talking about! 😉
Panoramic macros huh? I like it!
Thanks Cedric.
Good stuff Mark. It’ll be interesting to see where panoramic macro takes you. These look great.
Thanks PJ. It is something I will be exploring more often.
Nice! you know how much I love beach rocks 🙂 These ones have great colours.
Thanks Anne. They are one of my favorite subjects.
The macro work is stunning and I’m sure someday you’ll be able to take full advantage of the D800 output efficiently.
I always found the upgrade challenge to be somewhat daunting at times and at other times the answer is obvious.
Thanks Ken. I keep asking myself that question. Care to place an order for a 6 foot x 10 foot print? 🙂
This is my camera upgrade year so I better just focus (no pun intended) on that!