I’ve been trying to find a well populated field of sunflowers for about the last three years. Every time I got a tip on a field I would drive upwards of 150 miles away only to arrive to a field of wilted plants or even worse, finding out that the farmer did indeed plant sunflowers the year before but chose to skip sunflowers the year I was checking out the location. It’s been very frustrating. Finally today, an old friend of mine from my racing photography days gave me a tip on a field of sunflowers right near Lake Ontelaunee, the lake where I do most of my sunset shots from. When I arrived I found a field on one side of the road but all the sunflowers were facing away from the road and there was no clear path to get to the other side without battling mosquitoes the size of a dog or rattlesnakes. I went a little further down the road and on the opposite side of the road was another field of sunflowers all facing the roadway with a parking area right next to it. Bingo !

I shot this as a total of seven bracketed RAW frames at 1 stop increments with the first three brackets being auto bracketed in aperture priority mode and the remaining four being shot in manual mode with a constant aperture but varying shutter speeds to get the necessary exposure for the sunflower and the stems down at the field level. I used a Cokin Pro-Z 2 stop neutral density filter and a Cokin graduated tobacco filter to tame the sun in the top third of the image. I combined them into an HDR and tone mapped it with HDR Efex Pro from NIK Software. I’m still not entirely happy with this because of the way the sun turned out but I know where the field is now and I can go back and try it again this weekend.

We have “Big Sky” right here in Berks County, PA ! When I saw the low cloud ceiling today, I knew I had to head over to Lake Ontelaunee to get those reflections on the lake as the clouds soar over the bridge at the dam. After nearly three weeks of straight rain in one for or another, it was nice to see some blue sky today.

3 bracketed RAW frames @ 2 stop increments. HDR and tone map post processing via NIK HDR Efex Pro version 1.1.

“Sunsets are so beautiful that they almost seem as if we were looking through the gates of Heaven.” — John Lubbock

Sometimes the clouds and sun come to an agreement about their respective place in the scheme of things when it comes time for a sunset, and then there are nights like Saturday. Just when I thought the sun was going to drop below the clouds but above the tree line, the clouds would “sunset block” me. Arrrggghhhh ! Taken at Lake Ontelaunee in Berks County, PA.

I shot this as nine bracketed RAW frames at 1 stop increments and then combined them into an HDR and tone mapped it with HDR Efex Pro from NIK Software.

I’ve been thinking about this shot all week, knowing how the weather was being forecasted, and I was really looking forward to today’s 74 degree temps and clear skies.

Lake Ontelaunee is a 1,082 acre reservoir that provides much of the drinking water for the city of Reading Pennsylvania. It’s a favorite fishing spot year round and is surrounded by state game lands and farms. The lake is formed behind the Ontelaunee Dam and was created in 1926.

I shot this as a single exposure, tripod mounted with Cokin Graduated Sunset-2, Neutral gray and Graduated Tobacco-Grey Pro-Z filters.

This was taken close to the dam at water level about nineteen minutes before I took the sunset shot with the fisherman. The fisherman sunset was taken about five hundred feet further down shore. Lake Ontelaunee, Wednesday night 7-15-2009.

Single RAW exposure, tripod mounted with Cokin Neutral gray (ND2) and Graduated Tobacco-Grey Pro-Z filters.

Lake Ontelaunee is a 1,082 acre reservoir that provides much of the drinking water for the city of Reading Pennsylvania. It’s a favorite fishing spot year round and is surrounded by state game lands and farms. The lake is formed behind the Ontelaunee Dam and was created in 1926.

For more information on Lake Ontelaunee, visit this page.

It was another magical sunset at Lake Ontelaunee tonight (7-15-2009). I shot the sunset from water level this time instead of from the dam and I used my Nikon 24-70mm instead of the wider angle Sigma 10-20mm I used in previous Ontelaunee sunset shots. I was lucky enough to have a late day fisherman take his place in the frame within the last few shots.

Single RAW exposure, tripod mounted with Cokin Graduated Sunset-2, Neutral gray and Graduated Tobacco-Grey Pro-Z filters.

Lake Ontelaunee is a 1,082 acre reservoir that provides much of the drinking water for the city of Reading Pennsylvania. It’s a favorite fishing spot year round and is surrounded by state game lands and farms. The lake is formed behind the Ontelaunee Dam and was created in 1926.

For more information on Lake Ontelaunee, visit this page.