Thursday, March 03, 2011

"From The Top Of The World"

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"From The Top Of The World"
©David A. Ziser

Don't shoot me for this, but I wanted to post one more none wedding related image this week.  This image was almost accidental.  This time it was a fly by shooting made out of my Delta jet as we were making our approach into Tampa.

I'll tell you, I love the window seat for just this reason.  As I looked out, the water was clear and the sky was blue. The barrier islands sat stranded all alone in the water.  My Canon was packed away, but I had my little Sony T9X in my pocket.  I quickly pulled it out framed up the photograph and pressed the shutter button. 

I wasn't sure what I had, if anything, but when I brought it into Lightroom and tweaked the Vibrancy slider a bit, the image got really pretty.  It was still missing something.  I moved the Clarity slider slightly to the left.  This added a hazy, mist-like look to the image.  Still I didn't have exactly what I wanted.

Then the idea hit me.  What was missing from this skyward image.  The distance seemed for to the islands below but what was missing was the curvature of the earth.  No problem - just slide the Distortion slider a bit to the left and - there is was - the exact image I wanted, just as I had seen it in my mind's eye. 

The new image now looked more like an approach to earth from space.  Anyway, to me it looks really cool.

Camera specs: Sony TX9 zoomed to 4.43mm (25mm equivalent), F6.3 @ 1/640 second, ISO 125. Enjoy!  -David 

5 comments:

  1. At first I couldn't believe you could capture the earth's curvature like that until I read the part of you using LR and the Distortion slider. Nice capture!

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  2. Looks cool to me too! Beautiful!

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  3. I think I know those islands, looks like Anclote Key just off Tarpon Springs. Great image.

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  4. Great shot David. The large island is Anclote Key with Dunedin and Cleawater beach in the distance. If you look carefully at your original you should see the old lighthouse on the far end of the island. Your plane was about to fly directly over my house.

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