David VanKeuren's Photography: 2016

Heceta Head Lighthouse

This is Heceta Head Lighthouse. I took this shot about a year ago. This image was taken using a handheld Canon 6D with a 17-40mm F4 lens. The settings were at: ISO 200, F8 @ 1/640 sec. The lens was nearly fully extended to 40mm. This is an extreme crop of the original shot, but the full frame of the 6D allows me to really dig into the image and give me more options for cropping. Even though it was a bright and beautiful day, I bumped up the ISO a bit so that I could get a faster shutter speed and help eliminate the possibility of blurriness in the image. Image edited in photoshop, red filter cranked way up, some sharpening added as well.

Some shots from the Oregon International Airshow

Self Portrait - July 2016

Shot with an iPhone.

Cape Blanco Lighthouse

Went down to Cape Blanco this past weekend. I had expected to get some remarkable shots of the area and really wanted to get some shots of the lighthouse at dusk and at night. However, the weather did not want to cooperate. Near constant rain throughout the weekend prevented me from getting out and creating the images I had in mind. However, there was a brief clearing in the weather for Saturday afternoon and I snapped a few shots of the lighthouse. For this shot I used my trusty Canon 6D with my 17-40mm F4 "L" series lens. I also used a circular polarizer mounted to my lens with an additional 10 stop neutral density filter in front of that. I really wanted to capture the effect of the wind on the grasses and clouds and I achieved an rather nice capture of that. I at first groused to myself a little bit when the gentlemen in the photo wandered into my shot, but I realized that I rather like his presence there, taking in the view of the ocean and the lighthouse. He also lends a needed sense of scale to the building as well. I shot this at ISO 50 @ F14 for 25 seconds. The lens was set to a focal length of 32mm. Once I got it into photoshop, I corrected the slight keystoning effect on the lighthouse to make it look 'correct' (as opposed to wide on the bottom and narrow at the top. I then separated the foreground, including the lighthouse, and adjusted the curves to brighten it up a little. I also added a little bit of dehaze filter, and bumped up the saturation a bit as well.

Mt. St. Helens and Milky Way 1:57 a.m. July 3rd, 2016

Taken from the Loowit Viewpoint on the way to Johnston Ridge.

Canon 6D

Rokinon 14mm F2.8

ISO 3200, 30 sec. exposure at F2.8

This was a tough one for me. I had to setup quickly to get shots between rolling banks of fog that would come in suddenly, completely obscure the entire scene, then just as quickly pass through. Fortunately I snagged this shot as the last clear window of weather presented itself. I stayed until morning hoping to get a shot of the wonderful wildflowers on display with the mountain in the background, but the fog was completely socked in until at least 8 a.m. when I finally left to drive back home.