Journeys

My favorite people often carried a camera with them, which got me intrigued. I bought a Nikon D40 in 2007 which got me started in the craft. Over years I mostly stuck with street photography. But around 2014 I took a bigger step to take up the craft a lot more seriously.

I planned solo photographic trips which required a lot of planning ahead of time. Pretty much optimize your schedule so that you are the location during the golden hour. For these trips I tend to carry as much less as possible. Sony A7Rii, a 16-35 lens and a tripod is pretty much everything I need.

I carry about 6 Sony batteries because they drain so fast. But the RAW data that the sensor captures is just gorgeous. I tend to break down my composition into multiple pieces. And I shoot one bracket for each piece to get the best out of it. Usually one bracket for the sky to capture the best dynamic range, another bracket to get a sharp image of the foreground subject and another optional bracket for any long exposure elements like waterfall / river / moving traffic.

The A7Rii raw files are about 40+ MB. They have ton of data in them. I start by adjusting base exposure on all the brackets and export them into photoshop. I mask out the parts from each exposure and make one comp. This is usually lowering highlights from the blown out sky and tweaking some colors to look it more appealing. During this process I might apply contrast curve on individual elements and tweak them to make them look more natural. Once I have the comp, I apply Pro contrast on the complete image and sharpen the focus areas. 

For a work flow like this you need a sensor which can capture a huge dynamic range from the scene. Sony cameras excel at dynamic range. The ability to shoot S-log and color correct later is awesome.

Sony is innovating the entire mirrorless industry with 5 axis image stabilization and I cannot wait for the next iteration of the alpha series.