Friday, May 14, 2010

Hello from Nik Summit in San Diego!

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Hammock enhanced with Color Efex's Skylight Filter
Canon 1D Mark IV – 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM – f/2.8 @ 1/1250 at ISO 160

I’m down in San Diego for the next few days attending the Nik Software’s first ever photography workshop called Nik Summit. I’m here along with 250 other attendees, all of the Nik Software team, and some photography gurus like Tony Sweet, Rick Sammon, Robert Beck, Vincent Versace, and Joe McNally. The weather is 72 degrees with not a cloud in the sky and the Hilton San Diego Resort and Spa has fantastic location right on the water. Lots of great stuff to come for sure.

Photowalk Photos

I decided to take a tour of the grounds this evening. Here are the photos that I took that I thought you might enjoy seeing. All but one of the photos in this article were enhanced using Nik Software’s Color Efex and Sharpener Pro.

Here’s the beach a about 1 minute away from my room:

Enhanced with the Tonal Contrast Filter in Color Efex
Canon 1D Mark IV – 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM – f/2.8 @ 1/3200 sec at ISO 100

I thought this motorcycle looked cool, despite being dirty. A little Nik love hid the dirt and made it look pretty cool:

Tricked out with Tonal Contrast in High Pass Mode in Color Efex
Canon 1D Mark IV – 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM – f/2.8 @ 1/500 sec at ISO 100

These flowers are all over the place here, so I had to take a shot of one. This one is especially nice because the flower didn’t have a bunch of funk on it like most of the others. I didn’t do any cloning, healing, etc… on this shot – just some Nik Color Efex love:

Enhanced with the Skylight Filter in Color Efex  
Canon 1D Mark IV – 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM – f/2.8 @ 1/800 sec at ISO 100

Just as the golden hour was beginning I captured this shot here. Using the partial metering on my camera I got a perfect exposure in camera, and the version you see here is 100% unmodified from the RAW that I took. Well, Lightroom does some default RAW processing, but I personally haven’t done anything to it.

 Actually I lied, this is unprocessed and straight out of the camera
Canon 1D Mark IV – 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM – f/2.8 @ 1/3200 at ISO 200 (no post-processing)

This shot needed a little love from Viveza to get the flower from being so shady and the foliage filter in Color Efex helped to make the colors pop a bit better.

Enhanced with the Foliage Filter in Color Efex & Viveza 2
Canon 1D Mark IV – 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM – f/2.8 @ 1/640 at ISO 100

This is the first “for pleasure” shooting I’ve been able to do with my 1D Mark IV and 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens. Despite using other lenses, all of my favorites came from this lens. All shots were handheld (which isn’t saying much as the sun allowed for crazy high shutter speeds) and there are tons more where these came from. I highly recommend Canon’s latest lens and Nik Software – they make a great team!

Conclusion

It’s too early to tell how the conference will go, and I’m not crazy about the 6:00 AM – midnight schedules, but so far so good. The grounds smell like flowers everywhere, so it’s a lot like being in Hawaii here – just without the heat and humidity! If you are looking for a great place to visit the next time you are in San Diego, I think I’ve found at least one recommendation for you! Stay tuned for more from San Diego!

More Articles from this Event

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1 comment:

Unknown said...

Nice stuff as always! Enjoy the sun.