Like almost anyone in Milwaukee, I love shooting at the Milwaukee Art Museum. We have a family membership, so I have more opportunities to shoot inside, too. My son and I went last week, and I set up on my Platypod MAX with a 24mm PC-E tilt/shift.
The Platypod is great for getting super-low angle shots like this. I had envisioned the blurred people, so I was shooting with a 6-stop ND filter, about .7 seconds.
The Final. Processing in Capture One Pro 12.Reuben helping out.
This building is the gift that keeps giving. What are your go-to places to photograph? Leave it in the comments.
Designed by Fitzhug Scott-Architects, Inc. of Milwaukee and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill of Chicago, and completed in 1973, the four story MGIC headquartersbuilding is constructed in a unique inverted pyramid design, with each floor extending fifteen feet out from the floor beneath. It is one of several buildings on the MGIC Plaza overlooking Red Arrow park in downtown Milwaukee.
This photograph was a single ten second exposure, taken on a Nikon D850 at ISO 100, 24mm PC-E tilt shift lens at f/8, and processed in Capture One Pro 11 and Adobe Photoshop (removed a security camera near the roof). Using the color editor in Capture One I was able to tone down the yellow cast in the building from the lights.
Gear and software mentioned (some affiliate links):
Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in Wauwatosa, WI.
Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in Wauwatosa, WI. The church was designed by Wright in 1956, and finished in 1961, about two years after Wright’s death. While departing from the traditional Byzantine architecture common in Greek Orthodox churches, Wright incorporated the domed structure and traditional colors into his design.
This photograph was taken well into nautical twilight, about 45 minutes after the sun set. It was taken with a Nikon D850 at ISO 100, a 24mm PC-E lens at f/5.6, on a 3 Legged Thing Winston tripod. It is 3 exposures, 1.6, 6, and 25 seconds, and processed with Aurora HDR 2018.
Gear and software mentioned (some affiliate links):
The Quadracci Pavion of the Milwaukee Art Museum, designed by Santiago Calatrava.
Nikon D100, my Nikkor shift lens. 6 second exposure at ISO 400. Aperture was not recorded, most of these were shot at f8 or f11. Raw processing in Capture One.
Downtown Milwaukee at night from the Milwaukee Art Museum. The foreground is the bridge from the Santiago Calatrava designed Quadracci Pavilion.
Nikon D100, my Nikkor shift lens. 10 second exposure at ISO 200. Aperture was not recorded, most of these were shot at f8 or f11. Raw processing in Capture One.
Installation of a car literally wrapped around a pole by artist Dirk Skreber outside the Milwaukee Art Museum, part of which is visible in the background.
Taken at night with a tripod mounted D100, my Nikor shift lens. 4 second exposure at ISO 800. The lens does not record EXIF, most of these were shot at f8 or f11. Raw processing in Capture One.
One use of tilt-shift lenses is creating composite images. Panoramas are pretty common, and rely on taking images with the lens shifted right and left, as well as a center image if needed, and compositing them in Photoshop or a similar program. Since the sensor plane does not move, the perspective stays very even across the image, preventing some of the weird corners and bends that a moving camera panorama can create. The disadvantage is that the shifted panoramas can not take in the 180+ degree views that moving the camera can.
This picture, taken at The Basilica of the National Shrine of Mary, Help of Christians, at Holy Hill, is my first attempt at creating a composite image from four images. The four corners are individual images that were joined in Photoshop. The lens was shifted, rotated to four of the corner stops on the lens, with a four second image taken at each stop. I processed the RAW images in Capture One, exported them as TIFFs, and composited them in Photoshop.
I think the next multi-story composite I try will be at least 5 images, with a center and 4 corners. Due to the distortion of the lens, some of the elements in the center needed some special care to get them to line up correctly.
Camera was a Nikon D100, 28mm f4 PC-Nikkor lens, processed in Capture One and Photoshop.
