Fiery Sunset

[Nikolai Sklobovsky]

The wilderness next to Pyramid and Casitas lakes next to Hwy 5 has being on fire for several days now. This weekend started Santa Ana winds, which brought the fires much closer to us. Being very unfortunate, as any fire is, it also delivered some unique sunset colors for yours truly...

Path to sunset:

Tall grass at sunset:

Fiery Sunset over Ventura County:

Moorpark hills on fire:

The rest is here:
http://nik.smugmug.com/gallery/1899633

When the life gives you a lemon - make a lemonade!

 

[Asher Kelman]

You are a busy camper, Nikolai. These fires are so impressive and frightening. It must have been tough to breath near there! I'm coughing just looking at the pictures.

What lenses were you using?

The skies eat up lenses!

Good work! I'm going back tp all the other mages on smugmug!

Asher

 

[Nikolai Sklobovsky]

I didn't plan to go originally, but at 6 pm I looked outside the window and saw that all-so-unfortunately-familiar bright golden light, which could mean one thing only - some big fire is close enough and the sunset could get more dramatic than usual. So I grabbed my backpack and my tripod - and off I went.

It also gave me a chance to explore my new location a bit further than usual, I hiked about half a mile further than my original "vista point".

I was using EF 70-200 f/2.8L IS USM (+ TC 1.4) and EF-S 17-85 IS USM, initially handheld, then on a tripod and on remote trigger.

Thanks for looking!

 

[Martin McLean]

Some of these would make a good candidate for a HDR image. Would love to see more detail in the foreground (#3). Great captures.

-M-

 

[Nikolai Sklobovsky]

Martin,

Some of these would make a good candidate for a HDR image. Would love to see more detail in the foreground (#3). Great captures.

-M-

Thanks!

Speaking of #3.. It was rather easy for me to get all sorts of details over there (as in many others), but it was my intention to diminish the ground (to a certain degree) and emphausize the skies.

HDR... What you see is, in fact, a result of a post process similar to HDR, just without it
HDR itself does not always help, and in many cases makes for very flat-looking images. So I opted for the full manual post process, I hope I made the right choice...

Cheers!