Sunset at Pennybacker Bridge
A lovely sunset at my favorite sunset spot in Austin…
My favorite sunset spot in Austin, and just a few miles from home. Doesn’t get easier than that! I went up here recently, just to get out and shoot a few. I didn’t bring a bag full of gear. Just one lens on my camera and a tripod. No filters, no video equipment, nothing else. It was incredibly peaceful and relaxing to just stand there, take in the view and shoot. Luckily the sunset sky was cooperative, too!
The best place to shoot sunset in Austin
Looking out over the 360 Bridge at sunset - my favorite sunset spot in Austin!
I just love shooting sunset at the Loop 360 Bridge - it's a great view! I head over here a LOT to shoot the sunset, and always walk away happy about it. The view is fabulous, being elevated and all that, plus you have the gorgeous Pennybacker Bridge and even passing traffic to shoot. Yes, traffic can be a good thing, at least if you are shooting long exposures. :-)
Sunset at the Loop 360 Bridge
A lovely sunset at my favorite sunset spot in Austin…
My favorite sunset spot in Austin!
I love shooting sunset here, I really dig the view and sometimes you get some amazing light, too. I was there recently and it was one of those great nights. The light was gorgeous and my photos came out really nice. I have quite a few I will be sharing but this first one is a 3 exposure HDR taken right after sunset. Enjoy!
Light trails at the Loop 360 Bridge
A long exposure of the Loop 360 Bridge in Austin taken at sunset...
Just a quick post today - this is something I shot a while back but hadn't gotten around to sharing it here until now. I was standing on the rocks up above the Loop 360 Bridge here in Austin. It's a great shot for this type of shot, and this bridge is probably my most-photographed spot in Austin. It helps that it's gorgeous, and just 5 minutes from home!
Sunset at my bridge
My favorite spot for a sunset in Austin...
My favorite spot to shoot sunset in Austin - the Loop 360 Bridge!
I love standing up here and shooting sunset. Even if the sunset light isn't too great, the view is fabulous and you can always stick around for some long exposures during blue hour. In this case, the sunset light was pretty dang nice so I was pretty happy about that.
Loop 360 long exposure
A long exposure from the Loop 360 Bridge in my hometown of Austin...
I will be up here photographing this again tomorrow night - thought I should share something from my last visit up here!
This may be my favorite spot to shoot in Austin. I love this bridge, and doing long exposures here is quite fun, especially if you get a decent sunset sky. This was taken a few months back - can't remember when, exactly - but I was up here alone and happily firing away. I was also using my Vu Filters 10 stop filter, which is a magical piece of equipment. It's basically a solid black piece of glass that goes in front of your lens, extending exposure times considerably. So much fun. I think I will have to break that bad boy out again tomorrow!
You can find this spot and many more to shoot in Austin on my list of the best spots to photograph in Austin. Give it a look!
Long exposures at the Loop 360 Bridge
A pair of long exposures from the Loop 360 Bridge in Austin
I've grown to love long exposure photography.
Sometime last year, I got a set of filters for my Sony camera. It's the entire Vu Professional Filter Kit, and it's absolutely amazing. In particular, I have fallen for the 10 stop filter. It's basically a nearly black piece of glass, which means you have to have a really long exposure in order for enough light to get through and make a photograph.
So all you do is set your camera in Bulb Mode (most cameras will top out at 30 seconds as a maximum exposure time setting - in Bulb Mode you can go much longer) and go for it. It's really quite easy. The only hard part is having to wait for several minutes to see what your photo will look like! The waiting is the hardest part, as the song goes.
When I got the filters, I went out to the Loop 360 Bridge here in Austin (it's near my house, and a lovely subject anyway) and fired away. The benefit of the long exposure is that is smooths out the clouds and the water and they look at awesome. It's fun!
A long look at the lights
Shooting a long exposure of the Loop 360 Bridge in Austin, with the passing cars blurring out and just leaving light trails. That's a good way to spend an evening!
My friend Mike Boening was in Austin a few weeks back, and he wanted to get some shots of our sorta famous bridge. It's name is the Pennybacker Bridge, but everyone here calls it the Loop 360 Bridge since the road there is called Loop 360. It's a popular spot for photographers and non-photographers alike, especially around sunset.
Most folks clamber up to the viewing area at the top of the ridge on the West side, but we opted to avoid the crowds and headed up the East side. In fact, Mike recorded the climb up and you can see that video here. Although I love the big tree on the West side, in many ways I prefer the view from this side, at sunset at least. It allows you to capture the bridge with the passing lights from cars, as well as a view up the lake towards where the sun is setting.
This photo is a single exposure, shot at f/22 for 30 seconds. It was nearly dark and of course we were shooting the light trails, which is a popular option up here. There is a stop light a few hundred yards out of frame to the right. All you do is wait for the light to turn green, and the accumulated traffic to start moving, and then time your shot to start right before they enter the frame. Easy as pie, lots of fun, and you get a nice photo when you're done!
Testing the Sony A7II camera
I recently bought a new camera - the Sony A7II. It's incredible, and I am having a lot of fun with it. Here are a pair of pics from a recent test shoot in Austin. Oh, and I tease you a little about what I did last week. Enjoy!
Well, I bought a new camera. :-)
I don't like to think of myself as a "gear guy", at least not in some terms. But in other terms, I do recognize and respect the capability that some gear can provide to you.
After a lot of internal debate (and more than a little soul searching) I recently decided to give up my Olympus camera system and have in it's place purchased the Sony A7II camera. It's a fabulous system (as was the Olympus, to be fair) and I didn't give up Olympus because of any issue in particular. It was more of a sense of wanting to go back to full frame, but retain the benefits of mirrorless. So here I am with Sony, and I love it.
I enjoyed the Olympus quite a bit, but decided that I wanted to return to using a full frame camera, and this particular Sony model just felt right. I wanted the larger sensor for better low light performance and I had read so much about the amazing dynamic range of the Sony cameras. I guess I was just too curious to wait any longer. It really feels like Sony is doing something here, and I wanted to partake.
I will admit that I was getting a little bothered by the noise levels I was getting in some Olympus shots, especially as I raised the ISO when shooting handheld in low light (which I found myself doing a fair amount). It was correctable in post (and I did correct it), but it was getting to me a little bit. Having shot full frame in the past (I used to shoot with a Nikon D700 full frame), I knew the bigger sensor would just handle it better.
And for comparison purposes, the full frame sensor is nearly 4x larger than the micro 4/3 sensor of the Olympus. That's sayin' something.
So, I got out recently in Austin to take a few test shots with the Sony (which are the two pics you see here today), because I spent last week in Europe and wanted to make sure I had a handle on how to use the Sony properly for what I wanted to do.
Which reminds me - I had some fabulous adventures in Europe last week, and you will be hearing about that soon! I spent a few days in Stavanger, Norway (my first visit to Norway!) and was able to get out and hike and explore a nearby fjord - twice! From there I hopped over to Aberdeen, Scotland (my first visit to Aberdeen though I have been to other parts of Scotland many times). It was lovely and I shot a ruined castle on the coast - yeah, it was awesome. So that stuff is coming soon. And I captured all the glory of both spots with my Sony full frame camera - fun!
For now, I hope you enjoy these two pics from Austin, the first being a single long exposure and the bottom photo being a 3 frame HDR photo. Both taken with my new Sony camera. More soon!
Sunset at the Loop 360 Bridge
Sometimes it pays to drive 5 minutes from home, instead of flying halfway around the world. You can find great stuff to shoot close to home, too!
Close to home, and great to photograph!
I love to travel and take photographs of far away places - it's a real passion. But I am equally thrilled when I can drive 5 minutes from home and find compelling subjects to shoot. It's certainly quicker. :-)
This was a recent shoot here in Austin. I could see a decent sunset coming together, so I grabbed the gear (my Olympus OMD EM-1) and took off to fire a few.
Many times I head to the well-known overlook area which sits high above the bridge and gives a commanding view. But on this evening, I chose instead to go down below the bridge and wander that area. I hadn't been there in a while.
The fun thing about mixing things up is that it causes you to think differently about a subject. You can't just go into auto-pilot and start shooting. You have to find new ways of looking at something you have seen and shot a million times before.
So I just wandered down below, firing this way and that, from the side of the bridge and under the bridge, looking for angles that aught my eye. And of course, I turned west at some point and caught the dramatic light as the sun faded away. That's a requirement you know!
Sunrise in Austin
Luck comes in pretty handy sometimes, especially since we can't control the weather! I showed up here one morning just as the light got perfect - I love it when my timing is good!
Sometimes you get lucky and show up at the perfect time!
I shoot a lot, especially when I travel, and though I get my fair share of good luck, I have plenty more photos that you will never see here on the blog, because they are just not any good. That happens - we all take duds.
And sadly, that happens a lot of the time. We go out to shoot, and we are ever hopeful, but most times we are disappointed by the light and the clouds (or lack of both). The photos are just flat and lifeless, and no amount of post-processing can take a crappy photo and make it better.
So when you show up at one of your favorite places, and the light is spectacular and stays that way long enough for you to shoot to your hearts content, well, that's just a special morning. That's the stuff we live for. That's what makes us crawl out of bed in the darkness and stumble out the door. That's our beautiful reward.
Testing Olympus at the Loop 360 Bridge
I bought a mirrorless camera - oops!
Haha, I will be back later with some more details around this whole mirrorless thing, but I did pick up a new Olympus OM-D EM-1 which is a radically awesome little camera. Despite the small size, it packs in a lot of awesomeness.
And since I have this new toy, I have been trying to find some free time to shoot and give it some practice in the field, so it can get used to living with me. So far, so good. We are getting along just fine. :-)
On two separate occasions, I have zipped over to the Loop 360 Bridge to fire some test shots. Both of these were relatively quick trips, but gave me some time to get familiar with the camera while shooting at a place close to home. My thinking was that if I screwed something up, at least it wasn't a big trip somewhere exotic.
Anyways, so far the camera is doing great, and it's actually causing me to re-think a number of things I have been doing with the Nikon over the last several years. I like that. I will write about that later.
So, here are some shots I grabbed over the last few weeks at the Loop 360 Bridge in Austin. It's my favorite spot to shoot in town, and it's close to home, so that pretty much makes it a perfect spot!
Thanks for stopping by today!
Sunrise over Loop 360
Though I don't often get up and shoot sunrise, I sure do love it when I do.
Shooting first thing in the morning is just awesome. In addition to getting great light a lot of times, I find that choosing to be creative early has a positive affect on me that carries through the whole day. I am more awake and excited, even if I have sacrificed a little sleep. Plus I get to look forward to downloading the photos later and seeing what I captured - that's always fun!
A few weeks back I got out early (but not too early) with the plan of grabbing some shots here at the Loop 360 Bridge at sunrise. The previous day had some great clouds, and the weather forecast looked like more of the same for this day, so I was hopeful that I would get something of interest in the sky. Clear blue skies are great for picnics, but terrible for photography (at least in my opinion).
Though I didn't make the actual sunrise here, when I showed up it was full-on awesome and I immediately set up and started firing away in every direction. When the clouds are interesting and that rising sun is hitting them just right, you have to capitalize on it!
And just for fun, here is a "behind the keyboard" view of the photo as I was processing it in Color Efex Pro. This is a 7 frame HDR, merged in Photomatix, and as you can see from the below I then added a few filters in Color Efex Pro to finish it off.
Pennybacker sunrise
Two of my favorite things: sunrise light and the Pennybacker Bridge!
This is the Pennybacker Bridge in Austin, which is commonly known as the Loop 360 Bridge, since that is the name of the road that crosses it. The other name of the road is Capitol of Texas Highway, which reminds me that if you ever come to Austin, be aware that we have at least two names for every major road. I don't know why that is, but I'm pretty sure it involves alcohol. :-)
Anyways...I am sure you have seen at least 20 million photos from this spot, because everyone takes them from here when they come to town, and locals like myself just love the place. It's like going to London - everyone knows you are going to take a photo of Big Ben. You sorta have to. It's the famous thing to shoot.
So yep, this isn't new in any sort of way, and I am ok with that. I just love standing up here with the sun shining on me and a slight wind blowing, watching all the cars pass this way and that. It feels like you are on top of the world. Everyone below is scurrying to and fro, and you can just relax up here, take some photos, and breathe. It's pretty awesome.
And that tree! I don't know how it keeps hanging on, but it does. Hang in there baby!
Merry Christmas from Austin, TX
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from Austin, TX!
Just wishing you and yours a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from my hometown of Austin, TX. No, it's not snowing here right now. That would be pretty cool though, huh? I know I would love it.
Nope, these are from a few years ago when we got a little snow, and I ran around like crazy to take some shots, knowing it wouldn't last...and it didn't. But I did get these!
Hope you enjoy your holiday, and I will be back in a couple of days with more photos from my travels. Thanks for stopping by!