St Petersburg Skyline

My friend, Frank, and I went to The Pier in St Petersburg last week to try to capture the sunset over the St Petersburg skyline. We didn't get a lot of clouds, but the color was awesome.

This is one of our favorite haunts. We go up to the 5th floor observation deck where Cha Cha Coconuts restaurant is and shoot to our hearts content. The best thing is the wait staff will serve us out on the deck.

This is one of my favorite images from the shoot. It was shot using my Canon 20D with an 18-55mm lens. I usually don't shoot this skyline wide angle, but for some reason, I decided to give it a try and I like the results. Settings were 1/40th at F4.5 aperture, -1/3 stop eV, in aperture priority mode and average metering at ISO 400 at the 18mm focal length. I chose these settings because they're a little different from my normal settings and was looking to shoot this differently than I usually do.

I've been striving to capture images differently than what I usually see looking for the creativity in my vision. I'm very happy with the results.

Cloudscape

This one's for my friend, Jim. I know how much he loves cloudscapes. I saw this one last night on my Newbie Meetup. We were walking through the park and the clouds just started to come in.

I spotted this one and for once didn't play the walk-up shooter. I actually walked around looking for the best vantage point to shoot it. Most of the time, I see something, shoot it and walk away, satisfied. I've been trying to slow down and actually look for the shot. I think I got it this time.

I had to shoot this one just right because there were a lot of trees in the way. I first thought about shooting it between the trees, but they just didn't look right. Maybe since I'm teaching this group, it's making me slow down as well. I need to practice what I preach.

This was a straight shot in the camera. It was taken just before sunset in aperture priority mode at F5, 1/2000 sec, ISO 400, -1/3 Ev at 55mm with partial metering directly off the sky.

In post-processing I darkened the blue a little bit and added saturation. I also darkened the tree on the right side. Nature did the rest.