It’s been more than three years since I last visited Cuba. When I realized that so much time had passed, I knew I had to act fast.
I booked a ticket and, in less than 24 hours, I am leaving for Cuba.
I ventured deep into my Lightroom catalog and found this unpublished and unprocessed photo from my last trip to Cuba. Like a blast from the past, the featured photo from three years ago made me realize that I was still shooting with a Canon and that the PhotoTraces blog did not yet exist.
The featured photo also reminded me of the reason I switched from Canon to Sony. I completely forgot how noisy the RAW images from my old Canon 60D were and how narrow the dynamic range of the Canon sensor was.
Shooting
The main challenge here was the lack of space on the beach. It took me quite some time to figure out the best spot from where I could capture an interesting composition. Using a tripod, I shot in bracketing mode. The advantage of shooting with the Canon was my access to the endless features of Magic Lantern, the free firmware add on. Although I love my Sony, I still miss the Magic Lantern.
- Camera: Canon 60D
- Lens: Sigma 10-20
- Focal Length: 10mmShooting
- Mode: Aperture Priority (A)
- ISO: 100
- Aperture: F16
- Shutter Speed: 1/20s
- Bracketing: 3 (-1, 0, 1)
- Tripod: FEISOL Tournament CT-3442
- Ballhead: FEISOL CB-40D
Processing
I was shooting at the widest possible focal length of 10mm and, because I wanted to capture the beauty of the sky, I pointed the camera up. The result was this image with a prominent vertical distortion.
I fixed the vertical perspective with the help of the Crop Overlay Tool, the Lens Correction Tool, and the Transform Tools.
From there it was a straightforward Lightroom Rapid Editing. I applied the Natural preset from Landscape Collection first, then I used TOOLKIT to boost the contrast and the colors.
The Lightroom Editing Formula: Natural (1, 9, 13, 16, 32)
Photoshop: color correction, contrast. I also used the Content-Aware Fill tool to fill up the gap created by the Transform Tools at the bottom.
Photoshop Plugins:
- Topaz DeNoise was used to reduce digital noise.
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