Location: Cowee Mountains Overlook, Milepost 430.7 on the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina
Crepuscular rays form for a brief moment.

Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark III
Lens: Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM
Focal Length: 35mm
ISO: 100
Shutter: 1/200 – 1/100 – 1/50 – 1/25 – 1/13
Aperture: f/11
Filters: B+W Polarizer
Exposure: Manual
How I Got This Shot: I drove past here earlier and went to Looking Glass Rock Overlook, but it was mostly in fog, so I came back and parked here and waited. I saw the clouds setting up when the sun went behind and got this. In about 15 seconds it was gone. This is 5 bracketed frames (1 stop exposure increments) merged into a 32 bit HDR TIF in Adobe Photoshop CC, then adjusted in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5.

The camera was on a tripod. I used a cable release and mirror lockup for the exposures. The lens was on manual focus (MF) and I focus in Live View with the lens aperture at f/2.8 on Aperture Priority (Av). I magnify the view to 10x and pick my desired area to focus. Once it’s set, I close LV and put the camera back to Manual mode (where f/11 is set). This way I don’t have to dial my aperture back and forth. Everything stays put and I’m ready to go.

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Location: Cowee Mountain Overlook – Milepost 430.7
Clearing skies lead the way to to a nice sunset.

Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark III
Lens: Canon EF TS-E 17mm f/4L
Focal Length: 17mm
ISO: 100
Shutter: 1/15
Aperture: f/11
Filters: None
Exposure: Manual
How I Got This Shot: I used a tilt-shift lens shifted up to show mostly sky. By doing this rather than aiming the camera up, it avoids keystone distortion and keeps the view looking natural. I use this specialized lens for architecture, but it’s also great for landscapes.

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Date Taken: 05/11/2014
Location: Caney Fork Overlook – Milepost 428.0
Clearing storm clouds at sunset

Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark III
Lens: Canon EF TS-E 17mm f/4L
Focal Length: 17mm
ISO: 100
Shutter: 1/100
Aperture: 8.0
Filters: None
Exposure: Manual
How I Got This Shot: I leveled my camera with the built in level on the rear LCD and then used my rise shift function on the lens and included more of the sky in the frame.

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Date Taken: 05/19/2014
Location: Waterrock Knob Overlook Milepost 451.2
Sunset framed between the trees.

Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark III
Lens: Canon EF TS-E 17mm f/4L
Focal Length: 17mm
ISO: 100
Shutter: 1/25 – 1/6 – 0.6
Aperture: f/11
Filters: None
Exposure: Manual
How I Got This Shot: I used the rising shift function on my lens to get more sky and less foreground. Then I set the camera to bracket just 3 frames because of the speed of the moving clouds. The exposure bracket of (-2, 0, +2) was merged to a 32 bit HDR TIF in Adobe Photoshop CC and then final processing in Adobe Lightroom 5.4. You don’t realize how fast clouds move until you try to blend them!

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Date Taken: 05/11/2014
Location: Cowee Mountains Overlook – Milepost 430.7
A telephoto view of just before sun reappeared under the clouds at Cowee Mountains Overlook.

Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark III
Lens: Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM
Focal Length: 70mm
ISO: 100
Shutter: 1/50
Aperture: f/4.0
Filters: None
Exposure: Manual
How I Got This Shot: I leveled my camera’s horizontal axis with the built in level on the rear LCD. I use a tripod and a cable release with mirror lock up to calm the vibration before exposing. I also use Live View in Aperture Priority at f/2.8 (wide open) to focus at 10x magnification, then switch to Manual exposure mode to shoot.

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Location: Cowee Mountain Overlook – Milepost 430.7
Mountain layers at twilight.

Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark III
Lens: EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM
Focal Length: 130mm
ISO: 100
Shutter: 2.0 sec
Aperture: f/8.0
Filters: None
Exposure: Manual
How I Got This Shot: I used a tripod and cable release along with mirror lockup to reduce any vibrations. There was a flashing light in the right center area that I wanted to capture, so I made sure I caught at least one duration of it while my shutter was open. I though as small as it was, it still added a focal point in an otherwise sea of blue mountain layers.

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Location: Cowee Mountain Overlook – Milepost 430.7
Overcast skies that opened up later for sunset.

Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark III
Lens: Canon EF TS-E 17mm f/4L
Focal Length: 17mm
ISO: 100
Shutter: 1/30
Aperture: f/11
Filters: None
Exposure: Manual
How I Got This Shot: While getting setup in the afternoon for sunset, I just took this as an exposure test. I got back to the computer and thought it was worth processing. I generally use a tripod and cable release with mirror lockup to ensure that there’s as little vibration as possible.

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Date Taken: 09/04/2013
Location: Milepost 432
Fire On The Mountain – Storm clouds clear as the setting sun illuminates this scene from the Blue Ridge Parkway in Western North Carolina.

Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark III
Lens: Canon EF TS-E 17mm f/4L
Focal Length: 17mm
ISO: 100
Shutter: 1/80
Aperture: f/8.0
Filters: None
Exposure: Manual
How I Got This Shot: I had been driving around looking for some interesting light, but everywhere in the vicinity up near Richland Balsam was getting flat from thick clouds. So I was drove downhill and came upon a clearing. I setup my tripod and composed my lens with the shift in the upward position to get more sky and less foreground, then shot the changing cloud formations over a 20 minute period. This shot was 15 minutes into it. I have several others to choose from, but I liked the composition of the clouds and how the sun was diffused without being completely blocked.

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Location: Graveyard Fields – Milepost 439.0
Fall Colors on 2013-10-13

Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark III
Lens: EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM
Focal Length: 102mm
ISO: 400
Shutter: 1/25
Aperture: f/5.6
Filters: B+W Polarizer
Exposure: Manual
How I Got This Shot: This was just shot from the parking lot in mostly overcast/cloudy light. There was one patch of brighter cloud coming thru, which modeled the scene a bit more. Tripod, electronic cable release, mirror lockup, and live view focus on the bright yellow tree. RAW exposure processed in Adobe Lightroom 5.

I hiked to the upper falls for the first time after I shot this, but most of the color appeared to be already fallen.

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Location: Sunset at Blue Ridge Parkway Milepost 432
2013-08-20 Clearing Storm at Sunset.

Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark III
Lens: Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM
Focal Length: 16
ISO: 800
Shutter: 1/50
Aperture: f/8.0
Filters: None
Exposure: Manual
How I Got This Shot: It was a wild ride with fleeting and ever changing light, rain, mist and fog, from the moment I entered at Route 23/74 to Pounding Mill and back. I just missed a brilliant rainbow by seconds, sun would peek thru for milliseconds and you had to be in the right place at the right time. Many times I wasn’t. I wish I had used a tripod for this image to get registered bracketed exposures at 100 ISO, but I jumped out of the car and shot handheld frames. This was the last exposure and then I drove off into more fog and mist.

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