Narrows in the Making by Mike Diaz

5 questions about this photo:

Q1. What equipment did you use?
Canon 5DmkII, 24-105mm f/4L, Manfrotto 055CXPRO3 tripod, Really Right Stuff BH-55, B+W Kaesemann Circular Polarizer

Q2. What settings did you have on your camera?
1 sec @ f/18, ISO 200, 50mm

Q3. What software did you use during the post-production?
Adobe Camera RAW imported into Photoshop CS4

Q4. What is the location?
This is along the iconic hike to the Subway in Zion National Park (Utah, USA), about 4 miles in, and just before you reach the Subway proper.

Q5. How did you come up with the idea of this shot?
This is a shot that has been done many times over by every photographer that embarks on this hike. That being said, I included more leaves than I've seen in many other compositions since I really liked how they stood out on the highly saturated red rock. I also cooled the white balance a bit on the water to provide a great contrast to the warm rock and leaves.

Extra Q: Please share an interesting or funny fact that happened while working on this photograph.
Along the trail, I had been collecting colorful fall leaves so that I would be able to use them to my greatest advantage once I reached some of the places I wanted to shoot. Turns out every photographer has probably heard the same advice I did, so once I made it to the crack there was already a plethora of great leaves...so many in fact that I actually had to remove some to keep the composition from becoming too busy.

Sea of Fog at Acherlipass by David Kaplan

5 questions about this photo:

Q1. What equipment did you use?
I used a Nikon D700 with attached Nikkor AF-S 24mm f/1.4G lens and a Feisol carbon tripod.

Q2. What settings did you have on your camera?
Because it's an HDR there were taken multiple exposures. So overall exposure time was around 800s. Aperture was wide open (1.4) and ISO speed was set to 1000.

Q3. What software did you use during the post-production?
First step: Nikon Capture NX2 to convert the RAWs to 16bit TIFFs after white balance and CA correction. After that all the images were processed with my self-developed neoHDR software which combines all images including the moving stars and creates a non-tonemapped HDR. This HDR image was tonemapped in Photomatix. After that I used Lightroom to fine tune the result and finally I added a little glow in Photoshop to pop out the sea of fog a little bit more.

Q4. What is the location?
The image was taken at Ächerlipass near Lucerne in Switzerland. It was the highest open passroad at this time of year.

Q5. How did you come up with the idea of this shot?
Taking landscape pictures at night is one of my favourite subjects. I always wanted to shoot a sea of fog, lit by a city underneath. I waited for months until the weather finally became like this.

Extra Q: Please share an interesting or funny fact that happened while working on this photograph.
The clouds down the other valley, which is not visible on this picture, growed very fast. At the time I drove up the passroad with my motorcycle there was only a slight haze down the valley. Only on hour later there was a huge sea of fog only a few meters below me. A few minutes later I was completely lost in fog and could barely see my hand. The weather in the mountains can change very quickly.

Kinderdijk by Eddy Blokhuis

5 questions about this photo:

Q1. What equipment did you use?
Canon 50D, Sigma 10-20 mm, B+W ND110 filter, tripod and a a canon remote-control.

Q2. What settings did you have on your camera?
Exposure 180 seconds (3 minutes), Aperture f/20.0, Focal Length 10 mm, ISO 100.

Q3. What software did you use during the post-production?
Photoshop CS4

Q4. What is the location?
Kinderdijk, the Netherlands.

Q5. How did you come up with the idea of this shot?
This is a touristic area in The Netherlands, and lots of shots have been taken here. But I wanted to be original and different!

Vestige décoloré by David Keochkerian

5 questions about this photo:

Q1. What equipment did you use?
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24mm f/2.8D + Hoya ND400 filter

Q2. What settings did you have on your camera?
I took 3 photos at different exposure time, in order to make a DRI (digital increase range)
24mm - f/8 - 100 iso - 2, 4 and 8 seconds

Q3. What software did you use during the post-production?
DXO for my raw converter and Photoshop CS5

Q4. What is the location?
It's the "Pointe du Hourdel" Beach in Somme, France

Q5. How did you come up with the idea of this shot?
I saw a shot of this place by one of my flickr contacts. On the day of my shot the wheather was so bad - with rain and wind!!!!!!!!! Perfect for a dramatic shot in a historic place.

Untitled by James Gallimore

5 questions about this photo:

Q1. What equipment did you use?
Canon EOS 5D MARK II with Canon 17-40mm f/4L lens.

Q2. What settings did you have on your camera?
77 seconds, f/6.3, ISO 200, 17 mm.

Q3. What software did you use during the post-production?
Photoshop was only used to cloned a signpost out of the picture, no other adjustments were made.

Q4. What is the location?
It's an old red phone box in rural Cheshire, UK.

Q5. How did you come up with the idea of this shot?
I've been shooting phone boxes at night for years, there's something incredibly surreal about the effect their lights create.

Extra Q: Please share an interesting or funny fact that happened while working on this photograph.
This shot was actually a test shot for something more complicated I was working on, but the lighting effects I was trying just didn't work as well with the subject. I just left it naturally lit and I'm incredibly happy with it.

Penmon Point Star Trail by Kev Lewis

5 questions about this photo:

Q1. What equipment did you use?
Canon 5D MkII and Canon 24mm f1.4 MkII lens. The camera was powered by an external 12v battery which also powered the dew control heating tape wrapped around the lens to prevent the lens misting up (but the heater died after an hour so I had to regularly check for any condensation on the lens)

Q2. What settings did you have on your camera?
10 second exposures at f2.8 @ ISO 1600 continuously for 6 hours.

Q3. What software did you use during the post-production?
The final result was 2016 images captured on a 64Gb CF card. I also shot 20 dark frames with the lens cap on to use for noise reduction. The raw files were converted to 16-bit tiffs in Capture One Pro. The tiffs were then individually checked to remove any aircraft trails, about another 6 hours work.

Startrails.exe was then used to compile the 2016 images and 20 dark frames to produce a single tiff file. The composite image was finished in CS5 ready for printing and display.

The computer used runs Windows 7 64-bit on an i7 system with 2 x 200Gb solid state drives for temporary working space, 24Gb of 1600Ghz ram and 4 x 2Tb drives for local storage.

Q4. What is the location?
Penmon Point on Anglesey in N. Wales, UK

Q5. How did you come up with the idea of this shot?
The idea was to take the next step up in star trailing. Most trails are maybe 1 or 2 hours maximum so I was aiming for as long as possible, i.e 6 hours from sunset to sunrise.

Extra Q: Please share an interesting or funny fact that happened while working on this photograph.
While the camera was shooting the sequence I was wandering around the beach taking pictures and generally enjoying the night when I almost fell over a seal that had come up onto the beach to have a nap. I don't know who was more scared, the seal or me, from the smell I think it was probably me! :)