Rustic Murrumbidgee

[Octane]

I went shooting with Barry Armstead again this morning...

I made this image during the Golden Hour on the Murrumbidgee River towards the Point Hut Crossing in Canberra. The photo was taken about 4-5 minutes after local sunrise, but, the beams of the sun hadn't started striking out over the horizon at the time, and so the area was still relatively dark.

Another image where I've processed the single RAW file for detail in foliage and fluid highlights, and the image proper.

Slightly higher resolution available here (http://users.tpg.com.au/octane2/rm.html).

Canon EOS 5D Mark II, Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM
2.5s f/22.0 at 40.0mm iso100

Comments, critique, etc., most welcome.

Regards,
Humayun

[Liz]

Thats beautiful Humayun :thumbsup:

[Lumen Miner]

Very nice image indeed! :)

Can I ask, with out giving away your secrets.... When you say "where I've processed" are you referring to individually sharpening objects for detail etc? What I mean is, do you clone / burn /add to the image in anyway? Are you adding extra highlights or just improving the ones present.

I only ask because often when heavily processing an image, I am tempted to add an extra highlight or something no camera would catch, because it wasn't there. I tend to regress at that point, because I start seeing it as a painting which I can manipulate to my pleasure. I regress because I get urked that I am playing "God" so to speak with the image...

Just wondering how far your "processing" goes. I am guessing from what I have learnt from you, is that you would not go as far as adding "extra" highlights, just interested.
I would also be interested in hearing about this "Golden colours" you, were talking to Baz about. It it a filter set in PP?
Thanks mate and great image once again.. :)

[danielsun]

Very nice work there H.:thumbsup:


Cheers Daniel.

[bloodhound31]

I snapped this one while you weren't looking.....:D

I was very unhappy with all of my shots. I think I will trash the lot of them. There might be one or two worth playing with, but that kind of defeats the purpose of getting it right in-camera.

Humayun I went for a drive back to Wood park up there again today mate and walked in the creek all the way from there up to the falls. There are a lot of pretty little places in there so I am ready for an evening shoot any day now.

Baz.

[Octane]

Liz,

Thank you. I'm really quite pleased with the way this one turned out. I knew what I wanted to capture when I was there after a few test shots around the place and stuck with it until I got what I wanted. :)



Mitchell,

Thanks for the compliment, cheers.

You're very close to the mark about the processing. I never add or remove things. I try, whenever possible, to avoid anything which is going to detract afterwards and make me want to take a cloning tool to the image. Sometimes you have bits of stray grass or whatever that is safe to remove without ruining the photographic representation.

More specifically, when I mention that I've processed an image twice, or three times, all it means is that I've usually taken the RAW file and underexposed it or overexposed it and layered in just the part which wasn't exposed correctly in the "original" exposure. If that makes any sense. :)

So, for example, in this image, the shelf of water to the right was too bright in the original exposure. There was no reflected sky detail whatsoever. I dropped the exposure by 2/3rd to 1-stop and it provided just enough detail that I could easily mask it in without it looking like it had been faked.

I almost always dodge and burn to highlight particular areas or to increase local contrast. Nothing major, though; I typically set the brush to a very low opacity (typically below 10%) because you can always go over a region as many times as you like until you bring detail out or burn it away. I almost always make sure my brush softness is set between 50% and 100% -- it depends on the surrounding areas and how delicate they are.

I, too, had the same thoughts as you about image processing until I woke up to myself and realised that even the great masters did all types of wonderful processing tricks. The only difference was, they did it in a darkroom. We do it on computers. The sooner that you can accept that, the sooner your images improve. Remember, photography is an art, and, not a science. There's no prizes for taking a photo straight from your camera and uploading it to the web as is. Yes, you try and get it right within the camera as best as you possibly can at the time of exposure so that your time in post processing is minimised, but, there's absolutely no reason why you shouldn't use the powerful software that you have at your disposal to create art.



Daniel,

Thank you, glad you enjoyed it!



Barry,

Sneaky! :) Thanks for taking that photo, though; it goes to show just how beautiful a morning it actually was. If only those fiery clouds were a little closer to where we wanted them...

Your stomp through the reserve sounds wonderful. Glad to hear you've found some more locations. How about tomorrow evening?



Thanks, everyone.

Regards,
Humayun

[Lumen Miner]

Interesting! Thanks for sharing. :)
I am still learning, to blend different exposure images, to create a well lit one. I think, that is my issue I'm trying to expose for the whole shot, which leaves the image drab. Using a the technique you mentioned, I can see how selective items would bring out /make the details "POP" as yours do.

I'm going to go back over a few older images and have a crack... Thanks.

[Octane]

Mitchell,

Yep, it's sometimes quite difficult to capture the entire dynamic range in a scene, and, so methods such as dodging, burning and exposure blending come to very handy tools.

It's HDR, but, done properly.

H