magical pic H. I'm wondering what filter did you use to soften the sun.
Humayun was using one of his multiple Cokin filters at the time I recall - it was still dark so I couldn't see what he was doing too well.
Im pretty sure that he did, because here's one of mine - without filtering, straight off the camera and downsized. The sun was beautifully soft that morning, but it is more prominent in mine than his. Cokin filters are on my list now.
IMHO, and it is only mine, although it is a great scene, and obviously well taken i think you have lost the impact factor by over processing, it, to me it seems a bit artificial, and plastic looking.
Sorry, but you said criticism was also welcome, and i don't mean to offend, but it is not one of your better ones,
IMHO, and it is only mine, although it is a great scene, and obviously well taken i think you have lost the impact factor by over processing, it, to me it seems a bit artificial, and plastic looking.
Sorry, but you said criticism was also welcome, and i don't mean to offend, but it is not one of your better ones,
Leon
Not sure that it's processed too much after the capture stage at all Leon. He's very good at filter selection and use. I know Humayun and he hates processing post-camera beyond the minimalist necessities - but goes to great lengths to make sure the light we wants going into the camera is what he is after first - a real pro at it too. Straight into DPP, basic tweaks such as white point adjustment, sharpening and not much more. The scene was just like this that morning. Surreal and misty. Quite beautiful!
Cheers, sir. Yep, the scene has a few dynamic elements, which is something I strive for. Dynamic landscapes always beat static ones, hands down. The things I like is the motion of the waves across the right frozen, the misty spray throughout the centre of the image, and the final touch -- the splash towards the bottom left. Dynamics.
Quote:
Originally Posted by multiweb
Looks great. Very dynamic picture and awesome colors. Even the sun light looks like raining down to the water and the waves rising. Excellent timing.
Tony,
Appreciate that. Might enter this one, then?
Quote:
Originally Posted by firstlight
Another stunner Humayun. IMHO this is one "out of the box".
Daniel,
Glad you liked it!
Quote:
Originally Posted by danielsun
Stunning!!!
Shane,
I used a 3-stop hard step GND (bit like an ND9(?) if we were using that particular terminology).
Quote:
Originally Posted by suma126
magical pic H. I'm wondering what filter did you use to soften the sun.
Zane,
I have my own high-end large format (24" wide) Epson professional printer, that just about prints on anything, including canvas. And, with the Epson inkset and the particular paper that I use, it is rated for 200 years framed behind the right museum glass when kept out of sunlight/humidity.
In the coming few months, I will offer a service to IceInSpace members who wish to take advantage of my gear, to have their own images professionally printed, packaged and sent back, at a very affordable cost. Whether it's astrophotography, terrestrial, or human images, doesn't matter.
I am a perfectionist when it comes to anything I do, so, my customers can also expect the same! I don't intend to make bucketloads of money out of this opportunity, but, rather, to give something back to my friends here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by astroboy
Hi H
Nice shot , who do you get to do your archival printing ?
I think filters and processing of a terrestrial photo are not unlike boosting saturation or DDP on deepsky objects. It's meant to embellish the original and emphasize the parts of the pictures the author chooses to. Maybe because it's terrestrial it's more obvious because these sceneries are familiar and we can pick up what's been enhanced more easily but still there's a lot of lee-way for artistic licence. Personnaly I like saturated shots with controlled highlights and real vibrant colors. If the end results makes me feel like I'm there or provokes an emotional response then the shot works.
Chris is right, I was using one of my GNDs. In this case, a 3-stop hard-step. I love the hard-step filters for this kind of imaging with a flat horizon where there aren't obstructions.
Cheers, Chris! Look forward to you processing yours, too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Omaroo
Humayun was using one of his multiple Cokin filters at the time I recall - it was still dark so I couldn't see what he was doing too well.
Im pretty sure that he did, because here's one of mine - without filtering, straight off the camera and downsized. The sun was beautifully soft that morning, but it is more prominent in mine than his. Cokin filters are on my list now.
Leon,
No need to apologise at all, kind sir! Not every image is to everyone's tastes, and, I appreciate you saying so!
However, I must reply.
Would you believe that there is the very bare basic processing applied in this image? Chris can attest to that because he saw me polishing my images on my MacBook Pro when we got back to his place. My processing involves distortion correction, and disabling vignetting correction (I really love dark corners as it helps to frame the image by drawing the eye into the middle) and, it's just a bit of a cool effect overall. That's the first step out of the way. The second step is to sharpen the RAW and apply the appropriate white balance setting. Auto white balance sometimes gets it right, but, where there's scenes with lots of dynamic range and bright lights and soft lights, it often gets it wrong. Fixing the white balance also has the added bonus of often warming up the scene or cooling it as all colours in the image are shifted appropriately.
The scene here is also warmed as I was using a circular polariser to help cut the glare off the water on the rocks in the foreground. This helps to add a little flatness to the image but at the same time helps to pronounce the sparkle on the edges of the rocks. The sparkle would otherwise be lost in the glare coming off the brightness in the rocks in the foreground.
Slight levels/shadows and curves adjustments are then made to slightly bring out the whites and darken the blacks, without losing detail in shadow regions.
Lastly, we are so used to seeing images taken during the daytime where the sky is often over-exposed to account for exposing the foreground. To this end, as mentioned above, I use neutral density filters which hold the sky back, and allow you to expose correctly for the foreground. In this instance, perhaps the sky is just a tad too dark, and could have been brightened by using a softer filter. However, personally, for me, it works, because we get to see the beautiful glow around the sun. Normally, you would expose for the foreground, and then use the appropriate stop filter to expose correctly for the sky.
Example:
Your foreground object exposes correctly (0 EV) at a given f/-ratio and ISO value, at 4 seconds, but, your sky exposes correctly (again, 0 EV) at 0.5 seconds. That means, there are 3 stops to account for:
0.5 -> 1
1 -> 2
2 -> 4
You would then whip out your 3-stop filter, and expose correctly for 4 seconds, but, the sky would be held back as if you were exposing it for 0.5 seconds.
In recent years, you would have noted the HDR craze which tries to mimic in software, what neutral density filters have been doing for 30 years or more. It's a lazy way of trying to capture a large dynamic range in a scene, but, it doesn't work. That, looks fake. Check out the I Hate Your HDR link in my signature to see what I mean. The images on that blog could have been decent images but were ruined by being run through the clown vomit filter that HDR is. This is just my opinion.
My personal feeling is that this is one of the better images I've taken. As I was saving the file in Photoshop, I pressed 'F' and hit Tab to hide the menus/bars, and just admired it on a black background. I can't wait to print it!
Quote:
Originally Posted by leon
IMHO, and it is only mine, although it is a great scene, and obviously well taken i think you have lost the impact factor by over processing, it, to me it seems a bit artificial, and plastic looking.
Sorry, but you said criticism was also welcome, and i don't mean to offend, but it is not one of your better ones,
Leon
Chris is right, I try to avoid spending hours processing images. Better to get it right in the camera and make fine adjustments afterwards, than to get it wrong first and then spend all night trying to fix it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Omaroo
Not sure that it's processed too much after the capture stage at all Leon. He's very good at filter selection and use. I know Humayun and he hates processing post-camera beyond the minimalist necessities - but goes to great lengths to make sure the light we wants going into the camera is what he is after first - a real pro at it too. Straight into DPP, basic tweaks such as white point adjustment, sharpening and not much more. The scene was just like this that morning. Surreal and misty. Quite beautiful!
Jeanette,
Thank you.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jjjnettie
Beautiful!
Thanks everyone for your interest.
H
Last edited by Octane; 14-05-2011 at 12:55 PM.
Reason: s/approprately/appropriately/
I like the image H - a slow enough shutter speed to show some movement of the wave splashing against the rock, but fast enough to maintain chop in the water.
I can see what Leon is meaning when he says "plastic" though. We were discussing this at the photography workshop I was at recently. An ND grad filter to yield correct exposures for the sky and foreground tends to reduce the contrast in the image - which can give the plastic look.
I know you hate HDR H, but this is which is essentially what you are achieving by using an ND grad, albeit via another route. We are stuck with the dynamic range of our camera sensors being less that the dynamic range of our eyes.
I bought a set of Cokin Filters and found they weren't clear enough for my liking - I always thought the images were smokey, so I sold them. My tactic is now to shoot two exposures and blend them in photoshop with a graduated layer mask. In the attached images, I combined the first two images to make the third.
DT
Last edited by DavidTrap; 14-05-2011 at 12:53 PM.
Reason: added images
I have mentioned a few times, even in my astrophotography threads, that I am a fan of low contrast images. I /like/ seeing shadow details. If I process to allow contrast, and then bring up shadow details, to me, that looks unnatural. Horses for courses, though.
And, yep, the whole point of using ND filters is to increase the dynamic range in the image. And, this is, as you mentioned, what HDR software tries to do, but, it doesn't get it right. I'd much prefer to do something in camera than let software deal with it afterwards. Of course, I blend images, too, when required, using masks, as you've also mentioned. This is just another way of increasing dynamic range, however, you, as the processor, have control over its strength and where/when you wish to apply it. Unlike HDR.
Cokin filters are at the bottom of the neutral density filter pile. They are not neutral, and, sometimes, it even says so on the package. Cokin's have a nasty reputation of adding magenta casts throughout the entire image. In the end, you get what you pay for. But, having said that, I still have to deal with nasty reflections every now and then. This is where the method of blending becomes a god-send. Nowadays, particularly with the lattitude that RAW provides in post, you can effectively use the one image and double-process it. This is also something I do every now and then when required.
Agreed the Cokin filters are "entry level" filters. I'm not a fan of software HDR either, hence why I do the manual combine. I enjoy the post-processing manipulation of images, and find the filters cumbersome to use in the field - it's also another couple of hundred dollars tied up in gear.
You replied before I could add the images to my earlier post (had to shift to a different computer). The third image I have posted definitely has lower contrast, but at least you can see detail in the shadows. As you say, the art is to make any processing of images look "natural".
DT
Last edited by DavidTrap; 14-05-2011 at 01:01 PM.
Reason: added a bit
Thanks H for a very beautiful picture and a most informative thread for a newcomer to the DSLR world. I am not familiar with graded ND filters but can see their benefit from this thread. I can also see that there would be times when a mask would work better eg where the subject crosses the horizon. If Cokin filters aren't that great, what brand would people recommend?
I am also very interested to hear how little processing went into this image and find that quite inspiring, especially if this is your rule of thumb Humayun as I am very much a fan of your pictures.
Like Patrick, I've really appreciated reading a bit about the thought and technique that goes into a magic image like this. I just love it BTW - surreal and wonderful. It makes you yearn to be there.....
There's two types of filters, well, three. But, the two main ones are hard step and soft step. The hard steps gradate very quickly in the centre in a band about 5% the length of the filter. These are great for clear horizons or if you have obstructions, you can still use them. Just take two shots and blend in the obstruction from the shot without the filter. The alternative is to use soft step filters. These gradate from the centre to the edge in a soft fashion. So, you still get the full effect of the filter at the top, but, less of an effect in the middle -- great for mountains or features on the horizon in the image.
There's also nothing stopping you from stacking filters. I've done this many times. So, if my sky was six stops over-exposed, I'd stack two 3-stop filters together to produce the same result as one six stop filter. Anything more than 3 stops, and the filters get really expensive. Like, $200+ per filter.
Brands like Lee and B+W will do you well, and, they're not horrendously expensive. I think it's quicker to purchase Lee filters from the UK than from local outlets. They usually don't have 'em in stock. Ask Troy, he spent months waiting for his, from memory.
You can also use the Cokin filter holding system (a somewhat universal system) and plonk the filters in place. The filter holder attaches to the front end of your lens. Use Live View or look through the viewfinder to place them appropriately. I have never used a filter holding system and much prefer to hand-hold as I can slightly dither the filter during exposure to lessen hard edges that may potentially appear in long exposures.
The whole point about using appropriate filters, in the right kind of light, is so that you don't have to spend ages in post processing. A few simple adjustments and you have yourself an image worthy of printing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Paddy
Thanks H for a very beautiful picture and a most informative thread for a newcomer to the DSLR world. I am not familiar with graded ND filters but can see their benefit from this thread. I can also see that there would be times when a mask would work better eg where the subject crosses the horizon. If Cokin filters aren't that great, what brand would people recommend?
I am also very interested to hear how little processing went into this image and find that quite inspiring, especially if this is your rule of thumb Humayun as I am very much a fan of your pictures.
Rob,
Thanks, mate. Appreciate your kind words.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RobF
Like Patrick, I've really appreciated reading a bit about the thought and technique that goes into a magic image like this. I just love it BTW - surreal and wonderful. It makes you yearn to be there.....
