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Soldato
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I really love the ones of Yosemite, I've always wanted to go :)

Yeah Yosemite was a bit "hit and miss" for me, it's SO BUSY, honestly - the main areas like tunnel view, glacier point and stuff are just so busy - it ruined the initial experience for me. That area of the park was mostly one big traffic jam, people in huge SUVs who can't drive, or park - endless coach fodder, really not a nice experience really.

However

If you venture out away from those areas, to places like Tuolumne meadow, or do any of the hikes around that area - it's actually fantastic, hardly anyone hikes so once you're away from the main areas - it becomes a much better experience, If you do ever go - I'd recommend doing research to look for places away from the main areas that are hikes, like parts of the john muir trail and stuff - far better.
 
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Yeah Yosemite was a bit "hit and miss" for me, it's SO BUSY, honestly - the main areas like tunnel view, glacier point and stuff are just so busy - it ruined the initial experience for me. That area of the park was mostly one big traffic jam, people in huge SUVs who can't drive, or park - endless coach fodder, really not a nice experience really.

However

If you venture out away from those areas, to places like Tuolumne meadow, or do any of the hikes around that area - it's actually fantastic, hardly anyone hikes so once you're away from the main areas - it becomes a much better experience, If you do ever go - I'd recommend doing research to look for places away from the main areas that are hikes, like parts of the john muir trail and stuff - far better.

yeah I can imagine traffic would really ruin it :( ahh that sounds lovely though, and I really love hiking so that would be perfect :) thanks for the tips!
 
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Nice morning down at Durdle Door today, looked as though it was gonna be a fail due to cloud and I almost went to do something else, then the cloud dropped and I got the coveted "sun through the arch" shot, and wet feet !

I got 4 that I felt were quite nice, struggling to pick my fave though probably the first and third would be my picks,


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Made a big decision to move from Medium format digital, to a Sony A7R III, it was a toss up between the D850 and the A7R III, but for me - there's no SLR wide-angle lens on the planet, as good as the new Sony 16-35 GM, it is a phenomenal lens - easily on par with digital medium format tech camera lenses - maybe not quite as much resolution for a big sensor, but on the whole it is in a different league to any other SLR lens I've owned (lots)

Going through images I took with my £7500 Rodenstock Digaron HR, now looking at what I've taken with the 16-35 GM and I'm thinking "really???"

I also love the fact that my kit weight has gone from about 30lb down to about 6lb, I'm pretty fit - but there have been times in the past where I've simply not been able to a spot in time, or it's half killed me due to the weight - life is so much easier now,

I'm currently in LA again on business, but I thought I'd go on a quick overnight trip to the Alabama hills to have a crack at Mobius Arch near Lone pine, only a few people there this morning, made life a lot easier - I'd like to go back in June when the Milky way is visible;

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Nice morning down at Durdle Door today, looked as though it was gonna be a fail due to cloud and I almost went to do something else, then the cloud dropped and I got the coveted "sun through the arch" shot, and wet feet !

I got 4 that I felt were quite nice, struggling to pick my fave though probably the first and third would be my picks,
/QUOTE]

Lovely shots mate!
 
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Pretty tired today, went for a long hike in Zion Canyon, I got a permit for "The Subway" which is an amazing 10 mile canyoneering hike, quite difficult - lots of wading back and forth through the river, scrambling over boulders and splashing into deep pools for most of the day, sat in my Motel exhausted right now - was well worth it though, "the subway" itself, is incredible...

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@Screeeech

Typically what do you tend to adjust for such images screech in acr/lightroom and then PS or the like for your images? They seem fairly balanced and life like whilst still being enhanced.

Thanks, I had a number of comments from other people on other forums asking how I process images, I really don't do much to them at all. I shot film for a long time so I got used to getting things right in camera, when you shoot film you have to understand exposure perfectly, with digital cameras it's about knowing the sensor and the light. I'd say the biggest thing I learnt is holding off taking any shots until things are perfect, then get the longest exposure possible to the point where I'm just starting to clip highlights, by shooting manually and checking the histogram - I know from experience how much I can claw back with the recovery slider, depending on the sensor.

The second thing I learnt is that less is always more when it comes to processing, people may disagree - but photographs that see too much processing - even if it's done by someone who's "pro" at processing, tend to look artificial and end up looking a bit off, I literally process the bare minimum, my workflow looks like this;

Capture one;

1> When I take the shot memorise how it looked (sounds obvious, but it really matters for white balance)
2> Apply lens correction profile
3> set the white balance to match my memory of how it looked
4> Recover any highlights just to the point where they're no longer clipped
5> If any shadows look underexposed, push them slightly - but only slightly, pushing shadows too much can make the picture look like Crysis, rather than a photograph
6> Apply a slight colour balance tweak, depending on the shot - for the above shot I added an ever so slight green/cyan balance, (but ever so slightly, so it's almost unnoticable)
7> Apply a very slight S curve, being careful not to push the shadows down again
8> Before uploading the pic anywhere, check it on an iphone - an image can look great on a nice calibrated Eizo monitor, but often look all wrong on an iphone or tablet, which is how most people view images these days :)
9> Finally - a weird one that helps; view the final image at a very small size, for some reason I find it easier to notice things that are wrong with a small image, than a large one (especially composition) but that might just be me :)

Sometimes I export it to photoshop to do the final resizing and maybe some sharpening, as PS is great at those.

That's about it!
 
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@Screeeech

Thanks for the advice. It's a similar process to what I expected given the images. I think a lot of people including myself go on holidays away and can come back disappointed with the results as they simply didn't have the time to photograph scenes at the right time, or for long enough. Landscape scenes are so heavily reliant on this that it seems to take a while to understand that if your raw photo isn't right to begin with, no amount of processing is going to make things right. I almost think now I'd be better off going away alone sometimes purely for photography so you can please yourself and you're not then kicking yourself for missing opportunities due to others :D
 
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Soldato
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Spent the last couple of days at Petrified forest national park in Arizona, it's in the middle of nowhere - but very cool, enormous fossilised remains of a gigantic prehistoric conifer forest, huge chunks of petrified wood all over the place, some are amazing - like rainbow coloured, all sat among colourful layered mesas. The modern day equivalent would be the rainforests of Costa Rica.

Unfortunately the park is very heavily regulated, due to people stealing the petrified wood (a slice of this stuff polished up, can be turned into an amazing coffee table and sell for as much as $10k+) as a result the park is only open 9-5, however I was lucky enough to get a backcountry camping permit, so I camped out in the wilderness then trekked back early morning, to shoot some spots I'd marked on a GPS the day before,

I took an assortment of compositions I'd scoped out the day before, really like this place - the colour of the mesas only really shows up properly about 30 mins before sunrise, once the light gets bright - the subtle tones disappear,

A7R iii + 16-35 GM

(look closely and you can see the rainbow patterns in the logs)

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I thought I'd use this thread as a sort of running blog for my photos, I do mostly Landscape and Architecture with a Phase One setup, I used to shoot large format but quit a couple of years back when they stopped making Velvia, so just moved to technical medium format (Cambo WRS-5000 with a Phase one IQ260 ) mostly for the quality of the lenses and movements, which I was well practised with from 5x4,

Been out quite a lot in the last week, I did a couple of quick trips down to the coast - just mainly getting used to this new kit, ahead of an 8 day trip to Lapland next week to try and focus on the Northern Lights and frozen trees :)

Feel free to comment, or just ignore me :D

Beachy Head last week

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London Bridge last week,

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Durdle Door this morning,

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Enjoying this picture. Durdle Door? Anyway, looks great.
 
Soldato
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Thanks!

Yeah Durdle Door for sure!, it's pretty hard to do much else down there, every inch of the place has been photographed to high heaven, but it's always nice to spend an early morning down there, !
 
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Hit a project milestone last week so decided to take a last minute break, drove 750 miles yesterday to northwest Scotland, not far from Durness, pretty tired.. Was a nice evening last night though, so I went down to one of my favourite beaches, the colour of the water and sand down there combines to make this awesome turquoise blue colour, you also get it around the Isle of Harris beaches too, when the sun goes down it looks so dreamy..

Gonna head out for a hike later, then I might go to Harris tomorrow or Wednesday and car-camp, high winds tomorrow 40mph gusts, so I might go Wednesday but we'll see :)

A7RIII / 16-35 GM, 6 stopper + 0.9 hard

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