Weekends seaside shots.

Messiah Khan said:
Shame digital exposures kick up so much noise during long exposures though.
Click to expand...

What do you mean by noise in this context?

Do you mean that a smooth, even surface looks uneven, meaning that adjacent pixels which should be the same colour are slightly different? This effect would cover the entire picture. Similar to the effect that you get when you crank the ISO right up.

Or do you mean that there are occasional "hot pixels". I count perhaps 4 in the FF version of my competition entry, which is a 30 second exposure.

If you mean the second, then I would like you to define "long exposure" and pick a suitable ISO... I would be interested to compare a picture of the inside of the cap on your Nikon with the inside of the cap on my 5D and count the spots...

Andrew
 
Cheers everyone. :)

Panzerbjorn said:
I really like the set MK, Number 7 stands out for me as a stunning mono shot. The contrast and tonal range is amazing. Was there much processing done to that one?
Panzer
Click to expand...

Cheers. Yeah I processed that one quite a bit. Lots of tonal adjustments and colour channel adjustment to get the tones right. then loads of dodging and burning and a fair dose of cloning to get it all to sit right. Im quite please d I got that shot, as I could see the shot potential wit hthe steps and the boat, but couldn't quite visualise the final shot. the boat was also being moved around loads by the sea, so I had to hang onto a fence to stop me falling in the sea and wait a good 10 minutes for the boat to float into position. Im considering using it for my LRPS panel as well.

robmiller said:
I don't like that blue and yellow split-toning is becoming your trademark, because I like doing it too :(
Click to expand...

:D Great combination isn't it. Can't get enough of it now. Ive even saved it as a preset in Lightroom so its only 1 click away.

n30_mkii said:
Not sure what you mean by that? Can you elaborate?
Click to expand...

Shot 7 and 8 arn't Black and white. I made them black and white, then duotoned them ever so slightly. Ive used a yellow/sepia in the highlights and a blue/green in the shadows to roughly emulate a platinum or similar chemical toning effect.

Gaffer said:
What do you mean by noise in this context?

Do you mean that a smooth, even surface looks uneven, meaning that adjacent pixels which should be the same colour are slightly different? This effect would cover the entire picture. Similar to the effect that you get when you crank the ISO right up.
Or do you mean that there are occasional "hot pixels". I count perhaps 4 in the FF version of my competition entry, which is a 30 second exposure.
If you mean the second, then I would like you to define "long exposure" and pick a suitable ISO... I would be interested to compare a picture of the inside of the cap on your Nikon with the inside of the cap on my 5D and count the spots...
Andrew
Click to expand...

I mean the noise you would get from cranking the ISO up. Due to the sensor getting hot over long exposures, the noise slowly becomes a problem. Ive counted about 3-4 hot pixels so far, but those don't really bother me as I can clone them out in seconds.
 
Messiah Khan said:
Safe_at_home_by_MessiahKhan.jpg
Click to expand...

Admiring this shot again in the comp, you say that it is a panorama of 5 shots.

With a 20mm lens (with crop = 30mm).

Is it really that wide, or is there some other reason that you have chosen to stitch?

Of course, I havn't seen the location, but it *looks* like you could capture it in one frame, maybe 2 at most, rather than 5 x 1 minute exposures.

Andrew
 
Gaffer said:
Admiring this shot again in the comp, you say that it is a panorama of 5 shots.

With a 20mm lens (with crop = 30mm).

Is it really that wide, or is there some other reason that you have chosen to stitch?

Of course, I havn't seen the location, but it *looks* like you could capture it in one frame, maybe 2 at most, rather than 5 x 1 minute exposures.

Andrew
Click to expand...

Well spotted. Origionally it was a 5 image panormama. but in the shot you see posted, I actually cropped about half the image away from the right hand side. So the shot you see is more like 2.5 exposures. The reason I cropped it away was because there were too many streetlights etc, making it looks far too orange and unbalanced the entire shot.
 
I'll go against the grain and say I don't actually like number 1, that's a useless comment though because I can't really put into words why...I think it might be something to do with the 'dullness' of colour to the right, and the overblown window on the left and its reflection. The sky is brilliant but those other things throw the image off a bit for me and make it seem as if it doesn't work as a whole.

I love 5, agree with the comments on 3, and 8; I like your portraits a lot and wouldn't mind seeing a few more. I might have only seen 2 or 3 but they're interesting and capture a story.
 
Messiah Khan said:
Went to Staithes on Saturday and South Gare on Sunday. Managed to get time to process the shots today, so here they are. Hope you like them.
Click to expand...

I was inspired by your use of moonlight - I've been waiting for a clear moonlit night to try this myself.

The light is lovely. Crisp and sharp. It brings out colour in the landscape that you don't see in daylight. The sky takes on an etherial quality. This is my best shot:

Old-man-of-Storr.jpg


The location is the Old man of Storr, a rock formation on the Isle of Skye. There is no light polution so the only illumination at 8:30pm was moonlight and starlight.

The exposure was four seconds with the 85mm f1.2 wide open, ISO 800. It is deliberately underexposed by a third of a stop because otherwise it looks too much like daylight. I wanted a relatively short exposure because the wind was so strong that it was difficult to hold the tripod steady enough - peat-bog isn't exactly a stable foundation.

Andrew
 
I can't honestly say I'm overly keen of any of them to be honest. Seems to me that there's been far too much processing involved. The first would be my favorite but I think the sky is distracting, and the level of noise spoils it slightly.
 
I'm a bit of a purist myself, so unless I'm going for a deliberate "arty" look (and clearly state so) I want my shots to be "out of camera". When noise reduction software is used, toning applied, dodging and burning used, etc, I personally think that's far too much processing.

It's just one of the things that niggle me with digital photography (and I'm not saying you do this) but I hate it when a photographer takes 500 shots of one thing, flukes a good shot then takes praise as if they are a fantastic photographer. The other thing that extremely annoys me is when people process a photo so it looks VERY different from out of camera, don't mention the fact they've done any processing, and take all the compliments from people saying they're a good photographer when most of the work has been done in photoshop.

Again I stress I'm NOT saying you do this (it's just a suitable thread for my rant), but I like to see someone stating from the outset what they've done to a photo, preferably posting the unedited version too like other forums do (mainly by request, admittedly). Long story short is I don't like people that are fantastic at photo editing getting compliments for photography when it's not deserved. There's far too much of it going on at the moment, and to be honest it really gets me down. Proper photographers that do minimal tweaks to photos get outshone by people that are effectively "cheating" by not stating it's not an "as is" shot.

There, that's my random rant for the new year :D
 
Fair enough, and I agree to some degree. (Im a self confessed critic of techniques such as HDR etc), and I also recognise much of my strength lies not in my ability as a photographer, but in my digital skills. However im out to create a piece of 'art', and i'll use any skills or techniques at my disposal to achieve this. Post shot manipulation has been going on since the damn of photography though, so it certainly isn't new. Is Ansel Adams as cheat? He would often spend days in the dark room perfecting a shot with dodging and burning. While I do use a range of techniques to get the 'shot' right (Dodging, burning, cloning and toning etc), a lot of my more successfull shots don't have a huge amount done to them as i'll always try and get it right in camera if possible. If I remember when I get back from work i'll post some unedited shots up and explain what I did.
 
Here you go. These are two examples of my shots containing an average amount of post processing. As you see it isn't actually all that much. I tend to just use some level tweaks, a tiny bit of cloning to 'tidy' the image up, some dodging and burning and some sharpening;

Before;
dsc0186lq7.jpg

After;
All_safe_at_home_by_MessiahKhan.jpg


Before;
dsc00193jb3.jpg

After;
The_setting_of_an_industry_by_MessiahKhan.jpg


Hope that helps.:)
 
Regarding the first, I'd prefer the original if it weren't for the slightly blown-out lights and shining on walls. I like the warmer colours. I'm pretty much the same. A bit of levels tweaking and sometimes a bit of play with shadows in portraits, and that's about it, unless I really want to try to rescue a shot I've messed up.
 
Great shots as usual. You should go travelling for a couple of months around the world and do a picture diary. I bet you would get some wicked shots :)

How do you get some good contrast in the black and white shots you do?
Also, following on from my filters thread. Did you use any for these shots, if so which filters?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom