Posts in Category: Lightroom
10/9/2009
Autumn Angler
I was down at the river looking for a view, when I turned to see this fisherman in the stream. I had only time for one shot before he became aware of me. To me it captures a moment and a feeling. Just enough autumn color to give you the when, and yet a king of timeless quality in the activity. The reflected colors in the water, the little fall behind the fisherman…I could not have posed it better…and yet it just happened. To me those are the best shots!
Sony DSC H50 at 31mm equivalent. F2.7 @ 1/60th @ ISO 100. Programed auto.
Cropped slightly in Lightroom for composition and to eliminate a light sky expanse. Recovery for the highlights in the falls. Some Fill Light to open shadows. Blackpoint to the right very slightly. Added Clarity and Vibrance in the Presence panel and Sharpen landscape preset.
From Fall 09 Maine.
10/5/2009
In China Bay...from China Beach
As I mentioned previously, the stairway down to China Beach was open this year and I was able to climb down for the first time. Amazing place. (See 9/28). This is the headland along the south shore of China Beach with fog rolling behind it.
Sony DSC H50 at 31mm equivalent. F5.0 @ 1/250th @ ISO 100. Programed auto.
Recovery in Lightroom for the fog and sky. A good deal of Fill Light to open the shadows on the rock. Blackpoint slightly right. Added Clarity and Vibrance. Sharpen landscape preset. Cropped slightly for composition.
From Monterey Bay 09s.
10/3/2009
Fog over South Point and Cypress Grove
Like I said…no such thing as a bad day at Point Lobos. Even the fog is epic! This is a shot from the Sea Lion Point trail looking back at South Point and Cypress Grove. One of the classic views at Point Lobos. The blowing fog, moving in across the point, adds some mystery and drama, without detracting significantly from the view.
Sony DSC H50 at 31mm equivalent. F5.6 @ 1/500th @ ISO 100. Programed auto.
Recovery in Lightroom for the fog effects. Recovery, as I have mentioned before, reduces the highlights in the image. In the case of fog, a lot of what you are looking at is scattered light. Recovery removes a layer of that so that you see deeper into the fog, and increases the contrast between light and dark areas within the fog so that it looks altogether more transparent….as it does in real life. Added Clarity and Vibrance in the Presence panel. Blackpoint just right. Sharpen landscape preset.
From Monterey Bay 09.
9/27/2009
Great Horned Owl
My first experiment in RAW (DNG) processing in Lightroom. This is an image from the new Zeiss PhotoScope, a spotting scope with an integrated 7mp camera. It has the option to record directly in DNG.
The owl was a gift. I walked up under it’s tree and took a series of images, then climbed the dune at Pajaro Dunes in Watsonville, CA…which put me right at eyelevel with the owl. I had lots of time to experiment with different camera settings.
Zeiss PhotoScope at 1800mm equivalent. F5.6 (approximate) @ 1/35 @ ISO 100.
In Lightroom, after separating the DNG file from it JPEG mate, I chose the “cloudy” preset for color balance and then made it just a bit cooler. Recovery for the highlights, and then additonal highlight modification in the Levels sliders. Blackpoint well to the right. Added Clarity and Vibrance. Sharpen landscape preset with added Detail. Noise Reduction for both Luminance and Color.
From Monterey Bay 09.
8/31/2009
Road to Dent
On our last day in the Lakes and Dales, we took a drive in to Dent. I say “in to” since Dent is at the end of a Dales road, deep in, with no other way in or out. It is a typical Dales road. If you look at the where the road passes round the barn…or rather between the barn and the fence…you will notice it is two lane. At least it has a stripe down the middle. No way could two cars actually meet at that point. Each side is about 2/3s of a car width and the turn is, as you see, completely blind. And, since it is the only road, they drive full sized delivery trucks on this road, at speed, going into and out of Dent. Several times we were only saved because there was a gap in the stone wall right at the moment we needed it where a gate lead into a field. (The roads in the Hebrides are narrower…actually one lane, but they have frequent pull-outs for meeting cars, and everyone drives them like one-lane roads. In the Dales it seems everyone drives like they are on the motorway.)
Dent is beautiful, quaint, remote and worth the visit, but next time I will take the bus.
Minolta A1 at 28mm equivalent. F8 @ 1/640 @ ISO 100. Programed auto.
Punch and Sharpen landscape presets in Lightroom. Blackpoint to the right considerably, and heavy Recovery for the sky (and even then the lightest clouds are blown). Cropped slightly from the top.
From England 2005.
8/30/2009
Heather on the Dales
Driving north over the top of the western Yorkshire Dales on a moody, dark, rainy day, we came to these fields of Heather…the first we had seen in England. Hours later, after a visit to the town where All Creatures Great and Small is set, we came back over the same road as the weather was breaking and stopped for a series of pictures. I found the stone wall compelling in contrast to the heather.
Minolta A1 at 28mm equivalent. F8.0 @ 1/640 @ ISO 100. Programed auto, tilted exposure to emphasize the sky.
Even with the tilted exposure, which left the foreground too dark, the Minolta’s sensor could not capture the detail in the sky. The original of this looks dark with a washed out sky. Very disappointing.
In Lightroom, after applying the Punch and Sharpen landscape presets, I was able to use Fill Light to restore detail in the foregound and a Graduated Filter effect to bring up the detail in the sky. Blackpoint just to the right. Slight added contrast. A touch of brightness overall. Cropped from the bottom to eliminate a distracting white stone in the wall.
This is clearly an example of software over sensor photography. Still I have to say that the Minolta’s 5mp sensor did capture the detail needed. The internal software simply could not render it into an effective image. Lightroom to the rescue…that is not my style…generally post-processing is previsualized and part of my creative process at the point of capture. The Minolta however, did not lend itself to that process.
Still, it is the final image that counts. And I find this one true to the memory of the day.
From England 2005.
8/20/2009
Walls along the Lane, Above Kendal
From the same walk as the shot from yesterday, just a few yards up the lane. Amazing stone walls in this part of England. The rolling hills, the sheep, the colors, and the sky.
Minolta A1, at 28mm equivalent. F7.1 @ 1/400th @ ISO 100. Programed auto.
Required a graduated filter effect from the top to bring out detail in the sky, and a blackpoint adjustment to intensify the colors, as well as the bulk processing listed yesterday.
8/19/2009
Hills above Kendal, between the Lakes and the Dales
In honor of being in England (where I will not have access to this blog), I will post some images from a trip my wife and took to the Lake Country and Yorkshire Dales in 2005. They were taken with the Minolta A1, perhaps the worst digital camera I have ever used…it had a great lens: 28 to 140mm equivalent as I remember, but the sensor had very limited dynamic range compared to cameras I have owned since. I eventually bought a little 6mp Sony pocket camera and, when I saw the results it produce, stopped carrying the A1 altogether. Eventually there was a recall on the model when the sensors failed. By then my daughter was using the camera, and the sensor failed right after the Sony Minolta deal when service was in limbo. I never did get it fixed.
This is image, on the other hand, is one of my favorites from the camera and the trip. Our first night at a farm house B&B above Kendal at the edge of the Lake District, between the lakes and the dales, we took a walk in the B&B.
Minolta A1, at 70mm equivalent. F7.1 @ 1/400th @ ISO 100. Programed auto.
In Lightroom I preprocessed all the images in this set (>200) as a batch, applying the Punch preset (added Clarity and Vibrance), and the Landscape sharpen preset. I then opened individual images for additional processing. On this one I applied some Recovery for the sky, a bit of Fill Light, and slid the blackpoint to the right to intensify all the colors.
From England 2005.
8/15/2009
Deep in the Green
Emmon’s Preserve, managed by the Kennebunk Land Trust, is one of my favorite places to photograph. It is also one of the most difficult. A river runs through it 😉 under a solid canopy of maples and pines, and depending on the weather can be anything from a trickle down over rocks and through pools to a raging torrent. The light is very tricky. Lots of shadow, from open to deep, and shafts of full sun illumination random patches of vegetation, a rock here and there, and select passages in the stream…often a single curl of water around a stone. It is any exposure system’s worst nightmare. Then too, the light is green in the shadows which gives most white balance automation fits.
And it is beautiful with an almost mystical beauty.
So I go back again and again to try again and again to capture what I see and feel there…with never any more than limited success.
This shot comes from an area of the Preserve I only discovered on my last visit. I don’t know how I missed it all these years, but a side trail loops up over a small ridge and comes back down to the river above the rapids and pools I know so well. This section is quieter, but with its own beauty.
Sony DCS H50 at full wide (31mm equivalent). F3.2 @ 1/60th @ ISO 100. Programed auto with -.7EV exposure compensation to tame the highlights.
Even with the exposure compensation, an image like this requires post-processing. Heavy Recovery was needed to bring out any detail in the brighter areas back among the trees, and Fill Light was needed to open the shadows. Added Clarity and Vibrance and Landscape sharpen.
I have mentioned before that post-processing in situations like this is not used to save an incorrectly exposed image. In the field you expose the image knowing what you can and will do to it in Lightroom. You expose it differently than you might if Lightroom were not available. -.7 EV is not enough to bring out detail in the highlights, and yet it makes the shadows too dark, obscuring detail there. -.7EV is, however, the correct place to begin expanding the dynamic range with the tools available in Lightroom. All but the brightest highlights can be brought back in range by Recovery, and the Fill Light tool does a good job of selectively opening the shadows. You have to know this when making the exposure in the field. In a sense you see the image as it will be after post-processing, and expose for that.
It is easier than it sounds, since, with the EV adjustment, the Programed auto on the H50 produces an excellent, well balanced, beginning exposure. If I ever switch cameras (realistically when I switch cameras) I am going to have to learn to do this all over again.
And Emmon’s Preserve is there, always willing to teach me.
[An expanded version of this post, with more on learning to expose for post, will appear on Point and Shoot Landscape in the next few days.]
8/5/2009
Flood Tide!
Tides continue unusually full along our coast. These pools are rarely this brim full, and rarely so still. It was that kind of morning, and, as you can see, evn the mist had not burned or blown off yet, though the sky promised (and delivered) a clear hot day.
The textures of the grass, brought out by a using a graduated filter up from the bottom to increase Clarity (local contrast) and overall contrast, is as much the subject of this image as the pools.
Sony DSC H50 at full wide. F5.6 @ 1/320th @ ISO 100. Programed auto.
As above, I used graduated filter effects from the top (darken) and the bottom (lighten and increased Clarity and Contrast). Also my standard added global Clarity and Vibrance, and the Landscape sharpen preset.
Something similar:
The Long and Thin of Reflections
Cropped for effect, with similar treatment in Lightroom, except for some added work with the Local Effects Brush to bring up the trees a bit. Again the texture of the grasses in the foreground are important to the image.