granny wrote:
I have been following this thread and decided to respond.. Hopefully with some positive input (I don’t want to be Killed!)
The only people I put in killfiles are those that just toss juvinile insults with no attempt to actually have an intelligent conversation. Nobody that writes this much could fit that description… 🙂
1) What could I have done better/different in the camera? Given the conditions,
what would you have done different?
I don’t know about your 5d but most SLRs have bracket capabilities If not then I would have done it manually or use the bracket setting using aperture priority at the smallest opening possible, for landscape DOF. In my day it was F64, Now I understand you have F91 with the right lens..
The 5D is a top-of-the-line 10MP canon. It has every feature I can think of wanting to use. And yes, it has bracketing. Many of the shots taken that day were bracketed, and occasionally I used one of the edge exposures. In this case, I thought the exposure was correct though.
Get off automatic because each snap might be at a different focus or exposure… bracket a minimum 3 shots, I write down the exposure settings for at least the sky, the highlights, and the shadow areas for use post shoot.. I usually do brackets of 5 to 7 and the only change would be shutter speed… Focus and everything stays the same because it is on manual and a sturdy, heavy duty tripod.. I bracket because I like the HDR look and feel of landscapes and I sometimes use the different exposures in Photoshop to just to bring out a certain part of a photo that would have been lost or blocked out with just one shot..
I agree, and did that on a lot of shots for that reason. This particular image did not have a dynamic range sufficient to benefit from a HDR treatment though.
btw, when I say I do that on shots, I mean that I bracket with the intent of doing HDR. To date, I have several HDR shots that seem technically good to me, but none that are worth showing anyone else. I think I have the technical aspects down, and am now keeping my eye out for some scene(s) where HDR will add the punch to make the image something I want to show off.
When looking through the lens.. be the camera.. look at the background, subject, the entire field contained on the viewfinder.. form your picture there, do not take a snap to be fixed later in Photoshop, Proper Setup saves hours later.. Did you notice the different textures to the right of the bush and the rose flower looking colors in the shadow area there?
Yeah, I remember those lessons from wwwaaayyy back in the 70’s when I was last active in photography and had a bedroom converted into a darkroom.
Sometimes I feel blind as a bat though. Even studying the image now (it is my desktop image at the moment), I don’t see the rose looking colors you are referring to…? 🙁
You captured the reflection very well but disregarded the sky and background..
Actually the camera image had a lot more sky. There is no interest in it though, being a cloudless day. When I looked at the image, I decided to crop that down, to focus on the tufa and its reflection.
I know several people (including you) have said to get low, and I will definitely keep that in mind next I am there. However, I really wonder if the reflection would have lost its impact in doing that, since it would have been squashed by the new angle. I won’r really know for sure till I try it.
For the background, I didn’t see anything I could do about it. This is a low lake, surrounded by hills. There is no angle that would not include the hills. To the right is another tufa. In fact, you can see it if you look closely in this image. No angle gives just this one alone without bringing other junk into the background.
fwiw, I have searched the web and found a few other shots of this same tufa. They have "something" I don’t, but I can’t put my finger on it. However, they all have the same hills in the background.
there were also many other possibilities to shoot, at
least 500 according to you, so you may have had tunnel vision while you were composing as you were running out of time..
For clarification, that was 500 shots over the weekend. There were about 15 shots of this particular tufa as sunset approached.
Then again you may have
done everything perfectly right but just didn’t have a good photographic day.. in that case I would say Practice, practice, practice.. nowadays anyone can take a technically good picture.. but a photographers eye is all about composition first and lighting second or visa-versa
Yeah, I have been telling my wife that for years. She is a natural artist, while I am a natural engineer. She can shoot wonderful images, but have no idea how the camera works. On the other hand, I can teach a class on how cameras work, how aperture, shutter speed and ISO interact to affect the image, etc. I don’t have that artist touch to add to the technical knowledge to bring it all together into a Wow! shot though.
She insists I can learn it though, so I have started this venture. figure I have around 30 years or so to see if she is right. 🙂
Lighting and composition can be very subjective topics.. Some like dark shadows and contrasty highlights others want to see in the shadows and have muted highlights, Some want the subject centered and prominent and others swear by the golden triangle or thirds as you can tell by the discussion of your horizon, sky and water placement in your pic.. In the end… Tis up to you!
I am still trying to find "my style" here. I rather like the idea of concentrating on HDR and panoramas, but don’t yet have a single result in either category that I would want to thrust on anyone. Again, technically good, but boring…
I understand you were going for the reflection and ambiance of the onset of evening but after getting your picture into photoshop there were a bunch of possibilities and for me none of which involved the reflection .. I was looking for a good crop to make the pic POP and to me the cropping situation was limited by the composition and placement of all the different areas of interest.. So, I submit the following: Pic #1:
http://img152.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cropshadowhighlight gr7.jpg
That is REALLY GOOD! This is an example of where I looked at the picture and never even saw that possibility.
As
a real quick fix I cropped out most of the reflection and focused on the tufa and looked into the shadows using Image> Adjustments> Shadow/Highlight at default settings.. Masked and brought the highlights on the tufa back down to almost normal then darkened the background and sky a bit
Pic #2: http://img152.imageshack.us/my.php?image=defaulthdrncropqk4. jpg
I don’t like that one quite as much. As you say, entirely subjective, and of course you were trying for HDR with only a single image to work from.
I do now see the rose colored texture you described above though. I was totally blind to it till seeing this treatment!
Dang, Do I hear that Kill File door slamming on me!!
Whyever would you think that? Your suggestions are good, your images are good. More to the point, you are trying to help instead of just trying to a bully in the playground putting down anyone else trying to learn.
Here are a few good references to get you back into the photographic groove :
http://www.dimagemaker.com/specials/fototips.php
http://www.fredmiranda.com/
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/
http://www.naturephotographers.net/articles0807/cn0807-1.htm l
http://www.naturescapes.net/072006/rh0706_1.htm
http://www.dptutorial.com/
http://photoinf.com/
http://news.deviantart.com/article/36626/
Already running late. Your comment screamed out for me to respond right away, and now I’m going to miss a meeting I set up at work. Will read those a bit later. 🙂
Thanks again for taking the time and effort here!
—
– Burt Johnson
MindStorm, Inc.
http://www.mindstorm-inc.com/software.html 
