Mumbles Head Sunrise

"Paul Saunders" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

In spite of my cold I managed to drag myself out of bed and out into the chilly wind this morning
to photograph the sunrise at Mumbles Head. Here's a few massively over-processed pics to show you
exactly what it didn't look like. :-)

<snipped>

Although some of them look artificial or doctored, I'll think of them as art, they're quite stunning
to look at :-)

KRO

KRO said:

Although some of them look artificial or doctored, I'll think of them as art, they're quite
stunning to look at :-)

Thanks. Nothing you can't do with film though. Velvia and neutral density grads can produce the
same effects.

Paul
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Paul Saunders said:

KRO said:

Although some of them look artificial or doctored, I'll think of them as art, they're quite
stunning to look at :-)

Thanks. Nothing you can't do with film though. Velvia and neutral density grads can produce the
same effects.

Or just bracket a stop and then join after scanning. Much easier than a ND grad.

I must say the first shot of the lighthouse without the sun is quite something.

Quoted message said:

Paul

--
79.84% of all statistics are made up on the spot. The other 42% are made up later on. In Warwick -
looking at flat fields and that includes the castle.

Paul Saunders said:

Mark Cavendish mentioned colour casts yesterday in reference to the Foveon sensor, so if you're
reading Mark, and you aren't sure about Bayer's ability to correct colour casts, just take a look
at this. If it weren't for the ultra-blurred water, you'd think this was taken much earlier in the
day during normal light. Even the pink Beacons boulder clay is correctly rendered. There was so
much blue in the light that I wasn't sure it would be possible to claw the red back, not to mention
the yellow. Thanks go to the raw file once more. wildwales.fsnet.co.ukhf.jpgOpen ↗

Of course I'm reading - if only to look at some nice pics! And don't call it a RAW as its,
presumably, a JPEG ;-)

Mark

Mark Cavendish said:

Of course I'm reading - if only to look at some nice pics! And don't call it a RAW as its,
presumably, a JPEG ;-)

No, it was a RAW file. Obviously the pic on the web that I gave a link to was a jpeg, but the
original was a RAW, as are all my shots. I never shoot jpegs. They're useful for quick browsing on
the computer and for use on websites, but I never use them for originals. What would be the point of
buying a pro quality digital SLR and then shooting jpegs with it?

You do realise that Canons have a 12-bit sensor, save in their own proprietry raw format (Canon RAW
- CRW) and produce 36-bit images which can be loaded directly into Photoshop CS using Adobe's new
RAW file converter, don't you?

Paul
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Chris Street said:

Quoted message said:

Thanks. Nothing you can't do with film though. Velvia and neutral density grads can produce the
same effects.

Or just bracket a stop

2 and 2/3 stops in the case of the second sunrise shot, hence the very dark sky and the very bright
sea. A tad stronger than your bog standard 2 stop grad.

Quoted message said:

and then join after scanning.

If you don't find alignment too much of a problem.

Quoted message said:

Much easier than a ND grad.

Much more control over the fine tuning.

Quoted message said:

I must say the first shot of the lighthouse without the sun is quite something.

Thanks. I spent a lot of time tweaking that one. It's an unusual composition isn't it? Sea and sky
fits the rule of thirds, but warm and cold is split 50-50. I find it a bit disconcerting.

Paul
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"Paul Saunders" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...
| In spite of my cold I managed to drag myself out of bed and out into the chilly wind this morning
| to photograph the sunrise at Mumbles Head. Here's a few massively over-processed pics to show you
| exactly what it didn't look like. :-)

Not that cold again...! :-)

| There was an annoying cloud bank stretching across the entire eastern horizon which ruined the
| early part of the sunrise. In fact I started driving home, but changed my mind and drove back to
| wait until the sun broke the cloud horizon. This was taken as the light started to get more
| interesting. It wasn't actually that colourful, but the colours are correct, I didn't alter them
| (I just boosted the contrast and saturation).
|
| What I like about this shot is the contrast between warm and cold light, a favourite technique of
| Galen Rowell's, something I've noticed Peter Jackson do a lot of in the Lord of the Rings films,
| as well as Sam Raimi's Crimewave. At one point I enhanced the blue and cyan but it looked too
| surreal, so I left the colours natural instead. wildwales.fsnet.co.ukmhs1.jpgOpen ↗

That looks fantastic Paul, I love it!

| Much has been said about post processing lately so some may be interested to see the original shot
| before anything was done to it. The colours in the previous shot really did come out of this, one
| of the advantages of using raw images, as pointed out previously.
| wildwales.fsnet.co.ukmhs1 original.jpgOpen ↗

That's what mine normally look like AFTER post processing! :-)

| Another shot of the sunrise just as the sun crested the cloudbank, wide angle this time. This is a
| composite of two separate shots, one exposed for the sea, the other exposed for the sky. I used
| layer masking to blend them (effectively the same as using a neutral density grad) with the bright
| sky darker than the dark sea. Yeah I know it's not realistic but that never stopped Galen Rowell,
| and it didn't hurt his career. Just think of it as art. :-) BTW, I stopped the lens down to f22 to
| get the star effect on the sun. wildwales.fsnet.co.ukmhs2.jpgOpen ↗

Another nice shot, though nothing beats the first one of course! ;-) How come you never got rid
of the red flare by the lighthouse? I'd have thought it could easily be removed? (assuming it
is flare?)

| A little later I got around to playing with my infrared filter using 30 second exposures. I had
| problems with this shot. Although it looks okay at this size, the originals (all three of them)
| were spoilt by camera shake due to the wind. I tried shielding the camera but to no avail. I also
| got a nasty bright circle in the middle of the image which I had a lot of trouble getting rid of
| (not 100% successfully). I didn't know what cause it at the time but I now think it was due to
| light leaking though the viewfinder during the long exposure.
| wildwales.fsnet.co.ukmh ir.jpgOpen ↗

I really should get an infrared filter, as they do produce great 'black and white' shots, if you
know what I mean. They always look very dramatic.

| This infrared shot *is* sharp, I found a sheltered viewpoint out of the wind. The subject is Tutt
| Hill, home of the Mumbles coastguard and weather station, responsible for recording those
| hurricane force winds that occasionally get Mumbles onto the BBC news.
| wildwales.fsnet.co.ukth ir.jpgOpen ↗

Very interesting and nice effect, it must have been windy for the clouds to move so much, and good
to see the land all sharp.

| An interesting point about the infrared filter. Unlike the G3 which showed an infrared image on
| the LCD (albeit very dark) the 300D shows nothing, so you have to look through the lens.
| Unfortunately the view through the lens is completely black! So you have to compose the shot
| before you put the filter on. What I was worried about was the focusing, but I was pleasantly
| surprised to find that the camera successfully and accurately focused through the almost black
| filter. (For those who aren't aware of this, infrared light focuses differently to normal light,
| so a normally focused shot would be out of focus with infrared.)

Pleasantly suprised indeed! Was this a fluke that the image was focused correctly, or will it be problem-
free each time?

| Going back a couple of weeks, here's a shot of Horseshoe Falls taken downriver in very dark
| twilight, just before it got so dark that the autofocus refused to work. It was so dark that I had
| to use a 30 second exposure at f5.6 at ISO 400 to capture this image. As you can see the problem
| with this image is the horrendous blue cast.
| wildwales.fsnet.co.ukhf original.jpgOpen ↗
|
| Mark Cavendish mentioned colour casts yesterday in reference to the Foveon sensor, so if you're
| reading Mark, and you aren't sure about Bayer's ability to correct colour casts, just take a look
| at this. If it weren't for the ultra-blurred water, you'd think this was taken much earlier in the
| day during normal light. Even the pink Beacons boulder clay is correctly rendered. There was so
| much blue in the light that I wasn't sure it would be possible to claw the red back, not to
| mention the yellow. Thanks go to the raw file once more.
| wildwales.fsnet.co.ukhf.jpgOpen ↗

How do you convert your RAW files Paul?

And nice images of course, thanks for uploading them.

| Paul

Ste

ste mc © said:

Not that cold again...! :-)

No, a different one! I'm getting pretty sick of being sick this year, it's ruining my whole winter.
I'd planned to go camping in the superb weather we've had during the last week, but no joy. Winter
will be over soon! :-(

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

wildwales.fsnet.co.ukmhs1.jpgOpen ↗

That looks fantastic Paul, I love it!

Oh good.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

wildwales.fsnet.co.ukmhs1 original.jpgOpen ↗

That's what mine normally look like AFTER post processing! :-)

LOL!

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

wildwales.fsnet.co.ukmhs2.jpgOpen ↗

Another nice shot, though nothing beats the first one of course! ;-) How come you never got rid
of the red flare by the lighthouse? I'd have thought it could easily be removed? (assuming it
is flare?)

Well not easily. The problem is that the flare occured over the lighthouse which is rather detailed,
so very fiddly to fix. Maybe I could paste it in from another photo, perhaps the first one (after
resizing). I probably wouldn't go to the trouble unless I wanted to sell it though.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

wildwales.fsnet.co.ukmh ir.jpgOpen ↗

I really should get an infrared filter, as they do produce great 'black and white' shots, if you
know what I mean. They always look very dramatic.

Yeah. An infrared is very similar to a red filter in black and white photography, only more so. When
converting colour images to black and white using the channel mixer, the convention is to use the
red channel in order to get the red filter effect, so naturally it seems logical to use the red
channel for the infrared shot, but due to the fact that 50% of the sensors are green and only 25%
red and 25% blue, the red and blue channels tend to look a lot softer, so I usually choose the green
channel for it's sharpness. Even though the green channel may seem inappropriate, if you take into
account that only infrared light is getting through the lens anyway, then the green sensor must be
recording that infrared light, so it's still infrared light even though it's on the green channel,
if you see what I mean.

In which case, perhaps a simple desaturate might work just as well...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

wildwales.fsnet.co.ukth ir.jpgOpen ↗

Very interesting and nice effect, it must have been windy for the clouds to move so much, and good
to see the land all sharp.

Well it was windy, but the blurred clouds are mainly the result of the 30 second exposure.

Quoted message said:

Pleasantly suprised indeed! Was this a fluke that the image was focused correctly, or will it be
problem-free each time?

I suspect the latter, presuming the autofocus can find something to focus on.

Quoted message said:

How do you convert your RAW files Paul?

The converter included with the Canon software provides lots of options, far more with the 300D than
the G3. First I can make an exposure compensation of up to +/-2 stops either way (very good for
correcting over or under-exposed shots, it's that wide dynamic range again), then I can set white
balance (the usual options plus a dropper tool to select a white point manually - useful on clouds
or waterfalls), There's another setting for color tone which I don't understand yet, it doesn't seem
to have much effect, and there's a setting for colour space, which I now set to Adobe RGB of course.

Also there are the familiar three custom controls from the G3 - sharpness, contrast and saturation.
There are now 5 settings for each of these, plus an off setting for sharpness. So it seems that even
low sharpening on the G3 still sharpens the picture slightly, but now I can avoid sharpening
completely. The contrast control is very useful for high contrast pictures. If the detail on the
histogram hits both the left and right hand sides, reducing the contrast will reduce both over and
under-exposure simultaneously.

It's very useful to look at the histogram when adjusting the exposure and contrast, it's possible to
get a very good looking image even before you load it into Photoshop.

Saved as 48 bit tiff of course.

Paul
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On Tue, 24 Feb 2004 15:16:29 -0000, Paul Saunders
<[email hidden]> wrote:

<snip>

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

wildwales.fsnet.co.ukmhs2.jpgOpen ↗

Another nice shot, though nothing beats the first one of course! ;-) How come you never got rid
of the red flare by the lighthouse? I'd have thought it could easily be removed? (assuming it is
flare?)

Well not easily. The problem is that the flare occured over the lighthouse which is rather
detailed, so very fiddly to fix. Maybe I could paste it in from another photo, perhaps the first
one (after resizing). I probably wouldn't go to the trouble unless I wanted to sell it though.

No need for that, Paul. I've been fixing lots of flare produced by my Sigma 14mm by using the stamp
tool in the color mode - pick up the colour beside the flare and paste it over the flare. Works very
well in most cases, and I'm sure that you can fix the lighthouse OK.

Pat

--
Pat Bennett www.cheshirewildlife.co.uk

"Paul Saunders" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...
| ste mc © wrote:
|
| > Not that cold again...! :-)
|
| No, a different one! I'm getting pretty sick of being sick this year, it's ruining my whole
| winter. I'd planned to go camping in the superb weather we've had during the last week, but no
| joy. Winter will be over soon! :-(

And bring on the Spring eh! :-)

| >> wildwales.fsnet.co.ukmhs1.jpgOpen ↗
| >
| > That looks fantastic Paul, I love it!
|
| Oh good.
|
| >> wildwales.fsnet.co.ukmhs1 original.jpgOpen ↗
| >
| > That's what mine normally look like AFTER post processing! :-)
|
| LOL!
|
| >> wildwales.fsnet.co.ukmhs2.jpgOpen ↗
| >
| > Another nice shot, though nothing beats the first one of course! ;-) How come you never got rid
| > of the red flare by the lighthouse? I'd have thought it could easily be removed? (assuming it is
| > flare?)
|
| Well not easily. The problem is that the flare occured over the lighthouse which is rather
| detailed, so very fiddly to fix. Maybe I could paste it in from another photo, perhaps the first
| one (after resizing). I probably wouldn't go to the trouble unless I wanted to sell it though.

Well if you have a shot that you think is worth selling and putting the effort into, take Pat's
advice for clearing it up.

| >> wildwales.fsnet.co.ukmh ir.jpgOpen ↗
| >
| > I really should get an infrared filter, as they do produce great 'black and white' shots, if you
| > know what I mean. They always look very dramatic.
|
| Yeah. An infrared is very similar to a red filter in black and white photography, only more so.
| When converting colour images to black and white using the channel mixer, the convention is to use
| the red channel in order to get the red filter effect, so naturally it seems logical to use the
| red channel for the infrared shot, but due to the fact that 50% of the sensors are green and only
| 25% red and 25% blue, the red and blue channels tend to look a lot softer, so I usually choose the
| green channel for it's sharpness. Even though the green channel may seem inappropriate, if you
| take into account that only infrared light is getting through the lens anyway, then the green
| sensor must be recording that infrared light, so it's still infrared light even though it's on the
| green channel, if you see what I mean.
|
| In which case, perhaps a simple desaturate might work just as well...

I need to play around with the channel mixer, as although I've read about all the methods for
changing colours into black and white, I've never really used them.

| >> wildwales.fsnet.co.ukth ir.jpgOpen ↗
| >
| > Very interesting and nice effect, it must have been windy for the clouds to move so much, and
| > good to see the land all sharp.
|
| Well it was windy, but the blurred clouds are mainly the result of the 30 second exposure.

Good good.

| > Pleasantly suprised indeed! Was this a fluke that the image was focused correctly, or will it be
| > problem-free each time?
|
| I suspect the latter, presuming the autofocus can find something to focus on.

All bodes well for the future then.

| > How do you convert your RAW files Paul?
|
| The converter included with the Canon software provides lots of options, far more with the 300D
| than the G3. First I can make an exposure compensation of up to +/-2 stops either way (very good
| for correcting over or under-exposed shots, it's that wide dynamic range again), then I can set
| white balance (the usual options plus a dropper tool to select a white point manually - useful on
| clouds or waterfalls), There's another setting for color tone which I don't understand yet, it
| doesn't seem to have much effect, and there's a setting for colour space, which I now set to Adobe
| RGB of course.
|
| Also there are the familiar three custom controls from the G3 - sharpness, contrast and
| saturation. There are now 5 settings for each of these, plus an off setting for sharpness. So it
| seems that even low sharpening on the G3 still sharpens the picture slightly, but now I can avoid
| sharpening completely. The contrast control is very useful for high contrast pictures. If the
| detail on the histogram hits both the left and right hand sides, reducing the contrast will reduce
| both over and under-exposure simultaneously.

God, that sounds a lot better than what I've got with my G5! :-( I was reading the article about
Adobe Camera Raw in Luminious Landscapes a few weeks ago, and this sounded okay. Also, I've noticed
a lot of people use Breeze Browser. The problem with the RAW converter is that with my PC, it takes
so long to do. Every little change I make takes 30 seconds to refresh, so I can never be bothered
using it properly, but I should do.

| It's very useful to look at the histogram when adjusting the exposure and contrast, it's possible
| to get a very good looking image even before you load it into Photoshop.
|
| Saved as 48 bit tiff of course.

Of course!

...though when working on some of my images, I've noticed that Genuine Fractals is the weak link
that doesn't accept these TIF's. :-( So I have to reduce it in the Mode menu before resizing.

| Paul

Ste