Luminous Landscape Forum

Equipment & Techniques => Landscape & Nature Photography => Topic started by: JamesAndrew on October 01, 2009, 05:46:37 pm

Title: First Post with some Recent Panoramic Works
Post by: JamesAndrew on October 01, 2009, 05:46:37 pm

Hello Forum! My name is James Andrew and this is m first post.
I got my first DSLR in July (Nikon D5000) and have been having an amazing time capturing images of all sorts, with a special love for panoramic landscape photography and the entire process surrounding it.
From the location hunt to the off-road travel, to the capture, and then to the processing and printing, I see it all as a wholeness and am amazed at the technologies available to us, like the Epson R1900 I just got after pushing my little Canon IP100 to it's limit.

Here are a few images I've made over the last two months presented in order with the most recent at the beginning.  I'm linking the full-size images since it looks like the forum software does a nice job of reducing them.

I welcome all constructive comments on all aspects of these images.

Be posting more soon I hope! :-)

-James Andrew

All images shot with my Nikon D5000 using either the stock 24-70 f3.5 or the amazing Nikon 14-24mm f2.8 which I had the pleasure of renting over a long weekend.

(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2549/3972869992_6263921a6f_o.jpg)

(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2464/3901225776_e998bee843_o.jpg)

(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3447/3972969808_2ca160c465_o.jpg)

(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3464/3972985504_ef497d3fee_o.jpg)

(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2658/3878889846_3f6e349771_o.jpg)

(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2662/3865411592_2e26d0e939_o.jpg)

Title: First Post with some Recent Panoramic Works
Post by: lbalbinot on October 01, 2009, 07:24:25 pm

Welcome James!

Very nice! I like the colors on your panoramas. The locations are also very beautiful!

Regards,
Luis

Title: First Post with some Recent Panoramic Works
Post by: JamesAndrew on October 01, 2009, 11:12:05 pm

Thank you Luis. I've been working to make images that are very vivid, but not oversaturated.

Title: First Post with some Recent Panoramic Works
Post by: wolfnowl on October 02, 2009, 02:15:05 am

Hi James, and welcome to the list!  There's some interesting work there; thanks for sharing it...

Mike.

Title: First Post with some Recent Panoramic Works
Post by: EduPerez on October 04, 2009, 01:52:00 pm

I love them all... have not much more to say.

Title: First Post with some Recent Panoramic Works
Post by: wirehunt on October 04, 2009, 07:34:06 pm

Well you've taken to photography very well, I think you'll go places with images like this.  Well done.  I look forward to seeing more of your work.

Title: First Post with some Recent Panoramic Works
Post by: Tim May on October 05, 2009, 10:25:49 am

Beautiful composition, I must say:)

Title: First Post with some Recent Panoramic Works
Post by: JamesAndrew on October 09, 2009, 10:34:36 am

Hey thanks for the encouraging words. So far, I've been doing all this on my own so its nice to hear from some others that have a great appreciation for the art.

By the way, all of these images are tone-mapped from HDR, starting with 3 to 6 bracketed exposures. I didn't mention it at first, because I want my images so stand on their own, apart from being 'HDR'.

Sorta like how the best makeup artists can make a woman  look like she's not wearing makeup, but just looks beautiful.

I'm curious to know, is it apparent to your eyes that these are not single-exposure images?

Title: First Post with some Recent Panoramic Works
Post by: Eric Myrvaagnes on October 09, 2009, 10:55:33 am

Quote from: JamesAndrew

I'm curious to know, is it apparent to your eyes that these are not single-exposure images?

When I first looked at them, I assumed, because they were panoramas, that you had stitched two or more images to make each. And it was clear that you had processed each to get exactly the tones and saturation levels that you wanted. But they still handily passed my "plausibility" test for HDR images. I hate overdone HDR, but these looked lovely and quite convincing.

Nice work!


Eric

Title: First Post with some Recent Panoramic Works
Post by: JamesAndrew on October 22, 2009, 10:15:21 am

Thanks Eric.

Its been a very intense process of learning and experimenting to learn a few things about HDR.

- Capture one perfectly exposed image that can stand on its own. i.e. if the perfect exposure is + 1/2 EV instead of 0, bracket around +1/2.
- When shooting panoramas, find the proper exposure and then bracket using manual mode instead of Aperture Priority to prevent the camera from re-metering each section of the panorama.
- Resist, resist, resist, the urge to boost saturation unnaturally when in the tone-mapping stage (i.e. adjusting the sliders in Photomatix)

Title: First Post with some Recent Panoramic Works
Post by: Tim May on October 29, 2009, 08:21:22 am

Quote from: JamesAndrew

Hey thanks for the encouraging words. So far, I've been doing all this on my own so its nice to hear from some others that have a great appreciation for the art.

By the way, all of these images are tone-mapped from HDR, starting with 3 to 6 bracketed exposures. I didn't mention it at first, because I want my images so stand on their own, apart from being 'HDR'.

Sorta like how the best makeup artists can make a woman  look like she's not wearing makeup, but just looks beautiful.

I'm curious to know, is it apparent to your eyes that these are not single-exposure images?

That is okay James. These shots were first captured by your eyes and then the camera . Beautiful!