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Author Topic: Am I on the right track.  (Read 4439 times)

leuallen

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Am I on the right track.
« on: April 04, 2012, 03:50:34 am »

Trying to get a good HDR workflow (if there is such a thing). Is this image overcooked or is it OK?

Note: When the sun was just at the horizon, the entire sky was bald just like the orange strip. Not very photogenic. But I noticed a super storm front racing towards me from over my shoulder. So I waited and it arrived with all of its magic. A frantic 15 min or so of shooting and it was all over - the sky was now a nasty gray and no sun.

One important piece of advice I picked up somewhere is to always check behind you. Some of my better pictures have resulted from that advice and rotating my camera 180 degrees to produce them. In this case, the camera orientation stayed the same but I was prepared for what happened.

Larry
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Christoph C. Feldhaim

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Re: Am I on the right track.
« Reply #1 on: April 04, 2012, 03:56:30 am »

To me it doesn't look overcooked.
I think its pretty well on the spot.
I just have this odd feeling of falling to the right side when looking at it - the lines and their angles do something to my balance system.
I like it, though I would do a slight crop attack from the bottom and remove a bit of the water - just a bit below, where the land hits the right border of the frame.
The sky is gorgeous!
« Last Edit: April 04, 2012, 04:00:20 am by Christoph C. Feldhaim »
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EduPerez

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Re: Am I on the right track.
« Reply #2 on: April 04, 2012, 05:20:18 am »

Not overcooled at all, in my humble opinion.
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Tony Jay

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Re: Am I on the right track.
« Reply #3 on: April 04, 2012, 06:05:11 am »

To me this is the sort of result one should strive for with HDR imaging.
It (re)creates hopefully what one may have seen and remembered if one had been present at the time.

Great effort

Tony Jay
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leuallen

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Re: Am I on the right track.
« Reply #4 on: April 04, 2012, 09:06:34 am »

Christoph, the right leaning slant bothers me also. It is a combination of the the pond being curved and the landscape sloping downwards with an upwards curve. The camera was leveled with a level. Not much you can do about it, I tried. I cropped some water off from the original version but I want to keep the 16:9 ratio (for framing) and I loose too much in the sky, the top of the big cloud gets lost. If I had been smart at the time of shooting I would have switched the camera to 16:9 (was in 3:2) and gone a little wider and tipped up to keep the sky and loose water.

Larry
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Christoph C. Feldhaim

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Re: Am I on the right track.
« Reply #5 on: April 04, 2012, 10:00:51 am »

Yeah - I was thinking after my comment if the cropping would really help.
Probably this is something for a revisiting session.
But since its about the clouds, maybe just forget it,
keep the way how you processed it, move on try again next time.
Still: Great Sky!

But how did you actually process it ?

Johnphoto

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Re: Am I on the right track.
« Reply #6 on: April 04, 2012, 10:24:51 am »

You are spot on Larry! This is what HDR is for: Making realistic images of hard contrast objects. Bravo !
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leuallen

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Re: Am I on the right track.
« Reply #7 on: April 04, 2012, 11:54:47 am »

Thanks for all of the replies.

Christoph
I straightened the crop a little and it helped. Thanks. Processed in SNS HDR Pro. Three images. Went as easy as I could on the HDR effects. Started with the neutral preset. Used the masks function of SNS to bring up the highlights in the sky while keeping the sky darker (great feature). This increased the tonal separation in the sky - contrast adjustment do not have the same effect, much harsher. Also masked and adjusted the land to bring it into balance. This image required HDR because the suns disk is in the image. I had previously processed some of these images using Nik, Photomatix, fusion and others and comparing the results with SNS, they look like crap. Of course, I did not know as much then as now and I could probably do better now with those programs, so it is not a fair comparison.

Interesting example. The image posted below was taken 2min and 11 sec after the original posted image (I work fast). Only difference is that the camera was swung right by a small amount, note extra tree on right. Focal length (35mm equiv.) and camera position were the same. This is not an HDR but was done entirely in LR 4.1 as the suns disk is no longer in the image and the raw captured the full range. Note how the clouds have receded and are no longer as dramatic - it was a very fast storm front. Timing (and luck) is everything! I think I could get a little more from this image if I used SNS but it is not worth it.
« Last Edit: April 04, 2012, 12:04:14 pm by leuallen »
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Jeremy Roussak

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Re: Am I on the right track.
« Reply #8 on: April 04, 2012, 12:14:44 pm »

I wouldn't have recognised it as HDR and in my book that's just the way it should be. It's not overcooked, it's done to a turn.

The sky is fantastic. I agree with the others that there's an uncomfortable lean towards the right-hand end but other than a crop I'm not sure there's much you can do about it.

Your second shot certainly demonstrates the importance of timing.

Jeremy
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JohnTodd

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Re: Am I on the right track.
« Reply #9 on: April 04, 2012, 12:21:00 pm »

I'm afraid neither works for me, and I've been trying to figure out why. One of the things I dislike in most HDR images is that you end up with different areas of the image being equally bright when they shouldn't be in 'real life' (i.e. my instinctive gut feel for how a scene should look based on the assumed sources of illumination.) I somehow feel that backlit clouds should not be as bright as the direct reflection of the sun in the water. Also, and I respect the fact that I wasn't there on the ground, the whole image below the cloud line being so much warmer than the part above makes it look like the clouds were stripped in from another image. Instinctively, I expect the clouds to have taken on more of the colour of the sun.

But, both very striking images which probably print very nicely.
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Christoph C. Feldhaim

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Re: Am I on the right track.
« Reply #10 on: April 04, 2012, 01:35:40 pm »

I'd make a composite out of #1 and #2.
I mean .. its art - so use your license !

Christoph C. Feldhaim

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Re: Am I on the right track.
« Reply #11 on: April 04, 2012, 03:17:59 pm »

It's a digital image - morph the slopes of the pond and landscape into a straight horizon !

Yeah - most likely even better.

Since I like the sky of this image so much I took my license and went a little wild.
Hey babe, take a walk on the wild side !

Cheers
~Chris

Enda Cavanagh

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Re: Am I on the right track.
« Reply #12 on: April 04, 2012, 04:02:58 pm »

No. Once an image is rotated 90 degrees all right are lost.

Jeremy Roussak

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Re: Am I on the right track.
« Reply #13 on: April 04, 2012, 05:03:31 pm »

No. Once an image is rotated 90 degrees all right are lost.
Suppose it's rotated to the left?

Jeremy
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Enda Cavanagh

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Re: Am I on the right track.
« Reply #14 on: April 04, 2012, 07:34:48 pm »

Ya but there is a workaround. Once "they" are caught bending their head to the side to make sense of the photo you can claim full damages. You just have to be there at the right time. I think it's called the decisive moment.

dreed

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Re: Am I on the right track.
« Reply #15 on: April 05, 2012, 08:18:48 am »

Try cropping it as a square photo with the sun in the centre (horizontally).

That'll remove some of the curve/falling away to the right feeling as well as some of the dark tone areas that don't appear to have any detail or contribute towards the image?
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