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Author Topic: Homestead  (Read 8551 times)

RSL

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Homestead
« on: August 01, 2013, 11:09:11 am »

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« Last Edit: August 01, 2013, 11:10:56 am by RSL »
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Harald L

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Re: Homestead
« Reply #1 on: August 01, 2013, 03:16:16 pm »

Very nice but perhaps a little bit too much contrast.
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RSL

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Re: Homestead
« Reply #2 on: August 01, 2013, 03:37:18 pm »

That's the way it is up in the mountains, Harald.
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Ken Bennett

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Re: Homestead
« Reply #3 on: August 01, 2013, 03:44:23 pm »

It's a nice image and I like how much detail you've been able to pull out of the highlights in the clouds. That's always tough to do.

I get a very slight feeling that it leans to the right....
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Harald L

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Re: Homestead
« Reply #4 on: August 01, 2013, 03:50:33 pm »

That's the way it is up in the mountains, Harald.

May be but it seems a little bit super-natural to me. It's just a matter of taste. Anyway I know that it's hard to master light in the mountains.
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fike

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Re: Homestead
« Reply #5 on: August 01, 2013, 04:03:01 pm »

Nice composition.  Nice muted tones. Oversharpened (or too much clarity).  Try some layer masking to allow different sharpening in different image regions, because I don't think the clouds are overdone.
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RSL

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Re: Homestead
« Reply #6 on: August 01, 2013, 04:12:48 pm »

It's from a D800.
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fike

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Re: Homestead
« Reply #7 on: August 01, 2013, 04:18:33 pm »

It's from a D800.

This might hold the clue to the crunchiness in the center of the image.  What algorithm did you use for downsampling to a web-sized image?
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RSL

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Re: Homestead
« Reply #8 on: August 01, 2013, 05:05:46 pm »

Fike, I don't see any crunchiness anywhere in the picture. I downsampled it in Photoshop CS6. The clouds and the light were unusually good.
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fike

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Re: Homestead
« Reply #9 on: August 01, 2013, 05:18:27 pm »

Fike, I don't see any crunchiness anywhere in the picture. I downsampled it in Photoshop CS6. The clouds and the light were unusually good.

Okay.

The area I was looking at was along the center of the image around the treeline with the sky and around the left side of the buildings.  I asked about your downsampling algorithm because sometimes using the auto feature of CS6 can make things looks like this. I have found for some very sharp landscapes I prefer to use bicubic instead of bicubic sharper (which is what CS6 uses to downsample by default).  Actually, I frequently combine the two: downsample halfway or two thirds of the way to my desired size using bicubic sharper (increases local contrast and sharpness quite a bit) and then go the last resizing step with regular bicubic (which tones down the effect). 

Its a nice shot, but to my tastes toning down that contrasty, sharpy, clarity, or whatever... would make it nicer. I agree that the clouds are indeed fabulous.  They make the shot.
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Eric Myrvaagnes

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Re: Homestead
« Reply #10 on: August 01, 2013, 06:16:50 pm »

Very nice mountain light, Russ.

I guess your camera is just too good for these other folks to appreciate.  ;)

Eric M.
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petermfiore

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Re: Homestead
« Reply #11 on: August 01, 2013, 07:34:30 pm »

Just because that's the way it is doesn't necessarily a good image. That said, I like your image very much.

Peter

WalterEG

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Re: Homestead
« Reply #12 on: August 01, 2013, 08:43:02 pm »

Russ,

Watching the progress of your intimacy with the D800 an interesting element is creeping into your visualising of a scene and I am sure it has to do with the confidence generated by the image resolution:  You are starting to frame more in line with what would happen with a large format camera.  Knowing that detail will be preserved and communicated, you seem to be more frequently shooting in a contextual style which I really like.

Keep at it.

W
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Jim Pascoe

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Re: Homestead
« Reply #13 on: August 02, 2013, 04:07:11 am »

I too think it is not quite level and leans to the right.  It would also be very slightly improved I think if you had been elevated just very slightly and moved the roofline of the house below the distant tree-line.  It does look a bit sharp to me, but then I live in the south of England and we don't so often get such clear air as you obviously have there.

Jim
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brandtb

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Re: Homestead
« Reply #14 on: August 02, 2013, 09:04:50 am »

Could you post a med res unedited/unprocessed JPEG from your raw file?
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RSL

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Re: Homestead
« Reply #15 on: August 02, 2013, 11:36:45 am »

Thanks, Walter. It's sort of like being out with my old 4 x 5. When I'm up the mountain for this kind of thing I'm always at ISO 100, lens VR off, on a tripod with a cable release, mirror up, and viewfinder shutter closed. A little less work: no holder to insert and no slide to pull, but in some ways similar. On this day I had fantastic clouds rolling by. I shot "Landscape" at a bit above 10,000 feet, so the clouds were expansive and fairly low. "Homestead" was farther down: about 8,000 feet -- right on the edge of the Fossil Beds National Monument. The place is Adeline Hornbek's homestead house which she erected and moved into with her four kids in 1878.

And Jim, the D800 has a built-in leveling device. You can determine whether or not the camera is level by looking through the viewfinder. The camera was level.

Brandt, Here's an "unretouched" copy of the original. Of course it's been run through raw conversion, then through jpeg conversion, and it was shot at f/11, so it has some diffraction softening that needs sharpening. It's also been reduced from 7360 x 4912 pixels to 1440 x 960 pixels. Oh, and there's a damned sign on the side of the house -- the kind of duh thing you can depend on the government to do -- that I had to clone out in the final version. I also had to clone out some unfortunate sheds way off to the left to get the whole thing as close to 1878 as possible. I guess I'm not sure what you hope to learn from this, but here it is.
« Last Edit: August 02, 2013, 11:40:03 am by RSL »
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Eric Myrvaagnes

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Re: Homestead
« Reply #16 on: August 02, 2013, 01:24:19 pm »

And Jim, the D800 has a built-in leveling device. You can determine whether or not the camera is level by looking through the viewfinder. The camera was level.
Even though the camera is level, the landscape -- unfortunately -- may not be.

Your processing on the original post looks just right to me.
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Tonysx

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Re: Homestead
« Reply #17 on: August 03, 2013, 08:50:00 am »

Copy the image, open in LR, select crop and you'll see the treeline is level.
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Jim Pascoe

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Re: Homestead
« Reply #18 on: August 06, 2013, 03:56:00 am »

Copy the image, open in LR, select crop and you'll see the treeline is level.

Huh?  Have you never seen a slope.  The treeline being level has little to do with it unless the landscape is completely flat and the trees all exactly the same height.  However if Russ says it's level then I accept that.  It just looks crooked! :)  But then you may also be local to the area and know the terrain - but even so, there is no logic to your method of determining whether the picture is level.  Now if it had been a seascape......

Ps - Russ, I've just looked again - It's not level - take it from me your spirit level is wrong.  You should try a Canon one.... ;D

Jim
« Last Edit: August 06, 2013, 04:02:01 am by Jim Pascoe »
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RSL

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Re: Homestead
« Reply #19 on: August 06, 2013, 11:44:13 am »

You should try a Canon one.... ;D

Hi Jim, There was a time when I owned Canons. That's why I'm a Nikon shooter.

It's all downhill from left to right through here. This is just off Teller County 1, which runs downhill all the way from Cripple Creek to Florissant.
« Last Edit: August 06, 2013, 11:46:55 am by RSL »
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