Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => User Critiques => Topic started by: BernardLanguillier on January 13, 2015, 08:24:53 am
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My friends,
Here are 2 images captured in Northern Japan this past weekend. Cold and snowy, I liked the soft light. Which WB do you like best?
(https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7495/16237224066_9686a2cee5_o.jpg)
(https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8595/16077273687_f6eeacc8a9_o.jpg)
Original image replaced by a more neutral rendition
D810 + Zeiss 135mm f2.0 APO - 200~ megapixel panoramic stitches.
Cheers,
Bernard
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Both are beautiful but my preference goes to the last one. The whole scene is easier to read and I also like the tree in the fog (right side).
I can hear the muffled sounds of nature… very relaxing!
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Very nice, Bernard.
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Both lovely, but my preference is for the first, perhaps for the same reason that Francois prefers the second. I like the complexity of the first.
Cheers,
Eric
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My friends,
Here are 2 images captured in Northern Japan this past weekend. Cold and snowy, I liked the soft light. Which WB do you like best?
D810 + Zeiss 135mm f2.0 APO - 200~ megapixel panoramic stitches.
Cheers,
Bernard
Bernard,
Both images are lovely, but personally, I prefer the first. Unless you plan to print very large, stitching may be overkill. Why didn't you use your 50 mm Otus?
Regards,
Bill
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Beautiful!
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Beautiful images! As cropped I prefer the first. It would be interesting to see the second with the foreground cropped away, so all you have is white snow at the bottom. The foreground is beautiful, but deleting it might simplify the overall design.
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Both are beautiful but my preference goes to the last one. The whole scene is easier to read and I also like the tree in the fog (right side).
I can hear the muffled sounds of nature… very relaxing!
+1
As for WB... I don't know. Unless you are making a reference to some Japanese graphic technique or paper color, I find the toning (it does look like a b&w toning, btw) a bit on the sickish, greenish side.
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I vote for the second. I'd love to see it in plain, untoned black and white.
Jeremy
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Thank you very much for your insightful feedbacks!
I'll end up going back to a more neutral WB on the second one.
As far as the stitching goes, I had the Otus in the bag, but I don't see any reason to stick to a meager 36mp (be them very sharp) when 200mp can be done fairly easily. ;) The 135mm APO has some downsides compared to the Otus, the worst one being the amount of focus breathing, but it is as sharp and nearly as well corrected colorwise so why not use it, especially on subjects that are at some distance like these?
It all really depends on the level of technical quality your are trying to achieve accross your work. I have been shooting for very large prints for years, I don't see why I should stop now that both the hardware and software have reached such a high level of suitability to perform stitching with perfect and reliable results.
Here is another one from the same series. Printing this less than 2 meters wide just doesn't make a lot of sense in my book. I like being able to put my nose on the print and see every single needle on the pine trees of the middle island. ;)
Which one of these 2 versions do you gentlemen like best btw?
(https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7493/16265667351_b0afa4be1a_o.jpg)
(https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7468/15655398423_ecc19fb63d_o.jpg)
Cheers,
Bernard
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Bernard, I loved the first image you posted to this thread. IMO a truly beautiful image.
As far as I'm concerned the last two you have posted leave me cold - no pun intended. I've no doubt the detail is stunning but I tend to place little importance to resolution when considering images.
Thanks for your feedback.
My view is that a successful image needs first to be visually striking of course, but only delivers its potential if it does have the right level of technical qualities. And I am pretty demanding on that part. ;)
Another fact is that images have sizes at which they work and sizes at which they don't work. The whole image creation chains must be managed according to that size requirement/target. That impacts technique and can impact the selection of subjects...
So there is indeed a paradox in asking on the web feedback about an image that has been designed to be printed large.
Cheers,
Bernard
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As far as the stitching goes, I had the Otus in the bag, but I don't see any reason to stick to a meager 36mp (be them very sharp) when 200mp can be done fairly easily. ;) The 135mm APO has some downsides compared to the Otus, the worst one being the amount of focus breathing, but it is as sharp and nearly as well corrected colorwise so why not use it, especially on subjects that are at some distance like these
Thanks for your comments on the 135 mm Apo. I can't afford he Otus, but do have the 135 and am pleased with it. I have not noted its focus breathing, but am familiar with this phenomenon with my Nikon macro lenses where focus breathing on extreme closeups decreases the focal length and shortens the working distance. Where does the focus breathing with the 135 impair your workflow?
Regards,
Bill
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Thanks for your comments on the 135 mm Apo. I can't afford he Otus, but do have the 135 and am pleased with it. I have not noted its focus breathing, but am familiar with this phenomenon with my Nikon macro lenses where focus breathing on extreme closeups decreases the focal length and shortens the working distance. Where does the focus breathing with the 135 impair your workflow?
Hi Bill,
Focus breathing on the 135 isn't huge in absolute terms, but it does change the apparent focal length of depth of field stacked images relative to others in a pano stitch (foreground images stacked, distant images not stacked). This, amazingly, is nearly absent in the Otus 55mm and Leica 180mm f2.8 APO which makes them uniquely suited for advanced pano work.
It makes it look like images were shot with different focal lengths and that severely disturbs the finely tuned mechanics of PTgui and autopano pro. I need to look more into this but initial results are disappointing.
Another drawback is the focusing mechanism that, although far superior to AF lenses for manual focus, feels stiff and coarse relative to that of the Otus. This isn't a big deal, just a slight annoyance.
Cheers,
Bernard
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Any lenses that you use on the Nikon that don't have focus stacking?
Besides the Otus, I'm not paying that much for a lens.
I use mostly zooms and I lose 15-20% of the initial frame because of focus breathing.
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Any lenses that you use on the Nikon that don't have focus stacking?
Besides the Otus, I'm not paying that much for a lens.
No a cheap lens, but as far as I recall, the Zeiss 100mm f2.0 was not significantly affected. I haven't used it that much for stitching recently though.
I have done very little stitching with my Nikons and probably none involving focus stacking, so I am sorry, I can't provide a useful answer.
Cheers,
Bernard
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The best focus stacking is called f/22.
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Yeah, I knew that, Keith, and I expect to hear about all the diffraction problems associated with f/22. Yesterday I went out and shot a whole series of HDRs at f/22. Here's one of them. Golly -- yes, visible softness from diffraction if you go to 100% with one of the nine 36 mpx D800 frames. But even a tiny bit of sharpening takes care of that. It's not a great shot -- just testing the latest Photomatix, which turns out to be pretty good.
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I guess I'm just stuck in the past. I always thought "focus stacking" meant f/64. ;)
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With an 11 x 14, you're right, Eric.
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Very nice - looks like Canada <g>! I prefer the 2nd one for WB, the first makes the tree bark look too warm, IMO.
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Yeah, I knew that, Keith, and I expect to hear about all the diffraction problems associated with f/22. Yesterday I went out and shot a whole series of HDRs at f/22. Here's one of them. Golly -- yes, visible softness from diffraction if you go to 100% with one of the nine 36 mpx D800 frames. But even a tiny bit of sharpening takes care of that. It's not a great shot -- just testing the latest Photomatix, which turns out to be pretty good.
The image looks OK on screen, but has a resolution of only 1440 x 961 pixels and appears somewhat flat with no "pop". It is difficult to judge the sharpness of an 36 MP image with a 4 MP screen preview. A quick application of Topaz Clarity Landscape Pop II does wonders with this image, IMHO. As is, the image you posted could make a decent 4 x 6 inch print.
I don't know what the image looked like before you tone mapped it, but the contrast does not appear that high and you might get better results shooting at f/8 and focus stacking with Helicon Focus rather than trying HDR.
Sharpening (especially with deconvolution algorithms) can improve contrast lost to diffraction at lower spatial frequencies, but high frequency detail may be reproduced at such low contrast that there is nothing for sharpening to work on. To illustrate, here is Bart's resolution target shot at f/22 with the D800e and Zeiss 135 mm Apo. The Nyquist frequency of the sensor is shown by the black circle. The limit of resolution in the image is shown by the white circle:
(http://bjanes.smugmug.com/Photography/Zeiss-135/i-Vfg699m/0/O/f_22_Res.png)
Sharpening with Focus Magic (a well regarded deconvolution algorithm) improves contrast at lower frequencies but does nothing near Nyquist.
(http://bjanes.smugmug.com/Photography/Zeiss-135/i-QS7bGwK/0/O/f_22_FmRes.png).
And finally, here is the image at f/4 with Focus Magic sharpening.
(http://bjanes.smugmug.com/Photography/Zeiss-135/i-8jP4wdz/0/O/f_4_FM.png)
Which do you prefer? F/22 does reduce aliasing, but it is not bothersome in most landscape images.
Regards,
Bill
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Ah Ha! Exactly as predicted by Keith and expected by me. Bill, as you implied, there's no way to tell from a 1.3 mpx HDR jpeg what the 36 mpx originals were like. With a little bit of sharpening from the Nik plugin the shot in the middle of the sequence was fine. You really should be over on Nikonians where they enjoy technical nitpicking and rarely post pictures unless they're of birds at feeders or dogs acting like humans. That's one of the lovely things about LuLa's User Critiques: we usually stay away from technical nits and concentrate on the art of photography. Mea culpa for violating that trend.
Oh, by the way, the contrast wasn't that high. It was an overcast day. There was a little bit of muted sun on the grass in the background, but the rest was reacting to the big softbox in the sky. It would be quite easy to enhance the "pop" with tone mapping, but I love the colors as they are. "Pop" isn't the point of the picture.
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Ah Ha! Exactly as predicted by Keith and expected by me. Bill, as you implied, there's no way to tell from a 1.3 mpx HDR jpeg what the 36 mpx originals were like. With a little bit of sharpening from the Nik plugin the shot in the middle of the sequence was fine. You really should be over on Nikonians where they enjoy technical nitpicking and rarely post pictures unless they're of birds at feeders or dogs acting like humans. That's one of the lovely things about LuLa's User Critiques: we usually stay away from technical nits and concentrate on the art of photography. Mea culpa for violating that trend.
Using f22 on panos is a totally valid technical option obviously. You get probably 1/3rd the actual resolution of f4 (you pretty much end up working with a 12mp camera), but that is much faster than DoF stacking and is often the only option when light changes quickly and sufficient DoF is required.
Techniques are just that, I don't see any reason not to use the most appropriate one, same for equipment.
Cheers,
Bernard
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I tried some f/22 and let's say I prefer less DOF and more sharpness. Both would be ideal though.
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I tried some f/22 and let's say I prefer less DOF and more sharpness. Both would be ideal though.
That's what DoF stacking delivers.
Cheers,
Bernard