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Author Topic: What can be done to improve  (Read 3267 times)

oleg

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What can be done to improve
« on: February 02, 2007, 01:30:45 am »

Hey Guys,

New to this forum, this is a shot i took a little while back just wondering your thoughts on it, and maybe how it can be made better. Feel free to speak your mind.

Thanx,

Oleg

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Jonathan Wienke

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What can be done to improve
« Reply #1 on: February 02, 2007, 02:28:34 am »

This would be a good candidate for HDR. The huge blown-out area is very unattractive.
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Ray

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What can be done to improve
« Reply #2 on: February 02, 2007, 02:44:49 am »

Not to mention the jet black shadows on each side. If the original is a RAW image, there might be scope for improvement. If it's a jpeg, then throw it away.
« Last Edit: February 02, 2007, 02:45:29 am by Ray »
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oleg

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What can be done to improve
« Reply #3 on: February 02, 2007, 05:59:57 am »

thanx for the honest opinions
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John Sheehy

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What can be done to improve
« Reply #4 on: February 02, 2007, 10:09:45 pm »

Quote
New to this forum, this is a shot i took a little while back just wondering your thoughts on it, and maybe how it can be made better.[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=98819\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I'll assume you're talking about the technical issues here (since I don't see much of anything I'd call a subject or composition).  As someone else said, this is a good candidate for exposure bracketing, and blending the images in software so that the best parts of each are used (mainly, a well-detailed sky with negative exposure compensation, and bright, noise-free shadows with positive exposure compensation).  This really requires a tripod and perfect tripod technique to be done easily and well.

Barring that, the best you can do is to fully understand your camera, and utilize its DR as best you can.  This would mean finding out if your camera has the best dynamic range at its lowest ISO, or it's next-to-lowest.  The lowest usually has the least noise, but is often compromised in the highlight headroom.  This depends totally on the specific model of camera.  Once you have chosen the best ISO for DR, then you generally have to shoot in RAW (JPEGs, especially with high-contrast settings, literally throw DR highlight headroom into the trash bin), in the lowest contrast JPEG setting the camera offers, and expose so that the brightest parts of the sky that you want detail in are well exposed, but not quite clipping.  Again, all this depends on the camera, and the specifics may be well known about some cameras, and not about others.  You need a RAW converter that is very good with not trashing highlights to get the most DR, otherwise, you may need to hold back on the exposure.  You can convert the image so that it renders the sky well, and then use software tools like Photoshop CS' "Shadow/highlight" tool to bring up the shadows.  Some people blend two different conversions of the same exposure with different rendered brightnesses together in software (nowhere near as good as two separate exposures, though), but personally, I have philosophical problems with this approach, as there is no reason a single conversion to a 16-bit format can't hold all the detail of the RAW file.
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