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Post by katynoelle on Oct 14, 2011 13:10:08 GMT
Here it is for my tiny screen : This area of photography is different for me; so, you're C&C is so appreciated. I don't own any filters, yet. I didn't even realize that the sun was so strong, when I took this. Is it alright, now, or is it too bright?
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Post by katynoelle on Oct 15, 2011 16:00:27 GMT
Uh, oh! Is this THAT boring? The swirling clouds remind me of Van Gogh or, well, some painting that i have to go ask my sister (the artist) about. (Have to take my parents to the airport, this afternoon, first - it's been such a busy week! Now, aren't you just glad to know about that? )
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Post by georgem on Oct 16, 2011 1:14:19 GMT
Not boring to me. I like it. On a technical level, perhaps a bit noisy in the shadows.
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Post by katynoelle on Oct 16, 2011 3:44:44 GMT
Oh, thanks, George! I was starting to feel like a see through ghost, here! Well, firstly, I'm glad it's not totally dull. Secondly, I am having SUCH a bad time with noise in my pics, increasingly, the last couple of months. I'm afraid of anything that's underexposed. and, I've switched to RAW and everything. Is there something I'm missing, here? I wonder if I'm sharpening wrong. Isn't that the yin to the yang of noise? Advice, anyone? but, thanks, for commenting, George!
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Post by Stevewebb on Oct 16, 2011 8:13:40 GMT
I quite like it. The swirling in the clouds is quite soothing.
I have the same problem with noise in shadow areas. i have found that a good default setting for my particular camera is to overexpose by 2/3rd of a stop. It's far more reliable to overexpose and then bring it down in the RAW converter than the other way around.
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Post by georgem on Oct 16, 2011 23:43:27 GMT
Katy - Steve is right, as I understand it. Underexposing causes pixels in the shadows to not be "exposed", i.e., not record those parts of the scene. That means that using fill light to brighten the image will cause unrecorded pixels to show. Noise is the result. This is stressed quite a lot on the other place. Proper exposure seems to me to be quite maddening at times. When I first started with digital back in 2000, I remember being told that it was best to underexpose by at least 1/3 stop lest you blow out the highlights. I don't know if it had to do with sensor technology at the time, but now the rule is to expose at or slightly above the metered exposure. But are you spot metering, matrix metering, or center-weighted metering? Aaaaarrrrgggghhhh.......
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Post by katynoelle on Oct 18, 2011 2:39:23 GMT
Thanks, George! That is really, truly good information! I have to sheepishly add, though, er, I know! I know because Wirefox has kept after me about not underexposing because it leads to noise. The thing is, this was shot at ISO 100 and with my clear as a bell 60mm prime lens and, well, shouldn't we be able to have silhouetted parts of a photo without that problem? Although.... I always spot meter and I metered off of the clouds so that I wouldn't blow the detail, there. This made it a little underexposed but I thought that, because I'm, now, shooting in RAW, aren't I supposed to be able to lighten things up, more effectively? I didn't have to lighten them up that much. It seems like I've done everything right for this effect. Why don't others have this problem with their dark shadowy areas??? and, just to be clear - thanks, Steve, for pointing it out and thanks very much George for wading in to try and help me figure it out. Any other thoughts?
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Post by Stevewebb on Oct 18, 2011 4:19:17 GMT
I would still use the rule of 2/3 overexposure and then check the histogram to make sure there are no highlight blinkies. It's far easier to then drop the exposure down in RAW or increase the blacks slider to give you a nice, noise free silhouette.
The problem with trying to lighten the shadows is it will introduce noise as George says and no amount of blacks increase will get rid of it because it will be light pixels.
Another good trick is to take two photos, expose one for the sky and the other for the shadow. Then put the darker sky/lighter shadow image on a layer above the perfect sky/darker shadow, change the blend mode to lighten and it will bring the lighter pixels through to the top layer but leave the shadow area alone.
Hey, it's got to be worth a try :-)
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Post by katynoelle on Oct 19, 2011 1:12:59 GMT
Thanks, George and Steve! I guess that I just need to hear it all over again! I, also, think that 'into the pile it goes' - does anyone else have a heap of thing that they can't wait to try out? Thank you so much, again, guys, for taking the time to comment and help me with this.
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Post by Kay on Oct 19, 2011 1:24:32 GMT
The purply colour is tremendous Katy, with the texture of the clouds it makes for a very moving image
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Post by rasbury on Oct 19, 2011 2:37:54 GMT
Not sure if your using photoshop as a processing program,but another idea might be to use the magic wand tool with a tolerance set real low(such as 5 or there abouts)and select the silhouetted area until the majority is selected then use the fill tool to fill that area with black or any other color you wish to use.That's what I did with my tree and crow image that I'm using for my avatar.
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