Photos Photo of the Day

+1, exactly what I thought.

Also, Greg, your puppy is adorable.


Fleur-de-lis by angad84, on Flickr

 

Such a cute photo!

2 more photos I have been playing around with recently.

The first I took early last year when I went away with my family:


The second I snapped as I got out of the car at home:

What do you think about the sky changing colour (down the right side)? I was thinking of making it all the same colour, opinios welcome.

 

Wife dragged me out to hunt for fields of poppies

poppies 1 by whisperwolf, on Flickr

poppies 2 by whisperwolf, on Flickr

 

I prefer it as it is.

 

Good thought that, but the bonnet started to obscure the jag, unfortunately. I did try!
I think the contrast of the flying jag may have been lost against the rather bland sky, too. What I really needed was a lens that would allow me to get in closer from where I was able to stand. Thanks for the critique btw, always appreciated

 

Close you say? How about a crop (and some photoshop, ok it's not perfect but was a few minute job ans small res pic); BW, Sharpening to the water droplets/dew on the car/jag badge, black trees shopped around jag badge.

 

Up in Scotland this week, possibly one of the most amazing places I've ever been.

 

Ahhh, the herdsman... a wonderful mountain - Glen Coe is amazing as you say.

 

Nowhere near the quality of some of the pics in here, but oh well

 

Well spotted Tim already planning a winter trip up one of the munros with my wife and brother! Traveled from Crief to Glen Coe that day, think we must have stopped at least once every 30 minutes just to take in the scenery!

 

Do want to live in that house...

 

Totally

Here's some shots from my Nevada/Arizona roadtrip. More as they get processed and uploaded.


Colorado River at the Mike O'Callaghan – Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge by angad84, on Flickr


Winged Figure of the Republic by angad84, on Flickr


Hoover Dam by angad84, on Flickr

 

IMG_9672 by jpb814, on Flickr

Grabbed a few minutes ago, I love sky...

IMG_9683 by jpb814, on Flickr


IMG_9686 by jpb814, on Flickr

 

OK... time for some large format


The Path, Epping Forest, Essex by TimSmalley, on Flickr

Click on for a couple of 50% (1/4 resolution) crops - the full file is 93 megapixels and isn't limited by the bayer sensor, JPEGs saved in Photoshop are 91MB

 

Hey Tim,

That's a nice crisp image, but a bit on the darker side of things.

Have you kept it this way since that's how it looked when you took it or did you just dig the darker version more?

On a whole different subject, what kind of scanner are you using for the negatives?

Darkened

 

It was pretty gloomy (30 second exposure at f/32 with Fuji Velvia 50, extended to 60s to account for Velvia's reciprocity failure), but I did think about adding a small (3%, 500px) shadow boost using the shadow/highlight tool. I still may do that, but it's not something to do light-heartedly (to say that the files are difficult to work is an understatement, even with an i7-940 and 12GB of RAM!) so I'm sleeping on the idea a bit.

The scanning is a bit of a black art, so it's simply a case of trial and error - I'm using an Epson Perfection V700 Photo and dry mounting the transparencies on Epson's standard 4x5 holder. Eventually, I plan to fluid mount the transparencies to get better shadow detail, crisper fine details and to combat dust (if you've ever thought your camera sensor has a lot of dust, the 'cleaner' scans I've done are a good three hours worth of spot removal - the bad ones look like they've been dragged along the carpet first). They do get cleaned before mounting and then straight after mounting in a fairly clean room, but it's pretty much impossible to combat it without fluid mounting.

 

I don't mind the light level at all. I think it's just dark enough, and I think that if you take that darkness away then it will become a very different image. The gloomy light reminds me of something out of a fairy tale.

I'm not sure if I should attempt to cross that little bridge because Broderick the Troll is sure to jump out and demand a few shillings in return for permission to pass. Beware, though, because there is a fine house just around the corner. Just trust me when I warn you to resist any and all urges to eat the sugar glass windows or the graham cracker shingles. And don't get me started on the dryads lurking beyond the path in the background. The fence is there for a reason.

 

Hey Tim,

Firstly I'll have to say that it's a patient mans game with those exposure values

The weather has to be just right, just a bit of wind and this kind of photo can't be done. On the other hand, if you like motion blur, then it's just great. Thinking about flowing water...

With what kind of values are you scanning the transparencies with and what's the final file size of the scans? I mean, you mentioned the full file size to be 91MB for the JPGs, but what's the working size (TIFF, 16bit, x-dpi)?

For the scanning, I'd go with fluid mounting as soon as possible, although with the V700 you'll have to get a 3rd party fluid mount, right? The amount of dust, like you said, can be quite overwhelming at these sizes.

I don't know if you've tried it, but take a smaller sized jpg file and do an auto curves adjustment to it in PS. I tried it with your photo (the largest size from flickr) and it seems that the white balance is quite a bit towards the green and it does lighten up the photo also.

Again, I don't know if you want this photo just like it is, but a bit of experimentation is always good IMHO.

Darkened

 

It can be... at f/32 I've got roughly the same depth of field as f/8 on a full frame camera or f/5.6 on an APS-C, which means focusing to get everything sharp is quite difficult - thankfully, I can place the focal plane pretty much where I want it (instead of being parallel to the sensor/film plane), which means I can focus fairly effectively with time. I think the most I've spent focusing an image was 1 1/2 hours but that had a pretty complex focal plane to deal with.

I'm scanning at 2000 dpi with 48-bit colour, which gives me a file about 10,800 x 8,600 pixels or a 550MB TIFF - some of my files, with layers, are well over 2GB.

Yep, it's a third party mount and the time I'll save is worth the outlay (they're about $170 for the kit).

I tend to leave white balance as it is (that is, after all, what the film saw) and even when I worked digitally, I'd leave the white balance set to daylight almost always when photographing landscapes. I do sometimes use selective colour to remove a distinct colour cast, but in this case it looks how I remember it - the shadows do have a little bit of green in them, so I may have a go at removing that at some point though.

I think it's fair to say that I've got plenty of experimenting to do over the next few months, but so far I'm pleased with the results and blown away by the level of detail I can achieve.

 

Like I said, a patient mans game

I'd like to experiment with this kind of camera also, but I don't know if I'd see myself focusing for 1 1/2 hours for one photo, but that shows dedication to the art and that's something I respect.

Also I bet you're getting more efficient about it every time you shoot.

That ain't actually as bad as I thought, but it still requires quite a bit of kick from the computer.

With experimentation I'm sure you'll find a good quality/size ratio with your settings, but those values seem pretty much on the money though.

It's a shame that the fluid mount comes only with the V750 as a standard, but 170$ ain't bad if you don't have to spend 3h/photo just cloning out dust.

This is something I'll disagree with you a bit. You're not dealing with raw data here. The scanner does it's own thing when you are converting to digital.

Have you calibrated your scanner btw?

One can assume the processed film doesn't vary too much, although I think there are differences between sheets or rolls of film even if they are from the same batch. The processing is also a "mechanical" procedure, so temperatures etc. can have a small effect on the film. For me that's still "what the film saw", but scanning (or printing) the negative will probably alter the heck out of the "original" colors of the film.

I'm actually writing this from a computer which doesn't have a calibrated monitor and the image looks quite a bit brighter when viewed from this monitor. I have my workstation monitor calibrated for printing, so it's quite a bit darker than this one.

But I still think the image could use a bit of warmth. It especially shows on the path itself which doesn't have the warm tones that this kind of path usually has.

I bet it'll be a blast learning new things about the camera and the way to the final image as you go along.

Hopefully you won't be offended by my suggestions, that's not the purpose at all. Just offering my opinions.

Darkened