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My contribution for tonight is this one of the lighthouse at Aireys Inlet Vic.
I'm still waiting to get a decent morning light shot of this, but this shot in the mid - afternoon will have to do for now. I copped a gumboot full of water taking this shot. Should have stood on the bigger rock! D 70 was never in any danger though.....I think?

ISO 200 18mm frame 1/40th f/10 DX kit lens. Saturation upped somewhat in PS. I also used unsharp mask a tad - don't have the RAW file left so can't be sure on that. Does this exposure look fake? It doesn't convince me - though I know for sure it's real.




Cheers,

Matty B

Matty B (exactly the same name as me by the way)

I like this shot although looking at it, it seems like you've used the shadow/highlight adjustment in PS to bring the foreground rocks up.
If it's real as you say then its amazing. It looks somewhat surreal.

I really like the aspect though.

Nice one.

matt

Matty, it does seem unreal to me

Trying to work out which lighthouse this is.

Hmm. Me and my mates took photos at another lighthouse past lorne. You have to turn off and go through some sort of national park.

edit. looks like it was cape otway

edit. or maybe it was aireys inlet.....the latest photo I've seen has a house next to the lighthouse.....the one we went to had a house

Kipper, this is Split Point Lighthouse at Aireys Inlet.
Glen and rockstar, I take your point re- unreal appearance. I know how to use the shadow highlight tool in Ps but I'm dead sure I didn't use it on this exposure. The reason I asked about it's appearance is that I seem to take a lot of shots like this - and only with the DX 18 - 70mm lens at wide open angles. I'm using Adobe RGB in camera and in PS but any of the other profiles give the same "un-real" effect. I also note that it's often with blue in the sky that this happens. It never happens with the sun directly over my shoulder which caused me to comment on waiting for a morning light shot which would do exactly that.

Thanks for your opinions and pointers.

Its a spot on exposure though. The highlights and shadows seem nice and equal so that there isnt too much dark or burnt out areas.

It doesn't look real for that reason I think because you expect the cliff face to be darker. But other than that, its nicely done "in camera".

Matt

Matty I like it. It's perfect for a jigsaw puzzle!

The unreal-ness is possible due to the fact that you've fixed up the image to have as little contrast as possible. Little difference in light levels, despite what our eyes usually tells us what to expect in scenes like this in terms of dynamic range. You've done very well to compress the dynamic range of the scene, but at the expense of maximising the 'tails' of your image histogram.

See that's just it rockstar,
One expects a camera (properly set for the exposure) to re-produce an accurate reproduction image of what the eye sees. Maybe I'm fundamentally wrong there? Well, damn it, I'm sure the cliffs were a bit darker - not a great deal but not nearly as vivid as they appear this time.
Shots facing the other direction on the same shoot are dead set realistic.
I hope the sensor is working as it should? Must be -because this unreal phenomenon is quite random yet occurs often enogh for even me to question my own exposures. Maybe my eyes need testing, after all, I'm the only one in my family (out of 50 who has no req. for glasses of some sort?

Cheers,

Matty B

Matty, besides what has been said so far, I don't think that the light blue frame helps you. Maybe try a black one which will contrast more with the actual photo.

Thanks phillipb, I'll take that on board as I have a tendancy to pick a mid colour out of the image and use it to frame.

Practice what I preach
Black frame as ordered



Black frame growing on me a little - yes it relieves some of the surreal nature of this photograph.