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** edited, fixed first image, horizon crooked. de-warmed the third one.

Lol, yes that is the name of the location - Dunbogan Beach

Awesome little sleepy hollow with a few holiday makers, just enough to make it feel authentic and not too many to make it miserable.

I have some big plans for this location, I only got to the beach after sunrise but this end of the beach has a wealth of compositions and subjects, could easily go back half a dozen times.

Critique more than welcome.



the fishing is awesome here - this dude was pulling them out every minute here!



still too warm?. This is about 10 portrait images stitched.



the bigger picture. ABout 6 landscape images stitched.

WOW
These are fantastic! They really should be hanging on a wall somewhere!

Gerry love the shots and the way you process. Do you use grad filters as well as grad masking in NX2 to bring out the sky so well? I have been recently pping shots from a trip I did in September and only just found the masking in NX2 even though I have had the program for a couple of years. I had prevously been using control points to get the same effect, I also found out I should use my grad filters more often on landscapes.

Some picky (very) critique. My eye seems to wander around the shots (could be my wandering eye ) looking for something on which to focus. Shot two seems to be more balanced as I seem drawn to the distant headland/island, but the fisherman is a distraction, I think is the shot of the fisheman or of the landscape. Really picky for such great shots, hope you don't mind.

love them, may i ask what settings you use? I always find your images crisp and magnificent, honestly a very gifted photographer! very impressed! I agree with Wink on this one, they should be hanging on a wall somewhere!!

I think my favourites would be the first and third - did you use the 11-16mm for these or ??

They are great shots!

Your landscapes are really getting to be hard to crit Gerry.
I really like this series

CraigVTR wrote:Some picky (very) critique. My eye seems to wander around the shots (could be my wandering eye ) looking for something on which to focus. Shot two seems to be more balanced as I seem drawn to the distant headland/island, but the fisherman is a distraction, I think is the shot of the fisheman or of the landscape. Really picky for such great shots, hope you don't mind.

craig, I well never mind any critique

You raise a good point regarding a solid focus point, all the images have numerous elements which could be considered a point to draw the eye in, however I see what you mean about wandering thru the images, I think only the first has a good solid line to follow (water>rock>mountain), however, this is different to a solid focus point. great spotting there! thats the kind feedback I love.

CraigVTR wrote:Gerry love the shots and the way you process. Do you use grad filters as well as grad masking in NX2 to bring out the sky so well? I have been recently pping shots from a trip I did in September and only just found the masking in NX2 even though I have had the program for a couple of years. I had prevously been using control points to get the same effect, I also found out I should use my grad filters more often on landscapes.

OK, all shots are with the lee 0.9 GND and CPL polariser, no grad masking in CNX2. The conditions did dictate the style of shots, ie the gloomy dark sky with the colourful foreground and beach - there was a large storm cell which is seen on the right of the last image, to the left was where teh sun was poking between clouds on the horizon, this created an effect where the clouds on teh right were very dark but the beach and rocks were bathed in warm sunrise light.

There are two directions I take with the sky, adding contrast (selectively sometimes) and sometimes tonal contrast which can give the almost slight HDR look, however when used correctly can give nicely defined, sharp dramatic clouds. The other path is reducing the midtone contrast which smooths things out, take for example the following shot;




The grad masking in CNX is a great tool also, I use it less now that I have a set of GND filters for real. Its also good to use that grad masking tool and try applying various things like contrast, warmth d-lighting etc. Very handy when you have a sky full of clouds which gets blown when you apply contrast - use the grad mask and apply to the foreground, then add a touch extra globally to finish off.I use control points, however only for specific areas, quite often on faces to bring out a bit of brightness, when you do this, whether it be a face or a rock, you often have to dial down the saturation.

on a side note - this is probably a great example for a PP session meetup

hth

bigsarg7 wrote:love them, may i ask what settings you use? I always find your images crisp and magnificent, honestly a very gifted photographer! very impressed! I agree with Wink on this one, they should be hanging on a wall somewhere!!

ahh, you make me blush, to be honest I look back at these now and will do in the coming weeks and think that they are not that crash hot.

In terms of settings, as mentioned the graduated neutral density filter is key, this coupled with teh circular polariser gives 90% of the image, the important part really, since you cannot really replicate those two in PP. For seascapes, its either long shutters, like 20 seconds for smooth water, or from 1/4s thru to 2 seconds for that semi stop motion water (i love that range), ie teh first image has shutter 0.5seconds.

The crispness is probably more a result of good contrast and correct progressive sharpening for the web size - this always leaves an image crisp while only 775 px wide.

all the images should have the exif intact, let me know if you can't read it and I will post it up.

Remorhaz wrote:I think my favourites would be the first and third - did you use the 11-16mm for these or ??

first two are with the 11-16, the last two are with the 17-55

Wink wrote: WOW

zafra52 wrote:They are great shots!

colin_12 wrote:I really like this series

thanks

Alright Gerry...I am going to have to sell my Nikon now and give up taking photos!!!

biggerry wrote:OK, all shots are with the lee 0.9 GND and CPL polariser...

biggerry wrote:In terms of settings, as mentioned the graduated neutral density filter is key, this coupled with the circular polariser gives 90% of the image, the important part really, since you cannot really replicate those two in PP.

I honestly would never have thought that they'd look that good OOC. When I first saw them I thought that there's some very intense and skilled PP going on there.

I really need to learn how to do this!
I'll be in Darwin for 3 months from the end of January, so there should be the odd coastal sunset, sunrise or storm for me to photograph.
Do you have any tips for a noob like me?

Wink wrote:I honestly would never have thought that they'd look that good OOC. When I first saw them I thought that there's some very intense and skilled PP going on there.

give me a day or two and I will post up the OOC raw versions

Awesome little sleepy hollow with a few holiday makers, just enough to make it feel authentic and not too many to make it miserable.

I think you have just taken care of that by posting these images.
Based on these pics, everyman and his dog will want to visit there now Opra
Great shots

Jenno wrote:I think you have just taken care of that by posting these images.
Based on these pics, everyman and his dog will want to visit there now Opra
Great shots

rofl...lucky were a sleepy little forum eh?

biggerry wrote:give me a day or two and I will post up the OOC raw versions

heres the first, now to be fair this is with the WB corrected and incamera vivid setting, everything else, even the crop and dust bunny removals are left as is - man i gotta clean this thing check out the thumping great big hair up the top...

I typically under expose my images, this always gives a bit of leeway to recover shadows - however this should show that, yes, there is PP invloved to tweak the image up, but it is 90% of the way tehre. In total there is about 8 PP steps which took no more than a few minutes (hence the golden 5 minute rule)

on a side note; why is that peeps in the photography world (read that as aus based forums) are so reluctant to post the original un PP'ed shots?

Wink wrote:Do you have any tips for a noob like me?

- composition is king! without it everything else rubbish and fighting a losing battle.
- look for singular objects to use a point of focus, rocks, trees, peeps.
- think about what the water will do when it is captured during a long shutter....where are the 'water trails' gonna be, use them as leading lines, this is very powerful.
- use layering in your composition on seascapes if there is no main point of subject or leading line. Ie foreground 1/3 rock, middle 1/3 water top 1/3 sky/cloud.
- technique wise, with seascapes, shutter is key, 0.5 seconds is nice for semi stop motion water whilst longer 20secs is great for smooth water - avoid that no mans region where water is captured sharp ie 1/8s and up.
- equipment, do you have a polarizer? probably the only filter I would every recommend, use it...its good. GND filters are also good, but more specialised and costly.
- HDR is a great way to capture seascapes and sunsets/sunrise and it cost nothign in terms of extra equiqment

hth (running outta time got get to NYE)

Thanks for the tips.

I've got a CPL filter currently. I've got some GND filters on there way. Not sure if the CPL will work with the GND setup though.

Thanks Gerry for the info on your technique. I have been using grads and a polariser for a little while now but I do not get out and take enough shots lately. On my recent trip to NZ I was using my filters when I set up in the early morning or late arvo. Now that I am pping the shots I have realised I should have stuck the grad on for many of those midday stops at the side of the road to take a shot of the landscape as I am now having problems with blown clouds. Oh well live and learn.

biggerry wrote:on a side note; why is that peeps in the photography world (read that as aus based forums) are so reluctant to post the original un PP'ed shots?

This sounds like a challenge.

CraigVTR wrote:This sounds like a challenge.

lol, bring it on!

Gerry these are upto your usual standard (=kicka$$)

#3 has the strongest composition (S style)and would adorn any corridor printed at 5X2 meters.

#1 has a classic S composition which catches my eye.

biggerry wrote:I typically under expose my images, this always gives a bit of leeway to recover shadows

What? Did you mean you overexpose? BTW I can see the grad line in your first image. (only because I was looking )

surenj wrote:

biggerry wrote:I typically under expose my images, this always gives a bit of leeway to recover shadows

What? Did you mean you overexpose? BTW I can see the grad line in your first image. (only because I was looking )

always underexpose, to make sure I have all the highlights, usually I just have the display set to show blinking highlights, from experience with the D80 I find using the display meter if its under exposed by one stop it usually works out ok, when coupled with the 11-16 this is imporatant since I have found the 11-16 and 10-? fishy (tokinas) both tend to result in over exposed images if not dialed down a fraction. Also teh D80 does have a buit of a reputation of over exposing..

Regards the Grad line, yeah it is visible, but it is also compounded by the fact you have that layer of spray from the beach floating over the sand dunes. I should have had it just a fraction lower, or maybe invest in a soft one

biggerry wrote:The crispness is probably more a result of good contrast and correct progressive sharpening for the web size - this always leaves an image crisp while only 775 px wide.

Next time we meet would you care to elaborate on this - I always find your posted images have a nice - I'm not sure what the exact word I'm looking for - "glisten" or "gloss" to them - I'd be interested in your sharpening technique - e.g. I'm just exporting from Lightroom with default for screen sharpening.

I'd also like to talk more about GND's too (perhaps even try someones) - I can't use one (or even a CPL) with my 8-16mm UWA but if I get a 17-XX I can use both with that.

Export sharpening doesn't do much at all.
Check out... http://lightroomkillertips.com/2009/video-my-sharpening-workflow-in-lightroom/

And this... http://www.dslrusers.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=40132 where Gerry gives an example of progressive sharpening.

biggerry wrote:I typically under expose my images, this always gives a bit of leeway to recover shadows

That surprises me.
I've recently seen a few articles recommending overexposing a little and then pull the image back because it introduces less noise, particularly in the shadows, than going the other way. They say there's a lot of information in the highlights that can be recovered.

But hey. Your methods are clearly working VERY well!

Remorhaz wrote:Next time we meet would you care to elaborate on this - I always find your posted images have a nice - I'm not sure what the exact word I'm looking for - "glisten" or "gloss" to them - I'd be interested in your sharpening technique - e.g. I'm just exporting from Lightroom with default for screen sharpening.

I'd also like to talk more about GND's too (perhaps even try someones) - I can't use one (or even a CPL) with my 8-16mm UWA but if I get a 17-XX I can use both with that.

any time! There will undoubtly be a sunrise session soon, so if you want to play with some GND's and aCPL, you can give mine a crack.

Wink wrote:And this... viewtopic.php?f=5&t=40132 where Gerry gives an example of progressive sharpening.

man, I was looking for that! I remember playing with some bloody image to show the sharpening but could not find it... 2 thumbs up Adam.

Wink wrote:That surprises me.
I've recently seen a few articles recommending overexposing a little and then pull the image back because it introduces less noise, particularly in the shadows, than going the other way. They say there's a lot of information in the highlights that can be recovered.

But hey. Your methods are clearly working VERY well!

Thats interesting, I have not read up on this for some time, I always thought it was better to go with under exposing! I appreciate the increased noise thing, but if you are getting increased noise you have way too much under exposure I think.

Its also interestign about recovering highlights, I know Suren uses this method, he always over exposes a fraction and dials it back in post - I am sure he can elaborate, his results are also very tidy.

The problem I see with the hightlights and from what I have experienced if there is an area that is a 'blinking highlight' then its lost, gone forever - I am happy to be educated on this though!

Found it...
http://lightroomkillertips.com/2010/do-you-tend-to-under-or-over-expose-your-photos/

You're right Gerry. The article basically says they push them as far as they can without clipping.

biggerry wrote:Its also interestign about recovering highlights, I know Suren uses this method, he always over exposes a fraction and dials it back in post - I am sure he can elaborate, his results are also very tidy.

The problem I see with the hightlights and from what I have experienced if there is an area that is a 'blinking highlight' then its lost, gone forever - I am happy to be educated on this though!

The mantra I'd heard was "Expose to the Right and preserve the (important) highlights" unlike film where it was the exact opposite to expose to the left and preserve the shadows.

I believe the reasoning for the exposing to the right is that the way the digital camera's store the information spread over the histogram. The horizontal axis spans the range of brightness from Black (0) on the left to white (255) on the right. If you are shooting a 12-bit RAW file, there are a total of 4,096-segmented values of brightness on the histogram. Of those, 3,072 of the values (or roughly three quarters of them) are in the brightest part of the histogram—which is the third of the histogram on the far right.

Why this happens is because half the data (2048 levels) is used to store the information for the rightmost stop, then half the remaining data (1024 levels) for the next stop down and then half again (512 levels) for the third stop and so on - so that by the fifth stop you're down to 128 levels and then the 6th stop 64 levels. Why? Because CCD and CMOS chips are linear devices. And, of course, each f/stop records half of the light of the previous one, and therefore half the remaining data space available.

Basically, this is a technical way of saying that if you underexpose your images, you are throwing away massive amounts of data from your camera’s sensor, and when you tweak the exposure of the RAW file, you’ll start to see noise show up in the shadow areas of your images.