Hobart docks pics taken with 14-24

[johnd]

A few Hobart docks pics taken Easter Monday morning with the 14-24.
There was some pretty nice light on but it only lasted a short while.









Cheers
John

[Alpha_7]

Wow John, these are gorgeous, love the colours (and these D3 jpgs again ?)

[radar]

Some beautiful shots here John. The last one would be my favourite. First one is also very nice. That is meant to be an awesome lens and you aren't making my case of NAS any better with these and your other thread with the buildings in Hobart.

With the D3 and the 14-24, do you find you have to do much PP in terms of colour adjustments/curves/saturation? The colours in these look very nice.

thanks for sharing,

André

[sirhc55]

Excellent shots John and well worth getting up early

[dodge]

Very nice indeed

[Pehpsi]

Beautiful shots, last one is my fave for sure! Conditions were perfect.

[johnd]

Thanks for the comments guys.

Craig, no these aren't jpgs. I finally worked out how to process the D3 NEFs properly. The only thing that seems to be able to handle the D3 NEFs properly is Capture NX. It automatically removes any CA and colour noise. So I just batch a whole folder full up and fire up Capture NX and come back an hour later to find 150 nice tiffs waiting for me, then I can go onto the next step.

André, each image was taken as a 5 shot bracket, 1EV apart per shot. I then pick up shots 1, 3, 5 and feed the tiffs into Photomatix to get an HDR. I then open the HDR output in CS2 with the 1 or 2 of the original tiffs and do some careful layer blending. I want the dynamic range that HDRs provide, but not the plastic feel. It takes about 5 to 15 minutes in CS2 (depending on how much layer masking is needed) plus a couple minutes in Photomatix per finished image. I don't mind spending the time because I like the result.


Cheers
John

[radar]

I don't blame you about spending the time. You get a fantastic result out of it. Thanks for explaining how you do it. I Certainly would not have guessed HDR. I thought you may have held some GND in front of the 14-24.



André
(fix spelling)

[Killakoala]

John, you are really showing how good that lens is with your skills.

[the foto fanatic]

Excellent use of your new gear; and some hot PP skills too.

[in1way]

I was around the docks in Hobart early January......I won't embarrass myself by posting the shots I took. Love your work here, time well spent for glorious results........I'm gobsmacked to say the least.

[stubbsy]

John

These are far and away the best images I've seen from you (and you've posted some fantastic ones). The weakest in a brilliant bunch is #2 (I think there is a little too much foreground), but I'd be bloody happy with even that one

[Viz]

John, that third one is painfully sharp, I'd love to see a large print.

I moved to canon where the grass is brown and chokes my breathing *chough*
I am maybe slightly jealous of your purchase.

[surenj]

Brilliant stuff. Thanks for sharing your technique. I haven't heard of anyone blending the ORIGINAL with PHOTOMATIX output before. Is this meant to be common knowledge ?

[johnd]

Thanks for the comments guys. The 3rd one is my favourite, but I have taken quite a few like it before. When I showed the 3rd to Alison, she rolled her eyes and said "Another duck". There's just no pleasing some people. I'll be printing this one big for my wall. I was planning on buying Fred Miranda's Stair Interpolation software so I could take it up to a 20" X 30". Has anyone used this software successfully to make large prints?

Surrenj, I don't know if it's common knowledge or not. No-one suggested it to me, I just started doing it to get over a problem (in my mind) with Photomatix. With Photomatix, I've found that reflections of the sky come out as light as the sky itself, whereas in real life the reflection is slightly darker. So I started masking in the reflections back from the original to get the darkening. Then one thing led to another and now I always end up tinkering with the HDR output using 1 or 2 of the originals. The HDR process gives you the dynamic range and the blending back in of parts of the originals gives you the realistic look that sometimes gets lost with the HDR process. After making the HDR, I open it and the just under exposed original, paste the HDR onto the original and play with the opacity until I like it - typically taking the HDR opacity down to 70% to 80%. Then tinker from there.

Another thing I've found is that you absolutely have to get rid of any chromatic aberation in the originals before you use the HDR software. I can just imagine Photomatix saying: "Oh there's a lovely blue stripe down the side of that mast and a lovely red one on the other side. I'd better make that stand out." And it does given half a chance. HDRs bring colour noise to the surface for the same reason. IMHO the best thing ever invented to help with HDRs was the D300 and D3 (in the Nikon world anyway) with their reduced colour noise and lack of CA. The 14-24 helps too.


Chers
John

[Wocka]

No# 3 is fantastic.

Who ever is picking the POTW this week can't go past these 3 images.

Thanks for the heads up in the prcessing. I will give this a try myself as I hate the plastic look that HDR software creates.

Cheers

[johnd]

#2 (I think there is a little too much foreground)

Thanks for that comment Peter. I just went back and cropped a bit off the foreground of this one. And lightened the boats a little as well. I think it's an improvemnent.

Cheers
John

[stubbsy]

I just went back and cropped a bit off the foreground of this one. And lightened the boats a little as well. I think it's an improvemnent.

Better for me too John

[surenj]

Thanks for your explanation johnd, I think you have stumbled on to something here with the HDR blending... Inspiring to see images of this quality.

[Catcha]

Number 3 is great love the reflection from the water of the boat and the mask

[Shorty]

Wow love all 3 - great work!! Well done!!



Shorty

[photohiker]

Number 3. Excellent. Love the glassy quality of the reflections

Michael

[glamy]

I like number 1 & 3. Very nice