Camera Labs

Comments appreciated.
[img][img]http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5023/5672203091_a206cbcb89_b.jpg[/img]
Castlerigg Stone Circle 2 by warth man, on Flickr[/img]
[img][img]http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5228/5672204115_b4c76223fc_b.jpg[/img]
Derwentwater 1 by warth man, on Flickr[/img]
[img][img]http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5102/5672203957_75879379ef_b.jpg[/img]
Derwentwater 2 by warth man, on Flickr[/img]
[img][img]http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5104/5672772350_a1ac6b4780_b.jpg[/img]
Derwentwater 3 by warth man, on Flickr[/img]
[img][img]http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5226/5672203205_27e7a3a55f.jpg[/img]
Castlerigg Stone Circle 1 by warth man, on Flickr[/img]
[img][img]http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5150/5672771430_ff3c72b698_b.jpg[/img]
Castlerigg Stone Circle 4 by warth man, on Flickr[/img]

Beautiful country up there, I think they are slightly blown out and they do not capture the colours. I see by the Exif you are using manual mode, I would suggest looking at what setting the P mode would shoot at and use that as a base line and use some -EV for the sky.


cheers

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Nikon D7000, D40X, Nikkor 18- 200 VR II, f3.5-5.6, 70-300 AF non VR, Kit Lenses.

Thanks 4xxxx. I'll give your suggestions a try. I was using ND filters but perhaps should have doubled up or pushed further down.

I should have added that it was a hazy day so colours were not all they might have been.

warth man

Nice photos there, but I agree about the exposures. Some curves adjustments are needed in post as well to boost contrast a little.

Welcome to my perma-world of hazy skies and limited visibility in the distance - it's a pain!!!

Some great landscapes in these pictures. All they need is a bit more colour, although considering they were shot midday, they turned out great.

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Flickr

Thanks for the comments and help eVolutioN and dubaiphil. These pics were taken during a course and are better than anything I'd done before landscape-wise. My tutor was very good but is more of a Canon man and my camera is a Nikon, otherwise he might have been aware of a need to tweak EV. We started at 0600, when it was a bit cool to say the least, and finished taking shots at about 1130 in the relative warmth (by then) of lakeside Derwentwater. We then had about an hour and a half of post work and that is another area I have a long way to go with. Should I perhaps have selected "vivid" re the colours?

Hi Warth, you mention you are using a Nikon. Which model? I use a D40 and find that -0.7 exposure compensation is necessary in bright conditions to avoid that washed out look. However I imagine you should have been able to rescue these shots with post processing, perhaps with levels, or as earlier suggested with curves.

Hello audioman
I have a D7000 and much to learn. Your and dubaiphil's mentions of curves and levels are a bit over my head just now but if I get a chance later today I'll take a look at whatever photoshop elements has along those lines and play with the pics.
Thanks for the help.

Hi warth man

Curves are in photoshop, whereas levels are in photoshop and elements (well I'm talking about PSE7 that I have)

After a recent course I was using exposure comp to adjust exposure to expose to the right. This ended up giving me far more detail in my final shots after processing.

The key is to take a shot, check the histogram and the RGB histograms to avoid blowing any colour, and then dialing in a bit of exp comp to push as far right as you can. In bright conditions I was pushing exp comp up to +0.7 occasionally to reach this. Your end result on your camera LCD won't look as good, but once processed there will be more detail, tonal range and colour in the shot.

Here are some examples on this thread:

http://www.cameralabs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24988



Then in PP, you can dial in more contrast and curves/levels/saturation/brightness adjustments to suit, with a lot more clarity in your final shot.

It's a difficult time of day to take landscape photos unfortunately, as the light is far from ideal so it makes images naturally washed out and lacking in contrast. That can be somewhat rectified in post though, especially if you were shooting in RAW, though I would highly recommend Lightroom over Photoshop for PP work.

Thank you fusi0n
I'm not sure that it was time of day so much as it was just hazy. Believe me, it wasn't warm, even though the pics, with blue skies, might suggest otherwise.

But you and dubaiphil and others are quite correct. I played around more with PSE earlier today and I can see that it is possible to adjust my pics more than I have done so far. I guess what I'm trying to achieve at this stage is getting the pics right, or as right as I can, in the first place. Those that dubaiphil led me to in his last post are of the standard that I aspire to.

What was a pain today was that I went out to try audioman's recommendation of winding back the EV the exhaust came apart on my trusty steed and I didn't have anything to strap it up with (silly me). Can't blame the car though. She's a 14-y-o Defender and the only times I've had problems were when I hadn't done something I should have. Bit like my photrography I guess.

Cheers all.

Love the area, spent a couple of days there way back when, and got introduced to Newcastle Brown Ale (still my favorite beer)

As it happens WestCoast, I'm a Geordie. Newcastle Brown Ale probably destroyed some of photography brain cells - hence my problems. I came across a few Canadians in submarines. They were marginally more couth than Australians. All were good blokes.

I had to Google "Geordie" to find the meaning (North East of England)
Beautiful slice of the world you have there.