I did a family portrait shoot in Frankston on Saturday, and since I was already on the coast, decided to hang around for some landscape photos at the beach. No HDR, just lots of editing in LR then PS. I'm not much of a landscape photographer, unless I'm traveling so here goes... 1. 2. 3. This is a four photos stitch. As you can imagine on the D3x... it's a MASSIVE photo.
When I say lots of editing in LR/PS it means about 5 min. It's a lot compared to my portrait work which is literally 15 seconds per photo. In Lightroom, I adjusted the WB to make it a bit warmer. I then moved to contrast, blacks and clarity, pushing that up as I thought was good. I'm a bit of a blacks whore, and I don't mind losing detail in blacks if I think it adds to the photo. I then exported the photo to PS where i masked out the horizon level, and fine tuned the exposure for the top and bottom halves of the photo (didn't use a GND or any filters). A tiny bit of dodge and burn was applied, although not much, as blacks in LR did the work for me. I adjusted the curves a little for a tiny bit more contrast and that's it. Here's another with my friend in the picture.
Nice work dude, i like the heavy PP here Makes it feel like your in for a stormy night, good shot for winter *rubs hands infront of the fire*
I agree with Deftone2k - the PP really creates a great atmosphere #2 is a really striking image. Good stuff!
I've been asked if the photos are really not HDR a couple times now in PM/MSN, so I thought I'd share the same info here just in case anyone else wants to know. To answer the question, it's not a HDR, although I have nothing against using HDR when it's needed. I simply took a single exposure at the correct timing and metered for the highlights, which was in this case, the sunset. With some standard editing for contrasts in Lightroom, followed by Photoshop, I came up with the end result. Here's some visual proof of before and after in Lightroom, and as you can see, the Nikon D3x has some amazing dynamic range (I'm sure it's the greatest DR of all the current cameras).
Base ISO 100 F16 1-3 seconds depending on how much blur i wanted in the waves. If more blur is needed, then aperture needs to be made smaller, for a longer shutter speed. Otherwise, a ND filter can be used to let less light in, and so aperture can remain the same and shutter can be increased. I intentionally chose shorter shutter speeds as I wanted the choppy feel of the waves with slight motion blur. If you want to go for that serene look with a soft and flat water, then a really long shutter speed is required (30 sec plus).
Can I just say, I live down that way, and for those people who don't know the area, those shots look nothing like the actual site! You've managed to take something which looks conciderably plain, and transformed it into something which I'd pay money to hand on my wall. Fantasic effort!
I get that you are trying to create a stormy mood, but they all look underexposed to me. I would like to see more detail in rocks/posts etc. Besides that, 3 is my pick.
lol.. yeh it doesn't look that dramatic in real life, although it was quite windy, cold and had a large swell. a few ppl walking their dogs but not as doomy and gloomy as the photo suggests
I love the amount of energy in #3. Because the image is so dark the eye is drawn to the waves, which I love.
really great work , just goes to show that PP can produce some excellent final products, damn, I wish i knew how to use lightroom Cheers Z
Im just amazed by the detail in the second photo especially in the timber and the water sitting on it... awesome photo
I quite like the third one (panoramic one). They're a bit too dark for me personally, but I do like the moody atmosphere you've got going. I'd be quite keen to see how this processing technique goes with a B+W conversion...
