Few out door pics from mtn trip Friday

[superconnected]

the last should be called white out, since it's so whited out.

[regnaD kciN]

1. And, as usual, here are some of mine from the same trip...

(And if you think your last photo was whited-out, superconnected, check out mine from a hundred or so feet downstream. Anyone have sunglasses around here? ;-) )

[Maestro]

13. Love the shots!

Even they were tweaked or not. Can you remember what the iso and aperture settings were for the water shots? I love the motion you have in those rushing water shots.

Edit: Meant to post in response to OP, but the same questions hold true for you too. ;)

[regnaD kciN]

15. Oh, SURE they were...

Meant to post in response to OP, but the same questions hold true for you too.

You can't fool me...you're just trying to make me feel better. superconnected's photos get all the attention, while no one here is really interested in my work. Nobody loves me! :cry:

:nopity:

Seriously, here are the data for the photos I took (all were taken with a Nikon 5700 -- I'm not sure how the focal lengths equate to standard 35mm lenses):

FIRST POST

Photo 1: ISO 200, 1/60s, f3.5, 22.3mm
Photo 2: ISO 200, 1/60s, f4.4, 13.7mm
Photo 3: ISO 100, 1/113s, f3.4, 21mm
Photo 4: ISO 200, 1/60s, f3.8, 31.9mm
Photo 5: ISO 100, 1/269.6s, f5, 8.9mm
Photo 6: ISO 100, 1/388.5s, f5.9, 61.5mm

THE FIRST CAMERA RAW EXAMPLE PHOTO (vertically-framed shot of waterfall):
ISO 100, 1/294.6s, f4.8, 31.9mm

THE SECOND CAMERA RAW EXAMPLE PHOTO (bridge over waterfall):
ISO 100, 1/463.8s, f5.7, 23.7mm

Hope these help!

[Maestro]

16. Thanks.

I am just beginning to learn the terminology here. I would have thought that the ISO would have been higher to catch the water in motion like that without blurring. Am I missing something?

[regnaD kciN]

17. It depends...

I would have thought that the ISO would have been higher to catch the water in motion like that without blurring.

The ISO isn't something that works in isolation -- the key factor is shutter speed, which is related to both the ISO of the film/digicam and, of course, the amount of light available.

For example, the first few of my photos were taken on the nature loop downstream of the falls. In that area, there was a lot of tree-canopy cover, and hence relatively little light. I had to bump the ISO to 200 to get a shutter speed of 1/60s, which is really the slowest you can go and still be able to handhold steadily. I didn't want to take it to a higher ISO, because most digital minicams, including the 5700, are subject to chroma noise at 800 or even 400.

In the first two shots, both taken at 1/60th at ISO 200, you'll notice the moving water looks different from in the other shots -- it's much more of a soft white blur. This is the effect of the 1/60s shutter speed.

Moving down to the third picture, you will see that the path had moved away from the tree cover, and so I was able to take the ISO back to 100 and shoot at slightly under 1/125s. If you look clearly, you'll see somewhat more texture to the white sections of the water, because it's being "frozen" a bit more by the faster shutter speed.

Leaving aside the non-water photo that follows, the remainder of my posted pictures were taken in bright enough conditions that I could keep it at ISO 100 with shutter speeds ranging between 1/270s and 1/390s. At those speeds, the water is really being caught in mid-motion, resulting in being able to see virtually each drop of spray.

If you wanted to catch the water like that in shadowy conditions, of course, you'd need a higher ISO to be able to shoot at a decent enough shutter speed. In which case, I would also recommend not using a minicam, even a good one like the 5700, and going instead with a high-quality D-SLR whose larger sensor can, in some cases, give you noise-free images even up to ISO 1600.

[Maestro]

18. Thanks.

I was under the rather simplistic impression that higher ISO automatically meant faster shutter speed. So you can keep your ISO at a low rate and still get fast shutter speeds? I'm just learning all this. I should get my Canon Digital Rebel XT in two weeks.

[ConsAreLiars]

19. Here are some good example of how shutter speed

changes the appearance of moving water: http://www.acdsystems.com/English/Community/ColumnsArticles/PhotoTips/photo-2005-03-30.htm

"Faster" film speed or ISO allows faster shutter speeds, all other things being equal. The actual shutter speed you use will depend on many other things, like how much light is available and how much of that light is channeled through the lens to the film or sensor. The latter depends on how large the opening in the lens is - the aperture. A lens opened to f/2.8 will let in a "lot" of light, while one set to f/22 will only allow a small amount through. Using these controls allow you to choose a range of shutter speeds under any particular conditions.

[Maestro]

21. Thanks so much.

That was an interesting article and a good website to boot. ;)

[regnaD kciN]

20. Lucky you...

I personally covet the Nikon D70, but the Digital Rebel would be a close second choice (or, if I had the money, the Canon EOS 20D with the IS zoom).

[Maestro]

22. It came down to price for me.

I couldn't go the extra mile for the D70. It is a fine camera though. For what I am doing I think that the XT will do just fine.

[GOPFighter]

2. I love the green moss on the rocks...

...in your 4th picture.

[superconnected]

3. Thanks GOPFighter

It was a zoom in so I got lucky that it kept the moss detail.

[regnaD kciN]

4. An interesting discovery...

...of why, if possible, Camera RAW mode should be used at all times.

When looking through my photos (automatically converted to JPEG by Nikon View 6), I noticed one that was taken about one outcropping further down from where superconnected took her (beautiful!) fourth photo, at just about the same time. However, unless you knew from being there that they were taken close-by, you'd never see much of a similarity.



Pretty ugly, eh? For a time, I was wondering if there was something wrong with my camera, or whether it had been overweighting the white water at the bottom of the frame and blowing out the rest of the image. Finally, I decided to take the original Camera RAW (NEF) file and convert it manually with Photoshop, instead of relying on Nikon's conversion algorithms. The result, to put it mildly, was quite different.



Apparently, Nikon's converter doesn't do a very good job with high-contrast RAW files. Now I'm wondering if I need to go back and look at lots of other RAW files I have whose JPEGs seemed desaturated and overcontrasty, and re-convert them all by hand...

:shrug:

[F.Gordon]

5. That 2nd photo....??

You did nothing other than use Photoshop to convert from RAW to JPEG? I confess to having complete ignorance on the significance of RAW, but maybe I need to reduce that level of ignorance a notch or two....

[regnaD kciN]

6. Both had a minor amount of Photoshopping...

...but, as you can, see, it made little difference in the first one. ;-)

The vast majority of the improvement was in using CS2's RAW loader to tweak various factors of the incoming file. And, of course, the end result was a 16-bit color image rather than the 8-bit one from the automatic JPEG converter. You can do a lot to improve the image in the RAW loader, but it isn't a quick, easy process.

[regnaD kciN]

7. One thing that should probably be added...

These were taken at Deception Falls near Stevens Pass in the Washington Cascades.

[superconnected]

8. Good. Even though I was there, I didn't know the name of the place

thanks for telling!

[regnaD kciN]

9. More fun with Camera RAW...

I went back and converted some of the other shots from that trip. For example, here's the old version of the falls by the bridge, which I already posted here:



As you can probably guess, this was heavily tweaked in Photoshop to get any detail in the water and make the bridge visible at all. The result looked, to me, quite artificial -- in particular, the bridge itself looks overexposed and washed-out.

I went back to the original NEF file and used CS2's RAW loader. The result was an image that needed a lot less Photoshopping and is a far closer representation of the actual location:



So far, I'm extremely impressed with the results (to put it mildly). I think, from now on, I'm going to forego Nikon's automatic JPEG converter and use Photoshop to convert each image myself.

[GOPFighter]

10. Thanks for posting this

The difference between the two is significant.

I've only taken 5 or 6 shots in the RAW mode with my Olympus 5050 and never thought to convert them to JPEG and compare the difference.

I'll do that this weekend.

[Algomas]

11. I love to do it in the RAW every chance I get.

[regnaD kciN]

12. I guess it was only a matter of time...

...before someone came up with that one...

:eyes:

[Maestro]

14. See post #13 please.

I messed up on to whom I was responding. ;)

[regnaD kciN]

23. While I can't answer for superconnected...

...I happened to take two photos, at different focal lengths, of the same location as her first photo, probably within a few seconds either way.





Both were at ISO 100, with the first shot at 1/514s f7.6, and the second at 1/389s f5.9. So I think it's safe to assume that superconnected's picture was shot at similar settings.