Working with LightZone on fall colors

Bev Sampson said:

"""whatever I'm doing, that in 7 months I will have lived 80 years in this old world"""

Wonderful, Mary. I just passed 70. Sure wish digital existed when I was young. The youth have so many new innovations to use and to anticipate for the future

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Yes, they do. But I'm trying to grab onto as many as I can of those things, for my own self!

""" And, don't worry, Bev--winter is coming, and I bet you could photograph some great winter trees on a golf course, also."""

Great idea, Mary, but we are leaving for FL Nov 17th. We pack up our fifthwheel and our four cats and head south to capture the birds. I hope there is a better bird representation at Sannibel this year than last.

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Well, I hope so, too. Although I knew you were planning another trip down there this fall, I didn't realize that you were going to stay all winter.

I think that's perfectly wonderful.

I love being retired and thus having the time to devote to my lifelong hobby. However, the restrictions that come with being older are that I cannot keep up with the guys in my photo club anymore. Carrying the heavy equipment from site to site is exhausting and flares the asthma but I do it anyway pausing only to use my inhaler. If I get down on my tummy to photograph the ground level birds, I can't get up again. lol

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Do what you love! I can't get back up from the floor or the ground either, without something to hold onto and sort of climb back up, using my arms.

Believe me, I am very careful not too fall or to sit down on too low a chair.

While I was walking at Radnor, essentially alone because my nephew and my sister had gone on ahead, I needed to re-tie my shoe. I looked for a sloping bank and finally found one with a convenient fallen log. It served, and I got back up after only two tries, holding onto the stems of the bushes beside me.

However, the log was wet, and I went around with a damp seat to my slacks for awhile. Was worth it. Kept my footing safe with secured shoe-laces, and let me enjoy the rest of my walk.

But, what a great idea to photograph those golf course trees with ice and snow. Maybe someone else on this forum will do exactly that and post the images.

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Maybe they will.

We haven't had any snow in Tennessee in two years, and then it was just a little skip on Christmas Eve morning. I made some pics of it with my G2, looking out from my porch to the street.

I will not be unhappy if Tennessee never has any more snow.

Mary

Diane Fields said:

[...] you can't drop your ISO down as low as Asher suggests on a G series

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Lowest on a G2 is 50, which is, not coincidentally, its native pseudo-ISO. Which brings me to the sound advice: Use the camera's native pseudo-ISO - I have yet to come upon a camera where this is not the lowest setting. Makes a lot of sense technically since digital noise is about electrical current "jumping over" from one site to another and its amplification [the louder the volume on your stereo amp the more you hear distortions]. Any camera manufacturer worth his salt will try to get the best ratio, not the lowest possible numeral.

So for the G2, what is it? Anyone know?

Asher

Asher, just read the first 6 words of my posting above [sans quotation].

Dierk, thanks a million!

The fewer settings I have to change on my G2, at this stage of my use of it, the better off I shall be.

I'm getting better, and I do appreciate the interest in helping from everyone who is commenting here.

I do think that in the matter of ISO--as in so much else--I shall follow your advice.

Mary

But is it 50 or is that another calculation from 100?

Asher

Asher Kelman said:

But is it 50 or is that another calculation from 100?

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Dierk said:

Lowest on a G2 is 50, which is, not coincidentally, its native pseudo-ISO.

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Corroboration can be found at DPReview, where at the bottom of page 17 a small table gives us performance numbers for the G2's pseudo-ISO settings.

I am, just these few messages later, quite sure that no camera manufacturer will compromise light efficiency by introducing an pseudo-ISO setting below the native one of the sensor. That'd mean to use negative attenuation, something like turning the volume below 0 [= below nothing to hear].

If I could just chime in a little.

I agree with Dierk's advice for the most part. Using the camera's native ISO will (or at least should) result in an image with the least amount of noise. However this is not always possible. There may not be enough light at that ISO value to take a photograph. You may not be able to open the apeture or slow the shutter speed enough to get a photograph with an acceptable exposure.

Moving to a higher ISO value is simply a tradeoff. You are deciding to trade some amount noise in exchange for an acceptably exposed image.

So I guess what I'm saying is shoot at the lowest ISO you can that allows you to correctly expose your subject and don't be afraid or unwilling to experiment with higher ISO values if the situation warrants it. More choices isn't a bad thing.

Joe, I will keep your thoughts in mind. Thanks for chiming in.

Mary

Radnor Lake, rendered beuatifully

I am taking advantage of the gallery which Cem is maintaining for me on his website by putting up a rendition which Stuart Rae made of my view of Radnor Lake from the first bridge--which is one of the four photos in the post to which I am replying.

Stuart brought out the colors that I was trying to access but didn't have the skills to show.

Here's the link to the image:

http://opf.mediacentric.nl/albums/m...opyright_Notice.jpg.html?g2_imageViewsIndex=1

I put the copyright notice on this rendition because I think Stuart did such an outstanding job with a file that didn't really have the best exposure in camera.

Mary

Hi Mary,

I agree with Asher's earlier comments on the first page wrt this picture, it is really very good, I can see you tried to frame it well, get some foreground interest etc, and Stuart has done a fine job on the colours.

I think you could do a nice job, or at least try to print it on your epson - a whole new experiance I guess. Me, being me, I think I would crop away some of the foliage, it is a bit distracting. If the image is 6 inches high, I think I would start by cropping away the top inch, maybe more. See what you think.

Best wishes,

Ray

Ray, will do.

I have already printed Stuart's rendition on my Epson, and the printer showed it to even greater advantage than the monitor screen did, here.

Mary

Oh, I'd like to see a larger image of the 'leaves falling on lake radnor' I suspect there could be some nice contrasting colours - Stuart could be busy again ;-) ....

Best wishes,

Ray

I can do that, now that I have the gallery at Cem's website.

I was constrained by Village Photos 250 kb file size limit when I embedded that image in my post.

Mary

Looks nice, apart from being oversharpened [you'll notice the halos around the twigs for instance].

Stuart brought out the colors that I was trying to access but didn't have the skills to show.

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The skill is not mine at all. It's all down to having a good RAW converter - RSP in this case - and adding a touch of Shadow Illuminator in PP. Credit the software developers, not the person who presses the keys.

Dierk is correct about the sharpening, although some of the haloes may also be jpeg artifacts - I compressed the image quite a bit to email it back to Mary. If I'd taken more time I would have tweaked the settings in Focal Blade to reduce edge sharpening a touch. I'll go back and check the original TIFF.

Regards,

Stuart

StuartRae said:

Credit the software developers, not the person who presses the keys.

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But the former only provide tools, it is the latter deciding what, how and why to do it. Just like with carpentry, carpenters and hammer manufacturers.

An Acceptable Photograph of Trees in Fall Color?

Here is a photograph of the trees in my sister's yard, which is adjacent to my own. There was a moderately heavy fog in the early morning of November 1, and I decided to try what the G2 could do with capturing that misty light.

Of course, the resulting photograph was not good enough to show at OPF, because there is no way to frame out the utility wires from the trees, and from this angle I also got street signs and parked cars.

But I shared the photo privately with Joe Russo. He saw merit in my shot, and he was kind enough to clone out the distractions and enhance the image a bit for me. I think it is now worth sharing here with you. I'm embedding this rendition/treatment here with Joe's permission.

Maple Tree on a Foggy Morning



Here is what Joe told me he did with my jpeg image of the tree that I had attached to him, after I had taken it from the RAW files, downsized it, and reduced the noise:

Quoting from Joe Russo's private e-mail to me, with his permission:

Here is what I did: I cloned out the objects that I found
distracting, then I added a bit of contrast and saturation to make things
'pop' a little more, and finally applied a tiny smidge of sharpening.

I did not try to make any adjustment to the sky because I think that overcast
look in the sky goes along with the fog to suggest as sense of quiet.

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Joe and I would both enjoy hearing your comments and critiques on my photo and on his treatment of it.

Mary

Very good, I like it. You got three different main colours, nicely playing upon each other. Then there is the dream-like quality from the haze - the image almost smells like autumn.

Thanks, Dierk. I value your comment and your praise very much.

Mary