Friday night 10:36 ...

[Cem_Usakligil]

... and everything's well.

Cheers,

​

 

[Asher Kelman]

Cem,

This is a delightful water view cabin! Pretty sharp. Where were you located? Looks more like 10:34, LOL!

Are there ducks to be seen during the day?

Asher

 

[Cem_Usakligil]

.... Looks more like 10:34, LOL!

Just checked, my camera's time is 2 minutes ahead of the reality so it was actually 10:36 pm. The church tower was two minutes behind apparently.
This is taken at Kinderdijk, Holland; a world heritage site of 19 old wind mills. Bart and I went there last night to picture the windmills which are floodlighted with led lamps during the night just for a couple of weeks during this time of the year. There are many ducks, geese, swans and other species of birds to be seen; during the day and at night. Photographing them at night is a bit more difficult though. And before you ask, yes we took pictures of the windmills too; both wide and close-up.

 

[janet Smith]

Hi Cem

What a tranquil scene with lovely colours, I hope it made you feel as contented and peaceful as your shot looks.....

Thank you for sharing

 

[Kathy Rappaport]

Oh Wow

Nicely done....how fun for you to be out past your bedtimes to enjoy a night shoot. The result is quite lovely.

 

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

And before you ask, yes we took pictures of the windmills too; both wide and close-up.

Here's an impression from earlier that night, just as the sun was setting.

It's part (3-4 tiles) of a wider (5 tiles) stitched panorama taken with the TS-E 24mm f/3.5 II lens (used without T/S). I took several other panoramas, but haven't had the time to process them yet. If there's something worthwhile to share, I'll post that later.

Cheers,
Bart

 

[Michael Fontana]

That's nice Bart
a good tick befor sun went down....

How comes, that a 3 - 4 vert-stitch with a 24 mm hasn't the extrem left and right sides (distortion)? That must be 120 degs....

 

[Cem_Usakligil]

Hi Bart,

Looks great, amazing detail and sharpness. I was eagerly waiting for you to start sharing these gems from that shoot, thanks. I guess I should show some of mine as well.

Cheers,

 

[Asher Kelman]

Here's an impression from earlier that night, just as the sun was setting.

It's part (3-4 tiles) of a wider (5 tiles) stitched panorama taken with the TS-E 24mm f/3.5 II lens (used without T/S). I

Bart,

Excellent balance getting nothing central but a string of iconic windmills in a novel composition. Everything seems well placed. This is most enjoyable. Printing will take advantage of all the detail you must have for drawing the foreground water, the lilac flowers on the right bank and the ? floating leaves etc. It's these features that will finally "make" the picture and give it the presence to draw one into this really splendid tableau.

How much adjustment did you so in the stitching program and which one?

Asher

 

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

That's nice Bart
a good tick befor sun went down....

How comes, that a 3 - 4 vert-stitch with a 24 mm hasn't the extrem left and right sides (distortion)? That must be 120 degs....

Hi Michael,

Yes, IMHO the best time to shoot night images is around dusk (or dawn) when the sky still has some color.

I managed to restrict the projection distortion with:
a. 50% overlap , and
b. a cylindrical projection

The overlap was this large because the Smartblend stitcher then is able to better match the exposure differences between tiles. The cylindrical projection avoids the over extended cornes from projecting a wide angle on a flat (rectilinear) plane. The curvature of horizontals which is a result of the cylindrical projection is hardly noticeable due to the scene layout.

Cheers,
Bart

 

[Michael Fontana]

well done Bart

for hiding the look of a cylindrical projection!

 

[Cem_Usakligil]

..This is taken at Kinderdijk, Holland; a world heritage site of 19 old wind mills. Bart and I went there last night to picture the windmills which are floodlighted with led lamps during the night just for a couple of weeks during this time of the year. There are many ducks, geese, swans and other species of birds to be seen; during the day and at night. Photographing them at night is a bit more difficult though. And before you ask, yes we took pictures of the windmills too; both wide and close-up.

This one is much later in the evening when it was as dark as it gets in Holland (curses to the light pollution, sigh). Two of the lighted windmills.

​

Cheers,

 

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Bart,

Excellent balance getting nothing central but a string of iconic windmills in a novel composition. Everything seems well placed. This is most enjoyable. Printing will take advantage of all the detail you must have for drawing the foreground water, the lilac flowers on the right bank and the ? floating leaves etc. It's these features that will finally "make" the picture and give it the presence to draw one into this really splendid tableau.

Hi Asher,

It's a bit of a cliché picture postcard type of scenery, but then there's nothing wrong with a pretty picture, is there. I did make a deliberate choice to cut off a bit of the right of the full panorama, to improve the composition.

How much adjustment did you so in the stitching program and which one?

The 5 individual tiles were first assembled from 5 bracketed exposures each, which were exposure blended for speed with Photomatix, also because Photomatix can remove moving objects (almost unavoidable with long exposure time sequences). Another uncertain element was that other people walking on the wooden bridge I was standing on would make the bridge shake. A tripod can only help a bit under those conditions. When in doubt, I had to shoot another bracketed series, hoping the clouds wouldn't move too much.

I used PTAssembler (Windows only) for stitching. Here is the (not colormanaged) partial preview of the full panorama:

There was little correction in the stitcher needed, and the SmartBlend module took care of the exposure differences. The panorama, output to a small size, was then Photoshopped a bit to add a curves adjustment to darken the righthand side with a gradient mask, and crop for a better composition. At the bottom corners you can see the railing of the bridge, I was approaching a 180 degree FOV (PTAssembler calculated 167 degrees).

Cheers,
Bart

 

[Asher Kelman]

Thanks Bart for the exposition. It makes me feel more comfortable that I'm not myself doing more work than necessary. Sometimes I wonder whether everyone else takes a lot of effort, and I can see you do. I like the idea of using Photomatix for the moving people. I guess you mark them in each picture? There is no substitute still for the human brain to use these tools. There's no "auto" yet for this, thank goodness!

What is lacking in Autopano Pro to do this in one go as it does take bracketed shots and does the equalizing of exposure and color across the junctions?

Asher

 

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Thanks Bart for the exposition. It makes me feel more comfortable that I'm not myself doing more work than necessary. Sometimes I wonder whether everyone else takes a lot of effort, and I can see you do. I like the idea of using Photomatix for the moving people. I guess you mark them in each picture?

No, I was standing right up to the railing, people could only pass behind me. When they did, the wooden bridge would shake, including my tripod. On the 30 second exposure times that might only show as a slight blur when the vibrations were brief, but in a bracketed series there are also shorter exposures which would become useless for exposure blending/fusion/HDR.

There is no substitute still for the human brain to use these tools. There's no "auto" yet for this, thank goodness!

Photomatix does a pretty decent job, but within limits. One still needs to have all the processing skills when 'auto' fails.

What is lacking in Autopano Pro to do this in one go as it does take bracketed shots and does the equalizing of exposure and color across the junctions?

The main drawback of APP is that when the automatic part fails, there is little intervention possible. Luckily it does allow to export projects to other stitchers, such as PTAssembler and others. PTGui and PTAssembler were originally GUI frontends for Prof. Dersch's Panotools, so they offer lots of manual intervention possibilities. Both programs have since evolved to fullblown stitchers, with lots of automation capabilities. Nevertheless, they also need some manual work from time to time.

Cheers,
Bart

 

[Rachel Foster]

These go in my "study and learn from" file.

 

[Sandra Jones]

Impressive images. WOW!

 

[fahim mohammed]

Cem and Bart...I love such images..postcard or not for their simplicity and elegance and they also
remind me of the great masters whose works hang in the museums in Amsterdam. However, I need
to learn more about shooting this time of the day/evening/night. what are the common iso that you folks use. it would appear that you go for dof and consequently smaller apertures..what values do you generally use? not for these pics but generally.

if you encounter noise in the shadows, how do you take care of it?

Thanks for sharing these, to me at least, scenes from Holland.

 

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Rachel, Sandra, Fahim,

Thanks for the kind words.

Cem and Bart...I love such images..postcard or not for their simplicity and elegance and they also remind me of the great masters whose works hang in the museums in Amsterdam.

Fahim, you are right. The interesting thing is the time difference in 'capturing' the scene. For the old Dutch/Flemish masters it was a contemporary scene, for us it is a well preserved part of the Dutch enduring struggle (through the centuries) against the water (the Kinderdijk location is a UNESCO world heritage site).

Sofar we have succeeded in reclaiming more land that we have lost (we are expanding our territory without going to war against other nations). An implicit aspect of life in the Netherlands is somehow always connected to the fight against the water, whether we are still conscious about it or not, it's part of the fabric of society.

For example, when someone wants to build a basement under their house, in the western parts of the country that basement/cellar would act like a bathtub, it wants to float like a boat and push up the house above. So someone (a water board) has to regulate the level of the watertable to accomodate such structures. Even in the meadows where cows can graze, the ground water level is lowered when the cows can go outside in the spring (to reduce soggy grasslands), and the level is raised in autumn when the grass stops growing and the cows stay indoors.

I think there are different water issues in your native country ...

However, I need to learn more about shooting this time of the day/evening/night. what are the common iso that you folks use. it would appear that you go for dof and consequently smaller apertures..what values do you generally use? not for these pics but generally.

I tend to decide for a certain aperture that offers the depth of field I require (depends on the scene), and then let the exposure(s) fall where they may. To capture the light there is, I will often start with a bracketed exposure time series, and later decide on the best postprocessing solution (HDR or Exposure blending), whichever reproduces the vision that helps the scene best.

if you encounter noise in the shadows, how do you take care of it?

Noise has several origins. Part of the noise stems from low/under-exposure. A bracketed exposure series will offer an exposure that represents the shadows well, but may clip/blow-out the highlights, and an exposure that preserves the highlights but underexposes the shadows. The combination of them will give technically good coverage of all levels of exposure. A tripod or other support will improve the chance of success when trying to combine the different exposures.

Thanks for sharing these, to me at least, scenes from Holland.

You're most welcome. When you happen to pass through the Netherlands on your travels, don't hesitate to mention it to Cem or myself if you like. If possible I/we'd like to meet you (and your wife) in person and give some pointers to sights to see (within the restrictions of available time). Given your preference to 'normal' temperatures, I'd suggest summertime (20-35 degrees Celsius). Your wife apparently doesn't shy away from freezing temperatures, but I personally prefer above freezing point conditions ;-).

Cheers,
Bart