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blinking8s
15th of June 2005 (Wed), 03:30
Now ive taken a stab at this nature stuff at dawn and dust, but ligthing and color never come out of the camera remotely close to how it looks in person, or how i want it to look. Seems that extreme saturation is always needed. I read that one of the more famous local nature photogs goes out after it rains, tried that...no luck, although the greens are rather pretty if the clouds and break, but then humidity starts to eat me alive on my hike home. The only wide'ish lens i have is the 18-55, which isnt a BAD lens, but MF on it isnt really an option, a simple tap throws it off and the shot is ruined.

example, no post added other than resize
http://blinking8s.com/IMG_6418.jpg

its just dark and blah, if i overexpose i blow highlights, and the water never turns out nice, even after i edit the photos they still seem to lack that high detail expected in nature photos of the sort, on longer exposures i do not have the patients to sit there for 3 days till the wind is dead and i can get everything frozen perfect, so i just do my best as is...i donno, basic rundown, links, tips...whatever, im lookin for anything, basically its been trial and error for me whenever i go out, and i sick of so much error.

Blackburnian
15th of June 2005 (Wed), 07:39
Hi,

You don't mention what camera setting you had for this pic. The pic looks great but is a bit dasrk like you said. Have you trid spot/prtial metering on the rocks and neg exposure so the water and greens don't blow out?

That will brighten yor dark areas and with the neg exposure (-1/3 or 2/3) you should see quite a difference.

Marc

CyberDyneSystems
15th of June 2005 (Wed), 08:47
"White Balance"

Often if you leave it on "auto" it will compensate for the late day coloring... :(

tupe
15th of June 2005 (Wed), 10:28
CDS is right. From a pp perspective, the water has a slight blue cast, and no amount of brightening will take that out.

I don't know how to do this in PS yet, but in PhotoImpact I found the brightest, whitest pixel I could and adjusted it to bright white. Then I popped it into PS and tweaked levels a little.

Is something like this what you're looking for?

http://typelogic.com/photos/waterfall.jpg

Michaelmjc
15th of June 2005 (Wed), 11:45
That's a beautiful shot! good job.