Messages

1

Animal Kingdom / Re: How would you fix this RAW of 2 baby snow leopards

« on: March 19, 2013, 03:42:56 PM »

Lightroom 4

Brilliant! I don't understand why most are trying to warm it up. It's unnatural.

Are we looking for mood, natural accuracy, or some combination thereof? 

http://www.nwf.org/Kids/Ranger-Rick/Animals/Mammals/Snow-Leopards.aspx
"As you can see (above), snow leopards aren't the color of snow. They're colored like the rock habitat they live in"
Indeed, the source RAW file shows quite a bit of color that I daresay seems naturally accurate.  IMHO it is more challenging to excite the sensuous aesthetic via a favorable presentation of the real - and for me that much more satisfying on the rare occasion that I have accomplished same.  Please don't get me wrong; I am also wildly in favor of stylized interpretation, though I don't find it as challenging a concept.  All I'm saying is let's be clear on goals before we decide to critique each other's approach to the challenge....

Thank you for the info.

Considering that this photo isn't specifically made for color accuracy, feeling is what matters to me.

I had no idea what color their fur is in general. What felt wrong to me was the color of the snow (and the dark upper part). I haven't touched the white balance in my try (except for the eye). These snow leopards appear to be whiter than those from your link.

No matter what their color is, I expect snow to be slightly bluish, as the photo actually shows it, especially at high altitudes, and especially considering that the sun doesn't appear to have been strong in the photo. For example, in the first photo from your link, both the sky and the snow are slightly bluish.

Only now I've read that a flash was used and the photo was made at a zoo. It's possible that the blue light of the flash changed the color balance (which may explain why the fur is so white relative to the snow).

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Animal Kingdom / Re: How would you fix this RAW of 2 baby snow leopards

« on: March 19, 2013, 03:31:04 PM »

Great shot! I've used lots of tools from LR, 30 minutes tops. (The most annoying thing is that it doesn't have blacks and whites from brushes because you have to be really careful with the global blacks and whites.)

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Animal Kingdom / Re: How would you fix this RAW of 2 baby snow leopards

« on: March 19, 2013, 05:49:49 AM »

Lightroom 4

Brilliant! I don't understand why most are trying to warm it up. It's unnatural.

I'm surprised by how bad the noise looks at ISO 400, even with LR 4. I guess it's the sharpening (lots of clarity perhaps?!).

4

Canon General / Re: anyone had someone over their shoulder on a job?

« on: February 07, 2013, 01:45:54 PM »

Making use of the other people who photograph the newlyweds: http://www.southernlight.com.au/images/blog/scottmichelle/scottmichelle-7.jpg

The guy on the right, in the black suit, makes this look like an ad, to me.

5

Canon General / Re: anyone had someone over their shoulder on a job?

« on: February 07, 2013, 04:17:18 AM »

First, to put things into perspective, I take photos at weddings, as a friend of the bride / groom. I don't use a flash and I don't get in the way of the photographer.

But here is the catch, I don't get in the way of the photographer because I think that the shots where this may happen are boring as hell, you know, posed shots (in the presence of everybody).

I go for candid moments, those shots that most people either don't see, or chances are you can't overlap with others taking photos.

If the photographer plans a specific pose, that is, has a specific idea rather than going for the usual "take a shot of everybody", I can't see how anyone would get in the way, or why the bride and groom would look to someone else. If this happens, it only means that the photographer is not showing who is the puppet master and appears to the other people as "just someone with a camera, like everybody else".

I have seen hired photographers tell the relative / friend type with compacts not to shoot at the same time because of their flash. Outside this, I think that the (hired) photographer has to adapt to the situation.

I mean, okay, you are annoyed by the gal / guy with a camera, but what do you do with all those people who moved around, back and forth, crossing your lens just as you trigger? Would you throw them out of the wedding? Would tell them to stay put in their chair? Are you telling yourself "oh, crap, I can't take candids because of all these people, I can only take posed but even then there are all these people..."?

6

Software & Accessories / Re: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4... DOH!!!

« on: February 04, 2013, 03:23:07 AM »

Windows 8. It's slightly faster, uses less memory, has fast boot if you like that sort of stuff and is the future. You don't need the start menu. You don't need to use Metro. Just Win+D to get into desktop mode and everything is like before, and Win + typing for search; also, Win+X for the advanced menu.

Oh, and the antivirus is now integrated, no need for a separate download.

... And get an SSD, at least for the OS (a 60 GB SSD would be fine).

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Animal Kingdom / Re: Kitty

« on: January 06, 2013, 01:41:00 PM »

Not my cat.

8

Third Party Manufacturers / Re: Samsung 3D still and video camera

« on: January 06, 2013, 05:55:59 AM »

Looks like Canon no longer has to fear Sony, it has to fear Samsung.

9

Third Party Manufacturers / Re: BLOWN away.

« on: January 06, 2013, 05:48:19 AM »

Really? At $2,800 without the $600 viewfinder I think your point is misplaced. Why wouldn't any camera with a 135 sized sensor put out 135 format IQ?

And what do you think was my point? Just asking.

Well, I probably misinterpreted the title, BLOWN away, you probably meant you are impressed with the IQ, but as I said, why would it not have the IQ of any other 135 format sensor? But as written, "BLOWN away", could be interpreted, especially in this Canon forum, as meaning Canon has been blown away by Sony, to which my answer is, for that money they are in a sector by themselves, and lets not be silly, you cannot escape the price of the RX1.

Either way, the output and size is what I would expect from that format sensor in a mirrorless body with a fixed lens, hence, I am not BLOWN away, or even that impressed, particularly given the price.

Now I understand your confusion. Yep I meant I was blown away by this IQ from a pocket size camera. I am just very impressed by how technology has progressed. Cost factor or not. To have a camera that I can slip into my coat pocket and get this IQ does impress (blow   ) me away.

Is there anything else that can do this for its size?

Maybe you were blown away because you thought that camera size equals (technical) quality. In reality, it's the sensor size that equals (technical) quality (which in this case is full frame). If someone can stick that in a phone, it would output the same quality.

As an aside, I think Canon no longer has to fear Sony, it has to fear Samsung (with its latest photo gadgetry).

10

Software & Accessories / Re: For those using Lightroom... what are your settings

« on: December 22, 2012, 09:40:44 AM »

For portraits mostly, I start from this (on RAWs):
* Tone curve: Linear.
* Blacks: -40.
* Shadows: 10.
* Sharpness: 50.
* Luminance noise reduction: 20.
* Lens correction: by profile.
* Vignette: -5.

I don't touch saturation and vibrance, but I do export photos in aRGB and see them on a hardware-calibrated aRGB display (which shows strong colors when the light is good).

11

EOS Bodies / Re: More 6D sample images - with RAW files.

« on: December 01, 2012, 06:12:37 AM »

Opened with capture one 7.0.1 (preliminary support)

Very nice. I would say the difference is about 0.7 stops better for 6D (comparing ISO 12800 to 25600). Yummy!

(For a 1/3 stops difference, one would have to look hard to notice. That's the difference that I see between 5D3 and a normalized D800.)

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EOS Bodies / Re: More 6D sample images - with RAW files.

« on: December 01, 2012, 06:07:45 AM »

you can open the RAWs with Infraview.  Maybe Rawtherapee works too.

IrfanView opens the preview JPEGs from RAWs. It doesn't decode RAWs.

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EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: What is white balance and what's the correct way to use it?

« on: November 06, 2012, 07:33:40 AM »

The camera's WB doesn't affect RAW images, so that's possible only if the camera outputs JEPG whose WB processing algorithm is "better" than that of computer processing software.

But I read somwhere that cameras collect data for different channels RGB and than applies WB. Too technical for me so maybe I explained it wrong. However, some say that even though one can play with WB in post it is not as precise as one would hit it the very first time.

My idea of using expodisc was a bit different than suggested. I'd like to use it in a room with multiple sources so I woud just point at the scene not each source and help camere make a good balance. Does this make sense?

Sense it makes, it may also be good enough, but it's not going to properly fix the color balance. That's because color is not given by the object, but by the light that hits the object and is reflected by it. I know that people are taught that objects have color, but that's simply wrong. Light has color and objects reflect a part of the light spectrum, with various intensities. For instance, if you have what you think is a purely red object that's illuminated by purely blue light, you'll see the object appear black, that is, it absorbs the light. So what is the correct color of the object? The one you think it is.

In the case of multiple light sources, you get a varying mix of seriously weird colors (coming from light bulbs).


Details here: http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/white-balance.htm

Also see there white the green-magenta correct is available:

white balance uses a second variable in addition to color temperature: the green-magenta shift. Adjusting the green-magenta shift is often unnecessary under ordinary daylight, however fluorescent and other artificial lighting may require significant green-magenta adjustments to the WB.

What is not clear from that phrase is that the correction is necessary because the color balance was affected more in those areas of the spectrum, so that needs to be compensated separately than the rest of the color balance. This still doesn't describe all the differences in color from what a human expects, but it makes things good enough.

Also note that since the light spectrum reflected by the objects is not what the camera sensor was designed for (which is likely to be D65), you'll loose a lot of tonal definition, so color corrections in those areas of the spectrum will produce seriously noisy results.

Things like white discs may be used with good results if the light is consistent, so will not need to change the WB for each shot. But if that white disc will produce photos with white walls and shirts but people with orange or green skin, you should know that it nobody's fault - it's just the light.


This article is very good in explaining practically white / color balance and its perception by humans: http://www.ianplant.com/photo-tips-how-to-white-balance.htm

14

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: What is white balance and what's the correct way to use it?

« on: November 05, 2012, 11:07:09 AM »

Has anybody tried using Expodisc? Apparently produces great results, but it is a bit expensive, though.

I remember I read somewhere that even though one can correct WB in post it sometimes leads to wrong colors afterwards. Like, changing WB in post doesn't treat all colors the same, for example blue becomes darker blue while red doesn't and I belive some cast was mentioned. Does anybody have an idea about this issue?

The camera's WB doesn't affect RAW images, so that's possible only if the camera outputs JEPG whose WB processing algorithm is "better" than that of computer processing software.

15

Software & Accessories / Re: Need great Photo editing monitor

« on: October 29, 2012, 08:54:27 AM »

This: http://www.necdisplay.com/p/desktop-monitors/pa271w-bk-sv

If you are getting the NEC, get the SpectraView because their software does *hardware* calibration, as in 10-bit color calibration in the hardware of the display. Anything else will do only 8-bit as a OS color profile.

I have the NEC 2690WUXi2.