Post Your Best Landscapes

[inter211]

Here's a shot of the Milky Way rising over Indian Rock Arch in Yosemite National Park that I snapped this past weekend

wow; so you were wide open for 30sec at iso 3200 . . . what post-processing went in, that's freaking awesome

Only minimal post-processing...mainly some noise reduction and sharpening. This shot is mostly as-is straight from camera. It was shot at f/1.4 to capture enough light before star trailing.

I always have to ask, just like my wife always feels the need to touch flowers to see if they're real

The 'creative director' who works with my wife that is usually amazed at what my wife brings to work (my stuff) but I have watched him first hand churn out amazing images from absolute crap in photoshop.

It's great to see an image like yours that actually came from a camera and not someone's imagination.

I have to agree with you. I've seen plenty of images that have been over-processed and look nothing like the image that came from the camera.

Personally I like to try and get most things right in the field using my set of ND grad filters to tame the contrasts and planning ahead to know when the lighting is best to take the shot I'm going for. I find it more enjoyable to create images in the field rather than spend countless hours in front of my computer editing it via software.

[Heidrun]

The fisherman outside Chania in Crete

[kubelik]

Perhaps its a hold over from my film days, but doesn't anyone just shoot a great photo without a bunch of photoshop or HDR. Please don't get me wrong, I completely appreciate the talent of you who know the intricacies of Photoshop and Silver EFX Pro and the like. But what happened to the simplicity of composing a great image and exposing it correctly?

plenty of people do (as pinnaclephotography clearly demonstrates).  when you start off digital shooting it always seems like everyone's using effects and filters these days but after a while you look around and find there are plenty of very talented folks that are shooting excellent files straight out-of-camera.

but please, don't go down the road of "the simplicity of film" making "great images".  most of the "great" landscape work in the film days was anything BUT simple.  and your compose-and-shoot bliss only existed because of all the work being performed by the chemicals in the darkroom.  we are now our own one-stop-shops for film processing, and so we have to do digitally what was performed by a negative bath under red lights before. 

I know, because I was there, processing Ilford film back then.  lots of others on this forum were around for the glory days of film too.  what we do now to get a great image is no better or worse than what we did then to get a great image.  it still involves composition, color, form, proper technique, and an artist's eye.

[thatcherk1]

but please, don't go down the road of "the simplicity of film" making "great images".  most of the "great" landscape work in the film days was anything BUT simple.  and your compose-and-shoot bliss only existed because of all the work being performed by the chemicals in the darkroom.  we are now our own one-stop-shops for film processing, and so we have to do digitally what was performed by a negative bath under red lights before.

Here is a couple landscapes that I took on Monday at Thousand Island Lake in The high Sierra.  I will do what I have to do to make a photo that I took look beautiful, and look the way the scene looked in real life.  Typically I try to employ old processing and shooting techniques in lightroom (not because I'm old school.  Simply because photos tent to turn out more natural).  In this case I used an ND grad filter and some dodging and burning in places.  I also bumped the saturation to match more closely what my eyes saw when I was actually there.

HDR shooting can be helpful if used well.  Local HDR tone mapping tends to be an easy way to make a "cool" looking picture.  But applying a well-created global HDR tone map for an image can make it look surprisingly realistic.  Almost too realistic at times.  However, I'm amazed at how infrequently HDR capturing is necessary.  Often I'll do 3 bracket exposures with plans to "HDR" them, when in the end I find myself just choosing one of the images and using it alone.

This is my first CR post.  I jumped on CR a while ago when waiting for the 5Diii to come out.  I wound up buying a Mkii instead of waiting for "the perfect camera".  I have yet to regret the decision.  What a killer camera.  In the meantime I've gotten hooked on reading these forums rather than waiting for gear rumors.  Thanks everyone for your contributions.

Oh yeah, and here are my landscapes:



the rest of my shots from this weekend are here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thatcherkelley/sets/72157627612559652/

Thanks,
Thatcher

[kubelik]

thatcher, really nice photos there.  I agree wholeheartedly with your comment about the unnecessariness of HDR in many situations.  nothing beats exposing an image properly straight out of camera, and when it's done right you're often left with enough latitude to do whatever you want without fusing exposures.

[Kernuak]

I'm not a great fan of HDR, but there are times where it is a useful tool, although I havent used it for a couple of years and have got out of the habit of bracketing, preferring to get the exposure as right as possible in camera, using grad filters where necessary. That said though, it is a rare photo that doesn't need some sort of processing to get it "right". I always try to process it so that it looks how I rembered the scene (as much as possible). That doesn't necessarily mean that it's exactly like the scene, as we tend to remember it how we want to remember it and not always as it truly was. Often, I can get away with curves and levels adjustments, but sometimes I do some dodging and burning as well, which as others have mentioned, is no different than in the days of film.
Here are a couple that just had curves adjustments. The first one was also without filter use.


Glowing Waves by Kernuak, on Flickr

Picnic Table Sunset Portrait by Kernuak, on Flickr

[infilm]

Perhaps its a hold over from my film days, but doesn't anyone just shoot a great photo without a bunch of photoshop or HDR. Please don't get me wrong, I completely appreciate the talent of you who know the intricacies of Photoshop and Silver EFX Pro and the like. But what happened to the simplicity of composing a great image and exposing it correctly?

plenty of people do (as pinnaclephotography clearly demonstrates).  when you start off digital shooting it always seems like everyone's using effects and filters these days but after a while you look around and find there are plenty of very talented folks that are shooting excellent files straight out-of-camera.

but please, don't go down the road of "the simplicity of film" making "great images".  most of the "great" landscape work in the film days was anything BUT simple.  and your compose-and-shoot bliss only existed because of all the work being performed by the chemicals in the darkroom.  we are now our own one-stop-shops for film processing, and so we have to do digitally what was performed by a negative bath under red lights before. 

I know, because I was there, processing Ilford film back then.  lots of others on this forum were around for the glory days of film too.  what we do now to get a great image is no better or worse than what we did then to get a great image.  it still involves composition, color, form, proper technique, and an artist's eye.

I was only referring to the over processed images that are clearly way to HDR'd and Photoshopped to death with wild impossible colors. I should have been more clear with my first statement.

[Queens350z]

Taken this week.

[pinnaclephotography]

Another point-n-shoot shot from Glacier National Park:

Heavy Runner Mountain by posthumus_cake (www.pinnaclephotography.net), on Flickr

[K3nt]

Yay! This made it to flickrs Explore a little after I posted it on Sunday. Nice!
Oh, the picture. 


Misty morning by the water - Explored 10th September by K3ntFIN, on Flickr

[ions]

Fall is Coming, Grindstone Creek, Ontario by Christopher Brian's Photography, on Flickr

[pinnaclephotography]

50 mph (~80 km/h) winds at St. Mary Lake, Glacier National Park

Furious Mary [explore 09/25/11] by posthumus_cake (www.pinnaclephotography.net), on Flickr

[pinnaclephotography]

through the mist the forests rise  [explore 09/27/11] by posthumus_cake (www.pinnaclephotography.net), on Flickr

[raiveeson]

Just some random pic from my documentry work India Through my Eyes

[ions]

Hardwood Lookout, Algonquin Park, Ontario by Christopher Brian's Photography, on Flickr