Canada Revealed

[bowelkaholic]

Them some great pic. WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[popeshawnpaul]

I was messing with one of my favorite photos from canada and figuring out a way to have exif and a signature automatically displayed through Lightroom.  I figured it out so you'll see that on the bottom of my photos.  When I was learning to take pictures the best way was to look at the exposure and equipment used to figure out how someone did something.  I bought Art Wolfe's book Edge of the Earth, Corner of the Sky and noted he also gave exif for every image.  Hopefully it will help some in the future.

I had amazing light in Canada for about 2 minutes one evening.  You only get light like this once every year or so as the whole sky and everything lit up pink.  I had been shooting mountain goats and dropped my camera bag throwing stuff to find my wide angle lens.  My wife was calling me on the walkie talkie whining she was hungry and I just ignored her, set up the tripod, and snapped one shot before the light went away.  I took 5 more shots after the light went away but none came out like this shot.

[swanny]

Great shot Pope! All these Canada shots are wonderful and make me want to do a road trip.

Question, what does your post processing typically consist of? One thing I am always curious about when you see the EXIF date that people post with their pictures is how true that information really is still. I am at no way doubting that you take AMAZING pictures, but it's just something I have always been curious about.

I try to keep all my photos as close to original as possible, generally they get sharpened greatly when put on the computer, but if I do bump anything exposures, white balance, etc up or down (which usually I do) I try to keep it to only one click either way. If it gets to be more than that I know the picture didn't turn out.

[popeshawnpaul]

That's a great question Swanny.  It varies from photo to photo.  If you are in the photojournalist business you keep it right out of the camera and there is no funny stuff allowed.  However, others have variability on what they can do.  In the end it's a personal decision on how much you want to manipulate a photo.  Remember, images aren't always designed to just give an accounting of what was there.  Images can be art and in your art you can make it how you want.  A great example of that is HDR.  HDR is very controversial.

I bought a book by Art Wolfe this weekend as I mentioned.  I would note that in his famous book Edge of the Earth, Corner of the Sky he did a lot of post process photo manipulation.  He was open and honest about it and there were major changes to photos in the book.  Everyone has their limit on what they can and will do and I don't think there is anything wrong with someone who manipulates it highly and someone that doesn't as long as they are upfront and honest about it.

Me personally, I am ok with photo manipulation to a point.  I like HDR, but like to keep it as close to real or what I saw than to really HDR the heck out of it.  I think a light HDR is actually closer to the original scene than taking a shot with a small dynamic range camera.  Your eye has more dynamic range than a camera so why can't your images reflect that?  Sure, it may not look real in terms of what you are use to with photography.  But if it looks more like the scene that you shot why is that wrong?

For the photo below I didn't do much of anything and most shots I don't do too much.  For the photo below I simply did a white balance change to "shade" as there was no sun and it was a shade situation.  I did bump the contrast a tad and pulled the "recovery" slider up to get some detail back in the blown out clouds.  That's it.  I didn't even sharpen the photo as I forgot.  In fact, this amazing light is something I don't see but once every 5 years or so.  I can truly say that the light below was some of the best I have ever experienced in nature.  It was so odd how the whole sky and mountain lit up pink.  I will post a shot of the same scene only 1 minute later when I get home.  The lack of pink will astound you and it's amazing how light plays such a key role in good photos.

My normal processing strategy is to adjust the exposure, white balance, recovery or fill light as needed, contrast, and then sharpen.  On some photos you don't need to do all those steps.  Occasionally I'll run a noise plugin on noisy photos as well.  I have rubber stamped out a barbed wire fence or distracting artifacts but that is rare to do and I don't have any ethical problem with that. 

So, if you want to just go one click either way that is great.  I'll go as far as I need to get the scene back to what it looked like when I took the photo.  If that means dropping the exposure 2 stops because I messed up on the exposure than so be it.  My goal is to create art.  By the way, that is the whole premise with shooting RAW.  RAW allows a greater latitude than shooting jpg photos.  That's the one and best reason to shoot a dslr.  By the way, I use to be a photojournalist and couldn't do much of anything but a light burn or dodge on photos.  Also, I learned photography with slide film so what you shot is what you got.  If you were off on exposure by 1/2 a stop, it was a ruined slide.  Honestly, that wasn't fun.  I welcome the latitude we have these days.  Photography is much more fun now.

[popeshawnpaul]

Regarding photos in this thread, the first one of Moraine Lake is an HDR image.  The rest are all pretty straight right out of the camera.  The silouette ram is just a white balance change.  I got some questions about the elk blowing the steam in his bugle.  That background was really that blue but the secret was they were burning garbage near where I took the image and the background is blueish smoke from the incinerator...     On the ptarmigan shot you can see a blurred pink background.  The secret there is that's the coat on my 4 year old daughter standing in the background.  I didn't realize she was standing in the image when I took it but thought it looked cool so I kept the image.  Sometimes, stuff just happens.

[swanny]

Thanks for that post Pope, it was great to read your perspective on manipulation. It seems to be a gray area depending on who you talk to. I think I would have to agree on changing it to look like what was there, but I think it is important to understand how to get as close to what was there in the first place. I'm still really new to photography and I know there are a TON of people on this site that are getting into it also.

The extremely colorful sky photos are always the pictures I tend to have to look at twice. It's so hard to get that pink and purple sky that a lot of photo's have that it makes you wonder, as it's not always something you see. Like you said, it's something you only get one every 5 years, and that statement can't be more true.

Your tutorials and willingness to help explain how you got a photo to look like it does are truly appreciated. They really make me look forward to the next time I get out to shoot some photos.

[boneaddict]

your shots are amazing.  Even with the great equipment, your pics are just superior quality.  I like the fact you don't over process.  AAnother reason I like your photos.  I hate over processing.

[popeshawnpaul]

Thanks for the kind words.  I promised I would post that other shot that was taken just a couple minutes later.  I processed these 100% the same with the same white balance and sliders.  Look at the difference in the light in just a couple of minutes.  The one thing I really remembered was the pink on the mountain.  It's just not there in the second shot.  Notice the f-stop is dropped down so I could get it to look bright and stay within a 30 second exposure.  It was nearly dark when I took this image.  It was hard to see.  Still a decent image, but I would have missed amazing light had I not been ready.



I wanted to also talk about a photo trick I used recently in the Yellowstone thread.  It is the shot of Mt. Rainier that is bright red.  While the sunset was amazing that day (due to that huge wind storm in eastern WA a few weeks ago), I used a technique to isolate what I wanted and that makes the picture seem almost unnatural because of the color.  The whole sky is bright red/orange and there is no blue in the sky.  we all know that can't happen.  I was using a 70-200mm lens plus the 1.6x crop factor with a crop camera for a focal length of about 320mm.  Then I cropped heavily just the mountain to get only that portion of the sky that was red.  This technique only works for silouette images because you could never see the detail in the mountain from such a long distance.  I took that shot from Ritzville outside of spokane and made the mountain look big.  Here is a full size image and not one thing is altered on this photo including the original white balance.  No cropping or sharpening other than what you get when you save as jpg.  Notice the cars from the freeway in the foreground...  

[DesertBighorn]

Awesome shots Shawn!!!      I missed the start or your thread while I was in GTNP.  You do better than I do when I have the family along.   

-Doug

[popeshawnpaul]

Back to what I love.  I would have spent all day with this ram had the light not got bright and harsh.  I hate bluebird sunny days while shooting pictures!   

[Hornseeker]

wow... very nice Shawn!!!

[elkaholic123]

Shawn, I spent 10 days in the Purcell Wilderness conservancy hunting elk and deer
so I know how beautiful it is up there!

[popeshawnpaul]

What a wussy sheep that is.  Your 7 years old and never bonked a head yet?  Come on, chip off them pretty lamb tips wussy!   Makes you wonder what's around that he doesn't think he can even challenge... 

[Tom Reichner]

Me personally, I am ok with photo manipulation to a point.  I like HDR, but like to keep it as close to real or what I saw than to really HDR the heck out of it.  I think a light HDR is actually closer to the original scene than taking a shot with a small dynamic range camera.  Your eye has more dynamic range than a camera so why can't your images reflect that?  Sure, it may not look real in terms of what you are use to with photography.  But if it looks more like the scene that you shot why is that wrong?
 
 I'll go as far as I need to get the scene back to what it looked like when I took the photo.  If that means dropping the exposure 2 stops because I messed up on the exposure than so be it.  

What a great point!  My goal with processing wildlife images is to make the photo look as close to what I saw as possible.  Sounds so basic, but it's much easier said than done.  Cameras just aren't anywhere near as good as our eyes.  Our eyes see things so well, even when the light is brutally harsh, or exceptionally dim.  Cameras really struggle to capture things accurately in these conditions, so processing can help to make the image a bit more like the real thing.

[scoyoc5]

shawn,
I was thinking about adding one of your pictures to my phones wallpaper but wanted to ask you first. Is that ok with you?