Saturday (20 Feb 2010) sunrise shoot - Changi Boardwalk


No HDR on #1 :D Thanks!

I really like your #5 too!

What is Ben's first shot?

Zichar's pano is great too! Too bad the DR was too great
 

No HDR on #1 :D Thanks!

I really like your #5 too!

What is Ben's first shot?

Zichar's pano is great too! Too bad the DR was too great

really? maybe you sharpened your No. 1. That's why it looks like a well-done HDR.

how come people like my No. 5 ah? i didn't feel so leh. ha ha..

Ben's first shot i don't know. should be a landscape. they did their macro after the sun came out.

zichar should have converted his pano to HDR. that would take care of the wide DR.

:)
 

ben: is that a hermit crab macro that you took? where are the rest of the macro shots?

chua : where are your pics? share leh...

zichar: eh bro, love your No. 5 pano. that is a new perspective to a place photographed to death. ha ha..

ken: love the HDR treatment of No. 1 and No. 3!


looking forward to the next outing. maybe do the 50mm challenge as supported by wildcat. i know he is keen to try out nes perspective of ordinary subjects.

:)
Nah, I think I uploaded the hermit crab one, but can't see a lot of details, had to crop alot heh.

Most of the macro shots a bit blurry, shutter too slow for the position I holding the camera in for me. I still sorting through though which photos to upload.
 

My bad, 11 vertical shot stitch. System almost died ;p
Kept the colour because I liked the retreating dawn
I could process each photo separately then stitch again ... hmm

Hey Ken, very nice photos, mind sharing your steps? Digitally blended I presume?
Noticed you cloned out the lights; I gave up and went for reducing their intensity instead :embrass:
Have you done up the ND110 shots?
 

Thanks Zichar,

#3 is a "HDR" done in Photomatix to bring out the dramatic sky, it was a single exposure but 5 exposures from -2 to +2 were created in Lightroom to form the HDR. The rest were white balanced in Lightroom and exported to Photoshop.

From there, the processing steps are roughly the same.

I duplicate the layer containing the photo. One layer is for the foreground (+ sometimes water), the other is for the sky + water. Adjust curves for each layer individually (usually upward bend, downward bend or S bends are the shapes I work with for the curve), the foreground and sky must be correctly exposed in their respective layers. Then apply appropriate manual masking to show water/sky from one layer and foreground from the other. Hardest part is trying to mask the stupid tree.

My #2 is actually the long exposure, you can still see the point source of light in the background, but with a 10stop ND they don't become those multi sided stars so they're not very obvious and it was very much later on in the morning also, towards the end when I went down and you waited for me before venturing forward to conquer the rocky mountains of sea cockcroaches and slippery rocks. I do not actually remember cloning out any light sources in these 3 shots.
 

A very blue day...

#2
4372740637_2408295286.jpg

a barren tree in a desolate landscape. :thumbsup:
 

changi point rocks! with or without giant egg yolk
4375121043_1676f8de2a_o.jpg
 

Let's see what PS magic can conjure up... layers + masking, multiple blend styles and dodge-burn

<6>

20022010ChangiBoardwalkPanorama2.jpg
 

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Or muck around with the blue+cyan sliders during BnW conversion, then apply gradient on sky

<7>

20022010ChangiBoardwalkPanorama3.jpg
 

Yeah, super sharp, great PP work and I think the little L on his lens play a part too!
 

zichar, No. 6 is better! :thumbsup::)
 

I think it's just you :D

No one likes <7>? Haha looks a bit unnatural I guess. Maybe it would have helped if the sea had a similar ethereal quality to begin with.

Thanks for sharing your steps, Ken. Didn't know you use Photomatix. The second portion of your steps is more or less what I'd do if I'm really really like the shot (or need to salvage it); expose foreground, expose background, blend and mask, multiply sky if necessary. There's really a lot of details from a single RAW file.
But it takes up so much time and staring at the screen for too long =/= good. Just the other day, commented to my wife that I ruin my eyes from the few years of photography, squinting at the screen and VF, much more than the 20 odd years of computer/video gaming. What irony ;p
The macro shots of the sea cockroaches didn't turn out well either. Missed the eyes in focus.

Chua, the colours are great, the purple patches are algae/cyanobacteria? Hope that's not oil stains brr.

Where are the rest, don't be shy, come post your photos :)
Am looking forward to the next shoot...
 

To be honest, I worked on those photos for a few hours and then my photoshop crashed (first time ever) when I was trying to apply a filter effect without me saving a single one of them.

When I looked at the photos the 2nd time round, my PP flow was significantly different and I spent a total of half an hour or so across the 3 photos I posted. While we were talking shop, somebody spoke about how going back to a location 2nd time round almost always yields better pictures, I think the same goes for PP. Hopefully one day I will be proficient enough to not need a 2nd round :P

Oh and the next shoot, we need somewhere to discuss it... Tentatively it'll be Saturday evening for a sunset. Exactly where I'm still looking for suggestions, so far we have Lower Pierce Reservoir and the Singapore Flyer area.
 

I also never make it a habit to save in the middle ;p Always hate it when stitching and something happens, the longer it takes, the more worried I become...
Methinks it's only human to have different ideas when you revisit a picture. The muse visits us at different times; depending on your emotional state and multitude of variables and factors, environmental, etc; all serve to help you create a different picture. What works at time A will probably not work at time B, It may not be to finally achieve a result that satisfies as many of your psyches as possible
 

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