10D portraits yes!, landscapes no!

[ernie_tangalakis]

Does anyone agree with this. I am finding that the 10D is a great

portrait camera. I think it does a wonderful job with faces, ie:

skin tones. But, is not so good with landscapes. Especially big wide

open landscapes. My shots almost look more painted rather than

photographed. To smooth might be a better way of putting it. With

film I'm not getting that. I have for the most part stopped shooting

with the 10D for big landscapes and went back to film. Anyone else

not happy in this area?

[jimstrutz]

Well, it is only 6 MP, and there is a limit on how much detail that can hold. But you are using USM sharpening during post processing, right?

[beauh44]

Hi Ernie, of the two genre's, I would sgree that the 10D's forte' is portraiture. I suspect it might not be a landscape photographer's first choice of cameras. But having said that, can you take a perfectly good landscape photograph with a 10D? Sure! Get the best glass, always use a tripod and mirror lock-up, and you might be surprised. Its low noise at moderately high speeds and long exposure ability make it quite good for landscapes in addition to portraits. Best wishes . . .

[steve_barnett2]

As you give no details on how you are using the camera Ernie it is impossible to guess where you are going wrong. I have no problem with landscapes and can produce images matching film, or better, without breaking sweat. I am sure other people will feel the same.

[aaron_lam]

Is this condsidered landscape?<div></div>

[tina_looney]

On another forum that I visit, a photographer using a 10D takes some absolutely breath taking landscapes in Colorado. Her work is gorgeous.

 

http://www.imagesofcolorado.com

[mark cohran]

I used the 10D extensive for landscapes this past summer with beautiful

results. I haven't found a camera anywhere that can't be put to use for

whatever subject the photographer is inclined to shoot.<div></div>

[PuppyDigs]

<P>Funny, I'm the exact opposite. I can't stand the look of 10D skin tones and will take Portra 160 NC or VC or NHP over the 10D any day of the week (which is what I do). However, I love the 10D for landscapes:</P> <P><B>EOS 10D & EF 24-85 3.5-4.5 USM (Waimea Bay, Oahu)</P></B> <img src="http://emedia.leeward.hawaii.edu/frary/life's_a_beach_images/waimea_bay34a.jpg">

[ernie_tangalakis]

Let me answer all your questions first. I do use USM. I shoot in raw, Choose the best white balance, make the rest of the corrections in PS CS. What I mean by corrections is to get the shot as close as I saw it. I have not used mirror lock-up. Aaron, no offense but I doubt the sky looked like that in person. It's a good picture just manipulated. And it doesn't look like film. I like the looks of some of my 10D landscape pictures but they just seem a little flat to me. Now some flowers i've taken have been fantastic. Close ups work very nice. Over all I like the camera just not in big shots.

[Ken Katz]

For big prints (11 x 17 or bigger), slow film (like Provia F) seems to produce landscapes with more fine detail than my D60, expecially when professionally scanned and printed on a Lightjet. At 400 ISO, digital seems better due to less noise / grain than comparable 400 speed print film.

[jorge_ituarte3]

I agree and I've been racking my brain trying to figure out why. Most tight shots are fantastic. Wide and things get very plastic. Even tight shots with wide angles like the 14mm are fantastic. It's not dynamic range or lack of resolution. Landscapes get kind of an outlined kind of look. If you look at these shots at 100% on the monitor things look very detailed and normal. However, 11" x 17" prints another story. Very cartoon like. My 11" x 17" non-landscape shots better than anything I shot with film. I'm stumped.

[gregp]

I have found landscape images with the 10D comparable to

35mm film scans - No match for MF or LF but comparable to

35mm. After some testing, I sold all my film equipment and

switched to 100% digital about six months ago. No regrets.

[andrew robertson]

WHOA EVERYBODY!!!!!

 

Ernie, who are you to say that the sky didn't look like that? Why does it matter?

Photography isn't the science of exactly reproducing what was there when you hit the

shutter button, it's the art of showing what you saw and FELT. I hope you never ever

use any filters, ernie, because then your images are 'manipulated'. I don't see any

difference between using filters during the exposure, during enlarging, or in

Photoshop. Why not take it all the way? Variable contrast papers, any other

enlargement exposure other than that which'll reproduce the original contrast,

balance, and plane of the negative must be considered 'manipulations' as well.

 

The 10D isn't a film camera. As long as you are stuck in the mindset that your 10D

images must look just like your film images you'll be disappointed.

 

Jorge, I think maybe you are missing all the grain. You could always add noise in PS

to approximate the grain of film. I don't understand your terminology, however.

Cartoon-like?

[leonard_richmond7]

To get rid of the plastic look, try Unsharp Mask with the following parameters: Radius 50, Amount 10-20%, Threshold 0.

 

It's called "local contrast enhancement". Film accomplishes a similar thing with its edge enhancement. Seems to add a bit of 3 dimensionality to images and wipe away a "film" (pun intended) from the image, making the image pop out a bit.

 

See a short article about it at

http://luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/contrast-enhancement.shtml

 

Try it, you might like it!

[steve_barnett2]

In much the same way that you choose a film for its individual characteristics Ernie, B&W, colour, fine grain or heavy grain, so in post processing of the digital image you have to input your parameters of taste. If you like more contrast and grain effects, just do it!

[robert_scontrino]

I recently took this Shot on Diamond Head. I some what Agree that I have to do very little to no Post processing with Portrait shots but more with Landscapes. This was touched up a little in Photoshop but still came out okay with my 17 40 F4L.

 

Thanks

Robert =)

[robert_scontrino]

Sorry for the second post. It looks like when I resized the photo I lost some detail. Here is another shot but a little larger. Its %25 of the original size.

 

http://www.photo.net/photo/1978635&size=lg

 

Thanks

Robert =)

[richard thompson www.fotoz]

I love the camera for both....

[ernie_tangalakis]

Andrew, read my response again. I said I like the picture. There's nothing wrong with manipulating a photo and my thread has nothing to do with that. It has to do with shooting landscapes with the 10D. I am just not that happy with the camera in that area only. I know others feel the same way. I never touch my film camera for portraits or candids but landscapes it's film.

[J.W. Wall]

To each his or her own.

[digitmstr]

ERNIE, perhaps it would help if you posted a landscape taken with the 10D and one taken with your film camera. In fact, you shold try taking the SAME shot with both and post the results. If nothing else someone may see something in your technique which you may be overlooking. It's worth a try.

[ky2]

<p align="center"><img src="http://www.photo.net/photodb/image-display?photo_id=1650312&size=md"></p>

<p>I never owned the 10D, so you may flame at me as you please. However, I do understand Ernie's feelings towards landscapes and DSLRs. I've used a Fuji S2/Pro for nearly a year, and although I've done some very nice work with it, there's something very "plasticky" with shooting digital and landscapes: From my experience-- similar tones seem to bleed into a single constant hue on a DSLR, probably because of the Bayer-grid interpolation. This proves remarkably helpful when doing portraits, serving as a built-in "soft-filter". For landscapes, it normally interferes with areas that maintain more or less the same tone-range. Add on top of that lack of grain, and most textures begin to lose their appeal. This behavior becomes much worst when shooting black and whites. From what I gather, DSLRs excel in high-contrast images over film (When not exhibiting moire), but in near-smooth, creamy textures, they simply pale in comparison. Perhaps a future(?) Foveon chip may fix this.</p>

<p>The photo above was shot with a 6x7 medium format rig. I shot a similar picture with my Fuji S2/Pro. Texture was much nicer on the 6x7 scan-- although I scanned it only to match a 6mpixel resolution. Although comparing one digital ccd to another (s2/pro vs. scanner) does not help with agreeing to what I claim above, please consider that the blue texture on the 6x7 slide (Provia 100F, btw), was completely flat on the DSLR image.</p>

<p>I personally like grain myself, and I've yet found any digital-grain replacement that is satisfactory. Just to wrap things up-- I sold my DSLR. I now do film only.</p>

[jorge_ituarte3]

I've been shooting DSLRs now exclusively for over 2 years. I am moving back to film this year. I've wasted way to much time tweaking and am tired of the carnival marketing hype surrounding digital. I need to get back to being a photographer.

 

I live in the keys and there is an artist here that makes ink rubbings of fish on Japanese rice paper. They are exquisite. When you look at these prints there is no denying that the fish came into direct contact with the paper. It reminds me of my traditional B&W film work. I'm going back to film. MF this time around.

[jay_.]

I use digital for wildlife photography (because that's where I always wasted tons of film for one or two keepers, and because that's only where I used the ridiculously complicated EOS cameras anyway)and for my wife's relatives' family events because I don't incur film/processing costs or have to ask for reimbursement. Otherwise I stick to film, and in particular for landscapes, medium format. The plain fact with digital is that to get film-quality results you have to become an expert in Photoshop, or pay someone else who is. With film, if you know the film and understand exposure and the processing machine is properly adjusted, you've got the results you want without time consuming, boring, tedious hours spent after the fact. So unless sitting glued to the computer making trial-and-error tweaks in Photoshop floats your boat, stick to film for as long as its available and affordable.

[yeahroon]

<quote>With film, if you know the film and understand exposure and the processing machine is properly adjusted, you've got the results you want without time consuming, boring, tedious hours spent after the fact. </quote>

 

Digital is just another type of film... It too takes experience to master, just like any film. I'll leave the discusion whether or not the processing machine is properly adjusted in all cases out for now but the plain fact is that (if it is) it is properly adjusted because it is designed by an engineer with A LOT of expertise on the subject. In other words: countless tedious hours have been spent so you don't have to. You seem to be forgetting the people who do their own darkroom work. Photoshop is the darkroom of the digital media. For your point to be valid you shouldn't compare a "processing machine" to Photoshop, rather you should compare doing your own darkroom work to post-processing with Photoshop and comparing "the well-adjusted" processing machine to dropping of your CF cards at the local lab.

 

Show of hands, which of you doing your own darkroom work think it's tedious AND boring?