Haystack at Cannon Beach

I had difficulty deciding where to crop this, so I 'borrowed' Pamela

Franklin's ideas. She has a shot virtually identical to this one.

It's lovely....check it out. And please give me your input about this

shot. Thanks!

Ha! Well I must tell you I am very flattered! I think this is awesome…of course what else could I say! Seriously, this is a beauty, nice b/w with good details. What a view!

 

Did you enjoy your visit to Cannon Beach? It is one of my most favorite places and I own a vacation home right on the beach in this quiet (not in summer) quaint little town. Usually when I am there I get so lost in “relaxation” mode that I forget all about my camera, phone, shoes, make-up and am a total beach-bum!

 

Warmest regards, Pamela

 

 

Very well composed with the rock formation and the mist.

Lovely tones.

Greetings!

Thank you ladies....it's always a pleasure to hear from you . Pamela, I'll email you.....my answer is a resounding YES.....we LOVED Oregon!

Excellent composition and exposure. Personally, I think that black and white was the proper direction to take this too. You have managed to coax some details out of the darks too. Superb tonal range. This has real 'pop.' Off the cuff, I'd say that this is your best black and white to date. Well done! Cheers! Chris

Christal,

Wonderful image. Looks great in black & white. Regards, Patsy

Christal, very good composition and choice of tone.

I like lansdcapes that are looking primal as if the start of ceation.This one have this atmospher, as if it is seen for the first time. The strong trees forms vs, the foggy rocky BG.works very well together and the wavy empty beach are adding to the feeling. very good composition and B/W chosen for this scene,

 

My best wishes to you ( the new year is already here,,,;-))

Looks great in B/W.Very well composed shot!

Cheers,Jim

Christal... I agree that the b/w tones make this classic view a little special. The strong darks framing the misty beach really set this off. This is a wall hanger for sure... Mike

 

 

Never have I experienced ratings on one of my images where I got 3's all the way up to 7's. I don't usually worry too much about ratings, but I'd very much like to know the reasons behind the low ratings. It's okay....I can take it! :-)

Ratings, reasons, rationale...

 

Surely you jest!

Don't take into account the rating ,as you can see in it is not a right index for evaluation, look for comments and critique, a much better way to progress. Chris is right....;-))

Excellent detail, and tones! B&W was an excellent choice for this lovely scene. As for the 3/3 cowards they never leave a reason, or suggestions for improvement. Probably some sort of radical trying to push their ideals onto everyone without telling us what they are. Or just immature fool playing games with others art. Either way we're stuck with them until photo.net makes some changes.

All the best,

Neil

Thanks to all of you who have contributed a thoughtful comment or rating. I appreciate it. And thanks also for the consolation on the low ratings. Yes, I know I shouldn't worry about it....but I've consoled others many times for the same thing. I guess I was just having a 'not-in-the-mood-for-cowardly-low-raters' kind of day! :-)

Hi, I love this view and your framing is perfect. It is hard to shoot a place so well covered and come away with a winner. I think you have one here.

I specially like this image, the tones and composition.Thank you very much Christal for your comment on one of my photos !! You´d like it here in Bariloche. Please contact me when start planning a trip to Argentina, maybe I can help. kind regards

I love the composition. The contrast between the darker foreground elements and the soft mid-tones of the beach gives depth to a scene which could otherwise come across as flat with the uniform greyness of the background.

 

I find myself wishing you had retained some detail in the darker foreground shadows. On my monitor those dark shadows translate into rather large areas of solid black. Retaining a bit more texture and detail in those shadows would liven up the photo and have me lingering a bit more on the foreground trees. If the trees framed the outside of the photo I would be more comfortable with them being silhouettes. Since they are instead very much a part of the photo I want to be able to explore the tones and textures.

 

A really nice capture, quite evocative. I can feel the wind and taste the sea air.

Good to hear from you, and thanks for your informative comments on this image. Could/should I have done this 'in camera', or are you talking about the editing of it? What would you have recommended to achieve more of the detail? I do see your point now that you mention it. But when I was editing it I was more concerned with the interesting shapes and how to frame it so there was a balance to the image. Thanks, Gordon, and I'll get over to your place for a visit soon.

The image keeps me gazing into the mists beyond. Just so lovely.

If you do need to bring back some texture into the dark patches, as suggested above, maybe you could use the Shadows/Highlight feature on Photoshop to selectively lighten the dark areas. The best teacher on the 'how-to', for me, is Scott Kelby's books. :-) Good luck

Christal;

 

Provided that your original exposure captured the shadow detail and your subsequent processing blocked up those shadows, there would be a number of techniques to select or mask the dark areas before adjusting downward the overall exposure, also as suggested by Bettie you could use the slider in shadow and highlight to open up the shadows. If this was shot as a jpeg and the original file has no shadow detail then there would be nothing to retrieve.

 

Generally speaking in a back-lit scene like this one, an averaging camera meter is going to underexpose the shadows. Since the scene beyond the trees is relatively even and flat due to the overcast sky the dynamic range of your camera's sensor would most likely possess the latitude required to capture the entire tonal range in this scene. Overexposing by a full stop or possibly more to push the histogram over to the right, without clipping the highlights , would give you the greatest amount of tonal information to work with.

 

On a brightly lit sunny day you would most likely have had a range in excess of the sensors abilities and you would have to decide what end of the histogram to clip or use exposure blending and multiple bracketed exposures.

 

My point being that you can make decisions at the time of capture as well as further choices later on in PP if you know from the outset that you want that shadow detail at your disposal during the post processing and printing of the photograph.

First of all, a belated thank you for all of your comments on this image. They are greatly appreciated. I'm really fond of this image because it conjures up the feeling of being back there.....and we loved the Oregon coast. Particular thanks for the technical info. Bettie, I can only use Shadows/Highlight on the entire image. I'm working with Elements 4, and it doesn't allow me to select portions of the image....it's a pretty primitive program. And yes, I do know Scott Kelby's books. I have a couple of them.....now I just need to read them! :-) Thanks so much for looking in and for your comment.

 

Gordon, thank you so much for your detailed tutorial. It's really helpful. Here is my situation. I did shoot this in RAW....in fact, this vacation was the first time for me shooting in both Jpeg and RAW. The problem is that I don't have an editing program that will process RAW files. I have CS4 (got a great price on it before Xmas), but I can't load it because my computer is on its last legs (a real dinosaur), and I have to get a new computer before I load CS4. Problem is.....I know nothing about computers, so I have to embark on the long process of researching what my next computer will be. All in due time. Back to the photo......in difficult lighting situations I usually do bracket, exposing for different parts of the image, but I have yet to combine them in an HDR. Again, all in due time. I don't have an editing program that will do that either. But you still pretty thoroughly described the various things one should consider when shooting in this type of situation, and I greatly appreciate you taking the time to help me with this. It's an image worth investing in, I believe.

Glad to hear you shot this in raw as the possibility that the shadow detail is in the original file increases with raw in my experience.... and yes I agree that this is a terrific capture and well worth investing time on when you get your new computer up and loaded with CS4.

The need to open up the shadows is purely subjective and you may well discovered that the image works better for you with the trees silhouetted, but at least the option will be open.

 

 

Your 40D would have come with the Canon raw conversion program. I no longer have it installed on my computer but I believe it had some sort of shadow recovery option. With CS4 a whole new world of options will open up. I came to computers late in life and I still struggle to make the darn things bend to my will. Like yourself I have often bracketed raw files when shooting landscapes when I knew the scene exceeded the sensors dynamic range. I have yet to learn a satisfactory method for blending those files to make an acceptable final result. I have seen amazing things done with the selective blending of bracketed exposures. I gave up on HDR software, as I utterly failed to find a method to get a natural look from the software. All my efforts ended up looking like those hideous cartoon renditions which are so popular.

 

 

You probably already know this, but people in my photo club tell me that Photomatix is a good and user friendly program for creating HDR's. Just thought I'd pass that along. And I'll look for the software that came with the 40D.......hmmmm....never thought about using it because I already had an editing program I was familiar with. I'll check into it. Thanks again!

Christal;

 

The Canon RAW converter is part of the Digital Photo Professional disc that came with your camera. I have it installed on my laptop although I do not use it often, preferring Lightroom and CS4 primarily because I am more familiar with those programs. I have heard good things about DPP from people who do used it regularly . The RAW converter is quite straightforward and user friendly. For the time being, it should take a lot less to run on your machine than a full install of CS4 so perhaps your current computer can run it.

 

Photomatix is the software I tried. I am fairly sure the problem lies with my limited skill rather than the software itself. I have seen some work done with that software which went above and beyond the garish results I came up with and which most people seem to aspire to. The results I like most are the ones which are least noticeable.