La Mazade, Wednesday 26 July, 9 p.m

La Mazade with the passing days (Continuation)

The setting sun is dying the sky with a magnificent pinkish colour. I take numerous shots combining two gradient grey and one gradient magenta filters in order to intensify more the colour of the sky. I measure the exposure on the dark green of the meadow. The best result will be given by the combination of the gradient Grey G2 and the Magenta M2 filters with a time exposure of 1,5� at F/16..

To be continued

Link with the presentation.

La mazade with the passing days

This niec photo...?

This niec photo...?

really nice photo, nice compostion

Like the colours; image is little grainy.

 

Regards...

Beautiful lighting, Henri! Best regards, Ruud.

Beautiful colors and excellent tonal range Henri.

beautiful light and tone !

Baest regards !

J'aime pas, cher ami. Trop de bruit et je trouve que le bleu dans la partie sombre des montagnes au fond n'est pas naturel. Trop clair.

Thank you all for your comments and ratings.

Alberto, y a-t-il jamais quelque chose de naturel dans une photo ? Et vous savez comme moi que lorsqu'on se contente de reproduire fidelement la nature, cela donne souvent une photo banale et sans interet. Ici, j'ai seulement cherche a intensifier (et non pas modifier) les couleurs naturelles avec un filtre magenta sur le ciel. Le bleu des montagnes ? Je ne vois pas ce qu'il a de non naturel. Pour ce qui est du bruit, cela vient sans doute du scan. Il faudrait que je le refasse avec plus de soin.

Amicalement, Henri

Henri, I like it. Yes it's grainy, but the grain doesn't disturb me at all. Contrarily, it gives the picture a certain "old style" atmosphere. Digital cameras have killed the grain, with the result that many photographer are trying now to reproduce it in Photoshop with dedicated filters... one of the paradox of the digital era!

I think only one point could be improved: I would try to slightly lighten up the foreground, just with a 5% more for "shadows" in the "lights and shadows" function in PS (only available in PS CS and CS2).

Overall, beautiful!

Paolo

Thank you Paolo. You are right about the foreground. But I have only Photoshop 7.0 and I use the curves or the levels settings. It is already well but without doubt I could have done better with this. The question is! when is it too dark and when is it too lighten ? Perhaps have I to do another scan more carefully ? I will be glad when I will have a digital camera, I am a bit fed up with those problems of scan and grain ant with the time passed with that! I am not a fan of the grain, except in black & white in certain cases.

Regards, Henri

Very nice, Henri. I like the color very much, which to me created a great mood. Very well done. Best regards.

 

Henri, I think each single photograph is a matter of personal taste, first of all. Therefore, only the photographer decides when it's "as dark as he likes" or "as bright as he likes". But, generally speaking, often shadows in a photograpfh hide details, and more detailed is a photograph, the better it is.

If you do not have the function "lights and shadows" in your Photoshop, try the function "channel mixer", trying to lighten up the dominant color of the part you wish (in this case, green). Do this not directly on the primary level, but duplicate it, then apply the modification on the duplicated one. Finally, merge the second level with the original, changing if needed the merging option (normal, overlay, multiplicate) and the opacity.

Second: the grain. One of the best way to reduce grain (or, better, noise) when scanning films is doing more than one scan. As the noise is produced casually by the scanner sensor, often this way reduces noise automatically, because noisy portion of the first scan pass are compensated by crisp portion of the second (and third, forth, etc) scan pass. Some scanners allows this, doing everything automatically, you just have to tell the scanner how many passes to do. Of course this is a time consuming way of scanning, and it works fine only if your scanner and the software has this option. Because it is crucial that the sensor of the scanner starts and finishes each single pass exactly at the same point, otherwise you will get your final image out of focus, after merging all the passes.

Sometimes to reduce noise I use a Photoshop plugin, named "noise ninja". You can easily find it on the internet, try to make a search on google with the keyword "noise ninja". It's a powerful tool, often too powerful, and it must be used carefully, otherwise it will blow yourself off a lot of details, together with the noise!

Well, if you only shoot 35mm, and you get a Nikon gear - as I understood by reading details of your photographs - perhaps it's not a bad idea, for you, to buy yourself a nikon digital camera body. Unfortunately, It seems to me Nikon is not producing yet a full frame sensor digital camera (unless perhaps the very high end D2X, that costs more than 3000 ?), therefore if you choose to shift digital, you'll be very frustrated to know that your ultra wide angle lenses have all become generic and moderated wide angles or, worst of all, normal focal length lenses!

By my side, I recently decided not to shift digital: I bought myself a 500 ? scanner (Epson V700), and I continue to happily carrying around with me my 5-10-15 kgs of gear, shooting with my Mamiya Press 6x9, or My Pentacon 6x6, or rarely, with my Contax 35mm. As I started, it's a matter of personal taste... and of a good body training!

Vous avez raison, Henry. La photographie est un processus d'interpreetation de la realité qui commence avec le choix du format (grand, moyen ou 35mm, suit avec le choix de l'objectif, la focale et la vitesse, filtre ou pas filtre, type de film, etc. Rien ne peut 괲e comme la realité le montrait.

Mꭥ la realité n'est jamais reelle car ce que je vois ne peut 괲e egal a ce que les utres voient...

Paolo, thank you for this long talk. I have never used the function "channel mixer" for what you say. I will try it if I can. I have already try to used it for conversion in black & white but I have never succeed to do something satisfactory by this way. Now, about the photo above, you have to keep in mind that it is a shot taken at dusk, with the 300 mm lens, and that the foreground was in deep shadow, so there is really few details on the negative to extract, either by a method or by another. I have probably extracted not far from the maximum. If I do more, it will be noise above all.

About the grain, I find that the method of multi scan pass is really too long. My scanner is the Epson Photo 1490, one of the best in this category, but I don't master it not yet very well. I think that a better setting could make a better scan of this negative with only one pass. I sometime use a noise reductor soft which is not the one you say but the most of time I use the photoshop "median" filter on the blue layer (which is the more grainy) and the "inside blur" filter on the colour layer (only for the sky). This has good results in general.

About a Nikon digital camera, I know that I probably will have to buy at least one lens more but I am OK for that.

Regards, Henri

Beautiful landscape, the silhouettes standing behind the dark field, the blue mist and the gradual variation of light and tone of the sky. Harmonious composition, the chemistry works very well for me. Regards...

Fantastic mood and light here! Great composition and colours too.

 

Peter

This is beautifull, don?t need PS manipulations, bravo.

f.

Henri, the soft airy light on the sky and mountain, give is a special moody evening atmospher.A secretive one caused by the delicate subdued colors ;-)) very well rendered.

Looks like you really liked this setting...Cheers!

The magenta filter is a matter of personal taste, not my cup of tea. Exposition is ok, enough shadow detail on my monitor. Grain is no issue, IMO. The only thing I would do if it were mine is a bit crop from the bottom just above the cut top of the tree in the lower mid

Henri, I know little about technique ( I'm learning) but ,to me,the best photographs are those that are greater than their physical reality. They convey something that stirs our emotions and imaginations. This image is very evocative and moody. I love the tone and softening of detail. Regards. Denise

Thank you to the last commentators. I go over again about the grain. When I look attentively the paper print, if there is grain I can't see it. So I think it comes from the reduction and jipeg compression for photo.net. There is possibly a bit grain, difficult to distinguish, and I think that the compression must increase it.

Thank you for all your kind comments, and do not forget to take a look on my Pyrenees folder.