central valley "Only the Sound of the Breeze"

This image represents my previsualization of this scene; the intense blues of the Lupine, the rich greens of the grasses, the occasional deep pink of the Owl's Clover and the softer pastel pinks and blues of the pre-dawn sky. The moment was there for the taking, yet my problem was motion from the breeze. At the aperture I wanted, the exposure for the foreground would be about 12 seconds; at the aperture I ended up using, 3 seconds. I could wait for the breeze to die down, but the light was brief; only about 5 minutes. Well, I failed to make it happen, yet I am posting for comments. Perhaps I could use a higher ISO (this was shot at 100), but noise can rear it's ugly head. I thought about shooting the foreground at a different ISO, a la Marc Adamus, and then shooting the balance of the scene at 100. During moments like these, you do what you know and forego the uncertain. While this may look passable at Web Res, it won't make a tack sharp print over 8X10. Perhaps when I can afford the Nikon D3 or D3X, I can better deal with noise compromises.

Thanks for your comments and suggestions!

Hello Mark. I feel your pain. This is a beautiful image. And yes, at monitor resolution it's hard for my eyes to detect the motion issues. But with it being such a lovely image have you considered or tried giving the foreground a painterly look in PS? I doubt that the wind is an issue in the background. In fact, because of the soft tones the background appears to have a slight painterly look to it already. Just a thought. I wouldn't give up on this image too easily. Regards from Gary in Salt Lake City

Nicely titled image, rek.

It looks beautiful to me, like a wonderful dream. Mari.

I agree with Gary about not giving up on this image since i am glad you shared it. I have the Nikon D300 and I really love the high ISO performance and that would have come in handy for the 2 different ISO Adamus approach. The other approach would be to totally ignore the wind conditions and let those flowers wave - the more the merrier. In fact try and get an even longer exposure. That way, you would obtain a painterly effect in the foreground without PS and there are enough static elements in the remainder of the image to hold my interest. Well done and thanks for sharing this wonderful image. Best regards,

Great shot - excellent composition and light.

 

Paul

Well, the colors and comp are just wonderful. Shame the wind didn't cooperate for you though. What camera are you using? I've shot flowers and other moving landscapes up to iso 800-1600 on my canon 5D and 5D2.. you should get yourself one of these new generation cameras (either canon or nikon), the noise handling opens up whole new worlds!

Thanks Gary, Richard, R Rivera, Tony, Paul and Floris. I should have mentioned that the other issue was my DOF. The foreground exposure was 1.5 seconds @ F6.7. I have a 17-70, so at this close, DOF needs about F8 or F11. The real challenge was that it was simply too dark for me to set the right focus, I mean this old man's eyes are struggling during near dark captures. As you said Tony, the creative resolution would be to exploit the motion, but I am just not a big fan of such. I simply love the tack sharp image such as a 4X5 and I always strive for that look. I think a costly solution is a high quality tilt shift lens to eliminate DOF issues in low light. I agree with you Gary. I actually have Corel Painter and used to convert landscapes to paintings, but haven't done so in a while. Floris, I have the Pentax K10D. I feel it does fine at high ISOs in adequate light, but picks up noise in the shadows during low light. I made the mistake one time of shooting a sunset much better than this at 800 and the images suffered. I tried to vanquish it, but all that did was soften the image and sharpening after the fact was insufficient. I do appreciate all the feedback, that's what I'm here for!

Mark - Although this did not turn out as you'd hoped, it is a truly beautiful, serene shot. Regards, ~~~~~~~~Linda