[Aon]

That is amazing. What are the setting for Aurora shots? I'm guessing long exposure but I really have no idea.

It also looks cold there. Very, very cold. I prefer my winters more like this. I'm pretty sure that I haven't posted this one yet from 1.5 wks ago but I've had a great two weeks of travel (some work in between) with a lot of photos to go thru.

Wow, that looks like a beautiful place.

Settings for that aurora shot were 10 secs at f4, iso 1000. Those auroras were moving pretty fast, i feel like i should've made shorter exposure with higher iso. But anyway, i guess the temperature was somewhere between -10°C and -15°C. It was pretty chilly, but it can get a lot colder!

[AlphaGAK20D]

Wow, that looks like a beautiful place.

Settings for that aurora shot were 10 secs at f4, iso 1000. Those auroras were moving pretty fast, i feel like i should've made shorter exposure with higher iso. But anyway, i guess the temperature was somewhere between -10°C and -15°C. It was pretty chilly, but it can get a lot colder!

Loved that aurora shot as well - very slick and I saw the "Dancing Man" as well...

Here's one more from my recent trip to NM/AZ. I had to sprint across an open field to get this one and, with the sun in mind, was particularly interested in shooting stopped down (f/16) to try and maximize the "burst." Being able to capture light bursts like this is another reason I LOVE this lens - the flare, though still present, is VERY controlled and much more acceptable. If I tried this with my Tammy 28-75/2.8, flare balls would've polluted the shot to almost a worthless state.

[v5planet]

Loved that aurora shot as well - very slick and I saw the "Dancing Man" as well...

Here's one more from my recent trip to NM/AZ. I had to sprint across an open field to get this one and, with the sun in mind, was particularly interested in shooting stopped down (f/16) to try and maximize the "burst." Being able to capture light bursts like this is another reason I LOVE this lens - the flare, though still present, is VERY controlled and much more acceptable. If I tried this with my Tammy 28-75/2.8, flare balls would've polluted the shot to almost a worthless state.

Nice Lou! How much did you have to bump up the Fill Light to get the exposure looking this balanced?

[JHD]

Here's one more from my recent trip to NM/AZ. I had to sprint across an open field to get this one and, with the sun in mind, was particularly interested in shooting stopped down (f/16) to try and maximize the "burst." Being able to capture light bursts like this is another reason I LOVE this lens - the flare, though still present, is VERY controlled and much more acceptable. If I tried this with my Tammy 28-75/2.8, flare balls would've polluted the shot to almost a worthless state.

Nice image but that train looks like it's going to fall over on its left side.

[AlphaGAK20D]

Nice Lou! How much did you have to bump up the Fill Light to get the exposure looking this balanced?

Thanks, Chris. I'm using LR Beta 4 right now for post, so Fill Light is no longer an implicit option, but I really did very little post using LR anyway; instead, I've been taking Nik Color Efex Pro 4 for a test drive and used it for most of the heavy lifting. As you correctly implied, the side of the train facing me was shaded and to get light back on it/the grass, I used a filter in Color Efex called "Reflector Efex" - essentially a virtual reflector - gold, soft gold, or silver - for the subject at hand. A number of other filters exist and you can mix them as you want to achieve myriad results and save the mix, if you like it, as a recipe. I use Nik Silver Efex for many of my BW conversions and so far I'm loving Color Efex.

[AlphaGAK20D]

Nice image but that train looks like it's going to fall over on its left side.

Thanks, JHD! Re: the train falling over, perhaps a function of the 15mm or that I shifted the angle of the image in Lightroom to give a bit more downward bias, but that was it. Even in the SOOC orientation, I can see a bit of that left-leaning bias, so perhaps the change of angle really accentuated it. Cheers.

[mark lj]

Thanks, Chris. I'm using LR Beta 4 right now for post, so Fill Light is no longer an implicit option, but I really did very little post using LR anyway; instead, I've been taking Nik Color Efex Pro 4 for a test drive and used it for most of the heavy lifting. As you correctly implied, the side of the train facing me was shaded and to get light back on it/the grass, I used a filter in Color Efex called "Reflector Efex" - essentially a virtual reflector - gold, soft gold, or silver - for the subject at hand. A number of other filters exist and you can mix them as you want to achieve myriad results and save the mix, if you like it, as a recipe. I use Nik Silver Efex for many of my BW conversions and so far I'm loving Color Efex.

Interesting - I've been playing with it for mono conversions but had never considered Color Efex. A nice image nicely processed.

[AlphaGAK20D]

Interesting - I've been playing with it for mono conversions but had never considered Color Efex. A nice image nicely processed.

Thank you, Mark. I'd definitely recommend checking out Color Efex - very powerful program. The proof, however, will be in the pudding when I go to print some of the recent Color Efex projects.

[Colbyt]

Loved that aurora shot as well - very slick and I saw the "Dancing Man" as well...

Here's one more from my recent trip to NM/AZ. I had to sprint across an open field to get this one and, with the sun in mind, was particularly interested in shooting stopped down (f/16) to try and maximize the "burst." Being able to capture light bursts like this is another reason I LOVE this lens - the flare, though still present, is VERY controlled and much more acceptable. If I tried this with my Tammy 28-75/2.8, flare balls would've polluted the shot to almost a worthless state.

That is extremely nice. For some reason it just grabs me.

[acrollet]

Here's one more from my recent trip to NM/AZ. I had to sprint across an open field to get this one and, with the sun in mind, was particularly interested in shooting stopped down (f/16) to try and maximize the "burst." Being able to capture light bursts like this is another reason I LOVE this lens - the flare, though still present, is VERY controlled and much more acceptable. If I tried this with my Tammy 28-75/2.8, flare balls would've polluted the shot to almost a worthless state.

Love this shot - I don't know what exactly produces it, but it gives a great sense of motion. (If I knew, I'd probably be a better photographer )

[v5planet]

Thanks, Chris. I'm using LR Beta 4 right now for post, so Fill Light is no longer an implicit option, but I really did very little post using LR anyway; instead, I've been taking Nik Color Efex Pro 4 for a test drive and used it for most of the heavy lifting. As you correctly implied, the side of the train facing me was shaded and to get light back on it/the grass, I used a filter in Color Efex called "Reflector Efex" - essentially a virtual reflector - gold, soft gold, or silver - for the subject at hand. A number of other filters exist and you can mix them as you want to achieve myriad results and save the mix, if you like it, as a recipe. I use Nik Silver Efex for many of my BW conversions and so far I'm loving Color Efex.

Oh I am quite familiar with Color Efex; I love Nik's software. ;-)
Though, I only have the "Select" version, which doesn't have that filter.

Anyway, I saw somewhere in this thread or elsewhere on the forum some talk about a command line HDR-capable program called "Enfuse". I finally tracked it down and played with it today. I've been much too cheap to buy Photomatix because I've never produced results in the trial version that made me think a purchase was worthy. I have to say after 30 minutes of fiddling with the free Enfuse, I may have found a way to finally start processing all these bracketed exposures I've never bothered combining to HDR. The results are very natural.

Here is a 3-exposure HDR composite of a subject from a couple months ago with default settings brought into Photoshop and adjusted with Color Efex:

Nothing special, but I can tell there will be more to come.

[AlphaGAK20D]

Oh I am quite familiar with Color Efex; I love Nik's software. ;-)
Though, I only have the "Select" version, which doesn't have that filter.

Anyway, I saw somewhere in this thread or elsewhere on the forum some talk about a command line HDR-capable program called "Enfuse". I finally tracked it down and played with it today. I've been much too cheap to buy Photomatix because I've never produced results in the trial version that made me think a purchase was worthy. I have to say after 30 minutes of fiddling with the free Enfuse, I may have found a way to finally start processing all these bracketed exposures I've never bothered combining to HDR. The results are very natural.

Here is a 3-exposure HDR composite of a subject from a couple months ago with default settings brought into Photoshop and adjusted with Color Efex:


Nothing special, but I can tell there will be more to come.

Wow...VERY nice. I've heard of Enfuse (and even downloaded/installed at one point), but never used it. I know at least one landscape photographer - Michael Frye - who uses it quite a bit and his images are fantastic. I own/use Photomatix for blends (though should probably consider Nik's HDR Efex or Enfuse), but agree w/your summary that most of the time results looks somewhat or very unnatural. Beautiful image!

[bpv_UW]

Great shots all, especially the Aurora image. I recently downloaded LR/Enfuse as well, and though I haven't had occasion to use it much yet, it seems to produce very natural blends, and works directly on RAW files from LR. Plus that price (voluntary donation) can't be beat! Seems like it could be a nice solution for exposure blends.

-Brandon

[AlphaGAK20D]

That is extremely nice. For some reason it just grabs me.

Love this shot - I don't know what exactly produces it, but it gives a great sense of motion. (If I knew, I'd probably be a better photographer )

Thank you very much! acrollet - the motion might've been me trying to stay steady after sprinting across a wide open space of cactus/scrub to get near the train tracks...

[mikeSF]

super job Lou!!