[R J P]

Hello.

I have taken some picture recently of a field on a bright sunny late afternoon (not middle of the day).

The picture is attached.

My query is this: When I look at the grass there seems to be a lack of detail/ clarity and if this is to do with not using a polarizer filter in the middle of the day . I know that a polarizer would have cut out certain reflections so to enhanced or help detail come through in hi contrast environments and help the colour.

If you zoom in you can see what I mean. The apature is set to F10 and the shutter speed is 205 of a second for 37mm, iso 320.

I would appreciate feedback on your thoughts to see if anyone is seeing the same thing as me and can guide me towards anything Iam missing.

Thanks.

R J P.

---------- Post added 07-18-15 at 05:50 PM ----------

By the way I havnt enhanced any colours in post processing. I thought they look saturated.

I use a Pentax K30 with 18 - 250mm Sigma DC.

Attached Images

 

[Mattox]

Do you have Lightroom? If you do, try to evaluate your highlights and shadows and maybe reducing the black settings. This should make the grass more illuminate. I don't think that saturation is the problem here, and as far as detail is concerned it's hard to evaluate without seeing the original photo in larger scale

[wildman]

as far as detail is concerned it's hard to evaluate without seeing the original photo in larger scale

Ditto

[R J P]

Hi.

I do have lightroom.

I have tried using all the sliders that may help the situation ( black reduction, dark area reduction, highlights and shadows).

The jpeg i attached was uncropped.

I can reattach a jpeg untouched but how can i attach it in a large size.

Thanks

[Adam]

Hi.

I do have lightroom.

I have tried using all the sliders that may help the situation ( black reduction, dark area reduction, highlights and shadows).

The jpeg i attached was uncropped.

I can reattach a jpeg untouched but how can i attach it in a large size.

Thanks

Crop it (preferably), use the gallery, or upload externally.

Based on what you posted it looks like the photo has already been subjected to heavy shadow/highlight correction, which could lead to artifacts and thus loss of detail.

[R J P]

I did have to apply highlight and shadow recovery to even out the picture. the high contrast is partly down to that and partly down to the conditions i shot in.

The lack of detail / clarity in the grass was evident when I first opened up the picture and remained no matter what lever i adjust and in whatever direction.

I will post it untouched so hopefully you can see.

[R J P]

I have attached the original file and a crop of the grass section.

I hope this is what you wanted to look at.

Attached Images

   

[dadipentak]

So you were using a super zoom and applied a lot of highlight and shadow recovery. Both factors limit the amount of detail you could expect.
Aperture setting might also be a factor. Also whether you used a tripod &/or SR. Finally, there's the question of where you placed the focus.

[Giklab]

So the original is a JPEG? Increase the in-camera sharpening level.

[cyclone3d]

Shoot in RAW and you will get better detail. The in-camera jpeg is not near as good as shooting RAW and then converting to jpeg in Lightroom.

One other thing. If you were not using a hood, that will also contribute to it as light shining directly into the lens will tend to cause poor sharpness.

[quant2325]

RAW is the way to go. Don't laugh, but you can also try this:
1) Shoot a similar image in RAW+, so you have a RAW image if you are unhappy with the JPEG processing in LightRoom.
2) Not enough detail in the JPEG? Make at least five images with the one RAW image at 1 or 2 stop intervals. With a RAW image you can get some detail +/- 4 stops or so.
3) Put them all together in PS, just as you would a typical HDR image. The only difference is you process the image to be as "natural" as possible, just trying to pull out the shadow detail where you want it. Perhaps you will just "paint" in where you want more shadow detail in the image. Perhaps playing around with just two images is good enough. Whatever floats your boat. That should get a lot more out of the shadows than just using a black and shadow slider.

[tibbitts]

Your first photo looks ok to me, and I always use raw. I think you could still get a little more shadow and highlight detail, but it seems pretty close. Multi-exposure hdr probably wouldn't have worked due to subject movement, and it can be pretty hard to make it not look like... well, hdr. Photos like this are difficult for me - I can never get all the parts of the sky to look just right, and I get artifacts and noise in the deep shadows when I try to extract enough shadow detail - and then I lose resolution when I try to cut back on the noise. No matter what I never get a scene with lighting like this to look as good as the original. Probably there's more detail in the photo than you could actually see in the original, but your brain has pretty amazing PP capability, and it's still difficult to duplicate that with a computer.

[LensBeginner]

Significant DR to capture here... you did a pretty good job with the exposure, avoiding a blown sky...
Or better, you would have done a pretty good job if this was a RAW image...
Next time, base iso (plenty of light so no worry), ETTR (the highlights in the clouds will probably be at the far right) and just open up the shadows in LR.
You get lotsa detail and next to no noise (provided you did everything correctly.
That's how I would have done it, anyway, my 2c... ;-)

[Mattox]

I would like to see the histogram once black and white are balanced, as well as highlight and shadow.

[R J P]

I just tried to add dng file but the forum wont accept it.

I always shoot in raw so the pictures ive added are jpegs from dng files without any alterations to the jpeg. I thought jpegs were only lossy once you alter the jpeg.

I even tried saving multiple exposures ( multiple exposures in the field would have been better for the high contrast situation ) and combining but the result was like my first pictures in this thread.

Iam now thinking it is just the case that it was a bright day, i wasnt using a polarizer, the zoom lens and maybe how the K30 handles colour in bright situations ( dynamic range) is the main contributor to the grass looking , as i would put it, undefined.

i wasnt worried about the highlights and shadows too much as they look as expected.

No one who has responded has commented on the grasses detail or lack of clarity so it makes me confident its because of the reasons i mentioned above.

its been useful for me to have other photographers input.

thanks.