[savoche]

The golden hour.

If your not a morning person then wait for sunset.

...or move further north and wait for winter. At Christmas time we have sunrise around 10 am and sunset around 3 pm

[repaap]

Just to add some shots to make it more interesting than writing.

Here is something that I went and stayed night over. It takes about 2 hour to get here(you can get there by car) I was happy about morning light.



This is somethig that I just could walk in 30 minutes or so. And I know when light will be about something like that. But you need luck too.

(this is advantage of living at north. sun sets quite early(it is also disadvantage))

Here it was raining and about to. I thought that it could be nice. So I went for it. (about 20 minutes from my home, and I know this place too really well)


all of them has been PP.d in post, but to me it is not too much and it is close to what I saw.

[Take-5-JB]

I choose waiting for light and less PP. Just my personal preference.

JB

[Rondec]

Do both. Learn to post process better, but also wake up early or go out at sunset. It really does help.

[biz-engineer]

What I like to do is create 2-3 different tiff's from the same raw, one for the highlights you want to keep, the second for the foreground and the last for the dark shadows you want to recover.

I've picked up your idea. And since I have photomatix pro, I can export a few sets from the same image under and over exposed, and check the results of exposure fusion. Exposure fusion give more natural results , I guess it works with overlaying properly exposed areas selected from three of more images, kinda the automated version if using layers in PS.

---------- Post added 15-08-19 at 09:56 ----------

Enjoy the time you're spending outdoors breathing fresh air instead of sitting in your cubicle straining your eyes over a screen all day long.

Yep, that's of course a benefit of being outdoors. Although, I'm often not able to wait until sunset time because of the walk time require to go back to the parking lot. A good headlamp would be the solution

---------- Post added 15-08-19 at 10:00 ----------

I have found the Photographer's Ephemeris helpful.

Thanks for the reminder. I was aware of the P.E. , it is very helpful to prepare, it's a great tool. I think my problem is to be able to be on location at the right time of the day, depending on the location (remote mountain area) being there at the time of sunset would require to stay overnight, not recommended in stormy weather.

---------- Post added 15-08-19 at 10:01 ----------

Call me an old fogey (many do), but I think you should do your research beforehand, time your visit to the location when you've got the best chance of good light, and shoot it so that only a minimum of post-processing is needed.

Yeah, that's ideal , of course.

---------- Post added 15-08-19 at 10:05 ----------

someone will inevitably say: "Great processing!" And then you'll wonder why you bother

You are correct, I've shown to my g.f a natural photo of a landscape, shot with a MF camera, she said "Oh, is that an HDR photo?"

---------- Post added 15-08-19 at 10:06 ----------

A: Both!

After posting here, I've realized that of course both great light and subtle post processing will create the best results.

---------- Post added 15-08-19 at 10:09 ----------

I also adjust my setup around the light - for example if I planned to photograph a building with good light hitting it, but ugly clouds yield poor light maybe I'll try a wider angle long exposure to make the poorly lit building smaller and clouds prettier, or zoom in closer for building details to hide the sky.

That's a great idea, worth investigation for me.

---------- Post added 15-08-19 at 10:12 ----------

knowing that you've got good light and some nice shots and waiting to get home and develop them, smiling to yourself.

I know that feeling , that happened to me , once in a while, but it was completely out of control, pure luck I'd say.

[Kerrowdown]

Waiting for the light or post-processing?

If it's a shot for me or for one of my personal projects, then I'll have the time to wait and see what develops, or even revisit at another time.

But if I'm "on the clock" or "the meters running"... I'll do the required or necessary in PP.

[biz-engineer]

If it's a shot for me or for one of my personal projects, then I'll have the time to wait and see what develops, or even revisit at another time.

Ah yes, you are in Scotland, the land with the ever changing weather conditions, especially good for the landscape photographer! In one day out, you get all seasons, sun , wind, storm and rain and ice and sun again , given you and the camera are water proof

[stevebrot]

I think my problem is to be able to be on location at the right time of the day, depending on the location (remote mountain area)

That is why I suggested PE and how I use it. That is what it is used for, though figuring out the details is not always straightforward. For example, a few years ago I used PE to determine potential locations for eclipse photos in the zone of totality in and around the Cascade Mountains in Oregon. The topo map view is the key as are the elevation values for coordinates.


Steve

[repaap]

That is why I suggested PE and how I use it. That is what it is used for, though figuring out the details is not always straightforward. For example, a few years ago I used PE to determine potential locations for eclipse photos in the zone of totality in and around the Cascade Mountains in Oregon. The topo map view is the key as are the elevation values for coordinates.


Steve

I have recently started to get known to this way too it is pretty obvious when you can see on the screen when sun will rise or set and from where. Tough part would be to actually get ’there’ still, and just in time also following forecasts is one thing..

[Kerrowdown]

given you and the camera are water proof

But I found it can over dilute ones drams, if you not careful...

[biz-engineer]

Done some experiments with exposures of high dynamic range scenes, comparing several approaches to post processing: simple tone curve, shadow / high light adjustments of a single exposure, exposure fusion of three bracketed exposures, exposure fusion of a single exposure turned into three images with three different levels, local editing.

- For all global post processing techniques, compressing dynamic range in a scene takes a toll on contrast since it is not possible to have monotonic tones curves and good contrast over the whole luma range. For example, either skies gets better local contrast at the expense of contrast in the remaining part of the scene, or the scene gets good local contrast at the expense of the contrast in the high light areas. That's why for such curves and related post processing technique, the exposure much be good enough at the start.

- Local editing allows to compress or enhance some parts of an image without affecting the rest of a scene, local masking gradation isn't natural like it would be for a real scene properly exposed simply because a linear gradient of light masking is only an assumption of how the light would fade in reality. For image areas where there is no shadow, a linear mask gradient is a good approximation. But for areas of an image when three dimensional object create shadows, the linear gradients simple don't work. For a mask gradient approximation to be realistic in presence of backlit elements would require that the software guess the direction of the light source while also having 3D information about a scene (using de-focus information of the same scene shot with a wide aperture for instance).

I can conclude that proper exposures should be done while taking future post processing into account. In case of harsh shadows from backlit elements in a scene, the composition may be modified in order to make it possible to post process the image without the post processing looking unrealistic. For example, moving the camera sideways or up on a hill in such way that the light fall off approximately like linear gradation of illumination, so when applying a gradient in post processing the image looks more like was perceived by the eyes.