[Peter Zack]

I was shooting a business meeting the other night and had manually set the WB on the camera for the varied indoor lighting. So last night I went out and did a little shooting for myself (not much of that lately!!) Maybe it was the cold or I was rushing a little for the fading light but I forgot to reset the WB and high ISO I was using earlier. Stupid errors.

Anyway these are "recovery" efforts in PP to clean up the shots and see if it was salvageable. It was an amazing sunset with great clouds and colour.

Curious what you guys think. They were taken about 10 minutes after sunset with dim light. Sigma 70-200 f2.8 ISO800 1/500th, f8 Shot in manual and underexposed 4 stops.


Taken on the Charlottetown waterfront along the boardwalk



This was just foolin' around with another shot that just had too much noise due to the underexposure and high ISO. So now it's rendered to look like a B&W oil painting.

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Last edited by Peter Zack; 01-20-2008 at 08:51 AM.

[Peter Zack]

Well the responses I guess answers that question....

[Mike L]

I think the PP recovery worked just fine but I think the composition could be a little stronger (the horizon is getting pretty close to the middle of the frame and the tower is a bit to far to the left). Still a nice image.

The B&W oil painting conversion is an interesting idea, I don't think I've ever seen an actual B&W oil painting but it just doesn't work for me particularly when the colour in the original are so warm.

[SpecialK]

I think the PP recovery worked just fine but I think the composition could be a little stronger (the horizon is getting pretty close to the middle of the frame and the tower is a bit to far to the left). Still a nice image.

The B&W oil painting conversion is an interesting idea, I don't think I've ever seen an actual B&W oil painting but it just doesn't work for me particularly when the colour in the original are so warm.

Some shots work fine with the middle horizon. I think you meant "right", not "left" for the tower?

The first one is kind of nice. Second does not do much for me.

[Peter Zack]

I think the PP recovery worked just fine but I think the composition could be a little stronger (the horizon is getting pretty close to the middle of the frame and the tower is a bit to far to the left). Still a nice image.

The B&W oil painting conversion is an interesting idea, I don't think I've ever seen an actual B&W oil painting but it just doesn't work for me particularly when the colour in the original are so warm.

Thanks Mike, Neither have I but I just thought I'd have a little fun with the image and see what happened. As for the composition of this first shot, there was a house quite close to the lighthouse that just didn't work well in the shot. I wanted to get as much of the great sky captured. Maybe a bit too much and some cropping would balance it better.

[Peter Zack]

Some shots work fine with the middle horizon. I think you meant "right", not "left" for the tower?

The first one is kind of nice. Second does not do much for me.

Thanks for the thoughts. I think I'll go there again and re-shoot with the settings corrected!

[gpaual]

lo peter......i actually like the shot.....the mood is somber, in spite of colors, it's brrrrr......i don't really feel a problem with the comp' though i would ( for me only )...prob crop a bit from the bottom......the reason the comp doesn't bother me is that the first thing grabbing my eye is the lighthouse light with the eye then falling to the black diagonal below the light, leading me to the diagonal of the foreground, which in turn leads me to the rectangular white shape repeated by the cloud above it, and then on out of the scene.....wrks for me. have a good 'un

[JCSullivan]

Peter, it is way too dark for MY liking but then that's me.

[Mike L]

Thanks Mike, Neither have I but I just thought I'd have a little fun with the image and see what happened. As for the composition of this first shot, there was a house quite close to the lighthouse that just didn't work well in the shot. I wanted to get as much of the great sky captured. Maybe a bit too much and some cropping would balance it better.

I was actually suggesting that you should have considered moving the horizon down towards the bottom third so you would get more of the great sky and a little less of the foreground.

[vievetrick]

I really like the color version. Great recovery

[m8o]

I think the 'bandless' low light recovery was quite successful! I guess my style would be for a bit more brightness / exposure and with that, maybe less contrast then (I tried it out in Lightroom and that's what I needed to do ), but I wasn't there so I don't know if that's how the scene really was or not. Fantastic sky and well composed.

[Keith]

I like it but I do think it just needs that little extra - being dark I think if the lighthouse light had more illumination it would give the image more impact

cheer
Keith

[Peter Zack]

Thanks everyone for the comments and suggestions. I'm going to go back and rework the RAW image and see if there's another way to brighten the shot without the huge amount of noise being visible. It is dark and I'll see what can be done about that.

Keith, the lighthouse light is actually dim from that angle. It doesn't rotate like the old style ones. It's a set of 2 lighthouses that the mariner would line up as they approach the harbour entrance. I could artificially brighten it but that's not the real scene.

Check settings in future... [bangs head on table]

[JCSullivan]

Check settings in future... [bangs head on table]

I've done that so often I got calluses

[Fl_Gulfer]

The B&W shot looks fake. the other looks out of focus or something. I guess it was the shot being at dusk. because I know that lens is suppose to be a awesome one.