[itshimitis]

Some from Jo'burg:

Went to a lion park yesterday and was in awe at the majesty of lions, and the cuteness of the cubs:

Pentax 645Z +120 f/4 macro + 75 f/2.8

1.



2.



3.



4.

This 5 month old cub took an interest in my camera:



5.



6. Different cub a little younger:

[Califmike2003]

I was at Giverny yesterday at Monets house wondering around his garden with my Bronica Gs1 and saw this nice little flower.

[mikeSF]

wow Mike, that is a nice splash of color in a green garden! nice.

itshimitis, that #6 cub portrait is excellent!

[Califmike2003]

Thanks Mike, im just getting back into Photography after alot of years away. I have another shot from Monets place.

Attached Images

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[Swift1]

Triptych of Crater Lake.
Made from three separate frames shot with my Rolleiflex 3.5F

Rolleiflex 3.5F
Schneider Kreuznach Xenotar 75/3.5
Fujichrome Velvia RVP
Epson V500

[Royce Howland]

Dawn at Moraine Lake a couple of days ago... no iconic blast of alpenglow reflecting in the lake waters, but a great dose of "blue hour" with mist and low clouds.

Pentax 645Z + FA 645 80-160mm f/4.5 at 108mm. 3 exposures (4s, 8s, 15s) @ f/11, ISO 800. HDR processing took care of most of the slight noise, and the lightest level of Topaz DeNoise did for the rest. After finishing all the toning work I wanted to do, I decided it looked a little too clean, so I actually added some grain back in...

[mikeSF]

Thanks Mike, im just getting back into Photography after alot of years away. I have another shot from Monets place.

what a cool place to be.

Triptych of Crater Lake.
Made from three separate frames shot with my Rolleiflex 3.5F

the tones are excellent!

Dawn at Moraine Lake a couple of days ago... no iconic blast of alpenglow reflecting in the lake waters, but a great dose of "blue hour" with mist and low clouds.

...)

really sweet laters and colors

[dane.dawg]

I found this photo on the other forum and it has to be one of the best I have seen.
Pentax 645Z 4Birding: Pentax SLR Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review

[mikeSF]

I found this photo on the other forum and it has to be one of the best I have seen.
Pentax 645Z 4Birding: Pentax SLR Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review

that is a wonderful image

[Thomasbrowphoto]

Dawn at Moraine Lake a couple of days ago... no iconic blast of alpenglow reflecting in the lake waters, but a great dose of "blue hour" with mist and low clouds.

Pentax 645Z + FA 645 80-160mm f/4.5 at 108mm. 3 exposures (4s, 8s, 15s) @ f/11, ISO 800. HDR processing took care of most of the slight noise, and the lightest level of Topaz DeNoise did for the rest. After finishing all the toning work I wanted to do, I decided it looked a little too clean, so I actually added some grain back in...

Nice image mate!

[Thomasbrowphoto]

I came across this moss covered fallen tree.. It felt like carpet. The sun was down low and the leeches were out in action, I quickly snapped this whilst every mozzie in the area attacked me.
645Z - 35A.

[Richard Longseth]

Dawn at Moraine Lake a couple of days ago... no iconic blast of alpenglow reflecting in the lake waters, but a great dose of "blue hour" with mist and low clouds.

Very nice Photo Royce. You processed it with a beautiful soft touch. If you don't mind, could you explain your HDR process a bit. I haven't been satisfied with many of my own photos using HDR software, and so I usually use luminosity masking to blend my photos. Also, what Topaz filters do you think are worthwhile. I'm curious about several of the filters, but don't know if buying the entire bundle is necessary.

Thanks for any reply.

I sure would like a Z in my future (I am very happy with my D), but will have to wait a bit. After seeing photos like this, you make it harder for folks like myself to be responsible.

Rick

[Royce Howland]

Thanks for the comments on my Moraine Lake photo, Rick, Thomas & Mike.

Rick, my up-front HDR process is different than how I suspect most people use HDR. I'm not using the technique for a visual look, especially not an obviously surrealistic one. Rather I use it to generate a neutrally-toned intermediate file with a very full tonal range from shadows to highlights, great micro-contrast, and low noise. Consider it analogous to a neutral conversion of a super-RAW file, one that samples a much higher fidelity range of the scene's light. I mainly use a Windows-only app for this starting point these days -- Oloneo PhotoEngine. Oloneo makes it very fast and simple to get to a well-rendered file. I used to use Photomatix, and still do go back to it on occasion because it has some strong areas where it beats PhotoEngine; but it's a bit more work and slower to get to my preferred neutral starting point with Photomatix. Many other apps could be adapted to my type of approach, and I've looked at several of the other popular apps out there. But they're all slower and more work so I don't use them. Increasingly, my type of approach will be possible with little more than Adobe Lightroom (or Adobe Camera Raw within Photoshop) now that they support loading and working on some 32-bit HDR file types.

Once I have the neutrally-toned HDR file rendered back down into a 16-bit TIFF, I finish it in Photoshop using some layer blending but primarily curves work. Not dissimilar to Tony Kuyper-style luminosity masks & curves, but a bit more custom than that. I do very little colour adjustments in general, and when I do it's as often as not (as in this case) that I'm desaturating certain colour channels or hue ranges to make sure I retain a largely photorealistic (but still creatively interpreted ) rendition. My goal is a final image that looks like it could be from a single frame, but with a full tonal range that's as rich as I'd like in detail, and free of noise or other obvious processing artifacts. I half-jokingly say I often go to a lot of work to make it look like I don't do much work in post...

The Topaz filters I use most heavily are DeNoise and Detail, occasionally Remask to get a good initial selection in a particularly tricky area. I have most of the Topaz bundle but rarely use the others beyond these 3. My B&W work in particular isn't done with a filter, but rather manually in Photoshop.

The Z is proving to be killer, but the D remains eminently usable too. It's a win either way.

[gilal]

Dawn at Moraine Lake a couple of days ago... no iconic blast of alpenglow reflecting in the lake waters, but a great dose of "blue hour" with mist and low clouds.

Pentax 645Z + FA 645 80-160mm f/4.5 at 108mm. 3 exposures (4s, 8s, 15s) @ f/11, ISO 800. HDR processing took care of most of the slight noise, and the lightest level of Topaz DeNoise did for the rest. After finishing all the toning work I wanted to do, I decided it looked a little too clean, so I actually added some grain back in...

Very nice image

[672]

Z & 75mm FA