[sealight]

couple of months ago I upgraded from a K-3 to a K-1 II, and basically I'm very happy so far...few days ago I was out for shooting, and some of my shots show this kind of halo-ish stripe in the sky as the shot I add here...
given my experience with my K-3 I sometimes found similar effects when in PP I was darkenining the sky or applying a bit different WB, but here I find them already before doing so...

is this maybe already a partly overexposed sky? on my K-3 I usually had a tendency to underexpose my shots a bit more than I maybe do right now with my K-1...

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[Rondec]

It looks like a situation where part of the sky is over exposed. You can recover some of the highlights, but not all of them. As you say, it is better to underexpose enough that you protect the highlights as once they are gone, on digital, they are gone.

[Wheatfield]

Over exposure combined with quantization error. Sometimes trying a different raw converter can make it go away. I had real problems with it with one of the Adobe raw converters ten or so years ago. Any flat sky would have rings in it.

This type of scene is made for HDR (don't be afraid of it), presuming you can't recover shadows well enough in post processing.

[tuco]

Not enough dynamic range of the medium for the placement of the middle gray coupled with your PP. Does the camera's JPEG have such banding?

Edit:

Your camera has about a stop more DR than the one I used on this single exposure and I think this scene is very similar in light levels. The beauty of digital is you check your pictures before leaving the scene.

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Last edited by tuco; 08-08-2018 at 11:16 AM.

[photoptimist]

It might be the sky itself, not over exposure. Notice that there's same light-beige to blue transition in the reflections in the water. Mucking about with tone curves can intensify the contrast in the sky.

Skies can do strange things after sunset or before sunrise in which some parts of the atmosphere are in direct sunlight and others aren't. The effect is compounded if some parts of the atmosphere have haze/clouds/fog and others don't.

Scenes like this really benefit from spot metering (of the brightest parts of the sky) and a bit of exposure compensation to make the sky bright without over-exposing it.

[sealight]

It looks like a situation where part of the sky is over exposed. You can recover some of the highlights, but not all of them. As you say, it is better to underexpose enough that you protect the highlights as once they are gone, on digital, they are gone.

this would support my initial guess Rondec ! well, there's always a bit of a learning curve involved when getting a new toy on the K-3 I usually knew already quite well how much I need to underexpose to keep a good sky...

---------- Post added 08-08-18 at 11:21 AM ----------

Over exposure combined with quantization error. Sometimes trying a different raw converter can make it go away. I had real problems with it with one of the Adobe raw converters ten or so years ago. Any flat sky would have rings in it.

This type of scene is made for HDR (don't be afraid of it), presuming you can't recover shadows well enough in post processing.

was never too much into HDR I must admit, tried it few times but rarely really saw reason to use it, on my K-3 I mostly could handle dark tones/ shadows in PP quite well...guess pixelshifting will be used more often by me than HDR

---------- Post added 08-08-18 at 11:27 AM ----------

Not enough dynamic range of the medium for the placement of the middle gray coupled with your PP. Does the camera's JPEG have such banding?

Edit:

Your camera has about a stop more DR than the one I used on this single exposure and I think this scene is very similar in light levels. The beauty of digital is you check your pictures before leaving the scene.

didn't notice this banding on the cameras screen when I took the shot, I got aware of this when I loaded them into lightroom and started PP (I shoot RAW)...other than in your shot (nice one btw) the sun was still hiding behind the horizon, sunrise was about an hour later I guess...

---------- Post added 08-08-18 at 11:45 AM ----------

It might be the sky itself, not over exposure. Notice that there's same light-beige to blue transition in the reflections in the water. Mucking about with tone curves can intensify the contrast in the sky.

Skies can do strange things after sunset or before sunrise in which some parts of the atmosphere are in direct sunlight and others aren't. The effect is compounded if some parts of the atmosphere have haze/clouds/fog and others don't.

Scenes like this really benefit from spot metering (of the brightest parts of the sky) and a bit of exposure compensation to make the sky bright without over-exposing it.

I was also already giving this some thoughts- in all of the shots there was haze rising up above the water ...also trying different aperture maybe- I read f11 might not be the best on the Irix...new toys always bring something new on the table

[AstroDave]

Next time out, you could turn on "highlight alert" aka blinkies - memo at the bottom left of page 15 in the K1 manual (http://www.ricoh-imaging.co.jp/english/support/man-pdf/k-1.pdf)

[UncleVanya]

Would HDR work with the slow shutter blurred water?

[Rondec]

I find that I get that most when I try to pull back highlights that are blown. This image, the area around the sun is pretty blown out. I could have tried to pull back the highlights a bit more, but my experience in lightroom is that I would get minimal benefit with regard to the highlights, but I would start to get a halo along the edge of the blown out area.

[normhead]

Moisture in the sky. With a K-1, you may have to go as far as -3 EV to correctly expose the sky in an image like yours. It's much easier to resurrect shadow detail, than it is to get a blown out sky to look good.

Notice on this image my exposure bias is -1. Typically I shoot with exposure biases of 0, -1, -2 and -3 for this type of image, then pick the best one at home on the computer.



But there will be times when you have to pick a compromise. You have to either sacrifice sky or shadow, based on what is more important because the dymnai range in nature can be 22 stops and your camera can only cover 15. Yours is a really tough image because you want detail at both ends of the EV range. A neutral setting will both underexpose the darker areas, while over-exposing the lighter areas for the same exposure. And how much you want to offset the exposure, shifting the mean exposure up or down, is very difficult to determine, before you get to the computer and start your post. I've had many images where I start processing the image I like most I find I have to use the next image either darker or lighter to get what I want.

The general rule here is burn the sky, dodge the shadows, and having four or five exposes to work with usually gets you what you want. I used to take the sky from one photo and paste it over the land and water from a different exposure. I find with any Pentax camera after the K20D, that's rarely necessary. I can do jus as good from the K-1 file, as long as I have enough exposures to choose from.

[sealight]

Would HDR work with the slow shutter blurred water?

haven't tried that on real slower shutter speeds, but I guess it could work ,myself I just tried HDR on faster shutter speeds on moving water (like the one I attached on this posting), which worked quite well- I think, the longer the less troubles you might have with odd artifacts.
one reason I never tried with real long shutter speeds is also I mostly lacked patience maybe to stand several minutes just beside my camera and to my personal taste- especially moving water like here is always bit tricky, it's a lot finding the right amount of blur, too much looks very strange to me ...I will maybe give try next time I'm out...
I'm bit more curious pixelshift will turn out , given it's best used on static sceneries...

---------- Post added 08-08-18 at 01:10 PM ----------

Moisture in the sky. With a K-1, you may have to go as far as -3 EV to correctly expose the sky in an image like yours. It's much easier to resurrect shadow detail, than it is to get a blown out sky to look good.

Notice on this image my exposure bias is -1. Typically I shoot with exposure biases of 0, -1, -2 and -3 for this type of image, then pick the best one at home on the computer.



But there will be times when you have to pick a compromise. You have to either sacrifice sky or shadow, based on what is more important because the dymnai range in nature can be 22 stops and your camera can only cover 15. Yours is a really tough image because you want detail at both ends of the EV range. A neutral setting will both underexpose the darker areas, while over-exposing the lighter areas for the same exposure. And how much you want to offset the exposure, shifting the mean exposure up or down, is very difficult to determine, before you get to the computer and start your post. I've had many images where I start processing the image I like most I find I have to use the next image either darker or lighter to get what I want.

The general rule here is burn the sky, dodge the shadows, and having four or five exposes to wrk with usually gets you what you want. Used to take the sky from one photo and paste it over thelande and water from a different exposure. I find with any Pentax camera after the K20D, that's rarely necessary. I can do jus as good from the K-1 file, as long as I have enough exposures to choose from.

in the beginning with my K-3 I often shot at -4EV, especially during nights in midnightsun- after a while I've gotten a good feel how much is needed not to have blown out highlights...I didn't really edit much on that shot yet, as this banding irritated me already after applying the automatic settings on that exposure- dodging the shadows is absolutely no problem here

---------- Post added 08-08-18 at 01:17 PM ----------

I find that I get that most when I try to pull back highlights that are blown. This image, the area around the sun is pretty blown out. I could have tried to pull back the highlights a bit more, but my experience in lightroom is that I would get minimal benefit with regard to the highlights, but I would start to get a halo along the edge of the blown out area.

I know the problem quite well the kind of banding on the K-1 was just something I haven't had before like this...in terms of lightroom- ever since adobe brought out the cc-only version I have some tools at hand, that allow me a bit better to recover some parts than in LR6, but still best for me is simply to avoid blown-out highlights right at the shot. only downside for me right now is I cannot use my filters on the Irix-lens, which would make it easier for me to work situations like this

[UncleVanya]

What about doing a composite image with a sky shot separately exposed and not including the water for an HDR? Or a graduated ND filter like we would have done on film?

[normhead]

What about doing a composite image with a sky shot separately exposed and not including the water for an HDR? Or a graduated ND filter like we would have done on film?

From what I've been told, an ND filter doesn't effect contrast. It makes the highlights darker, but it also makes the shadows darker.

As of the composite, if you expose right, it's usually not necessary.

[sealight]

What about doing a composite image with a sky shot separately exposed and not including the water for an HDR? Or a graduated ND filter like we would have done on film?

usually I also use graduated ND-filters on a lot of my shots- and I might also used one taking this shot (I worked a long time as lightengineer, so using filters for me is big part of the fun )...my set of filters unfortunately won't be of much use on this lens here, for this lens it would be better to have 150mm-filters...
composites I must admit I have never tried yet, this is personal uncharted territory...

[Rondec]

What about doing a composite image with a sky shot separately exposed and not including the water for an HDR? Or a graduated ND filter like we would have done on film?

I think the problem is that a lot of ultra wide angle lenses on full frame have a tough filter situation. You can use filters, but often they can't be screwed in.

I think the hard thing is often to maintain a long enough exposure while having an overall dark-ish image. If it is dawn or dusk, it isn't too bad, but if you want a 15 second exposure and it is 10 in the morning, it gets a lot harder. But a composite image can certainly be an option if you want to take the time.

The other option, not mentioned yet, is to do a multiple exposure composite in the camera. Taking ten shots at 2 seconds each will still give a really nice smoothing of the water. I have done this several times with good results.

This is 40 images shot at 2 second intervals at 1/60 second shot in composite mode and averaged in camera.