Originally posted by paulh The low sun and low clouds are an interesting combination. The vehicles on the road help give an idea of scale, too. I like
I've always admired the early Corvettes, with their two-tone paint, whitewalls and chrome.
Here's a nice '60 seen at a recent carshow. DA16-45 on K10D:
What a beauty!
Originally posted by Dartmoor Dave Thanks folks, I'm glad you like the road shot.
Recently I seem to have been going through a transition in how I want my photos to look. Ever since I first started the switch from film to digital back in 2012, my primary goal has been to try to get a film-like look out of my DSLRs. But lately I seem to have finally started coming round to the digital-era aesthetic, and it's definitely changing the photographic look that I'm aiming for.
Has anyone else here been through this too? Really disliking the digital look at first, but then gradually starting to accept it?
I did notice that your picture was quite a bit more saturated than yourp previous works...
I go through phases. A oouple of years ago I was all excited because I created some profiles in Corel Aftershot Pro that really had a nice film look and feel to them. I was so happy and thought that would be my style from then on. That lasted for all of a couple of months... not too long after, I switched to RawTherapee (had to switch computers and could not find the plugins for my ASP Pro anymore, they only had the latest ones to work with the latest version). There I found the HaldClut film emulations which were ok. Then I found the HaldClut Fujifilm Xtrans profiles, and those were really good! But those weren't the proper film-like look. These apply the exact same color corrections and processing (which was back-engineered somehow by some clever fellow) that Fujifilm applies in their X-series digital cameras. Now those were killer! With one click the pictures really improved quite a bit.
Here is the link for those who use RawTherapee (I think Paul is using it?):
Fuji Film Simulation Profiles – Stuart Sowerby
But here's the thing, these aren't really film emulations, they're basically taking the films as inspiration for a more digital-like approach. So the Velvia will have very saturated colors and lots of contrast, Chrome will have that desaturated look, Astia will be natural but with good contrast, etc. So I was back with a more "digital" look - and that happened, really, since I got RawTherapee. The files are nice and clean but have the things that I associate with digital... a little lifeless and perhaps "flat" if you will.
Moving forward to earlier this year and I found myself trying other programs. Was I going to have to do like everybody else and move to Lightroom? I always found that Lightroom users end up having a bit of that digital, "flat", perhaps too clinical look. I tried a few other free programs that were not very impressive and then found out Darktable had done a Windows build... That goes along with RawTherapee as the two free programs that people like to rave about, so of course I tried it. At first I thought the workflow is a bit counterintuitive, espeicially when it comes to processing a lot of pictures, but I was very impressed by how the files looked just by applying what is called the "base curve". Not clinical, "flat", one-dimensional! Files seem to retain that depth, I don't know how to explain it, but it's a more natural look than any other program I've used so far and what I have seen coming out of Lightroom.
Add to that the excellent film "emulations" by Joćo Almeida from Portugal (a.k.a. t3mujin), and I was instantly able to get a more natural look from my files - even my CMOS files looked quite a bit better. And I quoted emulations because again, it's not trying to make it look vintage, but simply applying the good attributes from those classic films to the files.
I'm not sure I can demonstrate this in practice because it is subtle and I'm not the greatest photographer. But it's made me realize that what I liked about film was the feel of reality and depth, not just a certain "look". And while I don't think we're there yet in terms of achieving it with digital means, it's probably closer than it's been before.
Does that even make sense?
Quote: And I love the Corvette shots, Paul. Reminds me of the one Suzanne Somers drove in American Graffiti (and I bet I'm not the only forum member of a certain age who had her poster on his bedroom wall as a teenager
).
As a teenager I had posters of rock bands and race car drivers. Maybe that's why I didn't get married until I was 35...
(*)
(* Ok, it wasn't that simple, it was a long winding road... had tons of troubles and got into dark places that God fortunately was able to pull me out of ...)