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trevor-w In reply to 3Dpoke [2012-08-17 02:01:50 +0000 UTC]

Thanks! Yeah, I've spent a few nights out there looking for the perfect mix of lights and clouds. As much as I like this shot I know I'll end up down there again some night to see what else I can come up with.

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trevor-w In reply to dancinghorseart [2010-10-12 17:53:10 +0000 UTC]

Thanks! I like a more subtle application of HDR where I can get away with it.

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dancinghorseart In reply to trevor-w [2010-10-12 18:11:34 +0000 UTC]

hdr can really make or break a photo. i have friends who really over do it. keep shooting

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trevor-w In reply to hugoo13 [2010-10-01 17:48:54 +0000 UTC]

Thanks!

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trevor-w In reply to DesEmeraudes [2010-09-11 17:09:24 +0000 UTC]

Thanks. Yeah, I've been out there to shoot a few times and it really has to be the right combination of higher clouds with no low fog/marine layer to get the great color and reflection in the clouds.

This was back at the beginning of June when we had a lot of nighttime marine layer but I managed to get there as it was rolling south from Mission Bay so it made a pretty dramatic backdrop with the wall of clouds/marine layer rolling down. Within about a half hour of these shots the city was looking foggy.

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trevor-w In reply to raylinder [2010-09-11 19:05:40 +0000 UTC]

Sure - I uploaded it here .

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raylinder In reply to trevor-w [2011-09-20 02:07:58 +0000 UTC]

thanks!

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trevor-w In reply to acidflow [2010-09-09 15:42:18 +0000 UTC]

I'm pretty sure it was ISO 200. I usually just set it for 200 with longer exposures that I'm using for HDR - the less noise in the originals the better because the HDR process introduces some blur/noise.

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acidflow In reply to trevor-w [2010-09-09 19:46:59 +0000 UTC]

Wow, well I suppose the HDR would explain the noise then. The reason I asked because from what I've seen from the D700, the noise results are generally impressively low, and I was curious how high you had your ISO turned up for this shot. I'll definitely keep that in mind though about the processing because I wasn't aware it could do that to images.

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trevor-w In reply to acidflow [2010-09-10 01:31:38 +0000 UTC]

Yeah, the HDR processing seems to add a good amount of noise. I need to experiment with Photomatix some more because I had been using it to do the RAW conversion before I processed it but I'm finding out that it's better to use Lightroom to export the RAWs to TIF files and process those, the results seem to be a little better. This particular one was before I started experimenting with that and I haven't gone back to reprocess it with TIFs to see what the difference would be. It was a little breezy that night too so there's definitely a little camera shake keeping it from being as sharp as I'd like.

For comparison, this deviation and this one were both taken on the same camera/lens combo (Nikon D700 with 24-70mm f/2.8G ED) at ISO 200 as well. Not a direct comparison as they're totally different shots but you can see the sharpness of this combo with minimal post processing.

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acidflow In reply to trevor-w [2010-09-11 01:55:35 +0000 UTC]

Ah, I see. That's interesting about exporting the RAWs to TIFs; I'll definitely try doing that first before processing if I ever try HDR. To be honest I've been photographing on and off for a few years now and I've been using Photoshop since I started, but I never really have talked with anyone too much about processing so that info is interesting to learn. I suppose it makes sense though if you think about factors like luminance and color noise.

Thanks for the comparison images, by the way! The latter of the two definitely seems especially sharp to me, in terms of visibility of details. Full frame is definitely awesome for sure. Currently I'm trying to save up for a Canon 5D Mark II. Originally I started with a Nikon D80, and have gone through a few crop format cameras since I first started around late 2007, and I've been trying to get a full framer since the 5D2 came out in 2008 I think its gonna be really expensive but I'm definitely looking forward to learning more about this stuff and getting out in the field more.

Anyways, thanks again for the info, dude. I'll look out for more of your work.

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trevor-w In reply to acidflow [2010-09-11 17:05:53 +0000 UTC]

Not all RAW conversion tools are alike, unfortunately. I've used Photoshop, Lightroom and Nikon's Capture NX with the same images and had different results from each so I'm sure that Photomatix is the same, although you can't preview any of the RAW conversions until after the first merge is done so it's impossible to tell what they look like individually. I've been using Lightroom because I like the entire feature set more but I think that Capture NX does a little bit better conversion. Photoshop was definitely the worst for me (especially with white balance), although I haven't tried it since upgrading to CS5.

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acidflow In reply to trevor-w [2010-09-11 22:59:23 +0000 UTC]

Yeah, I've never really used any HDR-specific processing myself. Personally I love using CS5 - even just for the new noise reduction in Camera RAW alone. I hear its also a little better at HDR stuff now; though I'm not sure for what exactly (some of it may be automated). Once I start shooting again though I definitely want to see what Lightroom is about, as I've only tried it but never implemented it into my workflow fully.

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