Project 52 by Frank Miller

[FrankMi]

Not sure what lens you brought along for this shot, but a wide angle, like the Tokina at wide might have been interesting as well for this subject.

Hi Peter, I was at about 50mm FFE so I could have gone wider or backed up as there was room to do that as well. If I used the Tokina 11-16mm I may have lost the perspective I was shooting for but then again, perhaps it would have been better had I moved in closer to the fence and used a wider lens?

Thank you Dave and Peter for noticing and taking the time to provide feedback!

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Frank,

That's a beauty and no mistake.

I too hate the mush of distant leaves and blame the jpg encoding (of low contrast details) for it (rightly or wrongly).

I found your process interesting, since there are a couple of things we each do differently when processing our jpg only camera shots.

For example (in my St Mary pics, I didn't noise reduce at all, mainly because, as with yours here, I knew I wasn't going to crop much and there's more chance of preserving the detail without NR, however, I also didn't capture sharpen (as you say; the in-camera jpg will have done some anyway). I suspect these two things go hand-in-hand and you either do both, or neither - the final results are probably quite similar

I note the EXIF says; 1/60s, f/8, iso100 at 4.74mm, although of course that's just one of the three AEB captures, I'd guess the most exposed one.

That's quite a slow shutter speed and I wondered whether any breeze may have lost you some detail, but I guess the brighter areas would have been at 1/125s or even 1/250s, assuming aperture priority and one stop gaps.
I'd be surprised if noise would be an issue at 100iso, especially after downsizing - I think you may be worrying unnecessarily, although you know your sensor better than I do.
The choice of f/8, multiplied by the crop factor gives about f/40, explaining the wonderful DoF achieved from the grass by the nearest post to the distant trees, that really makes this, especially when viewed large.

Great shot Frank.

Cheers,

[FrankMi]

I'd be surprised if noise would be an issue at 100iso, especially after downsizing - I think you may be worrying unnecessarily, although you know your sensor better than I do.

I appreciate your comments, Dave!

I have learned that noise is often present and post processing can significantly increase the noise by the time I am done so I check every image as part of my normal post processing workflow be it JPG or RAW. I don’t as often need to de-noise the RAW images but the JPG, particularly with the significantly smaller sensor in the SX40 will usually benefit from some noise reduction. I usually flip back and forth between the original and the noise reduction setting to ensure that I apply no more reduction than absolutely necessary and that the noise reduction will have almost no effect on the sharpness. I find that soft backgrounds can be significantly noisier than the subject and if so, I mask the image and treat the background separately.

I use the same approach with capture sharpening. I try to ensure that no more sharpening is done than is needed and here the RAW usually needs more than the JPG. Again I want to be sure that I’m not creating any speckles and/or halos and will back completely out if need be if either becomes apparent. If I mask to do the noise reduction separately for the background, I use the same mask to do the capture sharpening separately as well.

So in summary, I usually need to do more noise reduction and less sharpening with the JPG and smaller SX40 sensor than with the RAW from my DSLR.

[SpiderBob]

Frank,
i have to say, a year ago your explanation would have made no sense to me, but after reading I think I surprised myself as I really understood what you were talking about. Thank you sir.

[FrankMi]

The Biltmore House

Although it was not originally my intention, I inadvertently created a Super-Size Panorama.

This panorama image took a good deal more work than anticipated owing to the need to correct for significant key-stoning. Although there was room to back up (about a half mile) to get the entire building in one image, to do so would have introduced countless additional tourists and vehicles to the scene. I was able to clone out a good many, but not all of the tourists and vehicles in the final panorama.

When the panorama was completed, it contained 10 panels and stretched five feet wide by almost 2 feet tall. The file, prior to downsizing for the web was 230MB.



The Biltmore House is the largest privately-owned home in the United States, at 178,926 square feet (16,622.8 m2) and features 250 rooms and is open for tours. It was built by George Washington Vanderbilt II between 1888 and 1895. His grandfather made his fortune in steam shipping and railroading while his father doubled the family assets to about $200 million which was incredible fortune. Currently the Estate belongs to Biltmore Estate Brands Group owned by grandson of G. W. Vanderbilt II.

Some interesting facts:
■There are 35 bedrooms, 43 bathrooms, 65 fireplaces.
■The banquet hall ceiling is seven stories high and the banquet hall table is 40 feet long, seating 64 guests.
■The original estate was 125,000 acres, the current estate is approximately 8,000 acres.
■The landscaped gardens cover 75 acres and the vineyards span 94 acres.
■170,000 cases of Biltmore wine are sold annually.
■In 1894, the estate employed 438 people.
■30 to 35 domestic servants waited on the Vanderbilts.
■The house has 26 servant bedrooms; the stable complex has another 40 servant rooms.
■More than 1 million people visit Biltmore every year.

For a video of interior images please see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMSTxCyj6jQ

For more background information please see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biltmore_Estate

Thank you for viewing!

[Cantab]

Frank, you certainly created a super size panorama! Have you printed it? For my money, the picture has a nice number of tourists in it. They help make it a living image rather than simply a very impressive house.

I'm still comparatively new to editing: what does "key-stoning" mean?

Congratulations on a very impressive photo.

[FrankMi]

Frank, you certainly created a super size panorama! Have you printed it? For my money, the picture has a nice number of tourists in it. They help make it a living image rather than simply a very impressive house.

I'm still comparatively new to editing: what does "key-stoning" mean?

Congratulations on a very impressive photo.

Thank you Bruce. Yes, occasionally a few tourists don't always spoil the image and as it was impractical to eliminate them, it’s a 'discretion is the better part of valor' type of thing!

In architecture, think of the shape of a keystone. It happens when the camera can't be held level in order to get the top (or bottom) of the scene. The result is that things that should have nice strait right angles are skewed. This can be corrected in post processing but it can be both tricky and time consuming. Compare this original image for the panorama with the result above:



To make matters more fun, when you try to take in the left end of the building, the angles go the other way!

To see how this is addressed in software, take a look at entire process in Post # 280(Week 35: Port of Barcelona) in this thread.

[Cantab]

Thank you for the reminder! All I could think of was the keystone at the top of an architectural arch. I recall reading your Barcelona posts with interest and will revisit them.

Awhile ago I took a three image panorama of an astrophysical observatory. I've yet to stitch the pictures together and then straighten both sides of the building since I could not back up far enough from the building to avoid perspective distortion. Is it best to straighten the outside edges of the building before stitching the three images together?

[FrankMi]

Is it best to straighten the outside edges of the building before stitching the three images together?

That's what I find works best for me. In some cases you will need to straighten both the horizontal and vertical lines which can change the width-to-height aspect ratio so you may need to resize the image panels to recover the proper ratios. For this panorama I needed to do that for each of the 10 sections to get the ratios correct.

I actually gave up on getting it all aligned several times but being a stubborn old fart I kept going back until I got it close enough to make it work. It will definitely change my shooting technique for scenes like this. There are times when cloning out tourists is easier then alignment of skewed building segments!

[FrankMi]

I was out looking in the Devil’s Shop window and came across a few Saturday Afternoon Delights that caught my eye so I thought I’d try my hand at capturing the essence of Chocolate, Caramel, and Nuts.











Your thoughts?

Would you tend to pick a favorite based on what you like to see? - or what you like to eat!

[CLK]

I guess I would answer your question with yes. The shop is aptly named and your pictures are delicious. Is it possible to crop out the pans in 1 and 3? It is only 7:30am here and I want one of those turtles with my coffee instead of breakfast.

[Donald]

Frank - First reaction is that the third one is too tight and compacted. I'm not being able to place what I'm seeing in the context of the wider display. But as for the other two ...................!

Superb. I think they are excellent food shots, but more than that, they are just good quality images. You've got the reflections on the chocolate and the whole lot looks bright and fresh .............. and very, very inviting.

As to the question - I think so much of what we want to eat is informed by sight. I'm sure I've read about chefs knowing it's all about appearance. The owner of this shop certainly understands that, I think!.

[FrankMi]

I guess I would answer your question with yes. The shop is aptly named and your pictures are delicious. Is it possible to crop out the pans in 1 and 3? It is only 7:30am here and I want one of those turtles with my coffee instead of breakfast.

Thank you for your comments Connie! Images 1 and 3 present a dilemma. In both cases I would like to eliminate the pans but to crop in any closer tends to overwhelm the viewing comfort zone. I had the same problem when I composed the shots with the camera. There are too many objects to fill the field and yet, if you back out to give the subject ‘breathing space’ the pans become a distraction.

Originally I thought I would only post image number 2 but my taste buds got in the way and overruled my semi-logical brain!

In the end I posted them almost full size as I couldn’t find a crop that I liked better.

[FrankMi]

Frank - First reaction is that the third one is too tight and compacted. I'm not being able to place what I'm seeing in the context of the wider display. But as for the other two ...................!

I appreciate your comments Donald!

As I responded to Connie, this was a scene where getting the right cropping was difficult. I'm not sure that for images 1 and 3 that the only option might be a re-shoot but even then I'm not sure what would make a more effective composition in-camera.

I seem to lose my objectiveness when it comes to photographing scrumptious delectables and sound judgment gets left behind in the process!

[FrankMi]

Continuing on in the food photography and switching to something a little bit different, the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, NC, held their 20th annual Gingerbread House Competition. There were 10 winners in each of the following categories; Child, Youth, Teen, Adult, and Grand.

This Gingerbread House in the Adult category depicts the Twelve Days of Christmas. I’m guessing that the figures are made of Marzipan.

How many of the following can you locate?

* 12 Drummers drumming,
* 11 Pipers piping,
* 10 Lords a-leaping,
* 9 Ladies dancing,
* 8 Maids a-milking,
* 7 Swans a-swimming,
* 6 Geese a-laying,
* 5 Golden Rings,
* 4 Calling birds,
* 3 French Hens,
* 2 Turtle Doves,
*… and a Partridge in a Pear Tree?



Note: not all of the objects can be seen from this viewpoint so find as many as you can.

[Sergio M.]

Dang, Frank, just looking at all these goodies I've gained 10 pounds.

[FrankMi]

Dang, Frank, just looking at all these goodies I've gained 10 pounds.

Thank you for taking the time to view and comment Sergio!

Gosh! I didn’t mean to cause a problem. Would it help if I posted images of exercise equipment and sweaty athletes?

[Sergio M.]

Thanks for the laugh, Frank. I only wish.

[Donald]

Would it help if I posted images of exercise equipment and sweaty athletes?

There are two answers to that, which depend on what the sweaty athletes look like!

[Teton Chuck]

Frank, this is quite a production. Did you pinch off a little bite when you weren't being watched? Thanks for sharing.