Seven Sisters

[FrankMi]

This is an image where I didn’t realize that the camera was set to an ISO of 3200 and as such it is much grainier than I would normally accept. However, I liked the composition so I thought I would see what could be done in post processing to compensate for the graininess.

This image is of Lake Tomahawk in Black Mountain, North Carolina. The town takes its name from the Black Mountain range, the highest mountains in the Eastern United States. The range gets its name from the dark appearance of the Red Spruce and Fraser Fir trees on the upper slopes which contrasts with the brown (during winter) or lighter green (during the growing season) appearance of the deciduous trees at lower elevations.

Beyond the lake we can see the Watertown Ridge with 12 peaks, seven of which can be seen from this vantage point. From left to right the peaks are; Tomahawk, Stomping Knob, Brushy Knob, Fourth Sister, Forked Ridge Knob, Little Slaty, and Big Slaty.

Getting "Error 503 Service Unavailable Guru Meditation: XID: 1151402029 Varnish cache server" when trying to use TinyPix. I'll try uploading the image later.

It's 'later' and the image loaded with Go Advanced.



I think I've just figured out why a number of my images have seemingly random ISO settings. The button for setting and advancing the ISO is right under my thumb when I hold the camera so I have likely been changing the ISO while shooting without realizing it.

[Dave Humphries]

Ouch (taking it on 3200 without realising - but easily done with newish kit)

The starting point from your SX40HS was obviously a jpg which comes presharpened (to an extent), freezing all that noise in
The result above has obviously had the sky 'cleaned' (which being featureless, is fine) and various other bits smoothed too, but unfortunately this has led to the "fuzzy trees and gritty clouds" look.

Was this a manual clean up using selectively applied low pass filtering/noise reduction, or did something 'inteligent', like Neat Image, get used?

It is a nice composition though,

[Donald]

I feel that the image has got a sort-of surreal feel to it.

I do like the composition - that foreground foliage frames it beautifully. But (says the person with a colour-blindness issue) it feels over-saturated or too artificial. If I've got that wrong, then I'm sure someone will point it out.

[Letrow]

Nice composition Frank. There are a few things though... First of all the name. I thought Seven Sisters was in the UK, i.e. the coast seen from Beachy Head. Funny to read that there is another.
The photo is pretty grainy. I noticed it in the clouds where the black looks a bit dirtier than expected.

Is that ISO setting the result of your finger on that button or do you have flexible ISO like I do in the D7000? In that case, if your ISO isn't limited to a certain point it would hunt around, depending on your other settings. If your camera has the same options you should be able to either fixate ISO or limit its upper reach.
I actually like the option, because it gives me added flexibility with my manual settings. The D7000 looks ok at 3200, but often with enough light it might go as low as 200 ISO.

[FrankMi]

Ouch (taking it on 3200 without realising - but easily done with newish kit)

The starting point from your SX40HS was obviously a jpg which comes presharpened (to an extent), freezing all that noise in
The result above has obviously had the sky 'cleaned' (which being featureless, is fine) and various other bits smoothed too, but unfortunately this has led to the "fuzzy trees and gritty clouds" look.

Was this a manual clean up using selectively applied low pass filtering/noise reduction, or did something 'inteligent', like Neat Image, get used?

It is a nice composition though,

Hi Dave. It was the compositional elements that made my want to try to recover what I could from this image.

Looking at the ISO on this series of images and figuring out that my thumb was resting on the ISO button while shooting has cost me a good deal of grief. This should have been a really nice and sharp image. The noise in the original image was phenomenal.

I used Topaz Labs DeJpeg on maximum to remove about 80% of the noise, along with a fair amount of detail, then used Topaz Labs InFocus to recover a minimum amount of sharpness. A lesson well learned and I will be much more careful in the future.

Thank you for viewing and commenting!

[FrankMi]

I feel that the image has got a sort-of surreal feel to it.

I do like the composition - that foreground foliage frames it beautifully. But (says the person with a colour-blindness issue) it feels over-saturated or too artificial. If I've got that wrong, then I'm sure someone will point it out.

It probably is over-saturated for some peoples taste Donald. I was concentrating on minimizing the noise and not paying close attention to the saturation. It is probably going to end up in the bin as I can't get it up to my expectations for a good image dispite the composition.

[FrankMi]

Nice composition Frank. There are a few things though... First of all the name. I thought Seven Sisters was in the UK, i.e. the coast seen from Beachy Head. Funny to read that there is another.
The photo is pretty grainy. I noticed it in the clouds where the black looks a bit dirtier than expected.

Is that ISO setting the result of your finger on that button or do you have flexible ISO like I do in the D7000? In that case, if your ISO isn't limited to a certain point it would hunt around, depending on your other settings. If your camera has the same options you should be able to either fixate ISO or limit its upper reach.
I actually like the option, because it gives me added flexibility with my manual settings. The D7000 looks ok at 3200, but often with enough light it might go as low as 200 ISO.

I rarely go over ISO 800 and though I was using ISO 100 for this image. Sometimes I use Auto ISO and originally thought I may have done that without realizing so it concerned me that the camera might have selected 3200.

I've seen pictures of the Seven Sisters at Beachy Head but this is a different set.

[JPS]

Frank,
I too like the composition . But it doesn't look quiet right; sorry.
You know I like your work and would love to see this re-shot with the same composition, but with different camera setting.
Kind regards

[FrankMi]

Frank,
I too like the composition . But it doesn't look quiet right; sorry.
You know I like your work and would love to see this re-shot with the same composition, but with different camera setting.
Kind regards

No question about that, John. I try to get another shot next time I'm there (it's about a three hour drive), and next time I'm hoping to have someone that knows what they are doing pushing the shutter button!