Yellow Mountains (IV)

[Yan Zhang]

This photo was taken in Grand Canyon of West Sea, Yellow Mountains. The position of taking this picture was very restricted, no any possibility of using tripod or even monopod.

BTW, after I uploaded this photo here, I found the color and contrast significantly changed compared to
the original ones in my computer...

Camera: 5D Mark II
Focal length: 115mm
Aperture: f/8.0
ISO: 800
Shutter Speed: 1/1000s

[Colin Southern]

Hi Yan,

Nice composition, but I'm wondering if it might benefit from a slightly higher black clipping point (it looks a touch flat), a slight saturation increase, and a slight sharpen. I'm also a little puzzled as to why it's a bit noisy?

EDIT: I see that you've added to your original post - not sure what the issue is as it's in sRGB. Do you want to send me the RAW and I'll take a crack at it for you?

[Yan Zhang]

Hi Yan,

Nice composition, but I'm wondering if it might benefit from a slightly higher black clipping point (it looks a touch flat), a slight saturation increase, and a slight sharpen. I'm also a little puzzled as to why it's a bit noisy?

EDIT: I see that you've added to your original post - not sure what the issue is as it's in sRGB. Do you want to send me the RAW and I'll take a crack at it for you?

Colin,

I just sent a PM to you with the raw file. Thanks for your help.

Yan

[Colin Southern]

Hi Yan,

Best I could do for this time of night! Quite a difficult one in that it's hard to know just how it should be interpreted.

[Wirefox]

Nice work Colin. You could make a living doing this. Favorite images converted to masterpieces 200 bucks a shot

Yan, I am relatively new to DSLR and just when I think I have got the hang of the technicalities someone else's EXIF data baffles me even more. I notice you selected f8 (which I understand) but then you have selected a 1000th sec shutter and ISO 800. I know the 5D mkII is a very different animal to my humble 450D but I would have gone for lower shutter speed with lower ISO in these conditions. Have I misunderstood something


Steve

[Colin Southern]

Nice work Colin. You could make a living doing this.

Hi Steve,

I do (well it's one of the things I do to make a buck anyway )

[Yan Zhang]

Hi Yan,

Best I could do for this time of night! Quite a difficult one in that it's hard to know just how it should be interpreted.

Colin,

This is nice, thanks a lot. My original picture in my Mac computer has better contrast and color than the one I posted here earlier. This problem occurs from time to time. Not sure how to deal with.

[Yan Zhang]

....

Yan, I am relatively new to DSLR and just when I think I have got the hang of the technicalities someone else's EXIF data baffles me even more. I notice you selected f8 (which I understand) but then you have selected a 1000th sec shutter and ISO 800. I know the 5D mkII is a very different animal to my humble 450D but I would have gone for lower shutter speed with lower ISO in these conditions. Have I misunderstood something


Steve

Steve,

Since I used lens 70-200mm f/2.8L IS, quite heavy, and I could not use tripod, so I wanted a high speed to ensure the sharpness of the image, also the focal length of this picture is 115mm. I am not sure if 1/500s shutter speed is enough for this case when I used ISO 400.

[Colin Southern]

Steve,

Since I used lens 70-200mm f/2.8L IS, quite heavy, and I could not use tripod, so I wanted a high speed to ensure the sharpness of the image, also the focal length of this picture is 115mm. I am not sure if 1/500s shutter speed is enough for this case when I used ISO 400.

Hi Yan,

Tell me again what IS does?

[KentDub]

Since I used lens 70-200mm f/2.8L IS, quite heavy, and I could not use tripod, so I wanted a high speed to ensure the sharpness of the image, also the focal length of this picture is 115mm. I am not sure if 1/500s shutter speed is enough for this case when I used ISO 400.

I thought the rule of thumb was 1/<focal length> to ensure sharp images? Even without IS you should have been able to drop your shutter speed to nearly 1/100. Of course, since your shooting digital, if you're unsure just take the same picture a few times with different settings.

[Yan Zhang]

Hi Yan,

Tell me again what IS does?

Colin,

This is actually an issue I am not sure. Will IS really bring 2 stops (or more) advantage even if your body is not quite still when taking the photo? This was a case when I took this photo (and other photos in this area). Since 5DMarkII has an advantage of high ISO performance, I thought this was a safe way to ensure image sharpness.

Kent,

I have read reviews that the rule of 1/<focal length> does not working for any heavy lens (considering without IS case).

[Colin Southern]

I thought the rule of thumb was 1/<focal length> to ensure sharp images?

Hi Kent,

It's a rule to minimise camera shake; to "eliminate it" you need to aim for about 5 times higher, although with good technique you don't need to go this high.

[Colin Southern]

Colin,

This is actually an issue I am not sure. Will IS really bring 2 stops (or more) advantage even if your body is not quite still when taking the photo? This was a case when I took this photo (and other photos in this area). Since 5DMarkII has an advantage of high ISO performance, I thought this was a safe way to ensure image sharpness.

Hi Yan,

Your IS unit is good for 3 stops - so in theory on a 200m lens you can get away with as low as 1/25th. Unfortunately what struck me most when working on the image wasn't "how sharp is was"; unfortunately, it was "how noisy it was". Even on my 1Ds3 I don't like shooting above ISO 200 as you can definately see it in skin tones (at high magnifications); the noise also makes sharpening a nightmare in high-frequency shots like yours too.

Personally, I would have shot your mountain at F5.6 @ 1/125th @ ISO 100 with IS on and I'll bet it would have been just as sharp but with a lot less noise. Try doing some back-to-back tests

[Dave Humphries]

My thoughts on the recent posts here, for what they're worth, are;

Just to clarify: the rule of thumb is "1/35mm equivalent focal length" - in other words take the crop factor into account when necessary (not relevant for a 5DII I know) - I only mention in case someone less experienced reads this and doesn't appreciate the unwritten proviso of this discussion pertaining to FF (when most of us have 1.5/1.6/2 crop factor cameras).

For static subject shots, I do tend to work to "the rule" (above), and allow the IS to give me some extra headroom to help ensure I don't get any blurring. So, not 5 x higher, but getting there.


Regarding noise, while I accept that any shot is obviously better without it in the first place, I find at my level of kit, skill and IQ, that using a good Noise Reduction method (e.g. ACR and/or Neat Image) will in most cases get rid of the noise for really minimal impact on fine detail, allowing effective sharpening after the event. I'd trade ISO (with noise) for shutter speed or DoF (whichever is more important for the shot) any day. Noise can be dealt with afterwards, whereas a blurred pic, or subject movement, or lack of DoF, cannot.

Hope you don't mind me chipping in,

[Wirefox]

Mmmm....if I distill all this down I come to the conclusion that I am not losing the plot after all. I was a little shocked when I saw what lens was being used since POTN lead me to believe that if you pay enough dollars the lens takes care of all else.

Lens aside that is a lot of noise for ISO 800. I am beginning to wonder what kind of benefit I will get from a xD body. I am seriously thinking of lowering my sights to a xxD body. Can anyone enlighten me bearing in mind that I left POTN ages ago, I will not be taking shots in the sauna and I have insurance if I drop the thing

Steve

[Yan Zhang]

I think the noise revealed from my this particular was not all contributed by using ISO 800. In fact, I read many reviews and also some from my owns photos, Canon 5D Mark II handles high ISO quite well.

However, I did find under certain photography situations, noise will significantly increase such as in a large area of shadow.

[Colin Southern]

Mmmm....if I distill all this down I come to the conclusion that I am not losing the plot after all. I was a little shocked when I saw what lens was being used since POTN lead me to believe that if you pay enough dollars the lens takes care of all else.

Lens aside that is a lot of noise for ISO 800. I am beginning to wonder what kind of benefit I will get from a xD body. I am seriously thinking of lowering my sights to a xxD body. Can anyone enlighten me bearing in mind that I left POTN ages ago, I will not be taking shots in the sauna and I have insurance if I drop the thing

Steve

Hi Steve,

Noise is a funny thing. It's the "limiting factor" that stops ISO settings going even higher - and it's more of a challenge for manufacturers at MP counts increase.

In reality what's happened is improvements in technology have equaled out the the noise -v- pixel count thing, but there's not a lot left over to counter the increased noise with increasing ISO - so - what they do is get far more agressive with in-camera noise reduction. Unfortunately ...

... in-camera noise-reduction doesn't do a lot for RAW files - it's mostly just applied to JPEG images. In Yan's case the image was shot RAW at 800 ISO - which is perfectly OK, but, noise levels are starting to creep up. And if there's any degree of under-exposure then it quickly becomes more like an ISO 1600 image (or worse).

So in reality, there's not a lot of difference in RAW file noise between cameras like the 1Ds3, 5D2, 40D, 50D etc; I put all of these in the "more than adequate" category.

In Yan's case the noise could probably be dealt with relatively easily, but I didn't bother with the version I did (I'll save that for the paying clients )

[Ashwin]

With my limited experiance... This is what I could achieve to Improve the appearance of the original image

[will_c]

It's an interesting landscape. I like the original image myself - it seems more true to life. What's the orientation of the photo?

Will

[Yan Zhang]

It's an interesting landscape. I like the original image myself - it seems more true to life. What's the orientation of the photo?

Will

My original photo is closer to the real scene. The image shows what it is in the mountain - many pine trees (I am not sure their English name) grow along the cliff, they absorb nutrition from the rocks. After many years, the rocks then cracked. So we can see all rocks have many lines on them.