Is this any good.

[arith]

I ventured a few yards up the road to try to take this; in the first attempt I had the polariser on and it introduced chromatic aberration, but I was in a good spot. By the time I removed the polariser the sun had moved behind a tree, so I moved but again got some chromatic aberration. Decided to shoot straight at the sun and my battery died. Changed it and I had to move again and you can see the result.



I beginning to wonder why I bother with HDR; you can get the exif from the bottom image.

[ScoutR]

Hi Arith: Sorry, but this just looks way too busy for me. Also, Your camera seems to react the same as mine for backlighting. This just doesn't have the same clarity and smoothness that say for instance your Swans in the park and the Swans by the bridge and many of your other shots. I think we both have some work to do on backlighting.

Looks like lots of potenial for some good shots there. If it's just up the road, I'd definitley be going back. Looking forward to your next try, and hoping you don't run into so many problems next time.

I went out the other day, it was -15 so I'm all bundled up, and have a different pocket assigned for everything I might need. I was at a local conservation area, and was about 100 yards or so into the park when I decided to take my first shot. The camera was dead. I thought it was because of the cold and then realized that I had taken out the battery to recharge and forgot to put the new one in. Luckily it was in the camera bag in the car. sigh!!!!! Glad I was alone.

Wendy

[arith]

This is the one that didn't work out because of incredible chromatic abberation badly cloned out.

[arith]

Hi Arith: Sorry, but this just looks way too busy for me. Also, Your camera seems to react the same as mine for backlighting. This just doesn't have the same clarity and smoothness that say for instance your Swans in the park and the Swans by the bridge and many of your other shots. I think we both have some work to do on backlighting.

Looks like lots of potenial for some good shots there. If it's just up the road, I'd definitley be going back. Looking forward to your next try, and hoping you don't run into so many problems next time.

I went out the other day, it was -15 so I'm all bundled up, and have a different pocket assigned for everything I might need. I was at a local conservation area, and was about 100 yards or so into the park when I decided to take my first shot. The camera was dead. I thought it was because of the cold and then realized that I had taken out the battery to recharge and forgot to put the new one in. Luckily it was in the camera bag in the car. sigh!!!!! Glad I was alone.

Wendy

Cheers Wendy.

[ScoutR]

Yes, I like the first attempt the best. Too bad about the sun.
Is there a time during the day when the sun would be coming in from the right. I'd like to see the same shot from the same spot with side lighting, and I don't know if it's possible, but maybe if you could get lower or a bit of a different angle so we could see more of the church without the tree branches top left.

Wendy

[arith]

Yes Wendy; about 30 minutes from when I took this by the rate it was moving. It goes down as well, this is the top of a hill.

I just thought that wasn't the only thing I did wrong; the polariser was left on due to laziness but I also used mirror lockup. :eek

[ScoutR]

Looking forward to seeing it in a different light. Don't forget to check the battery before you go out.

Wendy

[arith]

Looking forward to seeing it in a different light. Don't forget to check the battery before you go out.

Wendy

This was taken at 2pm; so if I go out at 1pm the sun shoud be higher and nearer the spire; and I will be able to get inbetween the trees on the left and get the church with the sun directly down the middle of the lens.

The whole idea was to get the sun in the pic. cheers Wendy

[ScoutR]

Just so you don't think I'm picking on you Arith. Here's a backlit one that I want to try again. What do I want? More snow, preferably fresh which won't be likely around sunset . Better composition so I don't include the dead branches. Better exposure. In reality the lighting was sooo dramatic. The sky was still a deep blue, the shadows were darker and it just looked so much better than the photo shows. I'll also take a tripod next time, or shut down the apperature so I'm not shooting handheld at 1/4 sec.
I wish I'd get it right the first time, but it doesn't hurt to go back.



Nikon D3000: 18-200mm: 1/4s: f13: ISO 200: 18mm

[arith]

Cor; it is very sharp for hand held at 1/4 seconds. Cheers Wendy. I mean't trees on the right.

[arith]

Try a different HDR program 'Photoceptor' and get something completely different. How do you get the white balance right; this is set on the snow?



And this is a guess; it looks like it is going to be green or blue. or B+W

[Shadowman]

Arith and Wendy,

I took this photograph last year in July around 7 AM. I placed myself in a position so that the sun was directly behind one of the trees.

[arith]

It's a good photo Shadowman. However I wanted to get the sun in the frame without any artifacts. I didn't expect it to be so hard to balance.

I found out that you either don't take a pic of the sun or have to get it right down the middle. The logarithmic program gets closer to natural but with too much red, and the photoceptor is more natural for the tree colour but everything turns green.

I've tried every different HDR application apart from photomatix and these are the closest I can get.

[ScoutR]

Thanks Shadowman, good tip. Unlike Arith, I don't really want the sun right in the photo, but I do like the backlight. I don't think I'll have any trouble keeping the sun behind the trees next time out, as long as i can get the same dramatic lighting then I'll be happy.

Wendy

[Dave Humphries]

~ I wanted to get the sun in the frame without any artifacts. I didn't expect it to be so hard to balance. ~

That's a big 'ask' in my opinion; as I suspect without 'world class' optics, you'll get all manner of different coloured flares off your different lens elements, both specular and vieling and I suspect this is what's causing all the problems.

Whether it would be any more successful with a prime rather than a zoom (usually they have less elements) is something worth a thought.
Another idea would be to shoot wider angle and try to obtain an optimum shooting angle to get the worst flares outside your final image compoisition which you'll have to achieve with significant cropping in PP. Depends how many pixels you can afford to discard in the crop.

Beyond that, it will be 'luck of the draw' on which lenses are better or worse at such challenging 'sun in shot' photos, I doubt that information is concisely available anywhere - but it's an idea one of the magazines or review sites that have access to hundreds might compile

Personally I'm a wuse and too scared of scarring the sensor to attempt many sun in shot pics, I'll usually do what Shadowman does

Cheers,

[arith]

I got the colour balanced now by just using automatic settings on photoceptor; but it takes hours for me to clone out the nasty.

The sun here is 1/250 f8 @100 iso so not so bad, the shadows are 1/15

[arith]

This is the best I can do with the image with the equipment I've got; using the computed gamma curve rather than my gamma gave me a chance with balance. I read somewhere, and it was something to do with Hollywood and HDR that it is best to aim the sun right down the middle of the lens and in this case it wasn't.

But the polariser just made the lens flare look worse since it has a ghost image; I think. I don't mind the tree on the left but hoped there would be less of it and the widest I can go is 28mm so not much closer than this and get the church and a couple of trees on the right.

It didn't look like I could get any closer through the viewfinder.

My 28mm has only got a couple of elements. cheers

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Arith,

Yes, straight down the barrel dead centre is another option, but you hit the problem I would have expected; internal reflections between a flat filter and a flat sensor

OK, true that 28mm (on a crop factor camera) isn't very wide angle and therefore probably won't allow enough off-axis aiming to try my idea

The only other idea, at the expense of yet more time, is to correct the individual photos before the HDR merge and tone map is even started.

Cheers,

[arith]

Cheers Dave; I'll try again if I have the chance without the offending polariser. But I need hazy sun and if I go a couple of hours earlier the sun will be near the spire so I can get out of the rough stuff.

Even if I use an ND which will probably reflect back light I still need hazy sun because it is really difficult tone mapping something with ev range greater than 10, and besides the atmosphere will be lost.

According to Picturenaut this has true ev range of 8.6 which I will take with a pinch of salt; since I got 1/250-1/15 and the 1/15 histogram was only a little bit off the bottom.

[arith]

This is the first of a new batch; it is a lot of work but now I work the HDR in Raw because I found different reports of ev span on the same image. Just means I have to clone out fixed noise when I actually find it hiding in there for a photographer to find. It will be nice to have a program like 'Helicon Filter' that can use a sensor noise map and save in 16 bit.

It looks a little abstract; maybe the loads of money Potomatix can do better but I haven't any dosh; I wantd some Cokin GND and my washing machine is broke.

So here you are this is the next attempt: