Tanks Moose for all the time and advice you sent.
You wrote
> 1. *North Hagley Park trees.* I've commented on this before. Blown
> highlights in the foliage and grass. There's just something wrong in the
> mid tones. They don't have the strong local contrast I actually see in
> this kind of light. Flip to it from other images. Doesn't it look flat?
> And oddly unsaturated, in spite of the foliage color? Possibly the result
> of pulling up shadows in a simple editor?
Strangely enough, this is the only one of these shots that was shot in RAW
and processed in a RAW converter. I spent ages on it, in an endeavour to
recover detail in those leaves which acted as the devil's own mirrors of late-
day autumn sunlight.
I understand what you are saying about my computer gear, image programs
etc, but if you saw my budget you'd probably ask why I was even bothering
with photography. It does however, keep me kind-of sane.
I have converted your posting to a document file, saved it in a couple of
places with an eye catching name, and also printed it out for reference.
Maybe there's an OM-D in my future, but it's priority is a long way down the
list. I try to do with what I have.
I'll check out the references later (it's 2 am right now)
For what it's worth,
> 14. Composed at an angle. If there was such a convention, St. Ansel killed
> it off with his famous images of the winding Snake River, river below the
> Tetons and elsewhere. Very nicely composed. A little less exposure would
> have helped the upper right.
was highly manipulated in FastStone. As shot it was much much too dark,
and I used the gamma slider to bring the light right up and was surprised
and pleased to see the blues and browns emerge from the mud. I think I
also used a touch of saturation, and of course sharpening, to achieve whet I
finally presented. Maybe contrast adjustment too - don't remember that.
Regarding
> 17. Brutal enduring cliffs. Well here's turnabout, and a possible lesson.
> The sky is properly exposed, but the bright rocks on the left are badly
> blown out. can be improved a great deal, but will never be technically
> first rate without
I used highlight recovery in FS to reduce the blowing out without totally
destroying the colour. In the original shot the bright part was very white.
> 20. Favorite Hill. A tough one. As taken/presented, highlights are blown
> AND shadow detail is poor. The shadows can be brought up a little. Only
> solutions for the sky are to make it all blue or graft one on.
This was the best of about 10 shots, again highly manipulated to lighten
shadows, bring out autumn colour, and I don't remember what else. Of
course this part never shows in a photograph, but it was shot in the teeth of
a 30+ mph wind, and I did use a tripod. I forget what lens I used, it could
have been to Zuiko 180.
> 7. *Clyde cemetery. *Good subject and light. Good exposure. The E-3 seems
> to be doing a good job without large expanses of brightness. Do you use it
> with only the central spot for exposure? I'd think ESP exposure (or
> whatever they call it now) would do a better job on all those blown skies.
> The original ESP on the OMPC does a better job.
I'm not sure about this particular image, but I took a lot of shots then at
that
spot using the Zuiko 85-250. Once I found the camera position that suited
the sun angle and the light I tried many compositions. That branch was a
natural for me to use to frame the shot. Tripod used. Yes, I use central spot
for exposure most of the time.
Many thanks.
Brian Swale
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