Need an image for next weeks Lets Play

Kyle Jones

Moderator
Bumping this: if anyone has an image where they have struggled with processing, this is a great way to get some ideas. If you don't take advantage of this, I will!
 

JimFox

Moderator
Staff member
As a reminder that if anyone has an image, it doesn’t have to be landscape, it can be any kind of image that looks rough around the edges, please let Ben know.

We are looking for photos that need help, if the photo looks great straight out of the camera then it’s not a good candidate, it needs to be a photo that needs help.
 

rfkiii

Well-Known Member
I've got one. Now I just have to figure out how to submit it. (Any chance I can upload the RAW to a site and provide the link for downloading? I'd rather folks work from the full RAW if possible.)
 

Ben Egbert

Forum Helper
Staff member
Great Rick, just make a dng file and email it to me. The sizes are shown in the "how to make a dng" at the top. Don't worry about uploading, I will do it. I don't have any issue with working from a full raw, but will everyone be able to download it? Will you be using google cloud or other?


Ben
 

rfkiii

Well-Known Member
Great Rick, just make a dng file and email it to me. The sizes are shown in the "how to make a dng" at the top. Don't worry about uploading, I will do it. I don't have any issue with working from a full raw, but will everyone be able to download it? Will you be using google cloud or other?

Ben
I use a site called Box.net. Once I upload it there, it gives me a link I can share with the universe. The instructions for making the DNG says there will be quality loss. Since my issue regards detail, I was a bit concerned? (You might get a kick out of it.) I'll send you the DNG this evening. Do I provide a summary of the issue I am having with it to be posted with the image? How does that work?
 

Ben Egbert

Forum Helper
Staff member
Lets go ahead and do the full size raw and see how it works. Send me the link so I can post it as a sticky post.
 

Ben Egbert

Forum Helper
Staff member
Hi Rick, got it and have already downloaded it. Looks like and easy way to do this. Fixing your problem will be a new challenge for us. I believe another member has used blur techniques to achieve the slower water effect.

It will be up in the morning.
 

Ben Egbert

Forum Helper
Staff member
I tried to go to the link, says it is a RAF file and I downloaded it & it says GIMP can't open it??? Is it me?
I got the same message, just means your browser viewer can't open it, but Photoshop can. Just start in ACR and browse to your download location and you will be able to open just like any other image.
 

AlanLichty

Moderator
I was able to download it just fine and while the browser can't read the RAF file for a preview I had no problem importing the file into LightRoom. Your "problem" in this case is you want to blur water that is captured in very nice detail. There are a lot of pixels to zoom around in with a medium format digital file but what I am seeing is tack sharp. 8256x6192 pixels? No wonder you run out of flash memory.
 

rfkiii

Well-Known Member
Hi Darcy. The link below shows a chart of editing programs that can open RAF files. It says Gimp v2.6 can but it doesn't say if it can open GFX RAWs specifically.

http://extension.nirsoft.net/raf

Hey Ben, if it is easier for everyone can you convert the RAW to DNG as has been the norm.
 

Ben Egbert

Forum Helper
Staff member
Ok, I have a DNG in the resources so tomorrow you will have the option of downloading either the RAW or a DNG.
 

rfkiii

Well-Known Member
Hi Alan. Do you think the image works fine as is?

Full disclosure: I haven't shot many water falls or raging rivers in the past because I have concentrated my travels to the desert Southwest where there isn't a lot of such features available. But I am branching out: Tetons, Yellowstone and Glacier next year. So, obviously, I've got to learn to shoot rushing water.

Also, until recently, I haven't posted much to forums like this. If I had a shot with an issue, I'd post it to my Flickr account as a context or record shot and forget about it. Since I am posting to your water fall threads, I can't be posting crap up in here. :)
 

AlanLichty

Moderator
I played with it a bit to add highlights to the shadows with a few lighting tweaks but the image is well within the lighting dynamics of the scene - no blow outs at either end of the light spectrum. Focus is tack sharp down to pretty fine detail at the 1:1 pixel peeping level with the water flows in this case. This is not even vaguely close to crap by any means. Learning to shoot flowing water is not necessarily an intuitive skill and is one I only learned after moving to an area that has water flows/falls everywhere around me.

Our cameras have the ability to freeze water flows at a level of detail our eyes don't really discern so what they capture is sometimes surprising when you bring it up on your screen. Waves along the coastline at high shutter speed reveal details in waves we never see when we are shooting or watching and the inverse is also true for how we wish to depict water falling over the local geological relief. From my own experience I usually aim for ISO 100 and then look for an f/stop that will give me at least 1/6 - 1/4 second for shutter speed. Faster shutter speeds will result usually in choppy water. I will typically bracket my shots to go both above and below those shutter speeds depending on the speed of the water flow I am trying to capture.
 

Ben Egbert

Forum Helper
Staff member
Alan has good information here about shooting water. For what it's worth, I am an experienced fast water shooter, and yet I stood next to Rick for this shot and used 1/100 second because I was hand holding. Rick was using a monopod as I recall. I think this was a jump out of the truck and grab one type of image so we did not use the mandatory tripods to allow slow shutter speeds.
 

AlanLichty

Moderator
Fully agree - a tripod is mandatory for the shutter speeds I described. Even with a monopod anything slower than 1/60 is asking for camera motion in the shot.
 
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