While processing shots taken today found Willow Trees become a fascinating b/w subject due to their yellow branches.
I will have to revisit this location while there is still snow and try to clean up the composition-background further. This young willow is on the bank of a river-outlet of large pond; behind the willow is a woodland but the issue is that behind the woodland are open areas where there is snow on the ground (causing the while-splotches). I may also try a different lens (this was taken at 310mm), I only had my birding lens.
The Willow turned white as it's branches are yellow compared to the more magenta woodlands; so easy to isolate in processing.
Edits: B/W, Basic adjustments including Contrast; then Micro Contrast and Clarity changes.
Second image is the original after crop and straightening.
Clever use of different colours to make the monochrome here, Joe. It works well to isolate the tree, and reduce the sense of chaos that can be so hard to avoid in forest scenes.
Thanks Chris. Yeah I need to revisit this location; I think there is a decent photo to be had with a little more work. :)
Joe, I wonder if you used a B&W mode in your Nikon whether you could effectively filter in-camera, and preview the result in your EVF before shooting to e.g. minimise unwanted sources of yellow in the image.
If you used this mode for capture, you'd be stuck with jpegs, but I have a friend who shoots virtually only B&W using his (Fuji) camera's B&W modes, and gets fine results after PS processing.
I speak from ignorance as I never use anything other than RAW (plus low quality jpegs for easy preview in my PC) but thought I'd try the filter modes if I did what my friend does.
You could still shoot a RAW file as well, or just use the mono mode for preview, but in the latter case I suspect switching back & forth would be a pain.
That is defiantly a good idea and I'll give it a try. Though I mainly shoot raw as well, I have no issues going "jpeg" when needed... just got to nail the exposure dead on; which isn't too difficult with today's cameras. Thanks for the reminder Chris, good idea.
I have tried many times to shoot Willows myself but for some reason am consistently disappointed wit the results.
I like the idea of shooting wit conversion in mind as the tree color lends many opportunities
Same here, willows are def difficult to shoot - the ones I know of are in difficult locations which also adds to the frustration. This one and two next to it are rather isolated but i still have to play with the comp. There might be an ice storm here Tuesday, which might lead to some interesting opportunities.