got out at 4:30 a.m. to explore a park about 30 min away. thank you google maps!!! great location love the views. this is what i came up with nothing spectacular but just let me know what to improve... as usual no holds barred critique! this is an unedited straight from camera shot hope to get to it tonight and post again.
And the second is my revision.
It's an OK composition, but way too dark. You're probably going to have to pull the shadows slider in LR all the way to the right, which apparently will fix the issue. However, this may well introduce noise into your picture and although that doesn't seem to be a big deal at first, your edit can go downhill very quickly from that point on as additional adjustments tend to amplify the noise.
The solution to this problem is - you guessed right - bracketing.
I loaded the JPEG into LR (first screenshot) and the blacks are clipped - a lot, as you can see in the histogram. There's no white clipping and the 2 peeks on the right correspond to the small patch of sky as you can immediately verify by going into crop mode and excluding the sky (screenshot #2).
As you need to bracket here anyway, just ignore the sky for your long exposure frame, which gives you 2 stops (+2EV) to work with (screenshot #3). As you can see in screenshot #4 you just about fit the reflections from the water in without clipping them.
You then shoot another frame for the sky, this one will look exactly as the image you posted.
If your first frame still clips the blacks, things will get more complicated, because you'll have to blend parts of the long exposed water. So my advice is to go for 2 frames only for the time being.
i don't use LR I'm assuming its a similar format to PS which is what I've been using since college. i realized i had under exposed when i got home even though i was over exposing the shit out of it on site i should have opened the f-stop. the way i do my edit is i take the original image copy it 4 or 5 times edit each one individually to what i want to pull out... erase what i don't need/want from those that i edited then merge them. i should have taken the sky into consideration. i didn't want a full vignette but i did do one layer of neutral color almost grey so i could create a focal point more to the center. made the water cooler and the tree line warmer. i just kept it simple. i am in need of a re- tutorial on PS as there have been major changes in 20yrs but I'm getting there thanks for the massive input i greatly appreciate it ill have to review what your saying and get a better grasp on it.
Excellent choice, I work with Photoshop exclusively myself.
Exposure: Always check the histogram after you've taken the shot. Consider shooting in manual mode, exposure compensation is rather limited (-2EV to +2EV typically).
Don't work with multiple copies of the same shot, if you need to make local adjustments that's what layers in PS are for. Any details you need to pull from the shadows will make matters worse, that's why you need to bracket (which is easy as pie in manual mode).
The problem with pulling the shadows up is not only amplified noise, but there are fewer tonal values in the blacks and shadows than there are in the whites and highlights, which is why many photographers expose to the right (ETTR).
looks like my previous reply got erased ....i need to learn/see if/how i can use histogram in camera. i do shoot manually but i believe that is where i run into trouble because i trust the cameras optimal setting gauge which always seems to get an under exposed result so i need to gain more experience with that. i also need to start metering the dark areas before i shoot the entire scene. I'm dealing with all the obstacles of a new photographer but ill get there its just a ton of new memorization .
I second Thorsten! :) Bracketing could be a one way to go, the cropping would be second. And I totally agree that ETTR while shooting RAW is one of the best ways to reduce noise and preserve all the details in the shadows. :)
i will be looking into ETTR and bracketing... gotta love youtube!! thanks
These guys with their editing know how, I could hardly argue with. Congratulations for 4:30am start. You are keen Joseph. For me the whole right side of the picture is too dark. You probably didn't have room to move to change your angle to eliminate that.Looks like a great spot.
Thanks Geoff yes I was a foot deep in the water for this one and almost went in removing a stick stuck in those middle rocks I'm happy with it but I can obviously improve I'm happy with my progress and excited for more trial and error
You're doing well but your wife probably thinks you are a bit addicted.I can only recognise that in you as I have a similar trait.
she thinks I'm nuts but yeah i probably am. i used to do a ton of mountain biking in my youth unfortunately i can't do it any more but now I'm getting to take a closer look at all of the grand things i would just whiz by and say hey thats cool. getting to actually experience it now is exhilarating so yeah I'm definitely addicted.
It's nearly 10am here so I have plenty I should be doing. I am thinking of taking a week off from screens etc. hard to do as it is so interesting. Mowing a lawn in a minute.
so i discovered how to use a histogram on my camera and now reviewing what shots are on my card and results are in... they all were way off the mark. I'm sure this will help me exponentially in the future. thank you to all for help and support i wish i could help you all in the same way much appreciation to all
Histogram doesn't lie - use it wisely. Remember to check not only the luminosity histogram ,but also the RGB one (so you're sure you don't clip any of the channels, either). And remember to turn down your back LCD screen brightness. I got fooled myself few times because of this. :D
Agree in full. @Joseph: The luminosity histogram is the monochrome one, it combines all three channels (R, G and B). The catch is that sometimes the luminosity will look OK (no clipping), but if you check the individual channels there might still be clipping in one or more channels.Failing to counter those will lead to false colors. Prime example: Sunset/sunrise.
haha my 2 favorite times of course...absolutely will check out my setup after work today thanks Thorsten
huh never even thought about the screen brightness... great tip. i will see if i can access both histograms at once then without having to change settings on every shot thanks Andrzej
I've added a screen brightness to "My Menu" section for quick access. My camera has an automatic LCD brightness setting but I'm not confident it's doing good job yet. So For my day shots I use 4/5-5/6 settings and for my night shots 2/6 settings. I never use extreme ones (lik 1/6 and 6/6), as they're not reliable at all (sometimes even more than 2 stops different from the actual shot in my subjective opinion).
mind BLOWN!!! haha ill check it out that last shoot was at 7 a.m. and overcast so my lcd was definitely lying to me