Clouds over north Montréal

[bhurley]

Over the last several months I've bought three 1970s-1980s-era Minolta Rokkor lenses and love the images I'm getting from them. The 28mm gets the least use as I'm not really a landscape photographer and it's not very sharp, even stopped down to f11 (which is what I used for the shots below). But there's a painterly quality from this lens that I like very much, although it can have a plastic-like look that I don't like at all. I took these early yesterday morning in northern Montréal.

Stone flats by Brad Hurley, on Flickr

Hydro station and clouds by Brad Hurley, on Flickr

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Brad,

I like the compositions, especially the first.

At the risk of impacting the painterly quality you like, the jpg histograms here show these are apparently underexposed and would stand some post processing to boost the contrast. Just my tuppence worth.

All the best,
Dave

[bhurley]

At the risk of impacting the painterly quality you like, the jpg histograms here show these are apparently underexposed and would stand some post processing to boost the contrast. Just my tuppence worth.

Thanks, Dave! I deliberately reduced the contrast on these to emphasize that painterly quality, but I've tweaked them a couple of times since I first posted them and the versions on Flickr now have a bit more contrast. The original captures weren't underexposed, although I did clip the blue channel on the top one and for both images I had to be careful to avoid blowing the highlights; there was a lot of dynamic range to deal with. I use the zebras as an exposure aid (I'm using a Sony A7iii) and have them set to 104+ (or maybe 107+, I can't remember) so as long as most of the zebras are gone I'm typically safe with the highlights. (I did blow the highlights in the brightest parts of the columns of the hydro dam, but it's not very noticeable) I pulled up the shadows quite a bit in post, but then it started looking too HDR to me so I dropped them back down a little when I was doing further tweaks yesterday and this morning.

[DanK]

The first is an interesting composition, but I agree with Dave: it appears underexposed. The histogram is consistent with that:



It's all a matter of taste, but given how much real estate you've given to the rocks on the lower left, I personally would want to bring out more detail there.

Given the dynamic range, this can't be handled in camera, but it's easy to modify in post. A very quick-and-dirty edit to show what I mean:



I just dropped the white point and raised the mid-point using a levels adjustment and dodged the bottom left a little. But again, it's just a matter of taste.

What do you mean by "painterly"? Is this something other than unsharp? I can't see detail at this resolution, of course, but it looks unsharp in places, as you suggested.

[Manfred M]

but then it started looking too HDR to me .

That is usually "code" for low contrast; a common side effect of the HDR processing. Boosting global contrast as Dave and Dan have mentioned is usually a good place to start and if that does not suffice, adding a bit of mid-tone contrast (S-shaped curve) will be needed as well.

When I started I used to use the zebra stripes on my mirrorless camera or the "blinkies" on my DSLRs, but now I just stick with the three coloured histograms. As all of these functions are based on an in-camera JPEG, there is usually 1 to 1-1/2 stops of "headroom" in the raw data (depending on the ISO setting).

I find that the painterly look from some of these older lenses seems to be a combination of lower micro-contrast (i.e. sharpness) and the way they handle bokeh.

[bhurley]

Thank you, gentlemen!

Dan, your re-do actually looks like what I did first time around when I worked on this image, and I felt the rocks were too light so I dropped the shadows back down. Somewhere in between might be a good compromise.

And yes, I think the painterly look is related to reduced micro-contrast, although on my other Rokkors they tend to get very sharp when stopped down; this is the only one that doesn't do that. I'm not sure when diffraction-related softness sets in on this lens, but it shoudn't be an issue at f11, more likely at f16 or certainly f22.

Anyway, I like it for this effect; I've only had these lenses a few months and am planning to use them exclusively over the next year or so to get to know them.

[Wavelength]

They are not opening for me

[bhurley]

They are not opening for me

Probably because I've replaced them several times since I first posted here. Try this:

Stone flats by Brad Hurley, on Flickr

and

Hydro station and clouds by Brad Hurley, on Flickr

[Wavelength]

Thank you for reposting them; i liked them both; i liked the idea of such a low perspective in both
In the first image, if you had climbed one more step ahead, so much of rock in foreground could have avoided and more wider view of river could have achieved, that's just a thought to add. Of course i liked it as such too..

[bhurley]

Thank you for reposting them; i liked them both; i liked the idea of such a low perspective in both
In the first image, if you had climbed one more step ahead, so much of rock in foreground could have avoided and more wider view of river could have achieved, that's just a thought to add. Of course i liked it as such too..

Thanks, that's good advice! Both photos were taken a short walk from my home and I keep going back to find the best perspective (and to catch great cloud formations!). I chose the low perspective for both of these; I'm a tall person and it's always tempting to set up my tripod at a comfortable height; in this case I set it very low to the ground. It was daybreak and I wanted to shoot at ISO 100 to capture the widest dynamic range and f11 for a good depth of field, so handheld wasn't an option.

My first attempt, which was right after I bought this camera and hadn't set up my exposure tools correctly, is below; some of the highlights were blown in this case. I left the stone flats pretty dark as I wanted to emphasize the bright sunlight hitting the trees. I will continue going back to this spot as there are lots of possible perspectives and layers to explore.

Daybreak by Brad Hurley, on Flickr

[Wavelength]

I think this has a much better point of view ....

[lovelife65]

Love them!