Inspiration Needed - post photos shot on rainy and/or overcast days

[Brownbear]

A little more challenging than I thought but well worth the challenge... Now, on my bucket list..

Actually, no. The Khutzeymateen is only accessible by float plane or boat, usually from Prince Rupert. There are no roads into the Grizzly Bear Sanctuary / Provincial Park.

[Brownbear]

Thank you Mike... Truly appreciated. And something new for me to try.

[Geoff F]

In the Curves dialog menu, look for the Channels dropdown menu that by default is set to RGB. Open that dropdown menu to alter the R, G or B channel individually. That's in Elements Version 6, so it's probably also available in Version 9. EDIT: That drop down menu is in the Levels dialog menu, not the Curves dialog menu.

Personally, I think you're better off most of the time adjusting the curve rather than adjusting the slider.

Yes, Christina, that is exactly how I edited your swan.

A Curves Adjustment Layer, change the RGB option to Blue and adjust the curve as required. The effect is only applied to the Blue Channel (or red/green if you choose them).

And of course, you can still use a mask to selectively apply the effect.

A couple of days ago I returned to the same scene that started by Project 52 thread for another shot, but 1 year later.

Not exactly a rainy scene as the moon was out, but the darkness was a little more difficult when shooting towards moonlight.



I've got a couple more shots to consider and will probably do a little more editing to this one if I don't have anything better.

This year, there was a little more movement with the boat so I had to use a shorter exposure than I would have preferred.

[Brownbear]

Thank you for confirming. New to me and I will be trying it out.

Gorgeous photo. I love the way you caught the reflection in the water. I find night shots exceedingly difficult and beyond my skill level now. May I ask what settings you used for this shot, or similar night shots?

[rpcrowe]

One final comment from me... Rainy nights are great times to shoot city street shots. The reflectons of the lights on the sidewalks and streets due to the wet conditions sometimes do magical things to an otherwise dull street scene.

[Geoff F]

Thank you for confirming. New to me and I will be trying it out.

Gorgeous photo. I love the way you caught the reflection in the water. I find night shots exceedingly difficult and beyond my skill level now. May I ask what settings you used for this shot, or similar night shots?

Basically, Christina, it's just a case of setting a few fixed items then experimenting with the variables.

In this case, a bit of movement with the boat ruled out any really long exposures.

So starting with my lens options. Canon 24-105 L so I was fairly limited with the aperture opening. Fully open apertures usually give a bit of softness so I went for F4.5.

I knew I would have to chance a high Iso so I started with 800 then quickly realised I would have to use Iso 1600 which was more than I would have liked to use.

Then I took a range of shots at 1/20; 1/10; 1/5 etc and checked the results. Faster than 1/5 didn't give enough detail and slower shots had too much motion blur.

All set manually. And of course on a tripod.

That is really all you can do with night shots. Ask yourself what aperture options do I have; then, are there shutter speed limitations such as subject movement. Keep the Iso as low as possible, but sometimes you have to risk going a bit higher.

And with the editing, I skewed the reflection so it wasn't straight with the boat. This gives a bit more apparent depth and appears to 'change the shooting angle'.

[Brownbear]

Thank you. Very informative and helpful.

[Buckeye]

Hi Christina,

I live in Alaska and winters here present the same problem. Low angle of light and very diffuse. Oh, yes and dreary. I have been looking at the Panasonic Lumix FZ 200 with a 24X zoon and a constant aperature of f2.8 to gather light well. But so far input from the forum has raised some issues with noise at ISO's above 400 for that model. Just an FYI in case you are considering that model for the same reasons as me - but the jury is still out. What kind of camera do you use?
Regards,
Anita

[Brownbear]

Hi Anita,
I was lucky enough to visit Alaska a few years ago (during the summer), and it was beautiful. I hope to visit again one day. Yes, I'm forgot how dreary the winters in Vancouver could be during the long rainy day spells, and since I love to photograph nature, especially birds in flight and learning to shoot in this light is a challenge, after being in sunny Mexico for so long.

I have two used DSLRs, a Sony Alpha 200 and a Nikon D80, with kit lens, and also an old tamron 200-400 mm lens and a pretty good Nikon Macro lens 105 mm. I think even though my camera is older, it is better than the Panosonic Lumix simply because it is a true DSLR... Then again my minimum aperture is 4.5-5 depending on the lens I use, so I'm not sure.

I do hope to upgrade my camera and lens one day, but it will be a while before I can do so, so I am just doing my best to learn to work around the low light, and still learning by practicing, and reading this forum, and books etc.

My understanding of noise from the more experienced photographers on this forum is that if you can manage to get the exposure right, you will minimize noise problems... I also know that their are editing programs out there that work well on noise. I'm still learning to edit, so I have yet to purchase one of those noise programs.

I am not experienced enough to answer your question fully, so I hope someone else will advise you and correct anything
that I am mistaken about... I would like to know, too so thank you for posting your question.

I was also thinking that because my macro lens is my best lens, that I should try and photograph birds in low light using this lens, however it would prove a challenge because the focal length is fixed at 105mm... ?

[Mike Buckley]

if you can manage to get the exposure right, you will minimize noise problems

It also helps to get the focus right, as noise tends to be exacerbated in areas that are out of focus.

One particular advantage about that during post-processing has to do with software that deals with noise. A characteristic of the software is that the more noise that is being removed, the more detail is also being removed. If the noise is an area that is intentionally out of focus, it matters less if you lose detail when attending to noise.

[Geoff F]

Wasn't there a method which consisted of a number of duplicate images as layers with each one having less opacity; then the layers were merged together to reduce the noise level.

This method allowed for masking so the effect could be selectively applied.

Something which I intended to try but haven't got around to it. Anybody else doing this?

[jcuknz]

Thankyou Christina for starting this thread ... my son was bemoaning the bad winter weather recently so I have sent him the link to this thread to give him inspirations All I could refer him to was the snap I took while sheltering in his house on a recent visit

But searching my files. Some fun with editing PSP Warp Mesh tool

Fun in the camera ....

After the rain has stopped ...

[jamn4ex]

Wow what a great thread!! Thought I would add a couple...

[Brownbear]

Thankyou Christina for starting this thread ... my son was bemoaning the bad winter weather recently so I have sent him the link to this thread to give him inspirations All I could refer him to was the snap I took while sheltering in his house on a recent visit

But searching my files. Some fun with editing PSP Warp Mesh tool

Fun in the camera ....

After the rain has stopped ...

It's been my pleasure.. truly... when it's raining I just have to look at the photos in this thread for inspiration to get outside..

Amazing photos and editing. thanks for sharing..

Here is one shot that I forgot about for your son... taken in San Pancho Mexico. Colour photo but the sky and water was black...

[Brownbear]

Thank you James... Your deer photos are stunning

Wow what a great thread!! Thought I would add a couple...

[just me]

Sometimes it rains even in Australia......

Griddi.....

[PRSearls]

A test image at minimum focus distance with a used 500/4. It's a whopper macro lens!

Paul S

[kdoc856]

Impressive detail on those foreground water droplets, Paul. I completely approve of your whopper lense. I have no immediate plans to do macro, but you guys get me thinking with shots like this.

[Brownbear]

Just to let everyone know that I was truly inspired by all your photos, and I have been practicing, and I'm finally getting some decent shots, along with frozen fingers. Thank you.

Foggy day





Cloudy Day





Tried the rock thing but I'm not so sure if I have the hang of it... they look neat but they also strike me as a little strange. Will practice.





Fog and Cloud at Sunrise
(Geoff, if you are reading this I used a layer - applied curves to lighten and and applied an orange filter to the bottom half of the photo which was a little too dark. Thank you for your all your help. Selecting is still not easy for me but I'm getting better at it)

[Mike Buckley]

The composition of the swan is wonderful. Try selecting the white feathers and applying an inverted S-curve to bring out the detail. Possibly add some Local Contrast Enhancement, which I think is explained in a CiC tutorial.

I really like the mood of the birds in flight. Keep shooting that type of photograph until you get a perfect combination of birds and wings. In this one, the birds in the middle that "collide" take the image one level down from stellar. The same goes for the clipped wing on the right.

The last one is stupendous! Nice decision about your adjustment to the bottom area. Great use of layers (I'm referring to the layers in the photo, not the layers in your software).