Scouting out new locations

[Polar01]

A friend sent me an image of a old mill he had taken, so I thought that I would take a drive out to it, about an hour away so as to scout it out for our camera club of which I am the outing guy. Took it about an hour or so after sunrise, next time I am going to be there before sunrise I think it would really look good with a light dusting of snow, ok I said that bad 4-letter work but I like snow.

Cheers:

Allan

[Donald]

That is a very nice image ... and it also does indeed show us that there will be countless photo opportunities in and around there, in all sorts of weathers.

[chauncey]

Allen...that's great...sure would like to know your PP methods.

[Polar01]

Chauncey rather simple that is for me pp method. Most of the heavy lifting was done in camera, D600, ISO 50, f/18, .8 sec used a 16-35mm f/4 lens now here is where I cheated used a B+W red enhancer filter and a Lee 4 stop ND filter to get the slow shutter speed for the effect I wanted. The sun was still low behind me over my right shoulder. Now in ACR used my camera's landscape pre-set which also now does pre-sharpening, lens correction and a couple of other items. Adjusted to get rid of the blown highlights on the river side of the mill and darken the blue in the sky just a touch, these were all small little touches nothing major. Then into Photoshop CS6 then added a curves adjustment layer and mask to darken the face of the buildings only about 2/3 of a stop. Then into Nik Colour Efex 4 their tonal contrast -83 for highs 25 for both mid and shadows now this filter has an detail extractor worked into it and I like what I can do with it.
I may seem like a lot but I was finished the image in under 5 minutes, as I keep my workflow relatively simply and I have a very good idea of what I want before I shoot and what the post production programs can do. Still learning more all the time.
Here is one even less work, difference added a Lee 3-stop soft GND filter to the top, 4 sec., expose com +1, now in ACR again used my landscape pre-set, moved shadow slider to right to lighten up rocks near falls. Again tonal contrast however only used shadow as I wanted more details to appear in shadow areas.
Total time about 3 minutes that included saving as a PSD file and also resizing down to a jpeg to post later.

Cheers:

Allan

[Wavelength]

Allan, second image is outstanding

[chauncey]

My bad...have never used filters. I need to reconsider that practice.

[Manfred M]

Very nice shots Allan - I almost look forward as we get into late fall and the grey, rainy skies become less frequent and we start getting some ice and snow. It sure beats the crap we have outside today; cold, cloudy and rainy. Not great photography right now...

[Polar01]

Well same here, however went to Toronto the showers stopped about 1:00 pm still over cast. This allowed nice soft light for the Zombie walk at 3:00 pm hope to post some later tonight or tomorrow.

Cheers:

Allan