Need help with Landscape Photography!

[mastamak]

I actually like the very first one where you forgot to remove the lens cap. I fine piece of photography to contemplate whilst listening to one of my many recordings of that famous piece of classical music - John Cage's 4'33". I can't quite make my mind up whether it goes better with the full orchestral version or the solo piano and voice.
Grant

[Colin Southern]

Thanks Grant - I'm considering doing a limited-edition print run. Could be expensive though, due to the large quantities of black ink required!

[uspandey]

Amazing shots, Colin! I specially loved 'Nelson Harbour by Night' and 'Going Vertical'. Incidentally, is there a play on White Balance between the two?

[Colin Southern]

Amazing shots, Colin! I specially loved 'Nelson Harbour by Night' and 'Going Vertical'. Incidentally, is there a play on White Balance between the two?

Hi Uspandey (is that your first name?),

Thanks for the kind words The colour temperature of both shots is on the low side of normal (in the 3000 to 4000 kelvin range), although there's a big difference in tint. To be honest, there's such a mixture of sodium & flourescent (and tungsten) lighting in the area that it's impossible to white balance the shot correctly (take a look at the colour of the dingy strapped to the back of the yacht in "going vertical" and then the colour of the yacht itself; vastly "different colours" even though they're both white) - so even getting a good starting point is hard ... in fact I spent more time on that part than all the others put together. Usually in these types of shots I know that I'm going to have fairly high vibrance & saturation inputs so I often push them hard to start with and then see where the colour temp and tint can take me; often I'm looking for something approaching gray in neutral areas (which is quite a narrow zone when vibrance and/or saturation are cranked up) - and then backoff / fine-tune the vibrance and saturation from there.

So at the end of the day it's not a deliberate "play" on WB - just whatever looks good - but I try to find "whatever looks good" using a little bit of a methodology so it's not just a completely random guess.

[ScoutR]

Hi Wendy,

I would have loved to have been able to shoot it without the bridge there, but at a minimum I'd have had to setup in the water with waders - but I suspect the bottom would be too muddy. My boat would be the other option, but I wouldn't be able to keep it steady enough, plus it would disturb the water ... so that's probably about as good as it's going to get So the best I could really do was to let it mostly fade into the night, with just enough to provide a bit of an anchor for the shot, but without too much distracting detail (I converted it to a monotone for much the same reason).

How's this version?

Nope, not the colour, definitely not the colour. I just scanned through the first 2 again and have to say the first one is the best of the three. It does seems a bit dark, but the second one with the bridge lightened up a bit is not an improvement (to my eye anyway), I like the tone of the first one better also. Sorry for the wild goose chase, something about it still bothers me and I think it could be better somehow, but I just don't know what.

I'm wondering if this could be one of those screen/calibration issues again. The reason I say this is that it is not like you to have the horizon (or subject) centre screen, and in this shot, on my screen the bridge and the riverbank appear to be the horizon and are smack dab in the middle. I can faintly see the hills in the background but they are so dark that they appear to be sky.

Based on that I have come to the conclusion that perhaps my screen is showing this darker than what it actually is????
Not sure Colin, just a thought. If I remember correctly I've had this issue before on shots that are on the dark side. I don't think I can fix it though, because I really can't stand to have the monitor any brighter.

[uspandey]

Hi Uspandey (is that your first name?),

Thanks for the kind words The colour temperature of both shots is on the low side of normal (in the 3000 to 4000 kelvin range), although there's a big difference in tint. To be honest, there's such a mixture of sodium & flourescent (and tungsten) lighting in the area that it's impossible to white balance the shot correctly (take a look at the colour of the dingy strapped to the back of the yacht in "going vertical" and then the colour of the yacht itself; vastly "different colours" even though they're both white) - so even getting a good starting point is hard ... in fact I spent more time on that part than all the others put together. Usually in these types of shots I know that I'm going to have fairly high vibrance & saturation inputs so I often push them hard to start with and then see where the colour temp and tint can take me; often I'm looking for something approaching gray in neutral areas (which is quite a narrow zone when vibrance and/or saturation are cranked up) - and then backoff / fine-tune the vibrance and saturation from there.

So at the end of the day it's not a deliberate "play" on WB - just whatever looks good - but I try to find "whatever looks good" using a little bit of a methodology so it's not just a completely random guess.

Colin, that was quite an insight into managing WB!

My first name is 'uma' and some call me just that. My creators though wanted it to be used in conjunction with the middle name, 'shankar' , so some call me 'umashankar', also since 'uma' alone is generally a female name! 'Pandey', of course, is the surname. So, there you are!

[Colin Southern]

My first name is 'uma' and some call me just that. My creators though wanted it to be used in conjunction with the middle name, 'shankar' , so some call me 'umashankar', also since 'uma' alone is generally a female name! 'Pandey', of course, is the surname. So, there you are!

Hi Uma / Umashankar / uspanday

More to the point, what would YOU like us to call you?

[uspandey]

Hi Colin, call me 'Uma'. I kind of like the monosyllabic sound. Thanks for the attention!