Alone on the beach

[Rufus]

I ask myself "Why on earth did I leave the camera at f4 for a landscape?" Yet it doesn't seem to have had an adverse effect.

I have added some additional space to the right of the yacht which I felt it needed.

I wonder, does the B&W work, or are there too many mid tones?

C&C welcome.

David

Colour:


Mono:


(Edited to omit reference to partial images in preview of post as full images are displayed okay in actual post)

[Rufus]

I reduced the image size from 6268 pixels to 3000 pixels in order to post the two images. The smaller images do appear less crisp on screen than the originals, so maybe f4 has had an adverse impact after all.

David

[xpatUSA]

I reduced the image size from 6268 pixels to 3000 pixels in order to post the two images. The smaller images do appear less crisp on screen than the originals, so maybe f4 has had an adverse impact after all.

David

I see no reason why f/4 should adversely affect an image, David. Some lenses have their best acutance at that aperture. On the other hand, re-sampling the size of any image can affect "crispness" depending on how the re-sizing is done. Witness the appearance of an image in the initial post view; you have no control over CiC's down-sizing and that does show.

[Rufus]

I see no reason why f/4 should adversely affect an image, David. Some lenses have their best acutance at that aperture. On the other hand, re-sampling the size of any image can affect "crispness" depending on how the re-sizing is done. Witness the appearance of an image in the initial post view; you have no control over CiC's down-sizing and that does show.

Thank you for commenting Ted.

F4 is the widest aperture on the lens used so I expect it is "best" at a stop or two higher, though I doubt I would be able to tell the difference.

My main concern having seen the EXIF data was that I had unnecessarily limited the depth of field, but that is not apparent to my eye.

I have just thought to look at a DOF calculator and was surprised to find that even at f4 the image should be "in focus" from around 8 feet to infinity, so long as the focal point was over 16 feet away. And if the focal point was 300ft or more (which it probably was) anything more than 15 feet away should be in focus. On that basis it seems I should not be too worried about the DOF issue in landscpaes (unless I need hyper focal distances for a close foreground).

Edited for typos

[xpatUSA]

Thank you for commenting Ted.

F4 is the widest aperture on the lens used so I expect it is "best" at a stop or two higher, though I doubt I would be able to tell the difference.

I looked up F4 but all I could find was Phantom fighter jets . . .

No seriously, I looked up f/4 Canon zooms at LensTip and found an appropriate graph:



https://www.lenstip.com/240.4-Lens_r...esolution.html

Looks like f/5.6 is about right on that lens, just as you said.

[Manfred M]

Rufus - you are shooting a landscape and while I don’t know what camera / focal length you are using, chances are that the whole scene is at “infinity”, so everything is in focus.. While f/8 or f/11 might have been a “better” choice, your image has been down sampled for display on CiC. While Ted is correct about issues that can occur in down sampling, the reality of most situations is that smaller images inherently (generally) look sharper than larger ones. Look at a shot that looks a touch soft on your computer and look at it on your camera’s screen. Chances are it looks fine there.

I definitely prefer the colour version to the B&W. The colours are soft and diffuse and are quite close when looking at tonality. Those subtle differences are lost in the B&W conversion.

[xpatUSA]

Rufus - you are shooting a landscape and while I don’t know what camera / focal length you are using, chances are that the whole scene is at “infinity”, so everything is in focus.

FWIW, Canon 6D II, 24-105mm f/4L IS II set to 50mm.

[Rufus]

Rufus - you are shooting a landscape and while I don’t know what camera / focal length you are using, chances are that the whole scene is at “infinity”, so everything is in focus.. While f/8 or f/11 might have been a “better” choice, your image has been down sampled for display on CiC. While Ted is correct about issues that can occur in down sampling, the reality of most situations is that smaller images inherently (generally) look sharper than larger ones. Look at a shot that looks a touch soft on your computer and look at it on your camera’s screen. Chances are it looks fine there.

I definitely prefer the colour version to the B&W. The colours are soft and diffuse and are quite close when looking at tonality. Those subtle differences are lost in the B&W conversion.

Thank you for commenting on the aperture and down sampling, Manfred.

With regards to tonality, are you expressing more correctly/succinctly what I have heard when people say an image "lacks contrast, does not have enough blacks and whites, and has too many midtones for a successful B&W image". And how does that relate to etherial misty scenes that can be very effective in B&W as Donald successfully demonstrates?

[Manfred M]

And how does that relate to etherial misty scenes that can be very effective in B&W as Donald successfully demonstrates?

I have not analyzed Donald’s work in detail, so will leave some of the explanation to him.

In my own work I have found that I need to spend a lot of time using local, rather than global, adjustments; primarily dodging and burning to build up the image.

[John 2]

Both work for me but I prefer the pastel colours of the first. It makes for a very delicate rendition of a nice landscape.

[Rufus]

In my own work I have found that I need to spend a lot of time using local, rather than global, adjustments; primarily dodging and burning to build up the image.

This is certainly something I need more practice at.

[Rufus]

Both work for me but I prefer the pastel colours of the first. It makes for a very delicate rendition of a nice landscape.

I tend to agree. There is less distinction between the beach and water in the B&W and there is more for the eye to linger over in the colour version.

Thank you for commenting.

[knifebox]

As long as you are within the hyperfocal distance for that aperture setting, all should be fine.
I personally prefer the BW one. The overcast sky dulls the color of the entire scene, so converting to BW is the better option, and maybe add a bit of contrast.

Composition could be improved though.

I would have gone closer to the shoreline and isolate the boat and the landmass on the far end of the water. The foreground of sand, the person on the beach, and the hill on the left just distract from a natural flow.

Hope this helps.

[Rufus]

As long as you are within the hyperfocal distance for that aperture setting, all should be fine.
I personally prefer the BW one. The overcast sky dulls the color of the entire scene, so converting to BW is the better option, and maybe add a bit of contrast.

Composition could be improved though.

I would have gone closer to the shoreline and isolate the boat and the landmass on the far end of the water. The foreground of sand, the person on the beach, and the hill on the left just distract from a natural flow.

Hope this helps.

Thank you for your thoughts, James. I can certainly see that more contrast in the B&W would help or maybe some dodging and burning. I know where the contrast slider is, but my skills in dodging and burning need to be improved

At the time I was thinking that the person and boat gave interest and an indication of scale and distance and that prompted me to take the photo as without them the scene would be rather nondescript (and not helped by the light).

[Manfred M]

Let me humbly disagree with what James has written about your composition here David.

In spite of the person and boat being in this image, you have essentially shot a landscape image here, and the old photographic “rule” for landscapes is that the image must include a foreground (the sandy beach), a middle ground (the sea and the hills) and a background (the sky and clouds), so in a classical sense, you have done everything a landscape photographer would tend to look for. The boat and person are minor elements and they do add additional things for the viewer to look at. I suspect the image would be less interesting without them.

As for the comment regarding hyperfocal distance, that is a lot more complicated than what most people understand as image size and viewing distance do play a role in how well the image works. In the small image you have posted, his statement is valid, but in a large print, things are not quite as simple as his statement. Look at the CiC tutorials to get a better understanding of how hyperfocal distance works and what is “good enough” from a sharpness standpoint. Most landscape photographers will work in the f/8 - f/11 aperture range to get the most out of their lenses. As a general rule of thumb, lens performance is optimal around 2 stops below maximum aperture. With an f/4 lens, this suggests working at f/8.

[xpatUSA]

As a general rule of thumb, lens performance is optimal around 2 stops below maximum aperture. With an f/4 lens, this suggests working at f/8.

Good general advice but David's lens is a bit better at f/5.6 at the wider angle (50mm) used in the OP:

Alone on the beach
.

[Manfred M]

Good general advice but David's lens is a bit better at f/5.6 at the wider angle (50mm) used in the OP:

Alone on the beach
.

That may be technically correct Ted but only if the image is made in lab conditions. In real world hand-held shots camera movement, even with image stabilization tuerned on, we generally introduce errors (camera movement) that override theoretical performance based on lens test charts. Fortunately with the down sampled images we get here, neither issue is detectable in the images we get to look at.

[xpatUSA]

That may be technically correct Ted but only if the image is made in lab conditions.

I disagree, Manfred. The shape of that graph for that lens is true for all conditions. Although it probably moves downward (less lp/mm) for hand-help shots, the peak value will remain at f/5.6 because that is a function of the optical characteristic of the lens.

In real world hand-held shots camera movement, even with image stabilization turned on, we generally introduce errors (camera movement) that override theoretical performance based on lens test charts.

Obviously camera movement will blur an image, but that does not affect the aperture at which the said blur would be least. Your choice of the word "override" implies that the entire curve gets changed to something else unrelated to the lab test. In any case, the whole purpose of a lab test is to eliminate obfuscation caused by the Real World, is it not?

Based on your argument, perhaps lens-makers should stop publishing MTF curves?

Fortunately with the down sampled images we get here, neither issue is detectable in the images we get to look at.

That is a 'red herring'. If an image is posted at 100% and fits your screen in 'lytebox' there should be no deterioration. Even if there were, I would still expect an image from the tested lens to appear sharper at f/5.6 than it is at f/8.