2019 Project 52 by Geoff F - 3rd Quarter

The rowing boats are Pilot Gigs, Bruce. If you look up Gig Rowing you will find a lot of information. Originally, they were used to row ship pilots out to vessels which were coming up the English Channel and required an experienced local pilot for these dangerous waters. That would often mean rowing several miles out to sea and pilots would compete with each other to be the first to reach a ship. Recently, gig rowing has become a serious sport in the South West of England area

Generally speaking, Manfred, I am not overly keen on polarizers because of the light loss when I am already shooting at the minimum acceptable shutter speed and increasing Iso would have produced excessive noise. This was a case of poor light conditions; which is why I did some bracketed exposures for a merge. Each exposure was individually edited with ACR before the merge. I tried to boost the Vibrance a little while keeping blacks on the dark side. My last bit of editing in Photoshop was to slightly and selectively boost the highlights.

Possibly, I could try to use some Blend Mode editing on the final edit but my experience of using it to boost poor light images tends to suggest that this method needs careful use to prevent an overly harsh artificial looking result.

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Originally Posted by Geoff F

Generally speaking, Manfred, I am not overly keen on polarizers because of the light loss when I am already shooting at the minimum acceptable shutter speed and increasing Iso would have produced excessive noise. This was a case of poor light conditions; which is why I did some bracketed exposures for a merge. Each exposure was individually edited with ACR before the merge. I tried to boost the Vibrance a little while keeping blacks on the dark side. My last bit of editing in Photoshop was to slightly and selectively boost the highlights.

Possibly, I could try to use some Blend Mode editing on the final edit but my experience of using it to boost poor light images tends to suggest that this method needs careful use to prevent an overly harsh artificial looking result.

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I guess I rarely run into conditions where I won't try increasing the ISO to get the shot, but I do prefer keeping the ISO as low as possible, in most cases. My version of the image is nothing more than dodging and burning to try to "calm" the tonal range. Once I move from ACR to Photoshop, that is usually 90%+ of what I do with that tool.

The 7D Mk II is better than the original Mk I for image noise problems but I still get difficulties above Iso 800 whatever I do. My experience has been that polarizers seem to help with shadow noise but not enough to over ride the higher Iso issues with low light level shots.

Anyway, I returned to the original Raw images of that scene to experiment with different settings. This time I opened each exposure shot, after basic ACR editing, as a Smart Object. Then returned a copy to ACR for some different edits and eventually merged the two objects together with a mask. I then used these edited images together to produce my final merged image. This gave me a little bit more control over the fine details and tints etc.

So this is my latest version with those subtle extra edits, but still retaining the real life dull day feel to the scene.

https://pbase.com/crustacean/image/1...3/original.jpg

I like your edits in #63.

Thanks Bruce.

Week 39 - Another Shower Approaching. A spell of hazy sunshine this morning tempted me to a nearby bird hide but by the time I arrived showers were starting; and they kept coming at regular intervals for a couple of hours. This was the scene from the hide as another shower was approaching.

https://pbase.com/crustacean/image/1...1/original.jpg

7D with Tamron 24-70 lens. Merge of 3 hand held bracketed exposures with the middle one at 1/400 F11 Iso 400

Not much bird life around and most of what was there kept itself distant. I tried a few shots of Canada Geese coming in to land but failed with most of them due to poor light and distance problems. These were the best of a slack day.

https://pbase.com/crustacean/image/1...2/original.jpg

Sigma 150-600 Sport lens. 1/800 F11 Iso 800 at 270 mm

https://pbase.com/crustacean/image/1...3/original.jpg

A Heron was struggling with an eel, but it was too far away in bad light to get a decent image.

https://pbase.com/crustacean/image/1...7/original.jpg

1/500 F8 Iso 800

It is a valiant attempt though. Well done!

Week 39, nice series.

Thanks for the comments. That Sigma 150-600 Sport is a reasonable bit of kit under ideal conditions but it is really a good light lens and there isn't much in the way of an alternative unless you are prepared to spend vast amounts of money. :eek:

The final 4th Quarter is here

2019 Project 52 by Geoff F - 4th Quarter