Singh-Ray Blog - (Leading filter manufacturer)

[Colin Southern]

For those of you who don't know, I've long been a fan of Singh-Ray filters. Singh-Ray publish a blog that's updated around twice a week, highlighting real-world stories from photographers using their products - it's an excellent resource on advanced filter use for those who'd like to learn more.

At the moment they're featuring the story behind my latest image (varients of which I've already posted here) - so if anyone's interested ...

http://singhray.blogspot.com/

[Bill44]

Good article Colin.

[The Blue Boy]

Colin, cheers for that. Good story, and I've downloaded the brochure. I'm sure I'm not on my own when I ask; Could you talk us through the PP? From scratch? And include some comments on noise reduction and sharpening? We're all ears.

Cheers mate.

Muahahahaha!!!!!!!

[Dave Humphries]

Yes, good article and nice plug for us here, well done on getting a seriously decent picture out of a bad situation.

Cheers,

[Colin Southern]

Colin, cheers for that. Good story, and I've downloaded the brochure. I'm sure I'm not on my own when I ask; Could you talk us through the PP? From scratch? And include some comments on noise reduction and sharpening? We're all ears.

Cheers mate.

Muahahahaha!!!!!!!

Hi Mark,

Not a lot of PP on that one - that's the joys of getting it right "in camera". Off memory, just the usual stuff - white balance to suit - levels to suit - saturation and or vibrance to suit. (all in ACR). In photoshop a LOT of dust bunny removal (time to give my sensor a going over with a brick-layer's trowl!) - then capture sharpening (USM 300, 0.3, 0) and Content sharpening - can't remember what settings - probably 40, 2,0. No masking or anything tricky for this one

[ajith.rajeswari]

Good article Colin. Expecting more like this in future.

~Ajith

[Colin Southern]

Good article Colin. Expecting more like this in future.

~Ajith

Thanks Ajith - there's 2 other there from me in case you missed them (just look down the right-hand side until you see "Colin Southern (3)"

[Bill44]

And include some comments on noise reduction and sharpening? We're all ears.

Cheers mate.

Muahahahaha!!!!!!!

Is your nickname "Jumbo"?

[Colin Southern]

Yes, good article and nice plug for us here, well done on getting a seriously decent picture out of a bad situation.

Cheers,

Thanks Dave.

Sorry, I missed your reply before!

I'm amazed at just how critical shutterspeed is - with some water shots I seem to need as high as 1/13th - that shot was 60 seconds (and had a nice texture) - and yet the 5 min version wasn't a winner at all. Can be hard to predict what will work best a lot of the time.

[Alis]

Thanks Dave.

Can be hard to predict what will work best a lot of the time.

Hi Colin,

Other than going back to the same location the next day after checking the pictures at home, is there any method you are using to check the shot right away to adjust your setting? Histogram? LCD?? laptop computer?

[The Blue Boy]

@Bill44, hah, no. Normally it's DUMBO!!! But no, really it's...erm...Chelseablue. Seriously.

I should explain that Colin was kind enough to correct me in a thread where I was (misguidedly) giving unsound advice about image sharpening prior to output. He suggested I read Real World Image Sharpening by Bruce Fraser. It's opened my eyes to sharpening, noise reduction and blending modes (using masks to protect tonal areas)

Seriously, the advice in regards to digital capture, manipulation and understanding, this site is second to none.

[Colin Southern]

Hi Colin,

Other than going back to the same location the next day after checking the pictures at home, is there any method you are using to check the shot right away to adjust your setting? Histogram? LCD?? laptop computer?

Hi Sadali,

Depends what I'm checking for. The histogram tells me the degree of any under-exposure - the "blinkies" alert me to the extent of any over-exposure - the LCD screen can be magnified up to 10x to review (or if using liveview, pre-view) the scene -- so that covers the basics ...

... but in terms of reviewing the overall composition, the only thing that really does it justice is the big monitor back at the office.

I've been thinking about trying to display images on a bigger screen whilst on location, but it's a bit too much to carry around. After a while you get a pretty good idea of how things are going to look by what you see in the viewfinder or LCD screen - I find it helps to consciously note the size of objects in relation to the width of the viewfinder image; eg I know if a rock takes up 15 to 20% of the available horizontal space then it'll look fairly significant in the final print. If in doubt I shoot wider and crop (which is often needed due to vignetting due to stacked filters).

[ajith.rajeswari]

Thanks Ajith - there's 2 other there from me in case you missed them (just look down the right-hand side until you see "Colin Southern (3)"

Yes Colin, actually I missed it thanks for pointing it out.
~Ajith

[GeoJ]

Glad you posted this! I didn't realize Singh-Ray still existed. They make great filters. I'm probably about to do some shopping!

Peace!

[Colin Southern]

Glad you posted this! I didn't realize Singh-Ray still existed. They make great filters. I'm probably about to do some shopping!

Peace!

No worries

In particular, take a look at the Vari-ND - it's probably the most powerful filter that they offer.