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Behind the Shot: Nautilus

Aug 9, 2013 at 17:39:48 GMT

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In the latest of his series of 'Behind the Shot' articles, landscape photographer Erez Marom shows us how he got his stunning shot inside an icecave in Vatnajökull, the largest glacier in Iceland. As well as setup and equipment choice, Marom also gives us a detailed look at the post-processing required to achieve the final result. Click the links below to read the full article.

Click here to read 'Behind the Shot: Nautilus'

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Comments

Total comments: 47

Hi Eraz, good guide but may I ask why you opted for an HDR type of processing over using a single RAW and adjusting black, shadow, white & highlights in the RAW editor?

I'd imagine you could get a similar image. My only guess would be you wanted to avoid noise or detail loss from the darker shadow areas?

0 upvotes

Hi,
there's no way I'd get the same quality from one file, not even close, for exactly the reasons you've mentioned.
Erez

0 upvotes

Great article, thanks!

1 upvote

This was an informative article on what is a beautiful photograph. The opportunity to learn from people such as yourself, in a free and open environment, is a real pleasure. Your time and efforts empower us all. It never ceases to amaze me the some folk are obviously so competitive and small that they cannot be positive about anything, especially a craft that is an art form and can bring so much pleasure. I always look out for and enjoy your articles Erez. Please do not stop sharing them with us. Thank you.

6 upvotes

The eternal divide between the HDR enthusiasts/exponents and the HDR police goes on forever it seems. The simple fact is that regardless of the method, Erez has produced a stunning image which effectively allows the viewer to enjoy the same view that Erez had when creating his RAW files. To me the logic is simple . . . why not 'see' what the photographer saw when the means is available to do so? If HDR techniques were outlawed by the HDR police as 'not photography' then how would one ever visualise this scene? Would the blown out sky be appealing? Would the black foregound be appealing if the photographer exposed for the sky? No. Without Erez's technique this image would not exist.
As for the choice of technique, everyone has their own ways, and if the outcome pleases them, then so be it. After all, there are many ways to skin a cat :-)) Just my 2 cents.

1 upvote

Very good points, I agree that the goal is to render that magic vision that the human eye and brain perceive, aka, the moment, as you saw it...and a camera just can't do that in one shot with such difficult lighting conditions, so we innovate to recreate.

1 upvote

Really enjoyed this. I've been meaning to develop this kind of "non-HDR HDR" technique for a while and your description of your method seems like a good starting point.

2 upvotes

Great originals give great results, as they do here. Personally, for viewing on screen I prefer less blending and a more natural look, even if the sky ends up pale and the cave dark, because you get the drama of the large scale tonal contrasts, and they feed into the composition. For a print it is a different story. It would be interesting to see a series of treatments, starting with just some dodging of the mid image alone, then luminosity masks, then the treatment shown here, so we could see what returns you get for what efforts.

0 upvotes

Nice image! It'd probably be better to use a non-destructive "Blend If" layer blending option instead of deleting pixels?

0 upvotes

To represent nature as it really is you need a HDR because no camera sees the same as our eyes. Digital cameras have a narrower dynamic range than humans. It has been improving but no there yet and canon 5D surely is one of the best. As long as you try to replicate the dynamic range of our eyes you are not doing "art". Also you should shoot raw and control colour casts, and have a calibrated graphic card. Not doing so, you are seeing the photo as your system sees it. If you shoot JPEG the photo will be a result of camera settings ...

1 upvote

I'm a little in trouble with "nature photography" and HDR (and likes). In the end I allways think, HDR is more something like an artistic work, to show a subject that never really existed like this in nature. "Nature photography" (as I suspect this sample could be) is more about showing, what the world out there (beyond the reach of everyone) is. To share the beauty of our planet we where able to see with others, so we can take care of it.
This is some kind of contract a photographer has with its audience, that he doesn't "fool" them with some kind of "cool" foto editing trick into something that never existed like this. Like I'd say, perhabs some nice art but nothing more. Maybe this is the reason, why there are only so less great and real "nature photographers" around.

0 upvotes

It's the exact opposite of what you claim: I had to use HDR to get the image to look like the reality I saw. Do you suppose I saw white when looking at the cave's entrance?

6 upvotes

You are right. The camera doesn't record what I can see with my eyes. But for me there is a really fine line between nature photography and over processing. And its ok to "over process", if you don't claim to do nature photography.
Perhaps it's just personal taste but for me sometimes less is more.

0 upvotes

I really don't think this image is over-processed. Not every HDR is "bad" HDR, and generalizations are often misleading and plain wrong.

0 upvotes

I don't claim HDR as bad. It has its purposes and one can get really artistic with the camera. No generalizations.

0 upvotes

HDR is a tool, just like the lens that was used, the exposure that was used, and the composition. If you think that the camera by itself actually sees nature as it is, you are mistaken. Secondly the photographer has every right to interpret as he saw the scene, or as he wishes to portray the scene. You weren't there, he was. Get over this HDR is over processing and look at the final result. Erez could not have captured this scene without HDR, and he did it tastefully in my opinion. I personally would have used one of several excellent programs to composite the HDR as in Photomatics, or Expose. Look at the end result and either like it or reject it and move on and do it yourself. I personally like the work presented here. The HDR police need to get a life and do their own photography.

George Lepp
Field Editor Outdoor Photographer
Canon Explorer of Light

2 upvotes

The efforts of photographers to mimic the scene as perceived by the eye is as old as photography. All the great photographers in our pantheon of photo gods labored enormously in the darkroom to create images that do what Erez's do. The notion that somehow there is some sort of "purity" to the straight photo completely misses the point of the art. As the saying goes " you don't take a photo, you make a photo.

1 upvote

Hi Erez,
I've read a couple of your articles here, and regardless of the comments made by people who might think that you could do still even better... i'm positively baffeld by your pictures... I'd love to be able to attend one of your workshops in Iceland. Maybe one day.

2 upvotes

I agree, and we need more people like you in these comments sections!

1 upvote

You should check out "Enfuse". It is an open source program that does the exposure stacking for you and it is super easy to use. Even if it does not reach your desired result, it will certainly give you a better starting point the the original images.
Great shot, by the way.

0 upvotes

Hi guys,
thanks for your kind responses and comments.

Chenavi: I find your comment confusing to say the least. Here's a response I hope you find useful (in the comments due to length).

1 upvote

First of all, you stress that you want me to explain how the image was made. Well, THIS is how the image was made. No luminosity masks, but the method you claim is inferior. This method is, in fact, superior in this case, as the areas with different brightness are well defined and do not overlap. I just can't fathom why one would use waste time on a more complex and time-consuming process when getting the desired result is so straight-forward here - just a few clicks and I was done. Luminosity masks are NOT always the way to go, and DEFINTELY NOT in this case, which you don't seem to understand. This article is not about different manual HDR techniques, nor did I use this technique here - why should I elaborate about it?! This makes very little sense, and cries pettiness. A professional photographer needs to control more than one way to get the result he wants, and opt for the easiest one, as I did here.

1 upvote

Second, you complain about the final image being different than the shown steps: This is because it was rather impossible for me to fully reconstruct my steps. The main idea, however, is fully there, sorry to disappoint. There was no magic or undisclosed technique utilized, and the final image is close enough to what's shown, unless you're ultra-petty.

1 upvote

Again, sorry to disappoint, but this article is not an atom-to-atom dismantling of the post-processing. For some reason people don't understand that a DPReview article is required to be concise, and there was only so much I could fit in without getting too out-there. If, for some reason, you don't think I'm honest in trying to convey what I think is important (which is NOT getting every pixel exactly how you need it to be, but rather an explanation of the general setting, PP approach and most importantly- composition), than by all means, skip my articles- they won't give you what you seek, although I should advise you that what you seek will probably bring you nowhere. Good luck!

1 upvote

Thank you for the article! Of course there are quite a few methods to make an HDR image in PS.
I'm still searching for the best technique for me so I'll certainly give it a try. There are some bracketed shots of mine waiting for post for a long time..
Special thanks for presenting a more realistic (not overcooked) style in this category :)

1 upvote

luminosity masks are the way to go. i have an action setup in PS5 that will break an image down into 4 levels of bright tones selected, 4 levels of dark tones selected, and 4 sets of midtones. you get way better cleaner results merging manually this way than any automatic program ive used

0 upvotes

I use active d-lighting in capture nx. gives even luminosity across all image in a much faster and easier way.

0 upvotes

Same here madeinlisboa. Why to people insist on making life hard for themselves by using substandard or inappropriate tools?

0 upvotes

Nice article Erez. The notes on composition are definitely helpful.

1 upvote

Chenavi:

There isn't that much difference. Open both up in a separate tab and blink the images. All he did was brighten the lower right corner, brightened the other foreground elements, added a bit of contrast to the foreground, and added saturation. The difference is nothing compared to some of the raw editing I do in Lightroom.

0 upvotes

I did more than blinking the images in my browser, I copied both into PS and compared them there. I then tried "boosting the saturation a bit" to try and get the same result. I'm positive there was more to it (and I'm not talking about the obvious brightness equalization he didn't mention in the tutorial, that I can accept).

I'm glad these processing techniques are trivial for you (really). Unfortunately, not all of us, me included, are as good as the professionals. If we knew how everything is done, we wouldn't be here reading these tutorials. Which is why I expect them to include all these details. Otherwise they're just lousy promotions for a photographer who's not willing to truly share his experience beyond the obvious (and in this case, ill-presented) tips.

1 upvote

Don't take this the wrong way, but here's a quick and dirty before and after edit using only things I mentioned:

http://www.dpreview.com/galleries/6219412386/photos/2653932/nautilus_12_after_2_eraser_pass-comparison

0 upvotes

chenavi, perhaps if you would be able to work with the original, full size tiffs and not the tiny jpegs you would be able to achieve a similar result

0 upvotes

Very nice photo, a good attempt at an article. Two things bother me:

1) I too use a "manual" HDR technique, but at least I use the more advanced editing features of Photoshop. Namely in this case - using layer masks instead of "selecting and deleting pixels" gives you so much more freedom, and unless you know EXACTLY which pixels to delete and get it right the first time around - it also saves you a lot of time. I'd expect a pro photographer who's giving a mini-tutorial on HDR to at least mention this in his text, even if he doesn't want to go into a multi-page tutorial.

2) The difference between the final result and the last image on the tutorial is stunning. He doesn't explain any of it, except for the very general "I boosted the saturation a bit". Yeah right - no way that was all you did (try it yourselves). I find this very dishonest, or careless at best. If you don't want to reveal your methods - fine. But in that case don't write tutorials and save us the time of reading them.

1 upvote

I guess you are upset because you cannot achieve the exact same results, so go ahead and "blame" the photographer....

2 upvotes

Thanks for that "how to do manual HDR" description. Very useful!

And obviously nice photo. :) I think I saw it on 500px..

2 upvotes

just like how we would see it with our own eyes

bravo

2 upvotes

@cercis:

rather, this genre of HDR image photography is to non-HDR 'fixit pp' photography

as Natural-Vision DR image better matching reality (what we are able to see naturally)

is to
traditional (film or digital) unnatural LOW DR unrealistically flawed imagery (limitations of film and digital) that still plagues today's photographers... what the camera captures, we never see (so far)

no one yet has digital imagery tech that can match the natural DR of how we see the lit world in a single shot straight out of the camera with no pp whatsoever...

that is
until multi-ISO sensors are the norm...

Comment edited 2 minutes after posting

2 upvotes

oh my....beautiful!

2 upvotes

This genre of image is to photography as the Pacer is to automobiles.

0 upvotes

Or you could have just exposed for the sky and used flash...

0 upvotes

LOL...are you serious?

3 upvotes

Ha nice one

3 upvotes

I do hope you're kidding...

0 upvotes

Thanks for posting this very interesting and informative article.

2 upvotes

Great image! I am interested in use of manual technique for HDR instead of the automated procedure in Photoshop. I can get better results manually than with Photoshop, with method similar to that used by Marom. The automated procedure seems to produce low contrast and generally dull images.I wonder about other peoples' experiences with it. Maybe I don't use it correctly.

3 upvotes

Very nice article. Thanks!

3 upvotes

Total comments: 47

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