Reala: Autumn chaparral

Autumn chaparral



Webster's says that "chaparral" is "a community comprising shrubby plants widely distributed in Southern California that are especially adapted to dry sunny summers and moist winters."

I say, "Close but no cigar, Webster." I'm here to tell you that we got it in Northern California, too...

Notes:

• Yep, I'm still working off of photographs I took a week ago Saturday. More will be rolling out in time. Stay tuned.

• This photograph has real high-frequency intensity and color changes. When you start shoving that stuff into a small pixel mapping, it starts to look just a bit impressionistic. Also, the high-frequency changes can cause big jpegs. I cut my typical jpeg quality down a bit for this one, and it still made a file larger than my normal. (Looks pretty much the same as my uncompressed PhotoShop version of this, though. That's something I pay attention to.)

• This was my first attempt at scanning color negative film - you've been seeing my slides, you've been seeing my digital. Who knows what the future holds...

Nikon F3; Nikon 70 ~ 300mm, f/4 ~ 5.6 zoom; Fuji Reala

Hello Ed.

That you lowered the JPEG quality does not show in the image. It does look like an impressionist painting.

Recently I threw out a print of something similar judging it to have no subject. But your image stands on its own with the same strength that many of your images have. The color patterns are all nicely in balance, and the wonder and beauty of nature is once again empasized. The photo works for me!

I look forward to seeing what else you managed to capture last Saturday.

Best regards

Jim

Ed Leys said:

Autumn chaparral



Webster's says that "chaparral" is "a community comprising shrubby
plants widely distributed in Southern California that are
especially adapted to dry sunny summers and moist winters."

I say, "Close but no cigar, Webster." I'm here to tell you that we
got it in Northern California, too...

Notes:

• Yep, I'm still working off of photographs I took a week ago

Saturday. More will be rolling out in time. Stay tuned.

• This photograph has real high-frequency intensity and color

changes. When you start shoving that stuff into a small pixel
mapping, it starts to look just a bit impressionistic. Also, the
high-frequency changes can cause big jpegs. I cut my typical jpeg
quality down a bit for this one, and it still made a file larger
than my normal. (Looks pretty much the same as my uncompressed
PhotoShop version of this, though. That's something I pay
attention to.)

• This was my first attempt at scanning color negative film -

you've been seeing my slides, you've been seeing my digital. Who
knows what the future holds...

Nikon F3; Nikon 70 ~ 300mm, f/4 ~ 5.6 zoom; Fuji Reala

Click to expand...

Ed,

This is the kind of shot that is hard to do well, at least for me, but you've done it. The colors lie in strong diagonal lines and the shadows add interest. Very nice!

adrienne

Thanks Jim. Yeah, the variations in color caught my eye while I was driving and this composition worked for me at the time and I still like it.

I have a sightly wider angle view of this location that I took digitally as well as with each of the three film types I had with me (the only place I did that). The frames don't exactly correspond, but fairly close. I thought of posting a compare and contrast, but that probably would have interested you and me, and no one else...

My best,

Ed

Thank you, adrienne. Yeah, clearly this needs the color and contrast.

When I compose, I just kind of look at the scene through the viewfinder without really looking at it, then position the camera (and focal length) till things 'feel' right. Since I used a tripod for this, it was fairly easy to lock the compostion into place once I had it.

My best,

Ed

Very nice, Ed ... it's good to see that Vermont and
New Hampshire dwellers don't get all the autumn fun

Mark

Ed Leys said:

Autumn chaparral

• Yep, I'm still working off of photographs I took a week ago

Saturday. More will be rolling out in time. Stay tuned.

• This photograph has real high-frequency intensity and color

changes. When you start shoving that stuff into a small pixel
mapping, it starts to look just a bit impressionistic. Also, the
high-frequency changes can cause big jpegs. I cut my typical jpeg
quality down a bit for this one, and it still made a file larger
than my normal. (Looks pretty much the same as my uncompressed
PhotoShop version of this, though. That's something I pay
attention to.)

Click to expand...

Intense color and high contrast works for me. I would also be interested to see the various other films and digital from this location.

Thanks.

hs

Ed,

A very fine example of your landscape work and sense of color...I really like the wild feeling of these plants and, as you say, the almost impressionistic color they give off in the sunlight.

What are the characteristics that distinguish Reala from Velvia? Just curious...looks like you had enough light to use Velvia on this one.

Regards,

Robert

Ed Leys said:

Autumn chaparral



Webster's says that "chaparral" is "a community comprising shrubby
plants widely distributed in Southern California that are
especially adapted to dry sunny summers and moist winters."

I say, "Close but no cigar, Webster." I'm here to tell you that we
got it in Northern California, too...

Notes:

• Yep, I'm still working off of photographs I took a week ago

Saturday. More will be rolling out in time. Stay tuned.

• This photograph has real high-frequency intensity and color

changes. When you start shoving that stuff into a small pixel
mapping, it starts to look just a bit impressionistic. Also, the
high-frequency changes can cause big jpegs. I cut my typical jpeg
quality down a bit for this one, and it still made a file larger
than my normal. (Looks pretty much the same as my uncompressed
PhotoShop version of this, though. That's something I pay
attention to.)

• This was my first attempt at scanning color negative film -

you've been seeing my slides, you've been seeing my digital. Who
knows what the future holds...

Nikon F3; Nikon 70 ~ 300mm, f/4 ~ 5.6 zoom; Fuji Reala

Click to expand...

Unusual color combinations, Ed......not the typical combination. I really like the "over the top" view of the "chaparral"........how high did you climb?

Marilu

Thanks Mark. True, there's a little bit of fun out here. It's not always clear how to find it, though. It probably moves from day to day...

My very best regards,

Ed

Thanks Hugh.

I'm kind of curious myself to see what the varieties will look like posted, I'll probably just go ahead and work things up for a post.

My best,

Ed

Thanks once more, Robert. It was a reasonably good day for photography, and for varieties of media.
Actually, I shot this (or a close framing) on Velvia as well. Amount of light
certainly didn't matter, every photograph I took that day was 'on tripod'.

I photographed a little bit wider view of this location (with roughly the same framing) on all my media. And I think I'm going to work up a post, after all, showing the examples. I haven't scanned the two slide film examples yet, though.

Differences between Reala and Velvia...

Well, there's one real major difference. Velvia is a slide film and Reala is a color negative film. Velvia is probably the "high color" king right now, but Reala may be the 'Velvia' of negative films, with strong, though realistic color, and fine grain for a negative film. Likely the greatest difference in the imaging characterstics between a slide film and a negative film is that slide films have a quite narrow exposure latitude range. Not only does that mean that if they're just a relatively small amount off of correct exposure, they're toast, it means they don't deal real well with a subject with more than a fairly narrow range of light to dark. Negative films are much better at that. They may have a few more f/stops of dynamic range as a minimum. So it's possible to see shadow detail as well as highlight detail. And the exposure of a negative film doesn't have to be right on the money.

The major drawback of a negative film (of course there are vast differences on how easy it is to show the results to people - handing around prints versus getting everybody together with your projector in a dark room), the major drawback is that some color averaging machine is most likely producing the prints. So for the most part, people really have no idea of the (probably high) level of quality they have captured.

Slides are mounted frames of the actual film. After the very standardized development, there are no further steps. You can see exactly what you got. In my opinion, slides are a fantastic way to learn, if you haven't nailed the exposure, you know it. And no strange/subtle color casts or brightness levels slip in during a printing phase. So the feedback with slide films is honest feedback.

I know you didn't ask for a 'complete' rundown, Robert, and you may very well know a bunch of this. But sometimes you have to be careful what you ask for. :^)

(One major reason for the Reala, is that I got an upgrade to my scanner control software that has profiles for over 120 different negative films in it. I'm curious to see in what ways the negative film differences show up in my photographs. And I've got the camera bodies - bringing one more along is no big deal, and may add greatly to the versatility.)

My very best regards,

Ed

Thanks Marilu. Well, they're chaparral colors. :^)

Climb?? I was pretty much eye level to it with my camera on a tripod. The chaparral was on a fairly steep bank. It likes to do that...

My very best,

Ed

I too would be interested in seeing the other media taken from this vantage. The colors are nice, especially that swath of red making a diagonal from UR to LL. The image seems a bit oversharpened, or possibly bloomy, though that may be the characteristics of the film itself. Hence my interest in the other shots from here. Nevertheless an excellent first go with the color negs...

Greg,

I just ran the minimal PhotoShop "sharpen" filter on this. My typical USM settings just fryed it. All the high frequencies, ya know.

This morning, I resized the 5619 x 3749 pixel original down to 640 wide again and put it in LAB mode and just ran sharpen on the "lightness" channel, then put the results back in RGB. A subtle smidge better, and that's worthwhile, but in general I've found the LAB trick to be more hype than worthwhile for my tastes.

Either way, sharpening ended up smashing pixels together (the frequencies, again). The tones are better not sharpened, but it looks a tad fuzzy. No doubt I could fuss with USM settings amd make things more decent.

But I think the full sized one will be gorgeous when I print it out at 300 dpi with the sharpening appropriate for printing.

I've started doing the work for my "Theme and variations" post. The results are going to be interesting...

My most best,

Ed

very dense and suprising to me .this one is like a painting,must be interesting to print out at big size .Its is very sharp but I gues its come from the intensity of the light on this quantity of leafs.
What kind of scanne do you use if you don't mind my asking?
regads
thierry

Hi thierry,

Thank you very much for your comments, I certainly appreciate them.

I think you are exactly correct, the light and number of very small colored leaves gives this image both a high level of sharpness and the qualities of a painting.

I don't mind at all giving you information about my scanner. The scanner is a Microtek ArtixScan 4000t film scanner. It scans 35mm slides or negatives at 4000 pixels per inch and is exactly the same internally as the Poloroid SprintScan 4000.

I haven't made a print yet of the full size file, but I expect it to be quite exceptional. Printing at a pixel density of 300 pixels per inch the size of the print should be 47.6 cm x 31.7 cm.

Kind regards,

Ed

thierry said:

very dense and suprising to me .this one is like a painting,must be
interesting to print out at big size .Its is very sharp but I gues
its come from the intensity of the light on this quantity of leafs.
What kind of scanne do you use if you don't mind my asking?
regads
thierry

Click to expand...