Winter strolls - pics - C&C welcome

once again a stunning series!
imqqmi wrote:
love this one!
this one is spectacular too. Is the fence falling down or is it just going into a ditch?
this is sublime (and also it's counterpart in your gallery). I love the silhouette of the twigs and the line of trees with the gorgeous background is simply beautiful.
Ah ha! How lucky - you've managed to captured the lesser known and very rare Dutch Snowy Legless Gull. They're beautiful in flight but watching the landings is painful! ;)
I must say Josh, your pearly white action gets those whites to look so spectacular! Wanna come and do my laundry?? ;)
how fascinating! I never knew they did this.
Ducks sit on their belly to get their feet off the ice to preserve body heat:

Hope you enjoyed my cold trips! Thanks for looking!
I certainly have enjoyed these, thanks for showing us how it's done. The way you capture light truly magical.

Cheers Ol

--
The world is too big for one lifetime, and one lens.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/oliviamair/
 
These shots are brilliant, the one I like the most is the foggy gate. superb.
Thanks Ultimitsu!
If you dont mind sharing your secret with us, how did you get the white feathers so smooth yet so detailed? I have a lot of trouble myself getting them this good.
The secret is that you have to apply a hollow curve (set brightness to 0, drag down the middle two parts on the curve). That will increase contrast in the highlights. You'll need to compensate the darkening by decreasing contrast, increase saturation and adjust exposure, and add a bit of fill-light if you have to.

Then in photoshop remove noise using your favorite denoise software (I use neat image), sharpen the full sized image, resize for web and sharpen again.

--
Kind regards
Imqqmi



http://www.pbase.com/imqqmi

The DSLR jargon cheatsheet:
http://www.jmbfoto.nl/dslrcheatsheet.pdf

Sunset blending tutorial:
http://www.jmbfoto.nl/tutorial/blendingTutorial01a.pdf
 
Wow, these are gorgeous...thanks for sharing! Can I ask two questions:
Thanks Steve!
1. What camera body were you using?
I use a 40D (or two as a matter of fact).
2. How much post-processing did you have to do with these or did they look these great straight out of the camera?
These can look good in camera if you have a mind to experiment out in the cold, but I rather like to shoot raw and figure it out when I'm sitting in front of the computer, heater set high and a cup of hot chocolate or coffee :)
I've done general processing in LR, sharpening and denoising in photoshop.

I spend maybe 5 minutes per photo and process about 15 or so from the 50-300 shots I usually take. Landscape shots I take far fewer as the keeper rate is much higher. When shooting out in the cold I may return home with only 30 shots or so, but when I shoot birds in flight I easily reach 300.
--
Kind regards
Imqqmi



http://www.pbase.com/imqqmi

The DSLR jargon cheatsheet:
http://www.jmbfoto.nl/dslrcheatsheet.pdf

Sunset blending tutorial:
http://www.jmbfoto.nl/tutorial/blendingTutorial01a.pdf
 
Beautiful shots! Cemetery shot is gorgeous. They all exude "brrrrrrrr cold" to me, the fair weather photographer.
LOL! It's not so bad when properly dressed :)
Any closer to that one duck and your image would have been a retina scan. :) Nice and sharp. Your whites are always perfect.
Thanks Olga, yep the 'big duck' will have to watch out for identity theft ;)
Temperature here in N. Texas was around 40F (4C) yesterday when I had to go out and I wore my gloves. My friends in Colorado would have had a good laugh with me. My husband did. Of course I have a good excuse now, a super sensitive left hand, but still, I even laughed at myself.
You have to see me looking like a mummy wrapped in tightly to fend off the cold. It involves standing still a lot, especially if the shutter speed is around 30 seconds. I've also noticed that liveview drains the batteries at an increased rate out in the cold. My batteries are aging though so I've ordered 6 replacements from sterlingtek. I could do about 20 shots per battery down from the usual 1500 in normal conditions or 500 in the cold.

--
Kind regards
Imqqmi



http://www.pbase.com/imqqmi

The DSLR jargon cheatsheet:
http://www.jmbfoto.nl/dslrcheatsheet.pdf

Sunset blending tutorial:
http://www.jmbfoto.nl/tutorial/blendingTutorial01a.pdf
 
Thanks!

If you own a 55-250 you have to dream no longer :) It's slower focusing but you can do BIFs with bigger/slower birds farther off like pelicans, great blue heron and larger (herring) gulls hovering in the wind for example.
Lovely shots ...

I dream of the day when I can get a lens for good BIF shooting ... and then be technically adept enough to pull it off...
for the timebeing i'm happy shooting humans and landscapes!! :) ...

your first and third were really really good.. just love the hues of the sky with the vast snow ...
--
Kind regards
Imqqmi



http://www.pbase.com/imqqmi

The DSLR jargon cheatsheet:
http://www.jmbfoto.nl/dslrcheatsheet.pdf

Sunset blending tutorial:
http://www.jmbfoto.nl/tutorial/blendingTutorial01a.pdf
 
Thank you Ol, glad you think they're remotely viewable :)
imqqmi wrote:
love this one!
this one is spectacular too. Is the fence falling down or is it just going into a ditch?
There's an endlessly deep cravice that eats up all fences and cattle if you're not careful.. Nope, it's just a makeshift fence to prevent cattle from escaping through the dried ditch.
Ah ha! How lucky - you've managed to captured the lesser known and very rare Dutch Snowy Legless Gull. They're beautiful in flight but watching the landings is painful! ;)
LOL! You're right about the landings, even with feet they tumble a lot on the slippery ice, getting to the food the first. Mine! Mine! Mine!

No, my bread!


I must say Josh, your pearly white action gets those whites to look so spectacular! Wanna come and do my laundry?? ;)
Wait and see my silky black velvet action ;)

--
Kind regards
Imqqmi



http://www.pbase.com/imqqmi

The DSLR jargon cheatsheet:
http://www.jmbfoto.nl/dslrcheatsheet.pdf

Sunset blending tutorial:
http://www.jmbfoto.nl/tutorial/blendingTutorial01a.pdf
 
Thank you Ol, glad you think they're remotely viewable :)
yeah but only just :P
Wow look at the droplets on the gull! That piece of bread is bigger than he is!

I must say Josh, your pearly white action gets those whites to look so spectacular! Wanna come and do my laundry?? ;)
Wait and see my silky black velvet action ;)
LOL! that sounds promising....
--
The world is too big for one lifetime, and one lens.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/oliviamair/
 
Wow, these are gorgeous...thanks for sharing! Can I ask two questions:
Thanks Steve!
1. What camera body were you using?
I use a 40D (or two as a matter of fact).
2. How much post-processing did you have to do with these or did they look these great straight out of the camera?
These can look good in camera if you have a mind to experiment out in the cold, but I rather like to shoot raw and figure it out when I'm sitting in front of the computer, heater set high and a cup of hot chocolate or coffee :)
I've done general processing in LR, sharpening and denoising in photoshop.

I spend maybe 5 minutes per photo and process about 15 or so from the 50-300 shots I usually take. Landscape shots I take far fewer as the keeper rate is much higher. When shooting out in the cold I may return home with only 30 shots or so, but when I shoot birds in flight I easily reach 300.
--
Kind regards
Imqqmi
Thanks a lot for the info. I'm currently looking at a T2i and was just wondering how good the images were SOOC. It doesn't sound like you have to do a ton of PP work so that's good news.

Again, these are beautiful shots. I really like your framing and composition. You have a real gift IMO!
 
First of all, awesome pics like always but the best thing I like about your posts is that they are more like tutorials for newbies like me.

Let's get down to more arcane details :)

When you say pull down brightness to zero, what is meant exactly. So, I am using LR3, and I go to the Tone Curve and on the graph there are 3 dots. Should I drag the first two all the way to the left? I guess the first one if for darkness and the second for midtones, right?

--
-dibs2010
http://flickr.com/dbjunction
 
Great images. i am just about to embark on a new dslr [550d] i think , but not sure whatever camera i buy, i could compete with some of these, love the first one, Steve
 
I always love your work...just amazing...thanks for sharing!
--
The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of
comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and
controversy. MLK
 
More Lens investment!!! haha... you're going to kill me of a heart attack .... :) ... even though the 55-250 comes relatively inexpensive compared to the tokina i just bought... i don't think it's an investment i can make in the "near" future!! ... :) ...

keep clicking and sharing...
If you own a 55-250 you have to dream no longer :) It's slower focusing but you can do BIFs with bigger/slower birds farther off like pelicans, great blue heron and larger (herring) gulls hovering in the wind for example.
Lovely shots ...

I dream of the day when I can get a lens for good BIF shooting ... and then be technically adept enough to pull it off...
for the timebeing i'm happy shooting humans and landscapes!! :) ...

your first and third were really really good.. just love the hues of the sky with the vast snow ...
--
Kind regards
Imqqmi



http://www.pbase.com/imqqmi

The DSLR jargon cheatsheet:
http://www.jmbfoto.nl/dslrcheatsheet.pdf

Sunset blending tutorial:
http://www.jmbfoto.nl/tutorial/blendingTutorial01a.pdf
 
First of all, awesome pics like always but the best thing I like about your posts is that they are more like tutorials for newbies like me.
Thank you Dibs!
Let's get down to more arcane details :)

When you say pull down brightness to zero, what is meant exactly. So, I am using LR3, and I go to the Tone Curve and on the graph there are 3 dots. Should I drag the first two all the way to the left? I guess the first one if for darkness and the second for midtones, right?
There's a brightness slider in LR3. The 3 dots directly under the curves changes where the controls are placed. The actual controls are the sliders below that (Highlights, lights, darks, shadows). You can click and hold down the mouse button and drag on the curve to change each of these too.

In this screen shot you can see that Brightness is set to 0, the curves have for lights and darks -17. Contrast ended up at -15, saturation and brilliance +19. You can see the histogram doesn't touch the right side, not even close. If you hover with the mouse above the exposure slider, a part in the histogram will be indicated, the part on the right is where often color channels are going to clip when exported. Note that this is a screen shot from my calibrated system, hence the image looks flatter than it should.



Also 'pearly white' but with different settings, there's no one size fits all for these kind of things and you need to play around with the settings to see what works. The high brightness compensates the stronger curves setting, I could've removed the curve settings making it flat and lowered brightness instead. Many roads lead to Rome :)



--
Kind regards
Imqqmi



http://www.pbase.com/imqqmi

The DSLR jargon cheatsheet:
http://www.jmbfoto.nl/dslrcheatsheet.pdf

Sunset blending tutorial:
http://www.jmbfoto.nl/tutorial/blendingTutorial01a.pdf
 
Great images. i am just about to embark on a new dslr [550d] i think , but not sure whatever camera i buy, i could compete with some of these, love the first one, Steve
Thanks a bunch Steve, you'll love your new camera! You even have HD video available, which my 40D doesn't do. If you stick with it, you'll be able to better me I'm certain!
--
Kind regards
Imqqmi



http://www.pbase.com/imqqmi

The DSLR jargon cheatsheet:
http://www.jmbfoto.nl/dslrcheatsheet.pdf

Sunset blending tutorial:
http://www.jmbfoto.nl/tutorial/blendingTutorial01a.pdf
 

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