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RX-1: Owens River Landscape

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Wayno

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I took this shot on a freezing cold (-2F) morning this past Thanksgiving weekend. This is the Owens River in California, with the Eastern Sierra in the background. There was hoar frost covering all of the reeds, but it isn't easy to see. My fingers were so cold by the time I reached this spot that I gave up trying to change my settings and just fired away. So, go easy on me if you look at the EXIF data and are perplexed. Conversion from RAW in Silver Efex. Comments and criticism invited & welcome.



1ffc7d55a6d84d1e8d7ca426fb1d06bc.jpg
 
very very nice image.

I know how it is with cold fingers and chimping, usually you dont't have the patience to take adequate time since you just want to stuff your hands back in your pockets.
 
Very handsome as is, but in "view original " mode the highlights look too high/blown (not as obvious at smaller sizes). Pretty difficult shot.

Have you tried bringing them down? Seems like it would be worth trying. How are they before the B+W conversion? Did you bracket?
 
Thanks Tex. You make a great point. I just went back and compared the original histogram to the converted histogram and it shows the highlights are blown on the b&w but not in the raw image. So I need to try the conversion and adjustments again. I was so focused on the uneven sky from the polarizer (I eventually gave up and left the sky completely alone) that I missed the blown highlights. Really appreciate the C&C.
 
The landscape looks almost surreal! Cool!!!
 
Terrific Photograph, thanks for going out in the freezing cold and posting it.
 
You've got to really watch these B+W converters----they can be heavy handed. They'll work well, but the user needs to massage them like any other PP. And in this case you had a tricky problem. I look forward to seeing what you can do now.

Not to blow our own horn---except that of course I am---but our LightZone could be helpful here, in that you can use regions to selectively edit only parts of this image (or invert the mask to keep the effects out of an area), and I think that's going to be necessary. Global adjustments may not work the best here. LightZone does excellent B+W conversion and is set up to do really good contrast control. It's free so there's no real risk, and it's totally non-destructive.

--
tex_andrews, co-founder and webmaster of The LightZone Project, an all-volunteer group providing the free and open source LightZone photo editing software.
"Photography is the product of complete alienation" Marcel Proust
"I would like to see photography make people despise painting until something else will make photography unbearable." Marcel Duchamp
 
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Beautiful shot! I don't mind the blown highlights at all - I only notice them at full res anyway and in the normal viewing size, I love the contrast - adds a lot of drama. If you start getting too careful about your zones and making sure no highlights or shadows are over the line, you could easily lose the forest for the trees. It's a great image as is - massage it if you want but try not to lose what's good about it by attempting to eliminate what's theoretically bad about it...

-Ray
--------------------------------------
www.flickr.com

Ray

Explore Ray’s 2,013 photos on Flickr!
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Beautiful shot. And high quality file, sharp all around as one would expect from this camera.

Thanks for posting the full size too.

But you mean this was hand-held in such freezing conditions? Or you used a tripod?

At only 1/50sec, no IS and at that cold, this came out completely shake free. I've seen far too many shaken RX1 pics at higher shutter speeds, so you did a very good jog there.
 
Ray Sachs said:
Beautiful shot! I don't mind the blown highlights at all
Click to expand...
Life's too short to worry about blown highlights. For landscapes it's probably a little more important, but I don't think it comes into play with this fine image.

For what I do (people photography in urban environments) I don't give blown highlights or shadow detail (or lack thereof) much thought at all because it has very little to do with making or breaking any image. It's very low down on the list of "important."
Ray Sachs said:
- I only notice them at full res anyway and in the normal viewing size, I love the contrast - adds a lot of drama. If you start getting too careful about your zones and making sure no highlights or shadows are over the line, you could easily lose the forest for the trees. It's a great image as is - massage it if you want but try not to lose what's good about it by attempting to eliminate what's theoretically bad about it...
Click to expand...
Ray Sachs said:
-Ray
--------------------------------------
http://www.flickr.com/photos/20889767@N05/
Click to expand...
 
Beautiful image, highlights add to the shot.
 
Amazing shot!!! Just beautiful. I was up there a few weeks ago...

Rick

Wayno said:
I took this shot on a freezing cold (-2F) morning this past Thanksgiving weekend. This is the Owens River in California, with the Eastern Sierra in the background. There was hoar frost covering all of the reeds, but it isn't easy to see. My fingers were so cold by the time I reached this spot that I gave up trying to change my settings and just fired away. So, go easy on me if you look at the EXIF data and are perplexed. Conversion from RAW in Silver Efex. Comments and criticism invited & welcome.

1ffc7d55a6d84d1e8d7ca426fb1d06bc.jpg
Click to expand...


--

Richard Smith

Richardmsmith
www.photographybyrichardmsmith.com www.photographybyrichardmsmith.com
 
The results were well worth the effort and getting frozen! A truly wonderful images!
 
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