Edit: Adding slightly adjusted repost. Slight rotation making the river/shoreline more level as well as a slight crop from the top. Perhaps this is one of those scenes with two competing elements - the forest and the river.
Thanks for any thoughts if you happen to take a look.
The quiet beauty and tranquil peacefulness of the forest… meets up with the raw power, torrent and deafening noise of the river. This is my therapy.
Promise to not make a habit of this, but I have one other phone video captured for this location. IMHO, the motion and sound of the video I think is quite a different experience than the static image presents. I mean, the image seems generally quiet and peaceful, which is a different perspective I get from the video. apologize for the poor quality. It doesn’t get focused until more than half way (video is only 22s)… But also gives a perspective on the moving willow in the river. View/listen here.
You may only download this image to demonstrate post-processing techniques.
What technical feedback would you like if any?
Any and all relating to processing, color/sat/WB and anything you may find distracting.
What artistic feedback would you like if any?
Impressions, any and all. Thanks!
Does the slight tilt/rotation bother you? See below, but I didn’t complete correct - after all, the river is flowing down hill…
Pertinent technical details or techniques:
(If this is a composite, etc. please be honest with your techniques to help others learn)
Base images, Nikon D800E, Tamron 17-35 @20mm.
For the trees: f/14 1s iso 400
For the river: f/8, .3s iso 400
A composite of sorts; all images from the same scene:
Base image is 2 horizontal frames stitched by hand. I wanted the full river view, but that left little of the trees. So I shot the tree image pointing more upward to include more of the forest and blended that with the one of the river. The shoreline being the divider.
The willow in the water and immediate area around it was blended/replaced from a separate frame of the same scene. The original base image of the river, the willow was much blurrier.
Some may note the slight CW rotation. I tried to mitigate this a little by skewing the forest to bring most trees more vertical, but then masked out the river (this was an interesting exercise.)
A little bit of texture blending from yet another frame replacing some white water with no detail around the left edge above center. About the size of the willow, for context.
Texture, exposure on the right side of the splashing wave UR of the river.
Some minor cloning of open patches of blue/gray in the trees.
cloned out rear end of a vehicle behind the left hand dogwood tree.
Selected and burned down the lone fir left of center.
LAB Color layer initially to pop color - masked out with medium opacity brush for the greens in the river and selected greens in the forest - trying to keep it real.
Willing to share original river image if anyone has read this far and interested…
My first reaction to this is that of a person trying to cross the stream. Do I cross, do I not-type of response. The trees across the stream is very inviting yet I can feel the raging river. I think the processing is quite spot on for me. Color temperature feels consistent with an overcast day.
Question: Why did you shoot the trees and the river separately? I understand you probably want to have .3seconds exposure to get the texture you want on the river, but why do you need to go f/14 for the trees? I don’t think there is a right/wrong way to do this. This is more to satisfy my own curiosity about other people’s field technique than anything else. If I were there shooting, I wouldn’t go for even longer exposure for the trees because I am afraid that the wind is gonna blow all those leaves. I am curious about the thought process behind this.
Thank you for the comment @Adhika_Lie - and a GREAT question!
I mentioned in the write up above, but the primary reason for the 2 images and stitch was to get all of the river and MORE of the forest that I wasn’t able to get in just one frame. I was also constrained by trees on my immediate left and right and so 20mm was as wide as I could go.
Why f/14 for the trees? In hindsight I can’t recall exactly. Shooting across the river like that with a focus point in the trees, I’m pretty sure f/8 or f/9 would have been good and provided a bit more speed. The wind was coming and going and you can see in the video how much the trees/leaves were moving. I think as we have all experienced… we wait. and wait. The probable reason I’m taking the video with the phone is because is was too windy to shoot stills… But there were enough moments of calm to minimize the movement. I know I didn’t want to increase the iso much beyond 400, although I’m sure a bit higher would have been fine too.
You’re right about the SS for the water. It’s purely about getting the right texture, flow, motion in the water. I settled and was getting most exposures between 1/4-1/2s. I suppose I could have dropped the iso and gotten a better aperture, but I was less worried about dof in the water since its’ all blurry motion anyway.
I do consider things like keeping the aperture in the middle ranges when possible (f/9 -f/14 fit that) for maximum lens sharpness. (I do crude testing of my lenses using some resolution charts.)
But honestly, often times I don’t consider all the variables. I often times forget to re-check the iso, EV and other settings. In hindsight would have liked to gone back to iso 100.
My primary objective was combining two frames for a stitch to include all the river and more trees. Given the distance to the trees, f/8or9 probably was a better choice, but I was thinking at the time f/14 would have given me more dof. For the river I ended up capturing 4 extra frames. I simply picked the one I liked the best of the river and blended with the “more trees” frame.
Hope this helps Adhika. My thought process in the field is a little more towards the creative side vs. the analytical… right brain vs. left brain? vice versa…
Beautiful image! The stitch seems flawless and you used a perfect shutter speed to capture the water motion.
The colors appear just right. I like the various hues of green that dominate the image. The olive greens of the water play well with the verdancy of the forest.
I wouldn’t have noticed that you rotated the image. At least, the river gradient looks great and the way the trees slant seems naturally random.
Although the river is rushing through the foreground, the feathery water textures, trees in flower, and diffused lighting give an impression of tranquility.
I love the simplicity of the composition. Some people might argue that it could have been stronger if you had placed the river bank closer to the upper line of thirds. But your composition looks nicely balanced to me.
There is nothing that bothers me about this photo and I have no suggestions for improvement. Excellent work!
I like what you intended to capture and to my eye, it just looks like something is off. Perhaps its the slight tilt of the river portion. Overall the color and composition are great. Thank you for the detailed explanation of the work you did on this. Digital certainly has its merit in producing images.
Thank you for your comment - and for your honest response. It’s great that we all don’t have to love everything everyone posts. I’m wondering too if it’s the slant of the water/shoreline AND/OR also that’s it’s closer to 50/50 than the rule of thirds regarding how much forest vs. river.
I’m going to post a slightly adjusted version to see if that makes a difference. That is if anyone revisits this post.
Truly lovely, Lon. I am captivated by the color and texture of the water. So captivated, in fact, that I might be inclined to crop a little more off the top, perhaps down to where the trees are more homogeneous in their foliage density, of course, I’m grasping for suggestions as this is already quite pleasing. The stitch is flawlessly, so well worth it!
