Editing high dynamic range images in PhotoLab 5

mikemyers · December 15, 2021, 8:40pm

Peter, that’s dangerous words. You’re right, of course. My Nikon D3 with my huge and heavy Nikon 80-200 f/2.8 zoom did get the results I hoped for, but the outfit was so heavy, it was a pain to carry, walking around the race track. My new D750 (at the time) was MUCH more enjoyable to carry around, and it worked “well enough”, and the $90 70-300 Nikon Zoom I bought felt weightless by comparison, and got “acceptably” sharp images for my purpose, but they were scrap compared to what the heavier lens could do.

The words I highlighted are extremely important. …or am I just getting lazy? It didn’t stop Ansel Adams from hauling around his LF camera gear, and I doubt it stops Joanna from doing the same thing. How do you deal with “convenience vs quality”? What can we “give away” by using lesser capable gear, before it is too much?

You are all so capable, and talented, and knowledgeable, that I know if I do anything “wrong”, one of you will call me out on it, which is a good thing, not something bad. A huge part of “getting better” is not making mistakes I used to make, knowingly, or otherwise.

I’m going to post four photos below that I took yesterday. I probably took 150 images at the beach, and as I started deleting the ones I liked least, I was left with only these three. I processed them in DarkTable, constantly looking up things I didn’t understand - by comparison, PhotoLab is (in my opinion) so much easier to understand, and capable. Anyway, for an hour or two last night, and then re-doing them this morning, this is what I was able to get out of my M8 with the $280 “ChinaCron” lens. Aperture was f/8, to avoid issues with the lens. All were hand-held, mostly trying to capture all the birds in a photogenic setting, with the beach and beach-goers as “props” to bring the birds to life. I’m still not sure about the editing, but I’m getting closer. I haven’t yet exported them as TIFF images, to be processed in PL5, but that is was my goal. (It’s also difficult to concentrate on composition while so many birds are flying around - hopefully the images are reasonably acceptable…)

I can post the original dng images here, but I’m not sure it’s worth the effort - I will most likely be using my D750 and M10 for any “serious” photos I take, and save the M8 for “snapshots”.

OXiDant · December 15, 2021, 9:09pm

there are 3 major technical things which shift around in importancy.
not money or time or talent (those are human factors.)
1 Weight and size.
2 light speed/ amount of light you can collect => noise, resolvingpower due base / low iso.
3 focal lenght and viewing angle in combination with actual aperture (DoF)

Walking trip for hours in different scenery and subjects no case of walking back to get an other lens if needed? it;s 132 or 123 depending on the light. (less weight means more lenses to carry)
going to a place for one very important scenery shot? 321
you know which lens you need and use. weight is a plus (wind shake) and light as much as you need and is possible to stop down as is needed with out raising iso. (resolving power for max detail and DR)
tripod or mone pod helps to get that tele of your back. (every nature photographer uses FF and a swing on a tripod for speed and accuracy in AF but sits mostly still on one place.)
stealt mode? street photography?
123 (size small is less seen by people) speed of lens short range mostly a prime of fast small zoom, focal length? not very much range needed. it’s about getting close without getting it pushed in there faces.
macro? smaller sized sensors have less fast a need of focus stacking in extreme enlargement of small insects or other objects due DoF differences caused by sensor size differences. yes softbox flash is needed to overcome the lack of exposure (light capture) on natural way but you can’t stack a moving insect right?

So it’s not about the hauling, the money the “gear of best ever” It’s about the joy and pleasure you get from acting and exercising your hobby. (profession has customers and there preferred quality so different ballgame.)
lugging a backpain causing backpack around because “FF” is the best? yep when your Young and Strong and Eager. go for it!
otherwise a smaller kit and lighter quality lenses for less money can bring much more joy in use and thuse easier and more use.
That’s how i see it.

About your images, exposure and shuttertime and DoF/AF are good. as exercise you nailed it.
image quality? i see the older sensor and lens combination not your hard work in getting it working.
did you enjoyed your day? then the gear was picked well.

mikemyers · December 15, 2021, 10:12pm

Hey, I love your reasoning. I wasn’t even going out to take photos, I was going to a store to check out a new GPS. I figured I would take a camera anyway, and the choice was between the M8 and my Fuji x100f. After going to the shop, I realized the beach was just a few blocks more, so I walked out to the beach and onto the sand, up to the water, which is when I noticed the seagulls seemingly going crazy, almost certainly begging for food. So, I started shooting, and continued for an hour, going from lousy, to better, to where I felt things were right with the camera - if the gulls would ever cooperate.

Yes, I absolutely did have a good time. Once a little frustration wore off, and I was capturing what I saw, I was happy. My whole “technique” was based around using a rangefinder camera, so I could only guess I had the right composition, and the focus was acceptable. The exposures were “good enough”, but probably not perfect, as the gulls were flying around like crazy, and it was near sunset so while the sky was still bright, the beach was losing the light. Yeah, I had a LOT of fun! I only stopped when I remembered I had two more shops to visit, and I needed to buy something for dinner.

Everything is useful, no matter how unimportant it is. Every time I use any of these cameras, I learn more for next time. The sensor is what it is, so I use a low ISO and try to avoid underexposing. The lens is nothing like a Leica lens, but with the cropped sensor on the M8, the “worst” part of the image is cut off. I kept raising the shutter speed, as blurred seagulls would look awful.

I agree.
#1 - weight and size (and value) are important. I don’t want to bring a big and heavy DSLR with an even bigger and heavier zoom lens. I suspect my M8 weighs about the same as my film cameras, and my Fuji. The lens is heavier than I expected (lots of metal) but not heavy. And the combination isn’t so valuable that I couldn’t afford to replace it if something happened. Yes, for “walkabout” that fits what I wanted to do.
#2 - light, speed, and so on - I figured I had an hour or so of adequate light, and after that, it would be too dark to get more “walkabout” photos. As it was, the light was already fading away, and it was getting darker. The gear I took is NOT good for night photography. The Fuji would have been a better choice.
#3 - focal length, viewing angle, aperture, an DOF, I agree that is something I ought to have thought about, but I figured what I had was adequate for late afternoon. The silly Chinese lens actually opens up to f/2, but I think quality starts to suffer as I go wider. It’s nothing like my Voigtlander, which challenges my far more expensive Leica lenses for quality.

…and to be totally truthful, “Walking trip for hours in different scenery and subjects” started to become a concern the more I walked. Once I forgot about photographing the gulls, I realized I was tired, and didn’t feel like walking a lot more. That’s due to me, and my age, not the weight of my camera. At that moment I was glad I did NOT have my Nikon and a bag of lenses with me.

You explained my thoughts better than I ever could. One of my most enjoyable aspects of “photography” is to wear a camera when I go out, and keep my mind open for interesting things to try to capture, and to do my best even if I can’t do it well. I don’t alway understand “your exact words” as much as what I think you are trying to tell me.

Guenterm · December 16, 2021, 7:01am

Hello,

I fully agree with Peter and for a hobbyist the MFT system works pretty well. In my experience the most to improve is not the equipment but the ability to see or plan a good object, light, perspective and so on.
A lot of photos I sometimes see on forums made with a very expensive equipment, you can also shot with a good smartphone cam
This is not a universal statement, but it is true for the majority of the photos.
But above all, it is important that a hobby is fun, no matter what equipment you buy.
I just don’t understand how many amateur photographers think they can take good photos with the latest and fattest cameras…it usually doesn’t work.
A fiend of mine bought a OMD em5III 6 months ago, now a OMD em1III, and is still completely overwhelmed with the many options in the camera, keeps unintentionally adjusting things and his photos…well

But it’s ok and always good light

Best regards

Wolfgang · December 16, 2021, 11:09am

Yes, I second that – and previsualize (with) the appropriate focal range.

OXiDant · December 16, 2021, 11:57am

That’s allright! Neither do I occasionally
I just like the conservation about photography and share my thoughts about things.
They are no rules or regulations,just my testing results and idea’s about something.
Your totally free to pick cherry’s from that pie.

Peter

mikemyers · December 16, 2021, 1:12pm

All the magazines, forums, advertising, and so on imply that if you buy this new whatever-it-is your photos will be perfect. None of them say much about composition, what goes in (or is left out of) a photo. As @Guenterm wrote, quoting it again:

Photographers need to visualize what they are trying to capture, and either before, during, or after pressing the shutter button, make the photograph look the like what they want to show others.

Part of this is training, but a bigger part is “seeing”. When some photographers take a photo, the camera isn’t “level”, so the finished photo isn’t level. When I ask them what might be “wrong” with the photo, they just don’t “see” the problem. Then I ask them if the ground was tilted that day, and they understand.

Joanna can do this perfectly on the ground glass of her LF camera. The rest of us can do it during image processing. Some of it may be beyond what we normally think about - photography means “painting with light”, and if we don’t do that well, the final photograph can suffer.

Oh, and while a simple camera makes this easy, cameras with 100 things (or more) that need to be adjusted, gives us that same 100 (or more) things that could be an annoying problem in the final result.

One more thing - Apple and Google and other manufacturers realize this… Watch this video. It describes how “technology” can supposedly make things “perfect”…
Smartphone Cameras vs Reality

(I think all photographers should start out with a simple film camera, and learn the basics, and only then move to digital cameras…)

OXiDant · December 16, 2021, 7:34pm

Not very planet friendly!
chemicals and wasted film due mistakes
No digital is great: about 12mp 10stops DR normal manual modes.spasm
AF/MF and AE ME.
first thing is knowing that ISO isn’t exposure.
only Shutter and Aperture does regulate exposure. (exposure triangle isn’t a triangle )
From there you can expand your knowledge, DoF and relation of Viewing angle and DoF.
tilting and perspective problems.
light direction and temperature.
motionblur and thermalblur (hot air waves)
wide angle much more tolerant then tele. (amount of meters air between you and the subject.)
Shuttershock.
sensor heating
panning and OIS (jitter)
lots of things which can and will be ruin your image one time or more. And all the electronics of modern camera’s will try to help out but not be able to eliminate all the error factors.

mikemyers · December 19, 2021, 9:43pm

This post relates to Joanna’s suggestions that I might be better off with Nikon’s latest (and perhaps last/best) DSLR rather than a Nikon Z. I just read this article, which mentions things that aren’t immediately obvious when it comes to mirrorless cameras. Not sure what I will do, if anything, but I’m no longer so excited to try out a Z:

Maybe mirrorless eventually, but only maybe…

There are some specialised cameras with global shutters already, but not amongst the mainstream cameras we use for photography and video. The issue is that reading the whole sensor area instantaneously requires incredibly fast readout speeds and processing capabilities. And we’re just not there yet with the cameras we use. Instead, most cameras ‘read’ the sensor in strips, a bit like the way scanners work, so that while you may get a shutter speed of 1/32,000sec on paper, in reality, this is just the time the photosites are exposed for – and they’re not all exposed at the same time. In fact, it may take as long as 1/30sec (our estimate based on what we know of current tech) to read the whole sensor even when the shutter speed is far faster.

I’ve now got both of my D750 cameras back. I have yet to see a D850 or a Z. I have this nagging feeling that if I buy a Z for regular use, not only will it cost me a lot of $$, but I might not enjoy using it as much as I enjoy my D750. Newer is not necessarily better, but I know the D850 is better, but also a bit larger and heavier…

Also, I asked my friend about his Z 6 II. He does not like the viewfinder, especially for “burst” shooting. From what he described, I think I’ll pass. His friends don’t like the viewfinder either, not nearly as nice as his DSLR.

Both of my D750 cameras were returned to me a few days ago. I need to go through my old camera, and make sure Nikon left all my settings. Then I need to go through the repaired camera, and set it up the same way.

mikemyers · December 19, 2021, 11:08pm

I haven’t posted any photos here in a while. While at my brother’s home, I decided to try to capture a decent photo of a pair of Sand Hill cranes that sort of adopted my brother’s property and pond as their “summer home”. They’re used to seeing people, and used to seeing me, and I sort of snuck up on them, sitting on the ground, gradually getting closer until I could almost fill the frame. This was with my Leica M10 and 50mm Voigtlander, which means no auto-focus. I did the best I could, using the Visoflex which sort of makes the Leica into a DSLR. My D750 was off at the shop, both of them, and I didn’t think my M8 would get something worth posting here. Some images were in focus, and others were “close”. Oh well. Next time I’ll bring the Nikon too.

I took something over 100 photos total, which quickly got reduced to 70 or so, and earlier today to just five that I was satisfied with, and actually liked. These last images put a smile on my face, to make up for the frustration of sitting on the ground for an hour or so, fighting off mosquitoes, while the cranes were probably laughing at me. Not sure which one to post here, so I’ll go with one of my favorites. As always, any advice is welcome.

I didn’t really do much in PL5 - My goal was to get it right in the camera, and I did very little editing.

L1003985 | 2021-12-11.dng (27.3 MB)

L1003985 | 2021-12-11.dng.dop (12.7 KB)

Wolfgang · December 20, 2021, 12:10am

‘quick & dirty’

VC2 → L1003985 2021-12-11.dng.dop (130,7 KB)

mikemyers · December 20, 2021, 12:56am

I have mixed thoughts - if the bird is looking to the right, if we add more space to the image, shouldn’t it be towards the right? The other thing is that the beautiful orange tree in the background now looks very dull.

I’m downloading your .dop file and will check again with a fresh look in the morning.

OXiDant · December 20, 2021, 7:02am

Birds are always difficult.(not only because they tend to flee just as you are ready to take the picture) The feather color has often a shine, like a pollished car.
To capture that is with light colored birds extra difficult due the overexposure danger.
And to see back a deep color you must use saturation and clearview and fine constrast to balance the color, details of the feathers and shine.

Yours look like a polarisationfilter shot. I would think to use local controlpoint to get detail and color on the bird. And lower the global saturation just a tad.
@Wolfgang 's image looks flatter more focused on the birds colors.
I would give the bird more headroom and show the treeline at the back completely.(if it’s in the original framing)
Because the bird isn’t that “special” color and detailwise you need the surrounding and “moment” to give it it’s best appearance.
My 2 cents.

Joanna · December 20, 2021, 9:44am

Well, here’s my version, based on Wolfgang’s for the auto-mask for the bird and background…

Like Wolfgang, I lowered the vibrance on the background, because the subject of the shot is the bird and the strong colours in the trees tend to distract from that.

My framing placed the head of the bird on one of the thirds and that is balanced by the larger body, which somehow sits on a line from the bottom-right corner. I felt this made the bird more dominant in the image. To my mind it makes the shot into a true portrait of the bird.

DOP - Wolfgang’s and my version named…

L1003985 | 2021-12-11.dng.dop (278,8 Ko)

Wolfgang · December 20, 2021, 11:00am

@mikemyers

Other than → Editing high dynamic range images in PhotoLab 5 - #489 by Wolfgang, where I demonstrated how to (carefully) separate subject and background, this was a ‘work-in-progress’ proposal, making you think about what you want to show … is it about the landscape with a beautiful big bird in it or about the crane.
– To crop and pour a general contrast curve over it puts it in the rank of ‘point and shoot pics’ …

@Joanna

Like Wolfgang, I lowered the vibrance on the background, because the subject of the shot is the bird and the strong colours in the trees tend to distract from that.

Joanna · December 20, 2021, 11:08am

I’m sorry Mike, but I have to agree with Wolfgang. Your version reminds me of too many of the images I see at our club photo.

And I suppose that is one of the beauties of using digital as opposed to colour transparency film, where once you had the shot on film, that was it unless you went to a specialist printer who would then scan it and adjust it. We are now our own specialist printers and that brings us back to a discussion we had a long time ago about interpretation and pre-visualisation - before you pressed the shutter did you really mean to make a picture of the Crane or the whole scene?

To (mis)quote St Ansel, “making a picture starts before you press the shutter”

OXiDant · December 20, 2021, 1:15pm

I think i would shot it in portret using the horizon and treeline and some sky as background with nearly no foreground.
And shot it from sitting position. Horizontal angle. So the “pose” is as clear as possible captured.

mikemyers · December 20, 2021, 1:25pm

In this case, I captured a lot of the tree-line, by deliberately shooting in a horizontal format, thinking I could crop later as desired. My gut feeling is to put more of that back into the finished image, as Wolfgang suggested. In retrospect, I now think I cropped too much.

What is the purpose of the photo? It’s obviously to show off the bird, which looked like it was posing for me, but also to show off the beautiful scene my brother created, making the pond, planting the trees, and so on. None of that was there originally, just a huge expanse of what looked to me like “sagebrush”, meaningless weeds, and far less trees. I have to disagree with people as to what the purpose of the photo is - degrading the background to make the bird stand out more might sound good, but to me it destroys the beauty of the whole image.

In this case, the bird had no intention of “fleeing”, as it is used to being around people. I stopped taking photos after about an hour or so, when the birds walked up out of the water, eliminating my beautiful backdrop. I didn’t know or recognize that about the feathers, Maybe next time I can take that into account, but I’m not sure how (other than to use my DSLR, not my RF).

Not sure if this would look natural, but I can certainly try. Maybe this is what Joanna already did?

People who know my brother will recognize the property he designed and built, and appreciate the fall colors. If anything, I wanted to show those off as much as possible.

That matches my thoughts - what I like about the bird, is the pose, and the head, and the way it stands on one leg with the other leg wrapped up under its body. If I were to remove everything else, and just show “bird”, it would be a boring photo (to me). …added later - Joanna brought out a lot more detail in the bird. Now I need to figure out how she did that!!!

I have two thoughts - the most important one is I need to examine your .dop to see how you improved the way the body of the bird looks. It’s not a huge change, but it does bring the bird much more “to life”.

The other thought is where we diverge. As you wrote, “To my mind it makes the shot into a true portrait of the bird.” This is where we differ - my goal wasn’t to make a portrait of the bird, it was to capture the bird on my brother’s self-made property, with the pond he dug, and the trees he planted, and the unique colors due to the season. For a photo of a bird, your version is better than mine, but it loses (deliberately) most of the beauty of the location.

Bingo! I agree, edited as you did, it becomes a much better portrait of the bird.

OK, back to me. I made a VC of your image, and the two key things I noticed in Local Adjustments were what you called Water Brightness - one was to enhance the bird, and the other was apparently to tone down the rest of the image. By creating a mask (something I need to remember how to do) you brought up much more of the beauty of the bird. Big improvement, huge!

I left off the adjustment for the non-bird parts of the image, and re-cropped it to be more like what Peter was suggesting. I very much like it now, it’s a greatly improved image of the bird, and it includes the surroundings.

L1003985 | 2021-12-11.dng.dop (389.4 KB)

mikemyers · December 20, 2021, 1:59pm

Very important, deserves its own discussion. I highlighted what I see as the most important part, and my answer is “both/neither”. I got close to the birds, got down on the ground, and had a very open mind with no idea what pictures I might capture - that depended fully on the birds, and I guess my goal was to capture what they did, while in such a scenic location. Out of the 100 or so photos, I got them drinking, showing off, checking for threats, cleaning themselves, and so on. I had no “goal” other than to capture interesting things I got to see. I tried to keep them in focus, which was difficult, and I never knew what they were going to do, before they did it, leaving next to no time to figure out when to take the photo - so I took the photo before I even knew for sure what it would look like. Maybe I would catch them at the right moment, but most likely not. When they “posed” in an interesting way, I took a photo. When they blinked, I took a photo. When they reached around to clean their feathers, I took a photo. When they looked up in surprise because of a noise, I took a photo. I kept trying to get “better” photos, and I kept trying to fill the frame with “bird”.

You wrote To (mis)quote St Ansel, “making a picture starts before you press the shutter”, and most of the time I agree, but this photo session was more like taking photos of a sporting event, with me having no idea what was going to happen next. I had the exposure set, I tried to keep the focus reasonable, and I mostly just “cleared my mind” and reacted to what I saw. Some of the above photos I had time to compose and think about, after taking one quick “grab shot”, but others only happened one time, and if I wasn’t ready, I would miss the shot. The crane drinking water from the pond was one such shot, with the ripples in the water - I took the photo before I knew what was in the photo.

I set the Leica to “burst mode”, so as long as I pressed the shutter button, it was capturing images very quickly, and because the Leica is so quiet, the birds never reacted to this strange (but quiet) sound - or maybe they got used to it, and ignored it.

If I was a better photographer, or more used to photographing birds, or at least more experienced, I might have done things differently. I agree with what you wrote, but sometimes it’s not practical.

Maybe it’s a problem with me - much of the time I have no idea what I’m going to shoot until I “stumble upon” a scene I want to capture - and if I have enough time, I will end up with both the “grab shot” and one that’s more carefully composed. Which also means I need to walk around with my camera pre-set for things I’m likely to come across.

All I knew when I walked out to take the above photos, was that I wanted to capture natural photos of the cranes “doing their thing” whatever it might be.

Joanna · December 20, 2021, 3:12pm

I started with Wolfgang’s auto-mask on the bird, so credit has to go to him for creating that and it’s complement for the background.

Or was it?

This all sounds very bird-centric to me. I see nothing about making the most of the pond and its surroundings. If that were your aim, you would have made the bird less important to the image.

If the background were really that important, you needed to consider it as well as what the bird was doing but, to my mind, that is always going to end up as a “what am I meant to be looking at?” image.

Believe me, I’ve taken, and trashed, quite a few of those in my time