Some photogs are purists. They stick to the rule of ‘what you shoot is what you should show’. I, on the other hand, am all for post processing.
To me a photo is a way of sharing a moment in time with other people not fortunate enough to see the original. A camera, even a good one like the Nikon D700, is only capable of capturing a small amount of what the eye sees. For example it’s dynamic range is piddly small in comparison to the eyeball, which makes shots into the sun at sunrise rather difficult.
I keep harping on about the wonders of Capture NX 2, and today’s post is no different. Below is a shot taken with one hand, while driving a manual shift 4×4 around a hilly paddock, while keeping an eye out for the resident stag who kept trying to climb through the window and tell me how upset he was. Knowing what the camera’s sensor is capable of and what your post processing software can recover enables you to recognise and capture shots you wouldn’t even have considered when shooting film.
Look what is possible with about 10 minutes of post production…
Why settle for what the inferior camera sensor recorded when you can make a photo look almost like how your eyeball saw it? Above you can see how the scene was captured (top) and how it eventually ended up looking after a bit of work in Capture NX2 (bottom).
- Lens flare removed – check
- Horizon straightened – check
- Saturation improved – check
- Shadows recovered (while not blowing out the highlights) – check
- Restoration of very dark photo back to how it actually looked – check
It’s good to capture the very best photo you can, I’m not saying you should just walk around shooting without some preparation or planning. However, if you want to try getting all the deer to stand still, smile on cue, not gore you and also not blink too much when the 100+ studio flashes you have set up around the paddock to fill in the shadows all fire simultaneously, go for it! I’ll stick to getting the best I can from the safety of the 4×4 and working on it in post processing.
Cool photos, On contract
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agricultural, capture nx2, d700, deer, dynamic range, Nikon, photography, post processing, rural, sunrise
There was once a time when anything other than exposure, white balance and minor tweaks had to be done in Photoshop. Then programs like Lightroom and Aperture added the option of doing spot editing using brushes similar to those in Photoshop but still in a non-destructive format. Then to top all that Nik released Nik Color Efex Pro with u-point control, and it rocks 
Lightroom masks are great, I’m not contesting that, but Color Efex Pro (especially when used in conjuction with Capture NX 2) takes non-destructive editing to the next level. Every filter can be layered and individually masked. Localised edits can be made using the intelligent, auto selecting u-point tool, brush or lasso/marquis select options. Each layer can have it’s own opacity and most tools have shadow and highlight protection tools.
.jpg "The original file")
I spotted a scene with some potential but didn't have time to do anything other than point and shoot.
The great thing when using Efex Pro with Capture NX 2 is that all the edits are saved into the NEF file where they can be recalled and edited at a later date. You can even save multiple versions of edits into the one NEF or delete all edits to revert back to the original file. And did I mention all of this is non-destructive?
No more making flattened TIFFs of all your photos then editing those in Photoshop.
In this example I was trying to get arty shots of the Bridal party in their motel room. When you don’t have time to set up lights and you want to just catch candid moments, arty can be difficult to pull off. If I set the camera to tungsten WB the shadows looked ok but the highlights looked blue. If I set it to daylight then the highlights looked ok but the shadows came out browny/orange. In the past this would have bothered me a lot. Now? Not so much…
I used to try to get the perfect shot and then do a few minor tweaks later. Using tools like Color Efex Pro I now aim to capture a decent base shot knowing that I can work on it later to get the perfect look. This means I no longer have to wait or plan for the perfect shot (I still do when I can) and so have captured moments I’d have missed before.
Some extra contrast and brightness using the u-point colour tool, a bit of added noise, a selective B&W converstion, a few selective tweaks of the saturation, and a bit of masked levels and curves and... Voila!
Rohan Ball
I’m terrible at getting up to an alarm clock. Even when I know it’s a fantastic sunrise just waiting to be digitally archived.
Well the other day I did it. I managed to drag my bum out of bed and head on down to New Brighton Pier to see what I could find. And I’m soooo glad I did! By 7am it was already about 25°C and the surfers were turning up in droves, all keen to get in a good mornings session before having to head off to work.
Due to me being a little slow reacting to the alarm clock I hadn’t quite made it to New Brighton when the sun broke the horizon. As soon as I saw the first few rays I pulled over, climbed the dunes and grabbed a shot;
Another example of one shot semi-hdr photography using my D700... "Active D-Lighting set to high Captain! Thanks Scotty, now hit it with a dose of D-Lighting and some Levels & Curves in Capture NX2!"
After half falling back down the dunes to my car I headed on down to the pier. Only one other photog had made the effort to get out of bed early so we had the beach and the surfers to ourselves. It turned out to be one of those mornings where pretty well anything I pointed the camera looked great. I like those
Luckily the surfers who turned up were so entranced by the call of the breakers they didn’t notice me following them around (or more likely they just wanted to keep away from the dishevelled looking, coffee craving, odd ball with the camera )
Five minutes drive down the coast from home. Why on earth would you want to live anywhere else? Well barring a tsunami that is. But apart from the threat of a wall of water washing you away, life here is pretty damm good.
For the full set of images click here.
I’ve read some mixed reviews of Nikon’s Active D-Lighting. Some like it, some hate it. From what I can see most of those who love it do so because they process with Capture NX2. Those who hate it use something else (Lightroom, Aperture, something non Nikon) and so don’t see any benefit.
For those of you not familiar with the technology here is a quick catchup;
Active D-Lighting (ADL) analyses a photo as it’s metered and automatically adjusts the highlights and shadows to obtain the widest dynamic range. You set ADL in the ‘Shooting’ menu of your Nikon to one of the following; Auto, High, Medium, Low or Off. You will only receive the benefit ADL if you are processing with Capture NX2, in anything else the adjustments will be lost and the file will just come out looking slightly overexposed.
The end result of all this is that if you shoot with ADL turned on, and you process with Capture NX2 (not the most user friendly of programs but a must if you want the best quality out of your NEF files) you’ll get an image that has a much better dynamic range (almost HDR like in some cases) than shooting without it. The nice thing is that you can always turn the adjustments off in CNX2 if you don’t like what’s been done to the file.
In the past using a HDR technique was great so long as nothing moved between the bracketed exposures. Now you can get almost the same effect with just one shot, no more blurry ghosts as people move between frames…
Which brings me to my example of how ADL can come to the rescue. There are times when you are shooting a dark subject against a bright background (or vis versa if it’s penguins in the Antarctic) when you either don’t have time to set up a flash, the subject is too far away for your flash, it’s not convenient to use one etc. Rather than having to spend hours in post processing blending multiple exposures of each shot for a faux HDR image, or working the contrast / exposure / fill light levels for each shot, switch on ADL. Here’s a ‘with and without’ example (remember you can turn the ADL adjustments off after the fact in CNX2, which is how I got the ‘without ADL’ image).
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