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
This is the second year that the Ellerslie International Flower Show has been held in Christchurch. Rather confusingly it’s still named after it’s native location of Ellerslie in Auckland. That aside, year two produced some more outstanding entries.
Last year the huge crowds caused some of the queues to become three hour endurance tests. Some people tried for two or three days straight to get into the Wearable Weeds show and still missed out. Hence 2010 saw some big changes to the way the show was organised. By all accounts things ran a lot more smoothly this year.
Even though the show organisers had changed things around the weather decided to do a 2009 re-run. During set up the sky’s were clear, the winds manageable and the temperature comfortable. The day the gates opened to the public a southerly system arrived, the heavens opened, the winds picked up and the temperature dropped by a good 10°C 
Due to the stink weather and other work commitments I didn’t get anywhere near as many photos as I’d have liked.
Why shoot a fountain from the same angle as everyone else? I knew the designer (Carl Pickens) from last years show and he kindly let me walk on to the garden to capture this 1/6400 second slice of time.
I knew that the organisers would be getting standard photos of each garden in its entirety, so I went for detail and arty shots. I love trying to get a different angle to all the other photogs, getting an image of something ordinary that makes people go “Ooo!”
Another cool design was Dan Rutherford’s ‘An Icy Oasis’ (excuse the pun). It featured a huge refrigerated base kept at a chilly -12°C to slowly grow it’s own ice sheet, a huge ice sculpture and an artistic representation of Plate Tectonics. Not exactly what you’d expect at a Flower Show!
This is a crop of the top third of the full image. Click on the link below to see the full gallery of photos.
The above photo did originally have black curtains behind it. The problem was that every time I went over to close them they’d have been moved by people or the wind by the time I got back to the camera. Eventually I gave up on trying to get a full blackout and cheated, the dramatic sky you see in the photo was photoshopped in afterwards. You can still see a bit of reflection in the pool at the far right from where a gap had opened in the curtains.
For the full set of photos click here.
Cool photos, On contract
| Carl Pickens, d700, Dan Rutherford, Ellerslie, event, fountain, high speed, ice, Nikon, photography
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.
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