Fall colors .... ALREADY!

[DonSchap]

Man, I know it has been cool in the Northwoods, but FALL COLORS, already?!?

Guess so!

I took this on 9/8/2009



Along Highway 8, in Upper Central Wisconsin

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A850 w/ TAMRON 28-75mm f/2.8
@ 70mm - f/9 - 1/200 sec. - ISO-800 - CWA metering - Creative Style = Autumn Leaves

[dr4gon]

Seriously? Wow, it's still mid 90s (°F) here. Fall doesn't start for at least another month and a half!

As usual, non-hdr is the best. Brings out more color and looks more realistic.

[SONYNUT]

Quit with the hdr already...

[Rooz]

Quit with the hdr already...

x2. not only are they NOT HDR, they're bloody awful.

[Bup]

Herearound, fall colors come no matter the temperature.

Who are 'they' anyway? He posted one picture to show some autumn colors, more to document than to produce a 'work of art' I'd say.

Upon opening the thread, I feared there'd be some seriously garish 'fall colors' (people in general rather than Don specifically like to exaggerate these) but was pleasantly surprised to see something only slightly altered.

[Peekayoh]

Here in the UK the trees are just starting to gain a bit of colour.
Harvest just in as well.

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[DonSchap]

Well, it is late October ... and those colrs are about to drop into obscurity, so I took a quick jaunt through my town ... amd saw some pretty cool shades, so to speak.

This one was kind of remarkable in intensity and drama ...


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a850 w/ T28-75mm f/2.8
@ 28mm - f/5.6 - 1/160 sec. - ISO-400 - CWA - Spot focus - Creative Style: Autumn Leaves - Daylight - M

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a850 w/ T28-75mm f/2.8
@ 50mm - f/5.6 - 1/640 sec. - ISO-400 - CWA - Spot focus - Creative Style: Autumn Leaves - Daylight - M

[jekostas]

x2. not only are they NOT HDR, they're bloody awful.

Why is everything so overexposed? And comically oversaturated? (From Don - Peek's is better)

[DonSchap]

No HDR and they still complain ... :rolleyes:

Concerning the exposure level, what are YOU seeing, 'jekostas'? The histogram for exposure says you are soooooo wrong, it defies my understanding. It is "dead nuts" on the money! I am not even going to dignify this rather silly and incorrect criticism. In fact, there is no overexposure at all. The sky would be white if there were.

As far as over saturation, this is the SONY Creative Style: "Autumn leaves" effect.


50125

If you do not care for it, that's fine, too. I specified the selection of the effect in the EXIF and you will just have to adapt YOUR thinking to accept it for what it is. It enhances the yellows, golds, oranges, reds and browns of the light spectrum. Sure, you can shoot your camera LOCKED in 'portrait' or 'standard' mode, forever, for all I care. Personally, I like the effect. The word "pop" doesn't come to mind ... it's more like an "explosion." 50126

So ... road color or river color?
50127

Decisions, decisions ...

[jekostas]

Concerning the exposure level, what are YOU seeing, 'jekostas'? The histogram for exposure says you are soooooo wrong, it defies my understanding. It is "dead nuts" on the money! I am not even going to dignify this rather silly and incorrect criticism. In fact, there is no overexposure at all. The sky would be white if there were.



So, you trust your histograms over your eyes? Coming from you, Don, that's pretty surprising. Besides, no, the histograms for the second two shots show blown-out highlights, so I don't know what "histogram" you're reading.

Edit: Sorry, make that the first three pictures all have blown out sections.

[Rooz]

No HDR and they still complain ... :rolleyes:


my comment was from quite a while ago when you did have hdr's. since removed.

just curious though, how do you feel the a850 is going ? i must admit i was expecting to see alot more fine detail in the trees/ leaves. what are you usiong for web resizing ?

[DWessel]

Two weeks ago on Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park. The trees were just starting to turn and were not quite as vibrant as I had hoped. It also didn't help that there was a nice solid white-grey cloud cast.
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Of course, as I was on my return drive to D.C., the cloud cover started to break up. Just my luck.

[DonSchap]

Fall has fell ... nothing but browning leaves on the forest floors and the bare trees ... waiting for the promise of Spring ... six or more months away! :eek:

[SONYNUT]

:rolleyes:my tree died this summer, since chopped down...wouldn't you know it i had more leaves than when i had a tree just from neighbors...

[DWessel]

Last month I was in DC and Virginia. Went to Shenandoah National Park to photograph fall colors. Conditions were less than ideal with a nice white-grey cloud cast. Some of my shots were in JPEG and others I took in RAW. The lighting conditions were such that the fall colors (which were already somewhat muted) came out flat (even with the Autumn setting), as in this JPEG:
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Shooting at a -EV in JPEG didn't seem to really help. So, I switched to shooting raw and figured I could have more control over the image in post-production.

The raw images had the same washed out feel. However with a slight downward tug on the tone curve, the colors popped.
50347

I could not seem to get the same results with the JPEG shots through PS adjustments. Perhaps I just don't have enough experience with PS, but the adjustments in RAW were a snap.

I was able to do this over-the-top saturation in PS which I found to be an interesting image.
50348

[SONYNUT]

My eyes..aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[DonSchap]

Yeah, interesting ... like looking at some remote, far off planet.

It reminds me of a saying that floats around in my head, as I color correct and adjust images, when using PS and the Raw Converters -> "Just because you can ... does not necessarily mean you should." ;)

When I see people play with the tonal curve in the HDR images ... creating all sorts of uniquely colored alterations in the spectrum, it leads me to believe that "natural" can sometimes be far more beautiful, when just left alone. To each their own. :)

By the way, 'jekostas' would probably and more than likely say ... "You overexposed" the shot by 7/10s of an f-stop. Metering and working with overcast light is often corrected by just speeding up the exposure, or tighten the aperture one-click. To preclude the slop, I bracket. That way I have a +2 and -2 Ev image to "futz" with. I mean, c'mon, it is not like I am going to run out of ... "film?"

[DWessel]

By the way, 'jekostas' would probably and more than likely say ... "You overexposed" the shot by 7/10s of an f-stop. Metering and working with overcast light is often corrected by just speeding up the exposure, or tighten the aperture one-click. To preclude the slop, I bracket. That way I have a +2 and -2 Ev image to "futz" with. I mean, c'mon, it is not like I am going to run out of ... "film?"

I was shooting manually and initially set as metered. After looking at the first several images, I adjusted my settings for a -1EV on subsequent shots. They looked reasonably good on the A900 screen. On my laptop, however, they were still washed out.

Adding a further -EV to the raw images just made everything darker. The slight adjustment to the tone curve in the RAW image made the muted colors more vibrant while maintaining a natural appearance. Adjustments I tried to the JPGs in PS could not replicate the simple adjustment in RAW.

[jekostas]

By the way, 'jekostas' would probably and more than likely say ... "You overexposed" the shot by 7/10s of an f-stop. Metering and working with overcast light is often corrected by just speeding up the exposure, or tighten the aperture one-click. To preclude the slop, I bracket. That way I have a +2 and -2 Ev image to "futz" with. I mean, c'mon, it is not like I am going to run out of ... "film?"

Um, so correcting the exposure would be fixed by dialing down the aperture, or increasing the shutter speed...

Right, so, question, isn't that the same as the original shot being overexposed?

Yes?

No?

And you fixed this "problem" by exposure bracketing the image?

Don, wow, you're really good at not knowing what you're talking about. If you're going to insult someone, you should probably try reading what you post, first.

Oh, and centre-weighted metering combined with a polarizing filter would've helped, though you essentially duplicated the effect of the latter by processing the RAW file.

[DonSchap]

When you are "metering" for the image, you tend to follow the camera's choices. Personally, I got a little gun-shy when my SONY AF 50mm f/1.4 decided it did not want to close "right away" when the shutter release was triggered, giving me all sorts of curious exposure issues.

I tend to stick with the meter and see what shows up. Obviously, others may not do this and it is not an insult 'jekostas' ... I actually invoked your name as a reference concerning this particular shot. So make your twisted comments as you see fit, but understand ... we all have a method to our effort.

I often wonder how many of our pieces of equipment have small issues we are unaware of. I sent my lens to SONY twice ... and it wasn't until I had a third-party present it that SONY finally got the idea I was on to something. If figure if the repair pros have issues with the gear ... what chance do the novices have? :rolleyes:

@ Darin: Exposure can be really touchy with low contrast lighting and the use of filters can help a bit. obviously, the camera needs as much light as it can get to provide the exposure and you can often struggle down (with software) the exposure from a good +1Ev. Pushing the exposure up, though, provides a "noise opportunity" that can ruin the shot.

From my training, in school, "exposing to the right" means shooting with the meter reading at the right of zero, tending toward overexposure. This lifted the shadows a bit, but color loss is a distinct possibility. With the Creative Style settings, you can fight a few steps to get the color picked up.

With my custom "Autumn Leaves" selection, I have:

Saturation +1
Sharpness +2
Brightness -2
Zone -1

You might give that a shot, so to speak.