Canon DSLR "Picture of the day"

[Gintaras]

This was very lovely but challenging day light, cloud & sun before the storm. So I tried my best.

[Gintaras]

and a few evening images to finish my photo report for this week.

[faisal]

Thanks Gintaras....It's not a panaroma, Just ended up being a very sharp image thanks to the 10-22 being very sharp at f8...

I like the "Fisherman's Day" Series....#6 being my favorite...
Did you use a ND grad in these shots???

[Gintaras]

Thanks Faisal, yes I used GND for the first time. I guess without GND most images would go down the bin because light conditions on that day were really challenging.

[faisal]

I like what the GND has done to the sky but the effect it has had on the trees is a little distracting...
But I suppose nothing can be done about that unless you go HDR which isn't the best solution most of the times..

[Gintaras]

Faisal, I am not sure I understand you well enough but I admit spicing up greens and using higher contrast. Perhaps I have to rework some of them. What do you suggest as concerns greens?

[faisal]

I like the greenness of your shots...not an issue there. I'm just not liking the effect the GND has on the trees i.e making the top part of the tree darker. The pictures are perfect ignoring that IMO.

[nism]

I like the greenness of your shots...not an issue there. I'm just not liking the effect the GND has on the trees i.e making the top part of the tree darker. The pictures are perfect ignoring that IMO.

yea i noticed the same thing too. the sudden darkness on the top half of trees
but i have experience with GND filters, so i dunno

[Gintaras]

Faisal, thanks, I know there is little I can do about GND cutting off, unless I shoot an even horizon, still I can live with that rather than getting blown out sky and dark foreground most of the time in these conditions. I was told there is a special technique when man uses two layers for blending image, this is not exactly HDR and it is more sophisticated and time consuming though results are great. Here is the images of the chap who told me about this technique, he uses Lee filters GND & does this dual layer blending most of the time.

You can look up the site of this guy here to get the understanding of what he says: http://andreasresch.deviantart.com/

But I am not yet willing to invest 2 days in PP of some images like he does

[Gintaras]

Nism, actually filters helped a lot, otherwise blown out or washed sky and noisy foreground would be unavoidable in some situations. I also learn not only GND but there are other very usefull filters I would love to blend with GND. For instance Warm Up filters or Diffusers or Centre filters, and to tell truth I think physical GND would be preferrable to GND in software.

Yet, I must admit there is always a steep learning curve and GND were not the exception. For me it took some time to understand how they work because setting up exposure with filters is not trivial task. Also each light situation calls for different density, so sometimes you need 1/2 stop and sometimes you need 4 stops. And I am still beginning to learn so will spend some time on reading and experimenting.

PS: one thing you must be prepared with GND is to use slower shutter speeds & perhaps more often have your cam on tripoid even for some day light situaitons.