a simple shot that may not come out easy…. just share one of my tough shot recently done at Kemasik Beach, Kemaman, Terengganu…
I was standing near the big rock waiting for the big splash …. my len filters keep splash by wave, need non stop drying , and myself wet too after few splashes that I feel not stong enough and finally I got the splash what I looking for … then I got wet and have to run away from it …. have ~30-50 shutter press for this
running from wave
and this is a simple and happy shot with a lot of effort (for me ….)
sometime we really enjoy the view do not mean we need a good camera to capture it .. it is always good to enjoy the moment, view …. and even capture with a Point and shot camera, we will still happy to see it
I always bring my Panasonic Lumix LX5 around … and few of my simply snapshot while I am shootnig with my SLR
one of the stop of my previous visit to East Coast for details click here
never been a place so beautiful before, saw a clear Milky way while I reach … and it is like total mirror when the light is out … nothing I want to capture except try to show the beautiful and perfect reflection (someone is walking in the river …so actually not so calm while I shoot this)
even I only spent ~2hours there… I would rate this one of the best Landscape Photography spot for Malaysia .. the calm sea water with perfect reflection with angle toward ~135 degree south toward North west …. can do perfect fisherman life shooting, sunrise, salt water reflection …. I am sure I will be there again very soon ……….
milky through nake eye
... another milky way ...
– was using black card method/finger to shoot this where share it here
Even I trust my 5d very much where I could say the AWB (Auto White Balance) accuracy is much better than what other body I use before … but in certain light condition, filter effect, and to have much perfect WB… I still correct my WB using 2 method below
*** before I start, I only shoot raw so these methods only apply with RAW and Photoshop , lightroom … (other software should be same concept but different interface)
A. look for white point
1at some case, I do not have time to shoot 2 picture (1 with grey card and the other without) .. then I will try my best to look for white spot in the picture
Blue cast due to filter
2. click on the WB tool on top
WB Tool button
3. simply use the pen point to the white point
WB after simple correction
the color seem more normal but still need little more work to bring back original e.g. contrast, saturation, ….
sample of coversion
simple white WB correction
B. Grey card, look for grey
I prefer this method where this can be useful to correct WB and even correct most of the color cast … but this need shoot additional picture with the grey card or sypder cube (come with white, grey and total dark)
picture with the sypder cube
2. use the same WB tool as A2 above, but this time point to the Grey card or gray part of the spyder cube
– remember the temperature and tint value to apply on the actual picture
where to point and remember
3. the correction
final WB
.. again, due to the blue cast…. we need little more work to bring back the other colors .. e.g. contrast, saturation …..
do drop me a message if any part of this not clear ….
*** again the final output still need further tune up due to the bad blue cast …
While we shoot landscape, to get right exposures for both foreground and background (sky) .. it is just not too simple … as discussed previously , we can either
I actually want to share this “black card” quite some time ago .. but I always forget and not really able to get some good result to share … and while I am doing this , one of my gang actually notice me shaking my finger around the front len .. and she did ask what was I doing … 😀 and here you go ….
what is black card method and when will we use it ?
when we having different exposures, I normally do GND filter, exposures blending, black card, HDR …(we not going to discuss all here but share some sample)
A. GND filter
this is just like GND filter, most of the time we have big dynamic range/different between sky and foreground.. it normally have different from 2-9 stops …. e.g. for standard sunrise/sunset/magic hour environment, we face 2-4 stops different between foreground – sky… to resolve this we normally use GND to single frame picture have the correct exposure among foreground and sky e.g.
1. without GND
Magical moment - no GND
2. GND
... the magical moment ...
– the sky is ~4 stops different from the foreground…
– I use GND.9s for above picture and do some PP trick to make the right exposure
B. HDR (seldom do this …but think we still good to know this)
Cold Reflection
– why I choose HDR … this was shoot use my SIGMA12-24mm which cannot fit any filter
– it was too cold to think which method to choose so I simply shoot 7 exposures back 😀
3. black card
– seldom use this as I am not really experience
– filter much easy
– need a lot of try and error but the good light could be disappear any time
original shot without any filter, blending, black card
– why I choose black card, the environment was dark, not sure how/where to apply GND
– multiple exposures will take double or even more times for single shot
– the exposure different >3 stops
for me I know the area that make me concern as below
the over expose portion
– so what I did was, use my fingers block the over expose area
– allow only ~2-3 seconds exposure over 30 seconds exposure, so I block it until last few seconds and I remove my finger
so I get
... another milky way ...
most of the time we just need try and error, where some fail sample .. think only expose for ~1s
wrong timing to shake the black card/finger
I will discuss more on other method in future … but let’s try and error on black card 😀
it is always difficult to have what you wish to have in frame (except we make the story to capture ….)
A good example, I was looking at the beautiful reflection on beach
Kemasik Beach with reflection
*** above picture is ~1.5minutes after picture below but it look about same before too
and what I have with the “magic minute” moment
The wave "took" over the reflection role ....
with the wave, I have no choice to capture it as leading line instead what I original plan to have the beautiful reflection … so do not change yours position even something change but we make the change into our final output …..
**** it is always difficult but we still try our best to capture the beauty of the nature … enjoy ……
