Autumn Colour

HDR on the forest floor

I visited the Tahune Air Walk and forest on a largely bright (summer) sunny day, but rainforests are typically dark (shaded) places on the forest floor. Shouldn’t a sunny day be a better time to photograph?

The answer is NO! The dynamic range of light (the range in strength of illumination, from darkest to brightest) on a sunny day is significantly higher on the sunny day, The bright splashes of foliage where shafts of full sun light is reflected many times brighter than the nearby glom of full shadow, yet there is detail there also. Whilst our eyes can handle this situation a camera and the dynamic range it can capture will probably be a lot less than required.  Typically you will your photo will have correctly exposed (or maybe slightly overexposed foliage behind dark silhouettes of tree truck of overhanging vegetation. On an over cast day this difference is much narrower, and you are much more likely to get a decent picture.

So it seemed logical that this is a perfect opportunity for getting better images with a set of bracketed images (using EV steps, see screen capture on the right) and HDR post processing these images. Here I am using lightroom and the NIK software add in which has worked fine. The resulting HDR image does manage to get the shadow detail and preserve (not over expose) the colour of the foliage. I is much closer to what I remember seeing (and feeling). There is a lot that can be done at the post processing stage and this is usually referred to a tone mapping, how the extra illumination and colour detail is mapped back into the colour image and this is where HDR can get its bad name because you you can push the colour, local contrast and other aspects into very surreal and painterly abstractness. I am becoming a fan of NIK HDR Efex and their realistic presets (either balanced of deep) because they stay closed to my expectations.

I have returned to using lightroom to mamage photos on my HP Spectre and definite use two organization tools, Colour (eg. I flag bracketed sets with yellow) and then I stack the original images together. Thus reducing the clutter or many images that are the same.

I also have gone one step further in this image and used OnOne 10’s enhance and magic eraser to reduced the impact of a dead fern frond in the upper right and also detail filter to reduce overall digital noise, but keep as much detail as possible.

Russian Roulette with the forest

One of a few problems I soon discovered trying to get decent photos from the train, is to do with a clear view. The Canadian train travels up into the Rockies along deep river ravines and there are lots or trees, which get taller and taller. The train only travels up the steep railway at 45 mph, which is slower than normal car travel. However it is still fast enough they trees beside the tracks just flash past.

So I quickly found there was an anticipation game, when to snap the photo. Its harder than you might think, and I have quiet a set of blurred trees. But once in a while the mountain will be nicely framed between the tree.

 

(Hint: I used a higher ISO than usual so that the shutter speed was faster and more likely to freeze reasonably close trees)

PhotoProject :: A chance to compare

This is an alright photo for an overcast drizzly day. Actually I was waiting in hope of catching a rainbow, but the sun never shone for me so I didn’t get a rainbow, just the last of the oak leaves falling. Being adventurous and warm back inside I figured this was perfect for a comparison of how I might post process the RAW version of this image in my software on my HP spectre 2 in 1 laptop.

Picasa (no adjustments)	After Shot Pro 3 (Perfectly Clear)
Lightroom (Tonal & Colour Adj)	OnOne 10 (Enhance & Effects)

I have included the unaltered render of the .pef RAW file, just to show that an unedited RAW file usually looks flat and often a bit dark. My goto tool for the first pass look at photos at the moment is After Shot Pro and the perfectly Clear filter (in this case it has the colour a bit loud and the sky blown out, not that wasn’t pretty much blown out in the unedited version). At this stage I think the image has potential and flag it was a keeper and even give it a couple of stars.

I then fired up Lightroom and set to doing a fairly standard tonal tweak, recovering some shadows by mainly looking to pull highlight down and deepen the blue of the sky (moving the blue channel viberance to the left) I also cropped the image to avoid the leading lines of the edge of the road drawing the veiwer to the bottom left corner. I felt this was better than the Perfectly Clear. Next I used OnOne, I’m having trouble with the browser not display my RAW filesin version 10.5 so I took the unprocessed lightroom rendering into OnOne 10 Enhance and tweaked the total range similarly to lightroom and I also used the magic eraser to remove a couple of post a swing and BBQ and performed a similar crop. Next I went into OnOne 10 effects and started with a soft dynamic contrast, added a little sunshine and finished with the big softy vignette. Happy with this and it becomes my photo of the day, albeit a dull day.

What Gum is that?

The gruff widower Holland has two possessions he cherishes above all others: his sprawling property of eucalyptus trees and his ravishingly beautiful daughter, Ellen.

When Ellen turns nineteen Holland makes an announcement: she may marry only the man who can correctly name the species of each of the hundreds of gum trees on his property.

Ellen is uninterested in the many suitors who arrive from around the world, until one afternoon she chances on a strange, handsome young man resting under a Coolibah tree….

 

… The plot of Eucalyptus a novel by Murray Bail

I thought I needed to brush up on my identification of the local eucalypts (gum trees to us aussies) as a preliminary to the Jell’s Park Photowalk, and it a lot harder than you might think.

 

 

This vertarama (a vertical panorama) is built from 5 photos using Autostitch, from straight ahead to almost vertical over head, which leads to the curved expansion at the top. I think this is a Yarra River Gum, which only grows in central/southern Victoria, and is recognized  as "in a highly precarious position and one of the most threatened of the eucalypt species". Pryor (1981). I should have included a person to show the size of this tree (probably over 30m). The pines behind it  would normally be considered tall. The CSIRO is building a guide called EUCLID , that supposedly is Identifying eucalypts made easy, I could not find it online but they are nearing 900 species now. And it isn’t so simple, the classification depends on type or bark, leaf shape, flowering, seed shape and density, branching habit and season of observation, just to mention some of parameters. The only true way to identify the Yarra River Gum, according to Dr Tree from Otway Greening, “If you're really keen to identify a yarra gum, grab some leaves and boil them in water for two minutes. If it is a yarra, a volatile oil called benzaldehyde will be given off by the process. And according to Simmons (1986) it smells of a cross between bitter almonds and fish oil!” Needless to say I haven’t done that.

Are we really Shadowless?

Today I visited a new exhibition at mga on Australian Exotica, which presents the views some contemporary Australian photographers that is a different and erotic place. On the way back to the car park I walked the path on the right below and loved the shadows. However compare that with the photo of typical open forest (below left) I had taken earlier a short distance away. Different style of shadows but not really exotica.

 

“The trees  [in NSW] nearly all belong to one family, and mostly have their leaves placed in a vertical, instead of as in Europe, in a nearly horizontal position: the foliage is scanty, and of a peculiar pale green tint, without any gloss. Hence the woods appear light and shadowless: this, although a loss of comfort to the traveller under the scorching rays of summer…”

…Charles Darwin (notes on trip from Sydney to Bathurst 1836, From Chapter 19, The Voyage of the Beagle)

Experimenting with layers

Yesterday was wet and drizzly most of the day (I’m not complaining about that we need the rain) but it discouraged going out to get my daily photograph. Just had an opportunity to capture some interesting seed pods but into a bright background. I like the seeds hanging down but decided to refine the background, with layers in OnOne 10. There are three layers the original photo, tweaked in lightroom, the texture “brocade cool” from the Onone sample textures, and an “interrupted” autoclone watercolour paint of the photo with more saturated colours. The photo is the upper layer and I’m using a luminosity mask to just show through to the brightest background areas, with some hand adjustments to keep those lights in the seed pods. The brocade layer is next and has the opacity slider back to about 20%. The autoclone watercolour is on the base, a true underpainting.

  

Not sure I’d rave about the result, but the approach has potential

PhotoFriday :: Trees

Tropical Avenue of Rainforest Kauri Trees, Paronella Park

For PhotoFriday‘s topic Trees

The Lonely Mangrove

PhotoFriday :: Park

Threatening Rain

For PhotoFriday‘s topic Park

On the Brickpath

Late Afternnoon Spring Sun, leaves a subtle dappled light on the Brickpath

 Original: imageo.withknown.com/2014/the-brick-path

The Knowledge of the Forest

There are many interesting things to see in any forest for #thesececretlifeoftrees 

Original: imageo.withknown.com/2014/the-knowledge-of-the-forest

Tree Fern Verta-rama

For #thesecretlifeoftrees series.

These tree ferns towered above me and I had to use a stitched panorama approach (using Autostich) but in a vertical sequence. The resulting perspective however leaves the trees curving in on you towards the top of the image, so I used the zPerspector plug in for After shot to straighten things out a little. Original: imageo.withknown.com/2014/tree-fern-verta-rama

The Oaks Walk in non HDR

Another Photo for the #thesecretlifeoftrees Series compare this with the Google+ Autoaweswome of the same scene in Yestesday's blog post,

This time it is the EV=0 photo only and it has been tonally tweaked (mainly to avoid clipping) and cropped in Lightroom with a touch of clarity, then exported to Perfect Effects, with first a little bit of the sunshine filter then into my favouraite tool Dynamic Contrast but just using the soft pre-set, Rather than those defaulst I have undertaken some adjustments on the detail sliders to enhance the small scale textures (the leaves) but downplay the large scale broad range details (the path & grass) I did consider some colour adjustment but it was starting to look faux HDR so I removed that layer. To end I added the big softy vignette.

Original: imageo.withknown.com/2014/the-oaks-walk-jells-park

ThePatch :: Trees in the Landscape

I must admit this weeks thepatch subission caught up with me right on the last day, so I had a pleasant walk around Jell's park after a great BBQ dinner (its day light saving here now). I figured there are plenty of interesting trees there. There are perhaps a few to many!

The ibis where flying in for the night and a waxing moon  made for some good shots, albeit distractions.  The light was fading as I reached the Oaks Picnic area with its wonderful stand of young Oak Trees, complete with a flush of new leaves for the spring. The green-ness was amazing (remember that green Derwent pencil everyone loved) and this stock standard google+ Autoawesome HDR did the place justice. So it is this week submission

Under the Canopy

Joiner style collage of the shadows under the canopy, 

Adelaide Botanical Gardens. 

 Original: imageo.withknown.com/2014/under-the-canopy

The Gumtree Sunset

HDR Image Taken in Jells Park.

Original: imageo.withknown.com/2014/the-gumtree-sunset

The Secret Life of Trees ...continues

The Abacrombie Tree

I started this series a while ago on flickr because trees are a very overlooked aspect in many landscape photographers eyes, but never progressed far, so I thought a week of trees might help bring series back into focus.

Collecting Photographic Reference for Paintings

I was fascinated with the contorted shapes of the branches of some of the mature trees along the coastal walk (the promenade at Point Lonsdale) and felt they could make an interesting series of paintings. I carry a very small sketch book (A7 sized) in my camera bag (and in fact did a few scribbles as I had a coffee over he road). A digital camera can be a vey hand thing for an artist. However I like to use mine as a sketch book taking down important details giving and overall view, I shot many photos that may never see lightroom and printing, they are more an aide-mémoire. I also like to capture at least a couple of bracketed sets to be able some additional tonal investigation when I have a chance.

This tree, possibly a very mature bearded heath, overhangs the path. I original figured I could make a “joiner” collage, but the HDR worked out well so I got an autostiched HDR panorama, Now hopefully I have a better memory to inspire a wonderful painting?

PhotoProject :: Straightening Out

“There is nothing wrong with photography, if you don't mind the perspective of a paralysed Cyclops.” - David Hockney

I believe what David is highlighting here is that the camera’s view of the world is from a single lens with a specific perspective. We have two eyes and “see” a much richer three dimensional worlds and our vision can be influences by our expectations. For example when we are dwarfed by tall trees we know we are surrounded by a strong vertical world. Our camera however see a more curved representation (depending on the zoom) and we will probably notice wide angle views tend to show curves where we expect strong vertical lines. For this reason many architectural photographers go to some extreme length with special cameras and lenses to overcome this perspective distortion. The Tilt/Shift lens being very popular because they do allow control of this distortion. A number of tilt/shift filters are also now becoming popular because they can be used to create the effect of looking at a miniature world.
In this vertarama, made from three *HDR photos (created by google+ autoawesome) you can see the trees enclosing over me as the camera moves higher. Ok this is pleasing in some respects but I want to show the strong vertically of these pines, so I have Tried out a plug-in for after-shoot pro called zPerspector. There are a number of similar perspective adjustment plug in fro Photoshop, gimp & even paint.net. The all perform varaiable scaling  and/or warping to adjust the image. zPerspector has a very easy to pick up approach where you can stretch and pull at each of the corner edges of your photo to thus arrive at the expected view. In my example below I am not trying to get all the trees straight and vertical (because they weren’t really) what I was looking for for trying to reproduce the strength of the trees towering over me as I remember it.