Looking again to photos from the March 2010 Michigan west coast lighthouse tour, the first stop was in St. Joseph, Michigan. The light is one of my favorite subjects. They are fairly unique. I've been there on multiple occasions. What I can say about the area, if it is nice outside the photos will be very boring. Consequently, the more interesting the photo, the more challenging the weather conditions. I'll give the weather a 5 on the scale, for being windy. (And cold...)
Spoiler alert. This is a combination of two images. The main shot of the water and buildings is one image and the sky is another. Both images were taken within minutes of each other and from the same location. The only difference was zoom. In both shots, the particulars AUTO, ISO 200, f/13 and 1/320. In the original image of the water and buildings, the sky was just plain flat. Could not do a thing with it. I found another image from the same environment with some definition in the sky. Time to combine.
In each image, I create multiple exposure levels. For the water and building, I created 5 images covering two full stops above and two stops below the original exposure. For the sky I created 3 images to cover two stops above and two stops below the original exposure. For each image, I put them through Photomatix - giving each image the same settings. I used On One to mask the sky in the original image and combine the second image below it.
In this case it all worked. The mask creation was simple - mostly straight lines.
I really like the water and wave colors here. It is difficult to leave the rust colors of the building alone. Any additional saturation borders on obscene. I struggle with the red roof. In reality it isn't so bright. I tried to leave it alone and let the water carry the image. Just didn't work for me. So there is just a little pop there.
Way back in March of 2010 I visited the west side of Michigan, theoretically on a lighthouse tour. Not kidding myself, it was not a warm journey. The temperature was very, very brisk. The good news, I did have to 'remove' many tourists from any images.
Given the file number of the image, I was just starting with the D90. Which also means, every shot I was taking at the time, I was learning something. And this shot is no different.
The shot is late afternoon/early evening.
I was walking on the concrete pier toward the light (west!). I have many shots from this time, but since I was shooting into the sun in this one, the camera was really confused. Back in those days, I was shooting in AUTO mode. I'm fairly certain, even in MANUAL I couldn't have done much better. In these situations, a three shot minimum HDR would have done the best. Again, lesson learned. But another lesson, when in doubt, shoot dark. Shooting dark allows more colors to be reclaimed.
The setting sun is in direct line with the light. Under normal circumstances, this spells disaster. Without the help of software, this doesn't work. I used my main three packages to get this done.
First, the particulars. This was taken with a Tamron 18-270 lens. I wound up trading that in shortly after the purchase for a Nikon lens. Another story, another time. ISO 200, f/9 and 1/500.
The original Nikon JPG looked something like this.
Dark, eh?
That was one confused camera.
Staying in the 2010 age, my primary editing packages would have been Adobe Elements and Photomatix. And I like the grunge look. Really grunge.
Using these two packages and my taste at the time, I came up with this.
I created multiple images, each with a different exposure using the RAW Editor. I probably did three images. I used Photomatix to blend the three images to one image and played with the setting until I came up with this. This is still one of my favorite 'artistic' shots.
Fast forward to 2017. Software updates. Process improvements. Taste changes.
My goal for this was to get the light color (red) to come out, keep some definition of the sky/clouds and water. Everything else should fall into place. And I'd like to take some of the saturation/grunge out if it.
The creation process was along the same lines as in 2010. I created five different exposures in the RAW editor. I combined the images in Photomatix. Using one of the presets, I came really close to what I wanted. I like the darker version, as opposed to dark version, but I still couldn't get the red of the light right. I tried a new trick. Using On One, I combined the post Photomatix image with one of the lighter images created in RAW. I masked out the light on the darker image, allowing the lighter light to show. I changes some of the tone settings to get a slightly warmer feel.
I like this version. There's more time invested in this edition than in previous versions, but that's OK. It's all a learning experience.
I like HDR shots/effects. I've run from light effects to full onslaught grunge. And I'm not going to apologize for any part of the journey.
That being said, I found an image that I couldn't make HDR work for me. I tried all the tricks. Nothing worked.
So I went plain. And I liked the result.
I usually like 'slightly' over sharpened effects. In this shot, I thought it took away. Not that this is smooth by any stretch. The ISO is 6400. I'd use up to that setting again.
This image breaks a few 'rules'. I like the lines of the North Western train. In this frame, it is close to the center. I was limited by the angle of the view in the setting so in the center it will stay. If I wanted to go further with the shot, I'd work on removing the three bright 'dots'. Or maybe just the bigger of the three.
The one adjustment I did make was to darken the gravel in the foreground. In the original image, it is quite light. There might have been an odd light source. Anyway, that had to go. I think the image is full, so can't find a different crop that suits me.
