Jogger, Reservoir - 2008
As requested - some brief workflow notes:
I’ve tried just about everything for conversion to b&w over the years with various plug-ins, and varying results.
This is a big subject that I’m planning to write up when I get a chance but here are a couple of things to keep in mind:
1: The 40D has a setting where you can improve the highlight tone gradation. I’m always shooting with this on. In the shot above, the sky would have been burnt out without this setting. Exposure was done by locking focus, and then recentering camera in evaluative mode. I’m shooting RAW. One note, with Highlight Priority Mode, you can’t use ASA 100. ASA starts with 200.
2: I’ve set up a number of development settings in LIGHTROOM, which get me basically where I want to go with the conversion for this particular camera. I’m going to have to write this up at some point. But the main thing in terms of workflow is to get to a point where you’ve got a good general Lightroom formula for your own shooting style, and then import all your images with this particular development preset. You can then tweak from there.
3. Most of the work is done in Lightroom - but sometimes masking is needed (not in this runner shot though) - and then I’m into Photoshop with some sort of layering stuff.
4. Shots are given a pre- and post- sharpening with Pixel Genius. This subject could also take a couple of paragraphs to explain unless you’re already using Pixel Genius.
But the thing that has helped the most in terms of look with the 40D:
- The highlight priority mode
- Lightroom settings
- The lens, Sigma 30mm f1.4 which allows me to get nice out-of-focus stuff because I can shoot wide open or nearly wide open during daylight (if I want to with a quick shutter speed).
I’ll add to this as I have time with things like Lightroom settings. Though frankly, if you have lightroom, you can easily start with one of their monochrome presets and then adjust it so it works as a starting point for most of your images.
At any rate, I’m back to finding time to do some shooting every day - and this is how I like it. I’m going to try and make some changes so that I’m not thrown into such a frenzy next holiday season. Don’t get me wrong, I need the work - but I could really have used an assistant - so much of that was grunt work. I’ve found two possible candidates for assistant - both have no interest in photography - which I think is good since most of what they’d be doing is matting, packaging and errands. Well, we’ll see. Maybe this last holiday was a fluke.
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Comments
Comment from Lester
Time: February 8, 2008, 1:34 am
Technically, I don’t know what you all are talking about, but it’s pretty amazing to get the jogger clearly in mid-stride and the definition in the clouds in the background at the same time. It’s also a beautifully composed photo, but I know that cropping can do that. It’s fascinating really, the convergence of split second snapping and long, tedious editing to produce beauty. What other art form combines the immediate and the deliberate in that way?
Comment from Craig Nisnewitz
Time: February 8, 2008, 3:01 am
I have a similar problem with the Nikon D 70 and D 50 with washed out highlights. To compensate I will meter on a brighter area and use the lock button to lock the exposure. The D 50 has settings for centerweight, spot or matrix for the metering. It helps sometimes but fooling the meter by using a highlight works better.
Comment from dave
Time: February 8, 2008, 4:29 am
Craig - what you’re doing is not the same as what’s going on with the 40D with highlight priority mode. I did the same thing quite often with the 20D - exposing for the highlights; and it is a common thing to do with digital cameras (actually the opposite of film); and you are always in danger of losing information in the lower and middles zones, i.e. in this shot, the guy might have turned out very underexposed if I exposed for a bright sky highlight. But he didn’t. The reason is that the 40D in this mode is packing more bits into the highlights. All I can say, is that since I turned on that highlight priority switch I’ve had a much easier time with exposures when there is a large difference between highlights and the main subject. That, along with raw, along with being able to pull back highlight info with Lightroom — results are the best since my earlier experiments with digital.
Comment from Bruce Robbins
Time: February 8, 2008, 2:25 pm
Thanks for that explanation, Dave. I could use the extended highlight range on my Pentax K10D-it always overexposes contrasty scenes. My solution is to use the LCD as a polaroid back to guard against burnt out highlights. That wouldn’t have helped much in your Jogger shot, though, as the man would have been pretty under-exposed (but still just about “rescuable”).
Bruce
Comment from Craig Nisnewitz
Time: February 8, 2008, 3:20 pm
The Nikons have different settings for white balance, i.e.cloudy, shade, etc. Does the 40D have similar settings?
Recently did some experiments with Raw compared to Jpeg. With a raw file you can change the white balance as soon as you open it in Photoshop. For Jpeg you need to use the features in the program to compensate. Photo Retouch lets you do this. It has a white balance setting. The result is that I have tried the same shot in raw and jpeg and after making adjustments there is really no difference. I am reaching the conclusion that if you carefully expose the photo using the highest jpeg settings can produce good results.
Comment from dave
Time: February 8, 2008, 3:32 pm
Craig, just about all cameras including the 40D have similar settings for WB. Take my word for it though - you lose information when you go to jpg. It doesn’t mean that you can’t get good results that way - it just means that you are closing some options for yourself in terms of dynamic range and white balance. Really.
Comment from Ed Richards
Time: February 9, 2008, 3:23 pm
I have not used Lightroom - it will not handle my big digital files from scanned 4×5 - but the black and white conversion in Photoshop CS3 is great. You get sliders for red, yellow, green, blue, cyan, and magenta, plus hue. You can do it directly, or as a layer, which lets you keep tinkering with it.
The highlight expansion switch sounds great. Hard to do HRD images on runners.:-)
Comment from dave
Time: February 9, 2008, 5:29 pm
Ed - Lightroom is similar in that you can play with all the color sliders plus lots of other characteristics all without doing anything destructive to the original file.
Only thing with lighthouse, is that if you aren’t turning the RAW file into a PSD with your changes, then you’d better have a good backup of the Lightroom database — ’cause that’s where all your hard work is kept.
Comment from Bruce Robbins
Time: February 7, 2008, 8:06 pm
Dave,
Can you say how you’re converting you 40D images? I like the look you’re getting. After trying just about every conversion technique, I’ve found that a gradient map followed by duplicating the layer and blending using soft light is as good as anything. In my experience, the channel mixer and even plug-ins like Alien Skin don’t do as consistently good a job. I’d be interested to hear how you’re approaching it.
Cheers,
Bruce