A few more from the Eastern Sierra

kdog · August 19, 2014

Slowly working through my shots from my short trip, while taking a break from other work. My wife thinks these are over-processed, so I may have gotten myself on a bad tangent. But they're done so I figured I post them anyway for your critiques. :wink

Stumblebum · August 19, 2014

Bravo brother! #1 and #3 are wonderful!

lust

I suppose for #3 it requires bit heavy hand on 'clarity' to make sun burst like that? Slightly grainy for me!

I tried to to bump up your reputation - but Dgrin gave following message, "You should spread reputation around before giving it again to Kdog".

barb

kdog · August 19, 2014

Thanks, man. I'll have to report that as a bug. Just to clarify, you hadn't repped me before yet, right? I was just able to bump up yours OK.

Stumblebum · August 19, 2014

kdog wrote: »

Thanks, man. I'll have to report that as a bug. Just to clarify, you hadn't repped me before yet, right? I was just able to bump up yours OK.

I did. But unlike Presidential Elections, apparently I only get one vote!

I will try absentee ballot!

kdog · August 19, 2014

Stumblebum wrote: »

I did. But unlike Presidential Elections, apparently I only get one vote!
I will try absentee ballot!

Oh, ok. Yeah, you only get to rep a person once, then you have to rep some undefined amount of other folks before you can rep the original person again.

boco · August 20, 2014

heel mooie reeks met schitterende kleuren.
grt,boco.

rwells · August 20, 2014

Howdy Joel,

Great shots IMHO.

I've never understood the term "over processed".

Over what?

Natural looking to the eye?
Straight out of the camera?
The observers personal preference?
HDR?
Layering?

These are such subjective things, I've always said: Do what pleases you, or if commercial, what pleases your customer.

For what it's worth, I see a lot of popular work, that apparently sells well, that is processed similar to yours above.

Hope that helps...

Sam · August 20, 2014

Stumblebum wrote: »

Bravo brother! #1 and #3 are wonderful!lust
I suppose for #3 it requires bit heavy hand on 'clarity' to make sun burst like that? Slightly grainy for me!

I tried to to bump up your reputation - but Dgrin gave following message, "You should spread reputation around before giving it again to Kdog".barb

OK, edgeacate me....what is a reputation bump?

Sam

Sam · August 20, 2014

Joel,

#1 is a bit on the over sharpened, clarity, but not by much and will probably print out wonderfully.

#2 is over the top for me and the wide angle distortion is unappealing to me.

#3 I like this one and the only thing I would change is to knock down the blue in the shadow area.

#4 Just doesn't have a wow or point of focus for me.

That said, over all I like them.

Sam

lifeinfocus · August 20, 2014

Two is my favorite. I like the leading lines of the tree trunk and the sun peaking through.

I assume use of spot meter to keep the tree lit instead of a silhouette type look. Correct?

Phil

OK, edgeacate me....what is a reputation bump?

Sam

See this link about reputation http://dgrin.com/announcement.php?f=7&a=54 something new to Dgrin.

Stumblebum · August 20, 2014

Sam wrote: »

OK, edgeacate me....what is a reputation bump?

Sam

From what I know so far....it is the stuff that precedes us!:D

Cornflake · August 20, 2014

If you really want critiques, the first three are overprocessed by my lights. If the first thing I'm conscious of when I see an image is the processing, I don't believe the image. But that's not some eternal verity, it's one guy's taste, and what do I know? A lot of people have achieved success with images that seem overprocessed to me. The only opinion that counts is yours.

David_S85 · August 20, 2014

You got Tom Lowe's tree! Also love the sun stars. Good shooting and geez that looks like a fun outing.

Tom's tree (as featured still image) and in at 1:05 https://vimeo.com/1959421

Also here at 0:16 & 2:13 https://vimeo.com/6686768 Same branch had been cut off.

kdog · August 21, 2014

boco wrote: »

heel mooie reeks met schitterende kleuren.
grt,boco.

Thanks, boco!!

rwells wrote: »

Howdy Joel,

Great shots IMHO.

I've never understood the term "over processed".

Over what?
Natural looking to the eye?

Straight out of the camera?

The observers personal preference?

HDR?

Layering?

These are such subjective things, I've always said: Do what pleases you, or if commercial, what pleases your customer.

For what it's worth, I see a lot of popular work, that apparently sells well, that is processed similar to yours above.

Hope that helps...

Hey Randy, I'm honored that you would take the time to frame your thoughts so eloquently on my photos. Yes, helps a lot!

Sam wrote: »

Joel,

#1 is a bit on the over sharpened, clarity, but not by much and will probably print out wonderfully.

#2 is over the top for me and the wide angle distortion is unappealing to me.

#3 I like this one and the only thing I would change is to knock down the blue in the shadow area.

#4 Just doesn't have a wow or point of focus for me.

That said, over all I like them.

Sam

Thanks, Sam!

lifeinfocus wrote: »

Two is my favorite. I like the leading lines of the tree trunk and the sun peaking through.

I assume use of spot meter to keep the tree lit instead of a silhouette type look. Correct?

Phil

See this link about reputation http://dgrin.com/announcement.php?f=7&a=54 something new to Dgrin.

Hey Phil,

Thanks for taking the time to comment, and for the link to the reputation instructions.
It's interesting that the shot you liked the best is the one that Sam liked the least. I love this kind of varied responses to photos.

No spot meter used for this shot, although that would certainly be one way to get the tree exposed properly. This is actually an HDR blend of three frames.

Cornflake wrote: »

If you really want critiques, the first three are overprocessed by my lights. If the first thing I'm conscious of when I see an image is the processing, I don't believe the image. But that's not some eternal verity, it's one guy's taste, and what do I know? A lot of people have achieved success with images that seem overprocessed to me. The only opinion that counts is yours.

Hi Don, of course I really want critiques and I value yours which were similar to my wife's point. One thing I'm learning is that art is truly subjective.

David_S85 wrote: »

You got Tom Lowe's tree! Also love the sun stars. Good shooting and geez that looks like a fun outing.

Tom's tree (as featured still image) and in at 1:05 https://vimeo.com/1959421

Also here at 0:16 & 2:13 https://vimeo.com/6686768 Same branch had been cut off.

Hey David, thanks! Too funny, that certainly is the same tree. It was a great outing, thanks, and great for me to get away. Come on out and join the fun some time.

anwmn1 · August 21, 2014

Joel - Two awesome locations I hope to return to at some point.

1. As others mentioned it is a little grainy in the sky but the trees clipped on the edges are what really bothers me. I would play with cropping the image to eliminate those issues and make the tree more prominent.
2. Love the main tree in this image but that tree protruding in at an angle from the bottom right really kills this. If it wasn't for that tree this would be really, really nice.
3. This one is pretty good, maybe a little over processed as you have some issues with the cyan at the top of the tuffas. Personally I would crop the top down to the tuffas making this a semi-pano crop as the sky really doesn't add anything here.
4. This one doesn't do much for me. Angle and lighting are just off.

EvanThomas · August 22, 2014

Nice photos kdog! I like all of 'em! If you don't mind me asking, where did you take #43 and #4, not familiar with that place!

kdog · August 22, 2014

Thanks, Aaron.

Thanks, Evan. The second two are both from Mono Lake, south, past Navy Beach.

EvanThomas · August 23, 2014

kdog wrote: »

Thanks, Aaron.

Thanks, Evan. The second two are both from Mono Lake, south, past Navy Beach.

Thanks kdog! Figured they had to be, just hadn't seen any towers yet quite like those. More reason to poke around up there some more I guess!

anonymouscuban · August 23, 2014

Good stuff Joel. I agree with your wife. But it's subjective as others have mentioned. I know your style and this seems little overdone on the local contrast.

scole · August 23, 2014

For my tastes, I do think they're over processed. On another front, there's a ton of dust specks in several photos. In particular, there's a huge one at right-center in #2 and all along the the top of #4.

kdog · August 24, 2014

Thanks for your input Alex and Steve.

Steve, you have a very good eye for spotting dust. It was a very dusty trip.

scole · August 26, 2014

Yeah, you can't avoid dust no matter where and what you shoot. I've made it a habit to inspect any areas of my photos that have low contrast at 100% magnification. Once you know where it is, it will obviously be in the same location consistently so then it's just a quick evaluation to see if that part of the composition is low contrast. If not, more than likely you can ignore it because it will too hard to distinguish from the actual scene.

bgarland · August 26, 2014

I just saw these Joel. I like them, very nice.

jmphotocraft · August 29, 2014

I enjoyed these. I think I agree with your wife on the first two, 1 looks rather smooth and obviously enhanced for the time of day, but the colors are pretty. I'm not sure this scene could be captured and presented in a worthwhile way without looking fake though. The 2nd one is very cool, however obviously something one could never take in with the naked eye, or even with really good sunglasses. The background trees look like they have been shadow-lifted even more than the main tree, I wonder if toning them down would sell it better. Was it a single shot? The 3rd and 4th don't look overprocessed to me. However between those two I'll take #3 because those strange formations should take center stage. In #4 they're being upstaged by the mountain range in the distance.

kdog · August 30, 2014

bgarland wrote: »

I just saw these Joel. I like them, very nice.

Thanks, Brad! These are some great places to shoot, and I know the discreet places to camp.

jmphotocraft wrote: »

I enjoyed these. I think I agree with your wife on the first two, 1 looks rather smooth and obviously enhanced for the time of day, but the colors are pretty. I'm not sure this scene could be captured and presented in a worthwhile way without looking fake though. The 2nd one is very cool, however obviously something one could never take in with the naked eye, or even with really good sunglasses. The background trees look like they have been shadow-lifted even more than the main tree, I wonder if toning them down would sell it better. Was it a single shot? The 3rd and 4th don't look overprocessed to me. However between those two I'll take #3 because those strange formations should take center stage. In #4 they're being upstaged by the mountain range in the distance.

Thanks for taking the time for the thoughtful critiques, Jack. These are all HDRs which I feel helped me salvage some mediocre works out of some bad light. I'm really enjoying hearing what works and what didn't for folks, so your comments are really appreciated.

A few more from the Eastern Sierra

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