Autumn in Alberta

Hi Kevin! Impressive view, I'm happy to say. On the down side the colors look a bit too, well, overdone. At least on my laptop.
Rgds, Jarmo

Jarmo Juntunen said:

Hi Kevin! Impressive view, I'm happy to say. On the down side the colors look a bit too, well, overdone. At least on my laptop.
Rgds, Jarmo

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Here's the out-of-the-camera shot; it is the extracted jpg from the raw file. This shot is one of the bracketed shots. I used -1 1/3, 0, +1 1/3 ƒ stops. If I were to do it over again, I do it differently: -2, -1, 0 ƒ stops.


Photo taken east of Bragg Creek on Sunday, 26 September 2010.

It was a warm, sometimes overcast day, near 22C or 72F.

Location: East of Bragg Creek, Alberta
Date: Sunday, 26 June 2010
Time: 15:08
Model: Mother Nature
Aperture: ƒ4
Duration: 1/1250 second
ISO: 100
Mode: AV
Exposure Compensation: -1 1/3
Focal Length: 130 mm
Camera: Canon EOS 50D
Lens: Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM
Copyright: © 2010 Kevin H. Stecyk

Please note: This photo is not for retouching.

Mods, this thread is likely in the wrong section. Please feel free to move.

Kevin Stecyk said:

Alberta Autumn by Stecyk, on Flickr​

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Hi Kevin,

I love the scene and this brings back memories of fall in Massachusetts and Maine. In California, if one searches, there's fall beauty to be found, no doubt, but hardly as fabulous. Thanks for the treat!

This picture reveals and teaches us the challenge of taking charge of one's photography and removing the unfettered limiting control the camera has over our creative juices. This despite out ability to alter aperture and shutter speed as well as a host of other parameters according to our own designs, whim and will.

Here, the sky has drama and beauty which depend on different parameters than the rich colored fall landscape below. Furthermore, the camera shows the massive array of trees with equal clarity all across the composition.

This and most other photographs can benefit from dealing with the disparate elements separately. Of course, one can use a gradient or other neutral density to reduce the illumination to the sky. However, that alone is hardly enough. The sky and tree-scape likely need different contrast curves and color management.

Global changes are fast and effective. So I liked the first picture immediately. To actually make a print, more work might be considered. For example, does the detail in the trees need text end to the borders. It's possible that softening the sharp focus towards the borders would enhance the experience.

Asher

Hi Asher, I changed my photograph, probably just as you were creating your post. The original photo was Adobe RGB but not tagged. So I took the photograph into Photoshop, assigned Adobe RGB, and then converted to sRGB. My camera is set to display Adobe RGB files, not sRGB.

You might wish to edit your post with the correct link.

You're right, the sky and ground need different treatment. I ~thought~ I would have enough to choose from when I bracketed the shots -1 1/3, 0, +1 1/3 ƒ stops. My intent was blend different portions of the photograph in Photoshop later.

When I looked at the -1 1/3 shot, the sky was still too bright. I *should have* noticed this when I took my pictures. Instead, I assumed that I would be fine.

With Photoshop raw converter, I was able to fit the sky in without blowing anything out. Still, I would have preferred to use different brackets: -2, -1, 0 ƒ stops.

To be completely honest, I am not entirely happy with this photograph. As shown by the time, it was shot at about 3 pm. In reality, I should be there at sunrise when the sun is shining on the mountains. The lighting was too flat when I took my shots.

And we were having some weird micro-climate weather. Depending upon which way you turned your head, it was either about to storm or become very nice. Hence, the mountains were clouded.

From where I took the photograph, I am estimating that the Rocky Mountains were about 60-80 kms (40 - 50 miles). I'd love to have the mountains showing up brilliantly and sharply in the background.

Kevin Stecyk said:

And we were having some weird micro-climate weather. Depending upon which way you turned your head, it was either about to storm or become very nice. Hence, the mountains were clouded.

From where I took the photograph, I am estimating that the Rocky Mountains were about 60-80 kms (40 - 50 miles). I'd love to have the mountains showing up brilliantly and sharply in the background.

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Kevin,

I like the picture with the saturated colors giving a gestalt feeling and the dilute fog over it is what it should be. The pale mountains one might work on but except for the very near foreground, sharpness of the trees is counter-productive for this picture.

Asher

Six days later...

I photographed nearly the same scene. However, this time I was there before sunrise and captured this photograph about five minutes after sunrise.

Notice that with an exceptionally warm week there is less snow in the mountains and many of the trees have lost their leaves.

Kevin,

These are remarkable changes. I wonder if you might lke to repeat the picture using a red filter to cut through the haze and make a B&W picture?

That would be interesting to see with all the bare twigs and branches to be revealed in detail.

BTW, are you using a tripod?

Asher

Asher Kelman said:

These are remarkable changes. I wonder if you might lke to repeat the picture using a red filter to cut through the haze and make a B&W picture?

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I honestly have no clue how to do use a red filter to cut through the haze and make a B&W picture. I don't know where to begin. But you are certainly welcome to take the photo and use whatever filters you like.

Asher Kelman said:

That would be interesting to see with all the bare twigs and branches to be revealed in detail.

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Because of the distance I am shooting from, I don't think you're going to achieve great resolution. I was literally perched up high up along an embankment beside the road. Then I am aimed my camera in the general direction of the mountains which are a fair distance away. I will create a post shortly. Actually, perhaps an aerial shot will give a better feeling of what transpired. Hang on while I work on that.

Asher Kelman said:

BTW, are you using a tripod?

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Yes, Gitzo with RRS ballhead.

Distance from shooting location to mountains is about 25.9 miles or 41.7 kilometres.

From where I am shooting from, I am up high and shooting across a valley and catching the trees and foothills again. It's an interesting location.

Kevin Stecyk said:

Distance from shooting location to mountains is about 25.9 miles or 41.7 kilometres.

From where I am shooting from, I am up high and shooting across a valley and catching the trees and foothills again. It's an interesting location.

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Kevin,

That's impressive enough for me!

BTW, how did you get a fix on the angle and the end location?

Kudos!

Asher

Asher Kelman said:

Kevin,

That's impressive enough for me!

BTW, how did you get a fix on the angle and the end location?

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I carry a GPS unit, a Garmin Oregon 550T, with me on my photo shoots. Once the photos are downloaded on the pc, using BreezeBrowserPro I then merge the GPS information with each picture's metadata.

With regard to the angle and end location, both are estimates. I could have used the compass on my GPS to get better angle information. However, in my particular case, I wasn't shooting due west because there were trees in the way. Moreover, I knew that I was more or less perpendicular to the mountain range. As far as the end point, I know that there are foothills, prominent mountain range, valley, and more mountains. The valley and additional mountains can't be seen from my location. However, the top peaks that are visible are from the first prominent range. So my endpoint is a guesstimate.

Granted, for those with a science background, I showed more significant figures than warranted given the degree of uncertainty.

Incidentally, the location shown is from last week's photo. When I shot this week, I was within 30 paces of last week's location. Because I already marked last week's spot on Google Earth, I didn't bother to revise. While I am not sure if the location metadata is present on this week's photograph, I thought I would mention the descrepancy in case someone checks.

For those that are anal about details, this week's photo has the following coordinates:

- Latitude: 50°54'19.959"N
- Longitude: 114°25'33.171"W
- Altitude: 1307m (or translated to 4228 ft)

I hope that helps.

I really like the autumn colors on the trees, but the skies shouldn't be that cyan in my opinion. Looks like you got the ProPhoto profile assigned to an sRGB or aRGB image, you would get the same effect from that.

Taking on your invitation, I edited the OOC a bit, so that the colors are in the trees, and the skies stay blue as they were...

Joachim Bolte said:

I really like the autumn colors on the trees, but the skies shouldn't be that cyan in my opinion. Looks like you got the ProPhoto profile assigned to an sRGB or aRGB image, you would get the same effect from that.

Taking on your invitation, I edited the OOC a bit, so that the colors are in the trees, and the skies stay blue as they were...

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My post processing was aggressive so your comment about the skies certainly has validity. Our skies this time of year can look like anything though. It's interesting because I sometimes just look at the sky and clouds, noting that if they appeared that way in Photoshop, I would try to "fix" them. The reality is, they are reality, if you know what I mean. So we do see some unusual colors. That said, your comments about the sky being too cyanish is valid.

Out here in Alberta, the trees have almost zero orange. We don't get the beautiful reds and oranges that you see in eastern North America. My out-of-the-camera shot is much closer to reality in that leaves are either green or yellow. There might be a slight hint of orange, but that's about it. In my edited version, there's lots of orange. That's impressionistic, though, and is certainly not indicative of the trees here.

Thank you for your comment.

@Kevin,

OK, never been to Alberta, so I just made the colors up. And as said, I liked them in your impressionistic version, so that was my starting point.

Gave the B&W a try also... instead of a red filter I would use a yellow or maybe orange one, to get the yellow trees as light as possible, and the green ones nice and dark. I wouldn't care too much for the haze, it's a natural phenomenon, and I like the mountains hazy as they are. Maybe some clouds would be nice...

Joachim Bolte said:

OK, never been to Alberta, so I just made the colors up. And as said, I liked them in your impressionistic version, so that was my starting point.

Gave the B&W a try also... instead of a red filter I would use a yellow or maybe orange one, to get the yellow trees as light as possible, and the green ones nice and dark. I wouldn't care too much for the haze, it's a natural phenomenon, and I like the mountains hazy as they are. Maybe some clouds would be nice...

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I have no clue about red, yellow, or orange filters. Can you please elaborate?

B&Ws are not my favorite. I love color, lots of color. Here, we don't get a lot of color. In the summer, everything is green or brown (if it's a dry summer). And winter, everything is white or gray. So during the fall season, when we do have some color, it seems like a shame to convert to B&W. Perhaps a winter photograph turned to B&W would appeal to me more.

Hi Kevin,

Back in the days of analog film, people shooting B&W would add a colored filter to their setup to enhance the B&W contrast for specific color-ranges. If you added a yellow filter, the complementary color (blue) would appear very dark, and the yellows would appear very light. That's also the reason why skiing goggles are mostly yellow or orange, it enhances the contours of a snowfield by darkening the blues that are in the shadows of the snow.

If you would use a green filter, the greens would be light, and the reds and magenta's would be darker.

In this link: http://www.dpchallenge.com/tutorial.php?TUTORIAL_ID=43 there are some techniques to make a digital B&W. Method 4 would feel most authentic to people that are used shooting film.

Kevin,

I wish we had the RAW to work with, but this is such a fabulous blanket of color I felt compelled to revisit and make a suggestion on how it my be shown. To me, your picture has more interesting information and dramatics in the distant mountains than in the sky which is somewhat blown in the posted versions. Since the very strong mountain ranges can readily balance your amazing trees, I ventured to crop away sky to see if this would result in a more prepared and formidable image.