Vondelpark

Here's my first attempt at a landscape using the 5D and (borrowed) EF 24-105.

The image was taken in Vondelpark, Amsterdam and what blows me away with this camera is how much detail is in the raw. Just when think the skies are blown, you have data to play with!



The image was made from two conversions, the first exposed for highlights, the second for foreground. LR was used to grayscale and convert, CS3 was used to alpha channel, merge and tint.

The bridge handrails were bright blue and luminance modified to yeild white.

As always comments and critique welcome on compositon, tonality etc.

This, John is an ideal pensive use for the 5D. Here it is in its element. The shortcomings of lack of fast focus are not important. The camera is light so it can be easily taken with.One can use the 24-105 or a 50mm and stitch. I agree with you allocating a bright tonal value to the rails as it helps to give depth.

I wonder whether or not there is further room to make the trees more 3 dimensional. I'd try, if this was my photograph, to selectively sharpen the tree as follows:
Minimal sharpen entire tree, Sharpen front 2/3 of the tree, Sharpen selected closest branches.

Similarly I'd sharpen the front 4-5 sections of the rail and the foreground path as well as the bushes on the left. The latter is, in my view, an important compositional counterwieght to the main design.

Thanks for this picture! It is well composed, the subject is interesting and invites you in to walk following the girl through the trees. The skies are impressive too, but I'd try to bring out some more detail in the brightest part of the clouds, if it's there.

I hope you can show more from this shoot! Thanks for sharing!

Asher

Thanks Asher,

I finally got round to processing a handful of images from my Amsterdam trip in May and concentrated on the ones that I think suit the 16:9 format first. The weather was a bit hit and miss but the 5D and EF24-105 coped admirably.

Intial processing done in LR, while CS3 was used for noise reduction, sharpening (courtesy of Nicolas' action), sRGB conversion and resizing.

The Amsterdam pictures remind me of Venice. It's so great to see your work as it gives me a deja vu. I'm looking forward to seeing some posts here.

I do suggest that people visit John's site if you are looking for a unique print to treasure!

Asher