This photograph was made on Sunday, October 4 along Rush Creek near Aerie Crag on the June Lake Loop during one of the many snow showers we all experienced that day. Paul and Lon were working nearby: a fun time was had by all!
I think this is worthy of a print. What do you think? Do you have any suggestions?
Tachihara 4x5
Astia 100-F
Thanks, as always for your comments!
-P
ps: jpg compresssion is killing the fine detail. Grrr.
Posted by Lon Overacker on October 27, 2009 at 5:00 PM
Preston,
Sweet! After seeing yours, I think you came away with the better comp - after I showed you and Paul...
I haven't scanned mine yet, but I was generally disappointed because I didn't capture the falling snow. Remember me asking you guys about the shutter speed? Well, I should have known better that I could have captured the snow with a faster ss. Oh well, I see you did the same thing. Because, It was snowing pretty good while we were there.
Anyway, I love your comp and would say this is definitely worth printing. For the web presentation though, I personally think this is a little bright overall and would tone down the highlights if it were mine. But not by much - I do think that the jpg loses contribute as well.
I'll post my version in the near future, but I can already say that I like yours better.
Lon
Posted by Derek Sedillo on October 27, 2009 at 6:28 PM
Preston,
This looks like nice composition. Unfortunately you are right about the jpeg compression. It is eating up the detail and it is hard to distinguish what is really going on. For example is that stuff on top of the grass snow? If so it is really hard to tell. I'm sure your original looks much better. Maybe just try another scan?
Nice one, Preston. Printer up !
I have to say mine does not have a similar composition look to it. I guess I'm odd man out again as I was late getting down to the creek and did not hear what our target area was to be.
It might have been my mad bomber hat getting in the way of hearing things too...... , but I was warm and toasty.....
Thanks for the comments, you all. They are much appreciated.
Derek: The original transparency has all the detail except for some areas of the whitest snow. The 1800 spi (samples per inch) scan (the optical resolution of my scanner) shows individual clumps of snow on the sedges.
I would not hesitate to make a 16x20 from this scan. Any larger print would be made from a drum scan, for sure.
The original pixel size of the image is 6288x8415 px. To take that and cram it into a 680x520 image @72 dpi with a resulting file size of 250KB is going to make any detailed image suffer greatly. I wish it were otherwise, but, well...that's the way it is.
I will take Lon's advice and look at the high values and will likely bring them down a notch after I make a proof print to see what's going on..
One thing I should mention is that the light was very flat. Therefore, distinct shadows were virtually nonexistant. Without some directional light, picking up any texture/detail in snow is, at best, very difficult, if not impossible to achieve.
I am not arguing your points; they are certainly valid for this web-sized image. I just wanted to give some background on this particular photograph so that one can understand the challenges presented by the scene and the lighting conditions at the time.
-P
Posted by Eric Good on October 27, 2009 at 8:14 PM
Very well composed! I particularly like the diagonal tension between well place rock and the opening in the distant forest. I'd pull back the highlights just a hair as Lon suggested and enjoy a nice print of this one. Good stuff!
Posted by Paul Duval on October 27, 2009 at 10:38 PM
Preston,
It's too bad your film images suffer web compression so badly. That's why it was a joy to see the big prints at the gathering. The comp is very nice, and with the rich detail in your larger image I'm sure it will make a fine print with a mystical quality from the falling snow. Snow is one of the hardest natural phenomena to capture well,not enough and it doesn't even show, to much it's a grey obscuring sheet and just right what shutter speed will render the flakes properly, just a trace of a motion blur to imply movement without making them annoying white streaks. I only have a few falling snow images that turned out well enough to print. Digital not film of course.
Paul
Posted by Steve Sieren on October 29, 2009 at 10:08 PM
Yes grrr Preston, the compression? Since I've seen your prints I'll have to run a little on imagination to see the details here. I like the yellows and greens mixing with the snow.
Posted by Dan Baumbach on October 30, 2009 at 10:10 AM
I like this very much, Prestion. It has a quietness about it that makes it very enjoyable to just look at.
Discussion
9 repliesThis photograph was made on Sunday, October 4 along Rush Creek near Aerie Crag on the June Lake Loop during one of the many snow showers we all experienced that day. Paul and Lon were working nearby: a fun time was had by all!
I think this is worthy of a print. What do you think? Do you have any suggestions?
Tachihara 4x5
Astia 100-F
Thanks, as always for your comments!
-P
ps: jpg compresssion is killing the fine detail. Grrr.
Sweet! After seeing yours, I think you came away with the better comp - after I showed you and Paul...
I haven't scanned mine yet, but I was generally disappointed because I didn't capture the falling snow. Remember me asking you guys about the shutter speed? Well, I should have known better that I could have captured the snow with a faster ss. Oh well, I see you did the same thing. Because, It was snowing pretty good while we were there.
Anyway, I love your comp and would say this is definitely worth printing. For the web presentation though, I personally think this is a little bright overall and would tone down the highlights if it were mine. But not by much - I do think that the jpg loses contribute as well.
I'll post my version in the near future, but I can already say that I like yours better.
Lon
This looks like nice composition. Unfortunately you are right about the jpeg compression. It is eating up the detail and it is hard to distinguish what is really going on. For example is that stuff on top of the grass snow? If so it is really hard to tell. I'm sure your original looks much better. Maybe just try another scan?
Derek
I have to say mine does not have a similar composition look to it. I guess I'm odd man out again as I was late getting down to the creek and did not hear what our target area was to be.
It might have been my mad bomber hat getting in the way of hearing things too......
Derek: The original transparency has all the detail except for some areas of the whitest snow. The 1800 spi (samples per inch) scan (the optical resolution of my scanner) shows individual clumps of snow on the sedges.
I would not hesitate to make a 16x20 from this scan. Any larger print would be made from a drum scan, for sure.
The original pixel size of the image is 6288x8415 px. To take that and cram it into a 680x520 image @72 dpi with a resulting file size of 250KB is going to make any detailed image suffer greatly. I wish it were otherwise, but, well...that's the way it is.
I will take Lon's advice and look at the high values and will likely bring them down a notch after I make a proof print to see what's going on..
One thing I should mention is that the light was very flat. Therefore, distinct shadows were virtually nonexistant. Without some directional light, picking up any texture/detail in snow is, at best, very difficult, if not impossible to achieve.
I am not arguing your points; they are certainly valid for this web-sized image. I just wanted to give some background on this particular photograph so that one can understand the challenges presented by the scene and the lighting conditions at the time.
-P
It's too bad your film images suffer web compression so badly. That's why it was a joy to see the big prints at the gathering. The comp is very nice, and with the rich detail in your larger image I'm sure it will make a fine print with a mystical quality from the falling snow. Snow is one of the hardest natural phenomena to capture well,not enough and it doesn't even show, to much it's a grey obscuring sheet and just right what shutter speed will render the flakes properly, just a trace of a motion blur to imply movement without making them annoying white streaks. I only have a few falling snow images that turned out well enough to print. Digital not film of course.
Paul
- Dan.