Old Church

[Travis]

hmm, bummer - the branches of that main tree are great... but talk about a nightmare cloning out those spruce...

yeah... not my style... photoshoping reminds me of doing homework in school.... there will be more tree's without distraction... i will find them and shoot them.. it's the best part of the hobby..........

[tegan]

On the first shot I really wanted to use the tree in the rear... it's a beautiful tree... however it got lost in the shot.. and it distracted me from the stairs...

well.. i gotta do some black and white here and there... especially with an old subject like this... tell me what steps i should take to improve the exposure/tones etc... camera settings? something I should do in post? you know i'm not big on post so give me some camera setting tips...

Well, with your permission, I can show you a one click improvement of your black and white image in postprocessing. I do post, but I prefer fast post. A second post option is an excellent black and white software filter which emphasizes tones from Nik software.

As to camera settings, are you using the black and white setting in the camera menu? Some cameras have a backlighting mode which would fit this image too. Most have an option for spot metering (on the building) which I would also use. Another option is using a linear neutral grad filter tilted to the left side to cover part of the sky so that you could boost the exposure for the building to get more detail. Still another option is to reduce contrast in camera and then selectively (sky and building separately) increase it in post.

Another reason I don't like black and white is that it takes one heck of a lot of work in camera and post to get it technically right, despite any possible issues with compostion. Many black and white enthusiasts say that film is still better for black and white. I can't say that I have seen any excellent digital black and white work on the net, so perhaps they are correct.

Tegan

[Travis]

you have permission to edit my photos any time..... i'm here to learn....

I posted these photo's from the house so I don't have the exif data on them... but I'm pretty sure I used the onboard BW function...

I have been reading Peterson's Understanding Exposure and experimenting with his metering methods. I think I shot manual @ f9 and took a center weighted reading from the sky to adjust shutter... either that or I metered the grass and adjusted shutter to achevie a -2/3 exposure..... i'm not sure his book is relevant with the advent of matrix metering...

I didn't think to spot meter the church because I figured it would blow out the sky.....

If you have a fast post method share it up....

a grad filter is something I've been thinking about picking up... i think it would be the best option for this kinda shot...

do you have recommendations for a commonly used linear filter? how many stops from top to bottom?

[tegan]

This was done with one click of the "Enhance Photo" bar item in Paint Shop Pro X2. You can get a 30 day download free from www.corel.ca.

Tegan

[tegan]

As to grad filters Cokin and Heller are the most common and Cokin is probably easier to get a hold of. I would recommend a 2 stop.

Tegan

[Travis]

As to grad filters Cokin and Heller are the most common and Cokin is probably easier to get a hold of. I would recommend a 2 stop.

Tegan

Thanks... I wasn't sure how many stops is common....to be honest I'm having a hard time A/B'ing the two photos because they are on different pages...