ISO 400 f/9 1/5000sec 12mm
Category Archives: 11-22mm Lens
Made with Luminar: Fountain on a Hill
The Fontana dell’Acqua Paolo is sometimes just called “the big fountain” with good reason. It’s pretty big. That creates a photography challenge. It’s also built on a hill which can make it a challenge to get a photo that looks straight. My original file looks like this:
ISO 640 f/9 1/1250sec 13mm
I’ve used the straighten function within the crop tool and the lens distortion feature in Luminar 3 to deal with that issue:
ISO 640 f/9 1/1250sec 13mm
From there I went to some more creative edits. The Luminar Look applied here is Analog Film. That made for a nice starting point, but it was a dramatic filter, too dramatic for this photo so I’ve made several changes most of which involved moving sliders down. I then added a layer with the filters golden hour, accent ai, and vignette. I’ve used all the filters sparingly. I was looking to boost the natural drama of the fountain in the late afternoon light. Feel free to let me know what you think of the outcome in the comment section below.
The Made with Luminar Series
This image is part of a project I am calling Made with Luminar. What the images in this series have in common is the software used to edit them, Luminar 3. As with my usual blog posts particulars of the camera settings can be found in the caption below the image. The text of these posts include the Luminar “Looks” that have been applied to the photo. Each look is a series of presets that are applied to the photo. Where applicable I will mention what changes I have made to any of the looks. A full explanation of looks is available here on their website, https://skylum.com/luminar/user-guides/chapter-14-working-with-luminar-looks
You can assume other edits have been applied. My most common edits are cropping, detail enhancement, and vignette. Specific questions or thoughts on the image are welcome in the comment section below.
Cheers!
Added to Tuesday Photo Challenge, Slope.
Made With Luminar: Lurking in the Background
One of the real pleasures of photo-editing is working on older files. It’s like revisiting a moment. Pompeii was a place I had been interested in since childhood, so it was a big deal for me to visit. This photo is one of the ruins with Mt. Vesuvius in the background:
ISO 640 f/10 1/1600 sec 22mm
I wanted this particular edit to be a bit dreamy. Like a memory. The dreamy like feel almost but not entirely taking the edge off the reality that what created the ruins in the foreground is peacefully sitting in the background:
ISO 640 f/10 1/1600 sec 22mm
Does this work as a subtle horror image? My guess is only if you know the history of the area does it work in that way. Otherwise, it looks like a lovely sunny day. Your thoughts on this are welcome below.
Luminar filters applied, Denoise, Image Radiance, Matte Look, Orton Effect. Also added the LUT, 1960’s, set to 32%.
The Made with Luminar Series
This image is part of a project I am calling Made with Luminar. What the images in this series have in common is the software used to edit them, Luminar 3. As with my usual blog posts particulars of the camera settings can be found in the caption below the image. The text of these posts include the Luminar “Looks” that have been applied to the photo. Each look is a series of presets that are applied to the photo. Where applicable I will mention what changes I have made to any of the looks. A full explanation of looks is available here on their website, https://skylum.com/luminar/user-guides/chapter-14-working-with-luminar-looks
You can assume other edits have been applied. My most common edits are cropping, detail enhancement, and vignette. Specific questions or thoughts on the image are welcome in the comment section below.
Cheers!
Added to Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, Creepy.
Wordless Wednesday, Triumphant Indeed
Arch of Titus, Rome:
ISO 640 f/10 1/640sec 11mm
What I Am Working On: Embrace Your Situation
I really enjoy photography but I also have a life that has a lot of other moving parts which means photography can’t always be my main focus. It puts me in the category of “enthusiast” rather than “professional”. In my mind (and life) one of the differences between those two categories is that I have to take the picture when I have the opportunity instead of setting up to go at a certain time based on ideal shooting conditions. My trip to Berlin near Christmas time is an example of this. I’d never been, do you think I am going to pass up the opportunity to take photos of the Brandenburg Gate? I can assure you that I did not. However, my chance to be there was on an overcast day at 10 in the morning:
ISO 500 f/18 1/60sec 17mm
It was every bit the iconic spot I’d read about and seen photos of even if this particular file doesn’t really seem to express that. Now what? I could have a bit of a moan about not having the right opportunity or gear but to be honest, I had a really good time in Berlin and wouldn’t want to have messed up everyone else just for the chance to photograph this differently, I also do not need one more piece of kit.
So this is my file and my challenge. What would I like to bring to it? A first edit focused on the warm tones I saw in the stones. The edit was fine but not too interesting to me as it turned out. I let the file sit for a few months then came back to it this week. This time I really saw the couple in the foreground, they seemed to be contemplating the spot in a way that I felt I could relate to, so that became the focus of my edit:
ISO 500 f/18 1/60sec 17mm
I’ve used a crop, mostly because the file had too much around the edges that wasn’t necessary. I went black and white and slightly grainy and not too crazy with any kind of sharpening. I feel like these edits made it more universal, more of a story than a news article. I’ve used a vignette to help focus on the couple. The center of the vignette is set right on them. In Luminar there is a slider within the vignette that is marked “inner brightness” this helped them stand out even more.
The end result is an image that I am happy with. Your thoughts on the edits or your approach to mixing photography and the rest of your life are welcome below.
Cheers!
Added to Tuesday Photo Challenge, City.
It’s the View, Sort-Of
I enjoy touring churches. I find their history to be interesting and often a reflection of the people that interact with it. And then there is the view that they offer:
ISO 1600 10mm f/11 1/640sec
This photo was taken from Lincoln Cathedral in December. They offer several types of tours including the opportunity to go up and see the inner workings of the building. I have a fear of heights, but I love these types of tours. This tour and resulting photos are where I am this week in terms of editing my files. We had a lovely weekend in Lincoln, but it was December, so it was a bit grey and a bit cold. Not too bad by English standards though. The sky that day was kind of a fascinating grey. For my edit, I decided to step out of my usual “as shot” edit and try something a bit different. Here is the result:
ISO 1600 10mm f/11 1/640sec
What I’ve done here is to warm the color by using the luminance sliders. I then created another layer and converted it to black and white. Then using a brush and a mask, I erased the black and white out of the Cathedral building. Then I dropped the opacity level of the black and white layer just a bit, that’s what is causing the hint of color in the surrounding buildings.
This photo is more interpretation than fact, what do you think of it? Feel free to leave a comment below.
And the Number of the Cameras Shall be Three
Do any looking online about photography and you are going to run into all kinds of information about the kind of gear you have to have. Welcome to my version of that. It goes something like this, what do you have? what are you willing to haul along? good, great, let’s go! Today it’s to the Church of Panaghia Kapnikarea, said to be the oldest Greek Orthodox Church in Athens:
ISO 800 10mm f/22 1/80sec
That’s the photo I took using my Canon 50D.
ISO 200 4.3mm f/2.7 1/125 sec
That’s the photo I took using my Canon PowerShot.
ISO 25 4.2mm f/22 1/337 sec
That’s the photo I took using my iPhone.
That’s right, I was willing to haul three cameras around Athens, and you bet I used all three. The Canon 50D I took with a wide-angle lens. It’s good at getting a full building shot in a city. That particular shot was taken in the RAW format which meant plenty of data for later editing. For that edit, I went with a warm vintage look in homage to the color of the stones and the age of the building.
The second photo was taken with my Canon PowerShot which is a point and shoot camera that does not have RAW capability. What it does do nicely is handle color well, even in low light situations, so I often use it when I am capturing the detail of something. In this case, it’s the radiance of that mosaic.
The third shot was taken using my iPhone. Often when I am in a new place and taking photos, I get a shot using my iPhone because I keep GPS data on and I use these types of photos later to confirm the exact location of where I was which helps with things like figuring out how to spell the name of this church.
Have you spotted the no photography sign on the church door? While I find that disappointing, I’m ok with that, so I stowed all three cameras and went inside to take a look. Sometimes just having the memory of an experience is sufficient, regardless of how many cameras you are carrying.
How do you decide what gear to haul? do you have a go-to set up for shooting in the city? Feel free to leave a comment about that or the edits I chose in the comment section below.
Cheers!
Added to Tuesday Photo Challenge, Radiant and Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge, Three.
What I Am Working On: Mixing it Up
Sometimes it is fun to try a different approach to your photo editing. It can be a way to create a unique image of a familiar place. This was one of my photos of the Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Athens:
ISO 800 10mm f/22 1/200 sec
It’s a very imposing structure and a popular photo spot. For frequent readers of this blog, you may notice the little church tucked away on the right-hand side? That’s the church you saw in my recent post about creating a vintage photo look.
When I took this particular photo I was interested in two things. First, the story that I see of the man walking past and looking up at the cathedral. Second, what I think he is looking at, the mosaic in the facade. These are the things I want to emphasise in my final photo.
This is the outcome of my edit:
ISO 800 10mm f/22 1/200 sec
My first edits were done while the file was still in full color. I cropped the image and got rid of the security camera on the left. I boosted the details and also the luminosity of the image. Then on a second layer, I converted the image to black and white. I added a mask and used the brush tool to reveal the color of the mosaic. Luminar 3 has a filter called “top/bottom lighting” and that is what I used next instead of a vignette. The filter allows you to pick a focus point. I put that point on the man who is looking up. You can also change the axis of the filter, I tilted it on an angle; then pulled the top portion up towards the mosaic. From there I made the top darker and the bottom lighter using the sliders provided. I think this helps the image tell the story I was after, but what do you think? Feel free to leave a comment below.
Cheers!
Added to Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, Unique.
What I Am Working On: Vintage Photo Look, Again
This post is a follow-on to this post I wrote last week about creating your own vintage photo look. As I wrote in that post, this is the video I followed as a starting point. I’m going to talk a bit more about that particular look I created and then show a second one. So that you can see the differences in the two looks, I will show them both on the same photo. I’ll also be including screenshots of what my settings look like for the edits. The file I am using is this one:
ISO 800 22mm f/22 1/160sec
This is a Byzantine-era church that sits in the shadow of the Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Athens. Both churches are beautiful, but for different reasons. The first vintage style look I created looks like this when applied:
ISO 800 22mm f/22 1/160sec
And here is a screenshot of the edits:
The second look when applied is this one:
ISO 800 22mm f/22 1/160sec
And here are the settings for it:
I hope that you found the screenshots of the settings useful and the fact that the edits are done on the same file to be helpful as a point of comparison. Do you prefer one of the looks over the other? I welcome your feedback and thoughts in the comment section below. I have saved both of these settings for application in other files I’ll be working with.
Cheers!
Added to Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge, Two.
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