Hi there,

I wanted to share some pics with you. I already posted a plethora of pictures on dpreview, so I'll include a link (below the 3 photos) to that post where you can see more photos.

All made with a Nikon D2h, early october 2005:







This is a link to the dpreview post with 29 photos.

Great shots. What was the focal length of the lense you were using? Rustin

Hi Rustin, thanks!

These were at 12mm; I used a Nikkor 12-24DX lens for these shots, and in fact used the 12mm posotion most of the time.
I also brought a 18-70DX which came in handy sometimes, but I usually switched to 12mm when going wide.

These are beautiful. Was the last image of the desert sands enhanced for color?

Lou

Hi Loopman,

yes it was, I used ACR to convert the RAW file, introduced lots of contrast, a severe vignette and toned down the exposure. Additionally, I dialed in some warmer WB until it looked like this.

Hey Sander,

I know you just stated how you did these images, but it might be it would be interesting to see how you took an original image and broke it down into the art that you finally produced. It seems that your post processing skills are as good as your photographic ones!

James

Hi James, that's a good idea.

I'll make a comparison composition with ACR settings tonight, if time permits.

Here's a comparison between a Death Valley RAW file seen at default settings, and the RAW file seen after I made the ACR adjustments.



The picture was of course taken, on the Badwater Saltflats.

On top, you see the settings at 'Camera Raw Defaults', what is different from the standard settings however, is the fact that I have saved adjustments to my 'Calibrate' tab to represent the D2h color profile. I learned about doing this at dpreview.

The below view shows you what settings I adjusted in ACR, most importantly you see a boost of contrast and saturation. This is of course a personal taste, I'm still trying to find a style I like. I tried raising shadows without blowing highlights by reducing the exposure and increasing the brightness, finally I tuned WB slightly, but pulled up the tint all the way to +50 for a very punchy sunset horizon. The image also looks good with a tint setting of +25 (more natural look) but I opted for this one instead.

Additionally, I've added a vignette from the 'Lens' tab, with the settings -35 & 0.

This is a pretty typical example, hope someone has any use of this.

Wow. Thanks for taking the time to do this. How did you get your screen to appear here?

Lou

Hey Sander,

Let me second Lou's statement and thank you for making the effort to do this. So, all of the corrections are done in the raw file then? Nothing done in PS outside of ACR raw? Perhaps it is time I started using it as it looks like it gives you some nice options that CO does not.

James