View from our house, typical morning.

[tasadam]

Well if I have to get up this early, I may as well make good use of the time - grab the camera.



The guf -
22/5/06 6:57 am. Cold and lots of frost.
Nikon D70 and Nikon 18-200 F3.5 - 5.6 G VR lens (the new one)
F stop F22
2.5 second exposure, tripod mounted, VR off, Noise Reduction ON.
18mm focal length
Anti-frost feature off (not installed [yet - winter is fast approaching])

Opened the raw image in Photoshop and had a play. Removed 2 small dust bunnies. Removed a distant power pole and wires from the horizon on the left.

Corrected colour balance - it was a bit warm so I played with the levels as much as I thought it needed and saved that, then undid all my playing and chose Auto Levels and saved that. Compared the photos - Auto wins.

Thought about brightening the star but its subtlety makes it interesting.

Bumped the sharpness up to the mid 60's.

Corrected Chromatic Arberration this much (200% view)

Note the level here is 0



That about sums up what I think of the 18-200 VR lens. Great for snaps but not so good for the serious stuff.

So, you like my view? BTW for those that REALLY like it, a bigger file copy is here

My first image post in a long time - I now have some respectable internet speed so it is no longer painful to do. YAY!

[johnd]

So, you like my view?

Nice view Adam, real nice. That's one thing many of us are lucky to have in Tas, nice views from our houses.

I also got up early this morning, down at Constitution Dock in Hobart about 6.30am to get some sunrise shots. Only trouble is huge amounts of cloud and no nice colours. Took a few shots but haven't even bothered to take them out of the camera. Maybe tomorrow morning or tonight for sunset, though rain is forecast in Hobart.

I like your image but I might be tempted to cheat a bit and move the moon and star down closer to the horizon and cut out a lot of the sky. That would tend to make the view a more prominent feature of the image. Would take a bit of subtle photoshopping but might work.

Cheers
John

[tasadam]

I might be tempted to cheat a bit and move the moon and star down closer to the horizon and cut out a lot of the sky. That would tend to make the view a more prominent feature of the image.

I thought of that, so I got up early the next couple of mornings hoping the moon would be closer to the horizon, but the tide was wrong.
That's an island in the middle of the river. Less water = mud.
I'm not that good with PS yet. Only just mastering the brush!

[CraigVTR]

Nice Shot. I really like the lowdown you have given on the pp. I think I have learnt more reading your post than what I would have learnt playing around in PS.
Thanks
Craig

[admajic]

Hey there. Great shot. Love the blue sky! The reflective water!

Heres a few comments. The sky has some grain, so id have tried to remove that. Also the shot seems mega narrow and I found myself just looking at the sky. When I noticed the lake I thought wow! So I would have maybe cropped differently? Maybe show us one of more lake, less ground and Visa versa. BTW I love your backyard. Mine is surrounded by wooden and brick fences

Regard,

Adam

Edit: typos

[tasadam]

The sky has some grain, so id have tried to remove that.

How? I used ISO 200 on the D70, that's the best you can do with it. What trick do I not know about to reduce / remove grain from a photo?

the shot seems mega narrow and I found myself just looking at the sky.

I wanted to include the moon but it was so high. I was at 18mm so I couldn't get any more in. Someone suggested cropping out some of the sky and still keeping the moon. Due to the gradual light fade in the sky, this task requires some PP'ing far beyond my skills with it.

As I said, I tried the next couple of mornings to catch a lower moon, but the tide was wrong. (river, not lake).

Cheers.

[owen]

I often use the blur tool in the sky to remove grain. Be careful not to blur anything that you mean to keep sharp though.

[Glen]

Adam, nice image and great view from your house. The graduations in blue up to the moon make it.



You mentioned you know have good internet access, you probably understand why we have an 800 pixel limit on the largest dimension. Yours is 1024 pixels.

[Laurie]

i like it, however i think that the 3 dark blobs at the bottom of the photo (left right and middle) are a distraction from the horizon and sky

[Yi-P]

Good shot there, I like the moon being included and not blown out...

Did you use any filter there?

[Steffen]

Very nice! I missed your post on Saturday...

You also managed to include Venus, cool!

Cheers
Steffen.

[tasadam]

Did you use any filter there?

No filter, apart from the standard UV to protect the lens.

[tasadam]

You mentioned you know have good internet access, you probably understand why we have an 800 pixel limit on the largest dimension. Yours is 1024 pixels.

Bugger it is too. And the file size is only 54Kb, without removing Exif info.
So what would I do to get a file at 800pix max, and not compressed to these levels? What is an acceptable level of compression without destroying the image properties?

Perhaps since I have 2 versions of the file saved, I should have made 2
thumbnails, advertising file size on each link - that could work?

I just took a look at a few other random image posts and discovered the typical size for an 800 max image seems to be above 200k. Is there a limit on file size (Kb) as well or is it just the pixels?

Off to learn more about settings for saving files....

[tasadam]

You mentioned you know have good internet access, you probably understand why we have an 800 pixel limit on the largest dimension. Yours is 1024 pixels.

Is there a limit on file size (Kb) as well or is it just the pixels?

Ahh forget that. I just visited the home page and found this.

[Glen]

You mentioned you know have good internet access, you probably understand why we have an 800 pixel limit on the largest dimension. Yours is 1024 pixels.

Bugger it is too. And the file size is only 54Kb, without removing Exif info.
So what would I do to get a file at 800pix max, and not compressed to these levels? What is an acceptable level of compression without destroying the image properties?

Perhaps since I have 2 versions of the file saved, I should have made 2
thumbnails, advertising file size on each link - that could work?

I just took a look at a few other random image posts and discovered the typical size for an 800 max image seems to be above 200k. Is there a limit on file size (Kb) as well or is it just the pixels?


Off to learn more about settings for saving files....

Adam, can tell you use Photoshop CS, just use the "save for the web" feature, it gives yopu the file size, you can also set the size. CS will also show you the size in kb.

The file size limit is 200k with a suggestion of under 100k. These details are in the FAQ, have been since last year. The post of Gary's on the front page is a reminder.

[tasadam]

Cheers, thanks.

[johnd]

Adam, can tell you use Photoshop CS, just use the "save for the web" feature, it gives yopu the file size, you can also set the size. CS will also show you the size in kb.

The file size limit is 200k with a suggestion of under 100k. These details are in the FAQ, have been since last year. The post of Gary's on the front page is a reminder.

Glen, Adam, for what it's worth I don't use Save for Web as it strips off exif. To get down to the 800pix size, I use Image Size and set the longest dimension at 800 or 600 or whatever. Then Save As, make it a jpeg and use the quality slider to get it down to whatever KBs you want.

Actually I do use Save for Web in one case, and that's to create an avatar that fits under the 6KB limit. I wasn't able to get it down to 6KB any other way.

Cheers
John