Old Fencepost project

[Sw1tchFX]

I have a friend who wants a picture of an old wooden fencepost out in the rural areas of our valley and wanted me to take it for him. I spent a little over a roll of ISO 100 Kodak Max color negative film for the shoot, along with my tripod, AF Nikkor 35-70mm f/2.8 and AF Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8.

Because the field that I was shooting was uncut, the 3-4-foot tall grass was waving in the wind. I stopped down most of my shots to f/22 to slow down the shutter enough where the field looked like it was a smooth wave while keeping the post and fence sharp. But because of lack of experience, I thought that 1/30th of a second was slow enough, but it really wasn’t. I guess I didn't go out there late enough where there wasn't much light, but by then, then wind would have died down.

The only good shots that came out were on my 80-200mm because my 35-70 exaggerated the perspective too much, and I also tried some shots at f/4 and 5.6 to minimize the DOF and try to isolate the subject—those became my favorite shots!

My friend wants this to be in B&W so feel free to edit the pictures I’ve uploaded. I'm on dialup, so I only sent my 2 favorite photos and resized them. The first one was photochopped for color correction and the 2nd one is the original that you all are free to edit (as long as you also have the .psd so I can see what you did and build on that or take notes)

This is a very important assignment for me and I really appreciate your help!

Photochopped:

Original:

 

[markc]

It think what would help this image the most is a crop to get the focus more balanced on the subjects. I like what you did in the forground, but the pine tree is just sort of sitting in the background. I think this crop helps with the interplay between them.



........................

http://photogs.net/tpf/33392-R1-27-9APF_EDIT-mod.psd

I played with the color a little bit. I may have gone overboard, but I usually work in b&w. I often have to let edits sit for a day and go back and tweak them. I used curves to bring out a little more shadow detail in the post.

Was this sharpened in camera? If so, I would turn off sharpening and only apply it after you have sized the image for whatever use you are making it for. Sharpening should be the very last thing you do.

 

[markc]

I just noticed, the crop also brings the horizon line up from cutting the image in half. It sounds odd, but a mid-horizon usually unbalances an image.

 

[Chase]

Markc had the exact same thought I did and the crop he posted matched exactly to what I would have suggested. I think its a really good shot and that extra cropping really makes it stand out for me.

 

[Sw1tchFX]

It think what would help this image the most is a crop to get the focus more balanced on the subjects. I like what you did in the forground, but the pine tree is just sort of sitting in the background. I think this crop helps with the interplay between them.



........................

http://photogs.net/tpf/33392-R1-27-9APF_EDIT-mod.psd

I played with the color a little bit. I may have gone overboard, but I usually work in b&w. I often have to let edits sit for a day and go back and tweak them. I used curves to bring out a little more shadow detail in the post.

Was this sharpened in camera? If so, I would turn off sharpening and only apply it after you have sized the image for whatever use you are making it for. Sharpening should be the very last thing you do.

I like the crop, good thing with 35mm is that the shots are detailed enough, that you can crop quite a bit out.

Because I’m on 35mm, no sharpening was involved. If I were to use sharpening, I would have to use Photoshop, and I would have to be using ISO film less than 50 in order for the sharpening to look half-way decent.

My friend wants this to be a B&W shot, but I like the color one instead. I'll keep tweaking it and I’ll post up a resized image for you all to look at.

Thanks for the feedback!


EDIT:

Thsi is what i've done in B+W, what do you think? I'm not sure about the balance of light and dark tones, but IMO it works out ok by the fence post comming up to the top of the photo.

 

[elsaspet]

Here is my rendition:
Heavy background burn, dodge on camera left of fencepost, hue bump, contrast bump, shapening:

 

[elsaspet]

and black and white:

 

[Sw1tchFX]

i like the border, I used it in the image below if thats ok.

Your rendition is way too contrasty for me, IMO the B+W has so much contrast that there is hardly any detail or shading in the shadowed wood grain. However, I saw that the extra contrast gave it sort of a pop, so I applied it a little by adjusting the levels and this is what I got:

IMO, This is the quality that I was going for as for a final image.

Thank You for the feedback, It let me see other alternatives to the original image!