Thoughts on the exposure here?

[fjrabon]

This was shot right at sunrise, and due to the buildings, the sun hadn't actually lit the foreground area. I sort of wanted to capture that feeling of 'being in limbo between dawn and daylight' that happens in city areas like this.

But part of me just feels like it's underexposed. However, when I brighten it, it loses the atmosphere.

Also, there are two different B+W conversions, one for the sky and one for everything else. The one for the sky has some blue pulled darker, otherwise the sky is just pure white. Did that work or does it just look too artificial. I wanted the sky to have some texture.


DSC_0065 by franklinrabon, on Flickr

 

[unpopular]

For the most part, it looks good, just a little flat in the mid tones. I am not convinced if it conveys twilight, and there is some plugging in the trees and reflections, though this may not be entirely negative. Overall, not bad a bad conversion - mind posting a color version so that I take a crack at it?

 

[fjrabon]

For the most part, it looks good, just a little flat in the mid tones. I am not convinced if it conveys twilight, and there is some plugging in the trees and reflections, though this may not be entirely negative. Overall, not bad a bad conversion - mind posting a color version so that I take a crack at it?

Sure:


DSC_0065 - Version 2 by franklinrabon, on Flickr

non processed version isn't as sharp as I would have liked. I shot it in a tripod, and figured 1/30 would be fine. Then after I thought about it, I realized I was shooting on a mini suspension bridge, and a runner who had ran by a minute prior had made it vibrate, lol.

 

[unpopular]

deff not under exposed. brb.

 

[fjrabon]

deff not under exposed. brb.

Well, I meant that a part of me thought the conversion in the OP looked under exposed, not that the actual original was underexposed.

I knew that the sky was going to blow out regardless, and it was a completely detailess sky anyway, so it didn't matter, so I exposed it for full detail in the foreground in the camera, knowing I'd lower the lower mids in post at the time.

 

[unpopular]

LOL. All i'm coming up with are disasters!

I better go get something to eat before I ruin more stuff.

Anyway, no. I don't think it looks under exposed. Maybe the sky is a little dark, and the mid tones are a bit flat, which would give the impression of under exposure, but you have good hilights in the building.

 

[fjrabon]

LOL. All i'm coming up with are disasters!

I better go get something to eat before I ruin more stuff.

Anyway, no. I don't think it looks under exposed. Maybe the sky is a little dark, and the mid tones are a bit flat, which would give the impression of under exposure, but you have good hilights in the building.

Cool, thanks. I'll probably play with the curves and then blue level in the B+W conversion some more.

 

[unpopular]

... for some reason my b/w conversion techniques seem to only work on my images. I can't manage to get anything better than what you already have.

 

[fjrabon]

... for some reason my b/w conversion techniques seem to only work on my images. I can't manage to get anything better than what you already have.

Yeah, I think this one is tough, because you have the arch and main skyscraper that are very tonally similar, then you have the dark under part, and a blown out sky. You'd almost need to just completely do 3 different layers optimized for each (maybe even 4, separating the arch and main skyscraper) zone, balance them in your head and then put them together with layer masks to get much better than that, I think (though I'd love to be shown wrong if anybody sees anything).

Not sure I'm ready for that sort of fine tuned effort, yet... This is potentially part of a project I'm slowly assembling, and if it ends up making the final cut, I'll do what ti takes to get it as right as I can, but as of now I think I'll just let it sit. Maybe by the time I get back to it I'll have learned a few more things and it won't take but a couple of minutes. ha. I've definitely gone back to some old images I really struggled with when I was first starting with PP, and what I sat there for hours trying to get right, took a matter of minutes.

 

[AaronLLockhart]

looks like a 7:30am city morning to me... I wouldn't adjust it a bit. This is almost perfect on how it looks to the eye when you actually see it.

 

[rokvi]

I like it, depending what the surrounding area looks like, I'd like to see one done with a full reflection in the water as well.

 

[fjrabon]

AaronLLockhart:

looks like a 7:30am city morning to me... I wouldn't adjust it a bit. This is almost perfect on how it looks to the eye when you actually see it.​

Thanks. Yeah, I go back and forth on it. Sometimes I feel it's just right, other times I want to fiddle. I guess that's the nature of things though, ha.

rokvi:

I like it, depending what the surrounding area looks like, I'd like to see one done with a full reflection in the water as well.​

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Didn't really think about it at the time. The shot was taken from a bridge, and I was using a prime (35mm), so I don't think a whole lot of alternate views were possible at the time. Going on the other side of the pond would put the bridge squarely in the middle (and the bridge wasn't particularly attractive).

Perhaps I'll make it back to this location at some point with my wide angle. I have a feeling the perspective distortion you'd get on the skyscrapers would be a pain to fix if I shot it at, say, 15mm, as shooting portrait orientation with a wide angle of tall buildings is just asking for extreme perspective distortion (which is sometimes a cool effect, but not what I was going for here, given the sort of somber nature of the atmosphere). It's probably worth at least seeing what it looks like though, and if I could correct it to my liking, especially if it's a day when the pond is calmer and you get more clear reflections.