The dunes..

[Don Railton]

Hi Guys

Some time ago I posted a shot of the milky way taken from a National park some 2 hours drive north of Perth (the Pinnacles)... To get to this park I drove past sand dunes that took my eye at the time and I made a mental note to get back to them as they looked very inviting and accessible, quite beautiful in fact. In a rush of blood to the head I decided yesterday should be that day, which took an even bigger rush to get sufficient gear into the SUV so I could stay the night to get a sunrise as well as catch the evenings sunset which was going to happen way too soon for me. So I refueled and rushed off into the afternoon, promptly forgetting my boots and the GPS....

After getting lost slightly (where is that GPS..) I eventually found access and slogged my way up onto a set of dunes in time, lugging a pelican case in one hand and my 5 series Gitzo in the other, pack on my back with everything else I though I might need. Arrived with sore feet but I'm at least I'm here... What followed was a quite wonderful couple of hours with the camera where the dunes & the sky went through a lot of colour changes and I managed ~500 images, most of which I am quite happy with.. the only down side is that there was a lot of wind and the sand was blowing across the ground in a stinging stream. I was quite glad I had the Pelican to protect my gear and I used a towel to wrap around the camera & lens that was on the tripod... Mental note to self, get/make a hood to protect camera and lens from rain that will also work with sand...pronto.

So this image was taken with the 1D4 and my 24 to 70 F2.8 at 70mm. Exposure at 2 sec at F14, ISO 160. All sitting on the tripod of course. Its actually a stitch of two images to make a pano in a 2:1 aspect ratio. Stitched the RAW images then processed in CS6, but I have looked at quite a few images today and I don't remember exactly what I did with this one...

DON

[Morkel Erasmus]

Nice soft tones here Don, and a nice enough view/composition.

I would crop off the bottom where the ridges in the sand draw my eye, should provide more flow in the comp?
I think it can stand a slight tweak in the exposure/histogram?

Enjoyed the story of how you got the shot - can we expect some more from this outing? :t3

[Andrew McLachlan]

Hi Don, beautiful image and do agree on a slight crop from the bottom too. I love the sky tones and the curve in the dune is nicely placed as well.

[dankearl]

I like it a lot Don, has a nice soft feel and some nice shapes..
Did you stick around for star photos?

[Don Railton]

Thanks Guys.. I did try briefly removing those marks from the bottom of the frame but was not happy with the result so left them in (had time constraints) to see if they would be noticed..Yup, they were, thought as much, maybe I should not have posted... Morkel, I have others I will show once I get them done. DAn, unfortunately I decided to make a dash home to get out of the sand so no star photos. I wanted to get home before the wife got to bed so I dident scare the ___ out of her on my unexpected return. I have found out today that there was a celestial event that evening I dident know about that i would have been in the perfect place to view/photograph. Apparently the sun, the moon and Mars were all just above the horizon and visible at the same time. I noticed the new moon but... I have decided to make a return visit, probably towards the winter when Perth's famous sea breeze (read gale) is a little less common.

DON

[Steve Smith]

Hi Don - beautiful and peaceful image. Echoing the other comments, I like the sky tones very much. - Steve Smith

[Don Lacy]

Hi Don I really like the comp of this and I think you have beautiful lines and a nice sweep to the image. However I think the image is way to flat lacks contrast and was under exposed at the time of capture I did some quick edits I mean really quick just to give you an ideal of what I am talking about when it comes to the tonalities of the image, all I did was adjust the white and black points with a curve adjustment added some tonal contrast to the sand on the front side of the dune and finished with a slight vignette of the corners. I say the image was underexposed by the histogram of the version you posted its peak information is of center to the left if you would have pushed the exposure to the right you could have pulled it back down in the raw conversion giving you much better shadow detail free of noise. also when you look at the histogram of your version it is bunched up with no values at either end. For most images you want a histogram that is spread out with information in both the dark values and the bright values. I posted screen shots of both histograms with the before at top and after I processed it at the bottom so you can see what i am talking about.

[Don Railton]

Thanks Don.

You have identified a dilemma I had when i processed these, and I think i will have another go tonight. The 'out of camera' Histograms were very compact, and spreading the white and black points (in my work flow first steps) made things look 'unreal', I think now because the WB was way off and made the white sand turned an unrealistic gold colour... Thanks for the encouragement and the help...

DON

[Diane Miller]

Thanks Guys.. I did try briefly removing those marks from the bottom of the frame but was not happy with the result so left them in (had time constraints) to see if they would be noticed..Yup, they were, thought as much, maybe I should not have posted... Morkel, I have others I will show once I get them done. DAn, unfortunately I decided to make a dash home to get out of the sand so no star photos. I wanted to get home before the wife got to bed so I dident scare the ___ out of her on my unexpected return. I have found out today that there was a celestial event that evening I dident know about that i would have been in the perfect place to view/photograph. Apparently the sun, the moon and Mars were all just above the horizon and visible at the same time. I noticed the new moon but... I have decided to make a return visit, probably towards the winter when Perth's famous sea breeze (read gale) is a little less common.

DON

AH -- so that was Mars! I had set up my Astrotrac before dark to try for the Orion Nebula and when I went out in the dusk to do the final work before shooting, I saw it. I would have set up the 600 and shot it but the big tripod doubles for the Astrotrac and I didn't want to take it down and start over. I need a better intelligence service! If there was anything on Spaceweather.com I missed it.

Don Lacy's correction is an excellent one -- the image is wonderful and deserves the best tonal rendering. It is difficult to see where things could go when the initial raw is flat, which it often is. Not always the maker's fault -- sometimes it's just the light. ETTR does work well in those situations though.

[Don Railton]

AH -- so that was Mars! I had set up my Astrotrac before dark to try for the Orion Nebula and when I went out in the dusk to do the final work before shooting, I saw it. I would have set up the 600 and shot it but the big tripod doubles for the Astrotrac and I didn't want to take it down and start over. I need a better intelligence service! If there was anything on Spaceweather.com I missed it.

Don Lacy's correction is an excellent one -- the image is wonderful and deserves the best tonal rendering. It is difficult to see where things could go when the initial raw is flat, which it often is. Not always the maker's fault -- sometimes it's just the light. ETTR does work well in those situations though.

I took what was told to me at face value so I think it was Mars but I have not checked. I do like that spot however and have been somewhat seduced by those hills and the curves/lines within. The fact that I can shoot the afternoon light and then stars and if I sleep over get the sunrise as well makes the 1.5hr trip north really worthwhile...

DON