Island in the Sky

[Tom Shaffer]

Camera: Sony DSLR A700, 50mm, ISO 200, F 5.6 @ 1/125 Canyonland NP, UT

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Tom,
Welcome to the forum!
It would have been preferable to use a bit more DOF (f16 or 22)..........as the image does start to go a bit soft further back.........but the FG doesn't look that off as presented.........larger size may become an issue.......but still not bad.
I like the way you used the rock in the FG.....and am debating a crop off the bottom.......even though I like the crack on the LR........it does introduce some unwanted greenery........which isn't that appealing. This would have also been a very good time to use my signature split ND filter........this would have brought the more distant buttes and sky into a more pleasing tonal range..........as is...........you can try using a multiplied layer (scroll down till you find the step by step);http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php?t=22649
and see if that helps with the brightness there.....in a case like this............I will always opt for more DOF........and let the speed fall where it may. On a sturdy tripod.......there is no problems with slow speeds (unless it was really windy.....but you get the idea).
Hope to see plenty more!

[Tom Shaffer]

Roman:
Thank you for your comments. Let me fill you in on more detail on this image. I had to change a 68MB 16 bit Prophoto tiff image to an 8 bit sRGB jpg image at a compression level of 2 to get under 200MB (Very low quality). The two images look similar but not the same. The focal point was the brown cliffs miles from where I was. The island in the sky was about 20 miles away, so everything is within the hyperfocal distance of the lens setting (see Kodak pub. AA-26 Sept 1969). I have printed this as a 12x18 and it looks good to me.
The greenery in the foreground helps show the contrasts of this very harsh environment. It doesn?t bother me. In this part of the country the wind blows very hard more often than not. Perhaps raising the ISO to 400 would have let me stop down a little more. But would it have done anything for me? I don?t know.

Tom Shaffer

[Chris Starbuck]

Tom,
About file size... (I'm assuming you're using Photoshop.) If you just "Save as" jpeg, all the metadata is included in the file, using up a huge amount of space out of the allocated 200KB, and the dialog only gives you crude control over size via the quality setting. Instead, select "Save for web", and in the dialog that comes up first select jpeg format and set the quality to highest, then click on the small black triangle at the upper right (the flyout menu) and select "Optimize for file size". That brings up another dialog; enter "200KB". That will optimize for the highest quality that will fit within the specified size, without including any of the metadata. Last step is Save, which brings up the usual "Save As" dialog.

[Tom Shaffer]

Thanks Chris, that info will be useful.
Tom

[Robert Amoruso]

Tom,

Good looking image with lots of potential. I downloaded the image and sharpened the BG mesa and agree that DOF was not sufficient to cover the full range of distances in this image. You would have needed to use f/16 at least. I am writing a eZIne article on DOF or Hyperfocal Distance that will delve into this in great detail. I suggest you keep an eye out for it.

In the repost I used a curves adjustment to darken the sky and mesa. Of course this darkens the rest of the image so I masked out that part below the mesa. As mentioned, I sharpened the BG using USM on a BG copy at 120/0.2/0 two times. Though the sharpness increased it is still soft due to the DOF issue. Again I masked out the USM affects on the FG in a manner similar to the curves adjustment by creating a mask on the BG copy and painting black on the FG up to the mesa. See the link below regarding Artie's posting JPG creation. This is the way I do it.

You might also want to try a reverse s-curve on the whole image to reduce the high contrast some. See my tonal corrections link below for details.

My tonal corrections can be found at http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php?t=20434

Arties's JPG creation at http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php?t=5598 will help you with preparing JPGs for posting. Go about 2/3 rds of the way down in Artie's posting.