Stars over Ndutu

[Roger Clark]

5D Mark II, 20.0mm f/2.8 lens at f/2.8, ISO 3200, 30 seconds. I was imaging this scene at ISO 400 but went up to 3200 to get a brighter image to confirm my framing. Clouds were floating through the frame and this frame was my favorite, even though I would have preferred the lower ISO images, but I am still pleased with the result. The trees were lit by the porch lights from nearby cabins at Ndutu, Tanzania. I prefer lower ISOs to preserve the star colors. Color balance is sun for the star colors. View is to the north over the serengeti.

Roger

[Andrew Aveley]

I am not much of a ps guru but am wondering if you can not reduce the tone of porch lighting? I like the comp :bg3:

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Roger,
I like the way the huts lit the trees although I am with Andrew on the color....perhpas lulling back a bit on the yellows? I really like the way the light falls off into the distance too! Very nicely composed and the minor color tweak will be the las nice touch!

[dankearl]

I agree on the color and the lighting, but I think it has such potential, great comp and just a nice image.

[Dave Mills]

Hi Roger, Agree with the others on pulling back the yellows but I like very much how you framed the image with the few merges on the left. The sky compliments the image....

[Mark Farnan]

5D Mark II, 20.0mm f/2.8 lens at f/2.8, ISO 3200, 30 seconds. I was imaging this scene at ISO 400 but went up to 3200 to get a brighter image to confirm my framing. Clouds were floating through the frame and this frame was my favorite, even though I would have preferred the lower ISO images, but I am still pleased with the result. The trees were lit by the porch lights from nearby cabins at Ndutu, Tanzania. I prefer lower ISOs to preserve the star colors. Color balance is sun for the star colors. View is to the north over the serengeti.

Roger


I like it just as it is. There is still detail in the trees etc. The composition is great and nice sky detail as well.

The main concern with the yellow is that it is at saturation in a number of places, so would have printing issues most likley. That could be backed off a smidge, or at least adjusted with rendering intent if printing. (Not a print for Relative thats for sure)

As a suggstion however, clone out the bright light spot on the horizon about 1/3 up the main tree trunk (on its right). Super distracting when looking at the image, eye just gets dragged off the tree to that highlight.


On reflection, I'd also consider cropping a bit off the top to move the tree up the frame. Right now its a bit centered, and moving the top up to nearer the 1/3 line would be good. Not a full pano, but in that direction. That one however is purley 'to taste', as its pretty good already.

Regards

Mark

[Morkel Erasmus]

nice scape overall Roger but I do find the foreground a tad too yellow...I realise it is from the lodge lights but I think it can be tamed in such a way that it appears more natural?

[Roger Clark]

I reworked the image, trying to reduce the yellow. It is really difficult. The porch lights are very low wattage and look quite orange to the eye. An interesting effect is to put the image in photoshop and just look at the blue channel: the trees have zero light on them and look like silhouettes. There was a little red offset in the sky background, which I reduced in the rework. I increased the green a little to offset some of the yellow/orange, which mostly worked on the grass. Let me know what you think.

Roger

[Morkel Erasmus]

looks a tad better to me Roger, you can see a bit more texture in the trees too...

maybe another option would be to generate 2 RAW files, one with WB set to optmimise sky/star colours, and the other with a cold WB to tone down the foreground...then blend the 2 in PS?

[Andrew McLachlan]

Hi Roger, I prefer the repost to the original has the yellows have been tamed a bit. Very nice comp.

[Harshad Barve]

Hi Roger, I prefer the repost to the original has the yellows have been tamed a bit. Very nice comp.

Plus one here
TFS

[Mark Farnan]

Definitily like the repost more.

I'd still recomend cloning out that single bright spot next to the tree trunk.

Nice image regardless.

Regards

Mark

[Hilary Hann]

Agree with Mark on cloning out the bright spot next to the tree trunk. I like the warm feel that the colour of the lights has given the image, repost looks good. This just screams out 'African savannah', makes for an interesting change to Serengeti landscapes.

One comment regarding the yellow. I noticed that quite a few of your wildlife postings from this trip also had comments regarding yellow saturation. I wonder if there is a link with the processing, or if it is, perhaps, a tone which appears more closely aligned to what you felt you saw on the safari.

I really like this.

[Roger Clark]

Agree with Mark on cloning out the bright spot next to the tree trunk. I like the warm feel that the colour of the lights has given the image, repost looks good. This just screams out 'African savannah', makes for an interesting change to Serengeti landscapes.

One comment regarding the yellow. I noticed that quite a few of your wildlife postings from this trip also had comments regarding yellow saturation. I wonder if there is a link with the processing, or if it is, perhaps, a tone which appears more closely aligned to what you felt you saw on the safari.

I really like this.

Thanks Hilary,

I'm resistant in cloning out the light. It is from a distant camp so it part of the scene. But I will reduce its impact with some burning.

This image is lit by low wattage incandescent lights, so the trees should be yellow.

I do tend to like a warmer scene (I really liked velvia), so some is personal preference. I also like to image close to sunrise and sunset so that creates warmer colors too.

But I also admit that I'm my monitors at present are uncalibrated. I've completely changed computers. I was running XP with calibrated monitors (spyder 3) until February when the machine started dying. I've switched to an I7 system running ubuntu linux, with virtualbox running windows 7 as a guest and photoshop cs5 in windows. I've now got everything complete except the final step of making ICC profiles on the monitors and the final calibration. So not wanting to spend my life on system administration, I've started processing some images from my February trip. I've been checking images on multiple computers and monitors besides my linux machine and trying to come up with something I like. It is disturbing how much variation is out there regarding color and contrast, even among modern LCD displays. By the way, I really really like the linux machine and will not go back to windows. I use windows only for photoshop and one other program.

Having said all that, I'm doing more of my work flow in lab so that there is essentially no color shift when I use curves, so the color is reasonably close to how it came out of camera, except for some contrast and saturation boost. (Still way short of that velvia look.)

For the image with flies on the lioness, it was early morning and the lion was in a field with dry yellow grass and yellowish dirt. So besides the direct light, light reflected from the surroundings was yellow. Looking at the image on multiple monitors, I don't think it is too yellow. So I am comfortable with the yellow here (the stars image) and in other recent postings.

Roger

[Hilary Hann]

Roger, perfect explanation on the yellow and I'm very glad you have made your point so clearly. I am sure some of the critiquing of colour is done from the viewpoint of personal preference and is subjective to what the photographer experienced. I imagine that if we all remove colour casts from low sun angles and reflective influences, we will end up with a rather static palate of colour imagery.

As far as the white spot goes, if it was obvious that a camp was situated under the trees I would say that it should stay, but as the landscape was presented it just looked like a mistake and I suppose that is why a couple of us suggested removing it. It depends on what the photographer wants to illustrate and how it is presented to the viewer …

I have dabbled in lab, but it isn't intrinsic to my workflow yet. I shall have to reprocess some images using lab workflow and make a comparison, when I have time. I'm trying to simplify my workflow and if it helps that, which it should because the colour shifts are removed, then I should change sooner rather than later.

I think only someone with your technical knowledge will go down the linux path, I'm strictly a Mac person, nice and user friendly. :bg3:

Interesting thread. Thank you.