Palouse Falls FIsh Eye: One Way

[Arthur Morris]

This 3-frame in-camera Art Vivid HDR image was created at 8:35pm yesterday, June 7, 2014 at Palouse Falls State Park, WA, with the tripod-mounted Canon EF 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye USM Fisheye Ultra-Wide Zoom Lens at 15mm and the Canon EOS 5D Mark III . ISO 400. Evaluative metering +1 1/3 stops +/- two stops around the base exposure of 1/5 sec. at f/20 in Av mode. Live View and 2-second timer.

Gitzo 3530 LS tripod with the Giottos MH 1302-655 (Tiny) BallHead. Wimberley P-5 camera body plate.Live View (for mirror lock-up) with the 2-second self timer.
AI Servo Rear Focus AF on the waterfall and recompose. Click here if you missed the Rear Focus Tutorial.

Don't be shy; all comments welcome. No microscopic of LAB color analyses permitted :).

Two see an 8mm and a 35mm version of the falls, see the Recipe for Success/Palouse Three Ways blog post here.

We waited for hours for the sun to disappear and for a lovely pink-purple sky; alas.....

[dankearl]

A very well photographed falls but you did a nice job making it a bit different with the lens.
The comp is perfect for the falls and the canyon.
I would crop off a lot of the sky.......
It seems a bit contrasty and over sharpened but that could be from compression.

[Don Railton]

Hi Artie

I really like the composition/image design. It's quite a different view with the fisheye lens. I am not familar with the in camera HDR function but I do find the greens a bit too saturated for my taste and agree with Dans comment about the image appearing contrasty or over sharpened... Maybe this is the HDR effect kicking in??

best regards

DON

[Don Nelson]

Artie
Something appears wrong in the post -- there is a black then white stripe across the bottom, and just above it is a partial image line followed by gradations into solid black line. The image itself is posted as a PNG, and appears overly crunchy; like the first image that comes out of a jpg (which gets overwritten with a more detailed second version). With film, you'd call this a reticulation effect....

[Arthur Morris]

A very well photographed falls but you did a nice job making it a bit different with the lens.
The comp is perfect for the falls and the canyon.
I would crop off a lot of the sky.......
It seems a bit contrasty and over sharpened but that could be from compression.

Thanks Dan. LIkely from the HDR Art Vivid... There is always a price....

[Arthur Morris]

Hi Artie

I really like the composition/image design. It's quite a different view with the fisheye lens. I am not familar with the in camera HDR function but I do find the greens a bit too saturated for my taste and agree with Dans comment about the image appearing contrasty or over sharpened... Maybe this is the HDR effect kicking in??

best regards

DON

Thanks Don. Agree on the effects of HDR. Though I like the GREENs bad on me for not saving one of the original RAW files...

[Arthur Morris]

Artie
Something appears wrong in the post -- there is a black then white stripe across the bottom, and just above it is a partial image line followed by gradations into solid black line. The image itself is posted as a PNG, and appears overly crunchy; like the first image that comes out of a jpg (which gets overwritten with a more detailed second version). With film, you'd call this a reticulation effect....

Sounds like a browser or internet connection problem. No black lines here..... And I uploaded only a JPG :). Thanks for all of your help with the trip.

[Dvir Barkay]

Awesome place and shot Arthur. Agree with the others on the too sharp and jaggedy look. I think a bit less sky would help as well. How are you sharpening it?

[Morkel Erasmus]

Artie - I agree it's a nice perspective/comp, and I also agree on the grittiness/oversharpening. When you use this mode, doesn't it automatically save the source RAW files?

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks Dvir and Mork-man,

It ain't the sharpening. It's either the Art Vivid HDR or possibly too much Detail Extractor.... . And yes, my camera is set to save the RAWs. What I need to do is to set the base exposure as the best exposure for a single RAW file and then work around that.

Thanks all for your helpful comments.

[Morkel Erasmus]

Cheers Artie. Have you tried applying the Nik Detail Extractor through a mask, selectively and with a reduced opacity?

[Don Nelson]

Artie
I was running both Chrome and IE -- and getting the same results. So likely was back at the server.
Its gone now on both.
YAW on the help. I've got some other suggestions for you and Denise to try out. Later.
Don

[dankearl]

Just a quick repost from me.
Easy to "soften" this up and I added a bit more color.
Hope you don't mind and I really like the fisheye lens at this falls.

palouse1.jpg

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks a stack Dan. The repost rocks. How did you soften it up???

I mentioned on my blog that getting a clean lower edge for a fish eye image was a precarious challenge.... Even more so for the 8mm image that folks can see on the blog post linked to above.

[Cheryl Slechta]

I like Dan's repost. (Or maybe something in between in OP and Dan's).

[dankearl]

Arthur,
I used Gaussion Blur in NX2, PS does not have an easy fix.
In Nx2, you have a couple of sliders and can just slightly tweak the focus.
I am using Camera Raw and PS more these days but NX2 still has some features that Photoshop does not have and
this is one of them.

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks Dan. I think that I will give Gausisian Blur in Photoshop a try when I have a spare moment :).

[Andrew McLachlan]

Hi Arthur, I'm still lovin' it I like the curvature of the horizon - not too much, just enough. Dan's repost is lovely and gives it an OOTB feel to me. When I have used a fisheye pointed downwards I often find I am cloning out a tripod leg or even my toes. Are those pathways I am seeing along the sides of the river gorge? I hope to get to this waterfall someday.

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks Andrew. I think that there is a path visible below the cliff walls on the right, and another one on the left leading to the top of the falls. No climbing for this old man.

[Don Nelson]

Andrew
Those are indeed trails, one of which goes to the top of the falls. There is a second trail that goes to the base.
Most people don't realize that the little stream pouring over the falls isn't enough to cut this hole. Instead, these falls are a sidepath of a pour-over of a massive series of flood called the Bretz Floods. The water over the top of the falls stood at about 100 feet above the top of the tallest rock you can see. And this is a side channel..... down at the main channel the flood was 800 feet deep. A series of massive floods occurred during the last ice age.
There are a lot of additional features in eastern Washington in the area called the Scablands that represent the remnants of this flood -- things like 200 foot tall ripple marks that can only be discerned from the air, and a waterfall that was 100x the size of Niagara Falls....nothing left but the dry remnants (See Dry Falls near Coulee City. Washington)

[Cheryl Slechta]

Hi, Don, thanks for the information. I was captivated by the different rock formations but I haven't had time to research them. I especially loved the formation that looked like an ancient castle (Camelot) that stood on a bluff to the left (facing) the waterfall.

Andrew
Those are indeed trails, one of which goes to the top of the falls. There is a second trail that goes to the base.
Most people don't realize that the little stream pouring over the falls isn't enough to cut this hole. Instead, these falls are a sidepath of a pour-over of a massive series of flood called the Bretz Floods. The water over the top of the falls stood at about 100 feet above the top of the tallest rock you can see. And this is a side channel..... down at the main channel the flood was 800 feet deep. A series of massive floods occurred during the last ice age.
There are a lot of additional features in eastern Washington in the area called the Scablands that represent the remnants of this flood -- things like 200 foot tall ripple marks that can only be discerned from the air, and a waterfall that was 100x the size of Niagara Falls....nothing left but the dry remnants (See Dry Falls near Coulee City. Washington)

[Tobie Schalkwyk]

Nice one Arthur. I'm usually not too fond of fisheye snaps but it in this case it works for me. Dan's softening was overdone for my liking (the grasses look 'smudgy' and so does everything else) so I'd say the best solution lies somewhere between the two versions (but much closer to your version than Dan's). I've got a feeling that PS' gaussian blur function is going to do a better job.

[Neil Burton]

Looks good, I would have liked to be able to edit a RAW and maybe bring out more of the sky colour or reduce the brightness a little but otherwise it is a fish-eye shot I actually like. Prefer the OP, those rocks demand to be sharp, softening loses part of their dramatic appearance.

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks Tobie and Neil, The sky was WHITE Neil. Denise Ippolito played around and made her sky a bit pink. It looked pretty good.

[Diane Miller]

Another consideration for the sharpening appearance of a JPEG is the amount and kind of sharpening applied in Save for Web or Export from LR, or any of the step-by-step workflows. And then of course there is additional sharpening of the JPEG that is sometimes used. There are a lot of places sharpening can be adjusted.

PS has very effective blur tools, and Nik CEP adds artistic softening effects. Not sure what Gaussian Blur in NX2 does, but I'd be surprised if there is not an equivalent in PS.