abadger wrote:
One of my biggest pet peeves with the FE28 was the softness and pixelation in low light and yet here you come with a beautiful and crisp image in the moonlight. Please tell me about your focus and exposure stacking methods, if you wouldn’t mind. What tool/process are you using to accomplish this? Speaking as someone who has not done this outside of HDR work.
The moonlight photo was a composition of several photos. The background photo (boardwalk/ palapa and clouds) was taken at ISO4000, f7.1, @ 4 seconds (I didn't realize that I had AUTO ISO selected). The foreground photo (sand, beach, and whispy ocean) and midground was taken at ISO 100, f4, at 20s (changed back to manual ISO). These 2 images had to be color corrected to match as the ISO4000 shot had much more yellows than blues which was corrected using curves and adding blues. I blended the focus of the 2 images simply be using layer masks and a brush.
Finally, the stars were blended in from 2 additional photos at the very end using "lighten color" blend modes and layer masks to only affect the sky. Additional curves were used to light or darken areas and to adjust colors in certain portions of the photo (dodging and burning). It took me a while to complete the post-processing, I'm sure some people could have completed it much quicker!
aldburg wrote:
The moonlight photo was a composition of several photos. The background photo (boardwalk/ palapa and clouds) was taken at ISO4000, f7.1, @ 4 seconds (I didn't realize that I had AUTO ISO selected). The foreground photo (sand, beach, and whispy ocean) and midground was taken at ISO 100, f4, at 20s (changed back to manual ISO). These 2 images had to be color corrected to match as the ISO4000 shot had much more yellows than blues which was corrected using curves and adding blues. I blended the focus of the 2 images simply be using layer masks and a brush.
Finally, the stars were blended in from 2 additional photos at the very end using "lighten color" blend modes and layer masks to only affect the sky. Additional curves were used to light or darken areas and to adjust colors in certain portions of the photo (dodging and burning). It took me a while to complete the post-processing, I'm sure some people could have completed it much quicker! ...Show more →
Much appreciated. So this was manually stacked in PS it sounds like. I thought perhaps there was some automation from a program used. Excellent work!
Been chasing this fella around this lake for 2 years now...finally a decent BIF shot! It is SOOOO skittish, usually takes off any time I'm within 30 yards, and my 100-400 doesn't quite have enough reach. Patience and stalking pays off
