Tamron Blog: Angle of View

A Little Post Production Goes A Long Way

By Ken Hubbard

Isn't it amazing how sometimes the image you are envisioning in your head doesn't always translate into the image you end up seeing on your computer screen when you go back to review your days shoot? You did everything correctly (or maybe you thought you did everything correctly) like, using your lens filters, custom white balance, reading your histogram to created a good exposure, and so on... Still, when you go back to review, something went a little wrong and the image looks not quite like what you thought you created. This is where a little help in post can be your best friend. I know, I always preach "do it correctly in the field" and I never make these types of mistakes myself (yeah right, I've made more than my share for sure!), but with today's software you can very easily fix some of those so so images.

When I was at the Grand Canyon taking this image, I didn't have the classic colorful sunset and there was a little bit of haze in the air. I sat there for a few minutes hoping for something better, which I got by way of a nice beam of light when the sun came out from the clouds. The beam reached across the giant expanse highlighting the tips of the canyon wall. I used a Graduated Neutral Density Filter to balance out the highlights in the sky with the shadows of the canyon, to keep detail in both. After checking my histogram and making a few adjustments I started firing away. Unfortunately, the one thing I forgot to do is manual white balance, and I left the camera in AWB! At the time I wasn't too worried, I figured it would be pretty close. As you can see, it ended up turning out kind of green and kind of flat. I was disappointed to say the least, but not ready to give up on the image.

I knew with a little work in post, I could clean up the image and make it look a bit closer to what I saw. This is where Nik Software comes in, and within a few minutes and adjustments using Nik Vivezia 2 & Color Efex Pro 4 (Pro Contrast), I go from a flat off-color image to one with good color, contrast and depth. Using the software as a plug in for Photoshop, I first open it up in Vivezia 2, and make my contrast, color and saturation changes using the global corrections. Then I go in and fine tune all the little details with control points, bringing out the highlights and layers of the canyon's spires, contrast in the clouds and fine tuning the reds, yellows and blues throughout the image. Then next step I go into Color Efex Pro 4's Pro Contrast I make final color corrections and contrast corrections, resulting in the image below.

Image was shot using Tamron's SP 28-75mm F/2.8 Di Lens

Tamron, Frank Gehry & the Space Needle

By Ken Hubbard

I just got back to my hotel room after taking a walk around Seattle after sunset. I've been here a few times but never went by the Experience Music Project building designed by the famous architect Frank Gehry, who is well know for his Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain and many other buildings. It is located next to Seattle's Space Needle who's observation deck is 520 feet above the ground. The two structures are of conflicting forms, one as fluid as a river and the other as sharp as a granite mountain face but together can make a very interesting image. The exterior of Mr Gehry's buildings are very reflective and after taking a few minutes to position myself, I found a nice set of curving lines and a great reflection of the Space Needle on the Experience Structure. I originally shot this image about 3 hours before this final photo, but after getting off the monorail on the way back to my hotel, the light was much better about an hour after sunset. The sky was a nice rich blue and the lights on the Space Needle were turned on, the combination of the two made for a much stronger image. This image was created with the Tamron SP AF10-24mm Di II lens.

Using your flash for better interior images

 By Ken Hubbard

On a recent trip to Cape May, NJ I wanted to get some interior images of the local church with my Tamron SP AF10-24mm Ultra wide lens. When shooting from the altar back towards the front door I ran into the common problem of very bright daylight coming in through the stained glass windows and door. With such strong backlight coming through the windows, it is very difficult to get a good exposure of the windows and any foreground subjects. As seen in this first image, the interior of the church is very dark, when exposing for the window. One way to solve this is using a flash to balance out the light.

 
In this second image, I used the pop up flash on my camera to help balance out the light and get a somewhat good exposure. Even though this image is a little bit better, I was still unhappy with a few things. First, I have a hot spot on the rows of benches right in front of me, this was caused by the flash shooting directly forward and hitting there first. Second, you can also see how narrow a field of light was given off by the pop up flash, the image gets darker soon after the hot area right in front of the camera.

In this third image I used a shoe mounted flash angled towards the ceiling of the church, bouncing the light off the ceiling. This created a softer light that spread across the interior equally, creating an image that is nicely lit. Since the ceiling was a warm off-white color, the light reflected off the ceiling was the same nice warm color.