Skip to First Photo  > >

< <   Back to previous page

Home    Search    Gallery    How-To    Books    Links    Workshops    About    Contact

Continued: Death Valley, February 2007
all © 2007 KenRockwell.com

Next Photo >>

Titus Canyon, Death Valley

Titus Canyon, Death Valley, California.

Canon 5D, 14mm f/2.8L, cloudy white balance, f/11 @ 1/8, ISO 50, one hour before sundown at horizon (tech details). Color as shot, minor cropping.

I cropped a little off the left to put the rock directly in the lower left corner. I like to have anchors in the corners.

A shot like this takes a while to compose with my ultra-ultra wide angle lens. Each 1/2" (1cm) of camera position makes a huge difference in composition. I deliberately placed things in each corner.

If I wasn't' so lazy I would have 'shopped down the brightness of the upper right corner. I may have turned up the contrast on my 5D to bring out the texture; I forget. (Menu > Picture Style > (select one to alter) > Jump > (make your changes) > be sure to hit SET when done to save the new settings.)

The rock on the left looks orange because it was lit by late-afternoon sunlight reflecting from the tan rocks above. The wall to the right was blue because it was lit by the blue sky. I used cloudy white balance to make this image more orange. Next Photo >>

 

Next Photo >>

Titus Canyon, Death Valley

Titus Canyon, Death Valley, California.

Canon 5D, 14mm f/2.8L, auto white balance, f/22 @ 1/4, ISO 50, half-hour before sundown at horizon (tech details). Image as shot, dark areas brought up automatically in DxO Optics Pro software.

I compose to the corners with my ultra-wide lenses. Look at the path on the left for a clue: I tilted my camera to get the orange hill on the top and the alpenhorn pattern on the bottom in each corner.

I may or may not have set my 5D to low contrast; I forget. (Menu > Picture Style > (select one to alter) > Jump > (make your changes) > be sure to hit SET when done to save the new settings.)

I exposed deliberately for the orange-lit hill on the upper left. I had to use manual exposure mode because my 5D only allowed -2 stops of exposure compensation, which wasn't enough. I let the dark areas fall where they may, knowing DxO Optics Pro software would bring them back up. Unlike film, digital never loses the shadows, at least if you're shooting at slow ISOs.

DxO does a great job of bringing dark shadows up to where they ought to be. I never got good results with the first ASF SHO plug-in (c. 2001). Photoshop CS2's Highlight/Shadow tool does a poor job because it lightens the shadows while leaving them dull and lifeless. It doesn't bump up the contrast as DxO does, and the Highlight/Shadow tool often leaves sinful halos everywhere when used at its defaults.

Here's the shot as it came out of my 5D:

Titus Canyon

Before DxO processing. Next Photo >>

 

Next Photo >>

Zabriskie Point

Panamint Range as Seen from Zabriskie Point, Death Valley, California.

 

Canon 5D, 15mm f/2.8 Fisheye, rectified in DxO software, cloudy white balance, f/8 @ 1/60, ISO 50, 20 minutes after sunrise at horizon, hand-held (tech details). Cropped.

This image took some 'shopping. It was a goof shot to send to my pal Peter so he could compare my Canon 5D/15mm fisheye to his D200/10.5mm fisheye. Surprisingly, there was a decent shot inside of it.

DxO was used to rectify this fisheye image, and it also brought up the shadowed foreground perfectly.

Here's the original image, before rectification and before cropping:

Zabriskie Point

Direct from camera.

Here it is directly from DxO before I tightly cropped and adjusted it:

Zabriskie Point

After DxO, before tight cropping. Dark lightens very well in DxO. Next Photo >>

 

Next Photo >>

Manly Beacon

Manly Beacon, Death Valley, California.

 

Canon 5D, 15mm f/2.8 Fisheye, rectified in DxO software, cloudy white balance, f/11 @ 1/125, ISO 50, one hour after sunrise at horizon, hand-held (tech details). Color as shot, cropped.

The rectified image had a dark area in the center of the sky because the sky is naturally darker (polarized) at a 90 degree angle from the sun. The huge, almost 180 degree horizontal angle of this shot covers such a wide angle that the sides look lighter because they were lighter.

I created a curves adjustment layer to darken, and used a layer mask to paint the darkening into the sides. Without this deliberate darkening I'd have had an image that looked inside out and would have drawn your eyes out of the image. It looked like this:

Manly Beacon

Image directly from camera and after DxO.

Now you also can see why I cropped: the huge expanse of bright on the left is distracting and the composition is weak. I should have darkened it even more in my final image. I also removed most of the sky since it didn't contribute to the composition.

For reference, here is the shot directly from my 5D. You can't see the fisheye effect because the horizon runs through the middle of the image, but you can see it as a squishing together of elements at the sides:

Manly Beacon

Image directly from camera.

I was only a foot above the dirt. Good luck to people still bothering with tripods! I do everything naturally - not with tripods.

I used cloudy white balance to make this image more orange, which intensifies the dirt piles. Next Photo >>

 

Next Photo >>

Zabriskie Point

Manifolds, Zabriskie Point, Death Valley, California.

 

Canon 5D, 15mm f/2.8 Fisheye, rectified in DxO software, cloudy white balance, f/8 @ 1/320, ISO 50, 2 hours after sunrise at horizon, hand-held (tech details). Cropped.

This took a lot of 'shopping. As you've read before, these ultra wide shots see such a broad angle that natural light looks awful. Also this camera system has no light falloff, so the direct results look unnatural. It takes a lot of 'shopping to make it natural. Here's the rectified image before 'shopping:

Zabriskie Point

Image directly from camera and after DxO.

Gag! The dark band in the middle of the sky is natural. I'm facing 90 degrees from the sun so you are seeing the dark band of natural polarization. This image sees almost 180 degrees side to side. If I used a polarizing filter this would be magnified to the extreme. This is unfortunate, because I want my sky brightest in the center and darker in the corners.

The left side of the image looks into backlighting and the right side is front-lit. This looks crummy: your eyes are drawn to the bright rock on the right and blocked out of the center and left by the darkness.

I needed to darken the corners and right side. I used a few layers of curves and levels adjustments with layer masks to paint the darkening and lightening.

The normal blending mode of the curves adjustment layers I used intensified the colors. I darken by pulling down the middle of the curve. This increases overall contrast. This also increases saturation in the default RGB mode in which I work. I like this effect; if I didn't I'd change the blending mode to Luminosity.

This is the modern way to do dodging and burning - don't bother with Photoshop's primitive tools named dodge and burn, since they give sucky, non-editable results. I could have done a better job here - sorry. By saving the .psd file with layers I was able to go back and tweak it a little later.

Here's the file directly from my 5D before DxO rectification:

Zabriskie Point

Image directly from camera.

You can see the fisheye effect in the curvature of the manifold veins on the lower left. Next Photo >>

 

Next Photo >>

Mushroom Rock, Death Valley

Mushroom Rock, Death Valley, California.

 

Canon 5D, 15mm f/2.8 Fisheye, rectified in DxO software, auto white balance, f/8 @ 1/250, ISO 50, mid-day light (1:30PM) hand-held (tech details). Cropped and darkened.

Mushroom Rock has been cleansed from today's Death Valley maps. Apparently many stupider people didn't understand that its name refers to its shape, not its composition. These people were stealing chips (it's a federal offence to disturb anything in a national park) and crushing and inhaling them for hallucinogenic purposes. It didn't work, but the rock was shrinking.

As in the previous shots, the results from a rectified fisheye image have no light falloff, which usually leads to weak images from the lack of light and dark. I used the same techniques I used previously to introduce deliberate darkening to focus your attention on the rock and the deliberate swooping effect from the ultra wide angle shot.

Here's the shot straight from DxO:

Mushroom Rock, Death Valley

Image directly from camera and after DxO.

It's too light, my shadow is at the bottom, and the rock is too close to the center. Since when shooting I'm looking at the fisheye image below and can't see the exact right-side cutoff, I guessed incorrectly and didn't point the camera far enough left. DxO doesn't use the entire image. Ideally I'd draw a curved graticule on my focus screen to show me the effective crop lines after DxO processing.

Here's the fisheye image directly from my 5D:

Mushroom Rock, Death Valley

Image directly from camera. Next Photo >>

 

Next Photo >>

Badwater

Badwater, Death Valley, California.

 

Canon 5D, 15mm f/2.8 Fisheye, rectified in DxO software, auto white balance, f/10 @ 1/400, ISO 50, mid-afternoon light (2:30PM), hand-held (tech details). Colors and levels as shot.

This is my favorite image. I was only inches away from the salt.

This image is as it came out of DxO, with the slight exception of leveling the horizon a tiny fraction of a degree in Photoshop CS2's lens distortion filter. Call up the filter (Filter > Distort > Lens Correction) and select the second tool down from the top left. Drag the cursor from one side to the other along the image's horizon, and the tool will magically make it perfectly level.

I love the lack of light falloff here. I want your eyes to see the far bottom and corners, because it's the texture and perspective which draws you into the image.

It's hard, OK, impossible to see perfect level in camera, since I'm shooting with a fisheye lens. What came out of the camera before rectification in DxO was this:

Badwater

Image directly from camera.

The fisheye effect is cute here, but even I got tired of it back in the 1970s after I had my first fisheye for a week. It's only 30 years later with modern software that I can stretch out these fisheye images into something useful. Note my own shadow in the lower right.

Exposure determination was difficult. The salt is white, so everything is so bright that it is difficult to see the dim LCD of my 5D, even at full brightness. The RGB histograms are not very visible or accurate compared to my Nikons, so I bracketed by 1/3 and 2/3 stops down from my usual setting of -2/3 stop exposure compensation, used for most the other shots. This shot was made at -1 stop exposure compensation. Next Photo >>

 

Next Photo >>

Golden Canyon , Death Valley

Golden Canyon , Death Valley, California.

Canon 5D, 14mm f/2.8L, 10,000 K white balance, f/11 @ 1/25, ISO 100, hand-held (tech details).

These rocks weren't this gold. I made them gold by selecting a very warm white balance of 10,000 K, which is even more orange than the shade setting. You set this in the 5D with Menu > Color temp. > 10,000 K and then selecting the K position of the WB control. I further corrected the shot to match my vision with Photoshop's color balance tool.

I pointed my camera up the side of a canyon wall. This is not the canyon bed.

My 14mm ultra-ultra wide lens exaggerates perspective by expanding near-far relationships. I did this deliberately to draw your eyes into the image. I also deliberately put the big rock in the corner to draw you in. Since I read from left to right, I flipped the negative in Photoshop (Image > Rotate Canvas > Flip Canvas Horizontal). The rock was originally on the right.

I may have told DxO not to correct for falloff, since I want darker corners to keep your eyes from wandering out of the frame. Next Photo >>

 

Next Photo >>

Golden Canyon , Death Valley

Self Portrait, Golden Canyon , Death Valley, California.

Canon 5D, 14mm f/2.8L, cloudy white balance, f/11 @ 1/250, ISO 100, afternoon light 1.5 hours before sundown at horizon, hand-held (tech details). Image as shot.

I'm an idiot: I used ISO 100 instead of ISO 50. This is a big reason I prefer my Nikons and hope the D3X is full-frame: Canons don't have Auto ISO, so after I bumped up ISO for the previous shot in the shade, I forgot to pull the ISO back down to ISO 50. If I had used any of my Nikons, Auto ISO would have been set this automatically so I could concentrate on composition. Sadly Nikon makes no 9mm lens which would give the same ultra-ultra wide view, so I use my Canons.

The 14mm lens (equivalent to a nonexistent 9mm lens on Nikon) stretches out the sides, giving the perspective exaggeration I love. It sucks the viewer into the center of the frame. Next Photo >>

 

Next Photo >>

Mad greek, Baker, California

The Mad Greek Restaurant, Baker, California.

 

Canon 5D, 14mm f/2.8L, auto white balance, f/5.6 @ 1/15, ISO 200, hand-held (tech details). Cropped and color corrected.

I was always afraid of The Mad Greek, since they have billboards and rogue truck trailers advertising them for hundreds of miles in every direction. I gave it a try, and it's great! The food is great (Greek, Mexican and American), the décor is whimsical and best of all, the walls are full of homages to, and lessons about, Greek culture and history. You can have great food and learn about thousands of years of Greek history in one sitting.

Want to see what large-format photography can do that this piddly digital stuff can't? Head to the rest rooms and look on the left for the wall-sized print of blue-roofed white buildings hugging the hills of the coastline, with the DO NOT TOUCH sign on it. You can see every detail if you stick your nose in this ten-foot print. This is what an 8x10" camera does.

The mixed fluorescent light rendered as a greenish-cyan. I used a color balance adjustment layer to get the colors back to where they should be. I had no time to set a custom, manual white balance, since Canon SLRs make it so difficult and I wanted to eat. mmmmmmmm (whoops, my baby Ryan typed that, and how appropriate!).

Ryan Rockwell

Baby Ryan typing this page. (The laptop is a secondary screen)

DxO also leveled out the lighting by bringing up some of the darker sections.

I cropped off the top and bottom, since they were empty and I love the long skinny panoramic format.

Here's the image direct from my 5D:

The Mad Greek

Image directly from camera.

I like the swoop of the floor and ceiling, but they weren't adding to the composition. Composition is the strongest way of seeing. Anything that isn't adding to the image is making it weaker. Get rid of anything and everything that isn't helping. Next Photo >>

Next Photo >>

Mad greek, Baker, California

Trellis, The Mad Greek Restaurant, Baker, California.

Canon 5D, 14mm f/2.8L, auto white balance, f/5.6 @ 1/6, ISO 400, hand-held (tech details).

I cheated a little: our friend Dale from our photo club saw the trellis before I did.

These indoor and night shots are hand-held. Tripods are for the weak. I stack the odds in my favor by firing bursts of several shots in the Continuous shutter mode and sorting out the sharpest later with iView software on my 30" monitor. With a click or two I throw up sections of 6 shots at 100% magnification, and trash the losers.

The low magnification of an ultra-ultra wide 14mm lens allows longer speeds than a normal lens.

I set my 5D to low contrast to capture everything (Menu > Picture Style > (select one to alter) > Jump > (make your changes) > be sure to hit SET when done to save the new settings). DxO evened out the light perfectly. Here's the image directly from my 5D:

The Mad Greek

Image directly from camera.

On my 30' screen I love the new moon I caught at the top left, but at either of these small sizes with this ultra-ultra wide angle lens it looks like a mistake. I spot-healing-brushed it out. I also cropped a little from the right side. Next Photo >>

 

This is the last photo below.

Mad greek, Baker, California

Parking Lot , The Mad Greek Restaurant, Baker, California.

Canon 5D, 14mm f/2.8L, auto white balance, f/5.6 @ 1/6, ISO 400, hand-held (tech details). Colors and cropping as shot.

I love shots at night and I love the exaggerated perspective of ultra-ultra wide angle lenses. This isn't a photo of a parking lot; it's a photo about light and perspective.

DxO lightened some of the darker areas perfectly. Thankfully even without DxO correction, my 14mm lens reproduces the columns without visible curvature.

That's it! I hope you've enjoyed the photos and found my descriptions of my thought processes illuminating.

Return to Main Gallery or to Death Valley Gallery or to previous page.

Home    Search    Gallery    How-To    Books    Links    Workshops    About    Contact