Wide Angle

[richard crowe]

Glad for any comments. I borrowed a friends Sigma 10-20mm for this trip and fell in love with it straight away! Needless to say I want one now. I had the lens for a couple of weeks and honestly couldnt find fault with it. Does anyone actully have any negative thoughts on this lens?

Cheers

Richard

I have now attached a non hdr version to compare the two.

[Stephen]

Re: Wide Angle

Glad for any comments. I borrowed a friends Sigma 10-20mm for this trip and fell in love with it straight away! Needless to say I want one now. I had the lens for a couple of weeks and honestly couldnt find fault with it. Does anyone actully have any negative thoughts on this lens?

Cheers

Richard

I used to have the Canon 10-22 EFS. I really enjoyed using it, sadly it had to go when I moved to the 1DMkIIN. I like this series of photos you have posted and the one shown here is nicely post processed. The saturated colours and expansive nature of the scene make for and attractive landscape shot IMO

[yoshi]

Re: Wide Angle

What I like about the series of photos is that they have attractive clouds which definitely adds good spices to the landscapes taken. The landscapes themselves under the clouds are of course photogenic (except the one of a temple with some people in the frame - IMHO just too many - of course, it is sometimes inevitable). Wide angle zoom is surely interesting.
yoshi

[Ian]

Re: Wide Angle

Glad for any comments. I borrowed a friends Sigma 10-20mm for this trip and fell in love with it straight away! Needless to say I want one now. I had the lens for a couple of weeks and honestly couldnt find fault with it. Does anyone actully have any negative thoughts on this lens?

Cheers

Richard

Hi Richard - you are very welcome (and very much so if you continue to post dramatic shots like thst! )

I'm not personally familiar with that particular lens, but my colleague, Danny Chau, is a great fan of the ultra wide Sigmas.

Have you anything more to show us? (pause as he looks for a gallery...) And the answer is YES! See:

http://dpnow.com/galleries/showgallery.php/cat/500/ppuser/918

Impressive stuff

Ian

[Guest]

Re: Wide Angle

I am sorry to say that for me these pictures seem unreal which I think is due to the post over processing that they have received. The landscapes themselves would make beautiful pictures without all this processing. Whoever saw clouds like these. ?

[Ian]

Re: Wide Angle

I am sorry to say that for me these pictures seem unreal which I think is due to the post over processing that they have received. The landscapes themselves would make beautiful pictures without all this processing. Whoever saw clouds like these. ?

Hi Dennis, of course you are right - the images are not ordinarily photorealistic, but that is one reason why I think they are special. They have added drama and are out of the ordinary. I guess you could say they have been artisticallly interpreted. Your preference is for a more photo-realistic view and that's perfectly OK by me, but we do seem to value the shots shown differently and there is nothing wrong with that either.

Ian

[StuartR]

Re: Wide Angle

Glad for any comments. I borrowed a friends Sigma 10-20mm for this trip and fell in love with it straight away! Needless to say I want one now. I had the lens for a couple of weeks and honestly couldnt find fault with it. Does anyone actully have any negative thoughts on this lens?

Cheers

Richard

I can't comment with regards to the lens beyond the fact that I'd like one

I would, however, like to comment on the image posted here (and the series posted with it in your gallery).

They all look good to me apart from the one with the temple which has a discernible lighter area around the edge of the building.

I take DennisP's point to a degree but also agree with Ian, it's nice to see something as artistically striking on the forum.

Care to share your post-processing technique? Are you using HDR / tone mapping?

[Ian]

Re: Wide Angle

I can't comment with regards to the lens beyond the fact that I'd like one

I would, however, like to comment on the image posted here (and the series posted with it in your gallery).

They all look good to me apart from the one with the temple which has a discernible lighter area around the edge of the building.

I take DennisP's point to a degree but also agree with Ian, it's nice to see something as artistically striking on the forum.

Care to share your post-processing technique? Are you using HDR / tone mapping?

You have pinpointed my one concern about the images and that is the glowing around high contrast borders, which is a classic sign of overprocessing. But in this case, even that I can excuse

Ian

[Stephen]

Re: Wide Angle

You have pinpointed my one concern about the images and that is the glowing around high contrast borders, which is a classic sign of overprocessing. But in this case, even that I can excuse

Ian

This halo effect is a problem when there is something in the picture you don't want to darken/burn in to the same extent. One method to avoid it is to Copy the object, in this case the temple by doing a precise selection. Then do your processing as normal without bothering about the object, ie don't allow for it. When done, paste back in the selection as a new layer on top. The technique can also be used for adding blur to a background for example

[richard crowe]

Re: Wide Angle

Thanks for all the comments. I am currently going through my hdr phase! I have been using Photomatix pro for about a year now and cant seem to ween myself off it! When I process images normally with ps now, they just dont have the same impact. It all comes down to my style of photography I supposse. Usually when out with my camera I am with friends who are more walkers and not photographers - as such I have honed the ability to compose and shoot very quickly while on the go. an average shot of mine takes me about four seconds! I do take a lot though. Also an impatience not to wait for the right light, I usually take the shot and get the right light in ps later!
I do enjoy post processing and readily admit that one of my weaknesses is not knowing when to stop! But hey, if I like the result, thats what matters. I know its not everyones taste, but c'est la vie! On saying all that, I am a perfectionist and if I see a halo or some such anomoly, the photo usually ends up in the trash can. HDR is a bugger for this and large numbers dont make it anywhere near the screen. The shot of Mussenden Temple actually looks ok on my screen but when I looked at it in work today i could see the halo - I will give it a tweak and remove it - thanks for pointing it out. Re the unreal / surreal look to HDR images and specifically these ones from Donegal, I can see your point and agree they have a different feel to them, but I dont necessarily feel that they are that far away from reality. Yes, the finished photo doesnt look like the RAW version, but the RAW version doesnt look like what my eyes saw. The sky that you see in these images is how it appeared - the colours are perhaps a tad oversaturated (mind you I still had to desaturate it a bit after the tone mapping) but the way the sun was catching the hillside and the ferns and grass - the photo above is as close as I can get to actually standing there looking at the scene again. So to me this is more real than the image is when processed normally as the colours and light (and clouds) are just as I remeber them. I must post some non hdr shots to my gallery - mind you they are a year or so old and in my opinion, not very good. I have only been taking photos for a couple of years and I do find you are improving all the time. When I look back at images from a year or two ago, they look totally rubbish compared to more recent stuff! C'est la vie again! lol In fact I think I will try and process the above normally in ps and compare the two to see what you think (It will still look over processed! )

I have now added the non hdr shot below the original to compare the two.

Cheers

Richard

[StuartR]

Re: Wide Angle

I also use Photomatix pro although not as well as you have in your gallery examples (I live in hope!).

I find HDR & tone-mapping seems to work for some scenes and not for others and the "halo effect" can be really troublesome.

You mention you take your pictures quickly so are you using tripod-mounted multiple exposures or simply processing a single hand-held image with varying exposure adjustments?

Here's a couple of mine take quite a while back - they don't seem to have the "punch" that yours have - I might even go back and process them again

[richard crowe]

Re: Wide Angle

Hi Stuart. These two are good efforts. The greens are quite strong and I find I have to tone mine down usually. Apart from that I think they are great.

I wish I did take the time to use a tripod! When I first started tinkering with hdr I did use a tripod and used exposure bracketing for three shots. Patience is a virtue - and I am somewhat lacking in it. I then moved to processing one handheld raw image in camera raw to get three seperate exposures. Again this was to slow! It was only then that I actually looked at all the buttons and discovered the 'single file conversion' button. Hallelujah!! Next time I am in the tone mapping screen I will take a note of where I have all the sliders if you like. On saying that, every image is different and requires individual tweaking and as you mentioned, it doesnt work for all images and halos and coloured anomolies dont half bugger up some really promising shots. Of course, being a compulsive over processor, it doesnt stop there. Once the photo has been through photomatix it then goes through ps and finally through paint shop pro! I have certain actions in both which I like and use in the majority of my photos. All in all I would say that on average I would apply at least 15 individual actions / tweaks / adj layers to every photo I process!!

[Josh Bear]

Re: Wide Angle

Hi.

I had that lens with my canon 20D. Loved it. I sold due to getting the 5D which it isn't compatable with. But my 17-40L does the same job on FF. You can't beat a good wide angle.

Best Regads

Josh.

OH PS Great picture, Composition and light.

[Blithe]

Re: Wide Angle

I like the second photograph posted. In that I can appreciate the richness of the scene without being overwhelmed by it. You have made the clouds look quite magnificent and love the reflection in the loch on the right compared to the dark brooding colour behind the castle. What a wonderful landscape to take advantage of.