Horizon detail

Dear All,

Below is a picture from my recent holiday in Greece of Ancient Kassope, with (from left to right) the Amvrakikos Gulf, Preveza and Lefkada in the background. It was taken with the K10D and the DA18-55 @20mm, f9, 1/40. I find myself taking quite a lot of these wide angle panoramas, but am often disappointed with the lack of detail on the horizon (as in this case on the mountains in the distance). From my limited experience, I can come up with the following ideas for addressing this - but would very much appreciate any feedback on my musings:

a. Change the lens. While the 18-55 is a pretty good lens, vignetting is severe on shots like this - and vignetting is the principal reason I am considering upgrading next time I'm in the UK. Maybe I cannot expect such a lens to capture detail on the horizon in a shot like this. The question is would a better lens - say the DA16-45, 17-70 or 16-50, or a Sigma 17-70, do a better job here? Or are other factors involved...

b. Is the time of day the picture was taken an overriding factor? It was shot late in the afternoon. Would the build up of dust in the atmosphere prevent me from getting more detail regardless of the lens or other factors?

c. Would an ND Grad filter have enabled me to capture more detail on the horizon? I understand that this is what these filters are designed for. However, something confuses me re. this. This photo was shot in RAW and when I decrease the exposure in Silkypix this doesn't really have the effect of boosting detail on the horizon. Would underexposing the original picture and then adjusting it in Silkypix so the exposure is correct have helped capture more horizon detail?

One other thing - I've found in a lot of shots such as this (taken around dusk) that the sky comes out a rather featureless grey. Is this simply a result of the direction in which the photo was taken - ie. not towards the west where the sun would be going down, and the sky would have some colour (albeit reddish)? Or is it simply the time of day? Would a polariser work under these conditions? Or is there some other way of getting colour into the sky in shots like these?

Some of the issues raised here might be glaringly obvious to more experienced photographers; or conversely might be painfully complex. As a novice I don't really know, but any feedback would be much appreciated.

The air can be very hazy in Greece; if you are close to Athens there can be quite a lot of air pollution, and if it has been windy, there can be a lot of dust in the air.

This picture looks very over-sharpened to me, and the blurry background is down to atmospheric factors, not the lens. Although the vignetting is visible, I think it is the least of the problems in this picture.

G

I agree with George here.
Using an ND grad would balance out the sky with the foreground( thats their main purpose) but the problem you are facing is due to air pollution and atmospheric conditions. And to use a polarizer with this kind of conditions, would only remove some glare from the foliage. The best color in the sky is usually found one hour before sunrise and one hour after sunset. In your case and under these conditions I would take my chances early in the morning before sunrise. Smog and pollution levels would likely be lower early in the morning.

HIH,
Martin.

I had a little play with your picture, this was a quick shot. What I did was the following:
Duplicated the pic in a new layer and applied S curve so that the distant part got more definition (which means that the foreground does look horrible, much too much contrast ).
Added layer mask and applied gradient tool (black to white) to that layer mask. Then I took a soft (black) brush and painted over the dark bushes (to weaken the effect of the S-curve on them).

As that did weaken the effect too much I copied this second layer, both are 100% opacity (therefore it is perhaps a little overdone for illustrative purposes ), one of them I changed to layer mode soft light.

With a bit more care on the mask (and using the original picture) I think more could be achieved, though for a quick fix it ain't too bad, or?

[IMG]http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t5/Prieni/Mhuni_test.jpg[/IMG]

The oversharpening, of course, is a bit stronger now, but one would do all this prior to sharpening anyway.

Hope this helps,
Prieni

Another play with it. I used Gimp as editing program. I duplicated the layer, made a tonal selection using the lasso tool and selected the valley between the foreground and the background mountains.Feathered about 15 pixels I locked down the sea and similar light tones. Than within curves I pulled down the darker tones. After that I did the same trick again with the background mountains. using a tonal selection prevents severe halos on dark/light areas like tree lines. And you can very accurate change variable tones with a great degree of control.



Martin.

Another trick you can use to "recover" hazy distant areas like that is to massively over sharpen. i.e with unsharp mask throw the radius to about 80 or higher, and push the Amount upwards of 150.
This will give a slightly different effect than using curves. The over sharpening causes some graininess to add false detail. Good for landscapes, not so good for skies.
Then mask out the areas that do not need it. It will look horrible for most of the image, but can look good for these sorts of recoveries.

Many thanks everyone for the feedback.

Regarding the time of day - the morning would certainly have been a better time to take the shot, not only from the accumulation of dust point of view but also for the light. Unfortunately, I was only there at dusk.

It's interesting to see what more sophisticated programmes can do with a picture - and thanks Prieni & Martin for taking the time to demonstrate this. Unfortunately my digital darkroom is rather basic at present. I have a partly functional version of Silkypix, in which only the Exposure, WB, Contrast and colour are adjustable (and in which I can't play with the curves). I'm forced to use Picasa for sharpening, and other adjustments (eg. a graduated tint, which I used on this pic), which is rather crude.

I'm hopefully getting a copy of Photoshop soon, so will then be in a position to learn the dark art of digital manipulation! It's tricky getting this kind of stuff in Ethiopia (or to Ethiopia). Although, if I'm not mistaken, Gimp is available as a free download isn't it? Would you recommend Gimp, Martin? (Though if you did, I'd then have the problem of getting a fast enough connection to download it here!:roll

Re. the oversharpening - Using Picasa only gives very basic options and perhaps this accounts for the pics oversharpened state. Out of curiosity, George, do you find the photo below preferable from a sharpness point of view?




For me this seems to be a bit soft - and with Picasa the only option is to hit the Sharpen button again which results in the first shot. Something in between these two would probably be preferable.

The latest pic is definitely better.

G

One application of the Picasa sharpening button usually results in a subtle and pleasing effect, two is always much too much, in my view.

I think your second version is much nicer.

Providing you haven't used Photoshop before I can recommend Gimp. If you are well educated and skilled in PS you might have troubles switching over.
Gimp is free, available for every platform and basically does everything PS does.
Only disadvantage? The current version only works in 8 bit. (version 2.4xxx)
For some that would be a problem. PS Elements lets you do some things in 16 bit, but doesn't provide curves and layer masks. Expected is that the next version of Gimp will support 16 bit also. And if you are having troubles downloading it,I would be more than happy to download it, and burn it on cd rom. I can than post it to you.
I don't know how the postal service works in your part of the world, of course
Just let me know if I can help out, if needed.

Martin.

Many thanks for the kind offer, Martin. The postal service is actually pretty reliable here, but I'll see if I can download it before bothering you for a CD rom. Will try to get a day when the connection is fast.