K-3 in The Lakes

Some more shots with the K-3, taken yesterday and the day before in the Lake District. Weather Sealing was well tested as it rained almost all the time!

After The Rain, D-Xenon 12-24





Ashness, D-Xenon 12-24





Melody, DA L 55-300





Watendlath Tarn, D-Xenon 12-24





The Wall, D-Xenon 12-24





The Hamlet, D-Xenon 12-24




CC Welcome as always.

Best Wishes
David

Beautiful set David...

Some nice views there David. The 'high tone contrast' is a concern to me - every one has near to or actually blown highs, quite significantly in the skies, and to an extent in some of the yellow grasses & the river. I don't remember this being the case in your previous set, which were much softer toned and better controlled.

Were there any metering technique differences you used between the sets, which might explain it?

I'm sure with DNGs it could be processed back down successfully.

Hi Nigel

Not sure quite what you mean? I always try to expose just enough not to blow the highlights and I can confirm there are no blown areas on any of the shots, according to the histogram in Photoshop. The metering used was identical to my previous shots, however, the skies on this particular day had a lot of contrasting light and dark areas and when I process the images I'm aiming to replicate what I was seeing as best I can. I aim to get the histogram as complete as possible without tipping over the edge. These have been processed exactly the same as I normally do, the only thing is that I'm still learning about the K-3 and in particular the colour reproduction which is quite different from the K-5 variants. The way it deals with highlights and dark areas is similar to the K-5.

Regarding the grasses, the light was such that there was a lot of reflection from the lighter tones, but again there is nothing blown out?

As close as possible, this is how it looked as I was shooting the scenes, the light and colours were very different to the previous day which produced more muted tones, this is down to the conditions yesterday, not the processing (heavy rain followed by broken skies). Also, the shots I have chosen to process are the ones with the highest contrasting tones, i.e. when there was more light falling on particular areas of the scene. A lot of the others I have not processed were 'flatter' in tone; I've chosen these to try and reflect the conditions and atmosphere of the day, so they do have a certain 'theme' to the way they look. Also, the K-3 does seem to produce more saturated colours than the K-5iis does.

Thanks for the comments, I will have another look at the images, I agree that they do look different to ones I've done before but I think it's difficult to appreciate how the scenes actually looked 'in the flesh' so to speak.

Regards
David

Edit: I've just checked back on the previous set posted a couple of days ago and there are actually a lot more blown areas in the sky on the previous ones than there are on these! I think often it is acceptable to have high contrasts in areas of the sky, as this is how it looks when there is heavy cloud with breaks in between.

Lovely fresh and natural looking images David.

Maybe the foreground in that last one could be cropped or darkened a bit; it's a bit dominant.

Is there any weather conditions that this country throws at us, that you can't make this country look wonderful
Me I would look outside see this weather and then sit back down in front of the fire.

I can't dispute the histogram, but its more specifically about the Whitepoint. What is ideal here will of course vary depending on the lighting and natural contrast. What I see in these shots, consistently, is the Whitepoint pitched too highly, and it seems to be consistent, which is why I questioned the metering.

The histogram can help, but its the visual impression that is more important. If you check, for example, the white stonework on the farm buildings, or the froth of the river, and the brightest parts of the clouds, you'll see a Whitepoint that is pitched too high for the conditions - this leads to a increased 'High Tone Contrast', which in these shots is more appropriate to that of a clear sunny day - the sky in these images suggests this was not the case. The high whitepoint has lead to a white reflectivity that is too bright.

It has an effect on high midtones as well, often an effect of using levels, which doesen't isolate mids very well - it shouldn't be necessary in these scenes to chop off bright bits on the image as Will has suggested above. I'm sure it is easy to control, but in PS may require selective work due to the limitation of levels I mentioned.

Love the colors David, especially the grass and heather, to me exposures are spot on, are you using a graduated filter on the sky or post processing ?
Bill

Excellent photos David, to me the color saturation looks natural given the wet weather and is successfully captured by both k-3 and photographer.

Interesting comment on weather sealing, given the lenses you were using! �� Guess there were other photos taken with other lenses, or have I missed that the 12-24 is w.r.

Don't see any problem with blown highlights, have you checked your screen settings, Nigel?

Its more about tonal relationships within the photos rather than any external fixed value of 'blown'. I know that David shares with me an interest in taking firm control over local contrast in his images, so I'm offering up these thoughts as something to consider, and I believe it will be an improvement. David may of course reject it entirely

all great shot for me

Not as eye catching as the first set David. Unfortunately, you can't control the weather. Certainly seem to have done a good job with the hand you were dealt

Quite. You and the new camera have done amazingly well to return such a pleasing set, David.

Hi Bill, I almost always use a graduated filter and expose the shots for the sky. On this day I used a Hitech ND Grad 0.9 (usually it would be a 0.6) and also did a little work on the sky in Photoshop to make it as close as possible to how I remember seeing it. I find it easier to bring up the shadow detail than to try and recover blown highlights. This usually means under-exposing by about 1/3 to 2/3 of a stop, even with the ND Grad filter attached.

Regards
David