TP Mendip Meet - The Photos

DuncanDisorderly

DuncanDisorderly

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In no particular order, I'd like to thanks CarolineS, Keith_RG, Funky Snowhead, Mad Badger, Wilbaroo, Onomatapoeia, Existent and Mercurious for contributing to a very pleasant afternoons photography and some good banter in the pub afterwards.

We used a laptop to look at the high-lights from every bodies collections, and it was pleasing to note we all excelled at different times with different subjects. It was classic example of why the only stand out set of images in a group like this, is the combined results.

Feel free to add your own images to this thread :)
Cheers - Duncan :D
 
Here's the motley crew at Cheddar Gorge
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Extreme photography?


Existent and Wilbaroo peering over the edge into Cheddar Gorge.
This is a seriously exposed spot - people base jump from here.
Most people don't even get as close to this edge as Wilbaroo (in red), even when they are on their belly. Existent looked WAY to comfortable.
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Existent is sitting far closer to the edge than any of the rest of us felt comfortable.
However, I've seen the shot he took and it's great!
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Wonderful - really gives a feel for the scale of the place!
 
Just a couple from me.

I appriciate you might not like the PP but I think it adds a funky edge to what was an otherwise lack luster day.

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Thanks from me too to everyone for making quite a dull weatherwise afternoon really enjoyable and fun. Thanks also from my dogs for all the fuss and ball throwing etc.

Will, I love your pics - just shows what you can do if the composition is there, great stuff :)

Caroline
 
Like the shots Will. Nice use of pp to get rid of the dull gray colors. (y)

Here is a couple from me

Taken from the edge of cliff. 3 Shot panorama. I am not 100% sure about the colors...



 
Will,
Considering the conditions that's a great set.

I particularly like the rays with FS and dogs; for me it's straight into the 'wish I was there' category which is something I try to achieve when I'm out and about in Mendip.

Caroline's collie shows lots of character; good capture.

Wall and trees - don't know what PP you used, but the trees are superb and I'm amazed the details in the wall have come through so well. I think the composition works really well and being uber picky the only thing that might help would be something like a lone tree to draw the eye into the distance - not a lot you can do about that though!

The eTrex piccy looks straight out of a magazine (that's a compliment)

Gorge with colourful sky - you were fast! That was a subtle fleeting glimpse of sunset and you got it!

Good set :)
 
Existent - that wind-pruned thorn is a belter!
It looks better than it did on the laptop in the pub - really nice

The gorge pano is good too!
Slightly wonky horizon and I think the grad was a bit too low and has darkened the clifftops; but nothing that can't be sorted out.
I like the sweep of rock in the foreground and the tree on the left.
Well seen and well executed :D

In the pub you we were also liking one of your other Gorge shots.
Any chance of posting that too?
Ta - DD
 
Time for a few from me :)
The early ones were taken walking around with Keith who was making a full day of it as he'd come a relatively long way.

1) One of the old Beech trees up by Nine Barrows
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2) Wind-pruned beech trees up by Nine Barrows
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3) Pond at Priddy Mineries. Hand held tilt & shift lens used to get the focal plane half way up the foreground tussock through to the distant trees.. This is f20, but live view at f3.5 showed the top and bottom of the tussock were soft :)
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4) Horrendous uniform grey sky; what do you do? This is my first take up at Dark Wood.
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5) The light fractionally improved giving a little modelling to the trunks; again at Dark Wood.
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6) Tree near Deer Leap - Funky SH has one similar, I'll take mine down once she' posted hers.
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7) Hanging over the edge at Cheddar Gorge
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8) Unexpected glimpse of the road, far below.
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9) The only decent colour in the sky was directly overhead; we were so unlucky.
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10) This is a 100% crop of the previous image. The 70-200 f4 IS L is an astonishing lens, this is f5.6 at 200mm. Even 21Mp doesn't push the optics to their limit.
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Don't we all look 'ansome perched on Black Rock :D

thanks to everyone for yesterday, first time I've met any of you & you all made me feel very welcome.

Not sure any of my shots are a patch on Will & Dunc's sets, but I really enjoyed myself & learnt a lot.............mainly about vertigo! :puke:

Steve (frantically photoshopping in some colour & contrast!)

PS I really want a 50D now, or do I mean a 5D MkII?
 
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@ Caroline, Duncan, Existent & MadBadger - Many thanks for your very kind comments, made my day now that has :)

@ Duncan, cracking set - I especially love the shots of looking down in the gorge...proper heart in mouth moment crawling to the edge....

@ Existent - your pano is belter, love the dedication showed to get that shot - (y)

Thanks to all that came - I enjoyed some brilliant company :)

PS...Loved the Maltesers and the new lens on Keiths camera that can shoot through cloud :p
 
Extraordinary set of images you've all posted despite the lack of light. I love the views looking down in to the Gorge. Existent: you must have nerves of steel to have got that shot.

Great to meet up with you all and see the results on Duncan's laptop in the pub.

Hope next time I can make it for the whole session.
 
DuncanDisorderly said:
Existent - that wind-pruned thorn is a belter!
It looks better than it did on the laptop in the pub - really nice

The gorge pano is good too!
Slightly wonky horizon and I think the grad was a bit too low and has darkened the clifftops; but nothing that can't be sorted out.
I like the sweep of rock in the foreground and the tree on the left.
Well seen and well executed :D

In the pub you we were also liking one of your other Gorge shots.
Any chance of posting that too?
Ta - DD
Click to expand...

Thanks Duncan. I will post that one as well later on.

I tried to fix the exposure with a bit of dodge and burn but maybe I need to lighten the clifftops a bit more.. (y)
 
hi - a quick hello from me - was good to meet up with everyone...
Haven't been out for a few weeks so it was good just to get back in the groove with some snapping rather than being too focused on the technicalities!
Will probably try to process my shots tonight but in the meantime Duncan feel free to post up the 2 that you did for me in the pub!!!
Caroline - your dogs are fab!!! so I like Wills shot of me trying to take photos while hanging on to them!!!!
See you all again soon - maybe seaside next time????
 
Firstly thanks to Duncan and Carloline for setting this meeting up, with special thanks to Duncan for spending some extra time with me on Saturday morning, introducing to the caver's pub and Priddy Oggie. It was good to meet so many new people - but then I was a little out of my area (I live in Reading).

1. I've called the first one broken tree - there is hardly a complete branch on this tree


2. This one is the same windswept trees that Duncan took (I have a lot to learn)


3. This is the wall bordering Dark Wood which took some guidance to catch to Duncan's satisfaction, although CarolineS prefers a different take :shrug:


4. These are trees in Dark Wood, in the Duncam Stylie - to those who saw this one in the 'Show and Tell' I hope I've dealt with the stone in the foreground


5. This was my attempt at showing the Gorge


6. This was the only shot I got of the coloured sky and wanted to capture the silhouettes

Contd.
 
7. Finally the cute shot - had to put this one in of the goat either posing or saying 'mess with my kid and you mess with me


I had a great day and hope to meet everyone again
 
I think this was the one you were referring Duncan..



And here is the panorama again with the horizon adjusted and the exposures a bit more balanced (I think :D). Better or worse?



edit: re-uploaded the panorama with some more edits.. :D I think I am done this time.
 
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Keith,
I hope you don't mind...
"This one is the same windswept trees that Duncan took (I have a lot to learn)"
Here's lesson 1 :)

Your images all look a tad soft on my monitor.
I haven't emailed people their pics yet, so hadn't deleted the ones loaded for display in the pub.
So I was able to look at your original - it's much sharper than posted in this thread.
So I gave your image a bit of punch and bunged it through my standard web publication workflow.
It looks wildly different!

Your image posted earlier in this thread.
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My PP using your original image.
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My recommendation is to examine your post-processing workflow and find out where you are blurring your images.
If you need to chat about it, PM me; happy to help.
Please let me know how you get on
Duncan

P.S. Also noticed that there was no detail available for recovery from the sky.
Dropping a post-processing grad over the sky makes it look awful.
You can work around this by making 100% sure the highlights don't clip when you take the shot.
I can't remember if you were using highlight clipping indicators.
If you are - you need to work out how to use them better.
If you aren't; work out how to turn them on - they are great :)
 
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existent said:
I think this was the one you were referring Duncan..

And here is the panorama again with the horizon adjusted and the exposures a bit more balanced (I think :D). Better or worse?
Click to expand...
Existent :D
That's the one - it still looks superb :cool:
Needs a minor dusting of PP magic as the middle distance looks a bit lacking punch, but that's a minor tweak.
It's got impact, the composition does it for me, the colours are great.
A really nice image.

Compared to the first one, pano works well as the square format allows you to include the cliffs on the left - which look great.
I think the greens may be a tiny bit over saturated, probably caused by lifting them out of the gloom. But I'm being picky.

They are both images to be proud of.
Nicely done :D
 
Here's a couple of mine. Many thanks to Duncan and Caroline for organising this, it was really enjoyable. The Priddy Oggy in the pub afterwards was good as well!

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Duncan applied a grad effect to this one and emailed it to me, since I don't have the software to do it.

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Wouldn't catch me sitting there :eek:.

Having tried to print the tree picture (using genuine inks, paper and the correct colour profile for said paper) and discovering it looks nothing like it appears on either of my monitors, I think one of the things I need to learn soon is monitor calibration :cautious:
 
Thanks Duncan.
I'm afraid my camera does not have the highlight clipping feature so I can't be guided by it. :thumbsdown:
I was taken back by the sharpness on your laptop. I wondered if the lack of sharpness was caused by me resizing in a different program. I processed in PSE6 but batch resized with Fuji Finepix (I'm just familiar with it). In doing so I forgot to set the size to less than 200k. So I had to reprocess to bring the size down for uploading :bonk: I've gone back at looked at the original RAW file in PSE8 (I have PSE8 on my notebook) and it does not look as clear as the file you uploaded! I even tried processing the file in the Olympus software but could not recreate the sharpness in your version. :shrug:
I'm not sure what I learnt from this - except that I need a better camera and processing software coupled with skill enhancement :notworthy:
:LOL: :LOL: :LOL:
One thing is certain though - I won't give up trying and taking good advice (like yours) where ever I can get it.
 
Keith,
There's nothing wrong with your camera other then you need to get to know it a bit better!
I may be very happy with my 5DII now, but when I got it I wasn't.
When I look in depth at the problem, it was me, not the camera.
Took me 12 months to improve my technique to the point where I can state with a clear conscience that I'm capable of doing the 5DII justice.
But at the end of this learning process I could now go back to my 20D and equally confidently state that I would be able to get dramatically better quality images.

On the other hand....
There is something definitely not quite right with your post processing.
If you were more local I'd suggest meeting up and let me watch what you are doing.
As it is, I'm slightly at a loss what to suggest.
In my experience Camera Clubs tend to be a bit weak on the workflow thing; so I'm not recommending that option.
TP is great, but not quite personal enough to instantly provide a solution.
I hope somebody posts a suggestion I've missed.

The only option I can think is guaranteed to work is to to go in for a spot of navel gazing.
If you can work out at what point you are going fuzzy, then you can probably fix it.
If you can find the problem then TP is a gold mine for getting a solution - finding the problem is that hard bit.
 
keith_rg said:
Thanks Duncan.
I'm afraid my camera does not have the highlight clipping feature so I can't be guided by it. :thumbsdown:
Click to expand...
Keith - some good news :D
Your camera does indicate clipping - Google is our friend (and so is DPReview)
Have a look at this page
The first section on Display Modes talks about Blinking Highlights and Blinking Shadows - that's what I'm taking about (though it may be implemented slightly differently to Canon's)

So your camera does do it.....
Time to get the manual out (and give that DPReview article a thorough read).
On their conclusion page a couple of relevant statements are 'Serious highlight clipping on bright days unless you reduce exposure' and 'Live histogram and preview brightness inaccurate if you use Live Preview Boost'
Both of which might apply here

Final Note - DPReview don't give out Highly Recommended on a whim - so that's a good camera you have there.
You probably have a lot to learn from it before you NEED to upgrade.
 
Twice in one weekend :bonk:
I'd told enough people about my favourite walk from Charterhouse to Cheddar that I decided to scratch that itch.
A beautiful crisp cold sunny winters day - totally different to the meet despite only being 24 hours later.

I'm quite please with a few I grabbed from the same spot as the meet and thought you would appreciate a look.
The thread is over here
 
DuncanDisorderly said:
Keith - some good news :D
Your camera does indicate clipping - Google is our friend (and so is DPReview)
Have a look at this page
The first section on Display Modes talks about Blinking Highlights and Blinking Shadows - that's what I'm taking about (though it may be implemented slightly differently to Canon's)

So your camera does do it.....
Time to get the manual out (and give that DPReview article a thorough read).
On their conclusion page a couple of relevant statements are 'Serious highlight clipping on bright days unless you reduce exposure' and 'Live histogram and preview brightness inaccurate if you use Live Preview Boost'
Both of which might apply here

Final Note - DPReview don't give out Highly Recommended on a whim - so that's a good camera you have there.
You probably have a lot to learn from it before you NEED to upgrade.
Click to expand...

Thank you Duncan, once again :clap:. You are correct (as if anyone but me doubted you) buried on a page showing the histogram display in playback is the Blinking Highlights and Shadows function. In fact I'd stubbled upon it while we were shooting but I'd assumed it was linked to the 'onboard post processing' capability as it seemed to dim/brighten the image. When I looked none of that (different) picture was blinking so I just did not believe I had that functionality. I've not used 'Live Boost' for the reasons the article suggests. Believe it or not the manual for this camera has been well thumbed!! Obviously not well digested though!!

As to any potential upgrading - as you know I have other priorities before that can be dreamt of - both for the camera and the software.
 
Kieth my good man they are some cracking shots - could I possible have a higher res copy of no'6?

Good shots from everybody elese, loving the colours in yours existent - quality!! :)
 
willbaroo said:
Kieth my good man they are some cracking shots - could I possible have a higher res copy of no'6?
Click to expand...

Of course you can, do you want the RAW file? I had to boost this quite a bit to get some rock texture at the original is very dark.

PM me and let me have your email address and confirm what version you'd like. I'm sure you've PSE or similar that will open the RAW .ORF file(y)
 
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Looks like you all had a great day out, shame the weather wasn't more friendly for you, i.e. about 22 degrees with a nice dramatic sky.

Some of these pictures are fantastic and some of those ones looking down make me feel a bit light headed. I'm definately starting to want to do more landscapes now, a subject matter I've also avoided, but this year things will change!

Duncan, can I ask what your workflow for post processing is? The difference you made to those trees is unbelieveably. I've been having a few soft shots recently and I think it's me not my kit.
 
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