Critique Scotland on Fujichrome Provia 100F

s162216

s162216

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Samuel
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Some pictures from my holiday in Scotland during the Summer, all were taken with an Asahi Pentax Spotmatic F on Provia 100F, and were scanned on an IT8.7 profiled Reflecta Proscan 7200. All have only had levels and sharpening applied (except for the 2nd one which has had some minor straightening due to me being on a boat which made keeping it level a little tricky). These are in chronological order.


Near Loch Fyne Oysters by s162216, on Flickr
The first picture I took in Scotland, using a 55mm f1.8 lens. It shows the fields and hills surrounding the Loch Fyne Oysters shop and deli which we stopped at for a short break.


Loch Etive Seals by s162216, on Flickr
With a 55mm f1.8.
From a boat trip on Loch Etive, a really lovely time for a couple of hours (look up Loch Etive Cruises if your in the area as I can thoroughly recommend them, and the captain does a wonderful commentary of what can be seen as well as providing free tea, coffee and biscuits half way through and letting passengers have a go at steering the boat!). This shows a colony of seals on the Loch, I did not have my 70 - 210mm for this camera with me, but I did have my Minolta 'beercan' with me for my Dynax 5 so I've got some closeups on the B&W roll which I have not developed yet.


View of Lismore by s162216, on Flickr
With a 28mm f3.5 lens. Very likely f8 and scale focused.
A view of the Isle of Lismore and the backing mountains, taken on a stone 'beach' close to Port Appin. I deliberately took this with a wide angle, and front to back focus so to illustrate the diversity of the landscape.

Comments and critique are highly welcomed and encouraged!
 
Good stuff Samuel

I particularly like the final shot and given your objective I'd say you've succeeded.
 
@dinners Thanks, I was not too sure how the shot would turn out, but it does look wonderful when projected large.
 
Samuel, the first of these reminds me strongly of so many visits to the Highlands! Very much like that. Seals are difficult, aren't they? It's hard to get close enough for them not to be blobs! On the 3rd one, IMHO there's too much of the foreground, and perhaps cropping quite a lot of it off might imrove the balance of the composition? NB, I do like the foreground!
 
ChrisR said:
Samuel, the first of these reminds me strongly of so many visits to the Highlands! Very much like that. Seals are difficult, aren't they? It's hard to get close enough for them not to be blobs! On the 3rd one, IMHO there's too much of the foreground, and perhaps cropping quite a lot of it off might imrove the balance of the composition? NB, I do like the foreground!
Click to expand...

Thanks Chris, I understand exactly what your saying, and if I was to shoot it again I would use a slightly smaller aperture (~f4.5) so to try to isolate the rocks against the backdrop a bit more and draw more attention to them (whilst still showing the diversity of Scotland as the focus falls away). I have considered cropping it to a narrower ratio (perhaps 5:3?) but I like the details in the rocks and think they just show that 'beauty' (If I am making no sense then do tell me!) so I don't quite know what to do with it!

I'll find out how I did closeup with the seals with my 70-210mm f4 'Beercan' when I develop the film shortly - it was not easy trying to shoot from a rocking boat (it was also quite windy), especially with T-Max 100 (I decided to get some for a change over the 400 and several times I did wish I had selected that over the 100, although being able to 'push' the 100 to 200 when needed as you can just use normal developing was quite useful)

@joxby there were some spells of sun throughout the week, but it was mostly overcast (and raining!)

Sam
 
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s162216 said:
@joxby there were some spells of sun throughout the week, but it was mostly overcast (and raining!)

Sam
Click to expand...

Unlucky..

There's always a point to my questions, I'm finding them a bit flat, I think slide responds much more favourably to good light and shadows, but that's out of our control and if the film is in the camera that's pretty much a done deal too.
I'm gonna say they all look a bit cool too, on my completely un-calibrated netbook....:rolleyes:, I'd take another look at that IT profile though it could just be me.
 
@joxby

I've now re-profiled the scanner, and comparing the two profiles I get very similar results. I also took another look into how to use IT8.7 profiling (one of the most difficult things is that nobody as yet seems to have produced a definite guide on it and what you need to do afterwards) and found that the initial scan will be somewhat lower in contrast so some will need to be added back in after scanning and applying the profile. Unfortunately my monitor is not yet profiled, but looking at the scan and comparing it to the original slide, it was definitely much cooler so I re-scanned and started again. I then remembered that in difference to previous times, I didn't use the white point eyedropper in levels and instead used the white point slider. Going back to simply using the eyedropper has improved the results, and with the new profile and added contrast I think the new version below is better:


New View of Lismore by s162216, on Flickr

I'll do the others later, but what do you think?
 
Less moody, but it's certinly lifted the rock detail.
 
I use 18% grey eye dropper to get it close then tweak RGB separately, the result is neither wrong nor right, its my interpretation of the slide.
IT profiles are pretty good for consistent high volume stuffs, if you get them set up right, but for one offs which most of mine are, I choose eyes..

And the picture, well chucking contrast at it has livened it up a bit for definite, the colour I'm not certain because I haven't seen the slide or the scene, if you press me on it I'd say it was still a bit cool but I do wear Velvia tinted glasses so don't sweat it..:cool:
 
@ChrisR I definitly prefer the new version I did as a) it brings out the detail more in the rocks, and b) it looks somewhat close to the original now (after looking at it on the projector again and comparing)

@joxby IT8.7 profiling certainly speeds things up though as before I profiled it greens and blues especially were just dull and it would take ages afterwards to adjust the colours to look anything remotely like the slide. I usually use Velvia for slide, but decided to have a go with Provia instead (I did use 400X once and I quite liked it) and I think the more natural colours probably suited the landscape a but more what with the overcast skies etc (which may explain why some look a little cool as obviously the colour temperature for an overcast sky is a little cooler). I'm hoping to get a monitor calibrator shortly so that should help inform me for definite what I am seeing.

Heres the new version of the Loch Etive Seals:


New Loch Etive Seals by s162216, on Flickr
 
actually, that top one looks kak now I'm back on my netbook...lol
 
Samuel the new version of the seals pic has bounce and zing, it's transformed it completely from (sorry, bit unkind) a holiday snap into a real picture! I like it a LOT.
 
ChrisR said:
Samuel the new version of the seals pic has bounce and zing, it's transformed it completely from (sorry, bit unkind) a holiday snap into a real picture! I like it a LOT.
Click to expand...

Thanks Chris, I do much prefer the new version as well because it looks pretty much very similar to the original and illustrates the day (cloudy and dull yet bright) perfectly.

@joxby thanks for having a go with my scans, most of them look far better than my original scans. I have had another go at the Rocks picture however:


Latest Rocks Version by s162216, on Flickr

For this I used a new technique of 'exposure fusion' in PhotoMatix (interesting that even in the trial version images processed with the auto 2 images setting will never be watermarked unlike the other modes) to blend a normal exposure scan with an increased exposure scan to get into the shadows. I set the black and white points by consulting with the original projected slide, adjusted the grey point slightly to get the golden colour back in the rocks (considering this was taken around 14:00 I'm not entirely sure where the golden colour comes from in the original slide) and reduced the blue saturation to get the sky and distant horizon back to more like the original. Looking on my larger monitor (which is not calibrated either except for setting the contrast/brightness to test patterns, but I know that its way more accurate than my laptop screen which has a slight purple tint in the greys that I can never get rid of) I think that its the best version I've produced so far.

Sam
 
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