Sifting through the backlog of shots I've made this summer.

This one was shot on our Japanorama away-weekend in Onjuku, early on the second morning when a bunch of students and myself cruised around the local harbour. This lady was waiting for the fishing boats to return.

Nikon D700
Nikkor 50mm f/1.2 Ai

Tags:   fishing village chiba onjuku japanorama-weekend-trip camp-japanorama woman portrait blue seaside coast coastal fisherwoman harbour nikon nikkor-50mm-f1.2-ai square

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I was out the other day with Francois, who is in town for a while. We were doing a lesson together and a bit of a walk. Hie Shrine in Akasaka is a good spot to have some photo fun, as it has a nice courtyard - getting nuked by sun the other day when we were there - and a great set of torii gates around the other side from the main exit/entrance.

Full breakdown here, with screengrabs of the some of the post-pro stages;
japanorama.co.uk/2010/09/07/post-pro-case-studies/

This spot was shady which is why both we and this lady were finding some sort of sanctuary there.

Got a few nice candids of her and she didnt seem to mind me shooting.

Issues with this shot straight out of the camera were;

Odd lighting: green cast coming through the leaves, red cast from all the items in the shade reflecting that sun back in from camera-right. Temp of the shade and temp of the light coming in were very different. This can cause problems getting the WB right on location.

Muddy shadows and highlights that were partly a white-balance issue and partly because there was an enormous dynamic range going on which meant me setting an exposure to try and capture as much of it as possible.. and you cant have your cake and eat it.

Post-pro solutions:

Made two TIFFs from the RAW; one made through ViewNX and one through Capture One. Reason? This was shot with a custom pic control in the Nikon and ViewNX preserves that and Capture 1 doesnt, as it does not read the Nikon algorithm. So, I made the best of both pieces of software because they each have their own quality of RAW conversion. This allowed me to expand the dynamic range and bring some of the intense colour through from the Nikon picture control. Both TIFFs were opened in P'shop, pulled into the same canvas as two layers and layer masking used to bring out the best in both.

Cleaning up the WB was something that was done with a combination of removing colour cast in Nik Color Efex 3 and then finally using the PhotoStylizer filter, set at 0%, to do a deep clean of the whites and greys. This filter in Nik also pumps the red and blue channels which worked well with this shot.

Final little bit of output sharpening using Nik and that's how we ended up.

Will post a full workflow breakdown of this post-pro sometime today as I worked on this image with Joanna yesterday as part of a Photoshop class I was giving her. If I'd been doing this shot on my own, not showing someone step-by-step, it still would have come in at just about or over my 10minute rule for post-pro. I spend enough time in front of screens. I dont like to spend more than ten or 12mins per shot to edit. :-)

Nikon D700
Nikkor 50mm f/1.2 Ai

Tags:   japan japanese woman lady girl temple shrine jinga hie-jinga hie-shrine akasaka red shadow shady shade summer fan candid nikon d700 nikkor-50mm-f1.2-ai tokyo japanese-woman japanese-lady

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Last of the sun today. Joe and I took off for an hour or two walking around the local neighbourhood. Couldn't miss getting a shot of the sun streaming across this part of the street, so I waited for someone to come along and add a shadow.

Not that sharp. Had the lens set at f2.8 by mistake, which is like f/1.8 on my Nikon. The guy was walking fast... and it's a big focus barrel on this lens.

Mamiya 645 AFD II
Carl Zeiss Planar [Hasselblad] 110mm f/2
ZD Digital back

Tags:   osanpo street street-photography hasselblad-lens sunset sunshine sun walking shadow carl-zeiss-planar-110mm-f2 japan japanese tokyo oi oimachi omori walk photowalk my-neighbourhood evening summer-evening summer people mamiya-645afd mamiya-zd-back medium-format-digital medium-format

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I saw the family then the poster. Asked the fella if he minded if I shoot a picture of them across the road. He didnt know, of course, I was focusing on the poster.....

Mamiya 645 AFD II
Mamiya 80mm f/1.9
ZD Digital back

Tags:   osanpo mamiya-80mm-f1.9 family poster woman laughing dad daughters street street-photography japan japanese tokyo oi oimachi omori walk photowalk my-neighbourhood evening summer-evening summer people mamiya-645afd mamiya-zd-back medium-format-digital medium-format

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Gorgeous greens at Rikugien Gardens the other day. Not mush else going on there at the moment and the first time I have been in the summer. But the momigi looking like this was worth the trip.


Nikon D700
Nikkor 50mm f/1.2 Ai

Tags:   nature tokyo japan japanese nikon nikkor-50-mm-f1.2-ai nikon-d700 green momiji rikugien gardens-of-tokyo trees tree canopy looking-up dr3 branches leaves leaf maple acer

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