5D "Hamoa Days" : Hana Maui

kprince

kprince

Well-known member
Drove out to Hana in the 18ft Econoline van with longtime friend Nick Melrose. Intent on capturing a different location by the name of : Venus Pools, we we were instead dreanched with heavy and steady morning downpour. 20 min east of Venus Pools is this place, a cool black & white sand beach by the name of Hamoa. The sun came out and so did the camera. This shot is the result of 4 images under 12oclock Sun. Enjoy-

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Hamoa_Days.jpg
 
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That is another great picture! It feels like I could just walk into it and take a dip in the water. I loved the patterns in the sand.
 
Noct said:
That is another great picture! It feels like I could just walk into it and take a dip in the water. I loved the patterns in the sand.
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YES!! Thank you Aaron, that is exactly the feeling I was going for with this image. I don't think it really pulls the eye in any specific direction but hopefully at 30X60" you'll feel like you can just walk in and swim away. Aloha...
 
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man i just told my brother to go to Kuai today, TRY CHECKING OUT RED SAND BEACH in Maui, man it's outta this world, it has a reef that comes out of the water jagged edged 10 feet blocking the waves giving you your own lagoon, catch that with the moon in the background would be ominious.
 
kimko said:
man i just told my brother to go to Kuai today, TRY CHECKING OUT RED SAND BEACH in Maui, man it's outta this world, it has a reef that comes out of the water jagged edged 10 feet blocking the waves giving you your own lagoon, catch that with the moon in the background would be ominious.
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Funny you say, I'm color correcting a shot of RED SAND BEACH as we speak, I will post it when I am done. Aloha.
 
John_Hudson said:
I love your work. It's like the Word of the Day but better
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I feel the same way John!

kprince, as always, your work is awesome. How do you make the colors seem so surreal, yet very real at the same time? It has that poster look with an "larger (in terms of color) than life" feel.
 
oneinfiniteloop said:
I feel the same way John!

kprince, as always, your work is awesome. How do you make the colors seem so surreal, yet very real at the same time? It has that poster look with an "larger (in terms of color) than life" feel.
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Why thank you! First off, I try to shoot a location that is already eminating that "surreal" vibe. The weather is so erratic on the north shore that the clouds and lighting are in constant flux. This shot was at 12 noon, usually colors would look pretty flat during this time of day. It had just rained all morning and finally the sun came out, but left behind a very thin layer of clouds way up there, this thin layer of clouds softened the scene in a very minimal way. Just enough to give it a surreal edge to the naked eye.
Whenever I get this feeling that something is just a bit "off" or dreamy, I know it's time to take the camera out. I won't shoot a scene if it doesn't give me this feeling.
While shooting the scene I maximize camera settings even if they might not do anything.
Some of the things that go on in camera:
1. Raw in User defined mode everything is neutrally set.
2. Mirror lockup is always on, if you aren't familliar with this function, you have to hit your shutter release button TWICE to get an exposure, the first press swings the mirror up to a locked position(this completely eliminates any microvibrations that may affect clairity in fine details that are far away) and the second tap of the shutter button exposes your image. WARNING: if you are shooting into direct or brightly lit scenes, remeber to make those two depressions of the shutter happen very quickly. You don't want to swing your mirror up and then be like " Ok just a sec, I'll let this car pass or whatver" Your sensor will be taking the heat during this time.
3. Solid Tripod and Head are a must, make sure the footing of the tripod is firmly set in place before doing a thing.
4. Remote shutter release, why risk touching the camera and adding movement/vibration if you don't have to?
5. Meticulously clean your lens with a good lens cloth. NOTE: I personally do not use any protective screw on uv lens cover etc... I think they degrade the image, You have to be willing to replace a lens if it gets scratched, in order to keep the quality as good as possible. Plus this glass is pretty damn rugged, I have wiped mine clean with about ever imaginable cloth. Tshirt, towel, paper towel, etc.. Not a single scatch to date.
6. Shoot your first three frames with a gray card in the scene, this will help you later in PP.
7. I always shoot with bracketed exposures, you never know when you may want a bit more shadow detail in rocks or tree trunks. I shoot with a + - 1 stop setting. I know you could just duplicate layer and screen blend. But that is destructive, why bother?
NOTE: Find your CREATIVE EXPOSURE. Do you want the scene to be razor sharp and frozen in time? Do you want a tiny bit action to suggest MOVEMENT? Maybe more. Do you want it to be dreamy?? Better bust out your ND filters. It's all about choosing the right exposure for the scene. Which one moves you?
8. This may raise debate but I prefer to convert RAW files to TIFF for editing, I find that for whatever reason, it holds up better than PSD files. I know, it's crazy, but for me it's true.
9. First things first, white balance your images with THRESHOLDS, if you don't know how to do this, buy a book on PS. It will make your life a whole lot easier. You also have shot your neutral gray card when you are white balancing with Curves. Life is good.
10. Color Correcting is really a matter of taste, you can use CURVES, HUE/SATURATION, REPLACE COLOR, COLOR BALANCE etc... I personally use all of them it all depends on the image. Try to do all of your CC with adjustment layers, this way you can always delete them if you like.
11. When Merging layers, create a new layer, select it, have visible the layers you want to merge and hold OPTION (Mac) then select "merge visible" this will create a new layer with the merged elements and you will still have your unmerged element for later if you like. Put them in a folder you call Unmerged .......
12. When you are satisfied with your CC Sharpen your image by choosing MODE/LAB COLOR in your layers pallet select CHANNELS and choose your LIGHTNESS channel.
Go to SHARPEN/UNSHARP MASK with values of 87% for AMOUNT 1.0 for RADIUS and 4 for THRESHOLD. Sharpening your image with the lightness channel is the most non destructive type of sharpening in my opinion. Why would you want to sharpen your colors? You just spent 12 hours making them perfect. Go back to MODE RGB.
13. Select "Save As" and Send it to your folder called FULL_RES_IMAGES and name it FULL_RES_HAMOA. Save it as a Copy, Unselect "LAYERS" (you don't want to save layers) select "imbed Adobe 1998 color profile. Most printers in North America require this color profile for printing.
14. Create a new folder called PSD'S and save your working file, you may want to change something later and you will still have all your layers to play with.

Hope this has helped, it's pretty much what I do with all the images you have seen on this site.
PS: always work with a calibrated monitor or you may just be wasting your time, only to find out your final print looks totally different. Trust me on this one. Aloha!!
 
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Thanks for sharing your workflow, I've really enjoyed your pictures - they're one of my main reasons for checking back here regularly. Anyways I just had a few questions that I was hoping you could answer. First, I was wondering what type of work you do on the images before converting them into tiffs? Do you just optimize the exposure and contrast, or do you use the white balance to creatively control the colour of the image or anything like that in the raw converter. Second (and this is probably a really stupid question) but when you're taking the pictures that you will eventually stitch together, do you just tilt the camera and then adjust for the distortion in post, or actually take the pictures from different positions. Finally when stitching together photos with moving components (like the water or even possibly the trees in this one) is it just ultimately meticulous use of cloning tools or is there some secret or tip that you could give. Thanks and keep up the great work!
 
flavafrose said:
I was wondering what type of work you do on the images before converting them into tiffs? None, All Post done in PS

Do you just optimize the exposure and contrast, or do you use the white balance to creatively control the colour of the image or anything like that in the raw converter.
Exposure and Contrast don't really affect the colour of the image so I'm not sure I get you on this one. Every image is different and CC is sometimes done with curves, and sometimes not. Like I said I will usually spend 8-10 hrs fine tuning colors untill I am happy.

Second (and this is probably a really stupid question) but when you're taking the pictures that you will eventually stitch together, do you just tilt the camera and then adjust for the distortion in post, or actually take the pictures from different positions. I usually don't use the top and bottom edge of any given shot. The Tamron 28-75 is pretty distortion free, it's a great lens.

Finally when stitching together photos with moving components (like the water or even possibly the trees in this one) is it just ultimately meticulous use of cloning tools or is there some secret or tip that you could give. Thanks and keep up the great work!Here's the fun part: Bring your second image in and give yourself 1/2 overlap, you will shoot more images but have a much cleaner final product. Switch the blend mode to difference, If you had two of the same images it would turn solid black but you don't due to the fact that you've changed perspective, instead you will see what looks like morie patterns move the image around untill you see solid patterns of BLACK within this half pic overlap. When you find a solid black trail that snakes through the image STOP. The BLACK area means the image is 100% perfectly aligned. Then change your view size to ACTUAL PIXELS and get your eraser tool and select a brush size that will fit witin this black snaking pattern. Now all you have to do is carefully ERASE only the SOLID black trail. Then proceed to a larger brush size and erase the remainder of the image that's not part of your newly stitched area. When you switch the BLEND MODE back to normal you will see how the image PERFECTLY blends. NOTE: you may have to use a bit of Clone Stamp for areas that didn't perfectly align, but it's quite easy cleanup. CLOUDS AND WATER are extremely easy to blend, just make sure you NEVER EVER EVER..EVER..!!! Use a POLARISER , your life in Photoshop will be hell. Ultimately you'd like to get a special head for your tripod that allows you to accurately set your NODAL point this will insure the least amount of perspective distortion.
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Hope this helps. Aloha!
 
Thanks for your reply, the third response really helps. To clarify my first questions, I was wondering how much (if any) work you did in the raw converter (acr, capture one, etc.), if you used it at all whether you just used it to fine tune exposure and contrast, or if you also used the white balance tools for simple colour correction (but I guess you do all your work after conversion to tiff). In the second question I was referring to the distortion caused by the differing angles of the film plane in relation to the subject that would have been caused by tilting the camera instead of physically raising its position (keeping the film plane parallel or constant). Anyways it doesnt really matter because both of these questions were answered anyways. Thanks alot for the tips!
 
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Thought you all might like to see a piece of this shot at ACTUAL PIXELS. Web compression mucks it up a tiny bit, but here you go:

Hamoa_ActualPixels.jpg
 
Thanks K! Awesome tips and I'm going to have to print them out as well. I especially found the sharpening one very insightful. I've never thought of just sharpening the luminance layer and I'm eager to get home and try it out.

All this talk makes me wanna go out and shoot some photos this weekend!
 
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