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Baher Jamil
{K:1155} 1/12/2010
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this is a very nice photo.
best wishs.
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Oscar E. Flores H.
{K:7850} 1/17/2008
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El manejo del B y N tá bien logrado. Felicitaciones por el doble premio
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Mary Sue Hayward
{K:17558} 3/22/2006
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This is incredible. I want to add my voice to all the other accolades. You found the perfect storm to serve as a visual focus, or perhaps I should say that you chose just the right view to pull all the elements together - earth, sky, and the promise of water. When I was there the last time I was so focused on not spraining my ankle that I never even thought about such an intelligent and captivating photograph!
Your portfolio of this trip is a real treat.
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tom rumland
{K:14874} 10/11/2005
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;^)
although my favorite is: http://www.usefilm.com/image/449268.html
take care,
tom
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levent buyuk
{K:2041} 10/9/2005
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Now I understand why do u like that lens.... My congs.. 7+++
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Giuseppe Ciccia
{K:190} 10/8/2005
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Great B&W landscape!
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kike Calvo
{K:11291} 9/29/2005
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To my favorites
Un saludo
kike
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Rui Bento
{K:80} 1/26/2005
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landscape photography isn't what i like the most, but this picture is trully excelent
first, the scenario is very good... but without the great perspective and angle you achieved, this shot would be... absolutely "normal". you made it an excelent picture. congratulations, tom.
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Johnpaul Soto
{K:675} 12/1/2004
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Excellent work, I love how you put the importance on the foreground.
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Adam Bi
{K:112} 11/29/2004
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great perspective
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Hakan AKIRMAK
{K:15913} 11/4/2004
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Great job!!
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baldacci baldacci
{K:412} 10/27/2004
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Very good compostiton and tones congrats!
regards
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Manu
{K:13082} 10/22/2004
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You certainly read your constructive critics comments, if thats what they are. This shot from lower down works really well. And BW is the better option, makes it look less like a travel brochure shot.
Congrats on the EC and the BIP
Manu
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tom rumland
{K:14874} 10/21/2004
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bobby!! good to see around! it's been a while. does this mean we will be seeing some new stuff from you?
take care,
tom
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tom rumland
{K:14874} 10/21/2004
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all, thank you so much for stopping by and taking a look-see and esp. for all your kind comments! and thank you, site admin and UF, for all the awards esp. the EC and all the frontpage exposure. i appreciate it immensely and am extremely flattered. i fully intend on thanking everyone individually but i've been out of town for the past few days so it may take me a while to get around to all of you.
thank you all,
tom
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tom rumland
{K:14874} 10/21/2004
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ben, thanks for your comment. long exposure noise reduction is a feature of the D100 and other DSLR's. the concept is that when you are shooting a long exposure (slower than 1/30), the camera takes a picture behind the closed shutter and determines where noise is bound to appear and creates a "noise map". this noise map is then superimposed on the actual photo you take and used as a mask to remove CCD induced noise. hope this helps.
take care,
tom
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Bobby Mun
{K:3709} 10/20/2004
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Hey Tom, you deserve this EC award !
Cheers !
Bobby
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Michael Kanemoto
{K:22115} 10/19/2004
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Best in project, editor's choice, now photo of the day. I think you are on a roll. Well deserved.
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Bart Aldrich
{K:7614} 10/19/2004
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Congrats x 2!! Quite nice, too.
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Ahmet Baki Kocaballi
{K:13618} 10/19/2004
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very good!
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Todd Miller
{K:16464} 10/19/2004
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hey tom...you're on the front page twice today! congrats on the EC for this one... lovely lovely work.
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Lee Harris
{K:14694} 10/18/2004
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Congrads on EC Tom...Well deserved.
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Stefan Engström
{K:24473} 10/18/2004
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hi tom - great stuff - just wanted to congratulate you on the double feature on the front page!
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Carol Cefalu
{K:8388} 10/18/2004
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Breathtaking and deserving of these awards!
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Roberto Arcari Farinetti
{K:209486} 10/18/2004
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hi.. my friend.. review for a great pkeasure!
now in BIP and EC!
many ongrats!
so beautiful..
ciao roby
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Patrick Jacobson
{K:29151} 10/18/2004
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Great view and perspective! =) Cheers!
Patrick J
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Ben Mok
{K:4084} 10/18/2004
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Sorry for being naive, but what's a long exp. noise reduction?
Great picture,
Regards,
Ben
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Rabat Tabar
{K:3948} 10/18/2004
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excellent landscape, beautiful texture and great dramatic sky
congrats
rabat
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SERDAR SAGKAN
{K:4764} 10/18/2004
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Excellent
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Mirek Netusil
{K:572} 10/18/2004
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very good Landscape und Stuctures, Congrat.
Mirek
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Amna Al Shamsi
{K:21795} 10/17/2004
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Congrats for EC
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tom rumland
{K:14874} 10/16/2004
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peter, thanks! glad you like it! it was a bit difficult, actually ;^) mostly because it was shot blind. set the exposure and focus manually and then set the camera on the ground (dry mud). i've determined that next time i get the chance to shoot this i'll probably lay down on the ground and actually look through the viewfinder ;^)
take care,
tom
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Peter De Rycke
{K:41212} 10/15/2004
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Awesome photograph really .. i can imagine it's very difficult to take a shot so near to the ground and yet with such great depth ! I beleive F22 surely was enough, but i suppose the camera was resting on the soil ? No point imho .. i believe the horizon is somewhat blur due to the low viewingpoint .. nevertheless a magic capture !! regards, Peter
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Patty Morena
{K:16598} 10/14/2004
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Dramatic shot!
Great point of view and excellent use of B&W.
Congrats
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tom rumland
{K:14874} 9/24/2004
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mark, thanks! glad you dig it! actually this was shot at 12mm but since i set the camera on the ground, the photo came out a bit tilted. so i had to straighten it about 1deg and then crop it. so i lost a little bit all the way around. and you know how that goes, you lose pieces of corners instead of complete sides. i'm thinking the softness at the edges has to be a result of distortion from the lens at it's widest angle. now i have many reasons and suggestions to go back yet again :^) thanks again.
take care,
tom
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Mark Beltran
{K:32612} 9/24/2004
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This really deserves an EC award, IMO. It's awe-inspiring and all the other superlatives combined. In my mind, I can see the colors. This would work either way; color or b&w. I think the next time I go to Death Valley, it's with a digital camera, because I always run out of film. The softness you mentioned is visible to me in the lower margins and corners therein, but not so up at the top and adjacent corners. Maybe the top was cropped and not the bottom (?). That's the thing about zooms; somewhere there's a soft spot. But I love the wide lenses. 20mm or less is what I like.
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Karez
{K:69} 9/23/2004
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Incredible! beautiful and dramatic
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Don Loseke
{K:32503} 9/22/2004
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Tom, send me an email at dloseke7@yahoo.com
Would like to talk with you. Don.
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Lee Harris
{K:14694} 9/22/2004
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Tom this is fantastic !
Great focal and depth.
looks like you were laying down to get this photo.
I'm at a loss of words...this is awesome.
Fantastic perspective.
Tom your lighting show and washed out road are awesome as well.
Looks like you had a great trip.
Lee
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Mark Scheffer
{K:1809} 9/22/2004
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Backfocussing is a term i picked up from dpreview.com; the camera focusses slightly short or behind the spot you think you focussed on.
I like your approach to photography, though you and miacael and gerard are WAY ahead of me!
Anxiously waiting for your next photo's,
Mark
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Sergio Lopez
{K:487} 9/22/2004
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Tom , you have got to be kidding... this shot is awesome! the sky seems to be lacking the contrast the ground has... but I know how difficult it is to get a decent B&W image from digital in the first place...
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tom rumland
{K:14874} 9/22/2004
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patrick, advise on death valley? i got lots ;^) email me and we'll talk about it.
take care,
tom
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Patrick Di Fruscia
{K:486} 9/22/2004
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Great low angle shot Tom. I really like the composition here. YOu story scares me a bit. I am heading to Death Valley next month. Any advices you can give me for my first trip to the valley of Death??
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Phillip Swanson
{K:7013} 9/22/2004
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wonderful composition, love the low angle, its funny, i have a calender of landscapes and this month is of the death valley rock wonder.... how do they move, no one will ever know, lots of thoughts on them though.../
cant wait for more of the series from death valley
phil
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tom rumland
{K:14874} 9/22/2004
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don, i pushed it almost all the way down and shot it at f/22. could've gone to f/32 but i was afraid it'd be too slow. i suspect a number of things at this point (see my other comments above for the full story): no tripod, focusing blind, and a bad habit of slightly underexposing for fear of a blow-out. i think i know how to fix it but i have to go out and try it again. hopefully it wont be 113F next time i'm there ;^)
i thought about sharpening programs. even tried the "focus fixer" plugin for PS but the result is too unnatural for my taste. i want it sharp but without the edginess that software tends to introduce. i probably don't know what i'm doing with the software ;^)
in any case, my current obsession is with the technical aspects of photography. i want to be in control of the instrument rather than getting it close and then manipulating the results to taste. nothing wrong with that approach, mind you, it's just not what drives me at the moment. thanks for the comment and your advise. as always it is much appreciated.
take care,
tom
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Don Loseke
{K:32503} 9/22/2004
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Did you stop the lens down most of the way? How about a sharpening program. Might help. This is a very nice perspective for this scene. Don.
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tom rumland
{K:14874} 9/21/2004
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mark, thanks! glad you dig it. btw, i'm not sure what backfocus is. maybe you can elaborate for me. i'm thinking my problem two-fold: this lens doesn't have a hyperfocal scale so i had to wing the focus by setting it to infinity (a tricky move because nikon lenses like to go past infinity a bit). also, i found after doing a bit of research on CCD sensors, that they do not record light logarithmically (sp?) but linearly. this causes there to be only 128 levels of resolution on the shadow end of the spectrum. this makes shadow areas prone to low-resolution and chromatic aberration.
basically this can be avoided by making sure your histogram is as far to the right as possible but without blowing the highlights. this way, your exposure will occur in the highlight side. in this side of the scale there are something like 32000 (or half) levels of resolution. resulting in better detail and sharpness. email me if you want more info on this.
the LAB method is a b&w conversion method mentioned by gerhard hoogterp in one of the forums. see http://www.usefilm.com/photo_forum/14/539423/ for the full discussion.
take care,
tom
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Mark Scheffer
{K:1809} 9/21/2004
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Hi Tom,
What a magnificent shot! Never mind the rule of thirds; we wouldn't have seen the fascinating patterns and textures. The size of the place is indeed overwhelming, esp. for somebody from the Netherlands ;-)
Isn't it caused by backfocussing? I was told that all digital slr's have this problem, the professional ones even more than the prosumer camera's.
And what is the LAB method?
Regards, Mark
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Roberto Arcari Farinetti
{K:209486} 9/21/2004
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Hi TOm
a magnific shot and impressive mode!
fantastic shadows and composition!
ciao
roby
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Amna Al Shamsi
{K:21795} 9/21/2004
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Excellent!
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ventrix drogo
{K:65398} 9/21/2004
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Excellent shot! Very good composition and nice tones. I like it. Bye.
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tom rumland
{K:14874} 9/21/2004
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todd, it's about 10 miles away at this point. hard to believe, huh? the place is just immense, which helps. i cropped it quite a bit which also magnifies it a bit. glad you dig it.
take care,
tom
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Todd Miller
{K:16464} 9/21/2004
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....that lightening shot is fantastic too! great detail-must've been close.
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Todd Miller
{K:16464} 9/21/2004
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tom, i love it.
great use of B&W, giving the attention to all that detail and texture you picked up.
this shot really has a wonderful surreal feel. your ability to create this type of mood is wonderful.
well done tom, wouldn't change a thing.
todd
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tom rumland
{K:14874} 9/20/2004
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kevin, i forgot to mention that i'll probably be putting the color version later on. i'm still mucking with it trying to get the colors just right.
take care,
tom
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tom rumland
{K:14874} 9/20/2004
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michael, thanks so much for the lengthy and enlightening comment. gives me food for thought. i figured that f/22 focused on infinity would be sharp enough but you're probably right, i needed a better support to deal with 1/60 considering how windy it is here. see my comments to kevin and hugo above for an explanation of how i shot this and the accidental violation of the rule of thirds. btw, i don't trust P to select the proper exposure in any conditions other than bright sunny days and then only between say 10am and 3pm. before or after that it's A or M.
this was shot with no filters at all and no undue manipulation in PS. no masking, just an +1.5EV adjustment, unsharp mask, levels, b&w conversion and contrast. what you see in the background there is just a shadow from the cloud that happened to coincide with the lakebed "horizon". this is about as out of the box as possible. even so, i'll have to check out your example. can't pass up on a learning experience.
btw, glad you dig it! and the lightning too. i liked the lightning alot so i wanted to show it but i didn't think it was portfolio material. just a cool picture of a cool event. thanks again.
take care,
tom
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tom rumland
{K:14874} 9/20/2004
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hugo, thanks for the comment. glad you dig it! see my comment to kevin above for an explanation. what i envisioned was exactly what you describe but somehow i held the camera too level and got a split frame. oh well, next time i'll get down and dirty and "look" through the viewfinder for this shot. i'm thinking IR with one of the rocks sitting in the midfield.
take care,
tom
PS - good to see you're alive. are you back?
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tom rumland
{K:14874} 9/20/2004
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kevin, thanks! actually i "should" have been laying on the ground ;^) i was just playing and a bit lazy so what i did is set the exposure manually (while kneeling), set focus for infinity and placed the camera down on the lakedbed. hold with left hand and trip shutter with right hand.
i think next time i will make the extra effort and actually compose it with my eye on the viewfinder ;^)
take care,
tom
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Jim Goldstein
{K:21230} 9/20/2004
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One of these days I'll have to make it out to this area. I've seen several fantastic shots from this area (including this one). Great texture and mood.
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Michael Kanemoto
{K:22115} 9/20/2004
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Hey Tom:
For the black and white conversion I run the photograph through Photoshop and then hit it with Levels (manual, not auto) to bring out the contrast. You can always use unsharp mask with custom settings if you really want to tweak it up.
I also try to auto-set the colors (control-B) in Photoshop versions 7 and above so that the R, G, and B are levelled before setting the photograph to black and white.
I have the D70 and noticed that moving to 6 megapixels means that there is so much detail in the CCD I can't focus manually anymore to the resolution that is pulled from the camera. In addition, I've noticed that the physics takes over in low aperatures, so if the camera is focusing on mid-near ground at F8, the near and far distances will still blur a bit. The lens is working great, it's the F-Stop and the fact that to get a completely crisp image with a 6 MPx CCD you have to pull an Ansel Adams and break out the tripod with a high F-Stop.
This only happens in lower lighting, say sunset and dusk, which is a problem for nature photographers who come out at sunrise and sunset.
My Nikon tends to run the equations to focus on the optimal spot for a landscape shot, but sometimes does not pull a high enough F-Stop. This is because there usually is not enough light to have a fast enough shutter for the average hand shake. The camera's working, and the lens is working.
Great photograph of the regular sand floor and the moody dark hills and sky. Polarized lens?
The only comment that you may get is to use the rule of thirds, but I think with the sky and ground both interesting you don't need to follow the rule.
Did you mask the top and lower half independantly? If not, never mind. If so, your mask line is showing on the right side where the sand goes a bit further into the hills. If you use Photoshop, select and then jump into Quick mask mode to tweak the mask while zoomed in.
I have an example of both - the masking and the B & W conversion on my "Miller's Backpost Ranch" shot.
FYI - Really digging the heat lightning.
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Hugo de Wolf
{K:185110} 9/20/2004
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Hi Tom,
Good conversion, maintaining the tonal range and details. I feel a bit ambiguous about the horizon splitting the horizontal centerline. With the same low camera position, only pointing upwards a bit more (thus capturing more of the sky) would improve the composition I think. The spherised effect the wide angle would create can either be corrected in PS (pinch) or be neglected. I think the latter would be my preferred option, as the pinch would only emphasise the wideness of the racetrack...
I think the sky creates a very powerful atmosphere. Excellent patterns!
Can't help you with your question, but I notice the same thing with my D100 too, only with different lenses. What looks sharp through the view finder is not necessarily sharp in the image.... Don't know what causes this, as the problem seems to vanish as unexpected as it appears...
Cheers,
Hugo
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Kevin Collier
{K:19076} 9/20/2004
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Todd, This is really a great view -- you must have been laying on the ground to get that great and grand wide angle view -- contrast and comp are excellent -- I'd love to see the color version. K
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Antonio Carlos Trivelin
{K:1193} 9/20/2004
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Fantastic. I love this kind of photography !!!
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Magnus Beierlein
{K:853} 9/20/2004
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Astonishing. It's the ultimate photo in describing a desolate hell-hole with temperatures only Belsebub could apreciate. What a fantastic composition.7+++++
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tom rumland
{K:14874} 9/20/2004
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later that evening: we finally got back on the road wanting to get back to furnace creek before the bar closed. we hadn't eaten all day except for snacks and such. 10 miles from furnace creek on CA 190 we ran into a vicious sandstorm. we slowed down and kept driving only to discover we had caught up to the lightning storm. the rain kicked in "hard" and shortly thereafter we started running into flooded sections of the road. each one worse than the last. this was more like fluid mud than water. when you drove through it, even with the wipers on full blast, the windshield seemed to be completely covered with hersheys syrrup. this is one of the worst floods we ran across and on hindsight, it was more than stupid of us to drive through it. but hey, the food and a warm bed were calling so we did it anyway.
this is a handheld, 4 sec exposure inside a running car in 40 knot winds. please excuse the shake.
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washed-out road |
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Aykan OZENER
{K:5996} 9/20/2004
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Simple but impressive.
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tom rumland
{K:14874} 9/20/2004
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side story: this was the first time i have ever stayed at the racetrack to see the sunset. we decided to hang out until it was dark before we started back towards furnace creek via the ubehebe road. when we arrived at ubehebe crater we were greeted with a beautiful lightning display. so we decided to try our hand at shooting lightning for the first time. i got a few good ones. unfortunately, i used a 20 sec exposure and forgot to turn on long exp. noise reduction. this resulted in a bit of annoying noise.
btw, this was taken around 10pm with about 40knot winds and a temperature of 103F.
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lightning show |
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Fabio Keiner
{K:81109} 9/20/2004
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great perspective
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Maria José Barres
{K:11276} 9/20/2004
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Dramatic shadows in this strong and full of character good composition.
Greetings.
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arwa abdullah
{K:34415} 9/20/2004
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Interesting point of view great texture and over all an awesome image 7++++++++
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