The Pros and (Mostly) Cons of Upgrading to a 4K Monitor

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I'm in the process of getting back into photography which will mean a new camera, more on that in a later post. But the first step for me was a new computer, one with the horsepower to handle a modern day camera and its RAW files. Along with the computer comes a new 4K monitor. 4K is great for media consumption, right? Your characters on your favorite show or movie really look detailed and realistic. Scenery looks wonderful. Everything looks great, right? Wrong. You know what doesn't look great? That photo I took in 2012 that I thought was sharp but is very much not. I transferred over my past catalogs of photos over to Lightroom Classic and eagerly began opening up some of my favorite photos. At first I was happy with how the colors looked and how the scene was composed. Then I noticed it was a little soft. Well I had just gotten a new contacts prescription so that must be it. Changed to my glasses and the photos were even blurrier! I went through photo after photo and most ca

Coastal Infrared

This turned out, unintentionally, to be infrared week here. I took this, and a bunch of other shots recently on what I'll call my second outing with the IR lens. The purpose of these shots were to experiment with the in camera white balance and ISO settings. With my lens "wide open" at 3.5 my exposure times were anywhere from 2.5 seconds (ISO 100) to .6 seconds (ISO 400) which was as high as I was willing to bump the ISO up. But I didn't think I'd be using these shots for anything more than a learning session. But when I got to working on this I was really liking the look of it. This also took a lot more work to put together. I was really happy with how the foreground and the water turned out, but I wasn't crazy about the sky. Where the clouds and the ocean meet visually was a very vague area light wise and I wanted there to be more separation between the two.

Using my latest tool in my arsenal, Topaz Labs photoFXlabs, I used layers. I converted one image into black and white then used a brush to reveal the colored parts of the photo, merged the two together and got this. I'm pretty happy with the results, for a first time attempt. I love the look of the still water, which is a result of a 2.5 second exposure, and the color the infrared gave it, this very subtle grey-green.

Coastal Infrared
An other-worldly coast

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The Pros and (Mostly) Cons of Upgrading to a 4K Monitor