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

Image
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
Post a Comment

Infrared Clouds

Clouds in infrared
Infrared Clouds
Every so often I'll look out my window and see a shot that works for X kind of processing or method, or kind. When I shot this a couple weeks ago I looked out my window and saw great big white clouds with a deep blue sky backdrop that I knew would work for some dramatic looks if shot in infrared. And I wasn't disappointed. Take a look at the RAW color, the in camera B&W conversion, and a quick HDR'd version and see for yourself:

Aperture Screenshot
RAW, In-camer B&W, and HDR'd
In each of the "natural light" versions above the clouds look flat and listless, nothing how I remember seeing them. It was almost as if the clouds overwhelmed the camera sensor. Looking over the shots from that day I remember being disappointed when I ran across the color RAWs and camera B&Ws  and was preparing for more disappointment when I got to the shots with the IR filter on. I like to try and take a number of shots in the natural light before putting the IR filter on just because it's annoying to screw on and off the filter. Lazy? Yes.

When I got to the orangish/reddish IR shots I knew I had something. I have given up on faux color IR conversions at this point with the 720nm filter, as I find the shots just not rich enough in color to make them interesting to view, but with a little work this filter and black & white work really well together. A little work in Black & White Effects and I got an image that I was really happy with.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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

Image
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
Read more