Bold Coast 3

Gallery: LandscapePosted August 12, 201283 views4 comments

Panoramic of the rugged coastline along one of the Bold Coast trails in Downeast Maine. 4 (vertical) image pan (54mp).
Canon 5DII, EF 17-40 @ 17mm, 1/40sec @ f11, ISO 100, w/circular polarizer (to control reflections in the water).

Many of my landscapes are 3 and 4 image panned stitches that are 40 or 50 plus megapixels. I've been having a hard time getting a decent looking image after reducing down to 720 px (or 1200 px)--mainly the ones that have a lot of rocky detail. They end up looking kind of "chunky" or over sharpened.
I normally use "Bicubic Sharper (best for reduction)" in Ps CS5, followed by Unsharp Mask (A-40, R-0.8, T-1 or 2) and that normally works pretty well for my other photos. With this image I tried something a little different and used "Bicubic Smoother (best for enlargement)", followed by Unsharp Mask. I tried it both ways with this image and Bicubic Smoother definitely looks less "chunky" but it also looks less sharp. If anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them!

Comments

4 comments

Comment posted by Tony Kuyper on August 12, 2012 at 11:04 PM

A bit busy with some strong, contrasty light. Could maybe see trying to focus on specific parts of the scene and maybe at a time with softer and/or warmer light.

Registered on November 1, 2003, 364 Posts, 22328 Comments

Comment posted by Wick Smith on August 13, 2012 at 8:56 AM

It's a really nice scene worth revisiting & shooting in different light. The trouble with scenes like this is using a polarizer and getting the sky to come out more even. The deep blue on the right side looks a bit distracting. I know that is very tough to tone down & have it look realistic. If I shoot a scene like this, I've found it helpful to bracket it with and without the polarizer for this reason.

As for sharpening, I use Nik Sharpener & it gives me great control in one pass.

Registered on June 12, 2009, 91 Posts, 379 Comments

Comment posted by Mark Seaver on August 13, 2012 at 11:20 AM

Neat scene, with really nice depth. I like how the distant shore meets the streaks in the clouds. The color change across the sky is distracting as Wick said. I also think you could emphasize the distance and way the land meets the clouds by cropping almost to the corner of the sky on the right and just a bit from the bottom. I don't know how this is oriented relative to the sun, but shooting this with some softer light (maybe a light overcast) and/or early or late side light would be interesting also.

Registered on January 23, 2011, 1103 Posts, 17270 Comments

Comment posted by Bill Caldwell on August 13, 2012 at 4:00 PM

Thank you guys for your comments. Yeah, this is a difficult location lighting wise because the coast runs pretty much east to west. Normally I prefer to shoot in the morning or late afternoon light, but at this location the sun is behind me in the morning (very flat light) and in front of me in the afternoon which puts the rocks mostly in shadows. In order to get some modeling and texture in the rocks I had to shoot at about noon which is something I would normally never do.

Registered on October 10, 2011, 62 Posts, 508 Comments