Holiday in the Mountains. (.... sharing some pics ! )

[majithia23]

Howdy guys.

Been away for quite some time. Many reasons, and one of them is a Holiday Break .

Went to the footsteps of Himalayas to enjoy a Week, close to nature and natural beauty .

My best companion -- My new DSLR Nikon D3300 .

So, sharing some shots from the journey with you fellas. :)

High Res Full size images in the link adjacent to serial number .

---

1) Lonely Wheat

Encounterd a wheat field in the mountains under heavy drizzlle and difficult light, when capture this .

2) Peeping Sunrise

Same conditions, different shot.

3) Green Valley

Climbed about 3-5 Kms uphill on the mountains to reach a Buddhist Monastery and then captured this .

4) The Journey

On a morning walk under heavy drizzle and this is the road i took .

RAW Capture

5) Silhouttes in Sunrise

Sunrise, as seen from the window of my hotel .

6) Pink in the Valley

There were loads of roses around everywhere. Managed to take this HDR shot.

RAW Capture

7) Majestic Clouds

Stopped on the way to destination .

8 ) A River Runs Through

This was the view across our camping site. Raging river waters against Mountainous background.

9) Sports Valley

The valley where we went for some Adventure sports .

10) Dreamy Sunrise

Another morning shot .

11)

You are at 6051 Feet ! On the way stopped at a mini hill station . Where we actually went it was about 7000-7500 feet.

12) Bridge over Raging Waters

Raging river waters. no tripod .1Captured this shot semi hand held at 1/2 Secs. Dont know how, but this shot came out well. Ok, about 20 shots were wasted .

13) The Monastery

An arduous up hill climb to the Buddhist monastery.

14) A Thousand Flames

A room inside the monastery. A thousand flames .

15) Goodbye Day !

Sunset. It was the last day and it struck me, i havent captured a single shot of sun setting in the mountains.Couldnt move to a better location to capture it behind some peaks coz it was already too late. So clicked this from where ever i was standing.

16)

Me !

Edited July 16, 2014 by majithia23

[software182]

Very kool man :rockon:

[Reefa]

Looks nice very nice :wub:

[eXentios]

Very good indeed, nice pics, thanks for sharing, keep up with the good work with your new companion. I'm a Nikon fan too. :thumbsup:

[dMog]

great cameras allow a great eye to take even better pictures....not jsut anyone with a nikon can take great pictures like you have here....

[freeforever03]

I'm very jealous!!!!!!!!

[kaloo1995]

great..

am sure u had a wonderful time....

[majithia23]

Very kool man :rockon:

Thanks software182 ! :)

Looks nice very nice :wub:

Thanks mate ! :)

Very good indeed, nice pics, thanks for sharing, keep up with the good work with your new companion. I'm a Nikon fan too. :thumbsup:

Yeah Nikon ! My first DSLR . Still trying to learn what all it has to offer ! :)

great cameras allow a great eye to take even better pictures....not jsut anyone with a nikon can take great pictures like you have here....

Bang on ! Great cameras dont make great pictures . Correct.

I am just a newbie. Allright a lil more than a rookie, but still trying to learn .

These are the shots i could get right. I wouldnt show or share the shots that were wasted . If i clicked around 500 shots, only 250 are that i kept and 100 which were the best !

But that is how you learn.

Know the basics and keep shooting.

Some shots will work out good and some bad.

Analyze and Knowing what went wrong and how to avoid it next time.

I'm very jealous!!!!!!!!

:)

great..

am sure u had a wonderful time....

yup ! :)

---

Added a few more shots !

[DKT27]

I'll admit, I know nothing about cameras, except that MPs mean nothing and they should look good at pixel level, however, what I can say is that some of those pics are worth being in one of the top pics I've seen on the internet.

Can you post or provide higher resolution images.

[jalaffa]

I need a camera that can do something remotely similar. Those pictures shared are awesome!

[dMog]

I need a camera that can do something remotely similar. Those pictures shared are awesome!

again ...a very good camera helps but if you do not know how to compose a shot....frame it and a few other extremely key basics you are better off with cheap point and shoot as they can take extremely good pictures too... if you are really one that takes quick snapshots and are always wondering why other people always have better pictures from the same subjects and similar equipment then a basic picture taking class may help more than you think it will

[majithia23]

I'll admit, I know nothing about cameras, except that MPs mean nothing and they should look good at pixel level, however, what I can say is that some of those pics are worth being in one of the top pics I've seen on the internet.

Can you post or provide higher resolution images.

Thanks D :)

I'll post the links to full high res files shortly !

I need a camera that can do something remotely similar. Those pictures shared are awesome!

I need a camera that can do something remotely similar. Those pictures shared are awesome!

again ...a very good camera helps but if you do not know how to compose a shot....frame it and a few other extremely key basics you are better off with cheap point and shoot as they can take extremely good pictures too... if you are really one that takes quick snapshots and are always wondering why other people always have better pictures from the same subjects and similar equipment then a basic picture taking class may help more than you think it will

@jalaffa

dMog is spot on .

A camera is just one of the tools used to bring a scene/capture/vision/thought to life in the form of what is known as - An Image !

Lots of things have to be considered before hitting the shutter.

>Lighting and Exposure .

>Composition . ]

>Focusing and Depth of Field.

>Understanding the tool, here being the camera .

> And in todays Digital world -- Post Processing knowledge.

You see, as dMog pointed even cheap PnS can capture great images and that is absolutely correct.

If i show you a side to side capture of the same scene from a DSLR and a PnS, the image from a PnS might look better ! :P

DSLR and other high end PnS work best when shot in RAW format !

Of course most of the DSLR gives better shots than most PnS, thanks to the Lens and Sensor, but RAW is different .

I am learning to shoot in RAW. RAW is simply a digital negative, DNG fie format.

It is just pure light fallen on the sensor and then packed w/o doing anything to it .

You see, when ever a digital shot is captured, it is simply light converted to bits and bytes by the sensor.

We cannot see it and neither can ordinary devices.So, what the shooting device does is -- Process it !

So that it becomes viewable by other electronic devices . And of all the formats, the set most accepted is -- JPEG ( Joint Photographers Expert Group ) Format.

JPEG is a processed format. The camera itself processed the captured light and saves it. And this is where things go wrong.

Why ? Because, simply put, the camera does not understand the scene and it does not know what is bright or dark or what needs to be more colorful or sharp or what light are we standing under etc etc etc ....

It simply processes the light by what it thinks is correct and that might not be correct everytime.

Consider this ---

RAW, is like the raw materials required to bake a cake and the JPEG is the baked cake ! ;)

So, getting the point . With RAW you can take the image in any direction you want and process it the way you want it !

There is so much data in a RAW file and you just need to process it and control the outcome ! ( No wonder a RAW file is about 20 to 50 Mb in size ! )

Few examples fro, the images above ---

A) Consider the image 4. Black and White landscape . This is the RAW capture ---

B ) And consider image 6. Pink roses in the valley. Now this is a bright high dynamic scene with lots of shadows and colors and bright skies and clouds and all.

Such a scene is simply beyond the dynamic range of any sensor. Meaning any sensor will not be able to capture all the tones of the scene and do justice to every object.Getting one thing right will blow out the other .

This is the RAW capture at 0 Exposure .

[majithia23]

High Res Full Size links added ( adjacent to serial number ) . :)

[dMog]

cuba

rocky mountains canada

[majithia23]

@dMog

I like the sunset shot .

I dont know if this is a RAW or a JPEG capture ( likely to be a JPEG .... ), but if shot RAW, i would have extracted some more details from the clouds ( giving them depth and dimension and dynamism ) and from the sea waters ( accentuating the ripples and the wavy motion of the surface ) and also lowered the tones in the top sky adjacent to the clouds and added in a lil blue and then added in a lil more warmth around the sun ! :)

or

Would have lowered the exposure settings and then go in for a long exposure at about 10-15 secs. This would might have resulted in a very calm peaceful summery sunset !

[dcs18]

@ dMog

Hmmm . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rocky Mountains, eh? For a moment, I really thought they were mushrooms.

[dMog]

@dMog

I like the sunset shot .

I dont know if this is a RAW or a JPEG capture ( likely to be a JPEG .... ), but if shot RAW, i would have extracted some more details from the clouds ( giving them depth and dimension and dynamism ) and from the sea waters ( accentuating the ripples and the wavy motion of the surface ) and also lowered the tones in the top sky adjacent to the clouds and added in a lil blue and then added in a lil more warmth around the sun ! :)

or

Would have lowered the exposure settings and then go in for a long exposure at about 10-15 secs. This would might have resulted in a very calm peaceful summery sunset !

sunset was taken with point and shoot digital

[DKT27]

@majithia23: Thanks for higher resolution images and for the info.

However, one question, what did you use to process these images, cause from the looks of it, you seem to have mastered it.

[majithia23]

I use Adobe Lightroom 5 and some plug ins.

But most of the work is done in Lightroom .

Mastered !

Hell no buddy. :D

Lightroom is incredibly powerful. Very simple and intuitive interface which does not has a very steep learning phase.

Even watching the starter help videos @Adobe website can get you started.

But the learning of interface and its workflow is totally unrelated to what it can do .

Clean and not so difficult tool, with incredible and powerful output results !

It is one of the best Photo Editors.

Dont compare it with Photoshop. Photoshop is of course the epitome and mecca of photo editors ( or actually manipulators ! ),

but when we talk about pure Image processing and editing, Lightroom is the king.

Actually LIghtrrom is known as the Digital Dark Room ( Vis-a-Vis the Dark Rooms in older days which were used to process the film negatives ! )

Know the basics--- like what is contrast, hue,temp, sharpness,noise etc etc etc

and

Learn the basics of what every tool and slider can do in Lightroom

and

the only limit is your creative vision !

[DKT27]

Thanks for the info.

I have heard about it a lot, however, never tried it. Worth checking out then.

How is it different than Photoshop though. Also, can it be useful for images like normal camera captured jpgs and other digital images.

[majithia23]

Thanks for the info.

I have heard about it a lot, however, never tried it. Worth checking out then.

How is it different than Photoshop though. Also, can it be useful for images like normal camera captured jpgs and other digital images.

Never compare RAW with JPEG ! ! !

To put it in simple words ---

Consider a Chocolate Cake .

RAW == The ingredients required to make the cake

JPEG == The baked cake !

Now, you can yourself imagine and visualize, that how much freedom you have with modifying the final outcome , with either of the starting points !

( i.e. A RAW or JPEG ! )

( ... and no rewards for guessing if you picked the option -- RAW, for best results ! ;) )

Yes, LR can edit any format including JPEG ( ... and the editing is non-destructible, everytime !! ) , buy you lack the room and the data available for stretching the limits and thus the results are not as good as compared to RAW !

If you want some cool and snappy filters and effects to apply to your images, dont bother over LR !

Its not intended to do that !

Its a Professional product .

But, You can create your desired effect, once you know how to operate LR.

(On the other hand, there are many user presets available on the net with you can have a desired effect ! )

Now, with --

Lightroom -- You are editing to make the cake look like a Pure chocolate cake, or a orange chocolate cake, or a mint chocolate cake, or mud chocolate cake, or a pie that looks like a chocolate cake, or etc etc etc ...

Photoshop -- You can make the chocolate cake look like a jiuce, or a buffet, or a rock, a or a bird or , grass or etc etc etc !

The description is too rough and crude , but i hope you get the point !

Lightroom --- Pure and advanced and lucid IMAGE Editing ! ( Yes, you can manipulate an image, but the manipulations remain in the field of an image ! )

Photoshop --- A very advanced and bigger brother of Lightroom ! What can be done in LR can also be done in PS, but for the same its a huge overkill !

PS is an image manipulator. More intended for creative, artistic and graphic and ADVANCED EDITING ( and , in synchro with Lightroom , when required ! )

Most of the Pro Snappers use LR as their main tool ( or something similar ) with a lil reliance on PS and esp when they want some specific and particular result from an edit !

At last, post processing, be it in any which way, is an entirely different subject than Photo taking. and requires a lot of knowledge, practice, experience, learning and something natural known as a vision or flare ! :)

[Airstream_Bill]

Very Nice thanks for Sharing.