Photography Travelogues by Peter Eastway – Antarctica 2/3
August 5, 2011 10 Comments
Malcolm, Neko Harbour, Antarctica
It was steep. Really steep. Well, at least that is my memory of a mid-morning stroll that turned ugly. I was wandering up to the top of a headland for a view over the glacier that falls into Neko Harbour, Antarctica. It wasn’t a difficult walk, but you had to dig the edges of your shoes into the snow to stop yourself from slipping backwards. A good pair of snow shoes would have been helpful, but I was in the waterproof Wellington boots needed to make the wet landings. We’d leave the ship once or twice a day in inflatable zodiacs and usually you’d disembark into shallow but icy cold water on the beaches. The Wellington boots were perfect for that, but not ideal for snow mountaineering!
I found a great view of the glacier at the lookout, but within a few minutes, the weather deteriorated badly. Catabatic winds, produced by the micro climate over the now hidden glacier, played havoc with everyone. In fact, the winds were so strong many people decided to slide back down the hill, rather than risk being blown over the edge!
I had a little Panasonic Lumix GF1 tucked in my jacket, so I sacrificed it to the elements and took a few photos of what was an amazing scene. Looking out from inside my hood and jacket, with the wind at my back, it was easy to imagine I was in a cinema watching a movie, except my feet were a little cold!
I photographed Malcolm, one of the photographers with me on the expedition, walking up to the lookout. He was struggling against the winds and each step appeared laboured, as though he was walking in slow motion. Holding his camera and tripod over his shoulder, he reminded me of a mountain climber with a flag, about to claim a first ascent.
The Lumix GF1 shoots raw files and the file quality is great. However, as expected, the original capture was relatively flat. After all, this is exactly what the scene was like – flat and lightless – but a little bit of contrast fixed that. What I was most disappointed about was how sedate the hill appeared. It looked flat, nothing like the steep incline I remembered!
I must have tilted the camera awkwardly at the moment of exposure – at least that’s my story! And it’s a good thing Capture One has a few tools to correct such poor camera technique!
I selected the Straighten tool in the toolbox at the top of the Capture One screen. By holding down my mouse on this tool, a small drop menu opens and I selected Rotate Freehand. From here, I clicked in the preview window and dragged my mouse down and around – the image rotates and crops automatically. Most importantly, I was able to recreate the steepness of that mountainous trail that led up to the lookout.
Within the image was a marker and another climber, so I changed to the Crop tool and removed them from the photo. A few more adjustments were made in Capture One and then the image was exported to Photoshop for some final fine-tuning.
To see more of Peter Eastway’s images on Antarctica, visit his website at http://www.petereastway.com/showpics.taf?portno=57&PortName=ROCKHOPPER%20EXHIBITION
Nice tutorial !
Nice story from a cold world.
And a very good and dramatic image – but with a strange radiant stick!
Again – the halos – here round a person to the right and the stick to the left indicate sloppy masking. As far as I know the softness of the mask-edges can be somewhat controlled in C1, though not to the same degree as in Photoshop. What is the purpose? Like in the image of the Sea Lion, the halos are disturbing and destroy the overall good impression.
Or.. did you use the “seudo HDR” trick and accepted the halos with a Light Falloff exceeding 30, as the halos would be cut away anyway?
Tell about the planning – please!
Hi Eigil
The halos around the stick come from applying the Clarity slider – when you push clarity up high, it can have different effects on different subjects depending on the level of detail. I wanted the detail in the snow and the clarity slider worked really well there. For the stick and the person to the right, I simply cropped out my sloppy masking technique and saved time!
Having seen how I work, and the layers I have used, when you then enlarge the final image you can see some subtle lightening (halo) around Malcolm, but I am thinking that’s because you know what has been done. To my eye (maybe I need stronger glasses) the result is very acceptable.
Cheers Peter
Hi Peter
I haven’t noticed the lightening around Malcolm until now. I like your images – and the stories leading to them. The lightening effect was more obvious around the back of the sea lion – and harder to explain – and I had to know. The Clarity slider too I guess.
Thank you for sharing.
Best regards,
Eigil
First 2 photos are in different and non-sRGB color spaces. First one is DCam 3, J.Holmes and the second – PanasonicGF1-Generic.
I noticed it because Firefox 6 (with color management turned on) showed me strange (bad) picture. I opened it in Opera (does not support CMS) and problem became obvious.
In ADCSee (with CMS turned on) it looked good, and in Photoshop – even better.
Hi there,
The colour profile issue will be my fault. I use Joseph Holmes DCam 3 colour space as my default for RGB. I usually move them into sRGB for the web – I must have overlooked this when sending my files through to Phase One! Thanks for letting us know.
Cheers Peter
It is my experience that Phase One don’t give a damn about the opinions of their users and customers. This impression has been built up after years with C1 and Phase One’s one-way help desk (your customers report in detail – CO stays silent).
Apparently this policy is practiced here too. Why ask your users/customers to “Leave a Reply”, when you are not interested in a dialog about your tools and tutorials. This “enjoy and learn – and don’t expect us to care about your opinions” is a pain in a major body part – and an insult to all interested users.
Dear Eigil,
I am sorry you feel we’re unresponsive. However I can assure you that we take our customers’ input very seriously. In our product planning process we have customer input items by the thousands that we evaluate and some are included in every release.
As for our response to your questions on this blog. Peter Eastway is an independent professional photographer and thus we can’t promise he will be able to respond instantly on questions. However, we strive to ensure that questions are answered fast.
Best Regards
“However, we strive to ensure that questions are answered fast”. Good to hear, Niels V. Knudsen. Of course Peter Eastway is an independent professional photographer, and a good one – a welcome guest. So, the “toastmaster” should feel free to fall in on behalf of his guest. Meanwhile Peter Eastway answered my question. And now you. Could the dialog on this blog be within reach…?
Thank you.
Best regards,
Eigil