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[OM] Re: Mooning other photographers

Subject: [OM] Re: Mooning other photographers
From: Moose <olymoose@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2007 02:24:29 -0700
Scott Peden wrote:
> As it happens, I was curious about your 500/8 Seimar, so I already 
> checked out your moon shots with it in PS when you posted 
> it.
>
> http://www.moosemystic.net/Gallery/Others/Peden/SeiVivMoon2.htm
>
> The immediate problems are lack of contrast and that the image is almost 
> all in the lower half of the histogram. The roll-over shows the result 
> of some combination of Levels, Curves and LCE to spread the image out in 
> the histogram, adjust tonal distribution and add both global contrast 
> and local contrast.
>
> The next issue is sharpness. The click-over shows the result of 
> sharpening, and perhaps some LCE, I don't recall  the details. Each 
> different image needs to be done differently in any case. The result is 
> perhaps a bit over the top for presentation, but I was interested in 
> seeing how much actual detail the lens captured.
> PS equals Photo Shop?
>   
Yes.
> If so that explains why I understand so few of the phrases you used, I never
> had the time to learn that, to many irons in the fire all at one time, most
> of the time, though doing picture manipulation has been more of an interest.
>   
Back in the old days of B&W, camera, lens and film got you nothing but 
crap without your own darkroom. And my personal experience with any 
color but slides was not that great, either. Actually, I didn't know 
what a huge amount I was missing until I got a scanner and PS.

In the digital age, if you want great results, camera, lens and memory 
card still aren't enough. One needs to acquire and learn to use a 
digital darkroom.
> Getting a good shot of the moon, clean and crisp, has been a goal of mine
> for sometime.
>   
As you can see, you can get a good, clean, crisp shot that is hidden. As 
I said in a post a couple of days ago, moisture, dust and simple air 
movement, plus possibly less than idea camera settings for the task, 
wreak havoc on tonal separation, contrast and local contrast.
> What you did was truly amazing, 
Thanks, it seems fairly elementary to me compared to working on more 
complex and subtle images.
> increase the contrast was about all I
> understood, but the beginner photo programs I have used deliver about what I
> paid for them. free of cost, free of great quality.
>   
They are all going to have Levels and Curves, which will get you quite a 
ways. You need one with adjustable parameters for Unsharp Mask (USM or 
sharpening) to do LCE (Local Contrast Enhancement) and, of course, 
fairly ordinary sharpening at the end. I think the GIMP will do all that 
for free. Maybe more work than in PS, but not much, I think.

PS does have some unique tools that are big advantages for some work, 
but I didn't use them on your moon shot.
> I want some other camera gear, but have been holding off on selling the
> Seimar 500, even though I now have the Sigma 600. Hard to believe that the
> Seimar gave me the best shot I had so far from my meager attempts with the
> C-series cameras.
>   
I was tempted to offer to buy it, but you wanted like $50, and I 
couldn't get that many $ past the images of you cleaning it by stuffing 
a linty rag down into the insides and twisting. :-)
> I still have a Photoshop 7 or some sort of program around somewhere, but how
> to use it? 
PS 7 isn't a bad place to start, especially for free, but some quite 
wonderful tools have been also added since.
> I immediately get bombarded with names of things and nearly
> nothing has a label to tell me what those things are. There has to be
> something somewhere that describes the names of the items and what each item
> is suppose to do, like sharpness, contrast
>   
There are a gazillion books and manuals around. You should be able to 
find a used one for PS 7 for beginners for a song used. I learned by 
doing. May take a while, but then I really know what each thing I've 
learned does. I learn better that way, anyway. PS is a monster. I have 
no idea what much of it does, but one only needs some of its functions 
for photos.
> Do you recall the 'Bay auction I sent you for a neutral filter for the 
> Sigma?
> ********
> I must have missed that one. I looked for 22.5 mm filters for that several
> times and found nothing. 
Probably limited your search to Sigma.
> I have life in the Cuisenaire, pulse mode, the off switch is broke. 
> Tween having to have this place ready to be cleaned in under 2weeks, after
> moving out to who knows where, my dearest friend was just told she had 2
> weeks to live, lung cancer, so I'm spending time there as much as I can.
>   
With all that going on, who has time for much else? I did the BIN for 
the filter. If you want it later, we can work it out. Good luck with all 
the bigger life and death issues.

Moose

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