Critique Welcomed Untitled (b&w Architecture)

[Keith Hollister]

Not in the mood for thinking up names Fuji X-E2, 14mm/2.8, LR 5.3. HDR. I think I should have just bought the 14mm lens - it seems where I always end up.

 

[Brian Moore]

That's nice Keith. Did you apply a red filter to darken the sky?

 

[Keith Hollister]

Orange, actually (but in post via Silver Efex Pro, of course). The sky was already a very deep, pure blue due to the angle of the morning sun, so I didn't do anything other than apply the default orange filter in SEP. I tried red, but the sky went to complete black (zone 0) and I preferred the zone 1.5 of this one to provide a bit better contrast with the deepest shadows. There is a lot of zone 0-3 stuff going on in the window area that is visually interesting, so I thought the huge expanse of pure black in the sky was a little too distracting and robbed the image of some "visual balance" for lack of a better term.

Of course this could all be complete BS

 

[Keith Hollister]

And in case that little bit of explanation didn't tip you off, I was a big Group f/64 fan many years ago when I was playing with MF & LF film. I have first edition (not first printing, though) copies of Ansel's The Camera, The Negative and The Print - the negative book is really well worn. I managed to really get myself wrapped around an axle thinks to that crowd. It wasn't until years later that I managed to get everything in a more reasonable perspective. But it's hard not to fall back into analyzing B&W tonality using the Zone System for me even today (25 years later more or less).

 

[Chris Dodkin]

I do like this a lot - love the dark sky and also the texture detail you're maintained in the stonework - is that the HDR software assisting with this?

We're all about Zone here Keith! - I used to worry it was complicated, but the Adams book got me on track, and I worked through some samples last year in tandem with SilverFX and it all worked out as described.

Regarding the 14mm lens - up there with the 23 and 35 as far as quality - and really well corrected optically

 

[Keith Hollister]

I do like this a lot - love the dark sky and also the texture detail you're maintained in the stonework - is that the HDR software assisting with this?

We're all about Zone here Keith! - I used to worry it was complicated, but the Adams book got me on track, and I worked through some samples last year in tandem with SilverFX and it all worked out as described.

Regarding the 14mm lens - up there with the 23 and 35 as far as quality - and really well corrected optically

Thanks. So this image has been through 4 Nik plugins ...

1. HDR Efex Pro to create the tone mapped image from 3 handheld exposures. I did a slight bit of NR first in LR to help control noise buildup and only used the tone mapping controls in HEP, not any of the sharpening/structure stuff. I used HDR to gain some better highlight detail in the stone up high on the wall that was in the strongest sunlight.
2. CEP Tonal Contrast was used to bring out micro contrast and detail in the building. I masked off the sky and the reflective areas in the windows via control points. This is what was primarily responsible for the stone texture
3. Sharpener Pro was then used to gain some edge enhancement and overall detail through the focus slider. I tend to avoid Structure most of the time as I find it rather artifact prone in many cases.
4. Silver Efex Pro to do the B&W conversion. No grain was added or Structure adjustment used.

A little bit of final exposure and curve tweakage back in LR to set the overall tonality where I wanted it.

I'm actually still not 100% satisfied and will likely go back to the tone-mapped TIFF image and do it again with some slight changes. The particular version I posted would print pretty well, but has just a bit too much "grit" in it for the web, I think. Basically, I think I got a bit too heavy handed with the creative sharpening stage after applying tonal contrast. Stand by for a slightly altered version in next couple days.

 

[Paul Lange]

Nice Keith and thanks for the info on the PP, always interesting to see how people work on their images.