Bushwalk Australia

Here are a couple (okay, three) pics from the Pelion Hut area, the weekend of Nov 15-16, 2008.







See my thread over in the Overland Track forum for a summary of the trip.

Cheers,
Alliecat

Alliecat,

thanks for posting the pictures as well as your great account of the trip.

I think the art of forums is to get a response - I know I look forward to people's comments.
I am sure it is a bit addictive.

Anyway - it brought back memories of that area and was terrific with the light snow which was not there when we were.
I went out a short distance on the Oakleigh track when it was quite dry - and stopped at a point were it was virtually a creek crossing.
I can only imagine what it would be like when it is really wet.

eggs

I knew that third photo looked familiar...
Kramster's been there with a camera too.

viewtopic.php?f=22&t=850

wow, so beautiful...

tasadam wrote:I knew that third photo looked familiar...
Kramster's been there with a camera too.

viewtopic.php?f=22&t=850

That's really freaky. I guess it was a good spot to stop and take a photo after all

Kramster's photo is obviously better - I really need to work out how to reduce the contrast with the snow. I'm not sure my little Canon Powershot is up to it, but I'll have to have a play around and see what I can do in the future.

It is a beautiful part of the Overland. I took my time wandering slowly back from Pelion Gap back to the hut just so I could enjoy the beauty of the forest. With no one else around it was just a wonderful experience.

alliecat wrote:I really need to work out how to reduce the contrast with the snow.

I don't think the snow is so much a problem in your example, as the sunshine.
With an image like that, with areas in bright sunshine and other areas in shade, either the camera will expose correctly on the brightest bits and make shaded bits almost black, or it will expose the shaded bits correctly and blow out the bright bits (as it did), or somewhere in between.
With a subject such as this, all you could do I guess is to try and find a compromise where there aren't too many highlighted bits yet still enough detail in the shaded bits.
If your camera supports bracketing you might be able to achieve something you desire more easily.

I have had similarly unsuccessful results at Oxley Falls in the sunshine - the banks of the river in dark shade but the whitewater in full sun - too contrasty to bother taking a photo really.

My experience, even with expensive camera gear, is that taking images with bright bits in them and not ruining the image with over-exposed areas, yet still having a correctly exposed image is possibly the hardest thing to achieve. HDR may be an effective tool if you really wanted to get into it, but I'm somewhat over the whole HDR thing. I'm sure Photoshop could do something for you too, but if there are bits that are fully saturated (highlighted to absolute white) you cannot recover those areas - only clone a bit of detail from another area in the image, or another image. A lot of hassle...

Under-exposed areas can hold a fair bit more detail than you think, but increasing the levels in under-exposed areas will introduce or highlight the "grain". Still, I find putting up with a bit of grain for a correctly exposed image more attractive than completely washed out areas.

Just my opinions. Hope that helps.

tasadam wrote:I knew that third photo looked familiar...
Kramster's been there with a camera too.

viewtopic.php?f=22&t=850

Thought I recognised that pic at a glance (and strangely weird that tasadam picked it up before I did)
Nice seeing the place in the snow - gives a completly different feel to the territory.
Cheers
Kramster

alliecat wrote:I'm not sure my little Canon Powershot is up to it, but I'll have to have a play around and see what I can do in the future.

I'm sure your powershot is up to the task... my pic was on an IXUS 400 (which is about 6 yrs old now, but still performing well)... it helps to have a stable support (tripod, tree, log etc) but as tasadam mentioned, the light does make it tricky too - we had a foggy / misty winter day, which makes rainforest look like something from a fantasy novel.

kramster wrote:Thought I recognised that pic at a glance (and strangely weird that tasadam picked it up before I did)

Strangely weird... Yep, that'd be me...

Adam, thanks for the comments. I will sit down and play with the settings on my camera to see if I can improve the results with high contrast shots. I kept saying I'd read the manual one day; I guess that day has come.

I looked into HDR after you mentioned it. It's ..... interesting. It seems that it would be easy to over-do it and produce very "processed" looking images, but if used with some subtlety I can see how it would be useful. I don't think my Powershot will do automatic bracketing though, so it could be a bit tricky. I'll mess around with some post-processing too to see if I can bring out some more details in that high-contrast shot.

Kramster - are you implying that I can't simply blame my cheapo camera for poor photos? There goes my standard excuse. Oh I agree about the fantasy setting - I kept expecting Ents, Evles, and every other fantasy cliche to appear around every bend in the path. Truly beautiful place.

Thanks for the feedback guys.

Cheers,
Alliecat

Lovely photos.

Does your camera have exposure compensation? Or by any chance a snow setting?

the_camera_poser wrote:Lovely photos.

Does your camera have exposure compensation? Or by any chance a snow setting?

Thank you. Today (I know, better late than never...) I found out my camera (Canon Powershot 530) does in fact have a "snow" setting. I'll try and find a similar high contrast scene and try a few different settings and see what happens. I don't know about exposure compensation - still reading the manual!