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Fall Colors
30 October 2017
We rarely get out at the golden hour but last week we managed a late walk around the neighborhood just as the light was about to fade. And it revealed some stunning fall color before it did.
Fall Colors. Intense at the golden hour. Captured at f6.3, 1/100 second and ISO 200. At a 75mm focal length.
This delightful decoration was just a few steps from the sidewalk. We passed it early in our walk, admiring the colors but too lazy to retrieve our Nikon D200 with an 18-200mm Nikkor from its holster so early in the trip.
But we regretted it with each step we took further from it.
So on the (brisk) way back we lined up the shot we'd been thinking about for half an hour and snapped it straight on. Then we took one at an angle, just to have a choice.
Back at the bunker, we preferred the straight-on shot because it avoided the garden faucet to the left while keeping the whole blue bowl in the shot. Easy decision.
Exposure X3 Version. Nice but not quite as nice. We left both Vibrance and Saturation alone.
We actually processed the DNG Raw file in both Exposure X3 and Photoshop CC. We preferred the Photoshop version for two reasons.
First, we could correct the optical distortion and the slightly uneven (but disturbing) brick work. Photoshop had our lens in its database. Exposure X3 didn't (we used the 18-300mm Nikkor data instead). And Camera Raw has the Upright tool, which Exposure X3 does not, to straighten those horizontals and verticals.
Second, we preferred how Camera Raw lightened our Shadows with the shadow slider. In Exposure X3, the shadows behind the pumpkins lost contrast as we lightened them. But in Photoshop, they revealed more detail without losing contrast.
Exposure X3 made quicker work of the job, though. Opening the file, making the changes and exporting it were all a breeze. Which, frankly, is why we started with it.