Ian Crabtree
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Here’s a link to some really cool HDR photos of manhattan on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/automatt/sets/72057594091674928
I imagine the use of HDR in anything fly fishing related is pretty limited, as subjects (water, fish, and people) are moving. For gear, flies, and other still subjects it would be interesting to do.
From my understanding, the beauty of HDR is that it allows detail in shadows while preventing highlights from being blown out. Doing it on any recently modern computer shouldn’t be too taxing, the only investment would be the time to manually take several different exposures of a subject.
The explanation of HDR as a grad filter applied to any part of a photo is probably the best way to describe it.
I played around a bit with the color on my mac when I set it up. The defaul settings are a bit bright and hard on my eyes, so I brought the overall brightness down with the color calibrator closer toward the PC range. In the calibrator I can use the following options: Adobe RGB, Apple RGB, CIE RGB, Color LCD, ColorMatch RGB, Generic RGB Profile, NTSC (1953), PAL/SECAM, and a custom calibrated profile.
When I use any of the options other than the custom setting I created, everything goes really bright (neon as you described). I think the purchase of a calibrator is in order. They’re not too awfully expensive. I might be able to find someone to borrow one from, however.
I hadn’t really made the connection with the polarizing filter and that rainbow shot. I had left it on by accident after I was playing around with it for water shots. I’m going to try ducking into a little less direct sunlight next time to avoid the “planet x rainbow trout” look.
I agree with the oversaturated reds on the D50. I’d gotten used to pumping some colors back in when I was using a cheap P/S, but I almost felt like I needed to pull some out when I was using the D50. I left them at 0, but I’ll try pulling the reds down a bit in the future.
For a rather amusing look at the development of my photography skills, you can look at photos from the past here: http://community.webshots.com/user/theclearblue
Hey Zach,
Thanks for the comments. Unfortunately there’s no DOF preview on the D50, so I’ll have to figure a lot of this out through guess and test.
The new guy is Feild’s brother, he came up to visit last week.
I really need to invest in a calibrator for my monitor, it’s tough to tell if the warmth you’re seeing in the water shot is calibration related (on my end), or poor taste on my part.
I’ll have hundreds of salmon subjects to practice with this summer, so I’ll get it eventually. I’ll just have to figure out a way to balance photography and guiding.
A Few More:
Pretty Bow (I didn’t screw with the purples and magentas in photoshop, I considered toning it down, but I can’t bring myself to do it)
I’ve only had a second fish grab the dropper once. I was fishing a two nymph rig below an indicator, one fish took the lead nymph and gave the other nymph a nice “leisenring lift” that that must have proved irresistible. Luckily the second fish didn’t stick, because all hell broke loose when it happened.
I like using droppers for double nymph rigs, mainly because I hate (and don’t trust) split shot. The lead fly is normally used to take down the smaller nymph – kind of like the epoxy bombs they use in NZ.
http://www.macworld.com/news/2006/05/04/aperture/index.php
i guess that’s the nature of the rumor world…
What particular line weight are you looking at? I’ve found the action of the XP tends to vary throughout the range. The 5 weight is Thor’s Hammer but I’m not particularly fond of the 6 weight. The higher line weights (7 and up) tend to get disproportionately faster than the lower line weights.
I’ve only fished with the GLX in an 8 weight, so I can’t offer much insight on that series.
Taylor actually played the hand model in all of these photos. I’m still using a cheap 4 MP P/S that tends to gray everything out, so I tried to bring colors back up to a level that I thought represented reality. I haven’t taken the time to calibrate my monitor really well, so they may be a bit heavy. That being said, those were extremely colorful fish on their own. I did cull my photos to post the best of what we caught. I imagine their color has a lot to do with diet and age. Here are two of the muddier fish I can find in my photos.
And another bright one for comparison
Deep Creek below Sahlee – It was fairly open in this stretch
Ghost no longer.
I managed to convince Taylor that it was necessary to wake up at 4:30 to ensure that we would be the first at the trailhead. After a 20-minute drive around Cherokee searching for coffee in vain, we drove up the mountain to the Deep Creek Trailhead below Newfound Gap.
We were banking on the fact that Don Kirk described Sahlee Creek, our destination, as too easily accessible and physically exhausting to fish. However, what “The Don” described in his book as a 1.9 mile hike had to have been a cruel joke. Walking at a normal trout-crazed pace we can normally cover that distance in around 30 minutes. Somehow, on an easy downhill descent it took over an hour to get to the mouth of Sahlee. I’d describe the hike out, but I still have a mental block that prevents me from recalling most of it.
We decided to start a few minutes downstream in Deep Creek proper and work our way up and into Sahlee. The first pool gave up two fish, one of them (according to Taylor) a rainbow, although he popped off before we could get a good look at him. This would be the only rainbow encounter of the day.
We worked our way upstream trying to find water that was open enough to fish, and when we did, the brook trout were always eager to strike a fly. After he decided that the brookies were being spooked by a size 12 Royal Wulff, Taylor tied on a 16 Light Adams and pinged one brook trout with the hook five times before finally hooking up and landing him. Sounds like a trout that’s unfamiliar with the concept of flies biting back…
We caught plenty of brook trout, although none approached the ten-inch mark, and only saw two hikers when we were heading out. Not a bad way to spend the day.
