Santa Barbara Spring Fling

Pindy

A handful of pics from last weekend's fantastic—yet brief—workshop with Marc Muench. It was a pleasure getting to know all of you and to put faces to avatars and usernames—great shooting with you guys.

UPDATE: Apologies, all the photos I uploaded for this thread are not available because I must have done something to their names once the LR3-Smugmug plug-in became available. The link to the gallery for this workshop is HERE

schmoo

Your first and last are particular fan-friggin-tastic! You really know what you're doing and are very comfortable with your gear. It was great meeting you in person and I really do hope that you're able to break free and come out more!

Marc Muench

Great work Dan your a quick study. As we were discussing the flower technique at lunch I commented how difficult it was and everyone agreed. Now, looking at this Poppy shot even I forget about the heat, steep rocky hill and flies going in my ear. All I see is a dreamy flower field somewhere in the California mountains.

If you ever give a workshop on sound design sign me up

DavidTO

Marc Muench wrote:

Great work Dan your a quick study. As we were discussing the flower technique at lunch I commented how difficult it was and everyone agreed. Now, looking at this Poppy shot even I forget about the heat, steep rocky hill and flies going in my ear. All I see is a dreamy flower field somewhere in the California mountains.

If you ever give a workshop on sound design sign me up

Nice work, Dan! I'm so sorry I missed that sunset. :cry

Marc, music editing is where Dan could really tuna fork for ya. But you're coming along!

Pindy

Thanks Schmoo & Marc,

I had the best time. I learned heaps that I can't wait to apply in the future. I wish though that I'd had a recorder going under some of Marc's Photoshop demos. The concepts I got, but the steps were flying past and I didn't catch as many as I needed. I think I did 50 steps on that sunset that I could have done in 10 with better results. Gotta get my masking chops happening.

Preparing shots for critiques!

Pindy

DavidTO wrote:

Nice work, Dan! I'm so sorry I missed that sunset. :cry

Many thanks Dave—let's see yours! I'm hoping I have something decent from Day 2's sunrise, where I almost slid off the giddy precipice.

DavidTO

Pindy wrote:

Many thanks Dave—let's see yours! I'm hoping I have something decent from Day 2's sunrise, where I almost slid off the giddy precipice.

I've had no time. Literally have not removed the card from my camera. But it'll come, I promise!

Tee Why

Like that first shot. Good layers.

Pindy

Couple more

kdog

Great series, Pindy. Gorgeous shots. I really need to make it out to one of Marc's workshops one of these days. I noticed you have some more really good shots from the workshop in your gallery you haven't posted yet.

Say, I noticed that you used the 5DMKII for this shoot. From your "Sleeping with the enemy" post, I had the impression that you favored the D700. And yet, here you are using the Canon. Was I wrong?

Cheers,
-joel

Pindy

kdog wrote:

Great series, Pindy. Gorgeous shots. I really need to make it out to one of Marc's workshops one of these days. I noticed you have some more really good shots from the workshop in your gallery you haven't posted yet.

Say, I noticed that you used the 5DMKII for this shoot. From your "Sleeping with the enemy" post, I had the impression that you favored the D700. And yet, here you are using the Canon. Was I wrong?

Cheers,
-joel

Hey Joel,

Appreciate it very much. I can't recommend Marc's workshops and personal style more. I will most definitely be back for another as soon as possible. I have much more in the can that needs PP and Mrs Pindy is gone for the week so it's me and the little Pindies and no time on my hands :wow

As for the D700, it was there, but only with a 70-200 on it so all the wide stuff is the Canon. Funny—I made some peace with the Canon in a landscape context. The bracketing worked great (Nikon can only do as wide as 1 stop, so if you want a 2-stop spread, you have to take 5 exposures [-2, -1, 0EV, +1, +2]) and I learned some good tips from Marc, like the square in live view. I didn't know it was the zone where metering happens, I thought it was only for AF and zooming. using the IR remote in LV with bracketing enabled was great. I had misplaced my wired remote on the last night and found the IR remote would fire all 3 bracketed exposures automatically in LV. If you hold the shutter in LV, you only get one exposure (LAME).

The first photo (vertical landscape with trees in FG) and the 6th (the poppies & lupine) as well as the pelicans are all with the Nikon. The Canon obviously saw more action. Both are superb in their own right. Most of the Smuggers had the 24L TS/E which Marc gave a demo of. I never asked to borrow one (stupid) but I really saw why it's a great lens for landscape and nature photography. I think a rental is due.

dlplumer

Gorgeous set Dan. Really really love 1st and last

Dan

redleash

Wonderful work!! That flower shot is just exquisite!!

Lauren

Pindy

Thanks again. That flower shot is all Marc's guidance. The technique is incredibly hard to see, he says, until you "see it". I'm not sure if I saw it or not (We all grumbled about how hard it was to fill the foreground), but I like how that one came out.

A couple more:

Awais Yaqub

clap Beautiful !

Tango

great series, i really enjoyed these images! love love the wild poppy flower shot...

grimace

Wonderful looking series. Great variety!!

Pindy

Here's one I put aside for a while:

schmoo

Wow Dan that was worth the wait! Great dynamic range in a difficult lighting situation

One thing that I love to see is the contrast of yellows and blues in nature, and you got it here.

The shot makes me want pancakes.

Pindy

schmoo wrote:

Wow Dan that was worth the wait! Great dynamic range in a difficult lighting situation

One thing that I love to see is the contrast of yellows and blues in nature, and you got it here.

The shot makes me want pancakes.

Pancakes indeed!

Thank you. I tried every HDR-type technique I knew on this, but didn't like anything. Everything looked so fussed-over. Finally, after seeing Sean McCormack's lightroom video on the grad filter tool, I gave it a whirl with a better understanding of what I was doing. It is mostly two gradients—one from the horizon line on up and on broad one below to bring out the blue in the water. I painted back some of the negative exposure on the boats in the horizon, just so there wasn't a line. Seeing Marc's gradient work was also an inspiration.

xiebu

schmoo wrote:

Your first and last are particular fan-friggin-tastic! You really know what you're doing and are very comfortable with your gear. It was great meeting you in person and I really do hope that you're able to break free and come out more!

absolute the first one , exellent

xiebu

Picture North Carolina

I like the one with the poppies. Nice use of DOF.