Chip & Dale before and after

Craig

Craig

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Staff member
Cropped square
brightened exposure and colors
sharpened
cloned out guests

Used the tokina 11-16 at 11mm and was about 12-15 inches away from the statue. I was as close as I could get it to focus.

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Pretty good Craig! The composition and square crop works very well. Love that castle in the background.

...I'm not by any means an expert, but are you open to some light constructive criticism? Don't get me wrong, this is a great shot, but I see some minor things you might have been able to do to improve the photo slightly (Always easy to say from a viewer standpoint LOL) Of course, photography is an art, so what might seem like slight improvement to me might wreck the photo for you - so that's why I ask up front.

Great shot!

--Joe
 
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Just making sure... some people can get kind of weird about criticism.

Again just a couple minor things. If you could have stepped a couple steps to your right, you could have gotten the castle in full view. Also, I'm assuming by doing this it would have brought in a little more of those beautiful colorful flowers down in the lower right corner of the frame. Maybe that'd make things too busy, I don't know. That being said, the square crop probably wouldn't work anymore either. But lastly, and I don't know if this is possible with the lens used, but a ever so slightly more shallow of a depth of field would take the focus out of the background and draw more focus to the subject. Of course the drawback to this would be less detail on Cinderella Castle. Oh, and a last little thing, I would have brought up the brightness just a tad on the statue to recover that deep shadow. That last one could just be that I have a thing for shadows and I need to learn to embrace them a little more :)

Again great shot, and thanks for sharing! Great job on the cloning, something I need to sharpen my skills at...
 
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thanks for the feed back Joe! Much appreciated! :)
I agree I do not like the castle right behind his head either.
The shadows are actually a little beyond my abilities or my desire to post process.
The square crop doesn't really matter to me at all. I would prefer 8x10 or original, but here it was either square or something "off".

To be honest, this whole shooting sequence didn't go right for me at all!
I shot all the little statues. I really wanted just the flowers behind them as background. This is one of the cases where the w-i-d-e Tokina worked against me, OR against MY abilities! I think I would have been better off with a tele a little further away so that I could compose the picture a little better.
This is also right after I almost fell into the planter with Walt and Mickey Partners statue while trying to get another wide angle shot!

This picture of Chip and Dale is proof that you have to be well aware of any extra "junk" around the entire frame!
 
No problemo... on a side note, I looked at your website, and I have to say you are one outstanding photographer! Your Disney photos are quite literally some of the best I've seen anywhere... keep up the GREAT work!

--Joe
 
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"Roger" said:
Craig, what active d-lighting were you using?
Click to expand...
I had it on low the whole trip. I want some contrast in my photos and I was afraid normal or high would just be one tone across the entire image.
I thought about turning it off, but it seemed stupid to have a brand new camera and then turn off its brand new features!
Roger, I would love an explanation of the ADR and its different setting from you.
 
"Craig" said:
Roger, I would love an explanation of the ADR and its different setting from you.
Click to expand...

If you are using matrix metering, Active D-lighting uses the 1000+pixel RGB sensor to determine the tonal range in the image, and then if there is too much contrast, i.e. backlit subject, it will reduce the exposure automatically to preserve the highlights, and then, in processing the image, boost the shadows and correct the contrast to what it thinks is a proper exposure.

If you shoot RAW it doesn't automatically do the shadow boosts, but it does reduce the exposure, so to be honest, I've left my 700 on high all the time, except for setting D: Dark rides. That's what the custom shooting styles are for! If you are using Capture NX2 (or 1 with the 300/D3) it will detect that you are using ADL and adjust the RAW image for you, just like it does with picture styles.

Supposedly it tries to avoid the "washed-out" look of when you have to push an exposure too much.
 
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Thanks for the information, gosh, I have no idea what I'm doing with this camera. Takes awesome images, but probably should have stayed with the D40 for a while longer...
 
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The D300 is leaps and bounds any other crop camera I had ever used previously. Pro level AF and Nikon got the metering right with the RGB 3D Color Matrix.

Works great when you use color 3D tracking for AF. You just have to play with the many settings to see how they work and if you like them or not!
 
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Love what you've done in PP. As for the discussion of Active D-Lighting, oy, it's a good thing I won't have the money to upgrade to the D300 for a while, as I have no idea what you guys are talking about...
 
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