Scott Peden wrote:
> As it happens, I was curious about your 500/8 Seimar, so I already
> checked out your moon shots with it in PS when you posted
> it.
>
> http://www.moosemystic.net/Gallery/Others/Peden/SeiVivMoon2.htm
>
> The immediate problems are lack of contrast and that the image is almost
> all in the lower half of the histogram. The roll-over shows the result
> of some combination of Levels, Curves and LCE to spread the image out in
> the histogram, adjust tonal distribution and add both global contrast
> and local contrast.
>
> The next issue is sharpness. The click-over shows the result of
> sharpening, and perhaps some LCE, I don't recall the details. Each
> different image needs to be done differently in any case. The result is
> perhaps a bit over the top for presentation, but I was interested in
> seeing how much actual detail the lens captured.
> PS equals Photo Shop?
>
Yes.
> If so that explains why I understand so few of the phrases you used, I never
> had the time to learn that, to many irons in the fire all at one time, most
> of the time, though doing picture manipulation has been more of an interest.
>
Back in the old days of B&W, camera, lens and film got you nothing but
crap without your own darkroom. And my personal experience with any
color but slides was not that great, either. Actually, I didn't know
what a huge amount I was missing until I got a scanner and PS.
In the digital age, if you want great results, camera, lens and memory
card still aren't enough. One needs to acquire and learn to use a
digital darkroom.
> Getting a good shot of the moon, clean and crisp, has been a goal of mine
> for sometime.
>
As you can see, you can get a good, clean, crisp shot that is hidden. As
I said in a post a couple of days ago, moisture, dust and simple air
movement, plus possibly less than idea camera settings for the task,
wreak havoc on tonal separation, contrast and local contrast.
> What you did was truly amazing,
Thanks, it seems fairly elementary to me compared to working on more
complex and subtle images.
> increase the contrast was about all I
> understood, but the beginner photo programs I have used deliver about what I
> paid for them. free of cost, free of great quality.
>
They are all going to have Levels and Curves, which will get you quite a
ways. You need one with adjustable parameters for Unsharp Mask (USM or
sharpening) to do LCE (Local Contrast Enhancement) and, of course,
fairly ordinary sharpening at the end. I think the GIMP will do all that
for free. Maybe more work than in PS, but not much, I think.
PS does have some unique tools that are big advantages for some work,
but I didn't use them on your moon shot.
> I want some other camera gear, but have been holding off on selling the
> Seimar 500, even though I now have the Sigma 600. Hard to believe that the
> Seimar gave me the best shot I had so far from my meager attempts with the
> C-series cameras.
>
I was tempted to offer to buy it, but you wanted like $50, and I
couldn't get that many $ past the images of you cleaning it by stuffing
a linty rag down into the insides and twisting. :-)
> I still have a Photoshop 7 or some sort of program around somewhere, but how
> to use it?
PS 7 isn't a bad place to start, especially for free, but some quite
wonderful tools have been also added since.
> I immediately get bombarded with names of things and nearly
> nothing has a label to tell me what those things are. There has to be
> something somewhere that describes the names of the items and what each item
> is suppose to do, like sharpness, contrast
>
There are a gazillion books and manuals around. You should be able to
find a used one for PS 7 for beginners for a song used. I learned by
doing. May take a while, but then I really know what each thing I've
learned does. I learn better that way, anyway. PS is a monster. I have
no idea what much of it does, but one only needs some of its functions
for photos.
> Do you recall the 'Bay auction I sent you for a neutral filter for the
> Sigma?
> ********
> I must have missed that one. I looked for 22.5 mm filters for that several
> times and found nothing.
Probably limited your search to Sigma.
> I have life in the Cuisenaire, pulse mode, the off switch is broke.
> Tween having to have this place ready to be cleaned in under 2weeks, after
> moving out to who knows where, my dearest friend was just told she had 2
> weeks to live, lung cancer, so I'm spending time there as much as I can.
>
With all that going on, who has time for much else? I did the BIN for
the filter. If you want it later, we can work it out. Good luck with all
the bigger life and death issues.
Moose
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