{"id":15681,"date":"2016-06-13T05:47:39","date_gmt":"2016-06-13T09:47:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/?p=15681"},"modified":"2016-06-13T08:42:23","modified_gmt":"2016-06-13T12:42:23","slug":"acela-sunset-miracles-of-digital-by-working-with-a-raw-file","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/acela-sunset-miracles-of-digital-by-working-with-a-raw-file\/","title":{"rendered":"Acela Sunset: Miracles of Digital by working with a RAW File."},"content":{"rendered":"

The long days make for photographic opportunity. While modern digital cameras have the ability to capture scenes previously out of reach with film. Yet, sometimes there\u2019s still work to be done after the fact.<\/p>\n

The other day, Pat Yough and I were exploring locations along Amtrak\u2019s former New Haven Shoreline at Madison, Connecticut.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cHeadlight!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the Acela.\u201d<\/p>\n

Working with my FujiFilm X-T1 fitted with a 27mm pancake lens, I had very little time to prepare for my image.<\/p>\n

However, the colors of the evening sky attracted my attention and I knew I needed to use a relatively fast shutter speed to stop the action. I set the ISO to 6400, which allowed me to use a 1\/500th<\/sup> of second shutter speed at f3.2.<\/p>\n

(I set my camera manually.)<\/p>\n

While the front of the Acela was exposed more or less as I\u2019d hoped, the sky detail was washed out.<\/p>\n

Later, using Lightroom for post processing, I was quickly able to produce three variations of the original image that brought back sky detail.<\/p>\n

Admittedly the original file isn\u2019t the sharpest image. But, I find one the great benefits of the digital medium is the ability to go back to the camera RAW file and adjust color and contrast sliders to make for a more pleasing final photograph.<\/p>\n

Which of the four photos is your favorite?<\/p>\n

\"This
This image was made from the unmodified RAW file. RAW represents the data captured by the camera. However, often there is greater detail in the file than is immediately evident.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"First
First adjusted variation. Using Lightroom, I inserted a digital graduated filter to bring in sky detail and improve color saturation, while making over all adjustments to contrast. I also cropped the image slightly to minimize the intrusive visual elements on the left.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Second
Second adjusted variation: My overall work was similar to the first adjusted image (above) except I lightened the shadow areas. This is an interesting example of an illustration, but doesn’t really \u00a0convey how the scene appeared to me at the time of exposure: \u00a0the trees to the right\u00a0of the Acela were \u00a0pretty dark. In other words I’ve over compensated in my interpretation. It\u00a0\u00a0does show the level of information captured by the camera.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Third
Third adjusted variation. Instead of using a graduated filter, as with the first two adjusted images, I made all my changes globally (in other words equally to the whole image area). I brought down the highlights, darkened the overall exposure, while nominally lightened the shadow regions to keep them from becoming too dark. I ever so slightly boosted the saturation. While a little darker than the other images, this was is closest to what I saw at the scene. (Also, notice that \u00a0I’ve run this image full frame without cropping).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tracking the Light<\/span> displays new images<\/span> each<\/span> and every day!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The long days make for photographic opportunity. While modern digital cameras have the ability to capture scenes previously out of reach with film. Yet, sometimes there\u2019s still work to be done after the fact. The other day, Pat Yough and I were exploring locations along Amtrak\u2019s former New Haven Shoreline at Madison, Connecticut.   \u201cHeadlight!\u201d … Continue reading Acela Sunset: Miracles of Digital by working with a RAW File.<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15680,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[10,48],"tags":[3786,2801,37,3596,3597,92,3598],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Acela_2170_at_Madison_MOD1_DSCF8527.jpg?fit=2367%2C1689","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BVuC-44V","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15681"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15681"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15729,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15681\/revisions\/15729"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}