The problem here is not so much the cat, it is how to make the bright background look decent/realistic/reasonable after the cat exposure is corrected.
It is about bringing up shadows, which is under discussion on the forum, but more about controlling the highlights having done so.
(Oh, I cannot upload pics from this browser… will do so in chrome…) (done)
This is my edit using base curve fusion followed by AgX. I find this a very effective and easy way to deal with backlit subjects. A7404802.ARW.xmp (16.1 KB)
You have brought out the details in the cat so beautifully! Her eyes look wonderful.
Somehow, you have also achieved good separation from the background, despite leaving it very bright.
Very nice!
I love your monochrome version. The colour version is a bit lacking in … colour!
Thank you!
Yes! I see what you mean. I do like the dialling back of the banana leaves Cat is looking good too: I would prefer a little more saturation, personally.
Yes! She has a “proper” name, but is never called by it. She is approaching 8 years old but has always been called just “Kitten!” By me particularly, she is known as My Kitten: she is my baby. She is the sole survivor of a litter of three. You can see her in my avatar.
Ulis works best to me because he added an artificial light on the cat. This tricks my brain into thinking this lighting is physically possible. I feel without this touch the strongly darkened background doesn’t blend together with the artificially bright foreground.
A valid position. Anyway, you probably have already recognized that this is standard on my edits I usually dislike such greenish greens. But that’s of course a matter of personal taste and I’m maybe a bit special with my greenphobia
Yeah, I noticed that and in general DT gives greens a bit of yellowish cast. While ART is strongly on tropical side of greens
BTW Uli how to do you like your new Sony A7V?
Thanks to all! I must go to bed now, rather than respond to each one at this time. But I notice a trend towards showing up the unwashed condition of my car
I don’t, personally, go for the more saturated cat colours, because she isn’t. But I do see that i could/should have made her brighter and a touch more colourful.
More replies tomorrow :). Time permitting I might try another edit.
So far I’m very happy.
I love that I’m able to program nearly every button with whatever I like. But I still have to see on the long run what settings (not only for the buttons) will benefit me the most. At the moment I like the highlight metering which wasn’t available on my Canons.
Autofocus seems to be very good as well, even though I hadn’t had a chance to test it in a hard real life scenario (like flying birds).
Low light performance and dynamic range is overwhelming coming from my APSC Canon. Picture quality is brilliant over all. But the quality of my lenses got better as well.
Downsides (at the moment I think this list is complete):
Not fully supported by darktable yet. But that’s just a question of time and I’m happy that I can at least edit the RAWs directly in darktable.
Battery Life. Even though it is quite OKish for a mirrorless the 90D was a monster compared to this. I’m thinking about a third battery at the moment. That’s the only thing which is nagging me a bit
I liked the colours of my Canon a bit more. But that’s a minor thing which is easily corrected in dt and I changed the colours of my Canons as well.
The names for some menu items are somewhat strange and not easy to understand without trying them out
And for completeness: The grip on the EOS 90D was better.
What I should mention as well is, that it is quite a big change for me. APSC to Fullframe, DSLR to mirrorless and Canon to Sony. Anyway, no regrets. The A7V is a fantastic camera.
It’s nice, but to the eye, the cat actually looks fully bright. It is only the super-bright wall that fools the camera.
@Popanz, that is a nice interpretation. Of course, in colour correcting it is necessary to have the original, and she does not do visits. Her Ginger colours are quite pale. Artistic interpretation, of course, is a free world :). I love the light in the ears.
Banana leaves are actually quite a deep green. Lots more blue. But as I said, interpretation is free
Thank you! But, to they eye, she was well lit by outdoor light.
Hmmm… I need to revisit the exposure settings. I’m thinking that it is set so that exposure follows a focus spot. I don’t recall if I used a spot, or relied on animal-eye focus.
It is a Sony a7iv. @Popanz, congratulations on the new a7v!
Nice… Hmm… Challenging!
Thank you. It looks good, but she is not that saturated (except during monsoon ). Again, interpretation is part of the game.
Thanks again to everyone for the contributions. I had to learn how to use the xmp files in darktable, by creating duplicates and applying the sidecar file. I think this might be my first Play Raw!
). Again, interpretation is part of the game.
