Ver. 2, boring bad boy
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Thanks again for everyones efforts. Iâm still trying to learn Darktable & Rawtherapee.
However here is my humble effort using Darktable 2.2.5
Nothing particularly fancy, just levels, shadows & highlights (at defaults).
Global tonemapping with gradient mask to bring out detail in the foreground. Last but not least velvia.
IMG_0080.CR2.xmp (4.2 KB)
Itâs certainly not the image I was planning when I set out on the shoot, I was hoping to have had a nice sunrise sky, misty slow exposure water, with nice detail in the foreground rocks & old pier. However given I wasnât using and ND grad, this was probably the best I can do⌠Or does the expression âYou canât polish a turdâ spring to mind? Thoughts on this?
Iâm certainly rather disappointed in the amount of noise present in the original raw file, perhaps it is an issue with either my Canon 750D, or the settings? I did expect ISO 100 to be relatively noise freeâŚ
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@Brian_Innes Personally, I think the photo is okay. Given how many people cropped or changed the perspective of the image, I would have framed it differently. You would be surprised what proper framing, timing and weather could do for an otherwise generic scene.
Another little play. Cropped and added a frame.
All done in Darktable. Still a very noisy image though.
IMG_0080.CR2.xmp (9.2 KB)
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Do you mean ISO 200?
To be fair, much of the image is in the shadows, where Iâd expect noise to be running around free, happy, and pissing you off. 
(I donât mind it personally, but thereâs a reason to bracket or expose to the right).
Check out the profiled denoise module in darktable, it works quite well.
@Brian_Innes Let me elaborate on what I mean by framing, timing and weather. I am quite inexperienced myself, so take it with a grain of paprika 
.
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Framing: your latest take is close and personal, which makes the pier more prominent. Next time you compose your shot, try taking it at various perspectives and zooms (via lens or feet).
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Timing: arriving earlier would give you more time to experiment and prepare. Do you need 20s? Since your lens is already wide angle and therefore has a decent DOF, do you need to set such a small aperture? I donât know the answer but you can try various settings to find out. It might help you with sharpness and noise.
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Weather: You mentioned mist. Cold air is not able to hold as much moisture as warm air. When the weather changes from warm to cold, or the ground and water are relatively warmer than the air, we get fog. With wind (and sharper temp gradients) we get mist.
Other thoughts
In terms of camera settings, although they generally do not influence the raw file output, some might (depends on who you ask). Do some research. I am lucky to have a 550D, which has less features with which to experiment and definitely more noise 
, so I just accept my situation and move on. Doing
exiftool IMG_0080.CR2
reveals a lot about your settings. E.g., I see that you havenât done any micro-adjustments for your lens.
AF Micro Adj Mode : Disable
AF Micro Adj Value : 0
Maybe it wonât affect this shot but the point is that you have to familiarize yourself with the settings and discover which you might want to customize moving forward. Just me thinking aloud. Hope this helps.
PS Peruse @patdavidâs wonderful article if you havenât already:
https://patdavid.net/2013/09/faking-nd-filter-for-long-exposure.html
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Youâre most welcome. Not a shame at all bud; you learn and we learn⌠at least I most certainly do⌠loads!!! and so is so that for the first time in this playraw series Iâm gonna enter a second version. I felt bad about PhF⌠so went into PhFâs normal mode (still a ninja inside a oldmanâs costume inside a labrador inside a teapot sitting next to an Incilius alvarius) and developed a more subdued yet noise aplenty oceanic flavour; which I felt looked better with less sky (gaze followed better that little trail of stones). Denoised with dfine, sharpened, grainned and a final curve in gimp-gmic. A couple of things Iâd have liked to have available is a decent denoiser for the raw stage (in PhF) and a rotate tool that works (gimp crashed twice and had to outsource just to rotate and crop).
Hereâs PhFâs pfi file but I wouldnât run it unless you want an TSC (total system clog, my speciality )
IMG_0080_PF.tif.zip (3.4 KB)
Cheers
Â
PS
almost forgot, in PhF thereâs an IMG_0080_L version on top which is a lighter (exported) copy of the image
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@afre, thanks for the informative reply. Iâve been doing some experimenting, the Canon EF-S 10-18 is a lot sharper at f/11, than it is at f/20. So perhaps my shooting the scene at f/20 caused it to be somewhat soft.
Iâve also since learned how to zoom in using the live view, so I can get a focus lock on for example the distant lights on the horizon.
Pat Davids tutorial on faking ND Filters by stacking images certainly looks useful. At the moment my wallet is in such a state I cannot afford a 10 stop ND filter, so I may try doing the same technique which Pat discusses in the article for future long exposures!
Certainly a lot to learn!
@stonefree, that B&W conversion is beautiful!
This lens is the sharpest at f/5.6
https://www.lenstip.com/410.4-Lens_review-Canon_EF-S_10-18_mm_f_4.5-5.6_IS_STM_Image_resolution.html
With focal length 10mm f/5.6 hyperphocal distance = 2.05 so the depth of field you have from 1m - â
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Thatâs lenstip site is very useful resource, Adlatus, thanks for sharing.
Hyperfocal distance is something I havenât really understood. The only problem with shooting at f/5.6 would be to get a slow enough shutter speed to get the âmilky waterâ effect. however the @patdavid article may be a way around that, blending several short exposures to get the equivalent of a long exposure. Something to play with!
I think I may be best revisiting the location sometime soon and reshoot the scene
My tries with Darktable.
The unique difference between them is that the second one is a little bit blueish and saturated.
BTW I copied split toning from other user reply but I donât remember who, sorry.
Did someone say split toning? IMG_0080.tiff.pp3 (10.6 KB)
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That split toning causes eye cancerâŚ
and far beyond causes the profussely tested, realistic and well documented kaneda effect ⌠with the soundtrack and all I can hear the universe vortexing around HIRAMâs toni, split toni 
Sunrise, sunrise âŚ
Thanks for the nice shot. IMG_0080.jpg.out.pp3 (11.2 KB)
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A non-photography question about this photo: how long has this pier been missing sections?
As I said above, this photo is fine even though there is room for improvement. (@Brian_Innes Canât wait for Hawkcraig Pier part 2, when you get the chance!) The main problem that I had was a lack of inspiration in terms of post-processing, so I just tried a bunch of things. Feedback appreciated on what else I could do.
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PhotoFlow
a) wb (shade), exposure (0-3, blend), hot pixels + lens corrections, aces linear (clip negative values)
b) tone mapping (filmic), crop (Ď, gcd=8) -
enfuse0-3 -
gmic
a) clip negative values, apply gamma, separate L and CH
b) denoise (guided filter), redistribute values, denoise again, combine L and CH
c) edit (forgot to list) clipped top 10% to increase saturation
d) prep for your viewing pleasure
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Wow! You achieved to recover a lot of seashore rock details.
I like your photo 
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