The same scene, ten months later.

[nickbedford]

I got my first DSLR in July last year and about a month after, went for a photo walk around Mount Glorious' tracks. Yesterday I did the same thing, but with a mate of mine and about ten months of knowledge in raw capture, processing and everything else that's come with getting into photography seriously.

I thought I would quickly capture the same scene that I photographed the first time to see how my "style" would compare. I must admit, the newer photo is a bit soft because I rushed the capture but hey.

Yesterday's result is on the top, the original is on the bottom. Both developed in Lightroom.

[Mike367]

Wow. (Hate this 10 char. stuff.)

[nickbedford]

Originally Posted by Mike367

Wow. (Hate this 10 char. stuff.)

Haha, thanks. A friend of mine brought up the idea of comparing them

The top one has a gold/green split tone applied. None of the vignette or the uber contrast. In fact, in recent months I've really backed off on increasing contrast and actually replacing it by increasing the "black level" instead for black and whites, portraits, everything. I'm finding it retains the smoother detail across the majority of the tone but the black level increase helps to pull out the depth in a similar way.

I'd be interested to see just how other peoples' styles of capture/development have changed and improved in the last year or so.

[BuddhaPi]

This is a cool idea, which I will be doing..I'm really curious as to how much I have regressed ; )

[NgaiHill]

Thats quite a change! And my question to you is; when you took that photo last year how good did you think it was, compared to what do you think of it now?
Now that I know a lot more about composition etc I can see the faults in photos I took several years ago that I thought were alright at the time.

[nickbedford]

Originally Posted by NgaiHill

Thats quite a change! And my question to you is; when you took that photo last year how good did you think it was, compared to what do you think of it now?
Now that I know a lot more about composition etc I can see the faults in photos I took several years ago that I thought were alright at the time.

I was proud of the image, definitely, but now, while I still see the merit in the shot and likely could probably produce a moderately similar image with the old raw file, I do find the way I developed it too harsh. Lots more contrast than I use these days. The colour is a little cooler than I would like as well. The vignette feels unnecessary.

In general, I've now come to want to take my nature photos beyond the standard colour reproduction, hence the gold/green toning I used on yesterday's photo.

I feel as though I'm producing smoother, more three dimensional photos nowadays.

[jamesev]

Originally Posted by nickbedford

Haha, thanks. A friend of mine brought up the idea of comparing them

The top one has a gold/green split tone applied. None of the vignette or the uber contrast. In fact, in recent months I've really backed off on increasing contrast and actually replacing it by increasing the "black level" instead for black and whites, portraits, everything. I'm finding it retains the smoother detail across the majority of the tone but the black level increase helps to pull out the depth in a similar way.

I'd be interested to see just how other peoples' styles of capture/development have changed and improved in the last year or so.

his is the sort of thing I have been pondering, how to get greens so green...

So what were the seetings for the first and second images. ie if its the same location why arent the greens relatively similar?

[nickbedford]

Originally Posted by jamesev

his is the sort of thing I have been pondering, how to get greens so green...

So what were the seetings for the first and second images. ie if its the same location why arent the greens relatively similar?

Not only white balance is warmer in the new one (less blueish tone as you can probably see), the split tone did a lot of the work in bringing out the warmth and "lushness". You take off the split tone and it looks a little boring to be honest.

[Biomech]

I really like the bottom one :P

[superduperwesman]

Which one is new? I also like the bottom