photos Palm Valley, Rainbow Valley

pete · May 2, 2016

1. Palm Valley
2. Rainbow Valley
3. Oodnadatta (driest town in Australia)

SurfnSkate81 · May 2, 2016

She certainly is a wide brown ancient land.

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SteveReno · May 2, 2016

Thanks....

SurfnSkate81 · May 2, 2016

Mate you have been on the road for weeks, how many Ks have you clocked up?

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pyrate · May 2, 2016

very nice

Jim..... · May 2, 2016

Wow, really nice images.

LAK-USA · May 2, 2016

Amazing pics!

Thanks for sharing!

pete · May 3, 2016

SurfnSkate81 said:
Mate you have been on the road for weeks, how many Ks have you clocked up?

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taking it easy, only 5000km so far, when I like the location I camp there for quite a bit of time so I don't actually travel that much.

Chuck · May 3, 2016

Very nice, Pete. Thanks for sharing. What were your camera settings, and did you use a filter?

pete · May 3, 2016

Chuck said:
Very nice, Pete. Thanks for sharing. What were your camera settings, and did you use a filter?

yes, the usual settings :
colour flat
wb native
ev -0.5
iso limit 400
sharpness low

1st photo is 2-image panorama
2nd photo is actually frame grab from a video (cropped to 3:2)
3rd single photo cropped to 3:2

used graduated 0-3 stop filter on 1st photo and graduated 3-4 stop filter on last 2 photos

colour correction (from flat colours) done in Lightroom

pyrate · May 3, 2016

I am going to have to try some of these graduated filters

pete · May 3, 2016

pyrate said:
I am going to have to try some of these graduated filters

all of my filters are SRP BlurFix Air, except 0-3 stop graduated which they don't make, that one I got from PolarPro, but they don't sell it individually (as far as I know), it comes in a 3-pack along with other 2 graduated fllters (blue and orange, I don't use these two but the orange one could be interesting shooting sunrise or sunset towards sun for example on the beach).

I also wish someone made 1-4 and 2-4 stop graduated filters but haven't found one yet.

pyrate · May 3, 2016

Thanks

SurfnSkate81 · May 4, 2016

pete said:
all of my filters are SRP BlurFix Air, except 0-3 stop graduated which they don't make, that one I got from PolarPro, but they don't sell it individually (as far as I know), it comes in a 3-pack along with other 2 graduated fllters (blue and orange, I don't use these two but the orange one could be interesting shooting sunrise or sunset towards sun for example on the beach).

I also wish someone made 1-4 and 2-4 stop graduated filters but haven't found one yet.

Those PolarPro filters are a PITA to clean. How do you like the SRP that you can remove the glass for cleaning? I bet this makes life easier?

pete · May 4, 2016

SurfnSkate81 said:
Those PolarPro filters are a PITA to clean. How do you like the SRP that you can remove the glass for cleaning? I bet this makes life easier?

SRP filters feel more solid, better constructed filters, but I have no problem with that one from PolarPro, there is no need to clean it from inside, almost zero chance for dust to get in when it's attached, it would be an issue if I dropped it in the bulldust by accident, but other than that I only clean it from outside and that's easy enough on both type of filters.

Jon6565 · May 10, 2016

Awesome stuff again Pete. I'm glad you got to check out my website before I made the decision not to renew the hosting and URL fees (it had been dormant for 12 months). If I start an online presence again it will be on a free blog type set up.

I have a question with circular polarisers and in particular the PolarPro which I have (as part of the 3 pack). What is the recommended orientation of the CP? Logo at the top?

pete · May 11, 2016

Jon6565 said:
I have a question with circular polarisers and in particular the PolarPro which I have (as part of the 3 pack). What is the recommended orientation of the CP? Logo at the top?

there is no point in trying to set up correct angle of polarizing effect for a drone use. in static situation where your light source is coming from a constant angle and reflective surface (water, snow, shiny material) where the glare is coming from a constant angle you would normally (in photography) adjust your CP accordingly in order to suppress that glare (you need live view in order to adjust CP according to your objectives, then you take a shot). your position, scene and camera angle are relevant. if you move or change scene or camera angle, you need to re-adjust your CP accordingly, this is impossible to do when the drone is in the air.

you may want to use CP filter on drone if you want to reduce light hitting the sensor by 1 stop because CP filter acts more or less as 1-stop ND filter (it will still darken bright sky somewhat and provides better contrast). I have used CP filter only once, that was when flying in a gorge when the sunlight was already gone and I needed maximum amount of light. It would've been better in that situation to fly with no filter at all but then my gimbal would be out of balance and I had no UV filter with me so I did next best thing, slapping on the CP filter.

SRP also sell ND/CP combo filters, for example ND4/CP or ND8/CP, I'm using these filters too, but not for the CP effect, it's just giving me that extra stop, so effectively my ND4/CP filter is ND8 (3-stop) filter and my ND8/CP filter is ND16 (4-stop) filter.

the fllters you need to alight correctly are graduated filters, typically the darker half of the filter on the top because most of the time the intention is to suppress bright sky (although you may want to attach it the other way around in some situations, such as bright snow in foreground and dark mountains in background with no sky in the frame).

0-3 stop graduated filter from PolarPro is obvious, you can clearly see which half is dark and which half of the filter is clear, but if you have SRP graduated filter ND16/8 then there it's impossible to tell which half is darker, on this filter the outer rim is marked with "GND" (ground) so typically you would leave this at 6 o'clock that's the lighter half of the filter and the SRP logo is then at 12 o'clock.
If you happen to take this filter apart for cleaning, be sure to re-align the glass correctly, there is a white dot on the glass, this one you need to align with SRP logo (I didn't know that and by mistake aligned the dot with "GDN" once so then the glass was installed upside down, lesson learnt).