Artemis Running #9, HDR Test

The one picture stop I always make on a visit to the St. Louis Art Museum it "Artemis Running".  This time, I thought I'd see how well make handheld HDR work.  The light was very flat, so I used my custom "Realistic Bright" setting in Nik HDR Efex to pull up detail and contrast without introducing exaggerated color or texture.  The picture got a little finishing help from Photoshop CS5 to adjust levels and curves.

This monochrome was made in Nik Silver Efex Pro using a custom preset I call "Wet Plate" that emulates the collodion process, then applied the sepia/blue split tone in Lightroom 3.

I have a preset in Nik Color Efex Pro that I call Fresson, which I applied for this version.  I can see that the Fresson processing lends itself more to pictures with less dynamic range.


Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: Nikkor AF-S 50mm f1.4 G
Exposure: ISO 800, f/5.6 @ 1/50s x three 1-stop brackets
Support: Handheld
Lighting: Mixed window daylight and tungsten
Location: St. Louis Art Musem GPS
Dates: Capture - November 26, 2010, Processed - November 27, 2010
Processing: RAW in Lightroom 3, Nik HDR Efex, Photoshop CS5, Nik Silver Efex Pro

Artemis Running, Detail #8

Returning to my favorite statue, here is a slightly different detail of Artemis Running, processed as a faux-Fresson.  This is from a series I shot with a 180mm, flattening the perspective quite a bit.

Technical: Nikon D700, Nikkor 180mm f2.8 "Leni Lens", ISO 1600, tungsten WB, f/4.0 @ 1/400s, handheld.  RAW file processed in Lightroom 2, Nik Dfine and Nik Color Efex Pro.

Running Artemis Study #7

The St. Louis Art Museum keeps moving this statue, providing me with opportunity to shoot from different angles under different lighting conditions.  At the time of this capture, Artemis was parked in a very dark corner and I was shooting on a Friday night.
Technology: Nikon D700, AF Nikkor 24-85mm f2.8-f4, ISO 3200, 56mm @ f/8.0 @ 1/50s, handheld.  RAW file processed in Lightroom 2.5 to adjust light balance and exposure, then edited in Nik Silver Eftex Pro for monochrome conversion.

Running Artemis Study #4

Today I made a trip to the St. Louis Art Museum to give my new Nikon D700 a workout.  I wanted to revisit some shots I made with a Nikon D100 to get a feel for differences in handling and image quality.  My first stop was to see "Artemis Running".  With half the exhibit rooms emptied out, I'm pleased that Artemis is still on display, although in a dark corner.

Tech details: Nikon D700, 50mm f/1.8D, ISO 1600, f/2.0 @ 1/500s, 14-bit RAW.  I use auto white balance and auto exposure because I usually find Nikon's approach to be naturalistic and pleasing.  In this case, however, I used Lightroom 2 to set WB to tungsten and take the exposure down -1.0.  Reviews I've been reading agree that the D700 tends to over expsose, but it is too early to tell for me.

The image is nearly noise free, even at the pixel level.  The D700 is shaping up to be my favorite camera yet.