I actually managed to get up & out before the sunrise this morning :eek: so here are a few of the results:

Everything shot with a Canon EOS 300D (Crop factor 1:1.6 so 10mm=16mm, 75mm=120mm etc.), handheld unless otherwise stated. Most shot in Aperture Priority (Av) mode and stored in RAW format then proccessed in RawShooter Essentials 2005 (http://www.pixmantec.com/products/rawshooter_essentials.html) (RSE) and finally reduced in Adobe Photoshop 7.0 (AP) Details with each pic.

By the light of the moon
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0803/CharlieWhiskey/Sunrise%20Sunsets/CRW_2981-01.jpg
EF-S 10-22mm @ 18mm, ISO400, 1/40 sec, f/4.0
RSE: Colour temp 5800, tint -11, Appearance 'Outdoor Normal', Exposure Compensation +0.45, Fill light 26, Shadow Contrast +22, Highlight Contrast +29, Saturation -15, Hue 0, Sharpness 20, Detail Extraction 20, Noise Extraction 70, Color noise supression 0.
AP: Auto Contrast, Save for Web reduced to 800x533

Gate of Dawn
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0803/CharlieWhiskey/Sunrise%20Sunsets/CRW_3046-01.jpg
EF-S 10-22mm @ 10mm, ISO100, 1/60 sec, f/8.0
RSE: Colour temp 5800, tint -6, Appearance 'Outdoor Medium', Exposure Compensation -0.25, Fill light 18, Shadow Contrast +28, Highlight Contrast +44, Saturation -20, Hue -7, Sharpness 20, Detail Extraction 20, Noise Extraction 60, Color noise supression 0.
AP: Auto Contrast, Save for Web reduced to 800x533

Frozen solid
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0803/CharlieWhiskey/Sunrise%20Sunsets/CRW_3040-01.jpg
EF-S 10-22mm @ 22mm, ISO100, 1/50 sec, f/5.6
RSE: Colour temp 6000, tint -7, Appearance 'Outdoor Medium', Exposure Compensation +1.83, Fill light 0, Shadow Contrast +19, Highlight Contrast +27, Saturation -20, Hue -5, Sharpness 20, Detail Extraction 20, Noise Extraction 50, Color noise supression 0.
AP: Auto Contrast, Save for Web reduced to 800x533

First rays of sun
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0803/CharlieWhiskey/Sunrise%20Sunsets/CRW_3024-01.jpg
EF 75-300mm IS @ 75mm, ISO400, 1/500 sec, f/9.0 resting on gate.
RSE: Colour temp 5950, tint -8, Appearance 'Outdoor Medium', Exposure Compensation +0.25, Fill light 39, Shadow Contrast +12, Highlight Contrast +37, Saturation +13, Hue -4, Sharpness 20, Detail Extraction 20, Noise Extraction 70, Color noise supression 0.
AP: Auto Contrast, Save for Web reduced to 800x533

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0803/CharlieWhiskey/Sunrise%20Sunsets/CRW_3013-01.jpg
EF 75-300mm IS @ 125mm, ISO400, 1/125 sec, f/6.3 resting on gate
RSE: Colour temp 6200, tint -7, Appearance 'Outdoor Medium', Exposure Compensation +0.68, Fill light 9, Shadow Contrast +6, Highlight Contrast +19, Saturation +16, Hue -4, Sharpness 0, Detail Extraction 0, Noise Extraction 0, Color noise supression 0.
AP: Auto Contrast, Save for Web reduced to 699x800

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0803/CharlieWhiskey/Sunrise%20Sunsets/CRW_3048-01.jpg
EF-S 10-22mm @ 22mm, ISO100, 1/100 sec, f/8.0
RSE: Colour temp 5650, tint -8, Appearance 'Outdoor Medium', Exposure Compensation +0.25, Fill light 60, Shadow Contrast +1, Highlight Contrast +53, Saturation +20, Hue -8, Sharpness 0, Detail Extraction 0, Noise Extraction 0, Color noise supression 0.
AP: Auto Contrast, Save for Web reduced to 533 x800

Mist on the River Trent
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0803/CharlieWhiskey/Sunrise%20Sunsets/CRW_3050-01.jpg
EF-S 10-22mm @ 18mm, ISO100, 1/200 sec, f/10.0 against tree
RSE: Colour temp 6530, tint -5, Appearance 'Outdoor Medium', Exposure Compensation +0.63, Fill light 9, Shadow Contrast +8, Highlight Contrast -6, Saturation +20, Hue -8, Sharpness +10, Detail Extraction +18, Noise Extraction 70, Color noise supression 0.
AP: Auto Contrast, rotated & Saved for Web reduced to 533x800

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0803/CharlieWhiskey/Sunrise%20Sunsets/CRW_3057-01.jpg
EF-S 10-22mm @ 22mm, ISO100, 1/125 sec, f/9.0 against tree
RSE: Colour temp 6530, tint -5, Appearance 'Outdoor Medium', Exposure Compensation +0.03, Fill light 10, Shadow Contrast +4, Highlight Contrast -2, Saturation +20, Hue -8, Sharpness +10, Detail Extraction +18, Noise Extraction 70, Color noise supression 0.
AP: Auto Contrast, rotated & Saved for Web reduced to 800x533

Swarkestone Bridge
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0803/CharlieWhiskey/Sunrise%20Sunsets/CRW_3098-01.jpg
EF-S 10-22mm @ 10mm, ISO100, 1/125 sec, f/7.1
RSE: Colour temp 5800, tint -8, Appearance 'Outdoor Strong', Exposure Compensation +0.70, Fill light 8, Shadow Contrast +8, Highlight Contrast +12, Saturation +10, Hue -3, Sharpness +20, Detail Extraction +20, Noise Extraction 70, Color noise supression 0.
AP: Auto Contrast, Saved for Web reduced to 800x533

Let me know what you think, honestly! I'm new to this RAW thing ;)

Some gorgeous pics there Charlie :D

I would have loved to have stopped off en route to the city this morning to walk and take pics instead of going to work :(

What excellent weather (apart from scraping the thick frost off the car windows).

Here's hoping the clear skies continue over the weekend

bbrrrrrrrrrr, very nice, love the 'frozen solid' one.

Personally I love the 4th one ......



Great shots.

Gary

I was rather p'ssed off that the heron took off before the 'First rays of sun' one :rolleyes: It was there before I swapped the lens honest!

Smashin' stuff mate :)

These shots are beautiful CharlieWhiskey...I would get out of bed earlier these days too but by god there's a cold snap here (after a gorgeous summer, the powers that be are punishing us now) and I'll stay in the house under the duvet and warm my cockles (and other bits) with a hot cup of tea in the morning!!! I love to shoot landscapes early in the morning but -7 or -8 degrees is too sharp a drop all of a sudden when I was used to +7 or +8!

I know you weren't asking for a critique but...I would sharpen them a bit more because my eyes are going all fuzzy so them there trees look a bit soft.

I love the picture of Swarkestone Bridge (the exposure is spot on) but would have liked to have seen more foreground interest as in the rocks (?) at the bottom of the picture. The Gate of Dawn picture for me, breaks all the rules of composition but it is one of those pictures that really, really works and I'd love to have taken it as I'd have it on my wall without a doubt - placing the sun behind the pillar on the right gives it so much atmosphere especially with the frost in the foreground and clever to place the sun there to avoid lens flare. I don't know what that thing on the ground is on the right hand side which leads my eye into the picture but it works - I find my eye looking at the gate then the "thing" and once I've followed it out of the frame, I look back to the gate again. A fantastic image if you ask me!

The "Mist on the River Trent" images are superb and I'm thinking that a little bit of colour saturation might help. I normally don't mess with my own photos too much in Photoshop but had a little tweak and changed the Hue/Saturation setting to 52% saturation and sharpened it a little bit:

http://www.alwyngreer.com/temp/CRW_3050-01.jpg

Hmm..oversharpened methinks.

Methinks it's also time to admit I need some optical corrective equipment nevermind what the tests say (20:20 vision? -- their gear is outdated).

Thanks mate :thumb: yep I think I need to invest in a bit of Colour Calibration myself! ;)

The originals were nowhere near that orange btw ;)

I am constantly learning and this forum is helping considerably :)

Cracking pics CW :thumb:

Especially like the 2nd pic (of the gate), and the one with the tyre tracks in the frosty grass.
I also like the vertical shot of the Trent, and prefer the subtle tones of the unsaturated version.

Shame the one of the sunrise has all those power cables going across it, but not much you can do about that!

I was up before sunrise this morning, but couldn't see the sun (or much else) for fog!

Some nice pics there Charlie, could you possibly give us the Exif Info from them and also list your hardware for us to have a look at please?

Cheers!

There are some amazing shots there, was driving in this morning with the sun a big orange glow through the mist thinking I really want to stop and take photos, but you can't do that on the motorway, and by the time I got to work it was just too late..

Very, very nice pictures, i especially like picture 2 it is very magical!

Well done

Paul:)

Some nice pics there Charlie, could you possibly give us the Exif Info from them and also list your hardware for us to have a look at please?

Cheers!

Full kit, EXIF & Processing data added :thumb:

If you have any suggestions or comments please feel free to post them here, this is a learning process after all :)

Really beautiful photographs CW. :thumb:

Great pics :thumb:

Superb, i 'm jealous of your talent

Superb as always Chris. :cool:

There are some great pictures there :) I really like the second one, although I might have post-processed it slightly differently.

Which brings me on to my question - how did you decide what adjustments to make using RSE? Was it just what you thought looked good? One of the problems I have with shooting RAW, is that while you get no compression (as with jpeg) and retain quality, it's still difficult to know what adjustments to make.

For example, if you start off with colour temp, how do you know what value to set, because obviously that will affect how all of the other adjustments look that you make consequently?

Hope someone can help!

Daryl

Personally, when i make any adjustments to any of my photos it is always down to what i think looks best and is suited to the picture.

I dont think that there are any set rules apart from the reccommended temperature values set in some software. I was playing around with these settings the other day and all though i had shot on a sunny day, some of the pics looked more pleasing if i changed the temperature to say, a cloudy setting.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder(as my mum used to say;) )

Paul:)

I think Colour Temperature is a very difficult topic and possibly one of the biggest hurdles to overcome when shooting RAW. :confused: I certainly haven't fully grasped it yet although I do understand the principles through doing video & lighting at work.

I have tried to interpret what the colour temperature was for each shot, based mostly on my memory of the scene, but at that time of the day the colour is warming by the minute! The cool blue of a moonlit frosty morning fades to a warm pink in the hour before sunrise, changing to the bright orange sunlight in the hour after sunrise.

If you look at the colour temperatures I have actually used you will see this doesn't match exactly and some of them, e.g. the mist on the river pics, seemed to benefit from using a slightly higher temperature. http://bbs.scoobynet.co.uk/images/smilies/ponder2.gif

I do sometimes pick something I know to be white, or grey, and check what RSE thinks the colour temperature should be based on that using the pipette. You can also select a white point and line up the colour curves on the histogram so that the peaks match. I then work closely around these values and check that the tint compensates for any colour cast on the sky, clouds etc. I find the 'camera' setting is useless as it consistently interprets the temperature at 4950 Deg.K whatever the light! :eek:

I select the Appearance to what works best for a particular shot and the histogram helps to reveal the best compromise. 'Outdoor Strong' is sometimes too much and you will see that most of these shots used 'Outdoor Medium'.

As for the rest of the tweaking it is mostly done using the histogram to adjust the exposure & contrast levels. I do find it useful to desaturate the picture, to a B&W image, to set the basic contrast, particularly the shadow contrast. I do think a bit of BLACK helps in a picture so I'm not too bothered about the colour curves at this end.

The Fill Light I find is the most creative input you get from RSE and it allows you to balance the darker areas better. The histogram helps again by showing the spread of the detail. This feature should, however, be used sparingly!

With the Highlight Contrast I set the Saturation to zero and use the histogram to ensure that any clipping is avoided. Holding down the <Ctrl> key highlights this in RED on the pic.:thumb:

For the Detail, Sharpness & Noise I usually zoom in to some fine detail and adjust these so as not to compromise it too much (like in the Frozen Solid shot).

I would love to understand all this a bit more so if anyone can offer any guidance, please do so :)

If anyone wants to have a play with the RAW files themselves just let me know and I'll let you have the originals.

Interesting thread CW. Those pics of yours get better every time I look at them - I must make a note to get up early on 18th Nov next year ;)

I agree with other peeps here that colour temperature is a very subjective thing - one of those 'if it looks right then it is right' things. There are no objective rules. Last night I was printing up some holiday pics from Greece and one of my favourites is of a whitewashed church (yeah, yeah, I know we've all got some of these, but I still like it :razz: ).

The white was a warm yellow, on account of the low early evening sun. It was the direction of the light that brought out the great texture of the plaster. But I know white is white, so I changed it but it just didn't look right. So now it's back to creamy again.

I also found Andy Rouse's review of RAW processing and Capture One software interesting on www.warehouseexpress.com (scroll down column on right). He knows his stuff and writes well. He also shoots everything on Auto White Balance and sorts it out later.

Richard.

Full kit, EXIF & Processing data added :thumb:

If you have any suggestions or comments please feel free to post them here, this is a learning process after all :)

Really like these Pics Charlie - thanks for adding the Exif info.

Gotta love how wide that 10mm is - well worth the expense - just imagine it on a full-frame camera! :O