Noise Test

I just finished taking pictures at a friends wedding and started to do what processing I know how to.  (I am bad at learning this part of the process.)  But one important thing that I noticed is since I was using auto ISO, which did help to get most of the shots in focus and without motion blur, I did end up shooting more shots at the max auto ISO setting of 6400.  This was not that bad but I did see much more noise and I would like to correct that.

With that being said, a friend of mine swears by Lightroom 5 at this point, we both started with Aperture 3.  I on the other hand have not migrated but I have collected a few other programs.  I found a promotional and was able to get the full version of Corel Aftershot Pro for free.  I figure why not and it has Perfectly Clear and Noise Ninja built into it.  I also picked up the Nik suite along the way to help out Aperture.  And finally I got DxO and am wanting to migrate to it since it also has a lot of lens and perspective corrections.  (So yes I guess I am trying everything else except Lightroom.)

So that is my setup.  From the desire to edit the wedding pictures, I figured I better do a simple comparison.  I say simple since I still do not know how to use any of these programs to their full potential thus I wanted to see what they could do on their own.  In that, I took a macro shot of a cactus flower that I had and just did noise reduction on the same RAW file and here are the results.

I only upload medium jpegs and hopefully that will be enough.  When I say default, this is basically enabling aka turning on that tool and allowing the default settings to do their stuff.  It is also interesting that the exports from Aperture did not transfer my Exif information.  Also the Aperture has a little dust repair work, but not exposure.

Coral (Perfectly Clear and Noise Ninja)

DxO (Prime default)

Aperture (Default)

NIK (Dfine default)

My conclusion: I like the DxO best.  But I really, really like the work-flow of Aperture.  I just wish Apple would update the tech in it.  (It has been nice though not having to buy multiple versions and getting pretty good update all along.)

Monterey Bay Aquarium Tentacles

The Monterey Bay Aquarium just opened a new exhibit called tentacles.  They did a very good job and I got some pictures from it.  The problem that I am having is that I am exceeding the low light capacity of my camera.  (You really do not want to use flash around these light sensitive and marvelous creatures.)  (I also need a new camera.)

Many of the creatures in these exhibits are small but interesting.  Some even just attached themselves to the glass.  The banded one was a little bigger than my hand, while the other two where about the size of my thumb.


This guy was just hanging out on the window.  He was one of the large one at the show.

The really strange one was this 'pancake' octopus.  I was so mesmerized by it that I forgot to read about it.  I also got a video of it.  One of the few times it do that.

Here just happens to be another video of a smaller octopus who was hanging out on the wall.  You can hear that I was thinking that my dropping onto my knee to get the picture may have startled him because he changed color.  But I am not sure, I was talking to my daughter while filming.

And the star of the show, as if octopus are not enough was the Nautilus.  This thing was just weird.  He was just hanging right there and then started to move.  They have about 6 to 8 in the exhibit and well, you just want to take one home.

Monterey Bay April 2014

Well we got back from another short trip to Monterey, yes it is nice being this close to that area.  Also I would love to move there.

Anyway, while the kids played on the beach and before we went to the aquarium to see the new exhibit, I caught these two feeding very close in.  This was a mom and a young one.



I especially like the look of the teeth in the cropped image.

Also the youngster kept popping up and looking around for mom.  They where always coming up first and waiting at the surface.

Here was a nice shot where I caught them both diving.  Reminiscence of whale watching.

Even the seagulls where getting into the action when the otters threw out their leftovers.

Marin and other photo outings

Here is a few places that I visited over the past couple of weeks.  I think my daughter would love to visit most of these places.

First off was Kirby Cove in the Marin headlands by the Golden Gate Bridge.  Here I was trying to catch the sunrise.  See my previous post about the timelapse, but here are a couple of sunrise pictures.  The second one was from my iPhone.



Here are a couple of other pictures from Kirby.  I think the swing on the beach is nice.  (Too bad I goofed the picture but I think I'll have another chance.)



Later that day, here is a picture from Mt Tam. and Alpine Lake and how low it is.



Here again was from Fort Baker plus a strange looking crab.



Here are some pictures from Mt Diablo.  This was a couple of weeks later and again I think my daughter would love climbing around on the rocks.  There certainly was a lot of kids on the rocks.



This shot shows how the fire line was created during last years fire on the mount.

Last, here is Point San Pablo and The Brothers (bed and breakfast).

Timelapses

I guess it is time to catch up on a couple of posts.

First off, I did a couple more timelapse tests over the past month.  The first was just the night sky in Berkeley.  So there was a lot of light pollution, few stars but I was kind of interested in seeing how it would turn out.  Each frame is a 1 sec exposure at f2.8, ISO 2500 with a 2 sec delay.  There is not much too look at but I did catch a couple of airplanes flying through the frame and I would have to have either taken more exposures or increased the time between frames to get the stars to move.

This second one was an attempt to do a sunrise.  It was a cloudless morning and I figured I would again try something new.  This is from Kirby Cove which is in the Marin headlands area.  Very nice place.  This one is set at 1 sec intervals.

LA 2013 Santa Monica

Ok this is the last in the series.  This is also the one in which my daughter liked the most.  The Santa Monica pier at low tide.  She had so much fun running around under the pier finding tide pool life, it was hard for one of the other parents to keep up.

I guess the stars of the show, pun intended, where the star fish.  They where everywhere and this was also the problem.  I saw too many starfish being carried away as trophies.  This first guy was fun to watch and after about 20 minutes and the number of people increasing, I had my daughter moving him closer to the tide line to give him a fighting chance to escape from being a trophy.



Here are a couple of macro shots.  (Having to try my macro lens.)



And the sunset.



And finally the pier.  I really need a light tripod to travel with.