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HAA! White Shadows! Thats definitely different Hans.
I do a bit of Minimalism with the below, but relaxing and let the eyes adjust, slowly reveals more.
In between the rain spells I shot straight up and got this pic yesterday. Heres to 2017! Happiness and Health To All!
Hello Gini! Happy New Years to You and All of CAS! I hope there is a break in the grey for you to delight in the clouds. I had to wait for it to stop raining, about 5 minutes. The low fast moving stratus cumulus are always dramatic so I spent awhile in the backyard before I noticed I wasn’t dressed warm enough. The weather satellite pictures indicate wet for the next 24hrs.
Hans, Ok, for the sake of alliteration I’ll give you that, but to me that looks like asperitas definitely
When clouds are duplicatus..layers of different types stacked on top of each other, I have fun with the camera. I never know exactly what I’m going to get. There is fun in that. Lighting is varied from layer to layer. Direction of Movement is varied. etc. At some point I find myself ,,just taking pics rather than seeing a thought out photo. I tend to look for general patterns and construct around highlites using average exposure and contrast rather than anything too specific. Seldom have I been disappointed with this approach to shooting duplicatus. Recently I stumbled upon an entire session of shooting up thru duplicatus, that I had ,,umm, forgotten about. All of it is in the vein of abstract. The shot below is for your entertainment. Feel free to drag it to your screen and make as big as you want. ( suggested)
Roger,,Probably. Its difficult to tell . If the “curtain makes it all the way to the ground, then its praecipitato , precipitation/rain. If the ” curtain” doesn’t make it to ground, evaporates back into the atmosphere, then its virga. So, by your picture , the curtain appears to not make it to ground but you were there and would know for sure.
Easy one , Tony. They are Virga; .the horizontal alto cumulus are not able to hold the moisture so it falls vertical, but notice, it evaporates before it reaches the ground. Virga. Nice sunset shot getting the feel of depth.
Hans, That above pic was a difficult one to say the least. The sky was a flat stratus . When the mammatus began to show there was not enough contrast for the auto focus to work with. So I went to manual focus and as you can imagine I was lucky to get one good shot. Thats another feature of digital. Its very inexpensive to shoot a lot of pics in order to get one good one.
Any monochromatic, one color, photograph becomes a challenge. Using White Balance means calibrating to a white source at every session, something cloud photography doesn’t always give time for. So having various pre programed shooting parameters is what i like. Various levels of contrast , saturation, etc at ones finger tips is great and over time with use one learns the best to use at appropriate times.
That brings up another observation. It took a fair amount of processing the pic to try to capture ethereal of it all..yet comparing the pic as it is on my screen , with the same pic as it is posted here, there is a difference. I’ve noticed this with my pics. They are slightly darker here. Not a big issue but something to be aware of; the subjectivity of the medium we are dealing with. Not everyone’s screen is calibrated so there will variances. At times I remember to give a pic just abit more ‘ light” to offset the bit of darkening that happens when posted here. So,all that we may go thru can’t be taken too seriously, unless we are printing these pics for display then its just the damned printer that has to be calibrated and adjusted and kept full of ink etc.
So yes, experimenting is a lot of what we do. Exploring clouds with the new inexpensive digital tools opens the field up to a whole lot more people. Digital photography is the peoples art. ( Hint for CAS Members to jump in with the fun.)
Below, Went with a lot of white, hilights. Seemed appropriate for seeing clouds.
I SEE CLOUDS
Hans..Getting the contrast right is so important.Clouds pop out and depth is established with good contrast control. But it isn’t just that. There is, range in the gray scale control ,and for what desired affect. As per below,there is no absolute black nor pure white in the shot. It is about the subtlety of the gray scale to demonstrate a mystical , i suppose, ethereal sense to the pic. Your pond pic with the misty gray clouds like fog does the same for me. Also, details in the shadows and in the hilites can be lost for the sake of ” contrast”. Some camera critics, say the one thing digital Nikons have over Canon is the Range of the CMOS used. Yet good processing after the shot can achieve desired results.
Fantastique! Hans, sometimes I like to classify cloud pics into Phenomenal, Phantoms and Fantastique. Your Pic strikes me as a ” Fantastique”..real yet out of this world”. Definitely getting a Twilight Zone feel .
Then there is the Visual Metaphor.
” Minions”
BRAVO Hans! Many an encore I hope! Below is an example of something I do during monsoon; brave the 100f + with high humidity and explore the towering nimbus…with out rope,pinions nor spikes. Sometimes I go bare foot with zoom telephoto. Just know where the ants are. anyway, B&W turns these towering clouds into mountains, cliffs and valleys: oriental in orientation.
Sky Mountain of the Pileus Palace.
