Download SD1 RAW Pack nr 4 255MB
You need Sigma Photo Pro 5 (or any other SD1 compatible aw converter).

The above shots all have a huge dynamic range (perhaps not the water shot) for you to play with – and in order to achieve good results you will have to either use X3 Fill light a lot – or save the image two or three times with different exposures and make a “fake HDR” in PS or whatever software you fancy. You can also dodge and burn if you save as 16bit tiff.

As I’m on the road and I do think above shots has been problematic – but interesting –  I’d LOVE to see what you guys can do! Anyone up for the task with any of these shots?

For those that follow my blog also knows that I sometimes use my little sisters music – and her song Autumn depression was a theme song on one of my videos (can’t reach youtube from China so I can’t find it nor link to it) but I just noticed when playing it to my parents in law that Kerstin updated the song and it’s now super great! :D

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To the song I give you my first Pixelmator edited photo, it’s tough to work in a new software and it was frustrating but I think result is OK. It doesn’t have any advanced sharpening – and RawTherapee that I relied on so much lately doesn’t work in OS X Lion – So I’m stuck with what I got. Not much. :)

Hopefully Pixelmator 2.0 will have everything that I lack right now, but then it’s too late as I’ll be back home to my safe PS. :D

If anyone has any other suggestions for great sharpening softwares outside PS and on a Mac – and free or not very expensive then feel free to shout!

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Another shot from my trip up north and this time it’s a Yak bull (At least I think so).. :) It’s a shot taken at ISO200 – You may want to open the shot in PS in order to fully see what I see, it’s still the strange profile bug making my shots look weird online. :(

Now, maybe you would like to know what the shot looks like in it’s none edited state?

I started with the last shot (almost) and saved at 16bit tiff, and worked with the dodge brush in Aperture to get where I wanted. I’m getting better with Aperture with everyday that passes. It’s good to be forced sometimes. :) I’m even thinking of installing Pixelmator and work with that instead of Photoshop.. At least while in China. :)

 Original from the window of my car..

For the last four days I’ve been on vacation on my vacation to the north of Yunnan province, to a place named Shangeri-la.. I used ISO200 in order to get the entire scene without having to bracket (take three or more shots with different exposures). So in order to get sky and foreground in one shot I used x3 fill light which works remarkably well with SD1 images, very different from my past experience.

Now, the colorbug within SPP5 isn’t yet fixed and I have to fight the magenta touch in Aperture and I feel/fear that I loose density because of this fight. Anyways. Don’t forget to click the boy shot and the water shot as they’re both incredibly detailed.

Some additional info can be found in my Dpreview Sigma forum thread.

 Original Fill light used and cropped as well. Have a look at the original as it’s super-detailed. 18-50 macro at it’s best!

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 Original Driving at Tiger Leaping Gorge

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And last a shot from when I passed a waterfall just beside the road, Linn opened the window to touch the water. :P

There will be more!

Couldn’t resist.. And she even exaggerate the magenta effect quite a bit.. :)

A bit later I saw her again, now her dad had collected some more of what he was collecting.. I tried to make her smile, but she wouldn’t. :(

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I love ev-bikes! I had one many years ago when I lived in Kunming and the other day we tried a few to see if perhaps it would be time to get another one.. They’re really awesome!! This one can do about 45km before running out of juice and cost around 2000rmb (€200) – And it’s foldable and battery is easily removable. Cool stuff!!

Good that I have Linn, she makes my photos look so much better! :D

These are some older shots from some weeks ago, still SD1 of course. Now looking at them thinking that maybe a bit too magenta. Oh well. :)

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None of these are taken in HI mode, but in mixed MED and LOW mode.

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I will not post much until next release of SPP5 is out. It’s just an amazing amount of work to get anything right and out without looking too off from your original idea. But please enjoy this small selection.

All images taken using the Sigma SD1 + 18-50 2.8 macro.

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As you know I’m on a laptop and I developed these in different light etc so just enjoy, don’t pick too much on the development. I used iPhoto as my post production software and iPhoto saves JPEGS either as super compressed or not compressed – the not compressed option creates JPEG’s of 15MB-21MB each so it’s really a no no.. So, jpeg artifacts can be seen quite easily. So beware! :)

Some shots from Kunming:

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Linn’s grandmother recently past away. Some shots from her grave and home.

My Chinese family, with mom and dad (in China, the custom says that when married, they become my parents as well.. So saying mom and dad to them feels awkward but nice. :)

70-200 in action! I’m not often keen on using it as it’s a bit heavy. But it’s really a nice lens! It’s the old version btw, without Macro.

Have to go, all at full size over at flickr. Please go there for more images and more info. I’m off now to the old parts of Dali.

SD1 Raw pack 3, 250MB in size. Click here to download.

18-50 2.8 Macro. All hand held click and run exposures.. :)

You need Sigma Photo Pro 5 in order to load the above pack. get it here.

Again, Please try sharpness at it’s lowest possible setting – this time lower the exposure slider to somewhere around -0.9, add a little highlight, a little saturation (+0.2) and have X3 fill light at +0.2 as well..

Good luck! Please post your best results as a bit smaller in the comment section. True with all my RAW Packs.

SD1 Raw pack 2, 250MB in size. Click here to download.
18-50 2.8 Macro used and in most cases long exposures at night.

You need Sigma Photo Pro 5 in order to load the above pack. get it here.

Please try sharpness at it’s lowest possible setting – if you feel you need extra sharpening, please use PS or LR or whatever software you like. Especially try the daylight bridge shot SDIM1547.x3f and have a look at some truly amazing detail..

SDIM1515 – X3F Zipfile Or just have a look at the large JPEG (Med 3264 x 2176). ISO200. 18-50.
Just an everyday photo from where I am right now, Kunming. It’s truly nice to be here again, this was my home for four years and it really feels good to be back again even it’s for a short while. Now I just need to dust off that Chinese of mine.. :)

Oh, and we had this HUGE thunderstorm yesterday night and I tried to get some lightning shots – but.. I didn’t get many good ones. I got one which was handheld for 10s. ;) (leaning to my window). I didn’t bring much extras such as tripods etc with me – I think I’ll get one of those Gorillapods though.

The one that I got locked crazy over exposed at ISO100 and I thought that it was truly a trash shot (knowing the limitations of low ISO highlight) but after stopping it down to ISO25 and the lightning is as clear as day! Though with some strange artifacts.

Before exposure compensation in SPP (embedded JPEG)

After, at about -2 exposure compensation and ISO should be around 25 at this moment. But it’s also a bit tricky as the lightning itself gives the sensor a tough time. I’d like to see a proper exposed lightning done before judging too much from above shot. :)

Oh, and I don’t have any photoshop on my macbook so every post editing is done in iPhoto.

As noted before, the in-camera jpeg created by the SD1 often has blown highlights when it’s not even close – see above example. Above shot was taken using ISO200 – ISO100 would likely had been blown for real.

Here hoping for Sigma to add some to that jpeg so I can trust what I see on the LCD a bit better. And no, the above shot isn’t finished like that. :) It needs a bit of contrast etc.. But still, works as an example.

SD1 Raw pack 1, 250MB in size. Click here to download.
ISO200 and 18-50 2.8 Macro used.

These shots are not all “perfect” – one is very over exposed and you need to play around in spp in order to restore (which is possible). I took those group shots using bracketing and thats the reason for over exposure. You need Sigma Photo Pro 5 in order to load the above pack. get it here.

Now I’m off to the airport! Enjoy my family. :) If you can find me in those group shots, then that’s a bonus! (timer used)

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Above shots were taken a couple of days ago using the SD1 at ISO200 using the 18-50 2.8 Macro lens which I really like. I forgot to tune down sharpening in SPP5 so at least the second shot looks way over sharpened. Not sure why Sigma added so much sharpening by default. It should be at least around -1.0.

Using ISO200 is almost a must if you want to preserve skies etc. ISO100 is similar to ISO50 in older SD’s. I’m not keen on going above ISO800 yet.. it’s not a highiso camera but lower ISO’s works great! (below 800).

Before I go to China I will give you a small RAW pack with 5 images from yesterday. But that’s for my next post.