
Sony NEX-7, 18-200, f/10, 1/1250, iso 200
I flew to California last weekend for a business trip, left early in the morning. Luckily I sat on the right hand side of the plane and I had a tremendous view of Mt. St. Helens. The Sony is my "light travel camera" so that's what I had on me. I fired off several frames, aiming for a high shutter speed, given we were scooting along at 425mph or so.
When I looked at the image on the monitor, the blown out mountain was spectacular, but overall the image had that dull cast one gets when shooting through miles of atmosphere (not to mention a pair of plastic & glass airliner windows).
Could Topaz B&W Effects II come to my rescue? I was looking for a dramatic scene, and I settled on the Dynamic Grunge II preset, then visually worked a couple of sliders (contrast in particular) to zero in on my perceived treatment. I played around with the exposure, I didn't want it to look like a nighttime scene. But OTOH, this was 7 am in early Spring.
This Topaz BWE software is fantastic. As much as I love Lightroom and live there all the time, for B&W, Topaz really does it for me.
Compare for yourself, the SOOC image is on the Continue link below. Comments happen to be free today, so help yourself!
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