I said I’d struggle with this lens and struggle is what I do. Inspiration failed me and I took the easy way out. The first image made yesterday morning, the staircase here in Vienna, always a feast for the wide angle, that’s what had to save the day.
In the end this is not about my new lens, in the end this is about the amazing capabilities of the current set of Topaz plugins. I combined two versions from RAW, one for getting back the extreme highlights of the window, applied the lightest setting of Topaz DeNoise 4 (it’s ISO 1000 after all), applied Topaz Adjust 4 to the stairs and the lift encasement, Topaz Detail 2 increased the micro-contrast, an edge mask held back noise, and apart from that there is a neutral blur and some saturation adjustments.
The result satisfies me. I mean, it’s not the greatest image, but I like how this contrast hell turned into something very subtle, but still has deft micro-contrast, and that without looking particularly unnatural.
The Song of the Day is “Struggle” from the 2000 Apocalyptica album “Cult”. Sorry, I have to recommend plastic. No download available 🙂
YouTube has the song.