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The Queen (Victoria) in Better Light (34)
JPlumb Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Star Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 828 W: 203 N: 1011] (3123)
A previous shot of The Queen (Victoria) and the Bridge, was an HDR, taken from night shots, and it was a little dark to really see this great ship. Hopefully showing the queen in better light will give people a real appreciation for this lady. I’m actually going to include 3 shots in the post today. I watched this ship and the people around it for a couple of days, and would like to share some of that, if only a small fraction of what I saw.

The first shot (main post) is taken from ground level up front of the ship. It was taken after the initial hype, on first arrival had died down a little. This shot doesn’t really give a good impression of the size, because perspectives make the people (and seagull) look a lot larger than they are (in comparison). Still it provides I think a decent view of the structure. The shot was timed to the birds, actually I saw a flock of them coming across so I was a little disappointed I only got 3 birds, and with my speed, not all that crisp. The second shot, to be found in the workshop, is “ Portrait of a Queen”. With a lot of us running around taking pictures of the Queen, this lady sat down on the Overseas Passenger Terminal Observation Deck and very calmly painted a picture. I had to capture that one. Finally in the third shot, second workshop, I’ve pulled back a bit and you will find a shot of Sydney Cove (Circular Quay) with the Queen Victoria docked at the Overseas Passenger Terminal. Again, this isn’t a fair shot to look at size, because of perspectives, but the ship to the right of the Queen is the Manly Ferry. This is the largest ferry in the Sydney Ferries Service. Fully loaded it carries 1,100 passengers.

Workflow for the first shot was as follows:
Shot was taken in Raw, with a jpeg for reference (ISO 280 31 mm @f/9.5, 1/90)
NEF file adjusted for exposure, shadow and vignetting
Cropped with perspective to pull flag poles into alignment with edge
Levels – adjusted black points, and midpoints by eye
Curves – minimal, some slight contrast only in RGB
Added an overlay layer and dodged and burned with 5-20% opacity black and white Saturation layer +22 to master
Saved as a tiff
Cropped, resized, reduced noise on sky selection (but excluded smoke from stack), added a layer, inversed selection, sharpened with USM, modified sharpening with a layer mask (30-80% opacity black brush), framed and saved as a jpeg
Altered Image #2

JPlumb Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Star Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 828 W: 203 N: 1011] (3123)
PS CS2
Edited by:JPlumb Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Star Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 828 W: 203 N: 1011] (3123)
Sydney Cove with the Queen Victoria
(I had to get one in with the Sydney Habour Bridge and Opera House).
Altered Image #1

JPlumb Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Star Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 828 W: 203 N: 1011] (3123)
PS CS2
Edited by:JPlumb Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Star Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 828 W: 203 N: 1011] (3123)
Portrait of a Queen
There are a couple of things I'd like to point out in this shot. First there is the artist of course painting a picture of the ship. What you don't see is about 50 people jostling for position to take pictures of the ship, and pictures of each other in front of the ship. We are on the Observation deck of the Overseas Passenger Terminal, so the guys down there on the dock are about 4 floors below us. The rooms to the left are staterooms on the ship. Many of these had people standing in them waving Australian flags when the ship first arrived. You can still see one posted on one of the rooms. This shot was taken at 18mm. I don't have anything wider (yet), and from this distance and angle, this was all I could fit in. I had some lens distortion that had to be corrected, then cropped, but otherwise this is just about full view.