Unintentional Camera Adjustment Dilemma

[BuckSkin]

From my house, it is 45-mile to the nearest train track; it is a bit far and therefore a special occasion when I have opportunity to photograph trains.
I wish a mainline ran through my back yard; the front yard would be good as well.

From my most recent trackside experience, I have learned why Canon put a lock-switch on the big selector wheel and I am going to make a habit of using it from now on; 7D Mark II, if anyone is wondering.

I had been all day at a truck and tractor show and stopped beside the tracks on my way home; it was getting down in the shank of the evening; still daylight, but not for long.

I had the camera on Manual, ISO on Auto, F/8, and 1/1,000 shutter.

While I was waiting, although the gauges showed I still had 32% battery, I thought I had best swap in a fresh pair just to be safe.

Grips with removable battery cartridges are a lot more fiddly than those that have a door (like the wife's 7D).

With cartridge removed, fresh batteries laying ready on the truck seat, me trying to not get the fresh ones mixed up with the weaker ones, I heard a train blowing for a crossing in the distance; I stepped things up a notch.

As I slid the cartridge home, twisted the lock, turned the camera back ON, and checked Battery Info to make sure everything made contact, he was blowing for the nearest crossing a couple hundred yards away; I could feel the earth vibrating; he was burning the ground, gaining momentum for the assault on King's Mountain; probably sixty, maybe sixty-five miles per hour.

This is no time to be fiddling with controls; if you look away, it is all over.

507 shutter clicks later, the last car rolled out of sight; mixed freight; a lot more interesting that a boring intermodal.

Back home, at the computer, when I fired up DxO, I checked the ISO of the first image = 16,000 = something can't be right.

I then saw that the F-stop was F/14 --- not the intended F/8 --- for every one of my images.

Obviously, I had managed to move that wheel during the battery swap; of course, it had to have happened while the batteries were in the camera and the camera ON, else it would not have responded.

I now have a very noisy mess to clean up and a new lesson learned.

[pontiac1940]

Aug 4, 2021 16:32:05 GMT BuckSkin said:

I now have a very noisy mess to clean up and a new lesson learned.

Totally not good. 
Good luck.  

[hmca]

So sorry this happened, Buckskin. I miss my 7DII. It was a great camera for fast action. Hope you can salvage a good number of your images. Let us know how this turns out.

[BuckSkin]

I have a plan that I am employing that may work out fairly decent.

I made two special-purpose presets for DxO Photolab 2 Elite; one is my standard recipe with the Prime Denoise set at the maximum; this recipe is okay for the details, but yields a very blotchy noisy sky.

The second preset/recipe has all of the sliders zeroed out save for the Prime Denoise being set to maximum; no Contrast, no Clearview, no Sharpening.

I load six images in DxO and select all; at one click, I make a "Virtual Copy" of all six; with the original six still selected, I add Preset #1 above; I then reverse my selection to the six Virtual Copies and add Preset #2.

At times like this, I wish DxO had a Reverse Selection button; if it has one, I sure haven't been able to find it; I have to reverse the selection manually.

I then select the whole group (now twelve) and Export them as jpegs.

The plan is to load both copies in Elements, Preset #1 and Preset #2; drag the Preset #2 image on top of Preset #1; add a layer mask; and, paint in the sky of Preset #2.

Then I can continue editing the combined result.

[Peterj]

I'm not at all familiar with DxO ...Just wondering why export as jpg vs dng?

[BuckSkin]

Aug 4, 2021 21:39:38 GMT Peterj said:

I'm not at all familiar with DxO ...Just wondering why export as jpg vs dng?

I lost faith in DNG a long time ago; I did not like what it did to my images; and, I see no reason for it when I have the actual RAW files.

I am open-minded; maybe you can convince me to give DNG another go; things may have improved since I last tried it.

I could save as a TIFF between DxO and Elements; but, I have tried that extensively and could see no actual advantage over plain old jpegs for the short ride between programs.

I do wish DxO had the option to save as PSD, as I do save all of my Elements work as PSD and the finished files as jpeg for convenience in sharing and viewing.

You should give DxO a try; it is amazing what it can do for Canon RAW files (probably all other brands as well, but I can only speak for Canon)

I can work meticulously for hours with any other program, trying and failing to duplicate what DxO can do in just a few clicks.

The Virtual Copies I mentioned earlier, you can make as many as you want, and DxO will save them and any work you have done to them in the sidecar of the original RAW file; revisit the file later and there will be of your versions.

[Peterj]

My thought / question related to keeping the raw integrity for PSE. I'm not a huge dng fan; but will use it when transferring to another edit product. Provided your settings (WB & exposure clipping)) are spot on there's probably not a reason (except or lens corrections in ACR).

[BuckSkin]

Aug 5, 2021 0:36:16 GMT Peterj said:

 (except or lens corrections in ACR).

DxO has lens "modules" that you download for specific lens/camera combinations that are supposed to correct for camera/lens distortions.

I do notice that the "corrected" image loses some territory as opposed to the original, like maybe a plank's width on a barn wall; and, when comparing the corrected image as a layer over the uncorrected image, turning visibility ON and OFF, the original appears to "sink in", like it is concave, whereas the corrected image sort of "hills up" in the middle, like it were convex.
I know that sounds silly, but that's the best description I can come up with.

[Peterj]

I've found ACR's lens correction super

[Chris]

Buckskin, thank you for sharing your experience. I feel your pain. I think we have all made mistakes like that over the years. I hope you can manage to salvage some decent images in post processing. I don't use DXO, but your workflow should yield good results. I believe psd files use Tiff as a basis. If you export from DXO as an 8 bit Tiff then import into PSE you can avoid any jpg artefacts. Its amazing how modern AI software can remove noise and sharpen.

Kind regards
Chris

[BuckSkin]

After a run through DxO, most things don't look so awful as I was expecting --- not good - just not awful.

The worst-looking victims are those flawlessly-painted shiny black tank cars; they look like they have been splatter-painted with green, magenta, and blue spatters.

I guess I will get to explore some of those intimidating noise reduction methods that I keep putting off learning how to use, like splitting the image into it's individual "channels" and the like.

This couldn't have happened when the train was an intermodal or an all-cars-alike unit train; this was a very interesting mixed freight with a multitude of various kinds and style of cars, and every color in the book; I figure at least 200 cars or more.

It could have been worse; it could have been the circus train.

[Chris]

Buckskin, the DXO noise removal sliders should have a setting for "chroma" noise that might reduce the colour splattering effect. If not, then you can do some retouching with PS Elements. Many experienced users can offer their suggestions. (Maybe the colour replace tool might help?) As your camera was accidentally set to F14, the images might be soft due to diffraction limiting effects. Some lenses are more forgiving. So some selective sharpening might be needed.

In the old film days you were stuck with what you had. Now digital processing can work wonders.

Kind regards
Chris

[BuckSkin]

Aug 6, 2021 7:19:37 GMT Chris said:

In the old film days you were stuck with what you had.

Kind regards
Chris

In the old film days, if I had of had film at all, there would not have been more than a couple pictures to have been affected because it was uncertain when I would have money to buy film again; but then, thinking about it, I never had a camera that allowed any adjustments; you didn't get adjustments in the $19.95 price range.

[BuckSkin]

Just an interesting note:

According to the time stamps, from the first glimpse of the nose of the lead locomotive until the last car disappeared in the distance = 5-minutes and 16-seconds.

[Peterj]

Aug 7, 2021 2:08:10 GMT BuckSkin said:

Just an interesting note:

According to the time stamps, from the first glimpse of the nose of the lead locomotive until the last car disappeared in the distance = 5-minutes and 16-seconds.

I'm interested viewing a couple of your train pics.