St. John the Evanelist Church, North Boulder Valley MT

Saint John the Evangelist Catholic Church, North Boulder Valley (Boulder), Montana, USA
Montana State Highway 69
August, 2025
Post-editing fun of a quiet church.

This is an active graveyard and church with gleaming white paint and white crushed stone.  All photos were exposure compensated at +1 to +1.5 stops. 

Click for larger view.  Arrow key right for next image

(above) Standard shot. Nikon Z5, Nikor 17-28mm at 24mm
F9, 1/640  ISO 200
Non-HDR, hand-held, polarized
+1 stop over-exposed

In post, I converted to Black & White, and then Infrared.  

Paintshop Pro (PSP), Black and White conversion

PSP, Infrared conversion

PSP, Black and White conversion

More infrared, different people:

Different view.  PSP, Infrared Conversion.  17mm, F9

Color shots, facing North West:

PSP, lightly edited and cropped (NEF conversion)

Wide Angle Views

The 17-28mm f2.8 is my favorite lens.  When I bought the lens, I intended to replace a 20mm from my film cameras, but time-and-time again, the zoom finds itself at 17mm.  The change from 20 to 17 is loads-of-fun. 

The lens does not like to look up, as evidenced in the front facade's keystone.  Results were laughable when I tried to correct the perspective in the editor.  Clearly, I do not know how that tool works.  Of the two exposures taken, both were artistic failures.  Yes, this was all visible in the view finder, but I clicked the button anyway.

Keystoning, galore.  17mm

The wide-angle graveyard photos were a success.  With these, look at the center of the frame -- the horizon is lurking near-by.  

With wide-angle shots like these, cropping is needed if the foreground details are bland.  In this particular photo, I was only a few scant feet away, with the lens trending-down.  I was watching the distortion on the headstones near the center, keeping them more-or-less natural looking.  But the headstones on the far-left (now cropped), were distinctly leaning backwards.  

The goal was to make the church seem small and to give distance between the headstones.  All things a wide-angle loves to do.

Click for larger view

 

After illustrating the cropping marks, I noticed the brilliantly-white outhouse along the right-edge of the frame garnering too-much attention and it needed to be dodged.  On my first attempt, the dodging brush was too wide, darkening near-by foliage, and this can be seen in this illustration (click to enlarge).  The outbuilding looked smudged, like an out-of-focus blob.  It took a second edit to fix this.

Of interest, several of the photographs were taken in-camera as B&W.  When looking through the Z5's electronic view finder, the composition was fantastic, showing the scene in monochrome.  It is exhilarating to take photographs this way.

However, since I always store the original negatives as .NEF, they were full color when pulled-up in the editor.  Vaguely disappointing, but easily changed back.

Finally, Paint Shop Pro's B&W conversion seems flat.  In the real world, there are different kinds of black and white films and printing papers.  Photo Editors have plugins to simulate those other techniques.  For example, I would like to learn how to make the image look like a Gelatin print.  PSP is deficient in this area. Your comments welcome.

Related articles:
Using an 18% greycard:
https://imageliner.blogspot.com/2011/11/using-18-grey-card.html

 

North Fork, Owyhee River

 North Fork Owyhee River, Southern Idaho, USA

We were scouting future backpacking trips in the canyon lands near Jordan Valley, Oregon, along the Idaho border.  Although the canyons are beautiful, we stayed high and did not climb down because they were mostly impassable.  I suppose this land is best seen by raft.  

See this article for pictures taken along the East Fork of the Owyhee:
https://imageliner.blogspot.com/2024/05/the-tules-east-fork-owhyee-river.html

Snapshots from the trip 
Hand-held.  Circular Polarizer.  No HDR.
Nikon Z5, set to Daylight, Vivid
I like to shoot at a fixed ISO 200
Photos taken as RAW-NEF, then edited in PaintShop Pro
Lightly edited and cropped

Long lens, shallow F4 aperture, cropped as a pano

 

 

17mm, F10

Many of the flower photos were underexposed.  While taking the pictures, I did not check their exposures or look in the previewer, relying on the camera meter.  Probably should pay more attention to this stuff.

The RAW image properties showed I was sloppy.  The photos were all set with a minus -1 EV exposure compensation.  Normally, I pay close attention to this but here, I fell-down on the job.  My excuse:  The day was hot, and I was tired.

NEF Properties showed the truth

The photos were taken in Nikon's native NEF/RAW format and were salvageable.  

17mm wide-angle, F8

Various portraits were taken of my traveling companions, and they are not being uploaded here.  Below, these were not my travelling companions, but they seemed to be everywhere.

The reason we will not do much backpacking in this area.  
That and plethora Mormon Crickets.

Related:  East Fork of the same wilderness:
https://imageliner.blogspot.com/2024/05/the-tules-east-fork-owhyee-river.html

I like cattle grates and fence lines:  GrandView Idaho (in the same general area as the Owhyee range):
https://imageliner.blogspot.com/2013/09/grandview-idaho.html


Had best study-up on this article:
https://imageliner.blogspot.com/2011/11/using-18-grey-card.html

--

John Gorbus, downtown Boise

John Gorbus, Graffiti Downtown Boise, Idaho USA

Near Bannock and 5th.  Mr. Gorbus has a serious problem.
Pixel 6 Cellphone Photo, lightly edited and cropped.  2025.0630

 Click for larger view