Ken Norton wrote:
> Moose,
> A nice collection of photographs there.
Thanks!
> I also liked the ducks
I just had to include two. In the first, they are all in formation. In
the second, it's hard to tell from the shot whether they are breaking
ranks or starting some sort of fancy zig-zag drill. :-) the former
was, as you might guess, the case.
> , but the couple eating was right up there too.
>
Did you like the juxtaposition of their double reflection in glass doors
with the direct view? Such a different "feel" to the alternate views.
> Could you expound on something though.
Most likely, and quite likely at some length. :-) Let's see what happens.
> I noticed that all or nearly all images had an exposure compensation of -2/3.
> As you were shooting in bright
> sunlight, did you happen to have sunglasses on and you needed to compensate
> for the viewfinder-based exposure sensor, or is it strictly user-preference
> to preserve as much highlight as possible?
>
Essentially the latter. Although I test it with each new camera, I've
regularly found that -2/3 to -1 EV gives me the most useful images in
direct sunlight and other contrasty situations with very bright parts of
the subjects in which I want to retain tonal detail.
This was true starting with my first digicam, although its relatively
limited dynamic range and high noise in shadows made adjustment for
flatter light or subjects more important. With the 5D and F30, it's
pretty safe to leave -2/3 all the time I'm outdoors without fairly heavy
overcast. The A650 is less forgiving at ISOs above 200, so I may adjust
EV compensation more when using it.
Considering your past rants and jibes on the subject, you may be
surprised to learn that I very seldom chimp. On a day like that one,
I'll probably check the color histogram at the start and on the
occasional shot in different light, and very occasionally check what I
caught. I can't imagine I chimped as much as 5% of the shots that day. I
paid a price with one shot I thought would be great lost to motion blur,
and a few others iffy for larger size. But it's worth it to spend that
time enjoying my surroundings and letting my eyes find new photo ops,
rather than peering into the little "box". So next time I'll lean toward
higher ISOs in the shade, but now I know the capabilities and limits of
the VC lens better.
Just as many people adjusted the asa/iso settings for film based on
their results, I believe digital cameras make some assumptions that
aren't ideal for my use. I don't know about E-1 images, and you've not
really worked with images from cameras with essentially no noise up to
ISO 200, verrry little up to 800 and good shadow detail retention.
It is relatively easy to bring up shadow detail and integrate it into
the contrast curve with such images, while blown highlights are simply
gone. Sure, there is a fair amount of additional highlight range in RAW
images, but I only shoot RAW where available, so I'm already counting on
that. Also, beyond a certain point, its possible to recover luminance
detail, but it starts to lose color. There are a few images in the
gallery, as in the bamboo grove, where I let the highlight recovery pull
down completely blown bits to gray, simply so they wouldn' pull the eye
away from the primary subject.
If I'm in that situation at -2/3 in deep shade, imagine what I'd have
had at 0 EV, yuck. YEt many people would og with 0 or positive EV in
that situation, I'll bet. There are lots of images in this gallery where
subtle detail in deep shadow was "enhanced" to avoid the complete black
that straight conversion would give.
I'm usually bemused when I read about limited dynamic range in digital
cameras. Sure, it's limited, but not nearly as much as most folks say.
Mike J. on TOP recently posted about that, using examples of the three
exposures needed to capture the complete dynamic range of a shot of
strong sun and deep shade in his back yard. Working with his darkest
example, it was easy to recover virtually all the range of the three -
from a modest JPEG on his blog. Sure, there were JPEG artifacts in the
deepest shadows, but there wouldn't been if working with the original.
And that was inside the garage, seen through a door already in the shade.
I've posted this before, but it's a great example of what's lurking
hidden in the shadows. I originally took two shots at different
exposures to capture the brightness range of the subject. When I opened
them to combine them, it was quickly obvious that I didn't need the
bright one. <http://galleries.moosemystic.net/Summita/pages/DSCF1140a.htm>
Roll over and take a look at the original. It's REALLY underexposed,
hardly reaching the 60% point on the histogram. Then look at the result,
a full range histogram with no blown highlights and lots of shadow
detail. And remember, that's from a small camera with JPEG output only!
Imagine what depths are hiding in the shadows of a 5D RAW image.
Back to the question, the -2/3 is an empirically based setting to get
the kind of digital "negs" I want. When my cameras are put away in a
bag, they are left at default, get the shot without thought, settings,
AE, AF, ISO 400, daylight WB, -2/3 EV, full battery and empty card.
Moose
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