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Re: [OM] ( OM ) New photos - non-film, sorry

Subject: Re: [OM] ( OM ) New photos - non-film, sorry
From: Moose <olymoose@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 01 Nov 2009 20:44:35 -0800
Brian Swale wrote:
> A little trial to see if FastStone is as blunt an instrument as Moose 
> suggests.
>
> At the top of 
> http://www.brianswale.com/zuikoholics/
>
> I have uploaded a 1.6 Mb segment of the Gibbston vineyard image, containing 
> the sky that Moose suggested should have shown a lot more detail than my 
> (large) web image presents. This is a crop from the jpeg straight out of the 
> E-3 using Irfanview, unmodified in any way by me except to crop. No 
> sharpening, no gamma, no resizing, no file size reduction,  nothing.
>
> Moose suggested that the sky had been spoiled by FastStone in the web version 
> lower down in the page.
>   

You have misread or misunderstood me. What I meant to say, and thought I 
had made clear, was that the tulip shot, which you characterized as 
badly underexposed, was rather well exposed, while the vineyard is 
overexposed:

---- "BUT, but, it looks to me like the exposure is right on the money. 
Perhaps by mistake, you've properly exposed to the right. Compare the 
tulips to the vineyard. At least as presented, the sky in the vineyard 
is quite unsightly, with large areas of undifferentiated pure white 
where our eyes know there was tonal detail." ----

While I did indeed characterize FastStone as a blunt and unsophisticated 
instrument, my only comment on it relative to the specific images was in 
regard to the tulip image alone. At that, I said the defect was small 
and only "may" be from processing:

---- "The tulip sky is nicely captured, giving a good tonal rendition of 
a cloudy day. The web version has a bit of clipped highlight, but very 
little and it may be from processing." ----

> In my opinion, it has not been spoiled. If any of you have the time, I'd 
> appreciate comment about that.
>   

As above, reread my post. I never said any such thing. In fact, I 
believed that the vineyard image was already spoiled and hardly looked 
at it. The sky in it is clearly beyond any help or harm by editing. I 
only referred to it as a poor comparison to the tulip exposure.

> in any case, from my point of view as photographer taking the photo, the sky 
> was not the reason for the shot. 

That's fine. And if you are happy with it, excellent. However, you 
posted it for comment. For me, and perhaps some others, the wildly 
unnatural sky made the image unpalatable enough that I didn't really 
look at the rest of it. A mistake, perhaps, but my own taste.

The thing that interests me, and that you apparently aren't interested 
in, is that you have at hand the equipment to capture the whole dynamic 
range of the subject, but reject that alternative. A simple exposure 
adjustment of -2/3 or 1 EV would have resulted in a properly exposed shot.

I just tried an exposure adjustment of -1 stop in PS. I suppose that's 
not quite the same as in camera, but it's what I have. As Chuck has 
pointed out, the image is low contrast, flat looking, as presented. 
Adding a bit of LCE, curves, etc. brings it right up. 
<http://www.moosemystic.net/Gallery/Others/BSwale/PA160549.htm>

I didn't touch the sky, as it can't be helped, but for fun, I dropped in 
an alternate with sky from the tulips.

> If I had been thinking of taking sky shots that day, the camera would have 
> stayed locked in a cabinet at home ...  the sky was totally unremarkable to 
> look at. But not the poplars in new leaf, as a backdrop to the vineyard in 
> Spring.
>   

And yet, you shot the sky, if only because it is part of the scene. And 
to the extent that the sky looks bad, some people will never notice the 
poplars. I know I didn't until now. I just thought "overexposed, 
uninteresting" and moved on to the next image. I sometimes have trouble 
just keeping up with the images posted here, let alone the gazillions 
presented in other places. I just flip past those with big, obvious 
technical flaws, unless anticipating that they may be an intentional 
part of an artistic vision.

Moose
-- 
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