Assignment Two: Seeing like your camera.

Assignment Two: Seeing like your camera.

For this assignment I chose the following subjects:

                         

1. A street scene with strong light and long shadows.

2. A landscape with low level incident lighting.

3. A backlit scene.

4. A scene containing objects of differing reflectivity.

Street scene.

The scene I chose was a narrow street at close to noon.  This provided me one side of the street in full sun and the other in total shadow.  The blue sky at the far end gave a nice splash of colour.  As this was taken at noon on a sunny day I wasn't worried about white balance.  This was clearly one for the sun setting.  The problem I had given myself was to obtain an exposure balance that neither burned out the highlights nor lost too much detail in the shadow area.  

Below are the three versions of the scene.  They are at intervals of 1/3 of a stop.  I started with the centre one, with the reading left to the camera set on centre weighted  evaluation, and then went over and under for the other two.  They are as taken with no post production work.

Over.

The over exposed version has many lost highlights with the Digital Colour Meter reading 255 across all RGB at a number of points.  The histogram is pushed over to the right with a distinct gamut warning line.  There is a near nil reading for the first part of the left side of the histogram indicating a lack of true blacks. 

The whole thing has a washed out look with little detail in the lighter areas.  Clearly over exposed.

As evaluated by camera.

This also has a washed out look and is again under exposed.  The DCM shows some highlights with 255 readings.  The shadow areas don't have the depth I would expect from these lighting conditions.  

Under exposed.  

This is the best of the three.  The histogram showed a nicely centred pattern.  The DCM showed that the only lost highlights are in the white window on the left but even here there is some variation.  At the black end I can find no readings of zero.  I wish I had taken one more image at another 1/3rd under as I think that would have been the perfect setting.  

Low incident light.

I revisited Botany Bay at Broadstairs for this exercise as I knew the evening sun would strike the cliffs and bathe them in warm light.  At my last visit I worked out that the whiteness of the cliff would make the camera misread and under expose, so I countered this by dialling in a little more exposure.  I concentrated on experimenting with the colour.  I wanted to retain the warmth of the sun on the white cliffs but didn't want it to look false.  I used three settings: sun, shade, and cloud.

Sun setting.
The camera's sun setting has recorded the colour of the cliff correctly but has missed the effect I wanted, which was to have the cliffs looking warm.

Shade setting.

The effect of this filter has been to remove  too much blue and give the whole scene a false yellow glow.  The filter has done its job but hasn't suited this scene.

Cloud setting.

In this version the warming of the cliffs, although obvious, is more controlled and doesn't look so artificial.  This filter has warmed up the cliffs just enough without casting an artificial hue.  Just sufficiently warmer to make a difference.

I knew from past experience that the sun setting would give the image nearest to what I could see but I wanted something slightly warmer, and the cloud setting gave just that.

Backlit.

In top of the, now closed, Royal Marine Music Centre is a cupola mounted with a wind vane.  This was my target for this exercise.  The aim was to have the sun apparently mounted on the top of the weather vane whilst still retaining both the colour of the sky and some details of the cupola and its clock.  I was faced with both exposure and colour problems. 

The exposure was dealt with by forgetting about the brightness of the sun and just allowing it to burn out.  That left me with retaining the hue of the sky and keeping some detail of the shadow side of the cupola.  I spot metered the sky and the tower, and set an exposure that would allow the blue of the sky to show but would also permit some shadow detail.

I took three exposures at one stop intervals and set for sun.

Lightest.

In this image the sun is too dominant and has removes all signs the weather vane.  The sky is too pale and lacking in detail.  There is plenty of Cupola detail but I didn't want this much.

Middle.

This is a great improvement and is closer to what I envisaged but the sun is still too strong. The sky is also too pale and lacks cloud detail.

Darkest.

This is the image I had in mind when I started this exercise.  The cupola is now little more than a silhouette against a dappled sky.  There is plenty of weather vane detail and the sun is now just one of the elements in the image and not the dominant one.  The sun is still burned out but that is what I expected at the outset.  There is a blue cast that could be corrected in post production.  

Different reflectivity.

At the end of Deal Pier is Jasin's Restaurant.  This is a modernist wood and glass structure with many angled surfaces.  The problem here wasn't colour, the cloudy sky dictated which filter I would be setting, but the exposure.  The scene had three main elements that had to be dealt with: the glass and its reflections, the detail of the wood structure, and the inside of the restaurant.

I let the camera give me the first reading and, as there were neither hard highlight areas nor too many deep shadows, I took two more shots a 1/3 stops either side of the base reading.

Over.

The lightest of the three images shows the sort of detail of the structure that only be of interest to an architect.  The reflections are washed out and there is too little of the restaurants interior showing.

Middle.

There is some improvement but still the wood looks washed out and the reflections in the glass are too bright which in turns prevents any details of inside being seen.

Under.

The third, and darkest, is the one I would chose.  The wood now looks more solid and the unnecessary detail at the top has started to darken.  The reflections in the glass are less glaring and some inside details are now visible.  I  never wanted to have identifiable images of the restaurant's diners, just an impression of human presence.

To finish this set up I have included the four images that meet what I was after when I set out.  They have taken only a small amount of manipulation.  Mostly straightening and auto colour tone/colour correction.

     Part Two.

I revisited the cupola for this second part and photographed it mid morning and in full sun.  The front, east face, was fully illuminated while the north face was in shade.  The obvious light setting was for sun which is what I set.  The lighting was a little more problematic as I had to balance the sky and brightly lit east face against the shaded north face and the little brickwork that was in shot.  I took a spot reading off the shaded part of the clock, which looked about standard grey, and took three exposures at one stop intervals from one over to one under.

When I checked them on the camera's back screen none looked spot on so I took one more at 1/3 stop under the middle exposure.

One under.

The image at one under was predictably dark with few shadow details and grey whites.  It did however show how much detail there was in the woodwork surrounding the front face.

As metered.

A surprising amount of lost detail and large areas of the white clock face registering 255 on the DCM.  The dome and the sky just blend in to one at the top.  Clearly over exposed.

One over.

This is way too over exposed with huge areas of pure white and lost detail.

1/3 under.

I checked the results of the first three and was not satisfied with any of them so took this additional exposure at 1/3 under the standard one.  This is now correctly exposed with burned out highlights, a nice boundary between the dome and the sky and full detailing on the clock's faces.  There is a slight blue cast that could easily be corrected in curves.

I realise the assignment called for three images only but I was not going to submit this without one of the images correctly exposed.

How did I do.

Demonstration of Technical and Visual Skills.

This assignment was mostly about technical skill and the overcoming of a camera's reading of a scene.  My selection of place and scene was varied with each one throwing up different problems.  I think I tackled those problems pretty well and, within the remit of the exercise, produced reasonable images.

Quality of Outcome.

My previous blogs have been slated as being haphazard.  I hope this one is more structured and easier to navigate.  As to this assignment, I hope that my thoughts and actions are clearly laid down and display at least parts of the workflow planning of the last section.

Demonstration of Creativity.

The finished product was not the aim of this exercise, only the first steps of seeing as the camera sees.  With that in mind I think I chose some interesting scenes that through up differing challenges.  

Context.

My current reading is The Digital Photography Workflow Handbook and Mastering Digital Photography.  The first is making me think more about my workflow and where it can be improved.  I am certainly keeping fewer images and consigning more to Trash.  The second is more a refresher course on a previous Diploma.  As I have said elsewhere, I now take fewer images but think more about why I am taking them.