6 photos | 3 Questions | Your Critique?

[Cooler_King]

OK this is quite an in depth thread (just to warn you) but I really appreciate any help.

Today I took a hike to Porta Westfalica ridgeline to use my Oly E500 for the first real session. To encourage the most constructive feedback I have tried to include as much info as possible.

I used the cameras automatic settings (auto, portrait, landscape etc) most of the time and made small amateur adjustments such as changing the ISO or zooming in tighter etc.

I shot in RAW and JPEG. The 6 images here are in JPEG Super HQ unprocessed. I took 57 in total and these are not the best, these are just the ones that illustrate my questions.

Time: 1500-1630
Equipment: Standard lens, Jessops Polariser, Lens Hood
Weather: Clear, occasional wispy cloud cover
Light: The sun was approx 1 hour from setting and everything had a soft, almost orange, light.

Question 1
Photo 1 is without a lens hood and Photo 2 is with a lens hood. Why is there such a contrast in colour? How do I marry the deep sky of 2 with autumn colours of 1?

1. F 5.3, 40mm, ISO 100, 1/60s

2. F 5.3, 40mm, ISO 125, 1/80s

Question 2
The light falling onto the monument was much brighter than the photos depict. How do I reduce the deep shadows without pp. Those shadows were not present in the frame of the shot.

3. F 5.6, 17mm, ISO 100, 1/80s

4. F 5.4, 42mm, ISO 100, 1/80s

Question 3
There was a definite purple in the spectrum of the sunset. Why has it not appeared on my image?

5.

6.

That's all. Thank you for taking the time to view my thread.
I have the images in RAW and am open to any PP suggestions you may have.

Steve

 

[Kblc]

I'm sure there are others here who can answer your questions better than I, but I'll give you my input and others can clarify behind me. Let's dive in, shall we?

Answer to Q:1

There are probably several reasons there is this difference. First being that your camera most likely chose to expose for the mountain in the first shot. This is evidenced by the richer colors in the trees, the washed out sky and foreground, and your exposure data you provided. Thanks for that, by the way :thumbup:. The second shot was most likely exposed for the sky since the shutter speed is slightly faster. And because it is faster, it let in less light and therefore less color info from the mountain. It also helps that the human eye/brain loses red wavelengths of light in low-light conditions before any other color, and is most sensitive to blue wavelengths. Plus, blue and red (which the mountain contains mostly reds) are complimentary, which means they contrast each other and when one is more intense than the other, the less intense one as a tendency to appear to fade away more dramatically. If you want the best of both worlds, steal the sky from the second one and plant it over the sky from the first one. The two photos appear to line up pretty well.

Answer to Q:2

The reason you have much deeper shadows than what you saw in real life is that the capabilities of film/digital sensors to perceive light has less range than that of the human eye/brain. The range of (in this case) a digital sensor perceive is roughly 5 stops-ish in most production cameras. The human eye is capable of far more. This range is known as Dynamic Range (which is where you get the term High Dynamic Range or HDR). This 5 stop range means that you will have information in all the pixels that are up to roughly 2.5 stops under and overexposed, and everywhere in between. Anything that requires beyond this range to expose will not register on you sensor. The difference between the bright sunlight on the brick, which is what appears to be exposed for, and the dark shadows is beyond the range of your camera to record. It must record information for either the brights, or the darks, but cannot register both at once. To get this combination you would need to use HDR style techniques. This is the center of much debate and will depend mostly on your own preference and artistic vision. HDR can be used subtly to simply get an even exposure throughout and entire scene, or it can create very stylized, highly illustrative, surreal images. It's up to you to decide where you would want to take it. Your other option is to learn the limitations of your camera, and work with them. Bright sunlight like what these were shot in will produce very high contrast images, whereas overcast skies will create a very flat, evenly exposed lighting scenario. I personally love shooting outdoors in bright sunlight because I am a fan of high contrast. This doesn't always work too well, depending on your subject and your vision. It's nothing new, but practicing repeatedly and often, and in a variety of conditions in key here.

Answer to Q:3

To be perfectly honest, I'm not entirely sure how to answer this question, although my best guess would be an incorrect white balance? Perhaps someone else can help you out here. To get it back though, you can mess with color sliders in the Camera Raw editor, particularly "vibrance." You could also add the color in post by VERY subtly painting it in, using a low opacity, very soft brush, layering the color band ever so lightly on each pass. This can be tricky, and may cause some debate on whether or not you've captured the true essence of the image being a "photograph." It's up to you to defend your stance there and to be accepting of opposing points of view, even if you are not in agreement.

So that sums up my best efforts to answer your questions. Sorry about the essay, ha ha. Sorry if I took you through anything you already knew. I'm not trying to insult your intelligence, just trying to offer up the best explanations possible.

 

[HikinMike]

...

You said it better than I could have! :thumbup:


Cooler_King -

Do you shoot in RAW, if not, start now. Especially for question 3. All you need to do is adjust the WB to suit the scene.

 

[Cooler_King]

KBLC - I don't how else to say it other than thanks so much for taking the time to get back to me. your answers were exactly what I was looking for.

Particularly to question 1. Really really helpful.

Today is the first day I have shot in RAW and I am editing it at the moment. Those images were the JPEG's that went with it.

 

[Kblc]

Hey no problem. Happy to help.

 

[ANDS!]

If you were shooting into the sun, that could certainly explain the color shift in the two photographs.

The question about "deep shadows" has already been answered.

As for the last question - it could be something as simple as the algorithm in the camera doing color adjustments that may or may not clip certain colors. Unfortunately with photography, it is not always garaunteed that what YOU see is what the CAMERA sees. The best way to make sure you do get consistent results is just to understand the camera inside and out and what it does (in regards to adjustments, not camera operation).

 

[cfaulds]

im new to photography, but i was told by a friend (who got me into photography in the first place!) about polariser filters. I took 2 shots of 5 landscapes with sky, 1 with the filter and one without.

The filter made the skies an incredible deep blue colour, however left the hills the same reddish/greenish colour (similar to the one in your photo). I was amazed. Perhaps try that?