morning light

[danir]

I posted a color version of this one (didn't get much feedback).

Thanks for looking.
Dani.

 

[leopardforest]

i really like the mist/fog and how it seems to be burning off from left to right yet the sun is coming up on the right. nice

 

[ernie]

it's kinda dark, no?

 

[Alex_B]

i think it is a bit dark on the right hand side. but it certainly is a moody sky.

but i am drawn to the right side in this image, it looks more interesting over there

 

[Alpha]

Holy middle gray, Batman!

 

[danir]

Thanks for the comments.

Holy middle gray, Batman!

Wrong exposure or postprocessing?

Dani.

 

[Trenton Romulox]

Holy middle gray, Batman!

Yeah, I'm curious Max, how would one go about eliminating this blasted middle gray you speak of? I've seen you post in regards to middle gray before, and I feel like a lot of my BW shots have it, but how do I avoid this? And is it always bad? Wait, just to make sure, what is it?

 

[Alpha]

Yeah, I'm curious Max, how would one go about eliminating this blasted middle gray you speak of? I've seen you post in regards to middle gray before, and I feel like a lot of my BW shots have it, but how do I avoid this? And is it always bad? Wait, just to make sure, what is it?

To understand this requires most simply an understanding that your camera's meter wants as much of your photo as possible to be 18% gray. To understand the impacts of it, and ways to cheat it, requires a solid understanding of why this is and how exactly it works. A solid understanding of the Zone system is very helpful as well (18% gray corresponds to a certain zone, you'll see, if you read up on it). Understanding all of this can help immensely in your shooting and your post-processing (especially if you like reflective metering).

As for this shot. I should have just said "Holy gray, Batman!" because "holy middle gray" is only partially correct for this particular shot. When I say too much gray, I mean there's an uneven spread of density from black to white. More to the point, most of the density is collected around a couple values. That means, it's flat. Take this shot for example. Open it in photoshop and do two crops. First, crop out everything but most of the sky. Then check the histogram. It's all lumped around the middle gray marker. Then crop out everything but the field. That's all highly concentrated in Zone II or so. There's very little else in the photo.