intentional overexposure

<p>I'm reading "Fine Art Wedding Photography" by Jose Villa & Jeff Kent. In it, Jose explains that he intentionally overexposes by 1 stop to make the images light and dreamy. He shoots film on a Contax 645 and a Canon 35mm body. He shows some truly beautiful images in the book, many with a dreamy, painterly look.</p>

<p>When my wife and I got married, our photographer also intentionally overexposed by 1 stop. He was using a 5D and 1D mk III. His images were nice and the final album is beautiful.</p>

<p>As a photographer, I sit in horror when my images blink flashing red in LightRoom, yet I now have two existence proofs of great images that are intentionally overexposed with highlights blown out.</p>

<p>Waddaya think? Are these guys crazy? Opinions on this? Should you do it? Should you autobracket to mitigate risk? Why not just shoot normal exposure and then crank up brightness in LR? Can you get the same effect by shooting 14-bit NEFs and reducing contrast in LR?</p>

<p>I dunno, I wouldn't really call them "dreamy" or "painterly" to me. They're lower contrast, pastels, strong backlighting. Just an opinion of course.<br>

As for your photographre, he can't use the same technique. Over exposing by 1 stop and metering for the shadows just doesn't work with digital cameras... yet. You lose way too much. You can lean towards over exposure and still get lots of detail, but not quite like you would with colour negative.<br>

Are they crazy? Not if you're shooting film, if you're blowing out all your digital images and well, perhaps. But it's all relative to what you want to achieve. Overexposure is just one example. There are of course a whole variety of different ideas & techniques that one can look at and refine into your own "look". I think the key to this is really consistency in everything you do - something you definately won't get with autobracket! But a look can be achieved both simply in camera, or out of camera, or a bit of both. It's a very person choice about how you go about it yourself... I think it's really something you have to develope yourself, to be a part of you, rather than just immitate someone else.</p>

<p>I kind of agree with Richard H. about the quality of the effect. I'm not crazy about the bathed-in-light look. I have gone for it myself from time to time, but I certainly don't do it as a rule. A little of this goes a long way.</p>

<p>Not sure if I agree with Richard in another sense, though. Do remember that, if you're shooting raw, you should expose to the right (ETTR). Google it, if you aren't familiar with the concept. In short, you need to push your exposures to the right (overexposed) side of the histogram in order to get the largest dynamic range and the best detail. If you do that successfully, you'll have more options in post processing, including the option to make the exposure brighter (with minimal increase in noise). This may produce a photo that at first appears to be overexposed, even though it's not. You don't want to BLOW the highlights. You just don't want to waste any of that headroom on the right side of the histogram.<br>

Will</p>

<p>You are lumping two different concepts together and they aren't really related.</p>

<p>1. Deliberately overexposing with film is nothing new. Wedding photographers did that all the time to favor shadow detail. Jose Villa does it partly to achieve his 'look'. Film can actually take a lot of overexposure. You wouldn't want to do it intentionally, but film that has been overexposed 3 stops can still be printed, and detail will still be there.</p>

<p>2. Deliberate overexposure with digital is (as far as I know) part of a specific style and exposure method used partly to avoid flash use and partly to achieve the airy, editorial magazine look. You still have to be very careful what parts of the subjects have the blown highlights, as important information, like facial detail can't be blown. So you must look for specific subject placement in relation to the light source. This is why part of the instructions call for subject placement 'between you and the sun'.</p>

<p>No, the people who practice either of the above are not crazy, they are doing it to achieve certain looks. You should do it if you want that look. I doubt that you can achieve exactly the same look by shooting normally and cranking up or down any controls in LR. However, processing software gets better by the day, so maybe one day you can just shoot and decide upon and achieve certain looks later, after processing.</p>

<p>ETTR doesn't really work with modern cmos sensors, infact it often has a negative effect on tonality and colours. But that isn't exactly what I was talking about, and I do still lean towards the right (even though I supposedly shouldn't), what I was referring to was Jose Villa's technique of exposing for the shadows <em>and </em>over exposing by one stop. That's generally more than ETTR. :)</p>

Well in a nutshell, if you under expose negative film your shot is simply unusable - dead. It's that simple. There won't be any details in the pic or the neg.

 

Some of the Fuji and Kodak film you could be 4 stops over and still get somewhat on a print. However with positive film the opposite happens. So with neg film 2 stops over will actually produce a wonderful picture. Depending on the type of camera you are using printing a 60X60 print is very possible. Hasselblads and other medium format cameras could do this without issue. Photos were often breath taking.

 

I would always rate negative lower than the suggested ISO rating. For example if the film was rated at 400, I'd set my meter to 320, regardless of the film company. I'm by far not the only one that did this, in fact probably almost every photographer did this to bring out life in the people. To see amazing detail.

 

With digital it is easy to blow out the details of white, such as the brides dress. With film you have a 3 to 4 stop range of getting a very good shot. With digital, even in RAW you have to be very careful not to blow out the whites.

 

Because of this I'm still a big fan of film.

<p>AA: <em>"yet I now have two existence proofs"</em></p>

<p>You must be either a mathematician or a physicist.</p>

<p>Please excuse the minor digression, but I just couldn't let that one slip by unnoticed.</p>

<p>;-)</p>

<p>Tom M</p>

<p>What Nadine said and also just look at Jose Villa's work it is absolutely stunning. The key is to distinguish yourself for your particular market. Creating a unique look for your images is the best way to enter the high end market. Of course it's got to be something people want to see, I have never heard of a bride who wasn't in love with his work.<br>

So in the end learn what you can from him and perhaps apply it to your work as you create your signature look.</p>

<p>to emulate him, I'd have to start shooting film again... I have a Nikon 8008s and a Rollei with an 80mm lens, but the Rollei is twin-lens. The L-R swap makes it almost impossible for anything that isn't on a tripod. I used a Mamiya 220 TLR for years with 3 lenses (55, 80, 180) in the studio. I no longer have it nor my Bronica.<br>

Getting a used 6x6 SLR should be easy, no? They are dirt cheap now.<br>

So, I just buy some film (35 or 120) overexpose 1 stop and viola? I take them to be processed and get the negs scanned into .tiffs? They still sell film at the camera store.</p>

<p>Are there photoshop plug-ins that can do this with digital? Can I do this in LR? Doesn't seem like I can...</p>

<p>You buy specific Fuji film, overexpose by a stop, have the rolls processed at Richards Lab, scanned and yes, it will be close to Jose Villa in physical form, but as for Jose Villa's genius--no. You'll have to use your own... You should buy his book, which will tell you everything about what he does...except for the genius part. You will also note that he tends to go for certain kinds of lighting situations. I've seen the work of people who have tried to copy him and with some lighting situations, the Fuji/overexpose part really doesn't work.</p>

<p>So far, digital can't emulate the effect easily. There was a previous thread about this, with some people reporting that they tried, and it can be done sometimes, but not consistently.</p>

<p>It all depends on the particular lighting situation, I usually shoot aperture priority, and if I am shooting a scene that is highly backlit, I will set the exposure compensation on my 5D MarkII up 2/3 of a stop, or sometimes a full stop. I use a lot of flash and tend to avoid blown highlights, so it's not a technique I use very often, but when used properly, it can be pretty amazing. It is definitely not something I would use unless I did have a good deal of backlight, overexposing if you just have flat frontal lighting is basically just going to look washed out.</p>

 

<p>Straight out of camera yes.. <br>

MOST high-end wedding photographers over-expose and bring it back in post, the smoothing effect this has on the skin is very pleasing. <br>

I typically UNDERexpose when shooting a heavily backlit subject and boost the fill light in LR. OR use a flash. </p>

<p>It's a tool like every other technique you bring to the wedding. The choice you have to make is whether you define your style by this technique or just use it as "another club in the bag." It's very popular right now and a must for anyone who avoids flash as much as possible. </p>

<p>This shot was done with bounce flash and without. It only took a moment to realize that it would work better with all natural light so I shot the rest of the series that way.<br>

<img src="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/19286423/st%20petersburg%20beach%20wedding%20photography%207.jpg" alt="" /></p>

<p> </p>