I'm having trouple capturing reflected light

[my name is indigo montoya]

I recently tried to take a picture of the early afternoon light reflecting off

of a laquered wooden rocker chair that i have. The naked eye saw quite an

interesting picture in the viewfinder...the reflected light was focused in a

small circle about the size of a large pea, with a hard line of half shadow

running along the arm caused by the convexity of the arm and a nice little

shadow off the end of the arm. What does my picture show? A spooge of

light. How do I get the reflected light to look in the picture like it does

in the viewfinder? I tried adjusting everything! I got over exposed,

underexposed, bla bla but no accurate recreation of the reflected light.

Sorry, but yes I'm using a canon 350d with the canon EFS 18-55.

[Sanford]

Just keep looking at the results on the little screen at the back of the camera and adjust exposure, white balance or whatever until you get the what you want. Use manual exposure mode.

[todd peach seattle, washi]

I'm having trouble visualizing what you saw. Was it there for the 'naked eye' without the camera?

 

You might be having 'contrast range' problems. Your eye can see a broader contrast range than the digital sensor can record. Put a different way, if you expose for the shadows, the highlights get blown out as pure white; expose for the highlights and the shadows are inky pools. Some folks with digital create two different exposures (using a tripod) and merge them in post-production to get around this.

[my name is indigo montoya]

Interesting question about the naked eye or naked eye + viewfinder. If I remember correctly, the shot was a lot more interesting through the eyepiece. Todd, you hit the nail on the head, the only time I got a good shot of the center of light was when the shot was underexposed, an overexposed shot was interesting but lost the contrast of the reflection. Would a better digital or film camera solve this problem or is a double exposure the only answer?

[phule]

Understanding exposure, light, metering, reflections, and probably how to use a polarizing filter would be far more important than a "better camera." There's nothing wrong with your camera. The problem is, as always, the photographer using the camera.

 

This isn't an insult. It's just to point out that lack of experience and understanding isn't something to blame on equipment. If you gave me a Ferrari, I still wouldn't win a Grand Prix.

[my name is indigo montoya]

Thanks. I'll figure out how to use my quick goat thinking to supperimpose two differently metered shots and I'll swing by the local shop to inquire about a polarized filter.

[peter_nelson1]

<I>You might be having 'contrast range' problems. Your eye can see a broader contrast range than the digital sensor can record. Put a different way, if you expose for the shadows, the highlights get blown out as pure white; expose for the highlights and the shadows are inky pools. Some folks with digital create two different exposures (using a tripod) and merge them in post-production to get around this.</I><P>

 

Right.<P>

So where were you a couple of weeks ago when I started a thread here asking if we might someday start to see cameras with more dynamic range? And everyone here was like, "Oh, my <B>no</B>! Taking pictures of what something actually LOOKS like is so <B>plebian</B>! We're all <I>artistes</I> here and we believe the Zone System was handed down by God, so if our eyes perceive a 15 stops range of light in a scene, but our cameras can only record nine, we go to the eye doctor to find out what's wrong with our eyes! Someday digital will achieve the pinacle of artistic truth-telling and have a response curve just like Kodalith, but until then we have to tolerate all these shades of gray and suffer like the true artists we are."

[peter_nelson1]

<I>Understanding exposure, light, metering, reflections, and probably how to use a polarizing filter would be far more important than a "better camera." There's nothing wrong with your camera. The problem is, as always, the photographer using the camera. </I><P>

No, I suspect Todd is right that the real culprit here is dynamic range. Specular highlights are often dramatically brighter than the surfaces they are reflected off of.<P>

 

Exposure doesn't help in that situation - correct exposure for the highlight underexposes the surface; correct exposure for the surface blows out the highlight. A polarizer MIGHT help if the light source is at an appropriate angle, and the surface is not curved in such a way as to change the polarization angle in a way that would prevent all the reflected light from being attenuated by the same amount, and there were not other elements in the scene that were not adversely affected by using a polarizer, but that would be a matter of sheer luck.

[todd peach seattle, washi]

<i>

"So where were you a couple of weeks ago ...."

</i>

<p>

Sorry I missed that one, Peter. I don't often surf 'Digital Cameras' forum as I feel I am just barely qualified to render assistance.

<p>

I'm one of those guys with decades of experience with film, but just scratching the surface with digital. One of the first things I noticed about digital was how the contrast range was more akin to slide film than the negative film (color or B&W) I was used to.

[my name is indigo montoya]

ok, two beginner questions. 1. what's kodalith and 2. could I capture different images with film than those I capture with digital?

[todd peach seattle, washi]

Kodalith is a lithography film. It's ultra-high contrast, and renders only as 'black' or 'clear'. In order to render a 'gray' with kodalith, it would have to be screen printed as small dots of black (and it's probably the wrong material for that even so). Peter is having fun with some over the top sarcasm.

 

Some films will have a broader contrast range than most digitals (at least the ones that I have seen). A 'consumer' color print film like Kodak Gold 200 seems to have about 1.5 to 2 stops more usable contrast range than any of the Nikon digitals I've used (D100, D70, D2H, D200), though the D2H seemed to be the 'broadest' of the bunch.

 

Is it enough of a difference that you should go out and buy a film camera? Probably not. There's lots of other reasons I enjoy shooting film, but if you're asking this Q, it's probably not enough of a draw for you.

[todd peach seattle, washi]

Read David Hartman's comments in this thread:

 

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00Ht3A&unified_p=1

 

He says it in more detail than I could.