Merciless shadows and blown out skies

[philosomatographer]

<p>Well-said Matt - film photographers indeed often think it's a strength not be able to see what you have captured. That's why people serious about this, e.g. in studio / landscape work, use/d instant film like Polariod to "chimp" in an analogue manner :-)</p>

<p>Of course, on the other hand, some people chimp so much that they miss subsequent shots, and that becomes unacceptable.</p>

[thomas_sullivan]

<p>if you are going to use digital, you should be shooting this scene, if not all, in RAW. And you expose to the right of the histogram. Meaning you butt the histograph right up to the wall on the right hand side without climbing up it....altho, if you have actual lights or are ok with a bright white sky, you can climb up the wall a bit. Don't worry about what the exposure looks like on the LCD, just be concerned with putting the graph up against the rh wall. Then in the RAW converter....preferrably ACR or Lightroom....use the exposure slider to bring the exposure back to "normal". What this does is give you detail in the highlites (because you didn't climb up the rh wall) and as much shadow detail as possible in digital (because you acquired as much info in the shadows as possible....). You can then use the fill slider to bring up the mid range (that may have gotten too dark when lowering the exposurer slider). You can also lower the contrast some to give a more even look to the pick.</p>

<p>When I do this with a 5D I put the histograph to the right hand side in camera. Then in ACR/Lightroom I lower the exposure -1.33 (for most images), pump fill up till it looks right, and adjust contrast till it looks right. And a good amount of the images I need to lower the darkness back down to a "real" shadow. It's amazing how much dynamic range you can obtain using this method.</p>

<p>this article by Andrew Rodney is extremely helpful. <a href="http://www.digitalphotopro.com/technique/camera-technique/exposing-for-raw.html">http://www.digitalphotopro.com/technique/camera-technique/exposing-for-raw.html</a></p>

[danielleetaylor]

<p><em>Daniel, the way I printed <strong>my</strong> image is <strong>my</strong> aesthetic concern, thank you very much. You have no idea what kind end result I had in mind. </em></p>

<p>Nor do I care because my intent was not to judge your aesthetic, but how the image relates to the discussion of dynamic range and exposure.</p>

<p><em>You also seemed to misunderstand my post. You appear to be claiming that, in my particular scene, which metered EV10 in the shadows, and EV15.5 in the highlights (5.5 stops difference) the entire brightness range of the scene is 5.5 stops. That's patently incorrect. In a world where everything was coloured 18% grey, maybe, but down here in South Africa (and I suspect where you live also) things have various colours ranging from black to white.</em></p>

<p>A meter measures the brightness of its target and tells you the exposure necessary to place that target at middle gray. That it assumes middle gray for the exposure calculation does not in any way change the measured brightness, or the range between two measurements. If your metered range was 5.5 stops from deepest shadow to brightest highlight, then that was the range. You can change the exposure to place the shadows at just above black, or the highlights at just below white, but the opposite will still land 5.5 stops away.</p>

<p><em>Because: apart from the very different tonal rendering which I find pleasing (personal aesthetics), there is absolutely no contest whatsoever in terms of the dynamic range between a typical black and white film like Ilford FP4, and <strong>any</strong> digital camera.</em></p>

<p>I quite frankly don't know where these myths about B&W emulsions come from. Ilford's own datasheet for FP4 indicates a roughly 9.5 stop range (which sounds about right from my experience). Modern DSLRs often have a 9-10 stop range in RAW, with a few stretching to 11 stops. Typical B&W films have 8-10 stops of total useful range. Some emulsion/developer combos can really push beyond this and are comparable to color portrait films (14 stops give or take), but your typical combo does not. If you doubt me pick up a Stouffer transmission step wedge and test. Or just download Ilford's FP4 datasheet and take a look at the characteristic curve on page 4.</p>

<p>The big difference is where that range falls. On B&W film it's mostly on the highlight side, which is why you expose for the shadows. On a digital sensor it's mostly on the shadow side, which is why you expose for the highlights. But the same total range is there, and as long as you can push tones around for the print it really doesn't matter which side of middle gray they were on.</p>

<p><em>Why is it that, over the past year, I have not in fact *seen* a single blown highlight in any single image I have taken on black and white film?</em></p>

<p>Your portfolio has examples of blown highlights.</p>

<p><em>With a DSLR, using the same shooting/metering techniques, I fought blown highlights all the time.</em></p>

<p>You shouldn't use the same metering techniques as I discussed above.</p>

<p><em>In the end, I am still amazed at the directness of your attack against my post, as well as my image(s) - I was merely making conversation. We are on a Forum, are we not? Of course, you are merely sharing your "opinion" - so all's fair, I guess.</em></p>

<p>I did not attack your post or your images, and you're way too sensitive over both. I disagreed with you and explained why. An attack would be, oh, I don't know, something like calling a person a fool (ahem).</p>

<p><em>Oh, and Daniel, in response to your comment of my image holding no true whites, please, if you'll be so kind, open it up in photoshop...</em> <strong></strong></p>

<p>I'm not going to play that game. I played it once before with someone who was mad that I pointed out their image was way too contrasty. They argued I was wrong by finding a small cluster of pixels which had near middle gray values, even though 99% of the image was within 10% of pure black or pure white. It's just silliness to go looking for pixels with an eye dropper ignoring the overall tone of the image, and it's not relevant to the discussion at hand.</p>

<p><em>I believe the image I posted (which is not the most artistic image ever, I admit),</em></p>

 

<p>I'm not commenting on the image as an artistic image. Therefore you do not need to defend or excuse it as such. You posted it as a teaching point for dynamic range. I'm telling you that it doesn't teach what you claimed it does.</p>

<p><em>with full detail visible in these whites, as well as actually <em>inside</em> the hairdresser's hut (which surely must have measured EV7 or less) is simply not possible with a single digital capture with current state-of-the-art DSLR technology.</em></p>

<p>I thought you directly measured the deepest shadows and brightest highlights? Let us assume for sake of argument that you did not and the range was actually 8.5 stops. Pretty much any DSLR in RAW could handle this. The majority could in JPEG. Velvia couldn't handle that, but most other films could. It's not an excessive range to deal with.</p>

<p><em>And I know for a fact that no DSLR can represent that range of tones in a single shot;</em></p>

<p>You can easily disprove that assertion by shooting FP4 against a DSLR on a transmission step wedge. And if you don't feel like putting in the effort, just compare FP4's characteristic curve to the curves for modern DSLR RAW images found at dpreview.com.</p>

 

[edgreene]

<p>What is it about ND or Polaroid filters that make people not use them?<br>

A Polaroid filter is an ND filter at once and usually, as in the OP photo, would have cut 1 1/2 to two stops off the so-called "highlights", making post procerssing much easier.<br>

Digital cameras (and any other "Trannie") exposures cannot easily manage "highlights" no more than slide (<em>film</em>) can.<br>

Unlike print film, "Trannies" (<em>all</em>) only have about 1 to 1 1/2 stops of exposure latitude (<em>no matter what your maker says</em>) and not even vaunted Photoshop can handle every overexposure: ND and Polaroid filters can 95% of the time. <br>

Bellyachin' about "blown highlights" because you didn't use an ND or Polaroid filter is like shooting yourself in the foot then complaining about having sore toes. <br>

Since I do use Polaroid and ND filters, "blown highlights" are not a problem. </p>

<p> </p>

[twmeyer]

<p>Daniel Taylor! You da man!</p>

<p>Harry Joseph: Listen to what DT says. No more JPG. No more Evaluative metering. Learn your camera's control settings and study raw conversion. Problem(s) solved... t</p>

<p>and while you're getting hammered :^)... clean the sensor!</p>

[scott_murphy_photography]

<p>Welcome to the "wonderful" (cough) world of digital.</p>

<p>Digital is good for 5, at most, 6 EV's worth of tonal range, that's it. Compare that to color, but especially black and white, negative film that can basically record everything from Zone I to Zone IX. Which is why I always default to film for the critical stuff. Digital is ok for casual stuff and as an exposure/lighting check for film but as long as Kodak still makes film and paper, it will always be my default setting.</p>

[mauro_franic]

<p>1) Negative film, both color and B&W, have in general much much wider DR than digital cameras today. With B&W in particular you have control to expand DR with pull developing. TMAX for example can give you 17+ stops pulled 20%.</p>

<p>2) It is not up to the photographer to control the number of stops in scene. The scene's DR cannot be changed by the photographer's exposure technique.</p>

<p>3) Digital cameras today have dynamic range good enough DR to handle most creative intents and situations. But they are nowhere near close to the DR of most negative film.</p>

<p> </p>

[mauro_franic]

<p>This is a test I run to compare the DR of a particularly narrow C41 film (Ektar 100) vs on of the best DR in current DSLRs (Canon 40D):</p>

<p>The test compares 13 stops in a studio setup.<br>

http://shutterclick.smugmug.com/gallery/6616619_YJEwK#424020444_n2LsD-X3-LB</p><div></div>

[david_klaffenbach]

<p>Harry,</p>

<p>Here's another way of looking at things: What is the subject in your photos? Is it exposed the way you want?</p>

<p>And if it is, what does it matter if other parts of the scene are blown or dark?</p>

[david_klaffenbach]

<p>Subject exposed as I want it. Plenty of blown pixels.<br>

<img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/10170210-lg.jpg" alt="" width="800" height="532" /></p>

[indraneel]

<p>Exactly what I was saying above. If the subject is powerful enough, no onewill give the blown out bits a second thought. Not everyone needs to be Ansel, and I just checked, even HCB had blown out "pixels".</p>

<p>Good capture, David.</p>

[rekfotos]

<p><img src="../photo/8564999" alt="" />One more for content of the photo vs. perfect exposure.<a href="photo?photo_id=8564999&size=lg"><img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/8564999-md.jpg" border="0" alt="Untitled" width="679" height="454" /></a></p>

[mauro_franic]

<p>If the dynamic range of the camera/film do not limit what you are trying to create it is a non-issue. 2 stops, 4 stops ,... doesn't matter.</p>

<p> </p>

[arie_vandervelden1]

<p>ok I didn't read all 63 posts above. Here's my $0.02</p>

<p>1) If you don't like contrasty light then wait untill the light gets better. If you like contrasty light (I do, in some instances) then read on.<br>

2) Expose to the right, and expose for background. Shoot RAW. USE FILL FLASH to reduce contrast if you can. Shoot towards the sun (or at a 45 deg angle) so your subject is completely shaded and fill foreground subject with flash. This reduces squinty eyes, hat shadows etc.<br>

3) Use PS shadow/highlight to extract detail. If that's not enough, process your RAW file twice, once for highlights, once for shadows, then blend in PS.<br>

4) If that fails, try messing with ND grad filters or exposure bracketing.</p>

<p>Yes indeed film (particularly print) is more forgiving. But the look is still contrasty, and you still get squinty eyes and dark eye sockets. If you want nice soft light then shoot early in the day, on overcast days, or create your own light (flash).</p>

<p> </p>

[indraneel]

<p>Sorry Edmund, I at least need to know what I'm supposed to be looking at to be able to appreciate the image. The arrangement of light and dark shapes is not entirely pleasing to me in your frame. Thus, I'll call it a badly exposed, camera shake, that occured by mistake.</p>

[keith reeder]

<blockquote>

<p>Thus, I'll call it a badly exposed, camera shake, that occured by mistake.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>100% agreement here - I get very irritated by attempts to excuse poor execution by calling it "art".</p>

[rekfotos]

The image was taken from a series I did in a restaurant kitchen. The shooting from the hip style, for me, captured the chaos,

movement and noise. (Par for the course in this environment.) I love the focus in the face. The concentration surrounded blur and

contrast. This image worked for me despite it's shortcomings. As it shows the scene as it felt to me. I have others in the series if you

care to see.