on the fence - sort of. - DPChallenge Forums

Tamron SP AF 28-105mm f/2.8 LD Aspherical IF for Canon

04/01/2004 07:08:59 PM · #1

i'm curious of a couple things on this photo - as far as what others think.

i'll mention, i accomplished the desired goal of mine which was a candid shot of the dog, from a lower angle. even lying on the floor doesnt get below her. also, was looking to get a contrasty image, and aiming for black and white.

i'm on the fence about the focus on the nose... i wanted the eye in focus. her face is pretty much bright white.

anyhow, i'm curious how the darkness of the image looks to you. can you distinctly see the right hand eye? and is most of the right side of the face just shadowed, or is it too dark?

any other comments appreciated as well. thanks.

LtHousLady

Canon EOS-5D

04/01/2004 07:38:30 PM · #2

Just out of curiosity & to possibly help give a more specific reply
1. was this taken in auto or manual mode
2. can you list the basic , Lens mm reading, aperature & shutter speed settings from the original file.
How close were you to the dog? Very?

Tranquil

Canon EOS-300D Rebel

Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro for Canon

04/01/2004 07:45:05 PM · #3

A tighter crop on the left helps i think.

Neil

Fujifilm X-T30

Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8G ED

04/01/2004 07:59:04 PM · #4

IMHO, the right is dark and overall, given the high contrast, it even makes the light area seem overexposed (though when I look at it closely in isolation, I see details of the white fur, so it's just a contrast effect. I also see the nose as a bit OOF, and that's a bit distracting. I also find the object on the left a bit intrusive.

I think more even lighting and more DOF would have improved this. I don't know if it would have helped here, but check out the article that Gorden posted a link to in another thread entitled value blind, if I recall the name correctly.

Tamron SP AF 28-105mm f/2.8 LD Aspherical IF for Canon

04/01/2004 08:37:10 PM · #5

M mode

480mm equiv - 5feet away
f:6.3
fast shutter

Originally posted by LtHouseLady:

thanks, and i checked out the article, but i was aiming for the shadowed area here, and the blatent line between B & W, maybe it doesnt work...

Originally posted by nshapiro:

i appreciate the comments.

LtHousLady

Canon EOS-5D

04/01/2004 08:56:59 PM · #6

Originally posted by soup:

M mode

480mm equiv - 5feet away
f:6.3
fast shutter

Let see if I can have this make sense...

A faster shutter will cut your light & make the shadows too dark (I don't think "fast" is a technical setting ;)
A higher # aperature will extend the exposure time to let more light in & also increase your depth of field...make the "in focus" area bigger. (not sure of your limits, I can go as high as 32 on my 10D) Still plan on directly focusing on the eyes, you want them the clearest. You can try adjuting your aperature to various #"s -9,11,22 to see which one allows the nose AND eyes to be in focus. Backing off the zoom will ease up on how big the nose looks as will a slight angle.

When you press the shutter 1/2 way you can see your settings & a sliding scale. After changing the aperature to a higher #, adjust the shutter speed so the scale is centered. This is the meter telling you that the settings are balanced for the conditions. Then bring them down 2 notches (to the left)
Bring your flash up so it automatically fires. From 5 feet away it could easily fix the shadow problem & by lowering the exposure to the downside, you'll keep the white area from overexposing with the added light.

Of course this is all based on getting in the same place with the same lighting conditions ;)

Did I just totally confuse you? lol

04/02/2004 08:00:32 AM · #7

no i understand how the camera functions, and metered, and exposed the shot so it turned out how my eyes saw it ( besides the semi blurry nose )

no - 'fast shutter' isn't technical, but up around 1/1600th is fast in my book.

i actually overexposed it 1 stop - rather than underexposing it - to be sure the white was white, and not grey...

using a smaller aperture would most likely had brought the window screens in the the BG into focus enough to give a weird textured BG which would have looke dterrible, although f:7 might have been OK. the flash only functions up to 1/200th shutter - which would have forced me to use an f:22-30 setting, more DOF than i wanted for sure. and i tend not to use an aperture above f:22 no matter what the conditions.

i am mainly am looking to know if the shadowed area is black to you - or if there is detail in the shadows.

again, thanks for the comments.

Tamron SP AF 28-105mm f/2.8 LD Aspherical IF for Canon

04/02/2004 08:04:04 AM · #8

here is another photo from a while back - done in the same sort of style. so you might be able to see where i am going.

in this one the shadowed areas are very black, and no details there...

i have a number of cat photos done the same way.

LtHousLady

Canon EOS-5D

04/02/2004 08:47:50 AM · #9

Yeah, I thought it was dark. With the nose, it's not so much the blur that seems off, but the way it looks fatter than it should.

Sorry, you weren't giving technicals, so I was giving them to show you how to adjust it.

Neil

Fujifilm X-T30

Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8G ED

04/02/2004 09:07:52 AM · #10

Originally posted by soup:

here is another photo from a while back - done in the same sort of style. so you might be able to see where i am going.

in this one the shadowed areas are very black, and no details there...

i have a number of cat photos done the same way.

Tim, I like where you "went" with these two photos. The dog is really fantastic, though I think desaturating the blue or eliminating that bright area entirely would be a really wonderful finish to that very nice photo. The cat is great as is, but to me the dog eyes have the biggest impact.

As to your original, I can make out a little detail in the dark area, but not much. Granted, however, I can not adjust either of my twin Samsung LCD monitors (both on the same card) under any conditions to differentiate the rightmost two black bars of the test pattern. So my monitors are a little darker than others.

04/02/2004 10:19:48 AM · #11

thats what i am after - i cant print BW very well at home, and am trying to get an idea if what i am viewing is true to what will print.
at work - its a bit brighter, and i can see the details on the right side - at home i can too but its a bit darker - however the color prints i make at home, and the color ones i have gotten from dpcprints are pretty true to what i see on the monitor at home. i am after the darker shadows vs lighter ones... with minimal detail - but some..

and as you say - my monitor is a bit darker like yours - right hand black bars cannot be differentiated. ( its an old monitor 1994 or so )

the other dog - i thought the blue gave a more 3d feel to the image, with the orange and blue together drawing the eye towards the dogs eyes, and sort of following the rule of thirds. i'll convert it to BW tonight if i have time, and see what it looks like.

Originally posted by nshapiro:

As to your original, I can make out a little detail in the dark area, but not much. Granted, however, I can not adjust either of my twin Samsung LCD monitors (both on the same card) under any conditions to differentiate the rightmost two black bars of the test pattern. So my monitors are a little darker than others.

all of the cat and dog pictures in my profile were done with canon 75-300mm at full focal length, and basically the minimum focal range ( about 5 feet ) - allowing for pretty shallow DOF - more so that i would get with a shorter lense & being closer, i think.. i plan on putting a number of the cat and dog shots together - in a single frame ( one for cat, and one for dog ) at some point.

thanks again ;}

no worries LtHousLady - you just weren't on the same page as me.