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P5090048-(resized).jpg
P5090048-(resized).jpg
David.C


Photograph Information Photographer's Comments
Camera: Olympus C-720UZ
Location: My brother's neighbor's yard
Date: May 9, 2004
Aperture: f3.4
ISO: 100
Shutter: 1/500"
Date Uploaded: Jul 15, 2005

Viewed: 283
Comments: 5
Favorites: 0

This is the original for my entry in the 'Something New' challenge. The following are the comments I added to that entry:
At my brother's for a Mother's day BBQ and I saw these in his neighbor's back yard. I slipped away long enough to take about 30 exposures. The sun was very bright and I ended up using my neice as a sunshade to get the glare down.

I will likely be counted down for shooting a very common subject, but it is not one I have ever photographed before. I can always hope the flower lovers are voting in force this week. :D

Exif Information:

Make : OLYMPUS OPTICAL CO.,LTD
Model : C720UZ
DateTime : 2004:05:09 18:19:25
ExposureTime : 1/500Sec
FNumber : F3.4
ExposureProgram : Manual
ISOSpeedRatings : 100
ExifVersion : 0210
DateTimeOriginal : 2004:05:09 18:19:25
DateTimeDigitized : 2004:05:09 18:19:25
ExposureBiasValue : EV0.0
MaxApertureValue : F2.8
MeteringMode : Spot
Flash : Not fired
FocalLength : 51.20(mm)
ExifImageWidth : 1984
ExifImageHeight : 1488
Focus Mode : AF
ZoomPosition : 46
Sharpness : NORMAL2
WhiteBalance : Auto
Red WB Bias : 414,64
Blue WB Bias : 292,64
Contrast : NORMAL
Image Width : 1984
Image Height : 1488


I choose this one because it is indicative of what I continually do -- I forget to take everything into account when taking the shot. In this case I exposed with a spot meter on the bright yellow of one of the roses, but forgot to adjust the EV compensation to make up for the lighter than middle grey subject. The results are an underexposed shot that, while salvagable, doesn't do the subject justice.

The histogram shows the underexposure with the blank space on the right. However, very little detail was lost on the dark side in the original, but during the resizing it bunched up and shows a lot of clipping in the dark tones. In any event I was shooting with a dark shed (with a few white flowers on it) in the distance. The dark background was what I wanted so I wasn't worried about the dark side being clipped.

The shot was taken a little after 6:00pm but the sun was still very bright that day. So bright my camera couldn't handle it. The exposure adjustments were not capable of exposing for that much light. To combat this I had my niece stand between the sun and the roses. With her shading them with her body my camera could expose them properly -- if I had remembered to set it correctly anyway.

I suppose I was lucky to have only forgotten the EV compensation, but the underexposure caused the center of the roses to lose it's vibrant orange-red. The center of the flowers should be about middle grey -- but they were pushed down in to the dark shadow area in tone. As a result the flowers lost a lot of the pop they had on that day.

Not knowing much at all about PS at the time my post processing consisted of the following steps (nearly all auto):

crop
convert to 16bit
despeckle
Dust&Scratch (1,0)
Unsharp Mask (300,1.0,0)
AutoLevels
AutoColor
AutoContrast
Hue/Saturate (0,+10,+5)
resample to 640 width
save for web (optimized to 150kb)


Every image seems to have something about it that I know to do (or not to do), but don't think of until later. This is what I need to work on most in exposure; using what I know all at the same time.

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AuthorThread
07/22/2005 02:57:00 PM
You are so good at looking at everything...
Your eyes are awesome! You must apperently really know the color management in digital technology and for printing..
Thats a plus...To me I would think that there was nothing wrong with this image.. Do you use the color palette in photoshop while reading and understanding the numbers?
Just wondering because of your comments so far...
Its really got me thinking about color management...
I am sorry not to offend you but I kind of giggled a bit when you made the statement about spending so much time with the technical issues and the camera capabilities...I agree with you..Now I just need to focus on what my camera does instead of the outcome or what other cameras do..
Though its all good to know about the technical things in photography and as many cameras I have been through I understand now what you are talking about as well as going through..... Sometimes I think I have it and I know my camera then other times haha wasnt right and it shows me..
My scores show for it as well.. So now that we are going through this walking through it step by step I am pretty sure I will get a awesome photo in the end... I hope anyways.. :) Ok back to the picture....factors to eyes and training thyself to study a image on the screen without distractions of other glares from lights and such...
I dont see how anyone does it in the daytime.. I may have to check this out tonight.. and see if I can tell any other differences.. By the way both of your shots are very good models.. like Charles said..very good keep up the good work and studying you will go far...
  Photographer found comment helpful.
07/18/2005 08:28:01 PM
Wow! There's absolutely nothing I can say here. I'm ashamed to admit you've thought about this much more than I ever have. That's pretty much why I'm taking part in this mentorship though. I've got to learn to stop and think about a photo before I press the shutter button. :-)
Personally, for what it's worth, I like the exposure.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
07/16/2005 03:00:51 AM
Ingrid: For this assignment I needed an image that had something I didn't like about the exposure. I don't keep the images with glaringly obvious problems, as I personally don't like the 'fix it later' mentality -- it just seems a bit too sloppy for my tastes. I suppose if it was a 'no repeat' photo I would keep it, but I dont have many of them -- I analyze, delete and reshoot if I think it would be worth it. So for this assignment I had to make do with a photo that has reasonably good exposure, but also has something about it I didn't like. This fit the bill nicely.

Chuck:
re: the Sun, it was nearly 90 degrees to my left -- it cast some fairly harsh shadows before she evened them with her shadow. :)

re: Center-weighted average making a difference; it would depend on how much weight the center received I suppose. If the center was given a large percentage bias (like 90% or so) I don't think it would have made much of a difference, but if it has much less bias it could have made a lot of difference. I really can't say one way or another as I have no experience with center-weighted metering at all. My camera has two metering modes; Digital ESP and Spot. Digital ESP is form of tone pattern matching, where it analyzes the location of various tones in the image and then compares them against stored templates (such as back-lit, dark background, etc) and chooses exposure settings based on the tones metered and the template it matches. It seems unpredictable to me so I don't use it. That leaves me with spot metering as all I have ever used once I started thinking about what I was doing. (Having only two metering modes is also going to make it hard to do the 2nd assignment in which we are to compare 3 metering modes.)

re: Exposure settings; yes I choose the large aperture for the DOF. I also backed up and zoomed in to largest optical zoom (equivalent to 600mm) in an attempt to increase the bokeh as much as possible. What you see is the most out of focus I could get the background -- and that is with the dark building and white flowers quite a ways back, about 30' behind the roses. The aperture of my camera, at that focal length, is f3.2-f7.1, - only a 2 stop difference, but the background would have been recognizable. Unfortunately, small sensor means large DOF -- getting anything out of focus (provided something is in focus) is always a hassle. As for the shutter speed, 1/500" may be moderate for your camera, but the fastest mine will go is 1/1000".

Sometimes I really hate my camera! :( I've spent the better part of the last year and a half learning the technical details of different aspects of photography -- for no other purpose than to be able to get around the limitations the camera puts on me. As a result I've learned a lot more about the technical aspects of photography than I would have otherwise, but I spend more time with my attention on my camera than on my subject. Sorry, didn't mean to go into a mini-rant.

Message edited by author 2005-07-16 03:15:30.
07/15/2005 08:30:23 PM
You've done a good job commenting on exposure, working backwords to determine what you did that yielded those results, and reasoning forward to what you would do differently next time. Note to our mentor group: This is an excellent habit to get into. It will help you improve over time.

On the scale of 1 (bad) to 10 (good) this is closer to 10 than to 1. The under exposed background does no damage at all and makes a nice frame around the subject flowers. You've lost some definition in the flowers you might have preferred to keep. Not terrible but there could have been a marginal improvement.

Your choice of Spot metering was excellent since your subject was significantly brighter than the background and it gives you the best chance for correct exposure. Do you think center weighted average whould have improved or worsened the result? Let me know your thoughts here.

I am curious about your choice of shutter speed and apereture. You indicated it was too bright for your camera. Yet, you used a pretty wide open lens (F/3.4) and a moderate shutterspeed (1/500). Could you have dealt with the brightness with a faster shutter? I suppose you chose F stops to narrow DOF. If not, could you have used a smaller lens opening? Obviously, I am sneaking up on a future topic.

Probably because your neice was shielding the flowers, it isn't obvious where the sun was. Where was the sun relative to you and your subject? Would a different camera angle yielded different exposure results?

Message edited by author 2005-07-15 20:32:09.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
07/15/2005 08:28:12 PM
I like this too. What don't you like about it? My neighbor has these roses (in pink) and I sneak over there to get shots too LOL I usually do auto levels and that would brighten the petals. If auto levels sucks, then I do it manually :)
  Photographer found comment helpful.


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