Martin Walters wrote:
>Photos were taken with OM-2n and a mixture of 21/3.5 and 100/2 (if I
>remember correctly), and with no exposure compensation. The light was a
>little strange: overcast with some faint sun coming through at times.
>What was impressive at the time was that the wet snow stayed on the
>trees as there was no wind (for at least two days) and everything had an
>eery white appearance, which is visible in a couple of the photos. The
>Kodak 400 Max film was developed at Costco! and put in CD. The only
>alteration I made was to brighten the photos a little, nothing more. My
>initial reaction is that they appear to lack "colour", but this may be
>an effect of all the snow and the lack of sun.
>
Nice compositions! To me, the shots suffer not from lack of colour, but
a misplaced brightness range. I think the key info here is "with no
exposure compensation" and "alteration I made was to brighten the photos
a little". Notice Richard's comment on one of his recent much admired
(by me too!) winter shots, "Manual mode, averaging meter, overexposed 1
1/2 stops from meter indication." and the subsequent thread on snow
exposures.
What I see happening here is well illustrated in a section of the manual
for OM-4 and other spot metering bodies with a Highlight button. Look at
pages 81 and 82 here
<http://olympus.dementia.org/eSIF/om-sif/bodygroup/manuals/om4ti.pdf>
for an example. Both the automated scanning and the digital camera have
tried to make a relatively 'normal' distribution of brightness out of a
scene where a very large percentage of the area is white or very close
to it. Using a neg film with a great ability to hold highlight detail
into overexposure likely compounds the problem, as the overcast quality
of the day may also. So the result is much like the pic on pg 81. Using
a highlight button or exposure compensation helps to get closer to the
pg 82 example. With scenes like yours, I imagine there might still be a
problem with automated print/scan equipment trying to tone down the
highlights, although the negs would be fine. In fact, although slides
made of these scenes without compensation might not be good, the negs
you have probably hold all the brightness range needed, they just
haven't been 'processed' for the best results.
I've taken the liberty of adjusting my favorite 2 shots to give an idea
of what I mean. In both cases, I simply clicked the highlight dropper
(sort of like the highlight button on OM-4, etc.) in the curves tool of
PS on a few of the brightest spots in the image until I got a look I
liked, then made small curve adjustments. They look a little 'funny',
edgy, artifacty or something in tonality, contrast, etc. because I was
working from compressed 8 bit images and the kind of changes I did lead
to gaps and bumps in the brightness range. A proper scan, even 8 bit,
with the white and black points set correctly and/or adjusted curve,
would give a much better result. I've just tried to give a sense of what
is there to be brought out.
http://moosemystic.net/Gallery/43220023b.jpg
http://moosemystic.net/Gallery/43220036b.jpg
In the case of the DC, I would just take bracketed 'overexposed' shots.
Even the histogram and overexposure indicators, if available, are not
perfect indicators in this kind of shot. Bracket and evaluate later is
the safest way to assure a shot you like.
>Comments from anyone on this and other things welcome.
>
Moose
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