On 3/22/2010 3:20 PM, Brian Swale wrote:
> Moose wrote
>
>> ...
>> Here are some daffodils intentionally shot in full sun - no blown highlights.
>> http://galleries.moosemystic.net/MooseFoto/index.php?gallery=IATMS&image=_MG_9062cri
>> a.jpg
>>
>> ...
>> Here's a landscape where the blown highlights are intentional. Detail in the
>> light around the sun would give a different look than I wanted.
>> http://galleries.moosemystic.net/MooseFoto/index.php?gallery=Miscellaneous&image=_MG
>> _9023ia.jpg
>> ...
>>
> I think part of this "problem" is that I have used the expression
> "highlights" when many times I should have used "reflections".
>
OK, I understand that. Still, to those reflections are what give life to
many flower images. I try to shoot to accomodate all bet prhaps specular
reflections of water, etc.
> I am a disciple of John Shaw when it comes to flower shots. See his "Nature
> Photographers ... " books.
>
I just picked up a used one a couple of weeks ago at a local shop,
"Focus on Nature". I've as yet done nothing but browse some of the images.
> In the predigital age when he was unable to adjust transparencies as we all
> do now, he would shoot (prairie) flowers after the sun had gone down.
>
I understand the point. I suggest, however, that some of his solutions
were tailored to the particular weaknesses of the image capture tools he
had available at the time. While he is/was a master nature photographer,
he was using different tools than I do today. So I'm more interested in
techniques that are not slide film specific.
> I don't have his books to hand right now, to quote him, but I think one
> aspect that bothered him was uncontrollable reflections from the surfaces of
> flower petals (and leaves nearby).
As someone else pointed out, a polarizer can help. As I mention above
and will expand on below, I'm not so sure they are necessarily a bad thing.
> However, he would also photograph flowers when there were no clouds in the
> sky, and this may also result in a blue cast on the flower petals.
>
> Here's the first shot of flowers that I took (both Kodachrome, and some print
> film) that I was really happy with. A small image that's already online
> http://www.brianswale.com/index7.htm
>
A beauty.
> Then, recently, I had a marvellous day with roses when the sun hid behind
> clouds from about 4 pm until late; I packed up cameras at 6pm as I was by
> that time starving hungry. In that 2 hours duration I took 53 images, and
> there's hardly a dud among them. In my opinion :-) There was good diffuse
> light most of the time.
> See the set in my zuikoholics pages http://www.brianswale.com/zuikoholics/
> that starts with "Yesterday, it was a cloudy (mostly) dull day, little wind,
> and I went to the city Rose Garden for two hours from about 4 pm to 6".
>
I had not looked at all of those. Your insistence on hand coded HTML
without forward and back buttons means I don't always see all the images
you post in a group.
Too me, this comes down to a matter of taste. The roses are captured
perfectly, in the sense of no reflections, blown highlights or colour
casts. However, they seem lifeless to me, except for the Tequila Sunrise
images. If the overcast didn't let some late afternoon sun in to light
them up, then they have their own, internal light source. :-) The
second one, in particular, knocks me out.
On the other hand, the first rose has water droplets on the petals, and
they are dull, flat, where in sunlight, they would sparkle.
It's not easy to fool our vision system. We can tell when natural
subjects aren't out in daylight, and it makes a difference in how I
respond emotionally to the images. Images taken in daylight simply seem
more alive than those taken in light of studio, north facing window,
heavy overcast, etc.
> To see the effect of blue sky ( out of the sun) reflected in rose flower
> petals, look at this one
> http://www.brianswale.com/zuikoholics/P2200872-Dublin-Bay-900.JPG
>
And when John was writing, I can see that was a real problem. I am
surprised though, if he didn't mention the use of a blue reduction
filter, such as the 81 series, to control that. Today, for those willing
to put in less time on each shot in the field and more on the best of
them in post, it's not such an insurmountable problem. Simulated color
correction filters, color matching and/or selective hue manipulation go
a long ways toward eliminating that problem.
<http://www.moosemystic.net/Gallery/Others/BSwale/Dublin-Bay-900.htm>
I may not have got the luminance right for you, but I hope you get the
point.
> And one shot out of the bag; a flower shot in bright sun that I am happy
> with; shot with strong backlight, but the saving element is out of the
> picture behind my back. A house wall painted in brilliant titanium white and
> in full sun which acted as a huge reflector and illuminated the side of the
> sunflowers facing the camera. Without that reflected light, the flower would
> have been hopelessly too dark.
> http://www.brianswale.com/zuikoholics/P2190866-sunflower-900.JPG
>
Great natural reflector makes a great image! Still, I want to work
within certain personal limitations as to what I carry and how long I
spend on any particular shot. So I'm very unlikely to be carrying a
reflector and stand with me. Nevertheless, fill light is available in
post. I like this shot, 'cause it shows how natural circumstances can
result in light both from in front and behind, one of the "problems"
with fill in post.
With slide film, then and now, one must choose in high brightness level
situations between losing highlights or shadows, or some combination. No
matter how much I crank up the deep shadows in scanning and processing a
slide, the detail just isn't there. This is much less true of DSLRs. At
the low ISOs used in bright daylight, the shadows go on and on, how far
depending, of course, on the particular camera.
I sometimes shoot a couple of brackets of high brightness level subjects
where I want to retain the highlights, one @ -2/3 EV and another at -1
1/3 EV. indeed, when looked at without processing, the second may look
way underexposed, but more often than not, it produces the better final
image. "Proper exposure" simply isn't always what it was with film.
> I agree with your comment about the sunlight at the shore (your photo) being
> blown out. It's not by much and I think is quite OK in that shot.
>
At least it's what I was looking for. I've added shots using that effect
even more to the gallery.
<http://galleries.moosemystic.net/MooseFoto/index.php?gallery=California/Monterey_Carmel&image=_MG_8725.jpg>
Darn, there are halos around the birds in one. I'll fix that, but not
this minute.
<http://galleries.moosemystic.net/MooseFoto/index.php?gallery=California/Monterey_Carmel&image=_MG_8732rot.jpg>
> However, I do think the image has been oversharpened - observe the rim of
> white all around the top edge of the dark land on the right. In my
> experience, that happens when sharpening is taken too far.
>
Hmmm. Where did that come from? The type of sharpening I use on web
images doesn't usually do that. I went back to check. Nothing like that
in the full size processed image, but it pops up in the downsampling,
before final sharpening! Huh? That doesn't usually happen with the tool
I use. I'll have to pay closer attention. In any case, it's corrected now
> I know it is often not possible to wait for a cloudy sky for photos. Here,
> right now, it is blue with not a cloud in the sky.
>
> For flower photos in such conditions, a white tent (or something similar)
> over the flowers is perhaps the only effective solution. These used to be
> available commercially for this purpose; maybe they still are. I have a
> black and white panelled umbrella which I sometimes use this way. With mixed
> success, I hasten to add.
>
Again, I'm not personally so sure that's what I want for my images of
flowers. I like some sparkle. If it happens that the flower is there, I
am there with camera and it's overcast, OK, but I won't go out of my way
to get that effect.
Moose
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