Assignment Two; Seeing
like your camera
Object of assignment two
This assignment is all about high contrast scenes, I have
to produce a set of high quality images which demonstrate that I can pre-visualise
how my camera actually sees, with rendering how I perceive and shoot a
particular image, to enable less post-processing, with this particular
assignment, I have to do no post production on my images, so to show I have the
ability to use the functions on my camera, to match the photograph to the scene.
There are two parts to this assignment; the first part is
to choose a minimum of four situations that are listed in the coursework, with
the location and subject matter to be my choice. I then had to shoot 12 images
(three of each situation) in high quality JPEG and not do any post-processing
on the images. The four situations I choose were as follows;-
·
Street scene in the middle of a clear sunny
day-narrow streets and high buildings which cast deep long shadows
·
Any backlit scene, whether direct or indirect
light
·
Scene which include objects of different
reflectivity, even in flat light such as an overcast day
·
A scene with incident dappled light
For the second part of this assignment, I have to select
one of the four situations that I used in part one and think about what I could
do to change the contrast in those images, to either reduce the contrast, or
make them low contrast images, by using the variables that are available to me
and what I could do to change the image itself, for example, changing the composition
etc.
For this assignment, I chose a wide variety of scenes and
places, used my tripod when taking the majority of my images and used my
18-200mm lens as it is the most versatile. I always used my manual settings,
adjusted my ISO and used the highlight clipping with the review screen on my
camera.
Seeing
like your camera
I have just been to Dublin and on exploring the city I
stumbled across an area with some galleries which were holding photography
exhibitions, obviously I had to go and have a look and I was pleasantly
surprised, the exhibition was called “Taking stock” reviewing poignant
photographs throughout history, it was an extremely insightful exhibition with
regards to history and epic story’s told through one image.
The thought I was concentrating the most was, how the
photograph was taken, now, it’s quite clear and apparent to everyone on the
planet that technology has evolved, and
you could see this in the later images, however, they were still all extremely
thoughtful, with great composition and you actually felt like you were there,
it is apparent, just through knowing, rather than seeing, that all of these
images would have been edited in the post-production process, which, for a
photography exhibition would be expected, what was also glaringly apparent was
how you felt engrossed in the image and knew what it related to, without
reading the description. I feel that these images related to this assignment as
in nearly all of them as I felt like I was actually there and thought, when
they were taking these images, this must have been exactly the way they saw it.
“The camera is an
instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera”
(Dorothea Lange)
Books used for this assignment;
Mastering Digital Photography by Michael Freeman
The Photographer’s Eye; Composition and Design for better Digital Photos
by Michael Freeman
Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson
Websites used for this assignment;
http://www.pixiq.com/article/eyes-vs-cameras
Part One
Street Scenes
1; 1/800 seconds at f/3.5
With regards to all of the street scenes, I found them extremely
difficult to achieve, I took a huge amount of photographs, to get the correct
settings I needed to make them look half way decent. I decided to keep my ISO
as low as possible to reduce the noise in the dark areas and achieve the
results I needed, the lowest I could go on all of the street scenes was ISO
400.
This
image of the street scene was the most difficult due to how narrow the street
was and the day was sunny to begin with, however the cloud encroached on me
quickly. This is as close to how I saw the scene, as I could possibly get, as the
dark area was lighter when viewing only with my eyes. I think splicing the
image would have worked, if I chose to go down that route in the future.
2; 1/1000 seconds at f/3.5
This
street scene was the easiest out of the three photographs, for this particular
situation. Quite probably due to the fact, the street was wider than the others,
this was the closest to how I saw the naked scene, however, the bike was more
prominent. I decided to keep the aperture low and the shutter speed fast to be
able to let the light, but not blown out, which in turn would extenuate and
lighten the dark areas.
3; 1/1250 seconds at f/3.5
I
chose this street due the reflection in the water and the windows, I decided to
use similar settings, like image number two, I feel that I probably didn’t get
this image quite right, as the dark areas are quite dark, but the sky is exactly
the same as how I saw it. Again, as with the other images, I used an ISO of
400, the technical difficulty I encountered were not using my tripod, the main
reason for this was due to me wanting to get as low to the ground as possible,
so to get more of an upward feel to the composition, I had to actually hang on
to one of the posts to get as low as I could.
Backlit Scenes
1; 1/250 seconds at f/10.0
I
love this image, it was a difficult one to achieve, due to the strong light and
trying to not make it look washed out, I used my tripod so to achieve a downward
trajectory (as much as I possibly could) and also, so I wouldn’t be pointing
directly in to the sunlight. I kept my ISO at 200 for this particular image and
the f-stop as high as I could without making it look like a low contrast image,
the only difference in how I saw this image was the colour of the sky, which I
found extremely difficult to achieve, I have some colour in the photograph, but
not as much as I would have liked.
2; 1/60 seconds at f/5.0
I love this image and I though it was a good fit for this scene situation, the main problem I had with this particular image was one; trying to get the image composed straight, so it lined up, there was some scaffolding in the way and my tripod is not the sturdiest piece of equipment, but I did the best I could under the circumstances and two; the sun beam directly on the left hand window, I tried a multitude of different settings to achieve this result, I kept the ISO low again at 400 to not lose the detail in the stained glass. When I stared at this with the naked eye for about 5 minutes or more, this is how the scene looked, on reflection, it may have been good to get some detail in the surround black areas, however, I think the image has more of an impact/high contrast when it looks like this.
3; 1/250 seconds at f/9.0
This is another one of my favourites, I feel quite peaceful
looking at it, due to how the light shines through and the bird in the sky,
although, it may have something to do with memories that are attached to it, in
either case, I still think it’s a good image.
The differences in how I saw this image and how it appeared
on the camera, is the sky, I think it’s a theme with these certain situations.
Due to the intensity of the light, I took quite a few images before I could get
this image the way I wanted it and I’m happy with the result. The reason I composed
the photograph in this way was to de saturate the light a lot more and to bring
in the colour of the sky, the sun was just going down behind the hills and the
rocks did look quite dark, I feel I have achieved a better image.
Reflective Scenes
1; 1/8 seconds at f/5.6
This particular scene was huge challenge, I wanted to use
this scene, as it was something quite different and it caught my eye.
As with quite a few of the images I have taken, I took a
lot of photographs before I could achieve the look I wanted. The difficulty was
trying to get the light that was reflecting, to not look too overbearing on the
gold pulpit and to keep the contrast high/shadows dark.
There
were a lot of different angles that I had tried and managed to find one that
suited me, how I saw the image was a bit lighter, so I think the cameras sensor
read this scene quite dark, but that’s not to say that it looks inordinately
different, but maybe slightly improved.
2; 1/125 seconds at f/7.0
On reflection, I do like to give myself a challenge, I
never saw myself as a masochist but
maybe I am!.
This
was extremely difficult and took me a while to achieve the contrast I wanted. I
used the highlight clipping for this image (That is not to say I did not on my
other images) as the sky was washing out the image considerably, I focused in
on the bridge to ensure it was sharp and as I always like to do, to reduce the
noise in my images, I kept the ISO low at around 200. I also experimented with
the white balance on cloudy, however, the results it produces were not satisfactory,
as there was a lot of grass, it turned it more of a dull brown color and I
really wanted the grass to stand out, to be able to give the high contrast scene
I wanted.
3; 1/100 seconds at f/5.0
On this occasion, I tried quite a few different angles and
I also raised the ISO for this particular image, due to not achieving the
results that I wanted. I moved almost under the foliage of the tree to ensure
the dark areas were heavily impacted on the cameras sensor, by doing this; I
needed to keep the ISO high to get the light on to the cameras sensor, to
ensure I was producing a high contrast image.
On
viewing the image, I am happy with the final result, it is similar as to how I
envisaged the camera would produce it, but it took a while to get that
particular shot.
Dappled Light Scenes
1; 1/125 seconds at f/8.0
I
had to keep the f-stop low, but not so low that it washed out the dark areas, I
used an ISO of 400 on this image to help the gain the effect I wanted, this
image is exactly how I saw it. I had to get very close from above, so I
couldn’t use a tripod. I choose this scene due to the bright white of the leaf
and the dark colour of the ground, so to enhance the image.
2; 1/400 seconds at f/5.0
When I went in to my kitchen in the morning, the light
was shining strongly through the window. I realise this photograph could
probably fit in to the “inside light through a window” situation that is listed,
however, it is still dappled light and makes for a good image.
I
used highlight clipping to get this look and it has made for a strong image
which looks exactly the same as it did to the naked eye, I had to use a
slightly faster shutter speed to envelope the dark areas of the scene a lot
more.
3; 1/50 seconds at f/5.0
With
this particular image, I wanted to focus on the tree trunk as the light was
bouncing off it nicely, I made sure there was some depth of field in the image
by focusing on the leafs beyond the leafs in front and so to gain the darkness
in the surrounding areas. The camera has produced the image in exactly the same
way I saw it and I feel the contrast is very strong without being too
overbearing.
Part Two
The selection of images that I chose to amend to reduce
the contrast is; -
·
Scene which include objects of different
reflectivity, even in flat light such as an overcast day.
I
felt this was the best selection to choose from, as I had tried to make all of
the other scene situations low contrast and it was extremely difficult to do in
all situations, almost like, “going against the grain” as it were, but the best
low contrasting images I produced were the reflective images, which I was a bit
surprised by due to, most images with a reflection are high contrast, however,
I felt, when reviewing them, these images had worked out for the best, for what
the assignment needed.
1; 1”3 seconds at f/3.5
The variables that I could not control with this image
was the weather or the light, I tried to add a fill in flash with my speed
light, however, as you can imagine, it bounced off and created more of a glare,
I knew this would happen, but I wanted to test it.
So
instead, I changed the shutter speed and f-stops to ensure the image was a lot lighter,
to lose the shadow areas, I kept the composition the same, as where ever I moved
the light was bouncing off and in some cases, it was worse, so I stayed in
exactly the same spot.
2; 1/80 seconds at f/5.6
I found it quite easy to make this a low contrast image.
I changed the composition in its entirety, without losing the focal point
itself, so to eliminate a lot of the reflection off of the water.
I
also amended the f-stops and shutter speed to let in more light, so to not focus
on the darker areas. I clearly could not
control the weather and a fill in flash would not have worked as the bridge is
too far away and would not have made a difference.
3; 1/60 seconds at f/5.6
As with the previous image in part two, I had to change
the composition to eliminate the darker areas of the photograph, to make the
contrast low, but still keep a bit of it in the frame; I also adjusted the
settings again to get the low contrast image.
As with all of the images in part two, I could
not control the weather, but I controlled my camera and the way I moved to
manipulate the photograph, as to what I needed/wanted to achieve.
