[interested_observer]

Evening All,

A week ago today I was in Detroit. On the way to the airport, I took the opportunity to stop at Detroit's Ford Piquette Avenue Plant which is the birthplace of the Model T, for a couple of hours. This plant is in the heart of Detroit - and is sometimes referred to as the lost and forgotten Ford factory. Its the original factory that Henry Ford built in 1904 to produce the later Model A's and ultimately the Model T - before the assembly line. I took my K5, tripod, head and several lenses. I posted here about it, in terms of looking for some additional information....

• https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/38-photographic-technique/240594-antique-...otography.html

I went and shot cars. I pretty much had the run of the facility. The volunteer staff was absolutely helpful and wonderful - actually beyond wonderful.

My dilemma - I shoot almost exclusively in ambient low light - in the evenings, landscapes/cityscapes and architecture. I have shot indoors a fair amount, with very poor light, no flash and have done pretty well. I thought I knew what I was doing. I had shot the Roundhouse over at the Henry Ford's Greenfield Village, along with the Edison Generating Plant there. Both had poor light, and windows - that just overpowered everything else. I was able to handle these situations reasonably well using bracketing (+/-2ev with 5 frames). So, I essentially was expecting to be able to do a lot better than what I actually was able to do.

• https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/12-post-your-photos/228073-machinery-bald...enry-ford.html
• https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/12-post-your-photos/228730-machinery-edis...s-station.html

The windows in this building - are mostly original. One of the fascinations for me was the combination of the old original factory building and interior, coupled with the old cars, some of which were actually manufactured at this location (in this very building), and the light through those original windows. There are a few pictures of these cars at the Piquette Avenue Plant out on the web - but they all suffer from the blown out light from the windows. I figured I could actually do better. I wanted to capture the cars in the factory in the old original light - the entire environment.

So, I bracked everything (5 frames +/-2ev), with no bias, ISO 80 for the best dynamic range and image quality. I pretty much used my 12-24 exclusively and forgot to bring my CPF - which would just have added to the lack of light, but would have helped with some of the reflections.

For the last week, I have been post processing trying to get the windows to NOT be blown out. This has become much more difficult than I originally thought. I have even gone in search of information about old glass windows back in the early 1900's and came across some interesting information, that may explain at least part of the problem that is making this so difficult.

Upon getting home, last weekend - I loaded up the images and started stacking them using Oloeno's PhotoEngine - they actually turned out pretty good - but the windows were very blown out and had a lot of purple fringing. I then went from using all 5 frames to just the 3 underexposed frames (-4, -2 and 0 ev), and stacked them. Ever so slightly better. Then I took the -4 ev frame and experimented in shifting the exposure to about -5ev and used the four frames - and it really did not help things.

Then, I went into LR4 and processed all the individual RAW frames for CA/purple fringing - saved them as TIFFs, then re-stacked them in PhotoEngine. This did get rid of the CA/PF but the windows were still way blown out in almost all the cases. I also tried just going with only LR4 and that worked out even worse.

What I have found is that....

• The exterior light through the windows just overpowers everything, with a very sever case of back-lighting. I don't use any flash for fill, and that is a contributing factor.
• The cars are displayed on either side of a central aisle formed by supporting columns which divides the area in to bays. Essentially, standing in the aisle or in between the cars you can frame your shot, but you are always shooting into the windows in 99% of the cases. I went to the TPlex website (here and here) in order to link to it, and it struck me that the photographer who took their images - sidestepped the problem. The cars were rolled out into the center aisle away from the windows. By reducing/eliminating the back-lighting, then there is sufficient lighting to work normally. The Model A (the fancy red car) that I shot was in the center aisle and it came out very well.
• The original windows - If you look closely in the background, some of the individual windows panes are not blown out. These I believe are new (or more recent windows). The original windows of the day, were cut from large hand blown balls, and then laid flat to cool and be cut to size. I believe that this set up stresses so that when light comes through the window - it does so in a very opaque manner. The old glass varies in thickness and you can see the waves in the window pane. Modern glass is floated flat over a bed of molten liquid tin, so there is no stress in the glass, and thus the panes are clear and essentially transparent. A couple of the images do have the windows in a position where they are not blown out and you can actually see thorough them.
• I am finding that PhotoEngine does a better initial job than LR4, however - in order to try to reduce the blown out windows, I need keep the exposure down and that has a tendency to force the other adjustments up - thereby producing a somewhat over processed resulting image - it looks like an over-processed HDR image. That is what I was hoping to avoid.

I will say, that TPlex is a very challenging environment for photography.

The images below... Image #s

1. The windows although opaque - I was able to mitigate the overblown effects somewhat. A CPL would have helped with the reflection on the front windshield.
2. These windows did not turn out too bad. Not the best framing, and some bad reflections on the back side window.
3. These windows turned out to be the best of all. However the central supporting column holding up the roof got in the way, and I did not frame it well at all.
4. This shot turned out the best of all, and the windows were not blown out and you can actually see through them. This is the effect I was wanting to get everywhere.
5. In this image you can see the new windows vs the old windows.

Does anyone have any post processing suggestions - other than to do a better job of shooting - especially composition next time?

Attached Images

         

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Last edited by interested_observer; 11-08-2013 at 09:22 PM.

[interested_observer]

Here are a couple more. This car was in a corner and had the potential of providing the best shots. I noticed that there is a flare right in the center of the frame.

[interested_observer]

So, what did I learn. Actually, quite a bit.

• Going in, I though that I had the blown out windows mastered. This is the first time that bracketing did not work to the extent that I had hoped - and expected. The amount of light coming through the windows - coupled with the stresses in the old windows essentially makes them opaque at certain angles.
• I didn't do such a hot job at framing the images and composition. I was using live view for everything, and had left the information on the screen. I should have turned it off so that I could frame / compose better.
• You really need at least about 4 hours - and a laptop to check you take while you are there, so that you can make on the fly adjustments. The small rear monitor does not do it.
• I dropped the tripod's center column all the way down to shoot essentially from waist level. I was starting to see some real distortion in terms of shooting at eye level in the rear monitor screen.
• The roof support columns are a challenge to shoot around. Need to better compose around these.

[Digitalis]

I know this is a shooting suggestion, but have you considered using a long exposure with a dark ND filter and painting with light? HDR techniques can look really nice when they are subtle - but in this case the HDR techniques used has made the PF on my calibrated monitor visually jarring. Your compositions are very central, with the light painting technique you could under expose the background and only illuminate the car - that would be a way to simplify things and it would give you more options in how the final results looks. Though Light painting is time consuming and the results can be unpredictable, If you use an external flash with a fixed power setting it is possible to consistently illuminate the subject and give the impression you were using more than just a single flash unit.


Pentax K-7 + DA15mm f/4 ED AL Limited +Wireless AF540 with Honl full CTO gel and AF360 with Honl Red gel

this image was done in a well lit shed - I used wireless flash units pulsed several times with a long exposure with a ND32 filter that would be long enough for the flash units to fire - but not long enough for ambient light to contaminate the scene.

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Last edited by Digitalis; 11-08-2013 at 09:22 PM.

[SpecialK]

The windows do not bother me at all, sorry. They actually keep the distracting outside background view to a minimum.

[interested_observer]

I know this is a shooting suggestion, but have you considered using a long exposure with a dark ND filter and painting with light? HDR techniques can look really nice when they are subtle - but in this case the HDR techniques used has made the PF on my calibrated monitor visually jarring. Your compositions are very central, with the light painting technique you could under expose the background and only illuminate the car - that would be a way to simplify things and it would give you more options in how the final results looks. Though Light painting is time consuming and the results can be unpredictable, If you use an external flash with a fixed power setting it is possible to consistently illuminate the subject and give the impression you were using more than just a single flash unit.

Digitalis - I had read and watched a couple of video clips on this - especially applied to building architecture at night. I do think that it would work, it would take some time, but really no longer that bracketing 5 images. I have been post processing these images for the better part of a week and these are the best I could do - but not really satisfied with them. Just way too many mistakes - and I totally misjudged the extent that the widows 1) were blown out; and 2) the difference of the amount of background light vs the amount of light available to illuminate the foreground. In some cases its probably on the order of 50:1. The idea about ND filter with the light painting technique very interesting and well worth a try.

One would need to be very careful with the very flat front windows on these cars. The reflections in them were a surprise to me when I uploaded and looked at them for the first time.

On the PF - I have started but not finished with fixing all of the images. I shot about 30 cars in total and I am still making my way through. This is really the first time that I have had such a harsh case of PF with the 12-24 (and it does have a reputation for this). I have been working with these images, trying to recover what I can from them. In many cases, I just look at them and ask myself - how I did not notice that at the time I was shooting. I was moving some signage out of the way and then replacing it when I was done. Overall, I was just not careful enough. Just stupid mistakes.

[Digitalis]

Hoya make a ND32 PRO-1 filter in 77mm diameter, you could also get away with using the ND64 - anything higher than that is going to attenuate light too much. If you have a flash you can simply use that - or you can use a high intensity LED torch. You can also get some flash gels to colour balance your light sources - or to deliberately create contrasts between them.

Light painting can be a useful alternative to HDR. Because with HDR you're still working with the light you are presented with, and even with HDR that can still look boring. - with Light painting you can create, and extend lighting over very large areas.

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Last edited by Digitalis; 11-08-2013 at 10:00 PM.

[adwb]

If you use dodge / burn tool in PS or the editing brush in LR you should be able to recover detail in the windows alone in your original raw images have you tried that?

[interested_observer]

The windows do not bother me at all, sorry. They actually keep the distracting outside background view to a minimum.

Good Morning Special - The images above were some of the better cases. In some of the worst cases, the light was so strong, it really started to bloom or bleed under the roof line and flare, if that makes any sense. If you look at image #3 - right above the steering wheel at the roof line, you can see the light blooming at the interior roof line. I was also trying to control that aspect too. When I was there about a year ago with my LX3, the windows turned out very flat and opaque and I wanted to soften that aspect and to try and get some better images - especially for some large prints (20" x 30") that I wanted to hang in my office.

If you use dodge / burn tool in PS or the editing brush in LR you should be able to recover detail in the windows alone in your original raw images have you tried that?

That had started to come to mind. I guess I'll call myself lazy and skills lacking in that area. However, these are some good cases to certainly learn on. The more I work with these images, the more I see instances where I just mutter to myself that I should have been more careful - I should have done __________ - and you just fill in the blank. In many of the cases I think I have the skill (to some degree) and should have recognized the situation while shooting. When I first downloaded the shots and started to walk through them, I saw a lot of instances of - gee, that would have been easy to fix on the fly, why did I not see / recognize that. In retrospect, these jump out when you have a larger image to work with that what is on the back of the camera body. I really should have shot fewer cars, been more selective in what cars offered the best opportunities. I probably only shot half the cars there - which was ok. I had decided before hand, that I was going to try to selectively (on the fly), evaluate each of the opportunities, and only shoot the ones with the best potential in terms of settings, sight lines and how the composition worked out. That approach did work very well. I did bring a small netbook with me - with a 10" screen that I could have reviewed the images on - but really did not have the time. In order to do that I probably should have shot only have the cars, and probably needed another hour. On the plane back, I pulled it out and loaded up the take and started to walk through them. It was instantly recognizable to me on going shot to shot, I should have done this or that. A quick re-shoot with various adjustments would have been pretty easy.
___ _________________________

I do have to say that this is a wonderful place to shoot images. There is lots of interesting cars, lots of information, the volunteer staff is extraordinarily knowledgeable and helpful. They said I could turn the lights on or off, if that would help. Actually, they rent out the facility for weddings and other events, - dinner and dancing among the cars, where else can that happen! The cars are not behind glass or ropes. You can walk right up to them, around them, stick your head inside. There are metal platforms setup so that you can walk up a couple of steps and look down in side. They have a LOT of car related items - old time gas pumps, etc. You can even put a Model T together. They have one car, where you can get inside and have a picture taken. They have a tour with a guide that weaves a very telling, historically laced story together, from one car make to another, and the factories within blocks of each other, and what happened. All extremely interesting. A year ago, I was following a small tour (its free) group listening in while I was taking some pictures, and the kids (about 10 or so) were very engaged - not bored in the slightest.

This is very well designed and laid out. The building, factory - old elevator, the building interior, the cars - even going up to a modern day Lotus race car and another chassis. Its associated with the National Park Service and a historical building designation. Its just down the street from other car factories that are now closed, burned out and in urban decay. They even have parking in an enclosed area, off the street and very safe and just a few steps to the front door. If you are in Detroit - this is a very unique location to visit. You can easily spend a day there - depending on their operating hours.

[adwb]

I
Think the problem was you did not take one image that was specially exposed for the windows. You need one shot exposed correctly for the brightest and the darkest then as many as you want to play with in between.
I still think looking at these that you could using the aforementioned tools recover the windows to a large extent you can with a spot meter check the brightest area and still open up 2 full stops to get the showdowns and recover those highlights in a raw ,not JPEG, image with Lr or PS , so you should be able to get detail back from your image/s

[johnmflores]

Wow that looks like a cool place to photograph those cars! I can see why you want to get this right. I agree with @adwb that you need to get at least one shot that exposes the outside properly. With many of the shots, you can probably deal with PF by turning down the purple saturation in Lightroom. Also, I'd suggest adding a little black/shadows to the shots just to give them a little more "grounding". You'll lose some detail in the shadows of the cars but I think that you'll end up with a more pleasing shot; you can capture some of those lost details in separate shots. And if you fill those detail shots with 90% car/10% background, you won't have the window problem, or at least as much of it.

Good luck!

[wombat2go]

Hi Interested,
I prefer your #1 for brightness range.
Are you going to put links to images for full screen?
When I read your thread about this last week, I thought you were doing this at the Gilmore Car Museum.
Have you been there? I have not, but i see it is open all year except one section closes Nov 30.
Keep up the good work.

[interested_observer]

I think the problem was you did not take one image that was specially exposed for the windows. You need one shot exposed correctly for the brightest and the darkest then as many as you want to play with in between.
I still think looking at these that you could using the aforementioned tools recover the windows to a large extent you can with a spot meter check the brightest area and still open up 2 full stops to get the showdowns and recover those highlights in a raw ,not JPEG, image with Lr or PS , so you should be able to get detail back from your image/s

Wow that looks like a cool place to photograph those cars! I can see why you want to get this right. I agree with @adwb that you need to get at least one shot that exposes the outside properly. With many of the shots, you can probably deal with PF by turning down the purple saturation in Lightroom. Also, I'd suggest adding a little black/shadows to the shots just to give them a little more "grounding". You'll lose some detail in the shadows of the cars but I think that you'll end up with a more pleasing shot; you can capture some of those lost details in separate shots. And if you fill those detail shots with 90% car/10% background, you won't have the window problem, or at least as much of it.

Good luck!

Morning Alistair and John, I believe that both of you have hit the nail squarely. Going in, I was thinking that the +/-4ev in 2ev steps, spread across 5 frames would do nicely. It has always been sufficient in other occasions. This is definitely a lesson learned. I should have just checked.

In the initial post I made before going, I was thinking that I should bias the bracketing by 1 ev - and probably towards under exposing. Rather than shooting at -4, -2, 0, +2, +4, I should have gone to a -1 ev bias which would have produced a -5, -3, -1, +1, +3 set. In retrospect, I think that would have helped quite a bit, but probably not enough. The range of available light was really extreme. I just went back and looked at the exposure times at TPlex (ISO 80 @ f8). The extreme difference in the light is shown in the exposure times, at -4 ev the shutter speed was 0.3 sec while the +4 ev was 30 seconds, with the 0 ev at 5 seconds. I should have looked at the exposure times while there and shot another set of brackets around say 1/2 or 1/4 second nominal 0 ev. That would have provided a wide assortment of well exposed window shots to blend in.

Everything I have is in RAW (.PEF format), so to the extent possible - I have a lot of latitude - raw information as possible to play with. I am just glad that I went with 5 frames and not the 3 frame sets I was considering.

With the current shots that I already have, I've taken the -4ev image and adjusted the exposure value down to bring out the windows (in LR4), and then restacked them, using the 3 darkest plus the adjusted exposure frame. This was not as successful as I had hoped. Only tried it on one set so far. I need to experiment with that more. In thinking about it, there are some additional approaches I can try.

The PF/CA as posted previously, I have come up with an approach, where I use LR4 to correct for CA on the original raw images, saving them in TIFF and then restacking. That works very nicely, so far.

I think that there is a lot more that I can do with these images post processing wise. I have just not developed that level of skill yet. I tend to try to concentrate on capturing the images correctly up front.

So far I have been playing / working with all the sets. I just need to choose one or two of the sets, concentrate on those - develop an approach and then apply it to the rest.

[interested_observer]

Hi Interested,
I prefer your #1 for brightness range.
Are you going to put links to images for full screen?
When I read your thread about this last week, I thought you were doing this at the Gilmore Car Museum.
Have you been there? I have not, but i see it is open all year except one section closes Nov 30.
Keep up the good work.

Morning, That is another one that I would really like to get to, although it is a much farther drive (a couple of hours each way) from Detroit. I was back there on business - and the week was all 12 hours of presentations and discussions with our customer. My wife wanted me home by Friday evening - since she had plans for the weekend. I saw that the Chrysler museum has been closed for an apparent relocation to somewhere else. I had also been over to the Henry Ford and Greenfield Village. There is a lot to do back there.

This is a very pleasant diversion - Friday was an overflow day for the meetings that was not needed. I was not going to get up at 3am to catch the 7am flight. So, this is my way of taking advantage of some where different and seeing what opportunities there are to see and photograph. I did take too many lenses. I can cut down next time.

I would like to find someplace to load up the full size images. I have been thinking of Flicker. Any suggestions / recommendations? Its going to take me a bit more time to make some adjustments. I do want to say, that the factory was purposely designed to bring in the sun as the primary light source - this was the light that the cars were originally built in. I wanted to capture the unique character of the place. In that respect, it just makes it even more challenging.

I am very happy with the K5 - I think it has all of the capabilities to perform and capture this environment. There are a couple of items in the K3 that may have helped a tad. The only real limitation was the idiot behind the camera - me the operator. I also had the glass. I have not gone out to check the various focal lengths I used. I brought the 8-16, 12-24, VC20, and CZ28. I shot a few with the VC20 and then switched to the 12-24. The 12-24 would have just been sufficient - plus it was AF. I will say that having AF was a blessing - as it was just one less thing that I needed to think about. I am finding that the 3:2 frame size is a bit off with the older cars being shorter. A 4:3 ratio would work here a bit better, but then the glass would be off. I am just happy to have what I have.

[adwb]

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