[trog100]

avoiding technical terms the real advantage of deliberately underexposing a shot has little to do with pushing anything..

its about the cameras limitted dyanmic range..

both your shots slipchuck are impossibilites without clever use of fill flash..

however with a less extreme example the idea behind the deliberate under exposure is to try and preserve highlight detail..

the highlight detail in both your shots is lost.. nothing will brng it back.. but considerately less detail is lost in your first example..

however if u think i have not used technically enough sounding terminology just ignore my advicee.. he he he

the only thing that can be done with a shot like u present is to expose for the highlights (make the hole in the lens smaller) and light the foreground with flash..



yours humerously

trog..

ps.. as to your query about less noise useing iso 400 as opposed to 200 its quite clear that the jargon u are reading isnt doing u much good.. there is no way on this planet u will get less noise by useing a higher iso number.. the higher the gain on the sensor the more the noise..

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Last edited by trog100; 01-25-2007 at 09:04 PM.

[slip]

avoiding technical terms the real advantage of deliberately underexposing a shot has little to do with pushing anything..

its about the cameras limitted dyanmic range..

both your shots slipchuck are impossibilites without clever use of fill flash..

however with a less extreme example the idea behind the deliberate under exposure is to try and preserve highlight detail..

the highlight detail in both your shots is lost.. nothing will brng it back.. but considerately less detail is lost in your first example..

however if u think i have not used technically enough sounding terminology just ignore my advicee.. he he he

the only thing that can be done with a shot like u present is to expose for the highlights (make the hole in the lens smaller) and light the foreground with flash..



yours humerously

trog..

ps.. as to your query about less noise useing iso 400 as opposed to 200 its quite clear that the jargon u are reading isnt doing u much good.. there is no way on this planet u will get less noise by useing a higher iso number.. the higher the gain on the sensor the more the noise..

not to into technical jargan as I am into trying to find out how things work...
wan't to conserned on the highlights, as it was the girls faces I wanted....

love experementing though

cheers trog

randy

[egordon99]

I think Randy was saying that he might have gotten less noise if he shot at 1/60, ISO400 then 1/60 ISO200 and "pushed" the exposure up a stop in post-processing.

In theory, I would think you'd be better off getting the exposure correct from the camera (with the "correct" ISO) rather then pushing up the exposure later (see my audio analogy).

This would be fairly easy to test if one wishes.

Regarding the RAW debate from another post, one of two reasons I switched to RAW was the ability to "push" up the exposure during post if needed. My Sigma flash likes to underexpose alot, so in RAW, this isn't a problem. Sure, if I could get the darn flash to perfectly expose from the start, I'd be better off, but it likes to be a pain in the rear . Using RSE (or Adobe Lightroom as of late), no problem if I underexposed a bit. The other reason for going RAW is controlling the WB with natural light indoor shots. I purchased a Grey card off of eBay and when I start shooting in a particular lighting situation, I snap a picture of the card. During RAW processing, I just click the WB eyedropper on the picture of the card and voila, instant "perfect" WB. Picassa could do this somewhat with JPGs, but it was a bit lossy and I couldn't get exact kelvin numbers to instantly apply to all the other shots in the group.
So yeah, RAW is cheating, but I like it!

PS - I agree with trog100, that using a flash would have allowed you to expose the background window AND your daughters.

http://photos.evangordon.com/alison_graduation/images/imgp9539.jpg

Here is a similar shot of my Dad and his little doggie sushi Using my trusty old *ist DS and the Sigma EF-500 DG Super. I set the shutter speed/ISO for the background, the aperture for the DOF I wanted, and the P-TTL figured out how much flash power was needed to expose my Dad (this time the flash actually behaved itself!)

as to your query about less noise useing iso 400 as opposed to 200 its quite clear that the jargon u are reading isnt doing u much good.. there is no way on this planet u will get less noise by useing a higher iso number.. the higher the gain on the sensor the more the noise..

[trog100]

"not to into technical jargan as I am into trying to find out how things work...
wan't to conserned on the highlights, as it was the girls faces I wanted."

absolutely randy the subjects are your main concern.. but the subjects are often part of a larger "picture"..

to produce a decent photograph the whole picture has to be taken into account..

a digital camera does not have the same dymanic range as the human eye does.. some tricks have to be employed to help the poor old tunnel vison half blind camera along..

the main thing to remember is that lost or bown highlight detail can never be brought back afterwards.. never.. raw or jpeg..

there is nothing at all that can be done with blown highlights.. blown highlights spoil an otherwise good picture..

there is something that can be done with the underexposed (too dark) shadow or subject detail it can be corrected later.. the original detail isnt lost simply too dark..

so a basic rule when in doubt is to slightly under expose.. i tend to slighly under expose as a matter of course..

i like the little flashing highlight thing (no techncal term for this one) u get when taking a quick lcd look after the shot..

trog

ps.. nice picture egordon99 (gordon ??) perhaps a little more backgound blur might have helped (bigger hole in the lense than F5.6 ) but thats just nit picking..

ps..2.. i have read in certain reviews that the dymanic range with a k100 is slighlly better at iso 400 than it is at iso 200.. not something i have put to the test but interesting if true..

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Last edited by trog100; 01-26-2007 at 08:34 AM.

[SpecialK]

not to into technical jargan as I am into trying to find out how things work...
wan't to conserned on the highlights, as it was the girls faces I wanted....

Nice shot, Randy. I agree the background is meaningless and would be distracting if not "blown". Who needs to see a parking lot in the background?

[trog100]

dunno but to me no area of a picture should be "blown".. u wanna lose the background u use a larger lens opening and do it the proper way..

but everyone is entitled to their oppinion.. however strange it is..

trog

[SpecialK]

dunno but to me no area of a picture should be "blown".. u wanna lose the background u use a larger lens opening and do it the proper way..

but everyone is entitled to their oppinion.. however strange it is..

trog

And you think your way is the only proper way? What an attitude...

[trog100]

"And you think your way is the only proper way? What an attitude..."

u raise an interesting point and i am quite prepared to question my "attitude"..

giving my "attitude" some thought.. purely from a technical point of view blown highlights are normally considered a bad thing.. something to be avoided if possible.. something i just take for granted..

but things we take for granted arnt always correct as u say..

so.. the shot in question can be looked at in two ways.. if its captured a special moment in time in a reasonable fashion the techncal problems really dont matter.. its a nice shot and has value as such..

some people try and takes interesting pics of meaningfull things.. in this case (to randy) the children are the meaningfull things.. the rest is of no importance..

to me the children are of no real importance or meaning i dont know them.. i simply see a poorly taken photograph..

but paying too much attention to the technical side of things can often mean the special moment in time dosnt get captured at all..

internet photography does get overly concerned with the technical side of things.. pixel peeping abounds and the things that really matter oft get forgotten..

so thank u for making me question my "attitude".. no problems

trog

[Mountain Vision]

here is an example of a photo I "pushed" as the term says

what the origanal looks like.... I set the shutter to 1/60, should have been 1/30
ISO 200. both are no flash.





here is one stop up from the origanal..... according to what I read, this would make it ISO 400 instead



so do you think there would have been less noise if I would have used 400 instead of 200?

any opinion welcome.... trying to learn new technics

thanks

BTW the nearest one is my daughter and the other one is my step daughter... very proud father of both

randy

Less Noise at 400, yes!!! Underexposing then gaining up in post process leads to increased noise and loss of detail.

The only advantage is if you are at say 1600 and you don't want to use 3200 (i like having 3200 but I don't use it for shots I want to print) then pushing one stop is an advantage. I never push a full stop on the D or K10D, I usually push 1/2 stop @ 1600.

Likewise it's an advantage on say the K10D without 3200 since you need to push a stop to get 3200.

Push when you have to, increase iso whenever it's possible.

[slip]

here is an example of a photo I "pushed" as the term says

what the origanal looks like.... I set the shutter to 1/60, should have been 1/30
ISO 200. both are no flash.





here is one stop up from the origanal..... according to what I read, this would make it ISO 400 instead



so do you think there would have been less noise if I would have used 400 instead of 200?

any opinion welcome.... trying to learn new technics

thanks

BTW the nearest one is my daughter and the other one is my step daughter... very proud father of both

randy

here is a mixed version



I think that keeping more of the background doesn't do anything for the shot.
I agree with trog, I would try to avoid a washed out background, but when I look at a photo, the first thing I try to keep in my mind is where my eyes travel first. most of the time it is usually the brightest spot in the photo.
but for some reason, my eyes wonder to the kids first. is it just because they are my kids?
it almost seems that the pic with the brighter background lets my eyes focus on the important part.... the subjects.

what do you think?

I am not trying to merit if it is a great shot or a poor one. there is something that makes it work for me.... bright background or not.

sometimes in these situations you just pick up the camera, turn it on, hope it is in the right settings, point and capture

If I am hijacking this post, please forgive me. I just thought the new subject of backgrounds was an interesting subject to debate also

cheers

randy

[trog100]

its dosnt matter randy.. its your shot.. your kids.. the backgound is of no real imortance..

with a grab the moment shot it doesnt matter.. u got what u wanted and thats all that mattered.. as someone said who wants to see a carpark anyay..

but on a purely cold blooded techncal merit point of view.. blown highlights are considered a bad thing.. the technically correct way to bring out the subject and lose an unwanted background would be to use a wide lens opening (shallow dof) and blur out the background..

but anyone other than a photo geek would not even notice.. so dont worry about such things till u want to worry about them..

take your picture taking experience slowly and only move further along the "geek" path when u want to..

trog

ps.. u want to talk backgounds and bokeh the technical term start a thread about it..