B&W Exposure

[GregW]

I finally figured out where I can upload photos. Basically I have tapped the limits of my membership. Anyway, I bumped the shadows up on your shot to make the foreground "pop" a bit.

 

[Celtic 77]

Keep shooting !

 

[Celtic 77]

This is something I saw in a news letter we receive from St. Georg's Bermuda. This was on an article about documentation of various events and life I guess;

Our devices promise to be the Great Libraries of our lives. Everything captured. Everything is stored. But what we’ve created instead is a massive, uncurated pile of data: thousands of unlabeled photos, near-identical images, forgotten videos. Who hasn’t taken ten shots of the same moment just to find the one worthy of posting? Scroll through your phone long enough and you’ll see it—repetition without reflection.

This has subtly changed how we show up. People don’t really attend concerts or community events anymore; they accompany their phones. They hold them up, steady and obedient, recording moments they will likely never sit down to watch.

And this is why I am trying to slow down with the camera..

 

[Celtic 77]

I finally figured out where I can upload photos. Basically I have tapped the limits of my membership. Anyway, I bumped the shadows up on your shot to make the foreground "pop" a bit.

Very nice shot!

 

[GregW]

Very nice shot!

This is Walter's shot at the beginning of this thread. I just edited a little.

 

[waltesefalcon]

After seeing what Greg was able to do with one of my photos in darktable, I spent some time this morning messing around with it and came up with this:

It isn't as good as Greg's but it was a valuable learning experience and I feel it is much better than my original photo.

 

[GregW]

Much improved from the original Walter. One thing I like about the software is the list of actions you have taken (on the left pane) are not set. So at anytime you don't like what you've done, you can click on the last action you liked and continue from there. Thus deleting every action above in the list. Note that once you do that, I don't know of a way to reclaim a deleted action. You just have to remember what it was to rebuild that action. Here is another of your photos I edited. Something to notice is even though there is more contrast in the photo, The histogram is almost flat all the way across.

 

[waltesefalcon]

I worked on these a bit.

 

[GregW]

There you go. Those shots are using more of the range from black to white, not compressed in the grey middle( though the last shot looks out of place now compared to the other photos. I think it makes them more interesting to look at. I like where the sky goes completely black in the second shot.

Going back to the polarizer, the third shot here would have had the most dramatic effect with one. See the tree's shadow running to the right? You want the sun in that position (or on the other side) relative to the direction you are shooting. Basically 90 degrees. I'm not saying the shot needed the polarizer, just for information.

 

[waltesefalcon]

I was using a polarizer with these shots. I haven't gotten the hang of using it yet, though. In fact I forgot that you're supposed to adjust it and just left it in the same position for every photo.

 

[Celtic 77]

Polarizer hint... make a "gun" shape with index finger and thumb. Point thumb at sun, and the area pointing at with index finger should give good result. Saturated colors or whiter clouds with B&W

 

[GregW]

If you ever go back to that location Walter, I had a thought about a cool photo there.Standing where I have made the blue box, shoot at the front window and door. Line the windows on the back wall up so they are centered in the front window's frame. This kinda shot gives multiple levels of focus. Shoot with as deep DOF as you can to get the field out back in focus, but play with other F stops as well. Also, different lenses will change the aspect of the back and front windows to each other. A wider lens will make the back windows seem smaller.

 

[Celtic 77]

I may have mentioned to earlier. The hyperfocal distance. Back in the Indy Car racing days, when I'd be a shooting at or near a turn, I'd pre focus at a particular spot and anticipate when the cars would hit that spot. If I was shooting at say F8, move the infinity symbol to F8. It may be blurry in the viewfinder but it does help get the shot.

 

[GregW]

Honestly, I think Walter should not worry about hyper focus just yet.

 

[waltesefalcon]

Greg, I don't know when I'll be back out that way again, but I'll keep your suggestion in mind and start looking for places where I can play with the concept.

Celtic, I have done something similar with wildlife before. I've tried focusing on a spot where I knew an elk was going to emerge from the brush and have gotten mixed results. I figure I just need more practice with it. Now I suspect my biggest issue was ignorance of hyperfocal distance.

 

[Basil]

If you ever go back to that location Walter, I had a thought about a cool photo there.Standing where I have made the blue box, shoot at the front window and door. Line the windows on the back wall up so they are centered in the front window's frame. This kinda shot gives multiple levels of focus. Shoot with as deep DOF as you can to get the field out back in focus, but play with other F stops as well. Also, different lenses will change the aspect of the back and front windows to each other. A wider lens will make the back windows seem smaller.

I just realized that when I got my notification you uploaded a new photo, the link took my to the photo in "Group Photos" section and not to this thread, In fact< i'm not sure I get notifications when there is a post in a thread in the "group forum". Funny I'm just realizing this.