Is there a technique for taking shots where there is a large darker object in the foreground and the background is light? I attached a couple of examples of what I mean. I want to be able to preserve the detail in the dark areas yet not to overexpose the backgrounds. The tree image there is a larger version in my gallery or I have full size images (loads of examples- lol) if it helps. I know for conventional landscapes people use a grad.filter but in my shots the dark areas do not fall neatly into the bottom half of the pic. but in some take up one side of the frame. I would like to be able to shoot the image and have it come out the camera correct but is it possible ? Will I have to do postwork and if so what ? Thanks for any help Richard

And every one said, 'If we only live,
We too will go to sea in a Sieve,---
To the hills of the Chankly Bore!'
Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve.

Edward Lear
http://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/ns/jumblies.html

You hit the nail square on the head with the grad filter comment. With digital it is more sensitive to the highlights than print film is, more like slide film. I would think that Misha can probably explain that better than I can. Other than a grad filter, you can do two things (and this is possibly where people will not agree with all that I say)it is possible to compensate up to 2 stops of under exposure, as there is detail recorded to work with, where as with the blown highlights there is no detail there to work with. Therefore you need to expose for the highlights, to preserve the detail, and then bring up the shadows with post work. What you do will be partly determined by the software that you have to work with. If you have curves you may be able to recover shadows with that, even better is the levels function if you have it. If you have the ability to use adjustment layers then you can select the darker area and adjust the exposure in the selected section. Even better if you have Elements 3 it has the highlight and shadow tool that will recover shadows to an extent unless it is very bad. The other method is more complex and maybe controversial. Taking two shots, one for the shadows and one for the highlights and blending the correctly exposed highlights with the correctly exposed shadows. Dont know haw much you know, so I will leave it at that for now

The Truth is Out There

Exposed for sky

The Truth is Out There

Exposed for land

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The two halves put together

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Elements 3 shadow and highlight

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PSP ajustment layers (not perfect just a quicky) The last two are from the first dark image.

Message edited on: 01/25/2005 20:11

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Attached Link: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/blended_exposures.shtml

Check out this link.

BTW, Thanks, LostPatrol!!!

Good link, I have seen that before but had forgotten about it oops! Your welcome.

Message edited on: 01/25/2005 20:42

The Truth is Out There

Perfect timing on this thread.Things that I couldn't think to ask,but am glad you did.

"The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions."

Thx Simon very helpful info :) Thx misha I will check out the link :) I attached an image where I have stepped down the exposure 1.33 I set the aperture to f8 and camera set shutter to 1/1600. I know it is a small image I am posting here (original is 3072x2304) but I think it is getting there with the exposure - any comments ? I have seen it explained in a magazine about taking 2 shots definitely something to play around with for me even if just for the experience. I tried stepping down the exposure for some and that had some sucess though I only went to 1.33 stops down, not 2. Maybe I should have tried more shots different exposures. But I can always try again at the same place, bet the light will be totally different then and present me with some other problem. In my PSP tutorials there is one for adjustment layers and masks which I have looked at but not really studied yet. So again something to experiment with. Richard

And every one said, 'If we only live,
We too will go to sea in a Sieve,---
To the hills of the Chankly Bore!'
Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve.

Edward Lear
http://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/ns/jumblies.html

Its not a bad exposure considering the differences in light. PSP faired a little better than PSE. Using adjustment layers and a slight s curve Image too small really to get is right, but looks a little closser. IMO reading your tute on adjustment layers will pay off.

The Truth is Out There

thx simon - yes I will have to work through it. the above image was untouched copy of original so I think the potential for improvement is there :)

And every one said, 'If we only live,
We too will go to sea in a Sieve,---
To the hills of the Chankly Bore!'
Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve.

Edward Lear
http://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/ns/jumblies.html

I have just read the article from the link by misha (thx again misha) the part about auto bracketing was great explains how to get the shots for combining - just checked in my manual and my camera does have that facility so next time ............ I shall try it :)

Message edited on: 01/26/2005 12:25

And every one said, 'If we only live,
We too will go to sea in a Sieve,---
To the hills of the Chankly Bore!'
Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve.

Edward Lear
http://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/ns/jumblies.html

OH!!! YEAHHHHHH. I had been having the same problem. I keep forgetting. I think I tend to go about it all wrong. I snap the photo. Then try to post work everything. Bsteph

It's not my intention to make promotion for something special, but: for film users the dynamical range of an image is best caught by colour slide film (negative film has become better, but still does not reach slides); for digital cameras there is Fujifilms unique Super CCD SR which - simply said - has two sensors per pixel: for light and dark values, and they pretend to extend the dynamic range by 400%; actually there are essentially two camra models using this chip; test images are indeed amazing...

Gerald

really an excellent tut on perfecting shooting & postwork technique :]