I chose this subject because 1.) it is not something I would typically choose as a subject, 2.) I need to work on ‘seeing’ shapes better, 3.) I knew this week’s lesson would pose challenges for me, so I wanted to work with a subject and setting that was fully under my control.
I shot this stuff in a million different configurations, with a wide range of lighting, with many different depths of field and fought with exposure on all. I think I finally figured out that a lot of my struggle (and exposure adjustments seemingly having the opposite effect of what I was expecting) had to do with my choice of focal exposure points within the image (duh!!). I finally ended up putting my camera on an old tripod from my previous life so that I could consistently hit the exact same exposure points with my adjustments. It helped things make more sense but the tripod is too light weight for a big heavy camera so I quit using it at some point along the way. Anyway this exposure thing was really difficult for me and I am many shots away from it becoming something that is 'automatic' for me.
For this shot: -Lighting - I wanted soft relatively even light with a bit of light from above to help emphasize the ‘shape’ of my subject. I have a lot of window in my room so with the reflective glass and table surface I had to pull the blinds clear down on my windows in order to avoid hard glary light and strong shadows. With this, I was shooting in pretty low light. -Aperature choice - I noticed with other shots that the more of the subject in focus, the less I noticed the ‘shapes’. So for this shot I wanted a very shallow depth of field in order to try to emphasize ‘shape’ as opposed to ‘subject'. An aperature of f/5.6 is the lowest number my lens offers, so that is what I chose. -ISO choice – The shot was taken at an ISO of 1600. Truthfully even though I knew the lighting to be low I wouldn’t have started at an ISO this high so I must have worked my way up to this trying to get a decent histogram. By this shot I was handholding my camera so may also have pushed the ISO up in order to avoid ‘blur’ from hand holding a long shutter speed. Can’t say for sure – too many images and too much fumbling around. -Histogram – Good coverage of tonal values clear across the histogram. No shadow clipping and either no or very minimal highlight clipping. In terms of the ‘height’ of the histogram, there were a lot of values in the Darker and Dark Tones part of the histogram, I imagine due primarily from the table surface and I guess also from the darker shadows at the base of the cups. There were comparatively fewer values in the Mid and Bright tones of the histogram and even fewer in the Brightest Tones part of the histogram. I was surprised by this given the glass and the presence of some strong highlights.
What I like about this shot: -That it seems to have exposed something close to correct and that I’m done with it (shooting this kind of stuff isn’t a lot of fun for me). -The fact that when I look at it, I see the shapes before see the items. I image this is primarily due to the shallow depth of field and the stronger light that is on the rims of the items.
What I would change -I would hope to do it all faster next time and with fewer ‘wrong’ exposures. -I would try for shadows not quite so deep and I would also try to tone down the strongest highlights a bit. Visually the image looks kind of over exposed to me, but that is not what the histogram shows--I don’t know?? -I would probably also separate the pieces a little bit more in order to further emphasize their ‘shapes’.
Camera Settings Camera Mode – Aperature Priority ISO - 1600 Focal Length – 200mm White Balance – Probably Cloudy Metering Mode - Pattern
Dianna – My ‘Out of the Box’ shot
ReplyDeleteI chose this subject because 1.) it is not something I would typically choose as a subject, 2.) I need to work on ‘seeing’ shapes better, 3.) I knew this week’s lesson would pose challenges for me, so I wanted to work with a subject and setting that was fully under my control.
I shot this stuff in a million different configurations, with a wide range of lighting, with many different depths of field and fought with exposure on all. I think I finally figured out that a lot of my struggle (and exposure adjustments seemingly having the opposite effect of what I was expecting) had to do with my choice of focal exposure points within the image (duh!!). I finally ended up putting my camera on an old tripod from my previous life so that I could consistently hit the exact same exposure points with my adjustments. It helped things make more sense but the tripod is too light weight for a big heavy camera so I quit using it at some point along the way. Anyway this exposure thing was really difficult for me and I am many shots away from it becoming something that is 'automatic' for me.
For this shot:
-Lighting - I wanted soft relatively even light with a bit of light from above to help emphasize the ‘shape’ of my subject. I have a lot of window in my room so with the reflective glass and table surface I had to pull the blinds clear down on my windows in order to avoid hard glary light and strong shadows. With this, I was shooting in pretty low light.
-Aperature choice - I noticed with other shots that the more of the subject in focus, the less I noticed the ‘shapes’. So for this shot I wanted a very shallow depth of field in order to try to emphasize ‘shape’ as opposed to ‘subject'. An aperature of f/5.6 is the lowest number my lens offers, so that is what I chose.
-ISO choice – The shot was taken at an ISO of 1600. Truthfully even though I knew the lighting to be low I wouldn’t have started at an ISO this high so I must have worked my way up to this trying to get a decent histogram. By this shot I was handholding my camera so may also have pushed the ISO up in order to avoid ‘blur’ from hand holding a long shutter speed. Can’t say for sure – too many images and too much fumbling around.
-Histogram – Good coverage of tonal values clear across the histogram. No shadow clipping and either no or very minimal highlight clipping. In terms of the ‘height’ of the histogram, there were a lot of values in the Darker and Dark Tones part of the histogram, I imagine due primarily from the table surface and I guess also from the darker shadows at the base of the cups. There were comparatively fewer values in the Mid and Bright tones of the histogram and even fewer in the Brightest Tones part of the histogram. I was surprised by this given the glass and the presence of some strong highlights.
What I like about this shot:
-That it seems to have exposed something close to correct and that I’m done with it (shooting this kind of stuff isn’t a lot of fun for me).
-The fact that when I look at it, I see the shapes before see the items. I image this is primarily due to the shallow depth of field and the stronger light that is on the rims of the items.
What I would change
-I would hope to do it all faster next time and with fewer ‘wrong’ exposures.
-I would try for shadows not quite so deep and I would also try to tone down the strongest highlights a bit. Visually the image looks kind of over exposed to me, but that is not what the histogram shows--I don’t know??
-I would probably also separate the pieces a little bit more in order to further emphasize their ‘shapes’.
Camera Settings
Camera Mode – Aperature Priority
ISO - 1600
Focal Length – 200mm
White Balance – Probably Cloudy
Metering Mode - Pattern