January 2011 SMB Photography Challenge - Contre Jour - Discussion thread - Page 3

black-cat · 8th January 2011, 08:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by peachbum

Well I'll explain it thus, but I guess others would explain it better. When you are shooting into light or bright conditions your lens shuts down (gets smaller) to let in less light. Unless you counteract this ie by opening up your lens again (or keeping it open for longer), the overall picture will be under exposed.

That strange beam of light only seems to happen with digital cameras, it doesn't seem to happen with film photography (though you can get glare and lens image in the picture). I think if you reposition yourself it won't happen. If you look at your picture, the sun is too "bright" and the rest of the picture is too dark. But, the only way to learn is to take pictures and work out out what you like/don't like and see/find out how to do/not do the same again.

I learnt the hard way. I was an impoverished traveller sitting on a beautiful beach one afternoon. Took some shots of the sun and the waves (olympus trip) on a glorious day, and never to go back etc. Developed the film some months later, and every single shot was under exposed as I just thought shooting away at the sun would provide me with realistic pictures.

Thanks for your comments peach.

AB22 Easy Tiger · 8th January 2011, 09:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by black-cat

Thanks for the comment mate, the reason I took the photograph was because the sun looked awesome as it burst through the cloud on a day when it previously hadn't shown itself, my next aim was to get the sun in the centre of the pic...

As I said, I'm a complete novice at taking pictures.

You're going to love next month's challenge then.

MaDMaCKeM · 8th January 2011, 10:59 PM

A way around blowing out the skies, use a grad ND filter or take 3 - 5 pics at different exposures and HDR them, basically it merges all the pics together and adjusts the exposures to match. tripod is essential tho.

peachbum · 9th January 2011, 01:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by black-cat

Thanks for your comments peach.

Actually, when I first looked at your picture it was very dark, but as I tilted my screen at different angles, it looked completely different, even quite light in parts. So ignore all my comments, I'll shut up now.

My first paragraph is accurate (I believe) for very "white" scenes using a film camera. But I'm a complete novice of digital photogrpahy and I'm still learning too, which rules apply for film and which for digital photography.

I'm finding as time has gone on, nearly all pictures (digital camera photographs), the sun is too "bright" and even blurred and the surrounding area is "too dark", now I would have thought this was under exposure but maybe it is just a weak point of digital photography and not under exposure at all?

I've been trying to learn about it but not found anything relevant yet, did read up on the difference between RAW and j.peg though, so my time wasn't totally wasted.

black-cat · 9th January 2011, 03:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by peachbum

Actually, when I first looked at your picture it was very dark, but as I tilted my screen at different angles, it looked completely different, even quite light in parts. So ignore all my comments, I'll shut up now.

My first paragraph is accurate (I believe) for very "white" scenes using a film camera. But I'm a complete novice of digital photogrpahy and I'm still learning too, which rules apply for film and which for digital photography.

I'm finding as time has gone on, nearly all pictures (digital camera photographs), the sun is too "bright" and even blurred and the surrounding area is "too dark", now I would have thought this was under exposure but maybe it is just a weak point of digital photography and not under exposure at all?

I've been trying to learn about it but not found anything relevant yet, did read up on the difference between RAW and j.peg though, so my time wasn't totally wasted.

Nevertheless, I appreciate your willingness to share your thoughts.

Btw, when you were tilting your screen did you notice that the sun in my pic resembles the little white ghost from the ghostbusters logo?