Took this photograph around 6:30 in the morning on June 18th. The way the sunlight could be seen streaking through the trees and the complete stillness of the water was surreal, so I had to take a photograph of it ;-)
Nice one. The exposure looks a little off, although i'm not sure how you'd correct it. The light here in summer is so bright anything like that is way out of the question.
Learning photography is mostly practice. (Knowing how and why things work is important, but actually putting that knowledge to work is crucial.)
As far as the exposure, I'd say to definitely shoot in raw, expose to make sure you capture the highlights, and adjust later to pull out details in Lightroom (or something similar).
If possible, you should first try to shoot earlier or later (in general), so that there is less harsh light. Of course, that varies per day (due to conditions). You can't always to that — for instance, this scene would look different at a different time.
If lighting conditions are a problem, aside from choosing a different time (with different conditions), you can use "graduated neutral density" filters, which basically optically alter the exposure. GND filters come in hard and soft forms (describing the abruptness of the gradient). They are actual physical filters you place in front of the lens. Some are screw-on, but the most versatile are oversized ones which can be mounted in front of the lens. As you would be shooting through the filter, be sure to pick up high quality ones.
If your photograph has enough information (and the lighting wasn't TOO harsh), you *can* actually do GND filtering in software. (Lightroom has this baked in.) HDR* (high dynamic range) photographs are also good contenders for this sort of technique, too. Basically, you can alter the exposure in different regions (often in the form of a gradient from the top to bottom) before you process the file down to an 8-bit JPEG for web use.
* I'm talking about _true_ HDR here, not that awful Flickr-HDR-effect (über-extreme tonemapping) where everything is super-ugly. HDR basically means having more information extending from darker-than-normal to brighter-than-normal. Raw files usually have a considerably higher dynamic range than JPEG files (and this is expressed in files as a higher bit range — often 12-bit or 14-bit versus 8-bit, for instance). Often, with people talk about HDR (seriously, not in the tonemapping mess), they are talking about even higher dynamic ranges, often produced by stacking multiple frames with varying exposures produced by exposure bracketing on a tripod.
7 comments:
Very nice! Also, good thing that you had your camera handy. I've missed more than a few excellent opportunities due to lack of camera.
Nice one. The exposure looks a little off, although i'm not sure how you'd correct it. The light here in summer is so bright anything like that is way out of the question.
Thanks Alex!
I'm just starting to get into photography, so I'm learning a lot through lots of practice ;-)
Nice photograph! Where is that place? Greetings from Mexico!
It's in the backwoods on the border of New Hampshire and Maine by Milton Pond.
Learning photography is mostly practice. (Knowing how and why things work is important, but actually putting that knowledge to work is crucial.)
As far as the exposure, I'd say to definitely shoot in raw, expose to make sure you capture the highlights, and adjust later to pull out details in Lightroom (or something similar).
If possible, you should first try to shoot earlier or later (in general), so that there is less harsh light. Of course, that varies per day (due to conditions). You can't always to that — for instance, this scene would look different at a different time.
If lighting conditions are a problem, aside from choosing a different time (with different conditions), you can use "graduated neutral density" filters, which basically optically alter the exposure. GND filters come in hard and soft forms (describing the abruptness of the gradient). They are actual physical filters you place in front of the lens. Some are screw-on, but the most versatile are oversized ones which can be mounted in front of the lens. As you would be shooting through the filter, be sure to pick up high quality ones.
If your photograph has enough information (and the lighting wasn't TOO harsh), you *can* actually do GND filtering in software. (Lightroom has this baked in.) HDR* (high dynamic range) photographs are also good contenders for this sort of technique, too. Basically, you can alter the exposure in different regions (often in the form of a gradient from the top to bottom) before you process the file down to an 8-bit JPEG for web use.
* I'm talking about _true_ HDR here, not that awful Flickr-HDR-effect (über-extreme tonemapping) where everything is super-ugly. HDR basically means having more information extending from darker-than-normal to brighter-than-normal. Raw files usually have a considerably higher dynamic range than JPEG files (and this is expressed in files as a higher bit range — often 12-bit or 14-bit versus 8-bit, for instance). Often, with people talk about HDR (seriously, not in the tonemapping mess), they are talking about even higher dynamic ranges, often produced by stacking multiple frames with varying exposures produced by exposure bracketing on a tripod.
thanks for the info Garrett
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