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[OM] Re: More winter photos

Subject: [OM] Re: More winter photos
From: Martin Walters <mwalters@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 08:26:26 -0500
Moose, Wayne:
Thanks for your comments.

Wayne: For some reason  I never received your e-mail and it is only 
visible  in the archives.  However,  I  believe both you and Moose are 
essentially saying the same thing. Actually it wasn't cold at all (a 
degree or two below zero, with absolutely no wind and low humidity) and 
quite pleasant. It must be said that my preferred natural white material 
is beach sand, rather than snow -with appropriate temperatures to match!

Moose: I take your point about metering highlights; however, with an 
OM-2, I would need to use manual mode be able to meter on some discrete 
section of snow to get a "spot" reading, but there's so much snow.  
Otherwise, I would have to use exposure compensation, which is going to 
be trial and error, though in future I would start at + one-half stop. 

I must admit that deliberately over-exposing snow is counter-intuitive 
for me.  I have always been more concerned about bright snow "tricking" 
or overpowering the meter and underexposing all the darker/shadow 
areas.  I suspect that when there is bright snow (ie, with sun) there is 
no need to over-expose. In the past when I used my OM-1 and slide film, 
I consistently under-exposed slightly (say, about one-third stop) under  
all conditions of "normal" light, with absolutely no problems.  So, it 
may be that exposure compensation would depend on the light levels and 
the extent of snow in the picture (or any other white object, I would 
imagine). Interestingly, the last batch of photos that I got from Costco 
on CD were slightly over-exposed, compared to their matching print. 
Obviously, they weren't so this time.

I thank you for your efforts with the two photos.  Interestingly, the 
one with the house was taken with the non-Oly digital camera and has 
already suffered from brightening that I had already done (photo was 
taken in failing evening light). I have been playing with other photos 
on my computers at home and at work with a variety of software (PS 
Elements, Corel Photopaint and LView). Each has several menu methods for 
adjusting and enhancing photos, though they may not all do it in the 
same way. The photos can certainly take more adjustment than I had done 
on the versions that I posted.  Of course, the other "issue" is that I 
have no way of calibrating my monitors, so with both beiing different 
sizes and with different resolutions, it is hard to compare adn evaluate 
absolute changes.  Ultimately, I will have to do some print runs to see 
the effects of any adjustments.  It was so much simpler with slides......

Best wishes,
Martin

Moose wrote:

>Martin Walters wrote:
>
>  
>
>>Photos were taken with OM-2n and a mixture of 21/3.5 and 100/2 (if I 
>>remember correctly), and with no exposure compensation. The light was a 
>>little strange: overcast with some faint sun coming through at times.  
>>What was impressive at the time was that the wet snow stayed on the 
>>trees as there was no wind (for at least two days) and everything had an 
>>eery white appearance, which is visible in a couple of the photos.  The 
>>Kodak 400 Max film was developed at Costco! and put in CD. The only 
>>alteration I made was to brighten the photos a little, nothing more. My 
>>initial reaction is that they appear to lack "colour", but this may be 
>>an effect of all the snow and the lack of sun.
>>
>>    
>>
>Nice compositions! To me, the shots suffer not from lack of colour, but 
>a misplaced brightness range. I think the key info here is "with no 
>exposure compensation" and "alteration I made was to brighten the photos 
>a little". Notice Richard's comment on one of his recent much admired 
>(by me too!) winter shots, "Manual mode, averaging meter, overexposed 1 
>1/2 stops from meter indication." and the subsequent thread on snow 
>exposures.
>
>What I see happening here is well illustrated in a section of the manual 
>for OM-4 and other spot metering bodies with a Highlight button. Look at 
>pages 81 and 82 here 
><http://olympus.dementia.org/eSIF/om-sif/bodygroup/manuals/om4ti.pdf> 
>for an example. Both the automated scanning and the digital camera have 
>tried to make a relatively 'normal' distribution of brightness out of a 
>scene where a very large percentage of the area is white or very close 
>to it. Using a neg film with a great ability to hold highlight detail 
>into overexposure likely compounds the problem, as the overcast quality 
>of the day may also. So the result is much like the pic on pg 81. Using 
>a highlight button or exposure compensation helps to get closer to the 
>pg 82 example. With scenes like yours, I imagine there might still be a 
>problem with automated print/scan equipment trying to tone down the 
>highlights, although the negs would be fine. In fact, although slides 
>made of these scenes without compensation might not be good, the negs 
>you have probably hold all the brightness range needed, they just 
>haven't been 'processed' for the best results.
>
>I've taken the liberty of adjusting my favorite 2 shots to give an idea 
>of what I mean. In both cases, I simply clicked the highlight dropper 
>(sort of like the highlight button on OM-4, etc.) in the curves tool of 
>PS on a few of the brightest spots in the image until I got a look I 
>liked, then made small curve adjustments. They look a little 'funny', 
>edgy, artifacty or something in tonality, contrast, etc. because I was 
>working from compressed 8 bit images and  the kind of changes I did lead 
>to gaps and bumps in the brightness range. A proper scan, even 8 bit, 
>with the white and black points set correctly and/or adjusted curve, 
>would give a much better result. I've just tried to give a sense of what 
>is there to be brought out.
>
>http://moosemystic.net/Gallery/43220023b.jpg
>http://moosemystic.net/Gallery/43220036b.jpg
>
>In the case of the DC, I would just take bracketed 'overexposed' shots. 
>Even the histogram and overexposure indicators, if available, are not 
>perfect indicators in this kind of shot. Bracket and evaluate later is 
>the safest way to assure a shot you like.
>
>  
>
>>Comments from anyone on this and other things welcome.
>>
>>    
>>
>Moose
>
>
>
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