Night Time HDR Cy-Fair Campus
According to Saint
Ansel of Adams "Craft facility
liberates expression, and I am constantly amazed how many artists think the
opposite to be true." Simply put technology sets free an already freed
mind for a freed vision. Adams was a
technology freak he predicted the digital age and the digital darkroom and if
he were alive today he would be a digital uberman (superman) but he was not a
slave to technique-technology, he did
not allow his vision to be compromised nor superseded by technology. He struck
in my opinion a productive balance between the two.
HDRI
("High" Dynamic Range Imaging) , HDR for short is nothing new, it has
been the goal in photography from its inception and the first HDR image was produced
by Gustave Le Gray in the 1850s, that's right 1850. Like the "Zone" system HDR is nothing
more than a CONTRAST MANAGEMENT TOOL
(here forth "CMT"). Contrast is the difference in luminance
and/or color that makes an object , its representation or literal image distinguishable.
Contrast is how we paint with light (photo-graphe).
The luminance differences gives birth to our tones and the range of these tones
from the high to the low gives birth to the tonal range in a scene or image and is the DYNAMIC RANGE (DR). Simply put the DR is the difference
between the lightest detail and darkest detail in the scene or image and is the
ZONE of tonal values. Thus this completely captured tonal range or
zones with its subsequently controlled
contrasts has been and is the desired goal in Photographic history starting
with that first 1850s "High" Dynamic Ranged Image (HDRI) by Gustave
Le Gray, moving in to the 1940s with Adams and Archer's "ZONE" system
and presently with our current HDRI digital dark room tools (Photomatix Pro,
NIK HDR, PS blend modes HDR, et.al.).
There are those today
who would have you convinced that the "ZONE" system was all Adams was
about, that it has no place in the digital age and is strictly for film. This assertion is
absolutely false!
I put the "High"
in HDR/HDRI in quotes because the term HIGH is subjective, it is relative, if
something is high then there must be a "low".
All scenes have their own unique tonal range
and these ranges are best expressed in exposure values or EVs. These EVs are
the individual exposure readings in all the tonal areas of your scene and is
how your camera's sensor or film sees these zones but does not necessarily
captures all these values. Our digital
camera's all have unique DYNAMIC RANGE values expressed in EVs or stops which
can be found on line here (http://www.dxomark.com/). I will use my D3 and P7100
as an example; the D3's value is 12.2 EVs and the P7100's value is 10.7
exposure range of capture. This does not mean that if I point and shot at a
scene with a range of 10 EV's that I will get a raw file with all 10 perfectly
exposed zones with one shot and exposure setting. I have to collect images
exposed for those tones/zones and merge them together.
Proper
Exposure is
the key and your work flow is important, it is not hard, just important. So
one needs to really understand exposure and what our cameras are doing exposure
wise. Most Landscapes, properly exposed should only take 3 exposures and no
more than 5 in order to blend into your HDR software of choice (mine has always
been Photomatix Pro, I do have NIK's and have used PS). Some night scenes might
take as many as 7 depending on the EV difference from the high-lights to the
shadows. We are talking about exposure
bracketing here look it up in your manuals. Some of us are blessed or cursed with auto bracketing
functions.
Let us assume I have
spot metered(SM) my scene's lights and darks, I carry a hand held spot meter,
you can use the spot meter function in your camera with your zoom lens and you
have a spot meter. I have also metered the whole scene with my matrix averaging
meter(AM) mode. The High-lights, the brightest SP meter reading is
f-16-1000-ISO 200, the Shadow detail SP meter reading is f-16-60-ISO 200 (HDRI-ing
we want the same F-stop for each blended image) and the overall AM metered scene reading is f-16-250- ISO 200. The
results are +2 stops(EV) from the averaged metered middle reading and -2 stops
(EV) from the middle reading. In making
the spot readings remember to set the exposure for the tone, if it is white and
you want white the exposure reading needs to be increased by 1-2 stops (EVs) if
not your whites will be gray and the shadows if you want them black you will
need to decrease the spot exposure reading by 1-2 stops (EVs) are your blacks
will run to gray. Remember to keep light from entering the eye piece of your
view finder as that will affect the cameras meter reading and thus give you a
false reading.
Using a tripod with a
preset white balance (I do not use auto white balance for Day light Panos or
HDR, I will use it for Night time HDR) I
will manually shoot the -1, -2, +1 and +2 exposures and Aperture Priority the
middle averaged meter exposure. If the + and - EVs fall within the auto bracketing
function of my camera I will often use that function.
I am well aware of
the "Spray and Pray" group who never use a tripod and blast away with
hand held AUTO-bracketing including white balance set at auto. If that fits
your vision of the image then there is nothing wrong with that. I have done it
(sans auto white balance) when a tripod was not allowed or available. However the results are always better with a tripod! Slow down and use the
tripod as to tool to help / force you to pre-visualize your image. Use the live
view function with your camera on the tripod and a black tee shirt as a viewing
cloth if needed, people might think you
had the world's smallest view camera.
Now with the 3-5
properly exposed images go to your favorite CMT (Contrast Management Tool) AKA
HDR software be it Photomatix, Nik, PS, et.al. and season your image to taste.
The only thing holding us back is ourselves. What's the best way to master the
CMTs available , that's easy sit down and use them, the free tutorials all the
software producers have and You tube.
If anyone wants a face-to-face
tutorial on the proper exposure and capture as delineated here in, I can have
you up and running in less than 2 hours (most only take 1 hour). You will have
the skill sets to properly expose and captured images to run through your CMT
of choice and NO you do not need a separate hand held meter. What's the cost of such instruction, absolutely nothing, except your time to invest in yourself.
Learning is not always easy, but it is extremely
useful.
Until Next Time- Safe
Imaging Photo Fans.
Namaste,
Michael L Young
www.y2photo.net |
Youngs Photographic Imaging
Musings on Photographic Imaging and Vision
Monday, September 8, 2014
TECHNOLOGY SETS FREE AN ALREADY FREED MIND FOR A FREED VISION
Photographic Reality, Realism and the Truth
The word photography
comes from two Greek words meaning “light” and “drawing” and has four founding
Fathers; Joseph Nicéphore Niépce
(1765–1833) who took the first photograph c. 1827. However, his process needed
eight hours of exposure, and the picture was fuzzy. Then in 1837 Louis Daguerre
(1787–1851) created a sharp but one-use image in a few minutes. In 1839 William
Henry Fox Talbot (1800–1877) presented negative film and prints and finally George
Eastman (1854–1932) who invented flexible film and mass produced an inexpensive
camera in 1888. The initial goal of the first three was to produce a way to copy maps, charts and drawings
as the copy machine was a century + in the future. Eastman saw the future and
rewrote it not based upon the past.
The realistic image
produced by the early processes set the stage for photography is not art
argument because it was too easy and
made by a machine and it was reality, it was real or so the opponents would
argue. In considering this age old
argument surrounding photography there are three questions to ponder:
Does It matter what
reality is or is not behind a Photo?
Does Sharpness matter?
Is the photograph the
subject, or is the subject the photograph?
I think these questions
have been at the center of the photographic zeitgeist since 1839, when
Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre announced to the world that he had invented the
daguerreotype process. Thus photography as a medium to capture a ''truthful
likeness" was born. The historic San Francisco Group f.64 argued these
questions when Ansel Adams was a young photographer.
Those very first images
compared to today's high resolution standards were not very "real."
And they were not very sharp, which in my mind's eye affects to an extent the
reality quotient. But that brings us to the question of what is reality and how
sharp is sharp? I also think somewhere along the way, like Dorothy going to Oz, we
will find the answer to the subject vs. the photograph question.
Photographers, unlike
other artists, work backwards. Our medium requires us to start with the real
-the real still life, the real landscape, the real figure, the real portrait,
etc. The very physics of our medium captures as realistic a representation of the
subject as a given camera system can achieve on the first take. We know, or we
should know that the image is not real; it is surreal! The court system knows
this. As a crime scene photographer, the very first question the state asks
before I submit photos as evidence is "Officer Young, are these the
photographs you took at the scene, or of the victim, etc." Answer,
"Yes." "Do these photographs represent an accurate representation
of the scene at the time the images were taken?" Answer, "Yes."
They do not use terms as real or reality. That is because a photograph is not
real. It is surreal. It is a two dimensional representation of a captured four
dimensional object. We use our eyes -the best camera system ever created. Our God-given
camera allows us to see in real time, four dimensions, with a dynamic range
which far exceeds anything the camera manufacturers have to offer, with a Depth
of Field that far exceeds our best lenses. As photographers, we filter that
image through our mind's eye using our emotions, logic and learned experiences.
We then make the real into the surreal by the placement of the camera to our
eye or our eye to the camera and compress the four dimensions into two via the
camera. We further make the real into the surreal with in-camera cropping,
selective focus, depth of focus, the play of studio lighting and post
processing magic via the digital or wet dark room. The end
result is a two dimensional work product, whether it is a print or shown on
screen. A painter, sketch artist
or water colorist starts with no-thing and ends up with something. His is an
additive art process.
A relief sculptor takes the whole stone and removes the negative space, creating the final object out of the remaining positive space. That is a subtractive art process. A constructive sculptor starts with no-thing and builds until he has his object of art. His is an additive art process.
A relief sculptor takes the whole stone and removes the negative space, creating the final object out of the remaining positive space. That is a subtractive art process. A constructive sculptor starts with no-thing and builds until he has his object of art. His is an additive art process.
It is this, the surface
difference between the "classic" art mediums and the surface
"realism" of photography that has often held the art community at
odds with accepting photography for decades. It is this surface realism which
often prevents photographers from fully exploring the photographic imaging
universe. In the grab-the-shot
"Point and Shoot" we capture the "realism" in the
viewfinder, four dimensions into two. It is not real; it is still relatively
real. If we selectively crop the "real" image from our grabbed Point
and Shoot image so that the viewer is restricted to a small segment of the
original "real" object, then a new realism is offered the viewer.
If we take multiple
"real" objects and combine them into a single image via Photoshop or
Jerry
Uelsmann (http://www.uelsmann.net/) or Dan Burkholder
(www.danburkholder.com/) wet techniques, then our art becomes additive and subtractive but it all begins with
"real" objects -"real" objects we cut, crop and manipulate
into a single image.
So "Does it matter
what reality is or is not behind a photo? In my opinion the answer is both yes
and no. Yes. in the
beginning, "real" is where we start. We start with a real subject,
then use our
God-given camera (our
eyes and mind's eye to see), then move to our man-given camera. We end up rendering the
subject at whatever point of "reality" the image maker wishes, i.e.
as "real" as the camera can capture
or as surreal as the image maker wants to go in the post processing phase.
There is freedom in the
"reality" of the relative reality of our medium of photographic
imaging. It
is the freedom to be a
subtractive artist, an additive artist or both.
If our photographic
universe is bound by this relative reality, then does sharpness really matter? The answer to this in my
opinion is again both yes and no. In the photographic equipment race, we strive for the sharpest
lenses, the most accurate color engines and the highest resolution sensors. We
want our chosen purchase to render the tack sharp images we see in the trade
magazines, right? Yet we see advertised cheap selective focus lenses which are
little more than a flexible radiator hose with a plastic lens stuck to the
front. The advertisers say if you are going to be a hip artsy photographer you
must use one of these to make blurry out-of-focus, poorly contrasting images
with your mega bucks digital camera. Maybe I am a simpleton but to me, sticking
a $100 piece of plastic on my 12 mega pixel multi $1,000 camera body just seems
strange. I think the reason the answer is again a yes and no answer lies in the
reality of the intended purpose of the photograph. For example, if I am making
a classic portrait of a woman, I do not want the photograph to be tack sharp; I
do not want her portrait to look like it should be in a dermatologist textbook.
I am going to want a Little softness in the image. lf the photograph is a
portrait of a tough-as-nails hard rock miner and I want to convey the hardness
of the job and the toughness it requires,
then I want to create a sharp-as-nails image of my subject so that the
photograph tells the viewer what I want it to say. If the photograph is of a
subject who has seen a degree of hardness and sorrow in her life, then perhaps
a balance somewhere between the tack sharpness of the mega lenses and the
fuzzy-buddy lenses is called for.
Again, the answer is a
relative one. The answer lies in what I as the photographer want my final two
dimensional rendering of the once real (four dimensional) subject to say to the
viewer. How do I want to convey the real subject? Or what do I, the
photographer, feel and or see the real subject to be in the final surreal flat
image we call a photograph?
If the aforementioned
relativity and the level of required sharpness are based upon the desired final
result or statement that the image maker wanted to achieve in his final flat
two dimensional
representation of the
original subject, then I would say the argument has been made and the final
question answered. The answer to that question is, The image or photograph is not the
subject, but a surrealist visual entity separate and apart from the real
subject.
I trust the reader has
come away with the under lying theme that photographic imaging is a medium of "real"
freedom. Therefore, we're free to explore the variations of this reality to
wherever our mind's eye would take us.
I will leave you with
two quotes on the subject from two of our imaging ancestors;
"Photography's greatest gift is its ability to render three
dimensional reality in a two dimensional form and that photography's greatest
weakness is its ability to render three dimensional reality in two dimensional
form". -Rudolf Amheim
"Because of the protean nature of photography and its many uses,
critics and non critics have trouble seeing photographs for what they are
rather than for what's in them." -William Eggelston
Until Next Time- Safe
Imaging Photo Fans.
Namaste,
Michael L Young
Sunday, September 7, 2014
Photographic imaging is my passion.
The path for photographic expression is my obsession.
I was born in Texas, and being a Texan and an American has contributed strongly to my belief and sense of freedom: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to be who you are meant to be, and the freedom to pursue one´s passion and vision.
I follow my freedom, passion, and obsession in the creation of my images. This freedom allows me to create images that fit my vision and or the intended purpose at the moment in the time the camera clicks. Be it a crime scene, a classic portrait session, or a photographic exercise to stretch the mind and/or medium in order to explore the limitless paths of this journey we call life.
I subscribe to no particular school of photography or art. I enjoy all manner of visual expression and I would encourage the world as a whole to liberalize its embrace and pick up on the good vibes to be had in such an open embrace. My images might be labeled an eclectic smorgasbord, running from the "real" to the surreal.
One might ask, why place the word "real" in quotation marks?
The answer is simple. By the very physics of photography, no photograph can be real; it can only be relatively real. A photograph is a two dimensional representation of a four-dimensional object or subject; therefore, it is not real; it is relatively real or surreal if you please. It can have varying degrees of reality but never truly be physically real thus the word "real" in quotes. This given physical characteristic of this medium with its subsequent freedom from true realism allows us to explore the world visually from as "real" as the camera can capture to as surreal as the imager´s
mind´s eye can envision. This allows the photographer to embrace the diversity of the visual environment with the freedom to follow his or her vision.
My personal History or Biography is as eclectic as my tastes in photography, music and art.
I received my first serious introduction to photography in high school as a newspaper and yearbook photographer.
I studied photography, art, history, engineering, and architecture at Texas A&M where I graduated Class of 77.
My career has been as varied as my tastes in photography. I was an engineer for 15 years, during which I photographically chronicled engineering and construction projects, shot corporate brochures, and photographed forensic equipment failures for my employer. I had a 21 year career in law enforcement serving as a Crime Scene Photographer , instructor and Accident Reconstructionist. I am currently the director of the advanced technology instruction at Lone Star College Cy-Fair / Cypress Center; http://www.lonestar.edu/cyfair.htm.
I am also in partnership with my Best Friend, my Lover and my Woman; My Wife Lesa, in Young's Photographic Imaging (www.y2photo.net).
Namaste,
Michael L. Young, 2014
y2photo@sbcglobal.net
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