I thought I would do a little photography 101 slash book review for this Saturday’s post. Only one more week before Auburn opens the 2011 football season so today is sort of the last “free” day before the fall goes into full swing, so to speak. The changes in photography over the last 10-15 years has been amazing to watch, and I’m glad I started shooting when film was the only option. Just about anyone can pick up a digital SLR today that is capable of taking photos that weren’t even possible a few years ago. Thankfully, it still takes more than just a finger pushing a button to take shots that look like more than just vacation photos. It’s quite possible to take great shots with a point-n-shoot and lousy shots with a professional camera (my nephew who is 12 takes amazing shots with his $150 Canon PowerShot SD1300).
One of the aspects of photography that attracted me to the art years and years ago was how easy it was to take a photo, and how hard it was to master the art. Just like anything worth doing, it takes a lot of time, study, experience, and a determination to get beyond the basics. One of the very basics of photography, and also one of the most difficult to master, is exposure. There are three basic elements to exposure in photography that make an image possible. These have never changed since the very first piece of film was exposed to light. For a “proper” exposure you need a combination of aperture (lens opening), shutter speed, and ISO value (film or sensitivity speed). Today’s cameras all have what is called a “P” or “program” mode that automatically calculates all three of these in an instant and creates what it thinks is the proper exposure. The only problem with that is the meter always exposes for a “middle grey”, or average, which attempts to take every lighting situation in the frame, average it out for medium, and that’s the “proper” exposure. That not necessarily bad, or wrong, and it’s probably how about 90% of all images shot are taken, but it also doesn’t always make the most exciting photograph either.
The two examples above I shot in the fading sun over the Atlantic, and both are considered to be improperly exposed according to the camera meter at the time. One is significantly “over exposed” (too light or bright) and one “under exposed” (too dark). I took several shots back to back and the “properly exposed” shot was quite boring. I love how both of these shots show a different mood and many different details. What often determines a “proper” exposure is what you are trying to create when you take the shot. What story are you trying to tell often determines what exposure best portrays your vision when you pull the trigger.
If you are interested in learning more about exposure and how light is used in creating an image I recommend the updated edition of Understanding Exposure: How to Shoot Great Photographs with Any Camera by Bryan Peterson. I have no affiliation with Peterson but I did read his first edition that came out many years ago and recently finished the updated version published last year. Peterson goes through an easy to understand explanation of how to best use exposure in your photography beyond just pulling the trigger. Anyone who is interested in improving their photography should start off with Peterson’s book and move out from there, it’s a great place to start.
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As I mentioned in my blog post last night we were going to try to get some shots of the Milky Way Galaxy, and these above are what I ended up with last night. There are so many different aspects of creation but this one always blows my mind. I love how Paul puts it in Romans 8:20-25
…ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools,23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
The lights at night out where we live are always interesting. Some nights it’s so dark you really can’t see your hand in front of your face, but most of the time we have a good bit of “glow” from Auburn-Opelika on one side and several other cities on the other side, but they are farther away. The shots of the Milky Way above (the first three) were taken when it was very low in the night sky facing south east. Turn around and you see the difference between the glow facing south and the glow facing Auburn. That last image still shows a good bit of stars, but nothing like the shots from the other side of the sky, and that shot was an entire f-stop longer (in other words the shot in the direction of Auburn let in twice as much light as the shots facing the Milky Way and showed less stars). Still, either way, the number of stars visible is always just amazing to me. Thanks goes to my nephew Jake who stood in and modeled for the first shot and explained to me what I was looking at in the night sky.
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Saturday was Deborah’s birthday, and yes, she was born on Saturday the 14th (she has enjoyed pointing out to me this year it is the same exact day as it was 45 years ago). This was a special birthday for her, since she loves markers in years, 45 years was a small milestone for her, not to mention everything that happened health wise last year and early this year, we all felt blessed to be able to celebrate this birthday with her. We went out to eat and watched The King’s Speech but in general had a nice quiet day at the house. My mom made Deborah a quilt of her very own. I am pretty sure this is the only quilt anyone has ever made for her. Since she makes quilts, and all things knitted, I guess everyone just thought she could just make her own. I know Deborah can’t wait until it’s done so she can use it.
I love the shot of Deb walking home from my parents house to our house around sunset. It was abnormally cold and windy outside and even though the sun looks warm, it’s freezing for May. The lamp is just because I love taking photos of lamps (or light… it’s a my lamp is the light of the world thing).
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The photo of the day today is one I call a classic but it is really just because I like to take photos of lighting in hotel rooms, especially when they are accompanied by the classic exposed brick wall. Similar to this shot in Colorado, but with no ambient light here.
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The photo of the day today is another iPhone camera shot in between services at Cornerstone Church in Auburn. The fall (although it is still hot) makes for some beautiful color even without the leaves.
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Something a little different for the photo of the day, this was another shot I took with my iPhone camera. The sticker on the light at the restaurant just caught my attention. Still pretty impressed by the camera sensor on this phone for this type of exposure.
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One of the best updates to iOS 4.1, to me, was the ability to automatically take and merge HDR photos right on the iPhone. For those unfamiliar with HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography, this is a relatively new area in photography that takes multiple images, which are beyond the tonal stop range of most digital camera sensors (or film for that matter). This actually isn’t new at all, film photographers have used this technique of bracketing ever since the invention of photography, but it is the digital media that has made it far more easy to achieve pleasing results, and hence, it is a revived sort of new.
High Dynamic Range (HDR) Explained
In brief, when you take images bracketed in exposure range, and then combined them either in camera or in something like Photoshop CS5 (which made huge changes to their HDR process over CS2, CS3, or CS4), or Photomatrix, you get a much richer, deeper tonal range, which just isn’t possible with one image. Digital SLR cameras can “see” about 6-8 stops of light, which is translated to be 4 stops underexposed and 4 stops overexposed from the middle exposure value, whatever that middle value is deemed to be. The human eye on the other hand can see far more “stops” of light, some say 3-4 times that of a digital camera, so HDR is a little closer to what we see with our own eyes. It still doesn’t match the light sensitivity of the eye, but it’s closer than non-HDR.
With HDR, you generally take one middle (or properly exposed) image, one frame that is 2 stops underexposed (-2/EV) and another frame 2 stops overexposed (+2/EV). When combined, the dark shadows are seen along with the detail in blown out areas (white overexposed spots). The iPhone now does this automatically. I took a few test shots to see how a camera-phone would handle these types of exposures. These images below are right out of the camera, they had zero processing, but all images below were taken with my iPhone. All the shots below show the non-HDR image first and the HDR image second.
iPhone HDR Image Examples
These first two shots were actually the ones where I liked the non-HDR image better, mainly because it had deeper colors on the first one with a little more contrast, simply because of how the shot was framed and where the backlight fell on the image.
These two shots were taken in the impossible condition for a camera, a bright light in a dark room. This just gives you an idea how in the second shot the HDR opens up the range of exposed light. Even with opening up the room light, you still get a visible image on the screen, which most of the time will be blown out to white.
These two shots show the great potential of HDR. This shot of my friend Lee, though he wasn’t expecting to be the HDR subject, shows how well it works. The HDR shows much more natural facial features, his white shirt shows a much more realistic looking texture and color, and the overall image has a much better well-balanced look to it.
Overall it seems to be a fantastic edition to the iOS 4.1 package. There are some well known photographers, like Jarvis, now getting incredible shots with the iPhone, the HDR setting should only make the images better and better.
