It's often easy to talk about different styles of photography, or methods of taking a picture, when you're using the one-out-of-a-dozen images that turned out exactly the way you wanted.
To really show what is happening when you snap that shot, I wanted to share a couple images that did not quite 'work'.
This is from the same series of photographs as the waterfall image from last time. Like I said then, a long exposure shot requires low level light in order to keep from washing out the image. This is what happens when the sun comes out from between the clouds just as you take the photograph. The shutter stayed open for nearly a full second, soaking up sunshine and causing this blowout glare. Those places that are pure white are lost - there is nothing you can do in post production to rescue those parts of the image unless you want to start redrawing pixels and trying to create texture where there no longer is any. At that point, you may as well have started drawing the image from scratch. Much better to simply wait for more clouds, or closer to sundown.
The bee may have been holding still, but this butterfly was not. Unfortunately, rather than just take the shot and wind up with an image of a butterfly blurring away from the flower, I wound up trying to move the camera with the butterfly. I wasn't able to keep up, and my shutter speed wasn't fast enough to freeze things, so the whole image smeared into a worthless 'zoom' picture. It's a problem of having not quite decided what image I wanted before setting up the shot, and not being prepared to adjust to a suddenly moody subject. Butterflies are primadonnas. Now you know.
Another problem with choosing your subjects and lighting is that ever demonized 'red-eye' effect. It happens in people because you're literally flashing light off the back of the eyeball just as you snap the shot. Due to the red blood vessels surrounding the inside of the eye, you get that horrific crimson glare. In things that lack red blood, you get this crazy white-eye effect. It happens with frogs, fish, and certain politicians. If I could have trusted my hand to be steady enough, and the frog to hold still, I would have taken a slightly longer exposure to get a natural-light shot. As it was, it was getting dark and I had no convenient rocks on which to steady the camera.
Now, though, I've acquired a new tripod and a remote, by which I can take shots and never disturb the camera. That should allow some very interesting photos!
Of course, equipment does not guarantee that you'll get the shot you're looking for, if you haven't done your homework...
To really show what is happening when you snap that shot, I wanted to share a couple images that did not quite 'work'.
This is from the same series of photographs as the waterfall image from last time. Like I said then, a long exposure shot requires low level light in order to keep from washing out the image. This is what happens when the sun comes out from between the clouds just as you take the photograph. The shutter stayed open for nearly a full second, soaking up sunshine and causing this blowout glare. Those places that are pure white are lost - there is nothing you can do in post production to rescue those parts of the image unless you want to start redrawing pixels and trying to create texture where there no longer is any. At that point, you may as well have started drawing the image from scratch. Much better to simply wait for more clouds, or closer to sundown.
The bee may have been holding still, but this butterfly was not. Unfortunately, rather than just take the shot and wind up with an image of a butterfly blurring away from the flower, I wound up trying to move the camera with the butterfly. I wasn't able to keep up, and my shutter speed wasn't fast enough to freeze things, so the whole image smeared into a worthless 'zoom' picture. It's a problem of having not quite decided what image I wanted before setting up the shot, and not being prepared to adjust to a suddenly moody subject. Butterflies are primadonnas. Now you know.
Another problem with choosing your subjects and lighting is that ever demonized 'red-eye' effect. It happens in people because you're literally flashing light off the back of the eyeball just as you snap the shot. Due to the red blood vessels surrounding the inside of the eye, you get that horrific crimson glare. In things that lack red blood, you get this crazy white-eye effect. It happens with frogs, fish, and certain politicians. If I could have trusted my hand to be steady enough, and the frog to hold still, I would have taken a slightly longer exposure to get a natural-light shot. As it was, it was getting dark and I had no convenient rocks on which to steady the camera.
Now, though, I've acquired a new tripod and a remote, by which I can take shots and never disturb the camera. That should allow some very interesting photos!
Of course, equipment does not guarantee that you'll get the shot you're looking for, if you haven't done your homework...
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