A bridge too far

Mike McCarty · 09-14-2004, 09:57 PM

To all who replied,

This colorful image is the result of much manipulation in my software. After much retro thinking I believe that I must not have used the spot meter. The photo, as taken, was very dark.

I don't think my initial analysis was well thought out regarding the resulting image, and I destroyed the original image in trying to get enough information out of it to show the composition here. I never considered that it would be usable.

It could well be that the garishness of the colors are partly the result of my manipulation. Although, those colors did exist. It was a very bold palette in that room. The camera was set to auto-white-balance and the only light in the room was window light.

I think that the bottom line is that I screwed up a good opportunity and I can't even come up with a good post mortum analysis because of my haste. Lesson learned.

Also, I really need to train myself to check my preview when I move from pose to pose and between different lighting conditions. With film I just jumped around dumb as a clam. I need to now take advantage of those things I have at my disposal.

Garth,

Quote:

In general, are the pictures ready to use as exposed in your camera

I would say yes.

However, my camera also presents images that are slightly too dark. I always lighten them up before presenting them here or printing them.

I had always heard that with digital cameras you had to be right on with the exposure because you could not correct up or down as much as with film. I don't find that to be the case with this camera. I am always amazed at how much information is there. Like the example I showed above of the one girl taken out of the very dark exposure. I got an 8x10 image printed of that today and it was amazingly good.

Also, the camera really picks up reflected color (maybe accurately) when color exists, like leaves or flowers. Below is an example of how the yellow / green leaves influenced the girls face when she was standing behind them. But, as in this closeup, there is a pretty good color rendition.