Harsh Lighting in Fog and Frosty Air

Dogdots

I posted a photo of a white buffalo (cool shots) in the snow on a foggy morning with frost in the air. Shooting conditions were harsh. The lighting was bright yet it wasn't. Strange I know, but that's the way it was with all the snow and ice crystals in the air.

When shooting I underexposed and overexposed trying to find the right setting for a good shot. Not only did I want to get the white buffalo right, but also the darker buffalo's that were in some of my shots. So I had white snow, white buffalo, dark buffalos, fog and ice crystals in the air. To make matters worse the fog was moving so the light was changing all the time.

I need help with conditions like that. The way it's going our mornings will be like that often with the snow melting and temps going up. I want to be able to get some good photos on those mornings.

I'm open to all the help and suggestions I can get with this kind of shooting condition. Maybe the best way is to expose for the white buffalo and edit what ever needs to be fixed :scratch

Maybe the conditions are to extreme and I should just stay home in bed

Thanks

Art Scott

No do not stay at home but instead give some thought to learning the art of High Dynamic Range {HDR} photography and processing......there is a very good software called Photomatix....aslso PSCS4 does HDR merging I have heard....there are some free wares for HDR also I have heard........I have not started using photomatix but do own it as of today.......

By my best understanding and the simpliest way to explain the technique is to shoot a series of shutter speed bracketed images in a 5 to 10 stop range (or a 2-3 stop range) then these are processed and merged with the HDR software......some of the images that have been posted on here have been quite exotic drug induced trippy lookikng....over processed by some peoples standards and others processed for a more "natural feel"........it is the dynamic range of your scenes that is causing you the problem so stretch mind to learn a new technique.........my reason for getting the HDR software is that the publishing company that published me last year want me to get photos of another city and i wanted to expand the Dynamic Range of the land/cityscapes I will be shooting..............

pathfinder

Mary,

I was shooting in Yellowstone last February, and I agree that shooting buffalo, in the sunlit snow is a very challenging situation. The snow is intensely brilliant white, and the buffalo fur will have very deep dark brown shadows.

You wil not be able to get this entire range of light intensities with a single exposure - or at least I frequently could not - As Art said, HDR is one alternative. Fill flash might be another, if you don't get caught by the rangers as you should not be close enough to use fill flash - DAMHIK:D

You can process a single RAW file into two versions - one optimized for highlights, and one optimized for shadows, and create a quasi hdr file, or just drop a single RAW file into Photomatix for a faux hdr tiff, and then tone map that. That can help sometimes.

But you are correct, side lit buffalos with shadows in sunlit snow can be quite challenging.

Dogdots

Hi Art and Pathfinder --

HDR -- I'll be darn That never crossed my mind. I do have Topaz and Photomatix so I'll give it a try on one photo since all my shots were hand held and not bracketed. I've not worked with Photomatix very much. It's a time consuming program for me, but one I'd better learn.

I'll just have to make a trip back out there -- set my tripod up and work on my bracketing.

Thanks Art and Pathfinder for the help

Sam

Pathfinder,

If you are close enough to use fill flash on buffaloes the park rangers will be the least of your problems.

Sam

pathfinder

You could be right, Sam; but I have frequently seen folks not more than 6 feet from buffalos in Yellowstone in both summer and winter. I am not saying it is smart, and I am NOT taking about myself. That is why there have been a number of deaths due to bison in Yellowstone as well. Human death, not bison!

But in the depths of winter, in deep snow, the bison prefer to conserve their energy, and generally move very slowly. You just would be wise not to count on them always acting that way, though. So the fill flash, as I said, is not really the best of plans. With a Better Beamer, you might be able to influence the lighting ratio a bit. Looking for a cloudy/overcast day might be better. Besides, the rangers say you must be 75 feet from them - at least one told me that anyway.

I was thinking about this discussion earlier today, and one of the problems with shooting snow fields in bright sunlight, is that some of the light from snow is not just white, but actually a specular reflection, so that when you process RAW files, it can be very hard not to have some small areas of blown highlights no matter how careful your exposure and processing, because the snow was not JUST white, but actually a small mirror reflecting the sun. Even HDR will have fun fully incorporating that light intensity.

When I was processing images from my excursion last winter ( 2009 ) the snow would frequently have little tiny spots of blown highlights and I now realize they were specular reflections of the sun itself.

Dogdots

pathfinder wrote:

You could be right, Sam; but I have frequently seen folks not more than 6 feet from buffalos in Yellowstone in both summer and winter. I am not saying it is smart, and I am NOT taking about myself. That is why there have been a number of deaths due to bison in Yellowstone as well. Human death, not bison!

But in the depths of winter, in deep snow, the bison prefer to conserve their energy, and generally move very slowly. You just would be wise not to count on them always acting that way, though. So the fill flash, as I said, is not really the best of plans. With a Better Beamer, you might be able to influence the lighting ratio a bit. Looking for a cloudy/overcast day might be better. Besides, the rangers say you must be 75 feet from them - at least one told me that anyway.

I was thinking about this discussion earlier today, and one of the problems with shooting snow fields in bright sunlight, is that some of the light from snow is not just white, but actually a specular reflection, so that when you process RAW files, it can be very hard not to have some small areas of blown highlights no matter how careful your exposure and processing, because the snow was not JUST white, but actually a small mirror reflecting the sun. Even HDR will have fun fully incorporating that light intensity.

When I was processing images from my excursion last winter ( 2009 ) the snow would frequently have little tiny spots of blown highlights and I now realize they were specular reflections of the sun itself.

I like how you explained the specular reflections of the sun on the snow. It does look like a mirror reflecting light...one of the many problems I have when shooting and then trying to edit. I never know what to do with those sections of a photo. Sometimes the area's can be small and I can clone them out while other times it can be such a large area or way to many to clone that I dump the photo.

Another factor with snow is that snow can be gray. Dirt collects in the snow either falling to the ground or just by the wind. That is another issue when photographing in snow.

I don't even want to get into the snow should be white not blue--that's a totally different subject

As for being close to the buffalos. I had a buffalo come up next to me in the Black Hills a few years ago. They just roam around in the small towns. I turned and it was close enough for me to reach out and touch it. I've never moved so slow so fast in my life. 75 ft even seems to close for my comfort zone. Maybe they poop out in speed within that distance when running. I don't know how their endurance is while charging.

I've attached a photo of what I was dealing with. Hopefully it shows you the thickness of the fog and shooting conditions. I've not edited this photo -- just cropped and resized it for posting here. My settings were: F9 - 1/1250 and ISO 320. I chose those settings because of the blinkies I was getting from the snow and ice particles in the air. If I changed my settings I lost the definition of the hills and the buffalos while if I went darker I didn't know if I could edit it as it was a dirty gray. This is the closest to what I saw out there.

Do I edit this I saw it or do I edit it to define the buffalos and then which one do I pick in this situation?

pathfinder

Snow can be grey, or blue, or other colors as well, depending on the color of ambient lighting.

I agree that shots like yours can be challenging. In fog, you usually have decreased contrast, not higher contrast, and that can be achieved by flattening your luminosity curve a bit, or just lowering the height of the highlights end of the curve also.

Ultimately, I think you have to decide as an artist, where you want the 255 levels of contrast you have at your disposal to be utilized. This can mean that you let snow be completely blown in an image like this, and display it as a high key image, without real detail in the snow. This would not be an error of technique, or a failure to be aware of blown highlights, then, but a deliberate choice to use the luminosity levels at other areas of your image.

I am certainly not an expert in the editing of snow images, but am just relating to Mary's frustration as I have had it as well. Snow with dark furry critters can be challenging to manage. Here is one of my attempts to deal with the problem as a faux hdr approach, and I am not proud of it either, Mary. Parts of the shaded areas in the neck and chin are not lost in black shadows now, but the shadow in the snow have taken on a new life of their own so to speak It looks weird. I could/should have masked the snow separately from the buff, but doing that with the soft furry border of the buff keeps making the party even more fun.



Tom Murphy has been photographing Yellowstone for years, and his book - "Silence & Solitude" - is a well worth a gander to see how he manages this range of light intensities in Yellowstone.

Jim Brandenburg's "Chased by the Light" offers another wildlife shooter's images, many shot in the depth of winter in northern Minnesota, and you can see how he rendered his images.

Dogdots

I'm glad to hear that snow can be left up to the "artist" and not defined by a photography "rule". That leaves it open to my editing skills

I can see now what HDR does to the buffalo against the snow. Not a bad look. Something I'll try with mine. Thanks for posting your photo pathfinder so I could see it.

The look in the eye of your buffalo -- it's a look of contemplation.

Thanks