snow

damonffdamonff Registered Users Posts: 1,894 Major grins
edited January 29, 2011 in Street and Documentary
It finally snowed in DC...

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Fuji GW690III, TMAX 400 (D76)

Comments

  • FlyingginaFlyinggina Registered Users Posts: 2,639 Major grins
    edited January 27, 2011
    I am a sucker for tree photos and, especially snow-covered tree pictures, so I like these very much. #1 is my favorite - it has a more stylized feeling than the others. almost like a woodcut.

    Va
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  • damonffdamonff Registered Users Posts: 1,894 Major grins
    edited January 27, 2011
    thanks Va...I am trying to get the hang of medium format with no meter...
  • bdcolenbdcolen Registered Users Posts: 3,804 Major grins
    edited January 28, 2011
    damonff wrote: »
    It finally snowed in DC...

    What would you think of this crop?

    5394236050_3a1c2e7015_b.jpg
    bd@bdcolenphoto.com
    "He not busy being born is busy dying." Bob Dylan

    "The more ambiguous the photograph is, the better it is..." Leonard Freed
  • damonffdamonff Registered Users Posts: 1,894 Major grins
    edited January 28, 2011
    bdcolen wrote: »
    What would you think of this crop?

    5394236050_3a1c2e7015_b.jpg

    I love it!
  • bdcolenbdcolen Registered Users Posts: 3,804 Major grins
    edited January 29, 2011
    damonff wrote: »
    I love it!

    I think the image is stronger with more focus on that tree in the foreground. I like the snow on the bark of the trees in the first image, but there's just too much going on for me. That 120 film takes in allot! rolleyes1.gif
    bd@bdcolenphoto.com
    "He not busy being born is busy dying." Bob Dylan

    "The more ambiguous the photograph is, the better it is..." Leonard Freed
  • ruttrutt Registered Users Posts: 6,511 Major grins
    edited January 29, 2011
    I wonder if you can recover some highlights on the snow. There is a maxim about overexposing snow, but I'm not sure I believe it.
    If not now, when?
  • bdcolenbdcolen Registered Users Posts: 3,804 Major grins
    edited January 29, 2011
    rutt wrote: »
    I wonder if you can recover some highlights on the snow. There is a maxim about overexposing snow, but I'm not sure I believe it.

    What's the maxim?
    bd@bdcolenphoto.com
    "He not busy being born is busy dying." Bob Dylan

    "The more ambiguous the photograph is, the better it is..." Leonard Freed
  • damonffdamonff Registered Users Posts: 1,894 Major grins
    edited January 29, 2011
    bdcolen wrote: »
    I think the image is stronger with more focus on that tree in the foreground. I like the snow on the bark of the trees in the first image, but there's just too much going on for me. That 120 film takes in allot! rolleyes1.gif

    It does! I'm still trying to handle it! It's like driving a car with a lot of horsepower!
  • damonffdamonff Registered Users Posts: 1,894 Major grins
    edited January 29, 2011
    bdcolen wrote: »
    What's the maxim?

    What is it? You know I have highlight issues...
  • bdcolenbdcolen Registered Users Posts: 3,804 Major grins
    edited January 29, 2011
    damonff wrote: »
    What is it? You know I have highlight issues...

    Don't know - I was asking Rutt. I do know that if you're metering a scene with allot of snow in it and you care about anything but the snow you'd probably want to increase the exposure by 1 to 2 stops. However, if you want detail in the snow...
    bd@bdcolenphoto.com
    "He not busy being born is busy dying." Bob Dylan

    "The more ambiguous the photograph is, the better it is..." Leonard Freed
  • damonffdamonff Registered Users Posts: 1,894 Major grins
    edited January 29, 2011
    bdcolen wrote: »
    Don't know - I was asking Rutt. I do know that if you're metering a scene with allot of snow in it and you care about anything but the snow you'd probably want to increase the exposure by 1 to 2 stops. However, if you want detail in the snow...

    Got it. Thanks for the crop BD. It does look better without all of that other stuff going on!
  • ruttrutt Registered Users Posts: 6,511 Major grins
    edited January 29, 2011
    A few years back, I struggled with PP of shots with snow. I wrote a couple of longish posts which are especially relevant to color. Then I used what I found out and took a lot of skiing pictures.

    Those threads are here and here.

    A lot of the discussion was about the fact that snow can look more or less blue depending on the light. That might not be so relevant here.

    But a simple thing I discovered is that you can have good detail in the snow as well as the rest of the pictures with a little simple PP. In Photoshop, the Shadow/Highlight adjustment is your friend. Use on a layer and maybe use a "darken" blend to keep it from lightening the shadows. Or you can use the "blend-if" sliders. This isn't rocket science, but it takes more patience than some advanced photographers I know possess.

    I am pretty sure that when I am out and about in the snow, I see both the snow detail and the people, rocks, trees, whatever. This really is a case where the conventional wisdom that you should just blow out the snow to capture the other detail results in images that just don't look like what (at least) I see.

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    15438831-L.jpg

    The following might be a little too much. Damon can do much better starting with the negative (I originally wrote "raw file"), no doubt. And you can certainly fiddle with the blend or paint on the layer mask. But the detail is there, so perhaps this isn't just an exposure issue, but rather a gama issue (how you choose your film and develop it for film or how you PP for digital.)

    1171249092_rJzkJ-L.jpg
    If not now, when?
  • damonffdamonff Registered Users Posts: 1,894 Major grins
    edited January 29, 2011
    Great info Rutt. I usually use Lightroom since there is so little to do (I thought) with a negative. I will pull out the big CS5 guns for my next crop (of photos) and use your workfow ideas. Thanks!
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