At the End of the Day...

[jiro]

Thank you very much for viewing.

Click the image to view it in lightbox.


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Nikon D70, Nikon 18-70mm lens, processed in LR 3.

[LeoLeo]

Well done, Sir!

Leo

[Peter Ryan]

Lovely light and exposure Willie. You certainly set yourself a cahllenge here. Tell me, how did you meter for this shot?

[jeeperman]

Jiro, this very well done study of light has pushed me to say...while I have always enjoyed your photos I have noticed that you have improved quite a lot lately. The past couple of months your photos have been at another level and it is not just your new PP technique.

[abhi]

Can I just say, speechless? Well done, Jiro. Your photos keep getting better and better every day.

[JohnC]

Lovely shot and quite different-makes me think about my own comfort zone.

[rob marshall]

Bellissimo!

[jiro]

Well done, Sir!

Leo

Thanks, Leo.

[jiro]

Lovely light and exposure Willie. You certainly set yourself a cahllenge here. Tell me, how did you meter for this shot?

Thanks, Peter. This was definitely a challenge for me. From the magazine clippings of images that I have collected, one thing or style typically stands out - a romantic shot, backlit, washed out, with the sun included in the shot, and flare was deliberately included, too. I was very intrigued by this shot and I love the effect. I said to myself "I need to learn how to take shots like this!"

7:00 PM, I can still see the sun outside giving that yellow-orange glow to the surroundings and 3 sunflowers have already bloomed in our backyard. What a perfect opportunity to try this one out myself! The big question is... "How will I meter this scene?" Hahaha! Too much logical reasoning, I just tried to start shooting and react to what I saw on the almost 2" X 2" back screen of my D70. First I started to set the camera to Manual Mode. I can't use matrix metering, it will just try to probably even out the exposure. I opted for center weight metering. I set the lens to its maximum focal length of 70mm (105mm equivalent since the D70 is a DX body) and set my aperture to it's widest possible opening of f/4.5. I set my ISO to ISO 320. Why 320? I did a noise test and I find out that the Nikon D70 can go as high ISO 320 with still less noise compared to ISO 200. maybe it's because of the way the built-in processor processes the data collected from the sensor itself. Took my first shot. the camera's center focus was aimed at the flower, the reading indicates a shutter speed of 1/500 second for a good exposure. The flower was nicely exposed. I don't need this, the image has no feeling to it. I want it to be a bit underexposed for drama. I took my second shot... I decided to go extreme - I set my shutter speed to 1/1250 second. WOW! I can still see detail on the flower petals and yet the shot was underexposed as I intended it to be. I took another shot again, this time the shutter speed was set to 1/800 second. Nice! This was the camera setting when I took the shot from the "Kissed By The Sun" image I posted. The image was still nicely lit and I want it a bit darker so that means I need a faster shutter speed from 1/800 second. I decided then to aim the camera to the setting sun and see what exposure it would recommend. The shutter speed recommended was 1/2500 of a second. Great! Let's see how it will look like. Underexposed and dark... but I like the effect!

I then, kept the camera at ISO 320, f/4.5 and 1/2500 second on the exposure in Manual Mode. I now concentrated on the composition. I placed the sun inside the frame at the upper right hand corner. Adjusted the bend of the flower for some drama (careful when you hold the stem of a sunflower plant - it's a bit thorny!) with my left hand and took the shot. It's a bit hard to see the overall shot on my camera's small back screen so I was not totally sure if the flare was nice. But I do know that from the image I saw at the viewfinder I know that there was some lens flare and the sun was still fairly bright. Took 3 more shots and this was the one that I like.

As for the histogram, yeah I did check the histogram as to how did the light tone density is distributed. I have big peaks at the left side of the histogram but no clipping. I still have about 1/4 of the first quadrant on the left (the histogram on my D70 is divided into 4 equal parts) that is free, meaning I have no clipped shadows. On the far right I have one straight peak totally banged up at the extreme edge. That's the sun in the image and I don't mind. I am expecting that. The image has considerable noise (of course because I deliberately underexposed the shot) when I saw it in Lightroom. Luckily, LR's noise reduction is pretty robust and reliable and it saved my shot. What I only did in LR is to increase the exposure by + 3EV. This means that if I really want to nail this shot nicely i should have set the shutter speed manually to 1/320 second. Guess what?... my next 5 additional shots was set at 1/320 seconds!!! Hahaha! That was pure luck! i took about 15 shots all in all for comparison and experimentation on this one.

After increasing the exposure and doing the noise reduction in LR I exported the image to photoshop as a 16-bit .tiff file and further "enhance it". So there, that's the story behind the image and the experiment, Peter. Lesson learned?... "NEVER BE AFRAID TO EXPERIMENT AND MAKE MISTAKES WHEN IT COMES TO LEARNING HOW TO PHOTOGRAPH."

The End.

[jiro]

Jiro, this very well done study of light has pushed me to say...while I have always enjoyed your photos I have noticed that you have improved quite a lot lately. The past couple of months your photos have been at another level and it is not just your new PP technique.

Thank you very much, Paul. I guess I'm just really hungry to try out new things and learn more stuff on the creative side of photography. I'm very glad that my shots are improving. That is one of my goals. Thanks!

[jiro]

Can I just say, speechless? Well done, Jiro. Your photos keep getting better and better every day.

Thank you very much, Abhi.

[jiro]

Lovely shot and quite different-makes me think about my own comfort zone.

Thanks, John. You are most certainly right. This is also not within my comfort zone so I need to learn this kind of shots. The experiment did a lot of good to me. One more way for me to transfer my vision to what I see in the viewfinder. Thanks, John.

[jiro]

Bellissimo!

"La ringrazio molto, Rob." Thank you very much, Rob. You knew from the start that you are one of the photographers that I respect a lot here at CiC and even in DGrin so your compliment means a lot to me. Cheers.

[MiniChris]

Your experimentation with this shot is a great example of the latitiudes digital will allow as well as the degree to which we can explore what we see in our heads, on other's sites, and sometimes, what we find in those rare, serendipitous moments. 1/2500 at 4.5 is pretty radical for a late evening shot, but it worked because you had two presences of mind: determination, and experimentation. I think what has happened in your photgraphy of late, is those two presences working together from a solid knowledge base, you've built via your own referencing, learning and watching. None of us are so good we can afford not to learn a new trick (technique) every day....and, I just learned one.

Once again, I think many of us on this forum are the richer for your leading the way and sharing how you got there. Good work and this one is quite lovely.

[jiro]

Thank you very much for your kind words, Chris. I appreciate it a lot coming from you.

[Apo]

it is an award winning photograph, well done kabayan...

[jiro]

it is an award winning photograph, well done kabayan...

Salamat Po, Sir.

[manthos]

Very beautiful!

[jiro]

Thank you very much, Giannis.

[arith]

I keep getting cut off; so I just say 'STUNNING'.