Sampling

[RBSinTo]

Taken in Chinatown here in Toronto, last summer.
Two city workers had opened a fire hydrant and were sampling the water with tiny vials.
Despite the high-contrast f16 type light that day, I rather liked the scene, and grabbed this shot.
motorized nikon f with meterless, eyelevel prism
Nikkor 180 2.8 ED AIS manual focus
Fuji 100 ISO colour slide
5.6 or f8 @ 1/1000th

[Geoff F]

The bright yellow areas are a limiting factor in this scene. At the moment they are just under over exposure; and I think it also needs good shadows. You might get away with brightening the midtones a fraction but I suspect it would be very easy for them to then appear 'washed out'.

[RBSinTo]

The bright yellow areas are a limiting factor in this scene. At the moment they are just under over exposure; and I think it also needs good shadows. You might get away with brightening the midtones a fraction but I suspect it would be very easy for them to then appear 'washed out'.

Geoff,
Thanks for commenting.
This was a tough shot because the light was so contrasty and there was a ton of glare reflected off the sidewalk as well, so I knew even if I got the highlights in the bright yellow hydrant, the shadow areas would be deep.
I suppose if I was shooting Digital I might have been able to do that HDR Voodoo and come up with something that had a lot less contrast, but under the circumstances with the narrow exposure latitude I had, I was pleased with the result, even if it is a bit crude, or less than perfect.
Robert

[MrB]

If it were mine, I wouldn't be too bothered about the deep shadows, as the foreground activity is the interesting part. However, there seems to be a sort of purple haze over the scene. I would edit the computer image (except the hydrant - I like that as it is), by reducing the red and blue saturation and increasing the contrast. That seems to work for me on my screen.

Cheers.
Philip