Request for Betterment Tips

[PhotoNewt]

Originally Posted by dimitrz

Photonewt : My fault - was not clear regarding the diagram question. What I meant was - since in the diagram I have shown the angle at which the shot was taken - based on your experience if the Sun was at which position in the diagram would you think the pol filter be effctive ( just want to use that a guide in checking the sun's position since I would still be new to the Thumb & finger concept)

No problem. If shooting around sunrise or sunset the sun is quite low on the horizon so there are three lighting possibilities:

1. Front lit scene - the sun will be behind you lighting the scene evently, exposure is usually easy since there are few shadows, the light is diffused and results are very pleasant. A polarizer will have no effect on color saturation on this situation, but will help decrease shutter speed.

2. Back lit scene - not likely to be an issue with a waterfall but is when the light is behind your subject and in front of your camera. Typical situations are when shooting a sunrise or sunset or trying to get a silhouette. In this case you will have the polarizer offering the same function as in #1.

3. Side lit scene - these are my favorites do to the depth and texture created by the directional light. Exposure can be a little tricky with areas of shadow and highlight, so you really want to bracket these one. Polarizer will have maximum effect of saturating colors here since the sun is close to 90-degrees to either side. Look through the viewfinder to a patch of green or the sky and rotate the filter slowly until the colors are saturated to your liking. Be mindful that when used with a very wide angle lens and a lot of sky is present you can get uneven saturation of the sky that will show as a gradient where parts of the sky are deeper colored than others - I personally like this effect but some don't.

In regards to the "thumb & finger" trick, when you point to the sun with your index finger, and extend your thumb so is at 90-degrees to the index finger, any area that can be pointed at by the thumb will be about 90-degrees to the sun and will exhibit maximum polarizing effect.

[dimitrz]

Photonewt Thanks for the explanation and yes , I had taken some base shots at the falls - included below but the more I look at them in the new found wisdom the worse they seem .

Just a few additional queries that I thought I would pop on


1) Composition wise is there any improvement required for the above shots ( if yes what ?)

2) Should centre weighted metering be followed in the above shots ( especially if polarizing filter is used) ? ( what kind of landscape scenarios can be shot using centre weighted metering )

3) Where should I ideally focus on the above shots ?


These shots were also taken at the same place

Waterfall (7)


1/400 s, f/5.6, ISO 80, 1:23:29 PM, EV -1.30 eV, Metering Pattern, Focal 6 mm, Auto WB


Waterfall (6)

1/1000 s, f/5.6 ,ISO 80, 1:10:19 PM, EV -1.30 eV, Metering Pattern, Focal 6.2 mm, Auto WB


Incase anyone wants to check couple of more shots from the same location - you can just click on this link to my flickr (Thanks & any comments leave it here )

http://www.flickr.com/photos/2353137...7605105532876/


Cheers

[PhotoNewt]

Sorry been out of town on business and away from my computer lately.

Question #1: With Waterfall 7 if possible, get closer to the rocks and set a tripod so you shoot above the rocks (so they don't show on the photo) and get the bottom of the waterfall included, this will make a better shot in my opinion. Vertical orientation works good here.

Waterfall 8 is a good viewpoint. I would shoot with the camera as close to the ground as possible to make a more dramatic composition. Walk to the left and look for a better angle so a little more of the waterfall is seen, perhaphs climb the rocks to the right and look for a new angle. Overall this one is good, better lighting will make a big impact.

Question #2: I would stick with evaluative metering if shooting around sunrise or sunset with the sun on your back. This exposure should be easy to get with evaluative (pattern in your camera I assume). If shooting a side lit scene spot or partial metering on the area of main interest (I would use the vegetation to the side of the water and not the water itself) should give you an idea of the exposure, also meter the areas of shadow to determine how far apart they are (how many stops of difference) this will help you decide how much to backet - you are better off bracketing these as exposure is tricky. With modern auto exposure cameras I have little use for center weighted meter - I either use spot (or partial if spot not available on your model) or evaluative for most of my photos.

Question #3: don't know how easy is to manual focus on your camera, on these shots since the overall depth seems to be modest, I would focus on the waterfall (again, on the vegetation to either side of the water) and set the aperture around f/8 or f/11 to get as much of the foreground in focus as possible (by increasing your DoF). When shooting more expansive scenes, you wany to focus about 1/3 into the scene at small aperture, this should give you a fairly good DoF.

[dimitrz]

No problemo Photonewt - don’t mind waiting for a week or even a month for your informative inputs.

Guess you were on a well deserved vacation with your dear ones.

So I guess time for all the tips & tricks are over - and the moment has arrived for me to pack-up and rush to the location ( as soon as I am done with reading "Understanding Exposure" that is)

In the book Bryan talks about using the Manual Mode more often, so I am practicing that as well.
Also I read a review somewhere that when you are in Manual mode the EV setting acts like a rough light meter in my camera and as long as I keep EV within minus 0.3 the exposure should be ok.

Just some fine tuning query

Having seen the waterfall and Shot 1 - approx how slow do you think I would have go , to get the blurred motion effects. 1 sec or may be upto 5 sec ?

Cheers

[PhotoNewt]

Originally Posted by dimitrz

Having seen the waterfall and Shot 1 - approx how slow do you think I would have go , to get the blurred motion effects. 1 sec or may be upto 5 sec ?

Cheers

Just a quick shot taken in San Antonio last week to illustrate this effect for you:


Canon 40D, 24mm, f/22, 4 sec, ISO 100

The longer exposure time was chosen because water flow was slow - this is not a waterfall but rather a small fountain along the river walk. Also the photo was taken around 7:30 am under overcast skies, the light intensity is lower at this time allowing for more exposure options.

[PhotoNewt]

Also to illustrate the technique using a point and shoot camera, this photo was taken last year in Las Vegas at the Mirage Hotel during the nighttime volcano show.


Olympus C4000Z, 6.8mm, f/2.8, 1 sec, ISO 100

The technique is the same, set shutter speed between 1/2 to 6 seconds depending on water flow speed; slower flow will need longer shutter speeds to render a whispy water effect.

Apologize for the bad photo, my wife wanted this one so it was a hasty snapshot.

[dimitrz]

Bad shots ....I beleive they are pretty good espcially the first one.

Apologies for late response am away on work would take few more days to be back

[PhotoNewt]

Originally Posted by dimitrz

Bad shots ....I beleive they are pretty good espcially the first one.

Apologies for late response am away on work would take few more days to be back

I was talking about the second photo, we were on the street and my wife asked me to photograph this "volcano", I had to improvise with the P&S for a quick handheld shot.