In the woods

[Razordance]

I took this the other day, and the colouration on it has me baffled. It seems as though everything that isn't green is desaturated almost to the point of being black and white. I actually had the saturation pushed up when I took it. I kind of like the effect, but I'm curious as to why it came out this way. I have another shot of the same area with the same effect, but pretty much everything else I shot on this outing came out normally coloured.

Camera: Olympus E-410
Mode: Program
Focal Length: 58mm (116mm equivalent 35mm)
Shutter: 1/125th
f/4.4
Exposure: 0.0 EV
Flash: Off
Saturation: +2
Contrast: +1

[KansaiGreenie]

Hi Razordance,

I see what you are saying. Especially compared to the beaver image in your Flickr photostream the color doesn't look right in this image. I'm no expert, but I have a couple of ideas.

First, as you can see, there isn't a lot of color in the scene to begin with. It's mostly green with some brownish grey bark and some grayish black water. So I don't think that there is a lot of color to bring out.

Second, the lighting in the scene is tricky. The foreground is dark and the background is bright. It seems to me that the camera exposed the scene for the darker foreground causing the background to overexpose (slightly). An old trick from the slide film days (that still applies to digital, but not as critically) was to underexpose when you wanted to make the colors rich and overexpose when you wanted the make the colors soft.

So what I think is happening with this image is: the overexposure is counteracting the increased contrast and saturation to create an image that has dull colors. It is especially noticeable because there isn’t a lot of color (other than green) in the first place. I think that if you hadn't increased the saturation there would almost no color at all.

Whenever I go out and shoot scenes like this, I always underexpose the image. For my camera (Canon 7D) I underexpose by about a stop. To improve this image in post-processing, I would start by darkening the exposure, tweaking the brightness and contrast and finally add more saturation. But that’s just me.

I hope that this helps!

KG

[navcom]

Another tip is to pick your time of day more carefully. Of course this isn't always possible, but most landscape photos benefit from the softer, more golden light available very early or very late in the day when the sun is not so high. And every day is a bit different. Sometimes the light is just bad no matter what.

In the middle of the day, the sun is very harsh and washes out colors drastically. Plus there are very limited shadows which make everything look flat and lifeless. Your eyes compensate for the "desaturation" because your brain overlooks it a bit. The camera doesn't. You can compensate by "pushing and pulling" as KG points out or you can use a polarizing filter which will help a very little bit.

But just like in the studio, the best substitute for bad lighting is still better lighting regardless.

In nature, it's much harder to "set up" the lighting like you can in a studio, but you can help by picking the time of day and the type of day you shoot on. Golden light from early or late along with long shadows adds depth and creates a softer, more pleasing result. Shooting on a cloudy day is like using a diffuser...the light is more even. Shooting in the rain or shortly after a rain increases saturation.

The only problem with landscapes is your "lighting assistant" (pronounced "God" ) doesn't work on our schedules.

[KansaiGreenie]

I completely agree. I didn't even think about time of day.

The only problem with landscapes is your "lighting assistant" (pronounced "God" ) doesn't work on our schedules.

So True!