Better make this my last posted lesson as I just noticed that this theme was for the first half of Sept. It is very intriguing, so I guess I got carried away. One thing I did learn is that I should of bracketed my aperture, so I could actually see the difference of using different apertures. I sorta think this would have looked better at F/13. I feel that I can now go out and use the Sunny 16 rule
With this post I set my camera processing to natural large fine JPG, and only PP I did was a dose of Smart sharpening Amt 80, Radius 0.5, Lens Blur, More Accurate in Lightness channel of Lab Mode.
Olympus E-3, Zuiko ED 50-200mm f2.8-3.5 SWD, Gitzo monopod @ 400 mm
Manual: F/16. 1/250s, ISO 250, 0.00eV, AWB, CWA, sRGB and manual focusing
Last edited by Gus Hallgren; 10-02-2010 at 05:28 PM.
Reason: Spelling
Gus, I like this BG so much better than the pinkish one. I do wish I could see a bit more of the left wing - these little ones sure are quick! He also feels a bit centered horizontally. I'd look at taking a bit off the bottom of the frame so he moves down a bit, leaving all that room at the top for him to "fly into."
There's a really nice dreamy feel to this image Gus. The dappled BG contributes to this, as does the fairly course noise, which in this case I don't mind too much because it does add to the effect. I like the composition with the subject given lots of room to breathe (I've seen quite a few tight crops lately so this is nice to see).
There's some cloning anomalies in the BG, mainly in the right side of the image- I can count 5!
Quite right Gus. I was completing a few critiques last night and forgot that this was the S16 rule!
On my monitor the image looks a bit dark. You do have some pixels close to the extreme right hand side of the histogram, but not that many and they are in the warm tones in the gorget. Most of the pixels are down the other end of the histogram. As an experiment I wanted to see the effect of using Levels to bring the mid-tones up a bit. Here is the result with the before and after histogram. I moved the middle slider in Levels to the left and adjusted by eye on my calibrated monitor.
So let's review what happened. You used the S16 rule for bright sun and indeed the rule worked in that the brightly lit parts are not over-exposed. There was a bit of room even in the highlights to expose a bit more, but the overall tonality of the image is darkish so I wonder if an adjusted (+) S16 would have been better? What do you think?
Definitly an improvement. After I took the photograph, I was thinking that F/16 was not enough, and should have taken one at F/13 and another at F/11 so I could compare the 3. All my tests so far make me want to open up the F/16 either a half or full.
Thank you very much for the results of your tests.
Sunny 16 rule: Anna's Hummingbird
