Tulips, contrast and shadows

click photo to enlarge

My DSLR, a Canon 5DMk2, is set to record images in the RAW format. I do this to give me the greatest flexibility when it comes to processing my photographs and to allow me a better chance of recovering from a poor exposure. My compact camera, a Panasonic Lumix LX3, despite the fact that it can record in RAW, is always set to the best quality JPEG because I take more snapshots with it. Despite that, it has produced some images that bear comparison with any done by my more capable camera (see here, here, here and here for example, or see them all here). I know that if I shot exclusively in JPEG on both cameras my shots wouldn't be enormously poorer for it, but I would find that I couldn't achieve the quality that I required from some exposures because of the restricted ability to post process this format.

In my pre-digital days I never did any post processing of colour negative or colour reversal film, though I did develop slides. I did use a range of filters on my lenses which is processing of sorts. However, with black and white I certainly experimented with chemicals, developing times, and with dodging and burning under the enlarger. I was always fond of fairly contrasty black and white images, and slides tended to have that quality anyway, so deep blacks against strong whites featured in quite a few of my prints. Nowadays I tend to favour the greater dynamic range  and more natural contrast that is possible with digital, though every now and again I like to take a left turn and produce a very contrasty image with deepened shadows.

Today's offering is a case in point. These dark red tulips grow in the shade of a crab apple tree in my garden, and I caught them on a still, cloudy evening, just as the light was starting to tail off. The unprocessed shot is reasonably well exposed with quite a good range of tones. What prompted me to increase the contrast was the dark, shadowy background in the top half of the shot. The red petals were positively glowing against this, and I thought it was an effect that I'd like to enhance across the whole frame. So, with a tweak of the Tone Curve and a few other fiddles here and there I produced this contrasty shot. I quite like it, but it may be a step too far for some

Addendum:
The sale of Instagram for $1 billion brought to my attention something that hitherto I didn't know, namely that people who take photographs on cameras increasingly apply pre-determined effects to their pictures. This has happened for many years in the world of digital photography where the result has been to make photographs look increasingly similar. Apparently that is happening with camera phones too as the mass application of the most popular effects reduces the difference between individual images. I'm not against photographic manipulation, but I do think that doing it yourself by consciously adjusting the basic parameters is more likely to retain any individuality your shot had, whereas applying a ready-made effect inevitably puts it alongside all the others that have had the same done to them.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm macro
F No: f2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/160 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Threshing machines, balers and photo processing

click photo to enlarge

Today's photograph is taken at the other side of the threshing machine that features in yesterday's shot. You can see the smoke from the traction engine's funnel rising above the trailer of wheat that is being forked into the thresher. The green traction engine visible on the other side of the baler is powering a large wood saw. On the side of the baler someone has painted the date, 1946. I'm informed that the threshing machine and the baler are both of the same date, having been bought by the same person at the same time. I'd imagined, given the wooden spoked wheels of the thresher and the pneumatic tyres of the baler, that the threshing machine was older, but apparently that's not the case. Incidentally, the baler's plate says, "The Powell Baling Press" and the maker's name, "Powell and Co, St Helens".

After I posted yesterday's photograph I received an email from someone asking how I'd achieved the painterly effect of the image. He wondered if I'd applied a proprietary Photoshop action or somesuch. In fact, I simply did what I sometimes do with shots where I want this effect: I underexposed the original shot, Recovered the blown highlights, applied the Shadows and Highlights slider, then increased the Contrast. I then tweaked the final image with a little selective Dodging and Burning. The final result isn't too far away from what the camera captured, but the alteration of the balance of light and dark does give the shot something of the quality of a painting.

There are those who don't like this sort of thing, feeling that photography is about recording and that means accepting what the camera produces. My view is that using a camera for making records is fine, but the device is mainly about making pictures, and the dumb machine can rarely do that unaided. Firstly, it does not record what you saw: if you want a better record you have to process the camera's output to make it more closely approximate to what your eye/brain "sees". Secondly, a picture (as opposed to a record shot) usually requires pre- and post-exposure input to emphasise the qualities that the photographer needs to achieve his conception. In the past this involved lens, film, speed, and aperture selection before the shot and various printing processes afterwards - paper choice, dodging, burning, chemical choice etc. Very few of the significant photographers in the history of the craft/art made no use of such things and many chose their printers by name and instructed them specifically about how they wanted the print to look. That process, using a sensor and computer/printer continues today.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 32mm
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The poor man's Photoshop No.2

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Four years ago* I posted a piece entitled "The poor man's Photoshop". That particular post has always been one that receives a lot of hits, with the visitor invariably arriving through a search engine query. However, most of the people who alight on my page that describes a shot of a book cover taken through "Flemish" frosted glass quickly move on. They've clearly been looking for a cheap or no-cost alternative to Photoshop, the heavyweight photo-processing software of choice of enthusiast and professional photographers. Some stay and look at the image and read the text on my page, but mostly they don't. I suppose I ought to add to the page a link to GIMPshop, a version of GIMP (Gnu Image Manipulation Program) that has been modified by the addition of a Photoshop-like interface. Or perhaps anyone searching for a cheap digital image editing program would benefit from knowing about Gizmo's Freeware, and particularly his page describing and linking to a selection of such programmes - Best Free Digital Image Editor. However, it's not my practice to amend an entry after I've posted it, so today I'm doing the next best thing by giving this post the same title (except designating it number 2), and featuring those useful sources. I hope this proves helpful to someone.

In fact, the subject of today's photograph warrants the title I've given it anyway. It shows me with the LX3 reflected in the textured glass of a door. Outside it is raining, and the door is giving a distorted reflection of not only me, but also the door and room behind. I liked the indistinct nature of this image and the way the colours of my clothes made the feather-like designs in the glass appear as though they formed part of my shape. It certainly has something of the feel of the sort of Photoshoppery that I don't indulge in but that many like, though in this instance there has been no computer manipulation at all.

* The opening sentence of this piece brought me up with a start. Have I really been posting images and rambling on for so long? It's maybe time for a change.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 5.1mm (24mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f2
Shutter Speed: 1/30
ISO: 400
Exposure Compensation: -0.66EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Blood red tulips

click photo to enlarge
I've photographed more tulips this year than ever before. Perhaps it's been a good year for tulips. Maybe I've got an increased liking for the flower. Or is that they best satisfy my spring lust for the deep, glowing colours that have been absent over the winter months? Whatever the reason, I've processed 14 photographs of tulips out of the c.50 shots that I've taken. For me that's a very high conversion rate.

I reckon that I process about 10-20% of my RAW images. I discard about 50% of what I shoot, and I keep the RAW files of the other 30-40% in the unprocessed state because I judge them to be good enough to keep "just in case". I don't know how this compares with other amateur photographers. I've always imagined that I take fewer images and convert more than the average snapper, but that's just a feeling, and isn't based on an objective survey.

This is another of the images from the churchyard at Long Sutton in Lincolnshire. A cluster of red tulips had been planted adjacent to some white ones. I positioned myself so that I was shooting into the sun and could capture the lovely effect of the light coming though those blood red petals. I left a band of the white ones along the top of the frame to add contrast and to intensify the colour of the blooms below.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 19mm (150mm/300mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/250 seconds
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On