Snowy – Root – Light

All three of these images are using the same principle to make the subject pop. I wrote about this a week ago (It’s All in the Light) and it has brought in a number of questions that I’d like to answer. The problem is, when you’re looking through the viewfinder, you see all the distracting stuff in the mangrove roots, aircraft hangar or barn but the camera doesn’t. Why is that? It’s a matter of light range, camera dynamic range and how your meter plays the game.

When our range of light we see in the viewfinder starts to get beyond five stop, the camera has two options, discard shadow detail or highlight detail. Today’s camera’s and their computers tend to protect highlights and let shadows go where they may in this scenario (yes, I am greatly generalizing to move the discussion along and basically explain how I look at this stuff). If you take a photo and look at your LCD with your Highlight Warning turned on, you will more then likely see it blinking like mad at you. When you want to capture that shadow and highlight detail in this scenario you use HDR. If you want to use it like I have here, I dial in -1 Exp Comp and shoot like a mad man. Why dial in minus exp comp? I want to push the shadows deeper into the shadows and at the same time, save some highlights. Will I save them all? Mostly likely not and I know that or I’d be shooting HDR. Do you need all those highlights? Look at these three examples and you be the judge.

What happens when the shadows aren’t beyond five stops? Look at the two photos below when the range of light is five stops and four stops. You’ll see more background creep into the photo. Nothing wrong with that and when we want to see information in the background to tell a story, you work hard to capture it. But when you’re looking for a little extra drama in an otherwise “common” shot, this is a simple yet effective trick to make some drama happen. One example of this is “highnoon” light, that hard light many tend to not shoot in. The Snowy Egret shot was taken in just such light except, the egret was in the shade and not direct sunlight. You can tell the P-51C is in direct light and I believe the marshall was as well but there is a Tri-Grip diffusing the light. At the bottom is another lame drawing to help describe the situation better. Afterwards I had a Duuh moment. I forgot to turn on the Moose Cam which really would have been much better. I hope this helps and permits you to take advantage of this simple yet effective photographic technique.