Judging Colour Temperature 2

This exercise is a continuation from the last exercise with some added extras firstly looking at the last images and seeing if there is any correction needed to the images, do we need to add any cooling or warming up of the images so as to take any blue or orange tinting out of the images. The second part is to take a new series of images still in one in sun light, one in the shade and one with the sun at a low point, but when we do, do the images take one with the white balance set as daylight then one set in the shade setting in the white balance and then the third one to be set as auto in the white balance so a total of nine images then we can compare which of the sets we feel make the image work.

So as I said the first part to look at the three images from the last exercise. The first image was taken in direct light with the white balance set to daylight.

So as we can see the image is in a lovely and bright colour and skin tones are as they should be making this image look just right for what it should look like. I think that trying to have any kind of tint be orange or blue would ruin the image from what it is at.

The second image was taken in the shade again with the setting in the white balance set to daylight as per the instruction for the exercise.So as we can see the image is ok but the problem with the image is that it looks like the colour is not quite right and it is with this image that I feel that it could do with some correction by adding a warmer colour to it so as to make the skin tones appear to be brighter.

 

This is the shade image which I decided to do a quick edit to see if what I said about the image would work and as you can see I think it is a very big improvement the image is brighter and the boy looks better to so warming the image up was the right way to go.

Now with the third image it was taken when the sun was setting at a beach and I really liked it the setting was set to daylight as instructed.

Now I feel that the way this image colour is, is the right way for this image as the feeling in it is right and adds feeling to it. I think that if you were to take the orange glow away from it then it will not feel the same or look as good and adding shade to the image would be wrong.

Now on to the second part of this exercise which is to take 9 images, I will start with the images that were done in direct sun light.

This image is in direct sunlight and white balance set at daylight setting.

This image is in direct sunlight but now the white balance is set to the shade setting.

And this image has the white balance set to automatic with direct sunlight.

While looking at these three images of the play farm in direct sunlight I found it quite hard to really see any difference between the automatic white balance and the daylight white balance setting. When you have both of the images of auto and daylight side by side you can see that the colours are just that little bit brighter and crisper in the daylight setting than that of the automatic setting. Whereas with the shade setting you can see that there is an orange tint to the walls of the play farm. So when it comes down to which is the better image I would have to say that the daylight setting is the best image out of this set as the colours are crisp and clear and the look is as it should be.

Now I did the same as the last set of images but instead of direct sunlight I found a nice shady spot to take the three different settings.

This image is in the shade with the camera set to daylight within the white balance.

Now this image is was taken with the white balance set to shade whilst in the shade.

This image has the white balance set to be automatic whilst the subject was in the shade.

Whilst I look at these three images I am thinking that they all are fine admittedly there is a slight orange hint to the shade setting and the daylight setting looks slightly darker than the others. There is one that fits well for what the image should look like and that is the image with the automatic white balance setting and I feel that this is because the automatic setting would have made its setting towards the shade setting but altered the value of the setting, which is something that I did not do to the settings as I wanted to keep the settings to be level. Now with all this in mind then, if I was to take the shot again then I would have to use the shade setting but because the image is too warm with the shade setting at base level then I can lower the value and therefore give the colour correction that the image would need.

Now I move on to the third set of images which have been done with the light at a low point in the sky (sunset), so the subject is in direct low level sunlight and again the images will be with the camera set to daylight, shade and automatic for the white balance but like before keeping all other settings the same all the way through the series of images.

So here we are with the first image of the set and it is with the camera white balance set to daylight nice long shadows and a slight tint of orange.

 

So my second image of the low sun with the camera white balance setting at shade.

Now for the final image in this set and exercise.

So as this is the last image of this exercise it leaves it to be the automatic white balance with the sun setting behind and to one side of the camera.

Whilst looking at what the images look like I am finding it hard to spot much of a difference between the daylight and automatic setting but find that both are very similar although the automatic setting just seems to be that little bit better than the daylight setting. The shade setting is just too much orange for this subject but given the right subject I feel that all types could work but for this one I would have to say that the automatic setting just wins.

I do feel that if you were to increase or lower the value of the white balance then you would be able to make all images look better when choosing the right white balance setting to use. I say this because we have only just looked at three different settings for white balance, my camera a Sony alpha series has nine different settings that are able to be used for all different light settings, from daylight, shade, automatic, fluorescent, incandescent, cloudy, flash and then there are just a couple of different custom modes. So I feel that if the lighting situation fits any of the above situations then by choosing that setting and adjusting the value higher or lower then we will always get the best image possible, there are also times where there is not time to adjust the white balance so this is when the automatic setting can come into play and help us out by doing its own adjustments to give us a reasonable image.

Judging colour temperature 1

This is a nice little exercise to start us off into the world of colour temperature. I have taken 3 images of my son at 2 different times but in 3 positions, 1 is in lovely sunlight with the sun at its highest in the sky, the second about 10 minutes later but this time in the shade of some trees, the third image was taken a bit later on as the sun was setting. All of these images were taken with the white balance set to daylight/sunlight setting.

Image 1 was set as I had said out in the open with the sun at its highest position and here is the image I got from it.

So as we can see the image is nice and bright as you can tell from my son the sun was very bright, the colours are looking fab and the clouds are a nice colour too.

I then got my boy to walk over and into the shade so instead of changing the white balance to shade I kept it on daylight and this is the image that came from it.

So the image has gone darker than what I thought it was there is also a blue shade in the skin colour and an overcast off the greens showing on the skin.

Now image 3 this was taken as the sun was setting and all the white balance settings still set to daylight and not sunset and it was a really nice sunset to enjoy watching it disappear.

This is the third image and as you can see there is a real nice warm glow in the image.  The skin tone has an orange glow to it which I feel  adds a great feeling to it.

Measuring Exposure

This exercise is to take up to five exposures of a subject one of them being measured as the best exposure for that shot then there should be an image that is one stop darker, half a stop darker, measured exposure, half a stop lighter and then one stop lighter. Once this is done to look at the images and decide whether the measured image is as you would expect it to be, what it is you wanted and then which if any of the other exposures are acceptable.
I thought that because of my last lot of assignments and exercises that I have done for this topic of light I will try and make sure that each exercise/ assignment has a topic to stick too.
So with this in mind for this first exercise I choose to use objects that are on display in homes, at least they are on display in my house.

1 stop darker.

Half stop darker.

Measured shot.

Half stop lighter.

1 stop lighter.

So after viewing the images for the stuffed toy lion I could see that the measured image is exactly as I expected it to be, the background showing some detail with the lion in perfect lighting. There are other images that I feel are usable but there is only the 1 image that I feel is the image that I wanted and would use and that is the image is the one that is 1 stop darker, I like that image because you cannot see the background very well the lion has a nice colour to it I also feel that if there was an orange hint top the light the background darkened down some more it could look like a sunset image on the lion. Because I was thinking about the image while writing the comments above I had to just go and do the image to how I wanted it to appear.

So after taking the one stop darker image I put it into Photoshop and then placed an orange filter over the image so as to give a more sunset look to the light and then took the brightness out of the background and increased the contrast to darken out the background.
Right now to carry on with the exercise.
So for my second set of images of things from around the home I came across one of the bookshelves around the house and this is what I came up with.

1 stop darker.

Half stop darker.

Measured shot.

Half stop lighter shot.

One stop lighter.

So with this set the measured shot is what I was hoping for the colours are right the light is right so exactly what you should expect from a measured shot. The only other shot that I would think about using is the half a stop darker image as this is very close to how I wanted the image to appear. I found that the lighter images are a little too light for there is a bit of light reflection on one of the books and it just ruins it as it burns out the colour the lighter the image goes.
I am now going to do some shots of cd storage that I have containing a few of my hundreds of cd’s that I have. I am kind of doing the same thing with the cd’s as I have done with the books but the light is different in the area I keep a lot of my cd’s so the look should be a little different.

One stop darker

Half a stop darker.

Measured shot.

Half a stop lighter.

One stop lighter image.
When going through the images of the cd’s I can see the measured shot is as it should be and is a nice enough shot but it is the half stop lighter image that I prefer. I find that the one stop lighter image is to light but with the half stop lighter image I find that the colour is very clear and bright adding that little bit more to it than what the measured image has.

Now that I have done a toy, books and compact discs I have now got to think what else I can take some images of so let’s go for some willow tree ornaments but which ones to choose?
Well let us see what ornaments that I have chosen for my next series of images.

One stop darker.

half a stop darker.

Measured shot.

Half a stop lighter.

One stop lighter image.
With this set of images I found that the measured shot is a nice shot as it is technically spot on for what I was after. What I was surprised about is that I there were other images that I found worked just as well such as the half stop darker and also the half stop lighter shot also worked. So out of the three images that I liked I found that if that if you needed the shot then you could use any of the three images.
Now for the final series of images trophies.

One stop darker image

Half a stop darker image.

Measured shot image.

Half a stop lighter image.

One stop lighter image.
With this final set of images I found that due to the light the measured shot was as it should be but I did not like it. After going through all of the images I find that it is the 1 stop lighter image that I do prefer out of the set as it has a nice amount of light to reflecting off the trophies making them look a lot more sparkling than the measured shot.

So after looking at all of the sets I can see that the measured image are not always the best image for what I could be looking for which means that sometimes it may be advisable to bracket the images so as to get the image required.

Art Exhibition at Salisbury Hospital

I have just entered into an art exhibition at my local main Hospital.

Using all of the parts of the course that I have done so far and looked at, I set out to give them something different from work I have previously entered into this open exhibition but I am pleased to say that out of the 2 pieces entered 1 was accepted into the exhibition so I can now say that in the last 3 years I have managed to have work entered into the open exhibition.

So very happy with that.

A quick think about light.

What do I know about light?

With this topic on light i am not sure what i should expect to do after the topic of colour so we will see how it goes. What I think that I know about light is that we need light in photography to help make the image with out it we would have a just a plain photo paper or a black digital image. I know that we can take pictures in low level light too by adjusting the settings on the camera, we could adjust the shutter speed, the aperture and or change the ISO to a higher speed. (ISO measures the light sensitivity of the cameras sensor). I always try to use an ISO of 100 as this is seen as the norm, sometimes however because the light is not as bright being indoors or somewhere else that is shaded then i will increase the ISO but i don’t like going to high as the higher the number then the more noise you see in the image (the colours are not as smooth). So I try and keep the ISO below 800, the camera I have has an ISO of 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200, 6400, 12800. I do have to admit that i do like working in low light levels because it is more of a challenge to get the image that you want, by playing with the settings that it is how we learn to get the shots that we want.

I know that there are different forms of light for instance there is natural light such as the sun light. There is artificial light, this is man made light such as fluorescent light tubes and incandescent light bulbs. these artificial lights are found in the way of street lights, house lights, studio lights and lights used in a lot of business place’s. Daylight can vary to in the way in which the amount of light we see, if it is a cloudy day we don’t have as much light as we would on a clear day, if it is clear or cloudy the light can still vary from where you take your image as in if you are out in the open you would have more light than if you are the shadow of a building or under some trees, these are all factors to bare in mind about the light.

So as I am finding there is a lot to this topic in what is involved about light. After reading the first part of this topic i am glad to to see that i am heading in the right direction and that i am putting more of my thoughts down on this log, I hope it continues. I was surprised to read that when the sun reaches 40 Degrees in the sky from the horizon it is at its brightest till it goes back past that angle when setting.

I have also had a look at my camera to see what metering modes I have on it and found that I have a Multi segment mode which is like matrix or smart predictive modes on other cameras, I also have centre weighted and spot metering. with multi segment it takes light readings from different areas of the view and tries to give a balance of light to the light and dark areas in the view. With spot metering it focuses on the light in the spot, with centre weighted it is very close to that of multi segment metering.