I have also being doing some research on photographers whilst I am waiting for the weather to improve and whilst reading 'Professional Photographer' magazine I cam across an article on the photographer Rankin, my thoughts on this article and some of his work are under Photographers I am interested in.
I have been reading The Digital SLR Handbook in particular the article on Dynamic range, and I noticed that it explains how to check your cameras dynamic range using a grey card as this is something I do have I will attempt to use this to check the range of my camera, having read this article I can now understand a bit more how to measure the dynamic range of my camera and I think this way will be more effective for me to look at.
Well the weather is still against me its got worse if anything I had a very small window to try and take the photographs I required for this exercise and although I am not completely happy with them its got to the stage that I am concerned I will start to lose the momentum if I don't get back into it very soon.
The first photograph measured F10 1/400's with the brightest spot measuring between 245 and 249 on the three channels. The shadows were a bit more difficult and I could only get them to measure between 16 and 33 I would have liked to have got this a bit closer to five. I measured the shadow at the top of the door as it was the closest I could get to what I wanted.
The second photograph I spot metered the white at F16 1/1000's and the highest measurement I could get this time was all three channels measuring 225.
The third photograph had no shadow detail left as the sun had gone in and I had lost the small window again, I then tried to do the other exercise I mention on here but again I couldn't get the two extremes correct. I guess I will have to try again if we ever get any decent weather.!
Well the weather has improved a little bit and I have managed to have another go at this exercise I can't say I am still completely happy with results as it makes my cameras dynamic range about 8 but having done this exercise in the past on a sunny day using the grey card method I know my camera's range is 10.
Here is my second attempt below;-
This first photograph was average metered to F10 1/400's there was a tiny amount of highlight clipping to the white board but so small an amount it was negligible.
The second photograph was done by spot metering this measured F16 1/1000's with the white measuring R250 G 251 B 252
I had used my zoom on this to concentrate just on the white area.
The third photograph was again spot metered to F6.3 1/100's in the shadow area again I used my zoom lens to concentrate just on the shadow area, this photograph I am not really happy with as I think I should have kept the door closed a bit further as it is difficult to see too much shadow area.
Overall I am still not completely please with this exercise but as I understand the principles I feel I need to move on with the other exercises rather than keep hoping that the good old British weather is going to help me out.
