Scene Dynamic Range

As previous exercise I am waiting for some sunshine this could be a long wait! Well the weather has improved slightly and I decided to take a trip to whitstable somewhere I can normally get at least a few photographs, I must admit it was one of the coldest days I have ever been there but I managed to get a few shots and a warming hot chocolate along the way.

Of all the photographs I took I finally decided to use just one this is my choice for having a fairly flat image or low dynamic range

The whole scene metered at F13 I took the photograph then spot metered the bright cloud at F16 and the shadow area by the groynes at F9 this only makes 5 stops including 1/3 stops.  I was hoping to get some further shots of Whistable but once again the weather didn't want to be kind to me and I realised after about 3 and a half hours that it would not get any better and that would be it for the day.

Well the weather is finally starting to be a bit kinder and I have managed to get a few more photographs

This one was taken early in the morning on my way to work the sun was just starting to come up the main part metered F11 with the brightest part metering at F40 and the darkest at 6.3 this really did show a very high dynamic range of 16 stops including 1/3 stops this was also using my lens at 200mm if I kept it at 18mm it would not have been possible to get these figures.

A chance morning call to my mum lead to the next two photographs and also one for the white balance exercise, she mentioned that the fox had been walking through her garden this morning and also about the light in her garden after telling her to put the kettle on I grabbed my camera and went to see her, luckily she only lives a few minutes from me, the fox had gone but the light was beautiful.

The scene above metered F16 @ 1/40's this was quite interesting as I metered this on manual by adjusting the f stop and shutter speed until the camera showed the exposure to be correct I think it looks a bit bright although the histogram was fine, I have adjusted the clarity very slightly in raw but other than that no other adjustments have been made. The bright area of the bird bath metered at F40 and the darkest shadow area metered at F6.3 so as with the photograph above I got a wide dynamic range.

The next photograph was taken walking back down the garden, I must admit this one is not one of my favourites but I have included it as I feel I really need to push on with the course now. The dynamic range of this photograph is between  F6.3 and F32 is 14 stops again this includes 1/3 stops.

There is one final photograph to take for this section and I am hoping I might get a half decent sunset or maybe just an early evening sky would be nice.

No sunset or early evening sky for me unfortunately but I did photograph this beautiful statue,

 There was not a huge dynamic range to this photograph with the average reading of the scene being F16  the brightest part F22 and the darkest part F13 giving a dynamic range of 6 stops including thirds of stops. I was quite surprised by the metering of this scene as I had expected it to be more I thought the shadow area would be a lot darker than it was.

I am glad I have finally finished this exercise not because I found it difficult to understand but because it took so long to get the best conditions available to me at the time, even leaving this one to one side and carrying on with the white balance exercise I still knew it had to be done and found it frustrating.