Exercise: Histogram

Outline: Increase your familiarity with histograms by relating each one to the image you have shot. Take and image of a low contrast scene, one of a mid contrast scene and one of a high contrast scene and for each one, take another two images varying the exposure. Write a short note for each image and histogram combination explaining how they relate.

I will hold my hands up on this exercise and say I messed it up pretty much from the start. I had set my camera setting, unknowingly, to shoot RAW, but not with the jpeg image aswell and then due to a distraction I only took images of each contrast on the level exposure setting. Seeming as I have been confused about histograms up until now, I really wanted to get a good grip with this exercise and thought, due to my mistake, that I would be worse off. BUT....

I actually understand them now.

I tried to set up my canon 1000D to show the histogram at the time but for some reason, it wont actually show it (I'm also having the same trouble with the live LCD shooting!). I uploaded all the images to elements organizer and as I have shot them all in RAW, I have the exposure slider as well. So with a lot of fiddling about, not only can I see and record the effects by altering the exposure slider, I have also really understood the theory behind the histogram.

As for the exercise:

This image of a garden playhouse shows very low contrast. The values for this image, as shown in the histogram are all bunched up in the centre of the column graph. This confirms the lack of shadow and depth, creating a flat image.

The over exposed image shows how the bunched up values moves across to the right..... 

...and the underexposed image shows the values move across to the left. 

As there are no shadows or bright areas in these images, the shadow and highlight warnings have not shown here with any areas of concern.

The above image has a medium contrast. The shadow warning has picked up the dark areas between the leaves on the bushes, indicating the shadow as being the darkest level that the camera can manage, with it already showing as black and cannot appear to be any darker.

In the over exposed image, the histogram shows the values heading more to the right side of the graph (white). The highlight clipping (the red area) shows us that the colour has been lost here as the brightness level is too high for the camera to record any data, and the area will appear as white.

This street scene on a cloudy day has a high contrast, with areas of bright reflection and also some shadow. The histogram shows the values really spread out, right up to the edges of the graph on both sides. 

Highlight clipping has indicted a few small areas where the brightness is too high, but this can be amended by altering the exposure f-stop.

 The over exposed image shows that most of the light coloured surfaces have now been affected by the highlight clipping, showing any colour that was actually visible in these ares has now been completely burnt out and made to look white.

The underexposed image is the better of the three here. The histogram is a lot more leveled out and the highlight clipping has disappeared because now there is enough darkness in the image to show some colour. 












Conclusion:  I have a much better knowledge of histograms and shadow and highlight warnings from this exercise. The final image of this exercise shows exactly what the highlight clipping does and how it warns you that vital image detail can be lost due to incorrect exposure. And that the histogram is actually a great tool to have ( if it actually can be used on the camera) to assist in creating the ideal exposure at the time of shooting. 

Exercise: Your own workflow 2

Outline: As before, devise a workflow for a specific shooting assignment however this time the shoot will be unlimited and unstructured. Make notes afterwards.






So this exercise has the same approach as the previous one, except for the fact that this shoot is not to be timed in anyway. There is no official 'backdrop' or model and the final image cannot be be foreseen. Whether shooting a holiday or a music festival, it's the memories, place or performance that you will be trying to capture and obviously you have no timescale of when during that 'event' that moment will be.



Workflow:

• Prepare equipment - ensure battery is full and memory card has sufficient space.
• Shooting - as and when the situation arises. Camera settings are adjusted at the time of shooting each individual photograph. There is an open-ended time scale for shooting depending on how long the 'event' takes place. Photos are taken to document a moment, place or person as opposed to a set time scale with a specific visual outcome.
• On the spot development and technical checks to delete obvious mistakes
• Number of photographs is continuous.
• Upload images to hardware.
• 'Official' technical check.
• Select images for processing.
• Processing.
• Label and rename.
• Save to external hard drive.
• Print final image(s).

Conclusion:

This exercise was definitely different from the previous one. I found that even though I initially thought there wouldn't be a specific visual outcome, which overall there is not, I had certain visual outcomes depending on what I was shooting and so I took a variety of the same image to try to capture that outcome. For example, if an artist was performing and constantly moving, I took quite a few photos in the hope that one would come out exactly as I imagined.  The volume of photographs taken was almost three times that of the timed shoot. There was a lot more work on the selection process due to the high volume of images and I found it really difficult to narrow down to my final selection. I felt that I needed to show the 'best bits' of the festival but there were so many best bits I still had a handful of images that I wanted to use. I found that I didn't actually use much on the spot development as I had initially thought I would've. This meant that the volume of 'mistakes' during the technical check was larger than I had expected. Other than that, the workflow was pretty much accurate.

Exercise: Your own workflow 1

Outline: Devise and then put into practice a workflow that personally suits you for a portrait session that is limited in time. Make notes of your experience.






When I first read about devising my own shoot, I already had an idea in mind. I have always wanted to do a portrait shoot in front of a graffiti wall, I have no idea why. So I took this opportunity to actually put that into practice. As this exercise is only to create the workflow and to explain and make notes on how effective it was when actually undertaking the shoot, I will use the photos from this shoot in another exercise is this course.

There is a 'gallery' of graffitti at our local recreation centre and wanted to use this is my location. A friend stepped in as my model.
Ahead of time I am already aware that this will be a time limited shoot. I have an idea in my head of the type of images I would like to capture and this exercise, although time limited, will have a set amount of photographs doing the poses that I have already decided. On the spot development will help me to  determine when sufficient shots have been taken by reviewing images on the camera at the session. As I have visualized the shots I would like, the session will end when I feel these have been captured.


Workflow:

• Prepare camera and equipment - ensure that the memory card has sufficient space and that the camera battery is full. Also, gather other equipment to take to the location, such as a tripod, flash gun and a selection of lenses.
• Arrive at location and judge lighting conditions etc. Adjust camera settings accordingly.
• Time limited shoot - use on the spot development to get the right 'look' by reviewing images on the camera screen.
• Upload images from camera to 'elements organizer'.
• Technical check to delete any images with immediate faults.
• Select images for processing.
• Process final selected image(s).
• Label/rename images.
• Save to external hard drive.
• Print final image(s).

Conclusion:

This exercise was really good. I enjoyed putting the workflow together beforehand and seeing how the workflow actually fit in with the process on shoot day. I think my workflow was pretty spot on to the actual physical exercise. I decided on the day to shoot against two different backdrops which I hadn't really accounted for at the time of producing the workflow but I found the second backdrop looked better in the shots, as noticed during on the spot development.

The exercise did open my eyes as to what you actually do pre and post shoot though. Even though it's pretty much the norm that the above points are undertaken when shooting any type of photographs, however you don't really acknowledge each individual step until you write it all out like this. I was very happy that my workflow was pretty accurate and that I didn't seem to stray from it, with the exception of changing the immediate backdrop halfway through.

New Blog!

Here I am. Fresh out of 'The art of photography' OCA  course and straight into 'Digital Photographic Practice'.
I am about to submit my previous completed course for formal assessment and so rather nervous about that, but am happy that I am now able to start this new course as my course material arrived this morning.
After having a flick through the material, I am looking forward to starting it and excited to see how I progress through it. I am excited to learn about the presentation and editing side of photography after learning all about the composition of photography in the previous course.

I originally started a whole new blog with a different web host but I found it even more difficult than this one and decided to return and stick to what I know.

Hopefully my next post will be my first exercise details, unless I have anything to say beforehand.

Until then :)