Exercise 34 Cloudy Weather and Rain

There are three section of this exercise.

1) Take 4-6 photographs of the same view in sunlight and under cloud

It is rare to have bright sunny day that is stable in England. So I will start with this one near Blackfaire station. F/4 at 1/1600s.

As soon as the cloud comes, the exposure time drops to 1/500s, also at f/4

The weather condition is not getting particularly better as the day progress. Now we are at 1/320s at f/4. 

Question: so does the cloudy shot looks more "blue" as the assignment suggested? Only slightly, and somehow it is hard to make a good judgement with naked eye. One can argue that the building in the photo in the middle does look slightly cooler than the first one, and the third one is cooler than the second one. But only slightly.

To make my point clearer. Here is St Paul shot across the river. The first one was shot in the morning, and the second one is shot at the evening. If I only use naked eye to judge, somehow the second one looks warmer. Why? The angle of the sun shinning through the building lights up both the Millennium bridge and five a less dark grey colour. I think this exercise doesn't work as well, unless all other external condition is fixed.  

Anyway, move on. The exercise suggests that we find two images in our library that is taken in cloudy day and it won't be better if it is taken on a sunny day. 

Well, this is difficult, given that I am a manic who like to shoot in the bright sunny day. To make it worse, I shoot into the sun. There are exception. I think no one will recommend doing a portraiture under harsh sunlight (well, well, we saw it in Saatchi gallery in the last study day). For example this:

I have never done food photography properly. This is not cloudy day, but indoor shot. I think sometime people use sun to create some atmosphere. But for this shot, I prefer not to have some sort of bright sunlight because my main subject is food, not atmosphere. 

I need to cook more often. Eating out too often just make me fat.

Now to the second part of the exercise.


2) Take three photographs outdoor on an overcast day. Look for the type of subject with strong colour and another one with strong detail.

How about that "every little helps" store? Very strong colour that you can see a mile off.

Actually, I prefer colour under bright day light, but with this type of orange, it doesn't look as dull in an overcast day.

Here is some structure with more details.

And do we count rain drop as part of the details?

3) Take two photographs in the rain

I don't think this is exactly an inspiration. When I miss my train, I usually wonder around the station and take photographs. Guess what, I shoot in the rain often due to total boredom. 

Yeah. I am almost done with the exercise in part 4. Maybe I should start worrying about the assignment now. 

Exercise 28: Measuring Exposure. Part II

There are two parts to this exercise. The first part requires me to take 4-6 photographs which are deliberately under or over-exposed, and analyze why it is a good choice. The second part requires me to select 5-6 subjects, and mark 5 exposures (light and darker) at each one, and select one that I prefer.

Believe it or not, the first part is actually more difficult than any other exercise in this section. I am not too sure about what is "underexposed" or "overexposed" means technically. If the question is whether or not I use the built-in light meter inside my camera, and anything that light meter indicates as "underexposed" means underexposed, then I will get different answer on the same setting with different metering type. Personally I use spot metering most of the time, and most of the images I took is not "correctly" exposed based on the light meter, given that the mid point is usually not at the centre.

Anyway, I did the second part first.

First screen, the subway. If I care about the detail on the stairs, I prefer the fourth one. Otherwise, the second one has better atmosphere(ie no one pays to keep the subway so well-lit).

Second screen, the river bank. I prefer the second one.

The third screen, sunset. I prefer the last one. However, one can argue that the third one gives a better balance on sun and the cloud.

Fourth screen, still sunset, but I changed location. The first one and the second one works for me. Somehow the sun is the main subject here. In the later shot when the exposure is higher, it lost the details of the sun, but not providing enough details on the pier.

Fifth screen, the street lamp. I prefer the third one. However, I have to admit that the difference between all of them are not that big (ie there is no lost of details on the subject). It is really depends on the atmosphere you want to get.

So after 25 boring images, what is the conclusion? I have to admit that I like slightly underexposed images. However, I don't think by differing by 2/3 of stop will be the end of the world. The resulting image will be different, but not horrible. I have to say that this is at odd with the concept of "exposing to the right" in digitals, and "exposure the shadow and the highlight will take care of itself" in film. Sometime I feel totally technical advise ignores the effect one might want to create. Of course, that goes the same with the whitebalance. Has anybody thought of setting an "incorrect" whitebalace just to make the screen look more yellow (tungsten)? Would that give sort of an old age atmosphere? If we are manage to pre-visualize what will come out at the end, does it matter if we have the "correct" exposure and whitebalance. 

Just a thought, I am sure someone will beat me up for that one day.

Exercise 35 Tungsten and Fluorescent Lighting

There are two parts in this exercise. First of all, I need to find a place indoor that is lit by tungsten lamp with window, so that the exterior at dust is visible. I have to wait until the light level inside and outside are approximately equal, then I will take three photographs with white balance setting  of: auto, daylight, and tungsten.

I have to admit that this is such a weird exercise. I guess the final point is to say if you mix light source, you will never get the white balance right. Composition wise this is a weird one. I can't find anywhere near my windows that looks interesting, so I decide to just go for anything. The main difficulty is, actually the light level at my place is very dim. I have to wait forever to get the light level about right. To be honest, I still think it is slightly dimmer indoor.

This is from auto whitebalance. Notice that the vase is supposed to be white but it is not. The fence colour looks fine.

How about Tungsten whitebalance? Well, the vase looks white, but the fence is slightly on the blue side. 

Using daylight whitebalance, the fence will get closer to its original colour, but not the vase. Notice that this is very similar to the result we got using auto whitebalance.

The second part of the exercise, I have to find two different indoor places that is lit by fluorescent lamps and by CFL lamps, and take 2-3 exposures at each location with white balance set to auto, and fluorescent. 

The easiest way to find fluorescent lighting is in the office. This is my messy desk with stuff flying all over the place. In order not the add more lighting sources, I turned off the LCD monitor. Here is the one with fluorescent whitebalance.

This is with auto whitebalance.

If the desk is not a good reference, the paper on the left hand side is supposed to be white. Auto whitebalance gives very slightly yellow, but only very slightly. However, somehow I feel the auto whitebalance is more realistic to me. 

Now for the CFT. I have those light blub (or light tube) in my home. Again for easy reference, I am photographing something white.

This is the one with auto whitebalance.

This is with fluorescent whitebalance. So weird...

 I have to admit that it is much easier in the film world that there is indoor and outdoor film, but not seven different settings for all sort of whitebalances. Did we gain from the technology? Yes. Because now we have more tools in the toolbox to attack a problem. However, what we seem to have lost the tolerance for anything less than "perfect". Was the vase so white when I look at it? Sometime I feel that the "correct" whitebalance gives me a slightly surreal screen. 

Exercise 30: Judging Colour Temperature

In this exercise, I have to take three photographs of the same subject that does not have a strong colour, and can be moved around. I need to photograph this subject under direct sunlight during middle of the day, under shade and when the sun is close to the horizon. The whitebalance of these set of shot has to be set to "daylight".

When we calibrate white balance, we use a grey card. I suppose this is easier to spot colour shift due to the temperature on incoming light source if you use an object with neutral colour. I am using a white vase here. So we can easily spot if the colour temperature if the vase is anywhere less than white.

This is in the shade.

This is taken around 3pm.

This is taken close to sunset.

This is taken at noon. 

The difference is very small but noticeable. The white is spot on for the one taken on the midday and shade. However, when the sun is closer to the horizon, the colour looks slightly warm (orange). The closer the sun is to the horizon, the bigger the variation it is. This is a little bit surprising to see the white at shade looks better (colour wise) is better than sun closer to the horizon. I think this is something to bare in mind that I may need to manually calibrate white balance more often that I thought. 

Tutor Report for Assignment 3

I actually got this back from Matthew a while ago. I never get a chance to reflect on this, given I was too busy with the Still Moving project. I called OCA office and requested for a change of tutor couple weeks ago. I think I should write a post to reflect on Matthew's comment before beginning any new work with my new tutor. 

This is indeed the hardest assignment so far. I don't consider it to be the hardest in a photographic angle. I finished my first attempt of the assignment way ahead of deadline, while the re-shoot take longer because I was a the mercy of the weather condition. The hard part comes with the question, "so do I master the use of colour?"

I don't think so. If I walk on the street mindlessly, the things that draw my attention is still not going to be colour. I think it is very difficult to think that I really "get it" in this session any more than I should mix some red and green if I want to make a complementary colour. I think Matthew sees it as well, as he said,

"The first set of images shot in daylight appear to be a little contrived in the sense that they do not communicate a sense that you are photographing what interests you."

In order to meet the assignment's requirement, it is hard to start with an angle that it is something that really interested me. In the reshoot, "The Churches in the City", I did start with something that interested me, but the downside is it doesn't meet the colour combination requirement that well. 

In the technical side, Matthew mentioned that I should use a neutral density filter to balance the exposure between the sky and land. Believe it or not, I did use it in post processing in lightroom, but I guess I didn't make it strong enough. It is very hard to photograph land and sky at the same time with sky overblown. With digital I can see the effect in the histogram, but when I use film it is not possible. Given that I also shoot film, this should be something I have in mind. 

Compositionally, I have to be more carefully about things overlapping each other. For example, this one:

Matthew said that the two pillars is dominating the image. I think he is correct about it. If I have to re-compose this image, I will have the two pillars behind me. The reason why I include them, is they have colour yellow and it satisfies the requirement of this assignment. Apart from that, it may not be the best to have it in the image.

Also, in this image, the tree looks as if it is growing out from the post box. This is something that I didn't pay attention of. I should be more careful next time.

Unfortunately I don't have plan to reshoot the faulty images. Given that I have reshoot the whole assignment (in The Churches in the City), and the deadline of assignment 4 is approaching, I'd better to keep moving before I side-track .

Exercise 40 Concentrating Light

In this exercise, I will roll a tube using a think black paper and put it in front of the flash to concentrate the light source. 


This item is call a snoot, and it cost a bloody £45 in the Flash centre. The idea of rolling a think black paper and put it in front of the flash head is so appealing, since it cost less than £2 to get a big piece of black paper. If it is so easy, why the Flash centre is asking 20 times over for something that basically serves the same purpose?

The risk of fire spooks me out. Yes, there is home insurance, but the idea of the house burns down and I have to save again for deposit scares me. 


I think I start running out of interesting thing to photograph.

I think a snoop will be a good tool to create a slightly underexposed screen and use the concentrated beam to highlight the sentimental object. It works for flat object. But less well for 3D object, because light only illuminate a very small chunk of the object. Not sure how I can make use of it in assignment 4 yet.