Snow (25)

Requirement

Images showing different lighting conditions 

Purpose

To practice adjusting exposure and exploring contrast in snow conditions

Technical learning

• As with beaches, snow scenes are at the extreme end of brightness

As a result, 4 key features

• Shadow fill: powerful fill-in of shadows by reflected light 
• Backgrounds: bright backgrounds so that many of the issues arising when shooting into sunlight, or bright reflected sunlit scenes, apply (see Project 20)
• Contrast: varies between low in overcast, twilight conditions and high in direct sunlight
• Exposure: needs, typically a +1 or +2 stop compensation, for the averaging around neutral grey of reflected light meters, else snow will be rendered a muddy grey colour

Exercise instructions

• Take the opportunity of fresh snowfall and good weather to shoot as many treatments as possible of snow scenes.

Images and review

Fog

Overcast

Partly cloudy

Bright light

Clouds and sky (24)

Requirement

6 to 12 images

Purpose

• To explore the role that sky and clouds can play in composition
• To practice managing exposure in different light conditions

Technical learning

In summary, clouds:

• are the most visible component of weather
• are significant in defining landscape mood 
• are the most important element in creating the quality of daylight
• come in several types (nimbus, cumulus, etc) and even more permutations
• present a challenge to the dynamic range of the camera sensor

Working beyond the limits of your camera's dynamic range - measures

• RAW: shoot RAW, expose for the sky, lighten the land in post-production
• Bracketing: take reflected light readings of highlights and shadows separately, bracket images across the gap in exposure between the two, blend in post-production in PS or a HDR application 
• ND Grad Filter: as with meter readings for bracketing, but use then use a ND Grad Filter of sufficient strength to compress brightness of sky and land. (0.3 = 1 stop, 0.6 = 2 stops, etc)

Crude reckoner of exposure change between cloud conditions (NB not between land  and sky in those conditions)

• Heavily overcast - baseline
• Moderately overcast - + 1 stop
• Cloudy, but bright - + 2 stops
• Thin, high cloud - + 2.5 stops
• Heavy haze - + 3 stops
• Clear sky - + 4 stops

Overcast conditions (i.e. the sun is not visible)

• On the one hand, soft light produces generally shadowless scenes (except where one object casts a shadow on a close neighbour) and so drains the landscape of 'expression'. It reduces modelling of shapes, perspective and texture so making the image look flat.
• On the other hand, soft light has 2 important uses: (a) it can clarify the detail of complex subjects, otherwise masked by shadows thrown in brighter conditions, and (b) it enables reflective surfaces to produce clearer images (i.e. without the specular highlights and glare from the sun).
• Nevertheless, overcast conditions increase the contrast of tones between sky and land (compared to clear skies, the brightness of the sky falls less than that of the land). Consequently, subject to the dynamic range of your camera, if the land is exposed correctly, the sky will be burnt-out. 

Broken cloud

• Often creates interesting, even dramatic lighting, especially when the weather is changing
• Most unpredictable environment, however, particularly when (a) the sky has different layers or types of clouds, (b) conditions are windy and (c) when weather fronts collide
• Must be prepared to react quickly to changing conditions

Clear skies

• See Project 20 for the discussion of sun stars, silhouettes and reflections

Exercise instructions

• Create 6 to 12 images in which the sky dominates with different cloud conditions
• Ensure each image also works as a landscape image

Images and review

Stormbringer

Kilchberg, CH, 2010

Sun Ray

Kilchberg, CH, 2010

Fireball

Bushy Park, 2012

Meteor Cloud

Egetswil, CH, 2010

Vapour Trails

Chertsey Lock, River Thames

Deep Blue

Army Camp, Salisbury Plain, 2012

Soft light (23)

Requirement

3 images

Purpose

To show how to use overcast conditions to best effect

Technical learning

• Overcast skies soften the light falling on landscapes
• Soft light favours particularly (a) rendering the colour green and (b) highlighting details that glare would otherwise suppress (e.g. detail in branches)
• Typically, overcast skies are featureless, so consider (a) eliminating most of it by composition and/or (b) using a ND grad filter to darken.

Exercise instructions

• Produce 3 strong images in overcast conditions

Images and review

Devon Greens

View near Honiton
Overcast summer's day

Wiltshire Greens

View near Widdington
Overcast conditions reduce contrast

Poppy field

Soft light brings out the detail
of the flower and stalks

Positioning the sun (22)

Requirement

3/4 images

Purpose

Show how to shoot into the sun whilst keeping an acceptable level of detail in the rest of image.

Technical learning

Keeping some detail in a scene backlit by the sun can be achieved by:

• Using a barrier, such as foliage, to shield the impact of the sun (adjusting viewpoint, up or down, side to side) to reduce its darkening effect on the rest of the image, and 
• Placing the sun towards the edge of the frame with the area of greatest foreground interest on the other side.

Exercise instructions

• Use a wide angle lens
• Keep the sun to one side of the frame with the scene on the other side
• Move the camera up and down and side to side to adjust the brightness of the sun
• Take 3/4 shots with the sun obscured by different amounts

Images and review

Back garden on a sunny evening, September 2012

Well defined star
Fish eye lens (15mm), smallest aperture (f22)

Poorly defined star
Fish eye lens (15mm), widest aperture (f2.8)

Best defined sun star
Wide angle (28mm), smallest aperture (f22)

Poorly defined star
Wide angle lens (28mm), widest aperture (f3.5)

The larger size of the sun in the wide angle lens creates the more impressive star compared to the fish eye.




A view near Benahavis in Southern Spain, September 2010

More sunlight, darker foreground

More foreground detail

Best balance of 3 images: sun star
effect still maintained, minimal flare
(could easily be removed in PS) and
more detail in foreground.

The course emphasis on sun star effects seems overdone. Useful to know the technique. Yet I have limited interest in using it.

Silhouettes and Reflections (21)

Requirement

5 images

Purpose

Show how to make a successful image composed of 

• the sun with star effect
• an interesting reflection in water
• black shapes of vegetation.

Technical learning

Elements of success for this type of backlit image are:

• Clear sky
• Sun relatively low in the sky
• Use of wide angle lens at a small aperture (so tripod)
• Water with an interesting reflection
• Other landscape elements with compelling shapes in silhouette
• ND grad filter

Exercise instructions

• Pick a clear sunny day and a scene with water
• Use your widest angle lens at its smallest aperture
• Choose a moment when the sun is low in the sky
• Seek reflections in the water and a clear interesting silhouette
• Shoot image to produce a strong sun star effect, with simple composition that uses foreground reflections, with an ND grad filter, bracketed 5 times at intervals of 1 stop 
• Pick the image that works best.

Images and review

Triggs Lock, Wey Navigation Canal 

Used a fish eye lens (15mm) to create
the sun star effect
Even though it has a fixed aperture of f2.8
its width is sufficient to create this effect

Sun Stars and Diffraction (20)

Requirement

6 images

Purpose

To hone technique when shooting into the sun, especially to create sun star effect

Technical learning

Shooting into the sun - 5 types of dramatic or abstract images

(1) Shooting directly into sun - silhouettes

• Shooting into the sun creates sihouettes, i.e. the fore- and middle-ground is very dark, if not lacking in all detail on a clear day (see also Project 23)
• Methods to reduce contrast/ increase details include: (a) use a ND grad filter, and (b) bracket across the dynamic range of the scene and then blend in post production
• Silhouettes can be made more dramatic by using the sun (or moon) as the backdrop, but if this is the effect you want, bracket sufficiently (5 stops) to esnure the desired effect

'Super Moon', on 5 May 2012, as the
background for silhouettes
of figures on the hill

(2)  Shooting directly into sun - 'sun star' effect 

• 3 requirements: (a) clear sky, (b) wide angle lens - haze and cloud diffuse the effect and (c) small aperture

Sun star effect
Tim Shellbourne

(3) Shooting at reflection of the sun - a variant of silhouetting

• Easier to produce a sharply defined silhouette than shooting directly in sunlight, especially if using (a) a high viewpoint or (b) a telephoto lens for the object to fill the frame (or both)
• Light reflected from water is particularly effective, as it partially diffuses light (the more uneven the surface, the more diffusion occurs)

Silhouette using indirect light
Kern. Justin's Photostream

(4) Off-axis shot with horizon visible - lens flare

• Intentional use of mild flare to add mood
• Flare will be visible through the viewfinder
• It ocurs when non-image light does not pass (refract) directly along its intended path, but instead reflects internally on lens elements any number of times (back and forth) before finally reaching the sensor.

Creative use of lens flare
kirpi.it

• If unwanted, flare can be reduced, if not controlled, by the length of the lens hood or, as a last resort, changing the composition (i.e. reduce extent of back lighting)

(5) Off-axis shot where a dark background throws up the lit edges of the subject

• Use a dark background to rim light the edges of a near silhouette subject
• This reverses the orthdox view of 2D images, where the edges are dark and the tones on the subject much lighter, enabling the eye to see the detail

Rim lit cloud gives impact
to image
www.wallpapers-free.co.uk

Exercise instructions

• Pick a clear sunny day
• Wait for the sun to be relatively low in the sky
• Set up camera, without filters, low ISO, wide angle lens
• Shoot 6 images: 3 bracketed exposures each with (a) the widest and (b) smallest aperture
• Compare between series of shots the intensity of the sun star and tightness of the rays

Images and review

Molesey Boat Club, Summer 12

Used a fish eye lens (15mm)
to shoot this image of
the sun star and a pair
of oars at rest by the Thames

Used the tree to mask the
sun. Sun star is weak.
However, the gain is greater
detail in the rest of the image.

Choosing the Moment (19)

Requirement

Several images

Purpose

To show how to capture changing light over the landscape

Technical learning

• Speed at which light changes over the landscape varies with conditions
• Light change is usually fastest (a) at sunrise and sunset and (b) when sun is breaking through cloud cover

Sunrise/ Sunset

• After sunrise and before sunset, light passes through a 'golden hour'
• Key effects on light during this period are: it is (a) softer - indirect light provides proportionally more of overall light level, (b) it is less intense than during the rest of the day, (c) it is warmer - due to reduction in blue light that is scattered in the longer distance travelled through the atmosphere and (d) it produces longer shadows - due to lower angle of the sun
• 'Golden hour' is not a fixed hour of time but the period when the sun's elevation ranges from 0° to approximately 6° after sunrise and vice versa before sunset. Latitude and time of year determines how long it lasts. In the UK, it is about an hour at the summer and winter solstice, shortening to 45 minutes at the spring and autumn equinox. At the equator it lasts only 30 minutes throughout the year.
• Nevertheless, cloud pattern, rather than angle of the sun, is the key variable on light behaviour during the Golden Hour

Sun breaks

• The transition of light on the landscape as sunlight emerges around the edge of broken cloud can change mood dramatically
• It is also a fasting moving, unpredictable change
• Windy conditions at cloud level add to variability and opportunity

Exercise instructions

• Find a scene with an interesting subject that will stand out when sunlit
• Select preferred angle of the sun and pick a viewpoint. If shooting cloud breaks, go high rather than low to see the effect of changing light on the landscape.
• Shoot at each point where changing light changes the character of the landscape
• Pick a shot that you think is likely to the 'best', confirm if this proves to be the case and if not, try to explain.

Images and review

Shot looking up a oilseed rape as cloud cover was moving quickly over the field on a blustery early spring day. In later images in the sequence the pylon lines appear as a distraction and need removing in post-production

Contrast of light and shadow across the field
adds visual drama to the image, as well
as the sense of motion of the light

Less contrast, less impact

Ditto

Bland due to lack of contrast