Stained glass window, Yorkshire

[Rufus]

This is an image I shot last year as a single image. It appears to my eye to be exposed quite well for the glass although there is some noise in the black background.



Is it generally considered better to bracket exposures in order to reveal the tracery and/or wall in which a stained glass window is set?

If there was more of the interior in the shot then getting the correct exposure for that could be equally importanat but if the image is of the window alone...?

Bracketed exposures would likley have given me both options, but I wonder whether one approach is generally favoured.

C&C is always welcome.

[pschlute]

From my limited experience of stained glass windows the biggest problem is having to point the camera up to get the shot, leading to non parallel verticals. You have solved this by obviously having a set of step ladders with you

Capturing the interior of the structure is a personal choice and will require multiple exposures and pp work. I don't think there is a "correct" answer as to whether this is required. It will depend on the individual circumstance. I think your shot of the window shows the detail very well.

[Shadowman]

Nicely captured, unless there's some significant detail you want to display showcase as you did.

[Rufus]

...Capturing the interior of the structure is a personal choice and will require multiple exposures and pp work. I don't think there is a "correct" answer as to whether this is required.

If the intention was to enter a competition then the contextual information and the additional technical competence that woud be required might earn an extra half mark.

... I think your shot of the window shows the detail very well.

Thank you, Peter.

[Rufus]

Nicely captured, unless there's some significant detail you want to display showcase as you did.

Thank you for your comment, John. It occurs to me that some postcards and guide books take the approach I have taken, although that doesn't mean great photography, it just suits their purpose.

[Manfred M]

David - if you look at this type of photography, it is definitely a high dynamic range image and when I shoot stained glass, I will bracket and take at least 3 shots, likely 2 stops apart. You are dealing with an area that has extreme highlights in the area of clear glass and some areas of extreme shadows outside of where the light falls. I would not use HDR software to create the image but would stack a shot that had texture in the frame mask the dark areas around the glass and just bring in a touch of shadow detail.

Putting on my judge's hat, I would likely take away points for areas where I don't see any shadow detail and have definitely lost these here. You have to be very careful here because if you go too light, you will take away from the brilliant colours of the stained glass and if you go too far the other way, you will lose points for loss of shadow detail. Each judge will score a bit differently and have a slightly different view of what a major or minor flaw is.

There are a number of different ways of judging; the one I use is that I start with the maximum number of points and deduct 1 point for a major flaw and 1/2 point for a minor flaw; that is the judging approach that CAPA (Canadian Association for Photographic Art) recommends. If I were judging this image, I would deduct points for alignment (the image needs to be rotated counter-clockwise a degree or so; that would be a major point) and would deduct 1/2 point each for loss of shadow detail and the left and right hand edge being a bit too narrow (a wider frame hides the alignment issue somewhat too).

I hope this helps.

[Rufus]

Manfred, thank you for your detailed insight.

There are many opportunities here for this type of photograghy, though not all windows have such lovely deep colours as this one. Next time I shall experiment with the techniques you have suggested.

[DanK]

I don't do this sort of work, but I have one thought that might be useful. I too largely avoid HDR because of the distortions it can create. However, there is an alternative to HDR on the one hand and manual blending on the other: expsoure fusion, also called exposure blending. This simply goes through a stack of images, selecting well exposed areas for inclusion in the composite. It's a nice option when the image is complex enough that manual blending is a lot of work or impractical. However, it does often require substantial tonal adjustments; for example, the composite is often low in contrast.

For this purpose, I use a lightroom plugin called Lightroom Enfuse.

[xpatUSA]

I don't do this sort of work, but I have one thought that might be useful. I too largely avoid HDR because of the distortions it can create. However, there is an alternative to HDR on the one hand and manual blending on the other: expsoure fusion, also called exposure blending. This simply goes through a stack of images, selecting well exposed areas for inclusion in the composite. It's a nice option when the image is complex enough that manual blending is a lot of work or impractical. However, it does often require substantial tonal adjustments; for example, the composite is often low in contrast.

For this purpose, I use a lightroom plugin called Lightroom Enfuse.

I use a stand-alone app (Hugin) that also uses 'enfuse.exe' and it's handy companion 'align_image_stack.exe' - both of which are well-known command-line utilities. I think there's a 'blend.exe' too. But Hugin has this Idiot Mode which is quite good!

[Wavelength]

Very nice shot

[Rufus]

Nandakumar - thank you.