Driftwood tipi

[purplehaze]

Am finally back from the lake with a daunting number of images to process. I am going to have to be ruthless in the culling.

Some enterprising folks erected this structure on the beach one day earlier this month. Having seen it in the afternoon, I thought it would make for an interesting foreground for some sunset shots. I set my white balance for shade and kept it there even as I shot through into the blue hour. I am curious to know what you think of these and how they might be improved.

They were all shot at the wide end of my Sigma 18-35 mm ART lens at f/11 and 100 ISO, on the tripod-mounted D7100.

#1



#2



#3

[Wavelength]

Very nice set of images in different ambience...

[billtils]

All nice, with #3 being the stand-out for me.

[Shadowman]

Nice series, very dramatic colors.

[pschlute]

1 and 3 work very well for me. I wonder if 1 could be improved by brightening/saturating the shadow area of sand bottom and bottom right ?

[purplehaze]

Thanks, Nandakumar, Bill, John and Peter. Peter, just to confirm, is it #1 you feel could be enhanced, or #3?

Looking at these again, I am reminded of the challenge I had framing them. The structure had been placed a little too close to the rock revêtement protecting the sand cliff behind me and I had very little room in which to plant the tripod. I would have liked to better contain that bottom reflection in #3.

[pschlute]

Peter, just to confirm, is it #1 you feel could be enhanced, or #3?

It was the first one.

[Geoff F]

The first one is my choice.

With #2, I would ideally prefer to see a fraction more of the landscape on the left and less on the right; but I know that would mean getting wet.

#3 is sort of OK compositionally but the water is looking unnatural.

[Manfred M]

I find myself thinking that the first image is the most interesting, if you got rid of that nasty orange colour cast. You have interesting textures in the sky and in the water. I'd like to see the shadow detail opened up some more to reveal the textures in the wood and in the trees in the background.

Playing around with it for a few minutes gives me this:




The second image has some interesting lighting on the tipi, but I don't like what the water is doing and the water just isn't doing it for me on the third one either.

[FootLoose]

I like the composition of the first image, Janis. If it were mine I would clone out the foot prints in the sand. There are so many there it looks messy to me - but that is a personal preference.

I wonder why you set your white balance to shady. Were you trying to warm up the scene a bit? Is the image you posted close to the actual colour of the light at the time or have you made an artistic decision to capture the feeling rather than document the event? Either way, I prefer your original image to Manfred's anaemic version.

On the other hand, the second image feels too cold to me and the angle of the sticks in the tepee makes me think they are trying to jump out of the cold water.

With respect to the composition of the third, I think the tepee is too close to the headland. The first shot worked better because you had a bit more separation there. I prefer the light in this one with the tepee going into silhouette, and I like the reflection underneath. As others have noted though, the surface of the water is a bit off-putting because it is a bit messy. Perhaps a longer exposure would have smoothed it out more.

[Stagecoach]

An enjoyable series Janice. It's No 2, No 1 then No 3 for me.

If you have a chance of shooting this again would you consider taking it from a lower perspective with the horizon at the lower 1/3?

[Tom Barry]

I prefer the first one, with the orange tone turned down a bit, as Manfred suggested.

[purplehaze]

Thanks for the suggestions, all. Greg, I set the white balance to shade as part of an effort to understand more about how my camera works. The orange appeals to me as a different interpretation of a backdrop that has become banal to me because I have shot it so many times. I trust (hope?) Manfred did not intend “nasty” as an objective assessment. I am in agreement with those who don’t like the water in #2 and #3. I haven’t shot a lot of long exposures, so this is part of the learning experience. I might have tried the lower perspective if I was in better shape, but I was already struggling to maintain my balance in the rocks! No chance for a redo, unfortunately, as the tipi is no longer there. Either the wind and water got to it, or some parents fearful that it would come crashing down on their toddlers. I think I like #1 best, for the reasons Greg mentioned and I will work on it some more when I have a chance. Right now, I am in the other world that is Canadian Shield country, perched high above a lake, watching bald eagles glide past the windows.

[Manfred M]

I trust (hope?) Manfred did not intend “nasty” as an objective assessment.

I believe that is the proper Pantone colour descriptor... Just joking of course.

The descriptor "Nasty Orange" was one that one of my photography teachers used to describe the heavy orange colour cast that came from using a daylight white balance when the sun was close to the horizon and I've used it ever since. While the sky can have interesting yellow, red and orange hues at that time of day, the rest of the scene does not take on those colours.

The sky near the sun does have that colour, but the sky tends to be blue (if I remember my physics correctly, the two are related as the photons hitting the the nitrogen atoms are emitted are a blue wavelength, so red at the horizon and blue at the zenith are typical colors).

If you Google sunset images, you will find many images with the heavy orange colour cast. Many experienced photographers find the effect rather trite and try to avoid it.

[xpatUSA]

#1 for composition, Janis, #3 for the more silhouetted look.

[mugge]

Number 1 for mine, Janis.
Cheers Ole

[DanK]

Interesting images and discussion.

Leaving aside the color cast issue, I prefer the silhouettes, #1 and #3.

The discussion of color (Manfred and Greg) is a difficult issue. I raised this in a comparison of several versions of an image of mine not long ago.

Because you had the camera set at a fixed Kelvin value (shade, whatever that is on your camera), at least two of these three photos have to be "wrong" in the sense that they are not neutral. Most likely, all three are "wrong". That is, a neutral white or gray surface wouldn't appear white or gray in the image. However, it's not clear (to me anyway) that I always want a neutral rendering of images when the lighting is so far off from daylight. I have been having an argument with another night photographer about exactly that; he thinks everything should be rendered neutrally because of color constancy, that is, the fact that we perceive colors as the same under different lighting conditions. However, I'm not certain that we do perceive colors entirely constantly under extreme conditions like blue hour. I've been meaning to see if I can find any research that deals with this, but it is a complex area, and I have made very little headway so far.

For the time being, I compensate, but not always fully. Not compensating at all often leaves distorted color that seems quite unnatural, much like the oversaturated colors that are so popular in some landscape photography (or, for those of you on this side of the pond, like the Viking River Cruises ads on PBS). But IMHO, compensating fully often leaves images somewhat uninteresting and unlike how I remember the scene.

[Manfred M]

Interesting images and discussion.

Leaving aside the color cast issue, I prefer the silhouettes, #1 and #3.

The discussion of color (Manfred and Greg) is a difficult issue. I raised this in a comparison of several versions of an image of mine not long ago.

Because you had the camera set at a fixed Kelvin value (shade, whatever that is on your camera), at least two of these three photos have to be "wrong" in the sense that they are not neutral. Most likely, all three are "wrong". That is, a neutral white or gray surface wouldn't appear white or gray in the image. However, it's not clear (to me anyway) that I always want a neutral rendering of images when the lighting is so far off from daylight. I have been having an argument with another night photographer about exactly that; he thinks everything should be rendered neutrally because of color constancy, that is, the fact that we perceive colors as the same under different lighting conditions. However, I'm not certain that we do perceive colors entirely constantly under extreme conditions like blue hour. I've been meaning to see if I can find any research that deals with this, but it is a complex area, and I have made very little headway so far.

For the time being, I compensate, but not always fully. Not compensating at all often leaves distorted color that seems quite unnatural, much like the oversaturated colors that are so popular in some landscape photography (or, for those of you on this side of the pond, like the Viking River Cruises ads on PBS). But IMHO, compensating fully often leaves images somewhat uninteresting and unlike how I remember the scene.

Agreed Dan - shooting at that time of day is really mixed lighting where we get one colour temperature of the light near the horizon and off the clouds that catch that low sunlight and the blue light reflecting down from overhead. If I am shooting natural like portraits at that time of day, the only thing I care about is getting the skin tone to look right and all the other colours can fall where they may. Getting a "global" correct white balance is generally not possible and not desirable (because we are trying to capture the funky colours).

A traditional workflow to manage colours is to get a "correct" white balance and then colour grade for mood, so I think your approach has a lot of merit and looking for a balance that looks "right". The correct colour for in an image is really little more than an opinion, especially landscape work during golden hour, but the best photographers tend to try do build a scene that is believable (hence my former instructors negative comments about the orange colour cast that come from daylight camera settings).

I think that a quote from the acclaimed colour guru Dan Margulis makes a lot of sense in this context; "Use the full range of available tones every time, and don’t give the viewers anything that they will know better than to believe."

[DanK]

Manfred,

I agree. What I am wrestling with in general (I've re-edited a number of my posted night photos over the past few days as a result) is just where to compromise. For example, one might remember the first scene as one in which there is an orange and magenta color cast from the sunset. Removing only some of the cast (and pulling in the whites to brighten it) yields something like this:



I'm struggling to figure out where on continua like this I want to end up

Dan

[purplehaze]

First off, thanks to Grahame, Tom, Ted, Ole and Dan, for your comments, and, of course, Manfred.

I have to say, my concern for getting things "right" in the sense of "true to nature" or "believable" varies considerably according to my shooting objectives. At the same time, I am interested in the physics of it all, the wavelengths of colour and how they are interpreted by the eye and the camera. I was able to dig up this article on the colours of twilight and sunset, which confirms all the variability that I have witnessed in my lifetime. The author provides an example of sunsets that "are perhaps most notable for the 'bathed in red' effect that they produce. The entire landscape takes on a surreal saffron hue as the clouds reflect the fading sun's red and orange glow, allowing very little blue (scattered) light from the upper levels of the atmosphere to reach the ground." In the above image, which was shot with WB set for Shade, and saturated in PP, there is in fact a lot of high cloud cover reflecting the sunlight and very little blue. This I am able to confirm when I set the WB to Daylight in Capture One.

I am happy to be informed by conventional wisdom, but don't want it to let it inhibit my explorations of the technology and my own aesthetic. Coincidentally, I watched the original version of Apocalypse Now on Netflix last night, and I couldn't help noticing how scene after scene is "bathed" in red or orange, so I take this to show that sometimes a heavy colour cast is the professional choice.