Crossing Guard

[escape]

This is Carlos a school crossing guard. I met him walking in the neighborhood. We spent a good amount of time chatting before I asked permission to take his photo. The light was harsh. Lightened his face and darkened some bright areas in Lightroom. Comments welcomed.

[Geoff F]

I wonder if you have gone a bit too far with darkening some areas? It looks a bit 'flat' at the moment. Also, something looks odd with his glasses, particularly his left eye (right side of photo)

[escape]

Thank you, Geoff, your observations are very much appreciated. The only areas I darkened slightly were the sidewalk and the bright area between the upper roadway and its shadow. I made two ovals on his face and lightened its front and side. I left the neck untouched. The glare on the glasses does look strange. The original does show a bit more eye detail. I wouldn't attempt to work on the eyeglass reflection on this image. I will look into how to make it less flat.

[DanK]

How far away were you, and what focal length did you use? longer focal lengths push you farther back, and that distance in turn creates an apparent compression front to back, making things look closer together. I wonder if that's why it seems flat. The walk sign is probably 6 feet back but looks like it's almost on top of him, and the bridge looks close as well. Just a guess.

[escape]

How far away were you, and what focal length did you use? longer focal lengths push you farther back, and that distance in turn creates an apparent compression front to back, making things look closer together. I wonder if that's why it seems flat. The walk sign is probably 6 feet back but looks like it's almost on top of him, and the bridge looks close as well. Just a guess.

Thank you Dan for your comment. If I get a quick shot technically right, it is almost always by accident. Because of my vision, making rushed adjustments is very difficult. I'm thinking now I should just switch to automatic or P mode for these quick shots and focus on the composition. Could be a good solution for me.

[Geoff F]

I might also try carefully adding a little bit of extra highlight brightness/saturation particularly regarding the man and foreground to give the scene a bit more 'pop'. In situations like this I sometimes use a different blend mode to my adjustments. Maybe something like soft light blend mode with the opacity reduced to around 50% might be worth trying.

Can you work with layers and masks with that software? I always use the full Photoshop not Lightroom for my editing work.

[DanK]

Thank you Dan for your comment. If I get a quick shot technically right, it is almost always by accident. Because of my vision, making rushed adjustments is very difficult. I'm thinking now I should just switch to automatic or P mode for these quick shots and focus on the composition. Could be a good solution for me.

Daniel,

If my hunch is correct, switching to P mode won't affect this. The apparent compression stems only from how far away you are, and for any given framing, that's a function of the focal length you choose. The bottom line: regardless of what mode you use, if you want more separation between a subject and background, get closer.

The one thing that switching to P mode could affect is depth of field. If you open the aperture more, you decrease depth of field. This won't make the background appear farther away, but it will blur it more, which will help separate the subject. In P mode, you might get either a wider or a narrower aperture--it's not in your control.

Dan

[DanK]

I might also try carefully adding a little bit of extra highlight brightness/saturation particularly regarding the man and foreground to give the scene a bit more 'pop'. In situations like this I sometimes use a different blend mode to my adjustments. Maybe something like soft light blend mode with the opacity reduced to around 50% might be worth trying.

Can you work with layers and masks with that software? I always use the full Photoshop not Lightroom for my editing work.

If Daniel is working in Lightroom, the answer is no. With almost no exceptions, Lightroom's functionality is identical to that of Adobe Camera RAw.

[escape]

I have Photoshop. Learning it is an ongoing process. Have worked with masks and layers.

[Manfred M]

Daniel - your photographic approach may be holding you back. I agree with what Dan has suggested. From what you have written in the past, you walk around and snap a shot when you see something that strikes you. I had that approach once, many years ago when I first started getting an interest in street photography, but learned (after many unsuccessful images) that the approach is not necessarily the best one.

The best advice I was ever give was that I slow down and be much more deliberate in selecting my subjects and setting up my shots. If you engage with your subjects, they will usually (but certainly not always) engage with you and let you get an few unhurried shots of them. Think about how you want to show your subject and select the appropriate focal length (that drives the field of view) and aperture (that drives the depth of field) before taking your shot.

One approach (and not one I use) is to shoot auto-ISO. This lets you set your shutter speed (to prevent motion blur) and aperture (for DoF). I would rather do some noise reduction because it is impossible to get a sharp image if there is a camera movement (or subject movement) or focusing issue.

[escape]

The best advice I was ever give was that I slow down and be much more deliberate in selecting my subjects and setting up my shots.

Very true Manfred, I need to reinforce that mindset and make it a habit.

[DanK]

Daniel,

I agree with Manfred. With digital, additional photos are free. That's a big advantage in some respects, but it can also lead people to snap shots too quickly.

However, I was trying to make a different point. I think it wasn't clear. Sometimes one does have to shoot quickly, without a lot of time to think about settings. To make that more successful, it's useful to think about where you can hand control back to the computer in the camera. You can't do this with focal length, so that's on you. However, you often can let the camera control either aperture or shutter speed, and when that's the case, shooting in Av or Tv (aperture-priority or shutter priority) can free you to pay attention to the things you don't want the camera to control.

As an example, when I shoot candids of kids outdoors, there is very little time to think. Motion blur and hence shutter speed are critically important in that situation. So in some cases, I'll use shutter priority mode to set a speed that will avoid blur. I also check that the metering mode is what it should be. I then check out the scene to make sure that will give me a sufficiently deep depth of field, that is, a sufficiently small aperture. If not, I boost ISO a stop or two. Once that is all done, I can concentrate on composition, knowing that I have a good shutter speed and a depth of field that is at least adequate.

More often, I do the reverse, deciding on an aperture that I need for appropriate DOF and making sure that the camera will give me a shutter speed in an acceptable range.

I've been shooting since 1967, for years with cameras that did nothing at all automatically, so I am very comfortable shooting in fully manual mode and often do. Despite that, I often use aperture- or shutter-priority modes to save me time when I have to shoot quickly. I get more keepers that way.

What I don't do is use a fully automatic mode. When you do, it's the computer's choice, not yours.

Dan

[rpcrowe]

When I know that I will need a specific combination of shutter speed and f/stop and also need to shoot quickly, I will often use manual exposure combined with auto ISO which gives me flexibility.

Shooting with Sony allows me to set parameters for the ISO and the very decent high ISO capability of the Sony mirrorless cameras allows quite a bit of flexibility in shooting.

I believe that most modern cameras have auto ISO capabilities and also quite decent higher ISO capabilities.

ANALOGY: Although I am quite adept at driving a vehicle with a manual transmission - such as a sports car which can be fun to drive under certain circumstances, all of my vehicles over the last thirty years or so have had automatic transmissions.

[xpatUSA]

When I know that I will need a specific combination of shutter speed and f/stop and also need to shoot quickly, I will often use manual exposure combined with auto ISO which gives me flexibility. ...

I've never fully understood manual plus auto-ISO. Perhaps because I think of exposure as the amount of light that whacks the sensor - and the only things that control that are the aperture and the shutter speed, not the stupid exposure triangle.

I did yet another search but tired very quickly of being told that ISO changes the "sensitivity of the sensor" when any pedant worth his salt knows that that is hogwash.

Only thing I can imagine is that, in manual aperture/shutter plus auto-ISO, the "auto" bit changes the gain between the sensor output and the ADC so that the saved data is "bright" enough ...

[DanK]

I've never fully understood manual plus auto-ISO. Perhaps because I think of exposure as the amount of light that whacks the sensor - and the only things that control that are the aperture and the shutter speed, not the stupid exposure triangle.

I did yet another search but tired very quickly of being told that ISO changes the "sensitivity of the sensor" when any pedant worth his salt knows that that is hogwash.

Only thing I can imagine is that, in manual aperture/shutter plus auto-ISO, the "auto" bit changes the gain between the sensor output and the ADC so that the saved data is "bright" enough ...

Yup, that's what it does. I find it useful in rare circumstances. To give one example, I was asked to photograph a play, and the lighting was both not very bright and highly variable in brightness. It was immediately apparent that at base ISO, I couldn't maintain both an adequate shutter speed and an adequate aperture. (In fact, if I recall, my lenses weren't fast enough to use base ISO at all.) So, I set the camera manually on the slowest shutter speed and widest aperture I could accept and turned on auto-ISO.

In any case, Daniel's photo was taken in broad daylight, so there would be no need to boost ISO.

My previous camera (5D III) didn't allow for exposure compensation with auto-ISO, which often led to unacceptable results, as the camera often didn't expose far enough to the right, and the higher the amplification, the more important that is. My new one, a 5D IV, does allow exposure compensation with auto-ISO, but I use auto-ISO so rarely that I would have to look up again how to access this function.

[pschlute]

I've never fully understood manual plus auto-ISO. Perhaps because I think of exposure as the amount of light that whacks the sensor - and the only things that control that are the aperture and the shutter speed, not the stupid exposure triangle.

I think we would all agree Ted that the ISO on a digital camera cannot change the sensitivity of the sensor, but rather boosts or reduces the gain.

I think the relevance of this becomes more apparent when one considers how one takes a picture, raw versus jpeg.

If one shoots raw then any decent software can apply gain to brighten up an underexposed image. But the drawback of using this method, which implies that one uses base ISO only in-camera and underexposes the image, is that the recorded image will be dark. Often too dark to even see if one is composing correctly or has achieved a sharp image when reviewing in-camera.

If on the other hand one shoots only jpeg, then the same problems as above apply, but are worsened by the fact that any brightening of the image has to rely on the reduced jpeg data that is recorded in the image file.

[xpatUSA]

I think we would all agree Ted that the ISO on a digital camera cannot change the sensitivity of the sensor, but rather boosts or reduces the gain.

Thanks, Peter, I was never sure, having never used that mode.

I think the relevance of this becomes more apparent when one considers how one takes a picture, raw versus jpeg.

If one shoots raw then any decent software can apply gain to brighten up an underexposed image. But the drawback of using this method, which implies that one uses base ISO only in-camera and underexposes the image, is that the recorded image will be dark. Often too dark to even see if one is composing correctly or has achieved a sharp image when reviewing in-camera.

If on the other hand one shoots only jpeg, then the same problems as above apply, but are worsened by the fact that any brightening of the image has to rely on the reduced jpeg data that is recorded in the image file.

Living as I do outside the pale, my current favorite camera shoots ISO-less raw only and it's 1.8" LCD is quite useless. So I find myself shooting in manual at base ISO according to the metering on the top LCD. Then, in post, the converter I use for culling (RawDigger) has auto-brightening selected thereby getting round the dark-image syndrome.

Back to basics, eh?

[pschlute]

Thanks, Peter, I was never sure, having never used that mode.

My normal procedure is to use fixed ISO ideally at the camera's base setting (100), but will increase the ISO if the ambient light is not bright enough.

When photographing moving subjects I use Manual exposure with auto ISO.

One thing that has changed significantly in the 17 or so years since I embraced digital photography is the performance of the camera at higher ISO. I was wary of using more than ISO 400 on my first camera as the noise would be very apparent. Today using ISO 3200 is absolutely fine.