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landonflo
Dec 27, 2005, 9:55 PM
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Was wondering if a polarizing filter is a good or bad thing for ice climbing pictures. Any other advise on taking pictures of ice climbing would be great. I have a rebel xt with a few lenses. My wife and I are going over to ouray and want to get some good pictures.
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popol
Dec 28, 2005, 6:18 PM
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If you want to take out reflections or shoot in misty conditions, yes.
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fabe
Dec 28, 2005, 11:17 PM
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I found out that my killer combo is a wide-angle zoom and a flash. (Nikon D70, 12-24mm DX, SB-800).
As you usually climb ice in the shadow and bad light conditions, a little fill flash can help a lot. The only problem is, that you sometimes get overblown parts on your pictures. So make sure to keep reflexions under control.
have fun
check out my page: http://www.rockandice.ch.vu
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pico23
Jan 11, 2006, 5:17 AM
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In reply to: I found out that my killer combo is a wide-angle zoom and a flash. (Nikon D70, 12-24mm DX, SB-800). As you usually climb ice in the shadow and bad light conditions, a little fill flash can help a lot. The only problem is, that you sometimes get overblown parts on your pictures. So make sure to keep reflexions under control. have fun check out my page: http://www.rockandice.ch.vu
I noticed that in one of your shots. Good shot, the flash really added some life, but the foreground was a little burnt. Possibly try turning the camera the other way (the incorrect way for balancing with a hand on the lens). with off camera flashes you shouldn't get a lens shadow like you would if you did this with an on camera (built in) flash and a big lens.
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brent_e
Jan 11, 2006, 5:23 AM
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be aware of how many stops of light are in the frame. ice is very reflective. You have to be very careful how you compose and expose so you don't either blow hightlights or have too much contrast in your picture (unless that's what you're going for!!!). Fillflash, as mentioned, could be excellent. Also, setting your meter to spot (i don't know if that camera has that option) and trying to meter for hightlights will help.
good luck! post some images when you get them!!!!
Brent
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sonyhome
Jan 11, 2006, 10:57 AM
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Spot meter on the highlights? Interresting...
That'll create light gray snow/ice and underexpose the whole picture, but will allow capture of details in bright portions... At the expense of the dark sections which will have little of the dynamic range to collect data. When you correct the exposure you'll brighten the pic, revealing darker sections that will have washed out. The bright sections full of data will turn whie anyways.
Is my analysis correct? If so why expose like that? Why not expose on the talent/subject with the spot meter?
Polarizer?
Would polarizing filter really help in the shade? If no direct light then it'll eat-up 2 fstops without changing much the photo unless there's reflective surfaces that need correction. Beyond that would natural ice be darkened by the polarizer, more than the rest of the scene? Might help tune the contrast of the ice shapes if anything.
Flash?
Sounds like a good idea to fill-in.
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brent_e
Jan 11, 2006, 1:54 PM
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In reply to: Spot meter on the highlights? Interresting... That'll create light gray snow/ice and underexpose the whole picture, but will allow capture of details in bright portions... At the expense of the dark sections which will have little of the dynamic range to collect data. When you correct the exposure you'll brighten the pic, revealing darker sections that will have washed out. The bright sections full of data will turn whie anyways. Is my analysis correct? If so why expose like that? Why not expose on the talent/subject with the spot meter? Polarizer? Would polarizing filter really help in the shade? If no direct light then it'll eat-up 2 fstops without changing much the photo unless there's reflective surfaces that need correction. Beyond that would natural ice be darkened by the polarizer, more than the rest of the scene? Might help tune the contrast of the ice shapes if anything. Flash? Sounds like a good idea to fill-in.
I think the difference is that shooting digital, most of the times exposing for highlights is the way to go. with film is a bit harder to brighten and darken specific parts of the image unless you get them converted to a digital file and can mess with them in PS.
when you do correct the picture, though, at least you can judge how bright you want the hightlight to be. Perhaps instead of metering for hightlights you should meter the light and dark in your scene to see how many stops of dynamic range there is, then expose accordingly.
Best
Brent
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jasona
Jan 11, 2006, 8:53 PM
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With film I would recommend a warming filter. With digital I would recommend either using custom white balance for "shade". I have had good luck with the "Shade" wb on canon digitals. Essentially the light in the canyon (Ouray) is generally much cooler than normal daylight.
And since you shoot digital you can play around at first and see what is working. I wouldn't bother with the polarizer for the ice climbing(99% of the time)
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melekzek
Jan 11, 2006, 9:11 PM
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In reply to: Spot meter on the highlights? ... That'll create light gray snow/ice and underexpose the whole picture, but will allow capture of details in bright portions.
only if you expose your shot using that metered exposure exactly. You can spot meter different elements separately, to get an idea of how the brightness is going to be distributed in the final image. People working with zone system are used to work like this. Here is an introduction to zone system [link]
The light meter has -2..-1..0..+1..+2 scale. You do not always have to set your exposure to ..0.. on the meter, but only the average gray on your scene. If you meter something brighter, you place it to +1. Highlights, you place them at +2 at most. The key issue here is that anything above +2 will be pure white, and below -2 will be pure black. You can meter the shadows, and try to place most of the shadow detail at -1. Depending on the characteristics of your film/sensor you pay more attention to either shadows or highlights. On negative film, you try to get as much shadow detail as possible. On slides on the other hand, you try to get highlight detail. Digital sensors.... i am not sure on this one.
In ice case, the problem is overexposing highlights. So you expose for highlights, and try to place them at +1.5 +2 region. If they go above that, they will be pure white. Also check shadows, if they fall below -2 that means they are going to be pure black, or silhouette, meaning there is larger difference between shadows and highlights in your scene that you can capture. There are ways to deal with this, and options are discussed before [link]
edited: because i cannot spell highlight, duh
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sonyhome
Jan 12, 2006, 3:59 AM
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From Melekzek thread link and all, I'll recap some solutions:
- Digital correction: contrast masking, or digital split ND using photoshop or gimp
Interresting: I'll have to look in these softwares for those filters. Might be very practical to use and avoid manual labor!
However will not work if the exposed region is out of the dynamic range: it will have no data to play with, and have a uniform black or white color.
- Photo bracketing and combining the 2 shots
Yes, that's the best approach, since it basically doubles your dynamic range to 10-fstops! But it means work in photoshop, and a static scene.
- Fill-in flash
Sometimes work, but will cause correct exposure of the highlights + the talent flashed, with unnatural dark sections still dark. Can look cool though. Does not work on the sample photo because the talent is too far.
- The "shade" white balance
if you shoot raw it doesn't matter too much. What you can do then is shoot a test frame with a piece of gray cardboard, and when you "develop" the photo to JPG, correct it using the white balance adjustment read from the cardboard. If you shoot JPG, the correction will force you to re-gen a JPG, and therefore loose a little from the JPG compression a second time.
- Polarizing filter
Useless unless trying to intensify or remove reflections.
- 50% Neutral gray filter
A square filter (Cockin) with a gray band that can be used to mask the bright sections. Expensive, difficult to manipulate, will split the photo in a straight line only (often used for horizons, sunsets etc.)
- Spot metering
Allows you to get the dynamic range of the shot and figure out how bright's your brights. However you still have to make a decision on what to expose for.
If the photo's dynamic range it too wide, no matter the choice, you'll sacrifice a part of the information.
I personally would expose the talent, since it's the focus of the photo, maybe adjust the fstops a little towards the average exposure if he's on the dark or bright side, but not that much that the talent will be out of the dynamic range.
Bling! 2 more cents in the ocean of wisdom :lol:
Melekzek, your animated eye freaks me out :shock:
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jasona
Jan 12, 2006, 5:03 PM
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In reply to: - The "shade" white balance if you shoot raw it doesn't matter too much. What you can do then is shoot a test frame with a piece of gray cardboard, and when you "develop" the photo to JPG, correct it using the white balance adjustment read from the cardboard. If you shoot JPG, the correction will force you to re-gen a JPG, and therefore loose a little from the JPG compression a second time.
With the digirebel you will want to shoot a white card not a gray card. Then you can use that as a custom "white balnce". Post processing you might be able to use a gray card but that is reliant on the software.
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sonyhome
Jan 16, 2006, 9:28 AM
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In reply to: Post processing you might be able to use a gray card but that is reliant on the software.
Why the difference?
AFAIK, doing a white balance on a known neutral gray/white is just a matter of adjusting RGB offsets so that the neutral color is set at R=G=B. Then it's just brightness adjustments...
Am I missing something important there?
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jasona
Jan 17, 2006, 5:27 PM
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In reply to: In reply to: Post processing you might be able to use a gray card but that is reliant on the software. Why the difference? AFAIK, doing a white balance on a known neutral gray/white is just a matter of adjusting RGB offsets so that the neutral color is set at R=G=B. Then it's just brightness adjustments... Am I missing something important there?
Difference is that the Canon digital rebel can use a shot of a "white" card to set custom white balance in camera. A lot of the higher end digi slrs(1D and up I believe ) can use a shot of a graycard. Not sure why this is just that it is.
Of course this is only relevant for setting custom wb in camera and not relevant to post processsing. If you are going to just change everything in post process then I guess it doesn't matter.
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