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timstich
Aug 17, 2003, 3:47 AM
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So is anyone currently going insane trying to take decent photos in full shade? You know, that climb you love so much that really never sees full sun? Tried taking photos first with 400 speed film. That at best go me f 5.8 at 125 of a second. Too much motion blur. Moved up to 800 speed and got even exposure, but the prints look dark. No doubt they will improve when they are scanned, but will still be a bit flat I think. I did get to use 1/500 for the roll, which froze the action nicely.
So what's your secret? What exposure tricks lurk in the hearts of men? Only the Shadow knows.
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jerryw
Aug 17, 2003, 3:54 AM
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I suppose at 1/500 you were using f2.8 with 800 film?
Oh, and if you take it to a shop to print, you can usually ask them to underdevelope by a half step or something, to make the prints less dark, but that'll take away some information from the image.
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ikefromla
Aug 17, 2003, 4:24 AM
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i shoot almost exclusively with 100 or 200 spd film. i have great shots of a cave climb in full shade using 100 spd with f4 at 125.
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jerryw
Aug 17, 2003, 4:27 AM
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time of day and ambient light matters a lot too. full shade at midday is very different from full shade at 6pm when the sun is setting...
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timstich
Aug 17, 2003, 4:31 AM
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Just took some shots in full shade at 9:30 AM. Will compare them to a roll I shot at 6:00 PM in more or less the same location. Ideally, I would prefer to take pictures of people on partly cloudy days with lots of blue sky, dramatic clouds, and not a lot of harsh shadows. But hey, you gotta wait for those days.
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timstich
Aug 17, 2003, 4:33 AM
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In reply to: I suppose at 1/500 you were using f2.8 with 800 film? Oh, and if you take it to a shop to print, you can usually ask them to underdevelope by a half step or something, to make the prints less dark, but that'll take away some information from the image.
Had an AE-1 set to auto aperature, so I'm not that sure what the exposure was. I was a bit worried when I took shots in the sun with 400 speed film at the same shutter speed. But they turned out fine. No doubt I could have gone to 1/1000 or faster.
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jerryw
Aug 17, 2003, 5:10 AM
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Tim, for even more dramatic photos with clouds, invest in a good polarizer if you haven't already. It makes the contrast between sky and cloud that much better, makes for beautiful shots. Plus a polarizer is just useful to have around.
As for 400 in the sun, I've found 1/1000 at f16 tend to be pretty okay.
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krillen
Aug 17, 2003, 5:19 AM
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Usually I lock my shutter speed at 125 (if you can hand hold at 1/60 sec good on ya but I certainly can't) and check to make sure I have an appropriate aperture setting (shallow DOF i.e. 2.8 or deep DOF i.e. 22).
If needs be I use fill flash to brighten up the foreground, but if you are trying to shoot bright background with a dark foreground you are going to run into the age old problem of backlighting.
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timstich
Aug 17, 2003, 5:19 AM
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Thanks for the polarizer suggestion, Jerry. I'll pick one up.
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jerryw
Aug 17, 2003, 5:58 AM
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In reply to: If needs be I use fill flash to brighten up the foreground, but if you are trying to shoot bright background with a dark foreground you are going to run into the age old problem of backlighting. |
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jerryw
Aug 17, 2003, 6:04 AM
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In reply to: Thanks for the polarizer suggestion, Jerry. I'll pick one up.
One thin I forgot to mention, be careful about having too many filters attached to your lens if you're shooting wide-angle stuff. I've seen photos where you can see the circular frame from the filter at the corners of the photo.
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thomasribiere
Aug 17, 2003, 8:11 PM
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...but don't use the polarizer in the shade, as it is light-eating... You can fall from 1/500 without to 1/125 or 1/60 with a polarizer... I talk with personal experience, because I missed nice photos ang got blurry results due to the use of the polarizer in low light.
If you use a wide angle in the shade, I suppose the results will be better than with a close one, too.
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melekzek
Aug 17, 2003, 11:24 PM
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I really like oversaturated colors of the polarizer, not everbody likes that though. You can get the best performance from a polarizer when there is no escape from the sun. It filters some frequencies of the light with the cost of 1-2 stops, increasing contrast.
I havent seen any use in the shade though.
Fill flash is a good idea, but you need a good camera/flash combination, it is pretty easy to end up with a white-face-dark-background-bar-snapshot
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apollodorus
Aug 18, 2003, 12:10 AM
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If your camera sets the exposure automatically, try setting it while aiming at a particularly dark region, hold the shutter halfway down, and then pan over to the actual shot and take it. I do this all the time; I autofocus on the actual shot, then disable the autofocus so that I can set the metering anywhere without disturbing the focus.
This gambit also works if you have to shoot a photo of someone with the sun behind them, which normally would wind up completely black. You set the metering while pointed away from the subject and the sun, then pan over to take the photo.
Or, see if your camera allows you to adjust the exposure up or down from the automatic light meter's setting.
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pico23
Aug 19, 2003, 5:52 AM
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In reply to: So is anyone currently going insane trying to take decent photos in full shade? You know, that climb you love so much that really never sees full sun? Tried taking photos first with 400 speed film. That at best go me f 5.8 at 125 of a second. Too much motion blur. Moved up to 800 speed and got even exposure, but the prints look dark. No doubt they will improve when they are scanned, but will still be a bit flat I think. I did get to use 1/500 for the roll, which froze the action nicely. So what's your secret? What exposure tricks lurk in the hearts of men? Only the Shadow knows.
Too me shade is the best light for general photography. Nothing like taking an exposure once and going with it. Set and forget. If the lights even your stop difference between highlight and shadow should be less allowing for more evenly exposed pics now whiteouts or blackouts (unless your going for the blackout of the shadows). For climbing I don't see why you'd need more then 1/125 or 1/250 shutter speed. Consider that for hockey I can stop the action at around that range (for amature hockey). Climbing is a pretty slow sport even a dyno should freeze well below 1/250. If you can't get the shutter speed up high enough then you might consider using the roll to work on motion blurs. Stop action is great but motion blurs often add more to a shot.
It very well might be the printing thats killing you. Instead of shooting print film go back to that climb with a few rolls of slide film. Say Elite Chrome 200 or even 400. Make sure you are getting a good exposure by manually finding a mid tone and then use that exposure for the whole shoot if the light is consistent.
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pico23
Aug 19, 2003, 6:01 AM
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In reply to: I really like oversaturated colors of the polarizer, not everbody likes that though. You can get the best performance from a polarizer when there is no escape from the sun. It filters some frequencies of the light with the cost of 1-2 stops, increasing contrast. I havent seen any use in the shade though. Fill flash is a good idea, but you need a good camera/flash combination, it is pretty easy to end up with a white-face-dark-background-bar-snapshot
You can use a polarizer in the shade in place of a ND filter to lengthen the exposure. I have several different diameter filter sizes and I really can't afford a whole set of filters for each so I typically only have 2 filters per lens a polarizer and a skylight or haze filter, plus a graduated ND filter by cokin that fits most of my lenses. The polarizer serves dual usuage as a ND filter when I need more exposure time. It also serves as a color enhancing filter.
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jerryw
Aug 19, 2003, 6:24 AM
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If you're running into the situation where you're buying filters for lens of different diameter, I've found it useful to buy filters for the larger diameter, and then just get an adapter ring. E.g. right now my dad uses 58mm diameter lens and I have 52mm, so to use his filters I've got a 58->52 adapter ring. Works pretty damn well I might add.
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joegoesup
Aug 19, 2003, 12:59 PM
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I like the 400 speed film for shadey shots.
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melekzek
Aug 19, 2003, 8:42 PM
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In reply to: just get an adapter ring.
Larger filters also help getting rid of vignetting problem.
In reply to: You can use a polarizer in the shade in place of a ND filter to lengthen the exposure.
Thats an excellent suggestion, I actually used this in a couple of places(like shooting a waterfall and trying to capture the motionblur)
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krillen
Aug 19, 2003, 8:54 PM
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a tripod really helps remove that hand shaking lens blur. unless you are shooting a fall, 1/60 ss should be fine.
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timstich
Aug 19, 2003, 10:04 PM
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In reply to: a tripod really helps remove that hand shaking lens blur. unless you are shooting a fall, 1/60 ss should be fine.
I got this weird shot at 1/250 of a climber's hand going up to clip that makes the hand look deformed. But other than capturing fast hand movements, that shutter speed worked fine.
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