In light of my recent post...

Photography knowledge exchange.

Moderator: Scott Waters

Post Reply
User avatar
Trey
Posts: 156
Joined: October 1st, 2010, 9:40 pm
Location: NE OHIO

In light of my recent post...

Post by Trey »

Here are the first few shots with the new camera/lens, and a Pringles can pop up flash diffusor ;)

I have never developed raw images before this or really used any editing software so ANY suggestions tips etc would be awesome!

Image

Image
bgorum
Posts: 619
Joined: June 7th, 2010, 6:46 am
Location: Albuquerque, NM
Contact:

Re: In light of my recent post...

Post by bgorum »

Congratulations on the new set-up! As far as critique goes, I'm personally not a big fan of black backgrounds. If you could get the subject closer to the background you can get a little color/detail there and I think that would be an improvement. Of course that can be a double edged sword too, because too much background detail becomes distracting. The trick is to use light fall-off and depth of field to provide just a hint of the surrounding environment, (I assume you still want the night time look). If this is a captive snake, then a plain colored background, green perhaps, placed just far enough behind the snake to provide color, but no detail could be used.
The other issue is the dark shadows underneath the snake. I'm not familiar with the "pringles can diffuser", but there is still quite a bit of directionality to the light here. That's not a bad thing. The light needs direction to get the nice scale texture you've got here, but it is casting dark shadows beneath the snake at the same time. What RAW converter are you using? In Lightroom you have the ability to bring up the shadows while leaving the mid-tones and highlights alone and depending on how much detail is there in your original files, that might be all you need to do to lighten those shadows, without completely eliminating them. (Shadows with detail are awesome. I think its closer to how we actually see things, except maybe at midday in the harsh sun).
User avatar
Trey
Posts: 156
Joined: October 1st, 2010, 9:40 pm
Location: NE OHIO

Re: In light of my recent post...

Post by Trey »

bgorum wrote:Congratulations on the new set-up! As far as critique goes, I'm personally not a big fan of black backgrounds. If you could get the subject closer to the background you can get a little color/detail there and I think that would be an improvement. Of course that can be a double edged sword too, because too much background detail becomes distracting. The trick is to use light fall-off and depth of field to provide just a hint of the surrounding environment, (I assume you still want the night time look). If this is a captive snake, then a plain colored background, green perhaps, placed just far enough behind the snake to provide color, but no detail could be used.
The other issue is the dark shadows underneath the snake. I'm not familiar with the "pringles can diffuser", but there is still quite a bit of directionality to the light here. That's not a bad thing. The light needs direction to get the nice scale texture you've got here, but it is casting dark shadows beneath the snake at the same time. What RAW converter are you using? In Lightroom you have the ability to bring up the shadows while leaving the mid-tones and highlights alone and depending on how much detail is there in your original files, that might be all you need to do to lighten those shadows, without completely eliminating them. (Shadows with detail are awesome. I think its closer to how we actually see things, except maybe at midday in the harsh sun).

Thank you for the response!

My goal for these images was to have a black background which is why I originally exposed them as such. I did use lightroom on both of them and played with shadows quite a bit actually! On the second image I decreased the shadows significantly (-43). It is quite funny, If I up the shadows the background becomes quite green along with the black in both images. I simply preferred the all black background as opposed to the dark green. I also like the look of the shadowed head. I guess it comes down to a matter of preference.

For example here is the first image with less shadowing, notice the the background is quite noisy as well now;

Image
User avatar
chrish
Posts: 3295
Joined: June 7th, 2010, 11:14 pm
Location: San Antonio, TX
Contact:

Re: In light of my recent post...

Post by chrish »

Trey,

Looks like the gear is going to produce some nice images for you.
I agree about the photos being a bit darker than I would have set them, but if that is the effect you wanted you did it well.

In regard to darkening the background, I would try with the blacks slider in lightroom and the bringing down the exposure a bit. This will darken your background and shadows without altering the color as much. Then you can go the shadows slider. If course, it is different for each shot. Just play til you get the effect you are after. In your second example (the lighter one), I suspect you could get that background jet black with the blacks slider without darkening the snake much at all.

The shots are great, my only small complaint is the shape of the diffuser reflection in they eye. While you did get diffuse light, the diffuser reflecton in the eye is a bit distracting. I will often use the clone tool to remove that some of that spot. Just remember to leave a bit of it as a catchlight. Once again, play around. In the second shot it should be easy to clone some of that eye pattern over part of the reflection. In the top photo it it will be tougher since it is on the boundary between sclera and pupil, but you might be able to reduce it a bit.

One last suggestion you might want to play around with is to take advantage of the fact that you have 24 megapixels. Back off a few feet and shoot from there, then crop down to the photo size you want. You can crop an image from your 24MP camera 50% or even more without seeing any image artifacts. The benefit is you will get a little bit more even lighting control and you get more depth of field without having to stop down to f/22. Just because your macro lens will get really close doesn't mean it is always the best choice.
User avatar
Trey
Posts: 156
Joined: October 1st, 2010, 9:40 pm
Location: NE OHIO

Re: In light of my recent post...

Post by Trey »

chrish wrote:Trey,

Looks like the gear is going to produce some nice images for you.
I agree about the photos being a bit darker than I would have set them, but if that is the effect you wanted you did it well.

In regard to darkening the background, I would try with the blacks slider in lightroom and the bringing down the exposure a bit. This will darken your background and shadows without altering the color as much. Then you can go the shadows slider. If course, it is different for each shot. Just play til you get the effect you are after. In your second example (the lighter one), I suspect you could get that background jet black with the blacks slider without darkening the snake much at all.

The shots are great, my only small complaint is the shape of the diffuser reflection in they eye. While you did get diffuse light, the diffuser reflecton in the eye is a bit distracting. I will often use the clone tool to remove that some of that spot. Just remember to leave a bit of it as a catchlight. Once again, play around. In the second shot it should be easy to clone some of that eye pattern over part of the reflection. In the top photo it it will be tougher since it is on the boundary between sclera and pupil, but you might be able to reduce it a bit.

One last suggestion you might want to play around with is to take advantage of the fact that you have 24 megapixels. Back off a few feet and shoot from there, then crop down to the photo size you want. You can crop an image from your 24MP camera 50% or even more without seeing any image artifacts. The benefit is you will get a little bit more even lighting control and you get more depth of field without having to stop down to f/22. Just because your macro lens will get really close doesn't mean it is always the best choice.

Awesome advice. I will have to learn about this clone tool you speak of lol! I'm not sure what "ideal" catchlight should look like however. I like the idea of backing off a bit, I, for some reason thought that cropping of an image for more than composition was a major taboo.
Post Reply