Death Valley Sunset story. When does a 'camera' photo stop being a photo and become a 'software' painting. ???Kevin makes it pretty clear that he edited the image based on what he saw and experienced when he shot it.
Photos: fact or fiction. When does the Sunset become the dawn of fiction. Just questions in the WIND.
What is the point of this photograph?
Reminds me of: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/1photo-pages/the_making_of_the_pilbara_storm.shtml
If you missed the shot or it wasn't that great to start with move on and try again rather than try and make it something it wasn't - "my vision" is a copout. Shots like this are what has caused people to perpetually ask "was it photoshopped?" whenever they see a dramatic landscape photograph.
Kevin makes it pretty clear that he edited the image based on what he saw and experienced when he shot it.
...but people will stop trusting what you say...Credibility is in the eye of beholder - true.
Credibility is in the eye of beholder - true.Hi Tony. A fair comment.
Perhaps if you posted some of your work we could see where you are coming from and we could calibrate your critiques based on your work and the motives behind them.
Tony Jay
For the record my comment was directed toward Isaac.
This image was a result of shooting with Daylight White Balance with the camera compensating for the warm colors in the image.
However, it's interesting that Jeff Schewe has a different recollection of the scene. It's my understanding that the eye/brain will always tend to compensate for colors it sees. A white shirt will tend to appear white to the brain in different lighting. Snow will tend to appear white whether in sunlight or the shade, but the camera's White Balance might render the snow in the shade distinctly blue, and so on.
My experience with sunsets is that colour (if there is any) will peak approximately 15 minutes after the recorded time of sunset. "Civil Twilight"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_twilight#Civil_twilight
Credibility is in the eye of beholder - true.
Perhaps if you posted some of your work we could see where you are coming from and we could calibrate your critiques based on your work and the motives behind them.
Tony Jay
My experience with sunsets is that colour (if there is any) will peak approximately 15 minutes after the recorded time of sunset. "Civil Twilight"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_twilight#Civil_twilight
Hello Ron.
I may be reading too much into your post, but without taking sides too much I don't think Tony Jay's comments are over the top, and I have no doubt at all that Isaac has the where-with-all to give as good as he takes in this forum if he felt it was going too far. ;)
There have been several calls on this forum for Isaac to post images, and it is entirely up to him to decide when/if he is comfortable with that. For example, some folks are more interested in a more academic approach to photography rather than a practical one, and I have no problem with that, though I may quietly tease them a little. It is not done maliciously. I don't know whether Isaac falls into this category or not.
The point I take from this is that people are interested in a person's approach to their work and thus their approach to discussions here. After all, a few pictures say more than a whole heap of posts. I would be horrified if anyone used a forum member's work as a basis for personal criticism, but on the other hand I too am interested in what motivates us as human beings.
May I also add from my perspective, that though I may not always agree with them, both Tony and Isaac have always been gentlemen.
David
Edit: I seem to be in a pink and fluffy be-nice-to-people mood lately. I blame it on my switch to Fuji. I've been uncharacteristically cheerful.
Perhaps I should go back to Canon?
This is an interesting discussion in its own right, which perhaps deserves a separate thread. I recall a few years ago on this forum, I received similar criticism after I was critical of issues such as blown highlights on the submitted images of other forum members.
But those were the days when the forum did not allow images to be posted if one didn't have one's own website.
The site has now developed so that anyone can post an image that exists on their hard drive, although such images can be seen only by those who are logged on to the site.
Usually when I now post an image, it is to demonstrate a particular technical point, or to have a bit of fun in posting something that is a bit unconventional. I have no desire to post an image in search of approval, hoping that it will get rave comments describing it as wonderful.
Isaac's comment, "It isn't forbidden to say something looked like such-and-such if it didn't -- but people will stop trusting what you say." gives a hint that Isaac is perhaps a bit worried that, if he does a post one of his own images, and forum members think it is a bit ordinary, they might cease to give credence to his views.
There are other forum members in a similar situation. BJL for example is very knoweldgeable on photographic technical matters, but never posts an image of his own.
This is unfortunate, but understandable. It's equivalent to someone, before believing what one says, asking if one has a Ph.D in the subject.
This is an interesting discussion in its own right, which perhaps deserves a separate thread.
… this is a forum about photographs, ...
I am curious about the "the camera settings ate my nice sunset colors" idea. I have seen this myself, you can "get rid" of those nice colors of a sunset by neutralizing the white balance.
What I don't understand, is do cameras have a setting where white balance is not touched, i.e. a WB setting which is faithful to the light that was there, as recorded by the CMOS sensor, without interpretation / free parameter called WB ?
… and I thought this was a forum about photography.
Thanks Nick, I think it does partly answer my question.
But imagine I want to be a forensic landscape photographer. Imagine I do not want to interpret the scene in a pleasing way, but rather be as objective as possible, and just "measure" the scene in a picture. So I do not want to inject the WB into the equation. Why can I not do this, why MUST there be a white balance (whether it's through the RAW WB setting or cooked into the JPEG) ?
I suspect this has to do with the fact that you need to take out the color response of the CMOS (or CCD). For example, the CMOS is much more sensitive to the red (than to the blue) and if you don't do this correction, then the image really looks funky (i.e. completely red, with the blue almost completely black). And I assume this correction depends on the input spectrum, i.e. the color of light illuminating the scene. So you MUST input this externally to the CMOS image - lower the red, so that the blue has a chance of being seen.
But perhaps there is another reason ?
Sorry from deviating this thread from Kevin's nice picture to the fundamentals of why we MUST white balance a shot...
… without photographs there is no photography.
five minutes on the Internet and they can answer or contribute to anything
Give a choice between someone with a PhD in the thing and someone with a couple of years of work experience, there's little doubt where the greater value would be found.
I do accept that a huge industry has self-spawned itself onto the edges of the fabric of the petticoat tails.
...So I do not want to inject the WB into the equation. Why can I not do this, why MUST there be a white balance (whether it's through the RAW WB setting or cooked into the JPEG) ?
Manoli, without photographs there is no photography.
Anyone can read a book and recite; today, they don't even need a book - five minutes on the Internet and they can answer or contribute to anything at the end of those few minutes...
Give a choice between someone with a PhD in the thing and someone with a couple of years of work experience, there's little doubt where the greater value would be found. And in case it's missed: the work experienced guy would get my vote. Photography is about the doing, not the theorizing though of course, I do accept that a huge industry has self-spawned itself onto the edges of the fabric of the petticoat tails. We need a friggin ' huge washing machine with lots of detergent.
;-)
Rob C
Isn't Wikipedia wonderful! I hope you donate during their fund-raising periods. ;)
Haven't you got this one ass from elbow, Ray?
It's the theoreticians amongst us who need to display their credentials; this is a forum about photographs, not about an abstract science.
Rob C
I can only surmise that those members of the forum who never post any images of their own, but who are very vocal on technical matters, and/or aesthetic matters, are a bit worried about this mindless association prevalent in the public at large and how it will affect their credibility if their photos are not as highly regarded as their technical expertise or insights on aestheticism. To this extent I sympathize with them.
Today, producing a website should, for the 'experts' that seem to proliferate here, be not a problem at all. So why be shy? False modesty perchance?
Rob C
I just don't understand where the WB comes in.
The sensor reads R,G,B values from pixels. So that's a color. Why can this color not be used - or even seen by the user ?
So ... one only has the right to comment on something at which one personally excels ? Surely a person's words stand on their own, just as much as a person's photographs stand on their own. Somebody may be good at analysing and discussing the work of others without being able to produce good works themselves.
And that's exactly the point: the 'public' has every right to think their verbal wanderings more than a little suspect. If they can't put up, then the honourable alternative is to...
[...]
So yes, I do think that if unwillingness to show work is there, a reason has to exist.
[...]
Rob C
So ... one only has the right to comment on something at which one personally excels ? Surely a person's words stand on their own, just as much as a person's photographs stand on their own. Somebody may be good at analysing and discussing the work of others without being able to produce good works themselves.
So you don't trust any theatre critics, sports commentators, political analysts etc., until they have produced their own Broadway show, or won Wimbledon, or run a country?
That would be a neat trick!
Hence the variation on the old adage: those who can, do; those who can't tell all the others how to do it better. There are lots of examples of the latter... Wouldn't you be delighted if your dentist subscribed to the very same ethic!
;-)
Rob C
So you don't trust any theatre critics, sports commentators, political analysts etc., until they have produced their own Broadway show, or won Wimbledon, or run a country?
So you don't trust any theatre critics, sports commentators, political analysts etc., until they have produced their own Broadway show, or won Wimbledon, or run a country?
I understand the artistic and perception related side.
The sensor reads R,G,B values from pixels. So that's a color.
'The most critical part of the formal definition of color to keep in mind is that it is an “attribute of visual perception”—a description of color appearance to human observers.'
pdf "Charting Color from the Eye of the Beholder (http://www.cis.rit.edu/fairchild/PDFs/PAP21.pdf)" A reprint from American Scientist, 2005.
... your challenge to post work. One's WORDS will (hopefully) tell "where we're coming from," and whether or not we even CAN produce images that reflect our aesthetic is irrelevant. ...
Somebody may be good at analysing and discussing the work of others without being able to produce good works themselves.
Also known as. (https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/genetic)
No, I presume that because a fallacy has been made that claim can be dismissed and a better reasoned claim sought.
Jeff Schewe is right. When photographers say that they are preparing a file for a print so that it corresponds to the way they remember the scene, what they really mean is the way they would "like" to remember the scene. Nothing wrong with that, but nobody really has an accurate memory about the way the light and color of a landscape looked six months ago.
For you there's Flickr :-)
Nothing to be puzzled about -- if you wish to see photos look at a photo sharing site.
Don't be too concerned, you aren't the only one ;-)
Sorry to be solid, but there are two sides to this WB business. I understand the artistic and perception related side. So I agree that there must be degree of freedom to adjust the WB to obtain a pleasing picture. I just don't understand where the WB comes in.
The sensor reads R,G,B values from pixels. So that's a color. Why can this color not be used - or even seen by the user ?
I would have naively said that one would calibrate in white light, and normalize the R,G,B values read off the sensor to the same value (for white light, one expects R=G=B, if the camera's sensor and color filters are normalized). But perhaps that doesn't work ?
This is why I find it so comical when Photographer X waxes poetically how he tries to replicate in his prints what he saw when he pressed the shutter. Even funnier is when he says that he tries to replicate what he "felt", and the photograph is totally over the top in contrast and saturation. Sort of scary if that's what he actually saw. [G]
So you don't trust any theatre critics, sports commentators, political analysts etc., until they have produced their own Broadway show, or won Wimbledon, or run a country?
This is why I find it so comical when Photographer X waxes poetically how he tries to replicate in his prints what he saw when he pressed the shutter. Even funnier is when he says that he tries to replicate what he "felt", and the photograph is totally over the top in contrast and saturation. Sort of scary if that's what he actually saw. [G]
Reduction to the absurd. Let's stick with good old photography, about which at least one of knows something.And one of us - but apparently only one - knows what "reductio ad absurdum" means.
Rob C
Our sense of colour is so sensitive that we can distinguish many millions of different colours. However, we cannot remember these differences. That is, if two colours are not shown simultaneously, our ability to distinguish them diminishes dramatically. It is probable that we normally remember only a few colours, for example the eleven focal colours ... However, under certain conditions, up to thirty can be remembered ... and with training it is possible to remember and distinguish up to fifty different colours. Remembered colours also tend to be more saturated (that is more intense) than they actually were...
page 21 The Colour Image Processing Handbook (http://books.google.com/books?id=oEsZiCt5VOAC), 1998
So you don't trust any theatre critics, sports commentators, political analysts etc., until they have produced their own Broadway show, or won Wimbledon, or run a country?
Thanks Nick, I think it does partly answer my question.
But imagine I want to be a forensic landscape photographer. Imagine I do not want to interpret the scene in a pleasing way, but rather be as objective as possible, and just "measure" the scene in a picture. So I do not want to inject the WB into the equation. Why can I not do this, why MUST there be a white balance (whether it's through the RAW WB setting or cooked into the JPEG) ?
I suspect this has to do with the fact that you need to take out the color response of the CMOS (or CCD). For example, the CMOS is much more sensitive to the red (than to the blue) and if you don't do this correction, then the image really looks funky (i.e. completely red, with the blue almost completely black). And I assume this correction depends on the input spectrum, i.e. the color of light illuminating the scene. So you MUST input this externally to the CMOS image - lower the red, so that the blue has a chance of being seen.
But perhaps there is another reason ?
Sorry from deviating this thread from Kevin's nice picture to the fundamentals of why we MUST white balance a shot...
Also known as. (https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/genetic)
Geez . . . quite hiding behind that Cliff Notes logic-link, will you? And while you're at it, do you mind telling me, in you own words please, just what about my comment you could dismiss so flippantly?
If one errs on the side of excessive vibrancy, so what!There's absolutely nothing wrong with doing whatever you like to your photographs.
And one of us - but apparently only one - knows what "reductio ad absurdum" means.
But that's not what I wrote: I wrote something quite else, in English, indicating that you had reduced the discussion to an absurd level of comparisons. So yes, indirectly and despìte your best efforts, you were actually quite right about one of us knowing something - if perhaps not what you'd hoped.My comparisons were simply a logical consequence of your own statements. If you now find them absurd, well .... if the cap fits ...
;-)
Rob C
My comparisons were simply a logical consequence of your own statements. If you now find them absurd, well .... if the cap fits ...
It is interesting to me where this thread has gone. I was at this PODAS. We were driving back from Beatty. As we crested the pass that opens to the valley we saw some very exciting clouds that looked to be ripe for a good sunset. At this point the light had not peaked, but things were changing fast. We stumbled out of the cars as fast as we could. Here is an image taken soon after we pulled over, several minutes before peak light.
Next is an image taken probably within a minute of Kevin's. My interpretation of the colors are a bit cooler than Kevin's, but you can see the similarities. After the sunset we were all very excited from the experience. I have not been to Death Valley many times, but it seems to me dramatic clouds like this are rare there. We talked and raved about this sunset the whole evening and throughout the following days. For those skiers in the group, it felt like the perfect powder day at your favorite dream resort. Beautiful light, beautiful location, the right timing, all while being on a workshop. The Perfect Storm, if you will.
So, a few comments:
Kevin did not make up these colors in his minds eye from what was otherwise a bland sunset.
We did not miss or arrive after the peak light of sunset. Sure we had to work fast, and if I had been there an hour earlier I would have scouted a more interesting foreground. But some posts seem to infer Kevin made color adjustments from pure fabrication, speculation or imagination with no mental link to an event he saw. That is not the case. Of course in my opinion he is free to do that, but I’m just making the point that is not what was done here.
I processed these two images several weeks after I got back. His article is the first time I saw his image. Although his color is warmer and, yes, a bit more Raberized, our interpretations of the clouds are remarkably close.
Ciao,
Dave
Good to see someone posting images. However on my monitor I get a sense of too much blue and magenta for a sunset. Is it my monitor which is out of calibration?
Lelouran,
Good question. This goes to one of the core differences between RAW and jpeg. White Balance ["WB"] is nothing more than the camera's best *guess* at what colour temperature (a) existed when the shot was take and (b) the photographer wanted. It is a fancy way of saying, "in this scene, what is white/grey/neutral?"
Yes, you should indeed wear it. Hope it's not too uncomfortable for you!Rob - grow up, FFS, you're starting to sound like Pee-wee Herman - "I'm rubber and you're glue".
;.)
Rob C
Rob - grow up, FFS, you're starting to sound like Pee-wee Herman - "I'm rubber and you're glue".
The error you identified in Tony Jay's challenge is also-known-as the genetic fallacy. The very same fallacy listed at that "Cliff Notes logic-link".
So, a re-iteration of your comment rather than a dismissal of your comment.
And the most scary of all: the guy who believes the other guy who told him that it's possible to show character in a portrait.
What bloody tosh! You can't do it, and if you catch the Annie L documentary - Life through a Lens - she and others tell you that and why it can't be done. Believe them, they are correct; I know because I've often tried to do just that and still can't hack it. Nobody has. Ever. It's the Golden Holy Grail. It's why we try. It's the photographic Everest Plus.
Rob C
And of course we have that memorable portrait of Winston Churchill by Karsh, which conveys the impression that Churchill was a bit of a bulldog. ;)
There's the rub: we assume the attitudes and makeup of the bulldog because that's what reputation taught us.
Remove the identity and myth, and you are faced with a slightly over-processed portrait of a somewhat fat old man with quite a degree of degeneration writ large.
The production suits purpose because we have this well-established characterisation provided along with the visual. We didn't start with a cipher. Had Winnie just been the local vicar, looked like that and was shown like that, heads would probably have rolled, and Mr Karsh might not have been paid.
Rob C