Iceberg - Antarctica

[OldRoy]

Iceberg - Antarctica

Nikon D800E, ISO400, 6500th at F11 - 24mm

Now I'm pretty dim, so would someone like to explain this choice of exposure values for me?
Roy

[Chairman Bill]

Here's a guess. The sky looks fairly overcast, although the cloud is broken. Light levels were lowish, so an ISO of 400. The clouds parted, the iceberg was nicely illuminated, and rather than take the time to knock the ISO down to base levels, just took the shot (possibly in AE mode).

[fdisilvestro]

Another guess.. F11 to have enough dept of field from the foreground water to the background shapes, 1/6500 to avoid blur, ISO 400 since there is no benefit on going beyond that on a D800E if you shot RAW. With those values there is also no risk of losing detail in the highlights.

Regards

[mvsoske]

Regardless of the numbers, it's a captivating image!

Mark

[Kevin Raber]

I'll explain how and why of this shot.  Shooting in Antarctica with lots of dark (water) and extreme brights (snow & ice) can be very tricky.  So, when shooting from a Zodiac and moving quickly from one scene to another I do a 5 exposure bracket on the Nikon d800E with two stop spread between exposures.  I don't do this to do HDR.  I very seldom do HDR and when I do I do it for artistic reasons.  I'm sure you have heard many times about exposing to the right.  In a normal scene that is good advice.  In this shot after looking at my exposures I selected the file that was 2 stops under exposed, essentially exposed to the left.  That darkened the brighter sky and allowed detail in the iceberg.  I used the levels setting in Capture One to re-map the tonality of the image.  There was only a plus 4 for saturation which is nothing really, a tad of contrast and I did just a bit of highlight recovery to bring out even more detail in the iceberg.  I did use the vignette tool to darken the corners just a bit.  I made a 44 inch print of this and it is spectacular.  I'm tempted to print it to 60 inches wide and may do that in the next few days.

Don't be afraid to bracket your images especially when photographing in challenging lighting.  As far as ISO and shutter speed.  I shot on aperture priority finding f11 gave good depth of field for just about anything I was shooting.   The 6500th of second shutter was done by the camera as part of the HDR bracket.  By using aperture priority and an ISO that I know will give high enough shutter speed I am able to get a good set of bracketed exposures that I can work with once I have my images in my RAW processor.

Kevin

[OldRoy]

Ok - "shot from a Zodiac" is almost sufficient explanation in itself.
BTW no criticism of the result implied by my question - just that the ss in particular looked extremely high in relation to some of the other parameters.  But I have never shot a D800, unfortunately.
Roy

[Jeremy Roussak]

Ok - "shot from a Zodiac" is almost sufficient explanation in itself.
BTW no criticism of the result implied by my question - just that the ss in particular looked extremely high in relation to some of the other parameters.  But I have never shot a D800, unfortunately.
Roy

I'm glad you'd asked: I too was puzzled. Kevin's explanation is interesting.

Jeremy

[Schewe]

I do a 5 exposure bracket on the Nikon d800E with two stop spread between exposures.

Well, that's what Kevin SAYS he is doing....but having shot right next to him many times, I think Kev just likes hearing the shutter fire :~)

Point in fact though, shooting in Antarctica (or any place with bright snow/ice) is a challenge for all current light meters on DSLRs. You can go nutz trying to figure out the optimal exposure compensation and as Kevin says, when you are on a Zodiac cruise with limited shooting windows in a fairly fast moving platform, it's tough to preshoot, look at the histogram and make changes. For this reason bracketing is the way to go (although my preference is a 3 shot bracket set 2 stops apart–not sure the d800E can do 2 stops on a 3 shot bracket).

[Hans Kruse]

Well, that's what Kevin SAYS he is doing....but having shot right next to him many times, I think Kev just likes hearing the shutter fire :~)

Point in fact though, shooting in Antarctica (or any place with bright snow/ice) is a challenge for all current light meters on DSLRs. You can go nutz trying to figure out the optimal exposure compensation and as Kevin says, when you are on a Zodiac cruise with limited shooting windows in a fairly fast moving platform, it's tough to preshoot, look at the histogram and make changes. For this reason bracketing is the way to go (although my preference is a 3 shot bracket set 2 stops apart–not sure the d800E can do 2 stops on a 3 shot bracket).

My D800E can have a maximum of 1 stop between bracket shots. Kevin probably meant that he shot 5 way bracket with a total of +2 and -2 stops. Why he chose an underexposed one for processing beats me, though.

[Kevin Raber]

Hans, You have shot with me.  You know I do things different. The underexposed image allowed me to re-map tonality in Capture One with levels tool.   This brought out the details in the iceberg and allowed the sky to stay on the darker side.  Just saying. The print by the way is beautiful.

Kevin

[Hans Kruse]

Hans, You have shot with me.  You know I do things different. The underexposed image allowed me to re-map tonality in Capture One with levels tool.   This brought out the details in the iceberg and allowed the sky to stay on the darker side.  Just saying. The print by the way is beautiful.

Kevin

Kevin, yes, I know you do post processing different from many others. I appreciate that. The point I'm not agreeing on is to take an underexposed shot rather than one more exposed without any blown highlights (I assume this was the case from your explanation). I haven't checked it with Capture One, but in Lightroom two exposures one stop apart and adjusted for that difference in Lightroom look identical. I would expect that if exposure was taken down two stops from the most exposed one to the one you chose would be also pretty identical with the difference of less noise. The noise might not matter in this case but as a matter of principle I would argue that ETTR is always the best approach for minimizing noise and that there is no downside to do this as long a highlights are not clipped. The bracketing approach makes sense to me. One could make such shooting even more optimal by setting the ISO at 100 with auto ISO and manual mode and then set the aperture as needed and the shutter speed so that the longest shutter speed in the bracket sequence would be enough to avoid shake. Thereby many shots probably would be at ISO 100 and provide the optimum quality and no chimping would be needed during the shooting on the Zodiac.

[PeterAit]

Iceberg - Antarctica

Nikon D800E, ISO400, 6500th at F11 - 24mm

Now I'm pretty dim, so would someone like to explain this choice of exposure values for me?
Roy

These exposure values caught my eye, too. The old rule of thumb for exposure for film was 1 over the ASA (now ISO) at f/16 for sunlight. So for this one it would be 1/400 sec at f/16 or 1/800 at the stated aperture of f/11. 1/6500 would be 3 stops underexposed. Plus, this is not a sun-lit image.

Regardless of the exposure, I like the image. It is a nice departure from the all-too-common YABI (yet another blue iceberg) with its moodiness - and the streak of blue ice in the distant mass is a nice detail.

[Kevin Raber]

Thanks for the comments on the image.  I have a number of nice images from this one zodiac excursion.  One more time, I am not afraid of high ISOs with the D800 or for that matter my Olympus OM E-1, Fuji XT-1 or many of the newer cameras.  I set the ISO at 400 because we were starting our zodiac cruise in heavy overcast.  At 400 f8-11 I was getting nominal speeds of 500th of a sec..  That speed especially with a D800 and its high res can still not yield the best image. High mega-pixel sensors are very unforgiving when it comes to small errors in focus or movement.  I'd rather go for sure thing as far as stopping motion blur and deal with any noise or grain later when processing.  In the case of these kind of shots it really makes no difference.  The Nikon and many other cameras yield very nice files at 400 and even higher iso. The brackets were essential for getting an image with optimal exposure in this environment.  We were lucky as the god of light saw what we were doing and lit the icebergs and kept the darker clouds in the distance.  You really need to see how nice the prints look form these icebergs shots. 

Jeff, Yes I like the sound of the motor drive firing off 5 shot bursts.  Heck, I'd buy the Nikon D4s cause it sounds so cool at its high speed.  (wouldn't anyone)  Nothing like have frames per second envy.  I was sure you'd give me crap for posting another iceberg shot.

Hans,  You know me and I don't follow rules, I try to get the shot.  I trust AP exposure a lot.  It allows me to shoot at the optimal f-stop and the shutter speed falls into place.  When we have shot together we used tripods and could afford a longer exposure at low ISO.  When shooting in Antarctica tripods aren't an option.

Kevin

[Schewe]

Jeff, Yes I like the sound of the motor drive firing off 5 shot bursts.  Heck, I'd buy the Nikon D4s cause it sounds so cool at its high speed.  (wouldn't anyone)  Nothing like have frames per second envy.  I was sure you'd give me crap for posting another iceberg shot.

LOL...well, I was gonna give you grief for "yet another friggin' iceberg" but though I would just give you grief about one thing at a time :~)

[Christoph C. Feldhaim]

Great image, but I'm still missing a larger version or at least the link to it on the main page.
On the other hand - you could start making a "LuLa Stamps" series ....
Cheers
~Chris