Death Valley Sunset

[Paulo Bizarro]

Thanks for the tutorial, and the image is wonderful. For someone like me, who has learned slide film with Velvia, this is the kind of photo I enjoy. Why limit ourselves with reality? Photography is not reality, reality is boring, move on...

[Ray]

Kevin makes the following comment about the initial appearance of the RAW image in Capture One.

This image was a result of shooting with Daylight White Balance with the camera compensating for the warm colors in the image.

I sometimes notice a similar effect myself when shooting sunsets. The impressive red/yellow glow, which inspired one to take the shot, sometimes seems to have lost its vibrancy in the unadjusted image. This is not because I've taken the shot too late, after the sunset is over. In fact, sometimes after one thinks the sunset is over one can get the most intense color effects. I recall situations when I've packed my camera away to depart from the scene, assuming the sunset is over, then have quickly retrieved my camera from the bag because the sky suddenly turns a bright red.

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.

[Isaac]

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.

Sunset colours across a shaded snowscape with bright mountain peak reflections in a lake or river are interesting -- delight in the deep blue / rose colour contrast, or fake the experience of grayer low-light vision and color constancy whitened snow.

Similarly, rev-up a sunset by looking into shaded foreground for some minutes, and then looking back at the sunset sky.

[Peter McLennan]

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

[BrianWJH]

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

Yep, spot on, one location where I often capture some vivid sunsets with the sun receding over a distant mountain range is popular for tourists and other occasional snappers, they will arrive just before sunset then shoot away until the sun sinks over the range and depart hastily thereafter, the real show if atmospherics are right will be as you say 15 to 30 minutes after the sun has gone.

Brian.

[ron ritcher]

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

Tony,

I feel you are off-base with you 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.  And your use of the term "motives" is bothersome as well; the spirit of this forum has always been one of honest give-and take, the sharing of (often) differing perspectives, and the desire to continue learning.  You seem to imply that the earlier poster must have been up to no-good.

Art, from my very limited experience, seems to be messy, unruly, and full of contradictions -- leaving plenty of room for widely-opposing points of view.  And last time I checked, no gallery curator ever demanded that patrons bring in a sample of their own art before critiquing a collection.

Ron

[David Sutton]

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?

[lelouarn]

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 ?

I understand that most of the time, being able to set the WB is enormously useful. Usually, one wants to apply a white balance because our eyes / brain interprets a scene. So in a Tungsten light, we don't see a white fabric yellow, because our brain knows it's white, so we correct the yellowness of the light and "see" a white fabric even in yellow light. This is why we need to adjust WB, so our pictures look like what the brain "sees".
But how do I do, if I want to show the colors as they were, without compensation for what our brain thinks it should see? So some kind of neutral WB. Actually even "no WB" at all. Why do we need to set the WB in a situation like this ? Can the camera just not show the amount of Red Green and Blue as they were recorded, without interpretation ?

I am sure I am missing something here, because all cameras have a WB setting, and it doesn't seem to be possible to "not have a WB".

[Ray]

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

Isn't Wikipedia wonderful! I hope you donate during their fund-raising periods. 

I recall when I first noticed that the sky on the inside of a rainbow was noticeably lighter than the sky on the outside of the bow, in the processed the images, I thought that maybe the cause was a camera white balance issue.
However, Wikipedia has informed me that this is a normal weather pattern. This is an example of my eye/brain not noticing something in reality which the camera has later made apparent. There is some truth in the adage that the camera doesn't lie. But it's not true that it never lies. 

[Ray]

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.

[Rob C]

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.

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

[Manoli]

This is an interesting discussion in its own right, which perhaps deserves a separate thread.

+1

[Manoli]

…  this is a forum about photographs, ...

… and I thought this was a forum about photography.

[ndevlin]

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 ?

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?"      

In RAW, the camera stores this WB as a number attached to the file. Because the RAW file is raw, it is just a series of values read off every sensor.  Nothing has been done to that data.

In your RAW converter, the software reads that number - think of it like a recipe sent home by the grocer with the food on a separate piece of paper - and then applies that information to decide how to convert and interpret the colour data coming off the sensor. (This is a massive over simplification).  But basically, you can follow 'the note', or do whatever you like, because the note was simply a suggestion, and the raw ingredients (the data) has not been touched.

Because 'correct' WB is by default thought of as daylight (about 5600 degrees kelvin), the converter will interpret the colour data to try to make things look like the scene was lit by daylight.  

In turn, because daylight is much 'cooler' (ie: less light on the yellow/orange end of the light spectrum) than sunset or sunrise, a sunset photo converted in this way will look bland and washed-out, because the software has interpreted the scene as having much less yellow/orange light than was actually there.  

This, in a nutshell, is why most basic workflows *start* with a neutralized or boring conversion of a sunset.

In Raw processing, we can simply change the way in which the data is interpreted, by changing the WB or colour temp settings.  Either warmer or cooler, until we get the colour rendition we like best.

With in-camera jpegs, all of this is done by the camera, according to whatever WB has been set on the camera at the time of taking. If you tell it it's a sunset, it will make the picture warmer.  However, because the processing is done, what you get is the camera's interpretation of the colour in the scene, with much less ability to change that after the fact.

The recipe has already been applied to the food, if you will follow my earlier analogy.

Hope that gets at your question.

Cheers,

- N.

[lelouarn]

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...

[Rob C]

… and I thought this was a forum about photography.

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

[Christoph C. Feldhaim]

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...

The question you must answer for yourself is:

What is color?

-- It is not the distribution of wavelength/intensities.
-- it is not any sort of tristimulus value.
-- instead it is a subjective sensation, a quale, which greatly depends on your past learning. E.g. a friend of J. W. v. Goethe (who was not only a poet, but also an early color scientist and theoretician), wrote to his friend Goethe about how he started to see color contrasts after having learned about these from Goethe in a talk they had and that the world looked different to him now.

So - looking for any means to get the color right is chasing a nonexistent magical bullet. Your eye can see a white sheet of paper as white under any light condition. But also you have a feeling about the color of light if learned to look at it. So - the eye does color balance, but only to a certain extent.

Cheers
~Chris

[Manoli]

Rob,
Apologies, tempus fugit (and slightly off topic), but briefly ..

… without photographs there is no photography.

Isn't it the other way round ? Without photography there would be no photographs

five minutes on the Internet and they can answer or contribute to anything

But not necessarily with any wisdom or expertise. Said expertise not necessarily being evidenced by, nor dependent on, the photographs he/she produces.  Like it or not, software, technique and methodology have become an integral part of attaining that final print. Discussions, opinions and personal experiences as to 'best practice' have all contributed to furthering individual endeavours and, on this site at least, said contributions have come from all quarters.

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'm not sure they're necessarily mutually exclusive.

I do accept that a huge industry has self-spawned itself onto the edges of the fabric of the petticoat tails.

Unfortunately, the 'industry' has become rife with opportunists and self-styled experts. But there is a world of difference between those seeking undeserved financial reward ( scamologists ) and those who contribute generously, for no material gain, for the greater good.  And, on this site, there have been quite a few of the latter.


All best,
M

ps
On the value of critique, or sterility thereof, have a look at this post :
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=84827.msg686590#msg686590

[ndevlin]

...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) ?

It's not a question of "must be" a WB...there simply *IS* a white balance to every image.  It is a base-point that defines what colour-value within the information provided by the camera = white or grey.  

Colour is completely relative as it comes out of the camera. Because the camera knows neither the temperature of the light hitting the subject, nor the 'colour' of the subject, the numbers in from the sensor mean nothing until your processing algorythm is told where to place grey.  All the other colour values are then determined by reference to that point.

The only question is where that value comes from.

- N.

ps. I've never really understood the concept of 'forensic' landscape. Steve Johnson (who I am rather fond of) is a big believer in this, but I don't get it. Who gives a shit what this dumb piece of desert looks like? I can look that up on Google streetview. It's much more interesting to see what others interpret it to be.  Remember, there is actually no absolute truth that what it looks like, either.  I suspect Yosemite would look quite different to your cat - perhaps in ways we can't even comprehend or express.  

[David Sutton]

A helpful discussion on white balance. I've always thought that because of the way our eyes and brain works, the decision on what is neutral in an image cannot be objective.
And I've learned a new word- quale. Cool.