Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/11/22
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Craig W. Shier wrote: > >At the risk of offending purists, the blown out sky is a perfect >situation for digital manipulation using negative film originals. >Do you just frame out the sky in order to avoid the huge EV range? >Do you take a shot with an ND Grad? Do you go for >the intimate scenics when the EV range is too great? Do you stay >away from transparency film under these conditions? The digital is an answer for the otherwise impossible. On my web page http://www.donalphilby.com/boat.html you will see two photos. The top left was done with a combination of two stop and three stop ND (5 total) filters to handle the contrast range at 9pm in the evening (plus some flash fill on the people). The image on the right had about six+ stops of range between the sunset sky and the boats in the canyon. I shot about three rolls of boats in various positions, exposed for the highlights on the water in the canyon which would give some detail in the shadow areas of the boats. Then when finished with the boats, I shot several frames bracketing way down (probably seven stops) and captured a sky that matched the canyon scene. It took the art director about 15 minutes to stitch the two selected frames together along the line of the hills. It ran as a page and a half spread in a brochure and looks flawless. The first picture would have been hard to do without an slr to see the ND position. The second image would have been easy with an M since it was a landscape essentially and done from a tripod from the cliff edge. Previsualization is one critical key. The other is bracketing like hell! donal - -- Donal Philby San Diego www.donalphilby.com