Monday 22 October 2007

Treescape with sunset behind- # 269


As I crossed "the Copse" in Ham I looked and saw: "Wow, that's striking, and very moving". I snapped 5 frames on different exposures. This was "the most appropriate/nearest to the feeling"..........but it has failed. Why?

5 comments:

  1. I'm sorry, I don't want to be pedantic here, but isn't there something tautological about the title. And you are wrong - your photo demonstrates the "tragic failure" much better than mine!

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  2. I have no specific comment! I was not present and don't know which feeling you had!

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  3. As Peter implies "I guess you had to be there.." A similar example of this, if on a different scale. We have all seen the pictures of the Earth,all blue and green and shiny, taken from outer space. Astronauts, especially those participating on space walks, have commented that nothing prepares you for the effect of seeing the Earth hanging in space, without any picture frame around it! I think I can imagine what it must be like - well almost!

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  4. For me, it's not a failure (perhaps a bit too dark at the bottom), but for you it may be because it seems you wanted to catch a special atmosphere. I like the silhouette of the different kinds of trees and for me it looks a bit melancholic.

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  5. It's self evident why it would fail - Ham was in Portugal at the time ;-)

    On a more serious note, you are doomed to failure - if that's what you see it as (and it is rather a nice photo). Reason is simple - dynamic range.

    The dynamic range is the ability of the camera to record the variations in light of the image. A compact camera is capable of - say - around 3 to 4 stops, a good DSLR, 6 stops, film (tough call but) say 10 stops. The human eye? Over 20.

    What that means is, point your camera at earth & sky and either the sky gets "blown" (overexposed - completely white) or the land is underexposed and black.

    There are some things that can be done to mitigate, but I'd say that's your problem.

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