Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I. spHS – Light Source Shot & Much More… 18 slides Copyright © 2003 – 2009 Kenji Tachibana

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Assignments: Turned inThank You! Assignment: Light source shotsNot so good

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I. L ight Source Shot: The dotted white line shows the camera framing of the #4 light-source shot. Shoot it with the zoom set to full wide.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Assignments: Turned inThank You! Assignment: Light-source diagram overlay

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Predictable Exposure Difficulty: My assignment shot requirement state clearly not to have any light source in the image. Like the rest of my requirements, it’s meant to keep you out of predictable difficulties. Getting a light-source in the image makes getting the correct exposure chancy at best. Few students luck out but most don’t. And the Histogram evaluation also becomes far less predictable. Assignment Light Source: Exposure

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Light-Source Shot: When shooting the light-source shot, it’s impossible not to get the light-source in the image. And, as expected, the exposure easily becomes an issue. Shot 1: The sky is well exposed but the foreground is not. Shot 2: The shadow area is well exposed but the sky (the subject) is blown out. Assignment Light Source: Required shot

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I HDR: High dynamic range HDR means that the tones in the image exceed the sensor chip’s capability to record all the tones. So, if you record the light tones (sky) properly, the tree and the buildings are rendered black to near black. Or the shadow tones (buildings) are properly rendered but the subject (sky) is over exposed (blown out). Assignment Light Source: Extreme tonal range

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I HDR: Dealing with it One marginal solution for dealing with HDR is lowering the camera Contrast setting. If the example shot were to be reshot with a lower camera Contrast setting, the trees and the light roof patch would have shown more detail. A much more effective solution is to activate a special circuitry in the camera to deal with HDR. And all DSLR sensors are larger making them better able to deal with HDR. But HDR is still a problem with all digital cameras. Assignment Light Source: Extreme tonal range

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Sony Solution: HDO Sony’s Alpha series DSLR cameras has been breaking new grounds and winning awards for a number of years. Alpha 100, Sony’s first DSLR, made a big hit by being the camera of the year for several years in a row. One of it’s award winning feature was called HDO. The O stands for optimizer. And it’s been getting better ever since. Assignment Light Source: Sony HDR ’Optimizer’

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Sony IS (Image Stabilizer): Sony was the first to put the IS into the camera body instead of the lens. They may still be unique in that regard. Putting the IS in the body allows any lens to acquire IS capability. And that is a major deal. Sony has a huge legacy of relatively inexpensive lenses from the Minolta/Konica line of cameras. Any of them will be IS capable with the IS in the body. Sony also carries high end Zies lenses which also benefits from IS without costing more in price, weight, and power consumption. Assignment Light Source: Sony IS

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Which is Better: Of the two, the first image gives better information about the light source. On the second, Since the light-source is blocked up, it is not clear whether the light source was just skylight, cloudy, or mixed like the first. Assignment Light Source: Back to the main topic

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Take 2: Work around No need to rush out and get a DSLR with better HDR handling capability. Just take 2 shots. One for Sky and the other for the shadow area. Doing so makes sense because both the Sky and the Shadow area can contain lighting relevant information. Assignment Light Source: Another work around

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Incorrectly Exposed: This is Toy’s Light shot. It’s very under exposed. His assignment shot ‘Lonely’ was also seriously under exposed. And that is a pattern. If the pattern repeats in other situations, it becomes predictable. A predictable pattern can be countered with a predictable EC bias settings. For instance, Toy may try applying an EC +1 to +1.5 bias on the next shot. Assignment Light Source: Exposure

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Assignment Lighting: Photography: Drawing with light Next to the story, being aware of your light source and its end effect on your subject and scene is a critically important skill for you to master. Most of you are shooting the Light shot at the end as an after thought. Start shooting it at the beginning of your shoot. This will force you to observe the lighting first. You might also have to shoot it at the end in case you have changed your shooting position or angle.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I General Information: Knowledge is Power: Study more about light on your own using my other PowerPoint show resources… o 05c_skyLight_20.ppsLight source o 06d_light-ing_28.ppsGeneral lighting o 06f_sideLight.ppsLight direction o 07a_peopleLight_14.ppsLighting people o 07c_drawLight_13.ppsDraw with light o 07d_rawLighting_d9.ppsRAW & light direction o 13_emergencyLight.ppsNight balanced flash

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Special Information: Earn Bonus Points: Do an in-depth study and report on Light and Lighting. Turn it in as a 1 page report with 3 to 5 paragraphs with individual paragraph headers. Use any Library or go online to research world wide. Start at dpreview.com. Done right, it’ll be worth bonus points. Done without depth, will not earn bonus points. Any bonus point attempt must be approved in writing by me.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Summary Slide: 1 Beyond the Point: Of no return We have now moved beyond the halfway point. And all of you have had several 1:1 sessions with me on your assignment images and class standing. Therefore, I expect you to know just about where you stand and what area(s) needs work. If you continue at the same level of assignment and class performance, expect your grade to be about what you saw during our 1:1.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Summary Slide: 4 Rather Than Grade Focus: I Hope that… Your main goal is to learn how to tell a powerful story through Image Making. In that endeavor, you learn about aperture, shutter speed, color, focus (sharpness), composition, photographic design, and drawing with light.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I x End