I've only managed to do two things today: entertain our littlest, who has yet another raging temperature (which, fortunately, has dropped a bit this evening), and upgrade my Movable Type installation to v3.14.
In terms of the latter: this is something I've been meaning to do for a while, for two reasons. First: despite hardly ever getting more than a shot or two ahead of myself the 'post in the future' option seems like a useful one, and second, I wanted to convert some of chromasia to be dynamically published (i.e. not just a set of static pages). The dynamic publishing, despite my best efforts, simply doesn't work for me, but the 'future posting' thing does. Oh well, I guess static pages are ok ;-) Oh, and you might now find that the comment window reloads a bit faster after you post your comment. As I couldn't get the dynamic publishing to work I spent a bit of time re-coding my templates such that posting a comment doesn't force a rebuild of quite so many pages.
In terms of looking after our youngest: I hate it when she's ill, particularly when she alternates between dozing off and crying – it's so hard to judge quite how ill she is. Anyway, this evening she seems a bit better and in between watching her Noddy DVD (for the 25th time this week) we spent some time playing with one of her older sister's hair bobbles. And I know this isn't the greatest of photographs, but I do think it's quite fun.
capture date camera lens aperture shutter speed shooting mode exposure bias metering mode ISO flash image quality RAW converter cropped?
10.24pm on 2/1/05
Canon 20D
EF 50mm f/1.8 II
f/5.6
1/60
manual
+2/3 (FEC)
evaluative
100
580EX
RAW
C1 Pro
minor
comment by graceshu at 12:29 AM (GMT) on 3 January, 2005
awww. it made me smile! :)
comment bymyla at 01:40 AM (GMT) on 3 January, 2005
Hi Dave,
This photo is great -- I love the way the light falls within the folds of the fabric. (this is also the CL test. . . did it work?) :-) M
comment byFrank Lynch at 04:34 AM (GMT) on 3 January, 2005
You are the most shameless of fishers for compliments I've ever run across: this is a fabulous shot. Cut it out!
comment by Adriana at 05:42 AM (GMT) on 3 January, 2005
Just to see those litlle hands makes me want my own baby :D. I hope she's fine now.
comment by Judith Polakoff at 06:14 AM (GMT) on 3 January, 2005
A really dumb comment, but baby fingers and toes always make me go all gooey inside. Nice shot. :)
Poor thing, I hope she's feeling better soon.
comment byTodd Baker at 06:53 AM (GMT) on 3 January, 2005
Well, you got my vote for best blog...2nd place by 7%....lets get voting people!
I really like the picture, mostly because I've been trying to get one with my 2 yr old that portrays the same innocent playfulness that youngn's exhibit. Obviously you had the up and to the right, but was that the only source?
I love the focus in on the hands....well done!
comment bymiklos at 07:00 AM (GMT) on 3 January, 2005
I didn't vote for chromasia simply because I don't think chromasia needs any more senseless advertising. After being in #1 spot for the past YEAR on photoblogs.org, things should start settling down I think, before Dave's head gets so big that he won't be able to fit through the door.
That's just my take on the issue.
Best of luck nonetheless.
comment bybtezra at 01:23 PM (GMT) on 3 January, 2005
~strong detail and color here, the clarity of that beaded blue object is fantastic; I would suggest opening up the crop a bit, especially up top/right corner...a unique subject matter to present, exactly what i have come to expect and enjoy in your images~
comment byjacqueline at 02:14 PM (GMT) on 3 January, 2005
Nice. Very Delicate.
p.s. the words Noddy and DVD don't seem to go together or maybe I'm just getting too old :)
comment by jude at 02:55 PM (GMT) on 3 January, 2005
i am curious as to how you do white balance as it is not listed in the as shot sections. do you just take care of it in raw conversion and shoot auto awb?
thanks
comment bydjn1 at 06:04 PM (GMT) on 3 January, 2005
Frank: thanks ;-)
Adriana: she's not exactly a bundle of laughs, but she's a bit better this evening. Thanks.
btzera: I agree, there's not quite enough room at the top of the image, but that's why I cropped it; i.e. I cropped some from the bottom and left of the image because I'd cropped it too tight in the first place.
jacqueline: I know what you mean, but believe me, there are a whole range of Noddy DVDs :-/
jude: I used to include the WB setting in my EXIF data but it ended up being redundant as 99 times out of a 100 I just use AWB and deal with it when I convert the RAW file.
comment byFox at 06:41 PM (GMT) on 3 January, 2005
Really like how the pink of the hands and blue of the plastic fall in your well selected shallow depth of field. A delicate and lovely image.
comment by tobias at 11:25 PM (GMT) on 3 January, 2005
The image is rather sweet I must confess, very crisp. Childs hands are so small aren't they, the hair band looks rather big doesn't it.
Onto to technical questions then. I notice is that you used exposure bias (that is white balance isn't it) and I presume due to the white of the romper suit (correct?). Now, the question here is how do you know if it's got the right white balance. I have experimented and find that the images become washed out when I use it. Is the rule, use it only against white/bright objects. I'm digging a hole here reall...
Also RAW why is this preferable? Why not just use the highest "large" setting on the camera? My point I suppose is what is the crucial difference.
I would like to say that although it may look like a foreign language to some, I find the setting on the camera is really useful. For instance Dave, had you not put that on your pebble shot I would stilll not have twigged about the 8 minute exposure, which brings me onto another point, why not a ten min exposure or 15 or even 6 min, because my point is that all of this can surely be compensated in Adobe? No? I'm analyising too much maybe but I am so curious and really enjoy photography. In fact I'm trying to get my mate to do a website as we speak.
I hope your daughter recovers and thanks for your inspiration and getting back to me on what are probably stupid questions...
Thanks David and Happy New Year
comment bydjn1 at 11:44 PM (GMT) on 3 January, 2005
Fox: thanks :-)
tobias: the exposure compensation I used for this shot was in terms of the flash output (FEC stands for Flash Exposure Compensation) as I find that the 580EX, particularly at close range, tends to under-expose by between 1/3 and a 1 stop. White Balance is different and is to do with the colour balance of the shot. In this instance I didn't alter it from the automatic setting (the baby-gro is lilac rather than white). I'll email you about this as I'm not sure quite how to explain it without asking you for a bit more information.
RAW is always better than JPEG, at least if you want to manipulate the image in any way afterwards. Even the highest quality JPEGs are still 8-bit images whereas RAW are 12-bit – you have much more latitude to alter a RAW image.
As for compensating for an improperly exposed shot with Photoshop: yes, you can do this, but only to a point. With RAW images you can get away with under-exposing by about one and a half stops, but beyond that you'll find that the image can't be recovered, at least not to the quality of a shot that was correctly exposed in the first place.
comment byslurpee at 04:57 AM (GMT) on 7 January, 2005
I've only managed to do two things today: entertain our littlest, who has yet another raging temperature (which, fortunately, has dropped a bit this evening), and upgrade my Movable Type installation to v3.14.
In terms of the latter: this is something I've been meaning to do for a while, for two reasons. First: despite hardly ever getting more than a shot or two ahead of myself the 'post in the future' option seems like a useful one, and second, I wanted to convert some of chromasia to be dynamically published (i.e. not just a set of static pages). The dynamic publishing, despite my best efforts, simply doesn't work for me, but the 'future posting' thing does. Oh well, I guess static pages are ok ;-) Oh, and you might now find that the comment window reloads a bit faster after you post your comment. As I couldn't get the dynamic publishing to work I spent a bit of time re-coding my templates such that posting a comment doesn't force a rebuild of quite so many pages.
In terms of looking after our youngest: I hate it when she's ill, particularly when she alternates between dozing off and crying – it's so hard to judge quite how ill she is. Anyway, this evening she seems a bit better and in between watching her Noddy DVD (for the 25th time this week) we spent some time playing with one of her older sister's hair bobbles. And I know this isn't the greatest of photographs, but I do think it's quite fun.
camera
lens
aperture
shutter speed
shooting mode
exposure bias
metering mode
ISO
flash
image quality
RAW converter
cropped?
Canon 20D
EF 50mm f/1.8 II
f/5.6
1/60
manual
+2/3 (FEC)
evaluative
100
580EX
RAW
C1 Pro
minor
awww. it made me smile! :)
Hi Dave,
This photo is great -- I love the way the light falls within the folds of the fabric. (this is also the CL test. . . did it work?) :-) M
You are the most shameless of fishers for compliments I've ever run across: this is a fabulous shot. Cut it out!
Just to see those litlle hands makes me want my own baby :D. I hope she's fine now.
A really dumb comment, but baby fingers and toes always make me go all gooey inside. Nice shot. :)
Poor thing, I hope she's feeling better soon.
Well, you got my vote for best blog...2nd place by 7%....lets get voting people!
I really like the picture, mostly because I've been trying to get one with my 2 yr old that portrays the same innocent playfulness that youngn's exhibit. Obviously you had the up and to the right, but was that the only source?
I love the focus in on the hands....well done!
I didn't vote for chromasia simply because I don't think chromasia needs any more senseless advertising. After being in #1 spot for the past YEAR on photoblogs.org, things should start settling down I think, before Dave's head gets so big that he won't be able to fit through the door.
That's just my take on the issue.
Best of luck nonetheless.
~strong detail and color here, the clarity of that beaded blue object is fantastic; I would suggest opening up the crop a bit, especially up top/right corner...a unique subject matter to present, exactly what i have come to expect and enjoy in your images~
Nice. Very Delicate.
p.s. the words Noddy and DVD don't seem to go together or maybe I'm just getting too old :)
i am curious as to how you do white balance as it is not listed in the as shot sections. do you just take care of it in raw conversion and shoot auto awb?
thanks
Frank: thanks ;-)
Adriana: she's not exactly a bundle of laughs, but she's a bit better this evening. Thanks.
btzera: I agree, there's not quite enough room at the top of the image, but that's why I cropped it; i.e. I cropped some from the bottom and left of the image because I'd cropped it too tight in the first place.
jacqueline: I know what you mean, but believe me, there are a whole range of Noddy DVDs :-/
jude: I used to include the WB setting in my EXIF data but it ended up being redundant as 99 times out of a 100 I just use AWB and deal with it when I convert the RAW file.
Really like how the pink of the hands and blue of the plastic fall in your well selected shallow depth of field. A delicate and lovely image.
The image is rather sweet I must confess, very crisp. Childs hands are so small aren't they, the hair band looks rather big doesn't it.
Onto to technical questions then. I notice is that you used exposure bias (that is white balance isn't it) and I presume due to the white of the romper suit (correct?). Now, the question here is how do you know if it's got the right white balance. I have experimented and find that the images become washed out when I use it. Is the rule, use it only against white/bright objects. I'm digging a hole here reall...
Also RAW why is this preferable? Why not just use the highest "large" setting on the camera? My point I suppose is what is the crucial difference.
I would like to say that although it may look like a foreign language to some, I find the setting on the camera is really useful. For instance Dave, had you not put that on your pebble shot I would stilll not have twigged about the 8 minute exposure, which brings me onto another point, why not a ten min exposure or 15 or even 6 min, because my point is that all of this can surely be compensated in Adobe? No? I'm analyising too much maybe but I am so curious and really enjoy photography. In fact I'm trying to get my mate to do a website as we speak.
I hope your daughter recovers and thanks for your inspiration and getting back to me on what are probably stupid questions...
Thanks David and Happy New Year
Fox: thanks :-)
tobias: the exposure compensation I used for this shot was in terms of the flash output (FEC stands for Flash Exposure Compensation) as I find that the 580EX, particularly at close range, tends to under-expose by between 1/3 and a 1 stop. White Balance is different and is to do with the colour balance of the shot. In this instance I didn't alter it from the automatic setting (the baby-gro is lilac rather than white). I'll email you about this as I'm not sure quite how to explain it without asking you for a bit more information.
RAW is always better than JPEG, at least if you want to manipulate the image in any way afterwards. Even the highest quality JPEGs are still 8-bit images whereas RAW are 12-bit – you have much more latitude to alter a RAW image.
As for compensating for an improperly exposed shot with Photoshop: yes, you can do this, but only to a point. With RAW images you can get away with under-exposing by about one and a half stops, but beyond that you'll find that the image can't be recovered, at least not to the quality of a shot that was correctly exposed in the first place.
voting again and again! :)