For the first exercise in Light I was to produce 4-6 photographs which are deliberately lighter or darker than the average metered setting and give reasons why.
The photographs for this exercise were taken in RAW format and have had minimal post production in Photoshop so as to demonstrate the necessary differences.
I operated the camera in the manual setting for this series of photographs and was set to matrix metering, which gave the settings above for the correct exposure, according to the cameras sensor.
The white of the toll house to the left of the image contrasts nicely with the darker area to the right of the image.
When viewing the above image on the histogram there was clipping to the darker areas.
By reducing the shutter speed the shadows have lightened and the clipped area has been reduced, but still showed signs of being too dark. The white front to the house was showing to the extreme right of the histogram indicating that it was as bright as it could be before this area would show signs of being clipped.
This photograph demonstrates the dynamic range of the camera. With these settings the histogram showed an even graph with peaks to the left or the dark end of the histogram. By reducing the shutter speed I was able to lighten the darker areas of the photograph to show more detail, however the metered settings the camera suggested produced a good photograph bearing in mind the range of light to dark shown in the photograph.
This photograph was another tricky one for the camera's sensor to master. The range of dark to light is not immediately apparent when first viewing this photograph. At the selected aperture the camera suggested a shutter speed of 1/60 sec, the dark areas were correctly exposed however the 'Kawasaki' writing on the fuel tank and reflection on top of the fuel tank were blown out, indicated by the histogram.
Nikon D4 - f4 @ 1/80sec ISO 100
By increasing the shutter speed I was able to reduce the highlight clipping. The darker areas were still within the histogram. If i had selected spot metering and used the area of the 'Kawasaki' name for the meter reading the photograph would have been far too dark. By using the method shown I was able to produce a satisfactorily exposured photograph.
The majority of the photograph of this old barn was dark with plenty of shadows. The sky behind was quite stormy with dark clouds to the lower half of the sky and light clouds to the top. Using the metered shutter speed of 1/200sec the top lighter part of the sky was blown out and showed as such on the histogram.
Nikon D4 f4 @ 1/500sec ISO 800
By reducing the shutter speed by 1 stop I was able to darker the clouds sufficiently to bring the highlights within the histogram, not only giving the sky a more menacing look but also bringing the whole photograph within the range of the histogram.
The quality of the photographs produced by the D4 at the metered reading prove that the camera is well capable of taking good images in the majority of circumstances, however when the dynamic range is exceeded, is it then down to the photographer at the time of shooting to use his skill and judgement to determine the best exposure. Post production can assist in this area as well.
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