Saturday 4 September 2010

The Camera Never Lies

That's what they used to say but in this digital world of HDR and airbrushing my reply to that would be humph!

I set the Lumix TZ7 to take three shots of the same scene at -1  0  +1 EV

Three Shots

Then I combined them as an HDR tonemapped image using  Photomatrix so as to make the sky a bit more dramatic at the same time trying not to make the green areas too unrealistic.

P1010520_18_19_tonemapped

Then, being the inveterate twiddler I am, I thought I would further process the HDR image in Paintshop Pro using the ReDynaMix plugin. I also cropped the result.

P1010520_18_19_tonemapped again

Which of these looks like the scene as I saw it? None of them. The digital camera doesn't see the full spectrum range our eyes see or at least cannot process it in the same way our brain does. Which image is most interesting, well that is always subjective.

Finally I decided to convert the last image to greyscale.

P1010520_18_19_tonemapped again BW

There is something about b/w images. Colours don't get in the way of seeing the shapes and textures.

10 comments:

  1. Wonderful, wonderful! I'm so jealous. My little Olympus fades into insignificance. One day I maty deserve something better. Thankyou for the inspiration.

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  2. Impressive stuff, John! Not that I understand the mechanics of it :)

    I enjoyed the Friday flicks too, the juvenile Goldfinches always look so naked without the red!

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  3. The last three are all interesting images in their own way. To pick a favourite, hmmmmm, I think the middle of the trio.

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  4. Some interesting variations - and some dramatic clouds too but like you think the black and white images are great - enjoy the rest of your weekend - Miranda

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  5. Thank you Gerry. The Lumix TZ7 does a fantastic job for what is really a pocket camera.

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  6. Thank you Jan. Not that I understand the mechanics but just experiment with the controls in the programs and see what turns up.

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  7. Hello Keith. The middle one of the trio would be what the camera would have chosen as the correct exposure!

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  8. Hello Miranda. Black and white still has its place. I think some subjects still look better without odd bright colours drawing the eyes away from the subject.

    Would you believe I actually sent back the first colour TV I rented as I couldn't stand the glaring colours. I went back to black and white for quite a few years.

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  9. Nice work John. If only our brains had a photocopier to spit out printed images of what our eyes actually see!

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  10. Thank you Frank. I think landscapes and skyscapes are the hardest subjects for cameras to cope with.

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Thank you for visiting. Hope you enjoyed the pictures. Any comment, or correction to any information or identification I get wrong, is most welcome. John

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