Beginner Was There any Point in Trying to Take This Photo?

Sony Corleone

Sony Corleone

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I think this photo has a great deal going for it, except for one little thing: the adult's face is totally obliterated by the sun. That kills it.

I took this with a Powershot V1. I have been working with the settings to get better exposures, and I thought I would swing for the bleachers on this shot and see if the settings worked a miracle. They did not. On the up side, they worked very, very well for most of the day's shots.

Is this kind of photo even possible to get right? Is there any way to overcome the sun in a shot like that? I thought maybe technology would save me and make a pleasant sunstar, but no suck luck.

IMG_0898 DxO by Cosmo Bogus, on Flickr
 
I think this one came out very well for a point-and-shoot camera. One neat thing is that I didn't have to crop out the right-hand vignetting because the corners would have been dark anyway.

IMG_0944 DxO by Cosmo Bogus, on Flickr
 
I decided to give Topaz's face recovery a shot, and it did a surprisingly good job, but I don't know if there is anywhere to go from here.

IMG_0898 DxO -topaz-face by Cosmo Bogus, on Flickr
 
What settings were you using?

Its a difficult to expose shot, into the bright low sun with the subject's back to the light source. I would have thought to expose for the bright sky and raise the shadows in post to bring out the face. Another option is expose for the sun and use a flash to fill the subject.

Radial gradient masks in adobe RAW can be used to selectively raise shadows or tone down bright spots to some degree providing you haven't lost detail in over/ under exposed areas.

You're not going to get really distinct sun stars unless you are using high apertures f16+ sometimes not even then if the aperture blades are designed to make a near perfect circle when stopped down. Its a very lens specific effect.
 
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I decided to quit setting my ISO all the time, because I wanted to speed up the shooting process. I set it to auto with a limit of something like 2400. I don't remember the exact setting. I don't know what people recommend as the upper setting for this sensor. I guess I should check that now.

Other than that, I was on manual. The data says this shot was ISO 200, f/5, and 1/125th. I was trying Canon's AI metering because I thought it could not do a worse job than I do. There is also a setting to discourage highlight blowouts, and I have been been keeping that applied. I shot in raw. I use AWB.

I also set the camera for continuous shooting, which is new for me. Not relevant to exposure, but I think it was a smart move.

Maybe I can do something with a mask to brighten the face tomorrow.

In spite of the problems with this particularly difficult shot, I think things generally went well today (or at least better than usual) as far as exposure goes. My other shots seem to be exposed competently. I think the AI metering and the highlight setting may be working well, and I am saving time by not playing around with ISO while shooting.

Will a flash really accomplish anything at this distance? I have been thinking of getting one of those little mini-flash things for this camera.

This is the camera I have settled on for times when I want zoom, raw files, a decently large sensor, weather sealing, and a small handy body. It's not for outings dedicated to photography.
 
If you shot in RAW you might actually have some wiggle room to tone down the highlights and raise the shadows. How are you processing the RAW files?

With high dynamic range images such as this I would go full manual and set the ISO manually so you can completely control the exposure.

A flash would be more than capable of handling that distance, depending on the flash and how you set it up. Something like a Godox IT32 might be right up your street. You can either use it on camera or off camera as it's attached to its hotshoe base via magnets and can be quickly removed and used off camera without messing about with a secondary trigger unit.
 
Regarding noise and this sensor, Google AI claims that with Photolab 9's noise reduction and raw shooting, this sensor is good for ISO 6400 without major concerns about noise, whereas it is more like 800 with JPG. And supposedly, the ceiling is considerably lower for Lightroom.

I have not done much with this raw file. I did the usual stuff, adjusting WB and so on. Regarding the general appearance, I probably started with a Photolab preset I liked and then played with saturation and exposure. All global changes.

Photolab has auto exposure with several presets. Maybe I started out with one. I can't recall.

I am not a sophisticated Photolab user. Yet.

All this does not include the Topaz work, which I did to the finished JPG. That was stupid, since I didn't give Topaz much to work with. I will run the CR3 through it and see what it does.
 
While working on the raw file, I found out that Topaz has a brush that selects areas for enhancement. An auto mask selected too much. I painted the face, neck, and hand and gave it a shot. It's not too bad. This is not a closeup, so it doesn't have to be perfect. Maybe I can improve it tomorrow so it doesn't look like a flashlight is on the face. I should select the body as well while leaving the baby out.

I like the composition very much. Better than I realized while looking at the tiny monitor. I can go back to this location again, so maybe I will have more opportunities.

IMG_0898 DxO -topaz2 mask-sharpen-lighting by Cosmo Bogus, on Flickr
 
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Sony Corleone said:
While working on the raw file, I found out that Topaz has a brush that selects areas for enhancement. An auto mask selected too much. I painted the face, neck, and hand and gave it a shot. It's not too bad. This is not a closeup, so it doesn't have to be perfect. Maybe I can improve it tomorrow so it doesn't look like a flashlight is on the face. I should select the body as well while leaving the baby out.

I like the composition very much. Better than I realized while looking at the tiny monitor. I can go back to this location again, so maybe I will have more opportunities.

IMG_0898 DxO -topaz2 mask-sharpen-lighting by Cosmo Bogus, on Flickr
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The shopper behind the girl is throwing interesting shadows, so is the guy on the right. You could do a lot with the shadows on that car park as folk return to their cars.
 
Printed out, this actually looks great.
 
Barney said:
The shopper behind the girl is throwing interesting shadows, so is the guy on the right. You could do a lot with the shadows on that car park as folk return to their cars.
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You see the same things I see. A lot of things came together for me on this shot and made me look like I knew what I was doing. I took a lot of shots, and "spray and pray" put probability on my side.

This shot tells a story, which is one reason why I wanted to save it. Baby is enjoying himself, fascinated by the scene in front of him, oblivious to mom's concerns and unaware of everything she has done for him. Mom is tired but happy, knowing everything she does for him will be appreciated some day. Possibly looking forward to a mother's greatest pleasure: laying guilt trips on her grown kids because she has sacrificed so much.
 
I actually like the woman behind the mother, even though her presence could be considered distracting, because it shows how other people go on about their business with no appreciation of what this mother does for her son. I even like the way the sun pushes past part of her face and tries to take over the spotlight, because it somehow underscores how unappreciated she is.
 
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Sony Corleone said:
You see the same things I see. A lot of things came together for me on this shot and made me look like I knew what I was doing. I took a lot of shots, and "spray and pray" put probability on my side.

This shot tells a story, which is one reason why I wanted to save it. Baby is enjoying himself, fascinated by the scene in front of him, oblivious to mom's concerns and unaware of everything she has done for him. Mom is tired but happy, knowing everything she does for him will be appreciated some day. Possibly looking forward to a mother's greatest pleasure: laying guilt trips on her grown kids because she has sacrificed so much.
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I prefer, under this kind of scenario, to consider that your thinking was ahead of time and the shot you knew was there revealed itself to you eventually.
 
You have nailed it. It is amazing how hard it is to determine the value of a shot you haven't edited.
 
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