Backyard Poultry Forum

Please excuse a digression from the poultry photos.

A dummies question ...

How do people get photos with the sun's rays in them?

This morning I was playing and seeing if I could do it but nup.

This is the best I could get. I was just randomly trying different settings to see what would happen.

Through the viewer I could see angled rays in lines coming toward me but what I see through the lens isn't what I get in the picture.

ISO200 24mm f20 1/60 sec

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Backyard Poultry Forum

Cathy, do you have the RAW file?, you could try exposing for the sky rather than the tree. Also there is usually a setting on cameras that will take 3 photos (under, over, correct exposure) that might help in this situation. I think the photo is too overexposed to show the rays of light.

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MONEY can't buy happiness....but it can buy CHOOKS, and that's pretty much the same thing

Thanks.

I've played with it but can't see them no matter how I expose it. My brain must have been putting in something that wasn't ever there.

I'll try again another morning.

I'll have a look for that setting. I don't recall it but there are so many settings on there it would be easy for me to miss it.

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I've been playing with these each morning trying to better understand what the camera will do.

This Lightroom is a lot of fun.

I took these yesterday morning trying to understand the effect of shooting into the sun again.








I know this is over-exposed but I still think it's interesting like that.



I took these this morning just before sunrise. Taken from the same verandah.

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Backyard Poultry Forum

Nice photos, looks like you live in Utopia

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MONEY can't buy happiness....but it can buy CHOOKS, and that's pretty much the same thing

Ditto.

I am still playing with weird sunlight pictures.

I took this this morning. I had the camera on my bedside table so that when the sun came up I didn't even have to get up to take it. This is looking through my bedroom door from the bed, through the family room to the window where the morning sun is coming through.

OK, so not really a great picture, but interesting. There is that bubble-type light effect just right of centre. Anyone know what causes it? I don't hate it, just wondering how it happens. The fact that it's round makes me think it's something to do with the lens and how the light is hitting it.

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The rays that you're seeing is refraction from the internal lenses. There may well be any number of internal elements (into the teens) inside your lens depending on the quality and cost of the lens. The lens that you see at the front is merely the front element and you'll see the rear element when you remove the lens from the body. Lot more inside, all coated (which is why you're seeing the coloured refraction).

The coating is to prevent just what you're seeing when you aim at the bright light source but of course, you're not meant to actually do that... The coatings prevent it happening under 'normal' circumstances.

Linz

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[i]A lot of Andalusians. Anconas in Standard and Bantam PB Black Leghorns in Standard
and Bantam, Derbyshire Redcaps, Light Sussex Bantams.[/i]
____ __ _______ _ _ _ ______ _ ________ _ _ _ _____

I see. Thanks Linz.

I will have to think up some more things I'm not supposed to do and try them out too.

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Backyard Poultry Forum

Here's something I've been playing with.

What do you do when you have a poor photograph taken in less than ideal conditions and you have to do the best you can with it? Sometimes the problem is the show pen size or colour, sometimes it's the lighting is low and sometimes it's a flash problem. If you can't change anything you have to try and work with what you can get.

This is pretty typical of what I see. This one was taken in a photo box. I've noticed that when birds get too close to the back of a box you can get a backshadow that detracts from the photograph. At the time this was taken there would have been at least two maybe three cameras shooting with flashes going off, plus there was lighting from above. It looks like we have multiple shadows.






So I've tried to remove the shadow in Photoshop. I have not done a good job but it's the first time I've used the quick selection tool. I now need to work out how to refine the edges and get a more professional look to the extraction. This is too stark. I've also messed with the colour but I don't think it was an improvement. Back to the drawing board. I don't think I could be bothered doing this sort of thing all the time but it could be useful if there was an important picture to fix.

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Backyard Poultry Forum

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MONEY can't buy happiness....but it can buy CHOOKS, and that's pretty much the same thing

Cathy, your edge is too hard and it looks like a cutout. Feather the edge within the 'refine edge' interface and you'll get better results.

As for colour balance. The flash hasn't fired and you've picked up incandescent lighting from the modelling lights. The colour temperature of incandescent is between 2800° Kelvin and 3500° Kelvin.

Your flash (when they fire) is more likely to be somewhere between 5000 and 6500° Kelvin. If you shoot raw (which is a linear gamma file) rather than Jpeg in camera (which has a 2.2 Gamma tone curve) it's so easy to change the colour balance within Lightroom. The linear gamma raw file will correct shadows, mid tones and highlights equally. Just change the colour temperature in the basic panel from 'as shot' to flash. It will correct perfectly.

The 2.2 gamma tone curve in the in-camera Jpegs will prevent the correction being applied equally. Another great reason to shoot raw and convert later.

Linz

_________________
____ __ _______ _ _ _ ______ _ ________ _ _ _ _____

[i]A lot of Andalusians. Anconas in Standard and Bantam PB Black Leghorns in Standard
and Bantam, Derbyshire Redcaps, Light Sussex Bantams.[/i]
____ __ _______ _ _ _ ______ _ ________ _ _ _ _____

I wondered what the colour temperature settings were for.

Can I remove the shadow in Lightroom or do I need to use Photoshop as well? I used both there but if there was a way of doing it in Lightroom only it would be better. I haven't seen those sorts of setting there so maybe not.

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You'll need to remove the shadow in Photoshop. You already chose the method that I would go to first but it's labour intensive (as you found out).

If you can't use flash for whatever reason, look into the banks of LED portrait lights available at Pro suppliers (or Ebay for the cheap knockoffs). The colour temperature is better by far and being a constant light source instead of flash, what you see is what you get. Make the lightsource large whatever you choose (umbrella or large softbox) and that will fill the shadow and provide a very soft edge. That will make it less noticeable...

Linz

_________________
____ __ _______ _ _ _ ______ _ ________ _ _ _ _____

[i]A lot of Andalusians. Anconas in Standard and Bantam PB Black Leghorns in Standard
and Bantam, Derbyshire Redcaps, Light Sussex Bantams.[/i]
____ __ _______ _ _ _ ______ _ ________ _ _ _ _____