Left Brain: When shooting at sunrise or sunset, I always feel pressed for time to grab as many shots as I can, because you only have a few minutes of "prime time". I tend to take the shotgun approach of making decisions quickly and filtering out the results after the fact. Professionals tend to scout out their shots beforehand, carefully evaluating the angles, backgrounds, etc, in order to get the shot they want. However, at the point I'm at in life, I don't really have a lot of scouting time (particularly when chasing kids around...). Consequently I bracket a lot (shooting the same scene several times, each with different camera settings) and I end up with a bunch of photos to sift through. Usually I can filter the shots down to a few that I like. However, with the photos in this post, I couldn't make up my mind as to which ones I liked better. Consequently I consulted with Right Brain...
Right Brain: Left Brain, right you were to consult with me on these issues, and rarely, if ever, do I associate anything you say with being anywhere right of left. Some comments after the photos.
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| South Window Arch at Sunrise - A |
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| South Window Arch at Sunrise - B |
Left Brain: For those who are interested, these two photos were shot very close together in time. The difference between them is in the camera settings, not in the lighting of the scene. The first ("A") was shot at 1/40th at f / 3.5, at ISO 200, while the second ("B") was shot at 1/50th at f / 8.0, at ISO 200. Due to the large aperture used for shot A, there are some depth of field issues, where the foreground isn't as sharp as one would hope. However, you have to zoom in (or print at a reasonable size) to really notice. Shot B is underexposed to a large degree, and consequently loses some shadow detail. There is also a fair amount of noise visible in the sky in shot B if you zoom in. Both shots were corrected a bit in Adobe Lightroom prior to posting.
Right Brain: Now that we have the technical jargon out of the way (thanks for keeping it short, Left Brain), we can discuss which of these photos looks better. Left Brain tends to lean towards shot A, because it is technically "more correctly exposed". Initially I leaned that way myself, but after a while of looking at shot B, I tend to lean in that direction. I particularly like the deep oranges in B, and the contrasty textures in the log in the foreground.
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| Three Rocks and an Arch - A |
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| Three Rocks and an Arch - B |
Left Brain: Similar concept to the first two photos: same scene, different camera settings. "A" was shot at 1/50th at f / 3.5, ISO 200, while "B" was shot at 1/60th at f / 8.0, ISO 200. Both were tuned a bit in Lightroom before posting.
Right Brain: In this shot I love the deep blue sky in B. It almost seems like a night shot. In both of these pictures, I think of these three rocks, and the fact that the sun is rising, and I can't imagine a better place for sitting and watching the sunrise... Anyone have any opinions they'd like to share? Which do you like better? Most importantly, why?
I'm going with Left Brain here - I like the Brighter shot. But the Darker is cool!
ReplyDeleteIt was a great morning and i enjoyed being there with you regardless of which "brain" wins. NRS
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