Re: Anyone get out for any Fall photography yet?
Posted: Wed Nov 04, 2009 11:40 pm
Amused by the discussion about the cyan snow.
I''ll make some general web comments. The web is awash in posted images that are off in color. Uncalibrated digital cameras both compact and DSLR *(including RAW) tend to have only modest color accuracy because users have little interest in natural color so manufacturers have little incentiven to bother, but rather seek contrasty saturated striking color in order to impress other web viewers. Additionally even most photographers have never bothered to carefully study the color of natural elements in natural light so tend to have little developed mediocre ability to tell what is and what is not natural. And its impossible to have to "recall" hours or days later what one had actual captured so with digital cameras it all becomes "in one's mind's eye" aka "play with the Photoshop sliders". At least with some films like EPN100, Provia, Astia, or even the the old Kodachrome, color captured is reasonably accurate, thus photogs of the previous generation could learn from their own body of work. For those who wish to start understanding light and color, a good paperback on natural color and cheap at Amazon is M. Minnaert's classic "The nature of Light & Color in the open air".
For evaluating color on web posted images, a very useful tool is a "color picker" that can sample pixels of anything displayed on one's desktop including that snow. Even on serious photog boards it is occasionally laughable to come across threads where posters go on and on disputing some color when one mouse click could have instantly settled whatever issue. There are dozens of freeware aps one can download that include that functiion that can sample anything displayed on one's screen. I would highly recommend mwsnap that is mainly a small screen capture tool that keeps out of the way on one's desktop but also has a simply picker. In order to be able to reasonably evaluate what is on one's screen, calibrating one's monitor with a colorimter or spectrophotometer puck with sw is of course another necessity.
David
http://www.davidsenesac.com/david_philosophy1.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
I''ll make some general web comments. The web is awash in posted images that are off in color. Uncalibrated digital cameras both compact and DSLR *(including RAW) tend to have only modest color accuracy because users have little interest in natural color so manufacturers have little incentiven to bother, but rather seek contrasty saturated striking color in order to impress other web viewers. Additionally even most photographers have never bothered to carefully study the color of natural elements in natural light so tend to have little developed mediocre ability to tell what is and what is not natural. And its impossible to have to "recall" hours or days later what one had actual captured so with digital cameras it all becomes "in one's mind's eye" aka "play with the Photoshop sliders". At least with some films like EPN100, Provia, Astia, or even the the old Kodachrome, color captured is reasonably accurate, thus photogs of the previous generation could learn from their own body of work. For those who wish to start understanding light and color, a good paperback on natural color and cheap at Amazon is M. Minnaert's classic "The nature of Light & Color in the open air".
For evaluating color on web posted images, a very useful tool is a "color picker" that can sample pixels of anything displayed on one's desktop including that snow. Even on serious photog boards it is occasionally laughable to come across threads where posters go on and on disputing some color when one mouse click could have instantly settled whatever issue. There are dozens of freeware aps one can download that include that functiion that can sample anything displayed on one's screen. I would highly recommend mwsnap that is mainly a small screen capture tool that keeps out of the way on one's desktop but also has a simply picker. In order to be able to reasonably evaluate what is on one's screen, calibrating one's monitor with a colorimter or spectrophotometer puck with sw is of course another necessity.
David
http://www.davidsenesac.com/david_philosophy1.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;