Mate Duncan sent me a couple of his campfire and fog shots that he wanted me to comment on. He had a campfire shot (this one) that he thought was "about ok"
... and a similar shot with flash to see difference, of which he says "image through flames is poor".
From the EXIF Data in the first shot, we can see it was taken with his Fujifilm S5000, 1/45s at f/2.8 and focal length of 7.5mm using auto-exposure. Clearly the conditions were pretty dark, so the camera is at the limits of it's capabilities in some senses. f/2.8 is the largest aperture, and 1/45s is about the slowest you can handhold the camera, or expect to avoid motion blur in human subjects - indeed, in the first shot the young chick seated at right has moved her hand while the shot was being taken, so it is a little blured.
Now, the second shot - similar settings, except that the use of the flash has allowed a faster shutter speed - 1/60s, but the major difference is just the flash.
What do we usually want to see with flames?
Well firstly, my feeling is that for flames we want some good contrast with the background - in the middle of the days flames don't look half as stunning as in the night (hence a lot of the stunning TV coverage of the recent bushfires has been at night). This is because the flames are not as bright as the background. There is a caveat here - we don't want the contrast to be too much - in a very dark setting the flames may be so bright in the rest of the scene that they are just about white and the highlights are just totally blown or overexposed.
Secondly, flames are a light source, not reflecting light, and they are not static - they move, so with slow shutter speeds, there will be motion blur of the moving light source - this will tend to soften up the flames and probably minimise the effects.
Camera focusing on flames
The way cameras focus is by looking for contrast - a dark edge up against a light edge - the more the difference between the dark and the light, the better the contrast and the easier it will find focusing. Cameras have AF sensors which generally are positioned in and sometimes around the centre of the frame.
The AF sensor is small, but even then, can often have more than just the subject - eg. the flame and the BBQ rack - the camera doesn't know that it is the flame that is the intended subject. It thinks you like BBQ racks, as well you might. The Australian BBQ rack also has a lovely lines/edges - perhaps even vertical or horizontal, whereas the flame is curved and fuzzy ... needless to say, the camera focuses on the sharp edges of the BBQ racks.
If you want to focus on amorphous things, or things without nice vertical or horizontal edges you have a number of options:
- manual focus - as hard as buggery with point and shoot cameras, even the S5000
- use the focus and reframe method - focus on something that is the distance from the camera that the flame or mist will be when you take the shot, and holding the shutter button half-way down, reframe the shot to put the subject the way you want it
- use the hyperfocal distance - google that one - it needs a longer explanation ... basically focus on something far enough away (this depends on the subject being a long way away from the camera too)
Now we've focused, what about flame motion?
Flame motion can be very difficult to solve. We are working in lowish light conditions, so slower shutter speeds are sometimes necessary. We can use a higher ISO (say ISO 800 on your S5000 or ISO 1600 on a Canon or Nikon D-SLR) which will allow a faster shutter speed. You already are using the largest aperture (smallest f-stop) of f/2.8. Framing a shot that is just the flames with a nice dark contrasty background may allow for a faster shutter speed because the scene is considerably brighter on average because most of the frame is flame (I hope you get the drift of that).
In short, that is about all you can do.
How to increase the contrast in the shot
Well that can be hard too - this shot has a quite bright sky which has been overexposed (this is not too much of a problem really, as it is not the main subject). It would have been possible to look at the image taken and see the overexposure if you learn to use you histogram. Then you could dial in an appropriate amount of exposure compensation to make the sky darker and the brighter areas of the shot as well. The implication is that the people in the shot may well then become dark or even silhouetted and some of the important detail in the scene like the defining trees in the background might be lost in dark shadows.
Well, what you can do, is take the underexposed shot, and then adjust the brightness of the image selectively, and I would recommend learning to use Curves in Photoshop of your other prefered image editing software.
What about flash - what role does that have in this setting?
Flash can work to fill in shadow detail that is getting lost. But the flash only works well when what it is filling in is a similar distance from the camera. In this shot, the camera is much closer to the burning logs than it is to the people, so the people's faces are not really significantly brighter than if the flash had not been used. All that the flash serves to do is add more light, brightening the scene enough for the camera to choose a faster shutter speed, but reducing the contrast between the flames and the logs.
Can I recover an image after I have shot it?
Sometimes, it is possible to add contrast to an image after it was taken using photo editing software. This is one of the basic things that can be easily learnt and quickly done, with minimal negative effects on image quality. In fact, if you learn to shoot in RAW, you can even do this with no negative effects on image quality.
We teach these techniques on most of our workshops and one-on-one training.
For this image, we chose to make a curves adjustment to add contrast (an S-curve) and then to mask the adjustment so that it only applied to the lower half of the image. This is our adjusted image (without flash).
This is the flash version of the shot with more contrast added to the lower part of the image, and with some brightness added to the top half of the image using Photoshop Masks. Still the campfire is best without the flash, even though the people are probably best with it.
What about fog?
Duncan sent us his morning mist photos with the following equivocal comment: "Both into sun, mist on water - second shot is a better pic (to me) as the first is "grey" and doesn't capture the mood".
Well first, let's look at this first shot. Duncan rightly points out that it was taken into the sun and looks "grey" or washed out. This is mostly likely from ghosting - the indirect light from the bright sky to which the camera was pointing bouncing around inside the lens and camera and making darker areas lighter and thus lessening the contrast. This can be avoided by avoiding pointing the camera into the sun, or by shielding the camera from indirect light - a hood, or just putting a shade up over the camera. The sky above the trees is overexposed, thus blowing out detail on the edges of the trees and is not such a good look
What about the other image?
This is Duncan's second mist shot. Now, it is not as grey, and this is because the sky is not so bright - but it is still overexposed and totally white - just not as dramatically blown out. I would still say is doesn't have very good contrast, but it doesn't have anywhere near as much ghosting, if any. The reflections add another element of interest and perhaps the logs in the water are also of interest, although a bit like the Lock Ness Monster - too far out to see what they really are (sorry Duncan - no hard feelings ;-) Both of the images are very "conventional". The shot has the horizon effectively in the middle of the frame, the second one has a bit of shore at the left, but not across the whole frame - it is starting to look like it is there by mistake. If you have a body of water, it is often nice to show the near shoreline so the viewer has an "invitation" and can see how they just walk down into the water (metaphorically). In the first one, the water and sandbank act as more of a barrier. In the second shot, Nessy is a lot more prominent but boringly in the centre of the frame.
Well what is to be done about all this?
When you are shooting, look to place interest in the foreground, mid and background for scenery shots like this - and large features off-centre, both vertically and horizontally. Experiment with moving the horizon up or down by tilting the camera up or down as well. You might need to use the focus and reframe method described in this other article.
It also would help to avoid overexposure in the sky - you can do this by learning to use the histogram and exposure compensation (dial in negative exposure compensation to avoid the sky being overexposed).
What can I do to make the fog stand out more?
Well, it is not always possible to reshoot - and Duncan didn't notice until he got home. Well with both images, we could increase the contrast in the image to make the fog stand out more. In the first image, we used a levels adjustment to move the black point to the right - this helped, along with an S-curve curves adjustment. It can't fix the composition, or the overexposure in the sky, but it does remove the grey feeling and make the mist stand out more.
A similar approach was taken with the second shot to increase the contrast, but only in the bottom half of the image. We used a Photoshop Mask to do this. I like the way it makes Nessy stand out a little more and enhances the fog and misty feeling.
One other observation - this shot was taken with a wider lens, and thus the fog appears more dispersed and less prominent (it is a smaller part of the frame in height, for instance). Also a telephoto lens zoomed on will tend to make objects appear nearer, including the fog, which will tend to make it appear more dense and distinctive.
What to do next time?
In short, if we were going back there, we could look for some new angles being aware of the sun's position, we could dial in some minus exposure compensation, we could use the zoom lens, and we could try some different angles for more interesting compositions.
Like photography in this sort of setting? Join us on the River Murray
This is the sort of advice that makes early mornings on the river interesting and exciting - why not think about joining us for our Relaxing Murray River Houseboat Workshop in August, 2007. These sort of opportunities will occur on the River most mornings. Remember, if you book before February 15th this year, you will receive a 10% discount on your bookings, and on this houseboat, spouses and partners are welcome, or just come with a friend.
