Why can't I do this with my GH3?

Started 4 months ago | Questions thread
Kawika Nui
Regular MemberPosts: 370
Re: Why can't I do this with my GH3?
In reply to tt321, 4 months ago

tt321 wrote:

Kawika Nui wrote:

tt321 wrote:

Kawika Nui wrote:

Chez Wimpy wrote:

Kawika Nui wrote:

john isaacs wrote:

This photo does not look like it was taken "hours before dawn". An ISO100, 1/13sec f3.2 shot has got a lot of light. Look at the clouds, they're getting sunlight. The sky is pink. Looks to me like the sun's about to come up.

Thanks for sharing. Luckily, your opinion is just...your opinion.

"Looks to me like" phrasing might indicate an opinion, but your P&S exposure was for roughly 7 EV which means there was sunlight filtering through to light the scene. That is a fact,

Gee, I didn't realize you were there. I certainly didn't see you. Of course, it wasn't light yet.

because the full moon by itself gives only about -2 EV.

Nothing worse than pseudo-science as the basis for explanation. "The full moon by itself" is meaningless in the context of this photo (and many others). Why? Because the full moon is in a context that includes reflections from water (and other surfaces) and diffusion/diffraction/interference from clouds, fog, haze, dust, smoke, spray and humidity.

"The full moon by itself" means:

"the full moon by itself."

that it is the ultimate cause of all of the light in the scene.

There has to be some original source of light that causes these phenomena you list, none of which are light emitters or amplifiers. For instance, in a moonless and overcast night without ground artificial lighting or bioluminescence, even in an environment full of clouds, fog, haze, dust, smoke, spray and humidity and perfectly reflective surfaces, the scene would be totally dark.

And that is totally beside the point. The presence of the moon--a very visible element in the image--was a given (one is tempted to say duh!). The presence or absence of other factors has a huge effect on the amount of light available, and also the way that the available light illuminates surfaces, shadows, etc. Anyone who has even limited powers of observation has noted that on some full-moon nights (with no fog or clouds) things are easier to see than on other full-moon nights.

You are changing passive parameters only.

Normal objects lit by the full moon, -3 EV. Snowscape under full moon, -2 EV. He was allowing this seascape to be equal to snowscape. He had given a bit of leeway to accommodate your "other factors" already as snowscape is the brightest type of scene you can have by changing the passive parameters only.

Some of these threads seem to get derailed/hijacked into (pseudo) technical discussions that skirt, finesse, ignore and distort the original issue. Sadly, this appears to be happening here.

No. There is nothing pseudo about the science.

Allow me to rephrase: using explanations that while based on actual science, ignore critical factors that weaken or invalidate the entire explanation.

The original issue which for some reason you consider having been distorted, was why one camera can do better than the other. Pointing out that the scenes used as comparison materials are of radically different brightness levels is right on topic.

You are absolutely correct, and I couldn't agree with you more. But this is not the same as saying that the sun was coming up. Which it was not.

You need to compare like for like before saying better or worse. Ascertaining whether there really is a better/worse relationship is the first step towards working out a solution.

What we remember how dark/bright a scene is, or even what time of the day it was taken, is usually not that reliable from last night, let alone from months ago. Our real-time perception of how dark and bright a scene is in situ is not good enough to nail exposures, for most of us. That's why we tend to rely on meters.

You are correct, of course. My own procedure is normally to shoot manually, using my perceptions and the occasional shot to test for blown highlights (which will blink in the review image), plus the experience I have in shooting the types of scenes I normally shoot (high contrast, brightly lit, out of doors) and exposing for the highlights.

And fuzzy memory and perception, which are completely normal, is not lying. Bottom line, you have not been accused of lying in the OP by anybody.

Thanks for pouring oil on troubled waters, but I did not and do not like nor respect the tone nor the content of the remarks to which I responded.

All of this, however, is based on the assumption that both cameras are reporting the actual settings with which the pictures are taken. Cameras can be broken and if either was, this "technical" discussion is based on wrong assumptions.

That is another good point and one that concerned me in the first place, when I got such totally unsatisfactory results.  However, as we have all said by now, the thing to do is shoot in a comparable situation, and that is what I intend to do.

Again, thanks to those who made positive contributions aimed at addressing the issue raised.

He is not doing "pseudo science".

Any scene with a light strength of 7EV on earth, without being full of strong artificial lights, must derive practically all of that 7EV from sunlight, and that's sunlight onto earth including the atmosphere.

How did you calculate 7EV for the illumination of the image?

The ISO, shutter speed and aperture data reported in the EXIF works out to be ~ 7 EV. Looking at the photograph it seems neither over nor under exposed. If you have not lifted the brightness in PP then there was ~ 7 EV worth of brightness in the scene.

Got it.  But there are differences in the way that we perceive, also in the way that monitors display, and also in the way that various digital viewers interpret data.  For example, GH3 RAW is RW2.  To upload, I had to convert to JPEG.  If I open the RW2 file in FS Image Viewer and save as JPEG, the result will be visibly different from using, say PhotoShop to open and save as JPEG.

Anyhow, I appreciate your input on all these issues.

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