How should I got about taking this picture correctly - digital

[om.ch]

Hello everyone,

I've discovered this little place and really would like to take a good picture of it. I've tried wrapping my head around it but somehow cannot come with a solution that seems to work. You will find the spot below (handheld shot sorry) for better understanding. The top of the picture has light coming from behind the plant, that light is green. The light on the left is purple/pink. I don't want to burn the light completely but still want to see the plants at the top as well as the rest of the frame. How would you go about doing that taking this picture with a digital camera?

link to image

Thanks for any advice!

 

[rbiemer]

Perhaps try this: think about the specific things that attract you to this place and try variations on your framing that will emphasize those things. If the colors are the main thing for you, then it might make sense to get closer so that the purple/green colors are the dominating part of the photo.
Were it me shooting that place, depending on how the wall(or what ever is just out of the frame) on the right side looks, I might try a more symmetrical composition. And I would have no qualms about maybe cropping the photo into a narrower vertical frame. Not sure if that would be better but "better" is necessarily going to be your call on your terms. Or, I might concentrate on just the vertical wall and the plants. Possibly framing it starting from the two lights(?) as the lower left corner of the photo and making the upper right corner about where it is in your shot.

I can see the attraction to this spot and, in fact, I think what you have now is not bad at all.
Rob

 

[giellaleafapmu]

Hello everyone,

I've discovered this little place and really would like to take a good picture of it. I've tried wrapping my head around it but somehow cannot come with a solution that seems to work. You will find the spot below (handheld shot sorry) for better understanding. The top of the picture has light coming from behind the plant, that light is green. The light on the left is purple/pink. I don't want to burn the light completely but still want to see the plants at the top as well as the rest of the frame. How would you go about doing that taking this picture with a digital camera?

link to image

Thanks for any advice!

I try to say something, please notice that in these kind of situations some trial and mistake are often needed. I think your problem is that you have two different WB and
too much latitude. I'd expose for the front pink part and use a gelled remote controlled flash for the back part. My first trial would be to go to Tungsten (maybe you need to get a bit above that) and get a bit down the front light (I mean shorter exposition), then gel the flash with a Tungsten gel. This should give you a pink turning a bit toward blue in the front and a nice warm color in the back, if that's what you want. Maybe I am far off (it's not easy to judge light from a snap without knowing how much corrections the camera did to color and what is due to color temperature and what to a genuinely colored light) but that's what I would try as a first trial and then move from there. Careful if you use a modern flash system with modern gels because if you have WB on A these system get a life of themselves as they change WB when you install the gel.

GLF

 

[om.ch]

I think your problem is that you have two different WB and too much latitude. I'd expose for the front pink part and use a gelled remote controlled flash for the back part.

GLF

This is exactly what I would like to do and have bought a flash accordingly, the only problem I'm having at the moment is that I have yet to find access to the back part where the plants are...

Another solution I also thought of is to probably go there at dusk/dawn as the purple link will still be clearly visible but it will be easier to balance with the ambient.

Anyways, thanks for the help Rob and GLF!

 

[willie_901]

The challenging of photographing is identical for film and digital media.

GLF's advice is on target as it deals with the issue of two light sources with very different color temperatures.

Another approach is to deal with this issue during post-processing a raw file. You can use selectively use different color temperature parameters on the regions with different color temperatures. Professional interior and architectural photographers do this on a regular basis. There are several approaches. Some hand-blend layers with different color temperature parameters and others feather and brush a different color temperature on the most convenient region.

Besides gelling a flash, you can also gel the light source for the interior region with the plants. In my opinion this is the preferred solution. I realize it may be impossible in this case.

 

[giellaleafapmu]

This is exactly what I would like to do and have bought a flash accordingly, the only problem I'm having at the moment is that I have yet to find access to the back part where the plants are...

Another solution I also thought of is to probably go there at dusk/dawn as the purple link will still be clearly visible but it will be easier to balance with the ambient.

Anyways, thanks for the help Rob and GLF!

Finding the magic light is also a good solution, there is something about that but used in a different situation here:

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/12/how-to-photograph-christmas-lights.html

Otherwise, if you have no access to the back part it becomes more complicate. Did you consider taking two shots and using layers in some program? I know it doesn't sound elegant but if you have no access to that part it could maybe be better than nothing. If you do the retouching very lightly you can get very natural looking images.

Ah, since these threads about techniques often kind of die, can I ask you to at least tell how it went (a picture is actually nicer but I know that sometimes one doesn't want his name associated to failed experiments, if that's what happens)...I am curious.

GLF

 

[om.ch]

Finding the magic light is also a good solution, there is something about that but used in a different situation here:

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/12/how-to-photograph-christmas-lights.html

---

Ah, since these threads about techniques often kind of die, can I ask you to at least tell how it went (a picture is actually nicer but I know that sometimes one doesn't want his name associated to failed experiments, if that's what happens)...I am curious.

GLF

Thanks for the link, and I will make sure to post the results once I got around to take that picture!

 

[Jamie123]

Am I right to assume that your main concern is not the mixture of light colors, as the other posters have been addressing, but the varying levels of light intensity? In other words you're worried about blowing out highlights, not about matching the purple and green light, right?

If so, the solution is pretty straightforward "HDR" (but the good kind of HDR, not the horrible comic book style pictures). Just set up a tripod, frame the scene and then take several pictures with the same aperture at varying shutterspeeds. You can then later combine these images and achieve a wider dynamic range than your camera is able to capture in one shot.

 

[giellaleafapmu]

Am I right to assume that your main concern is not the mixture of light colors, as the other posters have been addressing, but the varying levels of light intensity? In other words you're worried about blowing out highlights, not about matching the purple and green light, right?

If so, the solution is pretty straightforward "HDR" (but the good kind of HDR, not the horrible comic book style pictures). Just set up a tripod, frame the scene and then take several pictures with the same aperture at varying shutterspeeds. You can then later combine these images and achieve a wider dynamic range than your camera is able to capture in one shot.

Yep, it was also not completely sure about the nature of the problem, however raising the level of light in the background should solve this problem too, gelling or not gelling. Also we have also considered the possibility of multiple shots combined both to achieve higer dinamic range and/or mixing different color temperature but if it was me and if it is possible (maybe it isn't if he has no access to the back part where the plants are) I would always use flash before thinking of postprocessing. Maybe it is due to the fact that I started with film but I have the impression that it is indeed more difficult to achieve the proper process to have the image look nice than it is to get the image almost right in the first place.

GLF

 

[Jamie123]

Yep, it was also not completely sure about the nature of the problem, however raising the level of light in the background should solve this problem too, gelling or not gelling. Also we have also considered the possibility of multiple shots combined both to achieve higer dinamic range and/or mixing different color temperature but if it was me and if it is possible (maybe it isn't if he has no access to the back part where the plants are) I would always use flash before thinking of postprocessing. Maybe it is due to the fact that I started with film but I have the impression that it is indeed more difficult to achieve the proper process to have the image look nice than it is to get the image almost right in the first place.

GLF

Raising the light levels in the background by using flash would probably not solve the problem completely as he would most likely still blow out the highlights on the pink light (or underexpose so much that the details and reflections on the walls are too dark). Also, he's actually dealing with three different light sources, not two. There's the pink light in the foreground, the yellow light in the area righ behind and then the light on the lamp in the back yard (and then the Exit sign if you want to count that separately). So basically he'd have to fill in light in all three areas which would not only require extensive gear but it would also most likely change the feel of the scene.
A lot of the time the simplest solution is the best and here that would mean using a tripod and bracketing shots. With film this would be a bit less of a problem as negative film, especially emulsions such as Portra 400, has much more latitude.

 

[squareshooter]

Do you want to take photo or make it a photo illustration? Is this to be a photograph or a photographic collage? When you decide the answers to these questions then you will know which way you have to go.

 

[MikeDimit]

How about shooting in raw for different WB and then aligning shots?

 

[rbiemer]

Shoot the scene in BW? If the varied colors of the light are not your interest here, that may be the easiest way to deal with this.
Eliminating the wb concerns, it then comes down to the varied light levels and Jamie123's suggestion about HDR would deal with that.
All of the advice/suggestions you get can really only be a starting point for you to work out how to approach the scene.
Rob

 

[Pablito]

what do you mean by "correctly"
?
You want the pink to look white?
You could mask off the back part in PS and apply a diff. white balance...