Put away wet - Why?

I don't understand this. I was shooting at a horse track earlier
today and took several images of horses being hosed down after their
workout. Here's a crop of one of images:
http://tonycooper.fileave.com/blowout.jpg

There's no white in that horse's coat. The horse had just been
sprayed with a hose, and that's water on the horse's coat. Blown-out.
Big time.

I was shooting on Programmed Auto (Nikon D40) and thought I had the
ISO set to 200. EXIF shows it was a 500. The rest was 1/500th at
5.6.

I've never seen a wet surface blown-out like this. Would the high ISO
do that?

(Forget the image itself. I just cropped this part out to show the
effect. This is out-of-focus, but shows the effect.)


--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida

On Wed, 17 Dec 2008 20:58:48 -0500, tony cooper
wrote in
:

I don't understand this. I was shooting at a horse track earlier
today and took several images of horses being hosed down after their
workout. Here's a crop of one of images:
http://tonycooper.fileave.com/blowout.jpg

There's no white in that horse's coat. The horse had just been
sprayed with a hose, and that's water on the horse's coat. Blown-out.
Big time.

I was shooting on Programmed Auto (Nikon D40) and thought I had the
ISO set to 200. EXIF shows it was a 500. The rest was 1/500th at
5.6.

I've never seen a wet surface blown-out like this. Would the high ISO
do that?

(Forget the image itself. I just cropped this part out to show the
effect. This is out-of-focus, but shows the effect.)


Water is highly reflective and the background was very dark --
you gave the camera an impossible task.
--
Best regards,
John
[Please Note: Ads belong *only* in rec.photo.marketplace.digital, as per
http://bobatkins.photo.net/info/charter.htm http://rpdfaq.50megs.com/]

Suddenly, without warning, tony cooper exclaimed (12/17/2008 8:58 PM):
I don't understand this. I was shooting at a horse track earlier
today and took several images of horses being hosed down after their
workout. Here's a crop of one of images:
http://tonycooper.fileave.com/blowout.jpg

There's no white in that horse's coat. The horse had just been
sprayed with a hose, and that's water on the horse's coat. Blown-out.
Big time.

I was shooting on Programmed Auto (Nikon D40) and thought I had the
ISO set to 200. EXIF shows it was a 500. The rest was 1/500th at
5.6.

I've never seen a wet surface blown-out like this. Would the high ISO
do that?

(Forget the image itself. I just cropped this part out to show the
effect. This is out-of-focus, but shows the effect.)



You don't say if photographing horses is a regular thing for you, but
I've had the same kind of thing, photographing wet horses in sunshine.
The coat of a horse in good health can be very shiny/reflective,
especially when wet. Also, it sort of looks to me as if there might
still be some foamy sweat on the shoulder hotspot and in the lower
right, which wouldn't help. Could be wrong though. A polarizer would
help, I'd think.

Poor horse, looks tired and tense (eye looks tired, posture looks tense
- he's pulling back, or about to, I'd say).

jmc

On Wed, 17 Dec 2008 21:21:49 -0500, jmc
wrote:

Suddenly, without warning, tony cooper exclaimed (12/17/2008 8:58 PM):
I don't understand this. I was shooting at a horse track earlier
today and took several images of horses being hosed down after their
workout. Here's a crop of one of images:
http://tonycooper.fileave.com/blowout.jpg

There's no white in that horse's coat. The horse had just been
sprayed with a hose, and that's water on the horse's coat. Blown-out.
Big time.

I was shooting on Programmed Auto (Nikon D40) and thought I had the
ISO set to 200. EXIF shows it was a 500. The rest was 1/500th at
5.6.

I've never seen a wet surface blown-out like this. Would the high ISO
do that?

(Forget the image itself. I just cropped this part out to show the
effect. This is out-of-focus, but shows the effect.)



You don't say if photographing horses is a regular thing for you, but
I've had the same kind of thing, photographing wet horses in sunshine.
The coat of a horse in good health can be very shiny/reflective,
especially when wet. Also, it sort of looks to me as if there might
still be some foamy sweat on the shoulder hotspot and in the lower
right, which wouldn't help. Could be wrong though. A polarizer would
help, I'd think.

Poor horse, looks tired and tense (eye looks tired, posture looks tense
- he's pulling back, or about to, I'd say).

I'm glad to see that others do not find the results particularly
strange. I took several shots of the horses being hosed down, and
some of the shots taken at a greater distance have less of a problem.
It never occurred to me to use my polarizer. When I looked at the
images in-camera, I thought the white was soap suds.

I watched several horses being hosed down. This is a harness horse
training facility, and several were brought in off the track. Some of
the horses seemed to really enjoy being hosed down, and some didn't
like it. Well, as best as I can judge a horse's emotions.

Tough horses to photograph. All bays, chestnuts, and dark horses.
Hard to get detailed shots in bright sun.


--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida

tony cooper wrote:
I don't understand this. I was shooting at a horse track earlier
today and took several images of horses being hosed down after their
workout. Here's a crop of one of images:
http://tonycooper.fileave.com/blowout.jpg

There's no white in that horse's coat. The horse had just been
sprayed with a hose, and that's water on the horse's coat. Blown-out.
Big time.

I was shooting on Programmed Auto (Nikon D40) and thought I had the
ISO set to 200. EXIF shows it was a 500. The rest was 1/500th at
5.6.

I've never seen a wet surface blown-out like this. Would the high ISO
do that?

Yes high ISO reduces dynamic range.


(Forget the image itself. I just cropped this part out to show the
effect. This is out-of-focus, but shows the effect.)




--
Paul Furman
www.edgehill.net
www.baynatives.com

all google groups messages filtered due to spam

tony cooper wrote:
I don't understand this. I was shooting at a horse track earlier
today and took several images of horses being hosed down after their
workout. Here's a crop of one of images:
http://tonycooper.fileave.com/blowout.jpg

There's no white in that horse's coat. The horse had just been
sprayed with a hose, and that's water on the horse's coat. Blown-out.
Big time.

I was shooting on Programmed Auto (Nikon D40) and thought I had the
ISO set to 200. EXIF shows it was a 500. The rest was 1/500th at
5.6.

I've never seen a wet surface blown-out like this. Would the high ISO
do that?

(Forget the image itself. I just cropped this part out to show the
effect. This is out-of-focus, but shows the effect.)



Did you know that water particles on fur (hair too I guess) act as a
sort of micro lens, reflecting light with more intensity than it
actually is?

High ISO most definitely compresses dynamic range. Setting your in
camera contrast high (or even normal with a Nikon) will do it too. Nikon
were so concerned about the effect on their CCD cameras (like the D60)
they included a "D lighting" feature to overcome it.

I believe Canon also introduced a Highlight preservation feature with
the 40D but that one is sort of self defeating because it forces the
camera to 200 ISO which itself compresses the dynamic range.

You might try flattening the in camera contrast and pulling the exposure
half a stop. I suspect a decent circular polariser will help too. You
can put back the contrast in post processing after you do something
about the highlights.

On Wed, 17 Dec 2008 20:58:48 -0500, tony cooper
wrote:

I don't understand this. I was shooting at a horse track earlier
today and took several images of horses being hosed down after their
workout. Here's a crop of one of images:
http://tonycooper.fileave.com/blowout.jpg

There's no white in that horse's coat. The horse had just been
sprayed with a hose, and that's water on the horse's coat. Blown-out.
Big time.

I was shooting on Programmed Auto (Nikon D40) and thought I had the
ISO set to 200. EXIF shows it was a 500. The rest was 1/500th at
5.6.

I've never seen a wet surface blown-out like this. Would the high ISO
do that?

(Forget the image itself. I just cropped this part out to show the
effect. This is out-of-focus, but shows the effect.)

Lookie Ma!

That there large sensor DSLR has worse dynamic range than the cheapest P&S
cameras that I ever did done use! The only time I ever get an effect like that
is if I accidentally slide a histogram-adjustment too far in editing and grossly
clip out the highlights unintentionally.

Huh. How about that.

23.7 x 15.6 mm sensor with 3008 x 2000 image size, means photosites are ~7.8
microns in width. That's 15+ times larger in photon-gathering area than any
typical P&S camera sensor's photosites at ~2 microns in width. (7.8^2 / 2^2 =
15.21) Odd. You'd think that a sensor with photosites that _*HUGE*_ would have
15-times better dynamic range than a "lowly" P&S camera. At least that's what
all the "DSLR X-Spurts" keep saying around these here parts.

Why, hell, there's even one self-declared "Doctor" Clark that has even proved it
mathematically, using the electromotive force of photon energy levels, on all
his famous web-pages that all the other DSLR X-Spurts rely on for proof! He and
they couldn't all be wrong, could they??

LOL!!!!

wiping tear from eye

(Now let's all look at what hasn't been mentioned yet ... )

Wow. There's some really nasty cyan and magenta sensor blooming on that DSLR
too. Odd. Again I thought that was only a problem with P&S's "inferior" small
sensors. They all keep saying that so it must be true. Not to mention that no
details are defined by anything less than 3 pixel-widths, so that lens isn't
resolving down to anything better than 23 micron in width on that sensor. Yet,
most P&S camera lenses can often resolve down to 2 micron details on their
sensors. That's some really ****ty glass on that thing. Whatever could be
causing all this? You claim it's out of focus, but doesn't a DSLR have superior
focusing capability too? That photo flies in the face of everything that every
DSLR-Troll on usenet has ever claimed. Dynamic range, sensor-blooming, focusing
errors, optics .... All of their "Superior DSLR" claims all shot to hell in just
one photo.

C'mon, admit it. You shot this with a cheap-assed P&S camera and are just having
fun with everyone, right?

LOL!!!

wiping 'nuther tear from eye

Thanks. I needed a good laugh tonight. There was nothing but crap on TV.

C. Thompson wrote:


C'mon, admit it. You shot this with a cheap-assed P&S camera and are just having
fun with everyone, right?

LOL!!!

wiping 'nuther tear from eye

Thanks. I needed a good laugh tonight. There was nothing but crap on TV.


Feel better now?

wrote:
On Wed, 17 Dec 2008 20:58:48 -0500, in rec.photo.digital tony cooper
wrote:

I don't understand this. I was shooting at a horse track earlier
today and took several images of horses being hosed down after their
workout. Here's a crop of one of images:
http://tonycooper.fileave.com/blowout.jpg

There's no white in that horse's coat. The horse had just been
sprayed with a hose, and that's water on the horse's coat. Blown-out.
Big time.

I was shooting on Programmed Auto (Nikon D40) and thought I had the
ISO set to 200. EXIF shows it was a 500. The rest was 1/500th at
5.6.

I've never seen a wet surface blown-out like this. Would the high ISO
do that?

(Forget the image itself. I just cropped this part out to show the
effect. This is out-of-focus, but shows the effect.)


Specular reflections off the water which could have been attenuated by the
use of a polarizer?


I would also add, that due to the horse being a "dark" surface and the
sun being at 90° from where you were standing, the water basically
turned the hair into a mirror. Every part of the picture that is within
the angle of reflection of the "burn" is fading to white as well. This
show lack of planning and failure to check your TTL settings.

If you want to emphasis the lighting that would be fine, and some would
take that option. But If it was by accident as you claim, I would take
time to do a lot more photography or maybe take a course on using
available lighting.

Thanks,

Thomas

Thomas True wrote:
wrote:
On Wed, 17 Dec 2008 20:58:48 -0500, in rec.photo.digital tony cooper
wrote:

I don't understand this. I was shooting at a horse track earlier
today and took several images of horses being hosed down after their
workout. Here's a crop of one of images:
http://tonycooper.fileave.com/blowout.jpg

There's no white in that horse's coat. The horse had just been
sprayed with a hose, and that's water on the horse's coat. Blown-out.
Big time.

I was shooting on Programmed Auto (Nikon D40) and thought I had the
ISO set to 200. EXIF shows it was a 500. The rest was 1/500th at
5.6.

I've never seen a wet surface blown-out like this. Would the high ISO
do that?

(Forget the image itself. I just cropped this part out to show the
effect. This is out-of-focus, but shows the effect.)


Specular reflections off the water which could have been attenuated by
the
use of a polarizer?


I would also add, that due to the horse being a "dark" surface and the
sun being at 90° from where you were standing, the water basically
turned the hair into a mirror. Every part of the picture that is within
the angle of reflection of the "burn" is fading to white as well. This
show lack of planning and failure to check your TTL settings.

If you want to emphasis the lighting that would be fine, and some would
take that option. But If it was by accident as you claim, I would take
time to do a lot more photography or maybe take a course on using
available lighting.

Thanks,

Thomas

Don't you think it would have been easier to offer him advise to meter
for the highlights rather than do a rant about what you perceive are
"his" shortcomings?

FWIW there would be almost nothing anyone could do with a camera to
prevent that happening from that angle. Not even you, 'Whoever you are'
would be capable of doing any better under the same circumstances.

Opportunist photography requires a certain amount of compromise. Having
been to working trainer's stables myself I can tell you there is little
chance of being able to arrange a shot.

Sure experience has a lot to do with when to and when not to press the
shutter but if you have no chance to put the horse in a shady position,
it's shoot and be damned.

That would be a great shot Tony, were the point of focus on a more
compelling area. Blown highlights are not an issue when the human eye
would have seen the 'blown area' not much differently than you show it.