Too bright, too dark, Just Right

This comment makes no sense to me in the context of the challenge set by John R, as I understood it. Surely the objective here is to attempt to produce on screen an image of a scene that we think is as close in appearance as possible to what we believe we would see in front of us, if we were standing there looking at the actual scene at the moment we pressed the shutter button to capture the data for that image?

Philip

And I think the image closest to that brief is Smudge's, which was taken on a dull day.

The other images fall far shorter imo.

Sunlit scenes naturally have high contrast. As for aspect ratio :



River Mersey by kh1234567890, on Flickr

And the higher the contrast the more pronounced the difference between the two imaging systems hence the less natural the results imo.

I agree that a widescreen aspect gives a more natural result, although I think he above image is too letterbox for that aim, plus the scene looks very distorted.

That makes sense to me, dull day landscape images are always going to be easier to reproduce accurately as (a) the sensor will be able to capture the full tonal range and (b) there is a a more limited tonal range to reproduce accurately and (c) the tonal range of the final display equipment is likely to be able to reproduce the tones as well.

As the contrast rises some compromise have to be made somewhere and total fidelity to the original has to suffer. But photography is about capturing light, and boring light tends to give boring pictures - just going out on a grey day isn't the answer

The natural field of human vision has an aspect ratio of about 3:2. We see a real-world wide or panoramic view by scanning that 3:2 field from side to side across the scene, when we move our eyes and/or turn the head.

However, I consider that further discussion of either the aspect ratio or the weather is not helpful in this thread, as they fall outside the parameters of John's challenge which, it seems obvious to me from his own contributions, is concerned with only the light and colour aspects of an undistorted image.

Philip

I hope this is not straying too far from the subject under consideration. These shots were taken in Pitlochry on a dull wet day in late October. As taken they were flat and dull so I cranked up the saturation to almost 'plant catalogue' levels to bring out the colours in the foliage. I would be interested in your views - do these look natural or have I overcooked them?

We scan much more horizontally than vertically which is why I think a more widescreen ratio gives a more natural feel to landscape. 16:9 just feels very comfortable, close to the golden rectangle too. In producing a natural looking image I think it is entirely relevant, as is the effect of the weather on the camera's ability to interpret the scene in a way we might consider natural.

What I suspect does have quite a major influence on the images being viewed is the contrast ratio of the monitor. Some are as low as 300:1 whereas others claim 30,000,000:1. Clearly images won't look the same on both. Also one has to take into consideration the quality of the display. While I am sure there are exceptions, a budget monitor is unlikely to have the same contrast and colour fidelity as another costing many times the price. So if an image is made to look right on a budget monitor, it may look somewhat flat/wrong colour etc. on a better one. And the reverse would also be true. I am surprised DrO reckons out of camera jpegs look off however, one would think that these are a good starting point.

Mind, doesn't the appearance of a scene depend on other factors too? With film, a scene shot on Kodachrome looked quite different from the same scene shot on Agfa, and different again to say, Ektachrome, Fuji, Perutz, Barfen or any other brand one might care to mention. Didn't we each have our favourite brand?

If one is preparing an image to print rather than to view on a monitor or project it, it would need appropriate processing to achieve the best possible result. A lower contrast image is needed to print onto paper, and even different papers cope with contrast differently, hence the range of paper options given by a printer driver!

Black and white photo printing papers come in different grades to allow for differing contrast in the negatives, so at the end of the day it is all about compromise, and as DrO says, we all see things differently.

Regarding image size ration (16:9, 4:3 etc.) I believe it is a bit of what we are used to. The 16:9 TV screens looked very odd when I first came across them, but now we have got used to them 4:3 seems strange!

John K

I'm pretty sure increasing the saturation has helped your views quite a bit and they do not look 'overcooked' to me. Without your input I suspect the scenes would be very drab.

What your PP has done is what an 'idiot proof' camera would do with its scene selector dial if set appropriately, or suitable digital filter setting dialled into a DSLR!

John K

A reminder of John's words -

Title: "Too bright, too dark, Just Right"

"Again, prompted by apparently widely different ideas as to how bright an image should be, let's have a look at what we all think is a natural landscape shot with correct colour and brightness."

"We have to have some idea as to what constitutes a normal image, surely? We also have a very good idea of what a sunny day looks like, or a misty morning, or anything else we've seen in our lives."

"That image (in John's 1st post) looks pretty much the same on my monitors, laptops, iPad, iPhone and daughter Hazel's Android phone, so let's not over-think things!"

"All I'm asking is that you post something that you consider accurate. It's out of interest, not something designed to trick you."

In the context of John's requests, some of the discussion in several previous posts IS irrelevant.

In the context of John's requests, I think Philip (Smudge) has succeeded because he has done what was asked - producing and posting images that look natural.

Presumably he processed the flat captured images with the aim of making them appear as close as possible to the actual dull weather scene he saw at that moment. I can see clearly that it was a dull autumn day from the natural look Philip has created in his images.

We should have some ideas of how an image's brightness and colours should appear, regardless of its format, because our experience of seeing real-world conditions (in different kinds of weather and even through any shape of window) guides our expectations of the appearance of those attributes in any natural scene.

Is it not the aim here to see if/how those ideas differ?

Philip

Ashridge woodland with bluebells:



Philip

Not irrelevant because we all get to see them on our vastly different setups. An image on my monitor is unlikely to look exactly the same on yours.
We do adjust however. A slide show of old slides where all the colours have gone off does start to appear natural as one gets used to it.

John K

John's photo looks perfectly natural to me, no question about it. Many others do to such as Philips'. In addition to there being consensus among us, we also have personal preferences. Sometimes I like photos that we would agree are overexposed, more frequently, I like the darker images like the image below. It is natural, but it is underexposed because the setting was dark. Hope you enjoy it too.



Ronnie

I feel compelled to muster up at least some defenses

Putting aside questions about monitor calibrations etc, as obviously we can never all be seeing exactly the same colour tones and light intensities as we sit in front of all our different screens...

To say my scene seems too bright to be realistic is a bit unfair surely? I mean, compared to Johns original image here, the light intensity is clearly stronger and there are a wide range of high toned and reflective surfaces basking in the glare. It is that combination of reflective and intense lighting that is presented to the eye.

Johns scene has more uniform mid tones and a softer light. My shot would present the camera meter with the classic high reflective light situation, which if uncompensated would result in a somewhat darker image than was actually seen.

Is it possible that those looking for darker presentations of these scenes are responding to what they have seen an uncompensated camera meter produce, interpreted that as 'natural', and so consequently respond to my scenes as unnaturally bright, when it is actually realistically so?

Can we really specify any 'correct' shade of blue for a sky? I can say that I have tried to represent the particular pale shade that was present that morning (about 10am), and I have drawn a clear contrast between that and the strong deep painted blues on the various objects below.

And how is this sky 'too bright'? Most skys are significantly brighter than whats below, that would be natural - is this relationship not depicted 'realistically' in my image?