Over on the sosauce.com blog they used one of my recent images to talk about how they display EXIF data with each photo. I really enjoy looking at this information when I see other photos, as it can be a great learning tool. This is picked up on by Alisha in the blog post, but it should come with a warning.
Alisha picks up these bits of information as important:
* camera model
* focal length
* exposure time
* ISO number
* flash
Of course there was no flash, but the other info is only a bit more helpful. The camera model means that the focal length is wrong, as the 500D has crop sensor. Also, more importantly, I cropped the image significantly in Lightroom, so the focal length is probably equivalent to 70mm, not 24mm.
Want to see the original photo, with no post processing at all?
Not great! Well, there’s a story behind this. The truck stopped in the desert, on top of a large dune, and all us tourist got out to take photos. I’d been using a longer lens, but popped back to the truck to swap in my 10mm-24mm wide angle. I wanted to take this photo, a cool hero-shot of the three Indians who lived and worked in Dubai:
The most important information about this image:
* 10mm lens, though the crop factor in-camera and in Lightroom would mean it’s more like 15mm or 16mm.
* Camera set to aperture priority, how I shoot most often.
* Aperture at f/9.0. This means I get a good depth of field, with most of the dune in focus. This is important, especially as I wasn’t looking through the viewfinder when I took this, and instead was just holding the camera near the floor. This means that I’m not entirely sure if the autofocus is going to hit the people or maybe the floor next to them.
* Oh yeah, single point autofocus too.
* Something mentioned in the EXIF data on sosauce, but Alisha missed: Exposure Bias -2. This is crucially important, as I’m taking a photo directly into the sun. If I’d let the camera take care of the shutter speed without modifying it down two stops, the sun would be completely blown out, the people wouldn’t be suitably silhouetted, and the sand wouldn’t have the rich red colour.
In fact, using Lightroom to boost the exposure up 2 stops, this is the kind of image it would be without “exposure bias” set to -2:
Not a bad image, just not the image I was wanting. As it happened, the image that I got was exactly the image I wanted. Actually, now that I look at the EXIF data, I see that the shutter speed is 4000, which is the maximum speed the 500D can manage. That it hit the maximum speed is unsurprising, considering I took the photo directly into the sun.
What happened then? Without me seeing him get into our truck, the driver decided to show off, and drive up the dune directly towards us. I swung round at the noise and pointed my camera in the right direction.
My first thought was “Oh shit, my kit lens was sitting on the front passenger seat, with no protection, not in any bag.” I remembered correctly, and found the lens a few minutes later in the foot well, sans lens cap.
My second thought, or instinct, was to zoom in. This wasn’t all that helpful, as I still had my super wide angle lens on, but better than nothing.
My third thought was “The exposure compensation is still set to minus two. I’m going to have to fix this in post processing.”
But I snapped two shots of the truck, one as it started its turn, knowing it would kick up loads of sand as it veered away. This one was the most dramatic of the two. Click:
The other photo I took is here, again with no post processing, at the closest approach of the truck:
This is much better photo in terms of in-camera framing, but the moment, the “gesture” as some photographers call it, just isn’t quite as strong.
The good thing about having the exposure bias at -2 was it gave a far quick shutter speed than without. At 1/200 (what I guess it would be without) the wheels would be blurred, and the dust wouldn’t look quite so sculptured. This was a lucky accident on my part. I could have got the same fast shutter if I’d known the truck was going to race up the dune, but the depth of field and the ISO would have suffered. With a lower ISO you get more noise, but then, due to post brightening this image, it turned out quite noisy anyway.
The upshot of this is that knowing technical information and every single setting on your camera is vital if you know the photo you want, and can spend ten seconds getting your camera set before you take the perfect shot on the first attempt.
But sometimes you don’t have ten seconds. Not even two. Then you have to trust your instincts, and trust that you can fix it in post.
