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Sony Forums Challenges | all galleries >> Challenge 127: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (hosted by xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx) >> Challenge 127: Exhibition > edit image
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01-OCT-2006 Harvey Rawn

Sprinkle
by Harvey Rawn

Somis, California

I'm posting this experiment in Exhibition to invite comments. I wanted to stop the motion of the water drops in low light conditions and boosted the shutter speed to the max in the attempt. The jpeg version of the image is so dark that hardly any detail is visible, but I was able to increase exposure in the RAW conversion with this grainy result. What changes would produce a better result?

Sony DSC-R1
1/2000s f/4.8 at 57.0mm iso200 full exif

other sizes: small medium original auto
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Harvey Rawn 02-Oct-2006 21:37
Bottles, another good (sharpening) tip added to my little library. I'll be trying it, too.

Katheine, no, I didn't shoot slower. I was focused (tunnel vision) on trying to isolate individual drops for the challenge.
Katherine Stanback's Photos02-Oct-2006 21:17
Harvey - when I said faster than 1/2000, I meant slower (I should read what I write, LOL)
Bottles, you did a great job on this in the demo gallery - thanks for posting how you did it.
Guest 02-Oct-2006 20:15
Harvey, I think you'll enjoy playing with the image in PS and it's a good way to improve your editing skills. Actually, it's kind of hard trying to explain every detail of a workflow here. If you need anymore help, feel free to email me. Okay, to apply selective sharpening, just use two layers. Sharpen the entire lower layer, then go back to the upper layer and add a white layer mask to it. With the layer mask active, paint with black where you want to sharpen (adjust the opacity of the brush as desired). If you make a mistake, simply paint over it with white :-)
Harvey Rawn 02-Oct-2006 19:39
Bottles, thanks for the shooting tip - it sounds like a good way to go. Your Demo version is a big improvement! I will apply the workflow to the PS image as a learning tool. How did you apply the selective sharpening in the final step?

Katherine, my R1 was cranked all of the way up at 1/2000s. I like the green color too. It was richened (is that a word?) by using a second layer in Mulitple mode at about 35% opacity.
bottles 02-Oct-2006 18:24
Well, I don't know. I suppose one way would be to put the camera on a tripod and take two separate exposures of the shot. You could expose once for the main background area with the sprinkler turned off. Then, turn the sprinkler back on and take another shot at the high shudder speed to capture the water spray. The two shots could then be combined/blended in post processing. As for post processing now, I've given it a try and have put my result (including my workflow) in the Demo folder. Hope it's somehow helpful to you.
Katherine Stanback's Photos02-Oct-2006 18:16
Nice composition - I love the green color! Did you take any shots at faster than 1/2000? I guess you could try a slower shutter speed and see how it looks, and also try raising the ISO. If that doesn't work, I guess you could try to get more light in the scene - a flash, or a sunnier day.
Harvey Rawn 02-Oct-2006 15:12
You win your bet, I was pretty well drenched from my waist down, but set the camera just above the spray level. I was looking for shot-taking suggestions, but am interested in post processing ones also. I held ISO at 200 in an attempt to control noise, but probably wound up with more than I would have had at a higher setting. I guess that the extreme under exposure just didn't allow the camera to capture enough information.
Guest 02-Oct-2006 06:49
Clever idea Harvey, I'll bet you got wet shooting this one :-) It's too bad the shot ended up having so much noise. Are you looking for suggestions regarding changes that may have helped at the time the image was shot or do you mean changes now, with post processing?