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On Thu, 23 Mar 2006 17:28:29 +0900, "David J. Littleboy"
<> wrote:

>
>"Floyd L. Davidson" <> wrote:
>>
>> You do *not* want to "overexpose" a snowy scene. The problem is
>> that if you let the camera set the exposure without compensation,
>> it will *under expose* the scene.
>
>(Don't take this personally: you've treaded too close to one of my pet
>peeves<g>.)
>
>This is an improvement, but I still disagree with this expression of the
>issue.
>
>If you set a camera to auto mode and point it at a snowy scene, the camera
>does _exactly_ what you told it to do; it places the snow (the main subject)
>at mid-gray.
>
>The _camera_ didn't under expose the scene, the idiot photographer did. The
>idiot photographer wanted an image to look like something he had in mind but
>failed to communicate that to the camera.
>
>> (And as the OP said, all the
>> pixels will be in the middle of the histogram.) When the scene
>> is *properly* exposed, it will have many pixels at the high end.
>
>There's no such thing as "properly exposed". At night, you may want to place
>the snow at zone IV or even zone III.
>
>That's why I recommend "The Confused Photographer's Guide to On-Camera
>Spotmetering".
>
>http://www.spotmetering.com/
>
>This book bangs the concepts into your head 17 different ways.
>
>David J. Littleboy
>Tokyo, Japan
>

The problem with snow comes when you want to shoot something in the
snow, which in most cases will be far less bright. The only way I
could have saved the snow detail (and I didn't) in this shot would
have been to use a flash to illuminate the subject better and even
then, I'd risk illuminating the snow even more and would have gained
nothing. Even manipulating levels only gets you so far and
overmanipulation starts weird things happening like colour shifts,
tonal shifts that soon create an unreal looking scene. So the
decision has to be made to "destroy" the snow in the background to
"save" the subject.

http://www.pbase.com/andersonrm/image/56662962

Hi Rich,
Do you ever consider bracketing the exposure then blending (or what
ever you call the process of combining multiple layers in Photoshop)?
I want to try it some day when I get some time to fiddle. I know some
people consider it cheating but I it doesn't bother me if it is done
well. Do you have any examples of that? It seems to me it could be
very cool to see dramatic dynamic range.

Nice job,
Ron

On 23 Mar 2006 15:18:39 -0800, ""
<> wrote:

>Hi Rich,
>Do you ever consider bracketing the exposure then blending (or what
>ever you call the process of combining multiple layers in Photoshop)?
>I want to try it some day when I get some time to fiddle. I know some
>people consider it cheating but I it doesn't bother me if it is done
>well. Do you have any examples of that? It seems to me it could be
>very cool to see dramatic dynamic range.
>
>Nice job,
>Ron

You can do that with static subjects (like landscapes) and I'm sure
you could use PS to "insert" the animal into a blended snow
background, but that I wouldn't do. Combining static images
can also supress noise by averaging it out.
-Rich