Night shot

[pjohnc]

I have a small pond in my garden. Here it is at night, lit by a reflector bulb light, with the moon above.

[aladyforty]

would be a nice shot if the grass was not overexposed where the light hits the ground.:-)

[pjohnc]

Yes, I agree with you, Julie, but how could this be rectified ?

Using Arcsoft PhotoStudio 2000 I tried dragging tha Darken/Lighten tool over those reeds but they quickly began to look muddy, if you know what I mean. It seems to me that with a light source so close there is bound to be some burn-out with objects that are nearest the light.

But then, perhaps I should not just accept this as inevitable . . .

Any help appreciated.

John

[aladyforty]

well I played around with it an could only come up with this. It is not easy to fix Im afraid:-)

[pjohnc]

Thanks, Julie.

I have sat here for some minutes scrolling back and forth between mine and yours. You have certainly improved the reeds. When I look at yours and then go back to mine they almost dazzle me !

Having said that the rest of the scene has lost something, or so I feel.

I wonder if anyone else has some thoughts on this one, or is it a lost cause ?

Thanks again for spending time on it.

John.

[aladyforty]

yes I think I darkened the whole photo too much:roll:

[ohenry]

Photoshop can do many wonderful things, but it can't recover blown highlights. It's better to get the exposure right in the camera. In this case, expose the shot so that the lighted area is not overexposed, but as far to the right of the histogram without reaching the end and use Photoshop to pull out the details in the shadows. I'm not sure of what capabilities your camera has, but a shot like this will fool a camera's automatic exposure features.

Another option, would have been to use a graduated neutral density filter so that the ND portions covered the spotlighted area.

A third option would have been to take 2 identical shots, one exposing the highlights and one exposing the shadows and then blend them together for one print. This will probably yield the most pleasing results for a shot that has a wide dynamic range of tonality.

[pjohnc]

Many thanks for your useful input, Ohenry.

No, I am not sure of my cameras capabilities, either. It is an Olympus C-765 and was very new to me when I took this shot a few weeks ago.

I looked out and saw the moon over the pond and thought, 'I wonder what the camera would make of that ?' So I put it on the tripod, set it to 'Night Mode' and pressed the shutter button.

I did tweak it a little afterward, just altering the curve in the shadow area, if I remember right.

If I can get the moon and the pond together again, on a cloudless night, I will try out your two exposure suggestion.

Watch this space . . .

John