Is "Straight Out Of Camera" A Productive Goal for Digital Photography?
Here's the best exposure I could get straight out of camera, so you can compare it to the three edited examples I posted yesterday. It's as bright as I could make it before the clouds start to blow out, and I did some noise reduction. That's it. Digital camera sensors tend to have less dynamic range than film, so they're at a disadvantage already. Our eyes change exposure all over a scene, then we rebuild the sense of high contrast in our brains.
Was "straight out of camera" ever really a common goal of most landscape photographers? Film photographers manipulated the light coming in with filters, and they performed a lot of dodging and burning to manipulate the unrealistically simplified version of the scene which the camera produced. It seems that the only other alternative would be to only shoot in well-lit, low contrast situations, and I think you'd end up with the same sorts of results people on vacation get with their unedited snapshots, with lots of blown highlights and blocked shadows.
To be sure, fixing the limitations of a camera, a digital one in particular, can be a daunting task. Trying to come out the other end of the process with a realistic result is like walking a tightrope: it's dead easy to fall off, much more difficult to reach the other side successfully. There's no one "right" or "best" way… often it's productive to try several different approaches and see which one works (if any). To see a few early results on this image, go to my G+ Stream (https://plus.google.com/+JeffreySullivan/posts) and scroll down a few posts to see three different approaches I tried on this image. None are perfect, this may never be what I'd consider a portfolio image, but those boundary cases when you might or might not be able to salvage a usable result strike me as exactly the ones worth exploring in a little more detail to improve your productivity.
You learn a lot more from your failures than you do from your successes, so attack your most intractable editing problems with enthusiasm, and celebrate the failures, because each failed attempt is getting you closer to the few most challenging moments and images which will be successfully and spectacularly saved using the skills and techniques you develop.
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Absolutely beautiful
Interesting contrast to previous posts!
I agree with what you've said here, well stated
Thanks for taking the time.
This is reassuring advice for beginners like me, too. Thank you for the beautiful example pic and the good words.
Personally, I tend to like the photographs that have been touched less and look less photoshopped, but nothing says we should or shouldn't post SOOC. We are artists in every sense, so I see absolutely no reason to stop editing and using filters and start posting photos SOOC, unless you are doing it because you want to.
With my interior work of abandoned buildings, I am often shooting during blue hour and dawn to get soft light inside the buildings, because I am striving to get images exposed correctly in camera as much as possible (I don't like editing and my OCD's definitely help here.) Most of the time my images don't even make it out of Lightroom into Photoshop, because I'm making minor adjustments, but mid-day light often has me wanting to conjure up a composite to get right of the burn outs.
i love it!!! Extremely beautiful…
I tend to decide what I want on a per photo basis; most get some form of editing. With the RAW for this image, you could still do some tonemapping and get a realistic natural looking image…
kinda cold for a swim… but I would!
Film is still the best medium to reproduce images in the dynamic range that the human eye sees. I don't know in how many megapixels do humans see. But digital sensors are becoming much better.
It says something about me, I guess, but I felt almost flummoxed the one or two times I've made an image, "in the wild", that didn't want some editing. Then again, sometimes in fast-breaking scenarios where prep wasn't possible, it was good to know how to make the most of the moment within the tech of the gear and lighting.
To commit one's career, though, to awesome editing skills or to limiting oneself to SOOC results, reminds me of someone who is more proud of limping, when they have two good legs, than they are of moving from where they are to where they want to be with grace and/or precision.
SOOC as a policy is equivalent to its opposite, editing the crap out of (or into?) every image, in a key way; each extreme is more about the ego and/or process than about what the image carries to the viewer(s).
But fear I'm sounding a little self-righteous, myself, unnecessarily now, when you have made the case Quite well with the edits you have offered to the scene you shot, Jeff.
so. . Never Mind.. . Carry On, +Jeff Sullivan .
I'm not going to ask, and you have every right, of course, not to answer: 'best' in what sense and is that a universally held truth? I may well have missed that issue of Popular Science, etc., and I am quite sure the issue has been investigated ad nauseum. Where might I find some benchmarks on the DR of most films as compared to most digital sensors? Search "Dynamic range of photographic film compared to digital sensors"
A truly seminal discussion. I personally do not like seeing the phrase "straight out of camera" on a work of art. When I go to the museum, I never see the artists include a list of their materials and what the workflow of their painting or sculpture or ceramic piece was. I want to appreciate the image on its own terms. But besides that, as +Wayne Upchurch has pointed out, this can sometimes seen to be to be partisan, as if dividing the photographic world into two opposing camps. Interpretation of the initial capture has always been part of fine art photography, and a steadfast determination to allow the camera to be the final arbiter of a capture is also an interpretation.
I am not an SOOC guy. For my work, I believe that landscape photos should be processed to approximate reality to some degree. The versions below are very processed, however, so just based on the photos and not having been there, I think I would process the above with a lighter touch than those below. I think it would consist of trying to pull out the shadows a little, maybe a little more on the right side than the left. but everyone has their own taste.
I've never understood the SOOC thing. Some (not all) seem to think this means the photo is a bit more "pure" in that it hasn't been tainted by cheating in Photoshop. Yet, many are showing SOOC images that have been shot in JPG – and thus "Photoshopped" within the camera itself. So I guess I don't get it.
That being said getting as many things right in camera is always a good use of ones time I think. The less time I have to spend tweaking things later is always a good thing. While not possible for all types of scenes, the images where I have to do a slight curve adjustment and not much else are always nice.
Amazing 🙂 u did great!
excellent info, thank you!
Amen! The camera eye is not a human eye.
PRETTY 😀
Post production (image editing) is just part of the process of getting what you visualise out of your head and onto the screen/paper. Your [digital] camera may have many flaws and these need to be addressed in post production. This is why the idea of SOOC has some flaws and this disdain for "Photoshopping" is also flawed.
Digital cameras are not some mystical device – they are tools, just like cars, with pros and cons and little nuances.
SOOC for a digital camera often means taking the photo in JPEG format and printing "as is". However the JPEG processing engine within the camera is reviewing the image and performing it's own corrections to the image, as opposed to someone doing it themselves in Photoshop/Lightroom/etc.
Even film was not entirely SOOC. The difference was that someone was in a darkroom adjusting colours, tones, brightening and darkening portions, etc. When people take their roll of film to get developed, little do they realise their images are processed and corrected in some way – the only difference is they have no control over it.
Having said that, the goal of photographers to capture an image as close to what you want "in-camera" should remain the same. Image editing software can only do so much with the image you give it, and the closer you get to what you want in the original image, the less time you spend editing.
I don't think there has ever been a time where the definition of a 'photographer' has evolved as quickly as now. We are still "painters of light", however we have more paintbrushes now.
I get this from people who aren't photographers constantly. They just don't appreciate a photo that isn't captured as a "snapshot" from their cheap point-and-clicks or cell phone. How do we address the issue of a public that doesn't trust photographers and photography?
+Benjamin Williamson With some people I've successfully done this by explaining what actually went into photos they may have seen done with film. While I was only in an actual darkroom a few times myself, most people don't understand that a lot went on after the shutter tripped on a film camera as well. Some people just want to shoot you down but others come away with a greater appreciation for what a great photo takes.
+Michael Russell I think they are mainly trying to debunk you on the claim that "it wasn't really like that, you changed it to make it look like that". They could care less about photos that other people have produced, they want to see something that they can understand. Like you're saying, most people just don't understand!
I agree with you completely. I believe it is people wanted to shoot you down. Remember misery loves company and so it is true with unhappy people. I loved it, and it is so true about changing a photo from film. Much can and is done after the shutter falls. Thank you for showing me this picture. I think it is great in it's own standing as well as as an example.
I don't think the majority are deliberately trying to debunk you. Many genuinely beliveve that [all of] the images professional photographers present are SOOC.
All you can really do is be honest and up front about it, taking on the "Has it been photoshopped?" question with impunity. How else will people understand that the seemingly excessive price for photography is justified after the trigger has been pressed? Also, if they're asking you that then you're doing a good job since they can't really tell 😉
Granted, there are photo comps out there that want SOOC. What these comps encourage is getting it right in-camera.
Una fotografia excelente el reflejo Del cielo en el lago
wonderful pic
A polarizing topic among photographers for sure. It would be to condense your workflow to get the shot right in-camera. Subject, Exposure, Composition.
it is very nice photo sir i have canon mark 2 lenns18.200 fix telli can i get tellme please
I think the blanket statement that digital sensors have less DR than film is a bit misleading. In terms of color or black and white negative film this is generally true. But the old nature photographers standard of velvia had only about 5 stops DR, much less than even my old d2x.
That being said, to the main topic, I think the sooner SOOC is stripped from our vocab the better. Family snapshooters have no idea of this concept, while those in to photography would benefit to realize there is absolutely no such thing.
As photographers, SOOC streamlines our workflow allowing for less post production. If you are a photojournalist, then SOOC is an important step in your work. If you are a fine-art photographer, then SOOC is out the window. I rely on post editing to help me achieve my vision, therefore I will slightly over expose my shots by one stop, then bring down the exposure in the ACR editor. This usually cuts down on the noise in my prints. Exposure, focus, & depth of field, are my main concerns of the SOOC photos. All of which I can correct in post except for focus. The closest I can get to the original scene out of the camera gives me a good starting point.