Coping with Difficult Light Conditions at Yeovilton

Location : Bristol, UK Spotter Watch Member : No

Hi all,

I've read strings here regarding recommended settings for different types of aircraft [FJ vs Props etc] and went armed with the tips & tricks to quite a dull day at Yeovilton (weather wise!). The results produced were sometimes disappointing, particularly when facing away from the field towards the approach path, so I'd love to hear what you'd recommend for dodgy weather conditions, in particular from anyone that was down in the sheep field suffering the same conditions.

The rules I went down with were as follows:

ISO. Set to 100-200 normally. 400 if poor light conditions but photos can turn out grainy. So, I went for 200 to avoid grainy pics and because it seemed to me at times that the clouds above were quite bright. But for those there yesterday, was it an ISO400 day without question?

Fast Jets. Set exposure to f8 in Av mode.

Helis/Props. Set shutter speed to 1/160 in Tv mode (using a mono-pod where possible).

White Balance. Set to Auto White Balance (AWB).

So here's how things faired with the Fast Jet settings. With ISO200/f8 in Av it ended up as 1/500 shutter speed. The underside of the aircraft is very dark though.

Coping with Difficult Light Conditions at Yeovilton IMG_5827

Coping with Difficult Light Conditions at Yeovilton IMG_5827

And on a Prop example. Shutter at 1/160, resulted in an aperture of f14. I was pleased with the sharpness and prop blur, but again, an all together gloomy image with dark underside.

Coping with Difficult Light Conditions at Yeovilton IMG_6039

Coping with Difficult Light Conditions at Yeovilton IMG_6039

Next a helo example. Shutter at 1/160, Av of f14. Pleased with the sharpness and rotor blur but too dark once again (and not pleased with the image sensor dust either of course!):

Coping with Difficult Light Conditions at Yeovilton IMG_5883

Coping with Difficult Light Conditions at Yeovilton IMG_5883

So, I'm guessing I've got an exposure problem here, correct? One additional setting that I had that I haven't seen mentioned in the tips & tricks strings is metering mode. I had my Canon 350D set to Evaluative Metering where it takes the average of light across the whole screen. Would I be correct in saying I should have been in Partial Metering, or maybe even Centre Weighted Average Metering? Is that the general rule for all aircraft photos, regardless of weather?

Finally, had I had centre weighted metering active what would the camera made of this fly through?:

Coping with Difficult Light Conditions at Yeovilton IMG_6060

Coping with Difficult Light Conditions at Yeovilton IMG_6060

Is the advice here to skip any semi-automatic form of set-up, switch to Manual mode and set the exposure up by pointing at the ground and getting the levels optimised for the dark undersides?

A lot of questions here, but I'd really value your advice/comments. I have L plates on with all this stuff! I had some better pics facing towards the base and I think this was due to the dark ground bringing the overall metering levels in line more with the aircraft's optimum exposure requirements.

Cheers,

Chris

Location : Cambridgeshire Spotter Watch Member : no

Hope you dont mind, but had a play in photoshop with two of your pics.
Coping with Difficult Light Conditions at Yeovilton IMG_6039

Coping with Difficult Light Conditions at Yeovilton IMG_5828

Adjusting with curves , levels, and shadow/highlight brightens up the images, This is with a jpg image, you will have more flexability if you shot in "raw" if your camera has that facility

It is limiting how much I can improve these low res images without them becoming to noisy, but great improvements cam be made to the original files

Moderator Location : Between Coventry and Leicester

ISO400and shutter speeds of 250th to 320th for prop aircraft in the air. drop the shutter down to your 160th for static slow taxi in shots.you should get more keepers with this set up. on a dull day.

going to 160th and getting an apeture of f14 is way out of the sweet spot of the lens resulting in soft images. and dust spots will start to be seen.

Location : LFA7T Wales

Bmrider wrote:: shadow/highlight brightens up the images,

The above a good example of why this tool should never be used!

What metering were you using and were you adding any exposure compensation?

Location : Cambridgeshire Spotter Watch Member : no

apgphoto wrote:

Bmrider wrote:: shadow/highlight brightens up the images,

The above a good example of why this tool should never be used!

What metering were you using and were you adding any exposure compensation?

Take no notice of apgphotos comments, He obviosly failed to understand my post !!! Roll Eyes

As I explained shadow / highlight can be used on the Original high res image, particualy if you are shooting "Raw"

Obviosly it is best to get the image right at the point of capture, but if you get home with an image you want to "rescue" than my advice about photoshop tools is valid

Heres a "Raw" file before and after using levels, bit of "curves", and slight sharpening, plus cropping and straightening, it was overcast at time of capture

Coping with Difficult Light Conditions at Yeovilton Raw

Coping with Difficult Light Conditions at Yeovilton Raw

Coping with Difficult Light Conditions at Yeovilton FS

Location : Scotland Spotter Watch Member : No

vulcan558 wrote:: going to 160th and getting an apeture of f14 is way out of the sweet spot of the lens resulting in soft images. and dust spots will start to be seen.

Nonsense, nothing wrong with f14 - should be very sharp and isn't closed enough for diffraction to be an issue. Dust spots will be seen but they'll be seen at f8 too.

The settings you're using are fine all you need to do (as apgphoto has alluded to) is dial in some +EV, try a third or two thirds to see - the amount of +EV will depend on your metering mode.

EDIT - On the subject of metering I normally leave the camera in centre-weighted as i find it gives a pretty good benchmark exposure to then tweak but you can use any metering mode, you just need to know how it behaves and then how much exposure compensation to dial in.

Admin Location : Birmingham B17

I totally agree with using +or- EV it normally works for me.But what i would say is you are always in the lap of the gods.

If all else fails go to Aperture F8 its normally a safe setting with a good speed.

Location : Rotherham, South Yorkshire

Sorry to sound negative, but in my experience there are some days when it's best to leave the camera in the case!

Location : Lincs

I agree with Grahame. Don't get me wrong, though. Grey and dark cloud days can be great for fast performers with plenty of vapour and reheat. In general though shooting in those conditions isn't going to be pretty.

TJ

Location : n.e lincolnshire Spotter Watch Member : no

Unless its a planned trip/airshow etc, i won't even leave the house if the sun is'nt shining.

But if it is reaaly dull light i will, like agdickie said, use +1or2 thirds of a stop compensation. It usually does the job for me.

And i've never really used anything other than multi segment metering to get good results.

Advice is good, but getting to know your camera and experimenting is how you find out what works for you Thumbs Up

Location : Bristol

Your settings seem good; but as mentioned above, just dial in some exposure compensation (anything from + 1/2 to 2 stops). All you can do is experiment with your camera to see what results you get.

But bare in mind (as already mentioned) those conditions are horrible to work with and everybody struggles or takes disappointing photos, so don't be too hard on yourself.

Mark.

Location : Bristol, UK Spotter Watch Member : No

Dear all,

Thanks so much for the feedback. I'm determined to get my head around working in dull weather.

I was using 'evaluative metering' (which takes the whole field of view into account) and no exposure compensation. I'm going to give the suggestions in those areas a try. As you say, experimentation is the way forward.

And for the ones already in the bag, Bmrider - I will read up on curves/levels/shadow/highlights as you suggest. This looks promising to save what I have already. I also think a switch to RAW beckons.

Cheers,

Chris

Location : Ringwood, UK Spotter Watch Member : No

CRGJones wrote:: I'm determined to get my head around working in dull weather.

I was using 'evaluative metering' (which takes the whole field of view into account) and no exposure compensation. I'm going to give the suggestions in those areas a try. As you say, experimentation is the way forward.

And for the ones already in the bag, Bmrider - I will read up on curves/levels/shadow/highlights as you suggest. This looks promising to save what I have already. I also think a switch to RAW beckons.

Cheers,

Chris

CRGJ

Experiment, yes - but there is no substitute for getting yourself an intimate understanding of photo exposure in general (including using compensation) in all light conditions, and specifically how it affects your camera and subject.

It's a hard slog but well worth it, as taking short cuts on the subject leads to excessive reliance on your photo editing software to solve the problems - which could lead you to believe that the bad examples given above by others are the best result possible in the circumstances!

Location : Durham. UK Spotter Watch Member : no

It is worth looking on some of the Free Photshop Plugin sites for noise suppression software. I personally bought Kodak Digital GEM some some years ago and if you are careful and do not apply to much, it virtually eliminates this type of noise. If you apply it too much on 1000ISO images it will take away detail. An image which is shot on a 100 ISO but is 3 stops under will always look as if it was shot on a 1000 ISO once it has been photoshopped to bring it back up. A noisy colour image can often look perfectly acceptable as a black and white image. Of course there is no substitute for getting the exposure right in the first place, but then again, we are not perfect every day.
Try Kodak Digital Gem or Noise Ninja on trail first.

Location : LFA7T Wales

CRGJones wrote:: Dear all,

Thanks so much for the feedback. I'm determined to get my head around working in dull weather.

I was using 'evaluative metering' (which takes the whole field of view into account) and no exposure compensation. I'm going to give the suggestions in those areas a try. As you say, experimentation is the way forward.

And for the ones already in the bag, Bmrider - I will read up on curves/levels/shadow/highlights as you suggest. This looks promising to save what I have already. I also think a switch to RAW beckons.

Cheers,

Chris

Chris,

Dont worry about shooting RAW until you have got the basic principles of shooting in the English summer weather sorted (unless you have experience of RAW processing that is) Your shooting digital go out on another summers day Wink

and just try different settings until you find what works the best, even if its to the local airport to shoot civilian stuff!

Do keep away from the shadow/highlight tool I have seen way too many people use it when not really know what they are doing with it. Its so easy to destroy an image, the reworked Rafale is a very good example of how it may lighten but it does make the image look terrible. Original poster of reworked image i know what you were trying to illustrate btw and at the same time you have shown why it shouldn't be used.

As TJ has said your be surprised at what can be achieved in poor weather.

Location : Cambridgeshire Spotter Watch Member : no

As I said, I was working to illustrate that poor / dark images can be saved by using Photoshop, and also highlighting the benefits of shooting "Raw" (Which I do all the time) I want to sress, once more, I was working with the low res image posted on here, not the Hi-Res images from an original Raw file, please dont think that is the result had I had the original image to play with Roll Eyes

I,m simply going to disagree with apgphotos comments, dont be afraid to use shadow / highlight at all, for a start I never work with the original raw file, always a copy so theres no chance of "destroying" an image as apgphotos suggests.

Theres no black art to raw shooting and once you have got the hang of it I bet you wont shoot jpeg again Smile

Location : LFA7T Wales

Yes I know what you were working with and yes I know what you were trying to illustrate (as i said in my reply)

When I used "destroy" I was talking about image quality and not the original JPEG or RAW file.

I have been shooting RAW for 10 years since I turned digital with my first Nikon D1 and have never used shadow/highlight since Adobe introduced it. As I said too many times I have seen people use it who don't know how to use it and do destroy/degrade/make their output images look crap, thats why I always advise people to keep away from it.

Location : Cambridgeshire Spotter Watch Member : no

Quote "As I said too many times I have seen people use it who don't know how to use it and do destroy/degrade/make their output images look crap, thats why I always advise people to keep away from it."

The trick here then is to learn how to use it Big Grin

Location : Bristol Spotter Watch Member : No

I have to say though, if used properly, Shadow/highlight is a useful substitute for a grad filter....of course one has to very careful with the useage in order to avoid halos and the like. I certainly never use it to make the image brighter...

.mic

Location : Cambridgeshire Spotter Watch Member : no

I agree,, Its a combination of photoshop tools suited to the individual image that needs work, obviously its best to get the image right straight out the camera Thumbs Up

Anybody interested in finding more about S/H tool and what it can and cant do, just Google "Photoshop Shadow Highlight"

Location : Scotland Spotter Watch Member : No

Alternatively, and this is my belief, you can take the photo properly in the first place and then you don't need to use the S/H(it?) tool.

Location : Cambridgeshire Spotter Watch Member : no

agdickie wrote:: Alternatively, and this is my belief, you can take the photo properly in the first place and then you don't need to use the S/H(it?) tool.

I thought I said that Roll Eyes

Location : Scotland Spotter Watch Member : No

Indeed you did. Was just skimming through all the latest post and missed that bit in yours.

My opinion is that if you need to take such measures to recover an image then it isn't worth editing it in the first place (unless it's really rare/one-off). A good shot is one that takes a matter of seconds to edit as you did everything right when you captured the image.

There's no substitute for sunshine.

Mick.

Location : Somerset Spotter Watch Member : No

Chris,

The issue with grey skies is that the camera will try to set an exposure that renders an aveage (18%) grey correctly - with evaluative/matrix metering, if the greater part of the scene is grey sky, then this will be exposed correctly, leading to shadow areas - i.e. the undersides of aircraft! - being significantly underexposed.

As has been pointed out above, exposure compensation is the answer - in my experience, around 1.5 stops, maybe up to 2 stops in heavy overcast (but bear in mind that this may lead to near white skies).

It's well worth checking your histograms after every few shots - if the graph is bunched up on the left, then you're under-exposing; so dial in more compensation - or, if your display has a 'highlight warning', then keep increasing the compensation until the 'hi' warning' starts to flash over a significant portion of the image, then back off the comp by half a stop.

Hope this helps,

Terry