Exposure Comp

This one is for danthro.

Here are shots of the lobster weathervane with the camera set to aperture priority (auto shutter speed), and using exposure compensation.

F 5.6 ... 56 mm ... 1/1000 sec

[no exposure comp]

F 7.1 ... 56 mm ... 1/500 sec

0.67 step exposure comp

F 7.1 ... 60 mm ... 1/320 sec
1.00 step exposure comp

Though the aperture was wide open the first shot was too dark - no detail. Even the sky seems gloomy.

In the second shot I upped the F-stop to increase depth of field. All things being equal the camera would have reduced shutter speed to obtain the same exposure as the first shot
[higher F-stop = smaller aperture, which is a little counterintuitive but Wikipedia provides an explanation].

I didn't want another dark shot, so I set exposure comp to +0.67. This increased the amount of light captured by the camera, showing detail on the lobster and building while still keeping rich colour in the sky.

In the third shot I upped exposure comp once more (my camera does it in steps of a third of a stop) but this time although there was yet more colour in the building the sky and clouds started looking blown out.

All these photos are straight from the camera, simply resized to reduce download time.

I went with the middle shot as my Goldilocks shot - the other two were really used to bracket it and ensure that I calibrated correctly. The composition in the last shot is a little sloppy: if it were a keeper I'd rotate and crop it to remove the lower left distraction.

More (18 - 70) River Shots

A little later that afternoon, still with the 18 - 70, I took a series of shots varying the aperture.

The interesting thing here is the comparison with the 18 - 200 mm lens in terms of bokeh and vibration blur. I'll have to take the two lenses out and do an apples-to-apples comparison of identical shots.

Notes:
F5.6 - bright (red, yellow) colours render best but bokeh is distracting.
F9 - probably the best shot overall: you'd get a similar effect using the camera's landscape program.
F14 - slower shutter speed results in obvious vibration blur: 18 - 200 VR would solve this.

F 5.6 .. 70 mm .. 1/125 sec
original jpg

F 9 .. 70 mm .. 1/100 sec
original jpg

F 14 .. 70 mm .. 1/50 sec
original jpg

F 14 .. 70 mm .. 1/30 sec
original jpg

River of Light

A couple of weeks ago I was out with my trusty 18 - 70 Af-S 1:3.5-4.5G DX Nikkor lens, which is what I used for 90% of our China and Tibet photos (and 99% of those that turned out well). It's a great lens which I'd highly recommend.

Along with the usual pretty shots of the Charles River and Harvard there were some technically interesting photos in the set. The blinding reflection of the afternoon sun tricked the camera into using a high speed for a small aperture. The result was good depth of field and an interesting blend of [technically] over-exposed, under-exposed, silhouetted and goldilocks elements in the picture.

Notes:
Composition was very quick and somewhat haphazard since the reflection was blinding and I didn't want to burn out my retina or the sensor.

fwiw, I have also always really liked the way this lens renders water.

F 16 .. 50 mm .. 1/400 sec

F 11 .. 62 mm .. 1/640 sec