Exercise 4 Editing

For this exercise I decided to use the photographs that I had taken at the 2010 F1 Hockenheim Grand Prix.

I used the the windows folder system for the editing as that is the system that I use for usually storing my photographs. For each edit I created a new folder within the original folder.

Stage 1 was fairly straight forward as there are usually plenty of poor technical photographs taken at a sporting event, especially if you do not have the very best equipment/lenses ( that I don't).

Step two was fairly tricky as I ended up including far more photographs than I should have done as I found it difficult to discard any technically proficient photos.

For step 3 I made a decision to concentrate on crowd photos as the equipment I had used appeared to be better suited for close ups. These are the ones that I chose:

I choose this photo because it had vibrant colour, people and a car in it.

I felt obliged to put this photo in as it was the only semi decent one I had of a F1 car, the fence is a distraction though.

This is a photo of my son watching the race. I like it because it is high quality in focus and detail.

This photo is a wider perspective of the previous shot and includes more crowd.

I choose this photo as it gives a bit of colour and scale to the race arena.

Step 4 didn't really help with the selection process as I did not change my mind on any of the photographs that I had selected it did however help with the step five as it confirmed which of the two images I would use for my final edit.

I choose these two as my final photographs:

I choose this photo as it has a bit of everything in it, people cars and colour, it was also one of the technically better shots.

I choose this photo because it was my favourite of the set. Although it does not have any cars in the photograph it is clear from the hat and the ear plugs what the boy is watching. I also like the composition and the quality of the photograph.

Conclusions: I found that this exercise was very interesting, some steps were harder than others. What I also discovered was that the majority of my photographs were not to standard that I was happy with when I looked at them in detail.

Exercise 3

I found this exercise quite difficult to achieve. I firstly struggled with photographs with the correct levels of contrast. Secondly working out how best to display the histogram and the highlight shadows and clippings for each picture was tricky. I eventually went for screen shots from PE 8 RAW display.


The first set of 3 are low contrast are the 3 different exposures:


This is the highest exposed of the set of 3 photographs. From the histogram you can see that this has a low range of tones with the data mostly in the middle. Even so there is still a small amount of highlight clipping on the boy's bat where the picture is at it's brightest.



This is the middle exposure of the picture the histogram has all the data in the middle of the graph and there is no clipping of either shadows or highlights.



This is the lowest exposure shot and even as the picture is nearly dark the lack of tonal range means that there is no shadow clipping.


This set of three photographs has a moderate level of contrast:

From the histogram you can see that this is a fairly moderate spread of contrast although there are several spots of high contrast that are illustrated as clipped. There is nothing beyond the shadow clipping range.


In the low exposure version of the shot you can see that there is no a large range of contrast although the brightest parts of the umbrellas are showing small amounts of clipping.

In this highest exposed shot you can see that there is a wider range of contrasts and that the highlights are slightly clipped.

The final set of three photos fir this exercise have a full and wide range of contrasts:

THis photo has contrast off both edges of the camera capabilities. Both in the shadows and the highlights. Even in this medium exposure there is some shadow clipping and a little highlight clipping in the boy's shirt.

This higher exposure shot has plenty of clipping in the highlights but also has some shadow clipping still. The histogram has a wide range in all areas with several peaks and troughs.

The lower exposure has moved the highlight clipping away but has exaggerated the shadow clipping. The histogram shows that a considrable amount of the contrast range is now down at the darker end of the scale.

Exercise 2

For this exercise I decided to take photographs during a camping week end at Heidelberg that also involved a two day visit to the German GP at Hockenheim. I took lots of pictures on the first day then reviewed them overnight and tried to improve on them at the second day by following the routine of following the work flow. The work flow was pretty similar to the one used in exercise one but allowed for longer review process.

Exercise 2: Work flow
1. Prepare camera.
- Check battery
- Check IOS setting at 100
- Set initially to auto to check the recommended settings- note them down
- Set Aperture priority with setting directed in auto mode.
2. Find appropriate subjects.
3. Take picture, review shot to see how can be improved immediately.
4. Retake photograph with different aperture or shutter speed settings or lens.
5. Review pictures in camera play mode in slow time.
6. Decide how pictures could be improved next day or which shots worked best.
7. Take pictures with improvements/different perspective.
8. Download images.
9. Create folder for images in the appropriate place.
10. Delete images that are no good.
11. Separate raw and JPGs.
12. Edit photos that have been selected.

The steps in the work flow all worked OK. Because of the high speed nature of the event it as difficult to utilise different settings with same shots but wherever I could I did.


The first set of photos were the ones taken on day one to give inspiration:



I wanted to get a spectator shot with colour.

There were lots of flags but this was clear on review that this was not a good shot.

This shot had colour but little else of interest.

The exposure on this shot was not good enough.

By following the work flow I was able to take much better shots on day two. As below:

I tried to get the colour and the car in the shot with a wide lens

This was a fast shutter speed to try and capture the car

This was a close up with wide aperture and telephoto lens on 105mm

Exercise 1

It has taken a while for me to get started on this course due to work commitments. I decided to undertake a photo shoot of my eldest son for the first work flow exercise.

The work flow I chose to use is below:

Exercise 1: Work flow
1. Prepare camera.
- Check battery
- Check IOS setting at 100
- Set initially to auto to check the recommended settings- note them down
- Set Aperture priority with setting directed in auto mode.
2. Find spot for subject with unobtrusive background.
3. Direct pose.
4. Take three photographs from far to near (start with full body then work to head and shoulders only.
5. Lower aperture re-take the pictures in sequence.
6. Review pictures in camera play mode
7. If necessary lower aperture and return to step 4
8. If required change pose as directed by review and then return to 4.
9. Download images.
10. Create folder for images in the appropriate place.
11. Delete images that are no good.
12. Separate raw and JPGs
13. Edit photos that have been selected

The work flow worked OK for me and I managed to get around 30 photographs and then selected two to edit.

Step 1 was fairly straight forward and the auto mode gave a good indication of the available light and appropriate settings.

Step 2 was OK as there was a fairly neutral background available.

Step 3 and 4 merged into each other as the direction and the varying ranges went hand in hand.

Step 6 involved a quick review of the photos and it was clear that the aperture setting was OK at the lowest level.

The final steps all involved post processing and storing and all worked fine.

Just created another Blog site for second course