Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2014/02/21
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]I hate to say it Peter...but I like the first image best. The blue video is fine, and creates a nice contrast to the performer, whose skin tones are very nice. Cheers, Nathan Nathan Wajsman Alicante, Spain http://www.frozenlight.eu http://www.greatpix.eu PICTURE OF THE WEEK: http://www.fotocycle.dk/paws Blog: http://nathansmusings.wordpress.com/ YNWA On Feb 21, 2014, at 7:53 AM, Peter Klein wrote: > This is long, but you may find it interesting. I just spent several hours > over a couple of days trying to get a picture "right." There were several > different degrees of "right" and "not right," with no clear-cut answer. > You might come to a different conclusion than I did. Come into the > kitchen with me and let's see what was cooking. And see the following four > pictures after my last example for the conclusion of the series. > > On Monday evening I shot a wild and crazy contemporary music festival. > I'm friends with several of the musicians. The festival included several > pieces where the musicians performed with computer-generated imagery > projected on a big screen, as well as computer-generated sound. There was > changing stage lighting, and spotlights on soloists that were drastically > brighter than the ensemble lighting. Fun stuff. :-) I was sitting in an > ordinary seat in row 3, and did not have stage access. As someone who > plays music myself, and has shot plays and concerts for 44 years, I pride > myself on knowing how to do things without being heard, disrupting or > distracting. So no changing lenses during the performance, no chimping, > and no excess fiddling with the camera. I set most parameters before each > piece, and adjusted exposure by counting detents on my Olympus E-M5's > exposure compensation dial. I ended up using my Pansonic/Leica 25mm f/1.4 > for the whole concert. > > One shot posed a particular challenge. In the piece "Up Close" by Michael > van der Aa, a cello soloist doesn't just play with a string chamber > orchestra and electronic sound. She also interacts with a projected video > that runs during the piece. This created a perfect storm of mixed color > temperatures. Here's the first white balance, done for the tungsten stage > lights. The live woman is fine, the video is blue, blue blue. > <http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/pklein/album170/P2170091+_2_.jpg.html> > > Balance it for the video, and the live performer becomes the Lady in > Excess Red. > <http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/pklein/album170/P2170091+_1_+.jpg.html> > > So what to do? I tried black and white. Which was OK, but not quite what > I wanted. Not enough difference between live and Memorex. > <http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/pklein/album170/P2170091bw+.jpg.html> > > I spent a couple of hours making masks (not my best skill, and I use > Picture Window Pro, not Photoshop, so I don't have a magic lasso). > Eventually I did a combination of a polygon for the screen, merged with a > mask keyed to most shades of blue, plus another to reddish hues, cloned > one into the other, blended the two white balances through this mask, then > and manually adjusted the final result with the clone tool. It ended up > mostly, reasonably technically correct, but the blue spill in the > foreground is impossible, and it's not what I perceived when I saw it. > During the performance, I didn't see the drastic color difference that the > camera "saw." But there was a difference, and this rendering almost > eliminates it. > <http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/pklein/album170/P2170091-composite2ClonShpFinalCrop.jpg.html> > > At which point I decided that realism was futile. OK, let's get > interpretive. I tried a partially desaturated version of the original > tungsten balance. > <http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/pklein/album170/P2170091Desat.jpg.html> > > But the picture I eventually chose to post was the one below. I used the > tungsten white balance, so the live performer appeared normal, and a bit > of selective color correction towards grey to reduce but not eliminate the > blueness in the video performer only. This added some mixed-toned B&W > surrealness to the video image. It was not exactly what I saw, but it > evoked the same sensation as what I saw. Besides, my wife preferred this > one. :-) > <http://www.flickr.com/photos/24844563 at N04/12664153803/> > > Again, see the following four pics for the conclusion of the series. > Thanks for bearing with me. > > --Peter > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information >