Trying to understand white balance

[glbarlow]

1 hour ago, Justin P. said:

white balance to auto

Auto can vary shot to shot. I recommend you set on flash, which is a constant 5500, as well as a constant green/magenta setting optimal for flash which may vary more than the Kelvin settin in Auto. 

[glbarlow]

48 minutes ago, Steve G said:

But relatively few people need this sort of technical knowledge and if they do, they are much better using a pro photographer in the first place.

Thousands of hobbyist photographers  would disagree. 

A very small percentage of photos are published in the few remaining magazines. I recommend you access Instagram or 500pix and search wildlife, nature, street, travel, portrait, and landscape photography for evidence of images neither taken by pros or iPhones (though there’s plenty of those too). All the good ones employ technical expertise to set up creative composition, very few if any use Auto. 
 

[Steve G]

I am a retired ex-pro photographer. 

 

If you want me to be brutally frank, most amateur photographers are all mouth and trousers and are very quick to pontificate on subjects that their knowledge of is, at best, sparse.

[glbarlow]

I’m an active pro NPS photographer, I think you may be a bit out of touch. I know lots of very capable and experienced hobbyists. Just like any hobby, including modeling, there are those that express as fact expertise they don’t necessarily have. These are the ones I often see in Facebook camera groups and warrant a good laugh. There  are far more who are curious, seek to learn, and produce some amazing images. It’s a mistake to generalize and assume you are the expert where others aren’t or that every “amateur” is devoid of the technical knowledge of photography and the artistic creativity necessary to produce good work. 
 

But I am far afield of the topic of White Balance, I doubt you’ll change your views so I’ll just let it go and move on. It just bothers me that someone that was once in the field doesn’t respect the wide range of talent out there today. 

[Steve G]

6 minutes ago, glbarlow said:

I’m an active pro NPS photographer, I think you may be a bit out of touch. I know lots of very capable and experienced hobbyists. Just like any hobby, including modeling, there are those that express as fact expertise they don’t necessarily have. These are the ones I often see in Facebook camera groups and warrant a good laugh. There  are far more who are curious, seek to learn, and produce some amazing images. It’s a mistake to generalize and assume you are the expert where others aren’t or that every “amateur” is devoid of the technical knowledge of photography and the artistic creativity necessary to produce good work. 
 

But I am far afield of the topic of White Balance, I doubt you’ll change your views so I’ll just let it go and move on. It just bothers me that someone that was once in the field doesn’t respect the wide range of talent out there today. 

It's not a question of not respecting, not at all. I never deride any photographer who actually takes photographs and is prepared to offer his/her work for appraisal. It's the ones that spend hours on the theory of digital medium and have a rudimentary grasp of its meanings yet never, or seldom take photos that are avaliable for scrutiny.  

 

It really doesn't bother me that much to be honest, I'm not in this interest group to discuss the merits of people's photographic efforts, I'm here to learn about model ship building. My initial point was that people were overthinking the photographic element of the hobby needlessly. 

 

I'm bowing out of this thread now as it looks like it's going to go a bit mental. 

[Justin P.]

I actually quite enjoy the needless overthinking that happens within the hobby - and in particular, the granularity that can be achieved when that overthinking becomes a communal endeavor.  Certainly a something that happens often here at MSW.   🙂

Edited November 17, 2021 by Justin P.

[glbarlow]

That’s the best part of a curious mind😊

[Steve G]

52 minutes ago, Justin P. said:

I actually quite enjoy the needless overthinking that happens within the hobby - and in particular, the granularity that can be achieved when that overthinking becomes a communal endeavor.  Certainly a something that happens often here at MSW.   🙂

Well, I've not been here long enough to learn. But I daresay you are quite right, I'm learning a lot from some very knowledgeable people here and am very greatful for it.  

[Dr PR]

I realize his is  tangent to the subject of the thread, bit I seem to have aroused interest in some readers about color vision.

 

I have read that a substantial part of the male population has this difference of color vision in the eyes. But I have met very few who have even heard of it, and only one other fellow who has noticed it.

 

I started out in art in Grade School, and had nine years of training outside the school system. For me the color differences were very apparent when trying to decide which paints to use, and being able to view an object with warm and cool colors was very helpful.

 

And I want to emphasize that I have passed all tests for color blindness, and I can see the full spectrum (at least as well as anyone can) with both eyes. There are just slight differences in hues.

 

It is called color vision deficiency. 8% of white males have it, but only 1.4% of African American males and 0.5% of females have it.

 

https://www.aoa.org/healthy-eyes/eye-and-vision-conditions/color-vision-deficiency?sso=y

 

Look at the circular "pseudoisochromatic plates" at the top of the page (attached below). Do you see numbers in each of them? Some have two differently colored numbers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of course, as mentioned earlier in this thread, whether or not you can see all the numbers may depend upon whether your can see all colors or if your display can reproduce them all! I have four displays on my computers and a cell phone. The laptop display is pretty poor - I can barely make out the number in the blue background circle at bottom center with either eye or both. The cell phone is a bit better (Samsung OLED). The best monitor, that I use for photo editing, gives me good contrast for all the numbers. The other displays are in between, but a cheap one that I have thought had relatively poor colors is still better than the laptop.

 

I also printed the image and my Brother color LED printer produced intermediate results between the laptop and my best display.

Edited November 18, 2021 by Dr PR

[wefalck]

I was also puzzled how difficult it was to read the purple '5' on the blue Ishihara-plate, but both my MacBook Air and my iPhone SE displays look the same. It puzzled me, because, as noted earlier, I passed the blue-purple test under the supervision of a university ophtalmic hospital.

[Steve G]

I've just been reading some of these posts, mine in particular,  and I think I may have come over a bit strong. If I may, I'd like to give just a few pointers that may help in the subject of photographing your models.

 

There is a lot more to this than just pressing the shutter!

 

The first thing to bear in mind is who you are taking the photos for and who will be seeing them. Strange as it may seem, no one will view the picture you take the same way that you do. This is essentially what separates a pro from an amateur.  Your prized picture of your boat that you think is fantastic is shows the minute detail of the blocks and rigging, the carefully carved figurehead etc . Someone else will just see a picture of a boat. Someone else will see the harsh shadows on the background of the mast. Someone else will look at the overexposed foreground and dark shadows on the deck. It's the same picture, but everyone sees it differently. 

 

So the first thing is to decide exactly what picture you want people to see and start from there. 

 

Lighting is utterly crucial.  Before you get bogged down with camera settings, white balance, colour rendition and everything else, get your lighting right, it makes or breaks a picture. 

 

Next, look at your composition. OK, it's a stand alone subject, but how are you going to shoot it. Sideways, head on, from above, 3/4 on? There is a myriad ways of doing it, but be careful. If you are doing 3/4 shots with a short lens it can throw out your perspective enormously.  Also, short lenses can 'bend' masts and rigging. It may not be that noticeable on small pictures,  but when you enlarge them...

 

Be careful about your background, it needs as much consideration when it comes to lighting as the subject itself does.

 

Also bear in mind that you are not, with your photography, creating a work of art. The work of art is already there in the shape of your model, you are merely recording it.

 

Some folks have talked about shooting RAW pictures. This is a great thing if you know what you are doing, basically, you record everything seen through the lens in RAW setting and you have to manipulate the image yourself to get the effect you want. Is RAW necessary for this type of photography? Probably not, but if you are competent then OK. If you don't use it, the microprocessor in the camera will do it for you automatically and, whilst never perfect, will almost certainly give you more than acceptable results.

 

[Gaetan Bordeleau]

This forum was created more than 10 years ago. It is only this year that a section devoted to photography has been created. I guess that one of the reason they did not want to do it is simply because this a forum about model ship building and not a forum about photography. Another reason is that photography is not the most popular subject among the model ship builders.

 

I do not believe that White Balance has to be explore, in this forum, in his greatest depth.I consider photography to be an essential part of the model ship building journey.

If we frighten people with too much details, they will run away instead of wanting to understand the basics.

 

The first post  of this subject was written with the intention to explain as simply as possible what is White Balance, so that a  model ship builder can also understand his value. Even if there are over 40,000 members in this forum, only few really like the photography.

[kurtvd19]

Members are obviously interested in photography and I would bet some are saying "it's about time". 

The great thing about MSW is there is something for everybody.  Another great thing about MSW is that if a subject doesn't interest you then you are completely free to skip over it and go on to another subject.

Everybody is free to have their own opinion on any subject and you have expressed yours.  I personally have enjoyed reading the recent posts on the subject.  To each his own.

[Dr PR]

Wefalck,

 

I had trouble seeing the "5" in the blue circle at bottom center on my laptop. But on my primary monitor, which is used by some pro photographers, the "5" stands out clearly - with both eyes.

 

Steve, I agree with you that lighting is very important, and in most cases I like diffused light that does not produce harsh shadows.

 

But you can have too much light! If part of your subject is white and part is dark, like sails and hulls, you will have difficulty getting a good exposure for the entire thing.

 

This is especially true for wildflower photography which I do a lot of. Sunny days with clear skies have part of the subject illuminated with harsh white light that washes out any subtle details, and shadows are illuminated by that big blue light called the sky. Colors come out strange. Cloudy bright days illuminate everything with a soft white light, allowing details to come out in the brightest parts without harsh shadows.

 

Often when inside I will shine a light on the white ceiling to reflect back to the ship model. I place the camera on a tripod and use very small apertures (f/22-f/40) to get good depth of field. Then I may have to use a 30 second exposure to take the picture.

[Steve G]

1 hour ago, Dr PR said:

Wefalck,

 

I had trouble seeing the "5" in the blue circle at bottom center on my laptop. But on my primary monitor, which is used by some pro photographers, the "5" stands out clearly - with both eyes.

 

Steve, I agree with you that lighting is very important, and in most cases I like diffused light that does not produce harsh shadows.

 

But you can have too much light! If part of your subject is white and part is dark, like sails and hulls, you will have difficulty getting a good exposure for the entire thing.

 

This is especially true for wildflower photography which I do a lot of. Sunny days with clear skies have part of the subject illuminated with harsh white light that washes out any subtle details, and shadows are illuminated by that big blue light called the sky. Colors come out strange. Cloudy bright days illuminate everything with a soft white light, allowing details to come out in the brightest parts without harsh shadows.

 

Often when inside I will shine a light on the white ceiling to reflect back to the ship model. I place the camera on a tripod and use very small apertures (f/22-f/40) to get good depth of field. Then I may have to use a 30 second exposure to take the picture.

Interested to read your comments. Regarding too much light. Imagine photographing a traditional wedding. The bride is in a huge white dress and the groom is in a black suit.  How do you measure the light. 

 

Well, you measure the incidence reading, not the reflected reading. You do the same in a studio with a flash meter.

[wefalck]

What you are talking about is a too high contrast in the image. Like in the old days the film, today the camera sensors can only handle a certain contrast ratio. The consequence is that 'lights' 'burn out' and 'shadows' become 'blackened out'. With post-processing, e.g. Adobe Photoshop,  you can increase the apparent dynamic range, but it will increase the white noise usually. However, the colour of white or black pixels cannot be changed.

 

In the 'studio' you can reduce the contrast by illuminating dark areas and by using e.g. a less stark background, say grey or green instead of white or black.

 

When I am photographing parts for my building logs, I use a sheet of medium green paper as background. The rationale is that it provides a medium contrast, green is a less frequent colour on (my) models, so there is a good colour contrast, and a medium green is perceived by most people a soothing to the eyes (which is why we have green leather desktops, writing mats, etc.).

 

It is an old wisdom among photographers (knowledegeable hobbyist and professionals alike), that a a blue sky with nice white cumulus clouds is the the best light conditions, as it provides lots of lumens of diffuse white light. In consequence it is common mistake modellers make to drag their models out to the terrace or balcony on a bright sunny day without clouds. For the same reason professional photographers doing e.g. fashion shots have an army of assistants running around with diffusing reflectors on tripods - to reduce the contrast and light up dark areas.

[Steve G]

13 minutes ago, wefalck said:

What you are talking about is a too high contrast in the image. Like in the old days the film, today the camera sensors can only handle a certain contrast ratio. The consequence is that 'lights' 'burn out' and 'shadows' become 'blackened out'. With post-processing, e.g. Adobe Photoshop,  you can increase the apparent dynamic range, but it will increase the white noise usually. However, the colour of white or black pixels cannot be changed.

 

In the 'studio' you can reduce the contrast by illuminating dark areas and by using e.g. a less stark background, say grey or green instead of white or black.

 

When I am photographing parts for my building logs, I use a sheet of medium green paper as background. The rationale is that it provides a medium contrast, green is a less frequent colour on (my) models, so there is a good colour contrast, and a medium green is perceived by most people a soothing to the eyes (which is why we have green leather desktops, writing mats, etc.).

 

It is an old wisdom among photographers (knowledegeable hobbyist and professionals alike), that a a blue sky with nice white cumulus clouds is the the best light conditions, as it provides lots of lumens of diffuse white light. In consequence it is common mistake modellers make to drag their models out to the terrace or balcony on a bright sunny day without clouds. For the same reason professional photographers doing e.g. fashion shots have an army of assistants running around with diffusing reflectors on tripods - to reduce the contrast and light up dark areas.

I'd agree, but you do need a certain amount of proficiency in photoshop (or lightroom for that matter) to be able to manipulate images to get a better result than the built in microprocessor on the camera. People who use photoshop generally use less than about 5% of its capability.

 

I would personally not use such tiny apertures.  I know that you are trying to obtain a good DoF, but the fall off with smaller apertures is quite dramatic. I think you would be better with some ND filters and use you PS skills to stack your pictures.

[Gaetan Bordeleau]

5 hours ago, wefalck said:

In the 'studio' you can reduce the contrast by illuminating dark areas and by using e.g. a less stark background, say grey or green instead of white or black.

 

 

 

Taking a correctly lighted photo can be difficult but we need to try to make the process as simple as possible. Lighting is the first step which will ease or complicate your task in post processing.

 

This is about what I like to do: I light the parts I want to photograph with LED lighting. This way, the background is black, without any black paper.

With adequate lighting, there will be no dark area to correct only the highlights when necessary. For this Lightroom is very good.

[Steve G]

31 minutes ago, Gaetan Bordeleau said:

 

 

Taking a correctly lighted photo can be difficult but we need to try to make the process as simple as possible. Lighting is the first step which will ease or complicate your task in post processing.

 

This is about what I like to do: I light the parts I want to photograph with LED lighting. This way, the background is black, without any black paper.

With adequate lighting, there will be no dark area to correct only the highlights when necessary. For this Lightroom is very good.

I too prefer adjustable LED lights to flash. It's much easier to control and is a damned sight cheaper! Certainly for small indoor product work, which is pretty much the same as photographing model boats.

[wefalck]

... and LEDs don't give off kilowatts of heat, as the halogen studio lamps do - guess how I learned this already in my teenage years 

 

Another plus is that you can choose LEDs of your preferred light temperature range.

 

Edited November 19, 2021 by wefalck

[Dr PR]

I agree with everyone's comments. And we are mainly talking about photographing ship models.

 

I do a lot of outdoor photography while hiking - no army of  helpers with reflectors and diffusers, and very little time to set up photos. I have to accept the lighting conditions at the time and make the best of it. This brings up two comments.

 

1. Photoshop's "Shadows and Highlights" can do amazing things. I accidentally rotated the knob on my camera from M (manual) to A (aperture priority) and the aperture (f/16) was too small for the lighting in shadows (1/200 second exposure). It was set for taking photos in much brighter light. I took what I thought would be good photos, and they were actually very dark (left, unedited). But "Shadows and Highlights" pulled a usable picture out of the murk (right).

 

 

 

This is Tolmeia menziesii, piggy-back plant or youth-on-age. It is interesting because it has flowers and reproduces sexually to make seeds. But it also grows tiny new plants from the lower leaves, and these asexual clones drop off and take root. What I find amazing is the diaphragm was closed down to f/16 and the background is still nicely blurred! That was sheer luck!

 

Steve will appreciate this. I discovered "Shadows and Highlights" years ago while looking at photos I took of some friends' wedding outdoors in bright sunlight. The bride was an absolutely gorgeous redhead, and wore a scarlet dress. The groom wore a white shirt with narrow stripes. The bright reflected sunlight from her dress was red. She had her back to the sun, so her face and front were dark. His shirt was totally washed out and her red dress reflected off it making it pink. The background was in shade and almost black. It was a horrible picture! But using many of the tools in Photoshop I managed to tone down his washed out shirt so you can see the stripes and killing the red reflections, while lightening the shadows on her, and pulling out some detail in the green foliage background. It came out a good photo.

 

2. Most people apparently do not realize that "bright sunlight" is accompanied by ambient blue skylight. The sky is a huge blue omnidirectional light, and it influences the colors in photos. I have known this since I was a kid when I was trying to paint sailboats. The canvas didn't look right until I realized that the shaded side wasn't gray but was actually sky blue. So if you want you photos to look like outdoor shots you need blue light in the shadows.

 

On the other hand, that blue light can really mess up the colors in outdoor shots. And bright sunlight is just too bright to get subtle details in things like egrets or flowers unless you want unnaturally dark backgrounds. Here is an example:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is Douglas' catchfly Silene douglasii. I have dozens of photos, all taken outdoors, but in almost all cases the subtle details at the center of the flower are too dark and the petals too bright. Even Photoshop can't produce a really good photo. The parts of the white petals in shadow are sky blue, and that is wrong. And the washed out brightness of the petals eliminates the distinction between the petals and the auricles (the finger-like things projecting from the base of the petals). But this photo was taken on a cloudy bright day - all diffuse light from the white clouds. No blue shadows. The low contrast allowed me to capture all of the morphological details of the flower, and that is what I was trying to accomplish. It was ideal lighting!

 

So the moral of this story is that there is no one "perfect" lighting setup. And you should consider yourself very lucky if you can actually control the light to your satisfaction!

 

Edited November 20, 2021 by Dr PR

[wefalck]

You must have been a very observing child !

 

I remember that my father told me about the colours of shadows etc. and he also had various books, some of them dating back to the 1940s, on colour photography that I read in my teenage years and that I still have. 

 

I never had the possibility to set up a colour lab, so I never had the possibility to manipulate prints, but it was always on my mind how to change this or that on the image. When reasonably priced slide scanners came onto the market, this opened up this possibility and over the last 15 years or so, of course digital photography. 

 

And I agree, the function in Adobe Photoshop to manipulate 'highlights and shadow' is very useful and I use it frequently to make up for less than ideal lighting. This is a situation one frequently encounters during travelling, when there is no time to wait for different light/weather, or in museums, where one depends on what light is put there.

 

I find Photoshop particularly useful to manipulate images taken in museums for information purposes, not to make 'nice' or technically 'correct' photographs. In these 'technical' photographs it is important (for me) to be able to identify details, even on the expense of 'white noise', when light levels are low. As I always shoot in RAW, I can also adjust the white balance, if needed.

 

Again, using the RAW-format to save the primary image gives one the possibility to adjust e.g. the white balance or tonality of an image in order to achieve the desired effect. I often have a specific 'picture' in mind when taking a photograph, but not always the primary image comes out like that, so the image processing software provides the tool to create this 'picture' by post-processing: http://www.imago-orbis.org

 

[Steve G]

13 minutes ago, wefalck said:

You must have been a very observing child !

 

I remember that my father told me about the colours of shadows etc. and he also had various books, some of them dating back to the 1940s, on colour photography that I read in my teenage years and that I still have. 

 

I never had the possibility to set up a colour lab, so I never had the possibility to manipulate prints, but it was always on my mind how to change this or that on the image. When reasonably priced slide scanners came onto the market, this opened up this possibility and over the last 15 years or so, of course digital photography. 

 

And I agree, the function in Adobe Photoshop to manipulate 'highlights and shadow' is very useful and I use it frequently to make up for less than ideal lighting. This is a situation one frequently encounters during travelling, when there is no time to wait for different light/weather, or in museums, where one depends on what light is put there.

 

I find Photoshop particularly useful to manipulate images taken in museums for information purposes, not to make 'nice' or technically 'correct' photographs. In these 'technical' photographs it is important (for me) to be able to identify details, even on the expense of 'white noise', when light levels are low. As I always shoot in RAW, I can also adjust the white balance, if needed.

 

Again, using the RAW-format to save the primary image gives one the possibility to adjust e.g. the white balance or tonality of an image in order to achieve the desired effect. I often have a specific 'picture' in mind when taking a photograph, but not always the primary image comes out like that, so the image processing software provides the tool to create this 'picture' by post-processing: http://www.imago-orbis.org

 

Many  if not, most DSLR and mirrorless cameras give you the option to take the picture in both jPeg and RAW. It can be a very useful feature. 

[wefalck]

Yes, but one can/has to convert them in to JPG at home, in the digital lab. So, I never clogged up the memory cards with these, even though all of my digital DSLRs had the possibility to save both formats at the same time.

[Steve G]

4 minutes ago, wefalck said:

Yes, but one can/has to convert them in to JPG at home, in the digital lab. So, I never clogged up the memory cards with these, even though all of my digital DSLRs had the possibility to save both formats at the same time.

Fair enough, each to their own,  but I find the jpeg a good reference point before I manipulate the RAW image, particularly for things that can't really be corrected in PS, I use it more for editing out the discards than anything else.

[Dr PR]

I have never used RAW. I know it is supposed to be great, and apparently the original photoelement RGB values are always underlying the edited images so we can step back through editing stages to rework the picture - like "undoing" edits in Photoshop.

 

But I do not use RAW. I take hundreds of 24 megapixel shots every time I go out. Many are the same picture with different focus points and fstop/depths of field. The camera has a 32 gigabyte high speed (30 MBytes/sec.) flash card, and I carry an extra one in my camera bag (64 Gbytes total). I have a separate 3 terabyte drive in my computer just for the JPEGs and Photoshop files, and a 14 terabyte external drive to hold everything and make backups.

 

1. A typical 6000x4000 pixel RAW image is about 27 Mbytes and the lowest compression 6000x4000 JPEGS are about 9 Mbytes. RAW files are about 3x the JPEG file size. The 32 Gbyte memory card will hold about 1200 RAW images, 3600 JPEGS, or a little less that 900 RAW+JPEG shots. I can easily shoot more than that in a day, and on long trips I fill both cards with JPEGs plus storing more photos on my laptop.

 

With my "shoot from the hip" method only about 1 in 10 shots is a keeper. However, only the really blurred shots are deleted. Even though most don't end up edited, they are still a record of what I see on my photo shoots, and the sequence  and locations in which the photos were made. So just editing 1 in 10 helps reduce the needed storage space on my computer. But the edited JPEG Photoshop PSD files are anywhere from 30-100 Mbytes each! So figure 350 shots per week at 8 Mbytes each, plus 35 good ones at 65 Mbytes each plus a 1 Mbyte JPEG thumbnail = 5110 Mbytes. Add another 350 RAW images at 27 Mbytes each (9540 Mbytes) and I will need  14.6 Gigabytes of storage per week, or about 760 Gigabytes per year. Without the RAW images that is just 260 Gigabytes per year. And even after I have gone back to thin out the unnecessary pictures I am still pushing 3 Terrabytes to store the photos plus equal size backup drives. With the RAW images added that would be over 7 Terrabytes internal and more than 7 Terrabytes external storage.

 

Shooting  with RAW images will more than double the memory requirements on my computer.

 

2. I found that shooting the RAW/JPEG combination cannot be sustained very long at high speed continuous shooting. When I started shooting RAW I lost a lot of action shots because only 3-5 1/3000 second frames could be written to memory before things slowed down. With just JPEG I can shoot for many seconds before things bog down, and rarely do birds/animals/grandkids hang around for longer sequences.

 

3. I NEVER change the original photo, so I can always go back to the start and re-edit it. Edited photos are saved under a different name. The original files are saved on multiple external drives and DVDs. Really important files are saved in JPEG and/or PNG, PSD and TIFF formats.

 

4. I have been taking pictures for over 60 years, and I get acceptable photos without using RAW. For me it would add additional unnecessary steps to achieve my goals.

 

5. Not all photoediting and photo display programs will open RAW files. Everything works with JPEGs.

 

So I don't use RAW.

[Steve G]

Again, each to their own. I delete probably 60 for every one I keep, or used to. I hardly do any photography these days, in fact, I sold most of my gear some 12 months ago.

[wefalck]

I am very well aware of the storage space issue, but by not saving the RAW-image one looses a huge amount of prosessable information and effective resolution. In RAW the original sensor information is saved pixel by pixel, while in JPG more or less severe interpolation and averaging between pixels is used in order to compress the amount of information. This results in a loss of colour resolution, sharpness, and overall effective resolution of the image, even though the number of pixels has not changed.

 

Watching myself, I noted that in many, if not most cases, the first shot of a series is the one I retain ...

Edited November 21, 2021 by wefalck

[bartley]

3 hours ago, Dr PR said:

I  take hundreds of 24 megapixel shots every time I go out. Many are the same picture with different focus points and fstop/depths of field.

Back in the days of film, I taught photography in a university for few years. I am not a pro but my portfolio was deemed acceptable for the job.  Most students were not going to be photographers themselves  but  were going to be "purchases" of photography.  I used to organise visits to working photographers and on one occasion we visited one of Australia's top fashion and advertising photographers.  He was shooting for  an advertisement  involving a female model.  I had expected that he would calculate the correct exposure and take one or two perfect shots.  In fact he put his Hasselblad on auto-drive and rotated the aperture ring back and forth while he directed the "talent" to adopt different poses.  He never looked at the camera. He took hundreds of photographs in about 20 minutes of the shoot. I was horrified but his view was that poses and composition were paramount and that the client often chose the under or overexposed shot anyway so for each pose he could provide five or six exposures.  He was a very successful pro and won many awards.!!

 

John

[Gaetan Bordeleau]

As many kinds of cars there is, there is probably as many kinds of shooting styles and everyone choose what is appealing to him.

In the category of personal choices, there is no good or bad answers... even if a choice is not necessary the best of the class, it can be the best for me, if it meets the goal I am looking for. I took thousand photos of model ship building, sometimes very carefully and some other times very fast, sometimes the results were very good and some other times, the results are ver poor.