Dalriada50
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chrislangham
August 14, 2015
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Dalriada50
May 23, 2016
Thanks everyone for the kind words. Sorry to have taken so long, but I just realized today that it had been featured. This was a fun shot to work with. The original exposure had the highlight almost entirely blown out because of all the black, but as I started bringing down the highlight, I realized that it was a much more interesting shot done in low-key.
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Behind The Lens
Location
The shot was done in Washington, D.C., at the Air & Space Museum and was part of their WWII warplane exhibit.Time
Don't remember, but it was shot inside the museum, so I didn't have to factor in light intensity or color temperature.Lighting
It was shot with the existing light in the museum. There was a fairly hot highlight on the fuselage side and canopy. I knew that if I underexposed for the highlight, the background would fall off, which I wanted to do to isolate the plane from a somewhat cluttered, distracting backgroundEquipment
I shot it with a Nikon D300 & a Nikkor 24mm lens. The museum did not allow tripods, so I used a railing to steady the camera.Inspiration
As I approached the plane, my eye went to the red insignia on the fuselage, and I quickly realized that if I underexposed the black plane, the red insignia would really pop out.Editing
The was almost no post-processing on this one. I might have added a little contrast to get even more separation between the red and black.In my camera bag
1 Nikon D300 body (had to sell my second body to get a lens I really wanted), Nikkor 18-55mm zoom, Nikkor 55-200mm zoom, Nikkor 80-400mm zoom, Sigma 10-20mm zoom, Minolta collapsible mini "table" tripod, filter pouch, 4-5 extra memory cards & cases, extra batteries & charger, lens tissue.Feedback
Pre-visualize. Understand that the camera seldom exposes what the eye sees. Think out of the box, not just for composition, but also for exposure. Ask yourself how you might create something that not everyone who sees the object/scene/lighting will see or create. (Through pre-visualization) try to imagine what the scene/object might look like drastically under- or over-exposed.