Good photographers know the limits of their equipment and work within these limits. This is the kernel of truth in the old adage, “ It is the photographer, not the camera that matters,” in producing quality photography.
Elwick Sunset is result of exploring the low light capabilities of the new Pentax K-5 Digital SLR. Of particular interest is the digital noise in the dark areas. The K-5 performed well in the DxO Mark lab tests, but this was a chance to try it put in the real world.
Know The Market
Before submitting any digital photos for publication, in either print or on the web, photographers need to research the style and subjects publishers favor. In this case a local metropolitan daily newspaper, The Mercury, recently added a photo section to their weather page. Of course they do not pay for the pictures, it is one of those reader’s pictures deals. Occasional submissions to this form of publication serve as free advertising, although do not give away the good pictures.
Sunsets showing variations of local cloud formations is a popular theme in The Mercury’s weather pictures. Elwick Sunset was taken as to explore the performance of the new Pentax K-5 and it has little real value because sunset pictures are common, so it is an appropriate image to give away. The Mercury published Elwick Sunset less than week after it was taken.
Composition
Because sunsets are a photographic cliche, there needs to be something else in the scene to add interest. In Elwick Sunset, the dangers in the initial view of the landscape are the dark foreground shadows from the mountains to the West. The mountain range provides a silhouette feature, but much of the foreground is dark. The lighting around the greyhound track provides enough light and foreground detail to balance the sky display.
Exposure
The main consideration with any sunset is that the digital camera’s light meter will overexpose the scene as it seeks to produce a normal daylight exposure. The key to photographing a sunset is to set the expose to capture the deep colors in the clouds. In Elwick Sunset exposure settings were shutter speed 1/45 second and the aperture set to f6.7, a compromise between low light and depth of field and lens performance. The intention was to lift the exposure of selected dark areas in post – processing with Bibble 5.
With this in mind the ISO was set to 100 to minimize any digital noise, even though the Pentax K-5 is a standout Digital SLR producing little noise according to the DxO tests. Bringing up exposure levels of dark areas always brings up noise as well so it is important to keep it to a minimum.
Post Processing
Apart from slightly adjusting the overall exposure, post processing was limited to selecting the dark foreground using Bibble 5‘s curved region tool in the layers area. The selected region then had their exposure, noise reduction and sharpness adjustments applied. Lightening the exposure in the selected region gives more detail to the foreground rather a dark and uninteresting area. This increases the noise in the region, but Bibble 5 allows noise reduction to be applied separately to the selection region and the same for sharpening so that the rest of the image is not over processed.
Low Light Performance Verdict
The Pentax k-5 produced very little digital noise in the dark underexposed areas, allowing sufficient exposure adjustment without unsightly noise levels in the published picture.
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