[M_Six]

There is a lot of talent present on this forum, so I'd like to propose a thread to share the knowledge, so to speak. I'd like to have a place where folks can post a pic that just didn't come out the way they wanted and maybe see if someone here can shed some light on why it didn't work.

For instance, I took this picture yesterday. The sun was reflecting wildly off the icy branches like a "thousand points of light" in the trees. But the image itself failed to capture the sparkles. What could I have done differently?

Canon T1i with 50mm f1.4 lens at f7.1. ISO 100 1/320sec

[Litos]

well, i don't know what you could have done to get more sparkle - F13-F16 maybe ??

closer shot?

a little off camera flash ??

[Litos]

were you trying to get sparkle from the sun in the background ??

[M_Six]

It's hard to describe what it looked like, but think of a hundred or so small LED flashlights scattered in the trees. Bright little points of light everywhere. They didn't come out in the final pic.

[Georgeair]

A HUGE flash and small aperature were my only two guesses.

That would have been really tough. Still a nice capture.

[Litos]

i would have just hit it with "trial and error".

would have started off with F16 and maybe a 1/40th @ 400 ISO just to see what it would do HAHA !!!!

the more often you do retarded shit like that, the better understanding you get .

[Litos]

Originally Posted by Georgeair

A HUGE flash and small aperature were my only two guesses.

That would have been really tough. Still a nice capture.

yeah, if F16 wouldn't have gotten the job done, i would have just kept climbing up the ladder.

[Trijicon]

Yeah trial and error. They also have filters to exaggerate sparkles and light sources. F16-20 would have brought more out.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/buy/St...9/N/4256189583

[M_Six]

Originally Posted by Litos

yeah, if F16 wouldn't have gotten the job done, i would have just kept climbing up the ladder.

Thanks. If the ice is still hanging around this weekend (no pun intended) I'll take the time to do a T&E shoot with various settings.

[thesag3]

Hey Mark. Definitely try the smaller aperture. Also, if you shot that one in RAW, try bringing down the exposure. This will create more of a silhouette for the rest of the image but if it really did look like little LED's, then they should shine pretty well with the exposure down, since they're highlights.

If you want to get even more fancy, bring a tripod and shoot 3 shots where they are underexposed, "correct," and over exposed. Play with a lot of that and hopefully you can get a nice HDR shot that would also be very good at showing off the sparkles.

Cheers!