Personal challenge for low contrast image

[pstubley]

I have not been very successful before at low contrast images, even in black and white, but yesterday, the river was so calm and the light so delicate that I decided to challenge myself and try anyways. I have two versions: the early version, and the later version (which has a little more contrast and detail in the snow).

The differences are fairly subtle, but if I am finding that it is hard to do much without losing the sense of light. It was a gray winter day, after all....

Any preferences? Suggestions? Thanks in advance!

Early version:


Later version:

[imorozoff]

Beautiful subject and after flipping back and forth between the two I still can't make up my mind. Lotta help I am!

[pstubley]

Well, at least I don't feel so bad for not being able to choose myself. Which means the engineer in me thinks that ultimately it probably doesn't matter -- either one would look fine on the wall -- but how do you get perfect art thinking like that?

I lean towards the later one myself, because I managed to bring out a little more detail in the snow.

Thanks for looking!

Peter

[jypsee]

because it has a richer continuous tone and range...the second, more contrasty one, has a big area that seems devoid of the detail in the first.

[pstubley]

Thanks, jypsee. Where do you see the early one has having more detail?

Part of the reason I like the later one better is that I brought out more detail in the snow area in the bottom right (I think), and I don't really see where the later version is losing detail. Definitely agree that it has more contrast, which I meant to do.

Could be I can't see what you are talking about because my display is not good enough, but I would be grateful if you could indicate the area. Part of the challenge with a low contrast image like this one is to not lose detail -- it is very sensitive to that.

Thanks again for the comment.

Peter

[photomary]

I like number 2 better - I can see the tracks in the snow better in this one.

However, it really is only a matter of personal taste - You'd get buyers for both.

Mary

[bclaypole]

I like the earlier version. The second's contrast makes the islands stand out too much for my liking and the loss of detail in the snow is a benefit IMHO

But both could find themselves on any wall. Nice shots

[cliffsmith]

I definitely prefer your later version. It did change the lighting effect a little but you didn't completely lose it. I agree with you though about the limitations. You probably could not have taken the change any further with any success. I think the change in lighting effect is worth the increase in detail. I don't see any loss of detail, only a gain.

On another note (too late for this image) related to the problem that is still inherent in digital cameras in that digital tends to lose more detail in the highlights than film, I often use a simple technique for images with a lot of range or a lot of highlight areas. Because digital offsets the detail loss in highlights a bit by generally producing a little better detail in the shadows that film, I under-expose these types of shots from 1/3 for a bright scene with lots of highlights, like snow, to as much as 2 stops for very high-contrast, low light scenes, such as night street scenes. This allows the digital process to capture more highlight detail while leaving me the opportunity to bring out sufficient detail in the shadows with Photoshop.

The biggest drawback with this technique is noise in the shadows that gets magnified in the process. With a good SLR that produces fairly noiseless shadows at fairly high ISO settings however, the technique should work pretty well. Even with the bridge camera that I am currently using, I get pretty good results a lot of the time with this technique.

I have an expensive RB67 film camera but a cheapo digital. Hopefully, a good SLR isn't too far down the road. If it were not for the noise problem, I would probably be satisfied with the 5MPix bridge camera that I am using.