Unrelated to the blog post thesis, I include becasuse the diversity in colors makes for a natural color test bar and respresents the starting point of my trip to Revere Beach which began with shutte bus detour to Kendall Square while part of the T Red line was unavailable.

     One of the aspects I want to explore is comparing the photos taken by phone to the photographs using my camera. Since I acquiring my phone, I have been much impressed by the auto settings of the point-&-shot feature of the phone. Oftentimes it seems my camera is jealous of my phone. 

     Yeah, yeah, the often quoted line the best camera one has is the one they have with them is nevermore true given the phones are a part of everyone's EDC. For future reference, I have a Samsung Galaxy 10+ and my primary camera is a DSLR, Canon Rebel T3i, using a 24-105mm as my constant go to lens.

     Comparing the photographic quality was the intent in my venture to Revere Beaach for the annual Sand Sculpture contest.*

     By force of habit, I began touching up the photos when I realizing for fair comparison best that no editing is done. The idea is comparing raw to raw. For ease of uploading and quick rendering webpage, I defaulted using the jpegs. 

     I shot all using my camera in manual mode so I had to adjust aperture, ISO, and focus for each shot. Given the summer heatwave, the light was at the harshest level (late afternoon) under direct sunlight. I set my white balance to the sun setting. For most, my ISO was set at 50 but not remembering which way to change the shutter speed, I tweaked settings until I found something satisfying. (I should mention I forgot to adjust the focus on the view finder. With age, my eyes change for which my eyeglasses correct for my lack of far-sighted vision.)

     By contrast, I made no adjustments to my phone. Everything seen is the ‘raw’ unedited jpeg image using the phone’s auto default settings.

Other than croping to kept composition similar, no photo has been altered.

phone ISO 50, 4.3mm, f/2.4

camera: ISO 100, 60mm, f/9

phone:  ISO 50 4.3mm, f/2.4, 1/3143

camera: ISO 100, 35mm, f/5, 1/1250

phone: ISO 50, 4.3mm, f/2.4, 1/3618

camera: ISO 100, 40mm, f/4, 1/2500

phone: ISO 50, 4.3mm, f/2.4, 1/2913

camera: ISO 100, 24mm, f/11, 1/100

Can see from the last camera photo the consequence photographing under harsh light.

* Although I have at least one photo of every sand sculpture on display, I do not included every sculpture nor bothered to create a gallery showing them. I do know which won first, second, or voted most popular by the public. Such did not interest me for this blog post.

     Sorry, no personal photos to share in this post. Instead, let me expand on my personal philosophy on photography.

     There are a number of reasons why photographs are taken. Most can be categorised into one of four alternatives.

     Some photos capture sentimental scenes such as family portrait, birthday party snaps, or even grade school class photos.

     A more common reason for photography is recording historical moments or people, places, and events that contribute to history.

     Photographs are a medium for artistic expression. To that, a clear purpose for some photos is conveying an artist's sensibility, style, story, and subject choice.

     Along similar lines of history, I would like my photos to serve value to future audience. I do not mean I am pandering in hopes of being remembered through my photographs. I am not attempting at achieving some measure of immortality. I aim, through my photographs, capturing, almost trivial vignettes in some sense of how the world is at the moment I take the photo. In what for many of us living in the present regard as banal, a future eye may consider having some value. I recall to mind that famous photo of Wittgenstein and Hitler posing for a class photo when they were in the same [4th?] grade.

     When I taking a photo of a cityscape scene, in the back of my mind I harbour an optimistic notion that my photo will be utility to a future historian or anthropologist who through examining their past are able to reconstruct our present. This is why I do not take pictures of people and prefer landscapes or city scenes instead.

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     One of the best instances of photography are the unplanned or non-contracted occurrances of beauty found in the mundane.

     Yes, this was taken close to the ‘golden hour’ twilight light but that should not take away from the beauty in photo itself.

     The picture was taken using the camera in my phone.

     I was struck by the symmetry between the clouds in the sky and the reflections. The calm river waters made for a perfect mirror.

     For edit, increase in Shadow 30% while dropping the Highlight and Contrast to enhance the effect of the natural light in the scene. There is a slight increase in saturation to bring out the lushness of the bushes on the river’s side.

     One could apply a soft light filter for a romantic or nostalgic feel cf. “Somewhere in Time” scenes when he visited the past.

   Cannot be salvaged because out of focus

or too dark, “Bum up that ISO, dude!”                      .

  Can be an obvious throw-away shot

Or just seem inappropriate for the theme or context

As a hobbyist photographer -- (I hate the word amateur and I do take photos as a hobby), I aim at improving my skill by borrowing, by taking classes, or by apprenticing under a professional. One of those ways is through post-production editing. My friend Ian took the hundreds of so photos I took at a recent Printathon batch edited using Adobe Photoshop’s auto color/tone/etc. correction feature, with some presets.

Curious for comparison, I did the same using Apple’s Photos (ver 1.5 (370.42.0)) “Enhance” feature with does similar overhaul correction of a photo’s exposure, saturation level, highlights, contrast, and few other properties.

So why use Photos? As a Machead and out of loyalty, I tend to stick with using a piece of software until it becomes impossible or too impractical to use anymore. Unless I am trying to do something fancy, outside the bounds and abilities of (i)Photos or iMovie, like needing some After Effects effect, using what I have is good enough. I have access to all software including Lightroom and I own my own copy of the complete Adobe Creative Suite, but chose to use the free Apple software because serves my purpose well enough. Rarely do I use Final Cut Pro X and almost never do I use either Premiere or Avid.

By contrast, I hate iTunes, but use it still for curating and collecting my audio and video collection. I use another third party application for playback.

My workflow in editing photos is an exercise of my personal aesthetics. I adjust Shadow, Exposure, Saturation, etc. settings to serve my interest in what message or idea I want the photo to convey. Perhaps I would increase the Shadow to bring out something hidden in the darken region of the photograph or play with Saturation to emphasize skin tone colour. My approach is different for every photo, even within the same collection, so I can never batch edit using some preset or personal template settings. There are a million, or close to that number, ways at adjusting the levels to create different effects yielding varying results. Rather like audio mixing, there are numerous ways of tweaking compression, reverb, delay,  . . . or flange to produce some desired or aesthetic choice.

For illustration, I selected three photos for side-by-side comparison. First, I provide the unedited JPEG version with some of the EXIF metadata. (I have the RAW file, but in posting, the image would be compressed to a jpeg file anyway, so no point in editing from the RAW.) Following in order of top to bottom, are Photoshop’s, Photos’s, and then my tweaks, respectively.

Also, all selected photos were taken using my Canon DSLR Rebel T3i all in manual mode; I shoot both in RAW and in JPEG.

Have your eyes examine the differences.

ISO 800

35 mm

F/4

1/80

The obvious subject of the photo was positioned along the one-third line following the conventional Rule of Thirds in photography. In cropping out a part of the chair on the right because I thought too much was showing in the frame, the person shifted off the one-third line.

I focused on the red of the rolled sleeping-bag. While adjusting saturation level, I noticed the hand on the chair and the back of the laptop reflected in the television monitor, to which I shifted focus and increased the shadow level to bring out the reflection.

In quick edit, I cannot adjust for both the skin tone, red hair, and the red sleep-bag all at the same time.

ISO 800

28 mm

F/4

1/160

cropped to eliminate figure in background

near max on shadow

lowered highlight for a more peachy skin colour

increased brightness to bring out tabletop shadow on left leg, net result seemed pasty so made a tad increase on contrast

increase on saturation to make the pale green of the table divider pop with plus effect of enhancing skin tone

dropped contrast a tenth

played with definition until beard sideburns looked youthful

ISO 3200

35 mm

F/4

1/100

sharpness (in Photos) had no effect

increased shadow by about 50% bringing out the surface reflections -- eewh! dirty laptop screen

lowered contrast to lighten shadows

lowered saturation a little just enough to make wood appear natural

dropped contrast until wood panel had definition

ISO 3200

24 mm

F/4

1/100

chosen because of the challenge with the bright light from the printer

Exposure, highlight, shadows did nothing to improve the photo.

counter-intuitive increasing brightness enhanced the picture a great deal

lower contrast for definition -- now can see the wrinkles in the rolled sleeves of his The North Face fleece

tenth bum in saturation for colour definition

lowered contrast a slight amount for honest wood appearance of chairs in background

a third amount in definition helped overall

More selected photos, by my edit, are posted in an online album. Of course, incomplete, since will take some time to edit and post the more than half a thousand pictures I took. Many will not be shared, but near two hundred will be shared altogether at some completion point.

When that will be I do not know. There is no deadline, and as mentioned already, I do this as a hobby.

Comments and advice is much welcomed.