hutter_Multi exposure

F1.              THE ASPECTS Related to Multi-exposure:

You would have noted that my technique is built on rather unassuming & mundane aspects of photography, namely multi-exposure and flash-sync, especially at this ‘Digital Era’. For any-one it seems he would easily be misled to under estimate the potentiality of these functions .But for a photographer  of certain type of specialization they are their beard-winner...the Saviour.

F2.  But  We should consider ourselves as privileged photographers these days, for no other reason, but for an inbuilt facility of multi-exposure in a camera. More and more Camera manufacturers are now treating the Multi-exposure as an important feature to be incorporated in their latest models of 35mm, and digital cameras.  This surge could be attributed to an unavoidable present trend of upgrading of film camera  to a Digital  one and due to the versatility and more features you find in DIGITA-PHOTOGRAPHY, IMAGE EDITING as in the case of the last adoptation of HDR and COMPOSITING in ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS-3 version also the motor driven mechanism in the earlier  film camera has had  proved to be indispensable.

F3. Multi exposure is suppose to be a familiar one,  you would happen to know as they influence your photography either directly or indirectly. It is more adopted at printing stage with the, profusion of services of digital photo-finishing service out-lets as cut & paste job. In cinematography it is known as composite imagining which are pre-organised  multiple images of different subjects at suitable location for chroma-key etc.,.  But I wish to implement the multi or multiple exposure many a times on a same subject,  executed while you have been doing a shoot (on-stage) . My intension is also to do a  shoot...in a better way in terms creativity,…economization of film usage (if you are still be using film camera)…..The Investment, maintenance and transportation of flash units. These are ones I believe that a professional photographer concerns more .Have you taken note, by now ... isn't it sufficiently proves to your mind the multi exposure as a modern concept? 

F4.  What I stress  here by multi-exposure that to it's basic,  there should  at-least be a provision of mode button located for easier operation (some thing similar to Panasonic Lumix L1k  SLR model  is it?)  Yes.... but with as soft as a feather touch activation,  than earlier it was. But now a days in digital parlance we are simply used to call, it as Logging-in.   In the Earlier nut&bolt era even as of late as the 90's it was a difficult process, with a manual camera to execute multi-exposure. There one should have to resort to ‘T’ or ‘B’ setting on the Camera which must be mounted on a sturdy tripod for fear of image mis-registration.  What we also did then was, making the whole studio space darkened.

F5. Multi or call it multiple exposure is a method by taking many exposures of a subject on separate frames or one over the other on a single frame.

F6. Please note multiple exposure means taking  so many frames but essentially a variation occurs to the  subject content or it could also is like the exposure as in the case of Auto-bracketing of same subject. In the case of multi-exposure any  or all-of  the subject content, the lighting or the exposure may vary between the shots  but the entire sequence exposure essentially are made on the same(single)frame.

F7. You may notice on many occasion , I have used the word multi where as in it's truest sense should  mean multiple-exposure. Pardon me for  I am used to call it in that way of expression.

F8. It is naturally a professional technique and such a magnificent creative tool for constructing an image more systematically, in a situation where to shoot in a regular photographic method is either difficult or cannot otherwise be done, at all.

F9. Difficulty of such a one may manifest in the form of either as the required lighting power is too high to match with the existing lighting and contrast, There by to make a given situation suitable for photography that an ordinary photographer could not afford.  For example in a situation of Industrial photography the sufficiency of prevailing lighting may be good for a normal working condition, but it may usually have a improper lighting ratio and colour temperature.

F10.     The lighting ratio, inside a factory would be much less than 10,000:1 that our eye could accommodate, But imagine that the capacity of a Digital SLR that camera may have a capability of capturing a ratio something like 400:1.

F11. The HDR way is; How that the range as seen could be captured, a great task isn’t it?  But note that the area of specialization of HDR is probably at out-door scenarios, where you cannot have your control on lighting, you know it for sure-otherwise. It is an approach where, compromise is the key player.

F12.      The flash selection way is: like, you are making the condition better or by saying it’s like you replace a new burning light bulb, instead a dead one there, so with the help of its brightness you could properly see an area...an art of making a picture.  The HDR is like incarnating the visual abilities of a bionic-man or an Owl. But we know not t con firmly whether they are straining or comfortably seeing to comfortably  seeing what is lurking in the Dark  ..the art of taking a picture    .....any way pun is here intended.

F13.      Rendering, the perceived darkness as such, may probably be the truer representation.  But the requisite of commercial or in a professional area, is mostly  to show Colours &  their tones at their true splendor, or in away it could be controlled to express the way your want and the client,  who pays you. The HDR doesn't control,  but try to capture what it's there as such and as can be accommodated in the available narrow  Dynamic Range of Digital capture.

F14.      Listen what a fashion photographer has a say, “he prefers to use multiple flash units at out door, so that he doesn’t want to be at the mercy of sunlight, he says he would wish to over power the ambient light of sun, to make a shoot appear with more depth (colour, saturation, shadow etc).  To over power sun he prefers his Hasselblad set at 1/500^th. sec”.

F15.      People in the profession, knows that nothing remarkably a newer message is said above, They understand that,  lighting for an Industrial shoot is even more critical,than controlling your light on a human figure.

F16.      for details of the good potentials of HDR,  you could refer at a splendid site.

http:\\www..naturescape.net.

F17.      In the software, front the HDR as a feature  is totally inclined to multiple exposure.

F18.      When I refer multi exposure (many a times it's on multiple frames) and  it necessarily doesn’t mean a shoot to go with fixed / static position of the lights.  Because fixed position equally means a requirements of many light units for a given shoot.  But means an interplay with non-fixed (wandering) position of few  lights,  all that  a photographer need require and could afford and he also could pack up easily, after a shoot. In the HDR way of compensating this insufficiency of lighting is by subjecting to a more incremental level of exposure by opening up the aperture.

F19.      Now a days  you have in fact all the  convenience to proceed for a  multi exposure, thanks  to a Digital Camera with all its advancements or in a more  professional  way with  a Digital-Back connected to a Computer on the location with  a larger preview  that  is set side by for better monitoring.

F20.   Then  with these  opportunity that  you have of a preview, you can decide on the first Exposure (1) whether it is satisfactory. If not you have equally a good opportunity to revert  or undo a shot, and try another  exposure. But then  with  a pursuit of Multi exposure, the  second Exposure (2) you would make  over exposure(1) should be a well judged one with  no error.  Because I assume  you cannot  simply undo the second  one alone,  but only to recommence and finish the whole shoot.

F21.      For a person  minded of image editing,  the  solution is by doing  the exposures on separate (Multiple) frames and the images in their  negative-form  that could be  layered to form  a composite  image.  Because  an under or unexposed area in its positive  form  e.g. the image of Exposure(1)May not allow its corresponding area of  Exposure (2) to be seen through.

F22.    If your think  of HDR is  as simple as by prolonging  the level of exposure  on Multiple frames to complete a shoot, you could do similar acrobatics with  flash – select ion as well.

F23.    You could set the  Camera  on a tripod, firing  as Many flashes randomly on various  location of an area in the view of a shoot eg : an interior of a factory. But one need, to be conversant on the aspect of photographic lighting of the either case, is a must.

F24.    I expect the soft-ware associated  to flash-selection could do the following, to make the work of  photography to become much easier.

F25.    Routine I : In the conventional way... A Software may help to add up the  Density value (Colour information, the luminous value of tone, etc) of pixels stacked in layers lying  one beneath the other, corresponding to a specific pixel location  of an image. Then it could arrive at,  the mean (aggregate) value to form a new  composite image, helped by the  values so derived. This is a very usual kind of thinking.

F26.    Routine II : But I want to differ here in that with  yet another  approach that calls for a new type of routine and computation.

a) A  relatively brightest pixel of luminous / colour  value among  the layers stacked, corresponding to a specific image location  is picked up, In a similar way the entire brightest pixel-point among all the images stacked in  layers are located. Finally in  it's completed form, the resultant is the mapping of a composite image, comprising of the bright pixel, each coming from all the points of an image area.

b)Then the luminous value of a brightest  pixel specified to a image location  is compared with its aggregated (mean) value we so arrived with  Routine I.

F27.    an abnormality of a sudden difference on such  comparison, at a image location  may inter-predates the presence  specular reflection.  In that case  the next immediate lower value  is transposed   replacing  the earlier brightest one or an interpolation is done .  In  that way the specular reflection  at Multiple locations due to a multi set up of  lights  or by the few lights employed moved into various  positions  in a shoot  could be erased from the  composite image i.e.,  in effect it is, as if you have accomplished a tedious image manipulation called for in the removal  of secular  reflection with  one single swipe of a sward.

What  are  the other side line  benefits?

F28.    Helps  one get relieved of planning hard,  of a lighting scheme by disregarding specular reflection  that might be  caused  due  positioning of a light in a particular area was un-avoidable to get a specific lighting effect. The  elimination of hard shadow, because the lights are moved into various  position  during a shoot instead of being static,  which in turn  simulates as  if lighting  was done  with a huge  source  of light  (impressed if I had mentioned  a huge soft box?).  Then you have  few lights that is suffice for.... a work ..or ..to work with etc.,

.....again a little come-back on the subject of multi-exposure.

F29.   Time has changed, ever since the days of mechanical, film based camera with regard to provision of multi exposure functionality, that  you find now in a Digital camera.  Film based camera were not so conducive to multi exposure, due jerk that may be caused due to physical interaction, or vibration due to mirror mechanism, and you don’t have a preview or a easier way of image registration and such things that  you could find in a Digital counter part.  Those were the days when I was really complaining of these inconvenience at my website, and they were a period when the accommodation of the concept of multi exposure in an image editing software was not in sight at all all-together.

F30.    Now you have prosumer camera (more suitable than SLR type) incorporating multi- exposure as well as a moderately high flash sync at 1/1000^th.sec with a feature called forced-flash as in Fuji Finepix9500 or in 9600,thanks to leaf shutter (a come back of a older Rolliflex period mechanism) and absence of mirror mechanism....the fundamentals that, my flash-section requires.  I wish to express my part of keeness, that they were to be retained as  long a time in time in the future. Sympathetically these specs were deep buried in the literature,so that you would need to dig deep into the user manual. Some times the user manuals them-self don’t mention any thing about them. The manufacturers,and  publishers of magazines on this related subject must please take a note of it. Try your luck typing key-word like flash-sync,forced-flash in the respective official web-sites of the Camera manufactures .But you find no help forth-coming ..really maddening,you simply would get exhausted.

F31.         For the observation of a common reader and as a stern warning aimed at the Copy-cats Please note:

 In this so called arena of Digital arena I could closely on some of the developments of copying acts (infringements to the novelty &  plagiarism of my idea) is in progress by the developers of Image -Editing soft-ware and the other participants of photography...also most likely a camera manufacture.

 I could observe a move that may ultimately reach a stage that the whole entity of my concept is just plagiarised by calling in different names by a process of segregation of menus or themes by them the way is already paved.

 I sternly believe by the merits of it's novelty, it would enable it's self to become popular, sustain and to defend it's forte of specialisation . Further it has it's capacity to  subjugate other techniques in event of the other ones trying to compete with it in the future.

F32.        Please note flash selection always has stressed and guided a photographic routine on multi or multiple exposure from a much earlier time.

F33.        Multi-exposure mentioned here in the following pages is in the context of an execution, which necessarily is, as smooth as a feather touch.

 Look at the image below, the top view of Panasonic Lumix L1k  a SLR model .Is that what is all the grudges I intend to expressed verbally so-far? Yes some what like....I pray GOD  that this kind  of interface should be retained  till time I could able to buy one such.

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