----- Original Message ----
> From: Jack Davis <[email protected]>
> To: Pentax-Discuss Mail List <[email protected]>
> Sent: Mon, April 5, 2010 10:27:45 AM
> Subject: Define "blown out" :-)
>
> I'll offer mine the nebulous term by saying that if at least some surface
> areas
> are rendered featureless by virtue of being too bright, I'd consider those
> areas
> "blown out." Many images can tolerate a certain amount of this condition, but
> it's amount is the criteria and varies with each viewer. Said areas must, of
> course, contain some available mask detail which defines the surface.
IOW,
> I'm not talking about an absolute ball of glare wherein no detail is
> discernible.
Jack
Here's Ansel's take on it from "Eaxmples - The Making Of Forty Photographs":
"The picture haunts me. I have not yet made the print I desire. The tonal
qualities of the woman's face please me, but I am not able to print through the
blank sunlit area of her shoulder without getting a flat, textureless value,
since the film is severely blocked in that area."
Everyone has struggled with blown out areas of photographs. Ansel decided to
include this photograph even though it wasn't technically perfect. For me,
blown out areas can often add rather than subtract from the asthetics of an
image. It just depends on where they occur within the image and to what degree
they land outside of the overall tonality. In the image of the old woman on the
porch he describes above (Martha Porter, Pioneer Woman), I hadn't really
noticed the blown out area until he mentioned in the text.
-Brendan
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