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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

Photography at Arras Memorial


temptage

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What is the best time of day for photography at the Arras Memorial? From seeing what angle the Memorial is to the sun, I would hazard a guess as any time up to midday?

 

I have names on every panel that I want to photograph.

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The names are actually under cover and therefore should be no problem with the sun.  

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In general the best times for photography are early morning or later afternoon, depending if you want "cold" or "warm" light... that's a general rule. 

Now sun should not be a bother in any way, because with a good sun cap on your lens, you can avoid having sun straight in your lens. Or have somebody hold a bigger cover for you. 

Or play with the sunrays... one can achieve magnificent results with a bit of contrejour !! 

 

I'd love to see the results !! 

 

M.

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The main problem I found at that memorial is the lack of contrast. Worn panels were hard to get clear images on, and in many cases I could not get good results when the camara was parallel to the target. Moving slightly to one side or the other sometimes helped.  I don't know if the panels have been recut for the centenary as I have not been back for some time.

 

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Temptage

 

There is an app called LightTrac which you can download a phone or tablet.It shows the angle of sun at whatever time of day you want, and the length of shadows amongst other things. It is easy to use and costs around 4 or 5 pounds, or even less for an android device. It is better if you can get a small amount of shadow in th lettering. I have used it and found it extremely useful.

 

TR

Edited by Terry_Reeves
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11 minutes ago, keithmroberts said:

The main problem I found at that memorial is the lack of contrast. Worn panels were hard to get clear images on, and in many cases I could not get good results when the camara was parallel to the target. Moving slightly to one side or the other sometimes helped.  I don't know if the panels have been recut for the centenary as I have not been back for some time.

 

 

     Perhaps getting up on a mid-winter day at the crack of dawn will give the required contrast......Dedication,dear boy, dedication   :wub:

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agreed with Keith, the problem with these type of memorials is that the contrast under the roof. you need to be square on to the name as shooting up one name tends to blend into another especially as the camera is struggling to auto focus on the lower as well as the upper names. the sun does not make much difference as the camera flash helps anyway.

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My great-uncle is on there but I found his name is impossible to photograph without a ladder as he is so high up.

 

Cheers Martin B

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Thank you to everyone who has offered advice.

 

My camera has a natural 50x zoom, and upto 100x with digital, but I dont really want to use that as it granulates the picture. Just as an example, when I tried it at Menin Gate, I could zoom in on any name at the top of the panels from across the road, but that is well lit at any time of day, but having never realised that all the panels are under cover, that the only problem would be the contrast. I will have to see how it goes when I get there, but if they turn out too dark then I shall just have to edit them and manually adjust the contrast and brightness.

 

Fingers crossed.

 

On 5/7/2018 at 20:53, Martin Bennitt said:

My great-uncle is on there but I found his name is impossible to photograph without a ladder as he is so high up.

 

Cheers Martin B

 

Martin, PM me your great uncles details and I shall see if I can get anything decent for you.

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I suppose as long as you can get a clear fairly square on picture you could use flash to infill, problem on too  sunny a day is reflection from outside, and if too overcast could be too dark for auto focus. advantage with todays digital systems is that you can check what you have taken wheras 35mm film you don't know what you are going to get until you are home.

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What also works out quite well if you want to photograph a headstone or a piece of the memorial in the blazing sun is: one: manually tone down the light (bracketing) and two: take the picture in B/W. 

of course there is always post-production...   

 

M.

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