First off, let me start this off with .....Thank you for your indepth critique. Very well thought of and presented.
I will now lead into my responce.
As you know. Photography is subjective art. I know how to take multiple exposures and sandwich them together in CS3. Normally I would have done this, but for the feel of this shot I wanted NO noticible details within the silhouetted area.
If you look at my next post( which has more of the feel I was going for ) I was just futzing around with different shot types.
Now that I have said that.....Let me ask you something. Don't you remember me? I have not seen or heard from you in way over a year. I have been getting better with my techniques and I have gotten WAY better equipment then my 20D. I now shot with the 5D and the 1DS mark3. My lenses all have been up graded to L series lenses. I have learned to utilize filters. ND Grad's soft/hard. I have been working on my PS skill's to explore my creative side. Drop me an email, I would love to hear from you.
These days, few "photographers" are interested in 'in-camera' techniques, much preferring to call on PhotoShop to fix their errors. The silhouette is no different. Technically, the true silhouette should still contain some detail in the shadows. But how is this done? In-camera techniques are too lengthy to explain here, so PS will have to do. The easiest solution is with a tripod and TWO exposures. Take a CW reading from the shadow area you want to retain detail and close TWO full stops; this is your shadow exposure. Then, take a CW reading from the highlight area that you want to retain detail (in this case, about midway between the sun and the bluff) - this is your highlight exposure. In PS, combine the two images (one as a mask of the other) and then erase the highlight exposure's darkest areas to reveal the correctly exposed shadows underneath. A very effective technique to make silhouettes 'pop'! Hope this helps.
For in-camera, make a double exposure using the same technique – this requires an in-depth understanding of adding/subtracting exposures and EVs to get the ‘correct’ exposure. Experiment with your camera and multiple exposures (digital makes this simple.)
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