How to Create the Weegee Look

Weegee? You might ask... well, this would refer to Arthur Fellig. Not sure who I am talking about? Have a look at wikipedia to find out.

Old days

Weegee's was best known for nighttime photography of crime scenes. His technique involved the use of flash bulbs, giving a very harsh look to the pictures. There is usually a hard shadow cast on the left side of the subject, which is a "dead" give-away that the flash used was on the right side of the camera; very common to large format press cameras.

Over the years, off-camera flash moved to the left side of the camera, in particular when flash brackets are used. Many point & shoot cameras of today have their flash mounted on the left side, the reasons of which is totally unclear to me. Anyway, the on-camera flash is too close to cast any meaningful shadow at regular photographing distance.

Modern age

So, here is what we need to do to create the typical look of the illumination typically used in Fellig's crime scene photograph:

• mount a speedlight on a flash bracket
• 1 foot to the right of the camera lens
• 1 foot above the camera lens

For the flash bracket, I got myself one that looks essentially like this one. Everything is adjustable with the bracket...

Having the bracket on the right of the camera is a bit awkward, since cameras are designed for right hand use, with the shutter button on the right, which is, where the bracket is now. That of course means, that the camera now will be operated by the left hand.

What the shutter release is concerned, there might be an option: a shutter release cable, with the button fixed to the flash bracket (I guess, I will build something alike in the near future).

Digital solution

Obviously, the above is all nice in theory, but, what about putting this into digital reality?

Here is my setup:

• Fujifilm X-M1
• Fujifilm XC 16-50mm f/3.5-f/5.6
• Fujifilm EF-20
• flash bracket as mentioned above
• flashgun cable for Canon by PIXEL Inc.

Now to the technical settings, which are different from my usual way of configuring a camera:

• AF illuminator ON
• flash exposure compensation -1
• exposure compensation -1
• red eye removal off

Here is why. With flash, there is not stealth photography, so, there is no reason to not use the AF illuminator. Flash bulbs were not that strong and weaker flash allows for a wider open aperture (see below). Further, lower flash power shortens cycle time of the speedlight. Also, we are still talking nighttime photography, despite the use of flash.

And the "artistic" settings:

• RAW+JPEG
• film simulation B&W (obviously)
• highlight tone +1
• shadow tone +2
• sharpness +1
• noise reduction -1
• auto ISO limit 6400
• f=30mm
• f/4.7 (i.e. as wide open as possible)

This will need some more detailed explanation, I figure.

Highlight tone +1 gives medium hard highlight details, resulting in slightly more contrast in the highlights.

Shadow tone +2  results in very hard shadow details, enhancing the black feel of the JPEG image.

Sharpness +1 in combination with N.R. -1 obviously adds some noise, similar to film grain. This effect could be further enhanced by forcing the ISO up.

My present setup employs a kit zoom lens. 4x5 press cameras are usually equipped with a 135mm, slightly wider than normal primes. On an APS-C system, 30mm comes pretty close to the angle of view that a 135mm would produce in 4x5 LF. Using the XF 27mm f/2.8 (considered on of the best lenses in the Fujifilm system) could the solution.

Finally, the aperture. Due to the long focal length of a large format "normal", the depth of field is pretty shallow. 

In absence of any corpses in front of my house (thanks God!), I took two photographs of a bollard on my front yard. Both pictures are JPEG straight out of the camera. 

Despite using the AF illuminator, the camera struggled to auto-focus. Anyway, I hope that the images prove that a Weegee-look is possible with the equipment listed above.

When using an X100, X100S or X100T, obviously, one might want to use the TCL-X100 for the normal perspective, which would allow for f/2. The 23mm (35mm equivalent) would not be too far off, so any of the series would still be OK w/o the conversion lens.

Conclusion

Weegee used a flash with a relatively large reflector. Although I feel that the initial results look pretty decent, I will experiment to add a soft component to the flash, as to mimic the large reflector.

PS

Shooting with flash requires re-thinking of your exposure parameters, I am aware of that. Exposure for the flash is usually done by the aperture. Distances of 2m to 4m would suggest relatively closed lens, even with lower ISO sensitivities. The creative choice of shooting wide open therefore seems counter-intuitive. Since this look is not affected by ambient light, shutter speed is entirely irrelevant, so the faster syncs speed found on the X100 models won't help. However, the X100 models have a built-in 3 stops N.D.-filter, which could help expose correctly with the lens wide open.

Exposure w/o Metering - Part 6

Today was a mixed bag of light, i.e. very clear and also cloudy skies, in sometimes rapid succession.
Hence, I went out to photograph the shadows. I was talking about in the last post. What the day did not provide me with, at least not during the time I was hunting shadows, was a full (bright) overcast. Of the 3 promised conditions, we are therefore missing one.

Down to business. You will see that my subject will not deserve a place in a gallery, however, I believe several effects of bright sunlight versus light overcast can be easily demonstrated.

The first image refers to shadows cast by unobstructed sunlight. When this short of shadows can be seen, the sunny 16 rule applies, i.e. stop down to f/16, shutter speed = s/ISO.

hard light (direct sun) casting sharp shadows and a high contrast image

The second image show sunlight shining through a thin layer of clouds. This is the condition when you want to open up the aperture to f/11.

soft light (light clouds) washing out the shadows

You might notice that the upper image has a much warmer overall tone. This is actually created by the dominance of the direct sunlight over the blue-sky ambient light. In the second image, the ambient light starts to take over filling the scene with blue light, hence the colder color tone.

Another thing to learn here. the total amount of light present in the shadows (in theory) is identical and caused only by the ambient light, i.e. the blue sky. Why did a write in theory? Very simple, in real life reflections, e.g. from buildings, cars, etc., can occur. It is fair to say, I believe, that in the above images, real life meets the theory pretty well.

For techies under my readers, the following remark. Both shots are taken with the X100S in aperture priority, so that the images are technically correctly exposed. Also, I used RAW files, thereby preventing color temperature correction influencing the outcome.

Finally, for the f/8 condition, just imagine that there is no shadow cast at all, and all you see is pavement and dirt, even more blue-ish.

Concluding, to understand the illumination, watch the shadows!

Exposure w/o Metering - Part 5

Up to now, I was referring to a clear blue sky and direct sunlit scenes. Can we use the "sunny 16" rule under conditions other than sunny?
Yes, no problem at all!

Let's assume that for this discussion, it is mid-day and we are photography a frontlit scene. Also, we don't care about the D.o.F for the time being.

In full sunlight, as the rule suggest, we are now photographing with an aperture of f/16. This is very hard light, throwing very sharp shadows. Hence, whenever you see very clear and sharp shadows,  you should consider using f/16. BTW, this light would be referred to a hard light.

With a light cloudy sky, the direct sunlight is somewhat attenuated and the contribution of scattered light increases. Shadows are a bit washed out under such lighting conditions. When I say washed out, I refer to clearly visible, having blurry soft edges. To compensate for this drop in illumination, we need to open up to f/11.

When the sky is heavily overcast, but still bright, w/o any direct sunlight, the only natural source of illumination is scattered light. Scattered light comes from all direction, hence, no shadows will be present. This lighting condition is referred to as soft light and would require to open up one stop to f/8.

With a rainy sky, a lot of light is absorbed. I figure it is not necessary to detect this condition by looking at shadows... to me the best indicator of rain is getting wet. The mentioned loss of light due to absorption requires us to yet again open up one stop to arrive at f/5.6.

Somewhat obvious, in heavy rain, we would yet again open up one stop to f/4. However, I figure it is pretty rare to go out shooting under such weather conditions.

I hope to be able to shoot some frames showing the different shadows of the first 3 conditions mentioned above. If so, I will show those in a future post.

Exposure w/o Metering - Part 4

In the last part, I had a look at the influence of the incident illumination angle. To prevent the post from getting too long, I essentially skip the explanation why that is.
However, since this is one of the more important things to the sunny 16 rule, I would like to pick up the topic once again.

The basic principle behind the angle of incident light can be illustrated by the phases of the moon.
Please have a look, e.g. on this web-page.

0˚ between illumination and line of sight
If the sun is directly behind us, and the moon is directly in front of us, that would be full moon. In this phase we all the sunlight shining on the moon.

±90˚
If the sun is on either side of us, this happens during the first and third quarters of the moon, very obviously, we see only half the light illuminating the moon.
In terms of photography, reducing the amount of illumination by half reflects 1 f-stop. To compensate for this lost stop, we need to open the aperture by one stop, or double the exposure time.

180˚
When we are actually looking into the light source, the analogy to the phases of moon starts to become a little weak. The reason for that is, that we can't see any of the sunlight illuminating the moon, still the moon is somewhat visible, due to earth-shine. Earth-shine is the sunlight that the earth reflects, which then illuminates the moon. As I said, this is when the analogy phases out.
However, we still can learn something about illumination of a scene in photography.
In earth, we are surrounded by an atmosphere, which itself scatters light. This scattered light is the illumination of a scene shot under backlit conditions. Of course, scattered light is less intense than direct light. To compensate for this, we need to further open the aperture.
This, of course, only holds true if details of a scene are to be photographed. For a backlit profile photo, the exposure has to be set to match the brightness of the light source, i.e. stopping down the exposure, rather than open it up.

Exposure w/o Metering - Part 3

In the earlier parts of the series about determining exposure w/o metering, I kept a relatively theoretical approach to the effects of illumination, i.e. luminosity.
In this post, I will cover another aspect of luminosity, however, this time I will provide some real life examples.

Previously I wrote about the influence that time and latitude have on the rule "sunny 16". In this post, I will have to make use of the influence that local time.

For taking the following images, I went out later than 6pm local (MEST), therefore, I opened the aperture by 1 stop to f/11.
The 3 following photos were taken from the very same spot, with an essentially cloudless sky, and the camera set to s/250 and ISO250. Please observe the shadows to determine the direction of light.

0˚, f/11, s/250, ISO250, front lit

90˚, f/8, s/250, ISO250, side lit

180˚, f/5.6, s/250, ISO250, back lit

In the last photo, you may notice the lens flair, which was created by shooting into the glaring sun.

You will notice that the mid-ground (the trees) is perfectly exposed in all three photos. Of course the highlights will be blown out when shooting into the light... no surprise here.

Comparing the 0˚ and the 90˚ photos, you will notice the balance of the tree's highlights and shadows are the same, while contrast and highlights are more pronounced at the 90˚ shot. At 180˚, the contrast is somewhat "back to normal", when accepting the blown out highlights.
There is also a noticeable difference in the exposure of the sky. At 0˚, the sky is exposed the darkest. Since the brightness of the sky is independent from the scene, when opening up at 90˚, the sky portion of the image receives more light and is therefore brighter in the photograph. (At this angle, a blue sky can be recovered by use of a polarizing filter, which I will discuss in another post sometime later.)

Concluding: use the sunny 16 rule when shooting front-lit scenes. Open up 1 stop for side-lit scenes, and 2 stops for back-lit scenes.

I hope that this brings you a bit closer to understanding exposure and lighting under given circumstances.

In future parts of this series I will explain how to determine the illumination under circumstances other than an open blue sky.

Exposure w/o Metering - Part 2

In part 1, I discussed the rule "sunny 16" and the possibilities opened by variations of the rule according to the use of aperture stops combined with shutter speeds.

In this part, I would like to introduce the first constraints to the rule, at least what I believe to be the first constraint: time of day (actually, the interweb in pretty silent about this topic) and time of year.

As mentioned in part 1, sunny 16 applies to mid day, i.e. when the sun is the highest.
Since today, everything is available world-wide, I would like to add that this statement holds true only to a certain range of geographical latitudes! Actually, my understanding is, that the sunny 16 rule is a rule valid for latitudes between about 30˚ - 60˚ N/S.

To my understanding, the rule is all about taking pictures of your family during summer vacation. The rule reflects the amount of illumination available to the scene.

As a physicist, I would like to inform you about the hardness of sun light, i.e. light being collimated, in other words, the light rays are all parallel.
At a perpendicular angle of incidence, the light rays are closest to one another, meaning the illumination (light yield) is at a maximum.
At an angle parallel to the incidence of the light, the illumination is minimal.

Confused?! Take an orange and put it in sunlight. You will observe that the level of illumination drops, dependent on the angle of illumination.

The same happens on Earth. Dependent on the time of day, the sun will illuminate the earth's surface more or less, that's the influence of the longitude. The same holds for the latitude, although this changes with the time of year.

I figure, when traveling, one has to adapt the sunny 16 rule according to the latitude and the time of year.

I would do the following in general:

• latitudes between 0˚ and 30˚: stop down by one stop
• latitudes between 60˚ and 90˚: open up by one stop

• in spring/autumn, between 6:00 and 9:00 local time: open up by one stop
• in spring/autumn, between 15:00 and 18:00 local time: open up by one stop

 Of course, this needs adaption depending on the longitude.

Remember, I still talk write about a front-lit scene.
 

Exposure w/o Metering - Part 1

This will be a multi-part story about the technique of taking properly manually exposed photographs without the use of any light metering device.

30+ years ago, I heard about the technique called "sunny 16". However, being relatively young that time, with film being expensive and a heavy burden on my pocket money, I did not dare to use it, in particular since I was mainly shooting color slide film, which demands spot on exposure.
Consequently, I bough a relatively inexpensive light meter, a "Gossen Bissix 2" which did a great job, I still have it to the present day.
The light meter was used essentially only to measure the illumination, not the light reflected from the scene, thereby being independent from the color/brightness of the scene itself. Actually, I bought the light meter for exactly that, not sure if I used it ever for metering the scene itself.

Although the light meter did a great job, it costs additional time to take an accurate meter reading. Some shots were gone before the lighting was determined. To the time of expensive film, I thought "tough luck, no photo now, more luck next time"...

Today, I do not rely on pocket money any longer, I got my own income now ;-) So I decided to finally buy a camera which is able bring back the good old manual times, Fujifilm's X100S. The X100S is probably the best camera I ever owned, for sure it is the best compact point&shoot available on the market, which is definitely reflected by it's financial resistance, being somewhat a short circuit in the wallet.  Right, today, I could even afford to shoot more film, but where can you buy film today?!

Back to the topic: the "sunny 16" rule.

Exposure
The rule is pretty simple:

• On a sunny cloudless day,
• mid day between 9am and 3pm local time,
• the exposure time is the inverse of the ISO sensitivity
• at an aperture of f/16
• when the sun is directly behind the photographer.

What does that mean? In essence, this is what a light meter does, when used for measuring the illumination of a scene. A light meter, with the diffuser/filter closed, pointed at the sun a mid day on a cloudless day, should read f/16 for 1s/100 with an ISO of 100. In the film days, ISO100 was a pretty normal film to use. A shutter time of s/100, however, did not exist. The closest to s/100 is s/125, which consequently is the shutter speed in this example.

However, there might be adaptations to this rule, e.g. if you wanted a shallower depth of field. Using an aperture of f/16 creates a very wide D.o.F., which is good for landscape photos, but may ruin a portrait. With a camera of those days, the shortest shutter time was s/1000, which would reflect an aperture of f/5.6 for an exposure equivalent to the example above, creating a shallower depth of field however.

Depth of Field
In general, whenever you need to open the aperture by 1 stop, the exposure time needs to be divided by 2.

• f/16 - s/125
• f/11 - s/250
• f/8 - s/500
• f/5.6 - s/1000

The above aperture exposure time pair will result in the exact same exposure of the image, however, the depth of field will be very different.

So far, so good. I will end this post here, w/o any example pics...

Some of the constraints metioned, I will write about in further parts of this series. I also intend to show examples shot with the X100S with manual settings.

For now, I would like you to absorb the rule "sunny 16" and the equivalence in exposures.