Spot-Metering Quiz
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Color By Numbers a repeat of a shot from yesterday's post -- Shogunzuka -- Kyoto, Japan -- Copyright 2009 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
1/160 sec, f/10, ISO 280 — map & image datanearby photos
Color By Numbers
a repeat of a shot from yesterday's post

I forgot something when writing yesterday's post on spot metering. I'd posted the photo above as part of a pair, but forgot to pose this question: why is there a red outline around the sun?

It's not an effect of overly-harsh post processing (or any post processing).... you should be able to answer from just the information in yesterday's post. I don't intend this to be one of my “What am I?” quizzes, but rather, I pose it as a self-check “exercise for the reader”...

(By the way, despite a mention in an overly generous comment to yesterday's post that it was a tutorial on spot metering, I'd prefer to consider it an introduction: there's plenty about spot metering that I know it doesn't cover, and likely more that I'm ignorant about.)


All 3 comments so far, oldest first...

Off hand, I’m wondering if is partial pixel effect. The pixels at the edge of the sun were part sun and part background and so didn’t saturate…were shorter blades of grass.

— comment by Kevin on February 8th, 2009 at 11:25pm JST (15 years, 2 months ago) comment permalink

On the camera’s RGB sensor, do the red pixels saturate first? The sun’s awfully bright, but less so at the edges. Therefore, I’m guessing only the red pixels saturate at the extreme edges. Anywhere close? I’m purposefully not checking Wikipedia before posting. 🙂

— comment by Greg on February 9th, 2009 at 3:59am JST (15 years, 2 months ago) comment permalink

So what is it? I really want to know 🙂

Areas of the sun that are not blown out – that are sufficiently unbright – are the reddish pink. In this case, that’s the areas most obscured by the clouds, and the edges. —Jeffrey

— comment by Wout Mertens on March 2nd, 2009 at 3:52am JST (15 years ago) comment permalink
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