Tell me what on earth i did here....

[bluespanner]

How did the background end up black?



I love it, but cant for the life of me work out how i did it.

What gets me is that where the backgroung is dark, it was actually as light as the rest, really.
My anglepoise lamp was straight over the radio, iirc.
Any ideas at all?


Cheers,
Roland.

[Andy Mac]

Dunno, but it looks fantastic!

[Andy M]

If you're shooting film did you use ISO 50 or 100 film? And what's all the dust?

Nice pic though

[UKbob]

Is the dust on glass, which praps acted as a filter?

[te51cle]

Relative brightness. There is at least 4 stops (16 times the amount) of brightness difference between the amount of light falling on the radio as compared to the background. Film and digital sensors have a limited range of sensitivity to light, the amount let in to the film or sensor is controlled by the (iris) aperture you set. The human eye also has a limited range of sensitivity regulated by the iris but controlled by the brain which quickly and automatically adjusts for optimum visibility wherever you happen to look at the time. You can see both in the deep shadow areas and bright highlights of a scene and not really notice how much the difference is because your brain takes care of it for you automatically. However when you start using a light measuring device or a camera you start to find out just how sophisticated human vision really is.

[bluespanner]

All the dust is due to my pitiful scanner, and it appears to be under the glass

So, basically, i get the lamp pointing at the object, take the photo from a similar angle, and with the aperture shut right down, (due to the bright light), the not so bright surrounding areas dont come out?

Is that right?