The Quiet Picture

Sometimes I find a trick which I like so much that I use it for all my photos. Long exposures are my trick du jour, so now I’m taking hardly any pictures with shutter speeds lower than a second. You can never be quite sure what you get with this type of images while you’re taking them, so the idea is to take loads of pictures with varying shutter speeds and then on the computer pick out the best. Digital helps.

Might as well keep taking these until the season is over… when the leaves have fallen and grass has withered brown, it’s time to come up with something else!

The weather was sure changing today. In the morning it was heavy winds and rain, even some sleet at one point, and then at lunchtime the clouds moved away and by sunset it was almost windstill and clear skies. It worked fine for us at Hylströmmen, but sunset was a miss.

Note to self: find sunset locations!

In the previous post I claimed that our lakes are too small to create any real wave action to allow smoothing out the water with long exposures. Well, sometimes it pays to challenge the conclusions I jump into without having any real facts at hand, so today I headed to one of my favourite locations (or as I decided after I came back, the favourite location) while the wind was blowing at its best. I was right on the money about the one second shutter speed though, but I was able to go slower by overexposing to the point of blowing out the highlights and trusting Lightroom to recover them for me (which it did).

So, the discovery I made about the waves is that size doesn’t matter. All you need is a long enough shutter speed to smooth out whatever kind of waves are going about. But today’s exercise wasn’t really about the waves though, because I was more interested to see if I could get the reeds – or grass – to blur out. So all I needed was some fixed point (a rock will do nicely) and then a lot of grass. And would you know – it worked! Lesson learned, I only wish I had tried this before.

I mentioned that this place is now my #1 favourite. It’s good for flowers and landscape and works in any kind of weather, and today I found out that if I had the patience and/or inclination, I could even try wildlife photography there. I saw something in the water, it could swim and dive and it wasn’t a bird. Could I be so lucky that it was an otter? Or maybe a beaver. Or maybe it was something smaller, it was too quick to make it out properly. In any case, it didn’t make this place look any worse in my eyes!

Since it was a windy day yesterday, I wanted to try some long exposures with wind blown objects. I had just the place in mind, a lake with a small island and a rickety old bridge inbetween. It was overcast weather and quite dark, so the polariser and ND8 filters stacked gave me a whopping 25 sec exposure at f16. I was a bit surprised to see the result – the water surface is smooth, but there wasn’t quite as much movement in the reeds as I had expected. The biggest problem with this whole concept is of course that the wind doesn’t pick up speed in these small corners quite the same way it would do in more open spaces. For example if I wanted to smooth out some serious wave action – which I’ve wanted to do for years now – we just don’t get that here. Small lakes.

When I was driving back I noticed that the sky was opening up in the west, just perfect for sunset. It turned out to be just as fine as I had hoped for and I took a whole lot of pictures, although having said that, I was also bracketing with HDR in mind. So many pictures in fact that I had no chance of processing them last night, thus a belayed post. Photomatix had a lot of trouble with these images though, it helped with the sky but the reflection in the water was a nightmare. Completely oversaturated and way too bright in relation to the sky (the reflection is always darker than the thing that is being reflected). So I took the Photomatix HDR creation to Photoshop and added a reflection from one of the original images, then erased with low opacity to reveal just a little bit of the saturated colour in the HDR beneath.

I had hoped to get some more long exposure wind pictures today, but not sure how it will work out now that it’s sunny. The pol and ND filters won’t kill enough light, one second is probably an optimistic target. I’m thinking about getting another ND8 filter for these occasions… I wish there was an ND12 or ND16 though, because I don’t like the idea of stacking three filters. Vignetting is not an issue because I’m using a crop factor camera, but that’s a lot of extra glass in front of the lens. I guess I just have to make sure it’s quality glass, so the Hoya Pro-1 ND8 will probably be in the shopping cart shortly!

I’ve mentioned a few times how I don’t like HDR (High Dynamic Range). The problem I have with it is when the effect is taken out of proportions, and when it’s done so bad that the halos show (can’t believe that the people can’t actually see the massive halos when they create their HDR image??). So I don’t have anything against the technique as such, it’s just a matter of using it in moderation.

Last week I mentioned how I tried Photomatix with one of my images and failed miserably to produce any good results. Now I started reading an article on Naturescapes.net and decided to have another go at HDR, because obviously I hadn’t played around with the settings enough on my first try. But instead of taking that sunset image, I wanted to start with something a bit easier – one of my Canada images where I had made just two exposures to get enough dynamic range. I was never able to merge these images before, but I’ve kept them in case one day I could figure out how to create a complete image and it appears that the day is today. Photomatix merged my exposures with ease and I opted to pull back the effect because I wanted to stay true to the conditions on that day; overcast, cold and murky. A bright and saturated image just wouldn’t ring true!

Happy at the results I was now getting, I threw the Högforsen sunset image at it and this time I was actually able to get something reasonable in return. But either I’m still not able to fully grasp the finer adjustment details or the image just simply is not suitable for the Photomatix treatment, because in the end I kept my original merge. But it was a close call, and definitely an encouragement for me to continue learning the HDR technique – not for the sake of the technique itself, but as another tool in my photography bag.

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I also tested another HDR programme, Dynamic Photo HDR. Initially I was pleased with it and and was about to ditch Photomatix, but then I noticed that it was having a lot of trouble with colour gradients, seen as nasty jaggies across the sky. The same image processed in Photomatix had much smoother gradations, so I think I will stick with it for now.

A photographer friend came for a visit to take a look (and photograph) some of the local sights. Even without the pictures, the weather and the mosquitoes made the day memorable. If you’ve ever been out on a mosquito infested bog in nearly 30 °C heat with camera gear on your back, you’ll know what I’m talking about. I had my Bugshirt and bugspray, but the Bugshirt just made me even warmer so the bugspray quickly ran down with the sweat. I got the pictures, but it’s obvious that my concentration had suffered.

Then we swapped the bog for a forest. It was still warm, there were even more mosquitos, but now the heat had resulted in a thunderstorm brewing around us so we got a few drops of rain and it cooled down just a little bit. I finally got a picture of a herb paris (Paris quadrifolia) flower – it doesn’t look like a flower the way you normally think flowers look like, but it’s beautiful none the less.

We did some more sightseeing and a little bit of photography (including my failed attempt at catching a dragonfly on sensor), and then it was time to start driving home. Not without detours though, so we stopped at the Hållberget viewpoint and found that the smoke from the forest fires in northern Hälsingland had reached this far, so there was no chance of seeing the Sånfjället mountain this time.

The sun was starting to set by now, but we had time to make another small detour to take a look at the Högforsen rapids. I’ve been there many times, but I’ve never taken any pictures – either I can’t find a good composition, or the light is wrong, or whatever, but it just hasn’t worked for me. I didn’t even bother to take the camera with me, so imagine my surprise when we got to the rapids and saw the setting sun cast its last rays on the water! We half ran back to the car to get the gear, and finished the day with a good photography session.

As for the picture, it’s a pseudo-HDR creation. There was no chance to get the sky and the water exposed in the same frame, so I bracketed and installed the Photomatix trial to see what it can make of the images. Total crap, that’s what – possibly because I can’t use the software, and possibly because I just don’t like the look of a full HDR, not with this image anyway (because I will admit that HDR looks good with some images I’ve seen). So I did it the old-fashioned way with luminosity masks, gradients and eraser with different opacity settings and I’m happy with the result – it looks more like something you could create in camera with a gradient filter so my conservative eyes accept it more easily than a full HDR which screams out “impossible”!

You might wonder why I’m always going on about sunsets. Well, I think that sunsets are quite simply amazing. But those really spectacular sunsets are rare because they require very special circumstances to happen. The most colourful sunsets take place when there is scattered cloud with a gap right where the sun goes down so that the sun can light up the clouds from below. Another way to get colour in your sunset image is to do the opposite – photograph a cloudless sunset to get a gradient of colour. But whatever the sky looks like, you shouldn’t forget the foreground. A fantastic sky is one thing, but you can rarely pull off an image with nothing but the sky in it. Allow me to illustrate.

In image #1, it was a cloudless sky. This is an opportunity to go for the sunburst effect by using a small aperture. You still get nice colour in the sky after the sun has gone down, and you can saturate the colours by underexposing the image. Compare #1 & #2, where #2 is taken a few minutes after #1 so realistically, it should be darker as the light starts to fade. But I increased the shutter speed to make the image lighter so that #2 is close to reality. It is a matter of taste which you prefer – sometimes you just have to choose between artistic and realistic.

Image #3 is an example of “close but no cigar”. This would have worked just fine otherwise, but right at the horizon there is a bank of clouds which shut out the sun so that couldn’t light up the scattered clouds above.

Image #4 is what I’m really looking for. Spectacular orange hues in the fluffy clouds lit by a sun that was already below the horizon. The image is from 2002 which seemed to be a good winter for sunsets. It is still the best sunset image I have, but I haven’t given up on seeing this colour behind the three pines in the image series above…

I mentioned the foreground earlier and it is important enough to be mentioned again. Compare #4 to #5 – it’s the same sunset. Yes the colour is fabulous, but don’t you think that something is missing?

When great things happen at sunset, they are not going to last for long so you have to be ready. When you move about, keep an eye out for potential foreground you can use in conjunction with sunrises, sunsets, full moon etc. The right light fades so quickly that often your best bet is to stake out your selected spot, set up your gear, wait and hope for the best. If you look out your window and see great light, it will be gone by the time you are ready to photograph it. I don’t even want to think about the times I have failed to follow my own advice…

Some photographers like using flash. Other photographers don’t. When you choose not to use a flash even when using one would be warranted, it’s called natural light photography – you only use the light that is naturally available. That’s what I do. I don’t know anything about flashes, but I don’t have anything against them either. In fact, sometimes I consider buying a Canon ringlite for closeup and macro photography. But, what does make me a flash hater, is when the use of flash is very obvious. This is normally when you use the built-in flash in your camera in low-light conditions (the area that gets lit is very small so the edges of the image are very dark). Using the built-in flash for fill-flash in good lighting conditions is less obvious. What I think is really funny is when someone uses the built-in flash when shooting landscapes (without the intention of including foreground). Honestly, it won’t help!The problem with the built-in flash is that the light is so direct. If you think about the natural light around you, the beauty is that the light really is all around you – the sun might be far away but it’s sure is bigger in the sky than the tiny flash in your camera. If you want to take the next step in your flash photography, you would buy an external flash that attaches to the camera hot shoe. Yes, the light is still the same direction as you camera points at, but it stands out high above your lens and you can attach a diffuser element to soften the light. Or you can swivel the flash head upwards and bounce the light from the ceiling. And you don’t even necessarily have to attach the flash directly to the camera. You can use a cord to have the flash further away and thus create depth in your photo by using the flash as a side light. Or, you can buy two or more flashes and get even more creative with your lighting!

So flashes are good, but as a rule of thumb, they are not good for landscape photography and they are not good when all you have is the built-in flash in your camera. But of course, if all you want is to take those family snapshots, then by all means flash away!

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I would’ve posted some examples but since I don’t use flash, I don’t have any… So you’ll just have to take my word for it. The built-in flash units are at their best when they are not used. Seriously. Unless you really really really know what you’re doing.

When you start photographing, your normal approach is to stand up and take the picture. It doesn’t matter what the subject is – you always stand up. If the subject is very low (say, a frog), you kneel down close enough to focus on the frog but you still take the picture from above. Unfortunately, this angle is the one that rarely works. You shouldn’t photograph children from the above, but you should kneel down to their level. You shouldn’t photograph dogs from above, but you should kneel down to their level. You shouldn’t photograph small flowers from above (well, it depends…), but you should lie down to their level. This was another hard lesson for me. I used to do a lot of photographing in zoos, but have you notice how very often you are looking down on the animals in zoos? If you have to look down, then you also have to photograph down. Sadly, this just doesn’t work. If you want to take a picture of that cute little prairie dog but do it from above, all you’ve achieved is to portray your superiority to the animal by showing that you are higher than it. It may sound a bit odd, but think about it. Any psychologist will tell you why your boss wants to sit in a higher chair than you – it’s a power trip. Same principle applies in photography, even it is not your intention to show it in your picture.

Just compare these two images – they are taken in the same zoo, in front of the same enclosure. One of them is looking down, and the other one is looking up. There’s a big difference!

There are some aspects of photography that are almost pure science. Luckily you don’t have to be able to do the math in order to take the picture – you just have to learn to understand the principle behind it. Depth of field (DOF) is one of these. DOF is the area in your image which appears to be in sharp focus – everything between yourself and the focus area is blurry (or out of focus, OOF) and everything behind the focus area is blurry.Online DOF and hyperfocal distance calculators and in-depth explanations:
- DOFmaster (DOF and hyperfocal distance)
- Nikonians (DOF and hyperfocal distance)
- Bob Atkins (DOF)

Personally, I like shallow DOF – this is often called for selective focus. The sharp area of the image is so small that you have to be very careful where you place it, otherwise you will give the impression that the whole image is blurry.

There are three things that affect the DOF – focal length, aperture and distance to subject. If we forget for a moment that all three things work together, we can say this:

• longer focal length = less DOF
• bigger aperture = less DOF
• closer to subject = less DOF

Don’t forget that when we talk about a bigger aperture, the actual number indicating the aperture is smaller. Aperture – of F-stop – is the size of the lens opening. The bigger the opening (=bigger aperture, smaller F-stop number), the more light gets to the film or sensor. This, by the way, is directly related to the shutter speed: bigger aperture, faster shutter. Smaller aperture, longer shutter. They always move in equal opposites – if the aperture is stopped down by 1, then the shutter speed is increased by 1 stop. In case you’ve ever wondered what the numbers inprinted to your lens are, they indicate the focal length (prime, or zoom range) and the maximum aperture. For example, the 70-200mm F4 lens has a zoom range from 70 to 200mm and the maximum aperture I can use with the lens is 4 at any focal length. The 17-85mm F4-5.6 zoom has a maximum aperture of F4 at the wideangle end, and F5.6 at the long end. The 100mm F2.8 macro lens is a prime lens with a largest aperture of F2.8 – perfect for those selective focus close-ups!