August 29th, 2008 Rob Sheppard
I keep learning as I further explore HDR or High Dynamic Range photography. I have had a few things trigger some more thoughts recently about HDR. I don’t use it all the time, but I really like having it as an option. I was looking at a relatively new book of Ansel Adams photography (400 Photos) — a fascinating look at the work over his life. I saw a couple of photos that just hit me — they were the black-and-white equivalent of HDR. One was a scene of a backlit woods with sunlit grass on the ground and dark tree trunks. Yet Adams held detail throughout the scene because of the way he applied technology (exposure and chemistry) specifically to the conditions of the scene (he generally overexposed such shots and underdeveloped them, plus did added work when he made the print).
I can guarantee that scene could not be captured in color with such detail straight from any camera, film or digital. Yet, by doing exactly what Adams did, changing exposure (in the case of color, making several different exposures) and processing uniquely (using HDR software), we can now capture scenes like this that were simply not possible in color before. Now some people say, but … these are multiple exposures. I have to ask — if I photograph a non-moving scene, what is the difference in that scene if I took three 1/4 second photos compared to one 1-second photo? The time involved is essentially the same, nothing has moved. Yet the 1-second photo is probably a “lie” in the sense that it does not truly represent nature; the combination of the three shots has the potential to more accurately show the truth of the scene. Yet I know there are still folks who think somehow that there is a “right” use of technology that is more important than the correct and accurate capture of a natural scene.
There is no question that HDR is an evolving technology. I really did not like Adobe’s implementation of it in Photoshop (and I still don’t care for it). I first really got excited about its possibilities with Photomatix HDR, but that software has some issues, including the tendency to oversaturate colors (I would often go back to Photoshop to tone down the colors). There is an interesting bit of software called LR/Enfuse (discussed in another blog entry) that does a nice job of creating a long-tonal range image from several shots while working from Lightroom — it gives more natural colors than Photomatix.
I just started working with a new program called Essential HDR that really seems to do the best job in giving accurate, natural colors from the process. I had never heard of them until they sent me a note asking me to try out their new software. I love trying new stuff, but I have no interest and little time to deal with software that does not work. Essential HDR does work and it is very easy to use, works fast and the results look very, very good. I still like the workflow of LR/Enfuse with Lightroom, but I actually think Essential HDR gives a little better results. The website for Essential HDR is at www.imagingluminary.com.
My point is that it is possible to use technology to interpret our world accurately and naturally and not force our audiences to think that nature only looks a certain way based on how cameras see it (I find it fascinating that people expect sunrise and sunset photos to look a certain way that is often unrelated to the reality of the scene — this is because people were “trained” by publications to see these conditions as rendered by Kodachrome and Velvia, films that were not designed to give accurate colors at those times of day).
Posted in Digital Photo Techniques, Photoshop, Photoshop techniques, landscape photography, nature photography | 2 Comments »
August 22nd, 2008 Rob Sheppard
I have long been a fan of the little digital cameras, the pocket cameras from the true point-and-shoots to the advanced compacts like the Canon PowerShot G9 (which is no more a point-and-shoot than a Canon EOS 40D — though BOTH can be shot like point-and-shoots if everything from focus to exposure is automatic). Dewitt Jones says we should consider these little cameras more like accessory lenses than “cheap cameras” because they offer new possibilities for photography, just like a new focal length lens. The big thing is that the little pocket cameras give you the possibility of quality images at any time, any place, because you can take the camera with you.
I have been working with a little Samsung NV24HD for about a month now, and I have to tell you, I love it. I wanted a camera that would fit in a pocket or a very small bag that could clip to a belt. This camera definitely fits that. But one problem a lot of small digital cameras have is that they do not have very wide focal lengths. This camera offers one of the widest focal lengths, an equivalent of 24mm in 35mm film terms, available on any pocket digital camera. That makes it a fantastic camera for me. Plus it focuses up close at that focal length, giving really remarkable shots.
Tech specs are one thing, but what about results? I found this camera to have a very sharp Schneider lens (I think Samsung was smart in partnering with Schneider) and excellent image files. Now I admit that my bias is how well a camera performs with actual subjects. I am not interested in tiny examination of test charts (though they have their place) since I never photograph test charts in my work. So, I find this camera performs very well, absolutely providing high quality images I can use in books and publications that use my work. One issue I have found is that it does tend to emphasize noise in sky. That is not an unusual problem with digital cameras. I find the skies clean up easily with noise reduction software such as Nik Software Dfine (even the relatively mild noise reduction in Lightroom works).
The megapixel wars have led to some problems with high megapixel counts in small cameras. The NV24 has a high megapixel count (10.2) but I don’t feel they have trued to cram too many pixels into a tiny sensor at this stage of technology development. A problem I have seen with some small cameras is that there is a huge amount of noise reduction applied to the images. Yes, you get higher megapixels, but the image details start to look a little mushy. That is sure to change in the future, but it is a reality now. I found the NV24 had good looking details without that mushy feeling.
So now I have that camera I was looking for. A pocketable camera with a strong wide-angle lens offering excellent image quality. This means I can keep a camera with me all the time, allowing me to grab photos like this one of a praying mantis that I found in the garden at a party given by my wife’s boss!
Posted in Digital Photo Techniques, Equipment thoughts | 3 Comments »
August 21st, 2008 Rob Sheppard
I think one of the challenges we all have as photographers is to master the camera so that we can control it to get the results we want. Classes can help a lot, especially when we practice what we learn immediately. Classes that have assignments and critiques can help us learn quickly if we are open to new ideas. A problems with critiques, though, is that it can be hard to separate criticism of a photograph from criticism of us.
As to critiques, I believe the way to look at them is to step back a bit from “my” photograph and look at the photograph as it is, simply a visual interpretation of something in the world. Then see the critique as a reading of what someone is seeing in in that interpretation, not as a good or bad evaluation. Then look at that explanation of what someone is seeing as information. You then can decide how to apply that information, or not apply that info, to your photography.
Sometimes students feel that they must have “perfect” critiques, that a “good” critique is one that simply affirms their efforts. Yet, I am not convinced that is the best way to learn. If we stretch ourselves, our first efforts might even fail, but we learn from them. I think success in a class and assignments comes from what you learn, not how “good” an assignment is. The latter thinking comes from how we all grew up in school. Pass the tests, get the grades and you move on to new classes, college and so forth.
The photography world doesn’t work like that. Sometimes we have to fail and fail often in order to learn and grow. The great thing about shooting digital is that there is no cost to trying new things, to “failing”, so even if we “fail”, we don’t feel we wasted money and film. That can free us to experiment and try new things, stretching visual muscles, becoming better photographers.
Posted in Digital Photo Techniques, Digital camera techniques, Workshops and Classes | 2 Comments »
August 14th, 2008 Rob Sheppard
Ever since digital SLRs came out, we were always told to turn the camera off when changing lenses to minimize dust problems. That was because the sensor was charged and could attract dust.
Well, it turns out the manufacturers have been changing this part of cameras and not letting anyone know! I was having lunch with a friend from Canon who said that Canon digital SLRs all turned off power to the sensor as soon as a lens was removed from the mount. So you did not have to turn off the camera to change a lens.
That was a revelation to me. I had to know if other manufacturers had done this. So I checked with friends at Olympus and Nikon. Sure enough, cameras from these manufacturers also turned off power to the sensor as soon as a lens was removed. In fact, Nikon had been doing this since the D-1, yet when I first inquired, no one knew about this and they had to ask “Japan.”
So now the secret is out. I don’t know about other cameras, but I suspect they do the same. You don’t have to turn your camera off to change lenses. Now if you are in dusty conditions, you may still want to turn your camera off and on if your camera has dust-removal technology built into the camera as this is usually turned on and off as the camera powers up or down.
Posted in Digital Photo Techniques, Digital camera techniques, Equipment thoughts | Comments Off
August 11th, 2008 Rob Sheppard
I seem to constantly be using new bags. Partly this is because I don’t like a lot of camera bags. So many of them have become bloated monsters that are hard for me to want to use. I really don’t believe you need to have a bag that can be run over by a tank and survive. When I am in the field, I like a lightweight bag that sits tight to my back and keeps my gear compactly arranged. In addition, I want a bag that is easy to take on a plane and can be rolled. Those are tough criteria, I know.
About a year ago, I went back to a classic canvas Domke Shooters shoulder bag with an added “back-pack” strap. This has no padding inside, but you don’t need padding when working in the field. At least I never have. I could carry a body, multiple lenses and flash in that bag quite easily, plus it had extra pockets for things like filters. Because there is no padding, the bag is small and it fit really easily into a High Sierras carry-on size rolling bag or a rolling Porter case. So I had a compact bag that sat tight to my back and was easily taken onto a plane.
This summer I was doing a workshop for Canon up in the Eastern Sierras and discovered a brand-new camera backpack from Kata (Bogen imports them — official name Kata KT D-3N1-20 Sling Backpack). I tried it out and loved it. It was versatile, sat tight to my back and was not a bloated backpack. So recently I got one of my own and just got back from a trip using it.
I really do like this bag. This particular model is a moderate size and there is a bigger model. It can be configured as a sling bag or backpack, which I found really helpful, especially because you could use it as a sling bag on either shoulder. I like the way that you can swing it forward in front of you and access gear from openings on the side, but you can do it from both sides. So many of the sling bags on the market today are only accessible from one side and are a limitation for people who can’t put a bag on one shoulder or another. I like accessing lenses and such like this at times when I don’t feel like putting the bag down, such as on sand or muddy conditions.
The bag has more padding than I probably really need, but it is not overly padded and uses a different form of protection that really does seem to keep the camera well guarded inside. So you get protection and less bulk. In addition, the bag is not a huge wide thing, which I really liked because it makes it much easier to go through natural settings without constantly hitting your bag against things.
I did not configure the inside of the bag the way that the pictures look on the website (go to www.bogenimaging.us and use the search box for KT D-3N1-20 — the actual web address seems longer than this blog!). I usually leave my camera with a lens on it out as I am walking through an area so I don’t need it in the bag for easy access. I put the camera in the top compartment of the bag for transport. Then I configured the bottom of the bag for lenses and flash. This makes the lenses very accessible as I’m working in the field.
The whole thing also fits into my High Sierras rolling bag along with some other miscellaneous gear so that I can easily take this with me through the airport and onto a plane. For me the bag works really well.
Posted in Equipment thoughts, nature photography | Comments Off
August 11th, 2008 Rob Sheppard
Using a level in your camera’s flash shoe has always been a good idea so you can keep horizon lines straight, especially with landscape photography. I have long had problems keeping my horizons straight, so this is a big benefit (especially if you are shooting panoramics). But levels have been bulky things that stick way up from the camera. So, as much as they worked, I rarely used them because I could not keep the level on the camera when the camera went into the camera bag. Plus, they just looked awkward on the camera. So I would always try to visually level the camera comparing the top of the camera to the horizon, which didn’t always work.
I just started using a completely different type of level and find it is terrific. It is the Ross Camera Level and costs $25. This level is made to fit tight to the flash shoe. It actually looks like a flash shoe cover. You leave it that way for a horizontal shot, then you flip it up for a vertical shot. It is so tight to the camera that I can just leave it on, and I have been just leaving it on the camera. My photos are now much less likely to be crooked ( not saying that they never are — I don’t always pay attention to the level when I should, but now I have no excuse!). You can find these levels on the web at http://cameralevel.com.
Posted in Digital camera techniques, landscape photography, nature photography | 5 Comments »
August 5th, 2008 Rob Sheppard
Recently I had a question from someone who was feeling that her camera was not exposing properly. She was shooting an Olympus digital SLR, and since she knew that I used an Olympus E-3, she wondered how I dealt with that. That is a hard question to answer for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is how I meter and use a camera.
Historically, a meter reading that is +/- 0.3 f-stops is well within tolerances of cameras. I can tell you from personal experience that this is true — years ago I had an assignment and grabbed a camera that had just come into the offices where I worked at the time. It was the same identical camera (a Nikon) as all the others in the office. I should have tested it because it exposed -1/2 stop, which wouldn’t have been that bad except that I usually underexposed my color film by 1/2 a stop, so the film actually got underexposed by a full stop! Luckily, I was using two cameras and bracketing occasionally.
This is a reason why you can’t simply compare exposures among friends unless you have done tests and calibrated differences.
I love the E-3, and although I also shoot a Canon 40D (and like its capabilities, too), I often use the E-3 and I love its size. Its lenses are very good. For exposure, I use the autoexposure system in a very specific way (actually, I shoot with all digital cameras similarly). I shoot aperture priority for a number of reasons (related to depth of field and getting high shutter speeds — regarding the latter, if you choose the lens’s maximum aperture, the camera will automatically choose the fastest shutter speed possible if you are in aperture priority).
I set the display in the LCD to show me highlight warnings. I always push exposure to get the most that I can from a scene without blowing out important highlights. I always check my LCD review for this (which is why I set it to a longer time than the default setting — you can always make it go away by pushing the shutter release lightly). If I am not sure, I will check the histogram, since not every scene will show highlight warnings (especially those of lower contrast). What I want to be sure of is that I do not put the dark areas too dark and underexpose the shot — that will especially increase noise with smaller sensors like the Four Thirds sensor. On the other hand, I don’t want the bright areas too bright so that they lose color and detail.
The way I work with exposure is very fluid. Maybe because of my experience with metering systems in the past, I don’t really pay much attention to if a meter usually gives too much or too little exposure, I simply react to the scene and adjust exposure accordingly. I do find the E-3 is pretty consistent (which you want a camera to be), and exposures need little work, usually. I do find it tends to underexpose really long exposures (many seconds) — enough so that I simply keep that in the back of my mind and compensate for it.
I have never tested meters objectively (though I probably should have at times), instead relying on experience with the camera as I shoot it (I think this relates to my personality — I would have made a terrible engineer). I have never really worried too much about exposure metering systems giving a little too much or a little too little exposure as that fits within the way I meter (though I would definitely be concerned if exposure was way off by a full stop or more or if the exposure was wildly inconsistent — to be honest, I have not found that in any camera I have worked with in many years and I have handled a lot of cameras).
Posted in Digital Photo Techniques, Digital camera techniques, Equipment thoughts, Photoshop, nature photography | Comments Off
August 1st, 2008 Rob Sheppard
A challenge that many beginning photographers have is literally seeing the light. They see the subject fine, and they learn a bit about composition, so that starts to look okay, but they miss the light. The problem is that we see the world differently than the camera does. Our eyes compensate for all sorts of light and our brains so strongly see a subject that we don’t see what the camera is seeing.
To make a better photograph, we have to see the light as the camera sees it. Digital cameras really help because of that instant feedback from the LCD. But you have to really look at that LCD, not simply see if the subject is in the frame or not. You need to see what the light and shadow effects are on the subject. Is the light complementing the subject? Is the shadow helping make a better photograph? Are either the light or shadows hurting the appearance of the subject? Is the light dramatic and making the subject bold or is it harsh and making the subject look bad?
A really good exercise to help one see the light is to go out shooting with one goal — photographing light. Shoot at least 20-30 pictures where the subject is the light (and shadow). This is a challenging exercise that usually energizes photographers and makes them see the world a little differently. Look for interesting light, light effects, colors of light, shadows, light and shadow combinations and so forth. A subject can be important for the shoot, but the actual images should be of the light. Focus in on that light in your compositions and exposure.
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off
I just started working with a new program called Essential HDR that really seems to do the best job in giving accurate, natural colors from the process. I had never heard of them until they sent me a note asking me to try out their new software. I love trying new stuff, but I have no interest and little time to deal with software that does not work. Essential HDR does work and it is very easy to use, works fast and the results look very, very good. I still like the workflow of LR/Enfuse with Lightroom, but I actually think Essential HDR gives a little better results. The website for Essential HDR is at www.imagingluminary.com.
