April 20th, 2009 Rob Sheppard
If you are interested in something very special for your photography, you might consider a trip to Costa Rica. I am leading a photo tour there this summer, in July, so this is, as they say on Car Talk, the department of shameless commerce. But I do this with great love. Costa Rica is truly one of my favorite places to visit. It is a wonderful country that likes Americans and it is filled with great photo opportunities. We will be spending some time in the rainforest and cloud forest there. And of course we will be looking at how to make the most of digital photography in this place.
The rainforest is not, as many people think, something that covers Costa Rica (though it once did if the cloud forest, a higher altitude rainforest, is included). The country is very agricultural, so you drive through a lot of farmland. But the remnants of rainforest are there and pretty amazing. I love the rich diversity of plants, the really neat waterfalls, the really amazing walk through a rainforest, the incredible amazing birds and more.
You can see more about the trip at www.holbrooktravel.com/RobSheppardCostaRica2009.
Posted in Nature, Workshops and Classes, landscape photography, nature photography | Comments Off
April 20th, 2009 Rob Sheppard
There is a lot of varied information about exposure and digital photography. It gets muddled because a lot of long-time film photographers want to think like film when shooting digital.
Digital is not like film, so that thinking can get you into trouble. You cannot get your best quality from a digital file by exposing like you did with slide film, for example. You cannot get the best quality if you expose “because it looks good” rather than paying attention to how the sensor is dealing with the scene (use the histogram — be sure there is neither a big gap nor a chopped off cliff at the right side).
Underexposure is a very serious problem with digital images. It does a whole bunch of bad things:
1. Increased potential for noise (noise is in the dark areas).
2. Poor tonal contrasts in dark areas (it makes them look muddy).
3. Poor color — your sensor captures the best color in the midrange of the exposure. If your histogram is significantly above or below that, you are losing color.
4. You aren’t getting what you paid for with your camera. Your camera’s sensor works optimally when its whole range is used. When you use less than that, you are asking your camera to, essentially, give you less than it is capable of.
5. Problems with contrast. When you don’t use your sensor fully, you are using less than the full range of contrast that it is capable of. This can make dark images look dingy and unappealing rather than dark.
6. Dull prints that viewers don’t enjoy looking at.
Of course, photography is very much a personal thing and you can ultimately do whatever you want. However, if you want the best quality in digital images, expose to get that quality, then process the image in the computer to the appropriate darkness. This does not have to take a lot of time, especially with Lightroom.
I sometimes see dark images that photographers do because they like the “mood.” Yet they usually just look dark, sometimes muddy (meaning tonalities are muddled because of the underexposure) and less inviting. As a photographer, we all have to consider our viewers. No matter what we think about a photo, ultimately, there is a viewer that we want to affect (unless you only do photos for yourself).
I also go back to Ansel Adams and the classic darkroom workers. They talked a lot about white and black in prints. This was because prints never looked their best without something white and black. This is because the medium needed to have its full tonal range used or the photos would look like they were shot through a gray haze filter. Digital is like those prints. There is a craft involved to shooting digital that means watching exposure.
Posted in Digital Photo Techniques, Digital camera techniques, Lightroom, nature photography | 1 Comment »
April 20th, 2009 Rob Sheppard
A couple of things have come to me that show off quite interesting approaches to nature photography.
First is a new e-book by William Neill. Bill is a friend and a superb landscape photographer. He has long been known for his wonderful and thoughtful color nature photography. He takes a journey into classic black-and-white nature photography with his new e-book, Meditations in Monochrome. Yet this is not a retro, back-to-Ansel sort of photography. Meditations in Monochrome truly does offer a new look at nature through Bill’s discerning eye now turned to black-and-white. This is a beautiful book to go through and use for your own meditations on nature. Plus, he includes information about how he did the black-and-white work. Check it out at http://www.williamneill.com/books/meditations.html.
The second reference is Niall Benvie’s blog at http://niallbenvie.churchilljohnson.co.uk/blog/. Niall is a UK photographer. I’ve known him for a while from my work at Outdoor Photographer magazine. European photographers definitely have a little different point of view than Americans. That isn’t better or worse, just different, but I find that difference can be inspiring. Niall’s blog is not the usual nature photography blog, either. I think he has a lot of great ideas to check out.
Posted in Books, landscape photography, nature photography | Comments Off
