Nature Photography Section 6

Now we finally get to the digital equipment itself, starting with compact flash cards. Apparently, and 1-2 gigabyte card is enough for half a day’s worth of shooting. Carrying multiple smaller-capacity cards guards against card malfunction or loss, a sensible tip. If you are working without a laptop, you can offload photos onto an image storage tank to clear your cards.

This is where we start talking about photo imaging software, the best being (surprise) Adobe Photoshop. I was surprised that the author said there was very little difference between Apple, Dell, HP and other computer brands. Somehow I expected him to be an Apple guy, along with every other professional photographer. He does say to get the fastest processor you can afford. For additional security, you should have photos on an external hard drive and on DVD’s or another external hard drive at a different location.

Now for preparing images. Photos should be taken in RAW format. Once on the computer, they should be converted to either TIFF or PSD. A JPEG format will lose data in compression. Before editing, you should set the color space, either ProPhoto RGB, Adobe RGB, or Adobe sRGB. Once the color space is set, you cannot go back or retrieve the data.

When you first open the RAW picture, it will not look very sharp, but Photoshop’s many controls will change that. Changes should be made using adjustment layers. The first adjustment is usually brightness, followed by adjusting the levels curve. After that, it is color saturation.

Now you look at the overall color balance, before adjusting the contrast. Contrast can be done in three different ways, either in standard overall adjustment, shadows and highlights, or midtone contrast. The first way can lose data, and before and after images should be checked on the histogram to see how much was lost. There are also dodge and burn tools, and selective contrast adjustment, where you isolate one region that needs adjusting, without doing anything to the rest. Retouching the image can be done with a healing brush or a clone stamp tool. The healing brush is used more for blending, and the clone stamp is used for larger jobs.

File formats are different for websites, art prints, and books or magazines. Websites require only 90 pixels per inch, whereas art prints require 225, and books and magazines require 300. Once the format is done, we enter the final stage of editing, which is sharpening. Analyzing the effects at 100% is important to be sure it is not overdone. The whole thing should be examined for noise, but once you are happy you can are done. These are obviously only a few of the things you can do in Photoshop.

The only annoying part about this section is that the process the author outlines is his. Everyone does it differently, and everyone should figure out their own way. I would have preferred more of an overview of what can be done with Photoshop, rather than what his process is. He did, however, explain all of the steps that go into it very well.

Overall I liked this book. The first time reading it I found everything that was even a little bit confusing. The second time I noticed all of the obvious or useless information. I may have to read it a third time to find and actually absorb all of the important information. It is a good book, and has a lot of good information and pictures. Although I still hate the blurry pictures of animals moving.

Nature Photography Section 5

The close-up world seems to be featured in a lot of photos, and having taken, or attempted to take, macro photos, I can see how proper equipment like macro lenses is essential to take the best possible pictures. Extension tubes sound like the most cost effective alternative, but they also reduce the amount of light. Supplementary lenses don’t reduce light, but they won’t fit all lenses, making them more expensive. Then there are teleconverters, which allow close up pictures from a bigger distance, but reduce image quality. A special lens may be the best solution.

Wide-angle lenses for close up work is apparently best accomplished with extension tubes, and creates a feeling of expanded perspective. Tilt-shift lenses make the best use of depth of field, allowing the photographer to use larger apertures, and use faster shutter speeds to capture motion. These lenses can be used with teleconverters, extension tubes and supplementary lenses.

If you magnify a picture past life size, the image quality is reduced. This requires special procedures to avoid the problem. However, it is restored by reversing the lens. If the lens is reversed, just about everything must be done manually.   

Electronic flashes can be used in this kind of work, but you have to be careful so it doesn’t look artificial. This can be done in a variety of ways. Placing the lens away from the camera is one, using multiple flashes is another. Reflectors or diffusers can help make the light look more natural. Just a Kleenex is an effective diffuser.

Wild flowers are probably one of the most things taken close up. One problem here can be the wind, blowing the flowers and blurring them in the picture. A plamp can be used on the flower to hold it in place, or the movement can be used with a long exposure to create a blur of color, an effect I don’t particularly like. For portraits of wildflowers, the bloom should occupy most of the image, and the sharpest focus should be on the pistils and stamens. Shooting at a large aperture for shallow depth of field allows for a composition where everything but the subject blurs.

I found this section to actually be helpful, although much of it was about equipment and not taking the pictures themselves. There was nothing in this section that seemed particularly obvious or common sense; I actually thought this section was very good.

Nature Photography Section 4

Doing research first to find a photogenic landscape seems to me like another one of those obvious tips that I am finding more and more frequently in this book. Color being one of the most important things in finding a good landscape is also fairly obvious. He does bring visual priorities back in this section, saying that red is the attractive color, and can create a great landscape. Finding more subtle color harmonies with fog or sand dunes seems to be an afterthought, but I thought it was a good one.

Clouds really do make the difference. I have to completely agree with him on this one, the clouds can completely change a landscape, taking it from okay to amazing. Planning for interesting clouds is a little bit harder. The author says both a still, clear atmosphere and fog, mist, haze and falling snow can create amazing pictures. The atmosphere really does have a lot to do with getting a good picture.

Taking pictures at northern or southern angles allows for great sidelight, especially at sunrise and sunset, but I don’t know how much effort I would put forth to take a picture in those particular directions. A landscape may not be as attractive from those angles. Having open horizons to allow for the best light is also important, but seems like another thing that cannot necessarily be helped.

Perspective is another important part of landscape photographs. Size cues help us figure out the scale of a scene, these can include trees, animals, or even clouds. Wide angle lenses increase the perceived distance between elements, promoting a feeling of deeper space, telephoto lenses have the opposite effect. Overlapping elements in a photo also help with feelings of perspective. One thing to look for when taking landscapes is something with five planes: foreground, mid-ground, feature, cloud plane, and sky plane. These add interest and help with perspective. All of these tips make perfect sense and I have no doubt that they make for better photographs, but I will definitely have to work on actually noticing and using them when I take pictures.

The final part of this section is about nature’s mirrors, or water. I would agree that pictures of reflections are beautiful and they add a lot of interest to the photo. However, as with sitting in a blind all day to take pictures of animals, I am not sure if I am committed enough to wade into the water to get the best possible picture of the reflection. Maybe this will have to be an experiment to try during the summer months.  

Nature Photography Section 3

Adventures with wildlife is not something I have had much experience with, and I can’t say I really see myself spending an entire day waiting in a blind for an animal that may or may not show up. Getting close to wildlife, even with a big lens, is not something that seems particularly intelligent to me, and I have to say “keeping your distance” seems a lot like common sense. Only shooting animals that are okay with you being near them seems the same. I only had two other thoughts on the “Getting Close” section: I have never seen a bumper sticker that says my other car is a bird blind, and using peanut butter as an incentive sounds an awful lot like baiting, and there is probably a reason it’s illegal in national parks.

I said it about the last section, but I find the blurry pictures of animals running very unattractive. Knowing your habitats seems like an obvious tip, and the fact that wildlife activity is seasonally dependent is exactly that: a well known fact. But being on site before the sun rises is a good idea, and something that I probably would not have thought of on my own. Lowering the tri-pod for an eye level view is also a good tip, although I knew that before. As for shooting first and editing later, I can’t help but wonder what other order he thinks we might be doing it in.

The first way he suggests for sharpening your focus does not seem like it could be used in many wildlife situations. How often do you ever have time to switch your camera to manual mode and adjust the focus when shooting wildlife? And pre-focusing on a certain spot and waiting for the animal to enter it is a good idea that would take a lot of practice (just like anything else in photography), but it also assumes the animal will go through that spot. If it doesn’t, you just missed your chance.

“Making a compelling portrait of a wild animal is not as simple as it may at first seem.” This sentence scares me, simply because getting a good portrait of a wild animal did not sound simple in the first place. Using a telephoto lens to capture these images again seems obvious. Building a three layer picture space is a useful tip, though. Although I find it hard to believe anyone can truly plan these things. Wild animals don’t tend to cooperate that well.

Focusing on eye, and making sure its face is properly lit and in focus is another good tip for taking pictures of animals, but much easier said than done. I guess it just takes a lot of practice to look through the view finder and be able to tell if the animal’s face is lit properly, the eyes are easily visible, and even the whiskers are in focus, and still be able to take the picture before the animal is gone. But then everything is about practice.

Nature Photography Section 2

Essential skills. I will just start off by saying not only did I not understand this section at all the first time. I’m also relatively certain that I did not have any of these skills at the beginning of the semester, since I actually get this section now. The histogram is a good place to start. I had seen it pop up on my pictures a thousand times before, but never knew what it was or how to use it. Now I know exactly what it is, and can look at a picture I took and know about how it is going to look. It is actually a very helpful feature, although I do not use it a whole lot.

The parts on metering, priority modes (and which to use), and exposure compensations make much more sense to me now that I have had it pounded into my head that my camera sees everything as fourteen percent grey. Reading light actually made sense the first time I read it, but I have started noticing light conditions when I am outside, not even taking pictures.

Depth of field is something important for pictures, and something I have been noticing in my pictures more and more. Hyper-focal distance is something I have not yet used, but still find interesting. Designing the photo to have blur in the background and foreground is an effect that I always like, and have worked more and more on doing in my own photos.

The other type of blur is motion effects, and as much as I hate to admit it, I have to agree with Lorne, that purposely having moving animals blur just a little in photos looks bad and a lot like you messed up. I do like the rule for shutter speed, setting it to no less than the inverse of the lens length. I wish I had known that one before. The only blurred motion pictures I do like are those of running water. I think when done correctly, these pictures can look amazing.

Modifying natural light with reflectors and filters is something I have not done, but have come to see the importance of. Using reflectors to bounce light onto flowers or graduated filters to darken out the sky would have been very beneficial in a lot of my pictures. I can also see where using polarizing would be useful, though I have not tried that either. Things like color modifiers seem like they would be just as easy to do in Photoshop, but I suppose doing it that way could be considered cheating.

Now we have the most important section in the book: dominance. Red is more attractive than yellow, large draws more attention than small, light is more attractive than dark, and so on. And then of course there is the rule of thirds. This is something I always try to use. The other visual priorities are something I have started noticing in other people’s pictures as well as my own, but never notice when I am actually in the field taking pictures. I guess that is something I will have to work on.    

Nature Photography Section 1

In reviewing this section of the book, I noticed something that I did not notice the first time. The author spends the first page of the book explaining why digital is better than film, or at least equal to it. He also has a paragraph explaining how to turn film images into digital ones. I point this out simply because I think anyone buying the Nature Photography Digital Edition has probably already decided for themselves that digital is better. Anyway rereading the section on selecting the right equipment made a lot more sense the second time.

I didn’t really worry too much about the section on camera selection, since all he is explaining is that you need an SLR, which I already have. I did notice this time that he says amateur photographers don’t need to go higher than a 6-megapixel camera. I found this interesting because my D70 has only 6.1 megapixels, which is not great anymore, but it’s good to know that the author thinks my camera is “adequate”.

The parts about tripods I actually paid more attention to this time. After a semester’s worth of shooting, I have come to realize that a tripod really is essential. The first time I read the book, I thought it was a little odd that he would devote an entire chapter to the subject, but now I realize why. It is almost impossible to get a lot of shots without a tripod, and a tripod would make many other shots much easier.

The lenses also made more sense this time around. He talks about how every photographer should have telephoto converters, and lenses 300mm to 400mm. I have none of those things, and I understood why I should have them the first time I read this, but now other parts in the super-telephoto section make sense this time. I can completely see why a lens with vibration reduction or image stabilization is important; having gotten many slightly out of focus pictures with just a 200mm. Lens speed was actually understandable this time around too. After this class, I’ve realized just how important one extra stop can be on a camera, and that it probably is worth the extra thousands of dollars.

Now for my favorite parts: working in the field and winter photography. All I really have to say about the “working in the field” part is that I still have a very hard time believing that a tight-fitting floppy hat is an essential part of being equipped for the field. As for the winter photography, I still find most of the section obvious and have a hard time believing anyone would go to do a winter shoot in jeans flip flops and a t-shirt. However, I actually did learn something from the paragraph about bringing equipment into warmth after being outside. Having just faced this problem a week ago, I was glad to have an actual solution.

As for the rest of this section, I doubt if I will follow his suggestions for when to shoot where. While I am sure they are excellent places to shoot, I won’t be getting ideas for a travel destination from a photography book.

Visual Assault

I was looking at photos on Flickr this week and came across this photo in the interesting photos section. It was titled "Kiss of the Vampire Splash", and I found just the name interesting and had to click on the thumbnail to find out how it was done. The photographer doesn't explain too well, and doesn't give his real name either. The explanation was that it was single drop that was a mixture of milk, red food dye, and water. It also said it was hard to get the front of the splash to lift off, which doesn't surprise me since I have no idea how he did it. Since the top of the splash is water and only the part lifting up is red, I can't help but wonder if there is photoshop involved. He has over two hunred splashes, all of various colors and styles, and they are all amazing. He has a pretty complicated set up to do it, and it makes everything about the pictures perfect, from the color to the the clarity to the lighting.

This is the first photo I found, "Kiss of the Vampire Splash":
http://www.flickr.com/photos/38569865@N02/5129531446/

This is a link to his Flickr album "Liquid Drops" where the photos I am talking about are:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/38569865@N02/sets/72157620958636374/

This is the Visual Assault photostream, all of his photos are are amazing:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/38569865@N02/