My Garden Poppy

I have written before that I love our garden. Its beauty is amplified every year as plants mature and its natural canvas becomes more complex and vibrant. We have been very lucky this year to have had an early start to the growing season. We live at 7300ft above sea level where the conditions are more harsh than they are in town a mere 1000 feet lower. We need all the help we can get.

It’s almost Mother’s Day and these photographs remind me of a gift I gave Donna a few years ago on her special day. It was a book on gardening written by authors that live near Colorado’s front range. I bought it not only for its beautiful photography but also because it had a wealth of information about growing lavish gardens in Colorado’s harsh soils and arid climate. Fortunately, Donna is a fast learner and she created the garden you see in the photograph below. Interestingly enough, my gift to her has now become a gift for me and my camera’s lens!

Orange poppies screaming for attention

The long evenings of summer present a ripe opportunity for me to relax in the garden with my camera. The scene is ever changing and the potential compositions are endless. Especially with a macro lens. While admiring the garden last night, I saw our orange poppies calling out for attention and grabbed my camera. Since the skies were overcast and the daylight was waning, I decided to use my Canon Speedlite flash to create the light I needed for the photograph. With my Canon 5D Mark III equipped with a Canon 100m f/2.8L macro lens on a tripod, I composed my shot and used wireless radiopoppers to fire my Canon 430EX flash remotely off camera. I just set the flash to manual, dialed it down to 1/64th power, and held it with my hand at various distances and angles until I got the lighting effect I wanted. I paid particular attention the the direction of the cast shadow and how it added a three dimensional look to the poppy.

As for the camera settings, the wind was blowing gently so I used a shutter speed of 1/200th of a second to freeze the detail of the poppy as the flash fired. The depth of focus is very shallow with a macro lens so I used an aperture setting of f/7.1. This allowed most of the center of the poppy to be in focus, which was my intended center of interest for the photograph.

Watch your step!

As I mentioned in my bluebird post, I have become more aware of the beauty around me since taking up photography. While walking on our property this evening, I noticed these little white wildflowers nestled in the prairie grass. Yes, those are blades of grass projecting between the petals of the flowers. In much the same way as I did with the photograph of the poppies, I grabbed my camera and used my flash to kick light onto the flower. I was careful not to use too much light, which would blow the detail out of the soft white petals. My goal was to capture the intimacy of the flower’s relationship to the grass and call to attention something that may easily go unnoticed.

Our first flowers of 2012 shot with a Zeiss Distagon 21mm lens

I admit that taking a close up of our first spring flowers is not quite the broad sweeping landscapes I usually like to shoot with my wide angle lens but it proves an important point. It proves that the extra $1,000 I spent on my new Carl Zeiss Distagon 21mm f/2.8 wide angle lens was worth the money. Why? Because it allows me capture higher quality original images that can be output at larger sizes without having to jump through flaming post-processing hoops. Although the issues I cover in today’s post are not likely to bother anyone that publishes web resolution images, they will rear their ugly heads when images are displayed at higher resolutions.

My stock wide angle lens is the Canon 17-40mm f/2.8L. At $779, it is a very capable lens that I have used to capture some very nice images. What’s more, it is relatively light and is built to last. So what is my beef with the lens? Well, I have become increasingly frustrated lately with  image quality when creating large format prints. In addition to minor vignetting and distortion issues, the chromatic aberration introduced by the lens is irritatingly problematic. What is chromatic aberration? In a nutshell, it is a type of distortion in which there is a failure of a lens to focus all colors to the same convergence point. Chromatic aberration makes itself evident in photographs as “fringes” of color along boundaries of dark and bright parts of an image. What does it look like and how do you control it? Read on.

The Zeiss Distagon 21mm f/2.8 and the Canon-17-40mm f/4.0L

To illustrate what I am trying to overcome in image quality, I took two photographs of the lovely crocuses in our garden. One photo was taken with the Carl Zeiss 21mm and the other with the Canon 17-40mm. The images were recorded with the white balance set to daylight and the f-stop at 8.0. Since the Canon is a zoom, I set it to 21mm to mimic the focal length of the Zeiss prime, which is fixed at 21mm.

Starting at the left, look at the first two image slices below. The slices represent the original images that were captured by my Canon 5D Mark II. As the labels indicate, the Zeiss image is on the left and the Canon image is in the center. Even without clicking on the image to see more detail, you can plainly see the problem. The Canon-based image has a garish purple fringe around the crocus petal that I can assure you does not exist in life. As shown in the image inset, at lower resolution you cannot see the fringe. But at a 400% magnification as shown below, or even 100%, the fringing is quite evident and would need to be addressed if the image is to be printed in a large format.

Chromatic aberration screaming on the Canon 17-40mm f/4.0L

The Zeiss-based image contained no chromatic aberration whatsoever. I also noticed that the overall image is “warmer” than the Canon image and contained a much richer spectrum of color and contrast. Frankly, this result should not be all that astonishing. The Zeiss lens is a prime lens. Primes are known to exhibit higher image quality than zooms. And, at over $1,000 more than the Canon, the Zeiss should be better!

So what if you don’t want to pop another grand for the Zeiss? Well there are options. If you shoot your images in RAW format, which I highly recommend, you can use Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) plugin to remove the Lion’s share of the chromatic aberration in images. ACR works in tandem with Adobe Photoshop and other image software programs like Adobe Lightroom to help you “develop” Camera RAW images.

ACR contains lens profiles that can be selected to correct for optical and chromatic distortion. As you can see in the image below, I was able to remove the chromatic aberration in the Canon-based image by simply selecting “Enable Lens Profile Correction” in the Lens Correction tab in ACR. ACR automatically picked the right lens and applied the profile correction!

Correcting chromatic aberration with Adobe Camera RAW

Despite the miracle of ACR, I still prefer shooting with the Zeiss lens to control chromatic aberration. Simply put, I would rather start my post-processing workflow with the cleanest image possible. Although ACR does a great job of correcting for chromatic aberration, the base image still suffers a loss in quality. If you look closely, the remnants of the purple fringing are still present in a desaturated form. There is a light grey outline around the petal. Now look at the petal in the Zeiss-based image. There is a much nicer and color-rich transition between the background and the petal. Plus, the overall color representation is much more pleasant in my opinion.

Ok, I know I am splitting hairs here but that is part of the fun for me. I am interested in the entire process of photography. Sure, making great photographs starts with the eye of the photographer, but it cannot be denied that the quality of the equipment and post processing techniques carry a fair amount of weight in the the final quality of the photograph being made.

Sunset at Cape Arago, Oregon

After making photographs of eagles in Klamath Falls, we made a four and a half hour trek by car to the beautiful Oregon coast. We had originally planned to drive to Crater Lake but found out that the area was already inundated with snow, which made access to the lake impractical without proper planning. So, as an alternative, we set our sights on Coos Bay, which is a town of about 16,000 people on the Oregon coast.

Driving from Klamath Falls to Coos Bay, Oregon

We chose Coos Bay for its beautiful tide pools and the photographic bliss that they provide. Since we were only staying one night in Coos Bay, we needed to arrive in time to catch the setting sun. As planned, we arrived at 3pm, checked into the hotel, and asked the helpful lady at the hotel where the tide pools were. She gave us a map and circled an area 20 minutes away called Cape Arago. Equipped with our location, we threw our bags in the room and headed out to the Cape in hopes of finding a good location for late day photographs.

Photo location - Be careful!!!

Once we arrived at the Cape with about an hour to shoot, I frantically looked around for the best location and discovered it was down toward the tide pools. Reaching the pools required me to climb down a relatively steep natural embankment. I went down the embankment because I don’t like shooting down on my subjects. Shooting on a relatively level viewing plane allows me to put the viewer in the middle of the action and make a more interesting photograph.

Well, with 25 pounds of gear on my back and slightly wet soil, you guessed it, I slipped on the way down. I did not end up in a tide pool thank goodness but my wrist is still a little sore from catching myself. Not knowing how the tide behaves in this location, I stayed high enough to keep clear from the waves as they came came rolling in. Be very careful when scouting locations like this. It is easy to get hurt so don’t take chances!

Tide pool entrance at Cape Arago, Oregon

The photos above are what I ended up with for my efforts. I processed the images to my liking to emphasize the colors of the rocks and water. To get the effect of the waves moving, I used a multi-stop neutral density filter, which allowed me to extend the exposure time and create the smooth-ish water texture. I just experimented with several exposure lenghts to get the effect I wanted. Once home, I used Photoshop plugins Nik Color EFX Pro 4 and Viveza 2 to work the contrast and color to create the final photographs.

Sleepy morning in Coos Bay, Oregon

The next morning we drove around Coos Bay looking for interesting subjects and found this boat getting ready to go out for the catch of the day. It would have been nice to hang out for a few more days and work some more on the tide pools. Rain was on its way though and we had a date with Mount Hood, which was five hours north.

So, up next will be my shot of Mount Hood. It is not an award winner due to weather but I was able to check it off of the list and see some of Portland!

Have a great week!
Lee

Bald Eagle in flight at the Klamath Falls Wildlife Refuge

For the third installment on my trip to Oregon, I will discuss my attempt to capture eagles in flight. The shot above, which was the best action shot of the trip, took some practice including visiting a local high school basketball game to hone some skills.

It becomes a little mind numbing when you consider all of the variables that are in play when trying to make photographs of wildlife in action. Here are just a few that crossed my mind:

• What is the quality of the light?
• Which direction will he fly?
• Is the camera set up to focus properly?
• What position will his wings be in when I snap the picture?
• Is the shutter speed fast enough to freeze the action?
• Is the aperture setting high enough to get the entire bird in focus?
• Is the aperture low enough to blur the background?
• Will the background be interesting?

Maturing Bald Eagle on telephone pole

The action photo at the top started out as the photo directly above. OK, an eagle sitting on a power line pole is not the most beautiful of all settings. You have to admit though that it is still pretty cool! As an aside, this eagle does not look fully matured. If you look closely you can still see little brown specks in his crown. For comparison, look at the eagles in the nest below. Their “bald” heads are well structured and pristine looking.

Eagle flight sequence - 420mm, ISO100, f/9.0, 1/640 sec

As soon as we saw this bird on the pole, we parked the car and got out to take a few photos. It is always good to get something on the card because you never know when they are going to fly away. We then approached very slowly by foot, continuing to take pictures along the way. This eagle was pretty tolerant so we were able to get reasonably close before he started to show signs that he was ready to fly off.

My shooting modes for eagle in flight

When he started to look a bit restless, I switched my Canon 5D Mark II to shoot in AI Servo Auto Focus mode and Continuous Shooting Drive mode. AI Servo Auto Focus mode continuously keeps the subject within center focus point in focus…even if it is moving. Sweet! Further, Continuous Shooting mode keeps taking pictures as fast as the camera can until the shutter button is let go. These modes apply to Canon DSLRs. Just look at your camera’s manual to see if these or similar features are offered on your camera.

Now, take a look at the sequence of flying eagle shots above. These are the shots I was able to make using the method I described. As I got too close for his comfort, the eagle launched off of the pole, descended toward the ground, and swooped back up. As you can see, the first shot I got was when he made a turn and began climbing. I have to admit that it is pretty exciting to be a photographer at this point!

Tracking the eagle's eye with the center focus point in viewfinder

As soon as he launched, I steadied my lens and put all my attention on tracking his eye with the center focus point as smoothly as possible. The whole time, I had my finger pressed on the shutter, which snapped pictures as fast as the camera would record them. You cans see that the continuous shooting capability is important for getting the wings in the right place. It would be near impossible to snap a single picture at just the right moment!

The Canon 5D Mark II is not an overly fast focusing or high frame rate camera. It can shoot about 4 frames per second compared to an astonishing 12 for the newly announced Canon 1DX. For a few thousand bucks more I can solve that. I have to say though that I am very happy with the results considering that I got a very clear, well focused shot of this eagle. It’s quite gratifying actually.

Nesting Bald Eagles at the Klamath Falls Wildlife Refuge

To wrap up, here are a couple of shots of nesting eagles that we found at the refuge. This was quite a sight. As you can see, the nest is huge and yes there are eaglets in there! This was one of the few shots where I got mom and dad looking up. Most of the time the lower eagle’s head was buried in the nest tending to the eaglets.

Nesting eagles up close - Just had lunch?

I would have loved to have had a longer lens for this shot. It is hard for you to realize how far away these birds actually were. Considering the distance, it is quite amazing that the camera and lens could resolve this much detail! I had a blast making photographs of these birds as they are truly captivating. It is not hard to comprehend how their beauty and majestic stature inspired my country to name them as its national symbol.

Next up is Coos Bay and Cape Arago on the Oregon coast! Thanks as always for visiting and have a fabulous weekend!

Immature Blad Eagle on a fabricated perch on the refuge

Canon 5D Mark II with Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II lens
ISO 100, f/7.1, 1/800 sec, 420mm (with 1.4x II teleconverter)

For parts two and three of my series on Oregon, I will highlight my time in Klamath Falls and what I learned about making pictures of eagles in the wild. To prepare for the trip and the task, I spent a fair amount of time researching wildlife photography on the Internet and practiced shooting moving subjects at a local high school basketball game. I can’t tell you how valuable the time at the ballgame was in achieving satisfactory results on my trip. Using that experience, I ended up capturing a very nice eagle in flight, which I will share in my next post.

A map of where we were chasing eagles

Lesson #1: Look for the best light

What? Looking for eagles was not the first and most important thing to do? Well yes…it was..but making nice photographs for me has everything to do with having good light. Sure, you can capture eagles in any light for documentation and research purposes, but a shot will always be made better in good light. For example, look at the shot just below. It was the first eagle shot of the day. We immediately noticed two problems with our approach. First, there was a car ahead of us that kept pushing the eagle to the next perch down the way. As you can see, this made the distances too far for the focal length of our lenses. I will cover that in lesson #2.

The other problem was the orientation of the sun to the subject. The sun was mostly behind him. You can tell by looking at the shadows on the perch. Since eagles seem to sit with their backs to the sun, all we were going to get from our first approach were darkened silhouettes. What did we do? Well, we turned the car around and drove around the lake and came in from the other side. It allowed us to get much closer and provided much better light to illuminate the bird. As evidence, the shot at the top of the post is what we ended up with. You can see from the shadows that the sun was now behind me, which put our eagle in full and beautiful sunlight. Much better!

An eagle too far and in not so good light

Lesson #2: Your lens will probably never be long enough

Although I deem my results acceptable, I wanted a longer lens almost the whole time I was in Klamath Falls. That said, the lens I took with me is very nice. It is the Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II. The optical quality if this lens is unrivaled in the professional Canon EF lineup and it performs exceptionally well when paired with Canon’s 1.4x III teleconverter. Since I was shooting with a full-frame Canon 5D Mark II, the lens with the teleconverter gave me 420mm of reach. That may sound like a lot until you try making pictures of birds high on a perch or a tree. Restless birds no less. The closer you get, the more likely they will fly farther away. Bummer!

As you can see from the photograph at the top, when the conditions were right the results are amazing. Even with the teleconverter, the Canon 300m f/2.8 is an incredible piece of glass. Literally no chromatic aberration and incredible resolving power. I bought the 300mm primarily for photographing larger wildlife like elk, lions and giraffes. In fact, my primary purpose for owning it is to take it to Africa next year. For that use, I think it will be perfect. For birding, however, the rule of thumb is to buy the highest quality and longest lens you can afford. I am not sure if and when I will go longer. My penchant for the best gear available will set me back five figures for a longer lens. I am not sure I am willing to make that commitment right now. In the mean time, I will use and love the 300mm for its intended purposes.

I overcame the focal length deficiency with patience. We parked the car and then very slowly moved toward the bird in stages…taking pictures as we went. Some birds were more temperamental than others. We just had to proceed with caution and hope for the closest shot possible.

Snow-capped volacnic peak from the Klamath Falls Wildlife Refuge

Lesson #3: Keep an eye on your lens and exposure settings

When first starting out in photography, I can’t tell you how many times I shot pictures at the wrong settings. I remember once shooting a bunch of landscapes in broad daylight at an ISO of 1600. They were the settings from the night before while shooting a concert! For that reason, I have made it a ritual to check all settings before embarking on a new outing. Here are a few things to consider when setting your camera up for photographing eagles:

• Are your lens buttons in the right places? - Super telephoto and zoom lenses have buttons that enable faster focusing at various distances. The Canon 300mm f/2.8 has three lens focus ranges. If you are shooting subjects in the distance, make sure the 6m to infinity setting is enabled. It will allow for the lens to focus faster, which will come in very handy if the bird launches and you want to catch him in flight! Also make sure image stabilization is enabled if you have it. The Canon 300mm f/2.8 II has four stops of stabilization. That allows for much clearer handheld images at longer focal lengths. This feature is worth paying for and proved to be invaluable on this trip.

The array of buttons to consider on the Canon 300mm f/2.8 II (Source: Canon Manual)

•  What ISO setting are you going to use? – In broad daylight, it was pretty easy to use an ISO of 100 and get the shutter speed and aperture settings I wanted. An ISO setting of 100 will give the cleanest image from a noise perspective, especially when you have a clear blue sky as a background. If skies had been overcast, I may have picked an ISO of 400 or higher to make sure the shutter speed stayed high enough to not only capture perched birds but also birds in flight.

Immature bald eagle getting ready to launch

• What about shutter speed and aperture? – As a general rule, your shutter speed should be at least equal to your focal length to minimize unwanted camera shakes. This means that if you use a 300mm telephoto lens the shutter speed should be at least 1/320th of a second. Of course, lens- or camera-based image stabilization gives you leeway here but it is always a good idea to your shutter speed in mind when trying to reduce camera shake. The shot above was at 1/1000th of a second. This was plenty considering I also had image stabilization going for me as well. As far as aperture is concerned, make sure you pick an aperture setting that keeps the subject in focus while allowing the background to blur if that is the look you are going for. Keep in mind that longer focal lengths further reduce the field that will be in sharp focus. Settings of f/5.0 and f/7.1 seemed to work well for me. To be sure, I always preview my shots on the camera’s LCD at maximum magnification to make sure what I am shooting is in sharp focus. I always focused on the eagle’s eye. The eye is where most people look first and will make the greatest initial impression. Much like photographing humans!

A convenient perch for a Bald Eagle

Lesson #4: Have fun and take in the moment

As soon as I knew I had a few winners under my belt, I reminded myself to stop obsessing about the quality of my pictures and just enjoy the moment. Chasing eagles is not something I do everyday. I love the image above of a lone eagle perched atop a dormant tree. The serenity and solitude of that moment is something I will remember for a long time. This picture will remid me of it. Taking and committing to memory the beauty of the surrounding landscape and incredible wildlife amplifies the meaning of my photos when I bring them home. It allows me to transport myself back to the time and place they were taken and relive the moment all over again. What’s better that that?

The wetlands of the Klamath Falls Wildlife Refuge

My next post will feature a Bald Eagle in flight and nesting eagle in a natural setting. I am quite happy with them and I hope you will return for the next leg of this adventure!

Take care,
Lee

Last light at the Great Sand Dunes National Park

Please click here to see the full size panorama

Sometimes you need to bring home a panorama to fully express what you saw in life. Today’s photo is one of those occasions. A vast expanse of pristine valley gives rise to towering 13,000 plus foot peaks while unbefitting sand dunes lay bathed in the day’s last light.

It is hard to imagine anything more perfect. After meandering the pathways of Alamosa’s National Wildlife Refuge, my son and I returned to the Great Sand Dunes just in time to capture the long shadows and vibrant colors that the sun graciously provides in the last few moments of daylight.

We stood there in complete silence as as the sun set, patiently waiting for the day’s best light. It was so quiet, we could have heard a pin drop. Then it happened. The valley floor came alive with color as the falling sun articulated the the peaks and valleys of the dunes and the majestic landscape of the Sangre de Cristo Mountians.

Standing in the presence of such beauty with my son at my side reminded my of how blessed I am. I am very lucky that my son and I share similar interests. He has the same passion for life as I do and we often talk about how hard it is to fit it all in. For this reason, it is good to get away from our daily routines from time to time and pursue what we truly love. On occasion, it is exhilarating to live in the moment and free ourselves of the average day’s unrelenting distractions.

Pano detail of Mt. Herard

This panorama, taken with  my Canon 5D Mark II and a 100mm prime lens, was stitched from six six portrait-oriented images using Photoshop’s Photomerge feature. The camera settings were ISO100, f/8.0 at 1/50th of a second. To minimize alignment issues and ensure the images were captured perfectly level, I used a panning base and nodal slide from Really Right Stuff (shown below). The panning base, which mounts to my tripod’s ball head, allows for easy leveling and silky smooth panning of the camera.

The Really Right Stuff panning base and nodal slide (Photo source: Really Right Stuff)

The nodal slide (long bar on the panning base) allows me to easily mount the camera in either landscape or portrait orientation and slide the camera back so that the optical center of the lens is positioned directly over the axis of rotation. The axis of rotation is therefore at the midpoint of the panning clamp, which is mounted on the center of the tripod’s ball head. See the photo from Really Right Stuff below.

Really Right Stuff Pano Elements Package (Photo source: Really Right Stuff)

Why all the fuss? Well, the setup allows for easy leveling and also eliminates image parallax by positioning the optical center of the lens over the point of rotation. In a nutshell, image parallax occurs when near and far objects don’t align in overlapping images. Although it is not as big an issue with distant landscapes like today’s image, if you happen to have prominent subject matter in the foreground of your panorama, it’s essential to eliminate image parallax to make sure everything aligns properly during the stitch operation. If you would like to know more about parallax, just jump on over to the explanation on the Really Right Stuff site here.

Panning zone (shown in landscape orientation)

Oh, while shooting the panorama, I just make a mental note of where the center focus point is relative to the landscape in the viewfinder…take the picture…and then pan the left of my next frame to that point. This gives me a 50% overlap for the successive images for flawless stitching in Photoshop. The figure directly above shows the panning zone as if looking through the viewfinder in landscape orientation. I usually shoot panoramas in tall portrait orientation to maximize the pixel height of the image. Just look for that center reference and pan accordingly in either orientation.

To give you an idea of the actual resolution of this image, right-click the image below and open in a new, full resolution window. The final pano shown at the top of this post is a crop of the original set of shots that I captured. All totaled, the full resolution original panorama is just over 200,000,000 pixels!

Full resolution panorama section

Portrait of a Christmas Tree

I thought I would spread a little holiday cheer today by sharing a portrait of our Christmas tree and giving some detail on how I took the picture. Donna loves decorating for Christmas so I decided to honor her by taking a photo of her work. My goal for the photo was to capture the warmth of the room and show how it is transformed for the holidays by our brilliantly lit tree.

The permanent lights in the room provide a good baseline of light for the portrait but it is not enough to make the photo and subject come alive. To do that, I needed the help of my Canon Speedlite strobes. As you can see from the diagram below, I used three strobes to complete the lighting for the scene.

Christmas tree lighting setup

The main light

The main light, which is the diffused beauty dish in the lower right, was there to light the tree. “The tree is already lit,” you say? Well it is and it isn’t. Although the tree is covered with a ton if bright little white lights, I did not want them to overpower the tree and render the non-lit areas into a dark shadow. In essence, I wanted the green of the tree branches to be light enough to be seen when balanced visually against the bright white lights. Think of the beauty dish as a fill light that lights the actual tree before the small white string lights are “burned” into the photograph during the exposure.

The background light

In much the same way a portrait is taken, I used a light to separate the subject (tree) from the background. On this strobe, I used a Honl Speed Grid to focus the light on the background curtain. The grid helped me to keep the strobe light from spilling onto the entire wall, which would create unwanted and distracting shadows. It also helped me direct the light exactly where I wanted it, which was to the left of the tree. I think this light creates some nice depth in the photograph and serves to reinforce the tree as the focal point of the scene.

The stair rail light

To keep the left of the photo from becoming a black hole, I used another strobe to throw some light on the stair rail and garland. I literally held this strobe with my hand as I snapped the picture.

Strobe color temperature

To make the strobe light color balance with the room lighting, I put 1/2 “CTO” gels on all of them. A “CTO” gel, which is orange, converts a daylight-balanced strobe light to tungsten (or incandescent) colored light. This means that we can turn our strobe into a normal light bulb as far as light color is concerned so it harmonizes with the permanent lighting in the room. Pretty cool, huh?

Camera settings

This is where it comes together and gets fun! In order to get all of the lights to work together, I needed to get the camera’s exposure settings dialed in. The aperture, or opening in the lens, primarily impacts the contribution from the strobe lighting. The shutter speed, or length of time the camera’s sensor is exposed to light, impacts the contribution from the ambient lighting. The ambient lighting includes the permanent room lighting and lights on the tree itself.

Let’s start with aperture. I used an aperture setting of f/8.0 at 50mm, which was the focal length of my prime lens. A setting of f/8.0 provided enough depth of field to allow the entire tree to remain in focus while allowing enough light in from the strobes when they flashed to illuminate the tree, stair rail, and background.

Keep in mind that when after a strobe flashes, it is done contributing to the exposure. They quickly go on and quickly go off. In an extreme example, if you flash strobes in a completely dark room, you can keep the camera’s shutter open for a long time without over exposing the photograph. That’s because the strobe would have flashed and lit the scene and then went off — leaving a completely dark room. The shutter could stay open without the photo getting any brighter. Get it?

So, in our scene, the longer I kept the shutter open after the strobes flashed, the more ambient light I allowed in to increase the brightness of room. I was rather nonscientific about this. Having set the aperture to f/8.0, I just experimented with progressively slower shutter speeds until I got the balance I was looking for.

In the end, I settled on 1.3 seconds. So, when I clicked the shutter, the strobes flashed first to provide my effect lighting, and then the shutter stayed open a little while longer so the camera’s sensor could soak up the ambient room lighting.

There are many ways to accomplish results in photography and the best way to advance your skills is to learn through experimentation. There are a bunch of reasonably priced small strobes on the market that you can use to learn strobe photography. It is a lot of fun to study lighting for photography and even more fun to try it. In the end, you may be taking your own family portraits at home!

Chinon, France on the Vienne River

I thought I would have a bit of fun with today’s images of Chinon, France by processing a few of them in a way that makes the town look miniature. These photographs were taken while Donna and I toured the Forteresse Royale du Chinon last September. The images overlooking the town are particularly well suited for miniature processing. Basically, if you have an image with a high point of view, like looking down on a model, you can apply a few processing techniques that fools the brain into thinking it is small. I will talk about that later in the post.

Chinon’s castle is perched up on a hill next to the Vienne river. There has been a castle on the site since the 10th century, when Theobald the Trickster, Count of Blois, built a tower there. In 1154, Henry II Plantagenet, Count of Anjou and King of England, set the fortress on a course to its present grandeur. The castle recently underwent several years of restoration work, which included a complete rebuild of the roof. The project, per the castle’s website, cost $14.5 million Euros, which is about $20 million US dollars. Portions of the chateau remain in ruin but that is part of the charm and serves to amplify its heritage and historical importance.

Château Chinon

Vienne and looks down on the old town of Chinon. I was fascinated by the visual impression of the town and the cluster of steeply pitched rooftops. In the photo below, you can see the glorious random arrangement rooftops attached to perfect little French houses. I am sure scenes like this have inspired animators for years since the view reminded me of something right out of a Disney movie. I really love the unspoiled look of this town from above. No satellite dishes or annoying remnants of modern day to be seen anywhere. A photographer’s dream!

Chinon's village as seen from Château Chinon

Above and below, you can see the difference that miniature post processing makes. Just click the images to see larger versions. If we fake the look of macro photography on a full scale image, the brain believes the objects in the image are small. This is an interesting exercise in fooling the brain by exploiting what it already knows. If you think about it, this can be a very powerful concept in painting as well. We are used to seeing small things photographed in a certain way so, when we process an image in that way, the brain interprets what it sees with that bias in mind. No pun intended!

Chinon village without miniature processing

I used a Photoshop plugin called OnOne FocalPoint to process the miniature effect seen in the images of the town. You can download a free trial if you want to give it a try on your own image. You can also achieve the same results manually in Photoshop but the FocalPoint interface makes it very easy to get the effect right out of the box.

Miniature post processing with OnOne FocalPoint 2.0

Basically, all you have to do is use the “Planar” version of the Focus Bug in the application to blur the foreground and background of the image. The amount of blur is adjustable. You can experiment with different settings to achieve maximum fakery. The processing mimics the the shallow depth of field of macro photography, which is used to photograph small objects. It is also a good idea to pump up the saturation of the final image a bit to make it like more like a model than real life. I did not go too far with these because I wanted to preserve some the natural details.

Château Chinon and the French countryside

Above, you can see where some of the castle still in ruin. You can also see the beautiful French countryside and the Vienne river. We could also see vineyards from the castle. Per Wikipedia, though typically thought of as lighter wines, reds from good producers and strong vintages can be full bodied and well structured for aging. Chinon inspired whites are composed primarily of Chenin Blanc and are typically described as dry, soft, light, and clean.

A vineyard as seen from the Chinon castle grounds

I have been buying French reds and whites since our trip and they are fabulous. I have heard and confirmed that 2009 was a very good year for French wine. I rely heavily on our local wine expert to help me pick good wine. It has been fun to pick up wines from the areas we visited on our trip to France.

Clustered rooftops as seen from Château Chinon

I hope you have enjoyed this brief look at Chinon in the Loire Valley. I also hope I am not trying to cover too much ground in these posts. As you may have guessed, I am passionate about travel, art and photography and want to drop something in these posts for everyone! Have a great Sunday!

Lee@ADNW

Boathouse in the Loire Valley

What could be more perfect than a boat tied to a quaint little boathouse with flowers everywhere and no swing set in the back yard? The beautiful scene above is one we ran across while visiting Chateau Azay-le-Rideau in the Loire Valley. As I crossed the bridge, I was instantly drawn to the near perfect composition of elements. If you are attracted to a scene, there is probably a good reason. I highly recommend you stop for a second to try and figure out why. Once you do, the trick is to get the camera to see it the same way you do.

Along these lines, the original color photo (shown below) is almost too much. Although beautiful, the camera sees everything in the scene with the same intensity, which makes it a little overwhelming. It is like getting whacked over the head with a color sledgehammer. So, because I was originally attracted to the boathouse, I processed the photo in a way that would draw the most attention to it.

The original photograph

First, let’s address cropping. In my view, the boathouse fits nicely in the left third of the photograph. If you are not familiar with the Golden Ratio, you can read a quick primer that I wrote a while back HERE that my help. It is basically the rule of thirds with a little math thrown in for good measure. In addition to being able to position the subject near a third, it’s also nice that there are a number of converging lines that also draw our eyes to the subject.

After cropping with the concepts above in mind, I ran a black and white conversion on the photo with an Adobe Photoshop plugin called Silver Efex Pro. After the conversion was done, with a click of a button, I ended up with a new black and white layer on top of the original full color layer containing the original photo.

Showing the layers and painting with mask to bring back color

At that point, I used a layer mask in Photoshop (shown above) that allowed me to “paint” in the color from the layer below. The black/dark areas in the mask layer in the upper right of the layer palette are where the color is being let through from the photo below. Looks complicated but it really isn’t.

In much the same way I paint, I tried to focus the most color and detail around the subject. If you look at the final image at the top, the flowers are more saturated the more you move toward the boathouse. Also, the vignette mutes some of the peripheral detail so we can focus more easily on the subject. Photos like this can be processed a million different ways and it is great fun to experiment to try and achieve your artistic vision. Give it a go!

The Prince's Palace of Monaco

The last leg of our trip to France took us to the French Riviera. Although we stayed in Nice, we took took a local bus to Monaco for a day. Getting to Monaco, and all the other towns on the French Riviera for that mater, is really easy. From Nice, we walked early to the bus station to catch a 9am bus, paid one Euro each, and took a 45-minute ride to Monaco. The bus stops at the other towns along the way and can be quite full. Just plan ahead, go early, and most of all, enjoy!

Each town along the Riviera has its own flair and Monaco is worth the stop. From the impressive Prince’s Palace to the stunning ocean views from atop the city, you will be astonished by the density and beauty all wrapped up in one place. To be honest, it kind of reminded me of Hong Kong. A The buildings are stacked like legos all the way up the hill and cars buzz up and down the streets with great intention.

To capture the essence of what I saw, I felt a high resolution panorama was in order. The photo below was taken as Donna and I walked up to the Prince’s Palace. As you can see the area is filled with buildings, hilltop vistas, a Palace, and a place to park your multimillion dollar yacht.

Click on the photo below to see a mere fraction of the total resolution of the panorama. The full image is about 25 feet wide, over 650 megabytes, and contains more than 109 million pixels! How did I do that? Well, I flipped the camera into a portrait position (tall orientation) and rotated with a 50% viewfinder overlap as I took a total of 11 images from left to right. The goal is to stay as level as possible as I rotate and snap the pictures. A reasonably fast shutter speed is important to eliminate camera shake as the images are taken. The shots for this panorama were taken at zoom level of 50mm (minimizes distortion), 1/320th of a second (eliminates camera shake), and an aperture of f/9.0 (keeps things near and far in focus).

View of Monaco while walking up to the Prince's Palace

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD FULL RES IMAGE (12MB, JPG)
(If viewing in browser, be sure to click image again to see full size)

The trick to pulling off a nice handheld pano is to plan ahead. Using my Canon 5D Mark II, which is a 21.1 million pixel camera, I first set the white balance to daylight. If left on auto white balance, the camera may shift the color temperature of the individual images as I pan across the sky, making it very difficult to get a consistent color temperature from left to right once the full image is stitched together.

Another thing that is critical is picking an exposure that will work across all the images. This is where the camera’s manual settings come in handy. Basically, I had to meter the entire scene with the camera’s built-in light meter and pick an aperture and shutter setting that would give a good exposure for the entire scene. As you can see in the photo, the sky is darker on the left and the landscape is darker on the right. I needed an exposure that would expose the buildings properly on the left without blowing out the sky on the right. A little tricky but once you get the hang of it you will have no problem dialing in acceptable settings. Be sure to check your histograms to make sure you have good exposures after you shoot. If not, adjust your aperture up or down and try again!

The $200M Lady Moura next to a cruise ship

This is where it gets fun. The photos above and below demonstrate how much resolution there is in the panorama. They are clips from the full resolution panorama showing the private superyacht, Lady Moura. In the full pano, the yacht is next to the cruise ship toward the right side of the panorama. As of 2011, Lady Moura is the 24th largest yacht in to world and is owned by by Saudi Arabian businessman, Nasser Al-Rashid. The yacht, which was the 9th largest when it was launched in 1990, cost a reported $200 million to build. The escutcheon seen on the rear of the yacht is carved in 24-carat gold and the yacht is tendered by an on-board helicopter. You can see the landing pad in the photo below with a yellow circle on it. He must be out grabbing a gallon of milk at the local convenience store.

Lady Moura at full resolution from large pano

The photo below shows the building density in Monaco as well as how the buildings look at full resolution. It is quite fun to explore these high resolution images after I get back from trips!

Monaco: Densly populated but beautiful

So, how do I stitch them together? Well, I use the photo merge feature in Photoshop. There are other tools you can use to accomplish quality photo stitching results but I use Photoshop because I own it. A word of warning. You need a pretty high powered computer to stitch images this large. I use a Mac Pro Quad-Core with 20 gigabytes of RAM. That may be overkill but the system has no problem putting the images together in a reasonable amount of time. Nice!

Another Monaco pano showing the Prince's Palace of Monaco

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD FULL RES IMAGE (12MB, JPG)
(If viewing in browser, be sure to click image again to see full size)

The panorama directly above was taken from the Jardin Exotique de Monaco. It is a botanical garden located on a cliff side in Monaco. Donna and I walked all the way to the top of the city to get there, which was exhausting. We could have taken the bus but we were sure it was “just around the corner” for about an hour. The views from the garden are breathtaking and it was worth the exercise. As you can see. the location provided a nice view of the palace and surrounding area. Below is a full res clip of the palace. Pretty amazing, huh!

Prince's Palace at full resolution

Finally, below was a series of houses we saw on our way up to the garden. We were sitting on a bench taking a break when I noticed the fanciful decoration on them. Each was unique and meticulously restored. For this image I had to zoom out a bit and take five pictures to get all of the subject matter. The wide zoom is what has created the distortion in the image. I think it makes for an interesting image and provides a pretty good record of what I saw.

Monaco homes showing stunning individuality

Thanks for enduring this long post. I hope you find it helpful when thinking about taking panrama images for your portfolio. They can be quite rewarding and I highly recommend you give them a try sometime.

Have a great weekend,
Lee@ADNW