Off the Beaten Path

Look left, look right, look up, look down. There you go, another secret revealed! There are so many great shots, especially when walking in an urban area, if you keep your eyes away from front. A little disclaimer here...you do need to watch where you walk. You don't want to bend those glasses, break a nose or crack that fast L series lens you just spent $1250 for.

Now that you've looked and found a great shot, what if it isn't right there where you are standing? I don't advocate tresspassing, but there are times you can duck into a parking lot or a semi-public area to get a shot.

Take this one for example;

I saw this while walking along the street, and there was no way to frame it from the street. This one was too good to pass up, so I walked down a driveway that was meant for off-street parking for an apartment. Not much risk there. If it were a single family home, and a private driveway, I probably wouldn't have done it. My rule of thumb is, if it were my property, would I be totally torqued to find somebody there?

Sometimes, you luck out, and things just fall into place. I was taking a bike ride, and came up to the antique lifesaving station on the beach. I've never seen a soul there before, but his time I noticed the door was open. As I came closer, I saw two guys that were doing a restoration on the building which was actually a museum now.

One of the guys was so into the job he was doing, he showed me around the building. I asked permission to take photos and he obliged. He left me to wander and of course I had to check out every inch.

These are three shots I would not have been able to get without getting inside. This is not the first time this has happened to me. I've also been inside an old mill because I was at the right place at the right time.



Here is one that looks like it could be anywhere, but was actually taken from the street.



This one is only attainable by walking three miles each way (or maybe renting a kayak).



These two are just a quick walk on the beach away.























So take off the blinders and look around. Walk slowly. Take your time to stop and "snap" the roses.

Let There be Light!

For some reason, lighthouses are one of those photographic icons that most people enjoy. It just so happens that there are four lighthouses in the nearby area, so I thought I might share them with you. This lighthouse is the Highland Light, also known as Cape Cod Light, located in Truro, MA. This light was built in 1857. At that time it sat 510 feet from the cliff. Back in July 1996, due to erosion, it was moved 453 feet to keep it away from the encroaching cliff. I was able to watch this marvel of engineering, and will say it was quite impressive.

Built in 1892, the Highland Links Golf Course surrounds the light affording players great views of the light.

I guess I need to mention something about photography here in keeping with the "photography 101" theme. Let's talk about filters. Back in the day of film shooting, if you needed a certain effect, you slapped a filter on the end of your lens. Cokin was a large manufacturer of filters, and there were hundreds!

Nowadays, most of the effects that were done with filters can now be done with software. There are a few effects that are still easier to do with filters. One is a polarizing filter. A polarizing filter can make the sky a bit more blue, and foliage a bit brighter. In most cases this can be done with software, but if you have any reflections in your image, you can manage those reflections with the polarizing filter.





















If you are up for a six mile hike, there are two lighthouses to be had. Wood End light and Long Point light. These two are on the very tip of Cape Cod. The trek starts by walking across a mile-long jetty made of huge slabs of granite. At the end of the jetty, Wood End light can be found.


This is a view of the light and the oil house. The light was constructed in 1872 to supplement Long Point light.

Long Point light was first constructed in 1826, and the current light was constructed in 1875. This light is at the extreme tip of Cape Cod.

Another hike which is 4 miles round-trip will get you to Race Point Light. This light was built in 1876, replacing the original light established in 1816.

Here are a couple of panarama shots I took. They are actually no wider than any other of the photographs, but are cropped to a 1:4 ratio. I'm hoping that I can print them to 36" wide, but for sure I can print a 5-1/2" x 22" photo.



When speaking of filters, there is one filter I really like, and that is an Infrared filter. The IR filter measures IR radiation, which is basically heat. As you can see in this photo, the results are quite a bit different than the average photo.

The healthy foliage turns bright white, and the blue sky turns very dark. When you look through the filter, you barely see anything because the visible light is filtered out.



The downside of this filter is that you need to compensate for the exposure difference. Since you are basically putting "sunglasses" on your camera, you need to slow the shutter speed down quite a bit. In fact in most cases, you will need a tripod. The reason this happens is that the Canon cameras actually have an IR blocking filter over the sensor. Since the IR can interfere with a visible light photo, most cameras block IR to some degree. The way I've gotten around it is to dedicate a camera to IR. I disassembled my Rebel XT, pulled the original IR blocking filter out, and replaced it with an IR filter. This allows me to use normal shutter speeds and can hand hold the camera for IR shots. The downside is, I can only take IR shots.

The Golden Hours

You may have heard of the "Golden Years". How about the "Golden Hours"? Technically, when speaking of photography, the Golden Hour is the hour after sunrise, and the hour before sunset. At this time, the light is optimal for landscape photography. The light has such a rich warm color at this time of day, and the shadows are low. Sure, these hours are "optimal", but you if your body rejects early morning, you can expand the golden hours to a couple of hours beyond. Up to about 9:00AM and after 6:00 PM.

These two photos were taken at 5:45 AM, 30 minutes after sunrise. As you can see, the richness of color adds to the pleasing tones. Also, the sun low in the sky, creates a great amount of detail in the sand via long shadows.





These two photos were taken at 7:45 PM, about 45 minutes before sunset.






















Technically, the four previous photos were all taken during the golden hours. Like I said, If you are "sunrise averse", you can stretch it a bit. The colors are not so rich, the shadows are not so low, but it beats the harsh lighting of mid-day.

These photos were taken at around 8:40 AM, almost 3-1/2 hours after sunrise. The lighting was very nice for both shots. The tiger lily was in the shade, but the background was sunlit. As you can see, the light in both photos is still very warm and pleasing.



You might find that you want to warm up the photo during post-processing in order to give the impression of the "Gloden Hours". There is nothing wrong with that. The job of the photographer is to envision a scene, then portray it as envisioned. Sometimes, a little manipulation is needed to create the effects that the photographer wanted to portray. Don't forget that your eye sees things very differently than a camera does. The human eye is an amazing device that has a dynamic range much wider than a photographic sensor. You need to take that into account when picturing an image in your mind.

Planning Ahead

There are Some photo opportunities that "arise" infrequently. One of those is a full moon rising. Here, you have a 27 day cycle of opportunity. Of course the weather has to cooperate as well. I have had this shot in my mind for quite some time. I visit this area once per year, and last year, the trip did not coincide with a full moon.

Knowing that this year I would have the opportunity to shoot the moonrise, I did a little research. Technically, the best day to shoot the moonrise is the day before a full moon. The moon looks full, yet there is still some daylight as the moon rises. The internet is a wonderful resource, as I was able to find that the moonrise would be at 8:12 at an azimuth of 125 degrees.

I've always pictured this shot in my mind to contain boats, so prior to having dinner in town, I scoped out the area to find a good place to set up the shot. At 8:00, I made my way to the beach to wait for the moon to appear. At 8:12, I began to search the horizon, and a very faint glow was peeking through the haze. From that point, I could walk up and down the beach to find the different opportunities for shots.

Starting out, there was plenty of daylight left to set the camera to Aperature Priority ("Av on Canon, "A" on Nikon Cameras). I set the aperature to f/2.8 which is wide open. At an ISO of 200, the camera set the shutter speed to 1/320 sec. A good rule of thumb for handholding a camera is to set the minimum shutter speed to the reciprocal of the focal length. In this case, I was shooting with my 70-200mm zoomed out to 200mm. As a result, I need to keep an eye on the shutter speed to be sure it does not fall below 1/200 sec. After about 5 minutes, the sky was darkening enough to lower the shutter speed to that threshold.

I set the camera to Shutter Priority ("Tv" on Canon, "S" on Nikon Cameras). I set the shutter speed to 1/200 sec. As the time grew later, the sky was obviously getting darker. As the camera set the lens' aperature to its maximum opening of f/2.8, the photos were beginning to become underexposed. My only choice in this case was to bump the ISO up to 400. If you remember the discussions on tradeoffs, you will recall that the tradeoff of ISO is noise. I was able to shoot until just after 8:30 before I decided to change positions.

Another shot I had in mind was to pair the lighted Pilgrim Monument with the full moon. Again, I planned ahead and scouted the cemetery with my GPS to find where I would need to position myself to find the moon at 125 degrees along with the tower. It just so happened that I could get this vantage point from the small church at the top of the hill. This is a shot I had hoped for, but wasn't sure could work.

Post-Processing Part II

OK...where were we? Right...we adjusted the exposure of the demo image. The reason I was able to make such drastic changes are two-fold. First, I shoot everything in RAW format. Second, the Canon 5D MkII has an amazing dynamic range. Depending on the level of camera you have, you will experience different ranges of control over your edits. That is why I cannot stress enough that if you want the most control over your photos, you MUST shoot RAW. Most all DSLRs and some higher end point & shoot cameras will support RAW formats.

When shooting in jpeg, the photo is compressed to save space, and much of the data is lost. RAW format is the actual data that the sensor records without any compression or loss of image quality. There is of course a tradeoff...my 5D MkII records a file size of 21Mb to 30Mb each. That can fill up a memory card (or hard drive) quickly. The funny thing is, I am changing my shooting "mentality" back towards when I shot film. When Shooting film, I would always be sure that before I took the shot, it was worth the expense of the film. Now, I think about whether it is worth the expense of space to take the shot.

OK, back to the demo photo. Here is where we left it:

Now that the exposure is close to what I would want, It's time to crop. Remember the Crop Post? I'd like to focus in on the opening that looks through to the Bay. I also like the blue plaque on the wall, so I want to keep that in the shot. Another component of a crop, is to always anchor the subject. That is if you are showing the entire subject. If you are shooting a detail, this "rule" does not apply. In this case, the bottom of the photo must show the anchor point of the building and columns. Can't have the building floating in mid air. My crop choice is shown here.

Usually, in my workflow, the very first thing I start with is white balance. I want to make sure the colors are correct before moving on. In the case of this photo, the white balance is pretty much dead-on, so I didn't mess with it. I've since changed my mind. To me, this photo is too cool. No, not the "hey Daddy-O", or "Arthur Fonzerelli" cool, but a slight bluish or "cool" cast. This photo shows a warm inviting body of water, and green bright foliage that should portray warmth. I can change this by changing the color temperature of the photo by changing the white balance. One way to do this is to change the white balance mode to "shade" or "cloudy". This will warm up the photo slightly. I will do it manually to taste by moving the temperature slider towards "warm". Here is the shot warmed up from 5300K to 6000K...and that is Kelvin, so it is an actual temperature measurement (don't ask me, I don't get it):

Doesn't it feel more inviting?

The final thing I want to change here is to try one more trick (remember I mentioned this in Part I?) to bringing up the water in the background. Photoshop Lightroom has the ability to change the luminance (brightness) and saturation (color depth) of individual colors. I chose the water in the background, and reduced the luminance so the exposure is effectively reduced. I also increased the saturation which basically turned it "more blue" Here is the result:

One thing you may notice is that the photo is a little bit cooler due to the increased blue saturation. There are a few small edits I might make here based on taste. I could warm it up slightly to compensate for the blue shift, and I could also decrease the saturation of the greens to reduce the intensity of the bushes. At this point it is all personal taste.

Just as a reminder, here is the original photo we started with:

Post-Processing Part I

Post-Processing. There are entire books written on this subject. How do you narrow down this plethora of information to manageable chunks? Well, I'll start by asking; do you like it RAW? I sure do. Get your mind out of the gutter...I'm talking about your file format! If you are serious about your photography, you better be recording in RAW format. Leave jpeg to snapshots and family photos. Set your file format to RAW, and you will have as much control as possible when manipulating your images. What? You're not manipulating your images? This is worse than I thought.

The best way to approach this topic is to explain my workflow, and go through it step by step. Of course, you need to establish a workflow that works best for you.

I will use a single photo, and show the transformation of the photo from capture to finished product. Let's start with the photo directly from the camera:

This photo is the basis for the workflow demonstration. As you can see, the shot is slightly crooked, which by the way is a huge pet peeve of mine. Nothing bothers me more than when I see a seascape that is slanted. It looks like all the water should be running off the edge of the page. I've seen professional photographers selling crooked photos! Do these people not look a their own work! Whoa! Sorry about that, I got a little carried away.

Being underexposed, there is very little detail in the shadows. The good news is, the background is not blown out (overexposed). I'd also like to tighten the crop up some. Finally, the photo is a bit cool, and I'd like to warm it up.

Before I start, I have to say that I am making these edits on a laptop with a screen that is not calibrated. I would ususlly be doing this on my home computer which I keep calibrated. Since I'm away from my office, I'm hoping you are getting some semblance of a proper exposure.

OK, first thing I do, after sorting through hundreds of photos, is to pick a few that might end up interesting. Sometimes, you'll find a diamond in the rough. A shot that as-is may not be all that spectacular, but after some finessing, you can end up with a very nice photo.

Since I use Adobe's Photoshop Lightroom, which I highly reccommend by the way, I'll be referencing the commands available to me with this software. In many casses, similar commands will be available to you depending on the software you are using.

To see what kind of details and exposures I'm working with, I will sometimes start with lighting. That way, if a photo is too far gone, I'll drop it right away. In many cases, I'll crop first if the lighting is a no-brainer. In this case, the lighting is suspect, so I'll go there first.

Since I'd like to bring back the detail and color in the water, I'll start by sliding the "Recovery" slider to the right. This lowers the exposure of the highlights. You can see it brought back some of the detail, but not as much as I'd like.

In this case, I'll drop the exposure of the entire shot enough to bring the water to where I want it.
You can see that the entire photo is now well underexposed, but the central area is where I want it. What I'll do now is enhance the shadows using the "Fill Light" Slider. Remember, since we are shooting in RAW format, all the information in each pixel is there, we are just bringing out the best in each one.

OK, now this is starting to look really funky. By now you are asking, "Does this guy really know what the heck he is doing?" Now that you mention it, I guess I never really did say I knew what I was doing. This photo is now very washed out, and beginning to take on an HDR look. For those of you who don't know what HDR is, here is a search on flickr.

Finally, I will add in some of the Blacks using the "Blacks" slider.

This is still showing up on my screen as pretty dark, so i'll mess around with the sliders a little more to get it where I like it. You won't usually get a photo with this much contrast to come out the way you want without some trial and error. In fact, that is what makes Photoshop Lightroom ideal for photographers. All the edits you do to your photos never change the original file. At any time, you can go right back to the original and start again. It's called non-destructive editing, and as far as I'm concerned ints one of the best things that's ever happened to digital photography. Again, I digress.

Here is the same photo in a form that I am happy with at this point. As you can see, I had to sacrifice some detail and color in the water since there is only so much you can do with the lighting that you have. Don't fret though, I'll show you what other options we have to address this issue.



There is quite a bit more to do to this photo, so I'll save that for later.

Metering

What is metering? Well, it's kind of a long story. Your camera is not all that clairvoyant when it comes to exposing a scene to your liking. The bad news? The camera tries to expose the scene, any scene, to a neutral gray. This is known as metering. The good news? You have some control over what the camera is "looking at" when it tries to meter the scene.

"Neutral Gray" may sound a bit strange when talking about color photography. Think of it as exposing to a medium density if the scene were evaluated in black & white. It is trying to find the middle point between the shadows and the highlights, and expose accordingly.

I will use this scene with extreme contrast to show the effects of each mode. The round portion of the white post is in the very center of the scene. This will matter on some of the modes. The scene has a bright white fence, a black mailbox, and the green leaves are near-netral. These ranges will show reasonably clearly what is happening in the exposure. The scene was shot in Aperature Priority set to 4.0 and ISO 100. The camera will calculate the shutter speed based upon the metering mode selected.

Your camera (at least Canon cameras) have four metering modes. These four modes can help you to expose a scene to how you envision it. The four modes are:

1. Evaluative Metering:

With evaluative metering, all the pixels in the entire frame are averaged, then exposed so that the average value is neutral gray. As you can see in the example, the scene is exposed pretty well for as "contrasty" as it is. The shutter speed was set to 1/250 sec. by the camera.

2. Center Weighted Average Metering:

This is similar to Evaluative Metering with a bit of priority on the center of the scene. This mode is probably the best for all-around shooting. The other three would be used for specific situations. In this case, the shutter speed was set to 1/200 sec. This indicates that the average of the pixels in the central area of the scene are slightly darker than the average of all the pixels in the scene. Thus, the slightly brighter exposure to compensate.

3. Partial Metering:

With partial metering, the exposure is based on the central 8 percent of the pixels in a round pattern. You can see that the round white area of the scene is driving the exposure. This photo is dark because it is trying to expose the white fence post to neutral gray. The camera set the shutter speed to 1/640 sec.

4. Spot Metering:


Finally, there is spot metering. It is nearly the same as partial metering, except that the "spot" is smaller. About 3.5 percent of the central area of the scene. Again, in a round pattern. In this case, it is likely that all of the white post fell into the "spot". The camera set the shutter speed to 1/800 sec.

Now that you know all this, how will you use it? Here is a real-life example: This is a nearly impossible scene to expose. It is an extremely dark foreground and a very bright background.


Using spot metering, the scene is extremely dark because the camera is exposing to the center (very bright) portion of the scene.

Here is a trick when spot metering: You can expose on one part of a scene, press the exposure lock button (it looks like an asterisk), then reframe the scene. For example, in this photo, I exposed for the darkest section which is near the front door. As you can see, it didn't work out well, but it does show the effect.

I then chose evaluative metering, then a bit of post-processing to end up with this final image: