Photo Tips and Stories (Page 17)

My Morning wildlife photography in Shenandoah National Park usually involves being where I expect to see wildlife when there is just enough light to start being able to see wildlife. The goal is to find a subject and be in position, ready to photograph, when there is just enough light to do so. The situation was golden on this particular morning. Very early, I found this nice-sized 9-pt buck tending a doe and worked into ideal position as the sun peaked over the horizon, giving me perfect low and warm light from my back.
 
The buck was looking great and the frost on his back and antlers was a bonus. I went to work, but promptly ran into a full buffer on the Canon EOS 5Ds R I was using. The 5Ds R buffer typically clears fast, but unfortunately, this full buffer took a very long time to clear. I didn't put a timer on it, but ... what seemed like an eternity was probably (rough guess) 10 minutes.
 
In those 10 minutes, I lost a significant number of images. What happened?
 
The problem started the night before. I put the 256GB SDXC card in my laptop and decided to quickly delete images I knew were inferior. The goal was to re-gain some capacity on the cards and to reduce the load on the redundant backups next on the to-do list. It is always risky to delete images directly from the card, but ... I was being careful – and apparently feeling bold.
 
After making a quick pass through the images I had time to review prior to bedtime and completing the backups, I put the card back in the camera. Having run into the buffer issue before, I took a short burst of images to ensure that the camera was working properly. However, in the morning, that burst proved too short.
 
At a high level, when files are deleted directly from the card using another device, the camera performs organizational maintenance before writing new files and, in this case, that maintenance took a very long time to complete. I've encountered this problem before, but with the test capture, I thought I would be OK in this regard. If doing as I did, capturing a burst long enough to trigger the organizational maintenance routine while still at home/in the hotel is very highly advisable. The best plan is to not touch the images written to a memory card and simply format new cards being used in the camera.
 
While I went away with many nice images of this buck, the frost melted quickly and I definitely left some good images in the field.

A larger version of this image is available on Flickr.

While this image was created to illustrate one of the unique capabilities of the lens being used, I thought I'd share the process behind creating the wedding ring, Bible, love verse and heart shadow photograph.
 
Obviously, to create an image similar to this, you need a ring and a book. Most large books and round rings can be used, but a wedding ring is the most common type of ring photographed and the Bible then becomes a very appropriate book for holding the ring. Note that if the ring is not round, creating a heart-shaped shadow immediately becomes more difficult, if not impossible. The heart-shaped shadow is not required, but ... it too is very appropriate for a wedding ring photo.
 
Love is the strong theme we are building on here and 1 Corinthians 13:4 is a favorite verse for this theme. While all Bibles will have this verse in them, not all Bibles will have this verse in an appropriate position on the page.
 
Getting the ring to stand up without a form of adhesive is another challenge. Doing so is easiest with some curl toward the inside of the pages, supporting the ring higher on its sides. The amount of curl also influences the heart shadow's shape.
 
This verse is closer to the end of the Bible than the beginning, meaning that there are more pages to the left than the right, creating unbalance. This makes creating the curves needed for the ring to sit in the pages somewhat more challenging, a challenge I met with a pair of A-clamps. My ill-designed-for-photography clamp jaws were red and required some black gaffer tape to eliminate the red showing in reflections on the ring. Reflections such as this are easy to miss when photographing, so be sure to check images of reflective subjects carefully.
 
Creating a shadow with an obvious shape requires hard light. This means the light source must be small in size relative to the source of the shadow. The smaller and farther away the light source is, the harder the shadow will become.
 
The right angle of the back-lighting is necessary to create the heart-shaped shadow in front of the ring. Aligning the flash with the crease between the pages will create a symmetric-shaped heart (if the pages are equally curved). The higher the flash, the shorter the heart. Figure out what works best for your composition.
 
Try handholding the flash and moving it around until you see the results you want. If using E-TTL and the camera's self-timer, the pre-flash will give you a preview of the shadow and give you a moment to adjust it prior to the picture being taken. Simply test-firing the flash will also help accomplish this task. Once you know where you want the flash positioned, fix it in place.
 
There are a million methods of holding a flash in place. I happened to have a lens box the right height at my immediate disposal and ... I simply used it. The box was not an especially secure option, so I had to be careful.
 
I wanted a hard shadow, but I didn't want the image to appear harshly lit. Since my working space was tight, I went high-tech with white copier/printer paper reflectors. I gaffer-taped one piece under the lens and another over the flash. Because rings are reflective, the paper reflectors were especially helpful in illuminating the front of it.
 
Bibles have a lot of pages and the pages are usually made thin for a compact and light overall book size and weight. Thin pages can become somewhat transparent and other print may bleed through the page being photographed. You can put a white paper under the pages, but that does not keep the print on the reverse side of the page being photographed from showing and this strategy potentially increases emphasis on that print. Find a Bible with thicker pages if you feel this issue is negatively impacting your results. The light bleed-through I encountered did not bother me.
 
I was reviewing the Canon TS-E 90mm f/2.8L Tilt-Shift Lens, a superb product photography lens, and was looking for an interesting subject. Especially with its macro capability combined with the tilt movement, this lens can draw a viewer's eye to the intended subject and to illustrate this ability, the ring image concept shared here worked perfectly. Tilting the lens fully upward (10°) permitted the camera to be used at a relatively high position while creating a shallow slice of in-focus area that nicely encompasses the ring and its heart shadow along with the verse intended to be emphasized.
 
When one views this image, their eye is instantly drawn to the in-focus subjects.
 
Here is the setup:
 

 
The Canon wireless flash system made this lighting setup very easy. Hopefully you "love" the result!

While I didn't create this image with the WPPI show in mind, the timing seems appropriate.

A larger version of this image is available on Flickr.

This bull elk was in full rut, was not in a good mood and he was looking for some cows to steal (could be a Charlie Daniels song). This is an un-cropped image captured with a 600mm lens on a full frame body and under many circumstances, I was waaaay too close. What you can't see in the frame is both a Rocky Mountain National Park ranger directing visitors and vehicles and my rental SUV between the bull and I.
 
The meadow at Moraine Park is closed from late afternoon until morning and that means most photography opportunities in that location are then found alongside the road. That also means heavy competition for viewing positions when elk are present and finding a parking spot can be challenging at those times. A 4x4 vehicle with some clearance is helpful in accessing the more challenging parking opportunities (think rocks) and the rangers are also helpful, and especially helpful is preventing people from stopping in the middle of the small road, which of course still happens and creates long traffic jams. Increasing my safety were the people more "bold" (being nice here) than I.
 
At the moment this picture was taken, this solitary bull was about to cross the road. The ranger parted the crowds and I took cover behind the SUV. Because the meadow is lower than the road, the bull had been lower than camera level. While good images can be made from a higher level, eye-level is often ideal and that height was reached as the bull approached the road.
 
A catchlight in the eye adds life to an animal and that light usually comes from the sun and/or sky. There was no sun at this time (it was dark and rainy), but the more-upward angle helps to get a stronger sky reflection, lighting up the eye.
 
I could not adjust my position and was using a prime lens. That meant this subject was going to be cropped in the frame. While I like having the entire subject in the frame, I also like tightly framed portraits. Full subject framing of wildlife is usually easier to accomplish and when tighter framing avails itself, especially with an animal like this one, I usually take advantage of that opportunity.
 
When cropping a subject, there is often a variety of creative options. But, I most often want the eye in the frame. Keeping the head in the frame is often a next priority and ideally, giving the subject some space on the side of the frame being faced (the gaze weights that side of the frame). In this case, my next decision was determining how to adjust the vertical framing and more or less antler was the question. I find antlers very interesting and opted to go big on the antlers, smaller on the body. However, I left enough body showing to send the back line and a portion of the body out the left side of the frame and kept enough space below the chin to include the reverse-curving lines of the beard.
 
In this case, the elk's head, the primary part of the animal, falls approximately on the intersection of the right and lower 1/3 grid lines. The photographic rule of thirds often works well for composition, but ... I more frequently first approach composition from inclusion/exclusion and balance perspectives. What I find is that the rule of thirds can frequently later be applied to my results.
 
In general, the tighter the framing, the faster the shutter speed needs to be. For an image to be tack sharp, the exposure duration must be short enough that no details cross over to another pixel. It was dark out and I wanted to keep the ISO setting down. The 1/320 second exposure used here was a compromise and I tossed many images from this encounter due to motion blur. In the end, this was my favorite image from the series.

A larger version of this image is available on Flickr.

Upon seeing this image, what was the first word that came to your mind? Does the dictionary-present "Aw" stretched to "Awwwww" count?
 
Being tame, this adorable 1-day-old fawn had zero concern with my presence and that opened up the opportunity to capture some unique-perspective close-up images. When it became obvious that she was going down for some solid sleep time (about the only time fawns become motionless), I swapped the Canon EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM Lens for the Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM Lens and moved in close. The close perspective emphasizes the fawn's head, ears and hoof, making them appear large in proportion to what is farther away. As those are especially cute parts of this little animal, that perspective works well.
 
Having a still subject was only the first challenge solved and several others remained. Shooting under a high tree canopy created several additional challenges for this capture. First, it was rather dark at the ground level. Second, the backlit, light-spring-green-colored hardwood tree leaves created a green cast on the scene. And, as the breeze moved the branches, spots of direct sunlight was intermittently hitting the subject, causing bright hot spots in the image.
 
Using a monopod braced against my leg allowed me to shoot at a relatively-long 1/25 second shutter speed, addressing the darkness challenge. The color cast had to be removed during post processing and I had to revisit the color balance adjustments over a period of time until I grew comfortable with the result. I may change my mind about the color adjustments tomorrow. The last challenge was resolved with careful timing of the moving shadows, avoiding most of the hot spot problem.
 
As is so often the case with photography, the effort was worth the reward.

Hopefully the sleeping fawn brought a smile to your day! A larger version of this image is available on Flickr.

Getting one wild animal in ideal position for a photograph is challenging and getting multiple animals simultaneously-posed definitely ups the game. Especially when using a long telephoto lens, depth of field becomes one of the challenges. I love the subject-isolating shallow depth of field look created by these lenses, especially when used at their widest apertures, but keeping that look with multiple animals in the frame further increases the challenge. This bull and cow elk in the Moraine Park meadow cooperated very nicely for me.

A larger version of this image is available on Flickr.

The Cathedral Parish of St Patrick is one of my favorite churches and I previously shared an image of its ceiling captured at 12mm. While I liked that one a lot, I wanted to see what the same scene looked like captured at 11mm.
 
Can a 1mm difference in focal length make a significant difference in an image? Absolutely. While a 1mm difference is meaningless at 400mm, it is substantial at extreme wide angles and the difference between 11mm and 12mm is very noticeable. Of course, wider is not always better and sometimes 12mm is a better choice than 11mm. If you must decide between these two focal lengths, keep in mind that an 11mm image can be cropped to 12mm framing. Cropping of course results in reduced resolution, but going the other direction requires panorama capture and that becomes especially complicated when mixed with an HDR technique as was required by this image.
 
While it seems that going into a church and photographing straight up would be easy, this image was very challenging to capture. Getting the camera alignment (nearly) perfect was the big part of the challenge. The camera had to be perfectly centered in the scene, directed straight upward and aligned square with the architecture. Any misalignment meant that certain aspects in the scene would not match throughout the image, such as the bottom of the arches being equally aligned with the designs painted on the ceiling.
 
A slight misalignment makes it appear that you didn't do your job correctly. Intentionally framing the scene so that it is not close to square saves a lot of effort. Challenges are fun, but those not wanting to make that effort should consider the latter.
 
If you don't have the very-fun 11mm focal length covered in your kit, the Irix 11mm f/4 Firefly Lens is an inexpensive option that performs very well.

Take advantage of an Irix Firefly $50 instant savings promotion (or save $125 on the Blackstone version) at B&H | Amazon | Adorama.

A larger version of this image is available on Flickr.

I previously shared a picture of a mother white-tailed deer cleaning its fawn's ear that remains one of my personal Big Meadows, Shenandoah National Park favorites. But, there were twin fawns and when the second one arrived on the scene, pausing for some family ear cleaning time, I was ready. Many hours can be spent searching for wildlife subjects, but it only takes a few minutes with the right subject in the right situation to put a pile of great images on a card and this encounter was one of those.
 
Some aspects of this image that I like include: The early morning light was warm in color and soft in shape, leaving no hard shadows on the subjects. The background and foreground were colorful and the fine pattern of the spring-green grasses, rendered mostly out of focus and framing the subjects, was void of distractions. The left and right-positioned deer were both facing inward and all three deer are interacting. For each subject, at least one eye was showing with a catchlight included. Of course, the cuteness of a fawn is always a sure win and, usually, the more fawns, the better.
 
Especially in Shenandoah National Park, where obstructions are plentiful, I frequently opt for the Canon EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM Lens over the Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM Lens for wildlife photography. While I love the background separation 600mm can create, getting everything in the frame is sometimes more important. Unless feeding or sleeping, white-tailed deer fawns are seldom still and the zoom ring is much faster than anyone's sneaker-zoom capability. When the fawns move in too close or I need to avoid obstructions while keeping them in the frame, having a range of focal lengths can make a huge difference.
 
You are probably aware that I use Canon EOS 5Ds R cameras for the majority of my photography. I'm addicted to the sharp, ultra-high resolution imagery along with the great color these cameras deliver. But, when the action gets fast, I turn to the Canon EOS-1D X Mark II and fawns often warrant the faster frame rate advantage this camera provides.

A larger version of this image is available on Flickr.

Getting a lens for the ones you love makes a lot of sense at the time of the year just past (Christmas just passed in case you are reading this later) or any time of the year, really. But, getting a lens because of the ones you love is another great idea.
 
I have never heard anyone say that they had too many pictures of their kids. If your kids are still at home, photograph them like crazy. Time flies – they will not be with you for long. If your kids are coming home, be ready to do the same.
 
Visiting with your parents? Getting together with friends and other family members? The same advice applies.
 
The chances are that even those who claim to hate having their picture taken will be glad you pressured them into it.
 
Few lenses are as well-suited for photographing people as the Canon EF 85mm f/1.4L IS USM Lens, especially because the 85mm focal length provides an ideal perspective at normal portrait working distances. The image stabilization feature in this lens makes it even more capable in that role, especially when the light goes dim.
 
Your skills aided by this lens are sure to make even the most difficult subjects look their best, including under very challenging lighting. Performing well the first time usually means the second time is more likely to happen.
 
That photographing people is one of the easiest paid photography jobs to find is certainly an attraction for this lens. Portraits of specific individuals cannot be found in stock libraries and, in the marketplace, unavailability adds value. Of course, earning money helps to justify the purchase in the first place.
 
Get this lens for your family and friends, for capturing treasured memories of them. Get this lens for gaining clients and for keeping them happy. Get the Canon EF 85mm f/1.4L IS Lens for you.
 
While I expect that you would love the 85 f/1.4L IS, even if you don't get this lens, I still strongly encourage you to photograph those you love with the lens you have. That you will not regret.

The Canon EF 85mm f/1.4L IS USM Lens has been hard to find in stock since it first hit the streets, but it has just arrived in stock at B&H, Amazon and the Canon Store. It is coming soon to Adorama and WEX.

Not convinced that this lens is for you? Or, want to spend only a short time enjoying it? Schedule some quality time via Lensrentals.com.

A larger version of this image is available on Flickr.

Mikayla wanted to go riding and I wanted to give the Sony FE 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 GM OSS Lens a workout. Those "wants" fit together perfectly. For this session, we headed to the top of a nearby small mountain. With an unobstructed view and a low camera position, a very attractive, non-distracting background often becomes available in these "top" locations and that enables the primary subject to become prominent in the frame. The sky usually makes a good background and distant landscape also works well in that regard.
 
The 100-400mm focal length range is a great one for chasing the kids with. In this case, when the horse was standing as seen here, I could move in close and zoom out to make the horse and rider appear large in their environment. When the horse was moving at a fast speed, I could zoom in to catch more-distant (safer) action and zoom out as the pair approached.
 
The FE 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 GM OSS Lens is a great and much-needed part of Sony's lineup. Those with Sony-based kits should seriously consider acquiring this high-grade option (if it is not already there). This lens has the perfect combination of excellent performance and extreme usefulness.

A larger version of this image is available on Flickr.

I love images featuring patterns and textures and thought I would share one today. One way to find patterns is to look for large numbers of a similar subjects (practically anything qualifies) that are close together or can be moved close together.
 
Subjects for pattern and texture images can be found anywhere, including in:
 

• Sand and stones on the beach
• Plants
• Trees
• Clouds in the sky
• Kitchen cabinets (salt or pasta, for example)
• The candy isle
• Frequently in abundance in craft stores (such as large packs of colored pencils)

What are your favorite texture and pattern subjects? Let us know in the comments!

A larger version of this image is available on Flickr.

I was literally "in the field" during the Tamron 18-400mm VC Lens evaluation when this scene availed itself. The sun had set, the sky took on great color and the foreground seemed scenic enough. This lens has an incredible range of focal lengths available, so I simply needed to select the distance that gave me the compression I was looking for and adjust the focal length to retain the desired elements in the frame. That was easy.
 
Still, two significant challenges remained. The first was the huge dynamic range and the second was the color balance disparity. Those two issues were resolved by HDR processing. One image was captured for proper exposure of the sky while a second image was exposed brighter and processed with a warmer color balance for use in the non-sky portion of the image. The HDR processing utilized Photomatix along with some manual adjustment in Photoshop.
 
I jogged/walked close to 3 mi (4.8 km) on this afternoon and the Tamron 18-400mm and Canon EOS 80D combination in a Lowepro Toploader Zoom 50 AW (a snug fit with an L-bracket installed) was easy to have along. The 18-400mm focal length left little to want in terms of angles of view. The Really Right Stuff TQC-14 Tripod and BH-30 Ball Head performed stellarly despite the very cold conditions and these were also easy to carry.

Please note a couple of corrections made to the Tamron 18-400mm VC Lens Review: This lens is indeed compatible with the Tap-In Console. Tamron has suggested that I reinstall my software to make the lens recognizable. Also, I tweaked the focal length discussion to mention focus breathing.

A larger version of this image is available on Flickr.

Have you heard of Oxbow Bend in Grand Teton National Park? That answer is most likely "Yes!" Oxbow Bend is a mandatory bucket list location for any photographer remotely interested in capturing landscapes. Aside from being incredibly beautiful with a potentially huge mirror surface in the foreground waiting double that beauty and create vertical symmetry, you can drive up to this large area alongside the Snake River and photograph with little or even no hiking involved. The imagery to effort ratio is potentially huge.
 
This is not the first image I shared from this morning and place (and I have more favorites yet unshared). But, with ever-changing cloud patterns, new scenes were continuously presented and a huge range of focal lengths could be utilized to isolate only what is considered positive to the composition. On that latter note, at the time this image was captured, I was having trouble determining what should be isolated. After capturing a variety of images, I opted for a 2-image panorama framed to include the most of the amazingness in one pair of images. I figured that, after creating the higher resolution stitched image, I could later decide what the final crop should be.

This pic needs to be viewed larger: Flickr, Google+, Facebook and 500px.

Former Pennsylvania Gov. William Cameron Sproul built this little hydroelectric plant in 1915 to supply his home with electricity. Sitting above a waterfall on Adams Creek in the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, this historic stone water wheel house is individually photogenic and especially-so with its picturesque surroundings. Obviously, this photo was captured in the winter, so I'll share a few thoughts on ice photography.
 
Cold Temperatures Required
 
Obviously, for ice to form, the temperature must be cold. While cold temperatures make us want to stay inside, ice is a great subject to pull us out of our comfortable houses. Note that, even after a long cold spell, a single warm day can degrade the ice formations in some locations. If there has been a period of below-freezing temperatures, don't wait to take advantage of the ice. Check out the Cold Weather Photography Tips page before leaving home.
 
Water is Required
 
Along with cold temperatures, ice requires water to form. Thus, ice is found where there is water. While that also may sound trivially-basic, start thinking about locations that have water, including non-obvious ones. Or, consider creating your own ice.
 
Make Safety Paramount
 
Ice can be extremely slippery and it is a very hard surface to impact upon falling. A thick stocking hat with a thick folded-up rim can keep you warm and add a little protection to what matters most, though a helmet is a better idea in certain scenarios. Other thick clothing can also offer impact protection. Micro-spikes or crampons along with other ice-climbing supplies (and the training to use them) may also be required in the more extreme scenarios. Be careful out there.
 
Snow Changes the Appearance
 
Snow tends to stick to ice. While snow can be at least as beautiful as ice, if photographing ice is your goal, snow may cover your subject, turning everything white. Time your ice photo sessions so water has frozen before the snow falls or after water has sufficiently frozen over a prior snow fall. Also, look for vertical ice that snow cannot cling to. Of course, mounds of snow covered ice surrounded by water are great to have in a scene.
 
Snow Confuses Auto Exposure
 
Bright ice and snow consuming a significant portion of the camera's selected metering area will cause the camera's autoexposure algorithm to underexpose the image. The amount of underexposure can vary, so learn to watch the histogram and compensate the exposure for a brighter result. Enable the camera's blinking overexposure warning and adjust the exposure so that only a small number of the brightest pixels are blinking to get a typically-best exposure.
 
Find Interesting Ice
 
While ponds and lakes can have interesting ice to photograph (and methane bubbles are always calling us landscape photographers), flowing water tends to create more-unique shapes (including bubbles), with falling water creating some of the most-interesting stalactite and stalagmite formations.
 
Back to the safety concern: combine rapidly moving water freezing at angles with the slipperiness of ice and the safety risk factor grows. Also, while non-moving water tends to freeze to an even thickness and safety can often be discerned (permitting ice fishing, ice skating, snowmobiling and other activities), moving water tends to freeze unevenly and can be risky to walk over. Always use caution if traversing over ice.
 
Make Ice Secondary
 
While ice can make an excellent primary subject, it works especially well in a supporting role. Finding a great waterfall is an easy example of this strategy. Consider taking your portrait subject along to photograph in front of or beside the ice formations.
 
The ice photo shown here incorporates many of these tips. While waterfall photography often works best on a cloudy day, this shoot was secondary to another one and I had to accept what the day delivered. Fortunately, I liked the color balance difference provided by the sunlit (warm) and shaded (cool) portions of the image.

A larger version of this image is available on Flickr.

The sound of a bull elk bugling is music to my ears and I followed that music to locate this big boy in the dark. As soon as the Moraine Park meadow opened that morning, I was on my way to find this bull and that move proved quite productive.
 
While the golden grass in the meadow provides a photogenic, non-distracting base for an image at any time of the day, it is lighter in color when frost-covered and other colors take on a stronger contrast at that time.
 
Not so photogenic was this bull's right eye. He had apparently been injured in a fight and the camera-facing eye was not very attractive-looking. Obviously, I fixed that problem.
 
When I'm selecting down images, I'm constantly watching for issues in those selected for keeping. When an issue is found, I look for the fix in an image captured just before or just after the selected image. The issues I'm referring to here are many, including not-optimal subject framing and blinking as common ones.
 
With frames of the bull facing the other direction captured in the take, I was able to find one that enabled me to copy the eye, flip it horizontally and integrate it into my preferred image by pasting it in, transforming it (rotating in this case) to match the original eye and masking out the unneeded portion of the copied image (most of it). The portion of the eye that was repaired in this example is small, but without the flesh showing, the image is far more attractive (especially since our eyes are drawn to subjects' eyes).
 
The astute in the crowd have noticed that the horizontal pixel dimension in this image exceeds that of a Canon EOS 5Ds R image. Using the same image the eye fix was taken from, I manually stitched some additional border onto the left side of the frame by matching the details in the grasses and then blending the transition to offset the slight brightness difference caused by peripheral shading.
 
If the subject is important to you, don't worry about taking too many pictures. Not all will be optimal and having too many great images is a desirable problem.

Click on the image to view larger. Get the backstory on this image and learn about the gear and settings used here: http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Pictures/Picture.aspx?Picture=2017-09-26_09-50-42