landscape photography musings

August 4, 2010

Moving Water Photo…how slow to go?

BW slow moving water

I was out at sunrise at one of my favorite Sierra rock water locations and the water was moving very fast. My camera was set up on the tripod and favorite images were being created. The question I have been asked many times is what shutter speed to use on moving water and my answer is how do you want the water to look? The choices are tack sharp with water drops in the air stopped in motion, wavy unreal ribbons of smooth white velvet or something in between? In most of my images I usually prefer the long exposure smooth look. To achieve this look the exposures are between 5 seconds and 30 seconds depending on how fast the water is moving. I use one or two three stop neutral density filters to help the camera get to these exposures and sometimes I even add a polarizer to made the exposure even longer. To make your job easier shoot on cloudy days or before the sun rises or sets as the sun on the water makes it very difficult to get to those long exposures in addition can add contrast problems into your images. I have included a few images as examples.

Now go make some images!

Gary

Color slow water - 2 seconds

Color fast water 1/125 second

August 1, 2010

New thoughts on Browsing… Lightroom 3

Several months ago I wrote that my favorite browser was Breeze Browser because of its speed and ease of use and it still is. But I have made a change and here is the story. For the last several computers I have been moving my images from computer to computer and backing up on two USB drives. My current computer has a 750Gb hard drive and is out of room for any more images. In addition my USB drives were only 1TB and not full but getting there so I went out and bought two new 2Tb drives at an amazingly low price and moved all of my images onto them. With this change and my recent version upgrade to Lightroom 3 I felt the time had come to take the plunge and move into using the Big Boy Browser Software. Well the results have been great! I created a new catalog of all of my images on the USB drive and found the possibilities of sorting, ranking and finding images seems to be endless. In addition the speed of using the catalog is very fast. The retrieving the high rez images is now a little slower since it is on an USB drive instead of my computer hard drive but still fast enough. In addition I now have a system to move forward with for another couple of years with room to grow. I have not been editing or printing yet with Lightroom but that is next. Currently I am using PS CS5 for editing and have found this upgrade also to be worthwhile. How things have changed since I used to store my 8×10 sheet film in a file cabinet with little numbers on each sheet. All was so simple then…

Best wishes,

gary

June 12, 2010

Photos on the Lake

Lake Tahoe Rocks

Lake Tahoe is always spectacular to photograph! As I drove to one of my favorite photo locations on the lake at day break I saw a big brown bear about a 100 yards from me just walking along. He stopped, looked and then just kept walking in the other direction which is just the direction I wanted him to go. Some photos would have been nice but I was not set up at the time since it was just turning light and I was just on my way to the shoreline.

Lake Tahoe is always beautiful! I have been trying to get images of all of the seasons on the lake. As a landscape photographer it is always interesting to see the same locations in different light and weather conditions and how those factors influence the look of the landscape. It was an unusually quiet morning on the lake even though it was a holiday weekend. Spring/summer is late coming to the mountains this year as snow was falling just a few day ago but the good part of this is it did keep the early morning boaters off of the lake! They do have every right to use the lake also but I hate to delay my exposures for them to pass. As for photography I did take a hundred or so images with many of them bracketed plus and minus one stop. It is amazing how fast those 8GB cards get filled up! Many times I think about being more selective in my image taking like I was using film and maybe some day I will move back to that technique but for the moment I want to capture every image that my mind sees and with digital I can do just that. I know that many of you edit in the camera or the computer which is probably a good thing if you want to conserve space but so far I usually do very little permanent editing of my images. Not all of my bracketed images are good as some are over and some under exposed but as I continue to experiment with HDR I keep wanting to build up a stock pile of images to use for this process. I have found HDR to produce some interesting images especially in color but I have not included it in my normal process of B&W conversion at this time. I have had better success using multi exposure images, combining the images in PS and then only using parts of each image as needed to maintain detail. Digital and PS gives us so many options to complete images and the options keep changing and improving. What an exciting time in photography!

off to do some editing!

best wishes, gary

Lake Take Rocks Black and White

May 15, 2010

How long will those photos last? One year or a 100?

Have you ever seen photos from the eighteen hundreds in museums and thought, those are really old photos? Some of them look like they may be faded and some of them look like they may be good as new. The point is there are still good images on paper produced over 150 years ago that were produced by a photographic process. How long will photos produced today last? Some of us are still making images by a silver process that has a long history of recorded longevity and others of us are now making images using ink. The ink prints today are the new kid on the block and really the ones in question. If you are printing your own photos and they were going to fade next year to something that people viewing them would say “what happened to this photo?” would you still print it? So what about 2 years or 5 years? I would like to think that my images would last forever but since almost nothing lasts forever there must be a common ground that is reasonably acceptable to most reasonable people. Just for discussion lets pick 100 years of print life. I may be happy with that if my print was on display on a wall but how about if it is kept in a dark place? The questions go on and on as for what is acceptable and reasonable for a photograph to last. Who knows? How do we measure? Who do we trust for the answers ? Epson? HP? Kodak? Do they have a biased view of the results? I bring up this topic because for some photographers it is an important topic to consider when selling an image to be displayed. For those of you interested in this topic there is a new source available for determining image life that I would like you to visit and if interested support. Aardenburg Imaging & Archives is a photo testing site that has some very interesting data on just how long a print should last under many different conditions. At the very least click on the link and take a look at the site. Mark McCormick-Goodhart is the man in charge of this project and needs some additional support to continue his work. I have no connection with Mark of any kind other than I find his work relevant and necessary to photographers everywhere. If you have any thoughts on this topic let me know.

Best wishes, Gary

April 29, 2010

landscape photography in the “Shoulder Season”

Aspen Trees Shoulder Season

So when or what is the shoulder season? Not one of the four seasons you remember? We all clearly remember the wonder of winter. White, cold and beautiful. Spring is full of flowers and new green leaves and both give lots of images and inspiration for the Landscape Photographer to follow his calling. But what happens when the snow turns brown or mostly melted and the flowers and leaves have yet to appear? We have the shoulder season when landscape photography becomes more of a challenge to find that special image. In the high Sierra mountains spring does not really come until late May and I remember snow on Memorial day and even later. Spring flowers are at their peak at the Fourth of July! This past weekend was a photo weekend in the high country and I knew the images selection would be limited so I planned ahead to what I would be working on and my vision was a wonderful group of white bark aspen trees. I had visions for several day of what and how I would be taking these images. At first I was thinking up close and graphic. Then I thought several groupings of multiple trees. In the end I did both and more. Sometimes you just have to let the moment inspire you to see the images and capture them at their best. To get the best images I think it is important to plan ahead and have ideas on what you want to capture but then I think it is also important to just let your mind and camera go wild. I could say I did not come here to take these other pictures and leave but I always try and remember that I may never will see this scene again. Never hesitate to capture what inspires you and share your visions with others to enjoy your magic moments.

best wishes,

gary

February 24, 2010

A day at the Big Rocks – Bald Mountain

Yes there are some special places out there to photograph if you know where to look and this is definitely one of them. In a remote location of Northern California is a granite mountain peak covered in huge round granite boulders. How huge is huge? Some are 50 feet in size just sitting on top of a flat granite peak. You may wonder how they got there and it all happened with the glaciers millions of years ago when snow and ice covered all and these rocks just rolled on in.

As for photos I took a lot. I have been at this location several times in the past but usually in warmer months. In lower elevations of Northern California we don’t really get much winter like many other parts of the country. Our winters have some rain but it seldom gets below freezing at night. This past week it had rained for several days prior to my photo day and I was looking for some puddles and water features to find some reflections for more interesting photos. It turned out I was in luck finding many puddles and reflections to my liking. As usual I took as many photos as I could to not waste a moment of vision and precious photo time. I have mentioned in other writings about only take a very limited amount of photos in the past using sheet film and I am trying to move past those days and just go with the flow by not limiting the number I photos I take. If you are asking how many is many well the answer is three or four hundred but many of these were multi shot bracketed for potential HDR images in the future. There has been a lot written about visualizing your image before you take your photo and about not taking images that are not your best and all of it is true sometimes. On the other hand I say take as many images as you want. Ask yourself if you ever going to be at this place again? What is the cost of a digital image? What is the cost of your time? We learn by our successes as well as our failures. So I say seize the moment and have fun taking pictures!

Link to Bald Rock information http://www.chicowiki.org/Bald_Rock

best wishes, Gary

January 27, 2010

Winter day Photos at Lake Tahoe

Lake Tahoe Winter

7:00am, 16 degrees F. and the sun is just coming up! I am off to one of my favorite photo locations…Lake Tahoe!

What a spectacular body of water at the top of the Sierra Mountains. Yes it has been photographed a million times but who cares as I take images of natural design that moves me and Lake Tahoe almost always does. The water level of the lake has been low over the past few years and the water line is now about a hundred yards out at my location. So out I go with tripod and camera in hand ready for action! In regards to the weather there had been a storm the day before and there were still clouds over the lake to add some drama to the morning light. I usually travel lightweight in these situations with just my tripod and a small bag with camera and misc. photo aids. The moment was exciting! Light, clouds and weather all perfect today! I took photos for about an hour as the sky, clouds and light kept changing around me. I always try and make the most of good image opportunities and with digital it is so easy. Multiple exposures, bracketed, horizontal, vertical, ND filter. I try and do them all. In the old days (before digital) when I shot large format sheet film I would take maybe four exposures and pack up. Looking back I usually had the images I wanted in those four sheets of film. Taking photos has become more fun and more exciting with digital and I always want to have the most fun when I am in the right place at the right time. As they say “seize the moment” for you never know when you will see it again.

If you are looking for something to do on Sat. morning… plan a photo trip of your own, grab your camera and go have some fun!

Have a Great Photo day! Gary

Lake Tahoe Winter Black and White

January 2, 2010

So many Photo browsers to choose from and so little time.

Breeze Browser

Well what about a browser to view your photos? I have tried most of them and here are a few words about my experiences overall. Starting with my favorite in case you don’t want to read this posting it is Breeze Browser Pro. I have been using Breeze Browser for over three years and have not found anything faster or better for quickly finding photos or viewing them with ease. Breeze Browser Pro is $69.95 and an excellent buy at that price.

My main complaint with most browsers is that they are just too slow bringing up your photos and the program is just too large and complex. My second choice is Bridge which is part of Adobe Photo Shop. I do use this program to download images from my memory cards and it does a good job at this function because you can download the image to two drives at the same time which I think as an excellent feature. Another program I keep trying to make make work for me is Adobe Lightroom. I currently have Lightroom 2 loaded and three is in Beta right now but I have not tried it. Lightroom works fine and version two worked better than one but I still am not using it on a daily basis as it just seems so slow on my computer. Lightroom has lots of features and seems to be a replacement for Photoshop sometimes but with my current workflow it just is not working the way I want it to. In addition you have to load your photos into the program and it then builds a directory of images seperate from your full sized images. I am sure I will buy Lightroom three just to keep up with this program as I continue to try to fit it in my workflow.

Photo Mechanic is another program I have tried and find it very similar to BreezeBrowser. It is fast and works good at organizing your photos and is a very popular program. My only complaint it that it costs $150.

ACDSee is an excellent price at $49.95 and has a ton of features. Depending on your editing requirement this may be the only program you will need as a browser and as a image editor. I would be using it except that it takes forever for my images to load.

I keep talking about speed and this may not be an issue for you. I have thousands of images most in the 25 to 35 meg range before editing and I do not like to sit and wait for them to load to be able to find an image. If you have small files and not a lot of them I would definitely try this program.

So that is the browser roundup! Most programs have trail versions which I defiently would suggest you use prior to purchasing any program.

December 12, 2009

Favorite Photo Books or Hot off the Press!

Favorite Photo Books with lots of bookmarks!

On my website back in the old days… as in 1996 I recommended photo books by Ansel Adams and Phil Davis on how to do black and white film photography and printing. I had dozens of favorite books and authors on “how to” books that spanned the last century but now old in computer terms means more than two years!! Really today if a book was written last year I probably will not buy it because I think it is outdated and if it is not covering PS CS4 it could not possibly be current.

Well all that being said I do have dozens of recent photo books that I have found helpful for Black and White Landscape photography and you may also. So here is just a few to get you started:

Mastering Digital Black and White / Amadou Diallo / published in 2007 but a great book covering most topics on digital black and white.
Black and White Printing / George Dewolfe / Lots of detail on techniques for black and white printing including many individual techniques. I really like books that the author says this is how I do it. Anyone can write about general techniques but only a few tell you the real details of their techniques. George is one of those people.
On Digital Photography / Stephen Johnson / General photography and printing information but great information to gain a good understanding of digital photography and how to make better photos.
The Photoshop Darkroom / Harold Davis / A 2009 book with some excellent informaion on print making techniques. Very personalized and informative information that is technique filled and easy to follow.
Black and White Pipeline / Ted Dillard / Another 2009 book that I am currently reading. Lots of good information on conversion techniques that are necessary for great print making.

If you want to learn how to do Black and White Digital photography I would buy them all. If you want to start with only one try Mastering Digital Black and White. I have five more that I will list in a future post. I am hoping to provide an Amazon link to these books but that will have to wait till next week.

December 3, 2009

My Photo Equipment

Well what would a blog about photography be without some discussion about cameras! After using a view camera for 20 plus years stepping down to a 35mm size camera has been a real joy. My old camera and tripod weighed in at 35 pounds!! My new camera and tripod at most weigh 10 pounds. The camera I am currently using is a Canon 5D Mark II. This camera is a full frame digital camera with 21.1 mega pixels. So far I have found this camera to produce excellent results and be a pleasure to use. My favorite lens is the Canon 17-40 mm wide angle but I take many images with the Canon 24-105 mm as both lens produce excellent quality. As for the tripod I use a Gitzo 2531 Carbon fiber which is just the right size for my Canon and weights less than five pounds. The tripod head is a Really Right Stuff BH 40 which is very functional as well as a beautiful piece of equipment. If you are in the market for a tripod head there is none finer than the Really Right Stuff tripod heads! I have listed their link in my favorite links section.

Below is my Camera and Tripod ready for action!