Posts Tagged Canon 30D
Pixel Peepers
Posted by Doug Otto in Photography, Random Thoughts on August 19, 2009
Click to Enlarge
Have you ever failed to see beauty that was right in front of your eyes because you were too busy worrying about other details to notice it? In photography that happens a lot. It’s really easy to get caught up in the details and that blind you from truly seeing. This image, taken during the same workshop as the previous image, tells just such a story.
Our group was out at Olmsted Point in Yosemite. The sky was amazing. Landscape photography is all about the quality of the light and this evening was truly special. Even before the color in the sky really started to develop everything around us began to take on an otherworldly pink glow. The light was soft and warm making just about anything that it touched a photograph waiting to happen. It was one of those special photographic moments that you alway want to catch but seldom do.
As amazing as the scene was, the most vivid memory that I carried away from there was that of two other photographers that we saw that night. They were already set up when we arrived and didn’t budge from their initial location. Both had multiple, and expensive, cameras. The whole time we were shooting, everything in sight, they stood by their tripods and debated. They discussed whether or not the light was going to get better or had it already peaked, was this better than “that other time” ad nauseam. They went on for at least an hour. I’m still not sure if they even took pictures.
You see that sort of mentality all the time in the “gear” forums on photography sites. There are always folks whom you never see post a real picture but will spend days arguing over which lens is sharpest at a 200% crop. Successful images convey the feelings and experience of the photographer. Pixels don’t evoke emotions; photographs do. The message here is to slow down and take the time to appreciate what you’re photographing. That appreciation is the soul of your image. Be aware of the limitations and technical details of your equipment but don’t let them blind you. Let the scene generate an emotional response from you and your camera will certainly follow.
Half Dome – Alone in the moonlight
Posted by Doug Otto in Photography on August 13, 2009
Click to Enlarge
Just over two years ago I took a workshop with Gary Hart. The main goal of the trip was to shoot Yosemite under the light of the full moon. This is one of my favorite images from that trip. That was also when Gary first asked if I’d be interested in assisting on future workshops.
The workshop group consisted of just 5 students, including myself. The small group made for a really intimate setting and I still hear from nearly all of those folks on a semi-regular basis. I think that part of that bond came from the grueling conditions that we all endured together. Because it was summer, the days were very long. We’d get up at 3:30Am to be in place before sunrise. After shooting all day and well into the night we generally didn’t return to the hotel until after midnight; only to do it again the next day. I’m still not sure how we all made it through but I will admit that by day 4 we were all a bit punchy.
If you’ve never experienced Yosemite by moonlight, you should make that one of your goals. The stark white granite absolutely lights up under moonlight and is unlike any place that I’ve ever seen.
This image really formulated my basic strategy for moonlight shooting. With a fairly wide angle lens, in this case a Tokina 12-24 @ 16mm, an exposure of 30 seconds still results in fairly sharp star images. Longer exposure and focal lengths make the rotation of the Earth much more apparent. I wanted as much light as I could get so I set the aperture to f/4. The entire scene was at infinity so depth of field wasn’t a concern. I left the shutter speed at 30 seconds and started raising my ISO until I got the exposure that I wanted. In this case, I ended up at ISO 400. My old Canon 30D was pretty clean at ISO 400 or below but I did do some noise cleanup using Noise Ninja as well as basic color correction and sharpening in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop CS4.
Cheers
The sunrise that wasn’t
Posted by Doug Otto in Photography, Travel on July 20, 2009
Click to Enlarge
Landscape photographers often maintain pretty strange hours. The best light of the day almost always occurs in the margins of the day; sunrise and sunset. That often means waking well before sunrise and being out well after dark. During the long days of summer it makes for very little sleep.
This is one such, sleep deprived, image. I took it two years ago while on an extended family vacation in South Lake Tahoe. The gathering was in celebration of my parents 50th wedding anniversary. We were staying near Stateline which made Emerald Bay about a 35 minute drive. I like to be in place at least 30 minutes prior to sunrise so that meant setting the alarm for around 4:30AM.
My plan, on this particular morning, wasn’t to shoot from this spot but we were early so I stopped. The amount of light is deceiving as it was still very dark as sunrise was still another 45 minutes away. While I really couldn’t see it, I knew that if I could leave the lens open long enough there should be color along the horizon. I also knew that if I exposed to get detail in the trees and lake that the color would get blown out. Read the rest of this entry »
Fire and life
Posted by Doug Otto in Photography on July 6, 2009
Click to Enlarge
Fire in Yosemite, or just about any other wild place, is a fact of life. Lightning and fire is natures way of taking out the trash. In our urbanized culture we see fire as a destroyer of life and property. In nature, while there is loss of life, fire is a birth process. The problem with our perception is that we operate on a different time scale than most of what we see around us. For the trees in the forest our little ~80 year life span is just a blink.
I spent a couple of days in Yosemite just prior to the Independence Day holiday. There are, as of this post, two wildfires burning in the park. While I rarely venture into the valley during the summer because of the crowds, I do still appreciate the view. Friday afternoon my wife and I hiked out to Dewey Point to have lunch. There was so much smoke that Half Dome was only a faint grey outline. It was still a good hike but it would have been nicer with a view to reward us.
I took this image a couple of years ago. It was from a stretch of Highway 41, North of the Glacier point road. The area had been burned, roughly a decade ago, but in that short length of time was already bursting with new growth. I’d driven by the area several times thinking, to myself, that there was a picture hiding there somewhere. The sky was grey, from some management fires in the valley, so I choose to exclude it. What struck me was the contrast of color. The green undergrowth, the yellow of the Elm, the gold of the Oak, the bright pink of the Dogwood all contrasted against the stark grey and black of the, still standing, burned forest. Color vs monochrome. Life vs death. Read the rest of this entry »
Due Diligence
Posted by Doug Otto in Photography on April 7, 2009
Click to Enlarge
There is a common misconception, especially among artists in other medias, that there is no art to photography. One simply arrives at a beautiful location, clicks the shutter, and records something that was already there. While we are recording nature, fine art photography is much more than that.
Photography becomes art when the photographer learns to truly see the scene; using all 4 dimensions to capture a uniquely artistic visualization. By adjusting the parameters of the exposure we’re able to compress or accumulate time. We can leverage that manipulation of time to capture things that they eye, or any other artistic media, simply can’t see. We can change our location, or perspective, to balance the objects in the frame. Just as a painter or sculptor poses their model, we pose the landscape. In a very real sense it’s much less contrived as we are forced to work with what we’re presented with. Read the rest of this entry »
Breaking My Own Rules
Posted by Doug Otto in Photography, Travel on March 13, 2009
Click to Enlarge
Photography, like any craft, has its collection of “rules.” In addition to the standard creative devices I have my own rules. I often joke about the fact that “I don’t take pictures of anything that moves.” While it’s true for 99.99% of my shooting, I do occasionally break my own rules.
This shot was taken at the San Diego Zoo Wild Animal Park. I had to be in San Diego for business and it was a way to spend some free time away from the hotel. I almost always travel with my camera just for that reason. There’s only so much TV that you can watch while sitting alone in a hotel room. My reward was an “Honorable Mention” at the Sacramento Fine Arts Center’s Animal House show.
I made the image with my Canon 30D and a 70-200 f/4L lens. The exposure was 1/320th at f/4 and ISO 100. While I may have been breaking my “shoot nothing that moves” rule, my camera was still firmly planted on top of my Gitzo. I mean really; there’s no reason to get “crazy.”
Cheers
- Binary Emulsion on FacebookVisit my gallery to see more of my images.Binary Emulsion Gallery
Get Filter Calc for your iPhone or Touch.
Back up your computer, before you wish you had. I use it and you can try it free for 15 days.
