Category Archives: Technique

Where's EdRo?

May 10, 2010INSIDE FLORIDA, Technique, Theme ParksAnimal Kingdom, birds, Flowers, Ibis, Owl, Rhino, wildlifeEd Rosack

So we’re going to try something a little different. This will be a variation on the game “Where’s Waldo”, except you have to guess where I was last Saturday, based on the photos below. And you have to find me in at least one photo. We’ll use my Twitter handle and call it “Where’s EdRo?”. All of these photos were made in the same general area. To play fair, you aren’t allowed to scroll down too far before you guess. Forensic investigation of EXIF data is possible, but also against the rules. There’s no prize, but if enough people demand it, I can see about having something for the next time we play.

The point of the game is to remind you that you need to look around and find the non-obvious photos wherever you are. Go ahead and get the “trophy shots” (photos that everyone takes at a popular spot), but don’t forget to share your unique vision, perspective, and outlook with others.

Want to play? Here goes…

Clue #1: An interesting wall.

Clue #2: Nice light on an Ibis.

Clue #3: Flowers, leaves, sky.

Have you guessed where I was yet? If not, here’s some more clues:

Clue #4: Blue wall, red windows.

Clue #5: River landing and flowers.

Do you have it yet? If not, here’s a couple more.

Clue 6: Surprise and delight.

One last clue:

Clue 7: Rhino profile

If you haven’t guessed yet, then go to this set of mine on Flickr for additional clues. I’ve added a total of 21 photos there. Some are obvious and some are not. Hopefully they all let you see this place through my eyes.

Thanks for playing my little game. Now, go out there and look past the obvious shots.

Birds on the wing: Flight photo tips

April 18, 2010TechniquebirdsEd Rosack

Today’s post is a little different. Instead of talking about a particular Central Florida Photo Op, I’ll share some photo tips.

Bird photography can be very hard, and photographing birds in flight is even more so. In this article, I’ll point out several things that may help you improve your photos.

Great Blue Heron in flight, Orlando Wetlands Park, 1/1000 sec, f/5.6, 300mm, ISO 320

First of all, here are several links to information elsewhere on the web. They cover a lot of things you should do to improve your percentage of “keepers” when photographing birds.

“Birds in Flight”, Andy Lang: ~~http://www.firstlighttours.com/birds_in_flight_article.html~~ (sorry, no longer available)
“Photographing Birds In Flight”, ~~http://www.wildlife-photography-tips.com/photographing-birds-in-flight.html~~ (sorry, no longer available)
“They touch the heavens”, Moose Peterson: http://www.vividlight.com/Articles/2303.htm
“Tips for learning how to photograph Birds in Flight”, Jay Paredes: http://www.evergladesphotosociety.org/articles/flightpart01.html

One thing I didn’t see mentioned is how great nest building season is for bird flight photography.

Great Blue Herons like the one above frequently nest in the tops of palm trees. The female will generally stay at the nest, while the male retrieves sticks for her to use. If you come across this situation like we did yesterday at Orlando Wetlands Park, you should take advantage of it to really boost your ability to get good frame filling photos of birds in flight.

Why? Well when they’re building a nest, the birds can be very predictable. The nest is in one location, and frequently the male bird will return to the same tree or general area to get another branch for his mate to use. The nest building usually goes on for quite some time and predictable flight paths together with multiple opportunities are a huge advantage for the observant, prepared photographer.

If you watch the activity for a while, you should be able to determine where to position yourself for the best chance of a good photo. You want to be along the flight path close enough to fill the frame, and have the sun in a good position to light the bird.

Optimize your camera settings for this type of photo and take time between flights to double check your results.

Do you have a high enough shutter speed (generally 1/1000sec or better)?
Is your aperture appropriate (one or two stops down from wide open would be best for image quality and depth of field)?
What’s your ISO set to (as low as possible given the light and desired shutter and aperture)?
Have you set continuous focus mode and high speed release?
Did you turn off bracketing from your last HDR shot :-)?

When the bird takes off (probably into the wind) concentrate on keeping the focus mark on the bird (the eye, if possible). Pan smoothly as the bird flies. For better composition, try to leave a little room in the frame in front of the bird. Wait until there’s a lull in the action before you chimp the shots. Make sure they’re what you expect. If not, adjust and wait for the next flight.

And don’t forget to get some photos of the male as he passes the stick to the female.

One more thing – after the chicks hatch, you can still use this tip. The birds will be out searching for food for the babies, and you can stake out the nest in the same way as they return with a meal.

Great Blue Heron in flight, bringing stick to mate in nest, 1/2500 sec, f/5.6, 300 mm, ISO 640

I hope you liked this photo tip. Let me know if it helps you.

(Note: You can click on either of these photos to see a larger version on Flickr.)

Flower baskets & street lights

March 28, 2010INSIDE FLORIDA, TechniqueFlowersEd Rosack

You know – photo ops are everywhere. I’m convinced that we often don’t see them just because we’ve grown so used to what’s in front of our eyes.

Here’s an exercise for you: Next time you’re out and about in your home town, take a camera. Pretend you’re a tourist in another city or country you’ve never been to. Really look at things like you’re seeing them for the first time. Examine everything with fresh eyes. I’m sure if you try this, a photo op or two will present itself.

This little cafe was around the corner from where I waited for Lynn this morning. I liked the scene enough to share it.

An outdoor cafe in Lake Mary.

You can click the photo to see a larger version on Flickr. Thanks for looking.

A Focus bracketing / stacking experiment

January 24, 2010Cameras and Photography, TechniqueFlowers, Helicon Focus, macro, Orchid, reviewsEd Rosack

This post is not my usual Central Florida Photo Op entry. Instead I want to cover a technique and some software I’ve been experimenting with.

One macro photography challenge is to get the desired portions of the subject in focus without using such a small aperture that the image quality is degraded by diffraction effects. One solution is to combine multiple images focused at different depths within the frame to extend depth of field. In this post I’ll talk about how to do this, including software that can be used to automate the process. I’ve posted one focus bracket image before in this blog. That image was created manually. Using software to help is much easier.

Note: double click any of these images to view them on Flickr, where there is a larger version available. You can also visit the entire set at this link or view a slide show at this link.

Back-lit Orchid – 15 separate captures at f/8.

As with all macro photography, good technique remains important. Focus bracketing will not make up for poor composition and exposure or sloppy camera handling. But for stationary subjects focus bracketing can give the photographer complete control over depth of field, background appearance / bokeh, and help optimize image quality. I used a program called Helicon Focus for this experiment. I think you can accomplish the same thing using Photoshop CS4, but I don’t have this latest version, so I haven’t tried. Helicon Focus is available as a fully functional 30 day trial download, so you can experiment with it too.

The Helicon Focus web site has a lot of information on how to use their software. To learn more, browse these links:

Here are some of my additional hints based on what I learned while evaluating the software.

Use good macro and general technique
- As for any type of bracketing, a sturdy tripod will help make sure all images are aligned.
- Use a cable release or remote so you don’t jar the camera.
- Use the mirror lock up function on your camera with low shutter speeds
- Know your lens and camera.
  - Which aperture has the best image quality? (Usually ~ 2 stops down from wide open)
  - Make several test images at a different apertures. Use them to select the aperture to use with the focus bracket series. You can also use one of these later if you like the background bokeh better than in the focus bracket result.
  - Where does diffraction start to affect the image quality? (About f/11 for full frame cameras and ~f/8 for APS C size sensors
  - Don’t forget about composition.
    - Eliminate unnecessary image content
    - Remember (or not) the Rule of Thirds
    - Isolate the subject and make sure the background isn’t distracting (e.g. bright spots)
When you’re ready to start the focus bracket capture, set your camera in manual focus and exposure modes. Also set your camera to a manual white balance, or do this post capture if you use RAW.
Make a series of captures working from far to near and varying the focus slightly closer for each one. I found that the smallest movement of the focus ring that I could make worked best.
I saved the images in RAW format and processed them through Capture NX2 in batch mode to apply the same pre-processing edits (overall lighting adjustment, some highlight recovery, a little dodging and burning and some basic sharpening) to each photo. I also used NX2 to convert the RAW images to TIFF format.
Then I ran the TIFF images through Helicon Focus. By the way, it is Intel i7 aware and so it runs pretty fast on my iMac. The only change I made to the default settings was selecting Lancos8 resample quality.
My resulting composite image had a few areas that could be improved by cloning from one of the source images. Helicon Focus supports this with a “resampling” mode which allows you to clone from any of the source files into the final before saving.
Once I had the final composite output saved, I opened it in Photoshop. Since I liked the bokeh of the f/36 image, I cloned from that background into the composite – and I was done, except for importing into Lightroom where I added some clarity and adjusted contrast.

Here’s a series of images to illustrate.

Wet Back-lit Orchid at f/5.6. At this aperture (2 stops from wide open) the lens optical quality is very good, but the depth of field is shallow. Parts of the flower and the stem are not in focus. The background is completely blurred out.

Wet Back-lit Orchid at f/36. At this very narrow aperture, the depth of field is maximized. The out of focus leaves and background are pleasing. But the small aperture is causing diffraction to degrade the optical quality of the capture.

Wet Backlit Orchid – focus bracket. In this composite photo made using the Helicon Focus program and 16 individual captures at f/5.6, the depth of field covers the entire flower and stem and the background is completely blurred. The optical quality is improved since the wider aperture does not suffer from diffraction.

The final image: Wet Back-lit Orchid – focus bracket with small aperture background. You can completely control the background. If you prefer the bokeh / background of the f/36 image, selectively clone it into the focus bracket image.

Conclusions: Focus bracketing is a useful technique that can give photographers a tremendous degree of control over depth of field in situations where the subject matter is still and there is time to set up, capture and process for it. If you add a manual step to the final output, you can selectively enhance the bokeh. Helicon Focus runs well and does what it is supposed to – make this process easier.

Re-processing older photos

November 13, 2009Cameras and Photography, INSIDE FLORIDA, St. Augustine, St. Augustine Alligator Farm, TechniqueReprocessingEd Rosack

Today, I had some time and a new computer I wanted to try out, so I went looking for a photo to reprocess. Take a close look at the two images below. The differences aren’t as obvious in these smaller versions, so if you click on them, you can go to Flickr and look at large resolution versions of each so you can see the changes in detail.

Nikon D80 @ ISO 100, Nikon 70 – 300 lens @ 260mm, f/5.6, 1/320 sec.

I made this photo back in April of 2007 in the bird rookery at the St. Augustine Alligator farm. The version above is “straight out of the camera (converted to JPG with Lightroom 2.5). It has potential, but the blown sky is bad and the levels and sharpening need work.

The version below was processed in CaptureNX2 for levels and curves. I also created a version that was sharpened, and a third version that adjusted the sky. I then opened all three in Photoshop and used layer masks to choose the portions of each that I wanted in the final photo. After saving the result, I imported it into Lightroom, tweaked clarity and vibrance, and cropped it slightly before once again exporting this JPG.

Same, photo: re-processed and slightly cropped.

I guess you can tell I’m not a straight out of the camera, photo journalist type photographer. I like the second version much better than the original. Do you?

The interesting thing to me is that almost 3 years after I made the photograph, I can go back and reprocess it with better software and better techniques. Since I captured it in RAW, I have much more flexibility in what I can change. Processing RAW is like having the original light and framing fixed, but being able to tweak the camera settings. Do I need Photoshop, CaptureNX2, and Lightroom? No, but each has strengths and I believe that if you want the best image you can get, you need to have SW and understand how to use it.

Or at least shoot in RAW so that when you do get the software and techniques, you can go back and have another go at things.

Don't put your camera away until you're in the car

October 31, 2009Cameras and Photography, INSIDE FLORIDA, Orlando Wetlands, Techniquebirds, Butterfly, landscape, Little Blue Heron, sunrise, wildlifeEd Rosack

I was out this morning with a couple of people from the Photography Interest Group. We planned to explore a part of Orlando Wetlands Park that we’d never been to. If you look on a Google map of the park, you can see a finger of land that sticks out into the lake on the east side.

On the map, you can also see two paths that lead there. Our plan was to work our way over and along the finger into the lake to make some photographs from the new location. Here’s a photo I made from the fork in the path at the beginning of our explorations.

You can’t tell where a path ends from the beginning – Nikon D700, ISO 200, Nikon 24-70 f/2.8 @ 24mm, f/8.0, five exposures: 1/15 sec – 1/250 sec, Photomatix. Edited with the Topaz Adjust filter to bring out more detail in the clouds and to make the foreground slightly brighter.

We walked down this open and inviting path for a while until we were suddenly blocked by a solid mass of bushes and underbrush. I really wonder why this is here if it leads nowhere. Maybe it has been open in the past.

We trudged back out the way we came, and went up our normal route a little farther to the next path leading east. This time, we managed to follow it for quite a ways – before it suddenly went under water. So, we then backtracked again and circled around the lake clockwise for while, but we just couldn’t find anything interesting to photograph. At this point, we were hot, tired and getting frustrated at our inability to get to where we wanted to go and the lack of photographic targets. We started heading back to the car. And that’s when we began to notice interesting things. Here’s a photo of a butterfly hiding in the damp grass:

Butterfly, flowers, dew – Nikon D90 @ ISO 200, Nikon 70 – 300 @ 300mm, f/5.6, 1/320 sec. Processed in Photoshop and Lightroom.

And here’s a photo I made of a hunting Little Blue Heron.

A Little Blue Heron catches a worm. (Is that an alligator to the left?) – Nikon D90, ISO 200, Nikon 70-300 f/4.5-5.6 @ 300mm, f/8.0, 1/250.

So, even though our explorations this morning didn’t succeed, we did end up getting some nice photos. And we didn’t get them until we forgot about exploring and headed back toward the car. The moral of this story is the title of the post.

Have you had a similar experience? Post a comment about it.

These and a few more photos from this outing are on my Flickr page here. As a special treat to my loyal readers (especially you, Mary!), I’ve uploaded this photo set as full resolution jpeg files and changed the license to an “Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic Creative Commons license“. Click on any of the photos, then click on the “all sizes” icon and choose a size to download.

Oh, and Happy Halloween.

Our vacation – Ch. 3: Other Alaskan and Seattle photos

October 5, 2009Must do list, Techniqueastronomy, panorama, sunrise, travel, vacationEd Rosack

This is the third installment of our vacation adventure, where I’ll show you the some of the other things we saw, both in Alaska and Seattle. Chapter One is here and describes the wildlife we encountered on our trip. Chapter Two is here and is about the glaciers we visited.

I’ve finally gotten through the rest of the photos that I made. The only ones left to process are the “people pics”. When I finish these, the final part of my post processing will be to go through everything and then selecting a “best of all set” to try making into a photo book.

Before we get started, please note that the photos in this post are linked to my Flickr account and you can click on them to go to Flickr where you can see a higer res version.

First of all, here’s my favorite photo of me from the trip. It’s a picture of Lynn and I that Sully made. We spent a lot of time sightseeing from our balcony, and looking at this really brings back memories.

Ed on vacation with three cameras. Lynn on vacation with two glasses of wine.; Canon PowerShot A700,11.546 mm,1/80 sec at f / 3.5,, Dimensions are 2816 x 2112, Photo by Marin Sullivan

There were quite a few impressive sunrise and sunset opportunities. I often shot in “panorama mode”. Most of these I took hand held and they seem to have worked out quite well. I was careful to line up the horizon or another feature in the terrain with one of the marks in the viewfinder, and this really helps when you stitch. I’ve also found that running Nikon images through CaptureNX before I stitch them in Photoshop really improves the final image quality. The key is to use the CaptureNX function that corrects lens distortion. Here’s a sunrise from our final morning on the ship. It’s composed of 4 images stitched together vertically. In the full res version, you can see the planet Mars (if my astronomy software is correct) underneath the moon!

Seattle sunrise panorama with moon and Mars(?); NIKON D700,48 mm,1/50 sec at f / 2.8,ISO 800, Dimensions are 4312 x 7619

Here’s another one I really like. I took this in Juneau, when Lynn and I went gold panning. I had just my Canon G9 with me (in a pocket most of the time – it was raining), and I used a flat rock in the creek as a tripod. By the way, Lynn and I both found flakes of gold in this creek!

Juneau, Alaska – gold panning creek; Canon PowerShot G9,7.4 mm,1.0 sec at f / 8.0,ISO 80, Dimensions are 4000 x 3000

And here’s one last photo for the blog of some trees at the Lake Washington Ship Canal. I’m not sure what this tree was and whether it was turning already for fall, but I really liked the color contrasts.

Trees; NIKON D90,19 mm,1/50 sec at f / 3.8,ISO 100, Dimensions are 2848 x 4288

As before, I’ve posted the rest of the photos for this blog entry in two ways. I added a set of “other” photos here to my photo galleries. You can also look at our Alaska photos together in a single time ordered set of 72 photographs here on Flickr. Clicking on one of the photos above will also take you to Flickr, where if you click on the “all sizes” button, you can see the photo in a higher res version.

Photographic "level of detail" -continued

August 31, 2009Cameras and Photography, INSIDE FLORIDA, Orlando Wetlands, Technique, VARIOUSAlligator, wildlifeEd Rosack

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post about level of detail in photos and how to best present it on the web.

In an interesting temporal coincidence, I ran across a post (no longer on line) on Jay Kinghorn’s blog, where he talks about Seadragon , which is Microsoft’s tool for creating deep-zoom images on-line. This looks like it would be one way to present high res images that you can zoom into and experience the sensation I described. Another link in his article leads to the Zoomify website .

Since I don’t think I can do everything I need to with Seadragon on my Mac, I took a look at Zoomify.

Zoomify Express seems to offer the capability I think we need to show photographic level of detail. It is a free zoom and pan authoring, publishing and viewing application and has downloads for both Mac and Windows available. It also makes it difficult to download the high res version of the photo. I didn’t have time tonight to figure out how to embed the Zoomify window directly into my posts, but that is something I want to do.

~~Here’s the result~~ (sorry – no longer available), using the same photograph of a gator that I posted before.

What do you think?

Photographic "Level of Detail"

August 16, 2009Cameras and Photography, INSIDE FLORIDA, Orlando Wetlands, Technique, VARIOUSAlligator, wildlifeEd Rosack

I haven’t seen this discussed in the photographic blogosphere so I thought I’d comment on it. One reason may be that it is difficult to illustrate given the photo posting resolution that we often limit ourselves to on the web.

You can experience a very good example of what I’m trying to write about here when you visit an Ansel Adams print exhibition in person. For instance, viewing his "Winter Sunrise " from across the room, the print looks well composed and shows the overall scene of some mountains with areas of light and dark. Depending on how far away you are, most details are obscured by distance. As you slowly come closer, the details start to emerge. The closer you come, the greater the detail, until when you are standing right next to the print, you can see all sorts of things you didn’t see from across the room – subtle clouds, interesting light on the horse and trees, etc. The emergence of detail draws you into his photographs.

This experience – the discovery and exploration of a photograph is quite interesting and pleasant and is hardly ever possible on the web. On the web, we get one look at a photo – the low res "across the room look". The high res, up close version, where the subtle details emerge, is saved away on our hard drives, mostly due to worries about theft of our copyrighted, intellectual property (photographs).

The "level of detail" effect is something we all should strive for in our captures, prints and displays. When we do this well, there are a myriad of things for the viewer to discover as they view our prints. And while it is easiest to observe in a well made print, we should also try to make it an interesting thing on the web. When we achieve a good "level of detail" capture, how do we show it off? Here’s a couple of recommendations:

1. Study examples by the masters and and use them as we strive for this effect. Use it to draw in our viewers and keep them coming in for more. Print our work and hang it up where people can see it.

2. When we have a nice photo with some good detail and want to present it on the web, present the normal low res web version, along with a high res detail insert or two, like this:
Gator - whole print
Gator photo: "Across the room view"

Gator - partial crop
Gator photo: "Middle of the room view"

Gator - close in detail
Gator photo: Close in detail view.

3. I haven’t tried this, but another solution might be a video of the photo using a "Ken Burns" type of special effect. A "zoom in" motion video seems like an ideal way to showcase this type of photo and protect the intellectual property that everyone seems so worried about losing. Does anyone know of a ready made solution already out there?

P.S. There is also a very interesting inverse effect to what I’m talking about here. You will really enjoy visiting an exhibition of Ansel Adams prints at the same gallery with paintings by Monet . Monet understood the human mind’s ability to "fill in the details". If you approach many of his paintings from across the room they will look very real at first and they gradually dissolve into impressions in the middle distance and paint strokes when you are very close! This is a wonderful contrast to Ansel Adams prints, don’t you think?

Three Letter Acronyms For Success (TAS), TAS #2: GAS

June 28, 2009Cameras and Photography, Colorado, Technique, VARIOUScabin, landscape, philosophyEd Rosack

OK, gentle reader, our first TAS was HAC – Have a clue . So, once you have a clue, what’s next?

What’s the next thing you need to do to be successful in life and also in photography? TAS #2 is GAS. We’ll use the family friendly version here, which is GAH or “Give a Hoot”. In other words, care about your photography, be passionate, be motivated, take all the knowledge you’ve acquired and apply it. Get out there and make some photographs!

Are you a “serious” photographer? I don’t mean serious as in don’t have any fun with it (quite the opposite). I mean do you care about your photography? I suspect if you’re reading this blog you do. That’s really all GAH is about. It won’t make you a success all by itself, but it is necessary. And it’s the motivation you need – and combined with the knowledge you acquire with HAC, you’ll be much more likely to be successful.

OK, so TAS #1 (HAC) is all about acquiring knowledge and TAS #2 (GAH) is all about applying it. The more you apply your knowledge the more it becomes something you do instead of something you just know. Practice builds the skills you need to get the shot when you don’t have the luxury to think things through. This happens quite a lot in photography – the light or the situation changes quickly and you have to change quickly to capture it. Big secret here: I think most honest photographers would tell you that they have screwed up a photograph many times in the heat of battle. You will too. You need to try to minimize this.

GAH:

Carry a camera – use it. Always look for scenes / subjects that would make a good photo. Make the shot.
Think about photography as much as possible. Mental exercises – how would I shoot that: framing, composition, lenses, ISO, etc. When you look at your finished photos, think about what you should have done different. When you’re getting ready to take photos, think through how you’re going to do it. Look at other people’s photographs and try to understand how they made them.
Try a new photographic technique as often as possible
Show your work to people. Accept feedback and use it constructively

There are the two photos that go with this post. I used the second one in a prior post , but this is the first time I’ve posted the other one. I think the pair together is a good illustration of TAS #2: GAH. I was very motivated and passionate about this particular photograph and went to a good deal of effort to make the image, edit it, and print it. It looks pretty good up on my wall.

This is the raw capture straight out of the camera:

Littleton, Colo. cabin (straight from camera)

And this is the processed image ready to print. It took a lot of knowledge (HAC) and a lot of passion (GAH) for the final print to come out like this.

As your homework for this session, you can point out things that are different between the two images and how you think they got that way. As before, I’ll grade your answers before I post TAS #3. Oh, by the way, I’ve added a comment to TAS #1 explaining what I meant about the photo in that post.

Be passionate about your photography . To help you with TAS #2 – Give a Hoot, and to help you stay motivated, here’s a few inspirational photo related links I’ve come across recently. Please take the time to explore these. They moved me, and if you’re at all interested in photography, I’m betting they will move you too.

Zack Arias – Transform Video	http://www.zarias.com/?p=284
David duChemin – A question of definition	(link no longer available)
Darwin Wiggett -Beyond the trophy	http://darwinwiggett.wordpress.com/2009/06/12/beyond-the-trophy/
Paul Indigo – Do professional photographers love their jobs?	http://paulindigo.blogspot.com/2009/06/do-professional-photographers-love.html
Scott Bourne – Taking the best photo you possibly can	(link no longer available)
Rick Sammon – It’s “Have Kid Will Photograph”	(link no longer available)

Central Florida Photo Ops

What and where they are and how to photograph them.