Landscape with Trash

Nikon D810, 35mm (18-35), 1/125, f/16, ISO 100

While out doing some landscape photography (limited, because we were stuck on campus) with my students, I noticed an opportunity for a depth of field teaching moment.

In the shot above, the narrow aperture gives me a wide field. I can keep the whole scene in focus at once. Aside from the vertical orientation, this is a standard landscape shot.

In the shot below, I’ve opened up the aperture. That narrows the focus down to the discarded bag in the foreground. Now it stands out, because the blurry background is easier to ignore.

They also have a slightly different emotional feel, though that’s likely to be subjective and harder to define.

Nikon D810, 35mm (18-35), 1/1250, f/4.5, ISO 100

Full disclosure: I used Photoshop to align the two pictures, so they’ve both been adjusted slightly.

Happy holidays

Nikon D7000, Lensbaby Scout with single glass optic, 3 sec., sunburst aperture, cropped

Here’s something fun to help kick off the holiday season. This photo was done entirely with the camera. Other than a small crop, I didn’t do a thing to it in Photoshop.

What you’re looking at here is a six-inch-tall creche (propped up on a support) with our Christmas tree in the background.

I achieved the effect by using a Lensbaby Scout with a single glass lens and a sunburst aperture. Rather than a standard, circular aperture, the disk for this shot was a shape. You can see the edges reproduced in some of the less fuzzy sunbursts in the background. The in-focus foreground is unaffected; the creative aperture works like a plain old circular hole. But bright light sources in the out-of-focus background take on the shape of the aperture. It’s tricky to get it to work just right, but when it does, it creates some interesting images.

The single glass and narrow depth of field gave the foreground a bit of blur that added to the appeal.

Devil rat

Nikon D7000, 50mm, 1/60, f/1.8, ISO 1250

Okay, actually this is neither a devil nor a rat. It’s some sort of ferret or weasel that was converted into a tobacco pouch. And then later it became a museum exhibit.

The first time I tried photographing it, the picture looked terrible. I had to crank the ISO up so high that it turned into a festival of grainy crap. And it was still too dark.

Nikon D3000, 42mm (18-55), 1/60, f/5.6, ISO 3200

So when I tried it again recently, I used a “faster” lens (a 50mm prime that allowed for a wider f-stop). The trade-off was field depth, the narrowness of which you can clearly see in the photo. But without recourse to a tripod (not permitted in the Nelson art museum), this is the best I could hope for.

Omaha Zoo – Lemurs

Nikon D7000, 200mm (28-200), 1/3200, f/7.1, ISO 400, cropped

The zoo featured a good-sized, outdoor lemur enclosure. This was the best of photographic conditions: outdoor light and no bars between the lens and the subject. As a result, none of the photos in this post have been retouched.

One of the first shots I got was the walking lemur above. However, for some reason the majority of the little guys seemed to be going the other way. That led to a lot of pictures like this:

Nikon D7000, 200mm (28-200), 1/2500, f/6.3, ISO 400, cropped

While Cute Overload goes crazy for this sort of thing every year during “Tocktober,” I’m not the world’s biggest fan of the critter butt shot.

Fortunately for me, the zoo train came by, made a lot of noise and spooked the lemurs. So I got some pictures of them headed the other way in a hurry.

Nikon D7000, 200mm (28-200), 1/2500, f/6.3, ISO 400, cropped

Some of the lemurs had the misfortune (or perhaps fortune on a hot day) of living indoors in the Madagascar building. A few of them – such as this pensive-looking subject – were in somewhat well lit areas.

Nikon D7000, 200mm (28-200), 1/50, f/5.6, ISO 4000

Quick technical note: the combination of a wide aperture and longer focal length leads to a narrow depth of field, which is why the lemur is the only thing in clear focus in the shot. In this case, that’s actually a good thing, as I don’t want the tree or the background to draw attention away from the subject.

Others were in a nocturnal area. I’d pretty much given up any hope of shooting in the dark when I noticed a handful of lemurs hanging out next to a light. They ended up being one of the best shots I got all day. I even made an I Can Has Cheezburger post out of this, though as of this writing it hasn’t gotten enough likes to make the main page.

Nikon D7000, 200mm (28-200), 1/250, f/5.6, ISO 4000

World War One Memorial

Nikon D3000, 10.5mm, 1/1000, f/13, ISO 1600, edited

Someday I’m going to walk into a museum in which all the exhibits are brightly lit and I can shoot flash-free to my heart’s content without cranking the ISO way up and the shutter speed way down.

Last Wednesday was not that day.

The World War One Museum is an outstanding collection skillfully presented, well worth the trip. And in its defense, the museum does allow flash photography. Of course that doesn’t help much with stuff in glass-fronted display cases. And as one might expect, a flash doesn’t help much in a large room.

Thus the photo I took in the entry hall had lighting issues. Here’s what it looked like straight out of the camera:

Nikon D3000, 10.5mm, 1/1000, f/13, ISO 1600

Nor is it simply a matter of adjusting the light levels. Just lightening the image wipes out the properly-exposed Liberty Memorial visible through the skylights. It also amplifies the noise caused by the high ISO. The result looks like this:

Nikon D3000, 10.5mm, 1/1000, f/13, ISO 1600, edited

We can get around the over-exposed skylights by masking them off before adjusting the light levels. And we can eliminate some of the speckled look by applying Photoshop’s noise reduction filter.

This “problem child” photo is also a good lesson in not trusting my camera’s automatic settings. There’s no earthly reason for the shutter speed to be 1000 in a room with no moving objects. The aperture is also narrower than it needs to be. Adjusting those settings manually might have made the shot brighter and allowed me to cut down on the noise by using a lower ISO.

Bee

Nikon D7000, 300mm (75-300), 1/80, f/11, ISO 200, cropped

Every spring the bumblebees return to the tree in our front yard. And every year I shoot some pictures of them (assuming I catch them during the brief day or two when they’re here).

This year I used a 75-300mm zoom with macro focus to get in way closer than I’d actually care to with a shorter lens. While the bees are working, the whole tree hums with their busy buzzing. I don’t care to find out what would happen if I upset them by trespassing on their space.

At this focal length, shooting conditions are fairly unforgiving. The field depth is paper thin, so only the bee is in clear focus. Thanks to the bright sunlight, I was able to close the aperture down a bit and thus widen the field a little. However, I needed to keep the ISO low so I could “blow up” the images without making them look grainy.

With so many factors in play, many of the photos in the set ended up with technical problems of one kind or another. Still, all I need for a blog entry is one good one.

Pinhole

Nikon D7000, Lensbaby Scout with pinhole optic, 6 sec., ISO 100, retouched

Inspired by an exhibit of Ruth Thorne-Thomsen’s photography at the Nelson, I decided to drag out the pinhole optic for my Lensbaby Scout and experiment with it.

When I first got the optic, I found myself frustrated with the lack of control it entailed. It’s difficult if not impossible to precisely aim a pinhole, so that wasn’t what I was used to at all. I also found the images fuzzy. Uniformly fuzzy, an aperture that small eliminating depth of field pretty much entirely, but fuzzy nonetheless.

After looking at the photos in the exhibit, I was comforted to learn that the fuzziness wasn’t something I was doing wrong. And the aiming issue was nowhere near as big a trick for me and my digital camera (where I could instantly check the results) as it would be for a film photographer or even an artist using light-sensitive paper (as Thorne-Thomsen did).

However, when I opened an experimental shot in Photoshop to adjust the light levels a bit, I noticed something interesting. The picture was speckled with dozens of tiny ghost images of the pinhole. I’d never encountered this before, but I’m assuming the effect is similar to what you’d get with a creative aperture. Click on the image to blow it up for a better look.

Nikon D7000, Lensbaby Scout with pinhole optic, 6 sec., ISO 100, retouched, enlarged

Snowpocalypse

Nikon D7000, 29mm (18-55), 1/3 sec., f/10, ISO 100

So last week it snowed. And snowed. And snowed. Classes were cancelled for two days, leaving me with plenty of photo time on my hands.

The picture above was taken from a spot near the location of last week’s night shot. Having learned my lesson about snowflakes on the lens, I used a hood this time. As in previous efforts, the long exposure necessary to capture the light causes the falling snow to turn into more of a mist in the photo.

Nikon D7000, 48mm (18-55), 1/160, f/6.3, ISO 200

Didn’t take long for the snow to get deep. Here the big, ploppy flakes show up well against dark objects in the background.

Nikon D7000, 30mm (18-55), 1/60, f/4.5, ISO 560

We were doing quite a bit of business at the bird feeder. This picture is less of a planned photograph and more of a quick snapshot through a window with the camera’s settings on auto. Still, I like the way it turned out. I’m particularly fond of the birds caught in mid-flight around the feeder.

Nikon D7000, 55mm (18-55), 1/50, f/36, ISO 100

I love the tiny points of light that shine in the middle of a smooth patch of snow. Even at dawn the sunlight was already quite bright, so I closed the aperture down as far as it would go and worked with a slower shutter speed to bring out the light points.

Nikon D7000, 35mm (18-55), 3 sec., f/8, 100 ISO, retouched

And then Snowpocalypse Two hit less than a week later. Here’s another early morning shot taken with a long shutter speed and a hood to keep the snow off the lens. I also retouched it in Photoshop to make it slightly less orange.

Nikon D7000, 32mm (18-55), 3 sec., f/8, 100 ISO

Just for fun, I decided to add a flash to the long exposure. The objects in the background are too far away for the flash to reach them, but the falling snowflakes closer to the camera bounce it back nicely. The blue color is a result of the camera trying to white balance for the flash. Though I hadn’t anticipated it, I like the effect.

Capitol dome

Nikon D7000, 28mm (28-200), 1/250, f/8, ISO 110

Last week we were inside the capitol in Topeka, so this week let’s step outside and play around with zooming for a minute.

These are among the first shots I took with a new toy: a Tamron 28-200mm zoom lens. For some time now I’d been working with a Nikkor 18-55mm zoom as my standard lens, the one I left attached to the Nikon D7000 (the more powerful of the two digital cameras I use regularly) for everyday use. However, I found myself somewhat dissatisfied with the limits of being able to zoom in only to 55mm. So at the recommendation of the good folks at Overland Photo Supply, I opted to take a chance on a brand I’d never tried before.

Thus far I’ve been quite pleased with the results. I took the shot at the top of this post at the lens’s widest focal length: 28mm. This allows me to capture the overall “lay of the land” but doesn’t give me a ton of detail on any one particular spot.

So my next shot is zoomed in to the other end of the lens’s limits: 200mm.

Nikon D7000, 200mm (28-200), 1/1250, f/5.6, ISO 400

Mind, I didn’t move my feet at all. The camera is no closer to the subject. All this took was a twist of the lens.

That’s the limit of optical zoom, the zooming that can be done with the lens itself. However, the file size allows for a considerable amount of digital zoom. Here’s how it works:

At its highest image quality levels, the D7000’s photos are 4928 pixels by 3264 pixels. That’s way bigger than anything we need for computer screen display, so as a rule of thumb I reduce image size to 1000 pixels along the longest edge before uploading to the blog. That cuts D7000 photos down to 1000 x 662 (or 662 x 1000 if it happens to be a vertical composition).

But what if I crop the image rather than reducing it? In Photoshop I can use the crop tool to cut out a tiny 1000 x 662 chunk out of the huge 4928 x 3264 picture. Thus I can make it look like I zoomed in with the lens even though what I’m actually doing is cropping down to a small chunk of a larger picture:

Nikon D7000, 200mm (28-200), 1/1250, f/5.6, ISO 400, cropped

Extra for intermediate and advanced photographers: though I’m pleased with the result (this is way more detail than I could ever have dreamed of if I’d been stuck at 28mm), I am a little annoyed at the camera’s exposure decisions. I put the D7000 on automatic exposure mode so I could concentrate exclusively on what I was doing with the lens. Usually auto mode works reasonably well, but here it made some odd decisions.

The 1/1250 shutter speed is way too fast for a subject that isn’t moving (indeed, that’s too fast even for most objects that are moving). I don’t want to dip below 1/200 in order to avoid camera shake problems at this focal length. Still ...

The shutter speed itself isn’t a problem, but to compensate for the speed the camera does some things I don’t want. It compensates for the tiny amount of light that gets through in 1/1250th of a second by opening the aperture all the way up to 5.6, narrowing the depth of field and making it harder to focus. It also cranked the ISO up to 400, which starts to add some graininess into the image.

In fairness to the camera, you do need to worry about the shutter speed with telephoto shots, because even tiny vibrations can cause camera motion blur. But on a bright, sunny day like this, if I’d had the camera in manual exposure mode I would have set the ISO at 100 and sacrificed at least some shutter speed in order to keep the f-stop narrower.