What a difference ten millimeters make

Last Thursday I took a camera and a trio of lenses out to the ballpark. With some time on my hands before the game started, I trekked up to the highest nosebleed seats to get some wide views of the field and stands. The results provided an interesting range of focal lengths.

Let’s start with 28mm:

Nikon D810, 28mm (28-200), 1/250, f/8, ISO 200

This is the wide side of a 28-200mm that I do a lot of work with. As a shot of the field itself, it’s reasonably good. But let’s see what we get if we go a little wider.

Nikon D810, 18mm (18-35), 1/400, f/10, ISO 200

That’s 18mm (minus a bit of cropping I did to get rid of the roof). If I was taking a traditional landscape approach, this photo would probably be my choice.

But let’s go another 10mm down:

Nikon D810, 8mm, 1/200, f/7.1, ISO 200

Now that’s a fisheye view, so much so that the image gets vignetted. Still, that’s a 180 degree view.

I had even more fun with the 8mm lens that evening, as seen in this blog post.

Penguins and lights

Nikon D7000, 10.5mm, 8 sec., f/8, ISO 100, adjusted

Last Sunday the family did the annual lights tour, driving around the city after dark and looking at some of the more elaborate displays. One of our traditional stops is Pauly’s Penguin Playground, a wonderful riot of inflatable, mostly penguin-related decorations. For some time now I’ve wanted good pictures of this spot, but in the past I haven’t brought the right equipment.

I’ve been reluctant to drag a tripod into the middle of everyone’s holiday fun, but without some kind of brace it wasn’t really possible to leave the shutter open long enough to get a proper exposure. The compromise: the monopod with its three-pronged base extended. It was still a bit more jiggly than I wanted, but it helped a little to use a remote rather than the on-camera switch.

They didn’t all come out perfect, but I was pleased with some of the results.

After that we mostly stayed in the car and drove around, which of course made it hard to shoot the long exposures required by low light conditions. However, I thought I’d have a little fun at one spot. The result can’t accurately be called a realistic depiction of the scene, but it’s kinda pretty.

D7000, 10.5mm, 8 sec., f/8, ISO 100, adjusted

Stars

Nikon D7000, 10.5mm, 30 sec., f/2.8, ISO 800

The whole time we were in New Mexico, I kept hoping for the chance to photograph the night sky. We were staying in Dixon, a small town far enough from city lights to allow me to get a good shot of some stars.

So naturally it was monsoon season. Every single day the sky clouded up late in the afternoon and stayed overcast until well after I’d gone to bed.

But on our second-to-last night there, I finally got some luck. The skies cleared almost entirely (you can still see some clouds toward the bottom of the shot) and I finally got the shot I was after.

I set up a tripod in the courtyard of the mission where we were staying and took the picture with a wide angle lens. So you can see roofs, trees, a pole and some power lines. The light in the window in the lower left-hand side is from my wife’s phone. A 30 second exposure will pick up just about any available light.

Mesa Verde

Nikon D3000, 10.5mm, 1/250, f/6.3, ISO 100

While in New Mexico I took a side trip up to Colorado. I have fond memories of a childhood visit to Mesa Verde, so I thought I’d drive up for the day. If nothing else, I figured I’d find some good photo opportunities.

Which I did. The best part of the trip was the hike to Petroglyph Point. Just a little way up the trail the crowd thinned out considerably, and by the time I reached the carvings I was virtually alone. What fun it was to use one of the world’s newest communication methods to record one of the oldest.

The trail started and ended at the Spruce Tree House cliff dwellings. The crowd was much thicker there, but from the right angles it was possible to get shots without too many tourists in them.

Nikon D3000, 10.5mm, 1/100, f/5.0, ISO 100

I even managed to shoot a short panorama.

Nikon D7000, 35mm (18-55), 1/160, f/6.3, ISO 100, panorama

VLA

Nikon D3000, 10.5mm, 1/400, f/10, ISO 100, cropped and adjusted

Earlier this month my wife and I took a trip to New Mexico. Amy was there to work, which left me with some time on my hands. Figuring I might not make it back to this part of the country again anytime soon, I picked a couple of destinations I’d been meaning to visit.

The first was the Very Large Array radio observatory, 50 miles west of Soccoro, New Mexico. I’ve loved astronomy ever since I was a kid, and though I don’t have the math skills to pursue it seriously, I still like to visit museums, observatories and the like. If you’re into this sort of thing, the VLA is definitely worth a trip. It’s refreshing to see a government operation that’s actually open and accessible to the public. The tour was excellent; the guide even sounded like Carl Sagan. Just don’t trust Apple Maps to tell you where the turn is.

I lucked out in the timing department. The dishes were in their A configuration, which meant that they were as close together as they got. If they had been in the D configuration, they would have been more than 20 miles apart and not such an awesome photo op.

Even so, photographing them was a challenge. To convey a sense of the scene, the photo had to do two things: show all the dishes (or at least as many of them as possible) and convey just how big they were. Accomplishing one of the two tasks was easy. I used a wide angle lens to take the picture at the top of this post. It caught the whole array. But the scale is hard to read. Without something familiar for a scale reference, these could be no bigger than the dish currently serving as a weed arbor in my neighbor’s yard.

Getting in closer and adding some people to the composition helps establish the scale. But now you can’t see the array.

Nikon D7000, 32mm (18-55), 1/1000, f/16, ISO 800

Of course I could always piece a pan shot together. This does the job if you can view it at full resolution. But shrunk down to a web-friendly size, it isn’t much better than the first picture.

Nikon D7000, 50mm (18-55), 1/800, f/14, ISO 800, pan

Here’s about as close as I could come to a good compromise:

Nikon D7000, 36mm (18-55), 1/1000, f/16, ISO 800

Plaza bunnies

Nikon D7000, 18mm (18-55), 1/200, f/7.1, ISO 200

For years we’ve been meaning to get down to the Plaza during the Easter season and photograph the giant rabbits. This year we finally did it.

This shot was extremely popular on Facebook. It got more likes than anything else I’ve ever posted.

Nikon D7000, 18mm (18-55), 1/200, f/7.1, ISO 200, adjusted and cropped

Largely because of the shade, the photo needed some adjusting in Camera Raw. I switched the white balance to “auto,” changed the levels on the shadows and whites, and moved the clarity up a bit. I also took advantage of the lens distortion correction feature, which had built-in settings for the Nikon lens I used and fixed some of the bloating caused by the low focal length. This is what the original looked like:

Nikon D7000, 18mm (18-55), 1/200, f/7.1, ISO 200

My only big disappointment was the bunnies’ eyes. They used to be red light bulbs that created a glowing devil bunny effect at night.

Photoshop to the rescue!

Nikon D7000, 22mm (18-55), 1/125, f/8, ISO 100, cropped and altered

Guanyin

Nikon D7000, 10.5mm, 1/30, f/2.8, ISO 1600, edited

Ever since I was a kid I’ve loved the room in the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art where a statue of Guanyin is displayed. She sits in a temple-like gallery with a giant mural of Nirvana behind her. The atmosphere is delightfully quiet and contemplative.

It’s also a pain to photograph. The uneven lighting that makes the room so nice also makes it difficult to get a good exposure. Thus I needed to employ a little post-production trickery.

Nikon D7000, 10.5mm, 1/30, f/2.8, ISO 1600

I walked away with a good exposure of the statue, but the background looked pale and discolored. After a try or two, I found that I couldn’t bring out the deeper greens on the wall without trashing the subtle reds on the statue.

Enter the mask. I divided the image into two layers (one for the statue and one for the rest of the photo). By masking off everything but the statue on the topmost layer, I was able to leave it unedited while adjusting the wall behind it. Slight changes to the levels and color balance got me the look I remembered.

I briefly considered taking the reds in the carpet down a bit so they wouldn’t distract from the art. But upon further reflection I decided I kinda liked what they did to the visual flow of the piece.

Wells Overlook again

Nikon D3000, 10.5mm, 1/400, f/10, ISO 800

Though we were a little early for good fall colors (especially with the lingering summer heat and dry weather), a Saturday in late October proved to be our best opportunity to return to Wells Overlook to shoot some more pictures. This time I brought more equipment, including a tripod and a range of lenses.

My favorite of the set was a 10.5mm shot taken from the KU side of the tower (see above). I’m especially fond of what happens to the horizon when it’s positioned at the curving edge of the fisheye frame.

At the opposite end of the focal length spectrum, here’s a 500mm shot of the south side of KU’s main campus more than four miles away.

Nikon D7000, 500mm (150-500mm), 1/80, f/16, ISO 100, adjusted

Even with level adjustment in Photoshop, the colors end up somewhat washed out by the dust in the air (courtesy a stiff breeze and of course the distance from the subject).

Also note how flattened the perspective becomes at this focal length. It’s hard to judge the vertical distance between objects. Are the buildings in the foreground right next door to the dorms, or are they blocks away? That smokestack that looks like it’s part of the left edge of McCollum Hall is actually more than a mile behind it.

And to round things out at the end, here’s a view of the overlook tower taken from the bend in the road visible in the first shot:

Nikon D3000, 10.5mm, 1/800, f/14, ISO 800, cropped

Soccer

Nikon D7000, 150mm (150-500), 1/800, f/9, ISO 400, cropped

As long as I have the State Fair series disrupted for sports, I might as well post some soccer shots. The afternoon was baking hot when I shot these from the sidelines of KCKCC’s home opener, so if I get too far into October before posting them I fear they’ll be badly out of season.

The picture at the top of this post is sports photography with all the elements in place. Details are clear. Framing is good. Motion is frozen. Body posture and facial expression tell a dramatic story.

Of course it’s easy to set up a shot like this when you know pretty much precisely what’s going to happen, where it’s going to happen and when it’s going to happen. Because sports such as soccer are generally more free flowing, you have to stay loose (frequently adjusting zoom and focus), look for good moments and shoot lots of pictures.

Here’s an example of a good moment captured without a lot of careful set-up:

Nikon D7000, 150mm (150-500), 1/800, f/7.1, ISO 400, cropped

For all their fun, sports tend to be serious business. However, every once in awhile you can catch some humor:

Nikon D7000, 400mm (150-500), 1/125, f/9, ISO 100, cropped

The main subject in this shot was doing some warm-up jumps, but his body posture and the apparent “reactions” to it come across as funny.

And of course a warning: when photographing sports, shutter speed is absolutely crucial. Compare the kick and head shots above with this picture taken earlier in the afternoon:

Nikon D7000, 150mm (150-500), 1/125, f/10, ISO 100, cropped

The difference in shutter speed is a small fraction of a second, but what a difference it makes in motion blur and the story you tell with your picture.

I should also mention that this week we added the very first actual instructional slide show to The Photographer’s Sketchbook web site. It’s an introduction to sketching color.

Omaha Zoo – Miscellany

Nikon D3000, 10.5mm, 1/640, f/13, ISO 1600

This last Omaha-centered blog entry picks up a handful of miscellaneous photos I took during our visit. Though I had my wide angle lens with me, I ended up not using it for all that much. Every once in awhile I got a good result from it, however. I was pleased by the strangely-bending lines of the dome atop the desert building.

Nikon D7000, 125mm (28-200), 1/13, f/5.6, ISO 6400, adjusted

I honestly thought I’d walk away with pretty much nothing from the nocturnal exhibit, but a shot or two sorta worked. For this picture of an alligator I cranked the ISO way up and braced the camera on a railing to avoid as much shake as possible. Still, you can see some camera shake in the shot. Look at the small points of light such as the reflection in the gator’s eye, which should be single points but turn into tell-tale crescents because of camera motion.

I should also note that the gator shot was seriously level-adjusted in Photoshop. Straight out of the camera, the frame was mostly black.

Nikon D7000, 28mm (28-200), 1/800, f/9, ISO 400

I hoped for some good wide angle shots while we were up on the sky tram (the cables for which you can see in shadow running through the middle of the picture). However, the 10.5mm lens kept getting my feet or another part of the tram in the shot, so I had to settle for sorta-wide-angle 28mm pictures from my other lens.

At least this photo demonstrates the value of getting up above your subject for a “lay of the land” picture.

Nikon D7000, 200mm (28-200), 1/30, f/5.6, ISO 500, cropped

I had to optically zoom in as far as I could and then “digitally zoom” by cropping in order to capture these dour residents.

Nikon D7000, 112mm (28-200), 1/125, f/5.3, ISO 800, adjusted

A wider group shot was less technically demanding.

Nikon D7000, 200mm (28-200), 1/50, f/5.6, ISO 500, adjusted

Some of the most dramatic residents of the rainforest building were giant (like serious shark sized) carp with beautiful gold edges on their scales. The viewing angle and water surface reflections made any kind of documentary shot impossible, and I almost gave up on photographing them at all. But once I gave up the notion of trying to get a clear shot and just went with the beautiful, abstract forms of line, shape and color, I ended up with some pleasing pictures.

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.

Liberty Memorial

Nikon D7000, 130mm (75-300), 1/640, f/6.3, ISO 200

The Sketchbook staff were at the Liberty Memorial last week. The main target was Union Station, but we also noticed some workers cleaning up some of the bas relief sculpture.

The lesson here is a question of shot composition. Compare the “best shot” above with other framing options made possible by a 75-300mm zoom lens.

The next shot provides the best detail on the worker, but it doesn’t supply much context. The drama in the scene is how high the scaffold dangles above the ground. This shot does nothing to show the height.

Nikon D7000, 300mm (75-300), 1/1250, f/5.6, ISO 400

The next one’s a little better. The detail on the sculpture is good. Still, it doesn’t look all that high up.

Nikon D7000, 175mm (75-300), 1/1600, f/5.3, ISO 400

Of all the shots in the set, this last one puts the most distance between the scaffold and the bottom of the shot. But here it’s almost too much. The stairs at the bottom confuse the space, making it hard to judge the height. And the worker is now too small a part of the overall composition.

Nikon D7000, 75mm (75-300), 1/640, f/6.3, ISO 200

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.

SAC Museum 2

Nikon D7000, 10.5mm, 1/25, f/2.8, ISO 1600

This shot turned out to be an interesting demonstration of lighting, transparency and reflection. I took it looking through a window into a small booth containing a training station for air crews.

As a general principle, anything lit will show up and anything dark won’t (sort of the nature of photography as a whole). When you shoot a surface such as glass that can either reflect the light from the outside world or let the light from inside pass through, you can end up with a mix like this.

The spots inside the booth that are lit up become stronger visual elements than the shadows underneath the plane behind me, which is why you can see the training station fairly well. But the spots in the booth that are dark (especially up toward the ceiling) don’t compete with the strong, reflected light from the museum’s roof.

The result is an almost surreal blend of interior and exterior light. It’s hard to get an accurate sense of space from this image. Normally I don’t care for visual “tricks,” but this one kinda works for me.

SAC Museum

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

Actually, this is the Strategic Air and Space Museum. But I’m used to this branch of the Air Force being called Strategic Air Command, so it feels better to me as SAC.

These shots of the SR-71 Blackbird in the main entry hall show off different lenses and different framing options. The first shot (above) is a fairly standard composition with one of my everyday use lenses. It’s at the lower end of its focal length range (18mm), so I’m getting a little distortion. But because the airplane itself is made of long, curving angles, the distortion doesn’t mess up the shot.

Nikon D3000, 10.5mm, 1/160, f/6.3, ISO 100

Now I’ve switched to my other camera, where I’ve got my 10mm lens mounted. On the minus side, this isn’t as dramatic a shot of the Blackbird. On the plus side, the wider angle provides a better sense of the space in the hall. I also like the frozen motion on the kid in the right-hand side of the shot.

Nikon D3000, 10.5mm, 1/160, f/6.3, ISO 100

Then by tilting up a bit I get this result. The top of this picture is actually the ceiling behind me, making for some strange perspective. I like the geometry of this image, the solid, iron-shaped roof floating in a web of thin lines.

Bee and flower

Nikon D7000, 55mm (18-55), 1/250, f/8, ISO 110

This shot should probably have been one of the Unblogged Favorites of 2012. I took it on the college’s nature trail during a class exercise.

For this shot I zoomed in as far as the lens would let me in order to avoid disturbing the subject. At this focal length, the depth of field is fairly narrow. The background is a complete blur, which is good because it helps focus attention on the foreground.