There is an unspoken ingredient in the photographic chase that can be hard for some. It’s hard because one, it’s an ingredient not in the instruction book and two, even once known it’s hard to conjure up. And that’s an imagination. I often talk about photography is a visual storytelling medium, a way to tap the viewer’s heartstrings. While f/stops and shutter speeds are needed to make some of this process begin, it only travels home when passion drive by imagination wraps up that visual story and takes it to the heart. How can you find your imagination, expand it and exploit it? This was a question a photographer asked me recently and to be honest with you, being one with a vivid imagination, forever, I’m still searching for the answer. For now, I have this.
Last week we walked about Grand Prismatic in Yellowstone, what one in our group called the World Tour. With D850 / 18-35 or 105f1.4 or 70-200f4 in hand (me with my 18f2.8), we walked around the boardwalk and I called out all the continents I saw in the snow that had landed and melted shapes in the springs. It might be Greenland or the Rookies or Serangetti Highlands. And in doing that, for some the whole world of texture, color and photography opened up. We all had a ball and it was based simply on a vivid imagination. So when you’re out shooting next time and wanting to take your photography to the next step and that histogram and gettin you there, you might think of what it starts with …
We were to have pretty clear skies so the idea of a time lapse of the lunar eclipse crossed my mind. I went online and looked up the times for the eclipse at the house (didn’t have time to spend it on the flats) and saw that more than likely, the time of totality would be behind the mountain. And, it would be when the sun was rising in the east. None the less, I set up the D850 as it takes heavenly lights time-lapse to a whole new level of easy! I started with the D850 with the 18f2.8AF attached to a tripod. The D850 was set to Auto ISO with max of 6400 and shutter speed of 25sec, New Auto Natural WB, Aperture Priority at f/2.8, I went into the Time-lapse menu and dialed in the settings. I set the duration to 7hrs 59min, frequency to 1 every 30sec, Exposure Smoothing and Silent Shutter (which freakin rocks!). I shot one with the EH-5c/EP-5B AC adapter providing constant power to the D850. While no eclipse, I love watching what went through the skies while I slept.
I wanted a sunset to sunrise time lapse of our winter skies, 16 hours of shooting time. Picking a night with no moon and moving clouds, I set out for what really is a simple process now. The D850 takes heavenly lights time-lapse to a whole new level of easy! At the same time, it produces some pretty darn clean results. I started with the D850 with the 18f2.8AF attached to a tripod. Using what I call the “too tired to think” settings, the camera set to Auto ISO with max of 6400 and shutter speed of 25sec, New Auto Natural WB, Aperture Priority at f/2.8, I went into the Time-lapse menu and dialed in the settings. I set the duration to 7hrs 59min, frequency to 1 every 30sec, Exposure Smoothing and Silent Shutter (which freakin rocks!). I shot one with the EH-5c/EP-5B AC adapter providing constant power to the D850. I got up during the night right at the 7hrs 59min mark to restart the camera to create the 16 hr time lapse. The D850 creates right out of the camera a 4k time-lapse movie as easy as touching the menu Start (yep, Menu is touch activated!). I just combined the two out of camera videos for what you see here. Really way too simple now, thank goodness. Now you can create an 8k time-lapse with the D850 as well. You would need to shoot Nef’s and then run those through a 3rd party program (like Photoshop) to create that high res time-lapse (which would produce the best results). Either way, it’s so simple it’s a ton of fun! Oh ya, didn’t know neighbors were going to throw an evening party. Kinda lit up the trees. mtc
Depth of focus, it’s how Depth of Field was termed back in the day when I started photography. Depth of focus is how I was taught to think about how the change of aperture changes my storytelling. My incredible teacher in high school would talk about the focus in a photograph, the reality and the perceived amount that was in focus. Those basic lessons which he taught us I still use today because focus and point of focus are so bloody important in visual storytelling. The mind’s eye goes to light and bright first, focus second. Being winter I’m spending office time printing up 24×30 images with the Epson P7000 that I took during the fall, many of those taken with the D850 and I’m seeing (as in visually noticing) that with my narrow DoF I’m seeing more in focus. Huh?!
Depth of Focus (or Depth of Field) is an actual, physical element in our photograph affected by the focal length, f/stop, subject and background distance. That is the reality of it, how most go about selecting their working aperture. Then there is the perceived DoF and it’s called perceived because the mind’s eye can be fooled, tricked into seeing more in focus that is really there. The one method I use the most is underexposure which adds black that tricks the eye. But in the printing of my images, I visually see more “perceived” focus because of the amazing image quality delivered by the D850! Because of its gorgeous pixels, there is more information in the photograph and that increased information makes the perceived DoF greater. Now, will you see this in a smaller print or in an image on the web? You might not! Is this a reason why you should buy the D850? Now that’s a darn good question. If in the sales brochure it was stated the D850 increases the perceived DoF, I would buy it just because of that statement! I know I really enjoy the D850 over any other megapixel camera I’ve shot with for many reasons but now I have one more I’ve identified and will employ as I manipulate your viewing of my visual stories. I will definitely now explore perhaps a third realm in the focus of my photographs, pixel depth of focus.
With no snow on the ground, I’ve been bouncing off the walls photographically. That’s because winter is all about snow and we live in the mountains, for the snow! I can only sit for so long! So with the New Year’s supermoon, I thought I’d head down the road to find something in the foreground to put with it to make it look super. Because otherwise, it’s just a full moon photo … right? Well, I struck out so came back home thinking I might do something with the pines on the property. Well, that blew chunks so I headed back in to put the 200-400VR when I noticed the clouds lit up by the moon. Then I thought about the corner tree all lit up that with the clouds in the background made it a complete photo. So I put the 24-70VR on the D850, headed over an made a couple of clicks. So while you can’t see the 14% larger moon in the frame, you can see the 14% brighter moon in the clouds. And with that, I headed back into the fire :-)
Had a very interesting conversation over the weekend with someone wanting to be a photographer. What amazed me was this person’s only camera is an iPhone. Nothing wrong with that except this person wanted to make their livelihood as a landscape photographer. They didn’t know if I shot landscapes but asked my advice on the matter anyway. Since the podcast I recorded sounded way too much like a Moose rant, I decided to delete it and write a calmer post.
The conversation sent my mind back to other conversations about the income side of photography, the expense, and the income. The one thing in those conversations that is essential as far as I’m concerned about photography, especially the business of photography is the passion! I guess I’m really old school or just old, but I have a hard time understanding how a photographer can make it down the long road, be it hobby or profession without that desire to be a visual storyteller that passion propels forward. I feel you have to have it to put into your photography for others to get the passion out of your photography. So while I have no clue if this post will make you feel any better about your photography, but I know getting this off my chest in a calmer way makes me feel a whole lot better. That’s cause photography is all about feelings and not some pie in the sky!
