Photographing Hovering Birds

Jun 23, 2009 | Field Reports

Capturing hovering birds on film is one of the funniest pastimes in wildlife photography. On my recent trip to Churchill, Canada, I had the opportunities of a lifetime to practice and capture incredible images while having loads of fun. Every time I ventured out with my camera, I learned new, better and more creative ways to shoot. A big part of this learning came from shooting with my good friend, Arthur Morris, truly a master of photographing birds. I want to share with you what I learned so you might also learn and better enjoy capturing hovering birds.

Focusing

Those who have read my previous writings know I’m a manual focus kind of guy. At Churchill, I used three different setups for photographing flying birds, two manual and one autofocus. The setups were the F4e and 75-300 AF, F4e and 800f5.6 and Canon A2 and 400f5.6 Ultrasonic (head for Moose’s Camera Bag to see and understand what equipment he used today). I was able to get the same number of in-focus photographs with each system, but not the same quantity or with the same ease.

The F4 has never been regarded as a fast AF system and it isn’t. Its bright, 100% viewfinder though is great for manual focus. When used with the 800f5.6 for panning (to be covered in the next issue of the Journal) all the time, basically 90% of my flight shots came out tack sharp. The drawback though is its inflexibility. This is a system that is forever connected to the tripod. This limits my actions, so only birds that are flying basically parallel with the height of my lens can be successfully photographed. Birds directly overhead (some of the best light) just can’t be photographed. So flybys can be easily captured, but that’s shooting with your shutter release finger tied behind your back.

So to obtain mobility in capturing overhead flying birds, I switched to my 75-300. This sharp and lightweight lens does a great job of manually focusing on flying birds. In Churchill where birds are so close and in big flights, the 300mm focal length does an adequate job. But for the shy birds or flybys out in the marsh where they come out of nowhere, the 300mm is just too short. Now this setup used in autofocus mode works OK once locked on (something remedied with the F5). But that time delay in locking on the subject can be some of the best shots-lost. You must remember that with the F4 and N90s (but not the F5), you’re locked into having the subject centered when using autofocus. (This typically sucks compositionally!)

This brings me to the toy lens (as Artie calls it), the Canon 400f5.6 Ultrasonic. When it comes to birds in flight, you won’t find a better combo than the A2 and 400f5.6 (except for adding the EOS1n). The first big advantage is physical weight; there simply isn’t anything that hinders your actions with this system. Even the most inexperienced can swing up this system and get the bird in the viewfinder and in focus. Simply put, this combo was fast enough to capture everything I framed! And lastly, the A2 with its five AF sensors allows the photographer to compositionally place the subject while using autofocus. I don’t think you can find a better system at the moment for flying birds. There isn’t a place a bird can fly to escape this setup. (Sorry, I like this system a lot but not enough to switch to Canon. The F5 also makes a big difference and slight change in my plans concerning autofocus.)

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Light

There’s no question that light is essential in good flight photographs. Actually more than any other photography, flight photography needs a certain quality and quantity of light. It can be summed up in just two words: blue skies.

Why are blue skies optimum? The vast majority of the time our subject is above us. When shooting a light colored bird such as a gull or tern against white, cloudy skies, the bird doesn’t pop (among other things). The subject, especially its primary feathers, blend in with the background. This is true for dark birds against dark, cloudy skies as well. And dark birds against white skies, I dread the thought! Properly exposing for any of this creates a nightmare as well as overexposed skies. Yuck!

Blue skies provide us with a background that makes the subject pop no matter if the subject is light or dark. Blue is also a great background because no matter how we expose for the subject, it looks good. Exposing for a light subject, the blue is overexposed, darkening it creating a deeper blue. Exposing for a dark subject against a blue sky, the sky is underexposed creating a light blue sky. But in either case, whether the blue is light or dark, it’s a blue everybody can relate to. There is no one blue we all think of for blue sky, any shade of blue is acceptable.

Exposure

This brings us to exposure. This varies according to which system one is using, Nikon or Canon (and this changes with the F5). Keep in mind this info is in generalities and not carved in granite. There are a number of variables that could affect your results. For example, I rate my Agfa RSX 100 at 125 ISO slightly changing how “I” expose. Using the Canon EOS1n vs. the A2, there is also slight differences in the evaluative metering. The EOS1n is more sensitive to dark subjects and in some situations is right on while in others, it acts more like a spot meter opening up too much for dark subjects. The A2 only has 1/2 stop increments while the EOS1n has 1/3 stops. With all these examples, the subject fills at least half of the frame. Any larger doesn’t really change things, any smaller does which I’m not covering here. With all that in mind, let’s trudge foreword.

With the Nikon system, matrix metering with blue skies is pretty cut and dry (will be with the F5 as well). I point my camera up to what appears to be a middle tone blue and meter. A middle tone blue is not the lightest blue at the horizon or the darkest blue directly overhead, but at a point in between. I want my meter to give me a basic daylight exposure for this blue. So I dial in the exposure compensation needed to reach basic daylight and shoot away. Once this is done, whether a light or dark subject comes into the frame, the meter provides the correct exposure.

The Canon system is only a tad more complicated to understand. Nothing one can’t master in a relatively short time. Using the A2 and evaluative metering while shooting against a blue sky, for a white subject, dial in minus 1/2 stop and for a dark subject, leave set at zero. On a bright but slightly hazy, cloudy day, a white subject can be shot at zero or plus 1/3 (dialed in via the ISO setting) and a dark subject at zero. The Canon system opens up nicely for dark subjects, especially the EOS1n. But with Canon or Nikon, always watch what the meter is telling you.

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Framing

Photographing hovering birds, physical movement though being frozen in space must be communicated in the viewer’s mind. How can we do this when basically there is nothing in the frame that is blurred, the wings frozen in mid-beat? There are a couple of things to keep in mind.

The main thing is the well known fact that birds fly. Having them in a clear blue sky, the viewer of the image knows the bird is flying. The second thing is positioning of the subject in the frame. We want to provide our subject with enough room in the frame to continue on its path mentally.

This means that the subject’s tail is closer than its head to the edge of the frame. If possible, we want to provide a space for the subject to fly into in the frame mentally. Now this for many means shooting the flying bird in a horizontal format. While this works perfectly for “flying” birds, I suggest you try shooting vertically for hovering birds. While the subject might be a tad smaller in the frame, this format does give the photograph a new sense of drama. “Is the bird ringing up or diving down” is what the viewer of the photograph will ask themselves.

The Secret!

If I learned anything in Churchill, I learned this: to capture spectacular birds in flight photographs, you want the wind blowing away from the direction of the sun. This means the birds are flying against the wind into the light. This slows them down or makes them hover, perfect conditions for shooting. And with them heading into the sun, the sun on your back, the lighting is perfect. This makes for really easy, fun and successful shooting.

Since my return home from Churchill, I’ve put all I’ve learned into practice on many occasions. The magic I learned there works just fine down here I’m happy to say.

Safely & Successfully Photographing Birds at the Nest

Jun 23, 2009 | Field Reports

Reprinted from the BT Journal, Vol.1 Issue 2, May 1996

Spring is in the Air!

Spring has to be one of my favorite times of the year (but my nose hates it!). After I get through sneezing and my eyes stop watering, I take off for the shrubs and trees. I don’t set out to do any macro work, but to find nesting birds. Nothing charges my rockets like photographing nesting birds. I like the images I take and all that rot, but what I really enjoy the most is the opportunity to spend “quality” time with a wild creature.

Photographing nesting birds, no matter the species, can be done by anyone. There are only a few rules (I hate rules, but these are important) you need to remember:

• No photograph is worth sacrificing the welfare of the subject!
• Never have the parents off the nest for more than twenty minutes!
• Have Fun!

To get you thinking about nesting season, or better yet, get you out and doing it, I want to print some excerpts from chapter 1, vol.II of Moose Peterson’s Guide to Wildlife Photography (to give some of you a sample of what’s to come). The entire chapter deals with photographing nesting birds-cup, cavity or ledge nesters. There’s no reason why anyone can’t do it safely and productively. Here are some guidelines to get you started in what I think is one of the most enjoyable aspects of our profession.

Finding the Nest – Pre-Field Homework

When it comes to photographing a nesting bird, the first place to start is in books. I’ve always thought that’s what winters are good for, staying in at night and prepping for the coming spring shoots. You might find all the prep I do before going out in the field a bit much. But I’ve yet to have a nest fail (knock on wood!) which I attribute to my actions and the homework I do before entering the field. That zero failure rate is more important to me than getting the photographs! I tend to work mainly with endangered species where there’s no room for the slightest error. But even with common species, there’s still no room or reason for errors. This is especially true for your first shoot at a nest, if you do your homework first!

The first things to discover about the species you want to photograph is the time of year it nests. Many believe that just because it’s spring, nesting birds abound. In grand generalities this is true. But in specifics, it’s way off. For example, Great Horned Owls tend to nest very early, in the latter part of winter. That’s because they don’t make their own nests, but use inactive hawk nests from previous years. They nest early because hawks reuse their old nests and don’t take kindly to finding an owl in their home! Hummingbirds are another early bird (sorry, bad pun!). They can be sitting on eggs before New Year’s in many regions of the country. Clark’s Nutcrackers nest in the dead of winter in the high country. So don’t assume the nesting time or you could be left holding an empty nest (figuratively speaking, of course).

Researching and uncovering the answers to these questions can be frustrating. In many instances, little has actually been published on a species’ nesting biology. True, some species’ nesting biology is understood in great detail. But for many common nesters, there are no published details about their biology. Finding out what is known takes a little detective work.

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Published Resources

There are a number of great resources out there where you can start your sleuthing. A good starting point is bird identification books. These provide one key piece of information, the species’ Latin name. This is quite often needed later in extracting information from scientific sources. Bird identification books also provide range maps. In a quick glance, these provide a rough idea of geographically where a species nests. The written account for a species often provides further insight about the nesting biology. The two bird identification books I find indispensable are The Peterson Field Guides (either the Eastern or Western guide to birds depending on your locale) and the National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America. (These should already be a part of your personal library!)

Another resource to check out while at the library (sorry, bad pun again) are books. If your library is anything like mine, it has many old volumes, some pre-World War II. Though old, they often have lavish accounts on species. (You’ve hit gold if you find one pertaining to what you’re researching.) These often can solve all of your research needs as they contain incredible amounts of information. As it often turns out though, you might find one or two books that only mention your species in passing, but every little bit helps. (To avoid spending tons of my time in libraries, I started my own reference library in my office long ago which makes research a more pleasant task. If you’re serious about documenting lots of nesting birds, you might consider doing the same. There are a number of natural history mail-order book outlets which make finding titles simpler.)

The one type of library that’s sure to aid you in your information quest are research libraries. These are most often found at universities and museums of natural history. A great treasure chest of information awaits you there in scientific journals. The journals are typically published quarterly by different ornithological organizations. They contain a collection of papers written by scientists/biologists on a variety of topics in avian biology. Accessing the data you’re after is quickest by reading through the index that is published in the last journal of the year. Here’s where knowing the Latin name for the species you’re researching is invaluable. By searching the indexes for a number of years, papers on the species your researching can be obtained. The one drawback to research libraries is you’re typically not permitted to check out material.

You might be wondering if there is a definitive source for information. There is one book in my library I rely on constantly in the spring, A Field Guide to the Nests, Eggs and Nestlings of North American Birds by Colin Harrison. In this one volume, basic information for each species on nesting habitat and requirements, nest type, breeding season, eggs, incubation, nestling and nesting period are listed. (This is the general list of the information you need to find.) Now not every minute detail is available for every species, but it’s pretty darn close. The one drawback to the book is it generically covers all of North America. Some regional adjustments need to be calculated in for habitat and time of year of nesting for your locale.

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Then Comes Spring

In the spring, trees and shrubs have on their new wardrobes of green. Birds are returning from migration, filling the forests, meadows, grasslands and marshes with sound. Males are doing their best at alluring a mate with song after song. Most males also use their song to defend their territories from other males trying to do the same thing. These are your first clues that the nesting season has begun in earnest. It’s also time for your first step in finding an active nest.

Singing males mean there are females about. And where there’s two, well you know what happens (a clue: the birds and the bee thing). Be aware that in some species, males use more than song to attract a mate. Some species perform specialized flights, dances and parades, all in an attempt to impress the opposite sex. Swifts, terns, and shorebirds are just a few. Some species dance for a mate, such as, prairie chickens. Some even have very specialized means of drumming up a mate (bad pun again, sorry bad habit), such as, the Ruffed Grouse.

Finding Nest Building

Observing birds with nesting material is the quickest way I know of finding a nest. Now this can vary some so when doing your homework, determine the principle material used in nest construction. For example, hummingbirds collect spider webs by wrapping them around their bill. Birds of prey often collect dead twigs and branches and just before laying eggs, they collect green boughs. Song birds often use the natural down of cottonwoods or thistles to line their nests. Observing birds gathering, perching or flying with these materials are signals that nest building is in progress.

Using binoculars, observe where the bird is taking its nesting material. Now if it’s a bird of prey, the nest will be rather obvious. It’s very size and placement high in the tops of open trees or cliffs make them relatively easy to find. On the other hand if it’s a hummingbird, it can be the proverbial needle in a haystack. Narrowing down the search area from an entire forest, to a corner, to a group of shrubs, to just a shrub and then finally to a branch, is a chore. It’s a chore that’s lots of fun, but one that must be done with the utmost care!

Care must be observed when approaching a nest! All preliminary inspections should be done with binoculars and not the feet. The reasons are many, the main one being natural predators. Foxes, raccoons, skunks and domestic animals all tend to follow the scent of man. Your actions can lead one of these predators right to the nest. Remember one very important fact. You depend on the welfare and success of that nest! All your efforts in researching, discovering and photographing a nest can be washed down the tubes in a matter of seconds because of a careless act. Not only will all your efforts be wasted, but more importantly, a generation of birds can be lost! If after all this work, you cannot go to the nest without leading a predator to it, walk away to photograph the bird another day!

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First Trip to the Nest

When you believe the pair is on eggs, make plans for your first physical inspection of the nest site. Give the pair a couple of days buffer from when you believe they first started incubating before making your first visit. Now I’m assuming you found the nest from all the birds’ activities. But what if you haven’t, this first visit could be hazardous for the birds.

First of all, take care in the path you walk to the nest. Use large, high steps to avoid beating a path to the nest. We don’t have a firm understanding of how birds select their nesting sites. It’s not unreasonable to believe that the foliage surrounding the nesting site is as important as the actual bush or tree they’ve selected. If there are any large downed trees you must cross to get to the nest, take care not to break off any branches. And if there are branches extending into the nesting bush itself, take great care not to step on them. You could adversely affect the nest by tearing at branches attached to the nest.

Every time you take a step towards the nest, watch to see if the birds flush. They can fly out in any direction from the nest, so keep a keen eye out. You shouldn’t have any camera equipment with you at this time, just binoculars. Proceed cautiously and carefully, especially if you aren’t sure of the exact location of the nest. If you get to the shrub or tree and no birds are observed flushing, you’re doing great. If a bird did flush, hold still and wait twenty minutes. If they don’t come back in that time, leave the area and watch with binoculars. If it takes them five or ten minutes to come back to the nest after you’ve left, find another nest as this pair is too sensitive to tolerate your presence. If they come right back after you’ve left, you’re probably going to be OK.

You’ve successfully approached the bush, now how do you find that nest? The best method is to use just your eyes. Position yourself if possible so the bush/tree is backlit with the light shinning through its branches. This reveals the location of the nest by silhouetting it, its size and shape, making it stand out from all the branches. By slowly moving up, down and sideways, you might be able to find its location without physically touching the bush.

Preparing for the First Shoot at the Nest

Here it is, the exciting day you’ve earned with all of your diligent efforts. Now’s not the time to lose your cool and go off half cocked. (Get it, film advance? Ha, it’s a joke.) You want to head off to the nest with a song in your heart and checklist in your head. You need either a physical or mental check list of all the equipment you’ll need at the nest. You need to arrive at the nest site ready to go. Once at the nest, you’ll need to stay put until it’s time to go home. You don’t want to make a couple of trips back and forth from the nest to gather all needed equipment. You want to be able to work lightly and quickly. What follows is my checklist of equipment for a basic nest setup.

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Nest Site Equipment Checklist

• Camera bodies (most often two)
• Tripod lens for photographing the nest
• Cable release (min 10′ long)
• M acro lens
• C hair
• F ilm (min five rolls per session)
• W ater / munchies
• F lash(s)
• M icro-cassette recorder
• E xternal battery packs for flash
• H at (if required by sun)
• A ll needed flash cords
• B ranch clips
• F lash bracket
• Rubber bands
• B inoculars

You want to assemble your equipment away from the nest. This means not only having film in the camera and the camera turned on, but also having it mounted to the tripod and flashes in place. This also means having all cords attached and ready at hand, plus the ties for the branches readily accessible. The last thing you want to do at the nest is take time assembling your equipment and gathering yourself. Not going in ready not only limits your productive time at the nest, but also creates unnecessary busyness which can keep the parents away. You want to travel light and work fast when photographing a nest. This means having a battle plan for dealing with the branches and your lighting all ready thought out.

Holding the branches back out of the way for photography can be a little tricky. You obviously can’t hold them with your hands the whole time. You cannot cut them away either, right? For my method, I utilize some homemade devices made out of heavy duty binder clips (obtainable at office suppliers). I attach a heavy cord connecting two small clips which I can use to tie back a group of leaves or twigs. I can either clip the two clips together to form a circle or safely clip them to a branch without injury to the plant. I have the medium and large sizes set up in the same fashion, but I also carry single binder clips. I use these to hold back just one branch if needed.

Setting these up the first time at the nest takes time (referring to minutes rather than seconds here), but after that visit, it’s a snap. The first time takes so long because you must use such care when moving those branches for the first time. Remember, they could very easily be attached to the nest itself. Pulling on the wrong branch or twig could upset the nest and its contents. It takes a few minutes to unravel the maze of twigs around the nest, but it can and must be done carefully without any harm to the nest. (Remember when you leave, you must put back all the branches, twigs, and leaves just the way you found them to protect the nest. When you remove the clips and ties, ease everything back into place. Do not let the branches snap back into place because this could upset the nest!)

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First Sitting at the Nest

As soon as you’ve reached the nest site and the adults leave the nest, the clock is ticking. Your activities should not keep the adults off the nest for more than TWENTY MINUTES! If the adults don’t come back to the nest after twenty minutes, pull yourself out but leave your equipment. Pull back to a distance from where you previously observed the nest with binoculars and watch the nest. If within the next five minutes, the adults come back, great. If not, go get your equipment and pull it all out including any branch ties. (Take care of the path you’re creating this whole time.) We have few scenarios to work through now. Obviously if the adults came in, then skip down a few paragraphs.

If you leave the nest with your equipment still set up and the adults come back in five minutes, you have a couple of options. Whatever you do, you need to wait a while. The parents need time to tend to the eggs which they just came back to incubate. They should have at least fifteen minutes to secure the eggs’ temperature and any turning of them that is required. After this time, you can slowly approach your gear. The birds will probably flush again, but hopefully return within twenty minutes. If that’s the case, you’re in like Flynn!

Now if they don’t return again, attach a cable release to the camera and move back ten feet from the camera. Remember you need to be holding still during all of this. You can’t dance about from nervousness, being cold or needing to go to the bathroom (that sure can make one dance). Once you’ve moved back ten feet and the adults come back in five minutes, good. If they don’t, move back to your previous position and watch. When they come back to the nest, provide them with the appropriate time then walk back to the ten foot mark. If they stay at this distance, do some remote shooting and try getting to your camera the next trip to the nest. If at this attempt the adults leave and don’t come back in twenty minutes, go get your camera gear and try again the next day.

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You’re There!

Wow, you’ve made it to the nest and you’re sitting with camera and flash on, waiting to take that first photograph. The first time the adult returns to the nest, don’t fry its feathers with a blast of flash! Take a deep breath and soak in the moment; you’re sitting next to a wild creature, sharing a very important time together. You’ve probably had to work hard to get to this point, so did the birds. Just sit for a while and take in all that’s happening.

I can almost guarantee that the first time you do fire that camera, the birds will flush. It’s not so much the light from the flash that bothers them as much as it is the noise of all the operations. They will come back, and within literally a few frames, ignore the whole picture taking process. But in the beginning, take it slow. You’ll always have to remain calm, making all movements very slowly and smoothly. This is especially true for focusing the lens. Hand movement around the lens barrel tends to make most birds nervous.

Observations of the parents made on the first visit to the nest now become invaluable. Sitting at the nest, you tend to grow blinders to the many things going on about you. The direction from which the parents come and go to the nest and the duration of their absences are all important factors to your photography. These are things you should have learned from your preliminary visits to the nest. When the adults leave the nest, for whatever reason, it’s important to be aware of how and when they come back. During their returns to the nest, it will be like the first time every time. They’ll watch you like a hawk (oh sorry, another of those bad puns)! Any movement you make, will possibly cause them to stay away from the nest that much longer. Since you only want to stay at a nest site for a couple of hours Amax, time away from the nest is photographs lost.

Now this is the abridged version, but it should give you a direction and the basics to begin photographing nesting birds.

Nik Software Color Efex Pro 2.0

Jun 23, 2009 | Field Reports

his is hot! How many of you out there have a D100 or D2H? Have you noticed there is no B&W mode? One of the coolest things I liked about digital was I could instantly switch from color to B&W and take it a step further and do B&W infrared. Yeah, you can do it in Photoshop but let’s face it, that’s one hell of a time commitment. I’m here to tell you that the folks at Nik Software felt our pain because they’ve made our lives one heck of a lot easier, and more fun!

nik Color Efex Pro II is a new suite with more filters than you can shake a stick at. Polarization, Graduated filter and Skylight that I wrote about in BTJ vol 8, Issue 3 are still there, but there are some new ones that excite me to no end.

The updated B&W Conversion is stunning! You no longer have to create a bunch of layer masks or go through channels to get full tonality B&W images. The new User Interface gives you the ability to create a B&W image exactly how you would in a wet darkroom. And if that’s not enough control over your B&W image, there are two other B&W conversions. But this isn’t even the tip of the iceberg as far as I’m concerned.

My original love affair with the darkroom had to do with special effects, infrared to be specific. The folks at nik were challenged to come up with infrared filters that would exactly duplicate the look of infrared film. Man, did they blow that challenge out of the water!

What you see here are just two out of the TEN possible B&W and Color Infrared filters! Ten, can you believe that? It’s not any more difficult than using any other nik filter. You launch the infrared filter, select the infrared spectrum you want to work with and then using the sliders, create the infrared image you want. The example you see here is the Infrared: color using #2 option. Using the sliders to change highlights, contrast and brightness, I dialed in exactly what I desired. I really liked this old refrigerator door but it didn’t come to life until I could finish the image using the infrared filter. It’s pretty darn close to an old image I made long ago of basically the same subejct but with infrared film and hours in the darkroom.

The other image was created using the Infrared: black and white option#2. The beauty of the nik infrared filters is you can dial in the highlight brightness that you desire. This in combination with the contrast, you have complete control over a process you had really little control over in the wet darkroom.

Look closely at this image. Notice how the highlights are bright and vibrant while the tones of the cabin have held beautifully. This quality was achieved with just a couple simple clicks! Is your imagination going wild…the fun is awaiting you in the new nik Color Efex Pro II!

Filter List

High-Low Merge

Jun 23, 2009 | Field Reports

There I am, butt in the air with my face against the netting. With my lens up against the netting, I peered through the viewfinder at the Hen from Hell, staring right back at me. The light was that gorgeous late afternoon light that sets a subject aglow. I shot and I shot and I shot, the action and the light just sucked me in so I just kept shooting. It was an amazing climax to an amazing day. I couldn’t wait until I had the images loaded on the computer and up on the monitor. After dinner, after loading all the day’s images I called them up and started through them.I’d gotten through the majority of the images when it finally dawned on me that the images were missing something. I looked and looked at them, used the compare feature in DigitalPro to do side by sides and that something that was missing just didn’t register.

I’d gotten through most of the day’s images when I came to the images of the Hen from Hell. I was very excited getting to and looking at the images. For a moment, that missing feeling disappeared and I went through the last images of the day. I deleted those I didn’t like, tagged those I liked and then sat back and looked at these last images from afar. That’s when that feeling came back, something was missing. It was then, looking at those images of the Hen from Hell in the pen that it hit me like a lightning strike (which was tearing apart the night sky outside my hotel).

The edges of the image, which are the edges of the pens in the photo, aren’t tack sharp and they aren’t straight. I went back through all the images from the day and that was it, that zinging edge to edge sharpness I’ve come to expect just wasn’t there. Would anyone else see that, especially in images on the printed page like here? I doubt it. Would you see it though in a large print? Yeah, I’m afraid you would. That’s when it hit me that I needed to get an ol’ friend back in my bag.

Back in 2003, I sold my 14f2.8 for one basic reason. It can’t be used with a polarizer or split graduated neutral density filter. I didn’t sell it because it wasn’t sharp, quite the contrary, it’s blazing sharp and rectilinear to boot! That means the elements at the edge of the frame stay sharp and linear, they don’t become soft or bowed. But its scalloped built-in lens shade prevents the flush mounting of any filter. Well what has changed then that I would consider getting the 14mm again because it still can’t accept filters? The SB-800 and its ability to totally control the light from the camera for all my projects makes using the 14mm a whole lot easier. More importantly though for my landscape work where I really use the split grad and polarizer, Photoshop (which was non-existent in my world in 2003) makes the 14mm a must again. I’ve written about the 14mm in the past but not the Photoshop, so let me give you some ideas for post with the 14mm.Shooting the 14mm with Photoshop in your pocket.

Light being light combined with the fact that the 14mm captures so much of the world, you’ve got to do something to bring the range of light down within the realm of our medium. With digital, we have five stops maximum before we go beyond the range of our dmax. When you have more than five stops, a split grad is a must but since that’s not an option with 114 degrees of coverage we need to do it in post. Even though we’re going to be doing the finishing work in post, you have to know that at the point of capture to make the post portion work. You have to rely on your photographic skills as much as post skills to have a finished visual communication.

There are times when I have less than five stops in a scene, less than three stops and I still want to use a split grad to bring some drama to the otherwise flat light. This first technique assumes you have an image that is within five stops and want to add some drama. Here’s how simple it is.

Photoshop Split Grad

Step 1: Open the file (thought I’d give you an easy step first).

Step 2: Create a “darken” adjustment layer by clicking on the Zen Symbol at the bottom of the Layer Panel, clicking dead center on the curve and pull it down diagonally to the lower right corner and click OK.

Step 3: Tap X to make your foreground color Black.Step

4: Tap G and be sure you have your Gradient tool active. (You might see the Paint Bucket Tool when you tap G: simply click on the drop down arrow in the box and select Gradient tool.)

Step 5: Click at the top of the image and draw a Gradient line down to about halfway in the photo. There you go, you’re done!What if you take your shot and you see blinkies all over your LCD? You have your highlight warnings turned on and they are telling you that you have way more than five stops of light? What do you do especially when the information you’ve lost in the highlights is information you need? Just to compound things, you can’t use a split graduated filter. Whether you’re shooting with a 14mm or not, this technique will work when you’re up against this problem.

Start by understanding you need to take two images, one with your base or normal exposure and one with an exposure for capturing the otherwise lost highlight information. With your camera on a tripod and set to manual focus, take your first exposure. Look at your LCD monitor; if you see blinkies, dial in -1 stop compensation and take another photo. Look at the LCD and if you still have blinkies take another photo, but this time with -1.5 stops comp. Continue on until you have a second image with all the information you want in the highlights. Next, head to the digital darkroom to combine the two files into one, creating an image with full detail.

There are many ways to accomplish this next step. I’ve gone through a few methods myself, but this is my current favorite way of doing it.

7 Stop Image

Step 1: Process the raw files with your favorite raw processor. I personally use Capture NX.

Step 2: Open Photoshop and head to File > Scripts > Load Files into Stack. With the dialog open, click on Browse and select the two files you want to merge together. With the two files in the dialog box, click on Attempt to Automatically Align Source Images and click OK. (Note: Despite how much you work at not moving the camera, at times it does move a giggle. In this case, the tripod sank a hair in the sand so the images weren’t perfectly aligned.) Photoshop will produce one image with two layers that are aligned when all is done.You now have a number of options of blending the two images. This is for when you have just barely over five stops of light.

Step 1: We’re going to play with blending modes in a sophisticated way. Make sure your highlight or the “dark” image is the active layer. Head to Layer > Layer Style > Blending Options. When you click on Blending Options a dialog box appears. We’re going to use this to “hide” the shadow areas of the dark image, which contain no information we want and to retain the highlight detail we do want.

Step 2: Grab the dialog box bar (at the top) and move the dialog box out of your photo so it’s not covering up parts of the image where you’re trying to bring out highlight information. At the bottom of the Layer Style dialog box in the middle of the box you’ll find a Blend If section. We’re going to move the left slider of the This Layer to the right. We’re going to move that slider to the right until we see sufficient shadow detail begin to appear. The first few times you do this, you will get confused so you must persevere because it is the fastest and easiest way to blend two images.

Step 3: Once you have moved the slider to the left and you see that shadow detail appear, stop moving the slider. Now, while holding down the Alt/Opt key, click on the left side of the slider you just moved to the right, and move the left half of that slider all the way to the left. Click OK. You’re now basically done, you have combined the two images, retaining the highlight and shadow elements that you couldn’t capture in one photo. Finish by changing the Blend Option to Darken (and you might want to play with Opacity, lowering it a tad) and click OK.

When you have six or more stops of light, you might want to combine the above method with this, or use this method all by itself. You might want to go in and finish your photo a little further. Here are a couple of steps I like to do.

Step 1: With the top layer active, click on the Zen symbol at the bottom of the Layers Panel. That just created a layer mask, white, in that layer. White indicates that all the steps we just did above are being permitted to come through the layer. I often want to hide some aspect of the darker image to bring out some drama the computer simply couldn’t see. So I’ll paint with black (Tap X to make the foreground color black) to hide some elements of that top layer. Using the Brush (Tap B) and working at 20% opacity (Tap 2), I simply paint to taste.

You might be asking, “Why not just use HDR?” I personally don’t like HDR because I don’t want the computer to be in control of what I see or don’t see in the image. We didn’t guess when we took the two photos, we knew exactly the information we wanted in both the shadows and the highlights. Why go back to guessing and let the computer do it when it just takes seconds and a very simple Photoshop technique to be in complete control? After you do the above techniques once, you’ll master ‘em!

You might be wondering about the polarizer. Well, you can do a real nice job of that using Nik’s Polarizer. You can apply it to the Raw file in Capture NX or, you can use the Photoshop plugin. Either way, while not perfectly replicating applying a polarizer to the lens, this will get you mighty close.

Writing a recipe for mastering flash to get it all right in camera when shooting with the 14mm isn’t as easy. But the evolution in technology in just four years has made it very possible to take advantage of a great lens and still have complete control over what we’re visually communicating. I’m so glad I learned some techniques that permit me to have the 14mm back in my camera bag. Every time I zip open that compartment and I reach for the 14mm, I say hello ol’ friend!

Grab the PDF version of this article which originally appeared in the BT Journal.

The Seven Stop Photograph

Jun 23, 2009 | Field Reports

The Seven Stop Photograph

What you have here is a VERY old technique to having one image with a huge dynamic range. It’s posted here more as a historical piece then as a technique I use everyday. This 2002 approach does show though I was thinking about and producing techniques for huge dynamic range from nearly the very beginning of my DD work.

Highlight detail, shadow detail, full tonal range, blocked up highlights and muddy shadows: ever come across these problems in your images? How about when you have a gorgeous scene in front of you and you know the range of light is beyond the film so you naturally turn to the Split Graduated Neutral Density  (SGND) filter. Once applied, you realize that its straight line cuts right through the subject you want lit rendering it useless.

The range of light is greater then our film can hold detail in the high-lights and shadows. We HAVE TO recognize that fact at the time we TAKE the photo to make this work! Exposure compensation isn’t going to make it happen, in one frame even with the jack-hammering of Photoshop

These are just some of the challenges we photographers face as we chase the perfect light in our perfect photograph. We’re basically stuck with a medium that on a good day can capture a maximum of four stops of detail from the highlight to shadows. Many of the dramatic scenes we want to photograph though with dynamic light have an exposure range way beyond the range of our film. We have to sacrifice either highlight or shadow detail. Or do we?

In the photo here, the sky turned black as Blinkies turn on and off to warn that the exposure is beyond the range of the film. You don’t grab light, grab blinkies and learn from them!

Seeing light is the first and foremost “responsibility” of a great photographer. Without light, there is no photograph. Learning light takes time, lots of time. But that learning curve has been reduced by digital with instant feedback and tools such as Highlight Warning (or as I love to call them, “Blinkies”). Digital and the digital darkroom has made it possible for us to quickly, easily and predictably go beyond the four stop range of our film. While there is no limit technically to this technique, I normally use this technique to expand my image tonal range to seven stops of light. It’s really simple to do; here’s the recipe. (Personally, I do this technique shooting the Nikon Nef (Raw) file format, yet it’s not a requirement)

This is a straight shot, no exposure comp. Blinkies as you can see indicated loss

Step 1: Set up the camera on a tripod, frame the shot exactly how you want it and lock down the tripod head so the camera cannot move. Have your Highlight Warning or “Blinkies” active. Make sure your focus is set to manual and not autofocus. If you’re using a zoom, be real sure the lens won’t zoom on its own (use tape if you must). Focus and focal length cannot change or you’ll cause yourself a lot of unneeded grief.

To get the highlights in the sky, I had to dial in -3 stop exposure comp.

Step 2: This first exposure is our shadow detail shot (bright image). Take your first, normal exposure just as always and then preview your image. Note the areas of the image that are “blinking” at you, indicating where you’ve capture no (as in zero) information in those areas. The blinking areas are highlights “burnt up” rendering no information in the photograph.

Step 3: We’re now going to capture our highlight detail shot (dark image). To accomplish this we’re going to dial in minus compensation and take an image. We keep dialing in additional compensation, taking images until we have no “blinking” areas in our image (starting point is -2 stops). You want to affect exposure, using Exposure Compensation only. Changing the aperture to accomplish decreased exposure, shifts your focus point/depth of field, which you do not want. When done correctly, you should end up with just two images, the original exposure (bright image) which has your shadow detail and the second image (dark image) which has just your highlight detail. (Personally, I delete in camera all the images other than the two images I want to use, which makes the workflow a whole lot easier.)

Step 4: Process your images as normal and open them in PhotoShop. You’re now going to combine these two images in the digital darkroom to retain both the highlight and shadow detail. (There are many ways to accomplish this same thing in PhotoShop, this is just my preference.) Tap the V key to

access the move tool. Click on the “dark” image (highlight detail) and while holding down the SHIFT key, drag the dark image on top of the light image (shadow detail). By the camera being locked down when you took the photos, you took advantage of the pin registered nature of digital cameras so by using the Shift Key, image registration is done automatically for you. The Shift Key when depressed will perfectly align the two images. Note that when this is done, Photoshop created a new layer from the dark image. (If at this point the images don’t perfectly align, you’re in for some long nights with the Ctrl T command. Best to get it right, right from the start.)

Step 5: At this point I close the original highlight image and then tap the F key to go to Full Screen mode. We now need to create a Layer Mask in the new layer we just created. This is so we can “punch holes” in the mask to let through only those

elements of the highlight photograph desired. Depress and hold the Alt Key (Option on Mac) and click on the Add layer mask icon at the bottom of the layers palette. When done correctly, you now have a black or filled layer mask in the “dark” image layer and you now see the shadow detail image on your desktop. We just “hid” the dark image by doing this. The rest from here is real easy.

Step 6: You now want to punch holes through the mask to reveal the highlight detail you want to include in your photograph. Using the Brush (tap B), select a largish, soft edge and work at 20% opacity. You need to make sure your foreground color is white to reveal because the mask is black (which conceals) Work the image by painting in the highlight detail you want. At 20% opacity, it will take many strokes (a click starts 1 stroke) to fill in 100% of the highlight information. You’re going to literally paint in the highlight detail YOU desire to include in your photograph to communicate what YOU want to communicate. The beauty of this system is you can include only the detail you deem important to what you want to communicate. (If you reveal too much, you can always change your foreground color to black to conceal what you just revealed.)

Step 7: In this particular scene of the headstone, I couldn’t use a SGND filter because the trees in the background are at various elevations. This method was the only way to have the highlight detail of the clouds in the sky I wanted, which I determined at the time I took the photographs (not afterwards, in the computer). If you hold down the Alt Key (Option on Mac) and click on the layer mask, you can see the holes that were punched through the mask to let the highlight detail come through. You can see how I used some of the underexposure to emphasize the “mood” of the graveyard by painting in some darkness around the headstones.

Step 8: Once this blending of the two images is completed, I simply come in with nik Color Efex Pro 2.0 Brillance/Warmth to finish off the story telling. While I’m doing all of the work on a Wacom 18SX, you can do it with a standard mouse, it just takes a bit longer.

Once you’ve done a couple of these, it will only take you seconds to do the digital darkroom work. Note that this technique only works when you take the photographs right, right from the start. If you don’t have the camera locked down and exposure compensation dialed in via the EC button, you’re in for a lot of darkroom time. This is a very effective technique for bringing all the detail to your image that your eyes saw and mind recorded that the film just physically cannot in one capture. This is information our film can’t hold in one exposure, but it can in two and now that you know the techniques, you too can have an image with seven stops of light!

Image Composites

Jun 23, 2009 | Field Reports

You’ve prepared all night, cameras loaded, batteries charged, route selected and sunrise time checked and rechecked. You head for your locale with only the stars, lighting your way. With a flashlight in your mouth, you set up your tripod and double check every setting for the tenth time. The stars are slowly replaced by dawn’s early light and you see your planning has panned out. In front of you are the Grand Tetons, below you, the Snake River and painted across the heavens are magical clouds. Oh, this is going to be good!

You look through your viewfinder and double check the vision in your viewfinder to see if it matches the one in your heart. Everything seems to be lining up perfectly as the light of day brings life to your vision. Then, the magical clouds over the Tetons begin to blow to the south. They take on an even more elegant sweep as they slowly move away from the peaks. By the time the light kisses the tops of the Tetons, the clouds are to the south and out of the frame. You take the photo in the viewfinder of the Tetons, walk very quickly behind you to get a clear shot of the clouds and take a photo of them. As you pack up your gear, you take a certain satisfaction that you’ve accomplished everything you set out to photograph.

“Wait just a second,” you’re probably saying. “How can you be satisfied when you missed the shot? You photographed the Tetons with bald skies in one image and just a sexy cloud in another.” The satisfaction comes from knowing your craft, having an imagination and the talent to make it all work together. You know that within a few minutes you’ll have the perfect image to print and 16 mount on your wall. If you don’t see how that’s possible, then you need to read on to learn the tools so you too can have the same satisfaction. It’s all about matching your vision to reality.

Capturing the Vision

It all begins with a vision, an image in the heart and mind that you want to match up with what you see in the viewfinder. It’s called photography. I can’t stress enough that you need to get it right, right from the start. That means when you take the photo, you’ve taken it as perfectly as you can at that moment. That should mean it’s a completed photo, you don’t need PhotoShop to jackhammer a bunch of pixels to fix something that should have been done at the point of capture.

In order for this technique to work seamlessly and not making up for camera mistakes in the digital darkroom, you need to do certain things. We’re photographing sunrise for example, that means we have the warm colors of sunrise to deal with. In order to match up the colors of two different images, we need to match exposure in both. You need to shoot with the same f/stop so focus and DOF are constant in all the images. I’m not going into the how’s and why’s of these in this piece, but you can “make up” for not doing this in PhotoShop, it just takes time and skill you might not have. That’s really all there is to the technical side of this technique, be a photographer.

The hard part of this technique for many is following the imagination. You’ve got to work outside the box, literally. You’re going to have to look at the scene, the reality and then look at the scene with your imagination and use your camera and digital darkroom skills to combine them. In this example, we don’t want bald skies so by just turning to our left and walking twenty yards, we can fill the bald skies with a click, of the shutter and the mouse.

If I’m making this sound way too easy, don’t worry, because it is. In the digital age, this technique is very simple to learn, master and apply whenever needed. Because once you have the two images, here’s what it takes to finish off your visual story.

Creating the Reality to Match the Vision

It all starts with your workspace. I can’t emphasize enough the importance of a calibrated workspace. I’m working on a Wacom Cintiq 21UX. It is calibrated with Gretag Eye One, which I depend on since I work visually. This makes the rest of the process a snap!

Step 1:
I shoot RAW files so I need to process my images in Nikon Capture 4.2. Having done it right, right from the start, processing takes only a few clicks. Using the White Balance dialog, I set the WB to match the event, in this case an early sunrise. With these two images, I’ll set the New WB to Calculate Automatically, knowing how the D2X/Hs works and what I like. Using the Advance Raw dialog, I set the Sharpening to Medium High and Color Mode to Mode II (Adobe RGB). It’s essential you process both images using the exact same settings and then do a Save As TIFF RGB.

Step 2:
Open your two images you just processed in PhotoShop (all these steps are with PS CS). The goal is to combine the sexy cloud with the Tetons, no problem. Tap the V key, which brings up the Move Tool. Click on the Cloud image (so it’s active) and drag it over to the Teton photo.

Just that easily, you’ve merged the two photos and made a composite! The rest is just finishing touches to the process.

Step 3:
Close the cloud photo (Ctrl or Cmd W) so just the combined photo is open. This saves you memory space. Tap the F key for Full Screen mode. This gives you a gray background, which permits your eye from being fooled by other background colors. Looking to the right to the Layers palette, you’ll see there are now two layers present, the Background layer, which contains your photo of the Tetons and Layer 1, which PhotoShop automatically created for the cloud photo you dragged over. We’re going to rename the layers so we can easily talk about them.

Double click on Background layer and name it Tetons. Double click on Layer 1 and rename it Clouds. With the Cloud layer active (the box is colored/dark), set the Opacity for the layer to 70% (Opacity is found right above the layer, to the right). Tap V so you have the Move Tool and move the Cloud layer so it’s positioned exactly where you want it over the Tetons. With that accomplished, bring the opacity for the Cloud layer back to 100%.

Step 4:
You’re now going to create a Layer Mask in the Cloud layer. This is done by simply clicking on the Add layer mask icon at the bottom of the layers palette (the bull’s eye icon). This creates a layer mask in the Cloud layer (the white box to the right of the photo icon). We need to fill this mask with black, which will conceal the Cloud image for a moment. There are two ways of accomplishing this. The easiest is to hold down the Alt (Option) button as you click on the Ad Layer Mask icon. The second method, first be sure your background color is black (black
and white box to the far left, bottom box should be black), then hold down Ctrl (Cmd) and tap Making sure the correct layer is active (layer yellow highlight in this case) click on Opacity and set it to 70%) As soon as you click on the Add layer mask and that mask is filled with black (either method), the image you dragged over the other image disappears.

Step 5:
We’re now going to paint back the clouds into the sky. Making sure the mask in the Cloud layer is active, tap B for the Brush Tool. You want to use a soft edge brush. Paint with about a 20% Opacity. By simply tapping the #2 key on the keyboard, you’re at 20%. We’re going to paint the clouds back into our photo. Our mask is black (black conceals) so we need to paint with white (white reveals). Be sure your foreground color is white and then just start painting in the clouds. Nothing you do is permanent, so don’t freak out about mistakes. You can erase your last paint stroke by either Ctrl / Cmd Z or by painting over the spot with black (tap X and then paint over the mistake).

Step 6:
Slowly paint the clouds back in. Working with the small increment of 20%, it will take a number of strokes to paint everything back in. Every left click on the mouse will reveal another 20% of the cloud layer. If you look at the layer mask in the Cloud layer, you will see it first with swipes of gray and then eventually some of the mask will be white, which means you’ve revealed 100% of the cloud photo.