Posts Tagged ‘winter’
Wednesday, January 25th, 2012
 - Rocks and surf at dawn, Wallis Sands State Park, Rye, New Hampshire. F16, 30 seconds. (Jerry Monkman)
If you live in the northern U.S., you are probably experiencing a low snow winter this year. In Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where I live, we haven't had any appreciable snow since before Halloween! The gray and brown hues of a snowless landscape can definitely make it hard for a landscape photographer to be inspired enough to get out there and shoot. I feel fortunate that I chose his winter to start a new project I call 0630, where I go out every morning and make a picture at 6:30 (you can read more about the project in this post I made over at the Outdoor Photographer website.) The project has forced me to get out and shoot, when I normally would have stayed in bed, and it's really getting my creative juices flowing and giving me good practice on techniques I don't always use on a regular basis. For most of the last 6 weeks, I've been shooting primarily 30-45 minutes before sunrise, so here are some tips on what to do when it's winter, it's dark, and there's no snow.
Find some light, any light! On clear mornings, I head to the coast, where I can use the pre-sunrise glow and colors to my advantage. Since I like to use low ISOs like 100 or 200, and small apertures like F16, that means I'm often shooting very slow shutter speeds, anywhere from 15 seconds to 2 minutes. A sturdy tripod is a must, and I really recommend using a cable release or the self-timer on the camera. Since most cameras have a maximum shutter speed of 30 seconds, you'll need to put the camera in bulb mode for anything longer and then use a cable release to hold the shutter open the appropriate amount of time. What's the appropriate amount of time? Let's say the camera's meter is telling you that F11 and 30 seconds is too dark of an exposure. Increase your aperture until the meter reads a proper exposure. In this example, assume that it now says F5.6, 30 seconds. This equates to F8 at 1 minute, F11 at 2 minutes, or F16 at 4 minutes. Put the camera in bulb mode, dial in F11, then trip the shutter with the cable release, locking it in the on position and keep the shutter open for 2 minutes. If you have an intervalometer (a fancy cable release), you can set it to automatically hold the shutter open for 2 minutes. If you include a dark foreground like in the above photo, you will probably also need to use a graduated split neutral density filter to hold down the exposure in the sky and avoid blown out highlights.
Pre-dawn surf, Rye Harbor State Park, New Hampshire. F16, 2 minutes. (Jerry Monkman)
On cloudy days, finding light is obviously even harder. I'm finding it's still fun to make long exposures on the coast like the above shot, but there's a lot less color. Though it's not part of my normal subject matter, city scenes here in Portsmouth have proven to be a good thing to shoot when I need to find a little light on dark mornings. For many of these urban scenes like the below image of the Memorial Bridge in the fog, I'm finding High Dymanic Range (HDR) software to be a huge help. For this image, I locked my camera into the tripod and shot three exposures at F16, 2-stops apart: 4 seconds, 15 seconds, and 30 seconds. The combination of the three exposures captured detail in both the dark recesses behind the buildings and in the bright lights. I used Nik HDR Efex Pro to combine the three shots into one.
The Memorial Bridge in the fog, Portsmouth, New Hampshire. HDR. (Jerry and Marcy Monkman)
Trees silhouetted against the morning sky at Odiorne Point State Park in Rye, New Hampshire. F11, 3.2 seconds. (Jerry and Marcy Monkman)
Another technique I like to use when a "normal" shot might not work because of mediocre light or so-so subject matter is to purposefully blur the photo to create an abstract composition. For the above shot of trees against a pre-dawn sky, I used a shutter speed of 3.2 seconds and moved the camera up while the shutter was open. This is a really fun technique because you never know exactly what you're going to get. In addition to moving the camera up and down, you can try moving it horizontally or diagonally as well.
Captain Tobias Lear's 1781 tombsone in the Point of Graves Burying Ground in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. F4, 15 seconds (Jerry and Marcy Monkman)
Of course, you can always add your own light with flash, or as I did in the above photo, with a flashlight. "Light painting" with a flashlight is as easy as waving the flashlight across your subject during the exposure. For this shot, I just used a basic maglight that I bought at the local hardware store, and painted the tombstones during a 15 second exposure. I love the skull and crossbones, by the way.
I am enjoying shooting at this time quite a bit. Most days, I'm done shooting before the sun even comes up so I can go about my normal daily routine. I was actually startled to see the sun come on Saturday when I lingered longer than usual, and I have been so accustomed to shooting in the dark, that I wasn't sure what to do with all that light!
The forecast is calling for a little snow tonight, but hopefully this post has given you some ideas of what to do on those dark, snow-free, winter days.
You can follow my 0630 project on Tumblr or by liking the EcoPhotography Facebook Page.
Check out my upcoming workshops here: http://jerryandmarcymonkman.com/blog/upcoming-photo-workshops/
Until next time…
-Jerry
Tags: EcoPhotography, jerry monkman, new england, photography, Weather, winter
Posted in Creativity, Vision | No Comments »
Thursday, January 19th, 2012
With the above average temps that we have been having here in Michigan, the stream ice is about five weeks late, but better late then never. I always look forward to shooting the ice as it is my time to shoot abstracts. I’ve mentioned in the past that the abstract don’t sell, but I like them and it’s just fun being out in the woods.
Here is a nice shot of the stream and how I set up at the edge to shoot. I use my long telephoto macro lens in the 180 range, as it will reach out farther into the stream if I need to.
My camera is the Nikon D7000.
Who is taking the pictures of me? It’s a Panasonic GH2 on a tripod with self timer set at 10 secs.
______________________________________________________________
This first image was shot in the area you see me in above.
If I’m shooting out into the ice a ways, I will be at an angle that sometimes needs a little extra depth of field, so I will set the f-stop at f/16. With all this cool details, you want to get it all in focus.
 _____________________________________________________________
Found another nice group of patterns.
If I can get the lens fairly parallel with the ice, I will set the f/stop at f/8.
 _________________________________________________________________
And here is the shot.
 ____________________________________________________________________
There are some little trickle streams and this one has some really nice patterns.
 ___________________________________________________________
 _____________________________________________________________
I like when I find bubbles.
 ________________________________________________________________
 _________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
Just a couple more.
__________________________________________________________________
 ____________________________________________________________________
Thanks for stopping by and checking out my ice abstracts of 2012.
 _______________________________________________________________
You can visit Mike's blog and learn about his workshops here: Tiny Landscapes
Mike's eBooks are available in the OPG store here: Mike Moats
Tags: Macro, Mike Moats, winter
Posted in Articles, Landscape, Macro | No Comments »
Thursday, December 15th, 2011
An October snowfall in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
With the snow coming in (here in the Northeast U.S. anyway), it seems like a good time to review some winter photography tips.
1) Stay powered. Cold temperatures reduce the length of time your camera's batteries will function. Always bring a spare or two, and use power-sapping features like auto focus, live view, and LCD playback sparingly.
2) Stay dry. Keep snow away from your camera and lenses as much as possible. While dry, fluffy snow isn't as bad as rain on your equipment, you should still blow or wipe it from your gear whenever necessary. Also, never bring a camera and lenses directly into a warm environment after it has been out in the cold. Pack them in your camera bag or plastic bags before heading inside and let them warm up to room temperature before taking them out. Otherwise, moisture will condense on the glass and metal surfaces, potentially damaging your gear.
3) Expose for your highlights – the snow. A snowy landscape will often throw off a camera's meter, sometimes to the point of underexposing your photo as much as two stops. When shooting in winter, take a test shot and check your histogram. You should have pixels stretching almost to the right side of the graph in order to ensure properly exposed snow. If you don't, add light to your exposures by using a slower shutter speed. However, if your histogram spikes on the right side (you'll probably have the blinkies too), then your photo is overexposed and you need to use a faster shutter speed.
4) When the snow is falling, try a variety of shutter speeds. A shutter speed of 1/250 second or faster will stop the motion of falling snow – if that's the look you want. For a streaky snow, use a shutter speed between 1/125 and 1/30 second, but slower than that and the snow may blur completely away and look more like fog than snow.
5) Get out in the good light. Just like during other times of year, shooting during the "Golden Hour" around sunrise and sunset will result in more opportunities for photos with interesting shadows and textures, warmer tones, and more colorful skies.
Dawn in winter in New Hampshire
For those of you looking for some winter photo instruction, I'll be leading a 3-day winter photography workshop in the White Mountains at the AMC Highland Center, Feb 10 -12, 2012.
Let me know if you have any winter photo questions, or tips of your own.
Until next time…
-Jerry
Find out more about Jerry at his website, and follow him on Twitter at @jerrymonkman
Tags: jerry monkman, Nature Photography, photography, Weather, winter
Posted in Articles, Tips and Tricks | No Comments »
Friday, December 2nd, 2011
Beech leaves during the cold northern winters have a transparent look, and seem to stay on the trees till spring. I picked these off the tree the other day with this shot in mind. I used my light table that’s for viewing slides (which has no use any more) for the light provided under this arrangement. You can do all kinds of different setups and it makes for some pretty cool images. The leaves are curled when they come off the tree so place them in a book with a lot of weight on top to dry and flatten them, then you’re ready to go. You can use other leaves that will work just as well with the light table. Have Fun!
You can visit Mike's blog and learn about his workshops here: Tiny Landscapes
Mike's eBooks are available in the OPG store here: Mike Moats
Tags: Macro, Mike Moats, winter
Posted in Creativity, Macro, Quick Tip | No Comments »
Friday, May 13th, 2011
This is a short video to show you how I used my Neos Adventurer All Season Overshoes from Outdoor Photo Gear to keep feet warm and dry while in Antarctica and the Falkland Islands recently. It’s not an incredibly difficult subject but it took me a few times to get my head around the process and be able to get this footwear on quickly and out to the Zodiacs waiting to take us ashore.
You can also view the embedded video on your iPad, thanks to Vimeo!
Don’t forget to hit the full-screen button  in the video window to view the video full-screen.
Note that there is an iPod/iPhone version of this video in iTunes, which is good for portability, but if you’re watching on a computer, the video above is better.
Neos Adventurer All Season Overshoes: http://mbp.ac/nosa
Baffin Boots on Amazon: http://mbp.ac/ambb
Note: These are affiliate links. The cost to you is unchanged of course, but you will be supporting the Podcast by buying with these links. Thank you!
Follow Martin on twitter here: http://twitter.com/MartinBailey
Check out Martin's blog here: http://blog.martinbaileyphotography.com/
And finally, get info on Martin's workshops here: http://www.mbpworkshops.com/
Hi there, I'm Martin Bailey, and today I'm going to show you how I kept my legs and my feet dry when I was down in Antarctica last month.
What we're going to look at, basically, obviously you need some footwear. These are Baffin Boots. They're good down to like minus 70 degrees Celsius. These are my winter weather, insulated boots, that I use anywhere it is going to be cold.
But when you are going to be jumping in and out of zodiacs, or I'm doing beach landings, you want something to keep the saltwater off of these and also to give you a little bit more height.
These are basically what I bought. They're Neos Overshoes. These are the Adventurer All Weather Overshoes. I bought these from Outdoor Photo Gear. I'll put a link in the show notes and in the video.
Basically, these are what we're going to put over the boots. Nice and big so that you can do that. And then to stop water to get in even over the top of these, but you don't want to be really wearing waders down there. We've got just normal rainproof trousers. I'm going to show how to put these on. It's not difficult, but it's just something that obviously it took me a little bit of time, to get used to the rhythm of things. So I'm going to show you that today.
So, boots on first, what you see is, you need to pull the rainproof trousers on, under the bottom part there, and obviously, I would usually be wearing thicker trousers than this, if it's really cold weather, but this is not important for this review.
So we'll do the boots up nice and tight. Then we get the Neos Adventurer All Season Overshoes. Now these boots are big. To get an overshoe that will go over the top of these, I needed the XXL size I think they were. You can see that it takes a little bit of rummaging around. But then once you've got yourself in there, that's it. You've got the boot on there, and you just tuck this around. I generally then go over and make sure that the Velcro is all in contact. Then here's your adjustable strap. Pull that across nice and tight.
There you've got your overshoe on the top. That can stop water to this height. It's difficult to see this with everything being black, but then if you pull the rainproof trousers down to there, you can literally take water even higher than the top of the overshoe. Literally, I took a wave a few times well over the knee and my feet were dry as a bone and toasty for the whole time.
Let's stick the other one on for good measure. Just to show you that again. You can see my embarrassingly white legs, which my wife says they actually glow in the dark. Obviously, they don't, but they are very white. Tighten them up. Once again, grab the Neos overshoes. I put a link to Outdoor Photo Gear to actually pick up these boots or to select another range. Basically, there you go, bring this around and get it tight. Make sure that the Velcro strip is tight. Of course the water can get in through here, because the tunnel comes right the way up to the top. It doesn't have to be perfect. The Velcro itself is not the waterproof element here. Once again, pull the rain trousers down, over the top, and we have one waterproof legged Martin.
So that's that, really not a difficult subject, but something that it took me a little bit of sorting getting used to the process. So I thought I'd share that with you today.
Also, the Neos range are excellent. I do recommend that you use that. The Neos range are great quality, really good build, and they are very light. With this combination on, I walked quite a ways on the Falkland Islands. It wasn't like a trek in the Himalayas, but even with the overshoes on, I was able to trek for a good couple of miles one day in the Falklands. You can just leave them on. You can take them off if you want to. Their main purpose is to, like I say, keep you dry, when you're getting in and out of the Zodiacs, which are like the large river boat with an outboard motor. They keep you dry if you got a lot of swell when you're on the gangplank. Also when you get off the Zodiacs, a lot of the time, you actually end up having to wade in the sea for a few paces before you get onto the dry land.
So basically, once you're there though, you can take them off. Generally, there is a little base there that we make, and you walk around and photograph and then come back. Now, the good thing about leaving them on though is, if you are down somewhere else away from the base, and you feel like it's a good shot where you need to be a little bit out into the sea maybe, just walk out there. It's not a big deal, if you got your boots on.
So thanks for joining me today. Remember that if you go over to the blog, blog.martinbaileyphotography.com, I'll put a bunch of links into the show notes for you there, one over to RPG and Outdoor Photo Gear, because they are great bunch and they support the show in various ways. I like to support them as well. Please go over there and take a look at what they have to offer. If you need some overshoes, Neos is the way to go.
Catch you later.
Tags: adventurer, Antarctica, footwear, Martin Bailey, neos, overshoes, review, ship, Tips & Techniques, videos, waterproof, winter, zodiac
Posted in Equipment Review, Podcast, Video | No Comments »
Thursday, February 24th, 2011
Morning Trees
“The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.” – Socrates
Tags: Mt Beacon, Photo of the day, quotes, snow, trees, winter
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Sunday, February 20th, 2011
Soft Light, Dennings Point, NY
On a recent visit to one of my favorite locations in the Hudson Valley, I was fortunate to find some very unique weather conditions. Recent sub-zero temperatures and lots of snowfall created some really strong foreground elements, and I was able to “walk” out on to the frozen Hudson to try and capture some interesting perspectives. My goal here was to emphasize as best as I could the relationships between the foreground and the mountains in the distance. This included lines and shapes, highlights and shadows, as well as the color variations as you move from the cool foreground to the warm and bright light in the distance.
More than anything else, I wanted to capture how I felt, which was mostly excitement, incredibly alive breathing the crisp air @ 5°, but also warm from knowing I was doing exactly what I wanted to do.
These are all part of the “ingredients” that I talk about in my workshops that help contribute to an image that is visually interesting, and hopefully conveys the feeling and mood of the scene. Of course, capturing the image is only part of the process – interpreting the RAW file to achieve your ultimate vision is just as important to the overall workflow. The creative decisions made in the processing stage is the focus of this video, the “why” of moving a slider in Lightroom. I hope you enjoy this podcast episode – I have several more coming in the near future. As always, please leave any questions or feedback in the comments section below – I always enjoy hearing from you.
Learn more about Robert, his images, his blog and his workshops at his website: www.robertrodriguezjr.com
Tags: Hudson, lightroom, Video Podcast, winter
Posted in Podcast, Video, Workshops | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 9th, 2011
Editor's note: A big welcome to Robert Rodriguez Jr.! We ran across Robert's stuff by way of blog contributors Brett Edge and Guy Tal. From images, to videos, to blog posts, Robert puts out some amazing content. Hailing from the Hudson Valley and passionate about conservation, Robert conducts workshops as well.
You can find links to Robert's site at the end of this article.
Make sure and read this post all the way through, as Robert's explanation of his Lightroom processing is very informative.
We look forward to more of Robert's posts!
Cold Sunrise - Lake Placid, Adirondacks
This was a very cold, early morning hike to a great sunrise location in the Adirondacks, and I really wanted to convey this feeling in the image “Cold Sunrise”. There are many cues that you can use to express how you feel when you’re at a particular location, and these involve all of our senses including sound, touch, smell, etc. Here I’ve tried to convey touch and feel by leading the eye onto the texture of frozen snow on these rocks in the foreground.
In addition, I think that the low fog in the valley conveys that stillness and silence that we often associate with these types of atmospheric events. When we can’t see very clearly, our other senses become more acute, and even though this is a photo, it triggers that sense in our minds to imagine what it would sound like to be there. Notice also the strong diagonals which guide the eye as mentioned before – cool to warm, texture to smooth, dark to bright, all contrasting elements.
Anyone looking at this photo will immediately understand what it must have felt like to stand on this frozen rocky ledge – at least that is my hope, and why it is important to continually practice the language of photography.
• Lightroom Workflow
As a bonus, I’ve included my Lightroom workflow so that you can get a better sense of how I processed this image with these ideas in mind in order to create the best interpretation of the RAW file.
1) Here is the original capture, with the default settings in Lightroom. Aside from a small amount of highlight clipping in the sky, the histogram looks good and I have maximized tonalities by exposing to the right. The image looks a little dark, but I wanted to make sure I didn’t lose any sky detail which was beautiful and adds the warmth to the image – a critical component to the overall feel and composition.
2) Next I made some adjustments in the Basic Panel, mostly increasing the Fill Light to bring out the dark foreground, Recovery to control the clipped highlights, and Clarity to bring out the texture of the ice and snow. I also added a bit of Vibrance for color. This works together with White Balance, which I increased from 6000k to about 6700k – this adds some warmth to the sky and removes some of the blue cast from the snow.
3) Next I wanted to try and increase the mid tone contrast – again with the idea that the textures in the image will help convey the feel – ice, frozen, rough, cold – even the trees appear like frozen statues, and adding contrast emphasizes this. I used the Tone Curve panel to added a tight S curve. This step helps the midtones, but prevents the deep shadows or highlights from being affected. Adding extra points high and low on the curve prevents this from happening.
4) I decided I wanted to darken the sky to help bring out the soft cloud textures, so I decreased the Luminance value of the Blues in the HSL Panel. This will also darken areas of shadow that often have a blue cast, so care must be taken not to go overboard. I wanted to a subtle effect, so -17 felt about right.
5) Now we come to the Detail Panel – one of the most important aspects of this image, and here I used fairly standard settings - Amount=66, Radius=1.0, Masking=25. However the important setting here is Detail=100. The Detail slider in Lightroom acts as a halo suppressor, meaning it tries to prevent halos, the ugly glow around edges when high sharpening is used. While often useful, it can make an image somewhat softer as well, especially a high frequency image like this one. I didn’t want to compromise that, so a setting of 100 removes all halo suppression and gives me the sharpest image possible. Remember that this requires a very clean image (little or no noise), and a sharp capture to begin with.
6) Finally, I was still not happy with the overall mood of the image – I wanted to sky to play a stronger role in leading the eye and conveying a sense of depth. Up to now it just seemed to bright and washed out. I added a Graduated Filter to with a setting of Exposure= -0.15, Brightness= -49. The key here is not to lose the highlights, but bring down the overall brightness of the sky and stretch the tonal values. Had I just used Exposure, then I would have lowered the whitest part of the sky only, which was not my intent. By using mostly the Brightness control, the sky becomes more dynamic and richer – the finishing touch to the image.
• Conclusion
I hope this is helpful in illustrating how I make technical AND creative decisions when processing an image in Lightroom. Having a clear idea of what you want to say with an image is extremely important, and aids the workflow tremendously. Thanks for reading and hanging in there through my explanations, and feel free to post comments and suggestions below.
PS- I teach this extensively in the Real World Lightroom 3 workshop where I go much more in depth and work through a bunch of images explaining how the creative process happens in the field, and continues in the digital darkroom.
Learn more about Robert, his images, his blog and his workshops at his website: www.robertrodriguezjr.com
Tags: Adirondacks, Craft, lightroom, robert rodriguez jr, technique, winter, Workflow
Posted in Articles, Digital Editing, Landscape, Processing, Tips and Tricks | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, January 18th, 2011
Continuing my post from yesterday, here's a look at some more rock slabs.
I recently purchased this great looking Laguna Lace Agate Slab. It’s always fun searching for interesting patterns in these slabs. I shot this with the standard 1:1 60mm Tamron macro lens, but will be exploring into tiny areas as I add on my extension tubes.
This is the slab I started with
Check out both sides if you buy any slabs, as the patterns vary on each side.
Lots of fun with these rock slabs!
You can visit Mike's blog and learn about his workshops here: Tiny Landscapes
Mike's eBooks are available in the OPG store here: Mike Moats
Tags: macro rocks, Mike Moats, slabs, winter
Posted in Articles, Macro | 1 Comment »
Thursday, December 16th, 2010
Now that winter has arrived here in southeast Michigan I’m mostly shooting indoors. Dealing with varying light conditions can be tough without artificial lighting. I mainly shoot in two location of my house, near a wall at the back of the house, or in the front foyer where a huge window on the second level floods the stairway with natural light. Whether I shoot at the back of the house or front depends on the time of day and where the strongest light is entering the home.
I have always preferred natural light for my images without the use of flash, and have been successful the majority of the time working in this manner. On most days I do get enough natural light through these windows that gives me enough light to pull off my shots. But there are those heavy overcast days when it’s just to dark in the house and tough to shoot. I tried flash in the past and found it frustrating at time and didn’t care for the look, even through I have seen photographers that use flash that get good results. It was just not for me.
Recently I’ve seen these LED light boxes that are sold as a constant light source used for shooting video with DSLR cameras. They attach in your camera’s hotshoe where the flash would be, and I thought this would be a great lighting tool for the macro photographer. I don’t use it attached to the camera, but rather use it by hand holding it where I what the light to hit the subject. Because the subjects we shoot are small this light works perfectly.
I can control the amount of light by adjusting how close the light is to the subject: more light I hold it closer, less light I hold it farther away. With this constant light I can see where the light is hitting, and how it affects the subject, so I have full control.
I bought of one of these lights to experiment with from the crew at Outdoor Photo Gear, who sell the Dot Line DV60 Video and DSLR Light. It sells for only $99, which is cheaper then a good flash system, and I feel I have more control with this light over using a flash.
It has tons of little LED lights and throws a lot of light, and as I stated you can control the lights intensity by varying the distance to the subject.
The light runs on a rechargeable battery and has an on/off switch.
I have seen other brands of LED lights being sold at different sites at much higher prices, sometimes in the three hundred dollar range, but this light worked great and at a much better price.
Here is a link to the light at Outdoor Photo Gear Dot Line LED Light
Here is one of the first subjects I shot while experimenting with this light.
Check out the Dot Line light, and don't let the cold weather keep you from shooting!
You can visit Mike's blog and learn about his workshops here: Tiny Landscapes
Mike's eBooks are available in the OPG store here: Mike Moats
Tags: LED Lighting, Lighting for Macro, Photo Lighting, winter
Posted in Articles, Equipment Review, Featured Products, Lighting | No Comments »
|
 |
|
