MooseNewsBlog

So there we are on day three of our PT and we’re heading to the mecca of landscape photography, the Tufas of Mono Lake. In the last 30yrs, you could say I’ve been to the shoreline a couple of times. As we got our gear out at the parking lot, the clouds were on the horizon pretty darn thick, the color was just one little spot of glow. I had already decided even before arriving at the lake I was going to head down with the 600VR and click some birds. Knowing also how fast things can change, I grabbed my fanny pack with a couple of wide angles.

As we walked down the path, the clouds started to dissipate, they were leftover from the evenings thunderstorms and the sun was drying them up. My pace down the path quickened as it looked like magic was going to happen. I hit the beach and made the turn and the skies opened up and the God beams flooded in. With the 600VR on the tripod over my shoulder, I quickly put it down, put on the 14-24AFS and made the top click. I then boogied down to the shoreline and with the pirate ship in front of me, saw what you see here. There is no way the photo could be made with one click, huge exposure range. I had no tripod for doing short lens work, so I made a handheld, 5 frame HDR, praying the whole time. Glad I can hold still (and didn’t need a bush).

It might have been leftover from the day before, but I was feeling a little artsy fartsy. I walked the shoreline looking for, well, what you see here. I took only one image, this one and it worked. It’s always fun taking landscapes lugging around a 600VR on your shoulder. But it does demonstrate how important solid handholding technique is.

Photos captured by D3x, 14-24AFS on Lexar UDMA digital film

I don’t know that these plants are called (don’t really care though) but I love what they do with light. The funny thing is, I thought I would be going B&W with this but when I looked at it further, I decided the shades of green were just too intriguing to blow away. This is a photo we’d put in the artsy fartsy category.

Photo captured by D3x, 45PC-E on Lexar UDMA digital film

The clock is pushing me hard this week. Still working with our PT on landscape photography. Headed up to a 9000′ to Lake George and the quite one can find up there. There wasn’t a whisper of wind so the reflections stretched on and on. We lucked out and the jet stream brought in a few wisps that finished off the view. All that was left was do the dance, excluding unwanted elements while including wanted elements.

This image looses something being this small. The drama you see in the clouds in the reflection is what caught my eye. Those whites against the underlying rock in the water is a cool pattern that is sadly is lost here.

Photos captured by D3x, 24PC-E on Lexar UDMA digital film

The art of the landscape, that’s the mission with the multiple day PT we’re conducting right now. My mission today kinda made me think of this video.The challenge is to help a new landscape photographer see the landscape, feel the landscape, so you can through his images.

The challenge is even greater for the PT who has to avoid becoming frustrated as he looks so hard for images that for me are easy to find or dismiss. That time thing, time behind the viewfinder, time at the computer, it catches up with you in time.

What am I talking about, time catches up with you? The more you put in, time, the less time it takes to make the image. Landscape photography, which I’m not an expert at  just very comfortable with, is this romance which while it needs technical support, it comes to life only when wooed.

Take these four images, only the top one do I think much of. It has some character in the light, ripples and tonality. The next one is an HDR experiment which, well, I’ll leave it at that. Then there is that reflection thing. I dunno, it was purty when I looked at it. Lastly is another HDR experiment, wanted to see what would happen doing a water blur with blown out highlights. We’ll mark that down as a work in progress.

And my student, continues putting in the time behind the camera so he can put in the time behind the computer so he can go out behind the camera and move one more notch up the ladder to where he thinks I am and he wants to be. It’s that photography thing.

Photos captured by D3x, 14-24AFS/45PC-E/70-300VR/24PC-E on Lexar UDMA digital film

PS…I’m very foruntate, this is our backyard

I few emails have come in of late asking if I’ve shot any startrails with the D3x and if so, what I thought of the noise and quality of the final images. I have done quite a few with the D3x and 28f1.4 and quite happy with the results. But last night I thought I would switch things up a little and do a trail with the 24PC-E lens. It’s nothing fancy, a simple 5 hours, 100 image trail from the deck of our home.

The D3x is plugged into 120 via the EH-6 (luxury of doing it at home) with the timing being done with the MC-36. The settings on the D3x are M, f5.6 at ISO100. On the MC-36 they are Delay=0, Long=4min, Intvl=1sec and N=—. The 100 files are then processed using Image Stacker. Being it’s summer and so many are out and the nights are warm, give it a try if you never have. Keep in mind if you want dark skies and to see more stars, city lights and moon need to be minimal at best. You want the classic startrail of a circle of trails, point the camera towards the North Star. This particular trail, the camera was point due south. As to the D3x, it does a great job with startrails, the 24×30 print is very impressive.

Photo captured by D3x, 24PC-E on Lexar UDMA digital film

A very common and good question is “what do you take in the field?” When I say a 2nd body on my shoulder, I often get a funny look as if to ask why lug another body in the field. We are an amazingly fortunate group, us photographers. We are able to venture out and see things that many can’t imagine exist. This is especially true for wildlife photographers. And while we focus on the critter in the viewfinder, I often, sometimes to the detremint of the critter I’m chasing, miss that photo just enjoying the world around me. That’s why I have the 2nd body on my shoulder. A dabble of light strikes the landscape for only so long and then moves on. It’s those moments that are special and the 2nd body is very much apart of the gear that goes in the field with me.

Photo captured by D3x, 24-70AFS on Lexar UDMA digital film

This is scary shit!

There are those days in this business when everyone just wants to rain on your parade. That’s just the nature of the business. As my dear friend Roger likes to remind me, “Pioneers always have arrows in their back.” Fortunately these days don’t last long, that’s the great side of photography.

Case in point, we’re up in Reno, NV for the Reno Air Race photog school, now a annual event we so look forward to. Here we get to not only photograph gorgeous planes, but spend time with great friends, friends we made through photography. We started off the event with a great dinner with Scott Diussa & Bill Fortney, great friends who take the edge of any day and put a silver lining to everything. It’s truly one of the blessings of photography that just doesn’t get highlighted enough.

The photo above is a photo taken in the US of Canada. It’s the edge of a storm that we found after being stuck in rain for hours and then by chasing the light, the photography began. That’s how it works, you just gotta get through the rain and you’ll find that silver lining!

Photo captured by D3x, 200-400VR on Lexar UDMA digital film

Some who have shot with me know I love a good stretch of road (and not just to go fast). I think it’s the leading lines that grab my attention, the way they go off to the horizon and from there….well who knows. So when I see a stetch that when other elements are working with it, I’ve just gotta get the shot. In this case, the rise of the hill and the clouds at that moment all lined up. So, I did what I had to to get the shot, as you can see.

There was this light beam coming across the pines, its draw doubled by its reflection. The early morning glow doubled again by the shadowy light surrounding it. But on the other end of the leading line of the shoreline is a towering mountain peak covered in snow in the full sun.

Expose for the beam of light on the trees and that snow covered peak goes to blinkie hell. Worst, the eye can’t help but fly right to it and it never leaves it to come back to what I want the eye to go to. Those trees.

Go to the other end of the exposure range to bring the bright snow into line and then the trees go dark, their magic lost. You could try a split grad but the range of light and the contour of the topography, something would get lost in the translation. It would be obvious a split grad was used. The only solution I know of for this is HDR, taking 5 images. The top photo is the final image, the bottom is #1 and the bottom #5 in the HDR set. Most important to me is, you see the light I saw at the moment I walked up to the lakes edge.

Photo captured by D3x, 24PC-E on Lexar UDMA digital film

Controlling exposure in our photograph is very important. We have a number of tools to do that, none more important that the Split Grad Neutral Density. I personally rely on the .09 Lee 4×6, here you can see why. Shooting at Swiftwater Lake, making a straight shot you get this image. But this is not what folks saw the other day in the blog. The “glow” above the mountain line brought in a number of emails. That glow is from using a split grad at the point of capture which darkens the sky and opens up the foreground.

By simply holding the filter again the front of the lens (as in using my hand to hold the filter) and then lowering the gradation down while looking in the viewfinder, the filter does its job. The final image effect can only be accomplished by using the split grad at the point of capture. It’s a vital tool, it’s key.

Photos captured by D3x, 24-70AFS on Lexar UDMA digital film

We headed to the mtns after our afternoon class only to be smacked in the face by cold temps and cold rain. The sheep & goats were too far up the mtn, darker skies were heading towards us. The photo opp just wasn’t worth the pain so down the mtn we went. Once down, did what I normally do, look for the light. It was north at the border so off we drove. The shacks are in the US, the clouds are in Canada.

The clouds were wicked as the floated by battling with the sun. At one moment, it looked like a tornado was cutting across the distance ridge, then the blue sky would appear as if the storm was over only to go dark again the next moment. At the funkiest stop you’re ever going to find on a hwy, just a mile south of the Canada border, we spent a couple of hours just celebrating the magic of light.

Photos captured by D3x, 200-400VR / 14-24AFS on Lexar UDMA digital film