'evening, Constable

Not really a trip out to this week, more of a quick dash. Early on Saturday evening I noticed the sky was rather dramatic, with a mixture of white clouds, darker rain clouds and still some areas of blue sky. So I quickly made the 15 minute drive to Curbar Edge to see if I could get some dramatically lit landscapes. With it being near to the longest day I knew I had a good hour or so in which to work, before the sun got too low. I have plenty of sunsets taken in this area so I was looking for late evening shots rather than sunsets.

By the time I got there the ratio of clouds to blue sky had increased, but there were still patches of blue sky, and the promise that there might be some strong sunbeams appearing between gaps in the clouds. Because of the increase in clouds the land itself was quite dark in relation to the sky. Exposing correctly for the sky, would almost certainly cause the land to be underexposed.

There are several techniques for dealing with this situation. About the only option for slide film photographers, is to use a graduated neutral density filter. This is dark at the top and gradually gets lighter and then clear at the bottom. This is used to make the sky darker so that that relatively low latitude of the slide film can encompass both the sky and the land. Colour negative film photographers have another string to their bow: they can use the extended latitude of the film. A straight print from the negative will either be correct for the sky or the land, but not both. But by dodging and burning during the printing stage the best result for both sky and land can be arrived at.

For the digital photographer, in addition to the graduated neutral density filter, there are three other ways to beat the problem.

The first way is to use a good solid tripod and make at least two, and preferably more, exposures of the same scene, each exposed differently. One could be exposed to show all the detail in the sky correctly (resulting in very dark land), one could be exposed to show detail in the shadow areas on the land (resulting in a blown out sky) and the third could be an in between exposure that is correct for the midtones in both sky and land. Then within a photo editing package various techniques are available to merge the three separate exposures together so that the correct exposure for each area of the scene is used.

If no tripod is available another technique can be used. A single compromise exposure can be made with a raw file. The raw file can then be developed three times using the fact that raw file developers can, in effect, give a slightly underexposed image, a slightly overexposed image and an in between image. The three resultant exposures can then be merged, as in the previous technique.

And finally, the way I usually do it: I take a single raw exposure making sure that the histogram of the file is 'exposed to the right', but without too much clipping of the highlights. Some clipping of white clouds is in fact essential, because, although I am shooting a raw file, the histogram I see on the camera screen after exposure is not in fact the histogram of the raw file, but the histogram of a jpeg thumbnail file which the camera produces and embeds with the raw file for review puposes. Now when I develop the raw file on my pc, I set the raw developer to 'recover' the clipped highlights, whilst at the same time not clipping the shadows. This will usually give me a fairly flat result with a well exposed sky and a fairly dark land. This file is then passed into my photo editor, as a 16 bit file, where final processing is performed. This final processing mimicks the 'dodging and burning' which would be used by the colour negative photographer during the printing stage. I use this technique because, as an ex wet darkroom person I understand dodging and burning and I want my digital 'dry darkroom' processing to be as similar as possible to my previous experience. The actual way I achieve the dodging and burning, is to use selection tools, with various amounts of feathering, to select specific areas, and then use the levels tool on the selection to get the optimum exposure level for that area.

A picture is worth a thousand words so here is a jpeg produced from my raw file before I have done the dodging and burning:



And now the result of a lot of dodging and burning:



Notice how I have also made the sky a bit more dramatic, by selecting it and applying levels to 'stretch' the histogram so that some mid grey areas have been darkened.

This technique can be overdone to the extent that some results can look more like paintings than photos. I try to avoid that, but maybe the above example is approaching that level. I do however like fairly dramatic skies and think that on this particular evening I got one or two lanscapes with skies that are reminiscent of those in Constable paintings:

A mixed bag

I thought I would have a change from flowers this week. Checking through many leaflets on things to do and places to go, which I picked up from the Chesterfield Tourist Information Centre, I came upon one for an Otter and Owl sanctuary between Castleton and Chapel. And for once it wasn't half term or full term school holidays, so hopefully it wouldn't be too busy.

Arriving shortly after opening time my hopes for a quiet time were fulfilled. Just me and a few other retired old codgers, and one family group with under school age youngsters.

As soon as I went through the entrance gate I was taken by the pattern of sunlight on grass and tree trunks which presented itself. I thought it might make a good monochrome shot, but after playing around with that idea I decided it looked better in colour:-



Continuing down the path to the sanctuary I came across the added bonus of a herd of small deer. Having already put my telephoto zoom on the camera, in anticipation of the otters and owls, I was ready armed to get a few shots of them as they ran away from me:-



I began to think this was my lucky day: no hordes of schoolkids, a bright blue sky, and several decent shots and I hadn't even reached the Otters and Owls yet! But you can probably guess what's coming...

When I eventually got down to the sanctuary I found that the otter enclosures were all heavily surrounded by high trees, the early summer foliage of which largely kept the light out. So shooting conditions were decidedly dim. Also the ponds in each enclosure were extremely shallow and muddy brown which would not make for natural looking otter photos. And where were the otters anyway? Most of them must have been asleep in their little huts because there were only a few on display in the open air. Anyway, after much walking around and patient waiting I did find one pair of otters who decided it was time for a swim. Their pond did have a bit more water in it than the others, and there was a small patch of sunlight on part of the water. Immediately it sprang into my mind that if I could get one of the otters to swim through this patch of sunlight it would not only solve the problem of the dim conditions, it would give me the perfect title for what would be an award winning photograph: 'Ring of Bright Water'. I could even win the BBC Country File calendar competition!

So I waited, and waited.. and waited. Neither of those pesky otters wanted to go through that patch of sunlight. Maybe they were worried about skin cancer or something. So the closest I could get to the award wining shot was this:-



And the owl situation was even worse: a few forlorn looking creatures invariably perched in the darkest corners of their dimly lit cages. I took one or two hopeful shots but I knew that there would be nothing worth keeping.

It was now two o'clock and on returning to the entrance to the sanctuary I decided to have a spot of lunch. Or rather a spot of clotted cream tea. Well, rather a large clotted cream tea actually. On returning to the car I decided that a good walk was required to work off the cream tea, so I scoured the map for inspiration.

The bright blue sky was still around, and unusually for the Peak District, which seems to attract haze like cow pats attract flies, the visibility was excellent. So a high viewpoint with far reaching vistas was called for. Where else but Winhill? So I drove over to Yorkshire Bridge and began the steep climb straight up the tightly packed contours. No zig-zagging cheating on this walk, its straight up the steep side of the hill. After ten minutes I realised I'd left my bottle of water in the car. After twenty minutes I must have worked off every single fat laden calory of the clotted cream tea. And after forty five minutes I finally arrived at the summit.

The climb had certainly been worth it and I forgot about the inevitable fact that the climb down would be just as difficult and enjoyed the wide ranging views of the Peak District:-

New beginnings

Unfortunately I've broken my rule and missed a few weeks of this blog. I have been taking plenty of photos however, including the wedding of a friend's son, so Blog writing time has been at a premium.

So I'm back again with a new beginning, in more ways than one.

Many years ago my first film SLR was the diminutive Pentax MX. It was Pentax's answer to the Olympus OM1. I didn't like the ergonomics of the OM1, which had a shutter ring around the lens mount so forcing the aperture ring further out down the lens barrel. This gave rise to two disadvantages: the aperture ring was in a different position depending on the size of each lens, and the set aperture could not be viewed in the viewfinder, as it could be on the Pentax, via a small window in the prism covering. The Pentax also showed the set shutter speed in the viewfinder so, to me, was the better designed of the two.

What both cameras shared was small size and weight, especially compared to the Canon and Nikon offerings at the time. To me size and weight matter for two reasons: I am more likely to carry and use a camera if it and a few lenses don't require weight training sessions to carry about with ease; and smaller cameras and lenses are less obtrusive and attract less attention when trying to shoot candids. Indeed I would be a rangefinder man if it were not for the fact that rangefinders are useless for macros and telephotos, which are essential for nature and wildlife photography.

But gradually, with the addition of autofocus and motordrives and battery requirements film SLRs started getting bigger. Then when Digital SLRs came out even bigger batteries were needed so it was even harder to design small DSLRs. But if anyone was going to do it it was Olympus who opted for a slightly smaller sensor. This size advantage did not initially appear as they started the E series with a professional grade body (E1) and professional grade lenses. All these, whilst smaller than other manufacturer equivalent offerings, were still fairly bulky for my requirements. Gradually they have started filling the system out with smaller cameras and lenses. Immediately Olympus announced the new E420 a few months ago, coupled with a 25mm pancake lens, I knew it was the camera for me.

So I bought one, and it really is small and light. So I now have another rule, apart from doing this blog once a week, and that is to carry the camera with me all the time. That should open up some opportunities that would be missed otherwise. Watch this (blog) space!

After a couple of days getting familiar with the new camera I decided to put my my 50mm macro lens on it and go out into my garden to see what was around. Unfortunately the buddleias are not in flower yet so there were no butterflies around and I had to be content with getting in close to a few flowers.

This water lily is the first to bloom in the pond this year. To get a close in shot I had to hold the camera out in one hand and used the 'point and shoot' technique of Live View on the rear LCD:-



This small rockery flower looks quite insignificant in real life but when you get in close it really glows and seems to float above the foliage:-



My favourite of the session is this chive flower, which sits on top of the straight chive stem and just seems to explode into life:-