Moonrise at Twilight at the Beach in the Snow: You Must Believe in Spring

The afternoon that I discovered Talia (see previous post), it was the first warm afternoon we'd had in what seemed like a century (and probably was a few months in reality) in Connecticut. It's been a tough winter. One of the things about staying indoors a lot though is that you forget how interesting (and dare I say it, pretty?) the winter world can be (especially when you're a writer that works at home). I really envy people that ski a lot (especially cross-country skiers--and I used to love cross-country skiing, so maybe next winter I'll go back to it) because they do get to see a lot of the nice side of winter. They probably hate it less.

Anyway, after I'd discovered Talia and spent an hour or so shooting photos of her (including a kind of nice series of depth of field studies that I may use in a book--provided I can get her to sign a release), I started to pack up and as always happens to me, I turned around to see a really fascinating view. It seems that whenever I'm about to leave and I'm just looking forward to putting the gear away and taking a ride, a shot pops up. Who am I to turn away? This is not a great shot in terms of composition (and I was standing on an ice field when I shot it and just hoping to keep my balance) but it had a lot of interesting exposure challenges: it was twilight, there was a full moon rising, the foreground was mostly snow and, oddly enough, there was a sunset going on behind me. Since I've been working on a book about exposure (an update of my book Exposure Photo Workshop: Develop Your Digital Photography Talent), I decided to accept the challenge. Even though I'm not crazy about the shot, I think the mix of exposure challenges was fun to play with and it looks very much as I saw it: snow and sky bathed in twilight and the warm moon rising. (The shot was made at ISO 1600, by the way, so you will see some noise in the sky--but I thought it was minimal considering the low light.)

And, interestingly, I think this shot will remind me of the day the ice broke: the day that I could finally see spring in the light of the first full moon I'd noticed all winter. I think I heard spring talking to my soul in the moonlight, saying "Remember me?" And trust me, after this winter, my soul needs spring. Yours does too, probably. So, get out, find a pretty end-of-winter scene and let winter go. Wave it goodbye and wish it well. It's less than 30 days to spring: my neighbor told me the daffodils are coming up under the snow. I haven't seen them, but I believe her.

(The photo was made with a Nikon D90 body with an 18-70mm lens and exposed 1/50 at f/4.2, ISO 1600 and exposed in RAW.)

Restricting Depth of Field, Not Always Easy

A photograph always works best when it has a single clear subject that is well defined. That isn't to say that you can't have a complex scene (like this one) and still emphasize just one subject (the Christmas decorations in the tree), but you have to find a way to make that subject dominate its background. One reliable way to make a subject pop, of course, is by limiting depth of field (near-to-far sharpness) and thereby restricting focus to just one zone of the photo. Three factors go into how much depth of field any photo will have: the lens aperture you're using (the wider the aperture the less will be in sharp focus and vice versa), lens focal length (the longer the focal length, the less that will be in sharp focus and vice versa) and subject distance (the nearer you are to your subject, the less will be in sharp focus with any given lens at any given aperture). OK, that's the mini lesson in depth of field.

But even restricting depth of field with two of those factors doesn't always have enough impact. I took the shot above of a neighbor's tree after an ice storm last week. It wasn't a serious photo, I was just chatting with a few neighbors and popping off some shots. But what I wanted was for the decorations to really jump out against the background and not get lost in the tangle of ice-covered branches. And to some degree, I got that--but not quite as dramatically as I would have liked. Two depth of field factors were at work to give me shallow focus: I was using a Nikon 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G ED IF AF-S VR Nikkor Zoom Lens for Nikon Digital SLR Cameras set at 112mm (equivalent to 168mm in 35mm terms--which is a pretty long lens) and I was shooting nearly wide-open at f/5.6. For most subjects that would have restricted depth of field to a very narrow zone--and, in reality, it did--the sharpest focus is limited to the ornaments. But because I was about 30' away from the tree, I didn't have the third factor at work: I was a little too far away from the subject to really knock the background out of focus. Unfortunately the snow was about four feet (yes four feet!) deep between me and the tree and there was no way I was wading into that mess!

So, while I had the right lens and the right f/stop, the long lens compressed the space (a trait of long lenses) between the main subject (the ornaments and foreground tree) and the background trees and branches into a bit of a visual mush. Had I gotten physically closer (probably 10' closer) and isolated just a few of the ornaments I could have easily tossed the background completely out of focus. Or I could have zoomed out more, but from where I was standing I couldn't find a good composition using more lens.

The photo is OK, it's pretty, but the photo I was really seeing in my mind's eye would have required the third factor: getting closer. And that would have required a fourth factor: a photographer willing to stand up this his chest in snow to get the shot. That day, it wasn't me!

By the way, not to throw in a book plug (oh hey, why not!) but there is lots more about depth of field and related issues in my book Exposure Photo Workshop: Develop Your Digital Photography Talent.

What Every Photographer Needs: A Bathroom with a View

I shot this from my bathroom window at dawn during one of the countless storms in January. And I'm grateful for the view because there was no way I was going to go out at dawn with a fresh foot of snow looking for pictures, Not that I mind tramping around in it once I get somewhere, but that morning the plow never even visited the street. Besides, fortunately, the bathroom is the warmest room in my house, so it was a nice toasty place to shoot from! Come on spring! (Shot with a Nikon D90 and an 18-70mm Nikkor zoom; exposed in RAW.)

Experiment with the Wrong White Balance

One of the technical features that I like most about digital cameras is the ability they give you to match the sensor's color response to the color of the existing light using the white balance control. In the old (i.e. film) days, if you wanted to match a film to the light source you either had to choose a film that was balanced for that type of lighting (daylight film for daylight, tungsten film for tungsten, etc.) or use filters to "correct" the film for the existing light. With digital cameras, of course, you just open up a menu and tell it what the predominant light source is and shoot--and you can even fine-tune the response via a color-picker/color-temperature chart on with most DSLR cameras.

But you don't always have to choose the correct white balance. In fact, sometimes you get a more pleasing or more creative photo if you intentionally use the wrong white balance. If you use the tungsten setting in a daylight scene (as I did for the shot above), for example, you end up with a photo this unnaturally blue. Why? Because in order to balance the sensor's response to tungsten light, which is naturally very red because it has a warmer color temperature than, say, daylight, it adds additional blue to the scene. But if you use that extra blue in daylight scenes, you end up with photos that have a very cool twilight appearance. That is exactly what I did to get the shot of the Christmas tree on my front lawn. I did shoot the photo at twilight and there is some artificial lighting (LED) but the predominant light is just daylight. I exaggerated its blue color by choosing a tungsten white balance--which, in effect, put a blue filter over the image.

You can do the opposite, too (and I often do). If you are shooting on a very cloudy day where the daylight has a lot of blue in it, you can use a "cloudy day" white balance setting to add warmth to a scene--that's what that setting is for. But you can also use the cloudy day setting (again, it's designed to add warmth) on a bright sunny day and that in turn will add extra warmth to portraits, landscapes, etc. In fact, I almost always use the cloudy-day setting--it is almost my default white balance setting for outdoor scenes because I like them warm.

Of course, the simplest way to tweak the white balance in all of your shots is to shoot in RAW and then adjust the white balance after the fact. The Adobe RAW converter, for example, has a white balance slider that essentially lets you make your white balance choices after the shot was made.

Looking Back at the Islands of Time

 

Here's another scene from yesterday's quick snow storm. This is the same pond and the view is just a few hundred feet to the right of the shot in yesterday's posting. I like the other shot more, I think, but one thing I like about this scene is that there are quite a few yellow leaves still clinging to some of the smaller trees. I think the yellow color adds another level of color interest to the scene. I like the very smooth reflection here, too. Interestingly (for me, at least) that large tree at the edge of the pond,  just to the left of center, has been there since I was a kid and, in fact, I used to sit on it and fish. That was more 40+ years ago and I had no idea I'd be a photographer then, but I find it comforting in a slightly mystical New Englandish way that I am able to revisit some of these haunts of my youth and turn them into photographs. While this town has undergone its share of development, oddly, there are some islands of my youth that have been untouched by time. If you have any places like that in the town or city where you grew up, whether you are still there or just visit occasionally, take time to photograph them because surely one day the bulldozers will come and those islands will disappear into the mists of memory. Tomorrow I'll show you another pond from the past.

Go Shoot Some Snow (but Hold the Beer, Thanks)

 

Everyone who knows me knows that I am not a big fan of winter or snow--I complain about it a lot. But actually I love the look of snow, it can be a very pretty subject and if I lived in a more scenic area, I'd probably learn to love snow.  Still, you can find pretty snow shots almost anywhere, especially when it's that wet soft snow that clings to branches and outlines the dark trunks of trees so nicely. The snow was so pretty today, in fact, that I ran home while doing errands to grab the cameras and tripod and headed out about two hours before twilight to find something to shoot. This is an old mill pond near my home and as I drove by this reflection scene nearly stopped me in my tracks. Unfortunately the only place to park was in an unplowed parking lot and I wasn't sure if I'd get back out again, but the shot was so pretty I had to try (turns out I was able to back out easily). 

I knew the shot I wanted from the moment I saw it so all I did was to set up the tripod on a tiny dock, composed it, took a meter reading and shot. I should have shoveled off the wooden dock, it got very icy from me standing on it and I had a vision of myself falling into the pond not to be seen again until spring--and I *do* carry a snow shovel with me when I'm shooting so I can clear a place for my feet. I ended up shooting a couple dozen shots, changing the view slightly and altering the balance between the land and reflection. I initially had -1.3 stops of exposure compensation set inadvertently and when I noticed, got rid of it--always reset your controls at the end of a shooting session! That much compensation really didn't matter since I was shooting in RAW and could have easily corrected it. The shot here was a straight reading in the matrix mode; there was enough of a mix of lights and darks so that the meter didn't get fooled either way.

The only minor glitch in shooting this scene was that, after I'd been shooting for about a half hour, I noticed a beer bottle floating across the pond--being pulled by the current toward a small waterfall off to my right. There was nothing I could have done about it anyway and I knew I could clone it away (I did in the frame above), but it's amazing how people's garbage can get into almost any scene--and floating bottles have been a problem for me before. I'll have to buy a pellet gun and start shooting at them--might be more fun than cloning. Below is the uncloned shot--see if you can spot the bottle.

By the way, this is the same pond that I shot in this autumn scene--the snow scene is a little bit to the left of the autumn composition, but both were shot from the same dock. I think fishermen built that dock for their own use, but I get a lot of use out of it, too. Also, I saw two other photographers at the pond and one was off in the woods shooting, but the other just drove up, hopped out with a DSLR and snapped a few frames and left. It was almost a drive-by shooting.

I'm kind of hoping that snow is over for this season, but if not, I'll try to make the best of it and go get some snaps--you should too :) But if you have a beer while you're shooting, take the bottle home with you--and let someone else drive.

Understanding the Three Types of Light Meters

Many digital cameras (including virtually all DSLR cameras) offer a choice of three light-metering options, typically including: matrix (also called evaluative metering), center-weighted and spot metering. Understanding how these metering types differ from one another and knowing when to use each is an important part of getting a good exposure. In today's tip I'll discuss matrix metering which is, by far, the most frequently used metering method (and with good reason).

Matrix meters work by dividing the frame up into a complex pattern grid that covers the entire frame. The camera then uses a series of algorithms to compare the various brightness regions of the frame and arrive at a good exposure. The way that these algorithms are programmed is nothing less than astonishing in their sophistication and complexity. The cameras have been programmed with the results of hundreds of thousands of potential exposure situations and when you point your camera at a scene, the camera's micro-computer compares the scene you're shooting to all of those exposures to find the one that most closely matches your subject. Sounds like science fiction, I know, but it's all true--and it happens in the blink of an eye. Many matrix meters also take into account not only the colors of your subject but, using information from the lens and focusing system, determine which parts of the scene are closest to the camera and are likely the main subject. Wheww!

What the camera is looking for as it analyzes a scene are familiar landmarks of shape, color and tonality (brightness). In a really simple scene, for example, if it sees a tall vertical subject of average tone in front of a bright background in the upper half of the frame and a slightly darker foreground below the subject, it makes an educated guess (a very educated guess, since it was probably a team of supergeeks from MIT that programmed it) that what you're shooting is a person standing on a green lawn in front of a bright blue sky (and wearing a red shirt). The camera no doubt also knows that your subject just got back from a week in Miami and has a nice tan. And in most cases, it would be correct. It then rummages around in its memory banks to find what it "thinks" is the best exposure for that subject.

The amazing thing about matrix metering though, is that it can handle far more complex scenes than that. In my shot of Notre Dame above, for example, the meter has determined that what I'm shooting is a bright yellow subject (it probably even knows it's a piece of architecture based on the shape pattern of the subject) against a blue sky. But even that is a mild challenge for a matrix meter. I commonly trust matrix metering when shooting subjects like a bright blue dragonfly sitting on a dark green leaf in front of a black pond with sunlight reflecting off of the water. And the exposures are (as the Brits say), spot on.

Matrix meters are extraordinarily accurate in a huge range of lighting situations, both complex and simple, and that's why they are the default metering systems of most cameras. In the next few tips I'll talk about the other types of metering methods and why you might choose them over the genius of matrix metering.

Meter from a Middle Tone

You probably know this already, but all light meters are designed to give accurate readings only when metering a subject of average tone. This is often referred to as "middle gray" because an average tone sits in the middle of a tonal gray scale halfway between pure white and pure black. If you're not reading from a middle tone, your light readings can never be accurate--unless you make exposure adjustments (using "exposure compensation," for example) based on personal experience.

It's far simpler to find an area within your scene that is of a middle or "average" tonality. Fortunately these things are quite prevalent--green foliage, green grass, blue sky, most gray objects--are close enough to middle gray in tone to provide very accurate metering results. This is particularly useful when a scene contains a lot of very bright subject matter (like the snow in this scene) or very dark areas (big shadow areas or a dark-colored building, for example) because these dark or light areas will fool the meter. But if you meter from the neutral/average tonal area, the light or dark areas where fall exactly where they belong.

Careful metering is important and it's why your camera probably has a center-weighted metering mode--so that you can choose what to meter precisely. In that mode your meter is concentrating almost all of its metering attention on a small area in the center of the frame (indicated in your viewfinder by a circle in the center). And once you've metered the best area, simply use your meter-lock feature (holding the shutter-release button down halfway) to lock that reading and your exposures will be perfect. For more on the theory and practical uses of light metering, be sure to see my latest book Exposure Photo Workshop--hopefully your local library has a copy so you can borrow it for free.

Use Exposure Compensation with Snow

Well, we've reached that time of year here in Connecticut when we're starting to see snow. As much as I hate cold weather, I have to admit that snow is wonderful to photograph--particularly when you can photograph it from indoors. I shot the photo here from my bathroom window looking out at some tall trees in my neighborhood. It was still snowing when I shot the photo and the skies were laden and gray, but the snow was wet and looked great clinging to the branches of the trees.

One problem with photographing snow (whether you're shooting from a warm cozy house or not) is that it fools light meters into thinking that there is more light than there really is. This causes the camera to underexpose (give too little light) the snow, which creates photos of gray rather than white snow. The solution is simple though: just add some extra exposure using your camera's exposure-compensation feature. This feature lets you add or subtract light from the exposure, usually in 1/3 stop increments. The typical increase for snow is about 1 2/3 stops of + compensation. If the snow is very bright you might even want to give it a full +2 compensation. Experiment a bit and you'll learn which settings work best.

You might also try the auto-exposure-bracketing feature if your camera has one and have it expose for the normal, plus one stop and plus two stops of exposure. Then your camera will fire three quick frames, automatically adjusting the exposure for you. Read your manual for more on this feature.

If you live in a snowy part of the country, you might as well get some good pictures of it!