Don't Be Afraid to Use Flash on Flowers

As long as we're on the subject of flowers and gardens (obviously a major subject with me), let me talk about flash for a minute. A lot of times I shoot either very early (usually when I've been up all night writing!) or very late in the day. I love the light in my front garden late in the day because that part of the yard gets the setting sun, so the light is soft and warm.

The problem with shooting late in the day though is that the light is disappearing fast (as opposed to early morning when the light just keeps getting brighter) and so sooner rather than later you run out of good light. The light is often prettiest just before it disappears but because it's so dim I have to shoot wide open and often at very slow shutter speeds that I'd prefer not to use. Since I use a tripod most (not all) of the time, the slow speeds aren't a problem in terms of camera shake, but if there's the slightest breeze the flowers just wave back and forth continually--a real problem if you want sharp photos.

The solution for me is to turn on the built-in flash. The flash fires at such a brief duration that it's like using a much faster shutter speed--it freezes the motion and, if I am shooting handheld, usually eliminates any camera shake. In addition, because your camera will pump out more flash if you set smaller apertures, you can use a smaller f/stop to get a bit more depth of field (and usually you need all the DOF you can get in close-ups). Because most digital cameras are very good at balancing flash in daylight, you'll get suprisingly good results that don't look artificial at all. I used my Nikon D90 here (with a 105mm Micro Nikkor) and I had to look at the EXIF data to see if the flash had fired or not (it had).

So if you're out in the garden or in a park and the light starts to fade, try popping on the flash and keep shooting a while longer. I think you'll find the results are surprisingly nice.

Consider the Beauty of the Lowly Dandelion

It's a good thing that I don't take better care of my lawn because if I did I would probably lose all the interesting weeds and wildflowers that grow there. Among my favorite "weeds" are the dandelions that I have by the hundreds in the back lawn. Dandelions may be the scourge of lawn fanatics, but to me they're cheerful and bright and the bunny rabbits love to eat them. And if you've never laid down in the lawn and looked face-to-face with a dandelion, try it--they're amazingly intriticate flowers. Amid the many layers of delicate yellow petals are dozens (if not hundreds) of little curly florets, or tiny flowers. Most people, unfortunately, poison or weed whack them into oblivion before really appreciating them.

Photographing a dandelion is mostly a matter of laying on your face on the lawn and having a camera that lets you focus very closely. I took this shot yesterday while continuing to do test shots with the Nikon D90. I was using a 105mm Micro Nikkor which is an incredibly sharp lens and a great focal length and lets you get very close to small subjects. I realized while shooting this photo, however, how much I wished I was working with a zoom lens. When you're limited to one focal length you have to physically move closer or farther away to change the image (subject) size. While using a prime lens (a single-focal-length lens) is a lot more restrictive because you can't change the composition by simply twisting the lens barrel, it does force you to try to find subjects and compositions that match the focal length. It's an interesting challenge.

I've also photographed dandelions with point-and-shoot digital cameras have have gotten some great photos. Unfortunately some point-and-shoots set the lens to a single focal length once you put it in the macro mode so you have exactly the same issue as with a prime lens: you can't zoom. Still, some point-and-shoots, like my old Olympus C5050 (and I love that camera) let you focus extremely close and there's almost no flower too small to shoot.

Next time you're thinking of killing off the dandelions, grab the camera and take a few mintues to photography it first. I'll write more about close-up photography in the future because it's one of my favorite topics. Taking good close-up photos is really tough work but I do have some good tips to share. By the way, my friend Bryan Peterson has a wonderful new book out called Understanding Close-Up Photography and it's well worth owning. Bryan is one of the world's best photo instructors and writers and I learn something every time I open one of his books.

Make Subjects Glow with Backlighting

Yesterday I was playing around in the front yard with the new D90 and trying to get some good close-ups of dandelions (I didn't) and just generally trying to get to know the camera. After I'd crawled around on the front lawn for an hour or so, I took a break and happened to look up and saw the late afternoon sunlight coming from behind my Japanese maple. I'd been out in the yard for about an hour and really paid much attention to the tree, but when the sun got low enough, the leaves and tiny buds just began to catch fire and it was very striking.

Strong backlighting and translucent subjects like leaves or flower petals are a great combination because the light makes them appear to glow from within. Exposure is straightforward as long as you keep the light source (the sun) out of the frame, but you can experiment with using exposure compensation if the shots look a bit too dark--try adding a stop to a stop and a third of additional exposure. The background was somewhat dark behind these leaves so I didn't have to use compensation because the darker background fooled the meter into thinking the subject needed more light. Had the background been brighter (a bright grassy lawn, for example), then I might have had to use compensation. Just experiment or bracket your shots and you'll find out what works.

Speaking of the D90, by the way, the one feature I don't like so far is the LCD--which seems far too bright to me. I dimmed it down to the -2 position (you can adjust the brightness of the LCD on this camera) and still it seems a bit light too me. I love the size of the LCD (about 3") because it's like looking at a projected image the size of a small print--very impressive. But I'm not happy with the brightness issue and I'm goign to ask around to see if anyone else has the same complaint. Let me know if you've noticed it. I never had the problem with my D70 cameras, so I'm surprised. I'm going to do more testing this week. Other than that though, so far I love the camera.

Read About GE's Micro-Holographic Technology

Wow! Talk about a cool new storage solution. Today GE introduced a new disc technology that is capable of storing up to 500 gigabytes of information on a single disc. By comparison, the largest capacity Blue-ray discs can only hold 50 gigabytes of information. And while the technology is aimed mainly at the archiving industry for now, GE says it will also be introduced to the consumer market. The breakthrough is the result of GE finding ways to get more reflectance from the surface of micro-holographic surfaces which enables storage of a larger capacity of data (and don't hold your breath waiting for me to explain that, because I can't). According to a GE spokesman: "The day when you can store your entire high definition movie collection on one disc and support high resolution formats like 3D television is closer than you think.'' Fantastic! That means I can get rid of all the DVD boxes and have my bookcases back again. And think about your digital photo collections: you can store years (maybe a lifetime's) worth of photos on a single disc. Read about the breakthrough, eventually it will change all of our lives.

Fade Photoshop Filters for Artistic Control

Here's a really quick and easy tip that provides a simple way to control the intensity of Photoshop filters. Any time that you apply a Photoshop filter to an image and you think it's too strong (or just want to see how it would look if you had use less of the filter), simply go to the edit menu and you'll see an option to fade that filter (it will say "Fade...." with the name of the filter next to it). If you click on that option you'll get a slider that lets you adjust the strength of the filter from 100% (maximum) to 0% (no effect). The option is only available immediately after you apply the filter, however, so you must go immediately to the edit menu after you apply the filter. If you do anything else after you apply the filter, the fade option won't appear.

This technique is a great way to tweak filter strength without having to start over again. In photo here, for example, I used a diffuse glow filter (to be honest I'm not really sure what the point of that filter is, but it's worth trying them all, so I do) and then reduced the strenth to about 70%. I use the fade filter option all the time and it's a great time saver.

Add Digital Noise to Create a Film Look

Digital cameras have come a long way in a very fast time and while photographers once wondered whether digital would ever equal the quality of film, now it's clear that digital images are far superior in many ways. Let's face it, you could never walk into a dimly lit concert setting and "push" your film to ISO 6400 and get the same quality you can get from some professional digital cameras at that ISO speed. Whenever you pushed your film to a higher ISO speed you paid a price with much more obvious film grain--that sandy looking surface pattern that speckled the image.

But interestingly, the lack of that grain in some digital images tends to make digital images look very fake and "too good." Digital sensors have gotten so good at recording low light scenes, in fact, that some of the authenticity of them seems to be gone. Cheaper (and older) cameras typically have more obvious grain than more advanced DSLR cameras but it really depends on the quality of the sensor.

Fortunately, you can easily add noise back into your images to recreate a film look--which is something I do only rarely, but it's still a useful option with certain kinds of images. Low light and twilight scenes, for example, look more real when you add a touch of grain. When I shot this scene of a lighthouse on the Connecticut shore, for example, I was shooting at ISO 1600. On downloading, I was surprised to see that there was virtually no image noise and the image look too clean. Where was the grain I was used to seeing in twilight scenes? Though the image was technically better than a film image, it seemed like it was missing something.

Photoshop to the rescue. By selecting the "Add Noise" filter from the filter menu (Fitlers>Noise>Add Noise) I was able to add noise (or grain if you prefer) back into the shot. The tool is incredibly easy to use--you simply push the slider until you see the degree of grain that you want. Remember though that grain gets bigger in prints as you blow things up, so always add grain with the image at 100% size and make a test print before you finalize the image. And like adding salt to a meal, it's best if you add a little and then increase it if you need more; if you add too much salt (or too much grain) that's all you'll notice.

Who would have thought we'd have to add flaws back into digital images to make them look real?

Use Treetops to Give Clouds Scale

I love photographing clouds; they're beautiful and come in endless varieties and, like snowflakes, you'll never see two exactly alike. In fact, I've often thought of putting together a book of nothing but cloud photos. (But who would buy the book when all you have to do is look up and see the show for free?)

Shooting clouds is pretty easy and all you really have to do is expose for the sky (not the clouds) and you'll usually get a good exposure. When you're shooting clouds though, you have a lot of visual references around you that reveal the true scale and drama of the clouds--trees, telephone poles, rooftops. If you take away those references and shoot just the clouds, they begin to lose their drama. As I've talked about with landscapes and other subjects, without including an object of known size, it's kind of hard to judge the size of clouds and so they lose a lot of their impact.

When I was photographing these clouds I shot a ton of pictures of the clouds alone but there was something missing. In reviewing the photos on the LCD I realized that without some "earth reference" of some kind the clouds lacked all of the drama and impact that I was seeing in person. In one of the early shots though I had included some nearby treetops and that was the frame that really stood out and revealed the real power of the clouds. So I shot several more frames (including this one) with the trees and they are by far the strongest images.

By the way, clouds (like sunsets) always get more intense just before and after a storm, so when the rain starts to let up and the clouds start to break up, start looking up. The cool thing about shooting clouds is that you can do it almost anywhere--it doesn't matter if you're on a beautiful island or in a mall parking lot, clouds are clouds and they're all pretty.