Close-Ups and Autofocus

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Rob Sheppard

I love close-ups. They truly bring you into a different world that we normally don't see. And I am not talking about super close work, either. Any time we get in close to a natural subject, we are looking more deeply at the world around us in a way we usually don't do. In a way, the act of close-up photography gets us to pause and look for and observe details that we might otherwise pass on by.

One challenge that comes from close photography is the focus point. When you are close, depth of field is very narrow, no matter what f-stop you use, so the actual point of focus becomes very, very important. This is even more critical when you play with extremely shallow depth of field as I often like to do.

Autofocus can be really challenging when you are up close. I will usually shoot manual focus when I am doing any close-up work with any lens. The challenge the camera has is that since depth of field is always very limited (and gets less and less the closer you get), yet there are many points where the camera can focus and it will "choose" its focus point rather arbitrarily. Often visually the wrong point for the subject and the composition.

My preference is this:

  1. Change the camera/lens to manual focus
  2. Roughly focus on the subject to get a basic distance
  3. Then without changing the lens' focus, move the camera toward and away from the camera until the right point is in focus
  4. Take the picture
  5. You can be careful as you do this so you do not have camera movement during exposure that will make the image soft.

When you manually change focus of the lens up close instead of doing what I just described, you can find it harder to focus partly because of a curious thing that happens when you are close. The size of the subject in your camera's view changes because magnification changes with focus distance. That slight change in size of subject can make it harder to see the focus change on the subject itself.

Both of these close-ups are from the redwoods. The first is in the Dicentra or bleeding heart genus and is often called squirrel corn when it is so white. The second is a redwoods sorel flower.

Posted in Close Up Photography, Nature photography | Tagged , , | 11 Comments

Lightroom and Photo Organization

Posted on January 18, 2012 by Rob Sheppard

I am finding that the number one digital question I consistently get now is organizing photos in Lightroom. This is something I am finding a lot of people are struggling with. Folks download their photos through Lightroom, and they think Lightroom is automatically organizing photos -- it isn't.

Lightroom offers a lot of great tools for organization, but that is like Office Depot selling you a lot of great tools for office organization. Office Depot doesn't tell you how to use them, nor does Lightroom.

If you structure that separate hard drive (and you really should have two, one for photos and one for backup) based on some system to help find photos, you will find this is much easier to work with your photos. Once you have that structure, you follow it when you import photos into your computer through Lightroom.

A lot of Lightroom is designed to be intuitive, so pay attention to the interface and try things. You cannot hurt anything in Lightroom, so if you aren't sure about something, try it, then undo it if it is not what you want.

Whenever you download photos through Lightroom (a good idea), you are telling Lightroom to put them somewhere (even if you didn't think you did -- that is the only way Lightroom works). Remember that a lot of people get into trouble because they think Lightroom is automatically organizing photos -- it isn't.

Putting photos into Pictures or My Pictures is not a good idea for a number of reasons. You should be putting your photos onto a separate hard drive that is just for photos. That helps protect your main drive (which operates your computer and has the important programs), among other things.

If you structure your separate hard drive (and you really should have two, one for your photos and one for backup) based on some system to help you find photos, you will find this is much easier to work with your photos. A simple way to do this might be:

  • Top level folder: Photos
  • Next level folders: Year
  • Next level folders: Something that reflects how you shoot, such as events, shoots, locations, etc. (I use locations and add a date to this folder title but I don't recommend doing only dates)

Once you have that structure, you follow it when you import photos into your computer through Lightroom.

All photos that are recognized by Lightroom show up in the left side of Library under Folders -- that actually tells you where they are. You can also right-click with your mouse on any photo and you will get a menu to help you find the photos, too (right-clicking is very important in Lightroom because you get important context-sensitive menus). Under that menu you will see a choice that allows you to show the photos in Finder (Mac) or Explorer (Windows) -- that will show you exactly where the photos are.

Adobe has announced the public beta of Lightroom 4. The big news for Lightroom 4 is the additional video support. It is now a viable program for actually organizing video and doing some basic work on video files, such as trimming clip length and adjusting things like brightness and contrast.

Lightroom 4 also includes a book feature (to allow you to create books that can be printed by places like Blurb) and a map feature to tag images with a map location. Basic adjustments have been simplified (finally "whites" are recognized and "Exposure" is more than adjusting whites), plus noise reduction and white balance controls have been added to local adjustments. Clarity has been much improved and there are new and improved Shadow and Highlight controls.

Posted in Lightroom | Tagged , , | 8 Comments

How Two Photographers Found Their Focus

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Rob Sheppard

This is a guest post from Hugh Nourse, a photographer and friend from Georgia. I think it is very interesting how he and his wife found a home for their nature photography.

Some thoughts on my focus in photography by Hugh Nourse

Our first photography was street and travel photography when I was in the military in Japan.  My wife, Carol, and I bought a Petri rangefinder and used Kodachrome 25 slide film.  Returned home to graduate school and then an academic career in economics, so photography became shots of the family.

We came to photography a second time near retirement when trying to identify wildflowers.  I bought a point and shoot to capture images to check with the field guides.  Showed image of photos to a friend, and he said join my camera club.  Within six months I was carrying a tripod and an SLR with a 100mm macro lens.

When first learning photography, we were told to get closer.  We liked using a telephoto macro close-up to get a simple green background. We learned to think about five things for better flower photography:

  1. What is the subject?  Close in until you are just showing the subject.
  2. Where is the subject in the frame?
  3. Does the background enhance the image?
  4. Does the foreground enhance the subject?
  5. What is the light on the subject?

Today we are volunteer photographers for the State Botanical Garden of Georgia, and we get the most raves from the editor (as well as the graphic designer) of The Garden Newsletter  for close-ups we provide. They also use overviews and scenes.

For a while, I tried stock photography. Even though I had thousands of images, it was not often that I happened to have the “right” image.  Furthermore, since I had been taught to do close-ups, the ones I had did not show the flower in a garden setting, so someone else got the editor's attention.  But I did manage to get some photos into American Gardener and was given picture assignments by the editor.  We also had images published in Nature Photographer, Backpacker, and Wildflower magazines.

We have also donated images to the US Forest Service "Celebrate Wildflowers" website, to identification guides to wildflowers (maybe five such guides), to University of Georgia extension web pages on wildflowers, and to Tipularia, the magazine of the Georgia Botanical Society, and to their bi-monthly newsletter. Since retiring from college teaching, Carol and I have published three books with University of Georgia Press as photographers and authors: Wildflowers of Georgia, State Botanical Garden of Georgia, and "Favorite Wildflower Walks in Georgia.

We have just finished a 7 year effort to provide photos of plants and their habitats for a Guide to the Natural Communities of Georgia, which involved a great effort to visit over 67 natural communities in Georgia with ecology authors.  For this book we were pushed to photograph ecological processes, such as prescribed burns, or other indications of change, i.e., storytelling. All royalties on this book will go to the Department of Natural Resources for Georgia.

Now we are about to embark on a Field Guide to the Wildflowers of Georgia by Natural Communities. The author, Linda Chafin, is a fine field botanist.  We have worked with her before on her book, Field Guide to the Rare Plants of Georgia.  She is a good friend.

We like doing plant identification images and plant habitat images, but there never is any money.  Our reward is that the images get published, and that they are used in a wonderful cause -- improving the botanical knowledge of the public so that they may support conservation causes. Identification images are not necessarily close-ups, since you need to show the critical identification characteristics to the viewer.  Sometimes a flower is so small, or the characteristic is so small that one-to-one photography is needed.

Mostly you need to find good backgrounds in good light for a portrait. I used to be able to hike many miles with tripod, camera, and macro lens. Today I am physically limited to about a mile to hike with this equipment. Longer hikes with equipment cause back pain, so I am working to find alternative equipment such as the small mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras.

One does not get rave reviews from the camera club for this type of work.  So be it. It has been a great retirement.

Posted in Flowers, Native plants, Nature photography | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

LIFE Magazine – 75 Years – and Nature Photography

Posted on January 9, 2012 by Rob Sheppard

I just spent a bit of time looking at the new LIFE magazine 75th anniversary special publication. It is both inspirational and sad. I got it for my iPad, but it is also available in print.

You would expect the inspiration. LIFE always had terrific photography and over the years produced photo stories that have become cultural icons as well as photography standards.

The sadness is another story. It seems very sad to pick up a "75th anniversary issue" of something that no longer exists. At the end of the introduction, the text says, "... we hope you enjoy--once again--the great American magazine." That is a strange statement, like the folks putting this together don't want to acknowledge this magazine is long gone.

On the other hand, the intro includes a really cool manifesto that Henry Luce put together for LIFE, and I think is absolutely great for nature photography today: "To see life; to see the world; to eyewitness great events ... to see strange things ... to see things past, things thousands of miles away, things hidden behind walls ... things dangerous to come to; to see and to take pleasure in seeing; to see and be amazed; to see and be instructed."

For baby boomers like me, this has a lot of nostalgia in the images. For anyone, there is also a sense of history that shows how powerful photography can be. Few photos express that as well as Eisenstadt's famous picture of Joseph Goebbels from 1933 (and the short text is great, too).

There is a nice nature photography section with some excellent photography and short text for each image. But I think there is much to be learned as nature photographers from all of the sections, such as the wonderful composition of Gjon Mili's photo of Billie Holliday or Gordon Parks striking image (and remarkably moving composition) of Ingrid Bergman. I strongly believe that if we are to grow as nature photographers, we must go beyond simply always looking at nature photography.

I was a bit disappointed in something they included in the "In the Wild" section (in fact, it is the lead photo). It is of the very morally suspect photo of a leopard and a baboon. This is a totally staged photo where a leopard was released into an enclosure with a baboon. The text acknowledges this, but then says, "... the photograph remains famous, exceptional and plenty scary." And then they add "bonus photos" of more of this rather gruesome episode of man's inhumanity toward wildlife ... just so the photographer could get a dramatic shot (and the website page does not even mention this is a staged photo and just says it is a vicious animal fight). Give me a break. Michael Vick got hammered for his staged animal fights, but the LIFE folk still think this is okay?!

I also found the photo of the Beatles in a pool quite interesting. It turns out that the young men did not want to get into a rather cold pool, but after a lot of persuading and some alcohol, they did get in and the John Loengard "got" the shot. What a phony picture for a magazine that was about capturing "life." I have always said you don't need Photoshop to lie in photography.

Still, those are two small parts of the whole project. They are worth mentioning because they do reflect how photography is seen (or not seen), and they can affect how we think about nature photography.

Overall, great publication and well worth checking out. If you are a baby boomer, it will bring back memories as well as highlight some really excellent photography. For anyone, it is an introduction to the power of good images.

Posted in Books, Nature photography | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Staying with the Subject

Posted on January 4, 2012 by Rob Sheppard

While there is an interesting natural history aspect to this photo -- the brown colors tell a story about the life of a crocodile on a mud bank along the Sarapiqui River in Costa Rica -- the light's not great. But this is just the start of this story.

Nature and photography have long been intertwined into my life. While the aesthetics of photography are very important to me, and I have spent a lot of time over many years studying and working hard on this, I also want photography to connect me with nature, not simply give me an excuse for taking pictures (though that can be a good thing, too!). I strongly believe that if you are not working to connect with nature beyond finding a pretty picture as you shoot, your images will not connect viewers with nature either. For me, nature is too important to treat it superficially, as something for a calendar on the wall, but not much else. On the other hand, I really do want something more than a brown crocodile on a brown mud bank.

We came across this crocodile as my group road a boat on the Sarapiqui River through the rain forest. This amazing prehistoric-looking creature paid little attention to us as our driver skillfully and gently moved the boat into position. The conditions were not spectacular aesthetically, so after a while, it didn't seem there was much more to photograph.

Then I noticed the insects buzzing around the animal's head. There was a very big reddish bee-like insect plus a couple of others. As the boat got closer, I could see the insects better and pointed them out to the others. You can see the bee at the left eye in this still distant photo for the insects. This was an unusual sight.

This made everything new! I shot a lot of photos and had to throw out a lot, too. The moving boat made focus challenging at times, plus there was blur from both the insects and the camera moving (I was using a Sigma 120-400mm with "optical stabilization" -- I don't think the shots would have been possible without that stabilization). But I did get some shots that showed off the bee going after the crocodile's eye. The crocodile would blink but not do much else. (If you look closely in the less successful photos below, you can just barely see a second insect near the bee and a third insect, a fly, by the nostrils of the crocodile.)

This next image is close, but focus is off. The focus is on the nostrils and if you look close, you can see a fly there.

Now the bee doesn't look like anything.

Closer, but still the bee isn't clear. Though you can see the behavior of going after the eyes.

You are only seeing a few of the images I shot. I threw out a bunch, too. But finally I got the bee showing up well with the crocodile. I would have liked that piece of grass to be farther back, but it does give a bit of color and a feeling of place. The story at least is now in the image.

I suspected they were after the salt in the tears of the eye, but I was not sure, and the Costa Rica people who were helping me did not know what this was about either. When I got home, I contacted Piotr Naskrecki, the superb entomologist and photographer, and he thought the bee was an orchid bee and was indeed after the salt of the tears.

For me, this became not simply a photograph "of" nature, but a photograph made from "in" nature. I think the distinction is important. We were part of the experience of this crocodile and the insects. The photos tell a story of something in nature I had not seen before. My photographing this crocodile and the bee definitely brought me closer to this part of nature in a very specific place.

This is an important lesson for me -- be with your subject, truly be with it and see it as it is appearing in front of you, not how you want it to be (such as the overall shot of the crocodile being in better light). By being open to what was happening, and by staying watching the crocodile after I had my "shots" -- being in nature, I was able to discover a new level of connection to this scene and the nature of it.

I am one who likes to stay with a subject for a while, to really connect with it in my head as well as with my camera. Sometimes this patience of staying with the subject can really pay off to give new insights into the world of nature all around us, as well as keeping us in nature. And sometimes, just sometimes, magic experiences are gained.

Posted in Nature photography, Wildlife Photography | Tagged , | 6 Comments

Year’s End

Posted on December 29, 2011 by Rob Sheppard

It is definitely that time of year, the end of a year when so many of us think a bit about what the year has meant to us and where we might be going next year. This past year has been challenging for many of us in the nature photography business -- so many changes are still occurring for publications, books and other uses of photography.

My wife Vicky told me about a group that does not make New Year's resolutions, but instead writes down things that they want to discard from their lives, then for the New Year, burns the notes. That seems like a good idea.

A challenge I face, and you probably do, too, is that we are bombarded with information and so many things vying for our attention. This can make it hard to let go of things that are not good for us. One reason I enjoyed my trip to Costa Rica this year so much was that I was away from so much of that. No piles of books I haven't read, no constant contact with the Internet, no thoughts of what I was not photographing or not working on (that can be a big distraction), just focused on what Costa Rica and my group was about.

I would like to write down that I want to get rid of so many distractions to what is true and important to me and my photography and my relationship to nature. Yet this is really hard to do because there are so many excuses:

I should get rid of a lot of books I have not read ... but they look so interesting and I might read them someday.

I should quit being distracted by what some of my friends and colleagues are doing in the business and just concentrate on what is core to me ... but it seems like they are having success in ways that could be helpful.

I should focus on a limited number of projects at a time ... but there are many interesting things to do and I don't want to miss any of them.

Crazy.

Obviously I struggle with this, even though I have written about focus before. Yet, I will continue to work to better focus my work, my photography, my relationship with nature so it stays authentic and true to me. Luckily, I have a great wife of 31 years and that is a very important focus of my life, plus two terrific kids (not so much kids anymore, though, at 29 and 22).

I think that this is a good time of year to think about these things. What is your photography about? Really? Why do you care about photography and are you photographing what you want to photograph in ways that you want to photograph? In other words, photographing what is true to you and not what will get you a commendation at the camera club or a pat on the back by an instructor. Not that those things are not important, but that they cannot be the main focus of your photography. What do you need to let go of in order to make your photography and your connection to nature better and stronger?

I am going to buy a NEX 5n and get into the system because it will simplify my photographic life. I am going to try to keep the lenses to what I really need and use, rather than trying to get everything. Then it creeps into my head what would someone else think if I get a small camera like the NEX instead of a "serious" camera like a "full-frame" DSLR? That is a really stupid question, but I know we all do things like that. I have tried to avoid that sort of thinking, and I know this is something that can be very limiting if you buy gear based on what someone else might think.

We are often constrained by that little voice inside our heads that wants to say "... but ..." I sometimes yell mentally at that little voice and say, "SHUT UP!" It is so important sometimes to do that so you can discard attitudes, ideas that you really do not need, "stuff" that clutters your mind and keeps you from being your best self.

I am giving serious thought to things I want to give up to make it easier to focus on what is true and authentic to my nature photography. I know that I will not always succeed in letting them go, but with some effort, I will get better at trusting my self and being the best me that I can be in my photography and connection to nature. I think that is vital to the success of a photographer today. Gear today is so good and everyone is using it because it is so accessible. Good instruction about using that gear and becoming a better photographer is also readily available. So gear and photo knowledge is not going to set you apart as a photographer.

What sets you apart as a photographer, what sets me apart, is whatever it is that is unique about who we are and how authentic and true our photography is to that. There are so many pressures for you not to be that. Let's all make a New Year's resolution to not give in to those pressures! And to say "SHUT UP" to the voice inside our heads that wants to pay attention to those pressures.

Hope you have a great new year in 2012!

Posted in Nature photography | Tagged , , | 21 Comments