A walk in the woods or I can't believe it's not flippin' raining!

The rain this month has been merciless. Every weekend was soaking, wet, and miserable. But this weekend shined with quintessential New England fall weather: Cool temperatures, dry air, a slight breeze and a cloudless sky. It was so pleasant that I can almost forgive October for the last few weeks of hell.

On account of the good weather, I managed to get two timely tasks done: I finished stacking our 3 cords of winter firewood which got pretty wet despite being covered and I tracked out into the woods behind our house armed with my trusty camera and a couple lenses. The wood stacking was tedious, but the nature photoshoot was heaven.

In September, I purchase three new lenses for my Canon (which I will someday talk about in a future post). My hope was to put them into service capturing the scenes of New Enland in Autumn. But on account of the rain, my shiny new lenses stayed far away from the great soggy outdoors. But today, I headed into the woods with my Canon 20D, a super-wide Canon EF-S 10-22mm (wide-angle and foliage = fun!) and a telephoto Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L. In 2 peaceful hours I captured over 250 frames. Below is a small sampling of what my camera saw:

Click images to view slightly higher resolution images.


Canon 20D with Canon EF-S 10-22mm @ 1/125s f/16 at 10mm iso400



Canon 20D with Canon EF-S 10-22mm @ 1/125s f/16 at 10mm iso400



Canon 20D with Canon EF-S 10-22mm @ 1/160s f/16 at 10mm iso400



Canon 20D with Canon EF-S 10-22mm @ 1/40s f/5.6 at 22mm iso400




Canon 20D with Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L @ 1/125s f/8 at 50mm iso400



Canon 20D with Canon EF-S 10-22mm @ 1/125s f/16 at 10mm iso400



Canon 20D with Canon EF-S 10-22mm @ 1/125s f/11 at 10mm iso400



Canon 20D with Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L @ 1/50s f/5.6 at 70mm iso400



Canon 20D with Canon EF-S 10-22mm @ 1/125s f/16 at 10mm iso400




Canon 20D with Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L @ 1/30s f/7.1 at 70mm iso400
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NoHo in streaks and lights

Amy and I spent the late afternoon on Tuesday in Northampton. And since we had some time before our usual sing I decided to set up the camera and take some long exposures just as the sun was setting. I didn't have a tripod, so I just placed the camera on the curb elevated slightly on the lense cap. I dialed in the proper shutter and aperture settings to get the effect I wanted and used the auto-timer to trip the shutter to prevent shake. These images haven't been phototouched in anyway. The streaks of light are cars headlights and tailights being captured by the camera during the 8 second long exposure. I was very close to the cars turning down Craft Ave., so the streaks seem to almost pass over the camera.

Canon 20D with Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 @ 8s f/20 at 50mm iso400



Canon 20D with Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 @ 8s f/20 at 50mm iso400



Canon 20D with Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 @ 8s f/20 at 50mm iso400

A Quick How-to

Long exposures are fairly easy to do. Here's how I took these shots using a Canon 20D Digital SLR. Any camera with manual capabilities would be able to produce similar shots. I set my camera to manual mode so I could control both the shutter speed and aperture independently. Next, I determined how long of of an exposure I needed. I knew I wanted to capture a good amount of movement and decided 8 seconds was going to produce the lenthy streaks I was going after. Next I needed to choose a film sensitivity or ISO. I guessed that ISO400 would probably work. Then, I metered (measured the light) in the frame and choose an suitable aperture. I metered the twilight sky and kept stopping down the aperture until my camera's built-in light meter indicated a correct exposure. I reach a correct exposure at f/20, a 1/3 of a stop before the smallest possible aperture on this particular lense. Had I not been able to find a correct metering within the limits of the lense I would have had to decrease the ISO to ISO200 and tried metering again. Next, using manual focus, I focused the lense at it's hyperfocal length so that everything in the frame would be equally in focus. And finally I placed the camera on the curb, set the self-timer and pressed the shutter button. The self-timer automatically trips the shutter and prevents camera shake had I manually pressed it. The shutter opens and stays open for a full 8 seconds. After 8 seconds, voila, I had my properly exposed long exposure.

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Photo of the Week: July 24th 2005

A lily pad glides across Lake Metacomet

One of our simple summer pleasures is taking our Coleman rubber dinghy out on the high seas. Well, not quite the high seas, but a medium size lake down about a mile from our house. It affords me a lethal dose of sunlight, a dash of tranquility that only water can impart (if the motorboats aren't zooming around) and some much needed exercise. I can't imagine upgrading to a larger more motorized vessel. The raft is akin to floating around in an oversized couch: it's soft and smooshy and you can just ease into it and be quite comfortable. What could be better than that?

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Photographing Sacred Harp Singing

On the off chance that someone is interested, here's some notes regarding my photography of Sacred Harp sings. I don't claim to be an expert at photography, photographing Sacred Harp, or singing Sacred Harp for that matter. I am very much a student at such pursuits and will most likely be a student for the rest of my life. Nonetheless, I offer some of what I have learned in hopes that it can help others.

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Photo of the Week: July 17th 2005

Just one of our many flowering window boxes shot from below.

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Continuous Ink Feed Systems

Anyone who has a inkjet printers and uses it with any frequency knows that manufacturers are making a killing selling inkjet cartridges. Oftentimes the cost of new cartridges is a significant percentage of the cost of the printer new. In fact one of my earlier printers, a Lexmark cost exactly the same as a set of color and black cartridges for that very printer.

Early in my business I needed a good printer to run proofs on. I sprung for the Epson 1280, a wide-format printer which cost me a small fortune. Cartridges for this beast were around $45 for a color and black set. But given how often I use it I could see it was going to bankrupt me rather quickly.

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Shooting in RAW and Hitachi Microdrives

I recently started doing all my shooting in RAW as opposed to JPG mode. JPG is great for saving space since all the photos are processed in camera and compressed and saved as wimpy little 8-bit images. However, that space saving comes at a sacrifice to image quality and photo editing control. With RAW format, the raw sensor information is recorded to the card as a 16-bit RAW file, unadulterated by the camera built-in image processors. This herculean uncompressed 16-bit RAW file can then be opened in a RAW processor such as Adobe Camera Raw allowing you the ability to modify the image with total control, a true luxury compared to JPGs. But more on RAW processing in a later post.

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Photo of the Week: July 10th 2005

On the Same Level as a Toad

Every once in a while I capture a photo that comes out perfect. No cropping, no color adjustments, nothing is needed to make the photo pop. This is one of those photos. Captured a few years ago with my my now dated Minolta Dimage 7Hi, this photo is one of my personal favorites.

As Amy was watering the lettuce in the garden she found she had also watered a rather large toad and called me out to take a look. Not being one to let a photo op pass me by I grabbed my camera and got down on my hands and knees. I placed the camera on the dirt and snapped these photos about 12 inches away from Mr/s. Toad. The sun was just right, the water had made the toad clean and contrasty, and the toad posed just long enough to allow me to squeeze off a few shots.

If this photo taught me one thing it would be to think outside the box when composing a picture. There were nearly an unlimited number of angles and positions I could have used to take this photo. But by getting down to eye level with the toad I was able to capture an unusual viewpoint that most of use will never see.
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Photo of the Week: July 3rd 2005

Amy cutting off Amber's Hair.

More Photos...

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The Canon EOS 20D Digital SLR Camera

For as long as I can remember I had a certain facination with SLR cameras. There is something inspiring about being in complete creative control of the camera. I loathed point and shot cameras where one simply holds the camera, presses a button and receive at best a mediocre photo. Granted the camera is just a tool and the photographer is the one who ultimately makes the photo. But don't better tools often lead to better work?


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