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Obviously, with the moving water this is a time exposure. This image was made on a heavily overcast morning along the West Prong of the Little Pigeon River in early June several years ago when I was shooting film. The exposure was quite a bit longer than I wished. I was fortunate the wind in this valley was dead calm, so the vegetation didn?t move, but the water moved more than I like during the 6 sec. Exposure. The choice I had to make was either expose the water longer than desired at F16 or open the lens aperture thus shortening the exposure, but reducing depth of field. In this case, F16 was needed to ensure a sharp image from front to back, so I sacrificed the appearance of the water for the depth of field.
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My decision was simply a judgment call in this particular situation. I could have taken the polarizing filter off, and greatly reduced the exposure, but the sheen on the waxy rhododendrons and mountain laurel foliage was unacceptable, so the polarizer stayed on. You must be on your toes, thinking all the time and solving these little problems in the field.
Camera: EOS-1V
Lens: EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM
Exposure: 6sec @ f16
Film: Fuji Velvia 50 manually rated at ISO 40
Filter: A polarizing filter and an 81-A warming filter
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| For this image I used an EF 15mm f/2.8 Fisheye lens on a Canon EOS-1Ds MarkII camera body with a full-frame CMOS sensor (35mm film equivalence). A full-frame sensor has no cropping factor so my lens retains its full 15mm coverage. Most close-up work is done with a telephoto macro lens, but in this case I used the opposite technique, going in very close with an ultra wide-angle lens. Instead of extracting this plant from its surroundings, I wanted it to have a sense of place by including most of the surrounding forest while keeping the mayapple large in the frame. A fisheye lens is the perfect tool for this approach. |
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Camera: EOS-1Ds Mark II
Lens: EF 15mm f/2.8 Fisheye
Exposure: ½ sec @ f22
ISO: 100
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This is a classic close-up technique, where a single subject is extracted from its surroundings. This was accomplished with two specific techniques. First I chose a Canon EF 180mm f/3.5L Macro USM lens and EOS-1Ds MarkII camera for this image. This telephoto macro lens design has a relatively narrow angle of view so fewer distracting details are seen behind the subject, than with a shorter focal length lens. The long macro lens was combined with a wide open aperture of F3.5, yielding an extremely shallow depth of field, which is very effective at visually separating a single flower from its surroundings.
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Note: the closer you get to your subject the less depth of field you have at any given aperture.
Camera: EOS-1Ds Mark II
Lens: EF 180mm f/3.5L Macro USM
Exposure f3.5
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This image was made just after sunrise from an overlook in North Carolina just below Newfound Gap. What I was after was the contrast between the warm colors of the sky and the cool blue colors among the repeating ridges. Notice the placement of the horizon line about 2/3 way up the frame. This means the foreground is most important visually because I gave it the most space within the frame. The sky isn’t really very interesting aside from the sun and warm red color, so I chose not to include much of it, giving it about 1/3 of the frame. Horizon lines are very strong compositional elements, so be very deliberate in where you place it in your photos. The temptation when shooting at scenic overlooks is to go wide-angle and capture everything, which usually is a mistake.
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A telephoto lens allowed me shoot over trees in the foreground, compressing the view and stacking the repeating ridges. The sun is bright, and thus, a powerful element in the frame, and I placed it high and well off center to avoid the bulls eye effect associated with centered subjects. A viewer’s eye is automatically drawn to the brightest point in an image, so think about where you are placing such an important element. Since the entire scene is so far away, I didn’t need to stop down much on this image, so I used a middle aperture of F8. As in nearly all my nature work, I used a sturdy tripod and electronic release to trip the shutter.
Camera: EOS-1V
Lens: EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM
Exposure: f8
ISO: Fuji Velvia 50 manually rated at ISO 40
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This stately White Oak tree was photographed at sunrise at Cades Cove, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, TN. I had scouted this area the day before and really liked the single tree, but the lighting wasn’t good. I returned the next morning at sunrise and all the elements worked together perfectly. I had a great subject, great light interacting with the lifting fog, and a nice blue sky and mountains for a pleasing background. I used the golden grass as my foreground subject, the single tree became the middleground, and the distant foggy mountains and sky completed the background. This layering of elements adds depth and visual interest to any photograph.
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As is traditional in most landscapes, a small aperture of F16 at about 1/4 sec. was used for enough depth-of-field to ensure everything from foreground to background was tack sharp.
Camera: EOS-1Ds Mark II
Lens: EF 180mm f/3.5L Macro USM
Exposure f3.5
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