Case Study 1 - Northumberland
Why is it worth taking the time to learn photography skills? For me, it’s worth it because it means I can take images I’m really pleased with. I’ve just spent a week in Northumberland taking pictures of wide ranging subjects. Everything from fountains to puffins, Hadrian’s Wall to Lindisfarne. I thought it might be interesting to take a break from the DSLR lessons and look at the techniques and kit I used to make the most of my trip. I’ll also show you some images which might inspire you to keep learning those camera skills.
The Kit
Before you set off on a trip, it’s worth having a look through your kit and being realistic about what you’re actually likely to use and leaving any extra kit at home. For example, given the subjects I intended to photograph, I knew I wouldn’t have any need for my 50mm f1.8 lens as it’s one I mostly use for portraits, so I left it at home along with my external flash. So what did I take? Because I knew there would be a lot of landscapes to photograph I took my wide-angle zoom (18-70mm), my macro lens (105mm) for beach close-ups and my telephoto zoom (70-300mm) for wildlife shots. I also took three filters - a circular polariser to enhance blue skies and minimise reflections on water, a graduated neutral density filter to retain detail in the sky and a graduated
sunset filter just for fun.
I take a LOT of shots in a day and I shoot in the RAW format, so there’s no way that my 4gb of memory cards would be enough for a week (I actually ended up taking just over 9gb worth of pics), so I took my laptop with me, along with a stack of blank CDs, not forgetting a card reader. Each evening I would download the shots to my laptop, then burn a CD as a backup. I re-formatted the card only when I knew the images on it were safely archived to CD. Working this way also enabled me to look back at my shots on a large screen and analyse my shots, seeing what worked and what doesn’t so that I could improve my shots the next day.
The Techniques
Wildlife
This trip had wildlife by the truck-load. Puffins, atlantic seals, terns, eider ducks, shags, kittiwakes, gulls, woodpeckers and herons. For all of these, I used my Sigma 70-300mm zoom - a great but relatively inexpensive lens.
The problem with long lenses like this is that you have to use a fast shutter speed to match, otherwise you won’t be able to hold it steady and get a sharp shot. For example, if you’re using a focal length of 100mm, you need a shutter speed of 1/100sec or more; at 300mm, you need 1/300sec or more. This is easy in bright sunshine, but if the weather is a bit overcast you may have to increase the ISO. For the woodpecker shot on the right, I used ISO 250 to give me a shutter speed of 1/500sec, enough to prevent camera shake and freeze the motion. The aperture was as wide as it could get (f5.6), in order to help get a fast shutter speed and isolate the subject from those leaves in the background.
To get both these atlantic seals in focus, I used a smaller aperture (f9) which meant changing the ISO to 320 to get a reasonable shutter speed. I also had to change the metering to get a good exposure. If I’d let the camera use the default Matrix Metering, it would have looked at the scene as a whole and the expanse of sea would have confused the camera, underexposing the seals. Instead, I used the spot metering function and took the reading from the seals.
On the Farne Islands, you can get unbelievably close to the birds, especially these little stunners. Once again, you need to be very careful about the metering as the contrast between black and white can trick the camera. Here I used centre-weighted metering, which gives more importance to the metering of the middle of frame. Because the subjects in this particular shot are off-centre, I took the meter reading from the right-hand bird, then held down the ‘ev lock’ button and recomposed the shot. I also deliberately underexposed the shot using the ev+/- function in order to retain the detail in the white parts of the birds plumage. If I hadn’t done this, the white feathers would have been too bright and you wouldn’t have been able to make out the contours of their bodies. Because I shoot RAW files, I can then adjust the images without losing quality.
Macro
Alnwick Gardens provides a lot of material for some interesting macro shots. I used my Sigma 105mm f2.8 macro lens for all of these. This is an example of the patterns you can find when you really look for them. It’s from a water sculpture which fills and empties a huge metal bowl. Using a high shutter speed of 1/4000sec froze the movement of the water and using the lens’ widest aperture kept the emphasis on the darker pattern.
One of the weird things I discovered was the pipefish graveyard on the tide line of the beach. One small section of the shore was littered with pipefish skeletons. This shot was taken shortly before sunset, hence the warm lighting. Because this one was quite far away from the background, I could afford to use a smaller aperture to keep more of the skull in focus. When I get a chance, I’ll clone out the highlighted sand in the bottom left of the frame as it’s currently distracting.
Insect macros are always very difficult to get right. For a start, most of them don’t sit still long enough for you to get a picture and even when they do, it’s not easy to get the focus right where it should be, on the eyes. This is because with a tiny subject like this, the depth of field is also tiny when you’re using a wide aperture. A millimetre here or there can make the difference between sharp focus and blurred. This wasn’t even at the widest aperture I had available.
Landscapes
This stretch of coastline has some fantastic shots to offer. There are several castles perched on the coast, providing an important point of interest in your pictures. For all of these shots, I used my 18-70mm Nikon lens along with a polarising and graduated neutral density filter. The neutral density filter allows you to correctly expose both the sky and the landscape without having to compromise on either one.
This shot of Lindisfarne Castle was taken from the beach to include some foreground interest in the form of boats. I’ve already cloned out a couple of boats to simplify the image and it’s possible that another one will go in due course! I also cropped it to a panoramic perspective and tinted it in Photoshop.
Taken on the same day, this shot across the sand dunes on Lindisfarne looked okay in colour, but I wanted to emphasise the texture and movement of the marran grass, so I added a bit of diffuse glow to give it a film grain look and tinted it using the colourise option under Image> Adjust > Hue/Saturation. The shot was taken at f9, 1/125sec - just enough to capture a bit of movement in the grass.
The Farne Islands viewed from Bamburgh. This was taken just after sunset with a 5 second exposure. Keeping the shutter open for that long has blurred the motion of the waves, but in order to keep the shot sharp, the camera needs to be mounted on a tripod.
And finally, if only to prove that I don’t always create monochromatic images, here’s a really simple image in glorious technicolour. At this time of year, any time I drive towards York I have a desperate temptation to stop my car in the middle of the A61, grab my tripod and take a ton of photos of the oil seed rape fields. Fortunately this was in a much more accessible location, giving me the classic rape field shot with a twist. Not only bright yellow crops and deep blue sky but a little strip of sea in between as well. This picture also demonstrates the rule of thirds - the sea line is exactly 1/3rd of the way up the photo.
I hope my holiday photos have inspired you to continue learning about photography. While it can seem at times like it’s just not worth the effort to learn how to have full control over your camera, you’ll really see the benefits.
Sunday, 21 May 2006
Techniques, tips and tricks to help you take better pictures.
