Tried the park at sunrise, hoping to find the Bluebirds from last week flitting about their nest box, maybe even with some signs of youngin’s about.  Nothing.  I spent an hour there, watching and waiting, and except for a single very noisy catbird, the place was deserted.  I don’t know what happened to the Bluebirds, but I’m quite sad to find them gone.

Went back out in the afternoon, figuring that the elements were right for some IR photography.  I might as well have pounded my head on the floor.IR photography is one of those tricky subsets that really does require special equipment to have any chance at, and unfortunately there are only two levels: an IR filter, or a camera IR conversion.  The filter runs about $50, while the conversion is more like $300.  Oh yeah, and the conversion is permanent.  Since I don’t have a spare camera to sacrifice, about a year back I picked up a Cokin IR filter.  Since then, I’ve taken it out about a half-dozen times, pretty much whenever I feel the need for some good, head throbbing, hair-pulling frustration.

So where to start?  Maybe with the fact that, with the IR filter in place, you can’t actually see much through the viewfinder – it’s very dark, and unless there’s some bright sky in the frame, you can forget composing with the filter on.  Unless of course, you suck up your old fashioned preferences and turn on the damn LiveView. (Okay, so maybe it has a few uses.)

The problem is that even after finally composing the photo, finally finding the right exposure (since the meter doesn’t read correctly, either), and getting the shot, it still looks like solid red crap, even with a custom white balance set.  Apparently Adobe ACR can’t read the extreme white-balance shift, and so succumbs to the intense red of the filter.  (Canon’s DPP can handle the custom setting, but since I hate the software with a passion, we’ll skip over that.)

The solution is to simply bring the crimson tide stained image into Photoshop, run Auto Levels, then convert it to B&W with some minor tweaks to the color channels…well, the red and magenta channels, at least.  The result still doesn’t look like the IR images you see from converted cameras, but at least it’s something.  I did some internet searching this afternoon and came upon one final trick that helps kick things up a notch:

On all the shots posted here, after everything else was done, I used the Photoshop filters to first Add Noise in the Gaussian setting (at a low level, like 2), and then Distort –> Diffused Glow (at mid to high levels, on a duplicate level, it’s opacity reduced to around 25%).  What these last steps do is to recapture some of the missing IR look, that slightly soft, glowing effect that makes IR photos so distinctive.

(Click for larger size)

So really, none of these came out the way I had hoped – which is pretty much par for the course for me when it comes to IR.  Despite being able to (sorta’) fake it in Photoshop, I’d much rather just get it right in the camera.  What’ll happen now is, I’ll curse at the IR filter and throw it back in the closet for another 4 months.  Then sometime down the line I’ll collect up enough misplaced confidence to take it out and try it all again.  Maybe I’ll get a bit closer next time.  Until then, my advice is this – if you really want to do IR, find point & shoot with decent performance and get it converted.

To wrap up, I want to forget about all the technical aspects for a moment, and focus instead on the artistic.  It’s all too easy to forget that photography is art, to get caught up in the gear and the settings and the technique.  And while all that stuff is important, it ain’t worth a hill of beans if you aren’t using it to create art.  It’s one thing to go to an event and take snapshots – it’s another entirely to put all your skills, including your artistic ones, to work and really make an image.

This is my favorite image from the day.  It’s perhaps not the most exciting photo ever taken, but I see it as being a bit timeless – I defy you to find anything in the photo that tells you when it was made.  As far as I’m concerned, there could be a Marine at the controls, coming back from a training flight before shipping out to Iwo Jima.  And there’s my story: another plane returns, another mission survived, another good landing to walk away from.I don’t talk about post processing much on here, and honestly it’s not something that I spend a huge amount of time on.  I feel I’ve got a pretty good handle on Photoshop, I can tone and adjust my photos to my liking, and I can even get a bit tricky sometimes.  I just don’t like to – I’d rather have a good image out of the camera, instead of tweaking it until it’s more digital art than photography.

But in cases like this, it’s worth going a bit beyond the norm.  For starters, the sepia duotone just felt right – not only in this photo, but in many from the day (as you’ve probably noticed).  That’s partially because of the old-timey look, and partly because it helps make the subject pop a bit more.  Nothing fancy here – just a conversion to greyscale, then a duotone, with a Pantone preset chosen out of the color range.  Some curves after than, and a conversion back to sRGB.  The rest – the soft BG, the heat waves coming off the runway, the haze in the sky – were all there when I shot it.

How about this?  You know it’s a cool event when they’ve got an FDR impersonator!  Roosevelt and his entourage are standing in the doorway of a DC-4, just before the President made an address to the crowd.  I’m shooting from the flight-line here, a few rows back from the fence, with the 120-400mm racked all the way out to 400.  This photo just begged for the sepia toning; it wouldn’t have looked right in color.  My only gripe is the microphone – it’s too obviously modern, and I wish they had gotten a period-looking one to use.

This one takes it a step farther.  Shot it again with the 120-400 @ 400mm.  One of those moments where I saw the shot, kicked the camera up from the hip, and took it just before someone wandered into my way again.  It’s candid and it’s rough – and not all the roughness is “real.”  This is one of those very rare occasions where I pulled out some extra PS tricks.  For starters, instead of trying to maybe clean up at bit of the ISO 500 noise, I added grain to it.  WWII era photos tend to be grainy, so why not?  Then several layers of toning: shadows & highlights to unblock the shadows just a touch, twin curves layers for contrast, some high-pass sharpening at very minimal levels, and some subtle dodging & burning.  So maybe I spent 15 minutes on just this shot – it was worth it to end up with something that, I think, looks kinda’ authentic.  My only regret is that I didn’t shoot it a bit looser – it would have been better to have seen more of their bodies, and some of the little French cafe patio they were sitting in.

This is one of my more successful attempts at panning.  It’s also another of those images that I tried to make timeless, but purposely leaving out any elements that are overwhelmingly modern.  I’ll admit, I’m not entirely sure what runway lights and signs looked like during WWII, but I don’t imagine they’re all that different.  To the non-expert, there’s nothing here that screams 2010.  No cars in the background, no people, etc.  Just that lovely B-17 trundling down the runway, just about to lift free.

I’ll finish out with a detail shot, which is one of this things my mentor always said to include.  Wide-open aperture, up close to the gun barrels to throw the BG just a bit soft.  It’s the flaws that I’m interested in here, the missing paint and signs of wear that make this look real.  The sepia helps bring this out.  And the end result is a good look at why you sure as hell didn’t want to be on the receiving end of a P-47 attack.

I’ll say right up front that this is an area where I have no formal training whatsoever.  I’m working with some tips I’ve picked up from other blogs and articles, with some skills applied from other types of photography, and finally a small pinch of common sense.  Was I hugely successful shooting in-flight?  M’eh.  I got some good ones, got a lot of bad ones, and my technique would probably make a pro wince.  But it’s a place to start!What we’ve got in the photo above is your standard T-6 Texan trainer.  And in many ways, I think this is the best way to practice your in-flight skills.  For starters, a T-6 is clattering along much slower than, say, a Thunderbird F-16.  Slower plane = easier to track with the lens.  Second, and even more importantly, the guys flying these planes know that people are straining to track them across the sky, many of them with cameras in hand.  They’re playing to the crowd, making your job easier!

Sure, most airshows will have at least a couple of more exciting acts, where the planes are barreling across the sky less predictably.  But even then, realize that there’s a pretty well defined area that they’re operating in; by regulation, they have to remain a set minimum distance from the crowd, and more often than not end up running a sort of racetrack pattern in front of everyone.  Once you get a feeling for how they’re flying, it’s much easier to anticipate and track the action.

That’s the common sense part.  Here’s the technical parts.  For starters, if you’ve got an IS lens, switching to mode 2 is advised.  Whereas mode 1 corrects for both horizontal and vertical shifts, mode 2 only corrects for vertical.  Which means that as you’re panning – and you’re gonna’ be panning to keep the plane in your viewfinder – the IS isn’t trying to compensate for the very motion you’re working hard to make.

Next, consider the prop motion.  If you’re shooting jets, it doesn’t much matter, since you don’t see any moving parts.  But for propeller planes, being able to see motion in the prop is vital!  And here’s why – if you shoot at a very fast shutter speed, say 1/500, odds are that you’re going to freeze the blades of the propeller.  And while it may get you an awesome, sharp shot of the plane, it’s going to look awfully funny with the prop apparently not turning.  Airplanes don’t fly too well that way, and your viewers are going to think something is wrong, and start getting nervous.

In the shot of the Warhawk above, you’ll see that the propeller blur is clearly visible.  This was shot at f/11, 1/320, and ISO 200.  Honestly, I thought 1/320 would be too fast, but it worked out this time.  But what you normally hear is a recommendation for an even slower speed, down to the 1/100 range.  (Or if you’re really talented, or shooting a plane still on the ground with a tripod, you can lengthen the shutter speed even more to get a full, circular prop-arc.)

To get such slow speeds, you need f/11 – or even higher, on a bright day.  And yes, I could have done ISO 100 and f/8 and gotten the same shutter speed, but the difference between ISO 100 and ISO 200 is negligible on the 7D, so I opted for the smaller aperture, for deeper DOF and better sharpness.  Against the sky, it’s not like I’m going to bokeh-out the clouds, anyway.

When you’re shooting in-flight, remember your exposure compensation.  Clear sky, overcast, it doesn’t matter – the daytime sky is almost always brighter than your meter’s neutral reading.  Dial in +1 to +1 2/3, depending on the day, to keep that sky bright.  It will keep it from looking muddy, and just as important, it will help to keep the planes well lit, instead of looking like dark silhouettes.

One final tip.  When it comes to composition, apply the same rule as is you were shooting wildlife: leave room for the planes to travel.  What that means is, don’t shoot a frame with the nose of the plane boring into the edge of the photo.  Instead, leave some room between the front of the plane and the facing edge of the photo for the plane to “travel” into.  It helps enhance the illusion of motion, and keeps the frame from looking cramped.  Sure, it’s fine to shoot tight shots, but even so, keep more room between the nose and edge than between the tail and edge.

(This last photo isn’t quite ideal: I clipped a bit off the tail, and it’s not hardly the best angle to show off the sexy lines of a Corsair.  But the light is very nice, there’s a good prop blur, and most of all, it speaks to me.  This is that moment when the plane has just left the ground, wheels still coming up, climbing out away from the field.  And there’s something inherently good about that moment.)

More than just a fun trip, this was a return to familiar things for me.  I grew up aviation – spent a lot of childhood days at the local airport.  But since I left for college, my contact with that world has grown thin, which is sad, since it’s a world I always loved.  From the time I took up serious photography, I’ve said that I’d like to cover aviation, and would especially like to learn air-to-air photography.  Well, I didn’t get airborne this time, but at least it’s a start!I’ve got far more photos to share than I can possibly get into one post, so I’m going to break it up into several posts; in each I’ll try to cover a different aspect of shooting an event like this.  For starters, how about trying to shoot the static displays?  What you’ve got here, as you can see above, is a aircraft ranging from large to very damn large, sitting on a ramp with an often busy or ugly background, and swarmed by people gawking up at it.

I shared the shot above in my teaser post, but I wanted to bring it up again as an example of what you’re facing.  Simply put, there was no way that I was going to get a clean shot at the B-25 Mitchell you see there.  Ain’t going to happen.  Just look at that crowd – and that’s a cropped photo!  Now it’s great to have so many people come out, interested in learning more about both aviation and history, but it’s something of a photographic nightmare.  When you’re not waiting for the guy who walked in front of you to clear the frame, you’re trying not to step into the photo of another photographer.  (I saw more people with cameras in one afternoon than I’ve ever seen at any other event.)

So what can you do about it?  The answer, as you might have expected, is “not too damn much.”  For this shot, I got a bit lucky – the grassy area off the taxiway sloped down, and I’m standing at the highest part.  At best, that gives me an extra few inches.  Being 6’4″ tall helps, too, so I’ve got just enough height to shoot over the heads of the crowd.  There’s trick #1 – find the best vantage point you can.  Even if the scene is flat with no small rises and dips, you can probably find something to boost yourself up – even if it’s an empty chair near one of the info tents that’s always around.

Your next best bet is twofold: be patient, and when you get the chance, shoot tight.  For this shot of the P-51 Mustang, I waited for four other photographer’s to finish up and move away from the shot I wanted.  And while I was waiting, I wasn’t standing there looking dazed; I was planning how to make the image, metering the scene, getting everything possible setup and ready so that when the shot was clear, I could step in, compose, shoot, and be done before someone else elbowed their way in.

And like I said, when I got the image, I shot it tight.  Just outside that frame there are people everywhere.  I didn’t want to see them, so I cut them out of the frame.  The story here is about the Mustang, all that sleek, polished aluminum, the warning “NO PUSH” stenciled on the elevator.  As in, don’t screw with a Mustang, or it will smoke your butt.  So I cut off the rest of the tail, and most of the visible wing, and even the tips of the prop.  But you still know it’s a Mustang, the story still works, and there aren’t any people visible.  (A little off topic, but a wide aperture helps, too – this was shot at f/4, and if there had been people, throwing them out of focus would still help minimize them.)

Here we are shooting even tighter.  This time we don’t even want the plane; figure anyone who knows their warbirds will know this is a Mustang from what they can see, but the picture, it’s really about the nose art, that personal touch that the pilot had painted on his ship.  Polished skin, classy name, sexy girl, and that row of exhaust ports and the rainbow exhaust stain behind them.  THAT’S the photo, nevermind the chaos going on behind it (which you get a sense of from the reflection).

“Good bokeh” is highly sought after, whilst “bad bokeh” is generally disparaged – but what actually makes bokeh good or bad?  That ends up being a tricky question, and the answer will vary quite a bit depending on who you ask.  But in general th softer, creamier, and more pleasantly blurred a bokeh is, the better it is appreciated.

So what can you do to get better bokeh?

1.  Shoot wide open

Since bokeh is a quality of the out-of-focus (OOF) area, then the more you can throw the background OOF, the better.  Lenses with wide, fast apertures are very well suited to this – think at least f/2.8, with f/1.8 and faster being even better.  You essentially want to have your subject just within the range of focus, and everything else falling off as fast as possible to maximize the OOF background.

50mm @ f/2

2.  Compose for a better distance ratio

“Distance ratio” sounds complex, but what it really means is that the ideal setup is for there to me a small distance between the camera and the subject, and a much larger distance between the subject and the background.  By keeping the subject near to the camera, and far from the BG, you can maximize the OOF effect on the BG (whereas reversing this ratio will lead to a BG that’s much more in-focus than you probably want.)

Good distance ratio; model much farther from BG than from camera

3.  Pick a bokeh-friendly background

If you’ve got a gentle background with consistent colors and lighting, composed of softer shapes, you’re more likely to have a nice bokeh.  BGs with lots of sharp angles and lines and abrupt changes between colors or lighting conditions aren’t going to look as nice.

4.  Shoot with a telephoto lens

Telephoto lenses are masters of bokeh, which is why so many portrait photographers prefer them.  It’s a physical property of telephoto optics that makes them work so well – even bypassing the requirement for wide-open apertures to some extent.  Check out images taken with the 70-200 f/4 for some great bokeh, or better yet, check out super-telephoto bird and wildlife shots.  So long as there’s a good distance ratio, you’ll see some incredibly blurred BGs, even at apertures of f/5.6.

Bokeh @ 400mm

5.  Use a more bokeh-friendly lens

Not to dump the responsibility on the gear, but it is a fact that there are some lenses that simply produce better bokeh than others.  This isn’t a feature that will be listed on manufacturer specification pages – if you want to find out about the bokeh qualities of a potential lens, you should search for some user opinions.  Photography forums are your friend – there are always photogs there who love sharing and debating these somewhat-esoteric qualities.  Then check out Flickr for user groups who use the lens and see the images for yourself.

So in an effort to clear out some of that pollution, here’s a list of 6 common photography fallacies that I’ve come across and would like to clear up. (And you can trust me, ’cause I’m obviously not a crackpot!)

1.) f/6400 will give me super sharp photos with deep depth of field!

Not quite. This is a common fallacy, one that I fell into for a long time. But it turns out that cranking your lens’ aperture down as tight as it’ll go isn’t the best recipe for sharp photos. True, the smaller your aperture, the more depth of field you’ll have; at f/22, pretty much everything from here to the horizon is going to be in focus.

But that doesn’t mean it’s sharp. In fact, it won’t be. Most lenses are sharpest at about f/8-f/11; beyond f/11 they start to get softer because of diffraction. If you want to read up on the physics of diffraction, Google it – for our purposes here, just remember that after a certain point, stopping down does more harm than good. (Do some test shots with your favorite lenses to find out where this point is for each.) 

2.) High ISOs will always show too much noise!

High ISOs have a bad rap that they don’t quite deserve. Yes, if you take your 50D and crank it up to ISO 12,000 there is going to be lots of ugly noise. But if you learn to use it right, high ISO can be your friend. The trick is having enough light – I’ve shot well-lite scenes at ISO 1600 on my old 400D and you’d never know that it was at it’s ISO limit.

Most high ISO photos look noisy/bad because they’re not properly exposed – the photog cranked the ISO up in a desperate attempt to get the shot, but didn’t quite make it. Simply, if you underexpose a shot at ISO 100 and then try to pull it up in post, it’ll look bad.

3.) Shooting in RAW will let me fix it later!

I hear this one a lot. There’s a misconception among the uninformed that shooting RAW gives you the ability to “fix” anything later. It doesn’t. RAW gives you extra options, more leeway – but it’s not a miracle file. Most of the literature says that RAW files have adjustable by 2 stops without significant degradation. But that’s for a perfectly exposed photo – anything else, and 2 stops is pushing it. (I usually adjust the exposure of my RAW photos by less than 1/2 stop.)

The answer here is to just get it right in-camera. Take the time to learn your gear, learn photography, and do it properly. Forget that it’s digital and shoot as if you were shooting film, where every frame counts, because every frame is costing you money. Do it right – then, if you need to make a small adjustment to get it perfect, you have that ability in RAW.

4.) You don’t need to post-process digital photos!

FAIL! Every time I hear this, I want to suggest a Cat-Scan to the “photographer” who said it. I met a “pro” a little while back who launched into a 5-minute tirade against Photoshop & post-processing, claiming that none of it was necessary and was just used by hacks to ruin photos.

I held my tongue, but what I really wanted to ask this guy was, “So back in the day, when you did darkroom printing, you threw the negative into the enlarger and made a print? And that was it? No contrast filters, no dodging & burning, no adjustments to the chemical solutions?” I don’t believe that for a second – even the crappy photo machines at CVS adjust your prints for color and contrast.

Photoshop takes skill to master – or even be competent in. But not post-processing your photos is, to be blunt, half-assing it. Almost every photo taken will benefit from a slight curves adjustment, at the very least. Don’t over saturate the colors, don’t make the sky electric blue – but please, do finish the photo the way it deserves.

5.) I’m new to DSLRs; my first lens should be a super-telephoto!

I think every first-time SLR owner falls into this trap. You buy a camera with the kit lens and immediately want a telephoto zoom. “I’ve got to have REACH!” you say. Then you finally get that zoom and realize that it was dumb – what you really needed was a wide angle.

Most beginner/hobby shooters will benefit much more from a good wide-angle or standard range lens than they will from a telephoto. Telephoto lenses are difficult to use – they require patience and solid technique, and even then they will frustrate you. They also tend to be slower lenses, in terms of aperture, and will only work well in good light. Do yourself a favor and buy a good starter lenses, like the Tamron 28-75 f/2.8, or the Canon 17-40 f/4 and Canon 50mm f/1.8. Then, when you’re comfortable with photography – and know what you actually want to capture way over there – start looking at telephotos.

6.) More megapixels = better!

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again – this is a MARKETING PLOY. More megapixels does not equal better photos, or a better camera, or a better anything. These days, most people never make prints of their photos at all – and even if you are making 4×6 and 8×10 prints, a 6 megapixel camera will make lovely prints. A 15 megapixel camera won’t make a better 4×6 print. What it will do is cost you a lot of money and use up huge amounts of memory on your computer (on my 7D, each photo is around 22MB – that’s big).

In technical terms, consider that they’re adding more pixels, but the overall size of the sensor remains the same – the pixels just get denser. Denser pixels can mean more noise, more heat – things that aren’t necessarily great news. So don’t fall for the marketing ploy – 10MP is plenty; 12MP is more than enough. 98% of photogs don’t need 22MP. (Note: this applies to crop sensors; full frame sensors are physically larger, so can accommodate a higher megapixel count before becoming too dense.)

I’ve also been trying some new processing on some shots, especially portraits.  It’s a trick I picked up from somebody’s blog (I forget who at the moment) – after all the standard stuff is done, curves and healing, etc, you flatten the layers, then duplicate the background and change the blending mode to Overlay.  At full strength the effect is awful, but pull the opacity slider back to the 10-25% range, and the photo ends up with some extra contrast/saturation pop that can look really good.

Like all Photoshop tricks, it’s not for every photo, nor every photog.  But I’m liking it, in moderation.  So I threw some on here as well, after the duotone conversion.

Because you can’t really get great photos with one of those.

Yeah.  Right.

The fact of the matter is, today’s P&S cameras most certainly can take better photos than most people realize.  Especially if you’re able to get the camera off the Auto mode and do some of the thinking for it.  A few basic techniques and you can take all the memory photos that you want – photos that you can show people later on and actually see detail, as opposed to pointing to specks and saying that’s such-&-such a character.

The first step is to get the camera into a manual mode.  We’re dealing with a predominately dark arena here, illuminated only by theatrical/mood lights and spotlights.  The theatrical lights aren’t very bright, since their primary goal is to project color.  (If you ever worked with flash gels you know that the color becomes more saturated at lower power levels; higher power levels wash out color and simply go white.)

So when it comes to metering, the theatrical lights should fall 1-2 stops underexposed.  It’s the spotlights that you’re really aiming for.  These are the lights illuminating your subjects.  They are specially designed to track the character of the moment and draw your attention to the storyline.  So follow them – set your variables based on the reading off the spots.

To do this, you’re really looking at either M or Av modes.  Av could be helpful, since your minimum aperture will change as you zoom your P&S, and because the intensity of light will vary depending on the surface the spots are on, how they interact with the theatrical lights, and how they interact with each other.  If you are going to go for Av, however, you’ll need to program in a negative exposure compensation.  Remember, the camera is metering the entire scene for 18% gray, unless you have a spot meter.  18% gray will make the entire scene too bright; negative exposure compensation will maintain the blacks, the saturation in the theatrical lights, and will let you see the character within the beam of the spotlight.

Personally I prefer using Manual mode, with the aperture set for its widest value at the maximum zoom setting – setting it such assures that the balance isn’t thrown out when you zoom either way.  From there set the ISO, and be prepared to have it higher than you might want.  In this case, I had it set to 800.  Now I had plenty of shutter speed, I could have turned it down to 400, maybe even 200, and still hand-held the camera, especially with the IS built in.  But the problem is, this is a performance with quickly moving performers – a shutter speed less than 1/250 or so will start to show motion blur.  At ISO 200, the performers won’t be crisp – they’ll be soft and very blurred.

Two more things to assure some level of success.  First, turn off your flash.  You ever watch the Olympic Games and see the stands awash in flash-bulb explosions?  It’s quite a site, very impressive to watch, but all those flashes are completely and utterly useless to the people firing them off!  You go out and buy a Nikon SB-900 Speedlight, the most top-of-the-line hotshoe flash made by any of the camera manufacturers, and it’s maximum range is 200mm.  Guess what?  From the stands to the playing field is a lot more than 200mm.

The flash built into your P&S camera does not have a 200mm range.  You’re lucky if it’s range is 85mm worth of concentrated light.  These flashes are puny and underpowered, and are meant only to throw light on nearby objects.  So when your’e sitting in your arena seats blasting away with that flash, all you’re doing is draining your batteries and making the person next to you blind.  Not a single photon of that light is reaching the performance floor and doing anything to your exposure.  Turn if off!

And second, if your camera has the option for Manual Focus mode, use it.  Most P&S cameras suffer from slow auto-focus speed, even in strong sunlight.  In performance lighting conditions, your camera will struggle, grinding from one end of the range to the other before giving up.  Throw it in manual mode and set the focus for infinity.  P&S cameras have huge depth of field simply due to the physics of their sensors and lenses; at the ranges you’re going to be using in an arena, unless you’re in the front row, your focus will be at infinity.  And if you’re using one of the newer cameras that shows a magnified section of the screen to verify manual focus, you’ll be able to see for yourself that this is true in use.

So there you have it, some simple ways to “beat the man” and get decent photos at an event with your P&S.  They probably won’t be amazing shots, they certainly won’t be as good as you could do with a SLR and proper lighting – but they’ll be much better than you’d expect, and worlds better than the guy sitting next to you will get, shooting in Auto mode.

Photos shot with Canon Powershot SX120 IS, ISO 800, 1/250, f/4.9

Panorama from Little Round Top

Panoramic shots are something that I keep saying I’m going to do more work with, although it seems that I rarely manage to.  In part I blame this on the locations I often end up at, which many times are cluttered and offer little in the way of wide-open angles.  I also blame it on my own lackluster memory, which often fails to remember to try out new tricks.

I’ve read some articles on panoramas and worked with a couple of different software sets, and I’ve pretty much condensed it down to two options – either shell out big bucks for special pano equipment, or settle of the down and dirty approach.  I go for the second option.

Down and dirty works like this: shoot in manual mode, with the same settings in each scene.  Do not adjust focal length between shots, and lock the focus at the hyperfocal distance, then switch it to manual so the focus point remains the same throughout.  Most importantly, be sure to overlap each shot by at least 33%, otherwise you’ll get faulty match ups.

Canon’s included pano software works okay, but I see it as another workflow step that can be avoided by just using the Photomerge feature in Photoshop, which works just as well, if not better.  It will take a while to process, especially if you computer has weaker guts.  But once it’s done, you’ll almost always see that the middle is fatter than the ends, so you have to crop in somewhat to square it off (this is why I always shoot panos wider than appears necessary).  Then it’s adjustment layers as normal.

The pano above came out really well this time around – if you zoom into the full-sized version, you can even count the troops in a column near the intersection by Devil’s Den.  I really need to remember this technique and pull it out of my bag more often.

1.) Protect your camera

This seems like it should be common sense, but far too often it isn’t. The reason being that winter hazards are sneaky. You obviously need to be careful when you take your camera out in a snow storm; that’s little different from shooting in the rain, which we all know is chancy at best. So if you are going to be out in the snow, take an umbrella with you, or take shelter under overhangs. Anything to keep the camera dry.

But what about that sneaky hazard? It’s condensation. Taking your room-temperature camera gear from your heated house outside into the cold will almost never be an issue. But the reverse is a very real hazard. A cold-soaked camera and lens coming into a warm house is just begging for condensation. Condensation is water, building up on the inside and outside of your gear, and next thing you know the electronics are shorting out.

The solution? It’s simple: 1 gallon ziplock bags. Take the bags outside in your pocket and before you come in, shake one open, let it cool down for a few moments, then pop your camera inside and seal it up. Do NOT try to squeeze the extra air out! In fact, keep the bag as full of cold outside air as you can. That way when you take it inside, the temperature variance doesn’t occur on your camera, it occurs on the ziplock bag; condensation forms only on the outside of the bag as the air inside slowly comes up to room temperature, as does your camera. After an hour or two the camera is warmed back up with no risk of damage and can come out of the bag.

Alternatively, pop your flash card out of the camera while you’re still outside and put it in your pocket. It will warm up that way just fine so you can download your images when you get home. As for the rest of your gear, zip it up tight in your camera bag and leave the bag zipped for a couple of hours once it’s inside, just like for the ziplock. Most camera bags are “sealed” enough to bring their contents – air and gear – slowly up to room temperature without any problems.

2.) Pack extra power

Cold weather eats up battery power, no matter what device you’re using. If you’re going to be shooting in the cold for a while, bring extra batteries with you, and keep them in the pocket of your parka where they’ll stay warmer. As one battery wears down, swap it for one from your pocket. Chances are as the “dead” battery warms up, it will regain some of its life, and you’ll be able to use it again. Same deal if you’re powering accessories like a flash – bring extra AAs and keep swapping them out.

3.) Use a polarizer

Want gleaming white snow and crisp, vivid blue skys? A circular polarizer is the answer and will cut the glare coming off the snow. It will also eat up between 1 and 1.5 stops of light, which can be a real help when you’re trying to shoot with a wide aperture on a sunny winter day. Polarizers work by managing reflected light and let’s face it, on a sunny winter’s day, every snow and ice covered surface is reflecting.  Alternately, they’re a great way to punch up the reflections on any open water, while bringing out more vivid colors.

4.) Dress for the weather

You’d be surprised how many people overlook this point; they’ll head out with all sorts of extreme-condition camera gear, but they won’t remember to put on heavy socks or a hat. Fact is, if you’re not comfortable and warm, your photography is going to suffer. And it would really stink to miss that perfect shot because you ended up half-frozen and had to quit early. So remember what your mother told you: dress in layers for extra warmth (and that means bottoms as well as tops – wearing three shirts and a parka, but just a pair of blue jeans is a dumb idea).

Gloves are a constant problem for photographers. We need our fingers to be warm, but bulky gloves make it impossible to press those little control buttons. The trick is finding gloves light enough to keep you protected but not too heavy to interfere with the controls. Or, as some prefer, buy the gloves with the removable fingertips. Myself, I stick with lighter weight gloves, but I throw one of those one-time-use glove warmer packs in my pockets. That way even if my fingers start to freeze, I can stick them into my pockets and grab the hand warmers to erase the chill.

Likewise, invest in the proper footwear. Sneakers are a definite sign of failure, whereas good hiking boots might work for light snow, and real winter boots are absolutely necessary for slogging through the drifts. In fact, if you’re really planning on hitting the outback in the snow, it’s worth looking into a pair of snow shoes or possibly cross country skies as a way to get around (my preference is snowshoes). Either will make it much easier for you to access remote locations, and do so without expending huge amounts of energy plowing through snow up to your waist.