Photoblog 2.0

Red Cyclamen, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

Where the composition of a photo is about pattern, a single color often plays an important role. Cases in point: the photo of the cyclamen above is almost entirely red, with green accents, while the capture of water drops on a lupine (below) is essentially monochromatically green.

Related links: A Sense of Scale; Patterns category on Photoblog 2.0.

[Both photos: Nikon D300, 200mm f/4 macro lens (300mm in 35mm terms), and 36mm extension tube. Above: 3 seconds at f/36 and ISO 100. Below: 1/3 of a second at f/40 and ISO 100.]

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Nectar of Lily, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

Focus, in the sense of focusing the lens, is one of the primary variables in a photograph under the control of the photographer. Assuming, that is, that the photographer doesn’t rely on autofocus, and understands how focus relates to depth of field and aperture.

Focus in life means concentrating, and screening out distractions. Sure, as a technical matter, you focus the camera (or it focuses itself). A good photo composition emplys focus in the broader, non-technical sense as well. This kind of focus should tell the viewer what is important about a composition.

Ansel Adams put the gist of composition well: “I think in terms of creating configurations out of chaos.” Your composition shows what your photo is concentrating, or focusing, on.

This focus might be a broad, distant view as in my first photo of the lily in the green vase (below).

In contrast, a photo might focus on an extreme close-up of a small part of the flower, like the image of nectar oozing aroung the stigma of the same lily (at the beginning of this story).

Using focus in this non-technical sense means deciding on a sense of scale, and more importantly, being clear about what story you want to tell.

[Nectar of Lily: Nikon D300, 200mm f/4 macro lens (300mm in 35mm terms), 36mm extension tube, Nikon 6T close-up filter, 3 seconds at f/40 and ISO 100.]

Lily in a Green Vase, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

Flowers in our house often do double duty, and this lily is no exception. Purchased as part of an arrangement of flowers to help cheer up a stuck-on-bedrest Phyllis, I decided the lily was so beautiful that it had to be photographed.

I used a black velvet cloth for back drop and sunlight to front light the flower. I placed a Lowel tungsten spot light covered with a diffuser to the rear right of the flower to add the highlights.

[Nikon D300, Sigma 50mm f/2.8 macro lens (75mm in 35mm terms), 1/2 second at f/32 and ISO 100, tripod mounted.]

Moby Dick, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

Looking through the lens at the rain-drenched petals of this white cyclamen, I was reminded of something great and white…maybe even the jaws of Moby Dick.

Here’s a photo of cyclamen water drops in a row and a couple of more colorful cyclamens.

[Nikon D300, 200mm f/4 macro lens (300mm in 35mm terms), 36mm extension tube, 1/2 of a second at f/40 and ISO 100.]

I’ve written about using noise for aesthetic purposes. I’ve also explored the possibility that noise generated by boosting a camera’s sensitivity (ISO) will become a historical artifact and thing of the past. I’ve also explained my strategies for effective noise post processing.

It’s time to take a look at a technical challenge that decreased noise generation at higher ISOs solves.

The other day I went down the block to photograph apple and cherry blossoms close-up on a sun-drenched but windy afternoon following days of rain. The challenge here is that for these extreme macros I almost always want as much depth as I can get so that reflections in water drops and the surface of the blossom all are in focus. At ISO 100, my typical setting for quality work, this implies a long shutter speed even on a bright day. Shutter speeds longer than a second just don’t work when there is a breeze!

If I could get acceptable results in terms of noise, boosting the ISO would seem to be the solution. At higher ISOs it would seem to be easy to get the shutter speed up from the 5-10 second range to something like 1/25 of second. At 1/25 of a second, I would need the Gods of timing with me, but I could wait for a still moment and have a decent chance.

I think noise isn’t a detrimental issue in these photos, so boosting the ISO for maximum depth of field at faster shutter speeds works to make these technically “impossible” photos possible.

You can judge for yourself from these results. All were taken using my Nikon D300, tripod mounted, with my 200mm f/4 macro lens and a 36mm extension tube. The lens was stopped down as far as possible (with slight variations in recorded aperture, as noted), so the only significant exposure differences between the photos were ISO, shutter speed (and, on the other side of the exposure equation, the amount of available light at the time of the photo because natural light does not stay constant in the late afternoon).

ISO 1,000 at 1/25 of a second and f/36:

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ISO 640 at 1/60 of a second and f/36:

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ISO 640 at 1/60 of a second and f/40:

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For comparison, here’s a ringer, shot conventionally at ISO 100 and 6 seconds and f/45. The blossom was relatively steady despite the wind because of its position relative to the tree trunk. This was my last shot of the series as the sun set. I like the soft quality of the blossom in the sunset light, but you’d be hard put to say that the noise characteristics are significantly better than its high ISO bethren.

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Hellebore on White, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

The image above was the first version of this photo. I used a flourescent light table as my illumination source, and overexposed for transparency. I combined three different exposures, each with a different shutter speed but the same aperture, to get the effect I wanted (see exposure details below).

Lately, I’ve become interested in photographing flowers either on a white background (because backlit transparency of flower petals is beautiful) or on a black background (because the high contrast with the flower makes color values pop). When I can, I’ve created both white and black versions. Sometimes photographically, but more often using Photoshop inversions, as with the hellebore inversion of the original image below:

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[Both images: Nikon D300, Sigma 50mm f/2.8 macro lens (75mm in 35mm terms), three exposures (3 seconds, 5 seconds, and 8 seconds), all at f/32 and ISO 100, tripod mounted.]

Some other black and white flower pairs: Faerie Bouquet and Faerie Rose on Black; Anemone Japonica and Anemone on Black; Dawn Chorus Poppy on White and Black.

Rose Bouquet from Above, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

This is a subsequent photo of the bouquet of roses, with the buds a bit more open, and angled from above rather then showing the full bouquet in profile. As compared with the first photo, I also lit the flowers for more softness of color.

This is one of those photos that appears fairly effortless. As indeed it should. But in fact, the image took a great deal of work.

The most difficult problem was caused by an issue of lens focal length. I wanted to be able to see the entire circumference of the bouquet of roses; at the same time I didn’t want the photo to capture tripod legs, lighting apparatus, or the edge of the black velvet background. With my tripod fully extended (three legs plus center column), approximately 40mm (60mm in 35mm terms) would have done the trick.

This would seem to have indicated my Nikon 18-200mm VR zoom lens, which I enjoy using as an all-round lens, and certainly includes the desired focal length in its range. Unfortunately, however, when you point this lens straight down, the zoom “slips” out to its longest setting, so I couldn’t use the lens for this purpose.

I ended up raising the height of the tripod by putting each foot on a chair and climbing a short ladder myself. With a little cropping in the post-processing, my 50mm Sigma macro lens (75mm in 35mm terms) was now just right.

This whole setup was truly pretty jerry-rigged and rickety, and not at all the kind of slick shooting situation you’d expect of a pro photographer. You can see a somewhat similar set of circumstances that involved a diaper box as a platform when I photographed this wasp. In both cases, the point is that it worked, and that I didn’t break my keister, not the slickness of the setup.

So that the white roses didn’t blow out, and the orange and pink roses on the left remained vivid, I combined three different exposures to get the final result.

[Nikon D300, Sigma 50mm f/2.8 macro lens (75mm in 35mm terms), three exposures (1.6 second, 2.5 seconds, and 4 seconds), all at f/32 and ISO 100, tripod mounted.]

Bouquet of Roses, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

This is a bouquet of multicolored roses for my beautiful wife, Phyllis. She deserves all the flowers in the world, physical as well as virtual. After three boys, we are having another baby.

The roses were photographed on a black velvet background using sunlight focused using window shades. In this kind of situation, it is important to underexpose relative to an overall meter reading, because you want the background to go completely black, and you want the flowers to appear as saturated as possible.

[Nikon D300, 18-200mm VR lens at 35mm (52.5mm in 35mm terms) with image stabilization turned off, 1.6 seconds at f/29 and ISO 100, tripod mounted.]

Lensbaby Poppy 2, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

After photographing a Papaver nudicaule being born, for the next few days I continued in the same damn the torpedoes full speed ahead hand held ignore the noise high ISO fashion, taking photos with my Lensbaby 3G as the poppies emerged.

Both photos: Nikon D300, Lensbaby 3G, hand held. Photo above: +10 close-up filter, no aperture ring, 1/250 of a second, ISO 100. Photo below: +4 close-up filter, f/8 aperture ring, 1/125 of second, ISO 2000.

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Being Born, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

Within the short life span of the poppy flower (Papaver nudicaule shown here), being born, or emerging from the pod, is a significant percentage of the total. Even so, the duration of emergence is short enough that it can be over if you go inside for another lens. This has actually happened to me: by the time I got back a few minutes later, the flower had emerged.

I photographed this poppy birth just before dusk on the first sunny day after a period of rain. I knew it was dark, and the flower was moving in the breeze, so I needed a fast shutter speed (and there was no point in a tripod). In the situation, I decided to take the noise is beautiful approach, and used an ISO of 3200 at 1/400 of a second with the f/5.6 disk on my Lensbaby 3G (equipped with a +10 close-up lens).

I’ve been asked about the Lensbaby a number of times, for example: “What version of the Lensbaby do you use? Are you happy with it? Any problems? I’m considering getting one and would love to talk to an actual user about it..”

I started with a Lensbaby 2.0 and am now using the Lensbaby 3G, which I consider a great improvement because you can lock the lens into position. I have had no problems with my Lensbaby whatsoever. I completely recommend the Lensbaby if you understand what it is: a special purpose lens that can create unique images and unlock creativity. However, it’s certainly not a general purpose lens, and there are many situations in which I would never use it.

Related links: My Poppies on Flickr, Lensbaby on Photoblog 2.0.

Hanging On, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

In a sunny intermission between squalls of rain I photographed this rain drop hanging onto a climbing geranium blossom. Even fully stopped down, in the sunlight the exposure was only for a fraction of a second, and the next second the drop had fallen down and was gone. As I dismantled my equipment, a passerby asked if I was photographing a groundhog (yesterday was Groundhog Day!).

“No,” I replied, “just a water drop.”

“Well, at least they can’t see their own shadow.”

Or, maybe water drops do see shadows in their short lives.

[Nikon D300, 200mm f/4 macro lens (300mm in 35mm terms), 36mm extension tube, Nikon 6T close-up lens, 1/6 of a second at f/40 and ISO 100, tripod mounted.]

Trillium, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

I photographed this tiny and wonderful wild Trillium in Steep Ravine last spring, and Phyllis just recently masked it onto black. Here are my original versions of the trilliaceae in Steep Ravine with their natural backgrounds.

Related image: Paper White on Black.

[Nikon D200, 105mm f/2.8 macro (157.5mm in 35mm terms), 8 seconds at f/40 and ISO 100, tripod mounted.]

Paper White on Black, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

We used the same black velvet background as I’d used with the sunflower. We used a pin to stick this Paper White, also called a narcissus, upright into a piece of foam core beneath the velvet.

Then I lit the flower from beneath using an angled LED lamp, to make the core of the flower glow brightly. I used someone from Apple’s business card, picked up at MacWorld, to shade the LED light so that the petals weren’t too blown out.

Finally, I angled the tripod in place (the whole setup was nestled on an old, stuffed armchair), and photographed straight down on the tiny Paper White with a macro telephoto plus extension tube.

Moral of the story: always pick up business cards, you never know when they’ll come in handy. Also, as I make a point of stating in Light and Exposure for Digital Photographers (now available for pre-order!), you don’t need fancy real estate or equipment to make a studio of your own, just the ability to see light and to improvise.

[Nikon D300, 200mm f/4 macro lens (300mm in 35mm equivalent terms), 36mm extension tube, 5 seconds at f/36 and ISO 100, tripod mounted.]

Sunflower, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

I photographed this sunflower as part of an ongoing project for a client. To achieve the simple look of this image, I improvised a studio in a sunny room in the house and used a black velvet background. I then manipulated the shades to light just the flower.

[Nikon D300, approximately 100mm in 35mm terms, 4/5 of a second at f/32 and ISO 100, tripod mounted.]

Petals, image by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

We were proofing a 176 page book–Light and Exposure for Digital Photographers from O’Reilly–on our Epson 4800 printer using rolls of proofing paper. A time consuming, tedious, and exciting process. I took an art break, and captured these alstromeria petals (on white below), then played in Photoshop to come up with the version on black (above).

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