Rainier Rainier Trip

We took a trip to Mt. Rainier this Labor Day weekend, and remarkably, the mountain was hidden from view for all but a few moments on Saturday afternoon, as we traveled past Kautz Creek. On Sunday, we headed up to Comet Falls, about 2 miles and 1600 feet up from the main park road, and just before we arrived at the falls, it began pouring. So much for planning on 3 days of photography and "previsualizing" the shots I was to take!

Here is one photo of a waterfall above Narada Falls (just below where the road to Reflection Lake heads east and the road to Paradise continues northeast).

Narada Falls, Mt. Rainier National Park, Washington

This is a High Dynamic Range Image, necessitated by the sun on the top of the falls, and the darkness in the canyon below. The HDR exposures covered nearly 4 stops range.

Technical Details: Canon 5D, 24-70mm f/2.8L lens, B+W circular polarizer. Exposures were f/22 for 1/13 sec, f/22 for 1/6 sec, f/22 for 0.3 sec, f/22 for 0.6 sec.

Post processing included color balancing the shaded area (warming it), enhancing saturation, adjusting levels, and contrast.

August 23, 2008

Canon 5D, Canon 24mm TSE (both shifted and tilted on vertical axis), f/14, 0.5 sec, ISO200, 3-stop grad ND (Singh Ray).

Paradise Creek, Mazama Ridge, Mt. Rainier NP

This photo was taken on August 23, 2008 at Mt. Rainier National Park in Washington.

This is an image from the Paradise River, just below Mazama Ridge, Mt. Rainier National Park, in the Washington Cascades.Technical Details: Canon 5D, Canon 17-40mm f/4.0 at f/22, 1.0 sec, ISO 100, B+W circular polarizer to block reflections on the rocks.

NOTE: This is a "manipulated photo" in that the image was flipped horizontally to make the water flow from left to right. This does not exist in nature in this form.

First Light at Mazama Ridge, Mt. Rainier National Park

This photo was taken on August 23, 2008 at Mt. Rainier National Park in Washington.

This is from Mazama Ridge, just below the Paradise River. Technical Details: Canon 5D, Canon 24mm TSE f/14, 5.2 sec. ISO 100 with a Singh-Ray 3-stop grad ND (hard) to tone down the sky and mountain.

This was a late year for wildflowers in the Cascades, about 3 weeks after the normal bloom, and the bloom has been inconsistent, with the lupine a bit stunted. Several snow fields still crossed the trail, and the climb up to Mazama ridge, which we began around 5:15 AM was still pretty wet.

Lens Test: Canon 300mm f/2.8 vs. 100-400 f/4.5-5.6

...tested on a Canon 40D vs. a Canon 5D.

I had some concerns about the sharpness of my relatively new, still warranted, Canon 300mm f/2.8 lens after taking some bird photos that just weren't as sharp as I wanted. Mostly, I'd used this lens on my Canon 40D to get some extra telephoto punch via the 1.6X crop sensor, but most of my images just weren't as sharp as I'd like. I'm still concerned that the 40D isn't focusing well enough or fast enough in the servo mode on a moving subject (reputed to have some front-focus/back-focus issues) so I tested the lens by shooting across Lake Union in Seattle, using a tripod and +/- IS (which I haven't analyzed yet).

Shown below are small 100% crops of the first 6 shots I've looked at. The bottom line is that when looking at an edge section of the image, the 300mm f/2.8 shot at f/8 easily beats the 100-400 shot at either f/8 or at f/14. The real surprise to me was that the image from the 40D cropped sensor (which appears more telephoto due to the sensor crop factor) actually seems to have more detail than the image from the 5D. That would suggest that the 40D is a great camera/sensor to give you a little more telephoto punch than the 5D (full-frame) sensor. Both cameras were shot with mirror-lock-up and at ISO400, with no IS in either test. Another surprise, the Canon 135mm f/2.0 actually produced pretty sharp pictures with reasonably good edge sharpness (same cropped area) when using a 2x telextender (effective focal length 270 mm) ... shot at f/8.0 (2 stops closed down from maximum aperture).

Here are the shots:

300mm f/2.8L shot at f/8.0

100-400 f/4.5-5.6 shot at f/8.0
Canon 5D (at about 280mm focal length)

100-400 f/4.5-5.6 shot at f/14

Canon 5D (at about 280 mm focal length)

(a little sharper than at f/8.0)

Here's the Canon 40D with the 300mm f/2.8 at f/8.0

...and the 40D with the 100-400 shot at f/8.0

...and for comparison, 1st the 5D 135mm f/2.0 with a 2x

teleextender shot at f/8.0

So, for now, it is "back to the drawing board" to figure out why my bird shots weren't as sharp as I'd like. Perhaps I didn't wait long enough for the IS to settle, or perhaps the servo focus was spending too much time trying to catch focus and just not nailing it. Hmmmmm.....

Sunrise at Lower Robin Lake, Cascade Range, WA

(August 2008)

Last week, I was fortunate enough to be able to take my family on a 5-day backpacking trip to the Robin Lakes in the Cascade Range. Robin Lakes are accessed out of Tucquala Meadows, which is down a relatively long road out of Roslyn, WA. Departing Tucquala Meadows, the trail proceed for 2 miles to Hyas Lake, then past Hyas Lake about another 1.5 - 2 miles before starting an ascent over Deception Pass. After ascending for about 0.5 - 1 mile, the trail to Tuck Lake and Robin Lakes branches to the right off of the Deception Pass trail. Just after the junction with the Deception Pass trail, the trail to Tuck Lake decends briefly to a beautiful clear creek (fill your water bottles here!) before rising sharply over the next two miles to Tuck Lake. The climb is steep, and the trail is moderately well-maintained, but there are several spots where shorter hikers may need a bit of help getting up and over rocks (in several places, I had to use my hands to climb up and over rocks or grab onto roots to hoist myself up). I was carrying around 50-lbs, since I had a significant amount of camera gear, and extra food for the hungry hikers. Overall, the climb from Tucquala Meadows to Tuck Lake is around 2,000 feet. Past Tuck Lake, and following a bit of a scramble around the south side of the lake, the trail again rises steeply during the 1.7 mile ascent to Upper and Lower Robin Lakes, which are at an altitude of about 6200-feet, and about 900-feet above Tuck Lake (the climb, though, is at least 1200 vertical feet with some of the ups and downs.

This photo was taken with a Canon 40D (lighter than my 5D), a 17-40mm lens, at f/8.0, for 0.3 sec. using a Singh-Ray 2-stop grad ND (hard) filter to tone down the intensity of the sky and allow me to brighten the non-illuminated foreground. In retrospect, I wish I'd taken my Canon 5D, brought along my 24-70 f/2.8 as my primary lens, and perhaps even left my 135mm f/2.0 L lens home (I brought the 135mm on the 40D along with a 2x teleextender, to help me take pictures of mountain goats...in fact, I often found that even just the 135mm was too much telephoto, and I never used the teleextender the whole trip).

I'll post a few more photos in the weeks ahead, and will hopefully be able to grab some shots near Mt. Rainier this weekend or next, as the wildflowers appear to be peaking at 5,000 feet near Paradise right now.

Gas for photography...

Okay, okay...I know this is supposed to be a photography blog. However, photographers generally travel a fair amount, and in the process consume a fair amount of gasoline and produce (too much) CO2. With that in mind, I wanted to add just a small note to my blog about the benefits of small cars.

I recently took a position working in downtown Seattle, and I have to commute about 21 miles to work every day, each way. This is the first time in my life (I'm 54) that I have had to commute more than 7 miles each way to work (and yet, I've generally lived in pretty nice surroundings :-). I should point out that it wasn't by choice that I began working 21 miles from home...my prior employer encountered a significant financial challenge, and first laid off 1/3 of the staff, followed a few months later by a lay-off of more than 60% of the staff remaining in my business unit ... as the stock dropped from around $17/share to just over $1 per share. I worked with a fantastic team that I miss immensely, but I had to stay employed, and couldn't stray from the Puget Sound area for family reasons.

Several years ago (in 2000), I purchased a 2001 (model year) Toyota Echo. My friends at work chided me a bit for not buying a BMW, but I really didn't see the point in spending 3-4 times as much for a similar sized car that got worse gas mileage (but then, I'm not exactly a car afficionado).

With the rapid escalation in oil prices in early 2008, I'm sure a few of my friends now wish they had purchased an Echo. How good is the gas mileage on a Toyota Echo? In fact, I've kept meticulous records since beginning my new job, and for the past 2600 miles, I've averaged just over 44 miles per gallon! ...and this is for the standard internal combustion engine Toyota Echo. I'm sure if I had a Prius, I'd top that, but 44 MPG for a 7 year-old 4-cylinder car isn't too bad! Yes, I drive carefully to achieve that mileage, but I'm not a "hypermiler" or doing anything crazy to achieve this...and this is the average including city and freeway driving, with a reasonable number of hills along the way.

All of which adds up to a pretty economical (and environmentally more responsible) way to haul my camera gear to the mountains. So, I'm just (no one's paying me to say this!) singing the praises of the Toyota Echo. An ugly little car that feels bigger inside than it looks from the outside. An ugly (but comfortable) totally dependable (of course...it's a Toyota!) little vehicle suitable for a photographer and his/her gear.

Needless to say, I have cut my total driving as much as I can "easily" do right now. One day in the not too distant future, I expect we will all have to begin making real adjustments to our travel to stop the global rise in CO2 that would appear to be significantly affecting our earth's climate. As photographers, I believe we need to set an example to preserve this beautiful world we all share.

Death Valley Photos

Shown below are a few of the photos I have taken on this week's trip to Death Valley National Park in California.

The first photo is of the "moving rocks" of Racetrack Playa, in the northwestern section of the park. The Playa is an old, dry lakebed, and rocks falling from the rock face on the southern side of the Playa mysteriously move across the Playa surface. Apparently no one has ever seen the rocks actually move, but the moving rocks leave tracks, some as long as 3000 feet. There are several theories, but the most accepted theory is that following a rainstorm, the Playa surface becomes slippery, and with the reduced friction and extremely high winds (80-90 MPH?), the rocks are believed to slide across the surface, leaving tracks in the mud. The mud surface is usually dry, hard, and cracked.




The photo below was taken at Zabriskie Point, one of the most famous overlooks at Death Valley. In the early morning, just after the sun rises above the horizon, the shadows cast by the terrain are striking. The most common photo at Zabriskie is the panorama of Death Valley from the paved overlook. Many other photo opportunities are available at Zabriskie!

Late one afternoon, as the sky clouded over and the entire valley turned gray, I was pretty discouraged about the prospects for finding anything photogenic during the "magic light" of sunset. Luckily, I headed out to the salt flats, about 3/4 mile south of the visitor platform at Badwater, and stayed for the sunset show. Just after the sun went down behind the Panamints, the sun cast "corpuscular beams" skyward with the beautiful orange beams providing a striking contrast to the blue of the salt crystals of the salt flats. I continued to stay at the same location for perhaps another half-hour, and was treated to a beautiful gold streak of light through the clouds over the Panamints...and captured a photo that I will upload later. The photo below is the first of several beautiful sunset photos. Moral to the story: don't leave when the sun goes down!

Early one morning, I got out of bed at around 5:15 AM to head to the Stovepipe Wells dunes, which are just east of Stovepipe Wells Village. I left the car and headed out across the rocky soil towards the dunes while it was still pitch black. I couldn't see the dunes, but had a pretty good recollection of where they were relative to the road, and managed to head directly towards the tallest dune mostly by dead reckoning under the light of my LED flashlight (mostly used to avoid an unwanted encounter with a sidewinder rattle snake!). Trudging over the dunes with 40 lbs of camera gear and a tripod is a lot of work! I arrived at the location I chose for taking sunrise shots about 20 minutes before the sun came over the horizon. Believe me, by the time I was done shooting and trudged back through the sand to Stovepipe Wells, I was ready for breakfast!

Here is another view of the dunes, taken on 4/1/2008 just after sunrise. This time, the air was relatively calm, with gentle (10 MPH?) breezes...much easier for photography!

On my Death Valley trip, I also took a side-trip to Antelope Valley to see the California Poppy Preserve, which was in the beginning of a great bloom. Unfortunately for me, the day I arrived there, the winds were averaging (yes, averaging) 60-65 MPH, and the ranger said the winds were "hurricane force" and the "strongest I've ever seen here". Lots of blowing dust (and blowing blossoms) made photography impossible from this location. I headed through the Gorman Hills area north of LA to see if there were wildflowers there...the Gorman Hills can have some of the most spectacular wildflower blooms in California. Unfortunately I was just around 1 - 2 weeks too early for the real show. Below is a single photo I took of the Gorman Hills area as I passed through.

Death Valley is home to around 100 wild burros. The Park management is increasingly concerned that they are overgrazing and pushing out the mountain goats that normally inhabit the higher elevations in the Panamints. These burros were in the valley near Panamint Springs, between the Springs and the Panamint Dunes in the north end of the valley. There were actually around 6 or 7 in the pack...and even though these burros are clearly showing that they know the photographer is taking their picture...I liked their pose enough to take a shot and post it here.

Ah yes...the classical shot of Zabriskie Point...perhaps a bit "wider" than many. I haven't really edited any of my Zabriskie shots yet, but here is one that I had to post. This is taken from an area along the ridge to the right of the visitor overlook. I hiked up the ridge a fair way to get a higher vantage point over the valley, and to narrow the visible part of the valley between the prominant point (sorry...don't know the name of the point on the right yet!)...and the ridge on the left. I'll post more in a week or so, after I get back home from my trip and can work on a faster computer!

Here is a photo of the Salt Creek Pupfish, an endangered fish species living in Death Valley. In this photo (no surprise), the fish on the left is a male, and the fish on the right is a female. The fish were mating while I was at the creek today (4/1/2008).

There were several other animals evident at Salt Creek, including several species of birds, and lizards...most of which were too quick to capture during the short time I was there. The Killdeer below was most cooperative, spending quite a while pulling larvae (?) out of the sand in the creekbed. I have several photos of this bird...and haven't decided which I like best yet. I'll post other shots after I get back to Seattle.

Bird Photography

I finally managed to escape the gymnasium today and headed out to try to capture some of the birds that overwinter near our home in Woodinville, WA.

Bald Eagle, Spencer Island, Washington

All Canon gear: 40D, 300mm f/2.8L IS (on, mode 2), 2x extender, ISO800, 1/2700, f/10, (manual),center focus point selected

I find that photographing birds is one of the most technically challenging endeavors (didn't I just get done saying that photographing gymnastics is challenging?!). Birds are always small...and farther away in the viewfinder than they seem when you are looking directly at them. The best photos are often of the birds in flight...and it's tough to keep the bird in the center of the viewfinder or centered on one of the focusing points...long enough for the camera to lock on the focus of the bird.

Snow Geese, Skagit Valley flats near Conway, Washington

All Canon gear: 40D, 300mm f/2.8L IS (on, mode 2), 2x extender, ISO800, 1/5300, f/10, (manual), center focus point selected

I generally shoot birds with the autofocus on, and select the center focusing point (though not always). Oh how I yearn for the 45 focus points of the 1D MarkIII (or 1Ds Mark III)! I'm currently using a Canon 40D for birds, and it has only 9 focus points...probably my most significant criticism of the camera (but then again, it doesn't cost as much as a 1D Mark III or 1Ds Mark III.

Snow Goose, Skagit Valley flats near Conway, WA

All Canon gear: 40D, 300mm f/2.8L IS (on, mode 2), 2x extender, ISO800, 1/5300, f/10, (manual), center focus point selected

I headed out the door at 5:30 AM, since this was to be a sunny day, and sunrise is just after 7:00 AM here now. It turned out that leaving the clear air of my lot in Woodinville, I headed downhill a few hundred feet and directly into dense fog. Driving through Everett, WA in the dark without a map in dense fog was challenging, but finally, I managed to make it to Spencer Island...a wildlife refuge just northeast of Everett. Arriving at my shooting location before the sun had come over the horizon (around 6:30 AM), I was greeted by a cacophony of birds in the marsh. A huge Great Blue Heron took off from the marsh near where I was headed...but of course, I didn't have my camera ready to go...and in the dense fog, it probably wouldn't have mattered much.



I headed back home around 9:00 AM, then picked up my family for the drive up to the Skagit valley, where we saw Bald Eagles, Snow Geese, Trumpeter Swans, Tundra Swans, Great Blue Herons, Bufflehead ducks, and a lot of birds I don't know the identities of (okay, I admit...shame on me!).



Here are some photos from that shoot:



Richard

Gymnastics Photography - A Few Pointers

During the winter months, when my kids are busy with music lessons, gymnastics, soccer, and other activities that seem to keep me indoors far too much, I often take photos of their sports teams.

One of my sons is a fairly serious gymnast, so I have now traveled to many gymnastics meets (he's on a USA Gymnastics (USAG) team) with my camera gear.

NOTE: These photos are essentially "unretouched", these are the full-frame images without any cropping.

Canon 40D, Canon 135mm f2.0 lens, ISO3200, f2.0, 1/320 prefocused (autofocus off)

Shot from a Gitzo carbon-fiber tripod, Acratech Ballhead

My first attemts at gymnastics photography were not pretty, and I found myself searching the internet for advice. I found a few helpful websites, and some wonderful people even wrote me with their advice. I've posted some of my advice on my website at:

http://www.touchinglightphotography.com/Order/Tips/GymnasticsPhotoTips.htm

In updating my "tips" for gymnastics photography, I have to add that I now have some new equipment, which has had a significant impact on my success rate.

Canon 40D, Canon 135mm f2.0 lens, ISO3200, f/2.0, 1/500, prefocused (autofocus off)

Shot from a Manfrotto monopod, Acratech ballhead

The Short Story

To keep it simple, here's my summary recommendation for equipment and settings (note, you MUST NOT use flash (according to USA Gymnastics rules, for the safety of the gymnasts), so be sure you know how to keep your camera's flash from firing!). Also, unless you are USA Gymnastics safety certified, you are NOT allowed on the gymnastic floor while gymnasts are performing...don't argue with the officials...those are the rules!)

• Camera: Canon 40D (or equivalent crop-sensor camera)...the 40D has a 1.6x crop factor, and has a 6.5 frame-per-second frame rate (pretty fast)
• Lens: Canon 135mm f2.0 "prime" lens (about $650 street price) or similar wide-aperture moderate telephoto prime lens. If you must use a zoom, try a professional (expensive) zoom like the Canon 70-200mm f2.8 ... which is fairly heavy, but a beautiful lens!
• ISO (light sensitivity): 3200 (stopping the action is probably more important to getting clear images than low noise). In a brightly lit gym, you might be able to get away with ISO 800 or 1600 if the light is bright enough (see shutter speed, below)
• Aperture: f/2.0, Aperture priority setting on camera (Av) (or the "brightest" aperture you can use)
• Shutter Speed: let the aperture priority setting pick the fastest speed available. You will want a shutter speed of 1/500 to 1/1000 or faster if at all possible with the light available to you. If you can only shoot at 1/250...it's tough, but you will still get some good photos if you take them when the gymnast is motionless (reversing direction in a gymnastics move)
• NOTE: Dimly lit gymnastics events are difficult to photograph with anything less than ISO3200 and f2.8 (or the equivalent combination...e.g. ISO1600 f2.0, ISO800 f1.4, etc.). I recommend "prime" (non-zoom) moderate telephotos because you can get a wide-aperture lens that isn't huge. Note that the typical f/4 - f/5.6 telephoto zooms ... typical "consumer" zooms, just don't let in enough light to take good gymnastics photos in most gyms. If you have tried to take photos of your son or daughter using an f/4 to f5.6 zoom...getting poor quality images is likely the fault of your equipment, not you! In most gyms, you MUST use a wide-aperture lens and an SLR camera... the typical point and shoot digital camera simply isn't fast enough to capture a gymnast at the right moment, and the small sensors used are often "high-noise" at higher ISO settings...and they rarely enable an ISO above 800 or so.
• You may find using a monopod helpful, however, it is usually the gymnast's motion that must be frozen. Neither a monopod nor an "image stabilized" (IS) lens will stop the motion of the gymnast. IS may help if you are shooting a long and hard-t0-hold telephoto.
• For floor exersize, shut off your auto focus, and stand perpendicular to the direction of travel for the gymnast, so they stay the same distance from you. Prefocus your lens and leave it (unless you are using a camera like the Canon 1D MKIII that has 45 autofocus points). Otherwise, you run a high risk of focusing on the back wall rather than the gymnast when they move out of the center of your image! Floor is tough to photograph!

The Longer Story...

About a year ago, I "went whole hog" and rented a Canon 200mm f1.8 (!) lens to use with my Canon 5D body. The lens was awesome (and HEAVY!), and drew stares from all of the jealous parents, but alas, the lens is no longer made by Canon (they now sell a 200 mm f2.0 lens which is virtually equivalent), and the f1.8 lens runs around $5500 on E-Bay auctions (used).

In thinking about my options, I finally settled on purchasing a 135mm f2.0 "prime" lens, since the big issue with gymnastics photography is light. I also purchased a Canon 40D, which is a fantastic "crop sensor" camera, that due to the smaller sensor, changes the "apparent focal length" of the 135mm lens to 210mm. Therefore, what I have now is essentially the equivalent of the lens I rented, when I put the 135 f2.0 lens on my Canon 40D to get an effective 210mm f2.0 lens.

This combination has proven to be fantastic for the gymnastics photos, and allows me to let in enough light at f2.0 to keep the shutter speed sufficiently high to stop the motion, even in a dimly lit gymnasium (though I've encountered gyms where even f2.0 is not sufficient).

This past weekend (2/2/2008), I shot a gymnastics event in a fairly darkly lit gym, and used the 135 f2.0 for nearly all shots, and they came out great (more about my settings in another post). The single exception, was photos of the parallel bars, where my best shots were shot straight on (from the end of the bars) from across the gym, using my Canon 40D and a 300mm f2.8 lens (another awesome Canon lens!). Both the 135 f2.0 and the 300mm f2.8 provide sufficient depth of field wide-open to keep the gymnasts sharp, while providing a nice background blur ("bokeh").

Canon 40D, Canon 300mm f2.8L lens, ISO3200, f/2.8, 1/250, Servo autofocus

Shot from a Manfrotto Monopod with a Acratech Ballhead and a Wimberly Side-Arm

For this event, I shot everything at ISO3200, with noise reduction off (to keep the frame rate high), then did post-processing in Adobe Photoshop CS2 with an action I wrote that provided noise sharpening, curve adjustment, color balancing, and sharpening.

My overriding advice for shooting gymnastics...

1) Use the highest ISO you can on your camera (stopping action is critical for sharpness...even more important than digital noise)
2) Use a prime lens, since you will be able to afford (and carry) a prime with a wider aperture ... the zooms will cost you light, and will add weight (I could make a pun here but will refrain)
3) NOTE: f2.8 is marginal, f2.0 is about as good as it gets in anything over 50mm
4) Use the aperture priority setting setting the lens to the widest aperture available...that way, the camera will pick the fastest shutter speed it can under the light conditions.
5) Don't shoot too tight...but do be close enough so your subject fills a large part of the frame. Shooting too tight will prevent you from having enough room to crop, and you run the risk of shooting "headless" gymnasts.

At 6.5 fps and with acceptable digital noise even at ISO3200, plus the 1.6x crop factor, make the Canon 40D an ideal camera for this application (I even shot more than 1500 shots on a single battery charge!...yes, that many images in a single event)

Good luck, and don't hesitate to write with your questions.