Eloquent Images by Gary Hart
Insight, information, and inspiration for the inquisitive nature photographer
The best lens for the job
Posted on December 28, 2016
Dawn, Tunnel View, Yosemite
Sony a7R II
Sony 70-200 f/4
25 seconds
F/8
ISO 200
Probably the workshop question I am asked most is some variation on, “What lens should I use?” While I’m happy to answer any question, this one always makes me cringe because the implicit question is, “Which lenses can I leave behind?”
What many photographers fail to realize is that the “proper” lens isn’t some absolute determined by the scene, a secret known only by the best photographers, it’s a creative choice made by each photographer who visits. While prior captures often imply a general consensus on a scene’s primary composition, that pretty much turns out to be the first composition everyone sees—just the compositions creative photographers should avoid. When I tell you the lens to use, I’m imposing my creative instincts rather than cultivating yours. “Okay, right, I get it. But seriously—what lens should I use?” Sigh.
Suck it up
The best landscape images usually require some sacrifice, so if you’re making lens choices based on what’s most convenient, maybe landscape photography isn’t for you. I’m not talking about risking your life to get the shot, or exceeding your physical limitations, but I am talking about a willingness to experience a little discomfort for your craft. That means venturing out in miserable weather, rising well before the sun, or (gulp) skipping dinner. And yes, it even means lugging a little heavier camera bag than you might prefer.
My general rule is to, at the very least, carry lenses that cover the full-frame focal range from 20mm-200mm. There are some trade-offs in the number of lenses you choose to achieve this. Some carry just one or two zoom lenses, sacrificing speed and image quality for comfort, convenience, and mobility; others go hardcore, lugging an assortment of fast, ultra-sharp primes. I’m in the middle, extremely happy with the combination of quality and compactness I get with my three Sony f/4 zoom lenses: the 16-35, 24-70, and 70-200.
In addition to my three primary lenses, I never go out without my full frame Sony a7RII and 1.5 crop Sony a6300 bodies. Because a 1.5 crop body increases the effective focal length of each lens by 50 percent, with these two bodies I can cover the focal range from 16mm-300mm. I also have a few specialty lenses that may or may not stay in the car (but never at home), depending on the scene, the room in my bag, and how much hiking/climbing/scrambling I’ll be doing: a Tamron 150-600 for extra reach; a Rokinon 24mm f/1.4 lens for starlight; and a Sony 90mm macro.
So seriously, the lens you choose for a scene is part of the creative process that defines you as a photographer, a personal decision that I’m happy to assist, but reluctant to dictate. In fact, it’s a rare scene that’s worthy of capture with one lens that’s not worthy of capture with another. And another. (And I promise that the surest way to need a particular lens is to leave it behind.) I’m not suggesting that you lug Hermione’s purse to every shoot; just try to remember that your images will last far longer than your discomfort.
Case in point
I do a half dozen or so workshops in Yosemite each year, plus a number of private tours. That means I spend a lot of time at Tunnel View. A lot. But I don’t photograph there much anymore unless I think I can get something I don’t already have, which means I do lots of watching other photographers. One thing I notice is how few photographers use a telephoto lens here. Given the breadth of the view, and the volume of existing wide angle Tunnel View images we’ve been conditioned by, reflexively reaching for the wide angle lens at Tunnel View is understandable. But approaching any scene with a preconceived idea of the best lens limits the array of creative opportunities the scene provides.
One chilly morning at Tunnel View earlier this month, my winter workshop group enjoyed the snowy granite, wispy fog, and pristine air only possible after a winter storm. Of course we had all of the standard wide angle compositions at our disposal, but when the fog and pastel sky moved me to pull out my camera, it was my 70-200 that I chose to pair with it. I tried a few compositions, before settling on this one that was just wide enough to include Half Dome, Bridalveil Fall, most of the fog, and the only clouds remaining from the storm. Not only would a wide angle lens have shrunk what I felt were the scene’s most significant features, my telephoto lens was able to exclude from my image the bright, empty sky above Half Dome, and most of the dead, brown trees scarring Yosemite Valley.
Because this image was captured 20 minutes before sunrise, the scene my eyes saw was much darker than what my camera captured. Photographers able to see with their camera’s vision rather than their own love photographing in the sweet light only possible at twilight. In this case not only did I benefit from a shadowless foreground, the 25-second exposure smoothed the clouds, fog, and waterfall ethereal quality.
I won’t pretend that this is a groundbreaking capture (far from it), but if I’d have walked up to the scene with a wide angle already mounted instead taking it all in before choosing my lens, I don’t think I’d have been nearly as happy with my results.
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A Tunnel View Gallery
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Enjoying Yosemite in a fog
Posted on December 14, 2016
Morning Sun, Half Dome, Yosemite
Sony a7R II
Sony/Zeiss 16-35 f4
1/100 seconds
F/16
ISO 100
One of Yosemite’s most underrated winter treats is the radiation fog that hugs the valley floor on cold, clear, still mornings. Unlike the advection fog that drapes the San Francisco Bay Area (among other places) when (relatively) warm, saturated air passes over the colder ocean and blows inland, radiation fog forms in place when plummeting overnight temperatures cause airborne water vapor to condense.
A sheltered valley with a cold river, soggy meadows, and a spongy forest floor, Yosemite Valley is ideal for the formation of radiation fog. Each winter, storms fill the Merced River and soak the meadows and forest. On nights when there’s no wind to mix the atmosphere, cold air sinks until it meets the water-laden air near the ground. Because cold air can’t hold as much water vapor as warmer air, and the air on the valley floor is completely saturated, the airborne water vapor condenses as soon as the air chills even slightly: Fog.
Often no more than a thin, gray veneer, in radiation fog that’s dense enough to obscure trees across a meadow, it’s sometimes possible to see stars or blue sky overhead. Viewed from a distance (for example, from Tunnel View), Yosemite’s radiation fog appears to be in constant motion, alternately engulfing and revealing treetops, sometimes rising hundreds of feet and completely disappearing in a matter of minutes. With no wind to move the fog, the reality is that what appears to be motion is primarily fog forming and dissipating in place. Yosemite’s radiation fog persists until the air heats enough to hold the available airborne moisture, or the wind picks up and mixes warmer air above with the colder, saturated air below.
About this image
Last Friday morning I went out to scout a new route to one of my favorite Yosemite spots, a bend in the Merced River upstream from Sentinel Bridge with view and reflection of Half Dome. My Yosemite Winter Moon workshop started that afternoon, but the original access here had been obliterated by major roadwork underway in Yosemite Valley, so I needed to make sure I could still get my group out here.
With very little time to spare, I originally left my camera bag in the car, but didn’t get too far before second thoughts sent me back for it. Good thing—after a few minutes of traipsing across crunchy snow, I made it out of the woods and to the river just in time to catch sunlight illuminating a diaphanous radiation fog. Shadows cast by sunlight passing through evergreen branches created a beam effect in the illuminated mist, while upstream a blanket of fog basked in golden sunlight.
The sun was about to disappear behind the granite ridge beneath Glacier Point and I new I only had a few more minutes of this spectacularly illuminated fog. At first I tried to position the sun behind the trees, but at this distance the treetops were so thin that very little blocking occurred and I ended up with a white blob of blown highlights. So I hustled over to the intersection of the ridge’s shadow with the sunlit ground and prepared for a sunstar. Every lens creates a different sunstar effect, some much better than others, and my Sony/Zeiss 16-35 f/4 is my favorite. Stopping down to f/16, I went to work. Moving with the sun so I was always straddling the shadow line, I was able to shoot for about five minutes before the entire beach was in shade and I was finished.
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Yosemite Fog
Supermoon
Posted on November 14, 2016
Supermoon, Half Dome and El Capitan, Yosemite
Sony a7RII
Tamron 150-600 (Canon-mount with Metabones IV adapter)
1/3 second
F/9
ISO 100
The media tends to distort facts and blow events out of proportion. Perhaps you’ve noticed. The latest example is this week’s “supermoon,” an event heralded on TV, in print, and online like the Second Coming. Okay, now for a little perspective. Despite hype to the contrary, a supermoon occurs at least twice, and up to five times, in a year. In fact, our last supermoon was all the way back in October, and the next one isn’t until December.
But, as I’m sure you’ve heard, this month’s supermoon was special, an event the likes of which we haven’t seen since 1946, and won’t see again until 2034. True enough. But exactly how special was it? Not nearly as special as you might have heard: the diameter of the “epic” November supermoon was only one-half of one percent (.57) larger than the October full moon, and four-fifths of one percent (.84) larger than the December full moon—differences that are impossible to discern with the naked eye. Next year we’ll get two moons that are more than 99 percent the size of this month’s supermoon, and last year we had four.
So why was I out taking pictures of the full moon Sunday night? Because I think every full moon is beautiful, regardless of its size, and I take any opportunity to photograph it over my favorite landscapes. Which is also why each fall I schedule a workshop in Yosemite to coincide with the full moon.
Thursday night my Yosemite Autumn Moon workshop group photographed an 82% (of full) waxing gibbous (on its way to full) moon above Valley View at sunset. For Friday night’s sunset, from a quiet beach beside the Merced River we glimpsed through clouds an 87% moon rising just right of Half Dome. Saturday’s sunset found us beneath a magenta sky at Tunnel View to witness the 96% moon ascend between Sentinel Dome and Cathedral Rocks.
The workshop’s grand finale came Sunday night, when we gathered at the Half Dome vista on Big Oak Flat Road. Though I rarely encounter other photographers for any of my moon rise/set shoots, limited parking and tripod space here prompted me to arrive an hour before sunset. That turned out to be a fortunate decision, as within 30 minutes of our arrival the parking lot was brimming beyond full and photographers swarmed the nearby rocks like ants at a picnic.
With an hour to kill, I made sure everyone in my group was ready (but by now, this being our fourth moonrise, they were experienced veterans) and chatted with other photographers nearby. Comparing notes, it seemed that most (all?) of the other photographers had relied on apps like The Photographer’s Ephemeris and Photo Pills to plot the moon’s arrival location and time, while I was the only one clinging to my old fashioned topo map, scientific calculator, trigonometry plotting approach. (I do it this way because I’ve been plotting the moon since long before the apps were available, I feel like I can be more precise, and I enjoy it—not necessarily in that order.)
In the viewfinder of my Sony a7R Mark II, atop my tripod and armed with my Tamron 150-600 lens to enlarge the moon as much as possible, was the composition I wanted—assuming the accuracy of my calculations. The consensus among others seemed to be that the moon would appear from behind Half Dome’s right flank, anytime between 5:00 and 5:10 p.m. I stuck to my guns that the moon would show up at about 5:05, and that it would be straight over the top of Half Dome. While I saw this more as an opportunity to check my plotting method’s accuracy than a competition between methods, it was pretty thrilling when the moon popped into view right on schedule and on target. Take that, technology!
Since the moon didn’t appear until a full fifteen minutes after sunset, the extreme dynamic range (very dark landscape beneath a daylight-bright moon) made this an extremely tricky exposure for anyone (like me) not interested in compositing two images (one with the moon properly exposed, another with the scene properly exposed). To capture this scene with a single click, I closely monitored the pre-capture “zebra stripes” highlight alert in my a7RII and pushed my exposure 2/3 stop after the first hint of the alert appeared. To hedge my bets and give myself processing options, I varied my exposure 1/3 to 2/3 of a stop in either direction (an exception to my standard workflow because the moon is too small to register on the histogram).
The result was a scene that looked quite dark on my LCD, and a moon with no detail. No problem, I reassured myself, for my a7RII’s ridiculous dynamic range. This morning in Lightroom I adjusted the white balance, pulled up the shadows, and pulled down the highlights. In Photoshop I applied a moderate dose of Topaz DeNoise and did a few minor dodge/burn moves to get the image you see here.
One more thing
The size of the moon in this image has virtually nothing to do with the fact that this was a “supermoon,” and virtually everything to do with the fact that I was far enough away to be able to use a 600mm lens. Click below to read about how to capture your own big moon:
Photo Workshop Schedule
The Moon in all Shapes and Sizes
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Someday My Prints Will Come
Posted on August 1, 2016
First Light, Yosemite Valley
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III
Canon 24-105L
1/3 second
F/16
ISO 100
Someday is now…
The dilemma
I’ve been selling prints of my images for about fifteen years. I started at weekend art shows and in art galleries, and soon added a modest online store. The art shows in particular were very successful, but as much as I enjoyed them (I truly did), the shows required so much work that I stopped because they detracted from my primary bread and butter, the photo workshops.
Despite my workshop emphasis, I have maintained a small gallery presence, and continue to offer my prints for sale on my website (which I’ve upgraded significantly). While I still sell prints fairly regularly, I know there are many more people who don’t purchase them because they’re just too expensive.
I can explain
Though printing is a pretty labor intensive process, I’ve always insisted on doing it myself, largely because I’ve never trusted anyone else to create the print to my satisfaction. But the amount of work that goes into each print (even after it’s been processed and sized)—from constant maintenance (clearing clogged print heads, monitor calibration, paper and ink management, and so on) to careful packaging and shipping—results in pricing that’s prohibitive for many people.
Finally, a solution
For a long time I’ve sought a solution that would cut me out of the printing and shipping side of the transaction while still yielding quality prints, and think I’ve finally found one. I’ve spent the last few weeks creating a SmugMug website exclusively for showcasing my prints for sale: GaryHartPrints.com. On this new site, instead of coming to me, your print orders will go to the much acclaimed Bay Photo Labs, my longtime lab of choice for jobs my own printer can’t handle (such as prints too large, or paper I don’t offer).
Though these prints won’t have my personal signature, each print has been photographed, processed, copyrighted, and digitally signed by me. I can also vouch for the quality, which will be at least as good as what I can offer. By taking the printing process out of my hands and putting it in the hands of people who do this exclusively, you get more choices, including multiple papers (lustre, glossy, metallic, and gicleé watercolor) and many matting and framing options—all at a much lower price than I can offer by printing directly.
Check it out*
*This site is brand new, so the images you see here are by no means a complete representation of all that’s available. If you don’t see what you’re looking for, just send me message.
About this image
In a post announcing a new print sale website, I thought it appropriate to re-share my most requested image, captured on a chilly April morning in 2009. As with many of my images, it was captured during a workshop. And also like many of my images, it almost didn’t happen.
My workshop group was at Tunnel View overlooking Yosemite Valley, wrapping up our first sunrise shoot. A storm had moved through overnight, dusting the granite walls with snow down to about 5,000 feet (Yosemite Valley is at about 4,000 feet), and soaking the lower elevations with a light rain. With no wind to mix the chilly atmosphere, the coldest air dropped all the way to the saturated valley floor, where it found the dew point and condensed into a ground-hugging fog.
Overhead, the parting storm’s cloudy vestiges covered the scene with a dull, gray blanket of homogenous clouds, so our attention all morning had been on the wispy valley fog below. The dynamic range at Tunnel View is pretty unmanageable when the morning sun arrives, so I was about to move the group on to greener pastures when I noticed a golden glow expanding behind Sentinel Dome. As the color spread, it was apparent that the uniform clouds above were far more translucent than I’d imagined and I put a hold on our exit. Soon I was so mesmerized by the buttery veneer stretch from rim to rim , reflecting softly on the fog below, that I almost forgot about my camera.
I raced to the car to get my gear and sprinted back to set up far faster than I like. By the time I was ready, the sun was just about to crest the ridge behind Sentinel Dome. I worked quickly, using a 2-stop hard graduated neutral density filter to subdue the bright sky. I stopped down to f16 thinking a sunstar might be possible, but the sunlight was too diffused by the clouds.
Of all the pictures of Yosemite that I’ve taken, this is the one that makes it easiest for me to imagine how this heavenly location might have looked before human interference.
America the Beautiful
A gallery of favorites (coming to a wall near you)
Some advice for President Obama
Posted on June 17, 2016
Sunset Storm, Half Dome from Sentinel Dome, Yosemite
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II
6 seconds
F/16
ISO 100
Canon 24-105 f/4L
President Obama and family visit Yosemite this weekend, and rather than wait by my phone for him to call with questions, I thought I’d just share my suggestions here
Dear Mr. President,
I just heard that you’re coming to Yosemite this weekend. Bravo! I’m sure by the time you leave you’ll agree that Yosemite is worthy of its reputation as the most beautiful place on Earth. But that said, I am a little concerned about the wisdom of your decision to visit in summer. Of course Yosemite is beautiful any time, but boring skies and shrinking waterfalls make summer Yosemite’s least desirable season for photography. Photography notwithstanding, the biggest reason to avoid Yosemite in summer is the crowds—much as I’m sure you would avoid invading Canada on Canada Day.
Had you checked with me first (as pretty much every other person who visits Yosemite seems to do), I’d have told you that any other season in Yosemite is less crowded than summer, and each has its own charm: Yosemite in autumn is decorated with red and gold leaves that reflect in the Merced River; winter, with its clearing storms and fresh snow, can be Yosemite’s most visually spectacular season; and spring, when the waterfalls boom and the dogwood bloom, is Yosemite’s postcard season. But summer? It’s all about the people. So unless you have an armed security brigade to clear a path through the crowds…. Oh, wait a minute—never mind.
Secret Service or not, you’ll need to brace yourself this weekend—if you think Congress is difficult, just try squeezing your tripod into the scrum on Sentinel Bridge for a summer sunset. Fortunately, despite the mayhem, there are a few things that will enhance your summer visit to Yosemite. Here are a few suggestions:
- Since you’ve brought your family, I strongly suggest that you leave your tripod in the room and be content with a couple of quick snaps at each stop. Trust me on this—nothing ruins a vacation faster than planning everything around your photography. (And given all that you have to deal with at work, the last thing you need is tension with Michelle and the girls.)
- No matter how crowded Yosemite is, if you get up and out at sunrise, you’ll have a couple of hours to wander Yosemite Valley in genuine peace. Before 8 a.m. is definitely the best time to hit Yosemite’s most popular landmarks and vistas.
- Avoid Yosemite Valley as much as possible in summer, so once the tourists start streaming from their tents and hotel rooms, it’s time to head for the high country. Though Glacier Point and Tuolumne Meadows will be crowded too, they’ll certainly be more tolerable than Yosemite Valley.
- Yosemite’s hiking trails will be more packed than a Rednecks for Trump rally, but at least on a hike you won’t need to be looking for a place to squeeze that limo. It seems like every Yosemite visitor does the Vernal Fall Mist Trail hike, or the hike to the top Yosemite Falls—they’re nice, but if I had only one hike to do in Yosemite, it would be the Four Mile Trail to Glacier Point (actually 4.8 miles). It’s a lot of work, but unlike the other hikes I mentioned, there are spectacular views along the entire route, so you can go as far as you want and turn around without feeling like you’ve wasted your time.
- If you do manage to get out with your camera and tripod (surely if you can negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran, or convince teenagers to join the family summer vacation, you can arrange some quality photography time while the rest of the family rents bikes or something), here’s some knowledge to help you make the most of the photo opportunity:
- Any view of Half Dome is best at sunset.
- El Capitan gets really nice light in the early morning, starting about fifteen minutes after sunrise (the “official,” flat horizon sunrise).
- In summer, Yosemite Falls doesn’t get good light until mid-morning.
- Bridalveil Fall and Cathedral Rocks get their best light in late afternoon (though the east side of Cathedral Rocks gets good morning light too).
- Mid-morning rainbows are possible in the mist beneath Lower Yosemite Fall from the pedestrian bridge. Bridalveil Fall gets rainbows in late afternoon (time varies with the date and viewing location).
- I’ve got a lot more information on Yosemite throughout my blog—feel free to browse. Or if you don’t want to spring for the WiFi at the Ahwahnee, you could just pull it off the NSA servers. In the meantime, here’s a link that will help you plan: Yosemite locations.
Mr. President, I’m sure you and your family will enjoy your visit, but I encourage you to return in Yosemite’s other seasons. Come January you’re going to have lots of free time on your hands, so once you get settled in your new place and have made a dent in the honey-do list, let me suggest that there are far worse things to do in your retirement than a photo workshop. Check out my workshop schedule—and don’t forget to ask about my “Past President” discount.
Best regards,
Gary M. Hart
A Yosemite Gallery
Is a tripod really necessary?
Posted on December 6, 2015
Sunset Fire, Olmsted Point, Yosemite
Sony a7R II
Sony/Zeiss 16-35 f4
1.3 seconds
F/11
ISO 100
If you’re content with derivative snaps of pretty scenes, a tripod may not be for you. But for those who agree that, rather than regurgitating a rough representation of the world as we know it, landscape photography should reveal deeper, less obvious natural truths—things like relationships between diverse elements, an intimate exploration of larger scenes, detail and pattern lost in the blur of motion—there is no substitute for a tripod.
The case against the tripod
Once upon a time, the tripod’s sole purpose was stability—preventing blur caused by camera shake during the exposure. And while stability remains important, clean high ISO and stabilized bodies and lenses make possible shooting hand-held in light we’d never dreamed of just a few years ago.
The anti-tripod argument says that tripods are expensive, add weight and bulk, are awkward to set up, get in people’s way, and slow the composition process. Given that the exposure compromises (higher ISO, larger than ideal aperture, longer shutter speed) forced by hand-holding are usually minor and more easily corrected today than what we faced with our film cameras, why bother with a tripod at all?
I’d argue that you never know when even a minor, hand-held compromise—such as shooting at ISO 400 instead of ISO 100, opening to f5.6 when f11 would have been better, or stretching your exposure duration out to 1/4 second and holding your breath—will be a deal-breaker for that law firm downtown who ordered a 10-foot print for their lobby. Why spend all this money on state-of-the art equipment only to compromise your image quality even just a little?
Nevertheless, I’ll (grudgingly) acknowledge that for many current landscape photographers, the convenience of tripod-free shooting outweighs these compromises—clean, printable images are possible without a tripod most of the time.
But….
Inconveniences notwithstanding, serious landscape photography is improved by a tripod. In fact, despite the advantages digital capture has brought to tripod-free shooting, digital photography has enhanced the tripod’s value to landscape photographers.
There’s a draft in here
The odds of the perfect landscape image happening on the first click are about the same as crafting a perfect poem, novel, or essay on the first pass. When we write something important, we don’t sit down and spin it out without stop or correction, we start with an idea, write a draft, review, rewrite, review, rewrite, until we’re satisfied.
A photograph should be no different—no matter how much you like the first click, it’s pretty unlikely that frame is so perfect that further scrutiny and adjustment won’t improve it further. Much like the drafts I create when I write, my workflow in the field is a click/review/adjust, click/review/adjust cycle that continues until I’m either satisfied with my image, or convinced there’s no image to be had. I can’t imagine doing this without a tripod.
To review a hand-held image, you must completely remove the camera from its shooting position (your eye) and extend it down and in front of you, essentially erasing your camera’s view of composition the way vigorous shaking erases and Etch A Sketch—fine if you’re done, but to fix problems and add improvements, you must return the camera to your eye and completely recreate the composition you just reviewed. Standing at a vista snapping a scene that’s been snapped a million times before? No big deal. But what about an image with layers of detail at varying distances, trying to include all of that rock on the left while without including any of that tree-branch on the right, all while trying to maintain front-to-back sharpness?
When I shot film (always on a tripod thank-you-very-much), my personal image reviews involved alternating between studying the scene and peering through the viewfinder. The most I could hope for was a good guess that I had everything right. Enter digital, with its instantaneous display, including a graph and flashing pixels that tell me if I messed up the exposure. Suddenly, I can critique the image itself, right on the spot.
With digital, composing on a tripod gives me the freedom to stand back and take time to scrutinize my creation. I can study the frame for balance, scan the borders for distractions, check the histogram to ensure proper exposure, magnify the LCD for sharpness and depth of field—doing all this comfortable in the knowledge that when I’m ready, the exact image I just critiqued is waiting right there atop my tripod, ready for my improvements. In other words, my adjustments are applied to an existing creation, rather than an approximate (fingers crossed) recreation.
Revisiting the writing analogy, hand-holding reminds me of the typewriter days, when a major revision required retyping everything I just wrote; using a tripod is more like a word-processor that allows me to edit the existing document.
For example
A trip to Olmsted Point in Yosemite has become a tradition for the final sunset of my Eastern Sierra Fall Color photo workshop. Olmsted Point offers a distant, less common view of Half Dome and an assortment of photogenic trees and boulders for the foreground.
On this year’s visit we parked and made the short hike to the “point” (more of a granite dome than an actual point) for the best view down Tenaya Canyon to Half Dome and beyond. I pointed out that the sky was setting up for something special; following my encouragement to anticipate the colorful sunset and find a foreground to complement the obvious background, the group quickly scattered.
I tried to stay fairly centrally located, eventually choosing a nearby triangle of glacial erratics (granite boulders carried by glaciers and deposited in place when the retreating glaciers melted) anchored by a weathered pine. With time to spare, I set about finding a composition. I decided vertical orientation would be the best way to exclude peripheral distractions, emphasize my primary subjects (rocks, tree, Half Dome), while including enough of the sky feature what had the potential to be dramatic color.
Working methodically, I started wide and gradually tightened, refining the focal length, focus point, and borders. I’m kind of obsessive about no distractions on the edge of my frame, and try as I might, it always seems that widening or tightening to eliminate one distraction introduces a new distraction over there.
In this case I was dealing with a couple of large boulders carrying too much visual weight to be on the edge of my frame, plus the leg of a nearby tripod, and an overhanging tree branch. I was able to tighten enough to eliminate these distractions without going so tight that I cut off the boulder on the right, or crowded Half Dome on the left. Of course, since I was on a tripod, each click was an improvement of the one that preceded it—in this case it took only about a half dozen images until I was satisfied.
The foreground was static, but the sky seemed to change with each second. While I had the general framework of my composition ready, as the color overhead intensified I decided I wanted a little more sky. Fortunately, by now I was so familiar with my composition that adjustments were easy. This image came as the color reached a crescendo, intensifying until the entire landscape throbbed with color.
My primary tripod is a Really Right Stuff TVC-24L with a RRS BH-55
My travel/hiking tripod is a Really Right Stuff TQC-14 with a RRS BH-30
Each of my cameras has a RRS L-plate
A gallery of tripod-crafted images
(All of my images were captured using a tripod, but my favorites tend to be the images that require the click/review/refine/repeat process that’s greatly enhanced by a tripod)
Click an image for a closer look, and a slide show. Refresh the screen to reorder the display.
Yosemite, weather or not
Posted on July 19, 2015
Clearing Storm, Glacier Point, Yosemite
Sony a7R
Sony/Zeiss 16-35
1/15 second
F/11
ISO 125
Photography weather and tourist weather are polar opposites: What’s good for photography—clouds, rain, snow—isn’t usually so great for being outside. This is especially true in Yosemite, where stormy weather can add an entirely new dimension to the park’s already renowned scenery (not to mention inclement weather’s crowd-thinning effect).
Sometimes Yosemite’s clouds simply diffuse the light, subduing shadows into a much more camera-friendly range, and extending the quality photography window. Other times, the clouds become subjects themselves, contorting into diaphanous curtains or towering pillars whose beauty rivals Yosemite’s granite icons. But rain or shine, there’s always something to photograph in Yosemite if you know where to look.
Wet weather gear
Regardless of the forecast, I never travel to Yosemite without my rain gear duffel containing everything necessary to keep me head-to-toe dry and focused on photography: hat, gloves, parka, rain pants, and waterproof boots for me, and an umbrella for my camera. I haven’t found a satisfactory rain cover for my camera, but a plastic garbage bag is quite handy for keeping the camera dry while it’s on my tripod but I’m not shooting (searching or waiting for a shot). Another essential wet weather accessory is a towel or chamois to dry any gear (especially the front of my lens) that gets wet despite my best efforts.
Elm in Blizzard, Cook’s Meadow, Yosemite
The teeth of the storm
Some of my favorite Yosemite photography has been in the teeth of the storm, when rain or snow has forced all but the most hardy indoors, and obliterated the recognizable landmarks, forcing me to look a little closer for subjects. A bonus during these extreme weather shoots are the occasional cameos by Yosemite’s star attractions (so stay alert).
My go-to mid-storm subjects in Yosemite include: the elm in Cook’s Meadow, the Cascade Creek waterfall above the bridge on Big Oak Flat Road (the road descending into Yosemite Valley from the Big Oak Flat entrance), Bridalveil Creek beneath Bridalveil Fall, Fern Spring and the Pohono Bridge, and El Capitan Bridge. But really, you’ll find shots wherever you look.
Clear skies
As much as I enjoy photographing in stormy weather, I don’t put my camera away when skies are clear. My favorite clear sky spots are the frequently shady locations on the south side of the valley, such as Bridalveil Creek and the forest near Fern Spring and the Pohono Bridge. Depending on the season (the closer to the winter solstice, the better), these spots can offer several hours of shade at the beginning and ends of the day.
Clear skies also open the door to night photography—all those popular spots that were packed with gawkers and washed out by the harsh midday light are peaceful and photogenic by moon- or starlight. My favorite moonlight (full moon) subjects are Yosemite Falls and El Capitan, because they’re the first to be illuminated by the rising moon—the face of Half Dome doesn’t get moonlight until the moon has dropped toward the western horizon, well after midnight on a full moon night. On the other hand, Half Dome does make a nice starlight subject because most views are to the east, where the sky is darkest before midnight. An unappreciated key to successful Yosemite night photography is finding a spot unsullied by headlights.
Midday in the summer, when it’s virtually impossible to find shade that’s not stained with sunlight, is a good time to break for lunch, take a hike, or (especially) explore.
Clearing storm
Warm Light, El Capitan Clearing Storm, Yosemite
Venture out to photograph during Yosemite’s harshest weather is the most reliable way to ensure a clearing storm opportunity. If you wait out the most miserable stuff by the fire, you risk missing the best stuff, which often happens with startling suddenness—for hours visibility might not extend beyond 100 yards, then you blink and there’s a rainbow.
With its bird’s-eye view east, up Yosemite Valley, Tunnel View is the most popular location to photograph a Yosemite clearing storm, but it’s easy to be so mesmerized by the show there that you miss all the great photography elsewhere. Because the west side of Yosemite Valley is where storms usually clear first, I often wait out the storm at Tunnel View, photograph its initial clearing there, then force myself to move on (believe me, it’s not easy to leave) while the shooting is still good.
The best subjects for a Yosemite clearing storm are the icons—El Capitan, Bridalveil Fall, Yosemite Falls, Half Dome—but not necessarily from the standard locations. Pretty much any spot with a view of one or more of these subjects will work, but I often try to include the Merced River and reflections.
Wet and dry seasons
Blue skies rule Yosemite’s summer, with clouds and rain the exception (but still possible). Yosemite’s wet season comes in late fall, winter, and and early spring, with rain and snow always a possibility. In general, in Yosemite Valley rain is far more common than snow, but snow can happen any month from November through April, with December, January, and February being your best bet (but some of my best snow experiences have come in November and April, and in 2015, Yosemite Valley didn’t get any significant snow until April).
Double Rainbow, Yosemite Valley
Rainbows
With its east/west orientation and primarily east-facing views, Yosemite is particularly well situated for afternoon rainbows. Tunnel View, Glacier Point, Valley View are great rainbow spots, but pretty much any valley location with a view of Half Dome, or a view of El Capitan’s west-facing wall, will work.
When the sun is lower than 42 degrees above the horizon (late afternoon in the long-day months, all day in winter), look for signs of clearing in the west (where the clearing usually starts). Sometimes you’ll see a few patches of blue, other times you’ll notice that the sky is brightening slightly. Find your shadow, which will point to the rainbow’s center (if there’s no shadow, draw an imaginary line from where you guess the sun is, through your position, and toward the scene opposite the sun)—if it’s not pointing toward anything interesting, move to another location—set up your shot, cross your fingers, and wait. And don’t forget to remove your polarizer, or orient it to maximize reflections (the opposite from the standard polarizer orientation) because an improperly oriented polarizer will erase your rainbow.
Winter wonderland
You know those images with every Yosemite feature draped in white? Those scenes happen just a handful of times each year (if
Winter Reflection, El Capitan, Yosemite
we’re lucky), and rarely last for more than an hour or two after the snow stops falling. So simply taking a trip to Yosemite in winter is very unlikely to net you fresh snow opportunity. In fact, even if you hear that it just snowed in Yosemite and beeline straight to the park, you’re almost surely too late.
To get that coveted Yosemite winter wonderland shot, you actually need to be there during the storm. And when the snow stops (see clearing storm reference above), move as quickly as you can, because the trees will begin shedding snow almost immediately.
Those of us within a reasonable driving distance of Yosemite have a distinct advantage if we’re good about monitoring the weather forecast. I look for storms with predicted snow levels below 4,000 feet, then try to arrive before the worst weather hits.
About this image
Because I avoid the crowds and blue skies of summer, I don’t make it to Glacier Point as frequently as I do locations in Yosemite Valley. But a few weeks ago my brother and I went to Glacier Point to photograph lightning, then hung around until the storm cleared.
Clearing Storm, Glacier Point, Yosemite
Unlike the California winter storm fronts that originate in the Pacific and sweep eastward across the Central Valley and into the Sierra, summer thunderstorms are usually borne of subtropical moisture encountering High Sierra convection and billowing into towering thunderheads above the Sierra crest. In the right conditions, these thunderstorms can slip far enough west to soak Yosemite Valley and stab the rim with jagged lightning.
At its most intense, the storm that afternoon nearly obscured Half Dome, completely drenching us. With the rain came lightning that soon chased us to the safety of the car. When things calmed we ventured back out to the vista to photograph the storm’s clearing. I can’t tell you how much fun it is to watch the shifting clouds that seem to create an entirely different image with each passing minute. For the this shot I waited for the cloud to part enough to reveal Nevada (above) and Vernal Falls, going wide to frame them with Half Dome on the left, and Mt. Starr King on the right.
The many faces of Yosemite weather
Click an image for a closer look, and a slide show. Refresh the screen to reorder the display.
Anticipating the exceptional
Posted on July 11, 2015
Morning Glory, Sunrise Clearing Storm, Yosemite Valley
Sony a7R
Sony/Zeiss 24-70
1/50 second
F/16
ISO 100
No one denies that an image records a single, unrepeatable instant. But just as each instant is the culmination of a series of connected preceding events, most images have their own history that can be traced backward, often months or years before the shutter clicked. The moon didn’t just materialize above Half Dome that evening, and a moonbow isn’t just some random event at the base of Lower Yosemite Fall—their appearance can be directly connected to celestial dance that was set in motion with the birth of our Solar System, and can be predicted with surgical precision (minus a few wild card variables like weather and water flow to keep photographers from getting too cocky).
Photographers spend a great deal of time trying to anticipate instants like these. We start with the common-knowledge stuff, things like the February sunset light on Horsetail Fall, a shaft of summer light slanting in Upper Antelope Canyon, or a moonbow in the spring mist billowing beneath Lower Yosemite Fall. But the precision of the celestial choreography that delivers light shafts to slot canyons and moonbows to waterfalls is just as predictable for anonymous hidden trees, lakes, and peaks. Iconic or undiscovered, each of these spectacles are the convergence of location and predictable natural processes just waiting to be appreciated (and photographed!).
Image planning isn’t limited to the sun, moon, and stars. Understanding and monitoring a favorite location’s weather can put you in the right place, with the best chance to add a rainbow, lightning bolt, or fresh snow. And simply finding a complementary foreground/background alignment that connects two or more terrestrial subjects can elevate an image to the next level.
Rather than a fortuitous right-place, right-time convergence, the creative aspect of many images starts long before capture. When I find a new location, or identify a potential subject, my brain immediately starts spinning on the ways I can make it better. Can I align it with another foreground or background subject? What natural phenomena will take the scene to the next level, and how I can be there when it happens?
For example…
Bridalveil Dogwood, Valley View, Yosemite
Before capturing my image of a raindrop-festooned dogwood flower with Bridalveil Fall in the background, I had long visualized a scene somewhere in Yosemite that featured a dogwood bloom aligned with a soft-focus but recognizable Yosemite landmark. I knew I’d need overcast skies that would illuminate the entire scene with diffuse, soft light, then filed my vision away until the next time the forecast predicted clouds during the short window the dogwood bloom in Yosemite.
On my drive to the park, I started mentally working on locations where I might be able to align a dogwood with a recognizable Yosemite subject, the lens I’d use, the amount of background sharpness I wanted, and so on. Once I was in the valley, I was able to conduct a pretty orderly search that eventually led me to this flower near Valley View.
Sometimes bringing my ideas to fruition requires a lot more research, planning, and patience. I’ll start with a scene that appeals to me, then mentally add something that I think will take it to the next level. A moon? Stars? A rainbow? Lightning? Fresh snow? Maybe all of the above (so far not at the same time, sadly).
The moon and stars are a relatively straightforward matter of plotting angles and timing (and hoping the weather cooperates). On the other hand, weather phenomena, such as rainbows, lightning, and snow, require an understanding of the processes behind them, careful and persistent monitoring of long- and short-term weather forecasts (only the National Weather Service for me), and a lot patience while waiting for the moment to arrive. Then, when the moment does arrive, I need to move quickly and not allow myself to be swayed by fear of failure (always a distinct possibility).
For example…
Double Rainbow, Tunnel View, Yosemite
I’d long fantasized about adding a rainbow arcing over Yosemite Valley to the already breathtaking Tunnel View scene. And being a lover of rainbows and a photographer, I’d long ago taken the time to become extremely aware of the why, where, and when of rainbows. Which is how, on a spring afternoon a few years ago, I was in perfect position when my rainbow fantasy came true.
I was in Yosemite to meet customers for dinner, and to plan the next day’s guided tour of the park. But when my mostly sunny drive up the Merced River Canyon turned to rain as I entered Yosemite Valley, my mental wheels started turning—Yosemite weather almost always moves west-to-east, which meant soon Yosemite Valley would have rain on the east side and sunlight low on the western horizon. It wasn’t hard to rearrange my customers’ priorities, and this was our reward.
Celestial phenomena are wonderfully predictable, so much so that I make very few non-spontaneous photo trips without factoring in the moon and/or Milky Way. (My spontaneous trips are usually spurred by the weather forecast.) And there are few locations I photograph that I can’t tell you the altitude and azimuth necessary to align a the sun, moon, or Milky Way with the location’s most prominent feature.
Hawaii, Death Valley, Mono Lake, Alabama Hills (Mt. Whitney), plus many personal favorite subjects near home—I know exactly where I want to be and when I want to be there, and do my best to make it happen, sometimes planning several years in advance. In Yosemite my terrestrial subject is usually Half Dome, and and my celestial subject is usually a rising moon. And depending the direction of the moon’s arrival, I have an array of locations that I know will align with the moon’s appearance.
For example…
Rising Crescent, El Capitan and Half Dome, Yosemite
Tunnel View is my favorite location for photographing a Yosemite moonrise, but it’s not my only location. Across the Merced River Canyon on Big Oak Flat Road is Half Dome View, a turnout vista with a slightly different, less popular view of Half Dome and El Capitan.
From Half Dome View, the visual distance separating the two monoliths is quite narrow, meaning an extremely small margin of error for a photographer hoping to catch the moon splitting the gap. But the idea had always intrigued me, so I went to work with my plotting method (I do it manually using topo maps, moonrise tables, and an HP-11C scientific calculator that does trig functions).
When I discovered that a crescent moon would indeed split this gap before sunrise on a certain May morning in about a year, I started a plan of attack. Despite the fact that I’d never photographed a moonrise from this location, and even the slightest error in computation would foil the attempt, I went ahead and scheduled a workshop for this date. Try to imagine my anxiety as the day approached and the realization that failure wouldn’t just impact me, it would impact my entire group, really started to sink in. And imagine my euphoria (not to mention everyone with me) that morning when the moon slid into the gap, right on schedule.
When photography’s less than ideal, I might leave the camera in my bag, but I don’t stop being a photographer. I spend a lot of non-camera time scouting locations, looking for complementary subjects that I can align with the grand scene. If my primary subject is in the foreground, I add move around until I can align it with a complementary background. And when my subject is in the distance (like Mt. Whitney from the Alabama Hills, or Yosemite Valley from Tunnel View), I spend a lot of time exploring the nearby terrain in search of subjects I can align with the grand primary scene.
When I find a subject that merits something exceptional, I try to wait until I can enhance it with similarly exceptional natural phenomenon.
For example…
Morning Glory, Sunrise Clearing Storm, Yosemite Valley
When I “discovered” this tree, it was love at first sight. But rather than photograph it in the more conventional quality light conditions that are fairly easy to anticipate, or wait for one of Yosemite’s inevitable exceptional but fairly regular moments, I saved my discovery for something truly extraordinary. And, after about ten years of waiting for location, light, conditions, and circumstances (this spot is too small and dangerous for a group), extraordinary finally happened this April.
Anticipating snow, I’d traveled to Yosemite the previous afternoon. A little snow had fallen earlier that day, and while the storm had passed, its cloudy vestiges lingered overhead and in the valley below. While not the winter wonderland I’d hoped for, there was enough snow still hugging the trees that I found some very nice images. Nice enough, in fact, that I’d have been completely satisfied with my captures if my trip had ended right then. But I wasn’t done.
Because more snow was promised overnight, I got a room nearby and returned the next morning. I wasn’t too far into my drive back into the park before it became clear that I was in for something special. The snow had just stopped, and while there wasn’t a lot of snow, the air was cold enough that I knew until the morning sunlight made it all the way down into Yosemite Valley, everything would remain in a state of suspended animation. And the clouds that had deposited the snow were doing their typical slow-clear dance on the valley floor.
I first stopped at a spot along the Merced River and photographed dogwood and El Capitan. I got so caught up in that scene that I lost track of the time and didn’t give myself a lot of time for my next stop, up the hill at “my” tree (that I often check but rarely photograph). I also realized that given the light snowfall on the valley floor, I’d severely underestimated the amount of snow that had fallen just a few hundred feet up the hill from Yosemite Valley.
I found an entire world covered with white, and the sun about ready to pop up over Sentinel Dome—once the sun arrived, I’d only have about 60 seconds of quality photography before the sun overpowered the scene. I quickly grabbed my gear and scrambled up to the tree. Fortunately, I’d photographed here the previous afternoon, so I didn’t really have to hunt for a composition (generally a fairly painstaking, trial-and-error process). With the sun about to appear, I knew I’d need to do a sunstar and set my aperture accordingly. Without a lot of time to play with the exposure, I made the snap judgement to spare the highlights and hope I could recover the shadows laters, and click.
This image was literally the first click I made of the scene this morning—subsequent captures showed increasingly blown highlights as the sun rose into the scene. On my LCD this image looked severely underexposed, but I trusted the histogram on my a7R, which indicated there was indeed detail in the shadows. (Yes, I know I could have accomplished it by bracketing and blending multiple exposures, but I’m a one-click guy.) And when I finally found the courage to process the image, I held my breath as I grabbed the Lightroom Shadows slider and watched my scene appear.
A gallery of “planned” images
Click an image for a closer look, and a slide show. Refresh the screen to reorder the display.
Lucky strike
Posted on June 10, 2015
Half Dome Lightning Strike, Glacier Point, Yosemite
Sony a7S
Sony/Zeiss 24-70
.4 seconds
F/11
ISO 50
A Lightning Trigger in California is usually about as useful as a fishing pole in the Sahara. But every once in a while a little sub-tropical moisture sneaks up the Sierra crest and blossoms into afternoon thunderstorms. I monitor the weather daily (okay, that’s probably understating it a bit) for just these opportunities, rooting for Yosemite thunderstorms the way a Cubs fan roots for a World Series. And until last weekend, with just about as much success.
Last week the moist vestiges of Hurricane Blanca were sucked into an unstable airmass above the Sierra, just the thunderstorm recipe I’d been looking for. While each day’s Yosemite forecast called for at least a slight chance of afternoon thunderstorms, the Saturday forecast looked particularly promising. Nevertheless, several days out, the Saturday thunderstorm probability from the National Weather Service varied widely, fluctuating with each report between 40 and 70 percent. But as Saturday approached, the chances settled in at around 60 percent and I made plans to be there.
Saturday morning my brother Jay and I left Sacramento a little after 8 a.m., and were pulling into Yosemite Valley before noon. Blue sky prevailed upon our arrival, but by the time we finished our sandwiches at Tunnel View, cumulus puffs were sprouting along the crest, a very good sign. Stomachs full, we continued up the road toward Glacier Point. In the forty or so minutes it took to reach Washburn Point, just up the road from Glacier Point, the cumulus puffs had congealed into roiling gray mass that was already delivering coin-size raindrops to my windshield.
The best way to photograph lightning is from a distance (the greater the better), not impossible at the Grand Canyon, where I can stand on one rim and photograph strikes pounding the opposite rim a dozen or more miles away. But my Yosemite lightning target is more specific: Half Dome, which towers above Yosemite Valley like a granite lightning rod, no more than 2 1/2 miles from any vantage point on the Glacier Point road—well within the Margin of Death of even a moderate thunderstorm. (The Margin of Death, or MOD, is my term for the radius surrounding the last lighting strike within which the next bolt could strike.)
In addition to the dramatic profile of Half Dome above Vernal and Nevada Falls, Washburn Point has the advantage of nearby, elevated parking lot that would allow us to set up a Lightning-Trigger-armed camera on a tripod and wait from the safety of the car with a view of the cameras. So, rather than risk trying the more exposed and more remote (much longer sprint to the car) Glacier Point vistas, we started at Washburn Point.
Setting up, we saw lightning firing on the most distant peaks beyond Cloud’s Rest, and safely behind Half Dome. This being my first real attempt with the Lightning Trigger on my Sony bodies (with the exception of one rushed, impromptu, and unexpectedly successful attempt at White Sands last week), I was looking forward to comparing the response of the Sony bodies to my Canon 5D Mark III (shutter lag is a major body-to-body variable that can make or break a lightning shoot). But since Jay didn’t have a Lightning Trigger, and his body is an older Canon 5DII, good brother that I am (plus, he threatened to tell Mom if I didn’t share), I let him use my Lightning Trigger (I have two) and 5DIII.
Soon the rain and wind intensified, the flashes came more frequently, and the thunder grew louder, but rather than retreat to safety, we stayed with our cameras. The activity continued to approach until it seemed to be centered just down the hill in the general direction of Glacier Point, visible to us not as discrete bolts but rather as general flashes in the clouds. Still, we knew the lightning was close because of the relatively short gap separating flash and bang, yet it wasn’t until Jay said he felt the hair standing up on his head and arms that we got smart. Or rather, less stupid.
Back in the car we watched the show at Washburn Point until it abated, then decided to move down the road a bit, to another view closer to Glacier Point. Here we couldn’t see our cameras from the car, but we were able to park within 50 feet or so of their vantage point. Despite the continued dangerously close proximity of the lightning, we again stayed out a little longer than we should have, finally being driven back to shelter not by lightning but by the wet and cold conditions.
This was my first attempt at lightning since my switch to Sony; I was using the a7S because the a7R wasn’t fast enough for lightning (a problem completely cured on the a7RII). The a7S caught all three of the Half Dome hits I saw, with the twin-branched bolt you see here being the most spectacular. My composition was fairly wide for a couple of reasons: first, because the wider I go, the greater my odds of capturing something; second, with Nevada and Vernal Falls on the right, and Tenaya Canyon and Mt. Watkins on the left, the scene justified it.
To say I was lucky this afternoon would be an understatement. Not only did a lightning bolt hit my intended target, my camera captured it (never a sure thing, no matter how fast the camera), and I actually lived to share the shot with you. Here in the comfort of my recliner, I’m kind of at a loss to explain why I thought it was a good idea to stay out with lightning landing well within the MOD. While there are definitely things to tend to while waiting for lightning—shielding the camera from rain, wiping raindrops from the lens, adjusting exposure as the light changes, monitoring that the camera does indeed fire with a visible strike, and simply answering questions from curious onlookers (and preempting their urge to touch the equipment)—none is important enough to risk my life. In my defense, I am much more cautious when I’m guiding a group, which of course will be small consolation to my wife and kids at my funeral.
Photographing daylight lightning
Here are my tips for photographing daylight lightning:
- You need a lightning sensor that detects the lightning and fires your shutter much faster than your reflexes can react. The only sensor that I’ve found to work reliably is the Lightning Trigger by Stepping Stone Products (I get no kickback, I swear). Of course have brands many to choose from, some much cheaper than the Lightning Trigger. While I have no direct experience with many of the other sensors, I do lead lightning workshops and have witnessed some major fails by other brands.
- Your camera must be fast, the faster the better. The speed you’re looking for is the time from the shutter-button press until shutter release: shutter lag. Unfortunately, shutter lag is a difficult number to find, and it’s rarely (never?) provided by the manufacturer. The best resource I’ve found is the Performance tab of the Imaging Resource camera reviews. Even they can’t provide a simple value because there are multiple variables, and you can’t simply assume that your camera is automatically working at the fastest. To ensure the fastest shutter lag possible, turn off autofocus (this is important) and shoot in manual exposure (on some cameras this might not make much difference, but there’s no way of knowing for sure so I think it’s best to just turn it off). The pre-focused time (shutter button pressed halfway) is what you’re going for, but some (most?) triggers don’t do this—the Lightning Trigger does.
- The shutter-speed “sweet spot” is 1/8 to 1/4 second, but anywhere between 1/15 and 1/2 second should work pretty well. If you’re too fast, you risk missing some of the secondary strikes that often accompany the initial strike; if you’re too slow, the lighting tends to get washed out. Keeping the shutter open long enough to get into the sweet spot in broad daylight often requires the lowest ISO possible (it helps if your camera goes down to ISO 50), and a polarizer (I use Singh-Ray). A neutral density filter will work too, but make sure you don’t go too slow with the shutter speed or the lightning you capture might faint or not even visible.
- Come with a strategy for keeping you and (especially) your gear dry. I never go out to photograph in the rain without my waterproof gear, which keeps me dry from head-to-toe: rain hat, parka, waterproof over-pants, waterproof shoes—a stylish ensemble that frees my umbrella for my camera. This strategy works great when there’s no lightning, but—well, let’s just say that an umbrella might not be the best choice when lightning’s in the area. When photographing lightning, I use a waterproof rain cover for my camera (which I won’t recommend because it’s a pain and I’m looking for something I like better—stay tuned). And as much as I hate lens hoods (they just get in the way), I have to admit that they can help keep raindrops off your front lens element. I also make sure to carry multiple lens cloths in my pockets (because there are too many pockets in photography, so it’s just easier to have a cloth in each pocket than it is to remember which pocket I put it in) and check my front element for raindrops frequently. Also handy is a bath towel to dry all of your equipment before you put it away. A chamois (check your local auto parts store) also works great for this. And a garbage or plastic grocery bag (there’s always one in my camera bag) is great for tossing over your camera any time you’re caught in a sudden downpour.
Some links
- Before attempting to photograph lightning, visit the NOAA lightning safety page
- Read my “Outdoor Photographer” article on Grand Canyon monsoon photography (lots of lightning tips)
- Photo Tip: Lightning Photography
- Sign up for a Grand Canyon monsoon photo workshop, where Don Smith and I do our best to get you lightning captures in one of the most beautiful places on Earth (unfortunately, Yosemite doesn’t offer the frequency of thunderstorms necessary to support a lightning workshop)
Upcoming workshops
A stormy weather gallery
Click an image for a closer look, and a slide show. Refresh the screen to reorder the display.
Light fantastic: A photographer’s guide to our most essential subject
Posted on May 27, 2015
Half Dome and Rainbow, Yosemite (October 2007)
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II
168 mm
1/40 seconds
F/11
ISO 100
Photograph: “Photo” comes from phos, the Greek word for light; “graph” is from graphos, the Greek word for write. And that’s pretty much what photographers do: Write with light.
Good light, bad light
Because we have no control over the sun, nature photographers spend a lot of time hoping for “good” light and cursing “bad” light (despite the fact that there is no universal definition of “good” and “bad” light). Before embracing someone else’s good/bad light labels, let me offer that I (and most other professional photographers) could probably show you an image that defies any label you’ve heard. The best definition of good light is light that allows us to do what we want to do; bad light is light that prevents us from doing what we want to do.
Studio photographers’ complete control of the light that illuminates (an art in itself) their subjects allows them to create their own “good” light. Nature photographers, on the other hand, rely on sunlight and don’t have that luxury. But knowledge is power: The better we understand light—what it is, what it does, and why it does it—the better we can anticipate the light we seek, and deal with the light we encounter.
The qualities of light
Focused Beam, Upper Antelope Canyon, Arizona
Energy generated by the sun bathes Earth in continuous electromagnetic radiation, its wavelengths ranging from extremely short to extremely long (how’s that for specific?). Among the broad spectrum of electromagnetic solar energy we receive are ultraviolet rays that burn our skin (10-400 nanometers), infrared waves that warm our atmosphere (700 nanometers to 1 millimeter), and the visible spectrum—the very narrow range of wavelengths between ultraviolet and infrared that the human eye sees, in the wavelength range between 400 and 700 nanometers.
When all visible wavelengths are present, we perceive the light as white (colorless). But when light interacts with an object, the object reflects, absorbs, and scatters the light’s wavelengths. When light strikes an opaque (solid) object such as a tree or rock, characteristics of the object determine which of its wavelengths are absorbed; the wavelengths not absorbed are scattered. Our eyes capture this scattered light, send the information to our brains, which translates it into a color.
When light strikes water, some is absorbed and scattered by the surface, enabling us to see the water; some light passes through the water’s surface, enabling us to see what’s in the water; and some light bounces off the surface, enabling us to see reflections.
Let’s get specific
Rainbows
For evidence of light’s colors, look no farther than the rainbow. When light enters a raindrop (or any other drop of water), characteristics of the water cause the light to bend slightly. Because different wavelengths bend different amounts, a single beam of white light is separated into its component colors as it passes through the raindrop. When the separated light strikes the back of the raindrop, it reflects, with different wavelengths (colors) returning at slightly different angles: a rainbow!
Double Rainbow, Yosemite Valley
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III
1/5 second
F/16.0
ISO 100
38 mm
Blue sky
Poppy Hillside, California Gold Country
White sunlight reaches Earth, the relatively small nitrogen and oxygen molecules that are most prevalent in our atmosphere scatter the shorter wavelengths (violet and blue) first, turning the sky blue. The longer wavelengths (orange and red) continue on to color the sunset sky of someone farther away.
The more direct the sunlight’s path to our eyes (the less atmosphere it passes through), the less chance the longer wavelengths have to scatter and the more pure the blue wavelengths. So when the sun is high in our sky, its light takes the most direct path through the atmosphere and our sky is most blue (all other things equal). In the mountains sunlight has passed through even less atmosphere and the sky appears even more blue than it does at sea level.
On the other hand, when relatively large pollution and dust molecules are present, all the wavelengths (colors) scatter, resulting in a murky, less colorful sky (picture what happens when your toddler mixes all the paints in her watercolor set).
Most photographers (myself included) find homogeneous blue sky boring. Additionally, when the sun is overhead, bright highlights and deep shadows create contrast that cameras struggle to handle.
Sunrise, sunset
Half Dome and Trees at Sunset, Sentinel Dome, Yosemite
Remember the blue light that scattered to color our midday sky? The longer orange and red wavelengths that didn’t scatter overhead, continued on. As the Earth rotates, eventually our location reaches the point where the sun is low and the sunlight that reaches us has had to fight its way through so much atmosphere that it’s been stripped of all blueness, leaving only its longest wavelengths to paint our sunrise/sunset sky shades of orange and red.
When I evaluate a scene for sunrise/sunset color potential, I look for an opening on the horizon for the sunlight to pass through, pristine air (such as the clean air immediately after a rain) that won’t muddy the color, and clouds overhead and opposite the sun, to catch the color.
Overcast and shade
Fresh Snow, Cook’s Meadow, Yosemite
Sunny days are generally no fun for nature photographers. In full sunlight, direct light mixed with dark shadows often force nature photographers to choose between exposing for the highlights or the shadows (or to resort to multi-image blending). So when the sun is high, I hope for clouds or look for shade.
Clouds diffuse the omni-directional sunlight—instead of originating from a single point, overcast light is spread evenly across the sky, filling shadows and painting the entire landscape in diffuse light. Similarly, whether caused by a single tree or a towering mountain, all shadow light is indirect. While the entire scene may be darker, the contrast range in shadow is easily handled by a camera.
Flat gray sky or deep shade may appear dull and boring, but it’s usually the best light for midday photography. When skies are overcast, I can photograph all day—rather than seeking sweeping landscapes, in this light I tend to look for more intimate scenes that don’t include the sky. And when the midday sun shines bright, I try to find subjects in full shade. Overcast and shade is also the best light for blurring water.
Leveraging light
Whether I’m traveling to a photo shoot, or looking for something near home, my decisions are always based on getting myself there when the conditions are best. For example, in Yosemite I generally prefer sunset because that’s when Yosemite Valley’s most photogenic features get late, warm light; Mt. Whitney, on the other side of the Sierra, gets its best light at sunrise; and I’ll only the lush redwood forests along the California coast in rain or fog.
Though I plan obsessively to get myself in the right place at the right time, sometimes Nature throws a curve, just to remind me (it seems) not to get so locked in on my subject and the general tendencies of its light that I fail to recognize the best light at that moment. If I drive to Yosemite for sunset light on Half Dome and am met with thick overcast, I don’t insist on photographing Half Dome. Instead, I detour some of my favorite deep forest spots, like Fern Spring or Bridalveil Creek.
Other times finding the best light is simply a matter of turning around and looking the other direction. Mono Lake is one of those places that reminds me to keep my head on a constant swivel, or risk getting so caught up on the sunrise in front of me that I miss the rainbow behind me.
About this image
Half Dome and Rainbow, Yosemite
On a rainy October afternoon in Yosemite, I did what I often do on rainy afternoons in Yosemite: hang out at Tunnel View, waiting (hoping) for the storm to clear. I’d circled Yosemite Valley in my car several times, but the clouds had dropped well below rim-level and obscured all of Yosemite’s recognizable features.
Yosemite’s clearing usually starts at Tunnel View, and when it happens in the afternoon, a rainbow is possible. But with sunset approaching and the rain showing no sign of relenting, I was losing hope. Anxious for something to do besides wiping the fog from my windshield and listing to rain pelt my roof, I decided to drive through the tunnel for a view to the west (toward the source of any clearing). Seeing nothing promising on the other side, I flipped a quick u-turn and headed back.
The roundtrip was less than five minutes, but I exited the tunnel to see that Half Dome had emerged from the gray muck sporting a vivid rainbow. I screeched to a stop and bolted from the car, changing lenses and wresting my tripod all the way to the vista. I got off just two frames before the light was snuffed, ending up with this image and a valuable lesson: You can’t predict what Yosemite’s weather will be in five minutes based on its weather right now.
(BTW, see that little white cascade trickling down El Capitan’s flank? That’s Horsetail Fall.)
Workshop schedule
Celebrating light
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Eloquent Images by Gary Hart 