Eloquent Images by Gary Hart
Insight, information, and inspiration for the inquisitive nature photographer
Telephoto Landscapes
Posted on April 11, 2021
California Spring, Oak and Poppies, Sierra Foothills
Sony a7RIV
Sony 200-600 G
ISO 400
f/9
1/4 second
Over the years I’ve spent a lot of time photographing with my good friend and fellow Sony Artisan Don Smith. Both in workshops and on our personal trips, we’ll head out into the scene or meet back later at the car, and more often than not I’ll have a wide angle lens on my camera, while Don will have a telephoto. Each of us would usually end up with images that pleased us, and I think Don would agree that neither of us could say whose images were “better”—they were just different. But those observations have made me conscious of my wide angle bias, and helped remind me that I may in fact be missing a telephoto opportunity.
What’s it all about?
I’ve always felt strongly that an image needs to be about something, and the photographer’s job is to make it clear to viewers what that something is. I usually accomplish that with my wide lenses by positioning strong elements throughout my frame in a way that creates virtual connecting lines that guide my viewers’ eyes. The problem is, the wider the focal length, the greater the chance of introducing unwanted elements that pull my viewers’ eyes off their prescribed path.
The cure for this problem is often to simplify the scene by going tighter with a telephoto. That doesn’t necessarily mean forgoing the wide version; rather, it can just be a matter of also trying the scene through a telephoto to see what else might be there. If that doesn’t come naturally to you in the field, you might be able to teach yourself how many telephoto shots you left in the field (and to train your eyes in the process) by opening any wide angle image in Photoshop (or your photo editor of choice), setting the crop tool to 2/3 aspect ratio (to match what you see in your viewfinder), and see how many new compositions you can find.
Practicing what I preach
Over the years I’ve gotten better about using my telephoto, but I’d be lying if I said it’s usually the first thing I reach for when I work a landscape. My standard workflow in the field (not conscious, just the way I seem to work naturally) is to start wide and go tighter as I become more familiar with the scene. But last week I got a great reminder of the value of a telephoto as I was driving home from real nice poppy shoot in the foothills near Jackson, California. It was just a few minutes after sunset and my mind was already on dinner when I rounded a bend and saw an oak-studded hillside completely blanketed with poppies.
Poppy Hillside, Highway 49, California Gold Country
I was very familiar with this hillside because it’s the site of one of my oldest, and favorite images, captured in spring of 2005 (read the story). A 24×36 print of this 2005 scene graces the wall in my living room above my fireplace. The one thing I’ll never forget about photographing it is how much steeper this hill is than it appears in the image—so steep, in fact, that when I decided to scale it to get a better vantage point, I jettisoned my tripod so I could have two hands free to hold on and pull myself up. While it wasn’t quite mountain climbing, it was steep enough that I’d have rolled all the way to the bottom had I fallen (much like this).
But this time there was no time to ascend the hill because the scene was rapidly darkening (and the photographer is rapidly aging). The conditions weren’t quite as good as back then either: there were no clouds and the sky was completely colorless. But still, it was just so pretty…
I made the split-second decision to brake and pull over. Safely on the shoulder, I quickly hopped out, grabbed my tripod and Sony a7RIV, and surveyed the scene. I wanted to feature one striking oak that stood alone about 2/3 of the way up the hill, and tried to determine the best way to do it. The fence from my old image was not too far off to the right of the tree, but I now try to avoid manmade objects in my scenes—in fact, the 2005 image is the only image in my current portfolio I can think of with anything manmade. Other nearby concerns were a couple of kind of scraggly trees that definitely didn’t merit inclusion, a few brown patches, and several unsightly rocks. And the sky added absolutely nothing.
It was clear that the best way to highlight the oak and poppies was to eliminate all the surrounding distractions with a long telephoto. Given the distance, perhaps 350 yards, I went straight to my Sony 200-600 G lens. For this image I used 500mm, which completely eliminated all the problems. The light was dimming fast, and a slight breeze stirred the poppies, so I bumped my ISO to 400, focused. I ended up taking 18 frames, some a little wider, some a little tighter, but all more than 400mm. Most of my frames were horizontal, but I finished with a couple of verticals just to cover my bases. Then I packed up and headed to dinner.
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Telephoto Landscapes
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Sunsets are Red Because the Sky is Blue
Posted on January 17, 2021
California Sunset, El Dorado Hills, Sierra Foothills
Sony a7R
Sony 70-200 f/4 G
ISO 100
f/8
1/200 second
From time to time I’ll edit one of the many articles in the Photo Tips section of my blog, tweaking and clarifying a few things just to keep it fresh. But every once in a while I do a complete rewrite. Here’s my latest such effort, a brand new article explaining how the interaction of sunlight with our atmosphere gives us blue skies and red sunsets. Spoiler alert: Sunsets are red because the sky is blue.
(And of course everything below applies to sunrise, only in reverse.)
Sunset Color
Nature photography isn’t rocket science, but a basic understanding of nature’s processes can make the difference between success and failure. That applies even to something as fundamental as sunsets and sunrises, from the way sunlight interacts with the atmosphere, to the conditions necessary for vivid sunset color.
Light and color
Sunlight reaches Earth in energy waves of varying length. The total of sunlight’s visible wavelengths combine give us light that appears white. The colors we perceive when specific wavelengths within the visible spectrum are absorbed or scattered, with each wavelength creating a distinct color. While the visible portion of the sun’s energy generates a virtually infinite number of colors, we’ve all become familiar with the arbitrary color name labels assigned to wavelength points throughout the spectrum.
Moving from the longest visible wavelength to the shortest, visible light breaks down into some shade of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, or violet. Not coincidentally, these are also the colors of the rainbow we see when the white light of the sun, separated by refraction in airborne water droplets, is reflected back to our eyes. Maybe you remember from your college physics days the mnemonic acronym for the rainbow colors and their order (from the outermost to the innermost color): ROY G BIV.
When a beam of sunlight passes through a vacuum (such as space), all of its wavelengths reach our eyes simultaneously and we perceive the visible portion as white. When sunlight encounters something (like a tree, a rock, air molecules, or whatever), some of its light will either be absorbed or scattered, depending on the wavelength and the properties of the interfering medium. So, unless we’re in space, the light that eventually reaches our eyes has either been reflected or stripped of certain wavelengths by whatever it encountered on its journey.
For example, a patch of fresh snow reflects all of the sun’s visible wavelengths uniformly and appears white to our eyes. A piece of coal uniformly absorbs most of the sunlight that strikes it, so we see coal as black. And when sunlight strikes a leaf, all of its wavelengths except those that we perceive as green are absorbed, while the green wavelengths bounce to our eyes.
Color in the sky
Since our atmosphere is not a vacuum, sunlight is changed simply by passing through the air. In an atmosphere without impurities (like dust, smoke, and water vapor), light interacts only with air molecules. In very simple terms, an air molecule will scatter any wavelength that’s smaller than it is, so the shortest wavelengths are most easily scattered. This scattering of incoming solar energy by atmospheric molecules becomes a filter that catches the violet and blue wavelengths first, allowing the longer wavelengths to pass through and continue their journey to more distant eyes.
When the sun is overhead, sunlight travels through a relatively small amount of atmosphere. The wavelengths that reach our eyes are the first to be scattered, the short violet and blue wavelengths, making the sky blue (the sky appears more blue than violet because our eyes are more sensitive to blue light).
On the other hand, when the sun is on the horizon, the light that reaches our eyes has passed through much more atmosphere than it did when the sun was directly overhead. The shorter violet and blue wavelengths are long gone, bluing-up the sky for others on their way, and the only remaining wavelengths are the longer, less easily scattered, orange and red wavelengths. It’s sunset! (Or sunrise.)
Airborne impurities dampen the atmosphere’s filtering process, so contrary to popular belief, a vivid sunset requires clean, unpolluted air. That’s because smoke, dust, and water molecules are much larger than air molecules. Rather than only scattering specific colors the way tiny air molecules do, larger molecules scatter much more completely—in other words, instead of scattering only the blue and violet wavelengths, polluted air catches lots of orange and red too (and everything in between).
Anyone who has blended a smoothie consisting of a variety of brightly colored ingredients (such as strawberries, blueberries, cantaloupe, and kale—uh, yum?) knows the smoothie’s color won’t be nearly as vivid as any of its ingredients, not even close. Instead you’ll end up with a brownish or grayish muck that at best might be slightly tinted with the color of the predominant ingredient.
Verify this yourself: The next time a storm clears, check the color in the sky—whether it’s midday blue, or sunset red, it’s easy to see how much more vivid the color is when the air is clean. And what’s better known for its sunsets, Hawaii, where it rains almost daily, or Los Angeles, with its urban sprawl and exhaust-spewing vehicles?
Another source of color at sunset has become all too familiar to anyone in or near wildfire-prone regions is red-rubber-ball sunsets when a fire is nearby. A vivid sunset requires intense sunlight, the more intense the better. In a typical brilliant sunset, while the rest of the sky is filled with color, the sun itself is far too bright to photograph as anything but a white disk (without rendering the rest of the scene much too dark). But when sunlight has to battle its way through smoke particles, the total amount of light is significantly reduced and there’s not enough scattered light of any wavelength to color the sky. But look straight at the sun—it’s so inherently bright that some of its longest wavelengths have battled their way to your retinas, turning the sun red while the rest of the sky is a murky brownish-gray.
Getting the most from your sunset images
Any time rain has cleared the atmosphere and the remaining clouds are mixed with sunlight, there’s a good chance for a vivid sunrise or sunset. I have a few go-to locations near home, and at my frequently visited photo locations (Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Death Valley, Hawaii, and so on) that I beeline to when the conditions for color in the sky look promising.
Wherever I am, as I prepare my shot shortly before the sunset show begins, I look for clouds receiving direct sunlight. This is the light that will most likely color-up at sunset, starting with an amber glow that transitions to pink, and red. Conversely, if no clouds are getting light shortly before sunset, that may be an indication that the sunset will fizzle. But don’t give up, because Nature is full of surprises.
A couple of mistakes inexperienced photographers often make is giving up on sunset too soon, and forgetting to check the sky behind them. Some of the best sunsets I’ve ever seen have happened when the sun slipped through an unseen hole in the clouds just below the horizon. And shortly after the sun sets, the pink vestiges of the longest wavelengths still color the eastern horizon. As this color deepens, the steely blue of the Earth’s shadow starts to descend. This combination of rich color and soft, shadowless light creates some of the best color and light for photography. Even when the scene appears too dark to your eye, don’t forget that your camera can accumulate light and bring out color and detail lost to your eye.
Maximizing color in the high dynamic range conditions of a sunset requires careful exposure. Rather than trusting the preview image on your scenes with extreme contrast, it’s essential to trust your histogram. If the histogram for a high dynamic range sunset scene looks good (highlights and shadows not clipped), it’s likely that on the LCD the highlights will look too bright, and the shadows too dark. Resist the urge to fix one or the other in the field, and instead trust that you’ll be able to recover both in processing later. If you’re not sure (or just don’t trust your ability to read the histogram), backet your exposures by a stop or two around what you think is best.
And don’t forget to check your RGB histogram—even if the luminosity histogram looks good, it’s possible that the red channel is clipped and you’ll need to reduce your exposure a little.
About this image
It was January 2015 and I had only recently made the switch from Canon DSLR to Sony Alpha mirrorless. With fewer than 1000 frames shot on my new Sony a7R, I’d already been completely blown away by its dynamic range compared to my Canon 5DIII, and was anxious for opportunities to reap these newfound benefits.
On this winter evening I ended up in the foothills south and east of Sacramento, my go-to photo location closest to home. I have a number of spots here, each highlighted by one or more oak trees atop a west-facing hill that gives me great silhouette opportunities from the back side.
Rather than return to one of my tried and true spots, I wanted to find something new. I was alarmed at all the development underway in this once pastoral area, but I was able to get to this spot because a new road had been carved into the hills behind it. Construction had already begun and while it’s illegal in California to cut down our beautiful oaks, it seems that they can develop right up to them and it wouldn’t be long before this trio was completely surrounded by homes. It was pretty clear that this shot wouldn’t be possible if I were to return in even just a few weeks.
As you can see here, I once again confirmed the dynamic range of my new Sony sensor. But of course no camera can shoot directly into a completely unfiltered sun, but this evening I benefited from the moisture-laden haze that hovers over the Central Valley in winter.
One other thing I remember exciting me about my new camera was its extra resolution. My longest lens at the time was the Sony 70-200 f/4 and I wanted to shoot this tighter. I just shot it at 200mm, but found that I had plenty of resolution to crop it down to what you see here.
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Foothill Oaks
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Your camera is stupid (but you’re not)
Posted on August 16, 2020
New Moon and Oak, Sierra Foothills, California
Sony a6300
Tamron 150-600 (Canon-mount with Metabones IV adapter)
.4 seconds
F/8
ISO 400
In a previous life I spent a dozen or so years doing technical support. In this job a key role was convincing people that, despite all failures and error messages to the contrary, they are in fact smarter than their computers. Most errors occur because the computer just didn’t understand: If I misspel a wurd, you still know what I meen (rite?). Not so with a computer. A computer can’t anticipate, reason, or create; assigned a task, it will blithely continue repeating a mistake, no matter how egregious, until it is instructed otherwise, fails, or destroys itself.
All this applies equally to today’s “smart” cameras, which are essentially computers at their core. But no matter how advanced its technology, a camera just can’t compete with your brain. Really.
For example, if I’d allowed my camera to decide the exposure for this crescent moon scene from 2016, I’d have ended up with a useless mess: While this image is all about color and shape, automatic exposure, deciding that the foreground hillside is important, would have brightened the scene enough to expose distracting detail and completely wash out the color in the sky. But I knew better. Wanting to simplify the scene, I manually metered and banished the extraneous foreground detail to the black shadows, capturing only the moon’s delicate shape and a solitary oak silhouetted against the indigo twilight.
Digital cameras become more technologically advanced each year, and their auto-exposure and -focus capabilities are quite good, good enough that nobody should feel they must switch to manual if they fear it will diminish the pleasure they get from photography. But if your photographic pleasure comes from getting the best possible images, it would benefit you to spend a little time mastering manual metering (and hyperfocal focus), then using that knowledge to override your camera’s programmed inclinations. It might help to know that in my photo workshops I teach (but never require) manual metering to all who are interested, and most who try it are surprised by how easy and rewarding it is to take control of their camera.
Trust your histogram
Exposure control starts by learning to use a histogram, a graph of the tones in an image (read more about histograms). Not only does every digital camera show us a histogram of the scene we just photographed, modern cameras (all mirrorless for sure, and all of the latest DSLRs that I know of) display the histogram for the scene we’re currently metering, before the shutter is clicked.
With a histogram, instead of clicking and hoping as we did in the film days, or clicking, checking, and adjusting as we did in the pre-live-view histogram days, the addition of a histogram before we shoot provides advance knowledge of the image’s exposure. For those who know how to read a histogram, manual exposure has never been easier—just monitor the histogram as you prepare your shot and dial the exposure until the histogram looks right. Click.
Setting up your live-view histogram
To ensure a valid pre-capture histogram (on your DSLR’s live-view screen, or your mirrorless camera’s live-view or viewfinder screen), make sure you are in whatever your camera manufacturer calls exposure simulation. When the camera simulates exposure, rather than always showing the ideal exposure on the live-view screen, it attempts to emulate the exposure settings you’re using. Here is a far from comprehensive guide to the exposure simulation designation used by the major camera manufacturers (though I can’t guarantee that all cameras from the same manufacturer do it the same way):
- Canon: Exposure Simulation (enabled)
- Fuji: Preview Exp. in Manual Mode (off)
- Olympus: Live-view Boost (off)
- Nikon: Exposure Preview (selected in the Info menu)
- Sony: Setting Effect (on)
On most camera’s the metering mode (the way the camera’s meter views the scene—not to be confused with exposure mode, which is the way the camera sets the exposure) doesn’t affect the pre-capture histogram, but to be safe, instead of spot or partial metering, I choose a metering mode that uses the entire frame. (With my Sony mirrorless bodies, I set my metering mode to Entire Screen Average.)
Once you’ve turned on exposure simulation, you need to figure out how to display the histogram. Most cameras, mirrorless or DSLR, offer multiple live-view screen options that display a variety of information about the scene you’re photographing. On most cameras, only one or two of these screens displays the histogram—finding it is usually a simple matter of cycling through the various displays until the histogram appears. To minimize the number of screens I need to scroll through to get to the information I need (such as the histogram or level), I always go into my camera’s menu system and disable the live-view screens I don’t use.
Using your live-view histogram
Using my pre-capture histogram, I start the metering process as I always have. In manual exposure mode, I start in my camera’s best ISO (100 for my Sony a7RIV), and the best f-stop for my composition (unless motion, such as wind or star motion, forces me to compromise my ISO and/or f-stop). With ISO and f-stop set, I slowly adjust my shutter speed with my eye on the histogram in my viewfinder (or LCD).
Most mirrorless bodies offer highlight warnings in their pre-capture view (often called “zebras”). While these alerts aren’t nearly as reliable as the histogram and should never be relied on for final exposure decisions, I use their appearance as a reminder to check my histogram. The first time I meter a scene, my current exposure settings (based on my prior scene) can be far from what the current scene requires—in this case, I push my shutter speed fast until the zebras appear (if my prior exposure was too dark) or disappear (if my prior exposure was too bright), then refine the exposure more slowly while watching the histogram.
In a low or moderate contrast scene, I’ll have room on both the shadows and highlights sides of the histogram—a pretty easy scene to expose. But in a high dynamic range scene (dark shadows and bright highlights), the difference between the darkest shadows and brightest highlights might stretch the histogram beyond its boundaries. When the high dynamic range is so great that I have to choose between saving the highlights or the shadows, I almost always bias my exposure choice toward sparing the highlights, carefully dialing the exposure until the histogram bumps against the right side—at that point I stop adding exposure, even if my shadows are cut off (black).
Because the post-capture histogram is more reliable than the pre-capture histogram, when high dynamic range gives me little margin for error, I verify my exposure by checking the post-capture histogram. Here’s where the RGB (red, green, blue) histogram becomes important. While the luminosity (white) histogram gives you the detail you captured, it doesn’t tell you if you lost color. Washed out color is always a risk when you push the histogram all the way to the right, so it’s best to check the post-capture RGB histogram to ensure that none of the image’s color channels are clipped.
An often overlooked aspect of mastering in-camera metering is simply learning how your camera reports exposure. Not only does every camera interpret and display its exposure information differently, the histogram returned is based on the jpeg, so raw shooters always have more information than their camera reports—it’s important to know how much more. With my Sony a7Rx bodies, I know I’m usually safe pushing my histogram’s exposure graph up to a full stop beyond the left or right (highlights and shadows) boundary—I have no problem using every available photon.
A few more words about this image
In addition to taking control of the exposure for this image, roaming a hilly cow pasture in the foothills east of Sacramento gave me full freedom of movement to control the new moon’s position relative to the tree. As the sky darkened and the moon dropped, I literally ran up and down the hill to capture as many moon/tree/frame relationships as possible before the moon disappeared.
This is the week (August 16-21, 2020) to photograph a crescent moon. My recommendation is Monday morning on the eastern horizon before sunrise, and Wednesday or Thursday low in the west after sunset.
A Crescent Moon Gallery
Random Thoughts on a Sunday Afternoon
Posted on June 14, 2020
Sunset Accent, Crescent Moon and Oaks, Sierra Foothills
Sony a7R
Sony/Zeiss 24-70
1/3 second
F/9
ISO 100
Here’s a brand new image that’s nearly six years old. Brand new because I processed it for the first time just yesterday; six years old because I found it after loading my pre-Lightroom raw files from 2014 into Lightroom, something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time and I finally ran out of reasons not to do it. Before 2015 I did all my raw processing in Adobe Camera Raw, which worked fine as far as individual image processing was concerned, but also made it pretty easy for things to get out of control on my hard-disk because there was no underlying organization to my import process. Want proof? I’m actually missing about a month’s worth of images from 2013—I know because I have several processed jpegs from that span for which I have no originals. Sigh.
This is also just my 282nd image after switching to Sony mirrorless in the fall of 2014. While I have no specific memories of this evening (there have been many, many like this, as you’ll see in the gallery), I imagine that I was still struggling with the Sony interface—partly because mirrorless was a new trick for this old dog, and partly because the original a7R’s interface pretty much sucked (a problem that has been incrementally, and now completely, addressed in succeeding models). But it was fun processing this “old” image and recalling why I was able to forgive the lousy interface and abysmal battery life (also addressed) of the a7R: man, even right out of the gate that Sony dynamic range just doesn’t quit.
Skeptics might might look at this image and think I added the moon because it appears to be in front of the clouds. Anyone who has been in one of my workshops, or who knows me even just a little, knows I don’t do that. But for the skeptics in the audience, let me assure you that it is indeed possible for clouds to catch sunset color while still being translucent enough for the moon to shine through (you can actually see other examples below).
It saddens me that photography has reached a point where every beautiful, or interesting, or revealing image is (often justifiably, I’m afraid) scrutinized with a cynical eye. Photographers have brought this on themselves with their never-ending quest for more social media Likes, or to make a case for something for which they have no evidence (as we’ve seen in some of the recent news reporting).
After spending a good chunk of my photography life as a color transparency (slides) shooter who was pretty much stuck with whatever came back from the lab, I appreciate the ability to process my images as much as the next photographer. But there’s a continuum with basic processing on one end (there’s no such thing as an unprocessed image, whether you do it yourself or leave the processing to your camera) and Frankenstein hybrids on the other. To me the decision about where to draw the line on the processing continuum is similar to the decision between wearing nice clothes and putting on makeup and resorting to cosmetic surgery (yes, I understand that there are in fact many valid reasons for cosmetic surgery, and that this is not a flawless analogy).
So it really comes down to honesty—a commitment not to deceive. I love nature and want to share my love by portraying my subjects at their absolute best, but I want people’s first thought when they see one of my images to be, “Wow, I need to get out in nature more,” and not, “Wow, what a great photographer, or, “Wow, that’s impossible.” The scene you see in this image really happened, and there’s a photo of it because I put myself in position for the (very predictable) confluence of a new moon hanging above rolling hills dotted with statuesque oaks, plus the fortuitous addition of thin clouds that lingered just long enough to catch sunset color. It helped that I had a camera that could easily handle the difference between the brilliant sky and darkening hills, and enough photographic skill to properly frame and expose the scene. The image itself was remarkably easy to process and required very little digital help. This image is a success if it first helps you realize how beautiful even the simplest foothill scenes are, without being distracted by my skill as a photographer (good or bad), or the processing decisions I made.
A Foothills Gallery
Click an image for a closer look, and to view a slide show.
Where there’s smoke…
Posted on December 9, 2018
Sun and Smoke, Sierra Foothills, California
Sony a6300
Sony 100-400 GM
Sony 2x teleconverter
ISO 100
f/16
1/8 second
Humans, we have a problem
Earth’s climate is changing, and the smoking gun belongs to us. Sadly, in the United States policy lags insight and reason, and the world is suffering.
Climate change science is complex, with many moving parts that make it difficult to communicate to the general public. Climate change also represents a significant reset for some of the world’s most profitable corporations. Those colliding realities created a perfect storm for fostering the doubt and confusion that persists among people who don’t understand climate science and the principles that underpin it.
I’m not a scientist, but I do have enough science background (majors in astronomy and geology before ultimately earning my degree in economics) to trust the experts and respect the scientific method. I also spent 20 years doing technical communication in the tech industry (tech writing, training, and support) for companies large and small. So I know that the fundamentals of climate change don’t need to intimidate, and the more accessible they can be to the general public, the better off we’ll all be.
It’s personal
Recently it feels like I’ve been living on the climate change front lines. On each visit to Yosemite, more dead and dying trees stain forests that were green as recently as five years ago. And throughout the Sierra (among other places), thirsty evergreens, weakened by drought, are under siege by insects that now thrive in mountain winters that once froze them into submission. More dead trees means more fuel, making wildfires not just more frequent, but bigger and hotter.
Speaking of wildfires, for a week last month I couldn’t go outside without a mask thanks to smoke from the Camp Fire that annihilated Paradise (70 miles away). I have friends who evacuated from each of this November’s three major California wildfires (Camp, Hill, and Woolsey), and last December the Thomas Fire forced a two-week evacuation of Ojai, where my wife and I rent a small place (to be near the grandkids). Our cleanup from the Thomas fire took months, and we still find ash in the most unexpected places (and we were among the lucky who had a home to clean).
The debate is dead
Despite its inevitable (and long overdue) death, the climate change debate continues to stagger on like a mindless zombie. We used to have to listen to the skeptics claim that our climate wasn’t changing at all, so I guess hearing them acknowledge that okay-well-maybe-the-climate-is-changing-but-humans-aren’t-responsible can be considered progress.
Despite what you might read on social media or fringe websites, climate change alternative “explanations” like “natural variability” and “solar energy fluctuations” have been irrefutably debunked by rigorously gathered, thoroughly analyzed, and closely scrutinized data. (And don’t get me started on the whole “scientists motivated by grant money” conspiracy theory.)
Science we all can agree on
One thing that everyone does agree on is the existence of the greenhouse effect, which has been used for centuries to grow plants in otherwise hostile environments.
As you may already know, a greenhouse’s transparent exterior allows sunlight to penetrate and warm its interior. The heated interior radiates at longer wavelengths (infrared) that don’t escape as easily through the greenhouse’s ceiling and walls. That means more heat is added to a greenhouse than exits it, so the interior is warmer than the environment outside.
There’s something in the air
Perhaps the most common misperception about human induced climate change is that it’s driven by all the heat we create when we burn stuff. But that’s not what’s going on, not even close.
Our atmosphere behaves like a greenhouse, albeit with far more complexity. The sun bathes Earth with continuous electromagnetic radiation that includes infrared, visible light, and ultraviolet. Solar radiation not reflected back to space reaches Earth’s surface to heat water, land, and air. Some of this heat makes it back to space, but much is absorbed by molecules in Earth’s atmosphere, forming a virtual blanket that makes Earth warmer than it would be without an atmosphere. In a word, inhabitable.
Because a molecule’s ability to absorb heat depends on its structure, some molecules absorb heat better than others. The two most common molecules in Earth’s atmosphere, nitrogen (N2: two nitrogen atoms) and oxygen (O2: two oxygen atoms), are bound so tightly that they don’t absorb heat. Our atmospheric blanket relies on other molecules to absorb heat: the greenhouse gases.
Also not open for debate is that Earth warms when greenhouse gases in the atmosphere rise, and cools when they fall. The rise and fall of greenhouse gases has been happening for as long as Earth has had an atmosphere. So our climate problem isn’t that our atmosphere contains greenhouse gases, it’s that human activity changes our atmosphere’s natural balance of greenhouse gases.
Earth’s most prevalent greenhouse gas is water vapor. But water vapor responds quickly to temperature changes, leaving the atmosphere relatively fast as rain or snow, while other greenhouse gases hold their heat far longer.
The two most problematic greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide (CO2: one carbon atom bonded with two oxygen atoms) and methane (CH4: one carbon atom bonded with four hydrogen atoms). The common denominator in these “problem” gases is carbon. (There are other, non-carbon-based, greenhouse gases, but for simplicity I’m focusing on the most significant ones.)
Carbon exists in many forms: as a solo act like graphite and diamond, and in collaboration with other elements to form more complex molecules, like carbon dioxide and methane. When it’s not floating around the atmosphere as a greenhouse gas, carbon in its many forms is sequestered in a variety of natural reservoirs called a “carbon sink,” where it does nothing to warm the planet.
Oceans are Earth’s largest carbon sink. And since carbon is the fundamental building block of life on Earth, all living organisms, from plants to plankton to people, are carbon sinks as well. The carbon necessary to form greenhouse gases has always fluctuated naturally between the atmosphere and natural sinks like oceans and plants.
For example, a growing tree absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, keeping the carbon and expelling oxygen (another simplification of a very complex process)—a process that stops when the tree dies. As the dead tree decomposes, some of its carbon is returned to the atmosphere as methane, but much of it returns to the land where it is eventually buried beneath sediments. Over tens or hundreds of millions of years, some of that sequestered carbon is transformed by pressure and heat to become coal.
Another important example is oil. For billions of years, Earth’s oceans have been host to simple-but-nevertheless-carbon-based organisms like algae and plankton. When these organisms die they drop to the ocean floor, where they’re eventually buried beneath sediment and other dead organisms. Millions of years of pressure and heat transforms these ancient deposits into…: oil.
Coal and oil (hydrocarbons), as significant long-term carbon sinks, were quite content to lounge in comfortable anonymity as continents drifted, mountains lifted and eroded, and glaciers advanced and retreated. Through all this slow motion activity on its surface, Earth’s temperatures ebbed and flowed and life evolved accordingly.
Enter humans. We have evolved, migrated, and built civilizations based on a relatively stable climate. And since the discovery of fire we humans have burned plants for warmth and food preparation. Burning organic material creates carbon dioxide, thereby releasing sequestered carbon into the atmosphere. Who knew that such a significant advance was the first crack in the climate-change Pandora’s Box?
For thousands of years the demand for fuel was met simply by harvesting dead plants strewn about on the ground and the reintroduction of carbon to the atmosphere was minimal. But as populations expanded and technology advanced, so did humans’ thirst for fuel to burn.
We nearly killed off the whales for their oil before someone figured out that those ancient, subterranean metamorphosed dead plants burn really nicely. With an ample supply of coal and oil and a seemingly boundless opportunity for profit, coal and oil soon became the driving force in the world’s economy. Suddenly, hundreds of millions of years worth of sequestered carbon was being reintroduced to our atmosphere as fast as it could be produced—with a corresponding acceleration in greenhouse gases (remember, when we burn hydrocarbons, we create carbon dioxide).
Compounding the fossil-fuel-as-energy problem is the extreme deforestation taking place throughout the world. Not only does burning millions of forest and jungle acres each year instantly reintroduce sequestered carbon to the atmosphere, it destroys a significant sink for present and future carbon.
Scientists have many ways to confirm humans’ climate change culpability. The most direct is probably the undeniable data showing that for millennia carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere hovered rather steadily around 280 parts per million (ppm). Then, corresponding to the onset of the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century, atmospheric carbon dioxide has risen steadily and today sits somewhere north of 400 ppm, with a bullet.
Humans don’t get a pass on atmospheric methane either. While not nearly as abundant in Earth’s atmosphere as carbon dioxide, methane is an even more powerful greenhouse gas, trapping about 30 times more heat than its more plentiful cousin. Methane is liberated to the atmosphere by a variety of human activities, from the decomposition of waste (sewage and landfill) to agricultural practices that include rice cultivation and bovine digestive exhaust (yes, that would be cow farts).
While the methane cycle is less completely understood than the carbon dioxide cycle, the increase of atmospheric methane also correlates to fossil fuel consumption. Of particular concern (and debate) is the cause of the steeper methane increase since the mid-2000s. Stay tuned while scientists work on that….
Balancing act
For humans, the most essential component of Earth’s habitability is the precarious balance between water’s three primary states: gas (water vapor), ice, and liquid. Since the dawn of time, water’s varied states have engaged in a complex, self-correcting choreography of land, sea, and air inputs—tweak one climate variable here, and another one over there compensates.
Earth’s climate remains relatively stable until the equilibrium is upset by external input like solar energy change, volcanic eruption, or (heaven forbid) a visit from a rogue asteroid. Unfortunately, humans incremented the list of climate catalysts by one with the onset of the Industrial Revolution, and our thirst for fossil fuels.
As we’re learning firsthand in realtime, even the smallest geospheric tweak can initiate a self-reinforcing chain reaction with potentially catastrophic consequences for humanity’s long-term wellbeing. For example, a warmer planet means a warmer ocean and less ice, which means more liquid water and water vapor. Adding carbon dioxide to water vapor kicks off a feedback loop that magnifies atmospheric heat: More carbon dioxide raises the temperature of the air—>warmer air holds more water vapor—>more water vapor warms the air more—>and so on.
But that’s just the beginning. More liquid water swallows coastlines; increased water vapor means more clouds, precipitation, and warmer temperatures (remember, water vapor is a greenhouse gas). Wind patterns and ocean currents shift, changing global weather patterns. Oh yeah, and ice’s extreme albedo (reflectivity) bounces solar energy back to space, so shrinking our icecaps and glaciers means less solar energy returned to space even more solar energy to warm our atmosphere, which only compounds the problems.
Comparing direct measurements of current conditions to data inferred from tree rings, ice and sediment cores, and many other proven methods, makes it clear that human activity has indeed upset the climate balance: our planet is warming. What we’re still working on is how much we’ve upset it (so far), what’s coming, and where the tipping point is (or whether the tipping point is already in our rearview mirror).
We do know that we’re already experiencing the effects of these changes, though it’s impossible to pinpoint a single hurricane, fire, or flood and say this one wouldn’t have happened without climate change. And contrary to the belief of many, everyone will not be warmer. Some places are getting warmer, others are getting cooler; some are wetter, others are drier. The frequency and intensity of storms is changing, growing seasons are changing, animal habitats are shifting or shrinking, and the list goes on….
We won’t fix the problem by simply adjusting the thermostat, building dikes and levees, and raking forests. Until we actually reduce greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, things will get worse faster than we can adjust. But the first step to fixing a problem is acknowledging we have one.
About this image
The Camp Fire had been burning for ten days, devouring Paradise and filling the air in Sacramento with brown smoke so thick that at times not only could we not see the sun, we couldn’t see the end of the block. But on this afternoon, when an orange ball of sun burned through the smoke I donned a mask, grabbed my camera bag, and headed for the hills.
I have a collection of go-to foothill oak trees for sun and moonsets, but most of these trees are too close to my shooting position for the extreme telephoto image I had in mind. Too close because at this kind of focal length, the hyperfocal distance is over a mile. So I made my way to a quiet country road near Plymouth where I thought the trees might just be distant enough to work. But I’m less familiar with this location than many of my others, so I didn’t know exactly how the trees and sun would align. Turning onto the road, I drove slowly, glancing at the sun and trees until they lined up. Because there wasn’t a lot of room to park on either side, I was pleased that the shoulder at the location that worked best was just wide enough for my car.
Envisioning a maximum telephoto shot, I added my Sony 2X teleconverter to my Sony 100-400 GM lens. While my plan was to use my 1.5-crop Sony a6300, when I arrived the sun was high enough that that combination provided too much magnification, so I started with my full frame Sony a7RIII. But soon as the sun dropped to tree level I switched to the a6300 and zoomed as tight as possible.
When I started the sun was still bright enough that capturing its color made the trees complete silhouettes, with no detail or color in the foreground. But as the setting sun sank into increasingly thick smoke, it became redder and redder and my exposure became easier. It always surprises me how fast the sun and moon move relative to the nearby horizon, so found myself running around to different positions to get the right sun and tree juxtaposition as the sun fell. The smoke near the horizon was so thick that it swallowed the sun before it actually set.
Later I plotted my location and the sun’s position on a map and realized that I was pointing right at San Francisco, about 100 miles away, with a large swath of the Bay Area in between. Then I thought about this air that was thick enough to completely obscure the sun, and the millions of people who had been breathing that air for weeks.
I’d be lying if I said I don’t like this image—it’s exactly what I was going for. But I’d be very happy if I never got another opportunity to photograph something like this.
Learn more
- https://climate.nasa.gov/causes/
- https://grist.org/article/we-broke-down-what-climate-change-will-do-region-by-region/
- https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/monitoring-references/faq/greenhouse-gases.php
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Sony 24mm f/1.4 GM Lens: First thoughts
Posted on September 20, 2018
Moonlight, Sierra Foothills, California
Sony a7R III
Sony 24 f/1.4 GM
10 seconds
F/1.4
ISO 1600
Today Sony announced the lens I’ve been waiting for: the Sony 24, f/1.4 GM. I got a sneak preview of this lens on Maui last week, and again once I got home home. Hurricane Olivia, my workshop (no one was supposed to see me using the lens), and food poisoning significantly limited my use of it, but I did get to play with it enough to share a few thoughts.
Night photography is all about capturing light, the more the better. We bump our ISO as high as the image quality permits, dial in our lens’s widest aperture, and open our shutter as long as we can without obvious star streaks, pushing each exposure variable as far as possible squeeze out every last photon. The shortcomings of each of these compromises is mitigated by an improvement in the others, which is why night photography with the fastest possible lens means I can get the same exposure with a little less star motion and/or noise. So f/1.4 is great, currently pretty much as good as it gets for a lens wide enough for night photography.
Of course fast and wide isn’t much good if the lens is lousy, or difficult to use. I haven’t used the 24 GM a lot, but I’ve used it enough to know that lousy and difficult won’t be a concern.
First Impression
My very first impression, and I suspect this will be everyone’s first impression, is how small this lens is. When I knew it was coming my way I started strategizing how I’d rearrange my bag to accommodate it, but it turns out all I needed to do was empty the slot with a couple of extension tubes and my 2X teleconverter. Contrast that with the Sigma 20mm f/1.4, which is an absolute beast of a lens, both in weight and volume, that could never just live in my bag. But I flew home with the Sony in my bag and was completely unaware of the extra weight. Well done, Sony!
Two Galaxies, West Maui
I only got one night to use the on Maui before I had to return to the real world, and my location options had been severely limited by the recent passage Tropical Storm Olivia (downgraded from a hurricane shortly before landfall), so I drove about half-hour from my condo in Napili to the ultra-dark skies on the northern-most tip of West Maui, where I stumbled in the dark down to the edge of a cliff above the Nakalele Blowhole and shot into a 30-MPH headwind. Not the most ideal conditions, but I made it work for my purposes.
The benefit of a fast lens like this is not just the amount of light it allows into an image, it starts with the simple ability to see enough to simply compose and focus. And as I expected, both composition and manual focus were a piece of cake with Sony 24 1.4. For the Maui night shoot I composed, then magnified the viewfinder of my Sony a7SII and twisted the focus ring until the stars were the finest possible points of light—it took all of about 3 seconds. After my first exposure I magnified the image to verify that it was indeed sharp, then didn’t worry about focus again.
The image on the right features the dimmest part of the Milky Way, opposite the brilliant galactic core we all love to photograph. As a bonus, I also captured M-31, the Andromeda Galaxy—its fuzzy glow in the upper right has traveled over 2 million lightyears and is the farthest we can see with the unaided eye.
About this image
I’d have liked to have done more starlight photography after getting home from Maui, but by the time I recovered enough from a most unwelcome bout of food poisoning that showed up the day I returned, the moon was too prominent in the night sky. Nevertheless, a couple of days ago I sucked it up and drove out to the foothills about an hour from my home and put the lens through its paces beneath a 70 percent gibbous moon.
With the moon high over my right shoulder I looked for scenes facing northeast, where the skies were the least polluted by city glow. I eventually settled on a nearby hillside dotted with oaks fortuitously punctuated by an organized formation of the only clouds in the sky. With so much moonlight present I went with the Sony a7RIII instead of the Sony a7SII. Shooting moonlight at f/1.4 enabled me to get away with a 10-second exposure at ISO 1600.
In the past I’ve usually auto-focused on the moon for my moonlight scenes, but for laughs this night I tried autofocusing on the trees and was shocked to hear my focus indicator beep. Wow, I’ve never been able to autofocus on anything by moonlight, even when the moon was completely full. Next I tried autofocusing on a random star and again heard the confirmation beep—another first. And finally I magnified the view and manually focused on the tree: 3-for-3. Admittedly, with the recent ability to do starlight photography (moonless nights), I don’t do as much moonlight photography as I once did, and I’ve never done it with an f/1.4 lens (because it really isn’t necessary). Nevertheless, I think night focus struggles will be a thing of the past with this lens.
Processing my night images, the first thing I checked was the stars in the corners. In many years of night photography I used three dedicated “night” lenses (lenses that I only use for night photography): Zeiss 28mm f/2, Rokinon 24mm f/1.4, and Sigma 20mm f/1.4. In quest of more light I’ve shot all of them wide open, but I’ve had to live with a fair amount of coma (comatic aberration). My first reaction is that is that this lens is cleaner wide open than any of them.
The bottom line
I haven’t had tons of time to spend with my images, but my first impression is that I’m blown away by this lens. I’ve grown to accept that if I want quality in a lens I need to accept bulk along with it. Apparently that’s not the case, because this lens gave me crazy sharp images wide open, yet felt not much larger than a baseball in my hand.
A Sony 24mm f/1.4 GM Samples
You’re smarter than your camera, because…
Posted on September 24, 2016
Cradled Crescent, Sierra Foothills
Sony a7RII
Tamron 150-600 (Canon-mount with Metabones IV adapter)
.4 seconds
F/8
ISO 400
Your camera is stupid (and you’re not)
In a previous life, I spent a dozen or so years doing technical support. In this role, job-one was convincing people that, despite all failures and error messages to the contrary, they are in fact smarter than their computers. Most errors occur because the computer just didn’t understand: If I misspel a wurd, you still know what I meen (rite?); not so with a computer. A computer can’t anticipate, reason, or create; given a task, it will blithely continue repeating a mistake, no matter how egregious, until it is instructed otherwise, fails, or destroys itself.
All this applies equally to today’s “smart” cameras—no matter how advanced its technology, a camera just can’t compete with your brain. Really. If I’d have allowed my camera to decide the exposure for this crescent moon scene, I’d have ended up with a useless mess: The camera would have decided that the foreground hillside was important and allowed in enough light to expose distracting detail and completely wash out the color in the sky. But I knew better. Wanting to simplify the scene, I manually metered and banished the insignificant details to the black shadows, capturing only the moon’s delicate shape and a solitary oak silhouetted against the indigo twilight.
It’s scenes like this that cause me to never trust my camera’s decision making, and why, in my (many) decades of serious photography, I’ve never used anything but manual metering. And since I try to have elements at different depths throughout my frame, focus is almost always my decision, not my camera’s, as well.
Today’s cameras are more technologically advanced than ever—their auto exposure and focus capabilities are quite good, good enough that nobody should feel they must switch to manual if they fear it will diminish the pleasure they get from photography. But if you define photographic pleasure as getting the best possible images, try spending a little time mastering manual metering and hyperfocal focus, then use that knowledge to override your camera’s inclinations. In my workshops, where I teach (but never require) manual metering and hyperfocal focus to all who are interested, people frequently marvel at how easy and satisfying it is to take control of their camera.
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Overriding my camera’s “brain”
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The secret weapon for overcoming unsung landscapes
Posted on July 24, 2015
Crescent at Sunset, Sierra Foothills, California
Sony a7R
Tamron 150-600 (Canon-mount with Metabones IV adapter)
1/6 second
F/9
ISO 800
I travel a lot. A lot. Don’t get me wrong—I know I’m incredibly fortunate to see and photograph the things I do, but sometimes it’s nice to be home. Despite the world-class locations I get to visit, I don’t cease being a photographer just because I’m home. I spend a lot of time exploring and photographing the unsung landscapes near home, landscapes that few would cross borders to photograph, but landscapes that I feel a particular connection to by virtue of a lifetime in California.
Look to the sky
The landscape is only half of an image. Since the best photography is usually more than simply a picture of a pretty thing, I always try to juxtapose my terrestrial subjects with an interesting sky. And unlike stationary terrestrial subjects, you can stand in one place and without moving, watch the sky do some pretty spectacular stuff: moon, stars, clouds, rainbows, whatever.
Sadly, as nice as California’s landscapes are, compared to most places, California has relatively boring skies. If I lived somewhere that gets summer thunderstorms (pretty much anywhere in the United States except the West Coast), I’d find a photogenic tree or creek, then make sure I was there the next time the sky did something special. But in California, I end up doing a lot of moon and star photography (not that there’s anything wrong with that).
Local favorites
My foreground options near Sacramento are rivers and oaks (and wildflowers in spring), and I particularly love our oaks (the rivers near town are often overrun with people). The criteria I use when searching for oaks to put with my sky images are a striking shape (with an oak, that’s usually a given), a distant vantage point that allows me to use a telephoto (to magnify to moon without losing most of the tree), and elevation that puts the tree against the sky instead of other hills and trees. Over the years I’ve collected a number of these spots, and will never tire of looking for more.
Chasing the moon
Last week I drove to the foothills east of Sacramento to photograph a thin slice of moon on the western horizon just after sunset. This wasn’t an exploration mission, it was specifically planned to take advantage of a spot I’d found earlier this year.
Unfortunately, (as I feared) the developers had found my spot too, and I arrived to find “my” trees surrounded by new homes in varying stages of completion—lucky for a handful of homebuyers, but not so much for all the rest of us who enjoy the foothills’ solitude and pristine views.
Tequila Sunset, Sierra Foothills, California
New Moon and Oaks, Sierra Foothills, California
Plan B
Just down the hill from this recently found-and-lost spot was the subject of my very first planned moon shoot, an oak-topped hillside that I’d photographed at sunset many years ago, decided that it would look really nice with a crescent moon, then figured out when to return.
But this time I found the moon far north (to the right) of its position all those years ago (the closer to the summer solstice, the farther north a crescent moon sets), and it soon became clear that only spot that would work was on a shoulderless, blind curve of a busy, two-land road. Compounding the difficulty, the moon this night was also closer to new (thinner and nearer the horizon), significantly shrinking my window of shooting opportunity, which limited the distance I could hike to get there in time. I made several passes in both directions before finding a safe(ish) place to park, then crammed my car all the way up against a tilting fence, two tires in a drainage ditch, and put on my hazard blinkers.
Why did the photographer cross the road?
Getting the alignment I wanted required crossing the road, scaling a barbed-wire fence, and traipsing through knee-high weeds. The knowledge that rattlesnakes pretty much rule these foothills made me acutely aware that the weeds were so thick that I couldn’t really see the landing spot for each step.
I photographed the entire scene with my Tamron 150-600 on my Sony a7R. As the moon dropped, sliding left to right, I moved forward along the fence line to control the relationship between the descending moon and the trees, starting with wider focal lengths that included some or all of the eight to ten trees capping the hill. Because my route dropped as I moved forward, the moon quickly fell into the trees from my perspective, allowing me to include the moon and trees increasingly tighter compositions.
For the night’s grand finale I found an alignment that cradled the moon in the silhouetted branches of a single tree, zooming to 600mm to magnify the moon and eliminate all but one tree. Because a 600mm focal length will catch even the slightest vibration, I went to 800 ISO to maximize my shutter speed in the deepening twilight. Once I shot this I actually rescaled the fence and darted back across the highway attempting to get the moon on the other side of the tree, but by the time I got everything aligned, the trees had been swallowed by the too-dark sky.
Your assignment…
Every location has features that set its landscape apart. Trees, rivers, lakes, mountains, hills, farmland—I could go on, but you get the point. Your local subject doesn’t need to be spectacular, because when the sky is spectacular, all you need is an interesting terrestrial anchor for your image.
The next time you find yourself with time to kill, explore your outskirts and identify unique subjects that you can add to a striking sky. Now, get to work!
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A gallery of unsung landscapes
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These are a few of my favorite things
Posted on February 3, 2014
California Crescent, Sierra Foothills
Canon EOS 5D Mark III
2.5 seconds
82 mm
ISO 100
F11
Maria von Trapp had them, you have them, I have them. They’re the favorite places, moments, and subjects that provide comfort or coax a smile no matter what life has dealt. Not only do these “favorite things” improve our mood, they’re the muse that drives our best photography. Mine include the translucent glow of a California poppy, a black sky sprinkled with stars, a breathtaking sunrise duplicated in reverse by still water, and the vivid arc of a rainbow following a cleansing rain. Also on my list (as you may have guessed by now) are the rolling hills and stately oaks of the Sierra foothills, a delicate slice of moon hovering above the horizon, and the subtle band of shifting color separating day and night.
I do my best to put myself in position to photograph all of these moments—the more I can combine, the better. For example, on my calendar each month (among other things) are the best days to photograph the old moon before sunrise, and the new moon after sunset. And in my GPS is a collection of foothill locations (though by now I’m sure my car could navigate to these spots on its own) with hilltop oak trees that stand against the sky.
The best evenings for the new moon in the most recent lunar cycle were Friday and Saturday, January 31 and February 1. With plans for Friday, I blocked Saturday and made the drive up to the foothills, where I waited at a favorite spot for the sun to drop and the moon to appear. Over the years I’ve accumulated lots of pictures of these trees beneath a variety of skies, with and without the moon. My composition decisions on each visit were mostly determined by the conditions: clouds, color, the moon’s direction, and the moon’s elevation above the horizon.
Saturday night’s cloudless, unspectacular sky spread a simple canvas that emphasized the crescent moon floating above the day/night transition I love so much. As an added bonus, Mercury joined the party, leading the moon to the horizon (above the tree on the right). In the deepening darkness I moved up and down the road to change the moon’s position relative to the trees. With the moon fairly high, I found that moderately wide, vertical compositions worked best. I underexposed slightly to and emphasize the trees’ shape with a silhouette; with nothing else to balance my frame, I decided on the symmetry of an isosceles triangle connecting the trees and moon.
Same view, different day
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- Goodnight Moon, Sierra Foothills, California
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- Red Sky, Oak at Sunset, Sierra Foothills
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- Crescent and Clouds, Sierra Foothills, California
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- Oaks at Sunset, Sierra Foothills
The Moon: (Sometimes) Size doesn’t matter
Posted on July 21, 2013
Goodnight Moon, Sierra Foothills, California
Canon EOS SL1
8/5 seconds
F/5.6
ISO 100
300 mm
A few years ago I proposed an article to “Outdoor Photographer” magazine on photographing the moon. The editor at the time (not the current OP editor) replied that moon photographs don’t work because the moon appears so much smaller in a photograph than people remember it. I couldn’t argue—the moon does indeed look smaller in a photograph than we perceive it in person. But I’ve never thought the moon needs to appear large to be an effective subject because its emotional power gives even the smallest moon enough visual weight to grab the eye and hold a disproportional segment of the frame. Ansel Adams certainly had this figured out, making a small moon the prime focal point of many images, including the image that’s arguably his most famous, “Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico.” Nevertheless, it took a new editor to finally get OP to acknowledge that size doesn’t matter and publish my “Shoot the Moon” article.
Today, more photographers than ever are using a small moon to accent familiar landscapes. But as nice as these images can be, sometimes it’s nice to make the moon BIG. I’m afraid the vast majority of images displaying a BIG moon looming over an iconic scene are composites, wide compositions with a telephoto moon superimposed on top. My feeling about these moon composites ranges from “Ugh,” when the photographer has at least had the integrity to label it a composite, to “Foul!,” when the photographer pretends that the entire scene was captured with a single click.
Your ability to enlarge the moon naturally (with a single click) is determined by the amount of telephoto you use: The longer your focal length, the larger your moon. But increasing the focal length shrinks the field of view, so matching a large moon with a particular scene requires positioning yourself a long way from the scene. For example, if I want to photograph the moon rising above Lake Tahoe, Tahoe’s size means I’m pretty much stuck with a wide angle (small moon) scene. In the Emerald Bay sunrise scene below, I was about a half mile from the lake, but even at 40mm I’m unable to fit all of the bay, and the moon is quite small.
Moonrise, Emerald Bay, Lake Tahoe
On the other hand, Yosemite Valley offers many distant vantage points that allow me to isolate Half Dome or El Capitan with a telephoto lens. I make a point of knowing when I can align a crescent or full moon with Half Dome and do my best to get myself (or a workshop group) there to photograph it. The image here is a 400mm (full frame) shot that completely isolates Half Dome from the rest of the scene.
New Day, Half Dome and Crescent Moon, Yosemite
Compare it to the image taken from the same location—at 105mm, Half Dome shrinks and the moon becomes an accent in a much larger scene.
Rising Crescent, Yosemite Valley
The image at the top of this frame perfectly illustrates my approach to moon photography. Because I can’t always get to Yosemite (and I like some variety in my images), I keep a mental database of nearby locations that align with a subject I can silhouette against the east or west horizon (the general direction of the moon’s rise and set) when viewed from a distant vantage point. Near the top of my list is a pair of trees topping a hill in the foothills east of Sacramento (the same trees featured in my July 12 post). Not only can I photograph these trees against the sky, from a distance, the ability to shift a fairly good distance north or south without losing my view of the trees allows me to juxtapose them against the moon, which shifts a significant amount from month to month.
The July 12 image was photographed the same night at 330mm with my full frame 5D Mark III; today’s image was photographed at 300mm with a 1.6 crop camera, for an effective focal length of 480mm. I plan to return to this spot a few more times for even tighter (larger moon) captures. I’d also like to try some with the full moon—since the view here is to the west, I’ll need to photograph the full moon when it sets at sunrise. Stay tuned….
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About my new camera
Some photographers may be mortified to see that I shot this with a Canon Rebel SL1. For those who don’t know, the Rebel line is Canon’s entry level, consumer camera (by inference, something no self-respecting pro would ever be caught dead using). But, while the Rebel cameras have some limitations, image quality isn’t one of them. So here’s my reasoning.
For about a year my primary camera has been my 5D Mark III. While the 5DIII gives me more dynamic range and better high ISO performance than my five year old 1DSIII, rather than sell the 1DSIII (still a great camera), I decided to keep it as a backup. Unfortunately, it’s also a brick, an absolute pain to lug around in the remote chance my 5DIII goes down. And its an even bigger pain to fly with.
Another problem with my 1DSIII as my prime backup is, like my 5DIII, it has a full frame sensor. I prefer having a “crop” (smaller sensor) body as my backup, because it gives me something I don’t have with a full frame (60% more reach from my lenses). So when I heard about Canon’s SL1, I checked it out and learned: It takes all my lenses; has an 18mp sensor; and is incredibly compact, hands down the tiniest SLR I’ve ever seen (if I didn’t shoot everything on a tripod, I might find it almost too small to shoot). It’s also only $650. So I bought one.
Now my 1DSIII will still travel with me wherever I drive (as will my 5DIII and my SL1), because I’ll have room. And if my 5dIII ever goes down for an extended period, my 1DSIII will become my primary body until the 5DIII returns to health. But when I fly anywhere, it’ll just be my 5DIII and my SL1. And in those situations where I want to carry two cameras in the field—for example, when I photograph the moon and want both wide and long shots—the tiny SL1 will always be the second camera. (So I guess size also matters when I’m choosing a backup camera.)
Epilogue: The image in this post was captured on my very first shoot with the SL1, and I’m happy to report that it performed wonderfully.
Eloquent Images by Gary Hart 