Advice about light
- This topic has 17 replies, 10 voices, and was last updated May 12, 2009 at 12:02 am by
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I read in an article somewhere that the best photographers sometimes have to wait minutes, hours, days, or even years for the perfect light for a perfect shot.
Yep, could be a long long wait, I know guys that think a week is well spent waiting for a bird shot.
www.dsaphoto.com
A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.
The bane of nature photography. Light management and yes I call it management is both crucial, hard work and sometims outright luck 🙂
Unlike virtually any other type of photography, controlling or manageing what light your dealing with on any given day is not entirely up to you.
Studio? Position and set your strobes. Working with people? See above
Ditto fishing, position yourself or subject where you want. Dont like results? Do a retake.Nature?
Sometimes you just have to make the best and accept that light is usually not going to be in your favor unless your managing it.What can you do in that situation?
Exposure
Given the situation if you want to expose the subject, you would have had to have been in M and overexpose probalby by 2+ stops, not only to overcome the backlighting but also to expose the Eagle as they are are dark birds. If you dont overexpose a bit (relative to te scene, they just apear dark, blackish with little detail)
What your left with then is whats referred to as a high key shot where litterally everything *but* your subject is blown to hell an back. The only way t expose backlit subjects, especially against the sky is expose for the subject and blow the sky
Always try to ask yourself…do I want to expose for the “scene” in which case your subject is part of the greater image and may be a little under/over exposed, which is in essance whats occured in your shot..Or do you want to expose for the subject, in which case your almost always blowing highlights, or clipping shadows.
When walking about and you have backlight, or strong sidelight (and dont want strong shadows) fill flash.
But shadows caused by sidelight can be nice to
However at that distance you’d be pushing the edge, even with a powerful flash and Better Beamer (doubles your output)
best option to increase your odds.
Have places you go in the early morning and places that you go in late afternoon to avoid (as much as possible) shooting into the sun.I only check this spot in the mornings
Access is from he east, by late afternoon the light all wrong no matter how sweet it might be. So when I have time in the late afternoons I go to places that favor approaches from the west.Have a Marsh nearby an the best shooting area is morning/afternoon?
Dont fight the one that doesnt help you.This field has a loop trail
It’s no coincidence in the mornings I take the Eastern fork that puts the fields to the west. That way when I spot WTs, I can leave the trail and the suns at my back, at worst sidelight.This is a great little swamp but it has little more than a 2 hour shooting window. Morning light needs to clear the top of the trees lining it so 9 or 10am. Doesnt matter whats there, they will be in deep shadows until the sun gets high enough.By noon lights harsh and by 3pm your shooting into it. Its often my 3rd stop when scouting/shooting
map out your goto places and hit them when the shooting lanes, game trails, etc, etc favor you. Take the swamp. If I go there before the suns high enough I migt just spook something special..
And when a great moment falls in your lap, don’t beat yourself to death if the light isnt friendly, you take what nature gives you and just try to do the best you can.
Another photogrpaher?
beh, Moose Peterson would have had trouble exposing that. all you need some experience. You cant control either the sun or the wildlife, what you can control is how you manage the sun, to swing the odds a bit more in your favorJohn is probably the best qualified to comment on this on this board; his nature photography speaks for itself. Â I would simply say, when you don’t have the equipment, you have to compensate. Â And the best way to do that is to be in the field in the first two hours of daylight and in the two hours before sunset. Â Photography doesn’t really keep bankers hours, or even fishing hours. Â If I know I need a shot, I’ll be up an hour before dawn to get in position and take whatever the light gives me.
Beginning of the day:
End of the day:
Zach
Photography doesn’t really keep bankers hours, or even fishing hours.
Theres a cliche that goes…..there’s a reason why nature photogrpahers always look tired 🙂 It’s 5am, I’m into my 2nd cup of coffee, waiting for 6am before heading out.
What Zach said set a little light bulb off, something I should have thought of. We don’t get Eagles in my neck of the woods ad the ones we do are transients. That said, I’m sure like a lot of game and Birds of Prey their comfort zones with humans are pretty small..Meaning the threshold at which point they’ll flush is probably fairly large.
If thats an active nest andd you really want some shots. Consider doing exactly what Zach said. Go there before the suns up (if morning light will be better) or late afternoon and camp out. Chances are you might still flush it on the approach..Sit down, smell the roses and wait for it to come back. Don’t stress it though, if its an active nest it needs to be on the nest. In fact in some States I beleive there’s a law about stayin 500 feet from Eagle nest.
Another thing you can try is camping out on it’s flight path, birds are creatures of habit and positioning yourself somewhere along it’s flight path to and from the nest where a) the lights better and b) there are few trees interferring can pay dividends as well.
Thats exactly how we shoot Osprey up here. While Osprey are tolerant and you can get fairly close, i’s stll about camping out either at a nest or along their flight path to and from the narby river/lake, that puts the monring/afternoon sun at your back.
and waiting. Mightwant to cosider a blind, or camo tarp for Eagles.
Thank for the comment Zach but I’m still learning myself.
Tim,
There are three considerations when it comes to working with natural light: Intensity (harsh, mid-day sunlight or diffused), direction (front, side, or backlighting), and color (color temp corrected or enhanced through WB adjustments).
But backlighting (the sun in your face) can result in some of the most dramatic, inspiring images when done properly. I photograph into the sun a lot, but it takes practice and some experience of knowing when and when not to do so. Here are just a few examples, but completely different images in each case:
Theres the guy you should listen to Tim 🙂
You should post more Richard.
/edit
And thank Darwin for his G/B CP post on NPN, it helped me make the leap and decide to strat learning how to use filters.Awesome photos guys – very inspiring and well shot stuff..
www.dsaphoto.com
A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.
Thanks for this thread Guys. Â John, your comment about overexposing one stop was great. Â I got out in the backyard this afternoon trying to shoot some birds, and also practicing the overexposing to get a proper exposure. Â The pictures turned out o.k. Â Not winners by any means, but let me practice the concept.
Since we are a fishing site…
Respect to the previous posts… I might not be of the same class, but I had to make do with what I had… as stated in the previous posts.
Tried to close the F-stop, but keep the shutter speed down. Did a few at a higher ISO, but just didn’t get any contrast. Lower F-stop and faster shutter speed just became blown.
What should I have done to get better results???
Exposure: Â 0.017 sec (1/60)
Aperture: Â f/9.0
Focal Length: Â 17 mm
ISO Speed: Â 100
Flash: Â On, Did not fire
Exposure: 0.02 sec (1/50)
Aperture: Â f/9.0
Focal Length: Â 18 mm
ISO Speed: Â 100
Flash: Â On, Did not fireMike I’m not sure which aspect your trying to improve on. In the 1st shot your underexposed a hair relative to the 2nd. You can see the effects in the deeper blue sky and in the shadows created by the backlight.
Stopping down, changing ISO etc only change the route travelled to a “proper” exposure, not the end result. Increasing exposure to remove shadows/inrease detail would blow the sky and decreasing exposure while it would save the sky, would deepen the shadows more.
Possible alternatives 1st photo.
1) recompose to remove the sun. At that time of day its just going to overpower the frame. I myself probably would have shot it as a horizontal and from another 20 or 30 feet upstream, so it was more sidelight, coming in from my left shoulder. You likely could have maintained much of the angle you were trying to achieve and mountains as the back drop leading off in the distance.2) You could have tried some filters (Graduated ND) but with that much sun staring you in the face I dont know how many stops it would have taken and in any event the sky would be unaturally dark.
3) HDR but Im not sure how it would go, largely as I really dont shoot HDRs. They for the most part don’t do it for me, I suspect not well
2nd photo
Similiar t the first, but no sun overpowering the frame and fewer shadows in elements.1) I might have moved closer to subject and used some fill flash and mayb even underexpose the sky by a 1/3rd
2) Grad NDs probably would have allowed you to expose the foreground and hold back the sky and shift comp a bit to the right (but no higher) to bring more of the mountains in if you’d wanted
Do you have a CP on?
Hard to tell, but there seems to be a fair amount of gare coming of the water. A CP would have redced your exposure by 2 stops or so…End results the same but it allows you to use a slower shutter speed, or wider aperture..Mike I’m not sure which aspect your trying to improve on. In the 1st shot your underexposed a hair relative to the 2nd. You can see the effects in the deeper blue sky and in the shadows created by the backlight.
Stopping down, changing ISO etc only change the route travelled to a “proper” exposure, not the end result. Increasing exposure to remove shadows/inrease detail would blow the sky and decreasing exposure while it would save the sky, would deepen the shadows more.
Possible alternatives 1st photo.
1) recompose to remove the sun. At that time of day its just going to overpower the frame. I myself probably would have shot it as a horizontal and from another 20 or 30 feet upstream, so it was more sidelight, coming in from my left shoulder. You likely could have maintained much of the angle you were trying to achieve and mountains as the back drop leading off in the distance.2) You could have tried some filters (Graduated ND) but with that much sun staring you in the face I dont know how many stops it would have taken and in any event the sky would be unaturally dark.
3) HDR but Im not sure how it would go, largely as I really dont shoot HDRs. They for the most part don’t do it for me, I suspect not well
2nd photo
Similiar t the first, but no sun overpowering the frame and fewer shadows in elements.1) I might have moved closer to subject and used some fill flash and mayb even underexpose the sky by a 1/3rd
2) Grad NDs probably would have allowed you to expose the foreground and hold back the sky and shift comp a bit to the right (but no higher) to bring more of the mountains in if you’d wanted
Do you have a CP on?
Hard to tell, but there seems to be a fair amount of gare coming of the water. A CP would have redced your exposure by 2 stops or so…End results the same but it allows you to use a slower shutter speed, or wider aperture..Thanks John, just trying to get a better image, I think…
A little too much or new jargon / acronyms for me, but let me try…
1st Photo
1.I am going to find a similar shot this weekend and “hose it down”… every which way…
Sometimes not a bad idea. It gives you an indication what you like/dislike for the next go around. Thats a good way to gain experience and how I learn alot. Especially these days that I’m trying to do more landscape photograhy.
Grad NDs are very useful when you have scenes with more range than the sensor can handle. They allow you to expose the foreground without “blowing” the sky at their simplest, or worded another way…hold back the sky. Not sure how they would work facing against a strong sun like that. There are limits to everything.
Mike
Graduated ND filters particularly the soft transition ones in 2 and 3 stops ( Singh Ray are very nice) are sooooo hugely usefull as to be almost indespensible. The large size ones 4×6″ can be hand held in front of the lens and moved around for best effect-
A late evening lake view/bug hatch site that used a Grad ND to hold back the sky so the forgeound would get enough exposure..
And a river bug sampling site that used a Grad ND upside down to hold back the foreground so the background would get enough exposure to read properly the sun was setting over
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