Last week, I had the opportunity to visit Channel Islands National Park, located off the southern California coast.  The park consists of five islands–Anacapa, Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, San Miguel, and Santa Rosa–each one with a different ecology and endemic species.  For my first trip out there, I chose to visit Anacapa Island, as it is the most accessible from the mainland, and it has a very unique ecology from the other islands (its geologic origins are different from the other islands too).

Coreopsis blooms on Anacapa Island, April 2010

We almost didn’t arrive on the island, as landing is difficult on Anacapa, and the presence of a large swell almost prevented them from dropping us off.  Luckily, the ocean smoothed out by the time we arrived in the landing cove, so we were able to get off and walk up all 153 stairs to the island.  As I had hoped, the Coreopsis, or tree sunflower, blooms were going strong (the only place you find these flowers is on Anacapa Island and a small patch of land on the mainland).  However, joining us in our relative solitude were ~50,000 nesting Western Gulls.  Have you ever shared a small space with that many gulls?  If you haven’t, its…ummm…noisy.  :-)

Western Gulls on Anacapa, April 2010

With only 1.5 miles of hiking trails, Anacapa is an easy island to scope out for potential photo compositions.  I spent the afternoon looking for intimate compositions on the island before the sun went down.  With gulls everywhere, it was only natural to include them in my shots.

About 1 hour before sunset, the wind started blowing.  While not bad at first, by the time we walked to Inspiration Point for sunset, it was a full-blown gale.  With wind gusts at nearly 50 miles per hour, how do you keep your tripod in place?  Make a friend anchor it, of course!

How to anchor a tripod in the wind

By the time the sun went down, and we arrived back at camp, the wind was blowing significantly harder: I’d guess it was sustained around 45-50 miles per hour, and gusts were nearly 65 mph (it bent and broke some of our tent poles).  We used guy lines to better secure our tents and went to bed.  It is difficult to sleep when your tent is continually hitting you in the face and chest.  After a few sleepless hours, I got up to a beautiful, windless sunrise over the Pacific.

Anacapa morning, April 2010

The photo above shows the water house and the light house on Anacapa (along with a whole bunch of our “friends”).

After packing up and hauling our gear down to the dock, it was time to head home.  Despite the smell and constant sound of the nesting gulls, and the hurricane-force winds, it was a very rewarding visit to Anacapa Island, and I look forward to visiting the rest of the Channel Islands in the near future.

To see all my photos from Anacapa Island, click here.

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I recently blogged about my winter project of shooting agaves locally.  In prepping for this shoot, I wanted to make sure the entire plant was in focus, and I knew using my depth of field table, that it was essentially impossible using my 24-105/4 lens:

• The example I’ll use in this post was shot from a distance of ~2 feet at a focal length of 47mm and aperture of f/10; using my Canon 30D, my total depth of field is 0.2 feet.  That isn’t nearly enough to get the entire agave in focus.

To circumvent this problem, I wanted to take multiple exposures at different planes of focus then blend them in Photoshop to produce an image that is entirely in focus.  The problem I was having is that by doing it manually, I couldn’t find a self-feathering method to make the blend look “clean”.  Fortunately Photoshop CS4 has an image blending feature that mostly automates the process for you.  I’ll describe my experience using one of my agaves as an example.

The first step was to take the shots.  I composed the shot like I normally would, and took one or two tests to make sure the amount of fill flash looked about right.  To get the proper diffusion, I taped a piece of white printer paper to my 430EX and underexposed by ~ -1.5 stops EV.  After the shot looked “right”, I took three exposures, each one at a different plane of focus:

While these three images do not look much different, you can see subtle differences; by looking at the main floret protuding from the plant, you can see that it is increasingly out of focus as you scroll through the images.

Once I got home, I converted the RAW files in a way that looked good to my eye; when you are working with multiple exposures, make sure to ‘synchronize’ all of your adjustments so all your shots look the same!  This is easy to do in ACR.  Then, I opened the files in Photoshop CS4.  The first step is to load the files into a stack and align them.  You can do this by going to File–>Scripts–>Load Files into Stack

Select the option “Add Open Files”, and check the box that says, “Attempt to Automatically Align Source Images”.  This will load your base images into the script, and will align the images, because even if you shot from a tripod (using mirror lock-up) there will be some slight differences between the images.

Once the script runs, you will want to select all three layers on the layers palette and go to Edit–>Auto-Blend Layers…

Select the option to stack the images and make sure the “Seamless Tones and Colors” box is checked.  This will produce a perfectly feathered and mostly blended image using your base images.  At this point, I suggest you inspect the image at 100% to make sure it is indeed perfectly blended.  On some images, the script has done a great job, and on others I’ve had to reload some images as separate layers and mask off the “in focus” part.

Even if it doesn’t work perfectly, this method will get you most of the way there.  If you like the result, you can flatten the image and edit as you normally would.

Agave attenuata, blended and converted to black and white

There are times you may not necessarily need to use this method; for instance, sometimes simply stopping down to f/16 or f/22 may get you the depth of field you need, but remember, as you stop down, you are losing resolution.  Thus, shooting at a wider aperture and blending exposures can be beneficial if you plan on printing the image.

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A few posts ago, I talked about a great day at the San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park.  Its a fantastic place to visit, but with large crowds and harsh midday light, photographing animals can be difficult.  Maybe I’m just in an abstract mood lately, but I found a lot of interesting patterns in bird feathers, etc.  One particular shot I liked was of a Chilean Flamingo (Phoenicopterus chilensis), which I’ve honestly never found to be a photogenic bird (at least not in captivity).

By underexposing the image by 1 2/3 stops, I was able to largely blacken the background, and introduce some contrast to the contours of the feathers.  That allowed me to boost the vibrance and saturation a bit, giving an eye-popping splash of color to the Flamingo I’ve always struggled with.

Chilean Flamingo, detail

Not only have I been in an abstract mood lately, I’ve also been in a black and white mood.  Thus, I converted this to black and white as well, really cranking the red channel up to make it contrasty.

Black and White

I like both of these a lot, for different reasons?  Do you have a favorite?  I’d love to hear about it in the comments!

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Over the past couple of years, I’ve taken some of what I consider to be “personal projects”.  The assignments I give myself aren’t difficult; they may have been to focus on a particular area to show it in a unique way, or to learn new techniques, or to push myself out of my box a little bit.  Many of the projects are ongoing, but I find they are a great way for me to inspire my own creativity.  So it was with my winter project; I wanted to take on a project that pushed me outside of my box.

As a group, one of my favorite plants are Agave.  They have beautifully symmetric, radiating leaves.  Their lines are smooth, easy, even sensuous, and their colors are–to me–calming.  They come in many shapes and sizes.  And, of course, they are the source of tequila (doesn’t a margarita sound good right now?).

Despite my admiration for these plants, until this winter I had only given a half-hearted attempt to photograph them.  Because we were lucky to have many overcast days this winter with soft, diffuse light, I decided to take on the project of creating a set of intimate portraits of Agave.  To make the set more “uniform” I chose to convert each image to monochrome, and although you’ll see uniformity may be left up to the viewer, I did stick with that as my theme.

Agave attenuata, January 2010

In addition to getting to know a new group of plants, I was able to learn about black and white conversions, as well as receive some lessons in extending my depth of field.  To achieve the highest resolution, I wanted to stay at an aperture of about f/8, but shooting this close with my 24-105/4, there was no way the entire plant would be in focus.  What I did was take multiple frames of each image, each one at a different plane of focus.  I then used the auto-align and auto-merge features in Photoshop CS4 to produce a single image with extended depth of field; I hope to write  blog post on this procedure in the future.

Wide angle, February 2010

I’ll share one or more of my Agave shots in the next few days; if you simply cannot wait, you can see them all (so far) here.  Its good to remember that by taking on a personal project, you can often find inspiration very near to (if not in) your own backyard.  Have you taken on a personal project?  Share it in the comments section!

Enjoy…

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I’ve been a huge fan of Kinesis Photo Gear for quite some time.  Almost since I began taking photographs, I’ve used their belt system, with several interchangeable bags to carry my camera body, lenses, and binoculars.  However, I find myself facing two problems.  The first is that I am hiking further and further to get photos, and the second is that I simply don’t have room on that belt to fit my ever-growing stash of loot.  In an effort to not have to buy all new bags, I looked to see what Richard Stum had cooked up over at Kinesis.

What I found was the Journeyman Pack.  I ended up getting it as a Christmas present last year, and since I have had 2 months to put it through its paces, I wanted to share some thoughts.

Kinesis Journeyman Pack

Making the transition from the belt system to the backpack was very easy.  First of all, my hip belt became the belt for this backpack.   To use your belt with the pack, you will need an adapter, but they provide this free when you order the backpack.  Inside of the backpack, there are plenty of loops and webbing–and you can purchase elevator adapters–to use existing Kinesis pouches inside of the pack itself.  I went ahead and bought a front-loading module to provide a padded space for all my expensive equipment, saving my less padded pouches for filters, batteries, etc.

Interior of my Journeyman Pack

This pack is very well built, and is ready to take on the most rigorous of backcountry hikes.  It has heavy-duty YKK zippers (things I always blow out on gear) and is made of heavy-duty Cordura nylon.  The harness system is also very comfortable.  The pack rides very well, and it moves with you almost seamlessly.  I tend to hike fairly quickly, so that’s an important feature for me.  I’m also a klutz, so its double important!  Seriously, after having worn countless backpacks over the years, I’d even say this pack is the best fitting one I’ve worn.  It really is that good.

Harness of the Journeyman Pack

I’m not receiving any kickbacks from Kinesis for writing this review, nor did they solicit me to write it, but yeah, this pack really is that good.  Despite my raves, I do have a few small nits.

The first isn’t really a nit of the pack itself, more about the convenience of a backpack in general.  Even though I love the pack, I very much miss the hipbelt when I’m in the field.  This isn’t so much a problem if I’m shooting in one spot, or even in an area, as I can put the pack down and wander around, coming back to get a filter or switch lenses if I need to.  However, there are times when its not convenient to put the pack down, such as shooting on sand dunes, or when you’re standing in 2 inches of water at Badwater Basin.  For those times, I wish I had the hipbelt system.  That said, I came up with a fix for the problem.  I also bought a tripod pouch (which I’ll talk about below) so I can hang my tripod off the back for hiking long distances.  What I did recently was after I set up my tripod, I moved the pouch around to the front of the hipbelt, and hung it from the loops that are still available.  I filled the pouch with another lens and some filters, thus allowing me to change lenses or filters without having to put my backpack down in the sand.  I just had to keep sand out of the tripod pouch!

I may pick up another pouch just for that purpose.

As I mentioned I bought a padded tripod pouch, and I really like it.  By putting the head in the pouch, it keeps my center of gravity low, which for klutzes like me, is absolutely essential.  It works very well, but I notice I get a lot less bounce when I have a jacket or something in the top part of the pack to help fill up the empty space.

I think I’m off for a hike.  If you’re in the market for a new backpack, I hope you found this review helpful.

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This weekend, a friend and I drove to Death Valley National Park.  I had heard there is currently water in Badwater Basin, and wanted to see it, as well as photograph it.  Since Death Valley usually does not get enough rain to allow for standing water in the basin, this is a rare event (since January 1, Furnace Creek has received over 2″ of rain).  On Friday, we arrived at Badwater about 3pm, and immediately headed to the West Side Road in search of photo opportunities.

On Friday, another storm moved into the area.  In my experience, bad weather can either lead to amazing light conditions, or to very poor conditions for photography.  Unfortunately, in this case, it was the latter.  There wasn’t much of a sunset on Friday night.  However, after dark, we headed back over to the Badwater parking area and walked out on the salt flat.  Because conditions were poor for star trail photography, my friend and I did some light graffiti–one of his newest hobbies.  I have to disclose that I really did nothing here, except for stand behind the camera, but this one is called ‘Badwater Blooms’.

"Badwater Blooms", Death Valley National Park, February 2010

As we were experimenting with different bloom configurations, the strangest thing happened.  We thought we were alone on the salt flat, but off in the distance, we could make out a figure walking towards us.  Ours was the only car in the parking lot, and no one had arrived, so we tried to say hello, thinking the person may be lost or need help.  The figure didn’t say anything, but as it got closer to us, a bright light appeared behind it, and the figure disappeared, almost as quickly as it had appeared.

I managed to snap this photo before it disappeared.

A strange visitor, Death Valley National Park, February 2010

Was the visitor from another dimension?  Did it exit through a portal that’s only open when Badwater Basin is full of water?  I’m not sure.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have much better light the next morning; in fact, we had really poor light.  However, Saturday night, we had the best light I’ve had in quite some time.  I’ll share those images in my next post.

You can see all my Death Valley images here.

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In my last post, I discussed a few techniques that can be used to effectively shoot panoramas.  All of my examples were of grand landscapes, and they were all landscape-oriented panoramas.  I want to use this post to point out another time you can shoot panos to yield great results.

Last November, we visited the Cedar Mesa area near Blanding, Utah.  Since we were limited on time, we chose to visit a familiar and often photographed Ancestral Puebloan ruin that’s been nicknamed the “House on Fire” (also called the Flaming Roof ruin).  I blogged about that visit here, in November.  While at the ruin, I envisioned someday wanting to print it very large, and wished I had a medium format camera with me.  Additionally, I really wanted to emphasize the “flames” exiting the roof of the ruin.

So, I took 3 landscape-oriented images, but rather than putting them next to each other, I stacked them on top of one another,  thus producing a larger image.  If you click on the image, you’ll see a larger version–the detail is amazing!  That said, it would look even better printed on canvas over your couch

"House on Fire" vertical panorama, Utah, November 2009

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As a photographer, or even a nature lover, you’ve probably stood staring at a wide vista wondering how you can possibly do that view justice in your photographs.  Maybe you’ve even wanted to be able to print that picture large to give a room in your home the same feel as actually standing there.  Have you ever thought about taking multiple images of a scene and stitching them together into a panorama?

Shooting “panos” has become more popular in the last few years with the advent of point-and-shoot digital cameras that stitch the image in-camera for you, but if you want to shoot a panorama with your SLR, there are some things to consider.  First, and this should be a no-brainer, pick something interesting to shoot.  It may look impressive as is, but if you pick out something with substance, it will look even better!

So you’ve got your vista picked out.  Now what?  In my experience, the key to producing quality panoramas is making sure your tripod is level.  If this is the case, you will have much better luck at the stitching process.  I have used two different methods to level my gear; the first is via a 2-stop process that’s super cheap.

My tripod does not have a built-in bubble level, so I start by removing the head, and placing a bubble level (~$3 at Ace Hardware) on the tripod.  Tinker with the lengths of your tripod legs until you level the tripod.  Now, put your head back on, and you’ll see that it can rotate on a level base.

By removing the head and using a spirit bubble level, I can make sure my tripod head is rotating on a level base.

The second, and more recent, method I’ve used is by putting a leveling base on my tripod.  I use the Manfrotto 438 leveling base, but other companies like Acratech also make them.  They’re more expensive than my first method, but they’re way faster and you don’t have to fiddle with your tripod legs.  To level your camera on your tripod use a hot shoe level like the Jobu Designs Dubble Bubble level.

My tripod head can be leveled easily and quickly using the Manfrotto 438 leveling base.

After leveling my tripod head, I level my camera on the tripod using a hotshoe level.

OK, now you’re level.  The rest of the pano practically shoots itself.  I usually work from left to right, making sure to overlap my images by anywhere from ~1/3-1/2.  This makes for a lot of images (many of mine are 12-15 images) but you’re almost sure to get a better stitch at the computer.

A couple of other things to consider before we discuss stitching:

• To shoot vertical or horizontal…that is the question.  In stitching, you’re almost guaranteed to lose a little of the top and bottom of your images because the software will correct for barrel distortion.  Because of this, I almost always shoot my panos in a vertical orientation.  That way I’m left with an image that is a little more proportional, instead of something VERY long and skinny!
• Just like with any shot, sharpness matters.  When I shoot panoramas, I almost always use a cable release and set my camera to shoot in mirror lock-up mode.  This reduces any possible vibration, hopefully ensuring a better stitch.
• Do not change your focus or any camera settings while shooting your panorama.  However, consider bracketing your shots.  That way you have more to work with at the computer, and you can even consider making an HDR panorama (let’s save that for another blog post, please).
• I haven’t addressed the problem of parallax yet.  Unless you are rotating on the nodal point of your lens (or using a pano slider), you will have parallax issues if anything in your pano is closer than ~10-15 feet.  The cheap solution is to make sure trees, rocks, etc are further than ~10-15 feet from my camera, and that seems to work to subdue parallax.  The obvious downside to my method is that you’re constrained as to your compositional choices.

So, now you’ve got your image files, and you’re back at the computer.  Can you simply align them in Photoshop manually, then crop the canvas down to its final size?  I think this works for most people ~1% of the time (I’ve managed to do it once, and I’m 99% sure it was dumb luck).  Every other time, the barrel distortion, as well as other factors, will necessitate the use of software to help you stitch your images together.

Dumb luck. I stitched this 4-image pano together manually--I've never gotten it to work since.

For stitching panoramas, I use the software package Panorama Factory.  I like it because it has a fully automatic mode, which should work really well if you leveled your rig properly and provided enough overlap between images.  Alternatively, Panorama Factory allows for various levels of manual stitching, letting you define stitching points, and for the occasional difficult to stitch image, I like that mode a lot as well.  If you are interested in shooing HDR panoramas, Panorama Factory will stitch different sets of exposure identically so they overlay perfectly.  I have to admit that I’ve tried this once, and it didn’t work quite as smoothly as I’d like.  I’ve found that using the auto-align feature in Photoshop CS4 works well before blending images.

So, that’s basically it.  This tutorial was meant to get you taking beautiful panoramas using a minimal amount of equipment.  I hope you enjoyed it.  Feel free to add to the comment section if there’s anything I missed, or needs corrected.  Hope you can find this useful!

An 11-image panorama of the Ritter Range, Sierra Nevada, California

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If you ask my wife, patience is not one of my virtues.  I usually want instant solutions to problems, and you do not even want to be around me at Christmas (little kids have nothing on me!).  However, in photography, I tend to have significantly more patience.  I’m happy to wait several hours for a shot, and lately I find myself sitting on images for days, weeks or even months before processing them.  This potentially has a lot of benefits: it helps us assess their artistic value without the excitement of having fresh images hang over our head, and it also forces us to be patient and thorough in post-processing.

The image I processed tonight benefitted from my waiting, I think.  I took this panorama of Tuolumne Meadows, in Yosemite National Park, last August, but I haven’t processed it until tonight.  Once I got home, I wasn’t really excited about the way it looked.  But, tonight, that golden light on one of my favorite meadows made me wistful for the high country, as well as letting me look forward to summer.  This is a 10-frame panorama of the meadows; I processed each RAW file 3 times, at -2/3, 0, and +1/3 EV then combined them in Photoshop using the blending technique recently described by Younes Bounhar.

I’m pleased with the result; clicking on the image will link you to a larger image file so you can more fully appreciate the detail here!   I love panoramas because they really bring you into the scene.  Enjoy!

Tuolumne Meadows panorama, Yosemite National Park, California, August 2009

Click here to see all of my Yosemite National Park images.

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I really cannot believe that January–1/12 of 2010–is already behind us.  It seems like just yesterday we were all sharing our favorite images of 2009, and we’ve already created so many fantastic images this year.

Here in southern California, the weather is already starting to feel spring-like.  Around my house, the hillsides are turning the vibrant green that will be with us until April.  There’s talk of a decent wildflower season after our epic rainfall totals during the last couple of weeks.  While our spring will have moved into summer by the time the rest of the nation begins theirs, I’m looking forward to all of those spring time photo outings–the ones where you (should) take just a few moments to bask in the warm sunlight, or in a grass-filled meadow.  I’m also looking forward to hopefully fitting in our annual trip to Death Valley National Park this year.

If you haven’t been, Death Valley is a pleasantly deceiving national park.  The idea of “DEATH Valley” brings to mind a barren landscape that’s, to put it bluntly, boring.  Anyone who’s been there will tell you the opposite.  Its an amazing park, encompassing many ecosystems, and several natural wonders.  What amazes me is how much diversity is present in a relatively small space.

One of my favorite places in Death Valley is the Racetrack Playa, where the famed “racing rocks” are found.  The playa itself is a very flat surface; its altitude varies only a few centimeters across its 1-mile length!  When the playa is wet (as it probably is now), it makes a very slick surface, and high winds push the “racing rocks” along, leaving tracks that remain after the mud has dried.  Many of the rocks are quite large, and I’m happy I haven’t been on the playa during the winds that are capable of pushing rocks that heavy–I would guess there would have to be gusts in excess of 80 or 90 mph!

This month’s photo is a star trail shot I took in April 2009 on the Racetrack.  It is a composite of about 25 2.5-minute shots, stacked using Photoshop.  I wanted to include the north star–Polaris–in my shot, so I had to look for a rock that had a northerly trajectory–apparently there aren’t many!

Star trails on the Racetrack Playa, Death Valley National Park, April 2009

G. Dan Mitchell, an excellent San Francisco Bay Area photographer, has recently been writing a couple of very informative and comprehensive guides to visiting Death Valley.  You can see them here and here.  Mac Danzig, who has an amazing Death Valley portfolio, also has taken the time to write an excellent guide to Death Valley here.

You can see all of my Death Valley photographs here.

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