Zooming in on Spring Leafscapes

Using a Telephoto Lens to Focus on the Spring Color

 

Having survived stick and waterfall seasons we are now firmly in leaf season. Mid to late spring is a time of infinitely varied curtains of green and it is one of my favorite times of the year.  Not only can we say goodbye to the last remnants of winter (I hope), but the colors in the trees rival the autumn for warmth and brilliance.  Too soon the leaves will settle into their deeper and more monotonous summer greens, but while it lasts I feel like a kid in a candy shop trying to capture the unique beauty of new beginnings.

Not the Grand View
So far this spring I have been concentrating on macro images of the early buds and flowers, but the colors of the spring leaves lend themselves to a broader canvas.   In the Spring and Autumn, when the emphasis is on the color of the foliage, photographers often capture expansive images of hillsides with vast splashes of color.  It is tempting to focus on the grand panoramas, but for me, these images are generally monotonously busy and without direction.  I prefer to move in on the detail, arranging leaves, trunks and sky into more intimate compositions.  I had great fun this early spring limiting myself to the world seen through my 100mm Macro lens, but for the spring foliage I decided to switch to my telephoto zoom generally restricting my view to the 300 - 400 mm range.

 


The Telephoto View

Long lens' change photographic vision in a number of ways.   I found that the massive hunk of glass hanging from my shoulder quickly altered the focus of my attention as I scanned for more distant subjects that I could pull into the viewfinder.  The long telephoto restricts the angle of view making it easier to isolate arrangements of leaves, tree trunks, branches and fauna into simple but powerful compositions.  It compresses distant layers of foliage creating interesting and complex combinations of differing flora.  At the same time, depending on aperture, the telephoto creates a narrow range of sharp focus allowing soft bokeh to simplify the image and draw attention to the main subject(s).


 


 
 I started by scanning across pastures to the distant forest edge looking for patterns. The variously colored leaves created lovely montages while in other areas the dark branches provided interesting contrast with the soft foliage. Once I started looking, the compositions were everywhere. Foreground elements also helped to provide interest and context to the images. Through the perspective flattening effect of the long lens fences, sheep, and horses were compressed into the scene linking the background with the foreground interest. The effect can be subtle but still provides an almost unstated sense of connection which is very calming.




A couple of days ago I awoke to find a gentle mist hanging on the trees.   I rushed out  to shoot before the fog melted away. The depth enhancing effect of the mist combined with the compression of the telephoto produced lovely contrasts.

Spring Mist

 



 The leaves are beginning to settle into their summer hues. Sadly, the soft spring colors seem as fleeting as autumn's garish display, while it lasts it is well worth zooming in on the show.
Jeffrey Newcomer
Partridgebrookreflections.com

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Hand-Held Focus Stacking

Snow Peak, Mount Monadnock, Marlborough, NH

Using Auto-Focus Points to Hold the Frame

This week I wanted to share a simple technique to obtain multiple (or at least two) images for focus stacking while hand-holding the camera.


Focus Stacking
I have previously discuss in considerable detail the technique of focus stacking to achieve deep depth of field.  This approach
requires multiple images focused at different planes of the scene which are then combined in post processing to achieve sharpness throughout.  A key requirement of the technique is that the images all be framed to match when aligned in the computer.  With sophisticated software, such as Photoshop, the match does not have to be perfect, but typically this is best achieved with the camera locked down on a tripod.  It can be quite challenging to manually vary focus while trying to hand-hold the framing perfectly constant.  This is where my camera's auto focus points can come to the rescue.

I have never been a big fan of auto-focus for my landscape

Hibernation, Pomfret, Vt.  Two focus planes.

photography.  Even as the technology has improved, I tend to prefer to assure sharpness by manually focusing, often on a tripod and, in poor light frequently, using the Live View Screen.  But when I am faced with a scene which contains a discrete foreground and distant background,  I can often get good results with a two image stack, one focused on the foreground detail and the other on the background.  This is the situation where auto-focus can save me the chore of getting out my tripod, if I have it on hand.


Mount Monadnock
Most photographers are familiar with the technique of holding the shutter down half-way to lock focus on a part of the scene and then recomposing for the final shot.  This is most frequently used when focusing a subject that is off center, but the same technique can be used to grab a couple of images for a simple focus stack.  In the example of Mount Monadnock shot from Marlborough, New Hampshire, I locked focus on the detail of the fence and then re framed to include the distant mountain.  The first image caught the fence in clear focus and then without moving the camera I locked focus on mighty Monadnock and shot again.  As I shot the first image I carefully noted the position of the central focus point square to assist in close alignment of the second image.  In more complicated situations, fully sharp focus stacking can require more than two images, but in bright light, when I can stop down, two are often enough to get good results, especially when there are just two discrete planes of interest. 

Canon 5D Mark II Focus points

Mill Ice, Harrisville, New Hampshire
My Canon 5D Mark II has 9 focus points displayed on the screen, but only the central square is a cross sensor, vertical and horizontal, and therefore the most accurate.  When possible I try to use the central point for focus stacking but there are many times when the central point aligns with neither the foreground or background in my desired composition.  Faced with this situation I can usually find one of the other focus points that will provide the coverage I need.  In my image of the frozen mill pond in Harrisville, New Hampshire, I angled the camera down to using the top focus point to lock in the sharpness of the foreground ice and then recomposed.  In my second image, the focus point was in perfect position to catch the iconic Harrisville Public Library. 

Mill Freeze

Using one of the 8 peripheral focus points can reduce the reliability of the auto-focus, especially in dim light or low contrast. To help, I have switched my focus lock from the shutter to a button on the back of the camera that doesn't require continuous pressure to maintain the focus.  In the mill pond image, I could lock the foreground focus with the central point and then switch to the upper point ready for when I refocused on the background.  Not all cameras can switch the focus button. The directions for mine were buried in an obscure corner of my manual, but, with practice, the ability to lock focus without having to hold the shutter down, works well for me in most situations.

Focus Button on Back of the Camera

Ashuelot River, Keene, NH,
Multiple Focus Planes

The trick with this technique is to hold the camera steady as you re-press the shutter and to learn how to move the focus point around the screen.  I have gotten good enough that I will occasionally try to move the focus point within the screen to catch more than just two images for stacking.  The more manipulations I try, the harder it is to maintain the frame, but Photoshop can do some amazing things with auto-alignment.  Still it is about at this time that I grab for the tripod.




The speed and accuracy of auto-focus in modern cameras is amazing and improving all the time.  I still like to use manual focus in many landscape situation but it is important to understand your camera's focusing capabilities and to use them when the time is right.

Jeffrey Newcomer
partridgebrookreflections.com

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Everyday Photoshop Magic : Layers

 Nellie Beyond the Wall, Sort of

Layers and Masks
I have said many times before, I live and die by Photoshop.  This remarkable program rescued me from the my dank, fume infested wet darkroom and opened a new world of possibilities to bring my images to their best.  There are many great books and tutorials about Photoshop but I want to talk briefly about a few of the essential elements of the program which make it such a revolutionary and essential part of my creative work.  I have kept up with the latest versions of Photoshop including the cloud based Photoshop CC.  The newest flashy features are always fun to play with, but the continuing strength of the program has much more to do with the long established tools that have been refined over the years, but in their simplest form remain the core of this magical window on photography.  My goal is not to provide detailed tutorials, but to help those unfamiliar with the program to develop an appreciation of its power and to understand why it is worth the effort to incorporate it into their creative process.  Full versions of Photoshop come with a substantial sticker shock, but most of what I will be discussing can be done in Photoshop Elements and a variety of other editing programs for a substantially reduced cost.   So I must start this discussion with Layers.




Layers
 Off all the tools in Photoshop, Layers is the most essential to my work and it was one of the most difficult to fully understand.  The learning curve for Photoshop can be quite steep.  It took me three passes at the program before it finally clicked.  I started with a tutorial book and then a coarse at my local college - nothing!  Finally I found a book by Ben Willmore that got me going and I haven't stopped learning since.  This program is so broad and deep, that I am convince that no one can ever truly understand it all, but you don't need to be a master to reap much of Photoshop's amazing power. Layers is a key part of that power.

Layers are used in the editing process to add picture components or processing to the original background image.  They are most often compared to placing a transparent sheet over a picture on which an images may be place to overlie a portion our a substantial amount of the original picture,  or on which processing can be applied to affect the underlying image.  These are referred respectively as Image Layers and Adjustment Layers.

Layer Stack.  Adjustments only where they are needed

Image Layers
An Image Layer contains image material, actual pixels, which are laid down above the original image.  Top layers are always seen as overlying and obscuring those below, and in regions where the image layer is blank, the underlying picture will show through. 

Adjustment Layers
Adjustment layers work in the same way as Image Layers but they contain processing instructions rather than pixels. An Adjustment

Adjustment Layers

layer may be used to modify the appearance of the underlying image layer(s) in a broad range of ways.  Brightness and contrast can be adjusted using tools including Levels, Curves, Brightness and Contrast.  Color quality and balance can be controlled by Vibrance, Hue & Saturation,  Photo Filter, Black & White and Color Balance tools. The major advantage of making these changes on an Adjustment layer is that the underlying image remains untouched and modifications can be added, removed, or modified at any point during processing.  The real power of adjustment layers is the ability to control them, to apply just the amount of affect you want just where you want it, and that is the magic of Layer Masks.

Layer Masks
Layer Masks are not actual independent layers but are best thought of as a window placed over an Image or Adjustment Layer to control how it is seen.  The basic rule is, "White reveals, Black conceals".  When an Adjustment Layer is created you will see a

Windows on the Layers

white box just to the right of the layer's icon.  This is the layer mask.  It starts all white, like a clear window, meaning that the full effect of the layer is being applied to the entire image.  The mask can be painted with black which, like blackening a window, will block the Adjustment Layer from affecting the underlying parts of the image.  If it is entirely black the adjustment will have no effect anywhere.  The masking does not have to be "all or none".  Painting with shades of gray will partially reveal the effect and the masks overall impact can be also be varied using the Opacity slider. 

Enough! I promised that this would not be a detailed tutorial.  Lets look at a quick example of the power of layers.  I have concluded that my images have too few pictures of our dog Nellie, so why not add her in.

Background Layer : Marlborough, NH

Nellie, Source Image

Nellie Beyond the Wall, Compositing the Pooch.

Image Layer of Nellie

I decided to add an image of Nellie behind the wall in an early autumn picture from Marlborough, New Hampshire.  Of course, I
would never do this in my work, but anything for my readers. I found a picture of her from a maple sugaring shoot I did a couple of years ago that I thought would work for this exercise. I adjusted the size and then moved a cropped version over to my background image.  This automatically created an Image Layer overlying the background.  Unlike Adjustment Layers, Image Layers do not have layer masks when they are created, but a mask is just one click away.  I then removed all the extraneous parts of the image layer by painting the mask with black over everything that wasn't Nellie, and over the parts of  her that belonged behind the wall.  

Curves Adjustment Layer with Mask

Shezam!, she was, magically transported in time and space, but she didn't look quite right.  She was too bright for the shadowy area under the tree.  The color balance was a bit off, especially in her excessively red whiskers. The scene was illuminated from the left, but Nellie's face was brighter on the right. I corrected all of these problems, then subtly brightened her eyes and added a bit of spotlighting with separate adjustment layers, each masked to apply the changes just to where they were needed.





 



The Stack

Full Layer Stack

The result is a stack of layers which selectively fine tune the composite to help Nellie slip into the scene.  It's not perfect, but I hope it demonstrates just a few of the advantages of layers and layer masks.  A full discussion of the how layers are created and manipulated would require a substantial book and I am still trying to grasp all of it's subtleties.  It is just one of the reasons that I find Photoshop endlessly fascinating and powerful, and why, if you haven't already, you should explore all the power of this amazing tool.


This week I have been experimenting with video screen capture to augment some of my articles.  Check out my first attempt which is a short video successively revealing the effect of the layers in my example.  I've got a lot to learn with this, so let me know what you think.    




 Video Screen Capture also on YouTube
Anybody know how to make the thumbnails for other video disappear from the end of the my video?


Jeffrey Newcomer
Partridgebrookreflections.com

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Time-Lapse Time

What do you do when you are stuck in one place for four hours? Photography everything! 

Mountain Time-Lapse
A few weeks ago I decided to set up for a long time-lapse video. My plan was to capture the clouds moving across Mt Monadnock from late afternoon until dark. Assuming a standard 24 frames per

Ground Cover

second video, I would need 720 images to yield a 30 second time-lapse. Taking an image every 20 seconds, I had to record for 4 hours. I set up in Marlborough's Town Meeting House Park with a lovely view of the mountain. Time-lapse consumes a lot of clicks, so I routinely use my old Canon 5D to avoid wearing out the shutter on my Mark II. I set up my intervalometer to shoot every 20 seconds. Since I knew that the light would be fading, I adjusted the exposure to be bit bright. I made sure that the the camera was in manual mode, with both auto focus and auto exposure off. Variations in exposure, such as with a passing cloud, can be very distracting in the final video. I turned the monitor off to avoid excessive drain on the battery. Everything was set. I pushed the intervalometer button and stood back to watch the magic unfolding. 


Waiting for the Magic
Five minutes later, the magic was still unfolding, and I still had 3 hours and 55 minutes to go. So what do you do while you are waiting for a four hour time-lapse to be finished? Nellie and I could have just settled on the grass to enjoy the beautiful scene, but the black flies had other ideas and we quickly realized that we had to keep moving.

My workhouse 24-105 lens was stuck on time-lapse duty, but I still had my 5D mark II and lots of other lens choices. I started looking around. The first shots were obvious. I took pictures of my camera setup and of the lovely mountain panorama. The old Meeting House is long gone from the park but the site does offer some very nice opportunities to frame Monadnock with lovely birches and old apple trees. The park is lined by a nice rough stone wall and is bordered by a classic tree lined dirt road. Great, I captured all of that and I still had 3 hours to go. 




Grab the Macro

Cemetery Cover

When you run out of ideas, you can always go someplace else or grab a different lens. I wasn't going anywhere so I grabbed my 100mm Macro and started thinking closer. There were patches of beautiful delicate spring wildflowers which were particularly nice where they contrasted with the cold gray of the stones in the adjoining old cemetery. Nellie looked a little confused as I lay in grass but as the growing dusk led the mosquitoes to chase away the black flies, I couldn't stay in one place for long.




 


As usual, Nellie was extremely patient, but I did have to alternate periods of photography with brisk walks up and down the road. Although it seemed unlikely that roving gangs of thugs might be cruising the local parks looking for unattended cameras, I still felt uncomfortable straying too far from my tripod. 


Infrared Magic

I was running out of options, but then I remembered that I still had my Infrared converted Canon 20D in the back of the car. As always, infrared opened a new set of opportunities. The spring foliage contrasted nicely with the Mountain peak and with the tree lined road. As I have discussed previously, Infrared requires a whole different way of seeing the world. 

 

Eventually the bugs got too aggressive and we retreated to the car for the last 30 or 40 minutes, but I was still able to shoot the half moon, framed by the branches, through my car's moon roof. In Infrared the inky sky contrasted nicely with the moon and surrounding foliage.


 



And Finally the Video
The four hours were up. I grabbed my equipment and headed for home. The time actually passed quicker than I expected. The time-lapse turned out ok, but I actually had more fun trying to figure out what to do with the four hours. Being tied to one spot can stimulate fresh ideas and vision. Although I could have done without the bugs. 



Windy Sunset on Mt. Monadnock


Check out the Video on YouTube

Jeffrey Newcomer
Partridgebrookreflections.com

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Taking a Fresh Look at Your Photography

How did I miss this yawning Galapagos Sea Lion?

Dope Slaps From the Past

Last week, as I was preparing my article about dealing with Chromatic
Aberration, I searched my RAW archives for images that demonstrated the phenomena. I eventually found some good examples, but I was reminded that, whenever I wander about in my archives, I always find neglected treasures. Images that I can't believe I left behind, unrealized.  All of the images here, except the broad Brattleboro glade, were rediscoverd during this one search.

Maine Shore Rediscovered

Pemaquid Shore, Maine

New Harbor Buoys, Maine

I know why it happens. When I get home from a shoot, I upload the images, convert them to DNG, geotag them, add appropriate meta data and rename. I then dive in, excited to get to work on the pictures with the most potential. There are always images that are obvious misses. I delete some, but not as many as I should. If I'm lucky there are a few that are worth further effort. I try to remember to label these with a yellow flags. As I complete work on the best, I change the flag to green on the parent RAW files, but inevitably, before I can get back to all my "yellows", I come back from my next shoot and the poor orphan images are forgotten. 


 Autumn Rediscovered

Minnewawa Brook, Marlborough, NH

Golden Ferns, Spofford, NH

Bratttleboro Glade, My first Look

The sadly neglected images may be of entirely different subjects, but more often they are just different perspectives on familiar locations. The remarkable thing is that, when I return to these archives after months or years, I see them with a fresh eye. My usual thought is, "How could I have possibly missed that!". It is like mining for hidden treasure. Of course, when I find "new" images, I have to stop and edit them right away. I know that, if I move on, they may be lost forever. Last fall I captured
 some shots of the leaves outside of my old office in Brattleboro, Vermont. I ended up printing a nice broad image of the glade, but when I revisited the archive last week, a previously ignored close-up leaped out at me. After a well desired, self-inflicted, dope slap, I got to work on the image and now I like it much better than the original, rather routine, rendering.

I prefer this, new found, view of the glade in Brattleboro

 So my quick search for Chromatic Aberration became an exciting, several hours long, treasure hunt. I salvaged images from a previous ride along the Maine coast, autumn color from seasons past, our trip to Yellowstone last summer and from our amazing 2009 trip to the Galapagos Islands.



 Yellowstone Rediscovered

Faithful Run-Off, Yellowstone

Blue Recovery: Fringed Gentian

 

The value of a fresh look is remarkable and I urge you to take the

Sally Lightfoot Watching the Galapagos Sunset

journey regularly. You have a treasure chest of lonely pixels just waiting to be liberated. As for me, I plan to make a habit, each month, of scanning the archives from previous years. Not only do I expect to find “new” images, but I trust I will be reminded of locations that are worth another visit, perhaps with a new perspective. So get your fresh eye focused, dive back into those archives and get ready for the dope slaps.


Galapagos Islands Rediscovered

Galapagos Sea Lion Blocking our way home

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