Secret to Sharp Photos II

United States Capitol Building at Dusk in Washington, DC.

As a follow up to my first article on Secret to Sharp Photos, I found Scott Bourne’s How to Get the Absolutely Sharpest Photo Possible something I’d like to pass along to you. 

The photo of the US Capitol building was taken with a tripod and remote shutter release at an aperture of f/16 for a half second.

View 70: Autograph Hounds

Penn State Football players, Abe Koroma (95, in white) and Evan Royster (22, in blue), autograph footballs, programs, notebooks, miniature helmets, t-shirts, hats, and posters before the annual Blue-White Intersquad Spring game in Beaver Stadium on the Pennsylvania State University campus, College Park, Pennsylvania.

Used the newspaper photographer’s technique to set my camera to f/8 or better (in this case, I used f/11) and held the camera over my head, aimed as best I could and pressed the shutter. Used the Tokina 11-16mm Wide Angle Zoom which created some pleasing distortions and, I hope, gives you a sense of the craziness of the event.

Some YesButs

It’s Friday and some weeks are longer than others. As I was reviewing the photos I took of the circus earlier this month, I realized some of them would make good YesButs.

Do you ever feel…

you are jumping through hoops to please people?

Just…

hanging around.

Running…

in circles.

View 69: Dark Bus Portrait

What if you are in a dark Limo Bus interior, dark night, a camera with one speedlight, no reflectors and want to make a portrait without boring head-on flash. What do you do? Well, if you have been reading Joe McNally’s new book, The Hot Shoe Diaries: Big Light from Small Flashes, you’d think to yourself, Joe would find a way and so should you.

Nikon D70/18-200VR, 1/60s, f/4, 900 ISO, EV -0.3, 18mm Focal Length, SB-600 Speedlight at -1.0 EV

I set my Nikon D70 digital camera and Nikon SB-600 Speedlight to work using the Nikon Creative Lighting System or CLS. CLS allows for using the speedlight off the camera’s hot shoe while the pop-up flash on the camera triggers it wirelessly. I can even control the speedlight’s power output right from the camera. The SB-600 can cover an area as wide as 24mm so, at 18mm, there was some direction to the light as I held it off camera left and about a foot higher than the lens. It took me a few shots to get the light pointed in the direction I wanted to highlight her face and to lower the output to -1.0 EV on the speedlight to get a nice modeling light. Those are windows behind her, and by angling the speedlight, I didn’t get any flash coming back off them. I was about 3 feet from her.

Curious Deer

Whitetail Deer can be very curious. When I pulled up to a viewing area in my car on the Wildlife Drive in the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge last week, this doe wandered over to see what this strange looking thing was with a long, black single eye looking out of it.

Whitetail Deer in the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge.

Song Itch

Song Sparrow scratching an itch on his perch in the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge.

Last year, I shared the song of the Song Sparrow. This year I not only enjoyed the Song Sparrow’s singing but a real life moment. As the saying goes, when you get an itch, scratch it.

View 68: Great Blue Heron

A great blue heron takes flight in the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge on Friday, April 10, 2009. Photographed from the Wildlife Drive on the Main Pool right from the driver's seat of my car.

I’ve been watching Great Blue Herons around central New York for over 40 years. In all that time, I’ve never gotten any good photos of one. Sure, I have some of them sleeping, resting, hunting or flying. None are very sharp or close or interesting.

This changed last Friday as I enjoyed a beautiful sunny morning at the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge. An actively hunting Great Blue Heron wandered to my location taking no mind of my parked car with the Nikon 80-400VR lens extending out the window. I got many, many photos of him standing still or moving slowly as he delicately stepped through the cold water of the marsh. When he looked like he was ready to launch, I was lucky enough to capture his leap into the air trailing water droplets as he moved on to a better fishing spot.

View 67: Circus Clown

A Clown makes a friend at the Tigris Shrine Circus at the NYS Fairground's Coliseum near Syracuse, New York on Sunday, April 5, 2009.

Photographing Waterfalls

Shelving Rock Falls near Lake George, New York.

With April showers comes not just May flowers but the perfect time to photograph waterfalls. I recently came upon this excellent article with tips on how to photograph waterfalls called 7 Effective Waterfall Photography Tips by Australian Photographer, Ilya Genkin. Sure wish I had known about Ilya’s tips before photographing Shelving Rock Falls last year.

If you live in Central or Western New York, visit my friends at Foot Print Press for their waterfall book with detailed directions to 200 waterfalls. Foot Print Press has other books on biking, hiking, paddling, walking and other outdoor activities around New York state.