Shooting Foliage

Lake Arrowhead, Milton, VT

As you may or may not know I live in Vermont. One thing we are known for here besides farming and Maple Syrup is the amazing foliage our Green Mountains have on display every year. Most years I have not even really stopped to take stock in how gorgeous it is or how many photo opps I had. I am afflicted with S.A.D. and it always kicks in this time of year.

Always, that is, until this year. Having this DSLR camera and the capability to express myself artistically in a way that fits my lifestyle (i.e. 2 schoolies and a 1 year old) has done amazing things for my depression. It gets me out there, it gets me thinking of new ways to look at things, and it distracts me from my demons. Even if no one will ever see the hundreds of thousands of photos that I have taken over the past few years and into the next part of my life at least I have one more day here on this Earth.

OK enough about me. Let's get to the foliage! Well since I have had several absolutely breathtaking days to get out with my camera and the stroller (or the baby hiking backpack) I probably took about 1200 photos. Not kidding. Of course I whittle them down to several hundred, and ultimately share about 250. One of the issues I ran into was the positioning of the sun's effect on what my camera chose to wash out. If the sun was behind me, great! The sky came out this vivid blue and the leaves were their brightest orange, yellow, red, and green.

BUT if the sun was in front of me at all, or to the side, it would wash out the sky and make the leaves look dark and yucky:

You can see by the upper left that the sky is blue with some clouds in it but let's be honest, this picture is kind of blah.

What is happening is the camera metered the amount of light it would need based on the darker tree, which in turn caused the sky to be overexposed. There is something your camera does called White Balance. Most cameras, even the one on your phone, have a way to adjust it. Auto white balance is good for beginners, or if you had a sunny day like this one you would set it to Sunny. Also you can try dialing the exposure compensation down a few notches which would tell the camera to take in less light data. Another thing to try is to quicken the shutter speed, and/or tighten up the aperture a bit. It will take some playing around to get it just right. The photo below is an example of the Aperture at F11 and the Shutter Speed at 1/1000 of a second. Oddly enough, I accidentally left the ISO at 800 which normally would have overexposed it but the shutter speed was so quick it didn't matter. It may have had an even darker blue sky if I had set it to 200 like I should have!

To see an album full of delightful foliage photos please visit my Picasa Web Album!

Aperture: Wide vs. Narrow

One thing in photography that intimidated me was Aperture. The word itself seems scientific and foreign to me.

One thing I have tried to do in my life since Kindergarten was to understand those things which scare me. I have done it with math, physics, spiders, and now the inner workings of a camera. I'm not claiming to be a genius in all these subjects but I feel that the best way to get over feelings of self doubt and ignorance is to face something head on that scares the crap out of you.

OK well enough life lessons, let's get to the Aperture!

Basically what I have found is that the wider the Aperture (which means its letting in more light as a whole) the blurrier the background is (which can be very pleasing) and the smaller the Aperture the more in focus the background is. I spent some time pondering why exactly that is. To some people with a logical brain the answer may be obvious. But I am an abstract thinker so it takes me a few minutes :)

Here is an example of a wide open Aperture on a sunny beautiful summer day:

Notice that the Goldenrod in front is sharp and crisp and the stuff in the background looks kind of mushy and soft.

Now here is an example of a narrow Aperture opening, same scene, different orientation:

What I feel is that when you let more light in the camera is only able to record what is directly in front of it in the short time the shutter is open, leaving the stuff in the back to be present but not as sharp. When there is a more focused amount of light coming in the camera is able to "see" more without being overwhelmed. Aperture Priority (Av) is one of my favorite settings. There is a lot you can do with it and it can bring emotion to your photos depending on subject and lighting!

If you want to read the mechanical definition of Aperture on Wikipedia click here :)

Soften Up

Sometimes you just want a photo to focus on one thing, and have everything else kind of fade into the background. This can be achieved in two ways. The above photo was processed using Picasa. I opened the photo, clicked on the Effects tab, and chose "Soft Focus". This creates a central focal "circle" that you can adjust to widen or constrict. There is also a slider bar to adjust the amount of blur you are giving edges. I usually widen it and reduce blur so that it looks more natural. It depends on the kind of photo it is.

The photo above in this case represents a use of the settings on my camera. I switched the dial to Av (Aperture priority) and opened up the Aperture as wide as it would go, in this case I believe it was set at 4.0. The camera automatically selects a shutter speed to go along with the lighting. I got as close to the flower as my camera would allow (using the 55-85 mm lens) and this is the result. The background is nice and blurry, an effect called "bokeh" in the photography world, and the tulip and dew drops are nice and crisp. Very pleasing to the eye!