Fall Foliage

So I’ve been watching over the past few weeks of other shooters posting their fall foliage work at digital grin, and I’ve been telling myself that I have to get my butt out there out there and shoot some for my own galleries before it all falls off the trees, and I made my up Highway 88 today to see what the Aspens were doing.

I was afraid that I missed the good stuff, as I checked weather.com’s fall foliage map, and it said the area was pretty much passed its peak. To my delight, that wasn’t quite accurate. Yes, a lot of the trees were missing their leaves, but some hadn’t started to turn yet, while others had turned and others were ready to drop their leaves. Anybody who knows me knows I’m really not all that full of myself, and I really don’t have time for people who are, but I was pretty impressed with what I came back with today. It also might be because I came back with a lot of yellow, and it is my favorite color. I bet none of you knew that!

I was really taken back with how many shooters were out on the road doing that same thing I was, both amateur and professional. I was in good company.

While photographing leaves is one of my favorite natural features to photograph, there are ways to photograph them to make them stand out and “glow” using natural light. I couldn’t use that technique today because it was overcast, and I also didn’t want to wait for the sun to be in the right position if it did come out from behind the clouds – I could have been there all day, and I wanted to be home before dark. To make leaves glow, capture them with the light of the sun coming in from behind them instead of in front of them. They look so much better, and not too many people capture leaves this way, so yours will stand out.

I know my last post was related to what I do at the paper, and I don’t really like to talk about “work” on this blog, but I was out on assignment last week, and I came across previously submerged tree stumps with their roots now exposed at Folsom Lake, and I captured one of them while I was out there and added it to my personal collection. If you’re in the area, now is a great time to get out there for this kind of stuff, since the lake is so low.

Shooting In The Dark

Normally, I won’t publish here what I publish on my work blog, but this one is a great cross-over. This won’t publish where I work until December, if you read it here, you get to read it way before our readers do. Hopefully, some of you might find these tips helpful if you’re shooting in dark places.

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Photography is an art, even in photojournalism where it’s ethically frowned upon stage or pose an image that could result in ending your career, it is an art.

So, how do I and others like me do it? It’s about composition, knowing your equipment and understanding its limitations. It’s also about experience.

My greatest challenge is shooting in dark places. The worst two indoor places I’ve had to photograph in as far as lighting is concerned are the Folsom Community Center and the gym at Oak Ridge High School. To the human eye they’re fine, but to a camera, they’re both caves.

If you’re going to shoot with a flash, that’s fine, but most working photojournalists tend to shy away from using a flash, and I include myself in that group. Personally, I don’t like the harsh shadow images that flashes produce, and I do have a diffuser for my flash when I do use it, but there are times when you’ll still get those shadows, which look entirely unprofessional. To boot, you’re influence is also evident in the image of the scene since you caused the shadow to be there where it normally wouldn’t be. Bottom line, while recording the event as an observer, you manipulated the way it really looked, and it isn’t true to the people viewing your image of the way it really was.

So, how do I get the images that I get at sporting events that are in dark places outside at night, such as Friday night football? It’s all about the equipment, understanding it and not pushing it beyond its limits – you can push it to its limits, if you know what those limits are, but not beyond them. After the event is over, and you’re looking at your images, you can tell when you’ve pushed your equipment beyond what it can do to produce a good quality image.

Good lenses for shooting in dark places are usually 2.8 or faster. Generally these professional lenses are more expensive – in the thousands of dollars range, but they help get the job done right. Don’t even think about going into a gym with something slower unless you plan on taking a flash with you.

One thing I do, but most photographers I’ve talked to won’t do, is max out my ISO speed, and shoot at 3200, the highest my camera will go. ISO speed determines how sensitive your camera is to light. The higher the number, the better in low light situations it is. If I were to set my ISO at 3200 in the daylight, my images would blow out under and be over exposed in most circumstances. The downfalls of using a high ISO speed such as 3200, and why most photographers that I’ve talked to stay away from it, is noise. The easiest way to describe noise is equating it to grain – it’s not pretty.

Because I’ve learned how to use the 3200 setting, I’m not afraid of it, and I make some really good quality images while using the setting. You’ve seen them – any night football shot that we’ve published by me has been shot at 3200, as will as most images made inside the Folsom High School gym, and absolutely all the images I’ve made in the Oak Ridge High School gym. Vista del Lago High School will also need the use of the 3200 speed too. I’ve only shot there once so far, though.

One of the drawbacks of shooting in dark places is using a slower shutter where you can’t entirely stop the motion and motion blur will come through. I don’t mind this in certain cases, as it shows the action, but other people do. It’s art, so it’s subjective. At Folsom High under the football field lights, I won’t push the shutter past a 400th of a second. It gets too dark for me for that, and I get more noise that way when I go to lighten the image for print. At the FHS and Vista gym, I usually won’t push past 320th of a second, and sometimes those don’t come out either. At Oak Ridge, it’s a crapshoot. I generally won’t push past a 250th of a second, and sometimes they’re still too dark. Sometimes I’ll drop down to a 100th of a second in that gym, but there’s way too much motion blur that goes on in those shots most of the time. Every once in a while I’ll get something we can use. We come back with a lot more images than you see in print or on the Web. We have to wade through the garbage, and you only get to see the best stuff, but sometimes we’re forced to say, “It is what it is.” I hate that phrase because it generally means it’s not that good, but it was best we could do under the circumstances.

One technique I’ve learned to use in the Oak Ridge gym is go let them come to you by being in front of the action on the sideline. Sometimes this works and I’ll get a clear image while using a 125th of a second with the shutter. I don’t why this works, but it does for me – hey, I’m just the monkey that pushes the buttons… yeah, right. Not all of the pictures are good enough for print, but I’ll usually get something that’s good enough to publish.

This is just a glimpse of shooting in the dark, and if I made it sound easy because of the techniques I use, it’s not – at least in the beginning. There’s more to sports photography then just knowing the settings for the lighting. I’ll talk more about sports photography in my next blog entry.*

* It may not be posted on this blog in that this is really for my work blog.