The Unknown Soldier

The Unknown Soldier Non-HDR version

The power of HDR images is sure known by many of you, but I still wonder if this has really much in common with photography, as we know it. Yes, you still have to find a nice composition and framing, the subject must be interesting and you got to know the technique to take so many different exposures, but after that, the software's algorythmics do the rest for you. All right, you have to know how to move the slides, but this is the same in Lightroom or Photoshop so its just part of the game.

The Unknown Soldier HDR version

Five exposures can turn a so and so image into something quite dramatic and eye catching. This is a night shot of the Unknown Soldier in Piazza Venezia in Rome. The Romans call it the Typewriter, because of its shape. I put it together in Photomatix using a quite conservative editing, like many of my HDR, but still the result is quite impressive, un realistic I would say. Here you can compare it with the result I got from just one of the shots, the one that offered the best exposure and that I had to work in Lightroom with some dodging and burning and selective retouching. You can judge yourself and pick the one you like the best.

Graduated Filters

Even in this high speed developing digital era, filters are important. I have learnt it the hard way, by making mistakes, and improving by reading magazines, web sites and listening to the others. Thus, there are people who are not aware of this, even “specialist” photo retailers, check this out.

One day I was looking for my first Neutral Graduated Filter to buy and hopped into a Madrid shop. The lady at the desk looked at me with a strange face, as if I was asking for some weird sado-maso rubber accessory. “Now, with Photoshop, nobody uses filters, we don‘t sell them anymore, you don’t need them”. This translates into this: “Sorry buddy, I know nada de nada about photography and you also caught us out of stock because the manager of this shop is a plain idiot and has lost the plot.”

Fair enough, in Madrid there’s also a great photography outlet (www.fotocasiondigital.com) and you can find there everything you need. So I was pretty relieved when I finally found my Cokin ND filters and started playing with them. First I bought a Soft Grey Neutral (P121S), then a Medium Grey Neutral (P121M).
The image on the right has been shot with the Medium Grey Neutral.

After a while, let’s say few months, I grabbed a Hard Tobacco Grad (P125). I have seen photos in the mags and the web done with this filter and I loved the result, is quite addictive. In fact at the moment my number one choice, even though I resist myself to use it all the time for reasons you can easily understand.

The image on the left is the same as the one on the right but it has been shot with the Hard Graduated Tobaco Filter

More information on Cokin filters here: http://www.cokin.com/ico3-p1-6.html

Another nice thing I have learnt is that the Cokin filters holder comes in different versions. First of all, if you use lenses up to 82mm diameter you will need the P series. Now, from this series you have two holders to choose. The P Filter-Holder is good to stuck up to three filters but is a bad choice if you use ultra wide angle lenses. The edges of the holder sneak into the frame and I had to zoom to 14mm at least to get a clean image. Again, the clerk in Fotocasión, this time a good photog himself, showed me the right one: the P-Wide Angle Holder. Is thinner, and you can only slide in one filter but it allows you to shoot (on DX format) even at 11 or 12mm, or 10mm if you don’t mind cropping a bit the image later (it darkens the corners a bit). If you use FX or 35mm film Cokin suggests using it with 20mm filters (some more information here: http://www.cokin.com/ico15/ico15-haut.html?=#p)

The reason why you want to use these filters is because, most of the time, while shooting landscapes, there will be a major difference in terms of exposure between the sky and the rest. Skies will be 1, 2, 3 or even 4 stop brighter than the land and if you don’t do HDR or don’t care for multiple exposures blending, either you use a filter or you’re doomed to an underexposed land or a washed out sky. The neutral density graduated filters will allow you to reduce this difference: the grey part of the filter will reduce the luminosity of the sky and the clear part will leave the exposure that you choose for the land untouched.

It is important to say that the graduated filters cannot always be used for every landscape shot. They are recommended in those situations where the edge between the land and the sky is flat, but if you have trees or mountains the filter will inevitably darken these too, and they won’t look too good.
See image on the right, the trees on the upper right are completely dark because of the use of a graduated filter

Photoshop can do way many things, and you are probably able to darken a sky up to a certain point, yet, I doubt you can recover burned highlights or a completely white sky. These filters don’t cost a fortune and they save your butt in a lot of good photographic situations. If you go to a shop and the clerk tells you that there’s no need for filters anymore, just do yourself a favour, change retailer….

HDR? I'm going to think about it!

This is my first attempt to HDR using Photomatix (http://www.hdrsoft.com/), probably the bets program around to edit your HDR photos. What is HDR? The word stands for High Dynamic Range and in very simple words it is the result of 3 or more images taken at different exposures and mixed together to achieve such an incredible dynamic range that most of the times neither the human eye is able to detect. For example one image is exposed for the shadows, one for the mid range and one for the highlights. The program blends them together and gives you a vast array of sliders to play with every aspect of the photo.

Usually the results look like a tad fake to me. People either overwork the images on purpose to achieve a specific effect, or they do it by misusing the program and create monster images, amazing to see but tiring, due to their non realistic look. The good ones, those who master the software, make great works, and I bow to them. Check out the HDR group in Flickr http://www.flickr.com/groups/hdr/ to see what this is all about.

I have tried with a couple of photos on the trial software, this is why it comes with a water mark, and finally decided to keep this one to show you. We are far from the editing of some stunning images, here I used the blending mode that is said to give the more realistic results and played very little with the sliders.

When I browse people’s work in Flickr (www.flickr.com)I am always a tad suspicious about HDR images. Being a bit on the conservative side, those photos look just stunning compared to the others and still I’m not sure if this is ok or not. Confused by progress, that’s what I think I’m suffering now but…let me learn how to use the machine from hell and I might become a great HDR fan… !

Pikes, my freshwater love affair

Before getting hooked to saltwater fishing I was an avid freshwater addict. while still in Italy, either when I was in Rome or Milan my target was any kind of predator I could find in lakes and rivers. By that time it was mostly Black Bass, Trouts, Chubs and Pikes, the latter being the highest in the ranking. When I finally moved to Spain, where I still reside, I switched my attention mostly to the salty drink yet haven't abandoned my first lover. I soon discovered that the potential for freshwater predators in the Iberian peninsula was much better than the one I had in my home country, and Pikes were numerous in several environment, among whom I favoured the small rivers.

The real heaven for me was the area of Castilla Leon, near Zamora and Benavente. This is where I found the Pikes in wading waters, eager to snack a top water lure or a skirted spinnerbait. To my greatest delight I could walk on the river for a long time without having to exit the water, from knee deep to the maximum allowed by my wading boots: casting under the trees, near the edges, on top of the weeds with weedless soft lures.

To be very honest this is till my favourite fishing of them all. I travel all over the tropics during the season but is when I go back and target my marbled friends, face to face, on my own or with one fishing buddy, that I make peace again with fishing. To add more interest to the adventure I have now found a way to carry my DSRL with me, and it really takes little risk (well, just a bit) to drawn, and finally I can take more decent photos with the help of my occasional fishing buddy. Among them all my friend Pepe http://josehweigand.blogspot.com/ is the one that better fits my idea of "ideal" fishing companion. Not only is an excellent fisherman, but he is also a very good photographer, and he has fun both fishing and snapping images altogether, not to mention posing for my attempts to catch a decent exposure.

The last day we spent together was delighted by an extremely good activity of our toothy friends which allowed us to take a good deal of photos, and of course have a blast fishing.

There's no monster fish among our catches but the strike of a Pike on a top water lure is something that really gives you a thrill. Finally, when a 10lb fish shows up is a big party, we're not picky guys...

He played a lot with his D300 furious shooting sequence and I carried forward my experiments with the external strobe, trying to learn something that the guys at Strobist show with so much skill at http://www.strobist.blogspot.com/.

Pepe also taught me a trick or two, and I'm very grateful to him to share his expertise. He has just put out his own blog this very week, actually through him I discovered that it was easy and suitable even for an Internet dork like me, and pushed the release of mine as well. We're counting the days to be back there, knee deep in the water casting on top of the weeds, waiting for the amazing blast of a Pike. No matter how small or big it is, we're there for the enjoyment.

My humble guide to better fishing portraits. Chapter 1

I'm far from being a professional photographer, whatever it means, and by no means I'm a good one but at least, I have dedicated 80% of my shooting time to grab images of recreational fisherman with their catches, or situations very much alike. Being in contact with several good photographers and very helpful magazine editors, I have slowly improved my skills and discovered new ways to make better photos. Of course there's much room for improvement, every day I learn a new trick and through the global web and it's many forums dedicated to photography and imaging, there's always so much to learn. Anyway, here's what I can pass along at the moment. This is what I have learnt so far and I hope it can be of some help for the readers of this humble blog.

Composition is sure enough one of the main issues. Most of the time you need your subject to fill the frame, what you don't want is to have a lot of sky, land or boat appearing in the shot, and the angler with the fish as a dot in the middle. Even worst is somebody's back or an arm included in the image, rods sticking out of the back of the angler and alike. The following image is an example of what to do not, in fact it includes in one single shot everything you can do wrong (and it was one of my biggest dog tooth tunas....)

Here is another image, less crowded, with a better cropping and yet with many undesirable elements in it. The back of another fisherman and the rod sticking behind the guy holding the fish

This is an idea of how a proper image should look like, tightly cropped, no much room around the angler and his catch and still some background to understand that he is in a beautiful place, the Andaman Islands in this case

Here is another example of what I consider a decent take, with the help of a beautiful stormy sky

A problem that often shows up is the leaning horizon. This is not an extremely big issue because you can easily correct it later in Photoshop , but if you get it right by the time of the exposure you have few advantages. First of all you don't have to crop the image, hence you don't risk to damage the take because you find yourself with the fish jaws in line with the cropping. You don't loose precious pixels either, they could come handy if your image need to go on a double spread. You save editing time too, and this is valuable when you have to work on hundreds of photos after a trip. The photo below is a decent example of wrong horizon, fortunately here there's enough room to correct it as you will see in the second image.

People, when at sea, usually wear sunglasses and hats. Nothing wrong with that, they add protection to your face and head in case a vagabond lure skyrockets against you or a flying treble hook decided to get a grip on you eye. The problem arises when is time to take a picture, in fact, especially in harsh midday sun, when the light is right on top of your subject, you cannot see his/her face or, at the best, is very dark, as you can see here.

The following photo shows how a flash, even a external flash put on camera, can lit up the whole image, get rid of the undesired shades and make the best of an harsh light. Quite an easy and handy solution. Whatever weather I'm in, whatever is the sun position I always use a fill flash. Put in manual, best of all off-camera, choose the correct amount of light you need not to over or under due and changing the angle of the light to your subject take few shots. Sometimes 1/64Th will be enough while other days, especially if you want to underexpose the sky, you might need to pump up the power and go to 1/4Th, or 1/2. So far, being so close to the subject, especially when using such extreme wide angle lenses, I have rarely needed to get full power but if you start clamping your flash further away from the subject, it might be necessary to take advantage of the full capacities of your strobe. I've yet to try that but as soon as I have some direct experience I will keep you posted.

We stop here for the moment, but this is not finished yet. In a following part I will try to explain new ways to take the best possible fishing photos. In the meanwhile, if you would like to contribute to this blog please go ahead and write your comments