Vacation Photography: Fireworks and the 4th. of July

Fireworks, Every kid loves them and every adult secretly loves them. In America the biggest day for fireworks is July the 4th. Taking photographs of fireworks is easy if you have the right tools. Believe it or not I searched my hard drive for some firework photos that I had taken and I just can’t find them. I did find a few a friend of mine had taken with his Nikon camera so I thought I might share a few of his photos taken at an Independence Day party a few years ago.


Photo Credit: John Blandford

Hardware

• DSLR Camera or at least a point and shoot camera with ISO adjustment, timer mode, and long shutter adjustment.
• Tripod
• Remote Trigger, if your camera will accept a remote trigger.
• Wide Angle Prime or Zoom Lens - 18mm - 28mm will do just fine.
• A flashlight. You will need the flashlight if you need to change settings on the camera and you are not familiar enough to make those changes in the dark.

Camera Settings

• Turn off the flash.
• ISO - 100 - 200 (You will be tempted to use a high ISO, but don’t do it. Fireworks are bright and the sky is dark. You are taking photos of the fireworks and not the sky.)
• fStop - start at f8 and if it needs to be brighter, start working towards f2.8. If the scene is over-exposed adjust the fStop smaller towards f11.
• Image stabilization - Turn it off.
• Focus - Manual and the focus should be set to infinity.

Technique

• Mount your camera on the tripod and aim it to the part of the sky where the fireworks will explode.
• Set the focus and ISO.
• Set the shutter time for several seconds up to 30 seconds or set the shutter to bulb if you are using a remote trigger. The important thing to remember here is that the longer the shutter is open, the more fireworks will appear in one shot. If you leave it open 2 seconds you might get one or two bursts and if you leave it open 30 seconds it will look like the grand finale of the show.
• Set your timer if you are not using a remote trigger.
• When the fireworks start, open the shutter and take the photo. If the sky is too blue then you have the fStop adjustment too large and you might try moving it towards f11 and if the scene is too dark then open up the aperture a bit, try f5.6 all the way to f2.8. You can open all the way up if you want; experiment and see what works best for you. Keep reading I am going to show you a little trick that might make you want to keep the setting at f8 even if the sky looks like noonday on the image.

Fix it in post.

Here is a secret: for years, less than perfect in-camera photos were corrected in the darkroom. With a digital darkroom, AKA tools like iPhoto, Aperture, Lightroom and Photoshop you have those same controls at the tips of your fingers. I will use the iPhoto program to show you this little post-processing trick. I know that many of you are not using iPhoto for post production. I don’t use iPhoto myself. I selected iPhoto because of the simple interface and the fact that many of my readers do have Apple computers. The principles are the same in every program but the procedure may be very different from program to program. Since this website is about teaching the concept (and the procedures will constantly be changing) I encourage you to get a manual for your post-processing software of choice or see if the help menu of the software can actually be of help. Hear are the concepts of how to post-process your picture:



Photo Credit: John Blandford

The above photograph was taken at f3.5. As you can see the sky is looking pretty bright because it was not really dark enough to be shooting the fireworks but we wanted to play with the camera a bit before it got so dark we could not read the dials and buttons.

This photo is really pretty good as far as exposure goes. It leaves plenty of room to play and in the end the sky is going to be pitch black.

Step 1: Load the image into your photo software.
Step 2: Open the edit or adjustment menu of the software. It might look something like the following photo.



Step 3: Adjust the mid-point of the image. The mid-point is the portion of the graph that represents the middle levels of luminance of the image. In other words grab the slider or bar under the middle part of the graph and move it to the right. This will stretch out the mid-point and will darken the skies a bit. The following photograph is an example of what it may look like. Look at the graph at the top of the adjustment window.



Step 4: Adjust the black point. This is going to be the same type of adjustment as in step three, except this time you will move the slider under the graph, which is otherwise all the way on the left, to the right. Move it until the sky turns black but not so far as to make the fireworks disappear.



Step 5: Increase the saturation, do this by moving the saturation slider to the right until the fireworks are the color you want them to be. Caution: If you plan on printing these images you may want to move the saturation to the point that you really like and then pull it back a bit. Most printers cannot reproduce a highly saturated image.



Step 6: Adjust the temperature or white balance of the image. The temperature of an image is simply how warm (red/yellow) and image is or how cool(blue) it is. To the left is cool and to the right is warm. I like fireworks warm so I start moving it to the right. This will have two effects. The first effect is that the sky will begin to darken a bit more and the second effect will be that the reds will get really red and will even start to glow a bit. Caution: This is saturating the colors a bit as well. If you are planning on printing the image you might want to go back to step 5 after this adjustment.



Step 7: Make any adjustments to the contrast or sharpness that you think may be necessary.

Step 8: Get that image up to Twitter or Facebook and make your friends marvel at your photographic prowess. Well, at least give them something to look at other than grainy, blurred, cell-phone photos taken while drunk on a neighbor’s deck. Caution: Never drink and play with fireworks. It leads to terrible photography no matter how cool the photos look while drunk.


Photo Credit: John Blandford
Before: In camera.


Photo Credit: John Blandford
After: Post processed.


Conclusion

I want to wish everyone a happy holiday weekend. Go out there and try to get some great in-camera photographs of the celebrations. But, don’t worry if they are not perfect-you can fix it in post.

-- Enjoy

Tags: Low Light, Fireworks, Low ISO, Manual Focus, Vacation

Vacation Photography: Let's Visit a Cave

Mammoth Cave National Park, KY, USA

One my most fond memories of childhood was visiting Mammoth Cave National Park. We went every summer and I took every tour of the cave that they would let a kid take. So, as an adult I wanted my kids to have the same great cave experience and this year we went to the cave. It was so interesting to hear the Ranger tell the tour group the same thing that the Park Rangers said to the groups as a child. He said, “If you want a photo of the inside of the cave then buy a postcard.” No, he was not trying to sell post cards he was stating a fact. The fact is, it is hard to take a good photograph of the inside of a cave and especially hard to take those photos when you are on a tour.


ISO 800, 50mm, f2, 1/60s

Safety and Courtesy

Before I start talking about how to get a great cave photo let me talk about safety and courtesy on a cave tour.

I will talk about safety first. Never walk and take photos at the same time while in a cave. Caves have uneven ceilings, floors, and walls. Caves are poorly lit and at times caves are wet. These things all lead to one certain conclusion and that is no matter how well you walk in your own home, if you have a camera up to your eye you may end up giving yourself a concussion, contusion, or being cussed at by another cave customer.

Courtesy is another factor in getting good cave photos and perhaps the best way to be courteous to others and the Rangers is to stay with the group and in particular stay in the front of the group. During walking tours in a cave or in the woods, groups tend to act like an accordion. They stretch and contract. If you are in the front you will need to stop from time to time to let people catch up. These are perfect times to take photographs without feeling rushed and without holding up the group. The people in the back of the group always feel rushed to catch up with the group and being rushed does not make for good photography.

Point and Shoot

If you have a standard run of the mill point and shoot camera the ranger is most likely correct: you need to just buy a post card. These inexpensive cameras are not well suited to cave photography. Most point and shoot digital cameras have a very small sensor and that small sensor translates into very little light being recorded on the image sensor. These cameras are also primarily automatic focus. Automatic Focus is next to useless in near complete darkness. If you have a bridge camera, in other words if your camera will shoot in RAW mode, has manual ISO and Manual focusing, you can give the photos a try but I am not making any promises that you will get the results you are looking for in your cave photographs. Unfortunately cave photography is an advanced technique and if you can do it with a point and shoot camera (yes, it can be done) then you don’t need this article. However if you have a DSLR or at least a bridge camera, why not use this as an opportunity to push your skill set and get in there and take some photos you will remember.

Hardware

The hardware you will need is pretty strait-forward. You need a DSLR camera, and a prime lens (otherwise known as a fixed focal length lens- for a APS-C I recommend a 28mm or 25mm lens with at least an f2.8 and for a full frame camera I recommend a 50mm f1.4 lens) preferably optically stabilized.

Camera Settings

ISO
I know I have already mentioned it but I feel like I should say it again, caves are dark. Since caves are so dark very little light is going to reach the sensor of the camera and that must be taken into consideration when shooting in a cave. The first thing you want to do is set your ISO on your camera to a high ISO setting. Depending on the ambient lighting within the cave, this might mean ISO 400 up to ISO 3200 or even higher. Just remember that the higher the ISO number the more noise/grain on the final photograph and the faster the shutter speed can be on your camera. In other words take a few shots to see what the slowest shutter speed is at which you can hold the camera steady. Optical stabilization in your camera or lens will help extend this time significantly.


ISO 12800, 50mm, f2.8, 1/8s
Ranger Steve Kister conducting a tour of Mammoth Cave. He is demonstrating what a single flame of light looks like in total darkness.
Notice the grainy nature of this photograph. It was taken with only the flame in his hand illuminating the scene. This required an extremely high ISO and as such introduced a lot of noise into the shot. If I could have used a tripod in the cave I could have reduced the ISO and increased the clarity of the photo.

Depth of Field (DOF) or fstop
Depth of field or fstop is a tricky thing in a cave and has to be taken seriously. You might think that I would recommend making the aperture of the lens as big as you can get it. A big aperture does mean more light getting to the sensor and faster shutter speeds. It also means very narrow depth of field and more often than not a blurry photograph. If you had all the time in the world and could somehow sneak in a tripod, you could calculate your depth of field and determine an ideal fstop to accommodate the lighting. Calculating depth of field requires measuring front and back distances of the focal plain, taking light readings, and (most of all) time. Time is one thing you do not have a lot of on a cave tour. I have found that setting my aperture to f 2.8 is a fair compromise between depth of field and my ability to hold the camera steady during shooting.

Shutter Speed
Shutter speed is also tricky. I shoot full manual or aperture priority mode in low light situations. I always start out shooting a few shots on aperture priority mode. I want to get a feel for what the camera thinks is a good shutter speed. Now is a good time to mention that you may want to set your camera’s metering mode to spot metering. This will allow you to take more precise measurements of the light part of the photographs and not worry about the unlighted portions of the frame. Otherwise you may actually over-expose the lighted areas. I have found that I can hand hold my camera at about 1/8th of a second shutter speed, however, your mileage may vary.

Manual Focus
Manual focusing is a must in extreme low light situations. Automatic focusing relies on contrast to work properly and contrast relies on light. If you rely on auto-focus you will find that your camera is searching for focus instead of getting the shot. Manual focus is pretty easy with a little practice and will have you hanging a print on the wall instead of trying to sharpen the image enough in post processing to at least share it on Facebook.

Conclusion

ISO, DOF, Shutter speed, and Manual Focus . Yep, those are the three elements of taking photos in a cave. Go out there and take some great shots.

Woah! Woah! Woah! What about using a flash to just light up the cave?

Flash
Using a flash in a cave is a great way to get some great shots. Those postcards the Ranger encouraged us to buy were all shot with flash units or at least some sort of external and additional lighting. I guess I really should have talked about flash under “Courtesy,” but I wanted to save it for last. A flash is impolite in a cave. Let me rephrase that a flash is just plain rude to use on a cave tour. Your built in flash is too low powered to really illuminate anything much in the cave and a high guide number external flash is going to blind everyone else on the tour every time you take a photo. Just think about it, it is dark in a cave and people’s eyes adjust to the dark. When you fire the “Big” flash you will blind someone else on the tour and that cussing I told you about might be coming your way; and if you really make someone mad the concussion might be on it’s way as well.

The Real Conclusion

Cave photography, while an advanced technique, is in reality very strait forward. The following summary is really all you need to know.

• Be Polite: Stick to the front of the group, stop to take a photo, and turn off the flash.
• Image Stabilization: Turn it on.
• ISO: Set the highest ISO that you need to get the shot but remember that high ISO equals added noise in the photo.
• Depth of Field: Bigger is better to a point. f2.8 works best for me but you may find that you can get acceptable images at f1.2 or f5.6. Try it out to see what works for you.
• Shutter Speed: Make it as slow as you can without blurring the shot.
• Manual Focus: Turn off the autofocus in low light.

I hope if you make it to a cave this summer that this article helps you bring home some great photographs. After you get out of the cave, don’t forget to take a few photos of the surrounding area, often these are as pretty or prettier than the cave itself. I will leave you with a photo of the forest around Mammoth Cave.

-- Enjoy.


The forest surrounding the natural entrance to Mammoth Cave.

For a gallery of cave photos click here: Cave Photos

Tags: Low Light, Vacation, Manual Focus, High ISO, Fast Lens, Prime Lens

In the last article I discussed using a polarizing filter to reduce reflection when shooting through glass on a visit to a museum. However, there are times when you don’t have a polarizing filter or you may be shooting with a point and shoot camera or a cell phone. The good news is that even with these limiting factors you can still get a great photo.

The problem: A quick review of the problem of shooting in a location like a Museum or Aquarium.

• Most Museums or Aquariums do not allow flash photography, and even if they did the flash would reflect off of glass front displays.
• Most Museums or Aquariums will not allow the use of a tripod or mono-pod. In most cases they want to prevent scarring of the floor and they want to provide a safe and unobstructed walking area for guests.
• When shooting through glass, often ambient light sources are reflected in the glass.

Notice the reflected ambient light in the photo above. Even with a polarizing filter I might not be able to eliminate all of the reflections in this shooting situation. So, a different approach should be taken.

The Solution: Get up close and personal.

When you find yourself unable to eliminate the reflection, either because the reflection is too large or because you don’t have a polarizing filter it is time to get up as close to the glass as you can. Sure, it will change the type of photograph that you would like to take but in most instances it will improve the quality of your images so much that you will wonder why you wanted the other images in the first place.



This photo is of a model of a prehistoric fish. I shot this through glass with a camera phone.

Steps to getting up close:

• Survey the lay of the land. That is: really take the chance to look around and find something interesting about the display. Instead of photographing an entire painting, just shoot a detail. Instead of taking a picture of an entire aquarium, find one fish or groups of fish to photograph.
• Look for objects that are sitting still or moving slowly. Museums and aquariums are notoriously poorly lit and as such it can make photography extra difficult but not impossible. Photographing a stationary object or animal gives you more time to have the shutter open and therefore allow more light to hit the sensor.
• Make sure the flash is turned off.

As can be seen in this cell phone photo, leaving the flash on will result in a large bright spot in the image.

• Turn up the ISO setting. Even most point and shoot cameras allow for the adjustment of the camera’s ISO setting. This will cause the sensor to be more sensitive to the available light and therefore increase the amount of available light in the photograph. A word of caution on ISO adjustments: Increasing the ISO also increases the amount of noise in the photo. An ISO of 100 will produce a very clean photograph whereas an ISO of 1600 will produce a noisy or grainy photograph. If you must shoot with a very high ISO setting, consider shooting in Black and White. Grain in B/W photography is considered “Artsy” whereas grain in color photography can sometimes just ruin a shot.

While not shot through glass, this image was shot in very low light and I used an ISO of 12800. I chose to shoot this image in Black and White to prevent the noise from detracting from the final image.



Notice the magnified area of this image taken with a cell phone. The increased noise caused by the low light conditions can be clearly identified.




Here is the same image converted to Black and White. Notice that the digital noise is not as much of a distraction in the Black and White version.

• Hold your camera with both hands and keep your arms in close to your body. This will help you keep the camera still for longer exposures.
• If your camera or lens has vibration compensation be sure to turn it on.
• Shoot in Aperture priority mode if using a DSLR. Make sure you have an aperture setting that will get the portion of the object you are shooting in focus. This might be an f2 if you only want an animal’s eyes in focus or an f 4 - 8 if you want the entire scene in focus. Just remember the lower the number the longer the shutter speed is going to be.
• If you are using a point and shoot camera, check to see if you can set it for a low light or museum mode in leu of choosing a low aperture number.
• Get right up to the glass, without touching it.
• Use manual focus if available and if it is not, use the focus lock on your camera to select a focus point. To do this pick a focus point and then press your shutter button half way down. This will focus the image. When the spot you want to be in focus is in focus, gently press the shutter button the rest of the way down.
• Take lots of photos. However, be mindful of other guests and don’t hog up the displays.

If you follow these steps you will get some terrific shots. To prove it, here is a recent photo of a pike that I took while visiting the Cabela’s store near my home.



So, get out there and get to shooting, and most of all -- Enjoy.

Tags: Museum, Aquarium, Low Light, Reflections, Glass, Indoor photography, Manual Focus, Focus Lock, DSLR, Point and Shoot, Cell Phone