Fiber Fool

On Amber’s last night in town we decided on the last minute to head west out of town and try our hand at some night shots. She had previously gotten some very interesting and artistic shots playing with light sources at night, but I had never tried any night photography. We loaded up the car with tripods and our various and sundry equipment and headed up to an overlook of Horsetooth Reservoir.

There were two things we learned that are essential to night time photography… 1). A Flashlight and 2). A stop watch. We made do by using the dome light in the car and/or the headlights in place of the flashlight. Though that was not terribly convenient once the camera was on the tripod. For the stop watch we counted lengths of walking the parking lot, LOL!

For night time photography you need very long exposures. Our cameras will do 30 second exposures (what was used to capture the top photo of the post), but for exposures exceeding that length you need to use the bulb setting and the wired remote. Thus, to get predictable results or satisfactory ones you need to figure out what your ideal exposure is in the given situation. Given the amount of traffic going by I don’t know how predictable we could be as it was rare to get longer than a 30 second exposure in when a car or two did not pass by. None the less, it would have been good to have a ball park idea of how long of an exposure we were taking and then preview in camera to decide if a shorter or longer one would do.

Despite these difficulties, I did come away with a few decent night shots (the one immediately above being my favorite of the night). My tries at capturing the stars were rather dismal though. I definitely will need to do a bit of reading on how to capture photos of the stars and moon. I’m guessing I did not have the proper lens type for one.

Well, you knew despite the fact that Amber’s visit was photocentric that yarn would have to play in it somewhere, right? (You did notice that some of the portraits featured my FLS, right?) While she was here I got a mysterious package from Yarn Grove and I’ve never ordered from there before. I opened it and up and the lovely and generous, FluffyKnitterDeb, had sent me an early birthday present in the form of TWO skeins of Malabrigo sock yarn.

You see, in watching all the March Mystery socks take shape I became aware of how dated my sock yarn stash had grown. I had none of the new “hot” sock yarns in my stash and seeing this pattern in those sock yarns had incited a bit of jealousy. Debi had told me I would really like the Malabrigo and I said perhaps I’d see if my mom would get me some for my birthday. Hence the arrival of some Malabrigo sock yarn. Also, Nancy from just south of my sent me some Flat Feet from Conjoined Creations as well (sorry, no photos of that just yet). Now my sock yarn stash is a bit more hip.

At Christmas time I helped my mom pick some close-up filters for my sister. If you are unaware of what they are, they are like magnifying glasses for your lens. They allow you to get a closer look and shorter depth of field with your lens than that lens is rated for. It is a cheaper way to get better macro photography than buying a special macro lens. It is also lighter and makes it a great thing for expedition photography. The photo above and all of the following were taken using Amber’s close-up filters. There seemed nothing more natural in the house to use them on than yarn and teenie, tiny flowers :-)

I do believe yet another item has made it onto my photography wishlist. I know you are all shocked and amazed, LOL!

Of course I didn’t take just broad landscape shots when were in Rocky Mountain National Park. That was mostly what I took as I was still trying to get my shutter speed and aperture priority mode legs under me so I didn’t get overly creative. I had set a goal for myself that for the remainder of Amber’s visit after our class I would not use any of the specialty scene modes (macro, portrait, landscape, action etc.) but instead use only shutter or aperture priority and if I was feeling really brave full manual. This was a huge thing for me as I have become the master of scenic mode manipulation. I know which mode to use for certain photographic effects even if the actual shots are not of the “scenes” the modes are made for.

One of the best things to photograph when learning about shutter speed is waterfalls. The photo at the top of the page used a fairly slow shutter speed of 0.1 seconds or 1/10. The photo just above used a very fast shutter speed of 1/1250. Notice how in the top photo the water is blurred? Much more water moves through the framed shot in 1/10 of a second than it does in 1/1250 of a second. In class we learned a handy little guideline — 4 digits will stop most action free of blur, 3 digits may stop some action, 2 digits almost certainly will blur and single digits moving over into actual seconds will. That was a handy “rule” to know when shooting something like waterfalls. It is also a good rule for knowing when to pull out the tripod - especially if you do not have image stabilization in your camera and/or lens.

Above is another pair of shots. The first had a slower shutter speed of 1/10 and the second of 1/500. Notice how the “stopped” image of this pair is not as stopped as the larger one shared before. Well, this one was 3-digit so it was likely some blur would occur and indeed it did. In general, when it comes to water I think I much prefer either well-blurred or well-froze. The in between does not appeal to me as much.

While the broad landscape shots of yesterday’s post and the zoo shots in Monday’s post made me wish for a circular polarizer, taking these waterfall shots at nearly high noon made me wish for a neutral density filter. I couldn’t get any really drastic shots of the water blurred because I couldn’t stop down my aperture enough to get proper exposure and my desired shutter speed. But neutral density filters can stop down the light getting through to your sensor by 2-3 stops and it does not change your white balance or color. The shot above was the longest shutter speed I was able to actually capture in that bright, high altitude light and it was only 1/8. That’s not to say I didn’t try :-) I have several all white frames to prove I didn’t listen to what the numbers in my viewfinder were telling me, LOL!

One of the natural photography destinations while Amber was here was of course RMNP. This was her 5th visit to Colorado and I had never taken her up there and now we were armed with some new photographic knowledge thanks to the class we had taken. Much of the class was review, but for me it was the first time I was “presented” info on ISO, shutter speed and aperture rather than just reading about it in a book. I have to say things finally sunk in much more.

One of the best things of the class was learning about Nikon’s photo editor - Capture NX2. I’ve been an Adobe Lightroom user since before the official release of 1.0. I haven’t yet upgraded to version 2 though. I had been of the impression that Lightroom, Capture and Aperture all did the same things, but I was quite wrong! Capture is not an organization tool, but a photo editing tool for photographers. Lightroom is also a great quick edit for photographs where most of the editing tools are named for traditional dark room techniques. Where Capture far exceeds Lightroom is in its ability to apply edits to specific areas of an image rather than to the image as a whole. An example of this is the ability to warm skin tones on portraits without giving the background too much warmth. It is a powerful set of tools that allows for very streamlined yet refined edits. I’m in love.

There is a plug-in by the same company that makes Capture, Nik Software, that will give both Photoshop and Lightroom these same tools, however, Viveza retails for $250 (I’ve seen as low as $210) and requires Lightroom 2, upping the bill for me to nearly $350. But, for ~ $130 I can get Nikon Capture NX 2 Full Version. It doesn’t integrate nicely with Lightroom, but there are some other advantages of using Capture in addition to Lightroom if you are a Nikon shooter, such as better noise handling for long exposures. Thankfully, part of the class included a 60-day free trial of Capture so have a bit of time to decide how high up my photography wishlist Capture sits :-)

A note to Amber, most of the above photos have been tweaked in Capture since you last saw them. You were correct - Capture RAWKS!

As I had mentioned last Friday, my generous (and talented) sister of AMS Photography took portraits of Drew and I together. These are our first decent portraits together, ever! We didn’t bother with engagement photos and we went cheap on the wedding photographer who ended up not having the proper equipment to deal with our ceremony location so all of our “together” shots post-wedding are disembodied faces. Amber kindly remedied the situation for us while she was here.

Of course the hardest part is choosing what to print. Originally I thought just a couple of copies of one of the more traditional portrait shots for parents/grandparents. But after living with them for a week and doing my own post-processing on her raw images I’m starting to like more and more of them and am also contemplating a mosaic of the artier shots she took for our own wall somewhere. They seem a little less egotistical than a traditional portrait and it would be fantastic to have some of Amber’s art on our walls along with all of Drew’s family’s art…

But, I still have to choose what to print and frame as gifts. I figure mother’s day is coming up before too long so it would be a nice surprise to pop in the mail. Oh, the decisions! Feel free to ring in on your favorite!