Getting Out
I haven't been out shooting landscapes for a while (a few months), which, coupled with my general newbiness to photography, resulted in less than stellar results overall. I did get some good pics. But out of the 450 or so I shot, more of them had problems of one type or another than didn't. As I told my co-worker friend who's been a photographer since the 1970's, I learned I have more to learn.
On the other hand, I felt good that I noticed some of the issues. It gives me something to work on. Here are some of the things I had difficulties with, in no particular order:
Blown out skies
I was actually causing this problem somewhat on purpose. I have been wanting to push the ISO to see what the results were for different ISO settings. I read about others that use my same camera, and some using other cameras, that get great results with ISO settings of 800 or even higher. I wanted to see how I could push it.
The problem with that is that it seems like the rest of the exposure settings get more sensitive. I tried shots with smaller apertures or faster shutters but it seems like I always blew out the sky. It was a pretty blue sky, too.
Along with my experiments, some of the more interesting shots are in a narrow canyon that basically runs east-west, causing a large brightness dynamic range (measured in Exposure Values - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposure_value) if you shot the top of a cliff along with the interior of the canyon. In other words, the camera can only reproduce a certain brightness variation but this bright cliff top to dark canyon can exceed that range. Those shots are difficult themselves without playing around with different ISO's on top of it.
I ended up getting a lot of pictures where the sky looks white.So, I learned a few things due to my pictures with blown out skies...
A. I may look into getting a graduated neutral density filter (GNDF) (or a set). I have some non-graduated NDFs but I really could have used the GNDFs. That just means both more expense AND more crap to carry. But if it gets the shot, that may be the ticket.
B. I didn't take the time to do it, but the canyon shots are perfect for HDR shots. I'm going to try this in the future.
C. This was something of a breakthrough for me. In the past I've noticed pictures that I've done post processing on where the trees or other items that are on the horizon of a hill where I've adjusted the sky behind them end up with a blue cast to them that I just don't like. They look too artificial for me, and I tend to bump up the saturation a lot in my pics. I found out that when I adjust the blown out sky in pics, the objects along the top of hills such as trees where the sky is visible through the object end up turning blue along with the sky.
I'd never understood where this blue cast was coming from and now I do. This led me to two more observations - try to get a better sky captured in the camera, and if you do end up turning the objects bluish you can also re-correct the color of those objects. The subsequent color correction on the objects still isn't great but it's better. The bottom line is, get the best picture you can in the camera. Post processing can only do so much.
Pay more attention to the distractors
I constantly try to make sure that my composition has as few items as possible to distract from whatever it is I think is the main subject. But with the small view finder some of those things don't show up until the image is blown up, sometimes even bigger than the LCD on the back of the camera.
Sometimes, though, you can't do much about the issues.
I shot some sunrise pictures and while I like them quite a bit, the location I was at had barbed wire around the field that was between me and the sunrise. It doesn't end up showing up much in the pics because the foreground is so dark but I wish I could have got to the other side of the fence. I might have been able to squeeze between the strands but I know from experience that there are a lot of tarantulas in the area and I just didn't want to deal with running into one in the dark alone and in the middle of nowhere. I hate spiders. I have arachnaphobia. Always have.
Another issue with my camera is that the viewfinder has 95% coverage. That means it's not showing me what's going on for the whole frame. Now that's kind of okay because if I compose okay in the viewfinder that means that it could at least be cropped to the picture I see.
However, when you crop you're cutting off pixels from the image. My sensor has 24MP. But if I cut off 5%, that's 1.2MP. Not a huge amount or percentage, but why should I loose any pixels due to garbage I let into the picture?
I shot one pic where the corner of a garbage can is in the pic. Fortunately I saw that on the LCD playback so I zoomed in slightly (or panned - I don't remember) and took another shot where the garbage can wasn't in the picture at all. I got to keep all my pixels!I shot some pictures of plaques for or about Rex Allen in Willcox, AZ. I didn't used to do this, but this time I noticed some leaves and other debris on the plaques (they were in the sidewalk). I picked the debris out of the plaques before shooting the pictures. Actually, I picked some out and blew some out by my mouth. People around me looked at me like I was strange, but I didn't care. I wanted the shot without the crap in it.
I just don't really worry about what others might think about me when I'm shooting. I think I got that way in the past when shooting video. You are kind of a stand out in a crowd AT FIRST. But if you just go about your job people quickly ignore you as if you were any other fixture in the area. That actually helps because before you know it you can get candid shots of people if you want. They forget that you're there and they don't pay attention to what you're doing.
Preparation
I stayed in a motel prior to going up to the Chiricahuas. I spent my time posting some of the pics from Willcox on Facebook and messaging my wife on Facebook. I thought it was cool - I'd never done that on the road before. I shoot RAW in the camera. I can actually do a JPEG conversion in the camera of RAW shots stored on the memory card. Then I can use a RAVPOWER SD Card reader and Wi-Fi hotspot to transfer the JPEGs to my Kindle. From the Kindle I was able to upload to Facebook via the free Wi-Fi and internet connection in the motel. Cool!
Then I went to sleep.
What I SHOULD have done was make sure my lenses and filters were clean. During post processing I noticed that my small lens has a lot of dust on it. Or the filters do; I'm not sure which.
It got me thinking about the picture taking work flow.
At some time before the shoot you need to plan the shoot to some extent if possible. I had looked at maps of the Chiricahuas and knew that the main observation points are basically north of the rocks. In the summer there might be some cool shots with the sun coming in at a low angle from north of the formations but in February I wasn't expecting that the golden hours would do much. I could be wrong, and didn't actually see the sunrise or sunset at the main observation points, but based on the orientation to the sun I don't think it'd make that much difference (except perhaps for the color).
I knew the main road through the park runs east-west in the canyon so that would be questionable too, especially since the sunrise would probably occur south of the slot of the canyon.
Knowing something about where you're going to shoot can pay some dividends instead of everything being a surprise when you get there.
The equipment should be inspected and maintained prior to needing it. In my case I should have gone through the lenses, filters, etc. I did top off my batteries but that was about it. I knew where everything was packed in my cases, etc. But I should have cleaned my lenses.
I'm thinking it would be good to clean them after a trip too, and I may try to add that in to the work flow. However, when I get home from shooting my main focus is trying to get the pictures onto the computer and to start processing them. I think I'll leave that activity for that time frame. If I do feel like cleaning the camera at that point I may do it.
Batteries should be fully charged. Memory cards should be formatted. Ensure the tripod is clean and working (lube it if necessary). Make sure you have all your stuff and then double check.
The more times you get out the more it becomes second nature to check your gear. I half expect I'll forget something every time. But you still need to take the pictures that you can with what you have with you.
Well, those are some of the things I learned on this last excursion. I also learned that it's fun and rewarding and that's the most important thing. I was blessed to witness a great sunrise and got a cool picture or two - but with the sight that was presented it would have been hard not to! Most of all - I got out and took some pictures!
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