The easy part is done.

I took another trip to the Chiricahua National Monument in Arizona this last weekend and camped two nights there with my travelin' dog Elmer. I really like that place. I just wish it was closer to home (nice Grand Funk Railroad reference, eh?). But then it likely wouldn't be as nice - I'm sure there'd be trash all over, traffic congestion, less friendly staff running the place.

On the other hand, I don't feel like I got a lot of significantly better pictures than I did a couple of weeks ago. This was for a few reasons, all of which remind me that I'm a newbie at photography.

Amazing Rocks

First, the park has some amazing rock formations, or at least I think that they're something else. I developed a cursory fondness for geology in college where I took a number of engineering geology classes, and I retain some interest in the science behind geology as well as how the reverse engineering of the formations is performed.

The park offers a number of view points and road turn offs where you can see some of the formations. Those are the areas that I target and shoot pictures from. Consequently, the pictures are, in my opinion now, somewhat pedestrian. What I should be doing is hiking the many miles of trails and getting up close and personal with the geology. If I wasn't so, uh, physically unfit, I'd love to do that. I think I'm going to have to start easing into hiking and being more active so that I can get more involved in the scenery. Now that I have a reason to do so I'm hoping I'll actually follow through with it.

By the way, one of the reasons I chose to try photography was so that I did have a reason to get off my seat, get out doors, and do something besides sit at a computer on the weekends (I work as a software developer during the week so most of my waking hours the last decade or more have been spent in front of a computer). Getting more fit so that I can actually hike a bit will be in line with my original goals.

I did take Elmer up the hillside behind our campsite. I even got slightly lost - I knew the direction to go (down hill) to get either back to the campground or at least the one road that would take you back to the campground so it wasn't too disconcerting - but I did not know exactly where I'd come up the hill from. There were enough trees and such that you had to make twists and turns. My footprints weren't visible. It was cool! We were able to see some scenes that didn't have asphalt in them!

I purchased a small book about the Chiricahuas which had some pictures in it - few of which were taken from the viewpoints. The photographer for that book actually walked more than 100 yards from his car! Thanks for prompting me, dude!

Correct Exposure

The last time I went to the Chiricahuas I had a problem with exposure settings. The rocks in the canyon extend from the dark canyon floor to above the canyon where they were in bright sunlight. I could either use a ND filter to darken the whole image or shoot for darks or brights. Unfortunately I didn't notice that I was having problems until I had returned home. (This is a good reason to have the blinkies enabled!). After blowing up the pictures and seeing the blown out highlights or blacks, I was really disappointed and didn't even want to post the pictures (I did post some on Facebook but I considered them more like poor snapshots).

This trip I had the grand idea to shoot as much as possible with the intent that I'd do HDR processing on the pics in either Photomatix or Photoshop. I usually took at least 3 pictures with different exposures, sometimes even more, like 5 or even 7. I looked at the histogram and made sure I had pics ranging so that there was a gap at the dark end and white end, adjusting the shutter speed as required to get all of the shots.

I was aware of the need to avoid movement in the individual pictures as much as possible. My Manfrotto 055XPROB tripod and 468MG ball head worked great at keeping the camera solid even though there were some decent wind gusts. I shot in between the wind gusts as much as possible.
When I tried processing the pictures, however, there were trees that were in different positions due to the wind in the different pictures. I could see it when navigating between related pictures in Nikon ViewNX.

Both Photomatix and Photoshop have provisions for eliminating ghosts, which, in theory, would get rid of moving trees. But the software ends up guessing at what should remain and what should go. The results were less than pleasing in most cases. I think the resulting HDR images also end up being soft when ghost removal is applied.

I spent a lot of time trying to get different exposures of the same subject in order to have the HDR capabilites available. But between the significantly extra amount of work involved in both shooting and processing, and the lack luster results, I am again disappointed in my results. I think I'll be able to get some useful images, mainly the "optimum" exposure setting images or first level of under-exposure, but my HDR goals seem to have fallen on the error side of trial and error.

Focus Randy, Focus

My final issue seems to be, once again, my focusing. I recently read an article somewhere else where the author of the article said he had to use auto focus in the early morning because his eyes weren't working as well when he first got going. I think I may have that issue too. My early morning shots that I rushed to get are just not as sharp as my shots from later in the day. I don't know if it's due to lower light levels or just old age (or even medium-old age).

I actually tried doing more auto focus, but since I was also trying to shoot for HDR, and couldn't have the focus change between shots, I didn't do a lot of it. This is another thing to be aware of. In the past I have resorted to the LCD zooming focusing trick, but I haven't seemed to need to do that lately. Looks like, in the early morning anyway, I may need to double check my focusing that way at least some of the time.

The easy and hard parts

As a result of this latest trip, I realize a couple of additional things. I think I have all the equipment I need to take pictures. Just like my guitars and recording set up, my gear is NOT the limiting factor - I am. It's easy, although not always inexpensive, to get the gear.

The hard part is achieving great results. That isn't something you can buy. You actually have to have knowledge and practice your craft. After 6 months, I think I've finished with the easy part and am now moving on to the difficult part.

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The pictures on this page are from this last trip. The first and third are from stops along the road through Bonita Canyon, the sunrise is from near Massai point.