Photography Travelogues – Freeze the action with Peter Eastway

October 6, 2011 by 4 Comments

Low tide in front of the Reef View hotel on Hamilton Island, Australia is the perfect location for a run and jump. This photo was taken as part of a workshop just for fun, but it shows how useful the new leaf shutter lenses from Schneider Kreuznach can be when shooting action with flash.

Flash synchronisation shutter speeds in a darkened studio isn’t a problem because if you can’t freeze the action with the shutter speed (usually between 1/60 and 1/250 second), you can use a very short flash duration instead. The low levels of ambient light in the studio don’t significantly affect the exposure and so the flash is the only illumination exposing the moving subject.

Not so outdoors (or in a fully lit studio) because the brighter ambient light at a slow flash synchronisation speed will also illuminate the moving subject and thus the image will be blurred. The solution is a faster flash synchronisation shutter speed.

This isn’t possible with a focal plane shutter. A focal plane shutter has two blinds. The first blind opens, and then the second blind follows closing the shutter opening. At fast shutter speeds, the second blind is closing before the first blind is completely open, so at no time is the shutter completely open. If the flash fires, part of the exposure is blocked by the shutter.

Leaf shutters are different. Much smaller and sitting within the lens (as opposed to in the camera), they can open and close fully more quickly than a focal plane shutter. The new Schneider Kreuznach leaf shutter lenses for the Phase One 645DF offer flash synchronisation speeds up to 1/1600 second and so you can use flash in outdoor locations and freeze the action. It’s perfect for fashion and sport.

The way it works is that when the camera shutter is fired, the focal plane shutter in the camera opens first at a slower shutter speed. When the focal plane shutter is completely open, the leaf shutter in the lens opens, the flash is fired, and then the leaf shutter closes. Finally, the focal plane shutter closes. Fortunately, all this happens without the photographer having to be at all concerned – simply attach the Schneider Kreuznach lens and it works automatically!

For this photograph, the flash synchronisation speed was 1/1600 second using a Profoto Pro-B3 AirS battery-powered flash and the IQ180 on a Phase One 645DF.

In the set-up shot, you can see that the flash is pointed too far down, lighting the foreground as well as the subjects. Sometimes this can work as an effect, but if you want to keep the light just on your subjects, point the flash upwards so the spill doesn’t reach the ground. You can also use a local adjustment in Capture One to darken down the foreground – and sometimes a combination of techniques is required.

In Capture One, the raw file was processed to maintain detail in the highlights and produce skin tones with a natural rendition. However, most of the work was done at the time of exposure, which underexposed the background by a stop or so, giving the appearance that the photograph was taken much later in the afternoon than it was. This is achieved by setting the aperture and shutter speed so the background is underexposed, and then setting the power on the flash to correctly expose the subject. You can use a flash meter to help, but with the histogram on your camera, it won’t take you long to work out the settings with a few test frames.

If you’re interested in the photography workshops I present on Hamilton Island with David Oliver and Bruce Pottinger, or you just want an excuse to visit Australia’s tropical north, please visit
http://www.hamiltonisland.com.au/photography-course/
 for more details, or visit my site at
http://www.betterphotography.com/
. It’s a great excuse for a week on Hamilton Island!

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Photography Travelogues by Peter Eastway – Antarctica 1/3

August 5, 2011 by 2 Comments


Leopard Seal, Foyn Harbour, Antarctica

Winter was holding on tightly in Antarctica, but a slight reprieve in the weather allowed us to venture out from our vessel and explore the snow covered foreshores within Foyn Harbour. The weather varied from heavy cloud to overcast with sporadic spots of sunlight, not ideal, but it hardly dampened my enthusiasm!

The radio cracked into life and our guide responded, turning the zodiac around and speeding off in between icebergs. One of the other zodiacs had found a leopard seal snoozing on an ice floe and we were off to investigate. A hundred or so metres away, our guide cut the engine and we slowly and silently drifted into position. It was a young leopard seal and while fully aware of our presence, was barely interested.

On an Antarctic expedition, everyone is a photographer and all ten of us had our cameras trained on our new friend. The guide moved the zodiac around, providing a variety of angles and giving everyone the opportunity for a clear angle.

Using a Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III and a 300mm f2.8 lens, I was able to shoot a series of images from full length to much closer, but there was very little time as you never knew when the leopard seal might decide to leave. Shutter speeds were kept high using 1/3200 second at f3.5 and ISO 100, plus I had image stabilization turned on. The image is sharp!

As the zodiac turned around, I kept my camera focused on the leopard seal, firing quickly. Just when the leopard seal lifted his head, the zodiac turned a little further and one of the guests in front of me obscured my angle. There was hardly any time to notice and I just kept shooting. It was only later when reviewing the images in Capture One that I noticed the best shot of the leopard seal also had the red suit of the guest in the foreground.

However, there was a solution.

Here’s the full frame. You can see the problem easily.

Cropping the image helps by limiting the problem, but it is still there. I have also tweaked the file a little in Capture One, adjusting exposure and brightness, and ramping up the saturation to increase the colour in the background.

The solution can be found by using the Advanced Colour Editor. I chose to add a Local Adjustment layer first and used the Draw Local Adjustment brush to cover up the unwanted red colour in the image.

With the selection made, I used the Pick Colour Correction tool to select the reds and then dragged the Saturation slider back to -100, removing all colour in this area. Since the background is already white, the effect is pretty good and to a casual observer, you’d never know there was a problem.

By selecting other colours, further refinements can be made. In theory, I didn’t need a separate adjustment layer to achieve this result as there are no reds anywhere else in the scene. However, the combination of a local adjustment layer mask and what is effectively ‘colour masking’ can be very powerful.

To complete the image, two more local adjustment layers were added, one to increase the clarity around the leopard seal, and a second to add some highlights to the subject’s eyes.

The image was enlarged and using a small brush, the eyes were masked. Then it was simply a matter of adjusting the exposure and contrast sliders to produce an effect that was natural – well, at least it is natural to my non-technical eyes.

While I might not be able to adjust the light like this for scientific applications or even a book on wildlife, as an improvement for an album or audio visual on my trip to Antarctica, it seems to give the leopard seal a little more zest.

To see more of Peter Eastway’s images on Antarctica, visit his website at
http://www.petereastway.com/showpics.taf?portno=57&PortName=ROCKHOPPER%20EXHIBITION

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Photography Travelogues by Peter Eastway – Karijini National Park 3/3

June 8, 2011 by Leave a comment

 

Living Dangerously In The Pilbara 

One wonders how it happens, or perhaps why it happens. As I walked over to the lookout above Circular Pool at Dales Gorge in Karijini, the first thing that struck me was the sheer red cliff face stretched across the horizon, backed by a rich green canopy of wet season foliage. The sun had set and there remained a hint of pink in the blue sky. Everything was bathed in a soft, delicate light. And then I noticed the equally delicate position of a large gum tree, hanging on precariously to the edge of the precipice. How long would it last on such a narrow perch?

Although situated in the remote Pilbara region of Western Australia, the tree reminded me of another tree similarly perched on the edge of a ravine at Epupa Falls in Namibia. I’m not sure if the baobab is still there, or if the falls I visited 30 years ago have succumbed to a planned dam, but I remember spending hours in the darkroom refining the black and white print and using a brush with Farmers Reducer to bleach back the tree.

However, there’s no need to bleach back the white gums in the Pilbara. In fact, the trick when photographing them is to retain detail in the tree trunks so they don’t reproduce as ugly white blotches. To process this file in Capture One Pro 6, I began with a base exposure that retained full detail in the tree trunk.

One little trick I discovered by accident when processing my files, was to begin with one of Phase One’s ICC Profile presets under the Base Characteristics tool. Normally for landscape work, I’d use the Outdoor Daylight profile, but I found selecting the Portrait setting added in a lovely warmth. (Of course, the availability of this feature depends on the camera you’re using as not all models have a range of settings to choose from.)

To refine the image, I used the Exposure, High Dynamic Range, Clarity and Vignetting tools which I have collected together under my Quick tool tab.

The main issue with this photograph was the difference in exposure between the sky and the cliff. They required different exposures, but this is easily fixed using Capture One Pro 6’s new Local Adjustment tool. I chose to set the exposure for the cliff face correctly with my background layer, and then add in local adjustments to darken down the sky and increase the colour saturation of the green trees.

I also named the local adjustment layers, but I confess only because I was posting this blog, but it is a useful feature as instead of ‘Layer 1’, you can call it ‘Sky – First Pass’ etcetera.

Whether using layers in Capture One or Photoshop, I’ve found it is better to build up an image with two or three small adjustments, rather than one strong adjustment. I also prepare separate, slightly different masks for each local adjustment, the idea being I want my adjustments to be ‘invisible’ when finished.

To darken the sky, I used the Local Adjustment brush to paint in the sky. I find making a precise mask problematic, especially where the sky meets the earth, so instead I use a large brush with a soft edge (setting 0) which feathers the transition nicely. With the selection made, I then used the Exposure and Contrast sliders to darken the sky.

The next local adjustment selected both the sky and green foliage, again using a large brush with a soft edge. This time, I increased the contrast slightly, but I also used the Advanced Colour Editor to select the greens of the trees and increase their saturation.

After reviewing the file, I felt the sky was still a little light, so I repeated the process for the first local adjustment, but with a different mask and slightly different settings for Exposure and Contrast.

From here, the file is ready for processing for web, slide show or printer, straight out of Capture One Pro 6.

To see more of Peter Eastway’s photography techniques, including his Landscape Photography MasterClass, please visit
http://www.betterphotography.com/
.

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Photography Travelogues by Peter Eastway – Karijini National Park 2/3

June 7, 2011 by 8 Comments

Dales Gorge, But Not Sunset

Things are not always what they seem! The strong reds and oranges in the photograph of Dales Gorge in Karijini National Park, Western Australia are not from an early morning sunrise or a late sunset. Rather they are from sunlight reflected off red canyon walls.

Australia’s ‘Red Centre’ is at its reddest in Western Australia and there are few places I have visited that are as colourful as Karijini. As you walk down into the gorges, steep textured cliffs rise above you and if they catch direct sunlight, it is reflected strongly into the water pools and cascades below.

It might seem like a relatively straightforward matter to walk along the base of the gorge, looking for reflections – and to a certain extent it is. But those reflections don’t stay in the one place for long and so you can find yourself constantly moving your camera angle to retain the light and the colour. For images like this, mid morning and mid afternoon are usually the best times because this is when the sun is strongest on the gorge walls, but the gorge itself is still in shadow. The dim surroundings contrast wonderfully with the rich colours reflected from the cliffs up high.

This image is taken with a mid-telephoto lens, ideal for the angle I wanted, but challenging in terms of depth-of-field. To make the most of the location, I wanted sharp focus all the way from the bottom of the frame up to the top. A small aperture (like f22) almost gave me what I wanted, but as you stop down a lens (use a smaller aperture), diffraction increases. Diffraction reduces image clarity and occurs when light is forced through a small aperture, so while a smaller aperture is increasing image quality with more depth-of-field, at the same time you’re losing image clarity through diffraction.

My solution is to use a wider aperture – such as f8 or f11 – and shoot a series of images, each focused at slightly different points.

This series is then ‘stacked’ together. A popular program for ‘focus stacking’ is called Helicon Focus (www.heliconsoft.com) and while originally designed for scientific applications, it can work wonders for landscape photography as well.

To get the best results from focus stacking, you need to ensure your camera is locked off on a sturdy tripod. Although the light was changing quickly, I forced myself to slow down and ensure I had a good camera angle. I use an Arca Swiss Cube head on my tripod and it allows very precise positioning and once set, the camera won’t move. With the camera ready, I switched to manual focus and took a series of six images with different focus settings, beginning close to the camera and extending out to infinity. It’s a good idea to use manual exposure mode as well to ensure the exposures are consistent.

In Capture One Pro, turning on the Focus Mask quickly shows you where each image is correctly focused, the green ‘mask’ covering the areas of critical focus. If you’ve focused accurately, you can determine which frame gives you best focus in the foreground, and then follow the exposures through until you find the one with the best focus in the background.

Once I had selected the five files I needed, I refined the exposure, colour and tonal settings on the first frame. Then I copied up these adjustments (using the upward sloping arrow icon) and applied them to the other four images (using the downward sloping arrow icon). The images were then output – I produced full size 16-bit TIF files.

With my five files processed, I then opened Helicon Focus, selected the files and further processed them into a single file where the small curve of rock in the bottom left of the frame is just as crisp and sharp as the small cascade in the middle up the top of the frame.

The result is an image with more clarity and sharpness than a single frame taken at f22, both in terms of the extent of focus, and the lack of any diffraction.

To see more of Peter Eastway’s photography techniques, including his Landscape Photography MasterClass, please visit
http://www.betterphotography.com/
.

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Photography Travelogues by Peter Eastway – Karijini National Park 1/3

June 6, 2011 by 5 Comments

 

In the coming weeks, landscape photographer Peter Eastway will share his passion and knowledge about photography with the readers of the Image Quality Professor’s blog. Peter will take us with him through his recent photographic experiences in Karijini National Park. He will write about his preparations, what gear he uses and finally how he uses Capture One to get the best out of this photos.

Karijini National Park is one of Australia’s largest national parks, and arguably one of the most spectacular. The park is famous for its sheer gorges, waterfalls, cool swimming holes and amazing photographic opportunities.

Hancock Gorge, Karijini, Western Australia

Some places are simply difficult to get to, but the effort is worth it.

Carved out of the iron-rich stone of the Pilbara region in Western Australia, Hancock Gorge lies hidden in Karijini National Park. Leaving the dry heat of the surrounding desert, the trail to this tapering cascade starts with a steep descent down a rough bush track, followed by a rickety steel ladder. This brings you to the bottom of the gorge and from here it’s a further kilometre of rock-hopping, scrambling and swimming to get into position. The most difficult section is a crab-walk along a 200 metre rock wall, its near vertical sides punctuated by narrow, uneven ledges. It would be quite fun without 20 kilograms of camera gear on your back, a large tripod and just one spare hand.

Shoes are off for the last stretch down the narrow Spiders Trail, the cool water rushing around your feet, your legs pushed out to the sides of the cutting for balance, before opening up into a beautiful swimming pool and the cascade at the far end.

Of course, for many people, getting down into Hancock Gorge is a stroll in the park. If you’re fit and active, it’s not a problem, but you need to be careful. Every year there seem to be a few walkers who are seriously hurt or even killed because they didn’t watch their steps carefully enough.

Each time I visit Hancock’s Gorge, it’s different. The time of day and cloud cover affect the way the light bounces off the gorge’s walls, creating different colours and reflections. And rain followed by flash-floods re-arrange the large rocks and boulders strewn along the gorge’s floor.

However, one thing that remains the same is the sense of tranquillity I have as I set up my camera. There’s no need to rush as the light won’t change too quickly. Tripod legs can be spread across the watercourse and the camera pointed down. Generally speaking, a wide-angle is useful for tight locations like this, but maybe not as wide as you think.

As you can see by referring to the original image above, I ended up cropping this photo, choosing a square format so I could centre the water cascading over the stone steps. I also tilted the frame so the image looks level. I actually think the camera was perfectly level when I took the frame, but when I cropped the image, it looked too angled, so I used the Rotate Freehand tool to make it look visually correct. This left a sliver of image missing in the bottom right corner, but this would be easily fixed after processing out the raw file using Photoshop’s Content Aware Fill feature.

After cropping, I have used my Quick tab in Capture One Pro 6 to set the exposure, contrast and colour saturation accurately for the entire image, except the bright flowing water in the centre. When you’re sitting in this position, you’re keenly aware of the colours in the rock, but they don’t always translate onto the sensor because of the cool, blue skylight illuminating the scene. Capture One Pro 6’s Advanced Colour editor let me select the yellows and blues in the rock and give them a little extra saturation.

I also remember seeing the pools down the bottom of the gorge as being iridescent green – they certainly are when the sun is striking them directly in the middle of the day, so I decided this needed to be corrected as well. This meant I had two areas in the image – the flowing water and the distant pools – which needed local adjustments. This is where Capture One Pro 6 really shines!

I add a Local Adjustment layer and worked on the flowing water first. When you use the Local Adjustment brush, you can control the area you want to change by adjusting the size of the brush and the edge of the brush (whether it is ‘hard’ or ‘soft’). This means you can be as accurate as you need to be, but I’m a bit lazy and prefer when I can to use larger brushes with a soft edge. This lets me feather the local adjustments into the image, so you can’t easily see where the adjustment begins and ends. I like to think of this as ‘invisible editing’ – you know I’ve done something, but you can’t really tell where!

To control the water which was overexposed, I found that darkening it made the image look a bit muddy, so I also increased the contrast setting. This rescued some of the detail in the rocks below the running water, while maintaining some white highlights and sparkle.

For the distant pools, I added a second Local Adjustment layer and using a small brush with a hard edge (around setting 80), I carefully selected the two small pools. I then used the Advance Colour Editor to change the golden yellow colour to a more ‘accurate’ green.

Hancock Gorge is a place you never tire of and I can still see some angles I have yet to try.

To see more of Peter Eastway’s photography techniques, including his Landscape Photography MasterClass, please visit
http://www.betterphotography.com/
.

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Color Editor – Selecting the right color range

May 26, 2011 by 2 Comments

In the Color Editor in Capture One Pro 6 under the Advanced Tab, it is possible to do selective color adjustments.

With the Color Picker, you can pick a color in the image to select the color range you want to work on.

Use the “View selected color range” check box to check that you have actually selected the color range you expected.

Adjust the color range to match exactly the color you want to work on or try to do a new color pick.

On the image to the right, the “View selected color range” check box has been turned on to verify that I have selected all the greens. Once I am satisfied with the selected color range, I turn of the check mark and make my color corrections.

Adjusting the color range for the selected color:

Before starting to adjust a color in the Advanced Color Editor, it is highly advisable to make sure that you have actually selected the right colors.

With the check box “View selected color range” turned on, I use the Color Picker to pick the green stalk of the strawberry in order to select the green colors.

Immediately, I see that I indeed got the color of the stalk but not the color of the leaves.  The color of the stalk is too bluish green, compared to the color of the leaves to be included in the color range of the pick.

Now, I can adjust the color range by dragging on the round handles around the selected color.

In this case, I dragged the handle on the color circle’s periphery. This handle allows me to change the hue of the color range. Here, I made the color selection more yellowish green to include the green hue of the leaves.

I also adjusted the Smoothness slider a bit to allow a wider color selection. The Smoothness slider determines how far into the adjacent colors, the color selections reach.

Be careful when using very low values of smoothness in combination with dramatic color changes as this may lead to sudden unnatural color shifts.

Once satisfied with the color range, turn off the “view selected color range” and do the color corrections.

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Crop outside the image!

May 5, 2011 by 3 Comments

Once in a while when correcting an image for keystone or lens distortion, you might find that you end up losing an important part of the image.

In the crop tool in Capture One, you have the option to allow cropping outside the image.  When correcting for keystone or lens distortion in Capture One Pro 6, this can be a very helpful feature.

At first it may not seem to be a useful solution of the problem, but when combined with the Content Aware Fill in Adobe Photoshop CS5, it turns out to be a super easy and powerful solution.

The image above was shot with a wide angle lens as it was impossible to get further away from the castle. On the right side, you see the image after Keystone correction. Only by allowing Capture One to crop outside the image, was it possible to keep the entire castle building within the image. After cropping, the missing lower left foreground was easily fixed with Content Aware Fill.

In the Crop Tool in Capture One, you find the checkbox that allows you to crop outside the image. Once set, you can make a crop that covers the entire castle.

With the Magic Wand Tool in Adobe Photoshop CS5, you can easily select the gray areas from the regions outside the original image. Once selected, use the Content Aware Fill option.

The Content Aware Fill will fill in the missing part of the image with contents from the adjacent regions in the real image.  It is done so intelligently that you, in most cases, won’t be able to do a better fill manually.

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Keystone – 80 % vs. 100 % correction

April 21, 2011 by Leave a comment

Capture One Pro 6 has a very strong and efficient Keystone Correction tool.

Keystone correction is made super simple by the use of the 3 different Keystone correction cursor tools:  Keystone Vertical, Keystone Horizontal and Keystone.

When using the Keystone cursor tool, the image will be corrected for both Keystone as well as any horizontal or vertical misalignment.

Capture One Pro 6’s method for correcting Keystone is mathematically identical to how an image would be corrected if it was shot with a technical camera.

When using the Keystone Vertical cursor tool for correcting the keystone of a building shot from below, Capture One Pro 6 will automatically set the amount of correction to 80 % and not 100 %. The 80 % correction looks more natural to the human brain than the 100 % correction.

The images above are three versions of a building shoot from below. The 80 % correction, automatically set when using the Keystone Vertical cursor tool, makes the building look straight while the 100% correction makes the building look wider at the top than at the bottom.

Use Keystone Correction at 80 % to achieve a natural look

If the image above had been shot with a technical camera with an ideal lens pointing horizontally, the image would be identical to the rightmost version with 100 % correction. In this version, the height of each window in the building are exactly the same and this confuses the brain, as we expect the windows to look smaller and smaller the further away they are. In the middle version with 80 % correction, the height of the windows look just a little bit smaller the further away they get. This is just enough to allow the brain to accept the building as looking naturally parallel and seen from below.

If you shoot a building from a position where you are able to point your camera almost horizontally, then you may want a 100 % correction.  You can still use the Keystone Vertical cursor tool, but you will need to change the default 80 % correction in the tool to 100 %.

How to use the Keystone cursor tools:

Step 1: Select the Keystone Vertical cursor tool from either the Keystone Correction tool or from the general cursor-tool toolbar. 

Step2:  Align the vertical guides with the vertical lines in the building. To obtain better precision, you can use the scroll wheel on your mouse to zoom into and out of the image while aligning the guides.

Step 3: Press the Apply button and the image will be corrected. Notice that the Amount slider has automatically been set at 80%. Also notice that the image has been rotated, as the camera was not perfectly aligned horizontally.

When using the Keystone cursor tools Keystone Horizontal or Keystone then a 100 % correction is used as this often makes more sense for these kinds of corrections.

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Achieve sharp images with wide angle lenses

March 31, 2011 by 40 Comments

With today’s high-resolution cameras, you are required to pay much more attention to how you shoot in order to get sharp images.

Focusing is harder than ever:

For wide angel lenses, the tolerance for when the lens is properly focused is extremely narrow. Often the tolerance for the autofocus system is not tight enough to get the most out of modern lenses.  When using wide angle lenses, you can easily achieve extreme wide depth of field reaching from infinity to a few meters in front of the lens. The focusing just needs to be perfectly right – I call it the focusing sweet spot.

Use manual focus:

Test your lens to find and mark your focusing sweet spot. This will give you sharper and more consistent images.  In doing this, you will sometimes find that the lenses you previously found disappointing now give you exactly what you want.

The examples above is a 200 % zoomed view of an image which was shot from my office window, and you can see just how big a difference it makes when you use the lens focusing sweet spot compared to just using the autofocus system. This example is made with a Canon Zoom at 17 mm. but could have been made with most other wide angle, primes as well as zoom lenses.

  

Find your focusing sweet spot

The easiest way to find the focusing sweet spot is to shoot tethered, as you get immediate feedback on how well you are focusing. With Canon and Nikon cameras, you will have tethered functionality directly in Capture One 6 Pro. With other camera brands, you can use Capture One´s hot folder functionality to get your images into Capture One by using a vender specific program for shooting tethered.

Steps for finding the focusing sweet spot:

  • Ideally, find a location where you can focus on infinity where you have objects all the way from infinity to a few meters from the camera.
  • Place your camera on a steady tripod
  • Make sure to turn off any image stabilization as this may influence the sharpness from shot to shot.
  • Set camera on manual focus
  • Set the lens to full open.
  • Shoot a series of images where you sweep through a range of focusing positions near the focusing point for infinity. For each image, check if you have better sharpness in the center of the image at a zoom level of 200-400 %. Once you have achieved maximum sharpness mark this point on the lens with a pen.

On this zoom lens, I have marked the position for the best focus on infinity.

Steps for finding the aperture that gives you the best compromise between sharpness and depth of field:

  • Set focus on the marked position for maximum focus on infinity
  • Take an image at each aperture step. 
  • Compare the images side by side to see the effect of stopping the lens down.  In Capture One Pro 6, you can simultaneously zoom into a maximum of 12 images. Doing so is a big help for this analysis

Typically, you will see that you get the best sharpness at 1-2 f-stops from full open.   Stopping further down may lead to softer images in the center. You should also check the edges and objects closer to the camera. For very vide angle lenses like 10-20mm, the depth of field is extremely deep even for apertures like 5.6 and 8 and stopping further down may not give you an increased depth of field as the whole image may just become softer.

With the lens set at best focus for infinity, I shot at each full aperture step.  Above are a 200 % zoomed view of the centers of the images.  At f5.6, the image is at its sharpest, but the range from f4-11 also works well.  At f16 and f22, the image sharpness decreases dramatically.

 The images above show a 200 % zoomed view of a car half way between “infinity” and the camera. Contrary to what one might expect, the increased f-stops doesn’t give a greater depth of field. As the lens is stopped down it just becomes softer and softer. Again the image is actually most sharp at f5.6.

Setting the sweet spot – Optimizing focusing for the best aperture:

My goal is to be able to achieve the sharpest possible image from infinity to as close to the camera as possible. With the lens stopped down will my initial focus mark on the lens still be the best compromise? My experience is that for most wide-angle lenses, primes as well as zooms this is actually the best compromise, but to be absolutely sure, we need to check it out.

Set the lens at your mark for the best focus for infinity.

  • Take some shots where you focus slightly closer than infinity.
  • For each shot, check if you get a better compromise between best sharpness at infinity and the deepest depth of field.
  • Mark the lens with a pen at the point where you have the best compromise.  

Now you have found the focusing sweet spot for the lens. Next time you need maximum sharpness and maximum depth of field, set your camera to manual focus and use your sweet spot mark on your lens. Doing this, you may achieve sharpness you may not have thought possible.

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Dealing with haze when using telephoto lenses

March 17, 2011 by 4 Comments

When shooting landscape pictures with telephoto lenses, you will sometime see that the colors are influenced by haze. It is not just a question of having the right White Balance. It also has to do with the fact that when an object is viewed over a long distance, it will be viewed through lots of air which in itself adds color to the object.

Sometimes, this colored haze just adds the right look and feel to the image but at other times it may just be an unwanted distraction to the landscape.

Capture One Pro’s levels adjustments tool for individual color channels is the perfect tool to deal with such haze problems. 

Use individual levels adjustments

The image on the left shows some typical long distance haze which makes the colors look a little washed out with a distinct bluish cast. The image on the right has been corrected with individual Levels Tools for each color channel. Not only has the bluish cast disappeared, but the blue sky and the green color of the mountain slopes now appear much more natural.

When looking at the uncorrected RAW image from the above example in the Levels Tool, you will notice that the histogram doesn’t start at 0 and that the R, G and B histograms start at quite different levels.  This is a sure sign of haze.

To compensate for the haze effect, open the Levels Tool for the individual color channels, and set the shadow sliders at the beginning of each histogram and the highlight sliders at the end. Only an individual Levels Tool can correct for this type of haze.

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