Photo of the Week 2022-01-31

 

Continuing with this year's creative foray into winter IR photography.

' wonder winterland '

 

The shapes sculpted by wind and snow are wondrous, and in infrared become otherworldly ...
 

Picking up on the conversation from last week, the challenge of lens performance in IR can make things quite interesting. For the image above, I used the Canon EF-M 18-55 standard zoom. The performance of this lens for infrared depends on shooting conditions given my experience. In harsh sunlight it can produce a 'hot spot' in the centre of the frame at medium to small apertures. My default aperture for most shooting is f/8 and for IR, this lens performs better at f/5.6 or lower, making depth of focus an issue for some shots. Taking the image above as an example, I was able to get reasonable focus sharpness at 18mm with f/5.6 for the foreground snow drift, which is the main subject. The background however is nowhere near sharp and this was acceptable as the birch tree and distant cottage chairs provide some context without challenging the main subject for the viewer's attention. No seen, is the hot spot that required some tweaking in post processing to remove a colour and brightness shift. Given the subject of the photo, this was not difficult however with different subject matter it could prove quite challenging.

 

The journey continues ...

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2022-01-24

 

Always working to keep the creative juices flowing, I recently combined my desire to get out and hike in the cold fresh air with an idea to try some infrared (IR) photography ... with a manual focus 8mm fish-eye lens.

 

Working in IR offers both significant challenges and broad creative opportunities. The challenges come when switching from 'normal' photography, capturing visible light in a more "what you see is what you get" process to capturing infrared light in a more "what will I be able to create from this" process. The later is more akin to B&W photography in my opinion as we don't see in IR just as we don't see in B&W. Greater familiarity with B&W photography makes that process more intuitive, while IR photography has a greater trial and error component for me at my current level of expertise.

 

 

limestone arch

downstream

down the tracks

 

 

The first challenge comes when selecting the gear that will be used for IR photography. Digital camera sensors, unless modified, are made to see only light in the visible wavelength spectrum. IR filters or a modified camera will be required to get started and there are a number of choices.Camera lenses are designed for optimum performance with visible light and may perform poorly when shooting IR images. There are plenty of online resources that offer information on these aspects of IR photography and Google is your friend if you want to get into it more detail. Alternately, you could send me a question via the comment section or by email and I'll see if I can offer some assistance.

 

Once the decisions related to camera, filter and lens have been made, it's on to the capture phase of working in IR. This is really just the process of collecting the raw materials that will be crafted into a final image. For the most part, infrared images straight out of camera (using filters or a converted camera) are not the end result in this genre. I say for the most part, because this is really a more abstract pursuit but that depends on the artist ...

... yes the "Artist", and like all art, it may or may not be for you whether photographer or viewer.

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2022-01-17

WoW!

Are we really halfway through January already?

I've been waiting for the winter weather to arrive. The 'real' winter weather. You know the kind that everyone seems to bitch and moan about on social media. Cold, snowy, blowy winter weather is what I'm talkin' about! 

 

And I got what I wanted and it's time to put those fashionable "Canada Goose" coats that you started wearing in September to use for what they were really intended for you fragile fashionistas ... ROFL

With the temperature hovering around -20*C and wind gusts around 50kph out of the east, I knew it was time for a trip to to the 'other side' of the peninsula for some real winter photography ...

 

Yup -20*C

... so I broke out some of my winter kit. Let's talk about being properly prepared for being out in this weather for a couple of hours or more. You need the right gear. For this outing, mine consisted of a merino base layer and Columbia Omni-Heat winter pants along with my Columbia full-length insulated coat with Omni-Heat zip-in liner (It's not time for the Fjallraven parka ... I save that for 30 below LOL). I also had a CTR Howler winter beanie and large fleece neck-warmer. For my hands in weather like this when I need dexterity to operate camera controls, nothing and I do mean NOTHING beats my Heat 3 Mitt/Gloves (expensive, maybe, but I like them so much I bought a second pair with the removable/replaceable glove liners in case I wore out my first pair .... and I have not, not even close). Oh ya, and some polarized Oakleys.

 

Here I am kitted up ... after about an hour along the shore.

Here is what all the fuss was about ...

' winter shore '

' winter shore II '

' cozy bench '

These scenes are pure magic to encounter. They can be challenging to capture, but with proper gear and preparation you can stay warm and comfortable in real Canadian winter weather.

Added bonus ... I came back feeling fresh and truly alive!

 

DJE
 

Photo of the Week 2022-01-10

 

Lynn suggested a trail in the Arboretum for an afternoon outing and as we started along the first boardwalk, I looked back towards the sun, it was white and bright ... at least it was until I remembered to reset my exposure settings on the camera after it's last use, DOH. Still, I liked the high-key look and decided to work with the resulting image.

 

' white and bright '

For this trek, I decided to continue with my desire to utilize ultra-wide angle lenses more, and mounted the fish-eye on one camera. The distortion with this lens, a Rokinon 8mm f/3.5 fish-eye CSII, is extreme to say the least and as expected, lines at the edges of the frame were severely curved. Earlier in the week I had been watching instructional videos on photography with wide and ultra-wide lenses and recalled one about "de-fishing" an image in Photoshop. This looked like a decent test candidate for the technique so I decided to see if I could achieve a more natural look (aside from the overexposure).

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2022-01-03

 

WELCOME TO 2022 !!

 

Here starts another calendar year for the blog ...

 

With a snowstorm hitting areas of the province south of us, Tobermory was getting just a dusting of the 'white stuff' as the second day of the new year got underway. It was however getting colder (-10*C) and while time will tell if winter is truly ready to settle in, I decided that I needed to get out in the fresh air, so I asked Lynn and Murphy to come with me for a hike to Indian Head Cove. It wold be our fist visit in almost two years.

 

Indian Head Cove 2022-01-02

For the outing, I packed up a variety of photo gear and included the 14mm Rokinon f/2.8. It's not a lens that has seen a lot of use and I intend to work with it more in 2022. Ultra Wide Angle lenses can be utilized to provide some dramatic perspectives and exceptional compositions. They can also be quite challenging to wield given their expansive field of view. Unwanted elements like branches, feet, and tripod legs tend to creep into the edges of the frame when the photographer is not watching 'the edges' closely. There are a host of other considerations a photographer must keep in mind when a UWA is mounted and perhaps I'll discuss these in future posts as I encounter and utilize them.

 

As a beginning, I figured it could inject some interesting creative changes to my process and push me to see and create differently. What a great way to start a new photographic year!

 

DJE