PhotoNaturalist » Wildflowers

Why the Sharpest Photo Isn’t Always the Best Photo

Steve Berardi — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 06:52:41 +0000

Desert Sunflower @ f5.6 / Photo by Steve Berardi

As nature photographers, we tend to have an obsession with tack sharp photos and will do almost anything to increase the sharpness just a tiny bit. After all, looking up close at a sharp photo of a dragonfly is one of the greatest rewards of photographing the natural world

But, sometimes it’s necessary to sacrifice a little sharpness for a better composition.

As an example, consider the photo above of a Desert Sunflower in front of a patch of Desert Sand Verbena (see original size photo too). There are three reasons why the sunflower isn’t as sharp as it could have been:

The wind was blowing pretty hard, and constantly swaying the flower

The camera’s sensor was not parallel to the most important plane of the flower

A pretty large aperture was used (f/5.6), which limited depth of field

Of course, the wind was out of my control, so all I could do for that was wait for the calmest moment possible. But, the other two were in my control. Why didn’t I address these problems?

Well, if I put the camera in a position where the sensor was parallel to the flower, then I wouldn’t have had the all-purple background. It would have been a mixture between green, brown, and a few blotches of purple. All these colors would have distracted the viewer and it wouldn’t have created as strong a contrast as the purple alone.

And, if I chose a smaller aperture to get more depth of field, then the background would’ve been a lot more in focus because it wasn’t too far away (only a few feet). I did take a test shot to see what it would’ve looked like if I increased the f-number by one stop to f/8.0:

Desert Sunflower @ f8 / Photo by Steve Berardi

Even just a one stop difference significantly changed the background from a nice seamless purple into a distractingly blotchy background.

Another thing to consider is the final print size you’re looking to make. Yeah, my flower photo here would look pretty blurry if printed at 30×20, but if I print smaller, then I can take advantage of sharpening through resizing. With flower photos, I think an 8×10 print is large enough, maybe 16×20 max?

So, consider your composition first, and then setup your shot to maximize sharpness of that particular composition. Don’t sacrifice your photographic vision just for a sharper photo.

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About the Author: Steve Berardi is a naturalist, photographer, computer scientist, and founder of PhotoNaturalist. You can usually find him hiking in the beautiful mountains and deserts of Southern California.

9 tips for photographing wildflowers with a point and shoot camera

Steve Berardi — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 02:57:12 +0000

Photo by Steve Berardi (shot with a Canon G10 point and shoot camera)

Although wildflowers are best photographed with an SLR camera, it’s still possible to take some pretty good shots with a plain old point and shoot camera. And, sometimes this may be the only camera you have with you at the time, either because you’re backpacking far into the wilderness and want to travel light, or maybe you haven’t made the jump to an SLR just yet.

The biggest problem you’ll run into with the point and shoot camera is the large depth of field you get from the super small sensor. This limits some of your options, but there’s a few ways to get around it, and as always, light also plays a huge role in the success of a photo.

So, here are a few tips for photographing wildflowers when you’re limited to a point and shoot camera:

#1 – Enable the “Macro mode”

Most point and shoot cameras have a special “macro” mode that allows the lens to focus at a much closer distance. This helps you fill the frame with smaller flowers, and create a more out of focus background (remember the three things that affect depth of field).

#2 – Maximize the zoom on your lens (just optical zoom though!)

Another thing you can do to create a more out of focus background is maximize the zoom on your lens. Make sure you only use optical zoom though. The digital zoom on point and shoot cameras is really just a poor digital interpolation that will likely degrade the quality of your photo.

#3 – Turn off the flash

If you’re in a shaded area, your camera may want to fire the flash if it’s set to auto (the default on most cameras). But, the flash could ruin wildflower photos by creating that weird artificial light look and casting harsh shadows. So, remember to turn off the flash.

#4 – Use the lowest possible ISO speed

Unlike SLRs, point and shoot cameras usually have very poor performance at high ISOs, so to avoid getting super noisy images, make sure you’re shooting at the lowest possible ISO value of your camera.

#5 – Wait for an overcast or cloudy day

Overcast or cloudy skies will help create the perfect lighting conditions for photographing wildflowers. The clouds act as a natural light diffuser that balances the light on the flower (preventing blown highlights and harsh shadows that you’d experience on a bright sunny day).

#6 – Use a light diffuser if you can’t wait for a cloudy day

If you can’t wait for an overcast day, or they rarely occur in your area, you can also make an artificial light diffuser that also works quite well.

#7 – Find a flower with a far away background that contrasts well with the flower’s colors

The background plays an important role in wildflower portraits: it helps draw attention to the main subject, the flower. So, look for a flower that has a background that not only contrasts well with the flower, but is also far away (5 ft or more). The farther away the background is, the better: this will dramatically help you get that out of focus background on a point and shoot camera.

#8 – Take more than one shot (at least 3 or 5)

To help increase your chances of getting a sharp photo, remember to take more than one shot. Even on a seemingly calm day, flowers can be seen bouncing frantically through the air. Taking a couple shots will help ensure you photographed the flower when it was still.

#9 – Find a flower that’s in good shape

There’s always creatures that like to eat flowers, so spend some time looking for one that’s in good shape (e.g. not missing petals). Some flowers are also more saturated than others of the same species, so be on the lookout for these gems.

What did I miss?

If you have another favorite tip for photographing wildflowers with a point and shoot camera, please share it with us by leaving a comment below! Thanks

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How to create intimate portraits of nature

Steve Berardi — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 02:38:37 +0000

Bigelow's Monkeyflower / Photos by Steve Berardi

Which of the two photos above do you like better?

They were both taken of the same flower, with the same camera settings. The only difference between the two shots is the position of the camera.

I’ll take a wild guess that you like the first one more. And, I think this photo is better because it has more of an intimate and friendly feeling to it.

Now, part of the reason the first photo has this intimate feeling is because the flower is more isolated from its background.

But, what’s more important here is the perspective: the first photo was taken from a position looking directly at the flower (which stood just a few inches high). I was lying down on the ground with the camera on the same level as the flower, almost as if I was seeing eye-to-eye with the flower (if the flower had eyes, hehe).

The second photo was taken from a more elevated position: I was kneeling and looking down on the flower with my camera. When we look down on things, we tend to have a slight feeling of superiority or conquer, and this diminishes that friendly feeling.

I’ve talked about this topic before, as it applies to photographing wildlife, but I think it’s just as important for any kind of nature portrait. The position of your camera in relation to your subject (whether it’s above, below, or on the same level), will determine the feeling you portray in your photo.

So, to create that intimate and friendly feeling in your nature portraits, you have to photograph your subject on their level. You have to see them eye-to-eye.

Sometimes this might mean lying down on a bed of sharp rocks and being sore for a couple days, but the rewards are well worth it

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3 things that affect depth of field

Steve Berardi — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 03:02:23 +0000

Diagram by Jared C. Benedict (used under the CC-Attr-SA license)

I was planning to write about the three things that affect depth of field this week, but by pure coincidence (seriously!), I discovered this great blog post that Brian Auer wrote a few days ago:

Three Ways to Control Depth of Field

I’d highly recommend checking it out. Brian did a nice job of explaining the three things that affect depth of field (aperture, camera to subject distance, and focal length), including some sample images too.

There’s a few things I’d like to add though:

If the f-number is doubled, then the depth of field is also doubled. Note that “doubling” here literally means doubling (e.g. from f/4 to f/8), it does NOT mean one whole stop (e.g. from f/4 to f/5.6).

If the subject distance is doubled, then the depth of field is increased by four times (depth of field is proportional to the subject distance squared).

If the focal length is doubled, then the depth of field is decreased by four times (depth of field is inversely proportional to the focal length squared).

So, if you’re looking for small depth of field (i.e. to help isolate your subject against an out-of-focus background), then the key is to use a small f-number, get close, and use a long focal length lens.

The only place I’ve seen these three things explained so precisely like this, is in Ansel Adams’ wonderful book, The Camera. It’s 195 pages of pure magical goodness, and it’s a book that I constantly reread and go back to. I just wish there was a pocket size edition too

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New eBook, Digital Wildflower Photography, is now available!

Steve Berardi — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 23:42:45 +0000

Today I’m happy to announce that my new eBook, Digital Wildflower Photography, is now available.

The first thing you’re probably wondering is how it’s different from the free eBook I released last spring. Well, this new one is over twice as long at 55 pages, and has a ton of new content.

While the free eBook was really just a collection of a few tips for getting better wildflower photos, this new ebook is more of a complete guide that will teach you how to take stunning wildflower photos and how to post-process them in Adobe Photoshop (CS and Elements 8).

Here’s a sneak peak of what you’ll learn in this 55-page eBook:

What equipment you need for photographing wildflowers.

How to setup your shot to create pleasing compositions and maximize sharpness.

How to choose the right aperture to ensure all parts of the flower are tack sharp, and to isolate the flower against its background.

How to find the perfect exposure by using tools like the RGB histogram (complete with a step-by-step example).

The secret to getting perfect light, and what to do when you can’t wait for that perfect light.

How to photograph butterflies (including how to maximize sharpness and how to get closer to butterflies without scaring them away).

How to compose landscapes of wildflowers and include the three essential elements.

How to post-process your photos with Adobe Photoshop to reduce noise, increase contrast and saturation, make small adjustments to exposure, and make your images super sharp (tutorials apply to both Photoshop CS and Photoshop Elements 8).

Also included are 7 example photos with complete stories about how they were taken and processed. It’s like Albert Einstein said,

“Learning by example isn’t the best way to learn–it’s the only way to learn.”

Here are some of the examples you’ll learn about:

Photos by Steve Berardi

A few of the topics in this eBook have already been discussed here on PhotoNaturalist, but the vast majority of this eBook is new content, and I have updated and expanded upon a lot of the old content.

The eBook is mostly geared towards beginner to intermediate photographers, but I think thereʼs something in here for everyone. And, although a lot of the material could be applied to any digital camera, you’ll get the most out of the book if you own a digital SLR.

Oh, and I almost forgot: I’ve also included a 1-page quick reference guide for wildflower photography. It basically summarizes everything in the book, so you can print it out and take it on the trail with you

You can buy the eBook now for just $12.95

Sure, it’s a little more than a cup of coffee, but it’s practically free when you stack it up against all that expensive camera gear

And, don’t worry–if you buy it and realize it’s not what you thought it was or you’re unsatisfied in any way, I’ll be happy to give you a full refund within 30-days after you purchase it. No questions asked.

After paying, make sure you click the “Complete Purchase” button.

The eBook comes in the standard PDF format, which you can view with Adobe’s free Reader software. Feel free to print the eBook, but please do not redistribute copies

Payments for the eBook are handled through PayPal, the #1 service on the Internet for making online payments (they’re owned by eBay).

Digital delivery of the eBook is handled by E-Junkie, a service which is used and recommended by some of the top bloggers in the world. After you pay through PayPal, you’ll receive an e-mail with a link to download the eBook.

If you experience any problems with payment or downloading the eBook, please contact me and I’ll get back to you within 24 hours.

About the Author: Steve Berardi is a naturalist, photographer, computer scientist, and founder of PhotoNaturalist. You can usually find him hiking in the beautiful mountains and deserts of Southern California. His photographs have been used by the National Wildlife Federation and Nature Photographer Magazine.

5 great resources for nature photographers

Steve Berardi — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 04:00:10 +0000

When I started this website, I listed a few great resources on the right sidebar, but I just realized that I’ve never written about them in a post before. So, I thought I’d take a moment to list them here and explain how each one can be helpful on your journey to photograph the wonderful natural world:

#1 – Moon Phase Calendar

This website will show you the moon phases for the current calendar month. It’s helpful when you’re trying to plan a landscape shot and need the moon to be in a specific phase (mostly likely full). I usually just use it as a sort of “quick look” planning tool, and then move on to the next site for more details.

#2 – Sun/Moon data for one day

This is a cool tool developed by the United States Navy that will give you complete sun/moon data for a day (after you give a location). It’ll generate this nice one-page summary that lists sunrise/sunset times, moonrise/moonset times, and civil twilight start and end times. I like to print this page on trips to the desert, so I can also use it to take notes on.

#3 – Precipitation Analysis by NOAA

This website is run by the United States National Weather Service, and has a ton of information on precipitation history. I really just use this for finding good wildflower spots in the spring (more rain in an area usually means more wildflowers), but there’s probably a ton of other things you could use this for. Maybe you could use it for scouting waterfalls too, since some of them are primarily fed by snow melt.

#4 – Weather Forecasts at Weather Underground

Weather Underground has some of the most detailed weather forecasts available on the Internet. What’s particularly useful about their forecasts is the percent cloud cover throughout the day. Of course, this isn’t usually accurate a week in advance, but I use it often the night before I’m planning a trip outdoors. Knowing when there will be clouds could be helpful for things like waterfalls, wildflowers, and landscapes (i.e. sometimes you really want that clear sky!).

#5 – Weather Maps by Weather Underground

This is an awesome tool that Weather Underground just released: it will show you weather conditions overlayed on top of a Google Map (I’ve been waiting forever for this!). You can see cloud cover, temperature, and precipitation. You can also quickly move between cities and different weather stations to get detailed information on things like wind speed, visibility, etc.

This tool can be useful for planning trips to see and photograph wildflowers or waterfalls, where you want some cloud cover. You can use it for the opposite too: say you want to go out and see some dragonflies which won’t be around if there’s overcast skies.

What did I miss?

If you’ve found a better website to accomplish any of the above, or have an additional resource that you’ve found invaluable, please share it with the rest of us by leaving a comment below. Thanks!

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How to use the “special” RGB Histogram

Steve Berardi — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 04:06:19 +0000

A few weeks ago, I explained how to use the histogram to get a better exposure. And although the default histogram will give you a general idea of an image’s exposure, there’s actually a special histogram that’ll tell you a lot more: the RGB histogram.

Here’s how it works:

If you understand the regular histogram, then the RGB histogram is simple: it shows you the histogram of each individual color channel (red, green, and blue).

The bad thing about the regular histogram is that it lumps all these color channels together, making it hard for you to see if you’re underexposing or overexposing a specific color channel. And, on some cameras, I’ve heard that the regular histogram only shows you the green channel.

So, the RGB histogram is similar to the regular histogram, but now you have a separate histogram for each color channel.

The goal is the same: you don’t want to underexpose or overexpose any of the color channels, so look at each channel’s histogram to ensure the graph isn’t bunching up to one side.

It’s important to note that each color channel’s histogram may be drastically different. It really depends on the colors of the photo (and their brilliance). For example, consider the photo below of a Desert Five-Spot (my favorite desert wildflower, btw):

Desert Five-Spot / Photo by Steve Berardi

Here are the corresponding RGB histograms of this image:

Notice how the green channel doesn’t spread all the way to the right? At first, you might think this means the image is underexposed, but remember: this is only the histogram of the green channel.

With the RGB histogram, your goal is not necessarily to get a balanced histogram in each channel, but instead to ensure you’re not losing details in a color channel by underexposing or overexposing.

So, although the green channel doesn’t have many highlights in this image, notice how the blue channel does: its histogram is spread out and nearly touches the right side. The important highlights in this image are in the blue channel, so that’s what I exposed for.

How to enable the RGB histogram on your camera

Although most cameras have the standard histogram, not all have the special RGB one, so you may be out of luck, but check or camera’s manual to make sure and don’t be afraid to do some digging in your camera’s menus or custom functions since it’s not the default setting.

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About the Author: Steve Berardi is a naturalist, photographer, computer scientist, and founder of PhotoNaturalist. You can usually find him hiking in the San Gabriel Mountains or the Mojave Desert, both located in the beautiful state of California.

How to check sharpness out on the trail

Steve Berardi — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 04:22:11 +0000

In last week’s post, I explained how to use the histogram to check if you exposed a photo properly. Another thing you probably want to know after taking a photo is whether or not it’s sharp.

Well, one way to see if a photo came out sharp enough, is to zoom in as much as possible on the LCD preview.

This won’t show you exactly how sharp the photo is, but it’ll give you a much better idea than just looking at the zoomed out preview (which almost always looks sharp).

When you zoom in, make sure you pay special attention to the areas of your photo that you want super sharp, like the eyes of a bird.

After using this method for awhile and comparing what you see zoomed in on your camera’s LCD versus what you see later on your monitor, you’ll get a much better idea of how to judge sharpness from the LCD preview.

Being able to check sharpness in the field like this will help you determine if you got a good enough shot of a subject and can move on. This is extremely helpful for subjects like wildflowers, where wind is a constant problem. You never know if you snapped that photo just before the wind came in, so zooming in to check the sharpness sure helps a lot

Make your life easier by enabling “quick zoom” on your camera

Some cameras have a “quick zoom” feature that, when enabled, will automatically jump to a certain zoom level when you zoom in (rather than progressively getting closer with each button press).

Since there’s really no point for those intermediate zoom levels, this feature can save you a ton of time by instantly zooming all the way when you need to check sharpness.

What other methods do you use to check sharpness?

Have you found another way to check the sharpness of your images, while out on the trail? If so, please share by leaving a comment below!

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How to get better control of autofocus

Steve Berardi — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 02:22:45 +0000

Sometimes autofocus can be really annoying. For some shots it’ll focus on the right part of your subject, but then the very next shot it may choose to focus on something far and away into the background.

In a previous post, I shared a few ways to avoid problems like this, but I just found a new solution that I like a lot better: back-button autofocusing.

Here’s how it works:

Normally, your camera will auto focus when you press the shutter button halfway, but with back-button autofocusing, you have to press a button on the back of the camera instead, giving you complete control of when autofocus is initiated.

How is this helpful? Well, for landscapes, now you can just set the autofocus point to the center spot, then point that at an object a third of the way into a scene, press the back button to automatically focus on that object and finally release. Now for all the shots you take, that focus will be maintained (the camera won’t randomly focus into the background anymore).

You can do the same thing without this back-button autofocusing by switching to manual focus after the camera focuses properly, but using the back button saves time and this way you don’t have to constantly switch back and forth between manual and auto focus (which can inadvertently move the camera sometimes).

After talking with my dad, I learned that back-button focusing is also helpful for photographing birds in flight or other wildlife: just switch on AI-Servo mode, set the autofocus point to the center spot, and hold down that back button. Now you don’t have to worry about accidentally hitting the shutter button while you’re tracking the bird in your viewfinder.

How to setup back-button autofocusing

On some cameras, this feature may be enabled by default, but on others you might have to do some digging around in your camera’s custom functions (accessed through the configuration menus). Each camera manufacturer seems to call this feature something different, so look carefully!

On my Canon XTi, I just went to the custom functions screen, and set the “Shutter/AE lock button” to “1: AE lock/AF” … Here’s a photo I took of the screen:

The actual button you’ll use once the feature is enabled, also varies from camera to camera, but on my XTi, it’s a button in the upper right corner of the camera (see photo above).

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What mode should you shoot in?

Steve Berardi — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 04:29:03 +0000

Have you ever been confused by all the different modes on your camera? Maybe you understand what each one does, but you’re not sure which mode is best for what. Well, here’s a summary of the most commonly used modes for nature photography:

Program (P)

When you shoot in Program (P) mode, the camera pretty much makes all the decisions for you by automatically choosing aperture and shutter speed. However, it will not pop up the flash (unless you tell it to).

What it’s good for: not much for nature photography

I’ve never found a good use for program mode when shooting nature photos, but I’ve heard it’s great for street photography, when the perfect moment may only last a few seconds and you don’t have time to fool around with camera settings.

This may lead you to believe Program mode would also be good for shooting wildlife, but to ensure you get your whole subject in sharp focus, you’ll usually need to control the aperture yourself.

Aperture Priority (Av)

With Aperture Priority (Av) mode, you choose the aperture and the camera decides the shutter speed.

What it’s good for: landscapes

I shoot almost all my landscape photos in aperture priority mode. Here’s why: with landscapes it’s important to have everything in sharp focus, so you’ll want to manually choose a small aperture.

Landscapes are usually most dramatic during sunrise or sunset when the light conditions are constantly changing, so it’s difficult to determine the correct exposure on the fly. Not only that, but you may also be using a polarizer or graduated density filter that complicates the exposure calculation even more.

So, what’s worked for me is to shoot in Av mode, with exposure bracketing at -1/+1, because when you shoot landscapes at sunrise/sunset you’ll often experience harsh shadows and strong contrast between elements that are sunlit and those that are shaded. You’ll want to take multiple exposures to blend them later in post-processing.

Shutter Priority (Tv)

With Shutter Priority (Tv) mode, you choose the shutter speed and the camera decides the aperture.

What it’s good for: waterfalls, streams (kind of)

When I first started photographing waterfalls, I experimented with shutter priority mode, since the most important thing was to get a long enough shutter to make the water silky looking.

However, I quickly switched to manual after shooting more and more waterfalls in brighter lighting conditions. Not only is a longer shutter necessary for waterfalls, but a somewhat small aperture is also important to keep everything in focus (f/11 or smaller). So although I was able to choose a long shutter with Tv mode, the camera didn’t always automatically select the aperture I wanted.

Manual (M)

With manual mode, you choose the aperture and the shutter speed. This mode gives you complete control of the camera.

What it’s good for: everything (but difficult for landscapes)

I use manual for almost everything now (except landscapes, which I do in aperture priority mode). I’ve found that it’s most critical for photographing wildflowers and wildlife. With wildflowers, the camera’s auto exposure will rarely guess a good exposure (regardless of metering mode). And, with wildlife, since you’ll probably be shooting in JPEG, it’s critical to get a good exposure.