lpm_issue_4_lq

Landscape Photography

magazine

Issue 4

June 2011http://landscapephotographymagazine.com

On the map: Mupe Bay by Stuart Billington

Reader’s Portfolios: Natalia Martinez - Tony McGarva - Bruce T Smith

Four Stages of Photography: Pele Leung

Open Talk: 10 Stop ND Filters by David Hay

Spotlight: Looking for Shelter by Dimitri Vasiliou

Hello everyone

Issue 3 found us in the middle of changes. We started the first of many upgrades on the website, in order to create one as interactive as possible. We would like our readers to participate, interact and be part of a lovely community of Landscape Photographers and not just readers of one more magazine.

We are working not just on website improvements but also on the look, feel and functionality of it.

Our aim was to create a membership. This would help us to send out newsletters every month and let you know of the publication of each new issue, as this was one of your requests. However, the software we used did not want to work the way we wanted it to.

Our apologies for all the confusion caused. We will soon try different software and hopefully this time everything will work nice and smooth.

Thank you

Editor's Views

Front Cover:

Bamburgh castle, England by Scott Harrower

Portfolios

24

4

54

Contents

12

Articles

This Month: Orange Nights by John Cox

Beginners Guide: Choosing a Tripod by Mike Bell

48

58

18

62

32

Viewpoint: Four Stages of Photography by Pele Leung

Hay Fever: Colour & Composition by David Hay

Open Talk: 10 Stop ND Filters by David Hay

30 Spotlight: Looking For Shelter by Dimitri Vasiliou

Desde mi escondite - Playa de L’Esparrelló Villajoyosa Alicante - Spain

Portfolio:Natalia Martinez

6 - Landscape Photography Magazine

Po r tfolio: Natalia Mar tiNe z

My name is Natalie Martinez, I live in Alfaz Del Pi, Alicante in Spain.

My devotion to photography is something I inherited from my grandfather and my uncles as they are photographers, I have al-ways been in this environment. As I am doing contract work at the moment, I can enjoy photography every time I can go out. It is something I need as it makes me relax and I really do enjoy this magnificent hobby. I currently spend most of my time doing landscapes during sunrise and sunset.

I also enjoy macro, portrait and still life photography.

It is a great feeling when people who look at my images are filled with the same emotions as myself while capturing them. All my images have their own history and memories.

What fascinates me the most is the idea of visiting places with friends, admire their beauty and then take them home with me through my pictures.

It has been an honour for me to have my images included in this wonderful magazine, full of great pho-tographers and talents, thank you very much.

Below: Bajo la luz del atardecer-cala ximo, Benidrom, Alicante, Spain

Landscape Photography Magazine - 7


Below: My world, Altea, Alicante, Spain Above: Calido amanecer, Cabo San Juan, Alicante, Spain



Entre cascadas, Cala Baladrar, Benisa, Alicante, Spain



Amanece, La olla, Altea, Alicante, Spain



Tres en Raya, San juan, Alicante, Spain



Expirar, Inspirar, Cala Baladrar, Alicante, Spain

Mupe BayDiamond in the rough

In this edition of On The Map we explore one of many bays that can be found around the Dorset coast area of South England.


Mupe Bay is a geological coastal treat for the photographer, as it is where some of the Portland Stone beds are exposed due to erosion, and extend out in to the English Channel.


oN the MaP - MuPe Bay

See website for link to Google Map

rock falls, some quite large, can be seen. Access over the ledges and on towards Bacon Hole, can be tricky underfoot and slow going, mainly over large, often slippery rocks.

Care must always be taken when exploring Mupe, and bear in mind, there is no mobile phone signal here. It is also worth checking tidal predictions be-fore visiting Mupe Bay. Low tide may involve more scrambling over the rocks and ledges in order to get nearer to the sea.

At high tide, in particular the stretch between the ledges and Bacon Hole, the available area be-tween the sea and cliffs is limited. I would advise that this stretch should be avoided in the case of a high spring tide, especially in stormy or windy conditions. In addition to the sea level delights

About Mupe Bay

This being a typical feature of the Dorset Jurassic coast, the ledges and off shore rocks at Mupe can make a great and striking subject against the back-drop of the sea.

At the foot of the access steps to Mupe from the coastal path on the cliffs above, a sweeping vista to the East can be enjoyed, towards Arish Mell and Worbarrow Bay beyond. To the right of the steps down, the mighty Mupe ledges protrude out into the sea in an eastward direction.

To the south and west lie the majority of the amaz-ing Mupe Rocks, towards Bacon Hole, a curiously named spot which also boasts its own smugglers cave. Traversing the main bay is relatively easy, being shingle based, but caution must be given to the towering chalk cliffs here, as evidence of

England



»

extended opening times during school and public holidays.

However, there are exceptions to this throughout the year when military exercises are underway, so always check before planning a trip, and follow the MOD guidelines once within the range.

Mupe Bay can be approached from either the west or the east via the Southwest Coast footpath, but assuming arrival by car, the nearest parking (pay and display) is at Lulworth Cove to the west, adja-cent to the visitors centre. Lulworth Cove can be approached via the B3071 from the A352 at Wool, or via the B3070 & B3071 from the A352 just west of Wareham. Lulworth Cove is clearly signposted from either route off the A352.

From the car park, follow the road down to the cove itself, where upon you are presented with two options. The first (and easiest) is to walk around the beach of Lulworth Cove to the east.

The second option is to take the steep footpath which goes up and over the cliffs above Lulworth, and drops you back down above the eastern side of the cove.

If taking the route around the cove at sea lev-el, tides should not generally be a problem at Lulworth, except on perhaps a very high spring tide. Once you reach the eastern side of the cove, there is a set of wooden steps which takes you up the cliff to rejoin the coastal path.

Once joining the coastal path again, head south for a short distance through a small wooded area, following the route signposted to the ‘fossil for-est’. You will soon join the cliff top above the far south eastern corner of Lulworth Cove. Head east, and after a short distance you approach the metal gates and fencing which denotes the entrance to

of Mupe, a stunning eastward view over the rocks and ledges can be enjoyed from the coastal path above Bacon Hole.

Photographer’s View

The classic wide angle views at Mupe, are gener-ally eastwards out over the monster ledges at sun-rise, or alternatively westward including some of the great rocks at sunset.

The months from late autumn through to early spring can often be the best for sunset, as later/earlier in the year and the sun will set more north-wards behind the cliffs towards Lulworth cove.

After early March the sun will rise over the cliffs north of Worbarrow Tout, so visit before this time if you prefer the sun to rise over the sea. In addition to the ‘classic’ views, Mupe has an abundance of geology which can be used in an abstract manner. Some of the large individual standing off shore rocks, used in conjunction with a longer focal length, can make great isolated subjects in their own right.

How to get there

Mupe lies within the Lulworth MOD firing ranges, and is the most difficult of Dorset’s bays to reach (actually Arish Mell, between Mupe and Worbar-row Bay would be the winner here, but it is closed to the public at all times). Mupe is only accessible when the MOD ranges are open to the public, and involves a hike from Lulworth Cove of approx. 2 miles of mixed terrain.

The range opening times are available from the Dorset Council website (www.dorsetforyou.com), but generally they are open from 9am Sat-urday morning until 8am Monday morning, with


Mupe bay, Dorset, England

CameraLensFocal Length 11mmISO 100Shutter Speed 1/8 secAperture f/16



the MOD range land.

Provided you observed the range opening times the gate will be unlocked, pass on through and continue to follow the range walk east, which is clearly marked by the yellow posts. After approx. 1 mile you reach a large cut into the cliff top above Bacon Hole and the wonderful view over Mupe Rocks and ledges to the east.

Follow the path inland slightly and around Ba-con Hole (keeping well away from the unstable cliff edges), and you will shortly arrive at the steps which take you down to Mupe Bay.

Allow at least an hour to get to Mupe Bay from parking at Lulworth Cove, and maybe longer in the dark.

What else

Mupe Bay is part of the Dorset Jurassic coast, a UN-ESCO World Heritage Site. Other popular and great photographic locations abound along this stretch

I am a Dorset, UK, based photographer, with a deep root-ed passion for the coast. Self taught after acquiring my first DSLR in 2005 and always having lived near the sea, I have a natural affinity for the coast and making seascapes images, which is clearly represented in my work.

Whilst it can be somewhat of a cliché to say that the best light for land and seascape photography is around the hours of dawn and dusk, I do have a personal preference for making images at sunrise, and I often find these mo-ments can be quite humbling and inspiring.

I shoot with a Canon EOS body and lenses, but I am a firm believer that excellent photography is more about sub-ject, attention to detail and execution, rather than having the latest and greatest gear.

of Dorset coast. To the east of Mupe Bay in order of arrival you can find, Worbarrow Bay, a beautiful sweeping bay flanked by its Tout (headland) on the eastern side.

Just inland from Worbarrow is the deserted ghost village of Tyneham, a very interesting place to vis-it. Continuing on eastward is the much loved and popular Kimmeridge Bay, Chapman’s Pool and St. Aldhelms Head, before reaching Peveril Ledges at the edge of the seaside resort town of Swanage.

West from Mupe Bay, you can find the stunning crescent shaped bay of Lulworth Cove, and the hugely popular natural arch of Durdle Door, prob-ably the most iconic of Dorset’s coastal features. To the west of Durdle Door, stunning cliff top walks and beaches continue towards the coastal town of Weymouth.

www.stubill.com

Stuart Billington


Viewpoint:

Four Stages of Photography

Pele Leung

Photography appears to be a simple craf t to many people but is also an intricate ar t that most people can’t master well . I f you think digital photography has changed this situation, think twice.


There is no doubt that the latest digital tools speed up our learning progress but unfortunately the massive computing skills required have also slowed us down.

As a result, more people could take sharper pho-tos but in fact there are still a handful of photog-raphers who can really master all related photo-graphic skills from operating cameras to producing quality photographic output themselves.

To many photographers, the following four - stage progress model could be a good indicator of esti-mating their skill level in photography.

So which stage are you at now? Let’s find out.

The first stage is the beginning stage and most photographers learn quickly and make progress easily.

The second stage is the bogging stage and they make little progress and do not have any sense of direction. Basically they are stuck.

The third stage is a happy stage as they overcome the immediate barriers and resume their sense of direction.

The last one? We will talk about this separately.

The Beginning Stage

If you still can remember how you first discovered photography in the old days, you probably had missed some sweet experiences during this stage.

At this stage, all photographic knowledge is new »


ViewPo iNt: four Stag eS of Photog r aPhy

to you, from photo composition to camera opera-tions. You learn so quickly that you are satisfied and almost want to be a professional photogra-pher because you think you can!

After mastering a lot of technical skills, you get great shots in almost every trip. In simple words, you are able to capture what you see in record lev-el well.

People around you start to give you good com-ments such as “nice photo, you must have a good camera”. Thank you very much! Honestly this kind of good-camera-creates-nice-photo comment is actually an insult to a photographer but it is an-other story.

If you work even harder, you might soon come up with a portfolio with reasonable quality - in your

own opinion!

What is next? You have photographed most sub-jects like mountains, sunset, sunrise, waterfalls, deserts, coastal scenes or whatever in your photo-graphic area of interests.

After a while, you may start to realise that your photos appear to be similar without any new ele-ments or fresh ideas. To you, creative engineering does not work anymore. Believe it or not, you have just entered the second stage, the Bogging Stage.

The Bogging Stage

I can imagine and feel your pain if you are here now. Although you try to capture and present



something more than just recording, your mind appears to be bogged with limited creativity. At this stage, you achieve much less as your photog-raphy seems to be locked mainly for recording only. In other words, your creativity is still limited by the knowledge model you are familiar with pre-viously in the Beginning Stage.

Many photographers could get stuck here for quite a long time and sometimes stay forever. If so, you are really bogged.

Your current technical knowledge just cannot help you to enter the artistic world.

This is the hardest part in photography and some average photographers would probably give up because they realise that this is no longer their game.

To those who are persistent, they might finally get through if they could really re-learn photography from an artistic approach.

Of course you need unlimited imagination, an ar-tistic mind and the courage to refine your vision. Obviously your aim is to become an artist with technical skills. When this happens one day you wake up and see things differently.

The power of creativity gives you the ability to express your ideas with abstract elements. If you can do this, you are at the next stage, the Heaven Stage.

The Heaven Stage

You have visited paradise and then dived deep into hell. Finally you are now in “heaven”. »



Just use your imagination.

Finally you might realise that the destination is actually the starting point. Be prepared to learn again!

If you are still reading this, thank you. I hope I have drawn your attention to what photography really is.

In simple words, the whole concept above only means one thing to us - we never finish learning. Every day is new to us and we will succeed if we are determined.

To you, every scene is a picture. Your mind has been opened once again with distant boundary.

There is no doubt that your photographic skill is now at a higher level. Congratulations if you are here.

Is there another stage from here? In theory, there is but you will not be able to tell until you become a super master photographer (artist). When the time comes, you may no longer use cameras to capture your dream photos and the sky is your limit.

The Undefined Stage

It is really hard to imagine what this stage is be-cause you are no longer bounded by anything.

Landscape Photography

On The Map: Tønsberg beach, Norway

Reader’s Portfolios: Bert de Vos - Henry Liu - Ricardo Alves

Fisheye lens landscapes: John Freeman

Spotlight: Expensive cameras = Better pictures?

Issue 5

July 2011http://landscapephotographymagazine.com

Next Month

Out 1st of July

magazinemagazine

http://landscapephotographymagazine.com/

Beach Blaze, Aberdeen, Scotland.

I still recall this morning in Autumn 2008 whilst drivingto work as it appeared the sky was on fire and lava was flowing from the sea. Many magazines inform the reader about always taking your camera where ever you go and this image is a great reminder to myself. The best light for sunrises is always caught prior to the sun appearing over the horizon.

Portfolio:Tony McGarva

I have been a resident of Aberdeen, Scotland for the majority of my life, which I personally consider to be privilege in terms of Landscape pho-tography. The Granite City is located on the Aberdeenshire coastline and boasts tens of miles of a mixture of rugged seascapes and golden beach-es. To the West, along the meandering rivers and valleys of Royal Dee-side, many prime photogenic locations can be reached within two hours and the whole of the Scotland within four hours. So lets add to this the very changeable weather and light in Scotland and I have all the visual ingredients required for landscape photography.

I discovered my passion for photography during my teenage years when I used to borrow my fathers Olympus Trip 35mm camera. Even at this early stage of my life the ability to capture moments as stills intrigued me immensely. Since then a camera has always travelled with me at all times. Canon’s have been my tools and the later evolution has been EOS3, 300D, 30D to finally arrive at the very impressive EOS 5D mkII.

The majority of my landscape images are captured during the golden hours, morning or evening, when light, colour & drama can be captured in multitudes. Capturing vivid colours combined with natural beauty is always my goal. With this being my natural style it did intrigue me to read Ian Cameron’s arti-cle in Issue 1 about exhibition psychology and what type of pictures sell. Have I chosen the right path? My portfolio selected to share with you is a mixture from the Aberdeen coastline and from some of Scot-land’s wonderful photography locations.


Po r tfolio: to Ny McgarVa

Nigg BayFebruary 2011 had been a week of high seas, high winds and amazing scenes at the harbour breakwater in Aberdeen.



Buachaille Etive Mor

Glencoe, Scotland



The skeleton tree

Rannoch Moor, Scotland


Look ing For Shelter

Dimitri Vasiliou

After all, we would go there, scout the area, have lunch and if sheltered indeed, we would content ourselves with some close up photography.

You can’t really see the bay from the road but after a short and slightly steep descent, we realised that there was potential for a variety of things there. We had lunch and started exploring the possibilities. Large and colourful pebbles combined with sea stacks and facing North/East? Perfect for a sunrise during summer. However, the problem was what do we do now, today, early November. Yes, of course we were sheltered by the wind but the sea was rough, the sky heavy with clouds and no colour anywhere, a typical winter’s day.

After a bit of consideration and thinking, we decided that the only way to produce a decent image would be to harness nature. Slow down motion and create an environment that didn’t really exist. With the use of filters, we managed to get the exposure down to 12 sec and with very careful composition, focusing and metering, the results were very surprising. Out of nowhere, I managed to make an image that has become one of my favourites of all time and a lot of people who comment on it agree.

The moral of the story? Don’t just walk away from a scene because the weather doesn’t play ball, think of alternatives, improvise and use your creativity. You will be amazed with the results.

Having mentioned to some friends that Scottie and I are heading for the isle of Lewis in the outer Hebrides of Scotland for a week in a campervan, the laughter that followed was of course expected (but not by me). Isle of Lewis, in November, are you out of your mind? The island is right at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean and the weather at this time of year can be...well, nasty, especially for landscape photography, they said.

Anyway, while there and on almost complete isolation (the island is sporadically populated), we had the freedom of travelling wherever we wanted and staying overnight wherever we decided to. Basically, there was no one around to stop us from doing so.

The days were going by and I must admit that we were happy with the weather conditions, we had some beautiful light during our stay there until...that day. The forecast was for gale force winds from the west and indeed they were right. As one would understand, there was no place on the island to do any landscape shooting. So, maps came out and we tried to locate a possible area that would be sheltered from the wind.

We had planned to go to a place called Aird Uig but at a later date. There was a small bay there facing North/East with more than 30 metre cliffs behind it. The decision was made very quickly as it did seem like the best (and only) solution at the time.

Camera Canon 5DLens Canon 17-40Focal Length 40mmISO 50Shutter Speed 12 SecAperture f 22

Sea stacks of Camas na h - Airde


David Hay

Open Talk10 Stop ND FilterS

10 Stop ND filters and long exposures

Background

Our cameras have never been more sensitive to light. In the old days, when I used slide film, you couldn’t mix 400 ISO slides in a 100 ISO slide presentation because you could see the grainy skies. Now I use image stabilised lenses, that give me up to an extra 4 stops hand-holding ability and I will happily print a 1600 ISO image at A3 size. These two improvements give me a total of 8 extra stops compared to my slide film days. There are even cameras now that will shoot at 102,400 ISO!

So how have photographers responded to this new freedom? Many have responded by crippling the sensitivity of their sensors by putting incredibly dense filters in front of them, so dark that they look completely black. In one fell swoop they have turned the clock back more than 100 years and returned to the need for multi-second exposures in broad daylight and exposures lasting several minutes at dawn and dusk. Why?

The answer lies in some of the beautiful long exposure images that were produced by large format photographers. The first book I bought by

Michael Kenna included amazing photos of steam rising from cooling towers at night, like rivers in the sky, and blurry gondolas bobbing in Venice. He got these results by using very long exposures, usually at night. He went on to shoot seascapes where the sea and the sky were simplified by extremely long exposures that gave them a magical simplicity. The sea and the sky were reduced to glowing layers, proving that less is more in photography. We can’t all photograph at f64 for several hours at night but we can get the same effect with ultra-dark filters. So the demand for 10 stop ND filters was born.

Different types of ND filter

Originally most filter manufacturers offered a range of 1, 2 and 3 stop ND filters. These were used to reduce light levels to allow an increase in exposure times for subjects such as moving water. Some high quality digital compacts, like the recent Canon G-series models and others, have a 3 stop ND filter built in. When it is switched into the light path it allows longer shutter speeds to be used instead of having to use the smallest aperture, which is diffraction limited. »


oPeN talk - 10 Sto P NDoPeN talk - 10 Sto P ND

0.7 sec - f22 - EOS 10D 50mm - Polariser


oPeN talk - 10 Sto P ND

»

Filter strengths

Manufacturers of ND filters use several different ways to describe their exposure effect.

1 stop, 0.3, ND2

2 stop, 0.6, ND4

3 stop, 0.9, ND8

I was once offered the loan of a 12 stop ND filter by a friend. I had never come across one before but it turned out to be a 1.2 filter (4 stops). I think there should be a standard method of describing the strength of these filters to avoid people buying the wrong one.

Video

Nowadays, with the HD video capabilities in most new DSLRs, ND filters have become popular to allow filming with fast lenses at full aperture in

bright light to minimise the depth of field and create a ‘filmic’ look.

Types of ND filters

In recent years more extreme ND filters have become very popular. They are available in three different types.

Circular, screw-in, fixed strength filters.

Rectangular, slip-in, fixed strength filters.

Circular, screw-in, variable strength, rotating filters.

Circular, fixed strength.

In the first category I have used the B+W 10 stop ND filter. I found that the true filter factor was between 10.5 and 11 stops, requiring a check of the histogram after each exposure to fine tune the result rather than just adding 10 stops to

30 sec - f5.6 - EOS 40D - 16mm B+W 10 stop



2 sec - f16 - EOS 10D 85mm - Polariser



30 sec - f16 - EOS 40D - 18mm B+W 10 stop



the original exposure. The filter has an obvious brown cast, which tended to warm up the results. This was not a great disadvantage as it often complemented the image. Slight sunset colours in dusk or dawn skies were accentuated and rivers in flood in autumn looked good with a brown palette. Unlike with film photography, colour casts are easily removed after exposure if required.

The main disadvantage of the fixed strength screw-in filter is the need to take it off after each photograph to frame up and meter the next shot. Some people say that they can see through a 10 stop filter in Live View but with my camera, even on a bright day, you could only see slight details in the centre of the frame, not enough to accurately frame the edges of the composition. One evening, standing on the edge of a cliff near Stonehaven, I was trying to screw the filter on with cold hands. My wide-angle zoom has a very shallow filter thread to reduce vignetting. Try as I might, I couldn’t quite get the filter to catch the

thread securely. I was conscious that if it fell off, it would land in the sea a long way below. Time to try a different system.

Rectangular, slip-in

Most landscape photographers have a Cokin or a Lee filter holder. Lee have had great success with their 10 stop ‘Big Stopper’ filter, so much so that availability has been the major problem. However some suppliers are now indicating that supply is catching up with demand and availability is now much improved. The big advantage of slip-in filters is that you can raise them in the slot while focussing and metering and then just slip them back down for the exposure. The disadvantage of these filters is that reflections from the back surface of the filter can show up during long exposures. This can lead to milky or smoky patches appearing on the images. The novelty of the Lee design was the inclusion of a foam gasket to seal the gap at the back of the filter to prevent this. Like the B+W, »




the Lee filter is slightly stronger than claimed at about 10.5 stops and has a mild blue cast.

Lower cost slip-in filters include Formatt Hitech which are available in both 85mm (to fit Cokin P holders) and 100mm widths. They are made in all strengths from 1 to 10 stops. I have an 8 stop version. In the absence of a foam gasket you can simply drape a lens cloth over the top of the filter holder during exposures. With my 10-20mm lens I found some vignetting with the Cokin P holder at 10-12mm. After filing away bits of an old filter holder I found a simpler solution. Kood sell a wide-angle 85mm filter holder with a single slot which eliminates vignetting at all focal lengths.

Circular, variable strength

The last type of filter, the rotating variable ND filter, superficially looks the most versatile. LightCraftWorkshop produce an ND Fader filter which promises a 2-8 stop range just by rotating

the filter. The filter is made from 2 polarisers which cut out light as one is rotated in front of the other. However doing some research on the Premier Inks website revealed a potential problem. My main use for one of these would be on a 10-20mm lens. The problem is the appearance of a cross-shaped dark patch at shorter focal lengths. This would limit the filter to 2 stops maximum at 10mm and 5 stops at 20mm before the cross appeared. A lower cost option for this type of filter is now available from 7DayShop. However the first sample I got from them had a small crack at the very edge of one of the polarisers, not enough to affect the image quality but they replaced it immediately with a new one. There are 15 markings around the edge of the filter between max and min but they don’t correspond to half stops.

The advantages of the variable ND filter can be considerable. I found that with a 10 stop filter, as light levels fell at dusk, I was forced to open up the aperture and eventually increase the ISO to

30 sec - f16 - EOS 40D - 49mm B+W 10stop



prevent exposures becoming excessively long. With a variable density filter you can just reduce the strength to maintain the target exposure time in falling light. My camera can meter through the filter in daylight over the 2-8 stop range.

Choice of shutter speeds

For different subjects I find there are ‘good’ and ‘bad’ shutter speeds. For example moving water can look messy at 1/15th and 1/8th of a second. It is neither sharp nor smoothly flowing. Once you use 10 stop ND filters, shutter speeds which should have been 1/30th of a second become 30 seconds. This shutter speed smooths out the surface of the sea or a moving river considerably. In practice, it is difficult to see much difference between fast moving water at 4 seconds and 30 seconds. I also find there is a point after which the reflective surface of moving water becomes unattractive with very long exposures. The surface becomes ‘oily’ and eventually matte.

The same is true for clouds. On very long exposures moving clouds can become attractively streaked but, depending on the focal length and the speed of cloud movement, shorter exposures can leave them looking slightly ‘messy’. Neither crisp nor blurred.

Long exposure noise reduction

Most cameras have a long exposure noise reduction setting which can be very effective at reducing noise in low light images. It works by taking a second exposure with the shutter closed then subtracting the background sensor noise from the original image. The downside is that it doubles the time taken for each exposure, which can be important if you are trying to fit in extra images as the light fades. Of course noise reduction can also be carried out later when processing the

images. Photographers will probably also come across ‘stuck’ and ‘hot’ pixels in their long exposure images. Most sensors suffer from this to some extent. They are easy to clone out later.

Conclusion

When ultra-long exposure images first appeared they were very successful in landscape photography competitions, mainly because of their novelty. Now that many photographers are using this technique, the quality bar has been raised. The best images however have a magical, tranquil quality to them. There is nothing to beat the moment when a striking image pops up on the back of your camera after a long exposure in near darkness. Give it a try.


Lightbox

First light on a crisp autumn morning in Queenstown. The calmness ensured the water acted like a mirror, but it didn’t last as the wind picked up not long after I took this shot and the reflections were gone.

Lake Kirkpatrick, Queenstown

New Zealand


»Turn the page for more of Chris’ and other

LPM reader’s images


lig htBox

Chris Gin

I started photography in 2007 when I de-cided I needed a new hobby. I figured it would keep me occupied for a few months but little did I know how addicted to it I would become! I quickly developed a pas-sion for landscapes and have spent the

last few years photographing my home town of Auckland which has some amazing beaches. I’m gradually making my way around the rest of New Zealand and hope to do some more extensive travel in the future. I love capturing scenes during sunrise and sunset and the golden hours when the light is at its best. There’s no better feeling than capturing the perfect moment and seeing a magical image appear on the LCD. I also enjoy seeing photos from other photogra-phers and am constantly amazed at the amount of talent out there. It’s a constant reminder of how far I have to go and how much I have to learn, but it’s a fun process!

www.chrisgin.com

Below: Morning rush, Auckland, New Zealand Above: Maori Bay, Auckland, New Zealand

http://www.chrisgin.com


lig htBox

Desiree Stover

Very much an avid amateur photographer, I spend my days working with high school stu-dents as a Counselor in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA. Beautiful photography has always been a

love and I longed to create photos like I’ve seen at over the years.

After shooting film in the past, I moved into the digital world last year with the purchase of my Canon T1i. Self-taught through trial and error and advice from friends, my free time is spent finding places to shoot around my home and exploring my artistic side through processing my shots.

www.flickr.com/photos/desiree_elaine

Below: Carolina beach, NC, USA Above: Lake Benson, Garner, NC, USA

www.flickr.com/photos/desiree_elaine


lig htBox

Ed Schroeder

I’ve been taking pho-tos for a couple of years now, I first got an SLR when I graduated from university (with a completely unrelated

degree). As a result I’ve had no ‘formal’ training in photography, and tend to ap-proach things with a ‘learn by doing’ ap-proach’. I fit my photography in around my day job, and aim to go out just to take photos at least once every couple of weeks. Spectacular landscape photogra-phy with massively wide angle lenses is my thing.

www.edschroeder.co.uk

Below: Red Wharf Bay, Anglesey, Wales Above: Black point, Anglesey, Wales

http://www.edschroeder.co.uk


lig htBox

Vittorio Ricci

I am a nature photogra-pher from Genova, Italy, aged 47. Since 2006, I made the big step of moving into the digital era. Photography is my main and great hobby

which involves much of my spare time. Sur-prising and rousing emotions in people is the utmost purpose of my photography. I think that nature photographers have an extraordinary means to communicate with people about nature; to make them know, to try and save what remains, to make them react to save the lonely planet we have to live on.

www.flickr.com/photos/vricci63

Below: PN Monti Sibillini, Italy Above: PN Monti Sibillini, Italy

http://www.flickr.com/photos/vricci63


lig htBox

Marcia Straub

I am a resident of the State of Illinois located in the Midwest, USA, and also travel extensively. We are lucky to have four seasons in Illinois which allows an

ever changing opportunity for landscapes. We have healthy forested areas, wetands, river, and both rural and urban settings.

Recent credits include: 2009 Contributor to the display for the Climate Conference of the United Nations in Copenhagen

Winner of the State of Illinois Dept of Tour-ism Summer 2010 Contest

Featured photo in Science Daily, 2010 etc.

www.straublundphotography.zenfolio.com

Below: Wetlands around Jasper, Indiana, USA Above: Illinois River in Central Illinois, USA

http://www.straublundphotography.zenfolio.com


lig htBox

Samuel Lozeau

I have immersed my-self into digital pho-tography a few years ago through archi-tecture and urban photography. Then, a recent trip to Eu-

rope made me discover beautiful land-scapes, from snowy mountains to silky waters which made me fall in love with landscape photography. Since then, I al-ways carry a camera when I go out in my hometown of Montreal, Canada or on my trips. Always trying to capture some point of view that hopefully, nobody got the chance to discover yet.

www.flickr.com/photos/sloz69

Below: Montreal Mirror - Montreal, Canada Above: Schattenhalb, Switzerland

http://www.straublundphotography.zenfolio.com


This Month: Orange Nights

By our reader John Cox

John Cox has been living in Ontario, Canada for the past 25 years and a photographer for the past 15. He has worked in journalism, portrait photography and currently does the occasional candid wedding. He is an alumni of Sheridan college, Conestoga college and the McMichael centre. He specializes in Black and white images and “life as art” and has been well regarded for his black and white landscapes. He works with digital SLRs and has fully embraced the digital era.


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About 6 years ago I stumbled across the work of Russian photographer named Mikhail Petrov. He had been taking pictures in St. Petersburg in the middle of winter, at night, without tripods or im-age stabilization. His work was some of the best I had seen in the field of documentary photogra-phy. Inspired, I took up the cause and naively set out to shoot the winter nights around me in Cana-da the same way.

While every year I come back to this project and take time to test new lenses camera and techniques, some of the things I come away having learned are not what I would expect. Some are blatantly obvious. Some of the best subject matter for night photography are things that aren’t all that great during the day. This makes it really hard to plan out what you’re going to take pictures of in advance. It also makes regular nightly excursions fun and rewarding.

One learning experience as it turns out, is that humans are not inherently nocturnal animals, and that cameras aren’t designed for when there is little to no available light. This was more of a problem from a practical point than a functional one. With control dials and screens being unable to be read when there was no real light source in the first year. This was the main problem because I was using a fully mechanical medium format system in at the time, with no illuminated screens and no LEDs.

This was part of the fun for me at the time and probably for a lot of us using mechanical monsters today. These great eternal creations have lasted forever and can take great pictures in almost any situation, (proven even more so in this case) and have a real romance to them. One of the things that makes them even more enjoyable to use is that the sensor size, -both 35mm and medium format cameras have amazing depth of field and

image quality and depending on what film you use, there’s really very little that can out res them 2mm for 2mm. That these cameras can do this and are 40 years old is somewhat of a miracle. I know 40 years from now my current digital cameras will probably not be taking pictures.

And in this case the mechanical camera had other advantages; mainly it didn’t rely on batteries. Batteries were a major hurdle later on when I couldn’t take pictures for more than fifteen minutes without batteries freezing and no longer functioning. Knowing what I know now, I would probably start off the same way and not tread too far afield from the hi-res mechanical workhorse I started with.

That first year was also a test in many ways because I had just moved to the area two years before, I didn’t know the back streets very well and I knew virtually no one in the city.

I often felt awkward trudging through the night with a camera and long lenses, and was worried what observers would think of some guy in a trench coat with a camera going around at night taking pictures of empty streets in the dark. One of the great things that came from this was I learned that you are not going to get into trouble for doing street and doc photos, whether at night, or in the middle of a crowded sunny street.

The 645 medium format had only a couple of other small problems. The first was that the lenses would mist. This was mainly because it was tripod mounted and I was breathing down a waist level finder. The other problem was that the film would occasionally freeze.

The camera was a relic of the 70’s and with its metal housing the film very occasionally became a casualty of frost. This may have had something


thiS Mo Nth: or aNg e Nig htS

to do with the specific film I was using, at the time all I would use was txp 320 (I preferred 220), a film that had stayed relatively the same for over 30 years, but I think that in some weather you have to wind slowly or risk breaking.

That year low light offered a few other problems for hand holding. After a few nights I noticed a trend in shutter speeds and I began recording them. The average shutter speed for me was 1/8th with an aperture of f4.5 that stayed fairly consist-ent throughout the entire project.

This was interesting for a few reasons because I found that if I needed to I could put my camera in manual at this exposure and just take pictures all night. The latitude of the film or dynamic range of the sensor would make up for most discrepancies.

My thinking on what has happened is that there is only so much light at night. Your camera can

take a picture of what’s illuminated by one or two street lights at this setting, but if you keep adding street lights it’s a sequence of diminishing returns, - street lights will only ever give off so much light. In other words you can only get so bright with the ambient light you’re likely to find at night. There may be some nights where you’ll get up to 1/30 but the dynamic range/latitude will catch most of that even if you are still set to 1/8.

In any case I ended up exposing the entire first year with an incident meter and only took readings at the start of the night, later on I just went with what the evening was averaging at and knew that my film was fairly forgiving.

The 1/8th I was playing with was well below hand holding speeds without image stabilizing, but doable if you have it. While with the 645 cameras I used a tripod, my goal was to hand hold. For most of the second year I was using my digital slr, which



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for the most part was great.

I was eager to use the wide lenses I had for it and the IS was appealing. It was a Canon 40D so it was good on noise and resolution. It really looked like the solution to all the mishaps of the previous year. I should point out that I still use D-slr’s for this project.

Out of all the things digital brought to the table the biggest was instant play back. This is something that may seem trivial at first, but being able to see if your last shot was in focus or had motion blur is really a major feature when doing this kind of work. There were really only two problems that came with the digital SLR, batteries freezing, and one that I originally blamed on Canon (the slr manufacturer), noise.

People had suggested that I take the batteries out of the camera when I wasn’t shooting and put them in my jacket, this worked well and barring the occasionally drop in the snow from frostbitten fingers did the charm.

The problem with putting just the batteries in my pocket however was that the camera sensor still got cold. Why would the sensor being cold be a problem? Digital noise is caused by the sensor heating up and “pixels” misfiring. If the sensor starts out at minus twenty Celsius then when it heats up to 1600 iso more pixels are going to misfire, thus more noise. This got a bit better when I put both camera and batteries into my coat. But for about half the season I used noise ninja fairly heavily.

Around this time I had come far enough in my journey to photograph the night that I really began to appreciate it also. There were relatively few animals out in the winter at nights here, the town wasn’t raccoon infested and aside from some

feral cats and squirrels it was extremely quiet. It’s also quiet on the human side too, I often walked down the middle of four lane thoroughfares and I Jay walked across pretty much every street I came to. At night the whole town was deserted making it seem almost eerie. But there was a peace to it too. It seemed like the world needed a few hours of quiet to catch up and rest before the next day could begin. The people who worked night shift at the coffee shops and 24-hour stores had a nice slow night and took care of the overflow from the day before; I realized I was doing the same.

Winter was a relatively dormant time for me, and I was using this project to take care of sorting out gear and methods that would last me though the spring and summer.

I also began to appreciate the people I met at night, there were some real characters, from Greg the 50 year old comic junkie to the over exuberant staff at the local coffee shops (I swear they do nothing but drink coffee all night long).

I decided in the fourth year to bring my point and shoot G10 and try to do the entire project on that, it was smaller, had more megapixels and was mirrorless. The rational behind mirrorless being good was that that the mirrorless Leica and Contax rangefinders gain about a stop of hand-hold-ability because of the lack of mirror flap.

The G10 also had IS although it was a bit high on noise. Wonderfully, the small mirrorless point and shoot with image stabilizing got usable, blur free images, from places that I had passed by and had wanted to take the pictures of for years. It gave me a new appreciation for small cameras that I probably otherwise would not have.

While in the fourth year I did almost abandon slrs; it was only almost. As I mentioned earlier I still use



them. Some focal lengths aren’t covered on point and shoots and lens quality and more specifically low light quality is better on slr sensors.

For these reasons every night I go out I weigh out the pros and cons of both slr and point and shoot. One thing I’ve found is that it’s important to stay light and limit what you carry. There are not a lot of chances to change lenses without moisture finding its way in and other peripherals can cause more problems than benefits.

Interestingly enough after doing this project for 5 years I’ve become more impressed with the latest digital point and shoots than d-slrs.

I still have a fondness for manual focus film beats, and would love to shoot on some of the great medium format cameras I started out on. There have been a lot of great times over the years, and

some places that I keep coming back to, either because I like the subject matter, or it didn’t work out well previously. Usually if a picture from this series has a particularly well thought out name, it’s a picture I either plan on doing again or have done more than once.

The future looks great for this project, there’s very little that can hinder or stop it. -Realistically global warming is about as big a threat to this project as it gets, and I don’t see that ending winter in my lifetime.

There will always be new equipment to test and this is one of my most gruelling gauntlets, and strangely it’s scheduled right around Christmas too. As long as there’s winter and I have a cam-era and a couple nights to spare I see myself doing this. I see that being the case for a long time.

Sec tio N - ar ticle NaM e


l aN DSc ae

How to par ticipate!

Each month we publish your images and articles for other photographers to enjoy and learn from, be part of it.

Don’t just leave your images sitting in your hard drive, pub-lish them in these pages and let the whole world enjoy them.

We’ll showcase the best photographers in Portfolio.

Have you discovered a good location and would like other photographers to visit it?

Of course you have a very interesting and inspiring article on a photography trip you have been in the past. The question is, would you like to share it?

Readers Journeys

Magazine cover

This month

Lightbox

On the map

If you have an image worthy to be our magazine cover, we would be proud to publish it for you.

We are looking for interesting articles about landscape photography. Can you write one? Have you written one?

For details on how to submit your material check www.landscapephotographymagazine.com

If you have an interesting photo tip and would like to share it with everyone, then submit it and we will take care of the rest.

http://www.landscapephotographymagazine.com


Portfolio:Bruce T Smith


Soft White

Deep powder snow on boulders in the mountains alongside the Icefields Parkway, between Banff and Jasper, Alberta, Canada.


Po r tfolio: Bruce t SM ith

I’ve been interested in photography since high school, and the passion has been re-awakened with the growth of digital. I really strive to capture “mood” in my images, if I can. I love the outdoors, from golf and gold prospecting to gardening and photography. My main photographic interests include old, aban-doned buildings and vehicles (especially with HDR), the mountains, birds, nature, and almost anything else outdoors.

Top right: Athabasca River Valley. Flats of the Athabasca River near Jasper, Alberta, Canada in early springtime.

Bottom right: Sun Peaks Village. Beautiful condos at the Sun Peaks Ski Resort near Kamloops, BC, Canada.

Below: Heading Home. Two horses plodding through the winter snow back to the barn. Image was taken west of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

58 - Landscape Photography Magazine - March


Caribbean Sunrise

From a cruise ship near the British Virgin Islands.



Threatening Storm

Storm clouds building over old farm sheds west of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.


David Hay

Hay Fever Colour & Composition

At the blue end of the spectrum, colours are de-scribed as ‘cool’ and can give a tranquil or even bleak look to a landscape. That is why sadness is described as ‘feeling blue’.

In summer greens predominate. This is probably my least favourite season for landscape photogra-phy. In autumn and winter there are more browns and yellows available. Yellow, orange and red are known as ‘warm’ colours and people are more drawn to them.

As well as the scenic details in the foreground, mid-dle distance and background of most landscapes, colours can contribute to the composition. Blue and green are ‘background’ colours. They look good in the distance as they have a lower visual impact than the ‘forward’ colours such as red, or-ange and yellow.

This is why warning signals are red as they jump out from the background and grab your attention first. Sunsets are always a popular subject, even

with non-photographers, as they are full of warm, pleasant colours.

Some landscapes such as Bryce Canyon and Ante-lope Canyon in the US can provide photographs that are almost entirely at the red end of the spec-trum, which results in high impact, appealing im-ages. Here in Scotland there is less chance to in-clude reds in our landscapes. Even in the autumn we lack the strongest red foliage we see in New England landscapes.

A chance to include red in a landscape photograph came on the south shore of Loch Shieldaig. This red-roofed house is painted regularly and is very accessible as the single-track road runs immediate-ly behind it. The house is usually photographed from the rising ground behind it as there are great views out towards the narrows of Loch Torridon in the distance.

On this occasion I chose to photograph the house from the shoreline. I found an angle that allowed

Most landscape photographs are made up mainly of blue and green tones. Grass, sea and sky predominate.


the foreground rocks, and the cracks in them, to lead your eye up through the frame towards the house. One disadvan-tage of a 95% accurate viewfinder is that stray details can appear around the edge of the frame. I normally crop out the broken sea urchin shell at the bottom of this frame. The crop also helps to line up a crack with the bottom left corner of the frame, which improves the composition by emphasising the diagonal flow of the image. However I have left it in to show you where I picked the sea urchin up from, before placing it on the junction of the cracks and taking the second shot.

The close-up shot reveals the colour harmony between the pink of the broken sea urchin shell and the yellow and orange of the lichens on the rock. After taking a landscape photograph it is always worth looking around for any other detail shots in the same area. Both photographs were taken hand-held with an 18-55 lens at f11.


Beginners guideCho oSiNg a tripoD

Mike Bell

The ancillary equipment gets left to the bottom of the shopping list. After all, a tripod is just a three-legged support. Why spend more than you have to? So the high street chain camera store makes another sale of a budget tripod to an unsuspecting novice. This is a big mistake. Choose a good tripod and it will serve you well for years, enhance the en-joyment of your craft and certainly give you better images.

So what makes a good tripod?

Most important of all it must be sturdy enough to hold your heaviest camera and lens combination without any vibration, sagging or flexing of the legs. It must be easy to extend and the angle and length of each leg must be adjustable so that you can achieve a stable and level platform for your camera even on uneven ground. Ideally it should allow the camera to be positioned at any height from your eye level to almost touching the ground.

I recommend that you choose one where a

comfortable working level can be achieved with-out extending the central column. Many experi-enced landscape photographers have removed or shortened the central column of their tripods as they never use them. Personally I still like to have the option of a little extra height or the ability to re-orientate the central column to a horizontal po-sition for low level macro work. So ‘maximum ex-tended height without central column’ is one of the key specifications to look for; Another is ‘maxi-mum load’ - this should exceed the weight of your heaviest combination of camera, lens and filter assembly.

Cheaper tripods come with integral adjustable heads but these are rarely up to the job. It is better to purchase a separate head to fit onto your sturdy set of legs.

For landscape photography the choice of tripod heads comes down to two main types - ball heads and three-way heads. A ball head is simple to set up but fine adjustments and precise levelling are

Landscape photography is an expensive pastime and beginners are often tempted to reserve the bulk of their budget for cameras and lenses.

Mike Bell

tricky. Three-way heads allow precise independent adjustment in three planes. Although it takes a lit-tle more time to set up your framing, this is usually time well spent as it really makes you think about your composition.

Once you have acquired an extensive collection of quality equipment, weight starts to become a big issue. You will not make good photographs if your kit is so heavy that you are disinclined to seek out the best viewpoint or are too exhausted when you get there! This is where the material that your tri-pod is made from begins to matter.

Aluminium or alloy legs are strong but much heav-ier than carbon fibre. Carbon fibre is also warm to touch and does not corrode in wet conditions, but it is more expensive. For the tripod that you will carry long distances I think it is the material of

choice. Ball heads are also lighter and smaller so are more suitable for travel.

After many years of trial and error, I now have two tripod/head combinations which are illustrated here. The first is a geared three-way head with coarse and fine adjustment knobs fitted to a tall aluminium tripod. The second is a small ball head fitted to a slightly shorter carbon fibre tripod. This is ideal for hill walks and airline travel.

Please note that your tripod and head do not have to be from the same manufacturer as they are joined by a standard screw thread.

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The Authors

Creative DesIgn:

Celtic Shadows

Viewpoint:

Ian Cameron

Hudson Henry

Fran Halsall

Martin Henson

Neil Paskin

John Freeman

Pele Leung

Open Talk:

David Hay

Beginner’s guide:

Mike Bell

Spotlight:

Dimitri Vasiliou

Hay fever:

David Hay

www.celticshadows.co.uk

www.transientlight.co.uk

www.global-exposures.com

www.fran-halsall.co.uk

www.digital-monochrome.co.uk

www.neilpaskin.com

www.naturalperspective.com

www.peleleung.com

www.imagepro.photography.com/davidhay

www.discovered-light.co.uk

www.earthsbeautytours.com

www.imagepro.photography.com/davidhay

http://www.celticshadows.co.uk

http://www.transientlight.co.uk

http://www.global-exposures.com

http://www.digital-monochrome.co.uk

http://www.neilpaskin.com

http://www.neilpaskin.com

http://www.peleleung.com

http://www.discovered-light.co.uk




The Guests

Cover Page:

Scott Harrower

On The Map:

Stuart Billington

Portfolios:

Natalia Martinez

Tony McGarva

Bruce T Smith

Articles:

This month:

John Cox

www.scottharrower.com

www.stubill.com

www.flickr.com/photos/nataliamartinez

www.pbase.com/mcgarva

www.ferventphoto.com

www.theworldexposed.com/The_Idea.html

http://www.peresoler.net

http://www.jdsargissonphotography.co.uk

lpm_issue_4_lq

Documents

life photography

tine zmy

tine zamanece

tine zbelow

wonderful magazine

stop nd filters

tine zentre cascadas

david hayopen talk