Tonight’s Sunset

Tonight's Sunset - Nikon D300, Nikon 18-200mm, f/6.3, 1/60 sec., ISO 200

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Lakeside Amusement Park - iPhone 4 Camera

So this past week, I got my iPhone 4. My primary reason for upgrading is the vastly improved camera. Finally, the camera in my phone is good enough that I don’t have to carry a point and shoot when I don’t want to lug around my DSLR. The added benefit is that I always have my phone with me so there will be fewer photos missed because I didn’t have a camera. Of course, the iPhone 4 camera isn’t even in the same galaxy as a DSLR in terms of image quality, but it is good enough for casual shooting.

Portraits

I’ve been more interested in portrait photography lately. When my friend CJ asked for some head shots, I jumped at the opportunity to practice my flash photography techniques with him. We planned to do the shoot outdoors, but it was lightly raining that day so we had to stay indoors mostly. I used my neglected Nikon AF 50mm f/1.8D lens which is the best $112 I have ever spent on photography gear. It’s SUPER sharp, pretty good wide open and has decent bokeh. Did I mention that it cost $112 brand new? With the crop factor of a DX format camera, 50mm is a nice portrait focal length where you can get close to your subject without feeling uncomfortably close. Thanks to CJ for being such a great model!

Nikon D300, Nikon 50mm f/1.8, Nikon SB-900 Speedlight, a bunch of reflectors, diffusers and light stands

Snow Shoeing to Dream Lake

Nymph Lake - Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm, f/16, 1/200 sec., ISO 200

I went snow shoeing this Saturday with my friend Zach in Rocky Mountain National Park. We had been planning the trip for a few weeks but I didn’t expect the conditions to be so perfect. On Friday, there was a significant snow storm which dumped tons of new snow on the park. I think the accumulation far exceeded the forecasts. The storm moved out quickly and by the time Zach and I got to the Bear Lake trailhead at 6:15 am on Saturday, there were beautiful clear skies. Everything was coated in fresh snow. We didn’t make it up to Dream Lake by sunrise because highway 34 is closed just east of Estes Park while they replace a bridge. With the detour taking extra time, we would’ve had to get up 2:30 AM to make it for the 6:30 sunrise. Ouch. But it didn’t matter anyway because there was so much blowing snow off the peaks before the sun came up, we wouldn’t have been able to see anything. Here are two images I took along our hike. Winter looks so nice in toned black and white!

Dream Lake Ice - Nikon D300, Nikon 18-200mm, f/16, 1/25, ISO 200

The Ice at Dream Lake (above) was beautiful with all kinds of interesting bubbles, cracks, and ripples. Zach and felt very comfortable walking on it as it appeared to be at least a foot thick.

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Ice Crystals in the Window - Nikon D300, Nikon 35mm f/2, 1/3200 sec., ISO 200

It was 11 degrees below zero (fahrenheit) when I got up to go to work this morning. There were these cool ice crystals on the window at work and fortunately I had my camera with me.

Image Quality in the Digital Age

Ke'e Beach, Kaua'i - Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm, Singh-Ray Color Combo & 3 stop grad ND, f/16, 1/6 sec. ISO 200

I’m a perfectionist when it comes to image quality. Like most photographers, I love getting the sharpest, smoothest images with the highest resolution and dynamic range that I possibly can. Recently though, I’ve started wondering if the whole photography industry might be a little too caught up with digital image quality. As a little Christmas present to myself this year, I picked up a nice coffee table book of Galen Rowell’s photography. I am surprised at what I see in his images. There is graininess, motion blur and focus errors in a surprising number of his photos. It’s not isolated to Galen’s work either. The same flaws are present in a National Geographic retrospective book that I looked at with photos from dozens of different photographers. Here’s the question I have to ask myself. Do these technical image quality flaws subtract from the awesomeness of the work in those books? Absolutely not.

I’m guessing that the vast majority of people who enjoy Galen Rowell or National Geographic don’t even notice those technical errors, so long as they are not photographers themselves. I think they are more impressed with the subject matter, lighting and composition of a photograph. This is a huge relief for me. There are countless wonderful images that I have grievingly cast into digital purgatory because they have a slight technical flaw. I have been taught how to look for these flaws by the countless camera review websites and photography blogs out there. People on these sites routinely discuss the sharpness of their photo prints when viewed under a loupe. Really? A loupe? When you have a gallery show, do you hand out loupes to all the visitors? The camera manufacturers love this because the inevitable conclusion to all our problems is always to buy more expensive gear. Are the corners of your images a little soft? Well then you need a “pro” lens. Are you making prints of your photos? Certainly nothing less than the highest resolution digital camera available will suffice. What’s interesting is that the personal work of most of the camera reviewers out there is artistically mediocre at best. But darn it, their images are “tack sharp.”

There are extremes in every debate. The infamous Ken Rockwell would try to convince us that he’d give up his digital SLRs and just shoot with the camera on an iPhone, but he’s too cheap to actually buy one. Gimme a break. Of course your camera matters and you should do everything you can to avoid blur, focus on the right spot and expose correctly. But seeing what Galen Rowell and the folks at Nat Geo accepted as good enough gives me a new perspective on how to judge acceptable vs. unacceptable quality in my own images. I can only hope to be as adventurous and creatively brilliant as the photographers on my coffee table, but it’s nice to know that technical perfection takes a back seat to more important aesthetic considerations.

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Ke'e Beach Trees - Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm, Singh-Ray Color Combo, f/16, 1.3sec, ISO 200

While I was waiting for the sun to go down at Ke’e Beach on Kaua’i, I snapped this before I had to hustle into position to get the sunset. Nothing spectacular, but I couldn’t resist the evening light on the interesting trees. It’s amazing I didn’t get any chickens in this shot because they were everywhere. Apparently, the last hurricane to hit Kaua’i (’Iniki in 1992), freed all the chickens from their pens, and now they live wild all over the island.

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Ho'opi'i Falls, Kaua'i - Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm, Singh-Ray Vari-N-Duo, Singh-Ray 2-stop GND, f/18, 1/3 sec. ISO 200

It’s snowing like crazy in Colorado right now, so I thought I’d post a Hawaii image. This is Ho’opi’i Falls on Kaua’i…or is it? There is debate as to whether these falls go by that name, or the next falls up-stream. In either case, it’s a beautiful hike to get in there. This location claimed the life of my brother’s Manfrotto tripod and almost took his D700 with 24-70mm lens too!

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Rocky Mountain National Park - Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm, Singh-Ray Gold-N-Blue Polarizer, Singh-Ray 3-stop GND, f/16, 2.5 sec.

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Dream Lake Reflection - Nikon D300, 18-200mm, Singh-Ray Color Combo, f/16, 2 sec, ISO 200

I got up at 2:30 AM yesterday, drove up to Rocky Mountain National Park and met my brother at the Bear Lake trailhead. We hiked up to Dream Lake in the dark and proceeded to find a good location to capture the sunrise on Hallet Peak. The traditional vantage point from which Dream Lake is photographed had so many photographers packed into it that it looked like a presidential press corps. I was looking, however, for as much of an untraditional way to capture Dream Lake as I could find. I saw this very artsy looking log along the shore and decided it looked great with the reflection behind it.

Early morning up in RMNP is a beautiful experience. It’s painful to get yourself up for it, but I highly recommend hiking up there for dawn, whether you’re a photographer or not. After I was done taking pictures, I thoroughly enjoyed just sitting on the shore of the lake and observing the start of a new day (while swatting mosquitos, of course).