Trust your Histogram

If you've been around decent caliber wildlife photographers for any length of time, you will no doubt have heard one of them admonish someone else to always watch their histogram. It's the final litmus test for ensuring our images come out as we intend in-the-field, right?

Yes.

The important thing to remember is that you need to look at the HISTOGRAM specifically.
The actual graph plotted for the data contained in your actual image.

DON'T trust the version of the image you see on the LCD screen, though.
The back-of-camera LCD is far from a calibrated monitor on which to decide whether the colour or even apparent exposure of the image looks correct.

It's easy to fall back on pure image review and forget to rely on data interpretation. Yes, of course the content of the image is important if you are reviewing or double-checking your composition - what I am referring to is exposure checking, especially in tricky and challenging lighting conditions.

Consider this image - RAW, straight conversion, no processing applied.

If, at first glance, you thought that I had way underexposed this photo, you were correct.
Yet, I had done it on purpose!

The setting was a glorious misty sunrise on the last morning of the +Wild Eye Mana Pools photo safari I hosted in July (read the TRIP REPORT). When the sun rose behind the trees as a muted fiery ball, I knew that I wanted a photo with everything decently exposed (even the sun). So I purposely underexposed enough to protect the highlights and shadows from excessive clipping, knowing from experience what I would be able to pull back and rescue in processing. I shoot Nikon, and the specific settings might not correlate with how you would need to expose with other cameras, but I used these settings:

Nikon D800 with Nikkor 300mm f2.8 VR-II Aperture: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/1000
ISO: 250
Exposure bias: -2/3

In this case, I specifically remember that I couldn't really see jack squat on my LCD in terms of composition or image content, the photo was simply too dark. I needed to trust my framing in the viewfinder and also my exposure based on histogram.

The resultant histogram:

Again you might think this is creeping up too much on the shadows and highlights ends of the histogram - and yet I posit to you that this is where knowing your gear comes in and knowing how much you can recover from certain tonal areas that may seem blown out at first.

A couple of delicate processing steps later:

In processing these photos I always try and go for a look & feel that would seem natural - if you were standing there looking into a hazy sunrise you would see detail, soft light and the scene would be oozing with mood. The original frame doesn't have that at face value, and we need to tease that out of the photo in processing. Remember that the human eye can process an equivalent of about 32 f-stops in one view, so a camera can never just capture the precise way in which we perceive a moody, high dynamic range scene like this.

It's easy to overcook this as well and make it look garishly unrealistic! 

The histogram now:

The brightest spots of the sun can be blown out - it's the sun after all.
The darkest shadows are not preventing me from enjoying the image for what is ought to be - a moody dawn in the forest.

The lesson?
Know your gear well enough to shoot on instinct. 
Know well enough what you want to capture to shoot on instinct.
If necessary, read the histogram and interpret what you need to change to bring you as close as possible to a USABLE image.

I hope this post has been of help to you.

Morkel Erasmus

Christmas in the Mountains

Good morning friends!

I just wanted to write a short post wishing you all a blessed Christmas time, wherever you find yourself in this festive season. May God abundantly bless you and bring you safely to your loved ones so you can spend valuable time together.

My family and I will be camping in the Maluti mountains (Golden Gate Highlands National Park) this weekend with my extended family, so I am looking forward to some downtime and family fun. I might just get round to capturing some landscape images like the one below which was taken at this exact location back in 2011...

See you all on the flipside - take care!

Morkel Erasmus

Dawn of the Striped Ones

It's early on a summer morning in Namibia's +Etosha National Park.
The first summer rains have just started to fall - so everything looks and smells fresh.
There's still a lot of cloud cover overhead from last night's deluge...but there's a gap for the sun to rise into on the Eastern horizon.

As I drive out of the gate of the Okaukuejo camp with my wife and kids in the back of the SUV (kids still dozing), I head East towards the nearest waterhole, which is called Nebrownii. 

As the sun starts peeping over the horizon and through the break in the clouds, I find my first willing subjects - a small group of Plains Zebra.

Stop the car.
Fiddle to grab the nearest camera. Lens too long (500mm).
Switch to the other camera - this one has a better focal length (70-200mm).
Start snapping.
Check exposure.
Make adjustments.
Snap again.
Check exposure.
More adjustments.

Framing a rising sun and plenty of sky with wildlife at the bottom makes for a tricky exposure. This is where using your exposure lock function helps, as well as back-button focus to be able to focus and reframe.

Finally satisfied with my exposure on the D800 and 70-200mm combo, I contemplate swopping the 500mm on the D3s for a shorter lens, but realise the sun will rise behind the clouds in a few moments. So I grab my instamatic wide angle that is always with me (that would be the Apple iPhone 5, folks), switch on the HDR function, and snap a few images that way.

Here's the DSLR photo...

Nikon D800  |  Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8 VR-II @ 70mm  |  f4.0  |  1/250 SS  |  ISO-800

And here is the photo taken with my iPhone...

Which do you prefer?

Sure, the iPhone version doesn't have the same high resolution quality, and it came out a bit over-the-top when it comes to the HDR effect, but it does make it look quite surreal. The perspective is definitely better for me at this wider focal length. Perhaps I should have switched lenses right away when I got there...but I will have to take that lesson into my next safari.

What's the old adage? The best camera is the one you have with you...

Morkel Erasmus

A tree on a hill

I posted a pretty grim update on a poached rhino last night on my social media outlets, so I thought I'd just post a simplistic and serene landscape photo this morning to make up for it. I haven't been out photographing landscapes properly in a long time - I blame the wildlife haha.

This is from my archives - a trip in November 2011 to be exact. What was supposed to be a relaxing fly-fishing retreat with good friends inevitably turned into a photographic mission for me as I woke up one morning to what looked like a promising sunrise. I trudged up the hill behind our little cottage, and looked for a composition before the light peaked. I found my composition, but the light didn't really "show up" as well as I anticipated. It's still a decent image and I've kept it. What do you think?

Techs:
Nikon D3s
Nikkor 14-24mm f2.8 @ 14mm
f16  |  ISO-200  |  Blend of 3 exposures using manual luminosity masks in Photoshop

click on the image to display at proper resolution and sharpness

Thanks for your time, my friends!

Morkel Erasmus

Stumped by the Kalahari

This photo is one of the older landscapes in my archives. I took this one back in September 2009 while visiting the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park for the first time in years. It was captured behind our tent in the Kalahari Tented Camp (where lions often roam through since there are no fences).

It was taken with my first entry-level DSLR and a kit lens, but you know what? I still like it. This photo was also processed by blending together 3 exposures of the same scene manually. I used an aperture of f22 to create the sunburst. My new Nikkor lenses great much more pleasing sunbursts, and that's one advantage of a high-end wide angle lens for sure.

What do you think? Are there some "old" shots in your portfolio that you still cling to and enjoy viewing? This one takes me back to a lovely morning in one of my favourite parts of Southern Africa...smelling the smells and hearing the birds and feeling the glow of the sun on my face, with a lion roaring somewhere in the distance.

Techs:

Canon 1000D

Canon 18-55mm IS @ 18mm

f22  |  ISO-100

Have a lovely day, my friends!

Morkel Erasmus

Dawn of the Springboks

Most nature photographers travelling to Africa will tell you that the golden light on our continent just seems richer and sweeter than anywhere else. Let me tell you something else - of all the places in Africa I've visited, there are one or two that stand out above all the others when it comes to the glorious quality of light that it produces. One is definitely the Kalahari. On a cloudless morning the quality of light during the "golden hour" is something that makes me giddy.

This photo was taken early one morning driving south from Mata Mata rest camp in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park (South Africa). As I came past the Sitzas waterhole there was a herd of Springbok that were being lit up as if they were angelic. I had to stop and create an image. Dialing in a negative exposure compensation (bias) allowed me to enhance the mood even more.

Techs:

Nikon D7000

Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8 VR-II

f5.6  |  1/400 SS  |  ISO-100

Exposure Bias -0.7

click on the photo to display properly

Have a great day!

Morkel Erasmus

Beauty in Simplicity

One of the things I love about landscape photography is finding beauty in unexpected places. Many times you are in such a hurry to compose as many variations of a scene during the fleeting moments of sweet light available to you, that you don't REALLY get to take all the details and nuances in visually.


As I went into my 2010 archives, I came across this shot. I was capturing the sunrise on a clear morning on the South African "Wild Coast" near a little town called Haga-Haga. I was changing compositions here from the rising sun over the coastline to the interesting rock patterns that ran into the ocean perpendicular to the rising sun. I noticed the light was hitting the rocks nicely, and with only a little cloud cover in the sky on the horizon-line, I decided to compose for majority land and minimal sky.


Only after viewing it on my large screen at home did I notice the lovely nuances of colour and texture in the rocks patterns, and the way the rocks act as converging leading lines with the creases in the rock "floor".

f16  //  ISO-100  //  Blend of 2 images to tame dynamic range

I blended two exposures here to achieve optimal dynamic range.


Hope you liked this one! Let me know what you think, and if you've had similar experiences.


Morkel Erasmus

PhotoShare: Sunrise over Goera Pan

Another insane week on my end has kept me from writing another lengthy blog post...so you will have to be content with another quick PhotoShare. Hopefully I can muster up a properly pithy blog post sometime over the weekend.


This was taken while I was participating in the Spirit of Africa challenge, I was able to do some much-needed Kalahari landscape shooting. Being able to walk around and play with different compositions is a breath of fresh air as far as landscapes in this area goes, as I'm usually bound to my vehicle in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park looking for dangerous predators when I find myself in this area.


The event was held on a local farm, and much of it took place on the "Goera Pan", a large salt pan on the farm which can be seen from the main road between Upington and Askham.


This was taken from a small dune in the middle of the pan, and is a blend of 3 exposures to get the dynamic range of the scene right. I used a fourth exposure with my thumb obscuring the sun to remove distracting lens flare from the shot (more about this technique can be found on the site of Hougaard Malan, an inspiring young South African professional landscape photographer whose work belies his age - he has a few great tutorials on his site).


I set the aperture to f22 in order to get as much of the scene in focus as possible and also to obtain that nice solar star. I also used a circular polariser to obtain the deep blue tone in the sky and eliminate any unwanted reflections of light.


Here is the final image...

f16  //  Bracketed Exposures  //  ISO-100  //  Circular Polariser

Hope you liked it...and remember to keep shooting!


Morkel Erasmus

WORKING THE LIGHT

Hello again everyone...

I thought it was time for a new post since we're already a few days into August. My, how this year is just rocketing past!!

Sometimes we find ourselves in that "sweet spot" for photography. You know - the golden morning/evening light from the sun teetering on the brink of the horizon falling over your shoulder and straight onto whatever animal or bird happens to be caught in your viewfinder at that moment. Everything just comes together...like these giraffe I found the other day in the Pilanesberg National Park in South Africa:

More often than not, however, we find ourselves in a situation where it's just not possible to get into that "sweet spot". In many cases it's an insurmountable task to get ourselves in that position due to terrain constraints or the fact that you might not be allowed to go off-road in certain reserves (at least that's the case for most of the places I go on safari to), but at other times there's just not enough T-I-M-E to do so...these "truly" golden minutes only last for a few fleeting moments after all.

Silky Slick Silhouettes

Hellooooooo and welcome back to SAFFAscapes...

For today's post I decided to do something different - something which is not exactly what you would call HDR. But, after all, I am a photographer and I don't only do HDR, it's just one of the fun techniques I play around with.

I am posting a few very different silhouette photos today. Silhouettes can either rock the house or they bomb out and fizzle into nothing - depending on what you choose to portray and how that image leans itself to lines, texture and simplicity.

The first shot is one that was taken late one afternoon on a dune in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. A herd of oryx was grazing peacefully, minding their own business, as the sun was setting behind them in the little piece of blissful serenity which is called the Kalahari desert.

 

(click on the photo for a larger view)

 The second shot was taken in the town where I live at a local duck pond. The smog from the factories drifts past the sun on many evenings, creating a hazy, smoky scene which makes normal photography very challenging when you're waiting for that sweet golden light of sunset as the sun is hidden behind the smog. This time it didn't make a difference...I was ready. I had spotted a section of the willow tree on the island in the middle of the pond where I could capture a bird roosting on a perch with the sun directly behind it. Many afternoons I had hoped for the perfect bird to sit on the perfect perch with the perfect combination of smog and clouds. And on that day - it was there! I do wish that I'd had my longer lens at the time as this is quite a crop to get the other birds and branches out of the frame...

 

(click on the photo for a larger view)

I personally love these 2 photos. Finding the right scene for your silhouette is half the battle. Composing in camera is another 30%. Processing right afterwards makes up the rest.

Sticking with birds...I also want to show you a silhouette I captured sometime last year of a black-headed heron flying in to roost for the night at the same local duck pond.

(click on the photo for a larger view)

I like how the dramatic clouds and sunset colours add poignancy to the bird's pose.


The fourth photo I want to share was taken early one morning at the entrance gate to the rest camp in the Augrabies Falls National Park. The falls are currently flooding after some intense rains and I wish I could be there now! The quiver tree is quite a landmark in the Northern Cape and Namibia. Rugged. Hardy. Lonely. These words all describe this beautiful tree, yet none of them really describes it to one who has never seen them. 

This is the silhouetted quiver tree shot as I have adjusted it from the camera - in other words - as shot with a bit of natural tweaking:

 

(click on the photo for a larger view)

Notice how the texture and shape of the quiver trees make for a lot of eye-candy.
 

Now - let's see where creativity can take us...

Getting a bit more creative, I also used a little Photoshop magic on the photo posted above - I copied the silhouette of the flying heron into the quiver tree photo and created a piece of 'visual art'. I don't mind when people play around creatively with their photos in Photoshop - one should just always make mention of the fact that the photo has been 'shopped' (that is to say - one has gone beyond the boundaries of enhancing what is already naturally in the photo by adding elements and transforming the photo into something else). I also boosted the colours of the quiver tree shot a lot to add to the visual impact of the silhouettes.

Here is my final result. I call it "Quivering Landing". I would REALLY like to know what you think of this one, whether you enjoyed it or whether you think I've "crossed the line too far". :)

 

(click on the photo for a larger view)

There you have it! Hopefully I've inspired you to go and look out for some stunning silhouettes in your area, or on your next holiday.

Until next time...keep capturing those moments in time...

Morkel Erasmus