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

The 5 billion star hotel

I'd rather sleep under this 5 billion star sky than in any 5 star establishment in the world...

Many folks who see these images want to know how they are captured.
Here is a quick run-down of the process used to capture this photo.

1. Get to a place where there is minimal light pollution. Nearby towns and settlements exude enough light to feasibly affect your shot and the amount of stars visible.
2. Scout around for decent compositions during daylight, bearing in mind your main compass directions and suitable compositional elements.
3. Use a sturdy tripod.
4. Use a wide-angle lens with a large maximum aperture (think 1.4 or 2.8).
5. Make sure what time the moon rises and sets, and what phase it is in - this will also affect star visibility.
6. If you want more stars - wait for there to be no moon or new moon.
7. If you want more landscape illumination, shoot with a subtle moon at a low position in the sky.
8. Use your torch and camera "live view" to pre-focus on a clear object at least 10 meters in front of you, or manually set your lens to the hyperfocal distance.
9. Set your ISO to something between 1600 and 6400, depending on your camera's low light capability and your expected ambient light.
10. Set your exposure time to somewhere between 20 and 30 seconds (anything more will start to induce "star trails" as the earth rotates around its axis.
11. Use a strong torch to "paint" the foreground during the exposure. I find it works best to bounce the light source off your hand and use your hand to direct the light (your hand also diffuses the light and adds some warmth to colder/blue light sources).
12. Check the resulting shot and make adjustments to composition, focus point or settings as you deem necessary.

The settings for this image?

Nikon D800

Nikkor 14-24mm f2.8 (focal length 14mm)

f2.8

20 seconds shutter release

ISO-3200

Location?

The Mountain Zebra National Park in the Karoo desert, South Africa.

Have fun experimenting!

Morkel Erasmus

Psychedelic Karoo Dreams

I was photographing this dry shrub under the Milky Way in the Karoo desert of South Africa earlier this year. After getting the standard "static" starscape I normally attempt, I started playing around a bit with in-camera techniques.

This is the "standard" photo...

Nikon D800  |  Nikkor 14-24mm f2.8 @ 14mm  |  f2.8  |  30 seconds  |  ISO-3200

Now, the photo you see below was captured using in-camera techniques.
Some of you won't believe me, I'm sure...as it looks like something that was tweaked in Photoshop, right?

Nikon D800  |  Nikkor 14-24mm f2.8 @ 14mm  |  f2.8  |  30 seconds  |  ISO-3200

For this photo, I started at 14mm focal length, performed light painting to get the bush sharp and lit up, and merely zoomed the lens in to 24mm gradually during the last 10 seconds of the 30 second exposure. You need to be very steady and gradual in this process.

Here's another variation...

Nikon D800  |  Nikkor 14-24mm f2.8 @ 14mm  |  f2.8  |  30 seconds  |  ISO-3200

In this case, I followed the same approach as above, but instead of turning the zoom ring during the latter part of the exposure, I turned the focus ring, rendering the image out of focus for the last 10 seconds.

It may not be everyone's cup of tea, but I do like experimenting with these slow shutter exposures, and trying different techniques. It can be so boring to capture the same images over and over and over and over and...

What do you think? Which do you prefer?
Leave me a comment...

Until next time!

Morkel Erasmus

Guest Post: Wild Eye Photo Chat Blog

Ahoy!!

I have been busy as ever, and with our 2nd child being born a couple of weeks ago, SAFFAscapes hasn't been getting the attention it deserves.

If you are anxious to read some of my musings - check out this guest post I did on the Wild Eye Photo Chat Blog about the details behind my wild dog image that won the July round of the Wild Eye Photography competition.

you can read it

HERE

and in case you still haven't seen the photo...

here it is...

Morkel Erasmus

PhotoShare: Kruger Kuduscape

Things are buzzing by my head now at a pace so frantic it's hard to keep up. I am heading off to Mana Pools in Zimbabwe next week, a dream destination for me. Afterwards I shall have plenty of time to wind down and catch up on things like regular blogging, etc.


In the meantime - here is an image to make you think. How often do you just wish for a longer lens? We always tend to want to get the tightest, most detailed shots of our subjects...and we forget to think about shooting "wider", and placing the animal in the context of its environment.


This was an occasion where I didn't have "enough glass", but it didn't bother me. I have many close-up portraits of the graceful Kudu antelope. In this instance I had parked in the middle of a road going through a dry river in the Kruger National Park. It was quiet, and I was taking in the morning sounds and smells with my window open. All of a sudden, a herd of Kudu came out of the dense riverine foliage and into the wide open riverbed. Kudus have a knack of surprising you, being able to stay perfectly still and hidden. Hunters have long been calling them the "African Grey Ghost".


This cow paused and noticed me. I snapped a picture. This picture tells the story much better than a closer photo would have. Don't you agree??

(Nikon D3s, Nikkor 500mm f4 VR-II)  f5.6  |  1/1000 SS  |  ISO-640

Morkel Erasmus

Shooting against the light

We've all been there...you are sitting at an awesome sighting, watching some beautiful animal or bird...but the light is just W-R-O-N-G...

Now you've got 2 options. Either you pack away the camera and just enjoy the sighting...or you try to work with the light you have and create some images that might come out better than you thought, or better yet, might come out a litte 'out-of-the-box'. In this post I will elaborate on some of these situations you might encounter, and also show some of the images I have been able to capture in similar cases which I thought came out okay.

The classic case is the "back-lit" image, where the light comes from directly opposite your viewing position and you have to use it to enhance the contours and outlines of your subject. The key here is to ensure you under-expose significantly to ensure you capture the mood and don't blow the highlights. You can either do this by manually adjusting exposure or exposure compensation bias and checking the histogram, or if you like to use your metering function apart from your focusing function you can meter off the brightest highlights.

Another angle of light we encounter in the field is a case of strong 'side-light'. In this case the light hitting the subject creates a stark contrast between one part of the subject and another. Obviously this is only possible in the early morning and late afternoon...no noon-time shots available here! The ideal exposure for me in cases like this is to obtain enough detail in the shaded parts without making it look unnatural and without blowing out the highlighted areas.

 

The key to facing a situation where the light is challenging, is to know your equipment well, know how to use your exposure bias setting to achieve an over- or underexposed shot, and think creatively...in the end the best images are formed in your mind's eye before you even trip the shutter.

We all want those moments of "perfect" light, but they seldom are perfect...my advice would be to make the most out of the situations you do find yourself in when you are out in the field. Most of us have so precious little time to spend in the field to begin with!

Here are some more images I have been able to capture in these kinds of light.

Till next time!

Morkel Erasmus

The frustrating magic of panning shots

Well, as promised, a lengthier, hopefully pithier, blog post...


You've seen them, right? Those blurry shots of birds flying or animals running with just the exact amount of sharpness on the eyes or face or head to make it work beautifully. Those shots which look "Photoshopped" but after investigation you find out it was all achieved using in-camera settings and specific techniques...

"Ground Squirrel Rocket"

f14  //  1/50 SS  //  ISO-200