I’d like to start out by apologizing for not posting my weekly post last week. Due to shooting several portrait sessions and school I didn’t have any new images or tips to share. The fall colors have started to show their full potential here in mid Michigan. I’ve decided to share a few of my favorites and tips for getting shots like this with all of you this week.
The image on the top of this post was shot on the edge of the woods near my home. The sun was shining though the vibrant leaves. I composed the image so that sun was shining through the crack in the trees. To get the sun to become the distinctive star shape I had to stop my lens down to f/16. Shooting at very narrow apertures into the sun will convert the ugly sun spot into an intriguing star. Just having the dark tree with a sun spot would have been a boring image, so I found a nice leaf in its peak color. I taped it to the tree using Shurtape 672 professional grade gaffers tape. Gaffers tape is a strong non-reflective heat resistant tape which doesn’t leave residue and can be easily peeled off of a variety of surfaces. Many portrait photographers use this in studio to attach different accessories – like colored gels or grids – to studio strobes. I always carry some Shurtape gaffers tape in my camera bag. I use it to tape accessories to my hot shoe flash or occasionally for more unconventional uses like this. Next I had to add some flash to the leaf and tree. Without flash the tree and leaf would have been black, but by adding fill flash it made the detail and texture of the leaf and tree visible. I set my Sunpak PZ42X Hot shoe flash with a LumiQuest Softbox III on a tripod to the left of the camera to light the tree. The LumiQuest Softbox III helped make the quality of light better and softer than strait flash. By using the flash off camera it helped bring out the shape and texture of the tree unlike if I’d used my on camera pop up flash. The only editing was contrast adjustments, sharpening, and the removal of some lens flare.
This next image may appear like a crazy Photoshop concoction but it isn’t! This was created by using rear sync flash combined with a long exposure. I covered the topic of rear sync flash a few weeks ago but here’s a quick review to reiterate. Rear sync is simply setting your flash to fire at the end of the exposure. This makes it so whatever the flash lights is sharp unlike if you fire the flash at the beginning of the exposure. Even if you move the camera during the exposure what the flash lights will stay sharp as if you shot that part of the image with a quicker shutter speed. For this image I set my Sunpak PZ42X hot shoe flash to the right of the tree which I again taped a leaf to. I got close to the tree with my Tokina 12-24mm f/4 lens. I zoomed the lens and moved the camera during the long exposure. The flash fired at the end keeping the tree sharp but keeping the background colors blurred from the camera movements. Playing around with rear sync flash can create some truly unique and creative images whether they be tame low light images or chaotic surreal images like this.
This final image is a more conventional image which is part of an ongoing personal series of mine. The forest floor became an ideal background for this image. To get the nice soft background I got fairly close to the cross statue and shot at f/2.2 with my 50mm portrait lens. The closer you are to the subject and the wider aperture you use the softer the background blur – commonly referred to as bokeh – is. My 50mm lens can use the aperture of f/1.8 which gives an incredibly smooth bokeh, but I decided to shoot at f/2.2. “Why did I do this,” you may ask if the smooth bokeh was my main priority. Because most lenses aren’t as sharp wide open. Shooting one or two stops from the widest aperture will result in sharper images than shooting at the maximum aperture. F/2.2 provided sharp results and still a wonderful bokeh where as f/1.8 would have had a softer image.
I personally love shooting the fall colors and as photographers we have a wide variety of ways to shoot these spectacular aspects of nature. Have fun shooting the fall colors and share them with the naturesbeststudents flickr group! Lastly happy thanksgiving to all Canadian readers!
– Ryan Watkins (to read more how to articles and see more of my photography visit my website ryanwatkinsphotography.com or find me on flickr)
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Alright technically this isn’t a nature image but it can help teach some off camera flash tips. Most people think of using flash for portraiture or study work, but it really improve our nature images as well. Without adding flash to this still life the cross would have been completely black. My adding a bit of fill flash it made the image engaging and detailed. Adding flash to a variety of subjects – macros, intimate landscapes, or even foreground elements in wide vistas – can add emphasis to you nature images. Keep shooting!
