Landscape, Nature and Travel Photography

One of the most essential pieces of knowledge to understand in order to attain sharp images, particularly for landscapes, is the principle of hyperfocal distance.

Phil Davis put it best in Photography, 1972

“When the lens is focused on the hyperfocal distance, the depth of field extends from half the hyperfocal distance to infinity.”

The general tip to burn into your memory is focus 1/3 of the way into your photo with a smaller aperture setting to maximize your depth of field.

image courtesy of DOFMaster

A great online resources to reference when researching hyperfocal distance for your gear is DOFMaster’s Depth of Field Calculator. In addition Vividlight Photography also has a great article on this subject What is Hyperfocal Distance and Why Should I Care? were they provide an Excel or PDF Hyperfocal Distance Chart that can be put in your camera bag.

View more photos of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR)

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The terms “magic hour” and “golden hour” are often used interchangeably, both describing the same lighting phenomenon. The “golden hour” is the hour after sunrise and before sunset when the light is less intense and fittingly golden. At this time sunlight shines through the earths atmosphere at a more acute angle resulting in wavelengths of light, other than red, being scattered at a greater frequency. The net result is redder more golden light making its way to the Earth’s surface. Additionally the acute angle that sunlight falls at this time creates dramatic long shadows for higher contrast imagery and highlights are less intensely lit compared to other times of day.

The “golden hour” is coveted by photographers as the warm light enhances a variety of subjects from landscapes to portraits to cityscapes.

Curious about the impact of smoke, pollution and/or clouds on the “golden hour”? Then I recommend reading The Colors Of Twilight And Sunset by Stephen F.Corfidi

An example of “golden hour” light falling on the Marin foothills in California.

More of the Photo Term Series

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Dynamic range, in relation to photography, most commonly describes the light sensitivity range of a photographic medium whether slide/print film or a digital sensor.

Unlike other definitions of Dynamic Range I think it’s important to discuss the relationship of the human eye and brain and what we determine as the standard of dynamic range. The eye is in all intents and purposes a sensor that can detect texture, shape and color with great sensitivity. Our brain, with years of learned understanding of how the world works and is constructed, quickly layers information together from detected light ranges to create an image of what is before us. As a result with out thinking we see the world with a high level of fidelity and detect detail from dark shadows to bright highlights.

Photographers often become frustrated because the tools at our disposal lack the ability to recreate the full range of light we inherently see. For film and digital alike, photographers think in terms of stops of light (referring to f/stop). It’s widely accepted that film has a dynamic range of 4-8 stops, digital sensors have a theoretical dynamic range of 10-14 stops and the human eye a dynamic range of 20-24 stops*.
Note: *The fixed dynamic range of our retina is about 6 stops, but exposure is variably adjusted chemically and by our iris as it contracts and expands.

Due to the disparate range of light detected between these mediums and our eye, photographic images and even prints have a perceivable difference in appearance compared to the true scene we see with our naked eye. Photographers using their artistic license have used the limited dynamic range of film or digital sensors to create different effects whether silhouettes or High Dynamic Range Imaging.

Dynamic Range in Digital Photography by Sean McHugh

Dynamic Range of the Human Eye - Wikipedia

The Eye and the Camera - Luminous Landscape

Example:
Note that for this slide film exposure of Half Dome below, the dynamic range of light and resulting detail isn’t equivalent to what you might see with your naked eye. Detail is challenging to see in both the highlights of the snow and the shadows of the trees and valley wall.

Technorati Tags: dynamic range, photography, terminology, light, sensitivity, human, eye, digital, sensor, film

 ”In photography and optics, vignetting is a reduction in image brightness in the image periphery compared to the image center.

Although vignetting is normally unintended and undesired, it is sometimes purposely introduced for creative effect, such as to draw attention to the center of the frame. A photographer may deliberately choose a lens which is known to produce vignetting. It can also be produced with the use of special filters or post-processing procedures.” - Wikipedia

Example:

Vignetted version (note the darkened corners)

Non-vignetted version (lighter corners)

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“Barrel Distortion, in which image magnification decreases with increasing distance from the optical axis. The apparent effect is that of an image which has been mapped around a sphere. Fisheye lenses, which take hemispherical views, produce this type of distortion as a result of a hemispherical scene being projected onto a flat surface.” - Wikipedia

Or…

“Barrel distortion is a lens effect which causes images to be spherised or “inflated”. Barrel distortion is associated with wide angle lenses and typically occurs at the wide end of a zoom lens. The use of converters often amplifies the effect. It is most visible in images with perfectly straight lines, especially when they are close to the edge of the image frame.” - DPReview.com

Examples:

16mm end of a 16-35mm lens on a full frame film SLR

Technorati Tags: barrel distortion, photography, photo, terminology, term, Golden Gate Bridge, California, San Francisco

The telephoto effect, created aptly when using longer focal length lenses, creates an altered perspective where distances are compressed or shortened. The net effect makes objects, that may be quite some distance apart, look close together. The longer the focal length the more pronounced this effect.

An example of this can be seen in my photograph “San Francisco” where the Golden Gate Bridge and city skyline are actually miles from each other.

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Contrails, also known as a vapor trail, is a term used to describe the streak of condensation left behind as a plane flies through the sky. The condensation created from the planes exhaust are actually artificial cirrus clouds. Often in a photo critique comments will be made recommending the removal of this visual pollutant using a variety of photo editing tools.

Example of a contrail removed from a landscape photo:
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“Chiaroscuro” in regard to photography, as with painting and cinematography, describes “extreme low-key lighting to create distinct areas of light and darkness” (to quote Wikipedia).

“The term early broadened in meaning to cover all strong contrasts in illumination between light and dark areas in art.” (Wikipedia)

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