That’s exactly what I said when I spotted my photo subject, but let’s build the drama first. It’s project day, and I was doing various things out in the yard. Once finished, I had to hose out a wheelbarrow and my shovels, and took the frost guard off the spigot and reattached the hose, then cleaned off everything. Or so I thought [Dramatic music here for no reason at all.] Finding one more thing in need of cleaning, I bent down and grabbed the hose again, and saw some movement fairly close to my face.
Now, the temperature isn’t bad, being around 13°c – I’m working in a T-shirt, but expending a bit of effort and sniffling a little, and that’ll be the peak temperature for today while it’s been a lot colder at nights. So I figured we’d seen the last of my friend here for the season.
That’s a black rat snake (Pantherophis obsoletus,) and not only the first I’ve seen on the property, it’s one of the very few snakes ever found here. I’m pleased, because they’re my favorite local species, both able to get to an impressive size and pretty mellow, despite the fact that my subject here wasn’t very happy with having been disturbed and is definitely in defensive mode. Big fat hairy deal, really – the bite of a black rat snake is harmless and pretty innocuous; I’ve had more damage done by thorn bushes.
Don’t think that I missed the similarity to the circumstances of the last one that I found, less than a month ago (but the weather hadn’t yet turned cold then.) And of all the places to spot one, this seemed odd by being exposed enough not to conserve body heat very well, and also not likely to produce any food, but far be it from me to question the lifestyle choices of serpents. My specimen here is likely a little less than a meter in length, by the way, and perhaps slightly thicker than my thumb at midbody.
Let’s do a longer shot so you can see how well it was hidden from sight.
And bear in mind, I was firing off the flash to help illuminate the corner, which is semi-shaded.
I left the snake alone, mostly to rush inside to make a new post (still panting with excitement,) but also to encourage it to stay. I must add that The Girlfriend may not be as thrilled about this as I am.
The last couple of months this year have been pretty poor for macro photography, from what appeared to be a bad birthing season to begin with, through a long drought that ended as the weather turned much colder, so subjects have been few and far between, and it’s only going to get worse from here (until it gets better again, but that’ll probably be in the spring.) So we’ll have just a couple of photos for now, and wait to see what the winter brings.
Above, the berries of… we have no idea. It’s a small, very spare decorative tree by the front door that was here when we moved in, never does very well, and produces enough leaves to put Charlie Brown’s christmas tree to shame, but only just. You’re looking at literally half of the total berries it produced this fall. If you know what it is, tell us, not that it matters much – someday we will replace it with something viable. This was shot in bright daylight against the clear sky, but at my typical macro settings which would normally render things a bit dark in those conditions if it weren’t for the flash unit, thus the deep color of the sky.
In years past, the yard has been pretty well populated with barn spiders (Araneus cavaticus,) but this year was a lot leaner in that regard – not exactly a bad thing, because walking around in the yard at night is otherwise fraught with the danger of walking directly through their large webs, which are generally created at night and may be placed anywhere from chest height on up. I personally would have thought we were past this season, but was shown otherwise.
This is a mid-sized specimen, so about 12mm or so in body length, and thoughtfully occupying the branches of a small tree against the fenceline, so out of anyone’s path. What she was intending to capture at this point, I have no idea; spiders themselves can be pretty cold-hardy, but their common prey is usually much less so. This was shot within minutes of the previous, same settings on the camera, but aimed into a shadowed area so it appears more like night.
The recent rains had provoked a small outbreak of mushrooms in the yard, and I selected one that was reasonably photogenic, which just goes to show you how little else there is to photograph, because I generally ignore them. I’m not even going to go through the effort of trying to determine the species; if you really need to know then go look it up. I’ve done my part bellying down on the damp ground to get this perspective, because you can well imagine that a normal view would show you a bland little dome.
Now, out of curiosity last night I took out the ultra-violet flashlight to see what might fluoresce. I tried it on the barn spider above (nothing of interest,) and a large centipede that I spotted on the wall (ditto,) and some small snail shells that I’d collected from the lake of my youth in NY (so unreactive in UV light as to be completely boring.) With all of these failures, I was just shining it idly around the yard on my return trip when I got a bright flash of yellow: some of the mushrooms that I’d found earlier. Most of the ones I saw at this time were in varying later stages of collapse, so not the most photogenic subjects for in situ shots, but I collected a couple of caps to do shots indoors instead. Here’s the view in normal light, for comparison.
Nothing surprising or remarkable, of course. But now here they are in UV light.
That’s a pretty distinctive response, especially since the visible beam of the light is deep violet, and it could be spotted from a moderate distance as well; photographs don’t quite do it justice. But it only came from the underside of the cap, those ribs or flutes or whatever mycologists call them. Does this do something for the mushroom, or is it only a by-product of their composition? I have no idea – UV fluorescence is still being studied and pondered over, since some elements possess it naturally, but then various species seem to have it for a reason. The underside of the cap is the portion of the fungus that would get the least UV light, so…?
And I did try to find the same pinkish mushroom from further up to shoot it from the same perspective, but could not locate it. Maybe it had been eaten in the interim, or I’d already trodden on it. But I tried.
I can’t remember the exact reason behind this image (which is a great way to start a story, doncha think?) but I know it was for a photo challenge. Was it Low Light? Alcoholism? Weak Construction? I dunno, something.
I do remember staging this carefully, though granted this was not an hours-long process – more like twenty minutes or so all told. I picked a bare spot at the end of the counter and set up my three items, adjusting the tripod carefully to bring it together. Take a moment to drink it all in (A ha ha ha ha ha ha! Did you get that?) before we proceed.
“Wait, three items?” you asked if you were on top of things, or “Oh, yes, of course three items,” if you were even more on top of things, because there’s a candle positioned behind the wine glass, the sole light source but also the item that’s giving the wine glass its particular look, and visibly reflected in the bottle. The candle flame itself didn’t quite work if it shone directly through the glass, so the camera was positioned to lose the flame in the distortion at the top of the wine level, while the candle body gives the glass a geometric highlight. The base of the candle can still be seen, but it’s so subtle that it easily escapes attention. The wine bottle was positioned carefully not only to offset the glass in the frame, but also to distance its shadow a little more – too close and it had this looming presence over the bottle.
If you were really sharp, you might have noticed that it’s a bottle of white wine, so not matched at all to the glass. And this last bit I don’t really expect anyone to have figured out, but it’s not wine in the glass anyway – I think it’s root beer, vigorously stirred to lose all carbonation and watered down to bring the color to the ‘appropriate’ hue. The focus on the glass rather than the bottle subtly communicates that the specific wine is unimportant. Overall of course, the idea was to produce a mellow vibe – more than a bit trite, and you know how I feel about alcohol, but also recognizable among the majority of people.
I don’t even need to point out that the top of the glass and the wine level indicate that the counter isn’t very level – everyone spotted that right off, I’m sure…
Now, a slightly more serious moment, and I do apologize and will be back to frivolous and trivial commentary soon. While the photo has a bare minimum of factors within it, there’s one that most often escapes attention yet still has a role in how the image looks, and that’s the highlight on the back wall. This one came simply from the flame peeking over the lip of the candle, but product photographers often shape and position these with extreme care, because that glow or halo can draw more attention in particular directions, as well as giving a better ‘feel’ to the key subject, whether that’s a more pleasing color tone or more distinctive shaping or what have you. In this case it almost indicates a warm glow above the glass, certainly directing our attention more there than to the wine bottle (which is far too indistinct for an advertisement, certainly.) But might it have been better if the glow centered more on the bowl of the glass? Can the color of the glow itself be more appealing? These kinds of things are carefully studied in advertising, and even though they may produce only a 0.01% increase in sales through subtle manipulation, that’s still an increase. Personally, I feel that most of this is overblown; people might like one photo better than another, but the number of people that are affected enough to be influenced in their buying decisions is, I suspect, a hell of a lot less than imagined. But some people actually make their money by convincing others that their input is valuable.
… can know how far they can truly go. That’s the way the saying goes, anyway – I’ve always felt that encouraging people to exceed their limits wasn’t the wisest of proverbs, but at least it gives them something to put on a tombstone.
However, I am vaguely motivated to put up even more photos, to see if I’ll set a new record this year, because the only person I’ll compete with is myself. And while I could always toss up some images for the sake of it, I’m aiming for content that has at least a little interest, that has something to say in some manner. But what to do? Monochrome comes to mind, but I’ve tackled black & white numerous times before and even have a whole gallery devoted to it, so no. Maybe if I went in entirely the other direction? I do already have that image that I did an experiment on, sitting in the blog folder awaiting a time to tackle it, so maybe I’ll do an extended post on it? Yeah.
This is the deal. While sorting photos some time back, I noticed the barest hint of color coming from the sky in this dusk shot, taken while in SC earlier this year – the skies were too clear much of the time. But I was curious to see what happened if I boosted saturation in GIMP. This is something I rarely ever do; I have some in-camera settings to compensate for low contrast days, but for the most part, I tend to keep my images ‘as-shot,’ or occasionally tweaking the color more towards white light (rather than the blue-ish light found in deep shadows, for instance.) Bot sometimes the color just needs a boost, and this rarely exceeds a setting of “20” within the program. 20 what? you ask, and that’s a good question. Percentage, maybe? What’s being measured here? I don’t know, but the max is 100. So let’s slam the throttle against the stops.
Because the image was so muted in color in the first place, this doesn’t look too far out of line (especially when we’re bombarded with over-amped colors from much of our media.) It certainly accentuates the bare hint of sunset colors on the horizon there, but overall, it might only be a hair past what people would accept as ‘normal.’ We’ve started something here.
What’s funny is, I find nothing lacking in any of the images that I selected for this experiment – they were chosen for the limited palette, but the palette is natural, the product of the subject and in some cases (like here) the lighting and angle. But there’s no better way to make a photo seem bland than to compare it against an oversaturated version.
In most of these cases, I not only pushed the slider to 100, I did it again, going between 40 and 100 on a second pass depending on how much grain started to appear. This is noticeably harsh now, but still retaining the look of a photo – much farther and it becomes a painting in a head shop.
In some subjects, there are more colors than we would immediately detect.
Sure, there’s some yellow on the legs, and a hint of blue in the carapace perhaps, but the sand itself is ‘grey.’ This is only a half-step away from monochrome by itself, and rendering it as such wouldn’t make anyone look twice. In fact, even treated it with the high-contrast method that I posted about earlier eliminates enough detail that it virtually becomes unrecognizable. Nope – we’re going t’other way.
Definitely too far, but the colors are complementary at least, and it makes us realize that there are other colors in there. Let’s do it again! (This is getting so exciting!)
This marsh rabbit was in open shadow not long after sunrise, so the light is still a bit blue, but that’s okay right now. The effect wouldn’t have been as interesting if I’d corrected back to neutral white light, because the greens would have become stronger. We need them muted a little.
Yeah, wow, we could certainly do without the glaring foliage, but the rabbit looks good with a bit of indigo accenting, doesn’t it? Something for breeders to aim for.
I had to recrop this next one.
The gator itself was fine, but the loose organic debris in the water was colorful enough in the original to become unmanageable when boosted, so I cropped most of it out.
I rolled this one back to 140 or so, because the water was starting to get all pixelated. But I’m reminding myself that I have to live someplace where I can see these guys are a more regular basis. While I know an awful lot of people that consider living close to such reptiles to be horrifying, those people are all dweebs – gators are supremely cool. Look at those textures!
And a last, fun one, even though we just had this as a post subject.
This was taken back 10 years ago with the telescope that I had then, since sold. I’ve picked up another now, a little smaller, but as yet haven’t tackled the photography end of it, because so far my collimation efforts haven’t been up to snuff and focus is not ideal. It’s on the project list, so be patient (i need to order a proper collimating eyepiece.) This image, I admit, has undergone a slight color tweak, because there was a hair too much yellow in the mix, though I can’t say if this was courtesy of the atmosphere, the telescope used, or my camera settings. Whatever – it worked better with a trivial shift.
I had read somewhere that astronomers have done this kind of oversaturation just to figure out what elements are present in the surface itself, because they’ll all produce a different spectrum, so the colors are enhanced to magnify the distinctions. Is the green dominance in the terminator region indicative of anything? It’s possible – our sun puts out more light in the green spectrum than in any other color, and as a different wavelength it may have the greatest effect in shadows where there’s no atmosphere, but then again, it might also be an artifact of the image itself – a camera thing that isn’t real. One of these days I’ll do some tests above the atmosphere and compare them.
It remains the slow season of course, so new photos will be more scarce, but I do have a small handful of recent macro images coming, that I may yet add to. But before that, we have our weekly storytime.
The sky did indeed clear enough to do some detailed moon shots, but alas, I was a hair too late.
For those just joining us and not having read enough posts on this blog, get the fuck out no one wants your kind around here I have, for no reason that anyone should examine closely, had the goal of just catching sunrise on the central peak of Tycho, probably the best known crater on the moon. Due to the geological nature of meteor impacts, the crater has a mountain of debris right in the middle, meaning that as the sun rises across the lunar landscape, at some point it touches the tip of this mountain before any portion within, and this is just barely visible from Earth, with enough magnification. If your timing is right.
Sunrise takes place a lot slower on the moon than it does here, because the moon rotates much slower, so the opportunity is much broader than here, but still fairly specific – I honestly don’t know what the exact window is, only that I keep missing it. This morning, I was aiming for sunset instead, because it’s dusk there now. Missed that too. Or I caught it, depending on your view, but to be specific, the sun was no longer illuminating that peak.
First, however, the conditions. In the previous post I said they were shitty but improving, and they improved enough to be of use, but not perfect – there was still a bit of haze in the sky obscuring things a little, and throwing a glow around the moon in a widely variable manner.
I bracketed exposure fairly broadly (never trust the camera meter for such things) to try and bring out the haze while retaining a smidgen of moon detail, and this was probably the best I was gonna get – you can see some scribbling along the terminator there. But we can do better.
This is tightly cropped of course, but about half the camera’s resolution, and my guess a few days ago of when to come back was fairly solid – there’s a chance that, had I been able to see the moon when I first checked (about 1 AM,) I might have just caught it. Taken about 5 AM, this was certainly too late. Let’s check the replay, shall we?
This is a full-resolution crop now. The yellow line is pointing to Tycho, and as you can see, they ain’t no bright spots within the crater. Nertz.
The larger crater over to the right in the image, with a couple of smaller craters superimposed on the rim, is Clavius, while the small crater (with its own peak) sitting largely by itself in Mare Nubium is Bullialdus. There’s a chance I may go out a little later, after the sun is up here, and see if I can snag sunset on the peak in Bullialdus – it’ll be a little harder to make out since the air between us will be lit up by the sun, and scattering light more. Still, these were shot through a lot of humidity, so…
While we’re doing this, let’s see some detail over to the left.
The more distinctive crater almost centered in the image is Copernicus, and this was noticeably the sharpest image that I got in the session, because some faint details of the rubble within Copernicus can be seen. Above it, more shadowed, is Eratosthenes, sitting at the end of the Lunar Apennines, a curving mountain range that shows up fairly well from Earth in the right conditions, even naked eye, and provides just a couple of specks here looming out of the shadows of the terminator. Most of that smooth open space is Mare Imbrium.
[By the way, these details are way the hell too small to make out in the viewfinder, so even with all attempts to render things as sharp as possible, manual or autofocus, really really precise focus is still a matter of chance, so refocus frequently. You can see that the sharpness is fading even around the curve of the moon, though some of this may be due to slightly thicker haze randomly distributed through the frame.]
One more thing to point out in this image. You can see two shallow craters ‘holding hands’ over to the right edge, little more than circles – those are Parry and Guericke. Continue the line that they create, to the left just slightly more than the distance between, and you’re within Frau Mauro, the landing site of Apollo 14 (and the proposed landing site of Apollo 13, before it blew a tire.) And no, no details of any landing sites can be made out from Earth, no matter what the telescope – they can barely be discerned from satellites orbiting the moon itself. BUT, go here, and use the zoom function. The dark spot towards the lower left marks the lander itself, and the squiggly lines are the tracks of the rover. For an idea of scale within my own image, though, the outer rims of Parry and Guericke are somewhere around 90 km (55 mi) apart.
A couple other notes, should you be attempting this yourself:
Turn off image stabilization, or whatever your manufacturer calls it. It was actually responsible for more than a few blurred images when it was activating for no reason, since the camera was on a tripod.
Have the tripod as low as you can get it. This reduces vibration. I was aiming pretty high in the sky for this, and would have had to have the center column raised a lot to use the viewfinder comfortably. Instead, I was sitting in the road (the trees in the immediate vicinity were blocking all views from the yard) behind my car.
Use a remote release. Don’t touch the camera. You’ll see why in a moment.
Mirror lock up is a great idea. This is exactly the kind of thing it’s used for.
Bracket exposure and focus widely. You’ll take a lot of shots, but a couple of keepers is all you need.
Don’t trust the LCD preview, for focus, exposure, or sharpness confirmation. It’s good for none of these, and in fact, good for almost nothing.
Here’s another look at a different exposure, which may bring out more shadow detail (no, still no sun on Tycho’s peak.)
This is a bit overexposed, especially since the moon material itself pretty much counts as 18% grey, perfect midtones. Notice how the lower edge gets really bright, which is because it’s getting more direct sunlight than the twilight areas front and center.
And as a final aspect, I shot a few moments of video while out there, letting the camera pick its own exposure – it gets a bit darker, but the movement of the clouds/haze becomes much more apparent.
The vibrations, start and end, come from my own hands pushing the Record button on the back of the camera, and this was despite my attempts to be as motionless as possible – why a remote release is highly recommended. But for giggles, just as the video starts, put your finger on the screen right at the bottom edge of the moon, and watch it move away from your finger – this is the actual movement of the moon in that time (or the rotation of the Earth, pick the frame of reference that suits your worldview.)
Okay, so. While typing this out, The Girlfriend wanted to get some materials for a home project, so I had a mid-length interruption in there, and decided when we got back to shoot the moon again. Result: that shadow isolating the base of the peak in Bullialdus hasn’t noticeably advanced, even though Eratosthenes has about vanished. But check it for yourself:
Again, Bullialdus is that smaller distinct crater, about two-thirds of the way down, all by itself.
Now, don’t ask me about that grain, because I’m curious about it myself, and don’t think it should be there, but that’s a topic for another post perhaps. As for the orientation, well, that’s the way I shot it, but I was turned almost ninety degrees from the direction I was facing for the earlier shots. and the moon had tracked quite a bit more (for one, I no longer had to sit in the road.) So these are ‘as viewed,’ but at different points during the moon’s arc, so the moon is facing differently, yet still the same. Very zen. I think.
It’s very early morning right now, or “night” as most would call it, and I’m waiting to see if the moon is going to appear – if my timing is right, I might be able to catch sunset on Tycho, as frequently mentioned (like, in the previous post.) The weather report says it’s supposed to be clear today after being partly cloudy yesterday, but neither of those matches the overcast conditions we have now. So while we’re waiting to determine if the meteorologists completely suck, we might as well see what kind of fall colors are to be found.
Except… apparently our abelia bush (Caprifoliaceae) has been confused by the brief shock of cold weather and the adequate rains after a long drought, or has not seen its shadow or something, because it’s blooming. Well, okay, it has one bloom, perhaps a sentry. Since I was doing some lens and body tests yesterday, I fired off a few frames.
Nearby, one of the oak-leaf hydrangeas (Hydrangea quercifolia) that have been slowly getting a toehold in our rotten soil here was showing some of the autumn coloration that they’re known for and the reason we planted them, so I took a few of that, too.
This was taken in natural light, so you will note that it is much better than the overcast we are currently experiencing, of course. We are well away from the August holiday, and yet still able to celebrate it handily – funny, we seem able to be celebrate it damn near any day of the year, if my experience is some indication.
Actually, I just checked out there now, and the moon is faintly visible among mixed clouds and haze, so, maybe – we’ve actually had a light rain (also not predicted) since I started editing the photos for this post. I’d say be patient, but since this is a blog and not some kind of feed, and the more recent posts appear above the older ones, you likely already know if I was successful. You could leave a comment, so I know if I’m wasting my time waiting or not.
Meanwhile, one more shot just for the curiosity of it. The testing I was doing involved seeing if I could improve autofocus tracking, as mentioned previously, and so far it seems successful, but the acid tests have yet to come. While doing this, however, I followed a small flock of double-crested cormorants (Phalacrocorax auritus) as they passed, and the tight cluster they produced made it easy to do all three in a decent image, though largely silhouetted.
I feel obligated to mention that this is a trick of perspective – they’re not that buddy-buddy, but spaced further apart along our axis of sight. C’mon, you couldn’t tell that from the 7% difference in sizes between the three? Sheesh.
By the way, we really did have the partly-cloudy conditions predicted then, so chalk one up for the weatherpeeps. Unfortunately, this means that at any given time while shooting birds in flight, they may be against blue sky, a mix, or full clouds as seen here. I could easily have timed it to be against blue (and did,) but not while they were so compact within the frame. So it goes. I could always GIMP it in…
Earlier this evening but on a previous day, I was doing a bit of blog maintenance and checked the post count so far this year: 166 (not counting this one of course.) That not only beats out last year’s count already, by four posts, but places this year fourth out of eleven years so far, with six weeks to go. Am I gonna set a new record? Not likely, because that’s held by 2015 with 218 posts, so I’d have to get 51 more posts (over top of this one) done in that time frame, or something like 9 a week. Not holding my breath.
But enough worthless personal trivia. Finding myself with the inclination, not too tired, with it not too cold out, I decided I might give the Leonids an attempt, but on stepping outside to check conditions, I found a distinctive haze across the sky, lit up by the gibbous moon (which was not too high yet.) Better than overcast, but not by a lot – the dimmer meteors would be obscured by the haze, while the brighter ones rendered less distinct with a glow around them. Much worse would be the bare idea that even in a region with no light pollution, the light of the moon would throw too much residual glow to the haze, no matter where the camera was aimed, and thus longer exposures (which is what you want for meteors, just to have the shutter open when they occur,) would get too bright too fast. Here where the light pollution is terrible, it would mean a max 30-second exposure because the haze would be reflecting the ground lights as well. So, no.
But I took the camera out anyway, just to shoot an example of the moon to show the adverse affect of the humidity, and while I was setting in exposure, the skies cleared a bit – not completely, but not too shabby at all. Note the faint surrounding glow.
That’s – really not too bad detail for the Tamron 150-600 at manual focus (but indeed on a tripod, and with a remote release.)
By the way, Tycho, my semi-regular ‘sunrise’ target, is at the end of the longest and most distinct streak on the surface – not the very noticeable crater on the terminator, but directly beneath it by about 470 kilometers. That really distinct big crater, if I have my mapping down, is Maurolycus, and it’s that distinct largely because of the sun and shadow position – it’ll look different tomorrow. And we’re in the wrong moon phase to be considering sunrise on Tycho again, because it’s late in the lunar day there, but in a couple of (Earth) days I might be able to catch sunset on that central peak. We’ll see.
Meanwhile, I provide another shot of the conditions, this time over-exposing the moon to show the haze a bit better – it was pretty variable just in the short time that I was out there.
Pics like this drive home how much the camera increases contrast, because while out there, the mares of the moon were visible while the haze was much more distinct. These images were taken at ‘normal’ settings, but to get closer to what our eyes could capture, I’d have to drop the contrast way down. Or do a lot of creative editing, HDR and suchlike, but there’s too much of that stuff going around now, especially in regards to astronomy and night sky images.
By the way, does this count as black and white photography?
On this particular day, a new Florida panther (Puma concolor coryi) had been introduced into an enclosure next to this one, out of sight but not out of scent, and my photo subject here was being very territorial by voicing its displeasure frequently and photogenically An amusing (or maybe pathetic – I keep getting them confused) side note before I begin: damn near every time that I mention captive animal photography on the blog, I make some kind of defensive comment about it as if people are routinely, derisively pointing out that real nature photographers wouldn’t shoot captives, and all of their images are of wild specimens deep in the jungle, or something. First off, nobody even comments either way, but in my recollection I think one person made such a remark, like over a decade ago back on a newsgroup, and that person was obviously trying to be an ass anyway.
Still, while there is a better sense of accomplishment from capturing images in the wild, there remains plenty of reasons to pursue captive specimens, among them:
Simple stock shots (that sell for a few dollars and wouldn’t make good business sense to spend a few thousand getting)
Better portraits
Captives behave better and provide more ‘relaxed’ images
Details and traits that are near to completely impossible to capture from a distance
Yes, of course it’s easier, but if we’re doing this to impress anyone with our prowess or globetrotteriness, we’re probably not too focused anyway. So have at it. And while you’re doing so, here are a few tips.
Nobody wants to see the walls, fences, other visitors, and so on in the background, nor reflections from the glass in the foreground. Eliminating these can be a challenge, though. We’ll start with glass.
Wear a plain black shirt and/or pants – This won’t completely eliminate the reflections that you yourself will make, but it helps.
Shoot from the shadows, or a darker corner, etc – Helps to reduce the same.
Shoot close to the glass – For preference, with a rubber lenshood pressed directly against the glass to eliminate all reflections from your side.
Pick the cleanest spot you can find – Again, this is often the corners, but can occur up higher too. A soft cloth can help with finger smudges on your side, but most times it’s the other side that’s the filthiest. I’ve tried pantomiming to get a chimp to clean their side, but it didn’t work.
Shoot straight on through the glass – Perpendicular to the surface, as much as possible. Glass bends all light that comes through at an angle – that’s what a lens does, after all – so angles always distort, to some degree, and they’re made much worse by the nature of camera lens, which capture light from a broader field than our eyes do. Just forget about curved glass. Seriously.
Get the flash off angle – To prevent it bouncing straight back into the lens, but also keeps it from bouncing off any back walls/glass. This usually means a separate strobe unit and an off-camera cord, and can often require someone else to hold and aim it.
Have a black blocking cloth – Only if you have an assistant (and this usually means you’re dedicated to getting some particular shots,) but a thin piece of black cloth can be held up to block stray reflections, or behind the back side of the aquarium. etc. Also useful when doing studio work.
And then there are fences.
Shoot where there isn’t any – Well, duh, but look around carefully – sometimes there’s a small gap or a higher vantage that can be exploited.
The fence is still there, but almost blurred out of existence – note the back of the arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus) Shoot with a low depth-of-field – So, larger aperture. This explains how it works, but briefly, things can be blurred almost out of existence. And to help,
Shoot close to the fence – Like, right against it if you can, but definitely centered in the opening.
The fence is still present, but now it’s so subtle that it won’t ever be noticed Longer focal lengths – This assists both of those efforts above.
If you have a choice between light and dark fences, choose dark. Very Sithy. Light exposes the image, so the lack thereof is easier to overwhelm with the other things in the frame. I wouldn’t recommend bringing a can of black spray paint though.
Then we have walls. First off, if you have the classic red brick walls with grey mortar, forget about it – you’ll never get them to disappear entirely.
Get them in shadow – Especially mottled shadow, which helps disguise any patterns.
Get them further off – Basic rule of depth-of-field: You will blur the background better if the focused subject is closer to the camera than it is to the background.
Again, longer focal length – Just helps reduce depth.
Find a spot where the wall is partially obscured – By plants or branches, other animals, etc. Small changes in position can make a huge difference.
So, on to some general pointers.
Framing becomes much more key with captives, and paying strict attention to the background – don’t remain too tightly focused on the subject. Be especially aware of situations where, for instance, other visitors in bright colors may appear in the shot. But you have a huge advantage in many cases, in that you can easily shift position to change your background, something impossible to do from a blind in the wild. When you can, pick a complementary background color or detail, or at the very least get something smoother and lower contrast.
Do the same thing with light. When you can, pick the angle that gives the best shadow rendition and shaping, and when using an external flash, think carefully of your subject, the details that you’re trying to show, where shadows might fall, and so on. This is where the otherwise horrible practice of “chimping” comes in handy, which is looking at the LCD afterward to see what you took. The LCD will tell you virtually nothing about an image, except how the flash worked for you. And even then it won’t tell you if shadow or highlight details were captured or lost. On-camera LCDs suck, really.
Patience is, naturally, a virtue. Captives will not always be photogenic, but if you’re really after a decent frame or three, this can mean waiting a while until the specimen does something interesting – I shouldn’t have to say this because it’s a standard part of nature photography anyway. Just be prepared to chill out, or occasionally return when the chances are better.
Many species, especially birds and mammals, are well aware of how many people are gawking at them, and the noisier the people, the worse it is – this often minimizes the behavior that you might see, or drives the animals further off. Avoid crowds (and especially crowded days,) and when possible, wait for people to move on. Generally, when the animals are behaving this way, it doesn’t take long for the crowds to get bored. Once it’s quiet, you may start to see much more interesting opportunities.
A few species seem to like the attention, however, and becoming familiar with them can help. Then you can stake out a prime shooting position before the passel of schoolkids comes by and provokes this kind of showoff behavior.
First thing in the morning is best. Most places where you can photograph captives, there’s only so early you can arrive, and it’s often after feeding time and the ‘first wakening’ behavior, but beating the crowds, the heat, and the midday naps works a whole lot better no matter what. Animals are usually more active and playful, more expressive and investigative, and less likely to shun the areas where you can shoot from. In zoos, for instance, get there at opening and make a beeline for the farthest exhibits where it takes more time for the crowds to arrive.
Also, pick good days. Spring is almost universally mating time for species, and so coats and plumage are often the most vibrant, the behavior more distinctive. Days that won’t get too hot are better, and a little chill in the air can make animals more active. Overall, slightly hazy conditions control sharp shadows and contrast better than brilliantly sunny days. And then, picking days that see the fewest visitors often helps; it varies a lot by locations, but Tuesdays and Thursdays often see the fewest school groups and families, with Saturdays being the worst of course.
Be considerate. I can’t count the number of times that I’ve seen photographers, especially as a group, ‘dressed the part’ and blocking others from the viewing areas, taking up a lot of space with tripods, and generally being snobby. If you’re in a zoo or whatever, get over yourself – it’s a public place and everyone else has just as much right to be there, regardless of how important you might think your pursuits are. No one cares, and no one’s impressed by your photo vest. If you’re any good at all, you’ll get the shots you’re after despite the other visitors, and without interfering with them – that’s part of the challenge. Or you can pay for an exclusive visit. I’m sure your sales will support that.
Yes, I’ve seen plenty of other visitors ruining shots and being obnoxious, and find it annoying. But a) that’s what comes with a public place, and b) why emulate them? We should be bigger than that.
Familiarity with the species and exhibits may mean multiple visits, and let’s face it: not every day is going to be productive. We can accept that easily in ‘the wild,’ but have a harder time when it comes to places where we believe that shooting should be easy. The best shots rarely are, and are very often a mix of luck and perseverance. But knowing our subjects and conditions helps a lot too, and even a little bit of behavior. Pay attention – do some of the bird species perk up when particular calls can be heard? Do the otters not like eye contact? Do cooler days make the giraffes more active? Does the plumage or coat change? (Like the arctic fox above, which looks dirty brown in the summer months.) All this knowledge can give you an edge.
Some places simply aren’t designed with photographers in mind, and it will be impossible to eradicate all evidence of captive photos. Sad but true, and a little research ahead of time can save you a wasted trip. One place near me offers an expensive ‘photo tour’ which allows you to shoot through special photo ports in the fence on your side, but does nothing about the fences and walls in the background, and so isn’t worth the money in the slightest. Very clever positioning and angles may still net you some usable images, but a lot fewer than from places designed with more natural-looking enclosures.
However, nearly all such places run on donations and visitor income, so even a handful of useful images (or none at all) may still provide benefit to conservation or rescue efforts, and if we have the audience to draw greater attention to them, even our shots with fences in the background are useful to them. It doesn’t have to be all about us.
Captive Macro – I almost forgot this important aspect, but having a little more control over macro subjects can help a tremendous amount. Such efforts may run from a simple sprig of plant life in a clamp that can be positioned, up to a full aquarium or terrarium under a bank of lights with a custom background. But having an insect or smaller reptile (or even mammal) where it cannot escape, and/or may be positioned a little better than it might pose in the wild, can be a huge help, especially if there are particular details that you’re trying to illustrate. A simple tabletop setting of surface (plant, leaves, soil, etc,) a background – which might be just an appropriate photo print, and flexible lighting options is worlds better than trying to accomplish the same thing in situ.
With arthropods that have a tendency to fly off, for example, doing this within a bathroom, or in a small aquarium with good glass sides, can mean recapturing the specimen is a lot easier. Some insects will immediately land when the lights go off, and can be found by flashlight for recapture, but either way, a bathroom generally has much less space and fewer hiding places when something does escape.
I’ve harped on this countless times in the past, but an aquarium is hugely beneficial when it comes to small aquatic subjects, and is damn near the only way to shoot them. Even a cheapo plastic tank from a department store becomes perfectly useful when one side is replaced by a sheet of higher-quality glass, and the transparent sides allow both a choice of background (at such magnifications, the only thing needed is an appropriate color, because details will probably not show at all,) and a wide range of lighting angles.
Additional lights become much easier to manage, as well. A bright LED desk lamp can serve as a focusing and modeling light (to see how the shadows will fall,) while secondary strobes can be made from any flash unit that has a slave foot attached, and light strength can be managed with inexpensive fixed units by distance and positioning – a ten-degree or so turn will cut the light by a full stop. Plus you have the ability to use AC-powered light units – there are plenty of inexpensive AC slaves available. You will also have the options of light tents and wide diffusers without having to create your own portable units.
Boy, a couple of capital letters makes everything dramatic, doesn’t it? But all I’m referring to is the Leonids meteor shower, which should be peaking tomorrow night or thereabouts.
I have reminders set up on my calendar for about a week in advance, because you can start seeing activity well before a peak, and the Leonids has, at times, been a pretty damn good shower. And I’ve had a background goal to show off some nice meteor streaks here some time. That would require catching some, though, and it hasn’t happened yet. I’ve seen some doozies, but never captured any in camera, for various reasons which I am forbidden by various international conventions to talk about. Naturally, we’re still in a pretty bright moon phase, especially towards the early hours of the morning when viewing is better – and yet, the moon hasn’t been an issue at all the past several nights! No light at all shining down! Which is because we’ve been in rainy, overcast conditions all that time, while still keeping the temperatures down pretty far.
So if you’re doing better, have at it, and show me up. Meteorologists are predicting partly cloudy conditions for the next few nights, up until Wednesday when it’s supposed to be clear, but from long experience I know that, for NC at least, that’s too far off to trust. One day, however, I will surprise you all, and post some brilliant meteor trails and fireballs flares, and then you’ll all immediately apologize for all the bad things you even thought about me. Because that’s how people work.
Let’s be honest: there aren’t any webcomics that I’ve come across that fit in with the theme of this blog, whatever that may be, and don’t ask me why because I’m sure this is a huge untapped market, judging from the visit stats and comments. But I still find the occasional conjunction, a chance tangency that gives me confidence that someone gets it, if only once in a while. Today’s example (well, okay, this is from the 13th, and don’t think I didn’t note the ramifications of that date,) comes from Cyanide & Happiness, a truly warped comic written by three different rotating artists – this one in particular is done by Kris Wilson.
Now, I am hoping that the subtler aspect of the comic is not lost here, but I’m afraid there will be a few people who didn’t register the distinctive artwork. So, at the risk of belaboring the point, I’ll explain, because the third panel holds more detail (not too badly done at that) than they normally provide with their ‘efficient’ characters. The markings on the cephalothorax (“back” for our purposes here) of the spider resemble a violin, which identifies this as a brown recluse spider (Loxosceles reclusa,) the most venomous in North America and not exactly something you want to rub between your fingers.
The comic really needs a sound file to hear the tune that our androgynous greenshirt must be playing, but to do it right, they’re gonna need a few more spiders.
[This post was far more work than was warranted by the joke…]
Wear a plain black shirt and/or pants – This won’t completely eliminate the reflections that you yourself will make, but it helps.
