Personal Experiences Page 4

The images on this page deal mostly with attention to detail problems.

Ferns And Bottle: I came across this scene alongside the road into the Hoh Rain Forest in Olympic National Park, Washington. First, let me address the compositional problem that I believe this image has. I shot it from a tripod with my 20mm lens. Looking at it now, I think I should have moved the tripod back maybe only two inches and also to the left about four or five. That way the fern in the bottom left of the image would have better filled the bottom. Better yet, since the fern seems to be leaning to the left, I should have put it on the bottom right side of the image to draw the viewer's eyes back toward the center of the image. As it stands, the picture seems to be cut in half by the fern. I also don't like the reflected light on the fern leaves. A circular polarizer would have worked great here to cut the reflections down and bring out the green of the leaves. My biggest problem with this photo, though, is that ugly brown bottle in the bottom right. Did you notice it? It ruins the otherwise flawless untouched nature quality of the picture. I have long considered a book project of images of nature as I find them with the touch of man visible. You know, beautiful scenes with only one ugly scar in each where some fool threw his old food wrapper, dumped his old stove, etc. This image would work great in that book but, otherwise, the bottle ruins the picture! Photo data: Canon Elan II with Canon 20mm f/2.8 lens in Av mode on tripod.

Rota Polarizer: I took this picture while on our shopping trip to Spain. I say shopping trip because my wife invited a friend on what was supposed to be our vacation and they ended up wanting to spend every day shopping for the entire weekend. I left early one morning on my own to go exploring and finally take some pictures and it was at this time that I took this picture. Fortunately, while I was walking in the surf and looking for a good composition, I came across the brick in the sand which made a great foreground element. I like the angle of the surf and chose the right aperture to get a sharp image from foreground to horizon. The mistake came from the circular polarizer I was using to darken the sky and bring out the colors of the sea and sand. I held it just a bit off center and ended up with the edge of the filter darkening the sky unnaturally in the top right corner and (even worse) being exposed in the bottom right corner. I could crop this image to get rid of the darkened portions but that was not my intention when I tripped the shutter. I actually end up with undesired objects in the corner of the frame quite a bit. I believe part of the problem is that my Elan II doesn't have 100% viewfinder coverage. Therefore, I don't see the entire frame in the viewfinder when I'm composing the image. But it may be that some times I just don't pay attention to every portion of the image before I trip the shutter. So the lesson to be learned is that you should always look at the entire composition (including what seem to be unimportant regions) to make sure what you want to be the focus of the image comes out as the focus with nothing drawing the viewer's attention away from it. Photo data: Canon Elan II with Sigma 28-70mm f/2.8EX lens and polarizing filter in Av mode hand held.

Terceira Creek: I shot this image from a bridge over a dry creek bed. Since I was using a wide angle lens, I had to prop the tripod against the bridge railing unnaturally to keep the railing out of the frame. I ended up using the third leg of the tripod as a counterbalance sticking out the other side of the bridge to prevent the whole setup from tumbling over the railing and falling into the creek! In other words, the camera was supported by two legs of the tripod and the bridge railing while the third tripod leg kept the camera's weight in balance. I thought it was fairly ingenious at the time. My problem came from the use of my blue-yellow polarizing filter which I held in front of the lens at exposure. Again, I ended up with part of the filter in the top left of the frame. Worse yet, my finger or hand ended up in the bottom right. This was pretty much a lose-lose situation, though. If I had used a filter holder to hold the filter in position, the filter holder stacked with the filter would have caused vignetting in all four corners. So, like I always do, I tried to hold the filter steady against the lens throughout the 1-4 second (I don't remember exactly how long it was) exposure. It's not easy holding a filter centered on the front of a lens without moving it for that period of time, as you can see. This problem is compounded by the fact that I shot this picture using a 20mm wide angle lens. What I do for this type of shot is compose, with the filter hand held in front of the lens, while looking through the viewfinder. Then, with my best effort to not move my hand holding the filter, I move my eye away from the viewfinder and trip the shutter. Sometimes it works but this time it didn't. Photo data: Canon Elan II with Canon 20mm f/2.8 lens and blue-yellow polarizing filter in Av mode on tripod.

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