Red and Orange (Panasonic GH1, Lumix 20mm f 1.7)

 

On a day off, especially if I am awakening in the morning during a photogenic season, or in a scenic place, I have to make a decision.

Do I get up, grab my photo gear and go out early, or do I “sleep in”. This is a decision that I usually make based on the weather.

If it’s cloudy, I stay in bed, knowing that the same shooting conditions that I would encounter at 6 AM will exist at 11. I can sleep a bit, have breakfast and coffee, and still get good light.

If it’s clear, I think about it. You have to get up very early, arguably before sunrise, to catch the very best light. If I can look out the window and can already see that it’s clear, I probably already missed the best shooting. Have to wait until sunset.

If it’s foggy however, particularly if there’s no rain, I’m up instantly. For fogs, or mists, in many ways and in their many forms provide a wonderful backdrop for landscape photography.

Landscape photographers need to try to understand the weather. It’s helpful to anticipate the atmosphere’s behavior in order to be present for the best shooting conditions. I’m not a meteorologist, but I know a few things:

I know that in the fall of the year, when a cold front passes after a period of warmth, fog will form in valleys, particularly in river valleys, while the surrounding ridges will be clear. The amount of fog will depend on the “dew point” of the atmosphere.

I know that a similar phenomenon occurs anytime cool moist air passes over warmer surfaces.

I know that it is not unlikely to have fog, when there is an ice storm in the winter.

I know that fog will occur at times I cannot predict.

Fog is like free bokeh (see definition here) provided by the atmosphere. When it is thin, it blurs and deemphasizes the background detail, focusing one’s attention on the subject.

When it is thick, it can transform the commonplace into the abstract. It can change a pedestrian scene, into a more magical vision.

It helps to have equipment that is relatively moisture resistant. Don’t underestimate the pernicious effect  of water vapor on electronics. Don’t bring warm cameras out into cool moist environments. If you do, water will condense onto the electronics, and lenses will fog. At the least, it helps to have a lens cloth available.  

Better yet, let the equipment equalize to the ambient temperature (I usually leave my gear overnight in a place where that can happen). Typically then, there will be few issues.

Every once in a while, Mother Nature helps us with our craft.

Take advantage of it.

October 18, 2010

Alright , I admit it. I screwed up A number of our readers pointed out that the real danger of condensation on camera lenses, and in camera bodies occurs when cold equipment is brought into warm environments. Bang, you got me. In my own defense however, I would say that I was trying to warn my gentle readers about the perils of using electronic equipment, in ultra-humid environments.

I am greatful that people are paying attention.

 I hope you’ll continue.

 

 

I’m not one for crowds.

I generally despise waiting in line, long walks from the parking lot, long waits to use the “facilities” and the other indignities of being “in the crowd” at large sporting events.

Usually, you can view the proceedings, just as well if not better, on television; all the while sitting in your comfy chair, just steps from a refrigerator and bathroom.

One event I do enjoy attending however, occurred last weekend in the Finger Lakes region of New York.

   I’m referring to the Vintage Car races at Watkins Glen International raceway, situated on the hills overlooking beautiful Lake Seneca.

   The drive, from my home in Pennsylvania is beautiful. There are early signs of fall in mid September that accentuate the gorgeous Finger Lakes scenery.

 

  This is a neat event. It’s run by the Sports Car Club of America, which means that the beer-swilling redneck NASCAR fans are replaced with beer, wine, and scotch-swilling masochistic amateur mechanics.

   These tend to be happy people, with perpetually sunny outlooks that delude them into thinking that it is actually possible to keep old British, Italian,  and even French cars, not only running, but running well enough to actually race. These are people who believe that the notoriously unreliable Lucas and Marelli electrical systems of their vehicles can actually be made to function properly. They tend to be hardy and upbeat and very hard to discourage. They dream of the day when the windshield wipers on their Austin Healey actually function at the same time the headlights are on…and actually in the rain.

   The weekend- long event feature a broad range of race cars, from ultra high performance Formula One and Can Am cars that scream around the track, to Bugeye Sprites and MGA’s that seem barely faster than a good garden tractor.

There can be some aggressive racing on this wonderful road course with good views from multiple locations.

Another attraction of the race is the accessibility of the pits to the fans. I suspect that a lot of the spectators are ex-participants; my group for instance included multiple former racers who seemed to know a lot of the current drivers. This leads to a clubby atmosphere. You can see a lot of interesting machinery in pit lane.

  People also bring their vintage cars for the car show that is held, and  afterwords, park them next to their camp sites.  Walking through the spectator areas, it is commonplace to stop and chat with a car owner about his 289 Cobra, or his lovingly restored, Daimlier Saloon.

   There are lots of interesting people, including Elliot, a fellow from Boston who with four other friends drove 5 very valuable cars: two hyper-expensive current exotics and three historic vehicles to the race.

They then parked them next to the track, and not only let people explore them…but encouraged it.

 Elliot, at one point in the evening, wanted me to appreciate the engine sound of his $250,000 Mercedes SLR. He insisted I start the car (which was not, I suspect “broken in” yet) and rev it furiously to the redline. What a neat guy. I have to suspect that Elliot understood the good-hearted and knowledgeable nature of this crowd, and knew no harm would come to his property.

  At night the racing stops and one by one campfires dot the camping areas trackside. People seem to move from site to site. Traditionally there is a bonfire near turn 7 with a lot of inebriated people and loud music. About 11:30 things turn quiet.

   If you love cars, and like me came of age in the sixties and seventies, this event is a wonderful way to connect with our automotive past, to see vehicles either restored or in racing trim that you haven’t thought of, let alone seen, in years.

It’s an opportunity to meet some very nice folks with a deep knowledge of, and love for autos and racing.

People with the optimism to believe, that if it rains on the way home… the wipers might work.

 

At the end of August, in the Appalachian highlands, there is often early evidence of the cool weather that is waiting its turn in the unfolding year.

Autumn touches the ridge tops far earlier than in the river valleys.

    Fall’s opening gambit generally occurs after a late summer hot spell. A strong line of storms usually heralds the season’s first outbreak of true Canadian air. One morning you awaken to a strikingly beautiful sunrise and a crispness that is shocking to one who is well acclimated to the warmth of summer. As the day progresses, the sharp reds of sunrise evolve into a deep blue, more like the skies of midwinter. There is a strong breeze. Small white clouds pass quickly overhead as if embarrassed to deprive us of the brilliant sunshine.

   The next several nights will be unnaturally cool. The day’s winds are becalmed; heat radiates quickly from the earth below. The fans and air conditioners so useful on warm summer nights will be stilled. Sleeping will be more comfortable, albeit with an extra blanket.

   There are potent changes occurring in the natural world. After the first few brisk mornings, other colors will accent the uniform green of the forest. First are the bracken ferns whose early autumn yellow contrasts with the larger cinnamon ferns that now assume a deep rust hue. Low in the canopy, small maples and dogwoods add splashes of red and yellow to the scene, sometimes one branch at a time. Wetlands offer a hiker the first preview of fall colors as the trees and shrubs in those places often change before their counterparts in better-drained areas.

   By mid-September, the hummingbird feeders in our yard hang abandoned, their usual dependents driven south by the early chill. Deer, which were scarce all summer, are beginning to reappear in the yards and gardens. Velvet-covered antlers distinguish the bucks, as they feed on acorns that now litter the lawn.

    On the ridge top scrub barrens, unprotected by the forest canopy, nighttime temperatures will tend to fall significantly compared to the surrounding woodlands. Hiking these areas on a fall evening, one can encounter rivers of cold air as they course though the landscape’s shallow draws, eventually to pool in the so-called “frost pockets.” Here, even in early fall; there may be freezes, which quickly melt in the bright morning sunshine.

    A walk along a lakeside trail in late September reveals further evidence of a transition occurring. One immediately notices the absence of frogs and tadpoles at the shoreline.  The latter have by now, matured into the former and have burrowed into the mud below the cooling waters. Migrating geese visit to feed and briefly rest. Along the shore, fruit still clings to blueberry bushes, though their leaves are already changing to crimson.

    Summer may yet fleetingly return for one more encore; bowing before it leaves the stage. Eventually the climate will change more definitively, and the forest canopy will explode with color. Fall has returned. Winter will not be far behind.

  

Creating interesting images in midsummer, in the northeastern United States is sometimes a struggle. 

 Now I’m not saying that there aren’t subjects to shoot. There certainly are. 

    Streams, waterfalls, lakes, sunrises and sunsets all are available in midsummer the way they are the rest of the year. It’s just that everything is a fairly uniform green. And one day looks like the next. 

   There’s little change or evolution in the landscape, like in the fall with the leaves that seem to change almost day-by-day; or more obviously in the winter, when a snowstorm can utterly transform the scenery overnight. 

   There is however, a pattern of subtle, but predictable events in rural landscapes. There is for instance, the reliable blooming of summer flowers. If one pays attention during the year, you can begin to date an image by what blooms are present. 

  In early July for instance, here in the Moosic Mountains, purple thistles decorate the sunny edges of dirt roads throughout the region. Three weeks later, the seeds and their white parachutes are grasping at currents of air. 

Cardinal flowers decorate the channels of ephemeral streams that have dried up in the warm dry summer air. Blueberries, their blossoms long gone, ripen on the branches of trailside shrubs. 

  Sunflower blooms appear on their towering stalks sometime later, generally in August, and often well into September, their appearance roughly corresponding to the eruption of yellow in fields of goldenrod, the scourge of allergy sufferers everywhere. 

    On local farms, hay is being cut, depending on the summer weather, for the second or third time. This applies a sweet aroma to the summer breezes. 

   Sweet corn starts to be harvested. Heavy green fruit begins to pull the thin branches of tomato plants downward. Vast armies of wheat stalks bend in unison, to the wind of midsummer storms. 

   For me the goal of scenic summer photography, and for that matter, all seasonal photography is to capture the essence…the feeling of the moment that I and others experience in our little nook of the world. 

    I want my audience to view an image with all their senses, and share the full experience; for instance, the chill of a distinctly cool August morning in the Adirondacks, after a cold front passes. I surely want then to see the glory of the sun as it burns through the early morning fog.  But I want them to inhabit the scene, and to imagine the fresh smell of the dew-laden grasses, and to hear, as I heard that morning,  the distant sound of a loon on this obscure little lake, shrouded in mist (I guess now that I have a GH1, I could just take some video). 

   I want to convey the feeling as a rivulet of sweat runs down the back of your neck, in the lingering heat of a summer evening, on an uphill walk to an old abandoned farm. 

 Or the satisfaction of a quick Saturday afternoon mountain bike ride to a reservoir high in the surrounding hills. 

 Or the joy of a paddle on the Susquehanna River as the sun sets over the surrounding mountains. 

  I want to evoke the memory of hunting woodchucks at a friend’s farm on an August afternoon…or the joy of the amusements and food at a volunteer fire department “bazaar”. 

Images shouldn’t always just be technically competent and well composed. 

 I believe they need to tell a story.

   

    I think of myself as a Nikon/Fuji “shooter” yet I have always kept other equipment in my camera closet for use in situations where an expensive DSLR-lens combination would be at risk of loss due to dunking or dropping, or would be too heavy and or bulky to be practical.  

     For years I shot Olympus bodies in this role. These bodies were part of what was then a new system based on the Olympus/Panasonic “four thirds” standard: a sensor and lens mount designed to allow digital bodies to be smaller, yet to make better images. My Olympus bodies had nice image quality, were image stabilized, and there was stunning high quality optics available for the system. Even their “kit” lenses were sharp and very usable, but cheaply replaceable if damaged. The the body and lens were still fairly bulky, more so than was often convenient.  

     In January ’08 I acquired my first Panasonic G-1 a digital body of the new “micro four thirds” standard, an offshoot of the earlier specification. The same lens mount as was on the full “four thirds” cameras was utilized, but the lenses were much smaller and designed to focus on a sensor that was much closer to their posterior element. The sensor had a robust “live view” capability and the mirror and optical viewfinder was replaced with a very high quality LCD “finder” detailed enough to allow even manual focusing.  

  

     Because of this the overall package, with the kit lens was 20-30% less bulky than even the Olympus SLRs. The sensor at 12 million pixels produced highly detailed images. Though the sensor’s dynamic range was limited (see my Fuji article below) the electronic viewfinder allows exposure data to display as you compose the image (as opposed to after) that helps to optimize the exposure, and mitigate somewhat this limitation. The other attraction of this system is that it is very adaptable to lenses from other manufacturer. My Olympus lenses work beautifully with an adapter; so does some wonderful old Leica glass.  

    These cameras are seductive. I can carry the body with two stabilized lenses covering 35mm equivalent focal lengths of 28-400mm in a modest sized fanny pack. Without the camera motion that is induced by SLR “mirror slap”, tripods can be lighter. The system has limitations, but it can be a hiker’s dream.  

    Now I have acquired an upgraded version of the G1. The GH1 has a better sensor with more dynamic range and better high ISO capability. It sensor allows you to shoot in multiple formats without having to crop out pixels.  

It has one other new feature.  

The GH1 like several other new SLRs or SLR-like bodies comes with video, in this case, fairly seriously high-definition, 1080p video. There is an on camera microphone, capable of recording rather accurate digital stereo sound (sorry about the heavy breathing).  

     This extends the imaging capabilities of this device into dimensions I hadn’t previously explored. Sound and motion add a dimension to imaging that  as a still photographer I am just starting to grapple with.  

I think it’s going to be fun.

As always, the images can be better viewed on Glensummitimage.com