Glacier National Park

Bighorn Sheep, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan (off to OR, WA...).

When we arrived at Logan Pass in Glacier National Park, a couple of large Bighorn sheep were in the parking lot. I layed down on the ground with a 70-200mm lens to take the parking lot and spectators out of the composition.

Bannock Ghost Town, Montana

Bannock, Montana, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan (off to OR, WA...).

Bannock is smaller than California's best ghost town Bodie, but a huge plus is that they allow you to go into the buildings. It's also open 8am-9pm, so as long as you don't visit in late June, you should be able to catch a sunset there.

Be forewarned though, the mosquitos are ferocious!

This is a teepee that you can rent for $25/night. This composition jumped out at me as I spotted the setting crescent moon from an adjacent campsite at Bannock State Park.






California is talking about closing 80% of its state parks and raising entry fees to $15, to address politicians' mismanagement and poor planning. In contrast, I'm traveling in Montana this week, and they have no budget deficit, no parks are closing, and state parks are FREE to Montana Residents. Montana also has no sales tax, while many California residents are now paying over 10%. Montana also obviously doesn't have as ridiculous a gas tax as California: gasoline is about $2.59, vs. $2.98 in the Sacramento area (without the Bay Area's add-on) or so when I left California two weeks ago. California's property tax is also among the highest burden per household in the nation, even comparing the percentage of home value tax rate to other states, but the burden is especially high when you consider the sky-high (and now unrealistically high) California property values that the taxes are based on.

Politicians wonder why tax revenues are down, but California's representatives in Congress support importing cheap foreign labor under L-1 and H1-B visas. Since this continues during recessions, half of California's high tech workers were unable to return to the industry during the last recession. The U.S. Department of Labor publishes 6 unemployment figures, all of which under-report the true problem, and the highest one was 16.4% in May 2009 (line U-6 at the following link)!
www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t12.htm
The stock market is already doing worse than any point around the Great Depression.
It's Already Worse Than the Depression
www.fool.com/retirement/general/2009/06/23/its-already-wo...
Unemployment rates increased and home values declined for years after the stock market crash of 1929, and current unemployment is already way ahead of that history. We could still be in for a stunning economic decline over the next few years. Unfortunately the world economy essentially follows the U.S. economy, so there's nowhere to hide. Be careful out there!

I don't waste much time or energy on politics; the entire system far too dirty due to the bribes commonly referred to as "campaign contributions". However, the current depths we've sunk to and the path we're on are simply too much. I refuse to re-elect any incumbent politician next time around, state or federal. FIRE THEM ALL! To preserve what is left of our once-great country, it is imperitive that we completely remove our politicians' ability to pocket "campaign contributions" from special interests. Bribery is bribery, and should be made crystal clear as treason against the nation and against the American public (if it quacks like a duck...). Please contact your elected representative today and make your views on current affairs, and on our prospects for the future, crystal clear to them.

Yellowstone Isn't All Geysers!

Yellowstone Isn't All Geysers!, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan (off to OR, WA...).

Forest fires in Yellowstone break up the lodgepole pine monoculture and open up land for other plants and animals.


Bighorn sheep feeding above a cliff of columnar basalt in Yellowstone National Park.
We spent last night at ghost town of Bannock, MT, and didn't see single ghost!

This morning we dug for quartz crystals at Crystal Park, and now we're in Missoula, on our way towards Glacier National Park!

Yellowstone National Park: Beehive Geyser Rainbow

Beehive Geyser Rainbow, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan (off to OR, WA...).

Evening is a great time to walk the geyser basins. If you catch an eruption and place the sun at your back, you can catch a rainbow in the spray!

This is Beehive Geyser, one of the more intermittent geysers in the Old Faithful Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming.



Sorry I've been offline so much this week... Yellowstone was established as a national park on March 1, 1872, but it seems no more likely to get Internet service now than was did then!

Hopefully a new vendor will replace Xanterra's vice-grip on 1900s-era concessions and services in the park will end some day, or perhaps the new head of the Department of Interior, Ken Salazar, will bring the parks into the 21st century? If so, better late than never!

Grand Teton National Park

Schwabacher Landing Rainbow, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan (off to OR, WA...).

Sometimes you're good, and sometimes you're just plain lucky. Most of the time I'd rather be lucky than good! I found this rainbow shortly after sunrise at Schwabacher's Landing.

We spent several stormy days in Grand Teton National Park, discovering that the tent we used for years in California is not exactly waterproof! Who knew that it could rain during camping season?

Lava River Cave, Newberry National Volcanic Monument

Lava River Cave, Newberry National Volcanic Monument, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan (off to OR, WA...).

Light Painting (and HDR) highlighting ice crystals near the mouth of Lava River Cave in Newberry National Volcanic Monument near Bend , Oregon.

Unfortunately I dropped one of the colored filters that came with my Maglight, so my options for more shots like this are greatly reduced on this trip!

Crater Lake National Park

Don't Eat Red Snow, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan (off to OR, WA...).

After waking up at Harris Beach on the Oregon Coast, spending a gray morning at the Battery Point Lighthouse in Crescent City, California then exploring the Stout Grove in Redwood National Park, we made our way to Crater Lake. We arrived just in time to catch sunset over these interesting snow melt channels.

The light over Crater Lake wasn't great in the right directions by the time we reached it, but the next morning we had a blast exploring Lava River Cave in Newberry National Volcanic Monument near near the town of Bend.

Redwood National Park

Big Tree, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan (off to OR, WA...).

It turns out that this is a great time to visit Redwood National Park. It's a little late for the rhododendrons, but the ferns are bright green with new growth. This tree is in the Stout Grove, which is jointly managed with the State of California as part of Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park.

Are we in Yellowstone Yet?

Harris Beach, Oregon, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan (off to OR, WA...).

A funny stop on the way to Yellowstone from California, but the forecast of partly cloudy skies on the coast told me to go this way to catch the light.

We caught sunset at Harris Beach just North of Brookings, Oregon, but the woke to solid gray skies, so we headed back South to Redwood National Park, and turned towards Crater Lake National Park and the Bend area.

Hedge Creek Falls

Hedge Creek Falls, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan (off to OR, WA...).

"Toto, I don't think we're in the Sierra Nevada any more."

We're off... on the way to Yellowstone... by way of the Pacific Ocean of course!

Saw a sign to the falls on Interstate 5, and made the short hike!

We caught sunset at Harris Beach in Oregon last night, but the coast is gray so we're heading to Redwood National Park, then most likely towards Crater Lake.

16 Tips for Better Landscape Photography

This is an updated and expanded version of an article I wrote a few years ago. Note the embedded links to related articles.

I recently received an email from someone who wanted to know how I took such nice shots, and she mentioned that she carried a point-and-shoot camera. I replied that you can get great shots with a compact camera, and I sent her suggestions that evolved into this list. I miss my 5MP compact (no dust spots to edit out of photos) and the examples in this article were taken with it. Even when the optics and features aren't the greatest, creative composition, how you treat your subjects, and your use of hard filters and tasteful software adjustments can make a shot.

Here are some shooting tips and creativity ideas that can hone your technique or help you practice exercising your creative control over the results:

1. Read your camera's manual cover to cover. Be familiar with its options. After using the camera a few months, read it again to see what it has that you're not yet taking advantage of. For example, when shooting in Aperture Priority mode and shooting towards the sun, your camera's light mater will detect too much light and shorten the exposure, under-exposing the shot. You can use Exposure Compensation to brighten the exposure, to override the camera's assumptions on the correct exposure for a given shot. Digital cameras in particular have limited ability to capture the full dynamic range of a scene, the broad range of light values in it. Areas of deep shadow can be particularly challenging, often displaying a lot of digital noise. Even a "correct" exposure may have more noise than you'd like in the shadows. A slight over-exposure can reduce noise, but you risk blowing out highlights and losing detail there to distracting blobs of pure white. Fortunately you can use exposure bracketing to capture a range of exposures, and determine which ones the digital sensor responded to most favorably in post-processing. I use exposure compensation and automatic exposure bracketing for nearly every shot to get the best possible exposure. There's almost no cost to taking an extra exposure, while the cost of a return trip to a location is high, and with landscape photography you're often shooting in unique and unrepeatable conditions, so your ability to ensure that you have an exposure which optimizes all the trade-offs is priceless.

2. Shoot in RAW format if your camera offers it. On your most challenging and interesting images, adjusting white balance yourself may save your shot and you'll be glad you shot in RAW.

3. Use a tripod. You can start with a tiny, tabletop one (the REI Ultrapod, costing about $10-12 and available in two sizes, can be velcro'ed to upright objects such as fenceposts too) or even set your camera on a small bean bag. When you hike, when you get to your destination you can use your Ultrapod to convert a stick to a monopod (or tape three sticks to the legs to make a tripod).

4. Use a polarizing filter most of the time when your outdoors, and take the time to rotate it properly to cut glare and improve exposure, saturate color, and adjust contrast. Wear polarized sunglasses (even inexpensive $9-12 ones work fine) so you'll see what your camera sees. If you haven't been using a polarizer, you'll be amazed at how many more great shots you'll find, and how much more compelling the colors will be. It's important to but a filter labelled "circular" polarizer (the regular ones can wreak havok with autofocusing systems). In a pinch though even shooting through your polarized sunglasses is better than nothing. Note: using a polarizing filter with an ultra-wide lens can result in uneven darkness to blue skies, especially for horizontal-orientated shots. You still may like the rest of the shot better, so shoot on a tripod with and without the filter, which gives you the option of selecting the unpolarized shot or perhaps simply using the sky from it.

5. Use graduated neutral density filters (also referred to as "grad ND" or GND) for landscapes, particularly at sunrise and sunset. They're also handy for reflection shots, since the reflected image is 2 to 3 stops darker than your direct view of the scene. As you look around a physical landscape, your eye pupil changes size to alter its light-gathering capability, so to make a photo look "normal" you have to darken the light that the camera receives from brighter areas such as the sky (or the direct view of something that is also reflected in the same photo).

6. Think about composition for every shot. Your result will be as interesting (or as boring and pointless) as it is to you when you compose the shot. Have a clear subject in mind in every scene, and compose that scene accordingly to emphasize that element. If you don't, and simply point the camera at a bunch of hills, that lack of intention will come across in the shot and it'll simply be a snapshot of a bunch of hills. It'll hold your attention for the same miniscule fraction of a second that it took to snap it. The Rule of Thirds is a great place to start to place your subject matter, but your choice of focus point and depth of field, exposure, leading lines, and your lense/zoom factor all come into play to help highlight your subject. No matter how great the view and light is, if you can't find a clear subject (point of interest) in the scene, move. Walk around and change your perspective. Raise and lower the camera position and zoom in/out while you look through your viewfinder until you find one. Visually place something of interest in the foreground. The investment of a few extra seconds can make your results far more engaging.

7. Force your camera to focus where you want it to (point the focus point there, half-depress the shutter release to focus, then reframe to the composition you want before you trigger the shutter and complete the shot). Use autofocus mode if you want, but most of your depth of field is behind the focus point, so you get little to no benefit from the wide depth of field available from using a small aperture if the camera focuses on some object in the distance. Look up the concept of "hyperfocal distance", the distance at which your camera can focus to get the maximum depth of field. The hyperfocal point varies by sensor size, lens aperture and zoom factor, so you can cary charts or guesstimate its value, but don't ignore it.

8. Shoot earlier and later in the day. Yes, the first and last hour of light in the day is great for outdoor shots (the "golden hour"), but the 30 minutes before the sun rises and after the sun sets is when sunrise and sunset shots will have the most color (pay attention to sunset shots and see how many actually have the sun in them). I can't tell you how many times I arrive at a viewpoint just as the sun is sinking below the horizon and everyone is leaving, and I capture amazing shots that they just walked away from.

Use exposure compensation to darken the image a bit so your camera won't make the scene unnaturally light. The automatic exposure meter tries to make every shot average to a medium gray light density, as if it were in bright sunlight, so if your scene is darker (as it is after the sun sets), you'll need to tell your camera to darken the shot. As the light fades you'll need to raise ISO to make the camera more sensitive, and you may have to switch your lens to manual focus when it can no longer autofocus. Use automatic exposure bracketing as well so you won't mis-guess how dark or light to make it (good thing you read the manual as Step 1). Shoot (on a tripod) well into dusk until your camera is up against its 15 or 30 second exposure limit. Assuming you started at a small aperture for broad depth of field, when your exposure times get too long (your call when that is), gradually open the aperature to its widest setting and raise ISO until you really can't shoot any more. Experiment with putting moving objects in these long shots, especially moving water (rivers, waterfalls, ocean waves), but also people, cars, blowing trees and tall grass, and so on.

9. Use image editing software, at least Google's free Picasa  software if nothing else. Play with it to get to know it. You'll probably want to adjust white balance, contrast and color for every shot. When you have a lot of images to edit and some time to spend on them, download a free trial copy of Adobe Photoshop Elements (current version 11.0, $50-100). The spot removal and clone tools are particularly handy for D-SLR users to remove dust spots, and layers can help you produce composite photos and more professional looking portraits. Also try +Adobe Photoshop Lightroom to get more control over saturation of individual color and control of brightness and contrast in 4 different intensity levels. Typically trial software works for 30 days and even if you don't buy it, you'll be glad you had it to use for the trial period. Beware, you may get hooked on it (that's why they offer the free trial)! Later you can download the free trial of Photoshop for another 30 days (try adjusting color in the Curves function).  For some images you may find useful features in +onOne Software or in the various modules available in Google's Nik Software.

10. Consider "HDR" (High Dynamic Range) Software. Your digital camera can resolve details covering a range of about 8 to 9 stops of light. Film can resolve 11 stops, while your eye can resolve 13 stops, but a scene can span 17 stops. To improve the range of light sensitivity in digital images High Dynamic Range or "HDR" software enables you to combine multiple exposures to bring more shadow and highlight detail into your image. Use your camera's Automatic Exposure Bracketing (AEB) to take normal, darker and lighter exposures that can be combined in software to bring out additional highlight and shadow detail. For example if you take your ideal normal exposure and the camera adds exposures two stops above and below that one, combining the three images in HDR software could result in a shot covering 12-13 stops of light instead of 8-9. A leading HDR software to try is Photomatix (free trial: www.HDRsoft.com). This technology is in its infancy and realistic results can be difficult to obtain and may require significant additional processing in Lightroom and/or Photoshop. However, many people enjoy the surreal results they can get through interactively adjusting Photomatix Tome Mapping controls. Even if you're not satisfied with the results you get from HDR software today, if you take extra exposures for each shot now, you'll have them when HDR software produces better results with less effort.

11. Research your shooting locations ahead of time. For outdoor locations zoom in on +Google Earth  to see where there may be ponds or lakes to capture sunrise and sunset reflections, offshore rocks to appear in your seascape photos, and so on. I just discovered this while mapping photos in +Panoramio and Flickr, and I can't wait to return to several locations where I now have new ponds to seek reflections in.

12. Be a control freak as you travel, for at least 2 hours per day. If maximizing the quality of your photos is a priority, get agreement from your travel companions up front that the first and last hour of light in the day is when you'll be taking a lot of your shots, so breakfast and dinner will be scheduled around photography. Then see if you can actually get out before dawn and stay 'til after dark a few times and get some incredible shots of your trip.

13. Break rules. Learn all of the photography rules you can find, then intentionally break them at times. To increase your flexibility and range of artistic expression, assign yourself homework to break one rule as much as you can for a period of time (perhaps until you fill one memory card), then break another rule. Shoot a variety of subjects while you make your horizon diagonal. Hand hold the camera during long exposures. Take long exposures of moving people. Take portraits of people with a wide angle lens. Just when you've mastered the art of being obsessive about everything you need to do to get a shot "right," see if you can break the narrow-minded control that that mindset and approach may have over you. You don't have to throw your knowledge and technique away, but take creative control over your approach. Get in the habit of throwing something creative and experimental, a "throw away" shot, into nearly all of your shooting sequences and even if only 10% of those efforts pan out, your results may get a lot more interesting.

14. Join a local camera club. Look on Meetup.com for photographers in your area who plan regular outings and photo shoots. It'll get you out shooting more and your exposure to other photographers will give you new ideas and skills.

15. Enter photo contests. Even if you're not the competitive type, having a particular theme to shoot for can expand your range of skills and experience. Competing with other photographers can motivate you to not only optimize your exposure and postprocessing adjustments such as contrast, color and sharpness, it can inspire you to edit the same image several times, potentially using different tools, enabling you to learn new image production skills along the way.

16. Don't get too hung up on reality, but don't distract your audience either. Do you want to produce art, or simply produce a copy of what's present? If all you do is record reality, then you as an artist add little to the result. Someone could simply nail a high resolution camera to a tree or to a doorjamb of the room and you're unnecessary and obsolete. On the other hand if you capture a scene but manipulate it so the result best conveys the emotion you felt at the time, then your involvement in the process was the key to its outcome and success. This is why the definition of "art" not only includes but requires human intervention. It is possible to go too far, to have your process distract the viewer from the subject you're featuring and the story you're trying to tell.  Using HDR software is one example where many people fail to further adjust the output from that software, and doing so often let the process speak louder than the subject in their results.  What's the alternative?  Consider Ansel Adams. His images were often the result of a dozen hours or more of darkroom manipulation. The beauty of his images was that they were dramatic and elicited emotion, entirely plausible and realistic, while not necessarily being true to the original scene.

Obviously each of these subjects deserves a fair amount of discussion and practice, but this list may provide you with some interesting starting points.

On the Road Again

Rock In Morning Light, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan (MyPhotoGuides.com).

I headed out late to squeeze in a few more scouting days before my upcoming Mountain Light Workshops trip, so I stopped a couple of hours down the road in Hope Valley. After a couple of mediocre stops I found this large, steaming vernal pool with a moderately large rock in it for foreground interest.

Moving to a different side of the pond I was able to catch the rock with different mountains as a backdrop.




A vertical orientation provided yet another interesting compositional variation.

Buy a Crop Sensor Camera for More Zoom?

If carrying a 5D mark II and a 40D backup camera, or choosing between buying the two, there is no advantage whatsoever to putting your telephoto lens on the 40D to get "more" zoom. The two cameras have virtually the same actual pixel size, so you can get the same resolution image simply cropping an image from your 5D mark II.

In practice, the 5D mark II produces such a higher quality image, especially at the higher ISOs needed to accommodate longer zoom lenses, that the full frame camera with "less" zoom reach is the best choice 100% of the time. I've compared the two under actual shooting conditions and upon comparing the results I have very much regretted moving my 70-200 L f/4 IS lens and 2X teleconverter over to the 40D for part of the shoot.

Oddly, you can see photography magazines and some "experts" recommending the choice of crop sensor cameras for people who might want to experience "longer effective zoom" due to the smaller sensor. I can only conclude that they have never shot both under real world shooting conditions.

Is Image Stabilization Really Necessary with a Faster Shutter?

Unfortunately the question inherently assumes that you can always simply choose a fast enough shutter speed, which may not be a valid assumption. Under normal lighting and shooting conditions it may be difficult to always shoot at 1/200th second when using a 200mm lens. While image stabilization technologies claim that you can shoot 3 or 4 stops slower, 1/25th to 1/12th of a second using a 200mm lens, it doesn't always work.  The assumption is that your hand shakes at the frequencies that particular technology is designed to cancel out, and that there are no other movements, like in your whole arm or body.  Reality isn't quite that tidy; often your image-stabilized shots aren't as sharp as you'd like them to be.

It gets worse form there.  Ever shoot with a polarizer, such as to reduce reflections off of surfaces such as leaves or skin? You'll need two more stops of light.

Then consider if you might ever want to add a teleconverter later. Suddenly you get hit with the double whammy of needing 1/400th second exposures AND your widest aperture drops two stops, such as from f/4 to f/8. You'd need a camera with incredible high ISO performance to gain 3 full stops of light to compensate for these changes! And that's assuming that you were fine in all shooting conditions (which I'm highly skeptical of) before adding the teleconverter.

The question also assumes that your shutter speed for a single frame at your best possible exposure is all that matters, which clearly is not true if you ever may choose to use Exposure Bracketing and later want to use your lightest (slowest shutter) shot, which may be 2 full stops, 4 times longer than your main, center exposure.

Then consider shooting an HDR sequence, not an unreasonable thing to attempt on a camera such as the Canon 40D which shoots 6.5 fps. Using Automatic Exposure Bracketing to capture 3 exposures up to 2 stops apart each, you'll probably shoot in Aperture priority mode, and end up with at least one shot exceeding your ability to maintain a sufficiently fast and shake-less shutter speed.

Note that these points compound each other... available light, teleconverters, exposure bracketing, and HDR... all favoring having the widest possible aperture and having image stabilization if you'll ever shoot without a tripod.

Regarding the correct shutter speed to aim for when shooting without IS, consider that the actual pixel size on the 40D is very close to the pixel size on a full frame model such as the 5D Mark II, so if the general rule of "1 divided by the focal length" works for 35mm and full frame digital cameras, the exact same amount of shake (or not) will be experienced by the 40D. In other words, 1/200th second should work fine and no special conversion is needed to address the 1.6X "crop factor".

Now let's look at real numbers. On a sunny day with a 200mm lens your f/16 1/100th second exposure (at ISO 100) must be 1/200th f/11. Oops, you're already losing options such as depth of field. Want to perform exposure bracketing? Even using an increment of only one stop forces you to change to f/8 1/400th second so your lightest exposure will still be 1/200th or faster. Want to use a polarizer? You'll need to shoot at f/4. At this point, forget teleconverters (unless you have IS). Of course you can bump up your ISO sensitivity to some extent that varies by camera model, but clearly you'll have lighting situations that may be less than full sunny day conditions as well. You can see how quickly you can run out of light when using telephoto lenses, and increasing the shutter speed and bumping up the ISO become the critical options.

Wide telephoto lens apertures and image stabilization are two features that can ward off the point at which your shooting becomes impractical and unproductive.