Tech Tips - Photography Advice from George Lepp

Cross-polarization improves the rendition of this lustrous piece of petrified wood by removing reflections that mask true color and detail. In the first image [above], captured with two flashes and a 100mm macro lens, glare hides the complexity of color in the wood. In the second image [below right], cross-polarization of the light sources and lens reveals color and detail. No Photoshop enhancement was used. Canon EOS 5D Mark III and two Canon Speedlite 580EX flashes.

Reflecting On Reflections
Many exciting nature subjects come with a built-in photographic challenge: reflections that mask color and detail. It's a particular problem with minerals, shiny flower and leaf surfaces, or anything that's wet or moist, such as tide pool denizens. In the studio, controlling reflections is a factor when photographing jewelry, coins and crystals. No, you can't just fix it in Photoshop—at least, not yet. But there's an excellent solution to the problem: cross-polarization.

A single polarizing filter is a common photographic tool used to darken skies, improve color saturation and eliminate reflections when photographing through glass or plastic. More control is gained when the light source and lens are cross-polarized; that is, polarizing material is placed over the light source(s) and a polarizing filter is placed over the lens and aligned in such a way that nearly all divergent light rays from the subject and the light source are kept from entering the lens. The technique doesn't get every reflection on a multifaceted subject because to do that would be to cut out all light from every direction. But cross-polarization does eliminate nearly all reflections and enhances the discernable colors and detail in the subject.

I first used this technique years ago when I was involved with art conservation photography. I was shooting large-format images of art for museums, either to document them or for use in exhibition catalogs. Oil paintings with lots of varnish have reflections that are normally impossible to eliminate with standard lighting. I used two large studio flashes covered with polarizing material along with a polarizer over the camera lens; the combination amazingly cut through the glare, revealing all the color and none of the brushstroke reflections. I then applied the technique to nature subjects, such as wet specimens, minerals like quartz and shiny black beetles.

Place the polarizer on the lens, and look through the camera into a mirror. While looking through the viewfinder, rotate the lens polarizer until you see the flash polarizers go black. Mark that position on the lens polarizer so the next time the setup will be easier to adjust for maximum cross-polarization without the need for a mirror.

You'll need two (one will work, but not as well) electronic flashes (a large hot-shoe type is adequate), a circular polarizer for the lens and polarized material in sheets, available from www.Polarization.com and Edmund Optics at www.edmundoptics.com/optics/polarizers/linear-polarizers/visible-linear-polarizing-laminated-film/1912.

This Article Features Photo Zoom

Achieving sharpness from the foreground to the distant hills requires several images focused at different zones. Canon EF 28-135mm ƒ/3.5-5.6 IS USM lens at 135mm (for a little compression) and ƒ/11 for each of the exposures.

Focus On Wildflowers

Q My wildflower photographs usually fall short. I can't get the whole field sharp, or when I photograph closer up, the backgrounds are always too busy. Do you have any basic techniques to improve my success this season?
B. Norton
Toronto, Canada

A An abundant field of flowers in bloom is a beautiful subject, and one we love to share with others. "You would not believe how many flowers there were; they just went on and on!" If you really want people to experience what you saw, you'll want the entire image sharp from the foreground to the farthest edge of the field. The simplest way to do this is to stop down a wide-angle lens to around ƒ/16 for maximum depth of field. Keep in mind that using ƒ-stops of ƒ/22 or ƒ/32 won't work as well because at those extreme apertures sharpness is lost due to diffraction.

To isolate this single California poppy from the background, a Canon EF 180mm ƒ/3.5L Macro USM telephoto macro lens was used at ƒ/3.5. It's important to position the zone of sharpness on a significant part of the flower.

If you want to approach the image from a lower, creative angle or use a telephoto lens, you can achieve excellent results with a technique called "stacking." Mount the camera on a tripod and compose the scene. The camera needs to be on a tripod and the scene composed. Set your exposure and use manual focus. Then take a series of captures, beginning with the closest area of focus, and refocusing and capturing at intervals throughout the scene in what could be described as slices of sharpness that overlap from front to back. Assemble the images in software that retains the sharp areas and discards out-of-focus parts, rendering a completely sharp composite with essentially unlimited depth of field (no pun intended). There are several options for the software, including Photoshop (www.adobe.com), Zerene Stacker (www.zerenesystems.com) or Helicon Focus (www.heliconsoft.com). Each offers a trial period, so you can check them out before purchasing.

Unfortunately, stacking doesn't work if the wind is moving the flowers about. It's best to photograph early in the morning before the wind picks up. You can use a higher ISO to increase the shutter speed and stop motion, but often this isn't enough. A solution, albeit expensive, is a tilt/shift lens. By tilting the front element, the zone of focus tilts as well, allowing you to skim across the tops of all the flowers with a larger ƒ-stop (ƒ/5.6 or ƒ/8, as an example). Increase the ISO and shutter speed, and you'll have everything sharp from front to back. If I were to buy only one tilt/shift lens, it would be a 90mm (Canon) or an 85mm Perspective Control lens (Nikon).

If you want to isolate one flower from the rest of the field, you need to control the busy background. The quickest way to do this is to use a telephoto lens set to a large aperture. Telephotos from 200mm to 400mm can be very effective. A 70-200mm or 70-300mm zoom combined with an extension tube for closer focus can be a great isolation setup. Keep the aperture at around ƒ/5.6, and be sure the zone of focus is on the most important aspect of the subject. The ideal lens for the isolation technique is a telephoto macro lens. There are a number of 180mm to 200mm macros that actually focus to a life-size (1X) image. With this lens you can lie down at the edge of a group of flowers and capture many compelling isolated flower images. It's a beautiful way to spend the day.

If you want to isolate one flower from the rest of the field, you need to control the busy background. The quickest way to do this is to use a telephoto lens set to a large aperture. Telephotos from 200mm to 400mm can be very effective. A 70-200mm or 70-300mm zoom combined with an extension tube for closer focus can be a great isolation setup. Keep the aperture at around ƒ/5.6, and be sure the zone of focus is on the most important aspect of the subject.

A running sable antelope in Botswana was captured by panning a Canon EOS-1D Mark IV with a 100-400mm ƒ/4.5-5.6L set to 210mm. The shutter speed was 1/350 sec. at ƒ/4.5 and ISO 800. A wide-open aperture gave enough depth of field to render the head of the animal sharp, and the 800 ISO enabled a faster shutter speed in the overcast conditions. It all worked together to stop the animal's action.

Understanding Apertures

Q I will just never quite get apertures; in the May 2011 issue of OP, your colleague Ralph Hopkins talks about shooting from ships using varying apertures at a distance depending on lenses, etc. I just cannot interface apertures used for light vs. focus.
E. Torch
Atlanta, Georgia

A The aperture setting is critical to three different aspects of image capture. The first is to control the amount of light that's allowed through the lens. The smaller the ƒ-stop number, the larger the lens opening; ƒ/1.4 is wide open and ƒ/16 is very small. Ideally, the aperture will allow enough light so that the image will be rendered with the proper tonal properties; that is, there's detail in the highlights, as well as information in the shadows. Too much light, and the image is "blown out"—too bright. Too little light, and the image holds deep, indiscernible shadows—too dark. High-contrast scenes (those with both very bright and very dark areas) may be outside the normal possibilities of film or sensors.

Second, the size of the aperture also dictates the size of the area of the image that can be rendered in sharp focus by a particular lens; that is, the depth of field. Large apertures (e.g., ƒ/1.4, ƒ/2.8, ƒ/3.5) render a smaller depth of field than small apertures (e.g., ƒ/11 and ƒ/16). So as we stop a lens down (that is, decrease the size of the opening), we increase the area of relative sharpness (depth of field). The depth of field is doubled by every two-stop decrease in aperture.

The problem, of course, is that by increasing the depth of field, we're also decreasing the amount of light that passes through the lens, and this is the "light vs. focus" concept that you're trying to grasp. Serious photographers are always weighing the need for depth of field vs. attaining more light (for faster shutter speeds); each image is a compromise of sorts. The alternative is to leave your camera set on "P for Perfect," in which case the camera can make every decision for itself without considering what you're trying to accomplish.

So say you're using a telephoto lens to photograph a running deer. If you wish to stop the action, you'll choose a large lens opening to let in plenty of light so that a fast shutter speed can be employed. Stopping the animal in mid-stride is more critical in this case than the depth of field; as long as the animal is sharp, you don't care if the background goes out of focus.

But if you're photographing a landscape with interesting rocks or flowers in the foreground and mountains in the background, you would use a small aperture to gain maximum depth of field (from close in front of you into the distance) and compensate for the loss of light with a longer shutter speed.

The third aspect of aperture is its impact on the sharpness that a lens can render. Obviously, lens sharpness varies depending on the quality and construction of the optic. But generally, any lens isn't as sharp at its widest aperture as it will be when stopped down two to three stops. At the other end of the range, a lens stopped down too far (ƒ/22, ƒ/32) will lose sharpness due to diffraction.

This Clark's nutcracker was less than 10 feet away from the blind where Lepp was photographing with a Canon EOS-1D X attached to an EF 500mm ƒ/4L lens and an EF 1.4X tele-extender. In order to focus all this magnifying power closer than the camera/lens combination's normal range (14.75 feet), Lepp added Canon EF II 25mm and 12mm extension tubes between the lens and the tele-extender. The exposure was ƒ/13 at 1⁄250 sec., with an ISO of 800. No flash was used.

Ordering Close Focus

Q I know that extension tubes can help me to use my long lenses and tele-extenders while working closer to subjects. But I don't really understand the principles involved, nor the way to stack all the components in my camera/lens combination. How can I make this work for me?
G. Crider
Via email

A A tele-extender, when placed between the camera body and lens, multiplies the magnification of the lens to which it's attached. A 1.4X tele-extender attached to a 500mm lens yields an effective 700mm. A 2X tele-extender (sometimes called a doubler) yields 1000mm with a 500mm lens. These are standard techniques for filling the frame with a distant subject. But these combinations don't focus very close, so if you want to apply all that magnifying power to a subject that's fairly near—well, you can't. For example, the closest focus of the Canon EF 500mm ƒ/4L lens is normally 14.75 feet.

Adding an extension tube to the combination moves the lens element farther away from the sensor, which enables a closer focus. You should add the extension tube between the lens and the tele-extender for most effective results; the extension tube(s) allow the telephoto to focus closer, and then the tele-extender magnifies the image produced. The gain in close focus is considerable; with 37mm of extension between the lens and a 1.4X tele-extender, our Canon EF 500mm ƒ/4L lens can focus at approximately 9.5 feet.

I can't let any discussion of tele-extenders and extension tubes pass without the reminder that whatever you insert between the lens and the camera (and between the lens and the subject, as in filters) has the potential to degrade the image. So start with a quality optic, add quality accessories, and be sure that your tele-extenders and extension tubes don't interfere with electrical connections (communication) between the lens and the camera.

Sign Here

Q Where's the best place to sign prints? I've seen some signatures placed directly on the print and some on the attached mat. What would you recommend? Should the print be signed with a pencil or ink?
B. Crompton
Via email

A Different photographers have varying preferences about the location of the signature, and some galleries and museums may have strict rules. Here's what I do, and why.

A valuable print should carry the signature of the photographer no matter how it's framed. A mat is temporary, so if the signature is on it, the signature is temporary, too. And a signature that's placed in the margin—the white border area beneath the image—can be covered by a mat. So I always sign on the print itself, well within the image. I usually sign in the traditional right corner, which is where most people look for a signature. But if the balance of the composition, or the background, argues for a signature in the left corner, I'll go there. I don't want the signature to detract from the image, so I keep it small. At the same time, I want the signature to be readable and not hidden in some busy grass or brush.

An in-camera composite of nine images of different roses in order to compose a design-oriented image. Canon EOS 5D Mark III set to 1⁄350 sec. and ƒ/8, ISO 400, Canon EF 100mm macro

Many Images, One Frame

Q I have one of the new Canon cameras that allows multiple captures on a single frame. How can I use this feature in a creative way?
J. Crowe
Via the Internet

A The multiple-exposure capability is featured on recent Canon cameras (the EOS 5D Mark III and the EOS-1D X) and on many Nikon and Pentax bodies. The idea is to allow the photographer to take a series of digital captures (maximum nine for Canon, 10 for Nikon) on the same frame. This isn't a new idea; professional film cameras had this capability decades ago. Before this feature was added to DSLRs, we were limited to taking a number of separate captures on separate frames, then compositing them into a single image in the computer with post-capture processing. Now we have the advantage of experimenting with multiple-exposure imaging in real time; we can view the result on the camera's LCD screen immediately, make adjustments and do it all over again in the field until we get it right. With film, the process required the photographer to calculate the exposure of each capture with a view toward achieving correct overall exposure in the composite. In today's DSLRs with multiple-exposure capability, the camera makes these adjustments based upon variables the photographer has preselected.

My favorite application of this feature is a tried-and-true technique I often used with film. With the camera mounted on a tripod, I take my first exposure focused sharply on the subject and then take a second out-of-focus exposure. In the resulting image, the subject is sharply rendered, but has a subtle, softening halo around it. It's an especially beautiful effect with portraits and flowers. The amount of "unfocus" is an experimental thing that can be seen on the back of the camera and adjusted for subsequent captures; you can view each composite between captures—that is, as it's building.

Another interesting option is the ability to compile various disparate elements into a single composition by recalling an image on the CF card and layering additional captures on the frame, such as adding a big fake moon to a landscape. From a tripod, multiple photographs of a waterfall could be captured at a fast shutter speed to smooth the rendering of the water without losing detail. Multiple individual flowers can be photographed on the same frame to create a design element. Just from these few ideas, it should be apparent that the multiple-exposure capability is a strong creative tool—but also one that will further exacerbate the suspicion with which all digital nature photography is viewed.

Panoramas

Q When capturing panoramas, some photographers orient their cameras in the vertical and others in the horizontal position. Is there an advantage to one position over the other?
B. Harris
Via the Internet

A The decision to capture a panorama with the camera in the horizontal or vertical position is an example of the benefits of "previsualization," where concepts applied at capture expand a photographer's options for interpretation of a subject.

When the eventual goal is to generate a large print, a horizontal panorama of a wide subject or scene (think vast landscape) should be captured in vertical segments to maximize the vertical pixel count (the height of the finished image) and the overall size of the file. Conversely, a vertical panorama of a tall, narrow subject or scene (e.g., a tree) should be captured in horizontal segments.

One fine fall afternoon in the Chicago Botanic Garden, George and Kathryn Lepp were photographing, he with an infrared camera and she with her Canon EOS 5D. George passed by this scene of willows reflected in a pond, but when he looked back to see Kathy photographing it, he acknowledged her excellent composition and asked to borrow her camera. No one will ever know whether it was Kathy or George who captured this definitive image they both love, so a 40x60-inch print in their home bears both signatures.

Advice To The PhotoLorn

Q My husband and I once enjoyed our photo outings, but he has recently become very involved in our camera club competition and now sees me as a photographic rival rather than a pal. As a professional, the competition you face must be much more intense. How do you and your wife Kathryn operate as a team when you work together on photo expeditions?
Name Withheld For Obvious Reasons
Via email

A When we're on assignment, it's about getting the job done. Each of us has different work to do with different cameras, we're gathering background for the written story, we know what the objective is, and we support each other as much as possible. We have limited time to complete the work, sometimes in a remote location, and it's all about cooperation.

But it's interesting that people ask Kathy (not me) a version of this question at every seminar. They typically begin by asking her if she's also a photographer and she replies that she is, but that she usually chooses different subjects than George does. This opens the door to the real question, which may be about competitiveness, or about one partner's indifference to, jealousy of or attempts to control the other's photographic activities. These issues are complicated by conflicts over shared equipment, financial investments, vacation destinations and artistic vision. It would be easy to say that couples approach photography in the same way they approach all the other activities of their partnership—that is, as a team, or as two separate players. But it's not really that simple.

The difference with photography and other artistic pursuits is that there's an end product one can own, that represents a highly personal experience, that can be evaluated by others and that may have monetary value (!). The photographer's partner might be an enabler, a critic, a fan, a muse or an obstacle.

The most frequent complaint we hear is, "S/he doesn't take his/her own photographs, but s/he is always telling me what I should shoot, so that I can never concentrate on what I want to photograph." But S/he would say s/he is only trying to be helpful because you're looking through that teeny, tiny little window thingy, and s/he can see the BIG picture.

On the other hand, we know a sweet man whose self-determined purpose in his retirement is to enable his wife's (quite excellent) photography. He carries her gear into the field, sets it up as directed and stands by, silently, until she needs him to move it again.

Then there are photographer couples who are so independent that they maintain complete photographic systems from different manufacturers so they never, ever have to share the gear.

A few professional teams co-credit most or all of their images. If you want to see spectacular examples, check out the website www.DancingPelican.com for the work of our friends Wendy Shattil and Bob Rozinski.

Classic Colorado Columbine. Lepp used a 180mm macro lens to emphasize the columbines in the foreground by throwing the background out of focus. The lens was stopped down to ƒ/11 to maximize the depth of field on the subject, keeping it sharp. 1⁄250 sec. at ISO 200

Lenses That Get You Close

Q I want a macro lens to capture close-ups of spring wildflowers. There are several choices, however, and I'm not sure which type of lens to purchase. What are the pros and cons of each available type?
K. Brian
Seattle, Washington

A When choosing a macro lens, it's not just about magnification. You need to consider also the type of sensor your camera has (full-frame or APS-C), the kind of working distance you need and the variety of uses you plan. Once you have a macro lens, you'll be photographing more than flowers with it, I guarantee.

Standard-focal-length macros in the 50-65mm range for full-frame and APS-C cameras have been around for a long time. They usually offer magnification to 1X, but with limited working distance—that is, the distance from the front of the lens to the subject. In other words, to use the lens effectively, you have to position it very close to the subject. This makes it difficult to get enough light onto it, whether it's ambient light or flash, and tends to scare away live subjects, such as insects.

There are special macro lenses in the 60mm range designed just for the APS-C-sensor formats. The angle of view of these macros is equivalent to approximately a 100mm macro, which means you can achieve 1X with them.

If you can only buy one macro lens, I think the best choice is in the 90-105mm focal lengths. These offer more working distance and still give 1X magnification; most have exceptional image stabilization for handholding.

The telephoto macros in the 180-200mm focal-length range offer the most working distance for a true macro lens. They also offer 1X magnification without any accessories, and because they're a longer focal length, they tend to throw the background out of focus when desired. Because of the working distance and the ability to isolate the subject from a busy background, this is the ideal butterfly lens.

Another macro lens, exclusive to Canon, is the MP-E 65mm 1-5X lens. It won't focus to infinity, but gives excellent sharpness from 1X to 5X on a Canon full-frame DSLR. The magnification is 1.6X to 8X with a camera having an APS-C sensor. I've used this lens with both the EF 1.4X and EF 2X tele-extenders to achieve magnifications up to 10X on the Canon EOS 5D Mark III. Note that either a tripod or an electronic flash is needed for sharp results in magnifications beyond 1X.

In this issue of Outdoor Photographer, we celebrate the landscape—the classic expression of photography in the field. Perhaps in no other genre of photography has the advancement of technology so greatly improved our technical and creative options. The variables of light and weather are often the very factors that make a landscape worth capturing, but at the same time they challenge the limitations of the photographic process. The good news is that some of the most vexing problems inherent in field photography have been solved; the bad news is, we no longer have excuses for burned-out highlights, murky shadows, noise, or lack of resolution or sharpness. Wait! That's good news, too. Here are some of the more important technological advances that have revolutionized landscape photography in the digital age.

Improved Dynamic Range
One of the most frustrating problems for landscape photographers is controlling the range of light to dark tones within the scene. Imagine, for example, a lake in the foreground, dark mountains in the distance and a bright sky with white, fluffy clouds, all reflected in the lake. With transparency film, most photographers would expose for the bright areas and let the dark areas fall where they may. What you got from the camera was the final product.

With the advent of digital photography and post-capture processing, photographers gained control over dynamic range, either by capturing a single image that's later improved in the computer or by taking multiple images of the same scene at different exposures and compositing them into a single image with a greatly expanded tonal range. These processes, called single- or multiple-image HDR (high dynamic range) now can be at least partially accomplished automatically, within the camera.
The latest generation of digital SLRs is capable of capturing a greatly expanded range of tones between the highlights and shadows of a scene, often rendering multi-image HDR unnecessary. This is especially helpful if there's movement within the frame (add a sailboat to the lake in our earlier example), which makes a multiple-image HDR composite difficult.

Expanded ISO
Landscape photographers once were able to eat dinner and breakfast and sleep at night because there really was no way to accomplish sharp, colorful images in low light. But with today's ever-improving ISO capabilities, there's no time for sleeping. We can start earlier and shoot later, or even round-the-clock.

Higher camera ISO settings increase the sensitivity of the sensor. This not only allows quality captures in low-light situations, but also makes possible faster shutter speeds in landscapes that contain moving subjects. Even better, higher ISO settings increase your creative options by enabling increased depth of field with smaller apertures.

Night landscapes featuring the Milky Way are limited to 30-second exposures due to the movement of Earth. Films couldn't gather enough light to capture a dramatic night sky in 30 seconds, but now we can render such a scene in magnificent, sharp detail, thanks to expanded ISO and fast lenses.

This Article Features Photo Zoom

Proxy Falls in Oregon is an expansive falls that allows you to key on sections and composite them later for a very high-resolution image. Here, Lepp took four exposures with a Canon EOS 5D Mark III and a Canon 24-105mm lens set to 50mm with an exposure of ¼ sec. at ƒ/16 and ISO 50 to render the flowing water with detail.

Shooting Local

Q It seems that all my photographer friends are going to Iceland this year, and last year they went to Africa, and sometimes they bring home great photographs that I feel like I've seen before. I can't afford the time and money to take a foreign photo expedition every year. Should I just give up?
S.B. Bryan
Forest Falls, Calif.

A I feel your pain. In these days of the expensive, exotic, fuel-consuming field workshop, it might be a good idea to look more often for photo opportunities near home. As you rightly note, every exotic location is beginning to look familiar because all have been overexposed. Your only hope, and mine, is to look for new approaches to familiar subjects. You can do that anywhere, but the "loca-grapher" has the advantage of working (or playing, depending on what you and/or your partner call your photography) at less cost, and with much less stress, than the world traveler. And becoming familiar with and following a subject offers opportunities to capture unique perspectives and action.

Summer is a great time to explore most everywhere in North America. Ironic note: Photographers from other countries love to come to the U.S. for their own expensive, exotic, fuel-consuming photo safaris! If you don't believe this, just try to get a place in line among the German photographers waiting at Delicate Arch or The Wave!

Botanical And Commercial Gardens
Yes, every flower photographer wants to work in Holland's fabulous Keukenhof Gardens at tulip time in early summer. But botanical gardens all over North America have much to offer the local photographer, and they deserve our support and sustenance. Because most local gardens specialize in native plants and well-adapted local species, you'll find a great deal of variation from one region of the country to another. Gardens usually plan their landscapes to take advantage of a long season of different blooms, from early spring to late fall. Examples of some of my favorite botanical garden subjects are water lilies (Denver Botanic Gardens), azaleas and rhododendrons (Washington Park Arboretum in Seattle ), roses (New York Botanical Garden and Portland Rose Garden) and chrysanthemums (Pennsylvania's Longwood Gardens).

Commercial flower growers are increasingly opening their fields to photographers, with festivals and photography contests held at peak bloom. I love the ranunculus in Carlsbad, California, the early tulips and late dahlias in Oregon's Willamette Valley, and more tulips in Michigan, Quebec and Washington's Skagit Valley.

Look for butterfly pavilions and gardens for combinations of colorful insect and floral subjects, often with a hummingbird bonus. My favorites: Butterfly World in Coconut Creek, Florida, the Butterfly Conservatory in Niagara Falls, Ontario, and the Callaway Gardens Butterfly Center in Pine Mountain, Georgia.

Oregon Tulip Fields. Lepp achieved sharp focus over acres of neon-colored tulips by focus stacking. He used software and a technique perfected and shared by his colleague Rik Littlefield of Zerene Systems. From a tripod, Lepp captured 10 images with the same framing at 400mm, 1⁄180 sec., ƒ/16 and ISO 200, manually advancing the focus through the composition. The images were composited in Zerene Stacker software to retain only the in-focus parts of each capture, and the result is a high-quality file that can be printed very large without loss of detail and sharpness throughout the frame. Lepp researched peak bloom time, watched the weather, chose a day with soft overcast and prioritized the projects he hoped to pursue in the fields.

I've been hearing a lot lately from photographers who are working hard at their craft, but are just plain disappointed with the images they see on their screens and prints. Some of these folks are relatively new at the photographic enterprise, and some have been working at it for a long time. Some have only the basics in equipment and experience, and others have backaches from carrying a full range of gear from one workshop to another, all over the world. What they have in common is a strong desire to bridge the gap between the reality of their photography and their higher expectations for it, and to be able to consistently and clearly convey the message of their work to those who view it.

Those of you who see photography as a means to self-expression and creativity, as well as a competitive outlet or even (gasp!) a business, have a vested interest in constant improvement of your skills and techniques. But in a digital world already filled with awesome images—not to mention gizmos and gimmicks, apps and accessories—it can be hard to discern the critical elements you really need to move your photography forward. You need a 10-step program to keep you focused.

Step 1: Photograph With A Purpose. Reflect often on what motivates you to pick up that camera bag and head out. Sometimes photography is adjunct to, and a tool for expression of, other passions we hold, such as birds, flowers, wildlands, rodeos, wildlife, stars, dogs and our children. And sometimes photography is a reason unto itself. Photography helps you to look more closely, drives you to travel farther, to stay longer and to understand more about your subjects. Defining your primary intentions as a photographer gives you identity and direction and helps you to avoid distractions that won't advance your purpose.

Step 2: Do Your Research. Learn all you can about the techniques and equipment used by successful photographers who work in the areas of your interest, and consider these in the context of your own budget and abilities. Determine where your subjects can be found and the logistical challenges that must be met to photograph them. If your travel budget is unrestricted, it's pretty easy to gain access to African wildlife in the company of a pro photographer; but if your geographic range is limited by reality, you'll need to research the birds in your backyard and the compounds at the local zoo or wildlife sanctuary. When you're developing your skills, there's much to be gained by photographing a favorite subject repeatedly in varying conditions.

Step 3: Invest Wisely In Equipment. One of the surest predictors of disappointing results is photographing with insufficient or inadequate equipment. There are certain tools that will serve as the basis for all of your work, including a DSLR body able to deliver the quality results you demand (megapixels and ISO capabilities) and offering the functions you need, such as firing rate, mirror lock-up, Live View; lenses capable of capturing your subjects and equal to the quality of your DSLR; and a sturdy tripod and ballhead (one of the most important accessories for achievement of superior images—really). You should invest in the best quality you can afford when selecting these items. Add additional tools based on your subject of choice, such as flash attachments, macro extension tubes, cable releases, intervalometers and tele-extenders. If you've been reading my column for very long, you know this is an extremely conservative list!

Step 4: Embrace Education. If your community still has a local camera store, it's probably much more than just a retail shop. It's the hub of the photography community in the area. They usually offer professional expertise and free-to-inexpensive courses in the use of the equipment you buy. If you like to learn online, try the courses at Lynda.com, BetterPhoto.com, PhotoshopUser.com and KelbyTraining.com, to name a few. Most community colleges offer hands-on photography and postprocessing classes through extension. Join your local camera club. Watch for seminars being held in your area, and once you've achieved a basic level of competence, consider a field workshop with a qualified instructor.

This Article Features Photo Zoom

A four-capture panorama of the Cascades of Central Oregon photographed by George Lepp from a small airplane. The images were sharp through the Plexiglas® window, but the color was skewed to cyan. The generally monochromatic image worked better converted to black-and-white.
Canon EOS 5D Mark III, EF 24-105mm at 1⁄1000 sec. and ƒ/11, ISO 400, converted to black-and-white in Photoshop CS6

B&W Saves The Day
I recently spent a few hours photographing from a small plane, flying along the eastern escarpment of the Cascades in Central Oregon. The weather was gorgeous, and the volcanic peaks were covered with fresh snow. Unfortunately, it wasn't possible in this plane to remove the doors or open the Plexiglas® windows. When I reviewed the captures later in the day, I was very disappointed by their distinctly cyan cast, even though they were otherwise of good quality in terms of sharpness, tone and content. While seeking solutions to this problem, I became aware that the image, with the exception of the dark blue sky, was fairly monochromatic in reality; that is, color wasn't an important factor in the scene. It wasn't a difficult decision to convert these captures to black-and-white, but it did require care to retain detail in the white snow, black lava outcroppings and massive forest areas while keeping the tone of the dark blue sky.

Composition and Content

Q I shoot exclusively digital color files. How do I determine which images would make good black-and-white conversions? Is there a way I should be photographing that would facilitate black-and-white images?
P. Forgues
Hawai'i

A What's the essence of a good black-and-white image? Composition and content. These are important factors in color images, also, but with color you have...well, color, to carry the day if the other elements of the composition are weak. With black-and-white, it's all about the tones that point the viewer to the story.

A promising black-and-white subject stands on its own merits; color can't be the reason for being. If the subject is defined mostly by its color, it's probably not going to be a strong black-and-white image. An obvious example would be a bright red blossom. If the structure of the flower is very interesting, with a range of lights and darks, shadows and highlights, you might emphasize these qualities with a black-and-white conversion—thus bringing the viewer's attention to elements of the blossom that may have been obscured by bright color.

A sense of movement, such as a curving road through a landscape or a strong repetitive design, can be very effective in black-and-white renditions. As a final note, tones set a mood, and if the mood lends itself to a low-contrast capture, then the grays will work for you in the black-and-white conversion.

Another example I like to use when talking about color vs. black-and-white interpretations is the Palouse area of eastern Washington State. Here, the rolling hills for many miles are dedicated to grain crops, mostly wheat, that in early spring and late fall offer amazing green or gold striped patterns that swirl and move with and across the contours of the land. If the gold is there, the image is about fall and the harvest; if the green is there, the image is about spring planting. But in black-and-white, a photograph of the Palouse fields is about the sky and the land and the farmer who made the patterns with her tractor. The image becomes more basic, reduced to elements of design. One of my favorite photographers of the Palouse area is Darrell Gulin, who has a gallery of Palouse images at his website, gulinphoto.com.

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George Lepp gave this coastal landscape a misty, dreamy look by using a neutral-density filter to slow the exposure in bright conditions. Montaña de Oro State Park, California.
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II, 30 seconds at ƒ/16, ISO 50

Water Done Softly

Q We'll be photographing along the West coast, and I'd like to get that misty look where the waves are moving in and out. I have a polarizing filter, but I don't think that's going to give me a long enough shutter speed. Any ideas on how to slow everything down during the day?
G. Temple
Via email

A There are so many options when it comes to portraying the subject of moving water. And it's one of my favorite subjects! The creative choices range from stop-action, tack-sharp drops of spray, to flowing water, to extreme renditions that turn a crystal-clear, raging stream into ghost-like streaks between banks of verdant green foliage or crashing waves into a gentle fog. These effects are, for the most part, dependent on the length of the exposure: the shorter, the sharper; the longer, the softer.

The starting point for longer exposures is the lowest ISO and the smallest ƒ-stop (ƒ/22). These two factors combine to reduce the amount of light that's recorded by the sensor. To compensate, the exposure must be lengthened to allow sufficient information to be captured. Unfortunately, on a bright day, the lowest ISO (50-100) and the smallest ƒ-stop (ƒ/22) won't suffice to allow a dramatic long-exposure effect because, even after 1⁄10 second, the image may be overexposed. A polarizing filter might darken things down enough to gain us another two ƒ-stops, or an exposure of about 1⁄4 second, which is fine for suggesting movement in streams and waterfalls, but won't give the misty or fog-like effect along the ocean.

What we're looking for is a 10- to 30-second exposure, and to achieve this, you'll need an extreme neutral-density filter. I often use the Singh-Ray Vari-ND filter (www.singh-ray.com), which can be adjusted to provide from two to eight stops of neutral density. Singh-Ray also offers a five-stop neutral-density filter (the Mor-Slo) and a new 10-stop neutral-density filter (the 10-Stop Mor-Slo), both of which can be used alone or in combination with the Vari-ND. At this point, your viewfinder will be so dark that you won't be able to see through it, so you need to compose your image before you place the filters for capture. Check the results on the camera's LCD, a huge advantage of the digital age!

Time-Lapse Drama

Q Lately, I've noticed that time-lapse movies have all kinds of moves and pans instead of just staying stationary on a subject. How is this being done, and how difficult would it be to add some new moves to my own time-lapses?
J. Crenshaw
Via email

A I'm incorporating more motion into my time-lapse movies in two ways. One involves equipment, and one is a software solution.

In the equipment department, the most popular are motorized time-lapse rails in the 4- to 6-foot lengths (see "Moving Your Moving Pictures" in the July 2013 issue of OP or at outdoorphotographer.com). There are many available from motion-picture equipment sources. The camera attaches to a head on the rail and is moved along the span by a belt. A computerized system fires the camera, moves it to a new position, then fires again. Depending upon your settings, it can take many hours to transverse the length of the rail. The rail can be positioned either vertically or horizontally and the camera can move up, down, left or right. This adds an element of movement into your time-lapse and slightly changes the perspective during the capture.

A recent addition to time-lapse equipment options is the motorized revolving panoramic head. The camera rotates around a central point, moving in very slight increments over a period of time. The unit I'm using is called a Radian (www.alpinelaboratories.com). I control it with my iPhone, but it works with Androids also. With the smartphone app, the photographer selects the angle and direction of rotation, the total duration and the elapsed time between movements. The unit can be used to capture horizontal panoramas or, with an L bracket, vertical panoramas. You can see an example of a 180º time-lapse panorama I recently captured using a fisheye lens at Smith Rocks State Park at www.vimeo.com/67527488.

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Above and right: Sometimes you have to leave the beaten path to capture a subject that everyone else has already done. How do you make it your own? The iconic Crystal Mill, built in 1892 at Colorado's remote Sheep Mountain, is located on a difficult four-wheel-drive road, but lots of folks have photographed it, for obvious reasons. Lepp's HDR capture emphasizes the tonal details in the fall scene. Contrasts abound: water flows, old wood rots, fall color amazes, and the sky is Colorado blue. Three composited images at three different exposures: Canon EOS 5D Mark II, Canon EF 17-40mm at 17mm, ƒ/11; 1⁄180 sec., 1⁄750 sec., 1⁄45 sec.; ISO 200.

Relax. It doesn't happen on just one day. The autumn season is fairly short, but like 5:00, it's always fall somewhere! In Alaska, beautiful color (with large mammals in their prime) can be photographed in August and early September; in Colorado, it's great in late September and October; in Northern Patagonia, fall color peaks in April. It's mostly about altitude and latitude. We'll talk about attitude later.

Still, you can't set your clock by fall's appearance in any location; many variables affect the onset and duration of fall foliage. Rainfall and temperature conditions experienced during the preceding seasons determine the quality of fall foliage, and even within a particular geographical area, different species show their color at different times. The eastern side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California has some of the most diverse fall color I've seen. On the mountaintops, the color of aspen and willow usually peaks in the second week of October. At lower elevations, the beautiful cottonwoods make their statement several weeks later.

But hurry! It might not be there tomorrow. With all their robust appearance, autumn leaves are really hanging by a thread. If you see it today, don't put off capturing it, because a big wind or rainstorm can wipe it out overnight. I remember arriving for a seminar in New Jersey a few days early; I photographed a small park about 25 miles from New York City that had fantastic color. The next day, a nor'easter blew through and the color was erased. I had to tell my seminar participants that they should have been there yesterday (neener, neener). Still, when you find a good location with foliage in prime condition, check it again in a few days' time, because it could get even better.

Look close to home. You don't need to change hemispheres to find great color. Some of my best recent autumn images have been taken near my home in Bend, Ore. Over many decades, the city's park landscapers have chosen trees that greet spring with flowers, give shade generously in summer and say farewell with a huge variety of great colors. Maples, aspen, birch and willow seemingly appear out of nowhere for two weeks in fall, lining streets in all shades of purple, red and yellow. When photographing in your community, you may have to shoot tight to eliminate distractions. Telephotos extract the best areas of color while eliminating streets, power lines and buildings.

The advantage of photographing close to home is that you can keep tabs as the peak color arrives. Not having to travel far (price of gas) is also a good thing. And while we tend to think that photographing in botanical gardens is mostly about flowers, many have areas, such as Japanese gardens, for planned maximum impact in the fall. The Japanese gardens in Portland and Seattle, and even in Victoria, British Columbia, are within a day's drive for me.

Use that fickle fall weather. Photography is about the light (duh!), and fall colors change dramatically with its angle and strength. Full sun can bring out colors, especially when trees are backlit. I schedule my fall color classes to put the students in particular locations at a time of day when the sun will be behind the tree-lined ridges. It's like having the light coming through millions of colored pieces of yellow, orange or red glass. Fall color looks great against brilliant blue skies, preferably with dramatic white clouds, but if you're given a sullen gray sky, don't despair. Overcast conditions heighten saturation, and you can always enhance the skies in post-capture software. Yes, you can. I give you permission, if that helps.

The combination of overcast and wet leaves can be an added bonus for saturated color; just be sure to protect your camera and lenses from the moisture. Expanded ISOs make attaining good exposure easy, even on a dreary day. After the rain, you might be rewarded with fog settling in amongst the colored valleys. Or, if you can photograph immediately after a snowfall, you have a combination of color and drama that can make for contest-winning images, even when the scene might have been ho-hum on a sunny day. You've seen these images in calendars; now make them your own.

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Starring The Sparkles

Specular highlights, those seemingly random pinpoints of light reflected from shiny surfaces, can be huge distractions in photography. As faithful readers know, I've spent a lot of time perfecting my cross-polarization methods to remove highlights that obscure detail in shiny subjects such as tide-pool residents, lush foliage and minerals. When gloss is a defining characteristic of a subject, it can be a challenge to control the shine to render a natural photographic interpretation. But highlights, like some other troublesome photographic phenomena (such as graininess, for example), can be turned to artistic advantage when intentionally emphasized.

When the sun appears in the frame, it's quite common to exaggerate the large point of light into a starburst by using a wide-angle lens stopped down to its minimum aperture (ƒ/22). The light entering the lens through such a narrow opening is diffracted, turning an annoying bright spot in the image to a mood-setting burst of light. The photographer can position herself to maximize, minimize or carefully position the starburst. Be aware that this treatment of the sun in the frame will compete with your subject for the center of interest in your composition. (Fine Print: Remember what your mother said. Don't look directly into the sun, even through the viewfinder of a camera!)

Lately, I've been experimenting with emphasis of specular highlights on subjects such as highly reflective features of antique cars and the ripples that surround subjects on rivers and lakes. A river runs through our city, and in the summer its clear water, derived from the snowcapped mountains around us, beckons to kayakers, canoeists and stand-up paddleboarders. Since last summer, I had this vision of photographing a beautiful, strong young woman on a stand-up board, surrounded by a multitude of starbursts caused by the sun's reflection off the ripples of the water. Achieving this vision offered several challenges beyond the obvious one of finding a willing model with the skill and stamina needed to paddle upstream to reposition the board within the reflections repeatedly.

You can't just head down to the river at any old time of day and expect the sun to create the effect you want in the place you want it. In this case, I chose a location for the photograph where I could work from a bridge directly above the river in the boarder's path. I used the iPhone/iPad app called LightTrac to calculate the time of year and time of day that the sun would be positioned directly behind the subject. This was a fairly narrow window because the river runs east-to-west at this location. It all came together one sunny August afternoon between 4:30 and 6:30 p.m.

I chose a 24-105mm lens to frame the boarder within the area of specular highlights on the water below the bridge. I chose the smallest aperture (ƒ/22) and underexposed by 1.5 to 2 stops by increasing the shutter speed. This necessitated an ISO of 400 on my Canon EOS 5D Mark III to allow a shutter speed fast enough to stop the action (1⁄500 sec.). The end result is an exposure intended to define the specular highlights as starbursts; unfortunately, this underexposes the subject (my lovely model) and allows the light to overpower the composition of the image. This can be corrected by postprocessing the image in Lightroom or Adobe Raw Converter to bring back the detail in the shadowed areas.

You can use this technique on other water subjects, such as capturing the highlights of water flowing over rocks in a stream; on a lake where the water is disturbed, adding a little interest to a portion of waterscape; with dewdrops on flowers or grasses; and, one of my favorites, capturing lily pads or fish on the surface of ponds. The key is that the starburst effect must be clearly intentional and even exaggerated while not overpowering the photograph's center of interest. If it's too vague, it will just look like the photographer didn't understand the basic principles of light and photography and cluelessly shot into the sun.

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Ice Crystals. Using manual changes in focus, nine images and Zerene Stacker software, Lepp rendered a completely sharp image of a translucent bladder seed pod frosted with feathery crystals on a cold, clear Oregon morning. Canon EOS 5D Mark III, EF 180mm macro lens, 1⁄125 sec. at ƒ/16, ISO 200.

In my role as a Canon Explorer of Light, I recently presented a short, but intense seminar to the ASMP Student Chapter at the Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, California. The event was especially interesting to me because I graduated from Brooks more than 40 years ago. It was a real treat to work with an SRO audience of young, fresh, enthusiastic, soon-to-be-pro photographers and their instructors.

Back in my student days, preparation for a career in nature photography wasn't part of the school's agenda; my instructors barely tolerated my sometimes outlandish efforts to incorporate my passion for nature into every assignment. So when I had these creative young people, my future fellow Brooks' alumni, in my clutches for an evening, I put together a program that featured my latest forays into extreme capture techniques as applied to nature and outdoor subjects. It really brought home to me the ways in which the huge technological advances of the last four decades have expanded my creative horizons. Here are some of the highlights from my presentation at Brooks.

Unlimited Depth of Field
For me, one of the most frustrating limitations of film photography was the inability to control and/or expand the areas of sharpness in an image. In the digital age, I use a variety of methods to achieve all the depth of field I want, where I want it.

These techniques are most revolutionary in macrophotography where a process called stacking—capturing the subject in a series of miniscule, precisely focused slices, then assembling the slices in post-capture software—is the way to defy physics and produce completely sharp images at magnifications far beyond life-size. In illustration of this technique, I wowed (and disgusted) my audience with a series of images of hideous, miniscule, dog parasites photographed at 10X and projected at wall-size in all their hairy, bloodsucking glory.

When working at magnifications of 1X or less, a photographer can make the sequential captures manually, either with integral adjustments in focus or the camera's position, but each slice of in-focus composition must overlap the next. This can result in many captures that, taken together, still achieve what seems like only a small amount of depth of field. But at high magnifications, depth of field is very limited—approximately 1.5mm at 1X with ƒ/11, and substantially less at higher magnifications. When I use the stacking technique for depth of field at higher magnifications, I employ a tool called the StackShot, available from www.cognisysinc.com. This focusing rail with a controllable step motor can move the camera from 1 micron to several inches per shot in a stacked image. I assemble the captures in Zerene Stacker (zerenesystems.com) or later versions of Adobe Photoshop (CS4 to the current CC) and Helicon Focus (heliconsoft.com.)

Stacking isn't only for macrophotography. I often use the technique for landscapes when the scene is beyond the capabilities of a single image at a small aperture. A typical composition would include important detail in the foreground, mid-range and distance, such as the iconic Arizona wildflower/cacti/mountain vistas David Muench captures with his 4x5 view camera. Now you can achieve this with your 35mm DSLR. Mounting the camera on a tripod is necessary to keep all the images in register as you manually rotate the focus ring on the lens to break the composition into numerous overlapping slices of in-focus sharpness. It can require as few as two, or many, images to cover the full distance within the framed scene. Finishing the image using stacking software will produce a sharp image from foreground to infinity.

Panorama Techniques
Back in the "good old days" of film, I captured lots of panoramas. The best I could do with them then was to make several prints and cut and paste them together to convey the entire scene. Years, sometimes decades, later, I resurrected those files, scanned the slides and assembled the panoramas in Photoshop. I still do that with traditional composite panos, but with much better quality and modern printers enabling high-resolution prints of 25 feet or more in size. Three of my favorite new panorama techniques are gifts of the digital age.

Watching You Watching Me. George Lepp photographed this lion and her cub in Botswana's Okavango Delta; a 500mm lens maintained a respectful distance. Canon EOS-1D Mark IV, EF 500mm ƒ/4L, 1⁄2000 sec. at ƒ/8, ISO 400

What's In Your Bag, George?
This is one of the most frequent questions I receive, for this column, at my seminars and workshops, and during chance encounters in the field. I guess we are, in many ways, defined by the tools we depend upon to create our images, although we'd much prefer to be defined by the images themselves. I suppose this is a statement that could be the basis of a long, contentious stream of comments on social media, but for today, we'll just give the straightforward, current answer to the question at hand.

First, a little context. When I began my professional career in the early '70s, there wasn't any such thing as a photo backpack. Several friends (Lito Tejada-Flores, Linde Waidhofer, Bill Ellzey) and I designed our own first version and had a few sewn up by a mountain backpack company for our own use. Soon after, a company called Sundog produced a simple photo backpack based on our design. Today, there are abundant options to meet the needs of every photographer and every photographic situation. I've relied on Lowepro's great packs and now, a new, innovative Gura Gear design to get my equipment to remote destinations and efficiently access it in the field.

Carry On!
A couple of years ago, we wrote in this magazine that the most important item the wildlife photographer could take on an airline is a non-photographer companion with one arm free to carry on the long-lens case. I often fly in smaller regional aircraft with limited overhead space, and I always have a computer bag, so I've often wished for a compact backpack that would accommodate the 500mm or 600mm lens; putting a $7,000+ lens in a checked bag is risky, nerve-wracking business. And once you get to your photography destination, it's not easy to carry two camera bags or backpacks plus tripods on a trek in the field.

At the 2013 North American Nature Photography Association convention, I checked out a new photo backpack series from Gura Gear that solved both dilemmas. Now, for big-lens jobs, I carry the Gura Gear Bataflae 32L Photo Pack. My Canon EF 500mm ƒ/4L with a camera attached fits on one side, and the other side hosts the remainder of my lenses and another body. The butterfly design (Bataflae, get it?) of the pack's cover gives easy access to either side separately, or you can open the entire case. The materials are sturdy, yet lightweight, it's simple to configure the foam dividers to protect my particular combination of equipment, and it fits into the overhead of every commuter airline I've flown.

Okay, But What's In The Bag?
Lenses. The Canon EF 500mm ƒ/4L, EF 100-400mm, EF 24-105mm zoom, EF 17-40mm and EF 15mm fish-eye. This collection of lenses covers my photographic needs, from a 180mm fish-eye view to 1400mm when 1.4X and 2X tele-extenders are added to the 500mm. Adding extension tubes to the 24-105mm lens gives a reasonable macro combination. (Escalation clause: If macro is my main focus, I'll bring along in a separate bag the EF 180mm macro and possibly the 65mm 1-5x macro lens.)

Camera Bodies. A Canon EOS-1D Mark IV (attached to the 500mm) and EOS 5D Mark III. The 1D Mark IV is for action and wildlife photography. The 5D Mark III excels in landscape and macro, and any image demanding high resolution and/or expanded ISO.

Tele-Extenders And Extension Tubes. Canon 1.4X Mark II, 2X Mark II, 12mm extension tube and 25mm extension tube. I often use the tele-extenders on the 500mm lens. The II series will mate if I want to use both, and the 12mm extension tube will fit between extenders if more are to be added or if someone has a III-series extender that won't mate. The 12mm is also an interesting tool for macro work with the 15mm and 17-40mm lenses because it gives a completely different, extremely close perspective. The 25mm extension tube allows closer focus with the 24-105mm, 100-400mm and 500mm lenses.

Filters. 77mm Singh-Ray 5-, 10- and 15-stop neutral-density filters, 77mm Singh-Ray Vari-ND Thin 2-8 Stop ND and 77mm Singh-Ray LB Color Polarizer. ND filters and polarizers are usually the only filters I need for digital photography, and in my opinion, Singh-Ray makes some of the best. The ND filters are for blurred water effects and allow you to use a wider lens opening to capture video with limited depth of field. With the filters, I carry a 72-77mm step-up ring adapter to enable my 77mm filters to fit lenses with a 72mm thread.

Polar bear with second-year cubs, Churchill, Manitoba, Canada.

Tech Trending: Photographs That Take Themselves

Q Have you noticed lately all those fine photographs floating around out there, seemingly unattached to any photographer? From the loftiest heights of commercial advertising to photo websites such as EarthPorn and, of course, social media such as Facebook and Google+, beautiful, professional images are everywhere. Have you ever admired one, thinking you've been to that location, wondering what other photographer saw what you saw, only to realize that the photograph you're admiring—that orphan piece of creative work that's so unimportant that no one will give it a name, nothing more than a well-organized bunch of pixels, a pleasing combination of ones and zeros—that photograph is yours?
Every Photographer
Almost Everywhere On Earth

A Well, actually, yes. Recently, our daughter "liked" an anonymous image from EarthPorn on Facebook. It was mine, and she didn't even know it! That hurt, especially because I don't know who posted my image there. Being old school (as distinguished from merely being "old"), I view every unauthorized use of my images as theft, and these days, the problem has me on fire all the time. That said, I don't think it's possible to keep your images from being lifted from the Internet unless you, your family and friends, your clients and any publishers of your work all live in the dark—meaning, somewhere without electricity. And there's a harsh reality to be faced in the digital age: A gazillion photographs have been launched into the webosphere, drifting like pollen across the globe, sometimes taking root in a stranger's blog, in another language—like the unauthorized little trip several of my images took to Spain just last week! How can anything so common and abundant as a photograph have commercial or artistic value? A photograph is like one poppy in a field of millions. It's like one snowflake on Mount McKinley. It's a grain of sand...well, you get the picture, no pun intended. Who cares?

Who Took (And Who Took) All Those Images?
I suppose that if you think of creative activity across the spectrum of human history, most art is anonymous, at least in the long term. But in the context of my history, photographs have artistic and economic value that is, rightly or wrongly, influenced by the reputation of the photographer and the body of work the photographer has produced. There was a time, not long ago, when an ad agency would call a professional photographer for a set of images on a particular subject or style, and the photographer would send them a batch of original slides. If the agency lost or damaged one, they owed the photographer $1,500 each, an industry standard. A well-known photo editor and appraiser actually argued in court that every time a well-known photographer snapped the shutter, the resulting image had immediate value of that same $1,500. I became a professional photographer in an environment that was intensely protective of images and their potential value. So, now, when I see a great image, I want to know who took it, who owns it, and who deserves the credit and whatever money it might earn. And if that image isn't attributed to anyone, then I wonder who took it from the photographer and rendered it anonymous, and whether that photographer cares.

What's Mine Is Mine, And Even If I Let You Use It, It's Still Mine
If you're still with me, you're probably interested in what you can do to strike a reasonable balance between sharing your images (playing nice) and protecting your images from unauthorized or uncompensated use (often viewed today as selfish and greedy). I'll start by saying that I don't know any professional photographer who hasn't experienced outrageous unauthorized uses of his or her images. And, clearly, I don't have all the answers; if I did, I wouldn't have any horrific examples of image theft to share with you. But, assuming that you value your connection to your images, there are basic steps you can take to minimize unauthorized "sharing," emphasize attribution (ownership) and, if you want to go there, set the stage for litigation of photo thievery.

A finished, retouched, focus-stacked image of a tulip bed in Butchart Gardens, British Columbia, reveals tack-sharp detail from the closest blossom to the back row. Nine images were captured with a Canon EOS 5D Mark III and EF 180mm macro lens, 1⁄250 sec. at ƒ/11, ISO 200, and composited using Zerene Stacker software.

Images In Bloom

Q I'm using focus-stacking techniques for my macro images and often I get a halo around some sharp parts of the image. Is there a way to prevent this from happening, or at least dealing with it later in my software?
G. Montgomery
Atlanta, Georgia

A Focus-stacking is a technique that expands depth of field in an image. To accomplish it, the photographer frames the image, then captures a series of in-focus slices, moving through the subject and refocusing from foreground to background. When composited in focus-stacking software, only sharp areas are retained, yielding an image that's sharp from foreground to background.

One of the challenges posed by focus-stacking captures is that when an object close to the camera is rendered out of focus, it blooms—that is, as it gets fuzzy, the image gets larger. As they grow, foreground elements can interfere with efforts to attain sharp captures of background areas. This effect is emphasized when using a longer focal-length lens or when trying to focus-stack a relatively large area, and can be exacerbated by significant tonal differences between the foreground and background.

For landscape photography, we use focus stacking in situations where there are important subjects in both foreground and background. Think, for example, of a field of spring wildflowers stretching to a backdrop of snow-covered mountains. To tell the whole story, we want both the flowers and the mountains tack-sharp. If a foreground object, such as a flowering bush, obstructs the distant background, the blooming effect may occur: The foreground object becomes out of focus, obscuring and inhibiting sharp capture of the background behind it. Since chopping down the bush after it's photographed is not an option for responsible nature photographers, the best options are to work around the problem. Use a fairly small ƒ-stop (ƒ/16) so that the foreground object doesn't go completely out of focus when photographing the background. Another choice is to change your perspective; position the foreground subject more into the lower aspect of the composition so that it doesn't intrude into the mountain's space.

When focus-stacking captures in macro photography, the possibility of blooming is greater. Although the size of the subject may be very small, the range of focus between front objects and elements at the back of the composition can be large at high magnification. So when photographing the throat of a flower, for example, the nearest parts, the tips of the stamen and stigma, may bloom out of focus and hide portions of the flower's base as it's being photographed. These problems can be solved in post-capture software featuring retouching. Two programs I use that offer this function are Helicon Focus (www.heliconsoft.com) and Zerene Stacker (www.zerenesystems.com). Once the image is composited, areas of sharp focus can be cloned from individual captures to the final composite; in some cases, the cloning required might be quite detailed and take some practice to accomplish well.

Keeping track of image files is a challenge for every serious photographer. George Lepp's system employs file names containing a unique, descriptive code. As a particularly complicated example, the file name for this 5X image of a small section of the wing of a Gulf fritillary butterfly is I [for insect]-LP [Lepidoptera]-FR [fritillary]-0002 [#2 of this subject]-GC [digital stacked image].TIF [file type]. The EXIF data for the image adds that it's composed of 44 stacked images captured using the StackShot and a Canon EOS 5D Mark III with a Canon MP-E 65mm macro lens and Canon MT-24EX macro flash, 1⁄125 sec. at ƒ/2.8, ISO 100, and copyrighted by George D. Lepp.

Keeping Track

Q Digital images are piling up on my hard drives, and I'd like to be able to find them in the future. How have you dealt with the masses of files on your drives?
J. Gordon
Via email

A While managing huge numbers of digital files is certainly a challenge, it helps to put the task into some historical perspective. I've been a professional photographer for more than 40 years, and I've accumulated mountains of slides and negatives. I've heard stories of film photographers with shelves of "yellow boxes," perhaps sorted by processing date. For me, that would be the equivalent of storing all your digital files in the simplest automated manner, by date alone. If you're serious about your images, whether hard files or digital files, you need to take the time to organize them in a way that's more descriptive than the capture or processing date.

Early on, I developed a coding system for my photographs that provided essential information about subject and location. The coded slides and negatives were stored in hanging acetate sleeves; the sleeves were filed in alphanumerical sequence. If an image was sent out to an agency or a client, notes were made to that effect in the empty space and the shipped images were linked by their codes in a transmittal letter. Beginning in the early 1980s, my office was one of the first to incorporate computerized databases to keep track of images. While searchable file numbers and text descriptions were certainly helpful, I really wanted a visual reference, and that wasn't possible with the equipment I had then. Remember DOS?

File-coding systems are highly personal; what you choose depends on how you think and the range of photographic subjects you pursue. Some photographers use a capture date code cross-referenced to a calendar that provides the shoot location and subjects. Lightroom offers a storage system that's default-based to the capture date, but allows the user a great deal of flexibility in terms of folders, file descriptions, keywording and systematic file renaming.

My coding system has had to work across the years of slides, scanned slides and digital captures. It's a good thing I like it because changing it now would be pretty much impossible. When I save an edited image, I assign to it a new file name that consists of three sets of letters, a four-digit number and then a few more letters to designate whether the image is a scanned slide or a digital capture. EXIF notes provide additional information and image status. The files are organized in folders (and, in my latest Apple Mac Pro computer, in sub-folders), as in virtual file cabinets.

Following are some examples that demonstrate how my system is structured; it might be the basis for a coding system that would work for you, as well.

Example 1: Anna's Hummingbird. In the file name B-HU-AN-0012-G.TIF, the first letter, "B," designates a major subject group, Birds. Sometimes my images in a particular subject area, such as this one, have become so numerous that I've had to expand the primary ID to two letters. In the bird category, I added "BR" to designate raptors and "BS" for shorebirds. This shows how the system can be expanded as you move forward. The second set of letters designates a type of bird. In this example, "HU" stands for Hummingbirds. The third set of letters indicates the species; "AN" stands for Anna's hummingbird. The code for a grizzly bear would be M-BR-GR.

Big Lens/Little Bee Eater. These tiny, beautiful and elusive birds are sought after by wildlife photographers in Botswana's Okavango Delta. Because the temperature was unusually cold, this individual was stationary long enough for Lepp to assemble his 500mm lens and 2X and 1.4X tele-extenders plus a 25mm extension tube to capture this head shot of one very fluffy bird. Canon EOS-1D Mark IV, 1⁄500 sec. at ƒ/11, ISO 1600

Stacking Tele-Extenders

Q I want to use more than one tele-extender on my Canon telephoto lens, but my tele-extenders won't mate. How do you get yours to go together? When you do stack tele-extenders, do you stop them down for better sharpness?
G. Griffith
Wichita, Kansas

A First of all, I only stack tele-extenders when I really have to—that is, when I otherwise can't get close enough to get the image I need. Some quality is lost when using even one tele-extender, and this problem is exacerbated when two extenders are stacked together. That said, stacking extenders can be a truly effective technique when a closer approach is impossible or unwise, and I'm always ready to try because there's nothing to lose and possibly great photos to gain!

Some tele-extenders will stack without a problem; the Canon Series II tele-extenders were made to stack, and as long as you place them in the proper order, they will mate and maintain electrical connections. The original Canon 1.4X and 2X extenders and the recent Series III extenders won't stack unless you add a 12mm extension tube between them. Surprisingly, they still focus to infinity even with the extension tube in place. If there's a way to stack Nikon tele-extenders, I don't know of it; their design precludes it. To experiment with other manufacturers' extenders, first try to stack them directly, and if that doesn't work, try the smallest extension tube between them.

When using two tele-extenders together, a few things need to be considered. Number one is that you'd better have an exceptional lens at the other end because, as noted above, extenders compromise image quality; this problem can be somewhat mitigated by an extra-sharp lens. Long lenses demand impeccable technique. Any missed focus or camera movement will be magnified at longer focal lengths. Work from a steady tripod and, if possible, use a fast shutter speed and stop the lens down by an ƒ-stop or two. Use expanded ISO (800, 1200, 1600) to help achieve the exposure you want, especially for early-morning and late-day shoots.

It doesn't hurt to take the quest for long-lens sharpness further, as I did last year when photographing a bald eagle nest over a period of months (see my project report in OP's April 2014 issue). To reach the nest, more than 200 feet away, I used either a Canon EF 500mm ƒ/4L or Canon EF 800mm ƒ/5.6L and one or two 2X tele-extenders. To control movement, I used a heavy-duty Really Right Stuff (RRS) tripod and RRS ballhead. I locked up the mirror by using Live View to minimize internal vibrations. Using a CamRanger wireless transmitter and my iPad 3, I controlled and fired the camera without touching it. If your camera has Live View Mode 1, which stops the movement of the last mirror in the shutter box, use it.

A note about focus: At 1000mm to 3200mm, the depth of field is minimal. If you miss the focus by just a few inches, the subject won't be sharp and you might attribute it to the lens combination, even though that's not the cause. I resolve this by using the CamRanger/iPad combination for focusing; with the magnification of the image on the iPad screen, the focus can be set dead-on.

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