Hankins-Lawrence Images Photonotes August 2005

The fall show art and craft show season has started here in the DC area and getting ready for the six shows we’ll be doing has been keeping us busy. We decided to reframe all the photos we show in our booth – we’re switching from metal to wood frames. We like the new look but it’s a fair amount of work reframing everything. If you get a chance to stop by our booth at one of our shows, please let us know if you like the changes.

Most of our photography this summer took place in the DC area. We spent many weekends visiting (and photographing) the cheetah cubs at the National Zoo. We (like many others) are anxiously awaiting the day when the baby Panda at the Zoo goes on display. Hopefully, we’ll get to see him in early October. In the meantime, I’m a regular viewer of the panda on the webcam at the Animal Planet website. If you haven’t seen how big he’s getting, take a look visit his webcam at http://animal.discovery.com/cams/pandavidr.html

We’ve also taken several new photos at the Vietnam War Memorial and the World War II Memorial. This morning, we tried to get the full moon setting over the Lincoln Memorial. Hopefully we’ll have these and other new photos up on our website soon.

Our one out of town trip this summer was to a family wedding in Vermont. We discovered a couple of spectacular waterfalls nearby. You can read all about them in the second article in this issue. It looks like there are many other sets of falls near the ones we found – so we may just have to make another trip to Vermont soon.

That’s all for now. Hopefully the next issue will get us back on schedule.

Patty

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2) Using ISO to Get the Images you Want

In the last two newsletters, we covered two parts of setting the camera that traditionally determine exposure, either by setting the aperture or the shutter speed. In this newsletter, we thought we’d talk about the third consideration in determining exposure, ISO. Also known as ASA (a bit of trivia – ASA stands for American Standards Association, and ISO stands for International Standards Organization – but the ASA number is the same as the ISO number), the ISO is a rating of how sensitive your film or digital sensor is to light. Essentially, doubling your ISO has the equivalent effect on exposure as opening your aperture 1 f-stop (e.g. going from f8 to f 5.6) or doubling your exposure time (e.g. from 1/60th second to 1/30th sec). So, if you are shooting ISO 100 film or digital, and the perfect exposure is 1/100th second at f16, then by switching to ISO 200, you could get the perfect exposure by shooting 1/200th of a second at f16, or by shooting 1/100th of a second at f22.

So why do we care about ISO? Setting the ISO higher lets us use a faster shutter speed, when we need to stop movement, or it lets us shoot with a reasonable shutter speed and a small aperture (large f-stop number) to increase depth of field. For example, when we were out photographing the cheetah cubs at the National Zoo (you can see some of the shots on our website by following the link on the home page at www.hankinslawrenceimages.com), we were shooting at either ISO 400 or ISO 800 to try and get a fast shutter speed to capture the fast-moving cubs.

So why not always set the ISO as high as it will go? Two reasons. First, whether you are shooting film or digital, the higher the ISO, the more noise you get. In digital, this shows up as unpleasant graininess and color variation in your photo; in film, this shows up as larger and more pronounced grain. The good news is that both newer digital cameras and newer professional grain films allow use of pretty high ISO without the interference of excessive noise. So, in general, a lower ISO setting, film or digital, will give a better (less “noisy”) image. The second reason that we might choose a lower ISO than we would need solely for image quality reasons would be if we wanted a slow shutter speed or a very small depth of field (and thus large aperture). For example, Bill will often shoot waterfalls with Velvia transparency film – this film is ISO 50 (though sadly, they are discontinuing it in favor of an ISO 100 version), so will let him shoot a slow shutter speed even in relatively bright light, giving the water flowing over the falls a smoother look (see the last newsletter).

If you have a digital camera, try the same shot using the camera’s lowest and highest ISO, to get an idea of what your camera is capable of. Look at the shots 100% size on your computer monitor. The best places to look for noise are in areas of solid color, e.g. a solid blue sky or a uniformly dark shadow. It’s a good idea to know how much noise your camera produces at different ISOs, so you know what will give you an acceptable image. If your image is too noisy, noise reduction programs such as NeatImage or Noise Ninja can be helpful for digital camera files (or scanned film), but why use them if you can set the ISO lower and still get a good shot. Sometimes, though, you need the shutter speed or need the depth of field that a small aperture gives you. If so, don’t be afraid to turn up the ISO on your digital, or to reach for that high ISO film. Better a noisy image than no image at all.

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3) Photospot: Waterfalls Along State Route 100 in Vermont

On a recent trip to Vermont, we had the opportunity to photograph two waterfalls along State Route 100.

Texas Falls is located in the northern section of the Green Mountain National Forest. To get to Texas Falls, drive north on State Route 100 from Rutland. Turn right onto State Route 125 and then onto Sate Forest Highway 39. There are signs marking the direction to the falls. From the parking lot, it is a short walk to the overlook at the upper falls. If you follow the path from the overlook along a slightly more difficult trail, you can get a spectacular view of the lower falls.

Once you head back to State Route 100, head north to Moss Glen Falls. This waterfall is one of the most beautiful sets of falls we’ve ever seen – and probably the easiest to photograph. Moss Glen Falls is on the west side of the road, about three miles north of Granville. Just beyond the falls, is a parking area you can pull into, and a walkway back to the falls. We took most of our photos of Moss Glen Falls from the shoulder of the road. If you do shoot from the side of the road, be sure to be careful of oncoming traffic.

There are many other spectacular waterfalls in Addison County, Vermont where both of these falls are located. We just didn’t have a chance to find them all. For more information about waterfalls in Vermont, visit the Vermont section of the Waterfalls of the Northeastern United States Website at http://www.northeastwaterfalls.com/database.php?browse=st&sort=VT

You can see our photos of Texas Falls and Moss Glen Falls on the web version of this article.

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4. Hankins Lawrence Images Show Schedule

We're going to be selling our photos at some of the art and craft shows in the Washington DC area. If you're at any of these events, please stop by and say hello. We're waiting to hear from a number of shows for this year, so check out our show schedule on the web (available in the Store section

at www.hankinslawrenceimages.com ) from time to time for updates.

September 9-11 Sugarloaf Craft Festival, Manassas, VA

September 24-25 Occoquan Fall Craft Show, Occoquan, VA

October 8-9 Catoctin Colorfest, Thurmont, MD

October 21-23 Craftsmen's Classic, Chantilly, VA

November 19-20 Fairfax Holiday Craft Show, Fairfax, VA

December 9-11 Sugarloaf Craft Festival, Gaithersburg, MD

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