Hankins-Lawrence Images Photonotes May-June 2005

Once again, we’re a little late with this issue of the newsletter – it’s the first weekend of July and we’re just sending out the May/June issue. We’re hoping to be back on schedule soon and will do our best to get the July/August issue out sometime before the end of August.

Lately, we’ve been doing most of our photography at the National Zoo. Not only are the cheetah cubs born last November growing, but a new litter of cubs, born in April 2005 has just gone on display. Tumai’s litter of four cubs (born in November) are on display from 8 AM until 2 PM each day. Zazi’s litter of five cubs (born in April) are on display from 8 AM to 10 AM, and 11 AM to 1 PM daily. If you are in the DC area this summer, be sure to stop by the National Zoo to visit the cheetah cubs. Not only are they great fun to watch, but you can also take some wonderful photos of them and the other animals at the National Zoo. Visit the FONZ website at http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/AfricanSavanna/ for the latest info on when the cheetahs are on display.

In the coming weeks, we’ll be focusing our photography in the DC area. In addition to the National Zoo, we’ll be spending time at Brookside Gardens in Wheaton, MD. The annual Winds of Fancy Butterfly exhibit in taking place until early September. So between the flowers and the butterflies, we’ll find lots to photograph at Brookside Gardens http://www.mc-mncppc.org/parks/brookside/

In case anyone is wondering – we had a wonderful trip to Cape Cod a few months ago – but weren’t able to get any good photographs of the lighthouses. The weekend we were on the Cape, a Nor’easter hit. Between the rain and the wind, we didn’t even bother take the cameras out of the car at the lighthouses. We did however eat lots of seafood. Guess we’ll have to schedule another trip to the Cape to try again.

Bill and I hope you are having a wonderful summer and look forward to hearing about your photo adventures.

Patty

************************

2) Controlling Shutter Speed

By Patty Hankins & Bill Lawrence

In the last newsletter, we talked a bit about changing the aperture to control depth of field. This time, we thought we would look at the other method of controlling exposure (for a given ASA): controlling the shutter speed.

For any particular level of light and ASA, either film or digital, proper exposure is a function of both the aperture (how much light is let into the camera), and shutter speed (how long the shutter is open to let light shine on the sensor or film). For every f-stop increase in aperture number (i.e. making the aperture smaller), the shutter speed has to be halved, i.e. the shutter remains open twice as long, to maintain the same exposure. So if you’ve determined that, say, a shutter speed of 1/100 of a second at an f-stop of 8 is a proper exposure, then a shutter speed of 1/50 of a second at f 11 would also give a proper exposure.

So as long as we’re maintaining proper exposure, why do we care about shutter speed? The major reason to think about shutter speed is because of motion, either yours or your subjects. Often, we worry about shutter speed going too low, which could result in “camera shake” if you are hand-holding your camera, and could result in motion blur if your subject is moving – essentially your camera’s shutter is open too long to freeze the subject of the photograph. So, if you want to freeze the action of, say, sports or a fast moving animal, you want to have a very fast shutter speed. Also, if you are hand-holding a long telephoto lens, you will want a fast shutter speed since the magnification of the lens will magnify any accidental movements you make.

Other times, a slow shutter speed is desirable to convey a sense of motion in a still photograph. A common use of purposely setting a low shutter speed is to give a sense of flowing water – see the next article about photographing waterfalls for a good example of using this effect. We’ve also seen some impressive photos of palm trees in hurricanes where a slow shutter speed was used to blur the palm fronds and convey the sense of them whipping in the wind in a still photograph (sorry, we don’t have examples of these to show you – we try to avoid hurricanes). A slower shutter speed can also be used for a technique known as panning, where the photographer moves the camera to track a moving subject, which (if done well) results in a sharp subject but a background blurred by motion (this is a common technique for those photographing birds in flight and for those photographing racing cars).

To experiment with shutter speed, you will need a camera that can go off of full automatic, and let you set the shutter speed, either in full manual mode (you set both the aperture and the shutter speed), or in “shutter-priority” mode, which is an automatic mode where you restrict the camera to one shutter speed. A word of caution about shutter priority: most camera lenses have less flexibility with the amount they can vary apertures (remember, this is the other part of getting a correct exposure) than your camera has with setting shutter speeds, so you have to make sure that you can get a correct exposure with the shutter speed you set. For example, if you try to take a photo on a dark night in shutter priority mode with a shutter speed of 1/1000 of a second, your camera will be unable to open the aperture enough to let in enough light for this shutter speed, resulting in an underexposure.

To experiment, simply find a subject that is moving, and try some exposures at different shutter speeds to see the results. Remember, for low shutter speeds, you will want a tripod to steady the camera. The next article in the newsletter shows how different shutter speeds give different results for water flowing over waterfalls.

************************

3) Tips for Photographing Waterfalls

By Patty Hankins & Bill Lawrence

Waterfalls are popular landscape photography subjects. Flowing water seems to add to a landscape, and the sense of power and of motion of water flowing over a set of falls can be fascinating to watch and to photograph. Waterfalls can be difficult subjects for getting great photographs, however, so we thought we would give you some tips (many of which we learned the hard way!).

1) Shutter speed is important in waterfall photography! Tastes vary in how people like to see the water flowing over waterfalls presented in a photograph, but we prefer using a slower shutter speed for a motion effect to the water. A fast shutter speed will show individual waves and droplets in the water, but a slower shutter speed actually shows the path that the water travels – the slope of the water off the fall, the arcs of the water as it splashes off a rock on the way down the falls. For us, this makes a more interesting picture. Typically, we’ll try for a shutter speed of ½ to 1 second if we can, but will try to at least keep the shutter slower than 1/15 of a second.

2) To keep the shutter speed this slow, we use a low ASA film (we often use 50 ASA) or set the ASA on the digital camera as low as it will go (usually 100). Even so, if the light is bright enough, we may not be able set the aperture small enough to have as slow a shutter speed as we would like. At times like these, a neutral density filter (essentially this filter blocks some of the light, but doesn’t change the color balance) can be used to get a slower shutter speed. If you don’t have a neutral density filter, a polarizing filter can be used to drop the shutter speed by about 2 stops (i.e. setting the shutter to one-fourth the speed that it would have been without the shutter).

3) With shutter speeds this slow, you will need a tripod to steady the camera. Also, remember that with a shutter speed this low, anything moving in the picture other than the water (e.g. people, foliage blowing in the wind) will also be blurred.

4) While this is not an absolute rule, photographs of water tend to look better if it is flowing towards the viewer or across the photograph than it does if it is flowing away from the viewer. Also, remember to check that your camera is level – a photograph of water that appears to be flowing uphill is very disturbing.

5) Remember to check the direction of the falls, to determine the best time of day for light hitting the falls to give the most dramatic photograph.

6) Also, check out the falls in different seasons, e.g. does it look best with new spring foliage? Best in the fall with the leaves turning? Some other time? Since spring and fall tend to be the wettest times of the year, these are usually good times to catch falls at their peak levels.

7) Learn what you can about the falls, and what you’ll need photographically, before you get there. The web can be a great resource for this. Visit the Eastern Waterfall Guide http://www.aria-database.com/waterfall/ for information on over 150 waterfalls in the eastern US.

8) Most of the waterfalls we have been to involve some hiking in hilly terrain (it is tough to have a waterfall over perfectly flat land) – don’t forget comfortable hiking shoes for the trail, a water bottle (especially in hot weather), and bug spray and sunscreen in the appropriate seasons.

Visit the web version of this article (http://www.hankinslawrenceimages.com/newsletter/articles/waterfall.htm) to see some sample waterfall photos demonstrating the effects of different shutter speeds.

*********************************

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

*********************************

5. Subscription information

This newsletter is only sent to people who have requested to be added to the HLI PhotoNotes newsletter list. If you would like to subscribe to the newsletter, please send an email

with subscribe in the subject to

hl_images@earthlink.net

If you would like to be removed from the mailing list, please send an email with unsubscribe in the subject to

hl_images@earthlink.net

Please feel free to forward the newsletter to others you think might be interested in reading it.

Reprint policy

Reprint permission granted in part or whole when the following credit appears: "Reprinted with permission from HLI PhotoNotes. (Copyright, 2005, Patty Hankins & Bill Lawrence, Hankins-Lawrence Images, LLC)." To subscribe to the free newsletter HLI PhotoNotes, visit

http://www.hankinslawrenceimages.com or send an email to hl_images@earthlink.net with a note asking to be subscribed to the newsletter.

Please use your browser's "Back" button to return to previous page,

Or use the navigation bar at the top of the page.