Success And Failure

After being out photographing yesterday and making a few prints today that I showed my wife and getting little enthusiasm for the results and realizing myself that though they worked out and were decent images, they certainly weren't great images, it occurred to me that it might be worth discussing the differences between a day in which really great images are produced, and one in which the images are ok but no more.

Regretfully, the most noticeable observation is that there isn't a lot of difference in the two days. I start out with equal enthusiasm and energy, my eye seems no more tuned on the great days than the others, my technique doesn't differ and the amount of effort I put in to working the locations doesn't vary.

Often but not always, I recognize a really great subject when I find it and know for the rest of the day that whatever else I find, it doesn't really matter because the day is a success already.

I felt that way when I photographed the rusty side of a boiler a couple of weeks ago and even though I have continued to refine my editing of the image since then, nothing has made me change my mind about the image.

For better or worse, I suspect that all one can do to make more of these kinds of images is to at least be prepared for them, to capture them properly and not screw up and offer ourselves the best possible negative or digital file we can.

Yesteday I was photographing with my friend Robin and he'd borrowed my 400 Tele-Fujinon for his 4X5. He found an image he was quite excited about, one of the old trucks, and was trying to capture the image with his 135 mm. lens (wide normal for a 4X5). I suggested trying the 400 on the grounds that he'd include a lot less background (ridged metal siding) if he could shoot from further away. Robin set up and determined his expusure which was for f22. Perhaps you don't use 4X5 but let me tell you that at f22 with a 400 mm. long lens on 4X5 you "ain't got no damn depth of field".

Robin has done this before, with his medium format equipment, finding out after the fact that his depth of field wasn't nearly enough to cover what he needed - I suspect that in the past he photographed things at infinity and I have been corrupting him with my work close up, but anyway, I suggested he stop all the way down to f64. Diffraction will limit the size of prints he can make, but I suspect that he will get a really good 8X10, which he wouldn't have at the wider aperture.

The other, harder and probably more important part of being ready for the great images is to not screw up the composition. There is nothing worse than getting home and looking at the proofs and realizing that you should have been a 1/4 inch to the left, that something sticks up from the background which in hind sight glares out saying careless. In a digital world, one can often shoot several attempts to ensure that "I got it", subject to wind and weather of course, but Robin had 10 sheets of film yesterday for a day's shooting - something he spent much of the day regretting, yet represents typical previous practice for him. Even with his limited amount of film, Robin tended to see something he liked and would then set up at that spot. I noted that in every case, Robin had his tripod (a rather short one) at full extension and that he didn't spend a lot of time working the scene, bending his knees or stretching to see if he really was in the best spot. If you do shoot large format film, even less can you afford to not work the scene.

If you truly fear that you might lose the shot - to changing weather or rotation of the sun, or the wind picking up - then go ahead and use a single sheet of film on that first setup, but rather than duplicating the image with a second piece of film as backup insurance, start working the area to be sure that you get the best possible image and use that second sheet for the "new and improved" setup. Perhaps the original will be the best, maybe you won't even get the chance for a second shot as the situation changes, but most of the time you will and some of the time, the second shot will be substantially better than the first.

Below is a list of screwups that even in the last few years have bitten me in the ass and prevented the recording of a great image. In days past it used to be exposure, but in a digital world there really is no excuse, and of course you can't have any darkroom accidents - every so often two sheets of film would stick together in the tank probably during aggitation - but that's history for me, for now, unless I succumb to the temptation to try out ultra large format with a 7X17. Anyway, on with the list:

1) depth of field - before I started shooting multiple images for blending in Helicon Focus, this was by far the most common problem. Depth of field scales on modern lenses are either useless or often just plain missing (no great loss). As I don't use the multiple image technique for the majority of my images, I still sometimes screw up.

2) cropping too tightly - I can blame the joys of looking through a relatively small viewfinder - and perhaps if my next camera has a 3 inch or bigger LCD I can be more exact, but even yesterday I shot an image in which I ended up cropping out the corner where two important lines met - not by much, but missing is missing. Sure it's important to use every pixel, but better you can't make quite as big an image but at least you captured all you intended. This issue depends somewhat on your viewfinder. As a lot of lower and medium level cameras have viewfinders which show less than 100% of the image, you may not even be aware of this problem. My camera viewfinder shows all, but can you really be sure it captured the last 1/4 inch in a scene that was perhaps 20 inches across - that's 1/80th of the image width in the viewfinder.

3) near to far alignment - again at the size of the view finder, can you be sure you aligned the two objects perfectly - perhaps you should use the playback zoom to check on the lcd that you did in fact get the alignment perfect.

4) the uncluttered background - it's not enough for you to think that telephone pole is hidden, you need to be sure, and did you remember to avoid the wires? It sounds silly, but in the excitement of a really good image, it's all too easy to screw up details like this.

5) Clipped highlights - if the light parts of the image are really important, it's not enough to assume that the recovery slider in Camera Raw is going to save your ass - make sure they are within range and if need be shoot a second exposure for the shadows.

6) flare. While I generally use lens hoods, the problem with zooms is that the hoods are of course designed for the widest focal length the zoom goes to, on a full frame camera (assuming it isn't a reduced frame only lens). If you go longer or you use an APS-C sensor sized camera, then assume the hood isn't going to be adequate. With really wide lenses, every speck of dust on the front surface is going to produce a diaphragm shaped flare in your image if there are bright spots either within your image or nearby - no matter how careful you are to use your hand or hat to block the sun from the front of the lens. Even sun on the side of the hoot creates problems if the shot you are recording is of something really in deep shade. A final brushing of that front element can reduce or eliminate hours of attempting to edit those flares in Photoshop - I speak from experience.

7) Vibration - in the excitement - did I really wait long enough after touching the camera for all vibration to settle, to then trigger the mirror release and wait again for a couple of seconds for vibration to settle. Some camera setups are more vibration prone - obviously long lenses for a start. But how about long exposures with IS turned on - IS isn't designed for 1 second exposures so turn it off. I found that even though my 70-200 f 4 zoom was small enough that it didn't have to use the lens bracket and I could mount the camera to the tripod, lens to the camera, in fact it stuck out enough that it really did magnify vibrations and using a lens mounting bracket has made a big difference. Besides, that's usually all I need for stitching with longer lenses as now I can rotate the camera around the lens. Sometimes a lens hood catched a cross wind and creates vibration. In windy conditions I sometimes hang onto the camera during exposure even though it's tripod mounted and I'm using a $1000 tripod. Yesterday, I noted that though Robin was using an older metal goodly sized Gitzo tripod, the ball head he was using was much too light for the purpose and considerable play and therefore vibration was set up between the top of the tripod and the camera base. Thou shalt not ever use rubber mats on tripod heads to protect your camera - either you want to save your camera as a collectors item, or you want to use it - you decide.

I dare say I make a hell of a lot more mistakes than that, but the above list consists of real problems I have and continue to face on a regular basis.

Do you even know what the problems are that you face - if you haven't done the detective work to figure out where your problems lie, then thinking about that might be your fist step to success.