K10D in the fog and snow....

[mountainvisions]

This has been an interesting week on PN. Very contentious in most areas. How

about a few photos to end the week, or start the weekend depending on how you

look at it.

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One of my goals after missing all of last winter is to take it easy and hike the

smaller peaks to get in winter shape, essentially make lemonade out of lemons,

but the twist is to catch a sunrise on each of them. I usually do 1 or 2 sunrise

hikes a winter, and a few over the summer but I'd like to 10 or so this winter

at least.

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So far though I am 0 for 2. Last weekend I was so certain there would be no

visible rise that I left the tripod in the trunk. Despite the look of winter it

was actually quite warm, as noted below, although very wet and damp.

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The following images (with brief trip report) were taken with the K10D at low

ISO and a 28-70 f/4 FA. I also took a few shots with the 10-20mm but wasn't in

love with anything.

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This was actually about 15 minutes post sunrise, but I'm fairly certain there

was no sunrise. This was the scene I encounted when I reached the summit at

7:45am. This was not unexpected, as it was foggy on the hike in from about

2200ft to the summit at 3700. The photos I took before leaving the summit looked

identical.

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<a title="Sunrise Fire Tower, Blue Mountain, Adirondacks, NY"

href=" ><img

src="http://static.flickr.com/2367/2183014780_e5e6822704_d.jpg" border="0"/></a>

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It was so warm, and being warm natured myself, I contemplated removing my shirt

entirely as I was dripping with sweat. However, I felt if I somehow encountered

another group and was hiking shirtless, with the side zips on my goretex

completely openned, they'd surely think I'd gone mad and have me committed.

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I'd guess the temps were in the low 30's at the start of the hike around 6:30am.

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The only relief was the at times strong winds on the summit, which believe it or

not felt like stepping into air conditioning on a hot summer day. We spent about

45 minutes up there before Caney became very cold, and I was adding layers. What

is odd is wind generally clears fog, but there was fog for most of the trip

down. This actually wasn't low cloud cover as you generally find higher in the

mountains, but actual fog.

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The trip down was uneventful, I did my best to create false trails for the next

group, as i hate hiking downhill in winter on packed snow. Anytime I saw a path

through the forest I went cross country and met back up with the trail at some

point further down.

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<a title="Caretaker Cabin, Blue Mountain, Adirondacks, NY"

href=" ><img

src="http://static.flickr.com/2149/2182226849_d9a26ac005_d.jpg" border="0"/></a>

[mountainvisions]

Oh, one thing I noticed...you have the watch the blue histogram to avoid blown out snow. These don't have any blown out areas but only thanks to the blue histogram. You can use the blue histogram (RGB) in the camera and on Silkypix (or most editing/converting programs) with curves.

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Now when you look at the histogram in combined RGB it shows no blinkies, and plenty of headroom, but when you go to just the blue channel you can see the clipping.

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The panorama I took New Years day shows that, and the hike this weekend, actually solved many problems for me including the green button which does it's own thing based on e-dial settings (see post below) and the need to use the blue channel on snow.

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See the left hand side of the Rooster Comb panorama for what I mean, depsite the overall histogram not being clipped and the the highlights not blinking at all when all channels were selected, nothing I did gave the snow it's detail back just because of a little clipping on the blue channel, and honestly, now that I know why, I probably made it worse.

 

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<a title="Summit Panorama From Rooster Comb Mtn (1-1-08)" href="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2133/2161299106_bddaa5acd1_b.jpg" ><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2133/2161299106_bddaa5acd1_b.jpg" border="0"/></a>

[samius]

Beautiful Work Justin! What ev settings do you normally when shooting with so much snow?

[sketch_tbhotmail.com]

I really like the first image, reminds me of winters back in Ontario. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on proper snow exposure, I'm planning a hike in the mountains north of Vancouver in the next two weeks and its certainly helpful.

[mountainvisions]

The fire tower behind the trees shot was taken at ISO 320, f/13, and 1/50th second. It was aperture priority and +1EV. I really like the shot, so it goes to show how much bad weather can sometimes yield good results (and if I was the promote a weather sealed body, this would be a spot to).

 

Typically +1 to +1.3 will give you optimal results when shooting quickly on snow. 1.5 being the limit in even lighting, but that applies for slide film, not digital where I have very little experience shooting a DSLR on snow. Most of my snow shots from years past were slide film, print film, digital compacts with JPEG. It seems to me with digitals lower latitude in the highlights it would be prudent to go +1.0, but only experience will sort that out.

 

The caretaker cabin was shot in manual, and I metered off the snow and did +1. It was 1/125, f8, ISO200 and 28mm/42mm.

[mc2imaging]

Careful, Justin. People are gonna think this forum is about taking pictures...

[cory_zerkee]

Great pictures Justin. Thanks for the info on show shooting. I will have to head up one of the mountains here and try it out. :)

[morgan lee]

Nice. I grew up in upstate New York and these shots gave me a vivid flashback to the absolute quiet a blanket of snow makes it out in the country. There's no quiet quite like it. It really clears your head.

You captured that very well.

I especially like Caretaker Cabin.

[denys_meunier1]

Nice shots Justin,great.

[john carter]

Did you use AutoFocus? I have had some problems in the past (not with Pentax) with AF reading off of fog that is much closer than the subject.

[michaelc]

Great shots Justin. I awoke this morning here in Saskatchewan to find everything blanketed in horror frost. Your pictures have given me the motivation to git out there and try some snaps. Once again great shots.

[roseberry guitars]

Nice work Justin. I too am learning the digital thing with my new Pentax K10d. After many years of using only manual cameras, digital is a pretty steep learning curve for me.

 

Can you talk a bit more about how to use the blue histogram to avoid blowing out the snow?

 

Here is a shot taken a few days ago during a short hike into a local small lake. It's pretty monochrome but the day was like that. Very overcast albeit bright. As you can see, the snow in the lower right is lacking in definition. Would adjusting the blue help this or is the fact that the light was so flat the determining factor here?

 

I appreciate your posts and the information contained in them. Keep them coming.

[roseberry guitars]

Just had a look at the smaller photo posted here and there is much more definition than on the larger....Hmmmmm....like I said, "steep learning curve!"

[michael_kuhne]

Very nice shots!! Looks like quite a walk, Justin, were you using snow shoes?

[mountainvisions]

Scot are you refering to my photos?

 

a good reason for the definition is the fog acts like a soft focus filter...it's the same as putting a stocking or vaseline on the lens, or using a softfocus lens. if you look at my flickr you'll see the same issue with the hockey shots taken in the fog, in the captions I noted how some people loved them and some hated them because it had the effect of a soft focus filter, softening detail, and lowering contrast, the bigger the shot the worse (or better) the effect.

 

the smaller shots look more defined because the fog is less a factor (when the server rescales it seems things with detail take precedence) I suppose, and generally smaller shots tend to look better anyway. However, the resolution of the shots is incredible, and exactly what was in front of me...if anything, I decreased the fog a bit to increase the fire tower, as I'd assume most people wouldn't even realize it was there in the 1 second they give most photos before moving on.

 

one other thing, photos never look great at 100%, download some 100% crops from Rob Gabraith's site using the 1DMIII or D3, if you are expecting them to look as detailed at 100% it's not possible. But it worked the same way with film.

 

Let me get back to you on the blue histogram, and other questions after the gym...

[roseberry guitars]

Yes Justin, I am refering to your photos as well as the bits of info posted along with them when I say you do nice work. I greatly appreciate it when skilled persons such as yourself post photos and explinations to go along. These I find very helpful.

 

I'm just beginning this digital journey and finding I have to approach the process of photography a little differently than I have been used to. In fact the last five or six years almost all of my photos have been exclusively taken with cameras 50+/- years old (as can be verified by a look at my portfolio). Having the control over the photo (at the camera or at the computer), that has been traditionally relegated to the dark room or as in my case the tech at the pro photo lab, is a bit daunting. Although. I have to say it's becoming less so at a fast pace.

 

Histograms and how to use that information effectively is high on my list of "Gotta figure this out" list at the moment.

 

BTW. I like your photos of the hockey in the fog. Reminds me of when I was a kid and we played on open rinks. Fog was a PITA when it was so thick one couldn't see the puck but I must say the wind out of the Rockie Mountians in Southern Alberta was WAY worse. For some reason the rinks were always aligned with the prevailing winds....straight down the ice from one end to the other.

[mc2imaging]

I do miss trees. My wife never knew what I was talking about until I took her back east. Now

she's in love and ready to move. After 3 weeks of winter she is tired of it, that's when I

remind her that where I come from we have about 5 MONTHS of winter.

 

This summer we are going to the U.P. and let her see the houses with ladders permanently installed on the roofs. I wonder how she'd feel about climbing up there to knock the snow

off in the middle of January...

[michael_kuhne]

Well, Matt, you should let her know that in the U.P. when the snow is enough to warrant using those ladders, it is also enough to greatly shorten the distance onto the roof! I have friends U.P. there, but no way would I consider living there except for a summer place.

[mountainvisions]

Matt, the thing with winter is if you have nothing to do in it, it gets old fast. I notice people that hate it, typically don't ski, snowshoe, snow mobile, ice climb, ice fish, etc. But those who do, typically cannot wait for it to arrive and are sad when it ends. Even photography can be a great reason to look forward to winter. But with no interest in embracing it, it's hard not to hate being cold, and look forward to digging out your car.

 

My friends that have moved out west always comment how the forest in the east are much prettier, more diverse at the lower elevations and more interesting up high, and also the amount of wildlife present. Intuitively people usually think the western US is more diverse, and in some ways it is, there are more distinct ecosystems or biomes out west, and perhaps more large species of mammals, but there is quite a bit of biodiversity, and even a shift in biomes right in my backyard in both elevation and latitude where we go from deciduous to to boreal, and most the Adirondacks are transition zone between the temperate and boreal biomes.

 

I went to college in Arkansas and met my wife there, I loved Northwest Arkansas (the Ozark National Forest, and Buffalo National River) but I hated that it was a 3 season state. What I couldn't stand was driving east towards Memphis on I-40, once you passed Little Rock the state became flat and devoid of trees. I always make fun of her about that when I note that she grew up in a essentially treeless environment, so I know what you mean about trees.

 

Scot, I didn't take it as an insult, but I wanted to explain at least in these photos, and generally why typically smaller photos will show more detail (fog/soft focus effect making things worse), and generally all photos do because when they are resized it seems the pixel contrast is enhanced, making for a sharper looking image.

 

Flickr only gives me a few options to post...500pix, 1024 or full size (depending on original upload) and since a lot of people still use 800x600 or at most 1024x768 I'm forced to post smaller shots. My monitor is usually set to 1280x1024 or 1600x1200 so I sometimes forget that. But lately I've been uploading 1080 pixel short side to make use of HDTV as a slide show viewer. full HD is 1900ishx1080 pixels, and 720p HDTV is 720 on the short side.

 

For the fire tower shot what I did without any sort of trickery or HDR was simply make a second adjustment layer on the fire tower shot which I enhanced the DARK area contrast by setting blending to DARK. This kept my light highlights from being adjusted and made the tower a bit more clear. I also lowered the highlights of that layer using the highlight/shadow tool by 5% at a 15% range. Otherwise the tower is plainly visible but only upon a closer inspection.

 

 

Blue Histogram:

 

There are 2 ways to use this.

 

1. With digital DOF preview set in the custom settings simply slide the DOF preview (on off switch) to the DOF setting (all the way right).\

 

the resulting screen will show your image, with the blinkies (highlight shadows if you have that set in the custom settings), and a combined histogram

 

if you press the down button on the 4 way controller it will show the combined histogram, plus the individual RGB (red, green, and blue)

 

they will not all look the same in most cases, and since at least higher up blue light is more prevalent, and it seems to affect digital sensors more than film, that is the most important one to look at on snow.

 

2. Second option is simply take the image at you desired settings and hit the playback button which displays your image and the basic EXIF (shutter and aperture.

 

hit info 1X and it brings up the image with a combined luminosity histogram, if you press down (or up) on the 4 way controller it brings up a 4 histogram screen, just like in digital preview. Simply make sure all the histograms have a little latitude to the left of the extreme right side, and in the case of snow, the blue histogram appears to be the most important. I've found RED seems to always be farthest left, green just ahead of blue, and blue farthest right. I'd definitely make sure there is a solid gap between the blue and the edge of the histogram and your snow should retain detail and not develop any weird hues when trying to adjust it.

[michael_kuhne]

The park I have available for my walks is not anywhere near as scenic as yours, Justin, but here (maybe) are some snowy shots where I walk.<div></div>

[michael_kuhne]

All are from film scans...

[michael_kuhne]

Whoops,, tried to send more than one, did not take. The last one was in early spring with ice flows starting. Some on hazy winter days.<div></div>

[michael_kuhne]

Well only the safer ice fishermen took. Here is the other ice fishermen also on a hazy winter day- quite cold.

[michael_kuhne]

I don't know why some of these come up as attachments when I finally succeeded in reducing size to 510 whatevers or less.

[michael_kuhne]

And the rink house