Yellow Landscape: Driving home from a reception, I came upon this scene. The light was changing really fast, but I slammed on the brakes, jumped out, and was able to fire off 4 frames...

jteee Loc: Montana

Driving home from a reception, I came upon this scene. The light was changing really fast, but I slammed on the brakes, jumped out, and was able to fire off 4 frames before the sun disappeared behind a cloud. The first 3 were at f11, and this at f16. Questions for you - what would have been the best focus point (I think that I focused about 1/3 across field)? f16 okay? Had I had more time I would have used a tripod, but that wasn't possible. In retrospect should have boosted the ISO to probably about 800 (shot at 200). Thoughts, critiques?

Field of Yellow

(Download)

Uuglypher Loc: South Dakota (East River)

jteee wrote:

Driving home from a reception, I came upon this sc... (show quote)

Yeah! I'd'a had trouble staying on the road too!
What focal length and shutter time?

jteee Loc: Montana

Uuglypher wrote:

Yeah! I'd'a had trouble staying on the road too!
What focal length and shutter time?

Sorry I omitted that. 1/20, 105mm (24-105 f4 lens)

MtnMan Loc: ID

jteee wrote:

Driving home from a reception, I came upon this sc... (show quote)

Very cool.

Next time get closer to the ground. You also can try holding one flower or a small group in front of your lens. Check out Bryan Peterson's "Understanding exposure" for an example of that.

I don't think you want ISO 800 but, depending on the lens zoom setting, maybe a little higher ISO or lower fstop to get a higher shutter speed to ensure no camera shake (at least 1/100 if at 105...but I am suspicious you weren't at 105?). You've got some noise already.

The flowers are quite soft. Was it windy? If so an even higher shutter speed is needed.

jteee Loc: Montana

MtnMan wrote:

Very cool.

Next time get closer to the ground. You also can try holding one flower or a small group in front of your lens. Check out Bryan Peterson's "Understanding exposure" for an example of that.

I don't think you want ISO 800 but, depending on the lens zoom setting, maybe a little higher ISO or lower fstop to get a higher shutter speed to ensure no camera shake.

Thanks for your reply. I got as close to the ground as I could (a fence wire was inconveniently at the wrong height - the next strand down was too low and all I could see were flowers, LOL). I have his book and will check that out, thanks. I think shutter speed (or lack thereof) was definitely a problem (tried to go to fast and didn't think everything through well enough).

Uuglypher Loc: South Dakota (East River)

jteee wrote:

Sorry I omitted that. 1/20, 105mm (24-105 f4 lens)

at f/16 with 105mm you should have had a DOF of from about 50' to infinity.
looks like you focused a bit too close. About 160'-170' should have been about right.
Hand-held with 1/20 sec? I'da figured I had no prayer re: sharpness!
I've no doubt that a tripod could have made this an incredible image.

But I sure like the tonal and limited chromatic spectrum of this image! That late light on the front range is magnificent!

Dave

jteee Loc: Montana

Uuglypher wrote:

at f/16 with 105mm you should have had a DOF of from about 50' to infinity.
looks like you focused a bit too close. About 160'-170' should have been about right.
Hand-held with 1/20 sec? I'da figured I had no prayer re: sharpness!
I've no doubt that a tripod could have made this an incredible image.

But I sure like the tonal and limited chromatic spectrum of this image! That late light on the front range is magnificent!

Dave

Thanks Dave for the info, very valuable. Lets say I had used the focal point of about 160', would you have then framed the photo differently (eliminating most of the foreground to that 160 point)? And yes, I have kicked myself for not uping the ISO a bit to gain some speed. However, I DO know where this is, and it is within an hours drive from here (I see a redo in my future with tripod in hand, LOL)

Uuglypher Loc: South Dakota (East River)

jteee wrote:

Thanks Dave for the info, very valuable. Lets say I had used the focal point of about 160', would you have then framed the photo differently (eliminating most of the foreground to that 160 point)? And yes, I have kicked myself for not uping the ISO a bit to gain some speed. However, I DO know where this is, and it is within an hours drive from here (I see a redo in my future with tripod in hand, LOL)

With 160-170' as ypur focus point for hypefocality, i'd suggest cropping the foreground at about the clse limit of the DOF...about 50 feet.

if you have an iPad or other tablet or a smart phone, there are several good DOF apps that are a snap to use. The one I use is "Simple DoF". If your lens has a built-in DOF scale, of course that's even easier.

Dave

jteee Loc: Montana

Uuglypher wrote:

With 160-170' as ypur focus point for hypefocality, i'd suggest cropping the foreground at about the clse limit of the DOF...about 50 feet.

if you have an iPad or other tablet or a smart phone, there are several good DOF apps that are a snap to use. The one I use is "Simple DoF". If your lens has a built-in DOF scale, of course that's even easier.

Dave

Thanks again Dave. I have a DOF app on my phone, but was out of cell service. I also have a cheat sheet, which is usually in my bag, but of course wasn't. This photography stuff is quite challenging mentally, LOL.

Uuglypher Loc: South Dakota (East River)

jteee wrote:

Thanks again Dave. I have a DOF app on my phone, but was out of cell service. I also have a cheat sheet, which is usually in my bag, but of course wasn't. This photography stuff is quite challenging mentally, LOL.

...and thereby keeps us young and active, eh?

Dave

Nightski

Beautiful color. The converging lines of the four different slopes creates an interesting visual. Here is an app that I just love, and you can get one for your cell phone too ... though I don't know if you would get service in this spot. With longer lenses getting the hyper focal right is a lot more picky.

http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html

lighthouse Loc: No Fixed Abode

jteee wrote:

Driving home from a reception, I came upon this sc... (show quote)

I'd have liked to have a look at
40mm
F/8 Focused at 25 feet
ISO 100
1/50th

Or 24mm Vertically framed
But 4 shots isn't all that long to think about the options.
I'd have liked to have a look at 105mm as well.

Gorgeous colour JTee, and nice dark background to set it off.
A little more foreground sharp detail might have been nice.

jteee Loc: Montana

Nightski wrote:

Beautiful color. The converging lines of the four different slopes creates an interesting visual. Here is an app that I just love, and you can get one for your cell phone too ... though I don't know if you would get service in this spot. With longer lenses getting the hyper focal right is a lot more picky.

http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html

Thanks for looking. For some reason I was never able to get dofmaster to work on my cell. I don't even know which app I have now (DOF Calculator), but it is really simple. After my response to Dave, I realized that this app is really just a calculator, and would have worked regardless of cell service. Quite brilliant on my part, but time didn't allow for its use anyway.

jteee Loc: Montana

lighthouse wrote:

I'd have liked to have a look at
40mm
F/8 Focused at 25 feet
ISO 100
1/50th

Or 24mm Vertically framed
But 4 shots isn't all that long to think about the options.
I'd have liked to have a look at 105mm as well.

Gorgeous colour JTee, and nice dark background to set it off.
A little more foreground sharp detail might have been nice.

Thanks for the comments. I wound up getting 1image at f11, 55mm, ISO 200, 1/40 focused at about 50'; 1image at f11, 82mm, ISO 200, 1/40 focused at about 50'; 1image at f11, 40mm, ISO 200, 1/40 focused at about 50'; 1 image at f16, 105mm, ISO 200, 1/20 focused at about 50'.
I got pretty decent sharpness in the foregrounds, but the yellow kind of turns to mush as it progresses. Hindsight tells me - increase ISO 400, stay at 40mm, increase ap to f8, focused at 50' - I think that I would have had a better chance given the handheld situation.

Uuglypher Loc: South Dakota (East River)

Hi, jtee,

With f/8 at 40mm for hyperfocality you should focus at about 178': you'll be in acceptable focus from 12'9" to infinity. This has given good results and agreed so well with results of using the DOF Preview button. that I've continued to routinely rely on the latter exclusively.

I just tried to download it ("SimpleDoF") to my cell phone, couldn't find it, and downloaded another..."DOF Calculator"...which delivered radically different results, which indicates that before relying on any such app one ought test it thoroughly against actual image results....or learn to use your DOF Preview button.

Dave in SD