2013 Hike Photos

[RoguePhotonic]

Week 8

[RoguePhotonic]

Week 9

[ondafringe]

I agree with the others, great shots! This past spring, I upgraded from a P&S to a Canon 60D w/24mm f/2.8 lens and have been using it to shoot my hikes since then. Haven't really learned all there is to taking exceptional pics but slowly getting there. It's an extra 1.5 pounds hanging around my neck but wouldn't think about going hiking without it. Don't think I could ever go back to a P&S.

[RoguePhotonic]

Is there a specific aperture you like to shoot in most of the time? I tend to shoot almost exclusively in F5.6 unless I am going for something with more depth of field.

[fishmonger]

Most lenses are sharpest around the middle of their aperture range. So f/5.6-8 is the sweet spot for the best recording. The middle happens also happens to be the boring range of the lens - depth of field isn't extreme, nor really shallow to allow isolating a subject.

The only time I shoot f/16 or f/22 is when I need to really slow the shutter down (moving water and didn't bring ND filter), because if it is extreme depth of field you are after in a landscape, this can easily be achieved with focus stacking several clean f/8 exposures, without getting diffraction issues from the closed aperture, or risking motion blur should you not use a tripod (weight...). Focus stacking also lets you create images with extreme depth of field technically not attainable with the lens itself, even at f/22. I've even used this with a 14mm ultra wide at times, when I needed 12 inches to infinity in focus.

Bringing a good ND filter will get you blur when you want it without having to use f16/22 - a must bring in snow conditions, although a polarizer is usually enough with snow. For the ghostly moving water effects you really need a good ND filter - neutral extra dark sunglasses for your camera. I forgot to pack my ND100 filter this summer You can always improvise a tripod, but you can't improvise the ND filter.

Wide open is the problematic thing to justify for me: to get good results (clean background blur) you need a really fast lens. Fast lenses are generally heavy due to the large chunks of glass required to capture all that light. Fast glass only has one additional benefit in the backcountry, and those star photos Chris took are evidence that he took full advantage of that capability. I've been too lazy to carry very fast glass on long trips, and my night shots are pretty crappy as a result of that. Fast wide angle glass starts at f2.8 (zooms and ultrawides), and goes up from there. You rarely shoot these wide open, but to get all the light you can get you need a lens to be even faster than f/2.8 to be able to get sharp results at that setting. Wide open is usually soft, especially in the corners. A lens rated at f/1.4, though, will be significantly sharper at f/2.8 than a lens rated f/2.8 to begin with. I have a 55mm f/1.2 which is superbly sharp at f/2.8, however, it is a pretty useless focal range for sky photos at night, and it is very heavy, so I never took it on a hike yet.

I am saving for a Rokinon/Samyang 24/f1.4, the ideal night sky lens for those who can't afford the big brand name offerings ($2k), but it weighs 750 grams and I have my doubts about carrying that down the trail. This summer I left my 500 gram 14mm f/2.8 in the truck when I lifted my pack before the first day of the hike - that's usually where all my great intentions to carry extra camera gear come to an end

You can rent just about any great and expensive lens, so if your trips are short term that's a way to get your hands on the tools. If you do 100+ days at a time in the mountains, well, renting ain't the most economical way...

[maverick]

Fishmonger wrote:
The only time I shoot f/16 or f/22 is when I need to really slow the shutter down (moving
water and didn't bring ND filter)

Or if one is wanting to capture a sun or starburst.

[ondafringe]

All of my day hikes are with groups and if you slow the group down, people start to mumble and grumble. Because of that, I can't take the time to evaluate a shot, learn more about my camera, and think about what settings would give me the best image.

Since I shoot mostly landscape and like deep depth-of-field, I tend to shoot at S2 (1920x1280 jpg), use Av, and set it to f/8. Diffraction on my 60D starts in around f/7.1 so I never stop down past f/11. Then to CMA, I use AEB at +/- 2/3 stop. In most cases, one of those three shots will be good or good enough (I never print images; only use them on my blog). I have lost a lot of shots under tree canopy (shade) due to motion blur if the hikers are moving at right angles to the camera.

Not the ideal situation but the best I could come up with under the circumstances. Unfortunately, now it takes 3x the space to store each shot. And since I tend to take 100-200 shots per hike, not only does it require a lot of storage space, it takes forever to go through the images to see which ones I want to post on my blog. Most of the time I end up keeping the slightly under-exposed shot but not always. Because of that, I don't use exposure compensation instead for fear I will lose up to 20% of my shots. And until I get a new PC, I don't have the option of learning/using Photoshop and Lightroom, yet, but they're on my list.

My gut feelings is this group hiking scenario where I am forced to rush my shots is causing me to develop some really bad habits.

[fishmonger]

Fishmonger wrote:
The only time I shoot f/16 or f/22 is when I need to really slow the shutter down (moving
water and didn't bring ND filter)

Or if one is wanting to capture a sun or starburst.

make sure you got your sensor cleaned first

[fishmonger]

Not the ideal situation but the best I could come up with under the circumstances. Unfortunately, now it takes 3x the space to store each shot.

in 2013, talking about storage being a problem doesn't really make much sense.

[austex]

1+ bring memory cards....Light!
Also you may need new hiking partners. Consider another photo buff? Or a slow guy like me that needs to rest often...