9. Advanced Techniques
ISO 100 • HDR • f/13 • 50mm lens
Impress Your Family and Friends
We’ve covered a lot of ground in the previous chapters, especially on the general photographic concepts that apply to most of the shooting situations you might encounter. There are, however, some specific tools and techniques that will give you an added advantage in obtaining a great shot. This section also comes with a warning attached. All of the techniques and topics up to this point have been centered on your camera. In this chapter, I’ll discuss a few additional techniques, such as panoramas and high dynamic range (HDR) images, that require you to use image-processing software to complete the photograph. They are, however, important enough that you should know how to shoot for success should you choose to explore these popular techniques.
Poring Over the Picture
ISO 100 • 1/15 sec. • f/22 • 42mm lens
At the end of the season, my photography group had an outing to a local farm that had this amazing field of sunflowers. We got there a bit before sunset and had a little time to scout locations. The flowers were a bit past prime and starting to droop. I wanted to find a spot where most of the flowers were facing east so that I could face west and capture that last glint of sunlight through the petals of one of the flowers.
Spot Meter for More Exposure Control
Generally speaking, Matrix metering mode provides accurate metering information for the majority of your photography. It does an excellent job of evaluating the scene and then relating the proper exposure information to you. The only problem with this mode is that, like any metering mode on the camera, it doesn’t know what it is looking at. There will be specific circumstances where you want to get an accurate reading from just a portion of a scene and discount all of the remaining area in the viewfinder. To give you greater control of the metering operation, you can switch the camera to Spot metering mode. This allows you to take a meter reading from a very small circle while ignoring the rest of the viewfinder area. If you are using the Auto-Area AF focus mode, the Spot meter will use the center spot in the viewfinder. Otherwise, the meter location is based on whichever focus point you are using.
So when would you need to use this? Think of a person standing in front of a very light wall. In Matrix metering mode, the camera would see the entire scene and try to adjust the exposure information so that the background is exposed to render a darker wall in your image. This means that the scene would actually be underexposed and your subject would then appear too dark. To correct this, you can place the camera in Spot metering mode and take a meter reading right off of—and only off of—your subject, ignoring the white wall altogether. The Spot metering will read the location where you have your focus point, placing all of the exposure information right on your point of interest.
Other situations that would benefit from Spot metering include:
• Snow or beach environments where the overall brightness level of the scene could fool the meter
• Strongly backlit subjects that are leaving the subject underexposed
• Cases where the overall feel of a photo is too light or too dark
Setting up and shooting in Spot metering mode
1. Make sure the camera is in one of the professional shooting modes, as indicated by M, A, S, or P on the Mode dial. You cannot change metering in the automatic modes.
2. Press and hold the Metering button while rotating the Main Command dial with your thumb. Select Spot Metering by watching the control panel as you turn the Main Command dial.
3. Once you have selected Spot Metering, release the meter button.
4. Now use the Multi-selector to move the focus point onto your subject and take your photo. The meter reading will come directly from the location of the focus point.
Note that if you are using the Auto-Area AF focus mode, the camera will use the center focus point as the Spot metering location.
When using Spot metering mode, remember that the meter believes it is looking at a middle-gray value, so you might need to incorporate some exposure compensation of your own to the reading that you are getting from your subject. This will come from experience as you use the meter.
Spot Metering for Sunrise or Sunset
Capturing a beautiful sunrise or sunset is all about the sky. If there is too much foreground in the viewfinder, the camera’s meter will deliver an exposure setting that is accurate for the darker foreground areas but leaves the sky looking overexposed, undersaturated, and generally just not very interesting (Figure 9.1). To gain more emphasis on the colorful sky, change the metering mode to Spot, then point your camera at the brightest part of it and take your meter reading there. Use the AE Lock to meter for the brightest part of the sky, and then recompose. The result will be an exposure setting that underexposes the foreground but provides a darker, more dramatic sky (Figure 9.2).
Figure 9.1 By metering with all the information in the frame, you get bright skies and more detail in the ground.
Figure 9.2 By taking the meter reading from the brightest part of the sky, you will get darker, more colorful sunrises and sunsets.
1. Point your camera toward a bright portion of the sky.
2. Press and hold the AE-L button with your thumb to activate the meter and lock the exposure.
3. While holding the button, recompose your photo, and then take the shot with the shutter release button. As long as you keep the AE-L button pressed, your exposure will not change.
Manual Mode
Probably one of the most advanced and yet most basic skills to master is shooting in Manual mode. With the power and utility of most of the semi-automatic modes, Manual mode almost never sees the light of day. I have to admit that I don’t select it for use very often, but there are times when no other mode will do. One situation that works well with Manual is studio work with external flashes. I know that when I work with studio lights, my exposure will not change, so I use Manual to eliminate any automatic changes that might happen from shooting in Program, Shutter Priority, or Aperture Priority mode. In fact, every picture of the D750 camera in this book was taken using Manual mode.
Since working with studio strobes is a bit outside the scope of this book, I will concentrate on one of the ways in which you will want to use Manual mode for your photography: long nighttime exposures.
Bulb photography
If you want to work with long shutter speeds that don’t quite fit into one of the selectable shutter speeds, you can select Bulb. This setting is only available in Manual mode, and its sole purpose is to open the shutter at your command and then close it again when you decide. I can think of four scenarios where this would come in handy: shooting fireworks, shooting lightning, shooting exposures that exceed 30 seconds, and painting with light.
If you are photographing fireworks, you could certainly use one of the longer shutter speeds available in Shutter Priority mode, since they are available for exposure times up to 30 seconds. That is fine, but sometimes you don’t need 30 seconds’ worth of exposure and sometimes you need more.
If you open the shutter and then see a great burst of fireworks, you might decide that that is all you want for that particular frame, so you click the button to end the exposure (Figure 9.3). Set the camera to 30 seconds and you might get too many bursts, but if you shorten it to 10 seconds, you might not get the one you want.
Figure 9.3 A great time to use the Bulb setting is when you’re capturing fireworks.
The same can be said for photographing a lightning storm. I have a friend who loves electrical storms, and he has some amazing shots that he captured using the Bulb setting. Lightning can be very tricky to capture, and using the Bulb setting to open and then close the shutter at will allows for more creativity, as well as more opportunity to get the shot.
Painting with light is a process where you set your camera to Bulb, open the shutter, and then use a light source to “paint” your subject with light. This can be done with a handheld flash or even a flashlight (Figure 4.16 in Chapter 4 is an example of painting with light).
To select the Bulb setting, simply place your camera in Manual mode and then rotate the Main Command dial to the left until the shutter speed displays Bulb on the rear LCD screen.
When you’re using the Bulb setting, the shutter will only stay open for the duration that you are holding down the shutter button. You should also be using a sturdy tripod or shooting surface to eliminate any self-induced vibration while using the Bulb setting.
I want to point out that using your finger on the shutter button for a bulb exposure will definitely increase the chances of getting some camera shake in your images. To get the most benefit from the Bulb setting, I suggest using the Nikon MC-DC2 remote cord (see the Accessories chapter for more details). You’ll also want to turn on Long Exposure Noise Reduction.
Note that the D750 also has infrared receivers on the front and back that allow it to work with the ML-L3 wireless remote (more about that in the Accessories chapter too). Remote Control mode has to be turned on (it’s found under the Shooting Menu) to use the ML-L3, and in that setting you will see -- (two dashes), which stands for Time, in the control panel instead of Bulb. The difference with Time mode is that the maximum time the shutter will remain open is 30 minutes. I love the ML-L3 and use it all the time. Check out page 193 of the electronic user’s manual to learn more about using the ML-L3.
Avoiding Lens Flare
Lens flare is one of the problems you will encounter when shooting in the bright sun. Lens flare will show itself as bright circles on the image (Figure 9.4). Often you will see multiple circles in a line leading from a very bright light source such as the sun. The flare is a result of the sun bouncing off the multiple pieces of optical glass in the lens and then being reflected back onto the sensor. You can avoid the problem using one of these methods:
Figure 9.4 The bright sun has created flare spots that are visible as colored circles radiating down the image.
• Try to shoot with the sun coming from over your shoulder, not in front of you or in your scene.
• Use a lens shade to block the unwanted light from striking the lens. You don’t have to have the sun in your viewfinder for lens flare to be an issue. All it has to do is strike the front glass of the lens to make it happen.
• If you don’t have a lens shade, just try using your hand or some other element to block the light.
Using the Sun Creatively
Have you ever seen photographs where the sun is peeking through a small hole and it creates a very cool starburst effect? There is actually a little trick to pulling it off, and it’s fairly easy. The real key is to be shooting at f/22 (or whatever your smallest aperture is). Then you need to have just a small bit of the sunlight in your frame, either peeking over an edge or through a small hole. The other thing you need to do is make sure you are properly exposing for the rest of your scene, not for the bright bit of sunlight that you are allowing in. With a little practice, you can really make some very cool shots (Figure 9.5).
Figure 9.5 By letting the sun peek into my shot and using f/22, I was able to capture this starburst effect.
Bracketing Exposures
So what if you are doing everything right in terms of metering and mode selection, yet your images still sometimes come out too light or too dark? A technique called bracketing will help you find the best exposure value for your scene by taking a normal exposure, as well as one that is overexposed, and another that is underexposed. Having these differing exposure values will most often present you with one frame that just looks better than the others. If I am in a tricky situation when I have to get the exposure right, such as an outdoor wedding, then I’ll use bracketing. I’ll start by spacing my exposures apart by one to two stops and taking three images: one normal exposure, one underexposure, and one overexposure.
As you are viewing the control panel and holding the exposure button, you can decide how much variation you want between bracketed exposures. You can choose from one-third of a stop all the way to three full stops of exposure difference between each bracketed exposure. If I am in a particularly difficult setting, I will typically bracket in one-stop increments to help zero in on that perfect exposure, and then just delete the ones that didn’t make the grade (Figures 9.6, 9.7, and 9.8). Depending on the exposure increment you choose, the D750 can be configured to take up to nine frames in a single bracket (this comes in handy for creating HDR images, which we cover later in this chapter). I typically use three or five frames. Remember that your lighting will dictate how many stops you want between exposures.
Figure 9.7 The normal exposure as indicated by the camera meter.
Setting auto-exposure bracketing
1. You can quickly set your bracketing by holding the BKT button (on the front of your camera directly below the flash button) while rotating the Sub-command dial to the desired exposure increment setting (how many stops between each exposure) (A).
2. Next, continue holding your BKT button down while rotating the Main Command dial to 3F, 5F, 7F, or 9F (B).
3. If you are in Single Frame shooting mode, you will have to press the shutter once for each exposure in your bracket. If you are in continuous shooting mode, you will press and hold the shutter button and the camera will take all the exposures in the bracket. For more information on bracketing, please review pages 202–207 of the electronic user’s manual.
When I am out shooting in the raw file format, I typically shoot with my camera set to an exposure compensation of –1/3 stop to protect my highlights. If I am dealing with a subject that has a lot of different tonal ranges from bright to dark, I will often bracket by one stop over and under my already compensated exposure. That means I will have exposures of –1 1/3, –1/3, and +2/3.
Another thing to remember is that auto exposure bracketing will use the current mode for making exposure changes. This means that if you are in Aperture Priority mode, the camera will make adjustments to your shutter speed. Likewise, if you are in Shutter Priority, the changes will be made to your aperture value. This is important to keep in mind since it could affect certain aspects of your image such as depth of field or camera shake. You also need to know that AE bracketing will remain in effect until you set it back to zero, even if you turn the camera off and then on again.
High Dynamic Range (HDR) Photography
Another use for exposure bracketing is when you want to use special software to merge the bracketed exposures into a single high dynamic range (HDR) image. HDR can create stunning images by using the full tonal range of an image. Depending upon your preference they can look quite real or very surreal. I have found people either love or hate HDR, but regardless of what side of the fence you are on, it is a wonderful way to understand the effects of exposure on an image.
HDR is used quite often in landscape, cityscape, and, believe it or not, interior design images. Typically, when you photograph a scene that has a wide range of tones from shadows to highlights, you have to make a decision regarding which tonal values you are going to emphasize, and then adjust your exposure accordingly. This is because your camera has a limited dynamic range, at least as compared to the human eye. HDR photography allows you to capture multiple exposures for the highlights, shadows, and midtones, and then combine them into a single image using software (Figures 9.9–9.12).
Figure 9.9 Three stops of exposure below normal, preserving the detail in the highlights.
Figure 9.11 Three stops of exposure above normal, revealing the detail in the shadows.
A number of software applications allow you to combine the images and then perform a process called “tonemapping,” whereby the complete range of exposures is represented in a single image. I will not be covering the software applications, but I will explore the process of shooting a scene to help you render properly captured images for the HDR process. Note that using a tripod is absolutely necessary for this technique, since you need to have perfect alignment of the images when they are combined.
Setting up for shooting an HDR image
1. Set your ISO to 100–200 to ensure clean, noise-free images.
2. Set your program mode to Aperture Priority. During the shooting process, you will be taking three shots of the same scene, creating an overexposed image, an underexposed image, and a normal exposure. Since the camera is going to be adjusting the exposure, you want it to make changes to the shutter speed, not the aperture, so that your depth of field is consistent.
3. Set your camera file format to raw. This is extremely important because the raw format contains a much larger range of exposure values than a JPEG file.
4. Change your shooting mode to continuous. This will allow you to capture your exposures quickly. Even though you will be using a tripod, there is always a chance that something within your scene will be moving (like clouds or leaves). Shooting in the continuous mode minimizes any subject movement between frames.
5. Press the BKT button and use the Sub-command dial to adjust the bracketing increment in one- to three-stop increments, depending on the range of contrast in the scene.
6. Now adjust the Auto Bracketing (BKT) mode to shoot three (or more) exposures (note that for increments of 2EV or more you are limited to five shots per bracket). To do this, you will need to continue to press the BKT button while moving the Main Command dial to the right.
7. Focus the camera and set focus mode to manual, compose your shot, secure the tripod, and hold down the shutter button until the camera has fired the number of frames chosen for the bracket. The result will be one normal exposure, as well as the under- and overexposed images that make up the complete bracket.
A software program such as Adobe Photoshop, Photomatix Pro, or Nik Software’s HDR Efex Pro, can now process your exposure-bracketed images into a single HDR file. Remember to turn the BKT function back to Off when you are done or the camera will continue to shoot bracketed images.
Using the in-camera HDR function
If you aren’t sure about combining bracketed photos in a software application but want the benefits of the HDR process, you can turn to the built-in HDR function. It’s not as robust as the multiple-exposure method just discussed, but it can produce some great results, especially when working in high-contrast locations.
The HDR setting has a couple of limitations. First, unlike with traditional HDR imaging, which depends on using RAW images, you must have your camera’s quality setting set on JPEG. Also, the process uses only two exposures, so the amount of dynamic range captured between shadow and highlight is more limited.
The benefit of using the in-camera HDR is that you can pretty much just shoot like you normally would without having to go through all the hoops of camera settings and tripods (although using a tripod is always a good thing when possible). Also, just because the HDR is happening in the camera doesn’t mean you don’t have some options for changing the look of your processed image. The menu options for HDR allow you to change the amount of smoothing applied. Smoothing controls how the images are blended together and really controls the HDR look of your image (Figure 9.13).
Figure 9.13 For comparison’s sake, I shot the same scene with the in-camera HDR function. Not bad really, but I prefer the quality and control I get from combining three or more raw exposures in dedicated HDR software.
1. Set your camera to a quality setting of JPEG.
2. Press the Menu button, navigate to the Shooting menu, highlight the HDR (high dynamic range) setting, and press OK (A).
3. Change the HDR mode from Off to either On (series) or On (single photo) and press OK. Series will continue to take HDR images until you turn the feature off, whereas the single setting will allow you to take one HDR shot and then the feature will be turned off automatically (B).
4. Select the HDR strength. This is something you will need to experiment with to determine which effect you like the most. You can choose a setting from Low to Extra High. The more contrast in the scene, the higher the value should be. The Auto setting will pick a setting based on what the Matrix meter determines to be appropriate (C).
You can now exit the menu system, compose your shot, and take your HDR photo. You will not hear the camera shutter open and close twice like you normally would when taking two exposures. The camera will, however, take a little longer during the exposure process than you might be used to. Also, after the exposure is made, you will see the word “Job” and the HDR icon flashing in the control panel while the image is being processed. You won’t be able to make any additional exposures until the camera has completed the HDR processing.
If your camera was set to single, you will now be back in regular shooting mode. If you selected series, you can continue shooting HDR images until the feature is turned off in the menu. If you can’t remember which setting you picked, look for the HDR icon in the control panel. It will be displayed whenever the feature is active.
Active D-Lighting
The other option for taming contrast in scenes is Active D-Lighting (ADL). This feature operates in a similar fashion to HDR except that it uses a single frame and makes adjustments to the light and dark areas of the images at the time of exposure. The main goal of Active D-Lighting is to help you retain details in the shadows and highlights. It does this by lowering the exposure to protect the highlight areas and amplifying the shadows with in-camera processing (Figure 9.14). Here’s that same scene with Active D-Lighting turned off (Figure 9.15). The difference is subtle, but the first image is lower contrast due to the darker highlights and brighter shadows.
Figure 9.14 The Active D-Lighting feature can reduce the contrast and preserve details in shadows and highlights.
Figure 9.15 With Active D-Lighting turned off, the highlights are brighter and shadows are darker.
Active D-Lighting has five settings to choose from, ranging from Low to Extra High along with an Auto option. The key to using Active D-Lighting is to make sure you are using the Matrix metering mode. Another thing to consider when shooting with Active D-Lighting is the quality setting for the camera. If you are shooting in JPEG, the effect will be applied to the image in the camera as part of the standard processing. If you are shooting in raw mode, the effect will appear to be applied when looking at your LCD monitor but will not necessarily be displayed when you open your image in an image-processing program. That’s because raw files, by definition, have no processing applied to them. You can, however, reapply the D-Lighting effect by opening your images in the Nikon ViewNX 2 software that came with your camera.
Setting up for Active D-Lighting
1. Press the Menu button and select Active D-Lighting in the Shooting menu. Press OK (A).
2. Select the desired amount of D-Lighting and press OK (B).
When ADL is selected in the menu, you should see the ADL icon in the rear LCD panel after pressing the info button. This will stay active until you turn Active D-Lighting off in the menu.
ADL Bracketing
If you aren’t sure which ADL setting is right for the subject you are photographing, you can set up your camera to bracket the ADL settings. Bracketing will switch between the settings automatically so that you don’t need to go back to the menu each time you want to try a different setting. See page 212 of the electronic user’s manual to learn more.
Shooting Panoramas
If you have ever visited the Grand Canyon, you know just how large and wide open it truly is—so much so that it would be difficult to capture its splendor in just one frame. The same can be said for a mountain range, or a cityscape, or any extremely wide vista.
The multiple-image panorama
To shoot a true panorama, you need to use either a special panorama camera that shoots a very wide frame or the following method, which requires the combining of multiple frames.
The multiple-image pano, as photographers often call a panoramic, has gained in popularity in the past few years; this is principally due to advances in image-processing software. Many software options are available now that will take multiple images, align them, and then “stitch” them into a single panoramic image. The real key to shooting a multiple-image pano is to overlap your shots by about 30 percent from one frame to the next (Figure 9.16). It is possible to handhold the camera while capturing your images, but the best method for capturing great panoramic images is to use a tripod.
Figure 9.16 Here you see the makings of a panorama, with nine shots overlapping by about 30 percent from frame to frame.
Now that you have your series of overlapping images, you can import them into your image-processing software to stitch them together and create a single panoramic image (Figure 9.17).
Figure 9.17 I used Adobe Photoshop to combine all of the exposures into one large panoramic image of one of the barns in Grand Teton National Park.
Shooting properly for a multiple-image panorama
1. Mount your camera on your tripod and make sure it is level.
2. In Aperture Priority mode, use a very small aperture for the greatest depth of field. Take a meter reading of a bright part of the scene, and make note of it.
3. Now change your camera to Manual mode (M), and dial in the aperture and shutter speed that you obtained in the previous step.
4. Set your lens to manual focus, and then focus it for the area of interest using the HFD method of finding a point one-third of the way into the scene. (If you use the autofocus, you risk getting different points of focus from image to image, which will make the image stitching more difficult for the software.)
5. While carefully panning your camera, shoot your images to cover the entire area of the scene from one end to the other, leaving a 30 percent overlap from one frame to the next. The final step would involve using your favorite imaging software to take all of the photographs and combine them into a single panoramic image.
Shooting with the Interval Timer
One of the coolest underutilized features in most Nikon cameras is the interval timer (found under the Shooting menu). This is changing with the rising popularity of time-lapse photography, where a series of photos are taken over a set period of time, at set intervals between each exposure, and then made into a video in post-processing (we’ll look at the D750’s built-in time-lapse video function in Chapter 10). While creating time-lapse videos is indeed fun, the interval timer can be a practical helper for shooting stills too. I like to use it when shooting wildlife (with birds in particular) or to photograph myself working with my bees (as in that photo back in Chapter 2). That way I can set up the camera to shoot a subject, then trigger it to run over some period of time and walk away. The camera dutifully fires away, and then at the end I grab the card and enjoy seeing what my camera saw while I was away (Figure 9.18). I use this same technique to create star trail photos, where a series of photos are later combined into a single photo showing the earth’s rotation as the movement of the stars (Figure 9.19). Check out pages 222 to 228 in the electronic user’s manual for more info.
Figure 9.18 Out of about 100 photos, I found two that I really liked.
Figure 9.19 This is the result of 87 30-second exposures combined into a single photo using a program called StarStax.
Macro Photography
Put simply, macro photography is close-up photography. Depending on the lens or lenses that you got with your camera, you may have the perfect tool for macro work. Some lenses are made to shoot in a macro mode, but you don’t have to feel left out if you don’t have one of those. Check the spec sheet that came with your lens to see what the minimum focusing distance is for your lens.
If you have a zoom, you should work with the lens at its longest focal length. Also, work with a tripod because handholding will make focusing difficult. The easiest way to make sure that your focus is precisely where you want it to be is to use Manual focus mode.
Since I am recommending a tripod for your macro work, I will also recommend using Aperture Priority mode so that you can achieve differing levels of depth of field. Long lenses at close range can make for some very shallow depth of field, so you will need to work with apertures that are probably much smaller than you might normally use. If you are shooting outside, try shading the subject from direct sunlight by using some sort of diffusion material, such as a white sheet or a diffusion panel (see Chapter 11). By diffusing the light, you will see much greater detail because you will have a lower contrast ratio (softer shadows), and detail is often what macro photography is all about (Figure 9.20).
Figure 9.20 Flowers, even dried ones, provide a great opportunity for moving in close and shooting macros.
Chapter 9 Assignments
Many of the techniques covered in this chapter are specific to certain shooting situations that may not come about very often. This is even more reason to practice them so that when the situation does present itself you will be ready.
Adding some drama to the end of the day
Most sunset photos don’t reflect what the photographer saw because they didn’t meter correctly for them. The next time you see a colorful sunset, pull out your camera and take a meter reading from the sky and then one without and see what a difference it makes.
Making your exposure spot-on
Using the Spot meter mode can give accurate results but only when pointed at something that has a middle tone. Try adding something gray to the scene and taking a reading off it. Now switch back to your regular meter mode and see if the exposure isn’t slightly different.
Using the Bulb setting to capture the moment
This is definitely one of those settings that you won’t use often, but it’s pretty handy when you need it. If you have the opportunity to shoot a fireworks display or a distant storm, try setting the camera to Bulb and then play with some long exposures to capture just the moments that you want.
Tame the contrast with Active D-Lighting
This is one of the easiest ways available for you to capture a large dynamic range in a single click. I am often amazed at how well this setting can handle extremely contrasty scenes. But it can be overused in some scenarios, so it’s important to know how the different levels of ADL work. The easiest way to do this is by using the ADL bracket setting. Follow the instructions earlier in the chapter to set up ADL bracketing, then take some five-shot brackets and compare the results in the LCD monitor.
Shoot HDR like a pro
If you really want to jump into the HDR pool, you will need to shoot multiple exposures and then download a program to process the photos. To start with, find an interesting subject, put your camera on a tripod, and frame your photo. Then set your ISO low, put your camera in Aperture Priority and select an aperture setting, and then set your camera to a five-shot bracket sequence that goes from two stops under to two stops over. Next, download a trial program like HDRsoft’s Photomatix Pro (www.hdrsoft.com) and start getting creative with your HDR photography.
Move in for a close-up
Macro photography is best practiced on stationary subjects, which is why I like flowers. If you have a zoom lens, check the minimum focusing distance and then try to get right to that spot to squeeze the most from your subject. Experiment with using a diffused light source to minimize shadows.
Share your results with the book’s Flickr group!
Join the group here: www.flickr.com/groups/nikond750_fromsnapshotstogreatshots