Digital SLR Photography

“Ilove thisshot.Iwouldbemorethanhappytohave takenitmyself.Shootingtheboathead-onwasdefinitelyawisemove onDavid’spart.Notonlydoesitmakethecompositionmoregraphicandsymmetrical,butthecloudsalsoappeartoberadiatingoutfrombehindtheboat.We didn’trealisethatatthetime,asthecloudswere movingsosl owly,butafour-minuteexposurehascapturedtheeffectreallywell.Diditneedmoremovement?Inretrospect,maybeyes,butDavidshouldbeverypleasedwithhiseffort,bothbehindthecameraandinfrontofthecomputer.”``````CHALLENGE 1:CAPTURE AdyNAmiCsENsEof moTioNThe drive from David’s hometo Dungenesstook aroundan hour, and duri ng that timewe discussed the ch allenges for the day.The worksh op had been planned weeks inadvance so all we could do was hope thatthe weather would be conduciv e to dramaticblack & white images. Bright sunshi ne anda blue sky wouldn’t ha ve worked. A secondconcer n was that neither of us had been toDungenessfor a while, an d in that time weheard re ports of damage to the sheds andboats. Fortunately, our luck was in on bothcounts. Heavy brokencloud and a slightbreeze greeted us, and as soon as we arrivedI could see that nothing much had ch anged.One or two sheds and boats were a littleworse for we ar, but werestill viable subjects.For the first challenge I asked David toproduce a long exposure black & white imagefeat uring a fishing boat. There wereplentytochoose fr om, scattered alon g the extensiveshin gle bank on which Dungeness stands,so we headed out on foot towards them.The first couple of boats didn ’t work due totheir position and condition, but glan cingovertowards the sea, we spotted a small boatsitting highon the shin gle with lo tsof spacearoundit – idealfor a simple, but striki ng,composition. The sky behind the boat alsolooked idealfor a long exposure, providedDavid could re cord enough movement in theclouds, which were moving, but ve ryslowly.Without hesitation, David set up his gearand got to work. He chose a low tripodposition to isolate the boat agains t the skyand zoomed back to include lots of the skyand capture a feeling of wide, emptyspace.I recommended that David use a 0.6NDgrad to record plentyof detail in the sky and,havi ng alig ned the grad, he shot a test imageto help him calculate the exposure he’dneed to use with an extreme ND filter on hislens. Despite the cl oud, what the test shottold us was that ligh t levels werestill quitehigh, and even with his lens stopped downto f/16 and at ISO 100, he could only manage``````a 30 second exposure with a Lee Filters BigStopper(ten-stop ND) on his lens. Stoppingdownto f/22 would extend that exposureto 60 seconds, but it still wouldn’t be longenough to capture motion in thos e cl ouds,as they were movingtoo slowly.Fortunately, I had a Lee Filters SuperStopper with me, which re duces theexposure by amassive 15 stops. Basing ourcalculationson 30 seconds at f/16 for theBig Stopper, adding another five stops offiltration gave David 16 minutes at f/16!That was too long, so I suggested he openthe aperture by astop to f/11, set the ISO to200, and expose for four minutes. Settingthe aperture to f/8 and leaving the ISO at``````100 would have worked too, but Davidneededto record enough depth-of-field,so leaving the aperture atf/11 madesense.Armedwith th at information, Davidset his camera to Bulb, slotted the SuperStopperinto his filter holderand firedthe shutter via a remote release. Nothinghappened. He'dforgotten to set the focusto manual, so the camera was hunting forautofocus. I had to laugh,because I makethe same mistakes al l the time!With th e hiccups sorted, David madehisfour-minute exposure. Whil e waiting for thefour minutes to passDavid checked out thefishing boat from head-on and decided thathe preferred the composition, with th e boatplaced centrally at the bottom of the frame.Looking at the way the cl ouds weremoving,we both agreed that he’dget a better sky byshooting headon.This decision proved to be the righ t one –as soon as the image appeared on the LCDscreen we knew itwas a winner. David’sonly concer n was that the histogram couldbe a bit further to the righ t, so he openedthe aperture by1/3 stop and madeanotherexposure. This one was spot-on!``````1``````1)Davidvisualisesthecompositionofhisshotusinghisfingersto framethecomposition.2)Checkingtheimagewithaloupehelpskeeplightoff thepreviewscreen.3)We bothagreethattheshot’slookingreallystrong.4)David’sinitialshotlooksgoodbuthedecidesahead-oncompositionwillbebetter.CHALLENGE1Proverdict54 Digital slr PhotographyNove mber2016ThePhotoWorkshop2 3``````4