John's Photo Stuff

Low Camera Angle

Lake Moraine, Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada

In order to show the transparency of the water and the texture of its surface, I used a low camera angle. In order to include the tops of the mountains, I used a vertical composition.

We saw this giant elk cow with her new baby munching some leaves in the woods. The elk was on Cindi’s side of the car, so I handed my camera over to her. I love this shot. The baby’s head is in the lower right hand corner.

Lake Louise from the Ski Area

Lake Louise, Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada

This photo was taken from the Lake Louise ski area, high up the mountain. The Lake is literally miles away, but you can see canoes on the lake if you click on the image for the large version. I used a 300mm lens and some Photoshop Camera Raw tweaks to reduce the haze and control the contrast.

Using Your iPhone camera

We all take pictures with our phones. Here are some iPhone photo tips for when you need to take a serious photo:

Set “HDR” to on. You will get a regular picture and a “high dynamic range” picture. You can pick the better one and delete the other one.
Decide whether you want flash and set it to on or off rather than auto, which tells the camera to decide.
Touch the screen where you want the focus point AND the exposure to be selected. If you are taking a picture of people, touch a face.
If you hold your finger on the screen, you will see the message, “AE/AF Lock”. That means that the focus and exposure point will not adjust if you recompose the photo.
You will also see a square with a little sun icon beside it. That is an exposure adjustment that will allow you to vary the exposure (up for lighter, down for darker).
Turn on the grid to help you compose and keep the horizon straight (Settings, Photo and Camera, Grid. The grid is in thirds to help you use the “rule of thirds”.
You can use the up/down volume buttons to trigger the shutter of the camera. That will help hold the camera still and maintain the composition.
If you are shooting something in motion or if you or the camera is moving, use burst mode. You just hold the button down, and the camera takes lots of photos very rapidly. The photo library has options to keep the ones you want and automatically delete all the rest.
If it is dim, or dark:
- hold the camera as still as you can, perhaps bracing it on something.
- Set the exposure so the highlights are not overexposed and dark areas look dark.
- Use the up/down volume buttons to take the picture, as discussed above.
If you can’t follow all this from my description, there are tons of videos available, here is one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhGsFzAZ71Y

Lake Moraine

IF you go to Lake Moraine, you will get good photos. All I did was put my 18-35 zoom on my D800, stop down a little for depth of field, and shoot. I composed the shot with the little tree (which is probably about 8 feet tall) in the corner, but any composition would work. If you carry a bid DSLR around, people will approach to take a photo of them. I usually enjoy doing that, but I was a little baffled when a lady handed me a Blackberry. I didn’t know anyone still used those. The display looked kind of square (like a Hasselblad, I guess.)

Canadian Pacific Railroad

The Canadian Pacific Railroad is a big deal in Canada. In this photo, it is following the Bow River Valley through the Canadian Rockies.

One More Sky Picture

The Canadian Rockies are so beautiful that it is hard to take a bad picture. Here I just opened up the aperture and used one stop of negative exposure compensation. I did not enhance this photo in Photoshop except to compress the range of the original raw image a little bit.

Light is the Subject

I went for a walk in the woods. At first I didn’t see anything that would make a good photo. After I got in tune with the woods, I saw possibilities everywhere. Here, the trees are not special, but the interplay of the light in the trees in what interested me. For this kind of a shot to work, the light needs to be diffused a bit so that the shadows are not too deep.

Alpenglow

From My Room in the Banff Springs Fairmont

Alpenglow Tips:

Alpenglow is the last light on the top of a mountain appearing after the sun has set.
The color of the last sunlight is spectacularly yellow, orange and finally red.
Watch for it when you are in the mountains in the evening.
Here, I saw it out my hotel window. I put the camera lens up against the glass to eliminate reflections.
The camera’s meter wants to make the shot look like daylight, so I used a lot of negative exposure compensation.

Mountain Scale

Each tiny green tree is a giant lodgepole pine, towering above the mountainside. Click the picture for a larger image. — Scale of the Mountains (click the image for a large version)

Each tiny green tree in the photo is a giant lodgepole pine towering above the mountainside.