October 2007   Newsletter Links

Upcoming:  Photo Workshops and Photos Safaris
The Bottom Line:  Understanding Hyperfocal Distance
Photoshop Tricks:  Converting Images to Black and White
Image Gallery:  Yellowstone Wildlife
Contact Information
Newsletter Archives
 

     Thanks for being patient with me these past few months.  My spring through early fall shoots have centered around Yellowstone National Park, through the Tetons, and throughout the mountains of Northern Utah.  My trips to Yellowstone have been some of the most productive I've ever had.  I've photographed this great park for more than 20 years and only this summer, after more than 20 previous summers - have I had the opportunity to photograph grizzly cubs at length.

     I've photographed hundreds of bears over the years - blacks and grizzlies alike.  Many times I've been relatively close to cubs only to be foiled by high grass, large sagebrush, dim light, lousy weather, a protective mother sow, or a dedicated ranger.  Once I was photographing a sow black bear with twin cubs when one cub charged towards the road near Tower, in Yellowstone, and climbed a small pine tree.  Stuck with a 500mm lens and a cub barely 20 feet away, I couldn't reposition quick enough to take advantage of the situation before being moved back to a safer distance by a ranger.  The images I got were face shots - hardly identifiable as a black bear - actually, it kind of looked like a badger in a tree.

     Another time I ran into a sow grizzly and yearling cub along the Yellowstone River in Hayden Valley.  Shooting directly across the river at about 60 yards, the sow and cub were just beginning to move out of the broken pines and into the open when a pack of gray wolves suddenly appeared approaching the bears from the north.  After quickly switching to the wolves and capturing several dozen great images - I turned back to the grizzlies only to find them hiding among several downed pine trees.  When the wolves had passed out of range the bears high-tailed it directly away from me and into the deep forest - another lost opportunity.  Many of the wolf images are in my website wolf gallery, located at:

Gray Wolves Gallery

     But this time the sow grizzly and cubs cooperated.  On the mornings of July 1st and July 2nd, at sunrise, I came across a beautiful grizzly sow with twin cubs above the road between Tower and Dunraven Pass, just before the big curve that leads over the ridge and on to the pass.  It was a crystal clear morning, not a cloud in the sky and not many vehicles on the road at that time - about 6am.  The park had seen drenching spring rains and the deep green grass and swath of wildflowers provided a nourishing buffet of flora for the bears to browse through.  The sow, almost always between the small cubs and the road, proved to be unfazed by the few photographers and tourists.  She crossed the road, then crossed back a number of times each morning - before finally wandering down the steep mountainside and into the pine forests below.  In perfect light, under perfect conditions - I ran into the calmest grizzly sow in the park and did my best to take advantage of this unique opportunity.  Check out the images in the Image Gallery (below), and on my website at:

Grizzly Bear Gallery

     In total I spent about 2 hours with this grizzly sow and cubs over those two mornings - an amazing experience that I had waited decades to have.  But like all bear photography - there was a risk, even very close to the road.  Back in May I had photographed a den of coyote pups and their parents, along with a number of other photographers near the Blacktail Plateau between Roosevelt and Mammoth.  One of those photographers I shot with that morning was only a day away from being mauled by a grizzly sow in Hayden Valley.  Two days before I had seen a sow grizzly and single yearling cub about 400 yards west of the road as it snakes along the Yellowstone River.  After getting my equipment ready and just about heading out - I changed my mind and decided the situation would be too dangerous to pursue.  The bears were off the road, heading slowly away, and the rolling hills would prevent me from maintaining a constant visual of the bears as I approached.  Park rules also prohibit hiking after bears.  Two days later this other photographer spotted those same bears at nearly the same location - and choose to pursue them.  For the second time in ten years he was mauled by a grizzly sow in a national park, the previous mauling being in Glacier National Park.  He pushed a dangerous situation and paid a huge price for it.  There is no doubt in my mind that the National Park Service will seek action against him as well.

     Anybody who has shot with me knows that I'm not adverse to shooting in dangerous situations.  I guess as I look back on this I know I made the right choice not to pursue a sow and cub at distance away from the road.  I don't know if this photographer ignored the physical signs a grizzly exhibits when its getting stressed - such as bow-legged walking, huffing, clicking its teeth, raising the hair on its neck, or just simply walking away.  My sow and cubs moved closer to the road and never exhibited a single sign of stress or aggressiveness.  Her cubs stayed close and never wandered close to the road without her.  In that situation it was safe to shoot her at the close distances I did, sometimes only 20 yards away, as she was moving parallel to the road, both above and below it.  When she was ready to cross the road she moved very slowly towards it, giving the humans a chance to step back and give her the space she needed to safely cross.

     What a spring and summer!  Get out often, get out early and stay safe.  I hope this helps wet your appetite to get out and do some shooting of your own.  There are always new places to see and new experiences to enjoy just around the corner or over the next hill.  BRP

Upcoming:  Photo Workshops and Photo Safaris

The Bottom Line:  Understanding Hyperfocal Distance

     This is a complex, yet important principle in landscape photography.  I think its best to start with an example. 

            When Joe Blow goes to the Grand Canyon and is about to shoot an image of the canyon, what does he and millions of others focus on?  Think about it……. They will focus at infinity because the canyon stretches out before them for miles.  And they will widen their zoom lens to say, a 24mm wide setting to take it all in; we all have one of those in our camera bag.  Also, being in the P auto mode – full program mode – the camera will choose an intermediate F-stop for them, say F8 for this example.  They shoot the image.  Nice shot Joe Blow.  The Depth of Field (DOF) chart says that everything from 24 feet to infinity will be in focus.  Is that good or bad?  and is it important?       

     Joe Blow's photograph just left all the colorful bushes, rocks, flowers and foreground details out of focus.  When you see a coffee table book photograph where this small cluster of flowers in the foreground maybe three or four feet in front of the camera is tack sharp – and the mountains miles away are also tack sharp, how do they do it?  People guess that the better image was simply taken at F22 to gain more DOF.  You would be partially correct – at F22 the DOF improves to 8’6” - but we are still shooting blurry foreground flowers.  How do they do it?  This is how.

     The HYPERFOCAL DISTANCE is the minimum focusing distance that will still include INFINITY (4) in the depth-of-field.  Using that same 24mm lens at F22 and focusing at the Hyperfocal Distance (not at infinity) for that lens and F-stop – which is 8 feet 6 inches, everything from 4 feet 3 inches to Infinity will now be in focus.  What! We just added nearly 20 feet of DOF to Joe’s original photograph of the Grand Canyon and an additional 4 feet 3 inches beyond that from just shooting at F22.  Wow…….that’s how they do it!  There is a great website where you can download a free program that will calculate DOF and Hyperfocal Distances and create a graphic of it to use in the field.  I simply carry a laminated card in my camera bag that shows the Hyperfocal Distance for each lens I own (and its range of zoom) at F22.   The website is: www.dofmaster.com .   This is a handy program that will calculate these figures using any lens and any combination of F-stops.  Also, you don’t need to download the program if you don’t want – you can figure the hyperfocal distances right on your screen and just write them down like I did.  My advice is to never leave home without it.

     There are two small issues to remember in using the hyperfocal distance to shoot landscapes.  First, how do you focus at 8’6”?  Well you can carry a small tape measure and use it to focus as a distance aid or you can guess.  Second, once you focus at 8’6” the background looks blurry in the viewfinder. You must learn to NOT refocus.  Remember that the bright viewfinder is due to the lens not stopping down until it actually shoots the image.  Just turn off the auto-focus on the lens barrel and shoot the image – trust me, it won’t be out-of-focus when you view it.  Of course, you can always push the Preview Button on the camera body which will stop down the lens so you can see the DOF, though it will be much darker in the viewfinder and more difficult to see.  You can also use one of the individual focusing grid spots to focus in the foreground at the appropriate distance - this allows you to leave the auto-focus on.

This medium-format image was shot using the Hyperfocal Distance Chart.  The bush at the bottom right was at the proper Distance as shown on the Hyperfocal Distance Chart - and it was used as my focusing guide.
This digital is another "small" scenic that I applied the same DOF Rules to.  The leaves at the bottom, middle of the image were at the correct distance to apply the Hyperfocal Distance Chart guidelines.
The leaves at left were at the proper distance to apply the Hyperfocal Distance Chart guidelines to.  Everything is tact sharp from the foreground to the more distant background.  I used the left most focusing grid and left the auto-focus on.

     There are a number of ways to take a colorful digital image and create a gorgeous black-and-white image.  While many people simply desaturate the image, I think a better method is to use the Channel Mixer to create and tweak the intensity of a BW Image.  The steps are easy:

     1.  Create a second layer of the background image by hitting Control-J (Windows)

     2.  Go to Image/Adjustments/Channel Mixer and the Channel Mixer menu appears.

     3.  In the Channel Mixer menu at the bottom click on Monochrome.  The image turns black-and-white.  Don't hit the OK button just yet.

     4.  Now adjust the Red, Green, and Blue Channels as follows:  I usually set the Red at 70%, the Green at 16%, and the Blue at 14% - keeping the total percentages at 100%.  These percentages can be adjusted to get the correct tonal ranges in the image.  Now Click OK.

     5.  Now create a third layer of the image by hitting Control-J (Windows) to duplicate the layer.

     6.  Go back under Adjustments and select Brightness/Contrast or you can go to the Curves menu by hitting Control-M to further tweak your image through careful adjustments of these tools.  Flash this layer on and off by clicking the "eye" in the Layers Palette to see if you like the changes from the initial BW settings.  Discard this layer and start over if you don't like it.

     7.  If other areas of your image need special attention - such as dodging and burning, create an Adjustment Layer by going to Layers/Adjustment Layers and selecting either Brightness/Contrast or Curves and make further corrections that enhance the areas you want to work on.  Then in the mask paint in your changes to just that area using a brush with a low opacity setting, like 5-10%

     8.  Again, flash this layer on and off to see the effects versus the original layer.  When you are done, either save the file as a Photoshop PSD file (uncompressed and with all the layers) with a new name (to protect the original file) or collapse the layers and save it as a highest-quality JPEG with a new name.
 

Image Gallery:  Yellowstone Wildlife

Contact Information

Brent Russell Paull
American West Photography
495 South 200 West
Providence, Utah  84332
435-753-3235
brentrpaull@hotmail.com
www.amwestphoto.com