Over the years I’ve read piles of digital photography books. I wish I had read this one first.
Although Scott’s chapter introductions (which he sells a separate book of) and humor are groan-inducing they’re worth overlooking because this book is a treasure trove of real-world photography tips from someone who is clearly an expert on a whole different level. Most importantly, the book is intentionally written in a style that’s accessible to everyday people rather than professional photographers. It isn’t steeped in obtuse technical jargon and even includes simple and straightforward recipes on “how to get the shot”, from wedding jewelry (put them on a black piano) to cool car pictures (a strip light and small aperture shot from ground level). There’s more practical hands-on knowledge written in these pages than in a dozen mediocre photography books.
What I Learned
I like to think of myself as a mildly competent yet unaccomplished landscape photography who had very little to learn from “beginner” books such as this. Boy howdy was I ever wrong. I ate up every word of it (even the chapters on sports, weddings, and models which I care nothing about) and compiled a massive list of notes. What follows is a small excerpt:
If you want tack sharp shots you need to use a tripod and cable release. Well duh, everyone knows that.
However, for hand-held (which is what I do on trips) they suggested using the self-timer. While typically used for group photos in the pre-selfie era (and here’s hoping there’s a post-selfie era) a timer of just a couple seconds can be used to introduce a delay in taking the photo, reducing the amount of camera shake from pressing the shutter button. As luck would have it my Fuji X-T20 has 2, 5, and 10-second self-timer delays built-in. With a quick remapping of the directional pad buttons I now have quick access to this setting. Unfortunately I don’t have a way to quantify the difference in sharpness objectively but I do feel like my shots from the past few trips have been sharper. It’s one of those simple things that I should have been doing years ago. Oh well, no time like the present.
Speaking of sharper, always apply sharpening both in post and during export. I recall reading in a couple places that people were tired of high-contrast overly-sharpened landscapes so I try to keep things a little more realistic but Scott’s advice (at least for sharpening) is to just go for it. Obviously there’s a limit but you’ll know it when you see it. And you know what? It does look a lot better.
Another sharpening trick for hand-held photographers: use a burst mode and pick the sharpest shot. The problem with this is that I don’t know of any photo editor that has a way to measure the sharpness of a photo so you’re always left to sift through the results by hand. What would be nice is to select a series of photo and have a “keep sharpest” operation. Oh, and if you could measure sharpness then you could plot it over time to see if things were getting better (of course, if you’re using a tripod like a good little photographer then I’d imagine this wouldn’t be an issue).
In lieu of a full tripod, try leaning the camera on a trekking pole. As a person who hates having things in my hands on hikes and consequently doesn’t use trekking poles I figured this wouldn’t work for me but decided to give it a whirl anyway. Result: it didn’t work for me. On the other hand if I’m camped out for some killer sunset shot then yeah, this makes a lot of sense. But for my on-the-go style I just can’t stomach it.
Final sharpening trick: focus on sharpness via high shutter speed over image quality via low ISO. In other words, a blurry picture is always crap even if it’s not grainy whereas you can often get away with some graininess in the full-size photo (or remove it completely when resizing) if it’s sharp. Furthermore, many camera sensors (and particularly those from Fuji) don’t spit out unusably noisy pictures even at ISOs of 6400 or more. This is especially important for me since my camera doesn’t have IBIS.
Instead of looking straight down at flowers try getting down in the dirt and shooting them from the side. Easier said then done but once there’s actually flowers to shoot (still a bit early in the season) I’ll try to put some emphasis on this. Also, carry a spray bottle and apply some fake mist to make the flowers look nicer. I don’t know what the backpacking equivalent of a spray bottle is but – wait, nope, Litesmith has you covered. They’re the best.
For shots of the forest try leafing the ground out (get it?). Never heard anything like this one before but apparently the ground in the forest is often either distracting or uninteresting. For mountains try to get a person into the frame for scale. Ick.
One of the big mistakes that amateurs make is just walking up to to a shot and taking it. Instead, try viewing the scene from multiple positions and angles to see if you can come up with something better or more original than the first thing that pops into view.
Scott recommends deleting bad shots as you go. I definitely have a habit of taking a shot, realizing the horizon or framing is a bit off, and then taking a couple more. And it’s not just a storage thing, apparently deleting crappy shots makes gives you a little ego boost when you’re importing since you don’t have to stare at all the garbage on a big screen.
As a photography heathen I don’t carry multiple memory cards (where would I put the second one?). But if I did, and if I even went a step further and carried them in a memory card case (the horror), I could store the full ones backwards so I’d know which ones were ready to go and which were already used up.
When I did the Camino I always tried to capture the entirety of a building’s exterior because, well, I figured that’s what you were supposed to do. However, Scott suggests trying to take more intimate shots that focus on some detail of the building rather than the whole thing. Also don’t forget to take a picture a sign or plaque containing the name of the building so you can more easily identify it later.
I’ve always had boatloads of trouble taking photos of the moon. If the foreground is exposed properly then the moon is blown out like the sun and if the moon is done properly then the foreground is black. Also, a wide angle lens captures almost none of the moon’s details. It turns out that (just like Milky Way shots) good moon shots are actually multiple exposures but with a twist: the moon itself is actually shot on.a zoom lens and then just pasted onto the main image. Cheaters.
I don’t really fuss with the histogram on the camera any more, I rely on the light meter to do the right thing and if there’s snow or something else mucking things up I just fiddle with the exposure slider. But I do shoot everything in manual, I like the control and I feel like there’s a part of me that still believes this is how “real” photographers shoot. Scott’s advice here is to ignore them both and let the camera do the work for you.
Finally, an old photographer’s trick: if the color is off try converting it to black and white. I don’t do a lot of monochrome but I’ve definitely saved a few pictures with this technique. Also, sometimes the texture of a picture is what’s interesting and the colors just get in the way.
Case Study
I went out to the lake one evening to scout out potential morning shots. After identifying a location with an interesting foreground I returned the next morning and took this:
Not too shabby! Unfortunately my short tripod was too short and couldn’t prevent the tip of the driftwood from breaking the plane of the far shore. I’ve since ordered a replacement and I’m excited to see about retaking this shot!
History
- 2020-03-17: Original version
- 2020-03-28: Added case study section, minor cleanup