How high can you go? How low can you go? At least when the question is ISO...the answer depends on your hardware. In the case of my Nikon D200, high ISO (shown below) means ISO 1600. Low ISO (far below) means ISO 100, so there's a 16 times difference in the amount of light being captured due to the sensitivity...
The fishing trawler was returning to port through the Golden Gate. As the boat headed for the channel of moonlight, I realized that a long time exposure just wouldn't do. I wanted to capture the trawler in the moonlight, not an abstraction of the boat rendered into colored lines of motion over the exposure duration. So I boosted the ISO...
It's remarkable what you can do in post-processing. Compare my original conversion from the RAW of my Yosemite Dreams (far below) with a more recent version (immediately below) I created in Photoshop for a special project. (There's actually no comparison to either version with the far duller look of the original RAW file that appeared when I first looked at...
Walking along the Marin Headlands cliffs between Rodeo Beach and Tennessee Beach, I was struck by the brightness of the breaking waves in the sunset light against the darkness of the shore in shadow: Breaking Wave, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. Depth of field was not an issue. I spot metered for the brightness of the waves,...
The smaller the aperture (opening in the lens), the greater the depth of field (the distance in front and behind a subject that is apparently in focus). The aperture designated by the very small f-stop f/64 provides much greater depth of field than the far larger aperture of f/1.4. Small apertures with great depth of field are used to create...
I shot these two photos of a dahlia to illustrate the impact of aperture on depth of field. The photo immediately below, with a large aperture of f/4, has minimal depth of field, while the photo far below with a small aperture of f/32 has much more depth of field. The flower is in focus in both photos. In the...
A reader of my Photoblog 2.0 writes: "I notice that in more than one of your photos you use high f-stop values. Your results look great, despite what I've read about diffraction problems occurring at such small apertures." The reader is perfactly correct on both counts. I do often use small apertures in my macro photos. For example, the photo...
I've been getting an average of three or four inquiries a week about licensing my photos. This is a good thing. It's fun to interact with people who are enthusiastic about my work (and, hey, even willing to pay to use it!). These inquiries are coming almost entirely from my web presence in Photoblog 2.0 and on Flickr. The size...
There are a number of problems to solve in night photography, including seeing what you are doing, not falling off a cliff in the dark, running out of juice in your batteries, and dealing with digital noise. The payoff, if you can manage all this, includes wonderful star trails, night music, and the digital landscape of the night as human...
In The King of Elfland's Daughter, Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Lord Dunsany, wrote about magic beyond the fields we know. You step out into the ordinary, everyday fields that you see all the time. Maybe these fields are right next door to your house in suburbia. Willy, nilly you may be swept into a magical realm where nothing...
