Red-Tailed Hawk Photo Shoot Walkthrough

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Infinite Possibilities, Part 5

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Infinite Possibilities, Part 4

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Infinite Possibilities, Part 3

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Infinite Possibilities, Part 2

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Infinite Possibilities, Part 1

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A Few Favorite Nature Photography Books

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The Subject is Not The Subject

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Beyond Good and Bad Subjects

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Apparent Perspective and Focal Length

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Many photographers think focal length affects perspective. They think wide angle lenses exaggerate perspective, and telescopic lenses flatten perspective.

Technically speaking, that's not true. All focal lengths show perspective identically.

Some of you might be thinking, "But I've seen exaggerated perspective with wide angle lenses and flattened perspective with telescopic lenses". So, what's going on?

Here's the way it's actually working:

In order for a wide angle lens and a telephoto lens to exactly fit a subject of the same size (such as a yardstick fitting exactly across the length of the frame), the wide angle lens needs to be closer to the subject than the telephoto lens. If we wanted to exactly fill the frame with a yardstick, using a 24 mm lens on a 35 mm format camera, we'd need to be about 2 feet away. To similarly fill the frame with a yardstick, using a 600 mm lens, we'd need to be a little over 49 feet away.

Now imagine there's a second yardstick, a blue one, two feet behind the first one, which we'll say is yellow. As you photograph the yellow yardstick with the 24 millimeter lens from 2 feet away, the blue yardstick will be 4 feet away – twice the distance from your lens – which means the blue yardstick will look half as large as the yellow one in your picture. By comparison, when photographed with the 600 millimeter lens, the blue yardstick is 51 feet away – about 4% farther away than the yellow yardstick 49 feet away, which means it will look 2% smaller in your picture.

Thus, while all lenses actually show perspective the same way, the way we use lenses, due to their focal lengths, gives us the appearance of different perspectives. The way wide angle lenses usually get used (comparatively closer to subjects) appears to "exaggerate" perspective; the way telephoto lenses usually get used (comparatively farther from subjects) appears to "compress" perspective.

If you used both the 24 mm lens and the 600 mm lens from 49 feet away, and then cropped the 24 mm picture down to where it covered the same area as the 600 mm picture, then compared the two shots side by side, you'd see that the perspective in the two pictures is identical.

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View East of Tioga Pass, Near Yosemite National Park, California

All pictures and text are © Mike Spinak, unless otherwise noted. All pictures shown are available for purchase as fine art prints, and are available for licensed stock use. Telephone: (831) 325-6917.

Tools of the Trade

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Great Egret and Chicks

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Since several people have requested for me to discuss the stories behind making my pictures, here it is for Great Egret and Chicks.

Every year, many dozens of snowy egrets and black crowned night herons, and a handful of great egrets, come around the beginning of March to nest in the palm trees by the duck pond at Palo Alto Baylands (previously the Palo Alto Yacht Harbor). Usually the birds nest in the thick of the trees, where views and photography are blocked by palm fronds. This particular great egret nest was positioned so as to be more accessibly viewed than all the others, with only one frond blocking the nest from view. By standing back far enough, and getting up high enough, it was possible to achieve a mostly clear view of the nest behind the frond.

In early Summer of 2005, the mating pair of egrets which resided upon this nest, having already successfully raised one pair of chicks, had a second clutch of three chicks. By early July, the chicks were big enough to stick their heads above the nest, and mature enough to become more active toward their parents and each other. At this point, I came as often as I could, so as not to miss the spectacle. I'd get up early in the morning, put on my Kinesis pack with my 1,200 mm set-up inside (Canon EOS 1Ds Mark 2, with a Canon 600 mm f/4 IS L lens and a Canon 2x teleconverter), carry my eight foot tripod (Bogen 3051) in one hand and a large footstool in the other, and make the short trek to the nest. I'd set up as far back as I could, with the footstool right up against the eroding muddy edge where the land dropped off into the marsh, behind me. Then I'd extend my tripod to its tallest setting, and mount my camera and lens. Once set up, I'd stand on my tip-toes on the footstool, press my eye to the viewfinder, rest one arm along the top of the lens, and wait for the right moment.

For the right moment to happen, several factors had to come together. There was often morning fog, and – for the shot to work – first the morning fog had to burn off. This could happen anywhere from early morning to mid-afternoon. But, due to the direction of the clearing for viewing the nest, it was only possible to get the shots I sought before noon. After that, the nest was in shadow, with harsh backlighting streaking through the palm fronds. If the sun came out early enough, and the wind didn't sway the nest (or my giant lens) too much, then – in order to get the picture I sought – I'd also need the egrets to be active. Most of the time, the chicks napped, while one parent stood guard, and the other parent was out hunting and fishing. When one parent would come back from the hunt, the other would immediately take off; meanwhile, the chicks would wake up, demand food, and be fed (in a surprisingly brief instant).

When everything came together as I liked, I took this picture of the chicks demanding food from the newly arrived parent.

Thanks for visiting.

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Great Egret and Chicks (Ardea alba), Palo Alto Baylands, California

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The Secret of Stalking Wildlife

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Compositions Rules Problems, 2

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Composition Rules Problems, 1

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Examples of Artistic Communication

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The Language of Art

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Content, Part 1

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A Brief Note About Content and Communication

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First Light, Mono Lake

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Since telling the story of the picture was well received, with First Snow, Yosemite Valley, here's another – the story of First Light, Mono Lake.

This Picture was taken at exactly 5:00 A.M., in May 2004, with a Canon EOS 1Ds camera and a Canon 24-70 millimeter f/2.8 lens.

I had been traveling along Highway 395 for a week with my friend, Steve, photographing the Eastern Sierras in the late season snow. We arrived at Mono Lake the evening prior to this shot, much later than we had intended. This had been my first visit there since I'd taken up photography, and we only had about 10 minutes to reconnoiter the area before dark, to plan for our dawn shot the following morning. I rushed around the South Tufa area in those last few minutes of light, compass in hand to keep track of precisely where the sun would rise.

I found and chose this spot, then left to return in the early morning. It didn't look like much in the pale post-sunset waning light. The formation was spectacular, but it was not complimented by the flat light which made it blend into its surroundings; and the choppy water obscured all traces of reflection. Nonetheless – compass in hand, I envisioned it darkly backlit and sharply contrasting with the bright surrounding water, reflecting the morning sunlight; and I envisioned better reflections as long exposures in the dim early morning smoothed the water's chop.

I wanted it to stand out in stark isolation. I wanted the picture to convey how fantastic and other-worldly this structure is. I wanted the break of day upon these tufa towers to express a sense of the primordial.

I rarely choose to shoot toward the sun on the horizon. The light is usually more interesting facing the direct opposite direction, or a sidelong direction. Further, silhouetted shapes usually have to be very engaging, indeed, for silhouette photos to work. In this case, however, the shape of the tufa formation was certainly strong enough.

When I showed up at the spot during the beginning of morning twilight, I didn't think the conditions looked very promising. I had hoped for more clouds in the sky, perhaps with a nicely detailed pattern, to reflect the colors of the rising sun's light. Nevertheless, I set up my composition according to my plan from the previous evening, and hoped for the best.

In the last few minutes before the sun's first appearance, the few wisps of cloud on the edge of the horizon thickened and drifted closer, greatly improving the photographic potential. As the light developed while I waited for the peak moment, it became clear that the never-the-same-twice light variables of dawn's light were presenting me with a significant photographic opportunity. The character of this dawn's light had three qualities that I found exceptional, and wanted to incorporate into my picture: First, it separated each element of the scene clearly from the other elements, while showing each element as a simplified and very coherent form. Second, it had numerous distinct bars of color and tone, each on top of the next, extending in horizontal strips across the sky. Third, it had every color of the rainbow visible, but in an unusual, un-rainbow-like pattern.

I made some quick compositional readjustments in order to optimally work with these special lighting characteristics, toward my desired expressive ends, and, in excited anticipation, took the shot.

Thanks for reading this.

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First Light, Mono Lake

All pictures and text are © Mike Spinak, unless otherwise noted. All pictures shown are available for purchase as fine art prints, and are available for licensed stock use. Telephone: (831) 325-6917.