Ride Along Shot- Braustuberl

Greetings, volks. Welcome to Hohenfels Volks, THE place for our place! Another beautiful day left us feeling nice here in Hohenfels.

Today we’re packing up some film and going shooting in Parsberg. That means it’s time for another Ride Along shot.


ISO 400, f/8, 1/50, Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex I, 75mm lens
Ivy at the Braustuberl in Parsberg

I used a mid ‘40s Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex I TLR, with Ilford’s 120 HP5+ film. This film is ISO 400, but can be pushed to 1600, giving it wide exposure latitude. The medium format 120 film combined with the camera’s 1X1 aspect ratio produces biggish 6cmX6cm negatives, which allows for nice print sizes.

I was in Parsberg picking up some film, developer, and color prints from our day trip to Bamberg with some wonderful friends. I made sure to have my camera and look for shots that might make nice prints. The combination of ivy and the rest of the scene set me thinking about how to compose a photo using the elements I desired.

The first step was to visualize what I wanted to see in the final image. I knew I wanted the “Braustuberl” sign and both lanterns. I also wanted to make the ivy a nice part of the scene. How did I want to convey the image? What parts needed detail and how much detail led to the process of putting together the final composition.

Knowing that I wanted detail in the lanterns, enough to show the shadows cast by the lantern tops, meant that they had to be placed about 3 stops down from middle gray. The leaves needed more luminance, so had to be placed about 2 stops down. Remember, when dealing with your shadows, 2 stops down will give you variations in tone, but no texture, and 3 will give you texture and an inkling of nice detail.

Metering off the ivy from about 1 foot away, gave me f/16 at 1/5 second. Metering off the walkway in the lower right for middle gray gave me f/16 at 1/125. Metering from the lanterns gave me ½ at f/16. The final shot was f/8 at 1/50 second. This moved everything up 1 stop above where I wanted it to allow for experimenting with compensating development.

Developing was done for N+1/3 in pre-depleted Tetenal Ultrafin 1+30. The times were 30 seconds of initial inversion agitation, with 4-minute stand cycles followed by 15 seconds inversion agitation. Total developing time was 20 minutes followed by the usual washing, fixing, and a German Jet dry to prevent spots. The film was hung up to dry for about 4 hours before cutting and scanned the next day.

The developing and exposure method allows the developer to deplete rapidly at the highlights, limiting the action there, while allowing more action on the shadow details. It lowers contrast and can give shadows a luminosity that makes them stand out more than just being black.

After scanning, I brought in the levels some, adjusted the curves for a tiny inverted S, and applied sharpening. It was scanned at 4800 DPI and resized to 800x800 at 300 DPI for the web, it won’t print nicely at all at that resolution, but I have the negative and the original file for that. The beauty of the scanning and editing on the computer is that it allows us to revisit our original and edit it multiple ways and times until we are satisfied with the match.

The meter I used was an old Gossen Sixtomat from the 1960s. This meter has a 30-degree field of view, so I had to get close and cup the sides to get the correct reading for the areas that were being measured. The digital camera would have made it easier with its 7-degree field in spot mode. I probably could have gotten the shot in half the time, but doing the old fashioned way was actually quite nice and reinforced what I’ve been learning.

Well, that’s it for this ride. I hope everyone has a great week and gets some photo time!

Don’t forget to post any of your images you’d like to see here at the Hohenfels Volks Facebook page. Of course, commenting on both Facebook and here is always appreciated, too! Don't forget, we're on Google+, too!

Components of Composition: Remembering Our Vision

Greetings, volks. Welcome to Hohenfels Volks, THE place for our place! What a day, all set to be decent, then, WHAM, a huge snowfall!

I hope everyone is doing well. Today we’re going to discuss visualization and envisioning your image. We’re going to deal less with the technical side, and more with our art as an art.

Most people when asked about visualization think about seeing things in their minds. They often associate it with seeing reality. Remember, we can be craftsmen and capture everything purely as it is, or was, and we can be artists. Most of the time we shoot what we see and think would look nice. We don’t really give a lot of thought to our image and the little things like levels, luminosity, luminance, and other small factors.

Thinking about those factors can be technical and very limiting unless you learn to think of them as tools. Starting with your metering, these little factors can be the biggest tools to getter photos that we envisioned.

We all need to slow down sometimes. What better way than doing something we love, our cameras ready and fingers itching to capture something. Stop and look at your scene, what’s it saying? What are you seeing and what are you feeling? How can you create a scene using what you have that will evoke what you wish to convey?

Close your eyes see where you can use your light to bring out a detail, to pluck out something reminiscent of your feeling. Perhaps you wish to convey the wrap around luminous quality of the light, try shooting your spot metered area for 1 stop higher and editing for a slightly lower contrast. Make sure your shadows and highlights will be supported and not blocked or clipped. How about the radiant charm of a sweet little girl running around that party you’re attending? Shoot her at metered + 2 stops, and develop down your levels and mid-tones, while lowering your contrast a small amount. She’ll glow with your vision, in just the way you thought she did!

Here’s a photo to give you an idea. I visualized the sun setting at a very high level and the chapel seeming alive with a lower contrast lighting, which would allow the shadows of the window to remain mysterious. With the chapel part at about metered –1 and the trees at –2, the sun was at about metered +6. Stopping down to the chapel, metered and set at –1 brought the sky down and gave it some detail. By shooting at f/22 the sun becomes part of the image with the flare and star-bursting. During RAW conversion, the levels were crushed in some, the shadows were given +2 and the highlights given –1. With contrast set to –1, the result seems to bring the chapel to life, while keeping the mystery. The trees, with their scattered branches, add to the mystery.


ISO 400, f/22, 1/50, 24mm
Sunset at the Chapel.

Stopping for a moment to think about your intention and visualizing the final image goes a long way toward making it a reality. Take the time to think through your settings, exposure, and edits and your image will come to life.

Here’s wishing you a great Hohenfels week!

Don’t forget to post any of your images you’d like to see here at the Hohenfels Volks Facebook page. Of course, commenting on both Facebook and here is always appreciated, too! Don't forget, we're on Google+, too!

Character...istic

Greetings, volks. Welcome to Hohenfels Volks, THE place for our place! I hope Hohenfels and our friends throughout the area are staying comfortable and warm.

Today we’re going to talk a little bit about the histogram and the characteristic curve portion. We’re going to see how every camera, film, and sensor has a different characteristic curve and how adjustments we make can change that. We’re also going to see those changes on the histogram.

First, we need to define what a histogram is. Simply stated, your histogram is a graphic representation of the range of levels within your image. The higher the graph, the more of that exposure level is present within your image. If you notice, with Canon’s DPP, it’s scaled from about –10 to +4. The starting and ending points vary between different models. The curve you see highlighted is what is generally referred to the characteristic curve, and is dependant on the camera model and sensor. This is analogous with a film’s characteristic curves, and once we see how our adjustments impact it, we can learn to judge our images and exposures.


The characteristic curve for my 7D in an unedited image


Here is the same image, after crushing levels some. Note the minor differences in the curves. Everything past the threshold of the toe will be pure black.

Next, we’re going to learn the basic terms when referring to the curve. At the bottom left, you can see the curve has tapered and become elongated. It loses its vertical travel and starts fading into a horizontal line at about –6. That area is referred to as the “toe,” and runs from –6 to about –2.5. At the upper right, something similar has happened, that area is referred to as the “shoulder,” and runs from about +1.5 to +4. The area in between is the straight-line portion. –6 on the curve is the “threshold” and at about +3 we hit “maximum density.”

The toe area represents the “density” in the negative shadow areas. The greater the density, the more detail can be brought out in your shadows. At maximum density, no further increase can be visually detected in the brightness at those levels. When we are at the threshold and maximum density, our shadows and highlights are clipped or blocked, and there is absolutely no detail in these areas. These equate to about zone 0 for your shadows and zone 10 for your highlights. These zones are slightly off some with digital due to restraints of monitors and printers. We look to get our images from blackest at zone 1 to 2 and whitest at about 8 to 9. This gives us our limitations within which our exposures must be made.

Using the example of my curve, we can see that zone 2 to zone 8, or –3 to +3 are capable of being exposed and retaining detail. Below 2 and above 8 we start to see clipping and blocking creep into the image. This equates to 3 stops under and 3 over middle gray, or what our meter is telling us to set our exposure for.

Understanding these things gives us the tools to adjust our images in a manner consistent with our vision and measurements. When we crush in our curves, as discussed in a prior post, we change our characteristic curve. As you can see from the image showing the levels we adjusted to, our toe and shoulder have gotten shorter. This changes our minimum maximum densities. In effect, it darkens our darks, and whitens our whites. A sort of photographic laundry soap! You’ll also notice that the straight-line portion becomes progressively more vertical. The more vertical this section is, the more contrast in your image.

Combining all these things, we see how easy it is to change our characteristic curve for our camera and sensor, which will change our image quality and exposure. We can easily use these tools in conjunction with our metering and proper exposure to bring our images into our range of visualization.

Film and even our sensors use these curves to determine the ISO or exposure value. That’s how true film speed was determined before the advent of digital. Sensitometry
was used in conjunction with testing different exposures to get the correct speed for setting cameras up. The densities were measured and settings read that allowed a film's ISO to be determined, and therefore exposed properly. Density today doesn’t need to be measured, but knowing how film density relates to your histogram and exposure can increase your ability to visualize and expose accurately.

The next time you’re working on your RAW images, watch what happens as you adjust your exposure and crush in your curves. When you see the characteristic curve change, you’ll know why and how better to read your original and your edits. Have fun playing with it, discovering what you can do, and making your vision concrete.

Enjoy the rest of your week.

Don’t forget to post any of your images you’d like to see here at the Hohenfels Volks Facebook page. Of course, commenting on both Facebook and here is always appreciated, too! Don't forget, we're on Google+, too!

Placing and Falling

Greetings, volks. Welcome to Hohenfels Volks, THE place for our place! Lovely weather is starting to work its way around to us again. Slowly, but it’s coming!

Today we’re going to talk about metering and level placements. First things first, though, you need to know your camera and how to set metering types.

We need to start with our visualization and an assessment of the scene we’re trying to bring to life. Where are the most important details, where do we want to keep detail, and where can we sacrifice some detail to get our image to match our vision?

Once we’ve done our initial assessment, we need to place our camera’s metering mode to spot mode. In spot mode, we’re going to meter several places in AV mode, with our aperture set to the key stop for our ISO. Remember, your key stop is the square root of your ISO. To keep things simple, we can go to ISO 125, f/11, and be set. Having 2 sides of the triangle will help us get our exposure the way we want.

Start by metering the darkest part of the scene. Meter the brightest part of the scene, and move through to the middle levels. Take note of what these shutter speeds are. Find the darkest part in which you want to retain full detail and texture and meter off it. Take note of that setting, perhaps you’re showing 1/60 in your most important dark area, and read your brightest area where you want full detail.

Deciding upon which is more important, based on your vision, highlights or shadows, you need to set your exposure. If you decide the shadows are the most important, then you’d set your exposure 2 stop down. If you metered your darkest detail area at 1/60 at f/11 for ISO 125, you’ll want to shoot 2 stops down. You could go 1/125 at f/16 for maximum DOF, or 1/500 at f/8. Alternatively, you could go 1/250 at f/11, which would be 2 stops down. That will place your shadow details 2 stops below middle gray, or about 18% reflectance. This is about zone 3 in the zone system.

This concept is known as place and fall. By deciding the most important part of your image, you are deciding where you want it exposed. As mentioned in the example above, we’re placing our shadows which we find important into zone 3, letting the other values fall where their new levels will be. The same works in reverse for highlights. By moving our desired highlights up 3 stops, we’re placing them at about zone 8. This gives us a range of exposures in our image that should be about what we visualized.

By placing our levels where we want them, we can minimize our editing time, which means more time shooting! It also gives us a starting place for our previous post on developing for our vision. Try shooting a few scenes in monochrome this way, and then try it in color. You’ll see a change in your image and the way you see and approach a scene and photographing it. You’ll also notice that you have a more vibrant color and tonal range than before.

Exposure is the base of all we do in photography. Even printing an image was traditionally done by exposing the paper to light. Most high quality printing by large firms is still exposure using lasers. Learning the triangle and how to manipulate it, in ways beyond the conventional can make for incredible images. Your vision is the starting point to making it happen!

Here’s hoping you find the right light, the right scene, and have your camera by your side to capture it!

Don’t forget to post any of your images you’d like to see here at the Hohenfels Volks Facebook page. Of course, commenting on both Facebook and here is always appreciated, too! Don't forget, we're on Google+, too!

Digital Density

Greetings, volks. Welcome to Hohenfels Volks, THE place for our place! Let’s start by welcoming a little sanity and quiet, as peace returns to Hohenfels and our surrounds!

The last couple weeks have been trying for everyone, I’m sure, but things are getting back on track.

I went out and shot some film today, and developed 2 rolls this evening. That got me thinking about something that we’ll discuss here today. Before we begin, I should explain that many of our recent references to Ansel Adams are because he was probably the most prolific educational writer on photography. He’s not the only great, but his vast amount of work and writings are the most widely read, studied, and approachable.

Today we’re talking about “Digital Density.” This has nothing to do with being behind the curve on technologies. I’m referring to something that hit me today while developing my film.

When old photographers spoke of their negatives, they spoke in the arcane language of photographers. A negative that was thin was dark in printing and so on. Too dense often leads to blocked, or clipped, highlights. Contrast was a product of your negative’s density. So was tonal range. The density was determined by the thickness of remaining silver, or emulsion, after development. Adams developed for a zone 8 density of 1.25-1.35 for his preferred diffusion enlargers. Density is a logarithmic number, and we’re not going into it here. Generally, zone 8 is where the brightest details can be discerned and identified. Zone 9 results only in very slight variations in tone and 10 is pure white. By exposing to keep the darkest shadow details in zone 3-4 and developing to keep highlight details in zone 8, he was able to make magnificent images.

Most of that is overly simplified, but it gives us a basis for the next part of this post.

First, let’s look at a basic representation of the zone system.

The basic Zones chart

Now, we’re going to convert that to a negative.

When converted to a negative, this is an approximation of the basic zone chart

You can see how things changed. Assuming a pure white light behind the negative strip, you can see that zone 1 is pure white, and so on up the scale. Below are the negative versions of a couple photos, one black and white, and the other color. Looking at them, you can see that the darker parts are actually the lighter areas when the image is returned to original.

Areas with no density, other than film base+fog, will have absolutely no detail, and tone. Areas that are pure black will have no detail and will be pure white. Knowing how the density affects photos, you can do a bit of editing on your image after converting it to negative. In Photoshop, this is done by inverting the image, or CTRL-I. In Lightroom, it’s the same. In Paintshop Pro, it’s under the Image Menu- negative image.

Here are 2 conversions of digital photos, taken with a Canon digital SLR, one in color and one black and white.

This is a color photo converted to negative. Look for the original in my works.


The photo we used in our last post about developing for your vision

Once you’ve done your conversion, you can clone out dust, with greater accuracy if you’re messy with the mouse. Another great thing about this feature is the ability to bring out detail in your highlights. Digital doesn’t deal too awfully well with blown highlights, but you can recover small amounts of detail by converting to a negative of your image. This is great for working with skies and snowy areas. It’s possible to recover some in the shadows, also.

The caveat is that there must be information there, or it will be less effective.

You can also increase your control over your tonal range by performing level and curve adjustments on a negative layer, then inverting it. When working on a color image, be aware, that subtle changes to exposure can be localized to perhaps a small portion by extraction that selection as a layer and converting it a negative. It allows you to expand the tonal range of any color, or the whole image, in ways that can be very impressive. You can also diminish some colorcasts! Colors are inverted in a negative, so keep that in mind, or you’ll end up all abstract and disappointed, unless that’s your vision! It’s almost like working with a large negative.

Using the tools taught to us by those who were taking photos when our folks were kids, we can learn to improve our digital art. Using your vision, seeing both the negative and the print, you can begin to get some awesome stuff going on. Give it a try and see how it works with your vision and your exposures. If it's something you're happy with, post the results, we'd all like to see!

Don’t forget to post any of your images you’d like to see here at the Hohenfels Volks Facebook page. Of course, commenting on both Facebook and here is always appreciated, too! Don't forget, we're on Google+, too!

Editing For Pre-Exposure?

Greetings, volks. Welcome to Hohenfels Volks, THE place for our place! I hope everyone is warm and well, and that you got the shot you wanted today!

Today we’re going to deal with an editing technique based on old film shooting. I know this was supposed to be another Around Hohenfels, but that didn’t quite pan out the way I had planned.

Back in the film days, you couldn’t change film speed mid roll. You also had some interesting things going on. Film often had a wider latitude for exposure errors, especially for overexposure, but even underexposing allowed film to still work out, if you knew how to make it. You could shoot with ISO 200 settings on ISO 100 film, and push the processing for ISO 200, and save the shots. There were several techniques for saving the shot, including push processing, pull processing, and pre-exposing. When shooting RAW format, most conversion applications, like Canon’s DPP, can be used to correct an exposure by up to 2 stops either direction. Using the exposure setting that way, though, you affect the entire image, not just certain areas. Using most image editing programs, you can dodge or burn areas to meet your needs, as well adjust your curves and levels. In fact, most applications have the common dark room tools, which is why they refer to them as a digital dark room.

Rather than discuss those choices at this time, we’ll address pre-exposure. I chose this topic, as most image applications don’t have a feature that allows that directly. Rather, you have to use a round about method to obtain similar results, and that’s what we’ll discuss today. Pre-exposing film allowed the photographer to bring out detail in deep shadows by adjusting them to higher levels or zones. By pre-exposing a hot, then shooting over that pre-exposed frame, light intensity could be raised. If you wish to bring out detail in zone 2 shadows, you could pre-expose for zone 1 or 2, then shoot for a correct overall exposure and get those elusive shadow features. You’d need to take a gray card or translucent plastic/glass, meter it exactly along your image axis, and set your exposure accordingly, then shoot the scene. You could push, pull, or otherwise develop according to your plans, and print the same. We’ll be simulating this technique. I’m going to use this image as an example.


ISO 100, f/5.6, 1/500, 55mm
The Passau Skyline!

First, select your image, and open it in your editor of choice. Whether you use Photoshop, GIMP, or Paintshop Pro, the basic are the same, but your application needs to support layers. Once your image is open, make a new layer, and select your color selection tool. Click on the shadows you wish to open up and increase the details. Before closing, look at the settings or options for that color and increase the values by the desired amount. For this image, I chose the trees in front of the church, which came out to R-7, G-7, B-7, L-7, and doubled them all to 14. This was still in zone 1, digitally speaking, but when combined at the end, allowed for a slight bump in the shadow detail.

With that being done and applied, select your bucket too and flood fill the new layer with that color. You should have something solid, in your selected color or tone. Set you blend mode to screen, and watch the magic start. All your levels will increase except the brightest areas. You will notice a decrease in contrast as well.

Decrease the new layer’s opacity until you have a set of results that are satisfactory. Now, select levels adjustment, and crush in the curves ever so slightly. This will increase your contrast, without removing too much detail from your shadows. You can apply a curves adjustment and a clarify adjustment if you desire. Now you should see something that is pleasing to your eye, and has more detail in the shadows.

In the days of film, you shot for the shadows, to preserve detail. This often meant slightly overexposing your shot, and printing to retain the detail in the highlights. By pre-exposing your film, you had a way to create more detail without giving any up on the other end. Because exposure was cumulative on multiple shots at the same frame, you could add light as needed. The reason for dark areas benefiting most, was that you added light uniformly across the image at the same level, but your exposure of the image was not uniform. Using just quick numbers to demonstrate, at level 2, when you add 2 units you double the level. At your highlights with say 100 units, you add 2 units and the results are almost unnoticeable due to the ratios. This works in digital the same way, when you select screen mode, you only lighten values lower then your selected pre-exposure layer. Although there is some small effect at slightly higher levels, it is less drastic. By varying the opacity of the layer, you can control the effect even more. Adding masking to allow only certain areas to be painted in gives you complete control!

Here is my final image. Not a large change, but enough to bring out some of the detail within the trees. This works best with images without a large amount of bright spots or too much contrast, but this image was useful. This shows you what a little bit of old time darkroom work on today’s technology can accomplish.


Same as above, with pre-exposure.

Well, that’s it for today. Keep shooting, keep seeing the light, and keep your love of our art going with frequent sessions behind the lens! Don’t forget to vote and to get your works in for this week’s theme!

Don’t forget to post any of your images you’d like to see here at the Hohenfels Volks Facebook page. Of course, commenting on both Facebook and here is always appreciated, too! Don't forget, we're on Google+, too!

Reviewing the Basics

Greetings, volks. Welcome to Hohenfels Volks, THE place for our place! Brrr. That’s our word of the day!

Today we’re going to review some of the basics of photography and exposure. This can all be found on our Introduction to Photography page. We should all have a good idea of this stuff, but it always helps to refresh the cup, so to speak.

First, we’ll address our exposure triangle. The triangle consists of 1- ISO or film speed, 2- shutter speed, and 3- aperture. To change exposure, you change any side of the triangle. To keep the same exposure, you have to change at least 2 sides. For instance, we set up on a sunny day at ISO 100, f/16, and 1/100. According to the “sunny 16 rule,” we’re good to go. But we want less DOF, so we need to increase our aperture. We go to f/4 to give us a shallow focus. If we don’t change another side of our triangle, we overexpose and create a mess. We have a 4-stop increase in the amount of light coming in, so we need a four-stop increase in shutter speed or 4-stop decrease in ISO. Since we can’t bring our ISO lower, we need to change our shutter speed to 1/1600. At 1/1600 at f/4, that gives us the same as 1/100 at f/16. If we want to increase our exposure, we can change any 1 side and either decrease our exposure or increase it depending on our new settings. For instance we want to increase our exposure on ISO 100, f/16, 1/100 2 stops, so increasing our aperture to f/8, decreasing our shutter speed to 1/25, or increasing our ISO to 400 will do just that. Remember, when we meter something, or a scene, the meter gives us the exposure for 18% gray, which is zone 5. Knowing this allows us to place the item we meter into different zones or exposure levels.

Next up, we’ll look quickly at depth of field, or DOF. This is a product of our focal length and aperture. The longer our lens’s focal length is, the shallower our DOF. The wider our aperture is, the shallower our DOF. This can be a good way to remove or minimize distractions. A 100mm lens at f/16 has about the same DOF as a 50mm lens at f/4. Focused at 10 feet, both give a DOF running from about 9.17 to 11 feet. Seeing that, you can deduce that a shorter lens has a wider DOF.

Remember, these 2 topics we’ve reviewed go together. By adjusting your aperture for a shallower DOF, you’ll have to change something else to maintain your exposure. If you wish to move into a new zone, you’ll change your DOF if you use your aperture to move zones.

We’ll review composition and inspiration in our next talk. Remember to vote and get your pics in early. I hope you’ll all participate in this week’s theme, solitude. We’re aiming for more votes for our theme, so get involved and let’s enjoy the journey together!

Don’t forget to post any of your images you’d like to see here at the Hohenfels Volks Facebook page. Of course, commenting on both Facebook and here is always appreciated, too! Don't foget, we're on Google+, too!

In the Zone- Zone Focusing

Greetings and welcome to Hohenfels Volks, THE place for our place. I hope you’re ready, Hohenfels, to learn about zone focusing. This is something that can make getting some of those passing moments in the can, as it were, quicker and easier.

First off, let’s explain what zone focusing is. Zone focusing is using a combination of focal length, aperture, and distance to allow for enough depth of field to make a usable print. That’s pretty straight forward, right? Well, there is more to it than that, including knowing your equipment.

Zone focus developed as a way for photographers to focus their equipment, as most older cameras had no viewfinder or way to check your focus. Many of the old time greats used zone focusing to maximize the sharpness and detail in their works. Given the nature of early lenses, high f/stops were often required to get good detail and enough DOF to be worth printing. Remember, sheets of film, and rolls, were costly to purchase, develop, and print, so lots of effort went into taking each shot. Zone focusing grew from the concept and practice of hyperfocal distance, which you use to give you the maximum DOF for each lens focal length. We’ll have more on that in another post.

The technique works best with lenses that have markings on them. A distance scale for focusing opposite an aperture scale with DOF markings as shown in the photo below works best. It’s quicker and easier. Unfortunately, most lenses today are auto-focus, and kit lenses generally don’t have such marking. Higher end lenses do have them, as do pro and manual lenses as a rule.


ISO 200, f/4.5, 1/30, 32mm
Notice the f/stops on the front of the ring. They go out from the diamond marking focal distance, to give you the range, or zone, of acceptable focus.

Referring to the image above, you can see that there is a diamond. That is the distance marker. On the focus ring, there are markers that aren’t shown, that tell you your focal distance. Line up the desired distance, then using the f/stops that radiate out from the diamond, identically on either side, determine your needed aperture and distance. The distance covered will line up with the marks for the desired aperture. It’s that simple, anything in that range will be in sharp enough focus for decent size prints, including 8x10 and 11x14 if your camera has the resolution.

If your lens has a focusing distance scale, much like Canon’s 28-135mm, you can figure out your DOF with a little legwork online. The key when using zone focus, is to turn off your auto-focus. The second factor is to shoot either Aperture Priority or Manual modes only! Any other mode nullifies your efforts!

Know your location, and what’s happening there, and you can figure the ranges you will need. Let’s say for our purposes you’re shooting in a decently lit area at ISO 400 and you need to cover 3 meters and 6 meters, with room to spare. You get you’re framing, that will give you your focal length. You know it’s decently lit and you can get by with f/5.6-f/8. Going with a 55mm focal length, as most kit lenses like to go from 18-55mm, you should be focused at 4 meters for f/5.6 and 3.5 meters for f/8, although 4 meters is adequate, and has the advantage of allowing you to switch over to f/5.6 without losing too much DOF. If your lens doesn’t have a focal distance scale, measure off 4 meters, focus your lens, and mark it. An easy tip for marking your focus, is take 2 fat rubber bands and wrap one around the zoom ring of your lens at the focal length you wish to use, then wrap the other around the focus ring. Mark the one on the zoom ring at the top, focus your camera, then make a mark that lines up with the first mark you made. As time progresses and your lens drifts over the course of events, you always have your focus marked and can return to it in a snap. Then set your aperture and you’re cooking with gas!

A great online DOF calculator that just requires your focal length, camera model, and scale used (feet or meters) is DOF Master's DOF table. They also have some great information on hyperfocal distance and some nifty little software to play with!

If your shooting with a flash, your f/stop will be dictated by the flash when you use manual flash. TTL and E-TTL are great for using flash, but to use it right, you need a sync cable that’s designed for your camera maker or line to get it off camera. You can get a good one that’s about a meter reasonably priced. Add in a Flashbender or Sto-fen to diffuse the light some, and you’re off to the races. This allows you to hand hold your flash off camera and get some directional TTL or E-TTL light in your images that just adds to the quality.

Zone focusing is great for street photography, event photography, candids, and may other things. Try it out in your works and see how it can help you! You can also use it for this week's theme, as it will allow you to appear less obtrusive when shooting work getting done!

Enjoy the rest of your day, and remember to cast your vote for next week’s theme. Get yours in to have a say! Don’t forget to get your pics posted at the Hohenfels Volks Facebook page. Of course, commenting on both Facebook and here is always appreciated, too!

Tech Talking

Greetings, Hohenfels, welcome to Hohenfels Volks, THE place for our place. Here’s hoping your week is off to a good start and Tuesday didn’t turn in to Monday part 2.

Today we’re going to introduce the concept of “Dynamic Range.” If you remember our introduction to the Zone System, there are 11 zones, 0-10. Ansel Adams considered this the full range, zones 1-9 were the dynamic range, and 2-8 the textural range. Zone 2 is the lowest value that retains discernable texture, and zone 8 is the highest value retaining usable texture, and in both cases the values where detail is preserved and recorded.

When we speak of dynamic range today, this still in some ways holds true. Metering from a gray card, it’s how many stops of exposure above and below middle gray that are usable. For instance, the EOS 7D has about 8 stops. Its range consists of 5 stops below gray before clipping to black or solid noise, and about 3 stops above middle before blowing to white. This means it runs from about zone 1 to zone 8, maybe a little higher. Each camera’s range is different; so don’t use one camera’s range to guess another’s. "Dynamic Range" determines the amount of contrast an image can have and how sharply that gets applied. It also can effect how you change the sides on your exposure triangle, based on your intention.

When you know your camera’s range, you can adjust your exposures appropriately. If you wish to increase middle gray, zone 5, to zone 6, you have to know your limits before the higher zones blow out. Taking 5 to 6 brings zone 7 to 8, and anything starting at or above 8 will be blown to solid, textureless white.

A camera’s range often times is limited by the size of the photocells or photosites. These are the individual receptors on the camera sensor. A larger frame sensor will usually have larger photocells, allowing more light to be received and detail retained. There are millions per most of today’s sensors.

Another way to expand your “Dynamic Range” is to always shoot RAW, as your camera records more information. You can add up to a stop and a half shooting RAW. Shooting automatically and in JPEG mode can cost you that latitude in your exposure. Keep that in mind when shooting in very bright or low light conditions.

Well, that about wraps up our discussion. Try to keep that in mind when you’re out capturing the beauty of Hohenfels, our area, and your holidays. The results will amaze you.

On to other things, I’d like to remind all of you to get your votes in and get working on your photos for this week’s theme, “Morning Moments.” I can’t wait to see what you amaze me with!

Shoot for the love, of photography, your subjects, and your art, it really will show! Get shooting and start posting at the Hohenfels Volks Facebook page. Of course, commenting here is always welcome, too!

The Zone System

Welcome back to Hohenfels Volks. This time we’re going to deal with the Zone System.

Ansel Adams and Fred Archer developed the Zone System. Most of us have heard of Ansel Adams, and seen some of his magnificent works. Fred Archer was another big name in the early days of photography, pioneering the use of still photography for motion picture and movie star publicity, and was an early proponent of photography in advertising. Together they developed a system that brought the concept of sensitometry and print density together, allowing for proper exposure of film and prints.

It sounds pretty complicated, and an in depth analysis of it can be, quite technical. We won’t go too deep here, but we will hit upon it more than in our exposure topic. Learning about the basics of the zone system can bring some zing into your work, and help deliver you from the dark ages of auto mode, so here goes!

There are 11 steps, or zones, from black to white. Here is an image I made showing the zones.


The actual full range is smoother, but given the nature of photography, we end up with approximately these zones.

At zone 0, there is no detail and no texture. There is no usable information at all. This is the same at zone x. At zone i and ix, there is limited tone, but not much else in the way of detail. Ansel Adams described the ranges as; full spectrum, zones 0 through x, dynamic range, zones i through ix, and textural range, zones ii through viii. In his book, The Negative, he describes the zones as:

0 Total black in print
I Black with some tonality but no texture
II The first suggestion of texture; the darkest part of the image where texture and detail are required
III Average dark materials and low values showing adequate texture
IV Average dark foliage, dark stone, or landscape shadows
V Middle gray (18% reflectance): clear north sky; dark skin, average weathered wood
VI Average Caucasian skin in sunlight; light stone; shadows on snow in sunlit landscapes
VII Very light skin; shadows in snow with acute side lighting
VIII Whites with texture: textured snow, highlights on Caucasian skin
IX white without texture; glaring snow, may print as pure white
X Pure white: light sources in the picture area and specular highlights

When metering from a source, your camera, or meter, will render the metered object in zone v. Knowing this, you can use your exposure compensation or manual settings to bring the desired part of the scene into the zone you desire.

In practical application, you identify the main element in your scene, then expose for the desired zone, the other elements exposing according the placement of your main element. If you desire an area to be zone v, then the rest of the image exposes for the zones according to what you placed in zone v. It’s fairly straightforward. Take a meter reading from the parts you want in zone 5, and you will end up with something that matches what you visualized.

A great way to see the effects of the Zone System is to look up Ansel Adams on Google, or your favorite search engine. His work is quite addictive, though, so be prepared to spend some time admiring his art. Then look into the Zone System. After a few hits and misses, you’ll be glad that Fred Archer and Ansel Adams collaborated to create such a wonderful tool to make the pursuit of our passion a little easier!

I hope you have a chance to shoot away over the next few days. Hohenfels alone has enough incredible scenery to try out the zone system, not to mention the surrounding communities and towns. Maybe in a church or a field, or even a portrait. Let the magic work for you! Who knows, you may capture a real prizewinner! Get out and give it a try!

How do you plan to use the sone system? Let us see by posting at the Hohenfels Volks Facebook page. you might inspire a convert!

Remember; leave your comments and questions here and on our Facebook pages, also.
Thanks to all of you, have a great day!