Many years ago, I was on Round Island in Alaska co-leading a Photo Safaris trip with Art Wolfe. His photographic status as a young rising star was rapidly accelerating at that time and he was just getting started with international travel to expand his image file. One evening we were sitting around with Erwin and Peggy Bauer and several other avid photographers who were all participants on that walrus shoot. We were talking about the way we approached a location when we were going to photograph it for the first time.
Art said that although he did his homework to see what other photographers had done in a particular area, it was the surprise elements of a location—the images he hadn’t attempted to pre-visualize—that often offered the more interesting and satisfying results in his photography. He was constantly on the lookout for those opportunities—and it was obvious he was very good at finding them.
Early in my own photo career, the only thing I was interested in “shooting” was wildlife. It was extremely rare for me to ever have a lens on my camera that was shorter than a 300mm. Twenty years later, that is still pretty much the case. But Art’s words stuck with me, and I’m still often surprised by the beautiful tight landscape images that I have been able to pull out of a location using “big glass” when I least expected them. Often, those photos are far superior to the shots of my target wildlife species.
Composing an image of an isolated section of a landscape with a telephoto is relatively easy. You identify the graphically strongest portion of a fairly distant scene, an area with interesting lines and/or artistic curves, and photographically grab it with your big lens. The simple designs that can be obtained with the telephoto are usually far less complicated to achieve, as compared with setting up a shot and organizing all of the scenic elements when using a wide-angle lens or panorama camera. With a telephoto you isolate an evocative section of the landscape to represent the whole. Think of telephoto landscapes as haiku, in contrast to the epic poem of the wide-angle.
Very often, a telephoto landscape is most eye-catching when the sun is low and the light is sweet. This creates challenging field conditions with long telephotos from 300 to 600mm (or greater) due to problems with slower shutter speeds and camera vibration. A rock-solid tripod is a major component of alleviating this problem. The camera is programmed at an ISO setting of 800 or higher and vibration reduction turned on (depending on the lens). A cable or electronic release for the shutter is an absolute necessity. Mirror lock-up is also very useful to eliminate vibration.
But as so often happens, the wind may be high and, depending on the light, the necessary shutter speed may be extremely slow. Under these conditions your telephoto captures the wind like a billowing sail and it shudders continually. In wind, a big lens on an extended tripod with a cable/electronic release and a slow shutter speed is a virtually hopeless combination. It gets even worse if a polarizing filter is necessary for image enhancement—losing even more speed in the process.
There are some remedies to the wind/low light challenge that involve using a second tripod or a monopod under the camera body—in addition to the usual tripod attached to the lens tripod collar—to increase stability. But, in practicality, no one is going to intentionally wander around for any significant distance carrying a second tripod—and running back to the car usually means the good light is over before you return to set up this awkward contraption.
After many years of wasting rolls and rolls of film attempting to shoot first-light or last-light landscape images with a big telephoto, particularly in blustery conditions, I’ve come up with my own solution to maximizing sharpness with my digital gear. Along with careful technique, I shoot lots of frames on my CompactFlash card to ensure at least one sharp frame—and one good one is all it takes. This is especially true when shooting at shutter speeds around 1/30th of a second or slower with big lenses (from a 300mm to as much as a 600mm with a 1.4X teleconverter).
To maximize image sharpness I collapse the tripod legs to make the tripod as low and steady as I can physically manage. The legs are much stouter in this configuration and wind vibration is considerably reduced. As a result, with the tripod so compact, I have to scrunch myself up like a contortionist to be able to look through the viewfinder. (Then I need a partner to unfold me when I want to stand up again!)
The next important step is to remove the lens hood and any other unnecessary wind-catchers like camera straps. After looking at my histogram, I set my camera motor drive on “continuous-high” speed.
Operating in windy conditions is a strictly “hands-on” proposition so a cable release is useless—as is mirror lock-up. In order to stabilize the camera as much as possible I press my forehead into the camera body (while still being able to look through the viewfinder) and exert as much downward pressure on the lens as I can—directly over the center of the tripod—with my left arm. Then, using my right hand as another stabilizing influence, while also releasing the shutter, I use the motor drive to fire about half a dozen frames in a rapid burst. I have repeatedly found I get more sharp frames from this method than if I slowly squeeze shots off a frame at a time. You will still wind up deleting a lot of soft frames.
I want to point out that this is not my preferred method of shooting under less trying situations when there is no wind. Under “good” conditions I always use the cable/electronic release and the mirror lock-up, and shoot one frame at a time, waiting for vibration to stop between each frame.
Here’s one final note on technique. In many cases poor atmospheric conditions can seriously diminish the beauty of an image, even with good light. This is particularly true when shooting distant telephoto landscapes through a lot of “atmosphere.” Dust, pollution, haze and heat waves can render the nicest image soft, dull and useless. If time permits, examining the scene through a polarizing filter may cut the haze and saturate colors—although its use causes the loss of 2 stops of light, necessitating a much slower shutter speed. But often the ability to attain a clear, spectacular and unanticipated telephoto landscape is a great reward for the polarizer/speed trade-off!
John Shaw and I were on the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska on a “busman’s holiday” shooting bald eagles. Late one afternoon, John was working a bald eagle perched against the setting sun. It was not a “two-man” photo opportunity, as the bird would probably flush if two people approached. I went to find another shot.
It was last light of the day when I noticed an angular snowcapped peak light up across the inlet. The wind was howling. Using a “wide-open” 500mm lens and 1.4X teleconverter, plus a polarizer, I was able to fire off a number of shots of the white mountain at 1/15th of a second using the above technique. I was happy with that opportunity. A few minutes later I looked again and—to my surprise—I saw the mountain turn a bright pink against a gunmetal-colored sky. Even at 1/4th of a second, most of the shots in that sequence were tack sharp.
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