Nature's Image Photography Workshop
Smoky Mountains
April 2009
This was our 5th Nature's Image workshop and, as expected, we were on the go the whole time. We are talking about getting out before sunrise and not quitting until after sunset with only short mid-day breaks for meals and some classroom time. Bill and Linda Lane put together what could be described as a "photo tour" which means they get us to great locations when the light is best which maximizes a participants time taking pictures. Instruction, for the most part, takes place in the field with camera in hand. Frankly, this is exactly what we have come to expect in a workshop and have used this Nature's Image Workshop characteristic when comparing experiences at workshops conducted by other photographers.
This was our first time in the Gatlinburg Tennessee area and we were taken aback by the traffic and shear numbers of people in the area. Thank goodness Bill and Linda knew their way around all of this which helped us get to what we came to do which was take pictures.
We brought along some new stuff to play with....
For Kathy, it was a 1st generation Nikon 60mm macro lens I bought on eBay. She is good at macro work, especially flowers, and was looking forward to trying the lens on some wild flowers which the Gatlinburg area is famous for.
For me, it was a Tokina 10-17mm Fisheye lens I purchased after "test driving" one that my son has. This lens turned out to be just plain FUN. In addition, my son made an "L" Bracket for me that I was eager to try. Sadly, it was a little to tight for my older model ball head so using it had to wait.
Between us we took about 500 images and learned a lot in the process.
Kathy started seeing the positive effect f-stops have on depth of field when taking macros with the 60mm lens. In addition, she noticed how the lens provides a nice smooth out of focus background to the images.
For me it was fooling with the fisheye lens and how the 180 degree field of view really draws in light making it necessary to adjust exposure accordingly. I also learned that the Nikon D300 tends to overexpose reds so I found myself looking at histograms for each channel instead of just the overall. In addition I was cognizant of depth of field when composing a scenic with foreground detail and put my graduated neutral density filters into use.
Samples of the 500+ images we took can be found here.....
Click on Kathy's picture to
see her images....
Click on Joe's picture to see
his images....
| New April 2009 |