Night Photography with a light cube and the Sony Rx10iv

Red-eyed Leaf Frog, Selva Verde Lodge, Costa Rica

In Costa Rica, you are not allowed to use flash at night when photographing frogs (to avoid damaging their eyes and disrupting their night time routine…in fact flash is discouraged in wildlife photography of any kind in Costa Rica…where it is not actually illegal). In the past I have used a good led flashlight, most recently a Everready daylight balanced flashlight, held beside my camera, with the camera set in “Anti Motion Blur” mode. I have gotten some good shots, but in Anti-motion Blur mode it is not possible to adjust Exposure Compensation and keeping the whites on the Red-eyed Leaf Frogs in check has been difficult. At close distances I often had to turn the flashlight down or shine it slightly off to the side, which pushed my ISO’s higher than they needed to be.

On this year’s Point and Shoot Nature Photography Adventure in Costa Rica, I made two changes to my technique.

1) Inspired by ads for a similar, but much more expensive, device on Facebook, I searched Amazon and bought a little light cube, normally used for shooting video. It mounts in the flash shoe of the Rx10iv and has three levels of adjustable illumination. It was under $30 and came with the flash shoe mount and a set of color filters to change the color temperature. It is roughly daylight balanced as it is.

light cube from Amazon

2) I experimented with “multi-frame-noise-reduction” instead of anti-motion-blur. It does not have the motion processing of AMB but it still takes 3-4 images at a lower ISO and stacks them. Since high ISO noise in an image is random, stacking 3 images tends to ”average out” the noise. I was concerned that if the frog moved…or, more likely, if I moved the camera, the multiple frames would not stack correctly…but in practice it worked better than I expected. MFNR allowed me to dial in the EV for best results and, if I was very careful with motion, to even use Clear Image Zoom. In fact, MFNR did a better job of stacking exposures and I did not have to use much EV compensation at all.

With some Clear Image Zoom, for an extreme close up from about 5 feet.

What I also found was that the daylight balanced light cube did not disturb the frogs at all. With flashlights, the frogs first shut their eyes and then hunker down to make themselves as small as possible. You have to be quick to get a shot before they respond. With the light cube I could work a frog for many moments and it did not even close its eyes, much less hunker down.

If you do any night photography, I highly recommend you check out a light cube. They are available from a number of vendors on Amazon, and are inexpensive. They are also way easier to work with an a separate hand held flashlight, and seem to disturb the subject less. What is not to like?

As a final note, while in Costa Rica I worked with Cope, an artist and naturalist who lives in La Union (Donde Cope). He was using an LED array…also sold for video work…with over 150 leds. It seemed to provide a very non-directional light source, much like natural daylight, and would, I think, be very useful for hummingbirds and other birds in low light. That will be my next experiment. This shot of Honduran White Tent-making Bats up under a leaf under heavy canopy was taken using his hand held Led Array, but they do mount in your flashshoe as well. Note how natural the shadows look.

Honduran White Tent-making Bats.

Sony RX10iv: focus lessons from the field.

I am just back from a month of travel which took me and my trusty RX10iv to southern Portugal, the Dry Tortugas, and the Erie shore of Northern Ohio (for migrant birds). I am still experimenting with focus modes to get the most out this camera in different situations.

In southern Portugal, has in most places in Europe, it is hard to get close to birds. Many of the birds you see are either small and distant, or big and really distant (as in eagles flying high on the thermals). Also, at least where we were, by mid-morning there is significant heat shimmer over the fields and pastures and seashore, which makes any auto-focus mode problematic. In those conditions, I found, after experimenting with several different modes, that wide-frame tracking auto focus worked as well as anything. I was able, when needed, to pin the initial focus point down by touching the screen, but most of the time the camera locked on to the subject within a few seconds and held long enough for a series of shots. Keeping the camera in wide area tracking also allowed me to swing up for birds overhead without changing any settings.

a tight crop of a very distant bird in heat haze…even expanded spot flexible focus could not provide reliable focus under these conditions. Great Bustard, one of most sought after European birds

keeping the camera in wide area tracking auto focus allowed me to swing up for BIF. Iberian Magpie.

In the Dry Tortugas, the birds were somewhat closer, and the light was blindingly bright. Again, I found that, in most cases, wide area tracking auto focus did as well as any other setting, and better than most, at focusing on the bird. It takes some getting used to, as the camera often takes a second to seek and find the most obvious target, but if the target is moving at all, as even in a preening bird, it will lock on. And again, you have the advantage of being able to swing to birds in flight without changing any settings.

wide area tracking auto focus in great light in the Dry Tortugas . Brown Noddies.

Not a perfect shot but impossible without wide area tracking auto focus. Sooty Tern

But then I went to Ohio…the famous Magee Marsh boardwalk for migrating warblers and other singing birds. The birds are close…often less then 10 feet…very small and very active. And they are in dense cover…the trees are beginning to leave out, and there are always twigs and brush in the way. In those conditions, I had to revert to my preferred Expanded Spot Flexible Focus (without any tracking). It was the only way to get on the close, active, and too often particularly hidden, birds. On occasion I even had to switch to DMF and focus through foreground foliage and twigs.

Expanded flexible spot was needed here with the bird in a confused surround. Female Cape May Warbler

DMF allowed me to focus right through obscuring foreground foliage. Not a great shot but effective. Northern Oriole.

By the way, when using DMF, I do it backwards. I use the focus ring to get close to focus and then half press the shutter release to kick in auto focus. Only on really rare occasions do I half press to enlarge the subject and focus completely manually. 

So, the take away is that no one focus mode works best all the time. You have to adapt to the situation. And the Sony RX10iv has the options you need in almost any situation.

This will appear as an added chapter in my Sony RX10iv ebook soon.

Sony RX10iv for Point and Shoot Nature Photography Guide

I have completed my Guide to using the Sony RX10iv for Point and Shoot Nature Photography. You can download it below. 

And, if you enjoy the booklet and would like to contribute to my Sony RX10v fund (if and when), click here: to go to my Coffee page. 🙂 No contribution is necessary, but all contributions are appreciated.

Sony RX10iv: the world’s best Point & Shoot bridge camera!

Rainbow over Alvares, Portugal. Sony RX10iv in-camera HDR. Processed in Polarr.

If you read my review of the Sony RX10iii, published about 20 months ago, you know that I really liked the camera, despite its hefty price and relatively short zoom. Since that review the RX10iii as been to Panama, Honduras twice, South Africa, Cuba, Peru (the Amazon River), Ecuador (the Galapagos), England, and Costa Rica…as well as Florida, New Mexico, California, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Maine. I have carried it so far and so much that the LCD is beginning to show signs of wear and the markings on a few buttons is beginning to wear off. It has been my constant photographic companion and more than gotten the job done wherever I have traveled. It has been a joy to use…a camera I am always happy to pick up…and one that I could be supremely confident of in the field in any situation. Even around home, its Anti-motion Blur mode made photographing family gatherings a joy. What a camera!

So when I say that the Sony RX10iv is everything that the iii was, and considerably more, you will get the idea. The engineers at Sony listened to the feedback over the 18 months of the iii’s run, and attacked every possible weakness, to produce what may well be the greatest compact fixed-zoom camera ever made. I can not imagine a better camera for travel, wildlife, general nature photography, and day to day family photography. It is nothing short of brilliant in any situation you might find yourself in. I thought the RX10iii had been designed specifically for me…and I never complained about any shortcomings, but it is really like the engineers at Sony read my mind, and offered a solution for almost all my niggling doubts about the iii. I am amazed!

Little Owl, Portugal. Sony RX10iv at 600mm and f4. Razor sharp.

First, the body on the iv is identical to the iii, with all the same customizable buttons and the same amazingly sharp 24-600mm equivalent ZEISS Vario Sonnor zoom lens. The lens alone is worth the price of the camera. It is bright, f2.4-f4, and at its sharpest wide open at any zoom length. It really comes into its own in the rainforest or other lowlight situations where a lessor lens would simply not get the shot. Yes, I often wish for more than 600mm, but I am almost always able to crop to a satisfying frame and image, even when the birds and wildlife are distant. At 24mm it produces stunning landscapes and effective indoor shots. Really I would not trade it’s quality for more reach (unless somehow I could get the same quality at a longer focal length…something that just might defy the laws of physics, or push the camera to a size that would not be comfortable to carry in the field).

Eastern Bluebird at our back deck feeder. About 12 feet. 600mm. F4 @ ISO 320. Amazing feather detail.

The real change is in the sensor and processing engine. This might be the same sensor, with hybrid focus and 325 phase detection focus points, as Sony used in the RX100V, but it is processing engine from the top of the line A9 full frame camera. Combine that processing engine with that sensor and you get totally amazing focus capability. Birds in flight are embarrassingly easy. Yes. Embarrassingly easy. It used to be a real challenge with a Point and Shoot superzoom, even the RX10iii, to get even the occasional bird in flight. With the iv, you literally just point and shoot. You can use a specific focus area in the center of the frame, which picks up birds in flight easily against most backgrounds, and the camera will focus between frames even at 24 frames per second (though I never use more than 10 frames per second). The iii locked focus on the first frame, which made following birds in flight much more difficult, often impossible. In fact, I use this center frame focus setting for general wildlife photography, so the camera is ready and able to pick up the unexpected flyover. For more dedicated birds in flight work, there is lock on tracking auto focus, which will pick up a bird anywhere near the center of the frame and lock on to follow the bird as you pan. Both work really well, depending on how large the bird is in the frame. Tracking works best with bigger birds and birds bigger in the frame. And, as far as wildlife action on the ground (or sports for that matter). the focus lock is amazingly fast and positive. I came back from Bosque del Apache this year with more satisfying Birds in Flight images, from just this year, than I have managed to get in all the years I have been going there with other cameras.

Sandhill Crane in flight. Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, Socorro, NM. 600mm. 1/1000th.

Snow Geese coming head on and passing close overhead. The RX10iv tracked these geese in as they came and held focus through over 50 frames at 24 fps. Totally amazing.

Sandhill Cranes in confrontation after sunset. 600mm, 1/1000th @ ISO 1600. An amazing shot with any camera.

In general wildlife shooting, occasionally the iii would hunt when trying to get a bird or beast in lower light, especially with a confusing background. Not the iv. I recommend keeping the camera set to “continuous focus”, which seems to turn on the Phase Detection Focus points for faster focus. The focus is so fast that you quickly forget to even think about it. Point and shoot!

European Kingfisher, Tagus Estuary, Portugal. Early morning in low light.

The new processing engine has also enabled some refinements which I am only beginning to appreciate as I use the iv more. Auto HDR has been improved to the extent that I rarely use any of the other HDR settings (you can still set 1EV to 6EV differences) and, if you are careful, you can shoot an HDR right out to 600mm on the zoom. The iii could not assemble an HDR much beyond 100mm. Highlights in Auto HDR are now very well controlled. They were not in the iii. That does not sound like much, but since I use In-camera HDR a lot, it means that I do not have to think about adjusting my HDR settings as often. As a Point and Shoot photographer I am all for that!

600mm in-camera HDR. Not possible with most cameras.

Another more subtitle improvement is the menu system. There are still a bewildering number of options and menu screens, but menu items are now grouped in more logical manner on each menu screen, with each screen clearly labeled so you know where you are. I use the excellent function button and function menu almost exclusively when in the field, so I never minded the Sony menu system, but I know that some did. 🙂 The changes should make it easier for folks to find what they are looking for, but I still recommend using the function menu whenever possible.

Some folks are excited about the 24 frames per second (with focus between frames!) capability of the RX10iv. That is essentially movie frame rate, and you can capture action sequences in the equivalent of a 20 mega pixel per frame video. I have not yet found a use for it. Somehow even the 10 fps “medium” speed seems faster and smoother than the 10 fps top speed on the RX10iii did…and focus between frames is just a wonderful improvement. They have also added a 2 fps slow speed continuous. And the size of the image buffer is amazing. I think I read that you can take over 300 frames before the camera freezes up to clear the buffer. (While I have tested the limits, one thing I discovered is that, though you can continue shooting, the buffer is clearing in the background, and you can not make changes in the settings of the camera until the buffer completely clears.) I can tell you one thing…you can burn through an SD card really fast at 24 fps.

I used touch to focus to place the focus exactly over the Bison’s eye without reframing.

Another change is the addition of touch-to-focus on the new touch screen. It is actually more like touch-to-move-the-focus-area unless you have the camera in continuous focus mode…and it does not, like some implementations, actually take the image. You still have to use the shutter button for that. Many folks on the dpreview Sony Cybershot forum recommend turning touch to focus off, as you do sometimes accidentally move the focus point when handling the camera…however I find touch focus to be really useful. For instance, when shooting a American Bison at close range, I was able to touch the screen to instantly move the focus to the eye of the beast, where I wanted it. On close-ups of birds, I often just tap the screen, again to move the focus to the head or eye. When using Anti-motion-blur mode inside at parties, one of the things I disliked about the mode in the iii was that you lost control of the focus point. On the iv in the same mode, you just tap over the face you want in focus, and, presto, good to go.

My daughter Anna at graduation. Anti-motion blur mode for the low light, and touch to focus to make sure the camera focused on her face.

Actually touch to focus is one of the few things the new touch screen actually does. You can’t use it to set menu items or to navigate the menu system. You can, however, double tap an image in review mode to zoom it, and move the image around to view other parts with your finger. Strange choices on the part of the Sony engineers…but they tried. And, despite the occasional fumble when I get the camera up to my eye and find that the focus square is way off in the upper left hand corner, I do find touch to focus worth getting used to.

It is hard to say for sure, but my impression is that the new sensor and processing engine have also improved higher ISO performance slightly. It was already pretty good on the iii, but in similar situations the iv just seems to do a bit better. And if you are not familiar with the image quality of the Sony 1 inch sensors in the RX series, all I can say is, be prepared to be impressed. Between the exceptional ZEISS glass and the Sony sensors and processing engines, the RX series in general, and RX10iv in particular, produce images that hold up very well, at normal viewing sizes and distances, to anything on the market, including full frame cameras and lenses many sizes larger than the relatively compact RXs. Certainly if you are using the Sony RX10iv as your all around travel, wildlife, landscape, and party camera, you will have nothing to apologize for when displaying your images (and much to be proud of).

Crane against the sunset, Bosque del Apache, New Mexico. 600mm.

I already loved the RX10iii. It was the best camera I have ever had the pleasure of traveling with, and I owned it during 18 months when I visited so many wonderful places. I have only had the iv for a few months now (since a few days after it was released), but already I love it even more. It has not been as many places yet, but it will get there…and I know that when it does, it will bring back the images I want, day after day, time after time, amazing place after amazing place. I have no qualms about calling it the best fixed-zoom, superzoom, compact camera ever made. I plan on wearing it out before they come out with the RX10V (which will go to 800mm at f5.6 of course 🙂 This is my camera and I love it!

P&SNP in the Galapagos and Andes

Blue Booby’s feet. A must do image from the Galapagos

The Galapagos has to be on any nature photographer’s short list of most wanted places to go…it is on the bucket list for those who simply appreciate nature, and many a pure tourist longs to tick it off the list. I know it is a cliche but there is truely no place like it in the world. The Galápagos Islands sit right on the equator, in the middle of the Humbolt Current, just far enough off-shore from Ecuador to maintain a totally unique habitat. There are certainly birds and animals there that you can see no-where else…but the real magic is in how close you can approach all of the island residents. Combine that with some of the most stunning seascapes and landscapes imaginable…sunrise to sunset…and why wouldn’t anyone want to travel there?

Since I was already in South America for the Wildside Nature Tours Amazon Riverboat Adventure, I was also invited to participate in a special, small-boat, 7 day trip to the Galapagos. Kevin Loughlin, the major partner in Wildside Nature Tours, does the islands at least twice a year. Our trip was his 24th. He knows the best boats, the best guides, and the islands themselves as well as anyone in the business…better than most. His tours, generally limited to 12 people, spend more time ashore on the islands than any others. Land time on any island is limited to 4 hours per boat, and no more than 20 people. We got to spend the whole 4 hours on each trip ashore, while most boats had to fit several groups in that same time frame. We got to sit with good subjects for the perfect shot, and take all the time we wanted to appreciate the scenery.

Walking through a nesting colony of Nazca (formerly “masked”) Boobies

On this trip again, I used only the Sony Rx10iii. It’s 24-600mm zoom covers the ideal range for the islands. Much of the time I had to zoom back from 600mm. The birds and animals were just that close. And the Sony in-camera HDR was perfect for the sunrise and sunsets, and the amazing island and seascapes. Then too, most of the other folks on the trip were carrying 20-40 pounds of camera equipment ashore each day. My Sony, with the same kind of capability as their whole outfits, was much easier to carry, and fit in a small wet-bag for the wet landings. I really appreciated it by the end of 4 hours in the equatorial heat of the islands.
We spent our first night in Ecuador at the Garden Hotel near the airport in Quito. Wonderful grounds and a great atmosphere. And the first of my Ecuadorian Hummingbirds.

Black-tailed Trainbearer, Garden Hotel, Quito

The next morning we were off early again to catch a two-hop flight to the Galapagos…though you stay on the same plane there is a short layover in Guayaquil. Having realized the shortcomings of my packing while on the Amazon, I spent the time at the airport in Quito searching, successfully, for a small day-pack to carry my camera on the wet landings (I already had a dry bag to go inside).

When we landed in San Cristobal, Kevin advised us not to try to photograph the birds at the airport. Tempting as it was, he assured us we would have better opportunities on the other islands we were to visit. Still, when you get to the dock to board the pangas (rubber zodiac like boats) that take you out to your yacht, it is impossible to resist the sea lions who greet you, or would greet you if they were awake.

After room assignments and lunch on the yacht, we returned to San Cristobal to take a bus up over the top of the island for a visit to a Tortoise Reserve and Breeding Station, for our first looks at unique Galapagos wildlife. We saw the giant Tortoises of course, but while there we also had our first encounters with one of the 4 species of endemic Mockingbirds of the islands, one of the Lava Lizards, and one of Darwin’s Finches.

Turtle Reserve, Lava Lizard, San Cristobal Mockingbird, Darwin’s Finch, Land Tortoise, young Land Tortoise

We returned to San Cristobal town in time for sunset, a little shopping, and back to our yacht for the first of many excellent dinners.

To make the most of your time in the islands, the yacht moves at night, while you are sleeping. It takes some getting used to, as the waters around the islands, stirred by the Humboldt Current, can be quite choppy…but it is a small price to pay for paradise. We woke on our first full day in the Galapagos to a stunning sunrise…the first of many…and, after a hearty breakfast, boarded the pangas for a short ride to Espanola Island. Every trip to the Galapagos is a mixture of dry and wet landings. Some islands have landing jetties, and on some you run the pangas up to the beach and climb out knee deep in water to wade ashore. Kevin insists on good wading sandals for the wet landings. I also invested in two pairs of sand socks…lycra crew-style socks with neoprene soles and heels. The sand socks keep the sand out from between my toes and my feet and the sandals. Before the end of the trip could have gotten several times their cost if I had been willing to sell them. Highly recommended.

The Galapagos are all volcanic islands, but they are mixture of what I think of as short islands and tall islands. Espanola is one of short islands…essentially a slab of lava raised maybe 70 feet above the sea at its highest point. The trails are pretty rough, with loose lava underfoot and no soft landings if you fall…but both the scenery and the wildlife are totally worth the hike.

Dawn on the first day. A yacht similar to ours that was on the same schedule as we were.

Nazca Boobies in the nesting colony on Espanola

Another view of our group in the nesting colony, the view out over the sea from Espanola

Marine Iguanas. They dive deep in the cold sea to feed on plants and spend much time on land warming themselves. The colors are salt deposits.

Our first and best views of the Galapagos Hawk were on Espanola

Each day there were several activities, with snorkeling generally in the late morning after time on one of the islands. I had never snorkeled before this trip, but I came equipped with an underwater camera. Unfortunately after one disastrous attempt I did not get in the water again, so I missed part of the Galapagos experience. Maybe next time…after a few lessons.
This is as good a place as any to highlight the sealions of the Galapagos. They are everywhere, from tiny pups to great beach-master bulls. They have absolutely no fear of human beings, and on several occasions we had pups come up and get very familiar with both our gear and our persons.

the sealions of the Galapagos

are very friendly 🙂

Our next day was spent on Floreana Island, one of the high islands of the Galapagos, and one with gorgeous beaches were Green Sea Turtles nest and rays swim in the surf. We did not see the turtles, but we certainly saw their excavations and tracks on the beach.

the stunningly beautiful landscape and the bright Flamingos of Floreana Island

Turtle tracks on the beach at Floreana, and the surf.

In the two panels above you can appreciate the real versatility of the Sony RX10iii (and soon to be iv). Flamingos at 600mm, in flight, and landscapes worth bringing home and showing off.

Overnight the boat moves us across the Humboldt Current once more to South Plaza, another short island…and indeed very plaza like. Here we had our fist encounters with the Giant Prickly Pears and Land Iguanas.

Giant Prickly Pear trees, and Land Iguanas. Galapagos Racer Snake.

The afternoon was spent on Santa Fe Island, with more Land Iguanas, chances to photograph Tropic Birds from the cliffs, wonderful views of Swallow-tail Gulls, and a close encounter with a Lava Heron…as well as stunning landscapes.

Lava Heron. Totally fearless…

Land Iguanas

Swallow-tail Gull, in my opinion, one of the most attractive gulls

Red-billed Tropic Birds, Santa Fe Island

Santa Fe Island, Land Iguana, Prickly Pears, sunset!

North Seymour Island was our next to last stop…saving the best for last. North Seymour has nesting colonies of Blue-footed Boobies and a mixed colony of both Magnificent and Great Frigatebirds. The Boobies are everywhere, underfoot, nesting in the trail, beside the trail…so close you sometimes have to walk around them. And they are displaying…doing their booby dance in pairs. The Frigatebirds are almost as close, nesting in taller brush wherever they can find space…and the males are in full display (or were when we visited). It is a totally amazing experience.

Blue-footed Boobies, North Seymour Island

The booby dance!

Nesting Great or Magnificent Frigatebirds. The Great have more green sheen on the neck but they are hard to tell apart.


On our last full day in the islands we visited Santa Cruz, and traveled by bus up into the highlands to visit the largest of the Giant Land Tortoises that inhabit the Galapagos. We stopped along the way for some birding and sightseeing around a huge sink-hole, a common feature of volcanic islands.
It is hard to imagine just how big the Giant Land Tortoise is. When they move through the brush they are like a bulldozer…nothing stops them…and yet this giant grass eater is among the gentlest creatures on earth. Too gentle perhaps as hundreds of thousands of them were collected each year, before they were protected, by passing ships and consigned to life in the hold until the crew was hungry for fresh meat. Since protection their numbers are slowly growing on the islands and most of the high islands have reserves.

Giant Land Tortoise

Gentle giant.

The meal on our last night on the yacht was a thanksgiving spread, complete will all the fixing, and a edible puffer fish sculpture.

We flew back to Quito for another night at the Garden Hotel, but since most of us had night flights out, we spent our last day in Ecuador traveling to the high Andes above the city and over the other side for Andean hummingbirds. We visited a lodge that specializes in hummers and spent a slightly rainy day photographing them, and sharing a traditional Ecuadorian meal.

The Sony RX10iii really came through on the hummingbirds in low light.

Top of the Andes, Buff-tailed Coronet, Chestnut-breasted Coronet, White-bellied Woodstar, Tourmaline Sunangel

Collared Inca, Masked Trogon, Buff-tailed Coronet, lunch Andes style, White-bellied Woodstar, Tourmaline Sunangel

We were back in Quito in time for evening flights. The end of a remarkable adventure in the Galápagos…thanks to Wildside Nature Tours.

Basic jpeg workflow. Post-processing.

If you have your camera set up to produce consistent, correctly exposed, jpegs…using all the available auto, program, and special modes for a wide variety of situations, then post-processing does not need to be either a mystery or a chore. In fact, once your camera is set up, you will find that most of your photos of any particular kind (wildlife, birds, macros…landscapes or people) will require exactly the same processing…so much so that if your chosen post-processing program or app allows you to create presets or save a set of edits, you will be able to process most images by choosing the right “one-touch” preset. 

If, that is, if you have your cameras set up correctly. See Basic camera settings for Wildlife, birds, and macro.

Basic controls: Lightroom, PhotoShop Express, Snapseed, Polarr. Touch or click to enlarge. For more control shots see below.
 

Why do you need to post-process at all? The reality of digital photography is that any good image can be made better with a few tweaks. I am going to cover the basic edits here, as they are done in the more modern apps and programs, both on the mobile and desk and lap-top platforms: Snapseed, Lightroom, PhotoShop Express, and Polarr on phones and tablets, and Lightroom or PhotoShop Elements on desk and lap-tops. You can make these edits in PhotoShop itself as well, but it might take a combination of settings to duplicate the effects of a simple slider in one of the more modern programs. 

Lighting: Even a correctly exposed digital image, the shadows will often be too dark, and the highlights too bright, when compared to what the human eye sees in the same situation. The eye sees further into the shadows than the camera does, and we can see detail in bright areas that the camera will render as blocks of solid white or bright color. Cameras today have some kind of compensation for this built in, generally called Dynamic Range Control, or DR Enhansement, or iContrast, or Active D Lighting, etc. Even when taking advantage of these in-camera adjustments (and you should be taking advantage of them), there is no way the sensor can see or record the full range of light that the human eye does. By adjusting the shadows and highlights in post-processing we can produce an image that has the appearance of being closer to what our eye sees in any given situation. To improve the image we need to “open” the shadows (brighten them) and “pull back” the highlights. Not a lot, or the image will look flat and uninteresting, but some. That is the first change to make. In a traditional program like PhotoShop these changes are made with the “curves” tool. In the other apps and programs it is made with the Shadows and Highlights sliders. Slide shadows to the plus side until the shadows open to suit you. Pull the highlights slider to the negative side until you see the detail you want in the bright areas of the image. Do not expect miracles. The shadows slider will not reclaim shadows that are totally black, and the highlight slider will not restore detail in totally overexposed whites or brights…but generally these adjustments will produce a more pleasing, more life-like image. And don’t overdo either. You want the image to still have enough contrast between the darks and lights to be three-dimensional and interesting.

Detail: Because of the structure of digital image sensors, all digital images need some sharpening. Most cameras, when you shoot in jpeg, apply sharpening in camera. I set my cameras to apply the least possible sharpening in-camera, since it is better done in post-processing. In-camera sharpening can produce extra noise in the background of the image, and unnaturally sharp edges. The sharpening tool in most modern apps and programs applies a combination of traditional edge sharpening and unsharp masking to produce a natural looking result, with a simple slide of the sharpness slider until it looks right. PhotoShop is the exception again, where you still have separate sharpen and unsharp mask tools. Do not oversharpen! It will produce the same negative effects on image quality as in-camera sharpening often does. If an image, or parts of an image are out of focus or motion blurred, they will not be improved by oversharpening. Quite the opposite. Apply just enough sharpening to render the details in the image as they would look to the human eye, if you were at approximately the right distance to make the subject the same size as it is in the image. 

The second aspect of sharpening is most often called clarity (it is called structure in Snapseed). Clarity increases the local-area-contrast of the image to bring out fine detail in hair, fur, feathers, or the fine textures of flower petals (or human skin). Think of it as controlling the “inner detail” of the image. In PhotoShop we produce this effect by using unconventional settings of the unsharp mask tool. Most modern apps and programs will have a clairity (or “structure“) slider. Again, just slide the clarity slider to the positive side until it produces the effect you want. (If you slide it to the negative side it will become really obvious what the tool is doing.) Hint: you do not want to overdo the clarity, especially in images with people’s faces in them. In fact one of the legitimate uses of negative clarity is in portraits, where you might not want to see the “inner detail” of every skin blemish 🙂 Hint 2: Increaseing the clarity will sometimes have the effect of making the whole image look a little darker. You can offset this with the Exposure or Brightness sliders.

Color: The auto color temperature controls in today’s cameras are very good. They can adjust the jpeg processing to produce natural looking colors in almost any light. They are almost as good at this as the human eye. Amost. What can be improved in most digital images is the “pop” or “impact” of the colors…especially if you have already adjusted the shadows and highlights. Modern apps and programs have a control called vibrance (sometimes grouped with clarity and sometimes grouped with color temperature and saturation…and, as always, called something else in Snapseed:  “ambiance“). Vibrance looks at the image and determines which colors might be undersaturated (not rich or vivid enough). Generally these are the blues and greens, and sometimes reds. Sliding the vibrance slider will increase the saturation and brightness of only those colors that the program or app thinks need it. It will generally make the sky a darker blue, and the green trees brighter green. Or it might pick up the similar hues in a bird’s plumage or a flower’s petals. Slide the vibrance (or ambiance) slider to the positive side until you produce a pleasing effect. (And again, sliding it to the negative side will give you a better idea of what you are actually changing.) Once more, do no overdue it. If the control is adjusting reds, or purples, especially, it is easy to get the reds and purples so saturated that you no longer see fine detail in those areas of the image. And it is also easy to get the sky unnaturally blue. Exercise restraint. Again, PhotoShop (the last time I looked) did not have a vibrance slider or control. You would have to adjust the individual color channels using the curves control. Not easy to do. It is worth mentioning that Snapseed’s ambiance control has more effect on the brightness and color temperature of the image (by color temperature we mean the balance between warm tones and cold ones, red and yellow and orange being warm…just think the color of fire, and blues and blue-greens being cold), than the vibrance control in the other apps and programs. It produces almost a warm glow…which is pleasing in some images, but not in others.

Before and after. Original and basic edits applied. I also used the brush in Polarr to bring up detail in the chin patch 🙂

To summarize, these are the adjustments all most all digital images will need, or benefit from. The amounts will depend on your camera and your taste.

  1. open the shadows
  2. pull back the highlights
  3. sharpen the image
  4. increase the clarity of the image
  5. increase the vibrance of the image
  6. exercise restraint…work for the natural look not the spectacular. 🙂

Lightroom controls, lots of presets, but none of them user custom, local controls limited to gradient and radial
Snapseed. Main controls. Tune Image where most of what we want is. Details. Local Controls: brush and radial.
Polarr. General controls. Light opened and you can see the others, Local controls, Custom filters
 

Wildlife, birds, and macro images will benefit from more sharpening and clarity than landscapes, and will not need as much shadow, highlight, and vibrance control. Landscapes will generally need more shadow, highlight, and vibrance control, and less clarity and sharpness. People shots will not like much sharpening or clarity at all (at all), and can stand only a touch of vibrance. Shadow and highlights can be effective but you need to be careful not to produce a cartoony look. 

In programs that allow me too, I will set up three presets, or saved looks, or custom filter (all names for the same thing…a set of edits that are saved and can be applied with a single touch or click to the nickname). I love the way Snapseed works, and it is the one app that will run on any mobile platform (not matter how underpowered), but it does not yet have the ability to save a set of edits and apply them to a different image. Lightroom on the desk and lap-top has this ability and is excellent…but Lightroom for mobile platforms does not. PhotoShop Elements and Polarr both save sets of edits (My Looks in PSE, and Custom Fliters in Polarr). For exactly that reason, my go-to post-processing program on the desk and lap-top is Lightroom, and my go-to apps on my tablet are PSE and Polarr. (PSE for landscapes, because the shadow tool is more effective, and Polarr for everything else, since it is faster, and has a deeper feature set than PSE.) 

An in-camera HDR (high dynamic range, three shots blended for exposure) image processed in PhotoShop Express. More shadow and highlight control to really open shadows, retrieve detail in clouds, and bring up the green in the foliage.
 

Honestly, if you have your camera set up right for quality jpegs, you will rarely have to go beyond these basic edits…and most often will be able to apply one of your saved presets or custom filters. If you need to to more, they you really need to ask yourself if the image is worth saving. Most of the time, even with more powerful tools and more sophisticated techniques, you will not be able to produce the image you had in mind when you pressed the shutter. Sorry. That is just the way it is with digital. 

One exception is the dehaze or defog control that is available in Lightroom (both mobile and -top) and in PhotoShop Elements and Polarr on mobile. The dehaze tool, like the others covered, takes care not to overdo it, but it can be effective in restoring contrast to an image that is washed out due to an over abundance of blue refracted light…as in fog or haze, or the effects of shooting into the sun. It selectively removes diffuse blue spectrum light from the image. It will also darken the image overall, so some compensation with the exposure or brightness control is generally needed, but it can improve some shots dramatically. It is never part of my basic presets, looks, or custom filters, as I only use it rarely, but it is really useful on occasion. 

Another exception is what we call local adjustments. In PhotoShop to make local adjustments you have to use the selective brushes and masking. In Lightroom, Snapseed, and Polarr, you can apply them quickly and easily using specialized controls. Lightroom on the desktop has the best implementation. You can apply gradient or radial filters, or you can brush on adjustments to just a specific portion of the image. In Lightroom on the mobile platform you only have the gradient and radial options. Snapseed has radial filters and a brush, but the brush is not very fine. Polarr, on the mobile platform has the set that is closest to Lightroom desk and lap-top: gradient, radial, and and finely controllable brush. I have not found much use for a radial filter (basically round and graduated from the center) in any app or program, but I use the gradient filters on occasion to darken the sky and lighten the foreground in a particularly difficult landscape shot. You just drag a gradient over the image, top to bottom or bottom to top, and then adjust things like exposure, brightness, clarity, vibrance, etc. The effects are applied as a gradient…most intense at one edge of the image and then gradually fading to nothing at the other edge. You can actually apply two gradients (I call them dueling gradients), one from the top and one from the bottom to, as I mentioned, darken the sky at the same time you lighten the foreground. 

The other local control that I do use is the brush, especially in Lightroom (-top) and Polarr (mobile). The brush allows me to decrease the brightness of, say the white patch on the chin of a otherwise correctly exposed Great Blue Heron, to retrieve detail in the feathers there. I simply select the brush control and paint over the area to be changed, then apply negative exposure. I can do the same thing with the clarity control to make the eye in an image pop. Just paint over the eye, and increase clarity. Again, I do this kind of extra editing to maybe one in 300 images. 

Finally, there is one app available on iPads and Window’s tablets which does what no other will do…on those very rare occasions when the there is something in the image that just has to go…whether is an out of focus branch in an otherwise perfect composition of a bird, or beer can on an otherwise pristine beach. TouchRetouch does a better job of removing and filling than any other app I have used. You simply paint out, or lasso, the offending object, press go, and the app removes the object and seamlessly fills in the hole by very intelligently extrapolating from the surround. When it works it is magic. It does not always work. Sometimes the background is just to complex or the objectionable thing is too close to your subject, etc. But is is always worth a try when you have an image that requires, or could benefit from its magic TouchRetouch. 

TouchRetouch used to remove distracting out of focus branch.
 

In my opinion, for general editing and post-processing there is no match for Lightroom on the desk or lap-top, though it does require you to import every image you want to process into its catalog. On the mobile platform there is no reason not to use PhotoShop Express (especially as it is free…though to unlock all its features you have to have a Adobe subscription). It works very much like Lightroom on the desk or lap-top, and allows you to save your editing settings as a custom My Look. Polarr is becoming my go-to image processor on my iPad Pro, because of its speed and deep feature set, and the ease with which you can save and apply our editing settings as custom filers. To unlock all features it cost $20, but that also gives you access to Polarr on any platform you might use…desk or -laptop, Andriod phone or tablet, iPad or iPhone, and even Chromebooks. It is available for them all. 

So again, get your camera set up for consistently well exposed jpeg images, and apply a few basic edits in the program or app of your choice, and you will have consistently satisfying images. 

BIF: The Nikon Version

Sandhill Cranes at Bosque del Apache NWR. Shutter preferred. 1/640 @ 1200mm @ ISO 100 @ f7.1
Sandhill Cranes at Bosque del Apache NWR. Nikon P900. Shutter preferred. 1/640 @ 1200mm @ ISO 100 @ f7.1

A while back I posted my original BIF (Birds in Flight) article, which pretty much covered BIF with the Canon SX50/60 (and hopefully 70) models and the Sony HX400V. (See here.)

This post expands BIF coverage to embrace the Nikon P series…the P610 and P900 in particular.

Focus against a blue sky is one thing. Focus against a landscape background is much more difficult.
Focus against a blue sky is one thing. Focus against a landscape background is much more difficult.

With the Canons and the Sony, the built in Sports Mode did and excellent job with BIF. On the Nikons…not so much. The default (and unchangeable) focus mode for Sports is the medium spot focus square…which makes getting on a BIF very difficult. And should you get the bird in focus when you press the shutter release, the camera does NOT follow focus. Focus is established by the first lock, and does not change as the bird moves…so, even if you pan with the bird as the camera takes its burst of 10 high speed continuous shots (also default and unchangeable) chances are pretty good that only the first shot will be in focus (if any are). Worse yet, even though this is Sports Mode and supposedly designed for action, Nikon did not bias the exposure system for high shutter speeds, so most often you will have motion blur as well as focus issues. Nikon does not seem to understand what a Sports Mode is supposed to do…but then Nikon’s control software has a lot of short-comings. Sports Mode is a particularly bad example.

I have gotten some great BIF with the Nikon Sports Mode, and it is worth a try in really good light, with cooperative birds.

Nikon Sports Mode BIF
Nikon Sports Mode BIF. 1/500th @ ISO 100 @ f5.6. 

I recently spent a week at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in Socorro New Mexico. As noted in the previous BIF post, the Bosque is certainly one of the best places in North America to practice BIF. In my week there I took hundreds of BIF exposures and developed a technique that works pretty well…almost as well as Sony’s Sports Mode.

What you need for BIF is an auto focus mode that will quickly and reliably lock on to birds in motion against a blue sky…or against a landscape background. And, you need high enough shutter speeds to freeze motion.

Snow Geese. Custom BIF mode. Nikon P900
Snow Geese. Custom BIF mode. Nikon P900

On the Nikons, setting the control dial to “S” for shutter preferred allows you to control the shutter speed. Leave everything else on Auto (ISO, etc.). I find that in good light, 1/640th is enough to freeze the wing motion of most BIF, while still giving you a reasonably low ISO for fine detail. In low light…dawn or dusk…1/250th does a good job with all but the wing-tips. Your ISO will be 400-800 (or even higher) but you will get some decent shots.

Sandhill Crane, Bosque del Apache NWR. Custom BIF mode. 1/640th @ ISO 100 @ f7.1. 1200mm equivalent.
Sandhill Crane, Bosque del Apache NWR. Custom BIF mode. 1/640th @ ISO 100 @ f7.1. 1200mm equivalent.

For the most efficient focus, set the camera to Target finding auto focus. Target finding auto focus is the default in Auto and Program modes, and is your traditional wide angle focus where the camera decides what your might be trying to focus on. I do not generally recommend letting the camera make that decision, but for BIF on the Nikons, Target finding auto focus proved to be fast and accurate more often than any other mode. I was getting 70% or better quick accurate focus on BIF against a blue or clouded sky, and better than 50% against a landscape background.  That is actually very good performance.

Focus against a background. Custom BIF mode. Nikon P610. 1440mm equivalent. 1/640th @ ISO 100 @ f7.1
Focus against a background. Custom BIF mode. Nikon P610. 1440mm equivalent. 1/640th @ ISO 100 @ f7.1

I found that in following fast moving birds, high speed continuous was easier than low speed…since the black out between images is long enough on low speed so that I would loose my pan and the bird would go out of frame.

Another focus against a background example. Snow Geese.
Another focus against a background example. Snow Geese.

General BIF advice: 1) don’t try to shoot at the long end of the zoom, especially as you are developing your technique. Finding focus and keeping the bird in frame are both easier at 600-1000mm equivalent fields of view, than they are at 1200-2000mm. Remember, the DSLR/long lens crowd are shooting at 400-600mm and cropping. 2) Pan with the birds before pressing the shutter for focus. Pick the birds up as soon as possible, and pan with them until they are close enough for a satisfying image. Then half press the shutter for focus. If you get focus lock, then shoot off a burst.

Northern Harrier. Focus on birds coming head on is the most difficult of all.
Northern Harrier. Focus on birds coming head on is the most difficult of all.

As always, take a lot of exposures! Try, try, and try again. And don’t worry about the misses. Celebrate the hits!

Classic flight shot. Sandhill Crane. Bosque del Apache NWR.
Classic flight shot. Sandhill Crane. Bosque del Apache NWR.

P&S in the Tropics!

Rufous-tailed Hummingbird, Rio Santiago, Lodge at Pico Bonito, Honduras
Rufous-tailed Hummingbird, Rio Santiago. Sony HX400V

The tropics provide one of the richest and most varied arrays of photographic opportunities of anyplace on earth…but they also provide definite challenges for any photographer…including, of course, Point and Shoot Nature Photographers. From the dense, dark, dim (and often damp) canopy of the rain and cloud forests to the harsh light of the dry forest and uplands in the rain-shadow of the mountains, exposure is always a difficult issue. Then too, focus in the rain forest, with all the vegetation, and the dim light, can be a real problem.  It is not much easier in the glare of the dry forest.

I recently enjoyed a week at the Rain-forest Lodge at Pico Bonito in Honduras, spending each day in different location in the area…from deep rain-forest on the shoulders of the mountains, to coastal mangrove lined rivers, to the Honduran Emerald Reserve in the dryer country inland.

It was not a photo expedition…we were primarily birding…but it gave me a chance to experience the joys and challenges of the tropics first hand, and to put my super-zoom point and shoot to the test. For stationary and particularly cooperative birds (and since it was a ZEISS sponsored trip and I was one of the leaders), I also carried a light-weight digiscoping rig…the compact ZEISS DiaScope 65FL spotting scope, a 30x wide-field eyepiece, a Canon S120 on the Digidapter for ZEISS, and the wonderful Roadtrip carbon fiber travel tripod from MeFoto…the whole thing weighing in at something under 6 pounds.

Most of my digiscoping rig. The camera and adapter are in a pouch on my waist. Great tripod!
Most of my digiscoping rig. The camera and adapter are in a pouch on my waist. Great tripod! You can see the two 7Ds and long lenses in the group.

In my group there were, of course, people carrying Canon 7Ds and either the 400mm prime or the 100-400 zoom, so I had a chance to observe and compare how the full DSLR/Long Lens rig handled the same tropical situations. I have to say, my complete outfit, super-zoom P&S, and the digiscope rig, weighed less than their body and lens…even if they were shooting off-hand. One gentleman carried a full sized tripod and a gimbal head on every outing. That is real dedication. 🙂

Blue-crowned Motmot, Lodge at Pico Bonito, Honduras
Blue-crowned Motmot, Lodge at Pico Bonito. Digiscoped with the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL

The first challenge in the tropics is always going to be light. My DSLR toting friends were shooting at ISO 6400 most of the time in the rain-forest, and I was pushing ISO 3200 for most shots. Even-so I had to dial the shutter speed down from my usual 1/640th of a second to 1/250th or even 1/160th to get enough light for a decent exposure. The Image Stabilization on the Sony HX400V handled the slower shutter speeds well, but detail at ISO 3200 suffered. I got the shots, but not always totally what I might have wanted. The tropics push any camera to its absolute limits.

To complicate matters, most P&S super-zooms have a maximum aperture of between f6.3 and f6.7 at the telephoto end…a far cry from a Canon 400mm f2.8 or even the 400mm f4. However, that is f6.x at 1200mm or greater equivalent. If you zoom back to 400mm the aperture will be not much different than the fixed Canon lens. It is always a trade off when it comes to cameras.

Boat-billed Heron, Cuero y Salado Wildlife Refuge, Sony HX400V at ISO 2500 at 1/160th second.
Boat-billed Heron, Cuero y Salado Wildlife Refuge, Sony HX400V at ISO 2500 at 1/160th second.

For the Point and Shoot photographer I recommend my standard wildlife settings: shutter preferred, Auto ISO (with the upper limit set as high as possible). Even so, at least in rain and cloud-forest, you will find yourself using slower shutter speeds than you are comfortable with…but the Image Stabilization on most Point and Shoot super-zooms is up to the challenge. On the Sony, changing shutter speed in shutter preferred on the fly is super-easy…you simply spin the wheel under your thumb…your mileage with other brands may differ. 🙂

I regret that I did not try the High Sensitivity modes on the Sony, which would have given me ISO 6400-12800 in a pinch. It might have made a difference. I will certainly give it a try on future trips to the tropics.

Blue-crowned Motmot. Sony HX400V. ISO 3200 @ 1/250th @ f6.3. Pushed to the limits
Blue-crowned Motmot. Sony HX400V. ISO 3200 @ 1/250th @ f6.3. Pushed to the limits.

Focus is a whole other issue. Point and Shoot cameras use Contrast Detection Auto Focus, which is slower and less precise than the Phase Detection Auto Focus on full sized DSLRs. It also requires more light to work effectively. You will certainly want your focus area set to the smallest possible square in the center of the field, so that you have a chance to focus on the bird through the dense foliage.

Even then, I found myself resorting to Dynamic Focus Assist on the Sony HX400V much more often than ever before. The Sony focus system allows you to maintain auto focus, and fine-tune it using the focus ring around the lens barrel, just as you would focus a manual focus lens. It is, without a doubt, the easiest manual override auto focus of any P&S camera on the market, and I certainly appreciated it by the end of my time in Honduras. The only thing that would have made it better would have been a higher resolution Electronic View Finder so I could have seen when the bird was in focus more easily.

Almost all P&S super-zooms today have some kind of manual override on the auto focus…or straight up manual focus…but none are as quick, easy, and intuitive as the Sony system. Still, if you are headed for the tropics, dust off your manual and find out how to manually focus your camera. 🙂

Black-faced Grosbeak, Sony HX400V. Tricky focus requires manual override.
Black-faced Grosbeak, Sony HX400V. Tricky focus requires manual override.

For all the difficulty in focusing, however, I am pretty sure I got as many sharply focused images as my DSLR friends. Birds under the canopy will generally sit still long enough to find focus.

Of course, there are areas in the tropics that have lots of light! We visited the Cuero y Salada Wildlife Refuge at the junction of two mangrove lined rivers near the Caribbean coast. To get there we rode a “banana train”…a narrow guage, open car, toy train that was used in the early 1900s to transport bananas from the plantation near the coast, 9 km inland to the railhead. Despite the fact that there were local paying passengers on the train, we stopped often for birds along the way.

Even along the river we found some birds in good light. And, with enough light, the super-zoom P&S always performs well. These shots are satisfying, especially since they were taken hand-held from a boat.

In the dry forest, and in the inland valleys, the super-zoom gave me the reach to capture birds from the bus on the road, and from respectable distances in the forest…as well of macros of some interesting butterflies.

And of course, at the wide end the P&S super-zoom captures the grand tropical landscape.

Sports Mode, or tracking auto focus, even makes hummingbirds at feeders and perched possible.

Just for sake of interest I will share one more digiscoped image, again taken with the Canon S120 P&S through the 30x eyepiece on the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL spotting scope, using the Digidapter for ZEISS and the MeFoto Carbon Fiber Roadtrip tripod. This is a particularly difficult shot due to the low light and the foliage between me and bird.

Ivory-billed Woodcreeper, digiscoped at ISO 3200.
Ivory-billed Woodcreeper, digiscoped at ISO 3200.

So, how does the P&S super-zoom fair when compared to a full scale DSLR/Long lens rig in the tropics. My good friend Diane Porter was shooting beside me most of the trip, with her Canon 7D Mk2 and the 100-400mm Canon IS Zoom. She has kindly allowed me to borrow a few of her shots for comparison. Of course, her shots had to be heavily cropped to equal the scale of the 1200mm equivalent zoom on the Sony. It is a testimony to the quality of the Canon 7D Mk2 that the images hold up so well to heavy cropping.

You will notice that the better the light, the closer the Sony P&S comes to the full sized rig. The first comparison is not totally fair to the Sony, as I used the full 2x Clear Image zoom for the equivalent of 2400mms of reach. Digital zoom (while the Sony system is among the best), will never equal the quality of optical zoom.

I will give you one more comparison. This time it is a digiscoped Trogon, digiscoped at the short end of the digiscoping range…and again at 3200 ISO to cope with the low light levels under the rain-forest canopy.

(Just for fun, here is Diane and her rig, playing host some kind of whiptail lizard.)

Diane Porter and a visitor. This is a trick you can not do with a P&S.
Diane Porter and a visitor. This is a trick you can not do with a P&S.

Photography is about choices as much as anything. When we choose the compact ease and flexibility of a Point and Shoot super-zoom over the more conventional DSLR/long lens rig, we know that we will sacrifice some image quality. Conditions in the tropics test the limits of any camera and lens, but all in all I will still be packing my P&S super-zoom on my next tropical adventure!

 

 

 

 

 

Sports Mode/Follow Focus for Active Wildlife

Reddish Egret, Blackpoint Wildlife Drive, Merritt Island NWR, FL
Reddish Egret, Blackpoint Wildlife Drive, Merritt Island NWR, FL

 

One of the limitations of Point and Shoot cameras, even advanced Point and Shoot cameras like the super-zooms, is that they use a simpler, and less effective, auto focus sensor system than full fledged DSLRs. This matters not at all when you are shooting landscapes…and seldom when you are shooting people, even active people at parties, etc…but it can matter a lot when shooting wildlife…especially active wildlife.

Nothing is more active than a feeding Reddish Egret. I have tried to catch the wing-thing the Reddish Egret does periodically as it dances and prances about feeding…but this is one time when my choice of camera makes photographic life more difficult. The bird is literally all over the place…near and far…running to the left…hopping back to the right…and it seems impossible to predict when it will raise its wings to shadow the water so it can see its target fish. And the whole wing thing takes only a second. Done and gone.

Recent generations of super-zooms, however, have borrowed the “follow focus” mode from their larger cousins. Follow focus, or focus tracking, allows you to lock focus on a moving subject in the frame, and then the camera will track that subject and keep it in focus. On some superzooms, putting the camera in Sports Mode automatically activates tracking auto focus, and sets the focus programming to favor moving subjects.

You might remember that I recommend Sports Mode for birds in flight, but I had the opportunity to put Sports Mode and tracking auto focus to the test with a few cooperative Reddish Egrets along Blackpoint Wildlife Drive at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. It is worth noting that if tracking auto focus is going to work anywhere…it will work best in the brilliant winter sun of Florida.

And work it did. Unlike some P&S superzooms, with the Sony HX400V it is not even necessary to half press the shutter release. The camera automatically locks focus on any moving subject when it is centered in the finder, and then all you have to do is keep the subject roughly centered. The camera does the rest, and you are focused and ready when the action you want to capture happens.  Combined with the Sony’s fast 10 frames per second continuous mode, I was able to capture many wing-things, and several dramatic sequences of the Egret striking at fish. I was even able to catch the Egret in mid-hop. 🙂

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Mid-hop. Reddish Egret. Blackpoint Wildlife Drive, Merritt Island NWR, FL
Mid-hop. Reddish Egret. Blackpoint Wildlife Drive, Merritt Island NWR, FL

Some superzooms do not have a Sports Mode, or on some Sports Mode might work differently. If so, look for the Tracking Auto Focus, or Follow Focus under the auto-focus settings in your menu.

Find some active wildlife and give it a try. I think you will like it. 🙂

 

 

Point and Shoot: reality “reproduced” or reality “rendered”?

Anhinga wing. Florida. Sony HX400V

Photo geek discussions of image quality often revolve around the presence or absence of artifacts in the image when viewed at high resolution and large sizes. The theory among serious photographers seems to be that a good digital image should have very few visible artifacts, no matter how big you blow it up.

Digital artifacts come in several flavors. One of the more obvious ones is color, tone, and detail smearing, often referred to as the water-color-effect. In areas of the image with very fine visible detail the colors tend to run together in a muddy mix, and fine detail looks smeared as though a wet brush had been dragged across it. This is especially evident in grass at distance and at the edges of the frame and foliage. Then there is postering. Areas of smooth tone, like the human face, clothing, or the sky take on a poster like look, with visible edges between two areas of tone that should blend into each other. Another is blocking, where jpeg compression creates a pattern of tiny blocks instead of smooth color gradations. This is generally accompanied by the jaggies…another jpeg compression artifact, that produces a step like line where a smooth curve should be. Finally there is an artifact called over sharpening, which produces hard edges and even halos (bright lines) along the edges of objects in the image, as well as contributing to the postering effect.

In addition, small sensor cameras can suffer from mottling and color noise in smooth tone areas…especially in the sky. This produces a blotchy, freckled look where there should be a smooth expanse of blue. Color noise is especially easy to see in dark areas of the image. There might be little rods of red, green, and blue scattered in the shadows.

Generally speaking, none of these artifacts can been seen at normal viewing size or in prints under 8×10, though in an image where they are very present, the effect can be general loss of subtlety. People might say the photographic image looks more like a painting than a photograph. Generally though, you have to view the image blown up to nearly full resolution on a good high resolution monitor or LDC panel to see the artifacts. They can also show up clearly in large prints made from infected files.

This image from an older Point and Shoot superzoom shows most of the painterly artifacts discussed above.

It is a pretty standard criticism of Point and Shoot cameras and sensors that the images have too many artifacts. Some photographers will argue that the built in processing engine in any camera that saves the images only as jpeg files will produce an unacceptable level of artifacts…since many of them come from jpeg compression, and less than subtle in-camera processing. This is why P&Ss that record images in the RAW format (unprocessed) are generally considered higher quality than cameras that do not.

There is a name for those photo geeks who are really hung up on the artifacts issue. They are called pixel peepers (since they blow images up until they can see the individual pixels) by those with a more relaxed attitude. Of course I am pretty sure the pixel peepers consider the rest of us to be something less than serious about our image quality.

I will admit to having gone through my pixel peeping phase. Only a few years ago, some P&S cameras had such complex and such obvious artifacts that it was very easy to be disappointed with the results for anything but casual use. The images really did look like bad paintings at anything bigger than your standard laptop screen size.

Recently though I have come to suspect that there is more to this artifacting issue than might be immediately apparent.  I began to wonder if the artifacts in the best of today’s Point and Shoot cameras might be intentional…the result of the aesthetic engineers attempts to get the best performance out of the tiny sensors in Point and Shoot cameras.

Part of my suspicion is fueled by the undeniable fact that the image quality of Point and Shoot cameras, at least when images are viewed at reasonable sizes, has improved steadily over the past few years…yet the pixel level artifacts remain.

And part of my suspicion is fueled by the realization that all digital images are in fact closer to paintings than to conventional photographs. All digital images are renderings of reality, not reproductions.

I believe what we are observing in recent Point and Shoot camera generations is that the computing power and the sophistication of the processing engines (software) built into today’s cameras has gotten to the point where the jpeg renderings of the files for display are simply very, very good…so good they consistently fool the human eye into seeing more detail and more subtle color that is actually in the file.

For years, the stated purpose, or at least the underlying assumption, behind digital photography as been to improve the technology so that the camera can accurately capture, or record, the full range of light and dark, every subtle shade of color, and finest detail of every texture that our eye can see in the world around us. And we have made great progress toward that goal.

However, the truth is that no matter how accurate our recording, to be of use, the data that we capture has to be displayed using a pattern of tiny glowing bits on a monitor or LCD panel, or transformed into a pattern of ink dots on paper that can be viewed by reflected light. The resolution and color depth of displays continues to improve, and printers to evolve, but we have to remember that, no matter what the camera records, we do not have an image until it is rendered for display.

And, of course, someone has to decide how the raw data is going to be translated into a file that will drive a display or printer. Most professional and many advanced amateur photographers want to be the one to make the decisions…admittedly subjective, aesthetic decisions…on how that translation is going to happen. They work with RAW files and process them at the full resolution and color depth the sensor provides, and only translate them for display or printing at the last possible moment.

But the fact is, of course, that no sensor made today can capture what the eye sees, and no display technology can display it. Therefore part of the process of translation is always to adjust the data captured to compensate for the limits of the sensor and then tailor that data to the limits of the display technology available. All with the goal, of course, of displaying what the eye saw, or at least what the mind (heart) intended.

That is what I have come to call rendering the image. All digital images today are rendered for display, in much the same way we understand that a painter renders the scene before his/her eyes or in his/her mind. We might use digital technology, but our photographs are as much paintings as the work of any impressionist, and actually use a very similar theory of imaging…breaking the image down into bits of color and pattern, and reassembling bits and patterns of color to represent what we saw. That is the essence, as I understand it, of impressionistic painting.

When the aesthetic engineers at the today’s camera companies are faced with getting the most pleasing results out of a tiny sensor, they have to make decisions based on how the image will be displayed. Knowing the likely limits of resolution and size of the display, and the likelihood that the display will be digital itself, they have opted to program the camera to render the image for apparent detail and smooth tones at those sizes.

This requires a different approach to rendering than you might use in an idealized large sensor camera.

A really good painting produces the illusion of much more detail than is actually there. Walk up close to any painting and see how quickly the image dissolves into artifacts…how close do you have to be, in fact, to see the individual brush strokes and blobs of paint? Or to see that what looked like grass in all its glory was actually a swath of green paint with some clever strokes of yellow and black that tricked the eye into seeing the detail that is not there? How close do you have to be to see that the fully formed human face that you appreciated from 6 feet is actually a single brush stroke with a suggestion of eyes and mouth dabbed in?

Okay, so that is an extreme example…but I believe it captures the essence of the quality we are seeing in today’s best Point and Shoot cameras…especially in the jpeg files the cameras are designed to produce.

Perhaps the aesthetic engineers at Sony, to pick a company often criticized for their artifacty images, are not attempting to produce a smooth toned, finely detailed reproduction of the world through the lens, so much as they are attempting to render an image that, when viewed or printed at reasonable sizes, produces a satisfying impression of fine detail and smooth tone.

Admittedly, if you pixel peep, the artifacts are still visible, just as you can see the brush strokes and blobs of paint in a painting if you get too close, but with each generation of Sony Point and Shoot cameras, with increasing pixel count and processing power…as well as increased software sophistication…the rendering of reality has gotten finer, more detailed, more subtle…more satisfying.

I do not believe there is any other way to get satisfying performance out of a small sensor. We know, in selecting a Point and Shoot superzoom that we are making a compromise based on flexibility and compactness. No other camera can offer us an equivalent range in such a tiny package. That is the attraction. To get that means a small sensor…and satisfying image quality at reasonable viewing sizes from a small sensor requires an impressionistic rendering of the image. That is just a fact of life.

In fact, it is pretty miraculous, and evidence of great skill and dedication on the part of the artist-engineers, that a tiny 20mp sensor and a tiny computer in the camera can render such a high quality image, in a compressed format like jpeg, that allows easy, fast file movement.

At the other extreme, at the true professional end of the photographic spectrum, we are seeing more and more high pixel count full frame sensor cameras…and more and more high resolution displays and printers. And ever increasing power in the desktop and laptop computers we use (even in tablets these days) to process the high resolution RAW files. That is the other way to produce satisfying renderings of reality…the only way if you are going to display images on 4D and higher resolution displays and at print sizes, say over 24 inches. But even with the rich clean data of a big sensor, some kind of intelligent, intentional rendering of the image for display will always be required, whether it is done in-camera or after the fact.

Need visuals?

Green Heron at screen resolution. Sony HX400V
Green Heron at screen resolution. Sony HX400V

 

Detail at approximately 1 to 1.
Detail at approximately 1 to 1.

 

 

Detail at approximately 4 to 1.
Detail at approximately 4 to 1.

In the images above we have an example of pixel peeping. The top image is presented at screen resolution. By clicking on it you can view it at its full uploaded resolution of 2000×1500 pixels. You will see at anything up to that size (and considerably larger actually) the image looks great…excellent rendition of detail and color…certainly very satisfying. Until recently an HD computer monitor or LCD screen was 1900 pixels across, so this image would fill the screen. It would make a 10×8 inch print at 200 dpi…excellent quality.

The next image shows a small segment of the first blown up so that you can see each pixel. That would be the equivalent of full screen view on a monitor with a resolution of 5184×3888 (twice the resolution of highest resolution LCDs currently in production), or a print 25 inches wide. At that size the artifacts are just beginning to show. Still, from anything more than a foot away, the image on an HD screen or the 25 inch print would look amazingly detailed, smooth, and satisfying.

The final image is an even smaller segment of the first, now blown up to 4 to 1…four times full resolution. At this scale the artifacts are obvious…but it is the equivalent of a print 100 inches wide! Even at that scale, from more than 4 or 5 feet viewing distance, the image would still look almost as good as it does on at screen resolution. Don’t believe me. Next time you are in an airport, take a really close look at one of those wall sized images. 🙂

So, bottom line. The artifacts you see in Point and Shoot images when you pixel peep are necessary to the pleasing effect of the images viewed at normal viewing sizes. If you have opted for the convenience, the flexibility, the compactness of a Point and Shoot superzoom…just enjoy the results it is designed to produce. Do not pixel peep. The artifacts you do not see can not hurt you…and you will get full enjoyment out of the images you bring back…images that you would be unlikely to get with any other camera!