Mount Shasta glows in the warm light of sunset, Weed, CaliforniaThe setting sun casts Mount Shasta in shades of red and purple, Weed, California
This week I chose two photos of Mt. Shasta at sunset on the same day. The first shows more of the landscape surrounding the mountain, while the second just features the peak at the moment of sunset. I usually use the 3:1 aspect ratio when I stitch together multiple shots into a panorama, but sometimes (as is the case here), I crop single shots down to that ratio. In both of these photos, I thought that this aspect ratio created a more pleasing image, rather than showing an uninteresting foreground or a large sky above the mountain.
Snow-capped Wizard Island sits in the deep blue waters of Crater Lake
Last month my wife and I got a chance to visit Crater Lake National Park in southern Oregon. I had been several times before, but never armed with the digital equipment of today. Although I knew there would still be snow in July, I was surprised at how much was still there.
Even in July, snow covers the rim of Crater Lake. Formed in the caldera of an extinct volcano, it is the deepest lake in the United States. This depth accounts for the rich blue color of the water.
Snow was several feet deep in the forest, and drifts up to 10 feet deep still had the eastern rim road closed for the foreseeable future. In fact, it even snowed on us while we were there – something I was certainly not expecting in July. Thankfully I have a sensible wife who had booked us into a cabin – it saved us from camping in the mud between the snow drifts that covered the camp ground! And the snow really does add to the scenery.
The cinder cone of Wizard Island sits just off the rim of Crater Lake.
At night, the temperature dropped below freezing, and the wind picked up. While most sane people were in the lodge enjoying an after dinner drink around the fire, I was standing at the rim freezing while waiting for the sun to set. Luckily I got some nice colors that made the temporary discomfort worthwhile.
The orange hues of sunset light the overcast sky over Wizard Island, Crater Lake National Park, Oregon
Crater Lake is most famous for its amazingly deep blue color. This color comes from the clarity of the water (the lake water comes only from rain and snow melt) and depth of the lake (over 1900 feet deep). Blue is the last color of the spectrum to be absorbed as light passes through water. It is this intense blue that is reflected up from the depths of the lake. In fact, Crater Lake is the deepest lake in the United States and one of the clearest in the entire world.
Mount Mazama exploded nearly 8,000 years ago, creating an eruption 100 times larger than Mount St. Helens in 1980. The mountain's summit collapsed, forming a caldera 6 miles in diameter. Over time, rain water and snow melt filled the chasm, creating one of the 10 deepest lakes in the world.
It was a great trip, and inspired us to go back for some hiking when there is less snow. It might also be fun to do a multi-day cross-country ski trip around the rim. In spite of the weather (or maybe because of it), it was a pleasure to see Oregon’s only National Park. See the entire Crater Lake National Park gallery.
This week’s photo was taken last month a couple of hours after sunrise, from the north of the mountain. The Mount Shasta area is very photogenic, with numerous waterfalls and views of the mountain.
I was blessed with a clear morning. I had planned on a sunrise shot, but my progress out of the Bay Area was severely hampered by a grass fire closing the freeway. As a result, my wife and I got into Weed extremely late the night before. Even though I missed sunrise, I managed to get the shot before the harshest light of the day.
Sometimes capturing a scene that has very bright and very dark areas with a camera can be impossible, because both film and the digital sensor can resolve fewer stops of light than the human eye. Traditionally, this limitation was overcome by using a graduated neutral density filter, which darkened the bright portions of the scene to allow the film to expose the entire scene correctly. With the advent of digital technology, there has been a trend to move instead to post processing and digital manipulation to achieve similar results.
HDR (or High Dynamic Range for the uninitiated) has been sweeping the digital photography world for the past couple of years, mostly thanks to some new software that makes creating these images easy. The goal is simple: use several shots of the same scene at varying exposures to create a single image with a greater dynamic range (the range between pure white and pure black) than your camera can capture. Unfortunately, this goal is usually not achieved with results that look correct to the human eye. The final images appear flat and with low contrast, and the colors tend look almost cartoonish. This can be overcome to some degree by increasing the black level and overall contrast – however correcting the color issue is difficult.
The solution is to go back to digital basics. Instead of letting software automatically combine 3 or more shots at different exposures, combine 2 or more images yourself in an application such as Adobe Photoshop using stacked layers and various blending techniques. Photographer Glenn Randall covers some of these techniques and the principals behind them in his recent article for Outdoor Photographer magazine. The images below demonstrate using image blending verses an HDR software approach.
High Dynamic Range photo of Zion National Park, combining three images shot at different exposures
The above image was created by blending three photographs of different exposures together using software. Once this was done, the contrast was increased significantly. However, as you can see, the colors still look unnatural, with too much yellow in the rock. In addition the two rock faces in the background are washed out.
The image below combines two the the images used to create the previous image. The foreground and mountain were exposed with no evaluative metering compensation. The sky was exposed in a second shot at -1 stop, and blended into the foreground using a graduated mask. The result is more natural looking.
Two images of Zion National Park blended together using a gradient mask
Some people like the aesthetic of HDR images, and that is great. It brings a new artistic flair to the world of digital photography. But since I am usually trying to create a final photograph that accurately portrays what I see in nature, using the blended approach often works better for me.
