{"id":3232,"date":"2014-06-22T06:11:33","date_gmt":"2014-06-22T14:11:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/?p=3232"},"modified":"2019-11-27T12:45:14","modified_gmt":"2019-11-27T20:45:14","slug":"photograph-coastal-redwoods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/2014\/06\/22\/photograph-coastal-redwoods\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Photograph the Coastal Redwoods"},"content":{"rendered":"

California is blessed with two species of redwoods, the Giant Sequoia (Sequoia giganteum) of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the Coastal Redwoods (Sequoia semperverins) along the California coast from the Oregon border to 150 miles south of San Francisco.\u00a0 These awe-inspiring trees are both a joy and a challenge to photograph.\u00a0 I recently spent a week in Crescent City in Northern California photographing the Coastal Redwoods and leading a photography workshop there<\/a>.\u00a0 I\u2019d like to pass along some of the techniques we employed to capture photographs that do these majestic trees justice in breathtaking but often very difficult light.<\/p>\n

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But before getting into the photographic details it is useful to spend a little time getting to know our subjects.\u00a0 Let\u2019s start with a comparison of the Coastal Redwoods and the Giant Sequoias.\u00a0 The two trees are related but have their own distinct characteristics.\u00a0 The Giant Sequoia is the most massive living thing on earth which boast enormous diameters at their bases.\u00a0 And while very tall, the height record goes to the more slender, more graceful Coastal Redwoods.\u00a0 Their fascinating statistics are shown in the chart below.<\/p>\n

\"01-46-redwood-sequoia\"<\/a><\/p>\n

High in the Sierra Nevada Mountains where the Giant Sequoias grow the air is clear, the sky is blue and the sun is bright most of the time.\u00a0 But along the coast the Redwoods grow in the coastal fog belt.\u00a0 When the winter rains abate it is the summer fogs that provide the much needed moisture to the redwoods and other fog belt plants.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no question that there is Fantastic Light in the Coastal Redwoods, one of the Four Pillars<\/a> of a compelling landscape photograph.\u00a0 And one of the areas in which we grow as photographers is to learn to not only recognize and appreciate the Fantastic Light we encounter but to know how to make the most of it.\u00a0 And this brigs up another of the four pillars \u2013 Optimum Exposure<\/a>.\u00a0 Getting the right exposure for some of the light we encounter is pretty straightforward while other lights are extremely challenging but, if we can get it right, incredibly rewarding.\u00a0 So let\u2019s talk about three kinds of light found in the Coastal Redwoods and the best exposure techniques used to capture them.<\/p>\n

Fog<\/h2>\n

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Fog plays an important role in Coastal Redwood photography and provides perhaps the best light to photograph them in.\u00a0 When the fog rolls in the grove becomes soft, enveloping and mysterious.\u00a0 It silently drifts through the trees creating ever-changing scenes that have an unsurpassed delicacy.\u00a0 The feeling of depth one gets in the fog is like none other.\u00a0 It\u2019s not the grand vistas like Death Valley or the Eastern Sierra but a more subtle depth, created by the suggestion of massive trees barely visible in the mist.<\/p>\n

The light is equally soft, delicate and mysterious. There are no harsh highlights.\u00a0 Everything is subdued and subtle.<\/p>\n

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Exposure becomes very simple under these conditions.\u00a0 With fog you don\u2019t have to worry about highlight or shadow clipping caused by high contrast.\u00a0 The exposure that the light meter in your camera determines will produce excellent results.\u00a0 In fact, you may want to consider exposing to the right<\/a> to provide more detail in the shadow areas.<\/p>\n

For most landscape photographs you want to take advantage of the full dynamic range of the medium when you do your processing In the digital darkroom.\u00a0 This is NOT one of those situations.\u00a0 That would produce a hard, high contrast look that is not at all consistent with soft, gentle fog.\u00a0 Instead, correct the exposure (if you exposed to the right), consider setting a black point<\/a> but only on close objects and then bump the saturation a little.\u00a0 In Lightroom 5 I used +75 Clarity on the above image which works well because there aren\u2019t a lot of hard edges for it to do its magic on.\u00a0 All it did was bring out the sword ferns in the foreground but didn\u2019t disturb the soft feel of the light in the background.<\/p>\n

Dappled Sunlight<\/h2>\n

If you don\u2019t have fog the groves light up and become very exciting.\u00a0 Dappled sunlight falls in splashes of brilliance on the trails and forest floor.\u00a0 The grove is bathed in energy and scintillating beauty.\u00a0 But this exciting light comes with an extremely high contrast and the exposure gets a whole lot harder.\u00a0 In fact, the contrast is so great that it is well beyond the capabilities of our cameras\u2019 sensors.\u00a0 Severe highlight clipping that cannot be overcome in the darkroom becomes a major problem.<\/p>\n

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Look at this photograph here.\u00a0 It was captured at the exposure determined by the camera\u2019s light meter.\u00a0 You can\u2019t miss the hot spot right in the middle of the frame, creating highlight clipping that cannot be recovered.\u00a0 There is simply no way to get rid of it.<\/p>\n

Even when I\u00a0 underexposed by more than a stop I couldn\u2019t get rid of the highlight clipping and now my problem was compounded with shadow clipping.<\/p>\n

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It seems like this is a situation where there\u2019s no way to win and in fact that would be true if we were still shooting film.\u00a0 As much as we admired the beauty we would have to walk away from this shot.\u00a0 But with digital photography there is a solution and the solution is HDR.\u00a0 Now don\u2019t get excited; HDR is not a four letter word<\/a>.\u00a0 When used to control high dynamic range situations like this one it becomes an essential tool in our photographic creative vocabulary<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I took five exposures each bracketed by 1.3 stops with a \u20131.3 EV exposure compensation on the middle shot.\u00a0 That was the only way I was able to capture the detail in the hot spots while at the same time getting rich shadows also with detail.\u00a0 The results are quite pleasing.<\/p>\n

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HDR does not have to produce a surreal or grunge effect.\u00a0 In fact, I like it best when it produces a natural effect like the one above and helps me capture the feeling I had when I was there.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worth mentioning that I had to wait about 20 minutes to get this shot in order for the sun to move into position that eliminated some extreme hot spots that I would not have been able to capture.\u00a0 For example, the foliage was wet after a gentle night rain but this created some specular highlights.\u00a0 So I waited for the sun to move enough that these plants came into shadow.\u00a0 There were more lighting challenges besides this one that were solved by patience and time.<\/p>\n

God Rays<\/h2>\n

By far the most exciting light is when the fog begins to lift and you get the God rays (crepuscular rays if you prefer the scientific name).\u00a0 This light produces some of the most thrilling light any photographer could wish for.\u00a0 We all stand in awe when we gaze on a photograph with these glorious rays streaking down from above.\u00a0 They hold a special magic.\u00a0 But this too is very challenging light, again because of the difficult dynamic range.\u00a0 If I just took what the camera was capable of giving me this is what I\u2019d get.\u00a0 And it wouldn\u2019t come close to expressing the thrill and excitement I was feeling when I first saw this shot.<\/p>\n

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To delineate the rays while capturing the fragile beauty of the rhododendrons and the depth of the forest behind I again turned to HDR.\u00a0 I used the same formula as above \u2013 five shots bracketed 1.3 EV with the middle exposure \u20131.3 EV to ensure I captured the highlights.\u00a0 The results speak for themselves. This communicates what I felt.<\/p>\n

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This was one of those exciting moments when I knew I had something very special.\u00a0 Notice the details I was able to bring out with HDR \u2013 the specks of blue sky in the upper left corner, the trees in the background.\u00a0 Had I not used HDR the sky would have been completely washed out and clipped and the trees would remain hidden behind a wall of light.\u00a0 It\u2019s subtle details like this that take a photograph to the next level.<\/p>\n

In the HDR processing in the darkroom I went for a natural look (I use Photomatix Pro).\u00a0 I finished the image in Lightroom and Photoshop.\u00a0 What I tried to achieve was to make the God rays very clear (clarity in Lightroom did wonders) and give them a warm hue.\u00a0 And since this photograph was about the rhododendrons I pushed the saturation on the flowers just enough to make them stand out.\u00a0 I\u2019m really fond of this image and think it is one of the best to come out of the Redwoods photography workshop<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Summary<\/h2>\n

So, to summarize\u2026<\/p>\n