Photography

Perhaps you've noticed the somewhat variable nature of the photography in this blog. I bought a digital SLR (Cannon Rebel XTI) from Amazon USA before I left and had it delivered to the company who ran the Splitter Camp. From after the Splitter Camp most of the images have been taken with it (with exceptions such as canyoneering). This camera is similar to Caroline's and I wanted to direct you to some of my favourites images.



In the post "New Friends" http://desert-climbing.blogspot.com/2007/10/new-friends.html I have kept the apeture size large and used the very fast autofocus function directed with a single spot to focus on the Chipmunk's head. This has kept the focal plane narrow, such that whilst the head is in sharp focus, the rest of the body has less detail and the ground is blurred out. The partial automation of this camera has made this possible and as the creature was moving pretty fast I couldn't have set up my old 35mm in time.



In the post "Zion Narrows - Part Two" http://desert-climbing.blogspot.com/2007/10/zion-narrows-part-two.html there are a couple of images where I have used long shutter speeds. These have two purposes, one is to capture the dynamic nature of the water showing the path rather than the object itself. The image of Big Springs for example has the shutter open for 2 seconds. Despite the darkness, the apeture is set to F32 to compensate. In another example, you can see the walls of the canyon and even see colours. This simply wouldn't be possible without long exposure times because there was simply too little light. In both these examples my father's tripod was used.

Also, there is another image (on Anni's hard disk) which I particularly like. It isn't framed well but the focal planes are spot on. I photographed Anni in front of Delicate Arch. Contrary to the usual images of people standing by landmarks, I wanted Anni rather than the arch to be the principle object of the photograph. The shape of Delicate Arch is so destinctive that even when blurred it is easily recognisable. By setting the camera to a short focal plane and positioning myself extremely close to Anni, I was able to focus (manually) so that she was in sharp focus and the arch in soft focus, such that its shape is recognisable only and that the viewer is drawn to Anni's face.

Unfortunately, there was a problem with the flash and I had to send the camera back. If the situation resolves itself I should be able to buy a new one and then hopefully the quality of images will go up, but in the meantime, I'm back to point and shoot.