Test details

As with still photography, digital image noise from high ISOs is most noticeable in underexposed areas, so I deliberately didn’t light the scene well — everything was lit by a single floor lamp with a standard CFL. The point, after all, is to see how the Nikon D7000 performs in low light.

Camera settings

Except for a small adjustment for white balance, I didn’t do any color correction or sharpening — everything is straight out of the camera.

• 1080p24 at 1/50s
• I used Nikon’s default “Neutral” picture profile. You can get even more detail out of the shadows, and latitude for post processing, by using a custom flat profile like the one from Alvaro Yus.
• The “High ISO Noise Reduction” setting was left at “Normal,” so there is a small amount of noise reduction going on in-camera.
• Lens: Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8G

Conclusions

I think performance is pretty decent up to ISO 2000, and there’s no doubt you could get even more mileage using noise reduction software during post processing. And let’s face it: sometimes you simply can’t add extra lights to a scene, and you have no choice but to push your camera to its limits. But if the story is strong enough, the audience will forgive noisy video.

What do you think? Do you have an ISO on your camera you won’t go above, or does it depend on the project?

Putting it Together

I was mostly focused on taking photos during the trip, and didn’t have much of a plan when shooting video footage — I was mainly just grabbing shots as I found them. When assembling the video clips, it became clear that Jasper was really the star of the show, being his goofy self almost on cue.

So I decided to outline the story around largely around him, contrasting pretty pictures and scenery with his antics. I used the concept of spending three days camping for the overall structure, and used longish “dip to black” transitions to to separate the three days.

Lessons Learned

Or maybe it should be “Lessons I’m Still Learning.” Going in with a plan is always better than trying to figure out a story after-the-fact, and as I’m making the transition from stills to video, this is probably the number one thing I need to work on. This can be tough, though.

Many of my video projects are based around documenting a trip or adventure I’m on; by definition I don’t know what the story is going to be ahead of time. So I’m trying to go in with broad story themes: looking for beginnings, middles, and ends, conflicts that may arise (recording more footage of rain would have been good for this one), and resolutions that may present themselves. Trying to pay attention to the basic building blocks of a story should make it easier to actually put one together after the dust settles.

Camera Gear Used for Video

A list of the camera gear I used to shoot the video:

• Nikon D7000
• Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8G
• Nikon 50mm f/1.8D
• Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G

The hike to Upper Kinney Lake in the Toiyabe National Forest was relatively short and easy, and it was sunny and clear when my wife Carol and I left the trailhead. Perfect. (We have a track record of it always raining when we go backpacking.) About halfway through the trip Carol looked up at the sky and scoffed: “Ha! Didn’t get us this time!”

Backpacker and dogs (golden retrievers) on the Pacific Crest Trail, Toiyabe National Forest, California

Mistake.

Within a few minutes of picking a campsite the clouds started rolling in from the east. Uh, oh. We had just finished setting up the tent when the first big, fat raindrops started coming down. Shoot. Then the hail started. And not nice little hail, but big, penny-sized hail that hurt when it hit you – and it was coming down hard.

Sigh. So much for evening light pictures – time to put away the camera.

Or was it?

While it’s easy to get discouraged when a storm rolls in, that’s actually the time to start paying close attention to the sky, because it can bring some of the best dramatic light – and really that’s what most landscape photographers crave.

We spent the rest of the afternoon in the tent, reading, writing in journals, and listening to the rain pour down (the hail only lasted 10-15 minutes). As soon as it stopped, though, we crawled out to find an overcast sky, but with some breaks here and there. Hmmm. Time to grab the camera and look for dramatic light to develop.

Storm clouds above Silver Peak and Upper Kinney Lake, Toiyabe National Forest, California

Storm clouds above Silver Peak and Upper Kinney Lake, Toiyabe National Forest, California

Evening light and storm clouds above Highland Peak and Upper Kinney Lake, Toiyabe National Forest, California

What makes the light dramatic here is the contrast between light and dark: the areas where the sun is breaking through the clouds vs. the areas in shadow because of the clouds. But mostly, I think, it’s the unexpected placement of the light: just a band of light instead of having the frame split into light and shadow; sun on the lake, but the mountain in shadow; having the sky darker than the landscape.

Exposing for the sunlit areas, and letting the shadows go a little dark, adds to the drama. One of the pitfalls to avoid while later processing in Lightroom or Photoshop is the temptation to bring the overall exposure back up and balance the light and dark areas to make them look “normal.” After all, it’s the darkness and contrast that add to the drama – why take that away?

When the alarm went off the next morning, telling me it was time to get up for sunrise pictures, it was again pouring rain, and sounded like a morning for sleeping in. But I was still listening. When the rain stopped about an hour later I peeked out of the tent, and sure enough there was a break in the east. I had just enough time to put on some shoes and race to the edge of the lake to make this image, and the light was already fading.

Sunrise at Upper Kinney Lake, Toiyabe National Forest, California

I got off one more image before the light disappeared altogether, and settled back to gray overcast. Storm light can be dramatic, but also fleeting, so it pays to be very aware of how the clouds are moving, and gauging the potential for things to develop. And not put away your camera.

Here are a few more shots from both during and after storms that were only possible because of the sun breaking through clouds.

Late afternoon light on the Ajo Range, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Arizona

Storm clouds over Wet Meadows Reservoir, Sierra Nevada, Toiyabe National Forest, California

Waves lap the shore of Shipwreck Beach at sunset, Kauai, Hawaii

Morning light on Pike’s Peak and North Gateway Rock, Garden of the Gods Park, Colorado Springs, Colorado

Goals

Before we left for Kauai, my general goal was to document the trip in a way that was more creative than the typical vacation video: I didn’t want a montage of “hey look at me” clips, but rather to tell a story. Initially, the plan was to focus on one of the adventures we were planning: a trek deep into the rainforest via a series of long underground tunnels. Sounds cool, right?

But the weather, of course, didn’t cooperate.

The forecast as we sat in the airport

Adaptation

As I mentioned in a previous blog post, our trip turned out to coincide with a serious of tremendous thunderstorms that were washing away roads, flooding rivers and shopping malls, and covering the beaches in driftwood. The idea of fording a (flooding) river to get to the trailhead, hiking along a poorly-marked path through the rainforest, and making our way through 1.5+ miles of former stream diversion tunnels in such weather suddenly seemed like it would be pushing our luck. Plan A was out.

After landing in Lihu’e (in the rain) we upgraded our car rental from a Ford Focus to a 4WD Jeep Wrangler, found the March Madness basketball games on TV, and set about coming up with a Plan B while the storms raged outside. Psychologically, we actually adapted quite well: rather than being bummed that the weather wasn’t cooperating with our tropical island vacation, we set out to enjoy the island as it was – rain, wind, and all.

It was actually about the second or third day, as I was photographing the dawn storm clouds from the beach (in a light rain, of course), that an idea struck me. There was a break in the clouds on the horizon, and the forecast called for the thunderstorms to be breaking up a bit, though continuing off-and-on; the weather was going to get better, though remain volatile.

A break in the weather: hope on the horizon? At least a storyline idea for a video.

The phrase “from dark to light” popped into my head, and I had an inspiration: instead of making a video about a specific adventure, why not center the story around this transition from stormy weather to good (both physically and metaphorically)?

A New Perspective

Our story, in fact, was that we arrived on Kauai expecting one thing (sunny skies), and found another (stormy skies), but had a great time nonetheless. I decided to make that the basic storyline, and set out to start recording subjects and scenes I never would have before: muddy rain puddles, driftwood-strewn beaches, crashing storm waves – all those things that at first glance I might have found unattractive in trying to document the beauty of the Kauai, but at second glance helped tell the story.

Typically, when I’m in Nature Photography mode, my eyes seek out beautiful scenes and landscapes in an effort to communicate the beauty of my surroundings. Things like mud puddles don’t usually register. With this new storyline in mind, though, my head had to do a quick reset: I was now looking for a broader selection of images. I came up with an outline for a shot list, and tried to pay close attention while we were out and about to capture not just scenes that made us go “Ah!” but those that made us go “Oh!” or “Ugh!” as well.

My wife was a real trooper, sacrificing herself often to mud and rain to help me get the shot (though I think she secretly enjoyed it). That’s her slopping through the mud in bare feet, and yes, she got pretty wet at 0:52 (though the camera was safely in a waterproof case).

Video Gear

The equipment I used to record footage was pretty straightforward:

• Nikon D7000
• Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6
• Nikon 18-35mm f/3.5-4.5
• Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8
• Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8

The Video Edit

Back on the Mainland, safe and dry in the office, the question was how to put it altogether. Holding on to that general idea of “dark to light,” I decided on a two-act structure: start out with dark and stormy footage, and then transition to light and fun footage. But because the ultimate message was “enjoying ourselves in spite of things” I included some stormy footage in the second act, as well, to make the point that it wasn’t just that the sun came out, but we adapted to the weather, as well.

For the dark and stormy footage, I tried to emphasize the mood by desaturating the clips and increasing the blues to give them a colder, less inviting feel. The remaining footage I edited to be as “normal” as possible, with a little boost in the color saturation.

To try and really make the point, I decided on a few voiceover spots, and came up with some really flowery, heavy-handed, and preachy text. My good friend Donovan, whom I enlisted to record the voiceover, fortunately reined me in with some solid editing suggestions.

The soundtrack had to emphasize the two sections, and after searching high and low, I found a couple of instrumental tracks from Tim McMorris (whose work I had used on a previous project) that seemed to work perfectly. I only used about half of the first track, but had to repeat the second track to make it long enough.

The only environmental sound in the video is of ocean waves, which I actually just recorded with my iPhone.

Lessons Learned

One of the obvious lessons was simply to be flexible, and adapt to the conditions you find yourself in. I had the luxury of changing my storyline; had I been tasked with getting the original story no matter what, I would have had to adapt in a different way, and find a way to make it work.

The project also opened my eyes to capturing footage that told a more complete story: not just the pretty scenes, but also the ones easily overlooked (think: mud puddles). Looking back, I would have liked to have a greater variety of footage to work with (hiking in the rain, sitting in the condo with the storm raging outside, or even just enjoying some shave ice on the beach). In fact, one of the big issues I ran into was simply not having enough time to capture all the video and stills I wanted. The balance I had to strike was one of getting all the shots I might want vs. actually enjoying the trip. This was not a professional assignment – my wife and I were on a “vacation” and I had best remember that.

And in case I started to forget, she was always there to remind me:

The greatest rewards in travel often come when expectations clash with reality.

Such was the case when my wife and I travelled to Kauai, Hawaii this year. After spending hours online and buried in guide books researching all the things to do, places to see, and adventures to have, we arrived in the middle of a series of tremendous thunderstorms that had been already been pounding the island for a week, and would continue off-and-on for our entire stay.

The weather forced us to slow down and enjoy Kauai for the beauty it offered, rather than check off a bunch of pre-conceived activities from our list. We had to re-plan the trip according to Kauai’s schedule, and enjoy the moments we found, rather than jam it into our expectations of what it should be. In fact, it was one of the best trips we’ve ever had.

As with our To Do list for activities, I had a shot list for photos and video that I wanted to shoot while in Kauai. And like the rest of the trip, it changed dramatically once we arrived. The result of all these changes – to our itinerary, to my approach to photographing and recording our travels, and to our mindset about expectations – is this video.

Where are the Cheerios? One of the hazards when shooting babies — don’t forget the lens cleaner!

Typically the girls are focused on the shoes, but I think the guys had more fun with this one.

Probably one of my favorite images from the day:

They celebrated their outdoor wedding at the beautiful Boundary Oak Golf Course in Walnut Creek, CA. Megan Haney Designs did a gorgeous job with the floral arrangements, and DJ Krazy rocked the house for the reception.

]]> http://www.martinbeebee.com/wedding-photos/walnut-creek-ca-wedding-celine-willy/feed/ 0 http://www.martinbeebee.com/wedding-photos/walnut-creek-ca-wedding-celine-willy/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/MartinBeebeePhotography/~3/0ZaZdXrNsQc/ http://www.martinbeebee.com/portraits/raychel-lifestyle-photos-cool-ca/#comments Wed, 20 Jun 2012 18:54:52 +0000 admin http://www.martinbeebee.com/?p=1149 I had Raychel lean against the open barn door, with beautiful late afternoon light streaming in from the left. Snap, snap, snap. Then showed her the back of the camera.

“Oooo . . . I like your camera.”

“Yeah. It’s not the camera, honey – it’s you.”

Raychel is one of those really sweet, really bubbly, really fun people who you just instantly like. Plus, of course, she’s gorgeous. She wanted a “classy/sexy/country” look to her photos, and happily her parents have horses. And a barn with hay. Raychel basically just had to walk outside and stand there. She’s a photographer’s dream.