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| Despatches June 2008 : Monthly column as featured in Practical Photography | |||||||||
| Soggy places, crop fields. At least they are at dawn, after a still night, with big drops of dew hanging heavily from the fulsome heads. As I push through the barley like a scene out of Gladiator I’m doused in dew, covered in seed and weighed down by huge cakes of soft, fertile Umbrian soil clinging to my boots. I’ve stumbled into a drainage ditch and weighed down with my Manfrotto and Lowepro am struggling to clamber out. Quite frankly, I’m a mess and in a rut, literally and figuratively. Back in Italy again, for the second year running. Is this becoming a habit? A bit too predictable? Am I not being adventurous enough? Well, as ruts go, it’s a pretty good one to be in, so who cares? And there’s a picture to be made here, I think. Yesterday the long drive from Annecy, under Mont Blanc and down the Autostradas took longer than expected. The sun was dipping as we pulled in to the campsite near Gubbio; time only to pitch tent and get acquainted with a bottle of Montefalco and a bowl of pasta. I’m lousy at photography when strung out from the road, after years of travel I know that now and don’t fight it; the quest for images can wait for a fresh start. But where? I’ve never been here before, and have had no time for location searches. I could go up the road to Gubbio, I know it’s an Umbrian jewel, but from what I can determine from the map it will be in the shadow of the hills at dawn at this time of year. But as we were arriving I spied this lovely swaying barely field just over the road; there’s villas looking suitably rustic and Italian in the middle distance, and the hills beyond. I never can resist barley fields. As a starting point it seemed to be my best option, so here I am. As the sun rises a bank of cloud rolls in, obscuring the sun. Initially I’m disappointed, as a default setting I usually hope for strong directional golden light, but I think there may be a silver lining to this cloud. Firstly, the heavy sky gives drama and mood, and secondly, shooting into the light slightly contre jour, as I am here, the cloud is diffusing the sun, dropping the contrast and eliminating the problem of flare. And I’ve found a few lonely poppies in the sea of green, they add a tiny splash of primary colour; nature’s random perfection. So all in all this is a good way to start a trip: unshaven, dishevelled, soaking, muddy, dieing for a coffee, and reaching for my ND grads. I’m reminded of the delights of the NEC. OK, that’s not a logical leap of imagination, from Umbria to Birmingham, but trust me. Back in the winter I braved the plastic cups and cardboard sandwiches at Focus on Imaging, for 3 days! 3 days! Apart from possibly being the most adventurous thing I’ve ever done I had the opportunity to talk filters to many a PP reader. The one question that popped up time and again was; hard or soft? When using neutral density graduated filters which degree of gradation to use and when seems to be a perennial dilemma. I’m afraid I’m going to disappoint you now by fudging the issue; it depends on so many factors. |
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| Firstly, lets just clarify what I’m on about. Neutral density graduated filters are most typically used for holding back exposures on skies and can have a very gradual, or soft transition from top to bottom, clear to dense, or a more pronounced, or hard transition. Focal length, depth of field and aperture are all considerations when deciding which to use. I could say to you when using medium to long lenses with medium to large apertures and shallow depth of field use hard grads and with wide-angle lenses at small apertures with lots of depth of field use softs. It’s not a bad general guideline, but here in Umbria I’ve a 16-35mm lens at 22mm on my Canon set at f16; the depth of field extends from the barley just centimetres from the front element all the way to Perugia, and yet I’m using a hard 0.9 ND grad, so clearly I’m talking bollocks. Ultimately, the choice of hard or soft will depend on the composition. For this shot I have a definite line along the skyline to lay the grad, the image essentially divides into two halves exposure wise and I’m using the grad filter to balance them. You could argue that doing two exposures and merging them is the way to go. It’s certainly a useful method to have in your armoury, but if there’s anything moving in the shot getting a perfect join between the two exposures will be problematical. My approach is to try and get as perfect an exposure as possible in camera and then to just fine tune the balance between landscape and sky in post-production. It’s an approach that’s been honed over decades of shooting trannies, when it all had to be done in camera, but it works for me. I’m not one for complex manipulations anyway, the best shots are the simplest and you can’t improve on nature. Whatever your approach all landscapers need ND grads more often than not. But on the hard v soft debate its all still clear as mud, isn’t it? Just consider this. I use hard grads 75% of the time. If I could carry just one filter it would be a 0.6 ND grad hard. But the three I’m never without are 0.6 & 0.9 ND grad hards and a 0.9 ND grad soft. And as to which to use and when, well, you’re just going to have get out there in a crop field at dawn and experiment. Well, what else would you rather to be doing at 6am on a Sunday morning? |
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