February 13, 2025 • 42 mins
Episode Summary:
In this episode of The Wild Photographer, Court Whelan breaks down the essential techniques for getting sharp images in both landscape and wildlife photography. He shares insider tips on shutter speed, aperture, and focusing techniques, plus the real impact of ISO on sharpness. You’ll also learn how to leverage image stabilization, drive mode, and post-processing tools like Topaz Denoise to get crystal-clear shots.
Key Takeaways:
📍 Shutter Speed & Movement: The faster the shutter, the sharper the shot—but how fast depends on your subject’s motion. For wildlife, start at 1/500s for resting animals, 1/1000s for walking animals, and 1/2000s+ for fast-moving subjects like birds in flight.
📍 Aperture & Depth of Field:
- For landscapes, aim for F8 to F11 to keep everything sharp while avoiding diffraction.
- For wildlife and portraits, focus on the eyes and adjust your aperture depending on how much of the subject you want in focus.
📍 Focusing for Maximum Sharpness:
- Hyper-focus: For landscapes, focus 1/3rd into the scene to maximize depth of field.
- Wildlife & portraits: Always focus on the eyes to make the whole image appear sharper.
📍 Stabilization & Handheld Shooting:
- Use image stabilization to reduce shake, but remember—it won’t freeze subject motion.
- Follow the Inverse Focal Length Rule as a baseline for handheld shooting.
- If using a tripod, add a 2-second delay or a remote shutter to eliminate vibration.
📍 ISO Trade-offs:
- Lower ISO = better quality, but sometimes you need to crank it up to freeze motion.
- Be mindful of noise at high ISOs—only use noise reduction software like Topaz Denoise when absolutely necessary, as it can actually reduce sharpness.
📍 Drive Mode for Extra Sharpness:
- Shooting in burst mode can help—sometimes the 3rd or 4th image in a sequence is sharper because the camera stabilizes after the initial click.
📍 Post-Processing for Sharper Images:
- Use selective sharpening on key areas like the eyes for a natural, crisp look.
- Be careful with noise reduction—it can soften details if overused.
Listener Question of the Day:
💡 How do you deal with noise reduction in post-processing?
Court explains when and how to use Topaz Denoise and Lightroom’s noise reduction to clean up high-ISO images without sacrificing too much detail.
Resources & Links:
🔗 Court Whelan’s Website & Podcast Archive
🔗 YouTube Channel – More Photography Tips & Tutorials
🔗 LensRentals.com – Use WILDPHOTOGRAPHER15 for 15% Off
🔗 ArtHelper.ai – 30-Day Free Trial with Code WILD
💬 Enjoyed the episode? Leave a review and share it with your fellow phot
- Check out Court’s photography and conservation work: CourtWhelan.com
- Follow Court Whelan (@courtwhelan) on YouTube for more photography tips
- Sign up for Court's conservation, travel and photography blog at www.courtwhelan.com
- View Court's recommended camera g
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everyone, welcome back to the Wild
Photographer.
I'm your host, court Whalen,and I've got a great episode
today talking all about how prophotographers get insanely sharp
images each and every time.
I think when it comes tosharpness in images, it's like
the Holy Grail.
It's also the commondenominator.
It's something that we all, aspro photographers or amateur
(00:20):
photographers, really strive for.
It's also something that Ithink we kind of hold as the
gold standard, like if the imageisn't sharp, the image is lost,
and so the sharper the image,the better the image.
Not only am I going to tell youthe various ways we can up the
ante and ensure sharpnessthrough all sorts of techniques
(00:40):
hint, it's not just aboutaperture, shutter speed and ISO,
it's about more than that butalso I'm going to challenge you
a little bit about what happensif your image isn't super sharp.
What are those cases when it'sokay to not have a crisp, sharp
image, like capturing reallyinteresting wildlife behavior or
a really beautiful moment intime in a landscape shot with
(01:00):
extraordinary lighting.
So we've got a lot to talkabout today, all about how pro
photographers get really, reallysharp images.
But before I go into that, Iwanted to thank our sponsors
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(01:21):
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Okay, without further ado, let'sget into today's podcast on how
pro photographers get insanelysharp images each and every time
.
So, first off, let's talk aboutwhat the main elements are.
(03:49):
So we're really looking at, Iwould say kind of two general
genres of photography that we'regoing to be framing this
conversation around.
We're going to start off withlandscape photography and then
we're going to move to wildlifephotography.
And I will say that, althoughI'm not a huge people
photographer, the wildlifephotography is totally parallel.
If you are a culturalphotographer, a portrait
(04:11):
photographer, if you love tophotograph people, the lessons
in the wildlife section parlayperfectly to photographing
people too.
So let's start off withlandscape photography.
So the first thing to getreally, really sharp images is
probably the most obvious, it'sthe most important.
It's having the right shutterspeed.
So when we're looking atlandscape photography, the great
(04:32):
thing is that landscapes don'tgenerally move.
Now, I say generally, becausesometimes movement and
landscapes can be a beautifulthing.
It might be a babbling brook,it might be a waterfall, it
might be even some wind movingthrough the flowers and the
trees.
So to get really, really sharpimages across your landscape
scene, the first thing is toknow what kind of shutter speed
(04:55):
you need.
Now there's this trick, thisidea known as the inverse focal
length rule.
We're going to come back tothis and talk even more in the
wildlife slash, peoplephotography section.
But the inverse law saysbasically, if you take your
focal length of your lens solet's say it's a 50 millimeter,
like I'm filming today, let'ssay it's 100 millimeter, or
(05:18):
let's say you're doing big wideangle landscapes, that's like a
16 millimeter or a 20 millimeterthe inverse law says that you
need to be shooting at one overthe focal length as your shutter
speed in order to freeze yourown hand movement.
So this is different than themovement of the landscape,
different movement from thewildlife, but to deal with your
(05:39):
own movement, meaning thesteadiest hand you can have,
generally we look at one overthe focal length as that minimum
number.
Now don't read into this toomuch with the wide angle, into
the spectrum, because I'm nevergoing to advise with a 20
millimeter that you stick withone over 20 and then forget
about the rest.
That's not exactly adhering tothe rule.
But when we get into biggerfocal lengths, like 50, 100, 200
(06:03):
, that one over the focal lengthshutter speed law is a really,
really great thing to keep inmind.
The other caveat is this wasinvented for lack of a better
word back in the day beforeimage stabilization or vibration
reduction, whatever your cameramight call that image
stabilizer within the body andor lens.
So when we look at shooting ata 200 millimeter which you know,
(06:26):
even though I'm starting withlandscapes, I shoot a lot of
landscapes on medium telephoto,like my 70 to 200 is one of my
favorite landscape lenses.
So what that means is that ifI'm taking a shot of a distant
mountain scene or whatever itmight be, at 200 millimeters,
I'm thinking I want to be at one200th of a second in order to
minimize my hand movement.
(06:47):
But again, I want to go deeperhere and talk about image
stabilization.
So a lot of these lenses today,a lot of the in-camera
stabilization, has ratings basedon stops of light, kind of
doing air quotes here.
So what that means is that ifyou are at 200 millimeters and
you know and think you want tobe shooting at 1 200th of a
(07:08):
second, if you have two stops ofstabilization in your lens,
what that means is that 1 over200, when thinking about hand
movement, because you're handholding your shot, we'll get to
tripods in a second.
That means you can achieve thesame thing by 1 50th of a second
, means you can achieve the samething by one 50th of a second.
(07:29):
And here's the reason is thatone 200, if you take one stop of
light out of that or add it.
We're talking about justgeneral units here.
That means one 200th would bethe same as one 100th of a
second.
That's one stop of light.
You take two stops of light andyou have that further to one
50th.
Now the cool and crazy thing isthat a lot of these cameras and
lens combinations are boastingsomething like three to five
(07:52):
maybe even more than that stopsof light.
So you could, in theory, starthashing that down further and
further and further.
A third stop of light in thatequation I'm talking about goes
down to 1 over 25.
A fourth goes to 1 over 12 or 1over 13th of a second.
I'll be honest, I don't thinkthat the stops of light these
(08:14):
lenses and camera bodies arestabilizing gets you that far.
I really rarely would thinkless than 1, 50th of a second in
this scenario, meaning I'm notgoing to really trust the system
to freeze my hand movement morethan a couple stops.
The key thing to take away isthat because of in-camera
(08:35):
stabilization, because of lensstabilization, we're not just
stuck at that inverse focallength rule any longer.
We can actually reduce that bythese stops of light.
So it's not reducing it just bya little bit.
It's not saying, oh my 1 200thof a second can be now 1 160th
of a second.
It's actually having it acouple times.
(08:56):
So, frankly, I feel prettycomfortable shooting a landscape
if I'm really stable, maybeusing kind of some bracing
technique, putting my elbows atmy side, sort of you know
looking, taking a page from themarksmanship book of you know
shooting other things other thancameras, taking a breath in,
exhaling halfway and beingreally really stable as I
(09:16):
depress that shutter.
So one 50th is a really, reallykind of safe but also
aggressive way to reduce yourshutter speed in those cases
that you need to.
Now.
All that being said, the fasterthe shutter speed for any
scenario, the more you're goingto freeze motion and the more
sharpness your photo is going tohave, or I should say the less
(09:38):
risk of unsharpness in yourphoto.
So this isn't to say 1 50th isa perfect for all scenarios.
It's just kind of the minimum.
If you have low light, ifthere's some other thing going
on where you're freezing motionbut also want to get as much
light in your sensor, you wantto shoot it.
A really ISO, a really low ISO,that's the way to do it.
(09:58):
That's the way to think aboutit.
But that all being said, Ireally rarely when I have the
ability to photograph alandscape that's not moving, I
have the ability to shoot fast.
I'm I am shooting at 1 200th, 1, 320th, maybe even faster,
because, frankly, usuallythere's enough light and I
(10:18):
myself am not too worried aboutbumping up that ISO a little bit
, let's say from 200 to 400 or400 to 800.
So shutter speed again, I'd beremiss if I didn't start this
conversation with saying the keyand core way of a pro
photographer to get really sharpphotos starts with a fast
shutter speed.
Now, when we get into thewildlife section, I'm going to
(10:39):
talk about more about freezingmotion of the subject itself.
We're really talking, inlandscapes, about freezing the
motion of your hand and camerabecause, well, let's face it, I
like to be handheld for the vast, vast majority of my shots.
I think I'm more flexible, Ican take more shots in less time
, I can frame in more creativeways.
(11:01):
It just yields a lot morephotos.
The second thing I want to talkabout is aperture.
Now, with landscape photography, you generally want to have a
big F number, which is the samething as saying a small aperture
.
Remember it's sort ofcounterintuitive that you think
big depth of field.
Technically it's a smallaperture because it's narrowing
down that little pinhole focusof your camera's aperture to
(11:23):
smaller and smallercircumferences, which translates
into a bigger depth of field.
There's a little trick you canuse, even when you're in your
house walking around, and if youlook through your hand, if you
make like a little OK symbol butturn that finger into a very,
very small little opening likethe size of a pinhead, you're
going to notice by lookingthrough that small hole versus
(11:45):
looking through a big OK symbollike the size of a silver dollar
, you're going to notice youreyes work with the surroundings
quite a bit differently.
Surroundings quite a bitdifferently.
If you have your fingers open,looking through them in a circle
at your entire scene, you'regoing to notice only what your
eyes are zeroing in on.
Only what your eyes arefocusing on is being in focus.
Everything else is kind ofblurry.
(12:05):
However, when you look throughthe exact same scene through a
pinhole meaning, tighten yourfingers down to make a very,
very tight okay symbol and lookthrough that, all of a sudden
everything you're looking at isin focus.
This is just straight up opticalphysics 101, 102.
Don't overthink the why behindit, unless you want to go into a
deep, dark rabbit hole aboutoptical physics.
(12:28):
But the idea is is when lightpasses through a small opening,
meaning a small aperture, itturns into a very, very big
depth of field.
So with landscape photography,nine times out of 10, when I
want a tack sharp image, I'mshooting at a bigger F number,
like F11, maybe even F16 to getthe whole thing in focus.
(12:51):
Now I rarely go over F11 andespecially not over F16, because
of this thing called the law oflimited diffraction.
What happens is, as you givemore and more definition to each
pixel because of this big depthof field, it literally crowds
out pixels on your sensor.
So all of a sudden your 45megapixel camera won't have 45
(13:14):
megapixels in it because you'recrowding them out with the
definition of each pixel.
So each pixel, instead of beinground or square, it's getting
more amorphous, it's gettingmore like multi-pointed star.
So that way it does make thephoto more defined, it does make
it sharper, but if you crowdout the megapixels, you're
(13:36):
actually losing some definitionin your scene.
So every camera, totally basedon the sensor's megapixel rating
and the sensor size, has alittle bit of a sweet spot and
I'm sorry to tell you that thesweet spot for maximum
definition on these big, fancyhigh megapixel cameras is closer
to like f7.1.
Now, that's not great forlandscape photography.
(13:58):
When you want the whole scenein focus, when you want the
river in focus, when you wantthe flowers in focus as well as
the mid ground, the trees, theforest, as well as the very deep
background like the mountainrange.
When you want all that in focus, my go-to, as long as light
allows, is F11.
Yes, it's going to probablycrowd out some megapixels, but
(14:20):
it's worth it because I reallywant that depth of field.
Now the next thing I'm going totalk about is where and how to
focus to achieve what's calledhyperfocus.
This is one of those next levelthings where your sharpness of
your photo is highly dependenton where you focus, irrespective
of the shutter speed, of theaperture, of the ISO.
(14:41):
It goes outside of that goldentriangle.
So, hyper focus there are someequations that you can easily
find online where you plug inthe focal length of your lens.
You can plug in the distance ofyour scene, like how far away
is that mountain range and howclose is that patch of flowers,
meaning how close is yourforeground compared to your
(15:02):
background and some othervariables that you need to plug
in.
But I'm going to save you allthat all that complicated steps
because we're in the field andwe're not thinking about long,
complex equations toachievefocus, meaning, where in
your big scene do you focus toget as much in focus as possible
?
That's called hyperfocus andthis is it.
(15:24):
Even if you were to do thisequation, you're gonna find each
and every time it's very, veryclose to this simple rule.
You want to focus when you wanteverything in focus, about a
third of the way into your scene.
Meaning, if the start of yourscene, meaning if the start of
your scene, the foreground is 20feet away and the background is
a mile away, you want to judgewhere roughly about a third of
(15:46):
that distance is and that's yourfocal point.
Now I should clarify if there'ssomething in the foreground
that you want in tack, sharpfocus at the expense of the
background, which is a techniqueI often use for landscape
photography.
If I want to showcase thatflower, if I want to showcase
the river or the river rocks,it's going to be worth it to me
(16:06):
to focus on those entities,those things, knowing that my
background might be a little outof focus, but very often I do
want the whole thing in focus.
I might not have a really,really dominant subject and I
want it as focused as possible,but I also want the trees in the
mid ground and focus.
I also want the mountain rangein the distance and focus.
(16:27):
There might be two or threelayers of those mountains that I
all want in focus.
So, as a result, hyper focusfor me.
My tip to you is to focus onethird of the way into the scene.
That's what you lock focus onand then you take your shot.
So we have three mainingredients going on here.
You want a shutter speed thatis going to be able to freeze
(16:50):
your hand motion, which is thatinverse focal length.
Again, even though I havestabilization on most of my
lenses, I'm going to ramp thatup a little bit because I just
want to make absolutely surethat everything is going to be
tack sharp and there's no handmovement, so truly, even on
telephotos or even on like 24millimeter lenses I'm looking at
(17:11):
like one over 320 is kind oflike my ideal shutter speed,
still keeping rock solid with mybody, with my hands, to
minimize hand movement.
I'm also going to be choosing apretty high aperture, or shall
I say a pretty big F number fora big depth of field.
I'm sort of vacillating betweenF8 and F11, based on light, but
(17:35):
F8, f11 is a really, reallynice, sweet spot.
And then I'm going to be usingmy center point autofocus to
judge you don't have to beperfect here, but just, with
intentionality, judge what onethird of the way into the scene
is, and then you take the shot,and this is going to work pretty
much each and every time.
One thing I haven't mentionedyet is the incorporation of a
(17:56):
tripod which, let's face it, inlandscape photography is a
really good move.
It's a really good call.
I do think tripods are useful.
I find myself using themprimarily for really slow
shutter photography, like nightphotography, like motion blur
photography.
But if you are going on aprimarily landscape based
(18:17):
photographic trip, like going tothe deserts, the American
Southwest, where you're mostlygoing to be photographing
landscapes versus wildlife orpeople, a tripod is a really
nice thing to have.
And what does this do?
Well, it basically takes theshutter speed equation and gives
you a lot of leeway and, as youprobably understand, this
relationship between shutterspeed equation and gives you a
lot of leeway and, as youprobably understand, this
(18:37):
relationship between shutterspeed and ISO means you can drop
your ISO down.
You're always going to have thebest quality and best sharpness
from the lowest ISO possible.
100 is usually the kind oftippy top gold standard of a low
ISO.
Some cameras will go down tolike 80 or even 50.
Technically that's going to bebetter, but you're not going to
(18:58):
notice a whole lot of differencein these quote unquote low ISOs
, usually ranging up to ISO 400,no matter what camera you have.
If you feel like you have a moreintroductory camera something
that is probably let's just puta number out there like a
thousand dollars or less for aDSLR or a mirrorless camera body
, you might want to stick moreto ISO 200.
(19:21):
That might mean you do need atripod.
What a tripod allows you to dois not worry about your own hand
movement.
So it throws that inverse focallength rule out of the equation
and it means you can probablybe shooting well, really as slow
as you want, but I tend toshoot maybe like one 10th of a
second, one 20th, one 30th.
That means I'm not worried atall about the shutter speed.
(19:43):
Shutter speed is a means to anend.
And what that allows me to do,even if I have really really dim
light, is I can shoot on thosebig aperture numbers, those big
F numbers like F8, like F11,like F16, and still get a low
ISO which is going to give methe tippy top best quality.
So those are all things toconsider there, and I think
(20:05):
they're really really darnuseful.
Now, the one additional littlecaveat there is I will pay even
more attention to my shutterspeed when I'm trying to
incorporate some sort ofmovement, will pay even more
attention to my shutter speedwhen I'm trying to incorporate
some sort of movement,intentional camera blur, in my
shot.
Now this is not moving thewhole camera, like some of the
artistic images I'm seeing outthere nowadays, with intentional
camera blur blurring the entirescene.
(20:26):
But the blur I'm talking aboutis like silky waterfall effects,
moving rivers, and that's wherewe're looking at, you know,
anywhere from one tenth of asecond to four, five, whole
seconds.
It has everything to do withthe speed of the water, the
motion of the water, the qualityof the water, the white water
that might be there and actuallyhave an entire separate podcast
(20:48):
specifically on capturing thatsilky movement effect of water.
So if that's something thatyou're into, something you're
anticipating, be sure to listento that quick episode because
it's going to give you a lotmore tips and tricks.
Now my final thing here withlandscape photography on the
tripod front is what do you doto minimize the motion that
you're injecting into yourcamera with simply pushing your
(21:11):
shutter button?
You actually are going to moveit a little bit by pushing that
button ever so slightly.
It does have the risk of movingyour entire camera and
therefore adding a little bit ofblur into your overall scene,
something that we do not want todo.
We don't want the whole sceneto be a little bit jostled, a
little bit blurred.
So a really easy trick that'scapable on every camera out
(21:33):
there, even if you don't have aremote shutter button, remote
cable release, is to set yourcamera on a two second timer.
So this is a really reallygreat way to ensure super tack,
sharp photos with landscapes.
Once you have the big depth offield, once you have shutter
speed under control, once you'vedialed down the lowest ISO
possible.
This two second delay willallow you to press the shutter
(21:54):
button again after you'veachieved hyper focus, after you
focus in one third of the wayinto the scene.
And that takes out the last bitof the equation, which is that
camera movement or blur, thathappens when you actually touch
your camera, that little bit ofmovement.
So again, two second exposureis going to do wonders for
ensuring that you've stacked thedeck in your favor for getting
(22:18):
every little bit out of yourcamera for a tack sharp
landscape photo.
Let's move on to wildlife andpeople.
As far as getting tack sharpphotos, so the first thing I'm
going to talk about is withwildlife, with people, very
likely you're not going to wantto or not going to be able to
get the entire scene in focus.
Oftentimes we just want acertain part of the scene in
(22:39):
focus and that's what we'rejudging tack sharpness by.
So wildlife is a great example,whether you're shooting on
portraiture, where you reallyare trying to blur the
background, blur the foreground,while keeping the animal or
person in focus.
The best way to do that isusing a little bit of psychology
and picking out where you focus.
(22:59):
So this is akin to hyper-focusin landscape mode or landscape
photography, where you knowthere's a certain part of the
scene you want in focus, butgenerally with wildlife and
people, it's not the whole thing, it's the animal itself.
So the number one tip here isyou have to choose somewhere to
focus.
Even if the animal is small inyour frame, there's still part
(23:20):
of the animal that you need tobe focusing on, and that is each
and every time.
To make the whole animal look infocus is focus on the eyes.
I'm going to repeat thatbecause it's such a core tenant.
This is like 999 times out of athousand.
I want the eyes in focus and Ican't tell you how many times I
(23:40):
do that.
The eyes are intact, sharpfocus, the heads in focus, but
there are parts of the animalthe hind quarters, the tail,
whatever the pause they'reactually not in focus.
But you know what?
It doesn't really matter,because the viewer whether it's
(24:01):
you, whether it's someone you'reshowing your photo to at an
exhibition is if the eyes are infocus, that is going to look
like a tack sharp photo each andevery time.
So I wanted to start with thatlittle bit of an X factor bit of
advice is, even though thereare many times you want the
entire animal in focus, thething you need to start with is
making sure the eyes are infocus, because very often the
eye of you or your viewersdoesn't really care if the rest
(24:21):
or if certain parts of theanimal aren't intact sharp focus
because the eyes and the faceare.
Or you have a lens that can getdown to really really small F
numbers.
Sometimes these big supertelephotos can get down to 2.8.
Some of the smaller lenses,like 100 millimeters, 50
millimeters, can get down tolike 1.8, 1.4, 1.2.
(24:43):
What's going to happen is thatif you focus on the eyes on
those really really shallowdepths of field lenses and
you're using the F1.4, is thatyou might have the eyes in focus
, but something as close by asthe nose is not in focus, or the
forehead or the ears.
And the best way to do that istaking a page from landscape
photography and looking at theratio of the animal in your
(25:07):
frame.
So if that animal's head takesup the whole frame, which is a
beautiful shot, it gets to knowthe personality of the animal,
maybe some expressions andbehavior.
You almost need to treat thatlike a beautiful shot.
It gets to know the personalityof the animal, maybe some
expressions and behavior.
You almost need to treat thatlike a landscape photo.
The eyes are going to be themid ground, the nose is the
foreground, the ears are thebackground, just like these big
sweeping mountain scenes.
And so, even though we mightthink, oh well, this is a small
(25:29):
part of my own eyes frame, Idon't need to shoot like like F8
, f11.
You're going to need to switchfrom f 2.8 or f4 and you're
actually going to need to get tolike that f8, f11 range, these
big f numbers.
You want the eyes in focus, youwant the nose in focus, you
want the ears in focus, maybeeven a little bit of the back in
(25:49):
focus, and that animal takes up50 or greater of your scene.
Treat it like a landscape shotand shoot it F8, f11.
Okay, so that's kind of youryour aperture and focal area
lesson of wildlife photographyfor tack sharp photos.
But we might be missing out on areally, really additional key
thing here, and this is where Iwould say one of the biggest
(26:11):
differences in landscapephotography versus wildlife or
people photography is that youdefinitely need to think about
how much movement is going on,not just in your camera and your
own hand movement, butprimarily, much more so, how
much movement is the animalengaging in.
And so, generally speaking,when I'm photographing wildlife,
I'm unlikely to be less thanone over 320.
(26:33):
I'm even unlikely to be lessthan one over 500.
Now, these movement categoriesare very, very flexible, so I
don't want you to only takeresting and slightly moving
animals at one over 500.
Like I'm about to advise, youwant to shoot as fast as you can
to freeze motion.
But in general I kind of lookat it as several different
(26:54):
categories.
Let's take photographing polarbears in the tundras of
Churchill, for instance, a placethat I know and love and have
photographed a lot.
Generally, when I have a restinganimal, a resting polar bear,
there's going to be somemovement.
There's going to be some random, erratic, unpredictable
movement, but in general they'renot moving very much.
They might be somewhat liftingtheir head up, they might be
(27:17):
very, very slowly rolling around.
I'm going to look in the rangeof one over 500, maybe to one
over 750 for my shutter speed.
That's what's going to give methe tack sharp focus.
The tack sharp definition fromthe animal when there's slight
movement is one over 500, oneover 750 at minimum.
So all of a sudden you'reprobably realizing that this
(27:38):
inverse focal length rule fliesout the window, because no
longer are you worried.
Do you have to worry about themovement of your own hand, the
movement of the camera.
Now you're shooting faster thanthat because you're
prioritizing for the animalwildlife movement.
If we're going to the nextcategory of movement and we're
looking at maybe a walkinganimal, let's shoot at one over
(28:01):
500 to one over a thousand.
Let's bump that up a little bitIf that walk turns into a
saunter, a jaunt, a little bitmore of a fast moving thing.
Let's say they're walking fromleft to right or towards you or
away from you and it's like atfour to six miles an hour kind
of like a very, very fast humanwalking pace.
I'm going to be at least at oneover a thousand.
(28:23):
I'm not going to risk it byshooting at one over 200, even
if I'm on a 200 millimeter.
I'm not going to risk it byshooting one over 500.
I absolutely want to freezethat motion and that movement.
So I'm really starting to trainmy brain to think about one
over a thousand.
All of a sudden, when we'rethinking about fast moving
wildlife, if they're running, ifa bird is flying, I'm bumping
(28:44):
that up, not quite double theshutter speed, because one over
2000 is very, very fast and allof a sudden your light is going
to just fall off a cliff.
But I am thinking one over 1250, one over 1600, working my way
up to one over 2000.
I am really doing my best totake multiple photos at all
those different shutter speeds,just because of the what if.
(29:06):
What if when I look in the backof my camera something's blurry
?
And I missed that whole scene,I missed that entire behavior.
What if it looks good in theback of my camera?
But when I put it on a computerscreen, a 30 inch monitor, and
I start to zoom in to a hundredpercent and really really
analyze the sharpness and detail, what if it's blurry?
So I have that one over athousand shot, but I really want
(29:28):
to make sure I have some otheroptions just in case.
And so again, fast movingwildlife.
One over 2000 is a reallyreally safe bet.
But part of your job is to weighall the pros and cons.
There are no solutions here,there's only trade-offs.
So when you're shooting, let'ssay, an animal's face, and you
took my lesson, and you want anF8, you want an F11, but you
(29:50):
also want to freeze motion.
1 over 2000 might give you acrazy high ISO that degrades the
image in its own right for thedesire of just being super safe
and making sure you freeze themotion.
You want to shoot at that rangeand experiment, because there's
(30:11):
going to be a sweet spot,there's going to be a best photo
in all of that.
What if the animal's runningbut you photograph it when it
stops?
You don't need one over 2,000.
You don't need one over 3,200.
And by dropping that down tosomething more moderate and
manageable, like one over 1000,all of a sudden you're going to
notice your ISO is lower.
(30:32):
You're going to notice you canget a bigger, deeper depth of
field by going back up to F 11.
Or, gosh, even F 16.
And that might be your bestphoto.
So it's a lot of analysis, it'sa lot of thinking in the moment
, but the best advice I have foryou is to plan on shooting at
multiple shutter speeds in orderto get all that data, in order
to get additional photos tosupport If you find that those
(30:55):
slower shutter speeds based onthe movement just aren't quite
cutting it.
Another trick that I found inrecent years is using my drive
motor.
So drive motor is basically howmany photos your camera takes
per second.
We often refer to it as an FPSor frames per second.
And if you go into yourcamera's manual or online for
another tutorial, you might findthat your make and model shoots
(31:18):
up to five frames a second.
Newer, fancier cameras areshooting up to 10, 15, 20, even
30 frames a second.
Some of the flagship top linecameras out there are shooting,
I kid you, not, like 30 frames asecond.
Some of the flagship top linecameras out there are shooting,
I kid you not, like 60 frames asecond.
What I've found this can be areally, really useful setting to
bump up that frame rate, toshoot as fast as possible.
(31:39):
And actually the third, fourth,10th photo in that sequence
sometimes tends to be thesharpest because it's minimizing
the movement of the camera.
It's minimizing that slightjostling that you have by
pressing the shutter.
And now that you've depressedthe shutter and the camera now
once again returns to relativestability, it's your photos
(32:02):
within that sequence, midwaythrough or at the end of your
sequence, that tend to be thesharpest.
In addition, like I wasmentioning, you might be
photographing an animal that iswalking and stopping running and
stopping flying and perching.
If you have a burst mode on ahigh drive motor, you're going
to often find that the bestphotos might be at that middle
(32:25):
range of your entire sequencesomething within like five to 10
photos of when you started andstopping taking that sequence.
So high drive motor is not apanacea.
It is not the first thing I'mgoing to think about, but if
you're trying to eke out alittle bit more sharpness which
is what this episode is allabout is getting the most
sharpness you can from yourphotos Looking at a high drive
(32:45):
motor is a really really goodway to go.
Now stabilization is anotherreally helpful tool here with
wildlife photography.
But again, keep in mind thatit's mostly just going to limit
motion from your own handmovement.
Putting the biggest, best lensand the most incredible
stabilization is going to doalmost nothing for freezing
(33:06):
wildlife movement if you'realready at 1 over 1000, if
you're already at 1 over 1250.
So stabilization is great, butjust remember that stabilization
only limits your own handmovement, not the wildlife
movement.
Super important thing to play apart here.
So the last kind of thing I'mgoing to talk about before I go
into post-processing, that is,of how we can even boost further
(33:30):
our sharpness through delicate,very intentional, very moderate
tools.
But the last thing before I getinto that is me how ISO plays a
role in all this.
So I've already cautioned acouple of times about what
happens when you're setting asuper fast shutter speed and a
really, really big depth offield let's say one over 2000
and F 11, unless you're shootinginto a sky like a moving bird,
(33:52):
a flying bird.
If you're photographing intothe brush, into the darkness, or
even shooting in the earlymorning light or really a number
of other scenarios, you mightfind that your ISO is getting
really really high, reallyquickly.
Just a quick little aside herethe reason that I say we might
find our ISO getting high isbecause I always shoot on manual
(34:15):
plus auto ISO.
That's all my landscapephotography, that's all my
wildlife photography, all mypeople photography.
I'm shooting on manual, meaningI'm plugging in my aperture so
I can dial in F8.
I am putting on manual mode formy shutter speed too.
I want to tell the camera I'mlooking at 1 over 1000.
I want you to shoot at 1 over1600.
But what I found is that,letting the camera decide on the
(34:39):
ISO to take an even exposure,something in the middle,
something that's properly lit,the camera will constantly make
adjustments to get that quoteunquote perfect ISO.
But the thing is I have noupper ISO limit set on my camera
because I monitor it very, veryclosely.
So you might be reallysurprised when photographing
(34:59):
wildlife around the world, whichis almost always going to be in
somewhat challenging lightingconditions it's early in the
morning, it's late at night,it's involving movement, it's an
animal that is in the sunshineone second and in the shadows
the next.
As you might find that whileyou're shooting a slew of photos
at ISO 400 and you're happy andyou know that that's a low ISO,
you might find when that animal, when that cheetah, gets into
(35:22):
the shade bush and sits down,all of a sudden your camera is
giving you ISO 1600, iso 3200.
And the problem there is that,yes, your shutter speed is great
, yes, your aperture is great,but the photo quality diminishes
markedly as you double your ISOeach and every time.
Basically, what it does this iskind of a little nerdy aside,
(35:44):
but how ISO works is your cameraactually sends a small electric
pulse through your sensor thatbasically makes it more
sensitive to light, and sothat's why sometimes ISO is like
this magic bullet, the silverbullet, where if you're not able
to get the photo with theaperture and shutter speed you
want, we have that ability tosend that pulse through the
sensor, make it more sensitiveto light and you get that photo,
(36:06):
voila, magically just byincreasing your ISO.
Now again, the key thing hereis that as it gets to these
numbers of 3,200, 6,400, over12,000 ISO, the photo is going
to get grainier and grainier,which 100% reduces overall
quality and sharpness in yourphoto.
So ISO still plays a major,major role.
(36:28):
One of the big reasons I keepup to date with cameras is
because their ability to handlehigh ISOs is a really, really
huge benefit.
Like on my Canon 5D, I'm ableto shoot at ISO 3200 with
relatively little degradation ofquality.
Now, quick little teaser herefor today's listener question
(36:50):
that was submitted not too longago.
The question is how do you dealwith noise reduction software?
And this is a really cool thing.
So I just want to plant thatseed.
We're going to come back tothat after I talk about some of
the sharpening techniques I usefor my photos in post.
Noise reduction is somethingthat I do in post.
It's in my camera raw platform,it's in Photoshop and Lightroom
and all that.
(37:10):
So we're going to come back tothat.
But first let's talk about whatI do in my post-processing
workflow to boost that sharpnessjust a little bit further Now.
I'll admit that sharpeningphotos in post is the last thing
I really want to do.
If I have to sharpen a photo inpost-processing, that's usually
(37:30):
because I want to take analready sharp photo and boost it
up just a little bit more.
So oftentimes what I'll do,especially with wildlife if I'm
photographing a lion and I'mfocused on the eye and I'm
filling the frame with it, Imight go with a little bit of a
brush mask and actually boostthe sharpening on that eye just
a little bit more.
So keep in mind, I'm notturning a blurry photo into a
(37:51):
sharp photo.
I'm turning a sharp photo intoa ridiculously tack sharp photo,
and that's a really, reallygreat technique pro
photographers use to level uptheir sharpness.
So, without further ado, let'sget to the listener question
(38:17):
that is so germane to this topic, which is how do I deal with
noise reduction in mypost-processing workflow?
It allows you to get those fastshutter speeds, which is always
the number one way thatphotographs turn out to be
blurry is not taking intoaccount motion blur from your
own hand movement or from thewildlife or people movement but
denoising is allowing us moreand more today to deal with high
(38:39):
ISOs, shooting at a high ISO inthe moment and then quote
unquote rescuing it in postprocessing, ie Photoshop.
So there are two primary waysthat I work.
One is with a third partyprogram called Topaz Denoise.
It's a great program.
It is intuitive, it is robustand it's very, very good at
taking the noise out of thescene.
(39:00):
I've been amazed, when I'mphotographing birds and dark
forests and dark jungles, that Ican rescue this shot and bring
it to a really, really beautifulaesthetic just by running this
denoise filter from Topaz orfrom Lightroom, or I use Camera
Raw, which is basically the samething, and the results are just
absolutely staggering.
Now, you have to be carefulwith this, though, and I really
(39:24):
do not advise people to just runevery photo you take through
topaz denoise or throughLightroom denoise.
I am noticing it more and morewith photographers that they're
just putting even moderatelyhigh ISOs through this, this
pass through this filter, andit's turning this kind of.
It's actually you know whatit's truly doing is going
(39:46):
against the grain of sharpening.
It's actually reducing thesharpness of your photo.
I'm not going to get into thewhy or the how behind Denoise
software works, but Topaz andPhotoshop and Lightroom they all
work the same way in that theyactually soften the image.
They take that grain out, butthey soften the image and then
they re-inject sharpening intothe photo.
(40:08):
So it's this weird kind of pushand pull action where you
definitely want to rescue someof the grain, some of the
sandpaper, like grit on yourphoto, not actual sandpaper, but
it's this textured grain.
You want to rescue that becauseit ultimately looks quite bad
in the end photo.
But you're letting the programgo in and use, yes, some smart
(40:28):
software to resharpen, but thereis always a cost to it.
So I would not do it needlessly.
Frankly.
I'm only denoising those shotsthat are shot at like ISO 6400
and above.
I think below that you've gotto be really really judicious
and only denoise those photosthat really really look quite
bad, because again it's actuallyde-sharpening your image in the
(40:52):
first place.
So when we talk about gettingthe most sharpness out of your
photos, denoise kind of flies inthe face of that.
So it's a complicated mixtureof things, right?
Because on one hand I'm tellingyou, boost the ISO up so you
can get the fast shutter speed,so you can get the fast shutter
speed, so you can get the bigaperture, but be careful not to
use too much denoise, becauseit'll actually further degrade
your image At the end of the dayif you can't get the shutter
(41:15):
speed to freeze motion, if youcan't get the depth of field to
give you the look you want withthe supreme sharpness you want.
Iso is that silver bullet, butyou've got to be judicious with
it in post processing.
So, folks, there you go.
That was kind of a quick but adeep dive into how pro
photographers get super sharpimages each and every time.
(41:38):
I want to turn you on to acouple resources if you don't
know about them already.
First and foremost, I have alot of other podcast episodes
out there, so if this is thefirst one you're stumbling upon,
please do indeed go to mywebsite, courtwhalencom, and
click on podcast.
You're gonna see the whole listthere, and I have a lot of
other tips and tricks having todo with sharpening, having to do
with aperture, having to dowith composition and even other
(42:00):
totally different topics.
So check that out.
At my website, courtwhalencom,you'll also find that I have a
sign up for blog posts.
I write blog posts often on allthings conservation, travel and
photography.
So if you would like to hearmore from me on that.
Please do sign up.
And finally, I want to pointyou in the direction of my
YouTube channel, where all thesepodcasts now appear and you can
(42:22):
get some really cool additionaltips and tricks on other things
that might not appear on thepodcast.
So if you would go there andsubscribe, it's probably the
biggest, best way you can helpme in making sure I can make new
content all the time for thewild photographer podcast.
So once again, thank you somuch for joining and looking
forward to talking with you nexttime.
Hello everyone, welcome back to the Wild
Photographer.
I'm your host, court Whalen,and I've got a great episode
today talking all about how prophotographers get insanely sharp
images each and every time.
I think when it comes tosharpness in images, it's like
the Holy Grail.
It's also the commondenominator.
It's something that we all, aspro photographers or amateur
(00:20):
photographers, really strive for.
It's also something that Ithink we kind of hold as the
gold standard, like if the imageisn't sharp, the image is lost,
and so the sharper the image,the better the image.
Not only am I going to tell youthe various ways we can up the
ante and ensure sharpnessthrough all sorts of techniques
(00:40):
hint, it's not just aboutaperture, shutter speed and ISO,
it's about more than that butalso I'm going to challenge you
a little bit about what happensif your image isn't super sharp.
What are those cases when it'sokay to not have a crisp, sharp
image, like capturing reallyinteresting wildlife behavior or
a really beautiful moment intime in a landscape shot with
(01:00):
extraordinary lighting.
So we've got a lot to talkabout today, all about how pro
photographers get really, reallysharp images.
But before I go into that, Iwanted to thank our sponsors
that make this podcast possible.
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This is a really ingenious toolthat I've been using over the
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(01:21):
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So arthelperai is prettyextraordinary.
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have the option that if you wantto buy that lens after the fact
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So it's a really really greatway to drive before you buy, so
to speak.
Okay, without further ado, let'sget into today's podcast on how
pro photographers get insanelysharp images each and every time
.
So, first off, let's talk aboutwhat the main elements are.
(03:49):
So we're really looking at, Iwould say kind of two general
genres of photography that we'regoing to be framing this
conversation around.
We're going to start off withlandscape photography and then
we're going to move to wildlifephotography.
And I will say that, althoughI'm not a huge people
photographer, the wildlifephotography is totally parallel.
If you are a culturalphotographer, a portrait
(04:11):
photographer, if you love tophotograph people, the lessons
in the wildlife section parlayperfectly to photographing
people too.
So let's start off withlandscape photography.
So the first thing to getreally, really sharp images is
probably the most obvious, it'sthe most important.
It's having the right shutterspeed.
So when we're looking atlandscape photography, the great
(04:32):
thing is that landscapes don'tgenerally move.
Now, I say generally, becausesometimes movement and
landscapes can be a beautifulthing.
It might be a babbling brook,it might be a waterfall, it
might be even some wind movingthrough the flowers and the
trees.
So to get really, really sharpimages across your landscape
scene, the first thing is toknow what kind of shutter speed
(04:55):
you need.
Now there's this trick, thisidea known as the inverse focal
length rule.
We're going to come back tothis and talk even more in the
wildlife slash, peoplephotography section.
But the inverse law saysbasically, if you take your
focal length of your lens solet's say it's a 50 millimeter,
like I'm filming today, let'ssay it's 100 millimeter, or
(05:18):
let's say you're doing big wideangle landscapes, that's like a
16 millimeter or a 20 millimeterthe inverse law says that you
need to be shooting at one overthe focal length as your shutter
speed in order to freeze yourown hand movement.
So this is different than themovement of the landscape,
different movement from thewildlife, but to deal with your
(05:39):
own movement, meaning thesteadiest hand you can have,
generally we look at one overthe focal length as that minimum
number.
Now don't read into this toomuch with the wide angle, into
the spectrum, because I'm nevergoing to advise with a 20
millimeter that you stick withone over 20 and then forget
about the rest.
That's not exactly adhering tothe rule.
But when we get into biggerfocal lengths, like 50, 100, 200
(06:03):
, that one over the focal lengthshutter speed law is a really,
really great thing to keep inmind.
The other caveat is this wasinvented for lack of a better
word back in the day beforeimage stabilization or vibration
reduction, whatever your cameramight call that image
stabilizer within the body andor lens.
So when we look at shooting ata 200 millimeter which you know,
(06:26):
even though I'm starting withlandscapes, I shoot a lot of
landscapes on medium telephoto,like my 70 to 200 is one of my
favorite landscape lenses.
So what that means is that ifI'm taking a shot of a distant
mountain scene or whatever itmight be, at 200 millimeters,
I'm thinking I want to be at one200th of a second in order to
minimize my hand movement.
(06:47):
But again, I want to go deeperhere and talk about image
stabilization.
So a lot of these lenses today,a lot of the in-camera
stabilization, has ratings basedon stops of light, kind of
doing air quotes here.
So what that means is that ifyou are at 200 millimeters and
you know and think you want tobe shooting at 1 200th of a
(07:08):
second, if you have two stops ofstabilization in your lens,
what that means is that 1 over200, when thinking about hand
movement, because you're handholding your shot, we'll get to
tripods in a second.
That means you can achieve thesame thing by 1 50th of a second
, means you can achieve the samething by one 50th of a second.
(07:29):
And here's the reason is thatone 200, if you take one stop of
light out of that or add it.
We're talking about justgeneral units here.
That means one 200th would bethe same as one 100th of a
second.
That's one stop of light.
You take two stops of light andyou have that further to one
50th.
Now the cool and crazy thing isthat a lot of these cameras and
lens combinations are boastingsomething like three to five
(07:52):
maybe even more than that stopsof light.
So you could, in theory, starthashing that down further and
further and further.
A third stop of light in thatequation I'm talking about goes
down to 1 over 25.
A fourth goes to 1 over 12 or 1over 13th of a second.
I'll be honest, I don't thinkthat the stops of light these
(08:14):
lenses and camera bodies arestabilizing gets you that far.
I really rarely would thinkless than 1, 50th of a second in
this scenario, meaning I'm notgoing to really trust the system
to freeze my hand movement morethan a couple stops.
The key thing to take away isthat because of in-camera
(08:35):
stabilization, because of lensstabilization, we're not just
stuck at that inverse focallength rule any longer.
We can actually reduce that bythese stops of light.
So it's not reducing it just bya little bit.
It's not saying, oh my 1 200thof a second can be now 1 160th
of a second.
It's actually having it acouple times.
(08:56):
So, frankly, I feel prettycomfortable shooting a landscape
if I'm really stable, maybeusing kind of some bracing
technique, putting my elbows atmy side, sort of you know
looking, taking a page from themarksmanship book of you know
shooting other things other thancameras, taking a breath in,
exhaling halfway and beingreally really stable as I
(09:16):
depress that shutter.
So one 50th is a really, reallykind of safe but also
aggressive way to reduce yourshutter speed in those cases
that you need to.
Now.
All that being said, the fasterthe shutter speed for any
scenario, the more you're goingto freeze motion and the more
sharpness your photo is going tohave, or I should say the less
(09:38):
risk of unsharpness in yourphoto.
So this isn't to say 1 50th isa perfect for all scenarios.
It's just kind of the minimum.
If you have low light, ifthere's some other thing going
on where you're freezing motionbut also want to get as much
light in your sensor, you wantto shoot it.
A really ISO, a really low ISO,that's the way to do it.
(09:58):
That's the way to think aboutit.
But that all being said, Ireally rarely when I have the
ability to photograph alandscape that's not moving, I
have the ability to shoot fast.
I'm I am shooting at 1 200th, 1, 320th, maybe even faster,
because, frankly, usuallythere's enough light and I
(10:18):
myself am not too worried aboutbumping up that ISO a little bit
, let's say from 200 to 400 or400 to 800.
So shutter speed again, I'd beremiss if I didn't start this
conversation with saying the keyand core way of a pro
photographer to get really sharpphotos starts with a fast
shutter speed.
Now, when we get into thewildlife section, I'm going to
(10:39):
talk about more about freezingmotion of the subject itself.
We're really talking, inlandscapes, about freezing the
motion of your hand and camerabecause, well, let's face it, I
like to be handheld for the vast, vast majority of my shots.
I think I'm more flexible, Ican take more shots in less time
, I can frame in more creativeways.
(11:01):
It just yields a lot morephotos.
The second thing I want to talkabout is aperture.
Now, with landscape photography, you generally want to have a
big F number, which is the samething as saying a small aperture
.
Remember it's sort ofcounterintuitive that you think
big depth of field.
Technically it's a smallaperture because it's narrowing
down that little pinhole focusof your camera's aperture to
(11:23):
smaller and smallercircumferences, which translates
into a bigger depth of field.
There's a little trick you canuse, even when you're in your
house walking around, and if youlook through your hand, if you
make like a little OK symbol butturn that finger into a very,
very small little opening likethe size of a pinhead, you're
going to notice by lookingthrough that small hole versus
(11:45):
looking through a big OK symbollike the size of a silver dollar
, you're going to notice youreyes work with the surroundings
quite a bit differently.
Surroundings quite a bitdifferently.
If you have your fingers open,looking through them in a circle
at your entire scene, you'regoing to notice only what your
eyes are zeroing in on.
Only what your eyes arefocusing on is being in focus.
Everything else is kind ofblurry.
(12:05):
However, when you look throughthe exact same scene through a
pinhole meaning, tighten yourfingers down to make a very,
very tight okay symbol and lookthrough that, all of a sudden
everything you're looking at isin focus.
This is just straight up opticalphysics 101, 102.
Don't overthink the why behindit, unless you want to go into a
deep, dark rabbit hole aboutoptical physics.
(12:28):
But the idea is is when lightpasses through a small opening,
meaning a small aperture, itturns into a very, very big
depth of field.
So with landscape photography,nine times out of 10, when I
want a tack sharp image, I'mshooting at a bigger F number,
like F11, maybe even F16 to getthe whole thing in focus.
(12:51):
Now I rarely go over F11 andespecially not over F16, because
of this thing called the law oflimited diffraction.
What happens is, as you givemore and more definition to each
pixel because of this big depthof field, it literally crowds
out pixels on your sensor.
So all of a sudden your 45megapixel camera won't have 45
(13:14):
megapixels in it because you'recrowding them out with the
definition of each pixel.
So each pixel, instead of beinground or square, it's getting
more amorphous, it's gettingmore like multi-pointed star.
So that way it does make thephoto more defined, it does make
it sharper, but if you crowdout the megapixels, you're
(13:36):
actually losing some definitionin your scene.
So every camera, totally basedon the sensor's megapixel rating
and the sensor size, has alittle bit of a sweet spot and
I'm sorry to tell you that thesweet spot for maximum
definition on these big, fancyhigh megapixel cameras is closer
to like f7.1.
Now, that's not great forlandscape photography.
(13:58):
When you want the whole scenein focus, when you want the
river in focus, when you wantthe flowers in focus as well as
the mid ground, the trees, theforest, as well as the very deep
background like the mountainrange.
When you want all that in focus, my go-to, as long as light
allows, is F11.
Yes, it's going to probablycrowd out some megapixels, but
(14:20):
it's worth it because I reallywant that depth of field.
Now the next thing I'm going totalk about is where and how to
focus to achieve what's calledhyperfocus.
This is one of those next levelthings where your sharpness of
your photo is highly dependenton where you focus, irrespective
of the shutter speed, of theaperture, of the ISO.
(14:41):
It goes outside of that goldentriangle.
So, hyper focus there are someequations that you can easily
find online where you plug inthe focal length of your lens.
You can plug in the distance ofyour scene, like how far away
is that mountain range and howclose is that patch of flowers,
meaning how close is yourforeground compared to your
(15:02):
background and some othervariables that you need to plug
in.
But I'm going to save you allthat all that complicated steps
because we're in the field andwe're not thinking about long,
complex equations toachievefocus, meaning, where in
your big scene do you focus toget as much in focus as possible
?
That's called hyperfocus andthis is it.
(15:24):
Even if you were to do thisequation, you're gonna find each
and every time it's very, veryclose to this simple rule.
You want to focus when you wanteverything in focus, about a
third of the way into your scene.
Meaning, if the start of yourscene, meaning if the start of
your scene, the foreground is 20feet away and the background is
a mile away, you want to judgewhere roughly about a third of
(15:46):
that distance is and that's yourfocal point.
Now I should clarify if there'ssomething in the foreground
that you want in tack, sharpfocus at the expense of the
background, which is a techniqueI often use for landscape
photography.
If I want to showcase thatflower, if I want to showcase
the river or the river rocks,it's going to be worth it to me
(16:06):
to focus on those entities,those things, knowing that my
background might be a little outof focus, but very often I do
want the whole thing in focus.
I might not have a really,really dominant subject and I
want it as focused as possible,but I also want the trees in the
mid ground and focus.
I also want the mountain rangein the distance and focus.
(16:27):
There might be two or threelayers of those mountains that I
all want in focus.
So, as a result, hyper focusfor me.
My tip to you is to focus onethird of the way into the scene.
That's what you lock focus onand then you take your shot.
So we have three mainingredients going on here.
You want a shutter speed thatis going to be able to freeze
(16:50):
your hand motion, which is thatinverse focal length.
Again, even though I havestabilization on most of my
lenses, I'm going to ramp thatup a little bit because I just
want to make absolutely surethat everything is going to be
tack sharp and there's no handmovement, so truly, even on
telephotos or even on like 24millimeter lenses I'm looking at
(17:11):
like one over 320 is kind oflike my ideal shutter speed,
still keeping rock solid with mybody, with my hands, to
minimize hand movement.
I'm also going to be choosing apretty high aperture, or shall
I say a pretty big F number fora big depth of field.
I'm sort of vacillating betweenF8 and F11, based on light, but
(17:35):
F8, f11 is a really, reallynice, sweet spot.
And then I'm going to be usingmy center point autofocus to
judge you don't have to beperfect here, but just, with
intentionality, judge what onethird of the way into the scene
is, and then you take the shot,and this is going to work pretty
much each and every time.
One thing I haven't mentionedyet is the incorporation of a
(17:56):
tripod which, let's face it, inlandscape photography is a
really good move.
It's a really good call.
I do think tripods are useful.
I find myself using themprimarily for really slow
shutter photography, like nightphotography, like motion blur
photography.
But if you are going on aprimarily landscape based
(18:17):
photographic trip, like going tothe deserts, the American
Southwest, where you're mostlygoing to be photographing
landscapes versus wildlife orpeople, a tripod is a really
nice thing to have.
And what does this do?
Well, it basically takes theshutter speed equation and gives
you a lot of leeway and, as youprobably understand, this
relationship between shutterspeed equation and gives you a
lot of leeway and, as youprobably understand, this
(18:37):
relationship between shutterspeed and ISO means you can drop
your ISO down.
You're always going to have thebest quality and best sharpness
from the lowest ISO possible.
100 is usually the kind oftippy top gold standard of a low
ISO.
Some cameras will go down tolike 80 or even 50.
Technically that's going to bebetter, but you're not going to
(18:58):
notice a whole lot of differencein these quote unquote low ISOs
, usually ranging up to ISO 400,no matter what camera you have.
If you feel like you have a moreintroductory camera something
that is probably let's just puta number out there like a
thousand dollars or less for aDSLR or a mirrorless camera body
, you might want to stick moreto ISO 200.
(19:21):
That might mean you do need atripod.
What a tripod allows you to dois not worry about your own hand
movement.
So it throws that inverse focallength rule out of the equation
and it means you can probablybe shooting well, really as slow
as you want, but I tend toshoot maybe like one 10th of a
second, one 20th, one 30th.
That means I'm not worried atall about the shutter speed.
(19:43):
Shutter speed is a means to anend.
And what that allows me to do,even if I have really really dim
light, is I can shoot on thosebig aperture numbers, those big
F numbers like F8, like F11,like F16, and still get a low
ISO which is going to give methe tippy top best quality.
So those are all things toconsider there, and I think
(20:05):
they're really really darnuseful.
Now, the one additional littlecaveat there is I will pay even
more attention to my shutterspeed when I'm trying to
incorporate some sort ofmovement, will pay even more
attention to my shutter speedwhen I'm trying to incorporate
some sort of movement,intentional camera blur, in my
shot.
Now this is not moving thewhole camera, like some of the
artistic images I'm seeing outthere nowadays, with intentional
camera blur blurring the entirescene.
(20:26):
But the blur I'm talking aboutis like silky waterfall effects,
moving rivers, and that's wherewe're looking at, you know,
anywhere from one tenth of asecond to four, five, whole
seconds.
It has everything to do withthe speed of the water, the
motion of the water, the qualityof the water, the white water
that might be there and actuallyhave an entire separate podcast
(20:48):
specifically on capturing thatsilky movement effect of water.
So if that's something thatyou're into, something you're
anticipating, be sure to listento that quick episode because
it's going to give you a lotmore tips and tricks.
Now my final thing here withlandscape photography on the
tripod front is what do you doto minimize the motion that
you're injecting into yourcamera with simply pushing your
(21:11):
shutter button?
You actually are going to moveit a little bit by pushing that
button ever so slightly.
It does have the risk of movingyour entire camera and
therefore adding a little bit ofblur into your overall scene,
something that we do not want todo.
We don't want the whole sceneto be a little bit jostled, a
little bit blurred.
So a really easy trick that'scapable on every camera out
(21:33):
there, even if you don't have aremote shutter button, remote
cable release, is to set yourcamera on a two second timer.
So this is a really reallygreat way to ensure super tack,
sharp photos with landscapes.
Once you have the big depth offield, once you have shutter
speed under control, once you'vedialed down the lowest ISO
possible.
This two second delay willallow you to press the shutter
(21:54):
button again after you'veachieved hyper focus, after you
focus in one third of the wayinto the scene.
And that takes out the last bitof the equation, which is that
camera movement or blur, thathappens when you actually touch
your camera, that little bit ofmovement.
So again, two second exposureis going to do wonders for
ensuring that you've stacked thedeck in your favor for getting
(22:18):
every little bit out of yourcamera for a tack sharp
landscape photo.
Let's move on to wildlife andpeople.
As far as getting tack sharpphotos, so the first thing I'm
going to talk about is withwildlife, with people, very
likely you're not going to wantto or not going to be able to
get the entire scene in focus.
Oftentimes we just want acertain part of the scene in
(22:39):
focus and that's what we'rejudging tack sharpness by.
So wildlife is a great example,whether you're shooting on
portraiture, where you reallyare trying to blur the
background, blur the foreground,while keeping the animal or
person in focus.
The best way to do that isusing a little bit of psychology
and picking out where you focus.
(22:59):
So this is akin to hyper-focusin landscape mode or landscape
photography, where you knowthere's a certain part of the
scene you want in focus, butgenerally with wildlife and
people, it's not the whole thing, it's the animal itself.
So the number one tip here isyou have to choose somewhere to
focus.
Even if the animal is small inyour frame, there's still part
(23:20):
of the animal that you need tobe focusing on, and that is each
and every time.
To make the whole animal look infocus is focus on the eyes.
I'm going to repeat thatbecause it's such a core tenant.
This is like 999 times out of athousand.
I want the eyes in focus and Ican't tell you how many times I
(23:40):
do that.
The eyes are intact, sharpfocus, the heads in focus, but
there are parts of the animalthe hind quarters, the tail,
whatever the pause they'reactually not in focus.
But you know what?
It doesn't really matter,because the viewer whether it's
(24:01):
you, whether it's someone you'reshowing your photo to at an
exhibition is if the eyes are infocus, that is going to look
like a tack sharp photo each andevery time.
So I wanted to start with thatlittle bit of an X factor bit of
advice is, even though thereare many times you want the
entire animal in focus, thething you need to start with is
making sure the eyes are infocus, because very often the
eye of you or your viewersdoesn't really care if the rest
(24:21):
or if certain parts of theanimal aren't intact sharp focus
because the eyes and the faceare.
Or you have a lens that can getdown to really really small F
numbers.
Sometimes these big supertelephotos can get down to 2.8.
Some of the smaller lenses,like 100 millimeters, 50
millimeters, can get down tolike 1.8, 1.4, 1.2.
(24:43):
What's going to happen is thatif you focus on the eyes on
those really really shallowdepths of field lenses and
you're using the F1.4, is thatyou might have the eyes in focus
, but something as close by asthe nose is not in focus, or the
forehead or the ears.
And the best way to do that istaking a page from landscape
photography and looking at theratio of the animal in your
(25:07):
frame.
So if that animal's head takesup the whole frame, which is a
beautiful shot, it gets to knowthe personality of the animal,
maybe some expressions andbehavior.
You almost need to treat thatlike a beautiful shot.
It gets to know the personalityof the animal, maybe some
expressions and behavior.
You almost need to treat thatlike a landscape photo.
The eyes are going to be themid ground, the nose is the
foreground, the ears are thebackground, just like these big
sweeping mountain scenes.
And so, even though we mightthink, oh well, this is a small
(25:29):
part of my own eyes frame, Idon't need to shoot like like F8
, f11.
You're going to need to switchfrom f 2.8 or f4 and you're
actually going to need to get tolike that f8, f11 range, these
big f numbers.
You want the eyes in focus, youwant the nose in focus, you
want the ears in focus, maybeeven a little bit of the back in
(25:49):
focus, and that animal takes up50 or greater of your scene.
Treat it like a landscape shotand shoot it F8, f11.
Okay, so that's kind of youryour aperture and focal area
lesson of wildlife photographyfor tack sharp photos.
But we might be missing out on areally, really additional key
thing here, and this is where Iwould say one of the biggest
(26:11):
differences in landscapephotography versus wildlife or
people photography is that youdefinitely need to think about
how much movement is going on,not just in your camera and your
own hand movement, butprimarily, much more so, how
much movement is the animalengaging in.
And so, generally speaking,when I'm photographing wildlife,
I'm unlikely to be less thanone over 320.
(26:33):
I'm even unlikely to be lessthan one over 500.
Now, these movement categoriesare very, very flexible, so I
don't want you to only takeresting and slightly moving
animals at one over 500.
Like I'm about to advise, youwant to shoot as fast as you can
to freeze motion.
But in general I kind of lookat it as several different
(26:54):
categories.
Let's take photographing polarbears in the tundras of
Churchill, for instance, a placethat I know and love and have
photographed a lot.
Generally, when I have a restinganimal, a resting polar bear,
there's going to be somemovement.
There's going to be some random, erratic, unpredictable
movement, but in general they'renot moving very much.
They might be somewhat liftingtheir head up, they might be
(27:17):
very, very slowly rolling around.
I'm going to look in the rangeof one over 500, maybe to one
over 750 for my shutter speed.
That's what's going to give methe tack sharp focus.
The tack sharp definition fromthe animal when there's slight
movement is one over 500, oneover 750 at minimum.
So all of a sudden you'reprobably realizing that this
(27:38):
inverse focal length rule fliesout the window, because no
longer are you worried.
Do you have to worry about themovement of your own hand, the
movement of the camera.
Now you're shooting faster thanthat because you're
prioritizing for the animalwildlife movement.
If we're going to the nextcategory of movement and we're
looking at maybe a walkinganimal, let's shoot at one over
(28:01):
500 to one over a thousand.
Let's bump that up a little bitIf that walk turns into a
saunter, a jaunt, a little bitmore of a fast moving thing.
Let's say they're walking fromleft to right or towards you or
away from you and it's like atfour to six miles an hour kind
of like a very, very fast humanwalking pace.
I'm going to be at least at oneover a thousand.
(28:23):
I'm not going to risk it byshooting at one over 200, even
if I'm on a 200 millimeter.
I'm not going to risk it byshooting one over 500.
I absolutely want to freezethat motion and that movement.
So I'm really starting to trainmy brain to think about one
over a thousand.
All of a sudden, when we'rethinking about fast moving
wildlife, if they're running, ifa bird is flying, I'm bumping
(28:44):
that up, not quite double theshutter speed, because one over
2000 is very, very fast and allof a sudden your light is going
to just fall off a cliff.
But I am thinking one over 1250, one over 1600, working my way
up to one over 2000.
I am really doing my best totake multiple photos at all
those different shutter speeds,just because of the what if.
(29:06):
What if when I look in the backof my camera something's blurry
?
And I missed that whole scene,I missed that entire behavior.
What if it looks good in theback of my camera?
But when I put it on a computerscreen, a 30 inch monitor, and
I start to zoom in to a hundredpercent and really really
analyze the sharpness and detail, what if it's blurry?
So I have that one over athousand shot, but I really want
(29:28):
to make sure I have some otheroptions just in case.
And so again, fast movingwildlife.
One over 2000 is a reallyreally safe bet.
But part of your job is to weighall the pros and cons.
There are no solutions here,there's only trade-offs.
So when you're shooting, let'ssay, an animal's face, and you
took my lesson, and you want anF8, you want an F11, but you
(29:50):
also want to freeze motion.
1 over 2000 might give you acrazy high ISO that degrades the
image in its own right for thedesire of just being super safe
and making sure you freeze themotion.
You want to shoot at that rangeand experiment, because there's
(30:11):
going to be a sweet spot,there's going to be a best photo
in all of that.
What if the animal's runningbut you photograph it when it
stops?
You don't need one over 2,000.
You don't need one over 3,200.
And by dropping that down tosomething more moderate and
manageable, like one over 1000,all of a sudden you're going to
notice your ISO is lower.
(30:32):
You're going to notice you canget a bigger, deeper depth of
field by going back up to F 11.
Or, gosh, even F 16.
And that might be your bestphoto.
So it's a lot of analysis, it'sa lot of thinking in the moment
, but the best advice I have foryou is to plan on shooting at
multiple shutter speeds in orderto get all that data, in order
to get additional photos tosupport If you find that those
(30:55):
slower shutter speeds based onthe movement just aren't quite
cutting it.
Another trick that I found inrecent years is using my drive
motor.
So drive motor is basically howmany photos your camera takes
per second.
We often refer to it as an FPSor frames per second.
And if you go into yourcamera's manual or online for
another tutorial, you might findthat your make and model shoots
(31:18):
up to five frames a second.
Newer, fancier cameras areshooting up to 10, 15, 20, even
30 frames a second.
Some of the flagship top linecameras out there are shooting,
I kid you, not, like 30 frames asecond.
Some of the flagship top linecameras out there are shooting,
I kid you not, like 60 frames asecond.
What I've found this can be areally, really useful setting to
bump up that frame rate, toshoot as fast as possible.
(31:39):
And actually the third, fourth,10th photo in that sequence
sometimes tends to be thesharpest because it's minimizing
the movement of the camera.
It's minimizing that slightjostling that you have by
pressing the shutter.
And now that you've depressedthe shutter and the camera now
once again returns to relativestability, it's your photos
(32:02):
within that sequence, midwaythrough or at the end of your
sequence, that tend to be thesharpest.
In addition, like I wasmentioning, you might be
photographing an animal that iswalking and stopping running and
stopping flying and perching.
If you have a burst mode on ahigh drive motor, you're going
to often find that the bestphotos might be at that middle
(32:25):
range of your entire sequencesomething within like five to 10
photos of when you started andstopping taking that sequence.
So high drive motor is not apanacea.
It is not the first thing I'mgoing to think about, but if
you're trying to eke out alittle bit more sharpness which
is what this episode is allabout is getting the most
sharpness you can from yourphotos Looking at a high drive
(32:45):
motor is a really really goodway to go.
Now stabilization is anotherreally helpful tool here with
wildlife photography.
But again, keep in mind thatit's mostly just going to limit
motion from your own handmovement.
Putting the biggest, best lensand the most incredible
stabilization is going to doalmost nothing for freezing
(33:06):
wildlife movement if you'realready at 1 over 1000, if
you're already at 1 over 1250.
So stabilization is great, butjust remember that stabilization
only limits your own handmovement, not the wildlife
movement.
Super important thing to play apart here.
So the last kind of thing I'mgoing to talk about before I go
into post-processing, that is,of how we can even boost further
(33:30):
our sharpness through delicate,very intentional, very moderate
tools.
But the last thing before I getinto that is me how ISO plays a
role in all this.
So I've already cautioned acouple of times about what
happens when you're setting asuper fast shutter speed and a
really, really big depth offield let's say one over 2000
and F 11, unless you're shootinginto a sky like a moving bird,
(33:52):
a flying bird.
If you're photographing intothe brush, into the darkness, or
even shooting in the earlymorning light or really a number
of other scenarios, you mightfind that your ISO is getting
really really high, reallyquickly.
Just a quick little aside herethe reason that I say we might
find our ISO getting high isbecause I always shoot on manual
(34:15):
plus auto ISO.
That's all my landscapephotography, that's all my
wildlife photography, all mypeople photography.
I'm shooting on manual, meaningI'm plugging in my aperture so
I can dial in F8.
I am putting on manual mode formy shutter speed too.
I want to tell the camera I'mlooking at 1 over 1000.
I want you to shoot at 1 over1600.
But what I found is that,letting the camera decide on the
(34:39):
ISO to take an even exposure,something in the middle,
something that's properly lit,the camera will constantly make
adjustments to get that quoteunquote perfect ISO.
But the thing is I have noupper ISO limit set on my camera
because I monitor it very, veryclosely.
So you might be reallysurprised when photographing
(34:59):
wildlife around the world, whichis almost always going to be in
somewhat challenging lightingconditions it's early in the
morning, it's late at night,it's involving movement, it's an
animal that is in the sunshineone second and in the shadows
the next.
As you might find that whileyou're shooting a slew of photos
at ISO 400 and you're happy andyou know that that's a low ISO,
you might find when that animal, when that cheetah, gets into
(35:22):
the shade bush and sits down,all of a sudden your camera is
giving you ISO 1600, iso 3200.
And the problem there is that,yes, your shutter speed is great
, yes, your aperture is great,but the photo quality diminishes
markedly as you double your ISOeach and every time.
Basically, what it does this iskind of a little nerdy aside,
(35:44):
but how ISO works is your cameraactually sends a small electric
pulse through your sensor thatbasically makes it more
sensitive to light, and sothat's why sometimes ISO is like
this magic bullet, the silverbullet, where if you're not able
to get the photo with theaperture and shutter speed you
want, we have that ability tosend that pulse through the
sensor, make it more sensitiveto light and you get that photo,
(36:06):
voila, magically just byincreasing your ISO.
Now again, the key thing hereis that as it gets to these
numbers of 3,200, 6,400, over12,000 ISO, the photo is going
to get grainier and grainier,which 100% reduces overall
quality and sharpness in yourphoto.
So ISO still plays a major,major role.
(36:28):
One of the big reasons I keepup to date with cameras is
because their ability to handlehigh ISOs is a really, really
huge benefit.
Like on my Canon 5D, I'm ableto shoot at ISO 3200 with
relatively little degradation ofquality.
Now, quick little teaser herefor today's listener question
(36:50):
that was submitted not too longago.
The question is how do you dealwith noise reduction software?
And this is a really cool thing.
So I just want to plant thatseed.
We're going to come back tothat after I talk about some of
the sharpening techniques I usefor my photos in post.
Noise reduction is somethingthat I do in post.
It's in my camera raw platform,it's in Photoshop and Lightroom
and all that.
(37:10):
So we're going to come back tothat.
But first let's talk about whatI do in my post-processing
workflow to boost that sharpnessjust a little bit further Now.
I'll admit that sharpeningphotos in post is the last thing
I really want to do.
If I have to sharpen a photo inpost-processing, that's usually
(37:30):
because I want to take analready sharp photo and boost it
up just a little bit more.
So oftentimes what I'll do,especially with wildlife if I'm
photographing a lion and I'mfocused on the eye and I'm
filling the frame with it, Imight go with a little bit of a
brush mask and actually boostthe sharpening on that eye just
a little bit more.
So keep in mind, I'm notturning a blurry photo into a
(37:51):
sharp photo.
I'm turning a sharp photo intoa ridiculously tack sharp photo,
and that's a really, reallygreat technique pro
photographers use to level uptheir sharpness.
So, without further ado, let'sget to the listener question
(38:17):
that is so germane to this topic, which is how do I deal with
noise reduction in mypost-processing workflow?
It allows you to get those fastshutter speeds, which is always
the number one way thatphotographs turn out to be
blurry is not taking intoaccount motion blur from your
own hand movement or from thewildlife or people movement but
denoising is allowing us moreand more today to deal with high
(38:39):
ISOs, shooting at a high ISO inthe moment and then quote
unquote rescuing it in postprocessing, ie Photoshop.
So there are two primary waysthat I work.
One is with a third partyprogram called Topaz Denoise.
It's a great program.
It is intuitive, it is robustand it's very, very good at
taking the noise out of thescene.
(39:00):
I've been amazed, when I'mphotographing birds and dark
forests and dark jungles, that Ican rescue this shot and bring
it to a really, really beautifulaesthetic just by running this
denoise filter from Topaz orfrom Lightroom, or I use Camera
Raw, which is basically the samething, and the results are just
absolutely staggering.
Now, you have to be carefulwith this, though, and I really
(39:24):
do not advise people to just runevery photo you take through
topaz denoise or throughLightroom denoise.
I am noticing it more and morewith photographers that they're
just putting even moderatelyhigh ISOs through this, this
pass through this filter, andit's turning this kind of.
It's actually you know whatit's truly doing is going
(39:46):
against the grain of sharpening.
It's actually reducing thesharpness of your photo.
I'm not going to get into thewhy or the how behind Denoise
software works, but Topaz andPhotoshop and Lightroom they all
work the same way in that theyactually soften the image.
They take that grain out, butthey soften the image and then
they re-inject sharpening intothe photo.
(40:08):
So it's this weird kind of pushand pull action where you
definitely want to rescue someof the grain, some of the
sandpaper, like grit on yourphoto, not actual sandpaper, but
it's this textured grain.
You want to rescue that becauseit ultimately looks quite bad
in the end photo.
But you're letting the programgo in and use, yes, some smart
(40:28):
software to resharpen, but thereis always a cost to it.
So I would not do it needlessly.
Frankly.
I'm only denoising those shotsthat are shot at like ISO 6400
and above.
I think below that you've gotto be really really judicious
and only denoise those photosthat really really look quite
bad, because again it's actuallyde-sharpening your image in the
(40:52):
first place.
So when we talk about gettingthe most sharpness out of your
photos, denoise kind of flies inthe face of that.
So it's a complicated mixtureof things, right?
Because on one hand I'm tellingyou, boost the ISO up so you
can get the fast shutter speed,so you can get the fast shutter
speed, so you can get the bigaperture, but be careful not to
use too much denoise, becauseit'll actually further degrade
your image At the end of the dayif you can't get the shutter
(41:15):
speed to freeze motion, if youcan't get the depth of field to
give you the look you want withthe supreme sharpness you want.
Iso is that silver bullet, butyou've got to be judicious with
it in post processing.
So, folks, there you go.
That was kind of a quick but adeep dive into how pro
photographers get super sharpimages each and every time.
(41:38):
I want to turn you on to acouple resources if you don't
know about them already.
First and foremost, I have alot of other podcast episodes
out there, so if this is thefirst one you're stumbling upon,
please do indeed go to mywebsite, courtwhalencom, and
click on podcast.
You're gonna see the whole listthere, and I have a lot of
other tips and tricks having todo with sharpening, having to do
with aperture, having to dowith composition and even other
(42:00):
totally different topics.
So check that out.
At my website, courtwhalencom,you'll also find that I have a
sign up for blog posts.
I write blog posts often on allthings conservation, travel and
photography.
So if you would like to hearmore from me on that.
Please do sign up.
And finally, I want to pointyou in the direction of my
YouTube channel, where all thesepodcasts now appear and you can
(42:22):
get some really cool additionaltips and tricks on other things
that might not appear on thepodcast.
So if you would go there andsubscribe, it's probably the
biggest, best way you can helpme in making sure I can make new
content all the time for thewild photographer podcast.
So once again, thank you somuch for joining and looking
forward to talking with you nexttime.
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