Tag Archives: low light photography

Fairyland

Posted by dkrashb on
The entrance to Fairyland

The entrance to Fairyland

I have now been to Rock City many times between going up to photograph the birds of prey show, photographing the release of a rehabilitated Peregrine Falcon, taking visiting friends up, shooting the Christmas lights for a local paper, and now volunteering for the Rock City Raptors show.

Usually I spend my time at the Rock City Raptors amphitheater, although I manage to make it to the cliff that has an amazing view.  Supposedly you can see 7 states from the overlook if you use a scope and it’s a clear day.

A cave completely lined in colored corals

A cave completely lined in colored corals

But underneath Rock City, there is a whole ‘nother world for which it is really famous.  The property is lined with caverns and crevices that provide for “fat man’s squeeze” and a variety of other interesting places to explore.  I, however, have never made it through that part of Rock City.  This is because when I’ve had the chance, we’ve either had accessibility limitations with a stroller or we had Tisen with us and I volunteered to stay behind with him so he wouldn’t get upset when he saw me walking away without him.  This summer, I’m going to find a little time to check out what I’ve been missing.  I’m determined.

Hansel and Gretel make an appearance

Hansel and Gretel make an appearance

In that spirit, when John and Dale asked me if I’d seen Fairyland before, I took the opportunity to see a part of Rock City I’d not only never seen, but never even heard of.  John and Dale took me to Fairyland via a shortcut, so I’m not sure I’d be able to find it again, but the entrance to Fairyland was pretty impressive.  They lined a naturally occurring crevice with stone and added on to the entrance to a tunnel to make a rather interesting, if not natural, entryway.

Rip Van Winkle just woke up

Rip Van Winkle just woke up

There is apparently a long tradition of gnomes at Rock City.  They show up as a decorating theme all over the park.  I suppose I should not have been surprised that gnomes would also have a big presence in a place called Fairyland.  It’s just, well, I find gnomes surprising in general.

Little Red Riding Hood is in trouble

Little Red Riding Hood is in trouble

While I am generally more into exploring caverns that still look like they did the day they were first discovered, I have to admit I was amazed by the amount of effort that went into creating the series of scenes in Fairyland.  As we passed down a dark passage, inside cavern after cavern was a recreation of a scene from the fairytales that were so popular in my childhood (and my mother’s and probably my grandmother’s if not may great-grandmother’s).  The figurines and sets were painted in glow-in-the-dark paint and the lighting was black lights.  It made for an intense burst of color in the middle of the pitch black of the cave.

Mother Goose Village rises up out of the dark

Mother Goose Village rises up out of the dark

One giant room was called Mother Goose Village and had a full assortment of characters from Mother Goose herself to Humpty Dumpty.  The whole Fairyland experience was more fun than I expected–and definitely unique.

 

A gnome carnival is in full motion

A gnome carnival is in full motion

Getting Wide

Posted by dkrashb on

Ah! I realized I didn’t get my blog post written on time today! I think this is the first time I missed my self-imposed deadline of 6AM since I established it.

But, here I am. And, I am here to report that after many months of trying to decide whether I really needed a second camera, then more time debating what features were most important, and then finally waiting patiently for another month because my new camera was on back order, it arrived late last week.

My new Canon 5D Mark III has given me a whole new set of things to learn!

But, today, I want compare the field of view between my old camera (a cropped, 1.6 sensor) vs the field of view with the full frame. I’ve matched some recent test shots with some similar past shots in the gallery to show just how much wider a full frame sensor let’s you go.

I love, love, love shooting wide with the full frame! It’s amazing how much of the scene suddenly fits into the frame! The one down side is that the distortion created by a wide angled lens becomes much more noticeable in the full frame because now, the image captured includes the area from the outside edge of the lens, where the most distortion occurs.

You can see this distortion well in several of the images. By comparison, the buildings in the cropped-sensor version look straighter, although the large brick buiding in the foreground near the bridges always looks warped. This building is built going up a hill and curved to the street–it looks warped to my eye, too. Although, not quite as much as it does through a lens.

I decided to go full frame (meaning the sensor is the same size as one frame of 35mm film) in part because I really like to shoot wide, but also because of what I learned about sensor size. The larger the sensor, the more room for bigger photosites and micro lens that collect and record data, the better quality image you get. This is especially true in low-light shooting conditions.

Since I also like to shoot in low light, I did a little experimenting with different ISO settings. I found that I could get as much noise into an image by under exposing it and trying to post-process it to the correct exposure as when I shot at the highest ISO setting, which was 25,600 (an insane number!). I’m really impressed with the quality of the image at ISO settings that compare to my 40D, which maxed out at 1600 but pretty much sucked once you got above 400 in low light scenes). However, the need to get the exposure right hasn’t changed, which makes sense.

I have much to learn about this new beast–the number of new features over my 4 year old 40D is astonishing. For one thing, it adds video. That’s a whole new world!