Backstage Kokoro
A "behind-the-scenes" look at selected images in my Kokoro project —
Content, photographic notes, EXIF data, creative process, miscellaneous commentary, and original digital captures. And now with additional audio comments about selected images!
From Kokoro #017 - Dem Bones
These lava flows in Hawaii are called "pahoehoe." They make the most fascinating patterns frozen in the black lava rock. I photographed them extensively.
After the first day of shooting, I spent that evening looking at the images in Lightroom back at my hotel. I was disappointed to see that the angle I was using in my compositions was not sufficiently covered by the depth of field at f/9. (I rarely shoot at smaller apertures because the entire image softens due to diffraction.) Either the top of the photograph or the bottom would be out of focus on this entire day's crop of files. Damn.
Thankfully, with this lesson firmly learned, on all subsequent days I made two exposures of each composition, one focused at the far point and a second one focused on a close point. All these finished images require a blending of the two exposures so the entire composition is tack sharp. Such near-far focus is definitely easier using a view camera with its tilting plane of focus, but not impossible with this "two-exposure blend" method in the digital world. In fact, I use this technique quite often.
Original digital capture (downsized for the web)
1/1250 sec at f / 9.0, ISO 400, Panasonic DMC-G2, LUMIX G VARIO 14-45/F3.5-5.6, 18 mm
These lava flows in Hawaii are called "pahoehoe." They make the most fascinating patterns frozen in the black lava rock. I photographed them extensively.
After the first day of shooting, I spent that evening looking at the images in Lightroom back at my hotel. I was disappointed to see that the angle I was using in my compositions was not sufficiently covered by the depth of field at f/9. (I rarely shoot at smaller apertures because the entire image softens due to diffraction.) Either the top of the photograph or the bottom would be out of focus on this entire day's crop of files. Damn.
Thankfully, with this lesson firmly learned, on all subsequent days I made two exposures of each composition, one focused at the far point and a second one focused on a close point. All these finished images require a blending of the two exposures so the entire composition is tack sharp. Such near-far focus is definitely easier using a view camera with its tilting plane of focus, but not impossible with this "two-exposure blend" method in the digital world. In fact, I use this technique quite often.
Original digital capture (downsized for the web)
1/1250 sec at f / 9.0, ISO 400, Panasonic DMC-G2, LUMIX G VARIO 14-45/F3.5-5.6, 18 mm