Could a Large Format Redwood Tree Portrait compete with National Geographic's photo?

[Len Middleton]

Unfortunately, my project needs to be done on a shoe string budget. Custom cameras and vertical tramways are out of the question, though that Cirkut looks quite tempting. Hopefully Ansel Adams' claim that old Koronas are perfectly adequate is correct.

I don't want to photograph a specific tree, though I prefer tall, big, and old trees with character. I doubt that it would be possible to do a full portrait of any of the tallest, or biggest, Coastal Redwoods.

I find the best way to address a problem is to first define your objectives well. What do you want the photo(s) to say or tell?

If you want to show the magnitude and majesty of these trees (sorry, but I have not seen them), then what are you going to use as a reference to provide a scale to the image. There is a couple of reason a certain individual uses yellow film canisters in his auction; they are his "trademark" / signature, and it provides scale as we all know how big those yellow film canisters are and can thus compare it against the lens being listed. I ran into a similar issue many years ago photographing a large church (St. Joesph's Oratory) in Montreal. It loses it affect when you have to tell everyone that the small dark rectangle in the corner of the structure is a man-door...

If you want to show the character of wood in its battle with the elements, will that really be visible in a frame-filling image of the entire tree?

Are you asking the right questions?

Good luck in your project, as it has the potential to be a real learning experience.

Hope my questions help you to re-examine and re-evaluate your own questions,

Len

[Brian Ellis]

Thank you all for your replies.

I thought that there would be limited opportunities to make complete portrait photographs of tall redwoods using a large format camera and vertical shifts, but I still have not found any images that I know were made that way. The only full portrait redwood photos I have found were stitches of many DSLR photos by either Michael Nichols or James Balog. I would really like to see some photos made with roughly this approach if anyone knows where these images are lurking.

The specific approach that I imagine is to use a long (360mm - 480mm) large format lens with a very wide image circle on a 5X7 field camera with generous vertical shifts available to make two vertical shots to be stitched together. The tree would need to be quite distant, on the other side of a river, or across a long clearing. Among the many things that I don't know is whether there would be sufficient DOF with such long lenses to to keep both the trunk and the branches sharp.

Those of you that have suggested lens sizes have recommended lenses in the 150mm to 200mm range. Why do lenses in this normal to mildly telephoto range seem like the correct approach to those of you recommending them?

Thanks again.

I think you have the right idea but I don't know how practical it is. Since you don't want to get up in the air the main problem will be getting far enough away from the tree. As I said in my original message, the redwoods I've seen when photographing them in the groves around Crescent City, CA have all been packed in dense areas. It would be next to impossible to get far enough away from them to capture their height in a single image or a couple images followed by a stitch).

While you might be able to find one on the other side of a river or clearing as you mention you then have the problem of having a LF lens long enough to more or less isolate a single tree.

I doubt that it's impossible but it might take some searching to find the right tree in the right location (i.e. far enough away to get it all in one or two shots but close enough for your longest lens to more or less isolate it). The one thing you have going for you with LF is the ability to crop a lot and still get a decent image (or as an alternative, aim the camera up in the air and then correct the perspective in Photoshop). Other than that a digital or 35mm camera might be the better tool because of their longer effective focal lengths.

[NightHeron]

Hello Len,

I would like to covey the immense height, size, and complexity of old growth redwood trees. This is something that I think that Michael Nichols did very well with his array of cameras on a vertical tramway, but this is an extraordinarily expensive and time consuming single photograph. I would like to be able to capture similar trees with roughly similar resolution economically enough that I can photograph many trees in many different lighting conditions. To show the scale, I would expect follow the example of many others who have photographed redwood trees with people in red or yellow jackets next to them. I'm not certain that I intend to do a frame filling photo of a single tree. I suspect that the quality of the image that I can manage will dictate the images that I attempt to capture.

Hello Brian,
I am also concerned about how practical what I want to do is. I have yet to try doing a vertical panorama with a DSLR and correcting the perspective errors with Photoshop. Perhaps this will yield better results than a stitch of two LF photos with a vertical shift, but I suspect that neither Mike Nichols or James Balog were satisfied with this digital stitch with perspective correction approach. They must have at least tried it before they started hoisting themselves or their camera arrays up into the stratosphere. Whatever the end results an old Korona is on one of those little brown trucks headed my way.

Hello Jim,
Thank you for the heads up about the Kinsey books. I will take a look.

[rdenney]

Any time you include something big in a relatively small photograph, the result will lose scale and what seems big in person will not on the photo. Even the photos of the tree trunks do not convey the scale unless there is something else in the photo of known size. One of our members (I don't remember who--maybe Vaughn) made a photo of a redwood stump--the tree had been felled many decades ago--surrounded by secondary trees that were obviously mature but dwarfed by the ca.-20-foot-wide stump. That conveyed the scale of the giant redwood in ways I've not seen in other photos that didn't include things like cars or people.

I saw the stitched image to which you referred. The stitched image has a feature that cannot be achieved from ground level except at a great distance: the point of view is always "eye level". One is looking at the horizontal branches end-on throughout the height of the tree.

When you stand on the ground and look up, vertical lines converge to a vanishing point where they all meet. By keeping the back of the camera vertical, you can spread out the top part of the picture to keep those vertical lines from converging. The top of the tree will therefore maintain its proportional width with respect to the bottom of the tree. This is called "perspective correction", but it's really an induced distortion. Our eyes and brain naturally interpret those converging vertical lines as being parallel, but in photographs, they are out of context and appear unnatural. So, we induce a distortion in the photo to perform some of the processing needed to restore context.

But despite the fact that keeping the film plane vertical keeps vertical scene lines parallel, the photo will still be viewing the upper branches from their underside, not end-on. It will still look as though you are at ground level.

The greater the distance you are from the tree, the less pronounced this effect will be, because the angle from the camera to those tree tops will be shallower. Of course, more distance means you need more space. And that distance has the effect of eliminating the sense of height of the tree, and it will look like a picture of a normal tree unless you include something of known scale in the view. Given the scalability of nature--from a distance a 1-foot tall bush with tiny leaves could be a 10-foot tall bush with big leaves--that item of known scale almost always has to be a known animal, human, or something man-made.

Probably the shortest and widest-field lens for 8x10 on the market right now is the Schneider Super Symmar XL 150mm, with an image circle of 386mm and an angle of view of 105mm. My sense is that with 8x10 film, you'll get enough shift to keep the back vertical using that lens with about 1/3 of the scene below the horizon. If the 2/3 of the scene is above the horizon and 400 feet tall, the field of view will be 600 feet. With that lens, you'll be maybe 250 feet away if I've done my sums correctly. From that distance, you'll be looking quite sharply upwards at the top of the tree, even though there will be no convergence of the parallel verticals. If you restrict the format to 4x10, you can get a bit more rise within the coverage of the lens and you'll thus be able to move a bit closer and include a little less of the foreground.

With longer lenses, coverage is greater and the required shift is lesser, but you'll have to be much further away from the tree.

On 4x5, the lens of choice would be the 72mm Schneider Super Angulon XL. It will work about the same as the Super Symmar XL on 8x10, but it has a bit wider angle of coverage so you'll be able to move a big closer.

You'll need a camera optimized for short lenses and large movements if you go with lenses this short. That's a separate conversation if you're still hanging in there.

Rick "wondering if this is the easiest large-format starting point" Denney

[Bill Burk]

If you want to show the magnitude and majesty of these trees (sorry, but I have not seen them), then what are you going to use as a reference to provide a scale to the image. There is a couple of reason a certain individual uses yellow film canisters in his auction; they are his "trademark" / signature, and it provides scale as we all know how big those yellow film canisters are and can thus compare it against the lens being listed. I ran into a similar issue many years ago photographing a large church (St. Joesph's Oratory) in Montreal. It loses it affect when you have to tell everyone that the small dark rectangle in the corner of the structure is a man-door...

I agree, though an occasional human scale element will help illustrate the size, I find it trite when done all the time. It may help your appreciation for the trees if you can learn techniques to estimate the size and magnitude of the trees you photograph (using surveying tools). Then you could include size information in the subtitle of the photograph or in footnotes of an info sheet.

[Vaughn]

I have taken the exact photo you are looking for. It took me several years to find the tree in the right place at the right time. It is a beautiful tree, too, up in the 300' range. It is deep in the virgin forest -- no clear-cutting, etc. I photographed it with a 150mm lens and two sheets of 4x5 film (vertical). The camera is set up on a ridge top (and on a trail, too) which gets the camera about 1/3 up the height of the tree...so the camera is pointed slightly down for the bottom half and quite a bit up for the upper half.

I printed it as two 7"x19" prints (actually 7x19 for the bottom and 7x17 for the top), matted with two windows in a 48" board with an inch of space between windows. Printing it long and narrow gets rid of the perspective problems of pointing the camera up and down.

I took a friend out with me to fire the shutter and I am standing at the base of the tree. I am so small in the image that I am not at all obvious. In fact when I tell people that I am in the photo it can take them 10 to 30 seconds to find me, even though I am right out in the open at the base of the tree...one's sense of scale is that thrown off by the size of the tree. While I agree with Bill that it can be over-done, having me in the image makes people step back when the size of the tree finally hits them...very effective. Since I have photographed it, there is a branch that has grown that blocks a small amount of the trunk.

Vaughn

[John Kasaian]

The Grizzley Giant iIRC lost its top, but is certainly imposing enough (the main off shoot is the diameter of a Volkswagen I heard one ranger say) and not too crowded in by other trees.
Just sayin'

[QT Luong]

I don't think so. The main point is if you take the photo from the ground, the perspective on the crown won't be as good. By the way, the Geographic claims that it's a first time such an image was created, but I think James Balog did it many years ago (see http://www.amazon.com/Tree-New-Visio...argeformatphot).

[Vaughn]

We had a copy of the Nat. Geo image up on one of our buildings (Humboldt State Uni.) for several weeks -- it was a little over two stories tall. Impressive at that size. Not quite life size, of course!

I have photographed the tree I mentioned above several times. The first time was with a Rollieflex (it took 3 negs to cover it base to the very tip), then with 4x5 three different times. The Redwood National Park used my first set of 4x5 negatives to have an eight foot copy made for display at our local airport -- they had about 6 different B&W images enlarged for a display at the baggage area. Eventually they went with color images and I always wondered what happened to the prints. Then when my boys were in 5th grade they went on an over-night stay at the park's educational center and I was happily surprised that my print was displayed in the main meeting room/cafeteria. I signed it for them with a sharpie.

(Un)fortunately the park damaged one of the negatives, so I re-shot it, doing a better job of it and this time wearing a lighter shirt so I would be easier to see at the base of the tree.

Vaughn

Thanks to this thread, I am now thinking of taking the 11x14 camera out to the tree (with the help of my three boys) and re-taking it again as part of my My-three-boys-in-the-environment series. I want to modify a darkslide so I can take two 5.5x14 images on a single sheet of 11x14 film. I'd do it two images again and have my boys standing at the base and would probably make platinum prints -- mounted similar to the original I did.

I have a selection of lenses I can use...perhaps the 19" RD Artar, but if that is too much coverage, perhaps the 26" RD Artar. It would not be an easy image to make with the old beast of an 11x14 with limited movements available -- perhaps I should do it with the 8x10 (two 4x10 negs) instead.

[NightHeron]

Hello Vaughn,

I'm happy to hear that you managed to take the photo that I would like to attempt, but it is discouraging that you only found one tree with years of searching. I hope that you will be happy with the new results that you get with your boys. I looked for your photo on the Redwoods National Park website and didn't find it.

I too have been searching a bit for a clear view of an old growth redwood without much luck thus far. There doesn't appear to be a clear view in Armstrong Grove (Guerneville, CA), The Grove of Old Trees (Occidental, CA), or in Montgomery Grove (Ukiah, CA). Hendy Woods State Park has some interesting possibilities, but only if the rangers would allow volunteers to remove some of the young hardwood trees obstructing the view from a trail about 150' above the main redwood grove. Hendy Woods is on the list of State Parks to be closed by July, so perhaps they might be interested in facilitating photographs that could increase interest in the park. And if this idea doesn't pass muster from an ecological standpoint, they are sure to forbid it.

Hello QT Luong,

I agree that when taking the photo from the ground, the perspective on the crown will not be as good as from an elevated platform, but I'm not expecting to kick Michael Nichol's and National Geographic's butts with an old Korona. Taking the photos from a varying elevated viewpoints can come with even more disturbing problems if there isn't a relatively uniform background of trees behind the main subject. In James Balog's book, "Tree A New Vision of The American Forest" he photographed several trees with the horizon in the background from varying elevated viewpoints. In these shots many of the individual photos from the stitch have the horizon in the background, but the horizon is at a different elevations for virtually every individual shot. This may conform to Mr. Balog's personal aesthetic, or just be a byproduct of his approach, but I find the images disconcerting. He managed to capture the main subject admirably, but the background is really screwy.

Hello John Kasaian,
Thank you for the recommendation. I suspect that it would be easier to find a clear distant view of several of the Giant Sequoias than the Coastal Redwoods.

Hello Bill Burk,
I agree that using people as a scale element does get a bit redundant, but I don't think that a note specifying the height at the diameter of one of these trees really succeeds in communicating the immensity of these things as well as a scale element. Both Michael Nichols and James Balog place a number of people in bright jackets both beside and up in their trees to act as scale elements and without them I don't think I could grasp size of those trees. Mr. Nichols also has a few people in the tree that are not in bright clothing, so it adds interest to try to make sure that you have found everyone in the tree.

Hello Rick Denny,

Thank you for your response. This is probably not the easiest large format starting point, but I think that I have a greater probability of success than if I were attempting female nude photos.