Slot Canyon Photography – Page, Arizona
Slot canyons are an amazing phenomenon.
Beautifully carved passageways made over the millennia thanks to the nature of water and the wind working through and wearing away sandstone. In general, slots are much deeper than they are wide hence the name. Some can measure less than one yard across while the walls tower over one hundred feet. Open to the sky; light washes through the canyons much the way of the water that came before. And, therein lies our photographic challenge. The dynamic range of the scenes often exceeds the ability of the camera’s single opening aperture. Of course, our eyes with their agile pupils make infinite adjustments as we take in shadow or highlight areas.
HDR to the rescue!
The strata along the walls change from one angle to the next – as a result of thousands of years of wind and water erosion. Add in the light bouncing around, and it makes for excellent photography situations.
When working in high dynamic range situations, I’m looking to be on a tripod and make multiple exposures. In this case, I’m working with a five stop range while shooting in RAW. (depending on the situation I might even go to a seven stop range) This gives me the most opportunity to get each tone of the image exactly as I wish. If I were to try and use one exposure either the highlights would be blown, or I would be dealing with lots of noise from the sensor when trying to pull up detail from the shadow areas.
Aurora HDR software window. Lots of presets available along with tons of control options.
There are many different HDR processing programs available. You can use Photoshop or Lightroom, NIK, Photomatix or others. Each has its benefits and drawbacks. I found a new player on the HDR block for Mac users from MacPhun called Aurora HDR, and I’m enjoying the interface. Lots of control and the ability to create a non-HDR ‘looking’ image that still has lots of punch.
Slot canyons are formed in sandstone and limestone rock. Only a slight number of creeks will form slot canyons due to a combination of the particular characteristics of the rock and regional rainfall.
People in an image like this can add interest. Fellow photographer Bruce Roscoe held the pose for me.
Slots can be found from Arizona to Utah with a few stretching toward New Mexico and California. These images were captured at Secret Canyon near Page, Arizona. Slot Canyon Hummer Adventure Tours is your ‘in’ to the Secret.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
PS – Most slot photos are taken in the vertical orientation. I highly recommend looking for a horizontal composition to help set your images apart from other photographers.
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How long are your average exposures? When shooting for use with HDR what is your F-stop variance? I have heard has much as 6 seconds, that would be a 42 second period with no people walking into the frame.
Thanks so much
going in April
Gary, As long as you use a low ISO and a medium-small aperture such as around f10 or 11 you get long exposures coming in around 10 seconds. You may not want to have a smaller aperture such as f22 as that begins to add diffraction and diffusion to the file. I use ISO 200 as that is the native ISO for the camera I was using. You might get shorter times by bumping up the ISO. We had this canyon to ourselves (secret canyon) Your guides should be able to help control the traffic to allow longer exposures if necessary. Take good care of your guides. ; )>
Received this question from Brian Barnett that we can’t seem to get into the system.
“I am stumped. I have to use my DPP4 software to correct WB. When I upload the WB corrected images to Photomatix it still merges them in IR. I’ve tried using saved images after WB correction but Photomatix still sees them in IR. What do I need to do? Thanks.”
Brian, I am not quite sure I understand your question. I’m no a Canon software user so I’m going to give you a couple thoughts. How did you save out your files? If they are still in the RAW format Photomatix may be ignoring the changes. Save out the images as jpegs before loading in Photomatix. That should have your changes baked in so the program can recognize them. Caan you process the files in another program like Photoshop or Lightroom and see if the problem still persists? If that doesn’t work can you show me a sample of what is happening? Finally, I would contact PhotoMatix support and see if they have any thoughts on your problem.
Let me know if you get this sussed out. Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
I am stumped. I have to use my DPP4 software to correct WB. When I upload the WB corrected images to Photomatix it still merges them in IR. I’ve tried using saved images after WB correction but Photomatix still sees them in IR. What do I need to do? Thanks.