Ross Hoddinott Landscape and nature photography www.rosshoddinott.co.uk
Ross is a professional landscape, wildlife and macro photographer who runs regular workshops and often guides photographers through the process of capturing perfectly exposed images. As he explains, ‘Highlight retention is an issue for high-contrast scenes, which are more common in landscapes than wildlife photography, and with macro photography they are often in the background where they can add a little interest. With landscapes there may be some specular highlights, like sparkles on the sea, that you’re prepared to let go. They make the scene look natural and bring it to life. There are also situations where you might have, say, a sunlit lighthouse in the distance, which is pure white and there’s no point trying to underexpose the rest of the scene in order to retain detail which you can’t actually see because it’s too far away. That’s where you’ve got to be a little bit careful about the highlights warning, because it’s going to flash and highlight those areas, and if you try to underexpose the scene in order to retain them, you’re giving yourself extra work.’
This understanding of which highlights need to be retained and which can be allowed to be bright white is something that Ross has developed through his years of shooting experience, but he’s still a big fan of using the live histogram on his Nikon Z 7II. He continues, ‘The histogram makes life so easy, but even when you’re looking at it, you still need to evaluate the scene as well.’
ND grads and bracketing
While some photographers favour bracketing their exposures and then blending images together to get detail throughout the brightness range, Ross generally prefers using ND grads. He says, ‘There are obviously situations when a filter may not be practical, perhaps it’s a mountainous scene or there’s something like a lighthouse that breaks across the horizon, in which case I would bracket and blend, but in many situations, graduated neutral density filters are great for holding highlight detail in the sky. They mean you can get a good exposure for the highlights without underexposing the foreground shadow detail.’ Again, Ross
emphasises the need to evaluate the scene saying, ‘With waves or moving water that are a key part of the image and not just specular highlights, I always make sure I’ve got information there in-camera because then I can decide how I’m going to process it later. In many cases they are also brighter than the sky so there’s no point in using an ND grad on the sky because you need to get the exposure right for the waves. Waves that have blown out and lack any detail or texture just look odd.’
Getting the final result
If you underexpose an image to retain highlight detail, you need to brighten the shadows and mid-tones post-capture to get the result you want. It’s at this stage that you may see the impact of your sensitivity (ISO) selection because brightening the shadows can result in greater visibility of noise and these results are generally better with low-ISO images. With this in mind, Ross generally shoots at ISO 64 and has his camera on a tripod, but if he wants to shoot a few hand-held images he will happily go up to ISO 1000.
However, for macro work he says, ‘I’m often shooting at up to ISO 3200 because I’m in low light and having to make sure my shutter speed is fast enough to freeze any wind movement, which means pushing the ISO up. Usually with macro photography, I aim to get the image exposure looking as I want it in-camera, but with landscapes I may need to create the exposure that gives me the best file to then process later. I am very wary of underexposing the subject with a high ISO setting because that’s when you see the noise in the shadows. Thankfully, you don’t often get the same contrast issues with the kind of macro photography I like to shoot and if there are bright highlights it’s often because I’m going to silhouette my subject anyway.’
think about the colour of the reflected light. Shooting under a tree surrounded by grass can result in a green cast. You can neutralise it with flash, but another location may work better and cause fewer problems. Alternatively, a pop-up diffuser and a spare pair of arms or a stand to hold it can help.
If you’re shooting indoors you may be able to take complete control over the exposure, but sunlight pouring through windows can be an issue. If it’s in the background, you may wish to burn it out for creative reasons, but if it’s falling on your subject, Ian recommends diffusing it. As he explains, pro photographers often use a scrim, which is basically a diffuser that you put between your light source, in this case the window, and your subject. It doesn’t need to be fancy though, you can use a white bedsheet or even a shower curtain, but take care with plastic materials as they often have an impact on the colour of the light reaching your subject.
‘Last week I had to photograph the CEO of a company and there was light streaming through her office window. Since my time with her was very limited, I wasn’t able to set up a diffuser in the window, instead, I turned her back to it so it acted as a hair light, let it burn out and used a burst of flash on her face. Sometimes you have no choice and you have to be pragmatic with what you can do in order to get the best result in the time and conditions.’
Shiny skin can be another problem with portraits, says Ian, but make-up powder, kitchen paper towels or tissues can come to the rescue. ‘Just ask the model to touch-up or blot the problem areas to take the sheen down,’ he advises.