Twilight Paintbrush, Mt. Timpanogos Wilderness, Utah

I have finally joined the world of social networking. You can now find a facebook page for Jeff Beck Photography. Check out my photo album "Best of 2009" to see my favorite images from last year. Leave a comment and let me know which is your favorite. You can also check out my first images of the new year.

This image, "Twilight Paintbrush", is near the top of my list of favorites from 2009. It also illustrates some key components of my digital conversion. 

I usually don't prefer images (at least my own) where background mountains are prominent but out of focus. In this image, I like it quite a bit. Maybe I would like this image just as much, or even more, if the distant rigeline were in sharp focus, but that was not an option. At least that's what I decided on this night.

I was leaving Timpanogos Basin after sunset, and was arrested by the combination of glowing Indian Paintbrush set against the shadowy mountain and the purple-pink twilight sky. I worked quickly to compose my image. I was then faced with a delima; How slow can you go? A light but persistant breeze made the use of a 32 second shutter speed unmanageable. I had two choices, I could open my aperture to allow more light to reach the sensor thereby increasing my sutter speed, at the expense of decreasing my depth of field. My second choice was to increase my ISO, at the risk of introducing noise into the capture.

I decided to split the difference and do both. I increased my ISO to 400 while at the same time opening my aperture to f16. I also made the decision not to worry about trying to keep the distant rigeline within the hyperfocal distance, but instead made sure the flowers, only inches from my lens, would be rendered sharply. This still required the breeze to cooperate, for at least 4 seconds at a time. Luckily it did, for a few frames. 

What did I learn from this experience? One thing I can tell you from printing this image is, everthing else being equal, digitally captured files print more cleanly at ISO 400 than simmilar sized scans of ISO 50 transparency film. The ability to increase ISO on the fly is invaluable.  Most importantly: remain flexible, don't let the fact that you can't shoot a scene using your standard approach keep you from shooting it all together. This is what I love about digital: being free from the expense of film makes me more willing to experiment. I have no doubt this image would not exist had I been using film.