Here is a small sampling of his photography. Check out his photoblog for many more, including the answer to that age-old question,  ”what do damsel flies eat?

Henry's Lake Cutthroat by Lynn Scott

A few months ago, I started getting into photography more, and received some good advice to upgrade my “glass”. (”glass” is fancy-pants photography talk for lens)  After shopping around and doing research, I picked up Canon’s 50mm f1.4 lens. This is known as a prime lens, since its a single focal length (not a zoom). Because its a fixed focal length, the designers have fewer variables and can better optimize the image quality for a given price point.

Here is the 50mm f1.4 and a typical kit lens, the 28-80mm, f4.5-5.6. Besides the  metal construction, notice how much more glass is present in the 50mm lens. I’ve been very happy with the quality of the shots using this lens. This also started my journey for acquiring more glass.

The 50mm doesn’t get close enough to fill the frame with a fly, but the image captured is very clear. A couple of options are available to get the 50mm closer, one in front of the lens (close up filters) and one between the camera and lens (extension tube); stay tuned for more info in upcoming posts.  Here is a size 14 fly taken at the closest focus distance for the 50mm:

The next upgrade was a dedicated macro lens, the Canon 100mm f2.8. This has 2 benefits, more magnification to get closer and its designed to allow closer focusing. At the closest focusing distance, the 100mm f2.8 gives a 1:1 ratio. This means that the fly image on the camera’s sensor is actual size.

Here is the same fly taken with the 100mm f2.8 macro lens, which fills the entire frame. (this was taken with a Canon 50d, which is a 1.6 “crop factor” camera, which helps fill the frame)

Since this is a blog, and the hallmark of blogs is un-original writing, executed poorly, I’ll start this series by linking to other sites, that have original writing and are executed excellently.   There is no sense in my trying to duplicate the excellent writing and content of these smart gentlemen.

Martin Joergensen of Global Fly Fisher has a tutorial on fly photography.  The tutorial covers photography and scanning flies using a flatbed scaner.

Global Fly Fisher Lighting Setup

Paul Dieter shows how to construct a fly studio out of scrap materials you may find around the house. His fly studio is includes a plastic light diffuser and reflectors to give even lighting 360 degrees around the fly.

Fly Studio

Neal Osborne of Fly Art Studio has tons of information on his site.  He has written several tutorials ranging from a beginners guide to fly photography with a point and shoot camera to very technical tutorials on light.

Neal Osborn's Point and Shoot Tutorial

Next, I’ll describe my evolution in fly photography and describe equipment and techniques that have helped me capture flies on filmbits.

Open For Fishing

When we fish, we like to take pictures. For many, the grip -and-grin is the favorite shot. And, since trout live in beautiful places we also snap the scenes we see, to remember and share the beauty with our friends & family. However, many times the photo of the river scene is not as I remembered it. The exposure is not correct. Either the sky is way too bright or the sky is OK, but the ground is dark. Obviously, getting a better camera will fix that.

The new camera didn’t fix the problem.

I was running into a limitation of the “dynamic range” of the digital sensor. The dynamic range refers to the range between the darkest and brightest portions of the image. I learned that my new camera has a dynamic range of about 5 or 6 stops, while human vision has a range of 11 stops. That means the range between bright & dark that I can see with my eyes is twice what my camera can record.

The fancy new camera gave me a variety of options to choose the exposure, but the fundamental limitation of the dynamic range was still present.

One way around this limitation is a technique called “High Dynamic Range” Photography, or HDR for short. This technique involves taking multiple photos, at different exposures, and combining them in software on your computer.

Here are the 3 images that comprise the image above. Notice that in the first one, the river bank detail is present, but the sky is way over exposed. In the last, the sky is properly exposed, but the river banks are too dark . This sequence was taken at F8, with shutter speeds of 100, 350, and 1000.  This is a great application for aperture priority mode (Av), and automatic exposure bracketing (-2, 0, +2).

Open For Fishing Originals

The program that combines the images is called Photomatix. It uses a technique called tone-mapping to process all three photos and create a single image with the best parts of each. You can try this your-self, Photomatix can be downloaded and used for free, but it puts a watermark in the resulting photo until you purchase the unlock code.

I learned this technique from a really cool site called Stuck In Customs, by Trey Ratcliff. He wrote a step by step tutorial on his site, which includes a discount code to use if you purchase Photomatix.

There are other ways to combine multiple exposures using Photoshop and masking layers, but that is another blog post.

HenrysLakeHDR, originally uploaded by WhiskeyCreek.

Henry’s Lake in Idaho, as viewed from the dam. To more fully experience Henry’s Lake, grab a needle and poke yourself every 10 seconds to simulate the mosquitos.

In the optical section, there was a room illuminated in strong yellow lights. My daughter took a rest and I thought I’d experiment a bit with the white balance settings of my new camera. Here is the room:

With the strong yellow lights, I snapped a photo of my daughter in the chair under each of the white balance settings. Experimenting to see which setting would give the best correction. Then, I used the “white” board as a target to set a custom white balance setting. Snapped a photo:

Surprise, the image came out monochrome.  The custom white balance setting must subtract a color from the image, and subtracting something from itself equals 0.  The correction removed all color from the image.

Here is what the room looked like in white light (flash):

• Waterproof to 10 ft
• Shockproof from vest high (5 ft)
• 12.1 megapixel, 4.6x optical zoom
• Records HD video in a vest friendly form-factor

Coming soon to a market near you for about $400. Look for it in April, just in time for the trout opener.

This follows Canon’s entry (PowerShot D10) into the fly fishing camera market, joining Olympus and Pentax. Glad to see the photo industry showing us some love.

See more fishing-friendly cameras from the Photo Marketing Association show.

I take a camera with me to record events: hero shots, photographic evidence of those trophies, or to record landmarks to remember a hole or access point. Trout live in beautiful places; I bring my camera to capture some of that beauty to share with friends and family. These photos make great gifts; an 8×10 print and an appropriate frame – and you have an unique gift.

Since my primary focus (pun intended) is fishing, I’ve optimized my camera choice for fishing.

I have used SLRs and “prosumer” larger cameras, but these have gotten in the way and displaced other equipment (a water bottle or fly box). For cameras that are not waterproof, I would store in a zip lock bag. This was a safety measure, but added time and complexity to taking a picture.

I’ve settled on digital point and shoot cameras that are waterproof. A waterproof camera is protected if I accidentally drop it and waterproof cameras give the ability to take more interesting shots like this cutthroat.

Point and shoot cameras are small, only displacing a small fly box. My fly vest even has a pocket dedicated for a point and shoot camera. The digital point and shoot cameras now have similar resolution as a 35mm camera, and 3x or better optical zoom.

• 6 megapixels or greater provides roughly the same resolution as 35mm film. You can make prints easily up to 8×10 or 11×14. Greater resolutions in digital cameras pays off even if you don’t plan to print this large. More pixels in the original gives you more options for cropping.
• The focal lengths vary by digital camera model, but think of a 3x optical zoom as roughly equivalent to a 35 to 105 mm lens on a 35mm film SLR. Slight wide angle to moderate telephoto. I ignore digital zoom figures, as I turn this feature off. Instead of digital zoom, I prefer to crop the image with my editing software.

I know of two point and shoot digital water and shockproof cameras on the market: The Pentax Optio series and the Olympus Slylus SW series.

I use an Olympus Stylus 770 SW, it was state of the art a a couple of years ago. It’s a great camera to bring while fishing. Its waterproof to 10 meters, shockproof to 5 feet, and compact (size of a small fly box). The camera is 7.1 mega-pixels, and has a 3x optical zoom. The only drawback is the lack of an optical viewer (you have to use the screen to compose your picture). The battery life is also compromised as the battery is tiny, but that compromise is worth the other features in my opinion.

This picture is bittersweet. I went out one evening by my self on Henry’s Fork, at the ranch, just below millionaire’s pool. There were caddis flies dancing on the surface, and perfect temperature – it was heaven except no fish were rising.

Suddenly, I was startled by a huge splash just 30 yards behind me. It was this moose. I followed her a bit upstream until she framed herself in this gap of trees. I didn’t catch any fish that evening, but did catch a memory that I can share with friends.

If I didn’t have my camera, that nearly perfect evening would have faded.

Come back soon, I have some fly fishing photography tips for hero shots, composition pointers, and a whole host of links to give you some inspiration on making your unique shots.