H P Birkeland fotografi

Mitt utstillingsvindu på nett

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  • Reducing noise in Darktable

    Noise from high ISO can be a pain sometimes. Darktable has several tools to help you get rid of it or at least reducing it. In this week’s video I show you the different tools and how to work with them.

    There are however a couple of things to remember that I did not mention in the video. Noise reduction is very processor intensive and has a tendency to slow down the editing quite a bit, since all the edits are recalculated every time you make an adjustment. Therefore it is important to think about when you apply noise reduction in your workflow.

    If you do it early on you will have a cleaner image to work with. This will make it easier to set up good parametric masks, but Darktable will become slow. If you leave it to the end you may have not so perfect masks, but Darktable is quicker. So it is a balance you have to find for yourself, also taking into account the power of your computer. If you have a beast of a machine you may not notice much difference, so you can have noise reduction early on without problems.

    I tend to do it this way: if it is an easy edit without much work, I just apply the noise reduction early in the workflow and leave it on. If the edit is more complicated, I like to do it quite early and then turn it off, only keeping it on when I set up critical parametric masks. Then I turn it on again before I do final sharpening. If I during the process send the image over to Gimp for some extra work there, then I do noise reduction before the export. In that case I don’t sharpen anything before export, I do that either in Gimp or when I get the image back into Darktable.

  • Look for the Silver Lining

    Look for the Silver Lining

    Look for the silver lining
    Whenever a cloud appears in the blue
    Remember, somewhere the sun is shining
    And so the right thing to do is make it shine for you

    A heart, full of joy and gladness
    Will always banish sadness and strife
    So always look for the silver lining
    And try to find the sunny side of life

    A heart, full of joy and gladness
    Will always banish sadness and strife
    So always look for the silver lining
    And try to find the sunny side of life

    When sitting beside a pond high in the Norwegian mountains and just soaking in my surroundings and experiencing a fantastic feeling of happiness and being alive and part of nature, this song came into my head. The song was written as far back as in 1919 by Buddy de Sylva, and one of the more well known versions was recorded by Chet Baker.

    It speaks directly to me where I am now in my life and where I have been for the last few years. It is so important to look for the silver lining, to find the sunny side of life even when there are elements in life that works towards darkness and despair. When people close to you are having problems that only seem to get bigger and bigger without them being able or willing to do the right things to come back on track. When you try the best you can for years to convince them and help them and you don’t get any response.

    At this point you have two choices:

    1- continue to bang your head against the wall in the hope that some day you’ll succeed (which you never will, because the other person really has to find the motivation themselves) and therefore burn yourself out and develop depressions and what not.

    2- take a grip on your own life, take care of yourself first, and also if there are others in this close circle, take care of them. Place yourself on the sideline. Focus on the good things in life.

    I have found it essential to choose number 2. Only then you can get some energy to follow up the one with problems to a certain degree. But remember that you are in charge only of your own life, others are in charge of their lives, no matter how low they are. And only you can decide how much to get involved.

    Another good analogy I have thought a lot about is when you have boarded a plane and the crew goes through the safety routine. They tell you that if the oxygen masks come down, you should put on your own mask first, then help others.

    Have you ever experienced any of this? While you’re thinking and writing a comment, have a listen to Chet Baker here:

    https://open.spotify.com/embed/track/4Pk8rZ5l4a21Vib3VjWLKf

  • Happiness and Photography

    Happiness and Photography

    I have just had the most intense feeling of happiness that I have had in a very long time, maybe several years.

    Engrabben_0120_2048
    Cloudberries and mountain. 10 mm f/16, 1/50 s, ISO 100, Sigma 10-20 mm f/3.5,

    Way up in the Norwegian mountains, the midday sun is high in the sky, white, puffy clouds drifting by. The air is still, with the occasional whiff of a light breeze. The dominant sounds are from the birds flying around me and between the trees. Insects are buzzing different tones from the high pitched mosquito to the more flapping sound of the dragonfly. From where I am sitting I can hardly see any sign of human presence, but I hear them in the distance. Happy children, caring parents. The sound of tools, somebody is working around their cabin. A car passing on the gravel road. But every now and then complete silence, only broken by nature’s own sounds.

    Engrabben_0125_2048
    The pond of happiness. 16 mm, f/11, 1/50 s, ISO 100, Canon EF-S 15-85 IS USM

    In the middle of all this, I sit on a tussock of moss by the edge of a pond. After walking around for a while, taking some pictures, I sit down, camera bag beside me and the camera ready in my hands, to photograph whatever my eyes find. I feel completely at ease, free from problems and expectations. Whether the images are any good is not so important. It is this feeling of being a part of nature, being friends with the little spider on my knee and the ants that crawl under my shorts. Watching the dragonfly patrol the shoreline round after round, always the same route.  I try to capture it with my camera, but it is always too quick, its movements too unpredictable. And the auto focus of my telephoto lens is too slow.

    Engrabben_0141_2048
    My best effort to capture a dragonfly. 225 mm, f/5.6, 1/600 s, ISO 500, Canon EF 70-300 IS USM

    Some reeds form a heart-shaped reflection in the water. Makes me think of the ones I love, and the love that is no more. I am privileged, and I know I have made some right choices in the last year even though there were some tough decisions to make. And I am grateful for all the support I have received from everyone around me. So today, sitting here for hours on end just soaking in the wonderful feeling of being alive, I can’t wish for anything else.

    Engrabben_0134_2048
    Reeds and reflection. 200 mm, f/5, 1/800 s, ISO 100, Canon EF 70-300 IS USM

    When was the last time you felt immensely happy?

  • An evening at the Timber Booms

    An evening at the Timber Booms

    On the evening of one of the immensely hot days we have had here in Norway lately, I took a trip to Fetsund and the timber booms museum there. I have been there once before, a few years ago. There were some nice clouds in the sky so I had hopes for a few good sunset photos.

    The sun was low in the sky, there was not a breath of wind, and the air was still quite hot at 10 pm. Therefore I was still in t-shirt and shorts, which I would soon regret. I parked my car at the Visitor Centre Wetland and walked down the walkway along the water to look for a photo location. I found the spot where I took the photos in this post, but the place was guarded by an army of mosquitoes. Even though I had taken care to use a quite effective mosquito repellent, they attacked me in vast numbers, driving me back to the car. For five minutes I just sat there, killing mosquitoes that had come in with me one by one.

    I then drove back to the main parking area of the museum and took a stroll around to look for other photo spots. I didn’t really find anything, so I put on some other clothes and went back to where I’d been before. This time I had better protection, but the attackers were still at it. I quickly put up my tripod and found these two compositions as the last hint of sun swept across the landscape.

    Timber Floater's Cabin
    Fetsund, Norway, 2018

  • Learn to use the Darktable RAW photo editor

    If you take your photos in RAW format (which I think you should) then you need a piece of software to develop your RAW files into beautiful images. And what is better than using free software? No investment, no monthly fees, and a large, helpful community for support. Even get directly in touch with the developers.

    My favourite RAW developer is called Darktable. It started out some years ago only running on Linux. Eventually it was ported to OS X, and this winter the Windows version came out.

    Darktable is a very capable free alternative to Adobe Lightroom and others. Like Lightroom it can be used not only to edit your photos, but also to import them from your camera, organize them and print them. As Lightroom is the only commercial RAW developer I have any knowledge about, I’ll use it as a reference.

    The two are quite different in the way you work with them. This may make the learning curve of Lightroom a bit easier in the beginning, but I think in the end Darktable is more powerful and more flexible. Many tasks can be done in multiple ways, giving better results under different circumstances.

    If you are curious and would like to learn about Darktable, I have just started a YouTube channel about it. The two first videos are out, and I plan to release a new episode every Sunday. See the first episode here:

    I’d love it if you like, comment, share and subscribe, so my channel can gain some momentum. Thank you in advance, and see you next time.

  • The Sound of Silence

    The Sound of Silence

    Our hectic lives are filled with so much sound. Noise of all kinds, from traffic, from planes passing low overhead, the neighbour’s lawn mower. People talking, be it work mates, family or friends. Overly enthusiastic kids on the bus or that businessman who just has to let everyone listen to his very important phone call in the quiet zone on the train.

    We also (at least many of us) fill our lives with sound by our own will. Music in our ears wherever we go, in the city or out running. Many people say they are afraid of the silence. They need to have sound in the background to feel comfortable.  I have never understood it. I use to say that the best sound of all is the sound of silence. Silence gives me room to be, to think and to feel.

    Merratjern_0013_2048

    By silence, I don’t necessarily mean complete absence of any sound. For example in nature, it is rarely complete silence, but if you sit down and listen to the silence you hear all the sounds of nature. The wind whispering through the treetops, the singing birds or the splattering of water in a stream.

    A couple of days ago I grabbed my camera and went out to shoot sunset at this tarn, not far from home. It had been a warm and cloudless day, so I didn’t expect too much. But as I got there a cloud cover had appeared, and the low sun spread this gorgeous light above the trees. There was not a breath of wind and the water lay still as a black mirror. Nobody else was around, only an abundance of birds, that I could hear but not see. And that’s all the music I need when I’m out. It makes me feel connected to nature, to the universe. It makes me relax and gather energy to cope with the everyday struggle.

    Now, after this rather philosophical piece, turn of your music, listen to the silence and enjoy these two images from a late evening in the forests of Eastern Norway.

    Merratjern_0001_2048

  • No, the blog is not dead

    No, the blog is not dead

    It’s been very quiet around here lately. Last time you heard from me was a year ago, and I am truly sorry about that, but sometimes life just gets in the way and messes up things. Now I am more or less back on track wanting to get into the habit of writing a little piece every now and then. I am more out taking pictures than I have been in a long time, and I want to share some of those experiences in a more personal way than just spitting out images on Instagram and other platforms. I also have some rather exiting plans coming up, challenging myself in new ways.

    Most of my photography is quite local these days, within an hour’s drive from home at the most. So don’t expect reports from any exotic destinations around the world, it’s all about finding the little gems that are easily overlooked because we see them every day. There is a lot of joy in discovering new places in the vicinity, and also in trying to see all the familiar places with new eyes.

    That said, for now I’ll leave you with a couple of older images to enjoy. The one above is from France last summer, a sunset for the past. Below is a sunrise to celebrate the future, taken on the west coast of Sweden in 2015.

    Tanumstrand Sunrise
    Tanumstrand, Sweden
  • Meet the Starling family

    Meet the Starling family

    I have had a starling family as neighbours for a few days. We had a long weekend in our cabin, and just beside the cabin there is a large apartment complex. This consists of two old, half dead aspen trees. One of them has a lot of storeys with holes that have been occupied by generations of birds over many years. This time the top floor was inhabited by a starling family of four. At least I got to see four members of the family. The parents flew back and forth all day long with food for the hungry little ones. One of them often poked its head out to look for mum and dad. The other one was more reluctant, I only saw it when they got food. (mer…)

  • What others don’t see

    What others don’t see

    I live just a short walk from a patch of woods, and I love to go there now and then to photograph the more intimate kind of landscapes and all the small stuff like flowers, moss, funghi and so on.

    A week ago I had my first walk there this spring. The wood anemones were in full bloom, birds singing and a wonderful day it was. I had several ideas I wanted to try as well as being prepared for the unexpected, so I brought my whole bag of gear. First stop was the wood anemones. I had two different images in mind: a light, airy picture of a single flower with shallow depth of field and a green/white background, and also a single flower against a dark background. So I singled out a couple of flowers and lay down on the ground with my lovely Tamron 90mm f/2.8 macro lens on my trusty old Canon 550D. I didn’t notice anybody passing on the path, but if so they must have been wondering what this guy was up to crawling around like that. After a while I had my pictures and started looking for new things to shoot. A small pond caught my attention, but after a couple of tries I decided to leave it for now. Better come back on a foggy day.

    Anemone nemorosa, hvitveis
    Enebakk, Norway, 2017

    There are lots of fallen trees around here just left to rot by themselves. Over the years the stumps are worn down by the weather and create wonderful shapes and structures best suited for black and white conversion. The sun was shining down through the branches creating spots of light. In order to get the light I wanted on this stump I had to wait quite a while and take several shots as the light moved across the scene.

    Løkkaskogen_0016_2048
    Enebakk, Norway, 2017

    Roots of living trees are also a fun thing to look for where they stretch out above the ground like long, thin fingers. I found this spruce with particularly nice roots covered with thin moss. I had my camera on tripod with the center colomn reversed in order to get close to the ground, Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5 set at 10mm. When processing this image in Darktable I used some low pass filters to bring out the 3-d shape of the roots and really make them alive. Colours enhanced with Nik Viveza and Color Efex Pro.

    Løkkaskogen_0032_2048
    Enebakk, Norway, 2017

    While I was setting up for the photo of the old tree stump a woman walking her dog came past me asked if there was anything nice to photograph around here. «Yes, lots of it», was my reply. There really are lots of images to be had around there, but I don’t think she saw any of it, even though (or maybe because?) she as she said, walked there three times daily with her dog.

    Do you often see images where others don’t? Tell me about it in the comments! And be sure to check out my work over at ClickASnap!

  • Sunset Boat

    Sunset Boat

    Just after sunset, late April. The lake is like a mirror, the air completely still. An old wooden boat is moored by the tiny beach. It is afloat but looking abandoned and disused. Nobody has bothered to empty it after the last rainfall. Patiently it waits for somebody to row it again.

    Sunset Boat
    Enebakk, Norway, 2015

    This image is one of my favourites. It is by far my most popular image on ClickaSnap and the only one that has ever won me anything. It is taken not far from where I live, in Enebakk, Norway. Three bracketed RAW exposures developed in Darktable, merged in Macrofusion and the final image edited in Gimp.

    I entered this image in a local photography contest centered around the beautiful landscapes of our municipality. It came in second place, which I was very happy about.Which one is your most popular image? Let me know in the comments.

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    Source: Sunset Boat