I love to be with nature. It empties your mind.
I would like to show other people how beautiful nature is.
And I don't want to shoot like a documentary shot.
I would like to transport some of my feelings I had when I was there.
One day I got a Canon newsletter. I've seen they'd got a gallery too.
Why not upload them to Canon as well? Some of them were recognised.
I am Henrik Spranz and I am a German living in Austria.
I am a software developer and I am passionate about landscape and macro photography.
When I am about to do macro photography at a location I don't know,
I will go there in the evening, the day before, to check the whole situation,
where the sun will rise and naturally, where the insects are.
If I find an interesting insect, I will try to separate
the grass from the rest around it, so I've got a clear view.
Whenever you find a beautiful insect like a butterfly,
you tend to focus on it and forget about the background.
So, perhaps you can find a way to make a blurred background
with a nice bokeh.
If you are shooting something like a butterfly,
you should get up from your tripod, camera and butterfly,
and have a look if the planes of the sensor and the wings of the butterfly
are parallel, so it would help a lot with focusing.
In macro photography, sometimes it's like painting.
Painting on your sensor.
If I am preparing a landscape shoot, then I need some preparation,
check the weather, check the lighting, check the best places for a shoot.
Most of the time, when I am doing landscape photography,
I use the low point of view.
I set up the tripod, and one important thing is to level it.
Most of the time, I use the semi-automatic mode,
so I set the aperture and let the camera do the rest.
It's no problem, I've got control of the aperture.
I use the live histogram as well to check if the exposure is right.
If it's over-exposed or not.
If I am on a long hike, I take only two lenses with me.
A smaller tripod, less weight.
I reduce it to the absolute minimum.
The equipment is probably not essential but...
I just want to have a good feeling using it.
I like to use the Canon gear because I feel perfectly comfortable with it.
I have learned not to take pictures if the conditions aren't worth it.
Sometimes when you are up for landscape photography,
you find something completely different.
Like an orchid.
It's good to have a macro lens with you all the time.
So you can switch focus.
I've used the bag of my tripod as a beanbag.
If there is sun shining directly on the orchid
you need to use a diffuser.
When I am doing a shot of the orchid like this,
I'm that focused, I forget everything around me.
When I am doing the post-processing, the first thing I do is import them into Lightroom.
I like to make a quick check which of my photos are worth post-processing.
Then I do some basic things, like looking for the correct histograms,
I increase a little bit the details,
and then I export them to Photoshop to do the fine-tuning.
To make them look more crisp and more colourful.
Doing landscape and macro photography is combining many things I like:
being with nature, being creative.
I wouldn't die without landscape or macro photography,
but life would miss a kind of shining light.