Hi Reader

The last two issues have had a theme but this one is a bit more cosmopolitan. I aim to vary content and format to keep things interesting but I'm also open to suggestions. Feel free to hit reply and let me know what you'd like to see more of!

Snapshot

Outdoors: Where to walk: tricky trail section tip for loose leaves
​Science: Recent finds: spiny moth-invading fungus; early blue cohosh
​Photography: New Blog Post! Photography Basics: The Exposure Triangle
​Erratic: Housekeeping: phone snaps vs "real" camera images

Outdoors

How would you approach the downhill trail section in the photo below? With three young sons I'm frequently reminded how important yet not obvious some tricky trail sections can be, especially for those with less experience.

The center and right side of the trail is covered with dry oak leaves while the left side is on a slope and mostly dirt. The temptation is to avoid the slope and walk on the leaves but those dry oak leaves are VERY glossy. If you step on top of them, they'll readily slide on the also glossy leaves beneath. I've made this mistake myself!

The dry dirt on the left slope is the safer route OR if the side slope is also slick or too steep, walk through the leaves but SHUFFLE YOUR FEET slowly through the leaves. When shuffling your feet kick the top layers off to reduce the chance of a slip (or fall). High quality hiking soles help too!

Science

While hiking in Ohio's Hocking Hills recently, I came across two unfortunate moths. Check out these crusty critters.

These moths were overtaken by a parasitic fungus (Akanthomyces aculeatus is my educated guess at an ID). You're looking at an asexual stage of fungus, one that reproduces by cloning itself. The fungus infects the moth, slowly over-taking it as the mycelium forms a thick mat. Mycelium is basically the root structure of a fungus. The fungus then produces the long, skinny spikes that produce genetic clones ready for windborne distribution. Wicked!

Early blue cohosh is one of the earliest spring wildflowers to bloom. It is typically found along streams on floodplain terraces (in other words, not right long the stream but above it on the valley floor). The immature plants are a beautiful purplish-maroon color including the small (1/2-inch) mature blooms and the immature unfolding leaves. The image above required a focus stack, selecting the in-focus portions of 50 images, to get a final image with the focus depth shown.

Photography

​New Blog Post: Photography Basics: The Exposure Triangle​

I just got done writing a blog post describing the basics of exposing a photograph and the three main camera settings: ISO, aperture, and shutter speed. Click the link to read the full article. Below is the quick summary from the article and my rendition of the exposure triangle.

• Exposure is the exposing of a digital sensor (or film) to light which then allows for the generation of a photograph.
• Exposure is controlled by adjusting settings for three things: ISO, Aperture, and Shutter Speed which are often depicted in the “exposure triangle.”
• ISO represents the sensitivity level of the sensor (or film). Higher values increase exposure but also increase noise.
• Aperture represents the size of the opening in the lens. Higher values represent a smaller opening and reduced light exposure. Lower values (wider openings) produce a shallow depth of field (focus) and higher values (smaller openings) produce a deep depth of field.
• Shutter speed represents the amount of time the shutter is open and letting light in to the sensor (or film). Short shutter speeds (less than 1/500 of a second) can be used to freeze motion (think sporting events) whereas long shutter speeds (more than 1/8 of a second) can be used to capture motion blur (think dreamy waterfalls).
• Adjusting any one of the three to darken the exposure will require you to adjust one of the other two in order to increase the exposure value to proper brightness.
• Keep ISO as low as possible and let one or both of the other two settings take priority depending on your choices for depth of field and motion.
• To adjust these settings, find your camera's full manual mode (M), "Pro" mode (some phones), or download a top-rated pro camera app (other phones).

​

Erratic

I want to help you get better smart phone photos but I also want to make sure it is clear in this newsletter when I've used my phone versus my "real" camera and more sophisticated gear, software, etc. I'll always begin phone snap captions with "Phone Snap:" but I'll also put black borders around the "real camera" photos going forward.

That's it for this week. Happy exploring!

Chad Kettlewell
Photographer & Ecologist
​chadkphotography.com​

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