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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Twenty: Controlling perspective with the wideangle lens > Devil’s Golf Course, Death Valley National Park, California, 2007
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20-FEB-2007

Devil’s Golf Course, Death Valley National Park, California, 2007

The floor of Death Valley is a vast evaporating dish covering 200 square miles. Here it is crusted with lumpy salt pinnacles, the residue of a lake that evaporated 2,000 years ago. In the summer, the ground temperature here approaches 200 degrees (F). The point of this picture is its vast flat scale. Only a wideangle lens can do justice to a subject this wide. Using a camera with a 28mm lens, I moved as close as I could to the salt pinnacles in the foreground without losing a sense of the vast place itself. This demonstrates a great strength of wideangle photography. A true wideangle lens of 24mm or 28mm will allow you to get as close as you want to the subject to stress detail, yet still retain enough sweeping content to provide an idea of scale.

Leica D-Lux 3
1/1000s f/8.0 at 6.3mm iso100 full exif

other sizes: small medium large original auto
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Phil Douglis05-Jun-2008 19:04
Thanks, Cyndy -- depth of field (also known as depth of focus) depends largely upon the f/stop you use. In this case, I am using f/8, a very small opening. It also depends on the size of sensor in the camera we are using. In this case, I am using a very small sensor, which means that almost everything we see remains in focus at all times. This can be advantage in an image like this, but it also can be a disadvantage if we want to focus selectively, on one thing a time. To do that, we need to use a camera with a larger sensor, such as on your DSLR. I recently sold this camera, a Leica D-Lux 3, and purchased a Sigma DP1, which is the only compact camera in the world with a DSLR size sensor.

I loved your own image of The Devils Golf Course, Cyndy -- largely because of the human figure you were able to include. It adds a great sense of scale incongruity to your image. I wish I had been able to do likewise in this one.
Guest 05-Jun-2008 15:59
Isn't Death Valley an amazing place? Love the DOF on this. Thanks for the nice comment on my similar image,http://www.pbase.com/image/97993623
Phil Douglis03-Jun-2008 00:36
Thanks, Alina -- this image is the essence of Death Valley National Park. There is no place like it.
Alina02-Jun-2008 21:38
Fantastic capture. Love details in foreground and blue haze over distant mountains.
Phil Douglis23-Nov-2007 05:35
I am happy for you, Patricia. Your 17mm lens becomes the equivalent of 25mm on your camera, due to its magnification factor. You will find that a 25mm or 26mm focal length, which falls between the classic 24mm and 28mm sizes, is ideal for taking a close vantage point to stress foreground detail while still retaining the sweep of its context. You will also find that you can use extreme depth of field focusing to your advantage -- keeping everything sharp from the foreground to the middeground to the background. The key to using a wideangle lens expressively is your vantage point -- you must move in on something to create a focal point (as I did on the rocks here), or else the image will fall apart.
Patricia Lay-Dorsey23-Nov-2007 03:50
What a dramatic image, Phil. You're making me so happy I bought a 17-50mm lens with my new camera! What is important new information to me is your point about focusing attention on the foreground in order to enhance the sense of depth of the middle and background.
Phil Douglis20-Nov-2007 16:40
That's the power of vantage point, Mo. Where you choose to position the camera will determine what you say.
monique jansen20-Nov-2007 13:47
Makes you feel as if you are lying down on the ground, staring up at the bluish mountains in the far distance.
Phil Douglis02-May-2007 18:02
The devil is truly in these details, Ceci. And you are right -- there is much here that implies threat. There is much in common here with coral -- the texture in particular. However the fact remains that global warming means higher water levels, not lower, as our ice caps melt. If my images can kindle any thought of conservation, I will be delighted.
Guest 02-May-2007 17:21
The extreme clarity and depth of field of this image, coupled with the knife-sharp, straight horizon line between the mountains and rocks, speaks clearly of the ancient lake, that even without its conent, is though I am looking at an underwater scene, shot from beneath the surface on a day devoid of wind, when the water lay like glass. It also suggests to me a dead coral reef, killed by the global warming you could almost say was epitomized by the heat in this place. Your use of the wideangle is perfect to capture such a hell hole, an ancient lake bed that once was covered with the essence of life. As the globe continues to mindlessly spew CO2 into the atmosphere, scenes like this will become more and more prevalent; as well as ones of underwater reef devastation as oceans become more and more acidic. They say the Devil is in the details. I think this powerful photo proves just that! Bravo~
Phil Douglis28-Apr-2007 16:05
The closer we bring the camera to this texture, the more impressive it becomes, Barry. Thanks for the comment.
Barry S Moore28-Apr-2007 10:48
Impressive view point. Voted
Phil Douglis17-Mar-2007 06:09
Photography, Jenene, is largely illusion. Because it is making us see three dimensions within two, the camera "lies" all the time. When effectively conceived, an expressive image asks the viewer to summon their own truths. That is what is happening here, Jenene. You will see what you want to see, and you will accept it as your own truth. Picasso put it this way: "Art is not truth Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth."
JSWaters17-Mar-2007 05:21
The wideangle perspective is everything here, as you point out, Phil. Only that thin, thin band of salt pinnacles rendered flat by distance, separates the foreground 'hills' from the background mountains. It's trickery really, since there is probably no separation at all.
Jenene
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