Our national parks are distinctly unique. Wallace Stegner described them as America’s best idea! Our country has set aside these vast areas of natural beauty and geological wonders for the enjoyment of all the world’s citizens. In times of economic downturn, our national parks become public refuges. Most of the workshops I lead are in our national parks. Fine art landscape photography can be done almost anywhere, but it’s the emotion and spirit of the parks that I find extra stimulating. It’s not only where, but why I photograph!

This summer prompted thoughts of revisiting several of the national parks I’ve not visited for some time — parks off the beaten path and the road less traveled. I thought I’d try shooting from a different perspective as well. In a nutshell I would visit three of the quieter parks, two volcanoes, and the tallest trees in the world, with only Canon’s four tilt-shift (T/S) lenses in my bag. (In 17mm, 24mm, 45mm and 90mm focal lengths.)

Tilt-shift lenses are designed to control depth of field and perspective. They can dictate what is in or out of focus, as well as what lines of sight are straight or slanted. They can be adjusted to change size and scale. These lenses are manual focus and take time and effort to use. For the most part I become much like a view-camera photographer making many lens movements and constantly refocusing. For me these lenses offer opportunities not present in fixed lenses but like any tool, they can destroy an image just as quickly as make one! For insurance, I added to my kit a Canon 50mm 1.2 lens. In the low light that I usually like and shoot in, I find some instances when I’m not able to see well enough to focus with the T/S lenses and this fast and bright lens gives me the ability at times to set up a shot, at least initially, that I can’t make with the other lenses.

My first stop was Redwood National Park, which is located on the northern California coast and has a major highway, CA 101, running through most of it. Redwood is comprised of several state parks along with the national park just outside the little town of Orick. This vast woodland could consume months of a photographer’s time but like many of the parks, it can also be enjoyed and photographed in short day trips. The national park has two major areas; The Lady Bird Johnson Grove where the park was founded and The Grove of Big Trees which is accessible by permit only. Campgrounds and lodging are almost everywhere!

The image above was captured with a wideangle T/S-17mm lens that allowed me to get intimate detail up close while still revealing the habitat my focal subject lives in. Here surrounded by hundreds of various species of cluttered trees, I was able to show the majesty and girth of this scarred redwood tree that towered over everything and still hold detail in the forest beyond. Setting up with my 17mm T/S, the rise or shift control gave me the composition I wanted while the camera body maintained the level sensor plane rendering all trees vertical and not falling away as would have been the case with a standard lens pointed upward. This was all that was needed since most of the forest in view was still and I could stop down a bit for depth of field. If you have experience with Canon’s new 17mm tilt/shift you’ll know that it has a bulbous front lens that makes it impossible to attach filters. However I have been handholding my Singh-Ray graduated ND filters with much success. The trick is to keep the filter level to prevent some parts of the image from blurring. I use my camera’s depth-of-field preview to judge where the filter is in my frame. I don’t find live view helpful. Of course I needed my larger 4×6-inch versions of the Singh-Ray 3-stop soft-step ND Grad series and had to be careful not to get my fingers in the frame!