UKH

Evening all,
I've always struggled to take pictures of slabs that show the gradient and exposure of a route. My pictures tend to make hard slabs look like shallow walks! Does anyone have any advice on how to improve this?
Cheers
Greasy

In reply to Greasy Prusiks:

Take the photo as usual from above and then rotate it 90 degrees when showing it.

In reply to Greasy Prusiks:

Hold the camera parallel to the floor as opposed to tilting it upwards to capture the full height of the cliff.
Probably easier said than done the vast majority of the time!
Google 'Photography Keystoning' for a more detailed explanation.

In reply to Greasy Prusiks:

When I had my SLR I preferred using a wide lens sometimes fisheye and shot from level with or above the climber to make the runout look worse as these wide shots can accentuate distance a little.

In reply to Mark Reeves:

What Mark said, a wide angle really makes a difference.

In reply to Greasy Prusiks:

Thanks for the advice all. I'll start playing around with some wider angles and longer distance shots.

In reply to Greasy Prusiks:

It's all about the fingers - slabs invariably have tiny holds, so shots where you can see the fingers crimping like a disease work well - google image search 'the very big and the very small'.

In reply to Toerag:

Indeed, so when takin' a pic from close by (normally from above), try to capture the apparent lack of holds.

The million mile stare is also good (but make sure, the hold one is staring is also visible... perhaps even in one of the focal points of the rule of thirds).

In reply to Greasy Prusiks:

Some conflation here of framing and angle-of-view.

As mentioned above, using a wideangle lens and pointing it up will make the slab appear slabbier due to keystoning, giving you the 'shallow walks' issue. So avoid this. Shooting from the side is generally better. Shooting down tends to remove any visual clues to the angle, although again a very wide lens may make it appear slabbier.

Framing the shot relatively wide (doesn't mean a wide lens necessarily, just back up) allows you to include context, and particularly the horizon, which gives viewers a reference for the angle of the rock.

In reply to deacondeacon:

like this comment very much deacon cheers! :p

In reply to Sean Kelly:

Hmm, I'd have to disagree there! It's undoubtedly a cracking photo but it doesn't show that is a slab. At least not to me.

In reply to Fraser:


I suapect some people's idea of a good slab photo is one which makes it look like a wall.

In reply to Robert Durran:

Ah yes, I never thought of that perspective! In that case its a great effort.