a l l - - - t h i n g s - - - l i g h t

evening lighting

2011-08-24T21:13:00.000-07:00

we were on our way back from dinner with the kids and the sun was behind the clouds before sunset... so i had to grab the camera, a flash, and the reflector.
i am not fond of light backgrounds outdoors... just a personal taste i have developed... especially around the head of my subjects
so i chose the tree as the background... that means getting lower than my subjects because the tree is fairly close (say 15-20 feet away from subject)

i grab my 70-200mm lens... i have really learned to enjoy this lens for personal portrait work

i have my wife grab the reflector and my SB800, which is incidentally triggered by the cactus v5
i find the cactus just right for my needs with the SB800

since i am shooting A mode and my fstop is around f3.2 and ISO 200, so i guess at 1/4 power. my wife is holding the flash in one hand in front of the reflector (which is on the silver/gold mixed side) to match the warmth of the almost-sunset. she stands about 6 feet away from the subject

here's the shot...

the sun is coming in from the subjects left side and my light is popping from subjects right side

i am trying to match the sunlight in intensity (a nice thing is about using strobes with sunlight is that they match color value quite well versus the mixed lighting you get with indoor lights)

also important to note here is that my exposure value is at -1 2/3 and i am on pattern or matrix metering

this exposure value allows me to pop my subject in brightness by decreasing the ambient light (the items not influenced by the flash) and then correctly exposing the subject

---we have to be careful of the shadows on the subject brought by the flash... the sun is a softer light source than the bounced flash -as evidenced by the softer shadows on the subjects left cheek/neck

next image...

no flash... only ambient light

settings --- keep the ISO at 200, still bright enough for that, even with 135mm zoom

also keep the A priority and then set the EV up to -2/3 because it's all natural light now and i don't have that fill flash to compensate for the decreased EV

shooting now at f2.8, which it could be argued is giving me too short of a focal length (as evidenced by baby in focus while mommy is out of focus (slightly))

i am still not placing the light directly behind me... instead i am adding some depth by having it at about 5pm if 12 noon is at the subject

in this case, we can add some vignette around the edges to enhance the light on our subject and potentially even use some gradients with exposure decreased (here i went to LR and used 3 gradient filters with decreased exposure values of about -1.2

pic of the day

Reference

you can almost see the setting sun in the eyes of the subjects here

that evening light combined with the reflected sunlight behind them off of the grain creates a very soft and warm light

silhouette

2011-08-17T21:52:00.000-07:00

I have a challenge for you. Try a silhouette. I haven't done much with silhouettes.
But a few things that are fun about the silhouette is that it forces you to simplify. The subject is simplified to an outline. The lighting is simplified to simply underexpose your subject.

Put your camera in M mode, if it's not already. Let's go with ISO 200, f4 and shutter speed of 8000.
Get your subject between you and the sun. And you may find the focusing is a little difficult. The focus on the camera works best with contrast. So if it is only seeing the dark (underexposed) subject, it can struggle to focus. Manual focus may be necessary.
Play around with the shutter speed, maybe go down to 4000.
Even play around with the f stop. If you hit an fstop of f16 you could get subject and your background in focus. Remember to slow down your shutter if you do that.
Another important note is to keep the background fairly well lit. You can really lose your subject, as in my example here, if the background has a similar light (or dark) value.

ISO 200, f4 at 1/8000 95mm

Here is another attempt but with better composition with my background... or as Cliff likes to say, juxtaposing the subject with the background.

ISO 200 f4 at 1/4000 116mm

Remember that your background really speaks in a silhouette.

Happy shooting... would love to see some links in the comments to you silhouette shots.

PIC of the Day: This shot at ISO 100, f5.6 at 1/2000 300mm

Reference

quick tip

2011-08-13T07:52:00.000-07:00

When shooting skies, make sure you try a few with a really wide angle lens.

I find that when I shoot wide angle, it accentuates the drama and movement in the sky.

This was shot at 11mm from my front porch. (Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 lens with a D300s)

manual exposure

2011-07-18T20:31:00.000-07:00

Have you been shooting in Program or Auto mode for quite some time now? And you've been afraid to try manual mode. Skies are a great subject to experiment with Manual exposure mode. Point your lens at the part of the sky you want to meter for and play around with the fstop and shutter speed, keeping your ISO set between 200 and 400. I have found that oftentimes skies look more dramatic when they are under exposed. This shot was taken in South Dakota at ISO 400, f4.0 and 1/750 sec. I thought to crop the trees out, but then I like the balance they give to the dark part of the sky. In addition, the shapes of the clouds are similar to the shapes of the tree branches.

This was taken at the same time but more to the East

And one more...

Pic of the day: I took the liberty of running a little noise reduction on it. But I really like the inclusion of the multiple layers and the great choice of foreground . Notice the thin line of black at the bottom contrasting with the white on the top of the image. Great shot!

Reference

available light and backgrounds

2011-07-11T15:00:00.000-07:00

I like to study the works of others. I find that I learn a lot about what I like and don't like, and it definitely has an influence on how I shoot. One thing that I have noticed lately is backgrounds. Try this: choose a few blogs that you follow or at your favorites on flickr or the like and instead of noticing the subject, look at the background. Notice how the background either adds to or distracts from the subject. Is it too busy, too light, too dark, some of both?

I have found when taking portraits, I really prefer to not have the sky be in the background. So often the sky contrasts with the ground in a very distracting way. Are there exceptions, sure. But generally speaking, I like to leave the sky out.

Although it has been said "we are our own worst critic"... i don't know if that means we aren't good at critiquing our own work or that we critique ourselves too much. At any rate... I will be my own critic here. I like the background on the left of this image because it allows some context and is underexposed and doesn't fight for my attention. The part that doesn't work so well for me is the wall on the right side of the image. It grabs my eye both with its exposure value and it has the drastic contrasting light and dark which paints a line right down my image, leading me away from the subject. If I must leave in the lines, as in this picture, I like to line those lines up with the edge of the image, like a straightened hanging photo.

One more word. I am not a pro with black and whites, but a few things I try to maintain when choosing an image to be black and white are: keep it simple, have the brightest highlights be on my main subject, and use the spectrum of light and dark. When I originally published this shot it was too dark... the background was too dark and the subject was not well lit either (not enough highlights). So in LR, I upped the highlight value to about +26 and increased the fill light a bit. That gave me a better range of exposure.

Here was the original processing...

I didn't like that my subject was a drab gray. I wanted his face to have the highlights on it. And for those highlights to be more white than gray.

Pic of the day: This image contains such great range of light and darks... and simple background. And I like the light. The light moves from high right to lower left in a diagonal through the image. I find that having a diagonal directive through an image lends to its aesthetics.

Reference

ISO, fstop, EV from a different perspective

2011-06-24T08:46:00.000-07:00

more light please...

there are lots of entries/articles out there explaining fstop, ISO, shutter speed, and the like. They all are speaking from the camera's perspective. Well, today I want to allude to these from the photographers perspective.

The scenario... My boy is in the dining room having breakfast, alone. The rest of the kids are asleep or otherwise occupied. I grab the camera for some shots because the light from the window (no other ambient light source) is inviting.

I am using the 70-200mm lens... because it's attached and I really like it for portraits. I try to compose the shot with mainly his face and his breakfast. I also want to get some darks just behind his head because I want his exposed face to really stand out. I want to contrast with focus as well, hence the long zoom and wide aperture (more to come).

And mind you, I am not thinking all of the following items prior to first shot. I am thinking, shooting, looking at image, then repeating the process until I start to see what I want... often called "chimping".

First, I put the camera in A mode (aperture priority)- this way I can adjust the fstop, the ISO, and the EV. So ISO first. I have recently set my ISO to full stops... This means when I move my ISO selector, it moves in these increments 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600. If I had a cropped sensor, I would be a little more conservative and put 1/2 steps. This is because the full size sensor looks just fine at ISO 1600. So, ISO 800 is what I choose... [could have gone 1600 in retrospect to allow for faster shutter speed, because about half of my images weren't crisp clear.] By the way, I have also changed my fstop to full stops too. This is because when I am working with my Manual powered flashes, it's simpler math. So ISO 800

Next, fstop. When I adjust fstop in A mode, I am wanting to see what the camera gives my in shutter speed. So I choose f2.8 (wide open). This will give me a really narrow depth of focus, but I may be willing to take it. I try 2.8 and I try 4. I end up using 4 because it gives me a little more playing room of focus distance. See previous blog of depth of field, or depth of focus If I chose f2.8, point my camera at my subject, then it gives a shutter speed of 1/125 - that's ok. But I want deeper focus, so I change to f4 and figure the 1/60 will work out.

I end up shooting my subject at 160mm so that my subject more fully fills the frame.
***The rule of thumb to avoid blur due to large zoom is to have the shutter speed match the zoom. So my shutter speed should be around 1/160*** Having said that, vibration reduction allows me to use slower speeds and not get the blur.

So, I've set my ISO to 800 and my fstop to 4. I turn on the VR (vibration reduction) - don't use this if you are on a tripod. I shoot off a couple of shots, and my subject is too bright for my taste. What can I do to underexpose the picture a little, yet not have to change to manual mode and dial in f4 and 1/60th? The answer: adjust the EV. Exposure value (EV) is a nice little tool. I find I use it when my camera is trying to expose for the darker part of the image, and my subject is overexposed. This usually occurs when the majority of the frame is dark and I am using matrix metering.
IE: yesterday I was scouting out a place for some engagement shots I am doing for a neighbor and I had a barn in the semi-shade and the cloudy/blue sky as well. It appeared that I was overexposing the sky to get the barn in correct exposure. So I dialed my EV down 1 full stop (to -1.0) and those highlights were no longer blown out. I can easily go back and add highlights in post-processing.

To recap... ISO 800 due to low lighting
f4 to maintain large aperture but still have good depth of focus
EV -1.0 to allow a slightly underexposed image
Result: good lighting, not so good composition.

What did the subject think of the image? --"I am really small... I have volcano hair."
Analysis... my subject is smack in the middle... fix: crop
Also, I am not liking the blue chair in the background... it is distracting. fix: bw or desaturate just the blue
if bw, then increase the contrast to pop the whites

So, the blue chair becomes gray and is still distracting... bummer. But I like the image other than that.

Pic of the day: I really like this pose and composition... in fact most all of her images are impeccable.

Reference

off-camera flash

2011-06-19T18:26:00.000-07:00

I have been using off camera flash for sometime... I have been using Nikon's commander mode which allows me to fire my off-camera flash using my camera. A nifty system, but has some shortfalls:

1) you have to have an on-camera flash to trigger the off camera flash - the problem is when you don't want an on-camera flash to be firing. Sure you can set it down to it's lowest setting, but you are still introducing a front light source.

2) you have to make sure the infrared receiver on the off-camera flash is 'visible' to the on-camera flash. This limits your range and makes using that flash more complicated and less reliable.

So, I was at my cousins wedding and her photographer was using the Cactus Triggers, which are one of the least expensive triggers on the market. I had read about these, but had heard mixed reviews on their reliability. But this photographer had nothing but good to say about them.

I looked more into them and they had some problems with one of the versions (v4). Now they have the v5's. So I ordered a pair and have been trying them out.

Overall, I really like them. This is not a review of these wireless triggers per se, so I won't elaborate too much. Briefly: they work on manual setting, so you don't get to use Nikon's TTL technology (which is basically Auto Flash mode). They are very reliable thus far. And I love not having to line up the old infra-red sensors. The only problem I have found thus far is that they didn't work with my SB-600 flashes until I put some duct tape covering one of the pins on the bottom of the SB-600s. Thanks flickr.com forums for pointing me that direction.

The newer triggers are nice because they claim to work up to 1/1000 shutter speed. They worked at 1/500 for me, but not so well at 1/1000. Further testing may reveal otherwise.

One more shot: settings: 70mm ISO 800 f4, 1/125 -off-camera flash powered at 1/128 M (SB800)

By the way, here was my set-up for this shot.

And don't worry, the goblet is empty.

Pic of the Day:

Reference

Picture came from the photographer, Amanda, who was so kind to entertain my questions regarding the cactus triggers... I think she really nails this shot: great evening light with equally subdued pose and colors; great contrast with her depth of focus, and superb lines/curves take me through the whole of the subjects. I don't think she uses any reflectors, diffusers, or fill flash... just good natural lighting.

Portrait time

2011-06-01T07:23:00.000-07:00

Due to excessive rain, I have been taking pictures of the kids indoors the past couple of weeks. What are some things you can do to get enough light indoors?

First of all, beware of the mixed lighting sources.
Note that the fluorescent lights put off a greenish hue, the tungsten lights a bluish hue, and outdoor is the standard here. And it's all about balance.
If you have a subject close to a really bright window, the fluorescent light in the room may not even show up in your image. Another way is to introduce a flash. This allows you to shoot with the window light and the flash (which are quite similar in their white balance) in a room with tungsten or fluorescent. So here's the lighting setup for these portrait shots.

The flash on the floor is set at the lowest setting it has M 1/128. So is the camera flash. The camera flash is used here to simply trigger the SB600 flash. The exposure is f3.2 at 1/80 at ISO 800.

I chose 1/80 because I notice if I use 1/60 or slower, my kids pictures are blurred due to subject movement.

Analysis:

I like: the focus at f3.2 and 70mm (enough of the subject is in focus). To calculate my depth of field... it was taken with Nikon D700 taken at 5ft away from subject at f3.2. That gives me about 4 inches of depth... that's not a lot... so I really need to ensure that my focus point is the eyes.

The lighting: I like that my subject is a little brighter than the background.

I don't like: the highlight on his face is a little hot and a little larger than I wanted.

Do over: I would move the flash back a little bit more... maybe more of 1 or 2 o'clock (instead of the 2:30 it is currently at)

And hope I don't lose you here... I would dial my f-stop up just a bit, maybe to 4.5 so that my lowest setting on my flash wasn't as strong. More on flash output power*** later

Here are some others from the same shoot:

Pic of the day:

Reference

*** flash output is influenced by distance to subject, flash power setting, f-stop and ISO of camera.

Post processing

2011-05-23T13:58:00.000-07:00

I really like taking pictures of the sky. Springtime seems to bring a lot of dynamics to the heavens. Post processing can really go a long ways with skies. So I am attaching a preset that I created for stormy skies. Download this and try it out, if you have Lightroom.
If you don't have lightroom, play around with the tone curve (increase the lights), give it plenty of contrast, a little vignette, and increase the blacks a touch.
Here is the before:

And the after:

Pic of the Day -- I really like the evening light on this... and the composition lends a lot to the aesthetics as well.

Reference

Links on Monday

2011-05-16T12:16:00.000-07:00

Gotta take a post to share some digital photography tutorial/learning links...

Cambridge in Colour

"A Learning Community for Photographers"

How to Use Your Digital Camera

Really Basic

Digital Photography School

Good site for the basics...

Strobist Boot Camp

Boot camp for flash photography

Digital Photography Tutorials

Some good stuff here

Pic of the Day: is from Awkward Family Photos

don't blame me when you wet your pants due to uncontrolled laughter on this site

Posting Problems

2011-05-13T10:31:00.000-07:00

It appears that Google's Blog has been going through some surgery and some things are missing... so the post today will be short and hopefully sweet.

I am re-posting one from Joe McNally on how to hold the camera. Simple yet effective.

Mind you, this works well if you are left eyed. Most people (myself included) probably use their right eye predominantly... but I gave it whirl at 1/5th of a second and was impressed with the steady result.

Here is the video that goes along with Joe's blog...

Pic of the Day - this guy shoots 4x5 film... still nothing like it!

Reference

Diagnosing a Dirty Sensor

2011-05-13T10:01:00.000-07:00

Symptoms: My pictures have a dark spot on them. It is in the same place on each photo. The only time it changes appearances is when I shoot at F22 the spot is more crisp and defined. Whereas when I shoot at F4 the spot is out of focus.

Objective: DSLR camera is otherwise functioning correctly. Camera was taken in the desert for a weekend trip and it was a bit windy. Camera lens was changed while outdoors. Camera is 1.5 years old and has not had the sensor cleaned.

Assessment: The sensor has dust on it due to normal wear/tear. Conditions of changing the lens outdoors in a windy desert likely the time of onset, due to opening up the inner workings of the camera to outside dust particles.

Plan: First, try the self cleaning menu option on the camera if it has one. This can work if the dust is lightly attached. But more often with the visible dust particles, it will require manual cleaning. Refer to your owners manual for opening the mirror and/or manually self cleaning. If you are a DIYer: watch a couple of youtube videos, decide what method/tools you want to try, and clean the sensor at home. Or if you are more comfortable with sending it in, take it to a reliable camera store and who offers sensor cleaning. Whatever you select, remember that this sensor is your permanent 'film'. You only get one per camera.

Personally, I have cleaned my own sensors and for other people at times. I have taken a rubber spatula from the kitchen (don't tell Amber) and cut it to the width of the sensor (you can find that here). I have used rubbing alcohol but would probably get slightly better results if I used some Methanol (harder to find).
I ensure that I use a new cleaning cloth each time I clean the sensor. Here are a couple of videos that I have found helpful.

How did they get that shot? ... show me the data

2011-05-11T06:02:00.000-07:00

If you're like me, you've probably seen a shot you really like and wondered, "how did they get that shot?" Well, besides the setting and composition, there are a few things that you can look at to give you some clues... at least on the technical aspect of the image.

Digital cameras store a lot of information about the technical specs of the picture called EXIF Data. The camera stores info such as times/dates/fstop/lens/shutter speed/ISO/mode/shutter count/ and many other settings. Programs like Picasa Albums and Flickr make this EXIF Data available to the viewer (unless the user somehow disables or doesn't upload it intentionally). Let's try it. I have this flickr image from my favorites

In the Actions drop down, you can go to View Exif Info

In this truncated view, we can see that it was taken at ISO 50, 116mm, f18 at 0.6 of a second with a Canon DSLR. It was shot in manual exposure (out of view on this screenshot) and the on-camera flash did not fire.

From Google's Picasa Albums, we see this from a different image:

This shot was take with Nikon D70s, at ISO 400 etc etc

There are a few free programs out there that allow you to look at the EXIF data of your own images. You may already have a program that allows you to view that information.

Chase Jarvis sometimes does a little image breakdown where he shows an image and people guess how it was taken. Some of his lighting techniques go right over my head, but there's some good stuff in there.

ONE FINAL TIDBIT:

Some people include their lighting notes in the caption of their images on Flickr. They generally begin with the word "Strobist" and as in this example.

Reference

Pic of the Day: Oregon coast shot with a Graduated Neutral Density filter.

Reference

Can you take some pictures of.... ?

2011-05-10T07:09:00.000-07:00

In my day job, I get a lot of questions... I have learned that in order to give the right answer, I often need to ask various other questions in order to clarify the question.

Today's blog will hopefully help you ask a few questions so that you are prepared when someone asks you to shoot some pictures of an event for them.
What do you need to know before you can accept the assignment? whether it is paid or pro bono.

I've put together some of the questions I like to have answered prior to 'game day', or even before accepting the challenge of a shoot.

1. What are the clients' expectations? - this one can be a little nebulous... people may have their expectations set in stone; or more often, they just want something aesthetic and memorable.
First, it helps to know where the images will be used... are they only going to be posted online or are they going to be enlarged for the living room wall?
If you are charging for your service, make sure the expectations are set out fairly specifically. I have a neighbor who was doing a family shoot for a large extended family. She was getting paid a nominal amount. She ended up spending hours and hours and days and days on the phone with the mother and then in Photoshop trying to please the client; swapping heads, whitening teeth, even taking away double chins.

Ideally, the client should come to you expecting you to do your best and maintain the integrity you have shown in your portfolio. They should not expect you to shoot like so and so, or worse, make me look like so and so... (having said that, if you're one who offers alteration services, knock yourself out, and have a good time with it - just remember to let the client know up front their will be an hourly charge for additional alterations)

2. How many people in the group? (we are assuming this will be some sort of portraiture work). This is really important to know. Larger groups take much more coordination... of people, props, lighting, expectations, etc. It is not always easy to get the entire group in focus if your lighting is low... remember that the more light you let in with the aperture (fstop), the shorter your depth of focus (and the larger the group, the more focal depth you will need). Don't forget to keep your focal length no less than 35mm, because you can really start to stretch the people at the ends.

Again, feel free to decline if the group size or conditions are greater than your comfort level. It is better to have people find the right person for the job than to do them a favor and they end up having to redo the whole event because they weren't satisfied with the results. -- I learned the hard way one time. I was shooting a family group and I couldn't get far enough away at the location they had selected. I pushed my focal length to 24mm. When I went to process these pictures, I was shocked at how much the people on the ends were stretched... not very appealing. Luckily Photoshop and Lightroom have a way to correct, but it's never the same... would I want to be the person on the end who was stretched and then corrected? nope.

3. Indoor/Outdoor - lighting, space to work in, backdrop. Most cameras allow us to shoot well in daylight. But if you don't feel comfortable in low-light settings, don't accept the offer. Even shooting a reception in a gymnasium can be difficult (they are often lit by fluorescent lights mixed with sky lights, and the wood floors give a golden yellow reflection). Tungsten lights (traditional bulbs) give off a bluish hue while fluorescent lighting create green in a photo. Also ask yourself how much room am I going to have to work with? What lenses will I need? And do I have the right lens/lenses for the job.

4. Do I need an assistant? When I have shot weddings, it has been so helpful to have an assistant there (AKA my wife). She can keep the flow to our session, notice clothing out of place, understand some of the expectations, and ensure that the party feels that they are getting the interaction they need to feel comfortable in the pictures. Do I need my assistant to hold a reflector, a diffuser, a flash, a lens or camera, or just hold up my spirits when it is a long day?

This last weekend I had a helper for the prom shoot. He was invaluable. We knew we would be shooting mainly in the shade. I like to either use an off camera flash or a reflector when I shoot in the shade so that the subjects pop and I get the correct skin tones. So my assistant was there to make sure the flash was firing, it was the right distance to the subjects, and it didn't fall over in the wind and end up in the rubbish bin. Because I had an assistant, we were able to shoot with a flash (speed light); thus we were able to use a faster shutter speed and get this shot:

5. Finally, and this is after you've accepted the job and are at the shoot: Save time for the individual or group to give you some input or make a suggestion. Sometimes they know what pose they want to try. This lends credibility to you as a photographer and it gives the client the satisfaction that you really wanted to give them a product they were pleased with and personalize their session.

I was shooting some families I am related to and I asked a set of parents if they wanted any individual shots. They casually asked for the kids to be together in one. The kids were very excited and glad to have their own time in front of the lens. The kids grouped up and wham bam.

Pic of the Day: There is a place for supersaturated photos. It's in Havasu Indian Reservation

Reference

Lovin' Lightroom

2011-05-09T07:53:00.000-07:00

I have really fallen in love with Lightroom 3. I had previously used Photoshop Bridge. With Bridge, I would apply some rudimentary settings. I would then take my images to Photoshop and apply actions (these are meant to be handled by Bridge, but I find that system clunky at best). The organization Bridge applied was nice and it allowed me to non-destructively make changes...
Now, with Lightroom, it truly has taken my processing to a whole new level. I still get the non-destructive editing... but now I have so much more control over my images... from noise to components of tonality, to special looks.
Besides having much more control over the organization, virtual copies, and snapshots of my processed images, the Presets have given me great control and creativity over my work.
I began by downloading a few presets. I studied what had been done in those and then tweaked them to make my own. The next step was to create presets from scratch.
It's kind of like going to a restaurant, finding something that really sparks your fancy, and then coming back home and trying to re-create it. I feel like I have the tools to do so with Lightroom. This is beginning to sound like an ad. But being able to re-create a look is really important to me, because it gives me the confidence to select a setting and take control of it and give it the feel that I want. In addition, it gives me the flexibility to offer my interpretation of the setting. It's like reading Jane Eyre and having my vocabulary soar to new heights... I just can't help but be inspired by the quality works of others. Enough rambling...

I have alluded in the past to enjoying Cliff Mautner's work.
I have developed a few presets that help me get a similar feel to my photographs. I really like the low key look with the highlights bringing the viewers attention to just what I am trying to portray. It helps me communicate better through my images.

Here is an example... the first image is how it came straight from the camera:

The part I want the viewer to focus on is the expression with an emphasis on the eye. They are over-exposed here. Since I am shooting in RAW format, most of the detail is going to be retrievable.

I made a setting that decreased the exposure by about 1.5 stops and separates out the tones a bit... bump up the lights, tone down the darks (basically creating contrast selectively, without doing much with the shadows or the highlights), and applied a vignette.

With one press of a button (applying my preset), I get this:

There are a few images where I would take them to photoshop or use the Adjustment Brush in Lightroom to do some selective lighting... but that seems to be the exception.

So, I really like Lightroom and the control it gives me over my images.

Pic of the Day:

Reference

This guy does some great work... He merges the real with the surreal with his photography and Photoshop in his work.

Game Day

2011-05-07T22:22:00.000-07:00

Today was busy... took my little point and shoot camera up to hike the Y in Provo with the Youth. Then did spring cleaning... took a break to run through the sprinklers and have a picnic... finally ended up over at the Gardens to shoot part of a wedding, with a break in there to do a prom group. Have to say... the prom group was a lot of fun (cute couples --- love working with the sweet sixteens)... got some good experience with the wedding shoot (thanks Suzie)... know what I would do differently next time... and hopefully I can share some of these. For today's post, here is a slide show of the prom shots. I shot in manual mode... Stopped down the exposure by 1 stop. Shooting at f4.5 and 1/400. It was in the shade, so I shot at ISO 200. Had a SB800 flash on the camera set at 1/128 and it popped the off-camera SB600 flash which was set to Manual 1/4 power at 50mm. I had an assistant (thanks Andy) holding the flash at about 3 meters from the subjects.

And just a handful from the wedding shoot...

Light Meter

2011-05-06T09:45:00.000-07:00

Light Meter ----- Metering ----- Exposure Bias ----- Thinking Like Your Camera ----- Thinking Beyond Your Camera

LIGHT METER -
Simply put, the light meter in your camera determines how much light is going to look correctly exposed. It then makes decisions based upon that information. In Program Mode, it sets the aperture (fstop) and the shutter speed -how big the window opens and how long it opens.

METERING -
The light meter can be pin-pointed to the very center of your frame (called Spot Metering), it can consider the entire frame (Matrix metering), or somewhere in between (called center-weighted).
Spot metering is nice because you can point your camera to the very spot you want exposed correctly, press half way down (or lock the exposure) and then compose your shot and fire. Matrix metering considers the whole picture and tries to find an exposure that will produce the bets results.

EXPOSURE BIAS -
Most cameras have an exposure bias.

That means you can tell it to under compensate or over compensate. Why would you want this? Well, what if you find that you just like lighter pictures all around. Then change your exposure bias up a few steps.

THINKING LIKE YOUR CAMERA -
In order to correctly expose your image (especially your subject) - you need to think like your camera. Think correctly expose each part of your image... the background, the foreground, the subject, the highlights, the lowlights. You get one image that combines all of that... the trick is to keep it simple enough to be aesthetic.

THINKING BEYOND YOUR CAMERA -
Landscapes and still life allow us to make multiple images taken at different settings (multiple exposures) and then combined them using software -- HDR.
For person shots -portraits, weddings, etc - we don't have that luxury. Here's a short video from a wedding photographer named Cliff Mautner. Here he is talking about using a kicker flash. But note that he talks about using an exposure bias (I think he speaks in terms shooting 1.5 to 2 stops below his ambient light reading).

Finally, thinking beyond your camera. In Cliff's work, he does a lot of work with flash and/or directional lighting. In order to emphasize that single light source, he underexposes the rest of the shot. So he probably meters on something that he wants to underexpose... he has his exposure bias set down a stop or two -- he then sets the fstop and shutter speed manually to match that meter reading (most likely on spot metering or center weighted) -- then he kicks in a flash or has the window light do the highlighting for him. This is called low-key lighting, where the overall image is dark. Notice how your eye is led right to the highlighted areas.

So, I tried this myself one time with limited success:

So the Pic of the Day is going to have to be Scotty... because he's 3 today. Happy Birthday Champ!

Understanding f-stop - how big can you go?

2011-05-04T08:37:00.000-07:00

I mentioned yesterday that we would be explaining the light meter. Let's hold off for a post until we get this f stop thing figured out. -Simply put, the light meter is a sensor that tells us how much light is bouncing back to the camera. -But more on that later.
For now --- What is f stop? I will take a couple of posts to explain and really explore f stop. This is one of those things like Chemistry class for some pre-med students... or the Eagle Project that never got done... It is where people seem to hit a wall of understanding, give up, and go back to plan b.
So how do we grasp it? First; trust me that it is really not unsurmountable. And please don't close your eyes, because we won't say the 'm' word. {a-hum, ~~math~~}

Let's go back to our common ground with cameras... our eyes. The size of your pupil determines how much light enters your eyes. Your brain has a built in light meter and relay system that is very responsive... except for first thing in the morning when that system has been resting all night. If you look into a bright light, your pupils rapidly constrict down because of the meter in your head that is protecting your retina from too much light. In order to make out any detail, we need to have just the right amount of light. Too much is overwhelming and all we see is white. Not enough fails to illuminate the small details. It's all about recording reflected light on our retina. In camera terms, it's about getting the right amount of reflected light to the recording sensor (in digital) or to the film.
Contrast the eye with a video camera - or your point and shoot camera. Think of what happens when you point the camera to someone in a room - and then to the window.

The light outside is far brighter, but it takes about a second for that iris to close down so that it's not just a 'blown-out' white. After a second, the iris has closed down a bit and the correct colors and lighting outside are seen.

But what happens to the inside? It becomes underexposed and maybe even black. So the camera is an all-or-none deal. One setting, one aperture. The above picture is exposing for the person inside the room (with less light reflecting off of the subject). While the other image has more light outside and the exposure is adjusted to that outdoor light, leaving the indoor detail underexposed and undetected.
APERTURE: the size of the opening of the iris.

Terminology time:
Just like in our eyes, the brighter the subject, the more closed the aperture needs to be.
THE NUMBER GAME:
The f stop (sometimes called the f number) of the camera is a number such as 1.4, 2.8, 3.5, on up to 22. It is really a fraction. Oh no, fractions! Take a deep breath... It just means that if I am opening the aperture to an f stop of 22, it is really 1/22. Said in other terms... if I have a pecan pie in a glass dish and I shining a light on the other side of the dish. I cut the pie into 22 pieces. Only 1 of those pieces is missing, and the light can only shine through that one section of the pie. That's a really small iris, opening, or aperture. If I open the aperture up to 3.5, it is really 1/3.5. That means I cut the pie into 3.5 pieces. Then I take 1 away. That leaves a larger gap (or opening) for the light to shine through. One of three is much larger than 1 of 22.

Instead of a pie dish, your camera has a glass lens. And instead of pie, it has blades that open up or close down to make the aperture smaller or larger.

The iris in this instance is closed way down, most likely at f 22 (or 1/22)

Here are some example of iris size and their f stops shown upper left.

The larger the aperture, the smaller the f number or f stop. 22 is tiny aperture. 1.4 is all the way open - or very large aperture.

This begs the question of why is the highest f stop 1.4 and not 1? Wouldn't 1 be totally open? Well, yes, but as far as I know, 1.4 is the larges it can go. The blades on the iris open, but don't retract.

For more explanation on calculating the f stop (or f number) click here.

In this post, we only talked about f stop in regards to light gathering. The smaller the f stop, the more light is able to reach the sensor (where the image is recorded). Thus if my picture is overexposed or too bright, I could stop down the f stop to a larger number to let less light in.

F stop essentially affects two things... light entering the camera and depth of focus. Today we just spoke of f stop in regards to light. At another date we will try and tackle the depth of focus. It is critical, but can be difficult to explain.

Pic of the Day

taken at f 1.4

Reference

baby steps continued

2011-05-03T07:54:00.000-07:00

So yesterday was a review of the first 3 steps based upon a few conditions --- how close is my subject (lens), how much light do I have to work with (ISO), and do I want to add light (flash).

The next step is where there can be a lot of variability. Select a mode to shoot with. Do I choose to shoot in P (program mode), A (aperture priority), S (shutter priority), or M (manual). Let's dive into these modes.

If I want the camera to decide what settings to use, I choose P mode. I can probably count the number of times I have used P mode in the last year on one hand. But if we go back 12 years ago to my first SLR camera, I was in P mode virtually all the time. So I think of P mode as a great option for beginners. And for the more seasoned photographer, you can use P mode when you have a situation where you really need to get a picture fast and don't have time to think. This mode determines what f stop and what shutter speed. And if you have your camera in AUTO ISO, it will also determine what ISO to use.

Moving on... If I know my depth of focus, but don't want to concern myself with the shutter speed, I will choose A mode (aperture priority). This allows me to select the f-stop and then have the camera decide how long the shutter will be open based upon that need. I decide this based on two criteria... what depth of focus do I want and how much light to I have to work with. Opening the f-stop wider (smaller numbers like 1.4, 2.8, 3.5) lets more light in my lens but also decreases the depth of field (or focus depth). They are sometimes referred to as shallow focus and deep focus.

I make more decisions based upon focus depth rather than shutter speed, probably because I am taking more portraits. So for me, S mode is only rarely used. The exception is when I care about working with the motion of a scene. For example, water falls tend to look much more aesthetic when the water is flowing. In order to capture that, the exposure needs to be open longer (longer shutter speed). In this image, taken with my old Olympus point and shoot camera, I put the camera in S mode and chose a shutter speed of 1/3 (which is to say .333 seconds).

Finally M mode, or manual. I won't spend much time here in this post, but I do spend probably 60-80% of my time shooting in this mode. When you find a style that works for you, when you want full control of the camera, or when you are shooting with a flash or two or three, M mode can really give you control of everything, especially your lighting.

CASE STUDY:
My youngest child is playing in his room. There is diffuse light coming in from the window, so the lights in the room are off. Let's go through the steps so far...
I know I want to do a close up, because for me with infants, I want to capture their expressions and the details thereof. So I keep my 24-70mm lens on and I will play around with the zoom, probably between 40-70 will be what I shoot. I am thinking higher ISO because the light from the window is my only source of light and the room light (ambient light) is very dim. So I try ISO 800. I could try as high as 1600, but 800 is where I stop. Finally, should I use a flash or not? The flash would fill the background with some light and make the room look more evenly brighter. But I decide I want to have the directional lighting the window is going to provide and I don't want to mess around with multiple sources of light... just the one window light. So no flash. I know that this is a potentially moving subject, so I put it in A mode and play around with the f-stop. 5.6, 4.0, 3.2. I am doing this while pointing my camera at the subject so that the correct shutter speed is selected by my camera. I see 250 (which is 1/250th of a second). This is plenty of speed to stop the movement and create a sharp image. So I snap a few shots...

If you look closely, you can see the window in his eyes. This use of single light source creates some good dimension with lighter on his left side of face and darker on his right side of face. In addition, the background is less exposed than he is because he is closer to the light source (the window). This helps him stand out. My focal length is 70mm (zoomed in on this lens). With the help of my online DOF calculator, I can see that my focal length is about 3.5 inches (more on this later).

Tomorrow: more talk about the light meter in your camera and making your camera see what you see.

Pic of the Day:

Reference

breaking it down - aka "Baby Steps"

2011-05-02T09:58:00.000-07:00

Here's the scenario. I grab my camera, turn it on, adjust some settings, and go to take the picture. Why is it black? Yup, even I leave the lens cap on occasionally.

So what steps do I take? Today, I will start with the first three. Forgive me if I leave out any steps... this is the first time I have really thought about what I do step by step.

1) Decide which lens to shoot with. Most of the time, I leave the 24-70mm lens on... esp for indoor shots and outdoor landscapes. If I am shooting portraits outdoor with more room to shoot or I want to grab some real detail, I grab the 70-200mm. And on some occasions, I will grab the 300mm. These are all fixed aperture lenses (f2.8). If you have a lens with variable f-stop (kit lenses that come with many cameras) no problem - I will address this in the next post

NOTE: Steps 2 and 3 are quite simultaneous

2) Turn on the camera and check the ISO. If I am shooting low light, I will push it up to between 1250 and 2000. If I am out of doors it will be set at 200 or lower. And then you have the in between 400-800 where there is sufficient light indoors, but you are shooting a subject that will be moving quite a bit.

3) I decide whether or not to use a flash. The flash will help highlight my subject, create ambient light, or act as a filler for shadows in the outdoor shots. (Here I also decide whether or not I will grab a second flash to be off-camera)

Oh yah, this is a good time to take off the lens cap so I can move on to the next few steps...

...to be continued...

If you are ready for more of the WHY behind these steps, I have added some additional information here:

Step 1: lenses... my subject matter and my depth of field are the two major deciding factors for lens selection. In general, for shooting landscapes (including skies) I want wide angle. At times, it would be ok to do a single portrait at something less than 35mm. Remember that distortion on portraits is generally not very flattering. Wide angle gives me large depth of field, so my focus will be infinite most of the time. As I go longer on my lens (higher mm or ZOOM), the shorter my depth of field or focus will be. Remember the calculation considers distance to subject, fstop, and mm of lens (remember to consider crop factor).

Step 2: the ISO. The reason I choose the ISO first is that it is the canvas of the image. If an oil painter used a napkin to paint on, the results would be sub-par at best... Same with a photographer shooting ISO 64000 on a little point and shoot camera. ISO 200 on an upper end camera is more like a proper canvas. The graininess of the image (or pixelation) is determined by the quality of canvas. Thus, with the newer cameras, they are, in this analogy, trying to make the smaller canvases work like larger or higher quality canvas material so that you can push the ISO more and more with better results. The size of the sensor is the major determinant in the quality of the image, especially as you begin to shoot in lower light and push the ISO higher. The challenge for camera companies is to have the processors (computers) in the newer cameras do more with less light (thus achieving higher quality images and less noise with the same size sensor).

Step 3: to flash or not to flash - and to flash on camera only, or off camera as well - this is where we get into the exposure, style, multiple light sources, and much much more... so this is much to large to define here.

LINKS

Here is a good link to ISO explained

DOF App

IMAGE of INTEREST (Pic of the Day)

Tough image to expose correctly. Well done with the fill flash. Obviously off camera flash.

Shot at 48mm, f8.0 at 1/320 at ISO 400

From the photographers notes:

Lighting -
Alienbee AB1600, camera-left just out of the frame at 1/8 power into large softbox that was threatening to take off like a sail, and would've gone over the cliff that the b/g were standing on if not for an assistant with cat-like reflexes.
Bare Vivitar 283 at 1/16 power camera-right and behind couple.

Reference

new platform

2011-03-30T11:45:00.000-07:00

For a few years now, I have used Adobe's Bridge to organize and process my images, delving into Photoshop as needed.
Well, I decided to try out Lightroom now that version 3 is our. I have debated Lightroom or Apple's Aperture. Due to not being happy with how iPhoto handles things, I opted for Lightroom.

Bottom line: I am sold. There are so many things I like about it. Not everything, but mostly. I have a few hang-ups with the way it brings in my images... also if I have multiple catalogs, they are seen completely separate to Lightroom. But all-in-all, it is a great way to organize my photos, process, (love the presets - especially as i have created my own), and the other modalities such as Web and Slideshow.

A few other qualms i have with it are the zoom factor is a preset amount... unlike Photoshop's zoom feature that allows you more flexibility (in my mind). In addition, the keyboard shortcuts are not very contiguous with Photoshop. And they sync (processing multiple images simultaneously); while it gives me more options, seems a little jumbly.

I really like the noise reduction, the graduated filter, adjustment brush options (with teeth whiten and skin soften modes), and the crop option that allows me to crop and re-align efficiently.

If you haven't tried it, you can download it and try it for 30 days... just beware if you have an older machine, it may be a little overbearing on your RAM, Video RAM, and hard drive space, as most Adobe products seem to be.

Here is a screen shot of the Web part of the program.

Check out my Test page created in Lightroom.

In these images, I only warmed up the temperature to 5800K and then played with the graduated filers to selectively underexpose different parts of the images. I am willing to share those presets.

a word on sensor size

2011-02-15T14:23:00.000-08:00

Ever wonder why pictures from old 35mm pictures looked a little better? Better color, better quality? Well it really comes down to what has replaced the film. It's a computer sensor. And like film, not all sensors are created equal. And the scary thing is that we are paying so much more... and we have to leave the "film" or sensor in the camera all the time.

It used to be if you had a hair or dust on your film, it was on one picture if it was on the film.
Now, it's most likely on the sensor. That way it shows up on every single picture. Without going into too much detail, if you have a DSLR, you can have your sensor cleaned professionally for about $40.
Or you can try youtube tutorials and try it yourself, which I have done with relatively good success.

There are downfalls to sensors and some definite advantages. I won't go into those, but you can read a technical look at this over here.

But what I really wanted to mention here was about the size of the sensor. A picture is obviously worth a thousand words, esp in this case... check out this image

The camera on the left (D700) has a full size sensor, which is just smaller than a 35mm film negative. The sensor on the left (from a D7000) is a cropped sensor. 1.5X crop as they say.
With a larger sensor, the biggest benefit is more light gathering capacity. And light gathering is what it's all about. I wish I had some more comparisons... I would include the sensors on a point and shoot as well as the other extreme, a medium or large format camera.
Here is a graphic illustration of some of the sizes of sensors

The pink is the full size sensor (of a D700 or D3, etc in Nikons) while the blue and green are point and shoot sensors. The orange is the D90, D80, D300s, D7000, etc)

That is not to say that small sensors don't do a good job, but when lighting becomes more limited, the bigger sensors really "shine".

back to the basics - with a point and shoot

2011-01-25T07:56:00.000-08:00

So I decided I would take our little point and shoot out to work... maybe this will be a regular occurrence. At any rate, I wanted to see what I could capture on it.

So I stopped at Walmart on the way to work to look for a spice that it frankly a little hard to find. As I turned into the parking lot, I noticed the sun kissing the top of the mountains to the West. So I stopped in the parking lot. Granted, the foreground is not very aesthetic; but it is what it is. Honestly, it seems like half of the roads in Utah are under construction (but I won't get started with that).

Back to the picture. I am shooting in P (program mode) which is the next closest thing to Auto.
My thoughts are this... I want it to be a little under exposed so that the light hitting the mountain will be exposed, not the surroundings. So I changed my exposure bias down to -2/3. Did you know you could do that? Tell your point and shoot to underexpose? Yep. My exposure button is a little +/- in a square (button). I push that and I have the chance to overexpose or underexpose my shot.

Next I want to make sure that my ISO is on 100. Due to this being a point and shoot, pictures above 200 ISO, especially underexposed shots, turn out really grainy and the colors are noisy. So ISO 100 I was willing to maintain. [the only time I would dare go higher than ISO 400 on this point and shoot is in sufficient lighting and I just want the shutter speed to be faster]

Oh, and my flash is on Force-Flash OFF mode (I don't know if this makes any difference, but I think it does).

Finally as I compose my picture and press half way down, it tells me in the display what shutter speed it has chosen. This was 1/60 of a second. This is quick enough to be handheld, but I need to make sure that when I press that shutter, I don't move the camera. A big problem with small point and shoot cameras is that when you press the shutter, the camera has movement, and thus blurry photos if the shutter speed is slow.
As a general rule, if you are slower than 1/60 of a second, brace your camera on something solid, like a tree, a car, or even a tripod.
Well, enough of the talk. Here are the shots.

Here is a crop of the first image...

using available light

2010-12-15T16:21:00.000-08:00

At times, a flash is inconvenient or even not available. So how do we maximize the light that we have? First of all, use the lowest f-stop you can while still maintaining a good focal length (see this link for more on f-stops and focal length)

The bigger the aperture (the lower the f-stop number: like 3.5 or 2.8 or even 1.4) the more light we let in. So we are able to use the available light. In addition, we can increase the ISO to around 800 to 1250 (or even to 1600)

Camera set on A (aperture priority) So with these 2 preparations, we are ready to capture some images. Wait, we need a setting and a subject. So, I took my kids... naturally. I put them in a reflected light. The sun was coming through the window and bouncing off of our white fridge. It was actually a little hot (too bright) but it worked. At first, my images were too bright because my light meter was set on "spot metering". Because the center of the image was darker, it overexposed the reflected light. To fix that, simply put the metering to "matrix metering" and it should compensate for that light.

Place the subject out of the direct light coming in, or you will get hot spots like this image...

From 20101212

Move the subject so that the back of their head is in the direct light and it looks like this...

From 20101212

Move them out of the direct light all together...

From 20101212

And finally, one more...

From 20101212

So, the pick of the day will be a different setting. Subject with one light coming through the window. Window at 2 o-clock and photographer at 6 o-clock.

From 20101212

Same settings used on the camera for all shots.

worth noting

2010-12-07T09:02:00.000-08:00

I have mentioned Dave Black previously. Here is a snippet of him using some serious lighting power (eight SB-900's )

Flash as sunlight

2010-10-04T07:10:00.000-07:00

In today's world of bazillion wedding photographers, it really seems that if you have a style that stands out, you are more likely to attract business. Many photographers have grasped the low depth of field that makes their subjects stand out. But what about using light to make your subject stand out. So I have been studying this photographer's images and tried to recreate his style. For me, it's a challenge that extends my abilities, like going to a restaurant, finding something you like, and then trying to recreate it at home from scratch.

So, how were these images captured? The highlights that you see are not from the sun, but from a flash a couple of feet above the subject. So, I underexposed the image by about 2 stops (change the EV on your camera to -2) and then put the flash on TTL (auto) +1 stop. Then take the image into adobe bridge and give a little more exposure to your subject. If I have time later, I will put this in detail as a tutorial. Give it a try.

From 20101003_to_post

Grouchy face mommy :)

From 20101003_to_post

Depth of Field

2010-08-30T21:03:00.000-07:00

So, here's a tool that I have found quite useful lately. It's called Simple DOF and it help you determine how much of your subject/s will be in focus. This is critical to understand while shooting portraits of more than one subject.

To illustrate... let grab an image...

So my girl is in focus. My boy... well, there goes the picture... he's not in focus. The boy is about 2 feet further from the camera than the girl.
Clearly I intended for both to be in focus. But it appears that we are giving some precedence to the girl here. I need to explain what I could have done to avoid this error.

First of all, because it was in the evening and I wasn't willing to push my ISO up (it is at 125 for this shot), then I had to use a larger aperture (f3.5 here). So I should have pulled out my DOF calculator (Simple DOF). I punch in that I am roughly at 34mm on my D300s camera (51mm on a full sized sensor), I was roughly 5 feet from my subject in focus (girl). The calculator tells me that my DOF is 0.85 feet. That's 10 inches. In other words, everything from 5 foot 2 inches to 6 feet away from camera will be the sweet spot of focus. Because the boy was more like 24 inches away, he falls in the out of focus zone.

So what could I have done differently? Well, I could have placed them equal distance from the lens. Pull the boy closer or move the girl further, or simply repositioned myself to be equal distance from both. Well, 10 inches isn't much room for error in estimating distance.
But here is an example of the same area with the same fstop. Notice both subjects are in focus here.

Same f3.5, but I backed up a bit, maybe 10 feet away, and 55mm. Now my Simple DOF calculates the focus to be 1.4 feet. That gives me almost 17 inches of focus rather than only 10. In addition, the two subjects are almost equal distance from the camera. So that gives me the focus on both of them while still getting the blurred background, so as to not distract from my subjects.

Well, that was a lot of talk... but hopefully you've learned something about calculating the dof. Google DOF or depth of field and read up a bit. It is very critical. I will end with this one where I shot 23 people and needed them all to be in focus. Fortunately, I had my ipod with me with Simple DOF on it, I used it, and it worked out. I was about 35-40 feet from the subjects, f2.8, and 70mm. That gives me around 7-10 feet of focus. I also tried to place everyone semi-equal distance from the camera by pulling in the sides and pulling forward the people on the top row. And it was nice to still have some background blur to contrast with the focused people.

2 light sources, one sun, one strobe

2010-08-19T20:13:00.000-07:00

Just a note about evening light and fill flash. Sunsets can produce nice warm lighting; but can also produce long harsh shadows. This evening I took this one without a flash in my front yard... forgive the subject matter, it's not the most aesthetic.

I am shooting at ISO 100, f4.0 and 1/320 at 38mm.

For the record, I metered at around /125 and then stopped it down faster a few stops so that I wouldn't have the sun blowing out (too bright) on the back of the subject. Plus, I knew I would be adding a flash to fill in the underexposed areas. This is a nice trick, because then the background is also a bit underexposed and doesn't get all the attention it would if it too bright. So, I add a flash to the right. While the sun is coming in camera left, the flash was placed directly opposite. No umbrella, just straight flash. I put it on manual and stopped it to 1/16 power. Here's the difference..

I could have used a reflector, but then there is the element of not knowing how much light is really reflecting. The flash allows me to control that power. Although the flash is cooler light than the reflector would be.
I zoomed in a bit to 55mm and found a bee for the final shot.

Notice the lighting from the right still fills in some of the shadows that would otherwise be a bit too dark for my liking.

Pick of the Day

I have added this photographers blog to my reader for some inspiration on lighting examples of weddings. He's got some good stuff. I would be interested what the source of light was for the front of this subject. Definitely the sun is behind her, but is it a flash or a bounce reflector in front??? Very possibly, there was someone holding a reflector down in the lower right, but he may have added this dark feature in photoshop to cover that person. We may never know.

Skies

2010-08-02T07:13:00.000-07:00

An incredible evening of light and magic. When the light from outside starting pouring yellow abundantly in through the windows, I knew it was time to grab the camera and head outside last night.

Tip of the day... if you have a PC (heaven forbid ;) ) and you are looking for a good program to manage your images, I have a favorite. Thanks to Rich (whom Spence and I met in Yellowstone) for turning me on to this... it's called FastStone Image Viewer. Check it out... you may convert. I use it at work since I don't have Adobe Bridge/Photoshop.

This first shot is straight from the camera, no editing.

1 light or 2

2010-05-04T11:22:00.000-07:00

Setting: the family is on the rug reading and working on homework
Lighting: evening, so just some mild fluorescent bulbs above subjects
Thoughts: they are low to the ground and I don't want to pull out the umbrellas and the light stands. So I grab the reflector (silver/gold side out for neutral warmth) and grab an SB600 flash with the little plate it comes with for setting down on the ground. I place the SB600 in front of the reflector, pointing directly away from my subjects. Then I grab my SB800 with the diffuser on it and put it on my camera. I am actually about 12 feet away from my subjects, but the SB600 is about 5 feet from them.

Settings: the SB600 is set at TTL (through the lens- basically, this is auto setting, and the camera decides what power to put through it). I've got a long lens on to get close in (shooting from 160mm to 200mm) I am also shooting at f2.8 and 1/80. I chose 2.8 because I am trying some focal depth experiments with my long lens and it lets my flashes work at a lower power. I chose 1/80 because anything slower seems make my subjects movement show up (out of focus).
The SB800 is on 1/124 power (so virtually nothing... just used to fire the SB600) and because I am so far from my subjects, I am essentially just using one flash here.
Fire a couple of shots...

I like the focus on my subjects, but the background is really dark... too dark.
So I increase the power of the SB800 to about 1/2 power (really get some ambient light around them). No other settings changed. (I could have just changed my exposure to 1/20 or 1/15 instead of 1/80, but then I risk out of focus subjects, esp the spontaneous pics I was shooting). Or I could have increased my ISO to 1600, but that's really going to make it grainy with my camera.
So a couple of shots...

So I like the fill light that brought my images.
Parting shot... I really like this one because I like broken light, when it finds its way to your subject

use of the snoot

2010-04-08T14:05:00.000-07:00

What's that??? A snoot. It essentially tunnels the light like spot light.
I may have mentioned the use of one before, but I was introduced to it by reading Dave Black's page

So generally don't use it as the only flash. Here I used a flash pointed at the ceiling to get reflected light and then increased the power on the flash with the snoot on it to get a focused, directional light.

This next shot, I increase the light that was pointed at the ceiling to minimize the contrast in the lights. I am shooting these at about F4 and between 1/30 and 1/80 of a second with ISO between 100 and 200 in full Manual mode. I find that I generally get better results with 2 or 3 flashes when I go manual on cameras and manual power on the flashes.

For these next shots, I kept playing with the settings of the two flashes to even them out a bit. I find that even at the same power, the snooted flash gives a higher intensity, simply because it is not diffused or reflected, it is direct, and focused by the snoot.

I like not having a shadow behind the subject... to avoid this, increase the intensity of the reflected light (or ambient light with the shutter time being longer) and don't place an object close behind the subject (in the plane of the snoot and subject -hope that made sense

So, then it was time to try 3 flashes - I picked up a lightly used SB-800 a few months ago and am thrilled with it. Unfortunately they don't make them anymore. But they allow you to have an on-camera flash (I usually point it to the ceiling or wall to have reflected light) and still command the other flashes with the SB-800 (in other words, the SB-800 has commander (remote) mode and the two SB-600s I use are the slaves).
This final shot I was really happy with the balance of lighting. I have an SB-600 on a light stand behind the subject (so camera left) shot through a white umbrella at 1/16th power. I also have the on-camera SB-800 at 1/16 or 1/32 power, pointed toward the ceiling with a diffuser on it (just to bounce the light a little before it hits the ceiling)*** And finally the snooted flash is pointed directly at the faces and is also set at 1/16 power. I moved the flashed to be about 4-5 feet from the subject. Without photoshop on my work computer, I won't try a lighting diagram, but maybe I will add it later.

*** the diffuser looks like this

beware of mixed lighting

2010-02-08T11:02:00.000-08:00

A couple of years ago, I was shooting my daughter holding our infant son. I used a fill flash to the side, but had a horrid greenish hue to the picture. Someone wisely pointed out that I was probably shooting in a room with fluorescent lights. They were right.
So what do you do to overcome that.
1- You can use a light modifier (they call them gels)
2- You can turn off the indoor offending lights and use your own lights (flashes)
3- You can ramp up your own light (flash, strobes) to overcome the ambient light that is causing the hue chaos.
There is much talk of this mixed lighting... check out the strobist's blog on using gels to correct for this color.
Anyway, I took a shot today with just our indoor lighting on one side and the morning light from the window left of subject. Here's what you get. (And I corrected for the indoor lighting)

We could have corrected for the outdoor lighting, and that shows the super-warm temperature of the indoor light.

Not that we always have to have perfectly uniform lighting... We just have to be aware of what hue each light will bring to our image. So simply stated, greenish = fluorescent, bluish = tungsten. Play around with the white balance on your camera or in your photo editing software afterwards. And then you can take it to the next level with gels (more to come).

This image I will use as pick of the day... even though it is really just an example of my next blog.

reflector

2010-02-06T20:59:00.000-08:00

So, we're sitting down to dinner on Saturday late-afternoon... Amber was setting out the food, and the sun was coming through the window... perfect shot, I thought... just needs one thing - my reflector. I have a 41" reflector that a neighbor gave to me in a broken state. After some time I got around to fixing it, and don't know what I would do without it (oh yah, I do, I would miss a shot like this one) So the sun was obviously coming in from the camera left and the background was not being hit by the direct sunlight. Direct sunlight causes such harsh shadows, even when it is coming in through the kitchen window... so grab a white, silver, or silver/gold reflector for the other side. My 7 year old is getting proficient with holding it just right. And this really overcomes some of those harsh shadows. Here is the product (sorry I don't have a shot without the reflector)

and here is the lighting schematic.

Reflectors can be really good indoors and outdoors. I have seen some photogs who like to sit their subject just at the edge of a shadow (outdoors) and then go really close with a reflector.

So, the pick of the day has a link on it... click on the picture below to go to Kennth Linge's blog on this same subject.

don't throw away images - soften skin

2010-01-23T14:43:00.000-08:00

Unless your photo is just really awful -way out of focus or cut off someone someone's head, don't throw it away. At times I will pick up my camera for a shot and not realize I still have my manual exposure set from a much different lighting. Like this shot.

Instead of tossing it, I thought I would try something with it. I took it to photoshop as a black and white image, and bumped up the exposure a bit. Then with a few selective (using some masks) exposure and contrast adjustments, I found a look I liked much better.

Here is the snapshot of the layers I used. Sorry, no more explanation than this... but the layers should be quite self explanatory.

I realized as I was about to post this that I have never done the soften skin tutorial.

I will have to do so later, but for now click here for the quick skin fix tutorial

focus on the eyes

2010-01-10T06:07:00.000-08:00

In portrait photography... it is essential to have the eyes in focus. Virtually everything else could be out of focus... but if the eyes are in focus, you have a shot. And especially if you are shooting close-up.

shot of the day comes from what I think is one of my favorite wedding photographers out there... I really like to study his images and hope to adopt some of his style into my own. meninenuotrauka (Lithuanian, I believe)

Hight ISO and low light

2010-01-01T20:16:00.000-08:00

So I listened to a short tutorial the other day about low-light photography. The setting... indoors, no flash available, and not a ton of ambient light to work with... but slow moving subject -- an indoor wedding.

Now how do I make a great shot? Well, use manual settings, that's for certain. I want complete control. I want to shoot manual ISO, manual exposure, manual white balance. But keep it in auto focus, because you don't want to miss a thing.
1) the option is to lower my fstop to around 1.4-3.0. But the question is, "does my lens go that big"? Remember the lower the fstop number, the larger the aperture, and the more light that is hitting the sensor. But I have to remember that the lower the fstop, the more shallow the depth of field (DOF). So if I am taking a shot of more than one person, don't fall below f4.0. Generally speaking, I want everyone to be in focus in these ceremony shots.
2) another option is the slow down my shutter speed. But I don't want to go too slow... 2 reasons... 1 is that my subject might be moving faster than my exposure and thus be blurry. The second reason is that I will get camera movement that also causes blurriness. A good rule of thumb with that is if I am shooting a relatively slow subject, try to keep my shutter speed around the same value as my depth. If I am shooting with a 50mm lens, try and keep that shutter speed at 1/50th of a second. If I am shooting a moving subject, double that number (shoot faster) like 1/100th of a second with 50mm lens. Does that mean I need to go 1/600th of a second with your 300mm lens? Try it and see.
3) Finally, to the subject of the day... ISO. I can increase my ISO. This was mentioned in an earlier post in minimal detail. The ISO essentially defines the quality or graininess of your image. The higher the ISO, the less light that is required to get the same exposure but the more grainy the image will be.
This is where an expensive camera body is enticing. For instance, the D700 or D3 ($2500 up to $7000) camera bodies handle low lighting great because of their ability to use high ISO values and still look great.

So, I am hopefully going to be shooting an indoor wedding in May. Last August I used two SB600 strobes (off-camera flashes) attached to the ceiling and pointed toward the ceiling. They were placed just above the action of the wedding, as seen in this image.

And get shots during the wedding, no matter where I was in the room, like these...

It was very convenient, and provided a consistent lighting for me.

But this next time I probably won't have the luxury of strobes in the room. So how do I get those same shots without the added light? So this led me to the high ISO question. Today I have been playing about with high ISO and different length lenses. I also downloaded some noise reducing software trials to see what performed better if I were to need these.

And the results... without using any noise reduction software...

shot at ISO 800 shot at IS 640

If I maintained a good original exposure, I found that for my purposes*, ISO of 640-800 worked fine. But when I tried to add fill light or increase the exposure in post-processing, that's where I saw the degradation of the image.

Having said that, I would really like to try and print some of these high ISO images so that I can get a feel for how they look enlarged. That way I can get a feel for how large I can go on the print with what ISO. This is critical when thinking end product... if I just placing the image in a book as a 4x5 image, I should be fine. But what if I am enlarging to be a 2-page spread (22"x8") in the same book? Does is still maintain it's integrity?

So, what have I learned thus far with the high ISO? Make sure my light meter is in the slightly over-exposed region when shooting ISO (not blown out spots, but well exposed). And darker areas show the graininess more than lighter areas.

Stay tuned, I will hopefully be posting re: the orton effect next time.

Pick of the Day...

seen here

Make a photo into a sketch

2009-10-28T21:00:00.000-07:00

Kind of a fun trick in photoshop... this has been done many ways many times... but I will give my take on it here. Open an image and make a copy with command J.
Hit the layer style - Color Dodge and then hit command I (for invert)
Sometimes you will think your image has disappeared here... keep going.
Then on that same layer, select gaussian blur and go medium on that blur.
Come back to layer and choose to desaturate with the hue/saturation slider.
That's generally where you would be done.

But if you want to try something fun... try motion blur instead of gaussian. It will give you darker lines. In addition, you can create a layer from visible layers (as layer 3 in the example is). And you can then try giving it an effect, like accented edges or something else from the effects menu.

One more thing I tried was to create a layer mask and give the mask a gradient so that I could see through to my original as shown below. Enjoy.

Pick of the day:

October Family Shots

2009-10-05T19:53:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine likes to cook with his dad. He told me once about something they like to do. If they like a certain dish at a restaurant, they will try at home to replicate the dish with what they have. So that is what I like to do as well. I see a picture, study it, and try to replicate it with my consumer set-up.

I have eye bolts in my ceiling above my kitchen table... I know... weird. But they hold the sky chairs that we use when watching a movie. So I took an old rod that my wife used to use for hanging clothes in our extra room (now a bedroom) and hung a twin sheet from the eyelet bolts. I then placed an SB600 flash pointed into a reflector umbrella directly behind the white sheet. I also placed a shoot-through umbrella on the other SB600 pointed 45 degrees from camera and subject. See the diagram below

Both flashes were set on 1/8 power. My camera was set on Manual (f 4.0 ISO 160 at 1/100sec and auto focus). By the way, I have really become a believer in fully auto focus in lower lighting situations. I have found it has served me well and focuses much quicker than when I try to tell it where to focus.

By the way, these flashes were controlled by the flash on the camera (through Nikon's CLS system). And the camera flash was set down to about 1/128 so that it would be nearly negligible.

And here are the results.

What I would do differently. Get a queen size instead of a twin for larger groups. And something else I have tried was putting a silky material in front of it for a more elegant look.

Pick of the day: I like the warm lighting on the cold snow.

Analyzing and learning

2009-06-03T18:23:00.001-07:00

So, probably no one reads this anymore... I know I don't. But I thought I would sit down with no one and analyze some pictures that were really quite noteworthy and talk about what I like about them and why, in addition to how they might have set up the shots, technically and otherwise. Let's get on with it... by the way.. these shots were taken from the website of David Copperfield's Cay in the Bahamas. Obviously catering to the high-end consumers.

This shot is about light and perspective. It says, you are sitting here looking out the window enjoying a perfectly exposed evening dinner on the dock.

LIGHT
I have two settings (speaking of exposure) to think about. I obviously have a strobe (flash) or two camera left aimed at the people on the dock. And I have ambient light (in the room and the water/sky combo). Actually, there may be a strobe in the room as well on a very low setting... let's forget there is one if so.

EXPOSURE
I expose for the ambient light (manual exposure) minus 1.5 stops so that the room and water/sky maintain their evening appeal and allow my subject to be correctly exposed and be the focal point. I want to use an f stop that is going to allow my foreground and my background to be in focus, so f8 possibly. Remember the smaller my aperture (bigger fstop #) the harder my flash has to output to give me the same brightness. So this is a compromise between a small fstop for flash but big enough to keep my background island, my people, and my window ledge all crisp.

IMPROVE
can I improve on this image? Sure... try using one more flash from the right or from above the dock to eliminate some of those harsh dock shadows.
But I wouldn't have taken the flash out to the subjects, or I wouldn't have brought the viewer to the subject.

SETTING
A couple of nice things are my lines in this shot. The consistent horizon lines made by the window pane and ocean line are settling. But the curtain really frames my subject well and the diagonal lines of the dock point me directly to my subjects, which are of course not smack dab in the middle of my shot, but skewed to the right and upper middle of my shot. So well established lines, great balance, and quite decent lighting.

ONE MORE COMMENT
This picture, believe it or not, could have been taken in the daytime... it's not highly likely, but possible. First, why would I want to do that when I could just wait for this perfect dusk lighting? Answer- because dusk lighting only lasts for a few minutes to an hour. That can be a very short window to get the shot set, exposed for and taken. How would I create it in the daytime? Shoot with the white balance set to Tungsten and use a warming gel on the camera. That way you get the bluish look to the ambient light while maintaining correct color on your subject.

So this is longer than I thought it would be... let's just do one more for now...

In this image we also have multiple lighting. We have the ambient light outside where our pool model is really showing off ad we have the indoor lighting including the man in gray shirt. So where is my light source? Well, one is coming from camera right (casting a shadow on gray shirt man's back and lighting front girl's hair). But we also have a light on camera left to light the statues above and front man's shirt and back of head). We again have to set our exposure for the the light we don't control (the sunlight and pool area) and then match that exposure with the lighting on the inside of the covered patio.

I like the vignetting we get from the dark back of the couch and darker parts of the ceiling. But I probably would have softened my light with an umbrella or gobo so that my subjects up front weren't so contrasty (lights and darks are quite prevalent on them).

That's all for now.

Oh, one other note: the first shot was set at a fairly long exposure... so it was probably an evening shot. Can tell this by the fire on the lanterns moving a lot. The second shot was relatively fast shutter speed because the water ripples are frozen in time. Just a thought on what the ambient manual exposures might have been on.

Just passing through

2009-02-18T20:52:00.000-08:00

So, it has been a long time... and I have purposefully let this blog sit and marinate for a while. I was watching a www.photoshopusertv.com episode and their guest gave a link to his site that has a free download for Bridge settings. Even though I didn't care for his tutorial on the show much, I really like the settings he has created in Bridge. If you haven't checked out the new CS4 Bridge... I recommend it. Love the brush feature, among others, in the new Bridge.

Here are some shots in the basement with just window light and a reflector on the opposite side of the subject --with a couple of the settings this guy has created.

Pick of the day...
this was shot by Kenneth Linge (who, by the way, teaches photography). He is Norwegian, I believe, but has his studio in Orem, Utah. I really liked the use of tungsten lights in this shot.

christmas morning stills

2008-12-31T11:17:00.000-08:00

as I was talking with my wife, I told her I wasn't going to pull out the video camera this year. Firstly, I wanted to enjoy being there, not behind a camera continually. Secondly, I didn't want to edit more video (it takes too long). So here are a few of the pictures from opening presents. And here is the lighting scheme. These flashes were set on TTL (through the lens) so they let the camera do the thinking. The 1st flash through umbrella was set about 4 feet up on a stand and the 2nd one was down at about 2 feet high. This allowed for a dichotomy of light (brighter from the 2nd flash)
And even though I am normally shooting in M mode or A mode, this time I used P mode and was pleased with what the camera gave me.

This shot of Amber was just holding the flash pointing straight up in the room in my left hand.

The shot of Scott sitting on carpet was on camera flash pointed at ceiling.

PICK OF THE DAY

Shooting Tethered

2008-12-11T07:13:00.001-08:00

So I have seen lots of people, via the internet, shooting tethered. What is that? Well, here's what it looks like.

Forgive the quick and dirty (GIMP'd) image on the laptop.
What happens is the image you shoot goes directly to a file on your computer almost instantly after taking the shot. This seems to be especially useful for portraits... it is a controlled environment, and you want to ensure you have a well lit, sharply focused shot.
The benefit is that the computer screen gives you a larger viewing area than your LCD on the back of your camera and a more accurate idea of what this end-product really looks like. In addition, your subjects can then come over to the computer and actually see what you have shot as well.
I want to try this with a load of portraits at the ward party this weekend.
So how do you do it?

Well, I use Bridge and a Mac. As I was reading yesterday, it appeared that I needed system 10.5. But after a trial with my 10.4 system at home... it works flawless.

Here's how...

Set your camera (on Nikon it is in the Set up menu; down to USB; select PTP (there are 2 options on mine... one is mass storage and the other PTP).
Plug in your camera via USB to your computer.
Then open Automator which is found in Applications folder. You will need to download this little file which allows your computer to see grab those files from the camera and it will put them in your picture folder.
Open Bridge and select to view the picture folder.
You will see the pictures come onto the screen as you shoot. So cool!

By the way, it still stores the pictures on your camera as well as sending them to the computer instantly and automatically.

If you use Lightroom

If you use Aperture

Sorry, I didn't include PC usage, but I have read that it is equally possible with Windows

Photoshop Friday

2008-12-05T07:50:00.000-08:00

Hmmm, where did that week go? Well, I am going to cut back on blogging to this site... I am going to try 1 or 2 a week. That's probably enough to ruminate on anyway.

Photo today is one we took in Zion National Park on a canyon called Mystery.
This shot was taken by my friend who had a great little PAS camera. The quality of these images was fabulous, but the vibrance of colors was lacking.

If you have photoshop CS3 or CS4 they have included, in Camera Raw, a similar function called Vibrance next to the Saturation slider. For some landscape shots, and if you don't have CS3 or 4, this little action is great. Here is the download

Let's take this image from our trip...

When I apply that action, it makes 3 additional layers... each one having more vibrance. Click off of the 3 square boost for this image. You will see a little better balance. Now change the layer opacity down to about 55%... your layers palette should look like this...

And you image now should look like this...

And this vibrance shift really illustrates the true colors of that wall. We were in awe... and it's nice when you can more closely match that brilliance.
SIDE NOTE: The LabBoost1square is just 1 square instead of 3. If I use this technique with portraits, I only hit them with 1 square, so I made this action for portraits.

Pick of the day--
found on flickr
This shot was taken with a PAS camera but they used an f-stop of 4 which led to the nice depth of field. Well done with a PAS camera. These were just below the top of Timp

Photoshop Friday - early

2008-11-26T08:54:00.000-08:00

Since I am taking off Thur-Mon for Thanksgiving, I thought I would jump to a photoshop Friday early.

At the risk of using a friend's image without permission, I go forth with a photoshop tutorial today.

Lens Blur tool (DIY depth of focus)

Jason is, in my opinion, a great photographer; I really like the way he captures people and feelings. He recently posted this engagement picture that he took. I really like the perspective and the lighting is superb. Great capture. This image is perfect for illustrating a photoshop'd focal length blur.

This is when I wish I could do a video tutorial, because it can get a bit laborious describing and reading this explanation... so hopefully you can bare with me.

First I copy the layer (command-J) on the mac
then I make a layer mask.
I then use the gradient tool and drag a line through the mask.
Now your layers palette might look something like this...

click on the part of the layer that I have placed the big black arrow on and go to the Filter menu and down to Blur and on to Lens Blur
my settings on Lens blur look like this:

Click on the image between the faces of the couple. You should notice that their faces come into focus and the rest becomes blurred.
(feel free to click around a couple of times at different spots and notice how the area you click becomes focused while leaving the rest blurred (according to the layer mask))

Alright... I hope you're still with me.

Click on the OK button and now on the layers palette drag the layer mask to the trash and hit the DELETE button, not apply.
Make another layer mask and then you can start to paint away the blurring that you don't want. Change the opacity of your brush to give it a gradual look or use your gradient tool again if you like.
Your layers palette might look something like this now.

Here is my final product...

I also added just a little bit of darkening vignette to give more attention to the couple.
Again, great picture to work with here... allowing a some fun post-processing.

Thanks Jason for allowing me to alter your image.

Pick of the day:
This image is taken from Fort Photo's flickr collection. He has some real gems.

DIY Links

2008-11-25T11:03:00.000-08:00

So I am running a little low on free time at work today, and I wanted to keep this a morning post... Here's my best shot.

Here are some links that I have found helpful... on making your own equipment... because heaven knows, this stuff really starts to add up.

Homemade Bounce Toys

Studio Lighting Equipment -DIY

photo of homemade flash toys

Don't do this at home

And a not home-made one. This is one of those tools everyone should have. It doubles as a reflector and a diffuser. I use this to bounce my flash, bounce the sunlight, and to diffuse my flash or the sunlight. It has a silver reflector, a gold one, a silver/gold mix, and it folds up. A must have for portraits.

Pick of the Day:
I really like this perspective... the rich colors, and the lighting nailed it. I like the complimentary highlights on the tractor and the barn in the background. I also enjoy the lines in this image.

Aperture

2008-11-24T10:19:00.000-08:00

a few thoughts on aperture...

wait... a few thoughts on LENSES first. Lenses first, because the type of lens you have decides how open you can go with aperture. There are 3 types of lenses out there, and I will try to keep my bias out of this.

1- kit lenses (these are the lenses that comes with a camera kit) i.e. purchase the Nikon D300 or D90 at your local store and it will have the option of being bundled with a lens that offers a fairly wide range of zoom and a variable f-stop (3.5-5.6). At wider angles this lens offers f3.5 but as you zoom in, the f stop is only capably of 5.6 as the largest aperture. Usually the focus motor on these kit lenses is par (not real fast and sometimes prone to wear out before the camera body does)

2- professional lenses - "fast-glass" As far as I can tell, they are called fast for 2 reasons... because they are f2.8, you have a larger aperture and allow more light in. That allows for faster shutter speeds at lower lighting conditions. Secondly, they have a faster focus motor in them. In addition, they are generally made more robust than the kit lenses. These lenses usually cost about 3 to 5 times more than the kit lenses.

3- third party lenses (like Sigma and Tamron) If you are seeking fast glass but can't afford the name brands (like Nikon or Canon) these can offer a comparable alternative. They can be had for about 1/2 to 1/3 of the price of the fast glass.

So with that out of the way...let's move into APERTURE.

Dept of focus is often a sign of a professional lens versus a kit lens, (and coincidingly, a professional looking picture and a point and shoot (PAS) look)
Question: How do I get a smaller dept of field?
3 ways - wide aperture (like f1.4 or 2.8), zoom lens, and put your subject far from their background. I don't have time to go into the details of why, but check this out for the mathematically-inclined or this site or this site for a lot of detail or this site for the basics
An example... I used all of the previous techniques in this shot... f stop of 4 (I believe), 300mm (450mm on my D50 body), and background quite far from subjects (like 50 feet or more)

Question:
What f-stop should I use for portraits?
Most of the time I use between 4 and 5.6. If you go too big on the aperture, your front row will be in focus while your back row is out of focus. Also, remember to have all of the people in your portrait about the same distance from the camera. If the group is large (8 or more people), you probably will do better to bring the end people closer (like a semi-circle) so that all the people are the same distance from the camera. This allows for the photographer to keep a 4 or 5 f-stop and maintain good lighting.
Another reasons for 4 to 5.6 is that they bring in more light than the f8-f11 and allow for faster shutter speed (less blur from movement in your subjects is pretty critical).
Also, if you are using artificial light (flashes AKA "strobes") they have only so much power to put out. As you decrease your aperture (go toward 22) your flash has to work harder and harder to give you the same amount of light. This is another discussion for another day, but the short answer is that your flash output is directly related only to your f-stop, not to your shutter speed.

Question:
When would I use Aperture priority (A) or Manual (M) mode instead of shutter priority (S)
A: when you are concerned with depth of focus, usually close-ups or portraits
Times when you would not use aperture priority is landscapes or on a vacation where you want your subject and your landscape both in focus.
Or you probably would not choose (A) when there is a lot of action because it can force the shutter speed to be slower if lighting is low

Pick of the day: found on flickr
f/22 46mm ISO 200

I love the composition of this shot. Love the framing of the rider with the horns. I like the rider looking to the side.
There are a couple of changes I would have liked to see with this shot. The sky is obviously blown out (stark white) and the brightness and focus of the mountains behind the rider are drawing attention away from the rider.
It appears that the rider was originally quite shadowed, so they hit this image with the fill light feature in Photoshop or Bridge (you can see the graininess of the rider, which shouldn't be the case with ISO 200) . Furthermore, I have noticed that fill light gives some detail back to the shadow areas (the subject) but doesn't give the subject the due attention that additional light would.
So, at your own risk of ticking off this bull with a big reflector or a flash: big silver/gold reflector lower left or an off-camera flash lower left would really help the subject stand out more. If I used a flash I would probably underexpose by a couple of stops and set my flash on plus a couple stops (this will be it's own blog). But the intention here would be to expose more correctly for the sky and decrease the attention given to the bright hills behind the subject. (Yet another blog will be on syncing your flash above shutter speed of 250). Simplified, just use a fill flash on this subject and call it good.

Photoshop Friday I

2008-11-21T07:28:00.000-08:00

Photoshop Friday:

If you've worked with photoshop much, you probably know that there is almost always at least 3 ways to do the same job.

So here are three ways to lighten the unwanted darker parts of your picture.

First of all, the most crude way is to go down to the layer options and choose Levels...
slide those slider triangles back and forth (3 of them) and see what your image does. This can be a good place to start, but more often I go with option 2 here. I usually use a mask layer and paint or use gradient tool after this effect.

Secondly is in the Image menu go to Adjustments and down to shadows/highlights... This one works more effectively, I think.
This does a pretty good job of lightening those shadows and toning down the highlights. Play around with this one a bit. Add a mask and then on the mask layer try the gradient tool.

Thirdly is an action I made from a tip on photoshopkillertips.com
Here is the action to download... it is very simple. Here are the steps, and you can record it to your own action very simply.
Make a new blank layer with the new layer icon in the layers palette.
Hit Shift F5 or go to menu Edit and down to Fill. In the drop down box, select 50% gray and hit OK
Then choose layer style Overlay on the layers palette
(not quite done)
choose the brush tool and select your opacity to between 15 and 25% and hit the D key to make sure your color palette is black and white
Now you are ready to paint in some highlights and darken some areas. Just start brushing and hit the X key to switch from lightening to darkening.
Here is the tutorial from Matt Kloslowski - about 17mb

Have a great weekend!

Pic of the day:
comes from a friend of mine...

great treatment... the stylized look really adds to the animation of this photo. Love the lighting... no harsh shadows, simple white background and great composition. Great close up portrait. Nice job! Note the reflection in the glasses... I hope to address relfected light and family of angles in a future blog.

light as matter

2008-11-20T08:31:00.000-08:00

D&C 88:12 Which light proceedeth forth from the presence of God to fill the immensity of space—

Light as matter - some basics and some rules - gotta start somewhere!

First of all, thanks to those who commented. Feel free to shoot some questions out in your comments as we get going and anyone can feel free to answer. This is definitely a group exercise.

There are lots of sites out there to explain the nitty gritty of how your camera works. They do a much better job than I could hope to accomplish. I will try to link to a couple of these sites in case you need more explanation on a topic. Once you have a basic feel for how your camera works, then you need to learn how to work your camera (ie, make your camera work for you). Most everyone knows if they like a picture, and as you look at pictures, think to yourself what you like about the picture... is it that you are eye-level with a 2 year old, is it that those colors have fun written all over them, is it that the picture gives you a certain feeling. So this is the purpose of learning how your camera works... so that we can share through this light-writing, what it is we feel when we are there. For lack of a better term, we are communicating in a big way with our pictures. That's when photography gets crazy fun!

So, for those who already know this material, humor me for a day and this will probably be a brief review –

Look for 3 main factors – SHUTTER SPEED, APERTURE, and ISO

Light is explained in a unique way by almost every science… physics, biology, art (forgive me for lumping art into one), religion, etc.

For today, let’s say light is like water… and your camera (or the sensor part)… the bucket.

When the light fills the bucket to a set level it looks right (not too full, not too empty) and that’s what is called “correct exposure”.

If you have a DSLR your camera has a light meter built in to it. When the lines lie in the middle of that meter, it resembles 18% grey (what appeals to the eye) More on that here. As an aside, some people prefer to set an exposure compensation down 1/3 stop. More to come on that in a later blog, probably tomorrow.

You can use the light meter in Manual mode, or you can leave it to the camera to use the meter in (P) Program, (A) Aperture priority, or (S) Shutter Priority modes.

In case you don't understand my explanation below there is a somewhat dry but thorough explanation here

Correct exposure is like baking cookies… put the dough in the oven and you expose that dough to energy in the form of heat. Leave it in too long, or set the oven temperature too high, you have crispy critters. Take it out too soon and you have mushy centers.

Like the oven and like the bucket, the camera is a receptacle - a receptacle for light. And there are settings that control the amount of light that enters the camera and exposes the cookies (the sensor). Like the settings on the oven control the time the cookies are in and the temperature to which they are exposed... so does your camera have settings of shutter speed (how long sensor is exposed to light) and aperture (how much light is entering at any one time - kind of like the temperature setting on oven)

The camera has been called a “black box”. It is devoid of light until you (the artist) allow it to enter. The light that enters exposes the film or sensor and creates an image on the film or sensor.

SIDE NOTE: Ever wondered why colors on digital sensors (digital cameras) don’t look like colors from film cameras. Here is a good read about that.

So, what about that analogy with water? We have a bucket that holds water. We are going to place a hose into the bucket. The longer we leave the hose turned on, the more water enters.

This is the shutter speed. The longer you allow light to come in the camera, the more exposed the sensor ends up… leave it on too long, you get white (burned out) areas of the image. Don’t leave it on long enough and you won’t see much more than faint shapes.

Shutter speeds vary quite a bit (from 1/8000th of a second to seconds or infinitely long). Most DSLRs have a B setting which stands for Bulb. This means as long as the shutter release is pressed down, the shutter will be open. Just for fun, go to flickr.com and search for 10 second exposure. Make sure you have a tripod and a cable release (or remote)

(Take this next part slowly)

Secondly and thirdly is the flow of the water. Flow is determined by speed of the water going in AND the size of the hose. The speed of the light (photons) entering the camera are set by nature… every color coming at it’s own speed, so this is irrelevant to the settings of the camera. The relevant part is the size of the hose (or the opening of the aperture). That’s the f-stop, the aperture, or the size of the opening.

If you look closely, you can see blades that close or open depending on your f-stop setting.

Thus, a larger f-stop is a smaller number… why? Because it is a fraction. F-stop of 22 is really 1/22 (that’s a small piece of pie). Whereas 2.8 is really 1/2.8 or just more than 1/3 (that’s a big piece of pie). You just have to remember that a larger aperture is a smaller whole number… ie 1.4 is a really big aperture and let's lots more light in.

Finally, the kicker! You thought we were done, didn’t you? There is a third and quite important factor… the bucket size (or the ISO). Now forgive my toilet analogy for this next part, but this quick story will help illustrate my point. The other day (for months now) our main toilet has had a slow leak of water from the reservoir into the bowl. I went down and got the correct replacement parts and got to work on it. And here’s the part that relates. There is a plastic insert bucket in our tank that allows for only a little water to be used at each flush. In other words, it conserves water. The pros are that it only requires about 1/2 liter to flush the toilet instead of 1.6 liters. The downside is that there is less pressure to push the waste down the line. The ISO is that plastic insert bucket. A larger ISO (say 1600) is a smaller bucket and allows for a small amount of light to hit the sensor for the same exposure. A smaller ISO (say 100) is a bigger insert in the tank. But if you have tons of water (light) at your disposal… use it… it’s a lot more bang for your buck. And it is pretty well mathematically related... if your bucket is twice as small, you can get the same exposure using half the shutter speed. IE try this... set your camera on manual and set it at 200 ISO. Now change the ISO to 400 and see how much shutter speed or aperture (separately) you need to move to get the same exposure. This is a helpful little exercise.

-I hope I didn’t lose anyone on that whole story

So, the higher the ISO, the smaller the plastic insert or the less light required to expose your picture. The problem with higher ISO is the picture has more noise and less integrity. The sensor has to fill in the details with pixels.

This low light photo helps illustrate ISO noise ISO 200 on left, ISO 800 on right.

One other note on ISO noise... longer exposures introduce more noise as well, regardless of your ISO.

Case Study 1:

So you’re shooting at your brother’s wedding. You’re in a poorly lit room (church or cultural hall). People are mingling (moving). You want some candid shots. What settings? Oh, you don’t have a flash.

My answer:

Put your camera on ISO 800 or 1600 (some of the newer DSLRs can get away with ISO 3200). Use (A) Aperture priority so that you are controlling your f-stop (go with about a f stop of 4), and see what kind of shutter speed your camera picks. If you are at 1/20th of a second (20) or faster on shutter speed, you will probably be ok. Any lower and you better ask people to stand like statues so your pictures aren’t blurry and/or have a tripod. One other thing… you may need some noise reduction software for post-processing so that your graininess doesn’t distract from the images.

Case-study 2:

Bright sunny day on the slopes of a nearby ski resort. Friends going off a jump and you are set up as the photographer.

Answer: I probably want fast shutter speed so my jumper isn’t blurred. And I have tons and tons of light (esp from the snow reflection) so I set my camera on (S) shutter priority (500th of a second or faster), and my ISO can be as low as she goes (100 on some, 200 on other cameras). Oh, remember to put it on high speed continuous shot so you don’t miss that shot.

Again, feel free to comment, correct, or additional insight and questions.

Tomorrow we will try to take a step further into personalizing these settings with exposure compensation... fun stuff! Maybe even introduce some flash compensation into that and a dash of lemon pepper.

Oh, I will try to pick a photo I like (usually from one of my contacts on Flickr) and comment on it.

Pick of the day:

This shot was taken for 46 minutes... at ISO 400. Most likely it was post-processed using a noise reduction software. If you have your shutter open this long, the processor in your camera will take a long time (minutes) until you can take your next picture.

Genesis

2008-11-19T08:34:00.000-08:00

Moses 2:16 "God, made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night, and the greater light was the sun, and the lesser light was the moon; and the stars also were made even according to my word."

To begin... my history in photography. My dad took an Olympus single lens reflex camera (SLR) on his mission. He had some skills in photography... a basic understanding. In high school, he bought me a short-lived Olympus SLR. Short-lived because it was when Olympus was phasing out of SLRs and focusing on point-and-shoots (PAS) and it died a sick death, with a cheap replacement sent to me after much travail. We took a private class together where we went to La Caille and Temple Square at Christmas-time. I learned the basics of exposure and using tripods during that class. I then purchased a Nikon SLR shortly after my mission. I shot with that for quite a few years, practicing what I had learned during high school, and mainly using Program Mode (P).
That camera got shelved for a while (about 2000) as I turned to a PAS Olympus digital camera.
Finally, a friend of mine taught me about his leap into the digital SLR world (DSLR) and I haven't gone back to my film Nikon since... in fact I just sold it recently.
Now I shoot with a Nikon D200 (started with a D50 and shortly demanded more from my camera) and mainly 2 lenses (with 2 others on the shelf)... a f2.8D Nikon 17-55mm and a f2.8 70-200mm Nikon lens. My other gear includes 2 SB600 speed lights (flashes), 2 white umbrellas and 1 silver umbrella, 2 light stands, 1 tripod with a Gitzo head, 1 50mm f1.8 Nikon lens and a 300mm f2.8 Nikon lens (1977)
My photos can be seen at my flickr account

Some topics I hope to cover (in no specific order):
exposure basics
flash photography
choosing a camera
post processing
lens choice
cropped sensors vs. full size sensors
camera settings
AND hopefully much more

Please leave a comment. Thanks

photoshop animation

2008-11-15T22:27:00.000-08:00

first real attempt at animation in photoshop

1!ghT

2008-11-15T18:15:00.000-08:00

From Light 1