Lightroom Tips

As a photographer you need Lightroom, or perhaps Aperture if you are so inclined.  And Lightroom 3.0 is out, leading me to give you a couple of quick tips.

  • In the develop module, ^C (control-C or on a Mac command-C) copies selected settings (you can indicate which ones) from a photo and then ^V pastes them to another photo. This is often the way I synchronise settings between a few photos. Quick and simple, and unlike some of the other settings, not confusing.
  • Always type “G” to go back to grid view, “E” to go back to loupe view; and type “D” to go back to the develop module. Using the mouse all the time for this takes too much time.
  • “L” dims, or turns off, the lights. (Keep pressing and it toggles).
  • “F” goes full and even fuller screen. (Keep pressing and it toggles).
  • “Z” toggles the zoom view (a useful shortcut to know).
  • Use “Solo mode” on the panels on the left and right (right-click to select this). That way you avoid everything opening at once.
  • The new develop presets are really good – try them!

Also, remember to set the metadata and develop presets. These are well hidden – I regularly take forever to find them. But while the User Interface here is infuriatingly confusing, you only have to learn it.

  • Create a metadata preset that you can then use when you like and even automatically apply when importing. Do this as follows: Library – Metadata – Edit Metadata Presets – (make your changes, e.g. enter copyright data) – Save current settings as new preset. Call it something like “Joe Metadata Standard”.
  • Create a develop preset that you can then use when you like and even automatically apply when importing: select a photo, go to the develop module, make any changes you need (eg set camera calibration to CAMERA Standard, not ADOBE Standard) – and then use menu functions DEVELOP – NEW PRESET. Call it something like “Joe Develop Standard”. You will now see your new preset in “User Presets” in the left panels. To make changes to your preset, right click on it here and “Update with current settings” after you make the changes to the image.

Learning this application is sooo worth it.

Can you use a Canon 7D at high ISO?

Yes you can. Especially when you use Lightroom 3 noise reduction.

I want to show you this picture again – a repeat, but now with full sized crops and re-edited with Lightroom 3’s magic noise cancellation.

Here is the cat, shot with my 7D and a 50mm lens set to f/2, at 3200 ISO. And.. pushed 1.67 stops.

Meaning I underexposed, and increased exposure on the computer. This results in the worst noise you will ever see, much worse than you will see when using the camera properly.

Here is a detail from it, in the original size crop with no noise cancellation. Click to see it at real size.

Cat's eye with noise, shot by Michael Willems at 3200 using a Canon 7D

Cat's eye with noise

Now we apply 90% noise reduction. Magic:

Cat's eye with noise reduction, shot by Michael Willems at 3200 using a Canon 7D

Cat's eye with noise reduction

The finished picture:

Cat with noise reduction, shot by Michael Willems at 3200 using a Canon 7D

Cat with noise reduction

So do not be afraid of high ISO when you need it. It’s fine. Relax.

Wide or telephoto?

I am going to repeat something I have mentioned many times before, but that never goes out of style: the difference between a wide angle lens and a telephoto lens.

Here is the same car shot recently with a telephoto lens from afar and then with a wide angle from close up:

Telephoto/far away:

A 1958 Dodge shot in Oakville by Michael Willems

A 1958 Dodge in Oakville (70-200)

Wide/close by:

A 1958 Dodge shot in Oakville by Michael Willems using a wide angle lens

A 1958 Dodge in Oakville (16-35)

You see the difference, yes? If ever the saying “a picture paints 1,000 words” is true, I imagine it is here.

Wide shows enhanced perspective/depth. Telephoto makes it look flat. This is not because of magic in the lens: it is simply because of the vantage point you take using each lens.

In addition,

  • Telephoto creates blurrier backgrounds more easily, while wide can easily have extensive depth of field
  • Wide is less susceptible to motion blur

Wide is better for situational portraits, low light shooting, and architecture, and much travel. Telephoto is better for flattering portraits.

Outdoors with flash: what mode?

Let’s assume you follow my advice and use your flash, as fill flash, outdoors. Say for pictures like this.

A baseball team

A baseball team

In that case the question will be, what mode do you use on your camera? You want aperture in a certain range to ensure sufficient, but not too much, depth of field, and you want the shutter in a range that ensure sufficient stability but that is limited at the upper end by the flash sync speed (normally around 1/200th second).

  • Program mode: this will work, but you get no control over either aperture or shutter speed. Not the preferred mode unless you are in a hurry.
  • Manual mode: you meter for the background and set your camera accordingly. Flash lights up the foreground. This is practical when you know aperture and shutter speed and their effects well, and when the light does not vary too much.
  • Aperture mode: good for determining the depth of field. But there is a drawback. Outdoors, if you open the aperture, your shutter speed could easily exceed your flash sync speed. Result, an overexposed picture. Or if you stop down the aperture, the shutter speed could get so slow you get blurry images.
  • Shutter speed mode: if it is bright, you can set your shutter speed to just below your sync speed, say 1/200th second. The camera will now choose whatever aperture suits this. The risks are fairly low – worst case, you get a wider or narrower aperture than you wanted. If it is dark and your ISO is low, you can get an underexposed image.
  • “Aperture and shutter priority”: on some cameras you can select “Manual exposure, plus auto ISO”, which effectively means “aperture and shutter priority”. If you set your aperture and shutter wisely, the ISO will be in an acceptable range. The danger is that you need lower than available ISO (overexposed picture results) or that you need high ISO (noise, or “grain”, results).

As you can see here, there are certain strategies, but there is not one perfect one that is easy to use at all times. That is why photography has a technical aspect you need to learn.

A different approach: Rather than worry about modes too much, look at what they do. You need to look through your viewfinder and be aware of shutter speed, aperture, and ISO. Look out for:

  • Shutter too slow: blur
  • Shutter too fast: flash sync speed will be exceeded, and overexposure results
  • Aperture fully open: overexposure will occur, and depth of field will be narrow
  • Aperture too closed: too much will be sharp
  • ISO at its lowest: overexposure may result
  • ISO too high: noise (“grain”) will result.

Then adjust whatever you like to get all three variables into the right range.

For the shot above, I used shutter speed priority with my shutter speed set to 1/200th second. I chose an ISO of 200 to get into an acceptable aperture range (I was aiming for f/5.6).

Business tips of the day

And here today a few tips for those of you who want to make a living at photography.

  • First: I recommend it wholeheartedly. You can get up when you like and apart from the 17-hour days seven days a week, it’s quite relaxing. No, seriously: if it is your passion, what better way to make a living?
  • Go the extra mile for your customers.  Photography is a service business. Under-promise and over-deliver.
  • But do get a calculator. In business it is always tempting to say “yes” to everything. And you should. But… calculate how long it will take. A client just asked me to change a word or two on a web preview. result: I had to re-sort the images and re-do the entire upload. Three hours’ work. These three hours need to be paid by someone, somehow. Avoid underestimating your workload.
  • Resist the urge to buy, buy, buy. If it is a business, it is a business. You need to invest a bit, for sure. Camera, lenses, backup camera, speedlites, and so on. But do they all have to be bought at once? Consider renting equipment for shoots. Buy when you can self-fund the purchase.
  • Market your business. if no-one knows you exist, you will not live well.
  • Keep your books. Pay your taxes. Again, it is a business, as the sooner you start running it like one, the better. Use discipline. Weekly summaries, regular tasks, daily to-do lists, and so on all make for a good business.
  • Check what your colleagues are doing. If they are all doing portrait shoots for $80 and you charge $400, you’d better be good. if the reverse, you may want to charge more (remember the calculator).
  • Market. Did I mention that? Photographers spend much more time selling and marketing than shooting. Fact of life!
  • Don’t do weddings until you are ready. Wedding photography is the hardest type of photography there is. Shoot with an experienced pro a number of times until you ar eready – the day is so important, it is worth doing well.

And importantly, before you do too much else, grow your skills so you are worth it. Learn how to do it well. Take courses. Henry’s School of Imaging comes to mind for a start, to learn the camera and the basics and specific techniques. Then add advanced courses like our Advanced Creative Light course (the next one is this Saturday, July 26, and there are several spots available: see http://www.cameratraining.ca/Mono-Day-2.html)

And don’t forget: enjoy!

It's all a blur

Well, not all. But in many good photos, the background is blurred. Because one way – a very good way – to draw attention to your subject is to blur the background. You do this by using aperture or manual modes and selecting a large aperture (a small “f-number”, like 2.8 or 2.0 or even 1.4 if your lens can do this).

That is why I love the 35mm f/1.4 lens and several f/2.8 lenses I use also: because they allow me to dramatically blur backgrounds. Like in a few of last night’s guests:

Wedding guests, photographed by Michael Willems

Wedding guests

The other interesting thing is that these pictures make you guess; make you piece together the story, as in my post the other day.

Tip: Normally, you do not want the blurred background person to vie for attention by looking into the camera. Except if they are the only person, as in this image:

A wedding cake, photographed by Michael Willems

A wedding cake

Your eye goes first to the cake. Then to the gentleman in the background. Then you try to make out what is happening.

And sometimes selective focus is all about drawing attention to the eyes:

Wedding guest, photographed by Michael Willems

Wedding guest

The good news: there are many affordable fast lenses available, like the 50mm f/1.8 that many camera makers sell, and the 35mm f/1.8 that some sell.

If you are not yet shooting with fast lenses, probably prime lenses, my advice is to try it soon.

Wedding lenses

For today’s wedding I used a 35mm lens, a 16-35, a 24-70, a 70-200 and a 100mm macro. At a later day (when I am not falling sleep after working 7am-midnight) I will go into more detail But for now:

Macro for close-up detail:

Wide for environmental shots;

And use telephoto for farther-away detail:

More on technique in the next few days!

Why is it blurry?

A question I get a lot from students is “why is this picture I made so blurry?”

We all want super-sharp pictures, and are disappointed when our pictures come out less than perfectly crisp. And then we wonder why.

The bad news: this question can be confusing because first, you need to distinguish between four distinct causes of blurriness. Yes, four: motion blur, focus blur, computer-generated unsharpness and camera-unsharpness. And their sub types: 11 reasons in all.

And then, once you know what caused it, you need to figure out how it came about.

Microphone shot against blurry background, by photographer Michael Willems

Microphone shot against blurry background

The good news: I can almost always tell very easily. And with a bit of training, so can you. And then you can find solutions.

So let’s look at why a picture can be blurry, shall we?

First there is motion blur:

  1. The shutter speed was too slow. This is by far the most common cause I see. Using a 100mm lens at 1/10th of a second is not going to work unless you are very lucky. (A general, very rough, rule of thumb: stay faster than “one divided by your lens length”. So on a 50mm lens, stay faster than 1/50th second. And so on). Solution: turn on more lights, go to a higher ISO (though this has problems too), open your aperture, or use a better lens with a larger aperture. Or use a tripod.
  2. The subject is moving. This is common too. If your subject moves, a tripod will not help! Solution: select a faster shutter speed or try panning with your subject.

Then there are various causes of focus blur:

  1. Simply out of focus, due to focus error. I see this a lot too. Solution: use one focus point, aim that at your subject (the eyes!), focus/lock focus, and shoot without repositioning yourself. Do not let the camera select where to focus.
  2. Out of focus due to very narrow depth of field. This is common with fast lenses. An f/1.8 lens (you need one!) has very selective depth of field, so move even a few millimeters and that eye will be blurry.
  3. Missed focus – due to the subject moving away after you focus. Solution: in these cases use AI Servo/AF-C rather than One Shot/AF-S.

Then there is what I like to call “signal unsharpness” (low signal to noise ratio, for engineers):

  1. The subject is dark. Dark pixels contain the noise and the muddy, unsharp image parts. Solution: light well!
  2. You are using high ISO. This leads to noise. Solution: use as low ISO as you can, use a faster lens, and turn on more lights.
  3. You are using noise reduction, which leads to blurriness. Solution: as above.
  4. You have increased the RAW image’s exposure, which generates extra noise. Solution: try to expose well in the camera and “expose to the right” (see previous posts here: search for them on the blog using the search field above right).

Finally there is camera unsharpness:

  1. Anti-moiré blur. Your camera adds blur to avoid Moiré patterns. Solution: use sharpening.
  2. Your lens is badly adjusted. This happens. Solution: have it fixed, or on professional cameras, do a lens micro adjustment.

I hope the above does two things. First, explain why this is complex, which explains a lot of the confusion (and I hope I removed some of that confusion). Second, help you with strategies to fix the issue.

Tip: Take lessons to learn about this stuff from the pros. Go to your local Henrys, or if you are an emerging pro to www.cameratraining.ca, and explore the possibilities. We make things simple!

Site of the day

I see that this site is today’s Site of the Day at http://www.1001noisycameras.com/ – that’s great! Welcome, 1001 Noisy Camera fans.

As you will see, on this blog I teach daily – a teaching post every single day. Enjoy, and search back through the past year – many useful tips here from a working photographer and teacher to everyone who is interested!

Few posts of mine come without a snap or two, so here are a couple from yesterday’s shoot – the Hon. Minister Harinder Takhar MPP, a truly charming man:

The Honourable Minister Harinder Takhar, MPP, photographed in June 2010 by Michael Willems

The Honourable Minister Harinder Takhar, MPP

I used three lenses: one long (70-200 on the 1D Mark IV) and two wide (24-70 and later 16-35 on the 1Ds Mark III).

Wine being poured at a reception, photograph by Michael Willems

Wine being poured, photograph by Michael Willems

Manual and with a flash for fill.

Reception Buffet, photograph by Michael Willems

Reception Buffet

Cheers,

Michael