Tip of the day: You should always feel free to tilt, and to chance your point of view, for more exciting photos.
Here’s a tilt, an looking up, yesterday afternoon in downtown Oakville:
I tilted to simplify, and to get the top into the corner of the photo symmetrically.
Here’s a street in Oakville, normal point of view:
And the same street tilted and low to the ground:
Much different. Go and tilt and choose viewpoints today.
I usually advocate not doing this:
But this instead:
Flash backward, because you want the light to come from 45 degrees above your subject. That’s usually the way, since we usually use wider lenses for people shots, meaning we are close.
However, when you are using a long lens, like a 70-200, then to get to that same 45 degree point, you may have to aim the flash forward 45 degrees.
The problem with this is that with any flash angle that is even slightly forward, some light goes forward, straight from that flash to your subject. So you get this, horrible shadow:
The solution: Flash forward, but use a gobo/card, or even your hand, to shield the inch or two straight in front of your flash. So now the light can still go up to the ceiling, but it can no longer go directly forward to the subject. You could even use a grid but that eats a little more light.
You now get this:
I used my hand here, holding it an inch or two in front of the flash to block the path straight to the subject. Result, a well lit shot!
I would like to repeat a very important aspect of flash photography here, namely the following.
The background brightness, when there is any background light, depends on the shutter speed of your photo. Yes, also on the aperture and ISO, but these latter two also affect the flash brightness (assuming your flash power is constant).
This means the following.
If I want to mix in background light, I use a slower shutter.
Consider these two photos, both taken with a flash aiming straight into the student’s face (not great technique, but it was to demonstrate this fact), and at 400 ISO and f/5.6.
Picture 1 is at 1/60th second – and note, usually your simple modes like P and the scene modes, will restrict you to that speed or faster:
.
Typical “brrr, flash” picture.
The second shot was taken at exactly the same settings, except with a much slower 1/4 second shutter speed:
Clearly that is slow, but the face is still sharp due to the brief duration of the flash.
An advanced computing tip today on speedlighter…:
Have a Mac or UNIX-like computer? Then you can use a simple little command to synchronise disks. Let me explain.
I have two hard disks next to the Mac. Two 3TB disks (I just upgraded them). I work on one: all my images and Lightroom files and office admin files live there. Then I have the other.
Whenever I work, as soon as I am done on one and am sure it’s all good, I run the following command on my mac:
I.e. the following is the actual commands; the lines preceded by # are just comments:
rsync -a –verbose –progress –stats –delete /Volumes/MVW-3TB-1/Lightroom/ /Volumes/MVW-3TB-2/Lightroom/
rsync -a –verbose –progress –stats –delete /Volumes/MVW-3TB-1/MVW-Docs/ /Volumes/MVW-3TB-2/MVW-Docs/
rsync -a –verbose –progress –stats –delete /Volumes/MVW-3TB-1/Photos/ /Volumes/MVW-3TB-2/Photos/
The rsync command intelligently compares the two disks and adds anything to disk 2 that was added to, or changed on, disk 1, while deleting anything from disk 2 that was deleted on disk 1. A perfect backup in seconds (the first time can take a day of course, depending on how full your first disk is).
Using the nano text editor, I put these commands in a little text file called “syncdisks”, and I make that file executable using the chmod command (chmod 755 ./syncdisks). I then call that file by typing .syncdisks every time I want to run it.
I could automate further but this is good for me – and it shows the power of the command line, doesn’t it? Of course you would modify this to reflect the names of your disks and your folders to be copied.
(If this was all a bit techie for you, ignore this post and move on to tomorrow!)
In Lightroom, the catalog (the .LRCAT file) contains all your edits. But what if it gets corrupted?
In that case you can retrieve edits – eg edit the file in another app,like Photoshop – from small XMP “sidecar” files – IF you make these! This is off by default – turn it on in LIGHTROOM – CATALOG SETTINGS:
If that third tick mark is OFF in your Lightroom, then I advise you turn it ON right now!
Here’s an available light portrait of the other day:
In a portrait like this, keep the following in mind:
And that is how you do that. Could not be simpler. Try some!
A student asks:
My name is Pauline – I have taken a couple of courses with you. I have the Canon 5D and we had talked about a perchase I sould make of a 50mm lens — when I talked with a salesperson, they said because the 5D is a full frame camera that I would need the 85mm so that I would not get distortion. Due to the fact the an L series 85mm lens was more than the 50mm L – I resisted the purchase. Can you please help me – I took the portrait course in Waterloo and the instructor said portraits are done with zoom lenses wich I know you can, but I had never heard that before – he didn’t recomend a 50mm at all.
Headshots are best done with a lens that is, say, 75mm long or more. As it happens, the 50mm lens works like a 80mm lens on crop bodies – not on yours. So the salesperson is right that for headshots, 85 would be great.
On yours, a 50 is a “nifty fifty” – a general purpose or, when used for portraits, half/body shot lens.
However! A 50mm lens is a very affordable fast lens – fast meaning large aperture (low f-number, 1.8 or 1.4), and that is a very great benefit. Get one and use it as a half- or full body shot lens or for general purpose you when you want to shoot in available light or want blurred backgrounds.
I have a full frame camera too and yet I also have a 50. I do not use it for headshots, but I use it for many many other things.
So yes – get one. No it will not be the only lens you own – no lens, alas, every will be! But it will be a lovely lens that will change your photography.
POST EDIT: “Portraits are done with zoom lenses”? I would not agree with that. Some are; some are not. Available light portraits in particular, see tomorrow’s post, are almost always taken with fast prime lenses.
This, taken at a School of Imaging workshop I taught the other day, is a snapshot of a volunteer the way Uncle Fred takes them:
What is wrong here? Well if this is meant to be a portrait of the lady looking at us, rather a lot:
Instead of doing this, try to turn the camera 90 degrees, get close, shoot from teh subject’s level. You now get:
Simple, no?
A 50mm prime lens (a “fixed” length lens) will make this way. And note, I shot that at 3200 ISO in a dimly lit classroom. Yes, it can be done.
When bouncing a flash, you may need more flash power than you have available. To ensure you have enough, do the follwoing:
Simple steps that can avoid a lot of pain – and TTL flash can do a good job, like here in Anastasia’s picture a few days ago:
Here’s why you use proper lighting – with flash used for many outdoor shot too.
Say I shoot talented new model Anastasia outdoors using available light:
That is well exposed – but poorly lit. Even on an overcast day, there are shadows; no catch lights: not a great shot.
So now I do it again, with a big flash (a Bowens 400 Ws) with a softbox. I set the flash manually, using a light meter, as follows:
That gives me this:
I think you will probably agree that this is a much better shot. And the procedure is simple. On an overcast day you can use speedlights too, if you prefer.