Monthly Archives: August 2013

Test Shot

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I spent yesterday shooting portraits. And here is my test shot:

Why “a test shot”?

For outdoor portraits, I set up a single softbox. I check my ambient light and underexpose that slightly: I start with 100 ISO, 1/250th second, then see what aperture that needs. Then I set my flash to the desired brightness to give me that aperture.

But then I do one single test shot – that is all I need. I check:

  1. Is the background dark enough? (*)
  2. Is the foreground bright enough? (*)
  3. Do I see a catch light?
  4. Are glasses free of reflections?
  5. Are the shadows in the right places?

(*) I judge this by means of using a Hood Loupe, and/or using the histogram, and the “blinkies”. Not just visual inspection of the rear LCD in bright sunlight!

Of course here since I am holding the camera and a pocketwizard, my expression and the composition are not quite right, but that is not the point. The light is right.

And provided I do the setup right, one test shot is all I need.

Come to NSI to learn more – Sunday-Thursday next week!

 

A small adjustment

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If you photograph people against windows, as in this “Bare Bus” picture of two days ago, between Bare Oaks resort and Toronto’s Hanlan’s beach, what happens?

Usually, you will either get silhouetted subjects or blown out windows, i.e. you do not get a well-balanced picture like this:

In that picture, the background is not overexposed. Same as in this one:

So – how do I do this?

Either of:

  1. Expose for the background (using, if you like, a spot meter) and light up the foreground with (bounced) flash.
  2. Overexpose the background a little, yes, but use RAW, so you can drag the “Highlights” back in Lightroom (and the “shadows” up). This minimizes the difference between dark and light. I.e. keep it within limits, so you can fix the issues in Lightroom.
  3. A combination of (1) and (2) above.

And that is what I do when I shoot: I keep it under control so I can fix any issues later. I.e. make sure that if you overexpose, you only overexpose a little, and the same for underexposing.

Here, one more sample – this one even more difficult because it was a self portrait:

Note that for a self portrait I will let the camera choose where to autofocus – and that is very rare. Normally, I choose, But when I am not looking, I cannot choose. So the camera chooses – and it chooses the closest subject.

This, by the way, was a special bus tour, leading to a beach visit with photos, and a photography course the next day; and portraits Saturday. Stay tuned for more.

 

Light it up.

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A reminder:

Bright pixels are sharp pixels.

But they are also pixels without a lot of detail. And where do we not want such detail? Skin, and other surfaces where detail means bad things like pores and wrinkles.

Arguably, also here:

And now we will add an extra couple of stops. All detail will now go to the top of the image in terms of RGB colours. That means that if in the previous picture the darker detail takes half the colour space, say, then here it takes one eighth. Less distraction from the shoes, which are the subject.

The second picture is also better because it is more true to life: it was bright, But my reflective light meter gets that wrong, of course: it does not know I am shooting a white dress. So I need to help it along.

Summarizing:

I expose highly and brightly:

  1. When the subject is bright.
  2. When I want the subject sharp and crisp.
  3. When I need to reduce detail, as in bad skin, say.

 

In pictures like this I am looking for just a little bit of “the blinkies”, and a histogram to the right. Done!

 

Photon Epiphany

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It is an epiphany for a photographer when he or she starts noticing the light. And in particular:

Primary questions:

  • What is the light? One source or multiple sources?
  • Which direction or directions is the light coming from?

Secondary questions:

  • What colour or colours?
  • How hard or soft?

Look at this picture of Saturday’s wedding:

I did the following:

Look for the flowers. Decide to aim the subjects away from the sun; for three reasons:

  1. You get a nice hair light.
  2. They do not squint.
  3. You get great shadows in front of the subjects!

Of course the subjects would now be dark, what with the sun behind them. So I would need a heck of a large reflector – or, as was the case here, a strobe with an umbrella, fired with a pocketwizard. I only had one strobe available (don’t ask: shortage of pocketwizard-strobe cables), but one strobe was enough.

Light is fun, as yesterday’s photo of the little girl also shows, right? My tip today: Always, always try to see where the light is.


Outside Fill Flash

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Look at me, yesterday, taking a picture of the flower-girl at Halyna and Vitali’s wedding in Toronto:

You see that in spite of it being bright daylight (1pm on a sunny summer day), I have my flash aimed at the girl. And you see I am getting down to child level. And here is that picture, taken the very same second:

The look is defined by me:

  • Underexposing the picture a little; the ambient part, that is, to bring out the colour in the sky. Look at the pavement to see how much darker I made my ambient (about two stops).
  • Using a wide angle lens (16-35 on a full frame camera).
  • Getting down to the ground.
  • Using the rule of thirds.

Flash outdoors, then. But because I used the flash to enable me to darken the ambient by a couple of stops, it is more than fill flash.

Indoors, on the other hand, I used no flash yesterday, not at all, in the house or church. Unlike me, but the results were good:

Instead, I used a higher ISO and a prime lens, almost wide open (like at f/2 – f/2.8). It’s all what’s needed: no dogma!

 

 

Plan!

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I am preparing for a wedding tomorrow. And as always, I am pumped. Weddings are fun, and while shooting them takes a lot of talent, effort and experience, it is also very rewarding.

So what am I doing tonight? I am making lists. List of:

  • The shots I want.
  • The addresses and times.
  • Names and phone numbers.
  • The equipment I need. Including spares for everything!
  • Events specific to this culture (all weddings have specific cultural traditions – knowing them helps!)

Preparation is half the secret of success. Tip: ensure that your car is in good shape and full of fuel, and that you have cash for parking meters, etc.

I’ll share a little more of the success factors in the next weeks. But now – packing my bags, packing the car, preparing for an all-day shoot. Life’s good when you can do all day what you enjoy!

 

 

Focus

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When you focus, for optimum sharpness you need to do the following – and not all are obvious, so read carefully.

Normally, when shooting stationary objects do this:

  1. Ensure you are in “AF-S” (Nikon)/”One Shot AF” (Canon)  mode. This allows focus locking.  (For moving objects you will often use use AF-C/AI Servo)
  2. Select one focus point. This is simply telling your camera “do not choose where to focus, but focus on whatever I point this focus point at. It does not get “less focus” or anything like that! To select a single point, use the button on the back, or the menu entry. All cameras can do this, at least in the more advanced modes (and this is one of many reasons why you never use the red or green “full auto” mode!)
  3. Aim that focus point where you want maximum sharpness – but this has to be a contrasty area. You do not aim at a dark or light shirt, for instance, but at “where the shirt meets the tie so there’s lines”. Or better still, at the eyes!
  4. Realize that some focus points look for both horizontal and vertical lines (the centre point always does that), but many focus points can only detect horizontal, or vertical, lines! If you select a “detects vertical lines only`” point and point it at, say, the horizon, you will not get accurate focus!
  5. If you now keep the shutter pressed down you can recompose before clicking fully down, but do this carefully. If you let go, the camera will refocus!

Why this blog post? Because out of all the times I see students who complain about unsharp pictures, if it is actually focus (and not motion due to slow shutter speeds), then 90% of the time, the four simple points above have not been observed. And it is so simple!

If you are not 100% sure you are doing this right, go practice it right now, for an hour.