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Author Archives: Michael Willems
Click. Shhhh!
A few tips for those of you who shoot ceremonies.
Ceremonies are important to people. Whether this is a graduation, a wedding, a signing of some sort: there will often be a hushed silence.
A silence you do not want to disturb. So today’s tips are about blending in and behaving appropriately at such venues.
- First, dress in a non-conspicuous way. You do not want to be the centre of attention.
- Ask the person in charge what you can do. Can you walk around? Use flash? Click away?
- Ask if flash is allowed
- If it is, bounce that flash rather than use direct light.
- If it is not, you may still be allowed to use the focus assist on your camera’s flash. That’s the little red line pattern your flash can cast to help focus, and you can use this even when the actual flash function is disabled.
- Turn off your camera’s focus beep.
- If you have a Nikon SB-900 flash, turn off the “overheating” beep.
- If you use off-camera flash, ditto: disable the beeps (notably on Nikon flashes)
- Use a camera with a quiet shutter. I will grab my 7D if I want a quieter shutter sound. Some people even wrap their cameras. If you have a pro body such as a Canon 1D or 1ds, select the “Silent” shutter mode.
- Use a longer lens and shoot from farther away.
By using these common-sense precautions, you can give yourself and all other photographers a good name.
Wide
What lens to put on your camera?
Sometimes it is difficult to decide. But sometimes it’s easy.
Social events are easy. When shooting such events, where there are people socializing, eating, drinking, I recommend a wide angle lens between at least 24 and 35mm “35mm equivalent” (greater range is ok of course).
Meaning that if you have a full frame camera, use a lens in that range. If, as is more likely, you have a crop camera like a Nikon D5000 or Canon Digital Rebel, you use a lens 50-60% smaller to give the same effect, i.e. a lens in the 16-24 range. Like a 17-40.
At yesterday night’s event with Wendel Clark, ex Leafs captain (below) I used a 16-35 wide angle zoom on my 1.3 crop camera (I used the new Canon 1D Mk IV).
I do this a lot, and so can you.
Remember to get close to people.
Another option is to use not a zoom, but a wide angle prime lens. On my full frame camera I use a 35mm f/1.4 lens quite often for these events.
The pictures that the three above are part of will be on Oakville.com in the next few days.
It's coming…
Coming soon: my first impressions of the 1D MkIV.
First I shall shoot one more event with it tonight. In a few hours in fact.
But before that, just to whet your appetite, let’s start with two 1600 ISO shots: one from my (full-frame) 1Ds MkIII, and one from my new (1.3 crop factor) 1D MkIV.
I took shots with these cameras both with the 50mm f/1.8 lens and with indetical settings (low available tungsten light, f.5,6, auto WB, RAW, and with no post processing applied at all in Lightroom). That results in these two images. These are two real-size (once you click) small sections of a large photo:
1Ds MkIII:
1D MkIV:
Much more of my first impressions coming within the next few days: stay tuned.
I teach pros, too
As you probably know, I teach beginning Photographers at Henry’s School of Imaging. Yesterday I taught a dozen new photographers “Point and Shoot Basics” in Mississauga.
I also present to camera clubs, as in here recently in Scarborough:
In addition, I also teach pros and emerging pros, both in Oakville and in Toronto’s Distillery District. The new February/March schedule is up, right here. My advanced flash course, where among other things I teach all the subtle little differences between e-TTL II and CLS/i-TTL; advanced light balancing techniques; when to use what modifier; and more, is very popular with wedding pros.
Both these types of training remind me how important user interfaces are. Why call a focus mode “AI Servo” if you could call it “continuous focus”? Why call metering “3D Colour Matrix” when “Smart Metering” would be understood more readily by your market?
Ever read your camera manual? Did you learn a lot? I see thousands of students ever year and if one thing is clear, it is that camera makers could communicate much, much better. First they would have to give the job of designing terms to User Interface experts and writer, not to engineers.
Learning technique
Today, a tip and a request.
First, the tip.
How do you learn to “pan” your camera along with a moving object (like a bicycle travelling traversely through your picture)? So that the object appears to not move much, while the background is a streak? How do you learn this in the absence of cyclists riding through your living room? You pan and follow your hand. That’s how.
- Set your camera to S/Tv mode
- Select a shutter speed of 1/15th second (a good starting point).
- Hold your hand out as far as it can go.
- Focus on it. Wait for the beep and then hold your finger on the shutter to lock that focus distance.
- Now rapidly move your entire body around, so your hand describes a circle around you.
- Half way through that circle: click. (Do not stop moving to click!)
Try this technique, and repeat until you are happy. Your images may look somewhat like this:
You thus get to practice the technique that gets you images like this:
Did you find that a useful tip? Then I have a request for you.
I teach these and many photographic techniques – a tip a day! – because I want to give back and help disseminate information and knowledge as widely as possible. I want the world to learn photography, and I think I can be a small part of that.
But you can help me too.
First: send me questions. About anything photographic. I’ll do my best to answer them in a timely manner right here. That way, your question benefits others too.
Second: help me with the blog. Apart from small contributions, which are always welcome (see the link on the right), even more importantly, you can link to me. Mention my blog to friends and to others who many be interested. Link from your blog or from your facebook page. Tweet. Mention me on your web site. If you are helped by this, you can do me a big favour by spreading my name, and that of this blog, as widely as possible. This is an ongoing request!
That way I get better known, and I get to help more people. In this way, we all help each other. I firmly believe that this is the way the new economy works. Social media, sharing, the Internet: we now grow value by collaborating, not by “hoarding and hiding knowledge”. People who do not yet understand this will eventually find out that the old “make money by keeping knowledge secret” paradigms are dead.
And the world will be a better place for it.
Michael
Moi, aujourd'hui.
Even in a snapshot, you want to;
- Avoid direct light (use reflected light instead).
- Use an off-centre composition (follow “the rule of thirds”).
- Blur the background, if the picture is a portrait.
- Straighten horizontal/vertical lines.
- Fill the frame.
If you do all that, your pictures will be better than Uncle Fred’s.
1D MkIV
As a shooter, and as a teacher,and as a tech blogger, I need the most recent equipment. So I have no obtained a Canon 1D MkIV to replace my 1D MkIII.
So far it seems fine. Not the same great focus system as the 7D, but th same solid feel as the 1D MKIII and the same software options, which Canon has left off the 7D (e.g. the option to name the files to your liking). And lowernoise than the 7D (of course, if only because it is a 1.3 crop factor sensor). Fast 10 fps shooting that lasts much longer than on the 1D MkIII. Sozen of full RAW shots before the buffer fill sup even with a slow memory card.
So far. so good. You can be sure I will post detailed information, rather than these very first impressions, in the next days.
Creative Bokeh
Bokeh means the blur, or the quality of the blur, in parts of your image that are out of focus.
And you can use this to effect. For instance when shooting city lights, or Christmas tree lights, you can make them into circles by throwing them out of focus:
That was shot with a Digital Rebel with a 50mm f/1.8 lens. You cannot get simpler than that!
Metering
A few words on light meters.
When shooting studio shots like the ones I talked about, you use a flash meter. When doing that to accurately judge the right exposure, keep this in mind:
- Have a spare battery at hand
- Move the dome out. Do not leave it screwed in.
- Use the meter in Flash-metering mode!
- Only flash one flash at a time. Turn off other flashes when you meter one.
- Start with your key light; then one by one meter the other flashes. These will be darker generally.
- Ensure your meter is set to the right ISO.
Then use the measured aperture as your starting point and check the histograms on your camera for fine adjustments. I believe that “exposing to the right” is generally a good idea.
Also, don’t forget to use a grey card to get a nice white balance reference target.