Author Archives: Michael Willems

Let there be light.

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Please. Light. I dream that one day the newspaper will send me to shoot something where there is actual light.

Tonight, two shoots where no flash was allowed (or possible). I started with a recital. Church. Not possible to move – I had to stay where  I was and not in the best place. And no flash.

So that meant that to get acceptable shutter speeds (1/125th sec on a 200mm IS lens, which ias as low as you can go, really) I had to use 1600 ISO at f/2.8, which is just OK on the 1D MkIII:

Not too bad. Thank God for f/2.8 lenses. Why do I pay $2,000 for my lenses? This is why.

Then it got worse. Rush to get to the next appointment: Tennis. And indoors. And in very low light. To see the ball and to freeze action I needed 3200 ISO – and even then at f/2.8 I was only able to get to 1/320-1/400th second, never faster.

Big time noise. But…  I (and hence the newspaper) got what I went in for.

And tonight I will dream of venues with light.

 

Stage

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When you shoot someone on a stage, it’s all dark and stuff, right, so you need to go to, like, 3200 ISO? Dude!

Well, yes and no. It can be dark, but usually that is not the real problem. The person on stage is usually quite well lit. Like professor Richard Dawkins when I shot him recently in Toronto:

MVWS9278

As you can see, prof Dawkins himself is well lit. This meant I was able to use my 1Ds MkIII and 50mm lens to shoot at 1/100th second, 400 ISO, and f/2.8. That is not super-fast: 400 ISO, not 1,600. And f/2.8, not f/1.4.

The bigger challenges are:

  • Metering. The dark background might very easily have caused the camera to overexpose prof Dawkins.
  • Consistency. The light can go up and down; or rather, as you swing the camera to include more or less Dawkins and less or more background, the exposure will change, and perhaps drastically so.
  • Focus is tough in low light.

So the solution is to:

  • Spot meter off the person and go up a stop, or meter using the “manual” meter.
  • Use MANUAL mode. After metering and adjusting visually (using LCD and histogram), leave the setting there. As long as the person does not move into different light, you’ll be fine.
  • Focus carefully with one focus point. Test before the presentation starts!
  • Shoot RAW so you can make small adjustments later where needed.

That way, your stage shoots will be just fine.

Great workshop today

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Today I attended a workshop for wedding and portrait pros with the excellent duo of Toronto-based Storey Wilkins and Melbourne-based David Williams. I always find these very inspiring, even moving; and I invariably come away energized and with a few good ideas.

There were a few interesting things I noticed today. One, that there is a tremendous need among wedding pros to understand modern flash technologies like e-TTL, i-TTL, CLS, and so on. (And with that, at least, I can help: I am putting on some Advanced Flash workshops for wedding pros in Oakville 10 and 17 December, after I get back from doing the same in Phoenix.)

But the other thought is also very interesting: the consensus seems to be that male photographers are all about gear and technology, and female photographers about feelings.

Is that really true? Is it a binary, black and white issue like that, or more one of slight bias? And even if true, is a generalization like that useful? Do we not all, once we get to a certain level, know the tech bit as well as the feelings bit?

What do you think?

Foreground-background

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In portraits that tell a story, it is often good to add a background person. The background person can -no, should– be blurred out; an almost ghostly appearance whose presence adds storyline but also adds questions and interest.

Like in this picture at a recent event, where the incoming president praises the outgoing president:

MVW_3081

A story, all in one picture.

When you shoot, always ask “what is my background? What is it contributing? Is it adding to the story or distracting? What is the story?

 

Another 7D review

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Scott Bourne also reviewed the 7D: here [link]

So it is noisy but otherwise good. I agree, but the noise is not a big issue unless you shoot high ISO. And the Lightroom RC makes it a bit better.

My few-words review (see 7D tag for more):

Plus:

  • Great new focus system!
  • Great video ability (1080p, 24/25/30fps) and quality.
  • Ability to assign many custom buttons.
  • Nice to drive flashes from pup-up.
  • Better WB than prior Canons.
  • Great screen at the back.
  • Strong; withstands 3ft drop onto hard concrete.

Minus:

  • Noise (but by downsizing to fewer Mpixels you reduce this)
  • Deliberately dumbed-down menus for marketing purposes (eg no ISO range setting, no “save/retrieve basic settings”)
  • Still hangs up every now and then (needs battery removed, even off does not work)
  • Slow autofocus in video/live view modes

Noise should not be overestimated as an issue. See this earlier post for a sample at 3200 ISO:

http://blog.michaelwillems.ca/2009/10/29/3200-on-a-7d/

Note – the new RC of Lightroom, with 7D support, does not reducethe noice.

Overall, a very good addition to my 1D MkIII/1Ds MkIII family.

Event shoot

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The other day I shot an event. So that meant dark light, high walls, hard to bounce.

“Crisp” means “bright pixels”, so you will sacrifice some crispness when it is dark.

Still – I never point my flash at subjects when it is the main light. So instead, I bounce. I use the wall or ceiling – but when that is too far (and at 800 ISO “too far” is quite far!), I use a Honl bounce card, or a Fong lightsphere, or I just bounce off my hand:

MVWS0730

Um yeah, the theme was “70’s”.

  • I was using a 1Ds MkIII and a 16-35mm f/2.8L lens.
  • I did not want too much noise so I stayed at 800 ISO.
  • I used 1/30th second, f/2.8
  • A wide angle lens means that even at f/2.8, I get nice depth of field.
  • And the slow exposure means I get some nice background light.
  • Flash pointed behind me to the right, and bouncing (I saw a wall not too far).

Everyone else got dark backgrounds; I get this. A fast lens (f/2.8) is quite essential.

 

Sad day

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Today is my friend Andrew “Wedge” James’s funeral. He died the other day, at the age of just 51, of cancer. Poor Wedge. At the bottom here (the long-haired guy in the background is me):

Since I cannot be in the UK for the funeral, I video’d a short (2 minute) tribute to him, to be played there today. You can see it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKFTNtrkwn8

Since most new cameras now do video, I thought you might want to see how I did this. I am not by inclination a video guy, but can put together a video, of course. And here’s how:

  • I used my Canon 7D – set to record video at 24 fps
  • I used a tripod and prefocused manually
  • I set the camera to f/5.6 and 1/30th sec in manual exposure mode.
  • I used the Modeling lights of by Bowens flashes as the lights.
  • I used iMovie on my Mac to put this together including the inserted pictures, background sounds, and transitions. This took most of the time, of course.
  • And to save time at the end, I uploaded straight to Youtube from within iMovie. This worked beautifully.

I think that while this is not as good as being there, it is a fitting way to share my recollection of Wedge. Video has its uses.

Eye

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Portraits? Then use a 50mm f/1.8 lens (affordable, fast, sharp) and shoot in Aperture (A/Av) mode with it wide open (preferably by window light).

Look at this recent available-light shot of a student:

MVWS0799

This gets you the dual advantages of low-light ability (no flash needed!) and blurry backgrounds. As long as you make sure the closest eye is the sharpest.

So, set your camera to the widest aperture (the smallest F-number), use high enough ISO (indoors this might be 400-800 ISO), and use one focus spot, and aim that spot at the closest eye. Click!

Back light

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When you see back light, you may want to try to use it if you can. That way you do not always get the same old same old.

When I was struck by strong sunlight coming my way at the show the other day, I shot this. I lined up the sun with the edge and used exposure compensation (“the +/- button”) of -2 stops to darken all but the rims:

IMG_2578

f/2.8, 1/640th sec, 32mm, on a 7D.

So what’s the scene?

These people are in fact merely lining up to get some free goat cheese samples. But this light makes it look a tad more dramatic, no?

Fire

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Do not forget to use motion in your pictures. Like this:

So I took that today with one hand – the other was holding a McDonald’s coffee, outside Henry’s School of Imaging in Toronto. I was about to go back in to do course two of the day.

Now, normally I would have gone to “Tv” mode (“S” on Nikon: shutter-speed priority). But with one hand and no time to lose that was impossible. So I rapidly did the following:

  1. Pop up the pop-up Flash.
  2. Zoom out to 16mm.
  3. I looked through the viewfinder at the street as the truck was approaching.
  4. I was in Av (Aperture priority) mode. So without the option of changing that while holding the camera with just one hand, I simply turned the Aperture setting up to to f/22, which I saw was what I needed to get to a shutter speed near 1/15th of a second. (I got to 1/20th: at that time time ran out and I left it there).
  5. Press the shutter!

All took about, oh, two seconds. And I hope you agree that is not a bad fire truck photo.