I noticed the matching colour, here in the picture below.
It is always a good idea to look at colour while you are shooting. And you can learn to notice. Start like this: If anything strikes you: shoot!
Harmonious colours, is how we describe colours that are close together (as opposed to contrasting colours, which are opposite, like red-green, or blue-yellow). The above shows harmonious colours. These strikes us as gentle, soft, understated, even.
Taken at “Tribe” on 24 October 2009.
One “detector’ that you should train yourself to have is the “curve-detector”. Curves lead gently through the picture, like a gentle slow journey. Two samples, picked from many:
Both taken on the same day in Gamla Stan: Old Stockholm.
If you want portraits to have that dreamy look, use a lens with a wide aperture (a small F-number, like 2.8).
I took this picture yesterday, using a prime 35mm lens (the Canon 35mm f/1.4L) on a Canon 7D, at an aperture of f/2.5 and a shutter speed of 1/50th second.
That 35mm on a 1.6 crop factor camera is like 50mm on a traditional full frame camera. So it’s a “Nifty Fifty”.
A that focal length, I was able to go quite close to Mr Pumpkin without much distortion, as you can see.
That gives you a very nice look. The close proximity combined with the f/2.5 aperture gives me nice soft bokeh (the creamy quality of the background blur). Even the back of the head is soft.
Beautiful: reason for a smile.
Almost 2 hours from Toronto to Mississauga!
1000 ISO at f/2.8 and 1/60th sec on a 35mm f/1.4L lens on the Canon 7D.
To see how cool and sharp these are, view them at the larger size.
I love black and white, so I thought you might too – in which case you might be interested in the following Quick Tips:
As an illustration, here is an image converted automatically:
Here, I have butchered it (and me – ouch) by dragging ‘orange’ and ‘yellow’ down:
Here, I have done more of an appropriate conversion:
See what I mean? This is equivalent to the old red-yellow-green filters. Except much more interactive and much simpler.
We ought to all shoot in Black and White sometimes, I keep saying.Reducing all colours it shades of gray can make even mundane subjects interesting. It works well with brick:
I have been playing with my new Canon 7D camera, shooting bits of high-def video. My God, high-def is good. Yes, and big.
And this video activity brings me to the following. A customer recently asked me: How would you take pictures on a film set?
I thought about this. If you have ever photographed a movie set, there is a good chance this experience was your last one. Or at least your last one on a film set. Because film sets are very intolerant of misbehaviour – even if you do not know the rules of misbehaviour. So to minimise the risks, here are a few tips. This is what I would do.
If you follow all those rules, you will be fine, I think – so have a good time, and be re-invited.
Taken at the recent “Tribe” event I shot.
After I said yesterday that Apple should write the Canon UI. I am not so sure, having just discovered there is no way to set MONDAY to be the start of the week in the iPhone’s calendar. I can never find anything in month view with Sunday starting the week. Yes, you can set “international” to UK, but that messes up everything else, like phone numbers. What were they thinking?
In the last couple of days I used two new strap systems while shooting events: the BlackRapid R-strap (which I’ll review later) and the new Ezee Strap, pictured here:
That strap sits on your shoulders (the leather part on your back), and the movable hooks attach to the camera through rings. The camera thus sits symmetrically in front of you. To take a picture, you simply raise it and it comes up.
The first thing that I felt after putting on the strap and attaching the camera: : nothing.
Meaning – instead of the usual effort and discomfort of holding a heavy camera like my 1Ds MkIII, it is effortless. So that’s good. Easiest way I’ve held a camera. Also – the camera stays in place,. It neither swings right and left, nor forward much when you bend over. This is great!
There are a few minuses, of course. The rings are metallic and they do scratch the camera hooks a bit. That’s minor so I can live with it. The strap is, quite frankly, cheaply made. But it does the job. And because it has two hooks, it is saferthan some of the other alternatives.
Also, the camera hangs exactly where your belt buckle is. But.. it raises so easily and effortlessly (even for vertical shots) – that this, too, is worth it. And finally, this strap is costly – but again, it does the job, so compared to a bad back…
So while there are some drawbacks, none of those are showstoppers. I plan to use this Ezee Strap in some more upcoming shoots, and will give you more feedback after those. So far, it looks like it will stay in my bag as a permanent fixture, and one that makes a big difference in shoots where I carry multiple cameras.