Tip: You do not need to keep constantly turning your camera off and on.
When it times out, it uses the same minimal amount of current as when you switch it “off”, which is not off either.
So unless you are putting it way for the day or are putting it into the bag, just leave it on and wake it up with a light touch of the shutter button when you want to use it again.
If you have ever wondered why you can’t read camera manuals: it’s not you. It’s the manual.
I am just reading an explanatory manual to my 1D Mark IV. This manual is meant to clarify the manual.
So does it? I quote:
When tracking sensitivity is set to slow (option -2) the length of time that objects entering the AF point are viewed as obstructions will be longer than when set to the intermediate slow option (-1). So, when the time a subject is hidden behind an obstruction is brief (long means about”0.X”sec.), this setting can be highly effective.
For example, when shooting events like breast stroke and butterfly in swimming, with repetitive patterns such as the swimmer going in and out of the water at regular intervals, the slow option (-2) setting can often be effective.
Depending on how long the subject is hidden, it will be best to distinguish between the intermediate slow option (-1) when the time hidden is shorter, and slow option (-2), when it is slightly longer.
Good God. That is so unclear. How about:
You can set “tracking sensitivity” to “slow” (option -2). If you do this, the camera will wait a while before it switches focus to an object that enters between you and the object you were focusing on.
This setting of -2 is good in a situation where objects tend to appear between you and your subject for, say, between 1/10th of a second and a full second. If objects only appear for under 1/10th of a second each time, you can also choose “intermediate slow” (-1).
For example, you can choose one of these settings when shooting events like breast stroke and butterfly in swimming, where a swimmer goes in and out of the water at regular intervals.
Choose the “slow” option (-2) setting if the swimmer disappears under water for longer periods each time. If the swimmer only disappears for short periods each time, you should choose “intermediate slow” (-1).
That’s how I would write that. Clarity, guys!
Why is it “Register Settings” and “Apply Settings”? Why not just “Save Settings” and “Load Settings”? That would be a lot more clear.. what does “register” mean?
Maybe we should communally rewrite all of Canon’s manuals. And Nikon’s, and the rest.
K for Kelvin, that is.
If you find that your white balance setting still leaves your pictures yellow when taking pictures in tungsten light even when you set the white balance to Tungsten, try a Kelvin value if your camera supports that. I find, for instance, that in my bedroom 2700K is about right.
If your camera does not support that, use a Custom white balance setting after you shoot a white sheet of paper. Your camera’s manual will help in this.
Of course if you shoot RAW [corrected] this makes no difference, but I still recommend doing this: it reduces your post-production work, plus your back-of-the-camera previews look better.
When you are shooting for pay, always make sure that you carry:
That way you can offer your customer peace of mind, and you can rest assured that the price you charge is worth it – “Uncle Bob”, after all, does not carry the spares above.
I have been saved more than a few times by the spares above – yes, all of them.
Just received the new Honl Photo bounce card/speed snoot.
It is like the previous ones in that it is small, sturdy, and conveniently attaches to the Speed Strap.
What’s different?
This one has not a white but a gold reflector (equivalent to 1/4 CTO).
That means I can use it to:
Yet another thing to make my light-life easier.
I am going to be once again sharing my Flash expertise in Phoenix next month – 22 and 23 March – for pro and emerging pro users. You can be sure I am going to show how these small modifiers enable a whole new world of flash.
Lenses for portraits, you ask? Which ones to use?
I usually suggest:
The faster, the better. f/2.8 lenses are better than f/3.5-5.6 lenses. f/1.4 lenses are even better.
The affordable, great 50mm f/1.8 is a lens you should own (if you have a Nikon D40/60/3000/5000 you need to focus it manually). If you don;t have one yet, go get it.
This quick guide, which works for most photographers, should start you off well enough.
I shot a school Sunday: “Photo Day” portraits at a music school.
My colleague Anita and I used strobes, backdrops, and Canon cameras: 40D, a 7D and a 1D Mark IV. A few interesting observations:
The 1D is the pro workhorse, of course, and it performed great (redundant memory card included!), but I must say, the 7D was a real pleasure to use. Especially at low ISO (100-400, say), I see no reason not to use it for pro studio work.
Today I shot “Photo Day” for students at a music/drama school all day. Fun!
And in the middle of the shoot, one more of my Opus lights broke. This 250 Ws monolight totally stopped working -maybe blew a fuse? – in mid shoot. I had a spare – but that now makes 8 out of 9 Opus lights I have ever bought that have broken. An incredible ratio.
Nadel, the Canadian importer, says:
These unit were designed for the “Home User” looking to experiment with strobe lighting with out paying the premium for professional lights. [ ] Your current Opus lights do carry a 2 year warranty. Just return the units to the point of purchase with proof of purchase and they will facilitate the repair process.
For home users? Interesting then that these lights say “FOR COMMERCIAL USE ONLY” on them. Warranty is a moot point if 8 out of 9 break. So now I need to do work and the replacements will also break, if the 8 out of 9 total is statistically significant. Which it is.
Fortunately, the Bowens lights I use for most shooting are excellent.
What is this “expose to the right” thing we keep hearing about? And do I expose to the right?
A sensor can distinguish varying light levels. Say, for the sake of argument, 100 (the actual number does not matter. A JPG has 255 levels per red-green-blue colour, for example. A sensor can pick up more. But for this discussion, let’s just assume 100).
A picture will be a mix of dark and light (unless it is all one shade).
So let’s assume I am taking a picture of some normal scene that goes from dark to bright.
Ideally, I will want this scene’s sensor data to contain everything from “0” pixels (black) all the way up to “100” pixels (bright white). If I grossly underexpose it, it will be mainly black pixels (level 0), with some lighter pixels (say, between 0 and 10). If I overexpose it, I’ll get maybe pixels between level 90 and 100.
So for a normal scene, it’s clear, I will want between 0 and 100. The histogram will stretch from left to right.
Now assume a dark scene, e.g. a nightscape. The actual scene may only contain dark stuff – from black to mid grey, say. So exposing it “realistically” would give me pixels from 0 to 50. And when I analyse it, there would be 50 levels. Or let’s assume I have a cave, where it’s so dark it only contains black to very dark. Real levels maybe 0 to 5.
So if I expose to give me a realistic histogram, it would only have five levels of black in the picture. Not much detail in five levels of black. Posterisation (that blocky stuff in areas that change brightness gradually) could easily occur. Also, low-level electronic noise would be hard to distinguish from signal (“The signal to noise ratio is low”, we say).
But if I expose that more (e.g. by opening the aperture or increasing shutter opening time), I would get, say, 0 to 80 levels of signal. Yes, the picture would look wrong – all bright – but if I do it that way I get 80 levels of black. I.e. I would preserve a lot more detail. I would of course need to reduce the levels again later in Lightroom or Photoshop, but I could do that in a way that allows me to choose which detail level to show.
And importantly, reducing the exposure also reduces the noise in that exposure (“the signal to noise ratio is higher”).
But too far, and we lose detail in the highlights (we hit the right side of the histogram).
So by “exposing to the right” and then reducing the exposure in post-production we:
So do I do this?
Well, I am not religious about it. Yes, I will often expose to the right. Willems’s Dictum says “Bright Pixels Are Sharp Pixels”. So as long as I can be sure I do not overexpose, I will go slightly brighter. I will check on my RGB histogram.
But not religious, because
So I do this in moderation.
Above all, though, I avoid exposing to the left, or underexposing. So you might summarise my workflow as “I always try to expose sufficiently to the right”.
Just one image from a portrait shoot of a very nice realtor, yesterday:
Lit with a Bowens key light in a softbox, an Opus fill light into an umbrella, an Opus hair/kick light with snoot, and for the background, a 430EX speedlite with Honl gel (fired through a Pocketwizard).
I like tilting realtors a little, for that contemporary dynamic look.