Category Archives: Learning

AdobeRGB or sRGB?

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Reader Yannick asks:

My friend and I have a lot of conversation about cameras and there’s something I wanted to bring up. He said you’d be the perfect person to answer this question. My friend shoots using adobe RBG colour space and I was telling him how sRBG has a slight advantage cause it’s the most commonly used settings and I believe you require some programs to make full use of adobe RBG. I’m not sure if I’m making any sense. But some clarification from your part would be greatly appreciated.

OK, thanks for the trust. Here’s my take on this important question.

If you shoot JPG, you need to decide what colour space to use: you set it in the camera.

  • The good: AdobeRGB is best for high-end print publications, while sRGB looks best on low- and medium-end printers and especially on computer screens.
  • The downsides: sRGB has fewer colours; Adobe looks very dull on computers.

So you decide based on your purpose. What is the colour space of the device or publication you are making the pictures for.

adobeRGB

If you do not know, then my recommendation is: shoot sRBG for general purpose use. That way your pictures look great on computers, in emails and on web sites, and printed at home. The very slight loss of colour space is not a problem there. Shooting in AdobeRGB and getting horrible flat colour on web browsers etc that do not handle that colour space well is much worse.

But the best thing to do by far is to shoot in RAW. That way you need only decide later, on your computer, when you produce your JPG. Until that time you keep all colours – and freedom.

 

Dust to dust…

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Your sensor will contain dust, eventually. Even self cleaning sensors eventually do collect dust. It looks like this:

To actually see this dust, as in the image above:

  • Use BULB mode
  • f/22 (smallest aperture)
  • Wider angle
  • Aim at a white surface, out of focus (use manual focus for this)
  • Click and wave the camera about. Try an exposure of 3 seconds. If too dark, make it 65. If too light, make it two. And so on.

Once you have the image, that shows you the dust you have.

If you need to clean, there are solutions (pads, brushes), but use them with care. Start with a blower, then use the brushes, then use wet pads. A photo store can tell you the pros and cons. Risky, maybe – but I have been doing it for years with no ill effects.

Pic of the day

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Look at this recent newspaper picture of Elizabeth May, the leader of Canada’s Green Party:

I shot that with a 16-35mm lens set to 33mm on a full frame camera. Exposure was 1/60th second at f/2.8 at 800 ISO, using – what else – bounce flash.The wide angle gives the image depth.

But ignore the technical details and ignore politics. Does this not show what a delightful people-person she is? And a politician who does not hide her wine glass when she sees the press gets full marks for integrity.

This is also a good example of a photo where the foreground is blurred and the background is sharp. That is why you pick your own focus point. If you use the “all focus points are used and the camera picks” mode, you will get the foreground object in focus. Which may not be what you want. Which is why photographers use just one focus point mos of the time.

Al's Not Home

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Canon cameras have several ways of deciding where to focus (these have to do with the focus spots), and two ways of deciding how to focus.

You call the latter “focus modes”, and there are two: “One Shot” and “AI Servo”.

  • One Shot means that the focus locks (you hear a beep and as long as you keep your finger on the shutter, that distance remains locked.
  • “AI” is A I, as in “Artificial Intelligence”, not “Al” as in “Alan”; and a servo motor is a closely controllled motor with feedback loop. So that mode just means “continuous focus”.

One Shot is for static subjects. AI Servo is for moving subjects,like these:

I shot that yesterday, for the local newspaper. So since the young lady would not stand still, I had set my camera to AI Servo mode.

Spending vs investing

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People often ask me “what should I buy?”

Interesting question, and one that occupies all of us.

To answer it, keep in mind that cameras will last for no longer than as little as seven years. Even Chuck Westfall of Canon said the other day:

“…digital cameras are no longer repaired by manufacturers seven years after the end of production”

Keep this in mind when deciding to invest. Realistically, five years is the most you’ll keep a camera. Less, usually: something cooler will become available next year.

Lenses are a different story. Lenses, especially good lenses like Canon’s “L”-range, will last you for decades and will keep much of their value for most of this time.

Buying cameras is spending; buying lenses is investing. Get the fastest (lowest “F”-number) lenses you can get, and enjoy.

Remember: when considering a lens, the lower the f-number, the better. Lower F-numbers (like f/2.8) mean the lens has more glass and lets more light in. In practice a lower f-number means three things:

  1. You can use the lens in lower light
  2. You can get faster shutter speeds
  3. You can blur the background more

So look at your lens.At the front. It says “1:3.5-5.6”, doesn’t it? That’s a kit lens. Ideally, you want a lens that says “2.8” or maybe “4”, meaning f/2.8 or f/4.Or maybe a fixed 50mmlens — 50mm f/1.8 is very affordable and stunning quality.

Anyway – what you should buy is up to you. I would put “good lenses” first and put useful accessories, like light shapers, flashes, spare batteries, etc high on the list also.

 

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?

 

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.

 

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!