Category Archives: Technique

Oh Canada

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Canada Day Special: User discount code “CanadaDay” upon checkout at http://learning.photography for 10% off all sales today. Books, shoots, courses. Today only!

Now that that is out of the way: remember my film shoot recently? Here’s a few scanned images from that first roll. Black’s photo prints, but also scans for an extra few dollars. So here’s 400 ASA Fuji colour film and what it can do when you use proper lighting and exposure.

At Vistek, just before starting a course:

Outdoors, the car: doesn’t look like 400 ASA.

A teen shoot, using flashes. I used my digital camera as a polaroid, to ensure proper exposure; consequently, all images great on film also. Pocketwizards. 400 ASA, 1/125th sec, f6.3:

My son, handheld outdoors, centre weighted metering:

Selfie… mirrored:

Scarlett Jane:

A rainy day:

And two more from the kid shoot:

All these are as good as digital images, for a mere $150 for the camera and $25 for film developing, printing and scanning. Of course, more care and attention is needed when shooting film: you cannot just shoot to see what happens. You have to be right before you shoot. But that makes you a better, more careful photographer. So.. go buy a film camera.

 

 

 

 

Situations…

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I shot a Sikh religious event today: Sagan ceremony and Akhand path. Fun, colourful people and decorations, and very nice people.

Picture 1: Can you tell it was a Sikh event?

I had two cameras: one with the 16-35mm lens, i.e. wide angle, and one with the 70-200mm lens, i.e. a telephoto lens. The challenge was that I shot in at least four different light environments: a marquee, outdoors, indoors in one room, and indoors in another room. And shooting in Manual exposure mode means a quick changing of all the variables every time you move from one environment to the next.

Indoors, the Willems 400-40-4 rule works great. Bounce the flash behind you and 400 ISO, 1/40 sec, and f/4 should give you minus 1 to minus 2 ambient light; the flash then does the rest. When using TTL, use flash compensation to adjust to taste.

In an event like this, moments are important; as is detail:

Tilting is OK if it helps you get more in, or for creative effect:

I used the wide lens as above with bounced (behind me) flash. But I used the long lens without flash. That needed 100-200 ISO outdoors, and up to 1000 ISO indoors at f/2.8—everything at f/2.8.

In practice, in a given situation, you choose values that are going to be close enough, then watch the meter and when you move, quickly yank aperture or shutter up or down to get a reading appropriate to the situation. Basically, it is a matter of getting close enough and then fine-tuning.

“Getting close” means 400/40/4 rule inside, “sunny sixteen” values outside, and whatever works (and remember the values) in other lighting situations.

In the marquee: 1/40, f/8, 800 ISO:

Storytelling images for me often involve a close-by sharp object with the story blurred in the background:

Outdoors, I used values like 1/160 sec, 100 ISO, f/8, with fill flash. Outdoors, that flash is aimed straight ahead, not bounced:

When you shoot a lot, these sorts of values will be simple. And then you can concentrate on the fun, the people, the compositions.

Event shooting is fun: learn to shoot an event like this and you can do a lot of great work. And remember: tell stories.

And: enjoy the experience, as I always do.

 

Before you know it.

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I remember when my children were babies. Like yesterday. One day they arrive (and having put them in there in the first place, I watched them pop out too, and yes, I am sure the term “pop” is making it sound waaaay too easy); a few days later you are holding them on your shoulder while they struggle to lift their little heads. Everyone who has children will remember this. And everyone who has children will also share this experience: about three days later you blink and they have graduated university and have jobs and cars and cameras, and they help you do complicated things.

Time moves quickly. And you cannot get it back. Our time on this planet, in one of billions of solar systems in our galaxy, which itself is one galaxy among billions, is limited. We came from stars, and we shall all return to stardust very soon.

And alas, we cannot travel in time, except to “where the casement slowly grows a glimmering square” (that’s Alfred, Lord Tennyson for you, yes, he battled depression for most of his life).

We cannot travel in time… except through photography.

Which is why you should photograph your kids. Or better still, have a pro do it. Properly, artistically, in a way you can’t, unless you have read this blog and bought my e-books and practiced for 10,000 hours and bought cases full of equipment.

So photographing kids is what I did for a friend today. Together, we photographed her kids. One is 12, the other almost 20. And we did this in style. Outdoors, by a bridge with graffiti. Using six flashes and countless speedlights—well, six speedlights to be precise.

We pictured them doing what kids do:

(400 ISO, 1/125 sec, f/11)

(400 ISO, 1/125 sec, f/11)

Those pictures are basically straight out of the camera (“SOOC”). And I am sure mom will like them on the wall. And later, the kids, who soon will have their own kids, will love them too. Time travel: accomplished.

I only used my 85mm f/1.2 lens (my friend used her 85mm lens too); on a full-frame camera. The shots were taken outside, during the day, under a graffiti-loaded bridge.

This is a case of “light from behind, fill from the front”, but the fill was ambient light.

The subjects were lit with four flashes driven by Pocketwizard radio triggers. Four speedlights: two on each side, in each case on a lightstand. One high on the light stand, one lower; thus providing a vertical band of light. (One light would lead to the head being brighter than the legs, or vice versa).

The background was lit too: we used two flashes aimed at the background graffiti, each fitted with a gel for colour. We switched up the colours regularly.

I set all flashes to manual mode, 1/4 power. 1/4 is a great starting point. At that power, f/8 should get you close. And indeed, little tuning was needed. I used the histogram to ascertain that the settings worked. I want to fill the histogram with light; I can reduce exposure later on the computer, if I choose. Also, 1/4 power means the flash can fire again rapidly and does not readily overheat.

Jumps are cool:

Getting close is cool, too:

Here, we did not use a light aimed straight from the camera onto the kids, because of the close wall: a nasty drop shadow would result. But aimed the other way, across the river, the wall was far, so there is no shadow problem:

(You see the reflections? If you have bought my last two books—see http://learning.photography—you will know that you always look for reflections).

And again, side lit from behind; this time with a fill light where we were. The fill light was set to 1/8 power, plus it was moved 40% further back than the other lights were (i.e., it was two stops darker: can you work out why?)

Here’s the pullback shot:

The technique described here works well, and if you master it, you will need to do very little “post” work. The images shown here are basically straight out of the camera—I took them just a few hours ago.

Last note. Why 400 ISO and 1/125 second? Because I also took some shots with my Nikon FE film camera and that has a flash sync speed on 1/125 sec and it is loaded with 400 ASA film. 🙂

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Now get some flashes and go wild. If you do not know how to do this, take some private training and I can teach you this stuff in a few hours. Go to http://learning.photography and book a one-on-one or small-group course now.

Alternately, just hire me to do your kids’ photos. You’ll have great pictures to remember today: once you have a photo, no-one can take today away from you. And, bonus: if you hire me, you will see how I do it and get what amounts to a free lesson along the way. Win-win.

It is truly worth doing: please, however you do it, do it and beat time at its own game.

Lighting a portrait

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Here’s a recent portrait of model Khoral in her rave outfit:

Cool, eh.

And here’s the lighting behind it.

We light each part of the picture separately. The model; the hair; and the background. Here’s how:

First, the main light, for the model. That is a softbox on a boom, close to Khoral. Why close? For two reasons, namely first that this makes it large as seen by her, and the light is therefore soft, and I can dispense with the fill light; second, that this way I do not light the background. And that is important: it needs to be dark.

Then the fill on her opposite side. I did not need it here, since the softbox is on a boom and lights her face fairly evenly. Any less light on our left and I would use a reflector, or a second light, for that side.

Then the hair. I have a light behind her on our right, aimed toward us, at a 45 degree angle. This light is fitted with a snoot, which restricts it to a narrow beam, so it lights only her hair, Shampooey goodness!

Finally, back to that background. First, I used a black backdrop. Then, the main light was close to the model so that the intensity is not high; hence., the background stays black. And only if it is black can I give it colour. Which is what I do using a flash on the left fitted with a grid, 1/4″, and a gel, purple. Why purple? Because it goes well with her hair and clothing.

And that’s it. Now all I need to do is set the lights to the right brightness, using a meter or trial and error. And then I am done, and we can shoot.

The flashes were lit by Pocketwizard radio slaves, except for the hair light which is operated by its cell (it detects a flash and goes off at the same time). The camera was set to the usual studio settings: 1/125 sec, f/8, 200 ISO.

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Want to learn this? Come for a studio lighting session: book it now on http://learning.photography

 

Speed

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Shutter speed is important where there’s motion.

Water in rapids, Thursday, at 1/20 second:

The same, but now at 1/800 second:

Which one is best? Your call!

To be a great photographer, you need to get experience with what shutter speed might be suitable for what subjects. And you can do this thanks to the fact your camera is digital: no cost. So I suggest you spend time trying many different shutter speeds.

Like here, more water, at 2 seconds:

Now, 1.6 seconds, and you can see that it is very subtly different:

At 1/13 second we see a very different picture:

There is no “correct” speed. It depends. Do you want to see detail, or smoothness? How much? And that depends on two things: what it is you are shooting, and how fast it moves. Generally speaking, a smooth surface should be shot at very slow speeds, while a textured surface needs a faster speed, so that you can see some of that texture.

Assignment: Go try to shoot something that moves, in particular a river, lake, river, stream, sea, or ocean. Have fun!

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Have you had a look at my five e-books? All are over 100 pages long, well organized, illustrated, and a great source of information that gets you started immediately. Head over to learning.photography now!

 

 

Polarizer

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Happy summer (southern hemisphere friends, happy winter…)

Summer. Hence Sun. Right? So you need a polarizing filter for your lenses?

Yes, this is a good filter to have. A polarizer, as you know if you have been reading, actually does stuff:

  1. If you turn it to the correct angle, it makes the sky go darker (best at one angle, roughly perpendicular to the sun).
  2. It removes reflections (non-metallic reflections, like those on the surface of water).
  3. It can often help saturate colours (especially greens, like in vegetation).
  4. Fringe benefit: it darkens a little (usually, about a stop), so it acts like an ND filter. But just a little.

Here, a polarizer. In picture 1, it lets through polarized light (emitted by the LCD screen). In picture two, it is rotated to let through less. In picture three, it is rotated to allow even less polarized light to enter; and picture 4, none.

Below, the same while looking at the sky, which emits polarized light as well as unpolarized light: no polarizer; a polarizer rotated to allow in most polarized light; and one rotated to allow in almost no polarized light.

You will hear many people talk about “circular polarizers”, as opposed to “linear polarizers” You need a circular one for a digital camera. Let me explain.

A linear polarizer is just a polarizer. It lets through all, or none, or some amount of, polarizer light. But polarized light like this can confuse your camera’s AF and exposure sensors. So a circular polarizer is one that has two layers: the polarizer, followed by a filter that makes the light circularly polarized (basically, unpolarized). That way, no bad effect on the AF anmd exposure sensors.

This also allows you very easily to see whether your polarizer is circular: a circular polarizer only works one way. Turn it around (screw threat in front), and it does not work. Because the second filter makes the light basically unpolarized, so that the subsequent polarizer does not do anything.

So if your polarizer works the same whether you look through it one way or the other way, it is a linear polarizer, and will give you problems.

Here’s a polarizer taking away reflections (again, only off non-metallic surfaces):

Note that a polarizer can give you issues with mirrorless cameras. My Fuji x100, for instance, does not show the real effect when I use the electronic viewfinder. Beware!

Finally, a sequence with the polarizer turned to let progressively less polarized light in (using the Fuji x100):

You will note in the last images that part of the sky is darker than other parts of the sky. Yhis is becuse, as said earlier, teh angle matters. Parallel to the sun (i,.e.. the sun is behind you or in front of you) the polarizer does very little; at 90 degree angles it does a lot more. The only solution: use a longer lens.

And the last note: if you have only one polarizer, you can use only one lens? Nope. here, I used a large thread polarizer, a 77mm, simply held in front of the tiny x100 lens. Where there’s a will…

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Have you had a look at my five e-books? All are over 100 pages long, well organized, illustrated, and a great source of information that gets you started immediately. Head over to learning.photography now!

Stay Tuned!

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Stay tuned to this place. In the next week, lots of interesting articles coming up, spanning subjects from learning to hardware. One new item: I will have the world premiere review of a new small flash modifier you should get. Can’t tell you more, but you will learn soon enough.

Learning Photography: as you know, there are my courses and my e-books. What you may not know is how well they tie in together, and what the benefits are of learning from me, specifically. So check out this article on the e-store site.

I posted this yesterday, and a fellow pro asked me to explain:

This is what I would call an abstract landscape picture. Clearly nature, and nothing man-made, but abstract, almost, in form.

Here’s the larger scene:

(f/22, 1/25 sec, ISO100)

And here, larger still:

(f/22, 1 sec, 100 ISO)

…all from a photo road trip yesterday.

So, the settings.

First, I used slow-ish to slow shutter speeds. As you know, I get those by using low ISO and high f-number, but even at the lowest ISO and highest f-number on a typical lens/camera combo, you will not go able to go slower than say 1/60 or 1/30 second. So I needed a Neutral Density (ND filter. I used my variable ND filter, which is able to go 8 stops darker if need be.

OK, so we can do a slow shutter (for which we must use a tripod). But how slow?

It depends!

For getting rid of all motion you need very slow. Like 10-20 seconds:

(1 sec at f/22, ISO100)

A smooth surface should be a smooth surface, so, the longer the better. 8 seconds, this one.

Waterfalls, a little less slow, since I want to see some texture of the water and its violence. The second pic uses 1/25th sec.

And the picture at the top? Here, too, excessive smoothing takes away the effect. I want to see violence, motion, speed! But I do want to do some smoothing. So I used 1/4 second. Perfect compromise.

Concluding: depending on lens etc, but as a rough guideline, 1/25 sec, 1/4 sec /  1 sec / 10 seconds are typical values for “a tiny bit of smoothing”, “visible smoothing”, “more smoothing”, and “extreme smoothing”. (And of course if I want tp freeze motion it’s 1/1000 sec or faster).

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All this is also discussed also in my NEW  “Stunning Landscapes” e-book.  Get it here, now.

Cast of thousands

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OK… cast of three. Three photographers, namely my friend Howard, his friend and fellow photographer, and myself, is what it takes to quickly do portraits in the sun. As we did today.

Here’s the setup:

Camera Settings—The camera is set to Manual mode, as follows:

  • ISO 100. Always use this value, in bright sunlight.
  • 1/250 sec. Always use this value, in bright sunlight. (Or whatever fastest shutter speed your camera can handle when using flash)
  • And the adjustable value is the aperture… to get the right saturated (i.e. darker) sky etc I set it to f/10.

The flash is a studio strobe with a battery kit; fitted with a softbox. It is 45 degrees above the subject, off to one side. It is fired via Pocketwizards and adjusted manually to match the f/10 value. A sandbag stops it from toppling over, which otherwise it would, in the slightest breeze.

Using A Scrim—A scrim (a reflector without the cover, making it a translucent area that lets through light but softens it) is used to stop direct light falling onto the subject. Look at these two: first without scrim, then with.

Look at the face and neck, and now look at face and neck in the “with scrim” sample:

Need I say more?

Why I Used Flash—if I had not used a flash, I would have needed three stops more light, and the picture would have looked washed out—the snapshot aesthetic:

It’s not bad, but it’s not great. My style is very different:

With a few minor adjustments to the flash direction:

And there you have it. Straight out of camera, a nice portrait. And one more for good measure:

Mission accomplished: nice portraits made, portraits that reflect the subjects’ great, happy personality and as an extra, their excellent dress– and colour–sense. And portraits that elicit a “wow”, and that do not look like Uncle Fred’s work. And it’s all done in camera, not in Photoshop/Lightroom.

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You can learn this stuff too—see www.learning.photography and contact me to set up a training date.

 

 

 

Keeping it simple

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Today I shot some photos of the tenth Toronto Annual World Naked Bike Ride. So if nude human bodies offend you (and I truly hope they do not: I cannot see why they should), you do not need to read on.

If, however, you want to learn a little sunny day snap technique, read on.

Above: the snappers snapped. I photographed the “getting ready” part, in Coronation Park, right at the lakeshore in downtown Toronto. There are always curious people at an event like this who come out with their DSLRs to snap something that apparently they have never seen: “nude!!! women!!!”. My advice to those people: grow up, or at at least gather up some courage and get naked yourselves, too.

As a lens, I chose the 24-70 f/2.8 zoom. A zoom for convenience, and that one because it is razor sharp. Camera was the 1Dx.

And it was a mainly sunny day. Easy, therefore. Right?

No. Sunny days give contrasty light, ugly hard shadows, and washed out colours.  I want the opposite.

And to get that I want to use, you guessed it, my flash. That enables me to make the background a little darker, meaning saturated colours; and it fills in the shadows. Even a bare on-camera flash. So that is what I used. Without a flash I would have had to expose faces etc with ambient light, and the backgrounds would have had to be very bright. And washed out.

I want to not have too dark a background when I am using an unmodified on camera flash. So my technique is:

  • Camera on manual.
  • Flash in TTL mode, aimed straight ahead. I used a 600EX flash.
  • 100 ISO
  • 1/250th sec (synch speed)
  • Now choose an aperture that gives you a slightly dark background. Depending on cloud cover, this can be between f/5.6 and f/16. If your subject is not in direct sunlight, i.e. if you manage to find a little shade, you may well get away with f/5.6.
  • Constantly watch the light. If clouds cover the sun, be ready to go down in aperture number.

My aperture was between 5.6 and 11 for most of the day.

And as you see, the pictures have a nice vivid look. Without flash, I could not have done that. Take this:

1/250 sec, 100 ISO and f/6.3. If she had been entirely in the sun, I would have needed a higher f-number.

One more, and again you see the vividness, and the nice saturated colours, that only flash can help you achieve on a sunny day:

That was 1/250th, ISO100, f/9. So again, I watch the light constantly and adjust the f-number only.

Here, I am using f/5.6:

I.e. here I have a little more ambient light, for a lighter look. Each picture can be different; you need to get a feel for the light.

So in conclusion: for sunny day snaps, you’ll do better if you have a flash available. And in that case use ISO 100, 1/250th sec (or 1/200, if that is the maximum your camera handles with flash), and then just vary aperture from 5.6 up. Flash on TTL, perhaps dialled down a little (note: I say may because a Canon camera does this anyway if you have bright ambient conditions: it assumes that you want simple fill flash.)

Enjoy. (And I hope Naked News TV uses the interview they did with me!)

FOOTNOTE: last day for the Father’s Day Specials. Please check http://learning.photography for them. Portrait, lesson and book discounts for dad. Got to buy by tomorrow!

 

Manual or TTL?

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For chiaroscuro shots like this, of a Sheridan student Monday night, I prefer manual flash power settings to TTL (automatic flash metering).

(1/125 sec at f/10, ISO 200.)

Why? Because TTL may try to average this and will therefore overexpose the bright areas. If I do it manually, once it is set correctly, it is set correctly, period.

Unless, that is, I change the distance between light source and object that is being lit. Closer gives me this:

And farther gives me this:

That’s because of the Inverse Square Law. The brightness decreases with the square of the distance. Twice as far means 4x less light. 3x farther means 9x less light (since 3×3=9).

And

  • 1.4 times farther means 2x less light, i.e. one stop less, since 1.41 (the square root of two) times 1.41 is 2.
  • 0.7 times closer means 2x more light, i.e. one stop more, since 0.7 (1 divided by the square root of two) times 0.7 is 1/2.

So—and remember this: every time I want one stop more light, I move a flash 30% closer (to 0.7x the original distance); and every time I want a stop less light, I move the flash 40% farther (to 1.4x the original distance).

See? Math can be useful! Who’d have thunk.