Category Archives: Technique

How do I start

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When I shoot, I usually have my camera in manual exposure mode.

Easy, of course, just watch the meter, and there are only three ways to make a picture brighter (lower “f-number”, higher ISO, slower shutter), and vice versa – but I am often asked: “but where do you start“?

There are three answers to that.

One: experience, and the Sunny Sixteen rule. But that is not the most usefu answer, by itself.

Two: Put the camera into “P” or “A/Av” mode, and read the camera’s suggested settings; then enter those into “M” mode as a starting point.

But three: my algorithm is the following:

  1. Set ISO to what is needed. Outdoors bright 200, indoors 400-800, and “difficult light” 1600-3200.
  2. Set aperture to what I want/what is feasible. Depending on the lens and what I want as sharp depth of field area.
  3. Set shutter to the right speed for a good exposure reading.
  4. If that shutter speed is too slow, increase ISO, or if possible open the aperture. Then adjust.

You will find that if you do this a lot, it gets easier. And you will be a good photographer: being in charge is better than letting machines decide, however good those machines are.

Tomorrow, my signature flash course at Vistek in Toronto. Early night tonight!

 

Of Indoors Flash, And The Mode You Use

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When you shoot with a flash indoors, what exposure mode should your camera be in?

Of course I would say “manual” – my camera is almost always in manual exposure mode. But why do I say that? Why manual – why not, say, aperture mode?

Let me explain. Here’s what the cameras allow the shutter speed to be in the various modes:

The Canon engineers decided that:

  • in Aperture mode (Av), the camera will expose as it sees fit. That could mean a shutter speed of, say, three seconds… not ideal!
  • in Program mode (P), the shutter shall not be slower than 1/60th second. Also not ideal: unless you like very high ISOs, you may well want to go to 1/30th or even 1/15th, when using a wide lens, to get enough ambient light in.

The Nikon engineers decided that:

  • In both A and P modes, the shutter shall not be slower than, usually, 1/60th second. Not ideal: unless you like very high ISOs, you may well want to go to 1/30th or even 1/15th, when using a wide lens, to get enough ambient light in.
  • In both A and P modes, when you enable the “Slow Flash” setting, the camera will allow slow shutter speeds to expose as it sees fit. That could mean a shutter speed of, say, three seconds… not ideal, either.

So neither of those modes are perfect for indoors flash shots. Hence, S/Tv, or better, M is the way to go!

 

Light Shifter

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Your camera, as regular readers here know, is a light shifter. It shifts light to not “what it is”, but “what you want”.


So the first question you always (always) ask when doing a flash shot is, what should the ambient light do? What do I want?

And then you arrange your exposure triangle (Aperture, shutter speed, ISO) according to that need.

And then you add the flash.

The failure to do this leads to more flash confusion than anything else. It also leads to a creative failure. The studio may be well lit, but why use it like that? Increase shutter speed, close down the aperture, and lower ISO, and you can get a bright studio looking like this:

So again, when doing any flash shot at all, your first question is not about the flash, but about the embient.

I am teaching flash tonight st Sheridan College. Saturday at Vistek in Toronto. And in the coming weeks in Hamilton:  http://www.cameratraining.ca/Schedule.html it is worth being there if you want to unleash your creativity.

Sam The Studio Man

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When I prepare a tricky shot, I tend to use  stand-in model while I work on light, so the model does not need to stand there for half an hour while I adjust and move lights.

But these stand-in shots are often good, which is why I use them. While preparing to shoot model Danielle, I shot Sam Taylor, who runs the studio I teach in (see www.cameratraining.ca and click on “Schedule”).

I set my exposure for the window: 1/60th sec, f/5.6, 400 ISO. Then I added a strobe with a softbox, and I moved Sam far enough from the window so the strobe would light him up (from 45 degrees above), but would not light up the reflective inside of the window too much. And then I set flash power according to my camera settings. Finally, I did a little desaturating in Lightroom. Result:

Short lighting, great grunge, serious expression, rule of thirds, good balance of background and foreground. A tricky shot, and one I am delighted with.

One of my students remarked on how refreshing it was to see the problem solving process, and to realize that photography is in fact problem solving, yes it is. When I set up a shot, I do not have all the answers, but I see what I want, and I know how to solve problems “step by step” until I get that result.

And sometimes you change your mind. In the final model shot, I could not move the model away from the window, as she sat on the sill. Hence I could not get rid of a shadow cast by the snooted speedlight I ended up using. So then the shot changes entirely: if you cannot beat the shadow, embrace it! To spare those of you who are sensitive, I shall not show you that shot here (it’s a nude),  but if you are interested, click here to go to my tumblr feed.

(By the way: have you considered being photographed this way? if not: consider it. Some beautiful shots of yourself like this are worth making. If you don’t, you may well regret it later in life).

 

Separate!

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Tip of the day: separate your subject from the background.

Like in a portrait like this, of my friend and student, talented photographer Adnan, (using one off-camera speedlight). I suppose it is “OK”, but no more than that.

…but there is no separation between the subject’s head and the background.

Better, use either a hairlight or simply a better background:

We still have the dramatic look, but now we see where Adnan ends and the background starts. And now I could make it black and white:

Simple portrait rules like this make all the difference!

 

Bon appétit

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Since I am hungry, I think a quick Food Photography recipe is in order. Here’s food, from the other day:

My way of shooting food:

  1. I shoot from a 40 degree angle, roughly.
  2. I use selective focus
  3. I use one soft light, and a back light. This can be natural light, or flash.
  4. I crop tightly.
  5. I like to make it look natural – with cutlery, etc.
  6. I arrange things as carefully as I can, and clean plates etc. after arranging.

If you use flash, here’s what you need: a table, the food, a flash with an umbrella above the food, and a flash behind the food aiming at you, possibly with some kind of modifier too, to provide what in portraits I would call “shampooy goodness”, and in food “yummy goodness”. That is all (well – that and the camera).

That’s what it looked like the other day, when I helped a student do some food shots.

And the shots looked like the one above, and like this:

Student Rhonda was kind enough to leave me the fruit cakes, and I ate them. Yum.

 

 

Trixie

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I shall now repeat a flash trick I have mentioned here before years ago. Time for a refresher.

You all know how important it is to avoid, at least when the flash is on your camera, direct flash light reaching your subject. Both in order to avoid “flat” light, and especially to avoid those nasty drop shadows, like this (don’t do this at home, kids):

But you have also heard me talk (and those who come to my upcoming flash courses will learn hands-on) that you should “look for the virtual umbrella”. For most lighting, this means 45 degrees above, and in front of, the subject.

So when you are close to that subject, you aim your flash behind you to get to that point. Good.

But what when you are far, as when using a telephoto lens? Then the “virtual umbrella” may be in front of you. And aiming your flash forward is a no-no, since the subject will be lit in part by direct light.

A-ha. Unless you block the direct part of that light!

Like this:

As you see, I use a Honl Photo bounce card/gobo to block the direct light. Simple, affordable, and very effective. I use either the white bounce side, or the black flag side, depending on the ceiling and position.

Simple, effective – done!

And one more thing. Direct flash is not bad per sé. Not at all. As long as it is not coming from where your lens is, it can be very effective, like in this “funny face” shot of a recent student (you know who you are):

Lit by a direct, unmodified flash. And the hairlight, the shampooy goodness? Yeah. The sun. Just saying.

(And yes, that too is something I will teach those of you who sign up for one of my upcoming flash courses.)

 

Humdrum to competent in easy steps

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One thing I teach photographers in my flash courses (like the one I teach tomorrow in Hamilton – hint, just two spaces left) is to take pictures away from what Uncle Fred does. You know Uncle Fred, the guy with the camera, who always carries it but h knows little about how it works. Every family has one.

If Uncle Fred knows about exposure (which is not at all a given!) he might produce this:

So he has exposed for the subject. Good. But a little boring.

I prefer this:

By using flash I have achieved:

  1. A much better background, with colour and saturation.
  2. My subject is now the Bright Pixels (and remember Willems’s Dictum: Bright Pixels Are Sharp Pixels).
  3. We have shaped the subject’s face. Flat light “from where the camera is” is boring and makes faces look flat.
  4. We have catch lights!

Not bad, and not difficult. Simply:

  1. Camera to manual
  2. Expose for the background, keeping shutter below 1.250th
  3. Bounce flash up and left (or right)

Oh. That was easy.

Yes, and those of you who read here and especially those of you who are my students tomorrow will learn this, and a whole lot more.

 

 

Noooo….. not me….. noooo…..

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We all, as photographers, encounter people who do not want to be photographed.

Usually, in my experience, women; and usually because “I am too old”, “I don’t have any make-up on”; “I am not photogenic”… and so on. Sometimes “because the images will get onto the Internet”.

Whatever the reason, what are we as photographers to do?

I think the answer comes in several forms.

First and foremost: be sensitive to this. If I were in charge, no medical doctor would be allowed to graduate without first having undergone a digital rectal exam, and no photographer could use that job title without first being photographed, preferably in the nude.  In other words, you need to be sensitive to others’ hesitation to be photographed. After age 30, we all think of ourselves as permanently 25 – except me, because I know I am 25.  And these silly camera things distort us so we look older!

Second, try to assure these subjects that if they let you take their photo, they can look at it and you’ll delete what they do not like. You need to have skills for this (hence all my courses), but it is worth it. Skills like not lighting in an unflattering way, using flash, keeping parts dark, and so on.

Third: use tricks. Like this, one of my favourite party shots. I tell hesitant subjects “I’ll blur you – hold out your drink, I’ll show you”.

The usual reaction is “awesome”.

Or try more unusual shots, like these:

There too, the usual reaction is “awesome”.

Finally: do respect the “no” and walk away, but do try again later. Often people change their mind. In photography, sometimes “no” means “No, but I hope you persuade me”.

 

Simplicity – with a capital “S”

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If anything, my mantra has always been: “keep it simple” – reduce everything to the essence and you have a much better product. I am big on this in business, in photographic composition, in presentations; in teaching; in writing (do it in half the words!). In just about everything. Simple is good.

Including in computers, and that is why I use a Mac, and that is also why the book I just read, “Insanely Simple” by Ken Segall, struck such a chord. Get this book – Ken is an advertiser who worked with Steve Jobs for many years and relates his view on why Apple is great very succinctly (and, I think, gets it right: one word: “Simplicity”). Another example: go choose a laptop at Apple.com. Go do it, Right now. Ah, you’re back after a minute? Good. Now go choose one at Dell.com. Good luck, and see you in a few weeks.

Such a relief to read this. I have been saying this for decades: a great consultant makes complicated things simple; a not-so-good consultant makes simple things complicated. Steve Jobs understood this like no other. Cell phones were brain dead.. he made one that wasn’t. It’s not as though I and many others had not been saying that for years – we just did not have the power to change things. I used to curse at my Blackberry’s stupidity – designed by people who apparently took delight in making things complicated. They took the easy way out.

You see, simple is difficult to do, and difficult is simple to achieve. It is easy to make a bad phone, hard to make it simple and intuitive. Be lazy – let the client do the work! Like the makers of TVs today. I, and the four remotes on my table, do hope Apple breaks apart that market, too, and very soon.

In photography, it’s the same. Simple means thinking “how can I reduce this photo to its essence”?

Perhaps by using a long lens with a wide aperture, to make the background blurry:

Or by tilting up to keep things out of the picture, as in this 15-second exposure:

Or by angling to keeping a landscape simple, as in this image made near Drumbo, Ontario:

Or by cropping to make things simple:

or by using simple light – my favourite outdoors light by far is a single umbrella with an off-camera flash, sometimes with a second flash to be the hairlight (although I prefer to use the sun for that, from behind). Here’s a two flash setup:

Which gives us:

Or by leaving out light:

Sometimes I fail, like in this image where I inexplicably did not trim off the leaves on the left:

But when this “light from one flash” works well, which it usually does, it works very well:

So my message is: go the extra mile to simplify your images. However you do it, simplifying is a way to reduce an image to its essence; to get clarity in your work.

Simple minds think that simple is bad. Sophisticated minds know that simple is good.

POSTSCRIPT – ADDED:

Let me illustrate… this is how dumb TV systems are. To turn on my TV, I need to:

1. Aim remote at cable box
2. Press “cable” on remote
3. Press POWER
4. Aim at TV
5. Press “TV” on remote
6. Press POWER
4. Aim at audio amp
5. Press “Audio” on remote
6. Press POWER
7. Press “Cable”
8. Adjust volume and choose channel
9. Put down remote
10. Grab Apple remote
11. Aim at Apple TV
12. Press MENU
13. if Apple tv is to be watched:
a) grab remote
b) press TV
c) press INPUT
d) select APPLE TV
e) grab Apple remote
d) select program

I cannot imagine why we allow this nonsense. APPLE, WHERE ARE YOU!