Tip of the day: today a tip that will save you money.
Get yourself one (or a few) of these.
$1 at the dollar store will get you several. And you use them to keep dust and sand off the camera, off your lenses, and away from your camera’s switches and openings. Dust that is not on your camera will not get into your camera.
And like a cleaner drives more smoothly (proven fact), a cleaner camera takes better pictures.
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.
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.
This is what the cat looks like, when shot using my 7D, hand-held using the 35mm f/1.4L lens in available Tungsten light, slightly cropped, at 3200 ISO:
I am not going through the trouble of showing the full crop because I want to make a point. And that point is: we often over-analyse. As you see here, indoors, low light, 3200 ISO with a fast lens, and you get images that look great at 1200 pixels wide and in a moderate-sized print.
A reminder to all flash photographers: you need your shutter speed to be below the camera’s flash synch speed.
What does this mean? Let me explain.
The flash fires for the briefest period, of course. Like 1/2000th of a second. That is why we call it a flash.
So when it fires, if the light is to reach the entire film or sensor, the shutter needs to be totally open at that point.
That much is obvious. But what is not obvious is that there is an engineering limitation in your shutter. Beyond a certain shutter speed, the camera’s synch speed, the shutter never totally opens. Instead, a small (increasingly narrow) slit travels across the shutter to give each pixel a brief exposure time.That’s cool – the shutter does not have to be super-fast and expensive and you get a fast shutter speed.
But this gets in the way when you are using flash. When you fire during those short exposure times (on most modern cameras, faster than about 1/200th second), the light does not reach the entire sensor. Look at this example I shot to illustrate this, at speeds from 1/200th to 1/1000th sec:
You can see that as I exceed the sync speed, the light only reaches part of the shutter.
You should also note that especially when using external flashes with Pocketwizards or similar, flash takes time to set up. My 1Ds MKIII has a synch speed f 1/25oth second but as you see, at that speed it is already beginning to cut off. Best stay a bit below your synch speed (I typically set my shutter, when I am using studio flash, to 1/125th second).
(There is a way to overcome that: fast flash, which some high end flash units offer. This continuously, all the time that the shutter travels, pulses the flash at a very rapid rate, so that the slit, as it travels across the sensor, has light coming in throughout its travel time. It works great – do use it when taking flash images outside – but it uses a lot of energy, and hence decreases the range of your flash.)
(Advanced tip: I know of at least one photographer who uses this effect to introduce an electronic version of a neutral density filter or a barn door: he sets his camera to 1/320th second while using flash, and turns the camera upside down. That makes the top part of the image dark, at least as far as the flash part of the light is concerned!)
A studio need not be expensive. Even a light or two – affordable strobes – and a few reflectors and a backdrop will do it.
This is a setup I often take on the road:
Easier than it seems and this results in good pictures. Even, sometimes, when you use just one light and a reflector.
And instead of the light meter, consider using the histogram.
This is one of those tips that is too simple to be written, almost – but that is enormously important.
How do you hold your camera?
I ask because it is very important to hold it steady. Even a slight shake will result in blur.
And yes, that applies even if you have a stabilised lens (like a Nikon “VR” lens or a Canon “IS” lens), useful as they are (and they are). We often underestimate the effect of motion. Even at, say, 1/125th or 1/250th second. “Lens length times two”? That is a estimate, and a rough one. A starting point. But unless youthe more steady your camera, the better your pictures.
It all starts with you holding your camera steady. Of course a tripod is the gold standard. But failing that, hold your camera the way I am holding mine in the image above. If your lens is long, hold it as far forward as possible. In any case, hold it with your left hand as I am showing you here.
Simple but effective in reducing vibration to a minimum. Your photos’ sharpness will improve as a result. Visibly.
How do I take one of these with my new 7D?
I set the camera on a tripod and use pocketwizards to fire one flash into an umbrella. One flash gives me that severe look, but to slightly lessen that, I have a reflector on the other side (camera left). I used a 35mm f/1.4L lens on the 7D, meaning an effective lens length of about 50mm. The “Nifty fifty”!
I set my camera to 100 ISO – best quality, and background light does not upset the shot. And I am in manual mode, at f/8 (enough DOF) and 1/125th second. I use autofocus where the camera selects a focus point, This time. I will – because as the subject I cannot see what I am doing.
Finally, I use the timer of course. So I can press the shutter while I hold my hand out; then sit down as the camera beeps.
And then I check: sharp enough? Nice graduated tones from dark to light? Catchlights in the eyes? Check!
Today, a few quick tips for shooting landscapes.
Northern Israel, 2007
Follow these:
Tools:
Composition:
And your pictures will be better!
…are studio flash pictures so much sharper than available light pictures? Like, always?
Whatever you do, available light may look great – but when you zoom in close, it is not perfect.
Studio is much better. Look at this picture I just took with my Canon 7D at f/11, 1/125th sec, 100 ISO, using two studio strobes driven by a pair of Pocketwizards:
Zoom in and it is spectacular. This is the original size (once you click), and utterly unaltered:
Why is this so much better?
Let me tell you some differences. I count six:
So it is not so much one factor. It is the combination of all of them. In a studio you have all of them your way; in available light, many, sometimes all, are not ideal. That is why studio flash is so much crisper.
Have I left anything out, anyone?