Shake-free trick

Posted on October 17, 2009 by Michael Willems

You all know that when you take handheld pictures at low shutter speeds (like 1/15th second on a 35mm lens) you do not get sharp pictures like this:

Actually. you can. I took that picture hand-held – holding the camera with only one hand! – at those very settings. And no, the lens is not a “VR” (Nikon) or “IS” (Canon) stabilized type.

So how did I do this? Other than of course having a rock-stead hand?

Just kidding about the hand. Here’s the first five pictures I took:

So how many sharp ones? One in five, and for me, that’s about what I get when I handhold the camera in one hand at half the lens length.

The point, of course, is that even with bad conditions like that, you’ll still get the odd accidentally sharp picture. If you need the picture to be sharp, shoot a lot. Click-click-click-click-click-click. It’s OK – sometimes you have to do it without a tripod even though you should be using one (and you know it!), and you’ll still get the odd sharp pictures even then.

(I’ll tell no-one if you don’t.)

My friend "Mofia"

Posted on October 14, 2009 by Michael Willems

Mofia, pronounced as in “more Fire”, who is himself a talented photographer, in a few typical poses – his poses:

All this in my basement studio. You can equip a studio very quickly and easily (I teach people how to do this). And guess what? That’s all shot using one strobe. One light, that’s right. And a reflector. Not four or five lights!

Sometimes you can't get it.

Posted on October 14, 2009 by Michael Willems

Like the other day when I shot a company event in the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto. Shooting the Stanley Cup was tough, and sometimes you just have to take what you can get.

This quick grab-shot of the Original Stanley cup is illustrative. The cup reflects and you have to get close in a small room (the vault). Little space for umbrellas. The Plexiglas around the object reflects. The Plexiglas behind the object reflects, too. The existing lights cannot be turned off. Oh and there is limited time.

So then, you get this – best I could do under the circumstances. And my hands give it charm. That’s my theory and I am sticking to it.

One thing to keep in mind: flash systems will be confused by strong reflections. Either switch to centre-weighted flash metering, or use FEC (Flash compensation) of up to +2 or +3 stops, as needed.

Haze? No problem.

Posted on October 13, 2009 by Michael Willems

Here is a simple but effective technique: if your background is hazy, blurry: put something sharp against it in the foreground. Like in this picture:

You get benefits that include:

Better foreground subject definition
No-one minds that the background is hazy – it is a benefot, not a drawback, so everyone’s happy.
3D into your picture.

It’s all good!

The mysteries of life…

Posted on October 10, 2009 by Michael Willems

Take your flash and put it on your camera:

Aim at a subject while looking through the viewfinder. Take a picture.

Did you see the flash? Through the viewfinder? Yes you did.

How is this possible? When the picture is taken on an SLR, the mirror is raised. When the mirror is raised, the viewfinder is black. So it is impossible that you see the flash through the viewfinder. You cannot have seen what you just saw!

Those of you who do not know, click on.

Continue reading →

Flash help

Posted on October 9, 2009 by Michael Willems

Excellent session tonight: I did a training session with two truly excellent wedding photographers: Ruby from Phoenix and Baz from Ottawa. The subject was modern-but-complex flash technologies: multi flash, custom settings, dramatic flash, modern modifiers, and more.

Believe me, wedding photography is a tough job that takes enormous talent – and these two people have it in droves. If I have been able to contribute even the slightest amount to their excellent shoots becoming even more successful, that is enormously gratifying. And we had fun.

My workspace

Posted on October 9, 2009 by Michael Willems

A snap of my office I just took:

Like that? It’s a snap, but it looks… well, three-dimensional. Doesn’t it?

Do you know why? Those who have been in my classes do. It is because I am using the “close-far” technique. I zoom all the way out to the widest angle I can (which was 16mm on the 7D, meaning about 25mm), and then I get close to something. Very close. As close as I can.That makes the close object look extra big – hence extra close, while the background looks small – hence, far away.

Exposure compensation for drama

Posted on October 8, 2009 by Michael Willems

…is the most important control after focus, if you use your camaera’s semi-automatic modes.

What does it do? It makes the picture darker and light.er But how? Does it change the pixels? Adjust the ISO? Change aperture? Do processing in the chip? What?

Actually it is very simple.

You use exposure compensation (the +/- button on your camera) only in modes where the camera is already adjusting something.

If you are in aperture mode (A/Av), the camera constantly adjusts the shutter speed to match the light. If you are in shutter speed mode (S/Tv), the camera adjusts the aperture. In Program mode (P), the camera adjusts either/both.

All you are saying with +/1 is “I want you to do that as usual, but to do it slightly differently to how you’d normally set it. + means do what you do but make it brighter than you’d normally do; – means do what you do but make it darker than you’d normally do (like in the picture below).

So in Av/A mode, it adjusts the time as usual but to a slightly different value. In Tv/S mode, ditto for the aperture. In P mode, either.

No magic, then.

Aerial picture tips

Posted on October 7, 2009 by Michael Willems

Since I have not been on an airplane for a year, I thought it might be time to tell you how to take pictures from one. And in sort, it is like this:

Carry your camera, no bag, “underneath the seat in front of you”. Keep it discreetly when flight attendants walk by. A camera does not in any way endanger the aircraft. You could put the strap intop your seat belt to avoid the camera flying off in case of turbulence.
Sit near a window (but not over the wing…).
Wait until the plane banks, after take-off or before landing (as when turning final in the picture of Manhattan above).
Aperture mode, wide open, perhaps 100-200 ISO. Or you could try “sports” or “portrait” modes.
Get close to the window – close, but no touching.
Zoom in, but not extremely so: use the widest angle you can to still get the right composition. Wide angles are less susceptible to vibration.
Shoot repeatedly, as much at right angles to the window as you can.

Finally: you will find many aerial shots to be somewhat hazy. That can be fixed if the problem is not extreme. In Photoshop, do a “levels” adjustment to ensure the histogram goes from black to white.

It is as simple as that!

Picture

Posted on October 6, 2009 by Michael Willems

Wide angles are nice. And so are the colours we see in cities when buildings reflect light. Like in Toronto the other day, on my way to work on Queen and Church:

For a handheld picture like this, I do the following:

Set exposure compensation (the “plus-minus button” on your camera) to minus one stop as a starting point and adjust as needed (to +1 if needed!). That gives me the nice rich blue.
Set the camera to pick a focus point by itself, out of all the available (3, 9, 11, or 39, depending on your camera) focus points. This is about the only time I do this: usually, I pick a focus point myself so that I can determine focus accurately where I want it.
Select a high enough ISO (400 is a good starting point to ensure a fast enough shutter speed);
Zoom to the widest angle (this way, your camera is less sensitive to motion and less sensitive to selective focus). And I like the wide, wide angles you get with something like the 16-35 mm lens, set to 16mm on a full-frame camera.

It’s simple – set it up that way, and then you just snap away.

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Category Archives: Technique