Focus – A Baker’s Dozen Tips

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Following up from the last two posts, I shall share few more tips – a baker’s dozen, i.e. thirteen more tips – on obtaining sharp focus exactly where you want it.

Of course you know the basics, right?

  1. Select the appropriate aperture for the required depth of field (DOF).
  2. Select one focus point.
  3. Focus, with that point, on something contrasty.
  4. Holding the camera steady, now Focus-Recompose-Shoot (if using One Shot AF/AF-S).
  5. But if shooting moving subjects, AI Servo/AF-C can give better results. (Then, no recomposing!).

OK, sure. But is there more?

Well, yes. Little things, but important. Including the following:

  1. If you have time, it is better to move the focus point than to recompose. This gives you more accuracy – recomposing means shifting the focal plane a little.
  2. Set your joystick to be able to quickly move focus point (on the Canon 7D, for instance, by default you need to first press the focus point button, and then you can move it. Why that extra button?
  3. Low light is bad! The lower the light, the less accurate your autofocus will be.
  4. In my experience, low-level red (tungsten/incandescent) light is also not as good for autofocus as low-level white/blue light.
  5. If you have a flash and you have time, you can use your flash’s AF assist mode (the “red lines/grids”) to focus. Else, a flashlight can help, too.
  6. Not all focus points are equally accurate. Some, like the one in the centre, are sensitive to both horizontal and vertical lines; others are sensitive only to horizontal or vertical lines!
  7. The AF assist red lines from your flash will show you this – if you select a point that is sensitive to horizontal lines only, for instance, then the flash emits horizontal lines.
  8. Not all focus points are equally accurate with all lenses. On high end cameras, some focus points are horizontal or vertical only unless you use a lens that is f/2.8 or faster.
  9. If in doubt, use the centre focus point, since it detects both horizontal and vertical at all times.
  10. Focus points are in fact usually a little larger than the squares in your viewfinder.  This can easily confuse. If your camera has the option (like a Canon 7D or 1Dx), you can set a smaller focus area, meaning the focus spot is the size indicated.
  11. Lenses are sharpest when stopped down a little. In the shot above, I used my f/1.2 lens at f/2.0 – it’s sharper that way.
  12. But beyond a certain point, the wavelength of light becomes significant related to the small opening, so you get unsharp pictures. Most lenses will start to show this unsharpness beyond about f/11.
  13. You can also choose to allow the camera to use multiple focus spots to figure out where to focus. This can be helpful with moving subjects.

Even armed with this knowledge, you will find that often, especially when the subjects move or the light is low, it’s luck that gives you great images. My advice in those cases is simple: shoot a lot.

 

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NOTE! Want to learn how to creatively use off-camera flash using “Master-Slave”/”Commander-Remote” TTL flash control for your Nikon or Canon system?  When to use modifiers? Flash secrets? Do not miss my evening course in Hamilton on Friday: http://cameratraining.ca/Flash-TTL.html. This and other upcoming workshops on http://cameratraining.ca/Schedule.html. Book now to guarantee your place.

 

Real Life shooting

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Today, a few more words about the “real life” Karate Championship shooting I did on Friday and Saturday.

As you read yesterday, the light was low, meaning I had to shoot at 10,000 ISO (yes, ten thousand) at f/2.8 to get to a mere 1/160th second, which is kind of the minimum I would like. Even at that speed, motion blurs:

But what were the other challenges, other than the fast lenses and high ISO needed? I ask because while I have pointed out many times that photography is basically simple, it is in meeting the limits, overcoming the problems, that you get to be really good.

One: the dim light also makes focusing unreliable. Even on my 1Dx, I got a lot of incorrectly focused shots. Remedy: shoot more; focus as accurately as you can using cross-point sensors (the centre one, on most cameras, is always cross-point), and focus on cpntrasty areas (the collar, for instance).

Two: the very red nature of the light – about 2,500K in this ballroom, redder than a normal incandescent lightbulb – is not good even when you set the camera to “Tungsten” white balance. So you need to correct it afterward – meaning RAW is best.

Three: RAW is slower, so you lose some shots due to the camera catching up with writing to the memory cards.

Four: the salmon and blue floor mat mean that in every picture, the bottom of the white suits looks either salmon or blue, which makes it look like the white balance is off. It’s not – it’s just the tungsten light reflecting off the floor.

Five: the competitors move unpredictably, so you need to:

  1. Shoot wide to ensure you do not cut them out of the frame.
  2. Use continuous focus (AI Servo/AF-C).
  3. Shoot sequences of shots.
  4. Use not one focus spot, but several (9 or more), to give the camera a chance to track the subject.

Six: in Karate, the subject turns away from you much of the time. The judges are on the other side, so lots pf shots of the subjects’ back. Just be ready to shoot in the few seconds you have, when the subject is looking your way.

Seven: the background is not of your choosing. Do the best you can, and throw it out of focus as much as you are able.

As you see here, there’s quite a lot of real life “working with limitations” going on in a real shoot – not just the basic thinking of “ISO+Aperture+Shutter = Exposure”.

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NOTE! Want to learn how to use off-camera flash using “Master-Slave”/”Commander-Remote” TTL flash control for your Nikon or Canon system?  Do not miss my evening course in Hamilton on Friday: http://cameratraining.ca/Flash-TTL.html. This and other upcoming workshops on http://cameratraining.ca/Schedule.html. Book now to guarantee your place.

 

Tools Matter

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For the past two days, I photographed a lot of this:

The national championships were held in Toronto in the Grand Ballroom at the Sheraton Hotel. And the photo may not show it, but grand ballrooms are dark, lit by rather dim tungsten light chandeliers.

How dark?

With my 1Dx and 70-200 f/2.8IS lens I had to shoot this morning at:

  • f/2.8
  • 10,000 ISO
  • 1/160th second

Yes, that is 10,000 ISO. Think of 1600, then add one stop (3200), then one more stop (6400), then two thirds of a stop (now you are at 10,000). Almost three stops more than I was comfortable with just a year ago. And I needed this to get to 1/160th second – I would have liked much faster, in fact.

Is there anything you could have done if you were using an “ordinary camera”? Many shooters came up to me to ask. Poor people with Rebels and 60Ds and D3100s and f/3.5-5.6 lenses. Think about it:

  1. If you have an f/5.6 lens you need two stops more ISO than I had at f/2.8 (the lens lets in less light).
  2. So if you want a fast enough shutter speed, like mine, you would need 40,000 ISO.
  3. But you can only use, perhaps, 1600 or -pushing it- 3200 ISO while maintaining good quality.

Is there a solution?

Well, yes. Use a 50mm prime lens on your camera, which gives you an 80mm equivalent lens, say at f/1.8. Now you are better than my zoom, one and one third stops better, so you can go to a lower ISO (around 4,000; or perhaps 3200 ISO at 1bout 1/125th second). One shooter, an intelligent young woman, got it, and pulled out her 50mm f/1.8. Saved!

And yes, you need those fast shutter speeds. Even at 1/160th second, if anything moves, it shows:

The moral of this story: equipment matters. I saw many people with simple cameras and kit lenses who expect to be able to do the same work I do. It doesn’t work like that, I am afraid. You buy modern cameras and fast lenses (low “f-numbers”) for a reason, and today illustrated that reason well.

 

 

 

Ave Caesar

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Why did I shoot this stature of a young Julius Caesar, who forgot to put on his pants, this way?

Well…

  • You might say “to make him look dramatic and powerful”.
  • You might say “to emphasize my subjugation to the mighty Roman empire”.
  • You might say “to compose using the Rule of Thirds”
  • You might say “to get three dimensionality into the shot”.
  • You might say “to offset Julius against the nice patterned glass ceiling”.
  • You might, if you were there looking over my back, even say “to get rid of all the Japanese tourists which were crowding around”.

And all of those would be correct!q

 

Wednesday Possibilities

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Today, some shots to get your imagination going – shots that show how much is possible with little effort, and quickly. Shots I took in and between classes in mere seconds, to demonstrate specific points.

Like this quick demonstration shot showing what a great modern camera like my 1Dx can do at – wait for it – 51,200 ISO:

Meaning that with a new camera, you can now photograph pretty much in the dark, or mix a little flash with very low ambient light, or bounce off very high ceilings.

Especially when using off-camera flash, that opens up all sorts of possibilities. Here’s a demo shot showing what a little extra light can do; look carefully and you will see that I am using remote TTL flash (where my camera’s flash is the “master”), and my student at Sheridan college has set his flash to be the “slave”:

Result: he is temporarily blinded… and lit up. You can do that too, with very little extra equipment. One flash, if you have a moden camera whose popup can “command” external flashes; else, two flashes, on on the camera and one remote. Imagine what you can do when you can add a little light everywhere you like!

Then, another student lit dramatically – from below! This kind of eerie effect is easy once you can take your flash off the camera as desribed above.

Or – just turn the camera upside down and bounce flash off the table, as I did!

Off-camera handheld flash gives me this image, even when the flash is aimed direct, of Mr Jun:

Not bad, and that is direct light aimed into his face – as long as it is not near the camera, the flash can be unmodified and direct!

And when you have several flashes, you can do things like this:

Now that is a competent portrait, taken in just a few seconds, using this setup with two off-camera flashes each fitted with a Honlphoto grid, and one with a blue-green gel; using two “biological light stands”:

But finally – do you need all those flashes? No, here’s a portrait using one flash fitted with a Honlphoto 8″ softbox:

The apparent Martian in the background adds a little extra “huh?” to this photo, don’t you think? His glasses reflect the round softbox.

Anyway, these snaps demonstrate that you can achieve a lot in a very short time using simple means – you may already have every thing you need. Get creative, go outside the box, and above all, think “where is the light coming from”!

 

Courses

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Big news: I have another workshop planned in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, on May 18, 2013.

Want to learn all the secrets of flash? Well, I am making the trip just for this workshop, so if you are anywhere within a few hours from Rotterdam, don’t miss it. One date only, at Kamera Express, like last year’s successful workshop at the same location:

The link, and booking, here: www.cameratraining.ca/Flash-NL.html

This workshop will be taught in Dutch (but if you like I can do some translating: my English isn’t bad, as you may by now have guessed).

Beginner’s Flash Mistake

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Has this ever happened to you?

You want an outside picture with a blurred background. So you set your aperture to a low number, and click, a nice enough picture.

But your subject is a little dark, so then you realize “wait – I should have lit my subject with a little flash”. So you simply turn on your flash and change nothing else. And then this happens:

Whaa? What happened?

Ah. In the first picture, you were at 1/1600th of a second, say. But you forgot that you have a maximum flash sync speed – usually 1/200th to 1/250th second. So for the second picture, the moment you actiavted the flash, your camera said “oh, my owner is using flash. I am slowing down the shutter to the sync speed, whether he/she likes it or not”. The result: a grossly overexposed image.

Solution: either use a slower shutter and a higher f-number and forget the blurry background, or activate “high speed flash” (“Auto FP flash”, as Nikon calls it), where the flash emits a 40 kHz pulse of little flashes, so you can go beyond the sync speed, and you can keep your f-number low. Now you get this (shot at 1/1600th second, f/2.8, 100 ISO):

Problem solved!

Note: That “fast flash”mode is only available on speedlights (like the 600 EX/SB910). And there is a drawback: your range is significantly reduced. In the previous picture your flash might reach 10 metres; with fast shutter speed and high speed flash it can be as little as a metre or less. So it’s good when you are close, as I was here.

 

 

North American readers: it’s for you!

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Message for you:

Now that the time has changed, go set all your cameras to the correct summer time – right now. All of them, and get it right to the second. Use our iphone as a super accurate time source.

When you shoot an event with two photogs, or with two cameras, and put the images together, you’ll be glad you did.

Simple means (redux)

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For my new students, in today’s class: as you see, once you kow the techniques, you can keep it simple. Like today’s shots:

One minute’s work or less, prior to the class, self portrait. Shot “so the ambient light does nothing”: 200 ISO, 1/125th second, f/8, with the flash held in one hand and the camera in the other:

Students in today’s class with background “doing some work”, i.e. something like 400 ISO, 1/40th sec, f/4:

Now similar, but “this is what I call school” – the student from before, but shot again, and now with special rough direct flash plus a little post work (apologies, but it does look cool!):

Ditto, but now lit weirdly… Hallowe’en style… from below (how?):

And finally, two beautiful students; as before shot with “ambient light disappeared”, i.e. at 200 ISO, 1/125th second, f/8:

As you see in these two shots, direct flash can be great and beautiful – as long as it is not near the camera. The flash is off to our left.

None of these shots needed much thinking or much work.

  1. Decide what the ambient part should be;
  2. Make it so using ISO/Aperture/Shutter;
  3. Then add flash.
  4. Keep the flash off the background if you can (you could use a grid, or keep distance between subject and background).

All you need to remember is this simple logic, plus the limitations – like “do not exceed 1/200th second shutter speed”, and “oh, my lens can only be set between f/4.0 and f/16”, and “outside, make sure the flash is close enough to the subject to have enough power”.

It really is that simple, once you understand. And flash liberates your internal artist, once you do.

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Additional courses ready for signing up on http://www.cameratraining.ca/Schedule.html!

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!