Snap of the day

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Here’s my student, photographer and friend Michelle:

Any portrait photographer wil recognize some or all of these factors:

  • I shot this in colour, of course (RAW), and converted to B/W in Lightroom afterward.
  • I shot the image horizontally, in landscape orientation – not in the more usual portrait orientation.
  • Negative space is good.
  • And so is the Rule of Thirds.
  • I used a hair light, behind the subject on our right, to get the “shampooiee goodness” look.
  • The eyes have catchlights. From my umbrella, on our left.
  • I shot some images. The subject liked this one only. I liked three others also. This is very usual – people look at themselves differently.

Go do some portraits. They are fun!

 

Keeping it Simple – The Five Minute Portrait

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What do I need for a portrait, like this?

A studio, right? All sorts of light, right? Light meters? Pocketwizards?

Not necessarily.

For this portrait of Sarah, I was showing her how to do this the easy way. You need:

  1. A camera.
  2. One flash, like an SB-700 or a 430EX.
  3. If is it a recent Canon (like a 7D, 60D, etc) or most Nikons, that is all. If an older Canon, you need an additional flash on top of the camera to drive the other flash.
  4. A light stand
  5. An umbrella
  6. A bracket on that light stand to mount the flash and umbrella
  7. A clean wall
  8. A reflector – this can be a “proper” reflector, or a white sheet, or a piece of bristol board, or whatever you can get someone to hold – or another wall at 90 degrees to the background wall!

That looked like this:

And that really is all. You now do the following:

  1. Mark the floor where the subject is to stand (use tape).
  2. Put the stand up, at 45 degrees from the subject, and 45 degrees up.
  3. Move the reflector in place.
  4. Put the flash in “Slave” or “Remote” TTL mode.
  5. Put your camera’s flash in “Master” or “Commander” mode.
  6. Disable flashing from your on-camera/popup flash. It will send commands to teh remote flash, buy it will not fore when the picture is actually being taken (else you would get nasty shadows).
  7. Move the model’s body toward the umbrella; face to you.
  8. Fire!
  9. Check results.
  10. You will probably need “Flash Exposure Compensation” of +1 stop if you are using a bright wall. For bright clothing also, maybe +2 stops. Ensure you gte good catch lights, too.

And that’s that. Takes a few minutes only. No, it does not always need to be complex.

 

A few quick pointers

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Here’s me yesterday, shot by my student Sarah. Great portrait. She shot it vertically, but I cropped it horizontally. Did she need a lot of equipment? Noe: her existing 7D with 580EX flash, plus my stand, bracket and umbrella.

I would today just like to briefly answer a few frequently asked questions.

  1. Do you shoot RAW? Yes. You have to. It’s a no brainer – only shoot RAW please.
  2. What mode do you shoot in? Manual. That way I am in control. Not the camera.
  3. What ISO do you shoot at? Whatever I feel like. High enough. 1600 easily, 3200 if I must. See yesterday’s post!
  4. What batteries power your flashes? Rechargeable, NiMH. Low-self discharge. Using Maha or Lacrosse conditioning chargers.
  5. Do you use TTL or manual flash? TTL at events, usually. But of course, when shooting in studio settings, when I take repeated shots, or in a studio or outdoors using strobes, then it’s manual flash all the way.
  6. Can you use your flash straight-on? Sure. When you have to. Or outdoors, when your flash is just the fill light (say, two stops below ambient). But otherwise, bounce; or use off-camera flash, or softened flash, or all of the above.
  7. Is a catch light necessary in portraits? I would not say absolutely necessary, but it is highly recommended. See above.

Useful?

More on this blog: search for these terms here and red all the detail.

And have fun!

 

 


Learn.. how?

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You can learn by taking my lessons, for instance. Supported by the book.

Lessons at Vistek Toronto. And lessons at Sheridan College.

And two workshops in Hamilton, open NOW for booking:

  1. 17 Feb 2013, in Hamilton, “Advanced Flash”. Info/book: http://www.cameratraining.ca/Flash-Ham.html
  2. March 2: “The Art of Shooting Nudes”, same location. Info/book: http://www.cameratraining.ca/Nudes.html

I hope to see you there – learn from me and kick your photography into the next level!

 

Learn from the real pros

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Namely – you can learn a lot about composition, portraiture, and so on from painters.

Like Edgar Degas. He was the master of making paintings look like photography – capturing the moment. Here’s an opportunity of learning from a painter who learned from photography. Like in the use of his crops:

Who would ever dream of cropping people halfway, and of having people look right out of the frame? Degas would, that’s who. He took what the new art of photography did and made it into some of the most artistic paintings we have ever seen.

And then there’s John Singer Sargent, the master of portraits.

See Rembrandt and his light in there?

And in this work by Singer Sargent, do you see Velasquez?

Here’s Velasquez’s “Las Meninas”:

My point ? That we all stand on the shoulders of giants – we do not copy what came before, perhaps, but we certainly are inspired by it, learn from it, and use its lessons in our own compositions.

So my advice for you today is to go to art museums, buy art books, and browse art. If a painting is famous and in a museum, tat is probably because it is great. And we can all learn from the greats. Don’t restrict yourself to great photographers; learn from the great painters also!

 

Hi-ho, hi-ho

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Hi Ho… Hi Ho, high ISO we go!

Every now and then, we need to take stock of where we are in tech development. I feel that this is such a moment. We have seen a gradual increase in usable ISO over the years, and it feels to me like today it is time to re-evaluate the ISO settings we use, and indeed to increase them.

High ISO leads to noise (“grain”), and should be avoided unless necessary. I recommend the following “starting points”, therefore:

  • Outdoors or tripod or studio: 200 ISO
  • Indoors, even with flash: 400 ISO
  • Difficult Light: 800

And you increase as necessary.

So what has changed?

With today’s modern cameras, you can go higher, that’s what. Look at my Canon 1Dx just now, at 3200 ISO:

(3200 ISO, f/2.0, 1/320th second, with the 50mm f/1.2L lens).

Looks good eh. Even fully zoomed in, it looks great, straight out of the camera (no noise cancellation done):

Another example:

Again, very useable at 3200 ISO straight out of the camera.

Even on older cameras like my crop factor Canon 7D:

Not as good at 3200 ISO, you can see some grain if you look carefully, but still, entirely useable, and better than a picture that is motion-blurred.

Now, a note. Willems’s Dictum: bright pixels are sharp pixels. So if you want good sharpness and low noise, avoid underexposing. Expose brightly!

Anyway, so what is the conclusion? Whence the step change?

As of today, if you are using a modern camera, my recommendation is as follows:

  • Outdoors or tripod or studio: 200-800 ISO (i.e. feel free to go up to 800 if you need).
  • Indoors, even with flash: 400-1600 ISO (i.e. feel free to go up to 1600 if you need).
  • Difficult Light: 800-3200 (i.e. feel free to go up to 3200 if you need).

And in all cases, go even higher if you really need.

This now means your flashes are two stops brighter. You can often shoot with speedlights where strobes were needed before. You can use higher ceilings to bounce off. You can even shoot weddings without flash. Amazing. Technology is changing photography.

 

Never do this.

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This. Selective colour. As I mentioned here before: a sin, a never-do, a teary clown: a cliché.

So why did I do it in that image I shot yesterday?

Because to every rule, there is an exception. Don’t ever let anyone tell you to “always” or “never” do something. Always or never means “Always or never – EXCEPT if you have a good reason in your own mind to break the rule”.

In this case, the image worked best in B/W, but the cool iPhone headset in luminous pink was too good to not show in colour. OK, selective colour then, and damn the torpedoes.

How:

  1. Go to the DEVELOP module in Lightroom
  2. Enter the HSL section and select S (Saturation)
  3. Drag down all colours to zero, The with the pick tool, select the handset and drag UP. (Red and Magenta, in this case).
  4. Now with the BRUSH tool, set saturation to zero, and wipe out any saturation in the rest of the image (face, hands, and so on).

Took me just a few seconds. Which is why I can try it out, and then decide perhaps the B/W version is better after all?

You judge. And remember: never take anything for granted in how you shoot. Always be ready to experiment. That’s how you get unexpected results. But also, never be afraid to throw out your experiments.

 

Black is black….

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….except when it isn’t.

When doing post-production, make sure that the areas of your image that should be totally black are in fact totally black.

Take this image.

The photographer is black. But is he?As you know, a RAW image has much colour space, so are you sure? Go to the histogram in Lightroom’s Develop module, and click on (or hover over) the little arrow on the top left.

Now you see what is really dark:

Blue areas are lacking detail, i.e. pure black. And not all of the person is blue.. so uh oh, there’s still detail lurking in the image.

Well, then drag “Blacks” to the left in the BASIC pane:

…until you see something like this:

And now finally the blacks are black, and no amount of increasing exposure will bring back detail. (OK – this is not really true: Lightroom is very conservative and preserves some detail even when blue shows. But to all intents and purposes, you’re good, and that detail will not be seen.)

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Allow me to once again point out these few additional learning opportunities:

All workshops will be announced via email and press release shortly, but you, my readers here, still have first option!

 

Simplify…

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More about simplifying to make pictures better. A recurrent theme here on speedlighter.

Consider this image, of Jane Dayus Hinch the other day:

It started like this:

I would argue that the above crop and the straightening (“disciplining”) of the verticals makes this a much better image.

Straightforward (forgive the pun) simplifying changes can have major effects. Every time you have an image, ask yourself:

  1. Does everything in it belong in it?
  2. Can I remove anything? Anything at all?

Do that, and you get more professional photos.