…or you zoom in and out, using a wide angle lens, while you take the picture at a slow shutter speed, like 1/15th second. And you get:
Magic, or.
Reply
A baby shower shoot
Two baby shower shoots in a week: yesterday was the second. Lots of event photos, but also a few more formal shots, like this:
Taken outside with a flash on camera: 1/200, f/2.8, ISO 800. Why? Because:
- 1/200 is needed for sharp, no motion-blur images;
- f/2.8 to get the blurred background
- So, 800 ISO to get the right exposure.
That’s how it works!
Sep 1 workshop
Those of you who shoot in automatic modes: try manual instead. The first shot may take longer to set, but after that the consistency you get is amazing. You are in charge.
And this workshop in Brantford will help. Click and join me on Sept. 1, for a very special workshop at a very special price.
Benefit from the amazing August Value Deal!
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Six of the seven books (Picture)
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Designed to look great on an iPad or large phone, and you can even print them (there’s a README included that gives you permission, so copy shops will do it).
The books add up to C$189 (plus tax if you’re Canadian), or $109 plus tax if you buy them all at once.
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And another event
Sunday I shot an event: a baby shower. In a back yard and inside, and in a tent. Portraits, with two strobes (one with umbrella, one with small softbox), as well as event pics.
The portraits, with or without props, looked like this—and you will see it is all about the light. Hence the strobes, and the subjects in the shade as much as possible. I used a 24-70 for this, as well as the 85mm f/1.2 lens.
Some spontaneous, like this – don’t forget to look for those spontaneity moments…:
Indoors shots were like this, shot with thew 24-70 f/2.8 lens and using a bounced flash—here too, look for people interacting or “doing things”:
And outdoors with a flash aimed directly at the subject, which gets us the subject as the “bright pixels” and saturated colours. And when there’s something happening, look for the right moment. either to get the right pose:
And if you pay attention you can often get “the decisive moment“, in this case the piñata falling to the ground in pieces.
Photos were, as far as I can tell, universally liked, and I bet those who did not have their picture taken regretted it in the end.
Oh and the human species will probably survive, judging by the number of pregnant women present. Like half of them, it almost seemed.
Event tip
Last night I shot an event with many celebrities. Not being totally in touch with Canadian popular culture, I did not recognize a single one, while everyone else was fawning over them. F1 race car drivers, famous boxers, politicians, NBA stars: the fact I do not know them is probably, I think, an advantage, because I am not intimidated at all. 🙂
An event photography tip. Problem: I had to shoot the red carpet photos by bouncing against a wood wall. Result: the images would look horribly red. Solution: set white balance to the appropriate colour temperature – by trial and error, yesterday that was 4600 K.
Tav Malhotra Invitational…
…is what I am shooting today.
As always, flash is key to a lot of my images.
Adobe again
I am helping a client re-install Lightroom 6 on a new laptop. NOT EASY! In fact Adobe is doing everything to make it well nigh impossible to not go to Lightroom Creative Cloud version.
Try to find LR 6 on the web site. And try to find a download file so you do not need to buy a new license when you buy a new laptop. I have been trying for a day. In vain, so far. In the past, you would download a trial version. Today, there no longer seems to be a trial version of Adobe 6.
And Lightroom perpetual license 6, as they call it, is not going to be updated, and it is slowly dying anyway. Look what Adobe’s web site says today, for example:
- Due to an API behavior change introduced by Facebook, the Facebook publish service will no longer work in Lightroom 6 with a perpetual liscense [sic]. See this tech note for more details.
Also, the updater (from 6.13 to 6.14) shows this:
This sort of thing is what gives corporations a bad name. Awful corporate behaviour! Adobe, your commitment to killing LR6 an updating us al to a version where we pay every single month for the rest of our lives is noted. Your stock price reflects it; but there is such a thing as karma. As soon as there is an alternative, I expect a lot of people will go to it.
Meanwhile, I found an old .DMG I still had. I’ll use that. No thanks to Adobe.
iPhoning
Even when using an iPhone, you need to know stuff in order to take the best photos.
Like this one here (click to see it large):
Here’s Five Tips for this type of iPhone photo.
- Focus, if needed, by tapping the screen on the object you want to focus on.
- Adjust exposure as needed by dragging up or down on the screen at that point.
- For a macro shot like this, actually back off a little and crop the photo later. This is a key point.
- And most importantly, add plenty of light. This needs to be non-direct light. I prefer outside, but out of direct sunlight.
- Finally, adjust your crop and white balance, and anything else needed, afterward, by clicking on EDIT.
Enjoy!
Want to shoot like a pro? Scroll to the previous post to read about the one-week-only Spring Madness Discounts!
Spring Special!
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