A Reminder to Newcomers

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A lot of new readers here on Speedlighter.ca, so I thought time for a few reminders.

My name is Willems. Michael Willems.

That didn’t sound quite as cool as when James Bond says it. But anyway, I am a photographer, and I teach photography – at Ontario’s Sheridan college, in schools, to groups large and small; in my own school; privately; at Vistek; at shows, and internationally. See www.michaelwillems.ca. This blog supports that teaching. It is my gift to you all. I want the world to know photography, so I share here.

I aim at everyone, from beginners to pros. Every day, I write what I feel like writing about. By reading all articles, you will get the idea and learn. You can also search. Or read categories (scroll to the bottom for this).

I have been doing this daily for four years. Yes, four years of daily posts. I occasionally miss a day, but then I do two posts the next day.

This blog may not always stay daily, but it will always stay free. All I ask in return is for you to:

  • Tell all your friends about it, if you like what you read!
  • “Like” the posts on Facebook and other social media (use the little icons at the top and bottom of each article).
  • Add your voice to the discussions (comment by using the link at the bottom of each article).
  • Consider buying my photography e-books. See the link above. I promise you will like them and learn  – a lot. They cost $19.95 each and are in PDF format, at least 100 pages each, and not addled with DRM protection. I trust you.
  • Consider additional training.

So… for newcomers, a quick tip: learn to focus your camera.

Quick advice of the day:

  • Where: select one focus point. Aim that at what should be in the centre of the sharp range. Focus by pressing half way down. Hold. Recompose if necessary. Press all the way down.
  • How: normally use lock focus (“One Shot”/AF-S). When shooting moving objects, consider continuous focus (“AI Servo”/AF-C).

Now go practice that. We’ll talk again tomorrow!

 

 

Another Selfies

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Nope – that is not a grammatical error. It is simply taking liberties with grammar. It’s a selfies in the sense that, if you look carefully, it combines two into one:

Me looking at me!

And I thought that today I would explain the thinking behind this portrait and its execution.

First, my choice of model. I used “me”, because I am extremely patient with me; I do not get drunk; I do not stand me up; I do not fall asleep; I do not say “are you done yet”; I do not mind retrying a shot many times if need be. Not that all models are difficult: a true pro model would never make any of these mistakes – but not everyone is a true pro.

So, seeing as it’s me, I wanted an environmental (a.k.a. “situational”) portrait. And what better than my work environment? So that is settled.

Next, then, the choice of lens. I chose a 50mm lens (full-frame: if you had a crop camera you would use a 35mm lens). A little longer than usual: for an environmental portrait I would normally use a 35mm lens, but I wanted to go a little tight to get rid of other “stuff”, like the flash on our left and the printer on our right: both now out of the picture.

Then the light. I wanted to light me with a flash, with a small softbox; but in this case, the ambient light is very important. I wanted the screen to be visible, and I wanted the tungsten and LED lightbulbs to be visible.

But I needed a small aperture. Why? Focus had to be set manually, and I would probably not be entirely accurate in positioning myself. That meant I needed f/11 for depth of field. So given that f/11 and the need to see ambient light, this meant I needed 400 ISO and 1/20th second.

And at the distance I needed, with the Honl Traveller 8 softbox, that “f/11 at 400 ISO” setting needed full power from a 430EX flash, in order for that flash to be the right power. The flash is just upside the picture on our left, on a light stand.

So the first shot:

And finally, the final flash direction. I tried it fairly straight on for the test shot, but for the final shot, wanted more short lighting (making my face thinner). See top.

Then all I needed to do is load that into Lightroom, and take the second shot; and apply the same lens corrections/cropping to both shots. Done!

____

Want to learn? I have just scheduled a special all-evening Flash course on 3 Oct; as well as a five-evening basic photography course, starting Oct 2, aimed at novice to intermediate users who want to learn to use their DSLR properly once and for all.

These courses are very special in that they are like private coaching: I will only take up to 5 students for each course. The Flash course includes the Pro Flash Manual, and the five-evening course includes course materials and homework. Both are now available for signing up on www.cameratraining.ca/ – see the flash course details on this page.

Do you have the flash manual e-book yet? Click on “Pro Flash Manual” above and learn how to do this!

 

Go on, have some fun

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You saw in yesterday’s post that I was having some fun with the camera. Well, yes, and that continued. Here’s the last picture I took. Someone challenged me to take one with two of me.

I call this one “HE did it!!”….:

This was in response to a forum challenge. Now, you need to know I do not have Photoshop. So I had to do this ion camera – and fortunately the 1Dx has this functionality, to make one RAW image in camera out of two pictures.

So what do I need to do this? In camera or in Photoshop?

In Photoshop I can use masks, layers, you name it. But in Lightroom I need to do the following:

  1. Tell the camera I am about to make such a double exposure.
  2. Take a self portrait as per yesterday’s instructions. Keep me on the left, but make sure the right is entirely dar (100 ISO, 1/125th sec, f/8). To make sure no light spills over, feather the softbox (point it away from the wall).
  3. Do the same on the other side (move the light, of course).
  4. Wait a few seconds
  5. Done.

If I overlap, or I get light on the wrong side, bad things happen:

Each half needs the other half to be dark, like so:

…because when you do it that way, it’s easy, and you can do it in camera.

So to do that, to get those dark backgrounds, you do the following:

  1. Make sure the settings are right for a dark ambient exposure (as above);
  2. Make sure the background is in fact dark and non reflective;
  3. Ensure that you are as far away from it if possible;
  4. Feather the flash away from said wall.
  5. Have the flash close to the subject (inverse square law applies!)

And then, it’s simple. The entire thing took but a minute or two. OK, five.

 

Selfie…

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Self portraits are tough. Because you do not know what you are doing. And you cannot focus. And the camera doesn’t hold itself. Above all, it’s a drag, because you want to see to compose, but you cannot. Not until afterward, anyway, and that tends to be a pain too.

And yet, I do them all the time. Including this, the never do this at home, folks shot:

Yeah. The duck face. With gang symbols, and an iPhone. Ouch. These are usually shot in a washroom, and then you post it on Facebook, if you are a teenage/20s girl, and immediately all your fine feathered friends say “AWESOME PHOTO!!!”, while in fact it’s usually an awful photo.

But as you see, my selfie is technically good. So here’s how I do it:

So here’s the TEN WAYS TO A SELFIE:

  1. The camera is mounted on a tripod.
  2. It is set to manual mode, 200 ISO, f/8, 1/125th second (with these settings, only the flash will do any work, and ambient light will not interfere).
  3. It is set to the 10-second self timer mode.
  4. It is equipped with a Pocketwizard (set to send, or “remote” mode).
  5. The flash is mounted via a ball head onto a light stand. The ball head allows me to point the flash conveniently. I have it positioned 45 degrees up, as seen from where my face will be.
  6. The flash, too, has a Pocketwizard (in receive, or “local” mode), and it fires the flash via a flashzebra.com hotshoe-cable.
  7. It is equipped with a Honl Photo Traveller 8 portable softbox.
  8. The flash is set to manual, quarter power. That gave me f/8, at that distance and at 200 ISO.
  9. See that additional light stand? A-ha! I put it where the subject (i.e. I) was going to be. Then I focused accurately on it. Then, with that focus distance set, I set the camera to manual focus. Then, when taking the shot, I moved the light stand away, and positioned myself exactly where it had just been.
  10. I aimed my face toward the softbox, in order to get the lighting pattern you see here.

That’s how I did this shot.

Oh yeah.. you see the iPhone pretending to be flashing? That’s an app, FlashLight, that allows me to turn the light on permanently.

And finally, you see that I also went close, and that I composed using the rule of thirds. Mission accomplished. Including Dreaded Duck face!

Here. One more. In case the duck face was too much to take:

Oh, OK, OK, here’s a more serious one, where I went closer:

And one last one from the same setup:

Now you go try!

____

Want to learn? I have just scheduled a special all-evening Flash course on 3 Oct; as well as a five-evening basic photography course, starting Oct 2, aimed at novice to intermediate users who want to learn to use their DSLR properly once and for all.

These courses are very special in that they are like private coaching: I will only take up to 5 students for each course. The Flash course includes the Pro Flash Manual, and the five-evening course includes course materials and homework. Both are now available for signing up on www.cameratraining.ca/ – see the flash course details on this page.

 

More Chances To Learn!

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Great news for “area residents” (as The Onion would put it): more chances to learn from me in person!

I have just scheduled:

  1. A special all-evening Flash course on 3 Oct;
  2. A five-evening basic photography course, starting Oct 2, aimed at novice to intermediate users who want to learn to use their DSLR properly once and for all.

These courses are very special in that they are like private coaching: I will only take up to 5 students for each course. The Flash course includes the Pro Flash Manual, and the five-evening course includes course materials and homework.

Both are now available for signing up on www.cameratraining.ca/ – see the flash course details on this page.

Also, more Oakville courses as well as all-new Hamilton Studio dates will be announced soon. Let me know if you have particular wishes, so that I can keep these in mind when designing the schedule.

 

Portraits tonight

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I did some portraits tonight, of a legal team. I used the 85mm f/1.2 lens that I once again obtained for the day from GTAlensrentals.com.

I used a white paper background, and three Bowens strobes: a key light with a softbox; a fill light with an umbrella; and a hair light with a snoot.

Here, that is what this gives me at f/8 and 1/125th second at 100 ISO (that is what I set the three lights to):

And the same in B/W:

See them full size to see how crazy sharp this lens is.

And then I can add some film grain:

And my favourite:

The prime lens helped enforce consistency, and it was ridiculously sharp. I also used the 70-200, my other favourite lens. But that 85/1.2 is something else. Rent it for a few days to try it out.

 

I’ll Just Do It Myself!

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I tend not to worry about, or comment on, the photography market, but sometimes I shake my head and say “what?”.

One of those times is today. A friend asked me to help her shoot small high-end product for a retailer who sells… small, high-end products. Think thousands, and very small. So we quoted for this – the images to be used for a full-page advertisement.

Example of small product, shot with tilt-shift lens

 

This kind of shooting is not simple. It involves such things as:

  • Camera – a good one.
  • Macro lens
  • Tilt-shift lens
  • Tripod
  • Lights – at least three or four available flashes, preferably
  • Modifiers: Reflectors, softboxes, umbrellas, lightboxes
  • A light table
  • Time

Oh, and knowledge.

And post-processing software, expertise, and time.

So what did the retailer do? He posted this:

So I’ve decided to just buy a camera, seeing what the costs of a shoot are. Any cameras or lenses that are best for close up macro?”

He later asked:

What is a good DSLR to buy?

And when asked whether he knows how to shoot in manual mode, he replied:

No. How hard can it be?

So there is the market problem in a nutshell. Everyone thinks they can do it. I am not sure how to break it to this retailer, but in fact it is not simple, and it involves a lot more than just buying a camera.  “Every professional skill takes 10,000 hours to master”, it is often said. By whom, you ask? By me, and by many others. Because it is true.

I think this retailer may be better off just having us shoot his products, and making it a lesson at the same time. And I do hope he decides to do that, rather than trying it himself.

 

Post hoc

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..ergo proper hoc? No – forget that: I am not talking about logical fallacies.

I am talking about what happens to photos after you take them.

Here’s what happens after a shoot, quite often:

  1. You shoot.
  2. You get home and look.
  3. You think “Oh, I am not very good”
  4. You think “Oh – I am amazing, actually”
  5. Repeat 3 and 4 a few times
  6. After oscillating a while, you settle down and pick some images to use
  7. You share those, and you are done.

But what you should do is also: look again later. You increasingly see your images as what they are, not as “what you were doing when you shot them”. This is why you use Lightroom, and this is why it is useful to go back and review your work – even years later.

For example, three years ago, I shot an event with showman/radio person JT Foxx (brother of a then friend of mine) on a visit to Toronto. At the time, the event pics were good, but he did not like the portraits – and indeed, he had not had the best night before, and the light wasn’t great, and I had no off-camera flashes, and so on. So – I got some snaps, but I was not terribly happy with them either.

Until I just changed upon them again – three years later. I think, now, that this is actually a very good portrait, showing his personality:

(95mm, 1/125th sec at f/2.8, 800 ISO, bounced flash).

So I got a portrait out of this shoot, three and a half years after the shoot. And that is my point – look again at your images. Try a different crop (or, as in this case. sepia instead of colour). Have a new eye – and even years after a shoot you will discover gems that you did not know where there. Your image library is a mine – and sometimes a gold mine.

 

Discuss.

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Note that you can add comments and questions to my posts – see the little “Leave a comment” link below. Your first comment needs to be approved by me (to verify that you are real, and not a spammer); after that, you can comment all you like without my approval. Note that your email address is only visible to you and me, not to anyone else.

Also, share the articles here by using the little social media icons. Speedlighter is free; all I ask is that you tell everyone 🙂

Just saying. Comments, feedback and questions are welcome!

Primes

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As I so often say, prime lenses are fun. They are often better than zooms, lighter, and faster. And they enforce compositional discipline.

Like the 85mm f/1.2 lens that I rented it from www.gtalensrentals.com (because when I can not afford a piece of equipment, or when I want to try it out, or when it’s something I would use only a few times a year, I rent.)

All shot handheld with the Canon 85mm f/1.2L prime lens.

What I love about this lens: The quality. It is ridiculously sharp. Its focus mechanism, whether engaged (manual focus) or not is ridiculously smooth, a real pleasure to use. No scratchy scrapy movement: smooth effortless “air hockey” gliding instead.

This lens is razor-sharp wide open, too, and has beautiful bokeh (the “creamy” nature of the blurry background):

f/1.2, 1/50th sec, 3200 ISO

What I like less: if his lens had IS (stabilization), that would be great. And if it could only focus a little closer… its closest distance is almost one metre/3ft.

You see, that startles Mau as well:

These shots were made at 1/200th sec, f/1.4, 3200 ISO in a pretty dark room. The kind of thing you can do with a prime.

Go rent this lens: since I returned it, it’s available. Warning, though, I plan to get it again for Tuesday’s corporate portrait shoot!