Blogz – Page 6 – Focus On Ottawa

July 25, 2009

Scott Kelby Photowalk

I was privileged to join this year’s Scott Kelby worldwide photowalk. This is a photo expedition that takes place simultaneously in over 900 cities across the world, with 32,000 participants. I represented Ottawa along with 49 other local photographers.

The official website for the photowalk is here.

Scott Kelby is a professional photographer, president of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP), head of Kelby training, author of top selling books, and more.

You can check out some more of my fun pictures here.

July 24, 2009

Secret Weapon

I will let you in on a little secret. One of my secret weapons when I shoot is this: kneepads. Technically I usually only wear one kneepad, on my dominant knee.

Kneepads let me drop to one knee quickly when doing portraiture and modeling shots. They also let you quickly change your point of view when shooting anything (like nature photography). If you are less likely to get lower because it’s uncomfortable, or you are concerned you will wear out your knee over time, a kneepad is a quick remedy. Taking pictures from your normal standing position is boring – it’s good to change things up to make photos more interesting. Getting lower is a must in portraiture (e.g. full body shots).

If you say you don’t need kneepads, that’s fine – but if you find yourself not bothering to get low, then ask yourself why not.

July 19, 2009

Light Meters

Today’s DSLR cameras have magnificent light metering technology. There are still situations where you will want to use a separate light meter. The main situation is where you are using studio flash lighting. If you set your camera to anything other than Manual mode, the camera will meter the lighting before the flashes fire, and that will result in an overexposed image.

When I first got my light meter, I didn’t understand why my light meter let you dial in the shutter speed I was going to use (which would then give you the aperture f-stop number after taking a light reading), but it wouldn’t let you input the f-stop and give you a shutter speed setting. After buying my studio lighting I then understood: when measuring studio lighting, you always know what shutter speed you are using based on the speed of your flashes. If your flashes fire at 1/200 of a second, you are going to set your camera to 1/200 of a second, and thus you need the light meter to tell you what f-stop to use. If you set your camera to a faster shutter speed, you may be too fast for the flash sync to occur. If you set it to a longer exposure, well, your studio flash (for example) is only firing at 1/200 of a second, so any longer won’t contribute to your exposure.

Having said all that, a light meter will give you a suggestion of f-stop based on what shutter speed (and ISO) you tell it you are going to use. It will give you that reading to provide you with an average (like the 18% gray) image. If you don’t want 18% gray, then you are going to tweak the numbers.

I find that trial and error with the camera is often faster than taking a light reading, and then tweaking (trial and error) to get the right lighting for the shot. Modern DSLRs have histograms, allowing you quickly see how much light is in your shot, and allowing you to quickly adjust if it’s too much or too little.

Since light meters can cost as much as an entry-level DSLR, my advice is not to bother with a light meter, or try to find a used one to see if you like it. You may find that the trial and error method is just as effective, and much cheaper!

(If you didn’t understand this post, don’t worry. Go back and read my post on Aperture and Shutter Speed. Then come back and re-read this).

July 19, 2009

Fast Lenses

You may have heard the term “Fast Lens” when referring to a good quality lens. I find the term “Fast” a bit misleading, although technically accurate.

A fast lens is a lens with a large aperture. So a 50mm lens with the largest aperture of f5 may not be considered a fast lens, a 50mm lens with the largest aperture of 1.4 is very fast. Remember the aperture size is the size of the opening or diaphragm of the lens. A smaller number means a bigger opening.

The reason it is a “fast” lens is that, if you recall from my previous post on aperture, a larger aperture lets in more light, and thus the lens aperture does not need to be left open for as long as a lens with a smaller aperture.

This is significant! Imagine shooting an indoor wedding with low light. Let’s say the church doesn’t allow flash, and doesn’t allow you to use your tripod. If you shoot with a slow lens, you will need to use a slower shutter speed to get a well lit shot of the bride and groom. Since we humans tend to shake, a longer exposure will reveal that shaking, and will be exhibited as blur. A faster, better lens will be able to take the same shot in a much shorter exposure, thus leading to less camera shake and resulting in a sharper image.

June 30, 2009

Photo Editing Done Cheap

Most websites and magazines will talk about Photoshop as being the tool to edit photographs. Unfortunately Photoshop costs US$699, which is out of reach for most people. Adobe does have Photoshop Elements, which is a much less expensive, yet very capable scaled down version of Photoshop.

Personally I use Gimp, which is an open source photo editing software. As far as photography editing goes, Gimp has all of the capabilities of Photoshop that I need, and best of all, it’s free!

The majority of the tasks that I require for photo editing are features of both Gimp and Photoshop:

Dodging and burning
Layers
Cloning and Healing
Curves adjustments

The interface of Gimp may take some getting used to if you’re familiar with Photoshop, but once you’ve learned to navigate it, it is a very powerful tool. Download it and try it out for yourself.

June 21, 2009

Stock Photography and Modeling

Stock photography is when you take commercial photographs, but where there is no one customer commissioning you for the photographs. The photographs are typically placed on a stock photography website, such as iStockPhoto, and sold to many customers. Customers will use these images for their websites, for magazine ads, etc.

A typical stock photo you’ve probably seen is of a pretty young woman answering a helpline, which would be used on many websites for their “support” web page. It could also be pictures that convey business concepts, such as teamwork, frustration, meetings, etc., or it could just be a picture of a couple lying on a beach, which would be used by a travel agency.

One of the premiere photographers in Stock photography is Yuri Arcurs. He has great tips in the form of videos on his YouTube channel. He not only shows tips for the photographer, but useful information for models who want to do stock photography.

Take a look at this video, and you can see his other videos from the same YouTube page.

June 11, 2009

Food Photography

A plate of food at your favourite restaurant may look and smell very enticing when the plate is placed before you, but it doesn’t always seem as appealing when you take a picture of your plate. In order to compensate for the lack of smell and taste, it is tricky to get a good shot of food. Here are some tips for taking a great picture of food.

May 28, 2009

Auto-ISO and Studio Lighting

You have your studio set up. You shoot your grey card. You take a reading with your light meter. “F5.6 at 125 shutter speed at ISO 200”.

Great. You take a second and third reading to make sure. You set your camera to (M)anual mode, you dial in F5.6 and 1/125 second shutter speed. Your ISO is already showing 200. You take a photo, and the picture is overexposed without hope. What went wrong?

If you do a lot of outdoor shooting, you probably have set your ISO to auto, meaning your camera will bump up the ISO if it thinks you will be underexposed at your current settings. Since the camera took its light metering without your studio strobes firing, it thinks it’s too dark, and it has just bumped the ISO to something like 3200, which is not what you want.

When shooting in a studio, make sure to turn off the auto ISO feature, or you will be sorry.

May 18, 2009

Bokeh

Bokeh is a term from Japanese that means “blur” or “haze”. When using a lens with a shallow depth of field (e.g. you have it set to F1.8, as opposed to F22), light sources outside of your focus area can get hazy, and may appear as spheres of light. This could be a pleasing effect if intentional.

Here are some examples of pictures showing bokeh, and lack of bokeh.

The first shot shows a picture with a light source that’s out of focus. Since the shot was taken at a small aperture (F22), the light does not seem hazy. (Remember: an aperture with a high number, like F22, means a small opening).

Bokeh_1764 Figure 1: No Bokeh

The second shot uses a large aperture (F1.8), so the out of focus light source looks more like globes of light.

Bokeh_1763 Figure 2: Same light fixture, but with bokeh

For more on bokeh, check out this article in Wikipedia.

May 12, 2009

How to Photograph Your Pet

Everyone loves taking snapshots of their beloved pet. In order to get the best snapshot of your pet, or any animal in general, follow these simple rules.

Focus on the eye. When you are focusing on your pet, focus in their eyes. This is especially true when using a large aperture where the rest of their body might be out of focus – the key item you need to capture is their eyes, because that’s the first thing viewers will look at.
Get down to their level. When photographing animals, it’s not very exciting to photograph them from four feet above them. Get down to their level and see the surroundings as they see it. It’s much more dramatic that way.
Don’t corner them. When composing or cropping the shot, make sure they are walking into the picture, and not out of the picture. So if they are walking left to right, make sure they have some empty space on the right side of the picture for them to “virtually” walk into, otherwise it will seem out of sorts.
Crop close. Although this rule can be broken often, especially if you want to capture more of the surroundings or more of the action, a close composition more often than not has more impact.

Here is an example of breaking the rules with an animal. It’s not my pet, but you’ll see that the focus is not on the eyes. The picture was taken slightly higher than the animal. The animal is also trying to walk outside the frame, and has no room in front of him. This gives the picture an unnatural feeling.

Figure 1: Bad animal picture

Here’s a better picture. The shot was taken closer to the eye level of the bird. The focus was done at the animal’s eye. The animal is walking into the picture, and not out of the frame, giving a more natural feel. The picture was cropped close enough to show the details of the animal, but not so close as to give it a “trapped” feeling.
Good seagull Figure 2: Better image