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LIGHT Photographic Workshops blog discusses everything photography related. Adobe updates, computer suggestions, accessories that can save your life and more!
I am certain you have already done this but just in case you have not make sure to go in and modify your metadata presets. This is also a great time to verify you made a new parent folder reflecting the new year.
In the quick video Hal shows the update process for Lightroom and the Bridge.
Packing for a Christmas or family holiday trip can be a bit hectic...sometimes you might even forget a modifier for your Speedlight.
Hal scooting with his homemade modifier.
Now what you are about to see is what we like to call "bush league" but the modifier/soft box works extremely well and you can definitely find the materials at grandma's house! Depending on the size of your flash you can also create any size you want.
For a very simple modifier here are the items you will need:
All of the pictures below show the entire process. Start by cutting out the inside or flat portion of the plate. Try to keep as much of the cut out portion because you will use it later in the process. The ring you are left with is the frame for the modifier.
Cut or fold the tissue paper into a square about the same size as the frame/ring. One piece will do just fine but if you want to make the light more even, add an additional layer or two. It is always a trade-off though when you add layers. The light becomes more even but you will lose more of the flash's effective power. For example, when I made this example, I used four layers of tissue and lost approximately 2.5 stops of light.
Tape the tissue to the frame. You can get all "gucci" with it but I used four pieces and have a nice, tight surface.
From the cutout portion of the plate, fashion a rectangle or two. Put onto the end of your flash to act as an attachment collar.
With the other plate cut out two rectangular supports. Tape one end of each to the attachment collar on the flash. The final step is to tape the supports to the plate/modifier. When you put the flash on your camera, I like to change the zoom to Manual at about 50mm.
Simple but effective. When we talk about light's quality of being either hard or soft, the only factor that matters is the size of the light source relative to your subject (this is, of course, controlled by the size of the light source and the distance from the source to the subject.) The bare surface area of the flash is @ 3.7 square inches. After adding the "bush league" modifier the surface area is @64 square inches. That is an increase of 17X. One of the biggest issues with many modifiers is they do not really change the surface area by that much. But 17X? That is effective!
Another nice feature of this homemade version is it is extremely light. Whenever you add an attachment to your flash, always consider weight. If the modifier is too heavy or has a lengthy moment arm you can easily damage your flash.
Killer whale attacking a Steller's sea lion
There are many shots that require you to react extremely quickly in order to capture what you want such as these whales I photographed during one of my Alaska workshops. One of the most successful techniques you can use is what I call the "test shot."
The test shot has two primary objectives, exposure and rough focus. When taking a test shot your actual subject is usually not in the frame. For example, these whales break the surface in less than a second and if I wait until the subject is in the frame to find exposure I will be less than successful most of the time. If instead I anticipate where the subject will appear or what the event will look like, I can figure out exposure ahead of time very easily. I can also pre-focus so that the precision focus process is much faster once my subject is in frame and my auto focus sensors are properly placed.
A humpback whale going for it in front of Devil's Thumb
When you make a test shot, it is often times not adequate to set exposure based on the environment/background. You need to anticipate what will drive the exposure. For example, in all three whale shots the critical elements are the white water and the white fins/body. If I make a test shot of just the water and set exposure without considering the extreme tonal difference between water and white water/whale, I will, most likely, blow the highlights in the shot. When I made the test shots for these images, I set my exposure based on white not on the water/background. You can use rules of thumb to underexpose for the predicted highlights but I prefer actual meter data, when I can get it. In these examples, I changed my camera's metering mode to Spot and then I set exposure off of something white. I actually used the boat's wake but a white sheet of paper would work as well. As long as the white is under the same lighting conditions as my subject, my exposure will work perfectly.
.1" earlier
This process is simpler when shooting in Manual exposure mode but can be used with Aperture or Shutter priority and auto exposure lock. Once I have my exposure, I pre-focus to the expected subject distance and take a test shot and evaluate. With my exposure and pre-focus set, I am much better prepared to quickly execute the actual shot when the action occurs.
I use test shots all the time to give myself the advantage when something might happen and my reactions have to be perfect. When I am out photographing, people find it odd that I am shooting every now and again at what appears to be nothing. But my "strange" behavior pays off. If you stack your deck ahead of time you will enjoy success in a more consistent and repeatable manner.
Fiat Lux!
It seemed that during the California Photo Festival I could not swing a cable release without hitting a few people discussing or playing with the app called Tiny Planet. The app manipulates an image in a pretty cool way and the result often resembles a small planet in the center of a square frame.
Although the buzz was about the phone app, the process has been around a while and there are many websites and blogs dedicated to the effect. So for all those who do not have the app or if you have it but want to apply a similar effect to your big photos, here is the quick way to do it in Photoshop.
Oh by the way, Jill Waterbury, Light's in house iPhoneography instructor, introduced just about everyone to the app and also requested the Photoshop method. So here it is for Jill and anyone else who wants to play around with their images to have fun and create.
The Photoshop method works best on panoramic images, especially 360 degree panos, but can be done to any image. To demo the process, I will start with a 360 pano I shot during Click.
The basic process is to open the image in Photoshop and then to apply a simple filter called "Polar Coordinates." This filter is found in the Filter>Distort menu. Of note it will only be available with 8-bit images so if you have a 16-bit workflow you will have to change to 8. (Go to Image>Mode>8-bits) Hand in hand with the depth change you may need to convert the image to a smaller color space. For example, Light recommends a 16-bit workflow using ProPhoto RGB. If you go from 16 to 8, you should also convert to either Adobe RGB (1998) or sRGB via Edit>Convert to Profile.
When you choose the Polar Coordinates filter you see the dialog below.
Make sure to select the "Rectangular to Polar" button. When you apply the polar coordinates filter you get the following image.
There was obviously a change but the filter created a "down the rabbit hole" effect and it is not a square frame, not what we are looking for. Interestingly, this effect is found in the app but is called "tiny tube." So before you apply the filter, you need to do two other steps.
First, go to Image>Image Size. In the dialog box, make sure resample image is checked but uncheck Constrain Proportions.
Go to the Width and Height text boxes in the Pixel Dimensions section and make them equal. I normally find the smaller number and change it to the larger. So in the example above, I get this.
Your image will look distorted but go with it.
Next go to Image>Image Rotation>Flip Canvas Vertical and the image will flip upside down.
Now we are ready to go back to the Filter>Distort>Polar Coordinates. The result is a tiny planet-like square image.
If you have a 360 degree pano all you have to do is the process described above. If you do not have that type of image you can still do the process. The best types of images to use are those with a
panoramic aspect ratio, images with little detail on the top and bottom, and a strong linear shape but with vertical development in the middle, vertical third of the frame. Even with the perfect image, there may possibly be a few more steps after you apply the filter. So here goes with a normal image.
This image does not have a panoramic aspect ratio (in general vertical images are more challenging to use than landscape) but there is limited detail at the top and bottom of the frame with a linear shape along the horizon displaying strong vertical development.
For any image that is not a 360 degree panorama, the first step is to make sure the horizon is level. After that do everything we did above. You will get the following intermediate images.
Just as before run the Polar Coordinates filter and you get this.
There is the tiny planet but there is a seam at the top because our image ends did not match perfectly. No worries, do a quick retouch and rotate the image to the desired angle and you get this.
A small planet with a volcano or two. This effect can be used on all sorts of images so have fun. Here is one more for the fun of it, this is a composite of a tiny planet and a tiny tube from the same image.
As you play remember to try the opposite effect. If you do not flip the image you can make a tiny tube like this one. (the opposite of the image at the top of this post.)
Fiat Lux!
A recent video showing my Topaz Denoise and Detail process.
Thanks for the questions that help generate these videos!
Fiat Lux!
I watch a show on The Food Network called Good Eats. The host is Alton Brown and he discusses a large amount of cooking gear and equipment (in addition, to delivering amazing food facts and cooking techniques.) The consistent thing about Alton's gear recommendations is he loves equipment that can multi-task. Why have a piece of gear that can only do one thing. If that is the case, to do three tasks you need three different items. With multi-tasking, one piece of gear does all three jobs.
If you do a lot (or even a little) travel photography the concept of gear "multi-tasking" is hugely important. In the ideal world it would be simple to take all of your gear everywhere. There would never be carry-on limits, space or weight issues, and we would all have our own photo Sherpa. In the real world, we are often forced to take fewer items in order to meet the travel reality.
I found myself in just such a situation on a recent photo trip to Alaska. I normally carry a tripod along with a ball head and a gimbal head. Turns out if I took both my bag would have been 50+ pounds and I did not want to pay the penalty. I decided on just the gimbal since I knew it would work for my long lenses and also provide basic ballhead functionality (although not quite as efficiently.)
Even with that I ended up wanting to shoot a macro shot from directly overhead my subject. My first plan of attack is shown below.
As you can tell, probably not the best way to shoot. Not only is the platform unstable but my ergonomics are horrible. This is a really easy way to hurt your back and take a bad picture at the same time. So I needed to innovate.
My solution was to multi-task my gear. I know I had a great tripod (Really Right Stuff TVC-33) and my gimbal (RRS PG-02). I decided to see if I could make it work in this macro situation.
After looking at the PG-02, I took the vertical support arm and turned it around. This allowed me to support the camera and point it straight down at my basket sea star. I had never done this before and did not know the PG-02 could do this. What I found is exactly what Alton Brown talks about on Good Eats; another great use for a piece of gear designed for something a little (or a lot) different.
Although I had good support, my ergonomics still, for lack of a better word, sucked. Before I destroyed my back, I finally settled on what you see below.
Tremendous support, good ergonomics, and a different view of a basket sea star. After these shots were taken I switched over to an EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro for closer shots (an example is the first shot at the top of the post.)
So here is to Alton Brown, Good Eats, and multi-tasking.
As you all know I love Really Right Stuff gear. This shoot made me an even bigger fan of the RRS PG-02. Good luck making this happen with any of the other gimbal heads out there.
Fiat Lux!
All shots of me are courtesy of Marc Muench, Leanna Telliard-Stern, and Gina Ruttle. Thank you!
Basket stars multi-task as hair!
One of my favorite expressions with digital photography is "pixels are free." With no cost, photographers should enjoy complete freedom to experiment and play. If you have an idea for a shot, go for it. If it works, great. Take what you did and make it a part of your photography.
If it does not work out, no big deal. But use the results as a completely free learning experience. Go to school and figure out what was the issue/s. Can you make a small adjustment or do you need to go back to the drawing board and plan again.
I recently found myself in a situation where I honestly did not know how the results would turn out. I wanted to shoot a series of images for a landscape panorama in rapidly falling light levels. I had the Canon EF 800mm f/5.6L on my 5K Mk II; a combination not often used for panoramas. To make matters worse I was on the back of a moving boat. Not only was it moving forward and slowly rocking side to side but we were in a regular ocean swell so we were slowly heaving (up and down.)
Not the best situation but pixels are free so I went for it. The results from the 42 shots are shown below.
This is the panorama after the stitching process. If you follow the bottom (or top) you will notice a nice sine wave pattern. That is the boat going up and down with the ocean swell. My camera support was rock solid (RRS TVC-33 and PG-02) but the boat was out of my control.
At this point I had a nicely stitched panorama even though it is somewhat ugly in terms of how everything lined up. But it worked and did not cost a thing.
After a little cleanup, I had a usable, huge panorama to optimize. For a free experiment, I will take it.
Fiat Lux!
Photographing the
Solar Eclipse
Remember to scout and plan your 20 May eclipse photo-shoot ahead of time. Things you might want to include in your process: determine when the eclipse will happen in your time zone, determine the sun azimuth and elevation of the sun during the eclipse, plan and frame your shot/composition, determine your solar filter requirements, and take a series of test shots to validate your exposure.
If you wait until the eclipse starts to figure all of this out you might be a bit behind.
Read more on NASA's website for the technical data on the eclipse and where the best viewing regions will be. Who knows! It could be the best in your area!
For those of you photographing the eclipse please submit your images for us to see. The best images will be posted on the blog!
Email them to info@lightworkshops.com and size to 400x600 px (or close to that).
-Happy Shooting!
Fiat Lux!
Canon 1D Mk IV, EF 800mm f/5.6L 1/320, f/5.6, ISO 400
Both of the shots above were captured with a Canon 1D Mk IV and a Canon EF 800mm f/5.6L. The image of the mountain goats used a shutter speed of 1/500 and the bear was even slower at 1/320. I could have easily increased the shutter speeds by increasing my ISO but I was trying for the cleanest image I could possibly get.
Canon 1D Mk IV, EF 800mm f/5.6L 1/500, f/5.6, ISO 400
Such shutter speeds are definitely possible but when on a moving boat and compared with an effective focal length of 1040mm, the results are impressive. I used the image stabilizer in Mode 1 which helped significantly but the real reason I could shoot with certainty at lower shutter speeds is my support setup.
I used a Really Right Stuff camera support setup including TVC-33 tripod, PG-02 gimbal head, and a long lens support package as depicted in the images below.
TVC-33, PG-02, and Long Lens Support Package
If you are a long lens shooter give yourself the advantage of perfect support. I often say there is not a gear/technology solution to every problem but in this case I could not have made the same shot without it. When combined with a good foundation in exposure and camera/lens functionality, the support system makes a nice trifecta!
TVC-33, PG-02, and Long Lens Support Package
Fiat Lux!
4-shot stitched panorama,
In port for a day before departing again for more eagles, whales, bears, glaciers, and fun. Rick Sammon and I along with the cruise participants had a tremendous experience and I cannot wait to share some of the images we made. Marc Muench joined me in Petersburg for this next cruise and I am sure we will have another incredible trip.
A technique I used often during the trip was to get low. The image above is a four shot stitched panorama shot from a RHIB (rigid hulled inflatable boat) slowly moving through the water. To make this shot more dramatic I placed the camera about an inch above the water and shot. Since pixels are more or less free, experiment with different approaches and angles to your photography. Some will work and others not so much, just part of the process.
Even though the image had tremendous color I thought I might try a black and white also. It is great having options and experimenting with both capture and your post processing. Continuing along that process, the image below is the combination of the color version and the black and white version's luminance values.
Fiat Lux!
One of the most common gotchas we see in images and prints is the presence of spots. Regardless of the source such as dust on the sensor, every photographer should spot check their images before print, upload, email, delivery, etc. There are very few things that scream "lack of attention to detail" like spots in a finished image. At Light, we recommend spot checking every image at 100% or 1:1 view.
The best technique we have found to locate your spots is to use the Hand tool or a version of the Hand tool (other software) to slowly scroll through the image. Human eyes are very keen at detecting movement and this can help us find our spots. Many spots are very challenging to see on bright monitors when the photographer stares at the image. When you slowly scroll the image, dust spots appear to be moving against the background image.
This technique works extremely well. If you want to confirm a dust spot, wiggle the image with the Hand tool and the dust spot will jump off the screen at you. There are many instructors and photographers who recommend jumping through the image via keyboard shortcut. This is not nearly as effective as the scroll/wiggle method. Once you find your spots let the retouching commence (in a non-destructive manner, of course.) A common error with this method is to lose track of where you are in the image as you scroll. Use the Navigator to keep your bearings and you will easily check the entire image.
Fiat Lux!
Happy New Year from the crew at Light. Here is a quick video discussing a few changes we should all make to keep our Digital Asset Management process working smoothly.
Fiat Lux!
Push your photography way beyond what is possible "in camera" to produce fine art imagery that takes full advantage of a purely digital workflow. Only a week left to register!
Prevent snapping
When dragging a layer or selection near the edge of a document or layer, Photoshop snaps the edge of the object you’re working with to the edge of the document, layer, or selection that’s currently active. To prevent this, hold down the Control (PC: Ctrl) key after you start dragging the layer or selection and the snapping will be temporarily disabled.
Reposition selections
Click-and-drag with the Rectangular Marquee tool (M) or Elliptical Marquee tool and then press-and-hold the Spacebar to reposition the selection before releasing the mouse button. This is especially useful when attempting to create an elliptical selection that aligns with an existing object.
Cycle through blend modes
When the Move tool (V) is active, hold down the Shift key and press the plus (+) or minus (–) key to change the blend mode of the active layer in the Layers panel. If the Brush tool (B) or a retouching tool is active, then the same keyboard shortcut will change the blend mode of the active tool instead in the Options Bar.
Fit on Screen
If you ever copy-and-paste an image from a larger image into a smaller one, and then proceed to transform (Command-T [PC: Ctrl-T]) the resulting layer, you’ll find that the transformation handles appear outside your view of the document (because they’re beyond the document’s bounds). When that’s the case, press Command- 0 (PC: Ctrl-0) to use the Fit on Screen command to see the transformation handles that are attached to the active layer.
Reset any tool
If any tool is acting oddly, consider resetting the tool. Right-click on the tool icon in the upper-left corner of the Options Bar and choose Reset Tool from the menu that appears.
Multiple undos
Command-Z (PC: Ctrl-Z) works fine when all you want is to undo a single step. If you need to undo multiple steps, add the Option (PC: Alt) key to the aforementioned keyboard shortcut first to be able to apply multiple undos. You can also control how many undos are available. Choose Photoshop (PC: Edit)>Preferences> Performance and in the History & Cache section, change the History States setting.
Cycle through open windows
Press Control-Tab to cycle through the open documents in Photoshop. Adding the Shift key will reverse the direction that the documents are displayed in.
Brush to Eyedropper
Any time the Brush tool (B) is active, hold down the Option (PC: Alt) key and click on an open image to choose a color within the document to paint with. This is the same as temporarily switching to the Eyedropper tool (I).
Painting on a mask
When painting on a mask with the Brush tool (B), press X to swap the Foreground and Background colors, press D to reset the Foreground and Background colors to their defaults, and use the number keys on the keyboard to change the Opacity of the active brush in the Options Bar.
Target a layer
When the Move tool (V) is active, hold down the Command (PC: Ctrl) key and click to target the top-most layer that contains information that’s directly below your mouse position. Hold down the Shift key to add additional layers to the ones that are already selected.
By Hal Schmitt. Embellished by Victoria Schmitt
Select Desired Aperture
Do you want a shallow depth of field to isolate your subject or do you want as much of your scene in focus as possible? Remember the bigger the hole (smaller the number f4.5) the more shallow your depth of field, the small the hole (larger number f22) the more depth of field you will get.
Compose the rough scene
Look into your viewfinder and start to compose your scene. You can scan left right, up and down see what you want included or centered in your frame.
Meter and set exposure
Hopefully at this point your back-button focus is going to be your primary meter and focusing button. Depending on what exposure your aperture is giving you adjust the shutter speed to compensate for your exposure. If you are having a hard time getting a fast enough shutter speed, you will have to either change your ISO or your aperture to get the desired focus and exposure for the scene.
Focus
Make sure the primary subject is in focus.
Fine tune composition
If you now have to move your composition so that your subject is not smack dab in the middle, make sure your focus is set and move accordingly.
Fine tune your exposure
Shoot!
(Or just take a photo, picture or snapshot if your lingo does not include a shooting reference)
Review as necessary
Look at the back of your LCD. Make sure you are looking at your histogram!!! You don't want your histogram piled high on either side, but don't worry if there are parts of you scene that have a black point and a white point built-in. If you have a large amount of 1 "gray" tone (Blue sky, red rocks) you may have strange peaks and valleys in your histogram. What you're looking for is a balanced exposure. Do not depend on the picture you see on your LCD and always refer to your histogram. Remember, these are pixels. It's information being captured on a sensor, so rely on the information it gives you and not how pretty the LCD picture is.
Happy Shooting and Fiat Lux!
Last week I started with a checklist created by Hal to help you set up your inner camera settings before going out to shoot. Here I have another great checklist to help you start getting your camera working the way you want it to work.
Checklist by Hal, embellished by Victoria
Select Mode
– We recommend Manual- Always. Yes, there are those out there who want the "P", "professional mode" because life happens fast, right? Well, yes, but do want to capture life the way your camera brand wants, or how you want to capture it? Your camera doesn't know that your subject is back-lit and running quickly. But you can make your own adjustments in order to accommodate what you want exposed properly, in focus etc.
AV and TV is nice, but the camera is still making those critical decisions for you. Practice in Manual now so that later on you know how to control your camera quickly. If you have a camera that can create custom functions then you can set those to help you quickly change from your custom portrait settings into action settings as good starting points. But never assume that a camera should or can think for you.
Set White Balance-
Cloudy? Sunny? Are you using a strobe? Yes, you can kind of "correct" this later in RAW, but there are more than a few reasons to save yourself a step or a few steps before you even take the photo.
ISO
- We recommend starting at your lowest ISO that your camera will give you for the cleanest noise-free image possible. If you're in lower light see if you can adjust your aperture (smaller number, bigger hole) to get a fast enough shutter speed to hand-hold your camera. If you're on a tripod then there's are very few reasons to be on a higher ISO. You don't want your stars to be dots of noise from your sensor.
Metering modes-
Try to stick with Evaluative metering, or Matrix metering.
Auto focus-
Set correct mode for the scene you have. A simple guideline:
If you are photographing a moving object you will want Ai Servo, if you are shooting a non-moving subject/object then put it in "one shot" mode.
Drive mode-
You have single, continuous, or timer. Single (one square) is 1 shot per press of the shutter button. Good for portraits or slow moving scenes etc. Continuous mode and Continuous mode "H" for high speed (multi-squares and a multi square with an "H") is awesome for the soccer mom/dad, shooting horses on the beach at the California Photo Festival, or birds etc.
Select Auto Focus point/points:
If there is a moving object you may want to set these point on one of the sides of your focus choices. if the object is running from Left to right, I will set my primary focus point on the far right side of my viewfinder. That way as I follow the object the front of the object is always the point of focus.
Lens modes:
These are for the larger lenses and lenses that have these options. not all lenses have these options available.
-IS/VR:
Image stabilizer/Vibration reduction- This send out a small vibration to counter the vibration you are giving your lens while holding it. We recommend you turn it on when hand-holding and turning it off when you're on a tripod.
-Mode 1 or 2 for IS/VR?
Mode 1 is better if you are simply hand-holding your camera. Mode 2 is better if you are panning or moving while you're shooting.
-Focal Distance?
On my 100-400, for instance, it has a choice of either 1.8m to infinity, or 6.5m to infinity. This is setting your minimum focusing distance on your lens.
I hope this helps you during your next adventure or local photo-shoot!
Fiat Lux!
Victoria Schmitt
Here is a sneak peak to next week's list:
Select Aperture (which one and why)
Select your shutter speed
Is your Shutter speed or Aperture more important?
Compose the scene (how and why)
Review as necessary (where, why and what to look for)
...and more...
New Croton Dam, NY
I am in New York this weekend with Rick Sammon. Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene just passed through the area. My discussion in NYC was cancelled so we spent the day shooting around Croton-on-Hudson.
We recorded a quick video discussing the top slow shutter speed and waterfall photography tips. Rick and I, along with Juan Pons and Jennifer Wu, did a battle of the sunset photo tips last year at the California Photo Festival (2011 California Photo Fest) so we thought we would do a smaller version.
The top tips on the video, and one or two more, were:
1. Use a tripod for stability. When shooting slow a tripod allows you to keep everything solid except for the moving water.
2. Use your cable release or camera's timer.
3. Bring a neutral density filter or polarizers.
4. Use live view.
A small "stream" that had popped up as a result of Irene.
5. Reference live view's magnification frame to act as an expanded spot meter for perfect exposure. I normally place the frame over the brightest area of the water I am trying to blur. This area is normally (but not always) the shot's highlight and drives the overall exposure.
6. After the shot reference your histogram to make sure the exposure is tight.
7. Target half a second as your shutter speed. As water speed changes you may need more or less.
8. Keep a lens cloth and absorbent cloth nearby to wipe your lens and LCD.
9. Maintain your SA (situational awareness,) always look behind you to make sure you are not missing a great shot.
Those were just a few we thought of on the spot in beautiful Croton-on-Hudson, NY.
Same as above but with "enhancement." Took the image to Silver Efex and then blended the result using the Luminosity blend mode in Photoshop.
Check out a bunch of cool tips at Rick Sammon's blog here.
Fiat Lux and see you at the California Photo Festival!
This moonrise capped an amazing day of photography on a recent trip. We were shooting all day with subjects varied from glaciers to brown bears to crazy, trumpeting whales and everyone was tired. Needless to say the moon rising over the high peaks and snow/ice fields invigorated our group and we shot a little bit longer.
I used a Canon EF 400mm f/2.8L mounted to a 7D body. A Really Right Stuff PG-02 and Induro CT314 provided the stability. Stability was incredibly important as I was on an anchored yacht in calm water but it was still rocking as a result of six whales lunging, diving, and surging. Turns out 200+ tons of whale makes a ripple or two.
The dynamic range was fairly large and in order to get enough detail in the moon I sacrificed a little in the shadows. I shot a bracketed sequence for HDR as well but did not prefer the image to the one you see above. Since the shadows were a bit dark I used Photoshop to bring up the tonality in the lower portions of the image.
When I want to brighten an area I often use a curves adjustment layer. Instead of moving the curve though, I switch the layer blend mode to Screen. This brightens the image by approximately one stop. I liked the result everywhere but the moon so I masked it out and kept the original tone.
Fiat Lux!
In photography (as well as in life, of course), it's very important to set goals. If you don't set goals, how do you know where you are going?
Here is an example of what I mean.
While teaching a private workshop in Mongolia, the student and I had the opportunity to get the shot that every horse photographer wants to get: a shot of the horse with all the hooves off the ground.
To get the shot, I told the student that we had to (and you can use these tips when photographing fast-moving subjects):
1) Set our Canon 5D cameras to the AI Servo focus mode - which tracks a moving subject right up until the moment of exposure.
2) Choose the rapid frame advance mode.
3) Compose the scene (using our Canon 100-400mm IS lenses) with lots of space around the subject – so no important parts were cut off.
4) Choose a shooting position where the light was just right.
5) Carefully watch the background so that the subject was completely isolated.
6) Take several series of images to ensure at least one good shot.
7) Use a shutter speed of at least 1/000th of a second to freeze the action.
8) Shoot with both eyes open - so we could see if something was coming into the frame that would ruin our pictures.
9) Check all our camera settings (ISO, Image Quality, white balance, etc.) to get the best possible in-camera exposure.
• • •
Setting the specific goal beforehand, and going through the motions of taking the shot in our hotel rooms, we became comfortable with the process. When we got on site, we practiced the process again and again - before the show.
All our practicing made getting the shot relatively easy - again, because we set a specific goal.
So . . . I told this story to my students while teaching a workshop at the LIGHT Photographic Workshops in Los Osos, CA. The next day were were going to photograph horses running on the beach.
Guess what? They all set goals . . . and they all got the shot.
Set specific goals, and you'll have a better chance of getting the shots you envision in your mind's eye.
Explore the light,
Rick Sammon
RickSammon.info
Don't miss seeing Rick Sammon and 4 more Canon Explorers of Light at this year's California Photo Festival.
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We have been approached by a local silk scarf maker who creates beautiful, one of a kind scarves. The process that you can see on her website looks very fun and very messy! She comes in with dark colored finger tips which gently caress her light fragile looking colorful scarves and says "I can't photograph the color close enough to post on my website".
She indeed came to the right place. Between listening to Kevin Ames, Jim DiVitale and, of course, master of the studio, Hal Schmitt, they have all shown me awesome tips and accurate techniques in the studio about lighting and post production for commercial purposes.
First you want to set up lights that are as balanced as you can get. We use the ProFoto D1 Air Kits along with the Creative light strip boxes. You can see in the photo I'm using 2 strips. The other softbox in the upper left is just hanging for storage purposes only.
I tried the scarves on white first and got a few good images but wanted to see if black would create a more rich color. Turns out- it didn't matter once I color balanced, set my white and black points and cropped in, but I like shooting on black better. I also prefer having the option of showcasing the entire product and for me, color seems to stand out nicer with a black background.
I hung the scarves on a C-stand to pull them away from the black background to allow the light to fall off quickly behind the subject, making the black background darker. If you are ever getting to much light on the background pull the subject forward, back up and the background will naturally get darker.
Also, make sure your camera in not in AWB (auto white balance). This could give you varying color balance in the studio depending on what and how you're shooting (thank you Hal). I put it in flash mode, but ultimately I used my trusty X-Rite color checker- incredibly important to maintain neutral, honest color in your scene. If I changed the lights in any way I would take the photo with the color checker again in case any inconsistencies came up.
I then loaded the images into Lightroom to see how I did. Bring up the image that has the color checker into the Develop Module. In the basic tab there is a small eye dropper next to your exposure slider. Take that eye dropper and click on middle gray or 18% gray. That will help bring your color balance to a neutral state. Set your white point and your black point. Some photographers are a bit more technical than that, but I find that this method works for me.
Sync your settings to all the images with that developed image and you are color balanced and ready to crop.
I had a little fun with some "posing" and folding of the scarves to see what the client will like, but I can tell that this is going to be the main challenge. Have you ever tried folding silk? Maybe get a wind machine... I can't wait to get started on her other few hundred once we get a good system for her images worked out.
To learn more and get more detailed workflow instruction, come to our California Photo Festival and check out Jim DiVitale and Parish Kohanim for your commercial shoots as well as Rob Sheppard and Tim Grey for your Lightroom workflow.
Fiat Lux
-Victoria
