Let’s say you’d like to soften a background, or soften certain parts of a person’s physical features. You’d use a concept called “depth of field”, where the “field” is everything your camera sees, from the closest objects to the most distant, and the “depth” is how much of that field is in focus (the close objects, the far ones, everything). This concept is something many have the habit of doing in photoshop, but it doesn’t need to be that way.
Photoshop can emulate effects that are native to the camera lens, but there are a few really excellent reasons NOT to do it this way:
Using your camera’s features to control depth of field will produce a much more natural effect than Photoshop.
You’ll save a whole lot of editing time in the long run if you invest a little time up front to learn the intricacies of your camera’s lens aperture, or “f-stop” settings.
What is Aperture / F-Stop?
At the most basic level, the aperture is the size of the “opening” through which your camera collects light, whereas f-stop is the way we measure the size of this opening.
When the aperture is open all the way, your depth of field is at its smallest. That is to say, it’s easy to create a photograph where only a small portion of your subject is in focus. When the aperture is closed all the way (well it’s never really closed all the way, just super small) your depth of field is at its largest and nearly everything can be brought into focus from the closest to the furthest.
When speaking f-stops, what looks like a relatively low number (f/2.8 for example) corresponds to a large aperture, a high number (f/22, f/64) corresponds to a very small aperture.
For more on the basics of your camera lens and aperture, see the previous post on the subject of Aperture.
Handmade Aperture in Action
Now for some hands-on exercises, literally! Here is a fun little way get a very real concept of the effect of large and small apertures… by making an aperture with your hands, you can actually see the difference in your vision:
Wherever you happen to be, find two objects with text or some other kind of details on them. One of these objects should be a “near” object and a one “far” object. The near object should be close enough so that, when looking at it, the far object is out of focus.
Line up the objects so they are both in your field of vision and take your thumbs and forefingers and smash ‘em together like so (funny face not required):
Squeeze tightly until there is just the smallest hole between your four fingers. You’ve just created a small aperture. With your fingers!
Looking through your personal small aperture, focus on the near object and slowly make the aperture larger. Notice that, as you make the aperture between your fingers larger, the background object begins to get less and less in focus. Your depth of field is getting smaller!
You can play around with this exercise a bit, but the concept you want to bring away is:
A tiny aperture can produce a great huge depth of field.
A large aperture (as is the case with the uninhibited human eye) can produce a very shallow depth.
Lastly, the closer these objects are to you, the more pronounced this shallow depth of field is… once you begin to look at objects which are more than a dozen feet away, things begin to come into a general clear focus. Unless you’ve lost your contacts, and that’s a whole different problem.
At the most basic level, the aperture is the size of the “opening” through which your camera collects light, whereas f-stop is the way we measure the size of this opening. At times, the two terms can really be used interchangeably: “what aperture are you shooting?” or “what’s your f-stop?”. You’ll read later, however, why this doesn’t always make sense.
When the aperture is open all the way, your lens is letting in as much light as possible. When the aperture is closed all the way (well it’s never really closed all the way, just super small) your lens is letting in the smallest amount of light possible.
If that sounds too easy, let’s complicate things a tad. When speaking f-stops, what looks like a relatively low number (f/2.8 for example) corresponds to a large aperture , a high number (f/22, f/64) corresponds to a very small aperture.
You might have noticed that f-stops are expressed as fractions. To to put it in mathematical terms f-stop = (f) / (x), where f=the focal length of your lens (50mm, 18mm, etc…) and x is the number that we are familiar with, 2.8, 5.6, 11, 22, 64. Essentially, f/11 means that your aperture diameter is 1/11th the maximum possible size, given your lens. In terms of how much light is let in, these numbers are standardized on most lenses so that each number (2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, 11) lets in 1/2 the amount of light as the previous number.
Now remember the bit about being cautious when using the words “f-stop” and “aperture” interchangeably? Saying “large aperture” and “large f-stop” don’t really mean the same thing, so it’s best to think of the f-stop as a setting, and the aperture as the physical manifestation of that setting.
You love your on-camera flash, but you’re beginning to realize its limitations. Flat facial features, limited direction and distance, and almost no creativity allowed. You need to step up to wireless strobes. Lot’s of people are in that boat, but don’t want to pay more money for a wireless flash system than they did for their camera.
Luckily, there is a solution. Several, in fact!
Nikon and Canon both have some amazing flash units, and I’ve both seen and created some pretty intricate, auto’magic’ flash setups, in particular using Nikon’s Creative Lighting System (CLS). They boggle the mind, but you camera somehow keeps track of it all for you. Unfortunately you can’t get those systems without dropping at least hundreds or possibly thousands of dollars, but there are several alternatives that you can pick up for pocket change (by comparison).
Essentially, if you want to use an off camera flash as a strobe, all you need is a flash that is capable of being manually controlled, and a way to wireless trigger that flash. I’ve come up with some combos that might be helpful in your quest. These are essentially brand-independent solutions that **should** work with most DSLR cameras.
Flash Units:
The following is a list of inexpensive flashes, mostly discontinued, that you can find used. The last is a resurrection of a truly old-school flash by Vivitar which is actually being produced again and can be purchased new.
Wireless Triggers:
Here are some wireless triggers you can get on the cheap. All of these are optical triggers, meaning they look for the light from your on-camera flash in order to know when to fire. Cheap and dirty (some can be had for under $10); you hook them up to an external flash and away you go.
Before purchasing, verify that the trigger you choose can talk to your external flash. If it’s a hot-shoe mount trigger, this means you will mount your flash onto the trigger, and they will talk to eachother through that mount. Easy, this works for most brands (save for Sony and Minolta on occasion). Both of the above triggers are in this category.
Other triggers use a PC sync or other cable-based manner of communicating between the trigger and the flash.
Light Stand and Adapter:
Anything will work here. Honestly, if you want to go on the cheap, you can gaff tape your strobe to anything that’s handy: light post, a fluted Roman column, your left forearm (see photo at beginning of post), etc…
If you want to do it in a more refined manner, you can buy any standard light stand for anywhere between $15-50, depending on how heavy-duty of a stand you want. However… since the mounting systems on stands are meant for professional strobes, you will need an Hot Shoe Adapter (preferably with an umbrella bracket also). These little guys can be had for around $15 as well. The hot shoe adapter/bracket allows you to attach your flash to a stand, and if you want diffused, or “soft” light, it also allows the use of an umbrella.
Umbrella:
This is, of course, an optional part. But after looking at your photographs, I can bet you’ll be extremely glad you sprung the extra few dollars for it. For the umbrella, again, most anything will work, most stuff can be had for $10 at the bottom end, but you’d do best to spring for one that is “convertible”, meaning it will have a black/silver cover so you can bounce light out of it (diffused, but slightly harder shadows) when the cover is removed you can shoot straight through it (softer light, more spread).
Now… Shoot!
Go for it. That pretty much completes the list.
For a total of about $150, you can have your own professional-esque wireless strobe. Compare that to $700 for a bulky, low-end strobe kit that leaves you stuck in the studio (or within 100′ of the nearest AC power outlet), and you’ve got yourself a rather screaming bargain, capable of creating some beautiful lighting!
Other Resources
When you’re ready to start pimping out your new wireless strobe system, check out the Strobist Blog. This is probably THE most content-rich site to be found on this topic. A wealth of great ideas.
This is the first in the “Make it Pop” series, meant to help further your post-production skills, adding subtle elements to your photography with digital tools such as Adobe Photoshop.
This article tackles the Headshot. Often times the professional headshot is shown up against a sea of others. I mean, heck, that’s the point, right? You are being directly compared against others, and if several candidates meet the same basic requirements, a well-produced headshot can make the difference.
There are dozens of techniques that photographers regularly use to set their shots apart from others, and to achieve their own “look”. One important technique has to do with highlights. It’s always a good idea to bring out the client’s best features, and pulling out key highlights in the eyes, hair, teeth, etc… can be a subtle yet effective way to do this.
Bringing Out Highlights in Photoshop
With your image open in Photoshop, duplicate the main (background) layer.
This step is optional, however, it’s always a good idea to duplicate your layer if you’re going to be doing any destructive editing.
Choose the Dodge tool from the tools panel and edit your brush, range, and exposure settings. You can work with the settings below or use other brush sizes or exposures. Whatever you feel more comfortable with.
Start working into the hair highlights. First with the range set to Midtones, and then to Highlights. Work slowly until you have pulled all of the important highlights out (highly subjective).
Move to the eye highlights. It’s often best to set your range to Highlights for these areas. Pull out the whites and also a bit of the colored area.
You can optionally use the Sponge tool (same tool family as dodge/burn) to add a small amount of extra saturation to the eyes (and/or lips).
Look for other areas to bring out highlights. Sometimes teeth, or even clothing can be emphasized. Regardless of what anyone might tell you, it’s all a very subjective area, so go ahead and experiment with it to make it your own.
Above is a crop of the headshot after the subtle highlight cues were brought out.
I’ve been using the Nikon D90 as a backup body lately. Recently, however, I’ve been interested to put it through some paces in terms of the HD (720p) video feature.
The biggest drawback I found was the propensity of D-movie to figure its own exposures on the fly, while recording. Huge jumps in exposure mar scenes with dramatic lighting as D-movie skips and jumps around to different f-stops and shutter speeds… it’s just like composing a shot in Live-View, but it’s being recorded to motion JPEG. Horrible.
I almost gave up… but then I realized a little trick.
The AE/AF Lock (hold) feature. In your camera’s menu, under Custom Setting Menu > Controls, choose to Assign AE-L/AF-L button to AE lock (hold). Now, one press of that button while in D-movie mode and your exposure will stick. Yup, not earth-shattering. In fact, it’s a setting many people already use as an alternate for the half-shutter-press. Here’s a short video comparison of the default (auto exposure) and the custom (locked exposure) modes:
You still can’t set your exposures with 100% manual accuracy, (changing apertures for best depth of field, capturing fast action with speedy shutter) but at least now you CAN find an exposure that works and force the D90 to stick with it.
That’s worth a gold star in my book. This feature seems infinitely more useful now *twiddles fingers with Mr. Burns-esque aplomb*
It’s one of the big struggles when shooting outdoors. You’re fighting with the sunset for a good exposure and your subject comes out too dark. In other words, the sun always wins.
Unless you have your own sun.
Augmenting lighting with a flash to shoot models in the late afternoon or during sunset can produce some very pleasant results for a few reasons.
Colors are nice and warm
Sunlight is softer (diffused)
Sunlight is less bright (easier to match with your own light source)
Let’s make a quick example using the shot below. I’ll go through how it was created, what elements when into it, and why each element was used.
Don’t Fight the Sun
First thing is first, and that is, meter for the things you can’t change. In this case, the sunset. Unless you have enough light to blast the clouds (don’t worry, no one in their right mind would try this), or some trickery with a gradient filter, you’re going to need to meter as if you’re shooting your background alone, no model.
In this case, I’m shooting f 5.6 at 1/320 second to get a good sunset exposure (be wary, as some cameras have a flash sync speed limit of 1/60, 1/125, or 1/250). Use shutter priority or full manual settings to get a good exposure, and keep in mind the flash sync speed limitations of your camera body. After you have that background exposure, then you can start worrying about matching it with your own light on a model.
The Setup
Here’s (roughly) the setup I used for this sunset shot:
Off-Camera Flash – I used a Nikon SB-800 for light, but any other powerful flash, pointed AWAY from the subject, into an umbrella will work fine. A cable to your flash or some type of wireless flash technology (CLS/Pocket Wizard) is going to be necessary. If your flash is lacking the power to light your subject sufficently, you might end up pointing the flash straight at them, although you’ll loose the soft diffused look.
Orange Gel – Placed over flash to approximate the warm color of the sunset.
Umbrella – Placed with the center of the umbrella at roughly shoulder height. In this case, the umbrella is used to bounce light back at the subject. With most umbrellas, you could also use it to shoot through.
Light Meter – You may find a light meter handy. Just keep your sunset exposure handy as a reference and meter from the position of your subject until you get a good match. If you don’t have a light meter, that’s fine too, so long as you have a digital body, you have the luxury of burning through several shots until your histogram looks good. Yup, use that histogram…you can’t always trust the results you see in that tiny screen on the back of your camera!
Camera – I shot this with a Nikon D300 which makes this setup easy with integrated remote flash control (CLS), but any D-SLR body will do you just fine so long as you have a way to trigger that off-camera flash.
Alternatives?
This surely isn’t the only way to get this shot, it’s just the way I chose to do it on this particular day. In a pinch you can try to use a reflector disk in place of the strobe lighting, although you’re not likely to get the same brightness. You could also fool around with filters, positioning of the light source, etc…
Don’t use these examples as “the way”. Go out and get creative with your bad self!
It’s difficult enough during broad daylight to capture fast-paced sports action, but oh my, come nightfall the problems are compounded. The two biggest problems sports photographers face at night are lack of light and non-standard white balance. The second of these is rather easy to remedy on the spot or, to a certain extent, in post production (Lightroom, Photoshop, etc). The issue of stopping action at night, however, is something that software can’t really fix, it must be dealt with while you’re out there shooting.
To capture outdoor sports moments at night, including football, soccer, baseball, etc… you’ll need a good dose of both equipment and technique. Let’s take you through the list…
The Lens
Fast – For telephotos, fast usually means f2.8. If you’re shooting at 5.6, your getting 2-stops less worth of light making it to your sensor. That means your shutter speed must be twice as long!
Telephoto – If you want to get close to the action, you’ll want 200mm or better on your lens. Most consumer and pro-sumer DSLR cameras help out here because of the 1.5x Crop Factor (read more about crop factor here). With a Nikon D300 for example, a 200mm lens gives you the equivalent zooming power of a 300mm lens. Nice!
Image Stabilization / Vibration Reduction – This falls into the “nice to have” category. If you don’t have it, you can still get some great shots, if you do, it’ll boost your ability to get cleaner images. Remember though, that anti shake type technologies only help stop your own camera movement, they don’t help stop action. Again. VR and IS will not make blurry action shots any clearer. As you’ll read below, a monopod can sometimes help more than IS/VR features… Plus, it’s a whole heck of a lot cheaper!
The Accessories
Monopod – This one is definitely helpful at night. A good sturdy monopod attached to your camera body (good) or lens (better) will help steady your shots at night by keeping the shake and vertical movement to a minimum.
The Camera
High ISO – A fancy acronym for what is basically “sensitivity to light”, (read a primer on ISO here). A camera with the ability to shoot low-noise, high-ISO images helps a lot here. In some cases, you can make up for a slower lens with a super high-ISO, but you don’t want to rely on that because higher ISO can also mean a dirtier image. Do some test shots at ISO 1600, 3200, 6400, or whatever your highest settings are, and see which results are acceptable to you. For sports at night, you’ll usually want to peg that ISO as high as is reasonable.
Manual Exposure – If you have the ability and the game is after sunset, set your exposure manually. The lighting conditions on the field are going to be very consistent all night in most stadiums. This takes less processing time/power from shot to shot and gives you consistency, which makes the editing process much easier.
Put the Flash Away – For heaven’s sake, don’t use your flash. Keep it with you in case you have an up-close opportunity, but mostly you’ll want the flash off. Remember that the action is mostly going to be too far away for the flash to have any effect. What’s worse, shooting in auto mode with a flash will lead to grossly underexposed shots. If you do encounter a player close up in play, you’ll probably blind them and be taken out as they miss their mark and sail into you instead.
The Technique
Follow the action – That is, keep an eye on things as you shoot and move your lens with the players and ball. When you get the hang of this technique, you’ll notice players becoming more crisp and backgrounds becoming more (motion) blurred. This is especially important when you’re working with equipment that forces you to use a slower shutter speed.
Smooth and Steady Motion – Easier said than done, right? It’s important to practice your motions, ALL of them. Even a smooth movement when tracking the action can be nullified by that itchy, overbearing trigger finger. Practice being smooth in everything you do and your pictures will look as good as you
White Balance
Custom Settings – Stadium lighting can be in a spectrum that your camera does not have a good pre-set white balance for. If it is already nighttime when you’re setting up, try to get a custom white balance reading right off the bat using a white background (a white card helps, but you can use any white object that’s handy). If your camera does not allow a custom white balance, try to toggle between settings until you find one that gives neutral looking whites and stick with it for the whole game.
We all like to root for the underdog. Slowly becoming a major contender, the ‘little guy’ Fotki has some amazing features, but is it trying to grow to far too fast?
Navigation
If there is a fault with Fotki, it is that there are just so many options (29 in fact) that users can’t help but be overwhelmed. From the perspective of the person uploading and organizing photos, the interface (see below) could use some better organization, as the array of buttons, menus and folders tend to clutter the interface.
When it comes to the photo viewing experience, most of the navigational clutter is cleaned up. Fotki earns high marks for ease of use on the visitor side, offering options for ordering prints, viewing a slide show, and sharing photos all at the viewer’s mouse click.
Fotki also offers a co-branding option for ‘professional’ photographers and it seems to work very well when browsing photos. The Fotki 2-panel interface simply drops in around your branded wrapper and allows clients to view photographs in a familiar setting. This approach works well all the way until your clients attempt to order prints, but we’ll get to that in the ‘Ordering Prints’ section of this article.
Uploading
Fotki offers quite an array of photo uploading options. Although there are many platform specific choices that operate only on Mac or Windows, I found the best option to be Fotki’s Java Uploader. This uploading tool loads in the web browser and offers an interface much like your file browser. Plus, it is compatible with Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and Solaris. How’s that for options!
If you’re running Windows 2000 or XP, your best option (and the coolest one I’ve seen yet) is Fotki’s Desktop Client. This little client allows you to upload photographs directly from the Windows file browser without having to log into Fotki using a web browser. It’s quick, easy and allows for on-the-fly resizing of your photos to minimize upload time. Neat!
Once you choose an uploading option, the process moves along quickly, depending of course, on your Internet connection speed.
Sharing Options
Sharing photos is also relatively easy. Sending cryptic links out to your friends and family is not part of Fotki’s game. Instead, they offer you a personal Website URL, such as “johnsonfamily.fotki.com”. Pointing your family to your photo album has never been easier! Well, once people memorize the “fotki” part, that is. You can also easily add password protection, print ordering, and an option to allow downloading of original-size files.
Ordering Prints
Fotki has kept their $0.09 pricing for 4×6 prints in-tact and it remains the best deal out there. Other options abound for print sizes at Fotki, ranging from small wallet prints to 24”x36” posters. Print prices are more than competitive with other major online photo sharing and printing Websites and print quality very good. What Fotki misses on is the other consumer-goods such as t-shirts, mugs, iPod covers, etc. Not necessarily a deal breaker, but worth noting. Watch for a comprehensive print-quality shootout between Fotki and the other major services including Kodak EasyShare, SnapFish and Shutterfly.
As I mentioned earlier, Fotki also offers co-branding with the option to sell your prints, either at cost or at custom set prices. This allows professionals the ability to turn a profit when shooting events that would normally require print order forms. The problem Fotki has, is that these transactions take place outside of your co-branded look and feel, most likely due to SSL encryption requirements, so the user does tend to feel a little uneasy during the ordering process. It also does not help Fotki’s professional-photographer report card that the ordering process does not offer an intuitive shopping flow if users are interested in purchasing multiple prints.
Summary
Wanting to print cards, shirts, aprons, and other crazy photo gifts? You might find yourself better off with a full-service Website such as kodakgallery.com or snapfish.com. Looking for a power-house backend for selling prints? I’d look elsewhere until Fotki cleans up their ordering process.
Update 9/15/08: Fotki does offer mugs and t-shirt printing, and has plans to expand their line of photo-related products (thanks, Nick).
However, despite its shortcomings in these areas, for photographers attracted by the co-branding option as a means of simply sharing images with clients, or those who are looking for a Website to share photos with friends and family, in addition to making glossy or matte finished prints, Fotki has some very compelling options in its corner.
Oh, the crappy airline seat. It’s almost an oxymoron in its own right. I mean, aren’t they all crappy?
Well, yes. And no.
I’m talking about the seat where the back does not recline, the tray table is stuck in-between the seats, the seat in front of you has no storage room underneath, the seat across the isle is not a seat but… a rank bathroom. Well, you get the idea.
Anyway, if you’re a guy or gal who is consistently flys in coach, you want to be as picky as I am about where exactly in coach you are sitting. Heck, even if you fly first class, not all seats are made alike.
Well, I came across this nifty Website called Seat Guru that helps solve this problem. The site shows you the cabin layout of almost any plane on almost any airline, along with color-coded seats, and notes on why each location might be good or bad. Pretty friggin helpful!
Also, what good would that information be if it were out of date? Well a large portion of the site is driven by frequent flyer feedback, so it stays relatively up to date. At least, i’s always been correct for me.
The website is http://www.seatguru.com/, it’s free and, given that you have to pay for peanuts and wine nowadays, it’s wicked helpful for making you feel like you are getting the most out of your coach seat.
Well, off to Raleigh for me this weekend. Glorious. How about you?
Because taking a photograph is essentially a matter of capturing light, the night photograph is not always an easy thing to accomplish. Nevertheless there is a profound public interest in capturing photographic images at night. This article is geared towards the night scene or landscape and helps you “bend the rules” of photography a bit in order to take great nighttime photographs.
Recommended Equipment
Before attempting a night photo shoot, make sure you have these items packed:
Digital or film camera with manual aperture and shutter speed capability
Solid tripod
Bright Flashlight
Low ISO film (digital users can set their ISO to a low setting)
Auxiliary light such as an off camera flash (optional)
Cable release or remote trigger for your camera’s shutter (optional)
Find Your Scene
Find the night scene you want to capture and set up your tripod. Be sure to tighten your tripod’s camera mount snugly.
Part of finding the right scene also includes looking for dynamic lighting, interesting shapes, textures, and juxtapositions, anything that seems to have a special meaning at nighttime. Keep in mind, objects that are not particularly special during the day can become beautiful subjects after the sun sets.
Correct White Balance and ISO
The most common white-balance and ISO combination for night landscape photography is Tungsten/Indoor at ISO 200. Shooting with ISO 200 or lower is a good idea because it offers the best fidelity for your photograph, although it does force longer shutter speeds (another reason to invest in a good tripod). Try to avoid using the daylight white balance setting for night scenes as it will often capture skewed colors that are too yellow.
Set your Aperture
Pick an appropriate Aperture (f-stop) setting. For long night exposures (30 seconds or more) it is often recommended to use a bigger number (smaller opening) aperture such as f16 or f22 in order to capture crisp detail in the foreground and background. If your camera does not offer long exposure (at least 30 seconds), you should try using an aperture setting of f2.8 or 5.6 in order to capture enough light for a properly exposed photograph. Keep in mind that with smaller number apertures, focus will start to become a major issue. You might want to keep a flashlight handy to aide yourself in focusing at night!
Meter for Light and Select Shutter Speed
Lighting conditions can be so tricky at night, they tend to trick your light meter too! If you are shooting in an area with sparse artificial lighting (street lamps, neon signs, car headlights), you will often find your light meter overexposes the photograph. As a starting point, try picking a shutter speed that is 2-3 stops faster (underexposed) from what your meter reading tells you. Shutter speeds for night scenes can range anywhere from 15 seconds to several minutes.
An exception to the “2-3 stops under” rule is when you are shooting under completely natural light such as moonlight. If there are no artificial lights to be found, you can often trust your meter reading for good exposure.
Focusing at Night
Focusing at night can be difficult because built in autofocus systems cannot do their job without light. If you can’t get a good manual or auto focus lock on your subject, try pointing that flashlight (bet you’re glad you brought it now) at the center of where your camera’s focus point is. Now hold the shutter button half-way down, but not enough to take a picture. This will help obtain a good focus lock. After you’ve focused once for a scene, switch to manual focus if possible and your camera will not have to hunt for focus each time you take an exposure.
If you are photographing a landscape where the objects are mostly far away from your lens, try using a small aperture (say, f22), and focusing manually to infinity (as far out as you can focus). This technique often gives good results in situations where it is otherwise difficult to focus.
Getting Creative
If you have the optional off-camera flash (or other light source) available, try using it to light parts of your scene. Fire the flash from different angles or even paint the scene with a flashlight while the exposure is going. Since night exposures tend to be many seconds (or minutes) long, you should have ample time to create your own dynamic lighting.
In the shot above, I used a single flash and simply snuck across the middle of the frame (while still exposing) to fire the flash again with a different gel. Most of the time in long exposure night shots, there won’t even be sufficient light for the camera to record an image of you walking across the frame. Ooooh, you’re the phantom photographer!
(new)
