When you hear the term 'high-res' thrown about with such abandon when it comes to images for web use, have you ever stopped to think just how big or how high quality and image meant for the web needs to be?
There's an assumption that high-contrast images are more dynamic, more compelling, more inviting. Have a go at some low-contrast photography. You might surprise yourself with the results.
Photographing buildings doesn't have to mean wide-angle lenses and fretting about correcting for the keystone effect. Any lens, and angle. Don't believe us? Let us show you!
It always amazes me how often people just leave their flashes turned on all the time – or, more accurately, how great people’s faith is in the camera’s ‘automatic’ setting. To wit: I recently had the pleasure of dragging myself out at bed before dawn to photograph the sunrise at the legendary Angkor Wat temple in Cambodia. Now, this temple is famous for being beautiful and facing west, which makes it great for sunrises. Multiply that with the fact that Angkor Wat is a tourist trap of epic proportions at the quietest of days, and you might imagine that the place attracts a fair few people.
I got to the location by the light of my flashlight – and slowly the sky started changing colors, as the sun was climbing its slow ascent past the horizon. Unsurprisingly, lots of my fellow tourists were taking photos of the sunset. Surprisingly, a huge proportion of them were taking photos with a flash.
When is a flash useful?
All flashes have a ‘guide number’. This is a number given in feet and meters, and gives a good indication for how far away you can expect the flash to reach. Typically, for a compact camera, the flash range will be 5-7 meters (16-23 ft). The pop-up flash built into an SLR camera can have a range of 10-15 meters (32-49 ft) at the most, and EVIL cameras tend to fall in between the compact cameras.
A flash having to be fully charged and fired at full power isn’t great for your camera’s battery life, and it takes a relatively long time to cycle the power (i.e. from taking a photo, until your camera is ready to take another shot), which isn’t all that helpful when you’re standing around waiting for your camera so you can take another picture.
In general, it’s recommended to try to keep your flash at around 50-70% of its output – this tends to be a nice balance between flash charge time, and battery usage. This means that on a compact camera, you should only expect about 3 meters (10 ft) of useable flash range. That’s perfect for indoor snapshot portraits when it’s dark, and not for a lot else.
If you want a flash that charges faster and has significantly more power, start looking for an accessory flash.
When’s the flash not useful?
The built-in flash isn’t very powerful – so unless you are taking a photo of someone that’s close enough that you can throw a stuffed animal at them, turn off your flash.
Whatever you do, don’t be one of the hundreds and hundreds people at a famous landmark after sunset, taking photos with your compact camera with the built-in flash turned on: There’s no way your flash is going to reach that building 600 yards away, so you may as well save your battery…
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One of the strengths of photography has always been its ability to freeze time. Before the advent of photography, it was impossible to see how a hummingbird moves its wings, how a tennis ball deforms as it is served, or what it looks like when a bullet hits an apple at the speed of sound.
In the microcosmos explored by macro photographers, there are hundreds of similar quick-moving phenomena that lay unexplored. I have a fascination with falling water and the way matches flare up as you strike them, so I decided to take a closer look.
Falling droplets
Edgerton nearly drove himself to despair trying to capture this one photograph
There are photographers out there who have driven themselves to the brink of insanity trying to capture the perfect droplet photo. Harold Edgerton, for example, worked several years of his life in the mid-1950s the hope of one day capturing the perfect corona—the splash impact of a droplet in a layer of liquid transforming into a perfect crown of droplets thrown back from the liquid. Eventually, through years of trial and error, he managed to capture his droplet.
Today, photographers have the advantage of being able to share experience online. Because most photographers work with digital cameras, the experimentation time also decreases drastically. Imagine the poor people who had to wait for an hour for their film to develop properly, just so they could see if they had finally captured the perfect corona!
This photo, by Mattheu Collomp, shows an alternative way of photographing droplets - click the image for a bigger version!
Despite the fact that the technical side of capturing droplets is a lot easier, it is still a labor- and time-intensive mission on which to embark. There is something unique about seeing liquids and their motion frozen in time, however, and as a macro photography project, it is excellent.
I have tried capturing droplets on impact on many occasions throughout my photography lifetime, and every time, I did it a little differently. On the first few attempts, I tried it with an old flash unit connected to a Kodak DC4800 with a PC lead (the same type of connection that connects cameras to studio flashes). The results were not terrible, but the limitations of a digital compact camera turned out to be prohibitive of capturing the photos I wanted. The second time I gave it a shot, I had graduated from digital compacts and was using my first dSLR—one of the first Canon EOS D60s, bought on the very day it was released. The result wasn’t too bad — but it wasn’t great either.
My first attempts at photographing droplets weren't, exactly, what you'd call successful (click on image for larger version on Flickr)
With my shiny new dSLR, I was trapped indoors in a typical miserable rainy day. What could I do other than try to capture some more droplets? This time, I decided to give continuous lighting a try, and I lined up a pair of 600w work lights. Although the light was blindingly bright, in retrospect, there still wasn’t enough light: Even the best of my shots that day had a slight tinge of motion blur on them. Although I did get some spectacular photographs, the blur meant that they weren’t as perfect as I would have liked.
Throughout my experimentation, however, I did discover one thing: The translucency of water makes it difficult to capture the true dynamic of the fluid. If only there was a purely coloured, perfectly opaque liquid I could use—and paint would have created such a mess. My esteemed photography assistant Katherine came up with the idea of using milk, which turned out to be a terrible idea. The hot lamps made the milk turn sour within half an hour, and the smell in my make-shift photo studio stayed for weeks. I’ve since discovered the perfect liquid: long-life coffee creamer! This liquid is slightly thicker than water, doesn’t go bad as easily as milk, and makes a wonderful splash, too!
It took hundreds and hundreds of attempts before I started getting images I started to be happy with. This wasn't one of 'em.
When I started writing my macro book (from which this article is a small extract), I decided it was time to revisit the droplet experiment. Armed with a few containers of coffee creamer and using a 28-135mm macro lens with a 25mm extension tube and the Canon Twin Lite macro flash, I started experimenting again.
There are many ways to capture droplets, all depending on your taste. It’s possible to create tranquil photos, like the one Matthieu Collump shot above, but personally, I prefer the drama of liquid hitting liquid.
For my droplet shots, I used a large, flat surface with a very thin layer of coffee creamer in the bottom. I then used an eyedropper to let droplets of creamer fall into the film of creamer. (If you don’t have an eyedropper, you should be able to buy one inexpensively at a photography store or pharmacy.)
After a few photos, I started getting the knack of the timing, so that I took the photo a fraction of a second after the droplet impacted. From then on, it was four hours of patience, changing the batteries in the flash and camera, and refilling the eyedropper.
A nearly perfect corona. But only nearly.
It is the kind of activity that makes your family and friends question your sanity, no doubt about it, but in the end, I was left with about half a dozen photos I’m very fond of, including the photo above, which is nearly a perfect corona.
But only nearly…
Learn more about macro photography
My book!
This is an extract from chapter 4: The Macro in Everyday Objects, published by Wiley Publishing, and written by yours truly.
Obviously, I’m biased, but I highly recommend you get hold of a copy of my book, because it’s awesome. You can get it from Amazon in the US and in the UK, and most other good bookstores around the world.
It’s also available in Polish, Czech and Chinese, so if you prefer reading one of those languages, nip along to your local bookstore or book-peddling interwebsiteshop.
As photographers in this Internet age we read about photography, and share our work, in hopes of honing our craft. You could be pursuing a career as a wedding photographer or a sports shooter and either way you’re searching for articles, subscribing to photography blogs, and participating in photo forums in hopes that there are gems of knowledge that will take your photographic prowess to the next level.
What most photographers, especially those that didn’t do any formal art training, are missing from their arsenal of learning tools, is the art of critique.
Defining Art Criticism
Sometimes, it can be fiercely difficult to know what's missing in a photograph. The easiest way to get a bit of help is simply to ask for it - but you've got to do it right.
Simply put: Art criticism is the discussion of the evaluation of art.
And having your peers, especially those whom you respect, evaluate your photography in a constructive manner will make you a better photographer.
And yes… it can seem scary.
We often think of critiques as negative and judgmental. They don’t have to be. And if they are…well, you just shrug it off. Chalk it up to the learning process.
There is an alternative.
You could upload your images to Flickr and join groups where they require comments and post badges and prizes galore! You’ll be inundated with happy unicorns and shiny gold medals. Comments like “Wow!” and “Nice!” will flood your comments sections and you’ll be able to see through rose coloured glasses for days!
While that may be okay for the occasional ego-boost I’d argue that those kind of groups are doing you more harm than good.
I mean, let’s get real for a second…did you actually learn anything from those kinds of comments? Did you become a better photographer because you got a scripted response from someone else looking for tons of comments filled with other scripted responses?
I didn’t think so.
Get Better Photo Critiques
I know from experience that there's nothing more difficult than getting harsh critique or a ton of suggestions for improvement on a photo you're particularly proud of. But stand tall and take it like a (wo)man - it's the fastest way to get better.
Getting better photo critiques starts by going to the right places (hint: you’re already at one of them).
You may already know that Photocritic does photo critiques and I highly recommend adding your photos to his queue.
Flickr has a rather large assortment of groups that are dedicated to criticism and critique. Simply search Flickr for “critique” and find the one that best suits your tastes and style of photography.
DeviantArt also has groups dedicated to criticism. What’s unique about DeviantArt is that you’ll get critiques from artists of varying mediums, not just photographers, which can add a different perspective and unique insights.
Photography forums often have sections dedicated to critiques. You’re probably already part of a photography forum, or know of a good one, so search for critique threads.
So you found a place that does critiques. Now what?
Upload some of your photographs then submit or post them to the groups or threads in the critiques section.
Participate! When you join a new group or forum you’ll likely get ignored for a little while in the beginning. Don’t worry, this is natural in every social setting. You need to be pro-active and start conversations. Critique other photographs. When you start critiquing other people’s photographs you are essentially inviting them to critique your work as well.
Keep the conversation going. After someone has left a critique of your work it’s a good idea to thank them for their time and/or insight. This simple act of “conversation” will encourage more participation from others who may be sitting on the sidelines.
Keep it constructive or you won’t really gain much.
The day you think there's nothing left to learn, you may as well eBay all your camera equipment and give up. Trust me; that day will never come. And if you think it has, you're wrong.
Feel free to set guidelines on your work. Not everyone will pay attention, but many will. On every image I post on my flickr account I add “While your comments are greatly appreciated, your presence is enough reward. Please do not post awards or banners, leave a comment or a thought instead. I know you can!” in the description box. Think about how you could set guidelines on your work to get the best comments and critiques that you can.
Make friends with photographers that you respect. Keep in contact with those that do constructive criticisms and maintain a conversation with them.
Be as objective as you can. You aren’t going to agree with all of the comments and criticisms you get and they’re not all going to be right. One of my best selling photographs got slaughtered in two separate critiques (one group critique and one published *yikes!* critique).
Research. If someone calls your photograph out for not having or overdoing a certain artistic element you need to look it up (especially if you think you know what it means) before you disagree with them in an open platform. Otherwise you alienate anyone else from leaving critiques
Be gracious and objective. This can’t be stated enough!
Following these guidelines will help you garner better critiques and comments on your photographs. You’ll learn how others look at your photographs and you’ll learn whether or not you are achieving your goals as a visual story teller. Did I miss anything? Do you actively pursue critiques?
About the Author:
I’m a huge fan of Damien Franco’s work. He’s obviously exploring; finding his feet as a photographer, but more importantly, he’s always ready to share what he knows. He works as a contemporary fine art photographer working in West Texas and writes photography tutorials when he’s not fighting tumble weeds, cactus, and oil tycoons. You could do a lot worse than following him on that there Flickr thing.
Do you enjoy a smattering of random photography links? Well, squire, I welcome thee to join me on Twitter - Follow @Photocritic
How best to store and preserve information isn’t exactly a new problem. Yes, right now the question is more prescient because there’s more information floating around our world than there ever has been, but history bears out that information storage and loss is something that we’ve battled with for millennia, for as long as we’ve had language, in fact.
The Minoans might’ve thought that they’d done a great job of recording their society using the Linear A script on clay tablets, except that the language died out and we can’t decipher it. We’ve still got the tablets, but not a clue what they say. You never know, the key to Linear A might have been in the Great Library at Alexandria, but the library’s contents, mostly written on papyrus and parchment and almost certainly including works that we don’t even know about, were lost in a massive conflagration. In one instance we have the data but not the language; in another we still have the language, but not the data.
In the age of digital media, those same two problems still present themselves. We might lose the data, or we might lose the ability to decode it. You never know, we might lose both.
There’s been oodles of column-space devoted to discussing the most secure methods for storing digital images, and how many backups you need and in how many forms; I’ve recently embarked on archiving a not-insubstantial project, and one of the first discussions that I had with the records office concerned the most appropriate format in which to save the information; the conundrum of what to do about artefacts that are on deteriorating original media and we’re struggling to preserve owing to copyright concerns needs to be solved pretty quickly. Chances of a simple, easy solution to these problems? I’d put the odds at slim-to-none.
So when I read the following statement in a press release, I couldn’t help but feel that it was a bit disingenuous: ‘…customers will now have the option to take their media from analog to digital to the [insert company name here] cloud, ensuring that photos and videos truly last forever.’ No, it wasn’t just PR hyperbole; at least not when it was followed by ‘… [insert company name here] can give you the peace of mind that your photos and videos are secure and always accessible.’
I remember seven inch floppy discs from when I was in primary school, about 25 years ago; since then we’ve raced through three-and-half inch floppies, CDs, USB sticks, and now we’re into cloud storage. Do we really think that this is where it ends? I’m not convinced.
Forever is a very long time.
And it was only today that a British on-line image storage company, Fotopic, went into liquidation. No one seems to know for sure how many images are now trapped in the aether, inaccessible to the people who stored them there, but estimates are between 30,000 and 70,000. One hopes that these customers had the good sense to make backups elsewhere.
So forgive me, perhaps, if I’m a bit sceptical about the security of on-line or cloud-based information storage firms and if I have a moment of nostalgia for analogue cameras, which give you the original and the backup as soon as you develop the film. Even so, they’ll end up as dust one day, just as the gorgeous frescoes excavated from the ash and mud at Pompeii and Herculaneum will, too.
What it comes down to is that I don’t think that you can make your pictures last forever; it’s not the way that the universe works. Empires come and go and languages fade away; the best that you can do is to give them as many opportunities to survive fire and theft and hard drive failure and loss of language and format shifts and magnetic electron realignment as you can. So have them printed, burn them to disc, save them on two separate hard drives, email them to yourself, and hope for the best.
You see, nothing lasts forever.
(All the images were taken at the remains of the Roman city of Volubilis in Morocco.)
It doesn’t take much of a brain to fathom what a ‘nude’ photo is. If bits that are normally covered up on the beach are on display, then it’s a nude.
Similarly, a ‘non-nude’ photo is pretty straightforward: There are no hoo-hoos, wee-wees or breasticles on display.
So, what is all this ‘implied nudity’ stuff all about? Well, it turns out that there’s an ‘in-between’ stage of nude photography: Implied nudity. Used creatively, it can add an interesting dimension to your portraiture. Here’s how and
Right: Not a terrible portrait, but it isn't exactly super exciting ever. But there seems to be a lot of skin on display. Hmm, I wonder if I can make this photo more interesting... (click the picture to see it bigger, on Flickr...)
Put very simply, implied nudity happens in one of two ways: The model is dressed, but the photo is shot in a way where it looks as if she might not be. Or the model might be in some state of undress, but the photo is shot in such a way (through lighting, perhaps, or by the model’s position), where you can’t be sure whether or not they are naked.
So, er, what’s the point?
Humans are funny creatures: our minds constantly play tricks on us. When pieces of information are missing, our minds tend to ‘fill in’ the information. When you read smthng lk ths sntnce, your mind doesn’t really struggle to fill in the missing letters, for example – the same happens in photography. In a photo where a model is covering up her breasts, your mind will automatically ‘fill in’ the missing bits.
With this in mind, you can use that to your advantage as a photographer: By hiding your model’s dangly, bouncy, or naughty bits, you can sometimes create a photo which is even more allusive and erotic that one where it’s all on display.
Right: Now that's more like it. All it took was to de-saturate the image, fiddle with the contrast a little, and do a tighter crop, which in effect hides all her clothes.
There are a few different situations where this works extremely well. In the past, I have been known to do ‘nude’ sessions with models (especially models who aren’t that experienced), and then taken photos only of their face or head-and-shoulders. Some people relax (or tense up) in a completely unique way when they are not wearing clothes – which gets reflected in their face.
I think I’ve taken some of my best portraits this way – simply because the model was concentrating on making their bodies look good, so they forgot to worry about their face. The result? Beautiful, intimate portraits where you would never have known the model wasn’t wearing clothes.
The opposite is also true, of course: You might well find yourself working with a model who would love to do nudes, but is too shy to actually strip off. Using these techniques, you can create the illusion of nudity.
Showing more by hiding more
Right: You can use implied nudity to create tension in a photograph... She's in a graveyard. Surely, she's not naked. Is she? (clicky for bigger)
We all have different tastes and preferences for what we think is attractive. Combine this with the afore-discussed tendency for people to ‘fill in the blanks’, and you can see what might happen: In a photo where something is hidden, it gives the viewer the opportunity to read as much (or as little) into the scene as they want to.
The great thing is that the viewer tends to ‘fill in’ the blanks with whatever their own fantasies or beauty ideals are, which means that by tapping into the fantasy world of your viewers, you can actually make your model more attractive: After all, your viewers are going to be attracted to whatever their fantasies cook up!
You can't see much (is she wearing a bra? Is she not?) - but it's the implication of nudity which makes this photo. (clicky for bigger)
So – a rather long and picture-heavy post to make a rather simple point: If you haven’t experimented with implying nudity in portraiture before, why not give it a shot – you might like what you come up with!
Giving feed-back on something is really easy. Giving useful feedback on a subjective matter — such as photography — is, in fact, extremely difficult. That’s why I’ve created sort of a check-list with some tips as to how I like to do critiques.
Myself, I’ve spent a lot of my days critiqueing stuff. Back in the day, when I did a lot of writing, I went to Folkehøgskole. (kind of like an artistic boarding school where you faff about for a year while you decide what to do with your life. As far as I know, it’s a Scandiwegian concept — I’ve written more about the folkehøgskole over on Everything2.com). Part of the school's idea for improving its writers was to give each other feed-back on writings done in class.
Since then, I've given hundreds (if not thousands) of photography critiques (hence my old blog name, 'Photocritic'), and over the years I've slowly developed a template of sorts that means it takes as little time as possible to do a critique, whilst giving the photographer as much useful information they can use to become better photographers as possible.
The first question you have to consider is this: “Why are you doing a photo critique?”. After all, by the time you’re doing the critique, the photo has been taken. It might be hours, days, even months or years since the photo was taken. Perhaps it was taken abroad, or in a situation where the photographer will never be again. In other words, it is important to remember that a photo critique isn’t about a single photo: it’s about how a photographer can develop as a snapper, both technically and artistically.
“I like this photo, the contrast is cool” means nothing to the photographer, it only means that you like this particular photo, and that you feel that contrast is a good thing. “I like this photo, because it shows you’ve thought about the lighting, and the increased contrast adds to the overall impression of the amount of time you’ve put into lighting this item”, for example, would encourage the photographer to continue putting more work into their lighting. They’re on the right track, and you're pushing them along. It's easy to understand which of the two is most useful!
Photos in context
So, when you’re writing a photo critique, try to break away from the single photograph, and try to take a wider approach to the way you look at photos by a particular photographer.
Also remember that there’s no right or wrong in photography. Gross technical errors (vast exposure problems, for example) can be universally wrong, but artistic considerations are not universal. Personally, I have a strong affinity for tightly cropped black and white photos. I have a friend who loves to do landscapes in colour, and I find it really difficult to give him useful critiques, because it’s not my style of photography…
Finally, if you’re the photographer getting critique, don’t get defensive. If fact, just shut the hell up. Getting people to talk to you about your photos is a rare opportunity, so don’t waste it. Let people talk (even if you think they’re full of shit), it’s their opinion, and your target audience should be important to you. Let them rant, and if you really have to, defend yourself afterward, once it’s all finished. Although — honestly — if you feel you have to defend yourself, you might want to take a step back and consider why :-)
First of all, take a close look at the photograph. Let your eyes scan it closely: Make sure that you’ve caught every possible detail of the photo. If something jumps out at you as being really good or really bad, note it, but don’t say anything
2) Interpretation
Now, talk about the photo for a little bit. This is the thing that is most frequently overlooked when doing critiques, but is actually one of the most useful things you can do to a photographer. For the interpretation, start off by saying “When I look at this photo, I feel…”. Explain what sort of emotional response the photo raises in you. Follow up with “I think this photo is about…”. Any symbolism you spot, tell the photographer. If you aren’t sure, let them know that.
3) Technical points
The next thing to take care of, is the technical points. Is the photograph technically okay? Did you spot dust, is the exposure okay, is there any unwanted blur (wrong focus, motion blur, zoom blur etc)? Are the colours accurately represented? What’s the contrast like? Could the photographer have used lighting differently? Would a bigger or smaller aperture have been beneficial?
4) Artistic points
What do you think about the crop and aspect ratio? If the photo is in black and white, should it have been in colour and vice-versa? Is there a good balance between the foreground and the background? Would the photo have worked better with a different prop / model?
5) Good points
This is where you point out what you like about the photograph, and why. The why bit is most important: If you can’t tell why you like X, Y, or Z, there’s no point in mentioning it. “I like the sky” is useless. “I like the colour of the sky” is better. “I like the deep blue colour of the sky because it contrasts nicely with the yellows and reds in the photo” is perfect. Put some thought into this.
6) Points worth improving
This point is saved for last, because you’ve made the photographer more confident about their photograph by now. It is still important to remember that the photo has been taken, and that this photo can’t really be changed anymore. As such, there’s no point in slating people for their photographs. Tell them one or two specific points that could be improved on this particular photo (‘clean up dust’ and ‘turn into black and white’ are useful suggestions, as they can done in the darkroom), and perhaps one or two points that you would have done differently, if you were the one taking the photograph.
When I look at this photo, it makes me think of... street performers everywhere.
I think this photo is about... the people who go out of their way to inject some random into your life, and who, in the process, remind you why you're alive; it's not just to trudge through it all, it's to be surprised, amused, and bemused by the world. This photo illustrates all of this
Technically... I think this photo is weaker than some of your others. His hand is in perfect focus, but his face is just a big haze of blurriness. The shallow DOF is very important in this photo - otherwise the background would be a mess of impressions, fighting for your attention
What I like about this photo... is the archaic hat-tip the young gentleman is doing, and the feeling of him being an outcast in a world that is raging around him. He clearly doesn't give a damn, which makes him awesome.
If I were to improve or change anything, I would... tweak this photo quite a bit. His face is too hazy for my liking, which is obviously a very subjective thing, but in my opinion, street photography is all about people - their eyes and faces are the be-all and end-all of street photography, and if you haven't captured it properly, then - no matter how awesome the photo is otherwise - it doesn't cut it.
Of course, I don't have access to your original negatives or prints, so I had to make do with the Large file - I made a few changes: I ramped up the contrast a lot, I removed the lamp which is hovering in thin ear next to his head (and a couple of bright white dust spots, too, because I was out there with with the clone tool anyway), and re-cropped the photo to give it a different focus. I'm not 100% happy, but I think it illustrates that if you go back to the source material, there's a lot of potential for this shot
Does it have the X-factor? Overall... I think this photo has a lot of charm and intensity - The suggested changes are very subjective, obviously, and you might not agree with the ascertations. The shot itself is a gem, though, and I think a slight re-edit could do wonders to make it as good as it deserves to be. Give it a shot!
Your turn!
Right, now you've got a taste for one way you can do a photo critique (although obviously you can adapt it to suit your critique style and the photo you are critiqueing) along with an example... Why not pick a photo by your favourite Flickr friend, and give it a good thorough critique?
PS: You may have seen an earlier version of this write-up before on my blog (I first posted it in February 2007). The version you have just read is vastly expanded (it's nearly twice as long), and I have changed my mind about some aspects of doing photo critiques in the meantime - so consider this version 2.0 of this blog post. Enjoy!
This photo was taken at broad daylight. Because I used flash and a fast shutter speed, it comes out looking like this...
I am a photo geek. I admit it. I love photography technology - especially the crazy high-tech stuff the camera manufacturers come up with. One of the most incredible pieces of electronic engineering you can buy in the photography world today is a humble flash. I'll tell you why...
In most circumstances, your flash can sync with your camera up to a certain shutter speed. back in the dawn of photography, this 'sync speed' used to be 1/60 second on most cameras. When you buy a SLR camera and a flashgun today these days, standard flash sync is 1/200th or 1/250th of a second for almost all makes and models of camera equipment.
But then, the camera boffins came up with something deeply awesome: High-speed flash sync. To understand why you need it, and to explain how and why it works we need to take a look at how flashes work normally.
How a flash works
Inside your camera, there are two pieces of black fabric (known as 'curtains' - this is also where the expression 'second curtain flash' comes from) that move across the sensor at very high speed. Think of this whole set-up as a window that has two curtains that go all the way across the window. When you press the button, one curtain is pulled from left to right, and at the end of the exposure, the second curtain is pulled across to cover the window again. Once the exposure is complete, both curtains are returned to their original position on the left, ready for the next exposure.
Only a few years ago, when we were shooting on film cameras that had a manual advance lever, these curtains were on springs. When you were pulling the thumb lever to forward to the next frame on your roll of film, you would also pulling the two curtains back in preparation for the next exposure.
When your flash is in normal flash mode, the following happens: You press the shutter. The first curtain of the shutter opens fully, and the camera sends a signal to the flashes, and the flashes fire. At the end of the exposure (whether the exposure is short or long), the second curtain is pulled across to finish the exposure. If you had your camera set to 'second curtain' sync, the flash would trigger just before the closing curtain gets pulled back to cover the sensor.
Flash at higher speeds
When you start talking about very fast exposures - like the 1/8000 second exposure offered by cutting-edge SLR cameras - but basically at any speed faster than the camera's flash sync speed, something interesting happens.
The shutter curtains themselves move incredibly fast, but when you're talking about extremely fast shutter speeds, the speed of the shutters starts to become a factor: As the shutter has to be open for such a brief period of time, the closing shutter actually starts moving before the opening shutter has finished moving. The effect is that the whole imaging chip does get the same amount of light, but the imaging sensor is never exposed all at the same time.
If you're shooting in natural light, this isn't a problem at all, but if you want to add a flash to the mix, it becomes tricky: If the shutter is never fully open, when do you fire the flashes?
The ingenious solution
Flash manufacturers realised that people still wanted to use flash even at high shutter speeds, came up with an ingenious solution: High speed sync mode, which changes the way your flash works, enabling you to take photos at much higher shutter speeds.
When the flash is set to high-speed mode, instead of a single flash once the shutter opens, the flash actually sends lots of tiny flash pulses for the duration of the exposure. This ensures that the subject is evenly lit as the shutter curtains move across the sensor: Perfect exposures even though the sensor is never open all at once!
So, is there a downside? Well, in High Speed sync mode, your flashes do take significantly more power, so you drain the batteries much faster. On the other hand, if you need it, use it: The effects can be incredible, and it gives you a lot more flexibility in your flash photography!
Now in video form!
I did a video for Gizmodo UK about high speed flash sync; in all its poorly-animated glory here:
So what can you use it for?
You can use high speed flash sync for lots of things - but start by having a look at Darkening a Room by Adding Light - that should bring you a few ideas!
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Every now and again, I may be doing something completely different, and a photo I took many days, months, or even years ago, springs to mind. Occasionally, I decide to dig through my archives and take a look at it - and some times, this leads me to re-edit a lot of the photos I've taken a long time ago.
This happened again recently. Many years ago, I did a photo shoot for a theatre outfit which is called Tmesis Theatre these days - a physical theatre troupe consisting of a couple of deeply impressive physical theatre performers.
Adobe Lightroom to the re-rescue
By the power of Lightroom, I decided to see if I couldn't do a re-edit of these photos, and turn them into a coherent set of photos. The great thing about Lightroom is that you can create a set of edits, and then copy them onto a whole batch of images - which is what I did here. I edited one of the images very carefully - I decided to use two-toning, with a particular amount of grain, and a very specific 'look' to the images.
I copied the settings from that one image to all the others in the set, before cropping the images one-by-one, and tweaking the settings for each image (mostly for contrast and/or exposure).
The resulting gallery looks nothing like the original set of images I took - and yet, as a set, it works incredibly well. I'm currently looking into seeing if I can't make them work as an exhibition.
So, what's the lesson that can be learned from this? You're never finished with your photos: Keep them around, and re-visit them from time to time on (as the case is at the moment) a rainy day. You never know what hidden treasures you haven't yet tapped into, from the deepest depths of your archive!
the Corsair Survivor is a near-bulletproof USB drive. Perfect for backups!
As some of you will know, I'm currently travelling around the world for a few months, and I'm writing this from a rather lovely balcony outside our hotel in Hoi An, Viet Nam.
As a traveller, I'm worried about many things; I've had a ton of vaccinations, I'm on malaria medication, and you're living with a healthy suspicion of the food you're eating (no problems so far; knock on wood). There is one thing that is a bigger worry to me than any of this, however: Losing my data.
I've written about my backup routines when I'm back home in the past, but when you're on the road, you're living with all sorts of other challenges. My internet connection is slow and flakey at best (non-existent at worst), and Vietnam's government has taken to blocking various websites (including blocking Facebook). Given Egypt's most recent insanity (blocking all internet access for the whole country) and the ongoing shenanigans of China's government... Basically, it's not safe to assume that you'll be able to take backups in the cloud whilst travelling.
So, what else is a poor traveller to do? As a writer and photographer, I cannot risk losing all the photos I've taken, and the work on the books I'm currently writing on.
Offsite backups, on-site
My solution goes a little bit like this: Every day, I take a back-up of my stuff, using Apple OS X's built-in backup solution, Time Machine. I take this back-up onto a fantastic little drive, the Iomega eGo Helium. It's a tiny, palm-sized, USB-powered 1TB harddrive, that cost a paltry $130 from Amazon - certainly one of the better investments I've made.
Because of the way Time Machine works, I know I'll have a completely up-do-date copy of my entire system, my software, my writings, pictures, music, and all my financial information (even though I keep my finances and accounts in the cloud using Xero anyway, it's good to know that I have a separate backup, too) on that little big hard drive.
Whenever I leave the hotel, I take the hard drive with me: It lives in my day-pack, which I 'lock' (i.e. use the waist strap to fasten it) to the table, chair, or motorbike wherever I go. This means that my back-up drive is probably safe. It'd better be: I also keep (some of) my travel money and my passport in that backpack. Meanwhile, back at the hotel, I have all my data on my laptop, either hidden in the hotel room, or locked in a hotel safe, if there is one.
The idea is this: If I lose the backup drive, I can buy a new one, and go back to keeping backups. If I lose my computer (i.e. it gets stolen, or it breaks in one way or another), I have to find an Apple store and buy myself a new one. It'd be expensive, but that's what travel insurance is for: And all my data would still be safe on my laptop.
What about when you are with your laptop?
There are times, obviously, where me, the backup drive, and the laptop will necessarily have to be in the same place. When I'm flying, for example, I make sure that the hard drive is in my checked luggage, whilst my laptop is with me.
When I'm sleeping, the Iomega drive lives under my pillow - next to my passport and a spare credit card. The idea is that even if somehow a thief manages to steal every single other thing I own, I still have my data, a way of getting out of the country, and a credit card to help me solve any bad problems.
What about the really important files?
I have a small subset of files that are so important that if I lose them, I'm buggered. It includes the manuscripts to my unpublished books, copies of my passport and credit cards, all that sort of fun stuff.
Those files are about 2GB in size in total, and I back them up religiously: They are automatically backed up to DropBox, an online backup service, whenever I do have an internet connection. In addition, I back it up to a Corsair Survivor, a shock-proof, water-proof, and extremely rugged USB thumb drive. It lives in my pocket, and looks inconspicuous enough that I think I should be able to hang on to it even if I were robbed (knock on wood) in the street.
Finally, I e-mail manuscripts in progress to my Google Mail account whenever I have an internet connection.
Dude, are you paranoid or something?
Probably. But I think this is one of the situations where the phrase "Better safe than sorry" comes in ringing true.
I decided to be paranoid after doing the worst-case-scenario maths: If I were to lose my data and my laptop at the same time, the only way I can continue working and get the books done before deadline, is to get on a plane back to the UK, get my backups from storage, buy a new laptop, restore it all, and head back to Vietnam. It would cost me thousands and thousands of dollars - and probably cost me at least of week of time.
Put simply; if the worst were to happen, I probably wouldn't be able to afford to continue my nomadic lifestyle - which I'm rather enjoying at the moment, and would like to continue for a while!
You don't need top-end camera equipment to create some compelling videos - In this video, I'm using a Nokia N8 mobile phone to explain the basics of narrative in videos!
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In my second round of videos for the Nokia N8 Camera School, I'm getting up close and personal – with some bumble bees. In this video, you’ll see the Nokia N8′s macro mode in action, and the results? Well, let's just say that the compact camera manufactures have plenty to be getting worried about...
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When you think 'Product shoot', you probably wouldn't immediately think of taking a load of photos with your mobile phone... or would you? I'm exploring how you can take fantastic product photos - with a Nokia N8.
Do you enjoy a smattering of random photography links? Well, squire, I welcome thee to join me on Twitter - Follow @Photocritic
So, you like the idea of doing macro photography, but you think you can’t afford it? Think again – with less than £10 worth of equipment, a little bit of sweat and tears (and blood, if you, like me, are a bit on the clumsy side), and you can build yourself a surprisingly good macro lens. Don’t believe me? Well, have a look at the article, and think again!
Of course, as I’m using a Pringles can to make this lens, you also have the opportunity to pause for a snack. Now that’s the type of DIY projects I like.
So you want to take pictures of things up close, do you? You have gone tired of all the regular ways of doing so? Ready for bellows and reversing rings, but can’t afford them? Have no fear, there is a far cheaper way to get a reasonably good result!
Also, Before we go any further… Need I say that you do all of this on your own risk? If you chop a finger off, ruin a lens or your camera body, it’s your own fault, and your own problem. Just be really careful, and you should be fine.
Cannibalising lens covers
This project takes base in cannibalising a few of the lens- and body covers that most of us have laying around. These are great, seeing as they are already created to connect to the camera – the easiest way to get the correct bayonet fittings to attach stuff to your camera body and lenses!
Obviously, the covers are solid, which is no good to us. So, in order to get them into an useful state, I attacked them with a Dremel tool.
Such a grind…
Carefully chopping the fronts out of a camera body cover and a lens cover takes quite a bit of time, not least because I wanted to do it as neatly as possible.
When you are done, remember to matte the cut by using emory paper (sanding paper): You want to make sure it doesn’t reflect light.
Pringles tube to the rescue
What you make the actual distance tube out of is relatively unimportant, as long as it is completely light-proof. I decided to use a pringles tube because I have done projects in the past with them, so I knew that they were approximately the right size. It turned out, in fact, that it was exactly the right size. Nifty.
After removing the top and decantering all the lovely crisps into a bowl (nope, I’m not affiliated with Pringles. And the jury is still out if the crisps type have any impact on the photo quality of the end product), it was time to attack the bottom of the tube…
Sparks! Oh, the pretty sparks!
Cutting out the bottom of the pringles can caused a lot of pretty sparks, so I couldn’t resist the temptation of taking a few shots.
Ladies: sorry about the unwashed hair, beard stubbles, messy room, and general colour mismatching of this photo. If this turns you on, marriage proposals go on an ePostcard to the address at the bottom of the article.
So… Why the lens cover?
There was no logistical reason for why I decided to cut holes in both the body and the lens cover, other than that I thought it might come in handy later. With the final design, it turned out to not be necessary. It did, however, come in quite handy: The lens cover cap works as a flare-reducing hood, and it helps protect the electrical contacts built into the lens. In addition, it makes it easier to grab on to the lens as it is stuck in the tube.
Chalk that one up to luck rather than than planning, but cut a hole in a lens cover as well, because it makes your life easier, and it reduces the chance of putting one of your lenses out of commission. I don’t know about you, but I prefer to keep my lenses in one piece. I’m not that rich: I’m writing an “on the cheap” guide.
A Sticky situation
So, once the pringles tube had a big hole in the bottom, I set out to attaching the body cover and the Pringles tube.
Any strong glue should do. I suspect a hot-glue gun would probably be best, but I was out of glue sticks, so decided to use epoxy glue instead.
Anything to make the two pieces stick firmly to each other. If the glue you use sets translucent, you may want to take a black felt-tip pen and colour it dark, to prevent light leaks.
Firmly attached
After the epoxy glue had set, I had to try to see if it fitted on my Canon 20D.
Sure enough, it was a perfect fit.
Professionality aside, I gladly admit to doing a minor victory dance at this point.
A snug fit – banishing light
My idea was to use black felt to block out the light leaks from outside the lens.
The particular lens I decided to use for this project is the cheapest Canon standard lenses, namely the Canon 50mm f/1.8 MKII.
It is just the right size, and despite being cheap as chips, it has a couple of tricks up its sleeve – more about that in a minute. Ideally, using an older lens would be a better idea – especially if it has manual aperture controls.
By wrapping black fabric (in my case, a t-shirt I didn’t really like anymore) tightly around the lens, I managed to block out all superfluous light.
Textile Hack
I’ll gladly admit that getting it right took a couple of tries, but eventually I found exactly how much fabric was needed. To hold the bundle together, I decided to tape it all together.
After this, the lens fitted snugly in the Pringles container. Not only did it not fall out, it slides quite easily, so if you need to move it, you can just push or pull it to where you need it. Once you let go, it stays put. This is actually quite important, as it’s part of the focussing strategy: You don’t focus using focus rings, but by moving the lens closer or further away from whatever you are photographing.
Finally: Taking photos!
Right, everything has come together, and now it is time to do the fun stuff: Take pictures!
Depth of field in Macro photography
You’ll probably find that, essentially, you have no depth of field at all. In macro- and microphotography, moving an item half a millimetre forward or backward from the lens changes things dramatically. Of course, you’ll learn soon enough to draw this to your advantage, but there is actually something you can do to increase your depth of field, if only a little: Stop down the lens – more info about that here.
Focussing
Focussing is a serious challenge with microphotography, and it can be bitterly frustrating: The slightest movement throws the object completely out of focus, and even finding your object again can be a nightmare.
My only advice: Try it slowly. Wave your object in front of the lens, and then try focusing it by holding it in your hand, looking through the viewfinder. Once you get the hang of it, understanding how it works, you can try and set it up in a static setup: You are going to want to use a remote release button or the camera’s self timer to reduce shutter shake, so make sure everything is sturdily set up!
Exposure
The internal light-meter is actually a good starting point – it isn’t always accurate, but it gives you an idea. The great thing with digital SLRs, of course, is that you can try and err as much as you like. And trust me, there will be a lot of that while you try and figure out macro photography.
Taking the photo
As mentioned briefly earlier, you’ll want to hold the camera perfectly still. Use the self-timer or use a remote shutter lead to make sure everything is perfectly still.
The photo below is off a simple Bic ballpoint pen (it was the first thing I had to reach).
It is by no means a great macro photo, but it does give an impression of how big things get. That is an un-cropped photo, by the way: I have the photographs below in all their 8 megapixel glory.
The reason for the glare in this photo is that the inside of the Pringles tube was still metallic. The light was bouncing around on the inside of the tube, causing it to look very fuzzy.
Ballpoint pen – Canon 50mm f/1.8 stopped down to f/16, shutter time approx. 10 seconds, ISO 100. Not cropped. (see bigger version)
Ballpoint pen – Canon 50mm f/1.8 stopped down to f/4.0, shutter time approx. 0.3 seconds, ISO 100. Slightly cropped. (see bigger version)
Now in video form!
This article was published in Make Magazine vol.6, and in late 2009, Make Magazine made this their Video Project! I’m proud to say that Kip and the rest of the Make team made a great video guide of it – check it out:
Further improving the system
The first change I made to my initial design was to add a layer of black paper inside the Pringles box. Ideally, black felt or another completely light-eating surface would be better, but felt costs money, and I decided to keep this project as cheap as possible.
Photos taken with the system
During my further experimentation, I decided to have a go at a pack of matches that was conveniently within an arm’s length:
(For all three images, click on them to see them bigger on Flickr. While you’re there, why not add them as favourites while you’re at it?)
Postscript
I hope this article has inspired you to build a macro lens of your own. It is a tremendous amount of fun, and in the process you are likely to learn a lot about photography and optics: Which, in turn, will improve your overall photography performance. You can’t lose!
I kinda missed out on the whole student protest thing when I was at university. The skirmish around the loss of grants had already been lost, round one in the tuition fees bout went to the Government before my time, and the Iraq war was yet to come. What was left? Better rights for water voles on a four mile stretch of the River Avon? Probably.
But gee whizz! The whole of Europe has been making it up for it this year. Athens, Paris, Lisbon, London, and Rome have seen angry mobs rampaging through the streets demonstrating against police brutality, changes to the retirement age, austerity measures, the imposition of increased student tuition fees, and a probably corrupt and almost certainly inept Prime Minister. And it has all been captured with some superb photography.
Which got me thinking. If you are intent on photographing a demonstration, and something with the potential to turn nasty, how should you go about it?
Preparation
If you’re photographing a planned demonstration, make sure that you know the route. Suss out good vantage points for the beginning, the end, and points along the way. (Barriers or bollards to stand on are a good start.) You’ll want shortcuts between key places, as well.
Tamil separatist supporters demonstrating in London. The 'stop' barrier was pure chance.
Wear appropriate clothing: something inconspicuous that will allow you to move easily and run if you have to.
Dig out your press card if you have one. If you’re in the UK, print off a copy of the police guidance on photography, just in case.
Take as little kit as you can get away with. Your main camera with one lens – so ideally the most versatile that you have – spare memory cards and batteries, and a second camera if you can manage it.
On the day
Be nice to the police. Be co-operative. (I took a few minutes to chat with the officers who were policing a protest by Tamil separatist supporters in London. I found out lots of useful information. They knew who I was. We all won.)
I turned around; he was looking straight at me. Boom!
Even if it doesn’t look as if things will turn hairy, make sure that you have an exit strategy at every point.
Stay alert: both to get the photos that you want, and to stay safe.
Getting photos
Crowd scenes can convey the enormity of the protest, but what’s of greater interest are the individual stories. You want the quirky and unusual and you want to tell the narrative of the protest. So look out for the grandmother marching with her grandchildren, stay alert for flash-points, and keep a watch for the unexpected.
She joined the International Women's Day march, in her owner's handbag!
Don’t delete anything. You never know what might be in the background on closer inspection.
Be brave, but don’t be stupid.
Finally
Your safety is the most important thing. Put that first all the time, whether to stop yourself from tumbling from a lamp post and breaking your neck, or not being in front of a mounted police charge. Mmmkay?
This is just a quick reminder to anyone going to see their child, grandchild, niece, nephew, or house elf perform in the school nativity play or concert: the Data Protection Act does not prohibit you from taking photos or making a video of the performance for your own personal use.
Obviously you wouldn’t be able to sell your video of Class 3B singing ‘Oh Little Town of Bethlehem’ to the Israeli or the West Bank Tourist Boards, but if my school productions were anything to go by, you wouldn’t want to, anyway. Still, no one can stop you from snapping away for the family album, so says Christopher Graham. He’s the Information Commissioner, he knows about these things.
If you need to point anyone in the direction of the specific guidance issued by the Information Commissioner’s Office, you can find it here.
Anyone for a quick rendition of ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing’?
Chances are, there’s some sport that you’re interested in, dear reader. Even if football, rugby and the like isn’t for you, there’s always table tennis, trampolining or tiddlywinks. Even if you’re not much of a sports fan, sports photography can be a lot of fun and can seriously challenge your skills, giving you a chance to improve. We’ve put together a little handful of sporty tips, tricks and techniques to give you the edge.
Technique – Panning
Canter by Daniela Bowker
Panning is a technique that is mostly found in motorsport photography. It involves tracking your subject as it whizzes past you at speed. The desired effect is to keep your subject in focus but allow the background to blur, getting across that sense of fast movement. Essentially, the key is to keep your subject in the same position in the frame for the entire duration of the shot. This keeps your subject sharp. It’s not easy, but it’s worth mastering, as it looks fantastic. You can almost hear the car going “VROOOOOM!”. Maybe.
Technique – Manual Focusing
Ugrás / Jump by Peti_205
You’ll mostly see this technique being used in motorcross, snowboarding and biking – basically anything with a ramp for those braver (and crazier) than you or I to fling themselves off. You’ll see most photographers manually focus on a ramp or a bump in the track. Then they can get their framing and composition right, and just wait for the shot to come to them. It’s a tried an tested technique which can yield brilliant results. So give it a go!
Tip – Become A Clairvoyant
Played On, by Jim Campbell
Don’t worry, you won’t need to buy any dream catchers or crystal balls – I’m talking about learning to predict where the action will be. It helps, of course, if you’re familiar with the sport you’re shooting. If you can work out where the action is going to be, you can get yourself into position before it even happens. Then you wait. the last thing you want is to be fumbling around, missing great moments. Get there first, get there early.
Tip – Don’t Just Go Where The Ball Is
Aggie Women's Tennis - 51 by StuSeeger
Often, it can be a good idea to check out what’s happening around the action, there are some great photos to be had when you nab a shot of a furious footy manager on the sidelines, an ecstatic crowd reaction following a goal, or the jubliant player celebrations. Sometimes, the story isn’t just where the ball is.
Tip – Pay Attention To Faces
Photo by Gareth Dutton
Admittedly, this isn’t much use in motorsport, because you can’t see their faces, but when shooting anything else (alright fine, not fencing either) a good photo (OK, nor Formula One) can be turned into a great photo when you capture an expression in there too. Anxiety, joy, despair – there’s nothing like sport for making grown men cry.
When you’re accustomed to using something, it’s easy to forget that its capabilities might stretch beyond just that for which you usually use it. You get into some sort of rut don’t explore whatever it is that you’re using, whether it is your food processor, your mixing desk, or your copy of Lightroom.
Jamie Gladden got in touch with us to tell us about a rather nifty way of putting Lightroom’s Graduated Filter to better use than just applying it to skies. Jamie, it’s over to you…
I recently posted an article on my blog describing some simple portrait retouching techniques using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. A friend of mine later commented to me that he wasn’t that familiar with some of the Lightroom tools that I’d mentioned, so he’d go off, find some tutorials, and play around with these new toys. Great! There are loads of cool tutorials out there, and he’ll definitely learn some useful techniques which will improve his photo retouching skills.
One of the tools I wrote about was Lightroom’s Graduated Filter, which was introduced in version 2 and is very handy. If you do a Google search for this, you’ll find lots of useful tutorials explaining how to use the tool to pep up your landscape shots, darkening a bright sky to add more detail and produce a more even exposure without changing the area of land beneath the sky. Cool! So that’s a new technique we’ve learned, the Graduated Filter is used to even up the overall exposure of your landscape shots by darkening the skies, just like using a Neutral Density Graduated filter in front of the lens on your camera.
What if you don’t shoot that many landscapes? You’ll never need to use that filter, right? Maybe, maybe not. It’s easy sometimes to get stuck with the idea that some of the features serve one purpose only, but with a little experimentation, you can find new and unexpected things to do with them.
In my own photography, I tend to photograph bands and people more than I do landscapes. If I’m working in a studio, then I’ll have full control over the lighting, and the light goes mainly where I want it to go – most of the time! Sometimes, I’ll need to make minor post-production tweaks here and there to compensate for areas which are a little brighter or darker than I’d like.
From the studio to the Lightroom
Take a look at these two photos.
The top shot is complete up to the point at which I was happy with all the retouching and post-processing work I’d done, apart from one thing. I thought that the model was just a little too bright on the right side of her face and neck for my liking. The main light is coming in from camera right, and I had a fill light off to the left, and it’s the main light which is doing the damage.
I wanted to tone this down a little, but only on the slightly brighter area on the right side of her face. Decreasing the exposure or brightness isn’t really an option, because that would change the exposure/brightness of the whole shot, and that’s not what I wanted.
I could also have used the adjustment brush to paint over the too-bright areas, and then adjust the brightness level which would change only the area I’d painted over. That would certainly do the trick, and it does give you more control, but it can be a little fiddly sometimes, and would take more time.
But wait! What about the Graduated Filter? Couldn’t we use that to give us a subtle darkening of her skin on one side which is too bright without darkening the skin on the other side of her face? Definitely. The grad filter is perfect for that.
You can see the effect in the second photo. It’s quite a subtle difference, but for me it was necessary to fix it. After selecting the grad filter tool, I dragged the crosshair across the photo from right to left, stopping when I thought I’d arranged the markers in the correct position.
Then, I adjusted the grad tool’s exposure setting down to a level that evened up the lighting nicely, and I was happy.
Outdoors, but not about the sky
Here’s another example. This is Alice:
If you’re working outdoors with natural light, then it’s not so simple to move the light source to where you want it to be, so you have to work the light to your advantage, and maybe use a reflector or diffuser to shape the light how you want it. Again, there will usually be some tweaks needed in post-production.
In the first photo, the background in the bottom left is just a touch too bright for my taste, and I think it draws your eye away from her face. Just a quick application of the Graduated Filter, as before, and it was fixed. Simple and quick. Which leaves you more time to go out and take photos, rather than sitting at the computer.
And even for concert photography
For a final, and more dramatic example, here’s a shot of Benjamin Curtis from the band School of Seven Bells:
When you’re shooting bands on stage, you’re totally at the mercy of the stage lights, which often change quite rapidly. Often, I like to make the lights a feature of my shots, rather than using them solely to illuminate the artist.
In the first photo, the lights are quite overpowering, and they detract from the shot, but by just simply adding a grad filter straight down from the top of the picture, we’ve toned it down a lot, and produced a really cool and striking effect from the stage lights.
So, there are just three examples of using Lightroom’s Graduated Filter, and not a single sky has been prodded. One of the real selling points of Lightroom for me is that it’s easy to experiment like this, safe in the knowledge that if it doesn’t work out, it’s so simple to go back to your original RAW file and start again.
About the author
This article was written by Jamie Gladden. Jamie’s a freelance photographer based in London, UK, with interests in music, fashion and portrait photography. He’s passionate about music and loves discovering new bands and artists. He reckons that there’s nothing better than seeing a really talented unsigned band in a cramped room above a pub. He’s similarly passionate about photography, and there’s no greater pleasure for him than being able to combine the two. Check out his site; 3 songs no flash.
Do you enjoy a smattering of random photography links? Well, squire, I welcome thee to join me on Twitter - Follow @Photocritic
Photographing in the dark can seem a daunting and difficult task when encountering it for the first time, but here at Small Aperture we have a few quick pointers to help you out. Hopefully this article will, wait for it, shed some light on the subject (I’m so, so sorry). So what can we do to combat low light photography? There are, thankfully, several options available to us.
Use a larger aperture
I shot this at f/2.8 at ISO 1600 - the shutter speed needed to remain high.
One option is to work with a larger aperture. What is aperture, you ask? Well I’m shocked and appalled, quite frankly, that you haven’t already read up on our article about it. The bigger your aperture, the more light you’re going to be letting in. Of course, sometimes, you can’t afford to / don’t want to lower your aperture. Whatever shall we do? Well, you could always…
Increase your ISO
Increasing your ISO will increase your sensor’s sensitivity to light, which will help make the most of what little light you’ve got to work with. What are you talking about Gareth? What are these kooky letters you’re putting together? As always, we have it covered – nip over to our guide to ISO and then come back to me when you’re up to speed.
All done? Good. So, increasing your ISO can help you capture those precious, delicious slivers of light skulking around in the darkness. But what about all this horrid noise? It’s spotty and grainy and yucky – this won’t do at all. Well, how about we only increase the ISO a tad and look at changing some other settings?
and this one required all three - ISO 1600, aperture of f/2.8 and a shutter speed of 1/100. Take THAT, low light!
Lower your shutter speed
Lowering your shutter speed can also help your camera gather more light for when there is little to play with. Guess what? We have this one covered, too – take a look here. The longer we have the shutter open for, the more time light has to get in. Too low a shutter speed can lead to image blur, however, and unless you’re going for that look, images that aren’t sharp are, well, unsharp. Image still too dark? Well, I’m afraid that’s all your options exhausted. Bummer. Or is it…?
Get yourself a tripod
Go on, do it now. Open a new window in your browser, go to Amazon, and get it ordered. Unlike other things in your kit, a decent, sturdy tripod doesn’t really ever need to be replaced for a newer model and should still be useful for years and years to come. This means you’ll have to give it a name, of course. Mine’s called Trev. Trev the Tripod. Trev has always been there for me when I’ve needed him. The best thing about Trev is, when I need to lower my shutter speed to a duration for which I couldn’t possibly hold my camera still, I pop it on Trev and he keeps it perfectly still for the whole exposure.
Good old Trev.
You’ll mostly find a tripod useful for grabbing yourself some lovely sunset / late evening landscapes, which will afford you to work with a very small aperture AND a low ISO setting in order to get some lovely, low light landscapes.
Let’s summarise, then.
To defeat the low-light menace, try a combination of these factors:
Use a larger aperture
Increase your ISO
Lower your shutter speed and, if it’s too low for a sharp image…
…Use a tripod!
Depending on what sort of image you’re after, you’ll be using a combination of these for one image and maybe just altering a single factor for another. There is no greater teacher than experience, so get out there armed with this new-found knowledge and experiment! Seeing as it’s Friday, if your friends invite you to the pub just tell them ‘Can’t make it tonight, I’m afraid; I’m spending the evening in a field with Trev.’
Go fly a kite. No, seriously. Do it. Then tie a camera to the kite, and get some of the awesomest photos you’ve ever taken.
Sounds scary, eh? Well, there appear to be plenty of people who have had a go. The idea is simple: You take a kite, attach a camera, and take photos with a birds-eye view. It’s actually not entirely unlike what the world-famous French photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand is doing, sans the ridiculously high costs of having to rent (or buy!) a helicopter.
Kite aerial photography
A great example of kite-assisted photo by goodmolecules on Flickr
Kite photography, Kite Aerial Photography, or KAP, as it is known among friends, has been with us for absolute yonks – the first famous image I have been able to find out about was taken by a George Lawrence in the early 1900s. His early pioneering work in the field became particularly famous when he took a photo of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
He wasn’t the first, however, as commenter David Hunt (of kaper.us fame) points out – Apparently, the first kite aerial photograph was taken in 1889 by Frenchman Arthur Batut. The first American to take an aerial photograph was William Eddy – photos done by the both of them are available online.
There are a lot of different ways of pulling this off, though – from using a very simple compact or disposable camera with some sort of a trigger, to using an elaborate mechanism that allows you to control the imaging device with great precision from the ground.
If you prefer to start off small (may be a good idea), it makes sense to start with David Hunt’s article, explaining how you can introduce yourself to the genre for under US$20 – a reasonable introduction price to any hobby, we’d say.
Triggers
The first – and trickiest problem, I’m sure you’ll agree – is to find out how you can actually set off the camera: Every idiot can tie a camera to a kite, but how do you take the photo?
There are three ways, essentially: A preset timer takes a photo, you can use a timer that takes photos on intervals, or a remote control that lets you choose when to take a photo. The first option is cheapest: one solution is to use a thread and a storm match. You light the storm match, and you’ll have 5-6 seconds to get the kite as high as possible, as described on this page, but it isn’t a very flexible solution, and you’d end up sending the kite up again and again and again. Very tedious.
The second solution – intervals – is easiest done with digital cameras. Some digicams have a time-lapse feature built in (I remember one of my first cameras, the Casio QV-8000SX had this functionality built-in), but it is actually surprisingly rare. Cameras that accept a remote control can usually be quite easily adapted to do time-lapse photography, by creating your own remote control that sends signals to take photos at the intervals you choose, but this requires some electronics skills. If you are going to go to those lengths, you may as well go for solution #3 – us a radio-remote with an electronic trigger!
One of the easiest ways to use a radio remote, apparently, is GentLED, an universal camera remote system that weighs only 3 grammes, and can be set to control a wide array of different stills cameras and camcorders. The system has been developed especially for kite photography, but can also be used for other applications, obviously. They start at €20.
If you are hell-bent on not using any pre-fabricated items, our friends over at Engadget threw themselves into the mix head-first, and actually hacked a digital camera to do time-lapse photography. The idea is that once you set it to take pictures every minute (or whatever), you can just concentrate on flying the kite, and see what your camera comes back with.
More advanced stuff – Cradles, remote controls & getting high-tech
None of this is nearly hardcore enough, of course – we want proper stuff! What happens when you go all the way?
The rig includes a Sutton Flowform 16 stickless kite with a long nylon fabric tail and the camera platform.
The camera platform uses a Yashica T4 camera and two Futaba servos. One servo controls pitch and the other actuates the shutter. Note that since we are mainly interested in straight down, there is no need for an azimuth servo.
We asked for an elevation control on the grounds that since we would have the kite aloft anyway, it would be irrestable to want to take some more conventional scenic pictures.
The Futaba radio control unit is a popular unit used for radio controlled model airplanes and the like. The framework for the camera platform was custom crafted of aluminum, with some nylon fittings.
Mounting a camera to a radio controllable cradle can help you aim the camera for each shot. There are many different cradle designs available, but Scott Haefner’s solutions seem to stand out as particularly elegant.
Every photographer experiences a creative block at some time or another. So what do you do when this happens? I personally fall into a foetal position on the floor, kick my legs, and spin around in circles while crying like a six-year old. But what do YOU do? Well, here’s a thought. How about a time-lapse? If you have a dSLR and a sturdy tripod, then you already have most of the ingredients for this magnificent recipe. So let’s get started!
Equipment
While many dSLRs have an “interval shooting” feature built in already, some don’t, so you’ll also need a way to time and trigger your shutter release. There are several pieces of hardware available, but I like to use a Hähnel Giga T Pro. It’s the only one I’ve ever used, but it seems to work perfectly fine and is easy enough to figure out. Whatever you decide to go with, make sure it has an interval timer function and an exposure count control. Without these two features, you won’t be able to create your time-lapse.
Essential kit, if your camera doesn't have an 'interval shooting' function
For this tutorial, you’ll also need QuickTime software, which you can download here. (If you own a Mac and you’re running Snow Leopard, then you’ll notice that you have QuickTime X and can’t install QuickTime 7. Read this post by Apple to get around this problem.)
The location
You can shoot a time-lapse of just about anything you want. Obviously, it makes more sense to shoot a scene that has a lot of motion in it, such as fast-moving clouds, a busy city square, or a train station. Once you determine your scene, it’s time to get set up. Keep in mind that you’ll need to dedicate some time to this project, so bring along a book or something to keep you occupied while you shoot. ‘How long should I shoot,’ you ask? Well, that depends. And in order to figure that out, you’ll need to do some basic number crunching.
The maths
To determine the time required to shoot your time-lapse, you’ll have to work backwards. For simplicity’s sake, let’s say that we want our final video to be one minute in length. A normal time-lapse video will consist of 15 frames per second. So 15 frames times 60 seconds is 900 frames.
How smooth or choppy you want those 900 frames to flow is up to you. If you’re shooting clouds, then you’ll probably want a smoother effect, so you’ll want to shoot in shorter intervals, say every five seconds. So 900 frames taken every five seconds is 4500 seconds, divided by 60 seconds per minute, which comes out to 75 minutes, or an hour and 15 minutes worth of shooting. Phew!
So now that you have your location picked and how long you’ll be shooting for, let’s get set up.
The set-up
Place your tripod where you want and frame your shot. Make sure your tripod is as stable as you can get it. Any movement during your 900 shots will be very visible once you combine everything together in your final video. If you brought your camera bag with extra gear in it, the added weight could help with stabilisation, so try hooking it onto your tripod.
Get comfy whilst your time-lapse is shooting
Now check your camera for settings. Because you’re taking 900 frames, you’ll want to shoot in JPG to make sure they all fit on your memory card. Also, since your video will likely be used for web-friendly applications like Youtube or Vimeo, you don’t really need to have extra-large high resolution photos.
Make sure you focus your shot and then disable your auto-focus to ensure consistency across all of your frames. You’ll also want to shoot in either manual or aperture-priority mode. If you’re out in an open field during high noon with a lot of clouds in the sky, you’re bound to be in bright sunlight during some shots and darker shade during others, so aperture-priority will help ensure proper exposures throughout your time-lapse.
Once you’re all set up, program your interval timer to the correct settings and start shooting. Grab your book and get comfortable. You’ll be there for the next 75 minutes.
Creating Your Video
Once you’ve downloaded your photos to a folder on your computer, it’s time to put everything together. Open up QuickTime and click Open Image Sequence under the File menu. Select only the first image in your sequence and click Open. Next, you’ll want to select your frame rate. For our example, we’ll go with 15 frames per second. Click OK and QuickTime will do the rest for you.
You now have your master time-lapse video. Make sure to save it as is. You can then go back to the File menu and choose Export for Web to save the video as a more web-friendly version, ready for Youtubing.
Congratulations, you now have your first time-lapse video!
Extra Steps
While this tutorial simply covers the basics of time-lapse photography, there are plenty of other methods available to play with, so once you get some practice down, you can start experimenting a bit. For example, you may want to batch-edit your photos in Photoshop to create a more unusual time-lapse, such as one in monochrome.
If you’re shooting a busy street at night, you might want to use a slow shutter speed to make the car headlights streak throughout your video. Or you may want your time-lapse to pan across a large scene, a bit like this one, to give your video a wow factor. The options are endless.
Time-lapses can be a great way to create a fun and unique project on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Maybe you have things to do around the house, so you set up your gear in your backyard and shoot while you do your chores. Or maybe you’re at a cafe in a busy city square. Why not shoot a time-lapse of the buzz around you while you sip on a cappuccino and read a book? It’s simple to do and I’m sure you’ll be pleased with your results.
And just so that you know, this is my favourite time-lapse out there:
One of the easiest ways to use a radio remote, apparently, is 
