In Transition...

I'd like to apologize about the length between this post and the last. As most of you know my primary career is flying. Earlier in the year, I had a good bit of free time allowing for more blogging, but for once I've been uber busy at work. I had a week in Indy, a week in Danville, a week in Huntsville, and this week though not flying, I've been studying. There are some great changes with my job in the works that requires a good bit of studying. Once things settle down in 3 or 4 weeks, I hope to get back to my regular blog schedule. Thank's for your patience, and for your entertainment....here's a fisheye shot of Fez face!

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Portrait Lighting Lesson 3: 45 Degree Lighting

So we've gone over some good starter lighting equipment and talked about how to set it all up. So today let's go over how to use it finally. This will include camera/light source layout, camera settings (setting exposure), and a touch about posing.

The 45 degree lighting is an easy setup lighting pattern that will produce professional results with your one little strobe flash and a shoot-through umbrella.

Before we start talking about the lighting pattern, let's talk about the effects of light in general. If you want the softest light possible (aka no harsh shadows), this will be done with 2 things. The first is the type of light modifier being used (in this case a shoot-through umbrella). The second is the distance of the light source from the subject. When I first started studying lighting, a fellow photographer and great mentor to me, Mark Warren, was describing how he was sitting in a restaurant underneath a hanging table light. He was just messing around and noticed that the closer his hand got to the light, the softer the shadow that was cast on the table tended to become. As his hand got further from the light and closer to the table, the outline of his hand became more defined (aka a harsher shadow).

Having harsh shadows is not necessarily a bad thing. Some peoples personality and appearance work better with harsh shadows cast on them. For example, a very cut muscular male can often get away with much harsher shadows then say an average female model. For our purposes, we are going to try to keep the lighting as soft as possible.

Although we want to keep our shadows soft, we don't want to get rid of them entirely. The light to shadow transition on your model's face is coincidently called "modeling." If the light is coming at your subject from straight on (say on top of your camera), you'll find that the lighting is very flat and has a lack of modeling. This is why snapshot photos you see on most peoples Facebook and Myspace pages have a very flat and non-flattering effect. To remedy this, we move the light source off of the camera axis to the left or right. 45 degrees in particular is an angle that creates very nice modeling and tends to thin your subject (I don't know many people who don't want to look at least a little thinner).

To do this, when you position your flash and shoot-through umbrella, you'll want to place it as close as possible to your model so that it is just outside the frame of the camera. (See Diagram 1)



Once we have our umbrella setup 45 degrees to the camera lens axis, you're ready to fire some test shots to determine the proper exposure. For starters, you need to understand that the role of shutter speed is seemingly quite different when you introduce a flash to your photography.

The shutter speed in previous lessons has been used to freeze or blur your subject. Now that you introduced the flash, the shutter speed doesn't serve the same purpose. The flash ends up acting like shutter speed in that because it happens so quick, it freezes your subject in place, even at lower shutter speeds or if the subject was moving. So what then do I use the shutter speed for? Well oddly sounding enough, the shutter speed is used to control the amount of ambient lighting that plays a part in your photo. You need to start by determining the maximum shutter speed that your camera can sync with. If you set it any higher than this number, you'll notice a black line introduced probably near the bottom of the photo. This is due to the shutter not being able to keep up with the speed of the flash. The Canon EOS 50D has a max sync speed of 1/250th of a second. SO!!! The faster the shutter speed (up to the max sync) the less ambient light is introduced to the camera. For example in the photo of the girl in the stables, you'll notice in the background, the ambient light of the sun. The faster the shutter speed, the less prominent the sun is. Let's say I slowed the shutter speed down to say 1/30th of a second . . . the background area in that photo may be blown out, and you may lose all the detail in the greenery. The sun is very strong, however, it's not always the only ambient light in a photo. Sometimes the ambient may be a man made light in a parking garage or essentially any light that you can't directly control. Sometimes with these lights, due to the fact that they're much dimmer than the sun, at your cameras max sync speed, you may not even see it in the photos because the flash completely overpowered it. Let's say the light pattern it cast on your subject or the background is desired to be kept in the photo. In this case you may want to set a slower shutter speed like 1/30th of second mentioned before to re-introduce that ambient light as part of your photo. Ok, I know that was tough to get through, but hopefully you have a good idea about shutter speed and it's ability to control ambient light.

That leaves 3 more things to control the exposure of the flash on your subject (well 4, but I'm not going into ISO at the moment). Those three things are the power setting on your flash unit, the distance of the light source from the subject, and aperture.

It should be noted that with most flash units the higher the power setting, the longer the flash takes to recycle after each burst, and subsequently the quicker the battery drains. With that said, assuming you don't need full power to try to overpower the sun, let's start with 1/4 or 1/2 power on your flash.

After setting the power, you can then move the flash unit closer or further from your subject to adjust the exposure, but remember if you want the softest light possible from your light source, it should be just outside the cameras frame. With that said, let's leave it as we have it to keep the soft light. Just don't forget that this is an option for controlling exposure.

Lastly, we have aperture. The larger the hole, the more light that gets in. Thus if you fire your test shot on say F/5.6, and it is underexposed, you'll need to increase the size of the aperture hole to increase the amount of light that reaches the sensor. Perhaps try F/4.5 or F/4.0. Great! You have the exposure nailed (hopefully).

Let's throw one more monkey wrench in the mix. Let's say you want to keep alot of the background in focus. For example an on-location photo-shoot often means the background is an important part of the photo. As per previous lessons, if you want to keep more in focus, you'll want a smaller aperture. So let's just say we'll set our aperture to F/8. Well now we have a problem because the subject is really underexposed again. No worries, just adjust 1 of the other factors. Either move the flash closer if possible, increase the power of the flash, or that thing I sorta didn't mention before...increase the ISO. You can do any combination of the three. This in turn allows you to keep creative control over the blur of the background. If you want to blur the background, say for example if you put a sheet up behind your photo as I have done in the self-portraits, simply use a larger aperture and adjust the other available settings accordingly. I did this because the sheet has wrinkles in it. By blurring the background, I eliminate this problem.

When you're all setup and nailed your exposure with a few test shots, you'll want to pose the subject as described below for the purposes of this lesson. When you focus on your subject, it is VITAL that you get the closest eye in sharp focus. I tend to have trouble with this from time to time, but regardless...GET THE EYES SHARP. I can't stress this enough. Use selective focusing zones on your camera if you know how. If you don't, it would be wise to take a peak into your instruction manual to see how this is done.

This lesson isn't greatly focused on posing, but to get you started, you'll want your subject to stand up straight with there shoulders parallel to the umbrella (see diagram 1). Next have them look directly at the umbrella that there shoulders are already lined up with. You're going to want them to look at the camera obviously (or perhaps not, depending on what you're going for), but you don't want there head to be fully facing the camera. Have them turn there head slightly towards the camera so that from the photographers viewpoint, the nose isn't protruding through the edge of their far cheek. Hopefully that makes sense, lol. Next, have the subject keep there head where you just positioned it but have there eyes move so that they're now looking at the camera. If it looks like the colorful part of the eye surrounding the pupil is to close to the corner (you don't see much or any white on the side of the eye closest to you), you may need to have them turn there head a bit more towards the camera. If done correctly, you'll have a very nice modeling effect from the combination of light source placement and pose.

To demonstrate the 45 degree lighting pattern, I took it upon myself to shoot some self-portraits in my kitchen earlier this week. I am also including 1 on-location photo from a shoot I did two weeks ago. In addition, I've included a few setup shots. The setup shot's however differ slightly from the setup you're currently doing. Instead of a shoot-through umbrella, I used my Photek Softliter. It's sort of a combination of umbrella and softbox. Don't worry about this though because the concept is exactly the same. The only difference is that my shadows may be a bit softer than the ones you'll produce with your umbrella. The other difference is that you may notice a softbox right beside my camera. I have this set a few stops darker than the umbrella (key light). This gives the result of lightening the shadow area of the subject just a tad. This is by no means necessary, and the only reason I did it was because I've just been meaning to try it.

Setup Shot - In the photo viewed from behind the tripod, you'll notice you don't see the key light. This is because the view is blocked by the cabinet. Again, don't worry about not having a fill light. it is completely unnecessary.




The finished product...





Happy shooting everybody! This has been 45 degree lighting "From The Ground Up!"

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Portrait Lighting Lesson 2: Setting up your equipment

So in the last lesson (Lesson 1), I talked about and gave some examples of inexpensive items for you to consider purchasing in order to get yourself a basic portrait lighting setup.

Today I want to go over how to assemble it all when you're ready to do your first portrait session. A lot of things in life come with instructions, but I found the Impact brand of products that is made solely for B&H tends to come with little to no instructions.

If you chose to purchase other versions of the same items i.e. a different brand, then these instructions will likely be similar but could easily change. For example, the cord that comes with the Vivitar 285HV is different than the cord for any other brand of small flash unit.

So let's get started:

Step 1: Correct the problem with the umbrella bracket.

When you first open the box to your umbrella bracket, you'll find that the two threaded screw thing-a-ma-jigs on each each end of the bracket were installed backwards (before you do this step, make sure your's were shipped backwards by referring to the third photo. If they weren't, then you can disregard this step). What I mean by this, is that if you use the bracket as it comes in the box, the adjustable elbow doesn't function properly. The elbow should be used to angle the flash head and the umbrella all at once. If you bought a different brand, look at the final photo for this step and ensure it matches. If not, you probably need to follow a similar set of steps







Step 2: Attach the umbrella bracket to the light-stand





Step 3: Expand the legs on the base of the light-stand

In case of heavy winds on an outdoor photo-shoot, you can tent stake the stand to the ground if you are on soil, or you can use sandbags if you're at the beach or on pavement - see note on image.



Step 4: Attach the umbrella to the umbrella bracket





Step 5: Attach the flash head to the umbrella bracket





Step 6: Locate and setup the flash triggering cords (PC male-to-female & Unique pointy cord that came with the Vivitar 285HV)
NOTE: SKIP THIS STEP AND GO TO STEP 7 IF YOU CHOSE THE WIRELESS ROUTE USING CYBERSYNC TRANSIMITTOR/RECEIVERS AS OPPOSED TO THE PC MALE-TO-FEMALE CORD METHOD OF FLASH TRIGGERING















Step 7: Setup the flash to trigger wirelessly with the CyberSync wireless transmitter/receivers
NOTE: ONLY DO THIS STEP IF YOU CHOSE TO GO THE WIRELESS ROUTE AS OPPOSED TO USING THE PC MALE-TO-FEMALE METHOD LISTED IN STEP 6













Step 8: Note how to use the elbow to angle your flash head and umbrella (regardless of whether you chose step 6 or 7)



Stay tuned for Portrait Lighting Lesson 3. We'll be discussing one of the most common lighting setups: 45 degree lighting.

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Patriotic Festival 2009 - My Biggest Photo "Gig" to Date!

I hate to start a post like this but...in the nature of the photos being of "celebrities," please remember that I maintain all rights to these photographs and that if you wish to use the photos for ANY reason, I ask that you contact me first. Thank you!

So a few months back I'm talking with my good friend Bill, and he mentions some festivals that he has lined up to photograph. I told him that I'd love to help with the events if I happen to be off work when they happen. Sure enough, I was off work for the Patriotic Festival this past weekend in Virginia Beach, VA. Earlier in the week I got a call from Bill reminding me of the event, and I managed to get home from work just in time to make a mad dash to the beach (less the sitting in Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel traffic for an hour).

When I first met Bill through Flickr, he mentioned he worked in radio and told me a few stories of different celebrities he'd met such as Shania Twain, Jay Leno, etc. I guess I knew he had a lot of contacts due to the nature of his job, but it didn't occur to me how rewarding that would end up being for him and I as up and coming photographers.

I knew I'd get to get relatively close to the stage and take some shots of the bands, but it never occured to me that "All-Access" meant more than just center-stage shots. Bill and I were the official photographers of the Patriotic Festival in Virginia Beach for 2009. With that came photographing the meet and greets, access to all backstage areas, etc.


So here's how it went: I'll just kinda list my 2 day event in a schedule like format

FRIDAY
-Arrive on Friday afternoon and take photos of the fans, booths, beach, etc.
-Go on the stage and photograph all the instruments, equipment, etc.
-Photograph the Zac Brown Band (Chicken Fried) from right down front
-Meet the Zac Brown Band after the show, get there autographs on a CD for my brother in Afghanistan
-Photograph the Zac Brown Band signing fans memorabilia
-Get photo taken with the Zac Brown Band
-Make a dash back to the front of the stage to catch photograph the second half of the Gary Allan concert
-No meet and greet with Gary Allan was available for anyone, including photographers
-Go back to Bills and spend 3 or 4 hours sorting photos, keeping good, trashing bad, making minor edits, etc.
-Put photos on jump drive to give to the event hosts (needed by Monday A.M.)
-Make the 1.5 hour drive back to Gloucester to be in bed by 3 A.M.

SATURDAY
-Woke up at 12
-Headed back to VA Beach
-Sat in traffic in the tunnel again
-Shoot photo session of Miss United States at the nearby Cavalier hotel
-Go to event area and shoot more booths, people, etc.
-Go on the stage and photograph all the instruments, equipment, etc.
-Photograph a meet and greet with David Cook (brought the lighting equipment the second day)
-Photograph David Cook & band with small groups of fans
-Photograph David Cook $ Band with the Wounded Warriors who biked down from D.C. (tough lighting situation - 43 people in the shot)
-Have my photograph taken with the band...something to prove I was there (David Cook's a nice guy but I don't really know any of his music and I never really watched American Idol)
-Dart to front of stage to catch the last half of Matt Nathansons concert and photograph it (managed to catch the songs "Laid" and "Come on Get Higher")
-Make our way up to the event coordinators 8th floor suite balcony at the Beach Quarters hotel to get some "Aerial" shots of David Cooks concert
-Matt Nathanson was escorted straight to his hotel room after his show so no meet and greet with him.
-Ran back down to the front of the stage and literally had to fight off women to try to get any shots. Those women were just plain evil if you got in there way
-Finished photographing his performance and headed back to Bills again
-3 or 4 hours of sorting, editing photos, etc.
-1.5 hour drive back to Gloucester to arrive in time to hit the hay at 3 A.M. again

Let me just say WOW! What an amazing experience this was as a photographer. I actually felt like I was a somebody with all that unlimited access. If things go well and the pictures were well taken, we anticipate being the event coordinators concert photographers for future events.

I took just over 1000 photos during the 2 day period and was able to provide him with close to 500 keepers. That's just me... not sure how many Bill ended up keeping.

I'm a big Zac Brown Band fan, so getting to hang out with them for a bit, photograph them with their fans, get a few autographs for myself and my brother....let's just say it was an incredible weekend.

As for being a "Star Hound," it's definitely easy to do during your first event. I can however see how you'd get used to it after awhile. On the other hand, it's going to be hard to go to concerts now and just be a fan. I'm gonna want the All-Access VIP status lol. I thought this was going to be a cake walk but honestly it was pretty hard work. I was completely spent by Saturday evening. Then to top it off, I had plans to do a photo-shoot with 2 gorgeous women on Sunday afternoon. After getting very little rest, getting up early to help my step-dad tar paper the shed roof that he's building, wash my car, then make my way over to York River State Park....I still managed to have a great shoot with the ladies and I anticipate all of those photos being posted by weeks end.

Below is a series of shots from the weekend that I've done some editing to. At the end, I've included the one shot I've finished editing from my photo-shoot with Sharon & Kate (gorgeous ladies mentioned above).

USO Skydive Team


Zac Brown Band Guitar


Zac Brown Band


Zac Brown Band & Marines (Low-light with no flash is tough. A lot of sharpness loss due to high ISO and wide open aperture)


Gary Allan


Gary Allan Drummer


Gary Allan


Guitars


Felicia Barton (American Idol Semi-Finalist Season 8)


David Cook's band with Wounded Warriors from D.C.


Matt Nathanson


Matt Nathanson


Aerial Concert Venue


Aerial Stage Zoom


David Cook


David Cook's Bassist Joey Clement


David Cook's Drummer Kyle Peek


Sharon & Kate - York River State Park


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Portrait Lighting Lesson 1: Basic Lighting Equipment

Now that we know how to use all the major functions of our cameras, I'd like to add another factor: Off camera lighting!

In addition, these off-camera lighting lessons are going to be geared to small flashes (or strobes) as opposed to continous output lights or monolights. As always, I try to keep the lessons geared toward using your camera on full manual.

For starters, why do we want to have a flash off camera as opposed to using the one built in or just attaching a seperate flash on top of the camera?

Simply put... the quality of the light!

The flash built into most cameras just don't put out a quality lighting result. The biggest reason is that a flash on the same axis as your cameras lens just produces non-flattering light. The lighting is very flat and doesn't usually enhance the way an image looks. An on-camera flash can provide light in a situation where the shot is do or die. I can almost guarantee though, that when you get used to using flash off camera, you'll never want to go back to that weak on-camera flash. In addition, if you have a longer lens on your camera, the on camera flash or flash you've attached to the top of your camera will often produce a massive shadow on your subject.

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LIGHTING EQUIPMENT TERMS AND DEFINITIONS

Portrait - A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this reason, in photography a portrait is generally not a snapshot, but a composed image of a person in a still position.

On-location - A portrait session that takes place at a location other than a studio. Often this location is but not limited to outdoors.

Ambient Light - Any light that is exiting or present at the shooting scene that is not part of the photographers lighting setup.

Hot shoe - A hot shoe is a mounting point on the top of a camera to attach a flash unit. The hot shoe is shaped somewhat like an inverted, squared-off "U" of metal. The matching adapter on the bottom of the flash unit slides in from the back of the camera and is sometimes secured by a clamping screw on the flash. In the center of the "U" is a metal contact point. This is used for standard, brand-independent flash synchronization.

Sync & PC Cables - A cord that attaches your off-camera flash to your camera. When the shutter button is pressed, the cord sends a signal to the flash to fire it.

Radio Slaves or Wireless Transmitters/Receivers - A radio slave system uses 2 devices to fire your flash wirelessly. One piece attaches to the hot shoe of your device (the transmitter) and the other attaches to your flash off-camera (the receiver). When the shutter button is pressed the transmitter sends a signal to the receiver to set off the flash. Some brands use transceivers. A transceiver sends and receives signals as opposed to just one of the duties. Wit these systems, it doesn't matter which piece is on the flash and which is on the camera.

Lightstands - A pole or stand for which you attach your flash and any lighting modifiers.

Booms - An adjustable arm sometimes built into the lightstand that allows you to relocate the flash above the subject.

Umbrella Brackets - A device that attaches to the top of the lightstand that gives you a place to mount your umbrella. Often the umbrella bracket will have a movable elbow allowing you to redirect the flash and the umbrella at different angles.

Lighting Modifiers - Any device that allows you to modify the light for any purpose. Modifiers change the softness, direction, color, intensity, etc. of the light source. Umbrellas, snoots, gobos, gels, etc. are considered lighting modifiers.

Diffusion or Diffuser - any device that diffuses or spreads out or scatters light in some manner, to give soft light.

Umbrella - A lighting modifier that softens the light by diffusing it. The umbrella typically spreads the light pattern over a greater area. If used as a shoot-through, the light is often softer than using it to bounce the light back on the subject.

Softbox - A lighting modifier that softens the light by diffusing it. As opposed to spreading the light over a wide area, a softbox produces more directional light.

Snoot - Snoots are front-of-the-light "tubes" that project a circle of light on a subject or background. They also reduce light spill.

Barn Door - A front-of-the-light device having two or more pivotable black panels used to shape the Beam and shade the camera lens or scene.

Reflector - Flat devices, mostly white, silver, or gold, that redirect the sun's and other source's rays. Lighting with reflectors is like lighting with lights - except no cables. Just cloud and wind worries.

Diffusion or Diffuser - any device that diffuses or spreads out or scatters light in some manner, to give soft light.

Gel - A strong, flexible, fade-resistant material that changes the color, amount, or quality of light.

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STARTER BASIC LIGHTING SETUP AT A DESCENT COST
So now that we have an idea of some of the basic items used in portrait photography, I'd like to give you a list of links to the bare minimum lighting equipment to produce professional results on a budget price plan. The following list is what I personally started with. This list of equipment is of descent quality for the money and should last you awhile. In no way am I insisting that you by the same equipment that I purchased, but this hopefully can act as a good guide.

Off Camera Flash - Vivitar 285HV - I like this flash for the price. Given, this is an older more basic flash, but it produces consistent results. The Vivitar 285HV has all manual controls as opposed to electronic controls. If you're unsure about flash photography and you don't want to drop a lot of coin on a flash you may not end up using, the Vivitar won't set you back to much money. My biggest complaint is the slow flash recycle time, especially as the batteries start to wither.

Sync Cable - PC male to PC female sync cable. This is the bare minimum to get by with off-camera flash. One end hooks into your camera and the other hooks into the cord included with the Vivitar 285HV. The other end of the cord included with the flash plugs into the flash. Note: Different flash brands may require different sync cables.

Lightstand - Impact 8' Lightstand - This is a pretty basic lightstand with no boom arm.

Umbrella Bracket - Generic swivel bracket - Not much to say about it, holds the umbrella and the flash :P

Umbrella - Westcott 45" with removable black cover - Good to use as a shoot-through, or as a bounce back umbrella. 45" is pretty large and will allow you to cover a relatively large area. Kinda cheaply made, but it's a given that when the wind catches it and blows it over, it's only going to hold up for so long.

The above setup will get you shooting portraits and making money with an initial $173 investment. Really not bad when you consider how expensive this hobby can be.

OPTIONAL

Wireless Triggers - CyberSync Radio Remote System - I use this wireless trigger system, and I love them. Honestly, the Pocketwizard brand is nice and the effective distance is much greater, but the cost is considerably more. The CyberSync system is a transmitter and receiver system rather than a transceiver like the PocketWizards. The PW's are around $200 each, whereas the CyberSyncs are like 60 for the transmitter and 90 for each receiver. The effective distance is about 400 ft compared to PW's 1600 feet, but for the money, they are very consistent, easy to use, and very well built. Please spare yourself and don't order the cheap ones on ebay. They are inconsistent and don't work that well.

If you choose to go with the the CyberSyncs, or the PW's, and plan on using them with the Vivitar 285HV, you'll need this special cord to attach them since the triggers don't come with this cord used on the older Vivitars.
Vivitar to Wireless Trigger Adapter Cord

If you did go this route and assuming you only bought 1 flash, hence only 1 receiver and adapter cord, this version of the setup will run you about $327. The wireless triggering systems are so much nicer than runing a PC cable. I found that with only 16 foot of cable, I was looking through the viewfinder and accidently pulling over the lightstand. It didn't take long before I went wireless.

I'm currently not at home, so I can't take photographs of the setup, but the next post will likely be about how to setup all the elements listed above including visuals. The next post will also include the most common portrait lighting setup: 45 degree lighting.

Here's a few photos from a portrait session this past weekend using the above listed lighting setup.

My friend Lauren at an abandoned nursing home in Mathews, VA.





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Vacation Highlights - Nassau, Bahamas

"Three Lovely Ladies"

As promised, I've got some vacation photos to share with you. I made it to Nassau as planned with no major hiccups in the travels. I checked into the Wyndham Nassau Resort & Crystal Palace Casino on monday and was able to use my reward points to pay for 3 of the 4 nights. The last night was supposed to be a base rate of $160 but somebody must have been feeling generous because they charged me a base rate of $100.00. I had as much fun as one could have in the Bahamas by oneself at a resort filled with couples. I don't mean to sound like I didn't have a great time, because I did. A simple observation that I would have had even more fun with a little bit of company. Perhaps next time, I'll give friends a bit more notice. Anyways, I got to go scuba diving for the first time and it was a blast. I definitely have to get certified now. Sadly, I didn't bring my camera to the dive site because I would have to leave it unattended for an extended period of time and I didn't want the salt water to make contact with it, lol. I ended up finding a great spot for sunsets on the last evening in Nassau. The spot was at Compass Point Resort (see photo above..."Three Lovely Ladies"...one of my best landscapes to date). If I had the money and could do it all over, I'd definitely stay at this resort. Compass Point was absolutely beautiful. There's a lot I could add about how courteous the staff was, but I'll save that for some other day so that I can get to posting these photos.

So here they are (well, at least the ones I've finished editing):

"Workin' "

"The Hut"

"Wyndham Nassau Resort & Crystal Palace Casino"

"The Courtyard"

"Trinity Church, Nassau"

"Typical Island Photo"

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How To: Shoot Silhouettes - And a Bit About Dynamic Range

Before I start, I want to take a few lines to apologize for my upcoming blog post sabbatical. As I mentioned in an earlier post, whenever I'm at home, my limited internet access prevents me from doing much blogging. I'm currently sitting in Savannah, GA. and will be catching a flight back home to Virginia tomorrow morning (Sat. Apr. 25th). Instead of being back at work on Monday for more blogging, I will be taking my vacation next week. I'm headed to the Wyndham Nassau Resort and Crystal Palace Casino in Nassau Bahamas! I've read that internet access isn't free at the hotel, which blows my mind. What year is this?....1998? Anyways, I'll likely be shooting photos, relaxing on the beach, scuba diving, or finding some nightlife. I'll be back to work Monday, May 4th. Expect a new post shortly after with photos from my trip, and oh!....I'm also attending the Langley AirPower over Hampton Roads air-show this upcoming Sunday! Expect a blog post about how to photograph an air-show sometime on my return week as well.

As for my upcoming posts, the majority of the basics have been covered and I'll now be posting more specific how-to type posts. We'll start today with how to shoot silhouettes.

What is a silhouette? - A silhouette is a view of an object or scene consisting of the outline and a featureless interior, with the silhouetted object usually being black. The term was initially applied in the 18th century to portraits or other pictorial representations cut from thin black card. The term has been extended to describe the sight or image of a person, object or scene that is backlit, and appears dark against a lighter background. Because a silhouette emphasises the outline, the word has also been used in the fields of fashion and fitness to describe the shape of a person's body or the shape created by wearing clothing of a particular style or period. - Source: Wikipedia

In terms of photography, the italicized bold text in the paragraph above describes a silhouette perfectly.

An important term when referring to a silhouette is dynamic range.

Dynamic range is the ratio of light to dark that the cameras "eye" can see. The greater the dynamic range, the more details you'll get in both the highlights and the shadows. Unfortunately the cameras dynamic range is nowhere near that of the human eye. The human eye can see a considerably larger amount of details in highlights and shadows of a scene. While this can cause a lot of problems with getting a photo to look the way you want it, it works very nicely for silhouette images.

All you really have to do for a silhouette is set your exposure for a bright light source behind your subject. The limited dynamic range of your camera will automatically lose all or most of the details in the shadows and retain all the details in the light source, or the highlights.

With that said, a great light source to use for silhouettes is a sunset or sunrise. This is because the colors are very dramatic, and if you have a lot of clouds in the sky, you'll get even more visual interest in your photo. A sunset or sunrise, however, is not required. You could stand your subject in front of a window on the inside of the building, expose for what is outside of the window, and your subject will be silhouetted against the background. (See the flip-flop photos below)

So let's break this down into steps:

1. Look for or create a subject with a strong visual interest. In other words, use something that will be very recognizable just by it's outline or shape alone.
2. Place your subject in front of a light source so that there is a lot of light behind the subject, and as little as possible falling on the camera side of the subject itself.
3. Ensure there isn't a lot of other items in the frame of your shot that will distract from the main subject or clutter the photo excessively.
4. Set your exposure so that the background (light source) is properly exposed and not blown out (a term for losing detail in the highlights) or underexposed (a term for losing detail in the shadows). With the proper exposure on the background and no light falling on the subject, the subject itself should be underexposed which will give you the silhouette you're trying to achieve. Remember...exposure is set by varying aperture, shutter speed, and ISO.
5. Once you're photo is properly exposed, focus the camera on your subject. This will ensure the subject has a nice crisp outline, and isn't blurry. On occasion, there may be times when you want the background to be in perfect focus and the silhouette to have a blurry outline. For example, I had a shot of my pug, Fez, looking out the window at a girl on the street. I exposed for the girl on the street as well as focused on the girl in the street. I wanted the focus on the girl so you could tell what Fez was looking at. I framed the shot so both the girl and Fez were in the viewfinder and snapped the photo.
6. Once you've achieved your desired focus, and have framed the subject nicely, press the shutter button to take the photo.
7. Thanks to the digital camera age, you now have instant results on your cameras LCD screen. Review your shot and make any adjustments to exposure, focus, and subject framing as necessary and continue shooting. With a few repetitions, you'll find that you can now confidently shoot a silhouette image.

A few tips:

• Try using a wide array of aperture settings to see the different results. First try a very small aperture (large F number) so that the subject has a crisp outline, and the background is in focus as well. Then try a large aperture (small F number) so that your subject is crisp and the background is a nice smooth blur of color. Thinking back to an earlier post, if you change your aperture, you'll need to change your shutter speed to compensate for the addition or subtraction of light. This will keep your photos exposure the same, but change the artistic effects associated with aperture.
• Angle the camera a considerable amount to give your photo an unusual perspective and add interest to the photo. (See the photo at the top of this post)
• Don't use flash. By using flash, you'll light the subject even if the background is properly exposed. This is obviously the exact opposite of what a silhouette is.

When I first started this blog, I mentioned that the posts would be geared towards shooting photos in full manual mode. If you happen to be using a point and shoot on automatic mode, you can still shoot silhouettes. Although I won't go into the extra details, I wanted to provide a link to a site that does describe how to create the effect on automatic mode: Easy Ways to Shoot a Silhouette

Below is an example pertaining to dynamic range:

You'll notice in the first photo, the shoes are properly exposed, but the details in the background are completely blown out. If it weren't for the second photo, you'd have no idea such a vibrant background existed. The second photo is exposed for the golf course and water in the background. You end up with a silhouetted image of the shoes, but you lose almost all detail in the subject. The reason for this is because of the cameras poor dynamic range. When I say poor, I mean in reference to the fact that as I looked at the shoes against the background with my eyes, I could see the detail in both the shoes and the golf course that lay behind. In comparison to what you can see with your eye, a camera has a poor dynamic range. Getting both the shoes and water properly exposed in the same image would require either adding a light source to the shoes so it is more closely matched with that of the background light source, or a number of post processing techniques such as exposure blending or HDR (high dynamic range). We'll get into these techniques at a later date.

I'll close this post with one more silhouette shot that I've taken. The photo below is of a PT6 turboprop airplane engine against a setting sun. I shot this photo en-route from Fayetteville, Arkansas to Indianapolis, Indiana back in December of 2008.

This has been how to shoot a silhouette "From the Ground Up!"

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Did You Get the Shot?

You're driving down the road and all of a sudden you see the Goodyear Blimp landing in a local shopping center parking lot. I dunno, maybe it was an emergency, or maybe it was a scheduled promotional visit, but whatever the case...did you get the shot?

Time after time, the answer to that question for me has been NO! When something amazing happens, I never seem to have my camera with me. I've got a quick fix to this problem. BRING YOUR CAMERA EVERYWHERE!!!

This topic might not seem very instructional, and granted it isn't. I do however feel it's an important topic to cover.

Some of the best photographs that are taken aren't planned. When something rare happens, it's nice to have a camera with you, at least giving you the chance to capture the event. Whether you do a good job of taking the photo goes back to your ability to adjust settings on the fly and quickly find a good compositional location. A photograph can lack in quality to some extent, if the event is rare enough. The rarity of a photo can cause it to become an iconic image that will be widely viewed and known.

I know it seems stupid and tedious to carry a camera to the grocery store, the bank, to work, to lunch, etc....however, it's often these times when something amazing happens on the way. To get the point across, let me list a few things big or small, that I've missed by not being prepared:

• Air Force One flying right over my head multiple times as it did touch and go's at the local airport
• Extreme sunsets and sunrises
• A field full of hot air balloons lifting off
• A local business on fire
• Interesting looking people - photojournalism
• Lightning storms

Some things I've managed to capture at odd times by having a camera available:

• Bald eagle perched on a stick in the middle of a lake beside my hotel
• Bridge opening with a battleship passing through at night
• My brother's deployment (ok perhaps most people have cameras at these things, but the images I got were more than just the standard family images)
• A lot of aerial photographs
• Interesting paint schemes on aircraft

I understand that lugging a heavy DSLR with all the equipment can be tiresome and nerve racking so at the least, buy yourself an inexpensive point and shoot that will fit in your pocket, purse, or wherever. A camera phone is better than no camera at all.

Here's a shot I got by using a camera phone. If it weren't for that, I would have missed this relatively rare photo:

Coleman Bridge opening during the day with a battleship passing through

So here is a good tip for travelling! Always bring your camera in your carry-on. This serves multiple purposes. For one, you have your camera available if something photo worthy happens during your flight. Secondly, it will prevent damage or loss from being in checked luggage. As a pilot, I have my camera on me all the time. I never know where my job will take me. I do find it annoying to carry an extra piece of luggage for my camera equipment, but I've had the opportunity to fly to some unique locations and was very glad I had it with me. I recommend a backpack style camera bag. This is one less thing you have to hold in your hands, and most backpacks fit in overhead bins or on the floor in front of your feet.

Might I add that the other 2 things I really find to be useful, but not nearly as practical are a tripod and at least one strobe type flash. I feel like I miss alot of things after dark because of my inability to lug the items around the country with me. When I'm home however, I always keep them in my car.

I hope everyone takes the extra time and effort to pack a camera of some sorts on their future ventures, near or far! I'll close this post with a few of the photos I took at my brother's deployment, mentioned above.

"Rucksacks & Body Armor"

"Please Come Home Safe" - That's my brother in the middle with the orange thing on his rucksack

"The Buses Await"

This has been, how to not miss the shot "From the Ground Up!"

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How I Shot This - "In the Drink"

Today's post is a "how I shot this" post.

You've likely seen shots very similar to this one from many other photographers. Originality was lacking to some extent on my part. The main purpose of this shoot was to practice different lighting techniques and see what type of results I could draw without the help of others. Instead of searching online for how to shoot this type of image, I looked on Flickr for other examples of this type of shot. From there I looked at where the light was coming from and decided to start a process of trial and error.

What you'll need:

• Camera
• Tripod
• 2 Strobe Flashes
• Flash trigger system (pocket wizards, synch cables, etc)
• Clear Glass Tank
• Black Non Reflective Backdrop (or other colors depending on desired artistic effect)
• Water (Seltzer water for extra bubbles)
• Object to drop in water
• Focusing Object (something to set your initial focus with)
• Remote Shutter (optional)
• Aluminum Foil (optional)
• Lightstands (optional)
• Towels (optional)

The setup:

1. Start by setting up your clear glass tank (fishtank, cookie jar, etc that is free of scratches, scuffs, or fingerprints) on a table or other flat surface. I used a chair to set the tank on allowing me to put a black shirt over the back part of the chair. If you use a reflective surface for the black backdrop you will get flash hotspots.
2. Next fill the tank with water. If you want alot of bubbles, you can use Seltzer water (carbonated water). I used a mixture of both.
3. Next set up a flash on either side of the tank pointing directly at the sides of the tank. I chose to put the flashes flush against the tank. After much trial and error, I realized that if the flashes were to far away, they illuminated the front and rear plane of glass giving me more of a flat or hazy look. If you have lightstands, you can use them to support the flashes. I found that a stack of books I had closely available worked just fine. The room I was working in limited my floor space preventing me from adding lightstands due to the wider base.
4. Hook up your triggering system. I have the AlienBees CyberSync remote triggers and receivers. You can also use flash sync cables as a cheaper option.
5. Set the flash power to a lower power setting. My flashes lowest setting was 1/16th power.
6. Setup your camera on a tripod pointing at the jar
7. Insert an object into the jar, approximately in the center. The idea is to use an object that when sitting in the jar, will give your camera something to focus on . It needs to stay stationary as you move to your camera to compose the shot. I used the handle of a flyswatter to stick in the center of the tank.
8. Compose your shot and set the camera to autofocus
9. Focus the camera on the object in the center of the tank using the autofocus. Once focused, switch the camera to manual focus. (If your camera continuously tries to focus on the glass or the bubbles formed on the glass, focus in manual from the get-go to get the object in focus. Leave the focus on manual.
10. Set the F/stop to a small aperture to get the largest depth of field. I chose F/16.
11. Set the shutter speed to the maximum flash synch speed according to your camera user manual. For the Canon EOS 50D, this would be 1/250th of a second. This will prevent ambient lighting from adding unplanned light to your shot.
12. Remove the object from the tank
13. Set your cameras timer to somewhere between 2 and 10 seconds.
14. Use either a remote shutter release cable or just push the shutter button (if you can reach it) to start the timer countdown. Many cameras beep, so you can tell approximately when the shutter will fire.
15. A split second before the camera fires, drop the object from 3-5 inches above the water level. The further the drop, the bigger the splash.
16. Review the shot.
17. If you manage to get the ball anywhere in the frame, adjust the f/stop or change the flash power settings to get the proper exposure.
18. Repeat until you get the timing on spot

Things to consider:

• smaller apertures will give you the greatest depth of field. I knew from the start I would need to use at least F/14.
• If you have flashes that are capable of firing rapidly in succession, instead of using the timer, you can use the remote shutter to rapidly fire shots from the camera as the object drops. This will wield a lot less trial and error drops, and a lot more good captures. My flashes are older (and cheaper) which prevents me from firing flashes in rapid succession.
• Change the background to a color to add more vibrance to the shot. Remember, reflective surfaces will cause flash hotspots in unintended areas
• Keep plenty of towels on hand. As you fish your object repeatedly from the tank, you'll likely drip water all over yourself and the floor.
• Wipe the glass free of droplets above the waterline to keep it clear and free of unneeded water spots
• Add aluminum foil to the bottom of the tank to reflect some light up from the bottom helping fill the shadows.
• If you change the background color, it won't absorb as much light as a black surface, therefore reflecting some light back to the object.

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I'll Take My Photos RAW Please!

This entry is about how your camera saves a file to the memory card when you take a photo.

I'll try to keep this at the most basic level possible. This blog is intended to help new comers to photography, and I don't want to scare you away from the post with a load of technical jargon and somewhat unpractical information.

There are 3 basic options for saving your image to the card in most modern DSLR cameras. These options are:

JPG

RAW

RAW + JPG

What is a JPG(JPEG), and what is a RAW?

For starters, the image sensor in the average DSLR is gathering information in either 12 or 14 bits of data. Basically this allows the camera to save between 4,096 and 16,384 brightness levels depending on whether it's a 12 or 14 bit camera.

A JPG file is a standard image format that saves the file with lossy image compression. What this means is that of the 4,096 - 16,384 brightness levels available from your cameras sensor, the image is compressed to reduce the file size down to 8 bits of data which equivocate to 256 brightness levels. Additionally, all the saturation, contrast, white balance data, sharpening levels, and other camera settings are permanently assigned to the file.

The photo at the top of this post is a side by side comparison of what happens as a photo becomes compressed. The photo on the left is a JPEG file with some compression. As the photo is edited multiple times and re-saved multiple times, the compression becomes more and more apparent by artifacting (image quality loss due to compression) as seen in the right hand photo. Both versions of the photo show some compression artifacts upon careful examination, but the one on the right is far more degraded. It's easiest to notice the artifacts in the sky area of the photo.

A RAW file is an image format that saves the file with no compression or lossless compression (compression with no quality loss). RAW files save all the data originally taken from the sensor so that in the final file, one has the full 12-14 bits of data to play with. This allows you to change the exposure to a further degree after the image is already taken because instead of only having 256 brightness levels, you have up to 16,384 levels to play with. The settings you have in the camera at the time the photo is taken is saved to the file as well, but it doesn't save ONLY that information like JPG's. It saves all the other information available as if you had shot the photo with different settings.

For example, if you had shot a photo in JPG and the Shade white balance setting was chosen, you would be essentially stuck with that choice forever in the JPG file. If you shot the photo in RAW, you can go back and choose any of the white balance settings that were originally available to you at the time the photo was taken.

Let me interject that I'm not advocating using RAW as an excuse to not set the correct setting from the get go. I am saying, however, that if you do make a mistake, you have the chance to save the photo by changing the original settings slightly to salvage what would have been unsalvageable before RAW came along.

The more you get right on camera, the less work you have to do in post processing. When you shoot a wedding with 100-200 keepable photos, you don't want to have to edit every setting in post processing. This will add a lot of time to your processing work, whereas you could have saved loads of time by taking a few extra seconds at the time of the shoot to get the settings right.

The above options for saving a file are pretty self explanatory. If you choose JPG in your camera menu, the photo will be written as a JPG. If you choose RAW, the image will be saved as a RAW. The third option is to shoot in RAW & JPG, essentially saving 2 copies of each photo to the memory card, 1 in each file format.

Additionally, when you convert the RAW file into a TIFF file or a PSD file in photoshop or other image editing program, it is able to spread the 12-14 bits into 16 bits of information, or 65,536 brightness levels to work with.

A JPG file will often look just as nice in print as a RAW file converted to TIFF or PSD would have. The difference comes with the pros and cons listed below.

PROS & CONS

JPG PROS

• Smaller file size aka fit more files on memory card
• Shoot photos faster on camera because the small file size allows the images to be written to the card much faster
• If you don't like to do a lot of post processing to your images, the JPG file will eliminate much of the post processing work

JPG CONS

• Smaller file size from compression causes JPG artifacts (a noticeable image quality loss)
• Every time you re-save your JPG after editing it, the file is further compressed and the image quality gets worse and worse due to increasing compression artifacts.
• Lose most of the ability to recover under or over exposed photos.
• Can't change white balance after the fact, which can make a photo very unusable if you had a very wrong setting in camera.

RAW PROS

• Ability to bring change white balance after the fact
• Ability to recover detail from blown highlights and underexposed shadow areas
• No quality loss due to compression (no artifacts)
• Larger range of color data available to you in the 12 or 14 bit RAW file.

RAW CONS

• Larger file size
• Slower writing to memory card, therefore reducing how rapidly the camera can fire shots
• More post processing work

Different camera companies use different file extensions for RAW formats. For example, the Canon brand uses .CR2 file format in many of its cameras, whereas Sony uses .ARW. The RAW format has not been standardized into one file extension yet. The downside to this is that, one RAW converter (a program that converts your RAW to .JPG, .TIFF, .PSD, etc) won't necessarily be able to open up and edit all RAW file types. The good news is that your camera likely came with a converter for its associated file format. Additionally, Adobes latest Photoshop products like Photoshop CS4, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2, etc, have the ability to read and edit most RAW formats from across the board. The program built into these products is called Adobe Camera RAW. It is even downloadable for many of the older versions of Photoshop that didn't originally include the feature. It is also worth mentioning that even though there isn't one file format directly from the manufacturers, Adobe Camera RAW lets you optionally convert the original RAW file to a .DNG raw file(Adobe's RAW file format). This file format, similar to the .PNG file will likely maintain support by Adobe for many many years to come, whereas your native file format may lose support as new formats come out in the future.

To wrap this up, I just want to add that shooting RAW may not be the right choice for everybody. It sure can save your butt when you have a paid photo-shoot, and for whatever unexpected and unexplained reason, you botched the shoot and under exposed all the photos or had a terrible white balance setting. You'll likely be able to fix your mistakes and your customer will have a nice series of photos in there photo album for years to come.

I hope you have a better understanding of the common file formats as this has been RAW files "From The Ground Up!"

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