I used to make photographs with film that I developed and printed in a wet dark room. When I started photographing art for painters I used polarized lights to provide non-reflective illumination on the art work.
When I first switched to digital, I scanned all my photos on a drum scanner, then stored them on floppy disks or magnetic tape drives.
These are but a few of the examples I can think of that point to technology and tools that are for me at least, gone by. I know there are people still using all of these tools. But I am not and nobody else I work with is either.
With the exception of a few die-hards, most people have moved on to newer technologies. This caused me to think about this looking forward.
What technology and tools do we use today that 15 years into the future we will barely remember? Send me your answer via Twitter – http://www.twitter.com/scottbourne
P.S. This is not an invitation for you to let me know you still use the technology and tools mentioned in this post. I get that one percent of you like older tech. I get it. But this is an invitation for you to tell me what you think you’ll be missing in the future – in any event. Thanks for staying on topic.
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Photofocus Podcast Episode #101
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Photofocus Episode 101
Host: Scott Bourne (www.scottbourne.com or www.twitter.com/scottbourne)
Show notes by Bruce Clarke (www.momentsindigital.com or www.twitter.com/bruceclarke)
Welcome to Episode Number 101 of Photofocus with Scott Bourne. Photofocus is the show devoted to discussing photography and answering your questions about anything photography related including gear, technique, locations, etc. Your questions will shape the direction of this show so be sure to send your questions to photofocus@me.com. We will try to answer as many as we can but we get a lot of questions so we’ll try to take a collection of questions that represent a particular topic and present them together. This week, Scott shares his thoughts on the religion of low-light photography and answers some listener questions.
Discussion – The Religion of Low-Light Photography
There have been been many religions in photography. One of the more recent ones deals with low-light photography and how a particular camera performs in low-light. Scott loves to have good low-light performance in his camera but he doesn’t buy one just because of that feature because he doesn’t spend that much time shooting in low light. You don’t need to have the top of the line everything unless you can specify why you really need it. Scott thinks that many people today are just looking at low-light performance and forgetting about many of the other features when choosing a camera. One of the problems with religions is that it can go to extremes. So much so, that people are willing to write off an image before they’ve even seen it, just because it wasn’t shot using the latest and greatest equipment. If you get into a situation with low-light, you can always bring in light using reflectors or other lights.
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Discussion – Recent Updates on the Photofocus Blog
Be sure to check out the blog for some recent posts about Aperture 4, Snapseed for the Mac, and some recent video posts on setting your White Balance in postand a time saving tip when working with Aperture. Many people ask Scott about about setting Custom White Balance in camera. If you are in the same lighting situation, Scott recommends setting your WB to a custom WB rather than Auto. On auto, you may find that your White Balance changes with every photo so if you set it to a custom WB, and the lighting doesn’t change, that will save you a lot of time in post production. If you still aren’t sure how to do it and you’d rather do it in post, check out Richard Harrington’s video on how to do it in post.
Another disturbing trend in photography that Scott has seen lately is with younger photographers constantly copying each other with the backlit image. Stop trying to be new and try to be you. Scott also recently switched things up in the studio and is now working off a 13″ MacBook Air with an SSD and finding that it works well. There was also a post on the site from Tamara Lackey and we have a post coming up soon from Catherine Hall. We also ran a poll recently about book publishing and we asked how many of our listeners were thinking of publishing a photo book and 2/3 of you indicated that you were thinking about it.
Listener Questions
This week we kick things off with a question about storing images outside of Aperture:
Question One – Aperture & iPhoto
Dave Calloway from Wisconsin writes: How do I store my images. Do I store them only in Aperture or do I put them somewhere else like iPhoto?
Scott: iPhoto does an auto-res thing to your photos that I don’t like so I tend to stay out of iPhoto and leave everything in Aperture. Make sure you are backing up your vault though and have it in a location where you can keep it off-site.
Question Two – Thoughts on DNG
We get a lot of questions about DNG and what I think about it?
Scott: DNG was a file format started by Adobe and it’s designed to be open-sourced but up until recently it hasn’t. I think once it’s open sourced then it has merit but one of the problems with it is that the camera manufacturers have to supply SDKs to Adobe so they can interlink with what’s going on. Manufacturers like Nikon are a little reluctant to cooperate with Adobe. They’ve gotten better but you may not get every feature in DNG that you’d get with .NEF or a .CR2 file format from Canon. I’m not a big believer in but one of the advantages is that you don’t have to worry about losing the sidecar file when you edit your images.
Wrap Up
We want themes and questions from you. Be sure to visit the blog at PhotoFocus.com for articles, how-to’s, videos and more. E-mail us at photofocus@me.comfollow us on Twitter. Don’t just take pictures – make pictures.
Scott Bourne is at www.scottbourne.com or www.twitter.com/scottbourne or www.3exposure.com or www.carloves.com
Show notes by Edmonton Wedding Photographers Bruce Clarke at www.momentsindigital.com or www.twitter.com/bruceclarke
Nik Snapseed for Mac – Mini Review
When Nik Software released Snapseed for the iPad it got quite a lot of attention. I’m one of those rare people who doesn’t use an iPad for content creation. My iPad essentially serves only two purposes…
1. To show off my portfolio
2. To consume data
I wasn’t all that interested in fixing photos on my iPad. But my laptop? That’s a different story. So when I heard that Snapseed was available for my Mac laptop, I went to the App Store, plunked down my $19.95 and started playing.
While most serious photographers I know (me included) like Nik ColorEfex Pro, Snapseed is much less expensive and frankly aimed at just having a little fun. That doesn’t mean you can’t do real photo work with it. You can. It’s just that it’s not meant to be a replacement for something like Photoshop.
Here are some of the key features:
* Tune Image—Quickly correct photos shot in difficult lighting situations, create depth and vibrancy with Ambience, or adjust White Balance, Saturation, Contrast and more
*Auto Correct—Automatically analyzes your photo and adjusts color and exposure, or you can use the sliders to add or reduce the enhancements
*Control Points—Make precise selections and enhancements in seconds with Nik Software’s revolutionary U Point technology
*Tilt-Shift—Creates a narrow in-focus area designed to simulate depth of field, common in a Miniature Scene look
*Details—Enhances details with traditional sharpening as well as Nik Software’s unique
Structure control found in the professional Nik Software product line
*Crop & Straighten—Rotate or straighten with simple slider controls and select from a variety of standard aspect ratios while cropping
*Grunge—Explore styles and textures without limits and give photos a totally unique look
*Drama—Add custom effects to a photo which range from subtle enhancements of textures to wildly creative and artistic effects
*Vintage—Nine unique nostalgic films, plus controls like saturation, textures and vignettes make any photo look like a vintage color film photo from the 50’s, 60’s or 70’s
*Frames—Add unique borders to photos by choosing styles and textures
*Black and White—Give photos a classic look with this darkroom-inspired filter. Select styles, grain, vignettes, and more for a perfectly nostalgic look
*Sharing—Share photos on Facebook and Flickr, email photos, and print them using your home printer
Some of my favorite tools are Grunge, Vintage, Tilt & Shift and Drama – all of which give photos a cool look very quickly. It is a simple workflow. You just drag your photo into Snapseed, make your adjustments, apply filters, export, etc.
One thing that would make Snapseed better is if it could export directly from Aperture or Lightroom, etc. Now you have to export the image from your editing application then drag it into Snapseed. It’s no big deal but it would be nice if it had better connection with other apps.
Snapseed supports:
• Mac OS 10.6.6 and 10.7.2
• Requires 64-bit processor (Intel Core 2 Duo or later
• JPEG, TIFF (in RGB color mode), and RAW file formats
It’s a very versatile program that is fun and easy to use. Within minutes of opening the program you’ll be an expert. Everyone from casual shutterbugs to serious shooters will enjoy Snapseed and at $19.95 it’s a no brainer.
Highly addictive and highly recommended.
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Free Video Tutorial – Apple Aperture Time Saving Tip
Here’s a quick little tip that will save you time in Aperture.
DISCLAIMER: This post isn’t intended to be definitive – we’re not claiming this is the ONLY way or even the BEST way to accomplish this task in Photoshop or any other post-prodcessing program. We’re merely offering it as A way you might accomplish this task. These tips are free, offered only because they might be helpful to someone.
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Digital SLR Store - Cameras, lenses, accessories and everything else.
Three Tips For New Wedding Photographers
I used to shoot weddings. I actually enjoyed doing it. I made a great deal of money doing it and met some nice people. But it’s very hard work and requires serious dedication. Many photographers avoid doing weddings for these reasons.
For those of you who want to break into the wedding market I’ll share three things with you that I wish I would have known before I took the leap.
1. Being a wedding photographer has MUCH more to do with being able to establish, and maintain good relationships than it does photography. You can be the best technically-gifted photographic artist on the planet and if the bride, the groom, the family or the wedding party all think you are a jerk – you will fail. This is a people business NOT a photography business. If you are a photographer of average quality but have above-average people skills, you will outsell and out-book the extraordinarily talented, but unfriendly wedding photographer every time. If you are not a people person – don’t go into the wedding business unless you can hire a people person as an intermediary.
Oh and I’ll piggy back on this tip by saying find the mean grandma at the wedding and get her to smile for the camera. There is ALWAYS a mean grandma and if you can get her to smile, get a photo of it and share it with the bride, she’ll love you forever. Really!
2. Have a plan, a backup plan and a backup plan for your backup plan. Spend significant time thinking about how you want to capture the day, then plan out how you will do it. Make sure you know the location. If you’ve never been there – go ahead of time and scout it. Scout it during the hours that match the wedding time frame. Meet the officiants. Learn about any local laws, rules, customs or traditions that you’ll need to be aware of. Make sure the gear you have will work in this particular situation and then make sure you have three of everything you might possibly need. Stuff breaks – usually during a wedding. Plan for every possible contingency. Have backup transportation for you and even the bride. I’ve seen more than one limo company leave a bride stranded because the offer of a better payday came around. Think through what you need to know in advance and be ready. This is a one-time deal. There are no do-overs in wedding photography. Be prepared.
3. Be friendly, be considerate, be caring, be careful, be insightful, be cordial, be friendly, but BE IN CHARGE! The one thing that you will quickly learn is that if the pictures don’t work, it won’t matter whose fault that was – YOU will be blamed. If the caterer, the DJ, the cake maker, etc., screw up and that screw up somehow impacts your pictures there will NOT be an asterisk by the photo saying “If only the DJ hadn’t dimmed the lights this would be a great shot!”
This varies GREATLY by market and budget but there are fewer wedding coordinators these days than in the old days. Where there is no wedding coordinator, many couples, especially young couples, will look to the photographer for leadership. When that happens, take charge. Be mindful that this is their special day and make allowances for that every way you can but also make sure that the cake is on the wall under the nice lighting, and that the window curtains remain open at sunset so that the nice warm light can be used as window lighting, etc. You get the point. You need to make sure that you love up the bride and her party but you also need to remember she hired you to make her look good. It’s YOUR job – nobody else’s job. Don’t take it if you can’t be a leader. That’s what good photographers do. They lead. They protect the bride. They protect her memories. They don’t let ANYTHING get in the way of her special day and they NEVER say “that’s not my job.”
Shooting weddings can be fun, lucrative and rewarding. I could give you 1000 more tips but start with these three. If you can get these three right you’ll save yourself 1000000 problems.
Good luck.
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Aperture 4.0
UPDATE: My pal Joseph says my dates are off. That may be – I went with a source that I considered reliable. In any event, he’s used Wikipedia, which may or may not be reliable – but it doesn’t really matter. We end up with roughly the same conclusion. I say between now and October. Joseph is bolder and says June. I don’t care when – as long as it happens! Thanks Joseph.
When will Apple release Aperture 4.0? Don’t get your hopes up. I have no insider information. I do have a great deal of experience and that experience leads me to believe it will be soon.
If you look at the typical release cycles for different companies, it becomes easier to predict what they will do. Adobe typically releases a new version of Photoshop about every 18 months. Apple’s cycles are longer.
Aperture was released in November, 2005. Six years ago last month, I taught the first ever public Aperture class at MacWorld. Shortly after I went to Los Angeles and sat for the first ever Aperture certification classes. I’ve used the program or taught the program or written about the program nearly every day since. And since those early days, Aperture has seen a major update cycle as follows…
1. Version 1 to Version 2 / 38 months
2. Version 2 to Version 3 / 24 months
3. Version 3 to Version 3.22 current / nine months
My prediction is that version four will come out sometime between February 2012 and October 2012.
Now that Adobe has tipped its hand with Lightroom 4 BETA, Apple knows what it needs to do to stay relevant. That said, the current version is stable, fast, powerful, affordable and useful. If Apple didn’t upgrade for another two years I can still see myself using Aperture.
With the move away from what Apple used to call “pro apps” to an App Store environment, one has to ponder what Apple will do with Aperture. I can’t see them abandoning it unless they have something totally new under wraps. Steve Jobs was one of the program’s biggest advocates. I suspect it might not have survived those early years without his intervention. Now that he’s gone, it could face changes. Only time will tell.
At $79 in the App Store, I think it’s the best deal in photo software. I think Lightroom is a great program and more people use it than will ever use Aperture, but I’m the guy who prefers the Jaguar to the Aston Martin so I don’t mind not being part of the cool kids club. I happen to love Aperture.
For six years, ever since I taught that first MacWorld class, I’ve been told Apple will abandon Aperture. For six years people have predicted it’s on its last legs. So far, I see no evidence to support that. If you predict the failure of ANYTHING long enough, you will eventually be right. But so far, Aperture is still being updated. I think that will continue. In fact, I am so confident I’m getting the outline ready for the new Aperture 4.0 book I plan to write with my pal Rich Harrington. So stay tuned. It could be any day!
By the way if you’re a Mac person and never tried Aperture, you can do so free of charge for 30 days with the Aperture Free Trial link.
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Digital SLR Store - Cameras, lenses, accessories and everything else.
Free Video Tutorial – How To Set Your Camera’s White Balance In Post
Guest Post by Rich Harrington - Follow Rich on Twitter
Watch the free video tutorial demonstrating – How To Set Your Camera’s White Balance In Post…
DISCLAIMER: This post isn’t intended to be definitive – we’re not claiming this is the ONLY way or even the BEST way to accomplish this task in Photoshop or any other post-prodcessing program. We’re merely offering it as A way you might accomplish this task. These tips are free, offered only because they might be helpful to someone.
_______
This Post Sponsored by:
Viewbug - Fun Photo Contests - Animoto – Great animated slide shows from your photos / BorrowLenses.com – Renting Canon, Nikon, Olympus & Sony, bodies, lenses, etc. / SmugMug – Professional Photo Sharing / Digital SLR Store - Cameras, lenses, accessories and everything else.
