My Initial Thoughts on the Canon 60D Announcement – It’s No 7D But it Looks Interesting
Canon introduced us to the much-anticipated 60D this week. Of course all we have is a news release. I have no opinion about how this camera performs, since I have never used it. That won’t stop many Internet reviewers and commenters by the way – they will have already passed complete judgment on the camera even though they’ve never seen it, touched it, used it or can find anyone who has :)
But on paper, the 60D has some interesting features. When I posted the link to the Canon press announcement, I received many Tweets from Twitter users asking if it’s a 7D replacement.
1. It is NOT a 7D replacement. It’s a low to mid-range camera coming in at a price below that of the 7D.
2. It has an articulating LCD display. This is a cool feature and I’d like to see it on other Canon cameras in the future.
3. The frame rate is a competent 5.3 FPS – not as fast as the 7D but very close.
4. Better audio control for video than the 7D.
5. Faster shutter sync than the 7D (250/th of a second.)
6. Same battery as the 7D and 5DMKII – a brilliant move since it makes shooters more likely to pick the 60D as a backup body.
7. New 8-way joystick controller.
8. Only program or auto mode available when shooting video. This is a real disappointment to video shooters.
9. Not a 100% viewfinder like the 7D.
10. No lens AF micro adjustment.
The 60D looks to be a very competent camera, but in my opinion, on paper at least, those who look at it as a possible 7D replacement are missing the point. Canon isn’t about to introduce a $1099 (body-only) camera that would favorably compare and compete with its hot-selling and more expensive 7D.
When the camera becomes available, Photofocus will obtain a body for testing purposes and post a review.
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This post sponsored by WHCC – White House Custom Colour – Get Five Free 8×10 Prints From WHCC
Six Tips For Better Available Light Portraits
Copyright Joe Farace
Guest Post & Photo by Joe Farace – Follow Joe on Twitter
The best way to improve your photography is practice. Shoot each week so you get to the point where you don’t have to think about how to operate your camera…You just use it to create images. If you’ve discovered that when working in the shade, you need some plus exposure compensation, make a note of it. Don’t worry about producing masterpieces each time you got out. Use your camera as a sketchpad to explore possibilities and don’t be afraid of making mistakes. Sometimes these “sketches” will be successful, sometimes not, but learn from your analysis of the images. As Yoda say “There is no try, just do.”
1. Look for indoor locations where the best light is found.
While it seems obvious, many photographs are made in locations where the photographer or their subject decides to make it. This works great for an interesting outdoor locations (my next suggestion) but for indoor portraits place your subject where the light is best. Use with wide-open apertures to soften and blur the background and focus attention on your subject. In my home, my favorite place to shoot portraits is the kitchen. The walls are painted a soft white and a bay window provides North light that can be modulated by opening and closing mini-blinds in each window section. You may have a similar location in your home, and never thought a kitchen or other unlikely location would be a great place to make a portrait or two. Think about it now.
2. Search for interesting locations.
Not long ago, there was an on-line discussion asking what inspires people to create new images. For me, new things inspire me. It can be a new camera, new lens, or just a new place to make images. While traveling around the state, I make notes about locations that look like they would be a fun place to make photographs. Even better are those locations that will serve as a location for a portrait session. Recently I went to a state park that has a large lake looking for a beach-like location for swimsuit photographs only to find water levels at an all time high and the beach under water. I brought a point-and-shoot camera and while walking around the lake’s edge saw some spots that would produce interesting photographs.
3. Keep your lighting tools simple
I prefer to work with as few light control devices as possible because the less time you spend fiddling with equipment, the more time you can spend putting your subject at ease. These days almost all my people photography is done with natural light using only a single reflector. I mostly use one of Westcott 30″ Double Sided Illuminator
also be where you find them. When testing a digital SLR for Shutterbug magazine I handed the camera to photojournalist Barry Staver to photograph me using the light coming through the window at the diner where we were having breakfast. To add light into my eyes, Barry grabbed a menu and placed it on the table in front of me just out of camera range. It worked!
4. Metering the light.
Nowadays all cameras have built-in meters and some even have spot meters but I still occasionally use a hand-held meter when photographing people. My current meter is a Gossen Luna Star F2. It’s small and light and takes incident readings that I prefer when making portraits. The meter also measures reflected light as well as making corded or non-corded flash readings. While working with a portrait subject, I like to measure the light on both sides of a person’s face to determine the lighting ratio. There are all kinds of rules of thumb telling you what the ideal ratio is but Renaissance painters used a technique called chiaroscuro that featured ratios that would make some photographer’s hair stand on end but created art that has transcended the centuries. The “right” ratio will vary depending on the shape of the subject’s face and the look that you want to produce for the final image.
5. Watch the background.
It’s so easy to become so enthralled by the person that you’re photographing that you forget about the background where you’ve placed them. I believe that if you watch the background, the foreground will take care of itself. Nowhere is this more true that in making available light portraits. Busy, ugly backgrounds can be thrown out of focus by using longer lenses and wide
apertures but it’s not uncommon to have to physically clean up an outdoor site before you can make a portrait. While you can always digitally remove beer cans and fast food wrappers, taking the time to clean up the trash before you make an outdoor portrait leaves it clean for everybody else too.
6. Talk to your subject.
I’ll never forget the advice one of my mentors gave me many years ago. When I asked him what was the worst thing I could do when photographing people, I expected him to give me some tip on avoiding technical problems but his answer surprised me. “If you don’t talk to the people-relate to them as human beings-you’re never going make a good picture.” More than 30 years later, I’ve never forgotten that advice and would like to pass it on to you. Using a hand-held meter provides you with an opportunity to interact with your subject. While talking a meter reading you can make the time to talk to your subject and reassure them that they look great. Photographing people combines elements of psychology as much camera technology and how you personally interact with your subject will have more to do with the success of your session than the camera or lens that you use.
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This post sponsored by X-Rite Color and the ColorChecker Passport
Photofocus Podcast Episode #49
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Photofocus Episode 49
Host: Scott Bourne (www.scottbourne.com or www.twitter.com/scottbourne) & special guest Joe Farace (http://www.joefarace.com/)
Show notes by Bruce Clarke (www.momentsindigital.com or www.twitter.com/bruceclarke)
Welcome to Episode Number 49 of Photofocus with Scott Bourne and special guest Joe Farace. Photofocus is the show devoted to 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 we kick things off with a question about photographing golfers:
Question One – Tips for Photographing Golfers
Any tips on perspectives, settings, gear choices or anything else to avoid getting some ugly boring images when photographing golfers? Nick Portland, Oregon
Joe: There are three scenarios that I can think of. Photographing foursomes. Make sure you use flash to fill in the shadows on the faces because all of them will be wearing hats. Think about what size prints they are giving away to the golfers and that will drive your framing. The second scenario will be beauty shots of golfers on the golf course. The third one would be shooting from the gallery with a 70-200mm lens with IS.
Scott: Shoot wide open if you want to make the crowd go away and use a very long lens to compress the distance for a more dramatic shot.
Question Two – Lens Calibration and Sharing Lenses
My question is about lens calibration. I shoot with a Canon 5D (original) and have the following lenses: 24-70 L, 35 L, 85 1.8, 50 1.4. My primary lenses are the 24-70 and the 35. I have a close friend/fellow photographer who I sometimes lend these 2 lenses to. I’m struggling overall with decreased sharpness and/or completely soft images (ie. no focal point whatsoever) and I’ve noticed that the 2 L lenses used to be very reliable and are less and less so. I’m going through all the variables to try to fix this sharpness/focusing problem (sending all gear into Canon next week). But one question I’ve wondered about is whether sharing lenses can do anything to throw off the calibration of a lens. Do you know if this is possible or I am just being paranoid? Annie
Scott: I’m not a technician but here is my take. If you calibrate the lens for your camera and then lend it out and it comes back calibrated differently, then my thought is that maybe they calibrated the lens to work with their camera. I think it’s something that is driven by the body more so than the lens so I would doubt that. We will update the show notes if we find out any differently.
Joe: The only advice would be to not lend out your lenses in general. Read more…
Win a Canon 5DMarkII, ColorMunki & ColorChecker Passport!
X-Rite Photofocus Contest
Enter to win a Canon 5DMarkII with 24-105L IS USM Lens, ColorMunki & ColorChecker Passport!
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The Prizes:
Grand Prize (1 winner):
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Official Rules: All general Bourne Media Group/Photofocus contest rules apply. In addition:
No purchase necessary to enter or win.
1. You must be 18 years or older to enter.
2. You must be following Scott Bourne (http://www.twitter.com/scottbourne)
and X-Rite Photo on Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/xritephoto)
3. You must send out the above tweet EXACTLY as it appears – failure to do so will disqualify you. Do NOT put @ sign in front of scottbourne anywhere in the Tweet.
4. The prize will be awarded on October 15, 2010 by Scott Bourne via Twitter
and on Photofocus.com
5. If you live outside the US you are responsible for any taxes, custom duties and shipping in the event you win. We will only ship the prize to a US address. Foreign winners must be able to retrieve the prize from a US address to be eligible to win.
Scott Bourne will keep a record of each tweet in a database and then a random number generator picks the winner. Due to the volume of requests we receive, we cannot and will not answer ANY questions about the contest on Twitter or via e-mail. The information you need is all right here.
As always, if you are not a fan of my contests, please don’t participate. For the tens of thousands of you who do enjoy the contests, I’ll continue to try to find new contests and new prizes that will make it fun and interesting to be a part of the Photofocus family. Thanks for your support.
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Five Panning Photography Tips
Guest Post and photo by Nicole Young – Follow Nicole on Twitter
Panning is one of my favorite techniques to use when photographing fast-moving subjects. Basically what you are doing when you make a panning shot is you are following the subject and moving your lens along with them while pressing the shutter. Here are some tips for creating great panning shots:
1. Slow shutter-speed is the key. Using a slower-than-normal shutter speed will help you to effectively add motion-blur to the background. It’s usually a good idea to shoot in shutter-priority mode when creating panning photos.
2. The speed of the subject determines shutter-speed. Most of the time you won’t know exactly what your shutter speed should be in order to get a desirable image, and one factor you need to consider is how fast your subject is moving. To create a good amount of movement in the background and still keep the subject sharp a fast-moving subject will need a faster shutter-speed than a slow-moving subject.
3. Use a flash. Another useful tip is that if you have a flash or some sort of strobing light-source available then use it! It will help freeze your subject and allow you to use an even slower shutter-speed than without one. In the image in this post I wasn’t able to use a flash so I had to do my best to keep my camera steady and moving with the skater.
4. Follow-through to get the shot. Just like with kicking a ball or swinging a golf club you need to make sure that you follow the subject the entire way through the shot, and only stop once you are sure that your shutter is closed. This will help you get smooth lines in your background.
5. Use manual focus. If you know the spot that your subject will be passing by then pre-focus your lens. If you rely on auto-focus then your camera might not catch focus quickly enough, which means you would miss the shot altogether.
Panning requires a lot of trial-and-error, which I think is why I like it so much. You never quite know what you’re going to get and oftentimes you can be surprised when you review your shots. :)
So You Want To Shoot Stock?
Photo Copyright Rich Legg - via iStockPhoto
You want to shoot stock? Then you better be creative, prepared and a very hard worker. That’s just the beginning. There’s a whole bunch that goes into shooting stock. You have to understand concepts and how they appeal to photo buyers. Once you have that all figured out, you need a great big bunch of wonderful people to make it all work.
This post is a little case study. It gives you just a little flavor of what you need to make a stock photo shoot a success.
First you need a good photographer. Rich Legg is a very good photographer in Salt Lake City, UT. He makes a living shooting stock. In March of 2010, Rich marked a milestone in licensing his 100,000th image on iStockphoto. He is ranked in the top 100 worldwide of the thousands of contributing photographers with the agency. If you want to do the same, you’d move your career ahead by a mile simply by looking at the images found at his blog, Leggnet.com.
Next, you need a whole lot of friends. And Rich is fortunate enough to have many. The Salt Lake City, UT photographic community is one of the warmest, friendliest and most enthusiastic groups I’ve ever seen. I’ve spoken to camera clubs, PPA chapters, SMUGS, PUGS, you name it – all over the world. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more engaged, friendly, passionate group than the one I met at Pictureline when I spoke there. This group of talented folks offers a tremendous talent pool to draw from. (I’ve written about the Salt Lake photo community before here on Photofocus.)
When Rich needs models, props, locations, technicians, second shooters or whatever, he’s got them. He’s got a tremendous camera store to support him in Pictureline. He’s got a great friend in Nicole Young (an occasional contributor here at Photofocus.) All of these things matter. While much is made of photography being a solitary pursuit, that’s not true for most stock shooters.
The last thing I’ll mention on this list (and certainly not the last thing you’ll need to master) is leadership skills. Watch this amazing video and you’ll see that Rich is a natural born leader. He’s someone people are eager to follow. He’s a great guy with a big vision and he’s able to sell that vision to others in a way that causes them to buy into his big idea. This yields a very successful formula. Rich’s pictures prove it.
Shooting stock is very different today than it was 15 years ago. Regardless of what anyone thinks about microstock, it’s here to stay. Photographers like Rich have learned to make it work for them. Stock photography will continue to morph and change over the next decade, with or without iStockPhoto. But no matter how much the industry changes, the traits I’ve outlined here will be important.
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This post sponsored by X-Rite Color and the ColorChecker Passport
Author: Stephen Laskevitch
Publisher: Rocky Nook
Review by Conrad J. Obregon
When I first learned to use Photoshop, there was no Bridge, no Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) and no Lightroom. Even so, it took several books and advice from more experienced users to get a handle on the software. As new features were added, I had to keep working to learn how to edit images. Now Stephen Laskevitch proposes to initiate the new user to everything Photoshop in one swoop in Photoshop CS5 and Lightroom 3: A Photographer’s Handbook
The book begins by defining the terms and concepts the author considers necessary to master Adobe’s image processing tools, followed by the configuration settings he considers essential. Next the author tours the screens of Photoshop, Bridge, ACR and Lightroom and considers the steps to take to import images and organize them. There are chapters on global adjustments, local adjustments, cleanup and retouching, creative edits and output. His method is to describe similar functions in each of the pieces of software at one time.
This is an interesting pedagogical approach. There are many functions that are similar in adjusting images in Photoshop, ACR and Lightroom. For example, tone can be adjusted in all three tools with a form of the curves tool. But each of these curve tools has just a slightly different way of being applied. For the new user, covering these subjects together can easily generate confusion. Moreover, probably because a book ultimately must have some page limits, specific instruction for any one particular mode was sometimes scanted. I would think that for the new user it would be better to deal with Photoshop, ACR and Lightroom separately, and to use one piece of software well before trying to learn another, especially since both ACR and Lightroom on their own can probably handle most of the adjustments that a new user would need.
Add to that the fact that the new user probably would benefit from plenty of practical examples of using the functions. While the author does give a few practical examples, most of the instruction is of a narrative sort. Moreover, some of the narrative just skims the surface, such as the discussion of noise reduction in ACR and Lightroom, which presents the luminescence and color sliders but doesn’t discuss the detail sliders that go with them.
Like virtually every book that introduces beginners to photo-processing, Laskevitch discuses the effects of the various buttons and sliders on images, but doesn’t suggest when a certain adjustment would be most appropriate to help the photographer achieve his or her vision and that’s too bad since it could be a strong motivational factor for the beginner.
It’s easy for a tyro to get discouraged trying to learn to use image processing software. Bundling interwoven explanations of several different pieces together in a single book makes it just that much harder.
Three Tips For Better Photographs At High ISOs
Noise Curve - Image via Wikipedia
My Nikon D3S makes images at ISO 800 that rival what my older cameras could do at ISO 100. It’s a fact that today’s digital cameras are simply capable of more dynamic range than ever before. But old habits die hard. Back in the film days, we automatically shot at the lowest ISO we could to get the best quality. That causes some photographers to abandon altogether the notion of ever shooting at high ISOs. That’s too bad, because they are missing out on all of their camera’s capabilities.
Here are three tips for getting better pictures from your camera at the higher ISO ranges.
1. The more light the better. I know, I know – you’re probably using high ISOs because you are in a low-light situation. But not all low-light situations are created equally. If you are shooting at sunrise or sunset, you have SOME light. An image made at ISO 1600 will look better at the beginning of the sunset than it will at the end of the sunset. There will be more visual information in the image shot when there’s more light. So if you can, cheat a bit and shoot when the light is relatively brightest.
2. Forget about noise. This is the biggest thing I’ve learned about shooting at high ISO. Just because the ISO is 800 or higher doesn’t mean you will actually see more noise. If you purchased a DSLR in the last 24 months at nearly ANY price point, the chances are that it has SOME built-in noise reduction. The built-in noise reduction on the flagship bodies by Canon and Nikon is mind-blowing. Even some compact cameras like the Panasonic LX3 (or its replacement the LX5) have great built-in noise reduction. If your camera’s noise reduction isn’t enough, then there’s always plenty of help in post. I use Dfine 2.0
3. Shoot in RAW. There’s plenty of information in the shadows that you can pull out of a RAW file that you cannot get out of a JPEG. Since current digital cameras shooting at high ISO aren’t necessarily contrasty like high ISO films were, you can get a good result as long as you don’t under-expose. This is why shooting RAW and exposing as far “to the right” as you can without clipping the highlights, will yield an amazing photo, even at ISOs above 800.
There’s no reason to be afraid of shooting at high ISOs. Depending on your camera, your post-processing skills and your final image display size, you may never even see the slightest difference between ISO 100 and ISO 1600. If you do NOT shoot because you were afraid you might get noise, then you end up with nothing. Shooting at high ISOs when needed at least gives you the chance to make a great image.
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This post sponsored by WHCC – White House Custom Colour – Get Five Free 8×10 Prints From WHCC
Aperture 3 Training Still Available
In case you somehow missed it, Chase Jarvis has created an interesting idea. It’s called CreativeLive and involves live photography-related teaching that is free to view when it’s live, and available later for a fee. The live show is recorded and people can pay $79 after the course is completed if they want to own the training.
Back in May, I went to the CreativeLive studios in downtown Seattle and recorded approximately six hours of Aperture 3 training. It was fun and the audience seemed to really enjoy it. If you missed the free session, or even if you watched it and just want to own the class so you can review at your own pace, it’s still available.
The Aperture 3 with Scott Bourne class is $79 and available here. Enjoy.
Time-and Money-Saving Framing Tips – Part I
Andrew Darlow standing in front of a group of his prints (three printed on canvas and traditionally wrapped, and one printed on fiber semi-gloss inkjet paper and framed) during the opening of a solo show entitled “GRANDmarks NYC.” Photo (c) Jim Roselli
Post by Andrew Darlow – Follow Andrew on Twitter
The choices you make related to framing your photographic prints are very important, both in terms of the look of the framed images, as well as for their protection over time. There are many frame options available on the market, from traditional metal frames to hand-carved exotic wood mouldings. For this article, I will focus on tips related to standardizing frame sizes and/or styles. These tips are geared more toward wedding, portrait, family, and fine-art photographers, but I believe that almost anyone who is interested in framing can benefit from the suggestions.
1. Choose a few standard frame sizes. If you are having a gallery show with multiple framed prints, or if you plan to sell framed prints at art shows or to customers, standardizing with a few frame sizes, such as 16 x 20 inches and 20 x 24 inches can save both time and money. The “frame sizes” I just mentioned represent the interior of the frames or the exterior dimensions of the backing boards and/or mat boards (as opposed to the outside dimensions of the frame). This approach can make it easier to quickly fulfill client orders because it is easier to keep at least some of the frames you need in-stock.
If you exhibit your work at an art show where people expect to pay for and walk away with a framed piece of art, you can more easily replace a piece on a wall if you have standardized your frame sizes. You can also offer clients the ability to purchase “ready-to-frame” matted prints in a common size, such as 20 x 24 inches. By doing this, you are making it easier for your collectors to find affordable frames at art stores or other places where frames are sold. I commonly sell matted prints in standard sizes to my portrait and fine-art clients; this approach has helped me to concentrate more on my photography and print quality instead of spending time and energy on framing and everything that goes along with shipping framed prints. In addition, if customers want to have matted prints framed during a show, it’s relatively easy to stock a few standard sizes so that you can fulfill the orders during the event.
2. Choose popular frame styles. By choosing frame styles that are popular, such as classic black wood gallery frames, it will be easier to find suppliers that have the frames in stock compared with using specialty frame styles. You can also usually find lower prices compared with less popular frames. Another major advantage to this approach is that it allows you to just ship matted prints (and optionally, one sample frame) to a museum, art center, collector or other location to use as a guide for a show. The frames can then be sourced locally or the frame materials can be shipped to the location for on-site assembly, thus reducing your overall costs and considerable time and effort necessary to prepare the work for shipping.
Another advantage to this approach is that if a collector or other client wants to add another piece to a wall (or walls) containing framed prints that you’ve supplied to them in the past, you can more easily provide the same frame style to them if you’ve selected a popular frame style.
3. Use the same frame style for a show or series of prints. Unless you have separate bodies of work that you are showing in separate parts of a gallery or other space (or some other distinct difference between groups of prints), it’s generally best to present all of your prints using the same frame and matting style. Otherwise, it becomes difficult to keep a consistent look and feel from image to image. The photo above illustrates how I exhibited large canvas prints with 20 x 24-inch matted and framed prints. Normally, I would keep two distinct framing styles in separate areas of a space, but in this case, the gallery director and I felt that this approach allowed people to “change focus” and explore both types of images. The fact that the theme of New York City Landmarks was identical for the canvas and framed prints made the decision easier.
In Part II of this series, I will cover more ways to save time and money when framing your work.
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This post sponsored by X-Rite Color and the ColorChecker Passport
