The Weekly Wrap-Up features articles published during the last seven days. This week features part 1 of a super thorough review of the new Autel Evo drone by Chris Anson, associate editor, Bryan Esler shares light painting with a drone, Mike Hagen integrates Skylum’s Aurora HDR 2019 into a workflows, still life photographer, photographer Julie Powell explores creating soft and dreamy looks and Michèle Grenier enthusiastically reviews her new Sony lens. Thanks for reading Photofocus!
First look: Autel Evo drone - The Autel Evo was originally released in June 2018, and has gone through various updates and improvements since that time. This article will be looking at it in its current state running firmware version 1.3.46 and is the first in a three-part series. Below is a first look and focus on the basics of the drone, what’s in the box and general observations. Part two will showcase how it flies. Here I’ll have two people fly the drone who have no drone flying experience and include their feedback in the article and I will also fly the drone and give you feedback from an experienced drone flying perspective. In part three, I’ll take a look at how the drone does at taking good quality photographs and video. This will be interesting for me because I have flown only DJI drones to date. I own and fly professionally an Inspire 2 with X5S camera. I’ve also flown a Phantom 4 Pro, Mavic Pro and Mavic Air. By the way — I contacted customer support with multiple questions as I was preparing this article and I got to talk to a person and that person either had the answers or found them out and called me back! Really excellent customer service! The basics The Autel Evo offers the following features: Advanced computer vision system providing forward obstacle avoidance, rear obstacle detection and bottom sensors for accurate landings and stable indoor flight Flight times up to 30 minutes (many users are reporting between 23-27 minutes) Dual GPS and GLONASS systems allowing for hands-free hovering Forward and rear obstacle sensors (with sensors active the top speed is 22mph) With sensors turned off the drone can reach speeds up to 44mph A range of 4.3 miles Low battery warning Return to home feature A glass optics camera with 3-axis stabilized gimbal UHD 4K at up to 60fps (frames per second) DCI 4K at 24fps and 30fps Recording in H.264 and H.265 codecs Photos at 12 megapixels The first thing I noticed when opening the box was the feeling of quality in the packaging and the components. Nothing felt cheap or an afterthought. It was all laid out in a very professional manner. You even get a 32GB microSD card and cables to connect your tablet or phone. The drone itself is a bright orange with black legs. It is much easier to see in the sky and on the ground that other drones. The drone weighs 1.9 pounds (862 grams) including the propellers and battery. This is comparable to the Mavic 2 Pro and Mavic 2 Zoom. When folded down, the drone measures 8.5″ long, 5.5″ wide and little over 4″ high, which is a little larger than the Mavic 2 Pro and Zoom. The remote controller is unique from what DJI offers in that Autel is using a full-color built-in 3.3″ 720p OLED display (think high contrast, rich colors and easy to see). The remote also lets you can fly the drone without an additional tablet or phone. In the basic mode when you power on the remote controller, you will see the telemetry, battery, etc. If you press the Disp (Display) button shown below, the remote will display what the drone camera sees. From this mode, you are still able to change things like the shutter speed, frame rate and other settings. For even more control and advanced features, you’ll want to download the Autel Explorer app for Apple iOS and Android devices. This will give you access to the more advanced settings and autonomous/intelligent flight feature like Dynamic Track, Viewpoint, Orbit, VR first person view and Waypoint mission planning. Another thing to note is that the Autel Evo doesn’t have the No Fly Zone restrictions of the DJI. Autel doesn’t restrict where you can fly. Without the No Fly Zone in place, it puts the responsibility on us as pilots to make that call, so do be careful and understand the rules of where can and cannot fly. What configurations can I buy it in? The Autel Evo drone comes in 3 configurations that I’m aware of. The Autel Evo drone basic is available for $999. It includes the following: Autel Robotics EVO Quadcopter Remote Controller Micro-USB Cable USB-C Cable Remote Controller Cable Intelligent Battery 3 x Spare Propeller Pairs microSD Card Limited 1-Year Warranty It’s also available in an On-The-Go Bundle for $1099, which includes all of the above plus two extra batteries and a soft case. A bundle with a hard-shell case is available for $1199. Next time we’ll look at how the drone flies from the perspective of two beginners and a commercial drone pilot. Fly safe and have fun!
Integrating Aurora HDR into your photo editing workflow - I use Lightroom Classic for the vast majority of my post-processing work. I like to use the software package as my overall working hub and then shoot images out to other programs as necessary. As long as the images come back into Lightroom then it is easy for me to always find them and organize them into folders, collections and slideshows. I’ve been using HDR software for quite a number of years including programs such as Nik HDR Efex Pro, Photomatix Pro, Photoshop and Lightroom’s HDR processing tools. This newest version of Aurora HDR is a great product and I think that it matches up with the best of the HDR software in the industry. Integrating HDR software into your normal workflow doesn’t have to be very difficult especially when you use HDR as a plug-in for your normal image editing program. Aurora HDR operates either as a stand-alone software package or as a plug-in for these programs: Adobe Photoshop Adobe Lightroom Classic Adobe Photoshop Elements Apple Aperture (Note: Aperture will no longer run on macOS after 10.14) Download a free trial of Aurora HDR 2019. Mac users can also operate Aurora HDR as an editing extension in Photos for Mac. This will allow you to use it on your computer as an additional editor within the Photos for Mac application. YouTube video Installing Aurora HDR as a plugin for Lightroom Classic Using Aurora HDR is a plug-in for Lightroom and Classic is very simple and straightforward. Follow these steps below: Open Aurora HDR as a standalone program Click on the Aurora HDR 2019 pull-down menu Choose Install Plugins… From the menu, choose what software you want to install Aurora as a plugin Click Install… Click Done Close Aurora HDR program The next time you open up Lightroom Classic, Aurora HDR will be installed as an export option. Using Aurora HDR from Lightroom Classic My workflow is to import photos into my Lightroom Classic catalog. Once there, I select the images that I will be working with and mark them with some kind of tag. For images that I will continue to Post process his HDR photos, I select them by holding down the control or command key and clicking on the photos in the sequence. Then, I right-click and choose Export > Aurora HDR 2019 > Edit a Copy with Lightroom Adjustments or Open Source Files. Edit a Copy with Lightroom Adjustments applies your Lightroom adjustments to the image before opening it in Aurora. It bakes in the develop panel settings, converts the image to a TIFF, then sends it over to Aurora for the HDR process. Open Source Files takes your original files without any Lightroom adjustments and opens them in Aurora to complete the HDR process. Inside of Aurora HDR, I make my adjustments using the very robust tools available in the software package. When I’m finished, I click Done and Aurora saves the image as a TIFF and then reimports it back to Lightroom Classic, where I can then continue to finish the image as necessary. HDR philosophy I encourage you to be gentle with your HDR processing. It is very easy to go overboard so that the resulting image just doesn’t look right. My approach is to move the sliders in the HDR software until I like the look, then back off 10% to 20% for the final image. Newer cameras have an impressive dynamic range and I am finding more and more that I like to do my HDR processing on a single image rather than a series of images. In the past, I would shoot three to five, or even seven bracketed exposures to get the dynamic range I will need for my final image. Anymore with my modern cameras, I find myself exposing single images in the field so that I don’t blow out the highlights, then use HDR software to pull out all of the shadow detail. Summary Integrating HDR imaging software into your normal workflow is a cinch these days, especially if you use Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop or Apple Photos. I encourage you to try the new version of Aurora HDR as I’m positive you’ll find the user interface to be simple and the resulting image quality to be excellent. Download your own copy of Aurora HDR 2019 at skylum.com. As always, let me know if you have any questions or comments. I’m always happy to help.
Light painting with your drone - You may remember the fun I had when taking my Lume Cubes out with Jamie MacDonald, and seeing if we could use them with his drone to paint halos over a barn. While the experiment was mildly successful, Lume Cube Ambassador Daniel Alpert has a great piece on Lume Cube’s blog explaining how to do this and several other light painting techniques. He details the technique, gear and settings necessary to make these shots work. Check out the video below, or visit Lume Cube’s blog for more.
Creating soft and dreamy still life photography - This week we are going to explore another of my favorite styles of still life photography, soft and dreamy. I adore using flat light, so soft, so dreamy and ever so vintage in my mind, they just go together beautifully. So, let’s get a little soft and dreamy … The essence of soft and dreamy is the beautiful soft flat light, with almost no shadows and desaturated color — almost the exact opposite of dark and moody that we looked at in my last post. I adore working with soft muted colors — natural tones and textures are great for this — with vintage or rustic styling a perfect match. I have used a palette of soft blues, greens and gray, as well as the natural tones from the cookies and the hessian flour sack, to give a vintage feel to the series. Choose a hero; tell a story. This is a food story. Fresh-baked cookies from a vintage style kitchen. Think raw, rustic, weathered, worn, organic, but soft. When styling your scene, it does not have to be country or rustic, it could be clean and modern too. It really does depend on your shooting style. What is important is the light, a single side light source; I prefer to use natural light, as it is often softer. I usually place a table next to a window, but back away from it a little, for some indirect sun perhaps on a 45-degree angle. If the light is diffused enough there will be almost no shadow. If you are still seeing too much shadow try bouncing a little reflected light back onto your subject with a reflector or white cardboard or foam core. If you are happy with the shadows, you can leave them there; it just makes your final image a little moody. If you are still getting too much light you can use additional black or even white foam core boards to block light down to a tiny slither. Matte, organic textiles and textures also absorb the light and prevent errant highlights. I adore using high res images of old timber tables and paneling from old homes as backgrounds which I have printed upon Tyvek or similar. Old wallpaper is another great option too. Camera settings If shooting with a DSLR experiment with spot metering; your camera may still see your scene light and try to make everything darker. You don’t want to darken or lighten your scene too much, but you do want it well lit. So you may need to overexpose your images to get the desired result. Not too much, try half or one stop overexposed. You will need to set your camera to manual mode to achieve this. Set your ISO to 100 or 200, as most likely you will have your camera on a tripod anyway. Set your desired f/stop, for this kind of image I would use f/4.5 to f/5.6 and then slightly overexpose your image. How much you want to overexpose it is totally up to you. You can go so light and dreamy that everything becomes a little hazy (but be careful you do not lose all definition and details) or keep to something where the light is a little more even and flat with no real highlights or shadows. When shooting this style, or any other, experiment with varied heights and camera angles. Move yourself and the camera in up close, pull further back, try shooting from on top, 25-degree or 45-degree angles or get down to the same level as your camera and shoot straight on. See what you prefer. Try experimenting in post-processing, softening the highlights and taming down the shadows. Play with saturation and vibrancy; try de-saturating your colors for a timeless vintage look. Don’t add too much contrast, try dropping the blacks and highlights in a tone curve in Lightroom or a subtle S-curve in Photoshop. The challenge … Want your light even more flat, more dreamy and moody? Try pulling your set up even further away from the window. The further away you get the more diffused the light should get. Shoot in the shadows, as opposed to bright shafts of sunlight. Place an interesting subject in your ‘space’ … and make a little soft and dreamy magic. If you are feeling overwhelmed (and this one can be tricky to get right), start simple. Think of three things to tell your story plus your hero; something to sit the hero on, and two things to help tell a story — perhaps a plate and a fork, or a fork and a napkin for a food story. Keep things simple until you get a feel for your light. All images captured on the Sony a7ii with 50mm Macro lens, ISO 200, f/4.5, 1/80s.
I got my new Sony FE 135mm f/1.8 GM lens … and it’s incredible! - I preordered the much-anticipated lens a month and a half ago and finally got it last week. I was pretty excited since I had two very big sports events to cover, it was the perfect timing to put this baby to work! Here’s my review on Sony’s latest prime telephoto lens: The 135mm f/1.8 GMaster. Why did I buy this lens in the first place? Some of you might ask themselves why would someone buy a rather expensive prime telephoto lens when you can have a 70-200mm f/2.8 for a $700 difference. Well, first of all, if you don’t know it yet: I’m a sucker for primes. I shoot only with primes — it’s a very personal choice. I have absolutely no problem moving around to get closer or further to my subjects to get the right composition. It’s a small sacrifice that’s well worth all the goodness a prime offers me (increased sharpness, creamier bokeh and wider apertures among other things). I already have a 28mm, 55mm and 85mm, so the next logical step was for me to get the 135mm as I need a telephoto to reach my subjects further away in the gym. And even though I do sports photography, all I really do is portraits — the main purpose the 135mm has been created for. Disclaimer I bought all my Sony equipment. I’m sharing my experiences and thoughts on my new gear because I am genuinely highly excited about it. If my articles can help some of you learn about newly released stuff or make a decision on whether or not investing in some piece of equipment, then I’d consider my mission fulfilled. Feeling before technique If you’ve already read some of my articles, you know I’m not a person who’s about the techs and specs of my gear. Reading specs on a computer VS using it in real life could be very different … It could be very exciting but it could be very disappointing as well. It’s like a car … I don’t care what motor is in it, all I want to know is: Is it comfortable? Will it take me to point A to point B? Will I enjoy driving it in the city as much as for multiple hours trips? Is it reliable? I’m looking for an enjoyable experience for the long ride. I’m asking myself the exact same questions when I buy new camera gear. How much do I like it? How much do I like working with it on the field? Can I achieve the high-end results I’m looking for? Is it worth my hard earned money? Without going deep into details, here are the most important features the caught my attention while shooting with the 135mm. Super fast autofocus Perhaps THE MOST important feature to me. The 135mm has the same Xtreme Dynamic (XD) linear motors the 400mm f/2.8 has. This technology has been developed and is exclusive to Sony and it’s currently integrated only on those two lenses. The 135mm has not one, but FOUR built-in motors. These motors move independently on a floating mechanism. This is the reason why the AF is so fast, accurate and precise. It also allows or a super high close-up quality images with a minimal focus distance of 70 cm (2.62 feet) — which is closer than when I shoot with my 85mm. Paired with my a9, nothing in the world can actually beat this advanced autofocus system. Here’s an example of a Powerlifter during the bench press — I was on the left side of him. This image is exactly what I wanted to create in my mind. This composition with the blurry plates and the barbell in the foreground, right above his eyes to frame his face. This moment would’ve been impossible to get without an extremely efficient Eye AF. The bar was moving in front of the athlete’s eyes a split second before the shot had to be taken. Insanely sharp details and delightful bokeh The extreme aspherical lenses used in the 135mm provides superior image quality and an out of this world bokeh. When I am in really crowded places with cluttered backgrounds — which happens more often than not — being able to separate my subject from distracting elements is extremely important. Here’s an example of how sharp the image is. Notice how I was wide open with a rather high ISO. Another example I like to share is this athlete getting primed for his lift. You can see how crowded the warmup area was and how a narrow depth of field comes in very handy to isolate your subject. High-quality built When held in hand, the 135mm is a little bit on the heavy side — exactly what I expected for a high-quality telephoto prime lens. Luckily, the lens barrel chassis is made out of lightweight magnesium alloy, which helped minimize weight. I had no problem hand-holding of for two days straight of events. It’s also tropicalized, which is a must when I shoot outdoors and in less than perfect environmental conditions. Great ergonomics This lens has been well thought, no doubt. It features a physical aperture ring that goes from “click” to “smooth,” a very interesting detail when I do videos. It has a focus range limiter — just like in any good telephoto lens — which speeds up even more the already insanely fast autofocus. It also features two customizable thumb buttons. I chose to enable “EYE AF,” which gives me a break from the back button on my right hand. Overall appreciation Remember how much I was in love with Mr. A? I’ve got the exact same feeling with this new baby. I’m having SO MUCH FUN with both of them together. Everything is just so much easier! My gear becomes invisible. I see what’s in front of me, I decide what I want to do and I take pictures. I don’t have to bother about the technical stuff because well
