The Weekly Wrap-up compiles interesting articles published this week on Photofocus. This week, we tackled the ins and outs of ISO, got tips on how to recover tough exposures, began to tackle Facebook ads, got some tips on photographing newborns, lit up a barn with Lume Cubes and more.
Photography 101: What is ISO? - When it comes to exposure in photography, it seems that most photographers have a reasonably good understanding of the impact of both the shutter speed and the lens aperture. But the role of the ISO setting can be a bit more mysterious. Of course, the shutter speed determines the extent to which motion in the frame is frozen or blurred. And the aperture primarily affects depth of field or the range of the scene that will appear in sharp focus. But what exactly does the ISO setting do? The need for speed The ISO setting on a digital camera is often compared to the ISO (or ASA) speed rating for film. Back then, the higher the speed the less light was needed to make an exposure. Higher ISO (or ASA) ratings meant faster filems. After all, with a higher ISO for both film and digital captures you are able to achieve a faster shutter speed than you otherwise would. However, with digital photography, the ISO setting is actually more similar to push processing of film than it is to the ISO rating for a film’ sensitivity to light. With film photography, the ISO rating relates to the sensitivity to light for that film. With digital photography changing the ISO setting doesn’t actually alter the sensitivity of the image sensor in the camera. Rather, when you raise the ISO setting on a digital camera you are boosting the exposure by applying amplification to the signal recorded by the camera. When film is push-processed, the images captured on that film will have greater contrast, more visible grain structure, and reduced resolution. Similarly, when you raise the ISO setting for a digital capture, the photos will exhibit reduced dynamic range and increased noise. (Editor’s note: Push processing means increasing the time the film is in the developer chemistry to effectively add more exposure.) When you raise the ISO setting on a digital camera, what you’re really doing is capturing photos that are under-exposed. Each doubling of the ISO number represents one f-stop of light. So raising the ISO from a base level of 100 on a given camera to a value of 800 means that you will be under-exposing the photo by three stops. That’s one stop for raising the ISO from 100 to 200, one more f/stop for 200 to 400, and a third stop for 400 to 800. To compensate for the light that was not captured due to the shorter exposure time or smaller lens aperture, the signal gathered by the image sensor in the camera must be amplified. Because there was less information — meaning less light — in the original capture, the image with amplification applied will have more noise than an image captured at a lower ISO setting. Noise is caused by underexposure It would actually be fair to say that raising the ISO setting isn’t really what is adding noise to the image. Rather, it is the underexposure (sometimes extreme underexposure) that creates the additional noise. Noise, after all, is the opposite of information, and with less light being captured there will be less information in the photo. By keeping the ISO setting at the lowest setting, you will be capturing photographic exposures based on the true sensitivity of the image sensor in your camera. That, in turn, helps to minimize the amount of noise that appears in the image. Raising the ISO setting enables you to use a shorter exposure durations or a smaller lens aperture size (or both), resulting in an image the is under-exposed and therefore contains less information than an image captured at a lower ISO setting. The three exposure settings The key is to keep in mind how each of the three settings for overall exposure affects your photos. The shutter speed enables you to determine whether movement within the scene is frozen or represented with a degree of blurred motion. The aperture on the lens allows you to choose how much of the scene will appear in sharp focus. The ISO setting primarily enables you to achieve a faster shutter speed or greater depth of field (or both), but at the cost of increased noise and reduced dynamic range in your photos.
Tips to recover tough exposures - Sometimes, even the best of us have to deal with underexposed images. Here is a comparison between three popular RAW developing software plus important tips to help us in our quest to recover tough exposure! Starting point Bad location or bad lighting can leave us with tough exposures to recover. Fortunately, RAW files can be modified and enhanced with good developing software. With so many of them available on the market, it isn’t always easy to know which one suits best our needs. I got into the game and edited the same image with three different types of software. I chose a picture that had to be lightened, and that also needed more contrast and an extra “wow” effect. Tips: What to look for? As I read in this great post by Laurie Rubin, no matter what software you are using, here are some main points to look for to successfully edit an underexposed image: White Balance Exposure/Contrast/Highlights/Shadows/Whites/Blacks sliders Selective lightening colors Adding filter effect to specific areas (when available) Adobe Lightroom Classic Adobe’s Lightroom Classic is perhaps one of the best-known software for editing, managing and storing photos. Lightroom offers all basic corrections, has a spot removal function and a library to sort and store our images. All of Adobe’s Creative Cloud software is available with a monthly subscription. Lightroom Classic highlights: Available on multiple devices (desktop, tablet and smartphone) Spot removal tool Library to manage images Batch processing Built-in sharing export to social media (Facebook, Flickr, Adobe Stock, SmugMug …) For this image, I did a classic basic edit: I bumped up the exposure, highlights, whites and clarity. I enabled the lens correction profile as well, which gave me a pretty good result. I didn’t play with the HSL but I could’ve lightened the red and oranges to brighten the athlete’s skin. Here is the Before/After result: Skylum’s Luminar 3 Skylum’s Luminar 3 is a two-in-one image editor and a photo library. They incorporated great Artificial Intelligence (AI) filters to enhance automatically our images like the Accent AI (called the “smartest single slider in the world”) and the AI Sky Enhancer. They also offer an exclusive Sunrays filter, 60+ instant LOOKs and 100+ features. You can click this link to purchase it or get a free trial. Luminar 3 highlights: Works both as stand-alone and as a plug-in for Photoshop and Lightroom Clone & Stamp tool Erase tool 60+ LOOKs (default styles) Allows the combination of several photos together Library to manage images Layers, masks, filters and brushes Batch processing Built-in sharing export to social media (Twitter, Facebook, SmugMug, Flickr …) But it and own it software (no monthly subscription) For this image, I first entered the same basic editing values as I did in Lightroom to compare equivalent results. I then took it a step further, adding and playing with multiple layers, painting structure on specific areas and adding a pretty cool LOOK to make it even more personalized. I really loved the end result of this creating editing. Here is the Before/After progression result: Photolemur 3 Photolemur 3 is powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI) — it analyzes and improves images automatically. Drag and drop the images in the app, let it find the best exposure by itself and export the end result wherever you want. You can choose between a couple different functions and styles but basically, it’s a very straight forward app for a no-brainer edit. It’s perfect for when you don’t have the time to spend more than three seconds on editing an image. You can have a look at the short video below to see it in action. I have yet to know if the “Lemur” is supposed to be the app (because everybody loves them) or its user (because we could hibernate while it’s processing) — but I’m fine with both answers. Photolemur 3 highlights: One-click app Fast and efficient AI technology Extremely simple Batch processing Buy it and own it app (no monthly subscription) For this image, all I did was drag-and-drop the raw file into the app and click one button. It took me at the most 2 minutes. Here is the Before/After result: Wrapping it up I just explored three different editing software that fulfills three different purposes: Adobe Lightroom Classic Great to import, organize, develop and manage RAW files with a light processing requirement. The freedom to work from a computer or on the go from a tablet or a smartphone is a huge advantage on the go. Adobe’s reputation is second to none and is a long time reference in the photography world. Skylum Luminar 3 Allows very simple to very complex editing — including advanced photo retouching, layer, masks, brushes and photomontage — in a user-friendly workspace. Can be used directly on the stand-alone version or added it seamlessly as a plug-in to a Lightroom and Photoshop workflow. Photolemur 3 A very (VERY!) fast editing solution. You drag-and-drop as many images as you like, the AI works its magic and you’re good to export a few seconds later. It’s a one-click solution for no-brainer editing. There is no ultimate solution. Some photographers like to use a single software they are very familiar with, some other (like myself) like to combine different ones depending on their needs, time availability and creative mood. No matter what our personal preference is, just like a camera, the most effective tool is the one you are comfortable working with!
Guide to Facebook Ads, part one: The basics - There’s no question Facebook is still a major player online in 2019 and its ad platform is an important tool for many marketers. As a photographer, there are a lot of reasons to use Facebook ads: Wedding photography, portrait sessions, workshops, tutorials and more. It’s a great tool to target specific groups of people and it’s well integrated with many other services. Facebook’s ad interface can be intimidating and ad campaigns can be counterintuitive, so this is the first post in a series of articles about Facebook Ads. Over the next few weeks, I’ll go through the basics, boosting a post, the Ads Manager interface, creating a campaign and optimizing your ads. Let’s talk strategy Before we get into the weeds of Facebook Ads, I think it’s important for you to have a marketing strategy beyond Facebook. You need to decide why Facebook can fit in that strategy and what your goal is. If you do not have a specific goal in mind, chances are you will simply waste your money. Boosting a post here and there will not achieve much, except deplete your bank account. Here are some examples of goals you might have: Increase your page’s followers Increase your posts’ reach Drive traffic to your website Get people to sign up for your newsletter Drive traffic to your products/services Those are basic goals and you can do much more by targeting specific audiences and behaviors, like people who follow your page, people who visited your website, etc. Again, start with your general marketing strategy and see where you can use Facebook to achieve your goals. For example, I use Facebook Ads with Photography Unfolded, where I lead workshops with Angie McMonigal. Our end goal is to get people to register for our workshops, but we know it’s hard to sell expensive products directly through an ad on Facebook. Instead, we created a free eBook, that we advertise on Facebook. When people get the eBook, they also agree to sign up for our newsletter, where we provide content and advertise for our workshops. Boosting a post Now, let’s dive into it! First things first — you need a business page to create ads. You can’t do it with personal profiles. This might be an issue for some people, but I think that most of you probably have a Facebook page for your photography/business (and if not, you should). The easiest way to create an ad on Facebook is to “boost a post.” That means you have an existing post and you boost it so it reaches more people. Facebook might even notify you from time to time about boosting posts. But if you want a post to reach a larger audience, just click the Boost Post button below your post. One thing you need to understand is that you want to boost posts that are already performing well. It might sound counterintuitive, but if you boost a post that underperforms, chances are it will not perform very well as an ad either. A well-performing post already proved it was content that people want to see and interact with. Your money will be best served by boosting popular posts. Once you’ve clicked the button, a pop-up appears. Don’t get overwhelmed; we’ll go through every setting together. Objective The first setting is the objective of the ad. Here you can pick between getting more engagement and more messages. In the next few articles, you’ll learn how to create custom campaigns that will have more options. Post button The post button is optional but can be a key part of your marketing. There are a lot of options, depending on what your end goal is. Each option will have parameters, like the URL or the address linked to the button. Audience The audience might be the most important part of creating an ad. It’s also Facebook Ads’ most powerful tool. You’ll have a few default options (you can see mine below) that might be suitable and if you want to target people in your area or people who like your page. However, audiences are much more powerful and you can create your own by clicking on Create Audience. There are several parameters you can play with: Gender, age, locations and targeting. Gender and age are simple. In locations, you can target a country, a state or small areas like a city. You can target multiple locations. Detailed targeting is where Facebook really shines (and can be creepy). You can target people through their interests, but also their demographics (education, financial, relationship status, work, etc.) and behavior (anniversary, digital activities, mobile device users, purchase behavior, travel, etc.). Facebook knows A LOT about us and it’s very useful for ad targeting. For now, you can probably work with a simple audience. I’ll dive into more details about audiences with custom campaigns. Automatic placements Facebook places ads in different locations (feed, instant articles, in-stream videos, right column, marketplace, stories, etc.). I suggest you keep that checked, as the algorithm is good at determining where will work best. If you become a power user, you can tinker with this setting and test what works best. Budget and duration This is the second most important setting: How much money will you spend and for how long will the ad run? You pick the total budget and when the ad will run until (either a duration or an end date). Then Facebook will automatically spread your budget over the period you picked. Tracking conversions A Facebook Pixel is a way to track people through Facebook and your website to get analytics. If you have a Facebook Pixel set up, feel free to use it. If you haven’t set it up, leave it for now. I’ll get to it in the next article. Payment If you haven’t yet, set up your payment via credit card and then click on Boost. Ad verification Once you’ve submitted your ad, Facebook will take some time to verify it and make sure it follows
Portrait Tips: A note for newborns - One of the best experiences you’ll have as a portraitist is making pictures with brand new babies. There truly is something special about working with someone so new and pure, and it’s a big responsibility to be entrusted with the opportunity. It’s really a once-in-a-lifetime shoot, so be ready and take it seriously. And remember that it’s not a picture of baskets and props. What is your purpose? We love pictures of babies snuggled into a blanket or wrapped in a peapod costume, and we dream of making that kind of picture, too. Swaddling a babe tight and placing him in a basket or a scene or whatever can be really cute, but ask yourself, “What am I photographing?” Are you photographing a product on a terrific set or are you photographing a person? Photograph relationships When you make a baby into a prop you’re doing fashion photography. When you see fashion models in a magazine, it can be a striking image, but it’s all about the clothes and you don’t know anything about the model. The model is simply a place to put the clothes. It’s fun to make babies into props, but it’s not important. The most important pictures you can make are those depicting relationships. You should totally have fun making a baby prop, but you should remember that you haven’t made the most important picture, yet. When you photograph baby with his parents you make an important photo. As baby grows, it will be unbelievable how small he was in relation to his parents. It’ll be incredible how young and innocent mom and dad were in relation to now. We understand our lives by relating them to how they used to be. No one ever said, “Oh, he’s so much bigger than pea pod costume, now.” So after you make the funny pictures, be sure you make the important pictures, too. Portrait Tips come out each week, and you can see them all right here.
Lighting up a barn with Lume Cubes - If you follow Olympus Visionary Jamie MacDonald, you might be familiar with “the barn.” Located in Eaton Rapids, MI, this barn is on private property, but Jamie has permission and regularly photographs there. A few weeks ago, I finally had the chance to check out what I had only seen in pictures, in hopes that we’d combine the barn with some really cool lighting just after dark. The idea Jamie and I had talked about using his Mavic Air drone, and attaching a Lume Cube to the bottom of it. While Lume Cube makes drone kits, I didn’t have one handy, as I don’t own a drone. We found that with a little bit of Velcro, we could easily attach the Lume Cube to it. From there, Jamie would guide the drone over the barn and create a sort of halo effect. Initial problems We first tried attaching a Lume Cube Air to the bottom of the drone, as it was lighter than a regular Lume Cube. The problem was, the Lume Cube Air had a built-in magnet and caused the drone to act unexpectedly. It crashed almost as soon as we put it into the air. From there, we decided to use a regular Lume Cube. While it was slightly heavier than the Lume Cube Air, it didn’t have any magnets in it unless you have it inside its diffusion cage. Because we couldn’t use the cage, we decided to grab one of the Lume Cube Air’s diffusers, and slid it on the Lume Cube. It stayed in place perfectly, and helped to soften the light a bit. The other problems were related to the weather. It was a bit windy out, so it was a little difficult to balance the drone. And with the cold temperatures, the drone’s battery died very quickly. The results From there, we got the Lume Cube into place, and Jamie let the drone loose, using a predetermined path to guide the drone in a circle over the barn. It took a bit of time to get it at the right height, and the wind caused a few weight distribution issues with the Lume Cube attached. The first time, I got a random zigzag of light due to not clicking the shutter at the right time. My second attempt was a little more successful. Jamie’s turned out, well, as expected — rather heavenly. A step further With the drone experiment finished, we decided to have more fun with the Lume Cubes. We put a flashlight inside, and started taking some long exposures. Then, Jamie took the Lume Cube Air and ran around the space we were shooting. It created an alien-like figure to the right of the frame, which was kind of cool, and perfect with the yellow light coming from the barn. We wanted to take it a step further and play around with some light painting. We took the flashlight out from the barn, and using our new Olympus OM-D E-M1X cameras, we setup Live Composite mode. For my base settings, I ran a 60-second exposure at f/4 and ISO 400. If you don’t have an Olympus camera with Live Composite, you could easily do the same thing by creating a composite photograph — just stack multiple photographs together in a program like Photoshop and use the “Lighten” blend mode on each layer. Once we were setup, Jamie grabbed a Lume Cube Air and ran to the barn. He started off inside, lighting the upper level of the barn. He walked around so we could get light throughout the space. From there, he went outside, and lit each side of the barn for about a second or so — just enough to grab a pop of light with the Live Composite. I let my exposure run for about a half-hour, which created some really nice star trails in the sky. Now you might ask, why wasn’t Jamie captured in the photograph? Live Composite works by only adding new light to the photograph. Jamie was wearing dark enough colored clothing where he wasn’t captured in the scene. In terms of the foreground being lit, we got lucky. A car was passing through and lit the ground just enough to add some interest to the scene. All in all, Lume Cubes totally made this photoshoot a lot of fun! I can’t wait to use them more in my photography. The creative possibilities are endless!
