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Posts Tagged ‘wish’

Here’s our wish list for the Nikon Z6 II and Z7 II

05 Oct
Thanks to a process of continued improvement, the Z6 and Z7 are going to be hard acts to follow.

Nikon has already started teasing its forthcoming Z6 and Z7 Mark II cameras, so the question is: just what are they going to bring? We’ve collectively put together a list of what we’d like to see on these updated models. It’s not necessarily what we think Nikon will provide, more a list of what we think would be nice.

Fixing the things complained about

On the hardware side, there are a couple of obvious changes that would immediately justify the incremental implications of that ‘Mark II’ billing: correcting the much-criticized omissions in the original models.

The most obvious would be the provision of twin card slots. It’s a feature many professional photographers lean on, which meant the Z7 looked less attractive to that crowd than it could have been. The Z6 was beaten with the same stick, though perhaps with less justification (though Nikon has tended to include them on even its most lowly full-frame models).

Providing twin card slots would be an easy ‘win’ for Nikon

Wherever you stand on the issue, providing twin card slots would be an easy PR win for Nikon. Adopting the smaller CFexpress ‘A’ cards would, perhaps, make it easier to do without increasing the size of the camera body but then risks incurring the wrath of existing users who’ve bought into XQD and CFexpress type B formats.

Another feature missed-off the original cameras was a connection port to allow a battery grip with duplicate controls for portrait orientation shooting. This would be another comparatively simple way to expand the capabilities of the new cameras.

And, on the subject of battery endurance, a larger battery pack wouldn’t go amiss, if the bodies are being re-worked. I’m sure there will be plenty of comments saying that they’ve had no problems with the existing cameras, but whether it’s to give professional Z7 II-shooters or Z6 II video users one less thing to worry about, additional battery life is rarely a bad thing.

Yes, XQD (as are the CFexpress type-B cards that Nikon also now supports) are fast, but there’ll be a lot of frustration if the Mark II models only have single slots. Especially in the light of the Z5 sporting twin SDs.

Moving the hardware forward

Beyond this, it’ll be interesting to see whether Nikon has managed to source new sensors for the new cameras. We’ve not yet seen anything that obviously surpasses the 24MP sensor in the Z6 (also used by other manufacturers, including models as recent as the Sony a7C and Lumix S5), so it wouldn’t leave the Z6 II lacking by pressing on with the same chip. That said, a newer sensor with faster readout could help with both autofocus and video performance, so it would be an attractive upgrade if there’s one available.

The 24MP sensor in the Z6 is still competitive but a newer sensor with faster readout could help both autofocus and video

With regards the Z7 II, a jump from 46MP to somewhere closer to the Sony a7 IV’s 60MP wouldn’t hurt its chances: both in terms of looking competitive against the Sony to newcomers and in terms of giving Z7 users a reason to upgrade.

It seems highly likely that the Z7 II, or even both new models, will gain higher resolution viewfinders. The 3.68M dot EVFs used in the original models were good for their day but there are 5.76M and 9.44M dot panels available now, so we’d expect to see a move to one of those higher-res displays.

Which brings us to the rear LCDs. We’ve really enjoyed the two-way tilting LCD cradles used on the likes of Fujifilm’s X-T3 and Panasonic’s S1 and S1R. We think it’s unlikely, but there’s an argument to be made that a similar design would be a good fit for the Z7 II, and perhaps even a fully-articulated panel for the Z6 II, assuming Nikon continues its impressive work towards providing a camera that’s as adept at video as it is at stills.

Yes, we are aware that there’s a cohort of stills photographers who’d be aghast at such a suggestion, and we suspect Nikon won’t want to upset them too much.

Keep rolling!

We have to assume there will be some new video features in the cameras, because it’d be senseless to sit back and relax after all the progress made with the Z6. The addition of 10-bit internal capture would certainly expand the appeal of the camera, making Log footage more flexible and allowing the capture of HDRTV-compatible high dynamic range footage.

Alongside this, it would be lovely to see waveform displays added, to make it easier to assess exposure. This would be a big step for Nikon but it does appear the company has been listening to the needs of videographers, so we think it’s possible.

The addition of 10-bit internal capture would certainly expand the appeal of the camera for videographers

Similarly, it would be useful for the Z6 II to display the shutter speed in terms of shutter angle: this would become particularly useful if the camera can shoot 60p footage, as it allows you to maintain a 180 degree shutter angle (meaning a shutter speed that’s twice the frame rate) as you jump between capturing footage at different frame rates.

Beyond this, it’s difficult to anticipate what Nikon could sensibly add to a camera that isn’t trying to be dedicated to video. 6K Raw output would avoid the sub-sampling aliasing we saw in the Z6’s Raw video stream but would entail much larger video files. At the very least, it would be nice to see Nikon communicate more metadata so that Atomos recorders can create ProRes Raw files that allow a broader range of adjustments within Final Cut Pro than is currently possible.

Software/UI:

Finally, there are a few aspects of the software and user interface we’d like to see improved.

A generational update of the camera would usually also come with a generation’s improvement in the AF tracking performance. Nikon has continuously improved the AF performance and interface on the Z6 and Z7, so we’d only expect a relatively small improvement, but there is room for improvement on both counts.

Nikon’s tracking in its mirrorless cameras has steadily improved but it still isn’t quite as ‘sticky’ as the latest Sony and Canon cameras, we’ve tended to find. It’s not far off, but it would be nice to see a further improvement, particularly in video mode.

Nikon has been improving the Z6 and Z7’s autofocus interface but better integration of its features would be good to see

As well as the performance, Nikon has also been fine-tuning its user interface: letting you pre-select where you want subject tracking to start, and letting you start and stop tracking by pressing or releasing the shutter button, for instance. But Tracking and Face/Eye detection remain separate modes, built on top of the ‘Auto’ area mode. We’d love to see a distinct mode, let’s call it something like ‘3D Subject Tracking,’ that tracks the subject under the focus point and utilizes Face or Eye detection if that subject happens to possess either of those things. This better integrated system is really simple to use on the latest Canons and Sonys, and it would be good to see it replicated here, just for speed and convenience.

Finally, we’d love to see a return of the ability to format the card or reset the camera by pressing pairs of buttons: it was a feature unique to Nikon DSLRs and became second-nature to many Nikon photographers.

No easy task

Overall, though, preparing this article reminded us just how good both the Z6 and Z7 have become. We thought they were pretty polished first efforts when they arrived, and Nikon has continued to improve them ever since. It’ll be interesting to see what the company will do to top them.

Let us know in the comments what changes, improvements or additions you’d most like to see in the forthcoming models.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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10 Awesome Photoshop CC Tricks You Wish You Knew

27 Oct

The post 10 Awesome Photoshop CC Tricks You Wish You Knew appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kevin Landwer-Johan.

photoshop-cc-tricks

All photographers want their photos to look fantastic and part of the path to great images is the post-processing. You can do so much with the right tools if you know how to use them well. Photoshop is such an amazing tool for photographers. The more you use it the more you find that it can do. The more you realize you have to study to be able to make the most of it. In this article, I will share with you ten cool Photoshop CC tricks I love using when I work on my photos in Adobe Photoshop.

1. Photoshop search

10 Awesome Photoshop CC Tricks You Wish You Knew

Photoshop articles like this or video tutorials often suggest tools to use that you may not be familiar with. It’s easy enough to remember the tool but forget its location within photoshop. This is where the Photoshop search comes in helpful.

Up in the top right of the main photoshop window, you will find a search icon. Click on it to search not only to find that tool you want but other things too. You can also search for tutorials, Lightroom and Adobe stock images.

2. Manage keyboard shortcuts

10 Awesome Photoshop CC Tricks You Wish You Knew

When working with any complicated software, it pays to learn at least some of the keyboard shortcuts. Knowing the shortcuts for the tools you use the most will help speed up your workflow.

In photoshop you have the capacity to customize your keyboard shortcuts. It’s easy enough to do. If you’ve been using photoshop for a while you will know which tools you use often and will want to know the shortcuts.

To find them, all you need to do is go to the top menu and select Edit->Keyboard Shortcuts. This opens up a window where you’ll see all the information you need to learn the shortcuts and change them.

Most keys and many combinations have shortcuts assigned. These can be customized to suit your working style.

One key that has no default shortcut assigned is the ‘n’ key. You can assign your favorite tool to it without disrupting any of the other shortcut keys.

3. Temporary tool select

Another helpful trick that aids smooth workflow is being able to temporarily select a tool.

Say you’re working on an image with the Burn tool and you see a small blemish you want to remove with the Clone tool. You can simply press and hold the ‘s’ key to select the Clone tool. Once you’ve removed the blemish, release the ‘s’ key and your cursor will revert back to the Burn tool.

This can be used with most keyboard shortcuts.

4. Open the same image in two windows

Photoshop-CC-tricks

Opening the same image document in two windows gives you some great flexibility. You can have one instance of the file zoomed and be working on the details and the other showing the entire frame. This lets you see the changes you make in the detailed view as they happen in the full-frame window also.

To open two image documents, go to ‘Window’ in the top menu and select Arrange->New Window for [the file name of the opened file]. Click on this file, and a new instance of the file will open. Now you can select Window->Arrange and select the display option you prefer. Here I have selected to show 2-up Vertical.

This trick is very cool if you are working with two or more monitors.

5. Creating selections of Highlights and Shadows

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Selecting only the highlights or dark areas of an image can give you more control when making certain adjustments.

To do this, choose the type of adjustment you want to make. For this example, I have added a Curve Adjustment Layer. This is from the menu at the bottom of the Layers panel. Once I have the new adjustment layer, I then delete the layer mask.

Here’s where the magic happens. Press Ctrl+Alt+2 (Cmd+Opt+2 on Mac) and all the bright pixels will be selected. When you click on the Curves icon in the Layers panel, you will not only be making adjustments to the brightest pixels. In the Properties panel of the mask, you can choose to invert the selection and work on the darker pixels.

6. Pen tool tips

Photoshop-CC-tricks

Learning to use the Pen tool in photoshop is frustrating for many people. At first, it can be difficult to make the line go where you want it to. Here are some tweaks you can make so your learning curve is not so steep.

When you have the Pen tool selected, click the Cog icon on the top menu. Here you can alter the settings for how the line looks and responds. You can determine the weight and color of the line. This can be helpful in allowing you to see where you’re drawing more easily.

Probably the most helpful aspect of the Pen tool settings is the Rubber Band checkbox. With this setting active, you can see where your line is as you draw. This allows you to see where your line will be in real-time. Without the Rubber Band box checked, you will not see where your line will be drawn until you click on a point.

Two more helpful tips with the Pen tool are:

  1. Use the spacebar as you click. Hold the spacebar to allow you to place the point precisely where you want it to be.
  2. Once your line is complete, use Alt+Click to modify the handles on a point so you can alter the curve of the line.

7. Select colors from any application

10 Awesome Photoshop CC Tricks You Wish You Knew

Matching a color you want to use in photoshop with a color in another program or app is easy and can be very useful. Pulling the same color and applying it to text, a brush or fill means you can precisely color match what you are working on.

Shrink your photoshop window and place it over the area you want to select the color from. Simply select the tool for how you want to apply the color. In my example, I want to fill the background of my logo with a specific color from a photo on my website. Click and hold the Alt key as you drag your mouse to hover over the color you want to match.

When you release your mouse, Photoshop will use it as the selected foreground color. Now you can apply it as you wish.

8. Control Color Luminosity

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By creating a new black and white Adjustment Layer and setting the Blend mode to Luminosity, you can darken or brighten each color in your image. Simple drag the slider for each color you want to adjust until you are satisfied with its luminosity.

9. Transparency using ‘Blend If’

10 Awesome Photoshop CC Tricks You Wish You Knew

The ‘Blend If’ mode is a powerful tool when you know how to use it. Selecting and manipulating layers using the Blend If functions allow you to alter the luminosity or color channel of a layer.

In this example, I wanted to eliminate the black background from my logo and replace it with an image. The image is on the layer underneath my logo. Bring up the Layer Style panel by double-clicking on the layer you want to work on. With the Blend If mode set to Gray, use the slider below it to remove the darker or lighter pixels. In this example, I have moved the slider on the left towards the right to take out the black background of the logo.

Making the altered layer a Smart Object will make those hidden pixels transparent for even more flexibility.

10. Non-destructive Spot Healing Brush

10 Awesome Photoshop CC Tricks You Wish You Knew

Adding a new layer above the image you are working on allows you to work non-destructively with the Spot Healing Brush. Often with highly textured images, the Spot Healing Brush provides an unsatisfactory result. Adding an extra blank layer gives you more flexibility.

The key to making this work is to ensure you check the Sample All Layers checkbox in the top menu bar.

Conclusion

I hope there are a few new tips and tricks on this list of Photoshop CC tricks that you can find helpful. As with all things Photoshop, everyone works differently. There are also many ways to reach the same end result.

If you know of some other cool Photoshop CC tips or tricks let us know what they are in the comments below.

The post 10 Awesome Photoshop CC Tricks You Wish You Knew appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kevin Landwer-Johan.


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“I wish it weren’t a Republican versus Democrat thing”: Wildfire photographer Stuart Palley on climate change and California’s devastating blazes

18 Nov

Stuart Palley is a freelance photographer who specializes in covering wildfires in his home state of California. His six-year ‘Terra Flamma’ project includes images drawn from Stuart’s experience at 45 major fires, including some of the most devastating in California state history. When I spoke to Stuart he had just returned from the scene of the Woolsey fire.

Stuart spoke to me on the phone from his truck, on his way back from getting one of his rear doors fixed. The door was bent on its hinges after being caught by the 60mph winds that fed the Woolsey fire as it devastated Malibu and neighboring communities.

Despite spending much of his career in one of the most hazardous environments imaginable, the repair bill for the truck door is the first major misfortune to befall Stuart in his wildfire work. That and a broken pair of reading glasses. But it’s not just luck that’s kept him safe, as he explained.

The following interview has been edited for clarity and flow. Find more of Stuart’s work at his Instagram.


You’ve just come back from a fire, right?

Yes, I’ve just returned from an assignment to the Woolsey Fire, in Ventura and Los Angeles counties. I’ve been on assignment for a bunch of places but primarily I was there for the LA Times. I was shooting as a photojournalist but I was also adding work for my Terra Flamma project. So as well as the more reportage-style images I was also shooting long exposures at night.

Let’s talk about your ‘Terra Flamma’ project.

Terra Flamma is a project where I’ve been documenting wildfires in California, using long exposure tripod-mounted images. The goal of the project is to put the fires in the geographic context where they occur, which can be everywhere from the forests of the Sierra Nevada mountains to people’s backyards in Malibu, as we saw recently. So anywhere and everywhere that wildfires occur in California.

I want people to see the images and learn a little bit and educate themselves about the fires, and if they’re a homeowner maybe they’ll make themselves a bit more prepared. The other goal is to share the work that the firefighters do out on the fire line, so there’s an educational component there too.


Images from ‘Terra Flamma – Wildfires at Night’

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What’s your main camera gear right now for fire photography?

The Nikon D850 with the latest version of the 24-70mm F2.8 VR, and I use the D850 with the grip for better battery life. That’s what I’ll use for 90% of my fire work. Sometimes I’ll use the Sigma 14mm F1.8 Art, just because it’s so great for wide-angle low-light work. Also I’ve never been a fan of the 70-200mm F2.8 class of lenses, they’re so big and heavy and complex, so I recently replaced my F2.8 with Nikon’s 70-200mm F4. It’s almost half the weight and I’ve loved using it. This is the first fire I’ve used it on, and I haven’t missed having the extra stop of light at all. Even on the Z7 it’s very well-balanced.

You were shooting with the Nikon Z7 for the first time this season – how was it?

It was very easy for me to start using the Z7 initially because the control layout and the design is so similar to the D850 but when push came to shove, the autofocus just couldn’t hack it. I tried using it for the first few hours, but after about an hour and a half I had to ditch it for my D850. I was walking around at night with the 24-70mm F4 and the 35mm F1.8 and trying to shoot, and it was just not co-operating when it came to focus. I was just using regular center point, AF-S and it keep losing focus, missing focus and hunting.

Going back to the D850’s viewfinder after the Z7’s EVF, it felt like I was using a much more antiquated camera

I will say that it was really nice to have a lighter camera for that first couple of hours though. I may use it for my next daytime assignment just to check it out more. The Z7 for daytime use, for general reportage, it’s a totally fine substitute for the D850. And also, shooting with that 35mm F1.8, I got the speed of the F1.8 plus of course stabilization, so I was able to push that lens more than I could have if it was on a D850 because none of Nikon’s fast F-mount primes have stabilization. Also, going back to the D850’s viewfinder after the Z7’s EVF, it felt like I was using a much more antiquated camera.

Stuart has recently incorporated the new Nikon Z7 into his wildfire photography kit, alongside a D850 and brace of F-mount lenses.

Read more about Stuart’s experiences with the Nikon Z7

What’s the most important criteria for your gear?

The most important thing is that I need to change the main functions of the camera quickly and easily, and they’re all physically accessible so I don’t have to go through the menu. I went on a little road trip, camping with the Z7 and I kept it in Auto ISO and it was great. But I had frustrations with it at night. For me, having full manual control and reliable nighttime autofocus, those are the most important things. The Z7’s autofocus at night was just inferior to the D850’s when I was really pushing it. I’m usually shooting in pretty low light in the fires, and even with the 35mm F1.8, the Z7 would just be hunting, where the D850 was locking straight on. At night, in an action-filled, more photojournalism situation versus landscape or more everyday photography, I just couldn’t rely on the autofocus.

The D850 and 24-70mm were doing great, but the Z7 was just hunting for focus

When I say photojournalism kind of work I mean working in a face-paced environment where things are moving really quickly and I’m having to change settings constantly. Maybe I’m shooting people evacuating, or firefighters working, and then a few minutes later the camera is on a tripod to shoot some of the long exposure more fine art-type images. I found the Z7 harder to switch around between those shooting situations, but partly that might be on me – maybe I need to spend more time setting up the custom functions and modes.

Autofocus was the real kicker though. I walked into some situations where I was photographing some property that was burned, to send in – I was on assignment at that time – and the D850 and 24-70mm were doing great, but the Z7 was just hunting for focus.

How did you get started in fire photography?

Well, the first wildfire I ever photographed was when I was interning for the Orange County register. They have fire gear so I was able to borrow the proper safety gear right off the bat. But looking back, I didn’t know enough then about fire behavior to properly, safely cover it. If I were to do it all over again I would have gone with another photographer or reporter with more experience.

The second fire I went to, I made a couple of mistakes that I was lucky not to get hurt from

The second fire I ever went to, I made a couple of mistakes that I was very lucky not to get hurt from. At that time I had the safety gear, but I didn’t have the experience. And that’s the biggest thing – understanding the weather, and understanding how fire behaves. And if you’re not paying attention to that you can very easily get hurt.

Images from the Woolsey fire, 11/09/18

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You’re working in very hazardous environments, which I assume you wouldn’t recommend just anyone should show up and try to photograph…

My recommendation is that you shouldn’t just go out on a whim and photograph wildfires. It’s dangerous. You need to be doing it for a legitimate publication, something in the public interest. Any time I’m in a fire, I’m always sending images back. It’s important to me to do that. The reason we have media access to the fires in California is that the media serves a purpose, to inform the public.

Even if you have accreditation you have an obligation to be safe, you have an obligation to wear the safety gear and have training and knowledge about wildfires because if you don’t, you could end up becoming the story. And at the end of the day I don’t think that’s a responsible thing to do.

People don’t realize that the margins for error in fires that are driven by strong offshore winds are very low

At this most recent fire, because it was in Los Angeles, there were a lot of people there. And especially on the first two nights when things were going really crazy, they had no protective equipment, they were parking in the road… and in my professional opinion they were safety hazards to themselves and the people around them. And for me, that’s frustrating.

I see people that are really just kids, out there in shorts and T-shirts, and it’s incredibly dangerous. People don’t realize that the margins for error in fires that are driven by strong offshore winds are very low. If you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time, even if it’s just by a factor of a couple of seconds, that can be the difference between you going home safely or ending up in the burn unit.

Some of the thousands of dollars of equipment that Stuart has bought in order to operate around wildfires safely.

At the height of the Woolsey fire I was there being showered by embers, but I was wearing fire boots, a brush shirt, a brush jacket, then a helmet with a shroud that covered my face and neck, plus goggles and a passive respirator. I had to invest thousands of dollars in all of that safety equipment, and also invest a lot of time to understand fire behavior.

My recommendation, if you’re a photographer interested in taking pictures at wildfires is firstly, shoot for an organization, so there’s a reason and a purpose for you being there. Secondly, you might need to do a ride along with someone more experienced before you start doing it for yourself. With fires getting worse on the west coast, I’m all for there being more people out there telling this story. It’s important that we have a diversity of voices, but there’s a proper way of doing it.

Along with the reportage work, I’m also shooting images for my project. And that’s what I mean when I say that Terra Flamma combines the art with the documentary work.

These days, you must have developed relationships of trust with the firefighters – how does that affect what you’re able to do?

The fire world is very small, although actually at this most recent fire I only saw one firefighter I knew. But when I’m photographing in the forest, with the Forest Service, there are people who are familiar with my work and know who I am, and they’re able to relax a little bit because they know I know what I’m doing. They don’t need to keep an eye on me, so they can focus on their work, which allows me to get closer and focus on the moments a little more.

My first rule is be safe, don’t compromise the safety of first responders, and stay out of their way

Part of the professional responsibility of covering these fires is investing in your own equipment and safety training. You can’t just go in like John Wayne and just start shooting. My first rule is be safe, don’t compromise the safety of first responders, and stay out of their way. Once I feel like I’m covered there, it’s OK to start taking pictures.

How do you gauge that line, from safe to unsafe?

Well, there’s usually never a clear line. But for example if there’s a very narrow road in a fire zone with one way up and one way out, I won’t drive my truck up there. I’ll park and go on foot, or go to a different place. Because if I’m blocking an escape route for a fire engine, or compromising access for a fire crew, I don’t want to get in their way. The couple of seconds it would take for me to back up or do a u-turn, that could make the difference between getting out of the fire, and not.

This most recent fire was moving so quickly that in a lot of places they barely had time to evacuate people. There were a lot of civilians just staying and not evacuating their houses, and I was saying ‘Look, guys, you seriously have a chance of getting killed if you stay here’. Some of them left, and for me that was the line – as soon as the firefighters left, so did I. There were some incredible pictures to be made, but the situation wasn’t safe. About five minutes later that whole area literally exploded into flames.

This past week, and the last year have been incredibly dangerous for numerous reasons

Every situation, every fire, every day is different. You make a judgement call. There’s a fundamental way of being safe. I make sure I know what the weather is doing, I have escape routes worked out where I can go if things go bad. I’m taking pictures but I’m also keeping an eye out and looking around, and making sure a power line isn’t going to fall on me or something like that. That’s the base level of safety, and in each situation I assess it, and see where I can go and what I can do that will be safe, and won’t create a hazard for other people. It’s a lot of little learning experiences like that, which add up.

One of the reasons I didn’t cover the Camp Fire is there were so many downed power lines and trees falling that I personally didn’t feel it was safe to go up there and drive around in certain areas. It’s a very hazardous situation up there. This past week, and the last year have been incredibly dangerous for numerous reasons. I also wanted to focus on the Woolsey Fire in Los Angeles, since it’s my home area, and report on the story happening locally. There are photographers doing important and powerful work at the Camp Fire in their own backyard.


GoPro footage from the Woolsey fire

Have there been any occasions where looking back you felt like you pushed the line too far in terms of your own safety?

I think that in the beginning, especially the second fire I went to in 2013, the Powerhouse fire, I definitely did that. I got too far away from my car, I was about 1/4 mile away and the fire jumped the road between me and the car. I had to run down the road through the smoke, very close to the fire to get back to my car, hoping it hadn’t been burned up. I was wearing boots that didn’t fit me, so I tripped and twisted my ankle, then almost got run over by a fire truck. It was at that point that I thought ‘Alright, I need to get the training to learn how to not be a safety hazard’.

Friday morning [November 9th] I drove in at about 8 or 9am when the Woolsey fire started running into Malibu. I was up on a hill, very close to Broad Beach, which is ’billionaire’s beach’ in Malibu where all the wealthy and famous live. The fire was coming up the canyon very rapidly, and I assessed that I maybe had five minutes to photograph there.

Probably the closest calls I’ve had have actually been driving back after fires, when I’m really tired

One of the things I did on my way up was to look out for an escape route. I decided that the beach would be my escape route, and eventually the wind was pushing the fire all the way down the canyon, and in fact I did end up on the beach. The fire destroyed the neighborhood I’d been in five minutes previously. That was a situation where I knew this was a historic event, and I knew that I’d need to push to the limits of what was safe in order to tell the story. I stayed as long as the firefighters did, and when they left, I left.

Probably the closest calls I’ve had have actually been driving back after fires, when I’m really tired and almost falling asleep at the wheel and driving off the freeway. And driving in the smoky woods, late at night, if something happens nobody will find you until the next day. These days I stop and take naps at off-ramps if I feel the fatigue coming on.

How can you see beauty in something so destructive?

Fire is a powerful force, and I feel that fundamental irony every time I’m in the field at a fire making pictures. On one hand, you have this incredible force of nature, which is exacerbated by humans, which can be both beautiful, terrifying, and awe-inspiring all at once. But it can also devastate, destroy neighborhoods, take dozens of lives, cut down hopes, dreams, and memories of families in houses and wilderness areas. The dichotomy there isn’t lost on me and it weighs on my mind. Especially in California where the cost of owning a home is so high, losing your house can often mean financial ruin. It’s absolute tragedy and loss.

If the pictures engage people to educate themselves about wildfire […] then the project is attaining its goal.

But just because an image has tension in it, or there are extremely heavy subjects in an image or project, doesn’t mean we should run away from facing difficult and inconvenient truths. I’d rather face the subject of wildfires, climate change, and the ensuing fallout head on, and if there are some pictures as the result of it that engage people to educate themselves about wildfire and make their own decisions on a changing climate, then the project is attaining its goal.

Additionally, I am involved with a fire foundation [The Eric Marsh Foundation] that raises money for injured wild land firefighters and families of the fallen, and the wildfire community has become very close to my heart.

Stuart’s protective gear includes a helmet, goggles and face shroud.

What do you want people to take away from the Terra Flamma project? These aren’t just meant to be pretty pictures, right?

Right. I’m doing this because wildfires are a function of climate change, and right now California and the western United States are taking the brunt of it. It’s important to me to document that and tell that story.

The wildfires are getting larger, more destructive and killing more people in California. In 2017 we had the largest, most destructive and most deadly wildfires in California, and already in 2018, those fires have been eclipsed. The Camp fire is now the most deadly and destructive wildfire in California history, eclipsing the Thomas fire, which only happened a year ago, which was the largest wildfire in California history until the Ranch fire in 2018. So already 5 out of the 10 most serious wildfires in California history have been in the last four years, and we’ve been keeping record since the 1890s. There is a direct correlation between that, and manmade carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere.

Our weather patterns are changing. So normally at this time of year we get rain in California. But as the rainy season gets condensed, we get more extreme rain events. Instead of it raining in a 3-week period we might get all of our rain in 10 days, which causes flooding and allows the stored fuel to dry out more, which drives more aggressive fire behavior.

Additionally, in a warming climate we have more days per year that support large fire growth. We have hotter days in the summer that are drying up the vegetation more quickly, which makes them more susceptible to burning. That’s measured using something called the Burn Index. They measured the area around the Camp Fire in Northern California and the Burn Index was 241. It was one of the highest burn indexes ever recorded.

This isn’t just about poor forest management then?

Well, if we’re going to talk about our President – and I think it’s generous calling him that – he has no idea what he’s talking about. Most of the forests in California are managed by the federal government. So when he’s talking about cutting off money to the state of California, it doesn’t even make sense, fundamentally.

Forest management is only part of the issue. Like most things, the answer is actually very complex. California includes a lot of very different climates, and every one needs to be managed differently. The way we manage forests by suppressing fires has in many cases increased the fuel load in forests. But the other thing is that we’re building houses on the Wildland Urban Interface, where the forest and scrub meets civilization. Malibu is a prime example of homes that are built on hillsides, and in areas that are covered in brush.

We’ve built millions of areas in these interfaces and in transition zones. What that means is that the statistical likelihood of people’s houses being affected and of people being hurt in fires goes up. The fire triangle is heat, oxygen and fuel. So with climate change, you get drier fuels, less rain and hotter days, which are all the conditions needed to create fire growth.

Climate change has become very politicized in the US, and I wish it weren’t a Republican versus Democrat thing

We need to have a conversation about where and how be build. Some areas are prone to regular intervals of wildfire, and we are not invincible against nature. The same fires happen in the same places, and as long as homes are rebuilt in certain areas, there will be a risk of destruction down the line. History repeats itself.

Generally speaking, what we’re seeing is an acute effect of climate change. Some of the firefighters I speak to who have been climate change skeptics, and really quite conservative have said to me, ‘Stuart, I don’t know what’s going on, but things are different. I haven’t seen fires like this.’ They’ve said ‘For the longest time I thought climate change was B.S. but I can’t deny what I’m seeing in front of my eyes’. Climate change has become very politicized in the US, and I wish it weren’t a Republican versus Democrat thing. I view it as a fundamental issue about the survival of people on this planet.

The data is there. We see it happening, but unfortunately the political leadership, even when they acknowledge it, aren’t acknowledging the reasons why it’s happening. And it’s getting to the point where I’ve gone from thinking that I want to document what’s going on to being frankly terrified that after only six years working on this project I’ve seen the changes starting to accelerate.


2018 has been a record-breaking year for wildfires in the western United States. At the time of writing, the Woolsey Fire has burned almost 100,000 acres with the confirmed loss of 3 lives. The Camp Fire has burned 138,000 acres and claimed more than 70 lives, with hundreds more people unaccounted for. To help the victims of this months’ California wildfires, click here. If you’re interested in fire safety training or protecting your home, the NFPA is a good resource.

If you want to donate to the Eric Marsh Foundation you can do so here. If you’d like to support Stuart’s Terra Flamma project, click here.

Be safe, and don’t put yourself or others at risk.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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7 Landscape Photography Tips You’ll Wish You Knew Earlier

08 Sep

Landscape photographer Nigel Danson has been reflecting on his time as a professional landscape photographer and has come up with 7 things that he wishes he knew when he first started out on his photographic journey.

Unfortunately for Danson, he’s not able to go back in time and tutor himself. But luckily for us, we’re able to learn from these key moments in his career without spending many years getting to those milestones!

“Recently, looking back at some photos I took over 10 years ago, it made me realize how far I’ve come as a photographer.” says Danson. “It made me think about the things I’ve learned over the last 10 or 15 years.”

Landscape photography can be a tricky art to master, and experience in the field is definitely your friend. But hopefully, these tips and tricks will help you to improve your shots in an instant and give you that boost you need to keep your photography developing.

Summary of the 7 Simple Tips to Improve Your Landscapes

  1. Use Aperture Priority Mode
  2. Master the Histogram
  3. Learn to Focus Properly
  4. Simplify Your Images
  5. Use Different Lenses and Stick with Your Camera
  6. Think About Where You’re Standing
  7. Learn and Use Lighting to Your Advantage

Have you got any landscape images you’ve shot recently? Share them with us in the comments below!

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5 Things I Wish I’d Known Before Starting Nature Photography

30 Aug

5 Things I Wish I'd Known Before Starting Nature Photography - rose macro

How do you, as a beginning nature photographer, go about improving? How do you ensure that you gain useful skills as rapidly as possible so that you can start shooting professional quality nature photography?

5 Things I Wish I'd Known Before Starting Nature Photography - flower macro pink

In reality, it’s often difficult for the beginner to recognize how they should learn nature photography.

But I myself am a nature photographer, and looking back the answers to these questions are clear. So I thought I’d make a tutorial that discusses several things I wish I had known at the beginning of my nature photography journey.

Read on. The sooner you know these things, the sooner you’ll begin to take consistently stunning images.

1. Photograph every day

The first thing I wish I had known when starting nature photography is extremely simple,

Photograph every day!

I cannot emphasize this enough.

5 Things I Wish I'd Known Before Starting Nature Photography - flower close up

If you’re truly serious about improving as a nature photographer, you should try to take at least one photograph of nature, every single day. It doesn’t matter if you take it with your DSLR or your iPhone. Just get out and shoot.

You’ve likely heard that practice makes perfect, and this is part of that. But there’s more to it. By photographing every day, you’ll ensure that your artistic eye remains strong.

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What do I mean by that? If you photograph every day, thinking about light, color, and composition will become second nature. You’ll start to see photographic opportunities everywhere.

This is exactly where you want to be as a nature photographer.

2. View the type of photography you want to create

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This is a huge one, as well. If you want to create great nature photography, you have to view great nature photography.

When you view amazing photography, you develop an eye for light, color, and composition without even realizing it.

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nature-photography-flower-macro

This is an essential skill for a budding nature photographer. Plus, there’s an added bonus – it’s really fun!

Start by looking up the type of photographs that you’d like to create. You can use a well-organized site like 500PX. Or you can just use Google. The important thing is that you find photography to look at for inspiration.

For instance, if you’re an up-and-coming macro photographer, try viewing the portfolios of photographers such as Mike Moats and Kristel Schneider.

If you’re a beginning landscape photographer, look at the work of Ian Plant and Thomas Heaton.

If you’re a budding wildlife photographer, look to photographers such as Marsel Van Oosten and Matthew Studebaker.

5 Things I Wish I'd Known Before Starting Nature Photography - flower extreme close up

Then expand from there.

The purpose isn’t to memorize their images so that you can copy them in the field. Rather, the goal is to appreciate great imagery, while recognizing (if only subconsciously) what makes it great.

The goal is also to get inspired.

3. Light matters more than you think

I’ve emphasized the need to practice photography every day, and that truly is essential. However, when practicing, there’s something extremely important you need to consider. That is the light.

I’ll state it plainly. Photograph the two hours after sunrise, the two hours before sunset, and during midday only if it’s cloudy.

Otherwise, stay indoors.

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This generally takes some retraining of the brain. It’s easy to think to yourself, “It’s such a nice sunny afternoon; I should get out and photograph!”

But you need to resist this thought. Because photographing during a sunny afternoon will result in harsh, contrasty images that are almost never desirable in nature photography.

Start spending time observing the quality of the light. Notice how nicely illuminated your subject is when the sun is low in the sky. Notice how lovely and soft the light is on a cloudy afternoon. Notice how harsh the light is under the midday sun.

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As a beginning photographer, I often forgot about this rule. So my photographs paid the price. I have thousands upon thousands of photographs that are simply unusable because of the harsh sunlight.

Memorize the rule. You may not be able to see such a difference in your images at present. But in a few years, you’ll thank me!

4. Gear matters less than you think

While light is more important than you think, gear is also less important than you may imagine.

You might think that gear is essential. You may ask me, “Jaymes, if my gear really isn’t important, then why do you spend so much time reading gear reviews and upgrading your equipment?”

But my response is this: gear does matter. High-quality lenses will allow you to capture the detail on a singing bird or the movement of sparring polar bears.

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High-quality cameras will allow you to photograph a wolf under the cover of twilight or a hawk flying directly above.

Yet gear is nothing without the photographers that wield it. A good photographer can get stunning images with any equipment. Whereas a bad photographer cannot create stunning images, regardless of their gear.

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So focus less on making sure you have the right equipment. Instead, practice using the equipment you do have. Try to eke out as much as you can from it.

Eventually, if you work hard enough, you will get beautiful images, high-quality gear or not.

5. Most of the images you take will be terrible

Beginning nature photographers often have a dangerous misconception about nature photography. That is that the best photographers rarely take bad images.

This belief can lead to discouragement on the part of the budding photographer.

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This type of abstract photograph comes amid a huge number of deleted images.

After looking through your memory card, to find that only you’ve managed to nail a single image (out of a hundred!), you may want to give up.

Don’t.

Why?

Because most of the early images you take will be terrible, and that’s okay. This is true for nature photographers of all levels. Of course, at the higher levels, the nature photographer’s standards are higher, but the tip still applies.

5 Things I Wish I'd Known Before Starting Nature Photography - flower extreme close up

This is true for me, as well.

I go on dozens of photo shoots each month and take around 600 images per shoot. Yet I’m happy if I get a single image with which I’m really pleased.

Because uncertainty, guesswork, and reaction are part of the game. This is the nature of nature photography.

So let me reiterate. Don’t get discouraged. Most of your shots will be terrible, but it’s the good ones that count.

5 Things I Wish I'd Known Before Starting Nature Photography - flower extreme close up tulip

In Conclusion

Starting nature photography can be daunting for a lot of people. It can be difficult to know how to improve. You want to take stunning images as soon as possible, but you just can’t figure out how.

5 Things I Wish I'd Known Before Starting Nature Photography - flower extreme close up

By understanding the lessons above, you’ll be well on your way to creating beautiful nature images.

Just remember:

  • Shoot every day.
  • View the type of photography you want to create.
  • Light matters more.
  • Gear matters less.
  • Finally, don’t be discouraged if most of your images are terrible.

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Someday soon, you’ll be a great nature photographer.

What are some things you wish you had known when first starting out as a nature photographer? Let me know in the comments area below.

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5 Things I Wish I Knew When I First Started Wildlife Photography

31 Mar

I first started photography almost 10 years ago, and I sometimes wonder where I would be if I knew what I know now, back at the start. I feel like I’ve learned the most important things about wildlife photography in the last 4-5 years, with the time prior to that being spent juggling schoolwork alongside my hobby.

The hardest part about getting really good at something is at the start. It can feel impossible to take a decent image when you’re comparing yourself to the stunning work you see online all the time. Maybe you’re even taking lessons, but feel like there’s some kind of barrier that you can’t bust through to photographic greatness above.

While we’re all still learning, whatever stage we’re at, I hope that some of these tips will help you fast track your photography. Hopefully, you can avoid some of the mistakes I made early on when I first started doing wildlife photography.

#1 Single-point focus is a must

There are few situations, other than perhaps birds in flight, where you would want to use anything but the single-point focus mode on your camera. If you allow the camera to select the best focus point itself, you’ll easily have an image of an animal with its body sharp but eyes out of focus. This kills the shot – instantly.

5 Things I Wish I Knew When I First Started Wildlife Photography

When you’ve switched to single-point focus, you can dictate exactly where the camera will look to focus. Point that little black square at the eyes of your subject and the rest will start to fall into place. Just be extra sure that you aren’t focusing on the nose, or beak, of an animal rather than the eyes. It’s an easy mistake to make in a small viewfinder. After that, no longer will you need to trash that super cute shot of a squirrel just because the eyes are not sharp.

#2 Semi-automatic modes are your friends

I want to address a common misconception I hear again and again. This is that anything other than full manual mode is cheating and not proper photography. While I insist that everyone should learn how to use their camera in full manual, there is no reason to add extra obstacles in your way to a great photo.

With wildlife photography, everything is moving so quickly and the light is constantly changing. Most of the time when shooting in full manual, you’re just introducing a load of unnecessary wheels to spin and adjust to account for the tiniest change in light.

5 Things I Wish I Knew When I First Started Wildlife Photography

Photo: Mario Calvo / Unsplash.com

But, that’s also not to say that photographers using semi-automatic modes aren’t capable of shooting in full manual. Having to continuously adjust settings in a fraction of a second will most definitely make you miss opportunities. Plus, when you really understand how full manual works, it takes only a little thought to adjust and perfect the exposure. It just adds time to the process.

Semi-automatic modes take away this chore, meaning you can focus more on composition and other, arguably more important, ingredients that make up a great photo. You can still have control over your exposure, fine-tuning it using exposure compensation. I have lost count of the number of shots I missed when I insisted on solely using full manual mode at the start of my photographic journey.

The shooting modes I’m referring to are Shutter Priority, Aperture Priority, and full Manual with Auto-ISO. Take a look at this article I’ve written about which of these is best for certain situations: Why Semi-automatic Mode is the Best Choice for Wildlife Photography

#3 Organization is key

By alborzshawn

My biggest regret is never properly organizing my photos. I only started to do this vigorously back in 2015, which I am quite ashamed to say! I use Adobe Lightroom, and it just makes life so much easier. Creating a catalog of my images, I can keyword and easily find them all. Collections allow me to sort through specific shoots quickly, and the delete button is never too far away either with a tap of the X key on my keyboard.

Deleting images is something that we all need to do, but it’s never easy. But be brave, and if a shot isn’t up to scratch then make sure to haul it out of your catalog and into the trash. If you don’t, you’ll end up with hard drives full of thousands of pictures and you’ll never be able to find the good ones hidden within them.

It’s good practice to make sure you dig through all the photos from a shoot fairly quickly. Remove the blurred and rubbish frames so that you don’t procrastinate and find down the line that you still have to prune the images from a shoot a few years ago. Whoops!

#4 You don’t need to fill the frame

I always thought that a good wildlife photo filled the frame with the subject. If it was too far away, then there was no shot to be had. How wrong I was! The style of minimalist wildlife photography, having the subject small in the frame, is becoming increasingly popular nowadays. Perhaps styles and tastes have changed in the field since I first started out, but either way, it is something I wish I had experimented with more when I was younger.

5 Things I Wish I Knew When I First Started Wildlife Photography

This is great news for those of you who don’t have access to large telephoto lenses, too. It means you don’t need to go and shell out thousands for a 500mm prime lens when you can get shots that are just as good with a shorter telephoto (or even a wide lens).

Keep the subject small and introduce the environment around it into the scene. You might need to adjust your aperture to increase the depth of field, depending on what you’re trying to achieve. Since the surroundings will become a larger part of the shot, perhaps you want them to be more in focus than usual.

#5 You don’t need to stick to a normal aspect ratio

One thing that I’ve only started to do within the last year or so, is to play with the aspect ratio of my photos. You don’t need to stick to the standard that pops out of your camera. Try cropping into a square, or even creating a panoramic shot, to make long photos that capture a wider view than normal.

5 Things I Wish I Knew When I First Started Wildlife Photography

A colony of guillemots on the Farne Islands, Northumberland. One individual is attempting to land and squeeze into the group.

Experimenting with the aspect ratio of your photo makes them stand out too. Immediately people notice that the photo doesn’t fall into normal ratios, and pay attention to the shot. I really like these long, snaky frames. I feel they tend to work well with scenes that have a large number of focal points within them. For example, this image of the guillemots has so many different birds that you can look at in detail. The long frame creates a sense of a large colony of birds, and works well to get rid of the unnecessary sky above that would be there with a standard ratio.

In Conclusion

We can’t all be experts from the word go, I still have loads to learn about wildlife photography. But hopefully, some of these tips will help you to buck the trend and let you benefit from some of the things I wish I knew when I first started clicking wildlife photography.

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3 Things I Wish I Knew When I Started Photography

26 Jan

There are a some lessons that we all learn the hard way. Trial and error, though equally arduous, are still the two most ingraining teachers any of us will ever have. We often learn more from our failures than our successes. But like Newton tells us, at times we move forward only by hefting ourselves onto the shoulders of giants.

Boldness learn

More than anything, I wish I would have learned a few things sooner. There are so many lessons that would have benefitted me if I had only understood them on the front end of my trip into the photographic unknown.

So, in the spirit of solidarity I will share three things I wish someone would have told me when I started photography. Perhaps there were those who tried but for whatever reason I either couldn’t or wouldn’t understand. Hopefully these hard fought teachings will help you move forward and give you the mentality you need to start creating better images. Here they are in no particular order.

Learning chicago

The type of camera I would need

This is a dodgy subject that plagues many who are just starting out, or those who want to get more serious about their photography. I began my journey shooting a 35mm Nikon N65 with a 18-55mm kit lens that I bought when I was 18 years old. It was my first real camera. The late teenager version of me saved his money and paid $ 265 for it but I still felt as though I needed a better camera in order to make better images. That was 15 years ago.

Even then I was under the impression that I would need a “professional camera” in order to be a professional photographer. If you had asked me then, I wouldn’t have been able to even tell you what a “professional camera” actually was.

Camera types

What I wish someone had told me was that the best camera doesn’t exist. The only thing that truly matters is the knowledge to use whatever camera is in your hands to the utmost of its (and your) ability. True, times have changed and imaging technology has advanced alarmingly fast. Some people now earn a living with only the cameras in their smartphones.

The thing to always remember is that most cameras are capable of producing images of astonishing quality when coupled with a proficient user. Whatever camera you might currently have is likely more than enough. Allow your skills to mature and you will know when it’s time to upgrade.

Photography create

What post-processing is – and what it is not

Before you begin scrolling in horror at the very mention of post-processing let me assure you that this in not a dreaded commentary on what may or may not be considered “Photoshopping.” Instead, we’re going to talk about some misconceptions I had when first beginning to process my images.

I was under the impression that “getting it right in the camera” was an all encompassing mentality that meant nothing needed to be done after the moment of capture other than showing the image to the world. That is not necessarily true.

What I wish someone had told me was that all photographs, even analog (film), virtually always benefit from some extent of work after the image has been made. The quote which changed my thinking towards post-processing came from none other than Ansel Adams himself:

“The negative is the equivalent of the composer’s score, and the print the performance.”

Journey photography

The point Ansel was making is that yes you always want to strive to achieve the best exposure you possibly can in-camera so that you have a more complete representation of the scene in order to manifest a final photograph intermingled with your own creativity. Post-processing is not something to be avoided but rather embraced as a logical second step towards achieving your visualization regardless of what that visualization may be.

Perfection is unattainable

That’s right. No photograph is perfect and very few photographs are ever elevated to the level of fine art, whatever that means. This was an illusion that burdened me during my early days while learning to create photographs. I had an enormous misunderstanding about what actually went into the production of an image both creatively and technically.

One thing that I did know, was that my photographs looked nothing like some of the wonderful images I saw online or in photo magazines. I became discouraged, all the while feeling as if I was doing something completely wrong.

Perfection unattainable

What I wish someone had told me was that even if you labor in photography for the rest of your life, you will never snap a perfect frame. Your photographs will certainly become stronger as you hone your technique and acquire more capable gear, yes. But don’t think that you will ever reach a day when you can say, “Ah, now I’m perfect. All my photographs will be flawless from here on out.” That day will never come.

The craft of photography is a practice in personal evolution. It is a journey of constant learning. So take a breath, relax, and enjoy the process for the beautifully weird trip that it is.

Conclusion

These are just a few of things that I wish someone had told me when I first began making photographs. Do you have any lessons you have learned that could help others? List them in the comments below!

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10 things I wish I knew when starting my photography business

30 Dec

The moment I bought my first DSLR I knew that photography was my true passion. I didn’t consider myself a professional back then, but I was sure I wanted to become one. Well, the road  turned out a lot longer than I expected. I have learned there’s much more than meets the eye when it comes to the photographer profession. Continue Reading

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Bubble Buildings: 13 Structures You’ll Wish You Could Pop

12 Jul

[ By SA Rogers in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

bubble buildings dome 4

Would the satisfaction that comes with popping bubble wrap scale up as the bubbles get larger and larger, until they’re big enough to cover entire buildings? These blobby bubble-shaped buildings tempt us to find out. Inflatable translucent structures offer space for gardens, bathrooms, museum extensions and even entire parks enclosed to keep out air pollution in a literal representation of the term ‘living in a bubble.’

SKUM Pavilion by Bjarke Ingels Group / BIG

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Named ‘SKUM,’ the Danish word for ‘foam,’ this blob-shaped structure is an inflatable balloon pavilion illuminated with colored LED lights by Bjarke Ingels Group / BIG for the CHART Art Fair in Copenhagen. “The idea of using a bouncy castle as material came about because one can create any kind of structure with the material. It is inflatable and easy to pack down and inflate again, but it has been much harder to produce than we thought. The manufacturer almost gave up, and we were under a massive time pressure, but the result is the most beautiful you can imagine.”

Real Bubble Building by DUS Architects

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Now here’s a structure that isn’t just bubble-shaped – it’s actually made out of real soap bubbles. Dutch firm DUS created the pavilion in a Rotterdam square using metal frames in five-sided steel pools to create massive geometric bubbles you can stand inside, calling it “the world’s most temporary pavilion.”

Bubble Extension for the Hirschhorn Museum

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The firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro was all set to add a wild looking inflatable enhancement to the Smithsonian’s Hirshchorn Museum, creating a venue for two months of special programming, but the design was suspended due to costs. You might imagine that a large translucent fabric ‘bubble’ swelling up out of the museum’s internal courtyard would be less expensive than temporarily roofing it and adding additional covered space along the exterior, but the design was pretty complicated, and the museum board was concerned that costly additional issues with its installation would come up.

Transparent Mobile Bathroom

bubble building bathroom

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bubble building bathroom 3

Would you want to take a bath in a totally transparent bubble with a panoramic vista? This inflatable bathroom pod is intended to be placed in the woods or in rooftops as the ‘ultimate bathroom experience,’ designed after polling groups of people about their dream bathroom. The inflatable structure includes a tub, chair, dresser and basin.

Garden Bubbles for Paris in Winter

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This pop-up art installation in Paris by Amaury Gallon inserted lush greenery back into the city in the middle of winter, providing passersby with 15 minutes of relaxation, beauty and fresh air. Four bubble gardens were placed on city sidewalks, each filled with a different type of plants, including a ‘jungle’ and hundreds of orchids.

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Bubble Buildings 13 Structures Youll Wish You Could Pop

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The Top 10 Camera Features Wish List of dPS Readers and Writers

17 Apr
Brooklyn Bridge picture taken using a remote shutter release and a neutral density filter, which could be eliminated with camera improvements.

Brooklyn Bridge picture taken using a remote shutter release and a neutral density filter, which could be eliminated with camera improvements.

It is becoming almost cliche, but there has never been a better time to be a photographer. What we can do now with modern digital cameras, without spending that much money, is incredible. Without breaking the bank, you can now get an extremely high resolution digital camera, with low light performance and a dynamic range unheard of just a few years ago, that shoots at speeds measured in multiple frames per second. If that isn’t enough, it will also double as a video camera with HD quality as a bare minimum. It will even send the pictures wirelessly to your phone. It seems ungrateful to ask for more. Still, everything can be improved, can’t it?

And just to be clear – when I say improved, I don’t mean adding more megapixels. Or demanding even better low light performance and dynamic range. Or achieving even faster focus and shooting speeds. The manufacturers know everybody wants that stuff, and they seem to be putting all their energy into those areas.

But doesn’t it seem like there are features that could be added to cameras that wouldn’t require a technological breakthrough? Or that wouldn’t make your camera cost a fortune? It always seemed that way to me. So I started asking around to other photographers, then I started asking readers, and finally I asked my fellow dPS writers.

How would you improve digital cameras?

I got some good answers, and have combined them with my own to create a list of 10 new features (a wish list) that could be added to digital cameras to make them better. Here they are, in no particular order:

1. A Small LCD for the Histogram

The first improvement is a separate, smaller LCD on the back of the camera. Why? Let me explain.

We all know that the best way to evaluate exposure when you are shooting is to look at the histogram. Looking at just the picture on the LCD doesn’t work as well when you are trying to evaluate exposure. But look what happens to the picture on the screen when you add the histogram:

LCD-graphic

On the left, where you have the full picture, you can clearly see it. But once you add the histogram, the picture on the right becomes tiny. It is unusable and tells you nothing. We are essentially forced into a position of having to choose between a picture we can see, or just viewing the histogram (but not both). I’d like to do both.

To fix that, you could just put another very small LCD on the back of the screen. It would show only the histogram, so that you could still have a full sized version of your picture.

2. Three Dials

When you set the exposure level of your pictures, there are three controls: shutter speed, aperture, and ISO.

At the same time, how many dials do we have to set those three controls? Two – and that’s if we’re lucky. Entry level cameras often only have one. To change all three exposure controls with only two dials, means you have to press buttons while turning dials. It’s a rather cumbersome process, for the most important and commonly used functions of the camera. If we have three exposure settings, shouldn’t we have three dials to set them?

The odd man out is always ISO, and I personally think this is a hold-over from the days of film. Back then, you couldn’t change the ISO except by changing your film. When digital came along, everyone was pretty happy to be able to change the ISO at all, so having to press a button didn’t seem like a big deal. In addition, at that time, available ISO ranges were extremely limited and if you raised the ISO much then digital noise quickly became a problem.

But now? ISO ranges are huge! Even entry level cameras have ISO ranges up to 25,000. ISO is now truly a equal partner in the exposure triangle. It should be treated as such. That means it should have its own dial. You shouldn’t have to press buttons to adjust it.

ISO-controls-graphic

Stop ISO discrimination! Let’s make it an equal member of the exposure triangle by giving ISO its own dial!

Where would you put the extra dial? There are many places you could choose from, but one thought is to get rid of the mode dial. Having a dedicated dial to quickly change the mode is another hold-over from a time when there were fewer camera controls (and no menus). Who changes their modes so frequently that the most valuable real estate on the camera needs to be taken up with a dial for it? Don’t most people just pick a mode and use it most, or all of the time? Even those that change modes don’t do so often enough that it needs its own dial.

Note: It actually appears that this change might be on the way. There are three dials on most Fujifilm mirrorless cameras and one of them is dedicated to ISO. Perhaps others will follow suit.

Supplied by Fujifilm

Supplied by Fujifilm

3. Lower ISOs

Speaking of ISO, in the rush to expand ISO values on the high side, the lower side of the ISO scale has been completely neglected. The camera manufacturers have worked very hard to make digital sensors more sensitive to light. It would seem like a simple thing to make the sensor less sensitive to light. Why couldn’t cameras have ISO levels of 50, 25, 12, and so on?

Why would that matter? It would put us in more control over shutter speed, and avoid the necessity of carrying around neutral density filters. Why do landscape photographers need to carry around a bunch of neutral density filters to slow down their shutter speeds? If we could lower the ISO, that would require a longer shutter speed for a proper exposure. It seems like that could just be built in, and would make it much simpler. Instead of adding a 3-stop neutral density filter to your lens, you could then just reduce the ISO from 100 down to 12 (3 stops).

Why stop at ISO 100? We should see ISO 50, 25, 12, 6, 3, and so on.

Why stop at ISO 100? We should see ISO 50, 25, 12, 6, 3, and so on.

Of course, we might need to talk about the numbering system for these low ISOs. Moving down 10 stops from ISO 100 would result in ISO .09 which may not work.

4. Retractable Remote Shutter Release

Speaking of landscape photographers, something every one of them needs is a remote shutter release, or an intervalometer. It seems like the shutter release could detach from the camera with a retractable cable. That way you could pop it out and trip the shutter, without moving the camera or risking vibration.

TripodAtGoldenGate

Note the remote shutter release hanging down. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a retractable unit?

It would mean that we wouldn’t have to carry around remote shutter releases.

5. Allowing Longer Shutter Speeds

Another improvement would be to allow longer shutter speeds without the need to switch over to Bulb mode. At present, most cameras limit the length of shutter speeds to 30 seconds. If you want to use a longer shutter speed than that you can, but you have to switch over to Bulb mode. It would be nice to be able to take exposures of a minute or longer without having to switch modes.

Why is this important? Largely because of bracketing (or Auto Exposure Bracketing, or just AEB for short). When you bracket, you are taking three (or more) exposures: one at normal exposure, one underexposed, and one overexposed. If you are starting with a long shutter speed, then the longer shutter speed required for the overexposed picture will often need to be longer than 30 seconds.

For example, if you are taking a bracket of three photos, with your starting shutter speed at 15 seconds, and you set the exposures 2 stops apart, the bracket won’t work as you hope. In this example, the overexposed picture of the bracket would need a shutter speed of one minute (starting at 15 seconds, adding one stop doubles your shutter speed to 30 seconds, and the second stop doubles it again to one minute). But your camera will only allow a shutter speed of 30 seconds, so that won’t work. Your camera will take the normal and underexposed photos, but the overexposed one will be limited to 30 seconds.

Here is a pretty common bracket for those who use them (5-shots, with each shot separated by 1 stop). If the original shutter speed is longer than 6 seconds, the camera will not capture the entire bracket because the most overexposed picture would need longer than 30 seconds.

Here is a pretty common bracket: 5-shots, with each shot separated by 1 stop. If the original shutter speed is longer than 6 seconds, the camera will not capture the entire bracket because the most overexposed picture would need longer than 30 seconds to expose.

How often does this happen? A lot more than you might think. Landscape photographers are known for being out before the sun is up, and they all want to use a combination of a small aperture to maximize depth of field and a low ISO to minimize noise. The only way to get a proper exposure in these conditions is to use very long shutter speeds. These are the same people who have very little control over their lighting and often face dynamic range problems, so they are the most likely to bracket their photos.

6. Self-Timers

Why are self-timers on cameras limited to two and 10 seconds? A reader named Jeff Johnson wondered about this (as well as raising some of the other improvements mentioned in this article). Every $ 10 digital watch in the discount store will allow you to set timers of different ranges, why not our digital cameras?

This is another one that seems to be a hold-over from a prior era. Timers were mechanical devices at one time, and it may have made a lot of sense to limit the options. Now, it doesn’t make sense. It seems like we ought to be able to set whatever length of timer we want, or at least have a few more options.

7. Improved Wifi

One exciting recent development in cameras has been the introduction of Wifi. It allows you to transfer your pictures to your phone or other device wirelessly. But it is usually clunky. You have to turn off your phone’s data connection to connect with your camera. Some have raised the idea of using bluetooth for connection to phones, tablets, and laptops (in addition to wifi). dPS writer John McIntire echoed that, and pointed out the smartphone and tablet control for things like timelapse and long exposures.

 8. Hyperfocal Distance Calculator

Despite its name, the concept of hyperfocal distance is not that complicated. It is just the closest point at which you can focus, and still keep your entire background acceptably sharp. It depends on only three factors:

  1. The sensor size of your camera
  2. The focal length you are using
  3. Your aperture setting.

There are charts and apps that will help you calculate the hyperfocal distance for your shot.

Hyperfocal Distance Charts

Hyperfocal Distance Charts

But why should you be forced to calculate it at all? The aforementioned Jeff Johnson had another great idea of having the camera calculate it for you. After all, the camera is a computer. It already knows all three of the variables involved. Why couldn’t the camera just tell you the hyperfocal distance? It could be part of the camera’s display.

Note: Once again the Fuji cameras lead the way, as the X-T1 and possibly others, do indeed have a hyperfocal distance display inside the viewfinder.

9. Internal storage

Storage has changed remarkably fast in a short period of time. Just a few years ago, you might have been carrying around a bunch of 4 GB memory cards with you. After a couple hundred pictures, you’d swap it out for another. But now, the sizes of memory cards are huge. 128 GB is commonplace, and not all that outrageously expensive. There are even 256 GB cards or even 512 GB cards available as well. As a result, most of us just buy a large card and leave it in the camera. We download the pictures periodically, and resume shooting with the same card.

That’s already a better situation than what we had a few years ago, but doesn’t it seem weird that there is no storage at all in digital cameras (at least not in the mirrorless cameras and DSLRs we tend to use)? It did to Leanne Cole, who wondered why we are fooling around with memory cards at all at this point. Given how much storage can fit in a small place, haven’t we reached the point where storage should be built-in to the camera? Why not have a 500 GB drive already added?

10. Your Changes

These are some items we’d like to see. I think some of these are good ideas, but I suspect there are better ideas out there. So what would you change? Are there things you would add? Are there features you’d like to see put on the digital camera wish list?

Please let us know in the comments below.

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