The Pentax K-500 is a stripped-down version of the K-50, lacking the weather-sealed body and electronic level of that model, but offering the same 16MP sensor and basic ergonomics. It’s an attractive entry-level option, and as soon as a production-quality sample arrived in our office we started shooting with it. Click through for a link to our gallery of real-world samples taken in a range of different environments.
News: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
It’s done. You survived it. It was the longest day of your photography career, you’re exhausted, and all you can think about is how right I was (it’s cool—I get that a lot). But…….You. Did. It. And chances are you didn’t get locked in a bathroom, or miss the kiss, or have a complete equipment failure, or faint face-first into the cake. You shot a wedding. What’s next?
As no-brainer as this is, when I shoot portraits, I’m not a diligent about it as I should be. I’m more of a “cross my fingers/hope for the best/fly by the seat of my pants” kind of gal in most areas of my life. But a wedding is different. Good luck explaining to a new bride that your laptop played a vanishing act with the images and you need her to re-do the whole wedding for photographic purposes. It’s my greatest fear. My greatest fear used to be a complete equipment failure at a wedding, but then I had that happen a few weeks ago and somehow survived it, so I’ve graduated my fear list a bit. As soon as I get home from a wedding, no matter that I can barely see straight, I upload everything to my computer, and then back-up everything to an external drive or disc. Additionally I don’t erase my memory cards until I need them again and I have cloud storage. Because I’m neurotic like that. Weddings are often thousands of images and this takes both time and space. Having both of those things is yet another factor in the expense of wedding photography (see: never shoot a wedding for free). In most other areas of my life, I am totally okay with just hoping for the best and surrounding it with good thoughts. But this isn’t one of them.
These images are going to take you a long time to go through, edit, and deliver. Unless you have some sort of crazy amazing one day editing process, which if you do, I’m going to need you to email that to me immediately. While everyone is anxious to see pictures, no one is more anxious than a still-glowing bride. Give them a little taste and buy yourself some time to ice your camera-strap-indented neck and regain clear vision. Social media is a fabulous option for this if it’s available to you. That way everyone can see them and fawn over how great the images are, giving you a little boost of confidence and the newly minted couple a little attention—both of which work in your favor for the long editing road ahead. (Oh friend, it’s a long road.)
Every wedding I have ever shot has led to at least one referral. In general, I don’t photograph weddings. Yet, there I am, every summer, finding myself wanting to pass out from heatstroke with a 10 pound black box in front of my face. Why? Because I’m a sucker. I suppose I could tell you that it’s because I love weddings and true love and all that, but the truth is: I’m a sucker. Throw a few compliments at me and I’ll do about anything that doesn’t involve roller coasters. I hate roller coasters. (I also hate those rides where you spin on something that’s spinning. I’d like to have a long talk with the guy who thought that was a good idea for your internal organs.) Even if you didn’t hand out a single business card……even if you don’t have a single business card…..they will find you. Unless you were a miserable human being to be around (I don’t judge—I’ve been there), you will get a call about another wedding. Decide right now if this is something you ever want to do again so you can handle that call that will come later. There is nothing wrong with saying no, thank you. It might not be your cup of tea. Or quad carmel latte (I’m becoming a really expensive coffee date lately). There is also nothing wrong with having loved it. The point is that you need to decide quickly because there is literally a barista of sorts waiting on your order and she has a whole line of impatient people behind you and a smoke break coming up.
The last wedding I shot came in at just shy of two thousand images. There were 26 guests, and that’s including the dog ring bearer. I shot for less than 4 hours. I’m an over-shooter. I know this. In my defense: WHAT IF I MISS SOMETHING??? For this said wedding I have no less than 40 images of “the kiss”. Truth? They all look the same. Don’t get me wrong—it was an amazing kiss. Record books, in fact. But, those 40 images I shot in probably 30 seconds of time all look pretty much the same. Yet I want them to see every one!!! What if they love one that’s slightly different than another?? What if the clouds moved just a bit and it makes for the best of forty? I don’t know. What I do know is that to the average person, all 40 of those images look exactly the same. Pick one, edit it to loveliness, and move on. No one knows you have forty of them. And likely, no one cares.
I personally don’t do any printing; if you book a session or a wedding with me, your flat fee includes my time, the finished (edited) high resolution images on a disc, and a full printing and usage release. This is how I have been doing it for years and I find that not having to mess with an 8×10 print of this one or a 5×7 of that one or marking-up my printing costs to cover everything is a much easier way of doing things. And easy works best for me because I am a terrible insomniac (see numerous references to coffee above) and when I get overwhelmed with work (which is often), I go lock myself in my closet and cry a little. However, just handing over a disc feels like a near let-down when I’ve been editing for weeks and, as previously mentioned, spent an extremely long and tiring day just shooting the images. I like a little fanfair, and because wedding photography is such an investment, I think my clients should get a little ribbon and bow. Or maybe a horn section. Depends on what I have access to at the time. I like to put together a “highlight” slideshow of 50 or so of the images that the couple can send to their friends and family to watch online. Additionally, I usually put together a little gift of sorts to give along with the disc—maybe a large print that I put in a readymade frame or for a smaller wedding, I might print off 4×6 prints of each image and put these in a pretty box so theycan make awedding album easily. It honestly just depends on the couple and what I charged. My goal here is only to hand them over something more lovely than a cold silver flat circle.
Wedding photography was never my goal, nor do I consider myself a wedding photographer. I have never advertised or marketed for it, though I have shot about 70 of them in the last decade. It’s tough—I’m not set-up to be a wedding photographer, both from an equipment and time perspective, yet I find myself doing several a year even still. All joking aside, I don’t EVER take on a wedding just for the money or just out of wanting to do something wonderful for a loved one. Every wedding I have ever shot I only ended up there because I truly felt that I was the best person for the job. Many times I was right (this isn’t a time to be humble), but a couple times I was wrong and it makes for a painfully long event day and editing process.
The reason wedding photography is met with such passion by veterans and hobbyist alike is because it’s a big deal; there are no re-dos, no second chances. It’s a type of photography that is all it’s own. So only shoot the weddings where you feel confident that you and the couple feel similar about the end vision. Only shoot the weddings where you genuinely like the couple; if you wouldn’t want to have a beer with them, you’re not going to want to spend a 10 hour day with them. Only shoot the weddings that will give you more than a paycheck, whether that be experience, a day of fun, or that good feeling of doing something wonderful for someone else and knowing you did a good job. It doesn’t matter if you believe in true love or soul mates, it doesn’t matter if you feel like weddings are too over-the-top and unnecessary, it doesn’t matter if one of the biggest highlights was the free piece of cake (I’m a big fan of cake), what matters is that you went in there knowing that you were the person for the job, that you stayed there feeling like you were doing a great job, and you left there happy to have done it.
Tired and glad for it to be over, but happy to have done it.
Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.
Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.
So You’re Going to Shoot A Wedding: Part 3 of 3 [editing, etc.]
From the air, the landscape of Texas’ vast feedlots and oil fields is by turns bleak and surreal. Photographer Mishka Henner aimed to capture the contrasts and intense colors of these landscapes in a collection of work titled ‘Feedlots.’ By stitching together hundreds of satellite images, he created large, detailed prints documenting the dynamism of these locations – earth tones clashing with the violent greens and reds of feedlot waste. Click through to see more of his stirring work.
News: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Street Art & Graffiti. ]
Electrical boxes beware – Evol is back to up to his old tricks, turning urban fixtures and unused walls into tiny cityscapes using a deceptively simple toolbox comprised of cardboard, stencils and spray paint.
From process to execution, this artist is both scrappy and calculating, employing quick-and-dirty materials that are easy to obtain and fast to install, but with a remarkable eye for detail, right down to windows, balconies, satellite dishes and flower pots.
Dotting the sidewalks of Berlin, perhaps aptly at the urban intersection of where communist East once met democratic West, the faux structures themselves are almost relentlessly monotonous from a distance. The facades are just drab and generic enough style-wise to look (perhaps ironically) incredibly lifelike and believable.
Up close, these sprayed-in-place or pasted-on building faces exhibit not only convincing architectural details but also anticipated (yet always-unpredictable) marks of weathering, which in turn reinforce their apparent realism.
Le Corbusier, who many blame for the preponderance of ugly mass-produced architecture born of mid-century urban renewal, called buildings “machines for living in.” For better or worse, Evol seems content to continue this tradition at a smaller scale, relentlessly building whole cities worth of micro-machine habitats.
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Ricoh has announced the AF540FGZ II and AF360FGZ II Pentax-branded flash units. Both are updates to existing models, now boasting weather-sealed construction to match Pentax’s line of weatherized DSLRs. The new flash units also feature built-in LED lights, intended for video recording. The AF540FGZ II offers a guide number of 54 at ISO 100/ft (178 ft) and the AF360FGZ II has a guide number of 36 at ISO 100/m (118 ft). Click through for the full press release.
News: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
Ricoh Imaging has announced an updated set of Pentax DA Limited primes, with improved lens coatings and circular aperture diaphragms. Based on the existing 15mm F4, 21mm F3.2, 35mm F2.8 Macro, 40mm F2.8 and 70mm F2.4 designs, the ‘HD’ versions gain Pentax’s multi-layer HD (High Definition) coating, promising reduced flare and ghosting, and include diaphragms that are completely rounded at large aperture settings to give attractive background blur. The lenses will all available in September 2013, in a choice of silver or black. Click through for more details, including pricing.
News: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
by Matthias Hombauer and Karl Blümel from “The Analog Docs”.
We are two professional music and wedding photographers and we shoot digital when necessary. However, we clearly see the point of going back to analog like a lot of pros are doing nowadays. In this post, we would like to discuss the benefits as well as the drawbacks of film photography from our point of view.
Since we love film, we decided to start our own project named “Analog Docs“, where we exclusively use analog medium format cameras.
The following points are true for all analog camera systems.
Ok, let’s face it. Film shooters will tell you how much they love this special look of film. This is similar to music lovers who tell you that vinyl sounds more organic than a CD. A lot of digital shooters try to imitate this look on their digital files – but you can hardly get there. Film has an incredible colour palette and a huge dynamic range of detail in both highlights and shadows. So why imitate when you simply can shoot analog?
When shooting film, you are bound to know exactly what you are doing. You have to nail the exposure, how you frame the picture and how to direct the model so that he or she doesn’t have his or her eyes closed in the moment you release the shutter. Every picture costs money and believe us, you want to be sure to know your camera beforehand. Furthermore, most of the cameras have got only manual focus lenses and you need an external light meter to get the right exposure. This sounds a little bit frightening to someone who has experience only in digital photography. It’s a steep learning curve but it’s absolutely worth it.
When we are shooting digital, we return from a job with hundreds of pictures, which have to be sorted out and post-processed (we always shoot RAW). With film, we come back with 40 pictures and most of them are awesome. We have outsourced the developing and scanning process of our films and get them sent from our photo lab. Once you know how to handle the different films like Fuji or Kodak already in the camera, you will save a lot of time with post-production. Honestly saying, there is almost no post-processing necessary and you can spend more time on doing the things you love, too.
20 years ago, a professional medium format camera was as expensive as a car. Today you can pick a Mamiya, Hasselblad or Fuji for a decent price and you’ve got an awesome camera, like the pros were/are using. For Contax cameras, this is another story. The price is skyrocketing in the second hand market, cause it is the most popular camera for wedding photographers nowadays. However, you can also acquire an old 35mm camera for a few bucks and get the whole analog experience with it.
BOKEH (Japanese for ‘blur’) is the way “the lens renders out-of-focus points of light”. And this seems to be the search for the Holy Grail for every portrait photographer. There are tons of articles and discussions going on in the web about which lens is the best. The bigger the aperture is, e.g. 1.2, 1.4, the narrower is the depth of field. This makes you just focus on the eyes where the eyelashes are already out of focus. The quality of BOKEH on a medium format camera looks different than a 35mm camera system. So therefore we love our medium format cameras to get this special out-of-focus look.
One advantage of these old cameras is that once you bought them you don’t have to satisfy your needs to have the newest equipment for it: It’s as simple as that: There will not be new stuff released. Most of the cameras we use are 30+ years old and everything you need is available on the second hand market. And there are also a lot of reviews about the equipment in the web, which make it easier to decide which system you should get. Additionally, these cameras are built like tanks and they are of superior quality compared to the newest DSLRs.
Advantages:
Disadvantages:
To us as professional photographers, the advantages are still striking. We provide the best quality you can get from a camera to our clients, which is the most important point. As said in the beginning, we are also shooting digital when needed. When shooting for newspapers and magazines, the time pressure to deliver the pictures won’t always allow for the analog option. However, the best magazine photographers like Martin Schoeller or Dan Winters are still shooting film.
Sure, there is the option of digital medium format cameras, which are gaining wide popularity in the scene. The prices are dropping but they are still in the 30 000$ range. Compared to digital, buying an analog medium format system is a no-brainer.
If you are a sports or newspaper photographer, then shooting film might not be the best choice. But for all of you who want to shoot great portraits, landscapes or architecture and you are willing to learn more about the craft of photography, you should definitely give film a chance.
Matthias Hombauer (Ph.D.) and Karl Blümel (MD) are both professional photographers based in Vienna/Austria. They are founder of “The Analog Docs”. They also have a facebook fanpage.
Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.
Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.
Why Analog Photography (Still) Rocks!
Soft light is beautiful. It is a gift from nature that helps you create interesting images using high quality light. You’ll find soft light in the shade on a sunny day, during twilight after the sun has set, or all around you on a cloudy day.
Let’s take a look at these two photos to see the difference between hard light and soft light. I took the first in direct sunlight in the afternoon. The light is hard and it’s not a good a photo. The contrast is too high – it’s not possible to get good detail in both highlights and shadows.
I resolved the problem by holding a reflector, still in its cover, between the flower and the sun. Actually, it doesn’t matter what I used, the purpose is to cast a shadow over the flower and the background. That means the flower is now lit by soft light, not hard light. Aesthetically, the photo is completely different. The even lighting means that the brightness range of the subject falls is reduced to something that my camera’s sensor can handle comfortably. There are no shadows. The flower is evenly lit, and that gives me nice deep colours. The quality of light has gone from hard and ugly to soft and beautiful.
That’s the power of soft light.
I’m not saying all hard light is bad, and that all soft light is good. What’s important is the match of subject to light. This flower needed to be photographed in soft light to bring out its beauty. Some subjects suit hard light better – I will explore those in a future article.
So, where else does soft light come in useful?
If you’re shooting close-ups, soft light lets you capture colour and detail and avoids bright, distracting highlights or high contrast. Again, the quality of the light is beautiful and suits the subject.
Soft light doesn’t have to be completely shadowless. Sometimes the sun is out, but the air is hazy and the light has a soft luminous quality. The light is hard enough to cast shadows, but they are not very deep. The light in this photo has that quality. See how the light is coming from behind the houses, but isn’t strong enough to create strong shadows. This kind of light seems to work well when the subject is backlit.
Finally, soft light is absolutely beautiful for portraits, especially of women. I’m a little surprised by how many people, photographers and models included, think that sunny conditions are ideal for taking photos of people. Not true! Especially if the sun is the only light source – admittedly the use of a reflector can help compensate for the hard light of direct sunlight. You can also get good results in direct sunlight by using flash to fill the shadows or even overpower the sun. But that’s another article.
If you are taking photos in natural light only, then head for the shade. On a sunny day, the light bounces off any surfaces lit by the sun and into the shadows. It’s like shooting with an enormous, and completely free, reflector. The light is soft and beautiful and creates amazing catchlights in the model’s eyes. The portrait above has these qualities in abundance.
My latest ebook, Mastering Photography: A Beginner’s Guide to Using Digital Cameras introduces you to digital photography and helps you make the most out of your digital cameras. It covers concepts such as lighting and composition as well as the camera settings you need to master to take photos like the ones in this article.
Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.
Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.
The Magic of Soft Light
[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]
A photography project well over a decade in the making, these images by Joseph Blum show the human side and vast scale of construction behind the world’s largest self-anchored suspension bridge, slated to open this Labor Day Weekend in San Francisco and built to last for one hundred and fifty years.
Blum has a 25-year professional background in construction that informs his work but also gives him credibility with workers, enabling him to take close up and personal shots on site. He routinely braved dangerous heights with camera in hand, given remarkable behind-the-scenes access that in turn required extensive gear and safety precautions.
In the following interview with WebUrbanist, Joseph Blum goes into detail about his intentions, approach and what he learned about construction, photography and himself through this long and epic photographic journey.
Notably, almost (if not every) image in the resulting series has a human element. “My intention on this job and in all of my work is to document and honor the human labor involved in the project,” Blum explains. In this case, he “attempted to photograph the construction labor processes insofar as it was possible from the perspective of the workers actually doing the work” in order ” to show how they take the engineers’ plans and drawings and transform them into living structures of steel and concrete.”
Then there is the time frame of the project itself, spanning over a decade during which time there has been a massive shift from traditional film toward digital photography. Blum walks us through the timeline and his own transitions: “When I began this project I was shooting black and white film exclusively and did not believe that would ever change. During the course of the project digital photography burst on to the scene and became ever more sophisticated. I began shooting digital on the job as a supplement, but over time I began to rely upon it more and more.” Eventually, he started “to understand that in photography what is most important is the image and whether it is captured on black and white or color film or digitally is secondary.”
But the learning process also went beyond technical choices: “I also learned a great deal more about bridge construction and the work processes of the various trades.” Blum ended up “hanging out with the work groups for extended periods of time, forming relationships with the workers, getting to understand how they organized their work and their work relationships,” which in turn “increased my understanding of how this kind of labor is accomplished and also allowed me get images that no one else could.”
On a personal level, perhaps this photographer also found a secret to longevity in those high-flying spans overlooking the city: “Although the years went by and I got older, I felt that the project kept me young. photographing the bridge in the middle of the beautiful San Francisco bay required me to carry a substantial photo bag, to do a great deal of walking and climbing in all kinds of weather and i found that every single day that i went out to shoot was invigorating and energizing.” For more information about his work and exhibitions, as well as more images, click here to visit Joseph Blum’s website.
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