RSS
 

Posts Tagged ‘Life’

Canon AE-1: the gear that changed my (photographic) life, again and again

23 May

The Canon AE-1 (Program) is by far the camera that has had the most impact on my life. Not that there’s anything particularly extraordinary about this classic film SLR, aside from its affordability, availability and reliability – ok, I guess that makes it a little special.

Over the years it’s a camera that I’ve come back to again and again as a means to hit reset, and recontextualize my love for photography.

I first picked mine up along with a “nifty fifty” for $ 200 at the end of my second year of high school (May, 2004). I’d been an avid film shooter for about four or five years prior, but hadn’t owned a fully-manual camera (coincidentally the AE-1 Program is one of the first mass-market SLRs with auto controls).

The September (2003) prior I’d launched a monthly zine with some of my friends, packed to the brim with skateboarding and rock & roll photographs, along with silly articles and band/artist interviews (creatively named, Dan’s Zine). I was the chief photographer/editor and took my role quite seriously (for a teenager, at least). We printed them on the B&W Xerox machines at my father’s office and distributed the copies by hand in school and at a local deli.

Skateboarding was my earliest photographic obsession. I shot this in 2004 for a cover of Dan’s Zine, a monthly publication I published with some friends. Will Best, Taildrop.

What started out as mostly a joke blossomed into a full-blown amateur journalistic/photographic obsession. By the time May rolled around, we were printing at least 50+ copies an issue (eventually closer to 150+). With the school year coming to a close I was eager to learn more about photography. Up until that point I’d only really paid attention to composition, but suddenly the idea of exposure control and handling my own film seemed like a brave and exciting new world.

The idea of exposure control and handling my own film seemed like a brave and exciting new world

So I enrolled in a summer darkroom photography course at the local community college. And much to my excitement, a fully-manual camera was at the top of the list for course materials.

That summer accelerated my love for photography at lighting speed. I quickly became a creature of the darkroom, monitoring it on the weekends for modest pay and volunteering to assist other students. I spent hours, often alone, making prints or hanging out by the drying racks reading stacks of old photo magazines from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s.

A selection of “Dan’s Zine” master copies from our 36-issue run.

I also fell in love with my Canon AE-1 that summer; I’d spend the next two years of high school bringing it with me everywhere I went including many solo train trips to Hoboken, New Jersey, where I’d shoot street photography along the waterfront. I also used it to shoot the next 28 issues of Dan’s Zine, which came to a close with issue #36 as I prepared to head off to college (summer, 2006).

I’d acquired a shiny new D300 and all things film photography became an afterthought. My AE-1 would remain untouched for many years to come

I’d spend the next four years studying photojournalism and immersing myself in digital photography and its workflow – first as a photographer for our daily student newspaper, The Daily Targum and later in a variety of editor positions including photo editor. It was there I first handled a DSLR and became hooked on digital.

By my second year in college I’d acquired a shiny new D300 and all things film photography became an afterthought. My AE-1 would remain untouched for many years to come.

I picked back up my AE-1 after a 5 year break to document my transition from college to young adulthood while living in New York City. From a personal project titled Analog 3086.

But then when I needed it most, it reemerged: I was a year out of college and working as an assistant magazine editor, commuting daily from New Jersey to midtown Manhattan. At the time, my life revolved around all things photographic, though I had almost no time on-the-job for actual photography. It was around this point I began to feel a creative emptiness bubble inside me along with all sorts of existential dread.

You can’t force creative passion, so instead reconnect with what made you fall in love with photography in the first place

Perhaps it was the realization that my best years were seemingly behind me (haha) and I’d be spending the next 40-something years working; or perhaps it was a lack of personal creative stimulation. But I needed help, and so I turned to a trusted colleague who advised me that “You can’t force creative passion, so instead reconnect with what made you fall in love with photography in the first place.”

And so I brushed off my dusty AE-1 and start shooting film again, with no real objective other than to try and spark passion. And boy did it.

For me, film is a more intimate medium to work with than digital. From a personal project titled Analog 3086.

I’d spent the next couple years working on personal project, part self-documentation, part observation, called “Analog 3086.” The sole purpose of the project was to foster a stronger relationship between myself and photography.

At the time, I considered most of the images nothing more than snapshots. But as I’ve gotten older and wiser, I now see them as historical records – vivid depictions of a young man finding his way through early adolescence. These are images that otherwise would never had existed, had I not turned back to film.

The rekindling of love for my AE-1 sparked a deep and nerdy interest in film cameras as a whole

That rekindling of love for my AE-1 not only reignited my creativity and passion for photography, it also sparked a deep and nerdy interest in film cameras as a whole. I’d soon begin to buy and sell them with regularity and still do. Years later, my collection would swell to numbers I care not admit.

But even as heavy-hitters like the Leica M6 joined my collection, I’d still find myself picking up the AE-1 in moments where I simply wanted to enjoy photography, without the noise (people see a Leica in the wild and want to talk your ear off). And for many years it remained my go-to photographic decompressor.

Another “Dan’s Zine“-era shot from around 2005. John Mullen, noseblunt slide.

These days, I still use my AE-1 from time to time for sentimental reasons, but it’s largely been retired (replaced by a Nikon FM2). Fortunately, the lessons it’s taught have been well-learned, and I don’t just mean exposure values. It’s taught me how to slow down and reconnect with my childhood photographic curiosity, the one that sent me careening down my present career path some 17 years ago.

It’s taught me how to slow down and reconnect with my childhood photographic curiosity

Ultimately, we all have a story about what got us here, to the point of being photo/camera-obsessed. And mine’s no more or less special than anyone else’s, just as my AE-1 is no more or less special than the 254 currently for sale on Ebay. But you know what is special? The fact that most of us never got into photography because of the gear, we got into because of a feeling: a feeling of joy, curiosity and satisfaction that comes from the first few times you hear that shutter “click”.

It’s a wondrous feeling and one well-worth reconnecting with.

$ (document).ready(function() { SampleGalleryV2({“containerId”:”embeddedSampleGallery_5186610862″,”galleryId”:”5186610862″,”isEmbeddedWidget”:true,”selectedImageIndex”:0,”isMobile”:false}) });
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
Comments Off on Canon AE-1: the gear that changed my (photographic) life, again and again

Posted in Uncategorized

 

Photography Life is releasing all of its courses, for free, on YouTube

09 May

In the event you’ve already taken advantage of all of the other free educational resources that have come to light amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, photo education website Photography Life has announced it is releasing all of its premium photography courses for free on YouTube.

Normally, each course costs $ 150, Photography Life founder Nasim Mansurov explains, he and his team wanted to give back to the community in these challenging times. In the announcement post, he writes:

‘We spent many months filming our courses both indoors and in remote locations, in order to provide the best education we can possibly deliver to our readers. With the world dealing with possibly one of the worst health and economic crises the world has ever seen, we thought it would be a good idea to give away everything we got to our community. We hope that these courses will help our readers in getting solid photography content to learn from, for many years to come.’

Currently, the first course ‘Level 1: Photography Basics Course’ is available on YouTube, with each chapter broken into a separate video. Photography Life’s two other courses ‘will be uploaded to YouTube in the next two weeks,’ according to the announcement page. Below is the introduction video for the first course:

To be notified when the new videos drop (and to support the Photography Life team for offering up its courses), subscribe to the Photography Life YouTube channel.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
Comments Off on Photography Life is releasing all of its courses, for free, on YouTube

Posted in Uncategorized

 

Duchess of Cambridge launches photo competition to document lockdown life in the UK

08 May

The Duchess of Cambridge has launched a photography competition in partnership with the National Portrait Gallery to document stories of human kindness and suffering during the coronavirus pandemic lockdown in Britain. A keen and very capable amateur photographer herself, the Duchess says that she hopes the competition will showcase life under the lockdown and tell stories of how the inhabitants of the UK were affected.

The contest, called Hold Still, will culminate in an online exhibition of 100 of the best images entered. Though not categories as such, the themes of Helpers and Heroes, Your New Normal and Acts of Kindness have been suggested, and Kate expects to see images depicting harrowing stories, stories of sadness as well as uplifting stories that show how the population has come together to help each other.

The competition will be judged by the Duchess herself along with the Director of the UK’s National Portrait Gallery, Dr Nicholas Cullinan as well as members of the gallery team. Entry to the competition is free and you can one images along with a short explanation of what the picture is about. The Gallery says ‘Images must involve people, and can be captured on phones or cameras. Each image will be assessed on the emotion and experience it conveys rather than its photographic quality or technical expertise.’ The images must also have been taken in the UK.

The Duchess of Cambridge is a patron of the National Portrait Gallery as well as being patron of the Royal Photographic Society. She has become recognised for her touching pictures of her children, and is known to be a Canon DSLR and Powershot user, and has taken lessons from a well-known UK press photographer. She recently released images taken as part of a project to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the end of the Holocaust.

The competition is open now, and closes on 18th June 2020. You can find more information and submit your entry on the National Portrait Gallery website.

Press information

Why is the project called ‘Hold Still’?

Today our society had been told to isolate, to stay inside, not to travel unnecessarily or go out unless vital –to hold still to protect our helpers and heroes.And while many people’s lives are on hold, there are some that work harder than ever, and others that endure the upheaval of hardship and loss.

Through this project we hope to record these experiences, holding still to capture moments in time.

So for both those whose lives have been forced to slowdown and those working at a hectic pace, we hope this project will provide an opportunity to record our personal experience through one still image. And that by bringing together these individual moments we can create a collective portrait of lockdown reflecting resilience and bravery, humour and sadness, creativity and kindness and tragedy and hope.

‘Hold Still’ is a portrait of our nation as we pause for the good of others, and a celebration of those who have continued so we can stay safe.

What are the three themes?

  • Helpers and Heroes
  • Acts of Kindness
  • Your New Normal

These have been suggested to help entrants think about what they may like to photograph.

Please note these themes are not categories that entrants will specifically enter but are intended as inspiration for the content and will be in the minds of the panel when they are selecting the final 100.

What are the entry dates?

Entry opens on 7 May 2020 and the closing date 17.00 on 18 June 2020

Are there any restrictions on who can enter?

The project is about recording the experience of people in the United Kingdom so we would like the photograph to have been taken in the United Kingdom.

There is no age restriction, and the project is open to adults and children alike. However, when submitting an image, entrants will need to confirm that the image is their own work and is not defamatory and does not infringe any UK laws (see Terms & Conditions for full details) and that anyone under the age of 18 has the consent of a parent/guardian to enter. Consent will also be needed for any sitter who is identifiable in the photograph (for those under 18 from a parent/guardian).

We will ask entrants to follow current social distancing rules when taking part.

How do I enter my photograph?

Visit www.npg.org.uk/holdstill, complete the entry form and upload your image, along with a short title telling the story of the photograph.

How many images can I upload?

You can upload one digital image.

Any format restrictions on entries?

What are the requirements for the image that I upload?

Each image must be saved as a JPG/JPEG and be smaller than 3 MB.

How many photos will end up in the final selection?

The final selection will be 100 photographs.

What other requirements will be needed?

If your image is part of the 100 selected, you will be required to complete a form to provide information about yourself and the image.

Will there be a cap to the total number of entries to the project?

There will be no cap on the total number of entries to the project.

Who will be making the selection?

The selection will be made by a panel including members of the National Portrait Gallery team, The Duchess of Cambridge and Director of the National Portrait Gallery, Dr Nicholas Cullinan.

When will the selection be on view?

The selection will be available to view as a ‘virtual’ exhibition on the Gallery’s website in August 2020. Following this ‘virtual exhibition’ we hope to show the images across the country later in the year although we are unable to confirm details at this point due to the current restrictions.

Can I send in my application by post?

All submissions must be made online via the website.

I would like to take a picture via an app of someone I miss who is based in another country, is this allowed?

Yes, this allowed as the picture is taken in the United Kingdom.

What will you do with my personal information?

Please see terms and conditions. All personal data given will be held securely by the Gallery and only be used to administer your entry. It may be used for internal research/statistical purposes. It will not be passed to any third parties apart from the project partners for administration of the project.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
Comments Off on Duchess of Cambridge launches photo competition to document lockdown life in the UK

Posted in Uncategorized

 

How to Create a Pep Ventosa Inspired Still Life

06 May

The post How to Create a Pep Ventosa Inspired Still Life appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Charlie Moss.

pep-ventosa-inspired-still-life

Pep Ventosa is a Catalan artist who creates incredible images that explore the boundaries of photography. Made from multiple layers of similar photographs, they create an abstract and often surreal effect with a painterly feel. Ventosa usually creates pictures outside, but you can borrow his ideas to create a Pep Ventosa inspired still life.

How to Create a Pep Ventosa Inspired Still Life

This is an ideal experiment for someone new to working with layers in Photoshop who wants to try and create a fine art inspired still life. You’ll find that even the most mundane objects can create beautiful, ghostly images.

Shoot your base images

First of all, you’ll need your base images. I started with a simple tabletop set up next to a window so that I could work with natural light. You could also use studio lights or lamps for this technique, and different lighting will produce quite different results!

How to Create a Pep Ventosa Inspired Still Life

Once you have your camera set up and an interesting object in place to photograph, take your first image. Then rotate the object a small amount and shoot another. I like to take at least ten images, which seems to always create a good effect. If you choose to start working with lots more images, you begin to run into Photoshop’s file size limitations quite quickly!

Make sure that you place your camera on a tripod the first time you try this out. This will keep your background consistent and allow you to move the object without worrying about having your camera in the same place each time. Once you’ve mastered the technique, you can experiment with moving the camera as well as the object in a different variation of the Pep Ventosa inspired still life.

Work in Lightroom Classic

You can choose to import the images straight into Photoshop and layer them into a stack manually if that’s your preferred workflow. However, I really like the Lightroom Classic functionality that can do all this for you.

How to Create a Pep Ventosa Inspired Still Life

As you can see, the images are all very similar, but each one is slightly different from the last. I’ve tried not to blow out any highlights or get too much black in the shadows. Having the images quite flat in this respect can be helpful when you start to work with the layer blending modes in Photoshop.

Take this opportunity to also clean up any blemishes or marks on the backdrop. Anything left in now will be harder to tidy up later.

How to Create a Pep Ventosa Inspired Still Life

When you’re ready to start layering your images, select them all in Lightroom Classic and then select the “Open as Layers in Photoshop” option. This will create an image file that has all of your base photographs stacked on Photoshop layers. Now you’re ready to start the fun bit of editing your Pep Ventosa inspired still life.

Work with Photoshop blend modes

Blend modes can be intimidating if you’ve never used them before, but this experimental image can be a great time to play with them. There are 27 different blending modes in total, which gives you lots of options for your Pep Ventosa inspired still life.

How to Create a Pep Ventosa Inspired Still Life

At the top of the layer stack is a drop-down box that is available as long as you have a layer highlighted. This is where the blend modes are hiding. Each option allows the layers underneath to show through according to different computer algorithms.

For the image above, I set each layer to “multiply” blend mode and changed the opacity to between 25% and 50%. This results in an extremely dark image at the end (because the colors multiply together mathematically), so I also added a Curves Layer to bring the exposure back up to something normal.

Spend some time experimenting with different blending modes. In my experience, Soft Light and Overlay also give interesting results. Some of the others might, too depending on your base images.

Finishing your image

Once you’ve finished adjusting your layers, you can save the image, close Photoshop, and open Lightroom Classic back up. Now you can polish the image, adjusting the colors and tone to suit your style.

Once you’ve edited an image in Photoshop and taken it back into Lightroom Classic, you can treat it as you would any other image. That means you can apply any effects, filters, or presets to the image.

How to Create a Pep Ventosa Inspired Still Life

If you’ve never worked with presets in Lightroom Classic before consider buying a large set to get you started. As you experiment with them and use them more and more, you’ll get to know how the settings work, and then you can start building your own.

Changing the colors in Lightroom Classic can change the whole mood of a photo. A dark, shadowy blue image can feel quite melancholy and introspective, while a warmer-toned image can feel more hopeful and even joyous.

When you shoot a still life image, it’s not just the subject that conveys emotion, but the colors too. So while you’re finishing off the colors in Lightroom Classic, make sure that they’re helping to communicate your message.

Consider how you’ll print your image

These kinds of images are really begging to be printed quite large on beautifully textured paper. And there are plenty of labs that will do this for you. A textured paper can really enhance the fine art feel of a Pep Ventosa inspired still life, working sympathetically with the multiple layer effect that you’ve created in Photoshop.

If you don’t intend to print your image, you could try adding textures to your work instead. Open the image (again) in Photoshop and try out different textures until you get an effect that you’re happy with. Remember, textures are always best kept subtle!

How to Create a Pep Ventosa Inspired Still Life

Conclusion

There are so many different ways you could use this technique. You could combine it with other photographic techniques, or different post-processing. And of course, there is an infinite number of different subjects that you could photograph.

Please do try your own Pep Ventosa inspired still life. And don’t forget to post your results in the comments – I’d love to see the different ways that we all interpret this idea!

The post How to Create a Pep Ventosa Inspired Still Life appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Charlie Moss.


Digital Photography School

 
Comments Off on How to Create a Pep Ventosa Inspired Still Life

Posted in Photography

 

15 Tips for Documenting Home Life

06 May

The post 15 Tips for Documenting Home Life appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Mat Coker.

Tips for documenting home life through photography

Documenting home life and capturing family moments is what inspired many of us to pick up a camera. But upon picking up a camera, we discovered just how challenging it is to capture those moments.

These 15 tips are ones that I’ve used over the years to capture my family moments. They will help you capture your moments more creatively, overcome lighting challenges, and use simpler camera settings.

The best part is, these tips work whether you’re using a DSLR or just your phone to take pictures.

15 Tips for Documenting Home Life
Learn to spot moments before they happen, what angles make your photos look best, and how to freeze action in dim indoor light.
ISO 6400 f3.8 1/200 sec

Moments

It’s important to capture a good moment because the moment overshadows everything else in your photo. Surprisingly, people will often overlook bad lighting and sloppy composition in your photo simply because you captured a powerful moment.  

The question is, how do you capture a moment well?

Remember that these tips apply to every photo you take, even if you’re using your phone.

1. Distinguish between two major types of moments

There are two types of moments; posed and candid.

With posed moments, you are in control of the details. You decide exactly what or who is in your photo, how they’re positioned, and how everything is interacting together.

When it comes to documenting home life, most of us prefer candid moments. Candid moments are spontaneous events that just happen naturally. By definition, you can’t force these moments to happen, you just see a great moment that happens spontaneously and you want to capture it. Of course, you can easily ruin the natural moments by stepping in and interrupting them.

But candid moments have a special problem, you don’t see them coming until it’s too late!

documenting home life posed moment
A classic example of a posed moment. See the tips below for the use of window light. ISO 1000 f/3.5 1/500 sec

2. Learn to see the future

You’ll be able to capture better moments when you develop the technical skill of seeing the future. Don’t worry, it’s not as impossible as you think.

The key to seeing the future is spotting patterns. When you see a pattern repeating itself, you can reliably predict what is going to come next. Look for patterns as you document home life, and you’ll be ready to capture the moment before it happens.

Documenting home life candid moment
My son spends a few minutes every day deeply engaged in picture books. As long as I don’t let him see the camera, I can sneak a few photos. I used his feet and the book as a frame around his face. This picture was backlit using a window. ISO 1600 f/4.7 1/400 sec

3. Take your camera and go looking for moments

You know that when things go strangely quiet, something interesting is happening. So pick up your camera and go see what your kids are up to. If you don’t take your camera with you, by the time you go find it, the moment will have passed. It will be too late. When the house is quiet, pick up your camera, then go looking.

Candid moments
I discovered him asleep, and it was the perfect time to photograph his curls before his first hair cut. ISO 1600 f/2.0 1/10 sec

4. Include action and emotion

One key to capturing better moments while documenting home life is to make sure that they include action or emotion. Again, if everything else goes wrong, the action or emotional element will make your photo stronger.

capturing action
Both the kite and the girl are in action. ISO 200 f/2.8 1/500 sec

Composition

As you improve your skill of capturing moments, you can begin to compose better photos as well.

Start with angles. They are one of the best compositional tools because they completely change the way your photo looks and feels.

5. Bug’s eye view

This angle is wildly dramatic. Get really low, look straight up and see things tower above you. When you take all your pictures from the same angle, they are boring to look at. So make 1 out of 10 a bug’s eye view.

Bug's eye view photo
Taken with an old iPhone. ISO 320 f/2.8 1/20 sec

6. Low angle

Low angles take your photos to a new level by adding drama to your photo. Use it when photographing action moments like the child jumping across beds in the photo above.

low angle photo
Taken during a wind storm. ISO 2000 f/2.8 1/200 sec

7. Face-to-face

This angle puts you eye to eye with your subject and makes your photo more captivating. This angle works especially well when combined with emotional moments.  

15 Tips for Documenting Home Life

8. High angle

High angles are great for capturing the cuteness of little kids. Partly because a higher angle can make people look a little smaller. It’s a friendly angle.

high angle photo
ISO 250 f2.8 1/160 sec

9. Bird’s eye view

Our last angle is the bird’s eye view. You get right up there and look straight down. You don’t have to be high up in the air for this angle, just higher than your subject.

bird's eye view photo angle
ISO 50 f2.4 1/20 Sec

Background 

10. Avoid cluttered backgrounds

A cluttered background will weaken your photo. There are two ways to deal with a cluttered background in your photo. The first is to change your angle slightly to avoid distracting elements. The second is to actually clean up your house. Of course, maybe a messy background is part of documenting home life!

15 Tips for Documenting Home Life

Use Frames

Look for objects that will frame your subject in an interesting way. Try shooting through cracks in doorways or window frames.

documenting home life framing
This photo is symmetrical, with the door in the background framing her. The funny expression on her face breaks the order of this photo. ISO 800 f/2.8 1/250 sec

Light

12. Use natural window light

Windows are a great source of natural light. You can use them for portraits, silhouettes, and just generally good lighting. Try to capture moments close to a window.

15 Tips for Documenting Home Life
It is window light that contributes to the contrast and depth of this photo.

13. Pay attention to the direction of light

Consider what direction the light is coming from. Front and sidelight are great for portraits, backlight is great for drama.

15 Tips for Documenting Home Life
Sidelight skims across his face and brings out the texture of the couch.
15 Tips for Documenting Home Life
The backlight in this photo creates a dramatic silhouette.

Think of all these elements as a stack. A couple of these elements will improve your photos, but the more of these elements you stack together, the stronger your photo will become. You don’t have to be an expert in light, moment, and composition. You only need to take small steps in each of these elements and the power is when you combine those small steps together.

Camera settings for dim light

One of the biggest problems you’ll run into indoors is dim lighting. Dim lighting can leave your photos looking dark or blurry from motion.

14. Open curtains and blinds

If it’s daytime, make sure to open curtains and blinds.

15. Help your camera see in the dark

  • Try increasing your ISO to 1600, 3200, or 6400.
  • Open your aperture all the way (look for a smaller number like f/1.8) to let in more light.
  • Consider purchasing a 35 mm or 50 mm prime lens with an aperture of f/1.8.
  • Zoom lenses usually have smaller apertures and don’t let in his much light.

These settings will help your camera let more light in and have a quicker shutter speed so that your photos are less likely to be blurry. 

15 Tips for Documenting Home Life
You’ll need to hold very steady with such a slow shutter speed. ISO 5000 f/2.0 1/15 sec

Checklist for documenting home life

Remember, you don’t have to become an expert in every single one of these areas. As you stack these elements together, a slight bit of improvement in each of these areas will give you much better photos.  A bit of emotion, from the right angle, with some interesting light, just might produce a work of art.

Settings to help with dim light

  • ISO 1600, 3200, 6400
  • Aperture f1.8

Moments

  • See moments before they happen by spotting patterns
  • Include emotion or action

Composition

  • Angles
  • Background
  • Frames

Light

  • Use windows
  • Direction of light

Feel free to add your ideas about documenting home life, or share your images in the comments below!

15 Tips for Documenting Home Life

The post 15 Tips for Documenting Home Life appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Mat Coker.


Digital Photography School

 
Comments Off on 15 Tips for Documenting Home Life

Posted in Photography

 

The gear that changed my (photographic) life: reader responses part 2

03 May

Reader responses part two – gear that changed my life

Photo of Canon AE-1 by DPR member WoifC

We’ve compiled more of our favorite responses to the question we’ve been asking – both of ourselves and our readers – “What was the piece of gear that made the biggest difference to your photography?” We enjoyed reading all of your stories and have picked out a few of our very favorites to highlight.

This time around, we saw many responses expressing gratitude toward the person who inspired them to pursue photography, in addition to the gear that made the difference. There were also several responses naming the books that changed their photographic lives, which is a sentiment we can definitely get behind.

Reading your answers to this question has been a true joy in times when joy has been harder to come by than usual. We’re grateful to share in the remembrances of the people, books, cameras and lenses that spurred each of our readers further down a path pursuing photography. Thanks to all who took the time to respond, and if you haven’t yet it’s not too late! Leave a comment and tell us your story.

Pentax K10D

Doc Pockets: I was to take a 15-week road trip in a quest to photograph what most will call lousy winter weather. A 1996 4X4 F350 with a service body took us from the Sonoran Desert (home) to and across all the Canadian provinces ending in the Maritimes then driving down the American East Coast…. Three bodies, two DA* 2.8 zooms and a wide prime was chosen.

Drenched in downpours (Vancouver Island), blizzard -blasted (Cabot Trail), sand-blasted (Lake Superior’s shorelines) and one spent two hours with the 50-150mm 2.8 DA* attached in 20 feet of silty water (thanks to my sister) without the slightest problem. To this day those cameras work!

Read the full comment

‘My friend Peter’

JeffieBoy: He is about 5 yrs older than me and for 40+ years has been a mentor and someone I have looked up to. The first time we met, he walked into the room and mumbled something like F5.6 under his breath.

He later explained that he was teaching himself to quantify light In his mind’s eye so he would always be ready to get a good exposure. I practised for a month or more and eventually got very good at it… My cameras were always ready because I was unconsciously presetting everything as light changed.

Read the full comment

Michael Reichmann

Chris Butler: It wasn’t an “it” but a “who” that changed my concept of what I could do with with a camera. Specifically, it was Michael Reichmann’s 2000 comparison of digital images to film, in which he had the audacity to prove the 3 megapixel D30 could produce images as good or better than film. I sold all my considerable film gear and never looked back. Well done, Michael, and RIP.

Read the full comment

Pentax SFXn

Photo of Pentax SFXn by DPR member arthur01

arthur01: …the game changer for me, as a wedding photographer using film, was the underrated Pentax SFXn. It was the first time I used autofocus. As a person wearing glasses and struggling to achieve sharp focus as it got dark towards the end of the after ceremony shots it made all the difference. It prolonged my wedding career.

Read the full comment

‘The New Joy of Photography’ (1985 edition) by the Editors of Eastman Kodak Co.

donnybrook: I was a young field engineer that had just bought a used Minolta XG-7 and a few lenses off a colleague to upgrade my point and shoot film camera. That book basically taught me photography and I would review it before going on vacation trips with my film SLR for years. Not just aperture and exposure compensation but balance, composition, vision and light. Lots of great shots to admire and motivate.

Read the full comment

Nikon D5300

Photo by DPR member Aphidman with Nikon D5300

Aphidman: In 2013 I discovered that 35mm film could not be found outside of cities, and realized it was time to change technologies. Used Air Miles points to get the D5300. It re-ignited my love of photography that had been dormant since my teenage years. Used it to discover what kinds of photography I enjoyed most; 4 years later, upgraded to a D7500… which addressed all the things that held me back with the D5300. An adult daughter now uses that D5300, for which I will always have fond memories.

Read the full comment

Nikkormat Ftn

Photo via Wikimedia Commons by E Magnuson

CTaylorTX: It was January 15, 1972. Fairhaven Camera in East Haven, CT. I was 16, and had saved for a year and was ready to buy my first 35mm SLR. The man behind the counter had already loaded the batteries into a Pentax Spotmatic SP1000. My mom looked at me and said “I have another $ 50, is there something you would like better than this?” I pointed at a Nikkormat Ftn with 50mm f/1.4 Auto-Nikkor – “yes, that!” … While I still love the Pentaxes, the Nikkormat opened the doors to shooting Nikon for the next two decades.

Oh, yes, how do I know the exact date? On the ride back home, the car’s A.M. radio informed me that ‘American Pie’ was now #1 on ‘America’s Top 40’. Thanks for the memory, Kasey Kasem.

Read the full comment

Canon TS-E 17mm F4L

Photo by DPR member John Crowe with Canon 17mm F4 L TS-E

John Crowe: After striving to improve my ultra wide angle photography for 25 years, through three different formats, I sold the 4×5 and 120 cameras and went all in on the Canon 17mm f4 L TS-E. That was almost 10 years ago, and soon realized that not only could I correct perspective but that I could also shift and stitch images together to create even wider views! It took a couple more years for the stitching software to catch up, but once it did, I could achieve the kind of results that I had been searching to create for decades.

Read the full comment

Sony a6000

Photo by DPR member Luddhi with the Sony a6000

Luddhi: …I was rarely taking my camera out as it was too heavy to take bush-walking so I pestered my local camera shop trying out all the lighter cameras until – against the advice of the shop, I bought a Sony a6000. This changed my life. I was able to carry it in my jacket pocket.

I carried it in my hand for about 6 hours through Washpool National Park after I tore my jacket pocket. I could take satisfactory photos one handed – important when holding onto a tree to lean out and take a shot of a ravine. Also whereas my grandchildren would flinch when they saw me with the 50D they practically ignore(d) the a6000. So I now have some good and some funny shots of my grandchildren that I otherwise would not have got.

Read the full comment

Canon AE-1

Photo by DPR member WoifC taken with the Canon AE-1 and Ilford FP4

WoifC: When I was 6 or 7 years old, my mother gave me a Canon AE-1 no one used… There was no film in it and I walked around, tried to focus on anything I found interesting and was soooo proud that I was allowed to push the shutter release button. That’s 30 years ago but I still remember that day and know that this was the day I fell in love for photography.

My son is now 8 years old (since Monday) and loves to take photos too. Sometimes he asks me to borrow my X-T2… and walks around taking photos like I did when i was as old as him. Maybe we will share this hobby when he is older. I hope so.

Read the full comment

Speed Graphic

Photo of minor league baseball images created by DPR member SRHEdD using 35mm and Speed Graphic cameras

SRHEdD: I worked for a rural ad agency and shot 35mm Nikons, but we hired a photographer with a Sinar 4×5 from a larger metropolitan area at great expense. On vacation, I saw an old Speed Graphic in its fiberboard case with two lenses and a half dozen film holders for $ 200 at an antique shop. It worked perfectly. I bought a Polaroid back when I got home and instantly replaced having to hire anyone else.

I shot food for a major poultry company, team photos for a minor league baseball team, and some great still lifes used for our clients’ annual reports, etc. I think it was then that I was comfortable calling myself a professional photographer.

Read the full comment

Foba camera stand

Photo of DPR member Jim Kasson with Foba camera stand

Jim Kasson: Lots of gear has allowed me to do things I couldn’t otherwise do. I couldn’t have done Staccato before the D3. I couldn’t have done much of Timescapes without the Betterlight scanning back. But the piece of gear that has changed my life the most in the past few years is a Foba camera stand. Setups that were a pain are now effortless.

Read the full comment

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
Comments Off on The gear that changed my (photographic) life: reader responses part 2

Posted in Uncategorized

 

Gear that changed my (photographic) life: the Canon PowerShot G3

02 May
Old and new: The Canon PowerShot G3 and the PowerShot G1 X Mark II.

This article was originally published in 2017 as part of our ‘Throwback Thursday’ series.

It’s hard to believe that the Canon G-series is almost 17 years old, and while technology has certainly marched forward, ‘G cameras’ have consistently been a favorite of enthusiasts and even pros. (OK, there was that whole kerfuffle when the G7 dropped Raw support, but Canon saw the error of its ways and corrected course with the G9.)

However, through all the years, there’s one model in particular that always stands out in my memory: the PowerShot G3. In part, this is surely due to the fact that it’s one of the cameras that helped me make the transition to digital, but I don’t think I’m alone in this. The G3 was released right around the time that a lot of photographers were making the same transition, and the camera offered a fast lens and all the manual controls you could want. Its ‘rangefinder’ look undoubtedly appealed to aesthetic tastes as well.

Taking the PowerShot G3 to the summit. North Cascades National Park, Washington.

Photo by Dale Baskin

It’s predecessor, the PowerShot G2, was already a popular camera, but the G3 improved on it in a number of important ways.

Most notably, the G3 featured a 35-140mm equivalent F2.0-3.0 lens that maintained a relatively fast aperture throughout the range (which wasn’t quite as fast as the G2’s 34-102mm F2.0-2.5 lens, but it provided a lot more reach). Although it had a tendency to exhibit some purple fringing in high contrast scenes, it never stuck out as a terrible problem to me. To make good use of the lens, Canon added FlexiZone autofocus and the ability to manually select from over 300 focus areas around the screen

Crossing the Dome Glacier.

Photo by Dale Baskin

It was also one of the first (if not the first) compact camera to get an internal neutral density filter, a feature that continues on G-series cameras – and many other compacts – to this day. It made the camera usable at wide apertures even in bright sunlight, and allowed for long exposures to create motion blur, such as with moving water.

Of course, the thing most people cared about was image quality, and the G3 didn’t disappoint. In Phil’s original review, he praised the G3, saying ‘The Super-Fine JPEG option delivers almost TIFF-like image quality with no JPEG artifacts or loss of detail.’

Lantern light near Juneau, Alaska.

Photo by Dale Baskin

What appealed to me were the G3’s Raw files. Although it had the same 4MP resolution as the G2, the G3 could capture 12-bit Raw files, compared to the G2’s 10-bit files. Whether this actually made a real world difference in images from those older, smaller sensors, I don’t know. But it sounded good. (Fun fact: back when the G3 came out, DPReview even made sure to tell readers how many Raw images would fit on a 1GB Microdrive. The answer is 272, if you’re curious.)

One feature that hasn’t carried through to modern day ‘G cameras’ is the optical viewfinder. The G3 had an ‘optical tunnel’ viewfinder with about 84% coverage, and beginning at moderately wide angles the lens blocked the lower left corner of the image. But it was an actual viewfinder, making it easier to take pictures in bright places, like on top of a glacier. With practice I became very adept at using it.

Sunset descent. Cascade Mountains, Washington.

Photo by Dale Baskin

As I look back at the G3 now, I realize that it was a camera designed to appeal to SLR users who wanted to go digital, but who weren’t ready to break the bank on an EOS D60. Other than interchangeable lenses, it had all the features you could want: Raw images, viewfinder, top plate LCD, PASM modes, E-TTL hot shoe, command dial on the grip, manual focus point selection, and even the ability to use filters with a bayonet adapter. And it also looked a little more like a traditional camera than the more curvy G2.

Between its relatively compact size, large feature set, and excellent Raw files, the G3 was a camera I could carry along on adventures, confident that I would be able to get the shots I wanted. And it did just that, accompanying me to the tops of mountains, through national parks, and to a few foreign countries. Just playing around with it while writing this article makes me want to go use it again.

Ah, nostalgia…

Read our Canon PowerShot G3 review


If you have a piece of gear that you’d like to write about, we’d love to hear from you – and you might even get featured on the DPReview homepage. Leave us a short note in the comments and if you have a longer story to tell, send it to us, and we’ll take it from there.

Sample Photos

$ (document).ready(function() { SampleGalleryV2({“containerId”:”embeddedSampleGallery_1067435630″,”galleryId”:”1067435630″,”isEmbeddedWidget”:true,”selectedImageIndex”:0,”isMobile”:false}) });
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
Comments Off on Gear that changed my (photographic) life: the Canon PowerShot G3

Posted in Uncategorized

 

Sparkling Water Still Life – Put some Fizz in your Photos

01 May

The post Sparkling Water Still Life – Put some Fizz in your Photos appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Rick Ohnsman.

sparkling water still life featured image - roses

Often the key to making a good photo is to show the commonplace in a whole new way. Bombarded by so many visual images each day, photo viewers need something that breaks the rules, that looks different to make them pause on your photo. This sparkling water still life technique will challenge your photo skills. It will teach you how to compose and light still life subjects, give you practice with editing tools and techniques, and help you create interesting images. Maybe best of all, you’ll have some fun.

Sparkling Water Still Life - 01
Strongly backlit and filled with flash, these tulips were shot submerged in a vase of sparkling water. The image was flipped vertically in post-production. Canon 6D with Tamron 90mm f2.8macro lens – 1/20 sec. f/11 ISO 200

Perhaps another plus to this kind of photography (I write this holed up at home during isolation), is it can be done at home on the kitchen counter or wherever you like to work. You can then post your creation online, giving us all the enjoyment of viewing your image.

Shall we get started? Break out the bubbly!

Sparkling Water Still Life - 02
Citrus slices make good subjects for this kind of photography as they look like they belong in sparkling water. Sliced thin, they are translucent, lending themselves to backlighting. Canon 6D with Tamron 90mm macro lens – Left – 1/4 sec. f/22 ISO 800 Right 1/30 sec. f/8 ISO 800
Lighting sparkling water still life - 03
This image was lit from below with an LED flashlight and from behind with a Lumecube Air.

What you’ll need

Sparkling water

You can use various kinds of carbonated waters or sodas (perhaps champagne if you’re feeling decadent). What you’re after are the bubbles. There are no rules here and so use what suits your vision.

For the images here, I found seltzer water well-suited to the purpose. It is crystal-clear, has good carbonation, and with no sugar added doesn’t leave a sticky mess when it comes time for cleanup.

sparkling water still life with colored pencils
The colored pencils were taped together, clamped to the rectangular vase, and lit from below with an LED flashlight.

Glass container

What you use will depend on the image you’re trying to create. I found a rectangular glass vase with flat sides well-suited for the purpose. A small aquarium could work well.

Of course, if the subject and the theme you seek are different, wine or champagne glasses could work too. The only consideration here is to think about how the glass may distort anything placed inside it.

Sparkling water still life - various backgrounds
Essentially the same shot, but substituting different color backgrounds for different looks. Canon 6D with Tamron 90mm macro lens – 1/10 sec. f/11 ISO 800

Subjects

There is no end to the items you might choose to submerge for a sparkling water still life photograph. I found that things that seem consistent with the theme to be good choices. The kinds of things one might find in a watery-bubbly environment.

Fruits and flowers can be good choices. You’ll also see I used shells and other aquatic items. Of course, other items with good color and interest become even more interesting covered with bubbles.

A quick dip into some science behind all of this – items with rougher surfaces, those with more nucleation sites where bubbles can form, can be more interesting. The flowers in my shots demonstrate this concept. Bubbles won’t form as easily on smoother, non-porous surfaces.

Sparkling Water Still Life - Put some Fizz in your Photos
The surfaces of the roses and stem have many “nucleation sites” where the CO2 bubbles in the seltzer water can form. Canon 6D with Tamron 90mm macro lens – 1/30 sec. f/8 ISO 800

Cleanliness

Most often, you will be shooting close-up, very possibly with a macro lens, for this kind of photography. The smallest of items, scratches, and dirt on the glass container, dirt and other material suspended in the water and such, will all show up and perhaps even become places where bubbles might form.

You should scrupulously clean the container you will be using before you get started. Doing so will save you lots of time later trying to remove unwanted specks from your photo digitally.

Sparkling water still life - Difficulties
These shots illustrate some difficulties you might have. The image on the left is straight out of camera. The slow shutter speed of 1/10th second was insufficient to freeze the motion of the bubbles leaving streaks. The starfish was buoyant and floated in the container which wasn’t large enough to allow it to fit fully in frame. The image at right is edited to remove some distractions, but this wasn’t going to be a keeper.
Canon 6D with Tamron 90mm macro lens – 1/10 sec. f/22 ISO 800

Setup

Using your cleaned container, place the subject(s) you want inside before adding any liquid. Consider whether the subjects will float. Even if they are just slightly buoyant, once they are covered with bubbles, they are apt to get some extra lift. Be ready with some clamps, wire, tape, or other means of keeping them submerged and where you want them.

Compose and frame your shot. Depending on the subject size and how close you need to be, you may find a macro lens is needed. Other alternatives could be extension tubes, close-up filters, or a reversed-lens.

If you don’t need to be as close, you might put your camera further away and zoom into the shot.

NOTE: Do all of this before adding the water to the container. The bubbles will dissipate with time and you don’t want that happening while you’re still setting up.

Sparkling Water Still Life - Put some Fizz in your Photos
Different containers will change the look of your subject, but the curved glass of this glass does distort the image the liquid in the submerged portion of the rose magnifies it making it seem larger than the above-water portion of the flower and the curve of the glass adds other distortions. Canon 6D with Tamron 90mm macro lens – 1/2 sec. f/20 ISO 800

Lighting considerations

Sparkling Water Still Life - Put some Fizz in your Photos
This image shows lighting from below with a LED flashlight and from the front with a Lumecube Air.

This is a great opportunity to experiment with lighting sources and techniques.

Working in a glass container gives you the opportunity to light from almost any direction; top, bottom, front, back, left, right, or a combination of these. Whether you use flash, continuous lights, natural lighting, whatever you can come up with – it’s all up to you.

Definitely use this exercise as an opportunity to play and explore. Digital film is cheap. This shouldn’t be a one-and-done kind of shoot. Make lots of shots, exploring lighting placement, various apertures and shutter speeds, light modifiers, whatever you like.

Sparkling Water Still Life - Put some Fizz in your Photos
Same subject, front-lit on the left, back-lit on the right. Canon 6D with Tamron 90mm macro lens – 1/13 sec. f/22 ISO 800
Sparkling Water Still Life - Put some Fizz in your Photos
Same image, different backgrounds. Experiment with different things! Canon 6D with Tamron 90mm macro lens – 1/10 sec. f/11 ISO 800

Backgrounds

The addition of bubbles to your subject will cause it to become a “busier” composition. Having a patterned background is apt to distract or overly complicate the image.

I find solid backgrounds, and often plain white or black to work best. (I’ll get into the advantages of those simple white or black backgrounds in a minute.) Again, this will depend on the look you are trying to achieve, but do give consideration to not only your subject but the background.

Sparkling Water Still Life - Put some Fizz in your Photos
Canon 6D with Tamron 90mm macro lens – 1/13 sec. f/16 ISO 800

Editing and cleanup

I can almost guarantee your image will need some work in editing after the shoot. Simplifying and cleaning up things you don’t want will be necessary.

Adjusting highlights, shadows, white and black levels, and cloning out distractions will all improve your photo. Whatever your editing tools of choice might be, use this exercise as a means of teaching yourself more about what you can do and how to do it.

My tools of choice are Adobe Lightroom Classic and Photoshop.

Having a white or black background can help a lot in that with adjustments, the adjustment brush, the histogram highlight and shadow clipping tools, and the spot healing tool, I can often do whatever I need in Lightroom alone.

For tougher cloning or healing operations, I may escalate the edit into Photoshop.

Images with color backgrounds are apt to be more challenging. Again, use this exercise as a means of learning tools and techniques you might not have previously explored.

Sparkling Water Still Life - Put some Fizz in your Photos
When editing an image in Lightroom with a black or white background, you may purposely want to have the background go totally black or white. Turning on the highlight/shadow clipping tools will show 100% black (0,0,0) areas in a blue highlight, totally white (255,255,255) areas in red. The “J” key is the shortcut to toggle this off and on. You can then use the adjustment brush, automask, and other LR to “paint out” distracting elements.

Flip it

Often while making a sparkling water still life, your subject will be down in the liquid. Don’t overlook the simple ability to flip your image vertically during editing to put it in a more natural viewing position.

Have fun!

Maybe the biggest reason for this table-top photo exercise is it is fun. You will be amazed at how you can make otherwise simple subjects much more visually exciting with the addition of some bubbles and creative lighting when you make sparkling water still life photos.

So, if you have to stay home, why not find ways to creatively use your time to expand your photo skills and make some nice images?

Give it a try, post your creations in the comments section of this article and be well my friends.

The post Sparkling Water Still Life – Put some Fizz in your Photos appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Rick Ohnsman.


Digital Photography School

 
Comments Off on Sparkling Water Still Life – Put some Fizz in your Photos

Posted in Photography

 

The gear that changed my (photographic) life: the Nikon D3

22 Apr

This article was originally published in 2017 as part of our ‘Throwback Thursday’ series.

In 2007, after several years of lagging behind Canon in the enthusiast and professional DSLR market, Nikon was doing alright. Not spectacularly, but they were hanging in there. The D200 was a popular and capable enthusiast model, and the professional D2x was a significant advance on the muddled ‘h’ and ‘s’ releases of the past. But it was their biggest competitor that seemed to have all the momentum. While Canon had been using APS-H and full-frame sensors for years, none of Nikon’s DSLRs offered sensors bigger than APS-C, and Canon still ruled the roost in terms of autofocus1 and high ISO imaging capability.

But around that time, we had an inkling that Nikon had something big on the way. Not a company prone to grand gestures, Nikon invited the world’s press (and I do mean the world’s press) to Tokyo, in the sapping humidity of a Japanese heatwave for a top secret announcement…

The magnesium alloy-bodied D3 was as tough as anything that Canon ever brought to market, but offered a combination of speed, sensitivity and autofocus performance that the industry had never seen before.

Ten years ago, camera technology was advancing continuously, and quickly. For quite a long time, it seemed like every new generation of digital cameras was better than the last in ways that camera buyers (and reviewers) actually cared about. Obviously, each new cycle brought more megapixels, but equally as important were the ergonomic and performance improvements that made each new generation of cameras easier to use, and more effective than the last.

Buzz Aldrin, in London to mark the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing.

Nowhere were these advances more obvious than in the professional DSLR segment. Compare the original EOS-1D of 2001 to the EOS-1D Mark IV of 2010. They look similar, but in terms of usability and image quality they’re worlds apart.

Let’s take usability, to start with. If we look at just the screen interfaces alone, in less than a decade, LCDs got bigger, and much sharper. Live view became standard, and, camera menu systems evolved from messy lists that looked like Windows ME error messages to friendly tabs and mobile-inspired icons.

My personal D3S, nestled alongside a D810 and several lenses in a Pelican case. It’s still great, and I still use it.

The 4MP Canon EOS-1D is still capable of turning out decent-looking images for web and limited print use, and it can do so impressive quickly (8 fps ain’t bad for a sixteen year-old DSLR). But the EOS-1D Mark IV offered four times the pixel count, better image quality across the board, including a far superior high ISO imaging capability, a faster continuous shooting rate, and a much more sophisticated autofocus system – plus live view and movie mode.

High Barn, not far from where I grew up, in North Yorkshire. 12MP might not be much by 2017 standards, but it’s enough for a high quality 13-inch print.

All of this is by way of preamble. The point (finally! He gets to the point!) is that even by the fast-paced standards of the professional DSLR market in the mid 2000s, the Nikon D3 was a major technological achievement. Arguably, (and I admit it’s a big ‘arguably’) the EOS-1D Mark IV and its successors might not have been quite such advanced cameras without the technological game-upping that Canon had to do in the years following the launch of the D3.

Nikon D3 Sample Images (2008)

$ (document).ready(function() { SampleGalleryV2({“containerId”:”embeddedSampleGallery_0514703700″,”galleryId”:”0514703700″,”isEmbeddedWidget”:true,”selectedImageIndex”:0,”isMobile”:false}) });

As a working photographer and photography writer at the time, the D3 was (and remains, actually) the single most impactful product to be released during my career. Before Nikon’s presentation in Tokyo had even drawn to a close,2 our industry’s expectations of what a DSLR could do had been shifted.

Until the D3, you could either have a fast cropped sensor DSLR, or a slow full-frame one – not both. Until the D3, the maximum ISO sensitivity setting that you might be able to shoot at was either 1600 or 3200 (depending on the model), and even then, not particularly confidently. Until the D3 (and its sister model the D300) came along, if you wanted the best autofocus performance, there was no question – you bought Canon.

Melody Gardot, performing in London. The D3’s shutter sounds like someone just dropped a cribbage board onto a marble floor, but the D3S introduced a fairly discreet ‘Q’ mode.

I was happily shooting with a Canon EOS-1D Mark II when the D3 was released. For the kind of photography I was doing at the time, the Mark II was one of the best cameras on the market, and did the job perfectly well – or so I thought. I felt the same way about the 1D Mark II in 2007 as I did about my Nokia 3210. Solid, reliable, and elegant in its own way. A useful and streamlined tool.

At risk of overstating the point, the D3 was to my EOS-1D Mark II what the iPhone was to the Nokia 3210: a paradigm shift.3

Florence Welch, shot with the D3’s successor, the D3S. The D3S added some welcome tweaks over the D3, including in-camera sensor cleaning, and slightly improved high ISO image quality.

Using the D3, I could shoot quickly and without a crop factor for the first time. I could capture full-color images in light so low that my own eyes couldn’t fully discern what I was looking at (and the AF could usually keep up). I could shoot at ISO 6400, and marvel at the moderate film-like grain – a grain pattern that wasn’t distracting at all, and showed no banding. The D3’s autofocus system was at least a generation ahead of what I was used to in terms of tracking too, allowing me to reliably use AF-C, even with off-center AF points in poor light.

Nikon D3S Sample Images (2010)

$ (document).ready(function() { SampleGalleryV2({“containerId”:”embeddedSampleGallery_3187037466″,”galleryId”:”3187037466″,”isEmbeddedWidget”:true,”selectedImageIndex”:0,”isMobile”:false}) });

In practical terms, this meant that I could capture images of performers in light so marginal that none of the other photographers working alongside me were able to get a sharp exposure.

A couple of times during my first few months of shooting with the D3 (when I had the camera for review, but before it was shipping in significant numbers) I found myself alone in the photo pit at a small venue, still shooting in punishingly low light after the other photographers had given up and left.4

But it wasn’t just performance photographers that were amazed by the D3. Wildlife photographers, too, were raving about this amazing new camera that let them shoot in full color, in situations where previously they would have been limited to infrared. Like I said, it was a paradigm shift.

The D3S has accompanied me on a few shooting trips in 2017, including a protest against the Trump administration’s attempted travel ban, back in January.

So of course I bought one. I sold all my Canon gear, took a hit on the exchange, ate tinned food for a few months and picked up a D3 with a 24-70mm F2.8. I added more lenses over the following couple of years when I could afford to, and ultimately traded the D3 for a D3S. The D3S added in-camera sensor-cleaning (one of the D3’s few deficiencies), even better high ISO image quality and a basic HD video function. That was around the same time I started to write for DPReview, and about a year after that we moved to America and I mostly stopped shooting live music.

My life has changed a lot since then, but I still have my D3S and I still use it – mostly now as a second camera for event photography. And no, Dan Bracaglia – I’m not selling, so stop asking.

A still from a commercial shoot for a young singer-songwriter, Anna Sinfield, in 2008. She’s a producer, these days, for UK radio.

One last anecdote…

Not long after the D3’s launch, back in London, I spoke to a young Nikon engineer who had been heavily involved in the design of the new camera. He was visiting from Tokyo. He brought with him two sets of prints – one set from the then-current Canon EOS-1D Mark III, and an equivalent set from the D3. Pointing to the shots from the Canon, he said “in my opinion, these look like digital images”. Turning to the images from the D3 he said “but these look like photographs”.

That might sound like hyperbole, but the thing is – he was right.


1. Setting aside the much-reported and in my opinion overblown autofocus woes of the EOS-1D Mark III.

2. In addition to the cameras, the presentation was also memorable for a closing appeal from a very senior Nikon executive to the assembled US press. Please – he requested – please pronounce ‘Nikon’ correctly as ‘Nick-on’ not ‘Nye-con’ – a plea that was of course completely ignored by all concerned. That trip was also the first time I encountered a Geisha (it would not be the last).

3. If the D3 had come loaded with ‘Snake II’ it would have been perfect. Actually, given the amount of time professional photographers spend just waiting around, I’ve always wondered why simple arcade games weren’t pre-loaded on professional DSLRs.

4. The Pogues – I’m looking at you. Or rather, I was trying to…


If you have a piece of gear that you’d like to write about, we’d love to hear from you – and you might even get featured on the DPReview homepage. Leave us a short note in the comments and if you have a longer story to tell, send it to us, and we’ll take it from there.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
Comments Off on The gear that changed my (photographic) life: the Nikon D3

Posted in Uncategorized

 

Photographing a Still Life Series for Exhibition or a Portfolio

22 Apr

The post Photographing a Still Life Series for Exhibition or a Portfolio appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Charlie Moss.

photographing-a-still-life-series

If you’ve ever tried photographing still life images, you’ll know that making a single good picture is relatively easy, but shooting a still life series is much harder! Trying to make a set of images that feel like they belong together can be very challenging for many reasons.

If you’re shooting to create a portfolio, or perhaps even for an exhibition, you’ll want to create images that feel like they belong together. That way, the body of work will appear more thoughtful, and its message will be stronger.

But no matter how hard you try to make images look like they are a series, there often seems to be something that doesn’t look quite right. So how can you overcome these challenges and shoot a still life series that feels like the pictures are coherent?

What is coherency?

When it comes to these images there’s a number of ways that a still life series can look like they belong together. But it really starts at the beginning.

still life series
Shooting a series of images that aren’t connected thematically is possible, but you have to pay attention to the technical aspects of your shots for coherency.

The most useful thing that you can do is have a series in mind when you shoot your first image. Picking a theme that will weave through your images and tie them all together is probably the easiest way to get a coherent feel to your series of shots.

If you shoot images around a theme, then the theme should automatically help to make them feel like they’re all a part of the same project. Perhaps the easiest way to approach still life thematically is to try to tell a story through the images. When you try to include storytelling in a still life series, it should help the images feel like they belong together.

But sometimes it’s not all about the theme and the storytelling; sometimes, you want to pull images together visually. So here are some suggestions on how to go about doing just that.

Use the same viewpoint

When you’re planning out your still life series, experiment initially with a few different viewpoints. But consider sticking to one throughout the series. Swapping viewpoints between pictures can make the images feel like they’re not quite part of a coherent set.

Photographing a Still Life Series for Exhibition or a Portfolio
Left: ISO400, 35mm (50mm equiv.), f4, 1/170th sec
Right: ISO400, 35mm (50mm equiv.), f4, 1/110th sec

Consider using a tripod in order to keep everything the same. It’ll make it easier to keep your framing consistent for each shot, as well as keeping your distance the same from the camera to the object. And don’t forget to think about your composition as you place objects into your frame.

Of course, it is possible to change the viewpoint and still keep the images looking like they are part of the same still life series, as the image above shows. You’ll just have to make sure that you keep some of the other variables about your shot the same. Perhaps make sure that your theme or story is stronger than you might otherwise have needed to make it.

Use the same focal length

Keeping the distance between the camera and object the same, and also the focal length of the lens, can be a really great trick to keep your images looking like part of a series. When we use different focal lengths or vary the distance from the object to the lens it can cause distortion. Distortion causes our brain to realise that something isn’t really quite right.

still life series
Left: Shot with 35mm lens  (50mm equiv.)
Centre: Shot with 18mm lens (28mm equiv.) with the subject in the same place
Right: Shot with 18mm lens (28mm equiv.) with subject moved closer to camera

While on the surface, the left and right images above look similar, you can see on closer inspection that there is distortion. In the right-hand image above, that I shot with a wider focal length, you can see more of the top of the apple, less of the bottom. And the apple appears to be bulging out towards the camera.

Of course, there’s really no “correct” focal length to use when it comes to shooting still life images. You may want the distortion that a wider angle lens brings to the image. In a way, the wide-angle creates a strange look that could almost pay homage to the artist Paul Cézanne who painted both the side and top of objects in his still life – an “impossible” view.

And on the other hand, a 50mm equivalent focal length gives a much more “natural” view because it’s closer to how the human eye views objects.

The important thing if you choose to vary your focal length or distance from the camera to object is to keep enough other variables the same. That way, your images still look like they are part of the same series.

Post-process images in a similar way

If I was going to shoot a still life series on film, I’d definitely make sure I shoot the same film type for all of my images. That way, they’d all be similar in color, tone, and feel.

Digital is no different. Post-processing images to make them look as similar as possible in style and feel can make a huge difference when it comes to feeling like they’re part of a series.

Photographing a Still Life Series for Exhibition or a Portfolio
Both: ISO400, 35mm (50mm equiv.), f2.8, 1/250th sec

This is a great time to think about introducing something unique to your post-processing rather than just going for a totally natural look. It could be a slight split-toning in Lightroom with colors in the shadows, or a particular black and white recipe.

The key is to create a distinctive look and then apply it to all images, applying minor adjustments to each one to make them look coherent. Then your images, even if they are of quite different subjects, will be pulled together with a common look and feel.

Keeping your studio setup and lighting the same can really help when it comes to post-processing to make your shots look similar. Starting from the same “canvas” will mean that you don’t need to be a total post-processing wizard. Instead, small adjustments will pack a real punch when it comes to coherency.

Keep experimenting

When you’re planning your series, make sure that you keep experimenting. Try all kinds of different technical approaches to start with and narrow it down to the ones that suit the theme (and your style) the best. And then, once you have your images, experiment with the post-processing before saving your recipe as a preset so that you can use it to help you create a coherent look amongst all your images.

still life series
Remember that simply experimenting by changing your background can affect the whole feel of your shot! I shot these images were in the same lighting as the “light” images in this article and with similar settings.
Both: ISO400, 35mm (50mm equiv.), f4, 1/240th sec

Don’t forget that you can apply these ideas to other kinds of photography too.

For instance, when creating a series of portraits, you might want to think about using a single focal length, aperture, and a post-processing recipe. It will help all your shots feel similar. These ideas about shooting a still life series can be applied to more than just inanimate objects!

The post Photographing a Still Life Series for Exhibition or a Portfolio appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Charlie Moss.


Digital Photography School

 
Comments Off on Photographing a Still Life Series for Exhibition or a Portfolio

Posted in Photography