Narrative, maker of the Clip wearable camera, has launched the Clip 2. In addition to a sensor resolution boost from 5MP to 8MP, the Clip 2 is capable of shooting 1080p video clips unlike its stills-only predecessor. Read more
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
Feature Shoot is accepting submissions for its latest group show, and winners will have their work displayed at PIX 2015 – our interactive photo expo. The show centers on themes of ‘vertical living,’ and will be curated by Feature Shoot Editor-in-Chief Alison Zavos. Read more
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
One of the simplest ways to capture great photographs is to prepare yourself for success before you head out the door. I’ve used this process of preparing for shoots for the last few years and it’s worked great for me – I’d love to hear what else people are doing to prepare for their own shoots in the comments below.
Virtually Scout the Location
Usually the night before a shoot I will open up Google Earth, Maps and/or various other apps to scout the location for things like parking spots, water features, sun angles and whatever else might be of interest to me for that particular shoot.
It can be helpful to look through Flickr or another location based photography service to get an idea of what other photographers have found interesting before your visit.
Charge Up
It should go without saying, but make sure you’re camera is fully charged before you go to sleep. The last thing you want is to be ready to head out the door and find out your camera’s got one bar of battery life left in it. On the same note make sure your SD/CF cards are empty and packed as well – that’s a mistake you’ll only make once.
This step doesn’t just include the camera though – you should make sure that your own body is fully charged as well. Have a good sized dinner and get to bed early, eat a healthy breakfast and pack snacks to take with you. If there’s one thing that will ruin your photos faster than anything it’s an empty belly – you’ll start to get frustrated easy, you’ll care less about what you’re doing, and ultimately you will make mistakes which is the last thing we want to do when we’ve gone through all the effort to get to this location in the first place.
Check the Weather Report
It’s easy to take for granted, but it’s important to get a weather report for the day and area you’re heading before you leave the house. If you’re planning to hike a mountain know that it will be chillier the higher you go and just because the weather is fair in your backyard doesn’t mean that it’s the same at your location of interest.
Dress Accordingly
Hiking boots are a must if you want to get into locations off-the-beaten path, but you can do fine in comfortable sneakers if you’re not planning traverse any serious terrain. That said you should plan to wear comfortable and breathable clothing – jeans and cotton shirts are rarely a good option as they don’t keep you warm and if they get wet they will take forever to dry.
Arrive Early
I can’t stress this enough! The last thing you want to do is show up as the sun is setting or after it has risen. If you arrive early you can set up the camera and capture many different locations with the light that you have.
As the light changes you may want to revisit your previous locations or continue looking for new ones, but as long as you’ve gotten there early, you should end up with a bunch of shots to process when you return home.
Take Your Time
Rushing around will not allow your mind to think properly. When you rush your shots the odds are increased that you’ll get home to find out that you left your ISO at some unusable number or your aperture was at f/2.8 when it was supposed to be at f/11.
Take each shot as seriously as the last one you took and make the adjustments that are needed to get the best image out of the scene before you. Sometimes I find it helpful to even simply get up and walk away from the camera and give myself a break. Of course, when I do that, I still end up taking photographs with my phone, but those are more for fun than anything else.
Processing the Results
After all is captured and you’ve safely made it back to your house it’s time to process your what you’ve recorded. This part is truly up to you and your creative style, but here is my workflow as a basis point.
I will start with import the RAW files into Lightroom and going through to clean out the ones I absolutely don’t see any use for. I’ll then make my selections of the ones that are first on the list to get process and do just that. On occasion I will do more processing and clean up in Photoshop, but with how powerful Lightroom has gotten over the last couple iterations of the software I’ve seen less and less need to do so. If you’re curious you can also watch me edit select photos every week on my Let’s Edit series.
To get even more information on landscape photography check out this amazing DPS eBook on the entire process.
Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.
Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.
How To Prepare For Successful Landscape Shoots [Before You Head Out]
The post How To Prepare For Successful Landscape Shoots [Before You Head Out] by John Davenport appeared first on Digital Photography School.
These tips are from fashion photographer Lindsay Adler – one of the instructors during this week’s CreativeLIVE Photo Week – an event being held this week that showcases teaching by 50 photographers across 3 tracks, including weddings and family.
Finding a shady spot during an outdoor shoot is a perfect way to snap beautiful pictures while still maintaining a sunny outdoor feel –– but what happens when your model’s face is being hit by directional light sneaking through the side of your shady covering? Check out professional glamour and fashion photographer Lindsay Adler’s favorite tips for troubleshooting (literally!) working in mixed shade:
Scout around your location and find a doorway that leads to the outside. If your model steps back into the doorframe, not only does it block overhead light, it blocks light coming from the left and right – and you’ll still have a nice glow coming in through the front. This option also creates great negative fill, which is especially handy if you’re doing a beauty shoot and want to highlight your model’s jawline and cheekbones.
Need even more contrast on the front of your model’s face? Try backing her up a little further into the doorway. You’ll be giving yourself a smaller light source that’s more directional, essentially creating a giant softbox effect. “I have used this setup for every single wedding I have ever done. And I have shot two of my favorite beauty editorials like this,” Lindsay says. “I’ve had the model stand in a doorway, and I’ve used black fill from left and right, and just gorgeous glowing light in the front.”
This method is super simple, and will definitely help you show the sun who’s boss. If you can’t swing placing your model in a door and you have no choice but to shoot her in direct sunlight, your first step is popping up a parabolic umbrella. It will diffuse and soften the light but not change the angle.
The parabolic works pretty well on its own, but if you want the model’s eyes to catch the light and get extra sparkly, have an assistant hold a white reflector underneath her face to create some negative fill. “For commercial style portraits, this is actually my favorite,” Lindsay says.
Both Lindsay’s methods for conquering mixed shade work great, and will give you even skin tone, contrast, and nice catch-light so you can snap that perfect picture even when the sun is shining!
Learn more from Lindsay in this weeks Photo Week from CreativeLIVE.
Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.
Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.
Conquering Crappy Light In Fashion Shoots: Mixed Shade
National Geographic sent photographer Stephen Alvarez to the beautiful American Southwest equipped with Nokia’s flagship Lumia 1020 smartphone. The results from the 1020’s 41 megapixel camera are pretty impressive – at least by mobile phone standards. You can evaluate the photos with your own eyes on our mobile photography site, connect.dpreview.com.
News: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
Amateur filmmaker Marc Donahue of Permagrin Films recently shot a video with an array of fifteen GoPro action cameras to achieve Matrix-like bullet time special effects. The arc-shaped rig allowed him to shoot simultaneously from all cameras. In post, Donahue added the freeze frame and slow motion effects. Click through to watch the video. (via Mashable)
News: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
This tutorial has been transcribed from the SLR Lounge Lightroom 4 Workshop on DVD, a 14 hour Lightroom 4 A – Z guide with over 130 tutorials for mastering Lightroom from start to finish. The Digital download can be purchased from SLR Lounge while the physical copy is available through Amazon Prime.
Having multiple shooters at an event is beneficial because it allows the event to be captured at different angles. One shooter might catch something significant that another shooter missed; therefore, it is always good to have an extra pair of eyes while shooting a big event. However, having multiple shooters means multiple cameras and it is important that the timestamps in all the cameras used at the event are synced to one another. This will save you a lot of time in post-production when you have to cull and edit your images because the images from all the shooters will be organized together. You will be able to see the same scene shot at different angles, which can help you select the best image for each particular scene.
But sometimes you might forget to have all the shooters sync up their cameras to one another prior to shooting. Trying to cull a multi-camera shoot with improper timestamp syncing will waste boatloads of time. But luckily, this time sync issue can be quickly fixed in Lightroom 4. This easy tutorial will show you how to correct the timestamps between multiple cameras so that you can have a quicker post-production workflow.
Bring up the Library filter by hitting “backslash” on your keyboard. Generally, the lead camera will be the one with the most images. However, once in a while, you might have a second shooter who takes more images than the lead shooter. You want to sync all other cameras to the timestamp in the lead camera. It is also important to filter by the Camera Serial Number so same-model cameras will not be grouped together. To select this category, click on the drop-down menu from one of categories in the Library filter and select “Camera Serial Number” as shown below.
Select the lead camera as I have done so below. To keep this tutorial simple, we have eliminated all but 23 images from the catalog. Most wedding catalogs will have thousands of images, but we don’t want to spend all our time hunting down images between cameras. So, while we are doing this demonstration with a small sample set of images, the same techniques apply, regardless of the size of the shoot.
Find a moment of the day that all shooters will have shot and preferably one that is easily recognizable as well. For example, the first kiss would be an important moment that all cameras should have shot and one that is easily recognizable. As you can see from the image below, I have selected the lead shooter’s shot of the couple’s first kiss. Switch to the Loop View of this image by double-clicking on it or by hitting “E.”
Once in the Loop View, write down what time the shot was taken. The information should be at the top left of the image you have selected. If not, hit “I” until that timestamp is displayed. In my example, the shot was taken at 11:46:09 AM in the lead camera.
Go back to the Grid View by hitting “G.” Select your second camera in the Library filter, like I have done so below. Make sure no other filter is turned on so that all your images from any additional cameras appear.
Select the image shot at the same moment as the one that we selected from our lead camera. Once you have that image selected, hit “Ctrl + A” on your keyboard to select all the images from the second camera. The first image that you selected is highlighted indicating that it is our key image as shown below.
Now that we have selected all of the images from our secondary camera with our “moment image” selected as the key image in this selection, we are ready to change the timestamp. To do so, click the “Metadata” menu at the top of the screen (make sure you are in the Library Module) and click on “Edit Capture Time.”
Type in the exact time that you wrote down from the same moment on the lead camera (11:46:09 AM in our example). Make sure you write your timestamp in correctly because this change cannot be undone; it can only be changed again. When you are done, click on “Change All.”
Clicking “Change All” will adjust all images prior to the key moment, as well as after the key moment respectively. To check whether you changed the timestamps correctly, make sure all of your filters are off by selecting “None” next to “Metadata” in the Library filter. If you changed the timestamps correctly, your images should all line up chronologically. As you can see, I now have all my images from both angles lined up in order, as shown below.
Once again, it is always best to sync your timestamps in your camera with all other shooters prior to the event. However, if you forget to do so, use this tutorial to fix your timestamp synchronization in Lightroom.
This was a sample tutorial from the Lightroom 4 A to Z DVD which is one of the DVDs in the Lightroom 4 Workshop Collection. A collection of nearly 30 hours of video education teaching everything from Lightroom basics to advanced raw processing techniques.
The LR4 Workshop Collection also includes the critically acclaimed Lightroom 4 Preset System which is designed to enable users to achieve virtually any look and effect within 3-5 simple clicks. From basic color correction, vintage fades, black & white effects, tilt-shift effects, faux HDR, retouching, detail enhancing, and so much more. Click the links above to learn more.
Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.
Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.
How to Fix Timestamp Issues on Multi-Camera Shoots
Oh hey, it's time for another fully annotated Annie Leibovitz BTS video—this time featuring the lovely and talented Rihanna, shot for Vogue.
Hit the jump and follow the bouncing ball to see what we can learn with a little close examination. Annotations follow, below… Read more »
Today portrait photographer Christina N Dickson shares tips on how to shoot engagement portraits. Christina’s work can be found at www.ChristinaNicholePhotography.com.
Shooting engagement portraits are perhaps some of the most enjoyable for photographers. Most often, they are taken before the whirlwind of wedding planning is fully underway, and the couple is still quite enamored with one another. How do you take advantage of this time and produce incredible images? Follow these few steps to achieve real and vibrant engagement portraits.
As a photographer, you must keep your people skills sharp. With engagement photos, you have to do your research on the couple you are photographing. What are they like as a couple? What are they like as individuals? What is their wedding going to be like? How did they meet? This is going to affect the way you want to build your images and portray them.
Rather than posing each shot, ie, “okay, now you kiss her cheek!” encourage your couple to show as much affection as possible. Every couple does certain things to show one another love. If you want to capture them accurately, you will urge this type of interaction.
A couple is most natural when they are focusing on one another. Try to direct the shoot by suggesting they talk to one another, telling one another most embarrassing moments, or 5 things they love about each other– topics that will pull out expression, interaction, and affection.
If a couple is leaning in for a kiss, or walking arm in arm, you will be able to communicate a message of intimacy. Sometimes you can get sweet shots with contrast and tension in the picture by placing the couple far apart in the frame, but be sure that this is your purpose if your going to do it.
No love story is the same. Find unique traits about the couple, and then pull this out in the creation of your images. If the couple is perfectly at ease with one another because they have been best friends for 10 years, you can create images with a laid back and contented feel. If the couple has had a whirlwind romance after meeting on e-harmony.com, it will be natural to pull out the affection and passion of their relationship
Often times the bride to be will have an idea for a shot she will suggest to you before hand. Other times her fiancé may think of an idea on the spot during the shoot. If you can integrate these ideas into your shooting, you will delight the couple, and possibly find yourself inspired by new ideas.
If you get to know your couple, and allow them to fall in love with your personality and style, you have a good chance of booking them for a wedding also. Your job is not only to take good pictures, but also to give them a fabulous time they will remember for the rest of their lives.
Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.
Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.
Engagement Portrait Shoots: 7 Professional Tips to take your Engagement Shoots to the Next Level
We’ve challenged pro photographers to doing a photo shoot with a cheap camera before, and they’ve done pretty well…now here you have Pro Camera, Noob Photographer, featuring a lovely model who doesn’t know anything about photography but like cute little puppies. See how our model, Garcia, copes in this video. Pricing Reference Nikon D3S Body: www.digitalrev.com
Video Rating: 4 / 5
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