Category: Photography

How Would Your Photography Change if you Couldn’t use any Auto Functions on Your Camera?

The post How Would Your Photography Change if you Couldn’t use any Auto Functions on Your Camera? appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kevin Landwer-Johan.

What if your digital camera had no auto exposure ability? How would you manage? Do you think you’d adapt and learn to make good and creative exposures? I’m sure you would. And you’d enjoy your photography a lot more once you realize it’s not so difficult.

Learn to control your exposures in Manual Mode

I learned on a camera with no auto modes. It was completely mechanical. It only required a battery for the simple exposure meter. My Nikkormat FTN, however, was a film camera, so I had no monitor with which to preview or review photos. There was also no metadata recorded to help me understand the exposure choices I was making. I had to write my settings in a notebook.

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

How much do you rely on any of the auto exposure modes? When you’re learning how to use your camera these modes are helpful. They allow you to capture photographs easily. Not having to think about exposure settings can free you up to pay more attention to other aspects of picture taking.

You can better achieve composition, timing, and relating to your subject when using an auto mode. But what if you didn’t have this option? Do you think you’d learn to manage to set your exposures by yourself, only with the help of a built-in light meter? I think you would.

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

Once you commit to understanding light and exposure, making manual adjustments is not so difficult. You can become more accurate with them over time. If you are only sometimes bold to use manual settings, you’ll take a very long time to master them, if you can at all.

To be successful at using manual exposure mode you must commit to learning how it works. You need to have an understanding of light and how your camera records different tone values. Using manual mode does require you to slow down at first. But once you’re practiced, you’ll become faster and more accurate.

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

Discipline is required to learn to photograph in Manual Mode

Learning any creative artform requires discipline. If you want to paint or sculpt you must spend time studying. Making ceramics or wood carving takes time and practice. When learning to play a musical instrument, you must go over and over the basics many times.

Most kids don’t like playing scales ad nauseam when learning a musical instrument. But they are foundational and so beneficial in helping a young musician grow and understand their craft. Photographers are rarely so disciplined.

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

Taking time to practice the essential functions of your camera will allow you to become more proficient. If you are relying on the built-in artificial intelligence, you will often struggle to reach your full creative potential.

By making a point of frequently using manual mode, you’ll be on a journey towards a deeper creative expression. But you have to be disciplined to make it most effective.

Many people who enroll in my photography workshops tell me they use their cameras in an auto mode. They admit to occasional manual use. I encourage them that unless they commit to using it, manual mode will remain difficult.

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

Slow down and feel the freedom

Often, photographers who prefer using an auto mode express their concern for missing the moment if they are using manual mode. I appreciate this as a genuine concern. However, you can’t always catch great photos on the spur of the moment. They take planning and patience.

Taking time to learn manual mode will also help you develop what you want to photograph. You will look at the world around you in different ways. You will begin to anticipate more when you choose to take photographs, rather than looking for snapshots.

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

Every genre of photography requires patience on the part of the people with the cameras. Whether your photographing landscapes, sports or birds, it’s best if you are not in a hurry. Take the time to study your subject. Know your camera well and how you can control it. Be most familiar with it, and observe and predict when the best opportunity for a photograph will happen.

Landscape photographers can wait for months for the right conditions. Sports photographers must develop lightning-fast reflexes. But these take time to perfect. They are developed with the study of the game and frequent practice photographing it.

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

Practice often

The more often you practice anything, the better you will become.

Many years ago, I had accreditation to photograph the world cup cricket matches played in Auckland, New Zealand. I was working for a newspaper back then. I had no experience with cricket, other than watching some matches on TV. I turned up on the morning of the first match with my camera fitted with a 2X converter and a 400mm lens.

That day, I hardly managed to capture a single frame with the ball in it. I felt disheartened. I did realize, though, that I had lots of opportunities to practice. Over the next month that the tournament played out, I improved. Each match managed a higher percentage of good photos.

I started with what was simplest – the batsman swinging at and, hopefully, striking the ball. These were not the most impressive photos to aim for, but it was a good place to start. I was envious when I saw the published pictures of more experienced photographers. They showed more dynamic action. However, as I became used to working in the environment with an 800mm focal length, I was able to capture more interesting photos.

I focussed manually, due to using the 2X converter. My exposures were also manually controlled. But this was not so challenging when the light was constant. The repetitive action allowed me to grow used to the flow of the game. I became better at predicting when the best photo opportunities were.

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

Explore and experiment with your photography

If you can discipline yourself to use manual mode and practice photographing the same subject material over and over, you’ll improve. Once you are more confident using manual exposure settings, you’ll become faster.

Doing the same routine many times, you’ll build up your ability to understand your camera. You can reach a level of competence where you make good exposure changes without being fully conscious of your actions.

When the light changes, you will be more aware of it. You will change your aperture or shutter speed a few clicks without having to check your exposure meter. Once you are doing this, you’ll be able to give more of your attention to other aspects of taking photos.

Difficult lighting conditions will no longer be so challenging. Many people who prefer to use auto exposure settings don’t like taking photos in the middle of the day. Especially when the sun is out. Learning to control your camera will help you see the light and make your exposures to manage well in these conditions.

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

I took this photo at around 2 pm on a sunny day and tweaked it only slightly during post-processing. The basic light and dark effect was created when I took the photo. Being able to see when the light is right and control your camera gives you more freedom. You will be able to create better photographs.

Conclusion

I know there will always be photographers who prefer to stick to using auto modes. The most common argument is using exposure compensation to override the camera’s choice. I always think if you are taking this extra step, you may as well be using manual mode.

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

I know from experience, learning on a camera with no auto exposure options helped me to understand more about light. It also meant I had to learn the relationships between the exposure settings. I was responsible for getting it right and making my photos look the way I wanted them to.

If you discipline yourself to use your camera in manual mode, you will have a far easier time learning than I did. With digital cameras, you have the advantage of being able to preview and review your photos in real-time. You also have tools like the histogram, highlight indicators, and spot metering. These all make it easier to capture well-exposed photos in manual mode.

The post How Would Your Photography Change if you Couldn’t use any Auto Functions on Your Camera? appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kevin Landwer-Johan.

Digital Photography School

October 8, 2019
Five Foot Lens and 3.2 Gigapixel Camera Produced for Night Sky Photos

The post Five Foot Lens and 3.2 Gigapixel Camera Produced for Night Sky Photos appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jaymes Dempsey.

L1 Lens of the camera polished and coated with a broadband antireflective coating by Safran-Reosc. LSST Project/NSF/AURA.

Last month, engineers packaged up the largest optical lens ever created, before shipping it 17 hours from Tuscon, Arizona to the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in central California.

The lens is five feet in diameter and four inches thick; it required a truck to transport it. It was attached to an additional (3.9 foot) lens element when shipped, and it will soon be followed by another.

Together, these three lens elements will be mounted to a camera that, when finished, will be the largest digital camera in existence. And the camera-lens duo will ultimately be attached to a telescope: the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, which is over ten years in the making.

Note that the camera itself is constructed out of 189 sensors which, when combined, will create pictures of an astonishing size: 3.2 gigapixels. It’s still in production at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, but will likely be finished in 2021. The cost of the camera alone is a whopping $ 168 million dollars.

The purpose of this huge setup is to capture detailed photos of the night sky. The full telescope will be placed on Cherro Pachon mountain in Chile, where the camera will take exposures at 20-second intervals.

As explained in a press release by one of the laboratories involved in the lens construction:

This data will help researchers better understand dark matter and dark energy, which together make up 95 percent of the universe, but whose makeup remains unknown, as well as study the formation of galaxies, track potentially hazardous asteroids and observe exploding stars.

We recently reported on Xiaomi’s 108-megapixel smartphone, with its wrap-around screen, but a 3.2-gigapixel camera blows this out of the water. Even a recently announced security camera, which made waves when it was unveiled at the China International Industry Fair, topped out at 500 megapixels. Equipped with facial recognition technology, there are major privacy concerns when it comes to how this may be used in a country that already heavily monitors its citizens.

But, the high resolution of these cameras does bring to light something that is conveniently forgotten by tech advertisers: More megapixels will only produce greater detail if you have a lens that can resolve that detail. If your lens can only resolve 12 megapixels worth of detail, then you’re not going to gain from slapping a 108-megapixel sensor onto the camera. That’s why the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope requires ultra-precise optics if scientists want to gather meaningful data.

Of course, you don’t need a lens costing millions of dollars to produce highly-detailed 108-megapixel photos. But my suspicion is that the current optics used by smartphones (Xiaomi, but also Huawei, Apple, and Google) just aren’t up to the task of generating 108-megapixel photos.

So don’t fall prey to the megapixel myth. And keep your eye out for photos from the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope!

What are your thoughts on these new lenses and cameras? Share with us in the comments!

The post Five Foot Lens and 3.2 Gigapixel Camera Produced for Night Sky Photos appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jaymes Dempsey.

Digital Photography School

October 8, 2019
Sigma 45mm f/2.8 Lens for Sony Review

The post Sigma 45mm f/2.8 Lens for Sony Review appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Suzi Pratt.

The Sigma 45mm f/2.8 DG DN (sony, Leica) is the latest addition to Sigma’s Contemporary lens line. Launched in July 2019, this lens is available as Sony E-mount or Leica L-mount. The latter mount is of particular interest as the new L-mount is compatible with Panasonic and Leica full-frame cameras, plus Sigma’s own forthcoming L-mount mirrorless cameras. I got my hands on an E-mount version and tested the lens with my Sony A7RIII. Here are my thoughts.

Specs

The Sigma 45mm f/2.8 lens has a maximum aperture of f/2.8, which may be a disappointment for photographers used to having at least an f/1.8 on their prime lenses. It also is a fairly expensive lens given its $ 549 price tag. However, this lens makes amends when it comes to size and the build quality.

Size

Compared to other Sigma prime lenses such as the Sigma 35mm f/1.4 Art (Nikon, Canon, Sony), this lens is significantly smaller and more lightweight. It weighs 7.5 ounces (half of the aforementioned 35mm) and comes in at less than 2-inches long. This makes the 45mm much more portable and discreet when compared to Sigma’s other Art lens primes that all have an f/1.4 aperture, but are significantly larger and heavier.

This compact size is closer to that of the Canon 50mm f/1.8 and 40mm f/2.8 pancake lens. Both were my longtime favorite prime lenses when I shot with Canon DSLRs. The beauty about this size is that it feels very balanced when attached to a full-frame camera, whether it be my old Canon 5D Mark III or my new Sony A7RIII. With that said, this lens puzzles me when I compare it to other similar lenses that I’ve owned.

Sigma 45mm f/2.8 (left), Fujifilm 35mm f/2 (center), and Sony 55mm f/1.8 (right).

Build quality

It’s hard to ignore the design of this lens, which is both visually eye-catching and functional. There are two physical rings – the outermost ring controls the focus and the innermost ring selects the aperture, similar to how a Fujifilm lens performs. Choosing the aperture via the lens can take some getting used to, but it’s a wonderful way to interact with your camera. There’s also a switch to toggle autofocus or manual focus. The lens itself is made mostly of metal, and it includes a lens hood that is also made of metal. There is also weather sealing on the mount of the lens to keep dust and dirt at a minimal.

Shooting experience

45mm is an interesting focal length. It sits comfortably between two of the most popular focal lengths out there: the 35mm and 50mm. Not too wide or too narrow, 45mm gives you a range that feels natural, yet intentional. Autofocus on this lens is fast, accurate, and very quiet thanks to a fast-stepping motor.

If you shoot on a Sony full-frame mirrorless camera, you may also be familiar with the feature of flipping between shooting in full-frame and APS-C mode. While the latter does crop and shrink your images, it gives you the ability to shoot at a slightly zoomed-in focal length. This, in turn, gives you at least two focal lengths to shoot from, and it is one of my favorite features of my Sony A7RIII.

Image quality

The images captured by the Sigma 45mm f/2.8 lens result in very consistent color, tones, and sharpness. This lens has a rounded seven-blade diaphragm that renders a smooth, shallow depth of field. There is a minimum focusing distance of 9.4 inches, giving this 45mm decent macro capabilities.

In Conclusion

Overall, I had a very positive experience shooting with this Sigma 45mm f/2.8 lens. The compact size complemented the Sony A7RIII perfectly, making it a very portable unit. I usually have a 24-70mm f/2.8 or 55mm f/1.8 glued to my camera when shooting in low lighting scenarios. Thus, the 45mm’s f/2.8 aperture did not hinder me much. However, there is something to be said about having a faster aperture, especially in low light conditions.

If you enjoy shooting with a versatile prime lens that is reasonably fast but very portable, this Sigma 45mm f/2.8 lens might be the lens for you.

What are your first impressions of the Sigma 45mm f/2.8 lens? Would you purchase it? Why or why not?

Sample photo gallery

The post Sigma 45mm f/2.8 Lens for Sony Review appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Suzi Pratt.

Digital Photography School

October 8, 2019
Getting to Grips with Fill Light in Portrait Photography
The post Getting to Grips with Fill Light in Portrait Photography appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by John McIntire.

Using fill light is an essential skill that will allow you complete control over the contrast and tonality in your images in any type of lighting situation.

It should be no secret to any photographer that one light is all you need to achieve great results. While one light setups (in this context, specifically those that don’t involve the use of a reflector) are both well discussed and incredibly useful, sometimes it’s good (or even essential) to go beyond the basics. The next step in your progression is probably going to be to add fill lighting.

Fill light is one of those essential skills that every photographer should have a good grasp of no matter what type of light they are using.

One light setups are powerful, and the results can be great. However, sometimes it’s useful to be able to take even more control over the contrast in your images.

This article will help to get you started with two types of fill lighting. The first of these is the use of the humble reflector. The other is to use a second dedicated light source. Both of these methods are very different in how they are implemented and what they can achieve. Mastering both will give you a more complete skill set with which to use in your photography.

What is fill lighting and what does it achieve?

In the image on the left, the lack of fill lighting has left most of the details in the back of the subject’s dress as pure black. Adding fill light (right) has brought those details back.

The concept of fill lighting is quite simple.

The idea is that you use it to light the shadows in your frame. What this does is:
- Brings up the exposure of the shadow areas in your image.
- Reduces overall contrast in your frame (much like landscape photographers use graduated ND filters to reduce contrast in their images).
- Brings your final images more in line with how the eye sees the world, rather than the limited range of your camera’s sensor.
While really dark and contrasty images definitely have their place (I love them myself), images (especially portraits for clients) will benefit from a more even contrast ratio. I once heard it described (I’m sorry, I don’t remember where) that in lighting for TV and cinema, the shadows are always lit. This was a lightbulb moment for me as I had always wondered how cinematographers seemed to show a lot detail while still retaining a good amount of contrast. The answer was controlled fill lighting.

Two types

Reflectors

Reflectors are a powerful and versatile tool that allows you to be as subtle or as bold as you like with your fill lighting.

The most basic type of fill lighting is that provided by the ever so basic, yet powerful, reflector. You probably have at least one of these already (or you’ve made a few). Reflectors provide fill light by reflecting light (go figure) from your key back into the shadows of your frame. In a lot of cases, reflectors will be your first foray into fill lighting. However, they will also be one of your most-used pieces of kit altogether.

Secondary lights

Using a secondary light source as fill is going to be your most versatile option.

You can also use a second light (or third and beyond) as your fill light. A dedicated fill light will do the same basic job as a reflector, but it is infinitely more controllable. You can fine-tune the exposure and shape of your fill light with a precision that reflectors just don’t allow.

Contrast ratios – The very basics

Left: The shadows are filled heavily and the fill light is metered one-stop below key. This results in a low contrast image with shadows retained. Right: the fill here is four stops below key. The contrast is high and the shadows are deep, but all of the detail is present.

The very concept of a contrast ratio can seem technical and daunting, I know. However, it is not at all that difficult of a concept and it’s just not that technical. At the most basic level, a contrast ratio simply tells you how bright one light is in relation to one another in terms of the aperture of your camera.

If your key light is metering at f/8, that means that if you set your camera to f/8 and an appropriate shutter speed (lower than your camera’s max sync speed) you will achieve a correct (subjective) exposure in-camera.

Fill lighting will always be underexposed in relation to your key light. If it’s even to your key light, you will get flat, no-contrast images as a result. For a contrast ratio that provides low contrast, you will want your fill light to be at least one stop darker than your key light. Since our hypothetical key light is f/8, that means the key light in this instance needs to meter f/5.6. This is a ratio of 2:1 (which is more advanced and you definitely don’t need to know to get started).

In short, if you want less contrast, your fill light should be one to two stops under your key light. If you want more contrast, try three to four stops.

Metering

If you want to be as precise as possible with these ratios, you will want to consider a light meter. That way you can measure any light falling on the scene with the press of a couple of buttons. This is the easiest way to go about it and works in the studio and natural light. You can also meter the light bouncing off a reflector.

A light meter is the easiest and most accurate way to read what your light is doing. However, they don’t tend to be cheap.

That does not at all mean that you have to use a light meter, though. While more difficult (especially if you’re new to lighting like this), you can do it with your histogram on the back of your camera. Take a test shot with just your key light on. Now take one with only your fill light on. (Note: you won’t be able to do this if you are using a reflector.) Because fill lighting should be raising the exposures on your shadows, the shadow area of the histogram of your fill light test shot should be further to the right than that of your key light test shot. If the shadow areas on both histograms line up, you need to increase the exposure of your fill light. If the shadow areas of your fill light’s histogram line up with the mid-tones or highlights of your key light’s histogram, you need to decrease the exposure of your fill light. (I did say it was trickier.)

Left: Without fill light, you can see the shadows are underexposed. Right: With subtle fill light, you can see the shadows are brought up quite a lot.

Of course, you don’t have to do either of these things. You can always eyeball the whole setup and try to adjust things on the go. I would say this is perfectly fine with experience, but as you start out, I encourage you to at least have a go with the previous methods. It will drastically reduce the amount of time it takes you to get to grips with the technique and fully understand what is going on with your light. The more you understand, the easier you will find it to adjust things on the fly. You will also be able to learn new techniques faster.

Fill light with reflectors

Reflectors can be subtle or bold when used as fill and are pretty versatile for what they are.

Reflectors are:
- Cheap
- Easy to setup
- Easy to use
- Very effective
Getting started with reflectors as fill lighting

Reflectors are powerful, yet accessible, tools for fill lighting.

Before you start to think about fill, you will want to decide what your key light (main light source) is going to do. Set up your key light so that it is shaping and lighting your subject the way that you want. Meter so that you have the exposure settings that you desire.

A small(ish) softbox placed in front of and above the subject creates soft light with shadows underneath the subject’s features.

Now, evaluate the shadow areas that your key light is creating. If you’re using natural light, or strobes fitted with modeling lights, you can do this by eye. Alternatively, you can take a test shot and review it on the back of the camera.

Here you can see that while the light is soft, the shadows are a prominent part of the image.

Place your reflector so that it is roughly opposite your key light. Evaluate what the reflector is doing (either by eye or test shot again).

Adding a reflector beneath the key light serves to raise the exposure in the shadow areas of the image.

What you are aiming for is for you shadows to be brought up in exposure, but not eliminated altogether. If you want low contrast, bring your reflector in as close as possible. If you want more contrast, move it away.

With the reflector used as fill, the shadows are still present, but the overall contrast in the image has been reduced.

It can take quite a lot of practice before you learn to see the subtle changes a white reflector provides. The key is to get as much practice in as possible.

Set up an object and light it. Put your reflector wherever you want and start taking shots, being sure to move the reflector into different positions each time. Review each shot and try to notice the behavior of the light in each instance. This exercise will give you a pretty good idea of how a reflector is going to behave in any given situation. Do this exercise often and you will find you can see even the most subtle shifts in light where it was difficult before.

Another quick tip to help you see the difference in contrast in a scene is to squint. It sounds ridiculous, but squinting reduces your vision to blocks of value and you will be able to see the contrast in the scene more easily.

A second light

A second strobe serving as fill gives you the most control over how you manipulate your shadows.

Like reflectors, using extra lights as fill is a fundamental skill, albeit one with a slightly steeper learning curve. That said, unlike reflectors, using a dedicated light source allows you full control over the power output, making it much easier than a reflector to control how the light is going to behave.

Varying degrees of contrast between your shadow and highlight tones are possible just by adjusting the power of your fill light.

To get started using a dedicated fill light, place your key light in your desired position and set the power for your desired aperture. Let’s return to that hypothetical of f/8.

Here, a softbox is placed at 45 degrees to the subject.

Knowing your aperture, place your fill light where it will affect the shadows in the manner you would like and set the power output so that it will be underexposed in relation to your aperture. How much you underexpose for is entirely up to you. If you want, say, two stops of fill in this scenario, then you will want your fill light to meter at f/4.

A 7′ parabolic umbrella with diffusion was added about 10-feet away to serve as fill. It was set to meter 2-stops under the key light.

Take a test shot and see if you have your desired effect. Adjust as required and there you go.

In this before (left) and after (right) you can see how the shadows on the right side of the image are lifted and filled in with the fill light.

Taking it further

You can design fill lighting however you like. Feel free to use multiple sources of different sizes and shapes if it works.

Of course, you are not limited to a single fill light. You can have multiple fill lights lighting your subjects from both sides. You can also mix lights and reflectors for different strengths of fill lighting from various angles. You can pretty much do whatever you want in terms of designing a light set-up. You are only limited by the equipment you have at hand and what you can dream up.

Using multiple fill lights allows you to control every aspect of contrast in your images.

An idea is only crazy if it might work and you don’t try it.

Tips for fill lighting

1) It’s often better to retain the shadows rather than fill them in completely. This is not a rule, but images that retain some amount of contrast are often more natural and pleasing to the eye.

2) Pay attention to the catchlights in portraits – Extra light sources mean extra catchlights. When you are setting up your lights (reflectors included), be sure to watch the catchlights in your subjects’ eyes. Catchlights can make or break a portrait, so make sure you are controlling them as much as you are the lighting itself.

3) Big light sources at a distance work very well as fill light.

This is by no means a rule, but big light sources (like the 7′ umbrella to camera right) from a distance work really well as fill lighting.

4) Don’t be a slave to the ratios – While using the ratios as a starting point can, and will, be a useful springboard, that doesn’t mean you should adhere to them rigidly. If something isn’t right, adjust as you see fit. Nobody cares in the end if your ratios are exactly 4:1, but they do care if your photos look right. Use your best judgment and change things up if you need to. Sometimes only the tiniest of power adjustments will completely change the end result.

5) Think outside the box – Any light source can be your key and your fill. You’re probably aware that you can use flash to fill-in shadows in natural light, but you can also use natural light as fill where your main lighting is provided by flash.

Here, the key light is a large window to the camera right. The fill light is provided by a strobe. You can mix light sources however you want to achieve your fill lighting.

That’s it

Hopefully, that’s served as a primer to get you started and demystify fill lighting. Being able to control the contrast in your images with lighting is a fundamental skill that you will be able to use across multiple disciplines. It will allow you to bring a new level of depth to your images straight out of the camera.

Get out and practice, start simple and go slow, and you will master the basics in no time at all.

Try out some of these tips, and share your photos with us in the comments!

The post Getting to Grips with Fill Light in Portrait Photography appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by John McIntire.

Digital Photography School
October 8, 2019
Just Dew It – Fun with Macro Dewdrop Photography

The post Just Dew It – Fun with Macro Dewdrop Photography appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Rick Ohnsman.

Some things are practically guaranteed to make great photo subjects – dewdrops in the grass sparkling like diamonds in the morning sun, flowers and foliage wet with the rain, a closeup of dewdrops suspended in spiderweb-like pearls on a string or the crystal-ball look of a drop with a refracted image inside. You can seek out such scenes in nature, or you can create your own miniature macro world. However you do it, dewdrop photography will test your skills plus give you the reward of pleasing images, not everyone can make. So let’s take a look at what, where, and how to “dew it.”

When the morning light hits the dew-covered lawn it can be like searching for diamonds in the grass.

Going natural

I’ve spent more than a few mornings lying in the grass with a macro lens mounted on my camera searching for the perfect dewdrop. I’ve also been out after the rain, looking for images where the drops have added a clean, fresh look with increased saturation to a subject. While often the subjects are found in nature, drops beaded on the surface of a freshly waxed car and other human-made objects can make for some great shots too.

Many leaves will naturally bead water like the raindrops on this daylily. Raindrop photography is the “larger cousin” of dewdrop photography with no macro lens needed .

A little spritz with a sprayer makes this rose look fresh and adds interest.

The fine hairs on a lupine leaf naturally beaded the water sprayed with a garden hose. 1/160 sec. f/3.5 ISO100 with Tamron 90mm macro.

Just add water to take a nice photo to the next level. Raindrops on the hood of this freshly-waxed Jaguar add some extra pizzaz.

Hunting for such subjects is fun. Like much of photography, it’s a matter of getting out with your camera when the conditions are right, often early in the morning in the case of dew or right after a rain shower. Sometimes you’ll find some great subjects where the drops, the light, and the subject all come together. I’ve not yet made the classic dew-drop-festooned-spider-web shot, but I’m still looking. Luck plays a certain part in getting such shots. The fun is in the search. But sometimes when you want to leave it less to chance, that could be the time to…

Fake it to make it

You realize in those great movie rain scenes it wasn’t really raining when filming took place, right? So is it cheating when we as artistic photographers “enhance” our shots with the addition of raindrops or dewdrops? I think not. I guarantee the photographer created the vast majority of great dewdrop photos you’ve seen. Take two otherwise identical flower photos; the only difference being one is covered with dewdrops. The wet one will win the prize almost every time.

Drops sparkle, shimmer, refract light in interesting ways, and can take an image from “meh” to “wow!” So if you haven’t already done so, consider adding a little spray bottle to your camera kit with some “magic juice” inside.

“Magic Juice?”

You can often use plain water to enhance your shot. If you’re simulating raindrops that might work okay. Spraying the foliage with the garden hose often works too. But when you want smaller, more rounded beads that hang where you place them and stay for a longer time without moving or evaporating, get some glycerine.

Here’s the special ingredient for making photographer’s “Magic Juice.”

Often found in the baking section of the grocery store, glycerin is very transparent, much thicker than water, and just plain works better for photography. Use it straight from the bottle and apply where you like with an eyedropper, or mix one-part glycerine to two parts water for use in a spray bottle.

You can enhance the look of flowers and foliage, simulate condensation on glassware or other objects, give subjects a wet-look, enhance your food photography or even simulate sweat on human subjects if you need that look. Great stuff!

Using the Live View mode of your camera can really help in getting critical focus.

Equipment needs

For more distant shots of things like raindrops, you might get by with standard, close-focusing lenses and also be able to work hand-held. But dewdrops are tiny. When it’s time to get close, closer, and ultra-close, you’ll be entering the world of macro photography. You will definitely need a tripod and one of several ways to get up close to your tiny subject:

Here all three Kenko extension tubes (Canon, Nikon, Sony), plus a Canon 25mm tube, are all combined with a Canon “nifty fifty” 50mm f/1.8 lens. This gives 93mm of extension. You can combine tubes in any sequence or combination depending on how close you need to get to your subject and how much magnification you’re seeking.

Standard Macro Lenses

Many lenses may state they have macro capability, but to truly be a macro lens, they should be able to create a 1:1 image. That means the image rendered on the camera sensor is the same size as the physical object or bigger. Full-frame cameras are called that because their sensor size is roughly equivalent to a full-frame of 35mm film, (24mm X 36mm), so if the lens you’re using can fill the frame with an object that’s about 35mm wide, it’s a true macro.

Here’s a quick test you can try: a U.S. quarter is 24.26mm in diameter. So, if you can focus on and fill the frame top to bottom with an uncropped shot of a quarter, you have a macro lens. On a crop sensor camera where the sensor is 14.9×22.2mm (Canon), a 1:1 shot of a quarter would more than fill the frame.

Catching the light source in the drops with a small aperture produced a star effect. 3 tubes plus Tamron 90mm macro. 1.6 sec. f/16, ISO 800

Extension Tubes/Bellows

Increasing the distance between your lens and camera sensor will have the effect of allowing you to focus closer than with the lens alone and thus appear to magnify the image. Stacking multiple tubes or making the bellows longer will get you in even closer. You can also get into macro territory with something simple like a 50mm prime lens plus an extension tube set. Much less money than a dedicated macro lens!

You can just see the end of the reversed Vivitar 28-105 zoom in this shot. Note how close I’m able to get the lens to my subject.

Here’s what the reversed lens zoomed out to 28mm produced. Thinking backward helps here – Wider zoom settings allow closer focusing than more zoomed settings.

Reversed lenses

Mount a lens backward on your camera and you will be able to get in much, much closer than you would otherwise. I did a whole article on this technique which allows you to use even inexpensive old film camera lenses for great macro effects.

A focusing rail like this simple Neewer unit can be especially helpful when working to get good focus with sliver-thin depth of field. It’s also excellent for making focus-stacked images where you take a shot, adjust focus slightly, make another shot, and repeat getting multiple focus points on the subject which are later combined to get more depth of field than is possible with a single shot.

Focusing rail

Working with tiny subjects and macro lens techniques, you will quickly find your depth of field is sliver-thin, sometimes only a few millimeters. Often rather than trying to focus as usual, (and forget about using auto-focus when making shots like this), physically moving the camera forward or back is the way to focus.

A focusing rail is a finely-geared device which, with the use of knobs, allows you to move the camera in and out in tiny increments. Like most camera gear, you can spend a lot on the sophisticated rails, and there are even computer-controlled versions for doing macros that focus-stack.

If you’re just entering the world of macro however, very serviceable versions can be had for under $ 50.00 US.

With a depth of field only a few millimeters, sometimes focus stacking will be required to get what you want in focus. This shot is a 5-image stack.

Lighting

With your lens so close to your subject, you will often be in your own light, and shading your subject. There are many ways to light macro subjects and no single “right” way. It’s simply a matter of what works.

Do you know that things like extension tubes and bellows reduce the light reaching the sensor? Most often, you will be stopping down your lens, seeking more depth of field. Adding more light or increasing the exposure time will often be required. One advantage of the latter is that a several second exposure can sometimes allow you to “light-paint” your subject.

I did many of the really close-up images in this article that way. I light-painted during the exposure with a simple LED flashlight.

Note the difference aperture makes. The shot at left is at f/22 while the one on the right is at f/5.6. The background is affected more that the refracted image in the drops.

In practice – a look at some samples

The following images show a tabletop session with glycerin “dewdrops” hanging from a strand of sewing thread. I used a combination of a macro lens (a Tamron AF 90mm f/2.8 Di mounted on a Canon 6D camera), as well as a combination of extension tubes and a reversed old Vivitar 28-105mm zoom from my old Pentax ME Super film camera.

Some of the images used a combination of those devices stacked together in a quest to see just how close I could get.

This is about as close as the Tamron 90mm macro alone could focus. The drops are tiny, so this probably is the 1:1 ratio the lens is capable of.

Using this combination allowed the three-drop shot below.

3 extension tubes plus the Tamron Macro. 1.6 sec. f/16 ISO 800

Combining the Tamron 90mm macro with all three extension tubes (for a total of 68mm of extension).

The reversed Vivitar film lens plus a 36mm extension tube focused close enough to fill the frame with two drops. The long exposure also allowed time to light-paint the sunflower. 15 seconds, f/22, ISO 100.

Bear in mind that the drops in the shot are really tiny, around 2-3mm, so filling the frame with a single drop was way more than a 1:1 magnification ratio. If calculating the magnification factor is your bag, there are places with calculation tools to do that. For example, for one image I used all my extension tubes, (a Kenko set with 12, 20, and 36mm tubes plus a Canon 25mm tube = total 93mm extension) and a Canon 50mm f/1.8 “nifty 50” prime. Per the calculator, that produced about a 2:1 magnification ratio, filling the frame with about 3 of the drops. I achieved the closest shot (below), with the reversed Vivitar at 28mm with the three Kenko tubes attached. I figure it’s over 3:1, uncropped and almost filling the frame with a single drop.

To get this close with no cropping took all three (12mm, 20mm, and 36mm) extension tubes combined with the reversed Vivitar film lens at 28mm. The drop is only about 2mm wide. This is also a 2-image focus stack, one for the drop and the other for the flower inside.

Take note of how in the images the drop acts like a tiny lens, refracting and inverting the image inside it. If you want the image inside to be right-side-up, be sure to invert the real physical object before you snap the shot. Also, with such limited depth of field, even a small aperture may not give you the range of focus you need. Making shots like this will also give you a reason to learn focus-stacking techniques.

The captions on the shots reveal what I used to achieve each dewdrop photography image. So, see what you can learn here, get your camera, maybe buy some entry-level macro gear and then… just go “dew” it!

Share the images you make with us in the comments section!

The post Just Dew It – Fun with Macro Dewdrop Photography appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Rick Ohnsman.

Digital Photography School

October 6, 2019
Tips & Tricks: A Survey of Iconic Family Lifestyle Photography

Family lifestyle photography is a unique and incredibly exciting subsection of the photographic field. This is a method that is widely practiced, though to be done right, one needs to properly understand its history, its limitations, its necessities, and how it can be executed to get the most incredible and poignant photos possible. First, defining lifestyle photography is imperative: here, Continue Reading

The post Tips & Tricks: A Survey of Iconic Family Lifestyle Photography appeared first on Photodoto.

Photodoto

October 6, 2019
Review of PhotoWorks: a Fresh and Fast Photo Editor for PC
The post Review of PhotoWorks: a Fresh and Fast Photo Editor for PC appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Glenn Harper.

PhotoWorks is an image editor with a fresh, clean interface and a set of tools that work intelligently to get the best from your photos. It helps you turn drab files into spectacular pictures within a few clicks – sometimes only one! The software’s Portrait Magic technology uses face recognition to add expert retouching edits to your photos. A host of other handy features make the PhotoWorks photo editor for PC an enticing proposition.

The histogram is a constant when you edit in PhotoWorks. It’s good to see a program that knows its value.

Who’s it for?

Automatic photo editing is the forte of PhotoWorks, but the software doesn’t do everything. It doesn’t offer the huge toolbox that many other programs do, with so much thrown in that you have to rummage endlessly to find what you want. It’s designed for ease of use and speed, which will appeal to beginners and casual photographers but might catch the eye of a few veterans, too.

The clean, minimalistic interface of PhotoWorks. All edits are memorized by the software, so they’re non-destructive.

In this review, I’ll look at everything PhotoWorks has to offer. I feel like I’ll enjoy it because this photo editing software for PC isn’t an unwieldy monster with innumerable needless features. PhotoWorks seems knowable from the first time you open it. You can jump in without facing a steep learning curve, though there are good tutorials available online if you need help. Let’s see what it can do.

Opening raw files

Raw files are always an obvious place to start when reviewing a photo editor for PC. Can PhotoWorks handle them? It’s not billed as a raw processor, but it does open most proprietary raw files in addition to Adobe’s standard DNG files.

When you open raw files in PhotoWorks, you have the option of applying one of six profiles to them: Default, Auto Enhancement, Landscape, Portrait, Sunny Day or Black & White. With the Default profile, all the settings in PhotoWorks are zeroed when you open the file, whereas the others are Presets with adjusted sliders.

You’re presented with six starting points when opening raw files. The default conversion opens automatically on the page.

PhotoWorks is really a pixel editor. It converts individual raw files quickly and the quality is okay – good, even – but problems like chromatic aberration (CA) and chroma noise are present if you examine images at 100%. Should you view images at 100%? Only if you’re creating big prints or trying to impress third parties with technical quality. And if you’re doing that, you may not belong to the target market for this software, though PhotoWorks has potentially wide appeal.

PhotoWorks does not currently fix chromatic aberration or purple fringing. If you’re the type of photographer who scrutinizes image quality and needs impeccable files, you could run them through a dedicated raw converter first.

By pairing PhotoWorks with a separate raw processor (e.g. RawTherapee, Darktable), “serious” photographers could have the basis of an efficient workflow. That’d be good for, say, wedding photographers, who would also benefit from the software’s intelligent retouching capabilities. We’ll look at those in more detail later, but for now, it suffices to say they’re good.

Saving the PhotoWorks way

Not long after firing up PhotoWorks, you’ll notice there’s no way to close images. This is unusual, to say the least, but it’s another form of streamlining. You can save edited files and move onto the next image. Your edits are stored, even if you move on without saving, and you have the option of resuming them or starting afresh when you go back to the file. This is true even if you close the program. Edits are non-destructive.

Both Save and Fast Export let you export a separate copy of the edited file in the format of your choice, the main difference being that you choose the format beforehand with Fast Export. You can select from JPEG, TIFF (8-bit compressed), PNG and BMP.

Enhancement

The Enhancement tab is where you make changes to color and tone in your image. It includes an Auto Correction feature that aims to transform your photos in a single click, but you can alter its effect if you want. For instance, let’s say you’re already happy with the tonal range but would like more color, you could switch off the dynamic range and add vibrance to Auto Correction. Plus, there’s a slider that adjusts the strength of the auto effect.

PhotoWorks includes a blue sky enhancement, which makes it easy to deepen the blue of the sky whilst also warming the photo up. Those two edits are normally at odds with each other.

Most of the color and tone sliders you’d expect to find in top-end software are in the Enhancement section of PhotoWorks under the Main tab. They give you as much manual control as you want. The workspace is so tidily laid out that it puts some established photo-editing brands to shame. The design is thoughtful and user-friendly, and it makes you want to linger. You even get to suggest features you’d like to see.

Two more tabs under Enhancement are Colors and Sharpness. The first lets you adjust hue, saturation, lightness (HSL) and color balance. The Sharpen tool is basically an unsharp mask, and there’s a blur section where you could create dreamy soft-focus effects or counteract over-sharpening. It’s all useful stuff, and the confusing terminology is notably left out.

A slightly de-sharpened image focuses attention on form rather than detail. That’s where the PhotoWorks Blur tool is useful. It works well with busy compositions.

Tools

Move along to the Tools tab in PhotoWorks and a carefully selected set of powerful tools reveals itself to the right of the screen. There are not a hundred little tool icons as with complex programs. Some of the tools, like Curves or Tone Mapping, offer an alternative and perhaps more advanced way of working with your pictures. Seasoned photographers will be familiar with these features.

Crop

The PhotoWorks crop tool includes a modern set of aspect ratio presets that fit today’s devices or social media pages perfectly. Of course, you can also use the original aspect ratio, choose a different ratio or crop the photo freely. There’s nothing much missing here. You can rotate the picture, which helps get horizons level or to achieve the most effective composition.

AMS Software, the creator of PhotoWorks, also offers a choice of grid overlays to assist you with composition when cropping. For example, you can choose a Rule of Thirds or Golden Ratio grid to help you decide what to include and where. My only slight gripe here is that the grid lines are often a little hard to see: maybe a different color or opacity control would help.

The Golden Spiral crop grid in PhotoWorks.

Geometry (correcting perspective and distortion)

You can correct the perspective of architectural photos using the Geometry tools in PhotoWorks. Like in most photo editors for computers, there’s no auto adjustment, so you have to alter the vertical and/or horizontal perspective yourself using the sliders, but this is generally an easy task.

In this pic, you can clearly see the effects of lens distortion on the window frame. In the inset, I’ve corrected it using the distortion slider.

Correcting optical aberrations such as pincushion or barrel distortion is also possible in this section. Some programs will do this for you with the help of lens profiles, but you can do it easily yourself with the assistance of the included grid and distortion slider.

Change background

PhotoWorks makes it easy to change the background of your photo, so if you want to transplant a better sky or create a composite picture, you can. The process of separating the subject from its background is simple. You draw a green line with the object brush, a red line with the background brush, and then you let the software work its magic. Typically, you need to refine the edge a bit using the same brushes, which could become labor-intensive with intricate subjects. For many photos, the process works fine. There’s even a choice of free-to-use pictures you can add as backgrounds, or you can upload your own.

The Change Background feature in PhotoWorks separates subjects from their background with ridiculous ease. I’m not sure there’s enough finesse for complex selections (e.g. fur or fine strands of hair), but there’s a lot of fun to be had.

Vignetting

The vignetting tool lets you correct vignetting that occurs naturally with your lens. You can brighten edges and corners for even exposure. It also lets you add a vignette as a creative effect, focusing the viewer’s attention more on the subject of the picture. This photo editor for PC provides all the controls you need to fine-tune this edit.

3D LUT Color Correction

Color LUTs might just as accurately be called “special effects” since they remap the color of your photos to create a different look. PhotoWorks offers a nice built-in selection of them as well as letting you upload your own in the form of cube files. You can’t save your own LUTs within the software, hence you can’t preview them either, but I’m glad to see this feature in PhotoWorks.

This is the “Drama” color LUT. Interestingly, it compresses the tonal range. In doing so, maybe it makes the viewer feel more hemmed in and on edge.

Tone Mapping & Curves

PhotoWorks includes tone mapping and curves tools for controlling color and tone. Tone mapping lets you overlay a color or texture. You could apply a color to a black-and-white image here for a duotone effect. The curves tool adjusts contrast, changes color temperature, and tint and even corrects color if you use the individual RGB curves.

A black & white photo turned into a duotone (i.e. a mix of black and blue) using the Tone Mapping tool in PhotoWorks.

Noise Reduction and Grain

There are tools for reducing digital noise or adding film-like grain in PhotoWorks. This photo editing software for PC doesn’t separate color noise from luminance noise, which would be a nice feature for more advanced photographers. But it will smooth and improve the look of high ISO photos.

The film-grain effect is generally better looking than digital noise in photos. You can add that to give your photos an authentic retro look from the days of analog photography.

Retouch

Some of the headlining features of PhotoWorks fall under its Retouch section. The software harnesses the power of face recognition technology to automatically enhance portraits. You can use its Portrait Magic or Face Sculpt technology to retouch faces and show your subjects at their best.

Portrait Magic

A remarkable feature of PhotoWorks is its Portrait Magic feature, which lets you automatically or manually remove blemishes and enhance portraits. Its toolset includes the following:
- Skin smoothing
- Control over redness (improve blotchy skin)
- Skin tone
- Eyes (sharpness, contrast, remove dark circles)
- Eyebrows (sharpness, contrast)
- Lips (sharpness, contrast, hue, saturation, luminance & glare)
- Teeth (whiteness)
It may be hard to see the difference here, but Portrait Magic is good at damping down glare on the skin (aka “face shine”). There are many quick fixes to choose from as well as full manual control. (Image: Pexels)

Even if you know how to fix these things already, this technology saves time. It’s easy to imagine it being useful to pro portrait and wedding photographers. The best results are achieved by addressing issues one-by-one, but there’s a set of quick-fix buttons available to speed things up. You have to be careful with it because the software isn’t infallible. For instance, a pair of glasses get in the way of removing dark circles accurately.

Portrait Magic is so good that you could buy this software for that alone. It’s a great photo editor app for pc or laptop.

Face Sculpt

Just when you thought you’d seen amazing things with Portrait Magic, along comes Face Sculpt. Move a slider and watch the software identify and alter a specific part of the face. You can do these things manually in Photoshop using warp tools and the like, but boy is it easy with PhotoWorks: a deft picture editor and retoucher in one.

I’ve done nothing to this photo except turn a hint of a smile into a stronger hint. Like Portrait Magic, Face Sculpt is a powerful tool that can totally transform a portrait. The technology behind it is remarkably precise. Subtle edits often work best. (Original image: Pixabay)

Maybe we should all just accept the way we look, but contrary to popular belief, the camera does lie. It’s easy to take an unflattering portrait because of technical reasons, whether it’s an unflattering camera angle, harsh lighting, poor timing or lens distortion. PhotoWorks lets you remedy such problems.

Face Sculpt enables you to reshape or resize eyes, noses, mouths, eyebrows, and the face itself. You can even turn a frown into a smile. Used subtly, it creates different versions of the truth rather than outright lies. And if it helps the subject feel good about themselves, that can’t be a bad thing.

Healing and Cloning Tools

Healing and Cloning tools in PhotoWorks are also first rate. The clone stamp auto-samples from a similar area and gives you the option of changing the sample location. It’s quick and efficient, and no intervention is usually necessary. The Healing Brush is even faster for fixing small blemishes (e.g. dust spots).

Adjustment Brush

There aren’t any layers in PhotoWorks, but you can carry out local edits with the adjustment brush. Users of Lightroom will be familiar with the concept. Color, tone, and sharpness can all be selectively adjusted anywhere on the image. You can also deal with chromatic aberration by brushing neatly over edges and turning Saturation down, though a dedicated tool would be better.

It’s out of fashion, I know, but here’s a quick demo of selective coloring with the Adjustment Brush on PhotoWorks. This Lightroom-style feature offers infinite possibilities without being as daunting to beginners as layers are.

Graduated Filter and Radial Filter

The Graduated Filter and Radial Filter offer alternative ways of making local adjustments to one or more parts of an image. Whether it’s tone, color or sharpness you’re adjusting, these retouching tools make it easy to emphasize your subject. You can also even up your exposures (e.g. the classic dark foreground and bright sky) and bring out shadow detail. Characteristically, these features are neatly designed and easy to use in PhotoWorks.

Two graduated filters are in play here – one to brighten and warm up the lower half of the photo and another to reduce exposure in the sky a little.

Special Effects

With over 150 special effects to choose from, PhotoWorks gives you plenty of ways to interpret each photo. In the Special Effects section of the software, you can add any effect you like and then adapt it to suit your tastes if you want. Hitting the “Apply” button takes you over to the Enhancements area of the software, where you can tweak color, tone, and sharpness.

A quite pleasing special effect to my eye (Faded Photo -1) and one of over 150 special effects available in PhotoWorks.

I personally like adding textures to photos, so it was good to find a few textured effects among the collection. There is also a Quick Enhancements selection, which gives further opportunity for one-click fixing. You can favorite effects so they’re easy to find later on.

A Photographic Films section attempts to replicate the look of various classic films. It’s fun to play around with these effects, which you could find yourself using again and again in some cases.

Captions (add text and stickers)

Whatever you normally do with your photos, there might come a time when you want to add text to them. Maybe you’re making a Christmas card or designing a flyer. You could be creating memes for social media and entertaining your friends. PhotoWorks photo editor app for PC includes a versatile set of tools to help you create the text you want in the font, color, and style of your choice. A sticker collection lets you add cartoon-like captioning for extra fun.

Conclusion

Beneath the minimalistic surface, PhotoWorks offers a powerful set of tools that are easy to use regardless of your level. The way the software exploits face recognition technology is magical, indeed.

There are a few nuts-and-bolts things I would like to see in PhotoWorks, such as chromatic aberration removal, more nuanced noise reduction and an exposure warning to help with histogram adjustments (aka levels). The ability to export 16-bit TIFFs would be nice. At some point, though, if you keep adding stuff, the program ends up complex like many others and loses its streamlined appeal.

Design-wise, PhotoWorks positively gleams. It has a beautifully clean interface, uses simple terminology that everyone can understand, and gets a lot of work done with minimal effort. Whether you use it alone or alongside other photo editors for PC, it’s definitely worth a look.

You can download a free trial version and explore the features of the program yourself. Or use the exclusive coupon for dPS readers to purchase PhotoWorks at a 50% discount now!

Disclaimer: PhotoWorks is a paid dPS partner.

The post Review of PhotoWorks: a Fresh and Fast Photo Editor for PC appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Glenn Harper.

Digital Photography School
October 6, 2019
How to Make Your Photos Awesome in Lightroom or Photoshop Camera RAW
The post How to Make Your Photos Awesome in Lightroom or Photoshop Camera RAW appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Caz Nowaczyk.

In this video tutorial, Nemanja Sekulic will show you how to make some dramatic editing changes to your RAW photos using Lightroom or Photoshop Camera RAW.

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During the process, you will learn the following in Lightroom (which you can also translate to Photoshop Camera RAW):
- How to use the Basic Panel including the Exposure Slider, Highlight Slider, Shadow Slider, Color Temperature Slider,
- The shortcut for viewing before/after (\)
- How to use the Radial Filter tool – how to make multiple radial filter selections, reposition, and make adjustments to the selection.
- How to use the Adjustment Brush Tool – including changing your brush size, flow, and feather amounts.
- How to use it to make selective adjustments in your image, including color, temperature, exposure, highlights, shadows, clarity, etc. to fine-tune your image.
- How to use selective color with your Adjustment Brush.
- How to make new Adjustment Brushes to fine-tune the details in the eyes.
- How to use Hue and Saturation Panels as well as the Split Toning Panel.
- How to add a vignette.
- How to go back and readjust any of your Radial Filter, and Adjustment Brush settings.
You can apply these techniques across any image you choose, or you can download Nemanja’s image file here.

You may also find the following helpful:
- Photoshop vs Lightroom – the Power of Photoshop
- Four Lightroom Tips to Enhance Your Landscape Photos
- Lightroom Texture Slider vs. Skin Smoothing
- Lightroom Shortcuts Every Photographer Needs to Know
- 10 Tips to Make Lightroom Classic CC Run Faster
The post How to Make Your Photos Awesome in Lightroom or Photoshop Camera RAW appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Caz Nowaczyk.

Digital Photography School
October 5, 2019
Weekly Photography Challenge – Triangles

The post Weekly Photography Challenge – Triangles appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Caz Nowaczyk.

This week’s photography challenge topic is TRIANGLES!

Chris Lawton

Following along on our shapes theme for the past fortnight, this week is Triangles. You can see triangles in flags, sails, architecture, windows, rooftops, in patterns and shadows, etc.

So go out and capture anything that has triangles. They can be color, black and white, moody or bright. Just so long as they have triangles in them! You get the picture! Have fun, and I look forward to seeing what you come up with!

Bambi Corro

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freddie marriage

Check out some of the articles below that give you tips on this week’s challenge.

Tips for Shooting TRIANGLES

Embracing Shadows in Photography – A Lesson for Light and Life

How to Tell Stories with Architecture Photography

9 Creative Architecture Photography Techniques for Amazing Photos!

Tips for Different Approaches to Architecture Photography

How to Understand Light and Color to Improve your Photography

Top Tips for Photographing the Best a City has to Offer in 48-hours

Weekly Photography Challenge – TRIANGLES

Simply upload your shot into the comment field (look for the little camera icon in the Disqus comments section) and they’ll get embedded for us all to see or if you’d prefer, upload them to your favorite photo-sharing site and leave the link to them. Show me your best images in this week’s challenge.

Share in the dPS Facebook Group

You can also share your images in the dPS Facebook group as the challenge is posted there each week as well.

If you tag your photos on Flickr, Instagram, Twitter or other sites – tag them as #DPStriangles to help others find them. Linking back to this page might also help others know what you’re doing so that they can share in the fun.

The post Weekly Photography Challenge – Triangles appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Caz Nowaczyk.

Digital Photography School

October 5, 2019
Canon 11-24mm F/4L Lens Review

The post Canon 11-24mm F/4L Lens Review appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Nisha Ramroop.

Following the release news of the Canon EF 11-24mm F/4L USM Lens, came countless sleepless nights of research and reading reviews. At the end of that process, all I could safely decipher was that it was the new dream lens of the landscape photographer in me.

The build

The moment you pick up this lens, the weight surprises you. It’s quite hefty and you notice every ounce of the approximate (just over) two-and-a-half pounds. The entire build of the lens screams quality too. Like other Canon lenses, the manual focus and zoom rings move smoothly and feel natural. Not a lens you want to be cumbersome with, so this was an important feature for me when working with such weight. You can make easy focal adjustments, as the zoom moves through the entire focal range with a small turn. When behind the lens, the AF/MF is also easily accessible.

The bulbous front element blooms with authority and still makes me nervous enough to cover it almost immediately when not in use. I am not reassured by the presence of the fixed hood that is meant to protect the imposing glass. However, I am glad it is there. The signature red ring around the front always sets expectations of promised image quality and Canon has delivered.

Size comparatives from left to right: Canon 85mm F/1.2 L, Canon 11-24mm F4 L, Canon 135mm F2 L

What works

The Canon EF 11-24mm is benchmarked as the widest ultra-wide rectilinear lens compatible with full-frame DSLRs, since the Sigma 12-24mm F/4.5-5.6 lens. Thus barrel distortion is minimal throughout the range, and straight lines in your subject are not compromised (and appear straight). The most distortion you would find occurs at around 11mm and 12mm and compared to any other lens at this focal range, it is minimal. Of note, distortion seems non-existent between 15-24mm.

By comparison, yes the Canon EF 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye is wider, but as is the signature of fisheye lenses, it outputs barrel-distorted images and your straight lines curve. The exception is if your line is directly center of your frame.

The lens is quiet and focuses quickly. Most impressively though, it is super sharp, even at the corners! Added to sharp images; the contrast is nice and balanced. If you have used other ultra-wides, you will admire the difference in the output. The image quality is simply amazing!

The angle of view on a full-frame, coupled with the minimal distortion, makes it great for indoor architectural spaces. The need for a lens like this to be F/2.8 eludes me, as F/4 feels more than adequate.

What could be better

If you are looking at this beauty, the two major drawbacks may reside in price and weight. It is an expensive lens and certainly not in everyone’s price range. However, it’s a great investment if you do professional architectural and landscape photography. In these areas, the minimal distortion works in your favor. There is no other lens that performs like this lens at the wider end.

It is a large, heavy lens that will make you think twice before packing it for travel – you know you want it with you, oh but that weight! Even worse, it is front heavy, so you will want to be extra cautious when out in the field.

The front cap feels inadequate, as it struggles to cover the hood. There are also spaces where it clasps (when aligned) that leave room for dust to get into the front. After all the time they spent on this lens, the front cap feels like an afterthought.

There is also a noticeable amount of vignetting at 11mm and also some color fringing. Both are easy to fix in post-processing, without loss of your image quality. For an ultra-wide lens though, the falloff (or darkened corners) is negligible.

Conclusion

The Canon EF 11-24mm F/4L is a truly magnificent lens for a landscape or architectural photographer. It is well-built, heavy, sharp, quiet and expensive. One thing for certain though, it is the only one of its kind and a signature Canon lens.

Have you used this lens? What are your thoughts? Share with us in the comments.

The post Canon 11-24mm F/4L Lens Review appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Nisha Ramroop.

Digital Photography School

October 4, 2019