Moving from the APS-C to the full-frame world can be a very intimidating thing to do. After all, you’re going to spend a significant amount of money; money you have most likely been saving up for quite some time. There are so many options out there, and we know you want to pick a camera that will give the most Continue Reading
The post Canon EOS 6D Mark II Review: Full-Frame King? appeared first on Photodoto.
The post Capture One Pro – Should You Make the Switch? appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Darina Kopcok.
This may be a familiar scenario? You’re on a shoot, and you’ve tethered your camera to Lightroom. Everything is going well, but you still have many shots to do. The clock is ticking, and you can feel the time crunch. Out of the blue, Lightroom crashes, and you have to unplug everything and restart your computer. All while your client is tapping their foot and breathing impatiently down your neck.
Welcome to the reality of tethering in Lightroom.
Now don’t get me wrong, Adobe Lightroom is a great program.
I have used it for years. It’s a powerful database for your image files. Lightroom has excellent color management tools and other features, such as noise reduction and spot removal, that make it the only program that many photographers use. In fact, the speed and stability of tethering in Lightroom is one thing that has improved by leaps and bounds in 2019.
But if you shoot a genre of photography that requires tethering, like food or still life, or if you’re a portrait photographer, you still may want to consider moving over to Capture One Pro (COP).
For years, I personally resisted making this change. I didn’t want to learn yet another program or complicate my workflow. But when Lightroom kept crashing and freezing on a career-changing shoot with a big ad client, I decided to make the switch. As a still-life shooter, I find that COP is unbeatable.
If you’re a pro-shooter, or semi-pro, I would say Capture One Pro is a must. If you’re a hobbyist, you still might find learning this image processor worth your while.
This article is not meant to be a tutorial. Rather, I want to walk you through the features and benefits of using Capture One Pro. There are tons of resources online if you want to learn how to use the program, many of them found in Capture One Pro when you log onto the interface.
Capture One Pro is a RAW file editor and management system. It’s been around for about 20 years and is made by Phase One, a Danish manufacturer of open platform-based medium format cameras.
The software supports Phase One’s own cameras of course, as well as over 400 DSLR’s, such as those made by Canon, Nikon, and Sony.
In fact, COP has entered into a relationship with Sony. If you’re a Sony user, Capture One Express is a free imaging editor that comes with your camera that includes some of the essential editing and workflow features found in Capture One Pro.
The first thing to know when getting started with this software is that the interface is nothing like Lightroom. For those used to using Lightroom, Capture One Pro will be confusing to you.
This is often what frustrates Lightroom users in the beginning, causing them to give up before they get started.
There are many differences between the programs. What has become intuitive for you to do in Lightroom, may not work in COP.
COP has the library features of Lightroom with the advantages of Photoshop to work in layers.
It’s an all-in-one solution for many photographers.
So why is Capture One worth a new learning curve? Let’s take a look:
As you may have gleaned from the introduction, tethered shooting is incredibly stable in COP, whereas Lightroom is known to be super-glitchy.
Another advantage is that COP has a built-in Live View function.
If you’ve used the Live View function on your camera, you may have noticed that you can only use it in natural light, or when you’re using a constant light source like an LED or the modeling lamp on a monohead.
However, Capture One offers a Live View function within the program itself.
If you’re a food, product or still life photographer, this feature will drive your productivity through the roof. You and your stylists can make the incremental tweaks necessary in still life photography, all while viewing the components within the frame on a computer or laptop monitor.
In addition, it has an Overlay feature. It allows you to upload cover art, such as a product packaging layout or a magazine cover, so you can make sure that your subject fits into the parameters required by the project.
Both Lightroom and Capture One Pro double as RAW photo editors and organization software for your image files. However, their organizational structures are not the same.
Lightroom can open one Catalog at a time. These Catalogs can be divided into multiple Collections and Collection Sets.
In COP, photos are organized into Sessions. These are ideal for separating single client sessions, and various collections. For example, stock photography or personal photos. This is a better approach to large sets of images.
Similarly to Lightroom’s Collections, you can create Session Albums and move your images from several folders on your hard drive to a Favorite Session folder without physically moving them.
COP creates an automatic folder structure within the Session. It creates four default folders every time you start a new session: Capture, Selects, Output, Trash.
The Capture Folder contains all the images that were shot tethered or imported from your SD card. Once you make a selection of your favorite images, they will automatically be moved to the Selects Folder. If you want to delete specific images, they will be moved to the Trash folder by default. However, they are not permanently erased – you can move them back.
The Output Folder is the folder where your exported images will be sent unless you choose a different folder.
Capture One Pro offers the functionality of the Lightroom Library interface, with the power of Photoshop Layers.
Both Lightroom and COP provide global adjustments that alter the entire image, as well as a set of tools for local adjustments you can apply to smaller portions of the image.
However, COP includes the option to create local adjustments on multiple layers. Lightroom users have to switch from Lightroom to Photoshop to access multiple layer adjustments.
COP’s layers options are less powerful than those in Photoshop but more powerful than Lightroom’s single layer tools.
Sure, you can do some masking type of adjustments with Lightroom with the adjustment brush and other tools. After all, the adjustment tools in Lightroom have improved with every upgrade.
But if you’ve made several adjustments and need to go back a few steps, remembering which adjustment you made can be confusing.
With COP, you have a clear overview over of all the adjustments that you applied to the image.
You can create radial masks and linear masks, and you can fill masks over the whole layer and erase parts of the mask. Also, you can create masks by luminosity, applying adjustments to only the highlights or shadows in your photo.
Last but not least, you can change the opacity of these masks.
For example, if you’ve have created a color treatment you had in mind, but the colors are too saturated and bold, you can turn down the opacity to reduce the strength of those colors. All while keeping your color treatment intact.
There is so much flexibility when it comes to color management and color grading in COP.
First of all, Capture One has individual color profiles for every camera. So, when you import the image files, you get something similar to the preview on the back of your LCD screen.
Lightroom files, however, have a more neutral starting point. This is great for photographers who favor more muted palettes.
Conversely, in COP, the colors look brighter and more vibrant before you make any adjustments. The adjustment options in both programs will give you similar results, but the starting point will be slightly different.
The color tools in COP are also incredibly powerful and versatile.
While Lightroom has the HSL (Hue-Saturation-Luminance) panel with sliders and RGB curves adjustments, COP offers a few more ways to work with color.
You can use the Levels Tool, Tone Curve, Color Editor, or the Advanced Color Editor.
The color options include shadow, mid-tone, and highlight adjustments for Color Balance and a channel dedicated just to adjusting skin tones. COP also has a luminance curves adjustment option.
One caveat to using Capture One is that as a less-popular image processor, there are far fewer options when it comes to supporting third-party products like presets and plug-ins.
However, COP has a feature called Recipes, which are similar to presets.
The other major disadvantage is cost.
For US$ 10 a month, you can have both Lightroom and Photoshop.
COP is US$ 20 USD a month if you choose the subscription option. It’s $ 180 USD if you pay for an entire year at once.
Unlike Adobe, however, Capture One also offers the option to buy the latest version of the software outright for $ 299. Adobe now offers a subscription-based service only – much to the ire of many photographers.
The best way to get started with Capture One Pro is to download the 30-day free trial and import some of your images from your hard drive.
Set aside some time to go through the tutorials and really get to know the program. Think about how you might set up a workflow were you to make the switch from another RAW editor such as Lightroom.
Like any program, there are advantages and disadvantages and there. There is no perfect program.
The bottom line is that you want to make an informed choice. Hopefully this introduction to Capture one Pro has helped you understand some of its benefits.
Do you use Capture One Pro or considering making the switch? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.
The post Capture One Pro – Should You Make the Switch? appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Darina Kopcok.
The post 10 Questions to Ask a Tour Operator Before Signing up for a Photography Tour appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Peter West Carey.
The company has an entrancing website and bedazzling photos. The itinerary looks all-encompassing and the testimonials seem positive. You’re excited and have your credit card ready for the deposit.
Slow down, partner.
Before you hand over your money, it’s a good idea to ask a number of questions of the photography tour operator.
Asking questions before paying for a photography tour is all about setting expectations – both yours and the operators. It’s also a chance to learn about the professionalism of the person or company you are signing up with.
Here then are 10 key questions to help you with your tour choice.
Protecting yourself is important with any tour, and it’s important to know what your tour operator has in place before you sign up. With the proliferation of photographers jumping to offering tours, it’s possible not all have put serious thought into insurance matters.
At the least, your operator should have insurance covering accidents during the trip – both ones they cause and ones out of their control.
The reason operators may skimp on insurance is simple – it’s expensive. And that cuts into profits. It’s also often the reason two operators who offer roughly the same itinerary will differ in price by 10-20%. Make sure you are covered before paying your deposit.
Everyone has their own ideal when it comes to instructor-to-guest ratios. Some enjoy one-on-one instruction all the time, and others prefer a small group of maybe five or six. Still, others may love the anonymity of a large 15-person group so they can do their own thing without interference.
I prefer groups no larger than six guests per instructor. This allows for some hands-on, one-on-one time. It also ensures the instructor is not being asked 5,000 questions while you wait for your chance.
Also, realize that an instructor may have a low ratio, but the over-group size might be larger, meaning they may bring in other instructors to help out. This is usually not a problem, but if you are hoping to hear directly from the lead instructor who attracted you to the tour, be aware you might not get the amount of facetime you’re expecting.
What’s the difference between a workshop and a photo tour? Susan Portnoy has a good comparison on her site, The Insatiable Traveler.
A tour is a chance to be guided through an area typically rich in photographic content. There is less direct hands-on instruction, moment to moment, and the subject matter can cover a large spectrum.
A workshop, by contrast, is usually more hands-on and directed to a specific goal. An example of this is a one day workshop on street photography. Your instructor will be close at hand to make all those small course corrections and critiques needed for improvement.
I’ve run across this myself while taking a tour. The instructors brought us to a scenic overlook and then POOF! Gone.
It turned out they had an assignment in that area. While they only headed off five minutes away, it was rather disconcerting to think I, and the other guests, were less important for that hour of ‘other work.’
It’s important to also realize that having other work isn’t necessarily horrible for you. However, it’s important to know about it up front, and then you can decide if it is acceptable. Most of us are okay with some deviation if we know about it in advance.
Some people love to have constant feedback and need that on their tour. While others could not care less because their art is a personal endeavor.
If you want regular feedback, ask about it. Again, it’s about setting expectations, so you’re not disappointed when your needs aren’t being met.
Sometimes the reviews are just back-of-camera check-ins to see what you’re seeing and offer correction or encouragement. Or maybe you want an hour of the instructor’s time every three nights in front of a laptop so you can get more in-depth critiques. Either way, know before you go.
This is a big question that should be easy for any operator to answer. I believe the best answer is, “Because I love the area/region/country!” Often, the answer in the background is, “Because it is highly profitable or super popular.”
There’s nothing wrong with making a profit or leading tours to popular spots, but I feel it is important to know why the operator is running the tours they run. If it’s for the love of an area, you’re more likely to get hard-to-acquire information, background details, and unique locations. Experience certainly matters in the photography tour business for access to hidden experiences.
This item is pretty straightforward. You should ask this for tours, workshops or any time you are plopping down a large sum of cash for a service. Do they offer full refunds? What is the deadline for canceling without a fee? Do they offer to reschedule if extenuating circumstances or family health are involved?
What about the operator canceling a tour? Will they try to rebook you with another, similar operator? How quickly will they offer a return of all funds?
The advertisements and website you researched looked incredible! Beautiful images and exotic locations abound in that slick presentation.
But what will it really be like when you’re on the tour? Sure, no two days will be the same if you’re traveling all around. However, it is important to understand if you’ll be on a bus for five hours each day or if dinner is planned without thought to sunset timing each night. It’s often the difference between a photo tour and a regular tour.
In my mind, a photo tour should be a balance of exposure to opportunities with time to reflect and take a break. Food is also very important to keep energy up for shooting all day. If you’re always on the move, you won’t have time for photos. If your itinerary covers too much ground, you’ll see a lot of things through car or bus windows without many opportunities.
Pacing can be essential during a week or two-week long tour. If every day is packed with 18 hours of photography and instruction, you’re going to be exhausted by Day 3. Flexibility is also important so that one event taking extra time doesn’t make the rest of the day’s itinerary crumble.
This question is also a chance to make your expectations known. If you want hand-holding the whole time, and have barely touched a camera, let the operator know so they can decide if the trip will be a good fit.
Perhaps you have a particular skill set you want to develop. Letting the operator know early will help them prepare, and both of you can work on a simple plan to help you improve during the tour. Everyone on your trip will have different aspects of photography they want to improve. Expressing your desires will help all involved.
This is another question that has no right or wrong answer, but it’s important to know in setting your expectations. Some operators, to increase profits or because they desire more control, will want to book all the hotels, events, admissions, etc., themselves. This can also lead to a lower cost for guests. But it can also lead to the operator taking more time away from instructing.
On the other hand, an operator who hires a local guide or tour company should have more time for instructing. It can also help to have a local when things go sideways, and a deep understanding of local customs and protocol is essential. It allows for a division of labor; the local guide can go ahead and check the group into a hotel and have rooms ready while the group continues to soak up a particularly beautiful sunset.
Many of the questions I posed here have no right or wrong answer. However, I feel they are all important to ask in setting expectations before investing time and money in a tour. Asking them can also help expose a guide who is not organized or ready to take a group on a trip due to lack of diligence.
Can you think of other important questions to ask? We’d love to hear them in the comments section below.
The post 10 Questions to Ask a Tour Operator Before Signing up for a Photography Tour appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Peter West Carey.
The post How to Create a Documentary Photography Project appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kevin Landwer-Johan.
We all love a good story. A tale that captures your attention and draws you in to discover more. Creating a documentary photography project can be a great way to develop your photography. It can also help hold the attention of your audience for longer.
© Kevin Landwer-Johan
Random collections of unrelated images tend to be glanced over. This is especially so when most of your photography is viewed on social media platforms. Making your photography stick in people’s minds is a constant challenge.
Developing a photography project and working on it over a period of time, be it weeks, months or even years, can help you stand out from the crowd. Your personal skills and style will evolve in a more meaningful direction. The deeper commitment you have to a documentary photography project the more you will benefit.
Charging into a project on a whim will sometimes work, but not often. Without purpose and a plan, you are more likely to lose interest. You’ll struggle to keep momentum and find it too challenging to come up with fresh ideas to keep your project alive.
Start a list. Write down ideas as they come to you. What would most like to photograph? As you start, don’t restrict yourself. Jot down whatever comes to mind, giving no thought to whether or not it’s practical. Let your list grow over a week and then review it.
© Kevin Landwer-Johan
Give yourself some space alone with your list. Edit it down to what’s practical. What can you photograph every day, or every week? If anything on your list is not accessible to you, remove it. Add it to a list for future projects.
Concentrate on what excites you. What’s on your list that you’d most like to commit to photographing regularly? Having a passion for your theme or concept will keep you motivated. Don’t choose ideas you think will be easy. Being challenged is good for you.
Narrow your list down to two or three ideas. Mull these over before deciding on one of them. Even make a start on more than one. You can begin work on more than one project, then, if it’s too much of a commitment, pick the one you’re enjoying the most.
Now write another list of what you will do with the photos you’ll create for your documentary project. Stories are for sharing. Who will be interested in the tale you are telling? What’s the best medium or platform for you to display your images?
You might want to make a physical scrapbook with prints of your favorite photos. Instagram or Pinterest may be an ideal outlet for you, or your own website. Photo sharing sites like 500px or Flickr are also options. You could email a small selection of your project photos to one or two photographer friends each week for their feedback. Consider what you most want to achieve by sharing your photos.
© Kevin Landwer-Johan
Research. Dig into your chosen project idea like it’s brand new. Even if you already know a lot about it, find out more. Telling a story built on thin information will not hold people’s attention for very long.
The more of an expert you become on your subject, the better the story you will tell. You might even want to plan a narrative. What will be the beginning, middle, and end? The greater your knowledge about it, the more interesting detail you’ll be able to include. You want other experts on your topic to be surprised at what you are showing them in your photos.
Look into the history of the project idea. Talk to people who know about your topic. Don’t only rely on the internet. To touch the heart of the thing will require experience – yours and other people’s.
© Kevin Landwer-Johan
While it’s important to plan, don’t be held back by it. Make a start as soon as you have decided on what your documentary photography project will be. You might start slowly and change direction a few times, but that’s okay.
Procrastinating will not help you achieve your goals. Once you begin, you will see your story develop, and you can steer it in any direction you feel is right.
The topic for your project may dictate how frequently you can take photos. Hopefully, this will be regular, especially if you are embarking on your first documentary photo project.
Vary the images you are making. You may decide to use one prime lens. If so, push yourself to create a diverse selection of compositions with it. Or use your widest and your longest lens with the same subject on the same day for variety.
© Kevin Landwer-Johan
Use a mixture of aperture, shutter speed, and ISO settings to also help build an interesting series of photos. If there’s movement, let it blur out using a slow shutter speed. If you would normally photography a subject with a wide aperture, close it down and get as much in focus as possible. Stretch your technique beyond what you would typically use.
Photograph in a mixture of lighting situations. Take some photos in the morning and others in the afternoon or at night. Aiming for variety will give you a more interesting body of work to edit down from for the images you will share.
As you build up a body of work, you will begin to see your strengths and weaknesses. You will see the photos you like the most. Organize these into a separate folder, or series of folders so that you can compare them often.
© Kevin Landwer-Johan
Photographing a project will involve some amount of repetition. You’ll visit the same locations. Photograph the same things. Meet the same people. Experience weather and seasonal changes.
Be aware of your feelings each time you are working on your project. Make photographs that are in tune with your mood and how you are experiencing what you are doing. This will make your story more personal and interesting.
Your view of the world is unique, and your photographs should portray this. The concept may seem a little abstract, but as you are mindful of it and practice over time, you will find your photos become more expressive of who you are.
© Kevin Landwer-Johan
Interacting with people who are part of your project, if there are any, will help develop the character in your photo story. You might prefer to only take candid photos of people, but the way you do this will also reflect in your pictures. Using a long lens, or a wide one, will result in very different candid images.
Engaging with people throughout your project is very interesting. At the start, people may be uncertain of what you’re doing or why. As you revisit and photograph them, your relationship with them will change. People will become accustomed to you and will be more relaxed in your presence. Others may become irritated or bored. The nature of the photos you make of them will change.
Observe the differences. What’s changed since the last time you worked on your project? Look for subtitles you may not have picked up on if you’d only photographed in that place once. Over time you will start to see things you did not pick up on before. These details can add a depth of interest to your documentary project.
© Kevin Landwer-Johan
What do you think of your photos? Are others enjoying your visual storytelling?
Working on a project allows you to see your own photography developing. Because you’re photographing the same theme or concept over a period of time, you will reproduce similar types of photos. Compare them. Can you see growth in your skills and style?
Separate the top 10 or 20 percent of your photos after each session you have working on your project. This will give you a clearer idea of your progress. From time to time, review these photos and look for gaps in your story. What’s missing? What are you photographing too much?
Having a photographer friend or mentor look over your photos and share their critique on them will help you see things from another perspective. They may point out things or ask questions you have not thought of. Healthy feedback can lead to a deeper, richer story being told.
© Kevin Landwer-Johan
Go with the flow. Don’t stick to your plan too closely if you feel a more exciting story is emerging from your project. Let it develop organically. This will help you keep interested in what you are doing. You may stretch your project out for longer than you had planned.
Start today. Begin writing your list of ideas. Don’t rush it, but don’t let the idea stagnate. Once you begin, keep thinking about your project and adding to it. Right from when you start your list, through to the taking of photos and sharing them.
Have you ever given yourself the challenge of a documentary photography project? You may find you love the more in-depth storytelling aspect of working on a body of work.
Do you already have a project which has stalled a little and needs a kickstart? Design a story for it and plan to share it. This can help you get back on track.
The post How to Create a Documentary Photography Project appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kevin Landwer-Johan.
The post 5 Reasons to Consider Aperture Priority Over Manual Mode appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by John McIntire.
Choosing aperture priority mode in difficult lighting situations can free your mind up to deal with the things that matter most to the photo, like timing, rather than messing around with the dials to get the same result.
There’s a lot to be said for the manual exposure mode on your camera. When you’re starting out, learning how to shoot in manual will help you to learn the relationship between shutter speed and aperture. This ensures that you learn what the camera is doing every time you make an exposure. It also builds the basis for you to take what you learn about exposure and correct for the camera’s inability to cope with extreme exposure situations as well as to make creative choices for your images.
After you’ve learned the ins and outs of manual mode, however, there are a few reasons why you might want to forego your hard-learned manual skills for Aperture Priority mode. This article outlines five of these reasons and details what Aperture Priority mode might offer you and your photography in some situations.
In manual mode, the meter in your camera is taking a reading based on your set ISO (provided you’re not using auto ISO). The chances are likely that you’ve picked a deliberate aperture setting before you even lifted the camera up. To get your exposure, you now have to alter the shutter speed so that the indicator on your camera lines up with what the meter dictates is a correct exposure.
Aperture priority does the exact same thing, except that the camera sets up the shutter speed for you.
In instances where you are trusting your camera’s light meter (let’s be honest, that’s most of the time), this will result in the same exposure every single time whether you are shooting in manual mode or aperture priority mode.
What aperture priority mode does is remove the need for you to set the shutter speed yourself. It frees you to concentrate on things like composition without having to constantly keep an eye on the meter.
Exposing for the meter in manual mode resulted in an exposure of f/11 at 1/50th of a second.
Exposing the scene in aperture priority mode just a second later resulted in the exact same exposure. f/11 at 1/50th of a second.
In situations where you need to compensate for dark or light subjects, aperture priority mode still gives you full manual control of the exposure through exposure compensation. Are you taking photos of a dark subject like a black dog? Dial in -1 stop of exposure compensation just one time and keep shooting without having to constantly adjust your settings to get to the same result. Are you taking photos of a fluffy white dog? Same again. This time, add +1 stop of exposure compensation and away you go.
Dark subjects will require you to underexpose them. In Aperture priority mode, this is easily done with exposure compensation. Once you dial in exposure compensation, you are set to go until it has to be changed again. With light-toned subjects, you will have to overexpose them to maintain the correct exposure.
High contrast subjects, like this sheep’s white face lit directly by the setting sun, will also have to be underexposed by at least a few stops.
The only difference between aperture priority mode and manual mode in these circumstances is that you will be spending more time focusing on the creation of the photos than you will be on the dials on your camera.
To be clear, I am not advocating for not learning how to use manual mode. For the best results, it is important for you to understand how your camera works in relation to exposure. Using manual mode is the best and fastest way to do that. So, please, don’t skip over manual altogether. However, once you have it down, using other modes alongside your knowledge of exposure and how it works will help you and your photos in the long run.
The backlighting in this image created an extremely high contrast situation. By dialing in -3 stops of exposure compensation, I was able to ensure that the issues were dealt with in a series of images with one turn of the dial.
As mentioned, using aperture priority reduces the amount of time you have to spend watching the camera’s meter. Because the camera is now setting the shutter speed for you, the only thing you have to worry about in most situations is exposure compensation. Once you set your camera to aperture priority mode, it takes only one finger (on all modern cameras that I’ve used) to adjust the exposure compensation settings.
Need to underexpose by a stop? Just turn the one (relevant) dial three clicks. Done.
The only other thing you might have to worry about is if you have the need, or want, to change your ISO. But that is going to be more uncommon.
At the risk of repeating myself, but I feel this point really needs to be driven home. Aperture priority mode gives you full manual control over your exposure. It is not automatic, or an auto mode, in any way more than it allows the camera to set the shutter speed based on the meter you are already using. At any time while in aperture priority mode, you will still have full manual input on what exposure the camera is recording. You just have less physical steps to go through before you get there.
One scenario in which aperture priority mode really shines is in changing lighting conditions. For example, if you’re out on a windy and cloudy day, the light levels can constantly shift. In aperture priority mode, your camera changes the shutter speed for correct exposure (already taking into account any exposure compensation that you might have set). Thus, helping you to achieve a consistent look for all of the images in a sequence. This is most useful in terms of shooting a sequence of images to later stitch into a panorama.
When creating a sequence of images for a panorama, aperture priority can help to ensure a consistent exposure throughout the frames.
If you were shooting this sequence in manual mode, it would require you to be constantly looking at the meter and changing your shutter speed settings as required. This isn’t a big deal, but using aperture priority mode allows you to get the same results without constant fetter over the settings.
At sunset, the light rapidly changes. Add a moving subject to that high contrast scene and you have an exposure nightmare. Aperture priority can help to maintain a fairly consistent exposure between frames.
This isn’t perfect, and extreme shifts in lighting can have drastic effects on your images and your exposure. You will still have to pay attention to the details to ensure nothing is going wrong. On normal days, however, it will work just fine.
Using aperture priority with TTL and HSS enabled flashes might just be the perfect match.
When you are using a flash with TTL (through the lens metering) and HSS (High-Speed Sync) enabled, the chances are that you are going to be working with a fixed aperture anyway.
Remember, shutter speed does not affect flash exposure, only ambient exposure. Aperture priority mode will give you the freedom to set your desired aperture and then let the camera do what it needs to match the meter.
Not only will you still have full control over the exposure compensation for the ambient, but you will also have full control over exposure compensation with the flash unit.
Again, this allows you to get the exposure where you want it one time, and then you are free to concentrate on the actual photos.
Aperture priority can be a fantastic tool for any photographer. At the end of the day, it does the exact same thing that manual mode does. It just takes away some physical steps that you have to go through in manual mode to set the exposure.
That said, like just about everything else in photography, it is not perfect, and it won’t always be a solution.
If you take only one thing away from this article, let it be this: shooting only in manual mode does not make you a better photographer. Aperture priority and shutter priority modes do the exact same thing, just in a different way. Use whichever works for the situation you’re in.
Do you use Aperture or Shutter Priority? Share with us your thoughts in the comments below.
The post 5 Reasons to Consider Aperture Priority Over Manual Mode appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by John McIntire.
The post Why You Need a Digital Photo Frame appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Simon Ringsmuth.
One of the unsung heroes of modern photography is the tried-and-true digital photo frame. These simple devices have been around for years, and yet they are rarely discussed in photography circles. With huge televisions adorning our walls, and smartphones stuffed into our pockets, one might wonder why there is any reason to own a digital photo frame. In the past few years, I have grown to greatly appreciate these devices, and I have realized how valuable, useful, and downright practical they are. If you or someone you know needs a good solution to viewing photos, a digital frame might be just what you’re looking for.
When digital frames first came on the market back in the mid-2000s, they were a great idea severely hampered by bad technology. Bezels were huge, the screens were small, and the images were dim and blurry. Setting up frames required toiling through a myriad of menus with nonsensical buttons and on-screen context clues.
Adding images to a digital frame was an exercise in frustration and required many steps on the part of the user. Plus, transitions between pictures were garish and often unbecoming of the memories on display.
It’s no wonder most people have stopped thinking about digital frames!
If this sounds like you, you’re not alone.
I was in the same boat until recently. However, the more I investigated what modern technology offers, the more impressed I became. In contrast to their counterparts from a decade ago, today’s digital frames have bright displays, show large high-resolution photos, are thin and sleek, and cost less than you might think. They often have cloud-based interfaces, offer companion smartphone apps, and can even show video clips.
The Nixplay Seed Wave has a large screen and wi-fi connectivity.
One of the best reasons to get a digital frame isn’t because of what they can do, but what they can’t do. It seems silly to have yet another device in a world where screens already surround us, but the digital frames eschew the traditional idea of a computer screen by turning it on its head. They follow the adage of doing one thing and doing it well.
Most digital frames don’t let you do anything but view pictures. And this is precisely what makes them so great. They don’t run thousands of apps, let you surf social networks, or make video calls. They don’t play games, won’t let you binge-watch Netflix or YouTube, and don’t bombard you with notifications.
Digital frames sit there, passively doing only one thing: showing your pictures.
The Aura Digital Photo Frame has facial-recognition built into its companion app and a touchscreen for navigating options.
In an era where every device and gadget continually begs for our attention, digital frames are like an oasis in the middle of the desert. It’s downright refreshing to see a bright digital frame sitting on a shelf, knowing you can’t do anything with it other than look at pictures.
You don’t have to worry about software updates, and your viewing experience isn’t cluttered with dozens of icons and bubbles vying for your attention. In a media-saturated world, digital frames are a great way to slow down and enjoy, appreciate, and reflect on your pictures without distraction.
Some smart appliances like the Amazon Echo Show and Google Nest Hub act as photo frames, but I prefer the simplicity and focus of a dedicated frame. Other devices like that are nice, but the features they offer can often distract you from just enjoying your photos.
Advanced frames like the Google Nest Hub Max do lots of things, but I prefer simpler frames that don’t have built-in cameras, digital assistants, or alert bubbles begging for your attention.
Like many people, my wife and I have struggled for years with the question of what to do about getting prints made of our pictures. We’ve made yearbooks that adorn our end tables, mounted framed snapshots on dressers, and festooned our walls with large prints and canvases. These are great, and we enjoy them a great deal, but every one of them eventually grows old over time.
When that inevitably happens, we have to consider what to do next. Do we keep the old prints around? Do we put up new images in place of what was once there? There are also practical concerns, like where to get prints made, what size to make them, and what happens when our favorite photo book publisher goes out of business?
We enjoy seeing prints as much as anyone, but the logistical hassles have added layers of stress and indecision onto what should be an enjoyable process.
The Pix-Star 15-inch frame lets you see your photos without printing them.
A digital frame solves almost all of these problems. Our 8×10″ Nixplay Seed sits in our living room showing a massive assortment of images without any effort from us. In the course of a single day, we see photos of family vacations, our kids when they were infants, and old slides that we scanned from negatives. We don’t have to think about switching photos out, spend entire evenings trying to decide which images are worth printing, or wonder whether a particular photo is worthy of being displayed for all to see.
Of course, there are still plenty of reasons to get pictures printed. But if you want a simple way to enjoy your pictures without the hassle of making physical copies, a digital frame might be right for you.
As is the case with most digital gadgets these days, storage space is not the same constraint as it used to be. Many frames have internal storage of at least 8GB, which is enough for almost 10,000 images. If that’s not enough, you can look for one with a removable memory card slot to add even more space.
Modern digital frames have more than enough storage space for your pictures. Unlike your walls and bookshelves, which can quickly fill up with physical prints.
If you think that displaying your images on a digital frame means sacrificing overall quality, think again. This might have been true in 2005, but now, frames are leaps and bounds beyond where they used to be. As recently as a few years ago, many frames had resolutions of about 72 or 96dpi – similar to that of older computers.
This resolution is fine if you’re viewing your images from a distance, as often is the case when using frames in a household setting. However, frames today often have much higher pixel densities or anywhere between 150-300dpi that put them on par with most laptop screens and even that of some mobile phones.
This means that your images, even when viewed up close, are as crisp and sharp as you would see if you got them printed and you’ll be able to make out every detail from wisps of hair to blades of grass.
Aura makes a 9.7-inch frame with 2048×1536 resolution, which shows your memories in crisp, clear detail.
Most modern digital frames use bright screens that are now viewable from any angle, unlike older versions which required you to stand in the right spot to see your images. Your pictures appear bright and colorful, and some digital frames even let you show video clips alongside your images.
With all the recent problems regarding data privacy on social network sites like Instagram and Facebook, it’s no wonder so many people are deleting their accounts! If you, or your friends and family, are limiting your social media usage but still want to see pictures of the important things in your life, a digital frame is just the answer. To illustrate this, I’m going to use my in-laws as an example.
My wife’s parents aren’t on any social media at all, and they prefer to spend their time reading, gardening, walking the dogs, and going out with friends. This means they don’t get to see any pictures of their grandchildren unless we send them physical prints, which they have to find a spot to display. A few months ago, my wife and I bought them a digital photo frame and have since populated it with well over a thousand images of us and our kids.
Do you have friends or family members who aren’t on social media? Get them a digital frame and fill it with photos for them to enjoy.
We shared their frame information with other family members who have also sent pictures to the frame. My wife’s parents love it! The frame sits in their living room, showing photos of the people they love without any effort on their part. And, they didn’t have to join a social network or share any personal data.
If you have people in your life who are concerned about data-mining and privacy, consider a digital frame as a happy medium. It allows you to share pictures on a more limited and intentional basis than sites like Instagram or Flickr. But the tradeoff is, you are in full control of the images, and none of your personal information is sold to third-parties for advertising.
This simple Tenker 7-inch frame, and others like it, won’t send your photos off to be analyzed for advertising.
Here’s a few more tips that might help you with digital frames.
Do you use a digital photo frame? Or, are there reasons why you don’t? Feel free to share with us in the comments below.
The post Why You Need a Digital Photo Frame appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Simon Ringsmuth.
The post Catalog Photos Like a Pro: ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019 Review appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Glenn Harper.
ACDSee software has been around since the earliest days of digital photography. For 20 years, it’s been competing with Adobe Photoshop. Today, with Adobe offering its top image-editing programs by subscription only, there’s more room than ever for alternatives. ACDSee offers a compelling subscription model of its own, but it also maintains a full suite of standalone products. Photo Studio Standard 2019 is among them, and I’ll review it here.
The default layout in Manage mode of ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019. You can move things around as you wish and close any panes you don’t need.
Aimed at keen photographers with growing photo collections, ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019 is ideal for sorting, finding, and viewing photos. It also has a set of editing tools that will quickly make your pictures look good for the web or printing. We’ll look at all this in detail. To avoid wasting anyone’s time, this program recognizes and opens raw files but it’s not a raw editor or metadata editor – it’s a pixel editor. You have no control over how raw files are processed and can only save 8-bit files.
Preview of a DNG file. You can embed ACDSee metadata into DNG files, unlike other raw formats.
This review of ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019 will include the following:
One thing that struck me immediately about ACDSee software was how quickly it opened. Sometimes I wait 2-3 minutes for Photoshop CC to start. There are technical reasons for that, like the plug-ins I have loaded into it and its sheer girth. Perhaps it connects to my Adobe account, too. Whatever. Photo Studio Standard 2019 opens in around 15-20 seconds every time.
Digital asset management (DAM) is the great strength of ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019. In Manage mode, the software offers all you need for sorting and locating your images. Like many people, you may already have your folders arranged chronologically. This is handy for sifting through them using the folder pane of ACDSee, but the software gives you lots of other ways to find pictures.
Here, I’m using the folder pane in Manage mode to browse photos. I’m not the best organizer, but I do have most folders labeled chronologically.
I latched onto the Calendar pane within minutes of opening ACDSee. Even if you have your folders arranged by date, it’s so quick to rifle through your photos month by month using the calendar. You can widen the search by choosing multiple months or use single days to narrow it. I used this feature straight away to dig out a few files I might’ve overlooked as potential stock photos.
The ACDSee Catalog pane gives you several ways to find what you’re looking for: color labels, keywords, ratings, saved searches, categories, and auto categories. Of course, you have to add most of this info yourself to the images, but that’s easy using the software. Auto categories come from EXIF data, so you can filter results by the lens or aperture used, for instance.
There are various ways to filter photos in the Catalog pane, some of which rely on you having rated, keyworded, labeled, tagged, or categorized your photos already. In this screenshot, I’m looking at photos taken with a particular lens.[/
ACDSee includes a Map pane. Drag your photo(s) onto the place where they were taken, hit Save, and the GPS coordinates are automatically embedded into the EXIF data. Cool! That wasn’t a feature I expected at this price point (Lightroom has it), but it does show how thorough this software is in what it does.
Dragging a photo or several photos onto a spot on the map and hitting “Save” embeds GPS coordinates into the metadata.
The Shortcuts pane offers a way of bookmarking files you know you’ll often need. It makes it that little bit quicker to find any special photos – perhaps a collection of your best-ever shots.
Another neat feature of Photo Studio Standard 2019 is the Image Basket. Normally, when I’m preparing a gallery for the web, I create a new folder on my desktop to work from. The Image Basket is a way of gathering original files together without having to copy them elsewhere.
Keywords are an invaluable way of quickly finding what you’re looking for, but they can be time-consuming to add. ACDSee is ahead of Adobe in this respect. It’ll import any keywords you’ve added elsewhere to the IPTC data, but it has excellent keywording capability of its own.
The ability to create large keyword sets of up to 250 is enough to satisfy any lexicologist. I wouldn’t normally need that many, but 40 or 50 isn’t uncommon. Adobe software is restrictive in this respect.
A welcome feature of the new ACDSee ‘Quick Keyword’ tool is the ability to use 25 rows by 10 columns of words (i.e., up to 250 keywords). In Lightroom, you can only have 9 keywords max per set – a source of frustration for many users. ACDSee has its own metadata field that is stored in the database rather than embedded in the file, but you can embed it into suitable file formats.
In Photos mode, ACDSee catalogs all images from the location(s) of your choice and puts them on display so you can scroll through them. Like the Calendar pane, it’s an easy way for you to search visually and find pictures. Hovering the cursor over a thumbnail brings up a larger preview with vital info such as image dimensions, file size, and folder location.
Photos mode on the daily setting. You can scroll through your whole database, but it’s still divided by daily, monthly or yearly headings.
Double-click on a photo in Manage or Photos mode and you’ll bring up a large view of the image in ACDSee’s View mode. Various viewing options are available as well as useful editing tools like Auto Light EQ
and Auto Lens. You can rapidly scroll through files in this mode and tag images or add ratings, labels, keywords, and categories. It’s an extension of Manage mode if you want it to be. Clicking on Edit mode from here takes the open picture into editing.
View mode is the place to be if you want to browse large previews of your pictures. Double-clicking on any picture in Manage or Photos mode brings you here, too. You can also perform a few basic edits in this space or categorize photos.
ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019 has plenty to offer in terms of editing but something has to be sacrificed at this price point, and that’s parametric (non-destructive) editing. Photo Studio Standard is a pixel editor only, so you make physical changes to rendered images. You can still leave the original file untouched, but as soon as you finish editing and save a file, there’s no going back and tweaking your adjustments. This is more important if you’re in the habit of reworking pictures or if you edit extensively and want your work to be reversible.
There are a couple of tools under the “Repair” heading. The red-eye reduction tool is something I’d probably never have a need for, but I tested this with a public domain image. Works well – easy to use.
With this close-up view, I found myself wishing the size of the adjustment would go slightly larger, as it barely covered the dilated pupil. But still, the red-eye has gone. Most portraits won’t be as near to the subject. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
One of the few glitches I encountered in ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019 was a malfunction among the repair tools. I can get the Heal tool to work, and it does a nice job of blending the sampled pixels into a new area. But the Clone tool hasn’t worked for me even after a reinstall. I just get a blacked-out image. This appears to be a bug in the program, as it works flawlessly in other ACDSee software I have on my PC.
Under the “Add” heading you can insert text into your photos or a watermark (the Watermark feature is new in 2019). The default watermark is the ACDSee camera logo, but you can use your own graphic if you want. There are also borders, vignetting, special effects and tilt-shift choices here.
The Tilt-Shift tool makes Manhattan look miniaturized.
Personally, I’d be most likely to use vignetting out of these, as it helps direct the viewer’s eye and is a useful photographic tool. It can be fun to add borders to your photos, too, which you can customize in this case with a wide selection of textures or any color you choose.
I counted 54 special effects in ACDSee’s collection, and each is modifiable in some way. Even the ones that don’t instantly appeal might work for you with some adjustment, so there’s a lot to go at. Among my favorites are Collage, Lomo, and Orton. The latter is great for creating a dreamy look.
This is the Orton special effect, making a peaceful scene even dreamier.
Under “Geometry”, ACDSee provides rotate, flip, crop, and resize tools. There are some thoughtful touches among these tools, like the ability to control darkness outside the crop area. The Rotate tool also has a cropping feature, so you can level the picture up if necessary and correct wonky horizons.
When resizing, the default algorithm is Lanczos, but it’s worth experimenting, depending on what you do with your photos. Lanczos gives a sharp result when downsizing, for instance, but if you want to back off that a little and achieve smoother edges, try Bicubic.
ACDSee offers some powerful tools under “Exposure/Lighting,” not least its excellent Light EQ technology alongside traditional tools like levels and curves. Light EQ is similar to curves, only better in some respects since it treats highlights, mid-tones, and shadows separately. That’s only possible to a degree using curves without layers.
Here, I’m using ACDSee Light EQ to adjust the tone of the image. By having the Exposure Warning switched on, I can ensure a good tonal range without losing detail in the shadows or highlights. As soon as pixels appear in red or green, I back off the adjustment slightly. I have the histogram showing the blue channel, as that’s the nearest to clipping at both ends.
The auto buttons in these exposure/lighting controls are also worth a hit every now and again. Personally, I find the auto setting in Light EQ tends to make things too bright, but it might provide a better starting point.
You can set your black and white points using eyedroppers in levels and also define the clipping limits under “tolerance.” (Don’t worry if this means nothing to you – it’s only one of several options.
I should mention, too, that ACDSee provides an Edit Brush and gradients with many of these controls, so you can apply edits to selected parts of the image.
Under “Color,” you’ll find White Balance, Color Balance, Convert to Black and White, and Color LUTs. The White Balance tool is excellent, though, like all white balance tools, it relies on neutral tones in the image to use as reference points.
You could also correct color using the Color Balance tool, especially in conjunction with the floating histogram. A good thing about the ACDSee histogram is you can stretch it out as far as you like for a detailed look at tonal distribution. There’s a hue/saturation tool alongside color balance.
You can make the floating histogram as compact or elongated as you wish.
“Convert to Black and White” is new to ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019. Based on the colors you know are in the image (e.g. blue sky), you can adjust their brightness to alter the contrast of the final result. This also lets you emphasize different areas of the photo. Good stuff! Contrast is also affected by the RGB percentages, which must always add up to 100. A high proportion of red usually creates more contrast in cloudy blue skies, for instance. Colorized monochrome images are possible, too, under Convert to Black and White.
Using the new “Convert to Black and white” feature, I’ve increased the brightness of cyan a fair bit to make the fire-escape steps stand out more. Then I’ve colorized the picture with sepia-like brown tones.
One of the best things in ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019 Edit mode has to be Color LUTs. These let you alter the look of your photos (often drastically) via numerical color shifts. They’re like photo filters on steroids. ACDSee LUTs are good, but you can also download LUTs from the web and load them into the program.
The lower half of this picture has the ACDSee “Turin” Color LUT applied to it. Look closely and you’ll see it’s darker with deeper blue windows and yet has a more cyan sky. You can use the Edit Brush or gradients on many edits.
Sharpen, blur, noise, and clarity all lie under the “Detail” heading. These are all pretty standard. The sharpen tool is like unsharp mask with amount, radius and threshold settings. Typically, you use a low radius for high-frequency photos with a lot of fine detail or a higher radius to bring out coarse detail across a wide area. A sharpening mask slider would be a nice bonus here if I were compiling a wants list. That would be quicker than selective sharpening with a brush.
In case all the above isn’t enough, there’s more. For instance, the external editor feature in Manage mode lets you swiftly open images in other programs. Perhaps that will be Photoshop or it could be ACDSee Photo Editor 10, which would complement Photo Studio Standard well.
ACDSee also has a dashboard that gives you stats on equipment used, database size, and photo counts that show you how prolific you’ve been at various times.
The ACDSee Dashboard, indicating prolific use of a Sony RX100 in my case. There are numerous other stats available.
You can create PDFs, PowerPoint files, slideshow files, zip archives, contact sheets, and HTML albums straight out of ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019, too. There really isn’t a lot you can’t do.
ACDSee also introduced AutoSave and Auto Advance features in 2019. AutoSave does away with the “do you want to save changes?” dialog when you move onto another image. Auto Advance is good for rating, labeling, or categorizing photos, as it moves onto the next image automatically once you’ve clicked.
Also new in 2019 are customizable keyboard shortcuts, support for HEIF files (used on later iPhones), and print improvements that let you adjust for differences between what you see on screen and what your printer produces.
As much as I understand the benefits of SaaS and subscription software models, I think there will always be a market for standalone products that consumers can update when they want.
ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019 is, first and foremost, a great photo organizer. I’ve never seen better. It’s quick as a browser – doesn’t hold you up – and it gives you workflow choices. There are lots of nice touches to make tasks easier. It’s not especially advanced as a photo editor, but you can achieve a lot without layers, 3rd-party plugins, and even Adobe’s unassailable repair tools.
If like me, you prefer taking photos to organizing them, ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019 is the ideal way to get your collection under control. It drills into your database from several directions and helps you find any picture. Many people will want to supplement the editing capabilities with other programs, but you won’t find much better than this for photo management.
Disclaimer: ACDSee is a paid partner of dPS
The post Catalog Photos Like a Pro: ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019 Review appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Glenn Harper.
The post How to Make Friends and Collaborate in the Photography Industry appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Karthika Gupta.
Have you ever seen or been a part of a photography conference? Or even just walked into a camera store and spent some time observing people interacting in the store? It is as if we photographers speak another language, live in another world, or even belong to a cult. Of course, I mean this without any form of disrespect. Photographers and photography enthusiasts are a class apart. We all get excited about new lens and gear, talk in F-stops and ISO settings, and some of us save for years and years to buy a particular brand of camera or lens!
The photography industry is growing in leaps and bounds – not only in technology but also in the number of people who are aspiring photographers or even hobbyists. With easier access to gear and a wealth of free education around, photography is a career choice for almost any generation. However, it also means that many people are doing the same or similar things. Most photographers, at some point or another, think about industry competition to get ahead of the curve in the kind of money and work they think they need to get ahead.
I want to assure you that making a living is possible in this space. There is more than enough work to go around. Your peers and colleagues are not out to ‘get you’ or ‘steal work from you.’ Let go of that scarcity mindset and instead think of how you can collaborate with your competition in ways that can become a win-win for both of you.
Often times, the colleges and friends you make in the industry do more for you than you could imagine. They send their overflow work your way, and you make genuine friendships with people who speak the same language as you. You also get to collaborate on creative projects that improve your own skill as an artist.
There are several ways you can make friends and collaborate in the photography industry.
There is nothing quite like getting a bunch of photographers in a room to talk shop and discuss the latest and greatest gear and techniques. The energy and the learnings at such events are incredible. Most conferences and events get the best speakers and teachers, so this is a great way to increase your skill set and also meet some of your mentors and peers.
As someone who has started to speak and teach at conferences and events, I am just as nervous to get up on stage as you might be to come to an event! However, I am so happy to meet and mingle with my people – folks who love photography as much as I do.
So go with an open mind and be willing to put yourself out there to make genuine connections and friends.
I had the opportunity to attend a conference and took some food styling and food photography classes. While there, I made some amazing friends who, to date, have been very supportive of each other’s work.
If traveling for a conference or an event is not your thing, thanks to apps like Meetup and Eventbrite, there are plenty of local chapters and groups that are photography specific. Some groups routinely go out and photograph. Others have workshops and classes where members exchange ideas and knowledge. Find what works for you and be open to give as much or more than what you receive.
I have to admit; this one is one of my favorite ways to connect with others in the photography space. Most photographers are on social media because it is such a great visual tool to showcase your work. So I find it easy to find photographers whose work I admire on social and engage with them regularly. Sometimes it is a ‘like,’ other times it is a comment or a direct message (DM). Nothing crazy or weird, I just say hello and compliment them on something that I find enjoyable. This is not a place to ask favors or ask for work. Instead, this is a place to connect and be social. The more you engage, the more you become a familiar face. Then when the time comes to collaborate or work together, let that organically happen.
Don’t ask open-ended questions or ask to pick their brain. Instead, do your research and ask intelligent questions. Ask about their motivation or inspiration or an accomplishment that they are proud of. Perhaps you could ask how they get over a creative slump…anything that humanizes you and them.
I collaborated with another photographer who I met online. I stayed at her house for the weekend and created some amazing work that I am most proud of to date.
Always be friendly and cordial. No matter the stage of business you are at, always remember you too started at the bottom of the ladder too. Just because you have ‘achieved’ success doesn’t mean you have to be rude. On the flip side, to the person who is reaching out to other photographers, do the same. We are all in this together. You will make genuine friends when you are honest and genuine yourself. You will just put people off when you are insincere.
I am of the school of thought that money is not the ultimate form of success. Yes, we need money to survive – to put food on the table, pay the rent and other necessities like that – but there are many people out there who are motivated by something other than money.
Find your passion and find what feeds your soul. The money is sure to follow.
When working with others, offer something of value. When you are collaborating with other creatives, put your best foot forward so that the collaborative effort is worth its weight in gold. That way, it is a win for everyone included.
I conducted a styled shoot for new wedding photographers, and as a result, collaborated with many vendors who got photos in exchange for products and services – a win-win for all.
When collaborating with other creatives, communication about expectations and outcomes is critical. It is important everyone is on the same page so that each party knows what they need to put in and what they are going to get out of it.
Communication can be as formal or as informal as you all agree. Typically everyone pitches in or brings something of value (time, talent, props) to the table. After the collaboration, people share each other’s work, give critique and sometimes even share images for each other’s portfolios.
No matter what process you use, make sure everyone agrees.
It is also important to do a debrief on the collaboration. Figure out what worked and what didn’t. How can you all make it better next time? Make sure to address any issues so you can all walk away with a positive experience.
Collaboration isn’t just with other photographers. It can also include vendors and businesses in your area of specialty. You can make a trade of goods and services in exchange for photos. Here pre and post-follow-up are critical so that all expectations are met.
Collaborate with vendors and businesses not just other photographers.
Collaboration, when done properly, should be a mutually beneficial arrangement. By collaborating with others, you get to learn, improve yourself, and help others as well. It is a very healthy and creative way to inspire and be inspired while working on something atypical.
Have you collaborated on some great projects? Share your experiences with the dPS community in the comments below.
The post How to Make Friends and Collaborate in the Photography Industry appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Karthika Gupta.
The post When is the Best Time to Photograph the Moon? appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Peter West Carey.
Moon phases are a key to understanding when you should be out taking photos. These days it’s easy to predict where and when you will see the moon for the type of photos you want to produce.
First let’s start with some tools you might want to look into, then options for different moon phase photos.
Astronomers have known the secrets of the moon’s phases and timing for eons. Ancient civilizations built monuments and shrines in regard to locations of the sun, moon and stars long before computers were invented. Our modern tools are a little easier to access.
Not into learning full astronomy? My first suggestion is to Google the phase you’re looking for. It’s that simple. One of the top sites that will appear in the results is Time & Date. You can find all the phases of the moon, based on the location of your Internet connection, right here. If the location isn’t correct, simply search for your city and the site will give you all you need to get started.
Another great option (that also has an app, but it is so much better on a large computer screen) is The Photographer’s Ephemeris (TPE). I wrote about using TPE here on DPS and they have a Web App available for those who don’t use phones and their apps.
The US Navy has a simple site that allows you to print out a year’s worth of times for any location on the planet.
Don’t have an Internet connection while you travel? Newspapers still print the information for the moon and sun phases (as well as setting and rising times).
Everyone loves a good app, and there are three that I keep loaded on my phone for photography purposes. All of these apps will show you the angle of the moon at any time, its phase, and some even help you calculate the best time to photograph the moon.
Full moon over Washington’s Cascade Mountains
My choices are:
The best time to photograph the full moon is the day before or after a full moon. Why’s this?
A full moon is marked at the height of its path across the heavens and this is often after midnight. Let’s say the moon reaches the height of its fullness at 12:26 am on July 2nd. This means the full moon actually rises on the day BEFORE that which is marked on the calendar. Throw in use of Daylight Saving Time and the timing can be wonky.
Full moon rising above Washington’s Cascade Mountains and Puget Sound
Going out the day before the moon is actually marked as full means you’re catching the moon rising just about at the same time as the sun is setting. So the sun is lighting the moon and often the foreground of your scene. This gives a nice, even lighting to your scene.
The same can be said for shooting the full moon setting the day it is marked on the calendar.
Late at night, you can still capture great images of the moon. However, you have to understand that the contrast difference between the moon (a giant reflector in space) and the black sky will be immense. This means you will lose detail in the moon if you attempt to hold the shutter open long enough to exposure the foreground. Some creative light painting can come in handy in this case.
Full moon and chorten with the Himalayas in the background. Mong La, Nepal
Some people call them half-moons because half of the moon is illuminated. Some call them quarter because they are at the quarter phase of a full cycle. Either way, they look the same.
Half-moons will rise or set in the middle of the day. It matters on whether the moon is waxing or waning, meaning if it is getting closer to full or further away in its cycle. This is a good time to use an app or Astro calendar to plan ahead.
You’ll be best served by catching a half moon when it is rising or setting, just like with a full moon. Having it closer to the foreground subjects will help it appear larger. Let me give you an example.
Here’s the half moon rising in Canmore, Alberta, Canada just behind the Rocky Mountains.
Half moon and the Canadian Rockies
Nice and large when using a long lens and the moon is close to the ground. It is fairly high in the sky here as I am looking way up at the mountain.
Now, here are two examples with a nearly half moon over Half Dome in Yosemite National Park, and another of it over Seattle, Washington.
See the issue? It’s still a half moon, but later in its cycle, when it is far from foreground objects, it is relatively small and loses some grandeur.
Slivers, or crescents, are visible just before and after a new moon. Look for them a couple of days before and after the new moon and, just like full and half, try to find a time when they are low on the horizon.
Crescent moon setting over the Himalayas
You will also notice the sliver will seemingly rotate as it crosses the heavens and this may affect your composition choices. As with the half moon, you will have even more trouble giving the moon prominence in a mid-day shoot when it is high in the sky.
Lunar eclipses are all the fashion these days with this or that news source touting, “This will be the last blah, blah, blah for decades!” But don’t let them fool you; lunar eclipses happen often enough – about once a year. However, their location can be the biggest issue. Let’s go back to Time & Date’s site for more info on upcoming lunar eclipses for the next 10 years. You’ll need to click on the “Lunar” tab once on the page.
Not all of those eclipses will happen in your neck of the woods, so you’ll have to click through and see where they will happen. As with solar eclipses, when the sun is blotted out by the moon, people will often travel far and wide for lunar eclipse shots.
A full lunar eclipse, at its height, means the moon will be completely in the shadow of the Earth. Because of the distance between the Earth and moon, some light still slips past the Earth, which causes it to have all colors except red stripped away. This is why lunar eclipses are sometimes called blood moons.
Again, having a foreground subject helps because the eclipse often happens high in the sky. The whole sequence of the moon moving into and then fully out of the Earth’s shadow can take a little over an hour, and you should plan accordingly. The colorful and best ‘action’ of the eclipse will span maybe 5-10 minutes.
More tips on capturing lunar (and solar) eclipses are found in this DPS article.
When the moon’s not out, it’s a great time to photograph the stars. And my, oh, my, do we have a batch of great articles to help you with that!
Moon photography is a fun and challenging subject because the moon is constantly changing phases and its location in the sky. Thankfully, we have plenty of tools at our disposal to track and plan for great moon photos. While full moons are alluring, try your hand at the other phases, too.
Feel free to share your photos of the moon with the dPS community in the comments below.
The post When is the Best Time to Photograph the Moon? appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Peter West Carey.
The post An Interesting Subject Does Not Make An Interesting Photograph appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kevin Landwer-Johan.
Many beginner photographers, and some more experienced ones, fall into the trap of thinking a good subject will make a good photo. It’s not true. I’ve seen loads of terrible photos of fabulous subjects.
A good photographer makes good photos, no matter what the subject. I like how British photographer Martin Parr describes his work. He says his aim is to make the ordinary look extraordinary.
The late afternoon light makes this landscape more interesting. © Kevin Landwer-Johan
To make the best photo, whether or not your subject is impressive, you need to:
Achieving all these five aspects of interesting photographs in a single frame is challenging. It takes skill, practice, and patience.
Being mindful of these pillars of good photography will lead you away from the snapshot trap when you see something interesting. Learning to keep these things in mind, you will gradually improve and be able to make the most mundane object look great when you photograph it.
Without the interesting cloud formation, this landscape would be rather dull. © Kevin Landwer-Johan
Confidence in managing your camera is essential. Using your camera without understanding much of how it works will frustrate your creative growth. Learning what each of the main settings does on your camera is not difficult.
Control of the exposure is made using the aperture, shutter speed, and ISO settings. Focus is either automatic or manual. None of these are hard to master when you put your mind to it and spend some time practicing. Figuring out what part of your composition needs to be exposed well and where the focus point needs to be are part of your creative choice.
Mastering the basic technical aspects of using your camera will free you up to become more creative with your photography.
Careful exposure makes this winter tree more interesting. © Kevin Landwer-Johan
Choose the optimum moment to take your photo. Consider the action happening in front of you. Look at the colors as they change when the sun is rising and setting. Watch a flower blooming in your garden. Each instance you take a photo, make sure it’s the optimum one.
What determines the decisive moment for when you take a photo depends on many things. Each circumstance is different, so it’s important for you to observe what’s happening carefully.
Sometimes you’ll need to respond quickly. Other times you’d best be patient and wait, or come back another time. This is so for landscape and architecture photography where the right light and weather conditions are so vital.
Anticipating when the best time is will help you nail it more often. Think about what will happen next. What is the sequence of events that will unfold? How are clouds moving in the sky? Will they cover the sun before it sets?
In situations where you have some control over your subject and the action, timing is not so difficult to predict. You can ask the model to flick her hair back on the count of three. You could ask your kids to run and jump over the sleeping dog and be ready for them.
Timing is one of the key elements which influence good photos. Each picture you take is a short moment in time. Making sure you capture the right moment can often make or break your photographs.
The day I took this photo it was raining – all day. The sun came out in the evening and it was worth waiting for. © Kevin Landwer-Johan
Relying on your subject to make your photo interesting means you may not compose it well. Don’t just plonk it central in your viewfinder, focus and click. Everyone with a camera can do that.
Move around. Look for a better background without distractions. Take a little time to think through some rules of composition. Are there strong lines you could incorporate? Will using the rule of thirds make the photo stronger? What else is in the frame and is it relevant to your photo?
Use different focal length lenses to incorporate more or less background. With a wide lens, you’ll see more background. Using a longer lens will cut more of the background and help isolate your subject. Longer lenses also give the impression of compressed distance where wide lenses do the opposite.
Lots of the best street photography looks as if it’s been made in a hurry. People rushing past, glancing at the camera. Or absorbed in what they are doing. Mostly these photos are not snapshots. The photographer has planned well and anticipated the action. Then waited.
Action is more easily caught and composed well when patience and observation are applied.
The whole dam was interesting, but it was too hard to find an interesting angle for the whole structure, so I cropped in tight. © Kevin Landwer-Johan
Hard light or soft light will create different moods.
Strong contrast when you have hard light is more dramatic. If you want a softer, more romantic feeling, hard light is not the best. Even with an interesting subject, such as a newborn baby or a flower, harsh lighting will not provide a gentle feeling in your photograph.
Matching the lighting to the mood you wish to create in your photograph will make the photo feel right. There are no fixed rules. You must decide for yourself with each photo. This is part of your creative expression as a photographer.
Think about the direction the light’s coming from. It is hard or soft? How is it affecting your subject? Is there too much shadow or contrast for the mood you want?
© Kevin Landwer-Johan
No matter what you choose to photograph, the more you connect with your subject the better photos you will make of it.
I always thought this applied only to people, and maybe animals. I’ve changed my perspective, and now think it can apply to anything you photograph.
I love flowers. My wife loves them more and loves to grow them. She takes much better photographs of flowers than I do because she has that passion. It shows in her pictures.
If you love the location you live in, or maybe where you grew up, you will photograph it more intimately than a stranger to it probably will.
How you connect with people you’re photographing will certainly make a huge difference in your photos.
© Kevin Landwer-Johan
Take your time. Be more observant. When you find your next alluring subject, consider how you can make the best photo of it. Don’t rely on its interest value alone.
Travel photography is prone to snap-shooting. When you travel, you always see new and interesting things to photograph. This is part of what makes travel so interesting. I often encourage people who take our photography workshops not to be travel snapshooters.
Ansel Adams said, “The most important component of a camera is the twelve inches behind it.” Think about your subject and how you can treat it.
Remember, it’s the photographer who makes the picture interesting, not the subject.
The post An Interesting Subject Does Not Make An Interesting Photograph appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kevin Landwer-Johan.