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How to Understand Light and Color to Improve your Photography

05 Aug

The post How to Understand Light and Color to Improve your Photography appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Rick Ohnsman.

The morning sun shone through my kitchen window, catching the vase with a rose in it on the window sill. A low cross-light highlighted the texture on the rose, while the purple glass vase cast a pattern of colored light across the counter. The photographer in me studied the light, saw the potential for a photo, and went to get the camera.

Image: From observing the sun shining through a vase on the window sill to the finished image, this...

From observing the sun shining through a vase on the window sill to the finished image, this idea started with simply seeing the light.

A simple observation of light. That’s how a photo can start – learning to really see the light. Understanding its properties, knowing how to control and shape it – those are the things that will take you from a casual snapshooter to a creative photographer. It’s a matter of crafting photographs rather than simply taking snapshots.

George Eastman helped bring photography to the masses with his development of roll film, simple cameras, and readily available processing. You’ve certainly heard of the company he founded – The Eastman Kodak Company. Eastman understood the importance of seeing the light.

He put it like this:

“Light makes photography. Embrace light. Admire it. Love it. But above all, know light. Know it for all you are worth, and you will know the key to photography.” – George Eastman

The vase set-up led to experiments with glasses, colored water, and more exploration of light.

Harnessing the light

The rest of the photo session explored the interplay of light, color, shadow, texture, shape, and pattern. From shots of the glass vase and rose, I switched to glasses and vases filled with water dyed with food coloring. I experimented with different camera angles, positioning of the subjects, and different background objects. I shaped the light with cardboard “flags” and the Venetian blinds through which the sun was streaming to allow different looks.

The low angle of light also provided ways to cast shadows and projections of color.

How to Understand Light and Color to Improve your Photography

In this case, the light source was simply the early morning sun. I could have created other effects had I used artificial lights, say a snooted Speedlight to cast a beam of light right where I wanted it.

Studio photographers become masters of light manipulation by using their knowledge and a variety of lights and light modifiers. Their skills draw upon understanding the properties of light and how to harness it.

Landscape photographers may not be able to create their own light, but they also understand its properties. They know when, where, and how to make the most of the light presented to create the look they seek.

Light Physics – the properties of light

You need not become a physicist to be a photographer, but a little understanding of the properties of light can be beneficial to your work. So, a little science knowledge can help your art. Left-brain, right-brain – good photographers use both sides.

What is light?

Light is photons of energy. It has both wave and particle properties.

Electromagnetic spectrum

Human eyes can only see a very tiny portion of what is called the Electromagnetic Spectrum. Some photographers use Infrared photography to go a little further past the red end of the visible spectrum, and ultraviolet light sources can take us a bit further past the violet end. Specialized cameras can also capture X-rays.

How to Understand Light and Color to Improve your Photography

Human eyes see only a tiny portion of the Electromagnetic Spectrum, that portion we call Visible Light.

(transferred by Penubag (talk · contribs) on 05:04, 15 May 2008 [CC BY-SA 2.5 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)]

Properties of light

When speaking of light, we often refer to its properties. These are:

Quantity – (Also called Intensity or “Brightness”)

Quality – Photographers will use the terms “Hard” or “Soft” light.

Technically, these refer to the shadows cast, not the light itself. The hard or softness of a shadow (a place where the light is blocked), depends on the size of the light source relative to the subject. Thus the sun, which is, in reality, huge, can cast harsh shadows (hard light). This is because as a pinpoint of light in the sky, its relative size to the subject is small.

On an overcast day, the whole sky may be the light source – nature’s giant softbox – and the shadows are soft or non-existent.

Direction – Light waves travel in straight lines. They can be redirected however through Reflection or Refraction.

Reflection – Light hitting an object can bounce off that object. In fact, anything we see is a result of light bouncing off that object. The apparent Color of an object is due to what colors (wavelengths) are absorbed versus those reflecting. A red apple is that color because it absorbs all other colors in the spectrum and reflects only the red wavelengths.

With highly reflective objects, the angle the light hits an object will be the same angle it is reflected. The angle of incidence = the angle of reflection.

Refraction – Light can pass through some objects and be refracted or redirected. Put a pencil in a half-full glass of water, and you will see how the light is refracted differently as it passes through the air versus the water and the glass. Camera lenses shape light through refraction. The image projected on the camera sensor is actually inverted. It is the same as it was when view-camera photographers threw a cape over their heads to see the image on a ground glass before making their photo.

$Image: Dewdrops act as tiny lenses refracting the light passing through them.$

Dewdrops act as tiny lenses refracting the light passing through them.

Light waves can:

Pass through transparent or translucent objects.

Transparent objects – little if any light is scattered as the light waves pass through – i.e window glass.

Translucent objects – Some light passes through the object but waves are scattered and objects on the far side are not clearly visible.

Reflect or bounce off an object – We call highly reflective objects “shiny.” They will often produce Specular highlights. Objects which break up and bounce light in many directions have a matte quality and Diffuse the light.

Be scattered – Light waves are bounced in different directions

Be absorbed – As discussed, objects have color because they absorb some (colors) wavelengths and reflect others. Because light has energy, the more light energy an object absorbs the warmer it will be. This is the reason black, (which absorbs most of the light energy), warms faster than does white, which reflects most of the light.

Be refracted (bent) as light passes through. Denser objects refract light more (pencil in a glass of water shows example air vs water vs glass). Diamonds have a very high “index of refraction” and thus are sparkly.

Shadows – Shadows are formed where light is blocked. Photographers seeking to understand light can learn much by studying shadows as they will give clues to the other qualities of the light.

This abstract image is all about the light and shadows

Dispersion – Visible light can be separated into its component colors due to different degrees of refraction through an object. (This is how prisms work and how rainbows are formed)

Image: A rainbow is an example of white visible light being split into its component colors when the...

A rainbow is an example of white visible light being split into its component colors when the raindrops refract the light and disperse it.

The Speed of Light – Light travels faster than sound at approximately 186,000 miles per second (300,000 km/s). Sunlight takes 8 minutes, 20 seconds to reach us. From the next nearest star, Alpha Centauri, light takes 4 years to reach us. At night we see the light from stars that took hundreds of thousands of years to reach us. Currently, the most distant star observed by astronomers is over 9 billion light-years away.

Photography and light

We know that without light there is no photography. Building on the basics of light physics, we photographers have further ways to define light and how we use it.

Photography and color

General photography works within the visible light spectrum. We use the Kelvin temperature scale to describe the color of light. For example, a candle’s flame is 1,200K, which is towards the red-orange end of the scale, and a cloudless day is 10,000K, which is at the blue end.

White balance

The human brain is good at correcting colors under different light so that we usually see “correct” colors. Cameras need some help. Using White Balance, we can index the color we want to be white or neutral in color, and all other colors in the scene will use that as a reference and adjust accordingly. Thus images shot in daylight, with flash, or under tungsten or fluorescent lights can all be adjusted for “correct” color.

A huge advantage of saving images in the Raw format is you can correct this later when editing. Unfortunately, .jpg images lock the white balance in during the capture.

Image: The color of old tungsten light is quite warm, about 3200K on the Kelvin scale. This could ha...

The color of old tungsten light is quite warm, about 3200K on the Kelvin scale. This could have been white-balanced to be more neutral, but for this image, the warm light added to the antique look desired.

With light, all colors combined equal white. With ink, all colors combined equal black.

Color models

RGB

Your camera can interpret the world of color and reproduce it on a color monitor, but in reality, it really only “sees” three colors, Red, Green, and Blue (RGB). All other colors are created from these three. Use a magnifying glass to see the pixels on your monitor, and those are the only colors you will see.

Your camera sensor can also only capture those three colors.

If all three of those colors or light combine at full intensity, the result would be pure white. Because colors record by adding one to another, the term “Additive” is used.

Any of over 16 million colors can be defined using the RGB model, which has 255 steps of each color. So, white would be 255, 255, 255. Black is no light and therefore has an RGB value of 0, 0, 0. Pure red would be 255, 0, 0. A mixed color like pure yellow is 255, 255, 0, and something like a deep purple shade might be 113, 58, 210.

Image: Pure Red is a primary color in the RGB (Light) model with an RGB value of 255,0,0 but in the...

Pure Red is a primary color in the RGB (Light) model with an RGB value of 255,0,0 but in the CMYK (Ink) model it’s a mixture of Yellow and Magenta.

CMYK

The RGB model works fine in cameras and monitors where we add light to the blackness to create color. When printing, however, we are starting with a white piece of paper and subtracting from that white to create color.

Instead of red, green, and blue being the primary colors, printers use Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black (CMYK) to create all other colors. (“K” is used for Black because it is the last letter of the word and not used by any other color, i.e. (B)lue). To save costs on ink, and to produce deeper black tones, unsaturated and dark colors are produced by adding black ink instead of just the combination of cyan, magenta, and yellow. So, while in the RGB model, pure red is defined as 255, 0, 0 the same exact color in the ink printing world of CMYK is something like 0, 100, 100, 0.

So as not to make your head hurt any further, I will not get into the complexities of color spaces, printer profiles, gamut and how we can be sure what we saw is what the camera captures and finally appears on a print. That’s a whole other and a quite complex subject. For now, know it is a lot of science and a perhaps a touch of magic.

Instead, you can read more about those topics here:

Color Management Can Be Easy
How to Prepare Images For Publication – Part One

How photographers control light

As photographers, especially in studio photo work, we have the tools and the means to control the light.

Here are the basic things we can do:

Transmit – Using lights of various kinds we can transmit light onto our subjects. We control the quantity, direction, and color of the light source. By changing the relative size of the light source to the subject, we can also control the hardness/softness of shadows.

Reflect – All objects reflect light to varying degrees (which is why we and the camera can see them). How that reflected light plays off of objects, or how we might use other objects, (reflectors) to bounce light into a scene is one way we shape and control the light.

Image: Many of the principles of light discussed in this article are present in this shot. Can you i...

Many of the principles of light discussed in this article are present in this shot. Can you identify them?

Diffuse –We can cause the light emitting from the source to scatter to varying degrees, (diffused), by shining it through translucent materials. This how softboxes and other light modifiers work.

Block – As light travels in a straight line, anything between the source and the subject blocks the light and creates a shadow. How and where we create shadows is as important as where we allow light to cast. Photographers use things like Flags, Gobos, and Cookies to cast and control shadows. An example, a “barn door” on a lighting instrument is a type of flag.

Image: This image is all about the light. The backlit leaves are translucent and pass a portion of t...

This image is all about the light. The backlit leaves are translucent and pass a portion of the light striking them, filtering out some colors and passing the golden parts of the spectrum through them.

When nature lights the scene – Landscapes – Landscape photographers and those using only natural light sources don’t have the same controls over the light, but they still need to understand it to become master photographers.

Learning how light works, how direct sun, diffuse light, time of day, season, angle, diffusing factors like fog, smoke, rain, and other “atmospherics” affect the image are all a huge part of becoming a student of light. A skilled studio photographer can create light. A skilled landscape photographer knows when and where to be and then very often, simply “waits for the light.”

Image: A smoky sky filters out many of the colors of the light and passes the warm yellow and red to...

A smoky sky filters out many of the colors of the light and passes the warm yellow and red tones. The side of the wheat facing the camera receives no light and so is silhouetted against the sun. Learning to see the light is key to becoming a good photographer.

Becoming a student of light

Sure, you can just get out some glassware, fill it with colored water, place it in the sun and make some pretty pictures. I encourage you to do that. It’s fun and you will likely make some nice images. You need not know the physics and terminology to make nice photos. But I encourage you to take it a step further. Use it as an exercise to further your understanding and become a trained observer of light because I really believe George Eastman had it right –

Know light. Know it for all you are worth, and you will know the key to photography.

The post How to Understand Light and Color to Improve your Photography appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Rick Ohnsman.

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Four Lightroom Tips to Enhance Your Landscape Photos

05 Aug

The post Four Lightroom Tips to Enhance Your Landscape Photos appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Simon Ringsmuth.

Lightroom has a vast array of buttons, sliders, and selection boxes that can improve just about any photo, but sometimes the options are so overwhelming you don’t even know where to start! It’s impossible to say what specific adjustments will work for any given photo, partly because there are infinite possibilities and every photographer is unique. However, there are a few Lightroom tips you can use with certain types of images, such as landscapes, that improve them with just a few clicks. If you have ever wanted to punch up your landscapes quickly and easily, there are four options that you can use right away to make any landscape look amazing.

Four Lightroom Tips to Enhance Your Landscape Photos

If you import a landscape picture into Lightroom but find yourself staring dazed and confused at the array of editing options, try focusing on the four items below. I use these on most of my landscapes, and you might be surprised at how well they work for you too.

Of course, you can always continue tweaking and adjusting with as many options as you want, but these are great to start with.

Basic tone
Texture
Sharpening
Graduated Filter

Learning to use these four adjustments goes a long way towards improving not just your landscapes, but many other types of pictures too.

As you gain more editing experience, you will start to figure out what your editing preferences are and learn to adjust the options accordingly. Maybe you like a little more tonal contrast or a little less saturation? Perhaps you prefer your images to have a little less sharpness? Experimenting with these options helps you understand what you prefer. It helps you develop your skills as an editor to get the results you like.

Basic tone

Four Lightroom Tips to Enhance Your Landscape Photos

There’s a reason that the Develop module in Lightroom has a panel called Basic. This contains the most popular adjustments that most photographers use right away. They are especially useful for landscapes too. The following are what I recommend as a starting point for these types of images.

Highlights: Drag this slider to the left to make the brightest portions of your landscape a little darker.

Shadows: Drag this slider to the right to make the darkest portions of your landscape a little brighter.

Whites: Drag this slider to the right to make the white portions whiter

Blacks: Drag this to the left to make the black portions blacker.

To show you how much of an effect these simple adjustments can have on a landscape, here’s an image without any adjustments straight from my camera.

Image: Shot at the National Tallgrass Prairie Reserve in Kansas. An unedited picture straight from t...

Shot at the National Tallgrass Prairie Reserve in Kansas. An unedited picture straight from the camera.

The picture is dull, lifeless, and not all that interesting. 15 seconds of adjusting those four sliders in the Basic panel does wonders and transforms it into a whole new picture.

Highlights -43, Shadows +26, Whites +70, Blacks -51. No other adjustments were made.

The resulting image is vibrant, lively, and exciting to look at, especially when compared to the original. It doesn’t take much work at all to use those four simple sliders when editing a landscape photo, and the results can be breathtaking.

Texture

The effect of the Texture tool isn’t quite as pronounced and may not take your breath away in the same way. However, Adobe’s latest addition to Lightroom can produce impressive results. While Texture is particularly useful when editing portraits, it can also bring out detail in grass and rocks, and other areas of a landscape image that has a great deal of natural texture.

Many landscape photographers are already familiar with the Clarity tool, which can have a similar effect as Texture. But, the former can often lead to images that appear over-processed and artificial. Texture is really designed to enhance the look and feel of textured surfaces. If you have not tried it, you may be surprised by the results.

I took the picture below in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest, and while I did some basic Highlight/Shadow/White/Black editing, I really want to bring out the details in the evergreen trees.

I shot this while hiking near Seattle, Washington.

Increasing the value of the Texture slider helps the trees to stand out. They come to life while leaving the clouds and sky virtually untouched. Adobe designed the Texture option to look specifically for textured surfaces. It applies the effect only where it’s really useful instead of across the entire image as a whole.

Same image, with a value of Texture +90.

When viewed at full resolution, the result is remarkable, but even on a small screen, you can see that the trees have become more pronounced. The background trees are clearer and more discernible as well.

This new option in Lightroom is not yet as popular and well-known as Clarity, but it’s a boon for landscape photographers who want to spice up their images without going overboard.

Sharpening

The Sharpening tool has been an integral part of Lightroom for years, but might be overlooked by new landscape photographers who feel overwhelmed with all the features in front of them when editing their images. In contrast to Clarity and Texture, the Sharpening tool helps you emphasize the edges of everything in your pictures while also giving you the power to specify precisely how you want to apply the sharpening.

As with the Texture tool, your results aren’t going to be as immediately impactful as other edits, such as the Basic panel. However, careful adjustments to Sharpening can add a level of resonance to your landscapes and bring to life the small details.

Image: Shot at just outside a small town in north-central Kansas. Some basic edits applied, but no s...

Shot at just outside a small town in north-central Kansas. Some basic edits applied, but no sharpening.

The Sharpening adjustment, which sits in the Detail panel, has four parameters: Amount, Radius, Detail, and Masking. While these are all important, the ones I recommend you focus on are Amount and Masking. Move the Amount slider to the right to make your picture appear sharper and add a sense of crispness. After that, use the Masking slider to tell Lightroom where to apply the actual sharpening.

You can hold down the Alt or Option key (on a Mac) to see how this works and adjust as necessary. The black-and-white preview updates in realtime. As you hold down the modifier key and drag the slider, it shows you just where the sharpening will be applied.

Image: Adjusting the Masking parameter while holding down the Alt or Option key (on a Mac) shows a l...

Adjusting the Masking parameter while holding down the Alt or Option key (on a Mac) shows a live preview of where the sharpening will be added.

Use of the Sharpening tool is a great way to enhance your landscapes, especially when combined with some of the other editing options.

Sharpening added with the following values: Amount 114, Radius 1.0, Detail 25, and Masking 85.

Graduated filter

If you have never used the Graduated Filter on your landscape photos, you’re in for a real treat.

This tool allows you to apply graduated adjustments to part of the image, and even edit the adjustments using selective masking and brushing. It’s a great way to bring out the rich blue of a sky, the subtle greens of grass and foliage, or implement other edits to part of your picture without affecting the whole thing.

To demonstrate how the Graduated Filter works, I have a picture shot in southeastern Nebraska without any edits except for removing some spots of dust on the lens. The foreground is dark, and I’d like to change the color of the sky to reflect what I actually saw. However, global edits like the Basic panel just don’t work.

Shot in rural Nebraska on a chilly February evening.

As a point of comparison, here’s the same picture with some simple adjustments, like in my very first example. The Basic adjustments help but don’t produce the results I’m after.

Highlights -18, Shadows +100, Whites +34, Blacks -7.

It’s an improvement but still a long way from what I want. Fortunately, the Graduated Filter is here to help! By applying this type of edit, I can alter the lower portion without affecting the upper portion. Also, the edit is applied gradually, so it appears more natural as the foreground recedes to the horizon.

Image: No edits from the original except for a single graduated filter applied to the foreground. Te...

No edits from the original except for a single graduated filter applied to the foreground. Temp 76, Exposure 2.16, Shadows 21, Blacks -13, Texture 50, Sharpness 20.

You can go one step further and add additional graduated filters, which is especially useful when working with landscapes. In this image, I’d like to bring out the rich deep colors in the sky without affecting the field in the foreground.

A graduated filter is the perfect tool for the job.

Image: Second graduated filter applied to the sky. Temp -73, Exposure -.50, Highlights -45, Dehaze 1...

Second graduated filter applied to the sky. Temp -73, Exposure -.50, Highlights -45, Dehaze 10, Saturation 16.

I listed the Graduated Filter last because it’s the most complicated of these four adjustments you can apply to your landscape, but it’s also, in my opinion, the most powerful. There are lots of options for customizing your graduated filters, and it’s going to be worth your time to explore more. However, the example above should be enough to get you started.

There’s so much more you can do with landscape photos in Lightroom beyond what I demonstrated here. These basics should be enough to get you started and help you bring out a lot of the color, detail, and vibrancy that your landscape photos may be missing.

After learning these, I hope you start exploring the other options Lightroom has to offer.

I’d love to see examples of your landscape photos in the comments below!

The post Four Lightroom Tips to Enhance Your Landscape Photos appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Simon Ringsmuth.

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Learn These 5 Elements to Capture Interesting Architectural Photography

04 Aug

The post Learn These 5 Elements to Capture Interesting Architectural Photography appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jeremy Flint.

Architectural photography is an enjoyable genre of photography to shoot. It encourages you to visit and capture urban structures and environments, whether it be towns or cities, or whilst taking in views of majestic buildings, bridges, or interiors. Architecture can be present in many different forms from ancient to modern and both internal and external. If you have you ever wondered what steps to consider when shooting interesting architectural photography, this article will help you to identify some key elements to contemplate during the process.

Brasov, Romania

1. Choose a subject

The first fundamental aspect to consider when capturing interesting architectural photography is the subject. Your choice of subject can be anything from a streetscape to a city scene or famous landmark. Once you’ve found an object or theme to visit and photograph, think about what appeals to you about it. Think about what you want to photograph, such as the entire structure or just part of it.

Whatever you decide to photograph, be happy with your decision and take some pictures.

You can choose to focus on capturing wide shots and detail shots. A scenario where you may choose to shoot wide may include a prominent sky that adds beauty to the composition or a street scene that portrays many interesting buildings together. On the other hand, you may choose detail shots when there is a particularly striking facade or object on a building. For example, a statue makes a great feature on its own.

Bran Castle, Romania

2. Select your camera settings

The next thing you will want to do is set up your camera and choose your settings. In terms of architecture photography, you will need to select an appropriate aperture, ISO, and shutter speed. The aperture you choose depends on what you are trying to achieve with your photos.

If you are trying to achieve a narrower focus and render the front or back elements of the image out of focus, you will want to select a wider aperture (smaller f/number) from anything between f/2.8 to f/5.6. A scenario where you may choose to use a narrow depth of field is when you want to isolate an object from the background such as a doorframe. Alternatively, another scenario may be when shooting a single point of interest such as a statue.

However, if you aim to make everything in your image sharper, I recommend selecting an aperture between f/8 to f/22. A scenario where you may want a wide depth of field may include stunning cityscape scenes. Here, you may want everything in focus within the frame. A cityscape can include some monumental buildings and the night sky or people walking within a street scene.

Cluj-Napoca, Romania

A lower ISO is important to reduce noise in the final image, so I suggest an ISO of 100-400.

The shutter speed you choose depends on the overall look and feel you want to achieve in your image. A faster shutter speed of 100th of a second or more will help to keep moving objects sharp such as cars or people. In contrast, a slower shutter speed of one second or more will let more light into your frame and start to blur moving subjects.

3. Decide on a composition

Sibiu, Romania

One important step in capturing architecture is the composition.

Composition simply refers to how you arrange the elements in a frame.

When looking at pictures of famous icons such as the Taj Mahal, Houses of Parliament or Big Ben, you’ll notice these structures often photographed in similar ways. One thing I would encourage is to find new angles of familiar landmarks when doing architectural photography – something that stands out from the others. You can achieve this by changing your viewpoint or angle.

4. Shooting interior architecture

Sibiu, Romania

When shooting interior architecture photography and exteriors, there are a few fundamental differences to consider, notably the light and composition. You will need to take into account the fact there is usually less light when shooting indoors, so change your settings to accommodate. Due to low light, use a tripod and slower shutter speeds to allow more light into your image. This helps you to manage different types of light, including candles, lamps, and outside light projecting internally. You will also need to balance mixed artificial and natural lighting.

The other major difference is the composition.

You may find more restriction photographing indoors than outdoors. Restrictions such as limited space, internal structures or part of the building’s architecture that may restrict or limit your view and composition. As a solution, use a wide-angle lens or try to take a step back (if you can) to get more of your chosen subject into your frame.

Alternatively, zoom your lens in further to eliminate distracting elements.

Structures often provide interesting internal features which can vary depending on the type of architecture and the country you are in. Church interiors, cathedrals, and even modern and historic buildings can all house hidden gems from altars to pillars, delightful structures, and stained glass windows.

The best lenses for shooting small or large spaces are usually a 24-70mm lens or a wide-angle lens such as a 16-35mm.

5. Shooting exterior architecture

Shooting exteriors is one of the most popular and fun subjects in architectural photography. You will often see pictures of the exteriors of the most famous buildings around the world and in your local area in publications. If you choose to shoot exteriors, you may decide to focus on the whole structure, the roof or a particular aspect of the external building that is interesting.

Peles Castle, Romania

Photographing exteriors can be challenging especially in changing light and high contrast conditions but can result in some great images.

Conclusion

In conclusion, remember these important steps when shooting architecture including choosing a subject, selecting your camera settings, deciding on composition and choosing whether to photograph interior or exterior architecture.

Share any additional steps you have for interesting architectural photography and your images with us below.

The post Learn These 5 Elements to Capture Interesting Architectural Photography appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jeremy Flint.

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The 5 Most Overused Photography Techniques [video]

04 Aug

The post The 5 Most Overused Photography Techniques appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Caz Nowaczyk.

In this video, James Popsys discusses what he believes are the 5 most overused photography techniques. Take a look and see if you agree with any or all of these.

1. Water photos using Long Exposures

James points out that photographers who always use long exposures whenever there is water around could be missing out on telling the true story of the scene. They could be missing out on the ripples, textures, etc. that are available in the true scene.

He also states how he likes to imagine himself within a scene, and finds that some of these long exposures all feel too unreal. He knows he could never experience that in real life.

What are your thoughts on that?

2. Panoramas

James loves panoramas and has done many of them himself. The problem he has with them is that he thinks some people who shoot them can’t decide on what their focus point should be so they just try and capture it all.

Do you agree with that?

He believes good photos are all about subtraction and taking things out of the shot to make the message stronger. So to shoot a good panorama, everything you are capturing needs to be of interest. Or else, you need to change perspective and your composition to get a better photo.

Also, they aren’t great for viewing on digital media.

3. Adding foreground interest

James states that always trying to have a point of interest in the foreground isn’t necessary and that sometimes it can dilute what is already an interesting photograph.

4. Golden hour

Jaymes isn’t a fan of shooting during Golden Hour as he believes the color overpowers the subject matter. The light becomes the story rather than the place. The light steals the show. Photos can also become quite similar because it becomes about light and not composition or story.

Shooting at other times of the day improves your composition skills.

5. Sky replacements

Jaymes isn’t a fan of sky replacements. They are becoming too obvious, and they look fake. He thinks it is outdated and disingenuous.

What do you think? Are there other techniques you think are overused in photography? Share with us in the comments below.

The post The 5 Most Overused Photography Techniques appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Caz Nowaczyk.

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Weekly Photography Challenge – Texture

03 Aug

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

This week’s photography challenge topic is TEXTURE!

Image by Glenn Harper

Go out and capture absolutely anything that includes texture. You can photograph anything that has texture, or you can overlay textures in post-processing to create a whole new work of art. They can be color, black and white, moody or bright. Just so long as they include texture! You get the picture! Have fun, and I look forward to seeing what you come up with!

Image by Rick Ohnsman

Image by Megan Kennedy

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

Tips for Shooting TEXTURE

How to use Texture to Improve Your Photos

10 Tips for Shooting for Graphic Textures

Texture as a Design Element in Photography

Working with Textures – 8 Ideas to Get You Started

How to Create Your Own Textures

Applying textures in post-processing

How to Add a Texture Overlay to Your Images for a Stunning Effect

Beginners Guide to Creating and Applying Texture Overlays Using Photoshop

How to Apply a Texture Overlay to Your Images to Create an Antique Look

How to Use Textures to Create Compelling Photographs

Weekly Photography Challenge – TEXTURE

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 #DPStexture 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 – Texture appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Caz Nowaczyk.

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Photographers, Are Robots Coming for Your Jobs?

02 Aug

The post Photographers, Are Robots Coming for Your Jobs? appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jaymes Dempsey.

robot-photographers

Square has just announced a new service, which allows businesses to get product photos for cheap – just $ 10 USD for a set of three product photos.

The only caveat?

The product photos are all taken by a robot.

Yes, you read that correctly. Square, a company known for its credit-card transaction tools, built a $ 20,000 USD robot that takes simple product photos with a white background.

Here’s how it works:

You send your products to Brooklyn, where the robot lives. Staff arranges the products on a table surrounded by lights and a white background.

Then an arm moves around your products while holding a Nikon DSLR, snapping away with a single robotic finger.

Square staff then select the best three product photos. They do a bit of post-processing before sending them along to you, the owner.

If you’re a small business owner who doesn’t have product photography skills and can’t afford to spend on a photographer, this may be just what you need.

But if you’re a product photographer who relies on basic product setups for your income, this news doesn’t bode well. If the Square Photo Studio robot is successful, it’s likely that the idea will spread, fast, edging professional photographers out of the more basic product photography markets.

And news of a robot photographer isn’t only relevant to product photographers. It matters to shooters of all stripes.

Automated photography may start with product images, but where will it stop? Will robot photographers expand? What could be the next target for automation?

For instance, might we see robots enter studio portrait photography? How about automobile photography? Sports photography?

They may seem like silly questions, but they’re worth asking.

That’s why this story is so important. It gets at a question that many of us have ignored thus far:

Ten years from now, will most photography be done by humans? Or by robots?

What do you think about robot photographers? Do you think that a product photography robot will catch on? Let me know in the comments!

The post Photographers, Are Robots Coming for Your Jobs? appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jaymes Dempsey.

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Make the Most of High Contrast Lighting for Dramatic Street Photos

02 Aug

The post Make the Most of High Contrast Lighting for Dramatic Street Photos appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kevin Landwer-Johan.

Street photographers often love the type of light many others seek to avoid. High contrast lighting is favored by many because of the drama it adds to the action, or lack of it, in the streets.

Making the most of high contrast lighting is a matter of being able to see it more as your camera does. It also helps to have a good knowledge of how you can manipulate your photos during post-processing.

Make the Most of High Contrast Lighting for Dramatic Street Photos Young Market Vendor

Seeing like your camera

Your eyes can see a wider range of tone than your camera can. This is changing as camera technology advances. Soon cameras will be able to record more details in the highlights and shadows over a broader range. For now, your eyes are more capable.

What you see on your camera’s monitor when you review a photo is different than what you’ll see on your computer. On your camera, you will not see so much depth or detail. Learning to discern what your photos will look like after some post-processing will help you take better photos.

Taking photos knowing how you will process them later helps you make better decisions while you’re taking photos. The choices you make about exposure and composition can depend on what treatment you will give a RAW image on your computer.

When you look at a high contrast scene, your eyes will see more detail than your camera is able to record. Because the difference between the light value of the highlights and shadows is so vast, your camera cannot record it all. But your eyes will still be able to see it.

Understanding this when you are in high contrast light will help you make better photos.

high-contrast-lighting-for-dramatic-street-photos- Cycle Shadows

Expose with intent

Photographing in hard light means you must make careful exposure choices. Do you want to see details in the highlights? Do you want to see details in the shadow areas? You must choose if you want to make the most of the dramatic lighting.

Exposing for the highlights and letting the shadows fall into black is one of the most popular methods. This adds drama and mystery to your street photos.

I prefer to set my exposure manually. This way I know it will not alter until I change the settings myself. I will choose a light area to make a meter reading from. Then I will underexpose it a little to make the effect a little more dramatic.

This will make the shadow areas appear even darker. It also means I am less likely to have bright areas with no detail.

Setting my exposure in this way, I know I’ll be able to push the contrast effect even further during post-production.

If you set your camera to expose for the shadows, the highlight areas will be even brighter. You will lose detail in the lightest parts of your composition. Sometimes you will want this and to keep the details in the shadows. You must make a conscious choice when you are setting your exposure. If you get this wrong, you will find you cannot manipulate your photos so much during post-processing. This is more so if you are taking .jpegs rather than RAWs.

high-contrast-lighting-for-dramatic-street-photos Happy Man with contrast

Make use of the shadows

You can hide things in the shadows. You can conceal people or unwanted distracting elements in the darkness of a shadow.

Careful use of shadows can isolate your main subject and draw the viewer’s eye to it.

Use graphic lines of shadows created by architecture, trees or other strong forms. The shadows themselves become graphic elements in your photographs. You can combine them with the solid forms in your composition to create tension or harmony.

Look for how static and moving shadows appear in your compositions. What do the shadows of people look like on the pavements or walls as they walk by? Are there shadows created by trucks, buses or cars passing by? Can you see light reflected off windows back into the shadows?

While you’re out with your camera, think about how the shadows might look when you add more contrast during post-processing.

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Find a location and choose your time

Observe how the daylight looks at the places you like to photograph. It will be different at various times of the day and during different seasons.

Look at how the shadows fall on the ground and surrounding buildings. Are people walking in the sunshine or in the shade? At which points to they emerge from the shadows? Is the light in front of them or behind?

Pick a good place to work from and stay awhile. If you can visit the same location on many different occasions, you’ll build up a more diverse set of photographs. Doing this, you’ll be able to compare the photos you take. This can help you learn your favorite time to photograph at that place. Then plan to do it again and take even better photos.

Find a place where the light is how you like it and the background is interesting. Make sure the background will support the style of photograph you are wanting to take. Is the background in full sun or in the shadows? Is the light falling on it pleasing to you?

Move around and look at the space from different angles. Where you photograph from will look different depending on where the sun is. You might prefer the sun behind you or to one side. Some scenes may look better when your subjects are backlit. These should be carefully made and not left to chance.

If you are including people or traffic in your photos, be observant of how it is moving. Anticipate where it looks best. How does the light look on a person as they walk through your composition? Does the traffic moving in one direction look more interesting than traffic moving the other way?

Once you have decided on a place to work from, stay there. Being patient is one of the most important things to do as a photographer. Wait and watch. Look for patterns of movement and also when these patterns are interrupted or broken. These can be some of the most interesting times to take street photographs.

Conclusion

Look at the sunlight and think about how you can post-process to enhance the look you want.

With street photography, you are reliant on the available light. You must look at it and figure out the best place to stand. Then you must make the right choice of exposure settings to take advantage of the high contrast.

Once you have found a good location and made a few exposures hang around. Give yourself time and space to really work a scene. Try going back to the same location at different times of the day and in different seasons. You may be surprised at how different your photographs will look.

We’d love it if you would go out and try some of these techniques and share your photos with us in the comments below.

The post Make the Most of High Contrast Lighting for Dramatic Street Photos appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kevin Landwer-Johan.

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How to Backup Your Photos While Shooting Tethered so You Never Lose Them

01 Aug

The post How to Backup Your Photos While Shooting Tethered so You Never Lose Them appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Darina Kopcok.

Whether you’re working with clients or shoot as a lone ranger, you need to back up your work. As the saying goes, when it comes to hard drives, it’s not a matter of if they will fail, but when they will fail.

Working with image files requires a lot of power and is very taxing for your computer. This increases the chance of hard drive failure. You need to have a system of backing up your images that works for you. This is also important to backup your photos while shooting tethered.

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Backup your photos while shooting tethered

There are various programs that allow you to connect your camera to a laptop or desktop computer via a USB cable. This allows you to view a larger and more accurate version of your image on the computer screen. Tethering is crucial in genres like food and still life photography, but also very useful in other niches, like studio portrait photography.

When shooting tethered while on location, an efficient workflow around the backup process will make your life a lot easier and ensure that you have several copies of your image files should an unforeseen incident occur.

If you’re like me and shoot tethered to a laptop but edit on a desktop, you already have the bonus of an extra copy of your images, since you’re using two computers.

If you transfer the images from the laptop to desktop via a detachable external hard drive, there is your third copy. However, if you use a card reader or transfer your images from your camera via a USB cable, you should have at least one more hard copy of your images. Also, what if something happens to your laptop while you’re on a shoot? Remember, it’s a question of when.

Do you use Lightroom as your tethering program of choice? You then have the option of saving your images to your SD cards as you take them. However, Capture One Pro doesn’t offer this option. This makes image capture instant, but it doesn’t give you an extra sense of security by providing additional copies of the images you’ve shot.

You cannot just set up Lightroom or COP to save to two places. You need file synchronization software to make sure that your work is being backed up while you’re shooting tethered.

Types of backups

There are two types of backup: specific project backup and overall data backup. You need to concern yourself with both.

While you’re shooting, you need to back up every single file. You also need to do a backup of your whole computer. You should create backups on external hard drives and also in a cloud-based system. Don’t simply rely on cloud solutions for your backups.

Storing photos in the cloud basically outsources the storage of your photos. The data in the cloud is not necessarily safe or under your control. Risks with cloud storage are having your data hacked and deleted, being locked out of your account, or having it be closed if you make late payments. Also, these types of online services can suddenly shut down or otherwise cease to exist.

A word about digital data

The problem with digital data is that storage formats change over time. You might keep your photos “safe,” but they’ll be useless to you if you can’t read or open them.

Operating systems, software and file formats keep changing, so just because you can see a file on your computer doesn’t mean you can actually load it.

One example is the attempts to replace the standard .jpg file format with JPEG 2000, PNG (Portable Network Graphics) and several others. JPG is fine for now, but you can never say never because this sort of thing actually happens all the time as technology changes.

A word about disk drives

Hard drives are great for storing images because they are relatively inexpensive, they provide fast access to data, and it’s very easy to copy one hard drive to another.

However, backup drives are not an all-in-one perfect solution. Your data is at risk of being stolen or destroyed by fire, flood or some other disaster.

Also, the data is vulnerable to malicious software and human error.

You can accidentally delete a folder, or make mistakes when copying files. If your PC is infected by malware, it will usually encrypt files on external hard drives as well.

I personally have had several hard drives fail. One time I had a hard drive and a laptop fail at the same time! Some hard drives fail after several years of use, while others fail after only a few months. There is no way of knowing when the case may be.

Therefore, you can’t store your photos on a single drive. A minimum of two is recommended. I have backups on a couple of 1TB external, portable hard drives, as well as on two 4TB hard drives that are plugged into my desktop computer.

You should keep one of your backups off-site, like at a relative’s home or even in a bank safety deposit box.

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How to back up while shooting tethered

Chronosync is one backup software that I recommend you use while shooting tethered if you use a Mac. If you’re a PC user, check out Bvckup.

Goodsync can be used with either system.

This type of software allows you to look at a given folder and copy everything to another folder on a separate hard drive. For example, you might want to shoot images on your laptop and have them sync to an external portable hard drive. Or you may want to use two separate portable hard drives. Basically what you’re doing is telling it what folder to look at and make an exact duplicate of it to another drive.

You can set it on a schedule or have it running in the background. Setting it on a schedule is great if you always have a hard drive plugged into your laptop.

Here is an example of how to do it with Chronosync.

1. Open up the application and choose, Create a New Synchronizer Document

How to Backup Your Photos While Shooting Tethered so You Never Lose Them

2. Decide what drives you want to synchronize by selecting >Choose from the Source Target and Destination Target menus accordingly. It will give you several choices of how you might want to back up from the dropdown menu under >Operation.
My recommendation is that you choose >Backup Synchronize Bidirectional. This will ensure that everything that is on one drive will also appear on the other.

How to Backup Your Photos While Shooting Tethered so You Never Lose Them

3. Click on >Synchronize in the top left-hand corner. It may take a few minutes for the synchronization to take place. Once it’s complete you’ll see the message below.

How to Backup Your Photos While Shooting Tethered so You Never Lose Them

It’s as simple as that. With synchronization software like Chronosync, you’ll ensure that all your files and folders are backed up for a very low price.

Other backup software

Many large companies offer photo storage services including Amazon, Google, Microsoft (OneDrive), and Apple (iCloud). However, this can be expensive if you need a lot of storage. With some, downloading large files is cumbersome and data such as file names and EXIF Data may not be preserved. Some services don’t preserve your photos as you uploaded them, and others just don’t work very well (Time Machine, I’m looking at you).

Here are some other paid-for options that are worth a look:

FoldersSynchronizer – a popular program for Mac OS which synchronizes backup files, folders, and disks.

Super Duper – great for disk backups on a Mac. It allows you to create a bootable clone of your disk which you can easily copy from one hard disk to another. This makes moving from one computer to another during an upgrade virtually painless.

Smug Mug – an all-in-one solution that allows photographers to display and sell their images, with unlimited uploads.

Backblaze – a cloud-based backup system that will continually back up your data while your computer is on. Use to restore data after a drive failure.

How to Backup Your Photos While Shooting Tethered so You Never Lose Them

To sum up

To ensure that you have all your bases covered when backing up your files, you should backup specific shoots as well as regularly do backups of your whole computer(s).

Have a couple of backups on hard drives, as well as a cloud-based backup.

When shooting tethered, I recommend backing up your images manually as you’re shooting, one at a time, to ensure that each image exists in at least two places at that time. Once you’re finished shooting, back up your portable hard drive to another one, preferably a larger, more robust hard drive where you store a copy of all your image folders.

The post How to Backup Your Photos While Shooting Tethered so You Never Lose Them appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Darina Kopcok.

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The Sigma sd Quattro H Camera Review

01 Aug

The post The Sigma sd Quattro H Camera Review appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Peter West Carey.

The Sigma sd Quattro H camera is a unique-looking, mirrorless camera with a unique sensor capable of producing sometimes astonishingly crisp images. The technology involved means this camera is not the first choice for everyone, but should certainly be under consideration by landscape, portrait, architectural and lifestyle photographers.

Sigma-sd-Quattro-H-Camera-review

I was loaned a Sigma sd Quattro H and the Sigma 14mm, 50mm, and 120-300mm lenses. I took the camera to Alaska, Washington, and California to test it in the real world.

Quick Stats

First, a few stats from Sigma’s website.

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Lens Mount	SIGMA SA bayonet mount
Angle of View	Equivalent to approx. 1.3 times the focal length of the lens (on 35mm cameras)
Image Sensor	Foveon X3 direct image sensor(CMOS)
Image Sensor Size	26.7×17.9mm (1.0in. ×0.7in. )
Number of Pixels	Effective Pixels: Approx. 38.6MP T(Top): 6,200×4,152 / M(Middle): 3,100×2,076 / B(Bottom): 3,100×2,076 Total Pixels: Approx. 44.7MP
Aspect Ratio	3:2
Storage Media	SD Card, SDHC Card, SDXC Card, Eye-Fi Card

Type	Electronic viewfinder (approx. 2,360,000 dots color LCD monitor)
Viewfinder Frame Coverage	approx. 100%
Viewfinder Magnification	0.96x (-1m^-1, 50mm F1.4 at infinity)

Auto Focus Type	Phase difference detection system + Contrast detection system
AF Point	9 points select mode, Free move mode (It is possible to change the size of Focus Frame to Spot, Regular and Large), Face Detection AF Mode
AF Operating Range	EV -1?EV 18 (ISO100 F1.4)
Focus Mode	Single AF, Continuous AF (with AF motion prediction function), Manual
Focus Lock	AEL/AF lock button is pressed or shutter release button is pressed halfway
Metering Systems	Evaluative Metering, Spot Metering, Center-Weighted Average Metering
Metering Range	EV 0?EV 17 (50mm F1.4 ISO100)
Exposure Control System	(P) Program AE (Program Shift is possible), (S) Shutter Speed Priority AE, (A) Aperture Priority AE, (M) Manual
ISO Sensitivity	ISO 100-6400
Exposure Compensation	±5 EV ?in 1/3 stop increments)

The big difference – a Foveon X3 Sensor

Sigma has chosen a different beast of a sensor for its sd Quattro H camera; the Foveon X3. A graphic from Foveon’s site describes it best.

The Sigma sd Quattro H Camera Review

Instead of using a Bayer pattern as most commercially available cameras use these days, the Foveon X3 captures each color, and luminosity information, at each pixel site. It accomplishes this because each wavelength of light is absorbed in different rates in a silicon chip.

Essentially, instead of having red, green and blue pixels side by side, the pixels are stacked on top of each other. This produces a sharper image overall. The overall brightness of the image is recorded on the top layer along with the blues. Here’s another way to look at it compared to the Bayer pattern.

The Sigma sd Quattro H Camera Review

The ‘H’ in ‘sd Quattro H’ represents the sensor size. It is not a full-frame sensor nor is it APS-C, it is in-between. The crop factor is 1.3x, still requiring a 40mm lens to equate to a typical 50mm lens on a full-frame sensor.

The Quattro’s sweet spot – image quality

Before we get to the downsides of the Sigma sd Quattro H, let’s cover what it does so very, very well; details.

No matter the lens (and I tested the camera with a Sigma 14mm, 50mm, and 120-300mm), the amount of detail you can pull out of images is fascinating. Image crispness is helped further by the sensor’s configuration, which does not suffer from moiré like other cameras with Bayer pattern sensors. I tried and tried to shoot and show some moiré, but it’s just not there.

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Landscape and portrait photographers will love the amount of detail in every shot. Lack of moiré increase its apparent sharpness without compromise, also making it a quality platform for architectural photographers. Add in the ability to bracket with three or five frames (and ranges from 1/3stop to 3stops between those frames), and the patient photographer will find much joy with this setup.

Below are 100% crops, along with original images, to help you compare.

Sigma sd Quattro H with Sigma 120-300mm lens – ISO 100, 252mm, f/4.5, 1/800

The Sigma sd Quattro H Camera Review

Sigma sd Quattro H with Sigma 14mm f/1.8 lens – ISO 100, 14mm, f/8, 1/500

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Sigma sd Quattro H with Sigma 120-300mm lens – ISO 100, 269mm, f/4.5, 1/800

The Sigma sd Quattro H Camera Review

Sigma sd Quattro H with Sigma 120-300mm lens – ISO 100, 206mm, f/4.5, 1/800

The Sigma sd Quattro H Camera Review

The downsides

Upon first using the Sigma camera, you will notice how slow it is. While this is not on purpose, it’s a side-effect of the massive amount of data the camera’s sensor creates. This large amount of data also drains batteries on the order of maybe 200 images shot per 1800 mAh battery (comparable to most DSLR batteries).

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Sigma attempts to mitigate the slow processing with an eight-shot buffer and a continuous shooting speed of 4-8 frames per second depending on image size and format. This does a decent job of helping the camera keep up with moderate action. Make no mistake, this is not a sports photographer’s camera, but in a pinch, it can capture fast action.

The buffer is the same no matter the file format (see below for file sizes). Even in JPEG mode, you will get eight shots then have to wait about one second between shots for processing and buffer actions.

Auto-focus is also subpar and often seems to favor the contrast-detection aspect more than the phase-detection aspect of its hybrid focus system. There isn’t much hunting, but in low light, it does struggle more than I would like. I often found myself defaulting to manual focus when I knew the light was not ample.

However, the camera does have a Focus Peaking option which allows live view focusing with a digital zoom for accomplishing precision focus in manual focus mode.

The sensor has a dynamic range of slightly less than 10-stops, giving pause to those accustomed to the growing dynamic range of most modern DSLR cameras.

The camera also struggles with detail in black areas in the frame. It turns on its head the “Expose To The Right” idea held by most DSLR photographers. An example below of a shot exposed to the right to as I would normally shoot it, along with a crop of the darker areas.

The Sigma sd Quattro H Camera Review

File options

In the past, Sigma cameras had two options: their proprietary 14-bit X3F format or JPEG. This meant either using Sigma’s Photo Pro software (currently on version 6) or outputting compressed JPEGS. You don’t spend money on a camera like this for the JPEGs, so it caused some consternation.

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The sd Quatro H has a new option which helps open possibilities: DNG files. All of us using raw file editing programs can rejoice and not have to worry about conversions. However, the format has a lower bit depth than the .X3F format.

File sizes vary significantly from format to format. A typical JPEG file will be 10-15MB, JPEG super-fine setting (explained in a moment) 25-35MB, X3F will be 50-60MB, and DNG balloons to 120-150MB. For a 64GB SDXC card, this nets about 3600 regular JPEG, 1800 super-fine JPEG, 630 X3F images and 410 DNG images, according to the back of the camera.

A full list of various file sizes can be found on Sigma’s site.

Image Quality – Comparing X3F vs. DNG vs. JPEG Super Fine vs. JPEG Normal

This next comparison is a bit tricky because we have to use Sigma’s Photo Pro to process and export the X3F file. I’m going to make all the original files available here (file download size: 210mb) so you can download them and compare without my need to export for web viewing.

There has always been controversy over how many pixels are reported on the Foveon sensors. Sigma says the images in X3F format have 39 megapixels, while the JPEG Superfine has 51 megapixels. Yet, the images that come out of the camera are 6192×4128 or 25,560,576 pixels = 25.5MP. So what gives?

The X3F file contains 25.5MP of data on the top later that records the blue channel and the luminance information. The next two laters each capture 3096×2064 or 6.39MP of information for red and green colors. Add those together and you get 25.5 + 6.39 + 6.39 = 38.28MP (I’ve done some rounding in this calculation).

The Sigma sd Quattro H Camera Review

The X3F has more bit depth and thus more information. However, Sigma Photo Pro is not the most refined program in the world and takes some patience to use. You will get the most out of the camera if you can take it slow and edit in Photo Pro. With that said, the DNG files are excellent (if a bit inflated in MB) and can be edited easily in Lightroom and other programs compatible with the format.

Lastly, what about that Super Fine JPEG format? I have to admit; it’s tempting to lust after 51MP out of a mirrorless camera. Yet, the quality of those shots is juuuusstt off the mark for my liking. Let me give you some 100% crops for comparison. I didn’t include the X3F version because the Photo Pro software is not straightforward on how to perform a crop, even after consulting the manual.

The Sigma sd Quattro H Camera Review

DNG format 100% crop

JPEG Standard Format 100% crop

JPEG Super Fine Format 100% crop

For my liking, that last one has just a little too much pixelation when looked at up close.

Shooting options

The sd Quattro H has all the standard shooting modes you’d expect: Manual, Program (with program shift), Aperture Priority and Shutter Speed Priority.

ISO is selectable between 100-6400, not quite the range we’re accustomed to with modern DSLR bodies. Further, noise becomes quite notable around ISO 800, making it difficult to get used to the higher ISO limits. It does have the ability to use Auto ISO and to limit the range, which I find useful.

The Sigma sd Quattro H Camera Review

While there are only nine focus points, arranged in a standard 3×3 grid, Sigma does give you the capability to change the size of the focus points in three steps, with the larger size covering a decent 60% of the viewing area. You can also select individual points instead of using all nine. This combination allows for a fair amount of control for wide-open scenes down to a need to focus on an individual stamen on a flower.

The Sigma sd Quattro H Camera Review

Useful features

Sometimes my eyes don’t seem to see straight, so I found the onscreen level to be very handy. It can be turned off for those who don’t want it, but for the rest of us, it’s quite useful.

The Sigma sd Quattro H Camera Review

Unexpectedly, the smaller LCD display on the back, highlighting exposure settings, battery level, exposure compensation, ISO, metering mode and shooting mode, is a welcome addition. Especially those using a tripod at eye height, which is when you have to stand on tiptoes to view the top display. Most of us glance at the rear display on our camera more than the front and this easy reference screen is handy. Controls for each of those items are located just to their right for easy, quick access.

The Sigma sd Quattro H Camera Review

As with other mirrorless cameras, having the histogram displayed in the viewfinder is a boon, especially when the dynamic range of the camera is less than 10-stops. Keeping the exposure correct with a histogram to help analyze a scene is very useful.

Controls

The Sigma sd Quattro H comes with two control wheels on the top of the camera. When shooting in Manual mode, the different dials, as expected, control shutter speed and aperture for easy shooting. The rear dial does not stand out too far and has just the right amount of tactile response when functioning. These functions can be switched around in the camera menu.

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On the back of the camera are multi-directional buttons to assist in menu and control selection. They are well placed and easy to access without removing your eye from the viewfinder.

Also on the rear of the camera is a selector switch for using the viewfinder LCD or the rear camera monitor while shooting. I found the camera was often slow in switching from the rear monitor (on most of the time the camera shutter has been pressed halfway to activate auto-focus) to the viewfinder. This slight lag in switching became annoying in constant use and while quickly reviewing images on the rear screen before commencing further image acquisition.

The Sigma sd Quattro H Camera Review

The solution for me was to use the viewfinder only. However, this slowed down my process as only reviewing of images within the viewfinder is less than ideal. I wish the switching mechanism was quicker.

The camera also has controls for changing what information is displayed on the various screens, adjusting focus points and auto exposure/autofocus lock.

Fit & Feel

Admittedly, the Quattro looks a little odd. It has a weird shape and the viewfinder seems to be in the wrong spot.

The grip is comfortable and makes all-day use easy. While not cupped in like some DSLR cameras, it has enough surface for a solid grip.

The Sigma sd Quattro H Camera Review

The viewfinder is off to the side to allow space for the hotshoe directly over the lens. This tripped me up more than a dozen times as I grabbed the camera, with its DSLR-like feel, and brought it up to my eye in the wrong location. Not a big deal, but it felt a little off at times. Those without a lot of DSLR experience will not notice anything amiss.

The camera feels solid like a quality DSLR while having less weight. It feels like a camera that can handle hard work for years to come.

Menu control

Before we get into the menus, the Quattro has a hand QS button on the top, just next to the shutter release. It brings up a Quick Selection menu (either in the viewfinder or back screen). This is where you’ll want to make most of your image quality and other changes. The menu options are selectable within the camera’s options menu.

You select the camera’s menu by pressing the obvious MENU button on the back of the camera. The top control wheels or the back multi-directional buttons control the menus. Menus are displayed in an over-down setup, much like Canon cameras.

There are six shooting menus, two review menus, and five setup menus.

The Sigma sd Quattro H Camera Review

Do I have to use Sigma’s app?

For those of you happily stuck in your ways with your favorite image processing workflow, the quick answer is “no.” Because of the sd Quattro H’s ability to produce DNG files, the world is your oyster when it comes to editing photos.

However, and this gets into the technical side of things, the DNG file has already had some processing done to it in its creation. There is evidence that the color balance of the original X3F file is easier to accomplish using Sigma’s PhotoPro software than working with the DNG file. This is because of the camera’s need to convert the information it collects from the sensor and craft a DNG file.

The Sigma sd Quattro H Camera Review

Sigma’s PhotoPro software has come a long way and will create better images for you than simply using the DNG file. Think of it this way; the DNG files are higher quality than the JPEG files, while the X3F files are higher than the DNG. Each step, from JPEG to DNG to X3F, allows for more latitude and control when processing your images.

My suggestion if you acquire this camera: take the time to learn Sigma PhotoPro if you want professional quality results.

Samples

Sigma sd Quattro H w/120-300mm Sigma lens – ISO 100, 171mm, f/3.5, 1/400

Sigma sd Quattro H w/14mm Sigma lens – ISO 100, 14mm, f/34.5, 1/1600

Sigma sd Quattro H w/14mm Sigma lens – ISO 100, 14mm, f/8, 1/500

Sigma sd Quattro H w/120-300mm Sigma lens – ISO 100, 300mm, f/6.3, 1/1600

Sigma sd Quattro H w/120-300mm Sigma lens – ISO 100, 300mm, f/5.6, 1/1250

Sigma sd Quattro H w/14mm Sigma lens – ISO 100, 14mm, f/6.3, 1/400

Sigma sd Quattro H w/14mm Sigma lens – ISO 100, 14mm, f/2.8, 1/1000

Sigma sd Quattro H w/120-300mm Sigma lens – ISO 100, 300mm, f/4.5, 1/800

Sigma sd Quattro H w/120-300mm Sigma lens – ISO 100, 300mm, f/6.3, 1/1600

Sigma sd Quattro H w/14mm Sigma lens – ISO 100, 14mm, f/9, 1/800

Sigma sd Quattro H w/120-300mm Sigma lens – ISO 100, 171mm, f/4.5, 1/800

Hidden option: Easy Infrared

One feature not often touted in Sigma’s literature or sales documents is its infrared capabilities. This will undoubtedly appeal to various landscape photographers because of its ease of use.

I was not able to acquire one of the needed pieces to make this system work before I returned the camera, but I was able to test the removal of the infrared filter. It is located front and center on the lens mount when the end cap is removed. After you remove the filter, you need a visible light filter on the front of whichever lens you use.

The combination of removing one filter and adding another adds full infrared capability without an expensive conversion typical with DLSRs these days. The versatility this adds could make it a likely option for those wanting to dabble in infrared photography but not wanting to lug around a whole other camera for the purpose.

Conclusion

The Sigma sd Quattro H camera is a mixed bag with a specific audience. They have made strides in shooting speed and buffering over time (the first iterations of their Foveon sensor cameras were quite slow, almost to the point of uselessness) and that has helped bring up overall usefulness.

If you are a landscape photographer and take things slow, this is a great camera for incredible detail. Travel photographers will enjoy the camera (if they aren’t shooting a lot of fast action) for the lack of moiré in buildings and other patterns found while exploring. I can also see macro photographers gaining a lot from the details and Focus Peeking feature.

However, the speed of shooting and speed of auto-focus can hold this camera back for the average photographer. It can be a bit frustrating to wait for images to appear and battery life is less than most of its competitors.

Have you used this camera? What are your thoughts? Please share with us in the comments section.

The post The Sigma sd Quattro H Camera Review appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Peter West Carey.

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Are you planning to use photo editing services to save time on image post production but not sure which websites deserve your money? Searching for a decent option among dozens of photo editing services can turn into a very time-consuming and exhausting process. It can also be quite tricky as some companies pay for fake reviews. That’s why I decided Continue Reading

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