Category: Photography

A Love Letter to the Humble Softbox

When it comes to shaping and modifying your light, there are so many options available it can be hard to stay in one place for long. In the beginning, you’ll use the basics such as a softbox or an umbrella. But as you get comfortable with noticing the tiny differences in light, you’ll quickly graduate to more specialized modifiers. Beauty dishes, reflectors (the kind that fits to a strobe), octaboxes and striplights all do wonderful things to your light. And you can easily get caught up in the ways these and other modifiers can be used.

Overlooked

Despite all these options, I feel the basics can sometimes be overlooked. Have you ever stopped to think why the humble softbox has become so universal? No doubt there are many answers to that question, but an important one is that it works – and works well.

To be clear, I’m talking about the basic rectangular photographic softbox around 3′ x 4′. Not too large, and not too small. (Popup softboxes have their place, but we’re not talking about them in this article.) With the right techniques, these workhorses of the photographic studio can give you beautiful, soft light that suits just about any subject you can think of.

Basics

You probably already know the basics of how a softbox works. But for the sake of posterity, let’s go through it again.

A softbox is mounted on the front of the strobe to shape and more evenly distribute the light. They’re often fitted with silvery material on the inside to help bounce the light around and ensure it spreads evenly through the diffusion material at the front. This diffusion material effectively becomes your light source. Because your light source is now much bigger than the bare strobe, the quality of light changes from hard to soft (hence the name ‘softbox’).

Manipulating the quality of the light gives you much more flattering light for almost any subject, especially portraits.

Never Forgotten

For these reasons a great deal of photographers start their camera lighting with a softbox. They’re cheap, easy to find and use, and provide excellent results. But as their skills increase, and new and more complicated techniques open up, it can be hard to resist the allure of fancy, niche modifiers.

For a few years I used nothing but a beauty dish. Even now I tend to favor large octaboxes for portraits. But in this article I want to show you that just because you’ve moved on to other things doesn’t mean you should forget the basics. As I said, there’s a reason the softbox has become so universal.

Examples

Here are several examples of what you can achieve with a simple 3′ x 4′ softbox that cost around $ 35.

Note: As you’ll see in the annotations, for some of these shots a 5-in-1 reflector ($ 15) was also used.

1.

In this example, the softbox is directly in front of and offset slightly from the subject. This results in a lighting pattern called ‘loop lighting’. Because the light source is so close, the resulting soft light is ideal for portraits.

2.

Like the previous example, the softbox for this image is really close to the subject. But this time, it’s placed at 45 degrees and slightly above. Look at the catchlights in his eyes, and you can see exactly how close the light source is. Again, the light here is really soft, and you can see this quality in the smooth tonal transitions from the highlight areas to the shadow areas.

3.

This setup is almost the same as the previous setup, except the softbox is slightly further away and there’s a white reflector at camera right.

Placing the light further away reduces the speed of the light falloff, which in this case means that the shadows don’t dominate as quickly as in the previous example. The reflector also helps with this.

4.

Medium-sized softboxes are well suited to clamshell-styled setups. Simply place your softbox directly in front of and above your subject, pointed down at 45 degrees. Then place a reflector underneath and pointed upwards at 45 degrees. (Without a reflector this would be called ‘butterfly lighting’.)

5.

Softboxes can be used to great dramatic effect when used as side lighting. Deep shadows and soft highlights can really add a lot of depth to your images.

6.

The previous examples all had the softbox in close for the softest possible light. You can also pull your light source back to make use of harder light to good effect. But pay close attention to the clearer transitions between the shadow and highlight areas.

The End

I’m not telling you to limit yourself to a softbox. By all means, go out and use and explore every modifier you can get your hands on. Just remember that as you’re planning your lighting for any given situation, sometimes the ease and simplicity of the basics might give you the results you need.

The post A Love Letter to the Humble Softbox appeared first on Digital Photography School.

Digital Photography School

October 8, 2018
5 Tips for Underwater Photography with a GoPro

Jumping from a cliff. Diving with whale sharks. Documenting a road trip. The compact, rugged technology of the GoPro has created incredible opportunities for capturing the action of events like these. And while the GoPro is known mostly for its video capabilities, improved senor technology means it’s also a camera capable of high-quality imagery that can withstand harsh conditions such as water and dust.

And being able to shoot in adverse conditions opens new opportunities for creative photography.

In the past few months I’ve been experimenting with a GoPro Hero5 to shoot underwater photography. Although shooting underwater is a new realm for me, I’ve found that by applying generic photography knowledge I’ve grown quickly and made the GoPro work for me.

I hope you can learn and adapt what I’ve learned for your own purposes with these five tips for underwater photography with a GoPro.

I used a GoPro under water to capture the behavior of these breeding salmon in Alaska.

1. Know the Minimum Focus Distance

You may already know that the GoPro has a very wide field of view (FOV), which lets you frame a subject with the contextual scene around it. When searching for an image, focus on your desired foreground element and then get as close to it that foreground element as you ethically can. Place your camera close and take advantage of the GoPro’s 12-inch (~30cm) minimum focus distance. Placing the foreground element about 12 inches from the camera will emphasize it while still providing surrounding context.

I kept the minimum focusing distance in mind for this coral. The image was taken from very close while snorkeling.

2. Pre-set your Camera Field of View

Following in line with the minimum focusing distance, be sure to pre-set the FOV for your GoPro before entering the water. Even though GoPros are waterproof, I use a third-party housing to further protect the camera. And if you use a housing you can’t engage the touch screen, so you need to set the FOV first.

If you can’t get close enough to your subject, set the field of view to “Narrow”. This will require you to aim your camera precisely, which can be difficult if snorkeling or swimming. Of course, you can keep an eye on the back screen to help you compose the shot.

I used a narrow field of view to capture this image of this large trigger fish in Hawaii.

3. Set Your Camera Defaults to Maintain Image Quality

Setting your default settings ahead of time will help you capture quality photographs. GoPros have pretty good image quality in well-lit conditions, but the image graininess (noise) will increase quickly as the camera adapts its ISO to low-light conditions. You can control the image quality by setting a maximum ISO setting. With your phone connected to your GoPro, go into your settings and change the maximum ISO to a value of 800 or less. While you’re there, you may want to set the default mode to “photo”. Doing this will ensure you can quickly take a photo if your GoPro shuts off while underwater and you need to turn it back on.

Underwater conditions can be very murky and may cause your camera to boost the ISO, which will result in greater image noise.

A slower shutter speed due to low light caused some of the darting herring in this image to blur.

4. Stabilize Your Camera

If the water is cloudy or the day isn’t sunny the camera will shoot at slower shutter speeds, which may result in blurry or non-sharp images. This will be particularly noticeable if you can’t keep the camera stable. If you’re hand-holding the camera, keep it as stable as possible. You can also mount the GoPro to a tripod and place it in a suitable location. This is more useful when a phenomena or animal is predictable, such as salmon in a river. Just as it does on land, using a tripod will help stabilize the image.

I captured this image from a tripod. This was necessary because this salmon was wary of any movement in the river that reminded it of a bear.

If you’re out of the water and photographing something near you (think of tide pools) you can keep the camera stable by mounting it on a extension pole. You can buy one, or even build one relatively easily. A long pole will help you photograph something far away, and if you have a long pole (say 12 feet) the top of it will help counterbalance the GoPro at the bottom. If you’re using the pole in shallow water try bracing it against the bottom for further stability.

I used a long pole and a GoPro to capture an image of this sponge during a low-tide cycle in Alaska. I braced the pole against the bottom to take this image.

This image combines a couple of the concepts discussed in this article. I kept the camera on a pole and maintained the minimum focusing distance to capture the image of this octopus in a tide pool.

I used a pole and a GoPro to photograph these colorful tube worms and anemones under a dock.

Another camera setting useful for stability is the time lapse mode. Set the camera to time lapse (say, one shot every second) and start taking images. Compose your shot underwater, and then hold the camera in place while it takes pictures. Since you won’t have to fumble for the trigger button it will be easier to keep it still and ensure your images are sharp.

I used the time lapse mode to capture this school of fish in the clear waters of Hawaii.

In some situations you may be able to trigger the camera with your phone. The GoPro’s wifi network will cut out under deep water, but if the camera is on a tripod with only a small covering of water you can trigger the camera remotely from a distance. You’ll need to experiment with how much water is too much for the wifi network. Remotely triggering the camera may help you ethically and safely photograph wildlife.

I remotely triggered this image of a large coastal brown bear moving up a river in Alaska.

Although I don’t use underwater lighting, you can avoid blurring by using strobes or other versions of underwater lighting. These will help keep your shutter speed up and your ISO low. But use them with discretion depending on your subject. In some circumstances they may be detrimental to wildlife.

5. Use a Housing for Split-Level Photography

Split-level imagery is a way to help give an image context and tell a story. To create the effect, use an underwater housing with a convex dome and then place the dome half-in and half-out of the water. By doing so you get to observe both the underwater world and the terrestrial world. I use a housing by GoPole to create split-level images capturing the streams and local salmon runs of Alaska. You can use this technique anywhere to create compelling images. You can create split-level images by hand-holding the camera or using a tripod as I mentioned earlier.

A GoPole dome housing was used to create this split-level image of a large coastal brown bear.

The split-level shot helps tell the story of these spawning pink salmon under a large log in Alaska.

The Takeaway

I want to reiterate that I’m not an expert at underwater photography. But I’ve enjoyed extending my capabilities and skills to that realm. The GoPro is a fun way to learn underwater photography techniques without breaking the bank. And since GoPros are naturally waterproof, the likelihood of destroying gear is lowered substantially.

As I like to say, “pixels are cheap,” so I hope you make a lot of pixels while shooting photographs underwater with your GoPro.

The post 5 Tips for Underwater Photography with a GoPro appeared first on Digital Photography School.

Digital Photography School

October 7, 2018
Side-by-side comparison between reflectors and diffusers for portraits

If you’ve been looking into portrait photography, whether it be a casual read, in depth, as a hobby, to improve your portraits, or as a pro, you would have come across the use of reflectors. Reflectors come in various sizes, shapes and colours. My favourites are the 5-in-1 circular foldaway reflectors and the rectangular panels you can lean on or clip to a stand.

Have you ever wondered what a side-by-side comparison using different reflector colors would look like? Wonder no more. Below, you can see the different types I used. These photos all share the same white balance and editing as I wanted the colors to be as true a reflection of the effects of the reflectors used as much as possible. I’ve also kept the edits as clean as possible.

#1 Three reflectors, light shirt

Top left is a natural light portrait lit only by window light, half-clear and half-frosted (diffused) but with no other reflectors used. The window is large enough for a big spread illuminating both face and background. The portrait on its right shows a rather obvious warm glow all over. I used two gold reflectors: camera right and in the front underneath the face. This setup warmed everything up – shirt, teeth, face and even the background.

Compare the effect of the gold reflector to the bottom left. This one had two silver reflectors positioned in the same places. Notice how cool the color temperature has become. Next to it on the right I once again had the same setup, but this time using two white reflectors. Notice the color temperature is still cool but softer, less sharp and less edgier than the silver one. Look carefully and this difference is more apparent on the teeth and skin tone being just a touch warmer.

#2 Two reflectors, dark shirt

I thought I’d do the same comparison, this time with the subject wearing black. The difference is more dramatic. With the gold reflector, the black is richer and darker, whereas with the silver it’s a little more washed out.

For me these are both a bit extreme, with the gold reflector being too warm and the silver being too cold. If I were to edit these photos without considering the true effects of the reflector I’d tone down the warmth of the gold reflector by half and I’d be good with that. Similarly, I’d warm up the one with the silver reflector in post, both using the white balance slider. I’d then get the happy warm tone that I’m after.

#3 Diffuser reflector and flash

If you’re familiar with the 5-in-1 reflector, you’ll know there are four colored sides: white, silver, gold and black. These sides are made of fabric all stitched together as one zipped wrap. This fabric wraps around a middle standalone piece that’s translucent. This is the diffuser and a super versatile tool. Strictly speaking, the black side doesn’t actually reflect light but rather absorbs it, and is good for cutting light out or using as flags.

This diffuser is great when shooting in harsh outdoor sunlight and you just want to cut the light down or tone it down by placing the diffuser between the sunlight and the subject. In effect, you are creating a slightly shadowed area for the subject, which makes it ideal for portrait lighting outdoors.

I thought I’d try this same technique for my indoor portraits by using this diffuser to cut down light from a flash, thereby acting like a big softbox but without the bounce.

Here are the results. The left photo was lit with one flash on camera right positioned behind the diffuser, which was pretty big and placed close to the subject for a smooth, soft light. The right photo had two flashes, again diffused, with one light overhead to provide hair light and light the background for more separation.

#4 Diffused natural light vs diffused flash

The final comparison is between diffused window light on the left photo and one diffused flash on the right photo. Window light produced softer shadows here, with less contrast and a bigger spread of light. In contrast, the diffused flash had more defined shadows. It’s smaller than the window with less spread of light, but sculpted the face better.

If I were to mimic the higher contrast and shadows produced by the diffused flash, one trick would be to cut out the light by using the black reflector side as a flag. I wasn’t able to do this, however, as I didn’t want my subject to be waiting too long for my experiment. (He only came in for one headshot.)

I hope you found this little comparison exercise fun and enlightening. It’s amazing what the 5-in-1 reflector, a small and inexpensive tool, can do to your portraits.

The post Side-by-side comparison between reflectors and diffusers for portraits appeared first on Digital Photography School.

Digital Photography School

October 7, 2018
How to Achieve a Consistent and Clean Photo Editing Style
As a photographer, achieving a consistent and clean photo editing style is important for developing your work.

Depending on your photographic niche, the way you choose to post produce and edit your images is a key factor in achieving cohesiveness in your portfolio. Utilizing editing software such as Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop can help you develop a style and aesthetic that is personal to you.

Let’s discuss some of the necessary elements for achieving a consistent and clean photo editing style.

Focus on Lighting to Achieve a Consistent and Clean Photo Editing Style

In order for your images to look polished and professional, you will want to focus the majority of your edits on making lighting corrections. It is important to note that shooting in camera RAW mode will allow you to make the most of your editing process. If you have this capability, change your image capture mode prior to shooting.

Lighting corrections in post-production include changes to exposure, highlights, shadows and adjusting your black and white points. By shooting in RAW mode, you can bring details back into the image that may have been lost while shooting by increasing or decreasing some of these lighting values. This allows you to set a base for your images that define your editing style.

Whether you want to create bright, airy images or darker, moody edits – these can all be achieved by manipulating your lighting.

Take a look at the clean photo editing style in the before and after of the images below.

Avoid Harsh Color Edits

While using editing programs including Lightroom or Photoshop, it can be easy to over-manipulate the color of your image. With tools such as the RGB curve, HSL or Split Toning, these capabilities can be very powerful and effective when used properly. When aiming to create a consistent and clean photo editing style, avoid harsh or dramatic color edits that appear inauthentic to the original image.

In order to stay true to the original tones of your image, consider adjusting your white balance to ‘AUTO’ within your camera before shooting. You can manually adjust this using Lightroom if your images are shot in RAW format. The white balance ‘Auto’ mode on your camera is designed to achieve the most authentic and true-to-life color under most shooting circumstances. During the editing process, color adjustments can be made by changing values such as temperature, tint, saturation, hue and tone.

Each photographer has a colour editing style that is specific and recognizable to their work. Whilst you can create a color style that is unique to you, be sure to remember that professional images maintain accurate color consistency. You want to make sure to change your image color values with intention, and use this same method across your body of work.

Eliminate Distracting or Unnecessary Elements

Another tip to creating a consistent and clean photo editing style is to remove distracting elements from your images. This may include background elements, imperfections of your subject, or even poor composition. Many of these imperfections can be fixed by utilizing removal tools such as healing brushes or the clone stamp.

The overall composition of the image can also be improved by altering the cropping and fixing alignment problems with straightening. In order for your work to have a professional appearance, you must remember to fix the imperfections and pay attention to the smaller details of your images.

For example, in the image below, I wanted more of the sky and less of the tree branches. Using the Lightroom Clone Stamp tool, I was able to remove some of the branches by replacing it with the blue detail of the sky. You can change your image as you see fit to avoid an image with distracting or unnecessary elements.

Create Tools for Consistency

The most effective way to create consistent editing in your post-production workflow is to create tools such as presets in Lightroom or actions in Photoshop. These capabilities were created so you can save edits and reapply them across multiple sets of images. Depending on the editing software you prefer to use, presets and actions are both fairly simple to create and integrate into your editing workflow.

Presets

Presets are used in Adobe Lightroom to copy and paste edits from one image to another. In order to create a preset, you must first make edits to an original image. To do this:
1. Open your original image in the Develop Module in Lightroom.
2. Apply the color edits and lighting adjustments you want to make.
3. Once satisfied with your results, navigate to your keyboard and press ‘Command + C’ (the shortcut for copy).
4. The Copy Settings dialog box will appear, guiding you to choose the settings you would like to copy. Make your selection and press ‘Copy’.
5. Navigate to the left tool bar and find the tab labeled ‘Presets’
6. Press the ‘+’ button and choose the option of ‘Create Preset’ or alternatively, go to the menu bar, choose ‘Develop’ and then select ‘New Preset’.
7. A ‘New Develop Preset’ box will appear asking you to name your preset and choose the settings you want to save.
8. After you have determined these values, press ‘Create’ and your preset will now show in the ‘User Presets’ tab in the Develop Module.
9. You can now apply this preset to any of your images with one simple click to paste the edits.
Here is an example of a before and after edit with one of my personal Lightroom image presets.

Actions

Actions are created in Adobe Photoshop by recording adjustments made in the program. Unlike presets, actions are developed by pressing the ‘RECORD’ button while editing your image. Once satisfied with an edit, press the ‘STOP’ button and your action is created. Actions are used for specific adjustments to an image such as color, light and retouching.

To create an Action, you will need to go to the right side panel and find the ‘play’ button denoted as a triangle pointing to the right.
1. Choose the paper icon to ‘Create New Action’.
2. Name your Action and press ‘RECORD’.
3. Photoshop will record your adjustments and save them to your new Action.
4. When you are satisfied with your changes, press the ‘Stop’ button to save it.
5. Once your Action is complete it can be applied to your images by selecting the name of your action and pressing the ‘Play’ button.
Actions can be very effective for portrait photographers who need to retouch and fine tune the facial features of their subject. You can create actions to smooth skin, remove blemishes and even for methods such as frequency separation.

Here is an example of a before and after edit with one of my personal Photoshop Color Actions.

As you can see, a consistent and clean photo editing style is achieved through integrating techniques such as; lighting adjustments, natural color edits, and the elimination of distracting elements. It is also achieved by using tools such as Lightroom Presets or Photoshop Actions. In your body of work, having an editing style that is cohesive and visually appealing will give your images a truly professional touch.

Do you have any tips for creating consistent and clean photo editing styles in either Lightroom or Photoshop? Share with us in the comments below.

The post How to Achieve a Consistent and Clean Photo Editing Style appeared first on Digital Photography School.

Digital Photography School
October 7, 2018
Weekly Photography Challenge – Movement
Your photographic challenge this week is to take and share a photo on the theme of movement.

You can interpret this theme in different ways, so long as there is a sense of motion. The photo above features in the following article with tips on how to use wind in your portrait shots.

Portrait Tip: Add Interest and Movement into Your Shots with Wind

Or maybe you might try experimenting with blur and movement. Here are some tips for that:

How to Capture Motion Blur in Photography

And some inspiration for where you can take these kind of shots:

13 Places Take Beautiful Motion Blur Shots

Want to focus more on a range of other shooting techniques you could use? You could try:
- Panning
- Zooming
- other creative Intentional Camera Movement techniques
Or start with a beginners guide to capturing motion in your photography.

Weekly Photography Challenge – Movement

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 #DPSMOVEMENT 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 – Movement appeared first on Digital Photography School.

Digital Photography School
October 6, 2018
5 Beginner Photography Mistakes You Should Avoid
If you’re relatively new to photography, then Jessica Kobeissi has shared her past experiences to help you avoid making some simple mistakes.

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Kobeissi’s photography tips have garnered her over 1,000,000 subscribers and 60,000,000 views. Over this time, she has definitely had her fair share of mistakes, no doubt about it!

Any good photographer will have made more errors than they can count during their careers, and learning from these mistakes can help you to fast-track your own pictures. It’s the perfect way to cut corners!

The photography mistakes you don’t want to make

Here are some of the mistakes that Kobeissi thinks you should avoid:
1. Don’t rely on filters and presets that you can apply to your photos in post-production.
2. Spend time gaining the necessary experience yourself.
3. Stop shooting the same thing over and over again.
4. Don’t get caught up in what other people say about your photos.
5. Plan shoots based on the time of day.
Check out the full video above to see Kobeissi’s explanations of each mistake and, crucially, how you can go about avoiding them in the first place!

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Digital Photography School
October 6, 2018
How to Add More Interest to Your Astrophotography With Light Painting

Photographing the night sky is a lot of fun and can result in some stunning photographs. You don’t need to look far to find some incredible, out-of-this-world astrophotography.

As the low-light performance of cameras continues to improve, astrophotography has come within reach of more photographers.

You may have tried your hand at photographing the stars and the Milky Way, or you may be fantasizing about going out to play while the world sleeps. If you aren’t new to astrophotography, you’ve likely found that it isn’t as easy as you might think. Even with the right gear, it takes a lot of practice and can be incredibly frustrating at times.

Even if you’ve managed to come home with some sharp, well-exposed images of the stars, you may be wondering what’s missing. What are so many night sky photos missing? It’s easy to get so focused on photographing the sky that you can forget that it’s the earth that makes them interesting.

Adding Interest to Your Night Sky Photos

One of the best things you can do to add depth to a landscape photo is include some foreground interest. Astrophotography is no different.

This is why you’ll find that some of the most stunning astrophotos include natural or man-made elements like rock formations, lighthouses, or old barns.

BEFORE: A 20-second exposure using only ambient light.

AFTER: The same scene with the sand illuminated by light painting with the screen on my phone.

You may have already tried including some foreground interest into your night sky photos. The problem is that the best places for astrophotography are the darkest places. As far away from light pollution as possible, with little or no moonlight. Unfortunately, this means there is very little ambient light to illuminate the foreground that you’re trying to include.

One simple solution is called light painting. It comes in many forms and can be done using many different techniques. The basic principle is that you add light to parts of the scene to illuminate them. It can not only transform your astrophotography, it’s also a lot of fun.

The best part is that you don’t need any fancy or expensive gear. All you need is a light source. You can use anything you have lying around. A flashlight, light bar, camping lamp, your phone, or your car’s headlights. I’ve even seen people using a drone. I always take a headlamp so I can see what I’m doing so that often does the trick.

How to Paint With Light

Light painting isn’t difficult, in fact, it’s really easy. Once you have your camera set up and ready to go, take a photo of the scene with ambient light to make sure you’ve exposed for the sky and stars.

When you’re happy with your settings, either you or a buddy will use the light source to paint light onto the foreground elements that you want to illuminate. Start by painting a small amount of light into the scene, then check the image. You’ll rarely get it right the first time.

BEFORE: A 25-second exposure of a camping scene with the light of the fire and an LED placed inside the tent.

AFTER: The same scene with the vehicle illuminated by my headlamp to the right of the scene.

Take multiple exposures, slowly painting in more light as necessary. Try experimenting with painting from various angles to see how it changes the way the foreground looks. Don’t be afraid to walk into the frame. With exposure times of 20-30 seconds, you won’t be visible as long as you keep moving. Just be careful not to shine the light source into the lens. I find wearing black helps you stay invisible.

As you’re photographing tiny amounts of ambient light, you’ll find it’s easy to overdo it with the light painting and overexpose the foreground. Less is more with this technique. If you find the foreground is too bright, paint less light in or use a light source that isn’t as bright. I find the light from the screen on my phone works well. It also allows you to choose the color of the light.

As with any form of photography, don’t forget that off-camera light (light coming from the sides of the scene) gives a much more pleasing look and creates depth in your photos. Instead of standing behind your camera and light painting while the shutter is open, move off to the side or walk through the scene to vary the angles of the direction of the light. Just be sure to check where you’re walking first!

BEFORE: A tree silhouetted against the light of the Milky Way.

AFTER: I used a camping light to paint the edge of the tree with light, helping to give the scene some depth and lead the viewer’s eye into the stars.

Post-Processing Astrophotography Images

When it comes time to edit your photos, the more frames you have to work with the better. You may find that there’s one exposure where you nailed the exposure and light painting in one frame, in which case you can go ahead with post-processing it.

In the more likely scenario that you like different parts of different frames, which you can easily blend together in Photoshop to create a composite.

This is where your base exposure with no added light will come in handy. Go through and select the images that you want to create the composite with, including the base exposure, then use this digital blending technique to combine them in Photoshop. I like to do a basic edit to the images in Lightroom before exporting to Photoshop, then I add final touches after blending them into one image.

BEFORE: Rocks and Joshua trees are slightly illuminated by the ambient light pollution.

AFTER: The same rocks and trees painted with light from my flashlight as I walked through the scene.

It’s easier than you think

Light painting may seem like a complex photographic technique, but it’s actually quite simple. It can take your astrophotography from good to great, and you’ll find the process is very enjoyable, even addictive!

Next time you head out into the night with camera in hand, pack an extra flashlight and give light painting a try. You’ll be glad you did.

The post How to Add More Interest to Your Astrophotography With Light Painting appeared first on Digital Photography School.

Digital Photography School

October 5, 2018
5 Ways to Photograph Travel Icons

Travel photography is one of the most popular genres of photography and for good reason. Travel provides an opportunity to see and experience something new. It evokes feelings of excitement and anticipation and gives a sense of adventure and pleasure.

Travel icons are a major draw for people on their travels and for people interested in travel photography. In their simplest form, they represent :monuments or landmarks that are iconic to a place or country”. If you are wondering how to photograph them, here are 5 tips to help you.

1) Different Angles

The first hint in photographing travel icons is to choose a famous landmark or tourist sight you may like to visit and shoot it at different angles.

The world has an abundance of amazing travel icons. These landmarks are the first places you may think of when planning a trip to a certain country and often feature in travel brochures, books, magazines and postcards. In fact, the world’s great monuments are visited by millions of people every year, for example, Big Ben, The Pyramids, The Taj Mahal, Angkor Wat, the Grand Canyon and the Great Wall of China.

When photographing these scenic structures, you could try shooting with a wide angle of view to encompass a larger scale of the attraction.

With this shot of London’s Big Ben, I decided to include more of the surroundings such as the House of Parliament, to show some additional architecture. Shooting wide gives a broader overview of the icon and takes in more than just the tower.

Some travel icons are huge in scale, especially when you are standing near to them. Sometimes, it is difficult to capture the whole landmark so use a wide -ngle lens to include as much of the icon in the frame as you can.

Alternatively, you can shoot close-up and focus your camera on some of its details. Identify any patterns that appeal to you or some details on the structure. Details can highlight an interesting feature of the building. Photographing a particular aspect of the icon that you enjoy could help make your photograph more visually striking.

2) The Classic View

Have you ever seen a beautiful world landmark in a travel brochure and felt inspired to visit it? Well, this is usually the classic view of an icon, a standard image of a sight that is instantly recognizable.

You should definitely try to capture the classic travel shot of the world’s best landmarks. After all, this is likely to be what inspired you to visit in the first place.

3) Different Viewpoint

You could photograph your selected travel icon from an alternative viewpoint to give another perspective of an iconic landmark. The picture you create should be entirely from your own interpretation of how you see the icon.

You can produce interesting images just by changing your viewpoint. Find another vantage point and photograph what you see. Be sure to choose a viewpoint that appeals to you.

I took this shot of Big Ben from the other side of the bridge which shows a slightly different angle of the clock and the Thames River with the bridge on the opposite side of the picture.

4) Choose Your Moment

The time of day can have an impact on the photography you create. If you shoot early or late in the day you may benefit from some nice warm light.

Alternatively, you may be on a scheduled tour and choose to photograph the icon during the daytime. This can also be a good time to capture a landmark under bright blue skies or even in poor weather under dramatic light.

5) Include an animal or an object in the image

You don’t have to shoot the world’s best landmarks entirely on there own. They do look great when captured individually but throw an animal or object into the image to help create something original and add context.

I photographed this image of the famous ruins of Machu Picchu with some llamas in the frame.

Conclusion

In summary, however you decide to photograph travel icons, try photographing them from different angles, the classic view, and a different viewpoint. Include a subject with the icon in the frame and choose a suitable time to capture the landmark.

Now it’s over to you, put these tips into practice and see what you can capture. Share your photos, tips, and comments on photographing travel icons below.

The post 5 Ways to Photograph Travel Icons appeared first on Digital Photography School.

Digital Photography School

October 4, 2018
Features You Need To Know Before Buying Camcorders under $500

When choosing the right camcorder for your needs, you need to have a general understanding of all the important camcorder features. Knowing about these features as well as how to control them will make your video making process easier and quicker.You can also be confident that you’ll be able to handle any situation you’ll face that might prevent you from Continue Reading

The post Features You Need To Know Before Buying Camcorders under $ 500 appeared first on Photodoto.

Photodoto

October 4, 2018
RAW Files: Digital Manifestations of the Emperor’s New Clothes

What’s all the fuss and hype about RAW files? Let’s look at a little story as a comparison.

The Emperor’s New Clothes

The Hans Christian Andersen story of an incredibly vain King is an amusing tale with an interesting moral.

One day the king, who was very fond of fine clothing, was approached by two slick-talking swindlers. They posed as weavers, and they said they could weave the most magnificent fabrics imaginable. Not only were their fabrics uncommonly fine, but clothes made of this fabric were invisible to anyone who was unfit for office, or who was unusually stupid.

“Those would be just the clothes for me”, thought the Emperor. “If I wore them I would be able to discover which men in my empire were unfit for their posts. And I could tell the wise men from the fools.” As the story goes, the king bought into the story and the clothes. As a result, the people of the kingdom discovered more about their king than they ever cared to know.

Ignorance of the truth sometimes comes at an embarrassing price.

RAW Files

The truth occasionally gets lost in marketing hype, even in photography. How many times have you heard the claim that vast amount of visual information can be seen in RAW image files? There’s a major problem with that claim, the same problem that “exposed” the king in all his vanity. The claim ain’t exactly accurate.

RAW files do indeed contain all the information collected by a digital camera’s image sensor. But the file’s information itself cannot be viewed because the RAW data is not an image at all, it’s merely numbers.

Only when these numbers are parsed (interpreted) as colors and tones by special software can they display any visual information. RAW Interpreter software builds an initial visual image from the data in the file.

The RAW image, just like the ill-informed Emperor’s clothes, doesn’t actually exist until the file data is interpreted. There is no such thing as a RAW image, only RAW data.

RAW Interpreter software includes Adobe’s Camera Raw and Lightroom, ON1’s Photo Raw 2018 and Alien Skin’s Exposure3, among others.

When you do open a RAW file in Camera Raw, Lightroom, ON1 Photo Raw, Alien Skin Exposure 3, etc., the image you initially see on the screen is actually based on the camera’s built-in JPEG expression of the RAW data; a mere rough draft of the file’s potential information. The camera’s exposure settings (recorded along with the RAW image) determine the file’s initial appearance on the computer monitor.

Once this initial image appears on the monitor, each RAW Interpreter software provides a fairly exhaustive array of color and tonal sliders that can shape the data into a variety of interpretations. Each interpretation can be saved in JPEG format and published for others to see. Folks who shoot and publish JPEGs directly out of the camera are really shortchanging the file’s potential and leaving important color and detail on the cutting room floor.

The RAW Truth

The term RAW is not an acronym for some technical phrase nor is it a reference to some uncooked food. It is merely a coined word describing the collection of undeveloped (latent) image data from the camera’s image sensor. This data file contains all the raw chroma and luminous data extracted from millions of light buckets called image receptors located on the camera’s image sensor. Each light bucket is covered by a blue, green, or red filter.

Individual image sensors are like small light meters, each covered by a red, green, or blue filter. The Bayer filter array uses more green filters than red and blue, relying on the camera’s image processor to interpret the correct light color and intensity for each pixel.

These RGB filters split the incoming light into three channels of information. Each receptor records the strength of the filtered light as an individual color that will eventually form a single pixel in the image.

While the initial grid of receptors is covered with more green filtered buckets than red or blue, the purpose for this imbalance is a bit too complicated for this article. Suffice to say, the image processor in the camera performs some very complicated math to determine each pixel’s color value and brightness.

A digital camera’s image processor sends RGB pixel values to the camera’s viewing screen to preview each scene prior to capturing the image.

This light capture process begins even before the display is visible on the back of the camera. Every time you reposition the camera to frame your shot, the image processor does its magic again and delivers a new preview of the composition. If your camera is set to display a pre-capture histogram of the scene, this processor data is used to simulate the graph on the histogram.

But the real heavy-lifting happens when you push the shutter button and the image is captured. Once all the individual colors are recorded on the sensor and delivered to the processor, the final image information is preserved on the camera’s hard drive.

The individual tonal values (luminosity) of the RAW file were fine-tuned in Adobe’s Camera Raw software to reveal detail not visible in the JPEG file.

In a RAW file, the value of each pixel can be extensively adjusted for hue (color), saturation (intensity), and luminance (brightness). JPEG files record pixels with the same initial color values but the JPEG file format significantly restricts the ability to adjust those values in the editing process. The latitude of JPEG adjustments is significantly limited.

The controls in Alien Skin’s Exposure3 Raw Interpreter software provide extensive control over hue and saturation color adjustments.

File Types

JPEG files record each color pixel as an initial luminance (brightness level) and chroma (color) value. When all the pixels on the grid (bitmap) are collectively interpreted in imaging software, a visible replica of the original scene appears on the monitor. If that same image is also captured as RAW information, the values of luminance and chroma are captured in the context of a larger color space and can be interpreted in a wide variety of expressions of the original scene.

Color negatives are produced from latent images when exposed films are fully developed in photo chemical solutions.

RAW files have been likened to photographic color film negatives in that when they are “developed” (viewed in RAW Interpreter software), the image can be “printed” (published) in a number of unique colors and tonal versions.

But the truth is that because this RAW file is not an image per se, but a record of the light characteristics captured by each of the camera’s light buckets, the original image data contained in the RAW file never gets altered, it only gets interpreted.

The interpretations are records of the luminous and chroma adjustments made to the RAW bitmap pixels. These interpretations are what gets saved as JPEG images.

Unlike the yarn spun by the king’s “couturiers,” RAW data files deliver custom-tailored results and can make you look really smart in a couple of ways. Dress your images for success.

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Digital Photography School

October 4, 2018