Category: Photography

Post-Processing Workflow Tips for Landscape Photography

While your in-camera technique is most important, the ability to post-process your landscape images also plays a role in your final product. Each photographer approaches the digital darkroom in their own way. Here are some post-processing workflow tips for your landscape photography.

You don’t need to apply each step. It serves simply as a guide to help you get started.

1. Check your White Balance or Color Temperature

If you shot your images in RAW, you retain the ability to change the White Balance after the fact. You can adjust the color temperature of your scene to make it either warmer (more yellow) or cooler (more blues).

Shot with Auto White Balance (AWB temperature 5800K).

Sunsets are often enhanced more to the warmer side, while winter scenes can benefit from both warm and cool tones, depending on what you are trying to depict. The temperature sliders can also be used to remove or correct any color casts captured in your original frame.

The same image with the temperature adjusted to 6700K to enhance the warmth of the sunset.

2. Expose it!

Check your exposure and fix it if it is too bright or too dark. Most people eyeball this process, but the histogram is a very useful tool for achieving your best exposure. The left side of the histogram represents the blacks or shadow areas of your image. The right side represents the brighter areas or highlights.

If you forget these basics, push your sliders to either extreme and look at how the image and corresponding histogram responds to these changes.

3. Chop Chop

With landscape photography, a good composition is key. Thus getting it right in camera is the best way to maximize your scene. You can apply rule of thirds/golden spiral, leading lines and a foreground interest optimally at this point.

Original Image

Some photographers shoot with a specific crop in mind, so many times there is a “picture in picture”. If your end result is a square crop, then compose and shoot for your final vision. This is also applicable if you need to print your final image to a different ratio.

Applying your crop early on in the post-processing workflow can alter the next steps you apply. So work out your composition and then continue processing.

4. Clarify This

Clarity is an adjustment available in Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom. When you adjust the Clarity, you are working with the contrasts (edge contrast) in the mid-tones of your image.

Image prior to clarity adjustment.

This change makes your image look sharper, so you do not want it overdone.

The subtle changes of Clarity adjusts the mid-tones and apparent sharpness.

5. Shadow Me

Adjusting the shadows can either deepen the darker areas or lift them to retrieve some details. If you are recovering details, be aware of the appearance of noise in the shadows. You need to stop before reaching this point.

6. The Highlights

When you are shooting, an important concern is to retain details in the brightest parts (highlights) of your image. If you have heard the terms “blown out” or “clipped” highlights, they refer to those bright areas that have no detail.

If you are working with a RAW image, you can recover much of your overexposed highlights using the highlight slider. Of note, while recovering these highlights, pay attention to the overall look of the rest of the image.

Beach image unedited.

Beach image edited to adjust the Clarity, Shadows, and Highlights.

7. Whites/Blacks

In the simplest terms, the Whites slider adjusts image pixels that are white or have a partial highlight. The Blacks slider adjusts image pixels that are black. The Shadow slider, mentioned previously, covers a smaller range of dark pixels than the Blacks. Similarly, when comparing Highlights to Whites, the White adjustment (like the Black) is more global.

A reason to adjust the Whites/Blacks after the Highlights/Shadows sliders is because of the way they (whites/blacks) affect the overall tone of the image.

8. Saturation/Vibrance

Most people get confused with saturation versus vibrance. Saturation affects all your pixels, making them all either more colorful (saturated) or less colorful (desaturated).

Saturation adjusts all the colors in the image.

Vibrance, on the other hand, makes adjustments to the pixels that are not as saturated. This means it makes dull colors more vibrant and leaves already vibrant colors unaffected.

Vibrance adjusts less saturated colors only.

Bonus Tip: The Vibrance slider is used a lot to adjust images with people because it does not affect flesh tone colors!

9. Sharpen Up!

Sharpening increases the contrast between your bright and dark areas. In most post-processing workflows, it is done at or close to the end. This is because many other processes in your workflow, alter the “sharpness” of your image. Thus sharpening may be optional (or selective) when following those steps.

Read this for more on sharpening images: How to Make Your Photos Shine Using Clarity, Sharpening, and Dehaze in Lightroom

10. Vignette

A vignette is when there is light fall-off towards the edge of your image. This is often seen in images shot with wide open apertures or with wide angle lenses. They can also be caused or strengthened by the use of camera additions such as filter holders, lens hoods, or filters. These cause less light to reach the edges of the image than the center.

If you do not get vignettes when shooting, you can add them during your post-processing stage. It is not a necessity, but works well when you want to draw the viewer’s eyes away from distractions in the corners and more towards the middle of the frame.

Vignette added to draw attention to the sunset and keep your eyes away from highlights at the top of the frame.

In landscape photography, you can either remove natural vignettes, so the viewer’s eyes move around the image or you can add a vignette to draw them in. It all depends on your final objective.

Conclusion

Developing a post-processing workflow for your images is a great step towards your final output. Keep in mind that less is more and that subtle changes can go a long way to enhance your already beautiful capture.

You do not need to edit every image the same way; take a minute and review each one and determine what it needs to take it to the next level.

The post Post-Processing Workflow Tips for Landscape Photography appeared first on Digital Photography School.

Digital Photography School

March 27, 2018
Understanding Aperture and Landscape Photography – Why F16 Isn’t the Only Choice

Landscape photography is, in my opinion, one of the most difficult disciplines of outdoor photography, and perhaps one of the most challenging genres of photography in general. At first glance, the art seems straightforward. You find yourself a pretty piece of scenery, wait for some good light, and click the shutter. Easy, right?

And yet that’s not the end of the story. I have screwed up endless opportunities by making errors in composition, focus mistakes, unwanted motion blur, over and underexposures, and of course, by messing up the settings of my camera. I suspect anyone who has dedicated much time to the art of landscape photography can say the same.

Let’s Talk About Aperture

While entire articles, even books, have been written about each of those errors and frequent mistakes, there is only one I’m going to discuss here – aperture.

What aperture should you use in landscape photography, f/16 right? That’s what I’ve always heard. It’s the perfect combination of sharpness and depth of field. So set your aperture to f/16 and shoot away.

That’s it, article finished. I hope you enjoyed it. No, of course, that isn’t all. But I am surprised how many photographers assume that is the end of the story.

The real answer to the question of which aperture to us is – all of them – depending on the situation.

First, landscape photography is much more than just the classic composition that includes a foreground element in front of lovely background scenery. Rather there are detail shots, aerials, night photography, telephoto landscapes, and god knows how many other sub-genres within the category. For each of these, and for each situation within, a different aperture may be appropriate.

Before we get into that – first a warning.

Sharpness Issues

Wide Open

There are costs to different apertures. Wide open, most lenses will be soft because every part of each glass element in the lens is being put to work. Imperfection in the lenses, dirt, scratches, and the physics of light all combine to mess with your image sharpness. This is part of the reason that sharp, fast lenses cost so much. The glass has to be excellent to retain sharpness wide open.

Diffraction

Diffraction happens at the opposite end of the f-stop range. When the aperture is closed way down, images also show a reduction in sharpness, but not for the same reason. Rather, something called diffraction occurs. Diffraction is actually a term derived from physics of waves.

Take a look at the terrible hand-drawn illustrations I made below and you can see why I’m a photographer, not a painter. Hopefully, however, you’ll also learn something about diffraction. The lines on the left show waves moving across space. Think of them as light waves or ocean waves, it makes no difference.

As they approach a wall with a large opening, the gap allows the waves though largely intact causing only a slight dispersion and curving of the incoming wave.

But apply a smaller opening (below), and suddenly those waves are quickly curved and dispersed.

In photography, a large aperture will cause relatively little change in the light waves entering your camera, but a small aperture will force a small amount of light to spread, disperse, and curve before hitting the sensor unequally, and with less intensity. This results in a loss of sharpness.

While the physics of it all is interesting, when it comes to photography, what you really need to know is that very small apertures will be less sharp than mid-range apertures.

Attaining Sharpness

It’s probably clear to you by now that if you wish to achieve maximum sharpness then neither fully wide open nor closed down apertures are the best. Rather, sharpness can be found somewhere in between. For most lenses, 2-stops down from wide open is the sharpness sweet-spot.

Perhaps that is why f/16 is so popular in landscape photography, it’s a good compromise between sharpness and depth of field.

So What Now?

We are back where we started, right? Just shoot at f/16.

Well if tack-sharpness were the end all and be all of landscape photography, that would probably be the case.

However, sometimes you may wish to sacrifice some lens sharpness for shallow depth of field or suffer some diffraction blur for the sake of attaining a long shutter speed.

Detail Shots

Landscape details are those small parts of a landscape that catch your photographic interest. This may be a cluster of autumn leaves, a stone in a tundra meadow, or light upon snow-covered trees, among many other possibilities.

In such situations, you may want to isolate that interesting subject from a cluttered background. You can do that by embracing the shallow depth of field, through the use of a fast (large) aperture.

I was photographing a couple of years back on a crisp autumn day. Frost covered the meadow I was walking around, and each stem of grass glittered in the early morning sun. Spotting one particular stem, rising from the rest, I paused. I wanted to isolate that single piece of grass.

So, using a 70-200mm f2.8 lens, I opened the aperture wide to create a shallow depth of field, composed, and shot.

I’ve used this strategy, again and again, with my landscape photography. Shooting autumn colors, I frequently wish to isolate a single leaf, or patch of foliage from a distracting backdrop. Fast apertures and shallow depth of field are the only way to do this.

In such cases, I’m happy to sacrifice a bit of sharpness.

Aerial shots

In aerial photography, you are always well separated from the landscape you are photographing (if you aren’t, you’d have much greater concerns than making photos). Thus, depth of field is not your top concern.

Meanwhile, the vibration of the airplane or helicopter’s engine is a much greater risk for lack of sharpness than setting your aperture too open.

When I’m shooting aerials, I open my aperture wide open to maximize shutter speed. When you need a shutter speed of around 1/1000th of a second, minimum, a wide open aperture is the only practical way to go.

Long Exposures

Purposefully dragging your shutter for multi-second (or even multi-minute) exposures requires you to greatly reduce the light hitting your sensor. Even with a low ISO and a neutral density filter, trying to get a long exposure on a bright day is impossible without stopping down your aperture.

I was shooting along a river in Alaska a couple of years back, on assignment for a conservation organization. It was a bright afternoon, but some clouds were breaking up the sky making for decent photography conditions.

I knew I would be unable to return there in the evening, so I needed to make the most of the situation. Despite the bright afternoon light, I still wanted a long exposure of the flowing water.

I lowered my ISO to its minimum setting (50), put on a 4-stop neutral density filter, and sacrificing a bit of sharpness, stopped my aperture down to f/22.

With that combination, I was able to get an 8-second exposure of the flowing river. The rippled water blurred pleasingly to a ghostly reflective surface, and I got the image I wanted.

Night Photography

Here in Alaska, I spend a lot of time shooting the Northern Lights and taking out visiting photographers to do the same. There is a myth about Aurora photography that you need a long exposure – you don’t. In fact, you really don’t want one.

One of the things that make the Aurora Borealis so spectacular is the details in the curtains, the shifting colors, and the near-constant motion. A long exposure, anything more than a few seconds, will cause all those details to blur away. Fast shutter speeds (or as fast as you can manage) are far, far better.

To get a fast shutter speed at night, you have to be willing to open your aperture all the way up, sharpness loss, be damned. High ISOs and fast lenses set wide open will allow shutter speeds fast enough to capture the details of a fast-moving aurora display.

Conclusion

So sure, in classic landscape photography, with a foreground element, and background scenery, you’ll want a deep depth of field and maximum sharpness. In those conditions, by all means, set your aperture to f/16 and forget about it. But such situations are not all there is to landscape photography.

Your cameras and lenses are equipped with many tools. To say there is only one that is “right” is like saying that the only tool a carpenter needs is a hammer. Sure a hammer is the perfect tool for a carpenter when he needs to bang in a nail, but it’s really lousy at cutting boards.

What is the lesson here? Set your aperture for what is needed for the scene, not how you’ve been told it should be by someone else. “They” say a lot of things. You don’t always have to listen to them.

The post Understanding Aperture and Landscape Photography – Why F16 Isn’t the Only Choice appeared first on Digital Photography School.

Digital Photography School

March 27, 2018
Tips for Client Photo Sessions – What it’s NOT All About

There are a host of things which are important when doing photo sessions for clients. But if you’re not careful you could end up falling into the trap of assuming that photo sessions are about something that they really are not. The list of things to keep in mind covers topics such as lighting, exposure, location, posing, and even practical elements like what to charge and what to recommend they wear.

I’ve personally made some mistakes in my development as a photographer when I got caught in the trap of focusing on the wrong things. An understanding of what client sessions are not about can be just as impactful as knowing what they are all about.

With that, here are a few things to keep in mind the next time you set out to take pictures for people.

It’s not about your gear

I know how fun and exciting it is to get new photography equipment. While I don’t have an entire room full of cameras and lenses, I do have enough to fill a pretty large backpack, and I once chased down a UPS driver just to get my new 70-200mm f/2.8 lens one day early. I always enjoy showing my latest camera purchase to friends and family. While none of this is necessarily a bad thing, an obsession with photo gear can actually become a hindrance when working with clients.

I can remember some photo sessions from a few years ago that I’m almost embarrassed to recall because of the way I showed up and starting flaunting my cameras, lenses, and accessories for my clients. There were times when I would make it a point to explain that my lenses had super wide apertures which meant that they were so much better than a kit lens.

Or when visiting with potential clients I would make sure to point out that I was shooting with the latest, greatest, and costliest full-frame camera on the market. Shamefully, I have even gone so far as to literally pull out speedlights, tripods, and other accessories that I had no intention of using just so the clients could see that I had them.

Clients want results and to feel important

In hindsight, not a single client I have ever worked with was impressed with my camera gear. They wanted results, not grandstanding, and it was the pictures that mattered to them rather than the gear I used to make the images. For all my clients care, I might as well be using an old Canon Rebel T3 and the on-camera flash! (Truth be told I know some photographers who do great work with a basic setup like that.)

If you try to dazzle your clients with how cool your camera stuff is, it could actually make things worse by setting unrealistic expectations in their mind of what you can actually do. Or worse yet, you could come across seeming like an arrogant show-off even if that’s not your intention at all.

When you work with clients I recommend leaving gear out of the equation entirely. Don’t talk about your cameras, your lenses, your super cool equipment bag with dozens of folding pockets, or the camera you don’t have but hope to buy someday.

Discuss your goals for the photo session, explain your plan for getting the kids to smile, or take a few minutes and just get to know your clients on a personal level. Don’t make the session about your expensive fancy camera stuff. Instead, make it about your clients and let them be impressed with your pictures, not your camera.

It’s not about your last gig

Have you ever been to a holiday gathering and had the unfortunate luck of sitting by a particular relative who just wouldn’t stop talking about all the things he or she has done, the places they have visited, or the new stuff in their house?

Every time you bring up something from your own life, they counter with a swift rebuttal, “Oh you went to the Grand Canyon for a day? That’s nice. But it’s nothing compared to the week I spent backpacking in the Swiss Alps!”

All you want is to share some of your life experiences, but all this unfortunate friend or family member wants to do is play an endless game of one-upmanship until you finally excuse yourself to go get some pie. And you don’t even like pie.

Think about those uncomfortable situations the next time you are at a photo session with clients and you feel tempted to regale the people with tales of fun, excitement, and adventure from previous sessions. You might have some fun stories to share of how you barely got the shot before a thunderstorm rolled in, or you might want to pull out your phone and show off some amazing images of that time you photographed a destination wedding at a national park.

Focus on the people in front of you right now

The best course of action in those situations is to say nothing at all and keep the focus squarely on your clients and the job you are currently doing. You know, the one you are getting paid for.

Regaling clients with tales of your previous sessions can make them feel inadequate by comparison, and often sends them messages that you don’t intend. It can make your clients feel inferior, outclassed, or even jealous when pitted against the fantastic tales being spun of your other work.

Save your stories for your friends and instead talk with your clients about how great they look, how much fun you are having, and how you plan to address the questions and concerns they might have.

Rest assured your clients already have a high opinion of you and your work based on what they saw on your website or heard from others. Otherwise, they would not have asked you to take their pictures. So put away the stories of past gigs you’ve had and make the session about the only people who matter at the moment – the ones in front of your camera.

It’s not about how awesome you are

Look, I get it. As a photographer, you’ve done some pretty cool things, seen some great places, made some incredible images, burned the midnight oil into the wee hours of the morning to make sure your RAW files were edited to absolute metaphysical perfection.

You’ve got some stories to tell and you might have even earned an award or two along the way. Perhaps one of your pictures ended up in a print publication, or you teach photography classes at your local vocational/technical school. As Ron Burgundy might say, you’re kind of a big deal.

All this may sound harsh, but I bring it up because I’m ashamed to admit it used to be my attitude. There were times when visiting with clients that I would make it a point to describe, in painful detail, how hard I worked on other sessions. Or I’d brag about the number of images on my memory card the last time I did a similar shoot. And I would talk about this as if it had any bearing at all on the quality of my work when all it did was alienate people and send them the wrong message about me as a photographer.

The most important people in the room

Your clients don’t care about the stories you might want to tell them demonstrating how great you are. What they care about is the job you are doing for them and the pictures they are paying you for, not your stories, your adventures, or your portfolio.

They hired you for a reason, and they are probably already familiar with your work after seeing samples on your website or talking with friends, family, or other client referrals. They already think highly of you or they wouldn’t have hired you, so you don’t need to keep reminding them of your greatness.

Conclusion

When it’s time to do the photo session just show up, do the work, and rest easy in the confidence of knowing you are an awesome photographer. You consistently produce great results, and people like your work enough to pay you for it! Let your work speak for itself, pay attention to your clients and their needs, and you’ll get some phenomenal photos that will keep your clients returning and sending others your way as well.

What about you? Do you have any lessons you have learned from doing client photo sessions over the years, or mistakes you feel comfortable sharing with others so they can avoid the same pitfalls? Please leave your thoughts in the comments below.

The post Tips for Client Photo Sessions – What it’s NOT All About appeared first on Digital Photography School.

Digital Photography School

March 26, 2018
Five Ideas for Your Spring Photography
The renewal of life is never more prominent than in the spring, and this change in the season is a magical time for photography. This article obviously relates to those temperate parts of the world that have four seasons including spring.

Spring of course accompanies flowers blooming, and leaf shoots growing. This dramatic change in the natural world allows you as a photographer to tell the story of a place afresh, just as nature restarts again for another year. So let’s look at some spring photography ideas, to help you get the best out of the season.

All those flowers make for some amazing backgrounds for your portrait photos.

1 – Focus on the finer details

Whether you’re able to photograph bluebells, daffodils, or cherry blossoms these detail photos you can get from floral photography will be an important part of your set. Even if you’re not photographing flowers, perhaps instead you’re at a spring festival, the detail photo is important.

The following are a few ideas that may help you improve your spring photography:
- Bokeh – Bokeh and detail photos go well together, especially when you photograph flowers. The easiest way to achieve to this to photograph a flower in the foreground, with other flowers in the background. Then using a large aperture you should achieve a nice soft background. This works better with macro lenses or prime lenses with a large aperture.
- Patterns – Nature is full of nice patterns so use this to your advantage. The repetition of flowers can make for a nice pattern, or indeed petals on the ground once they’ve fallen. Alternatively, at a spring festival, the produce can often be laid out in a pattern, ideal for photography
- Background – As with all photos the background is important. Aiming in a certain direction you can create a clean background and a much nicer image. Shooting up at the sky on a clear day will give a blue background, or perhaps aim down towards the grass for a green background. As mentioned above, you may also choose to blur out the background with bokeh.
- The Light – Using the light is what photography is all about. The way it may shine through petals can give you nice details, as the sunlight picks up all the textures of the flower. You can also use shards of light, if you spot a leaf that’s lit up on its own it can make a nice photo.
Using bokeh and good light is important, but adding an extra element like a bee will make the photo even better.

2 – Explore the wider scene in your spring photography

The temptation, especially with flower photos, is to keep in close and not take a bigger landscape style photo. The flower beds and areas with many blossoming trees can make for some amazing spring photography though.

Likewise, taking a photo of the whole festival from an elevated position is an integral part of a sequence of photos you’d take at such an event. If you’re looking for the quintessential floral spring photographs, you can look to the following to enhance your chance of success.
- Check the forecast – That’s not just the weather forecast, but the blossom forecast! Whether you’re in Japan, Washington or any other part of the world with seasonal flowers, there will be a peak period.
- The composition is king – As with all landscape photos good composition will get you the best results, now you have the element of spring to incorporate into your photo as well.
- Extra context – This could simply be those floral blossoms indicating spring. However, including other elements like buildings that are region specific will add even more context to your photo.
Looking for more context could mean using buildings with typical local traditional architecture.

3 – Take some portrait photos!

Spring can be a really popular time for portrait photography. The symbol of new life and those amazing backgrounds combine to make this a special time for portrait work. Whether you’re photographing yourself, or other people there are ample opportunities.
- Photoshoot – Models and couples will travel just as far as photographers to get beautiful photos will natural backgrounds. Aim to use a large aperture and blur out the background. Lines of trees can add depth to a photo when a shallow depth of field is applied. Having your model interact with some of the flowers is also a nice touch.
- Other people – Photographs of people enjoying spring can be great. As the weather warms up and people start to enjoy park life, there are increased chances for street photos. Typical examples might include people walking through flowery fields, or perhaps taking self-portraits.
- The selfie – Lastly there is always taking photos of yourself, everyone needs a new profile picture for spring!
Daffodils are one of the first signs of spring in many countries. Here a person walks through a field of these flowers.

4 – Try something creative

Spring photography is a broad subject, it does, in fact, encompass more or less every type of photography that exists. The theme that’s consistent is that you’re photographing spring specifically.

The application of more experimental techniques can be a great way to shake things up, so what could you try? The following are just some examples and ideas for getting creative:
- Light trails – It is not uncommon for spring foliage to grow along the side of a road. This presents a great opportunity to take a car light trails photo, and include some spring blossoms for context.
- Refraction – The crystal ball is a versatile piece of equipment to have in the bag, and for sure you can use it in the spring to make some creative photos.
- Motion blur – On a windy day, setting your camera on a tripod to capture the motion of the moving vegetation can create a nice abstract looking photo. To do this you’ll need to expose for several seconds, to capture that movement.
In this photo a yellow ball was used. The yellow against white echoes that of an egg, and with spring this gives the concept of new life.

5 – Spring festivals

Another sign of spring is the festivals and religious holidays that occur during this time, depending on where you are in the world they will be different. They all offer photography opportunities, again with still life, portraits or scene setting photos portraying that festival.

In Asia, there are some dramatic festivals such as Japan’s Setsuban festival that celebrates the end of winter, and the beginning of spring. Then perhaps closer to home are the Easter holidays, with the accompanying traditions that go along with it. These events both tell the story of renewal, a powerful theme for spring.

This is a festival in South Korea that marks the end of winter and the start of spring. People wear the traditional clothes of Korean farm dancers.

Time to go and enjoy the fresh spring air

How do you like to do your spring photography? Does it only mean flowers and nature, or are there other things about spring that you enjoy photographing?

Perhaps you’ve photographed spring many times before, so how about trying a different photographic style this time? Lastly, we love to see examples of your spring photography both past and present, so please share them in the comments section!

A bed of petals can make a great detail photo.

Look for people in their natural environment, caring for the land. It adds a bit more story to this spring photo.

Capturing the wider scene here to include a local landmark, and spring flowers in the foreground.

Try experimenting with some different concepts, here some motion blur was captured by using a slower shutter speed.

The post Five Ideas for Your Spring Photography by Simon Bond appeared first on Digital Photography School.

Digital Photography School
March 26, 2018
How to Clean Your Tripod and Make it Like New
Your tripod deserves a good cleaning if you don’t want to have to buy a new one every couple of years. Cleaning your tripod will help it last 10+ years and keep Gear Lust at bay. It also makes you feel like you just got a new piece of equipment for the cost of only 1-2 hours of mild effort.

What’s You’ll Need

Before you get to the cleaning part, you’ll need some supplies. I suggest the following:
- Cotton cloth.
- Soapy water in a bowl.
- Old toothbrush.
- Canned air or blower.
- Waterproof lubricant (marine grease, brake grease, etc.)
- Tools to disassemble your tripod (typically Allen wrenches, socket wrench or a screwdriver).
- Camera (ideally just a smartphone) so you can document how things came apart
- A small bowl for the small parts.
- Clean and clear working surface.
Disassemble the Legs

The first step to cleaning your tripod is taking it apart. A number of tripods come with the tools to disassemble them, but if not, a quick search of your owner’s manual will point you in the right direction.

I’m going to use two tripods as examples in this article because they should cover a wide range of options included on tripods on the market today. The first is a Vanguard Abeo Plus 323CT carbon fiber tripod with BBH-200 Ballhead and the second is the MeFoto Classic Aluminum Globetrotter Tripod/Monopod. The Vanguard has flip-lock on the legs, and the blue MeFoto has twist locks. This matters most in the leg section of the tutorial.

It’s important to take photos when cleaning your tripod the first time. This helps you remember what went where and how to put it all back together. I suggest using a clean surface, free of clutter so nothing gets lost.

Taking the legs apart

Twist locks, like those on the MeFoto, are straightforward. Simply twist the lowest section as if you are extending the leg, then keep twisting until the ring comes free.

Slide the lowest leg section from the one above it, being careful to not lose any plastic parts near the top of the tube. Under normal use, these plastic parts (typical of most tripods) help the leg section to not slide out under normal use. They are important don’t lose them!

Flip locks need a little extra help. In this case, the Vanguard requires the flip lock to be open and then use a Phillips head screwdriver to loosen the bolt.

Note that on the back side of the screw is a nut that needs to be retained. Not all tripods require complete removal of the screw/nut for the leg to slide free.

The top of each tripod leg also has a plastic retaining cap, the same as the twist lock, that may fall out when the leg is removed.

It’s also important to note that your tripod might have notches to help it align when assembled. In this case, the Vanguard has two small notches in each leg tube that fit in the gap between the top plastic cap. Keep in any rubber O-ring gaskets in the correct order.

Remove all legs pieces, laying them out in order. The Vanguard I am using also has an added shim that sits in the flip-lock mechanism and I need to keep this safe.

The shim inside the legs of the Vanguard tripod. Yours may contain something similar if it has flip-lock legs.

Once all the legs are removed, use the blower/compressed air to clear obvious dust, dirt, and sand. Next, dip your toothbrush in soapy water and scrub the remaining debris from threads and leg parts. Dry with a rag.

Use air first to blow any debris out of the grooves.

Then use an old toothbrush and soapy water to get the hard to remove dirt.

The tops, where the legs attach to the tripod head unit, may or may not have the ability to be dissembled. The Vanguard pictured is not user-friendly and the best I can do is to clean it with the toothbrush and blower.

The MeFoto tripod, however, has two easily removed screws which, when removed, allow me to clean the sliding mechanism underneath.

Dirty

All clean!

Wipe down the outside of the leg tubes with the damp rag.

Tripod Feet

The feet of tripods take the most abuse and deserve to be cleaned too, even if you will just get them dirty again tomorrow. The Vanguard pictured here has rubber feet to cover spikes which invite sand and debris aplenty.

The MeFoto has flat feet that can be screwed off (and replaced with other optional feet) which trap grit.

Dirty

Clean!

For removable feet, give them a dip in the soapy water and a scrub with the brush. Otherwise, use your blower and toothbrush to remove all dirt.

Let all the components dry thoroughly before moving on to reassembly (below).

Tripod Head

Most tripod heads are not meant to be fully disassembled like the legs. The ball heads pictured here are sealed at the factory and can only be cleaned to a certain degree.

Remove any quick release plates and clean under and around them. Loosen up all twist-locks that tension the ball or swivel head and clean the threads the best you can.

Remove the head from the tripod and clean the underside with a damp cloth.

Other Parts

Both of my tripods have a removable hook on the bottom to hold a weight for stabilization. I will take those apart too and give them a cleaning.

Reassembly

When all parts are dry, it’s time to put everything back together. I suggest using the waterproof grease on threads that are meant to tighten and loosen. In my case, I’ll grease the threads of the MeFoto leg twist-locks and the control screws for the ball head.

Add a small amount of the grease to the threads to ensure easy movement of the parts.

Some people prescribe putting a little bit of grease in the ball head and working it around. This can be helpful, but I would check your owner’s manual first to see if the manufacturer recommends it or not.

Sliding the legs back together, make sure any notches are properly aligned and that plastic end caps are in place before assembly. It’s also important to ensure you aligned the flip-locks so they are all facing the right way. Tighten up all locks and give your tripod a quick run through to make sure nothing is too loose or too tight.

Conclusion

A properly cleaned tripod will last much longer than any camera body you will ever own. While you may want to upgrade to a lighter or stronger unit in the future, there’s no reason your current tripod can’t serve you well into the future.

The post How to Clean Your Tripod and Make it Like New by Peter West Carey appeared first on Digital Photography School.

Digital Photography School
March 25, 2018
Six Reasons to Upgrade From Lightroom 6 to Lightroom Classic CC
If you’re a Lightroom 6 user you may be wondering whether it’s time to upgrade to Lightroom Classic CC. Yes, it will cost you more to move over to the Lightroom Classic subscription, but you will receive a lot of extras in compensation. Let’s take a look at what they are, so you can decide whether the upgrade is worth it for you or not.

1. The Lightroom Classic CC subscription includes Photoshop CC

It’s true that many photographers do all their photo processing in Lightroom without ever moving across to Photoshop. If that’s you, then don’t feel you need to use Photoshop just for the sake of it.

But there are things you can do in Photoshop that you can’t in Lightroom. If you’d like to try any of these, then you’ll need to subscribe to Lightroom Classic CC to access to the latest version, as you can’t buy a standalone version of Photoshop CC.

These are just some of the things you can do in Photoshop that you can’t in Lightroom.
- Use layers and masking.
- Advanced portrait retouching.
- Blend or composite multiple images together.
- Swap skies or heads (in a group portrait).
- Use Content-aware fill to remove unwanted items.
- Make complex selections.
- Add texture overlays.
- Add fancy borders.
I used Photoshop to add a texture layer and an interesting border to this still life photo.

2. Lightroom Classic CC lets you synchronize photos to use with the Lightroom CC mobile apps

With Lightroom Classic CC you can synchronize selected Collections and view the photos in those Collections in the Lightroom CC app (formerly known as Lightroom mobile) on a tablet or smartphone. One benefit of this is that you can download the photos to your device so that you can show them to people even when your device is offline.

This makes Lightroom CC a great way to show your portfolio to people while on the go. You can also develop photos in the Lightroom CC app, which may come in handy when you are away from home.

A Collection of photos in Lightroom Classic CC.

The same Collection in the Lightroom CC iPad app.

3. Lightroom Classic CC lets you display photos online

There are two ways to display your photos online using Lightroom Classic CC. The first is to make a Collection public – something you can do with any synchronized Collection. When you do this Lightroom generates a URL that you can give to other people so that they can see the photos in the Collection in a browser (also known as Lightroom Web).

This is a good way to share photos with family, friends, and even clients. If the viewer logs in with an Adobe ID they can even favorite photos and add comments.

This is how the same Collection shown above looks when displayed in a browser.

The other way is to use Adobe Portfolio to build your own portfolio website. I explored this option in more detail in my article How to Create a Beautiful Online Gallery with Lightroom Classic CC and Adobe Portfolio in 15 Minutes.

Adobe Portfolio is the easiest way I know of to turn a synchronized Collection into a website portfolio.

One of the pages from my Adobe Portfolio-generated website.

4. Lightroom Classic CC is faster than Lightroom 6

The latest upgrades to Lightroom Classic CC means that it runs much faster than Lightroom 6. The exact speed gains depend on your computer setup (for example, you need to have at least 12GB of RAM to take advantage of some of the speed gains in the latest Lightroom Classic CC release).

But there’s no doubt that the process of importing photos and generating previews is much faster in Lightroom Classic CC. If speed is an issue with Lightroom 6, it may be time to upgrade.

5. Lightroom Classic CC has Color Range Masking and Luminance Range Masking

These new tools give you more options when it comes to making selections and applying Radial Filters, Graduated Filters and the Adjustment Brush. They are extremely useful when it comes to making local adjustments. You will need to upgrade to Lightroom Classic CC if you’d like to use them.

The Color Range Masking tool in action. I used it here in conjunction with the Adjustment Brush to apply Clarity to the red tin, but no other part of the photo.

6. Lightroom 6 is no longer supported by Adobe

While I’ve tried to emphasize what you will gain by upgrading to Lightroom Classic CC in the rest of the article, there’s no getting away from the fact that Lightroom 6 is no longer supported by Adobe. As a result, new features added to Lightroom Classic CC won’t be available to Lightroom 6 users.

The question you need to ask yourself is how important are the new features, such as Color Range Masking, to you and your workflow?

There’s no need to make an immediate decision. There’s nothing wrong with continuing to use Lightroom 6 for now and upgrading to Lightroom Classic CC in a year or two when the difference between the two is much greater.

You also need to be aware of the effect it will have on your workflow if you buy a new camera whose Raw files aren’t supported by Lightroom 6. In this situation, you can use Adobe’s free DNG Converter to convert the new camera’s Raw files to the DNG format, which can then be read by Lightroom 6. If that is too much of an inconvenience then it may be time to upgrade to Lightroom Classic CC.

Conclusion

These are the six main reasons that I can think of that Lightroom 6 users might want to upgrade to Lightroom Classic CC. If you’re considering the upgrade then take the time to think through your decision and decide which of these (if any) apply to you.

It’s important to make the right choice because once you upgrade to Lightroom Classic CC it’s extremely difficult to go back to using Lightroom 6. The reason for this is that Lightroom upgrades your Catalog so it’s compatible with Lightroom Classic CC. But the new Catalog format isn’t recognized by Lightroom 6. So make your decision wisely.

Can you think of any other reason why a Lightroom 6 user might want to upgrade to Lightroom Classic CC? Have you already upgraded? Then please let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Mastering Lightroom ebooks

Want to get a head start with Lightroom? Take a look at my popular Mastering Lightroom ebooks, written to help photographers learn how to use all of Lightroom’s powerful features. Use the code DPS20 to get 20% off your first order.

The post Six Reasons to Upgrade From Lightroom 6 to Lightroom Classic CC by Andrew S. Gibson appeared first on Digital Photography School.

Digital Photography School
March 25, 2018
Tips for Posing People in Outdoor Portraits

Whether you’re photographing an individual or group, having sessions on location can add a lot of variety to your images. Most locations offer natural or built-in elements that are great for posing people without having to move too much.

Almost all outdoor locations have natural or built-in elements that can give you options for where to place your client and add more variety to the session. These can include rocks, walls, trees, benches, bridges, cars, lamp posts, columns, archways, fences, fountains, and staircases. Walls also make for great poses. All of these elements are terrific posing props that make your photos interesting. Use them as much as you can.

Start with a good foundation

After you have chosen the elements with which you want to pose your client, begin your session with a simple foundation pose. This could simply be your client standing still, arms at the hips. From there, you can build upon that pose and make subtle changes to add variety.

Another foundation pose might be having your client stand in the middle of a city walkway, as they would if they were alone. From there you can ask them to bring one arm up to fix their hair while standing still. Then, have them fix their hair while walking toward you. Next, have your client do the same with their arm as they walk, but now looking toward the street. Finally, have them do the same, but this time take two steps, freeze their pose and look at you, as you get close for a portrait shot.

You now have five different poses all in the same location built on the same foundation pose.

Good foundation poses will also help with the dreaded question a lot of photographers get, “What do I do with my hands?” By building from simple poses and keeping your client moving with subtle changes, it helps them to use their hands more naturally.

Keep them moving

Many great poses involve having your clients moving. Have your client’s walk, run, jump, sit, stand, turn around, or spin. When you keep them moving you are allowing for lots of different types of shots all while letting your client walk off the nerves.

You don’t even need to move from the spot you’ve chosen. You could have them walk toward you, walk away from you, sit down, crouch down, lie down, or jump all within 15 feet of where you are standing. Have them use their hands while they move around for more dynamic photos.

Open spaces without posing elements

If you find yourself at a location, perhaps a beach, where there are no elements to use for posing, it can be difficult to pose hands or keep your client moving.

One way to pose hands in open spaces outdoors is to have your client use them. By this, I mean, have your client play with their hair, adjust their clothing, put on and take off their jacket, glasses, watch, etc. Keeping the hands busy relaxes your client and you’re able to make more natural looking photos without having the pose look too rigid.

Use the light

Shooting on location can offer lots of changes in light since you are outdoors. Use this to your advantage! Experiment with full sunlight, shadows, found pockets of interesting light shapes.

If you shoot your subject in full sunlight, for example, one pose you can try is to have them look up with their eyes closed, arms folded on their head. Another great pose you could try in full sunlight is to use shadows to create an interesting patter either on your client or behind. Have your client looking down or straight at your camera.

Using the different changes in light around you can give you new ideas on where to put the hands, legs, and other elements of your client to create a more compelling or dynamic photo.

The same can be applied to the basic compositional rules in photography. Using lines, shapes, patterns, and colors in your background to frame and pose your client as part or to stand out may result in a really interesting photo.

Conclusion

I feel that posing a client on location is much easier than posing in the studio because you have many elements available to use as props. And remember, shooting many different poses also increases your chances of getting the great shots that will build your amazing portfolio.

The post Tips for Posing People in Outdoor Portraits by Jackie Lamas appeared first on Digital Photography School.

Digital Photography School

March 25, 2018
Weekly Photography Challenge – Birds
Our fine feathered friends, the birds, make great photography subjects. They can be challenging to photograph though, hence why this week’s photography challenge is – you guessed it – birds!

If you struggle to capture images of the fast ones in mid-air, try to find a bird closer to the ground like this peacock I found at the Auckland zoo strutting his stuff. Chickens, emus, and penguins are all a bit slower and easier to photograph – although you may not have any penguins in your area.

If you need some tips for photographing birds try these dPS articles:
- 10 Surefire Tips for Photographing Birds in Flight
- 10 Must-Use Bird Photography Camera Settings for Beginners
- 10 Common Bird Photography Mistakes and Their Solutions
- How to Photograph Hummingbirds
Weekly Photography Challenge – Birds

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. Sometimes it takes a while for an image to appear so be patient and try not to post the same image twice.

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.

The post Weekly Photography Challenge – Birds by Darlene Hildebrandt appeared first on Digital Photography School.

Digital Photography School
March 24, 2018
Common Portrait Mistakes You’ll Want to Avoid
Portrait photography is hard. There’s a lot to think about including:
- Getting the lighting right
- What lens to use
- Composition
- Posing
- Working with a model or subject
- Post-processing (how much is enough or too much)
- And so on . . .
So here are three videos with some tips to help you avoid some of the most commonly made mistakes in portrait photography.

5 Portrait Photography Don’ts

In this video, photographer Manny Ortiz shows you five things NOT to do when shooting portraits.

?
- Don’t go to your favorite or best location first during a shoot.
- Don’t be afraid to experiment and take bad photos.
- Don’t hide behind your camera.
- Don’t over pose your subject, give them directions.
- Don’t shoot too conservatively.
7 Common Studio Portrait Lighting Mistakes

Watch as photographer Antti Karppinen walks you through seven of the most common studio portrait lighting mistakes beginners make so you can avoid them. Where you position your main and fill lights, as well as how strong they are can make or break your portrait.

3 More Common Portrait Mistakes

Finally, in this video tip from Adorama TV, Miguel Quiles gives us three more common portrait mistakes.
1. Not communicating with your model or subject.
2. Not having the eyes in sharp focus.
3. Not making sure the subject’s eyes are facing in the right direction.
Over to you. Have you got any other portrait photography mistakes you’d add to the ones mentioned here? Please add your comments below.

The post Common Portrait Mistakes You’ll Want to Avoid by Darlene Hildebrandt appeared first on Digital Photography School.

Digital Photography School
March 23, 2018
Four Ways to Get Frame-Filling Shots in Bird Photography

When all goes well, bird photography can be absolutely exhilarating. Yet birds are small and skittish creatures. Hence, a common problem faced by bird photographers, beginners and experts alike, is simply getting close enough to capture an image.

Even with longer lenses, attempts to photograph a bird often result in tiny specks in the final image, not to mention a very frustrated photographer.

However, never fear, there are several simple techniques that you can use in order to capture frame-filling images of birds. Using these approaches, you should be able to radically increase your success when it comes to bird photography. You don’t have to own a huge lens to do it, either!

Also, before I begin, I’d also like to emphasize that the welfare of the subject should be your top priority. These techniques can often get you close enough to birds in a non-threatening, non-invasive way. But if a bird begins to show signs of agitation, such as moving away rapidly, calling, spreading its wings, etc., then give up.

If you are set on capturing the image, try coming back on a different day, with a different technique, one that is less likely to disturb your subject.

Without further ado, here four ways to help you get frame-filling images of birds.

1. The slow, low approach

This technique is simple, and is often suprisingly effective. It goes like this – move slow, and stay low.

I got close to this Roseate Spoonbill by moving slowly through the waters of the Florida coast.

As I said earlier, birds are quite skittish. But if you move slowly enough, oftentimes a bird will eventually accept you as a non-threatening aspect of the environment, rather than as a dangerous intruder.

You spot your subject across the lagoon. You (slowly!) take a few steps forward. Then stop and wait. Take a few more steps. Once you’ve gotten significantly closer, I suggest that you get on your knees (or even your elbows), and shuffle forwards.

I crouched low and moved across the beach towards this Oystercatcher, who wasn’t bothered at all.

Every so often, check on the bird; you can do this with the naked eye, or through your camera viewfinder. If it begins to move away from you, then that is a sign that you should slow down.

Go really slow!

I also recommend taking a couple of pictures with your camera every few feet. This will allow the bird to become acclimatized the sound of the shutter clicking, and will prevent it from flying away when you begin to photograph in earnest. Once you’re close enough, start shooting.

Now, I said that you should go “slow,” and when I say “slow,” I mean slow. Oftentimes it takes 10, 20, maybe even 30 minutes to get close enough to get usable images. The key here is to be patient; if you can do that, the rewards will be worth it.

A slow approach allowed me to get close to this White Morph Reddish Egret as it waded in a lagoon.

2. Position yourself and then wait

This is a favorite of mine, partially because it’s so non-invasive, and partially because it’s so successful.

The key fact to remember here is that many birds follow a general pattern of movement. Shorebirds, for instance, will usually forage while moving in a single direction. If you watch them for long enough, you’ll notice that they’ve shifted a good ways down the beach.

So, from a distance, observe the movement of the bird. Think about where it will be in five or 10 minutes. Then, simply place yourself in a position to photograph the bird when it gets to that spot.

I took note of this Tricolored Heron’s movements, and sat in the water until it waded past.

Often, if you stay still enough, the bird won’t mind your presence in the slightest, and you’ll find that it may even stray too close. I’ve had tiny shorebirds get within the minimum focusing distance on my camera, at which point it becomes an amazing experience of a whole new type.

This Black-bellied Plover ventured so close that I couldn’t fit its body in the frame.

3. Using a blind

As hunters will know, a blind is a shelter that you sit inside, and will shield you from the eyes of animals. But blinds aren’t only good for hunting; they can be great for photography as well.

This one may seem out of reach. You might think that you don’t have access to blinds, nor can you afford to have one of your own. However, this often isn’t true.

For one thing, local parks may have blinds that you can use for free, or that you can rent. For another, it is often extremely easy to make a blind, one that you can use in your own backyard.

All that it requires is an old tent of some sort, or even a strong box. Cut a hole in the box or the tent, put it in your backyard, and voila, you have a fully-functioning blind. Let the birds have a few hours to get used to the blind, and they soon won’t even notice it.

I like to use this alongside my backyard feeders in winter. I put out some perches, and I am pretty much guaranteed that several birds will fly by and pose.

I took this image of a Northern Cardinal from a tent-turned-blind in my backyard.

4. Using a car

Your car can work as portable blinds, of sorts – oftentimes, birds hardly notice when cars are going by. Hence, you can approach birds on roadsides very closely without them taking flight. Then you can wind down the window, and begin your photography.

This often works best if you are in the passenger seat of the car while somebody else drives. This allows you to focus on the photography, while they focus on the driving. However, if you’re alone and on a public road, I suggest that you pull off and stop in a safe position (near the bird, of course!), before bringing out your camera.

You can also use a car to approach closely, and once you have stopped, you can slowly open the door and approach from the safe side of the car.

5. Take an environmental portrait

Now you’ve gotten four techniques for ensuring that you can get close to birds. But sometimes, it’s best to put away that telephoto lens and take a step back. Do not try to fill the frame. Instead, compose with the environment in mind, aiming to capture not just the bird but the beauty of the surroundings.

This works especially well if the environment complements the bird and thus enhances the overall aesthetic. I like to search for this type of image in areas that are already photographically powerful, where the scenery can carry the image on its own, and the bird simply adds something extra.

Next time you get the opportunity, try it. You may even find that the resulting image is more pleasing than the one you would’ve captured with that long telephoto lens.

I used a 100mm lens to photograph these swans on a misty autumn morning.

Conclusion

If you are having trouble getting close enough to capture frame-filling portraits of birds, don’t worry. Using the techniques listed above – approaching slowly, lying in wait, using a blind, and using a car – you can capture excellent images, I guarantee it. So I urge you to get out and get photographing!

Have any tips of your own for getting close to birds? I’d love to hear them in the comments section below.

The post Four Ways to Get Frame-Filling Shots in Bird Photography by Jaymes Dempsey appeared first on Digital Photography School.

Digital Photography School

March 23, 2018