In a world of digital keepsakes and endless selfies, there’s a definite pressure to be camera-ready at any moment. Between Youtuber friends and Instagram-addicts, you never know when you’ll next be thrown under the lens, so it never hurts to have a few tricks up your sleeve to help you look as good as you can, and feel happy with Continue Reading
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Landscape photography is arguably the first form of photography, literally. At some point around 1826, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce made an exposure on a bitumen covered pewter plate from his upstairs work room. The resulting image would be the first known photograph which displayed his view from the window at his estate in Le Gras, in the Burgundy region of France.
Since then, the gear and techniques used in landscape photography have grown exponentially. So much in fact, that some photographers possibly feel the only way to make strong landscape photographs is by investing hundreds if not thousands of dollars into specialized camera equipment. But, nothing could be further from the truth!
In reality, landscape photography can be made as complicated or as simple as you would like it to be. Granted, there are a few pieces of gear that will enable you to shoot with more versatility, but at its core, outstanding landscape photography can be accomplished with only a few pieces of basic photography gear. In this article, we’ll share a few suggestions for “minimalist” landscape photography gear. You might be surprised to learn that you probably already have everything you need to get started right now.
I learned a long time ago that capturing a strong landscape photograph has more to do with having a concrete understanding of what you’re trying to accomplish more so than the tools you have at your disposal. In those days, I had only one camera and one lens. Not even a tripod. The lens was a Canon 28-135mm and I only used it because it was the one that came with my camera. Oh, and my camera at the time, it was my first digital camera…ever.
One of my first landscape photos with my new digital camera. Circa 2010.
Since then, I’ve evolved and so has my gear, my attitude, and my photography. Still, the realization remains that it was never the gear that defined what I was doing even back then. Rather, it was my desire to learn and practice; the idea that I didn’t have the “correct” outfit to shoot landscapes never entered my mind.
I was just happy to have a camera, the open air, and a place to make photographs. I knew that I needed to photograph the landscapes I saw and from there, everything else was just a matter of making do with what I had at the time. So with that mindset now hopefully at the forefront, here are a few items I consider to be must-have gear for the minimalist landscape photographer. It’s an extremely short list. Consisting of only three things.
Yes, it goes without saying that if you’re going to make landscape photos or any other photo for that matter, you need some kind of camera. Today, there are dozens (at least) of digital camera models to choose from ranging from the relatively cheap to the astronomically priced. My advice to you, if you want a serviceable camera body suitable for landscape work, is to dismiss any idea that you need the latest and great camera in order to make solid landscape photos.
That first digital camera I mentioned earlier was a Canon 7D, which I still use to this day. It’s a great camera, hefty, rugged, and I’ve taken it everywhere. That being said, if I had it to do all over again, I would have gone with a much less expensive camera body. Why? While having blazing fast autofocus capability is nice, it’s not wholly necessary if you’re shooting mainly stationary objects. If you plan on shooting a wide range of subject matter like weddings, sports, etc., other considerations might come into play.
But as a general guideline for landscape shooting, find yourself the highest megapixel camera you can afford (preferably weather sealed) and forget everything else. Save your money for something that I know understand is a much more important piece of the landscape photography pie. And that is…
The lens is the eye of the camera. Photographs are just physical manifestations of light and that light must travel through your lens before it ever reaches the camera. I’ve shot landscapes with lenses that range from very good to the budget variety. As well as having used lenses that ranged in focal length from 10mm all the way to 600mm (yeah really).
Some of those were 30-year-old fully manual lenses that cost $ 10 at a pawn shop and others that priced in the $ 3,500 range. What did they all have in common? They let light into my camera to make a photograph.
While it’s true that certain focal lengths render various effects in landscape photography, there is no set rule that you have to use a wide angle or any other focal length lens to shoot landscapes. Virtually any lens you have has the capability to shoot a good landscape photo. Wide angle lenses, say 14mm to 35mm, do capture more of the environment and add a sense of openness to your photos but they are not a requirement.
Shot at 24mm
If you’re looking for a lens to use for landscape photography without breaking the bank or having to buy multiple lenses, simply search for the fastest (smallest f-number) lens you can find that falls in the medium wide angle range. I say medium wide angle because even though landscapes can be captured using virtually any focal length, it’s the wider lenses that tend to be more versatile in more situations. Something in the 14mm to 50mm range will suffice. There are plenty of options today to find excellent quality fast prime (fixed focal length) lenses for under $ 100.
These days, nobody wants to carry around a tripod. And it’s true, there are ways to work around needing a tripod for some types of photography. This isn’t the case when it comes to landscape work. So often the lighting in a scene requires a shutter speed of such length that hand-holding the camera isn’t a possibility.
While there will always be that person who says, “I can hold the camera still for ten seconds!” the fact of the matter is if you want ultimate sharpness in your landscape photos you will need a tripod. End of story.
That being said, this doesn’t mean you will have to sell your car in order to obtain a usable tripod. My first tripod cost me $ 35 from Wal-Mart. Was it the latest in lightweight carbon fiber with a graphite ball head and a cup holder? Of course not. Did it provide a solid platform for my camera? Absolutely.
When you’re searching for a tripod, one of the things that you need to look out for is the weight rating. Be sure to get a tripod that can support your camera and lens combo with about another third of that weight added on as a cushion. Just like with the camera, the emphasis on tripod importance is somewhat paradoxical in that it serves an integral function in your work but at the same time being nothing more than something to hold your camera still.
Find a tripod that gives you the height versus the portability you need and can support the weight of your camera rig. Everything else is just icing.
These days, I find myself fortunate to have much more refined and varied equipment than I had 15 or even 10 years ago. Generally, though, 90% of my landscape work is shot using only two lenses which range from 14mm to 24mm. There are times when I venture out to the 50mm range and beyond but not often.
So really, if I had to, I could do virtually all my work with one camera and one 24mm lens if the need should arise. Being a minimalist landscapist is often brought about by necessity and coupled with the need to make photographs. Remember, you really only need three things:
Yes, that’s truly all you need to make landscape photographs. The gear you use can extend into the realm of high-end GND filters, multi-thousand dollar cameras, space-age tripods, and lenses that would make NASA proud. But when you peel back all the layers, only three things are needed: a camera, a lens, and a tripod.
Once you have those, everything else is up to you. Becoming a successful landscape shooter has more to do with how you see light, the scene, and how adept you can become to tailoring the image based on the gear you have on hand. Being a minimalist landscapist does not necessarily translate into being a second rate one.
The post The Minimalist Landscape Photographer: What do you really need? by Adam Welch appeared first on Digital Photography School.
It’s not uncommon for me to sit down at my computer with a memory card full of images and stare blankly at my ever-growing Lightroom catalog while my mind reels at the thought of editing each and every one of them. Many photographers have experienced this phenomenon and there are certainly some good methods of dealing with it such as using Presets in Lightroom, syncing edits across multiple photos, or even just copying and pasting a series of edits from one image to the next and then tweaking as you go.
Other programs offer similar tools for processing multiple images at once, but the Achilles Heel of this type of workflow is that the edits are often static in nature. You can choose from a predetermined set of values (e.g. Clarity +10, Saturation +5, Highlights -20, etc.) and then apply that to many images at one time. But what if some of your images require subtle changes to those parameters?
Lightroom and just about every image editor I have ever used for batch processing won’t tweak your editing parameters if a picture needs a little extra contrast boost or exposure adjustment. That’s where Luminar is different, and its unique Accent AI filter combined with the program’s built-in batch processing offers a great way for you to significantly speed up your workflow while producing outstanding images for yourself, your clients, or your fans on social media.
After batch processing with the Accent AI filter in Luminar.
The Accent AI filter is new in Luminar Neptune, an update to Luminar that was released this summer. It works by using artificial intelligence to analyze your image and make adjustments depending on where it thinks the picture needs it most. Accent AI isn’t just a predetermined set of adjustments, but a series of tweaks and edits applied dynamically to the image, all controlled by a single slider that lets you control the overall intensity of the filter.
When I edit my images in Lightroom I often start with a custom preset that includes many alterations such as sharpness, highlights, shadows, tone curve, etc., and then adjust those on a per-image basis according to how I want them to be fine-tuned. It’s the latter part of that process which becomes tedious, and it’s precisely where the usefulness of the Accent AI filter really starts to show.
If Luminar thinks that an image might benefit from lowering the highlights, increasing shadow detail, altering the exposure, or any number of other editing parameters then it adjusts all of these at once instead of forcing you to edit individual sliders and change numerical values.
Original unprocessed image. All I did to edit this into the image you see above was to use the Accent AI filter in Luminar and nothing else.
Another example of the effectiveness of the Accent AI filter is this image of the Seattle skyline I took from the Sky View Observatory at the top of the Columbia Center Tower. I spent a lot of time using the various sliders in Lightroom to try to get a decent final result. But when opened the same picture in Luminar and used the Accent AI filter, I got a great finished photo in a matter of seconds.
Original photo. Listen closely and you’ll hear a sad trombone playing in the background.
The first version, processed only using Lightroom. I spent about 10-15 minutes to achieve this in LR.
The Luminar version is so good I like it even better than the results I got from manually tweaking all sorts of sliders in Lightroom, and it literally took less than 10 seconds with the single Accent AI slider.
Applying the Accent AI filter dramatically improved the image. The only thing I don’t like about this picture are the spots from dust on my lens in the top-left corner. Accent AI is great at many things, but it won’t fix blemishes like that. Luminar does include a powerful Erase tool to fix blemishes if you want to, but of course, it doesn’t work for batch processing.
Accent AI can also be used in combination with other filters in Luminar to enhance your images even more. You can get just the right combination of editing parameters to make your photos shine. I often use the Accent AI Filter as a starting point, usually adjusting the value to between 60 and 80, and then apply other edits as I need them like Vignette, Dehaze, or Soft Focus.
But the real power of Accent AI lies in how it can be used for batch processing wherein it can dramatically speed up and enhance the results of your photo editing workflow.
Click the Add Preset button (shown here with a red circle around it) to create a new Preset that you can use when Batch Processing several images.
In order to use Accent AI for batch processing you must first create a preset, since you can’t just apply individual filters when going through a batch of images. Your mileage may vary but I’ve found that a good place to start when working with this type of operation is a value of 75. Set that, then click the icon third from the left (circled in red on the screenshot) and give your Preset a name, but make sure it’s descriptive like “Accent AI 75”.
Presets can contain as many filters as you like. I have create several for different types of images including: landscape, close-up, portraits, etc. All of them include the Accent AI filter and a combination of other filters in order to get the right look. The heavy lifting is done with the Accent AI filter, though. So I have a few different presets created with just that one filter set to different values like 60, 80, and 100 so I can quickly apply a single Accent AI adjustment to multiple images at once.
Since the Accent AI filter examines each image individually and edits them based on where it thinks they need to be altered, I can generally trust it to give me good results and often don’t even need to use any other adjustments or filters.
Another way to approach batch processing with Accent AI is to open a single image from a collection of similar photos, apply the filter just as much as you want for that specific image, and then save that value as its own unique Preset. Then enter the Batch Processing mode and apply that Preset to all of your images at once.
The thought of going through and editing each one of these pictures individually really bugs me. I created a preset called Cicada Accent AI 82 for editing these in a batch, which was nothing more than the Accent AI filter set to 82 Percent.
The major difference between using the Accent AI Filter in Luminar and syncing (or copy/pasting) edits in Lightroom is that Accent AI works dynamically to apply adjustments where they are needed. So each picture is edited individually rather than having all the same edits applied to all of them at once. That makes it ideally suited for batch processing in a way that is a step above what Lightroom and other programs have to offer. I’m not all that comfortable with applying a single preset in Lightroom to many pictures at once without then going through and tweaking all of them. But I’ve learned to trust the Accent AI Filter in Luminar and I’m quite pleased with its results.
Once your preset is created, click the multi-file icon in the top-left of the Luminar interface to enter Batch Processing mode. Here you can set a variety of options such as export location, image format and quality, resizing, renaming, and more.
In the example above I have loaded the Accent AI 75 Percent preset and ran a batch process on 50 photos of a cicada bug. Luminar processed all of them in about the amount of time it would have taken me to edit a single image in Lightroom.
As good as the Accent AI filter is for batch processing, it does have some important limitations that you should be aware of. I have found that it works best for nature, landscape, and architecture photography and generally prefer its results in those types of situations over portraits.
That’s not to say it isn’t useful for portraits, just that I’m a bit overly picky and tend to obsess over small details that even the advanced artificial intelligence in the filter can’t quite match. Also there can be a tendency to apply it a little too much, especially when you first start using it. My advice would be to hold back a bit to a value of 40 or 50, especially when batch processing. Sliding the filter all the way to the right can sometimes result in photos that look a little too over-edited and fake, so it might be best to start small and then find how you like to use it over time.
Even if you don’t like the idea of trusting a computer to edit your photos for you, I would encourage you to at least give the Accent AI filter inside Luminar a try. Use it in combination with a couple other filters and see how it could save you a great deal of time, especially with batch processing or generating proofs for clients. You might be surprised at how much you like it.
The post Speed up Your Workflow with the Accent AI Filter in Luminar and Batch Processing by Simon Ringsmuth appeared first on Digital Photography School.
In this article,
A few weeks ago, I was packing for an 8-day photo workshop I was leading in the Alaska Range. It was autumn, which meant we’d be concentrating on the landscape, but there would likely be ample opportunities to photograph wildlife and create macros. That diversity meant that I would need to pack for every opportunity.
A year ago, or heck, three months ago, that would have meant my bag would have included: two DSLRs, a 500mm f/4 with a 1.4x teleconverter, a 70-200mm f/2.8, a 24-105mm f/4, a 17-40mm, a fixed 14mm, a polarizer, a variable neutral density filter, a big Gitzo tripod to hold that heavy kit, and a monster camera bag to hold it all. The total weight of all my camera gear would probably come in around 50 pounds, maybe more.
So there I was, packing my camera gear for more than a week of shooting the grand landscapes and wildlife of Alaska. I loaded my small daypack, topped it off with a rain jacket and a sweater, threw it over my shoulder and walked out the door. Total camera gear weight was under 8lbs.
I realized that all my gear, lenses, filters, and the enormous DSLR bodies; none of them were actually improving my photography. Plus, I was being hindered by all that stuff. I’d be out shooting and find I was more concerned about selecting the right lens or filter than I was about the actual composition.
And that, right there, is where creative photography goes to die.
So I cut back. I adopted the Lumix mirrorless system and acquired three lenses for the trip: a 12-32mm, a 45-150mm, and a 300mm f/4 (the only sizeable piece of glass in the kit). Since the Lumix system is micro four-thirds, all those lengths are doubled when compared to a full-frame camera. I can cover almost anything from 24-600mm in a kit that weighs a small fraction of my DSLRs. I could, quite literally, fit it all in my pockets.
When in the field, I can switch from one lens to another quickly and without fuss. I learned to keep the most likely lens set on the camera. If wildlife was a possibility, then the 300mm lived on the camera. When we were hiking and I was looking for wide landscapes, then the 12-32mm was the go-to lens. On gray days with patchy sun, the mid-range 45-150mm zoom was always ready.
When I saw a composition, I would raise my camera and shoot, re-compose, shoot again, and so on for several minutes, while other photographers were still working out the best lens, camera body, or filter for the situation.
I also found I had more time and energy to simply sit on the tundra, look, and wait. I wasn’t fiddling with my gear so I had long moments to experience the places where I was photographing.
Come to think of it, that may actually be why I feel my photography improved so much. I had the time to be creative.
As any photographer worth their salt knows, making images is not formulaic, it is creative. In order to be creative, we have to be open to the situation, not distracted. And we have to be ready when the light or action is happening. My gear, or lack of it, gave me that time and flexibility.
I’d like to say no, but there were times, that yes, I did miss my old kit. Cutting back my camera gear meant some sacrifices. Occasionally those sacrifices involved a particular focal length or filter that I hadn’t brought along. Once or twice I wished for the clean bokeh of my 500mm f/4 to separate a bird from a tangled background and on one occasion, the 24mm equivalent wasn’t wide enough to capture the expanse of the sky I was after.
But the sacrifice I remember most clearly (and I feel like an idiot for even mentioning this one) was my vanity. At one point, I was among a good size group of serious photographers not related to the workshop I was leading. There were more 500mm and 600mm f/4s hanging off sturdy carbon tripods than you could shake a stick at. Meanwhile, I stood there, an actual bonafide professional photographer, with a tiny point-and-shoot sized mirrorless camera and a couple of itty-bitty lenses in the pocket of my jacket.
I wanted to justify my compact gear, defend my decision by bragging about how good my kit actually was, even compared to their monstrous cameras – but I didn’t. Instead, I kept my silence, listened to their discussions of lenses, f-stops, and autofocus speeds, and thought instead about my next composition.
I bring up this somewhat uncomfortable subject because I think that this sense of inadequacy, in the lives of photographers, is very, very real. We want to be taken seriously. And when we are in the field, (when no one can see the images we are actually creating) we are usually judged by the gear we are carrying and using. There is a hierarchy in which those with the biggest, most expensive glass and bodies rise to the top, as though their investment is somehow reflective of their skills or knowledge as photographers.
There is a lot of pressure to BE one of those people with the huge camera bag and big lenses. But the reality is that your gear has nothing to do with how good you are as a photographer. Gear helps, it’s even necessary to a certain extent, but its presence or price tag is not reflective of you, the photographer. It’s the images that matter.
In the future, I’m going to try to let my photographs, not my gear, be the source of my pride (or inadequacy).
Though not the Alaska Range, I continue to embrace the minimal gear mentality. I made this image the night before I wrote this article, on the beach in Homer, Alaska.
The post How to Find More Creativity Through Using Less Gear by David Shaw appeared first on Digital Photography School.
In this article, I will review the latest version of PaintShop Pro 2018. I have a unique perspective, having used it over 17 years ago for the first time. Let’s see how it fairs now.
Please note: this is a Windows-only program.
Approximately 17 years ago I was working in retail selling computer hardware and software. A lot of people came in asking for Photoshop and were understandably shocked when they were informed the price was $ 1500. So being able to offer them an alternative for around $ 200 meant I made a lot of sales of what was then PaintShop Pro Version 7.
Since then, Corel bought the program and invested in further development. PSP (as it was known in the day) could do quite a bit of what Photoshop did, it had layers and masking, support for graphics tablets, and for the majority of people who just wanted to be creative, was a very cost-effective option. It was laid out in a similar way to Photoshop, functioned very similarly and to a certain extent was just as difficult to learn for a newbie.
Things have changed a lot since then. Now, I have spent the last three years learning to use Photoshop to creatively edit my images beyond straight photography. With a new set of skills under my belt, it’s time to see what PaintShop Pro 2018 can offer once again.
PaintShop Pro 2018 is available in both Standard ($ 64.99 USD) and Ultimate ($ 79.99 USD) options, where Ultimate includes some other potentially useful Corel programs. For our purposes here, this review will only cover the Standard version.
Purchase Full version for a new installation, or upgrade if you are a current user.
Please note that PaintShop Pro 2018 is only compatible with Windows operating systems, however, it must also be noted that this is a perpetual license, not a subscription. You only need to pay once and it’s yours forever, which may appeal to some customers.
On starting up PaintShop Pro you are greeted with a Welcome screen and the choice of Essentials or Complete. Each screen is a different color to minimize confusion. At the bottom of each screen is a choice of links encompassing tutorials, free stuff and access to technical support.
There is also access directly within the program to purchase extra textures, software (including an upgrade to the Ultimate version) and lots of different plugins and special effect options.
Creating a new file offers choices from a custom design and several different image or document presets.
The Essentials workspace layout is very simple and clean with the usual central space dedicated to the image, a menu bar at the top, tool bar options to the left and right, and an image browsing interface (similar to Adobe Bridge) at the bottom.
The left tool bar can be moved, docked, floated or stretched out to a single column of buttons. Adding or removing functions is easily done by clicking on the plus (+) at the bottom and selecting from the choices available. It is a pretty extensive list and would likely cover the requirements for most average users.
The right tool bar by default handles the colour palette options and can also be docked by right-clicking and selecting that option.
The Complete workspace layout is a bit more involved with an additional Learning Center docked on the right-hand side. Good news is that if you switch between Essentials and Complete, the program remembers your preferences for laying out the menus so it stays consistent. Layers also dock much tidier in Complete workspace than they do in Essentials – so if you want to use Layers, I suggest using the Complete workspace. There is a fair amount of customization of the visual layout, sizing, and color options as well under User Interface.
Keyboard shortcuts appear to be pretty similar to those used in Photoshop. I tested Ctl+Z (undo), B, and X with expected results.
The system used for testing was an HP Z230 Workstation with an i7-4770 3.4Ghz processor, 12GB memory, and an SSD drive. The performance was quick and responsive. However noticeable lag was experienced when bringing in a large PSD file with around 50 layers. It took about a minute for the program to process and open the file.
Linking to a Network Drive to view RAW files also showed some hesitation while the program did some background processing.
Enhance Photo options are available within both the Essential and Complete workspaces. My preference is for the Smart Photo fix, as you get a large preview window to view the effect of adjustments, plus you have more options and control over the settings. One Step Photo Fix is a “click the button and what you get is what you get”. Smart Photo Fix gives you basic options but with a bit more control.
Smart Photo Fix option offers some basic editing options as well as a Before and After preview which is really useful.
There are also some Lens Correction options under the Adjust Menu to help counter various distortion problems.
The usual Adjustment layers are available; Brightness/Contrast, Curves, Hue/Saturation, and Levels being the most likely candidates, plus a few unique to PaintShop Pro. One feature I did particularly like was that it offers a preview of the effect from within the editing palette.
A preview window is offered on all the Adjustment Layers that I tested.
RAW images can be edited via a Camera Raw option. It appears to work similar to Lightroom, where you point the navigation at the desired folder and it pulls up the images in a grid view. I have everything saved on an NAS (Network Attached Storage), and the Computer navigation option couldn’t view it, but I was able to add a link to the NAS under the Collections>Browse more Folders option. It took a while for the program to make the network linkage, and bring up the images.
Once you find the RAW file you want to edit, select it and click the EDIT Tab and it will open up a fairly basic panel with similar options to Adobe Camera Raw. It would be on a par with Lightroom version 3 or 4, so quite limited compared to current Adobe options. However, if you do not need the more advanced features, it is quite functional.
Raw file editing is fairly basic compared to today’s standards (Adobe ACR) but it covers the bases for most home users without being too complicated.
Masks are still a bit clunky. When you want to add one, you are asked to choose from three options – if you want it to behave the same way you expect in Photoshop, choose Source Opacity. The default is Source Luminance.
No wonder I found masks so difficult to learn back when first using PaintShop Pro.
The Scratch Remover worked alright but when I tested it on a textured background, there was an obvious blur visible where it had applied. Object Remover was a bit clunky to use, in that you had to select the object you wanted to remove with one tool, and the background you wanted to replace it with via a separate tool. Once applied it did a pretty good job. Some feathering of the edges, and it would blend in nicely.
Here you can see a line of blur where I have used the Scratch Remover (red circle). I have also used the Content-Aware option but that is less obvious (purple circle).
Text can be applied, and there are lots of options for texture, paint, brushes (though there is a very limited default range of brushes, you do have the option to purchase more or create your own).
Brushes and text and using layers.
PaintShop Pro 2018 is a program that is clearly aimed at the consumer market. With two levels of control, it caters to the most basic requirements, and still allows enough scope for people who want to stretch their editing capabilities.
For those needing professional or advanced level editing Lightroom and Photoshop, both offer much more advanced functionality, but PaintShop Pro will cater to the vast majority of user requirements. The price is attractive, as is the lack of any ongoing subscription costs. A lot of work has gone into improving and modernizing the interface and there is a lot of flexibility offered as to how you can interact with the program.
It offers a good range of tools and options at a reasonable price and should not be overlooked. It would compare favorably against Adobe Elements.
There are a few historical quirks (like management of layers) that should be improved to make it easier to use. But PaintShop Pro is ideal for a home user who wants a range of features that are not too complicated.
The post Review of the Latest Version of PaintShop Pro 2018 by Stacey Hill appeared first on Digital Photography School.
In this article, see how the shot below was conceptualized, shot and put together and finished in post-processing.
It all begun with the first picture I did of the customer’s hot rod. He wanted a print on his wall (about 2×3 meters). So, I used my large format camera, a Linhof Master Techika, with sheet film. We did a large scan of the negative and the huge print of that scan.
This huge print from a 4×5 negative looks great even from up close.
Then the customer painted two other cars in the same style as the hot rod.
Cool cars with pin striped flames.
He called and asked me to do a group shot and if I had any ideas how to do it. I thought about it a while and came up with the idea of light painting fire in the background, but I wanted to light the cars perfectly. I also had a reflection of the fire and the cars in my mind.
We found a huge asphalt place, where we were far away from anything flammable and we could use water on the ground for the reflection. But before I go into detail, I want to tell you about the safety part. Safety was the most important part of this shoot and it took a lot of time to plan everything.
Always be careful with fire.
Here is a safety checklist for you:
This is how the setup looked.
I arranged the cars hours before sunset and set my camera on a tripod. In order to get a better idea of the outcome, I shot tethered to my laptop. After everything was in place, I started shooting the cars while the strobe was moved all around the cars. With all these different shots, I could get a reflection free exposure of all cars in post-production.
Here you can see all the single exposures.
After this was done we poured about 200 litres of water on the ground to make the reflection. Again I took multiple exposures of the reflection with the strobe.
Same procedure again.
After I did a separate shot of the lights, I was waiting for blue hour to do the fire light painting. For that we used a 3-meter-long wick (a Kevlar wick is the one you want to buy) mounted on a long metal stick. We soaked the wick with lamp oil, in a metal pot (use one that you can cover with a lid if it catches fire) far away from the place where we fired it up.
Then I started with a long exposure (using a cable release on my camera) while one assistant walked behind the cars with the huge fire wick. At the end, the second one killed the fire with the wet sheets. As you can imagine, this is a very time critical task to get everything done during blue hour.
This is how the fire painting looked.
I’m a long-time Photoshop user, but changed to Affinity Photo since my CS6 license was only valid on Windows and not on my new Mac. First it was a try, but now I do everything in Affinity Photo. I just love it – even the iPad app, that could also open my 1.2 gig hot rod file.
I used the fire painting image as the background (1 below). Then I put all the other layers above using layer masks and painted everything in one by one.
First the headlights (2) then the cars starting with the Dune Buggy (3,4,5) to the Hot Rod (6-7) and at the end VW Beetle (8,9).
Now I put a layer mask above all the cars, deleted some of the parts that were too shiny and painted flame reflections from the background back in (10). At the end, I painted the reflections into the picture to make everything complete (11).
As you can imagine there were lots of layers to work with and in total I worked 11 hours (including preparation and shooting) on this one photograph.
Every layer with its own layer mask.
Not everyone will have the resources, skills or ability to do a shot like this. Please remember, do not attempt this without advise from safety professionals.
But I hope you agree that all the time and effort that went into this shot is worth it.
The post Hot Rod Flame for Flame – How the Shot was Made by Markus Hofstaetter appeared first on Digital Photography School.
I was fortunate enough to get hold of the new Spekular Modular LED kit from the people at Spiffy Gear a little bit earlier than most. So I’ve been using it for a couple of months now on everything from a personal portrait project to a product shoot of a whole load of shoes, and lots of other things in between.
The kit comes in a handy carry case that keeps all of the gear together. You get four of the Spekular LED bars (I’m just going to call them bars, you might want to call them something else) and clips to join them together, along with a mounting connector that has a metal 1/4″-20 thread. This allows you to screw it onto a light stand, or as I’ve been doing, onto a tripod base-plate and using it on top of a tripod, which allows me to move the light where I need it. You get a multi-voltage power supply and a bit of documentation in the box, too.
The kit ships with a regular power supply and plugs in and is controlled very easily on one of the light bar units, with the power running from what would be 0% to 100% in step-less increments. There is also an external battery kit that you can pick up if you’re looking to use Spekular away from a power outlet.
The mounting bracket that is included simply slips along the back of any of the light bar units. You can adjust exactly where you’d like it to be connected to the unit, and then you simply connect it to a light stand or via a tripod plate or any other stand/magic arm with a 1/4″-20 connector.
Let us move swiftly on! Take a look at how the unit works and what it can do, according to the Spiffy Gear video below, and then we’ll get on with how well it worked for me in real-world situations!
I’ve read a little of what others are saying around the web, a few people mentioned that they don’t like the specular highlights the kit gives, to which I’d say, “So set it up differently!”
You can set the unit up as something that resembles a traditional rectangular LED panel, or you can set two kits up as a crazy epic star-like looking thing! As with any art/photography, the resultant look you’re after is subjective, and that’s fine! You can get seriously creative with this Spekular Modular LED kit, and that flexibility really impressed me.
The first shoot I took the Spekular kit along to was one of my own. It’s a portrait series that I’m working on, based on men’s mental health. The Spekular kit was on a Kupo Click light stand slightly above and forward of my camera position.
It was only a test, but I was very happy with the results! (Yes, that’s a self-portrait below, I’m taking the photograph using Sony’s Play Memories with my A7R II).
The other main use I’ve had with the Spekular kit was on a spur of the moment product shoot for a friend. I needed to photograph 20 pairs of shoes for a website. This is something I’ve not done much of, but I was very interested to try out the kit and see if it could provide the results that were needed for this job.
The thing I found about using the Spekular kit was that it provided a really great quality of even light when positioned correctly. I used a Kupo C-Stand and positioned Spekular, set up in a square format, over the top and slightly forward of the product. This really cut down on shadows!
Yes, these shoes have wings!
Great, even light for products.
The shoes were photographed for a web-store, my friend was very happy – yay.
Each light bar puts out 14.5W of light which is kinda similar to a 150W halogen light. The lights have a 94+ CRI (CR-What? Read What CRI is here)
Still not convinced? Here’s another video showing the Spekular LED light in use.
What did I like about the Spekular Modular LED light system? In two words, almost everything. The build quality is great, the unit stays level when attached from one side, it doesn’t twist like plastic units tend to do. I’d love to start using the kit with a battery pack to make it a little more portable.
One of the things I need to work on, but fixed very easily with Rosco Cinefoil ($ 34 for 25′ of the stuff) was the light spread. Naturally LED lights don’t tend to be super focused, so you need to find a way to shape them if that is the look you’re after. I found it very simple to do using flags or Cinefoil kind of shaped like barn-doors.
In my opinion, the Spekular kit is very good value compared to other options on the market considering what you get, how well it appears to be built (keep in mind I’ve only had the kit since July 5th), and how well it works.
Spiffy suggests that Spekular is “the Swiss army knife of LED lighting,” and I’d tend to agree! Well done!
Five Stars, Spiffy Gear, Five stars!
The post Review of the new Spekular Modular LED Light System by Sime appeared first on Digital Photography School.
Since its Version 1.0 release in 2006, Adobe Lightroom has gone from strength to strength, firmly establishing itself as the go-to software for photographers around the globe. With each new update, you’ll be relieved to find you have fewer reasons for awakening the software’s fuller-figured big brother, Photoshop CC.
That said, there are some limitations with Lightroom that have stood the test of time. Thankfully, with more signups for the Creative Cloud Photography plan, there are now few photographers without access to both solutions. But for the times you need it, here are five reasons you’ll likely find yourself firing up Photoshop CC for better results.
Lightroom is a whiz at removing simple sensor spots from that top left corner of your images (Nikon users, you know what I’m talking about!). Punching Q then A allows me to quickly visualize any distracting spots with the handy white on black overlay, and their removal is typically a swift one-click solution using the Spot Healing tool.
However, the same cannot be said when attempting to remove distractions from more complex textures such as dust spots in the grass, for example, or people, as in the image below. For those situations, I rely on the smarter algorithms and expanded capabilities of Photoshop.
Want to feel like the only person at Angkor Wat? Then, you’ll need Photoshop!
To remove and replace objects that Lightroom cannot handle, start by right-clicking the image and choosing Edit in Photoshop. Then create a duplicate layer (CTRL/CMD + J) of your image in Photoshop (I generally do this every time I start processing so I can always get back to the original if I make a mistake or don’t like the result).
Next, erase the distraction with the Eraser Tool (E) so that you can see a “missing piece” where the culprit used to lie (be sure to turn off the visibility of the original background layer if nothing appears to have been erased). Select the area using the wand tool (W) and then in the menu bar at the top of your screen choose Select > Modify > Expand (choose around 5 pixels as your setting).
Next, choose Edit > Fill and select “Content-Aware” in the Contents dropdown list. Hit OK and Photoshop will attempt to replace what you’ve erased with something sensible.
A before, during, and after shot showing the simple removal of people from an image using Erase and Content-Aware Fill.
I’ve been able to seamlessly remove crowds of people from the image you see here using this technique, and the process took only around two minutes. Whereas Lightroom relies on finding a similar texture it can use to cover up distractions/blemishes, Photoshop uses its clever algorithms to create its own texture.
Going, going, gone! Photoshop makes light work of the unwanted people in the image.
Sometimes you just can’t quite capture enough dynamic range in your image to get away with a single exposure (at least not without introducing an unacceptable amount of noise or strange artifacts). While Lightroom has attempted to cater to those who wish to combine exposures with the introduction of HDR Photo Merge, using the feature can sometimes lead to incredibly flat images that are tricky to process (and in the case of the image you see below, caused the sun to completely disappear by virtue of it not appearing in both of the photographs).
Pulling up the shadows on the darker of these two exposures would introduce too much noise, and so HDR seemed the way to go.
…if only it wasn’t for Lightroom’s attempt to fix global warming.
The plight of a freezing earth aside, even after post-production in Lightroom, the blended exposure looks flat and uninteresting.
The advanced masking abilities of Photoshop, combined with a technique called Luminosity Masking makes combining exposures much simpler. Using this technique, you choose exactly what appears from each exposure, so blending images that have uncommon elements (as in the case of the sun in the example image) is simple.
Not only is the sun retained, but the image looks punchier overall, too.
The local adjustment tools in Lightroom including the Adjustment Brush (K), Graduated Filter (M) and Radial Filter (Shift+M) give you far less need for Photoshop than was the case before they were introduced. They are excellent targeting tools, yet they all suffer a major weakness – there is no access to HSL (Hue, Saturation, and Luminosity) adjustments.
In daytime landscape images, you’ll often want to deepen the blue of the sky. While this can be done using the HSL panel, the problem is that blue is not a color found exclusively above the horizon, as is the case with the walls and clothing in the example image below. The only way I could deepen the blue here would also cause detrimental effects to the blue everywhere else. Targeting the sky with the Adjustment Brush didn’t give me access to the necessary HSL sliders.
I wanted to bring a bit of life to the sky in this image. But in Lightroom, there is no way to adequately control the blues without affecting the same tones in other areas of the image.
Color can be better controlled in Photoshop by hitting Select > Color Range, then using the eyedropper tool to select a color you want to affect in isolation. You can then create an adjustment layer of your choice to affect the selected area; most often you’ll find a Hue/Saturation adjustment is the best method.
The benefit of this last method is a dramatic one: Whereas in Lightroom you can only make wholesale adjustments, i.e. changes that affect the entirety of the image, to Hue, Saturation, and Luminosity, you aren’t subject to the same limitation in Photoshop. By selecting an appropriate color, then masking out the effect in undesirable areas, you’ll retain more control, as is the case with the image below.
Targeting only specific areas while retaining full access to every adjustment Photoshop offers is hugely appealing. Note the sky is darkened here but not the wall or people’s clothing.
To achieve my aim, I simply created a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and then masked away the effect from everywhere but the sky. I’d tried all manner of adjustments in Lightroom but could only get the sky to look how I wanted at the expense of adding too much blue elsewhere.
Another great option when this happens is to simply create two virtual copies in Lightroom, one with the sky (or another problem area) as you want it, and another before you did the damage with the other edit. You can then blend the two together in Photoshop.
When Adobe announced they’d be adding the Panorama Photo Merge feature to Lightroom, I figured that’d be yet one more thing scratched from my “Must use Edit in Photoshop” list. Alas, it wasn’t to be, predominantly because of the likelihood of “blank canvas” – the phenomenon where you’ll find blank, white space in your Lightroom panoramas. Try it for yourself. CTRL/CMD + Click to select all of the images you wish to stitch, then right-click and select Merge > Panorama. I bet there’s an area missing from the photograph.
Here you see Lightroom’s attempt at creating a 6-frame panorama.
The effect is caused by the distortion inherent to some degree in every lens, and Photoshop will produce near identical results. Where Photoshop excels, however, is in its ability to offer a more flexible solution. In Lightroom, you are left to merely crop away the now-useless areas. But in Photoshop you can use the same Content-Aware Fill method described in #1 above to cleverly re-create a convincing replacement area of sky (although you may want to try expanding your selection by 20 or so pixels, as opposed to the 5px recommended for removing smaller items).
Left to the solutions in Lightroom, I’d have been forced to crop away more of the sky than I’d have liked in this image. With Photoshop I was even able to replicate some tricky texture in the water at the bottom of the frame. I still needed to crop away a little of the image, but nowhere near as much.
Photoshop’s Content-Aware Fill allowed me to retain much more of the final image and forced less cropping.
Lightroom generally does a pretty good job of dealing with chromatic aberration, the color fringing that can appear where dark and light tones meet. You’ll often see this in daytime cityscapes where the top edges of buildings meet a bright sky, for example, usually manifesting itself as a green or purple edge straying into the brighter tone.
While this nun is a holy person, the blue glow on the shoulder is a bit much.
Lightroom has a couple of ways of dealing with this. First, there’s the Remove Chromatic Aberration checkbox in the Lens Corrections panel. I’d say 90% of the time, this is enough to correct the problem. Where the fringing persists, heading into the manual tab of the same panel allows you to grab the Fringe color Selector (the eye-dropper-like icon) and click on the offending area.
This will generally fix a more complex problem, but every once in a while you’ll encounter fringing so stubborn that Lightroom can’t handle it. This happens most frequently with blue fringing, which Lightroom is pretty much powerless against. Fortunately, blue fringing is quite rare, but it does happen.
Lightroom is powerless against the dreaded Blue Glow!
You could try to desaturate the offending edge with Lightroom’s adjustment brush but you run the risk of accidentally straying into the surrounding area. Alternatively, you could try to completely desaturate the blue and cyan in the HSL panel. In this case, I didn’t want to do either of those as it would put my blue-green background at risk, making it look far too much like color-select for my liking.
Photoshop affords so much more control in fixing this problem. It’s as simple as heading to the menu bar to hit Select > Color Range and then clicking on the color fringing with the eyedropper tool that appears automatically. This will create a selection based on that very blue causing the problem.
By altering the “Fuzziness” you’re basically setting color sensitivity. The lower the number, the more precisely Photoshop will select that color; the higher the number, the more leeway you give the software to find similar colors. Don’t worry if there’s an identical or similar color elsewhere in the image that Photoshop picks up on; it’s easy to mask that out later.
Once you see that your mask has isolated the problem area well enough, open a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer, which should have automatically applied your selection as a mask. Reduce saturation in the Blues and Cyans until the problem is gone. If you’ve accidentally desaturated some other important area of your photograph, click on your mask, grab the black brush, and mask it out. Easy.
Targeting doesn’t get any easier.
The nun’s blue glow is successfully removed. I’m not quite sure how she’d feel about this.
The next time one of the few remaining weakness of Lightroom is exposed, you can try one of the above techniques so the software doesn’t have to get in the way of your vision.
Have you found any other Lightroom limitations? Please share in the comments below.
The post 5 Reasons for Lightroom Photographers to Use the Edit In Photoshop Feature by Chris Cusick appeared first on Digital Photography School.
Many people want to improve their street photography or get involved with this genre for the first time. But the major aspect that holds them back is the issue of taking close candid pictures of people without their permission. While I promise that it gets much easier over time, it can very difficult to get over the hump early on.
However, there are some steps you can take that will help ease you into the world of street photography if you do it right. Here are a few important tips that I believe will make shooting candid street photography much easier for you.
Before we talk about how to get closer to your subjects, the first step is knowing what to do if something happens. The toughest aspect of getting into street photography is the fact that you will feel very uncomfortable with the idea of someone catching you and asking what you are doing, at first. However, while those situations are usually rare, if you handle them the right way, they don’t have to be all that bad.
To help ease your fears, it is important to know what to say if anyone should stop you and ask you if you took their photo. Smile, own up to it and say that you are a photographer or photography student doing a photo project on the area and the people in it. Tell them you thought they looked great and wanted to add them to it. Just be honest and open about it. If they then seem uncomfortable, offer to delete the photograph. It can even help to carry a business card with your photography information and to offer to email them the photograph after. The more direct and pleasant you are, the more disarming it will be.
To further keep yourself out of trouble, pick and choose the people you photograph carefully. It can help to stay away from photographing anyone who looks like they are in a bad mood, anyone with some sort of mental disability, or anyone who is homeless.
Street photography can certainly be done well with an SLR and a zoom lens. I shot for a long time with that setup. However, using a smaller camera such as a mirrorless, micro 4/3rds, or a Leica will make you much less noticeable. In addition, it will be lighter, which will make you faster and can only help with street photography. The difference is night and day.
By using a prime lens you will get used to the fixed focal length which will make you much more spontaneous. You will be able to intuitively know what your camera can capture before you even bring it up to your eye. That, and your camera will be smaller since zoom lenses are usually very large. With a light camera and lens, you will eventually notice yourself capturing images so quickly that your subject barely even notices you. This is the type of thing that is much tougher to do with an SLR and big zoom lens.
The next tip, which is often the most important, is to go where the action is and get right in the middle. It will be important for you to eventually photograph in all types of situations, from less busy to very crowded, but particularly when you are learning, go where a lot of action is happening. Go to fairs, get out at busy times, shoot from busy corners. The more that is happening, the more invisible you will be, and the less you will be noticed by other people. This will help a lot with your comfort level.
By picking a spot and letting your subjects come to you, you change up the dynamic of the situation. Instead of you entering their personal space, they will be entering yours. You will seem less creepy and intrusive because you will already be there with a camera. It will look like you belong.
In addition, when a moment occurs, you will already be the right position. You will be able to spend more of your energy watching your surroundings for a good moment to occur. This, of course, doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t photograph while you are walking and exploring, just that you should carve out some time to linger in a specific spot.
There are some photographers who will run up to people and get right in their face. If that’s your thing, more power to you, but many photographers prefer to be less conspicuous about it. We want to capture an interesting moment, we love to people watch, but we want to try to make the situation as comfortable as possible for both parties, and we want to be inconspicuous enough to not ruin the moment.
This is where a little acting can come into play. The most important thing is to act like you don’t notice the person you want to photograph that much. Look at things behind them, and to the side. They just happen to be in your way. Play the role of tourist, looking around. The more you do this, the more you will be able to get away with taking the photo unnoticed.
Similar to the last point, the way you move your camera can play a big part in keeping the situation candid. There is one thing that most photographers do, called the camera snap, where they take the camera away from their eye instinctively right after they take an image. Of course, there will be shots that you take so quickly that people won’t notice. But for other moments when the people notice you, this will often give away the fact that you were taking their photograph. Instead, take the picture and keep the camera up to your eye. Then move the camera away like you were taking a picture next to them and slowly remove the camera from your eye.
Similarly, you do not always have to point your camera directly at people right away to capture the image. Instead, point the camera above or to the side of your subject as if you were taking an image of something behind them. Then at the last second, move the camera over them, take the image, and move on.
Whenever possible, try to keep your camera in your hands and at attention when you are photographing. If you allow it to hang off your neck, then when an amazing moment occurs you will have to locate and grab the camera before putting it to your eye. This is the least conspicuous way to capture an image.
Instead, try to keep the camera up high as much as you can. Then, when you take an image you will stand out less. It will feel much less conspicuous.
Zone focusing is the technique of turning your camera to manual focus mode, pre-focusing it to a distance of about 8-10 feet, and then capturing your subject once they are in the range of sharpness for your camera. This is easier to do with a wide-angle lens with a medium to small aperture such as f/8 to f/16 so that there is more area of your image in focus. Keep in mind that this is a skill that can be improved – there are many photographers who can zone focus well even at f/2.
You can read more about zone focusing here, and while it is a little difficult to learn at first, you will quickly get much better at it. The main benefit of this type of focusing is so that you no longer have to lock the autofocus in on your subject. This allows you to be a little more spontaneous with your shooting, and it will give you an added split second to take the photograph. That, in turn, will allow you to better capture those very fast moving moments.
Most importantly, it will allow you to be a little more candid than you can be using autofocus. Since you won’t have to point the camera directly at your subject to lock in the focus nor will you have to look through the viewfinder to make sure you are focusing correctly, you can be much more inconspicuous. This will allow you to shoot from the hip and still know that your shots will be sharp.
I hope these tips help you do better candid street photography, and with more confidence.
So get out there, get close, and capture some amazing and spontaneous photographs!
The post 7 Steps to Improve Your Closeup Candid Street Photography by James Maher appeared first on Digital Photography School.
In this short video from the people over at COOPH, they bring you 11 tips to help improve your drone photography,
If you enjoy drone photography check out these dPS articles as well:
So we’re curious here at dPS, how many of you are using drones now or getting one soon? Tell us in this quick poll.
Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.
The post 11 Quick Tips to Improve Your Drone Photography by Darlene Hildebrandt appeared first on Digital Photography School.
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