like « 360Photography

RSS

Posts Tagged ‘like’

Why You Should Photograph Like a Movie Director When You Travel

02 Dec

The post Why You Should Photograph Like a Movie Director When You Travel appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kevin Landwer-Johan.

Part of the movie director’s job is to visualize the screenplay. They must imagine how the story will be told visually. The fulfillment of this task depends entirely on the director’s creative expression.

Travel photographers often seek to tell a story with their pictures. Doing this can enhance the documentation of their journeys. This can be helped by using some techniques movie directors use to achieve their goals. One of the most effective methods of clear visual storytelling is to incorporate three different types of photograph:

wide,
medium,
and close-up.

Why You Should Photograph Like a Movie Director When You Travel

Consider yourself a location scout

I often encourage photographers who take part in our photography workshops to imagine they are a location scout for a movie. Alternatively, think like a reportage photographer working for a magazine editor.

Task yourself with capturing a range of images. Aim to portray each different travel location you visit clearly. One of the best ways to do this is including wide, medium, and close-up photos. You want people who have never been where you are to form a clear picture of the location. What it looked like and what the atmosphere there felt like.

Including only wide-angle photos gives an overall impression, but misses the details. Close-ups could be taken anywhere and will lack a sense of location. Medium photos can show some action and some amount of detail. Often they will not provide a broader awareness of the place.

Photograph-Like-a-Movie-Director-when-you-travel

Wide photos

Seek to include as much relevant detail about the location as you can. In movies, this is known as an establishing view.

Pick places to stand where you can see a lot of what interests you about the place. Think about what is unique or iconic in this area. Include these elements in your pictures.

In the photo above, I wanted to include some of the hand carts the porters at Muang Mai Markets in Chiang Mai use. They are very recognizable as part of daily life there. By incorporating a few of them in this wide photo, I have helped emphasize the location. People who’ve visited this market will more easily recognize it.

People who haven’t been there will get a clear impression these wire baskets on wheels are very much part of the place.

Capturing an effective wide photo when there’s limited space to work in can be challenging. Sometimes you’ll need to put on your widest lens and back yourself into a corner.

You don’t always need to capture the entire scene. When you can, try and include a feature in your photo. In the picture above, I composed it focusing on the vendor in red and included the street in front of her stall.

Looking for an overhead vantage point you can stand on is often helpful, if you can find one. Getting up above the location provides an interesting alternative perspective.

Medium photos

Medium photos will show more general action, but not necessarily give an idea of the broader location. Typically, these compositions will feature one main element and some surroundings.

This could be the entrance of a building and some of the frontage, but not the whole structure. It might be a car parked in the street, filling most of the frame and giving little clue as to where it is. It may be a vendor selling something at a market, but it could be a market anywhere.

This type of photo helps build a narrative. To make photos with the most meaning, concentrate on what appeals to you. Think about why, and capture that aspect as best you can in your photos.

Depending on the location you are covering in your travel story, you may want to include more medium photos than wide or close-ups. Medium compositions include enough detail and one central focus. They are a balance between wide photos with lots of general information and close-ups which include plenty of detail.

Close-up photos

People often omit or take too few close-up photos when they travel. Close-up compositions can provide so much information that can be glossed over in wide and medium photos.

Again, look for what you find most attractive and photograph those things. This way, your pictures will contain more meaning and feeling.

During the workshop sessions we have at the local markets in Chiang Mai, many people love to get close-ups of chilis. I think it might have something to do with them being such a major ingredient in Thai cuisine as well as their lovely shape and color.

Getting in tight to your subject, you can often find wonderful patterns. You can also isolate color and make your entire composition a single hue.

How much does focal length matter?

Does focal length matter when you photograph like a movie director when traveling? Not so much. I often use my beloved 35mm f/1.4 lens for wide, medium and close-up photos. I don’t often carry a lens longer than my 105mm. It’s all a matter of where you stand and how close you get.

Both of the close-up photos above I took with my 35mm lens, as were a number of others I’ve used to illustrate this article. Don’t be constrained by the norms. You can use a long lens to capture a wide scene. Sometimes this works particularly well because a longer lens compresses perspective more. This can create a sense of place in a different way than a wide-angle lens will.

If you’re in a tight spot where’s there’s not much space to back up, you will often need a wide lens. You can also use a wide lens for medium photos. Just get in closer. This will produce more intimate photos than you’ll capture using a longer lens. It also adds character to your image selection.

Conclusion

Next time you’re taking a journey, or even photographing your kid’s birthday party or soccer game, photograph like a movie director by thinking about these three types of photos. Cover the event or location as best you can by incorporating a good mix of them into your final selection. Doing this, you’ll be narrating your visual story in a clear and interesting manner.

Do you photograph like a movie director when you travel or do any type of photography? Do you have any tips or stories you’d like to share? Please do so in the comments.

The post Why You Should Photograph Like a Movie Director When You Travel appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kevin Landwer-Johan.

Digital Photography School

Comments Off

Posted in Photography

What is it like to come back to a DSLR after shooting mirrorless?

10 Nov

With the 18-135mm attached, the 90D is a larger camera than I’ve become used to carrying. It didn’t get the way of enjoying my vacation, though.

I’ve been a professional photographer since 2012, when the DSLR reigned supreme. The Canon 5D Mark III was my main body that I used exclusively for photography work. As my personal and professional interests gravitated towards video, I took the plunge and placed an order for the Sony a7R III in February 2018. A year later, I added the Fujifilm X-T3. Slowly but surely, those mirrorless cameras replaced my DSLRs as they better supported my overall vision of being a hybrid photo and video shooter.

However, the 2019 release of the Canon 90D piqued my interest. How was Canon’s DSLR technology faring in a world where many declare the DSLR to be on its way out? I took the 90D on vacation to Hawaii and committed to using it exclusively for a week. Here are my conclusions.

First impressions

The Canon 90D with the 18-135mm kit lens is both bulky and heavy. It’s not a discreet camera by any means. Many people (myself included) gravitate towards mirrorless cameras as they are smaller in size and weight, and the 90D immediately reminded me that the bulk of DSLRs is not something that I miss, especially when I’m on vacation.

There are times and places you don’t want the bulk of a DSLR

One thing I do miss is Canon’s vast DSLR lens library. From fisheyes and tilt shifts to super telephoto lenses, Canon offers some of the best and most versatile lenses that even big mirrorless manufacturers such as Sony aren’t producing yet. But for the sake of this test, I stuck with the kit lens for a full week and found that despite its size, 18-135 is an incredibly useful focal range, especially for travel photography. After a week of schlepping it around, I got used to the size and ultimately appreciated the versatility of the lens.

A little like coming home

After over one year of shooting Sony and Fujifilm mirrorless, the Canon 90D feels like coming home. The ergonomics, dials and controls were all very familiar and easy to use without making lots of custom settings as you often have to with mirrorless cameras such as Sonys and even Canon’s newest EOS R and RP. It was incredibly easy to power on the camera and just start shooting a wide range of subjects, from a wide landscape shot of a beach, to homing in on the green sea turtles that I suddenly spotted swimming close to shore.

While 135mm on a crop sensor gives you a nice amount of reach, the Canon 90D gives you even more flexibility since it produces 32-megapixel images. This allows you more flexibility to crop in on your subject in post production, as I did with this image of a mongoose, and some shots of sea turtles.

Concerns about noise

One feature that I find indispensable in mirrorless cameras is silent shutter. This is key for certain professional shooting moments, such as in auditoriums or at performances where shutter sounds are frowned upon, or when attempting to capture candid moments. On the Canon 90D, there’s the additional sound of mirror slap and its shutter is clunky and loud: once even startling a group of birds that I was attempting to photograph. There is no subtlety or finesse in the shutter sound and, while there is a full-electronic mode, you can’t avoid the sound of the mirror opening for you to get into live view to use it. Even in everyday travel photography scenarios, the shutter sound was distracting not only to me, but also the subjects I was attempting to photograph.

Finding in favor of a finder

The initial familiarity of the Canon DSLR layout was nice at first. However, I quickly became aware that I’d come to find mirrorless cameras offer several key features that make them superior to DSLRs (at least, for my shooting style).

Caption

Firstly, DSLRs are restricted to using only optical viewfinders (OVF) while mirrorless cameras offer electronic viewfinders (EVF). Being forced to use an OVF in Hawaii was painful.

With an EVF, my creative compositions have greatly expanded thanks to the seamless transition between using the LCD and EVF eyepiece to frame my shots. I love the ability to get up high or get down low to compose shots using the LCD. While DSLRs such as the Canon 90D does allow you to enable Live View to shoot still photos with the LCD, it is clunky and isn’t as responsive as LCD shooting on mirrorless cameras. Thus, it felt pointless using the LCD to shoot on the 90D, and I felt like I sacrificed many photo opportunities and creative angles that I would have been able to get with a mirrorless camera.

Conversely, because DSLRs require the mirror to be flipped up when recording video, you are then restricted to only using the LCD. This is very difficult in bright, outdoor lighting and it quickly became frustrating to not be able to seamlessly transition back and forth between the EVF and LCD as you can on mirrorless cameras.

All about the flexibility

Since the Canon 5D series still does not offer tilting or articulating rear screens, I was excited to finally see one on the Canon 90D. As I say, the ability to shoot and compose with a movable LCD on mirrorless cameras has really enhanced my creativity when it comes to image composition.

Now that I’ve spent some time with the fully-articulated screen on the Canon 90D that can face forward for vlogging, I find that it isn’t very useful for shooting photos. For most photo and video needs, it is more efficient to have a two-axis LCD screen that simply pops out and tilts up or down; you truly only need the 90D’s forward-facing flip screen if you intend to vlog or take selfies.

The 90D’s fully articulating screen made it easy to get low enough to take this shot, but a tilting display would have made alignment easier.

In the photo below, I had the camera low to the ground on top of the train tracks and needed to angle the LCD up to compose. It not only took longer to flip the LCD screen out to the left, but it also became hard to center the image since the LCD was so far to one side. This is a case with a simple tilting screen would have worked much better.

On the other hand, I love the Canon 90D’s screen that lets you turn the LCD inward to face the camera, thereby offering screen protection. It would be fantastic to see other camera manufacturers add this feature to their LCDs.

The best touchscreen I’ve ever used

Another thing in favor of the 90D’s screen was that its touch operation is the best I’ve experienced on any DSLR or mirrorless camera. It’s very responsive with no lag, and it allows for multiple functions, from reviewing your images by swiping, selecting quick modes, and (best of all) setting a focus point. I’ve long heard that Canon’s Dual Pixel Autofocus is among the very best, and after trying it on the Canon 90D, I have to agree. When you select a focus point by tapping on the touchscreen, tracking is fast and accurate. This came in handy when shooting this tiny and very fast lizard perched on a sprinkler head. Within seconds of snapping this photo, he took off running.

Within seconds of snapping this photo, tiny (and very fast) lizard took off running, but the 90D’s live view AF was quick enough to capture him, first.

All in all…

After a full week of shooting with the Canon 90D and the kit lens, I’ve adjusted to its size and shooting style. If I had to, I could use this camera comfortably to shoot photos and videos for both fun or professional use. But given the choice, I would still reach for a mirrorless camera instead. It has nothing to do with image quality (I still prefer Canon’s output), or autofocus performance (though Sony still has an edge).

Instead, it comes down to the DSLR’s lack of an electronic viewfinder (EVF). With mirrorless cameras, I’ve become used to constantly (and rapidly) switch between using the rear LCD screen and EVF to compose and shoot both photos and videos. This transition is quick and seamless on a mirrorless camera. Yes, you have an option to enable Live View shooting on a DSLR like the Canon 90D, but the experience is clunky and therefore not practical on a professional shoot, or even a casual vacation.

$ (document).ready(function() { SampleGalleryV2({“containerId”:”embeddedSampleGallery_6804737136″,”galleryId”:”6804737136″,”isEmbeddedWidget”:true,”selectedImageIndex”:0,”isMobile”:false}) });
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

Comments Off

Posted in Uncategorized

Review: What it’s like to scan film on the Epson Perfection V600

01 Nov

Film continues to be a popular medium among photographers today, and whether you’re an active or former analog user, the easiest way to share your treasured moments is by digitizing your film through scanning.

Many photo labs offer scanning as part of their services, often using large scanners able to process a full roll of 35mm film in a few minutes. But, just like developing at a lab, having a lab scan your film costs money, which is why many people like the idea of scanning negatives themselves. There are a lot of options when it comes to digitizing film yourself (including simply using a digital camera), but some of these methods require complex setups, some have huge equipment costs, and some just aren’t very good. Others, meanwhile, are actually pretty good and affordable. Meet the Epson Perfection V600.

Epson Perfection V600 key specs:

Compatible with 35mm and medium format
Max film scan resolution: 6400 x 9600 dpi
Dust/scratch removing technology
48-bit color
USB 2.0
MSRP: $ 229.99

The Epson V600 retails for $ 229.99, although there were several deals around the web for under $ 200 at the time of writing this article. In the box you get the scanner, two plastic film holder inserts, a power cable, a data cable and an Epson software CD.

Outside of the film holders, this is a really straightforward out-of-the-box experience.

Before I get too deep into breaking down what using this scanner is like I want to give some context. First, while the Epson V600 can be used for a variety of scanning applications, I’ll only be talking about using it to scan film. Second, I’ve been scanning my own film for several years using all sorts of various film scanners, and let me tell you there is a steep learning curve. Everything can be done right, but it just takes time to piece together each element and make sure you’re processing things in a way that works for you.

There are, of course, many different approaches to getting a desirable image from scanning film; the opinions in this article are just based off of my experiences. Film negatives are a lot like Raw files; how you process them can make a big difference to how they end up looking (particularly in the case of color negative and black and white films).

Getting the V600 set up


The V600 can scan normal documents as well as negatives. To scan film, remove the white cushioning bit from the top of the scanner bed and set it aside.	Now you’re ready to load up the supplied film holders. You can scan either 12 35mm or 4 medium format images at once.

Once unboxed and set up, using this scanner is pretty straightforward: you lay your film in one of the supplied plastic holders, snap it shut and place it in the scanner so that your negatives are centered on the scanner bed. You’ll be able to scan up to twelve 35mm photos or four medium format photos at once. The scanner also comes with an additional film holder for mounted slide film.

I wish the plastic holders were made of something higher quality. I’ve used other scanners that have magnetic strips for their holders and I prefer those by a long shot.

Once your negatives are in place, it’s time to get scanning via the included software, ‘Epson Scan’. Depending on which scan mode you choose (more on that below), you simply set your desired scan quality, make a preview scan and select your scan area with a marquee tool (except in Full Auto mode). Then you commit to the final scan, which can take a long while or a short while depending on your quality settings. Sound simple? Not necessarily…

On my Windows 10 desktop the scanning software was completely unstable

When I initially set up the V600, I had it connected to my Windows 10 desktop and quickly found the software to be unstable, crashing frequently during the preview scan. Eventually I couldn’t even get my computer to recognize that the scanner was on and connected. This is apparently not an uncommon problem either (I tried all the fixes in the link to no avail). I ended up following a bunch of tutorials online to fix the problem and still wasn’t able to get it to work reliably.

So, I switched over to my Apple Macbook which, though generally slower than my PC, had no issues at all running the software. Once I finally got it up and running, I actually found it fairly user-friendly. The design looks dated, but the operation is straightforward.

Scanning modes

The software has four modes, the specific options of which you can see in the images below (I’ve omitted the “Office Mode” because I’m not covering document scanning in this review).

Full Auto Mode

Full auto mode is the easiest of the modes to use, but will be too dumbed-down for most users.

Home Mode

Home mode is the mode I’d recommend as it offers just enough options without being overwhelming.

Professional Mode

Pro mode offers the most options but it can be overwhelming, with so many scanning quality windows that unless you really know what you’re doing, you’ll likely feel claustrophobic.

If you’re using the Professional Mode, the desktop can get crowded real fast with the different modules. There’s actually an additional Color Palette module in Professional Mode that you can use to alter the hues of colors in your photos that isn’t pictured above because I couldn’t fit it alongside all the other windows. If you’re up for it, the Professional Mode offers a ton of control, but I think Home mode will likely suit most users just fine.

‘Home’ vs. ‘Pro’ mode

Home Mode offers just enough control to get a good scan so that you can then make the rest of the adjustments to image quality in whatever photo editing software you prefer. You’ve got DPI, Brightness scale, and a handful of intelligent options like Color Restoration. The V600 also includes Epson’s ‘Digital ICE technology’ – available in all scanning modes – which automatically removes dust and small scratches (though I still advise dusting with canned air or a rocket blower before each scan).

Home Mode offers just enough control to get a good scan

Professional Mode, on the other hand, offers a full slew of adjustments and filters including Grain Reduction and additional dust removal alongside exposure and color adjusting tools like histograms, curves, white balance sliders, and so on. One other really nice feature is that you can change the bit-depth of your scans, with the option of 8- or 16-bit Grayscale and 24- or 48-bit Color. The DPI setting goes all the way up to 12800, so if you’re planning on making big prints this will set you up right for that.


Home Mode	Professional Mode

Above you can see a comparison of the same shot scanned in Home Mode (left) and Professional Mode (right). The Home Mode scan has noticeably less dust and hairs while the Professional Mode (with dust removal turned off) has more dust but is a bit closer to how I think the photo should look after some slight white balance, tint, and contrast corrections. Photo was shot on Portra 400VC with a Hasselblad 80mm F2.8 and a Proxar macro filter.

Quality compared to photo lab scans

More important than how this scanner stacks up against itself is how it stacks up against scans done by professionals in a photo lab. Below is a gallery comparing photos scanned on the Epson V600 to ones scanned by the professionals at Panda Lab here in Seattle, WA.

The Epson scans were all done in ‘Home’ mode at 4800 DPI (for 6400 DPI scanning you’ll need to switch to ‘Pro’ mode) and saved as Tiffs. This resulted in files ~6600 x 4400 pixels. For the sake of comparison we’ve downsized them to match the Panda Lab scans and saved them as JPEGs. Other than that, no additional adjustments were made to either scan.

$ (document).ready(function() { SampleGalleryV2({“containerId”:”embeddedSampleGallery_7267226613″,”galleryId”:”7267226613″,”isEmbeddedWidget”:true,”selectedImageIndex”:0,”isMobile”:false}) });

When viewed at 100% or on a large monitor, the lab scans show more detail and significantly finer grain than the Epson scans. They also do a much better job reflecting the tonality of the Fujifilm Pro 400H film they were shot on. With the Epson scans, the color is OK, but there’s a need for color-correction.

The corrected Epson scans are certainly good-enough for social media sharing or small printing

The image below and to the right is an Epson scan edited in Lightroom to match the tonality of the Professional scan. With a little fussing, you can get the colors close, but the professional scan still looks sharper, more detailed and less noisy than the Epson. But depending on your intended viewing size, that may not matter; the corrected Epson scans certainly look good enough to me for social media sharing or small printing.


Professional lab scan.	Lightroom-corrected Epson V600 scan.

Of course, the lab scans cost money (~$ 10) and the Epson scans cost you time, after initial investment. It took about 3 minutes to scan each 35mm frame, which means if you’re shooting rolls of 36 exposures, that’s 108 minutes of scanning. So if you purchase the Epson for the retail price of $ 229.99, you’d theoretically have to scan 23 rolls before saving money versus the cost of lab scans, which would take more than 41 hours.

Medium format hiccups

Note the slightly darker band in the highlights in the upper left quadrant of this photo (120 HP5+ Pushed two Stops and scanned with the Epson V600). This appears in several of my images.

Sure, the V600 can scan at high resolutions and high color depth, but unfortunately some slight banding can be an issue when working with medium format film – I didn’t notice this issue with 35mm. Banding is not an uncommon issue for flatbeds, but it is something to be aware of.

For those who don’t know, banding looks like what it sounds like: a portion of your photo will have a straight band of a slightly different exposure along the line of the scan. This is something that can sort of be corrected using Photoshop but depending on the complexity of your image it can become a huge pain to deal with.

Below you can see a full gallery of that same roll of HP5+ all scanned using the Epson V600 and edited to taste in Lightroom.

$ (document).ready(function() { SampleGalleryV2({“containerId”:”embeddedSampleGallery_4117815188″,”galleryId”:”4117815188″,”isEmbeddedWidget”:true,”selectedImageIndex”:0,”isMobile”:false}) });

The wrap

The Epson V600 has some flaws, like flimsy film trays and dated-looking software. But assuming you can get everything set up successfully (sorry Windows 10 users), it’s relatively easy and straightforward to get decent-looking scans using Home mode, especially if you’re only looking to scan 35mm. However, for the highest quality scans, you’re going to spend a lot of time waiting around for the V600 to do its thing.

Ultimately I think this product is a good option for amateurs and enthusiasts looking for a decent way to scan their current work, or for those looking to bring new life to old negatives. But for those desiring both high quality files and painless turnaround, your local lab is still your best bet – if you have one nearby.

What we like:

Good price
Easy-to-use
Decent scan quality

What we don’t:

Flimsy film trays
High-quality scans take a long time
Banding can be an issue when scanning medium format
Dated-looking scanning software
Hiccups with software on some Windows 10 machines

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

Comments Off

Posted in Uncategorized

Travel Like A Pro, Take Travel Photos Like A Pro

17 Oct

Travel is the best excuse to pull out your camera and take photos until your memory is full. The sights, people, culture, food — everything about going to a new place calls for a photo opportunity, one that you wouldn’t want to miss. Taking the perfect travel photo, however, isn’t just a simple click. Sometimes, it can be challenging to Continue Reading

The post Travel Like A Pro, Take Travel Photos Like A Pro appeared first on Photodoto.

Photodoto

Comments Off

Posted in Photography

Woodstock photographer shares what it was like to photograph the 1969 music festival

21 Aug

Henry Diltz, an official photographer of the Woodstock music festival held in August 1969, has detailed his experience in a new six-minute video produced by Keeper and directed by Scott Hanson. Diltz captured thousands of photos during the three-day festival, which was attended by nearly half a million people.

‘It’s almost every day now, people are asking me to interviews, about Woodstock, to use my photos, and my remembrance of it,’ Diltz says in the new short film. The photographer explains how he landed the job, revealing that he was only able to attend the event thanks to lighting director Chip Monck, who sent Diltz a plane ticket and $ 500.

Unlike other photographers who attended the music festival, Diltz explains that he was allowed to shoot from a walkway built for the film crew, putting him directly in front of the concert stage. It’s from this position that Diltz was able to capture iconic photos of renowned artists, including one he says he managed to capture with all four members of The Who in the same image, something that was difficult using his widest lens.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

Comments Off

Posted in Uncategorized

Godox SL60W Review – A Light for Those that Don’t Like Flash

07 Jul

The post Godox SL60W Review – A Light for Those that Don’t Like Flash appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Sean McCormack.

The SL60W is a monobloc-style LED continuous light from Godox. Godox is probably more well known for its excellent flash systems, which incorporates everything from small Speedlites to 600W battery flashes. We’ll see if they can also match this excellence in continuous light with the Godox SL60W.

About the light

While taking the look of a monobloc, the Godox SL60W is actually smaller than a typical studio flash head. It still weighs in at a hefty 1.6kg. First impressions of this light in the box were that it was a little smaller than I expected and that although it looked plastic, it looked well made.

Removing the light hood revealed the LED itself and the aluminum heatsink. It gave the light an immediate hi-tech look – instantly increasing the perceived build of the lamp. The heatsink, combined with the internal fan, keeps the LED chip cool.

As the LED lamp is a combined controller chip and LED, it means the light has a high CRI, translating to accurate and consistent color in use. Rated at 5600k ±300, this is daylight balanced, which matches your midday light and any flashes you may have.

In the box are a long IEC cable, a Bowens mount reflector and remote control. The remote needs AAA batteries (not included). The remote can be set to 16 channels with 4 groups, the same as the light. This allows for a large number of lights to be controlled remotely. While the remote does appear to allow temperature changes, this light is white light only. You can dim the light from 100-10%. A single pushes give 1% changes while holding down the + or – buttons speeds this up. You can also turn the LED off from the remote, while the light remains powered up.

As well as the remote, you can dim the light from the dial on the back, and power on and off.

The included reflector has a pop-out hole that allows an umbrella shaft to run through, for better on-axis light modification.

Specifications

The Godox SL60W has the following specifications:

AC Power Supply: AC 100~240V 50/60Hz
Channels: 16
Groups: 6 Groups (A-F)
Power: 60W
Color Temperature: 5600k ± 200K
100% Illuminance (LUX): 4100 (1M)
100% Luminous Flux: 4500
Color Rendering Index: >93
TLCI (Qa): >95
R9: >80
Light Brightness Range: 10%-100%
Operation Temperature: 10-50ºC
Safe Temperature: <70ºC
Dimension: 23X24X14cm (without lamp cover)
Net Weight: 1.61kg approx

The key things to note are that the light can be used worldwide and has high color accuracy.

Why continuous light?

Despite having years of experience with flash, I get that it takes time to learn. You’re effectively guessing what the light will look like, every time. With continuous light, there is no guessing. You turn it on and modify it as you see fit. Every change you make is there before your eyes. You can immediately see if it’s bright enough, and whether or not moving the light will improve the shot.

The first and foremost thought about using the SL60W is that what you see is quite literally what you get. No guessing or external metering required. Your in-camera meter will give an accurate reading and those on mirrorless with preview simulation on will see the shot in-camera before shooting (same for Live View users with Exposure Simulation on).

You’re reading this article at a photography site, but it’s worth mentioning that this light is perfect for basic lighting applications for video such as YouTube channels. Yes, it has a fan, but the light position behind camera mixed with directional mics should minimize this during recording.

Changing the look

You may be considering this light for food or product photography, so here’s how you can change the look of the light to get a variety of photo options. There are a few ways of getting modifiers onto the light. The most basic is the umbrella slot in the stand mount, coupled with the standard reflector. You can use either bounce or shoot-through umbrellas for this.

Further options open up with the Bowens mount. Any modifier than can fit a studio light with a Bowens S-type mount will work. As most studio lights have modeling bulbs that heat up inside the modifier, it should work no bother with the SL60W.

Hard light

With just the included reflector you get a crisp hard light. Placing the edge of the light roughly 2-feet from the side of the plate gives you an in-camera reading of 1/400sec ISO200 at f/2.4. (My Fuji has a default ISO of 200).

By bringing in a white foamcore card from the opposite side, it fills in the shadows. While the hard shadows from the reflector are still visible, the bounced light softened the overall look.

Soft light

By placing a shoothru umbrella on the light, you’ll get a softer light, but at the expense of lower power. This is because you tend to lose about two-stops of light when using any kind of diffuser modifier.

I’m using a Westcott double fold with the black back removed. The umbrella edge is also about 6-inches closer to the plate than the reflector, giving you a reading of 1/160 ISO200 at f/2.4. Not quite a full two-stop drop, but close. Notice how much softer the shadows are, even without a bounce card.

Adding your card again makes a difference. You could increase the shutter speed to compensate, but this sample hasn’t changed to show the increased light in the scene

Lighting product

With photographing products, it’s similar. Here’s the hard light scene on some colorful products. The high CRI means that you know you have good color accuracy here.

First, the reflector.

Using the white reflector card:

And the umbrella:

Finally, here’s how the umbrella looks with the foamcore card.

If you’re shooting for e-commerce, or even like this situation where you need to create product shots for reviews or tutorials, the SL60W makes it remarkably easy.

Here are a few random shots in this vein.

I’ve started making camera wrist straps and bracelets, so this light makes it easy to capture shots of my work.

Portraits

Again, the “what you see is what you get” factor is great. Using Fuji’s iOS app, I could pose myself easily for this self-portrait. Here I’ve used a Neewer 26″ Octagonal Softbox. This is now my go-to YouTube video setup.

Conclusions

The Godox SL60W is a keenly-priced continuous light with accurate color, good remote control, and more than adequate output for most of your indoor lighting applications. As well as photo applications, you’ll find it’s also usable for video – something more and more photographers are involved in.

If you need more light, the Godox SL200W is a higher-powered option.

I can’t speak to the long term reliability of the product yet, but I do own quite a few Godox products – some for quite a few years – and they still function perfectly.

The post Godox SL60W Review – A Light for Those that Don’t Like Flash appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Sean McCormack.

Digital Photography School

Comments Off

Posted in Photography

Photos: This is what it looks like when farm machinery goes to battle

23 Jun

The Lind Combine Demolition Derby takes place the second weekend of June every year, and draws huge numbers of people to a town with a population of around 550.
Panasonic Lumix S Pro 50mm F1.4 | ISO 100 | F5.6 | 1/100 sec

Lind is one of those western American towns that, unfortunately, a lot of folks have forgotten about. It was never a huge town, but the railroad brought enough hustle and bustle to support people’s jobs and families. But then the completion of Interstate 90 from Seattle to Boston effectively altered the flow of people around Lind instead of through it.

There are still a handful of businesses scraping by – Slim’s Tavern is one, and Jim’s Market is another. Although, given that Slim’s is owned by a man named Skip, it seems unlikely that Jim’s Market is still owned by someone who goes by Jim. Then again, Slim’s has literally been around for more than a hundred years, so I guess an eventual change in ownership was inevitable.

Bill, at his home one block off main street in downtown Lind. Bill used to be the announcer for the demolition derby, but health problems have forced him to retire and pass on the torch.
Lumix S 24-105mm F4 | ISO 100 | 1/320 sec | F4

A friend and I went to Lind for the one weekend a year where Slim’s Tavern is packed to the rafters. It’s the only weekend where Skip’s grandson comes through not just to visit, but to help out behind the bar, pouring shots of Jaegermeister and Fireball, neither of which is stocked (or needed) for the bar’s regulars the rest of the year. There are only two beers on tap: Budweiser and Bud Light, and they ran out of Bud Light.

The second weekend in June is home to the Lind Combine Demolition Derby. There are pickup truck races too, and there’s a parade, but the main attraction concerns the smashing of ancient combine harvesters. These mechanical steel farm hands belch out black diesel smoke as they slam into each other in the arena to the sounds of cheers and the crushing of beer cans.

The tail-end (pun intended) of the parade.
Lumix S 24-105mm F4 | ISO 100 | 1/1250 sec | F4

So how exactly does a combine demolition derby work? There are several heats taking place over the course of the afternoon starting at 1pm sharp, and if a driver hasn’t made contact with another combine in three minutes, he or she is disqualified. The last wreck still moving at the end of each 15-minute heat is the winner, and in-between heats there are intermissions where teams may make some repairs if necessary. Honestly, the full rules are pretty thorough.

And lest anyone worry about the waste involved in smashing up perfectly good equipment – well, it’s not exactly perfectly good. The rules require the combines to be quite old, and most people are upgrading to fancier GPS-driven equipment anyway. Will they eventually run out of old combines? Perhaps. But for now, that’s a bridge best crossed when it’s arrived at.

In any case, my friend and I showed up on the morning before the main event, just catching the tail-end of the parade. The plan? Talk to the locals, soak up the culture, and photograph the crap out of everything. It was a spectacle the likes of which I’ve never seen before, and won’t likely see again (until next year, anyway).

Spectators in the beer garden are kept some distance from the combines, but that doesn’t mean you won’t get covered in dust.
Lumix S 24-105mm F4 | ISO 100 | 1/400 sec | F4

I used the new Panasonic Lumix DC-S1R. This brief story, and the point of our trip, are about the town and pictures of Lind and not about the gear we used, so I won’t go into too much detail beyond the fact that it was a great camera for this sort of work. In short, it was responsive, sealed against the dust and beer, and gave me tons of resolution and great color out-of-camera.

Some of these images will make a reappearance in our full S1R review, but for now, enjoy the sights of Lind, Washington, during the one weekend where the town’s status rises to that of ‘destination’, the streets are crowded, and late at night, the bar is once again packed.

Spectators exit the stands after most of the combines have died.
Lumix S Pro 50mm F1.4 | ISO 100 | 1/320 sec | F8

All images in this story are processed through Adobe Camera Raw 11, using the ‘Camera Standard’ color profile.

Sample gallery

$ (document).ready(function() { SampleGalleryV2({“containerId”:”embeddedSampleGallery_4883233679″,”galleryId”:”4883233679″,”isEmbeddedWidget”:true,”selectedImageIndex”:0,”isMobile”:false}) });

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

Comments Off

Posted in Uncategorized

Catalog Photos Like a Pro: ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019 Review

11 Jun

The post Catalog Photos Like a Pro: ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019 Review appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Glenn Harper.

ACDSee software has been around since the earliest days of digital photography. For 20 years, it’s been competing with Adobe Photoshop. Today, with Adobe offering its top image-editing programs by subscription only, there’s more room than ever for alternatives. ACDSee offers a compelling subscription model of its own, but it also maintains a full suite of standalone products. Photo Studio Standard 2019 is among them, and I’ll review it here.

ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019 - default layout

The default layout in Manage mode of ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019. You can move things around as you wish and close any panes you don’t need.

Aimed at keen photographers with growing photo collections, ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019 is ideal for sorting, finding, and viewing photos. It also has a set of editing tools that will quickly make your pictures look good for the web or printing. We’ll look at all this in detail. To avoid wasting anyone’s time, this program recognizes and opens raw files but it’s not a raw editor or metadata editor – it’s a pixel editor. You have no control over how raw files are processed and can only save 8-bit files.

Embedding ACDSee metadata into DNG files

Preview of a DNG file. You can embed ACDSee metadata into DNG files, unlike other raw formats.

This review of ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019 will include the following:

Starting up

One thing that struck me immediately about ACDSee software was how quickly it opened. Sometimes I wait 2-3 minutes for Photoshop CC to start. There are technical reasons for that, like the plug-ins I have loaded into it and its sheer girth. Perhaps it connects to my Adobe account, too. Whatever. Photo Studio Standard 2019 opens in around 15-20 seconds every time.

Manage mode

Digital asset management (DAM) is the great strength of ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019. In Manage mode, the software offers all you need for sorting and locating your images. Like many people, you may already have your folders arranged chronologically. This is handy for sifting through them using the folder pane of ACDSee, but the software gives you lots of other ways to find pictures.

ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019 - folder pane

Here, I’m using the folder pane in Manage mode to browse photos. I’m not the best organizer, but I do have most folders labeled chronologically.

Calendar pane

I latched onto the Calendar pane within minutes of opening ACDSee. Even if you have your folders arranged by date, it’s so quick to rifle through your photos month by month using the calendar. You can widen the search by choosing multiple months or use single days to narrow it. I used this feature straight away to dig out a few files I might’ve overlooked as potential stock photos.

Catalog pane

The ACDSee Catalog pane gives you several ways to find what you’re looking for: color labels, keywords, ratings, saved searches, categories, and auto categories. Of course, you have to add most of this info yourself to the images, but that’s easy using the software. Auto categories come from EXIF data, so you can filter results by the lens or aperture used, for instance.

There are various ways to filter photos in the Catalog pane, some of which rely on you having rated, keyworded, labeled, tagged, or categorized your photos already. In this screenshot, I’m looking at photos taken with a particular lens.[/

Map pane

ACDSee includes a Map pane. Drag your photo(s) onto the place where they were taken, hit Save, and the GPS coordinates are automatically embedded into the EXIF data. Cool! That wasn’t a feature I expected at this price point (Lightroom has it), but it does show how thorough this software is in what it does.

Dragging a photo or several photos onto a spot on the map and hitting “Save” embeds GPS coordinates into the metadata.

Shortcuts pane

The Shortcuts pane offers a way of bookmarking files you know you’ll often need. It makes it that little bit quicker to find any special photos – perhaps a collection of your best-ever shots.

Image Basket

Another neat feature of Photo Studio Standard 2019 is the Image Basket. Normally, when I’m preparing a gallery for the web, I create a new folder on my desktop to work from. The Image Basket is a way of gathering original files together without having to copy them elsewhere.

Keywording in ACDSee

Keywords are an invaluable way of quickly finding what you’re looking for, but they can be time-consuming to add. ACDSee is ahead of Adobe in this respect. It’ll import any keywords you’ve added elsewhere to the IPTC data, but it has excellent keywording capability of its own.

The ability to create large keyword sets of up to 250 is enough to satisfy any lexicologist. I wouldn’t normally need that many, but 40 or 50 isn’t uncommon. Adobe software is restrictive in this respect.

A welcome feature of the new ACDSee ‘Quick Keyword’ tool is the ability to use 25 rows by 10 columns of words (i.e., up to 250 keywords). In Lightroom, you can only have 9 keywords max per set – a source of frustration for many users. ACDSee has its own metadata field that is stored in the database rather than embedded in the file, but you can embed it into suitable file formats.

Photos mode

In Photos mode, ACDSee catalogs all images from the location(s) of your choice and puts them on display so you can scroll through them. Like the Calendar pane, it’s an easy way for you to search visually and find pictures. Hovering the cursor over a thumbnail brings up a larger preview with vital info such as image dimensions, file size, and folder location.

Photos mode on the daily setting. You can scroll through your whole database, but it’s still divided by daily, monthly or yearly headings.

View mode

Double-click on a photo in Manage or Photos mode and you’ll bring up a large view of the image in ACDSee’s View mode. Various viewing options are available as well as useful editing tools like Auto Light EQ and Auto Lens. You can rapidly scroll through files in this mode and tag images or add ratings, labels, keywords, and categories. It’s an extension of Manage mode if you want it to be. Clicking on Edit mode from here takes the open picture into editing.

View mode is the place to be if you want to browse large previews of your pictures. Double-clicking on any picture in Manage or Photos mode brings you here, too. You can also perform a few basic edits in this space or categorize photos.

Edit Mode

ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019 has plenty to offer in terms of editing but something has to be sacrificed at this price point, and that’s parametric (non-destructive) editing. Photo Studio Standard is a pixel editor only, so you make physical changes to rendered images. You can still leave the original file untouched, but as soon as you finish editing and save a file, there’s no going back and tweaking your adjustments. This is more important if you’re in the habit of reworking pictures or if you edit extensively and want your work to be reversible.

Repair

There are a couple of tools under the “Repair” heading. The red-eye reduction tool is something I’d probably never have a need for, but I tested this with a public domain image. Works well – easy to use.

With this close-up view, I found myself wishing the size of the adjustment would go slightly larger, as it barely covered the dilated pupil. But still, the red-eye has gone. Most portraits won’t be as near to the subject. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

One of the few glitches I encountered in ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019 was a malfunction among the repair tools. I can get the Heal tool to work, and it does a nice job of blending the sampled pixels into a new area. But the Clone tool hasn’t worked for me even after a reinstall. I just get a blacked-out image. This appears to be a bug in the program, as it works flawlessly in other ACDSee software I have on my PC.

Add

Under the “Add” heading you can insert text into your photos or a watermark (the Watermark feature is new in 2019). The default watermark is the ACDSee camera logo, but you can use your own graphic if you want. There are also borders, vignetting, special effects and tilt-shift choices here.

The Tilt-Shift tool makes Manhattan look miniaturized.

Personally, I’d be most likely to use vignetting out of these, as it helps direct the viewer’s eye and is a useful photographic tool. It can be fun to add borders to your photos, too, which you can customize in this case with a wide selection of textures or any color you choose.

I counted 54 special effects in ACDSee’s collection, and each is modifiable in some way. Even the ones that don’t instantly appeal might work for you with some adjustment, so there’s a lot to go at. Among my favorites are Collage, Lomo, and Orton. The latter is great for creating a dreamy look.

ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019 - Orton special effect

This is the Orton special effect, making a peaceful scene even dreamier.

Geometry

Under “Geometry”, ACDSee provides rotate, flip, crop, and resize tools. There are some thoughtful touches among these tools, like the ability to control darkness outside the crop area. The Rotate tool also has a cropping feature, so you can level the picture up if necessary and correct wonky horizons.

When resizing, the default algorithm is Lanczos, but it’s worth experimenting, depending on what you do with your photos. Lanczos gives a sharp result when downsizing, for instance, but if you want to back off that a little and achieve smoother edges, try Bicubic.

Exposure/Lighting

ACDSee offers some powerful tools under “Exposure/Lighting,” not least its excellent Light EQ technology alongside traditional tools like levels and curves. Light EQ is similar to curves, only better in some respects since it treats highlights, mid-tones, and shadows separately. That’s only possible to a degree using curves without layers.

Here, I’m using ACDSee Light EQ to adjust the tone of the image. By having the Exposure Warning switched on, I can ensure a good tonal range without losing detail in the shadows or highlights. As soon as pixels appear in red or green, I back off the adjustment slightly. I have the histogram showing the blue channel, as that’s the nearest to clipping at both ends.

The auto buttons in these exposure/lighting controls are also worth a hit every now and again. Personally, I find the auto setting in Light EQ tends to make things too bright, but it might provide a better starting point.

You can set your black and white points using eyedroppers in levels and also define the clipping limits under “tolerance.” (Don’t worry if this means nothing to you – it’s only one of several options.

I should mention, too, that ACDSee provides an Edit Brush and gradients with many of these controls, so you can apply edits to selected parts of the image.

Color

Under “Color,” you’ll find White Balance, Color Balance, Convert to Black and White, and Color LUTs. The White Balance tool is excellent, though, like all white balance tools, it relies on neutral tones in the image to use as reference points.

You could also correct color using the Color Balance tool, especially in conjunction with the floating histogram. A good thing about the ACDSee histogram is you can stretch it out as far as you like for a detailed look at tonal distribution. There’s a hue/saturation tool alongside color balance.

You can make the floating histogram as compact or elongated as you wish.

“Convert to Black and White” is new to ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019. Based on the colors you know are in the image (e.g. blue sky), you can adjust their brightness to alter the contrast of the final result. This also lets you emphasize different areas of the photo. Good stuff! Contrast is also affected by the RGB percentages, which must always add up to 100. A high proportion of red usually creates more contrast in cloudy blue skies, for instance. Colorized monochrome images are possible, too, under Convert to Black and White.

Using the new “Convert to Black and white” feature, I’ve increased the brightness of cyan a fair bit to make the fire-escape steps stand out more. Then I’ve colorized the picture with sepia-like brown tones.

One of the best things in ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019 Edit mode has to be Color LUTs. These let you alter the look of your photos (often drastically) via numerical color shifts. They’re like photo filters on steroids. ACDSee LUTs are good, but you can also download LUTs from the web and load them into the program.

The lower half of this picture has the ACDSee “Turin” Color LUT applied to it. Look closely and you’ll see it’s darker with deeper blue windows and yet has a more cyan sky. You can use the Edit Brush or gradients on many edits.

Detail

Sharpen, blur, noise, and clarity all lie under the “Detail” heading. These are all pretty standard. The sharpen tool is like unsharp mask with amount, radius and threshold settings. Typically, you use a low radius for high-frequency photos with a lot of fine detail or a higher radius to bring out coarse detail across a wide area. A sharpening mask slider would be a nice bonus here if I were compiling a wants list. That would be quicker than selective sharpening with a brush.

Other Features

In case all the above isn’t enough, there’s more. For instance, the external editor feature in Manage mode lets you swiftly open images in other programs. Perhaps that will be Photoshop or it could be ACDSee Photo Editor 10, which would complement Photo Studio Standard well.

ACDSee also has a dashboard that gives you stats on equipment used, database size, and photo counts that show you how prolific you’ve been at various times.

ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019 dashboard

The ACDSee Dashboard, indicating prolific use of a Sony RX100 in my case. There are numerous other stats available.

You can create PDFs, PowerPoint files, slideshow files, zip archives, contact sheets, and HTML albums straight out of ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019, too. There really isn’t a lot you can’t do.

More new stuff

ACDSee also introduced AutoSave and Auto Advance features in 2019. AutoSave does away with the “do you want to save changes?” dialog when you move onto another image. Auto Advance is good for rating, labeling, or categorizing photos, as it moves onto the next image automatically once you’ve clicked.

Also new in 2019 are customizable keyboard shortcuts, support for HEIF files (used on later iPhones), and print improvements that let you adjust for differences between what you see on screen and what your printer produces.

Conclusion

As much as I understand the benefits of SaaS and subscription software models, I think there will always be a market for standalone products that consumers can update when they want.

ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019 is, first and foremost, a great photo organizer. I’ve never seen better. It’s quick as a browser – doesn’t hold you up – and it gives you workflow choices. There are lots of nice touches to make tasks easier. It’s not especially advanced as a photo editor, but you can achieve a lot without layers, 3rd-party plugins, and even Adobe’s unassailable repair tools.

If like me, you prefer taking photos to organizing them, ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019 is the ideal way to get your collection under control. It drills into your database from several directions and helps you find any picture. Many people will want to supplement the editing capabilities with other programs, but you won’t find much better than this for photo management.

Disclaimer: ACDSee is a paid partner of dPS

The post Catalog Photos Like a Pro: ACDSee Photo Studio Standard 2019 Review appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Glenn Harper.

Digital Photography School

Comments Off

Posted in Photography

FRAMES Chapter 2: What it’s like to shoot the Queen’s Cup steeplechase horse race

07 Jun

From horsepower to horse power, ‘FRAMES Chapter 2’ shares a behind-the-scenes look at what it’s like to go from the streets and courses of Formula 1 and World Endurance Championship racing to the first type of racing photographer Jamey Price fell in love with—horse racing.

Unlike the ‘FRAMES Chapter 1,’ which showed what it took to cover a 24-hour endurance race, ‘FRAMES Chapter 2 ‘follows Price as he covers the 23rd Queen’s Cup in Charlotte, North Carolina. As Price narrates throughout the video, the steeplechase horse race presents a unique challenge, both similar and different to motorsports races.

Throughout the six-minute video, we see what it takes to capture the various races throughout the day and, spoiler: it involves a lot of remote cameras (both DSLRs and GoPros), a day of planning, plenty of patience and sacrifice in terms of deciding what shots you capture and what ones you have to hold onto until next year.

Price was kind enough to share a few behind the scenes photos with DPReview:

$ (document).ready(function() { SampleGalleryV2({“containerId”:”embeddedSampleGallery_2828768810″,”galleryId”:”2828768810″,”isEmbeddedWidget”:true,”selectedImageIndex”:0,”isMobile”:false}) });

The video was filmed and produced by Austin Gager. You can find more of Jamey’s work on his website.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

Comments Off

Posted in Uncategorized

Learning to See Like an Artist – 7 Powerful Techniques to Help You See More Compelling Images

31 May

The post Learning to See Like an Artist – 7 Powerful Techniques to Help You See More Compelling Images appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Anthony Epes.

Being an artist has nothing to do with your camera, your kit or your photo knowledge.

It has nothing to do with how long you’ve been taking photos or if you shoot on manual or automatic.

Being an artist is totally and completely about the mindset you inhabit when you are out shooting, and what you create from this state.

It’s about looking at the world in a way that is different from how we usually see it. It’s ridding ourselves of the habits to ‘get somewhere,’ to accomplish and tick things off our to-do lists.

It’s all about immersing ourselves, our senses, our beings in this beautiful, wild, chaotic and amazing world.

It’s diving deeper, seeing more and finding new and interesting ways to capture what we discover.

What you get from bringing this artistic approach into your photography are unique images.

Your photos become about expressing who you are, encompassing everything that you have seen and experienced in your life.

This to me is the joy of photography. So I have some simple, but immensely powerful tips that will help you connect to your inner artist.

“There is only you and your camera. The limitations in your photography are in yourself, for what we see is what we are.” – Ernst Haas

7 Powerful Techniques to Help You See More Compelling Images

First – ignore everyone

We spend so much of our lives in contact with other people. At work, our efforts are analyzed by our colleagues, boss or clients.

At home, our children, partner or family will comment on how we live, wash clothes, what we eat etc. We post something on Facebook and someone comments; everyone has an opinion.

As we are in constant contact with other humans, we find ourselves playing a role, fitting into expectations or rules or ways of living. We probably don’t even think about how the constant stream of people in and out of our lives makes us adjust and alter our behavior.

Creating art operates in a very different space – completely outside this interaction with other humans.

Being in the space of creativity is about forgetting what other people might think of our work, what other people are doing, literally everything that connects us to other human beings.

We need to release ourselves from our ‘normal lives’ and the way we live.

Because art can never be created by a committee. And what is completely unique and interesting about you is what will make the most compelling photos.

2. Know that we aren’t seeing the world as it really is

“Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.” – Jonathan Swift

Did you know that your brain processes two billion pieces of visual data per second? And yet we only see about 50 bits of this information.

Of course, our brains are doing us a massive favor. If it didn’t block out most of what was happening around us, we couldn’t focus.

What’s interesting here is what 50 bits of information are you seeing, and what 50 bits am I seeing?

If we are seeing such a small selection of what’s available, then it’s highly unlikely we are all seeing similar things.

Which makes our personal world highly selective.

I find this so exciting because it shows how we are always able to create something new if we only open up our awareness.

This explains why we can all stand in front of the same scene and take different photos (this happens all the time on my workshops.)

Let’s celebrate that there is so much more to discover in the world around us.

3. Take your time to really observe the world around you

One thing I constantly see in my workshops is when people find a subject they love, they shoot it, then move on way too quickly.

I think it’s a natural response to how we live in this modern life. We are very driven by results. We shoot something, then we move on to the next thing. Almost like we are ticking a box.

But the way to be more creative in your photography is to forget about where you want to go next.

In fact, forget about everything that is not totally related to the present moment you are inhabiting, and the subject you are facing.

Take your time. Watch the light. Maybe wait for the light to change to see what would happen to your subject.

Look at the shadows. The people that are passing. What’s happening around your subject? Feel the atmosphere, and maybe how it is changing.

Observe.

As you see more and get to know your subject more, new angles will open up on how to shoot. Maybe the weather will change, making more dramatic images, or the light will soften creating a totally different feel to the mood of the shot.

The more you observe your subject the more it will reveal different qualities to you. You will notice more subtleties.

There is no rush. Allow yourself all the time you need to observe and shoot your subject.

4. It’s all about the light

“I am forever chasing light. Light turns the ordinary into the magical.” – Trent Parke

When people ask me what I photograph, I always say the same thing – light.

My biggest passion and main subject in photography is light. I love light in all of its forms.

The joyful, effervescent light of a spring morning; the deep, brooding, metallic grey light before a storm; the deep, deep blues of twilight in the city; the misty, melancholic light of a winter’s afternoon.

Light is always changing. Each day brings us something different and each part of the day has different qualities. And when you have interesting light it makes your subject so much more compelling.

Your job is to play with light and your subject, seeing what happens when the light changes.

What qualities are revealed in your subject in different light?

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

5. Photography is all about feeling

When we see a photo we really love it’s rarely only because it’s nice to look at.

Beyond the composition, color, light and all of the things that we can organize, there is a more important element to a photograph that is more elusive and hard to capture.

This element is emotion.

“Photography’s a case of keeping all the pores of the skin open, as well as the eyes. A lot of photographers today think that by putting on the uniform, the fishing vest, and all the Nikons, that that makes them a photographer. But it doesn’t. It’s not just seeing. It’s feeling.” – Don McCullin

When a subject stirs emotion in us – joy, love, fear – it will transfer into our photo. And when the viewer sees that image, we want that emotion to be evoked in them too.

Capturing emotion is an art, and it’s not automatic. But it’s totally worth focusing on. Find subjects that stir your emotion, and try to capture that feeling in your images.

The most iconic photos that we remember for years, or the ones that really speak to us personally, will be communicating a powerful feeling.

6. Be in awe

“Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” – Mary Oliver

If we think that photography is all about feeling then the most sensible option when deciding what to photograph is to find subjects that fill you with emotion.

I like to ask myself – what fills me with such deep excitement I am in total awe when I see it?

You can probably guess that light is what makes my heart burst with excitement and makes me want to get my camera out.

But there are other things too.

Exploring nature is always something that excites me. Spending days walking through the hills near where I live in Southern Spain, or through the pretty English countryside of my adopted homeland on a beautiful summer’s morning.

Cities too, especially at sunrise when they are empty and beautiful. I like to explore, wander and see what I come across.

It doesn’t matter though what your subject is, the most important part of your decision of what to photograph is that it has to be something that stirs your soul. It has to thrill you. It has to fill you with awe.

Otherwise, what’s the point of taking the photo?

7. Stop thinking

Now, the last step is often the hardest. We are trained from an early age to be in our heads. To be thinking and doing all the time.

However, if you want to hit that artistic mindset where you are present, connected to the world and in total creative flow, you will not be thinking or analyzing what’s happening around you.

“Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It’s self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can’t try to do things. You simply must do things” – Ray Bradbury

Once you have made the choices of when and what to shoot, then you can let yourself go.

Being an artist is losing yourself and becoming part of this magical and amazing world.

It’s daring to lose yourself to see what you can find. It’s being prepared to forget all the things that you have to do or worry about.

For this we have to be a little courageous, we have to experiment and try, we have to make mistakes and trust that we will take good photos (eventually). But –

“What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?” – Vincent Van Gogh

I hope you enjoyed these ideas.

I’d love to know if these sparked ideas or inspiration for you. Let me know in the comments below. Thanks!

The post Learning to See Like an Artist – 7 Powerful Techniques to Help You See More Compelling Images appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Anthony Epes.

Digital Photography School

Comments Off

Posted in Photography