RSS
 

Posts Tagged ‘Part’

Choosing a camera Part 2: is a bigger sensor better?

19 Apr

When looking at pixel size, we saw that there’s little difference between having a few large pixels and having lots of small ones, once you consider the whole image. This is because sensors have the opportunity to capture the same amount of light per-whole-image, regardless of how many pixels they have.

However, when looking for a new camera, there often is a way of getting more light and therefore better image quality: a larger sensor. This is because, at the same exposure settings, a large sensor is given the same amount of light per unit area, but has a greater sensor area capturing this light.

Key takeaways:

  • Two cameras* with the same exposure receive the same light per square mm, and larger sensors have more square mm.
  • Every object in your scene will be projected onto more square mm of the larger sensor if those two hypothetical cameras have the same field of view.
  • This means every object is described with more photons of light, which gives the potential for a cleaner image.
  • Differences in sensor performance mean one camera may over- or under-perform expectations but these differences are usually smaller than the differences made by changing formats.

The effect of sensor size:

In this instance we’re comparing the Nikon D810 and the Nikon D7000, which have the same sized pixels but different sized sensors. The D810 has a full-frame sensor that’s around 2.3x larger than the APS-C chip in the D7000.

ISO 1600
D810 whole frame
[Raw File]		 D7000
[Raw File]		 D810 (resized: 16MP)
[Raw File]
ISO 3200
D810 whole frame
[Raw File]		 D7000
[Raw File]		 D810 (resized: 16MP)
[Raw File]
ISO 6400
D810 whole frame
[Raw File]		 D7000
[Raw File]		 D810 (resized: 16MP)
[Raw File]
ISO 12800
D810 whole frame
[Raw File]		 D7000
[Raw File]		 D810 (resized: 16MP)
[Raw File]

As you might expect, the two cameras look similarly noisy at the pixel level because they received the same amount of light per square mm and each pixel is the same number of square mm.

But when you downscale the D810’s images (as you would if you wanted to view or print at the same size), the benefit of its bigger sensor starts to appear.

Compare the D810’s output to the D7000 image from one ISO setting lower and you’ll see they look very similar, but with the D810 still a fraction ahead. This is consistent with the 1.2EV difference that the sensor size difference would lead you to expect.

Size differences outweigh performance differences

If shot from the same position, using a lens with the same angle-of-view, every object in the scene will be captured by a greater area on a bigger sensor, so with the same exposure a larger sensor will have more photons shone on it to describe the scene. As such it will tend to look cleaner if you view them at the same size.

There will be some differences in how well each sensor design can turn these photons into a digital signal (even though most modern sensors are excellent), but there are fairly large gaps between most popular sensor sizes, and these size differences tend to be greater than the differences made by sensor performance.

Now this might sound like bigger is always better. But it’s not that simple…

Click here to read Part 3:
The trade-offs of sensor size

*Assuming you’re shooting the same thing ie. both cameras are in the same position and shooting with the same framing.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
Comments Off on Choosing a camera Part 2: is a bigger sensor better?

Posted in Uncategorized

 

Choosing a camera Part 3: the trade-offs of sensor size

18 Apr

We’ve already looked at the role played by pixel size and the benefits of a larger sensor. But, before you rush out to buy the camera with the biggest sensor you can, it’s worth bearing in mind that you won’t always see its full advantage.

Key takeaways:

  • For the same field-of-view, a larger format will have shallower depth-of-field at the same F-number.
  • Shallow depth-of-field can be a creative benefit, up to a point, but you sometimes need a certain depth-of-field.
  • You can stop down a large sensor camera to match the depth-of-field of a smaller one, but you end up with comparable image quality if you do.
  • All formats are a series of compromises and there is no correct balance to strike.

The depth-of-field trade-off

As we’ve seen, if you can achieve the same exposure settings, a larger sensor will have a chance to absorb more light and hence give better image quality. But achieving the same exposure value usually requires you to use the same f-number.

With the same f-number, a larger format will also have shallower depth-of-field, which will sometimes be desirable but other times not. Depending on your tastes and shooting style, shallow depth-of-field (and the additional light that usually comes with it) can be a valuable creative tool. But only up to a point, and not in all circumstances.

A ‘full-frame’ sensor tends to require large lenses but can capture lots of light. This extra light capture comes with shallow depth-of-field (for better or worse).

In situations where you need more depth-of-field it’s possible to stop down the lens on a large sensor camera, but doing so will reduce the amount of light available to your camera: at which point you’ll see the advantage over a smaller-sensor system begin to diminish (while still having to deal with the larger format’s size, weight and cost).

Bigger is usually better, but how much better do you need?

Also, the examples we’ve used were shot in relatively low light. In bright daylight, the image quality of many systems will readily exceed ‘good enough:’ even simple one-shot smartphones do a reasonable job in good light. And once you’re reached ‘good enough,’ any further improvement may not be worthwhile, or even perceptible. So, while a larger sensor will give the potential to receive more light and capture every tone with greater fidelity, that difference won’t always offer a visually appreciable benefit.

A smaller sensor can’t usually capture as much total light or compete in absolute image quality terms, but it can generally be smaller and more convenient as a result.

In the most simple terms, all systems involve trade-offs between size, price and image quality. The challenge is to understand the magnitude of these trade-offs, and choose the one that makes most sense for you and the types of photos you want to take.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
Comments Off on Choosing a camera Part 3: the trade-offs of sensor size

Posted in Uncategorized

 

Choosing a camera Part 1: should I worry about pixel size?

17 Apr

Pixels are the fundamental building blocks of digital photography: they are the individual elements that capture the light to make up your image. Higher pixel-count cameras promise better resolution but it’s often said that their smaller pixels result in noisier, less-clean images.

So does this mean you should look for fewer, bigger pixels when you buy your next camera?

Probably not. That’s because the idea that small pixels are noisier is only really true when you examine your images at pixel level. We’ve long passed the point where you only had enough pixels to fill your monitor. And even people making large prints will find that a 24MP camera provides far more resolution than needed for printing at A3 (11.7 x 16.3″).

Looking at the bigger picture

At which point, taking a more holistic, whole-image-level perspective on picture quality probably makes at least as much sense as worrying about the noisiness of your individual pixels.

Smaller pixels each receive less light than large ones, so will always individually be noisier (because for most photography, most of the noise comes from the amount of light you sample). But as soon as we have to scale our images to view or print them, this difference becomes much less significant or disappears entirely.

Key takeaways:

  • Larger pixels get more light during any given exposure, so are less noisy when viewed 1:1
  • Combining multiple small pixels cancels out most (or all) of this difference when viewed at the same size
  • For most applications you’ll end up downsizing your images, so there’s usually a resolution advantage but little (if any) downside to having more pixels

The effect of pixel size:

The Nikon D850 and the Sony a7S are both relatively modern full frame sensors, but they have very different pixel counts. Because they have the same sized sensor, this means the individual pixels on the 12MP a7S are much larger than the D850, which has a sensor made up of 48 million pixels.

The a7S is often described as being great in low light, but this is only true if you pixel peep.

Let’s see how they compare when scaled to the same size:

ISO 6400
D850 Full size
 [Raw File]		 a7S
 [Raw File]		 D850 (resized: 12MP)
[Raw File]
ISO 12800
D850 Full size
 [Raw File]		 a7S
 [Raw File]		 D850 (resized: 12MP)
[Raw File]
ISO 25600
D850 Full size
 [Raw File]		 a7S
 [Raw File]		 D850 (resized: 12MP)
[Raw File]
ISO 51200
D850 Full size
 [Raw File]		 a7S
 [Raw File]		 D850 (resized: 12MP)
[Raw File]

At the pixel level the a7S is much less noisy, as you’d expect with its larger pixels. But, at all but the very highest ISO settings, that advantage disappears when you compare them both at the same scale. The difference is that you usually retain some of the additional detail that the D850 captured.

We see this same pattern across almost all cameras. The only times we have seen any disadvantage to small pixels is in the very smallest pixels used in smartphones (and those often use multi-shot modes to overcome this) or in sensors that use unconventional sensor technologies.

The thing that’s much more likely to make a difference to your image quality is sensor size. We’ll look at this in the next part of this article series…

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
Comments Off on Choosing a camera Part 1: should I worry about pixel size?

Posted in Uncategorized

 

How to Prepare Images For Publication – Part One

14 Apr

The post How to Prepare Images For Publication – Part One appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Herb Paynter.

It is a known fact that images viewed on computer monitors don’t always match what comes out of inkjet printers. This is because the color pixels captured by digital cameras are defined quite differently than the pixels portrayed on the computer monitor and the monitor’s pixels differ quite significantly from the ink patterns that are literally sprayed onto the paper.

But even though both inkjet printers and printing presses both use CMYK inks, the images printed on inkjet printers usually don’t produce the same appearance when printed in publications. This is quite true, but why?

Color images are displayed differently on each device because the technologies for each medium use different processes; monitors (left), inkjet (middle), and halftones (right).

The answer to this mystery eludes many of today’s magazine publishers and even many publication printers. This is a problem that the digital imaging community (photographers, image editors, and pre-press operators) have struggled with for decades. Color Management Professionals (CMPs) undergo rigorous color science studies to understand how to maintain the same look in color images that are reproduced on different substrates and a variety of printing processes. Since you may want to produce your images in print, we’ll look at a synopsis of what the challenges are and some surefire ways to produce the results you’re looking for.

First and foremost, cameras and monitors capture and project color images as RGB light but all ink-based printers must convert these RGB colors into CMYK colors behind the scene! Even though you send RGB files to your inkjet printer, the printer doesn’t rely on RGB inks to produce all the colors in the prints. RGB colors are for projecting colors while CMYK colors are used to print colors.

Projected colors are always viewed in RGB while printed colors are always produced from some formulation of CMYK inks. That’s simply how color science works. Printers don’t print the RGB colors directly. While you send RGB images to your inkjet printer, it converts those colors into some form of CMYK during the printing process. Even when you send an RGB file to your eight-color printer, the base CMYK colors are augmented by slight amounts of Photo Cyan, Photo Magenta, Red, and Green colors. However, there has been one printer (the Oce´ LightJet) that produced color prints from RGB, but it didn’t use printing inks… it was a photographic printer that exposed photographic paper and film using RGB light. This printer is no longer manufactured.

Each printing process utilizes a unique pattern to express the variable tones between solid and white.

Viva le difference

The inkjet printing process is completely different from the print reproduction process. As a matter of fact, the two systems are overtly dissimilar. If your images are headed for print and you are not sure of which printing process will be utilized, you might be headed for trouble. Here’s why.

The possible surfaces for inkjet printing vary wildly and include everything from paper to wood, from metal to fabric, and on virtually every surface and texture in-between. To accommodate this range of printing applications, inkjet “inks” are liquid rather than solid, so they can be applied to varied surfaces and substrates.

Dots versus spots. The peanut butter consistency of press inks and the well-defined shapes of the halftone dots used by the printing industry differ significantly from the liquid inks and less defined “micro-dot” dithering used by the inkjet printing process.

The color spots produced by inkjet printing systems may include more than a dozen colors and are liquid to accommodate almost any surface. Printing press dots are well-defined symmetrical shapes and are much thicker consistency to accommodate the high-speed transfer to paper. Both inks are translucent because they must blend to create other colors.

The extremely small inkjet droplets appear more like a mist than a defined pattern; each pixel value (0-255) creating a metered amount of microscopic spots so small that the human eye perceives them as continuous tones. Due to the smoothness of the tones and graduations of color, inkjet images require a bit of sharpening to deliver detail (detail remember is a product of contrast, and contrast is not a natural inkjet strength).

Dot structure of halftone images (left) and color dither pattern (right).

Both the inkjet and publication systems convert the RGB (red, green, and blue) values of each pixel into equivalent CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) values before printing those colors onto paper. However, after the color conversion, the two processes take decidedly different paths to deliver ink on paper.

While printing presses use grid-based, well-defined dots that are impressed into paper surfaces, inkjet printers utilize micro-dot patterns sprayed onto surfaces. The same image may appear in several different forms during the reproduction process. Original image (far left), digital pixel (near left), printed halftone (near right) and Inkjet dither (far right)

Publications use the geometric structure of halftone dots to interpret pixel values as tonal values on paper surfaces. Each pixel produces up to four overprinted color halftone dots. These halftones dots translate darker values of each color into large dots and lighter values into smaller dots. The full range of darkest-to-lightest tones produce dots that vary in size depending on the press and paper being printed.

To avoid the visually annoying conflict that occurs when geometric grids collide (called a moire pattern), each CMYK grid pattern is set on a very carefully calculated angle. The positive advantage that inkjet images have over halftone images is that the image resolution required for inkjet prints is significantly less than the resolution required by the halftone process employed by publication images.

However, the most important issues to address with print have to do with color fidelity and tonal reproduction. The difference in the way inkjet images and publication images are prepared makes a huge difference in the way the images appear when they come out the delivery end of the process.

Inkjet printers are like ballet dancers while printing presses are more like Sumo wrestlers; not unlike chamber music versus thunder roll. One is quiet, graceful and articulate, the other noisy, violent and powerful.

The biggest difference between the two processes can be seen in the highlight and shadow areas. Inkjet inks are sprayed onto substrates through a very controlled matrix of 720-1440 spots per inch using a slow and measured inches-per-minute process. Publication presses smash ink into the paper under extreme pressure, at speeds measured in images-per-minute, translating the entire tonal range into a limited geometric matrix of just 150 variable-size dots per inch. Publication presses are huge, high-speed, rotary rubber stamps.

Inkjet printers carefully step the paper through the machine in an extremely precise manner while the printing press shows no such restraint. Presses display an amazing ability to control the placement and transfer of images in spite of the blazing speed of the process.

You might be able to dress a Hippopotamus in a tutu, but you can’t expect it to pirouette. There are simply physical limitations. At production speeds, the shadow details suffer, delicate highlights tend to drop-off rather abruptly, and the middle tones print darker. The printing industry is aware of this dot gain issues and compensates for them with G7 process controls and compensation plate curves, but the beast remains a beast.

There’s a pretty good chance that both color and tonal detail will be unwittingly lost in the printing process if nominally prepared images are sent to press. Having spent many years of my career in both photo labs and the pressroom, I can assure you that detail in both the lightest portions and darkest areas (and placement of the middle tones) will need special attention to transfer all the detail on the press. Highlights get flattened, and shadows get closed more easily because of the high speeds and extreme pressures involved.

This means that images destined for print must exhibit more internal contrast in the quarter tones (between middle tones and highlights) and three-quarter tones (between middle tones and shadows as well as a slight adjustment to the middle tones to reproduce at their best. I’m sure I will hear some disagreement about this from some publishers, but as a former pressman, I know that images that do not get some special attention usually print somewhat flat.

The image on the left might look good as a print, but it would reproduce poorly on a press. The shadow areas would get even darker and lose all detail. The image on the right will darken slightly in the lower tones producing an excellent result in print. White balance is also critical in publication printing. Compensating for the unavoidable effects of the press always pays off.

There is a cardinal rule in printed publications that states that even areas of the whitest whites and darkest darks must contain dots. The only “paper white” should be specular (light reflecting from glass or chrome) and even pure black doesn’t print solid black; everything contains dots. Unlike inkjet printers, printing presses cannot hold (or print) dots smaller than 2-3% value (247). Dots smaller than this never make it onto the paper. This is why additional internal contrast is needed on both ends of the tonal range.

Photographers certainly know their way around cameras and software (Lightroom or Photoshop), and they understand color and tonality as it relates to mechanical prints. They are also accustomed to references to RGB (red, green, and blue) colors and may even understand how inkjet printers work, but very few are familiar with the behavior and limitations of huge printing presses. The analogy of ballet dancers versus Sumo wrestlers is an accurate one.

Photographers understand fine art prints and image editing software though few see their photos through the eyes of pressmen. But perhaps they should!

There is a significant difference between preparing photos for inkjet printers and preparing images for publication presses. The publication RGB-vs-CMYK conversion thing differs significantly from inkjet conversion in color gamut, image saturation, and tonal reproduction.

When an image is captured, it can potentially possess more than 4000 tones per (RGB) color. That’s a whole bunch of possible colors. But the sobering factor is that all printing processes reduce those possible 4000 tones down to a mere 256 tones per RGB color before any ink hits the paper. Obviously, the post-processing tone and color shaping of camera images are super-critical! Simply put, how the photographer shapes all that data before it is ready for print determines how much detail and clarity will get printed on the pages of the magazine.

Once again, the top picture would print great on an inkjet printer but would lose very critical detail on a press. Compensation for the unavoidable effects of the press is always advised. In Part 2 of this series, I’ll show you exactly what adjustments were made to this photo. Additional sharpening also helps compensate for the slight blurriness of the halftone process.

The old adage “start with the end in mind” comes clearly into focus here. No matter how much data is captured by the digital camera, the publication press is the ultimate arbiter of tones and colors, and deserves the loudest voice in the conversation. The color gamut of CMYK conversion is even more restricted than the basic sRGB gamut of Internet images, making this post-processing exercise perhaps the most precarious scenario of them all. If you ignore the special attention needed for magazine images, don’t expect the images to pop off the page. Ignore the press’s advice, and you’ll pay the price in both detail and color reproduction.

In the follow-up article entitled “Preparing Images for Publication Part 2,” I’ll reveal the literal “trade secrets” for producing great publication images.

 

Preparing Images for Publication - Part one

The post How to Prepare Images For Publication – Part One appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Herb Paynter.


Digital Photography School

 
Comments Off on How to Prepare Images For Publication – Part One

Posted in Photography

 

How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time. Part Two: Managing Your Exposure

11 Apr

The post How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time. Part Two: Managing Your Exposure appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kevin Landwer-Johan.

Part Two – Managing Your Exposure

This is the second article in a series of three discussing how to make well-exposed photographs. The first article covers subject choice, some common misconceptions about exposure and the photographer’s intention.

How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time Thai Dancer

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

Having identified your subject, managing your exposure then matters most. These things will influence how your photograph is exposed:

  • Point of view
  • Lens choice
  • Timing
  • Reading the light
  • Exposure settings

You’ll notice that I’ve placed ‘Exposure settings’ at the bottom of this list. This is because it’s the most obvious aspect of managing your exposure. I want you to consider how the other items on the list affect your exposure setting choices.

Point of view

Where you choose to take your photo from can significantly affect your exposure. Is the light behind you? Behind your subject? To one side?

By changing your position you can manage what you see in the background and how it impacts the amount of light entering your lens.

How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time Giant Soap Bubbles

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

In this photo, the reflection off the water makes up a large portion of the background. Had I not been careful with my exposure my subject may have been underexposed. In this photo, I compensated for the bright background by adding some fill flash.

How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time Giant Soap Bubbles

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

Changing my point of view so I no longer included the lake in the background meant I could expose my subject well. The reflected light off the water surface no longer affected my exposure. In this photo, I did not need to use my flash as there was no strong backlight to compensate for.

Lens choice

Composition is partly governed by your choice of lens. Using a telephoto lens will include less background. In doing this, you can restrict light sources and bright areas of your composition more easily. With a wider lens, you are more likely to include more sky or other bright areas which can have some effect on your exposure.

How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time Rice Fields

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

Had I used a wider lens for my photo of these rice fields I would have included the setting sun in my composition. This would definitely have a strong impact on my exposure and the whole look and feel of my photo.

I could have eliminated the effect of the sun altogether by using a lens focal length that was slightly longer. I could have also tilted my camera down slightly, but the foreground was unattractive, and I like the sunburst.

Timing

The time you choose to make your photograph can also influence your exposure. It may mean waiting until the sun is in a different place in the sky for a landscape photo. Or you may have to calculate when to press your shutter release to avoid bright headlights of a passing car. This was the case when I photographed the image below.

How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time On the Iron Bridge

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

The timing for blue hour photos is particularly important. You must wait for the ambient light to balance with any other light source you have in your frame. This amount of time will vary depending on your proximity to the equator.

In Chiang Mai, Thailand, we have about ten minutes each evening to capture a rich blue sky with the electric lights included in the composition.

How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time Chiang Mai Iron Bridge

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

Reading the light

To be able to set your exposure you must use an exposure meter or let your camera make the calculations and settings for you.

Leaving this choice completely up to your camera is rarely best as your camera does not know what you are photographing. Your photos will potentially lack creativity.

Your camera has amazing artificial intelligence built into it, but it cannot see the way you see and discern what your main subject is. By leaving your camera settings so the meter is set to take an averaged reading and is on any auto or semi-auto mode, your camera is in control. You can use exposure compensation or set your camera manually to take control of your exposure.

One of the easiest ways to read the light is by using live view and looking at your monitor. Some cameras do not have this capability, so you need to consult your manual and do some testing to discover if you can use this method.

Checking your exposure with live view works when you have your camera set to manual mode. It’s easy to watch the light values on your monitor changes as you alter your aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. Using this method in conjunction with your histogram is recommended so you can check if there’s any clipping happening.

Using your exposure meter set so it takes a reading from the entire frame and then calculates an average exposure is okay when the light and tone is even.

When there’s any amount of contrast in the scene it’s good to take a spot meter reading directly from your subject. This will provide you with the specific information about the light reflecting off the most important part of your composition.

How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time Opening the Windows

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

For this photograph, I took a spot meter reading from the Buddhist nun, as I wanted her exposed well. Had I left my meter on the averaging mode it would have included the bright light outside and the dark interior into its calculations. This would most likely indicate a setting which would have rendered my main subject underexposed.

Exposure settings

Once you have made your exposure reading and ascertained how the light is affecting your composition, you need to set your exposure.

You may decide your subject will be well exposed by setting your aperture, shutter speed, and ISO so the meter reads zero. You may prefer to have it read overexposed or underexposed, depending on the tone value of your subject and your creative expression.

When your subject is very dark or very light, you may want to alter your exposure settings to compensate. When you take a spot meter reading the camera is calibrated to see the thing as being middle gray. This means a black or a white subject will both appear gray in your photo if your meter is reading zero.

You must decide the tone you want your main subject to be. Do you want a clearly exposed subject? Will it look better if it appears brighter than it really is? Do you want a silhouette?

For this photo of pink orchid flowers, I chose to overexpose from the reading my spot meter was giving me. I did this to produce a softer feeling in the image.

How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time Pink Flowers

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

Had I been making the photograph to document the flower and its color accurately, I would not have overexposed it. My intent was not to make a technically accurate representation of the flower.

If technical accuracy is what I wanted I would have changed my point of view to avoid the backlighting. I would have set my exposure so the color and tone rendered correctly to how the flower looked to my eyes.

Try it out and see for yourself

Find a white or black subject to photograph. Make a spot meter reading and set your exposure so that the meter is at zero. Take a photo.

Now, for a black subject, change your setting so the spot metering indicates it is two stops underexposed. For a white subject make your settings so it’s two stops overexposed.

Which photograph is most appealing? The ‘correctly’ exposed photo, or the under or overexposed photo?

How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time Laughing Lady

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

Conclusion

Experimentation is always good when lighting and subject material are challenging. If you’re not 100% certain you have a perfect exposure, (I never am,) make a series of photos whenever you can.

Tweak your aperture and/or shutter speed settings between each exposure. Don’t make huge shifts in these settings, but just enough so you have a few options to look at when it comes to post-process them.

I’d love you to leave your comments below letting me know if this article has helped you understand exposure better.

The next article in this series will cover post-processing techniques which will enhance your exposure choices.

The post How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time. Part Two: Managing Your Exposure appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kevin Landwer-Johan.


Digital Photography School

 
Comments Off on How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time. Part Two: Managing Your Exposure

Posted in Photography

 

How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time. Part 1 – Seeing the Light

03 Apr

The post How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time. Part 1 – Seeing the Light appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kevin Landwer-Johan.

Part One – Seeing the Light

Opinions about what a correctly exposed photograph is must be about as numerous as what people choose to take pictures of. Some opinions are more common than others.

‘Every photograph must contain an even range of tone with no details lost in the highlight or shadow areas.’ This is the one I encounter most frequently. It’s probably been learned from technical books and academics.

Durian How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

Performing a quick Google search on this topic brings up the Canon Australia website with this:

“The act of having ‘correct’ exposure means your combination of settings between aperture, shutter speed, and ISO speed have produced a perfectly exposed image. When nothing is blown out (highlights) or lost in shadow in an image, it has achieved correct exposure.”

I’m not including this quote to get at Canon users or Aussies, (even though I am a Nikon user and a Kiwi,) but because it represents a purely technical approach to exposure choice.

How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time Flower and Moss

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

How can creative expression be judged as correct?

Photography, at its best, is a creative expression of how we perceive what we see. Our world view is unique. Each of us has the ability to interpret and convey our experience through the photographs we capture.

Freedom to expose our photos so some parts of our compositions have no recorded detail is a natural part of this art form. If our minds are boxed in by technical restraints such as are expressed on the Canon Australia website, our expression is inhibited.

I’m not suggesting we disregard technical quality – this would be like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I am recommending you reach beyond purely technical restraints to expose your photos so that they are more expressive of what they are about, not just what they are of.

Conforming to the opinion that photographs are best when no details get lost due to exposure choice can provide documentation of what you are photographing. This approach to taking pictures will not often infuse your photographs with much life, emotion, or energy, apart from what your subject may naturally provide.

Histogram bells taste like Vanilla ice cream

Vanilla ice cream – enjoyable sometimes – but plain nonetheless. You are likely to get bored with it if that’s all you eat. It’s not the most exciting flavor at the ice cream parlor.

A bell-shaped histogram indicates your camera has recorded a lot of mid-range tones and little or no extreme dark or light ones.

Striving for a bell-shaped histogram is not going to produce the most flavorsome photographs. At times you’ll make a great image that’s got a bell-shaped histogram, but not often.

I believe it’s a common myth that the ideal histogram is bell-shaped.

 

Even Exposure Buddha Statue How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time

You can see that the histogram for this image is reasonably balanced. There are no spikes to the left or right. This indicates we will see detail in the darkest and brightest parts of the composition.

I took the photo mid-afternoon on an overcast day. Because the light was soft and even, and the tones in my composition are all fairly neutral, I have obtained a ‘correct’ exposure.

How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time Contrast-Buddha-Statue

Subscribing to the ideal of the bell shape, you might look at this histogram and think the photo is extremely underexposed. You might even consider deleting such an image based on this information alone.

It is the same statue photographed on a sunny day in the mid-afternoon. It’s a much more appealing photograph than the one made on the overcast afternoon.

It was my intention to lose shadow detail. I wanted to isolate the statue from the dull background and add some drama.

Exposure choices are as personal as ice cream preferences

How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time Chocolate Ice Cream

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

Seeking to only create photos with an even exposure throughout the tone range is like choosing to eat just vanilla ice cream and always ignoring all the other flavors.

Great photographs express what the photographer sees and experiences. Sometimes they are technically correct, many times they aren’t. It all comes back to the intent of the photographer.

Choosing to let most of your composition fall into darkness is your choice. If you want to use the shadow areas to enhance your subject, then do it. If light streaming into your lens from behind your subject creates softness and depth of feeling, let it happen.

Don’t just focus on the technical details. You will usually end up with photos containing little or no feeling.

Before you bring your camera up to your eye, you need to see the light. Consider the brightest parts of a scene. Are they important? Do you need to show detail in them to convey what you want to with your photo?

Likewise for the dark areas of your photo – if there are a lot of distracting elements in the shadow areas – let them be buried in the darkness.

How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time Woman Tourist with an Elephant

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

Behind the woman and elephant was a large, open building casting a helpful shadow over its messy interior. By positioning myself so I could only see the shaded area behind my subjects, I knew I could isolate them. I set my exposure for the woman’s face, as it’s the most important part of my composition.

The fact that the background is dark and contains no detail helps make my photo stronger.

Understanding light and tone will help you make more interesting exposures. Knowing how your camera evaluates and records light and tone is equally as important. How to manage your exposure is the topic of the next article in this series.

What’s the most important element in your composition?

Recognizing your key subject is an important early decision in taking a photo. Most often it will be your first.

This will be what you focus on and what you want to expose well, (usually). If your subject has a wide tonal range – say a bride in a white dress and a groom in a black suit – be careful. Your camera will not be able to render detail both in the dress and the suit because the tones are extremely different.

Likewise, if part of your subject is in bright sun and part is in the shade, you will need to choose your exposure carefully. The contrast created by sunlight and shade is also extreme.

Discerning your primary subject helps you compose everything in your frame around it. Exposing it well helps make it the center of attention in your photograph.

How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time Fancy Kaftan

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

What mood do you want to capture or create?

To me, the answer to this question is more important to focus on than trying to obtain a full tonal range in my photographs.

The type of light you’re photographing in will influence the feeling in your photographs. So will your exposure choice. Is the light bright and hard, or soft and gentle? Should you set your exposure so you can see all the detail in the shadows or chose to let them become very dark and contain little or no detail?

Letting your camera make these choices for you, by not controlling your exposure, your photos may become flat and somewhat lifeless. By taking control and exposing your main subject well you can infuse story, drama, and imagination.

How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time Karen Grandpa

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

I have a mantra of sorts. Look. Think. Click.

Look at what you want to photograph. See what is before you. Your subject, it’s surroundings and the background. The light.

Think about how you want to portray your subject. What is your intention?

How much or how little do you want to include? What will fill your frame?

What quality is the light and how will it affect your photo?

Where will you stand or position yourself?

When will be the best time to take your photo?

Which exposure settings will you choose to best suit your intention?

Click. This should only happen once you have thought these things through.

How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time Chedi

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

It may seem a whole lot to do before taking a photograph, but this is what makes the difference between a snapshot and an image you may want to have framed and hang on your wall.

In the next article in this series, I will cover how to manage your camera settings to match your intent.

The post How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time. Part 1 – Seeing the Light appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kevin Landwer-Johan.


Digital Photography School

 
Comments Off on How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time. Part 1 – Seeing the Light

Posted in Photography

 

A Beginners Guide to Taking Portraits of Elderly Clients: Part 2 – Lighting and Posing

23 Mar

The post A Beginners Guide to Taking Portraits of Elderly Clients: Part 2 – Lighting and Posing appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Clinton Moore.

Welcome to part two in our series on photographing older clients. In part one, we looked at rapport building and the practical aspects of preparing for your shoot. In this article, you’ll learn about lighting and posing techniques to enhance your photos of elderly subjects.

Lighting older clients utilizes most of the same lighting principles that you apply to younger clients, but there are a few extra tricks that will ensure a stress-free and flattering shoot.

Lighting practicalities

For this article, we’re going to assume that you are shooting at the subject’s home – often a requirement when shooting older clients. This means that you won’t have access to a full studio setup and will have to improvise based on space.

Lost in space

If you’re lucky, your older client may still be in the old family home with beautiful high ceilings so you can set up and bounce light to your heart’s content. Unfortunately, many will have downsized and are often in smaller apartments. Others may be in nursing homes with less space than your average bathroom and have everything they own crammed within this space.

In tight spaces, the best bet is to try and get outside. However, this is not always possible for less mobile clients.

Also remember, if you’re doing a shoot in a nursing or retirement home, you’ll possibly need to gain permission from the village manager. There’s a lot of protection around older residents (and rightfully so), which means the home is not likely to take kindly to a stranger turning up unannounced and taking photos of vulnerable people.

This is not one of those situations where it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to get permission first!

Flash versus continuous lighting

As a photographer, flash is probably your go-to for artificial lighting when outside the studio, but take a moment to consider continuous lighting. While a strobe is more portable and powerful than most affordable continuous lights, they can be quite disorienting for older clients – particularly those with dementia. The last thing you want is to distress the person you’re hoping to make a smile.

With the affordable price of LED lighting these days, continuous lighting is now incredibly accessible and has the added benefit of remaining cool for your client as opposed to older lights. Advances in chip-on-board LED technology also means you don’t have to worry about heavy and expensive HMI lights when you want that classic Fresnel look.

Soft versus hard light

The aim of the shoot will determine your lighting style.

It’s going to be rare to hear an older person say “please make me look old and grizzled,” so your aim is likely to create a flattering image of your subject by leaning towards soft, highly-diffused light. You can achieve this by using light from large light sources such as softboxes and umbrellas. The bigger the source, the better! You want that light to wrap around their face.

Unless it’s the desired look, contrast is your enemy when photographing elderly people as it accentuates their wrinkles and any other parts that are sagging. This might be great for gritty street photography, but it’s unlikely an older person wants you to portray them like that in a paid portrait.

Think less George Hurrell, more Anne Geddes (but leave the flower pot at home).

Of course, the final decision should always come from a mixture of trying to convey your client’s personality and meeting the brief agreed upon in your pre-shoot consultation.

Lighting setups

We’ll look at two classic lighting setups which aim to create a flattering portrait. While there are limitless portrait lighting options, not all will work with older clients due to wrinkles, sagging, and posture issues.

3-point lighting

The classic three-point lighting setup provides you with a huge amount of flexibility to sculpt the subject’s face in a flattering light.

For older clients, aim to have your key light only a little stronger than your fill light. This reduces contrast and provide a more flattering light that wraps around the face. Fill light is your friend when it comes to older clients.

Short lighting (left) generally provides a more flattering photo for an elderly subject than broad lighting (right).

Although you’ll be using more fill than normal, it’s still important to be aware of the effects of short and broad lighting, as aging isn’t always kind to the face shape. You can use short lighting to make a wide face appear more slender. This is usually the more flattering option for older faces.

Broad lighting can add some width to a skinnier face, but it tends also add more emphasis on wrinkles.

For older clients, it can also pay to lower your lights a little more than you might with a young client. The shadows cast by higher lights emphasize wrinkles and sagging skin.

Placing the lights higher as you might do with a younger client can create shadows that highlight features such as wrinkles and crow’s feet.

By lowering the lights, the face softens, and you can fill in the eyes which tend to sink with age. It never hurts to throw a reflector under the subject’s chin to lift the shadows.

Dropping your key light by just a small amount can have a dramatic difference to the final image.

You will then get a final shot that creates a warm and inviting portrait.

Combining all the changes and tossing in a reflector under the subject’s chin creates a final image that presents them in favorable light.

Clamshell lighting

Clamshell lighting can create a very dramatic look, but with large diffused light sources it can also light an older face in a flattering way while still providing a dynamic effect.

In this setup, we have a large softbox angled at 45-degrees acting as the key and an umbrella as the fill. You may also want to experiment with a beauty dish as the key light for a more striking look.

The clamshell is a simple setup and can be achieved with just one key light and a reflector to act as fill if need be.

While exposing correctly is a no-brainer no matter how you’re lighting, it goes double for a clamshell setup as excessive underlighting creates a ghoulish look like something out of a horror movie. A safe way to avoid this can be to use a simple reflector or bounce board as your fill if you’re not comfortable with setting exposure on artificial lights.

Failing to set your fill light correctly will result in underlighting that creates a scary look unlikely to be desired by your client.

As you can see, by reducing the fill light to a little more than half the exposure of the key light, you get a more balanced look.

Ensuring that you have your fill light set lower than your key light will create the classic clamshell look.

Combined with good posing, this lighting setup can provide a great option for taking a square-on image of an older person. The resulting shot can convey an introspective, but intimate feel.

By exposing correctly and positioning your client beautifully you will get a final shot that has a great introspective feel.

 

Elderly portrait idiosyncrasies

Although having a couple of basic lighting setups will get you 80% of the way to photographing elderly clients, there are still a few little hurdles to be aware of that may otherwise cause chaos on your shoot.

Glasses and reflections

Glasses are the bane of your existence when working with elderly clients. A pair of spectacles loves nothing more than to capture the reflection of your lights. And God help you if you’re dealing with bifocals!

Glasses! Guaranteed to destroy any portrait without some planning.

You can always ask your subject to remove their glasses completely, but many will feel that they look wrong without their glasses after having worn them for so many years.

Managing glasses always requires a bit of compromise to bring your client’s eyes back into the image, but three of the best options are:

1. Tilt Down – Ask you subject to tilt their glasses down just a little. This can be combined with tilting their head down as well. Don’t go overboard with this unless you want them to look like Santa or a librarian.

You will largely remove the reflections by asking your subject to lower their chin and tilt their glasses down. However, be careful not to overdo it!

2. Raise Your Lights – Raising your lights a little higher reduces the chance of picking up a reflection. Of course, the trade-off here is that you will get more shadows. It can help to balance the change with a reflector.

Raising the lights resolves the reflections issue, but creates a new dilemma due to the heavy shadows that now appear.

3. Lensless Glasses – Possibly the best solution. Bring along a pair of glasses with the lenses removed. Hey presto, no more reflections to worry about. The issue here, of course, is that they may not be the style of glasses that work with your subject’s face.

Managing baldness

Sure it happens to younger folks as well, but if you’re photographing older clients, you’re going to encounter a lot of bald heads. The issue here is that a bald head will act like a big reflective surface and create a hot spot.

To resolve this:

1. Lower Your Lights – by lowering the height of your lights you reduce the reflections on their head. Of course, the problem here becomes the balancing act that has to take place if your subject also happens to be wearing glasses!

2. Remove Rim Lights – When dealing with baldness it’s worth considering doing away with your rim light entirely. Find alternate ways to separate your subject from the background.

3. Powder – Having some neutral powder on hand is always handy to reduce the shine of a bald head. If you’ve got a particularly proud male that won’t wear “makeup,” take a photo without any powder applied and show them the attention drawn to their head.

Exposing hair

Jumping back to the 3-point lighting setup, this all comes down to the rim light. As mentioned above, the rim light is the enemy of the bald head. However, it also wreaks havoc with grey hair. Be extra careful not to overexpose with grey hair as you will quickly blow the highlights much more easily than you would with colored hair.

Posing older clients

Posing older clients is tricky because, as we discussed in part one, there is a range of what constitutes being “elderly.” People around 65 years of age will probably be able to do many of your standard poses with great results. However, significantly older clients may have restricted mobility and health issues that prevent them from standing for long periods.

Stools are for fools

Assuming you are working with a client over the age of 80, it’s best to consider basing your shoot around them sitting down. The first thing to do is turf that stool that you use with your younger clients.

Older clients need the back support of a chair and could fall off something as unstable as a stool. They also may not have the core strength to support themselves on a stool leading to some very bad slumping.

Clients over the age of 80 with mobility issues are also likely to have recliner style chairs that they can easily disappear into.

Shooting front-on with your client in a large chair or recliner will tend to make them look small and wider if they are allowed to sink back.

Shooting this image, particularly front-on, will make the client appear small and can have an unflattering effect on their thighs (which will spread when seated in this manner).

To remedy this issue prop your client up with some pillows to create a better posture. If the client is quite frail, ask a family member to do this so that you don’t cause any harm.

Place pillows behind the client or ask them to sit towards the edge of the chair to shift their posture.

By bringing the client forward and focusing on the head and shoulders framing, the resulting image is more flattering.

By moving the client forward they will be less likely to slump resulting in a more flattering image.

Safe and secured gear

One of the major causes of injury in elderly people is falling over. Often they will be very used to everything being set up in their home a particular way. As such, moving furniture around and bringing in big gear can pose problems.

Firstly, only move furniture with their permission and, of course, put it back when you’re done! Ensure that you’ve left a clear path to the front door and the toilet in case of emergencies.

Secondly, secure your gear! At the very least put sandbags on your light stands and tripod. If you’re using anything that has cords, pull out that gaffer tape and stick it down.

Sandbag those lights and gaffer those cords so that you don’t end up responsible for a trip to the E.R.

An uninjured client is a happy client, so take those extra few minutes to make sure the area is safe.

Flattering posing angles

Great, you’ve got everything setup safely, now it’s time to pose your client.

Again, assuming you are dealing with a client who is older than 75, posing is about compromises.

Few people look great square-on, so start by asking your client to turn their body slightly away from the camera. Next, ask the client to turn their head back to the camera with their body facing the key light.

It’s often best to avoid having older clients tilt their head as this can cause bunching of the skin under the neck. Instead, keep the head perpendicular to the body and focus on asking them to push their jaw slightly forward to stretch their neck.

If your client is really concerned about their neck wrinkles, it will be best to shoot from slightly above the client and ask them to angle their chin down. Similarly, if a male client is worried about baldness, shooting from slightly lower than eye level reduces the focus on their head.

For clients who are unable to shift their neck or body due to age, a front-on shot can still be flattering, but you will want to try and shift the weight forward.

Move your subject as close to the edge of the chair as is safe while supporting their back. Clients who struggle to support their weight may benefit from placing their hands on their thighs

Prop the client up with pillows behind their back and ask if they are able to place their hands on their knees to support their weight while leaning forward a tad. Experiment with placement on the knees and thighs to find the position that allows for the most natural shoulder alignment.

Conclusion

Photographing elderly clients is a great way to bring together all of your basic lighting and posing principles with a few extra challenges thrown in to boot!

Experimentation is always key as you will have to work with the physical restrictions of your client’s age and the practical limitations of their home. By having a clear idea of your client’s expectations, the two of you can find a way to achieve an image that makes everyone happy.

Moreover, remember that sometimes they’ve earned those wrinkles and are damn proud of it!

The post A Beginners Guide to Taking Portraits of Elderly Clients: Part 2 – Lighting and Posing appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Clinton Moore.


Digital Photography School

 
Comments Off on A Beginners Guide to Taking Portraits of Elderly Clients: Part 2 – Lighting and Posing

Posted in Photography

 

A Beginners Guide to Taking Portraits of Elderly Clients: Part 1 – Preparation and Rapport

17 Mar

The post A Beginners Guide to Taking Portraits of Elderly Clients: Part 1 – Preparation and Rapport appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Clinton Moore.

1 - Taking Portraits of Elderly Clients

You often hear it said that outstanding photography is about storytelling. An image may not have perfect lighting ratios or razor sharpness, but if it connects with you that can be all that matters.

Working with elderly clients can be the ultimate storytelling journey as these folks have experience in spades!

In this first of a two-part series on working with elderly clients, we’ll explore the practical and rapport building aspects of creating a story through the click of a shutter. Part two focuses on lighting and posing techniques.

How old is old?

2 - Taking Portraits of Elderly Clients

Remember that there is a spectrum of seniors. Most do not think of themselves as frail or grizzled. Get to know your stereotypes and your subject.

One place where your point of view can get in the way of a great image is generalizations around age. You’ve fallen into this trap the minute you conceptualize your client as “old” or “elderly.”

They tend to hate these terms. Can you blame them?

It’s important to step back and remember that there is a spectrum of the elderly. A 65-year-old is probably going to be at a different place in their life, both physically and mentally, to a 90-year-old. This includes everything from their health and mobility to their attitude about what they desire in a portrait.

Just try getting a 90-year-old to go for a brisk walk down the beach at dusk as you do in your standard family portraits.

Step back and remember that you need to get to know where your client is at before you even pick up your camera. After all, age is a state of mind.

Rapport building

Older clients tend to take a bit more time to photograph. They’ve been around the block a few times, and they want to get to know you a bit first. Also, they’re generally not trained models looking for a glamour shot for their Instagram feed.

For them, a photograph is an event, not an addiction.

3 - Taking Portraits of Elderly Clients

Older generations may only have had one formal photograph in their lives. Don’t assume they will be comfortable around the camera just because they’re there.

Communicate their way

You may be used to connecting through a world of emails and social media, but this isn’t always the case for older clients. For many older clients, their first instinct will be to pick up the phone (and we’re not even talking about a cell/mobile half the time!).

So be sure to place your phone number prominently on your website and any other form of marketing. This creates a sense of trust that you’re not going to just run off with their money.

Of course, many older clients do have email but may likely hold you to a higher standard of communication than you are used to on social media. Make sure you address them formally (i.e. “Dear John”), don’t use modern abbreviations or slang, and please check your spelling and grammar!

Creating comfort

When shooting a portrait, comfort should be your number one priority regardless of your client’s age. However, for older clients, you may have to do a little more than just making bad jokes from behind the lens.

Take the time to meet with your client before the shooting date. Sit down with them and be willing to share a bit of your personal story. This means more than just your shooting style. Tell them about where you come from, your family, or your interests.

This old school type of business approach might seem a little strange if you’re used to more modern online interactions. However, for older clients, it builds trust.

Try to keep in mind that older generations didn’t grow up with cameras being thrust in their face every second of the day. So your first job is really to make them feel safe. It’s entirely possible that the photo shoot was the idea of their children, and the client themselves may not be entirely on board.

So be sure to make them feel comfortable. Communicate your process and timeline clearly, and then stick to it!

4 - Taking Portraits of Elderly Clients

Sitting down with your client can be the most interesting part of the whole process. Take the time to do it right.

Understand their goal

Who paid for the shoot? One of the tough parts about working with older people is that they may not actually be the client!

If their children are footing the bill, understand what they want from the session in addition to the older persons desired outcomes. Often this is going to be a case of compromise. This highlights the importance of communication and preparation.

Now assuming the older person is your client, the first step is to determine how they want to be portrayed. While this should be standard practice regardless of age, there are a few areas here that can trip you up.

If they’re quite old, this portrait could be the photo destined for the tombstone. No one will say it out loud, but people may be thinking it. As such, family members might have differing, but strong opinions about how things should look.

Keep in mind that some clients might want to be photoshopped back into their 20s, whereas others may proudly want their wrinkles on display. As always communication is vital!

Be careful about imposing your ideas of old age photography onto the session. Try to avoid the cliché shots of the serious or delirious old person. Instead, let their personality shine.

5 - Taking Portraits of Elderly Clients

Avoid the clichéd shots and post-processing that portray older subjects as worn or child-like. Let their personality lead your images.

Get out of their face

Want to make an 80+-year-old client feel immediately uncomfortable? Get right up in their face with a lens. Aside from the fact that it’s probably not going to give a very flattering look, it can feel intimidating.

They may also not be over the moon about being surrounded by multiple light stands, softboxes, flags, and reflectors.

During your initial consultation, find out what level of gear will allow them to feel comfortable. If that means just the natural light through a window, then work with that.

Posed versus candid photographs

One of the most important initial questions pre-shoot is whether the client wants posed or candid shots.

While the client’s wishes should mostly steer this decision, you need to take a few factors into account.

Client’s who are experiencing dementia, particularly frontal dementia, may struggle with a posed photo shoot. Frontal dementia affects a person’s ability to plan and organize. So your usually simple instructions such as “open your eyes and smile on the count of three,” may quickly descend into chaos.

That said, if you’re doing a family shoot, a little bit of this chaos (provided no one gets too embarrassed) can be a great natural ice-breaker.

When in doubt ask yourself what style of shoot will best allow the client’s personality to shine through. A shot of grandpa tinkering away in his workshop might be infinitely more valuable than a stale headshot for the family.

6 - Taking Portraits of Elderly Clients

Sometimes the best photograph won’t be the perfectly lit, composed and exposed image. A family snapshot can be infinitely more iconic if it captures your subject’s personality.

Length of sessions

When shooting significantly older clients, keep sessions as short as possible.

The process of having to concentrate on a range of different instructions can be quite fatiguing. There’s also a good chance that their preparation for the shoot started well before you arrived.

As mentioned before, clients suffering with dementia can also experience a phenomenon called “sundowning” which is a tendency to become more confused towards the end of the day.

See again the importance of making sure you know your client before you organize anything?

7 - Taking Portraits of Elderly Clients

Jot down everything you can during your pre-consultation to create a fleshed-out idea of your client and their needs.

Mobility and location of sessions

Although a 60-year-old client can probably go anywhere you can think of; a 90-year-old client can’t. Something as small as a flight of stairs can pose a massive hurdle to a significantly older client.

Plan where you are going beforehand and give your client plenty of time to get there.

Asking them to cross a park to get to a beautiful spot you usually take your clients could end up taking more time than you had intended for the entire shoot.

As you can see, the minute you leave the client’s home, things get a bit more complicated. However, don’t let that discourage you from venturing outdoors. Just do the groundwork beforehand and make sure everyone involved is on the same page.

8 - Taking Portraits of Elderly Clients

Be realistic about the areas an older person can access. A few steps may as well be a mountain for some. It never hurts to send your assistant to check it out first.

Conclusion

Working with older clients is a delightful experience. Their sincerity is hard to miss. To ensure you have the best chance at a successful shoot, take the time to prepare more than just your lighting diagrams. Focus on understanding the client’s goals and personality. Collaborate with the family where necessary, and make their comfort your number one priority.

Next time we’ll be looking at some ideas around lighting and posing older clients.

Do you have any other tips you’d like to share? If so, please do so in the comments section.

The post A Beginners Guide to Taking Portraits of Elderly Clients: Part 1 – Preparation and Rapport appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Clinton Moore.


Digital Photography School

 
Comments Off on A Beginners Guide to Taking Portraits of Elderly Clients: Part 1 – Preparation and Rapport

Posted in Photography

 

How To Make Amazing Photomontages. Part 3: Printing and Constructing Photomontages

11 Feb

The post How To Make Amazing Photomontages. Part 3: Printing and Constructing Photomontages appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kevin Landwer-Johan.

This is the third article in a series of three (part one, part two) with guidelines on how to make amazing photomontages in which you’ll learn about printing and constructing photomontages.

You may be quite content with your photomontage you see on your monitor. But there’s something special about getting all the images printed out and pasting them onto a board. Finishing a montage like this is even more fulfilling.

You can, of course, have your montage printed out as a regular photo, on a single piece of paper. However, I prefer getting individual prints made of each layer, positioning them and sticking them down.

Ducati How To Make Amazing Photomontages

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

Part 3: Printing and Constructing Photomontages

1. Have your photos printed

Importing the photos using the method I outlined in Part two of this series will mean each of your layers has retained the original file name. Now it’s time to go back to the folders with the photos you resized and collect up all of them that made it into your final composition.

Copy them into a new folder and have them printed.

2. Buy a board

You’ll need a sturdy piece of board to mount your photos on. I prefer to use foam core board as it’s strong but lightweight. It also does not warp. If you use cardboard it can buckle easily once you get many layers of photos stuck down.

Whatever you choose to use, make sure that it will be big enough to compile all your photos on.

Beauty Mirror How To Make Amazing Photomontages

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

3. Prepare to adhere your photos

For many years I have used double-sided adhesive paper. It’s like a huge roll of double-sided tape. This method is the cleanest and easiest that I know of.

Pasting the photos up with glue is possible, but you need to be extremely careful you don’t get glue places you don’t want it.

Before I begin sticking the prints down, I use a black marker pen to blacken the edges of each print. White edges don’t look great when the photos are stuck down.

Stick it How To Make Amazing Photomontages

Photo by: Pansa Landwer-Johan

4. Lay out your prints

Open your montage file on your computer and turn off all the layers except the bottom one. Find the print of this image and position it on your board. Turn on the next layer and repeat the process of laying out your photos.

Prints will get knocked and move around during this process. Don’t be concerned, because as the montage takes shape the positions of prints will change. You may begin to see different relationships between the prints you may not have noticed on your computer monitor.

You can use masking tape to help keep the prints in position. Take care when you remove the tape that it does not damage your print.

I will often use post-it notes stuck alongside the photos. This helps me reposition them when they do get bumped.

Remain relaxed and fluid during this part of the process. Don’t stress if you cannot manage to line all the photos up as precisely as you lined up the layers in Photoshop.

Take a few steps back, or get up above the table you are working on. This will help you see the overall look of your composition. Do this a few times during your layout stage.

Layout How To Make Amazing Photomontages

Photo by: Pansa Landwer-Johan

5. Stick it all down

You can spend forever tweaking the positioning of the prints, but eventually, you will want to stick them all down.

Start with a corner there’s a print with no others overlapping it. Position it carefully in relation to the edge of the board and stick it down.

Begin to work your way from this point, sticking down only prints that do not overlap above any other print. Whenever a print has another layer underneath, the bottom one must be stuck down first.

If you make a mistake, just consider alternatives to remedy the situation. You might have to get another print or two made so you can cover up the problem area. Other times you will be able to rearrange the way you stick the prints down and still make it look good.

Work slowly and carefully, trying as much as possible not to let the prints move around. Any fast movement or clumsiness at this stage can mean you have to start over and lay it all out again.

Fixed How To Make Amazing Photomontages

Photo by: Pansa Landwer-Johan

Conclusion

Once your photomontage is all adhered, you will notice a big difference. It’s much more dimensional than it appears on your computer monitor or as it would be printed on a single sheet of paper.

Taking your time and working carefully, yet remaining flexible, as you stick your prints down, will make it a more enjoyable process.

The overlapping layers and any unconformities that happen during paste-up give a montage some depth and texture. These used to bother me until I realized they actually add to the look and feel of these artworks.

Here’s another short video of me working on a montage for my ‘Fractured Dimensions’ exhibition in 2014.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this short series on photomontages and I encourage you to experiment with the process yourself. Let us know how you get on in the comments below, and don’t forget to share your montages with us too.

Other articles in this series:

How to Make Amazing Photomontages. Part 1: Taking Your Photos

How To Make Amazing Photomontages. Part 2: Compiling Photomontage Photos

 

The post How To Make Amazing Photomontages. Part 3: Printing and Constructing Photomontages appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kevin Landwer-Johan.


Digital Photography School

 
Comments Off on How To Make Amazing Photomontages. Part 3: Printing and Constructing Photomontages

Posted in Photography

 

So You Want to Build a Website? Part 5: SEO

11 Feb

The post So You Want to Build a Website? Part 5: SEO appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Carl Spring.

Well, this is it. We have gone all the way from choosing your platform through to generating content (see article links at the bottom of the article). Hopefully, this series of articles has persuaded a few of you to update your website and even more of you to create one.

The final step in the series is to optimize your website for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Doing SEO is the hardest part – it can even give many web professionals nightmares sometimes! Constant Google changes, and advice that seemingly contradicts other advice, can make it a mine field. This article is not the complete solution to your SEO and doing these things does not guarantee to get to page one on Google. It will, however, start you on the right path. These tips are simple, easy to follow tips that to help you optimize your site and aide your user experience. With that said, let’s get started.

1. Register with Google Search Consoles

You want to rank well in Google. The first step is to make sure you get your site registered for Google Search Console. This is an essential set of tools to tell you how your site is performing, how people are searching for you, and any issues that Google detects when going through your site.

Search Console (like SEO in general) can be daunting but bear with it. Do some reading and utilize what you find. Search Console is the number one tool for helping your website rank better. To add Search Console to your website, you need to register your website and then verify it using a code snippet on your site. It is simple to do. WordPress folks, if you have Yoast installed (if you haven’t – stop what you are doing and go and install it), they have tools to help with this.

The first step when registered is to submit your sitemap. This is normally located at www.yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml. When you submit this you are basically showing Google how your site is laid out and showing them how to crawl it. 

Once you have Search Console installed, you will be able to see how people are coming to your site, what they are searching for and any issues that may be affecting your ranking in Google. 

Impressions and CTR

It is simple to see how your site is performing direct from the source. Google Search Console is the number one must do.

2. Optimize your images

Speed is king. People like fast-loading websites and Google likes websites that load fast too. With photography websites, the best way to help with this is to properly size and compress your images. This is a simple thing to do, but if your site already has hundreds of images, it can take time. You need to check your website for image sizes and then make sure that you export images at that exact size. The reason for this is smaller images equal smaller file size, which equals quicker loading.

Regarding compression when exporting from image software, make sure you reduce it to around 70% or so. You can compress images further using specific software such as JPEG Mini, but this does come with a cost. You can also use a free online tool such as Squoosh or Bulk Image Resize, but this takes a little longer to do. It is amazing how much smaller you can make the size of a webpage by doing this.

If you want further checks on how fast your site is, and what you can do to improve it, Google has a tool called Page Speed Insights. This free tool shows you how your site loads and what you can do to improve it.

Using a free app like Squoosh really can make a difference to your image sizes. Every little bit adds up when it comes to website speed.

3. Build backlinks

To get yourself higher up in the rankings, one of the best resources is backlinks. Getting a link to your website from other sites shows Google that your website has the respect of others. Getting links can be hard, especially those that help to boost your ranking. The links you want to try to get are those that are for popular websites in the specific field. It used to be that you could pay and your website would have links from lots of websites and boost your ranking. However, Google got smart to this very quickly, and this practice now may actually make your site going down in rank, not up.

Genuine, quality backlinks are what you should aim to achieve. The more domain authority a website has (how well Google rates it), the more valuable the link.

As a wedding photographer, I have weddings featured on blogs. The links to my website from these blogs do two things: Firstly, potential customers may read this blog and click. Secondly, Google sees that well-respected wedding sites are linking to my site. So when people search for wedding photography in my area, Google knows that high-quality wedding blogs link to me, so my site must contain quality and relevant content.

How do you get them? You approach people. Flat out asking can lead to refusal, but offering value can work wonders. Asking a blog if you can write a guest post or asking a local business if you can exchange backlinks (so you both benefit) is an excellent way of getting some links (and building relationships).

3. Make it mobile friendly

We live in an age where most web browsing happens on a mobile device. Therefore you need to make sure that your website runs well on mobile devices. For those of you who are creating new websites, this is pretty simple. Pretty much every template is now optimized for mobile browsing. For those of you with older sites, you may want to check. Google ranks mobile first, and therefore you must make your site mobile friendly.

Tools such as such as AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) helps here. Again, setting this up depends on your platform and theme. In Squarespace, it is simple to turn on AMP in settings. In WordPress there are plugins that get AMP up and running on your site.

Website Mobiel view

I’m up to here…

4. Create quality content

Content is also king. Google has advanced and continues to advance. It used to be constantly cramming your keyword into your written content would mean you ranked well, however, that has all changed. As Google makes advances in machine learning, they now read websites more as a human would. Google love content that is helpful for the person searching. So if the user is searching for tips on how to take better photos, Google knows what they are looking for and shows the user sites that answer that question well.

The best way to do this on a continual basis is through a blog. A blog keeps your website fresh, helps Google see your website is updated regularly, and it gives you a place to offer content that is useful for people.

There is so much to blog about in every type of photography, from recent shoots and the latest equipment you have bought, through to how you got a great shot. Having new content gives people a reason to revisit your website and is a way to get new readers to your site. Continual blogging can be tough, but like anything the more you do it, the easier it gets.

5. Turn on SSL

Google likes websites to be secure when using the web. Having a secure website using SSL (Secure Socket Layer) is an easy way for you to help protect people who visit your website.  Having an SSL on your website is essential in 2019. It is super simple. Check with your host if you are using self-hosted WordPress. On Squarespace, it is as easy as turning it on. This is the simplest tip on this list. Just go and do it.

6. Bonus tip: Keep going – it’s a long game

Ranking well in Google takes time and effort. Don’t expect to see the fruits of your labour after a couple of weeks. To rank well can take months. Just remember the golden rules:

  • Keep your images correctly formatted.
  • Work on getting backlinks. Not only does it help your SEO, it helps people see your content.
  • Start as you mean to go on with things like title tags, etc. Going back when you decide you need to do it is a real pain. Start with good habits. 

Well, that’s it. Our website series is finished. I hope you enjoyed it. I’m hoping it got some of you to build your first site. For those with websites, I hope it gave you some ideas to make your sites better or something new you could try. As always, let’s see your sites below. 

Other tutorials in this series:

Part 1: Squarespace versus WordPress

Part 2: How to Create a Website

Part 3: Creating Your Portfolio

Part 4: Adding Website Content

 

The post So You Want to Build a Website? Part 5: SEO appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Carl Spring.


Digital Photography School

 
Comments Off on So You Want to Build a Website? Part 5: SEO

Posted in Photography

 
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »