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darkly inspiring…

If you’re going to try, go all the way. Otherwise don’t even start.

This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives, jobs, and maybe your mind.

It could mean not eating for three or four days.
It could mean freezing on a park bench.
It could mean jail. It could mean derision.
It could mean mockery, isolation.

Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance.
Of how much you really want to do it.

And you’ll do it, despite rejection in the worst odds.
And it will be better than anything else you can imagine.

If you’re going to try, go all the way.

There is no other feeling like that.
You will be alone with the gods. And the nights will flame with fire.

You will ride life straight to perfect laughter.

It’s the only good fight there is.

Henry Charles Bukowski
1920 – 1994

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June 8, 2020
the solution to the elinchrom quadra umbrella mount

When I was looking at reviews of the Elinchrom Ranger Quadra, one of the most common complaints people seemed to have was the fact that they couldn’t mount standard umbrellas on it (Elinchrom uses a 7mm umbrella shaft, while most others in the US use an 8mm shaft).

Now this seemed kind of silly to me – first off, the Quadra head is extremely small and lightweight – hanging anything larger than a *tiny* umbrella off it just seems like a recipe for disaster. Secondly I thought to myself “I mount umbrellas on speedlights all the time and they have no umbrella holder whatsoever – why is the quadra any different?” The solution:

The plain ol’ vanilla Umbrella Swivel. Beloved of “Strobists” everywhere, it provides a secure slot/mount for the umbrella, placing the weight & torque on itself rather than the strobe head. Screw in a post on top, plop the Quadra head on that and good to go. You can even still use the angle of the quadra head itself to hit the sweet spot of the umbrella.

Personally this is just fine for me. works great for my umbrellas, Apollo softboxes and Softliters…but let’s say you need the light more “on axis” with the umbrella shaft (maybe to fit the hole in one of the new PLM diffusion screens for instance…) I found the easiest thing is to simply take a second swivel, and use it to “hang” the head off the umbrella shaft itself. The head is light enough that it doesn’t put undue strain on the shaft (or the swivel).

Kinda kludgy but it works. Personally I don’t bother – mounting it on the swivel itself is quick, easy and gets the job done with hardware that I’m already carrying anyway for my speedlights.

So there you have it: Mounting umbrellas on the Quadra made easy!

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June 8, 2020
Video: Netflix makes its Platon documentary episode free on Youtube

Although Netflix uploaded the video back in April, we’ve only now discovered the Platon episode of its ‘Abstract: The Art of Design’ miniseries is now available to view for free on YouTube.

The 2017 docuseries consists of two series and features a total of 14 45-minute episodes that cover the work of some of the best artists across the globe in their respective fields, from architecture and automotive design to stage design and typography. For its ‘Photography’ episode, Netflix features Platon Antoniou, more commonly known by his mononym Platon, a renowned portrait photographer whose portfolio features some of the most prominent and powerful figures the world over.

While the other episodes require a Netflix subscription, the Platon episode is now free to view on YouTube. Throughout the 45-minute episode, we get an inside look at the man behind the camera and follow along as he captures a portrait of Colin Powell, former National Security Advisor and retired four-star general.

It’s a fantastic watch from beginning to end. If you have a Netflix subscription, we also suggest watching some of the other episodes in the series.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

June 8, 2020

Computational photography part II: Computational sensors and optics

Editor’s note: This is the second article in a three-part series by guest contributor Vasily Zubarev. The first and third parts can be found here:

Part I: What is computational photography?
Part III: Computational lighting, 3D scene and augmented reality (coming soon)

You can visit Vasily’s website where he also demystifies other complex subjects. If you find this article useful we encourage you to give him a small donation so that he can write about other interesting topics.

Computational Sensor: Plenoptic and Light Fields

Well, our sensors are crap. We simply got used to it and trying to do our best with them. They haven’t changed much in their design from the beginning of time. Technical process was the only thing that improved — we reduced the distance between pixels, fought read noise, increased readout speeds and added specific pixels for phase-detection autofocus systems. But even if we take the most expensive camera to try to photograph a running cat in the indoor light, the cat will win.

Video link: The Science of Camera Sensors

We’ve been trying to invent a better sensor for a long time. You can google a lot of research in this field by “computational sensor” or “non-Bayer sensor” queries. Even the Pixel Shifting example can be referred to as an attempt to improve sensors with calculations.

The most promising stories of the last twenty years, though, come to us from plenoptic cameras.

To calm your sense of impending boring math, I’ll throw in the insider’s note — the last Google Pixel camera is a little bit plenoptic. With only two pixels in one, there’s still enough to calculate a fair optical depth of field map without having a second camera like everyone else.

Plenoptics is a powerful weapon that hasn’t fired yet.

Plenoptic Camera

Invented in 1994. For the first time assembled at Stanford in 2004. The first consumer product — Lytro, released in 2012. The VR industry is now actively experimenting with similar technologies.

Plenoptic camera differs from the normal one by only one modification. Its sensor is covered with a grid of lenses, each of which covers several real pixels. Something like this:

If we place the grid and sensor at the right distance, we’ll see sharp pixel clusters containing mini-versions of the original image on the final RAW image.

Video link: Muted video showing RAW editing process

Apparently, if you take only one central pixel from each cluster and build the image only from them, it won’t be any different from one taken with a standard camera. Yes, we lose a bit in resolution, but we’ll just ask Sony to stuff more megapixels in the next sensor.

That’s where the fun part begins. If you take another pixel from each cluster and build the image again, you again get a standard photo, only as if it was taken with a camera shifted by one pixel in space. Thus, with 10×10 pixel clusters, we get 100 images from “slightly” different angles.

The more the cluster size, the more images we have. Resolution is lower, though. In the world of smartphones with 41-megapixel sensors, everything has a limit, although we can neglect resolution a bit. We have to keep the balance.

Link: plenoptic.info – about plenoptics, with python code samples

Alright, we’ve got a plenoptic camera. What can we do with it?

Fair refocusing

The feature that everyone was buzzing about in the articles covering Lytro is the possibility to adjust focus after the shot was taken. “Fair” means we don’t use any deblurring algorithms, but rather only available pixels, picking or averaging in the right order.

A RAW photo taken with a plenoptic camera looks weird. To get the usual sharp JPEG out of it, you have to assemble it first. The result will vary depending on how we select the pixels from the RAW.

The farther the cluster is from the point of impact of the original ray, the more defocused the ray is. Because the optics. To get the image shifted in focus, we only need to choose the pixels at the desired distance from the original — either closer or farther.

The picture should be read from right to left as we are sort of restoring the image, knowing the pixels on the sensor. We get a sharp original image on top, and below we calculate what was behind it. That is, we shift the focus computationally.

The process of shifting the focus forward is a bit more complicated as we have fewer pixels in these parts of the clusters. In the beginning, Lytro developers didn’t even want to let the user focus manually because of that — the camera made a decision itself using the software. Users didn’t like that, so the feature was added in the late versions as “creative mode”, but with very limited refocus for exactly that reason.

Depth Map and 3D using a single lens

One of the simplest operations in plenoptics is to get a depth map. You just need to gather two different images and calculate how the objects are shifted between them. The more the shift — the farther away from the camera the object is.

Google recently bought and killed Lytro, but used their technology for its VR and… Pixel’s camera. Starting with the Pixel 2, the camera became “a little bit” plenoptic, though with only two pixels per cluster. As a result, Google doesn’t need to install a second camera like all the other cool kids. Instead, they can calculate a depth map from one photo.

Images which top and bottom subpixels of the Google Pixel camera see. The right one is animated for clarity (click to enlarge and see animation). Source: Google

The depth map is additionally processed with neural networks to make the background blur more even. Source: Google

Link: Portrait mode on the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL smartphones

The depth map is built on two shots shifted by one sub-pixel. This is enough to calculate a rudimentary depth map and separate the foreground from the background to blur it out with some fashionable bokeh. The result of this stratification is still smoothed and “improved” by neural networks which are trained to improve depth maps (rather than to observe, as many people think).

The trick is that we got plenoptics in smartphones almost at no charge. We already put lenses on these tiny sensors to increase the luminous flux at least somehow. Some patents from Google suggest that future Pixel phones may go further and cover four photodiodes with a lens.

Slicing layers and objects

You don’t see your nose because your brain combines a final image from both of your eyes. Close one eye, and you will see a huge Egyptian pyramid at the edge.

The same effect can be achieved in a plenoptic camera. By assembling shifted images from pixels of different clusters, we can look at the object as if from several points. Same as our eyes do. It gives us two cool opportunities. First is we can estimate the approximate distance to the objects, which allows us easily separate the foreground from the background as in life. And second, if the object is small, we can completely remove it from the photo since we can effectively look around the object. Like a nose. Just clone it out. Optically, for real, with no photoshop.

Using this, we can cut out trees between the camera and the object or remove the falling confetti, as in the video below.

“Optical” stabilization with no optics

From a plenoptic RAW, you can make a hundred of photos with several pixels shift over the entire sensor area. Accordingly, we have a tube of lens diameter within which we can move the shooting point freely, thereby offsetting the shake of the image.

Technically, stabilization is still optical, because we don’t have to calculate anything — we just select pixels in the right places. On the other hand, any plenoptic camera sacrifices the number of megapixels in favor of plenoptic capabilities, and any digital stabilizer works the same way. It’s nice to have it as a bonus, but using it only for its sake is costly.

The larger the sensor and lens, the bigger window for movement. The more camera capabilities, the more ozone holes from supplying this circus with electricity and cooling. Yeah, technology!

Fighting with Bayer filter

Bayer filter is still necessary even with a plenoptic camera. We haven’t come up with any other way of getting a colorful digital image. And using a plenoptic RAW, we can average the color not only by the group of nearby pixels, as in classic demosaicing, but also using dozens of its copies in neighboring clusters.

It’s called “computable super-resolution” in some articles, but I would question it. In fact, we reduce the real resolution of the sensor in these some dozen times first in order to proudly restore it again. You have to try hard to sell it to someone.

But technically it’s still more interesting than shaking the sensor in a pixel shifting spasm.

Computational aperture (bokeh)

Those who like to shoot bokeh hearts will be thrilled. Since we know how to control the refocus, we can move on and take only a few pixels from the unfocused image and others from the normal one. Thus we can get an aperture of any shape. Yay! (No)

Many more tricks for video

So, not to move too far away from the photo topic, everyone who’s interested should check out the links above and below. They contain about half a dozen other interesting applications of a plenoptic camera.

Video link: Watch Lytro Change Cinematography Forever

Light Field: More than a photo, less than VR

Usually, the explanation of plenoptics starts with light fields. And yes, from the science perspective, the plenoptic camera captures the light field, not just the photo. Plenus comes from the Latin “full”, i.e., collecting all the information about the rays of light. Just like a Parliament plenary session.

Let’s get to the bottom of this to understand what a light field is and why we need it.

Traditional photos are two-dimensional. When a ray hits a sensor there will be a corresponding pixel in the photo that records simply its intensity. The camera doesn’t care where the ray came from, whether it accidentally fell from aside or was reflected off of another object. The photo captures only the point of intersection of the ray with the surface of the sensor. So it’s kinda 2D.

Light field images are similar, but with a new component — the origin and angle of each ray. The microlens array in front of the sensor is calibrated such that each lens samples a certain portion of the aperture of the main lens, and each pixel behind each lens samples a certain set of ray angles. And since light rays emanating from an object with different angles fall across different pixels on a light field camera’s sensor, you can build an understanding of all the different incoming angles of light rays from this object. This means the camera effectively captures the ray vectors in 3D space. Like calculating the lighting of a video game, but the other way around — we’re trying to catch the scene, not create it. The light field is the set of all the light rays in our scene — capturing both the intensity and angular information about each ray.

There are a lot of mathematical models of light fields. Here’s one of the most representative.

The light field is essentially a visual model of the space around it. We can easily compute any photo within this space mathematically. Point of view, depth of field, aperture — all these are also computable; however, one can only reposition the point of view so much, determined by the entrance pupil of the main lens. That is, the amount of freedom with which you can change the field of view depends upon the breadth of perspectives you’ve captured, which is necessarily limited.

I love to draw an analogy with a city here. Photography is like your favorite path from your home to the bar you always remember, while the light field is a map of the whole town. Using the map, you can calculate any route from point A to B. In the same way, knowing the light field, we can calculate any photo.

For an ordinary photo it’s overkill, I agree. But here comes VR, where light fields are one of the most promising areas of development.

Having a light field model of an object or a room allows you to see this object or a room from multiple perspectives, with motion parallax and other depth cues like realistic changes in textures and lighting as you move your head. You can even travel through a space, albeit to a limited degree. It feels like virtual reality, but it’s no longer necessary to build a 3D-model of the room. We can ‘simply’ capture all the rays inside it and calculate many different pictures from within that volume. Simply, yeah. That’s what we’re fighting over.

Link: Google AR and VR: Experimenting with Light Fields

Vasily Zubarev is a Berlin-based Python developer and a hobbyist photographer and blogger. To see more of his work, visit his website or follow him on Instagram and Twitter.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

June 8, 2020

baselining your strobe for quick exposures
Digital cameras have been a great boon to photographers working with off-camera lights. The ability to review an image instantly on an LCD (with histogram!) has obviated the need for tedious polaroiding and exhaustive metering of every inch of a scene to ensure correct light ratios and eliminate unwanted shadows.    So much so, in fact, that many photographers have begun to eschew the use of a flash meter entirely – relying on the LCD and histogram via trial and error to set their lights correctly.   Now while quick and easy, this method has it’s drawbacks, particularly for young photographers.   The question that frequently arises is:

“well, I’m essentially just guessing what power to set my flash on then chimping the exposure and adjusting accordingly but how do I know *where* to start with my flash”

Essentially this comes down to a combination of making an educated guess about the exposure and *knowing how much light your flash will put out*.

The beauty of light is that it is predictable. Whether from the sun, a lightbulb, or a flash, given the same source and conditions, you will always get the same light.    We can use this to our advantage!

When working with flash, we have fundamentally 2 variable that we control to determine how much light falls on our subject – power and distance.   Power meaning how much actual light our flash is outputting and distance meaning how far away it is from the subject (remember that light falls off predictably according the inverse square law).    Since we know that light always behaves the same, we can be certain that at a given power and a given distance from our subject our flash will give the same result every time.

Now also remember that light from a flash behaves linearly – going from 1/4 power to 1/2 power is doubling the amount of light that it puts out and vica versa. Thus if our flash exposes properly at f/8 at 1/8 power, it will give us f/11 at 1/4 power, f/5.6 at 1/16 and so forth (given the same distance to the subject).

Armed with this knowledge, we can quickly and easily estimate a “starting point” for exposure in almost any situation. We do this by establishing a “reference point” at which we *know* the exposure of our flash, and can calculate from there. I like to call this “baselining” the flash. To do this:
1. start with the flash on a medium power, which gives room to adjust up or down. 1/8 power is a good starting place
2. now we need to ensure that we can replicate a consistent flash->subject distance. You could carry around a tape measure but a fantastic trick I learned from the inimitable Don Giannatti is to measure using your outstretched arms. Given that the average (male) photographer is probably between 5’5″ and 6’something, your outstretched armspan or “wingspan” is somewhere around 6′, which is a comfortable working distance for lights. This also has the advantage of being quickly and easily reproducable “on set” – you simply stretch our your arms from subject and place the light at the end.
3. Meter your light at your set power, at “wingspan” – if you don’t have a flash meter, you can approximate by photographing an 18% greycard till the histogram spikes dead center and recording the appropriate aperture.
4. adjust your light till you get a “comfortable” baseline. Let’s assume that at “wingspan” we find our flash gives us f/8 at 1/8 power. This is our baseline – we write it down (or just remember it).
Now lets put this info to use!

Let’s say we’re in the studio.   We want to do a shot with a key and fill light in a 2:1 ratio.   We want to shoot at f/11 to give good depth of field for our subject. What do we do? We place our lights in the desired position, both at “wingspan”.   We know that each of them gives f/8 at 1/8 power at that distance. f/11 is one stop up from f/8, so we set our main light to 1/4 power (one stop more power). Our main light is now already double the light of our second, so we have our ratio right there – the second light stays at 1/8.   We shoot at f/11, and our main light should be spot on with the second 1 stop under.   now if we want to “blow out the background” we simply add another light on the background at 1/2 power, giving us an exposure of f/16 – one stop over main. Of course this is not as “exact” as using a meter, but this gives us our starting place and we can adjust the lights from there based on the histogram.

It’s that easy!

This technique becomes particularly powerful when balancing ambient and flash outside.   Combined with the sunny/16 rule, we can use our baseline to roughly estimate the combined exposure of flash and ambient without chimping a single frame!

consider the common situation: We are shooting outside and want to drop the ambient by 1 stop. We see that it is mildly overcast – the sunny/16 rule says that our exposure should be approximately f/11@1/100 sec.   Again, we know our flash give f/8 at 1/8 power, so we set it at arms length from our subject. In order to drop our ambient by a stop we increase our shutter speed to 1/200 (still at f/11) and adjust our flash up one stop to 1/4 power to give us f/11. Done and Done. Chimp, and adjust as needed. If we are in situation where we can’t drop the ambient by shutter speed (already at sync limit), we can simply adjust the flash power to compensate.   Assume the same situation (ambient is f/11).   to keep the shutter speed the same and still drop the ambient by 1 stop, we need to shoot at f/16.   Again, knowing our flash gives f/8 at 1/8 we simply bump it up 2 stops to 1/2 power (f/8->f/11->f/16 = 1/8->1/4->1/2)

This may sound complicated, but once you are comfortable estimating these exposure, it becomes almost second nature. by using your baseline you will find yourself able to get exposure dead on within 1 or 2 “chimping” shots.

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June 8, 2020
How to Edit RAW Portraits in Lightroom

The post How to Edit RAW Portraits in Lightroom appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kevin Landwer-Johan.

What’s the best way to edit RAW portraits in Lightroom? Is there one correct way to do this?

As with many aspects of photography, there is no right or wrong way. What is most important is being intentional with the edits you do make. Start with a clear idea of what you want the completed photo to look like.

You want to feel satisfied when you’re done. You’ll also want your subject to appreciate the portraits you’ve taken of them.

In this article, I’ll walk you through some Lightroom techniques to help you create well post-processed portraits from your RAW files.

© Kevin Landwer-Johan. Nikon D800, 105mm f/2.8, 1/400 sec, f/3, ISO 400, Manual Mode, Pattern Metering.

Know what you want – a realistic look or not

Whenever you start to edit RAW portraits you must decide first the style of photo you want to end up with. RAW files from modern cameras contain a huge amount of data. This data can be manipulated extensively in Lightroom to alter the appearance of the photo.

It’s up to you how you edit. You can aim to work on the RAW file to get the photo looking as realistic as possible. Or you can alter it in such a way it’s transformed into a very different-looking image from the unedited RAW file.

Your intention will guide you to achieve the look you want. If you’re not sure how you want the finished photo to look, you can waste a lot of time messing around.

Keeping in the style of how you lit and composed the portrait is the easiest approach to take.

To edit RAW portraits created with soft light and a warm feeling, you’ll often want to retain the feeling of the photo when you make your adjustments. It would the same for a portrait lit with hard lighting with a more dramatic look.

Editing in Lightroom, you have the opportunity to alter the image to achieve the look you want. Knowing what you want is a good first step – even before you open Lightroom.

To illustrate the process I use, I will aim to produce a natural-looking edit of this portrait.

White balance for correct skin tone

Most of the time, I have my camera’s white balance set to Auto. I find this setting produces photos with correct colors most of the time.

With RAW files, it’s easy to correct the white balance when it’s a little off. I will start with the eyedropper tool and click it in a neutral area. If there’s not suitable white in the photo, I’ll pick a grey area.

In this photo, I needed to adjust the Temp slider towards the left because the eyedropper overcompensated for the slightly cool tone of the original. I have made the adjustment so her skin tone looks as natural as possible.

Crop and straighten

Next, I crop and straighten the photo. I prefer to crop my portraits early in the editing process, so I only see what I want.

This portrait needed very little cropping. There was a bright area on the left that was distracting. I have cropped this out and, in doing so, the model’s right eye is closer to the one-third guideline on the right of the image.

When I crop, I am looking to eliminate parts of the photo that don’t add to it. I also look to improve the shape of the composition.

Correct highlights and shadows

Portraits taken outdoors in the shade, as this one is, often have a limited tone range. They do not contain much difference in tone value between the brightest and darkest areas. This makes them easier to work with than portraits made in hard light.

My model’s hair is very black, but it looks dull. Moving the black slider to the left darkens her hair a little too much. I then use the Shadows adjustment slider and move it to the right. This brings back some of the detail while retaining the blacks.

When you edit RAW portraits, you must consider how the brightest areas of the photo look as well. In this picture, I am happy with the look of the highlights, so I have not made any adjustments to them.

Highlights can be challenging to adjust and keep them looking clean. If you have very overexposed highlights and attempt to adjust them with the Highlights and/or Whites sliders, take care they do not end up looking grey. It’s best only to make adjustments when there is actually detail in those areas.

Removing spots and blemishes

This young woman has beautiful skin and applies her make up very well. There’s not much post-processing required. Often this is not the case. People will often have small blemishes on their skin. Removing them will not change the feel of the portrait, but it will help your subject feel better about themselves.

When I edit RAW portraits in Lightroom, I use the Spot Removal tool and zoom into my photo to the area I want to work on. Adjust the size of the tool so it’s a little larger than the spot you want to remove. Simply click on the spot and Lightroom removes it.

Check to see the area you edit blends well. On smooth skin, Lightroom usually does a great job of this. Sometimes there will be some noticeable contrast in the area you apply the brush too. If it’s too obvious, undo that step, adjust the brush size a little, and try again.

Fine-tune with the adjustment brush

The Adjustment Brush is a powerful tool to use when you edit RAW portraits. You can use it to diminish or remove wrinkles, enhance eyes, whiten teeth and a whole lot more. Here I’ll show you how I use it in some of these ways.

Soften dark bags under eyes

As I begin to paint with the Adjustment Brush, I push the Exposure slider to the far left or right. This allows me to see clearly the area that I am painting over.

Once I have the part of the image painted that I want to work on, it looks pretty terrible, as in this example.

Now, I’ll work with the various sliders to bring up the dark parts I’ve painted over so there’s not so much contrast. Doing this, be careful not to overcompensate and make these shadows look unnaturally light.

Whitening teeth

Paint over the teeth with the adjustment brush. Be as precise as possible and not cover any of the lips or gums.

To make the teeth look clean and white, I use a combination of sliders. I start with the Exposure Slider as it will often make the teeth look good. You can also make use of the Dehaze and Temp sliders. Dehaze will lighten and soften dark areas. Moving the Temp slider to the left will reduce yellowing.

Brightening eyes

It’s important to edit RAW portraits so your subject’s eyes look right. Too much editing, or not being careful enough when you do edit eyes, can ruin a portrait.

In my example portrait, I have made minimal changes. There are so many tutorials available about editing eyes that I will not go into detail for this article.

All I have done on this portrait is to brighten the whites of her eyes using the Adjustment Brush. I have painted the whites of her eyes and boosted the exposure slightly. This was enough.

Dark-colored eyes are more challenging to manipulate than lighter colored eyes. With light eyes, you can alter the color of the iris and control the way the eyes look more than with dark eyes.

Conclusion

The possibilities when you edit RAW portraits are almost limitless. Knowing the look you want helps you keep on track and saves you time.

Duplicating a file in Lightroom allows you to make copies to experiment with. Right-click the photo and choose Create Virtual Copy. Now you’re free to experiment with a completely different look and feel for your photo.

Being intentional as you edit and not pushing any slider to it’s extreme will help you create better-looking portraits in Lightroom.

Do you have any other tips for editing RAW portraits in Lightroom that you’d like to share? Perhaps you’d like to share your resulting images with us? Please do so in the comments!

The post How to Edit RAW Portraits in Lightroom appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kevin Landwer-Johan.

Digital Photography School

June 7, 2020
new site

New look for edzstudios… cleaner and more minimalistic… also galleries changed to a jquery based setup rather than flash (hey gotta be iPad compatible right?) If you are reading this through rss, click on through and check out the new site design. Will be going through a few tweaks in the next few days, but pretty happy with things overall.

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June 7, 2020
Is the Sony ZV-1 the best vlogging camera, and what’s it like for photography?

For vlogging, and beyond?

The Sony DC-ZV-1 is an interesting camera. It re-arranges some familiar components into a camera explicitly designed with vloggers in mind.

However, while it’s not part of the RX100 series (or even part of the Cyber-shot lineup), enough of its technology comes from those cameras that we think some people will at least consider it as a stills camera.

We’re going to look at how the ZV-1 stacks up against the Canon PowerShot G7 X Mark III and the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 V (specifically the ‘M5A’ variant), first as tools for vlogging and then as compact stills cameras.

For vlogging vs. Canon G7 X III

We’ve already detailed the vlogging-specific features that the ZV-1 offers, and many of these give it a clear advantage over the Canon G7 X III, when it comes to shooting facing-the-camera video.

Underpinning most of the ZV-1’s benefits over the G7 X III is its autofocus system. Part of this is the inclusion of phase detection elements, meaning the camera can assess depth before refocusing the lens (which is critical for keeping video in focus, without too much hunting), but also Sony’s AF algorithms, which have got very, very good at both subject tracking and face / body recognition. There are other features that distinguish between the two cameras but dependable autofocus is perhaps the most compelling.

Beyond that, the ZV-1’s other key benefit is its vlogging-friendly microphone setup. The three-capsule mic is designed specifically to pick up the sounds of someone addressing the camera. The results are much better than the G7 X III.

For vlogging vs. Canon G7 X III

The ZV-1’s fully articulated screen is also likely to be preferable to the G7 X III’s flip-up screen for most vloggers. The ZV-1’s screen doesn’t extend totally to be totally in-line with the camera body (it’s angled 4 degrees back, even when fully pulled forward), but that’s not a difference likely to have any real-world impact.

Both cameras shoot 4K in both 30p or 24p (or 25p in PAL regions), should you decide your vlog would benefit from a more cinematic look.

In terms of endurance, Canon says it expects the G7 X III to record 4K footage for up to 10 minutes per clip, whereas the ZV-1 by default stops after 5. However, disengaging the overheat warnings on the Sony removes this restriction.

For vlogging vs. Canon G7 X III

The G7 X III can broadcast straight to YouTube if it’s connected to a wireless network (including your phone, if it can operate as a hotspot). However, the utility of this feature is a little questionable. For a start, how often will you be trying to vlog from a situation where you have Wi-Fi but can’t connect your camera to a computer and use either camera? But, more pressingly for most of us, YouTube only allows live streaming from mobile devices (including the G7 X III) if you have 1000+ people following you on your account.

This isn’t a big hurdle if you’re already established to any degree, but it reduces the value of the feature if you’re trying to choose a camera to start vlogging with. If you’re looking for a device to start an empire from, both can livestream if you connect them to a computer (though the ZV-1 is only promising Microsoft Windows support at the moment).

Both can directly Wi-Fi their video footage to a smartphone, for anything you’ve pre-recorded, in FullHD or 4K.

For vlogging vs. the iPhone

Another rival device for vlogging is a good smartphone, not least because there’s a chance that most of us already have one.

In their recent video, DPRTV’s Chris and Jordan used an older iPhone XR to shoot some footage alongside the Sony. Its lens offers a similarly wide angle-of-view to the Sony, while the iPhone 11 goes wider. The selfie camera on the iPhone 11 has focus fixed in a way that covers vlogging distances, but has no way to imitate Sony’s ‘Product Showcase’ AF mode if you want to focus on something nearer to the camera.

As Chris discovered when testing the two side-by-side, the iPhone appears to be rather better at stabilizing its footage than the ZV-1. And, for all Sony’s talk about improved skintones, the iPhone version looks pretty good, to our eyes.

Ultimately, while Sony appears to have more money than most camera companies to develop technologies such as machine-learning-derived AF systems, it seems to be some way behind Apple, which has been working hard to apply processing power and extreme cleverness to the output of its phones for several generations. The iPhone’s exposure and processing, while perhaps edging towards over-tone-mapped ‘bad HDR’ territory, generally looks really good. You’d have to shoot Log or HLG and color grade the ZV-1’s footage to get a comparable result.

The larger sensor of the ZV-1 should give it an edge when it comes to indoor video and, of course, it can provide a shallower depth-of-field look (which phones don’t yet even attempt to simulate in video mode) but is that enough to counteract the convenience offered by an internet-connected smartphone?

For stills vs. RX100 VA

The ZV-1 isn’t supposed to be a stills camera, in the sense that Sony isn’t particularly promoting it that way. But it shares enough with the RX100-series that we’d expect at least some people to see it as a means of getting something like a viewfinderless RX100 V without having to forego multiple generations of improvements by opting for the RX100 II.

Instead, in many respects the ZV-1 could be seen as an RX100 V without a viewfinder but with all the updates of the RX100 VII (including things like a touchscreen, that weren’t added in the M5A revision to the RX100 V). These updates include what Sony calls ‘Real-time Tracking’ and ‘Real-time AF,’ which refer the the camera’s ability to track a subject, switch to face or eye AF if that subject is a person, and continue to track them even if they face away from the camera.

The RX100 VA’s AF system is recognizably older: Tracking isn’t as sophisticated, eye AF requires you hold down a custom button to activate it and there’s a separate (and even less good) tracking system in video mode.

So what else do you gain or lose?

For stills vs. RX100 VA

As you’d expect, the ZV-1 omits a number of features that we’d expect from an RX100-series camera. There’s no EVF, no built-in flash and no control ring around the lens. There’s also no exposure mode dial (it’s replaced by a Mode button).

But in their place you get a more prominent grip to hold the camera with and a flash hotshoe if you want to attach an external flash or other accessories. And, as we say, you get another feature that the RX100 V was missing: a touchscreen.

The more prominent [REC] button on the top of the ZV-1 allows the removal of the tiny version set into the thumb rest of the RX100 V. Neither camera lets you re-purpose this button if you’re really not interested in video.

The control ring around the lens, the built-in flash and the EVF all mean the RX100 V is a better stills camera if you’re an experienced photographer, want flexibility and some direct control, but with its touchscreen and superior AF system, the ZV-1 might be the better point-and-shoot.

For stills vs. Canon G7 X III

We’ve already seen that the ZV-1’s autofocus and mics give it a clear benefit over the Canon G7 X III as a vlogging camera. But given they’re similarly priced and are both 1″ sensor compacts with short, bright lenses and no viewfinder, it’s probably fair to see how they stack up on the stills side of things.

The ZV-1’s autofocus benefits continue to shine in this situation, as does its lens, which is significantly sharper, particularly at the wide-angle end. However, the G7 X III’s 24-100mm range is appreciably longer than the 24-70-ish equiv reach of the Sony.

The Canon also has a dedicated exposure compensation dial, a clicking control ring around the lens and a built-in flash, which help make it a more engaging camera to use, if you wish to take control over your photography. We also found the grip – designed solely for holding the camera facing away from you – more comfortable than the one on the ZV-1.

Overall

The ZV-1 promises to be a more capable vlogging camera than any other we’ve seen. Its generally excellent (and, crucially, dependable) autofocus is a huge part of this, and features such as product showcase mode have clearly been carefully developed to make this capability as easy to exploit as possible.

But building the ZV-1 primarily from existing RX100 components does appear to have limited the camera, somewhat. The 24mm-equiv wide-angle capability (26mm equiv by the time the slight crop of the 4K video mode has been factored-in), isn’t as wide as some users prefer for to-the-camera presenting, especially if you then need to engage the camera’s digital stabilization, which crops-in still further.

Similarly, while the G7 X III doesn’t offer any audio monitoring, either, it does seem odd that Sony hasn’t gone to the effort of providing a means to do so, either via USB or Bluetooth. Instead it’s limited to capabilities we’ve seen in existing RX100 models.

But, for all that, the Sony ZV-1 is the most overtly vlogging-focused camera on the market. In addition, although it’s not intended, we think it might also be a better point-and-shoot camera than the RX100 V. The more prominent grip, the touchscreen and the removal of the control ring may also make it a better (and less expensive) family camera.

For vlogging though, we suspect that the ZV-1’s biggest rival will be high-end smartphones, which offer a lot of capability without the need to buy a separate device.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

June 7, 2020
Let it roll: why camera makers are going to keep adding video

A lot of the pre-launch hype around Canon’s EOS R5 has focused on its video prowess, but why do features like 8K keep getting added to stills cameras?

Some of the most dramatic improvements in recent cameras have been in the realm of video, leaving many stills photographers unimpressed. But there are some good reasons why cameras keep getting better video, some equally good reasons we’re unlikely to see many ‘pure photography’ cameras in future, and even if we did, there’s very little reason to think such a camera would be any cheaper.

Why the focus on video?

One of the main reasons it seems all the camera makers are focused video is because it’s an area where there’s clear room for improvement. Image sensors are now very, very good: efficiency is very high and read noise is very low, meaning we’re unlikely to see the big steps forward in generational image quality that we saw in the earlier days of digital photography.

Instead, most of the progress being made is in terms of readout speed and processing power. We’re seeing these manifest as better autofocus performance, multi-shot camera modes and improved video. This is also why we spend more time discussing AF and video in our reviews: because they’re areas of significant progress and difference between models.

Understandably, we see a lot of stills photographers saying they don’t want to have to pay for features they don’t need. But it’s not that simple:

You’re already paying for the hardware

Pitched as ‘The Ultimate Photo Shooting Camera’ at launch, the Panasonic G9 gained a major mid-life video upgrade, to broaden its appeal.

The faster readout and processing that help provide higher-res and better bitrate video are the same technologies that underpin the faster, more subject-aware autofocus improvements we’ve seen in the past few years. The same is broadly true of the multi-shot high res, focus stacking and re-focus modes that have been added: so you won’t lower the hardware costs by leaving video out.

You may not be paying for the development

On top of this, the very reason manufacturers are committing development resources to video is because they hope it will broaden a product’s appeal beyond the (declining) market for traditional stills cameras. YouTube and social media have made video sharable, which makes video capability more desirable. If adding video features means more cameras get sold, then each buyer shoulders a little less of the development cost.

Also, some realms of professional photography now demand high-end video capabilities, so much of the development work is being conducted for that audience, and is then trickling down.

A separate, still-only variant would cost more, not less

Don’t fall into the trap of assuming you could make a cheaper model with these extra features missed off. Designing and developing two versions of a product would cost more, even if they only differed in terms of firmware, since you’d have to conduct the testing and quality assurance on two versions of the firmware, then continue to develop them in parallel in the event of updates.

A camera with fewer features wouldn’t be cheaper. Even post-purchase firmware would add to costs: would you be willing to pay to have video removed?

Each additional camera model then incurs marketing expenses, to tell the world that it exists and to communicate the differences. It then adds to production planning and supply chain complexity: you need to balance production capacity between the two models, then make sure that the right number of stills-only and hybrid models end up going to each region and each retailer.

We’ll still see stills-only models

Not every new camera will have video, but those that don’t will be in the minority: Leica has some high-end video capability in models where it makes sense.

Despite all these factors, we’ll still see some stills-only cameras. For instance, Leica is likely to continue to offer stills-only rangefinder cameras (even though some models have featured video), and adding high quality video isn’t likely to be a priority for Phase One’s medium format backs.

There’s a mixture of factors at play. Adding video might reduce, rather than broaden, appeal for a product where focus – whether it’s photographic tradition or ultimate stills quality – is a selling point. And this goes beyond the question of whether a video-enabled version would be a satisfying (or even satisfactory) video camera.

Let it roll

But outside these rarefied niches, video is here to stay. Hence Leica’s SL cameras tout pretty impressive video specs and Panasonic’s more stills-focused G9 received a major boost to its video spec, mid-life, to expand its appeal.

If well implemented, video features need not get in your way, allowing a more streamlined stills experience than in recent generations of camera.

At which point, rather than rail against the (almost) inevitable, you may find it more productive to argue for better video implementation, so that the video features don’t get in your way. Or perhaps, you could give video a try. Who knows? You might enjoy it.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

June 7, 2020
Helpful Tips for Creating Evergreen Content for your Photography Website
The post Helpful Tips for Creating Evergreen Content for your Photography Website appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Charlie Moss.

It’s always hard to know what to write on a photography blog, isn’t it? You start a blog on your photography website because you’ve been told it’s good for SEO, but then you get stuck on what content to create, and your blog gets neglected. So, I’m going to give you some ideas for creating evergreen content that you can put into practice right now to improve your website, help your readers, and start working on your SEO.

Writing blog posts is hard for many photographers because they don’t know where to start.

What is evergreen content?

In the same way that evergreen trees stay green all year round, evergreen blog posts stay relevant to readers for a long time. They should stay relevant to readers no matter the season, and, ideally, stay relevant for several years without any serious updating.

By creating evergreen content, you can create a website that pulls in visitors all year round and encourage search engines to rank you highly.

But what kind of evergreen content can photographers create? That really depends on the audience you’re looking to attract to your website! So once you’ve narrowed that down, you can start to come up with some ideas for evergreen content.

Articles to attract photographers

If you’re the kind of photographer who wants to attract other photographers to your website, then content about photography is the place to start. Just look around this site – Digital Photography Photography School is full of evergreen content that appeals to photographers all year round and for many years.

I write about photography techniques on my blog because I mostly want to attract photographers.

Every photographer knows something that they can teach others, even if they’re a beginner. So start by writing posts teaching other people what you know about taking photos.

You could also write reviews of all the photography equipment that you own. Most photographers love to spend hours researching what they’re buying and read lots of reviews before they spend their money.

By its very nature, evergreen content is often about the topics aimed at beginners to intermediates in the subject matter. It’s content that people will be searching for repeatedly, and that’s what makes beginner content a great place to start when you’re creating your first pieces of evergreen content.

And once you’ve created some engaging content that people are sharing, consider writing a second blog post on the same subject that your visitors might want to read next!

Articles to attract clients

Not everyone wants to attract photographers to their photography website. Some people want to attract more clients if they’re working as a photographer. By creating evergreen content, you can get potential clients to your website and looking at your portfolio.

Many photographers already blog about the shoots they do. It’s really common now for wedding photographers to blog about their client’s big day, or newborn photographers to blog about the cute baby they recently photographed. But those posts are not the ones most likely to get prospective new clients to your site.

Brainstorming a list of ideas for blog posts is always a good idea. Give yourself 15 minutes once a week and write down everything that comes to mind.

When writing a blog the best place to start is almost always with a problem that someone has. So if you are a wedding photographer, think about what your clients might be looking for. They could be asking questions like:
- What are the best clothes to wear for an engagement session and how do you pick a color scheme?
- What do weddings at (your local venue) look like?
- Are veils coming back in fashion for brides, and what unique photo opportunities do they present?
You can answer all of those questions in blogs on your website while filling them with pictures you’ve taken. And the best thing about these kinds of posts is they’ll be shared by more than just your clients, meaning that your images get in front of many new people.

Moreover, you can apply this to all kinds of photography. You can even go beyond photography, which I’ve seen work particularly well in the newborn and maternity niches.

If you photograph newborns and have children yourself, you might use your blog as a way to talk about your own experiences of being a parent, with helpful advice for your readers. And if you’re creating evergreen content that’s useful, you can bet it’ll end up being shared around social media.

What advantages does this bring?

Beyond the pure sharing of posts and getting them in front of new potential clients, evergreen content can bring benefits for the SEO of your website (that’s search engine optimization).

Google, and other search engines, love to see people linking to your content and talking about it. One of the strongest ways that Google determines if you’re a useful and interesting site (and therefore how high you appear in their search listings) is how many backlinks you have to your website.

By creating evergreen content for your blog, your views will go up over time as more and more people link to your website.

By creating evergreen content that is interesting and useful, you’re giving people and businesses reasons to share it on their own social media, or include you in posts on their own blog.

A post about the best time to photograph a newborn baby, for example, is relevant content that lots of different people could share on their own page. It could be shared by other newborn photographers, by parenting websites, or even by small maternity clinics.

It doesn’t matter if these businesses aren’t in the same area as you either, because what’s important is the backlinks and the buzz around your content. But Google and other search engines don’t discriminate – if lots of people are sharing your site because it’s good content, then they’ll also show you higher in the search results when people look for your kind of photography locally.

Get started right now!

There’s no better time to start creating evergreen content for your blog than right now. Sit down and make a list of all the questions that people who you’d like to visit your blog might be asking. And then work out from that list the things that will stay relevant all year round, and that won’t go out of fashion.

The key is to just start somewhere! You can always edit your blog posts somewhere.

Don’t forget, after you’ve spent time creating evergreen content for your blog, you should promote it on social media now and then again in the future. If you’ve created some great and long-lasting evergreen content, you’ll be able to promote it many times over. This means that you’ll always have something to say on social media during quieter times without having to constantly be writing new blog posts or shooting new work.

Do you have any other tips for creating evergreen content you’d like to share with our community? Please do so in the comments section!

The post Helpful Tips for Creating Evergreen Content for your Photography Website appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Charlie Moss.

Digital Photography School
June 7, 2020