In reality, unless you’re very demanding and continually shoot magazine quality pictures, most times you’re better off with a fixed lens digicam with an extended zoom range … like this one.

Panasonic has not indulged in a longish zoom camera before, unlike Canon, Nikon and Olympus, and its first such camera, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ35, possesses a modest 18x optical zoom that runs from 4.8-86.4mm or, in 35 SLR equivalence, 27-486mm. Say, now that’s a zoom!

Its amazingly tiny CCD measures 10.9mm in the diagonal, but is still capable of capturing a 12.1 million pixel image, leading to a maximum image size of 4000×3000 pixels.

This camera also has a feature that Panasonic has never installed in its compact range before as far as I know: it’s capable of RAW capture as well as JPEG … and of course RAW+JPEG simultaneously.

Coupled with this attractive factor, the FZ35 also shoots High Def movies with 1280 x 720 pixel resolution and stereo sound using the AVCHD Lite (MPEG-4/H.264) codec, which seems not to have been taken up by other makers.

Lite offers a considerable saving in file size: it’s half that of full AVCHD. You can also select lower movie quality settings: 848 x 480, 640 x 480 and 320 x 240 … the latter useful for Web transmission.

The FZ35, unlike many other digicams, has the ability to use the optical zoom while you’re shooting movies. The FZ35’s movie zoom operates in a gentle fashion — not jerky — and adds to the viewer enjoyment of movie clips. Another nice touch is that stills and movie shooting each have dedicated buttons.

When it comes to download time the FZ35 provides a USB 2.0 port, through which you can also export composite video and sound as well as a mini HDMI port, to which you can attach an optional lead to a High Def TV set. If you have one of the company’s VIERA TVs, you can control the camera’s playback functions with a VIERA remote control.

In their wisdom, Panasonic has simplified the optical stabiliser to two modes: off and on. I’ve always found the company’s stabiliser to be an excellent one but you may find it’s best to cancel it when the camera is on a tripod — one fights the other.

Memory: 40 MB of internal memory is useful for a short shooting spree but when you need a card you can load up an SD or SDHC, with the latter as preferred card for movie shooting; the advice is to use a Class 4 card or better.

Viewing: the camera has two LCD screens, one mounted in the turret above the lens and the other at the rear, a 6.9 cm screen. Frankly, whilst the former is preferable for bright daylight shot lineups, the resolution is so poor, in most cases you’re better off to persevere with the large, higher res rear screen. Besides, the camera auto adjusts the rear screen brightness according to ambiance levels … I found it quite easy to line up, zoom in, then shoot, even with sunlight falling directly onto the screen. Well done!

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ35 Features

The FZ35 has a useful range of exposure modes — auto, Program AE, aperture and shutter priority and manual — plus a battery of scene modes for the adventurous photographer’s without the skills to drive the camera in ‘manual’.

Metering options for both stills and movies include multi zone, centre-weighted and spot readings.

Of course it has face recognition and can also recognise faces registered from previous shots, so focus and exposure are optimised.

A plus is the FZ35’s ability to shoot movies with manually adjusted aperture or shutter speed as well as colour effects — B&W, sepia, a coolish or a warm rendering — as well as scene modes. My advice is to use these with care and try to shoot a run of shots using an effect to comprise a whole sequence — and not shoot the occasional random shot.

Test shot: ISO 80 f8 1/10 sec.

Test shot: ISO 400 f8 1/50 sec.

Test shot: ISO 1600 f8 1/200 sec.

Start Up Time

I could start shooting just two seconds after power-up, with follow on shots coming in at about one second intervals.

Distortion

I was surprised to find the lens exhibited no distortion at either end of the zoom range. Top lens!

Comment

I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the FZ35. It’s compact, easy to use and, with its 18x zoom, a powerful image capture tool.

The camera handled flare particularly well, snaring bright, well-coloured and sharp shots. The exposure systems were noticeably accurate.

A perfect camera for the traveler.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ35 Specifications

• Image Sensor: 12.1 million effective pixels.
• Metering: Averaging; centre-weighted; spot.
• Effective Sensor Size: 10.9mm diameter.
• Memory: SD and SDHC cards.
• Image Sizes (pixels): 4000×3000, 4000×2672, 4000×2248, 3264×2488, 3264×1840, 3264×2176, 2560×1920, 2560×1440, 2048×1536, 2048×1360, 1920×1080, 1600×1200, 640×480.
• File Formats: JPEG, RAW.
• ISO Sensitivity: Auto, 100 to 1600.
• Flash: Auto, red-eye reduction, red-eye reduction slow sync, first and second curtain sync, forced on and off.
• Power: Rechargeable lithium ion battery, AC.
• Dimensions: 117.6×75.8×88.9 WHDmm.
• Weight: Approx. 367 g (minus battery).
• Price: The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ35 is available at Amazon.

Post from: Digital Photography School - Photography Tips.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ35 – Review

I’d like to write a post soon about exactly how I went from hobbyist to pro so I’ll save that story for another day. But in terms of studio, I started out borrowing a friend’s set-up to photograph a school. He’s a filmmaker, so the equipment wasn’t ideal for photography. It consisted of  a roll of white background paper, two continuous lights on softboxes in the front and two lighting the background. It was a bit of a horrible experience now that I look back on it! The light temp from these lights was way orange/yellow and they were HOT HOT HOT. Even with diligent and time consuming post production work, the colours were dark and muddy and the kids were sweating like crazy which didn’t put them in such a great mood. Excellent learning experience.

After that, I began getting a lot of requests for studio work without any equipment of my own so I spoke to a studio lighting consultant who helped me make sense of it all and decide on the set-up I needed for the type of work I wanted to produce. Which as luck would have it was top-of-the-line and cost a pretty penny.

There are much more affordable versions of the set-up I chose, but I didn’t want it to be something where I found myself outgrowing the equipment and wanting something better before I had even broken even on what I’d purchased. So this is my kit and why I chose them:

Two Bowens Gemini 750 Lights – Powerful bursts of light mean I can capture action with precision and since I photograph kids, this is a must. Extremely fast recycle times mean I can take a photo every second without missing a shot. There are battery packs available which means I could use these on location should I so choose.

Two Bowens Gemini 400 Lights – Less powerful, but I only use them in the background so I decided to keep the extra £800 and go for something more ‘entry level’ for the backlights.

Umbrellas – Three umbrellas in two different sizes. Sometimes I use my front lights with two reflector umbrellas.

Softbox – A massive soft box usually used on my main light.

Lastolite Vinyl Roll – I started with cheap rolls of white paper but soon found that I was cutting it all away to get rid of dirt, playdoh, cake, etc. (I like messy shoots!) So I opted for a vinyl roll. It’s H-E-A-V-Y but washable and beautifully reflective so the background can be crisp and not only white, but glowing. It’s fantastic.

Heavy duty background support system – You can’t use the heavy vinyl roll without heavy duty support. I also have some heavy duty grips from a hardware store to keep the vinyl from unrolling all the way and then falling right off it’s steel centre.

Bowens Radio Triggers – these trigger the lights by radio signal. One attaches to the camera, one to one of the lights. When one of the lights flashes, it immediately triggers the other lights because they are on ’slave’ which means the other three follow the light of the one attached to the trigger.

So that’s my set-up! Watch this space for a post on how I actually set up my studio.

Post from: Digital Photography School - Photography Tips.

High Key Studio – What I Use and Why

Martin comments that ‘these ideas may seem a little elementary, but sticking to the basics keeps our editing focused, maintains consistency from image to image and keeps our clients happy’.

1. Tone of space (a room, for example) should be balanced and neutral, with no overall bias;
2. Blacks (like tuxes) should be black;
3. Whites (like wedding gowns) should be white;
4. Don’t over-saturate images (my personal pet peeve)! Final edited image should be representative of what the human eye saw when photographing occurred;
5. Flesh tones should be realistic and consistent. If he looks red and she looks pale white, something’s probably wrong;
6. Image should be level or straight. Use reference points within image to determine this;
7. Fix and remove any “red-eye” issues when flash is used;
8. Sharpen all images last, and do it sparingly;
9. Save images based on their intended use; images being posted online can be as small as 500 kb. Images that will be printed should probably be 1-2 mb (minimum);
10. For easy tracking and identification, rename/save images based on the event, like – “Jane & John Wedding 1”.

These are Martin’s 10 ‘rules’ and no doubt they’ll be debated by readers- what are yours? Do you have any? What would you add or subtract from Martin’s list?

Of course there’s no wrong or right in this as personal style and approach comes into play – but we’d love to hear your thoughts on this!

Post from: Digital Photography School - Photography Tips.

10 Rules for Editing Digital Images

I was, however, encouraged by the responses, especially the explanations. It was evident that a lot of DSLR owners would keep their current lens, especially those with the Nikon 18-200mm VR. And while a zoom seemed like the obvious choice for all around use, nearly one third of those responding chose a fixed focal length lens (and half of those were a 50mm of one type or another). After scouring through the results I especially appreciated Chris’ answer, “My contact lenses; without them I can’t see anything…”

Here now are the numbers from a purely human count of the responses. If someone picked two lenses, I threw out the answer. If the answer was unclear, I threw it out. All in all there were 334 tallies for 82 different lenses. This is not a scientific poll, if that wasn’t stated clearly before.

The other 57 lenses with two or less votes are not shown here. All in all they garnered less than 22% of the total mentions and they covered most of the 35m DLSR lenses available. If you care to peruse the rest of the mentions, the original post is here. And before someone calls me on it, I grouped the Leica 50mm Noctiluxes for easy of posting. That’s one hefty price for a nice lens!

Post from: Digital Photography School - Photography Tips.

The Lenses We Would Have If We Could Have No Other Lenses [POLL RESULTS]

In this article I’ll concentrate on just the what/how/where of keeping your camera shooting while in populated cities and towns.  I will write later about the unique aspect of filling your power needs while in more remote locations.

For those traveling to and through ‘modern civilization’, charging of batteries has various needs; camera, flash, portable storage drive, laptop to name a few.  Concentrating on mainly camera and flash batteries (typically AA) let’s take a look at some of the basics needed to keep the juice flowing.

Universal chargers

The first thing to check before packing is your charger.  Speaking specifically of camera battery chargers, these days most are universal, meaning they can take a wide variety of inputs and make it work.  The world over, there are a lot of different ways electricity gets delivered into homes and hotels.  For instance, in the USA power is delivered to standard wall outlets at 120 Volts (V) and 60 Hertz (Hz).  V and Hz are the two variables you will notice while traveling internationally that mean the most (besides adapters, covered next).  In the UK, power is delivered at 230V and 50Hz.

A universal charger will be able to handle a wide range of inputs.  For instance, the charger here on my desk for a Canon battery has an AC input range of 100-240V and 50/60Hz.  So it will work in both the USA and UK.  And for practically any other standard outlet in cities around the world for that matter.  Take a look at your charger; is it universal?  If you bought it in the last four years, chances are the answer is yes.  If it’s not, you’ll need to purchase a converter, which will convert the current from what’s coming out of the wall to the specific V and Hz your charger needs.  A convert, covered in a minute, is not to be confused with an adapter. 

If you’re looking for a good chart of different power outputs and wall plug configurations, take a look at ElectricalOutlet.org.

Adapters

Adapters are what make the physical plug ends of your charger work with the different holes in the wall.  And that’s all they do.  But it’s important because different countries have different configurations as you can see from the link above from ElectricalOutlet.org.  There are two basic types of adapters: 1) All in One and 2) Individual configurations.

All in One adapters tend to be bulkier than single adapters but they take the guess work out of what to pack if you’re heading to more than one country.  The Kensington model pictured right is a good example.  One end has a bunch of holes in it to accept the standard plug from your battery charger.  It doesn’t matter which country you come from, these adapters have the right set of holes.  On the other end is some form of plugs.  In this case, different plugs slide out depending on which country you are visiting.  Each slider is clearly labeled for the group of countries you’re visiting.  Pretty easy.  The down side tends to be the bulk of the unit.  I’ve found when using such an adapter that not all wall outlets are brand new (an understatement) and a loose outlet means this heavier adapter tends to fall out.

Individual configurations are lighter and simpler but have a number of parts.   Take a look at the picture (to the right) of the Sima SIP-3 Ultimate International Travel Adapter Plug Set.  Whew, the name obviously isn’t simpler. 

I own and have traveled with this adapter and it works well for me.  It comes in three parts and they all nest together.  The nice aspect of this type of set is I can take just one of the three if I’m only visiting ‘like plugged’ countries.  I like to pack light so for me this is a bonus. 

Converters

Converters will actually convert the power from a foreign outlet to the power you need.  For instance, you are traveling from the USA to Europe on vacation and your battery charger is not universal.  On the back it clearly states, “Input – 120V 60Hz”.  You need a converter that will take the 240V and 50Hz from standard European outlets and ’stop it down’ to 120V and 60Hz.  If you attempt to plug your charger into a standard European outlet using just an adapter and not the converter in this instance, bad things will happen.  Overheating batteries, fire, explosions and possibly the end of civilization.  So please make sure to use a convert if your battery charger doesn’t indicate it’s universal.

Power strip

Adding a power strip simplifies life.  With a power strip you will only need one of the items above instead of one for each gadget you need to charge.  Monster makes a great travel power strip (pictured right) because it is light and folds into itself.  Not only will a power strip let you charge your camera battery, laptop, iPod and cell phone all at the same time with just one outlet, you can earn extra credit in the airport if you’re not the one hogging the last outlet.  And if there are no free outlets available while you wait five ours on your layover, it’s very easy to pull out a power strip and ask if you can share an outlet.  I’ve honestly thought of carry spare power strips and selling them while on the road from all the positive comments I get when sharing space.  And they work even when you don’t know how to say, “Can we share this outlet?” in German.  Just hold up the power strip and point to the outlet with a smile and most sane people are happy to share. 

For travel in the modern world to populated cities and towns, the items above will help keep your batteries topped off and your camera alive.  In a future post I’ll explore some options for those heading out of town and possibly off the grid.

Post from: Digital Photography School - Photography Tips.

How To Keep Your Batteries Charged While Traveling – City Edition

Many of the images that you take particularly cityscapes, like most portraits, can do with some spot fixing. I’ve been traveling through Europe a lot lately and because it’s considered almost de rigeur to smoke there, many of the photos that I have are littered with cigarette butts and assorted garbage.

And although you may not realize it, even small cigarette butts will detract from an image. A few minutes spent cleaning up an image can result in it having a way more polished look. Here are my top techniques for cleaning up litter and unsightly blemishes.

A word of advice before you begin: make a duplicate of the original image and work on this. Then you have the original image to look back at and see just how much improved the image is after the spot fixing is complete.

Spot Healing Brush

For simple spot fixes the Spot Healing Brush cannot be beaten. It doesn’t require you to make a selection of a source area to use for the fix so you can get to work fixing the image straight away.

Ensure your brush is large enough to cover the problem area but not any bigger – the idea is to spot fix just the problem area and to leave as much of the original image intact around it. Zoom in close to where the flaws are and paint over each flaw one at a time.

The Hand tool is useful here as you can press and hold the spacebar as you drag on the image to reposition and when you let go the mouse and spacebar the Spot Healing Brush will be still selected.

It can take five minutes or more to spot a really bad image, but the overall result will be significantly improved.

When you’re using the Spot Healing Brush tool, make sure that you have the Proximity Match option enabled, not Create Textures. Proximity match gives a better result with most spotting tasks.

Patch Tool

For larger jobs where, for example, the Spot Healing Brush won’t fix the problem because it’s too close to something with different texture or it’s such a large problem that it really needs a bigger solution, use the Patch Tool or the Clone Tool.

With the Patch Tool you make a selection around the area that is the problem, making sure that the Source option on the toolbar is selected. Now drag the marquee away to find an area to use as the fix. Sometimes you may need to apply this fix a couple of times, and you may need to clone around the edges of the area later on to improve the overall appearance and to add some texture back into the image.

Clone tool

To use the Clone Tool, select the tool, locate an area of the image that you want to clone from – this is your source image area – and Alt + Click (Option + Click on the Mac) on that area to sample it. Then start painting on the image – typically this works best if you click repeatedly rather than painting as painting tends to introduce repeated patterns into the fix which scream “Look! I tried to fix this in Photoshop!”

In Photoshop CS4, the Clone Tool has a preview so you can line things up neatly making it a very handy tool for fixing elements where there are lines or other things that need to be matched up in the fix.

You can also use the Clone Tool to add some texture back into areas that the patch tool has removed texture from even after the fix has been applied.

Healing Brush

The Healing Brush tool works similarly to the clone tool, but it has a healing ability built in so it’s a handy tool to use too.

With the Healing Brush tool you need to again Alt + Click (Option + Click on the Mac), to sample the area of the image to use as the fix, and then click over the area that needs fixing.

The healing aspect of this brush blends the solution over the problem so you could, for example, have quite a dark solution area in your brush, but when you paint over a lighter area to fix it, the fix will lighten as it is blended in.

In the example above we couldn’t use the Healing Brush to fix the water running out from under these plants as it would tend to want to blend in and darken the area being fixed when we need it to be lighter. In the case of the water, the clone tool is the best option because it lets us paint over the water area with lighter pixels without trying to blend in the result which would simply darken it again.

Take a good look

Once you’ve fixed the obvious problems take a good look at your image at 100% and see if there are things that are distracting to your eye that you may want to fix. These will generally be things that are lighter, brighter or in sharp focus as they are things our eyes are attracted to. If these are ugly and not really central to the image itself, then get rid of it. I removed some of the tree labels at this point.

To finish the image I added some color to the sky, adding some saturation and a curves adjustment and then cropped in a little closer.

Post from: Digital Photography School - Photography Tips.

Spot Fixing Images in Photoshop

Image by man's pic

So you’re desperately keen to go into wedding photography — or maybe you’ve made a start. The only problem you’re faced with is the equipment: and there are a lot of choices.

Firstly, the most important thing to realize is that the camera and/or lens isn’t going to cut it on its own; you’re not going to see a magical difference. Your equipment can limit you, but at the end of the day it boils down to the photographer.

Cameras

Now, when considering a camera in wedding photography, you need to measure up your needs and your means. It all depends on your budget, but what if you can get it all? Pro-grade cameras aside, let’s consider prosumer models.

For Canon and Nikon, full frame bodies are readily available for not-too-expensive prices. Full frame bodies are extremely useful in wedding photography because of their low-noise capabilities, the sensor being larger. 2-3 stops can normally be gained in a full frame body as compared to a normal APS-C dSLR. This means that ISO 3200 can be used instead of ISO 800 and still have about the same amount of noise, and the shutter speed can be raised two whole stops: necessary, as weddings are normally conducted in not very bright light. If you only have one camera, it should be a full frame body.

A short note here: you should always get two bodies. There are two main reasons, these being 1. backup and 2. not having to change lenses (as much). So you could have a 24-70mm on one body, and a 70-200mm on the other, thus covering the whole field should you need to alter your field of view. You may not be able to buy a second body, but you can rent one. Make sure, however, that if you’re renting equipment, be they lenses or cameras, that you also rent them beforehand to get the feel and experience with them first, before the actual day.

And here we come to the second body, which can be a full frame — or an APS-C body. Why an APS-C body, if the ISO handling isn’t as good? Because an APS-C sensor has a 1.6x or 1.5x (Canon/Nikon respectively) crop factor, and this is applied to lenses for the field of view. Note that while full frame lenses can be used on ‘crop’ bodies, the other way does not work (the APS-C lenses denoted by DX or EF-S, Nikon/Canon respectively). So, by using a 70-200mm f/2.8 on a APS-C body, you effectively get around 300mm in f/2.8 as a maximum — not bad, considering the prices of a normal 300mm f/2.8! The decision to weigh the choices for the second body (full frame vs. APS-C) is ultimately up to you, and it isn’t an easy choice.

Which is why some photographers use three bodies. Again, renting is the wisest choice until you can get hold of one yourself. A third body can be cumbersome to have on yourself, and normally is stashed in a bag.

Lenses

And so we come to lenses. Look to lenses with wide aperture (large f/-numbers) as these allow more light in. For instance, f/2.8 gains a whole stop in brightness from f/4. The shutter speed can then be changed to a faster speed to adapt. The ‘bread-and-butter’ lenses for a wedding photographer is the 24-70mm f/2.8 and 70-200mm f/2.8 (IS). With these two lenses, you can shoot a complete wedding, from reasonably wide to telephoto (you would obviously use the 24-70mm on a full frame body to take advantage of the wide-angle). A lot of photographers also use an ultra wide angle lens, such as the Canon 16-35mm f/2.8. However, lens choice is a very personal thing. While those two are enough, some photographers have shot an entire wedding with a 50mm and that alone.

A common question that arises is zoom vs primes. It depends on what you are comfortable with. Zooms tend to be slower (aperture), and the maximum for a zoom is f/2.8, while primes go down to f/1.4, etc. A good prime kit consists of a 24mm (or wider), 50mm, 85mm and 135mm (and/or a larger telephoto). The 85mm is not necessary, but then again, it can only take one lens to shoot a whole wedding (not advised, however!).

Some take a mix of lenses; different lenses for different parts of the wedding. Dance shots and formals are normally conducted in wide angle shots, while the ceremony might have a wide angle shot with the congregation as well as a close up of the couple exchanging rings.

Flashes

Another major decision is flash. You can choose not to use flash or not, and the place the wedding is being held in may have their own rules on that. However, if you’re keen on using flash, a speedlight/speedlite is a necessity. A SB800/900 or 580 EX II is preferable, but a SB600 or 430 EX II will also do the trick. A diffuser or bouncer is also very helpful. Make sure you know how to bounce and manipulate flash, as bare flash is not always quite completely appealing.

Strobes can also be used. These or speedlights/speedlites can be used on stands, particularly effective during the dances. These can be wirelessly triggered using remotes. Umbrellas and/or softboxes are also frequently employed during formals as well.

Other things to remember:

• memory cards. The most important thing is to get lots of memory; fast cards can help if you want to capture that moment (and not miss), using continuous shooting. Make sure you have enough memory to cover at least 600 shots: how many gigabytes will depend on whether you shoot RAW or not, and the megapixel count of your camera
• tripod/monopod. These are absolutely vital, but they do help. Some photographers choose to employ both a monopod and a tripod, and some simply use one or the other.
• remote shutter release. Use this with the tripod for the formals for more stability
• lens cleaning materials. Brushes, lens pens… whatever you use to clean your lenses, bring them along. You never know what can happen
• duct tape. Yes, it’s true: if it can’t be fixed with duct tape, it can’t be fixed at all! If not, duct tape is still handy to have along

Post from: Digital Photography School - Photography Tips.

Wedding Photography Equipment

The Florida Everglades and other wetlands cover thousands of square miles between the east and west coast of Florida. Everglades National Park is the centerpiece of the region, but there is a long list of other great places to explore and photograph. Here are seven of my favorite destinations for bird and landscape photography in South Florida. Some are well-known while others are obscure or out-of-the-way. They are all well worth the effort and should result in great fun and great photography. More details on Loop Road and Pahayokee can be found in my website under the Newsletters tab.

The list is by no means all-inclusive but it does give you a rich menu of some great places to visit. Bring your longest lens (at least 400mm) for bird and wildlife photography along with a quality tripod and you should have a successful trip.

The best time to visit is during the South Florida winter, from November through early April. Birds are abundant, the weather is pleasant, and mosquitoes should be few and far between (hopefully). Winter is also the dry season; it rains very little during these months. In some of these locations you will see alligators and possible encounter one on the road. Let them have their space. Alligators are more afraid of you than you of them.

Loop Road

I love this road. It’s my favorite. Loop Road travels 26 miles through the heart of the Big Cypress National Preserve. Ten miles are paved and 16 miles are unpaved and not well maintained. High clearance vehicles do best on this road. Very unfortunately, the National Park Service recently closed the unpaved portion until May, 2010 for repairs. But the paved portion is still open and worth the trip. Loop Road intersects U.S. 41 at a bend about 40 miles west of Miami and then again another 15 miles west on U.S. 41. There are many culverts and ponds on both sides of the road and you should find an array of wading birds, alligators and other wildlife. I sometimes shoot from the car window so that I don’t spook the wildlife. Use a bean bag or improvise with a shirt or towel to stabilize the lens on the door. After spending some time on Loop Road you’ll understand why this is a favorite destination of mine. The best time to shoot is morning.

Wakodahatchee Wetlands

Located in suburban Delray Beach on Jog Road, Wakodahatchee Wetlands was created about 10 years ago and has become a prolific bird sanctuary featuring herons, anhingas, purple gallinules, bitterns, limpkins and more. Access is via a boardwalk which can vibrate slightly when others are walking near you. So be aware and shoot when you can. But it’s well worth the effort. Best time is to arrive within an hour after sunrise.

Shark Valley

Shark Valley is a magnet for wading birds and photographers. It is part of the Everglades National Park and is located about 35 miles west of Miami on U.S. 41. You’ll find a large variety of wading and other birds, most within 50 feet of your lens. Shark Valley opens at 8:30 am but you can walk in before that. If you do, park your car along US 41 but avoid the “no parking” zone or you WILL be ticketed.

Pahayokee Road

Pahayokee road is a great sunrise location in Everglades National Park. You’ll be shooting toward the east and using cypress trees for silhouettes against the rising sun. The results can be spectacular. Take the main road in Everglades National Park about 10 miles until you see a sign for “Pahayokee Overlook”. Turn there and park within 100 yards of the main road. You can shoot from the road, or if the water level is low enough you can wander into the sawgrass for different perspectives and trees to use in your composition.

Anhinga Trail

After shooting sunrise at Pahayokee road, it’s a ten minute drive back to the Anhinga Trail which is close to the main entrance to the park. This is one of the most popular locations throughout the Everglades for bird photography. Wading birds, anhingas, gallinules and cormorants are very tame and easily approachable. Anhingas nest in the winter and chicks can be seen in the nest around February and March.

Fakahatchee Strand Preserve

The Fakahatchee is sometimes called the “Amazon of North America”. It is a hundred square miles of swamp and forest with huge strands of cypress and tropical hardwood hammocks. The entrance is 2 ½ miles north of U.S. 41 on S.R. 29, which is about 65 miles west of Miami on U.S. 41. You’ll explore the preserve by car on Janes Scenic Drive, an 11 mile unpaved road that cuts through the heart of the region. There are several walking trails that extend from the road into the depths of the preserve. Check with the ranger or online to determine which trails are open. You’ll find an array of subjects to photograph: swamps, hardwood hammocks, orchids, bromeliads, alligators, birds and wetland plants and flowers. This is an unmaintained, rustic area with a rich diversity of tropical wilderness and wildlife.

Turner River Road

Turner River Road is about 60 miles west of Miami on U.S. 41. You’ll see a sign that says “SR 839 – HP Williams Roadside Park”. Turn north there and you’ll be on the road. It’s a gravel road that stretches 20 miles north along a canal, but the best photography is along the first few miles. You’ll find an abundance of wading birds, anhingas, cormorants, alligators and other wildlife. The best time for photography is late afternoon when the sun is behind you, lighting the far side of the canal which is on the east side of the road.

There you have it – A few of my favorite locations for bird, wildlife and scenic photography in the Everglades. Be careful out there and remember that you’re merely a visitor in the home of the wildlife. Enjoy the outdoors, tread lightly, and “pack it in, pack it out” – don’t litter and don’t damage anything.

About the Author: Cliff Kolber is a nature and travel photographer and writer based in Miami, Florida. He and his wife Doris have created a spectacular portfolio of images and articles from around the world, specializing in the Florida Everglades, the American Southwest and Antarctica. Visit Cliff’s website at www.kolberphotography.com.

Post from: Digital Photography School - Photography Tips.

Where to Photograph in the Everglades

In a recent post, I referred to studio photography with a white background and bright lights as being ‘high-key’and got quite a bit of flack about it. 

While calling this style ‘high-key’ may be a deviation from the original definition, it’s a heck of a lot easier than always calling it ‘photography with a white background and bright lights’. Recently, I read a blog from a photographer who calls it ‘white seamless’ due to the large roll of white seamless paper (or in my case, vinyl) which you use as the background. So here I am, calling it ‘white seamless’.

There’s more than one way to skin a cat and many ways to produce the white seamless look. I don’t know much about those other methods and I learned my own by trial and error.

Set-up

I set up the studio thus (my full kit list is in my last post):

• Background – white roll of seamless vinyl on a heavy duty stand
• There are two lights pointing at the background – 400 wt on half power with a high performance reflector attached. Lights are aimed around 45* towards the background. Nearly head-on at the background, not at an angle facing each other. The light from these can easily spill and wrap around your subjects which is really obnoxious. If I had a permanent location and didn’t have to set up every day, I would also be using gobos like this bi-fold door idea from Zack Arias to be sure that the background is lighted entirely separately from the subject.
• Camera right, 750 wt light somewhere near full power with a large soft box. Set up mid-height (stand not fully extended) and pointing down. Great long shadows add the effect that, although the surroundings are pure white, the subjects are still in a real environment, not just cut and pasted onto a white sheet of paper.
• Camera left and behind a bit is another 750 wt light with large bounce umbrella on a slightly lower power than camera right. This aids in the lovely shadows which don’t completely ‘blow out’ the subjects. I’ve found that shooting between the lights (camera right is just on the edge of the white seamless and camera left is behind me) canceled out the light spill I was experiencing before I made the changes.
• I use radio trigers to trigger the flashes wirelessly
• Because I shoot children mostly, my camera has an 18-200mm lens so I can be more flexible with their movement and not miss a shot.
• Camera is tethered to a macbook on a 5m cable and shot directly into the hard drive on the computer and also stored on the large memory card in the camera for added protection.

I don’t use light meters I’ve just experimented a lot and when I get a set of images I love, I put a photo in my notebook and draw a diagram of how it was lit and all the settings I used.

Camera Settings

• I whack the main lights  up pretty near full power so I can use a high aperture around f22 (aperture controls flash-light, shutter speed for ambient light). So if the photos aren’t bright enough, adjust the aperture accordingly and turn up the lights. This ensures that your photos will be sharp sharp sharp and in the case of children, if there is one closer to you than the other, the one in the background won’t be blurred.
• Shutter speed is at the sync speed – 1/200 a fast shutter speed and powerful lights can produce some amazing stop-action shots
• ISO – I keep the ISO low at 100 to avoid noise.
• So basically as you can see, I use every optimal camera setting – low ISO, fast shutter, high aperture – and then I adjust the lights until the photos are as they should be.

Post from: Digital Photography School - Photography Tips.

White Seamless – Studio How-To

There have been questions posted as comments recently asking about the role of Lightroom in a photographer’s workflow. Many posters who are not currently using Lightroom aren’t sure whether Lightroom it is an alternative to Photoshop or where it fits if you have Photoshop too. I thought it was a good time to look at where Lightroom fits in the Adobe line up and to explain why Lightroom isn’t a Photoshop alternative.

Lightroom was developed from the ground up as a tool for photographers and one which would provide a logical workflow for processing a lot of images in an effective and efficient way. Photographers have special needs for handling images from photo shoots and these aren’t necessarily reflected in how Photoshop is designed.

When you handle a lot of images in Photoshop you download them and preview them in Bridge. If they require fixing or printing, you take them via Camera RAW (if they are Raw files) to Photoshop. In Lightroom most of your workflow takes place inside Lightroom – Lightroom contains the organizing tools of Bridge and the processing tools of Camera RAW so, if it is an alternative to anything it is better seen as an alternative to Bridge and Camera RAW rather than to Photoshop itself.

In Lightroom you import only those images you want to use and manage inside Lightroom. If an image isn’t in the Lightroom catalog then Lightroom cannot see it. This is in contrast to Bridge which shows you the entire contents of folders on your hard drive. In Lightroom you can build preview images as you import them or later on and these are also stored in the catalog – this makes it quicker for you to view and work on your images in contrast to using Bridge.

Lightroom’s Library module also contains tools for managing images such as adding keywords, sorting and cataloging them.

The Lightroom Develop module is the equivalent of Photoshop Camera RAW and it contains tools for applying image wide fixes. You can use these on any image that Lightroom can import and this includes Camera RAW images, JPEGs and Tifs.

Lightroom also has a few tools which let you fix limited areas of an image, such as the Clone, Heal, Graduated Filter and Adjustment Brush. However it is here that the differences between Photoshop and Lightroom are most apparent – there are lots of things that Lightroom cannot do that Photoshop can. Photoshop is a pixel editor so it can be used to affect images all the way down to pixel level – Lightroom isn’t. Photoshop supports layers and layer masks, Lightroom does not. Photoshop can merge panoramas, HDR sequences and align and blend layers – none of these features appear in Lightroom. In Photoshop Extended you can work with video and 3D – again these aren’t features of Lightroom.

Other modules

The remaining modules in Lightroom are SlideShow, Print and Web which are tools for displaying images either as slideshows, web pages or assembling them for printing. Some of the same things can be done using the combination of Bridge and Photoshop but this is where Lightroom tops Photoshop. The Lightroom tools work better because your images are already there, organized, open and ready to work with and the tools are very fast.

Where does Lightroom fit?

So, if you are asking yourself if Lightroom is an alternative to Photoshop, the answer is No! It is, however, a possible alternative to using Bridge and Camera RAW although there may still be times if you are using Photoshop and Lightroom that you may still opt to use Bridge rather than Lightroom. For example, Lightroom can’t handle the wide array of file types that Bridge can and sometimes you won’t want to import images into Lightroom – for example if you use stock images you may not want them mixed up with your own photos. In this case you may choose to access them from Bridge rather than going to the trouble of importing them into Lightroom.

Most people who use Lightroom report significant savings in the amount of time they spend processing their images. This makes sense as all your images, once they are imported into Lightroom are immediately available and you can edit them without opening them and changes are saved inside the Lightroom catalog and not to the file itself (unless you change the default behavior). Most people who use Lightroom also report that they use Photoshop less than they did before because many of the fixes they might have performed in Photoshop can now be managed in Lightroom. Since I made the commitment to Lightroom, this is my experience – much less time spent working on images overall and much less time spent in Photoshop.

There are many people who can benefit from using Lightroom to manage their digital photo workflow and there are many who will not. If you work with lots of images, if you need to apply the same fix to multiple images, if you need to get your images from the camera and out to your client in a very short time – then Lightroom totally rocks.

On the other hand if you create composites or spend most of your post production time on a handful of images perfecting them by editing them and crafting them into your vision, then Lightroom may not offer any significant advantages. Remember too, that any program will take time to learn and Lightroom doesn’t always follow the Photoshop style of doing things so there is a learning curve you’ll need to commit to before you will feel at home in Lightroom.

So, there’s my take on Lightroom and Photoshop. Now it is over to you. What has your experience been – do you use Photoshop less now you have Lightroom? Did you try Lightroom and not continue? We’d love to hear your opinions…

If you’ve not yet used Lightroom but think it might be for you – grab a copy today at Amazon today.

Post from: Digital Photography School - Photography Tips.

Lightroom: What is it and When Should You Consider it?