foto-biz.com

Canon: Bouncing Flash

Syv Ritch — Fri, 25 May 2012 13:30:11 +0000

The camera pop-up flashes and the “lower end” flashes can only illuminate in front. Most “good” flashes allow you to bounce the light instead of just sending it straight in front. You can bounce the light to the ceiling or even behind you toward a corner or a large reflector.

Regular hot shoe flashes have only one power setting: the full power. To throw less light, they cannot reduce the power, they reduce the time of the flash. A ½ power is just the same amount of energy but over ½ of the time. A ¼ power is just the same amount of energy but over ¼ of the time… just like a camera shutter.

Camera manufacturers have spent millions upon millions to simplify the flash and make it work with bounce, slave, remote… Take advantage of it.

My standard settings for the flash operations for the camera (I even have it stored as C1) are: * Manual mode
* Speed: 1/80s
* Aperture: f/5.6
* ISO: 800
* Evaluative Metering
* Auto White Balance
* Single Shooting
* One-Shot AF

My standard setting for the flash is:

eTTL

I often adjust either the ISO and/or the shutter speed. The shutter speed controls how much light will be on the background, and the f/stop mostly control the amount of light on the subject.

and I get this:

Flash bounced behind me at 45° wall/ceiling

No green eyes, the animal equivalent of the human red eyes
Soft shadows
You can see me in the eyes of the cat
You can see the flash in the eyes of the cat with the little dots
You can see the bounce of the light against the wall/ceiling corner in the eyes of the cat with the big white “splash”

I'm using the Canon term of eTTL, but it's exactly same thing and it's just as valid with Nikon. Nikon calls it iTTL.

Lightroom 4: Black & Whites, Round 2

Syv Ritch — Thu, 24 May 2012 13:01:26 +0000

I like Black & White photographs. I often prefer prefer the Black and White to the color versions. Is it because I'm old and grew up on Black & White? I'm not sure, but I know that I often use the B&W to hide many defects. Color balance is irrelevant in B&W, you can have a huge contrast in B&W, fixes are easier in B&W…

The standard way for Lightroom to produce Black and Whites is to press on Black & White of the Basic panel. But to me, it's not Black and White, it's just “grey mush”, I don't like it.

I prefer to go the long way around. I even made my own preset out of it. Yes, I know that there are 25 Lightroom 4 Black and White presets, but I like mine better!

I always create a virtual copy and do the Black & White on the virtual copy.

Lightroom: Desaturation vs the Black & White Processing

1. I remove all the saturation. HSL > Saturation, and set all the colors to: -100
1. I add a fair bit of sharpening: Amount: 50, Radius: 1.0, Detail: 35, Masking: 50
1. Tone Curve: Strong contrast
1. Basic panel: Contrast: 80, Clarity: 40, Vibrance: 10, Saturation: 5

This is the end of my preset. The rest is always done by hand.

BTW, I do it in that order, then I can do to the exposure, blacks, white, shadows and highlights, but they are not part of the preset.

Once this is done, I go the HSL > Luminance and use the eye drop to change the luminance of people's skin and/or important items in the photograph. That's why I needed the virtual copy, so I can refer to the original and see how the processing goes.

Lightroom: Categories vs. Keywords

Syv Ritch — Wed, 23 May 2012 13:08:17 +0000

Categories: General groupings like: TYPE, COUNTRY/LOCATION, ANIMALS… Most of my categories are plural or the names are very generalized like ECONOMY or STATUS.
Keywords: Specifics like what type of bird: Sandhill Crane. Many software or company also call them tags.

6 days old Sandhill Crane

Categories help organize photos while keywords help retrieve the photos.

Once a company or a person sets the categories, they rarely change. Occasionally, I will add a category but I often add new keywords. Take a look at my own keywords available at http://www.foto-biz.com/Keywords/Lightroom-keywords-update, I only have 28 categories but I have 5000+ keywords: * ANIMALS * ARTS / ENTERTAINMENT / CULTURE * BUILDINGS * CELEBRATIONS / HOLIDAYS * CONCEPTS * CUSTOMERS * ECONOMY / BUSINESS / FINANCE * EDUCATION * ENVIRONMENT * FOOD * GENRE * HEALTH / BEAUTY * HUMAN INTEREST * LIFE EVENT * LIFESTYLE * NATURE * NEWS * OBJECTS * PEOPLE * PERSONAL * PHOTOGRAPHY * PLACES * RELIGION * SIGNS * SPORTS * STATUS * TECHNOLOGY * TRANSPORT

And notice that all my categories are in capital letters. Lightroom indents the various levels but it's much easier to identify the categories when looking at very long lists.

A few of the categories like CUSTOMERS, PHOTOGRAPHY and STATUS are for the business.

Every stock agency also has categories that they publish so that their customers can find things easily. Some of their search engines are more sophisticated than others, they allow to search by category instead of just by word which could either be a category or a keyword.

The “big legs” are the adult Sandhill Crane.

For this photograph, my categories are:

ANIMALS
CONCEPTS
HUMAN INTEREST
NATURE
PLACES
STATUS

For this photograph, my keywords are:

Baby Animal
Cute
Parenting
Published
Reifel Bird Sanctuary
Birds > Sandhill Crane
Sex
Spring Time

Nikon with 200-400mm Zoom and a Very Strong Man

Syv Ritch — Tue, 22 May 2012 13:07:18 +0000

Nikon with 200-400mm and a Very Strong Man click on image for gallery

When I say a very strong man, it's not tongue and cheek. What he's doing is extremely difficult. Remember the old physics class and cantilevers. If I remember correctly, it's weight times distance and the sine + cosine of the angle of the force (or something like that). It's a very big and heavy piece of glass at the front. Look at the way he has to arch his legs and his back to try to center the weight on his legs. These Nikon 200-400mm f/4 zoom are “darn” heavy at 7.3 lbs or 3.5 kilos and 14 inch / 35 cm long, that's a big moment of force to compensate for. The new Vibration Reduction, VRII, helps with the swaying but there are limits, it does not help with the pulling of the back or… That's why I always use my monopod. It's a Velbon Sherpa Pro Carbon Fiber that weighs around a pound (500 grams) and supports 11 lbs (5 kilos) with a Manfrotto 234 RC monopod head.

BTW, In case you wonder what he is photographing? He is photographing Sandhill Cranes.

Side note: I wish that Canon would come out with a 200-400mm zoom at an almost affordable price. I can always dream. The Nikon 200-400 is $6,600 in Canada, so if Canon comes out with one, it's very likely to be even more expensive.

Canon: Bracketing / HDR

Syv Ritch — Mon, 21 May 2012 14:57:46 +0000

I'm not a fan of the HDR look (High Dynamic Range). HDR converts the 3, 5 7 or 9 images into one 32 bit data file that eventually gets translated into a 16 bit image. There is currently no output device, screen or printer, that supports 32 bit.

I use bracketing a lot, but not for HDR. I use the bracketing for “fusing” the images into a photograph. Fusing does not involve the 32 bit “thing.” It just finds the best pixels from the stack and uses that pixel.

Dalbergia Wood Workshop click on image for gallery

This is the “fusion look”, my “trademark look.” There is no PhotoShop involved in this photograph. Look at the details, especially the shadows under the work bench.

Canon Bracketing Rules

* In Av or M: the aperture stays constant during the bracketing, it's the speed that changes (remember the tripod?)
* In Tv: the speed stays constant, it's the aperture, therefore the depth of field, that changes during the bracketing.
* In M mode and Auto ISO: the ISO will get set before the first exposure but is fixed during the bracketing.
* In Av or Tv mode and Auto ISO: the ISO can change during the bracketing, especially with the long exposures on the “plus side.” Most HDR software, like Photomatix or PhotoShop, do not do well when the ISO changes during the bracketing.

These rules are for Canon.
Most of these rules also apply to Nikon, but how does the Auto ISO works? If somebody is offering me some Nikon gear (like a D800 or a even a D4). I'm willing to “sacrifice myself.”

$2.05 for that Photo

Syv Ritch — Fri, 18 May 2012 13:08:30 +0000

On 14-May-2012, ShutterStock Inc has filled its IPO to raise $115 million. IPO: Initial Public Offering, the first sale of stock by a company to the public on a stock market. Part of being a public company, it must file on quarterly basis ~~audited~~ financial statements and need to provide guidance on what they expect…

BIG, BIG WARNING & CORRECTION

The standard practice, when filing financial statements with the SEC (Security Exchange Commission), is to provide audited financial statements. It is legal to provide unaudited financial statements provided it is disclosed, but it raises all kind of warnings. It makes people, including me, ask the questions: “Why are the financial statements not audited? Can I trust this information?”

SHUTTERSTOCK IMAGES LLC
UNAUDITED PRO FORMA CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEET

Until now, ShutterStock Inc was a private company and did not have to reveal any of its financial information, of its value, of how it operates its business.

Part of its IPO filing, ShutterStock had to reveal the number of it's customers, its sales, its expenses… and most important: the value of its average sale.

The 2011 total sales revenues were $120 million, a 45 percent increase over 2010 revenues of $83 million and nearly double the 2009 revenues of $61 million.
The average price users paid per image download in 2011 was $2.05.

May 2012, SEC Filing for ShutterStock Inc.

ShutterStock was founded in 2003 and was the first company to use the subscription-based pricing. For $250 month or $2,559 per year, users can download up to 25 images per day (2011 numbers). The subscription is directed toward corporate buyers.

This is the average!
This is the total dollars divided by the total number of photographs downloaded.
This is not the value of your favorite landscape.
This is not the value of your best portfolio image.
This is not the value of an XSmall or an Xlarge image.

It's an aggregate.

Lightroom: Create Wallpaper in Lightroom

Syv Ritch — Thu, 17 May 2012 13:07:25 +0000

Many smart photographers offer free backgrounds, aka wallpaper, to people and potential clients. What's a wallpaper? It's an image used as a background for a computer, a tablet, or a cell phone. The problem with the wallpapers is that you need to offer a wallpaper at the resolution of the computer/device or it will look bad. Ask the owners of the iPad 3, aka the new iPad. Many apps and wallpapers do not support the new resolution and look terrible on the iPad 3.

Sit down, strap your seat belt, there will be some math involved.

Select the photo or the photos
Print and output to JPEG. Sounds simple but remember the math…

For “regular” computers, this means desktops and good laptops, you should set the resolution to 96 ppi. For the iPad 1 and the iPad 2, the resolution is 1024 by 768 pixels at 132 ppi, For the iPad 3, aka the new iPad, the resolution is 2048 by 1536 pixels at 264 ppi. Many Netbooks have a screen resolution of 1024 by 768 at 72 ppi. The iPhone 4 has a resolution of 960 by 640 pixels at 326 ppi.

You will need these numbers. What does this all mean? It means that you will have to make a few wallpapers of the same image for the different sizes and resolutions. The math is for the print size, and it's done once you have decided on the resolution:

This is a simple example. Nobody uses the resolution of 100 ppi but it's great for a demo. For 1980 by 1080, the Custom File Dimensions will be in inch:

The width will be 1980 divided by 100 = 19.8 inch
The height will be 1080 divided by 100 = 10.8 inch

If the resolution is 96 ppi, with 1980 pixels by 1080 pixels, the Custom File Dimensions will be in inch:

The width will be 1980 divided by 96 = 20.6 inch
The height will be 1080 divided by 96 = 11.2 inch

For the iPad 1 and 2, the resolution is 132 ppi, with 1024 pixels by 768 pixels, the Custom File Dimensions will be in inch:

The width will be 1024 divided by 132 = 7.8 inch
The height will be 768 divided by 132 = 5.8 inch

For the iPad 3, the resolution is 264 ppi, with 2048 pixels by 1536 pixels, the Custom File Dimensions will be in inch:

The width will be 2048 divided by 264 = 7.8 inch
The height will be 1536 divided by 264 = 5.8 inch

Notice that also the Custom File Dimensions are the same for iPad 1, 2 and 3, but the wallpapers are different because they are different screen ppi.

Select the Print to JPEG
Set the File Resolution to the desidered resolution 72, 96, 132, 264, or 326
Set the Color Management to sRGB
Set the Custom File Dimensions to what you have just calculated

I usually select the Layout Style to Custom Package and I use the preset, Maximize Size, before setting the Custom File Dimensions.

What's the Best…

Syv Ritch — Wed, 16 May 2012 13:17:30 +0000

At least once a week, I get an email asking:

I need to… What's the best… ?

What's the best camera? What's the best lens? What's the best website?

Why do the people ask for the best?

People say that they want the best when they don't. Since this blog is about photography, let's talk about the best image quality. Shouldn't it be about image quality? By far the best cameras, for image quality, are either the Hasselblads or the Phase One/Leaf based cameras in the 50 to 80 megapixels range with the matching lenses. Two bodies, you always need a backup just in case, a standard lens, a wide angle, and a short tele cost around $150,000 in my part of the world. I don't see too many photographers (professionals or otherwise) lining up for these at the camera stores. Late last year, I was talking to the manager of a professional camera store, he sold the grand total of 3 medium format cameras for 2011 and he was very happy.

When dealing with projects, you can have:

On time
On budget
On quality

Choose 2.

Everything is a compromise. When it comes to cameras, it's a balancing act between the quality of the image, the camera/lens size, the cost, the ease of use, the level of knowledge, and where you are located (you can be killed if you carry a camera in some places like the Sonora State of Mexico with the drug wars)…

Since it's a compromise, each person must make their own choice. Ask anybody that knows cameras and when asked about the “best street photography camera”, everybody (almost) will say: the Leica M serie. I don't like Leica, it's not my style, I rented one for a weekend and hated it. I prefer something like a Canon 7D and with a 70-200L f/4 or an Olympus EP-3 with the 45mm f/1.8 as a small pocketable camera.

It's my choice. Your choice will be different from mine. The point is that there is no one “best.” Who's the best? Canon or Nikon? The Canon 5DMk3 or the Nikon D800? The Canon 1Dx or the Nikon D4? Some people will look at the noise at ISO 51,200 and declare that this or that camera is the “best.” It's like judging a car by how the engine runs at 5,250 rpms (revolutions per minute).

For most of us, unless you are Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates…, cost is always a factor. And for vast majority of us, it's one of the most important factor. So much for the best.

According to the JD Power customer satisfaction 2011, the best cars are the Porsche.
But according to the JD Power customer retention 2011, people that buy again the same brand as their previous vehicle, the best cars are the Hyundai! It's not Porsche, Lexus, or Mercedes…

Lightroom: Catalog Size

Syv Ritch — Tue, 15 May 2012 13:23:35 +0000

You can the size of your current catalog by going to Edit > Catalog Settings on a Windows, or Lightroom > Catalog Settings on a Mac on the General tab.

Lightroom: Catalog Size

Here is what's included in the SQLite database file aka the Lightroom catalog: * The keywords/categories in the Library module
* The ratings/colors… in the Library module
* The IPTC/EXIF… in the Library module
* The settings from the Develop module
* The history from the Develop module

Here is what's NOT included in the SQLite database file aka the Lightroom catalog:

The images/photos/videos
The previews
The presets
The backups

Pro on His Day Off

Syv Ritch — Mon, 14 May 2012 14:12:38 +0000

Professional Photographer on His Day Off click on image for gallery

This guy is a “pro”. This guy earns a living from his camera, most likely in the fashion industry. You can see it from: 1. He squatted and went down lower on the ground without any hesitation. BTW, I'm still lower than he is by about half a foot, but I'm smarter than he is, i.e. more experienced, I use a carpenter kneepad on my right knee so I can kneel without having rocks or gravel dig into my knee. 1. He uses a Canon 24-70L f/2.8 on his Canon 5DMk2. It's very rare to see “amateurs” use this combo. He didn't fumble, he changed his settings without removing the camera from his eyes. His fingers have learned and this doesn't happens by going on Sunday with the photo club outing. It takes thousands of hours with a camera to get this level of dexterity. 1. He wraps the camera strap around his right hand to give extra stability. Many studio photographers do that. It doesn't look “cool” to have a camera hanging around the neck, that's what the tourists do. Me, I use the BlackRapid strap, it allows me to have a longer lens without killing my arm.

I took this photograph at Reifel Bird Sanctuary.

Lightroom 4: The Brushes

Syv Ritch — Fri, 11 May 2012 13:32:02 +0000

Not too many people use the brushes, they are either afraid or don't know how to. The brushes compensate for the lack of layers in Lightroom vs. PhotoShop. The brushes can do the vast majority of the everyday use of the layers. The brushes do not have the advanced power of the layers in PhotoShop, but for everyday use…

When using the brushes, I recommend being at 2:1 or even higher, so you can see the details.

Press on the Brush at tag #1. BTW, to me, this doesn't look like a brush but it looks more like a match that is about to be lit.
This opens the brush/local adjustment panel.
The first thing to deal with is the size and the feather of the brush. The size, tag #2, is big or small in pixels. The feather, tag #3, is the edge and how big it will be and is an additional softness to the brush. The feather shows as the second outer circle. A hard brush has a feather of 0 and displays as a single circle.
The density, tag #4, is the maximum correction that can be achieved with the brush. You can easily get more than 100% by creating a new brush and applying the new brush over the previous brush.
The flow, just below the feather, is to control how quickly you apply the correction. With a flow of 50%, you will need to apply the brush twice to get the full effect. With a flow of 25%, you will need to apply the brush four times to get the full effect.

If you do not like the effect that you have applied, click the Reset button next to the Close button to Undo all your adjustments for that brush.

Burst Rate vs Frames per Second

Syv Ritch — Thu, 10 May 2012 13:44:55 +0000

Many people confuse Burst Rate with Frames per Second (fps) speeds:

Burst Rate: How many of photographs you can take in a continuous/single burst without shutting down.
Frames per second: The speed at which you can take consecutive shots.

The burst rate is related to how much internal memory the camera has. The higher the RAM, the higher the burst rate, but eventually the camera needs to store the images from the internal memory onto the memory card. Once the camera's internal memory is full, that's it, no more photograph, you will need to wait for the camera to clear the internal memory by writing to the memory card. As space in memory becomes available, you can again start shooting.

The main problem is how to speedup the transfer the images from the camera's internal memory to the memory card. The speed of writing to the memory card will depend on the speed of the CPU, the width of the bus and the speed of the memory card. That's why Compact Flash (CF) are still used in the high-speed, expensive, “professional” cameras. The bus on CF cards is wider than the SD variants cards, there are more points of contacts to send more data. The new SDxC cards main benefit is the size, SDxC supports up to 2 Terabytes (that's a lot of photos to loose at the same time).

Personally I would prefer a slightly slower camera but a much bigger Burst Rate.

Here are the Canon 7D burst rates with a 8 frames per second:

Memory card	JPEG	Raw
Regular	Approx. 94	Approx. 15
UDMA 6 or 7 (Ultra Direct Memory Access)	Approx. 126	Approx. 15

Which is why the majority of photo journalists and sports photographers use mostly JPEGs. It's faster and their print size needs are “not that big.”

Personally:

I mostly use RAW with 16Gb and 32Gb Transcend 400x Compact Flash cards, AI Servo mode, and Zone AF.
I press the shutter for a second to a second and half, the thumb on the AF-ON back button. This gives me from 8 to 12 frames.
I release the shutter for around a second until get in the right hand corner of the viewfinder 9 or 10 free frames.
Again, I press the shutter for another second to a second and half, the thumb on the AF-ON back button. This gives me another 8 to 12 frames.
Again, I release the shutter for around a second until get in the right hand corner of the viewfinder 9 or 10 free frames.
…

This way, I get between 50 to 70 frames in about 10 to 12 seconds. I've never had to get more photos in one sequence, but I'm sure that I could keep it up until 100 shots.

Nikon Marketing Screwup

Syv Ritch — Wed, 09 May 2012 15:10:27 +0000

Every month, I buy PDN, Photo District News, the photo magazine. I do not subscribe to it, the subscription is more expensive than buying it at the newsstand. PDN is a magazine directed toward the professional photographers and is a must-read for anybody/everybody that wants to keep current with the business, the marketing of photography and the commercial photography trends. Every issue has big ads from both Canon and Nikon.

In the May 2012 issue, Nikon USA did a double truck spread, that's a two facing pages, about a wedding photographer, Doug Gordon, on page 42 and page 43. Two large photographs, and two smaller ones. Excellent photos (they'd better be), great inspiration…

His go-to cameras: the Nikon D3x and the Nikon D3s…

Then Nikon USA goes on explaining the D3X and the D3s… engineered for professionals…

There's only one problem with the ad, it's a small photograph, 3 inch by 2 inch, of Doug Gordon, the photographer, taking photos with a Canon camera (that looks like a Canon 5DMk2) and a Canon 70-200L f/2.8. I may be wrong, but only Canon makes 70-200L f/2.8 white lenses! Doesn't anybody check these images? Am I the only one to notice these details?

Notice that I do not pick on Nikon camera, how good are they and how they compare with Canon and the others. Nikon cameras and lenses are excellent, they are fantastic products.
My bone is with Nikon USA marketing, like with http://www.foto-biz.com/Biz/Nikon-you-must-not-be-a-good-photographer

Canon: How Old is Your Canon Lens?

Syv Ritch — Tue, 08 May 2012 13:11:24 +0000

In 1986, with the design of the EOS System (Electro-Optical System, EOS started to ship in 1987), Canon started added a date code to their lenses.

Many of the new Canon lenses do not have a date code.

A large number of the Canon lenses have a date code in the form of "UX0311". Often it's on the lens mount.

The first letter, "U", indicates that the lens was made in Utsunomiya factory.

U = Utsunomiya, Japan
F = Fukushima, Japan
O = Oita, Japan The second letter, "X", is a year code that indicates the year of manufacture. Canon increments this letter each year starting with A in 1986 and in 2012 it's “supposed” to rotate back to A:

Code	Year
A	1986
B	1987
C	1988
D	1989
E	1990
F	1991
G	1992
H	1993
I	1994
J	1995
K	1996
L	1997
M	1998
N	1999
O	2000
P	2001
Q	2002
R	2003
S	2004
T	2005
U	2006
V	2007
W	2008
X	2009
Y	2010
Z	2011

The first two numbers, "03", is the month number the lens was manufactured, in this case March. Sometimes, the leading zero of the month is omitted.
The next two numbers, "11", are not the day of the month but some Canon internal code.

This lens, a 24-105 f/4 with a date code of: "UX0311", was manufactured in Utsunomiya, Japan in March 2009. On the other hand, my 70-200 f/4L doesn't have a date code.

Rain, Rain, Go Away…

Syv Ritch — Mon, 07 May 2012 12:52:32 +0000

Photographer Going Home During the Rain click on image for gallery

Canada, the ~~Wet~~ West Coast, the Pacific NorthWest is the last place on earth with any “significant” tempered rain forest. The keyword word here is “rain.” This is what the rain forest looks like.

Rain Forest Tree with Moss click on image for gallery

To have this, you need to have at least 200 cm of rain per year or at least 78 inches of rain per year. 2011 and 2012 have been exceptionally cold and wet, that why we all have “webbed feet” and we all wear Goretex. I have Goretex shoes, Goretex pants, Goretext jackets and 2 Goretex hats.

This makes it difficult to take photos outdoors in the rain. Many cameras like the 7D, the 1D serie, the Nikon Dx serie, the D300, the Olympus OMx… are supposed to be weather proof. What does weather proof mean? Different manufacturers, different meanings, but it doesn't mean waterproof.

Plastic bags, Kata or Thinktank rain covers or waterproof housings… I have a Kata Compact Rain Cover, it's not that compact, it's noisy and definitely not convenient. The best and the simplest is either a large plastic fruits/vegetables grocery bag or a small/medium garbage bag. It's small, light, easy to carry and just as weather proof as the big and expensive stuff.

Bring a small pair of scissors or a good knife to cut the holes in the plastic bag.