One Handed Shooting – Or Not

Posted on by
Reply

Well, I suffered my first broken bone last week, amazing considering the things we did as kids. So what do I miss the most, not being able to go out and shoot with my (new to me) Canon 7d. See I broke my right wrist, kind of hard to hold the camera in that hand right now. Yes I know I can use a tripod, but that’s not a realistic solution when you are walking around crowded venues, or when you simply don’t have the available time to set it up.Aggravating to say the least…but I know its only temporary, oh and yeah, I was going to assist a friend shooting a wedding in a couple of weeks…nope not happening now. Have to go and see tomorrow if a plate needs to be put in, or if its healing well on its own. The silver lining..I’m left-handed….

So, how would you deal with not being able to go out shooting on impulse, or shooting most anywhere..(since tripods are not allowed in a number of places for obvious reasons) for a min. of 4-6 weeks…Would you go stir crazy. Oh, and you know, the weather will probably perfect for most of that time..lol.

I do wonder, for those who have reached a point where they are struggling to come up with something to shoot, if having the ability to shoot were suddenly restricted, if their passion and creativity would not receive a needed jolt. It’s one thing to KNOW you can go out anytime and shoot, it’s quite another issue altogether when you can’t. If you have faced that delima let me know how it worked out for you.

Wide Angle Perspective

Posted on by
Reply

Perspective, what is it (1 of the dictionary definitions) “the appearance of objects, buildings, etc., relative to each other, as determined by their distance from the viewer, or the effects of this distance on their appearance” As you can see in the image above taken with a Ultra wide angle (Tokina 11-16) lens, the buildings appear to be coming together, which we know they are not. But because of the characteristic of UWA lens (distorting those things closest to it), my relative closeness to the subject (thus the need for the UWA) , and the angle of the shot (almost straight up), the visual perspective in what the camera captures differs greatly to what our eyes see unaided. Yes, you will get some of the same visual characteristics using a normal zoom or a prime lens, just without seeing as much of the subject.

What does this do for you, well, knowledge is power, and the more you know about your equipment and what to expect, the more you can stretch your boundries when you go out. Have some fun with your images from time to time, help keep that creative spark burning. When I took this image, I specifically went out with only the UWA with me to help force me to again look differently at my surroundings, to move my feet, to think about my shot and composition

Technical Specs:

Canon EOS 50D with the Tokina 11-16 UWA, Exposure Program – Aperture priority, ISO – 100, Shutter Speed – 1/125, Aperture – F/8, Focal Length – 11.00 mm

 

Hand Held Pano

Posted on by
Reply

Is it possible to do a multi-shot pano hand held. Yes it is, but you have to do a couple of things to accomplish it. Just like shooting a pano from a tripod you need to set a few things manually in your camera.

  1. White Balance – Set it, you don’t want the camera to change the WB while you are shooting, which can happen if you are going from a sun-lit area to a more shaded area.
  2. Focus Point – Why set your focus point, well because remember the camera is going to try and focus on what it sees, and when you are panning, that changes, and it could change enough that one or more parts of the pano are not in the same focus plane. It may focus on something closer in 1 shot than the next. So look at your intended shooting area and determine what is basically “middle” ground and focus on that.
  3. Program Mode – What program mode should you use, well pretty much the automatic modes are out since you need to set the White Balance, so which ones should you use. Well you have the semi-automatic modes (Aperture & Shutter Priority), and of course full manual. Now using the semi-automatic modes come with some caveats. Using Shutter Priority, the camera will determine the aperture needed for a correct exposure, again it could vary from image to image. And using Aperture Priority the camera will determine the shutter speed. Now, that being said you can use those 2 modes successfully if you are carefull and the conditions are not changing like in the image above. Full manual gives you the most control and consistent images of the three since nothing will change between shots (aperture, shutter speed, WB etc…) Oh, before you start shooting, make sure your shutter speed is fast enough to ensure shake free images.

Shooting Method – Picture yourself as a tripod, hold the camera close to your body. The only thing that will be moving on you is your upper torso as you turn from one side to the other like moving a camera on a tripod. Your feet stay still, so you need to make sure you can turn in place to cover the area you want to shoot before you start shooting.

Generally you will shot in portrait mode which will cause you to need more shots to cover the same area as shotting in landscape mode would allow, but you get more of the scene in (top to bottom) in each shot than you would in landscape. Make sure you have an overage of at least 25% on each image. Meaning, you need to look at your viewfinder (or live view) and see what is in the corner of that shot (left or right depending on which way you are panning) and make sure what was there, is also part of the next image. That helps the pano software to be able to piece together the images to create your pano.

If you notice in the images above, the tree in the water appears in both images, just in different parts of both images, but with enough overlap for the software to be able to combine them later on.

One last thing, you should have a computer capable of handling a pano (i.e. enough memory installed) The panoramic at the top of the post was an 11 shot pano that when put together was close to 800mb (20″x60″x300ppi) after adding a couple of layers for editing. Now the final size is determined by the size of your originial images being used, so make sure your computer has enough to handle file sizes that large if your camera has a resolution of 15mp or greater, which a lot of the newer ones do.

Technical Specs:

11 Shot Panoramic shot Canon EOS 50D fitted with the 24-70, Exposure Program – Aperture priority, ISO – 100, Shutter Speed – 1/250, Aperture – F /10

Macro Time

Posted on by
Reply

Trying out the Macro lens I bought my wife (Tamron AF 90mm f/2.8 Di SP A/M 1:1) while we were breaking for lunch. Took a couple of shots to get the focus right handheld on a slightly windy day. This shot is actually zoomed in showing the detail possible with a true macro lens (provided the focus is spot on of course). The longer focal length (90mm) means I don’t need to be right on top of the subject to get a true 1:1 image. (Great for bees & spiders).

You will notice in my technical specs that my ISO was bumped up to 400, and my shutter speed was 1600 even though I had adequate light. I was simply compensating for the lack of a tripod and remote release to try and get a sharp image. It’s a fun lens, that I will be “borrowing” again I’m sure…

Technical Specs:

Canon EOS 50D fitted with Tamron 90mm F/2.8 1:1 Macro, Exposure Program – Aperture priority, ISO – 400,  Shutter Speed – 1/1600  Aperture – F/7, Metering Mode – Spot, Focal Length – 90.00 mm

Texture in Your Images

Posted on by
Reply

How often have you been out shooting and after looking around said to yourself “Well I shot everyting I see around here”, and then leave. Have you shot everything, maybe, maybe not. As I mentioned in another post “What Going in Close Can Do For You“, sometimes you just need to stop, put the camera down and really look around at your environment. Sometimes we see the big picture (I’m guilty of that) and will miss those little things that are right there in front of us, like textures. The image above is of a rock whose color stood out amongst the other rocks like pepper in a salt shaker. I took the obvious shot, but then zoomed in and took this shot. The texture is not always obvious when looking at normal viewing distance. (Macro Shooters are excluded here). Look, just like you, I struggle sometimes to find something interesting to shoot, so step outside of your normal photo routine, and you may just come away with some interesting images.

Technical Specs:

Canon EOS 50D fitted with 24-70,  Exposure Program – Aperture priority, ISO – 200, Shutter Speed – 1/250, Aperture – F/ 5.6, Focal Length – 70.00 mm

Shooting Through The Fence

Posted on by
5

How often have you gone to the Zoo (with or without your kids) and the only good shots you can get are through the fence, and you dont bother because you think they will turn out like crap. Not necessarily the case, The photo above was shot through the fence with a long zoom (70-200), using the center focus point only and a rather small depth-of -field (F/4). You can see the fence in the background, but you have to look quite a bit harder to see the fence in the foreground. And I was standing about 7′ away from the fence at that. Using the center focusing point only, allows you to focus “through” the fence, because the camera will want to focus on the fence if you use all of your focus points. The shallow DOF, allows the foreground fence to fade away.

Technical Specs: On the Above Image

Canon EOS 50D fitted with Sigma 70-200 F/2.8, Exposure Program – Aperture priority, ISO – 200, ShutterSpeed – 1/250,  Aperture – F/4, Focal Length – 200 mm, Exposure Mode – Auto, White Balance – Manual

Can it work if the subject is close to the fence. Well you tell me, in the photo above, I was approx. 7′ feet away from the fence, and the subject was only about 3′ from the fence. There are a few lines going across the image that you could easily remove with todays PP’ing software, but not so bad that the image becomes unseable if you choose not to take the time to remove them. Again I was shooting with a realtive shallow DOF.

So next time you make a trip to the zoo, if you have a long zoom (or even a mid-range zoom if you can get closer to the fence) don’t put down your camera because there is a chain link fence between you and the animals. Set your focus point, and have at it. You may be surprised at what you will get.

 

Between The Slats – Framing Your Subject

Posted on by
2

Framing your subject helps to draw the viewers eye where you want it to go, the area that you are trying to highlight. In this instance, I shot through the slats of the fence creating something of a peephole effect (albeit with a larger view). Your eyes are naturally drawn to the lighter parts of the image that are between the slats(boards) effectively rendering the boards in the foreground as inconsequential to your brain.

Framing can be achieved by using natural foilage as well by shooting through openings in trees and bushes etc. Just dont try and use it for every shot. Make sure it makes sense in the overall composition, and that is lends itself to that composition, and does not become an unintended focal point. If nothing else, it should cause you to pay a bit more attention to your surroundings, move your feet a bit more, consider a different perspective before you press the shutter.

Shot as an HDR because of the large contrast of the boards in the shade in the foreground, and the barn in almost direct sunlight. I wanted to retain some measure of  the boards rather then them being almost black. Processed in Photomatix Pro, and Silver EFEX Pro and finished up in PSE10

Technical Specs:

Canon EOS 50D fitted with the Canon 24-70, 3 bracketed exposures

 

Travel Photography – Not Necessarily What You Might Think

Posted on by
4

What do you think of when someone mentions travel photography. Maybe traveling to exotic locaitons, (on some else’s dime even), or going across the country. Somewhere, anywhere, else other than your general vicinity. Well, that’s all good and well, and probably most of us would love to be able to travel to those other locations. But think about this, some of those folks in those areas are probably contemplating coming to your area to do the same thing.

Sometimes you just need to see different things, and that can simply mean hoping in the car on a beautiful Saturday (or any other day for that matter)…and No, I’m not here to justify you skipping work to go take photos…and just heading out of town, heck pick a direction and drive, enjoy the scenery in your own backyard so to speak. I often do that in the spring & summer months when the days are long and the weather is conductive to driving with the windows down. And if you have a partner that shares your passion even more the better. (course your brakes my suffer some…hopefully).

I took this photo of a Mill by the water on 1 of those jaunts. Taking a different road home than I would usually take, allowed me to see something that I would have missed had I gone the highway like I normally do. It was one of those that I passed by, turned around, came back, and parked. I saw something when I went by, and I needed to work the scene to get the image that had attracted my eye.

I shot this with HDR processing in mind due to the greater than camera could capture dynamic range. Processed in Photomatix Pro, and finished up in PSE10 with Nik Silver EFEX Pro. The blue sky was slightly darkened more to make it a bit more black when converted to monochrome

Technical Specs:

Model – Canon EOS 50D fitted with the Canon 24-70,  Exposure Program – Aperture priority,  ISO – 200, Shutter Speed – 1/125,  Aperture – F/ 11

Framing and Cropping For Effect

Posted on by
1

Clicking on the image will bring up a larger one

 

 

 

 

This was taken only a few days ago while out on a car hunt to replace my now totaled previous ride….anyway, while what you see in the sky looks pretty good, I made the conscious effort to not include to much of the sky in the image. From in camera framing to cropping judiciously, I wanted to not include too much of the sky, as it was considerably lighter then my chosen subject and it would have drawn your eyes away from where I want your eyes to go. This is not an HDR, in case anyone is wondering, the sky has been darkened in PP’ing as well as run through both Topaz Adjust & Nix Silver EFEX to get the finished look you see here. I chose the B&W treatment to accent that old look feel which it really had already.

Technical Specs:

Canon EOS 50D fitted with 24-70,  Exposure Program – Aperture priority, ISO – 200,  Shutter Speed – 1/125,  Aperture – F /11

Be cognizant of the light (Both Direction and Quality)

Posted on by
5

I recently took this phots during a lunch walk of the dogwoods downtown before the pedals fell off. Using only natural sunlight meant I had to walk around and find interesting compositions where the light was highlighting the pedals and bringing out their color. If I tried shooting them with the sun in front of me, they became dull and uninteresting. Yes I could have used a flash, but that was not the object here. It was all about paying attention to the quality and direction of the existing light. And making it work for me. A good exercise to make you pay attention to your surroundings and work the composition, not simply throwing the camera up and taking a shot. And since I wanted to keep the sky blue (in camera) I had to be able to use a faster shutter speed and the sunlight hitting the dogwoods pedals enabled me to do that.

Technical Specs:

Canon EOS 50D fitted with the 24-70, Exposure Program – Aperture priority, ISO – 100, Shutter Speed – 1/500,  Aperture – F/7, Metering Mode – Spot