Month: January 2012

Ambient Light and Flash Combined

by Stanley Learyfill-flash2 Comments on Ambient Light and Flash Combined
Reading Time: 4 minutes

Caption: Available Light only (Nikon D3S, ISO 12,800, f/5.6, 1/40, 28-300mm)

Hey Stanley, can you back up and explain this Ambient Light and under-stops thing you mentioned in that last post?

A few people wrote to me asking similar questions. So, let’s delve into ambient light and under—or over-exposure with a flash.

Without a flash point, the camera is at the subject.  My camera is set for Matrix Metering, and Aperture Priority gives me a reading of f/3.5 with a 1/10 shutter speed and ISO of 200. FYI,  this is not the setting in the above photo; this shows you where to find the reading on the camera.

Step One: Get An Ambient Reading

It would be best to have a starting place, which will be your base exposure. Everything else will relate to this exposure. I, too, have a picture of the top of my Nikon D3S with a 28-300mm Nikkor lens. I just pointed across the room for this example. With SO 200, I have an f/3.5 aperture at a 1/10 shutter speed. This is my Ambient Reading with no flash.

Step Two: Use your Nikon SB900

You can use whatever hotshoe flash your manufacturer needs, but it must be a TTL flash, or this will not work as efficiently.

Step Three: Slow or Rear Curtain Sync

You need to set your flash setting to Slow or Rear Curtain Sync, as I have done in the above photo. This allows the flash and the camera to use the Ambient setting on the camera and then add the flash to the exposure without overexposing the image.

Fill Flash normal setting (Nikon D3S, ISO 12,800, f/5.6, 1/20, 28-300mm)

Could you take a picture with this setting, as I did in the photo above? This will light everything up. I am bouncing my flash with the diffusion dome on the flash for this photo. It is still getting light from the window, but the flash fills everything closest to the camera. The background is brighter but not as bright as the statue since it is further from the flash.

Step Four: Adjust the flash power under three stops

I choose to go three stops under because this is as low as I can go in TTL mode, and the camera is figuring it all out. 

On the Nikon SB900, you push the button in the far upper left, and it cycles through under and overexposes, stopping at -3.0 EV. EV st nds for Exposure Value.

The results are obtained by keeping the camera set at -3.0 and telling the flash to underexpose.

Fill Flash set -3.0 (Nikon D3S, ISO 12,800, f/5.6, 1/30, 28-300mm)

You can adjust the camera and flash exposure to get even more results.

Silhouette
Reveal

Silhouette and Reveal

Again, I must give credit to Dave Black for coining this terminology. I have been doing this for years, but I loved how he made it sound very artistic by using a French word.

Here is how you do this photo.

Step One: Take a regular ambient reading

Very similar to the above example.  Everything will look normal.

Step Two: Underexpose the photo by two or three stops

On the Nikon D3S, you depress the button to the right of the shutter, which lets you stay in an Auto setting like Aperture Mode and underexpose or overexpose an image.
When you are depressed, it should look like this if you have never done it before. If you see something else, this may be why your photos are under or overexposed.
With it depressed, turn the wheel on the back of the camera. Here it is at -1 stop. I would shoot one at -2 stops and even -3 stops and pick the one in which the subject is best silhouetted.


Step Three: Set flash setting to just the opposite + stops

If you pick three stops under, you will set your flash to three stops over.  You see now where the flash hits the subject, giving you perfect exposure. 

[-3] + [+3] = 0 For the photo above, I had the Nikon SB900 off the camera, which was being fired by the SU800 on my camera. 

Nikon SU800 triggers your SB900 off-camera using an infrared signal. Here, you can control up to 3 different settings of multiple flashes.  If I had three flashes, each set to work on A, B, or C, I could control them from the camera individually.  For the above example, I used an SB900 and SB800, both going off with a +3 Flash setting compared to the -3 camera setting.  It doesn’t matter if I had 100 flashes. The c mera will let them fire altogether; only +3 stops.  I love this technology.
Silhouette
Reveal

12,800 ISO noise looks different with flash

by Stanley Learyfill-flash2 Comments on 12,800 ISO noise looks different with flash

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Dave Black spoke at a seminar about using his Nikon Speedlight SB900 flashes instead of his Studio heads to light a basketball court and an ice rink.

I was on the edge of my seat, absorbing what he was talking about. I didn’t go out and buy more SB900 flashes and use them instead of my strobes for one reason: clients were not paying for sports coverage as in years past.

But what I was listening to was some of the reasons it was working for Dave Black.

First, by having his strobes just a little over the ambient light level, he was able to get better color and avoid the problem with sodium vapor lights. The dynamic range under flash is the greatest light spectrum. Dave Black was shooting his flash just enough over the ambient to affect the color and help shift it to the 5000º Kelvin range.

Sodium vapor lights flicker, and when you shoot above 1/100 shutter speed, you can get color shifts throughout a photo, or just a band.

Another advantage of shooting with the Nikon Speedlights is that you can use just about any shutter speed. For example, Dave could freeze the puck in ice hockey by shooting at 1/200. His basketball shots were also sharper.

Available Light only (Nikon D3S, ISO 12,800, f/5.6, 1/40, 28-300mm)

I began experimenting with using strobes with high ISO, and found some benefits other than just for sports.

I shot the same photo here three different ways. I lit the statue with window light, and I shot it with nothing but the window light; any bounce backfill is just from the room. I shot it at ISO 12,800.

As you can see, the highlights look good, and you will notice more noise in the shadows.

Fill Flash set -3.0 (Nikon D3S, ISO 12,800, f/5.6, 1/30, 28-300mm)

I got a slightly different result by putting my SB900 with the dome on the camera and bounce flash ng. By adjusting the setting on the back of the flash, I underexposed the flash by -3 stops.

As you can see, the shadows are now not black as in the first photo.

Then I shot one more photo with the flash at a normal setting, which gave me a lot more light. This completely wiped out the shadow detail. However, since I was using it in rear sync mode, it was still complementing the window light and not overpowering it.

Fill Flash normal setting (Nikon D3S, ISO 12,800, f/5.6, 1/20, 28-300mm)

You need to zoom in to see some of the noise issues with each photo. The noise shows up the most in the green background. You’ll see a lot of noise the more it is in the shadow.

Available Light only (Nikon D3S, ISO 12,800, f/5.6, 1/40, 28-300mm)
Fill Flash set -3.0 (Nikon D3S, ISO 12,800, f/5.6, 1/30, 28-300mm)

As you add more fill light (-3 stops), the noise diminishes greatly.

Fill Flash normal setting (Nikon D3S, ISO 12,800, f/5.6, 1/20, 28-300mm)

I noticed that noise diminishes when you add Nikon Speedlights to high-ISO photos like these, shot at 12,800 ISO.

Less Flash output at High ISO

When you raise the ISO setting on your camera, every stop you raise it, the flash only needs to put out half as much light as it did. If you leave a Nikon D3S on auto ISO and the lowest ISO is 200, then the minute you put on your flash and turn it on, the ISO will drop to 200.

You must manually set your ISO to the high ISO you desire. Here, choose ISO 12,800.

The light the flash needs to put out at this setting is 7 stops less than at 100. This also means your flash can increase its throw distance by 7 times. If your flash only works at 10 feet at f/4 and ISO 200, you can now get f/4 at 640 feet away at ISO 12,800.

Color Temperature affects noise.

From my experience, I have found that whenever you shoot with flash, you have the greatest dynamic range. Also, the noise is less with flash than with incandescent, fluorescent, or sodium vapor light.

Slow and Rear Shutter setting 

On the Nikon system, when the flash balances with the existing light, the flash only needs to do a little work because it complements the light, not being the primary light.

Why do I shoot with Nikon?

The Canon Speedlight system is similar to the Nikon TTL Speedlight system. You use Slow and Rear Shutter settings, but the higher the shutter speed, the darker and less consistent the flash becomes than in the Nikon system.

My point is that if you want to shoot with shutter speeds of 1/8000 with your speed lights, you better have a Nikon.

Attaining good skin tones with digital cameras

by Stanley LearyWhite Balance4 Comments on Attaining good skin tones with digital cameras
Reading Time: 6 minutes

Sepia Tone filter

  

Bleach Bypass filter
Aged Photo filter
Auto Color with the camera.

The photograph’s color can take you back in time, create a mood, or make your work look amateurish.

Instagram

In an homage to the Kodak Instamatic and Polaroid cameras, Instagram confines photos to a square shape. It lets you apply a filter and, combined with edge effects, the square format can make an image taken today look like a nostalgic piece. You can make it look like the 1920s, 1950s, or 1970s. The transformation is because the photo triggers memories for those who lived during this time or those who have found a shoebox or old family albums and looked through the pictures.

On the other hand, the amateur look creates a mood. This is where you have a color cast in your photos. If they are under fluorescent light, they may look green. While inside with incandescent lamps, they have an orange effect.

If you mix flash with the available light, you may have proper light on the objects closest to the camera, and then the background shifts.

How do you know if your color is off?

Macbeth color chart
Each square can then be checked to match the available numbers.

There are several ways to determine if your color is off. First, you can take a picture using the Macbeth Color Checker Chart, as I did in the photo above. Then, you can use the densitometer built into Photoshop or Lightroom to compare the RGB color patch numbers.

Skin Tone: The telling sign of good color

The first giveaway to the human eye that the color is off will likely be skin tone. Look at these photos here. I let the camera figure it out for the first one, which is acceptable on Auto White Balance. Next, look at the following ones.

Temp 5100, Tint +14, camera setting Auto White Balance
Temp 4950, Tint +12, Camera setting Sunny White Balance
Temp 3100, Tint +10, Camera setting Incandescent White Balance
Temp 4700, Tint +75, camera setting Fluorescent 1 White Balance
Temp 7250, Tint +29 Camera setting Fluorescent 2 White Balance
Temp 5250, Tint +22 Camera setting Custom White Balance off the coffee cup top

Sometimes, a person is surrounded by a dominant color, like a red wall. This will tell your camera you are seeing in red light and will try to compensate, giving your subject a cyan tone to their face.

I have done photo shoots where I used strobes, but I still needed to do a custom white balance because the ceiling, floor, or walls were all creating a color cast that made the skin tones not look correct.

You can find online skin tone swatches to compare a person’s skin to an approximate ethnicity color swatch. For example, the RGB value for Caucasian skin is R:239, G:208, and B:207. The numbers may be darker or lighter than the light on the skin, but they will generally go up and down uniformly.

I recommend shooting RAW, but constantly getting a custom white balance in every situation.

My favorite way to get a custom white balance is using my ExpoDisc.

ExposDisc goes in front of the lens, and then you use it to get an incident reading rather than a reflective reading of the light.
Notice the direction of the light hitting the subject. Next, you move to the same position to get the light reading below.
Point the camera toward the direction of the light falling on the subject.

If the subject is facing me and the light is from the side, I face the camera with the ExpoDisc on it so it is pointing toward the camera position. The chart above is to help you understand the concept, but you can modify it.

One way you can modify it is if the light is the same where you are standing. You could cheat and take a reading from where you are. The problem that can arise is if they are lit by Window light and the camera position is in the shade. Your color balance will be off if you do not take it from the subject’s perspective.

Use the wrong color sometimes.

Yes, I just said not to use the proper color sometimes.

Night scene

Most Hollywood movies that show nighttime scenes are often shot during the daytime. So, how do they achieve that look? First, set the camera to incandescent, giving you a blue cast and making everything look lit by moonlight. Next, underexpose the scene. This is where a spotlight on the subject and underexposing the rest of the scene can help you set the mood for a night scene.

High Tech Look

If daylight is in the scene, you light the subject with bright incandescent light and set the camera to incandescent. The issue with the correct skin color and the area illuminated by daylight will be blue.

Under fluorescent lights, if you have the camera set to incandescent, they will also turn blue, just a different blue than daylight. So, if you light the subject with incandescent, you get that blue effect.

CSI Miami lets the fluorescent light go blue by lighting the cast with incandescent and setting the camera to white balance for the incandescent. This way, everything illuminated by the fluorescent light goes blue while the skin tones look natural.

Sunset 

You can fake a sunset by putting a CTO filter over the camera lens, making the scene look orange. Then, you can use a flash and put a CTB filter over the flash, which puts out a blue light. The subject seems to have the correct skin tones, but the rest of the scene is orange, like a sunset.

Amateur Look

When you are unsure what you are going for and just let the camera do it all, this is the surest way to have the color of your photos announce you are an amateur. Want to take your game up to the next level? Learn how to get the correct skin tones and when to go for an effect.

Why do so many photographers choose to 
shoot Black and White

One of the most significant signs for pros who don’t know how to get good skin tones is to go to black and white. This is the easiest way to eliminate the sign that they are still amateurs regarding color balance.

So many wedding photographers shoot in black and white. They don’t use it much for effect or to create a mood, but they don’t know how to correct the color. Most likely, they shot everything in JPEG, and if you are off with the color in JPEG, fixing it in post-production is very difficult compared to working with a RAW image.

Website Tips for Photographers

by Stanley LearyPhotography

Reading Time: 5 minutes

I must have the navigation always visible so people can quickly find what they need.

If a potential customer were to find your website, would they hire you?

A photographer’s website is to showcase their work and helps them book jobs. I have been designing my website for 17 years and have learned a few things through those years.

Here are some tips I have for a photographer’s website.

Contact Information

Email: stanley@stanleyleary.com
LinkedIn: Stanley Leary
Skype:  StanleyLeary
Twitter: Stanley Leary
Facebook: Stanley Leary

How does someone reach you? Contact information should be all through the website and not something hidden. Remember, at any point when the customer is ready to hire you after reviewing your work, they need to be able to find out how to do so with ease. Sometimes people already want to hire you and go to your website to find your contact information, don’t make them jump through hoops to find it.

I think there are two ways a customer wants to contact you: email and phone. Remember, you need this to be easy and not cumbersome. If you fear getting spam emails and do a lot to protect yourself, but in the process, make it burdensome for the potential customer—you may not have a customer.

http://www.stanleylearystoryteller.com/Education2/_files/iframe.html
 
Examples of your photography

I think people are searching for particular needs to fill. For example, if they need a headshot, they want to see some headshots. If they need an event photographer, they want to see examples of events you have covered.

I recommend dividing your work into categories that make it easy for someone to find examples of what they are looking to hire a photographer to do for them.

http://www.stanleylearystoryteller.com/Research/_files/iframe.html
 
Tear Sheets

Having a few examples of your work published by clients helps potential customers know they are not the first to take a risk on you. In addition, tIn addition, tear Sheets and other clients’ use of your work helps build some credibility.

Client Comments

Having a few of your past clients writing about your work also helps. There are a few things that can help make these better. When a customer talks about how you solved a problem, they assist potential clients in understanding something beyond your portfolio. They know something about how you work and your customer service.

They are having comments about how nice you are and easy to work with are nice but not as compelling as describing how you made their day.

The inverted pyramid is a metaphor used by journalists and other writers to illustrate placing the most critical information first within a text. The format is valued because readers can leave the story at any point and understand it.

Inverted Pyramid

Put your most muscular photos first. Then, when they go to the next image, let us show another skill. Look at these two examples for portraits. See how I would lead with the little boy and then follow with the lady.

I would most likely lead with this photo on portraits.
I might follow the photo with this one because it shows I can use strobes and mix them with daylight. Art directors would like to see a variety of skills.
This photo shows my ability to create a concept out of nothing and make it happen in the studio.
This photo helps to show how I can use light to photograph a very dark subject (the hand gun) and grab your attention.
This photo shows I know how to photograph lasers in a research lab, a skill few photographers have.
To get this photo, I had to gain access and show my sensitivity in intimate moments. The family gave me their permission.

Remember, your portfolio shows more than just that. Of course, you can take good photos. But, as you can see, each of the above images tells more about me than I can get an excellent picture.

Client List

If you have been working with various clients, this is good to showcase. It helps to separate you from the photographer just starting out and not having much experience. It also allows clients to call their friends at those companies and see their experience with you and whether they would hire you again. Don’t list a company if they are not in good standing with you.

Bio

It would help if you introduced yourself to your audience. Your bio is where you help set yourself apart from other photographers in ways that your pictures cannot. The biography is where you may give some reasons why you pursue certain subjects. Finally, It is where you may want to tell everyone you have degrees in the topics you cover regularly. You are helping them understand how you are an expert on maybe what they want to hire you to photograph.

Some clients will hire you because of things you have in common in your bio. All clients visiting this page want to know as much as they can about you to help them feel more comfortable about the decision to hire you. You give them talking points when they justify to their superiors why they are hiring you.

Wait, there’s more

I like using that phrase. When we moved to our new house, our daughter enjoyed taking some of our close friends through the house. The place is more significant than our previous home, so she was excited to say after a few rooms, but wait, there’s more.

There are more things to do, but I will stop here for now and blog about other tips later.

One Week of Studio Lighting in Kona, Hawaii

by Stanley Learylighting / studio strobes
Reading Time: 2 minutes

Students work from 2006

YWAM School of Photography 1

Students go from not knowing how to turn on the strobes in one week to doing incredible work. My job is to take the fear out of trying new things and teach them some basics upon which they can build.

Take a look at these shows showing you some of the student’s work through the years. I think you will be impressed as I was with their first time shooting with studio strobes.

Here are the students’ work from 2006

In the studio
Mixing the strobes with available light

These photos are from the students’ work in 2007.

We shoot and let everyone see each other work on monitors, this way; we are learning not just by doing but observing as well.
The school has a variety of lights for the students to practice within the class. Here we have the JTL battery pack system letting you shoot outside with studio lights and radio remotes.
Students learn they can shoot at dusk and night with the strobes. Next, the students mixed strobes with available light and added a flashlight to write the word “Viking” beside the subject, his nickname.

Photo Tips I learned from Don Rutledge

by Stanley LearyDon Rutledge
Reading Time: 4 minutes

Don Rutledge has visited Russia a few times, and this is his second trip. The reason I am using his work as an example is that, in my opinion, his work is stellar and has had a significant impact on my work, as well as that of many of my colleagues.

While many would wait until the lady in front walked out of the frame, Don included her in the shot. The two men resemble Americans, but the woman bears a striking resemblance to the stereotype of a Russian woman.

What is essential is how Don utilized the entire frame for his work. He also used it so well that artists were complaining that they couldn’t crop his photos. This usually led to some good discussions. When a designer crops a well-composed picture, they change its meaning.

A great designer working with a writer and photojournalist on a journalistic coverage project will lay out the story after reviewing the images and selecting those that help tell the story. Laying out the spread and then finding images to fill the gaps is using photography as decoration, rather than as a means of communication.

Visiting the vertical photo above again, note how the men are looking in one direction and the woman is looking in the other. Do you notice the tension that the composition helps to create?

Don uses the entire frame to help contain the message and to draw the reader into the photo.

The photo of the crowd walking towards you, take a moment and look at the far left and right of the frame. Don has meticulously positioned the man to the left and the woman on the far right in the photo. Many photographers would often slice into the folks or have it too loose. The bottom of the frame is positioned just below their feet, providing extra space at the top of the frame. The top of the frame is where you have a sense of depth.

While the angle of the building’s roof line creates depth, it is the open sky that opens the photo even more from front to back. Just cover the photo at the top and block off the open sky part, and you will see how much that makes a difference in the depth of the photograph.

Balance and context are achieved here in this photo of the pianist and the choir to the right.

In art class, they teach about asymmetric balance. In the photo, pianist Don employs this technique to create a sense of calm and tranquility. The beams in the ceiling extend towards the windows, which helps create a sense of depth. Some of the ladies in the choir are watching the pianist play, which helps reconnect the choir with the pianist.

While Don would have found this composition, he would have stayed here for a while until he had enough different frames. He is looking for the pianist to be playing and the choir to have a moment where they are paying attention to her. Remove all those blinks or instances of someone picking their nose (which happens frequently, especially during prayers), and you will then be selecting a moment that best captures the worship tone Don was aiming for in this photograph.

Examine the edges of Don’s photo. Why did he choose those edges? Then start looking for a subject. After you find the main subject, look for something like a verb. After finding the verb, look for secondary subjects. What about some adjectives and adverbs, do you see any?

I love the little girl singing here in church. How do you know it is a church? Look at the pulpit to the right. Don left this in to help establish this as not a school play. Notice the woman to the far left. Look especially at the lady in the front row. She really helps the photo because her expression really helps. You can see the lady to the right of her, closest to the girl singer, and her expression also helps set the tone. The small portion of the objects at the top of the frame gives a sense of a much larger room.

As you watch the slide show, look at the edges and see if you would change anything. Look to see if Don used things to help create depth and not make the photo look too flat.

While there is a primary subject, look and see how the other subjects in the photo complement the main subject. Do they create tension or help establish a mood?

See if you can spot one guy lying in the background. This was the translator who was thinking he was getting out of the way, but Don included him to add a little perspective.

Here is a slideshow of his coverage.

If any of these photos moved you, please comment on them below. Tell me why it moved you.

Russia from Don Rutledge’s Eyes

by Stanley LearyPhotography
Reading Time: 4 minutes

Don Rutledge covered Christians in Russia in the late 1980s, and we can learn a few things from his coverage.

Don can tie things together in a photo like few photographers have ever done. Here, he has the pastor with the kids signing. What is so remarkable is the Last Supper photo on the wall. It just ties it together with the symbolism.

Don Rutledge could go to a different culture and cover it even tho he didn’t speak their language or understand their customs. During his career, Don covered more than 150+ countries and all 50 of the United States. Here are some Don audio recordings and links to his published stories.

John Howard Griffin and Don Rutledge during the production of Black Like Me.

Let’s review his work on Russia to see how a photojournalist can use images to connect the subject to the audience.

Background 

Don didn’t speak Russian and had not been to Russia before. He knew little from reading and talking to missionaries who traveled the area. Don wasn’t an expert on the culture but had read a great deal before he went to Russia.

The slide show is a snippet.

Don Rutledge would typically go on coverage like Russia for about 21 to 27 days. He would pack about 300 rolls of color slide film and about 300 rolls of black and white film. Each of these rolls was a 36-exposure roll of 35mm film.

He usually returned with some film, so he didn’t shoot all 21,000 possible frames. He would quickly shoot half to three-fourths of the film.

The slide show I worked on in 1987 for Don to use when he spoke to groups about his coverage.

I liked using this as the opener for the Slide Show because I think it says Russia and announces where this story takes place.

How it is divided

The slide show is divided into an overview of the country, a section on the culture, a section on the Russian Orthodox Church, and a series of pastors and leaders with their families.

When this was done, the story was distributed in The Commission Magazine. The magazine regularly competed with and beat magazines like National Geographic Magazine.

The magazine typically started stories with 1 to 3 double-truck spreads to introduce the country. Don captured things that not only showed what the country looked like but, in a way, contrasted it to the audience in the United States.

You can see the architecture and the man trimming the tops of the trees. What struck Don was how neat everything was, which showed what it looked like: the man who gave size and scale to the photo and how they kept everything so groomed.

Don ended up taking tours of the churches in Moscow to help show the Americans how they viewed the church. On the tours, they showed all the gold and artwork in the previous church buildings. They would tell the people this is how the church acted in the past: they took all their money and then used it to decorate.

Showing the theater helped connect the Americans to something we had in common. Our love of the theater and the Opera in Moscow is considered one of the best in the world. 

Then Don helps us transition through the Russian Orthodox Church to help the Baptists in the States see some sense of faith in Russia.

Baptists in Russia are so many, and the church buildings are so small that they overflow into the street. Here, you see how they listen to the service inside the building. 

Don continues to show artistic moments that communicate something similar yet different in almost every frame. The Russians outside in worship look like Americans, but we don’t sit outside our churches to hear the worship service.

Don helps the audience connect with the subject using everyday life moments. He captures people cooking in their homes and with their families.

Pastor enjoys going around town with his family.

This is just a taste of what I learned from Don’s coverage of Russia.