We addressed some digital workflow issues this week with a few students. After going through this, I thought you, as a blog reader, might enjoy hearing the problems many were having and how to avoid them.

Free Space

The number one issue we had with many students was the amount of free space they had on their laptops. Due to being so full, they had no room to add software, photos, and video.

A good rule of thumb is to have about 20% of free space on your hard drive.

Filling your hard drive until it’s almost complete is a recipe for disaster. First, your computer needs some free space for creating swap space to manage memory use. Even with adequate RAM, the operating system will reserve some space at startup for memory swap space. In addition, individual applications usually use some disk space for temporary storage.

On a Macbook Pro, go to the hard drive. Highlight it and then hit ⌘-I, which will show you the free space on your computer.

James Dockery, Amanda Ross, and Jeff Raymond are in downtown Lisbon waiting to eat at Restaurante Cabacas. [Fuji X-E2, 18-55mm, ISO 6400, ƒ/9, 1/2.5, flash is bounced across the alley into the wall to help fill in on their faces]

Shoot, Edit, Review & Shoot Again

The ideal way to do a story is to shoot it and review your work. Then, after editing all the work, see what is missing and schedule more time to go back and shoot some more.

All our students have spent time with their subjects, and everyone has gone back to shoot more photos and videos to improve their stories.

Amanda Ross is shooting and reviewing what she is doing as she goes. [Fuji X-E2, 55-200mm, ISO 25600,  ƒ/3.7,  1/60]

Crank the ISO up

When you shoot a street scene at night, crank your ISO up so you capture the moment. For example, if you have a Fuji X-E2, you can shoot at ISO 25600 and still get OK quality photos. Yes, there is a little noise, but you will be surprised at what you can get at high ISO on some of the newer cameras.

I used an ISO 25600 of the lady with the camera above. Then the photo below is shot at ISO 400 in the middle of the day. Yes, the noise is non-existent at ISO 400, but I can live with the quality of the 25600, especially when the choice is no photo at all in this low of light.

[Fuji X-E2, 18-55mm, ISO 400, ƒ/7.1, 1/800]

Shoot Textures

When you travel, just shoot the textures you find. You can use these later for title slides or backgrounds for lower third title slides.

[Fuji X-E2, 55-200mm, ISO 800, ƒ/4, 1/500]