Category: Photography

Checklist for Sharp Photos

by Stanley LearyPhotography

Nikon D4, 28-300mm [85mm], ISO 800, ƒ/8, 1/400

Squeeze the shutter — Don’t punch the shutter release

Keep the camera as still as possible. If you can shoot with a tripod, all the better. If you can shoot with a monopod. One of the biggest reasons most people’s photos are not sharp is camera movement.

Shutter Speed and Focal Length work together.

If you are paying attention to which lens you have on your camera and how this affects your shutter speed, your photos may be more sharp than they are. The rule of thumb is to turn your lens into a fraction and use that to set your shutter speed. Put one over the focal length and then use the shutter speed closest to that as the slowest for hand-holding the camera.

A 200mm lens should give you 1/200 shutter speed. A 50mm should be held at least 1/50.  If you do not have 1/200 and the closest shutter speed is 1/250, use this, and don’t go under 1/125.

Nikon D4, Sigma 120-300mm ƒ/2.8 with Sigma 1.4 converter, ISO 900, ƒ/5.6, 1/2000

Subject Speed

Photographing a building versus a race car is a big difference. You can have a shutter speed that lasts for hours and not affect the sharpness of a photo, but stopping a bullet in flight might require 1/10,000 to freeze the action. I had always heard 1/500 to stop action. From my personal experience, the razor-sharp photos of sports tend to be about 1/2000 for me. 

Aperture 

The depth-of-field you choose can make a photo appear out of focus even if it is in focus. For example, when you shoot at ƒ/two and the subject is 15 inches from the lens, the sharp area in front and behind the point you are focusing on is most likely less than an inch. However, move that subject to 15 feet, and your depth of field may now be a foot or more.   Find the balance between ƒ/16, keeping everything in focus and wide open ƒ/2.8 with great Bokeh throwing the background out of focus. I often shoot ƒ/four on a Nikon 400mm ƒ/2.8 to get more usable images. Focus Miss On many cameras today, you can have multiple focus points. My Nikon D4 has 51 different points for focusing. 

Depending on my focus mode, it is either more straightforward to focus or more difficult. The point is that people often need to tell the camera where to focus. When doing portraits, I use the eyes as my focus. If they are turned slightly to the camera, one eye is closer than the other, and I always try to get the closest eye in focus. This is when I may change my aperture to be sure they are both in focus.

With Nikon Capture software, I can check where I was focusing later and see if I missed my focus. After using this to help me, I realized I needed more focus due to me and not the camera’s capability.

96:one “We Believe” Farewell Concert Historic Sanctuary

Post Processing

I use either PhotoShop unsharp mask or Lightroom to sharpen the image for how it is being used. Most images could use just a little sharpening. If you overdo the sharpening, it will not look good. A little will give it a bit of a sharpness “kick.” Use a small radius (perhaps a pixel or less) and a large amount.

Most photos are only processed with sharpening once I export out of Lightroom.

If I post the photos to the web, I choose the setting here when I export Screen and Standard.

You can make other choices when you export paper quality and influence your choice.

Success as Independent Photographer—Requires People Skllls

by Stanley LearyPhotography

According to the Portland Business Journal, people skills are described as:
• Understanding ourselves and moderating our responses
• Talking effectively and empathizing accurately
• Building relationships of trust, respect and productive interactions.

Running a successful business requires good people skills. I think the Portland Business Journal has it right when they describe what it is.

Earlier I wrote here about where my time goes as a photographer.  The majority of my time is spent using people skills to engage with: 1) potential clients; 2) clients or 3) subjects.

If you are insecure then you are going to have to take some risks and get out of your shell or find another career, because your success will be directly connected to your people skills.

Nikon D2X, Sigma 120-300mm with 1.4 converter, ISO 400, ƒ/4, 1/5000

Understanding ourselves and moderating our responses

Understanding ourselves is really about knowing our elevator speech. Why do I want to talk to you and what is my objective. You have to know what you want to accomplish or you will be unintelligible to people.

It isn’t all about you either. You have to learn to moderate your responses so that you are connecting to people and what is important to them.

Centenary assistant coach Adam Walsh talks to Justin Glenn (33) during timeout against Georgia Tech during the first half at Alexander Memorial Coliseum. [Nikon D2X, Sigma 120-300mm, ISO 400, ƒ/7.1, 1/200, 4 Alienbees B1600 with sports reflectors, Pocket Wizards used to trigger them]

Talking effectively and empathizing accurately

The first time I talked about anything with people, I made mistakes. I analyzed what I did and why it failed. I started reading books and going to seminars to learn how to be more effective on whatever I was trying to do.

I went through premarital counseling and discovered this alone didn’t prevent mistakes. It was through mistakes I became more effective and developed more empathy.  You see others made mistakes with me and hurt me.

When I did my first few jobs I discovered people abused me if I didn’t have a good contract in place. I learned to communicate expectations I understood from the client and my expectations and have them written for both of us to sign.

When I first contacted people I was asking do you have any jobs for me. Today I research clients more and come to them with ideas of how I could do something for them. I learned over time to learn what was important to others more than what was only important to me. I was learning to empathize.

Nikon D2X, Sigma 18-125mm, ISO ISO 400, ƒ/7.1, 1/350

Building relationships of trust, respect and productive interactions

I have learned that the more people get to know me the more they trusted me. The more transparent the better my business became. I also learned over time that too transparent and letting people hear your thoughts all the time can backfire.  It took years of mistakes to learn how to have more productive interactions.

I learned the more I was helping the client get what they needed or wanted helped me to pay my bills.

I learned that you can share your expertise carefully and they client will appreciate your thoughts. The balance was learning to live with their choice when I didn’t agree with their choices. I was learning to respect their thoughts and opinions.

Even when clients told me they thought I was the expert didn’t mean they would always do what I suggested. What I learned was they were listening and sometimes the timing wasn’t good for reasons I didn’t know.

I started to watch years later my ideas being done by clients. I also learned to not have to get the credit all the time. When they would come back to me later with an idea that I had given to them, I was learning over time to smile and tell them what a great idea.

I also learned to share a little of my personal life when appropriate with clients. I found that they wanted to know about my family, just not all the time.

If you want to be a successful photographer, then develop your people skills.

Record keeping made easy for the photographer

by Stanley LearyPhotography
If you have enough business then the paper work can overwhelm you. If you are finding you have a lot of paper work then this is a solution for you.
IRS tips
I wrote earlier on book keeping suggestions. Here is that post for you https://picturestoryteller.com/2013/03/photography-tax-tips.html
This post is on how to speed up that process even more for the successful photographer needing to get control of paper work in a timely fashion.  If you are starting out just a cheap scanner will work until you need to save time.
The paper work

If you are one who hates paper work as much as I then anything that can simplify the process is worth doing.

There are two different places that I must be ready to show receipts for business expenses: 1) IRS & 2) Clients.
I have found that every penny counts when it comes to collecting for expenses from clients.  Many clients want to see copies of your receipts before reimbursing you for those expenses. 
When I was on staff and filling out reimbursement forms I had to have every receipt or not get reimbursed.  When I made so little in those early years this actually helped me get into the habit of collecting those receipts.
While the IRS will accept business journals and credit card statements as proof of expenses in audits, these will not work with some clients.
If the dollar amount of items you purchased and deducted from your taxes was in excess of $75, the IRS will need to see the receipt to warrant the deduction. 
If the penny amount of items you purchased and want reimbursed from the accounts payable department is 1¢ or more they want a receipt.  
Scan your receipts
The best advice I can give you is to scan your receipts–all of them. This way you can easily create a PDF with your invoice and attached all the receipts. 
The best thing I have done to streamline all my book keeping was scanning of my receipts.  While putting as many receipts on a page and scanning them as one document works for business expense reports for invoicing, that really wasn’t working well to keeping track for the IRS.
I use Quicken Home & Business software to handle my banking, credit cards and invoicing.  A few years ago they made it possible for you to attach receipts to each transaction. In addition each transaction could be associated with the correct category on the Schedule C for taxes.
By scanning receipts and using the software Quicken I was able to make filing for taxes just a few hours each year than days it used to take.
Time is money
Well I had actually shifted a lot of that book keeping to spending time every couple of weeks scanning receipts one-by-one. This was taking a lot of time. 
Not all that long ago a new scanner appeared on the market NeatDesk, but the price tag of $399.95 was a deal breaker in my mind. I had a Canoscan scanner that I paid $50 and it was doing the job.
I finally was tired of spending so much time scanning. I decided I would try the NeatDesk and if it didn’t work I would return it and at most pay the restocking fee.  After just a few minutes I was sold.  
I stacked the maximum amount of receipts it would take at a time. NeatDesk will scan in your receipts, business cards, or documents at a speedy 24 pages per minute. Scan up to 50 pages at once – 1 or 2-sided, color or B&W, single or multi-page. Capacity with paper tray:  15 business cards + 15 receipts + 15 letter-size documents.
The really cool thing is it not only scans but reads the text and helps with file naming and categorizing your receipts.
In addition to receipts I used it to scan stacks of model releases and then it created a PDF of them that I put with the photos online for my clients.  
Neat reads and extracts the information from whatever you scan. Receipts become digital records with vendors and amounts, business cards become digital contacts, and documents become fully keyword searchable.
expenses page2
Scan and attach a copy of all your receipts for the client
Saving the best for last
The second most important person on a job beyond the contact to get the job is the accounts payable person. 
Just as you get more jobs with a client by taking more off of their desk that they must do, the faster you get paid when you make the life for the accounts payable people easier.  

How To Correct Leaning Buildings In Lightroom 5

by Stanley LearyPhotography

How often do you take pictures where the buildings are falling away from you. Before digital there were two ways to correct this.

By using a 4×5 camera you would get the film to be parallel to the building and then adjust the tilts and swings of the lens mount to get you a photo where the building looks straight.

You could also while printing the photo adjust the easel until you also made the building look correct.

Using Lightroom I was able to take the above photo and correct it to the lower photo.

Here is a video showing you how I did that correction.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPhR6kGPxp8]

JPEGs are better than RAW Images unless you check one thing

by Stanley LearyPhotography


From 1982 till 2002 I shot film. I had to get it right in the camera. Most of this time I was shooting color transparency where either you nailed the exposure and white balance or you missed it. No fixing it in post.

When I transitioned to digital the parameters for nailing exposure were just as critical as transparencies. Having shot this way for 20+ years I continued to find it strange how many people rely on post processing to continue to fix what can be done in the camera.

One thing however that digital has given us today we didn’t have with film is the ability correct for the lens defects.  This is really cool and can make your images appear sharper and with better clarity than when we shot on film.

PhotoShop RAW Converter

If you are using PhotoShop to work on your RAW images you need to be sure you always click on the “Lens Icon”, select “Profile” and then check on “Enable Lens Profile Corrections” or you should be shooting JPEGs in camera to get the least amount of distortion with your images.

The Lens Profile Corrections helps with the following known distortions with lenses:

  • Vignetting
  • Barrel distortion
  • Pincushion distortion
  • Chromatic aberration

Each lens has been tested and the mathematical algorithms necessary to correct those distortions is what is being done when you select the enable.  The camera manufacturers have all this built into their cameras to correct for this when you shoot JPEGs, but when you shoot RAW you loose those manufacturer corrections.

Before enabling Lens Profile Corrections
After enabling Lens Profile Corrections

Lightroom

You can also do this using Adobe Lightroom in the “Develop Module.” Go to “Lens Corrections” click on the “Profile” tab and then be sure to check “Enable Profile Corrections.”
This is the first step I do with every image that I shoot RAW.  I recommend it becoming your first step for all your RAW images as well.

Rechargeable Batteries and Organization for the Photographer

by Stanley LearyPhotography

I travel with these two chargers and batteries. I have a good number of the Energizer rechargeable AA and AAA batteries as well as the Eneloop, which I prefer. Here are some tips to keep you energized.

Eneloop

I recommend using these Eneloop batteries. There maybe a better battery, but I am just recommending what I use all the time a prefer.

eneloop XX batteries are the perfect choice for powering photo strobe flash lights; providing more than twice the number of flashes per recharge in less than half the time compared to conventional alkaline batteries!

PowerPax

Always store batteries with the positive and negative terminals away from each other. If batteries are stored with positive and negative terminals touching, they may begin conducting electricity idly, which will discharge them. Storing batteries in their original package will help you prevent this. You can also buy battery storage boxes from specialty storage retailers that will eliminate this potential problem.

I use the PowerPax battery holders for keeping up with my batteries and keeping the terminals from touching one another or other items in my bag.

Here is a quick video for you about their product:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEjsy0w4Zro]
Here is one caddy that will carry a complete assortment for most photographers:

A9 Pack | Battery Case $6.95

Holds: 8 – AA’s, 4 – AAA’s and 1 – 9V battery.
Originally designed for pilots, but also great for camping, boating, travel or at home.
Dispenses batteries with one hand for safety and convenience.
Terminal protection at both ends regardless of how the battery is inserted.
Store your batteries in a compact, easy to find caddy.

How to photograph 4th of July Fireworks

by Stanley LearyPhotography

Caption: Nikon D3S, 14-24mm, ISO 100, ƒ/8, 8 sec

Location, Location, Location

The success of a fantastic fireworks shot is the location. You need to know where the fireworks will go off well before they do.

You don’t want to try to line up your shot after they start. You can tweak your composition, but don’t be caught not knowing where they will go off.

Consider clear view verses using foreground or surrounding to help make your fireworks stand out. My favorite shots are those iconic locations in the foreground, like the Statue of Liberty or the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

Fireworks

Tripod and Cable Release

I recommend using a tripod and a cable release. This will keep the camera as still as possible during a long exposure.

Fireworks

This is the Nikon MC-30 that I have used for years on different Nikon Cameras.

Camera Settings

  • Manual
  • White Balance – Daylight
  • ISO 100
  • ƒ/8
  • Bulb Shutter-speed and keep open for two bursts of fireworks using a cable release

My exposures were from 6 seconds to about 12 seconds on average. I typically might shoot 75 to 100 photos and only really like about 10 of those shots. 

Nikon D3S, 14-24mm, ISO 100, ƒ/8, 11 sec

 When to press the shutter? When you hear the boom of the fireworks, click the shutter and don’t let go until the end of the second fireworks. The bursting will create those beautiful shapes. You don’t get the same exposure if you shoot at faster shutter speeds. The reason is that as the bright fragments move, you capture them throughout the exposure, whereas the faster shutter speed would freeze them. This is similar to photographing car lights on streets at night. By letting the cars continue to move, you get a trace of the lights through the photo. 

Nikon D3S, 14-24mm, ISO 100, ƒ/8, 6 sec

Make your photos 3D for interest

by Stanley LearyPhotography
Nikon D4, 14-24mm, ISO 500, ƒ/10, 1/200

Too often people are isolating their subjects so much that the context is lost. If you just give a peak in the photo of things behind the subject you can create depth into the photograph.

In the above photograph I used the ally to help create depth.

Nikon D4, 14-24mm, ISO 1000, ƒ/10, 1/200

See the difference between that photo and the one below?

Nikon D4, 14-24mm, ISO 560, ƒ/10, 1/200

Here I am just capturing some individuals in this same ally. Here I faced the subject and kept the background simple.

Nikon D4, 14-24mm, ISO 320, ƒ/10, 1/200

By just letting some of the background be of the ally in the lower photo you create a little more interest beyond the subject.

Nikon D4, 14-24mm, ISO 280, ƒ/10, 1/200

I am not trying to compare the photos in terms of best expression and moments.  I am just trying to show how the composition can create more of a three dimensional photograph over a two dimensional one.

Here all the people were trying to stay in the shade and I like the photograph, but it is a little flat. The tables in front of them help, but compare this to the one below.

Nikon D4, 28-300mm, ISO 250, ƒ/7.1, 1/100

I am using the reflections in the window in the background to help create depth here.

Nikon D4, 14-24mm, ISO 2200, ƒ/10, 1/200

In the photo of the chef garnishing the food, I just have a small slither of sky in the top left hand corner of the photo. This helps with the depth as well as the reflections in the windows.

You will also notice in most of these photos I like working with extreme wide angle lens. I just love my Nikon 14-24mm ƒ/2.8 lens. By me getting close to people even where the background doesn’t help create depth the lens helps bue to the perspective and puts the viewer [you] right there in the ally with me.

Nikon D4, 28-300mm, ISO 100, ƒ/7.1, 1/125

Photographers Need To Stay On Budget

by Stanley LearyPhotography

Be ready for changes

Often after you have booked a client there will be some possible changes. Just because you quoted a price does not mean you have to keep that price if the client makes changes to the scope of the project.

“I will be more than pleased to make it happen for you. Since this is a change to what we agreed on I need your approval for the changes before we proceed,” is important to say to the client. You can phrase it however you want, but you need to communicate a few things.

  1. You want them to get what they want.
  2. With changes to the original estimate there are changes to the contract.
    1. Price
    2. What is delivered
    3. Deadline
    4. Possible new expenses
  3. They must approve of the changes in writing for you to proceed.
Willingness to serve
Don’t respond with no to a client unless they are asking you to do more for the same amount of money. Just tell them you need just a minute to revise the estimate to give them an idea what they will cost and any other changes they need to know.
This is why you want to estimate on a project and not give day rates. The only thing you can do on a day rate is if you have additional expenses to meet their request, otherwise when you have the time to do more for them you must.
Give yourself time to respond
It is quite common that a client might catch you off guard and don’t feel bad about asking for a moment to consider their request.  
Sometimes the request may mean not just price difference, but to meet their request something else must come off the project due to time constraints. 
Sometimes I have to point out while we are running ahead of schedule for right now, but I will not know until the end of the project if I have time to add on this request. I will ask if they mind waiting to see if we have time. If they push then I let them know one of the situations we have scheduled might not get done.  I then give them the quote for the price change and wait to see if they want to proceed.
Bait and Switch
If you have given them a written estimate you do not have to worry about them feeling like you have them over a barrel when you give them the increased price quote. There are some people who are actually trying to get more out of you than you estimated. This makes them feel like they got their money’s worth. 
You don’t need to feel the pressure to give in to them, you just tell them the price difference and let them decide.
What happens if you forget to communicate a price difference?
You will most likely eat the cost, because you failed to communicate.
It is professional to communicate price changes before doing the work. I have watched too many freelancers turn in invoices that were higher than the quote and the relationship with the client is tarnished at best and destroyed at the worst. 
Take care of the paper work as much as you do the creative and you will have customers who will hire you again and again.

Interactive Panoramic of State and Lake in Chicago

by Stanley LearyPhotography

http://www.stanleylearystoryteller.com/360Tours/Chicago2/Chicago2.html
I just got back from Chicago where I covered the Grand Opening of Chick-fil-A’s newest restaurant on the corner of State and Lake.  Be sure and click on the 360º above and drag your mouse to the top and bottom or you can just use the menu buttons to navigate. Be sure to also zoom in and out using the +/- buttons on the menu.

The far right button on the menu will make the 360º full screen.  Try that as well for really putting you there.

Maybe you have a place that you need to people to see as if they are standing onsite.  My recommendation is to use the 360º Panoramic to help put people in the place.

This is the corner of State and Lake Streets in downtown Chicago, which if you reload the page will start the 360º Panoramic and spin until you are standing on the street corner.

Maybe you have a campus that you would like people to visit and this is a way to help encourage them to see your space. On the other hand maybe you realize many people cannot travel to see your campus and you want them to have the experience of being there. Either way, the 360º Panoramic is a cool way to engage your audience.

Give me a call if you need a 360º Panoramic. 

For Video Editing: Combine Final Cut Pro X and Event Manager X

by Stanley LearyPhotography

First things first

I am using Final Cut Pro X version 10.0.8 when working with video, which you get through the App store on your mac.  I love the software because you can work in real time and not wait for rendering.  That works in the background.

No matter what video editing software you use I highly recommend maxing out the RAM on your computer. I have 16 gigs of RAM on my Macbook Pro 15″.  If I had a desktop I would have even more RAM.

You need a fair amount of free space on your hard drive as well. This is why I recommend running the projects off an external drive. The program is on the main drive, but the clips and video are on my external drive.

I recommend 20% or more free space on your main drive. As you fill up the external, its performance will also slow and this is why my next recommendation will improve your experience with Final Cut Pro X.

Second

By default Final Cut Pro X will show you all  Events and Projects on all mounted storage devices. You are in essence loading all your projects on all your drives every time you open Final Cut Pro X.

Event Manager X gives you control over your Events and Projects so you can manage what you want to be visible in Final Cut Pro X’s Event Library and Project Library. So, you could have multiple external drives with various projects on them and Event Manager lets you decide what is visible.

Instead of launching Final Cut you launch Event Manager X. As you can see in the screen capture above those with a check are what will show up. Just uncheck and it doesn’t show up in Final Cut Pro.

What the program is doing in the background is moving your “Events” and “Projects” from their normal folders into “Hidden” folders.  See the example above.

Now lets say you have a few projects in the works. You finish one and send it for approval to the client. While you wait on their feedback and changes you can then close Final Cut Pro open Event Manager and uncheck that project and event for now. Then just check the event and project you want to work on next. As long as you have that “Re-open Final Cut Pro X” at the bottom, when you click on the button to move the events and projects it will launch Final Cut after it moves everything and then you only see what you are working on in Final Cut Pro.

The reason for using Event Manager X is not to make things look neat in Final Cut Pro X, it is to improve the performance of Final Cut Pro X.

Photography Composition Tip: Anchor Your Subjects

by Stanley LearyPhotography
Nikon D4, 28-300mm, ISO 180,  ƒ/10, 1/500

Anchors Away

I am still in cruise mode after last week. It takes longer to do everything since I got back. You see I think I need to stop every 45 minutes and find food.

Being on the ship and see those huge anchors made me think of a simple composition technique to improve your photos.

Anchor your subjects.

Nikon D4, 28-300mm, ISO 12,800,  ƒ/3.5, 1/160

When you crop off the feet of a subject or in this case the front of the car the subject isn’t well anchored.

Just lower the camera a bit and give the subject a little room at the bottom.

See what a difference the composition is by just moving the camera a millimeter?

The reason so many of us forget to do this is we are looking too much at the subject. You need to scan the edges of the photo and correct for this problem.

Many photographers tend to have too much space above the subject and this is due to centering of the subject.