Don’t Wait for the Phone to Ring
February 19th, 2010
Archive
Archive for the ‘Resource’ Category
A Word About Fixed-Length Lenses
April 21st, 2009
A quick word about fixed-length lenses. I used to underestimate my fixed f/1.8 50mm lens, which I had gotten basically on a whim. It wasn’t terribly expensive, so why not, right?
I have to admit I didn’t take this lens seriously until I saw what it could do on a recent photo shoot. Even in natural and low light, which are the conditions I am mostly shooting in because I have yet to be able to afford those fancy lights I’ve been drooling over for months. More or less all of the portraits that turned out the best were shot with this lens. It takes AMAZING pictures.
Granted, you have to put a little more work into it, because you cannot vary the length. You have to physically move in and out. But it was WELL worth it! In fact, so much so that I’m thinking about a few more fixed-length lenses.
An example here:
HDR or Not HDR, That is the Question
March 10th, 2009
So, most of today I was playing with HDR, trying to get it to produce the same awesome results you see all the time. No, not the the gaudy “I fell into a surreal paint bucket” stuff that looks like Nik’s solarization filter on steroids. I’m talking beautifully composed color or black and white photos that just seem to jump off the page. While I’m partial to the grainy photo pioneer stuff, this kind of photograph is definitely extremely attractive. And be it solely for the fact that the contrast, if well done, is just simply stunning.
I’m not sure that the style of photography I gravitate towards is anywhere compatible with what HDR produces, yet I cannot help but admire HDR photographs when they are as well done as on stuckincustoms.com. I’ve seen other results in black and white, and when people had it down, these things looked totally captivating.
As popular as it seems to be, there aren’t terribly many tutorials out there that actually did it for me. But there’s hope. Today, what popped up on page 3 on Google was http://www.stuckincustoms.com/hdr-tutorial/. I just checked again and it’s up to place 2 on page 1, so just google “HDR tutorial” and you should find this no problem. The author, Trey Ratcliff, is not only extremely entertaining (“Friends don’t let friends do HDR on drugs.”), he also provided me with a very useful tutorial on HDR.
The first and so far only that was worth even mentioning anywhere, because it goes beyond the other two avenues I’ve found: “Photomatix is totally awesome” or “Photomatix totally stinks”. “Tutorials” of this kinds are not only NOT helpful, they are pretty ridiculous. I think it’s GREAT anyone can do the stuff you do with HDR, but could anyone PLEASE tell me how you got where you got in a few simple steps??? (That’s what I have to admit I loved about the Scott Kelby books, for example – they read like recipe books, and autodidactics like me can appropriate and expand on what is presented pretty easily…)
Trey explains in fairly simple language how he achieved the results he got, and that’s really all I asked for. I’m still not sure I wanna buy all of this software, but it sure is fun playing with this way of processing RAW files, and the stuff he’s got on his site is stunning to say the least. Right now I’m drilling further into this to figure out which ones of my photographs would actually lend themselves to this technique, as most of what I’ve seen where city and landscape type shots, and I usually shoot portraits.
But anyway, check him out today! http://www.stuckincustoms.com/hdr-tutorial/
New eBook in the Making
February 25th, 2009
After realizing there is nothing for my son’s age, as far as usable photography books are concerned, I’ve decided to write my own. By posting my intent here, hopefully it will generate some pressure on my end to actually do it.
RAW vs. JPEG
February 24th, 2009
As soon as I got my Canon Rebel xTI, I started to almost exclusively shoot in RAW. For essentially two reasons. One, I don’t have to worry about white balance. Two, I have complete control (OK, almost complete control) over the data.
That is important to me because even though I try as much as I can to prepare a photograph, set up light sources, blah blah blah – the way I shoot is almost always dictated by what happens at that moment. My best shots are born out of spontaneity.
This spontaneity, though, means that I may have an ISO setting on the camera that is not fast enough, a shutter speed that doesn’t work etc. RAW has helped me more than once salvage a photograph which, had it been taken in JPEG, would not have been salvageable, or only after LOTS of work. If the white balance is off, I can easily correct it. If it is underexposed, I play with a few sliders.
Inevitably, a lot of times salvaging a photograph introduces noise. I have come to appreciate that, however, because it can look quite interesting as a black-and-white. Therefore, I typically convert to black-and-white in such a case, and the results have been astonishing. Alternatively, I may take a picture in a very high ISO, then convert it to black-and-white at least partially. The photograph of the wine glass was taken at ISO 1600 with no flash present, then partially left a color photography, while the rest of it was converted to black-and-white.
A good book on RAW conversion, at least to start with, is “The Art of RAW Conversion” by Uwe Steinmueller and Juergen Gulbins. Even if you buy it only for the stunning cover photograph. It gives a very nice intro into what RAW conversion is, what potentials it holds and when to use it/not to use it (for the latter, any type of photograph that requires fast camera action, such as sports photography, probably does NOT lend itself to RAW). Check it out!
