Category: Photo

A post in dpreview I responded to:

my brother has a soon to be 2 yr old son and he asked me to come photograph his 2nd Bday,, I do alot of Macro and Landscapes, rarely do things like this,, I’m looking for camera settings on this one,, I know what Kind of shots I want,, just settings,, I will have my 40D and a 430EX flash,, might mount it on my off camera Flash bracket and diffuse the flash with a Lumiquest Softbox,, then using manual settings use something like 1/200 with F13 at ISO 100 setting white balance to Florescent since this will probably be mostly inside,, might bounce flash off ceiling too if that looks better,, what would you do ???

Firstly, I’ll tell you that you’ll be doing a lot of eyes, so the flash should be as far away from the lens as is practical. A flash bracket is not a bad idea at all. I use the Fong diffuser, which is indestructible and can be used on the camera with no compromises (lighter, too!).

Settings…

Don’t shoot solely in JPEG, for all the normal reasons. But another reason is that you can later do some fantastic cropping of kids caught in pictures that be set aside as individual prints. You know, 6 kids in a picture, all are going to have different looks on them (the hams!)…

Setup your custom modes ahead of time, and include flash programming (if your flash allows this. my 580EXII does). I guess that is a ‘setting’, but moreover you will have no time to look down and do anything, as kids move fast.

I am a big fan of only the center AF point, and therefore P mode doesn’t apply. P mode will apply if you are shooting with all 9.

Have a C setting for outdoor fill, so that when they run outside you can simply change modes and not have to fuss. I find that I almost always have to work the 580 EX II manually (vs ETTL) when outside-especially if imperfect lighting conditions! Also, a diffuser won’t do its thing outside as there’s nothing to bounce off except the subject.

I would say that if I had my C progs entered and tested, I’d be free to concentrate on the subjects and the party without worrying about checking proofs as I shot (as much).

Sounds like fun! Don’t have too much ice cream-you’ll get a tummy ache! :)

Bogus Exception 8100000A

A user on dpreview asked:

“I’m looking at ND filters that twist onto the lens
Or buying a cokin P adaptor
I been reading a few reports which dont look favourably on the cokin filters.
But dont know”

My answer:

Buying the cokin system has lots of advantages.

An adapter ring for a different thread size costs about $10, making all your filters work with all your lenses.

Another important thing is that threaded grad NDs force you to put your transitions right in the middle of the frame, where the cokins are large enough that you can actually slide that transition all the way out of the image, or make the whole image go through the darkest part-and anywhere in between!

An grad filters aren’t restricted to NDs, BTW…

So I carry one package of P filters, a few adapter rings, and all my lenses are able to use all my filters.

Complete filter kits and samplers are dirt cheap on eBay and others, and many vendors make their filters for the popular Cokin systems.

Oh, and finally.. you can make your OWN filters out of just about anything-including gels or plastic you find at the hw store!

See my previous article about the Cokin system here.

Something to think about…

I was at a show at our local veterinarian, and I took shots that were all ad-hoc and casual. I just walked around the show and took in what I could. There were rescue dogs from a volunteer rescue organization there, and I took a lot of shots of their shepherds.

I also took a few candid portraits, and one of them provides a great opportunity to show just how dramatic a photoshop makeover can be, as well as fix a common mistake of mine by letting my self be caught in the reflection of the subject.

Here is the original, from thumbnail:

So what we want to do are basically two things:

1. Flatter our subject with touch-ups
2. Remove my reflection from the sunglasses
Continue reading “Easy touch-ups with Adobe Camera RAW and Photoshop!”

See the end of this post for the actual RAW file used in this tutorial so you can edit it along with me in the post.

In the previous tutorial, we saw how the controls work in Adobe Camera RAW, or ACR. This time we’ll be dealing with something that only RAW can deal with-bad pictures. Adobe Photoshop is fine when the picture is good, or you want to take artistic license, but is useless when it comes to saving an image.

When would this happen? Well, it happens all the time, really. Every time I hand my camera to someone to take a picture with, the shot is inevitably bad. The problem is, I can’t sit there and teach them how to take pictures, compensate for lighting, etc., so I’m screwed, right? Wrong! I had a waiter at Giogio’s Table in Virgin Gorda, BVI take a picture of my wife & I on our 10th anniversary in April, and he took it with the ocean outside behind us. We came out as black sillouettes.
Continue reading “Adobe Camera RAW Tutorial 2 – Drastic Surgery”

In this article, I discussed how poorly the Naneu Pro K3L was constructed, and the problems inherent in the design.

I sent it back to Naneu Pro, and they contacted me right away, apologizing for the problem, and asked that I either wait for the new K4L or K3L (due out in a few months), or choose from something in their current catalog under $199.95.

I was very impressed with this offer, as I had forked out $149 for the bad bag. I chose the Tango shoulder bag in green, and it came almost immediately.

Continue reading “Naneu Pro Update – Tango (Good Bag, Bad Strap)”