Category Archives: Photography

Fading Light

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What do you do when you are at a great location taking photos and the sun begins to go down? The decreasing amount of light that is lost in a situation like this happens almost exponentially. Working in such a situation requires quick thinking and some resourcefulness. You obviously cannot stop the sun from fading into the horizon, so what do you do?

I remember an old television commercial where a father and his son were sitting at a beautiful location watching the sun set. It was a gorgeous scene and just as the sun was fading into the horizon, the dad said, “Going… going… gone!” And with that the sun completely disappeared. The little boy looked up at his dad and said, “Do it again, daddy!”

No, we can keep the sun from fading into the western skyline, so what do we photographers do as the sunlight gives out?

I was in this situation this past Friday night at a baseball game. Baseball requires a pretty fast shutter speed and with my 1.4x teleconverter attached the fading light affected me rather quickly. I was able to keep shooting by adapting some settings on my camera both in the computer menu and physically.

First, I could change to a higher ISO. This is the equivalent to a faster ASA in the old film days. By using more sensitive film, the photographer could use the limited available light a little longer. The same can be accomplished by changing to a higher ISO. With today’s modern cameras like my Nikon D300, we can shoot at higher ISOs and still not experience much noise in our photos. This is a great option, but it does have some limits and eventually we are going to get into such high ISOs that the noise is noticeable.

Another option I had was to remove the 1.4x teleconverter and shoot without it. This provided one more stop of light for me and wasn’t a bad solution since I was right by the dugout. This location allowed me to continue shooting the infielders and batters without too much lose of distance. A simple thing like removing a piece of gear like this can sometimes be a very good option.

Another option for me was to use the exposure compensation option on my camera. This works pretty well in Aperture Priority and I use it often to get rid of those troublesome blinkies. This option can help in darkening situations, but again only to a limit.

Dealing with fading light is not easy, but it is definitely worth the struggle. This is, after all, labeled the “golden hour” for a reason!

One remaining option can sometimes be to keep shooting after sunset, depending on your subject. This is not possible for sports photographers, but the sky can reveal brilliant and fascinating colors that can captured well with your digital camera. Try with those big puffy clouds in the sky as the setting sun casts beautiful rays of light throughout the skyline.

There are ways to deal with fading light and having several options in your bag of tricks can keep you shooting longer.

Where Do You Learn?

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School? Home? Neighborhood? Church?

Where do you learn?

I am fortunate to have a solid upbringing in a loving family and was privileged to graduate from both college and graduate school. These 7 years of post-high school higher learning were wonderful and gave me the opportunity to learn a whole lot. I sometimes look back on those years fondly and even wish I could recapture the joy of living in those years.

But I am discovering the joy of learning something new just about every day.

I don’t think it is so much the place that provides learning as it an attitude and lifestyle. How many people do you know who hated school? For all those who enjoyed the process, like I did, there were probably and equal number of students who absolutely hated the learning process.

I had great teachers, too. They taught me not only the subject material but great life lessons as well. I am grateful to them for their dedication and willingness to share these lessons with me. And I will never forget them nor be able to repay them.

Learning now is less formalized in my life. I occasionally attend continuing education events and seminars, but I find myself turning to the internet to learn more. Photographically speaking, I have discovered a wealth of online websites that have literally tons of information on the subject of photography. I will eventually be posting some of these links on my website.

So, where do you learn? Do you even want to learn anything anymore? If so, where will that learning take place?

Field Work and Home Work

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Most of us prefer to be out in the field with our camera taking photographs. We enjoy the creative side of our craft. And so, we would sooner be out and about taking photos than behind a computer doing the post-processing.

However, without this computer work at home, we would never be able to share our photographs with others. The post-processing is just as important as capturing the photos, even if it is not quite so glamorous.

There are plenty of tools to help ease our pain and even make this part of the process go faster. And once we get our work flow down, it goes pretty quickly. So time spent trying to master this process is well worth the effort and time.

The next time you find yourself complaining about too much time behind the computer, try to find some ways to expedite the process. Think of new ways of doing the routine tasks. With some creativity you can speed up this process and get behind the viewfinder sooner rather than later.

I have to get going now because I have some more home work to do before my photo shoot tomorrow afternoon!

Checklist

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Have you ever been in the middle of a shoot and realized your camera’s white balance was set in the wrong position?

This happened to me a today. Of course, this is one of the many reasons why shooting in RAW makes so much sense, because you can quickly correct this mistake in post processing. The problem is much more difficult when shooting JPGs.

The scenario is pretty common… you shoot one event with a specific white balance setting, say incandescent lighting. Then on your next shoot you are in bright daylight. After awhile when you are looking at a photo on the back of your camera you see that the photo is much too blue.

Other settings can also be set incorrectly and cause problems in a shoot. This is why a pre-shoot checklist is such a good idea. I’ve decided to make a checklist and keep it n my camera bag, right on top of my camera so I have to see it before I use my camera the next time. Hopefully, this will prevent me from using the incorrect settings.

Shooting Modes

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Which shooting mode do you use: Auto, Program, Shutter Priority, Aperture Priority, or Manual?

Many people get a new camera and are a little overwhelmed by all the different settings and options. They want to get out there and start taking photographs instead of reading through a boring owners manual. So they set their camera on Auto and go out and capture some nice shots. The only problem is they never get around to learning about the other modes and forever shoot in the Auto mode.

Auto mode will certainly let you capture some nice photos, but I do not prefer to have my camera making all the choices for me. Call me a control freak if you want, but I want to make the critical decisions on exposure, shutter, iso, and so on. After all, this is where the creative side of photography really comes out. You can be much more creative in shutter priority, aperture priority, and manual modes than in auto mode.

Give it a try. For one week or at least one day, set your camera in shutter priority mode and make the commitment to keep it there. Don’t change it! This is not always easy, but the effort is worth it. Shutter priority allows you to predetermine the shutter speed. Let’s say you’re shooting a sporting event. A fast shutter speed is necessary to freeze the action or stop the ball in the frame. So set a fast shutter speed that still allows you to get enough light to take the photo. Or, let’s suppose you are taking photos of waterfalls and you want to create photos that feature a silky waterfall that exhibits the flow of water. Now you will need a much slower shutter speed and a tripod. Set your shutter speed on 1/30 of a second, compose the shot, and take the photo. A cable or remote release can be invaluable for these shots, too.

Aperture priority mode is the one I most often use. This shooting mode allows me to shoot with a wide open aperture and thereby use a shallow depth of field. I like using this mode particularly for wildlife and sports photography. Focusing can be tricky at times, but when it works the subject stands out from both the background and the foreground. Alternatively, let’s say you want to shoot landscapes all day. Now a small aperture is necessary. Set your camera on the appropriate setting, say f/16 or f/22. Now the depth of field will be much larger and keep much more of the scene in focus. Are you beginning to see why these modes might serve you better than the auto mode?

Manual mode is the one I learned on back in my film days. I had a Minolta x370 and used manual mode just about all the time. It might take some getting used to if you haven’t done it before, but the control you gain is definitely worth the effort. Let’s say you are photographing an animal toward the end of the day. Shadows are getting longer and the sunlight is beginning to fade. You can capture the available light more easily in manual mode because you can adjust either the shutter speed or the aperture setting as  you wish. If you are getting close to having too slow of a shutter speed, then you can instantly switch to adjust the aperture. Once you learn the controls of your camera and learn to watch the light meter in your viewfinder, it will become almost automatic for you to make the necessary adjustments.

Give it time and don’t give up. Learning a new way of doing things might take some time and effort, but once you do I seriously doubt you will use auto mode much anymore. And your creativity will be free to take you to new places!

Manual mode

Catching Up

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The last few weeks have been very busy for me. I photographed several different events, including High School Musical 2 at the Sherman Theater and some more Lehigh Valley Baseball Academy baseball games. I also led a Photo Walk here in Stroudsburg/East Stroudsburg as part of Scott Kelby’s Worldwide Photo Walk. I presented “How I Photograph the Pennsylvania Elk” for the Pocono Photo Club. And I just finished framing 12 photographs for my photo display which will hang at the NEPA Credit Union in August and September.

So, now I am busy catching up with some lose ends, mainly working to post some photos on my website. Yes, life has been busy, but good. I keep learning some new things just about every day, too. I have also made some new acquaintances and friendships. To me, this is one of the best parts–making new friends and enjoying photography with colleagues and fellow photographers.

There is plenty for me to catch up on here with my website. I will be sorting through hundreds of photos and then posting them to my gallery. It will take some time to do this since I am so picky, but I find it an enjoyable task. Seeing the photographs after a shoot is always a lot of fun!

Flickr

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I heard about Flickr awhile ago. Other social network media took priority for me and I paid little attention to Flickr. I concentrated mostly on Facebook and really enjoy this way of reaching out to others.

This changed last night. Following our Photo Walk when we were sitting down and talking with one another at Dansbury Depot, the suggestion was raised to create a Flickr page so we could post and share our photos with each other. I like the idea and decided to give it a try. Besides, the others made it sound pretty easy.

So today I created my Flickr profile and was off and running… well walking maybe. It took me a little while but it seemed to work and I actually understood most all of the steps. Then I discovered how to create a group so the participants could post their photos. And guess what? It actually worked!

You can see this Flickr group here: http://www.flickr.com/groups/1151175@N20/

Check it out and let us know what you think about the photographs. Are you on Flickr? If not, considering doing so. I can speak from experience that it is not difficult to do and there are many benefits. Hello, Flickr!

Photo Walk a Resounding Success

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A big “Thank you” to everyone who participated in tonight’s photo walk. We had beautiful weather, got to take some amazing photographs, and met some really cool fellow photographers. By all counts, everyone had a very enjoyable evening.

Participants started gathering around 5:30 pm in anticipation of the big event and the crowd slowly started to build. Route descriptions and maps were handed out and then we took a group photograph. And with that the photo walk started!

I enjoyed seeing photographers use their creativity in framing shots along the way and I definitely enjoyed the many conversations, too. It was refreshing to witness the camaraderie among the group and I saw a lot of smiling faces. I even followed the eyes or lenses of some photographers to subjects I may have never seen on my own. I also learned and re-learned some photo tips. It was refreshing!

Right at 8 o’clock we began to gather at Dansbury Depot and many of the walkers joined us for a bite to eat or just enjoy the ongoing conversation. It was a great group and I enjoyed talking with each and every participant. It was great!

I want to thank each one of you for participating in tonight’s Photo Walk. I thoroughly enjoyed being your leader and I am very much looking forward to our next Photo Walk!

Gearing Up for the Photo Walk

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Tomorrow night at 6pm the Stroudsburg/East Stroudsburg Photo Walk will begin. I am looking forward to it very much and I hope you are, too. We currently have 42 people signed up for the walk. I never could have hoped for such an overwhelming response.

The weather may be a little shaky with the possibility of rain, but this will not dampen our spirits. Be sure to wear comfortable shoes and bring a rain jacket just in case. We will have the opportunity to photograph a variety of subjects during our walk and make new photography friends in the process.

For those of you new to this concept, a photo walk is a chance for fellow photographers  to get together and take a walk while photographing what they see along the way. They also get to compare notes, tips and other photo suggestions.

There is still room for 8 more participants, so join us if you can!

High School Musical 2

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Tonight I attended the dress rehearsal for High School Musical 2 at the Sherman Theater. It was awesome!

All the hard work and dedication of the actors and crew is going to pay off big time this weekend. If you have a chance to attend one of these performances, I strongly urge you to be there. You can order tickets online at the Sherman Theater’s home page.

Photographing a musical dress rehearsal is not easy and present a number of challenges. The lighting is great at spots and lousy elsewhere, at least for photography. I finally settled in on using manual mode and shot in RAW. I will be going through these photos tomorrow and hope to have them posted on my website in another day or two.

I just hope my photos are half as good as the performance by the actors. This is one awesome production!