SLR Camera and Photography

Wednesday, August 3, 2016

Season For Air Shows

Posted On August 3, 2016 at 1:43 am by SLR Camera / on Season For Air Shows

Summer is usually the season for air shows and that means yet another reason and opportunity to go out shooting. I had intended to visit the Farnborough Air Show this year but unfortunately an exhaust muffler decided to divorce itself from the underside of my car and reconciling the two became my whole day instead. Undoubtedly there’ll be other air shows for me to visit this summer but for now these images here are from previous shows, including the one at Farnborough.

Obviously when you first arrive there’ll be plenty of aircraft stationed on the tarmac awaiting your awe and inspection.

Capture them with any lens or focal length you choose. Perhaps go wide to fit in their entirety but also feel free to zoom into them and fill the frame with just the cockpit or some other detail. Closing in may also help cut out unwanted distractions or people from your shot.

Don’t hesitate to find a more interesting angle. There’s no rule that says the aircraft have to be captured from the front or the side. Large machines are interesting from a variety of angles, and have plenty of geometry to stimulate your compositional juices.

Well, I guess most people really go to these shows to see the planes in the air and I’m certainly no exception.

You’ll find models old and new(er); supersonic and subsonic. Enjoy the afterburn and the speed, and mind your ears as they scream or hover through the air.

Having a zoom or long focal length obviously helps, and most of these aerial shots were captured with a 200mm F/2.8 lens and teleconverter attached (1.7x). Obviously go longer if you can.

Yes, I captured these with a DSLR and zoom lens but it doesn’t have to be a such a heavy set of gear. I’ve seen many people at these shows with superzoom bridge cameras or compact cameras (laugh all you want) and their results were pretty impressive. Lesser mortals will waste time picking out the technical imperfections of their images but good composition and timing isn’t dependent on your gear. And at least they made the effort to get out there and make images. My point is don’t be shy about your gear; it’s much more fun to go out and shoot than it is to sit at home feeling inadequate about your kit.

Back to the show and there’s plenty of spectacle from the professional display teams, and capturing their trails will give the viewer a sense of movement and direction.

Most of us hope that a summer day will be sunny and warm but don’t be too despondent if there’s an overcast sky. If anything it will provide a darker background against which to contrast the aircraft and their trails.

Often at these events, there’ll be explosions and such going off. Having a good burst rate on your camera can ensure you get the best shot but carefully choosing your timing can be effective too. Phase detection autofocus is probably the most useful for tracking the aircraft but they are usually enough distance away that even contrast detection systems should be able to keep up focus.

Don’t forget there are always plenty of people to photograph too, not just in the planes but on the ground or falling from the sky. One omission of mine here was not to include any close-up candids of pilots, although I’m not much of a portrait shooter. But you’ll do that when you go the show, right?

These were processed in Lightroom with basic adjustments to contrast and some selective dodging and burning. Mostly in aperture priority between F/4 and F/8 with the camera choosing the shutter speed (fast enough on a bright day) and between ISOs of 200 and 800.

So, anyway, please don’t waste too much time worrying or drooling over the latest lens or camera (unless it pleases you to do so!) and how it might make you a better photographer. It won’t. The only thing that will do that is practice and going out to shoot. Use these kinds of events as an opportunity, sure, but don’t just enjoy them through a viewfinder or LCD screen. Remember to have a good time too.
And if all else fails and you’re feeling tired and hungry, you can always find yourself a good dollop of cheese:

Call sign: Alpha Whiskey. Maverick it definitely ain’t!

Have fun!
The post Season For Air Shows appeared first on Photography Life.
Photography Life

If you are interested in Digital Photography, click the link to read more.

Tuesday, August 2, 2016

How I Post-Process Hard Light and Overwhelming Tones

Ever since the middle of high school, I’ve been immensely interested in “the process.” You know, that middle bit between point A and point B that nobody but the artist ever sees. I’ve always loved peeking behind the scenes to see where something started and what kind of work and thought went into creating the finished product.

To satisfy those of you who are like me, here’s a before-and-after look that not only shows you my images straight out of camera and the final product, but which uses each image to explain a bit more about what I do in post.

Hard Light

Hard light is a whole different beast. It’s a monster with hard shadows, distracting backgrounds, and strong colors. Luckily, we can calm that beast down. And for the record, I know: this isn’t “Hard Light” but it’s modified hard light (I had a diffuser blocking the sun from her top half) and the background is in hard light. Sheesh.
I love soft light. You know I search for shade and you know that back light gets me giddy. Well guess what friends… experimentation fosters progression and lately I’ve been experimenting in harder light!

Light / Exposure

Let’s start with what we should always focus on first, the light. The type of light you work with is one of the most influential factors on your editing. Editing for hard light and soft light is a completely different ball game. My typical images have soft light on both the subjects and the backgrounds. That’s very important to my style since my tends to have a softer (although still contrasty) feel. In the images above, I wanted to keep that softness in my subject while playing with harder light in the background. My setup was simple. The sun was coming through a small circular diffuser on her right (your left) which shaded the top half of her body. Other than that, I let the hard light takeover.
Exposing shots like this is the same as I’d expose anything else. I underexpose the brightest thing I want to keep detail in. Did you follow that? In this shot, I wanted to keep detail in the sky and the skin (I wanted to keep some blue sky) and since the sky was brighter, I underexposed that. That left the skin much darker, but that’s okay because we can bring that up in post without losing details. On the other hand, if I exposed for the skin, I would have kept details there but would have blown out the sky. When shooting digital, if you blow something out, it’s gone forever. It’s always best to err on the side of underexposure (unless you’re shooting film).

Tones

Tones! Woohoo! If you’ve shot in both, you may have already realized that one of the biggest differences in soft/hard light is saturation. If you look at a blade of grass in the shade, you’ll see a soft, peaceful green. Move it into the sun and it turns into a freaking neon blaze of green hell fire. Sun = Saturation. It’s just simple math.
Why does this matter? If I want to keep my images in hard and soft light consistent with each other, I have to understand how to manipulate that saturation. This is where the glorious HSL tool comes into play. If you don’t know where that is, it’s the super confusing looking patchwork of sliders under the Tone Curve in Lightroom. This panel allows you to manipulate three things about each specific color: the hue, saturation, and luminance. For example, I could change the blues in the image (make them a different color, add/kill saturation, or change the brightness of them) without affecting any other color in the frame. Pretty dang handy.
The HSL slider is something I’ve rarely dug into when I’m working on images with softer light but it can be crucial for taming the bonkers colors that hard light can give you. When shooting outdoors with hard light in the background, you’ll likely be seeing strong greens, yellows and oranges taking over your image. To subdue those colors a bit (bringing them closer to how they would look in soft light), you can simply drag down the saturation for each specific color you feel is too strong. So dang easy! The only other thing I did in the in the HSL for this image is to bring down the luminance on the blues/aquas to darken the sky just a tad.

Harsh Backgrounds

The main reason I shoot with soft light in my backgrounds as much as I do is because it helps me keep a muted tone in an image and it allows the subject to pop. Hard light in the background can have the opposite effect. The background can go from soft to harsh leaving you with a subject that doesn’t draw your eye and a background that feels abrasive and busy.
Good news, we have a fix! Wouldn’t it be weird if I posted one of these before/after blogs where I just talked about all of the problems but didn’t give any solutions. If I ever decide to annoy a ton of people at once, I’ll do that. (And for those of you wondering, that’s what we call a tangent). Lightroom has a killer tool right under the histogram called brushes. These allow you to paint over any part of the image and change almost anything about that part of the image. If I wanted to make her left arm bright orange and contrasty (you know, like on myspace), this is how I can make that happen.
In this case, I’ll use the brush to take the background from harsh to soft by painting on everything except for her and the sky, and lowering the contrast and clarity of that area. Bringing down the contrast subdues the difference in light/shadow and lowering the clarity takes the harshness out of the lines/shapes behind your subject. That creates a softer, more visually pleasing background and a subject that pops out of it. Bingo!

Overwhelming Tones / Split Toning

This shot of Meredith was from a shoot a few months ago that I was hoping would be a dive into playing with hard light. Instead, I showed up to our shoot spot to find nothing but cloud cover (sometimes nature has it’s own plans). I ended up shooting most of these front lit using the clouds as a diffuser. That allowed me to have soft, flattering light on Meredith and exposing it in a way that would keep a bit of color in the sky.

HSL Sliders

Shooting out in nature as much as I do (and jumping from landscape to landscape) can mean I’m always finding little quirks in the colors that I need to fix. When I shoot out in the desert, I find that the yellows and warmer tones can be overwhelming because the light is reflecting off the ground and spreading those warm tones all over the frame. When I shoot in the forest or anywhere with a ton of grass, I see the same thing happening with greens. Above, I said that I rarely come into the HSL (Hue, Saturation, Luminance) sliders when I’m shooting in soft light and this is one of those rare instances. It’s a pretty simple process:
1. Figure out which color is overwhelming.
2. Desaturate that color.
3. Success.
You’ll see in the image below that I also brought down the luminance of the blues and aqua again to keep the color in the sky.

Split Toning

Next up is my happy place, Split Toning. I love the power of this tool and I LOVE turning people on to it. Split Toning allows you to add a specific tint into the highlights and shadows individually. That means I can have blue shadows and yellow highlights (mimicking Kodak Portra), red shadows and blue highlights (mimicking expired film), or I can just create a palette unique to me. I typically prefer to use only yellow in the shadows and nothing in the highlights but lately I’ve been adding blue into the highlights as well for a slightly different look (check out the rest of the images from this set with yellow shadows and blue highlights here).
The difference that HSL and Split Toning can have is pretty drastic in terms of eliminating overwhelming colors and cleaning up your image.

I hope you found this helpful! I have more free education resources through my blog, my Editing + Consistency class, and my Self Paced Classes.
Feel free to dig in to my other free education in my blog, my Editing + Consistency class (which covers everything I do in post and then some), or my other Self Paced Classes. Until next time, high-fives.

About the author: Ben Sasso is a photographer and educator based in Los Angeles. He’s all about nature (camping, climbing, hiking and running around), and has an unmanly love for cats. He’s a firm believer in fostering a close knit photo community and encouraging individual progression. You can find more of his work and writing through his website, Facebook, and Instagram. This article was also published here.

Read more about Photography and Slr Camera.

Fujifilm X-E2S real-world samples

The Fujifilm X-E2S takes everything we loved about the X-E2 and its latest firmware updates and adds… well, not much. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a capable and relevant camera in today’s market. With great build quality, plentiful external controls, retro styling and Fujifilm’s gorgeous film simulations, the X-E2S just begs you to slap on a prime lens and go out shooting. The substantial drop in MSRP compared to the original X-E2 doesn’t hurt, either. Take a look at what we came up with when we took the X-E2S for a spin.

Fujifilm X-E2S real-world samples gallery

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

Posted On August 2, 2016 at 9:21 am by SLR Camera

If you are interested in Photography, check it out here for more details.

Four Visual Help Layers to Make Color Correction in Photoshop A Breeze

Posted On August 2, 2016 at 4:56 am by SLR Camera

For most beginners, distinguishing hues, or noticing over saturated areas, can be an issue. Even some most advanced retouchers still have problems color correcting their images. Reaching the point where our eyes see colors properly takes time and a lot of practice. Fortunately enough, visual help layers in Photoshop can aid us separate luminosity, hue, and saturation. In this article, I will show you how to isolate the latter two to facilitate your color correction.

[ Read More ]

Fstoppers

If you are interested in Camera Tips, check it out here for more details.

Monday, August 1, 2016

Engagement Photography Tips

Every couple is unique. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always translate to them being skilled at naturally interacting between themselves and relaxed posing during the engagement session. If you regularly shoot engagement sessions you likely look forward to sessions with attractive couples that pose so naturally you wonder if they work as models in their spare time.

“@fairyland” captured by PictureSocial member Willy Yohanes

But then reality sets in. As you gently guide and pose your next couple they willingly and cooperatively follow every instruction and direction — but end up looking unbelievably uncomfortable and tremendously tense!

What is the Key?

Unfortunately, there is no magic bullet! I all it took was a squeaky toy everyone would already be using it. There is not a “one size fits all” pose that every couple will perfectly fall into position with.
However, there are some tips you can keep in mind as you approach your next engagement session.

Professional Thoughts

Engagement photos from a professional can be very expensive. Many of the top pros charge a session fee in addition to very expensive reprint rates (I’ve seen some photographers that charge $ 50 or more for an 8×10).
I don’t blame the photographers: most of them are good enough to charge such rates. And I know, from having shot engagement sessions before that the sessions can take quite a bit of time. For me, an average session would take about 6 hours of total time (initial contacts/communications with the couple, driving to the photo site, taking the photos, downloading/processing the raw images, and then processing the couple’s order).

“Relax Mood” captured by PictureSocial member Alexei Demin

A money-saving tip: some professionals offer the engagement photos as a part of their wedding package. If your wedding photographer offers such a service – take advantage of it! Even if you don’t order a lot of reprints it will give you and your fiancée an excellent opportunity to see how well you interact with your photographer.
If you can’t afford (or don’t want to spend the money on) a professional photographer: don’t throw out the idea of engagement photos!!

Friend Alternatives

Find a friend that owns a DSLR and a zoom lens. The DSLR cameras are the digital cameras with interchangeable lenses. Such camera prices are falling (often one can be purchased for about $ 700) and their popularity is increasing.
See if your friend has a good zoom lens. Such a zoom lens will often go from 100mm out to about 200mm or even 300mm. If your friend doesn’t have such a lens perhaps they could be talked into buying one. I’ve seen a consumer-version Nikon (and Canon) 75mm-300mm zoom lens for about $ 100!
While you probably won’t get photos that are good as professional, you can get very nice photos from such a setup. And I’m going to give you two huge bits of advice that will make a world of difference in those results.

Tip #1 – The Zoom

If you want a nice, blurred, background in your engagement photos, you’ll need to have them taken with a zoom lens. Using a 200mm zoom lens will beautifully blur out the background behind you. And don’t stand too close to your background: I’d recommend being at least 15-20 feet away from any background. If your friend knows what the camera’s aperture is (the f-stop), have them set it to be as wide open as possible (the lowest Aperture number available – perhaps F4.5 or even F2.8).

“Sunset Love” captured by PictureSocial member Alyona Arnautova

Tip #2 – Evening Shade

Don’t go out on a bright sunny day at noon and expect to get beautiful photos! While you may stumble upon some good photos, it is actually harder to take nice images in the bright sun due to the harsh lighting, dark shadows, and squinty eyes.
I recommend you take your engagement photos on a sunny day – but start the photo session about an hour before sunset. Try to find a park that has beautiful green grass and trees. I generally try to find areas that have a large amount of shade. At that time of the evening a hill will often provide a large area of gently-lit shade.
You will be amazed at the quality of light that is available at such a time!
To be honest, as a working professional who has shot a number of engagements, the vast majority of my images are taken in that exact lighting with ZERO modifications (no reflectors, strobes, etc.).

Are You Serious?

If you are — don’t be! When you go out to have your engagement photos taken by a friend, you need to have a good time. Focus solely on your fiancé and your love for them. Enjoy spending time with them! Too many people focus on the camera and get nervous and uptight: and it shows in the photos.
Hopefully your fiancé is the only person in the world that can help you forget about everything else – which would include the camera…

“love story” captured by PictureSocial member b-bee

Do Your Homework

Planning for an engagement session will usually improve the quality of the results. Here are a few steps I would suggest you take as you begin planning:
Run Google searches for “engagement photography” and “engagement photos.” Look for images that you think you and fiancé could imitate. Print off about 20 of your favorite images. Go over them with your fiancé and narrow the list down to the ones that both of you really like and think will be possible. Then, show those to your friend who will be taking your pictures. Whittle the samples down even further based upon their thoughts and feedback. Try to end up with 5 or 10 sample images that everyone is excited about.
Look closely at those sample photos to see what types of location are being used and what the lighting looks like. A lot of engagement photos are taken in either a park or city location. I would suggest driving around and scouting possible photo locations for the session. But don’t just do a “drive-by scouting”! Get out of your car with your camera and take actual photos inside each park of the locations you think would work best. Compare your snapshots with the sample photos you printed off.
You can also do internet research by looking at the web sites of local wedding photographers. While your previous search for engagement photography would have returned nation-wide results, the goal of this research is to see where the local wedding pros are shooting their engagement sessions. You’ll likely recognize some of the parks and buildings that they are working in and near.

Lots of Photos

Hopefully your friend will be using a digital camera. That way they can take lots of images without worry about film expense. Sometimes the difference between an average photo and a great photo is simply changing the angle and perspective of the camera!

“Come Fly With Me” captured by PictureSocial member erica lyn

This point was really driven home to me with some recent engagement photo sessions I have done. I am in the process of creating an eBook to help couples take top-notch engagement photos. I had another photographer help me out with several engagement sessions. Together, we shot about 600 photos during each two-hour engagement session. During the session, I would often setup and take photos of the couple. While I was doing so my assistant would be moving around and photographing the same scene at different angles. Afterwards, I would look at the photos I took and also some of the side-angles my assistant shot at those same times–and there is often a night and day difference between the two. The couple didn’t move or change their pose; the only difference was the angle at which the image was taken!
So, once you have found a good location for your photo session and you and your fiancé are in position — let your photographer snap away! Don’t limit the shots they’re taking!

Have the Proper Mindset

This seems basic, but the realization that some couples will be easier to work with and some harder is a good first step. Models are usually paid for their time and services. Since you aren’t paying the couple for their time: don’t expect too much of them! Just be grateful for the “natural posers” when they show up!

First Impressions DO Count

When you greet the couple, do it with a friendly smile and by warmly shaking each of their hands. Be genuinely happy to see them. If you demonstrate nervousness or awkwardness as you get to know the couple, they will immediately pick up on it — even if it is subconsciously — and it will increase THEIR nervousness during the photo shoot.

Social Skills 101

Forgive me if this is too basic. Chances are you already do this. But, just in case, I feel a need to make sure the base is covered: make sure you carry on a pleasant conversation with the couple from the very beginning throughout the whole photo session. Their tension will increase if the only time you talk to them is to give them terse instructions “Move slightly to the side – now tilt your heads together – more – more – no – too far!” Most couples love to talk, and their favorite subject will likely be themselves.
You shouldn’t have to pretend to be interested in them! I really enjoy finding out details about the couples I photograph. Details such as: how they met, when the proposal took place, when the wedding is scheduled, how the wedding plans are coming along, etc. etc.

Warm Ups

Plan the first part of your photo session with the idea of relaxing the couple. Don’t try for your best shots during the first 15 or 20 minutes. If the only thing you achieve during that time is to completely put the couple at ease with you, the camera, and each other (the last one should be easy) — you will get much better photos during the remainder (majority) of your session.
During that first segment I would recommend using easy, basic, simple poses. Keep talking and interacting with them. Let them know it is OK to forget about the camera. Try not to give them too many specific directions and instructions. Encourage them to be themselves – even if the resulting photos aren’t that great! Once they are at ease you can gently give more instructions. The first goal has to be putting them at ease!

Unexpected Photos

This method doesn’t work with every couple because it totally depends upon how naturally they interact with each other when they aren’t expecting you to be taking their pictures. Some couples will chat while aimlessly starring off into the distances – others will have an animated and happy conversation while looking into each other’s eyes and occasionally laughing (those are the moments you’re trying to capture!).

Photo captured by PictureSocial member Elena Kuznetsova

The goal: Taking a few photos when the couple is relaxed and not expecting you to be taking their picture.
The method: For me, the best timing is usually when I need to change memory cards. I’ll let the couple know that I need to change cards and they can relax for a few minutes. I then rummage around in my bag for the new card, all the while watching them out of the corner of my eye.
The challenge: Taking the photos without standing at the camera and pressing the button. Sometimes a wireless shutter release can be used. Other times I’ll have an assistant with me and will have them take a few of these shots while I’m rummaging in the camera bag. Occasionally the couple so completely forgets about the camera and me that I can actually go back to the camera and hit the shutter release without them noticing!
Hopefully, these tips, combined with your personality and experience, will help you put couples at ease (while still giving you the freedom to offer natural posing suggestions) so you get take some incredible engagement photos!

DON’T Lose Images

If you are not careful with your digital work-flow you can easily end up losing images. This is NOT an option for a professional photographer. The good news with engagement sessions is that if you happened to (somehow) lose a number of the images from an engagement session — you can (likely) redo the session! Weddings, on the other hand, are practically impossible to redo.
If you should happen to encounter data corruption while photographing the couple, or while downloading the images — do not panic! If it occurs in-camera, take the card out and move on to another card. I have had this happen several times over the years and have only lost the 1 corrupt image and however many images were in the buffer at the time I had to switch to a new memory card.
The more common corruption has occurred when I am downloading the images to my computer. There are a number of software tools you can run on the memory card to restore the images. I don’t have room in this article to write in-depth about recovering lose/corrupted/deleted images, but I would recommend you purchase “Photo Rescue” version 3 (a Google search will find the software). I held off on buying the software until I had a need, and when I had a need (an entire memory card from a family photo session that had become corrupted during the download process), the $ 29 price was well worth it! Since buying the software I have used it a number of times to recover deleted or corrupted files from a memory card.

photojournalistic engagement photography

“Engagement” captured by PictureSocial member Samantha Foster

Safeguard the Images

The first thing I do when I get back from a photo session is download all of the images to my computer.
I then do some basic checking to make sure there are no images missing from the session. I will check the file number of the first image and last image from the session — subtracting the two to find out how many images were shot. Then I will check the actual files on my computer to make sure it matches.
Such a double-check would catch any images missing from the middle of the session, but you’ll notice it wouldn’t detect images that were missing from the very beginning or end of a session.
That is why I will also sort the images by “date” or even file number and scroll through the time stamps to make sure all of the time that I was shooting images resulted in actual files.
Once the “checking” process is done I will burn all of the images to DVD. Actually, I create two copies of the files on DVD’s. One DVD is stored on-site and the other DVD is stored at an off-site location. I also have an Excel file that functions like a database: I enter basic information about the photo session into Excel and assign a number to the DVD so it can found (easily) later on.

Removing “Secondary Photos”

After ensuring the raw image are safely backed up I will start into my post-production process. The first step involves removing bad photos. I used to call them rejects. Now I simply call them “Secondaries”.
I create a folder called “Secondaries” and I move any photos that have problems to that folder. Any images that are embarrassing to the couple (catching an odd look, or a blink, etc.) or have mistakes that I made (motion blur, out-of-focus, blown highlights, bad compositions, etc.) end up in the “Secondary” folder.
I want to keep as many photos for the couple as possible, so I try not to eliminate too many shots. Although, I remember one engagement session where I took more than 1,300 photos. For that session I very freely moved images “Secondary” folder!

Photo captured by PictureSocial member Tatiana Garanina

If the photo session resulted in a smaller selection of images or if the “pose” in question only had a few shots, I’ll try to leave as many from that session or “pose” as possible.

The Renumbering Decision

Let’s say your photo session started with 250 images. 50 of them moved to the “secondary” folder. You’re left with 200 photos. There are gaps in your photographic file numbers.
Some couples will not notice or care about the gaps. Your photo numbers are probably not going to be 001-250 (with 50 missing). They are more likely going to something like 6918- 7168 — and the missing numbers will not very obvious. But it still would be possible for a discerning couple to run the math and figure out that 50 images are missing — or to notice, as they click through the images, that the numbers occasionally “skip”.
You will need to decide whether it is worth the time to renumber your “select” images. I use the freeware RName-It version 3.1 (a Google search will find the software) to renumber my images, but most Image Editing software can also handle the renumbering of images.
I normally do not renumber the images. I don’t think I have ever had a couple ask me for missing images. If they were to do so, I would explain the types of images I remove, and if they were really interested in seeing them I would likely send them over. I have found that if you provide a large amount of top-notch photos, couples don’t seem to worry about the 5%-10% that are not included.
There’s a lot more to my after-photo-session work-flow, but I’ll have to cover that in another article!

About the Author:
Christopher Maxwell is a professional photographer based near Kansas City. He has created a number of practical resources to help beginning photographers Learn Engagement Photography, as well as providing information about Learning Wedding Photography.

If you are interested in Digital Photography, check it out here for more details.

Continue reading More about slr camera and photography? Visit here.