August 31st, 2009 Rob Sheppard
Recently, I had the chance to work with a set of tele-extenders from Kenko (THK) while doing an advertorial for THK and Outdoor Photographer magazine. They had sent Nikon mount extenders so I used a Nikon D3x and Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8 lens. The results were, to be honest, really quite good. I was impressed with the excellent sharpness that I got with both the 1.4x and 2.0x extenders.
That said, it is important to understand that you could take these same extenders with a different lens that you have and get terrible results. People will then say how terrible it was that I “sold out” and promoted crappy gear. Well, I never promote crappy gear, which isn’t hard today because camera equipment today is so very, very good. And I really, truly did get superb results from these extenders and would not hesitate to recommend them to anyone, regardless of doing an advertorial or not.
So how can it be possible someone could get poor results from the same extenders? Very easily, it turns out, and this has nothing to do with Kenko or THK, but everything to do with extenders. Extenders can only deal with the optics of the original lens. A good lens is more likely to give good results. The tele-extender is not only magnifying the view, but also any defects in the lens.
But it isn’t that simply. With an extender, you are adding complexity to the optical path by adding new optics. No matter how good those new optics are, they still have to work with a totally new set of optics in the original lens. Many low-priced zooms, for example, don’t adapt well to the addition of new optics from a tele-extender, so their results are not good.
Bottom line is that how well an extender will work for you depends on the lenses you use it with. Unfortunately, that can be difficult to predict ahead of time because few people put extenders on all lenses and test them. I can say that many zoom lenses, because of their complexity, don’t adapt well to extenders, but many do, which the Nikkor 80-200mm lens I used obviously did.
Extenders also drop the light to the sensor. The 1.4x cuts it by one stop, the 2.0x by two stops. In addition, extenders often work their best when the original lens is stopped down a stop or two from the maximum aperture. This can mean a serious drop in light that can result in a definite loss in sharpness due to no fault of the extender, but from camera movement. The extender will magnify the view, but also any camera movement during the exposure. Many people are disappointed in 2.0x extenders from any manufacturer and think they are not sharp. Often the problem is not unsharp extender or other optics, but an extreme sensitivity to camera movement, even when the camera is on a tripod. For that reason, I have actually gotten better results at times when using an image stabilization feature on camera or lens to help deal with that movement.
Another challenge is autofocus. Your camera may or may not autofocus when using an extender, but again, this is not the extender causing the problem. What happens is that the loss of light to the sensor can make the light level drop to such a point that the camera does not have enough light to autofocus. It depends a lot on the camera, and I am not familiar with all cameras. When you use the 1.4x, you lose a stop of light. That may put your lens beyond the AF capabilities of your camera, or maybe not. It definitely will limit AF capabilities in low light. This is simply something we have to put up with for the use of any teleconverter.
Posted in Digital camera techniques, Equipment thoughts | 2 Comments »
August 25th, 2009 Rob Sheppard
Filing your accumulating digital images can be a challenge. There are lots of good ways to file, but not always good ways for you. I now use Lightroom almost exclusively for downloading images from a memory card and for organizing my photos.
Lightroom offers a lot of tools for filing, but they are only tools. Ultimately, the filing system is up to you. I strongly recommend to folks when I do workshops on Lightroom that they follow a system that makes sense to them based on how they file anything. You simply need a structure. I often use this analogy:
- Set up a storage room for your photos — this is a master folder on your hard drive for all of your image files — it can be the existing Pictures folder or something else. I use a specific Digital Photos folder on a separate hard drive from my main computer.
- Set up cabinets to hold your photos in that storage room — these are subfolders to the master folder that allow you to group photos into certain categories that make sense to you; for me, that works if I use years.
- Set up cabinet drawers to hold your photos in the cabinets – these might be the folders that hold your photos as you import them and are subfolders to the “cabinet” folders — an example might be a folder that holds images from a trip to a specific state — this might mean if you travel a lot, as I do, that these folders are all based on state and dates — but there are lots of ways to categorize these images based on what, how and when you shoot.
- Set up folders in the cabinet drawers to hold your photos — these might be subfolders to your “cabinet drawer” folders — they might be based on specific days within a trip, for example. I don’t need to go to this level most of the time.
Posted in Lightroom | 2 Comments »
August 21st, 2009 Rob Sheppard
With digital photography stimulating a lot of photographers to get out and take pictures, I have been doing some classes to encourage photographers to find new ways of seeing, including my class, Impact in Your Photographs: The Wow Factor at BetterPhoto.com. One of the things I encourage is to look for different angles. I had a fantastic workshop years ago with Will Hopkins who was the last art director at the old LOOK magazine. He said something that has always stuck with me: “The only people who see the world consistently from eye-level and at moderate distance are photographers.”
One way to immediately make your photos stand out from everyone else’s is to try shooting from different angles that are lower and higher than that “eye-level” that is so easy to fall back on. This goes for all sorts of subjects. Go to any photographer’s field event where people are shooting landscapes and notice how nearly all to all of the photographers have their cameras on a tripod at eye-level or close to it. Look at photos of children and notice how so many are shot from the photographer’s eye-level rather than the child’s. And this can go on and on for all sorts of subjects.
I love doing low-angle shots in nature. It gives a totally different perspective than expected. One challenge is how to stabilize the camera. I have used bean bags, which work well, but not for long exposures. I have removed the center column from my tripod to allow it to get closer to the ground, but the legs splay and often show up in wide-angle shots.
I have started using the Vacu-Pod in an interesting way suggested by its developer, Michael Corlew, using its suction on something like a metal plate to allow you to get a solid base for a tripod head and camera. I actually am using a small, 5×7-inch clipboard that I can clip to my bag, then attach the Vacu-Pod. This gives a very solid, low-angle support that you can use on mud (such as the photo seen above), sand (which keeps your camera away from damaging sand) and so forth. I have found I can take as long an exposure as needed with this, plus you can really lock the camera down for such things as HDR (done with the photo seen above). The Vacu-Pod itself is very lightweight and can be carried fairly easily. I put a cord through the hole in the center to make it easy to carry on the outside of my camera bag. You can learn more about this product at www.vacu-pod.com.
Posted in Digital camera techniques, Workshops and Classes, landscape photography, nature photography | Comments Off
August 19th, 2009 Rob Sheppard
Today, Canon announced a new camera for their G-series, the PowerShot G11. Those of you who might have read my articles over the years might remember that I had always been a big fan of the G-series of cameras. My first “professional” digital cameras (i.e., cameras that I used for published photography) were the G-2 and G-3. I still have a G-6 that I converted to a great little infrared camera. But I quit being interested in the G-series cameras as they dropped the swivel LCD and increased megapixels. The G10 is a great little piece of engineering, but I missed the swivel LCD, and I felt the small sensor had too many megapixels for today’s sensor technology so the images looked, to me, overprocessed to compensate for that.
Canon announced the G11 today and promises delivery by late October (who knows what is real in that area, but then, Canon has usually been pretty good about meeting delivery dates for this type of camera). I think this could be my next compact digital camera. Why?
- The G11 uses a 10-MP sensor (that’s right, a lower megapixel sensor than the G10!). I think that is a realistic size for the physical size of sensors for this type of camera. This is a brand-new sensor design that Canon calls their “High Sensitivity System” which includes the highly respected Digic 4 processor. Canon says this is “proven to enhance image quality in low-light situations and reduce noise at high ISO speeds.” We’ll have to see the actual results of the camera when it is available, but I am encouraged because if you read between the lines, this means a higher quality sensor which is far more important than chasing megapixels.
- The G11 has a 2.8-inch “vari-angle PureColor System LCD” — I am not sure exactly what the PureColor means, but since all manufacturers have been working on improved LCD’s, I am sure it is good. But it is the “vari-angle” or swivel LCD that really excites me. That makes this camera a winner for me right away!
- The camera includes the type of dials that were so good with the G10 — they really make the camera function like a serious camera, like a digital SLR without the interchangeable lenses.
- The camera allows shooting of both RAW + JPEG.
Of course, one can never be sure about a camera’s performance until you get one in hand, but knowing a bit about Canon and the G-series, I would be very surprised if this camera did not offer anything except excellent performance in a compact camera. I have long been a fan of compact digital cameras because they offer a lot in a small package, and this promises to up the stakes for this type of camera.
Posted in Equipment thoughts | Comments Off
August 18th, 2009 Rob Sheppard
I often hear from photographers who are doing everything right for printing, but they have trouble getting a good print. No matter what they do, the print seems to be different than what they expect from what is on the monitor. Then they read about computer gurus who seem to get perfect prints every time and so feel really depressed about doing such a terrible job with printing.
Okay, first thing, stop blaming yourself. Unfortunately, this problem is not uncommon. For some reason, on some computer systems (Mac or PC), Adobe products don’t always communicate as well as they should with certain printers. You can try re-installing the printer driver, but that might not help. I have had this happen to me and I have seen it happen to many photographers, so I know this is real. Digital printing is not pure technology and science. Sometimes we have to apply a little art of printing to get the prints we need.
That doesn’t have to be a problem, though. Your goal is a good print, not a technologically perfect system. Now in the days of the traditional darkroom, a photographer often got less than perfect prints when starting to print an image. That was no big deal. He or she considered that a workprint and simply a step on the way to get a good print. Even a master like Ansel Adams, who you know could have banged out a great print in an instant, considered his first prints to be workprints, prints to study to figure out what would make a really good print.
I think we have been suckered into believing that the computer, printers, color profiles, calibration, etc., etc., will always give us the technology we need to get a great print. In some ways, these may be misleading us toward getting good prints, but not necessarily great prints, but that’s another story. It is related, though. The story on this blog is dealing with those situations where you can’t even get a good print.
This is one place where Lightroom really shines because it is no big deal if the print is not perfect. Simply make a virtual copy of your finished development of the image (the easiest way to do that is to right click the image to get a contextual menu, then pick virtual copy about half-way up). Now go to Develop and make an adjustment to the image using brightness, contrast or color controls that you guess will correct the printing problem. Then print this virtual copy. Still not right? Try another adjustment until it is. You are not trying to match the monitor (which can take you down the wrong path anyway, because the monitor is never a print and a print is never the monitor). Just look at the print and decide if it is a good print or not. Then write down the difference of adjustment between the first image and this virtual copy and keep those at hand for future prints on the same paper (it is possible to create a Develop preset, but this can be a little tricky, so writing this down works).
Now I am going to tell you that doing this will take less time, frustrate you less, and allow you to keep more of your hair in place than trying in vain to make the computer and printer communicate properly. If you are really computer savvy, you might succeed at that, but I find most photographers are not and this process, which is based on how we used to work in the darkroom, is much more calming.
If you are working with Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, you can do something similar by adding an adjustment layer to your image when it is ready to print. You could try Brightness/Contrast, Levels or Curves for a too dark or too light print; Hue/Saturation or Color Balance for color. For example if your photo is too dark, add brightness to your image in an amount you guess would make the print look better and reprint. Since you are using an adjustment layer, you can then readjust this for another print if your guess was wrong. Then when you get a print you like, either write down that adjustment’s numbers (probably the easiest way to do this) or save a file with that adjustment layer intact for repeat use later, then whenever you print again, add an adjustment layer with those adjustments.
This is so much easier than pulling your hair out. And yes, you will not be matching your monitor, but I am not a big believer in that anyway. A good print is a good print in your hands, not simply something that matches the monitor. The monitor can be used as a reference or guide, but no one who sees your print will ever ask to see the monitor to see if it matches. They will simply judge how well they like the print from what it looks like.
Posted in Digital Photo Techniques, Lightroom, Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Photoshop techniques | 2 Comments »
August 16th, 2009 Rob Sheppard
Black-and-white photography has gained a resurgence of interest that is well-deserved. It is interesting that the impact of black-and-white and photography has really changed. Not all that long ago, back in the 1980s for example, it was considered the “cheap” photography. It was what appeared in the cheap magazines or in the cheap pages of those publications. It was not treated well.
Black-and-white had once been the only way to experience photography. Masters such as Ansel Adams, W. Eugene Smith and Bill Brandt elevated it to high levels of quality and style. But when color became popular, black-and-white lost out. It was the opposite of “impact.”
Today, color is the major way photography is seen. Publications emphasize it. Even newspapers use it heavily. It is what everybody uses for photography. And that is exactly why a good black-and-white image has impact. It is not the way everyone shoots. It is not the expected way of seeing a subject.
But it has to be good. The simple conversion of color to black-and-white through any program using one option such as Grayscale or Desaturate is often disappointing. The key to a good conversion is to think of it as a translation of color to specific shades of gray. The wrong shades of gray will make a photo look bad, yet the right shades of gray will make it look great.
The latest versions of Photoshop and Photoshop Elements have good black-and-white conversion features that can be helpful if you really play with the controls rather than simply accepting the first look you see. This can definitely mean some playing around with those adjustments, seeing bad black-and-white and good. I like the controls in Lightroom 2, which are similar to those in Photoshop CS4 in that you can create an “activated cursor” where you click the cursor on something in the photo, the program finds the right color for you, and you drag the cursor up and down (Lightroom) or left and right (CS4) to get the color the right shade of gray. This means you don’t have to think about what color is what as the program finds it for you.
What you are always looking for when converting color to black-and-white is making the image clear and understandable in black-and-white. A good example is an image with a red flower against green grass. A straightforward translation will make the two colors show up as the same shade of gray as red and green are often the same brightness — not a very attractive or understandable image. When you change the translation of these colors to grays, you can make the flowers light and the grass dark, the grass light and the flowers dark, or many steps in between.
What is right depends on what you want the photo to express. Once you make the basic translation, you also need to make the photo look right in terms of blacks, whites and midtones, just like in color, but the interpretation will be different because of the change from color to black-and-white. This may mean increasing the blacks to be blacker and giving more contrast to the image as black-and-white often needs that compared to color. But never consider that an absolute. You may find that a subtle, open tonality in the midtones is needed for a particular subject.
I also think very highly of Nik Software Silver Efex if you are really serious about black-and-white. This is a plug-in for Photoshop, Photoshop Elements and Lightroom. It has a lot of presets that can quickly get you a look you like, plus it has a lot of control over how colors are changed to gray as well as quickly giving you overall control of the tonality and contrast of the image.
I also spend a bit of time talking about black-and-white in a number of my books, including The Magic of Digital Nature Photography and the Epson Complete Guide to Digital Printing.
Posted in Digital camera techniques, Lightroom, Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, nature photography | 2 Comments »
August 4th, 2009 Rob Sheppard
My son, Adam, passed along a cool website that he really likes, called Accidental Creative. He sent me a link to the “Manifesto” page that I thought was really well thought out. I think it is something that all photographers can gain from, too. Check it out:
http://accidentalcreative.com/manifesto/.
The photo here, for example, is of the common yucca that blooms throughout the chaparral in Southern California. This is not the usual shot of it, yet it is definitely true to who I am. This was shot at sunset. Normally shooting against a sunset would simply give you a silhouette. In this case, I used my flash to fill in the yucca flowering stalk so that it would stand dramatically light against the sunset. Like much of my work, it also shows the yucca in context with a setting (the silhouetted hills).
Posted in Digital Photo Techniques, Digital camera techniques, Uncategorized, landscape photography, nature photography | Comments Off