Making it as a Pro

Weddings Aren't Just Good for Business...

2012-02-24T09:21:00.001-08:00

This past Saturday, shooting a wedding, was a poignant reminder to me about how much more there is to photography than simply "business." Yes, weddings mean hours of preparation, hard work, editing, diplomacy, and more...
But this past weekend, shooting a wedding wasn't just good for business, it was good for my soul.

See, the week before a good friend of mine was in a terrible car accident. The initial reports from the Highway Patrol were that he died at the scene, but those reports turned out to be wrong. He survived (barely) the crash, and though in critical condition and with questionable brain function, was alive in the hospital. My friend (Dean Gittleson) was a pillar of our small town -- Little League board member, coach, friend, mentor...liked and respected by all. Our whole town hoped and prayed, and held our breath awaiting word of his condition. Finally the sad news came that he wasn't going to survive, and his family made the difficult but courageous decision to allow organ donation, so that his passing would help save the lives of seven other people.

Last Saturday started out, then, at the memorial service for my friend. It was a profoundly sad and moving morning, and it was difficult to say goodbye to him. I had been scheduled to photograph a wedding that afternoon for several months, and was a bit worried that I wasn't going to be in much of a mood to do so because of my friend's passing. Still, I did my preparations, and headed out to the wedding.

What happened when I got there surprised even me. The love and joy of two people starting out on their life together is infectious...and such a great uplift to me just when I needed it! It's hardly even possible to remain sad and depressed in such a joyful atmosphere -- and this wedding was even more joyful than many others.

Brandon and Ashley (above) are both in the Navy, stationed halfway around the world from each other. Trying to arrange leave at the same time for a wedding has been a real challenge for them, and last weekend was when they finally managed to pull it off. The bride flew in from Japan just two nights before the wedding, the groom just the day before. Most of the planning was done remotely, by the Maid of Honor -- who herself was working to plan this Southern California wedding from Utah, where she lives with her military husband. Think about how challenging it is to get everything set up for a wedding, and then add on doing it all from hundreds to thousands of miles away...it could have easily been chaotic, frustrating, and disorganized, a real mess. Funny thing is, it was a little chaotic and disorganized...but a mess it wasn't. It was wonderful.

I suppose I've been very lucky over the years. Of all the weddings I've photographed, I've never been part of one of those famous "bridezilla" type of weddings. You know, the ones where the bride (or the groom, or the planner, or the mother in law) gets angry at any deviation from the "plan," where everyone is tense and on edge, where the slightest glitch induces anger, yelling, arguments...
Every wedding I've ever done has been a real love-fest. Sure, little things go wrong, and in the end nobody cares. The spirit of the day isn't lost, they don't forget why they're going through all of this, and little glitches get laughed off as quirks to be remembered. That's how last Saturday was as well. It was a celebration of love and family and friends, and it was exactly what I needed to remind me why I love doing what I do.

This one was also fun because the maid of honor that had done all the long-distance planning was a previous client -- I had photographed her wedding at the same church more than four years before. That's her and her husband above, right after being hitched! That they thought enough of me and my work to not only recommend me to their friends, but to trust me to take care of all the details without meeting up with everyone ahead of time (not possible in this case!) made me feel proud of my work, and very grateful to my clients. That's the happy couple from four years ago below, at this past weekend's affair, still happy and loving life.

It's so easy to lose yourself in the business of photography, in the technical details, in how much work something is. This past weekend was a reminder to me to remember how much I love what I do, and that what I do for people is record important moments in their lives that have great meaning to them...and to me. To be part of these moments isn't just business -- it's good for the soul.

Brandon and Ashley -- I wish you a lifetime of happiness. And thank you for sharing your love with the guy with the camera. It was just what I needed.

Quick, Easy, and Effective Portrait Retouching in Photoshop

2012-02-04T15:41:00.000-08:00

I shoot a *lot* of portraits -- it's the vast majority of my business. And since nearly all portrait clients want (or need!) their portraits retouched to remove or minimize blemishes, scars, rough skin, etc., finding ways to do good-looking retouching quickly and easily was something I invested a lot of time in when first starting out. Here's a very quick and easy 3-step method using Photoshop that will give you great results in a short time.

The image above is the "final" retouched version of this shot. Liz was one of my senior portrait clients this year, a very pretty girl who nonetheless has a few blemishes, some small scars, and some skin discoloration that needed to be dealt with to make a really great portrait of her. The original shot that I started from is below:

Note, this shot was taken with a Canon T2i camera at ISO 200, using a manual-focus 135mm f/2.8 lens at f/4, 1/125th sec. with fill flash on a stand camera left.

Before starting the Three Steps, I usually first do a loose lasso selection around the subject's teeth, and then make a new Hue-Saturation adjustment layer; I select only the "Yellows" channel, lower the saturation by -18, and increase the lightness by +18. This minimizes any yellowing on teeth (which even people with the whitest teeth often still have), and makes the smile "brighter." Now, on to the three steps...

Step 1:
Look at the close-up image of our example full shot above; the first thing to do is to deal with "big" blemishes, scars, etc. To get rid of them quickly, load your original image into Photoshop, and add a new layer by clicking on the "New Layer" icon in the layers palette. This will create a new blank layer on top of your existing image. Select the clone tool, set it for about 75% opacity and 75% flow (in the settings toolbar right under the main menu), and insure the "Sample" setting is "Current layer and below." Locate the blemish or scar you want to deal with, and look for an area of skin nearby that's roughly the same tone and brightness but is mostly smooth -- alt-click on that area to use it as the clone source, then click over the blemish or scar with the clone tool to clone over it from the source. Usually one click will do the job, sometimes two are necessary. The goal here isn't to get rid of every trace of every little defect, but rather to minimize them in preparation for the next step. Work around the subject's face this way, until most of the larger-sized and very visible blemishes, bumps, scars, etc. are minimized. The final result should look something like the image below:

Compare this to the un-changed closeup shot above to get an idea for how much you need to retouch this way. On most subjects, once you're used to doing this, it takes only about 2-3 minutes to deal with all of the "big" stuff that needs retouching. Note that I rarely use the healing brush tool to do this -- along edges with large bright/dark contrasts it messes up badly, and if you don't get enough coverage with one click on a spot, clicking again often introduces strange pixellated artifacts. Stick with the clone tool.

When you're done with step one, flatten the image.

Step 2:

With the image flattened, duplicate the background layer (right-click on the layer, select "Duplicate Layer" from the pop-up menu, and name it "Blur Layer" or something similar). Select the new layer (which should be on top), and apply a Gaussian Blur to the layer, with a radius between 8 and 14 pixels (how big a radius to use depends on the size of the image, how big the person's face is in the frame, etc. Too much is better than not enough, so err towards larger numbers).

Now give this blurred layer a layer mask that hides all of the blur, by going to the Photoshop menu and choosing Layer->Layer Mask->Hide All. Photoshop will make a fully black layer mask for your blur layer, and your layer palette will look like the screenshot above.
In the layer palette, click on the layer mask to make it the active surface to draw on, and select the brush tool; set the brush opacity and flow to 40%, and the color to white. Then choose a brush size fairly large, but small enough so you can paint into small areas, and make sure the brush "hardness" is set to zero. Start painting with the brush, and as you do so you'll see the blur layer be revealed slowly as your painting makes areas of the layer mask white. Paint only in areas of skin -- don't paint over the hair, eyes, teeth, or other things you want to keep sharp, just the skin. Usually between one and two passes with the brush will soften the area up, and hide fine wrinkles, lines, and blemishes -- but it's better to make things too blurred than not enough (we're going to deal with that in a minute!). You DO want to go "too far" at this stage, making it look more soft than it should. If you paint over any areas you didn't want to blur, just change the brush color to black, and paint over those same areas again. Don't forget to make a pass over arms (and legs, if they're visible) as well.
When you're done (which should take about 4-5 minutes with practice), it should look something like the image below:

Yes, that's too much, and it looks un-natural and a bit strange. Not to worry...go to the layer palette, make sure the blur layer is selected, and reduce the opacity and fill settings for the layer to between 80% and 90%. Look at the image while you're adjusting the opacity/fill, and set them where you get most of the fine lines and blemishes smoothed over, but it doesn't look fake or overly processed. I usually use about 80% opacity/fill for boys, and a bit higher (85% each) for girls. Once you've adjusted the opacity, the image should look about like the one below:

Step 3:
The portrait already looks a lot better than it did originally -- we fixed up the large blemishes, and softened the skin nicely. Just one more step, do deal with more large scale skin color/tone differences.
Notice in the image above that Liz has some areas of redness in her skin (under her right eye, for example), and some areas on her forehead where the skin tone changes look like somewhat hard "lines" -- this last step will minimize those with "digital makeup."
With the image from the last step, add a new blank layer on top of the two existing layers, and call it "makeup." Select the brush tool, set the opacity and flow at 24%, and use about the same size brush you did with Step #2 above -- keep the brush size fairly large. Set the brush hardness to 0. Put the brush over a skin tone that's similar to the area you want to retouch, and alt-click the brush -- this will load the color from that area into the brush. Then paint lightly over the area to be retouched, overlapping it A LOT with surrounding areas. Blend in the skin tones of discontinuous areas, re-sampling the brush color from time to time, so that you get a nice, smooth skin appearance. As before, going too far is just fine, and better than not going far enough. Think of this step as applying a "foundation" kind of makeup to your subject. If the areas under the eyes are a little dark, make a pass or two over them with the brush using a slightly lighter color. This takes a bit of practice, especially to pick the right tones to keep facial contours and curves looking right, so practice a bit until you can do this step without thinking about it too much. When you're done, it should look something like the image below:

As with the blur layer before, to go the layer palette and adjust the opacity and fill of this "makeup" layer so that it gives a subtle but noticeable effect -- I usually set both opacity/fill at around 75% for women, and 70% for men. Adjust yours to suit your own taste. Higher numbers for opacity/fill will be smoother and cover more up, but can start to look too "fake" if you go too high. The adjusted opacity/fill image is below:

That's it for the three steps, and retouching. If you've done your job well, the retouching will have taken you around 10 minutes or less (once you get the hang of the steps!), and will have greatly improved the image without making it look overly fake or manipulated. You should still be able to see skin texture, but it should be more subtle than you started with.

I usually do a few more quick steps, as I did with this image...
Adjust levels and curves, a tiny bit of color balance "warming" since the image was just a bit too blue from being in the shade, darkening the corners, and modifying the pupils with my "outdoor eyes" fixup (see my Outdoor Eyes article for details).
Here's the final image (on the right) side-by-side with the original (on the left):

Using the steps as I've outlined them is quick and easy, and lets you vary how much of your retouching comes through the final image simply by varying the opacity of the layers. This method doesn't require much artistic skill (most of what is required is in the third step, and you'll get good at it with practice!), and will produce results that will make your clients very happy. Give it a try!

Sigma 18-125mm 1:3.8-5.6 DC OS HSM Lens Review

2012-01-30T12:50:00.000-08:00

The "kit" 18-55mm zoom lens that comes with many Canon APS-C DSLRs is an "OK" starter lens, but has some issues with sharpness, chromatic aberration, and focusing -- and has a limited zoom range. Looking for a better quality replacement, I decided to give the Sigma 18-125mm DC OS lens a try. Is this a good upgrade from the standard "kit" lens? Read on to find out...

There are a number of "super zoom" lenses out now for APS-C DSLR cameras, with zoom ranges starting about 18mm and going up to 125, 200, 250, even 300mm at the long end. While having impressive zoom ranges, often these "jack of all trade" lenses are masters of none, having to make so many compromises to get that big zoom range that they're not especially good at any focal length. For most of my shooting, a shorter long end would be sufficient, so I decided to try the Sigma 18-125mm lens out, thinking its shorter zoom range would mean less compromises, and better performance.

The Sigma has a number of advantages over the standard 18-55mm OS "kit" lens: Obviously the greater focal length range, topping out at 125mm instead of 55mm. It also has internal focusing, so the front of the lens doesn't rotate when focusing -- a major pain with the "kit" lens when trying to use a polarizing filter. It also has Sigma's "HSM" (equivalent to Canon's "USM") fast and quiet autofocus motor.
The build quality of the Sigma lens is very good. While it sill uses plastic for some parts, it's very solid and well-built without being overly heavy. The lens mount is all-metal instead of the plastic mount of the kit lens. And it comes with a petal-shaped bayonet lens hood, which the kit lens lacks (and even the recommended Canon EW-60C hood for it lacks the petal shape, limiting its effectiveness).
Both lenses have optical image stabilization ("IS" on the Canon, "OS" on the Sigma), which my tests showed to be roughly equivalent; I averaged 3 stops better than 1/focal length shots on both lenses, impressive for the Sigma even at 125mm focal length.

(Canon 18-55 @18mm on top, Sigma 18-125 @18mm on bottom)

Sharpness

Comparing the two lenses at 18, 24, 35, and 50mm gave me a good range of test shots to judge the sharpness of the two lenses. All of the test shots were done on a tripod with a remote release, using aperture-priority autoexposure on a Canon T2i DSLR. The RAW files were processed in Adobe Camera RAW using the same settings, with all sharpening and noise reduction turned off. The two shots above are full-frame images from the two lenses at f/8.

At 18mm, the results are a mixed bag; the Canon kit lens is basically soft over the entire image, not especially sharp anywhere. However, the image is about the same level of sharpness over the entire frame, with little additional softness at the image edges. The Sigma was considerably sharper at the center at 18mm, but drastically softer at the corners of the frame than the kit lens.

(Canon 18-55mm lens @18mm f/8, center)

(Sigma 18-125mm lens @18mm, f/8, center)

(comparison of extreme frame edges @18mm f/8)

You can see from the comparison image above the poor performance of the Sigma lens at the corners of the frame at 18mm. Things improved at f/11 and f/16, but the Sigma's frame edges were softer than the Canon's at every aperture.

Things improved quickly on the Sigma as I zoomed from 18mm to 24mm, however; at 24mm, the Sigma lens is still sharper than the Canon at the center of the frame, and the extreme edges now matched the kit lens performance. By 35mm, the Sigma beat the Canon in sharpness both at the center and edges of the frame, and the same was true at 50mm. In fact, the only place the kit lens was sharper than the Sigma was at 18mm at the edges of the frame -- in every other test, the Sigma was at least as sharp as the kit lens, and better nearly everywhere. For such a big zoom range, the lens did quite well.

Here are a few of the test shots, 100% crops, for comparison:

(comparison @35mm, f/8, center image)

(comparison @50mm, f/8, center image)

(comparison @50mm, f/8, frame edge)

Here's a chart of how I *subjectively* rated the sharpness of the two lenses at a variety of focal lengths and apertures:

False Color (Chromatic aberration)

In this category, the Sigma wins hands-down. At all focal lengths and apertures, the Sigma had very little to no chromatic aberration visible at high-contrast edges, while the kit lens had visible color fringing at most focal lengths and apertures. The comparison image below (at 4X magnification to make things more visible) was shot at 50mm @ f/8 -- you can clearly see the blue-purple fringing on the left image from the Canon kit lens, while the Sigma's image has virtually none:

Vignetting

Again, the Sigma is the clear winner here. The lens exhibits a bit of vignetting at 18mm wide-open, but it's minor and quite a bit less noticeable than the kit lens at the same focal length and wide open. No vignetting was visible at any focal length on the Sigma at f/8 and beyond, while even at f/11 the kit lens still showed visible vignetting between 18 and 35mm focal lengths.

Conclusion

Overall, the Sigma is a fine replacement for the standard kit lens, offering a number of advantages and only one real downside (very soft frame edges at 18mm). Comparing the Sigma 18-125 with some of the longer "super zooms," it appears most of the "super zooms" get very soft and lack contrast beyond 125mm anyway, and many of them don't do as well at the shorter focal lengths as this lens does.

I'm pleased with the lens, but will pay attention to the corners of the frame at its widest focal length. While this Sigma lens doesn't match most Canon "L" lenses in performance, it doesn't cost nearly as much as they do either -- about $339 US most places. The price-performance ratio makes it a very good value. Try one out if you are looking for a good kit lens replacement with a bit better performance and a longer zoom range.

SOPA: Should Photographers Care?

2012-01-18T09:45:00.000-08:00

If you've used the internet at all today, you should have noticed by now that there's an on-line "protest" occurring, led by Wikipedia against SOPA -- the proposed "Stop Online Piracy Act." While the protest today is largely being led by big corporations and groups that accumulate online content, photographers who produce copyrighted materials have an interest in the outcome as well. Should you, as a photographer, care? I do.

Not long ago I posted an entry about finding a web site that was ripping off the content of my humble blog (read about it here), and my efforts to deal with them. So far I haven't been successful. That experience, and others, have convinced me there is a real need for some reform and enforcement in regard to online copyright violation -- not just for the movie and music industries, but for us little guys as well.

So on one hand, I'm happy to see Congress attempting to address the issue. The problem is, as proposed, SOPA is seriously flawed in my opinion. In fact, I don't even think it would stand up to court challenges if it passed, and would be tossed as unconstitutional. So I see little point in proceeding with this version of copyright reform, which would possibly do more harm than good, and would likely simply generate a rash of court challenges and wind up being tossed out in the end.

I'm not trying to tell other photographers what to think about this issue -- I am hoping to encourage photographers, as producers of copyrighted materials, to look at the issue, decide what it means to *you,* and then get involved with your local congressional representatives to voice your opinion. However you come down on the issue, be part of the process...the more we "little guys" voice our opinions on issues that affect us, the more likely it is we'll get legislation that is meaningful and helpful to us, and not just the "big guys."

You can read about SOPA here, the only Wikipedia page operating today. I hope you'll take the time to look over the proposed bill, and let your representatives know how you want them to vote on it. It won't take much of your time, and it could make a difference in how we photographers make our living for the next 10-20 years. And if you're not in the US, consider this a prompt to find out what your own country is doing (or planning to do) about copyright law and online content, and to stay informed and involved to protect your own interests.

Don't repeat yourself...use PS Actions!

2012-01-17T09:24:00.000-08:00

I spend at least as much time editing and touching up my images in Photoshop as I do taking them. Well, probably *more* time editing and touching up. Once you realize just how much time you spend in Photoshop, you start looking for ways to be more efficient, and ways to save time. The recordable Actions in Photoshop are a great way to shave significant time off of any repetitive tasks.

Actions in Photoshop are simply recordings of mouse clicks, keyboard presses, and operations in the editing environment. Any time you find yourself doing the same set of operations over and over again, consider recording them into an Action, which will save your repetitive steps into a sort of script that you can later replay at any time.

Recording actions is incredibly simple: bring up the Actions palette, click on the "New" button, give your new Action a name, then hit the record button. Anything you do from that point on will be recorded, until you hit the stop recording button. Brian Auer over at Epic Edits has an excellent tutorial on how to make them, with lots of details.

Just pay attention to any "gotchas" regarding image size or scale, and you'll likely have few problems. The image up on top is a small part of my actions palette, showing some of the (sometimes cryptic -- sorry!) names for actions I've recorded.

For example, on nearly every studio portrait I do, I make a 3.5x5" proof image (to be sent out to MPix for printing -- and nearly every one gets a feathered oval selection done on it, filled with black and set to "soft light" mode, to give a bit of a vignette effect -- as in the image below:

So on nearly every same-sized (3.5x5" @300DPI) image I processed, I would do the same operations of picking the circular selection tool, setting its feather radius, drawing out the oval selection, inverting the selection, filling with black, blurring the black oval a bit, and then setting that layer's transparency to about 75%. Doing so on each image took about 30 seconds -- not that long. But I did well over 2,000 such proofs in "senior portrait season" alone this year...recording that group of identical operations done over and over again into an action saves me 30 seconds per image. That's 1,000 minutes saved just this year, or nearly 17 hours! Little time savings can add up really fast. This action is in my palette as "srport_darkhalo."

Some of my other time-saving actions include:
RAWtoJPG: flatten an image, change from 16 to 8 bit RGB mode, convert color profile to sRGB
llind_USM2500: An unsharp mask of radius 2, amount 500 -- "image polish" for downsized images
YS_LightenFaces: does a levels adjustment layer, increasing highlights and midtones, then creates a layer mask and fills it with black, and sets the layer mode to Luminosity. Then using a white brush at low opacity to paint over the mask on faces lightens them up just a bit when they were in shadow.

Overall, actions save me anywhere from a minute to 4 minutes per image, just by automating repetitive tasks I do over and over again. Add that up over the course of a year, with the number of images I edit, and it's a substantial time saver. Giving me more time to shoot images, and less time at the computer editing them.

So don't repeat yourself, do it once and record it as an action.

The Wonder of it All...

2011-12-25T10:46:00.000-08:00

My heart leaps up when I behold
a rainbow in the sky;
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!

-- Wordsworth

Whether you do photography for art, to make money, or both...it's a sense of wonder at the beauty of the universe that most of us strive to record in some way, and to communicate to others. Whatever else comes your way in 2012, may you never lose a sense of wonder.

Happy Holidays to all!

Paul

The Best $5 Speedlight Diffuser

2011-12-20T10:53:00.000-08:00

If you search the web for "flash diffuser," you'll find literally thousands of commercial and home-made diffusers...and sorting through them can be a lifelong chore. I ran across one at Chuck Gardner's Site which seemed to have real promise, so I made one myself, making a few changes. It worked so well, was so easy to make, and (unlike many others) looked "professional" that I made 3 more, and love them! Read on to learn about the best $5 flash diffuser I've found.

Chuck's original tutorial not only has a good starting design, it's a good article on diffuse/bounce light to begin with. I recommend reading it before moving on here. When you do, you'll see that someone took his basic design, and re-did it using "fun foam" from a craft store. That was my starting point, but I made a few more changes.

In the "parts" image above, you can see the finished diffuser on the far right, and on the left are all you'll need to buy to make one. The biggest change I made is to get self-adhesive fun foam -- it comes with *very* sticky adhesive on one side, with a paper backing. For each diffuser you want to make, get one 9" x 12" sheet of black adhesive foam, and one 9" x 12" sheet of white adhesive foam. You'll also need a sheet of plastic mesh sewing/crochet reinforcing material, and some self-adhesive velcro. Total cost for all the parts for one diffuser is under $5 US.

Follow Chuck's templates and instructions with a few small changes. First cut the plastic mesh reinforcement to the right size/shape (he has templates on his site). Then lay the black foam adhesive-side up on your table, remove the paper backing covering the adhesive, and lay the pre-cut mesh centered on the uncut black foam. Then remove the paper backing from the white foam, and place it sticky-side down on the black foam/mesh combo. The adhesive sides of the two foam pieces go towards each other, and they stick like crazy (be careful lining this up, because once you stick it down, it's *stuck!*). This eliminates the need for any ugly staples -- the self-adhesive foam holds perfectly, and looks great. Finally, trim the assembled foam-mesh-foam sandwich to the template shape. You can see the finished diffuser mounted on a Sigma EF 530 DG Super flash above.

I made one other change to Chuck's design, as you can see above. Instead of two separate "dots" of velcro on the back, I put a longer single strip of velcro. This lets me have a wide range of "fold" for the top flap, putting the inside dots anywhere on the strip of velcro. It lets the diffuser go from no top fold to a little fold to a complete 90-degree fold, or anything in between. It's a good idea to add a little "fillet" of super-glue along the edges of the velcro strips/dots, as this helps them stay firmly in place. Also, a dot of super-glue on the inside sharp cuts of the diffuser near the base reinforces them so they won't tear. That's it -- total cost about $5, total assembly time about 10 minutes.

Above is the pattern this mod gives from a typical speedlight -- the image above was from a distance of four feet from a plain-gray background. The pattern is clearly center-weighted but very soft, with no hard edges. The shot above was with the top flap at about 45-degrees.

So how does it work in practice? It's terrific! I used it on a wedding shoot I did a few weeks ago, with the flash (and diffuser) on a flash bracket up above the camera. In that position it gives a pleasingly soft, slightly overhead-angled light, as the image below shows.

I've also found it great to put off-camera on a light stand, as was done for the image below. The closer it is to the subject, the softer the shadows will be -- but even at about 6-7 feet away the shadows are still pretty soft, and it gives a very pleasing light. The low profile and light weight also mean it's not going to blow over your stand in the wind like an umbrella or other mods would.

It's cheap, it's quick and easy to make, it folds flat, it's durable, and it gives some great lighting options. Hard to get much better than that. If you've got a few minutes and a few dollars, try making one. I hope you'll like it as much as I do, and can add another option to your lighting tool kit.

Budget Battery Grip for Canon T2i Review

2011-10-10T13:29:00.000-07:00

I recently replaced my "backup" Canon XTi DSLR with a Canon T2i model -- which meant, of course, some new accessories. The Canon "Rebel" models are a great value, but small enough that they're not much of a pleasure to hold onto, and adding a battery grip makes them much more holdable, as well as doubling your shooting time with an extra battery. But I just couldn't see spending $150 for the Canon BG-E8 grip when there are some much less expensive alternatives out there...

I had purchased an Optek grip for my XTi about four years ago, and it worked wonderfully, never giving me a single problem. At the time, the Optek grip was about half the cost of the Canon grip, already a bargain...but on Amazon I came across a Chinese-made grip for the T2i that was only about one-fourth the cost of the Canon original, and it even came with two additional batteries (you can see it here ). This kind of situation makes my brain go into "conflict" mode -- I just *know* it can't be any good for $37 including two batteries, but at that price I could chew through four of them before I'd match the price of the OEM model. The reviews on Amazon seemed decent, so cheapness won out, and I ordered one.

I was very pleasantly surprised after the package came. Opening it up, the build quality is excellent -- clean fit & finish, solid feeling buttons and knobs, a plastic finish that matches the one on the T2i. And the two included batteries have a slightly higher power rating (1350 mAh for the knock-offs compared to 1120 mAh for the OEM battery). The brand name says "Meike" although it appears this exact same Chinese-made unit is sold under a variety of brand names.

One good piece of news is that the OEM Canon battery charger will charge the knockoff batteries -- I had read some reviews indicating that wasn't the case for some other knockoff batteries (most notably for the Canon 7D), so I didn't need to buy an additional charger.

The fit to the camera is as good as the original Canon grip (which I tried out at my local Calumet store). The operation of the buttons is also the same as the Canon grip, and they're in the same place. This is about as perfect a "clone" as you can get. The rubberized covering over part of the grip is *slightly* different from the OEM grip, but otherwise you can't tell which one is on the camera. Like other grips, it has a convenient place to store the camera's battery compartment door along the vertical part that goes up into the camera's battery compartment, so you won't misplace it. Charge up the batteries, put them in the holder, attach it to the camera, and you're all set. That's really all there is to it.

You can use the OEM Canon battery in combination with one of the knockoffs with no issues whatsoever. Using both knockoffs in the grip, I did about 500 still photos (none with flash) and about 30 minutes of HD video shooting with the T2i before the battery meter got down to one "bar" of power remaining, a good showing by any measure.

The "vertical" shutter release on the grip is terrific to have -- on my grip, it's just the tiniest bit less resistant to pressing than the camera's release button is, and exactly twice now I've accidentally release the shutter when I was in half-press mode "holding" focus...but that's the only very minor gripe I have with this unit.

Bottom line: it works great. This isn't an accessory that's going to be critical to image quality, like a lens or filter, so I see no problem using a cheap knockoff when it works so well. So far through two weeks of heavy use, it's performed like a champ, and I have no complaints. And like I said, if the thing stops working for some reason, I can go through three of them and still not have spent as much as the OEM grip would have cost me. :)

How to Quickly Calculate Outdoor Flash/Fill Exposures

2011-09-26T17:13:00.000-07:00

I recently worked with a couple of younger, temporary assistants on some outdoor photo shoots. They both enjoyed it and learned a lot, and both asked the same question: "How do you figure out how to balance flash and outdoor light so quickly?" Since this topic seems to be mysterious to a fair number of photographers, I thought it would be a good topic for an article.

The image above is a typical outdoor shot, using the sun as a back or "rim" light, with flash used to fill in the shadow side of the subject. To figure out our exposure in terms of shutter speed, aperture, and flash power, we need to know three things: the light level for the lit background, the light level for the shadowed side of the subject, and how powerful our flash is at certain distances. Knowing those three things, we can come up with a shutter speed, aperture, and flash power level that will give us the overall photo we want.

Let's start with the last one first -- flash power level. The easiest way to know this is to do some work ahead of time, to make a "cheat sheet" we can refer to when we're in the field. The image above is my "cheat sheet" for my most commonly used speedlights. The way to come up with the cheat sheet is simple: set up your flash in a room with little or no ambient light, put the flash a certain distance from a chosen subject (I usually use 4 feet), and then take some shots at varying aperture values on the camera to see which one gives "proper" exposure. Notice on the cheat sheet above that I usually use the 1/2 power level setting on my flash -- that's just for convenience, and you can easily figure a new aperture for full power by going one stop higher (more closed aperture) for full power, one stop less (more open aperture) for 1/4 power, etc. Do these tests once at ISO 100, write down the results, and you can use your cheat sheet to calculate a good starting flash power setting for any aperture, ISO, and distance to subject. Notice also that I have both a "direct" exposure value (straight-on flash), and an exposure value for the same flash into a 42" shoot-through umbrella light modifier. That's all the information we need right now for our flash. You can use your flash's guide number to calculate these, but real tests with *your* speedlight will give you better results.

Next, we need the exposure values for the lit background, and the shadowed "ambient" light. In the image above, I showed the areas I used to meter those two values, using the "spot" meter function on my DSLR. We'll use those values to figure our final exposure.

So to put it all together, the process works like this: First, I decide on an aperture value I want to use, which is usually determined by the depth of field I want in a photo. In this case, I wanted a fairly shallow depth of field, so I decided to use f/4 on the 135mm lens I was using for this shot. That chosen aperture will be the basis for the rest of our quick calculations.
With the aperture chosen, meter the "background" area outlined in the image above, in manual mode on your camera, with your chose aperture value set and your chosen ISO value set (in this case, I used ISO 200). Doing so for this shot gave a reading of 1/200th at f/4. Make a note of that value. Then meter the "ambient" area shown in the image above, and record that value. Again, for this image I got a reading of 1/30th at f/4, about 3 stops less than the background meter reading (remember, doubling or halving the shutter speed is one "stop" less or more of light). That means if I want the subject's shadowed side to be the same brightness as the sunlit background, I need to add about 3 stops of light from my flash.

Looking at my cheat sheet for the Sigma EF500 flash I was using here, through a shoot-through umbrella, at a four-foot distance at ISO 100 I would normally use f/5.6 (one stop above where I want to shoot) for a correct exposure. Since I'm at ISO 200, that would change to f/8 (using a higher ISO means stopping down one f-stop on the aperture). I want proper exposure at f/4, not f/8...since f/4 is two stops *less* than the f/8 I'd get with the flash at 1/2 power, I need to turn the flash power down two stops from there. So setting the flash at 1/8th power will give me good exposure at f/4 from four feet away. And that's all there is to it. The final shot was made at ISO 200, 1/200th sec. at f/4, with the flash actually about 5 feet from the subject, going through a 42" shoot-through umbrella. Moving the flash back one foot made the flash exposure just a bit less than the background, which gave a more balanced shot. But four feet would have been just fine, too. The final result, again, is below -- nicely lit background, bright "rim" sunlight, and well-balanced and soft flash exposure.

Remember that when using your flash outdoors, as long as you're using a shutter speed *lower* than your camera's flash sync speed, changing the shutter speed won't affect the flash exposure at all -- your flash dumps out all of its light while the shutter is open, whether it's open for 1/200th of a second or 1/30th of a second. Changing the aperture *will* change the flash exposure, though -- so the idea is that you use the shutter speed to control the background exposure, and the aperture (or flash power and distance) to control the flash exposure.

With a little practice, it will become second nature to do the little bit of calculation you need to get a good starting point for these sorts of setups, and you can then tweak a little bit from there to get the light balance just right. Just pick a working aperture, meter your background and subject to find the number of stops difference between the two, then add flash to make up that amount of difference. Quick and easy...especially if you've taken the time to get to know your flash exposures ahead of time, and written them down! Give it a try.

I love to hate the Internet, Part II...

2011-08-01T15:11:00.000-07:00

My internet has been back and working for a week now. Good news, right? Of course, unless having the internet brings more problems.
A few months ago, I posted an article entitled, "Do You Know Where Your Images Are?" The point of that article was to be vigilant about how your images were being used, because there's a lot of image theft out there. Following up on my own advice, yesterday I found some pretty blatant theft.

Quite accidentally, I came across a web site that had an article entitled "Outdoor Lighting Techniques 1: Sunset." Gee, that sounded awfully familiar. Perhaps because I had written that very article a few months ago? Taking a look at the web page, it was a word-for word copy of my article, including the photos from the original article, with no attribution or credit, and presented as if the website owner had written it himself. And, not to mention, on a page chock full of ads the website owner was trying to get revenue from.
Now, "fair use" under copyright law would be for someone to post a brief summary or critique of the original article, using limited quotes from it, and providing a link back to the original along with attribution (credit). That's not what was done in this case. Digging around the web site some more, I found that the entire site consisted of articles copies word for word (and picture for picture) from other sites, and presented as the website's own work. Content is drawn from Strobist, Yahoo! Answers, E-Zines, my blog, photographers' web sites, and other sources -- all directly copied (not linked to, *copied*) and with no credit. In many cases, an author's name supposedly belonging to the web site (but whose link goes nowhere) is listed as the author in a by-line for articles taken from other sites.

So this morning I took action. I looked up the owner of the web site domain name, and sent a cease and desist e-mail. I also e-mailed the authors of all of the other content that I could identify, and let them know their content was being copied. Now, it's possible the site owner has contacted *everyone but me* and asked permission, but somehow I doubt I would be the only one not asked.

The site in question is presented as a resource for "photography techniques." It's also heavily laden with advertising. I could find NO original content on it of any kind. I'm hesitant to post a link to it here, as I don't want to drive more traffic to it; so I'm going to put the web address here as plain text, and if you want to see the site you can copy the text and paste it into your web browser. I would suggest paying attention to not click on any ads and generate revenue for someone so casual about copyright, but that's up to you.

It's at: http://photography-techniques-a2z.com

I'll post an update here if and when I hear back from the domain owner, as to the results. If I need to take legal action in this case, I will -- though doing so would give me no pleasure. Just another reminder that we photographers (and writers!) need to be vigilant about how our copyrighted materials are being used, and spend some time now and then doing web searches if you value your legal control over the works you create. There's always somebody out there willing to grab your work and take advantage of it.

I love to hate the Internet...

2011-07-26T12:08:00.000-07:00

What a wonderful, useful tool the internet is. If it weren't for the internet, you wouldn't be reading this right now! It allows me to get my prints done from a great lab 2,000 miles away; it lets me video chat with my mother 1,100 miles away; it provides quick and easy communication with my clients, lets me advertise widely, provides a revenue stream...

Until it doesn't.

Two things reminded me of that with a vengeance over the past two weeks. First, I lost the internet...gone, kaput, dead, a former internet. I live in a rural/country area, and frankly I'm lucky to have cable TV/internet lines to my house at all (much of my community doesn't). I used to have to use satellite internet, which was both slow and expensive. Being in the country, however, means that when something goes wrong, it can take a long time to fix...and that's what happened recently. About two weeks ago, it started acting "flaky" -- it would be on for an hour or so, then off for several hours. It would come on in the middle of the night (I only knew this because e-mails put into my out box in the afternoon would send themselves overnight if I left my computer on).
So I called the cable company and reported the problem. We'll get right on it, they say, and will have a service person at your house in, um, 4 days. 4 days??!! Well, see, there's only one service guy covering a very large rural area, and...

So four days go by, the service guy shows up, runs some tests...and concludes the problem is somewhere down the line (a line that's about 40 miles long), in one of the amps or repeaters. Which means hours of checking, line tracing, etc. To make a long story short, I had no internet for 11 days...then suddenly it just started working again, with no call from the company or anything else.

Yes, I know, in the grand scheme of things it's not that big of a deal. Still...for all of that time I couldn't place any print orders, so clients had to wait for deliveries. I couldn't do any e-mail, to verify appointments, send out flyers to customers asking for information, or *get* any e-mails from potential customers (and when it all came back on finally, there were 20+ such e-mail requests, some of which I lost out on because I didn't reply for so long). My web site didn't get updated, I couldn't do any blog posts. Cut off from the rest of the world, and I didn't like it one bit...and it cost me business.

The only lesson I learned is that I need back-up methods for some of the things I take for granted -- like always-on internet access. So I signed up for a $5.00 a month NetZero dial-up internet account...it's pretty slow, but it'll be a good thing to have as a backup. And I certainly lost more in business over 11 days than this will cost me for a whole year, so it's worth it as insurance.

The other thing that happened? Well, my state (California) has finally figured out how important the internet is, too. And by noticing that, they decided they could suck some money out of it. Or at least try to.

Not long ago, California passed a bill that would require any business with any kind of "presence" in California to charge (and remit to the state) California sales tax on any sales made to California residents. Even if the actual "store" doing the sale was nowhere near California. Pundits took to calling it the "Amazon" bill, since Amazon's sales in California were used by its proponents as an example of how much sales tax revenue they were missing out on. Now, sure, my state (like many others) has budget problems, and some extra revenue would sure help out. But this one wasn't thought through very well, and they've done noting but shoot themselves and some of their residents in the foot.

See, most not-in-California businesses (like Amazon and Adorama, my favorite New York camera superstore) don't have an actual "presence" in California. What they did have were "affiliates" -- people like me, writing blogs or producing other small-time websites. See that Adorama ad up there at the top right of my page? It's linked to my Adorama affiliate ID, and if somebody clicks on the link from my site, and buys something, I get a little piece of the sale. Or at least I *did* until a few weeks ago.

California's bill defined a "presence" in our fair state to include any affiliates or sales people living in California. Which means that if Amazon or Adorama or anyone else had affiliates in California, they were considered to have a "presence" in the state, and had to charge CA sales tax on ALL sales to California residents. Never mind that the affiliates are mostly people like me, who make a few bucks a month to help offset costs of a blog, and wouldn't be any significant source of revenue...that's irrelevant.

On the face of it, it might have seemed like a good idea to the lawmakers -- an easy way to pick up some extra revenue. In practice, not so much. See, Amazon and Adorama and others, not wanting to charge higher prices, add more accounting people to deal with keeping track of CA sales and taxes, and considering the whole thing unfair anyway, did the reasonable thing: they stopped having affiliates in California. No affiliates, no "presence." And no tax income for my state. Oops. The lawmakers didn't think this one through very well.

(How the California law affects Internet Affiliates)

So rather than raise tax income for the state, they're going to get nothing because the out of state companies simply cancelled all their California affiliates. And since affiliates like me were paying state taxes on our affiliate revenue, the net result will be *less* taxes taken in for California -- not more. All they did was take away a small but decent revenue source for many California residents, and cost the state tax revenue. When new dictionaries come out in a couple of years, looking up "shortsighted" in them will probably have a reference to this California law. Sigh.

So yes, the internet "got me" the past couple of weeks. I still love it, but sometimes I wonder...

High-Speed Flash with HiViz

2011-07-02T11:04:00.000-07:00

I've been playing with high-speed flash photography for a number of years now -- capturing short-duration events using a VERY short flash exposure. I even built my own sound trigger circuit a few years ago, which worked but was a bit flaky. Recently I decided to upgrade to a more stable and repeatable setup, which led me to HiViz and their lineup of products developed especially for high-speed flash photography.

Loren Winters, who runs HiViz, has spent years providing kits for DIY-inclined photographers wanting to get into the fascinating world of high-speed flash photography. Over the years his offerings have gone from simple circuit diagrams to breadboard kits, and now to fully-assembled and tested PC-board based multi-use circuits...all at fire sale prices. It's clear Loren makes his products available for love, and not to become a millionaire!

I purchased Loren's Multi-Trigger PC Board Kit, a well-designed multi-purpose triggering setup that lets you trigger a flash by sound or optical interrupters, with or without a variable delay, for $29.95. It includes everything you need to build and use the circuit, including a piezoelectric transducer (microphone), two different optical interrupters, all of the electronic components, switches, wires, etc. and a sturdy PC board to build the kit on. If you don't have experience building circuits (or don't want to bother doing it yourself!), you can buy a fully assembled and tested version of the circuit from Loren for $75.50. The kit price is a real bargain -- pricing out all the individual components myself, it would cost me $25 at least just to get the parts *without* a PC board.

If you've ever done electronic circuit assembly/soldering before, you should have no trouble building the kit version yourself. It took me a total of about 8 hours of very slow and careful soldering, triple-checking everything as I went, to get the circuit assembled. The instructions on the HiViz web site are clear and easy to follow. Just take your time, and be careful with the small parts!

The concept behind a high-speed flash trigger circuit is pretty simple: you use some external "event" to trigger a speedlight set on a fairly low-power setting, and that very short duration flash pulse from the speedlight (typically around 1/20,000th to 1/30,000th of a second) is short enough to 'stop' fast-moving or hard to capture moments, such as a light bulb breaking or the splash of a water droplet. The usual shot setup involves working in darkness...you set everything up, turn off the lights, lock your camera's shutter open on "bulb," then let the event trigger the flash, recording an exposure. Close the camera's shutter and you're done.

The sound trigger of the HiViz Multi-Trigger lets you get shots like the one I did above -- the microphone was set up just outside the frame, and when I dropped the bulb and it "popped," the sound triggered my Sigma EF-500 DG Super flash at 1/16th power to flash once, capturing the bulb breaking. The water drop photo at the top of this post used the optical gate trigger of the HiViz -- as the water drop passed through the photogate, it set off the delay circuit, which about .09 seconds later triggered the flash to catch the rebound of the water drop.
You might be familiar with lots of water-drop high-speed flash shots on the internet, and with a fair number of "shooting things will bullets" shots as well. I have some other things in mind for my new robust, reliable trigger circuit, but these first tests were to verify it worked. It does, and it works very well indeed. I can't wait to start shooting some of the ideas I have in mind, and I'll post the results up here as they come in. Big thanks to Loren Winters at HiViz for such a well-designed and affordable entry into this fascinating aspect of photography!

Some other high-speed flash sites to look at and whet your appetite:
Martin Waugh's Liquid Scuplture
Photos by Kev

Try Something New: Strobist Bootcamp III

2011-06-27T09:08:00.000-07:00

Want to stretch your photo and lighting skills, get some good feedback on your work, and maybe even win a prize? Then head over to the Strobist Blog site for Bootcamp III. David Hobby's "Bootcamp" challenges are designed to get you out of your comfort zone and try some new things, with assignments that will challenge you and make you think in new ways. After completing an assignment, you post your shots for all the world to see and comment on, and you might even win a prize. Even if you don't, you'll be prodded to get yourself out of any rut you might be in, and be exposed to some amazing shots from all over the world. Assignments are limited to two speedlight-type lights, inducing you to think more and rely less on high-tech gear. Well worth it.
*End*

Five Years in Business as a Photographer

2011-06-23T14:21:00.000-07:00

This week marks my fifth year as a full-time self-employed photographer. That may not seem like much to some people, but as the US Dept. of Labor says that about 70% of all new small businesses fail before the fifth year, making it this far does give me a little ego-stroking sense of accomplishment! I thought I'd share a few things I've learned that have helped keep me in business, and enjoying what I do...

Assistants Are Worth Every Penny
Early on, I tried to do some "bigger" jobs (large family groups, events, etc.) on my own, without any assistants (mostly to make more profit on a job). I learned very quickly that I was being penny-wise and pound-foolish! Assistants are worth every penny you pay for them, and then some. Having someone else to move lightstands around so you can concentrate on the composition, hold lights in positions hard to get a stand into, round up the next group for a shot when you're dealing with lots of people, chase down unplugged cords and dying batteries...priceless. A good assistant can be the difference between a relaxed shoot with great results and a frantic session with poor results, for very little money.
I get assistant candidates from my local high school photography class (where I "teach" the class for one day every year), and I've had no shortage of willing and able volunteers. That's Brittany from the high school photo class above, who helped me out recently on a large family reunion shoot (and acted as stand-in while we got the lighting all set up). The kids are usually thrilled to get a taste of what a "real" photo shoot is like, to make a few bucks, and to learn something about photography. It's good for you, it's good for them, and it's great for your clients. Thanks, Brittany, and the other kids who've been such great assistants over the years!

Ya Gotta Love It
I saw an article on the web recently, advising people that if they wanted to make any decent money in life, don't go into photography. My opinion of that conclusion? It's absolutely right...and I don't care.
It's probably safe to say that almost nobody working as a photographer gets into it to make "big bucks." We do it because we love doing it. For me, I love working with people to make beautiful photographs, and the satisfaction of doing so is better than anything else I've worked at in my life. While there are a limited number of "superstar" photographers that make a lot of money, most of us aren't going to get rich doing this...but we can make a living, and often a very good one. You aren't going to do well if you don't love what you do, though. This isn't the kind of job where a big paycheck can make up for work you can't stand. If your love for it doesn't come through in your photos, clients won't come back and you won't stay in business. It's that simple -- to do this, ya gotta love it.

Cherish Every Client
Every year in June, I sit down and go over my clients for the past 12 months, to evaluate what I'm doing right and wrong, what I need to change, and how my business is growing. And every year, the same statistic stands out like a sore thumb: referral and repeat business are my bread and butter. This past year, for example, about 18% of my business came from "new" clients, while 36% were referrals from previous clients, and 38% were repeat clients. People who are happy with your work, your personality, and the way you treat them tell other people, and keep coming back. Blow off one client or treat them badly, and you stand to lose much more than just that one job -- you lose their repeat business, the people they would have referred, and more. This summer, for example, I'm doing Senior Portraits for one family where this year's job is the 3rd (and last) of their kids who've come to me for senior portraits, and for whom I've done family portraits and business work, and from whom I've had at least 10 referral clients -- and I'm very proud of that. Give every client the best you've got, and that will be returned to you many times over. Treat any client badly, and you're only hurting yourself.

Just making ends meet and paying the bills has been a real struggle at times. And I've certainly made my share of mistakes over the past five years. I try to learn from those mistakes and not repeat them, which is the best any of us can do. The personal satisfaction I get from this work, though, is worth all the struggles and effort -- and that's the bottom line for me. If you're just starting out as a paid photographer, or thinking about starting out, hopefully you can learn a bit from my experiences as well. And who knows, you might even turn out to be one of those "superstars" I mentioned...

Yongnuo RF-603C Radio Flash Trigger Review

2011-06-17T10:17:00.000-07:00

I've been using a set of inexpensive "Cactus" flash radio triggers for a few years now. And I've used them *hard.* With all the Strobist-inspired progress in radio triggers over the past few years, I decided it was time to try out some of the latest models, and purchased a pair of Yongnuo RF-603C transceivers to try out; here's a rundown on my experience with these interesting flash triggers.

Yongnuo, a Chinese company, got into the radio trigger market a few years ago with the PT/YN-04 model, a separate trigger-receiver pair. Updated models came out pretty quickly, including the CTR-301, YN-04II, and YN-16 models. Their latest release is the RF-603 group, where they've ditched the separate trigger/receiver and made each unit into a transceiver that can be either a trigger or receiver. The RF-603 products also include the ability to be a remote camera trigger, and so are broken up into Nikon and Canon specific models (with two different Canon models, differing only in the camera trigger cord that's included for the different Canon models). I bought the RF-603C1 model, which comes with a trigger cord for the Canon Rebel/XT/XS cameras. They were $31.15 for a pair of transceivers from Amazon, but also available direct from Yongnuo or on E-Bay.

The RF-603 has a number of nice features, indicating that Yongnuo has been listening (somewhat) to their customer base. They got rid of the expensive and hard to find CR-2 batteries, going for two AAA alkalines for power. They went to the unregulated 2.4GHz radio band, for greater range and less interference with flash units. They included a full Canon TTL-aware hot shoe and pass-through -- the hot shoes on both the top and the bottom of the transceivers have the full Canon electrical contacts, letting them "wake up" Canon E-TTL flashes when they're in the transceiver hot shoe, and allowing pass-through of E-TTL signals to a Canon (or compatible) flash in the unit's hot shoe when it's acting as a transmitter in your camera's hot shoe. They have a PC-cord output socket (for triggering flashes using a PC cord, including studio monolights), and a 4-position DIP switch under the battery compartment for setting the channel to use (16 different channels).

The build quality of the units is very good. They're mostly plastic, but solidly made and well assembled. The bottom shoe foot is metal for strength, as is the top-mounted trigger hot shoe. Unfortunately, in a major oversight, the bottom foot lacks a locking ring or lever, so they rely on a friction fit for holding them in either the camera's hot shoe or on a stand adapter when being used as a receiver. The foot is very slightly oversized, so the friction fit is tight, but it's not enough to reliably hold the units in place. As the units also lack a tripod socket for securely attaching them to a tripod or light stand, attaching them securely is a major issue.

The on-off switch for the transceiver can also be a minor problem -- it's located just in front of the top hot shoe, and with several flash units on the market (most notably the Canon EX series), the front bulge of the flash goes right over the switch, making it very hard to turn them on or off when the flash is mounted in the hot shoe. As the photo above shows, it's less of a problem with other flashes (that's a Vivitar 285HV mounted), but the switch location is problematic.

The good news: they work very well for basic operations. The "smart" transceivers figure out whether they're in a hotshoe on your camera or acting as a receiver; slip one in your camera's hot shoe, stick a flash in another one, turn them both on, and when you half-press your camera's shutter button the unit on the camera figures out it's the transmitter, talks to the remote unit, and you're off and flashing.

The claimed range of the RF-603 is 100 yards -- I paced off a 100-yard distance, set up a flash there, and reliably got the flash to trigger every time, without a single mis-fire (see image above). More good news: they're quick to trigger, meaning you can use your camera's full flash sync speed reliably. My older "Cactus" triggers are only reliable at about 1/3 stop below the full sync speed -- on my XTi camera, with a sync speed of 1/200th sec., about 1 in 5 shots at that speed would show a dark band, indicating incorrect sync. I had to use 1/160th sec. to get reliable syncing (and 1/200th on my 5D Mk II with a 1/250th sync speed). The RF-603s have yet to have a problem at the top sync speed of either of my cameras.
The bad news: these "smart" transceivers are a little too smart for their own good. The unit relies on the Canon E-TTL "wake up" signal from the hot shoe on the camera to figure out it should be a transmitter, which means that if you want to trigger your flashes by simply hand-holding one transceiver (with the other one attached to a flash), you're out of luck. No amount of pushing the built-in "test" button will convince the unit in your hand that it's supposed to be the transmitter, and it just sits there doing nothing. It also won't turn itself into a trigger if it's in a non-Canon hot shoe -- such as the shoe in my older "Cactus" remotes. And with no PC-cord *input* to trigger from, it won't work as a trigger from sound or optical triggers for high-speed flash, either. This is a camera hot-shoe only setup, reducing flexibility considerably.
As I mentioned, the units also include a camera-specific shutter release cable, for remote firing of the camera. You put a transceiver in the camera's hot shoe, attach the cable from the transceiver to the camera's remote release input, and then hold another transceiver in your hand. When you half-press the "test" button, the unit in the camera figures out it's supposed to be a camera trigger, the two units sync up, and a full press releases the camera shutter. This also works reliably in my tests, and up to 100 yards away. But *one* of the transceivers MUST be in a Canon camera hot shoe for the "smart" units to figure out their configuration -- no amount of twiddling or trying to fake them out (using a Canon off-camera cord, for example) would get them working in any mode without one of the units being in a camera hot shoe.

Overall, I'm a bit disappointed with the RF-603. They have some real, useful improvements over previous Yongnuo models (and other inexpensive Chinese models), but the limitations (no locking foot, no tripod socket, no triggering unless one of them is in a camera hot shoe, poorly-placed on/off switch) are problematic. They're just not nearly as flexible in operation as some other units (including Yongnuo's own previous models), and securely mounting them is difficult if not impossible. That said, I will be using these in my studio at home, where a simple one-in-the-camera, one-on-a-flash setup works fine, with the rest of my strobes going off with optical slaves (and they *do* reliably trigger my AlienBees and Adorama flashes). But I'll still be looking for another solution for outdoor speedlight work, and for my high-speed flash work. If all you need is a simple setup, these are a great bargain at about $32 a pair. If you need more flexibility or secure mounting, you'll have to look elsewhere for the time being, or wait and see what Yongnuo does next (which from past experience, should be in just a few months!).

The Gift of Sight

2011-06-06T14:57:00.000-07:00

It sucks to get old. I've needed glasses (for astigmatism, and worsening ability to read and work on the computer) for years now, but I've never liked them. And contacts are even worse, irritating to my eyes and annoying. This past weekend, though, I got a bit of a glasses revelation -- that's directly related to my photography.

Even though I've been wearing glasses for years now, I've always taken them off when taking pictures. After taking photos with SLRs for so many years without them, it just didn't feel right...and every pair of glasses I've ever had made me feel like I had to move my eye around to see the whole viewfinder, even when my cameras had good eye relief on the viewfinder. Since my distance vision is reasonably good (especially with one eye), this has never been too much of a problem when my eye was at the viewfinder sans spectacles...but trying to see fine detail on a DSLR's LCD screen without them was ridiculously hard. What usually happened was a somewhat comical routine of take them off, compose and take a shot, put them on to "chimp" the LCD, take them back off to shoot again...repeat.
Well, this past weekend, after I sat on my old pair of progressive bifocals and broke them (for the second time -- note to self: don't put your glasses on your chair when you take them off to take a photo, you can't see well enough to notice they're there when you go to sit down!), I finally broke down and got a new pair. I needed them anyway, since it had been 5 years since my last eye exam, and details in photoshop were getting as hard to read as the tiny text on pill bottles.
This time around, I went with larger (in area) lenses than before -- and what a difference! No, they're not nearly as stylish as the smaller-lensed, rectangular frames I used to have. But for the first time ever, I can keep them on while looking through my camera viewfinders, and see *the whole frame.* And what do you know...the viewfinder image looks sharper, too! Who would have guessed?

That's my new specs up there in the photo. Still progressive bifocals, so my old eyes can read that pill bottle text. But advances in lens design, scratch resistance, and anti-reflection coatings have come a long way in just the past 5-10 years, so that this is probably the first pair I'll leave on all the time, even when shooting. It's really nice to see everything clearly again.

If you wear glasses, do you leave them on while shooting or take them off? I'd be curious to know, and your reasons. Drop a note in the comments. I'm off to take some more photos...and it won't surprise me at all if they're better focused than the ones I took a couple of weeks ago...

DIY Strip Light Using a Speedlight

2011-05-28T14:25:00.000-07:00

There have been a variety of DIY "Strip Light" projects around the web for some time. A few weeks ago, I ran across a commercial version, call the Saberstrip. A very nice looking, apparently well-made product, that sells for about $135US. Of course, being the cheapskate that I am, I figured I could make one for considerably less than that...so I did.

Let me make one thing clear first: I'm not knocking the Saberstrip in any way. It's a great idea, it appears to be robust and well made, and I hope they sell a million of 'em. But aside from the price, there were a couple of other things I didn't like about their design...for instance, with their product the speedlight flash providing the light sits completely *inside* the tube, making it a real pain to change power settings. I understand why they designed theirs the way they did -- the fully self-contained setup makes for one fully-enclosed unit, with nothing to strap on, blow away, or fall off.
So I decided to experiment a bit with making one. As it turns out, a simple version (that works very well) only requires about $5 worth of materials, and 20 minutes of time. Here's what you'll need:
- 1 cardboard mailing tube, 3" diameter and 24" length (like this one)
- a piece of aluminum foil
- a bit of spray glue (or plain old white glue)
- a piece of diffusion material (details below)

Construction is just a few steps. Take your mailing tube (sharp readers will notice that I didn't even buy a new one, I used one somebody else had sent me a poster in!), remove the cap from one end, and mark off a rectangular area to cut out for the "strip." For my prototype, I marked off a 2-inch wide, 19-inch long rectangle, leaving 1 inch at the top of the tube, and 4 inches at the bottom (where the flash head will go in), as in the picture above. CAREFULLY using an X-Acto knife or sharp utility knife, cut out the rectangle.
Once you've got the strip cut out, line the inside of the tube with aluminum foil. I pre-cut strips of foil about 4 inches tall, and wide enough to fit around the inside of the tube minus the strip cutout, test fitting and trimming them as I made them. Add two more strips, one 1" high for the top of the tube (and wide enough to go all the way around the inside), and one more 4 inches high (and again, that goes all the way around the inside). Once you've got all your strips, spray some spray glue inside the tube (I used the same spray glue I use for mounting photos -- plain old white glue works fine too, if you paint it on smoothly with a brush), then carefully lay in your foil strips. You're almost done!

The last step is to add a diffuser over the strip. For mine, I used a piece of stretchy cotton-spandex material that I had purchased a full bolt of on sale at JoAnn's Fabrics a couple of years ago for about $20. Cut a strip of material (you could also use white plastic or thin paper) just a little bit wider and taller than the strip in the tube, and attach it to the outside of the tube with rubber bands.

The 3-inch tube is just the right size for the heads of many popular speedlights (I used a Sigma EF-500 DG Super) to fit inside the tube, nice and tight. It stays on well vertically, but tips a bit when used horizontally -- I'm working on a fix for that! Stick the tube on your flash, mounted on a tripod or light stand; attach a radio trigger or PC cord to fire the flash, and give it a try.

The image at the top of this post shows the falloff pattern of my striplight, set up 4 feet from a gray background. I was quite surprised as the softness and smoothness of the light, and at the very gradual, elliptical falloff pattern -- I was frankly expecting a "straighter" and less soft light, and so was pleasantly surprised. I recruited my daughter to sit for me outside to give it a try (the photo above), and was very pleased at the soft light, gradual falloff, and angle of coverage. The shot above used just the one striplight camera-right, about 30-degrees towards the camera from the subject's side, and about 3 feet away. Exposure was 1/160th sec. at f/6.3 at ISO 100, with the flash on 1/2 power. I think I have a favorite new toy...

If you've read my previous posts about outdoor beach lighting, you know that I've had my share of blown-over umbrellas and light stands doing outdoor lighting in windy locations. One of the best things about this strip light is that it's nearly wind proof! Set up on a light stand, it has such a small wind profile and is so light that even moderate winds don't bother it at all. Clamped to the "pole" of a standard light stand (instead of mounted on top of it as in the first photo), I had it out in 20 MPH winds with no problems whatsoever. I'm sure I'll be hauling several of these to the beach from now on.

I've got some design modifications to make, including a more secure mounting to my speedlights, especially so that I can use the tubes horizontally, and some cosmetic improvements to do. I ordered 6 of the tubes linked to above, and will be making some "final" versions for studio and field use -- I'll post an update when they're done. But even my quick little prototype has me excited about this really useful light modifier that's quick and cheap to make. If you've got a few bucks and half an hour to spare, give it a try.

Oh, one more thing...the catchlights:

I'm not sure yet whether I like them or not. The 100% crop from the shot of my daughter shows what they look like in subjects' eyes. I'm a bit obsessive about the catchlights in my subjects, and I haven't decided if I like these or not yet. They're certainly unusual, and maybe they'll grow on me...we'll see :)

Here are a couple of other DIY striplights on the internet, from which I got ideas:
Box Strip Light by Nick Wheeler

Tube Strip Light by Fettucininz

Update: Just after I finished this article, one of my regular commercial clients called and needed a quick photo of a product done. Dwayne Yates of PureTech Products makes Velcro Strap products for radio-control cars, planes, etc. (but they're useful for lots of things, I use them for cable wraps, attaching accessories to lights, etc.). He had a borrowed RC car he wanted me to quickly shoot with one of his straps in place. It was a good chance to try out the DIY strip light outdoors on a product shot, and I was very pleased with the results (above)! I'm really liking this light modifier that was so easy to make...

Good, Fast, Cheap -- You can have all three!

2011-05-13T15:18:00.000-07:00

You've probably heard the old saying (usually applied to manufacturing): You can have it good, fast, cheap. Pick any two.
Well, when it comes to lenses for your digital camera, it turns out you can have all three! And when I say cheap, I mean really cheap...

Now that digital has pretty much fully taken over, the used equipment market is flooded with older camera equipment being sold at well-below bargain prices. A fair amount of that used equipment is in excellent condition, and very much still usable today. My favorite bargain? Pentax screw-mount lenses.
Take the Vivitar 135mm f/2.8 lens above. Made in 1972, I actually purchased this lens new in 1973 for my then-current screw-mount SLR. It cost a little over $200 new at the time (which today would be about $700, I'm guessing, and more than a year's worth of my allowance at 13 years old!). It's one of the sharpest lenses I ever owned, all-metal, and very well made -- with silky smooth focusing, a pop-out velvet-lined lens hood, and gorgeous bokeh. I sold the SLR I bought it for a very long time ago, but I kept the lens, it was so good I just didn't want to part with it.
A couple of years ago, as I was going through some old boxes, I found it -- lying forgotten but in a soft case, sealed in plastic, with a sili-gel pack tucked in with it. It had survived all the years of storage wonderfully. No dust inside, no leaking lubricants, and everything still working super smoothly. I remembered what a great lens it was, and so looked around the internet to figure out how to mount it on my Canon EOS digital slrs.

I found this Fotodiox M42 adapter on-line for less than $10, and decided to give it a try. And boy, am I glad I did. The lens is as sharp and distortion-free as I remember, and the smooth bokeh is to die for. Using the very simple adapter, just mount the lens on most brands of DSLRs, and shoot away.

The image above was shot with this lens, on a Canon XTi DSLR, wide-open at f/2.8. Nice, huh?

There are, of course, limitations to using old screw-mount lenses on a modern DSLR. First, there's no mechanism to stop down the aperture when you press the shutter release, so it's all manual. Typically I focus wide-open, then stop down to the shooting aperture just before taking the shot (unless you're shooting wide-open, which is kind of the point of using a lens like this!). The upside is that with most DSLRs, you do still get aperture-priority auto exposure if you want to use it, the camera will set the shutter speed depending on the light coming in no matter what f-stop you use on the lens.
Speaking of focus, it too is all manual. You remember manual focusing, don't you? Unless you're younger than about 30? It's what we used to do in the old days, when we had to actually turn the lens focusing ring to focus instead of having a motor do it for us and a computer decide when things were in focus. In practical terms, it's not that big of a deal, and with a fast lens like this one (which produces a nice, bright viewfinder image) manual focusing is quick and easy. For more "contemplative" photography like portraits, product shots, still life, etc. it's just not an issue.

You younger readers are probably thinking about now, "Sure, but I wouldn't want to use manual focusing for sports or action, that would be stupid!" Well, maybe not...the lens at left is another screw-mount bargain I picked up from Craig's List, a 200mm f/4 Pentax SMC Takumar lens. This was a premium lens in its day, had Pentax's outstanding super multi coating, and when new cost about $500 in early 1970's dollars (around $1500 today). It is an outstanding lens...and I picked it up for $40. This one's physical condition isn't as good as my Vivitar, as it's been well-used and has some minor "cosmetic" issues, but both mechanically and optically it's in outstanding condition. Shots made with it are sharp, contrasty, and gorgeous. And yes, I use it for sports:

That's a shot of my son at a lacrosse game, shot with the SMC-Takumar wide open (f/4) and manually focused. It really doesn't take much practice to be able to follow fast action while manually focusing, and since you're deciding what to focus on instead of a computer, I get just as many sharply-focused "keepers" using this old manual focus lens as I do when using my $1200 Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 L lens and autofocus. For $40. Like I said, good fast and cheap.
Craig's List and e-Bay are good places to scout around for used screw-mount lenses, with the usual caveats about "buyer beware." Try to meet the seller locally and examine the lens (or get a return guarantee) before you buy it. Make sure the mechanisms all work (especially the aperture stop-down mechanism!), the glass is clean and not scratched, there's no fungus or dust *inside* the lens, etc. A quick glance around the 'net before I posted this found 30 Vivitar 135mm f/2.8 lenses like mine readily available, for an average price of about $35. There are plenty of bargains out there if you shop carefully, and you can put them to some really good, creative use without breaking the bank.
Local photo shops also often carry used equipment, as do the big guys like B&H, Adorama, KEH, etc. I picked up a Fujinon 55mm f/3.5 macro lens in excellent condition for $30 from a local camera store with a good used selection.
So next time you're lusting after a fast, sharp lens but don't have the $$ in your bank account to pay for the latest high-end model from your camera maker, consider giving some screw-mount classic lenses a try. You just might get a real bargain and a great lens.

Outdoor Eyes

2011-05-06T08:10:00.000-07:00

Take a quick look at the side-by-side images above...without studying the details, on a quick impression which one looks better to you? If you're like most people, you'll like the one on the right better, without really knowing why. The thing is, they're identical in every way, except for one small detail: the eyes.
When shooting outdoors on a bright day, the pupils of your subjects will contract, which makes their eyes look less appealing and a bit "squinty." There's a very easy way to give your outdoor eyes a much more appealing look, and it only takes about 30 seconds to do.

Over the years I've heard photographers relate lots of "tricks" to try to get bigger, more appealing pupils on their subjects outdoors in bright light -- have them close their eyes until just before you click the shutter, have them look down for a few seconds, and more. The problem is, all of these tricks make it harder for the subjects to relax and look natural, and they require good timing on the part of both subject and photographer. In the digital age, there's a much simpler way to give your subjects more appealing outdoor eyes.

The image above is a crop from an outdoor portrait shoot I did a couple of weeks ago. A beautiful location, soft light (from three Sigma flashes in umbrellas, see this article for details), and relaxed, happy subjects. The portrait is very much a success, but because of their small pupils their eyes lack punch and appeal. To make them look much more appealing, follow the few simple steps below:

Open your full-resolution image file in Photoshop (or your favorite editor). Add a new blank layer on top of the main image, and set the blending mode to "Overlay." Select the brush tool, set the color to black (#000000), the opacity to about 80%, and the brush hardness to around 70%. Zoom in 100% (or even 200%) on the image so you have a good close-up view of the subject's eyes, and adjust the size of the brush so that it's about the size the subject's dilated pupil would be.

Position your brush (as in the image above) right on the center of the subject's pupil in the image, and click once to make a new "pupil." If it's not quite dark enough, keep the brush in the same place, and click again. The idea is to have a natural looking pupil, with fairly soft edges -- big enough to make the eyes look better, but not so big as to cover up the color in the subject's iris. The image below will give you a good idea of what your new layer should look like, with about the right softness to the edge and the right size.

If your edges are too hard, you can use a *very little bit* of Gaussian blur on your overlay layer (about 0.6 pixel radius) to soften them up. If they're too soft, don't try to sharpen them -- just delete the overlay layer, make a new one, and try again with a slightly harder brush setting.
If your new pupil goes over part of the subject's eyelid or the bottom of their eye, don't worry -- it's important to have the new pupil exactly centered on the smaller existing one, even if it covers up some eyelid or skin. Just add a layer mask to your overlay layer, get a black brush, and paint on the mask where the new pupil overlaps skin to hide it from those areas. Once you're pleased with the size, softness, and masking of the new pupil, adjust the opacity of the overlay layer, reducing it to somewhere between 80-90%, so the effect doesn't look harsh and fake.

That's it, you're done! Flatten the image, and continue on with any other editing you have to do. A crop from the final "eye editing" image is shown above, with new pupils applied to the eyes of both subjects.
I don't know if others have come up with this idea before (it would surprise me greatly if somebody hadn't already thought of it!), but I haven't seen it described anywhere. I came up with it one day while editing some outdoor shots, done on a really bright day, where my subject's pupils were very tiny black spots, and didn't look at all appealing. Adding enlarged pupils make the subject look much more natural, and it only took a few seconds. Now I routinely use it on most of my outdoor portraits. It sure beats trying to get your subjects to close their eyes until just before you shoot, they can relax and have fun while shooting, and so can you. Next time you shoot outdoors, give it a try and see how you like the look!

Digital Backgrounds? Ditch the Green, and go Gray!

2011-04-26T10:37:00.000-07:00

One of the big benefits of digital editing of images is the ability to use "digital backgrounds" -- putting a subject in a scene completely different from the one you used when you took the image. The "standard" way to do this is to use a bright green or blue "chroma-key" backdrop when you shoot your subject, then replace the green-screen background with another image later on. The problem? Green is, well, *green.* It's easy for software to pick it out from your subject, but even with the most careful lighting some green nearly always bleeds onto or reflects from your subject, leaving green-edged artifacts in the final composite that can take hours to edit out. My solution? Ditch the green -- and go gray.

I came up with this technique when I first started doing high school senior portraits. My local high school has a required "standard" background for the shots that will go into the yearbook, a gray-striped muslin, so the senior images all have a consistent look. While that background is fine for the yearbook, I found that most students and parents weren't exactly thrilled with it for shots they wanted to purchase (one student called it "so 70's"). So to make my clients happy, make more sales, and still give the school yearbook what they wanted, I needed a way to easily change backgrounds without hours of editing work. Enter the gray screen.

The technique is simple: shoot the original image in front of a medium-gray, plain backdrop, evenly lit. The image above is the original studio shot that I'll be working with for this example. The backdrop is a roll of seamless paper from Adorama. Adjust the portrait lighting using hair and/or edge lights so that there is good separation between the subject and the background. Once the image is done, open it in Photoshop, and follow the steps below:

1. With the image open, duplicate the background layer (on a PC, right-click the background layer, and select "Duplicate Layer" from the pop-up menu).
2. Select the Magic Wand tool from the Photoshop tool bar; set the "Tolerance" setting to about 10-14, and check the "Anti-Alias" checkbox.
3. Click in the gray background area of the image, and the magic wand will select areas of matching color -- just the gray background. The more evenly lit your gray background is, the more the wand will select with each click. Click around in un-selected areas until all of the gray background is selected. Pay close attention to edges of faces and hair, to make sure the selection goes right up to the edge. This typically takes me about 30 seconds to select all of the background.

4. Your selection should now look about like it does in the image above. With the selection done, soften it up just a little bit: Go to the menu Select->Modify->Expand, and enter a value of 2 pixels. Then to go the menu Select->Modify->Feather, and enter a value of 2 pixels again.
5. Finally, go back to the layer palette, and with the duplicate background layer selected, alt-click on the Layer Mask icon at the bottom to create a layer mask that looks like the one in the image below -- white to show the subject, and black to hide the gray background.

That's it! What you now have is a top layer for your image with a layer mask that will show the subject from that layer, but will hide the gray background. Anything you put *under* that layer (currently what's under it is the same image as the "background") will now show through where the gray background is, and replace it.
One big reason for using gray instead of green is that a medium-gray background will allow you to use blending modes for the replacement background that you can't use with a "green screen." For example, to drop in the standard yearbook background, I open the background image, select the entire image, copy it, and then paste it into the portrait image as a new layer between the background and my masked duplicate above.

Your layers palette should now look like the image above: original image on the bottom, new background in the middle, and masked duplicate of the original on top.
Now set the blending mode of the yearbook background to "overlay" instead of "normal" -- overlay mode combines the current image with the one(s) below it; where the overlay image is darker than middle gray, the combination will be darker. And where it's lighter than middle gray, the combination will be lighter. So instead of *replacing* a green-screen background, a gray background allows you to BLEND the new background in with the old one, which gives a smoother, more natural-looking replacement and no edge artifacts. Here's a close-up view of how the overlay blending mode looks on the very detailed hair of the subject in this image:

Notice the smooth blending between the foreground hair, the middle layer striped muslin, and the original gray background -- no artifacts, no rough edges, just a smooth and easy blend. With just 30 seconds of clicking to make a mask! That's why gray is better than green. The full image looks like this:

Having tried this a number of times with "green-screen" backdrops, and never being able to completely get rid of green-edge artifacts, I can assure you that the gray way is much, much easier -- and gives better results as well.

Once you have your masked image "sandwich" done, save it off as a PSD file to keep the layers intact, and then if your clients want to see different backgrounds for their images, you can load them up and show them to them in real time simply by replacing the middle layer background with other images. A good example is the sunset beach picture here, which I shot in Hawaii. Putting this in required nothing more than replacing the gray yearbook background with the Hawaii picture -- the blend mode is still set to "overlay," and because of the original middle gray color of the image it blends perfectly with the replaced background.

You can experiment with all sorts of layer combinations and blending modes for your drop-in backgrounds, all with little or no tedious editing of the top image mask, and smooth blending of whatever you stick in between them. I often will use the yearbook background image for the muslin-stripe pattern, but then add another layer on top of that one in "color" mode, then freehand draw some colors there to change the striped muslin from gray to blue, or red, or anything else. Let your imagination run wild!
Using a gray background turns out to be much easier than traditional "green-screen" background replacement, doesn't require nearly as much tedious editing to get rid of green-edge artifacts, and opens up many more options for use of blending modes to do interesting things with your backgrounds. All with just a few clicks of the magic wand tool. Give it a try!

The Science of Smiles

2011-04-12T15:12:00.000-07:00

Microsoft Office Clip-Art Image, used under Creative Commons 3.0 license

On an old episode of 'Friends,' Chandler and Monica were going to get engagement photos done. Big problem, though: every time a camera is pointed at Chandler, he breaks out in a hideous grimace when trying to smile. Hilarity ensues.
It may have been funny in a sitcom, but as a photographer trying to get a "natural-looking" smile from portrait clients, it's no laughing matter when your clients' posed smiles are on the hideous side. As it turns out, there's a neurological basis for what happens...and knowing what it is can help you avoid it.

Smiling seems like such a simple thing -- you see a good friend you haven't seen in a while, and you grin. But if that same friend (or a photographer) points a camera at your face and asks you to smile on command, instead of a natural expression you produce a forced grimace. An act you can perform effortlessly dozens of times a day becomes nearly impossible to perform when someone simply asks you to do it. Why? As neurologist Dr. V.S. Ramachandran explains in his book, "Phantoms in the Brain":
"The reason these two kinds of smiles differ is that different brain regions handle them, and only one of them contains a specialized 'smile circuit.' A spontaneous smile is produced by the basal ganglia...and the evolutionarily older thalmus.

When you encounter a friendly face, the visual message from that face reaches the brain's emotional center and is subsequently relayed to the basal ganglia, which orchestrate the sequences of facial muscle activity needed for producing a natural smile. The entire cascade of events happens in a fraction of a second without the thinking parts of your cortex ever being involved."
"But what happens when someone asks you to smile while taking your photograph? The verbal instruction from the photographer is received and understood by the higher thinking centers in the brain. From there it is relayed to the motor cortex, which specializes in producing voluntary skilled movements, like playing a piano or combing your hair. Despite its apparent simplicity, smiling involves the careful orchestration of dozens of tiny muscles in the appropriate sequence.

As far as the motor cortex is concerned, this is as complicated a feat as playing Rachmaninoff, though it never had lessons, and therefore it fails utterly. Your smile is forced, tight, unnatural."

So how does knowing the science behind how the brain handles smiling help photographers? Well, clearly the most "natural smile" is one that comes from a genuine emotional response, and not a forced one. Other than some professional models who actually practice smiling in front of a mirror to "train" their muscles, very few clients are going to be any good at producing a smile on demand. We need to find ways to tap into genuine emotions, not just keep repeating "say cheese."
A few strategies I've found useful for getting genuine, emotional smiles:
* Music: Preferably their own choice, not mine. Encourage clients to bring a CD or their iPod, and put it on your studio stereo. It gets their mind off of trying to smile, and relaxes them. One teen male I shot last year, who really didn't want to have his photo taken, brought an iPod full of death metal...he was sullen and uncooperative until the music came on, then his face lit up and he started "rocking out." It wound up being a fun session with some great shots!
* Patter: Ask them questions about their life, their family, their friends -- things they're emotionally connected to. Have the camera ready while you're talking, so that when you hit on something that connects with them, and the natural smile happens, you've got your finger on the shutter release. With teens, talking about a girlfriend or boyfriend (or someone they *wish* was in that category if they don't have one) is a good approach. Prompting them to imagine that person in a bikini or speedo never hurts, either...
* Surprise: If you've ever taken photos of children, you've probably pulled out a stuffed animal or a toy, hidden it behind your back, then whipped it out playing "peek-a-boo" with the child. It's very effective. Don't be afraid to try something similar with teens or adults, as surprise is genuine and emotional in them as well. I was once frustrated with the forced smiles I was getting from an older couple, and after 20 minutes was running out of patter to try. I finally simply said, "Hey, you two, look here," and then stuck my tongue out at them. It was genuinely surprising to them, and we got the best photos of the session from their reaction!

Whatever you try, keep in mind the most important point: that the best smiles are emotional responses, not forced poses. To get real smiles, you need to connect with your subjects on an emotional level, and not just a casual one. Think about what makes you smile when nobody else is around, and chances are good that the same kinds of thoughts can get your clients to do the same thing. It not only results in better photographs, but it makes sessions more fun and relaxing as well. And it's got solid neuroscience behind it.

An Inexpensive Studio Part 3: Better Lighting

2011-04-11T10:56:00.000-07:00

Moving up from the super-inexpensive but not very flexible little flashes described in my last post, and skipping over shoe-mounted "speedlights," the next step up are monolights: fully-contained studio flash units with more power, built-in modeling lights, and a lot more flexibility. These are the kind of flash units most people think of when you say "studio flash" -- but they don't have to cost a lot of money. Here are some options for affordable monolights that give you all the options of expensive studio flash systems without all the cost.

To stay very much on the "inexpensive" side of things, a good option is the $59.95 Budget Studio Monolight from Adorama, shown in the image above. I decided to try these inexpensive lights a while back, and was pleasantly surprised at how well they work for such a low price. After buying one, I bought a second one, and these inexpensive little units get regular use in my studio.
Pros: Cheap, relatively small, light weight, reliable. The come with a modeling light, have user-replaceable flash tubes, and have continuously variable power settings from full-power down to 1/16th power. The built-in slave triggers work great in the studio, and will pick up another flash firing at lower power all the way across the room. The color output is pretty consistent, tending just a little bit towards the blue at the lowest power settings.
Cons: Minor, but there are a few (hey, it's $59.95!): The built-in slave triggers don't work well outdoors, especially in sunlight -- but even in the shade if they "see" a bright sky they're not too great. Outdoors they need a PC sync cord or radio trigger to be consistently reliable. The umbrella holder is friction-fit (there's no clamp-down screw), and they're sized for 8mm umbrella shafts; 7mm umbrellas fit, but wobble a bit and can slip (wrap a little masking tape around the shaft to solve this problem). Finally, with no "standard" accessory attachment system, you're mainly limited to Adorama's accessories for this flash (snoots, barn doors, softboxes), though you can use anyone's umbrellas.

Bounced into a 40" umbrella at 4 feet from a subject, at full power, they give an exposure of f/11 at ISO 100 -- perfectly respectable. If you're trying to save as much money as possible, these are likely your best option.

Stepping up a notch are my main workhorse monolights: AlienBees. Made by Paul C. Buff, these relatively inexpensive monolights took the photo world by storm when they were introduced a few years back, and they still remain one of the most popular options for photographers on a budget (or not on a budget!) -- and for good reason. I personally have two AB400 models and two AB800 models. These are solid, reliable, versatile studio monolights at a very reasonable price.
Pros: Rugged, reliable, versatile, reasonably priced. They have user-replaceable flash tubes and modeling lights, continuously variable power from full to 1/32nd power, built-in slave triggers (that work well even outdoors in sunlight), built-in cooling fans, fast recycle times, and very consistent color output at any power level. They'll take any White Lightning/AlienBees/Paul C. Buff compatible accessories, which are available from a wide variety of sources (I often use Calumet softboxes with my AlienBees, with no problems.
Cons: None of any importance! The flash color does tend a little more towards the "warm" side (more yellow) at lower power levels, but the difference is subtle, and is not any problem for post-production.

There are literally hundreds of monolights available for the budget-minded studio photographer, I've just listed two here that I personally bought and use, and am happy with. Both of these are sold by reputable and reliable companies, which is a big plus compared to something you get from China off of E-Bay. I've yet to have any support issues with any of mine, despite many years of use (6 years now on two of my AlienBees units, nearly two years on the Adorama Budget Monolights), but if you do have a problem it's great to have a company that will be around.

One note about advertised "power levels" for monolights...there's little or no consensus as to how power levels are measured or advertised in the industry, so it can be difficult at times to compare actual light output. For example, both of the units shown here say they have "160 watt-seconds" of light output at full power, yet they don't give the same output. Some of that has to do with how the flash is used, which reflector you're using, and other variables -- and some of it is differences in what's being measured. I've developed my own "standard," which is to attach an umbrella to a flash using its standard reflector, put it on full power, and meter a gray card 4 feet away. Doing that test at ISO 100, the AB400 gives a proper exposure of f/12.2, while the Adorama unit gives an exposure of f/11. My advice: do your own testing once you've made a purchase choice, so you understand what your lights are going to be giving you.

An Inexpensive Studio Part 2: Lighting

2011-03-30T09:14:00.000-07:00

Once you have some studio space you can use, and some backgrounds to work with, the next step in doing studio shooting is lighting. There are thousands of ways you can light your studio work, so I'm going to start with some very inexpensive suggestions, and move up to ones that cost a bit more later on. The little unassuming flash in the photo above is a great place to start, and if you're really looking to get things going inexpensively you can't do much better -- under $20.

I discovered these little gems at Adorama a few years ago -- an AC powered flash, with a guide number of 90, and a built-in slave trigger, that screws into any standard light bulb socket. For under $20, I figured they were worth a try, and bought two of them. As it turns out, they've been a fantastic addition to my lighting kit, and I've found all sorts of uses for them. They're a great way to start out a small studio, as well, even if you have nothing else. Not wanting to spend a lot of money on them, I made a simple (and cheap!) mounting block for them, made from a square cut of wood from a 2x4, a $0.99 single light socket from Home Depot, and a bit of lamp cord I had laying around.

On the bottom of the block, I drilled a hole, and inserted a long nut with 1/4" threads on the inside (also from Home Depot), whose outside hexagonal shape fits nicely into standard light stand 3/8" holes. This nut lets me mount the block on any 1/4" tripod screw mount, or attache it anywhere a 3/8" stud would normally attach. Total cost less than $5, and that's if you have to buy the power cord!

The photo at right shows it on a lightstand, on top of an umbrella swivel adapter (which you can get here from Adorama), with an umbrella attached. Set up this way, this little flash gives me an exposure of f/8 at ISO 200 with the umbrella about 4 - 5 feet away from the subject. Adding the 40" umbrella ($17) and Manfrotto swivel adapter ($30) brought the total cost for this setup to about $80 for everything (the light stand is from the background support kit mentioned in the last article, not needed in the studio since I put up wall mounted brackets). The slave trigger in the flash is quite sensitive, and will trigger nicely from a flash anywhere in the room. If you don't have remote triggers, the easiest way to fire it is to mount a small shoe-mount flash on your camera, point the head of the shoe-mounted flash away from your subject, put the flash on manual control at its lowest output (say 1/32nd or 1/16th power), and fire away.

These little flashes have plenty of power to do very good lighting on single subjects, or even groups of 2-4 people, with no problem. They're cheap, easy to use, long-lasting (I've had my two units for over 4 years now, and they've seen a LOT of use!), and if one breaks it's only another $20 to replace (which I haven't had to do yet). This is without a doubt the cheapest way to get set up with studio flash lighting, and the results can be darn good! Here's an example shot with two of these flashes, both in umbrellas; one was low and right of the subject, the other a little higher to the left, and a little further away.

Total cost for the lighting setup for this portrait was under $150, including flashes, hardware, swivel adapters, and umbrellas. It doesn't get any cheaper than that for studio flash lighting, period.

There are, of course, some shortcomings in a $20 flash: first, they don't have modeling lights, so using them you're not going to have light to focus with or preview lighting effects with. That can be solved by making mounting blocks as I did above, but with *2* light sockets in them, side-by-side -- put a 40W incandescent bulb or a 10W compact flourescent bulb in the other one, and you've got a modeling light (keep the wattage low so the modeling light, which won't switch off when the flash fires, doesn't affect the flash exposure!). Another shortcoming is that they don't have a variable power output -- they fire at full power every time. You can adjust the light hitting the subject by moving the setup closer to or further from your subject, of course...or you can put additional diffusers or neutral-density filters over the flash units if you need to lower the output.

Those little shortcomings don't really detract from a $20 flash unit that can let you start doing some really good studio flash lighting without breaking the bank. If you move up to more powerful and versatile studio flashes later (the subject of the next article...), these cheap little lights will still serve you well as background lights, hair lights, small fill, etc. And one of my favorite things to do with them is to use them when shooting indoor real estate shots; since they screw right into a standard light socket, you can put them in existing lamps in homes, letting you simulate normal indoor lighting but with a lot more output than an incandescent bulb (and no problems with trying to mix the different colored light sources of flash and incandescent sources!). Finally, if you make mounting blocks for them as I did, you get an additional bonus: remove the flash units from the sockets, and put in high-output daylight compact flourescent bulbs, and you have yourself a ready-to-go system for continuous cool lighting. If you're just starting out, this is a great way to get going with studio lighting without spending much money.

2011-03-24T14:01:00.000-07:00

An Inexpensive Studio, Part 1: Backgrounds

If you are just starting out making money from your photography, you're going to need some kind of studio space. Outfitting a full studio can be expensive -- but it doesn't need to be, especially right at the beginning. This is the first in a series of posts with some tips on how to set up a functional, flexible studio on the cheap. Part 1: backgrounds.

Your studio space can be in a garage, a spare room, or anywhere else you have enough space to set up backgrounds, lights, cameras, and subjects. How much space you will need depends on what you're going to be shooting -- a 12x12 room will probably do for many individual or small group portraits, while you'll need perhaps twice that much for full-length body shots and larger groups. Once you've picked a space, you need to be able to put up backgrounds to shoot in front of.

Before you start choosing backgrounds, though, you're going to need some way to hang them up. If your studio space is in your home or garage, one quick and easy way is to head down to the local hardware
store, and pick up a couple of closet rod brackets, as shown in the image. You can get two of them for
around $4 -- add a wooden closet rod (about $9), screw the brackets securely (into studs, if possible!)
onto your wall, and you're all set.

A more flexible setup is to buy a portable background stand/crossbar set, like the one shown here,
from Adorama. It comes with two light stands that support a variable-length crossbar, and is reasonably
priced. I personally use both -- I have permanent brackets in my studio space, and use the Adorama
crossbar from the kit in the studio, which frees up the two stands to be used as light stands. When I
need to take backgrounds on the road, I use the stands as intended, and it all fits nicely in the available
carrying case.

Once you've got something setup to hang your backgrounds from, you can start picking backgrounds to use!
The staple background of photographers for many years has been a roll of seamless paper; hang it up, roll
it out, and shoot away. They're relatively inexpensive (about $22 for a 53-inch wide roll, about $33 for
a 107-inch wide roll), last a long time, and roll up easily for storage when you're not using them. You
can order them from Adorama and other sources, and if you have a Calumet store near you they usually have
a good selection in-stock you can just pick up.

Another inexpensive option can be found at your local fabric store -- JoAnn Fabrics is my personal favorite. Head for their "remnants" section, which has leftovers and discontinued items, for some real
bargains. Get a piece of fabric wide enough for what you're going to shoot (for one-person portraits, four to six feet wide is usually plenty), and tall enough to hang from your background bar with a little
to spare. You can clamp the fabric to the bar easily, hiding the clamps behind the fabric, so that you don't have to sew in a "loop" to put the bar through. The image shown here was made with a piece of
gold-colored, patterned fabric I picked up from the remants section for about $8, and lit by shooting a strobe through a plastic imitation palm tree. The variety of inexpensive fabric backgrounds you can pick
up will amaze you -- if you've never browsed at the fabric store, give it a try!

On the more expensive end, you can spring for some pre-painted muslin or canvas backgrounds, like these at Adorama or these at Backdrop Outlet. Their initial cost is certainly higher than for fabric remnants, but they're very high quality and if cared for will last many, many years.

Finally, another option to consider is to use digital backgrounds -- and that doesn't mean you have to
shoot in front of a green or blue screen and use chroma-key software to drop backgrounds in. If you shoot in front of plain gray seamless paper, and light it evenly, there's a very simple 3-step way to drop in
backgrounds in PhotoShop that is quick, doesn't require tedious editing of masks, and blends nearly
seamlessly with your foreground subject. The before and after example shown here was shot this way, and
it took about 2 minutes to drop in the background digitally. I'll be doing a how-to post on this technique in the near future after the afforable studio setup series is done...and with digital backgrounds you have endless choices for backgrounds, any image you can create or imagine. In Part 2 of the series, I'll cover some inexpensive ideas for lighting setups...

Earthquake in Japan

2011-03-13T08:46:00.000-07:00

Five years ago, I was sitting in the restaurant of the Hotel New Otani in Tokyo (famous for its use in the James Bond Movie "You Only Live Twice"), having a breakfast meeting, when the room began to sway...a "minor" 5.1 magnitude earthquake. Being from California, I'm used to earthquakes, as are the Japanese. After a few anxious moments, when we all realized it was a relatively small quake, everyone went back to breakfast as if nothing had happened -- no big deal.
This week, it was a big deal.

My thoughts are certainly with my friends in Japan, and with all the people there as they try to put their lives back together. Having spent a great deal of time in Japan, I know how well-prepared they are, and yet this disaster is far beyond anything they could have prepared for.
How will this affect photography?
Canon has had to shut down production at 8 of its Japan manufacturing plants, and at least 12 employees at their lens factory in Utsunomiya suffered injuries. Their statement says they're not sure yet how production will be affected, but odds are good that it will.
Nikon produces most of its DSLRs at a plant in Sendai, one of the cities hit hardest by both the quake and the tsunami. Their initial statement said that their plant was not "significantly damaged," however as the full effects become known that may change.
Pentax, Olympus, Sony, and other Japanese manufacturers have also had at the very least disruptions in production, if not more. Ohara optical, a major supplier of high-quality glass for many lens producers, also has a plant in the Sendai region.
There's a good chance that these production problems could cause a spike in camera and lens prices, at least for a while. In the global economy, we're all affected -- even if it's just in a small way -- by a disaster of this size.
I've been able to communicate with friends in Japan, who tell me they're safe and are riding out the power outages and transportation/communications disruptions. It's going to be some time before things in Japan get back to anything resembling "normal." As you use equipment made there over the next few days, spare a thought for those who made it.

Adding Video to your Bag of Tricks

2011-03-10T13:41:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I had a real estate shoot, a high-end home (selling for $1.4M). I really enjoy this kind of work -- usually I get plenty of time in the empty home to spend making really attractive pictures of it, and the clients (real estate brokers) don't mind spending money for good, professional photographs. Outstanding photos of a home really help attract buyers to come and see it in person.

Now, however, I have a new option to offer my clients: high-def video, from the same camera I used to take the still photos. Is adding video as a product you can offer worth it for you?

It was for me -- but it's usually not as simple as just putting your DSLR in video mode and knocking off a few frames. Here are a few tips to get you started offering video to your clients...
First, take a look at the still photo above, of a large ranch-style kitchen of a high-end home. I spent a lot of time lighting this kitchen, using a combination of existing in-place lights, and strategically placed flashes (mostly fitted with CTO gels to warm them up, matching the existing tungsten lighting). While all of the in-place lights can be used for video work, the flashes are worthless -- you need continuous lighting, not popping flashes. If you're going to do video as well as stills, you're going to need to seriously consider modifying the way you light many of your setups, and ditch the flashes. Getting enough (and powerful enough) lights to light your setups for video could turn out to be a very large additional expense (think movie set lighting...), one you'll need to recoup with your video pricing. Crunch the numbers before you get into this to insure it will pay off.
Second, have a very good idea of just what video can offer clients beyond your usual high-quality still images. With real estate work, there are a number of companies that take still images and turn them into a Ken Burns style "zoom and pan movie" -- and charge quite a bit for doing so. Being able to offer your clients actual video (and not just panned stills) that better shows the features of a home, at a price similar to what those other companies charge, is a real benefit to your clients. Some other kinds of video just for the sake of video may not be worth doing.

Finally, you are likely going to have to invest in some new hardware (larger flash cards for the camera, a better tripod, etc.) and software (video editing primarily) to do this right -- which is an additional expense to consider. What little software comes with most DSLRs really isn't capable enough to produce professional looking video. And don't forget that all that new hardware and software means time learning and training on your part, just so you can use it -- and that it's probably going to take a while before you're really proficient at both shooting it and editing/presenting it.

For me, with a history in video editing and production, taking advantage of my DSLR's hi-def video option was a no-brainer. Once I got some practice lighting for video instead of for stills, I had a new product I could offer clients that both brings in more money for a job, and offers real value to my clients. If your new DSLR has hi-def video capability, it might just be time to consider training yourself up to take advantage of it.

Here are a few resources for learning more about DSLR and HD video if you're brand new at it:
ReelSEO Guide to HD-DSLR Video
Software for Editing DSLR Video
"The Full HDV Book" - Fully Focused on High Definition, by D.S Eagle & Mark Dileo

If you've already started adding video to your still photo offerings, chime in with comments and let us know how it's working out!
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Do you know where your images are?

2011-03-08T09:26:00.000-08:00

I was gong to post part 2 of the "Magic of Median" today, when I ran across something that was timely and ought to go up today.
Over at fstoppers, they've posted a video interview with Noam Galai -- a photographer whose picture (and face -- it's a self-portrait) has turned up all over the world, almost entirely without him knowing, and almost entirely without any payment for use of his image. You've probably seen this image, and the story behind it is well worth reading.

With Noam's experience serving as a bit of a wake-up call, I decided to see if any of my own images (like the Andromeda Galaxy image above) were being used in places I didn't know about...

The fstoppers video referred to TinEye, an image search site. You can either upload an image or provide a URL to it if it's on-line, and TinEye will attempt to find places it's been used on-line. When I did so with my Andromeda Galaxy image, The results surprised me.
First, I found a book that had used my image on the cover. This is a legitimate use, as the image (and one of my other astronomy images) had been licensed through a stock agency, and I was given credit in the book (if you scroll to the last page in the google books link above, you'll hit the image credits page for the book). The ting is, though...I didn't know about it. I got my stock license fee (in this case from Shutterstock, which I'm no longer part of, and which amounted to about $1), but had no idea my image had been used on a book cover. I also found it had been used on a number of websites, including one (which I won't link to) that used my astronomy images to promote a fundamental christian "young earth creationist" (6,000 year old earth) claim. Ironic, considering my image is of a galaxy 2.5 million light years away, and it took the light I recorded to make the image 2.5 million years to get here.
All of the usages I found were properly licensed though stock agencies -- which is good news. The bad news? Had I known about a book cover, I could have used that to help promote my work. And then there's the "microstock" payment issue to deal with...through a stock sale, I got $1 for my image to be used as the cover of a book. Was that "fair?" Yes, I signed up for the microstock agency, and I agreed to the terms. I had already concluded that the royalty rate from that microstock agency wasn't equitable, and ceased participating in it. But the larger issue of microstock "fairness" has been brought back to mind with this new discovery of my image on a book cover.
The microstock issue is contentious: Photographers Direct is a web site and stock archive that discusses the issue a great deal, and they've set themselves up as a "fair trade" stock agency that tries to insure fair prices for the use of photographer's images. I like a lot of what they have to say. Until recently I had mostly ignored the issue, as I was getting regular good income from my stock portfolio. Early this year, however, iStockphoto changed the way they calculate royalty rates, and my rates took a plunge. So I need to seriously revisit it now.
It should be obvious to any photographer that if you post your images on-line, people can and will steal them and use them without permission or payment. Noam's case is clearly an extreme one -- yet people making money off of his image without credit or payment, while extraordinary in his case, isn't unusual.
If you've got images posted on-line, use TinEye as a starting point to see if your images have been taken and used without your permission. And keep a close eye on what you post, and where. And if income from your work is important to you, it may be time to take another look at how you're selling your images, and think about making some changes. I know it's time I did that.

The Magic of Median -- Goodbye, noise!

2011-03-03T10:14:00.000-08:00

A lot of my work is stock photography. If you're doing stock work with an agency that has an approval process, you've probably had an image rejected for having too much noise (or having had too much noise reduction applied). I'd like to share a great method for getting rid of noise that won't affect sharpness or resolution one bit: Median Stacks.

Abobe introduced Median Stacks in Photoshop CS3 Extended. Almost immediately, people started using this feature to get rid of people from outdoor scenes, which it can be great for (in articles like this one). But there seems to be a great deal of misunderstanding about what median does, as in the article above where the author seems to think Photoshop is "automatically figuring out what the background is." That's not the case at all, in fact it's much simpler than that -- and the way it works can be used for MUCH more than just getting rid of unwanted people. Oh, and since that article explains how to do a median stack in Photoshop very well, I won't repeat the instructions here.

Let's start with what is actually going on in Photoshop. If you remember your high-school math, you should know that the "median" of a set of numbers is the number exactly in the middle of the range of numbers. For example, if you have 5 numbers: 120, 125, 128, 130, 132 the median of that group is 128. Taking the median of a set of numbers throws out the "outliers" (in this case, the 120 and 125 on the low end, and 130 and 132 on the high end). If you have an even number of values in the set, the median will be calculated as the mean (simple average) between the two numbers nearest the middle. That's all that Photoshop is doing when it calculates the median.
How does that remove people from a landscape scene? In the article I linked to above, the photographer took six images of a scene. In each of them there were people in one place in the image, but nothing but background in the other five. When calculating the median, the "outlier" values of the pixels that showed people got thrown out, replaced with the median value which was just the background. Photoshop didn't know anything about the background, nor did it have to -- it just used the median value of each pixel, and tossed the outliers. Voila, people gone. Nothing magic or complicated, just simple math.

Now that you know how median works, it's easy to see how a median combine of images can easily kill noise. Noise in an image is random -- almost never the same for the same pixel of the same subject in two different images. Sometimes the noise will add to the 'actual' pixel value, and make it higher than it should be; sometimes it will subtract from the 'actual' pixel value, making it lower than it should be. So for one particular pixel of a scene, in 5 different images, you'll have a range of values -- some too high, some too low, some about "right." When you median combine them, the "too high" and "too low" values (caused by noise) get tossed out, the the "about right" value gets used. Tossing out those outlying noise-caused values, pixel by pixel over the entire scene, gets rid of the noise. Very, very effectively.

The two images above are the same scene, shot at ISO 100, with the camera on a sturdy tripod. The one on the top is a single image, while the one on the bottom is a median stack of 6 images. Viewed small, it can be hard to see any difference (click on the images to see an 800x533 size). But when viewing actual pixels, the difference is stunning. The opening image in this post is a comparison of a single image, a median stack of 3 images, and a median stack of 6 images (I'll repeat it here):

The difference in the noise levels (front of the piano key) is obvious. Even at ISO 100, in a well-exposed image, there's visible noise. The median stack of three reduces that noise considerably, the median stack of 6 images has removed it almost entirely. That is the "magic of median." This "magic," however, is very well defined mathematically, from signal processing theory: in a median combine of images, the noise decreases as the square of the number of images in the stack. That means that if you use combine 3 images, you get 9 times less noise (3 squared is 9). Use 6 images, you get 36 times less noise. With no effect of any kind on sharpness (like noise-reduction software has). Signal to noise ratio goes up, noise is drastically reduced.

The effect is even more noticeable at higher ISO values, where there is more noise to start with. Take the two shots below, done at ISO 400:

The image on the top is, again, a single shot; the one on the bottom is a median stack of six images. Even at a small size you should be able to see the difference in the noise; in the actual pixel close-up below, it's very obvious.

Once again, the magic of median does wonders.
You do need to use a tripod, and preferably a remote release, to keep the camera from shifting between frames. You should use manual exposure (not auto) so that the exposures are all the same, and once you've set focus for the first image, lock it down by switching your lens to manual focus and not touching it. But for these kinds of "static" scenes where you can do those things, and nothing moves between shots, firing off 5 or 6 identical frames and putting them in a median stack will zap noise with no side effects whatsoever.

I've found that 5 or 6 images is enough to deal with noise in most scenes. If the image I'm going to be making is going to be printed very large, though, I'll often do 10 or 12 individual images and stack them. The resulting median-stacked image is nearly completely noiseless, even if shot at a high ISO value -- and big prints made from them have an almost surreal look from the complete lack of noise. Try it some time.
In my next post, I'll address some issues to watch out for with median stacking, especially when doing outdoor scenes where things can (and do!) move between shots. Just keep the median stack in mind next time you're doing a static studio scene, and want to have a gorgeous, nearly noise-free image. Median's magic goes a lot further than simply getting rid of people.

The Hardest Thing: Posing

2011-03-01T15:13:00.000-08:00

Making good photographs requires learning a wide variety of skills, some technical, some artistic, some social. For me, the absolute "hardest thing" to master is posing.

I've often felt exactly like US Supreme court justice Potter Stewart must have felt when asked to describe "obscene" materials -- he couldn't but famously quipped "I know it when I see it." When a pose works, you know it. But getting from the subject standing in front of your camera, ready to be directed, to that "know it when you see it" pose is the real challenge. I'm far from being an expert, but thought I'd share some things I've learned about posing.

First, and this may be controversial, avoid any of the hundreds of books available with titles like "Posing Guide." I've either purchased or borrowed at least a dozen of these, and out of all of those found perhaps two or three really useful ideas. For the most part, I find them to be guides to mediocrity and sameness, which might better be titled "How to make everything you shoot look like Olan Mills." If that's the kind of photography you want to do, great. Not me.

My main advice: Steal. Blatantly and often. Not photographs, of course -- poses. At least as starting points! Spend some time looking at the work of photographers you admire or just happen across, and when you see a photo where the pose works, save a copy of it to a "poses" folder on your hard drive. You could even divide the folder up (like I did) into individuals, couples, weddings, groups, families, etc. Then next time you have a session coming up, take a quick look at it, jot down a few ideas from it on a notepad, and use that as a starting point for your own session. Don't copy what the other photographer did exactly, analyze it and figure out WHY it works, and then apply that same reasoning to your own shots, and your own subjects. To try this out, just head to google, search in images, and enter "photography couples." You'll get a great body of material to refer to, as well as some that obviously don't "work" at all.

My personal favorite photographer to use as inspiration is Herb Ritts. Herb (recently deceased) was a celebrity photographer, but the appeal of his photos doesn't come from the celebrities in them, it comes from the way he poses them and how he gets very specific emotions out of them. It's extremely rare for me to see one of Herb's photos and think, "Oh, sure, that's just like something I've seen before." Of course, exactly copying Herb's work isn't what I'm after -- his genius was often simply not being afraid to try something nobody had ever done before. His work inspires me to do the same, but just perhaps get some starting point ideas from what *he* did before.

Once you've begun to find your own kinds of poses that work, be careful about over-using one or two "good" poses. If your entire portfolio starts to look like the same two shots, just with different people and backgrounds, people will notice (including you!). I've run across this myself -- a particular spot in my yard with a gorgeous old oak tree is a wonderful location, and the tree is just the right height for people to lean on it with their arms (see this photo from my post on outdoor lighting). After I first did this pose with one of my senior portrait clients, and it *worked,* I started using it for others. Too much. About halfway through the season, reviewing photos, I realized I had no less than 10 kids posed in that same spot in the same way...and that it was time to try something different. That same idea is the reason I suggested avoiding all of the posing books that are available, because what most of them teach is "this is a posing rule, this works, use it" -- and then your pictures look like everybody else's that's read the book.

So keep refreshing your sources of inspiration, keep trying something new, and don't be afraid to really go way out there on a limb. If it doesn't work, no harm done. If it does, you'll almost certainly know it when you see it.

Outdoor Lighting Techniques 2: The Beach

2011-02-25T15:58:00.000-08:00

In my last post, I described a "lighting package" that I use for many outdoor portrait sessions. Living in Southern California only a few miles from the beach, I get a lot of jobs for beach portraiture, too. When I first started doing them, I would pack up my outdoor light package (which isn't too bad, only 3 flashes, 2 light stands and 2 umbrellas) to the beach to use there as well. It didn't take long, though, to realize that this was a mistake -- and that there had to be a better way!

Problem number 1: It's windy at the beach. Always. And tall light stands with a flash or two mounted on top (making them top-heavy), with an open umbrella attached, turn out to make *excellent* sails. The wind gusts a bit, the umbrella catches the air, and the whole thing happily flies 20 feet, invariably landing upside-down. It only took me 2 ruined umbrellas (and one broken flash) to realize there had to be a better way. And yes, I tried sandbags...which kept the stands from flying away, but didn't keep them from blowing over.
Problem number 2: my strategy using flashes was based on putting the subject in full shade, so that I could control the light on the subject entirely with flash. Ever tried to find full shade on the beach?

Now, I know there are pros that bring "easy-ups" with them for shade, 5 or 6 assistants to hold their light stands in place, big battery packs, etc. to the beach. More power to 'em. I usually shoot alone, and though I can occasionally get an assistant, my prices aren't high enough to pay 5 or 6 of them. So I found a better way.
Here's the lighting diagram for the shot above -- a bride by herself at a beach wedding. Yes, I had an assistant that day (weddings are always better with an assistant). Instead of flash, I made use of nature's built-in light source (the sun), by posing the subject with her back/side to it, and using a reflector panel to bounce light from the sun back onto her front side.

In this case, the reflector is a home-built one, made using shock-corded tent poles and about $3 worth of translucent white fabric from Michael's -- total cost about $11, and it measures 4 feet by 4 feet. It collapses down to fit in a standard camera bag, and only weighs about a pound (I'll be posting a picture of it and instructions to make it in an upcoming "home made stuff" entry). Voila, a big, soft light source for very little money, no flash metering to do, and you can even mount it clamped to a light stand if you don't have an assistant! It will still blow away sometimes, but it doesn't break if it does (like umbrellas and flashes), and it only takes a few seconds to put back in place. Beach lighting problem solved on a budget.

The shot above was taken using the same basic setup, with the only difference being that I had folded the reflector in half and put it up high on a light stand, so the light mostly filled in the subjects' faces and stayed off the ground. No assistant here, and the reflector/stand combo only fell over once!

Another option is to get a portable, folding reflector kit (like this one from Adorama). While not nearly as big as my home-made one, they're still very useful, and if you get two of them you can use both:

Again, this is the same basic setup as the other shots -- sun behind and to one side of the subject, and this time two smaller disc reflectors, one on either side of the subject. This look is quite popular right now (the bright highlights defining the sides of the subject's face), and it's easy to do outdoors at the beach with a couple of small reflectors.

Of course, if you're going to shoot at the beach just after sunset, reflectors aren't going to do you any good, and you'll have to bring your own lighting. Doing so means dealing with blowing umbrellas and stands, sandbags, and all the other hassles -- but it can be worth it as well (as below).

Shot using my basic outdoor "package" as described in the last post.
But if you're at the beach when the sun's up, I suggest trying out reflectors, and leaving your lights at home. It works great for me.

Outdoor Lighting Techniques 1: Sunset

2011-02-21T11:37:00.000-08:00

Much of my portrait work is done outdoors, away from the lighting control of an indoor studio. However, you can still have a great deal of control over your lighting when shooting outside, and a few standard "packages" can get you quickly set up for most situations, and you can tweak the lighting from these "packages" to suit the subject and situation. I'm going to cover a few of my "package" techniques (and the tweaks) over the next few posts. Starting with: outdoors at sunset.

I'm lucky to have a large yard in the country, with lots of oak and fruit trees, scenic backgrounds, and warm California sunsets. But my sunset "package" can be used anywhere you find yourself shooting.

The photo above was taken about 20 minutes before actual sunset. I always look for areas where the subject will be completely shaded from the sun, but where a sun-lit background is visible behind the subject. That allows you to control the lighting on the subject completely, and then handle the background separately.
My "sunset package" usually consists of three portable flash units on stands, a 42" umbrella or two, various gels for the flashes, and radio triggers. Here's a lighting diagram showing the setup for the image above:

Two of my portable flashes were ganged into one 42" umbrella, to the left and above the subject, as the key light (both with 1/2 CTO gels to warm the light a little). A third was behind and to the left, with no diffusion, but with a full CTO (orange) gel on the flash to make it look like sunlight, and used as a rim light. With the ambient light fading, I could shoot at 1/160th sec. at ISO 100, nearly wide open (at f/4) to give a nice blurred-out background. That exposure was perfect for the sun-lit background, then I adjusted the power of my flash units to match that f/4 ambient exposure. Keep in mind that you can lighten or darken the ambient exposure by changing the shutter speed (within your flash sync speed range) without affecting the flash exposure, which is controlled by the aperture and flash power, so you really can control the subject lighting and the background separately!

The same basic "package" was used to light this shot from another location in my yard -- but the same approach was used. Put the subject in a location fully shielded from the setting sun, but with the background lit by it. In this case I moved the 2 flashes in the umbrella to camera right, and left the rim light at left un-gelled for a "cooler" rim/fill light. Here's the lighting diagram for this shot:

Before heading out to do sunset portraits, I make sure my sunset "package" is set up and ready to go -- flash batteries charged, CTO (warming) gels ready to put on or take off, two of my flashes ganged up (on a custom mount) for the key light. That way, when doing the setups I can move quickly and efficiently -- important when you might have only 30-40 minutes of that gorgeous sunset light to work with! Standardizing on an initial package also lets me concentrate more on working with the subject to get good expressions, instead of worrying about technical lighting details. I hope you'll agree that the basic lighting package looks natural and flattering to the subjects.
Next up: my "beach package."

Do us all a favor, pal...Get some remote triggers!

2011-02-15T14:41:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, I was shooting a Quinceanera, which included a few hours of shooting in the warm January sunshine of San Diego's Balboa Park (for those who don't know the term, a "Quinceanera" is a Latino version of a debutante coming-out party -- for a 15 year-old girl. It's a "big deal" in SoCal, and they're done up as elaborate as weddings. Great work for photographers).
The weather was great, and there were literally dozens of photographers/groups taking pictures in the park. At one of my favorite locations, I was competing for space and backgrounds with three other photographers, which was fine...we were all trying to work around each other and give each other some space. There was, however, one big problem...

One of the other photographers, with multiple flashes set up on stands, was firing his remote flashes using optical slave mode as a trigger. You know, you fire off one main flash (the one on his camera), the others see the main flash, and fire off of that. It works great, except when there are multiple photographers jammed into one nice location.
Me, I was using radio triggers -- a shot of my cheap but trusty (and well worn) e-bay remote is up above. I got a transmitter (goes on the camera's hot shoe) and 4 receivers (that attach to a flash) three years ago for under $39, and they are still working great today despite being roughed up a lot, and firing thousands of times. (my old-style remotes)
I felt really bad for this other photographer. Every time I'd pop off a shot, with my 2-4 flashes going off, all of his slaves would trip. Usually right before he was going to take a shot, meaning he had to wait a few extra seconds or more for his flashes to recycle. At one point, after I had just taken a shot and triggered his flashes again, I glanced over and saw him give me a dirty look -- as if to imply, "Really? Again??" Hey, what can I say -- do us all a favor, pal, and spend $40 on some radio triggers. That way you won't have this problem.
I did try to go talk to him afterwards, both to sort of apologize and to suggest that he invest in some radio triggers, but he took off to another location, entourage in tow, and I didn't get the chance. I'll admit that it did seem rather odd to me, that a guy shooting with a Canon 5D MK II, "L" lenses, and expensive Canon 580EX flashes wasn't using radio triggers...I would guess that he was using E-TTL auto modes, and that was the reason. But seriously, before you head out on a shoot like that, in a public place where there's a very good chance lots of other photographers will be around, think things through; other people's flashes are going to set yours off, and you're going to be frustrated (and possibly unable to get the shots you need) if you plan on using optical triggers. Save those for when you're in a secluded spot.

Oh, and our shots came out very nicely, I think.

For more about using small flashes remotely, and radio triggers, head over to the Strobist blog, where David Hobby explains it all very well.

Did I really take 2 years off?

2011-02-15T13:57:00.000-08:00

Yes, I did. From the blog, anyway. But not from working -- which is why there are two years since the last post, I've been busy "making it as a pro." Things have been super busy (which is good), and every time I'd remind myself that I have a blog post idea, ten other things would come up (which is bad).
So, here it is two years since my last post...I've worked a lot of jobs since then, learned a lot, and have a lot more to add. And part of my new year includes making time to post here regularly.
I hope to have information of value to put up, based on the past two years of hard work. And to pick up some more followers. For those that have been checking back here now and then, thanks for doing so...and more is coming! I'll have a full new post up later today.
-- end --

Birthday Project!

2009-01-07T08:49:00.001-08:00

It's been a busy holiday season, giving me little time to post...but things are calming down and the new year has begun, so I'm back.

Tomorrow is my birthday -- I'll be 49. 49! Most people who know me tell me that I don't look 49, but they usually don't see me rolling out of bed before I've had my coffee...so what do they know? Hey, compare for yourself from the image above. That's Michelle Pfeiffer at 49 (not at all a fair comparison, I'm sure she'll be hot when she's 80), Donny Osmond at 49 (ok, he has more hair than I do -- but is it real?!), and me at 49. I think I've held up well...
I decided to celebrate my 49th birthday -- the last year of life according to some folks -- but doing a little photographic project. Tomorrow I'm going to shoot 49 images of whatever life throws at me, no studio stuff or set-up shots, just life. I'll post them on the web and put up a link here. Sort of a day in the life.

Projects such as this are one way I try to keep the creative juices flowing, and I find that they really help me keep up enthusiasm for photography even when it's a business. A few years ago I found myself in a bit of a funk, not knowing what to shoot or even whether I wanted to shoot anything or not. I consciously missed the excitement I had felt, the renewal and giddy exhiliration, when I got my first DSLR and began to explore the possibilities of high-quality digital photography. I hauled that Canon 300D (Digital Rebel) with me everywhere I went, and took pictures every chance I got. I didn't want my photography to become a "job" that I only did to make money, I wanted that thrill and excitement back!

As my son was getting interested in photography about that same time, I decided we'd do a weekly project -- every Sunday night, we'd flip through the pages of the dictionary randomly, and with our eyes closed point to a word. Our project for the week then was to take a photo that showed what that word meant to us. Some were obvious and easy ("fear," "boring"), but some words were outrageously difficult (try making a photo for "beluga" or "digest" !!). But that was the whole point, to make us think, to get the creative juices flowing, and to expand our ability to tell stories with pictures. It's worked very well, and we still do our weekly project, with my wife and daughter as the judges of who did the best job that week!

Even though this is my full-time business now, it's good to have tangible reminders of why I wanted to do this in the first place -- because I love taking pictures and telling stories with them. Sometimes the "story" being told is a frozen moment in time of a person or family -- thinking of it that way, though, instead of just as a "portrait" helps give it more meaning, and honestly pushes me to do more than a quick light set-up and click the shutter...if I remember that I'm recording a memory for these folks that they and their children and grandchildren will cherish for a lifetime, it's more enjoyable. And it focuses my thinking.

I truly love photography. Like a marriage to someone you truly love, reminding yourself of why you love it and taking actions to keep it fresh and interesting are affirming actions that pay big dividends. Don't get bogged down in commerce, make art (even if you're doing product shots of things you'd never buy). Do consider every image to be your legacy, and something that others will remember. Feel the love every time you press the shutter!

The "49 Project" link will be up late tomorrow. Assuming, of course, this old body holds up long enough to get it done!

2008-12-21T09:57:00.001-08:00

It's nearly the end of the year, when I like to take stock of how my business did over the past twelve months...what did I do right, what did I do wrong, how can I do better next year?
Most of these kinds of questions are straightforward, but the most perplexing one to me is: What's the best way to advertise my business? Frankly, I haven't got a clue....

I make it a point to ask all of my first-time clients how they heard about me or came to hire me. That information goes into the client's entry in my database (along with their contact information) to help me figure out the best way to get my name out into the community. When someone in my vicinity needs a photographer, I want them to think of me first! The trouble is, what I've found out from this gathered information is bothering me.

Last year I decided to splurge on an ad in one of the Yellow Pages variants. For about $60 per month, I got two good-sized picture ads in the book itself (one under Photographers - Portrait and one under Wedding Services), and an on-line listing that had my picture ads and a link to my web site. The book I chose had the largest circulation in my area. The day the book came out last May, I patted myself on the back for my decision -- because I got 3 calls the first day and 2 calls the second day it was out, resulting in 3 hired jobs (one wedding and two portrait shoots). And those calls came directly from the Yellow Pages ad.

But then it gets confusing...because over the next 6 months, with the book still out there in the hundreds of thousands of copies and the on-line ad still running, I got exactly 1 more call. One! It seems people looked at the book the day they got it, then never looked at it again. And I've not had a single traceable response to the on-line version of that ad. The profit from the three jobs booked from it paid for the ad (just barely), but with just six calls in six months this clearly wasn't the best way to let people know about my services.

The truth is, using my question asked of all first-time clients, well over 90% of them get my name from an existing client -- they're direct referrals. Happy clients tell other people, and they call me. Another 8% find my website (if you search for "photographer" and my town name in google, I come up first), and the remaining 2% saw an ad that they responded to. Those ads include the Yellow Pages, ads in the local paper and local magazines, ads in programs for local plays, school events, and other community programs, and direct mail ads. So basically I spent somewhere around $4000 for ads in the above locations over the past year, and brought in only 2% of my new customers with them -- which didn't nearly pay for the ads themselves.

Now, I'm not necessarily taking a short-term view of this. Since my referral rate is so high (which I'm quite proud of, because it means I'm satisfying my customers!) I'm sure I'll get more referrals from those few new clients that came in from advertising, and over the long run it might be worth it. But a cursory review doesn't seem to indicate that what I spend was worth what I got -- I probably could have brought in the same number of new customers by standing on the street corner and handing out cards, which would have cost me nothing.

So yeah, I'm perplexed by how to advertise. Have I just chosen the wrong places to put my ads? Did the ads not convey my message well enough? Should I just bad it all except my website, and spend time (instead of money) personally promoting myself? I'm just not sure.

I've heard all of the statistics that marketing folks use, like a 0.5% response rate to a direct-mail ad is considered good, etc. And honestly, I think that's pretty darn stupid. It's almost enough to make a person believe that those who are in the business of making/printing/distributing ads are all colluding to get us to spend money that doesn't produce any good results, while at the same time convincing us that our money was wisely spent! Sure, pony up thousands of dollars per year with very little return, everybody's doing it...and if you get one new customer you're doing great! Anybody else have a problem with that logic?

I've got 10 days left this year to arrive at my year-end conclusions and make some decisions for next year. I'm still not sure if I'm going to be doing the same kind of advertising as I did this past year. According to Google analytics there are now about 100 people reading each of these posts I put up (thanks!) -- if any of you have comments or suggestions about the best way to advertise, please do leave a comment. I can make great photos, I know how to make my customers happy, and I know how to get them to give me referrals...but I haven't got a clue how to advertise. Help? :)

My Pictures are Better than Yours!

2008-12-16T15:19:00.000-08:00

I live and work in a small town. That means I'm probably not going to be shooting the next Pepsi ad campaign...and it means most of my commercial work comes from small, local companies. The availability of high-quality, inexpensive digital cameras has convinced a lot of these small companies that they can do their own photo work, which they often do -- badly. Because they might not know how much difference a professional, high-quality image can make to their web sites, advertisements, and promotional materials they often decide that their own work is "good enough." How can I get their business? There's really only one way: show them that my pictures are better than theirs.

I'm quite serious about the title of this post -- so serious, in fact, that I've actually had advertising postcards made up and sent out that have a similar before-after photo pair like you see here, with just one sentence across the top: My Pictures are Better than Yours! Especially in a worsening economy like today, it takes some salesmanship to convince small business owners of the benefits of professionally done photography. While frankly I *hate* selling, I think I'm pretty good at this kind of campaign because I believe in the quality of my work, and I believe that there truly are benefits to these folks if they get better quality images in their business materials.
Fortunately, some of my existing clients had already figured this out for themselves, after trying to do their own photography and deciding it wasn't good enough. And they've been kind enough to let me use some of their own images for my "yours vs. mine" advertising, as well as act as references if potential new clients want to call and ask about me.

The custom kitchen image above is a good case study for this type of marketing. The owner of a small custom construction/remodeling company had built his own web page and taken his own images -- for which he gets an "A" for effort. However, he had several people tell him that while it looked like he did great cabinet work, his website photos didn't show that off very well. They were dark, muddy, and boring (his words, not mine!). He found my website while looking for a pro photographer in his area (he lives in my small town), and had me re-shoot several of his jobs that he had already done. The updated images were posted on his website, and he learned two things about his "marketing image:" One, his competitors were checking out his web site -- he learned this because several of them called him, commented on the great photos on his site, and asked him who he had used as a photographer (and yes, I got several new jobs out of those referrals). Two, he learned how effective "better" images can be...because he started getting comments from potential customers about how beautiful his work looked on his web site and mailers -- while using his previous self-made photos, he told me that he had to spend time convincing people that the final work would look better than the photos where now he has people call and say they want their kitchen to look just like that photo!

My client realized a real, tangible improvement in the image people have of his company and of his work, and he's received more sales calls because of better photography. That's the message I try to get out in my small town -- it's worth the money spent to make a great impression for your business with professional photography. I think my slogan gets the point across succintly and somewhat humorously...I can tell you that people that see it remember it!

Now if I can just get that message across to the 95% or so of the local businesses that aren't my clients yet...time to go make more mailers!

Shoot for Free and Get Paid

2008-12-11T15:49:00.000-08:00

In my last post I sounded a cautionary note about working for "free" -- with good reason, I think, given that it can lead to being taken advantage of. Today I thought I'd counterbalance that with a "success story," a personal experience that shows how doing free work can lead to more business -- if you do it right.

Last year, I had been doing some free work for my local community theatre group. One of the actors in the play was also a producer for a start-up but larger theatre group, the San Diego Hispanic Arts Theatre. She asked if I could come and shoot the dress rehearsal for their first play -- for free, since they were just starting and had no money. I agreed, deciding to see if I could make the most of the opportunity.
The first thing I did was make up flyers for all of the actors in the play, and pass them out the night I shot. I offered CDs with images from the shoot and prints at reasonable (starving-actor level!) prices. I also offered a "headshot special" to any actors in the play. I stapled one of my business cards to each flyer, then went and did the shoot.

A quick aside...if you've never shot a small theatre company performance (or dress rehearsal), be prepared to work hard but have some serious fun. The people involved are outgoing, committed to their art, and not only work hard but make the most of their time on stage so that they have serious fun doing what they love (sound familiar?). These shoots have been some of the most enjoyable work I've done.

Anyway...I shot the dress rehearsal, provided overnight prints to the producer to use on the theatre's entrance, and provided them a CD to give to press and to use for ads -- all gratis. It was lots of fun, and everybody loved the pictures.

A week after the show closed, I got orders for CDs and prints. Not that many, but enough to make it worth my while (about $400 worth). A few weeks later I got a call for my "headshot special." Then another, and another -- I did 8 of them altogether. Suddenly I've made around $600 profit from my "free" shoot, and I have some happy new clients. Over the next few months I did a few more headshot sessions, some of which were for actors not in the play but referred to me by those that were.

The director of the play is a fairly well-known actor/director/producer -- and a terrific guy (Carlos Mendoza). Late in the summer he and his brother did a Latin song-dance production called "The New Mambo Kings," and guess who he called to shoot the production (for pay this time)? Yep, the photographer he already knew and whose work he liked. Altogether my "free" shoot brought in over $3000 in profit, and 8-10 new clients who will use me regularly.

Tonight I'm going to shoot the same play, in its second season. I have better flyers than last year, I'm offering a few more specials...but I'm still doing it for free. The company is more profitable now (though still not rich!), and they could probably afford to pay me...but I didn't even ask. It's partially the same cast as last year, but with some new faces as well...and I fully expect to get more CD, print, headshot, and referral business out of this. Plus I get to shoot something I love and have a fun night.

So...doing the free work can indeed pay off in new business and referrals. It can establish relationships with people who will use you for other paying work, and who will tell others about you. Just make sure when you get into something like this that everyone understands that you don't *always* work for free, and that you're looking for more work, and that you're being nice by donating your time and effort and materials. As long as those involved don't think they can call on you to do free work all the time, it can be a great experience!

Make Money working for Free?

2008-12-09T08:13:00.000-08:00

I was all set to write an entry today about some ideas for making money as a photographer in a tough economy, when I came across this post in the Strobist blog. Work for free? How is that going to pay the bills?

Actually, part of what I was already going to write was to do personal projects (for no pay), and to do occasional free work to get yourself known in your community -- so you can get *paying* jobs from that exposure. And so I was a bit surprised by my initial reaction to the Strobist post.

I mean sure, it's easy to be magnanimous and do some free work when you're an established pro with plenty of high-paying jobs. When you don't have to worry about paying the rent or putting food on the table. But what about those of us struggling to make it, who are being hit hard by the bad economy, and have seen our bread and butter local work fall off by 50% or more (like mine has)? Wouldn't your time be better spent doing paying jobs, or at least looking for them?

I also thought the post glossed over some of the downsides to doing free work. When I first started full-time as a photographer, I joined a local business organization, and was flattered that they put me on the Board of Directors almost immediately. I thought it was due to my enthusiasm and organizational skills. It turned out to be partly that, but mostly because they wanted me to shoot all of the organization's events for free, do free publicity shoots, businessman of the year shots, board portraits, etc. When the free work started to take up too much of my time, I spoke to the president about it, and mentioned that a board member who was a lawyer did indeed do the organization's legal work -- but charged his normal fee. The president himself was a realtor, and I didn't see him doing free real estate work for board members. Why was it different for me? "Well, you're just a photographer," was his reply, "it's not like you're a lawyer or anything." Clearly they saw what I did as a glorified hobby, not as a profession that I'd invested years of study and practice in. I quit the board.

I honestly do believe that doing well-chosen free projects can get your name out in your town, and show the quality of work you can do. Such projects can result in a considerable amount of paid work down the road. And working on your own personal projects when time allows keeps the creative juices flowing, and keeps the joy in your work after a day of shooting product shots that you may not care about, or another real estate interior of another house that's not going to sell.

My point is that those of us that aren't already extremely well established need to keep the bottom line in mind, and carefully consider the free projects we do. If you're going to make a living as a photographer, you need to get paid to be a photographer...and doing too much or the wrong kind of free work can simply result in you being labeled a "hobbyist" (no pun intended, David!) instead of a professional.

Pick the jobs you do for free very carefully. Don't do work for free that you could or should be paid for. By all means, do free work for groups or people who normally couldn't afford to hire a professional -- and make sure you get some advertising in return so that it brings you business. I hope that doesn't sound too mercenary...and I really do take on free projects for worthwhile causes, so I believe in the concept. Just be careful what you choose to do for free, and how you choose to do it.

In Praise of Senior Portraits

2008-12-04T06:48:00.000-08:00

I wish Senior Portrait season would last all year long. Interesting (and willing!) subjects, all kinds of fun ways to photograph them, and very good money -- who could ask for more? If you do portrait photography, this is as good as it gets.

If you're not doing senior portraits now, you should be. Get ready now for this summer and fall. A few things you need to know to get in on this enjoyable and lucrative side of the business:

Most high schools have an "approved list of photographers" -- students can only have their photos done by those on the approved list. Contact the high schools in your area, and tell them you want to be on the approved list for next year. Usually you'll have to meet with the school yearbook advisor, and probably show some samples. If you don't have samples, offer to do some portraits for some kids in your area for free -- it'll be worth it to get on the school's list!

Senior Portraits usually consist of two things...a formal portrait that will go into the school yearbook, and "fun" portraits for the kids and their families. Schools have strict requirements for the yearbook portraits, certain lighting styles, backgrounds, clothing standards. Make sure you know their rules and follow them! It's with the "fun" shots that you can be creative. Get the kids to bring their athletic uniforms, band gear, etc. Try fun and unusual poses, locations, and props. The kids will really get into the session -- they don't often get a chance to ham it up and show off their special talents. And the "fun" shots are also the biggest sellers when it comes time to sell additional prints!

How much should you charge? First, check the other photographers in your area to see what their prices are. If you're new, set your price a little below the prevailing rate to drive business to you, but not so low that it's not profitable. While many photographers charge a flat "session fee" that includes shooting time and proofs only, then sell additional print packages after that fee, I've found it's best to have a complete package up-front -- that includes the session, proofs, and a print package all rolled into one (for example, my $200 standard package includes a 1-2 hour studio session with unlimited outfit changes, printed proofs, and a print package of 1-8x10, 2-5x7's, and 12 wallets. It proved much more popular than a $150 session fee with no prints!). Your fee should always include delivery of their chosen yearbook photo to the school on CD or DVD.

Advertising your senior portrait services should start before the end of the current school year -- in May or June. Most schools have a campus newspaper, where ads are resonably priced. Put brochures or flyers at the school's office as well (if they allow it). If you can, a web site with examples of your work should be done and up, and referred to on your ad materials. You'll usually start shooting in July or August, and have to deliver final yearbook shots to the school by October.

When clients start calling, be sure not to overbook yourself! Leave time to edit photos, prepare prints, go over proofs with clients, etc. For a small one-person studio like mine, I found that 6-8 sessions per week is about the limit I can do and have time to do all of the additional work well. Most of the sessions will be late afternoons or evenings, and weekends -- so plan your free time around weekday mornings!

One cautious note: I'd strongly advise that you never, ever shoot a session with just you and the student, with nobody else present. Always have an adult relative of the student (parent is best!) there. It's sad that it has to be this way, but you don't want to leave yourself open to even a suggestion of inappropriate behavior with a minor. Make sure you protect yourself by having other adults present during sessions.

With session fees, print package sales afterwards, novelty items (mugs, calendars, etc.) and other fun items, I averaged a net profit of $260 per student this past year. I was pretty much fully booked from the middle of July until October. You can do the math...this is a great money making opportunity, and it's some of the most fun and enjoyable work you can do as a portrait photographer.

Go get on your local schools' lists, and have an enjoyable time making good money -- and giving these great kids a memory they'll cherish for years!

Here we go...

2008-12-01T16:41:00.000-08:00

Just over two years ago, I left a 20-year career in computer software development to do what I'd wanted to do since I was a teenager -- work as a professional photographer. I've been taking photos seriously since I was 14, had my first picture published in a national magazine at 16, and was all set to become a photojournalist...until I didn't. Instead I wrote programs, made video games, and managed people for all that time -- making great money, but always being a hard-core photo enthusiast on the side, and every now and then wishing I'd taken a different course...

Was I crazy to try this in my 40's? Probably! It's certainly been a struggle, lots of hard work, and I don't make nearly as much money as I used to. But while I may be a bit slow on the uptake, I finally did follow my dream. I've had some good success, and some spectacular failures. I'm learning more every day -- and I'm shooting *something* every day. It sure feels great to follow (even very late) your dream job. And sometimes the reality is just like I dreamed it would be!

I started this blog for several reasons: to vent when I get discouraged or frustrated, to share the joy when something goes well...but more than anything else, to hopefully share what I learn about getting jobs, running the business side, perfecting the craft, and enjoying the ride with others who have done or are thinking of doing the same thing. I hope others find it interesting or useful.

Come on back for more as I get things rolling!