Leaving the Open-source Software Bandwagon ...

I've been debating for a while about changing my software tools for photo editing and manipulation. For years now I've been a big proponent of the open-source tools available, my primary tool being GIMP, the GNU Image Manipulation Program, but also including QTPFSGUI (Luminance HDR), a HDR creation tool, and UfRAW for RAW file processing. However, the biggest reason behind my shift has been failure to deliver, bugs, and lack of features in the open-source software, the biggest being a lack or difficulty in dealing with higher bit-depths on image files.

The first big jump I made was in my HDR processing software - I ponied up the money and switched to Photomatix Pro, which is really the industry standard for HDR image processing. Why? For the longest time I had been quite happy using Luminance HDR and got comparable results when compared to Photomatix. Recent releases, however, were a bit buggy and I was not able to get the results I wanted, no matter what work-arounds I tried.

And thus the slide down the slippery slope began ...

I saw that Adobe is offering a free, fully-functional beta download of their Lightroom 4 and figured I would give it a shot. It will work until LR4 is officially released, but that gives me about two months to give it a trial run. Well, their ploy has worked, for me at least. I plan on purchasing the full copy when it is released.

Not having delved into the Photoshop/Lightroom world (scorned it, actually, for the longest time), I have to say I am very impressed with LR4, even in Beta. First, it handles the higher bit depths of RAW files. For a brief discussion on this and the importance of working at a higher bit depth, go here. GIMP works at the 8-bit level while my Canon 7D RAW images are at 14 bits. Secondly, the interface is great - the basic workflow you take an image through is essentially top to bottom in the Develop module. Third, features. This follows on a bit from the interface and workflow setup. LR4 beta has great features and they are easy to find and use. You don't have to go hunting through a series of drop-down menus or get a third-party plugin (that you hope works) to do many basic functions. Fourth, available training. Adobe has great training videos on their web site that walk you through the features of a product and how to use it. This is a company that wants you to learn and enjoy and the tools they have created - and pony up the big money for them - their existence depends on that.

The one hook is that, while LR4 can do many things, it can't do them all. One feature that is lacking in LR which I use often is layers and layer masks. Photoshop does this, plus so much more.

Photo of the Week - Week 5

This post is a bit late, so I'll have the next week right after this one...

I have been wanting to work more with the softbox, to get some practice before I do a "real" shoot with anyone. Luckily, we've had some birthdays this past month, so that gives me a great excuse.I also have downloaded the beta version of Lightroom 4 to play with - so far I'm hooked.




Shutter Speed: 1/100s
Aperture: F7.1
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 50mm
Lens: Tamron 17-55mm

This is a simple portrait, but just a couple of things I like about it: The background color brings out the green in her eyes and the color of the bear compliments the scene nicely. The lighting is simple - just the softbox at about 1/4 power, just enough to open the shadows up slightly.

Photo of the Week - Week 4

This week's topic - shooting at a high ISO.

I typically try to shoot the lowest ISO possible (usually 100) in order to get the cleanest image possible. That said, sometimes it just isn't possible to shoot that low. Since I haven't used my higher ISO settings that much on my camera, I figured I needed to play around with it a bit and try to push my camera a bit to see what it can do.

I usually shoot in manual mode and changing the ISO was just one extra thing to do. Besides, I usually want to shoot at ISO 100 so that just left me with the aperture and shutter speed to get the exposure I wanted. However, one of the reasons I bought my new camera last spring was (supposedly) to be able to shoot cleaner images at a high ISO. This past week I finally got around to it and have found some rules of thumb I like for shooting decent images at a higher ISO.

My general settings have been to shoot in Aperture Priority mode (Av), with the exposure compensation set to over expose slightly: +1/3 to +1 stop.

I did use Canon Digital Photo Professional 3.8.1 (came with the camera) to reduce the chromatic noise just a little bit, but not much. When I previously shot higher ISOs, I would use Noiseware, but I generally used much stronger noise reduction.

Follow the links through to view the full-size image via Flickr.

Shutter Speed: 1/5s
Aperture: F8.0
ISO:1600
Exposure Compensation: +1
Focal Length: 50mm
Lens: Tamron 17-55mm

Shutter Speed: 1/500s
Aperture: F5.6
ISO: 3200
Exposure Compensation: +1/3
Focal Length: 50mm
Lens: Tamron 17-55mm

Shutter Speed: 1/20s
Aperture: F5.6
ISO: 3200
Exposure Compensation: +1
Focal Length: 47mm
Lens: Tamron 17-55mm

The trade-off: With the noise reduction, the image may not be as sharp as one shot at ISO 100 with no noise reduction. But then, I don't plan on printing any of these poster-sized ... so that works for me.

But just as an example, contrast the above images (full-size view) with the below, which is shot at a low ISO and lit with a softbox:

Shutter Speed: 1/100s
Aperture: F5.6
ISO:100

Focal Length: 50mm
Lens: Tamron 17-55mm

Photo of the Week - Week 3

I finally got the rest of my Christmas presents and got a chance to play around with one of them - a 24" square softbox for my flashes. I've been using shoot-through umbrellas and my homemade beauty dish, but have wanted a softbox for a while. I'll post some other pictures another time, but wanted to get one posted.


Shutter Speed: 1/200s
Aperture: F4.0
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 50mm
Lens: Tamron 17-55mm
Flash: 1/4 power, through softbox

True to its name, a softbox gives nice, soft light that just wraps around your subject. In the above shot it's about two feet from her, above and slightly to the left, as you can tell by the highlight in her eye.

I had been shooting some pictures of the cats - surprisingly enough, they hung out and let me snap a few photos of them - when Natalie came by. She insisted that she wanted to take "lots" of pictures, most of which were her jumping through the air. After a while, she laid down and relaxed on the couch, which is when I got this picture. Just a bit of post-production to make it black and white (red filter) and to add a slight vignette.

New Black and White Gallery

On my Zenfolio storefront web site, I have added a black and white gallery, with some of my black and white images. I'll be adding to this as time goes on, but just wanted to put something out there now!

There are some images in here that are not in other galleries.

Photo of the Week - Week 2

We finally were able to make it to the Panecillo, a prominent landmark here in Quito. I had tried to go there before with some friends who were visiting from out of town, but despite driving for way too long, we never made it. I decided that the Panecillo was a kind of mythical place that one could never reach. This time, however, some local friends guided us. I have to admit, however, that in all the long time I drove around unsuccessfully, I never once saw the roads we went on ... it was a whole neighborhood painted a kind of orangish-red.

Anyway, I had been trying to imagine the kind of images I wanted to make, should I ever actually get to the Panecillo. It's a large statue situated on a hill and overlooks the Old Town. If you've seen photos from Quito, there is probably a photo of this statue in there somewhere. I wanted to get photos of this icon that were not the standard, iconic photos. Having never been there, plus having five small kids in tow, meant this would have to be more of a recon photo shoot, though I did get some images I liked.

My thought was to really change the perspective of my shots - try and look at the statue from a different point of view than the standard. The idea I had was to lay on the ground and look up at the statue, as well as pulling in tighter for more detail shots. Here's one of the resulting images:



Shutter Speed: 1/60s
Aperture: F13
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 70mm
Lens: Canon 70-200mm L
Camera mounted on a tripod

In many of the other shots, I was able to get some good clouds in the background, which really add to the shots. In this one, however, no clouds, just plain blue sky. I wanted something to modify this and give something of a back lit appearance to the statue. I added a lomo effect, which gives a slight vignette to the edges of the frame. This time around, it worked well to achieve the look I wanted for this particular image.

The only other post-processing I did was to use the clone tool to get rid of the lightning rod sticking out of her head; just too distracting.

Photo of the Week - Week 1

Here's the first post of the new year and my new goal ...

Flash and Movement

Taking pictures with flash while the subject is moving can sometimes be a bit tricky; most flashes will have a maximum sync speed of 1/250 second, while kids will often be moving much fast than that ... If you've coughed up the money for a brand-name flash, then you can do high-speed sync, which will allow you to get to much higher shutter speeds. Another discussion for another time; I'm using more economically-priced flashes and remote flash triggers.

Timing - If you get your timing right, then you can mitigate ay effects of movement and the use of flash. Basically, your subject is moving slow enough that you won't get ghosting (see next part).

Shutter Speed: 1/320s
Aperture: F5.6
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 50mm
Lens: Tamron 17-55mm

In the above photo, I got him right at the apex of his swing - he's slowed down enough that he's essentially not moving, though just for a split second, so the timing is crucial. His father is holding the flash, which is at 1/8 power, with a diffuser cap on it, about three feet from his face, with the flash sideways (long side up and down to match the subject's body angle). Confession: I lucked out with the higher shutter speed - usually anything above 1/250s gives me a black band across the bottom of the frame. It may have been because the flash was at such a low power it gives me that extra bit of light but doesn't do too much more to the exposure of the frame. In other words, I get the highlights in the eyes, but the overall exposure is pretty close to what it would be without the flash. I wish I could say it was all planned out that way, but it wasn't ...

And now for something different ....

Shutter Speed: 1/15s
Aperture: F6.3
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 50mm
Lens: Tamron 17-55mm

In this case, the subject was spinning around and dancing when I make this exposure. The slow shutter speed will accentuate motion, giving me some blur/ghosting. The flash in this case fires when the shutter opens, at the beginning of the exposure, giving me part of the image that is well-exposed and in focus. As the shutter remains open other parts of the image are exposed, though not as much as with the initial flash. You can also set the flash to fire at the end of the exposure, right before the shutter closes. This is helpful if you want to "burn in" a dark background but then have a subject you want to expose with a flash.

The tricky part is making sure that part of the image that is well-exposed and in focus is the part you want, in this case the face. Since I wanted to convey movement in this image, it's going to be different than a crisp, static shot.

Portrait Photography Goals

After doing a few recent portrait sessions, I came to a realization - I don't do that well with adult portraits. I really have to work at it much more than with kids. After thinking this through a bit, I came to the conclusion that I'm not very good reading adult body language from behind the lens. In short, I need more practice.

I take a lot of pictures of kids - my kids, other people's kids (portraits, school programs, etc.) and have more practice and learning in reading children's body language from behind the lens. As a result, I have better timing and a better sense of how to photograph kids. Part of it is ease - most kids have few inhibitions and have no qualms about getting in front of a camera. Get them to dance, spin, jump, and they relax right away and you can get some great shots.

Adults, on the other hand, realize that picture that's being taken will capture their physical character traits in all their beauty or "uniqueness." And that picture will stick around. In fact, it's likely meant to be broadcast to a wide audience via cards, emails, blogs, portrait in the living room, etc. Adults realize all this and have a tendency to clam up, stiffen up, and get tense in front of the lens. They are suddenly very conscious and feel very exposed in front of the lens. The body language that children so easily broadcast is guarded and closed off by many adults. Teenagers - take this and multiple by 100.

So the question is - how to get adults - or teenagers, with all their hypersensitivity - to relax in front of the camera? How to read that adult body language, get them to reveal their personality, and, in short, lower their guard and become child-like for just a bit?

One of my photographic goals of this coming year is to work on grown-up portraits (adult portraits just doesn't sound appropriate) and document what works and what doesn't work. By putting something in writing here the thought is that it will help me process and think things through a bit more.

Related to this, another goal is to do a photo of the week, with a walk-through and some notes about it. Again, putting things down helps me slow down and really process something. So here's to a new year of photographic progress!

Working with layers

I recently took the girls on a day trip to the crater Puluahua, which is near the Equator. We've been to the top and looked down into the crater, but this time we went down into it.

It was neat because we were up in the clouds, which added to the feeling as we listened to A Christmas Carol.

As we came back out, I saw some cows grazing in a field; with the clouds rolling through and the dry corn stalks, it had a real autumn feeling to it. I wanted to get a photo that really emphasized all of those elements of autumn - the harvested stalks, the clouds and mist, and the desaturated colors. After some work I ended up with the below photo:

The original photo didn't quite capture what I was looking for, so I did some post-processing work using various layers.

One of the first layers I added was some additional mist. I kept waiting for more clouds to roll through but they stayed higher than I wanted. So I took a picture of the higher clouds and made that into a separate background image:



I added this as a layer on top of the original and then adjusted the opacity of it so I got a sense of the mist, but it didn't obscure the image below it. This was a quick creation - I plan to work on it a bit to make it a bit more random. Right now there is a definite grid pattern, resulting from me copying and pasting bits of the same thing over and over again.

Next I added another layer on top of the original - a black and white copy of the original. I adjusted the contrast so it was a bit darker. Then I lowered the opacity of this layer as well so I ended up with a desaturated version of the image revealed.

Then I bumped up the saturation of the colors on the bottom original until I had what I was looking for as far as colors go.

Finally I added a slight vignette around the image to darken the borders a bit.

Photographing Animals

This has been on my to-do list for a while and now I've got a bit of spare time I'm finally getting around to it. I've had a chance to do a bit more animal photography than I usually do (not counting small kids, which are kind of like trying to photograph wild animals ...). By no means am I an expert on this, but I've found a few things that I have liked in some of my animal photos I've taken recently.

Despite my joke about kids and animals, these same principles also apply to portrait photography of people.

Focus/Sharpness

The number one thing - make sure the photo is sharp and in focus, particularly the eyes, or in the case of the shark, other "notable" features, such as the teeth:

Get in close - use that zoom and/or blur the distractors

I believe that it's often hard to reveal personality though a photograph from a distance. If you want to reveal the subject of the photo, you often need to eliminate distractions in the frame; this can be done either through a selective depth of field or zooming in to fill the frame with the subject or a part of the subject.

This eagle looks like he's analyzing me. The specular highlight in the eye adds that little something extra to the shot (just happened to be there - no planning on my part).


Put the animal in context

On the other end of the spectrum from zooming in on a single subject is placing the subject within a broader environment within the frame. How you do this depends on the story you want to tell with the photo. In the case of the eagle and the mountain, I wanted to tell the story of this magnificent bird flying free above the Andes mountains in Ecuador.

For this next picture, I wanted to tell the story of a morning at the beach - we've got the sunset, a couple of birds on the water, and the early riser, who's basking in the early morning rays from the sun. This is a closer shot, there is more detail in the bird and you can see the light filtering through the large wing feathers.

Show the animal in action

This relates to putting the animal in context. We are telling a story, possibly more limited, that shows the animal doing what it does - flying, jumping, running.

In this case the eagle is diving in to catch a piece of meat thrown into the air by his handler.

Show relationships

Once again, this is related to a broader context, but this time we want to show the animal interacting with others - humans, animals - to tell a story about their relationships.

In this first one, the eagle is returning to his handler. The eagle lives on a rescue reserve and had been badly mistreated for some time. After a great deal of care and nurturing, he learned to fly, though he will never be able to return to the wild.

Quotes from "Nemo," anyone?