2009 | Photocrati

The Tuesday Composition: Areas of High Contrast

Morning by the Merced, Yosemite — Morning by the Merced. Notice how your eye is more attracted to the tree leaves than the canyon walls.

If you like this article, you can now get the book! Joe has expanded the “Tuesday Composition” series into an inspiring new ebook on composition, especially for nature photography. Check it out: The Tuesday Composition.

In a previous column we’ve talked about how the eye is attracted to and tends to follow along edges in a scene, and that similarly, the eye tends not to spend much time wandering in the center of silhouetted areas, tending to explore the edges of those areas instead. Both of these ideas are related to the fact that as one looks at an image over time, the eye will spend more time looking at areas of high contrast than areas of lower contrast. If your image is half-solid without texture, and half a simple textured pattern, the viewers’ eyes will tend (depending, of course, on the dozens of other factors that go into human perception) to spend more time wandering around the patterns.

This autumn image from Yosemite Valley demonstrates the principle. As we look at the image over time, our eye spends a lot of time wandering around the tree branches and leaves compared to the shadowed valley walls or the thin strip of foreground grasses. If we were just trying to understand why our eye spends more time on the tree than the valley wall we might think it was just a matter of the tree leaves being highlights that our eyes are attracted to. But here, while our eyes might very well be first attracted to the brightest part of the image (the grasses at the base of the image), the the eye will eventually spend more time wandering the more interesting and complex patterns of the branches. And the large contrast in the tree leaves (both color contrast and tonal contrast) is a primary reason why. (more…)

Spoiled!

I recently twittered (we’ve got a Photocrati twitter feed here, check it out and give us a follow!) comparing noise between modern digital SLRs and drum-scanned Velvia. I was fairly gobsmacked by going back and looking at some five-to-eight year old drum scans I’d had done of my early 35mm landscape work, most particularly by just how spoiled we’ve all gotten about low noise images.

What I said was “OMG, my old, clean, crisp drum scans of 50-speed film, remembered fondly, have more noise than ISO 1600 DSLR files. Progress!!!!” (more…)

July Thank You Post

Every once in a while, we like to say thanks to those who've supported or helped us in some way. In that spirit, we'd like to say thanks to the…

Q and A: What kind of scanner will fit my needs?

Question

I need to buy a high resolution scanner to digitize tons of slides and negatives when I retire in September. Can you compare film scanners and flatbeds with a transparency adapter for performance in creating digital files from 35mm film, suitable for making 13×19 inch prints with an Epson 2880? Which type would be the best bet? Philip Renaud

Answer

Thanks for your question, Philip. A full assessment would require a test of several brands/types of scanners, a major undertaking that’s not possible for the Q&A. But based on my research — and experience with scanners of both types — I’d say you should be satisfied with a top-of-the-line flatbed or a dedicated a film scanner. Frankly, such equipment is not inexpensive but either type should provide the level of quality you’ll want from the scans for making 13×19″ prints. (more…)

The art of the callsheet

Imagine a theoretical job where you’ve got to coordinate yourself, two client representatives, three business executives who will be photographed, your assistant, a makeup artist and a homeowner whose home you’ll be shooting in. Oh, and you’ll have five minutes of your subjects’ time, the shoot is outdoors and subject to weather whims, and the subjects and the clients all come from the staid, yet much beat up, financial industry. Sounds like fun. Enter the call sheet.

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Olympus E-620 Four Thirds DSLR Two-Lens Kit Review

A versatile, compact, and competent 12.3 MP Live MOS DSLR in the Four Thirds format, with lenses to match.

With the Olympus E-620 in hand, I combated intermittent bouts of pouring rain to photograph a league soccer game played in a local park. The rains here in New York had been incessant over the past few weeks, and who knew when I’d get another chance, since games are only played on weekends!

I began with the 40-150mm f/4~5.6 lens (= 80-300mm in 35mm format, given the 2X sensor factor)–one of two lenses that came in the kit. I progressed on to the 12-60mm f/2.8~4 SWD (= 24-120mm)–this one was added. SWD stands for Supersonic Wave Drive, designed as a faster and quieter technology driving AF functions. The other kit lens was a 14-42mm f/3.5~5.6 ( =28-84)–a lens I had little use for, given that this focal length range was covered by the more encompassing SWD zoom.

Olympus E-620 with 12-60mm SWD lens (front view). The E-620 proves that the Four Thirds format is not simply a fly-by-night attempt to improve the genre. This digital format will be here for a very long time. The 12-60mm SWD lens is a good choice as a first lens. But I do think it's overpriced. Copyright ©2009 Jack Neubart. All rights reserved.

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The Tuesday Composition: Blacks, Shadows and Silhouettes

Sunset Flames, Second Beach — Sunset Flames. Second Beach

If you like this article, you can now get the book! Joe has expanded the “Tuesday Composition” series into an inspiring new ebook on composition, especially for nature photography. Check it out: The Tuesday Composition.

Two weeks back we looked at how our eyes tend to behave around photographic highlights. This week we’ll spend a little time looking at the flip side of that coin, dark areas in an image.

Silhouettes provide the clearest examples. Much as our eyes seem to want to dwell in highlights, our eyes avoid dwelling in the blacks of featureless silhouettes. I believe that this is one of the reasons that in general, (and I once again must remind you that all of these compositional “rules” are really statements about what tends to happen, not what always happen, not what must happen) we don’t find featureless black areas problematic in color photographs nearly so often as we find blown, featureless highlights.

The featureless black of silhouettes seems to push the eye to the edges of the object being silhouetted, where our eyes will will tend to trace along the edges of the silhouette, emphasizing the shape of that object. Thus the studio lighting maxim, “front-lighting for color, side-lighting for texture, back-lighting for form.” (more…)

Video Review: Reichmann and Resnick’s “Where the #%*! are My Pictures?””

Whirlwind Rainbow, Seljalandfoss, Iceland. Image Copyright 2009 Joe Decker — Whirlwind Rainbow. Seljalandfoss, Iceland. Selecting the right keywords for this image will be critical to helping me sell this image as stock. Image Copyright 2009 Joe Decker

Several times a year I teach a one-day workshop on optimizing images using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 at the local art league, and in doing so I’m often asked for a good book recommendation for someone learning Lightroom. As I’ve mentioned in my previous review, my usual recommendation has been Martin Evening’s book The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Book: The Complete Guide for Photographers.

In the process of keeping my eyes open for new resources, I recently purchased and watched “Where the #%*! are My Pictures?”, a three-hour video series by Michael Reichmann and Seth Resnick which focuses on the the file-handling, digital asset management (roughly speaking, the Library module) aspects of Lightroom. I’ll be adding this to my list of top recommendations for Lightroom resources, I think it’s particularly appropriate for folks who have a basic familiarity with Lightroom but are ready to take their understanding up a notch and really make their workflow sing.

The question “Where are my images?” creeps up on most photographers as they continue to work over years. Three years ago I was convinced that that this “digital asset management” thing was quite possibly overkill for me. After all, I knew most of my images and I had everything organized in directories by year and location. How hard could it be for me to find an image someone might want of Death Valley? My first lesson came when I got a request to see all my flower macro work. I spent hours putting together that request. “Where the #%*!…” reinforces that lesson while at the same time showing that the cure for that disease is a lot less imposing than it might seem at first. Good habits and good presets go a long way toward making Lightroom file management easier, and this series does a great job of helping photographers along that path. (more…)

Wedding Photography Lighting – Find the level that’s right for you

I was talking with a friend of my wife’s yesterday and she asked, “Can you help me pick out a new camera? I want to take better pictures of my kids.”

I get this sort of question all the time and it’s a tough one to answer. Most people don’t understand that good photography comes in levels (like Donkey Kong). Sure, it starts with a decent DSLR but then it moves up through many different levels of skill. The real question you have to ask yourself when you want to take better pictures is: How much time am I willing to dedicate towards learning to take good photographs? Then I can help you choose your equipment.

The same question applies to wedding photography. Search the web and you will find prices from $500 – $5000 for a wedding photographer. How can that be? Well, it’s all about the levels and like Donkey Kong there are several different ladders you can choose to climb if you want to reach the big gorilla. So, with that in mind, let’s talk about the “Flash” ladder. (I’m a wedding photographer in Tampa, FL) (more…)

Q and A: What’s the deal with the new Micro Four Thirds format?

Question

Can you explain the new Micro Four Thirds format? What is the point of a camera like this compared to one that fits into a shirt pocket like my Lumix FS25 with 29-145mm lens? I see that both Panasonic and Olympus are making Micro cameras now, but they’re not very small and they are very expensive. Why would anyone want one of those? J. N.

Answer

JN, yes, Panasonic was the first to introduce a Micro Four Thirds camera, the Lumix DMC-G1 Panasonic Lumix DMC-G1 12.1MP Digital Camera with Lumix G Vario 14-45 mm f/3.5-5.6 ASPH Mega OIS Lens (Blue)($623, with 14-45mm zoom lens). Their more recent model, the brand new DMC-GH1 ($1500 with a 14-140mm lens that’s perfect for video capture), includes some upgrades and an HD Movie mode.

Olympus recently announced their new contender, the E-P1 Olympus PEN E-P1 12.3 MP Micro Four Thirds Interchangeable Lens Digital Camera with 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 Zuiko Digital Zoom Lens (Silver Body/Black Lens) ($800 with 14-42mm lens); this model also features an HD Movie mode. (more…)