2009 | Photocrati

Pro Bono Work – continued

Recently, Steve Buchanan wrote an article on the value of pro bono work, or working for free.

This has also been a big discussion over at David Hobby’s blog (www.strobist.com), as well as Chase Jarvis’ blog (www.chasejarvis.com), which led to a scathing rebuttal by John Harrington.

The Strobist flickr forum also had a great discussion.

Personally, I’d like to share what “working for free” has done for me.

First, I think the phrase “working for free” is a misnomer. Nobody works for free. The second you pull the shutter release button, there’s wear and tear on your gear, which costs you money. Processing the photo requires a computer–which you had to buy. At the very least, doing all this costs you time, which is opportunity cost.

Personally, I prefer to call it “working for me”, rather than working for free. If someone else benefits, then that’s gravy–that’s all good–but just because I do something for free doesn’t mean I’m interested in doing YOUR thing for free.

Here’s a few things I’ve had the opportunity to do: (more…)

Book Review: Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite

One of the larger segments of the photographic book market is the “Photographer’s Guide” segment, numerous authors and publishers have, over the years, covered any number of photographic destinations. Michael Frye’s little ::amazon(“1930238002″,”Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite”):: is my favorite of the genre. It’s small, well-produced, and reflects the author’s deep knowledge of Yosemite National Park and surrounding areas. (more…)

Lumiquest Softbox III: Review

You know how this story goes: I’m working alone on an engagement shoot with a second speedlight on a tripod when suddenly a gust of wind catches the umbrella and everything comes crashing to the ground. This is how I found myself in need of a new umbrella.

One of the hardest things about working without an assistant is managing your off-camera lighting (plus, you have to get your own coffee, massage your own feet, change your own flat-tire, etc.). I go back-and-forth on it whenever I am about to do a shoot where I think I will be moving around a lot. Do I carry more equipment and sacrifice portability?

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Product Review: Eye-Fi Pro

When you shoot in the studio as much as I do you learn to hate cords. Power cords, sync cords, extension cords, data cables, all get in the way regularly. It’s not unusual for me to have a sync cord, AC adapter, cable release, USB cable and camera strap all attached to my camera at the same time. I use radio triggers for my strobes regularly, but sometimes a wired sync is necessary. If I’m tethered to the computer, I really need to use an AC adapter to power the camera as it doesn’t shut off automatically. If I use the tethering software I can remotely trigger the camera from the computer but sometimes the cable release is just more efficient. So anytime I’ve got the ability to cut a cord I’m willing to give it a try. (more…)

Q and A: What do you think about Infrared conversion for DSLRs?

Question

Can you comment on Infrared conversion for a DSLR camera? I am now using the Nikon D700 but I have an old Nikon D70 and I’m thinking of having it converted. I love to shoot nature and I am looking for something new in the look of my images. Do you have an opinion about converting cameras for this purpose? P. Babcock

Answer

I do know a couple of photo enthusiasts who had their old EOS Digital Rebels converted for Infrared photography but have not done so myself. Do note that the warranty of any DSLR-of any brand-will be void if it is modified. And once a camera has been converted to “IR Only”, it cannot be used for conventional photography unless you’re willing pay for a re-conversion.

Aside from those caveats, it’s a great idea if you really want to shoot Infrared photos for creative or scientific purposes with a rarely-used camera. (more…)

I have Lightroom, do I need Photoshop?

Mist and Snow, Cummings Creek Wilderness. One of multiple flaws in this image is the convergence of the tree trunks, they're slightly closer together at top than bottom. This could be easily corrected in Photoshop, not so easily in Lightroom alone. — Mist and Snow, Cummings Creek Wilderness. One of the multiple flaws in this image is the convergence of the tree trunks; they're slightly closer together at top than bottom. This could be easily corrected in Photoshop, not so easily in Lightroom alone.

One of the most common questions I get when teaching my Adobe Lightroom workshops, is whether Lightroom is enough. The answer to that question depends on your needs and goals. But it is worth spending a bit of time reviewing reasons a photographer who has Lightroom 2 might also want to invest in Photoshop:

Graphic Design: If you are authoring your own web site or other publications, you may want Photoshop (or other tools) for laying out text over images, and so on.
Healing Tool Differences: There are some really nice things Lightroom can do that Photoshop can’t (like synchronizing correction spots on identical compositions), but Lightroom’s spot removal tool works best on small spots. Photoshop’s healing brush seems a more powerful option for larger scale healing, such as removing linear defects like branches or cracks in scanned images. (more…)

Olympus E-3 Digital SLR Review: Field Test Report

A versatile camera, a powerful combo.

While it was fun to use, the Olympus E-620 did not leave a lasting impression. I needed to get back to my own DSLR system and do some serious shooting. Fast forward. Now the Olympus E-3 lands on my doorstep. Obviously not the newest camera in the Olympus Four Thirds DSLR camp, the pro-level E-3 certainly is the one that takes itself most soberly, as the flagship in the fleet.

You might say, I began with the progeny and traced its lineage back to the progenitor. Well, not all the way back, an interim step but a quantum leap above the original E-1, the DNA strand from which all Olympus digital SLRs evolved.

Olympus E-3 front. The Olympus E-3 looks, feels, and works like a pro-level camera. The only thing that detracts from that impression is the built-in flash. On the other hand, it's nice to have on occasion. Copyright ©2009 Jack Neubart. All rights reserved.

The E-3 ($1,250) begins with the high-speed Live MOS sensor and 10.1 million effective pixels. It also features Olympus’s Supersonic Wave Filter dust reduction system for the image sensor, along with image stabilization built into the camera body (effective range: 5 steps, according to the specs), making it usable with every compatible Four Thirds lens (and there are lots of them). (more…)

The Tuesday Composition: A Few More Quick thoughts on Direction

Curves and Lines, Swanton Road. Reading direction, in additition to other factors, influence most Western viewers to "read" the curvy tree first, the straight trees second. — Curves and Lines, Swanton Road. Reading direction, in additition to other factors, influences most Western viewers to "read" the curvy tree first, the straight trees second.

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.

Last week, we talked about direction in composition and how it relates to movement. There are several other themes that occasionally play into direction in composition, today we’ll briefly talk about a couple of them in no particular order. None of them are relevant to most images, but each of them seems to occasionally come into play when I think about how I’d like to compose an image. Perhaps a few of these ideas will be helpful to you as well.

While I’ve had trouble finding a good reference to the history of the idea, it has been understood for some time that reading direction has a cultural influence on how we look at images. In much of Western culture, we’re more likely to parse images from left to right. If there is an implied horizontal sequence in an image, we’ll probably read the leftmost object as coming first–or at least read it as the more primary object. This is far from an absolute. And in nature photography we’ll rarely have the opportunity to invert the world (at least outside of the digital darkroom), but occasionally I’ve given that idea consideration in composing an image. It’s interesting to take an image and look at how different it feels when flipped horizontally, I recommend trying it on a few of your own images.

A related idea comes from the world of graphic design, when you’re putting together something that mixes images and text, the piece will feel more harmonious if any motion in the image moves in the same direction as the text. (more…)

Developing your own style as a photographer

When you first decide that you want to be a professional photographer, there are so many things that you have to learn. You’ve got to learn the equipment, the software, and the business side of being a professional photographer. Then there’s the unbelievable amount of knowledge that you have to absorb in order to develop an eye and a talent for the entire operation. So much information, in fact, that any good photographer will tell you that they are still learning all the time. The one thing that can often fall by the wayside while you are trying to dig yourself out of of the mountain of education that has landed on your head is that you also have to develop your own style.

This can be very hard to do. When you take into consideration the fact that Photoshop provides a virtually unlimited palette from which you can paint (not to mention the hundreds of ways in which you can shoot) it’s easy to wind up all over the map. Occasionally I’ll come across that photographer who seems to have a clear idea of what they like and how they want to present themselves, right from the very beginning. I hate those guys. Nobody likes someone who seems to have it all together while the rest of us are flailing about with our water wings in the shallow end of the pool. Don’t even think about sitting at my table during lunch. Seriously.

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Where’d my Saturation Go? The Secret Life of Sharpening

Redwoods and Rhododendrons, default sharpening settings. — Redwoods and Rhododendrons. Default sharpening settings.

A couple days back Tronam made a perceptive comment on my JPEG export saturation loss post, noting that he’d noticed saturation loss being caused by sharpening, but wasn’t quite sure why that was happening. I immediately smacked my forehead, because I’d known about the ways sharpening could sap saturation, but hadn’t thought about it when writing that previous article. So, today, we’ll dive into it.

There are three key points. First, sharpening can (but won’t always) have an effect on saturation. Second, that loss isn’t always avoidable. Finally, if you’re working with images in Lightroom, it’s possible (although unlikely) that you won’t notice that saturation loss until you actually export the image. (more…)