From the title, you likely correctly guessed that with the end of November comes the end of a monthly contest cycle. The prize for November is a pack of the fabulous Polar Pearl Metallic Paper from the generous folks over at Red River Paper! Continue reading “And the November Winner is…”
Category: Assignments
25 Gift Ideas for 2010 – Part 2
Last week began the grand-tastic gift guide for 2010, where I shared 5 of 25 great gift ideas for the photographer in your life. I keep the criteria simple. First, I must either own or want it! Second, It must be $50 or less. To read the first five in part 1, feel free to hit the archive for it here. Otherwise, today, we continue with Part 2:
1. Wireless Trigger System: Pocket Wizards, Radio Poppers and Cybersyncs are great if you’ve got the moolah, but for those on a budget, there should be some happy medium to get reasonably reliable triggers. I had tried the Cactus triggers myself, and they were a good point of entry, but really just were too unreliable. My buddy Kerry Garrison from Camera Dojo has researched the heck out of this and knows his stuff on lighting. He’s put together a great kit that includes everything you need from transmitters to receivers, and PC Sync cables too, all for the budget-friendly $50 rate! Check out his demo video here and get your photographer a set of these. I can’t wait to get my own set!
2. Lexar Memory: Everyone could use an additional memory card, and with prices dropping rapidly, the 8GB UDMA CF cards are now within the budget-conscious range, so pick up a spare (or two) of these as we never have enough in our bags…this one is linked from B&H but pick your own vendor of preference as the deals are across the internet.
3. Black Rapid RS7 – Okay, so it’s 8 bucks over the limit, but for the portability and easing of camera holding during extended sessions, the Black rapid RS 7 is a godsend. If you don’t have one – get one, plain and simple. Visit here to buy one today!
4. Online Training – a month or two from either Kelby Training or Lynda.com is just the ticket to help the photographer in your life help themselves. Whether it’s a refresher on Photoshop, boning up on Indesign, or even learning how to set up a WordPress blog or website, these are great resources for online training. Monthly rates are $25 on average, and with the holidays approaching, you could easily find discount codes or bonus offers for signing up, so consider this valuable option. It’s all part of the mentality of helping people advance in their craft through education!
5. Light Stand – I have been procrastinating getting a second light stand for some time now and there is just no excuse. The primary is an Impact stand I got from B&H and it has served me well, so I just need to add this to my own wish list, and encourage you to add one to yours (if you don’t already have enough that is…but then again, do we ever have enough lightstands – it’s a VAL you don’t have to feed or take out for beers after a shoot!)!. Here’s my own preferred one: 10′ Impact Lightstand (Tracy, are you reading this?) I should probably note here that I am linking to the 10′ tall heavy duty one – well worth the extra investment in my opinion, but for the super budget-conscious, these can get as cheap as $20 for a light duty 6′ one!
Okay, so consider it 5.5 suggestions today. I’m sure you have your own ideas too, so feel free to throw your own suggestions in the mix. Remember, with two down and three to go, keep the ideas coming as I do have some room open for a few more! Happy shooting and we’ll see you back here again tomorrow!
The Clock is Ticking…
We all have lists of things we want to do in any given calendar year, and without meaning to be the bearer of bad news, the clock is ticking on 2010! So, if you’ve got that one shoot, project, or other goal still dangling out there, just waiting to be completed – time’s a-wasting! Continue reading “The Clock is Ticking…”
August Winner – September Begins!
Ahhh, month-end. Contest announcement days! As most know, this is the time when the previous month’s winner is typically announced and the next month theme is opened up for entries. Today is no exception… Continue reading “August Winner – September Begins!”
Five Ways to Deal with Harsh/Low Lighting
A common question I get here is how to deal with harsh or low light situations. This is a great question, and for event photographers, it’s simply part of the job to recognize various lighting conditions and address them accordingly. Today, I’d like to share Five Ways to Deal with Harsh/Low Lighting:
1. Cranking the ISO and hoping to fix in post
With advancements in technology, noise handling both in camera and in post production has resulted in some astonishing results that in previous years would have been literally unrecoverable. While we should always endeavor to make our images shine as best we can in camera – advancements in tools of the trade simply give us more options and we would be foolish not to use them.
Here’s a good example of a shot that was done at a high in-camera ISO setting, that was recoverable to a good quality image. It may not necessarily be of “stock photography” caliber (you really need every pixel to be perfect for stock photography), but for event photography, I would consider this acceptable quality.
2. Implementing additional light sources (Flash, video lights, etc.)
3. Using a tripod/monopod in conjunction with longer exposures to increase odds of sharp captures
4. Use a gray card to get good white balance/off-set the ambient lighting conditions.
Having your subject hold a color balance card (or even just a gray card) in the scene for one shot is a great way to counter-act the effect of difficult lighting, including everything from halogen lights, to fluorescent, tungsten-florescent mixes, and the garish hue from sodium vapor lights common in locales like stadiums and street light settings.
5. Use supports from the surroundings to brace your camera
Using a tree, a wall, or even the ground to help stabilize your camera can reduce the shutter speed considerably to help when shooting in low light situations.
As much as we may try to hand hold our cameras, blur is unavoidable due to our heartbeats, finger tremors, breathing, and a host of biological factors, the best we can do is help to minimize that blur by using supporting mechanisms and techniques to get as stable a shot as we can. Even when we can hand-hold, matching that color from the scene is much easier to do when you start from a known vantage point, whether it be your own flash, or a controlled ambient scene. So much to think about and so little time…where do you want to go from here?
Hint: Sound off in the comments – would love to hear others thoughts, tips, and tricks for dealing with low and/or harsh lighting! Special thanks to Kerry Garrison of Kerry Garrison Photography for sharing a sample image from his own portfolio when I couldn’t track my own down in the library (bad me for not keywording fully!)…
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Keep on Shootin'!
It’s been a while since an episode of LDP ran, but as we keep on shootin’ our way through life, so to does LDP continue on albeit not as frequently as any of us would like! Nevertheless, I get caught up somewhat on the photo news beat with some of the top stories over the past three weeks, have a great conversation with Tyler Stableford, a recent addition to the distinguished annals of the Canon Explorers of Light group. He’s been featured in photo magazines including Sports Illustrated, National Geographic, and many more. A recent series on the Colorado F-16 fighter pilots is what caught my eye about him and we recently had a chance to chew the fat…on this show! Continue reading “Keep on Shootin'!”
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5 Tips to Better Landscapes
The most common questions I get here on the blog center around the idea of how to take better pictures. Whether those “better pictures” are better landscapes, or portraits, wildlife or events, everyone wants suggestions on how to approach the practice of taking pictures better. Esoteric and creative considerations aside, there are some fundamental “tricks of the trade” that, by and large, will almost always improve your craft in pretty much any genre. So, today, I thought I would take a moment to share 5 “tricks” I’ve learned that always lead to better landscapes: Continue reading “5 Tips to Better Landscapes”
December Winner!
The trumpets sound! The chorus rings, and the internet shall stop and take notice!
Why you ask? We have a winner for the December Giveaway! I am happy to announce that the winner of the December Giveaway Bonanza is none other than:
Frank Sammut!
Frank’s shot of a childs hand, offering up a gift perfectly symbolized the concept of giving, and his blurred bokeh of the holiday theme in the background was just beautiful! He’s got some great work on his Flickr page too, so stop by and check it out and tell him congrats!
Congratulations to Frank for winning the giveaway package! Frank, if you could drop me an email: jason <AT> canonblogger <DOT> com, I’ll get you all the information and relay you to the donors for the giveaway. Thank you to everyone for participating, and especially to the sponsors, including:
- David DuChemin (for a free copy of both Within the Frame, and VisionMongers)
- MPIX (for a free 16×20 gallery wrap print of Frank’s choice)
- RedRiver Papers (for the specialty paper bundle)
- HDRsoft (for the license to a copy of Photomatix Pro)
It’s also time to anounce the theme for the January giveaway. We’re going to move away from the seasonally tied themes, so people don’t feel restricted there as different areas are in different seasons. Instead, we’ll be going with something that is going to inspire some dynamite entries for sure: Circles
That’s right, we’re going with a shape! It should be interesting to see what comes in. As always the standard guidelines apply:
- Make sure your image is between 600-800px on the longest side.
- Try to keep things within the current month. Archives are okay, but preference will be given to current photos
- Images should be family/work safe
- Should be posted to the Flickr thread for the current month contest
- Deadline for entries is Friday, Jan. 29th (again, 3 weeks)
- The folks at HDR Soft have been very generous and have offered up another copy of their Photomatix Pro bundle for the January winner – so if you are into the HDR craze, or are interested, there’s another chance to win your very own licensed copy!
The January Flickr thread is up, live and ready for entries, so get out and shoot! Happy New Year and Happy Shooting!
P.S. Can anyone tell me anything different about the site? (For you feed readers, come on over and check things out – something is different! 🙂 )
The Beauty of Bokeh Revisited
I know – the blog has not gotten much attention lately. My apologies – but after the job loss, and pounding the pavement, my schedule has tightened up considerably, so the “planned posts” have pretty much been exhausted as I let myself get behind. The good news is that with several opportunities on the horizon, I am a little less stressed about “real world” economics, and can dedicate some time back to the blog. A few items of note:
#1 – The Year End Blowout Bash is underway – and LDP/Canon Blogger is giving away a ton of goodies. I posted details about this last week, but in the interests of giving it a little more “face time”, I would encourage everyone to start thinking about their “giving” themed photos – could mean some seriously cool prizes coming your way to start the new year off right! More details on the prize package and such here:
#2 – The 3rd edition of the LDP Newsletter is forthcoming – with some little known tidbits about the guests on most recent podcasts, including nuggets from David DuChemin and Andie Smith, as well as the monthly roundup, great quotes and christmas/holiday ideas for the photo buff in all of us.
#3 – With many things under way both professionally and personally for this time of year – the posting schedule that I had been adhering to for most of the year (hardware, software review, composition, podcast, etc.) is likely not going to be followed as strictly as things will be done more on a “catch as catch can” sort of thing. If you like tuning in for one thing or another – keep on reading because the stuff you like will be there, just maybe not on the schedule you are accustomed to.
#4 – Last up, I’d like to point out that the donations tab is still active, and all are welcome to contribute via that conduit – but in the interests of getting some tangible things back to the reader and listeners that have been so encouraging, I am going to be coming out with some short eBooks (5-10 pages max) and there is a new link for the website to bookmark for that content: https://canonblogger.com/store While I am getting a fairly good idea of things readers and listeners would like to see/hear, feel free to send in questions, comments, suggestions and the like for store content as I am open to input.
So, with the vegetables out of the way, I’d like to delve into the “meat and ‘taters” segment of today’s post and that lies in the title: bokeh
For those of you that may not be aware, bokeh refers to the blurred portions that are out of focus behind your subject matter. The quality and nature of that out of focus portion can really enhance a photo, and can even become the subject matter itself when looked at creatively. Now, I‘ve talked here on the blog about bokeh in the past, but in the spirit of the holidays, I thought it would be fun to share some samples of images where I actually forced the entire scene out of focus, to basically make the bokeh the subject:
As the samples show, you can make some pretty fun use of blur and bokeh. Shapes lend themselves well, and varieties in colors, as well as monochromes too. Another thing – when getting bokeh and blur – don’t worry too much about noise and crank the ISO if need be – it’s all about your creative mind. You can remove noise if you must, but the idea is to capture something in a new way and getting bokeh this time of year specifically can be a lot of fun. A few suggestions though:
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- Look for shapes, as suggesting what the subject might really be can catch visual interest by teasing the eye – you know what it is by the shape…
- Look for light, because without much variation in light or bright spots, the bokeh will end up looking like just some smudges of a limited tonal range
- Use your best lens(es) as these produce softer bokeh – less angular edges, and more rounded or smooth textures, which is usually better for bokeh (“better for bokeh”, did I just say that?)
- Shoot wide open, then switch to manual focus and intentionally blur – push the lens further out of focus for variations on your bokeh elements. Watch what happens and adjust to taste.
So, there’s a few ideas for you – there could be an eBook coming out on this later with more samples and suggestions so let me know if this whets your appetite. Do you like the idea? Want to see more? Get more tips on shooting for the abstract? Do the photos above help or hurt the idea? Do you like them or think there are better samples? Got any of your own? Feel free to post links to your own libraries of bokeh and blur for everyone to enjoy – there might even be a newsletter mention in it for ya! 🙂
That’s gonna do it for today – coming up later this week, the aforementioned newsletter, another podcast, and much more, so keep on shooting, until then, may your batteries be charged and your memory cards filled with lots of photos this holiday season. Now get out there and shoot ya some! 🙂
December Giveaway News
A few days late, but the year-end giveaway is quite exciting as there is just a ton of good stuff going into this giveaway. Here’s the inside skinny on what the winner is going to walk away with in December:
- A free copy of the “Within the Frame”, the wildly successful and great book donated by David DuChemin!
- A free copy of “Visionmongers”, the latest book from none other than David Duchemin!
- A free copy of Photomatix, the software known for its HDR processing, donated by the folks over at HDRSoft!
- A free 16″x20″ gallery wrap of a print of your choice, printed (and donated) by the folks over at MPix!
- and as if that is not enough, the folks at Red River Paper have also expressed interest in joining the gievaway frenzy, so it looks like there will be a paper bundle in the mix too – (more details on the bundle specifics as those come in!)
With over $400 in free stuff, this is surely going to generate a lot of interest, so this go around, the guidelines are a little stricter than normal. Here they are:
- Limit of one photo entry per person.
- Also, please make sure your photos are taken during the month of December. I know – there’s a few days missing, so it’s less than a full month to shoot, but the theme is somewhat appropriate…more on that in a minute. Just remember, no archives!
- The longest side of your image should be no larger than 800px or shorter than 600px. Don’t confuse this with a 800×600 aspect ratio – the second side of the photo can be any length you want – just make sure the longest side is no larger than 800px and no shorter than 600px. All entries should be posted in the Flickr Contest Thread.
- All entries must be live before midnight December 31st.
So, the theme is all that remains. Since it’s a season of holidays far and wide, we’re going to go with the theme of:
GIVING
That’s it – interpret however you like. Just tie in that theme somehow, and enter your best photo in the Flickr thread. Good luck all, and may the best shot win! Happy shooting, and we’ll see you back here again tomorrow! Many thanks to David DuChemin, Mpix, HDRSoft, and Red River Paper for their generous contributions. Now, let’s wow them with some amazing photography!
P.S. Just a little reminder that the blog is still taking donations to not only help offset the cost of maintenance, but also now to help pay the bills – the “curveballs” referenced the other day was an abrupt notice that my position was being terminated. So, please help to keep things alive and online through the holiday season! I am going to try to get some extra special content out there for everyone so you can also get some use out of this feeble old mind for any donations (or purchases…) but no guarantees there yet. (Special thanks to Rob Jones from Towner Jones Photography who has already donated very generously to the cause though…)