Interview with Jairo Abud

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I was introduced to Jairo’s work on Flickr, and I liked it very much. In my opinion Jairo has very good eye for people and different situations that involve people. I frequently visit his Flickr account and enjoy great new photos, which he posts pretty often.
Though Jairo has a very busy schedule, he kindly agreed to this interview, and I am very grateful for that!

First of all a little about you.

Tell me a little about yourself. Where are you from? What do you do for a living?
My name is Jairo Abud and I’m 52 years old. I was born in Brazil and live in Sao Paulo. I’m professor of economics at a Business School.

When did you start getting involved in photography?

I always loved photography since I was a teenager. My brother-in-law had a darkroom back then. I used to take pictures in B&W and he would lend me his chemicals and his darkroom so that I could learn and get used to developing my own photos at the age of 16. After I graduated from college, I got involved more with work and did not have much time to spare for my hobby, so I slowed down with photography.
I used to photograph with Praktica (brand of camera manufactured by Pentacon), which is still working pretty well. But two years ago I decided to get a new camera and bought a Sony Alpha 100. And my love of photography came back stronger than before, I guess. My wife told me about Flickr and I decided to start sharing my photos with other people.

Photograph by Jairo Abud. Click on the photo to enlarge.

What do you like the most about photography?

Unlike in movies, I believe that people have different interpretations and feelings when they look at a photo. Your life experience is the main interpreter of the photos. I really believe that photograph can touch you and set your hidden feelings and sentiments free.

Photograph by Jairo Abud. Click on the photo to enlarge.

Which subjects are your favorite to photograph?

I would say I’m a people’s photographer. I always like to see a human as subject when composing the whole photo scene. I like to take pictures in Sao Paulo downtown where I can compose images in which the architecture plays an important role, though the major role is played by the people of the city. As you know, Sao Paulo is the second largest city in Latin America, and you can find many different personages there – lonely people, people with sad or happy faces, and people with different life experiences. I like it when my photos try to illustrate that.

Photograph by Jairo Abud. Click on the photo to enlarge.

Is there photographers that you are inspired by? Who ?

I like Sebastião Salgado, a Brazilian photographer – he always put the human being in the foreground. And I’m also a big fan of Bresson’s art (Henri Cartier-Bresson).

Photograph by Jairo Abud. Click on the photo to enlarge.

And now, a little more details for us, keen amateurs 🙂

What advice would you give to a beginner photographer?

I consider myself as an amateur too. And I always will be an apprentice. In my opinion the first step to take good photos is to observe and study different photos taken by different known photographers and try to make similar ones. It’s just like a painting learning process. Painters also try to emulate great painters of the past to learn their technique before painting their own art.

You can also do that as a photographer. With time, you will start to compose by yourself and to create your own style. It is a learning process. But this was my recommendation for a first step… The next, and most difficult one, is to be yourself, and take pictures the way you like taking pictures and not because other people like that style. After you have found out what you like, stop worrying about what others would say about your photos and just take them.

Photograph by Jairo Abud. Click on the photo to enlarge.


What photographic equipment do you primarily use?

I use a Nikon D90 with 3 different lenses: Tamron 10-24mm for landscapes, a 18-200mm for general purposes and a 80-200mm for photographing people. I also believe that good equipment is fundamental for you to improve your photos.

Other important thing: you have to know your equipment really well, and have control over it, to have the camera as an extension of yourself. My next camera will be a full frame, for sure.
I also use Photoshop CS4 for processing – especially for contrast and minor adjustments.

Photograph by Jairo Abud. Click on the photo to enlarge.

Could you tell me a little bit about your typical photo-shoot?

I always invite friends to go out and take photos. After a couple of hours we take a break in a coffee shop and start to look at each other’s photos. That’s very interesting because you can realize that, even when you’re on the same spot, you find completely different photos among your friends.

I always try to take photos of people spontaneously, but if I see an interesting face that I would like to photograph, I ask that person’s permission and start talking to him or her to make them comfortable. And I always focus on their eyes, where the real emotion is.

Lately I’ve been trying a different way of taking photos: I don’t look at the camera display right after taking a photo – I think the movement of looking at the display will distract me and make me miss other important shots.

There is no “decisive moment” but a “decisive sequence”. After that sequence, those series of moments, you can choose the best shot.

Photograph by Jairo Abud. Click on the photo to enlarge.

Thank you Jairo for your time. I wish you all the best in your future endeavors!

If you liked Jairo’s photographs and want to see more of his work, visit him at:

Jairo’s Flicker Account

Tripod Holder for Kata 3N1 Bag Review

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Few months ago I posted a review of the Kata 3N1 Bag.
In the review I mentioned that the bag doesn’t have anything to attach tripod to, and it was a “con” for me. Shortly after that I was contacted by Kata representative and informed that there is an accessory tripod holder that can be attached to the Kata 3n1 bag. Kata guys have been very nice to me and sent me the tripod holder so I could check it out.

Kata Tripod Holder

Click on the photo to enlarge.

I have been using it ever since and here are my conclusions on this accessory.

Though it looks like the Kata 3n1 bag wasn’t designed with this tripod holder in mind, it attaches pretty firmly to the bag. The tripod then is easily attached to the holder, and it is very easy to take the tripod off.

I tried to use the holder with my big Manfrotto tripod, and succeeded, but it is not very convenient to walk around with it, because if your tripod is large, it will stick way above your backpack.

Another drawback is that when you have your tripod attached to the bag, you won’t be able to open the main compartment from the top. You’ll only have side access. For me it was not a problem since use the side access 90 percent of the time.

Kata Tripod Holder

Click on the photo to enlarge.

In conclusion, though it is not perfect, the tripod holder for Kata 3n1 bag does the job well. If you already have the Kata bag and need to carry a small-medium tripod with you, then go ahead and get this accessory.

If you found this review to be useful, please consider supporting my site by buying this tripod holder through my affiliate link.

Interview With Scott Stulberg – Part III

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This Part III of my interview with freelance stock photographer Scott Stulberg. If you didn’t, please read Part I and Part II.

To read the whole interview in one piece click here.

Before reading this interview I suggest reading my Introduction to Interviews with Photographers.

Let’s talk about your beautiful panoramic photographs. I understand that choosing a composition and waiting for the right moment are deeply personal skills, but there is also a technical side to it. Which lenses are you using for panoramic photography and how many frames do you stitch together for your final image? What software do you use for that?

Panos? Well… I do love shooting them. They take some skill and a lot of patience. When the right moment and location hits you, it is time to lock and load. A good tripod is a necessity. So is a good ballhead. Making sure yo are perfectly level is crucial. I swing my camera from side to side, even if the level says I am level. You need to make sure that the horizon is at the exact same level on the right edge of your frame as on the left side side. You need a good ballhead to let you pan nice and smooth. A cheaper ball head that does not let you pan smoothly will never work. Always remember this!

Indian Girl

Photograph by Scott Stulberg. Click on the photo to enlarge.

As far as lenses – I use a nice wide angle or even a closer to normal lens, but usually on the wider side. I guess my favorite lens to use is my 16-35 2.8 L lens. Usually at a pretty high f/stop too.

I span the entire width a few times and decide how many shots I want to stitch together. You can shoot vertically and stitch more, or shoot horizontally. I usually like to shoot horizontally and not go too crazy… Maybe 4 to seven images total, and you have to make sure that you are in Manual mode. Anything else and you will mess up your exposure, as camera will try and vary your exposure automatically. So manual is a must. Tripod can’t move even a millimeter, which makes a good tripod also a must… not a cheapo, nothing too light or flimsy. A cable release is also a must.

Lions

Photograph by Scott Stulberg. Click on the photo to enlarge.

And then starting from the left, you shoot one frame and then move across to the right, overlapping the image about 20 percent or so each time till you get to the right side. There you have it… easy as pie.

Then I use Photomerge in Photoshop. Works like a charm. Love shooting Panoramas. My shot of Santorini, Greece that I did in the rain years ago, is hanging up 72 inches wide in the new UCLA Medial Center here in LA. I love how powerful panos look and it is the best feeling to nail a good one! The one in Santorini was one of the most memorable times shooting in my life. When the rain started out of the blue, all of the people went back inside, giving me just what I wanted – an uncluttered view of the spectacular town of Santorini. And instead of a beautiful sunset, I got intense clouds and a very moody feeling that gave me something that most people do not get. What a moment for me!

Santorini Panorama

Photograph by Scott Stulberg. Click on the photo to enlarge.

What your advice for a beginner photographer would be ?

Read …read…… and then read some more. Everything you can. And also use the best tool in the world, the one I did not have growing up. The Internet. Wow… at the touch of a finger, you can see and read about every photographer in the world. This is a gold mine. You can learn from all the pros this way. Look at their style, learn their secrets, and understand so much anytime you want.

The computer has changed our lives in so many ways, but as far as a learning tool, there really is nothing better. But also, nothing beats having a camera with you at all times. The best camera to own is the one that you have with you. Make sure you remember that. Sometimes moments pop up out of the blue and you will be pretty bummed without that camera nearby.

Study and shoot all the time. Schools are fantastic, any classes will be the most helpful. Being around other students is so motivating too!! Nothing beats that!!

Eiffel Tower

Photograph by Scott Stulberg. Click on the photo to enlarge.

Thank you Scott for this informational and interesting interview! I learned a lot from it and I am sure that many of my readers will benefit from it too.

If you liked Scott’s photographs and want to see more of his work, visit him at:

www.asa100.com

Scott also has a blog where he writes about some of the stuff he shoots and gives Photoshop tips:

Scott’s Blog

You can also purchase the book that Scott mentioned in the interview on Amazon:

Interview With Scott Stulberg – Part II

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This is Part II of my interview with freelance stock photographer Scott Stulberg. Part I can be found here.

To read the whole interview in one piece click here.

Before reading this interview I suggest reading my Introduction to Interviews with Photographers.

Now let’s get to a more technical stuff.

Could you give any tips on shooting stock photography?

You have to be great at shooting people. You need to get rid of any inadequacies of being able to approach someone and ask them if you can shoot them for stock. So much of Stock photography has people in the shot, and the biggest tip I can give is to focus on capturing people in your images, no matter what the subject is. Look at ads all over the place, even on TV they include peole in every aspect of life and their daily routines, from drinking beer to working on a laptop.
You also should either focus on one subject , and get great at it…or be pretty diverse, and that’s what I like. I don’t want to just focus on shooting food, like some people do. I want to try and do many things. But travel shots are my favorite.

Burma 1 Burma 2 Burma 3

Photographs by Scott Stulberg. Click on the photos to enlarge.

Please describe your typical work flow after you click on the shutter release button.

Hmmmm. This interview is getting longer by the minute I see. My workflow? Well, I make sure that I back up my memory cards that night, whether at home or at the hotel. Open up my images in Photoshop, which is still my program of choice. After using a program for so many years like I have, and in my case, I have been using Photoshop since version 2, it is hard to change. I do like Lightroom and also Aperture, but I prefer to use the original and it works for me perfectly.
I work in Raw of course, and in Bridge, I flag my favorite files pretty quickly and save them into a “best raw folder”. Then I go over them again, giving a higher rating on my second pass. Then I open up my favs in camera raw and go to town on them. Feels good to be fast in Photoshop and so often I know exactly what a certain image needs.

What photographic equipment do you primarily use?

I have been a Canon shooter pretty much since the late 80’s when Canon switched over to the EOS system. That changed the whole ball game and I left Nikon and have not looked back since. Although, Nikon has finally come back with a vengeance and some of their stuff blows away Canon now, and finally we have some good competition that will help us all out.
Have a ton of lenses from super wide, my 15mm Fiisheye all the way to my super telephoto 500mm f4. Carbon fiber tripods, Lowe Pro camera bags and backpacks, and of course I work on a Mac. There really is no substitute there.

Photograph by Scott Stulberg. Click on the photo to enlarge.

On your site I saw beautiful photographs from the Joshua Tree workshop. How these workshops are conducted? How to choose a workshop to suit your skill level and needs ? Could you recommend certain workshops?

Workshops? Well… There are so many ways to go on a workshop. Many schools have them available all over or you can just look in the back of photo magazines. They are usually in the back pages. You can also go online and scout them out. Workshops are possibly the best way to become a better photographer in a matter of days. You go out with other folks that want to learn too…and you pick the workshop that suits you the best.

The Joshua Tree Photo Safari I did was such a cool time for everyone, including the models. I invited 2 beautiful girls, had them bring plenty of nice clothes, and we all learned how to shoot them in the beautiful early morning and late afternoon light. People learned how to pose them, compose the whole feeling and how to understand the lighting in many situations. I showed them how to use reflectors and diffusers, flash the right way and even how to dress them with the right clothes for the right feeling. I even posed them for some stock ideas.

I brought up a piece of old luggage and put Kristin, the taller model in old jeans and a cool red sweater and then we bought a cool cowboy hat. I had her pose on the side of the road at sunrise, hitchhiking. Tried her in different poses, walking towards me and away from me, standing with her thumb out, sitting on her luggage, acting kind of bummed… and it was a super cool time. I even let everyone use my 500 telephoto to see the compression effect from using a long lens. Was a great stock shot that I loved getting. Knew I wanted to get it before I got to Joshua Tree and walked away with several different variations. The students loved trying it too.

Workshops are a great way to practice and learn a ton of new things. I like the Julia Dean workshops. My friend Paul Renner, also does some here in California and Africa. I have led some with him in both places. His site is rennerimages.com. My friend Art Wolfe also does some, out of Seattle. I teach up in Art’s Photography Center in Seattle and he is such an inspiration to me too. We both love the same things to shoot pretty much. He has been one great mentor to me.

Are you doing any kind of post-processing on your photographs? If yes, could you tell a little bit about it?
I try and get my images just how I want in camera for the most part. But I do have to make them as perfect for a magazine as possible in Photoshop too. I make sure the color balance is right on first. Clean up any distractions next. Could be dust on the sensor, a cigarette butt on the floor, or even a person who doesn’t belong. I do what the magazines need and what I tell all of my stock students is: “Photoshop is a photographers best friend!” If you want to make money from your images, you need to get good in Photoshop.

Camels

Photograph by Scott Stulberg. Click on the photo to enlarge.

One thing that I use a lot also are Photoshop Plug-in filters. These are filters that you can buy and install into Photoshop to give you an amazing variety of effects and other options to make your images really shine. I recently co-wrote a book called the Digital Photographers New Guide to Photoshop Plug-ins. I show some of the best plug-ins out and how they work with many examples. They really do help a lot and the looks you can get with some of these super cool filters are amazing, and all in a matter of seconds. You don’t have to be a top Photoshop user to benefit from these things!

This is the end of Part II of the interview. Click here to read part III.

If you liked Scott’s photographs and want to see more of his work, visit him at:

www.asa100.com

Scott also has a blog where he writes about some of the stuff he shoots and gives Photoshop tips:

Scott’s Blog

You can also purchase the book that Scott mentioned in the interview on Amazon:

Interview With Scott Stulberg – Part I

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Before reading this interview I suggest reading my Introduction to Interviews with Photographers.

To read the whole interview in one piece click here.

Scott Stulberg is a professional photographer who travels the world and mostly shoots stock. But this is very dull description of him. I know him mainly through his photographs, and I can say that his photography is very much… alive! Just by seeing few of his photographs I could tell that this is a person who loves to take pictures. For example Scott’s photos of horses are among the best I have ever seen. In them Scott succeeded to show both the dynamics of the herd, the interaction between horses, and the tenderness of this beautiful animal.

Camargue Horses

Photograph by Scott Stulberg. Click on the photo to enlarge.

I am honored to interview Scott on the pages of Photopathway, and without further ado, please welcome Scott Stulberg!

Scott Stulberg

First of all a little about you.

When did you start getting involved in photography? Was there any kind of special event that triggered your interest?

I started to love photography at around 10 years old when my dad bought me a little point and shoot.  It was a plastic camera with roll film that you just dropped in. So easy….but that was the beginning of a very long love affair. My mom and grandfather had been photographers and I guess I had it in my blood.

Why do you like to take photographs and which subjects are your favorite?

It’s pretty easy to love to shoot photos. Having a camera with me is just instinctual.  It is just so natural, almost like putting on my clothes.  It feels like part of me and I love the ability to capture any little slice of life at any particular moment. And not just a piece of life, but getting it from my point of view. Putting my little twist on it, with my thought process.  It is very much like when a painter has a blank canvas in front of them.  They decide what it will be……what their take on this piece of art will be.  After all, photography has it’s roots from painting.  So, to me it is very similar.

Eyes Fashion

Photographs by Scott Stulberg. Click on the photos to enlarge.

When did you decide to go pro and why ?

Not sure how many years ago, but it was while I was still a Landscape Designer.  I went to school for Landscape Architecture, and designed gardens for people’s homes for many, many years with my mother, who was a great Landscape Designer.  We both had a ton of fun working with plants and trees, flowers and everything else you can do in a garden. But I was always shooting back then. At night and on the weekends.  I used our huge guest house as a studio and just practiced my shooting skills every day. We had a swimming pool also and I joined the Los Angeles Underwater Photography Society and learned how to shoot underwater.  That was a whole new world for me and I fell totally in love with doing that too.

Is there photographers that you look up to? Who ?

So many.  So many of the early pioneers from the photo journalists like Robert Capa, whose images still knock me out, to Ansel Adams, whose work sort of guided me in so many ways… His methods also helped me tremendously in the darkroom, where I could be found almost every night till the wee hours.

Modern day, I am lucky to know so many professionals and learn from them and also shoot with them.  One of my mentors is one of the best fashion photographers of all time, Melvin Sokolsky, and his work is incredibly iconic.  His vision, methods and imagination is off the scale. Being around him is like if you were in love with painting and you could hang out with Michelangelo.  I have been pretty fortunate with knowing him.  Yesterday, I helped him shoot Anthony Hopkins and Andy Garcia for German Voque Magazine.  Was such a mellow time, in the Chateau Marmont Hotel here in Los Angeles, in a bungalow much the same as where John Belushi died of a drug overdose. Was pretty wild being in the same place as that tragic event.  But whether you are shooting famous actors or shooting architecture at night, it just feels right to know that you are capturing some special memories in your trusty little camera.

Why did you choose to shoot stock photography ?

Many years ago, I had a lot of friends that were shooting stock. What I loved was the versatility of it all. That one image could be of a herd of horses and the next of the Coliseum in Rome. It was fascinating to me. And then another shot could be something you manipulated in Photoshop and was your own creation. You could make money over and over, year after year, with the same images. I knew this was what I wanted to do. I knew back then, that I loved shooting many things and that I didn’t just want to shoot weddings, or just sports or any one field. Many people specialize in one thing, but I knew that after time, I would be bored.  Then photography would be more like a job.

Teeth

Photograph by Scott Stulberg. Click on the photo to enlarge.

I wanted it to be exciting and I knew shooting stock would be incredibly diverse. Plus let’s not forget about what really got me hooked. Travel stock. Going all over the world to capture images that would be used in magazines, greetings cards and so many other things. It is pretty awesome to pick up a magazine and see your images. It’s a great feeling that I love to this day. I just had a computer company in Africa ask me to use an image I did in Kenya of 4 Samburu tribes people, posing in the jungle with my laptop. They wanted to illustrate how they can bring technical awareness to even the remotest of places on this planet. It’s a nice feeling every time someone wants to use your images.

Tribe

Photograph by Scott Stulberg. Click on the photo to enlarge.

This is the end of Part I of the interview. Click here to read Part II

If you liked Scott’s photographs and want to see more of his work, visit him at:

www.asa100.com

Scott also has a blog where he writes about some of the stuff he shoots and gives Photoshop tips:

Scott’s Blog

You can also purchase the book that Scott mentioned in the interview on Amazon:

Wireless Flash Triggers

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Starting to work with lighting the first thing you hear is that you have to work with off camera flashes. So you get a flash sync cord. But then you want to have two, three, or more flashes in your setup and encounter the problem triggering them all at once.

Then you find out about the wireless flash triggers and start looking into that. The first wireless trigger you find is the “Pocket Wizard” which is the most popular but costs a fortune, and you say to yourself – “I can’t afford this luxury of wireless triggering my flashes”.

And finally you find this post, where I write about my cheap wireless triggers 🙂

I found a cheap solution for wireless triggering my flashes. Same company (Yongnuo) that manufactures the flashes I wrote about, also makes wireless triggers for flash devices. They are cheap and have a 30 meters working range.

You will have to buy one transmitter, which goes on camera, and as many receivers as the number of flash units that you have. For example a bundle of one transmitter and two receivers on Ebay costs about $52.

Yongnuo Flash Trigger

Their single disadvantage for me was that the receiver has only the regular tripod mount (as you can see in the picture), but I needed it to have the hot shoe mount. In order to solve this problem I bought flash sync hot shoe adapters ($12) for each receiver (see the photo below). However there are similar wireless flash triggers (also Chinese and cheap) that come with hot shoe mount.

flash sync hot shoe adapter

I mount the flash on the flash sync hot shoe adapter and connect it to the receiver with PC cord.

Additional advantage of these wireless flash triggers is that they can trigger the flash in two ways:

1. From the transmitter that you put on your camera.
2. From any other flash that fires in their line of sight.

Disadvantages of these wireless flash triggers may be in the build quality. I am working with them only couple of months (and they worked good until now), and I have no idea for how long they will function properly. Compared to pocked wizards their working range is pretty short but personally I never encountered (or could think of) a situation where 30 meters weren’t enough for me.

In conclusion I think that these triggers are perfect for beginners, and who knows, maybe I won’t ever consider upgrading to anything else.

Daily Photo from my iPhone – Introduction

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About a week ago I received a birthday present from my sister. Though my birthday is still a few months away, my sister knew that I really wanted this present so she didn’t keep me waiting and simply gave it to me – the new shiny iPhone 3Gs!!! And, of course, first thing I did with it was to check out the camera it has. I played with it a little and the best thing about this camera is that it is always with me. I noticed that amount of photos that I take grew significantly since I first laid my hands on the iPhone. In addition I got several programs for iPhone that create various effects to the photos and enjoyed playing with those also.

In order to improve my photographic skills (mostly composition-wise) I decided to take on a mission (!) – post one photo each day, here on my blog, directly from the iPhone. Each day I will choose one photo from my daily shots and post it on the sidebar. This way in the future I will be able to see my evolution in photography from these daily photos. I also think that it can be interesting to you, my readers. And yes, I know that the technical quality of the photos from iPhone is much worse than from my DSLR, this is why I am aiming mostly to improve my compositional photographic skills (and not technical) through this project.

As always, your thoughts, comments, critiques and anything else that you’d like to share are highly appreciated!

Till the next post, take care!

Cheers
Greg.

Beginnings in portraiture

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As a result of my interest in working with light in photography I am starting to get interested in portraiture. From time to time I stumble across a good portrait on the net and find myself thinking about how photographer achieved the final result, and what things he had to consider before making the portrait. I also think about the lighting techniques used in different portraits. Finally I decided to give it a try myself. In the following photos you can see what came out of it.

My lighting equipment was pretty simple: Two flashes (Canon 430EX and Yongnuo) One flash was used as a main light placed on a light stand shooting through umbrella. Second flash was also on a stand but without umbrella used mostly as fill light or hair light. I had a piece of black fabric for the background, but in any case my ambient light was pretty low and most of the light came from flashes.

This portrait is pretty straight forward. I think that my lighting is a little harsh, and I don’t have a hair light from the left/top to separate the model from the background. I could say that I intended it to be that way… but I didn’t 🙂

portrait of beautiful woman 1

In the next two photographs I experimented with different facial expressions that in my opinion suited the model. I chose B&W because of two main reasons:
1. There were not many colors in the scene anyway, and I wanted to make the viewer concentrate on the expression of the model.
2. I confess – I couldn’t achieve the skin tone that I wanted.

portrait of beautiful woman 2

I noticed an undesirable shadow near model’s right eye only after the shoot so I couldn’t do much about it, but I sure will pay more attention to this kind of details in the future.

portrait of beautiful woman 3

While shooting I asked my model for different poses (even though it was a strictly portrait shoot, I think that pose affects the facial expression), and at first I took all the control. What I mean is that I told her what to do, where to look, where to turn her head, etc.
But at some point I told her to feel free to do what she wanted, to pose as she would like to be photographed herself. And it was the best decision I ever made in that shoot.
Just look at the following photos.

portrait of beautiful woman 4

portrait of beautiful woman 5

And as she got more relaxed I could get more interesting photographs. Here is an example of one, which I especially like:

portrait of beautiful woman 6

I felt great after this photo session because finally I got to try something that I thought a great deal of. I doubted that I could get any satisfactory results. And though I do understand that I have a long way to go from here, I still really like these photos and they keep me motivated to continue improving my skills.

I will be more than grateful for any comments or suggestions. Feel free to comment on my work – it will help me and other readers a lot!

And here is one last photo from that photo session:

portrait of beautiful woman 4

Until next time,
Take Care!
Greg.

My Lighting Equipment

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After I wrote several posts about lighting (Light Study I, Light Study II, Patterns and Light Study), I received several responses from my readers saying – “You have up to three flash units in your setup! That is expensive. Not many amateurs who would like to experiment with lighting can afford that.”

Well, this is not exactly true. I agree that Canon flashes are expensive (even second hand), for example I bought my primary Canon 430 EX flash second hand for about 240 USD, and Nikon flashes are in the same price range. There are additional known brands that are a little cheaper but still expensive.

But I found really cheap flashes on e-bay from Chinese company named Yongnuo. Two of them cost me on e-bay only about 95 bucks (for both). Now you have to agree that this is cheap and much more affordable than branded flashes.

Of course there are pros and cons to such a purchase. Let me list here some of them:

Pros:

  • Price. Very affordable flash units.
  • Flash comes with diffuser dome, built-in bounce card, and wide angle cover (see on the photo below)
  • Flash head can be rotated in all the common directions almost the same as Canon/Nikon flashes.
  • The output power of the flash can be controlled (but look at the “Cons” section also)
  • GN number – 33, which means that this flash is pretty powerful.

Cons:

  • Recycling time of 5 seconds. My Canon 430EX recycles at about 2.5 seconds with Ni-Mh batteries.
  • No ETTL controls (so that flash power has to be set manually)
  • No flash zoom adjustments.
  • Power is controlled by turning wheel (see the photo below) and not digitally, so I can’t set, for example, exactly 1/2 power. I can do it only approximately.
  • No PC sync connector (but actually my Canon 430EX doesn’t have it either).
  • I am also not sure about the build quality. What I mean is that externally this flash looks good, but I don’t know how long it will work. Until now I have been using it for two months and didn’t have any problems.

Looking at the pros and cons, I can say that some of the cons are not that important to me – for example the fact that there is no ETTL controls doesn’t bother me because I always work manually with these flashes. I use them primarily as off camera flashes with remote trigger. If I have to use flash on-camera, I use my Canon 430EX. No flash zoom adjustments are also not that important – if you put your flash behind an umbrella or put a gobo on it – the zoom doesn’t really matter. Even without all this, you can just vary the placement distance of the flash.

I would like to warn you again – I can’t guarantee that the build quality of these flashes is the same as the branded ones. It probably is not. But in my opinion for beginners they can be a perfect start.

In conclusion – if you have the money buy the good and proved branded models, but if your budget is limited like mine and you still want to learn how to work with light, these Yongnuo flashes are good solution for starters.

Yongnuo Flashes
The white marks that you see near the power wheel are made by me.

In my next post on lighting I will talk about my remote flash triggers. So everyone interested – stay tuned!


If you got interested in these flashes you can visit the e-bay store where I found them. This is not an advertisement, I am not affiliated in any way with that store and don’t receive any benefits if you buy there.

Yongnuo Flashes

Interview with Yvan Barbier

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Before reading this interview I suggest reading my Introduction to Interviews with Photographers.

When I found Yvan’s web site I was fascinated with his macro photography. I couldn’t stop looking at his photos, and finally bookmarked it to come back for new photos that he would present. Unfortunately for me Yvan’s web site is in French so I couldn’t understand the “about” page. But I wanted to know about him and his work, and finally I had enough courage to email him and ask for the interview. He accepted my proposal and answered all my questions!

I hope that this interview will be as helpful for you as it was for me.

Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome – Yvan Barbier!

Yvan Barbier Photographer

Photograph by Olivier Nowakowski

Hello Yvan. First of all a little about you.

Tell me a little about yourself. Where are you from? What do you do for a living?

I was born in Belgium, a small country more known for it’s capital : Brussels. I live in the french speaking part of Belgium, at the south of Brussels. I have two kids and a charming wife. Basically, I am agricultural engineer but I also have a phD in biological sciences. I work for a regional administration which is in charge of nature preservation. My job consists mainly of administering species and sites databases. I’m also involved in some field studies on species but it’s a minor part of my work.

What do you like the most about photography ?

What I like the most is, first of all, the pleasure to be into the wild. It is for me a source of inspiration and a good moment to forget all the little troubles of the life. It’s a kind of way to rejuvenate myself. I like also to observe plants and animals, their habitats, behaviours, … Photogaphy is for me a way of showing all the beauties of nature. In a sense, I feel like an ambassador of nature for humans 🙂

Libellula Depressa by Yvan BarbierLibellula Depressa by Yvan Barbier

From your site it is obvious that you like macro photography. Why is that?

I think it is for two reasons: I am basically an entomologist (I have published several papers on insects) and I like insects. They are so diversified in the way they live that I am always fascinated to observe them. Secondly, it is for practical reasons. Unfortunately, I cannot allow as much time I would like for photography. I would like to take pictures of birds and mammals but demands for a huge time investment and for finances that I do not have. You can do macro photography with a modest equipment in your garden. This is more difficult if you want to do the same with mammals or birds.

Are there photographers that you are inspired by? Who ?

I like very much the pictures of André Maurer, a very talentuous Swiss photographer. He has a lot of sensitivity and is able to communicate it into his pictures. Ther are plenty others but it is not possible to cite all of them here.

Plebejus Argus by Yvan BarbierPlebejus Argus by Yvan Barbier

And now, a little more technical details

Please describe your typical work flow after you click on the shutter release button.

My typical workflow is the following:
– I always shoot in RAW format (NEF in my case since I use a Nikon body)
– Once at home, after a shooting session, I transfert all the pictures to hard drive 1
– My disk is organized chronologically (year/month/day-location)
– If necessary, I use subfolders to organize images by white balance
– I batch convert all pictures into jpeg medium resolution (1400×930 pixels) with preset files I have made (one for each main white balance). Jpeg files are saved on hard disk 2
– Only after that conversion, I use a viewer to view the jpeg pictures. I do a first pass to eliminate pictures that have technical problems (focus,…). I delete jpeg and raw versions.
– I proceed to a second pass to keep only the best pictures and remove redundant ones. When possible, I use to take several pictures of the same scene, varying aperture. Often, there is one image better that the others in a series.
– I make a backup copy of raw and jpeg files on hard disk 3 and, periodically, on hard disk 4 that is not stored at home.

Butterfly by Yvan BarbierPhoto by Yvan Barbier

Are you doing any kind of post-processing on your photographs? If yes, could you tell a little bit about it?

I do “basic” post-processing on my pictures: white balance, resizing, sharpenning. If necessary, I adjust other settings like exposure compensation.

But remember that post-processing is also depending of the settings that are applied on the body. For example, in my case, I’ve choosed to apply a low contrast directly on the body. If necessary, I change the contrast at post-processing (often by applying an S curve on the histogram). Another example is the color space conversion. My body is preset for the “Adobe RGB” color space. When I convert my raw files to jpeg, I convert the color space to sRGB, which is better for web display.

What photographic equipment do you primarily use for macro photography?

For the moment, my main body is a Nikon D700. I use it for 10 months with a great pleasure. I was a little bit afraid when I adopted the full frame (I had a D200 before). But finally, I don’t have any regret. I like it very much. I just regret that the viewfinder doesn’t have 100% coverage. In some cases it is very annoying when you try to make the “perfect frame” but still get parasitic object in your frame because you didn’t see it in the viewfinder and then you have to crop your pictures in post-processing.

Of course I also use some macro lenses. The 105 micro-Nikkor has been my main lens during several years. It is a superlative lens and I do appreciate it a lot. But I am now using longer focal lengths : the Sigma 150mm f/2.8 is one of my favorite lenses. It is very sharp, even at full aperture. For some months, I also use the micro-Nikkor 200mm f/4. It is a very good lens but I would not recommend it for a beginner since it requires to be very carefull when handling and focusing. I also like to use the Nikkor 300mm f/4 to do proxy-photography. It is a very good lens for that purpose. It allows you to isolate the subjet more easily and to get very beautifull backgrounds.

For high magnification factors, I use the Kenko extension tube set.
I also use flash but I try to avoid it since it’s light is never “as good” as the natural light. I use it as fill-in or as the main light source for greater magnification rates.

Anemone Nemerosa by Yvan BarbierAnemone Nemerosa by Yvan Barbier

When shooting insects, are you going to the nature, or bring them to the studio?

I always go to nature. It is at the base of my approach. I like so much to be in the field that it is my first motivation. I go out very early in the morning, when the light is beautiful and the insects are still quiet. I also like the end of the day for the same reasons.

What your advice for a beginner photographer would be?

The first advice I should give is first to learn about what you want to photograph. If you want to take photographs of butterflies, you need to know where they live, which species you can meet, in wich habitat, etc… It is also absolutely necessary in order to avoid distrubing them. If you don’t know their habits, you can seriously disturb them.
Then, you also need to know the basics of photography and camera settings. You need to know what is aperture, ISO sensitivity, speed, etc… before going out to take photographs. You also need to know the basic settings of your camera body. I see sometimes beginners who don’t know the difference between “A” and “S” mode!

And finally, I don’t think that the equipment makes the photograph! You can start in macro photography with very little stuff: an entry level body and a simple macro lens is quite enough. I insist on recommending a macro lens. I often see beginners who only have an entry level zoom lens for doing macro. To really see results in macro photography, you need a macro lens.

Thank you Yvan for your time, and good luck in your future endeavors!

–

If you liked Yvan’s work you are welcome to visit his web site with much more stunning photographs at:

www.yvanbarbier.com

Light Study (II) – Flashes and Macro shooting

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My personal study of light continues and this is the third post, which I am writing after another several hours of playing with light. My first post on this is “Patterns and Light Study” and second is “Light Study (I) Working with flashes”.

This time I was inspired by some abstract photographs I saw on the net, and wanted to try and do something abstract (or almost abstract 🙂 ) myself. For this shoot I used Canon 100mm F2.8 Macro lens, and two flashes with gels on them. The colors that you see on the final photographs were not edited in photoshop. I achieved them only by lighting, and of course this Canon macro lens is great!

As I said I wanted to achieve abstract photographs with certain aesthetic value main goal being my personal study of light techniques. First of all I needed a texture, so I walked around my apartment and searched for something suitable. Eventually I found a big blue plate with interesting ornament. Then I filled it with water (since the plate wasn’t deep, I had to be careful not to spill). Finally I had to decide on lighting. Because the plate was blue, I decided to choose a matching blue gel on my main flash to the right of the stage. I also wanted to have more than one color in the frame so I added another flash with pink-red gel to the left and a little behind the stage. I set the second flash to lower power than my main flash. Both flashes were with gobos (if you don’t know what gobo is, read my previous post).

[kml_flashembed movie=’http://www.photopathway.com/Gallery/Slideshows/light2/loader.swf’ height=’500′ width=’650′ base=’http://www.photopathway.com/Gallery/Slideshows/light2/’ wmode=’transparent’/]

The first photograph (from the left) is simple this plate with water (which is not seen). You can see that the strong foreground blue color slightly changes to purple towards the back due to the second flash coloring. And also because I was using a macro lens from close distance, the depth of focus is pretty low.

Then I thought of making some splashes in the plate and see what happens. Everybody saw at least some photos with water drops and ripples, so I thought that I can also try some of that, and my second photo shows one of the many interesting pictures I got.

When I had enough of playing with splashes, I added a sunflower petal to the picture and dropped a small water drop on it. Now I had to change my secondary lighting because the petal was yellow, and red light didn’t do it any justice. After experimenting I finally decided to put very light green gel on my secondary flash, and it resulted in emphasizing the yellow color of the petal with light and gentle shades of green. Third and fourth photos were taken with this setup (left flash on low power with light-green gel and right flash with blue gel).

And finally the fifth photo was taken using only the left flash with light-green gel on it. I worked on this photograph for quite some time to achieve the deep interesting shadows.

As always any comments and your own experiences are welcome!

Interviews with Photographers – Introduction

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Ever since I started getting interested in photography I wanted to know more about photographers whose work I liked. I had many questions for them – how they started they journey in photography, what keeps them motivated, and of course technical stuff like what equipment they use and their workflow.
Having this blog created a unique opportunity for me – ask the photographers I like to give an interview for my readers.
I have been surfing the net for a while now searching for inspiration for my own photographic works, and occasionally I end up in a site not being able to leave it before I go over all the photographs there. I bookmark such sites and remember the names of the photographers. These are the guys that I will try to interview, and if they agree I will post the interviews here for the benefit of everybody.

I will also reveal a small secret – I already have one great photographer who accepted my interview proposal! So stay tuned for this interview, which will be posted sometime during the next week.

I would also really appreciate if you suggested photographers that you like so I could take a look at their work and learn a bit more myself.

Light Study (I) – Working with Flashes

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Finally two additional flash units that I ordered on e-bay arrived and I could experiment with more than a single light source. Now I have one Canon flash (430 EX, bought second hand) and two Yongnuo flashes. Yongnuo (full name is Shenzhen Yong Nuo) is a Chinese company, which makes photographic equipment. They sell many products, which can be cheap replacements for the branded expensive Canon or Nikon stuff. For example these two new Yongnuo flash units cost me less than one Canon 430EX second hand! Anyway I’ll talk about the equipment in another post.

Basically what I was doing in this photo-session is placing light sources differently, shooting the picture, and looking at the result. My aim was to be able to predict how the image would look like so in the future I will be able to first visualize in my mind certain composition and then consciously achieve it using my light sources.

At first I couldn’t get any result that would satisfy me, my light was too scattered around and uncontrollable. Then I understood that I need more directional light, so I created gobos. This is something I learned from Strobist. You know that website right? If you don’t and interested in light, you definitely should visit it.

Anyway gobo is a simple cardboard rectangle box that you can do yourself. You then place it on your flash so it directs the light from it in one direction. And this helped a lot in achieving more predictable and neat results.

In addition I used colored gels on my flashes. Gels are transparent colored plastic stripes that you put on the flash to make its color different from daylight. By the way, there is one trick I learned myself in the process: if you use these gels, and work with auto white balance, your camera may try to adjust its white balance incorrectly since there is too much colored light in the scene. My solution was to put the white balance to “daylight” and that solved it.

[kml_flashembed movie=’http://www.photopathway.com/Gallery/Slideshows/light/loader.swf’ height=’500′ width=’650′ base=’http://www.photopathway.com/Gallery/Slideshows/light/’ wmode=’transparent’/]

And now to the results I received, and what I did to receive them:

In the first photo (from the left) I used two flashes. Both flashes were with gobos. The flash on the right side was without gel, and I pointed it more to the “base” of the light bulb. The flash on the left side was equipped with red gel and gobo, and was pointed a little above the lamp. This way I got less specular highlights on the light bulb. Both flashes were on manual control and placed approximately at the same distance from the subject, but the power of the left flash was weaker. This way I tried to achieve the feeling that the light bulb is glowing with red light.

In the second photo the setup was essentially identical to the previous one. I just added blue gel to the right flash. While this added interesting color to the photo I tend to like the first photo better because in my opinion it better achieves my goal – getting the light bulb to glow with red color.

Next two photos are of a champagne glass lighted with the same two flashes (still having gobos on them) left flash with red gel and right flash with blue gel. The difference now is that I put the left flash on minimum power so there would be much more blue and only a touch of red. Of course I achieved the result you see in the photos by trial and error.

One more thing to notice is that the background is almost completely black. This is not because I had a black backdrop. Actually my background was plain white wall, but all my light was directional (thanks to gobos) and none of it got spilled on the background. And since I worked with exposure settings that were too “low” for the ambient light in the room, as a result the background was heavily underexposed. If I wanted to have a background, I could use my third flash to light it.

That’s it for today’s photo-session. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave comments here or drop me an email and I will be happy to get back to you. And, of course, your own experiences will be highly appreciated!
Just one more thing – don’t forget to visit the Strobist web site – I learned a lot there and sure that you would too!

Patterns and Light Study

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Recently I have built a photographic table in order to improve my photographic skills, and now I am studying light and compositions. By studying I mean reading some books, looking at many photographs from a good photographers, and, of course trying to shoot myself.

In this photo session I was trying to create a repeatable pattern from some cups that I have. I saw that I could arrange them in some interesting ways but something was missing from the overall composition. After a long hard thinking and trying I finally came up with the idea of grapes. When I added grapes to the composition, I felt that they contributed a lot and I tried to arrange them in various shapes. By the way, I had to wash these grapes pretty hard in order to get rid of any dirt and fertilizer remnants.

In the first two photographs you can see two of the most successful patterns I could come up with.
However I had one more problem during my shoot – the Light. I had only one flash and it was without any diffuser, so I had to find a right place for it, so that the final lighting would be satisfactory.

I finally placed the flash on a stand on the right side of the composition, about a meter above, and not facing directly to the subjects but pointed “above” them, hitting a white wall behind.

You can see that the shadows inside the cups in the second photo are going rather steeply down as a result of flash placement. I also had to shoot my composition at such an angle that these shadows (inside the cup) wouldn’t be too harsh and too visible.

Another important thing composition-wise was to make the reflections remain in the frame, which gives additional dimension to the final photograph.

In the third photograph I tried to create another interesting form. Originally this photograph isn’t as tightly cropped, but putting it in this slideshow somehow cropped it. I am still new to making slideshows like that, and I will have to figure out why it happened.

Will be glad to hear any opinions and to answer any questions regarding these photos.

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How to create HDR image in Photoshop

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Recently I have seen many HDR images that were too exaggerated, making them completely unrealistic and in some cases even unpleasant to watch. Programs such as Photomatix make it very easy to create HDR images but they are also tend to lead people to create very exaggerated HDR images, maybe because it is very easy to accomplish in these programs.

I have nothing against using HDR techniques in creating artistic imagery, but I would like to remind you that the original intention of the HDR was just to increase the dynamic range of the photograph.

However with a little knowledge of Photoshop, you can do that – you can create an HDR image that will look very realistic but still show all the detail that you want it to show.

I created a pretty simple tutorial that shows how to manually create HDR image in Photoshop. In this tutorial I used two photos taken at the same location (using tripod), one exposed for the bright sky and the other one exposed for the darker lower part. Though I used only two photos, you can use as many photos as you like revealing detail in any part of the scene according to your preferences.

There is one point of this tutorial that I would like to stress out one more time – use large brush with soft edges and opacity around 50 to 60 percent. It is important so that your final image won’t have these “white glow” edges that can be seen in so many HDR images.

If you are new to the whole HDR thing, you can read my previous posts on the subject: HDR – Introduction and What is Pseudo HDR image?

If this tutorial helped you to create your own HDR images I would sure like to see them! But if you don’t have Photoshop, but still want to create HDR images, you might want to try Photomatix.

My Photographic Works

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Anyone who finds a site about photography probably asks himself – who is the guy that writes this stuff ? What does he/she shoots? I think that these are very legitimate questions. You wouldn’t take a legal advice from a taxi driver, would you?

In order to provide an answer for such questions regarding myself  I created a website where I display my photographic works, and here I will make a short tutorial around my website.

“IsraNature”

As I wrote in my About page, I am relatively new to photography and I started my “PhotoPathway” from photographing nature, plus the fact that I currently live in Israel – and there you have it: IsraNature.

Most of this website is dedicated to the Nature of Israel, but there are also a few albums from my trips abroad, and I imagine there will be more of them in the future. Most of the albums are named after different places in Israel that I photographed, and some of them have general names like “Nature of Galilee Region”. In such albums I put photos that there are not enough of them to create designated album for the specific place.

In the album named Artistic Impressions I put my artistic works that I like the most. Here is an example:

greg brave artistic impression

If you like my photographs and want to see new photos that I add to my site, you can just visit the homepage of my site. There will always be my latest photographs.

You can also reach IsraNature from the thumbnails on the sidebar of this blog and from the top menu.  I will appreciate any comments on my photographs. I am always looking for other people’s opinion on my work.

Sharing a personal achievement and a few tips

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Good day everybody!

I hope this day was as good for you as it was good for me. My photo was printed in National Geographic magazine, Israeli August issue! I wanted to share my joy, and I’d also like to explain how I did it. I imagine that this is a dream for many photographers.

As you know (or might guess) there is a National Geographic web site – www.nationalgeographic.com. At their web site they also have a section named “Your Shot”. In this section people from all over the world submit their photos. Each day twelve photos are picked to be displayed on the site that same day – they call it “The Daily Dozen”. But in addition photos that editors like the most are picked and printed in the printed version of National Geographic magazine.

Since many countries translate National Geographic magazine to their language, they also add to each issue some articles regarding the local country. In that section they sometimes also print photos from local photographers with a few lines about the photographer and the photograph.

I created an account at National Geographic Your Shot section and uploaded my photo there. It turned out that they liked it in NG headquarters in Washington and also in Israel, contacted me and asked for a little info about me and the photograph. Then after a month or two – voila! my photo was printed, and I also received a free issue of that month.

Now I will show my photo (show off!!!) and describe how I shot it. First of all here is the photo:

Tel Aviv Sea boardwalk night scene photography. Tel Aviv old port

I took this photograph about 40 minutes after the sunset, and in addition I was using polarizer to reduce the light even more. Actually polarizer created an additional effect – it made colors more saturated by eliminating the reflections (or anything that was left of them after the sunset). Of course I was using a tripod and a remote shutter cord to eliminate camera shake. The exposure time was 25 seconds and the aperture was f7.1. I used wide angle lens (Canon 10-22mm) at its almost widest angle (12mm).

The interesting thing about this photograph was that during the 25 seconds of exposure many people went by, but they are not seen in the photo! It was because people were too dark and stayed too short time inside the frame to get “noticed” by the camera. The only person that is visible is the one that was sitting during all that time on the bench.

I shot several photos at that location slightly changing the composition. I had a shot without the rail in front. That shot was “divided” in two sections – the sea, and the boardwalk. I felt that it was out of balance, and searched for something to balance the photo. The rail across the bottom of the photograph provided this balance creating the final shot I was satisfied with.

You can see more photographs from that day on my web site where I display my work: IsraNature in the album named “Sea World”. Well what the heck – click here to go directly to that album. I recommend watching all the photos on full screen (there is a button at lower right corner).

And last but not least here is the link to the National Geographic “Your Shot” section: Your Shot

Kata Bag 3n1 20 Review

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I decided to write this review since I have this bag for more than 7 months now and have been using it a lot. Before I bought it, like most of us do, I searched the net for reviews and thought I’ve got it completely figured out. I was sure back then that this bag is exactly what I need. And now, after months of experience with it I would like to share my conclusions and hope they would help some of you to make the right decision.

Buying Kata 3n1 (20) bag my requirements were:

1. I like to hike a lot, mostly one-day hikes, and I always want my camera with me. So I needed my photo bag to sit comfortable on my back.

2. Usually I take three lenses on a hike with me, all of them being Canon lenses: EF-S 10-22, EF24-70 2.8L, and EF70-300 f4-5.6. I needed my backpack to have room for these lenses, their hoods, 40D camera body, two polarizing filters and some additional stuff.

3. All the equipment should be properly stored but easily accessed when I need it.

4. Sometimes I take a tripod with me.

5. I also wanted a very durable bag that would provide a proper protection for everything I put in it since I am not so gentle with my equipment (except lenses of course!!!).

So did Kata 3n1 20 bag do the job?

Let’s go over each requirement and see:

1. This bag has very versatile shoulder straps. You can unclip each strap at its base and clip it to the other side making it possible to carry the backpack in three different positions: the usual backpack position, the sling position, and the x-position.

kata bag 3n1 20 review carrying positions

I tried all of them during my hikes and here are my conclusions:

The usual backpack position is the most comfortable one. I could hike for hours on rough terrain with backpack sitting comfortably on my back. The X-position is not very comfortable. I couldn’t walk long distances using it because x-shaped straps started pressing on my neck and shoulders and I had to pull them to the sides with my hands. Also the sling position, which is very convenient when you want to quickly get your camera, is not very comfortable. I couldn’t hike long distances using this position – the weight on a single shoulder (and neck) was too big. I think that if your gear doesn’t weight as much as mine, then you could use the sling position, but since I had to carry pretty big weight I didn’t find it useful.

2. I have enough room for all the equipment described above and I even have some free space left. So this requirement was fully satisfied.

3. But having this equipment organized conveniently is whole another story. The easiest thing is to get the camera with attached lens out of the side opening (the bag has openings from both sides so you can choose which side you want to use). But when you want to reach other lenses, it is not so easy. You have two options: a. To try and pull the lenses through the side opening and this is pure hell. And b. To take the backpack off your shoulders, put it on the ground (or table, or something), open the central compartment and take out what you need. Even the second option is not as easy as it seems since the central compartment can’t be fully opened – you can see it from the photo:

kata bag 3n1 20 review main compartment

So when I put a lens in the far end of the bag then it won’t come out as easily as I would like it to. I have to say that the top compartment is very good. I like the way it opens and although it seems pretty small, I manage to put there quite a lot of stuff. I also like the handle on top. Two small side pockets on the outside are good for ipod, filters and cleaning cloths.

4. There is nothing on this bag that allows to attach a tripod, and this is too bad. If it had only a little something that I could use to securely attach a lightweight tripod, I would be a much happier man 🙂

5. This bag is very and I mean VERY durable. Its build quality is excellent. Much thought was put in all the weak elements, and in this bag they are very strong. All the gear is perfectly protected inside the bag, and it also has a rain cover. I took it on several hikes during rain and all the equipment stayed dry. I couldn’t say enough good things about the materials and the build of this bag and I am not going easy on it when I use it!

kata bag 3n1 20 review angle views

Conclusion

Pros:

  • Excellent build quality.
  • Comfortable when carrying it as a usual backpack.
  • Very convenient side openings.
  • Great top compartment.
  • Good equipment protection.

Cons:

  • The main compartment can’t be fully opened, which makes it difficult to access gear.
  • If your equipment is heavy, then you can only use this bag as a backpack and not as sling.
  • Impossible to attach tripod.

All that said, I am still using this bag and probably will use it for a while. If you found this review to be helpful, consider supporting my site by buying the Kata 3N1 20 backpack through my affiliate link.

After publishing this article as you can see from the comment below, I was contacted by Doug Feldner, the product manager for the Kata line in the US. He told me something very interesting! There is a tripod holder for the Kata 3n1 series! When I try it I sure will write a few lines about it here.

You can read my review on the tripod holder for the Kata 3n1 series here.

Photography Post-Processing – Good or Bad?

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To post-process or not? This is a somewhat philosophical question. It is also a very controversial one. Some people claim that photo should be seen the way it gets out of the camera without any adjustments. Others do adjustments freely and sometimes even take it to the extremes. So what is the right thing?

Any photographer, even an amateur one like me, has an opinion on this issue. And here is mine.

I think that even if you don’t adjust anything after downloading your photo from the camera, it is already not faithful to reality. It doesn’t have “real” colors or the “real” white balance. That photograph looks as your camera “saw” it considering the settings you set. There is no such thing as one and only reality. So even by the action of pressing the shutter-release button you are already making adjustments to the reality.

Another thing is that even before you press the shutter-release button, when you building your composition, you are already adjusting the reality by making the viewer of your photographs see things the way you want.

Then what is the difference between these “adjustments” and adjustments in Photoshop like contrast, levels etc.? I don’t think there is a big ideological difference. In my opinion you are free to make any post-processing you like as long as you manage to convey the meaning, the idea, the story of your work to the viewer – just like any other art.

Of course there may be adjustments or extremes that people go to in Photoshop that I don’t like. For example – any kind of fraud, I mean editing the original photograph by changing or adding (or detracting) some features in it, and then saying that this is how it was from the beginning.

But if you present your photo as work of art, then personally I relate to it only in this way, and examine only the final result whether do I like it or not.

The Full f-stops and Original Shutter Speeds

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Many advanced amateur photographers are familiar with notion of f-stops and shutter speeds, and also know that there are many different combinations of f-stop+shutter speed that allow for the same amount of light to hit the sensor of the camera (or the film). But there is a catch involved in it that I would like to focus your attention on in this article.

I will say it right away that for this article to be of any use to you, you have to know what is f-stop, shutter speed, and exposure. But even that said I’ll start with a little theory, which may serve just as reminder for most of the readers (myself included) but for beginner photographers it might be even something they didn’t know before.

There are many different combinations of f-stop and shutter speed that represent the same exposure, so for the same lighting conditions you can choose for example f/11 with 1/15s for correct exposure, but you can also choose f/2 with 1/500 for exactly the same exposure. Of course there are substantial differences between these two settings, which you also have to take under consideration, but both of them allow for the same exposure.

So what exactly are the combinations of f-stop and shutter speed that result in the same exposure?

The answer is pretty simple, but with a little twist. First – the answer. There are 9 full f-stops, and also 9 common shutter speeds (actually there are few more, but here I’ll concentrate on these). So if your correct exposure consists from a certain f-stop and a certain shutter speed from these nine, then to receive exactly the same exposure with different f-stop and shutter speed combination you’ll have, for example, to set one f-stop above your current one, and one shutter speed below your current one, thus you will close your aperture so that less light will hit the sensor, but at the same time you’ll prolong the time that the sensor is exposed, so eventually the same amount of light will hit the sensor. This way you can continue changing the f-stop/shutter speed combinations but still have the same exposure.

And now the twist:

In the modern cameras you can actually set more f-stops and shutter speed than these 9. Between the full f-stops there are now intermediate f-stops, and this fact confused me because now when I changed to the next f-stop I didn’t know whether it was a full one or an intermediate, same thing being with shutter speeds. So having modern digital camera denied me this knowledge of getting the same exposure due to having intermediate settings.

What are original full f-stops and shutter speeds are then? Well, here they are for your (and mine) convenience:

f-stops: f/1.4  f/2 f/2.8  f/4  f/5.6  f/8  f/11  f/16  f/22

shutter speeds: 1/1000s  1/500s  1/250s  1/125s  1/60s  1/30s  1/15s  1/8s  1/4s

And the f-stop@shutter speed combinations that will result in same exposure are:

f/22@1/4  f/16@1/8  f/11@1/15  f/8@1/30  f/5.6@1/60  f/4@1/125  f/2.8@1/250  f/2@1/500  f/1.4@1/1000

Just to make it more clear – if you set your camera to automatic mode, take a shot and see that it used f5.6 f-stop with 1/60s shutter speed, you then can switch to manual mode and set f/4 with 1/125s and also have properly exposed photograph. Of course that by changing from f/5.6 to f/4 you reduced your depth of focus, and also shutter speed of 1/125s will make it harder to create blurring effect, but about these implications of different f-stops and shutter speeds I will write in another article. And until then – take care!

What is Pseudo HDR image?

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In one of my recent articles I wrote about HDR photography (you can read it here). So I learned about HDR, and I played with it, and everything seemed pretty clear to me. Of course there are endless variations that can be done with HDR, and only your creativity is the limit, but during my explorations I kept stumbling into these strange words: “Pseudo HDR”. Most of the photos I saw under this title looked pretty much as ordinary photos, but some of them looked like real HDR, and if I wouldn’t see that “pseudo HDR” phrase, I would have thought that it was usual HDR.

So this got my curiosity up and running, and finally I found out what the words “Pseudo HDR” mean. I want to share this knowledge, and in order to do that I have to start with something else.

RAW camera format

Those of you who have advanced point-and-shoot cameras or any type of SLR camera know that you can choose that your camera will save the photos you shoot in RAW format (there is usually a choice between JPEG of different qualities and RAW).

When you choose to shoot in JPEG, it means that when you click on shutter release button, light comes through the lens and hits the digital sensor. Then the information from the sensor is processed by the internal computer of the camera according to the camera settings (choice of white balance for example), compressed to JPEG file format, and finally saved to the memory card. Now, and this is important, during the JPEG compression phase, some information that was recorded from the sensor during the shot is LOST forever. Because of this loss, when you process the image in photo-processing software, you are less flexible in the adjustments that you can do to the photograph without compromising its quality.

This is why there is RAW format. RAW format means that all the information that is recorded by the digital sensor of your camera during the shot is saved without any compression or processing by the camera’s internal computer. When you process RAW file in your favorite photo-processing software you can apply pretty radical adjustments to your photograph without compromising its quality.

One of such adjustments is exposure. You can pull up your exposure by about 2 stops without compromising image quality (well, maybe I exaggerated a little with two, but 1.5 for sure). I wrote especially about the adjustment of exposure because it is critical for the explanation of the Pseudo HDR, but another generally very important adjustment is white balance, so even if you set the white balance setting completely wrong during the shot, you will be able to change it during the processing.

Note: In order to process RAW files you will probably have to install special software (however in Photoshop there is a built in plugin – so that when you open a RAW file you will automatically get a RAW processing window. You can also process RAW files in Lightroom, and almost certainly in Picasa). For example Canon supplies RAW processing SW for free when you buy a camera.

And now I finally get to the point:

Pseudo HDR

Pseudo HDR photo is made from a single RAW file. As I said you can change the exposure settings of the RAW file without compromising on image quality. So basically you open the same file two or three times, each time setting different exposure, revealing different areas. Thus in low exposure you have good highlights, and in high exposure you have good and visible shadowed areas. Then you merge this to a single pseudo HDR image. You see, it is not a real HDR image, you didn’t take three different photos taken with different exposure settings, but you achieve similar effect.

Of course there are some drawbacks. For example if the scene you shoot has very deep shadows and very bright highlights, then single RAW photo just won’t do it because there is a limit to how much exposure range you can pull from a single photo.
So pseudo HDR is mostly used when you only have to make slight adjustments to the picture. For this article I tried to take Pseudo HDR to extremes and here is what came out of it.

This is the photo without any adjustments and exposure changes ( shot in RAW format):

Pseudo HDR image before adjustments

And here is what came out after processing this single shot using exposure and other adjustments:
Final Pseudo HDR photo of Subaru Impreza STI - Racing Car

You can see that in the final photo shadowed areas are more clearly visible, and hilights (the sky) are not burned. I created this pseudo HDR photo in Photoshop, but if you don’t have Photoshop, or want an easier way to create HDR or pseudo HDR images, check out Photomatix.

How to Achieve “Smooth Waterfall” Effect

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Recently I was browsing some photos of a photographer I liked and saw this beautiful photo of waterfall with smooth water flowing between the rocks. Then in the comments below I saw a question from someone asking how to make this “smooth water” effect. There was no answer in the comments.

Though I think that many even beginner photographers know answer to this question I decided to write here a short explanation on the subject and also provide additional useful info that I learned while trying to achieve this effect.

The “Smooth Water” effect

The effect of smooth water is achieved by using long exposure. The longer you set the exposure (starting with about 1/4s) the smoother the water will be. It happens because water doesn’t stay still like the surrounding rocks, but constantly flows, so during all that time that your shutter is open, the water slightly “changes” its appearance many times, which results in the smooth water effect. But it is not always simple to achieve this effect:

First of all you absolutely need a tripod. You need everything else besides water to remain sharp, but if you will hand-hold your camera and shoot with long exposure setting, everything will be blurred due to camera shake. If you don’t have a tripod you can try placing your camera on a rock (or anything that doesn’t move) and composing your shot from there, though it won’t give you the freedom of the tripod.

Additional problem that can be a serious one – if you are shooting on bright sunny day, there may be too much light for long exposure that will result in burned photos. So you are stuck with either not smooth water or a burned photograph. What can you do in such situation?

  • First – check your ISO settings and make sure that you are on the lowest ISO possible in your camera.
  • Second try closing the aperture as much as possible – lets say f22 (maybe less if you see that its enough).
  • Third (not always an option) wait for some clouds to block the sun.

If nothing helps then, in order to achieve the smooth water effect you will have to put filter on your lens to reduce the amount of light reaching the sensor. There are two types of filters that I use: Neutral Density (ND) filters and Polarizing filter.

Neutral Density filters have different densities and they can reduce the amount of light entering the camera by 1, 2, or 3 stops. By using them you’ll actually make a bright day darker. The combination of ND filter, small aperture, and low ISO should do the job.

Polarizing filter (or simply polarizer) is widely used in Landscape photography. There is more to polarizer but now what matters is that this filter reduces the amount of light entering the camera by about 1.5 stops, thus acting like ND filter in this aspect. If the only filter you have is polarizer then put it on if see if this would be enough light reduction to use long exposure.
You can find more useful info about polarizer at Great Landscape Photography

So as you can see though the explanation of “smooth water” effect is pretty simple, it is not always easy (or even possible) to achieve without proper tools.

How to shoot with tripod and why

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Why photographers use tripods? Well, the answer to this question is pretty simple – to prevent camera shake as much as possible and create sharper photos.

Beginner photographer might think that tripod is necessary only for long exposures, but it is not exactly so. The longer your focal length, the more sensitive you get to camera shake. For example if you shoot with wide angle lens (I am intentionally taking this to extremes) with shutter speed of 1/60s you will get pretty sharp photo, but if you’ll take your telephoto lens, lets say 300 mm (without image stabilizer) and shoot with the same shutter speed, most of the chances that you’ll get a very blurred result. But consider also this – most professional landscape photographers use tripod even when they are shooting landscapes in bright light using wide angle lenses! So in order to get tack sharp photos you must use tripod.

How to use tripod correctly

Though it seems pretty simple – just put your camera on a tripod and start shooting, there are several things you need to know that will help you get good results from shooting with tripod.

1. Use Manual Focus.

When you hold camera in your hands and shoot, you can always press the shutter button half-way to focus on your subject, then recompose, and take a picture with correct focus. But when you shoot with tripod this simple task gets a little bit more complicated. So what you should do is use auto focus to focus on your subject, then switch to manual focus, recompose according to your intentions, lock the tripod and then shoot. Since you switched to manual focus, it won’t change when you press the shutter button after recomposing. Of course that you can always use only manual focus, making this advice irrelevant.

2. Use Manual Shooting Mode.

Same as with focus, when you shoot handheld, you can take light metering from the area that you want to, then lock exposure, recompose, and shoot. Using tripod you’ll have to first take light metering from the desired area, then set shooting mode to manual and set the correct exposure according to metering. After this you can recompose and shoot.

The following tips will help you get even sharper photos when shooting with tripod

3. Use Cable Release.

Cable release is simply cable with a button. You attach it to your camera and instead of pressing the shutter release button on your camera, you press the button on the cable. This prevents the camera shake caused by your finger pressing the shutter release button.

4. Use Mirror Lock.

In SLR cameras there is a mirror lock option. For those who doesn’t understand what it means, I’ll shortly explain. When you look through the viewfinder of your SLR, you see everything through the lens. Although you must have noticed that actual position of the lens is much below the viewfinder. In other words – viewfinder and lens are not in the same plane. So how can you look into the view finder and see through the lens? Thats right – there are mirrors involved. There is a mirror that you can see when changing lenses, it is at 45 degree angle to the lens. This mirror is reflecting everything the lens “sees” up, to the viewfinder (there is also a pentaprism involved which enables you to actually see through the viewfinder, but that’s not important right now). When you press the shutter button this mirror goes up, and then shutter opens to expose the sensor (or film). I bet you have noticed that when you press the shutter button, you can’t see nothing in the viewfinder – it is because the mirror is up.

And now to the sickest part – camera shake caused by the mirror movement! When you press the shutter release button, this mirror goes up, and this movement also causes camera shake! Though this shake might not seem to be a significant one, it exists. In order to prevent it there is a mirror lock option. This option first locks the mirror in the up position (when you don’t see nothing in the viewfinder) and only after the mirror is locked the shutter is released.

5. Turn off Image Stabilizer.

If your lens has image stabilizer you should turn it off when shooting with tripod.  Image stabilizer  is very good when shooting hand-held, but on a tripod it is of no use since there is no camera movement. Image stabilizer engine can even cause some shake thus making images less sharp.

So as you can see, shooting with tripod is not as trivial as it might seem at first, but also not that hard when you know how to do it.

HDR – Introduction

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When I just started getting interested in photography I discovered many interesting sites and forums on the web. And from time to time I saw this mysterious abbreviation HDR, and very unusual photos under it. And for some time I couldn’t figure out what it is that people do with their photographs that make them “HDR”.
So finally I decided to research this issue and found out what it is, and many different techniques to achieve an HDR image. It has been quite some time now that I have been playing with HDR images and gaining knowledge on the topic.

This is an introductory article into the HDR photography. I won’t discuss now any ethical or ideological questions regarding this issue but only explain what is HDR image.

HDR stands for High Dynamic Range. Seeing this, a beginner photographer will ask himself: “what the hell is this Dynamic Range”? Though this is somewhat complicated question, I’ll try to simplify it having HDR photography in mind.

Dynamic Range
When you shoot a photograph, you set certain exposure time and an f-stop. Let’s say, for example that you are shooting a scene with very dark areas and also very bright areas. In this case if you expose for light areas, in the resulting photograph you will have them correctly exposed and all light details visible while all the dark areas will be plain black. And if you will expose for dark areas, in the resulting photograph you will have the dark areas correctly exposed with all dark details visible, but now white areas will be completely burned (e.g. white, with no details). So dynamic range is how many dark tones and light tones can be seen in the same image without being burned or blackened. If I would take photo of the same scene with two different cameras – one with high dynamic range and another with low dynamic range (with the same exposure and aperture settings), then in the resulting photograph from the first camera I would see more details in very dark and very light areas, while in the photograph from the second camera these areas would be completely black and completely white.

But as high as the dynamic range of any camera can be, it has its limits, and these limits are way below the dynamic range that human eye can see. This fact makes it practically impossible to create photographs of places with high contrast lighting, on which you will be able to see everything your eye saw while taking the photo. For example you are shooting a street with buildings on both sides of it. The sun is lighting the scene so that tops of the buildings on one side of the street are bright but rest of the scene is shadowed. No matter how you will expose, you will either get the building tops in good exposure and all the rest dark with barely visible details or burned building tops with good detail in dark areas. You get the idea. It is always a compromise. Well, not always – you can create an HDR image! This brings us to the second part:

High Dynamic Range image – HDR.
HDR image is created from combining several photos of the same scene taken with different exposures. This merge is done, of course, on the computer with the aid of photo-processing software. So in order to create an HDR image you will have to take several photos (usually not more than three) of the same scene each time shifting exposure by one stop (or 1/2 stop or 3/2 stop – your experience will guide you here). The easiest way (but not always the best) is to make first exposure according to what the camera suggests (using center weighted average meter), second exposure should be one stop below the suggested exposure and the third exposure – one stop above the suggested. Using a tripod is highly recommended so that all three photos will have exactly the same composition without little shifts. These shifts can be somewhat corrected in post-processing though.

In order to create this image I took three photos with exposures spaced by single stop, and then combined them in Photomatix. It is a very easy to use but also very versatile program for creating HDR images. Here I intently exaggerated the HDR effect of the resulting image.

HDR Landscape

After the photos are created you load them to your computer and use software to create a final HDR image, in which both – light and dark areas of the photograph will have details. One of the most known and used software for creating HDR images is Photomatix. In several recent versions of Photoshop there is also an option for creating HDR images. When this “HDR effect” is used to its extremes, the resulting photos look unreal, like a drawing or painting, but used carefully it helps to bring back the otherwise lost details to photograph without making it look unrealistic.

There are many opinions regarding whether should one use HDR or not. Some people claim that it is not real photography, others use HDR to its extremes creating “paintings” instead of photos. In this article, as I promised I won’t go into this question and just say that I don’t agree with either of these two opinions ☺

8 Advanced Tips for amateur photographer

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I learned the following tips from two professional photographers I happen to know. These are not the most common tips that any amateur receives like “Try shooting the same frame with different exposures and see what works best” or “To freeze action use fast shutter speed”. These tips are more profound and “rare” as I call them, having more meaning than I can actually explain here, so you will have to rethink for yourself some of them. And one more thing – some of them can be achieved only with SLR (Single Lens Reflex) camera.

1. When looking through the viewfinder “scan” with your eye the whole frame.

Human eye is seeing the sharpest only the object that it looks at. All other objects are not in perfect focus. But camera sees all the things that are in the same plane in the same sharpness, and if your aperture fairly small then many more planes will get sharp. So when taking the shot you have to be aware of other “sharp” objects that will be visible in the final photo.

  • One way to do this “scan” is to first focus with AF (auto focus) on what you want, and then rotate the manual focus ring just a little bit. It will make the whole frame a little blurred. When everything is blurred your eye will automatically scan the whole frame for something sharp, thus going over the whole frame.
  • Another way is just to stare into the view finder for a few seconds, not trying to focus on anything specific. This is something that takes a little practice to master.

2. Use manual focus override to adjust focus to what you need.

Sometimes you need to control the DOF (Depth Of Field) to achieve the desired result. First you focus on your main subject using auto focus, and then while the shutter release button is half-pressed you turn the manual focus override ring to adjust the focus to what you need. Have in mind though that manual focus override is not featured in all lenses. There are cheaper lenses that can work only in automatic or manual mode but not both simultaneously.

3. Initially compose the photo for cropping or adjustments.

Many amateur photographers just shoot the photo and then when they open it in photo-processing software (such as Picasa, Lightroom, Photoshop, ACDSee etc.), and only then, they start thinking what they can do to improve it. Maybe crop it like this? Maybe emphasize a little more shadows? Try to think about these things (especially the crop) before pressing the shutter-release button.  It will make it much easier to perform cropping and other adjustments later. You will also be forced to THINK before you shoot.

4. During the shoot of an event – shoot on manual.

When you are shooting events that happen fast, you can’t afford to mess with camera controls. You can miss the shot of the day that way. So what you can do is: set your camera to aperture priority mode, and choose the desired aperture. Then half press the shutter-release button and on the screen (or inside the viewfinder) you will see the suggested shutter speed. Take a few photos and see if you like what you get (in terms of exposure), if not adjust exposure compensation. After you are satisfied, switch to manual and set the same values of shutter and aperture. From now on shoot on manual during the whole event with the same settings, unless there are drastic changes of light in the scene. I realize that this is kind of “half-tip” and many professional photographers are working only in manual changing between f-stops and exposure automatically to get the best results. But here I am talking about amateurs, like myself, who are not just yet there.

5.Don’t look at the back LCD screen after each photo.

Actually this tip is pretty controversial, but I’ll stick with it. Not looking at the LCD display after taking each shot makes you THINK more before each shot, and also leaves a room for anticipation towards the final images. This is a good exercise, and while it might not be a good idea during an important shoot, I advise to do it wholeheartedly during your everyday shooting. Think of it, if you have this habit of looking at your back screen after each photo, and you are in a scene where everything happens fast, you just might miss an interesting shot while looking at the LCD display.

6. Don’t just convert to b&w – shoot with intention for b&w.

Instead of going over your photographs after a shoot and thinking “Well, this photo might look good in B&W, lets try to convert it!” Shoot the photographs with B&W in mind, think B&W. When shooting B&W, highlights and shadows have more importance, and also other artistic aspects of the photo (such as facial expressions, hand gestures, etc.) stand out more in B&W, because you don’t have the “distraction” of the color. When shooting with B&W in mind you pay more attention to tones (light/dark) than to colors.

7.When shooting people in low light take spot light metering from their skin.

In difficult light conditions, particularly in low light, when using center-weighted average metering most of the chances that you will over-expose your photo. So it would be better to switch to spot metering and take the measure from the skin of the person you are about to shoot. If for some reason it is impossible, then take the measurement from the palm of your hand while placing it in similar lighting.

8. When shooting with slow shutter speeds hand-held, don’t release the shutter button.

When you shoot with slow shutter speed, you have to do everything in your power to reduce the camera shake, so in addition to holding it steady, leaning against the wall etc., when you press the shutter button, don’t press and release it straight away, but press it smoothly leaving your finger on it for a while after you hear the shutter sound. This little trick can improve greatly the outcome. In many ways shooting photos with slow shutter speed is like sniper-shooting a rifle – most of the actions are the same: for example it helps to take a deep breath in, then breath out, and then press the shutter-release.

Well, I hope you’ll find these tips useful and would really like to hear your thoughts about them. I probably will write more on some of these tips in my future articles.

Creating a Banner from initial Image

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I bet that some of you had to do this: you had to create a desired size image from a photo. But you needed this new image to be a certain part of the initial photo (with a specific dimensions) but without changing the aspect ratio of the image – so it will still look natural.
Recently I had to create a head-banner for a web site of my friend. He gave me initial image and asked me to make a banner of a size 800×250 pixels from this image. It turned out to be not as simple as I thought at first, but finally I managed to do it. I want to share what I learned and so I created a tutorial.
So here we go:

Welcome to PhotoPathway

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Greetings!

I am Greg, and this is my place named PhotoPathway. You’ll find here lots of info regarding all aspects of photography.

More about me and PhotoPathway is on my About page.

You are welcome to browse PhotoPathway for all its posts, photos and categories.

Cheers!
Greg.