Photography Tips

Photography Tip - shutter speed should be double your focal length

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Donzi speedboat Treasure Island, Florida - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8D @ f/2.8 ISO 400 1/1250th 200mmOne of the most common difficulties when first entering the DSLR world is to produce sharp action photographs.  This Donzi speedboat was cruising into the Gulf of Mexico near Treasure Island, St. Petersburg, Florida just after 6pm in February 2009.  The sun was already getting close to the horizon.  The Donzi was going fast.  This added up to a photography scene with very little room for margin of error.  It required pretty exact settings to produce an acceptable image.  

I always keep in mind one basic axiom about shutter speed: 

  • the shutter speed should be at least double the focal length 

Since I was shooting at 200mm with my trusty Nikkor AF ED 80-200mm f/2.8D lens, according to that axiom I needed a shutter speed of at least 1/400th of a second.  However, that shutter speed is really just a theoretical minimum.  One then has to take into consideration the speed of the subject and the available light.  If I had set my shutter speed to 1/400th you would be looking at a white blur.  In general I never shoot any moving subject at less than 1/500th no matter the focal length used.  

For something moving really fast I keep in mind that it will probably take 1/1000th to freeze its motion.  So since I made the Donzi shot with a shutter speed of 1/1250th, I was able to produce a tack sharp image.  

So the first thing to check if you are having a hard time photographing moving subjects is to check your shutter speed.  Is it at least double your focal length?  For anything moving as fast or faster than a child running around, is your shutter speed over 1/500th or greater?  If the answer to these questions is no, then you know at least the first step you then need to take to start producing sharp action shots.

DSLR Photography Lesson with Carie & her Canon 50D at University of Tampa

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Carie already has a full gear bag with her Canon 50D as the centerpiece - University of Tampa CampusI ventured out of St. Petersburg this morning for a DSLR Photography Lesson with new student Carie and her Canon 50D on the University of Tampa campus.  I had not had a lesson there in almost a year.  The campus was much busier than I expected for an early Saturday morning, but I was lucky and got the last parking space in front of the Plant Building.  

Carie has had her 50D for some time and has done some studying of photography terms and techniques on her own.  What my 1-on-1 in the field lessons offer is instruction on how to actually make photos in common situations with situation specific settings.  One thing Carie wanted to be able to photograph better are her very active children who plays sports.  The variable cloudiness allowed us to use sunny actions settings, and higher ISO settings for when the sky clouded over and available light dropped significantly.  One important thing I told Carie to keep an eye on was shutter speed.  For action the shutter speed should (usually) be at least 1/500th of a second and faster.  When the clouds came and the shutter speed dipped below 1/500th, increasing to ISO 400 got shutter speeds up to an adequate 1/640th.  Of course, the faster the subject is moving, the faster the shutter speed needed to freeze that action is.

For the final part of the lesson we went down by the Hillsborough River to practice using fill flash for portraits.  I had Carie first take a shot (of yours truly) with no flash then the exact same shot with her external flash on.  It was easy to see the better results having the flash on produced.

Carie was also the only student (out of dozens) that naturally both held the camera correctly and more often used portrait orientation than landscape.  I was impressed! 

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    • DSLR Photography Lesson with sisters Shanna & Heather & their Nikon D3100's

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    Heather & Shanna, sisters, both have the new Nikon D3100 seen here in Vinoy ParkIt is very rare that I teach anything but 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lessons, but thanks to a Christmas present gift certificate given to both, sisters Heather & Shanna took their lesson together.  Since the both had the same DSLR, the new Nikon D3100, things were greatly simplified and they were also pretty fast on the uptake for learning how to change the basic settings for aperture, ISO, white balance and focus mode.  If yesterday morning's weather was nice, then todays's was fabulous.  It was very nice to be outside and along the St. Petersburg waterfront talking about photography.

    Each sister had the same photography knowledge level (eager beginner), but had done some good prep reading of Rick Sammon's great book, "Digital Photography Secrets."  I highly recommend that book to anyone starting out in digital photography.  I own it myself.  

    After showing the sisters how to use aperture and focal length settings to create bokeh using their 55-200mm lenses, we made our way over to Vinoy Park stopping to photograph a grey heron along the way.  In the park we finished the lesson with a little landscape photography practice making use of the rule of thirds to best place the horizon.

    I look forward to future lessons with both Shanna and Heather. 

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    • DSLR Photography Lesson with Alice & her Canon 60D

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    St. Petersburg's own pirate ship sailed past Alice (with Canon 60D) and I during her DSLR photography lessonMaybe one day I will not be so surprised that one can meet people who surprisingly have many of the same rare-ish things you do in common.  For example, new DSLR Photography Lesson student, Alice, who recently got a Canon 60D, has a master's degree in ESL (English as a second language), but only briefly ever taught ESL.  I taught ESL for nine years (without a master's in it).  She also knows the same person in a local tutoring company that I do.  So while I helped Alice get acquainted with how to change the settings on her Canon 60D we discovered all these unexpected things in common.

    We were both expecting a cold morning, but I left my car without need for my jacket and unlike the blustery, semi-freezing January morning lessons last year, this was nearly as pleasant of weather as one can expect for winter in Florida.  The pirate ship even returned from its time abroad to St. Petersburg harbor and conveniently floated by just as we were entering Vinoy Park.

    Alice and her Canon 60D showing how to properly hold one's DSLR with left palm under the lensAlice is also interested in learning how to use the video function of her Canon 60D which may be a subject we tackle in a future lesson.  Until then she has her poodle at home to practice on all the things we learned about this fine Florida winter day.  It was fun to be able to get Alice started on her DSLR photography path and to learn of her ESL past. 

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    • Photography Tip - use filters when editing for great quick results

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    Nikon D300 Nikkor AF 50mm f/1.8D ISO 400 1/60th - sailboats of St. Petersburg HarborFor this digital photography editing tip I am using a photograph that was made in an unusual way and breaks a few rules.  Typically for a landscape, fine art type photograph I would of course mount my DSLR on a tripod and probably use a cable release and wide angle lens too.  For this photograph I was shooting handheld with a 50mm prime lens, and in portrait orientation to boot.  At the time I was teaching a DSLR photography lesson to a student preparing for a trip to Costa Rica and he would not be bringing a tripod.

    This photograph had been lying around unedited for five months, which means I did not love it, but something about it made me want to not just delete it right away.  Maybe it is the completely empty foreground and the use of portrait orientation, or because of the sailboat with a lowered mast in the middle.  Either way, I will in the following describe my simple and fast editing method of using filters.

    The first step was importing the RAW file into Aperture 3.  If you use an app like Aperture 3, then shooting in RAW requires no extra work over just shooting in jpg.  So you get all the benefits of shooting in RAW, with no big work required on your part because Aperture 3 upon file import applies a RAW processing profile based on your specific DSLR right to the file.  No mess no fuss.  So there is absolutely no excuse not to shoot in RAW.  The myth of RAW being extra work is gone!  

    Here are the next steps I took in Aperture 3: 

    • straighten the horizon (right side was low)
    • adjust exposure and vibrance sliders
    • use the temperature slider to add warmth (image was too blue) 

    After doing super easy and basic slider adjustments in Aperture 3, I then launch Color Efex Pro 3 which is a plugin I have right inside Aperture 3.

     

    The filters I used in order in Color Efex Pro 3: 

    • Polarization
    • Remove Color Cast
    • Tonal Contrast 

    After finishing things up in Color Efex Pro 3, I export the image as a TIFF right into Photoshop CS5 where I applied a 60% unsharp mask filter.  Then from right within Photoshop CS5 I launched Topaz Adjust 3 and applied the "Photo Pop" filter.  The last little thing I did to the image was use the dodge brush in CS5 set for midtones at 20% to brighten up the condos a little more, and the shoreline too.

    This is basically the editing process I do on every single photograph I edit, save for using Topaz Adjust which is only used once in a great while.  One or two of the filters may change in Color Efex Pro, and I may adjust different sliders in Aperture 3, but I think this is a streamlined, easy and effective editing process.  

    Please try this editing process out on one of your own images and post a link to the results in the comments below.

    Photography Tip - Rockin out Photoshop faux Polaroid template

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    Having a little fun with a Polaroid Photoshop templateA couple of times a year I get the urge to experiment with Photoshop.  This time I was searching for postcard templates.  I did not find any of those that I liked (I ended up designing my own), but I did find this faux Polaroid Photoshop template.  For awhile I was keeping a photo of some keyboardist-singer hanging around that I took a few months ago wondering what I could do with it.  I liked the emotion, but I could not really find a fit for it.  After I found the faux Polaroid template, I thought they might go together.

    HOW TO CREATE YOUR OWN FAUX POLAROID PHOTOGRAPH

    First, download the faux Polaroid template from this site.  Then open up the .psd file in Photoshop.  Also open up the photograph you want to use in the template in Photoshop too.  The faux Polaroid template has quite a few layers to it, not all of them I chose to keep.  

    Using the quick select tool with these settings in the screencap above, I clicked on the layers I did not want and then just hit the delete key.  Now the template was ready for the photo to be inserted.  There was some resizing prep-work to be done on the photo first before it could be inserted into the template, however.  I resized the faux Polaroid template to 600px wide (the size of all images on the blog).  

    Then I measured the actual pixel space available in the template, represented by the black area seen above.  I cropped the photo to just a few pixels less in each dimension then resized it.  Then it was just a matter of using the quick select tool to drag the photo onto the open black space on the template.  The last thing I did was change the text caption.

    I once again selected the template layer with the quick select tool.  Then used the horizontal type tool to write "ROCKIN' OUT!" using the Chalkduster font.  

    Here is the final image again:

    Photography Tip - two strobe off-camera-flash setup

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    Nikon SB-600 Speedlight on tripod to frame left & Nikon SB-800 Speedlight on light stand to frame rightIt is no secret I am a big fan of strobist photography, which simply put is the use of off-camera-flash.  To me it is the key to great sunset portraits, and really portraits of any kind for that matter.  The photo above (taken on St. Pete Beach, see more here) may look like a big undertaking with a complex setup, but with a little practice and the right gear anyone with a DSLR can be doing it in no time.  That said, here is the gear list I used:

    • Nikon D300 DSLR
    • Tamron XR Di II 17-50mm f/2.8 lens
    • Nikon SB-800 Speedlight (with diffuser cap)
    • Nikon SB-600 Speedlight (with diffuser cap)
    • Yongnuo RF-602 wireless flash trigger and 2 receivers
    • generic light stand with swivel flash bracket umbrella holder
    • basic tripod

    The Yongnuo trigger and receivers only need to be setup once ever, which just involves setting them all to the same channel.  The trigger just attaches right to the DSLR's hotshoe and works automatically.  So that takes care of getting the two strobes to work remotely.

    Setting them up just means screwing them onto the swivel flash bracket on the light stand and the tripod plate.  For positioning, that depends on the angle of composition, the background elements, etc, but mostly I put the light stand at that height above and down onto the subject and the tripod at eye level to the subject in front or to the side.  So that takes care of the physical aspect of the lighting.

    Both strobes need to be setup manually, as the trigger/receivers do not work with any TTL modes.  Put each strobe into its Manual Mode and then select the power, which often is 1/2 power for the strobe on the light stand and 1/4 power for the strobe on the tripod, though of course the power setting is greatly dependent on how much available light there is and the distance the strobe is from the subject.  Sometimes I use much less power.  Now all the lighting is setup.

    All that's left to do is get the settings dialed in on the DSLR.  For the above shot I used: 

    • Manual exposure
    • f/5.6
    • ISO 400
    • 1/60th
    • WB - sunny
    • RAW + JPG mode 

    Again, these settings vary wildly based on available light.  The sun was already set by the time this shot was setup, thus I used a larger aperture than normal (usually f/8 of f/11 for such a shot) and a slower shutter speed and a bit higher ISO (normally I always use the lowest ISO).  I did not want to use any larger aperture than f/5.6 because I wanted to make sure both people were in sharp focus and to be able to get background elements in some detail.  I did not use a slower shutter speed because I know I can handhold 1/60th no problem, but any slower might introduce blur because of my shakiness or the couple's.  Thus, I increased ISO to 400 so I could maintain the aperture and shutter speed limits I wanted to.

    Finished shot edited in Aperture 3, Color Efex Pro 3 and Photoshop CS5