St. Petersburg Florida Lens Flare Park Sunset

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Lens flare sunset over North Straub Park - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/5.6 ISO 200 1/320th processing in Color Efex Pro & Topaz AdjustMy favorite time of day is the transition from day to night.  In my mind I imagine all the day time creatures shutting it down and getting ready to yield dominion to all the night time creatures.  During the transition period things overlap as the sun approaches and passes the horizon.  This great physical change always produces a large mental change.  I have always wondered why just the lack of being able to see at distance, which really is all the sun setting causes, results in the world feeling entirely different?  In addition to the lack of light it must be that other creatures hold sway over the night, and this causes peculiar feelings among day creatures that overlap too far into the night.

I made this lens flare dominated photograph of the setting sun burning its way visually through a tree in downtown St. Petersburg's North Straub Park as it shows just the start of that transition time.  Some shadows are starting to increase in size and the signal is out for day time creatures to start to head home.  There is just a peak of the human world in the shot, which no longer abides by the timing of the sun.

Do not use in camera black & white setting - photography tip

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I am following up last week's black & white photography tip with yet another this week.  Many digital cameras have the option to shoot in black & white right from the camera.  This may sound very convenient, but as usual with convenience there comes a trade-off, in this case less image data.  To illustrate this I set my Nikon D300 to shoot in monochrome mode for the shot on the left and then in standard mode for the shot on the right, which I then converted to black & white in Silver Efex Pro.  Both photos were large, fine jpg.  As you can see, the converted image contains a half megabyte more of data (12.8% more).  The difference in the amount of data will vary from shot to shot, and in this case it is a bit of a smaller difference, but you will always end up with more data by converting the image to black and white.  What that means is a better final image quality, especially for prints.

Other reasons to always shoot in color and then convert to black & white later include:

  • Silver Efex Pro allows for much more variety of black & white conversions
  • You may actually like the color image better
  • The color image can be shot in RAW

So I highly recommend always shooting in standard mode, and then later converting images into black & white using a powerful app like Silver Efex Pro to produce the best looking black & white images possible.

Theory of Photography 1-on-1 DSLR Lesson with Irene & her Nikon D90

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Irene with her Nikon D90 getting ready to go on her 4th African safari!I had a most unusual and interesting 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson with new student Irene yesterday evening.  She already was familiar with photography terms and concepts like aperture, ISO, etc, but wanted to learn how to better apply them in combination when you hit the limits of each of those things, not to mention when available light is in short supply.  Getting all this right is key since she is about to go on her fourth African safari photography trip!  

Irene did a good job of asking questions to find out my own personal photography beliefs.  For example, if you are shooting with a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens in limited light, would you use f/4 ISO 400 1/200th or f/2.8 ISO 200 and 1/200th?  Those kinds of questions and scenarios made up the bulk of our initial 90-minute discussion.  We concluded the lesson with a few composition tips.  

I look forward to seeing all the great wildlife shots Irene will return from Africa with!

External Flash DSLR Photography Lesson with Kristin & her Canon 430 EX II

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Me using Kristin's camera to demonstrate where to stand for on camera bounce flash.For our third of four 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lessons I met Kristin in the usual downtown St. Petersburg spot.  This time she brought her new Canon 430 EX II external flash to practice how to improve her portrait making.  We started off using some bounce flash techniques by positioning the subject (alternatively me and Kristin) against a wall that was near another perpendicular well, or to put it simply, near a corner!  In this way we bounced the flash off the perpendicular wall to create softer shadows and more even light on the subject (see image above).

We concluded by using her external flash (on camera) to help make landscape portraits at sunset time and beyound.  It is a fine art of balancing the power of the flash with the exposure of the ambient light so that the subject does not look too "flashed."  I look forward to seeing Kristin's creative portraits when we meet for our next lesson.

19th Annual Suncoast Corvette Show at The Pier St. Petersburg Florida car photographer 2012

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Custom Corvette with scissor doors at 19th Annual Suncoast Corvette Show in St. Petersburg - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 9-exposure HDR tripod mounted with cable releaseAt high noon I ventured out to downtown St. Petersburg, Florida to the 19th Annual Suncoast Corvette Show at The Pier.  The Florida sun was beating down mercilessly paying no regard that today was September 1st.  If I am honest, Corvettes are not my favorite cars, except for the 1959 vintage, but it was still an opportunity to be around sports cars and further motivation to own a proper sports car of my own in the future.  The very customized Corvette seen above with scissor doors among other modifications was tricky to frame how I wanted as is usually the case when shooting at a car show where any number of obstacles are in the way and in the background.  Finally by tilting my camera was I able to get the doors fully in the shot.  I removed a few things digitally front the background leaving only a clean blue sky to frame this Corvette.

Lots of color at the 19th Annual Corvette Show at The Pier 2012 in St. Petersburg FloridaThough there was a significant lack of shade, I was suprised by how well The Pier location was for displaying a large number of cars.  The square ring surrounding The Pier allowed for plenty of space to line up Corvette after Corvette, most with their hoods up proudly showing off their engines.

The most powerful Corvette ever made, the ZR1 - Nikon D300 Nikkor 105mm VR micro @ f/8 ISO 200 5-exposure HDR whit background added digitallyWhen shooting at a car show my approach is usually to first look for wide shots using my 17-50mm lens, then switch to my trusty Nikkor 105mm VR micro lens (how Nikon naming refers to macro, not a typo) for detail shots like the one above just showing a Corvette ZR1 front fender and wheel.  Since the cars at these events are always parked so closely together, opting for detail shots intstead of whole car images I believe is a good strategy for increasing your chances of getting usable shots, but that I mean shots that actually look like they are of the car, not of a car at a car show.

Vintage Door Model Portfolio Shoot St. Petersburg Florida with Rita

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Framing the model, Rita, with detailed architecture and a vintage door - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/9 ISO 200 1/100th - Strobist: SB-800 @ 1/4 power in 43" brolly to frame left

For my model portfolio shoot with Rita in downtown St. Petersburg, I finally had a chance to use a very small part of a building I had been wanting to feature in a photo shoot for a long time.  Many times I walked past this spot while teaching 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lessons and kept making mental notes to use the features of the spot (long brick wall, medieval looking door) in a shoot someday.  Finally, that day was yesterday evening with model, Rita (her official website).

Featuring a brick wall in this panorama model headshot - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/5.6 ISO 200 1/60th - Strobist: SB-800 @ 1/4 power in 43" brolly to frame right & SB-600 @ 1/16th power with diffuser cap pointed at the wallThough we only shot in a space of about 10 feet, we were able to produce a variety of different shots by featuring the brick wall or the metallic door as the background as well as close-ups and wide shots.  I also switched between using a 2-strobe setup like the one above, and a single strobe setup like the lead image.  

Model positioning her arm as a triangle to be symmetric with the door handle - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/5.6 ISO 200 1/60th Strobist: SB-800 @ 1/4 power in 43" brolly to frame leftRita's style of changing poses after each time I pushed the shutter made for a flow that I had not experienced with a model before.  I really liked it as it kept the shoot moving giving the process a dynamic feel.  

Bokeh made by traffic lights - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/5.6 ISO 200 1/60th Strobist: SB-800 @ 1/4 power in 43" brolly to frame right & SB-600 @ 1/16th power to frame leftI liked being able to make soft looking images, like the one above, along with gritty images in the same shoot as no matter how long or short of a shoot, I do like to create a variety of looks for the model.  For the above shot, I thought the straight perpendicular composition looked too rigid, so I tilted my camera to remove the boundary feeling of the 90-degree angle framing.

This images features a vertical line theme - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/9 ISO 200 1/100th Strobist: SB-800 @ 1/4 power in 43" brolly to frame leftI was again impressed with the lighting job my 43" brolly did.  I will feature it in a proper gear review soon.  As you can see it does not take a lot of lighting equipment to make an effective portrait.  The above shot features a single speedlight off camera in the brolly.  All I did was place it about 45 degrees to the left of the model on a light stand using inexpensive Yongnuo radio triggers (to be reviewed soon also).  Of course it also helps to have a beautiful and talented model like Rita to work with!

One factor for making a photograph a black & white final image

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I chose black & white processing for these tires as the subject matter lacked colorIf someone asked me how do I decide to process a photograph as black & white, rather than leaving it as the original color image, I would say the main factor is the amount of color in the original.  If the original image itself lacked a wide color pallette, or virbrancy, then I would start to consider converting it to black & white.

The original color image on the left was not very colorful, so I decided just to remove all the colorIn the side-by-side comparision shot above, the origianl color images of the tires was nearly devoid of color, save for a little green coming through the fence.  Also, the main subject, the tires, were already themselves black, thus the photograph presented itself as a good candidate for black & white processing.  

So if you have a photograph without much color pop in it, think about converting it to black & white as a way of best presenting the image to the viewer.