Host: Kerry Garrison

Sponsors: GoPro, Blackbelt Lighting

Originally called L7 Foto (the L and 7 looking like an open box for ‘think outside the box) and renamed Camera Dojo in 2008 since so many people had issues with the F instead of PH.

I think I really innovated the photography podcast with almost 100 conversations with industry leaders. The first iteration of the podcast was completely unscripted and was never a simple Q&A session. After a hiatus to try to figure out how to re-invent the show, the GoCast was created with just myself as I drive to and from clients, shoots, or other locations sharing my thoughts on a particular topic.

In November of 2010 we launched Blackbelt Lighting Products as a sister site to Camera Dojo to sell good quality lighting equipment at the best prices we could. Blackbelt Lighting grew from just two products to a complete lineup in a very short period of time and continues to evolve and grow.

Looking back, I think I have done a pretty good job of keeping the content fresh, relative, and educational while striving to be as interesting and entertaining as possible. Over the years it has not been the love of the site, a competitive issue, and certainly not money that has kept Camera Dojo alive…it has been the readers. The emails I receive from some of you that something I said or wrote made a huge difference for you, that it changed your photography, or helped your business. Just knowing that I have made even a small difference in some people’s lives has meant everything to me and I very much appreciate hearing from everyone that has ever written in.

Now on to you…what would you like to see? What type of content do you need? Camera Dojo was not intended to be all about me spouting whatever I felt like every week. It has always, and will continue to be driven by the needs and requirements of its readers so let me know what you would like. Feel free to comment below or shoot me an email.

I want to thank all of you for being here, supporting the website, and giving me feedback. I also have to thank all of the sponsors who have graciously given of equipment, resources, and time to help me create content for you. Please support the sponsors of the site as they are some of the best companies in the industry and I couldn’t have done what I have done without them.

So what is in store for The Dojo? You have seen some articles lately relating to video, so look for that to be a big influencer not just on the content, but also in how the content is going to be presented. In 2012 we are going to launch some completely new concepts in photography education, maybe some of the ideas will work, maybe some won’t, but I have never been the type of person to not try something for fear it won’t work. In the end, it will be you, the Camera Dojo audience that will decide what works and what doesn’t. Maybe some of the ideas will need to be tweaked to work properly, but rest assured, I will continue to strive to provide the best content I possibly can and make it as entertaining as possible,

In the following video, Kerry Garrison does a quick overview of some of the new features. Stay tuned for a complete Lightroom 4 Learning Center launching here on CameraDojo.com in the next few days.

To download a copy of the Lightroom 4 beta, please visit http://labs.adobe.com

Host: Kerry Garrison

Sponsors: GoPro, BlackBelt Lighting

I’ve talked about basic and advanced lighting techniques commonly used for virtually any studio photo shoot, but those lighting setups require more than a single light, and for a beginning photographer, especially one who has a limited amount of studio space and a small budget, retaining multiple lights can be a problem. There is a way to get around using multiple lights though, and that is low key lighting.

Low key lighting is a type of portrait lighting that creates a very dramatic light setup, as well as creates some intense classic looking photos. Low key lighting lends it’s self strongly to a darker side of glamor and artistic photography. This type of lighting can cast a strong exposure on the subject, creating harsh contrast between the light and shadows of your subject, and leaves a majority of the background darkened. There are a few ways to set up a low key lighting setup, but the common factor in almost all low key setups is that they are predominately lit by only a single light.

45 or 90 Degree Angle

Image by Andy Leddy

This setup is the simplest by far, but still creates powerful, elegant images. Place your key light at either a 45 or 90 degree angle from the subject, on either the left or right side of your camera. That’s the entire setup, one light, in one of four locations. While it is a simple setup, the effects of the setup can very greatly. At a 45 degree angle, exposing the front of your subject, you will create a beautiful front exposure, with harsh contrasted shadows. At a 90 degree angle, if you expose your subject from the front you can create an intense split light where the subjects back will virtually vanish into the background, but if you expose the subject from the back you will create the exact opposite effect.

45 or 90 Degree with a Reflector

Image by Cillian Storm

This setup is the exact same as the previous, with the inclusion of a new piece of equipment, a reflector. The reflector is placed on the opposite side of your subject, and directly in front of your light. The light that wraps around the subject, or misses them entirely, is diffused and reflected on the back of the subject, creating a softer exposure. In this way the reflector acts as a fill light. Images shot in this way will not be as dark and contrasted as the previous manner, but will still maintain a much darker contrast ratio.

From Behind

Image by spunkinator

This type of lighting is commonly used to create a much more brooding, or sinister look, by creating an intense silhouette of the subject, only exposing a small area outlining the subject. The best way to achieve this look is with the help of two strong lights, but it can be done with as little as one. Place both lights behind the subject at 45 degree angles on opposite sides. An addition trick to really enhance images shot like this is to actually include the lights in the image. This will create a lens flare look behind the subject, and really enhances the visage of a foreboding or sinister subject.

Kyle Miller has been a professional wedding and portrait photographer for several years. He shares his knowledge on his blog Photography Tips where you can also download his eBook 7 Essential Photography Tips for free.

WPPI Parties Group: http://www.facebook.com/groups/315432758592/

Host: Kerry Garrison

Sponsors: GoPro, Blackbelt Lighting

At almost any event someone will likely say “That’s looks like a great camera, it must take awesome pictures” and over the years people have argued that you can hand a point and shoot camera to a great photographer and they can make amazing photos with it.

Is there any truth behind these statements? Let’s dive into the issue and see what we come up with.

Show Host: Kerry Garrison

Sponsors: GoPro, Blackbelt Lighting

If you haven’t seen it already, be sure and check out our Lightroom 3 Resource Center.

Now I love Lightroom, it is my primary editing tool but it is not perfect and there are certainly some things I would like to see improved and added and would love to hear what you would like to see in the next major release. Even though Adobe may not be listening to us directly, it will be interesting to see what we can come up with and see what actually makes it into the product when it comes out. I will start with Team Dojo here and then let everyone else chime in with theirs:

Kerry Garrison

• Improved Watermarking
  More options, borders
• Improved noise reduction
  Current NR is really good, but still not quite as good as dedicated software tools
• Improved tethering support
  Current tethering does not allow you to change camera settings and does not support Live View
• Improved Wacom tablet support
  I love my tablet but it is BARELY supported in Lightroom 3, I want FULL support
• Album page design
  Real, actual useful page design with effects, opacity, stacking, etc
• Ability to add video clips to slide shows
  Video editing should be nothing more than beginning and end trimming
• Easier camera specific calibration
  I currently use X-Rite Colorchecker Passport which works well
• Network capabale catalogs
  I use three different machines for editing and this one is a real nightmare for me

Maurice Naragon

• Better image sorting options
• Improved JPEG compression output that matches Photoshops
  Currently you have to use a might higher number in Lightroom for same visual quality at often 2-3 times the file size as a file saved in Photoshop
• Ability to use shift-key to draw straight lines with the local adjustment brush
  Why this hasn’t been there from day one is a mystery

What’s on your Lightroom 4 wishlist? Post in the comments, who knows, maybe Adobe will take a look and try to add some of the more popular requests.

Even though I have talked about this setup several times, recent events have prompted me to bring it up again and for good reason. As I am writing this, I am on a cruise ship sailing towards St. Maarten. One thing about cruise ships is that they make a good chunk of money selling photos. They take photos of you getting other ship, arriving at ports, at dinner, and they have multiple static setups with different backgrounds. When you are needing to pound out hundreds of portraits per day you can’t be spending a lot of time messing with your lighting. So what lighting setup do they use for quick, simple, and consistent lighting? The standard three light portrait setup of course.

Let’s dissect their secret recipe and see how they are using the three light setup so effectively.

To the camera right is a 32″ softbox as the key light. On the camera left is a 42″ umbrella as a fill light, and then high right off the background stands is a third light with a honeycomb grid as a hair light. Why does this setup work so well that they use it exclusively at every one of their stations? The answer is simple, its because it works. The softbox provides some nice directional lighting while the umbrella softens the shadows. The high gridded light adds a splash of hairlight which looks natural for both indoor and outdoor scenes.

While the cruise ship is using 500 watt second monolights, a Westcott Apollo, and a Westcott umbrella, you can put together the same setup for much less. Let’s break down all of the pieces and see what it would cost to replicate this tried and true lighting setup.

(3) Blackbelt Lighting BB560 speedlites @ $95 each
(1) Blackbelt Lighting. Stealth 32″ Softbox @ $79
(1) Blackbelt Lighting 10′ × 12′ backdrop stand @ $85
(1) Blackbelt Lighting Ninja Speedlite Triggers @ $65
(1) Blackbelt Lighting swivel mount @ $15
(1) Shoot through umbrella @ $10
(1) Blackbelt Lighting Samurai Light stand kit @ $65
(1) Bogen Superclamp
(1) Expoimaging Rouge Grid
Printed backgrounds from Backdrop Outlet

All in you are going to be between $700 – $900 depending on the background you get. While this may sound like a lot of money, you would easily spend over $2,500 for big name products. The beauty of a setup like this is that it is a very versatile lighting kit that makes for a great starting point for building upon as your skill increases.

Host: Kerry Garrison

Sponsors: GoPro / Blackbelt Lighting Products

Features

Before we get into the one feature I really bought the DS214 for (yes, I bought it, full price from B&H, this is how much I wanted it) let’s go through some of the other features that make this unit such a cool device:

• 2 mic channels via the stereo minijack input
• Audio Input Meters
• AGC Disable (to get better SNR from cameras without manual control)
• 30dB typ max gain
• Headphone Amplifier
• Low-noise preamp
• Enclosure fabricated from Aluminum, Approx 3.5″ x 3″ x 1.7″

If you are not an audio expert, you might not know what most of that means, fear not reader, I will do my best to explain it as I understand it.

Our current video DSLR cameras have a single stereo microphone input but usually our microphones only feed in the audio in a single channel (left or right, sometimes combined). Sometimes, we want to use two mics for real stereo input but the difficulty is getting the audio levels to be level between the two channels. With the DS214 (and a specific cable) you can feed two channels into the amp and adjust the input levels with dials on the front of the unit and use the audio level meters to help adjust the levels. Thanks to a headset jack, you can also monitor the audio stream to make sure it is sounding good as well. By integrating a low-noise pre-amp, you can boost the input levels to ensure a goof quality recording.

That is about as technical as I can get without risking the possibility of being completely wrong, so if someone wants to chime in in the comments to help clarify this, please do.

The final feature is the AGC disable (much more on this latter) which rather effectively disables the aforementioned AGC in the camera to allow the camera to record good clean audio.

AGC Disable

There are plenty of amps available with a plethora of features but the DS214 has a feature specific to what I wanted, and this is AGC disable. When you turn on the AGC Disable feature the DS214 mixes both of the left and right channels into a single track that is fed into the left channel while a tone generator feeds a signal into the right channel. The generated tone tricks the AGC system in the camera into thinking there is a lot of noise coming in which causes the AGC to essentially shut off.

While your camera ends up with a really clean audio track on one channel, you also get an unusable right channel that you need to delete in post production. If you are using Sony Vegas or Final Cut, JuicedLink has some instructions for removing the right channel. If you are using Adobe Premiere Pro 5.5, I have come up with the following instructions:

Right click on video clip in the timeline and select ‘Edit Clip in Adobe Audition’
In Audition, right click on sound file in file bin and select ‘Extract Channels to Mono Files’
This will create a file for each channel
Delete the original file and the <filename>_R file
Double-click on the <filename>_L file
Do any processing you want
Save file
Imported new sound file back into Premiere
Right click on video clip in timeline and select Unlink
Delete the audio track
Add new audio track into timeline and align with video track (should snap into position)

How Well Does It Work

To be sure that I was going to get the best results I actually read the DS214 Manual which includes a section on tuning the AGC Disable for the 7D. Once all setup, it was time to try out the new system. I connected an Audio-Technica ATR-3350 Lavalier Microphone ($21) and pinned it up near my collar like normal. The resulting audio was so good you could hear every breath I took. I actually ended up having to move the mic from my collar to about mid-chest and turn down the input gain a little. The result was crystal clear audio at a great volume.

Is It Worth It?

If you are planning on doing a good amount of video work and you really want to save time in post production by not having to sync audio that you recorded to a secondary audio device, the $144 may end up paying for itself in very short order. If I only did occasional video, I probably wouldn’t spend the money, but since I do a large amount of video for different client projects and have a huge amount of video work planned for next year, even saving a few minutes per project will pay for itself many times over.

Built-In Obsolescence?

For me, the DS214 was purchased to overcome a shortcoming in the Canon 7D audio system. That being said, the Canon 5D Mk II had the exact same limitation which was eventually overcome with both a firmware update as well as the Magic Lantern firmware mod. The current firmware on the 7D is not allowing the Magic Lantern team to create a package for the 7D. This could literally change overnight if Canon releases a firmware with the ability to disable AGC or allow a Magic Lantern modification. The question is, does the DS214 becoming nothing but an expensive paperweight when this day finally comes. The answer is….no.

Even when the AGC disable feature is no longer needed, I will still have a great pre-amp with separate audio input controls, visual audio indicator meters, and a headphone jack for live monitoring. With these extra features, the JuicedLink DS214 will continue to serve multiple purposes for my video recording purposes.

What Could Be Improved?

The only real issue I have is dealing with how to mount the DS214 to the camera. For me, almost all of my video work is done in a studio with the camera on a tripod. With a simple adapter, I can put the DS214 on the camera’s hot shoe making it very conveniently placed to plug into the camera’s mic port. What would be ideal (in my opinion) would be a way to mount it under the camera and then attach a tripod quick mount to the bottom of the DS214. This would be more convenient when using the camera off the tripod. If you are using some kind of cage for your camera than you probably have more flexibility in your mounting options.

If you are using the 7D and want to use in-camera audio then you really have no choice right now. Until the 7D has a means of disabling the AGC system, there simply isn’t a way to get really good quality audio into the camera.

Juicedlink: http://juicedlink.com/
B&H: juicedLink DS214 $144
Amazon: JuicedLink DS214 $144

Show Host: Kerry Garrison

Sponsors:

• GoPro
• Blackbelt Lighting

Show Sponsors

• GoPro
• Blackbelt Lighting
• Learning Photography eBooks

Sponsors:

• GoPro HD Hero Camera
• Blackbelt Lighting
• All About Light eBook

Normally Lightroom sells for $299.99 but is now on sale for $149.99. This is an excellent price of this great piece of software.

To take advantage of this sale, you can grab it at either B&H Photo or Amazon.

If you are just starting off with Lightroom, be sure and visit our comprehensive Lightroom Resource Center.

GoCast Host: Kerry Garrison

Sponsors

• GoPro
• Blackbelt Lighting
• All About Light eBook

Check out the GoPro Cameras at B&H Photo.

Why Was This Difficult

Generally this may not have been too hard of a shoot but if we look at the first test image here we can see that the label is very transparent and that is wraps around the bottle leaving about a 1” gap in the back. The gap lets in more light than the rest of the label causing the front of the label to wash out. We can also see the lettering on the back of the bottle which is very distracting to the overall image.

Lighting this wasn’t overly complicated, there were three Blackbelt Lighting BB560 speedlites on either side at about a 45 degree angle with no modifiers. The background was lit with a third BB560 that was flagged to cut down on some of the light from the flash hitting the bottle directly.

The lighting worked, the background went solid white, the colors were accurate, but that label was just going to work.

I Don’t Suck At Photoshop

I made a number of different attempts including cutting the label down and putting it on a new bottle but the label just wasn’t popping the way we wanted it to. It was time to take some more drastic moves in order to make this shot work.

First off we shot a clear bottle of water. Getting this shot would give us a properly lit bottle with enough reference lighting on it to enable us to composite in the label.

Next we used a flatbed scanner to scan the label in. This gave us a nice vibrant label to work with and we can always adjust the transparency of it in Photoshop.

With the label composited in, using a small amount of Warp to get it all lined up on the bottle, we now have an image that looks very flat and pretty well obviously composited. In order to fix this, we need to bring back the lighting from the clear bottle shot and maybe adjust the opacity of the label layer slightly.

Now we are getting somewhere. The extended lines of the lighting help to give it back a rounded look and since they match the clear bottle light lines, we know it should look pretty natural.

The Finishing Touches

Finally, the client wanted a shadow underneath the bottle to make it look like it was floating. To accomplish this I copied the bottom of the bottle, flipped it vertically, and then applied a Gaussian Blur to it.

Summary

This should go to show you that a good photographer needs more skills than just being to setup lighting and press the shutter. A good knowledge of Photoshop is essential in order to get the desired result. While I am not saying that you can always just “fix it in Photoshop”, its just that there are times when there really are no options and you need to pull out the stops and do whatever it takes in order to make the shot come out as you intended.

The KCWtechnica Rigging System only uses major industry standard connection points.  5/16″, 3/8″, 1/4″, 5° incremental, 15mm & 19mm.  KCWtechnica’s exclusive innovative clamps/converters allows using 15mm rods to 19mm to imperial standard rods.

Kit Contents

• 2 – 15mm 12″ Extendable Aluminum Lens Support Rods
• 4 – 15mm 6″ Extendable Aluminum Lens Support Rods
• 2 – 7″ Aluminum Hex, knurling Rods
• 2 – 4″ Aluminum Hex, Knurling Rods
• 2 – Aluminum Handles/Weights
• 8 – 15° Locking Rod Clamps
• 2 – Rod to Camera Plate Holders
• 1 – Formed Padded Shoulder Plate
• 1 – Lens Support
• 1 – Camera Mount Plate
• 1 – 3/8″ Mount Screw
• 1 – 5/16″ Mount Screw
• 2 – 3/8″ Flat Head Screws
• 2 – 3/8″ Ball Head Screws
• 2 – T-Handle Wrenches
• 1 – Padded Mil-Spec Ballistic Nylon Organizer Case
• **Added are: 2 additional 6″ 15mm Rods + 1 Formed Padded Shoulder Plate + Nylon & Padding to Mil-Spec

The Stage 1 rigging kit is going on sale soon for $995 but until then they are taking pre-orders at only $845.75. While this may still sound like a lot of money, since it is a modular system, allowing you to build numerous configurations, the kit becomes very affordable instead of buying complete components for all of the different rigging designs.

Head over and check it out at http://kcwtechnica.com/shop/mrk-modular-rigging-kit-basic-stage-i

• Finding a venue
• Scheduling guests
• Choosing Topics

As your club grows, there are also legal issues that need to be addressed and Kerry talks about incorporating your club, insurance, and other legal issues.

GoCast Host: Kerry Garrison

Sponsors

• GoPro
• Blackbelt Lighting
• All About Light eBook

GoPro Announces Wi-Fi Remote Control and Video Streaming

2x More Powerful in Every Way, The HD HERO2 Democratizes Professional Image Capture and Broadcast with Support for Remote Control and Live Video Streaming from Virtually Anywhere to the Web.

GoPro today announced the release of its new HD HERO2® camera. Twice as powerful as GoPro’s original HD HERO camera, the HD HERO2 enables consumers and professionals to capture and broadcast their lives’ most exciting moments in professional quality 1080p HD video and 11 megapixel photos. The new HD HERO2 is now available at GoPro.com, specialty retailers around the world, and at Best Buy for MSRP $299.99

• 2x Sharper lens
• Megapixels: 11, 8, 5 MP wide (170º) FOV, medium (127º) FOV, narrow (90º) FOV
• 10 photos in 1 sec
• TimeLapse every 0.5, 1, 2, 10, 30,60
• LED Lights: 4 (on all sides)
• Inputs: Mini-HDMI port, Composite port, USB, SD, HERO port, 3.5mm External Stereo Mic port

WiFi BacPac

Sponsor: GoPro

Host: Kerry Garrison

Sponsor: GoPro

Show Host: Kerry Garrison

During this presentation you will learn how to balance lighting, setup hair lights, rim lights, background lights, and more while maintaining a proper exposure.If you are wanting to move into multiple lighting setups, this will be a great primer to get you going and learn how to use different modifiers such as softboxes, snoots, grids, and other accessories to really control your lighting.

Event Details

OC Photo Club (website)
Tuesday, Oct 11th 6-9pm
Irvine Heritage Park Library
14361 Yale Avenue
Irvine, CA 92604-1901

LA SmugMug (Meetup Group)
Thursday, October 20, 2011, 6:30 PM
Beverly Garland Holiday Inn
4222 Vineland Avenue, North Hollywood, CA

• White balance
• Light quality
• Exposure
• Aperture
• Shutter
• ISO
• Metering
• Equipment

All About Lighting is available for immediate download for only $9.99. For more information, please visir http://learningphotographyebooks.com

Features

GoPro Size Comparison

The GoPro HD Hero sports a 5 megapixel sensor mated to a super wide-angle lens with a fixed aperture of f/2.8. The lens also has a fixed focus so this isn’t really going to be a good replacement for a good point & shoot. The GoPro is designed to be used in situations that you wouldn’t put a regular camera. The camera body itself has no mounting points because it is generally used inside of the waterproof case that it comes with. There is also no viewfinder or LCD screen built-in as the camera is usually used unattended such as strapped to a motorcycle helmet or attached to the side of a car.

There are four still shooting settings that include:

• Single shot
• Three shot burst
• Countdown timer
• Timelapse mode

Camera Optics

• Lens Type: Fixed Focus (2ft/.6m – ∞), glass
• Aperture: f/2.8 (high performance in low-light situations)
• Angle of View: 170º ultra wide angle in WVGA, 720p, or 960p mode
• Angle of View: 127º wide angle in 1080p mode

GoPro Left Side View

GoPro Right Side View

GoPro Rear View

The first three options are pretty basic but the Timelapse feature requires a bit of explanation. In the settings you first set the time interval between each shot. When you press the shutter to take a picture, the camera will keep firing shots off, pausing between each shot based on your setting, until you stop the process, the SD card becomes full, or the battery dies.

As I mentioned earlier, the GoPro HD Hero comes with a waterproof case that is rated for up to 60 meters. With this much protection, there aren’t many places that you can’t find a use for the GoPro.

The Bad News

Keep in mind that the GoPro is a specialty camera so while it excels in some areas, there are some gotchas to be aware of. I already mentioned the lack of a viewfinder although an optional one is available for $79. I highly recommend the viewfinder for navigating through the GoPro’s menus and for setting up shots. There is also no flash as the primary use is for shooting video. Out of the box there also isn’t any way to mount the camera to a tripod, for this you need an $8 tripod mount adapter.

There are only two buttons on the camera and a small LCD, combined they are used to change the plethora of setting options. Once you get the hang of it, changing the settings isn’t too difficult, but adding the LCDBak really makes using the GoPro much easier.

If you decide to buy a GoPro HD Hero you should start with a package containing a selection of mounting hardware such as the GoPro Motocycle Hero. The GoPro Motorcycle Hero will start you off with suction mount, helmet mount, and a handful of other parts. Add a bicycle mount and the tripod adapter and you will have a good starter kit.

Why use the GoPro for stills?

No viewfinder, no flash, tricky settings menus, so why would you want to use a GoPro for shooting stills? The main reason is that it is small and unobtrusive. You can easily put the camera in obscure locations and just let it shoot away. Think about putting the GoPro in the arch above a wedding ceremony for some unique angles. Your imagination is your only limitation as to what you can do.

But how good are the images?

The single most noticeable thing you will notice about the images is that the lens is a super wide-angle. I don’t mean just wide-angle, this is seriously a wide-angle, so wide that you get a bit of barrel distortion. Sometimes you want a mega wide-angle shot, other times you may not and you may need to do some lens correction on the images.

In the specs I mentioned that the camera has a fixed focus f/2.8 lens. An interesting note here is that Adobe Lightroom reports it as f/3.4. This is a pretty trivial difference, but something I would point out. Also, if you are looking at the EXIF data you will see that the shutter speed and ISO change from shot to shot. It appears that the GoPro tries to maintain a good exposure by adjusting the shutter speed as needed and then adjusting the ISO to keep the shutter speed from falling too low. Hopefully I can get some clarification on this from GoPro. A few other interesting tidbits are that Lightroom reports the focal length as 5mm (I did mention it was a WIDE angle).

Is a GoPro HD Hero right for you?

The GoPro HD Hero at $269 (Amazon) is more expensive than a good point & shoot camera and may even seem lighter on features. The important advantages have to do with the protective cover that waterproofs and protects the camera body from damage. The versatility of the mounting system allows you to use the camera in all kinds of unique situations from scuba diving to sky diving and pretty much anything in between.

These days I don’t leave my house without a GoPro HD Hero. From a quick snapshot when needed to recording the Camera Dojo GoCast series, the GoPro HD Hero is just fun. Sure, a focusable lens, adjustable focal length, and more control over exposure settings would be nice, having these limitations forces you to think about what you are shooting and how work with what you have.

In this post we have only talked about using the GoPro as a still camera, next week we will look at using the GoPro as a video camera.

Be sure and check out more information about GoPro and enter their daily contest for a chance to win everything they make.

Host: Kerry Garrison

GoCast Sponsor: http://gopro.com

One of my favorite features of speedlites is High Speed Sync. This feature allows you to work with speedlites way past your camera’s normal sync speed (1/160 – 1/250 depending on camera). By shooting at very fast shutter speeds you can dramatically cut ambient light and can shoot what looks like night-time shots at high noon. Sounds incredible huh? Guess what, using it is as simple as pressing a single button.

Special thanks to our sponsor: GoPro

Host: Kerry Garrison

Isn’t “Suck” a little harsh?

Actually, to say that the audio recording sucks is an understatement. My two-year old $600 Vixia palm sized camcorder does better audio than my 7D. So no, the poor audio recording is a major failure on the camera manufacturers part and can actually be fixed via firmware if they chose to. One thing that may surprise many people is that they get better sound from the on-board microphone than they get with a high-end studio microphone. No way, the cheap, tiny, built-in mic works better…how is that possible? The answer is the one thing that makes the on-board mic work “so so” and higher end microphones almost unusable is Automatic Gain Control (AGC). What AGC does is to monitor the audio stream and then boosts the audio signal to make sure it is picking up the audio. The reason this sort-of works on the built-in microphone is because of the ambient noise in most situations. With any ambient noise, the AGC will “hear” some noise and the AGC won’t kick in. With a really good microphone, you can get such a clean audio signal that there is no ambient sound which will send the AGC into overdrive, thus filling the audio stream with tons of noise as it tries to boost the signal.

All the camera manufacturers have to do is to allow the ability to disable AGC in the firmware or preferably have a setting option such as High, Medium, Low, Off. This would allow for selectable gain control depending on the situation and the microphone used. That’s it, a simple firmware change and there would be no need for this post. However…none of the DSLR manufacturers have seen fit to include this obvious setting.

Creating Non-Sucky Audio

There are several ways to get really clean audio and we will look at some of these options so you can decide if one of them is more suited for how you want to work.

Secondary Recording Device

From the dawn of time (or at least since video recording started) high-end video production has consisted of using separate devices for video and audio recording. Have you ever seen a clap board and wondered what it was for? A clap board is used by the editor to sync the audio and video since they are recorded on different devices. For cinema production, this is a tried and true process so moving to DSLRs does not affect their workflow at all. For budget filmmakers who have used camcorders, moving to separate audio and video tracks can be frustrating and difficult to sync up properly. Add to this that even a slight variance between the two devices and a long film clip can actually drift out of sync. One  of the most common secondary audio devices is the Zoom H4N. I actually have the older Zoom H4 which isn’t available anymore.
Pros: Excellent Audio
Cons:  More work in post, additional expense

AGC Disabling Mixer

For post production speed it is definitely better to have the audio and video already mixed together. This prevents and audio drifting and issues with syncing (until you start using multiple cameras anyway). One solution I have found is the JuicedLink DS214 Amp which features AGC disabling. The way the AGC disabling works is that the DS214 feeds a generated tone through one of the stereo channels while sending the microphone audio through the other channel. This tone sound essentially shuts down the AGC because it becomes overwhelmed with noise thus lowering the gain to the minimum and letting the camera record very clean audio. With the DS214 costing $144, this isn’t a cheap solution but it does do the trick and as soon as the firmware allows for true disabling of the AGC control, then you can disable this feature.
Pros: Allows variety of microphone gear to work well, less work in post
Cons: Only allows for single channel audio recording, additional expense

Magic Lantern Firmware Hack

While we wait for Canon and Nikon to come to their senses, the folks over at Magic Lantern have created a firmware add-on for some Canon cameras that adds a nice set of features including audio meters and the ability to disable the AGC function. The downside here is that the Magic Lantern firmware is not available for the Canon 7D yet or for Nikon cameras.
Pros: FREE!, True AGC disabling, Auto Meters
Cons: No 7D support, No Nikon support

Summary

If you are getting started with DSLR video, it is only a matter of time before you get frustrated with trying to get good, clean audio. Hopefully you will find one of these options to suite your needs and budget to help you get exactly what you are trying to get.

Special thanks to our sponsor: GoPro

Host: Kerry Garrison

The folks at Magic Lantern have released some videos showing that they have video recording working on the EOS 50D which has never had native video recording before. Of course, since the 50D doesn’t have a microphone you will need to use an external audio recorder such as a Zoom H4 or similar device and then syncing the audio and video in post production. While this may sound like a pain, dual-device recording is actually the industry standard for best quality audio.

While the Magic Lantern Firmware isn’t officially released for the 50D yet, it looks like it is almost ready so you 50D owners out there that have wanted to get into video, now is the perfect time to go find a good audio recorder and get ready for some DSLR Video love coming your way soon.

However, if you have a 5D Mk II, 550D, 600D, or 60D you might want to head over and check it out.

Magic Lantern Wiki: http://magiclantern.wikia.com/wiki/Magic_Lantern_Firmware_Wiki

Links to related articles:

• Learning to shoot in manual mode
• Photography Basics: Controlling Exposure
• The Exposure L – Understanding the Correlation Between Shutter and Aperture

Special thanks to our sponsor: GoPro

Host: Kerry Garrison

Special thanks to our sponsor GoPro

Host: Kerry Garrison

If you have posted images from a project you have done online, please feel free to share a link in the comments.

Special thanks to our sponsor GoPro

Host: Kerry Garrison

Special thanks to our GoCast Sponsor GoPro

Please let me know if you enjoy these small segments. I do apologize for the poor video of this one as it was very late in the evening. Upcoming ones look better, but it’s not about the video, it’s all about the content. Post in the comments below and let me know what you think.

GoCast Host: Kerry Garrison

Practical Uses of ND Filters

Some photographers, especially nature and landscape photographers have long been familiar with neutral density filters most notably for allowing you to shoot a scene with a longer shutter speed for scenes such as waterfalls to get that silky effect to the water.

If we go back to the basics and look at the Sunny 16 Rule, this tells us that is bright sunlight at ISO 100 and 1/100th shutter speed, we will need to be at f/16. If we adjust our shutter to our video setting of 1/50th, then we need to be shooting at f/22 for a proper exposure. While this may work in some situations, if you want any creative control over your aperture settings, you will need to cut down the lighting entering the camera, again this is a great use of ND filters. Instead of using a faster shutter, we can simply use darker ND filters to cut down the light to where we want it.

Choosing an ND Filter

Most neutral density filters are fixed at a particular setting and generally come in settings from 1/4 stop all the way to 10 stops. Buying a small selection of ND filters is certainly one option, although a much more versatile option would be a variable ND filter that lets you adjust the density across a wide range.

The Variable ND Filters from FADER are an excellent example of this type of functionality. With the FADER Filters you have a range of 2-8 stops which, if we go back to our Sunny 16 Rule, only needs four stops to allow us to shoot at f/2.8. This allows us a broad range of creative control with your aperture.

At a bit over $300, these filters don’t come cheap so if you are on a budget you might want to get a couple of less expensive ones to start off with.

Fader Variable ND Filter

Using an ND Filter

There is nothing special or magic about using an ND filter, once it is on your lens it’s just as if someone dimmed the lights and you continue to set your exposure using aperture and ISO adjustments (remember, not shutter speed because we are locking that down to 1/50th second).

The following video demonstrates this concept by shooting the same scene and adjusting the FADER filter to make the scene darker while opening the aperture to compensate.

Summary

I hope you are enjoying these articles on getting started with DSLR video. Even though shooting video with a camcorder or other dedicated video camera is so easy that even a kid can do it, shooting video with a DSLR is actually quite complicated and requires a very different skill set than shooting still and often requires specialized gear to get top-notch results. If you are doing any video work, please post in the comments and let everyone know what you are doing.

Not all of us have hundreds of dollars to spend on fancy gadgets like focus pullers but we can borrow from the concept and with a little ingenuity come up with a way to accomplish the same result.

Parts Needed

What you will need

I hope I don’t scare you off with this extensive list of components you will need to put together.  Ok, just kidding, odds are most of you will have the items you need lying around the house. All we are going to need are two rubber bands and a pen (I find a fine point Sharpie to work the best).

I managed to find two Sunday newspapers that I snagged the rubber bands from and stole a Sharpie off my wife’s desk.

Setup

All we need to do is to place one rubber band on the focus ring and the other rubber band on the part of the lens next to the focus ring that is not going to rotate.

To set my first focus point, I find it easier to use the photo mode’s autofocus or use Live View and zoom in close to make sure your focus is as sharp as possible. Now you make a line on both rubber bands that line up so now we have the first point. Next, we set out focus on the second focus point and mark the rubber band on the focus ring in line with the stationary band.

Focus Point 1

Focus Point 2

Now we are set to go into video mode and start shooting. When you are ready to change focus, you just rotate the focus ring to line up the second focus point line. If you are setting up multiple shots, you can use different colors of pens to correspond to different setups.

Results

Your finished result will be entirely dependent on how well you originally set your focus points and how smoothly you can turn the focus wheel without it being jerky or moving the camera. With a bit of practice, you should be able to get pretty good results.

The video below demonstrates what you can do with this setup. The video was shot on a Canon EOS 7D with a Sigma 24-70 f/2.8 lens and is actually my very first attempts at using the setup.

As you can see, the results aren’t too bad for a first try. If you are an aspiring filmmaker on a tight budget, give this technique a try and see if you can add some nice focus pulling effects to your videos. If you have done any, please post links in the comments.

ISO and Aperture

The good news is that two out of three aint bad. What I mean by this is that ISO and Aperture affect video exactly the same way that they affect stills. ISO will make the sensor more sensitive to light so just like stills, you can increase the light into the camera by increasing the ISO setting which, just like stills, will add digital noise to the image.

Just like still images, Aperture will open or close the lens’ aperture diaphragm to allow more or less light into the camera which will affect the depth of field.

So long as you already have a good handle on ISO and Aperture, the same principles apply to both stills and video so you already well on your way.

Shutter Speed

With stills, shutter speed is fairly simple to understand, a longer shutter will allow more light but may add motion blur while a fast shutter speed can freeze motion but cuts down on the amount of light entering the camera. The confusing part is how this affects video. Many new video DSLR owners simply think this affects only the light since the frames are already moving. The reality is that the shutter speed can have a significant impact on the video image and most of the articles on the internet are painfully difficult to understand.

The traditional standard for video is 24p (which is actually 23.976 frames per second) which is very pleasing to the eye and is pretty much the standard for camcorders and DSLR video recording (much more on this is available on Wikipedia).

To achieve a film look (which has just enough motion blur between frames to look natural without being “smeary”) you need to follow the 180 degree rule which, simply put, says that your shutter speed should be double the frame rate. This is one of those times when I want to say “don’t worry about what it means, just go with it” as the technical explanation is quite…well…technical. Tyler Ginter did a really good job explaining the technical side of this on his blog post 180 Degree Shutter – Learn It, Live It, Love It.

While I am not going to try to explain the whole 180 degree shutter concept, I will instead just jump into what it really means to you and your video.

Since we already know that when we are shooting stills with action, a slow shutter speed will have motion blur and a fast shutter speed will freeze action. When we translate this concept to video, a slow shutter speed will create a smeared look to the video. If the shutter is too fast there isn’t enough motion blur to smoothly transition from frame to frame causing a stuttering or staccato effect. If you have ever looked at something moving with a CRT monitor behind it you will know what this stuttering can look like. Sometimes, this can be used for creative effect like in the opening of Saving Private Ryan.

To see how this looks in actual video, I did this quick comparison of 24p video shot at both 1/50th (yes, I know 1/48 is double the 24fps but most cameras can’t do 1/48th shutter speed so we have to take the closest option which would be 1/50th) and 1/300th shutter speed.

What about exposure?

The issue with exposure is not when things are too dark as we can open up our aperture and increase our ISO (only to a certain point before we need additional lighting anyway) but when things are too bright, we only have a few options. If you are already at a small aperture and a low ISO and 1/50th of a second will result in an over exposure the temptation is to increase the shutter speed, but this is going to violate the 180 degree rule and cause the stuttering video.

The only way to knock the exposure down is with the use of a neutral density filter. The most versatile filter is a variable neutral density filter that allows you to dial in the amount of filtering. A good example of this is the Fader ND Mark II which is adjustable from 2 to 8 stops.

The real beauty of using a filter with this much versatility is that you can shoot at the relatively slow 1/50th of a second at wide open apertures to create a very short depth of field that just isn’t possible with regular camcorders. The ability easily create different depth of field shots  is a key reason many filmmakers are jumping onto the DSLR video bandwagon.

The Exception to the Rule

Let’s face it, every good rule deserves a good reason to break it and the 180 degree shutter rule is no different. In fact, there is one really good reason to break it and that is when you are specifically shooting for video that will be shown in slow motion. If we use the basic rule of having a shutter speed that is double the frame rate, when we slow down the video we will end up with more blurry video. If you shoot at faster shutter speeds, when you slow the video down you will get cleaner looking video.

This actually brings up a major difference between shooting stills and video. With stills, our final output will be a still frame. Sure, you may use some panning and zooming in a slidehsow which may require cropping that isn’t very tight but lets not digress too much. With video, you really need to think ahead about how the video will be played back. Will the video be sped up, played at normal speed, or slowed down as this final product needs to be considered when choosing the shooting settings.

Summary

Hopefully this has helped make some sense out of the shutter speed issue with DSLRs. If you are just going to be shooting video for yourself, you may not care much about all this but if you are trying to really make your video look its absolute best, and most certainly you can achieve incredible results with the current video enabled DSLR’s, then this is one of those topics that you really need to get a handle on.

Why a big tripod

A big sturdy tripod platform has several benefits over a smaller model. The main advantages are that it is more stable and can raise up higher. The downside is that a large tripod is going to be heavy. The Auctus Plus 324AT is not a tripod that you will likely strap to you backpack for an afternoon hike. But when you need a big, seriously stable platform, this is where the Auctus Plus 324AT shines.

Features

The Auctus Plus 324AT is more than just three legs and a mounting plate, like other Vanguard tripods, the Auctus Plus 324AT has some unique features that make it sand out from the rest.

How good is it?

Large Plastic Feet

Hidden Spikes

Summary

I have been a fan of Vanguard products for a while and the Vanguard Auctus Plus 324AT Tripod certainly did not disappoint on any level. If you need a high quality, large tripod base, be sure and check out the Vanguard Auctus series and see if there is one that will suite your requirements.

Vanguard Website: http://vanguardusa.com/

Online Ordering

Amazon.com $429.99
B & H Photo $429.99

Differences between camcorders and DSLRs

Many of you are probably own some kind of camcorder. These small, handheld video cameras are actually pretty amazing for their price with 1080p video for under $700. If these little wonders are so good, why do we even need DSLR video? For one thing, the sensors in the consumer camcorders are relatively small and the have a single lens with a fixed focal length. This doesn’t allow much in terms of creative shooting like being able to blur a background. Most don’t even let you select a focus point and they try to guess what you want. Are they REALLY 1080p video, well yes, technically speaking but they are not “broadcast quality” images. Just because something puts out video out 1920×1080 resolution does not mean the image quality is going to be that great.

On the opposite end of the spectrum are DSLR’s that can shoot video. In comparison to high-end, dedicated video cameras, DSLR’s can actually have a BETTER image because the sensor size in a DSLR is larger than in a video camera and the ability to use many different lenses allows for very creative shooting.

The big downside is that most (and this IS changing) current video-DSLRs do not have full-time autofocus. This can be a huge challenge for many people who have come to rely on autofocus for their still photography. Add to this moving subjects and trying to adjust focus on-the-fly, and you can be in for a very challenging shoot. Also take into consideration that the ergonomics of a DSLR are not really suited for shooting video so trying to hand-hold a DSLR while shooting is almost certain to add unwanted shaking or movement. One of the other things to consider is going to be accessories to help you shoot video better (more on this below) which may include a tripod with a fluid head, a good microphone, a stabilization system, viewfinder enhancements, constant lights, and software to do the editing. If you go “all in” you can easily spend more on video accessories than you did on the camera body.

Getting Started

I am going to start with assuming most people are going to be shooting video that is not destined for broadcast TV or movie theaters but in future articles we will get into fine tuning our video and camera settings for those applications. For now, we will start with the basics just to get things going.

Equipment

Depending on what you are shooting, you may or may not need all of the things mentioned here and I will try to point out when and where different pieces will be used.

Tripod and Fluid Head

While you probably own a tripod, the head on it is likely not smooth enough for video. As you tilt and pan, it is very hard to get a real smooth motion. For video, you want was is referred to as a fluid head which will really make a huge difference in controlling your camera for video. If you have a tripod with a removable head, you can just buy a head made for video and use it when needed. Good fluid heads can cost hundreds of dollars but a fairly decent one such as the Weifeng WF-717AH can be found for around $70.

Monopod

A monopod can really be a lifesaver when it comes to video since it can help you steady your camera instead of trying to hold it still for extended periods of time. Another little trick is to put the bottom of the monopod into your belt or pocket and extend the monopod so the camera is eye level, this technique can help you get really smooth pans but is going to be fairly bouncy when walking. For this purpose, you can find a cheap monopod at Walmart for about $15.

Batteries

If your camera supports an add-on battery pack, I would highly recommend you get one and some extra batteries. Running your camera for extended periods (which means the LCD is on as well) can suck the life right out of your batteries before you know it.

Microphone

As you can probably guess, the on-board microphones on DSLR’s are not going to give you superb 5.1 Dolby stereo audio. In fact, its fairly poor mono audio and with no windscreen in front of it, you can pick up a lot of noise. A fairly popular microphone is the Rode VideoMic which runs about $149. I happened to have a Zoom H4 recorder which not only has two mics for recording in stereo but also has two XLR connectors so it is extremely versatile. I just needed a $2 audio patch cable and a hot shoe adapter. Of course, if you aren’t planning on recording video and always plan on just having a music soundtrack, then you really aren’t going to need a microphone.

Lights

If you have a bag full of 580 EX II’s, they aren’t going to do you any good when shooting video, you will need a constant source of light. While certainly I am a big fan of big LED light banks like Ikan’s, they are outside my budget. With a couple of small lights like the YN160 you can get generally decent lighting for about $75.

The YN160 can be mounted on-camera or on a light stand and can use seven different types of batteries including regular AA cells.

Software

This is where things can get crazy real fast. While you may find lot of people suggestion that you can use Windows Movie Maker, the video files directly from the 7D and the 5DMkII are NOT compatible with Windows Movie Maker. There are tools to convert the files but now you are getting into a real headache. If you have any software suggestions, please post them in the comments as I would love to hear about them.

I am going to do my best to offer up some suggestions here based on different price points:

Free Software

• iMovie (Mac)
  This is USUALLY free as it is bundled with most Macintosh systems (as far as I know)
• Lightworks (Windows)
  Lightworks is an open source editor that is actually quite powerful but is somewhat lacking in documentation and tutorials

Consumer Grade

• Adobe Premiere Elements 9 ($99 for Mac/Windows)
  Probably one of the better mid-range tools available and at a reasonable price
• Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD ($95 for Windows)
  Vegas is an extremely popular editing program with a very nice feature set

Pro Grade

• Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 ($179 for Mac/Windows)
  My personal choice as I work on a high-end Alienware Windows 7 machine
• Final Cut Pro ($300 for Mac)
  FCP and Premiere usually take turns beating out each other on features. With Final Cut Pro X, I think it takes the lead.

Summary

Hopefully this wasn’t too much to start off with and I really want to hear from you and find out if you are interested in more articles about DSLR video. I will leave you with this little video I did as my first video project with a Canon EOS 7D.

In this post we are going to look at how to control exposure by manipulating the different settings on the camera such as ISO, Shutter, and Aperture.

What is exposure?
Exposure is, simply put, the amount of light that enters the camera and hits the sensor. The more light that hits the sensor the brighter the scene will be. If too much light hits the sensor, parts of the image will be “blown out”, this is considered to be over-exposed. A scene that is too dark and the details in the shadows are lost is under-exposed.

Under Exposed Image

Over Exposed Image

How to control exposure
There are three camera settings that control the exposure, these are:

• ISO speed
  • Controls the sensitivity of the sensor to light
• Aperture
  • The aperture controls the size of the diaphragm over the shutter, the smaller the aperture number the more open the diaphragm is, allowing more light to enter.
• Shutter speed
  • The slower the shutter, the more light will enter the camera

We will look at these settings in more detail to see exactly how the play together later. First, you need to start thinking of light in terms of “stops”. A stop is not an exact amount of light, it is a relative amount of light, each stop of light doubles the amount of light. For example, if we have a single lightbulb as our base light source, adding a second lightbulb (doubling the amount of light) increases the light by one stop. If want to increase the light by another stop we have to again double the amount of light to four lightbulbs. Understanding this is going to be the key to understanding how the different camera settings affect our exposure.

ISO Speed
As already mentioned, the ISO speed will control the sensitivity of the sensor. The lower the number, the less sensitive. For low light you will need a higher ISO number to make the sensor more sensitive. The downside is that the higher ISO the more digital noise (grainy look) will show up which will degrade the image quality.

Each time you double the ISO speed you increase the exposure by one stop, so ISO 400 will give you one stop of exposure more than ISO 200, and ISO 800 will give you one more stop over ISO 400 etc. Some cameras have some in-between ISO settings to provide a finer level of control.

You currently see high ISO performance as being a major selling point for new DSLR cameras as this allows them to shoot in lower light conditions with less noise.

Pro: Higher ISO allows shooting in lower light conditions
Con: Higher ISO settings result in more digital noise

High ISO Digital Noise

Aperture
Aperture is a little confusing because the larger the number the smaller the size. The largest aperture lenses are f/1.0 although most of the good prime lenses start at f/1.4 – f/1.6. Zoom lenses typically are not available that can do more than f/2.8.

So besides letting in more or less light, what does the aperture actually do? The more light that comes in at a particular shutter speed, the shallower the depth of field. If you want more depth of field you use a smaller (higher number) aperture setting.

Pro: Larger apertures allow more light in and thus allow shooting in lower light conditions
Con: Larger apertures reduce the depth of field which may not be desirable

Shallow Depth of Field

Deep Depth of Field

Shutter
The faster the shutter, the less light enters the camera, the slower the shutter the more light will enter the camera. If you are shooting in low light conditions, you may need a slower shutter speed, however, too slow of a shutter and you can introduce blur from the subject moving, accidental camera movement, or both.

Sometimes a little blur can help portray movement and action, a sharp bike rider with a blurred background will make the rider look like he/she is moving fast where a tack sharp image shows no motion at all and would make the same image look boring. While blurring on other images can ruin the image.

Pro: The right shutter speed can really make an image more dramatic. Fast shutter speeds can freeze action, slow shutter speeds can add a dramatic motion blur.
Con: Fast shutter speeds require lots of light, slow shutter speeds are harder to control

Fast Shutter Speed

Slow Shutter Speed

Summary
By understanding the three variables that control exposure along with the pros and cons of each one, you will be able to better control the different options that are available to you.

We have 5 pairs of tickets for the July 24th screening. If there is a screening in your area, post to the comments below with the city you are able to go to and on Friday at noon we will draw our winners.

On July 24, 2011, Life in a Day will continue its journey when it premieres in theaters across the U.S. Additional screenings will be added July 29.

Locations and tickets: http://lifeinaday.cinedigm.com/tickets.html

Visit the LIFE IN A DAY channel at http://youtube.com/lifeinaday

Official Life In A Day Facebook: http://facebook.com/lifeinaday

Along with this, a photo contest will be launched in a couple of days based on the theme “A day in your life” so get your brain cells warmed up and start thinking about how you can get this shot.

• How ISO, Shutter, and Aperture relate to each other
• What the different camera mode are and when to use them
• Understanding your camera’s meter
• How to read a histogram
• How the different camera settings affect your image

This workshop series is brough to you by Blackbelt Lighting, CameraDojo, and Lumodi. At these workshops, products from BlackBelt Lighting and Lumodi will be used for demonstration purpose and will also be available for sale.

Where: Anaheim, Ca
When: Saturday, July 16th, 10:30am – 11:30am
Registration: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/1909915609

Whether you are looking for old film equipment, used hardware like tripods, or new products like the Blackbelt Lighting Products or the Lumodi Beauty Dishes, the show has something for almost everyone. Stop by and say hi!

The Math
Feel free to skip right over this part, this is the boring part, it’s so boring I thought of putting a picture of an artistic nude shot next to it just to keep people awake. Ok, so here we go. Before you can calculate the depth of field you first must know the circle of confusion for your camera.

Don’t get too lost on me yet, for most of us digital SLR users this is  one of two numbers. For most of us with APS/APS-C sized sensors this number is 0.019948, for full frame sensors (the big Pro cameras) and 35mm film the number is 0.02501. This represents the sensor size. Again, don’t get all lost on me yet, just remember the number for your particular camera.

The first thing we need to calculate is the Hyperfocal distance, for this calculation you will need to know the focal length of your lens. the aperture you are using and the CoC (circle of confusion) for your camera.

The math to calculate the hyperfocal distance is as follows:

HyperFocal = (FocalLength * FocalLength) / (Aperture * CoC)

Thus, the Hyperfocal distance of a 50mm lens at f/2.8 on an APS sensor (Canon 30D in my case) is 146.85 feet.

Next we need to calculate the near point which is the closest distance that will be in focus given the distance bdetween the camera and the subject. The math here (yes, it gets SO much worse) is as follows:

NearPoint = (HyperFocal * distance) / (HyperFocal + (distance – focal))

This is somewhat  complicated because the focal length is in millimeters and those of us in the US are better with feet and inches still so if you want the end value to be in feet you have to do some more conversions. If we are using the same 50mm lens, at f/2.8 on an APS sensor at a distance of 10 feet (3048mm) then our HyperFocal distance is 146.85 feet (44,749.23mm), giving us a near focus point of 9.37 feet (2,856.66mm). Are we following along still? Did I lose anyone?

Alrighty then, let’s now calculate the far point distance, this is almost the same as before but using slightly different math, so here we go.

FarPoint = (HyperFocal * distance) / (HyperFocal – (distance – focal))

Without changing our values that we used before, we now know that are rear point is 10.72 feet (3,266.81mm). Take note that the near point is actually closer to you than the subject is, typically the focus is 1/3 in front of the subject and 2/3 behind the subject.

The final step is to calculate the total amount of focal distance. This is one I can even do without a calculator, we simply subtract the far point distance from the near point distance.

TotalDof = FarPoint – NearPoint

Giving our example so far we have a total depth of field of 1.35 feet (411.48mm).

Let’s get practical
Why on earth would you want to know this? The simple answer is you may not, nor may you ever care to know it. When shooting portraits, weddings, events, and pretty much anything else it really isn’t going to matter much. However, if you are the type that wants to set up a shot and have it be EXACTLY what you want, there is simply no other way to know what the camera is going to do. This is important in macro, food, and product photography. By knowing exactly where you focus points begin and end you can more accurately design and execute precise shots.

Ok, how about the easy way?
This is kind of like taking a digital photography class and having to spend a semester cooking your own B&W film, its good to know the theory before taking on the practical application. So how can we do this easier than having to pull a scientific calculator each time you want to set up a shot?

• f/Calc Spreadsheet (download) – This is an Excel spreadsheet that will do all the math for you. This was development by me and is free to use.
• f/Calc Windows and Palm App (website) If you want a simple but powerful Windows or Palm based application, f/Calc does Field of View, Angle of View, Magnification, Spot Meter, f Numbers, Depth of Field and Hyperfocal distance
• PhotoCalc for iPhone (website) – Not only does it do everything for DoF, it also incorporates a sunrise/sunset function, flash exposure calculator, and Exposure Reciprocation calculator.
• CamCalc (Market) Android App for Depth of field, field of view, focal length equivalents, flash calculations, color temp. conversion, miniatures, and sunrise, sunset.
• PhoforPho (Market) Android App with Exposure calculator, Hyperfocal calculator, DoF calculator, Timer, and Exposure compensation calculation for multiple exposures.

I know this has been a doozy of an article to read through just to get to some free or almost free (PhotoCalc is $2.99) tools to make it dead simple to do these calculation. Hopefully this will help you perfect your images help you to use depth of field to its full extent.

Often we try to use the fastest shutter speed possible to help avoid blur but when shooting a moving object you sometimes need some amount of blur or it can look like the subject of the image is sitting still. In many cases you want to have the sense of movement to help convey the story of the object.In the case of the ceiling fan we want to show a little movement of the blades since the moving blades is going to be more typical of what you would see by looking at the fan once installed. We also want to show that this is a five-bladed fan so we have to be careful not to have too much blur that we lose all the details.

Let’s take a look at a series of shots taken at different shutter speeds:

1/10th Second - Way too much blur

1/25th Second - Better but lacking detail

1/40th Second - Looking good

1/100th Second - Not enough, just looks fuzzy

1/200th Second - Almost no movement

As you can see the photos taken at the two extreme ranges show either far too much blur or not enough blur to make for a good image. The photo taken at 1/40th maintains a little more detail than the images shot at 1/25 making it a more suitable image for our use.

Summary

The whole point here is to get you to experiment more with shutter speeds to capture a sense of movement, action, or speed. By adjusting the shutter speed you can control how much or how little the blur effect will have.

1. Light travels in constant directions

Have you even shot pool? If so, you have had an extremely practical lesson in how lighting works. If you aim a light straight, it goes straight, if you aim it into a wall, it bounces off in the opposite direction at the same angle. Before the comments fill up talking about diffusion, refraction, etc, the goal of this is to make the concept easy to understand here.

By understanding this basic concept you can control the angle that light is hitting your subject. This can be used to create soft or harder lighting, change the mood of an image, and create different lighting styles. Again, there is more to this with sub-topics on light spread and reflectivity but the number of variables involved are almost infinite. For the sake of keeping it understandable, you need to keep the concept simple. Light does not follow general guidelines, nor does it follow suggestions, it absolutely follows the laws of physics. Getting a handle of how light functions will give you many, many more options.

2. The Inverse Square Law

“The inverse-square law is a law stating that a specified physical quantity or strength is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the source of that physical quantity.” – Wikipedia

Pretty heady stuff huh? Let’s break this down so it is as simple as possible to understand, if you double the distance between the light source and the subject, you need four times the amount of light. Ok, simple if you are always doubling the distance, but what if you want to do it fairly quickly? If we need to calculate the light falloff we can take the distance, multiply it by itself, and take the inverse of that number. So if we take a distance of 2 feet, multiply it by itself, we get 4, and take the inverse which would be 1/4.

Putting it Together

Keep in mind that these two things work together in that when you bounce light off something you are adding to the distance between the light source and the subject, therefore you need more light. If the angle causes you to double the distance, you need four times as much light. Often the easiest way to increase or decrease the power of the light source is simply to move it towards or away from the subject.

If you are trying to learn how to shoot with manual flash, understanding these core principles will put you well on your way.

To put it simply, on a bright sunny day, set your camera on f/16 and set the shutter speed to the reciprocal of the ISO speed. So if you are set to ISO 200, then set your shutter speed to 1/200^th. If you want a faster shutter speed then increase the shutter speed and set the ISO to match. For example, if you want to shoot at 1/400^th of a second, set the ISO to 400.

f/16 ISO 200 - Shutter 1/200th

f/16 ISO 400 - Shutter 1/400th

To compensate for overcast conditions, simply adjust the f-stop to a more open setting like f/11, and keep adjusting as needed. A good chart of recommended settings is in the following table:

By utilizing the sunny 16 rule you will help ensure that you get the right settings dialed in quickly and easily. It’s always nice to have some frame of reference when getting started. When all else fails and you don’t know what settings to start with, remember the sunny 16 rule and adjust as needed.

We have arranged to use a small studio in Anaheim this weekend for the first workshop, Portrait Lighting.

For instructors, we have myself, Kerry Garrison and Brandon Cruz from Lumodi Beauty Dishes.

All of the lighting gear will be provided, you just need to bring your camera!

When: Saturday July 2nd, 12:30pm – 1:30pm right near Anaheim Stadium
Registration: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/1861051455

Workshop sponsored by Blackbelt Lighting Products & Lumodi

Based on feedback from our users, we finally decided to expand on the product lineup with some new products. We are really excited about the new lineup and hope you will find them as interesting as we do.

EZ Collapsible Softbox

We now have some new and exciting softboxes available. Like reflectors, these fold up small enough to fit into most camera bags but expand up to 20″, 24″, or 32″ squares.

The units come with the softbox and all the mounting gear you need to attach your speedlite. Just add a speedlite and a light stand and you are good to go.

These new softboxes are available immediately in the store for:

20″ x 20″ : $55.00
24″ x 24″ : $62.00
32″ x 32″ : $75.00

YN-160 LED Video Light

This is a great unit that can operate on seven different kinds of batteries: Panasonic CGR-D16S/CGR-D220, Sony NP-FH70/NP-FM55H/NP-F550 Ni-MH and AA batteries.

The light comes with a cold shoe mount for putting right on top of your camera or on a light stand with a swivel mount. Also included is a handle that you can attach to keep the light off-camera. Also included are a diffuser panel and three color effects filters.

The YN160 is available now for immediate shipping for $75.00.

BB-200 160ws Studio Strobe Kit

The BB-200 gives you the power of two 560 Speedlites in an AC-Powered studio strobe kit. This is a complete two-light  flash/strobe studio lighting kit featuring:

• 80 watts per strobe
• 5600k light temperature
• Optical Slave
• PC Sync Port
• Ready Light

Includes:

• (2) BB-200 Flash Heads 80w/s
• (2) Reflectors
• (2) Flash Tubes
• (2) A/C Power Cords
• (1) Sync Cord
• (2) 6ft Light Stands
• (2) 24″ Silver Umbrellas
• (1) Stand Bag
• (1) Light Bag

Price: $149.99

All of these products and more can be found at http://blackbeltlighting.com

The two most common issues are not being able to get the background color bright enough or the background color gets too washed out. Let’s get right into it and see how we can improve our technique and use colored gels for our backgrounds more effectively.

The Setup

The setup is very important to make sure everything goes smooth. First off, I prefer using a black seamless paper for the background. Black paper will result in more vibrant colors where a white background will make the colors look duller.

Secondly, you need to make sure that your lights that are lighting your subject are not hitting the background which will cause the colors to wash out as well. The two ways to do this is to use more side-lighting and to increase the distance between the subject and the background. The other advantage of increasing the distance between the subject and the background is that you will be less likely to get color spill on your subject from the background light.

Getting The Exposure

Probably the biggest mistake people make when learning to use gels is to get the lighting for the subject all setup and then try to dial in the background. If you do this in the opposite direction you will get where you want much faster. The following are the three images I took in order to get my light dialed in.

Initial Background Shot

In the initial background shot you can see that I had no light turned on the subject. The background wasn’t quite bright enough so I needed to power up the background flash another stop.

Subject Lighting Test

in the first lighting test with the subject light, the background is nice and bright from turning the power up, but the subject is still underexposed by about a stop so the main flash needed to be powered up more.

Final Shot

In the final shot we have enough light on the subject which is coming from about a 45 degree angle to camera-right and using a Large Rouge Flashbender to flag the light from hitting the background giving me exactly what I needed to get the shot.

The final settings are as follows:

Main Flash: 1/8 Power
Background Flash: 1/8 Power
ISO: 200
Aperture: f/5.6
Shutter: 1/250th

Be sure and experiment with gels and see what you can come up with and be sure and share your images with us.

https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/662757342

To really understand the difference, we need to look at how the light comes out from both types of devices so we can decided when best to use which modifier.

Side by Side Comparison

It shouldn’t take too much effort to understand how an umbrella should throw light out. The spherical shape sends light in all directions. This is great for providing a large soft light source that is easy to control and manage and provides a lot of latitude in how it is positioned.

A softbox controls light a lot more keeping it from spreading out so much. Because the beam of light is a lot narrower, the light fall off is much faster so positioning is more important.

Test Setup

For our test setup we used Supermodel Venus Garrison as our model and setup an umbrella and softbox in the same positions. Below are shots of the actual setups.

Umbrella Setup

Softbox Setup

The umbrella is a standard 32″ shoot-thru umbrella while the softbox is a 24″ x 24″ Ez Softbox from Blackbelt Lighting (my own lighting products company). In both cases, a YN560 speedlite was used on 1/32 power. The camera settings were ISO 200, 1/160th second shutter, and f/5.6.

The Results

Looking at the results you should be able to easily see the difference. With the larger apparent size of the umbrella, the light wraps around the face more and creates a softer transition between the highlights and shadows. The softbox provides much more directional light with a faster fall-off. Also notice that the background is darker with the softbox because much less light is hitting it from the softbox.

Umbrella

Softbox

Choosing the right modifier

Umbrellas are great for beginners since they are easier to use because of their forgiving nature. As you progress and want to create more dramatic images, being able to have more control over your light will become more and more important. Moving up into softboxes will help you to be able to create the look you want.

While the difference in these two images may seem subtle at first, the differences actually fairly dramatic. The umbrella image has some light on the shadow side while the softbox image goes almost completely dark at some points. Softer, light such as the umbrella shot usually make women look better while men are often shot in harsher, more dramatic light. If you are just getting started, I usually recommend starting with umbrellas and moving to softboxes as you want to create more dramatic and edgy images.

Getting Started
Most cameras, including newer point and shoot cameras will let you shoot in full manual mode. The problem with going manual is that if you don’t have your settings “just right” you can end up with an image that is too dark or too light. Without a basic understanding of the different settings, it can be difficult to get a good shot. However, with a basic understanding of the three variables even the most newbie photographer can learn to take better pictures by getting away from the automatic settings.

ISO Speed
The ISO speed is equivalent to the ISO speed we used to use on film cameras, this describes the light sensitivity of the film that is being used. The higher the ISO speed, the more light the sensor can pick up. For example, if your camera is set to ISO 800 you can take a well exposed image in a darker room than you could with ISO 100. By definition you would always want to run your camera in the highest ISO speed possible. While this may sound like a good idea, the downside is that the higher the ISO speed, the more “noise” will be introduced to the image, thus degrading the image quality. In most cases, you will get excellent results by using ISO 200-400 outdoors and 400-800 indoors. This does not take into account your camera model as some cameras do better than others at the higher ISO settings.

Shutter Speed

Medium Shutter Speed to Show Movement

The shutter speed is one of the easiest settings to understand as it simply means how fast the shutter opens and closes when you press the shutter button. The faster the shutter speed the better the camera will freeze the action of an event. This setting is represented in seconds, a fast shutter speed would be something like 1/2000^th of a second. A long shutter speed such as 1/30^th of a second or slower can result in blurry images if you don’t use a tripod. Like the other settings, the shutter speed also affects the amount of light that hits the sensor. The faster the shutter speed, the less light that comes into the camera. So while a fast shutter speed can freeze action, you need more and more light in order to prevent getting a dark picture the faster you set the shutter. When you cant get a bright enough image, you will need to slow down the shutter speed. In some cases you may want to get a motion blur such as a waterfall or freeway traffic, these shots require a very long shutter speed.

Shallow Depth of Field

Aperture
Understanding aperture is probably the most difficult setting for most people to grasp, because of this we wrote an entire article about it. The aperture is an adjustable opening in the lens that controls the amount of light that can enter the camera. The aperture setting is expressed in f stops with the largest opening having a smaller number so a wide open aperture is going to have an f-stop of around f/1.4. The aperture setting can have a big effect on the depth of field which allows one part of the image to be in focus and the rest of it being blurry which helps to highlight the subject of the photograph.

Starting Points
Without having a light meter or lots of experience how do you know what settings to start with? The way I learned was to set my ISO to what I wanted, typically 200-400 ISO outdoors and 400-800 ISO indoors, and put the camera in P mode and press the shutter half way down. Inside the viewfinder the camera will show the settings it will use to take the picture. Then you can put the camera into Manual mode and adjust the settings to match. After some practice you should be able to set some basic settings fairly close to what they need to be, then, by pressing the shutter half way down the camera will autofocus and then take a meter reading which should show in the viewfinder or on a display depending on your camera. Then you can adjust shutter speed or aperture to change the exposure to get it where you need.

Using the Histogram
If your camera will display a histogram after shooting an image, then you need to take advantage of this feature. By looking at the histogram of an image you can quickly tell if the image was properly exposed or not. With a digital SLR camera you want the histogram to be a nice curve with the curve being just to the right of center like our example one here. This is actually saying that the image is just slightly overexposed. With film, if you overexposed the image, you would lose detail so it was better to slightly underexpose. With digital, shadows will lose detail so it is better to slightly overexpose.

Practice Practice Practice
There is nothing that will beat getting out and getting behind the camera and learning how to use it well. If you plan on making photography a serious hobby or more, you will need to learn how to use manual mode for those times when the automatic or program mode settings just won’t cut it or for when you want to create an effect that you just can’t get any other way.

Get out and practice and be sure to post some comments and post some pictures to our Flickr group.

If you can master controlling the depth of field in your photographs you will be taking your photographs to a whole new level. What do we mean by controlling depth of field (DoF)? This is the effect where the subject is in sharp focus but the rest of the image is slightly out of focus. The effect is referred to as bokeh. The more bokeh, the more dramatic the blurring effect. In this article, we will discuss how to control the amount of bokeh in your images.

Getting Started

Being able to control the depth of field is not very easy on lower end cameras as you need to be able to shoot in either an aperture priority mode or in a full manual mode. If you have a fully automatic point and shoot then you will not be able to achieve the effect you want

50mm 1/2500 f/2.8

50mm 1/40 f/22

The setting you need to be able to adjust is the aperture setting, the larger the aperture (the smaller the number) the shorter the focal plane will be. This is one reason that some people buy very fast (larger aperture) lenses. A less expensive lens may have an aperture range of something like f/4.0  -  f/5.6, while you will achieve some bokeh effect with this lens, it will not be as pronounced as it would be if the lens has a f/1.6 – f/2.8.

Without having a lens with a very large aperture, the other way to achieve a dramatic bokeh effect is to use a long zoom lens to shoot very close objects. Since a long lens won’t be able to focus on both something very close and things at a distance, you can achieve a strong bokeh if there is enough separation between the subject and the rest of the image.

225mm 1/800 f/5.6

70mm 1/800 f/5.6

Understanding Aperture

Diagram of decreasing aperture sizes (increasing f-numbers) for “full stop” increments (factor of two aperture area per stop) – Source: Wikipedia

The aperture setting is the size of the opening that is used to let light into the camera and onto the sensor. The size of the opening is measured is F-stops. The confusing part is that the larger the aperture setting, the smaller the hole that will be used to take the picture. The reason why lenses with a very large aperture (smaller f-stop number) are more expensive is because the lenses require more engineering and typically use better and more complicated lens elements. These higher end lenses usually have glass that is manufacturered to higher tolerences and may include special coatings on the glass elements, this helps explain the high costs of the top end lenses.

The other side effect of getting a lens with a small f-stop number is that the smaller the f-stop, the more light will come in per image thus allowing you to shoot in lower light conditions. A lens with a f/1.8 can shoot well exposed pictures in a situation that is much darker than an f/4.0 lens could shoot in.

Why Control DoF?

So now that we know the how of controlling depth of field, let’s talk about why we would want to do this. Isn’t the goal of every picture to have the ultimate tack sharp image? Why would you intentionally blur part of the image? The simple answer is mood. Quite often, the background of an image may be distracting from the subject matter, think of a bride standing in front of a wall of flowers. In this case, the bride is obviously the main subject and anything else may distract from the subject, by blurring out the flowers behind the bride, you can retain some of the color and texture without the detail, adding a much more dramatic feel to the image.

One thing to be aware of is overdoing the bokeh effect. Since the eye is drawn to the lightest parts of an image first, a common problem with a heavy bokeh is creating a large blob of very light color, this can be more distracting to the image than if the background would have been in focus. Used right, the effects can be stunning.

Choosing Lenses

When choosing a new lens, once you decide once you decide the focal range you are looking for, then you go for the lens with the largest aperture (again, lowest number) that you can afford. A common misconception with new photographers is that a lens labeled with a single aperture will only do that aperture. The labeling denotes the maximum aperture at the listed focal length, So if you have a 70-300 f/4.0 – f/5,6, then your maximum aperture at 70mm will be f/4.0 but will shrink to f/5.6 at 300mm. Whereas a 70-200 f/2.8 can maintain f/2.8 throughout the entire focal range but can also go to the minimum aperture of you camera (often f/22 or lower),

Now that you have these basics down, you should be able to tell that the faster (smaller f-stop number) the better able the lens is to shoot in darker conditions and when used at the lens’ maximum aperture, the more pronounced the bokeh effect will be.

Be sure and post some images that you have taken to the Flickr user group and tag them with DoF and cameradojo.

Height

The world does not all exist at an average of five feet to six feet above ground level so why limit your pictures to being shot from that height? Take a look at most model pictures, they are not shot at eye level, most often, the camera is aimed at the model’s chest. Aiming eye level at a person will leave far too much dead space above the head. Experiment with different heights to see how much different an ordinary shot can be when viewed. If you have a baby or small pet, get on the ground and take pictures, try to show the world from their perspective. Look up at objects you normally look down on, look down on objects you normall see from a normal level.

Less is More

Sometimes showing things from different angles can result in an image where less is more. Showing only a part of a common object or a common object from a abnormal angle can really change how you view something. Take the picture here of this slick hot rod, while it does show the car off quite well, the shot is definitly nothing special. On the other hand, if you took some pictures from some different angles or perspectives, you can can really get some interesting shots. Here are some examples of this concept also from this same vehicle.

Pieces & Parts

Just like the previous examples, just showing pieces and parts of something that are even less recognizable than showing something completely obvious like a tire or headlight. Any interesting grill, side louvers, paint job, or some other detail can really make for an interesting photograph.

Again, here are a few examples of this concept:

Here is a gallery of images from The hot Rod Revue at Original Mike’s. These demonstrate the concepts discussed in this article and were inspired by the work of Mike Micklich at Car-tography.com.

• 1 Hour Consultation with Moshe Zusman
• Module Pass to Moshe Zusman‘s Workshop in DC
• Jason Groupp’s 25 Kick-Ass Lighting Scenarios DVD and pocket guide
• Portfolio Review from Kerry Garrison
• 2 e-books from Jason Anderson – 49 Photo Tips – Volumes 1 & 2

To enter, simply go to http://www.nationslearninglab.com/topics/learn-from-the-best-contest/ and say why you deserve (or need) to learn from one of the best.

Good luck!

Pre-Shoot Checklist
The pre-shoot checklist is the list i use the day before a shoot. This one covers things like making sure batteries are charged, cleaning equipment, and things like that. Nothing is worse than thinking you are totally prepared and realizing your camera battery is near dead when on location.
Pre-Shoot Checklist

Shoot Day Checklist
The shoot day checklist is the list of things I am taking for a particular shoot. Bodies, lenses, filters, flash, tripod, batteries, etc. This is my basic packing list of things that go into whatever kit I am taking.
Shoot Day Checklist

Location Checklist
There are a LOT of logistics about doing location shooting, especially for architecture shots that must be perfect. This list is a ton of questions to make sure you have the answers to such as parking, access, lighting, people, signage, security, etc.
Location Checklist

Wedding Shot Checklist
A wedding is one of the most stressful types of shoots there is, you simply cannot miss a key shot or get a do-over later if a shot doesn’t work. The second part requires skill and experience, but the first part we can address with this wedding shot checklist. Go over this list with the bride and groom and decide which shots are the must-have’s for their wedding. If you don’t want to always be referring to the list when taking the photos, bring an assistant with the list and a clipboard to make sure all the shots were taken.
Wedding Shot Checklist

I hope this inspires you to create your own customized checklists for the type of work that you do so that you will always be as prepared as you can possibly be.

Link: Posing Your Subjects: LDP Podcast #58

Before I just jump in and explain what he was doing wrong, let’s break down the situation and explain why this shouldn’t have been a problem.

The room wasn’t very bright and you needed to shoot at around f/5.6 to keep multiple people in focus. Using this aperture and a reasonable shutter speed of 1/60th required an ISO setting (without flash) of 6,400. A Canon 580 ex II zoomed to 105mm at full power easily has a working distance of 150 feet so I was able to get good exposure at a much lower ISO at only 1/4 power. I didn’t even bother to use manual flash settings as eTTL was doing just fine.

Given the ability of the equipment, why was it that the other guy was having problems even though he actually had a better camera? Well, the other guy had something I didn’t, he had a Sto-fen diffuser on his flash. But wait, isn’t a Sto-fen supposed to improve your flash? Why was this killing the shot?

Let’s break this down. At full power he should have had 150 feet of flash range. Just having the Sto-fen on the flash will cut the total light output by two stops (Understanding Light Stops), add to that the diffusion that is throwing the light in every possible direction and you are probably losing 60-70% of your forward facing light. If we start with a practical 150’ working range and cut our light by two stops, we cut our working distance down to 37.5’ which would still be in range of having a good exposure. Now let’s be really conservative here since I don’t have a Sto-fen here to test and say that its really only wasting 30% of the light and 70% is still going forward, 70% of 37.5’ is 26..25’ which is too short of a working distance to light a subject 40 feet away. All he had to do was remove the Sto-fen diffuser from his flash and he would have got instant great results.

I am not telling this story to mock him for using a Sto-fen, but you have to understand what different modifiers will do to your light and how it will affect your working distance. The following day I saw people at the final graduation event sitting in bleachers close to 350’ away from the subjects and having their flash turned on. Not on the best of days with the wind behind you and finding a four leaf clover will your flash give you an exposure at 350 feet…this is physics, it just aint gonna happen.

This is why you need to learn how your equipment works, try your different modifiers, figure out what the longest working distance you have is and even write it on the device. If you decide a Sto-fen device is best used at 20 feet or less, write a “20-“ on it so there is no second guessing when you really need something to work.

Again, I am not knocking the Sto-fen diffuser here, I am simply saying that there is a time and a place for almost any modifier and knowing that some devices will give you a shorter working distance is absolutely critical to making sure you are setup properly.

Any time you get a new light modifier you need to really practice with it and figure out its strengths and weaknesses, and they ALL have weaknesses. Some are better for individuals, some are better for groups, some are better for soft lighting, some are better for dramatic lighting. The point is, they are all different and don’t assume that you can take one specific modifier, put it on your flash, and never have to worry about it again..

IMG_2058	IMG_2059
IMG_2080	IMG_2082RV
3I8O3658	3I8O3711
IMG_5385	IMG_4844RV
30	IMG_4326RV
IMG_2031C	IMG_2031RV
IMG_0208	IMG_0209
IMG_0209RV

Be sure and check out Roberto’s website at: http://www.robertovalenzuelaphotography.com
Follow Roberto on twitter at @robertophoto

Show Host: Kerry Garrison

Features

At first glance the Pro Roller x300 looks like your basic roller case with two zipper pockets on the front. The small pocket is fairly small but expands a little and is good for fast access to small items like lens caps, cleaning clothes, batteries, memory card holders, and other small items. The second pocket is larger and is fairly nicely padded making it ideal for storing a laptop or tablet.

Locking Mechanism

On the left side are two attachment points for adding a tripod holder. On the opposite side is a unique locking mechanism that has a pull-out cable that goes through hoops built into the zipper handles to help keep everything secure. The only thing I wished the lock had was a longer cable to make it easier to lock the bag to a secure object during an event when you can’t keep your eyes on your bag. The fact that it does lock the entire bag, including the front pockets, is a real plus though. The locking mechanism is TSA Approved so you will not have any issues with airport security if you want to check the bag through luggage.

Prop Stand

Turning to the back, there is a hide-away prop stand. I think this prop stand is a very nice addition to a roller bag since it makes it easier to get into your gear without having to bend all the way over to the ground. When you first look at the prop stand you will likely think that it is going to be weak and unstable, however, in use it is quite stable.

Specifications

Capacity: 1-2 pro DSLRs with grip plus 8-10 lenses; accessories, up to 17″ laptop

Inside

Inside The x200

The door features two good size pockets that don’t really expand much so they are good for small cables, gels, and other small accessories. There is also three holders for memory cards that feature small flaps that you can switch to show if the memory cards are full or empty. There is also a little hide-away panel that has a spot for a few pens and business cards. In the main compartment is plenty of space for a couple of bodies and a good assortment of lenses and accessories. The padding is quite thick so your gear should be pretty safe from getting knocked around when traveling. There are two main divider pieces that run top to bottom in the case that really don’t lend themselves to being moved much while all of the other cross pieces are easily moved or removed to customize the bag to your needs.

Hidden Backpack

The Surprises

There are two big surprises that the x200 has in store for you. The first big surprise is that the whole storage system unzips and comes out of the outside case complete with shoulder straps making the x200 a true hybrid roller/backback system. While this seems basic enough, Lowepro takes it to the next level by having the a zippered cover for the roller shell. What this means is that when I am getting ready to travel somewhere, I can pull out the backpack, complete with all my standard gear, and then use the roller case as my suitcase. When I arrive at my destination I can unpack the suitcase and put the backpack back inside and am back to having a rolling camera bag. This is certainly a unique aspect to this bag system.

Accessory Mount Thread

The second surprise, which I have wanted on my bags for a LONG time, is a threaded hole hidden beneath the logo badge on the handle. This allows you to screw in a standard threaded stud and then attach your camera or a light for a quick mobile platform. This is a very welcome design feature and I am sure I am going to use that heavily instead of having to pull out a light stand when in a hurry. When you open the x200 up you will find an accessory bag with the strap for the tripod holder and a threaded rod for the handle.

Results

There is a lot to like about the Lowepro Pro Roller x200 Case. While there are a few little tweaks I would like to see but overall it is a very solid bag and the little extras really are excellent touches. The Lowepro Pro Roller x200 Case doesn’t come at a cheap price, at $329.95 at B&H Photo, it is on the high side of the camera bag price spectrum. I have said this numerous times, you get what you pay for. A high quality bag like this will last you for many years without any problems. My experience is that a cheaper bag is just not going to be built as good and I used to replace my camera bags every 6-9 months. At that rate you are much better off buying something that is going to last you five years or more. The Lowepro Pro Roller x200 delivers on many levels and is certainly a worthwhile purchase in my opinion. Lowepro Pro x200 product page: http://products.lowepro.com/product/Pro-Roller%20×200,2163.htm Amazon.com: Lowepro Pro Roller x200 Camera Bag $329.99 B&H Photo: Lowepro Pro Roller x200 Case $329.99

So what’s wrong with existing white balance tools and why is the ColorRight Pro supposed to fix it?

Using the ColorRight Pro

The main problem with most white balance tools is that when you take your calibration shot, the gray card or white balance filter can be getting light contamination from different light sources. The theory here is that the only light source that really matters is the main (key) light. If we can narrow down the source of light we are calibrating for to mostly just the main light source, then the subject will generally have the correct white balance.

The ColorRight Pro attempts to solve this by having an angled opening in the dome that collects light from multiple angles yet favors the light from specific angles by “aiming” the dome at the main light source.

Does it work?

This may seem like a simple question but the answer can be fairly complicated. For the sake of keeping things simple, let’s just say “it depends”. This isn’t to say it doesn’t work in some situations, but more that the usefulness may vary from situation to situation which is of no fault to the ColorRight Pro and probably speaks more to improvements in modern DSLR’s ability to have automatic white balance. Let’s look at a few examples:

Automatic 4800k

ColorRight 4850k

In the first example, the ColorRight Pro corrected the white balance by only 50 degrees. Not really enough to make any real difference in the visual appearance.

Automatic 4850k

ColorRight 4850k

In the second example, the ColorRight Pro produced exactly the same white balance values as the camera’s automatic white balance.

Next it was time to see how it would do in a more unfriendly environment…under the hot lights!

Automatic 4150k

ColorRight 2900k

Under the tungsten hot lights the ColorRight Pro really showed what it is capable of. The camera’s auto white balance failed miserably to correct adequately for the extremely warm cast from the tungsten bulb. After getting a shot with the ColorRight Pro and setting the custom white balance, the next shot was perfect and required no color correction in post production.

Is the ColorRight Pro For You?

If you are only shooting outdoors during mid-day or using flash for really solid daylight balanced conditions, you may not need the ColorRight Pro and your camera will probably do pretty good. If you ever shoot in the late afternoon when the color from the Sun has gone into the warm side, ever have to deal with awkward lighting setups, or ever need to shoot JPEG, then you certainly need some kind of white balance tool.

The ColorRight Pro sells for $129.95 at B & H Photo which might be a bit pricey for some people but when you really need to rely on your white balance tools, you want to make sure what you are getting is going to do the job correctly.

Summary

I said it right up front, I don’t often use a white balance tool but when I do need one, I REALLY need one. There is simply no better way to speed up your post production workflow than to be able to completely ignore having to do white balance correction. Secondly, if you find that you need to shoot in JPEG (yes folks, there are reasons like I described above) then white balance is absolutely essential to getting the shots right.  What you have to ask yourself is if it’s worth $130 to have exceptionally good white balance. This is going to depend on you. You can spend $15 for a cheap white balance lens cap and it may be better than nothing or you can spend $130 for extremely accurate color. Only you can place a monetary value on the quality of your own images.

ColorRight Website: http://colorright.com

Continue reading to see a large version of this graphic.

Click to Enlarge Image

Via:Online Printing

https://www.fuzemeeting.com/fuze/42b310f1/13466693

Lowepro CompuDay Photo 250

Here is my personal dilemma…I want to carry my camera with me much more often but I always carry too much gear when what I really need is a body, a 24-70, a 70-200, a flash, and a modifier or two. I have tried messenger bags and other backpacks but they never really “did it” for me as they were either too heavy, too small, or wouldn’t organize things well.  The folks at Lowepro suggested I give the CompuDay Photo 250 a try and see if it addresses the issues I have had with other backpacks.

Specifications

Capacity:
Compact DSLR with kit lens attached; up to a 15.6” widescreen laptop; accessories; personal items

Using the CompuDay Photo 250

I figure the best way to discuss the CompuDay Photo 250 is to go through the list of issues I normally have and see how the CompuDay Photo 250 stacks up against the rest.

Size

The CompuDay Photo 250 is a small backpack for short hikes or daily carry-around use. Unlike some other bags that are basically small all-purpose camera bags with straps on them. This means less room for gear, but that’s kind of the point. For a nice bag just big enough for a few components, the CompuDay Photo 250 fits the bill quite nicely.

Weight

The empty bag is quite light so it’s much more about your gear and you don’t feel like you are lugging around a heavy bag as well.

Organization

There are lots of pockets and sleeves to help keep your stuff organized but the main storage section is really just a big open space but it is big enough for a DSLR and a lens or two. I really like the external access to the lens pocket which means you can swap lenses without having to dig through the main compartment. This is a nice win for the Photo 250.

Quality

The build quality of the Photo 250 is top-notch. I have nothing negative to say about the build quality at all.

Price

At $99 list price and a current street price of $74.95 at B & H Photo, the CompuDay 250 is reasonably prices for a backpack with these features and quality.

Results

I didn’t really know what to expect from the Lowepro CompuDay Photo 250 as my experience with backpacks in the past has not been overly positive. I really have to say that I actually like the CompuDay Photo 250 quite a bit. When I travel, it makes a nice carry-on bag for my laptop, basic camera gear, and electronic accessories, around town I can keep my camera with me for fast, easy access without bogging me down with my normally excessive gear packing. At the current street price, it’s not going to break the bank and will make for a nice size back for those photowalks, short hikes, and other times I want to be hands free. The only thing I wish it had was a divider in the main compartment to aid in the organization of a lens or two but that is getting a little nit picky.

If you are looking for a good quality backpack at a really good price, it would be hard to do much better than the Lowepro CompuDay 250.

Lowepro Website: http://www.lowepro.com/
Lowepro CompuDay Photo 250: http://products.lowepro.com/product/CompuDay-Photo-250,2249,16.htm

Lowepro CompuDay Photo 250 at B&H Photo: Lowepro CompuDay Photo 250

The Image

The shot is an evening shot taken after sunset so there is no visible sun and almost no ambient light. The subject is a girl so she needed to be lit properly which meant artificial light. I also wanted the water to be sharp and not have any motion blur in it.

Making The Image

The light from the sun was almost non-existent so any normal exposure that would freeze the water in mid-air would have resulted in a pitch black background. In order to get any color at all out of the background the shutter speed needed to be 1/15th of a second, now that is one slow shutter! But with that slow of a shutter, why isn’t the water all blurry (not to mention the subject since I shot it hand-held, not with a tripod)? Since there was almost no ambient light, what freezes the subject and the water is not the shutter but the flash. The speed of the flash is about 1/20,000th of a second so it is this short burst of light that, in effect, acts like a fast shutter speed. The flash was a Canon 580 EX II with a 14″ Lumodi Beauty Dish mounted on it about 3′ away from the subject.

The aperture was set at f/8 to provide a wide field of view for all the water as well as the subject and the ISO was at 200 so keep digital noise to a minimum. The flash was fired using a PocketWizard MiniTT1 Transmitter with AC3 ZoneController mounted on a Canon 50D and a PocketWizard FlexTT5 Transceiver on the flash. This combination allowed me to take a few shots and adjust the flash power right from the camera while an assistant held the flash into position.

ISO 200 - f/8 - 1/15th - Handheld

While you may not think you can get a sharp image with a long shutter speed, if flash is the only light source then you can use a very long shutter speed and the light from the flash will be so brief that it will effectively freeze the objects in the frame. This is the same technique for freezing bullets in mid-air and other fast moving objects.

What you will need

To start off with, you should get a set of gels. The set I recommend is the Strobist Gell Collection since it contains a large number of gels of different colors that are pre-cut to fit most speedlites. Second, you will need some way to attach the gels to your speedlite. I generally use the Lumiquest Gel Holder or just some basic gaffers tape.

Once you have the gel attached to your flash, you are ready to get going.

The Lighting Setup

This is where people often get hung up because a poor setup can cause light to spill on to the subject or the main lights can wash out the color effect. Ideally you want 3 feet or more between the background and the subject to prevent spill and you want the main lights to be angled enough to not spill onto the background to wash it out. Later on we will look at some actual setups to show how they are done.

In the first image, we saw just a plain black background which was done with black seamless paper and the lighting was coming from an side angle to prevent hitting the background. In this image we have a single speedlite one 1/2 power with a purple gel shooting up from behind the subject. This is a very simple yet effective setup since it used a single light source. To help the light spread out, the flash zoom was set to 24mm to make it as wide as possible (without a modifier).

If the flash isn’t set high enough you won’t get much of an effect. If it is set too high, the color will wash out and you will get white.

If you want to take it a step further add a second light with the same or a different color. In this case I changed the purple to a red and added a second flash with a blue gel. Take notice that where the colors overlap they actually mix and become purple. If you are trying to use two different colors, you will need to keep this mixing effect in mind and might have to take steps to flag the two flashes to keep the colors from mixing.

Another thing to try is to use multiple gels on a single flash by covering half of the flash with one color and the other half with a different color. For a recent benefit shoot I tried this with pretty decent results.

Again you can see the distinct blue and red colors but a purple where the colors mixed. I am going to continue to play with this technique and see what I can get with possibly using a vertical card in between the two gels to try to keep the colors separated more.

Even though the colors mixed more than I would have liked, the overall effect was very nice although I later wished I had used a white or black background as the gray seamless was a little too drab where the color wasn’t hitting it.

The following is an image from the shoot showing how the images turned out.

What I really wanted to achieve was a red, white, and blue effect so back in the studio I start experimenting to see what I could come up with. What I finally came up with was a three light setup with bare flashes with the gels on the bottom and an non-gelled flash higher up to provide a white splash. If I used just a bare flash for the white, the spot was too big and washed out the other colors so I added a Rouge 3-In-1 Grid to keep the light contained.

The first test was alright but the white spot was too small.

To solve this, I took the small grid out of the Rouge Grid so I would get a little larger of a spot and got the resulting image.

There I had it, a red, white, and blue background effect. The next image is a shot of the actual lighting setup so you can see how it was all put together.

Hopefully this will inspire you to get creative with using gels for different background effects. It just takes a little patience and practice to get it all dialed in right, but once you do, the possibilities are endless.

Images discussed during the show

Christina

Lips Blow Cue

Sylvianne's Vineyard

Renée Robyn floor

Dave Burns Hawaii

Dave Montizambert’s Website: http://www.montizambert.com

Dramatic Lighting Workshop May 15-16: http://www.wix.com/sarahreid/lightingworkshop

Show Host

Kerry Garrison
http://kerrygarrison.com

How are we doing this?

For discussion’s sake the Android tablet we will be looking at is the Motorola XOOM. This one was chosen as our Android platform because it is considered to be the top-of-the-line of the current Android tablets.  Now I want to start off by saying that I do not consider myself an Android fanboy. I love Apple products and have always felt their industrial design is generally second to none. My wife and daughter have MacBooks, most everyone in the family owns an iPod, and my wife has an iPad. One the other hand, we all own Android-powered phones. Hopefully this gives me enough credibility and experience to be able to give a solid rundown of the differences. So let’s get started.

Size Differences

In physical size the XOOM and the iPad are very similar although the XOOM has a slightly larger LCD display. Even though the iPad’s screen is 1/2” smaller than the XOOM, the iPad is physically larger due to having more bezel around the edges. A half-inch increase in screen size isn’t a complete win for the XOOM since the smaller bezel actually makes it more difficult to hold without touching the actual screen. If size is really a consideration here there is no clear winner based on size.

Horsepower

When it comes to raw processing power, both the iPad 2 and the XOOM are outfitted with quite powerful processors. The high-end Android tablets such as the XOOM are also outfitted with the nVidia Tegra2 video chips providing amazing 3D graphics ability. Not that the iPad is a slouch when it comes to graphics, but the Tegra2 is certainly the top of the line at this point. If you are looking at a tablet as a gaming platform, the games developed for the iPad 2 are sure to please, but the games that are possible on the XOOM can have slightly better and faster graphics. As a gaming platform, I am going to give a slight edge to the XOOM.

Ease of Use

Let’s face it, Apple can take a powerful device and make it so dead-simple to use that many older people who would never carry a laptop around are seen carrying iPads. Apple spends a tremendous amount of effort on documentation and guidelines to ensure that iPad applications have a very consistent look and feel and all conform to very strict user interface guidelines. Since Apple tightly controls the apps in the Apple Store, if your app doesn’t conform to the strict guidelines, it simply won’t be approved. This is actually a double-edged sword. One one hand you get solid consistent apps but on the flip side this makes it more difficult to develop applications and may prevent some applications, as good as they might be, from ever getting published.  I am really torn on how to call this one. The iPad clearly wins on ease of use but there is a hidden cost to keeping things as simple as Apple requires. Still, this is the one huge benefit of the iPad, it only takes a few minutes to master the interface and understand how to do most tasks.

Customization Ability

Where the iPad is exceptionally simple to use, one of the main reasons is because you cannot customize your user experience outside of moving icons around and having folders with current iOS versions. While this lack of customization is what ensures the iPad user experience is always simple and consistent, it is also the biggest differentiator to the Android experience. If you are a power user and want to customize your experience, than the Android platform may be a better choice. Shown here are the home screens of my wife’s iPad and my XOOM. Her iPad looks basically the same as every other iPad, 20 icons per screen and 5 permanent icons on the bottom, nothing special, but certainly easy to navigate.

iPad Home Screen

Customized XOOM Screen

On the opposite end of the spectrum is the home screen from my XOOM. I have replaced the stock Honeycomb interface with a different “launcher” that provides additional functionality. The Android’s ability to use screen widgets, I have quick glance access to recent emails, upcoming calendar events, and weather. I also have placed my most commonly used shortcuts on the home page so I don’t need to scroll through a list of icons to find them. There is also a hand Pandora widget that allows play, pause, thumb-up, and thumb-down without having to switch to the full application. For this category, and admittedly this is purely a subjective opinion, I am giving the win to the XOOM. I want to be able to personalize my user experience the same way I do on my computer systems. If this feature is not important to you, then that is a completely personal preference and it is not for me to try to convince you otherwise.

Notifications

Android Notifications

While many iPhone/iPad users are quite content with the notification system within iOS, I think it actually fails on a number of levels. The only notification system within the i-Devices is a simple pop-up dialog box, the Android notification system is quite robust. Being able to see a list of recent notifications, selectively act on or clear specific notifications is a clear win….if you use the tablet as a productivity device. If you only use a tablet as a media consumption device (web browsing, music, video, etc) then you have no real need for notifications at all. On the other hand, if you are using your tablet as more of a desktop replacement with email, instant messages, scheduling, and social interaction (Facebook and twitter) than a much more robust notification system can indeed be very valuable. Here at Dojo Central, my wife uses her iPad mostly for reading books with the Kindle reader (her iPad replaced her original Kindle), checking email and facebook. She doesn’t care about notifications as she uses her phone or laptop for that. On the flip side, I use the XOOM much more as a productivity device and notifications are extremely useful for the way I work and use my tablet.

Design Goals

I actually feel like the design goals between the iPads and the Android tablets are quite different. I like to consider the iPad to be a media consumption device. For web browsing (the lack of Adobe Flash not withstanding), checking email, listening to music, watching videos, reading books, the iPad simply excels.  using iTunes to manage your media is fairly simple and works well. With its simple interface the iPad can be picked up and used by kids to senior citizens and everything in between.

On the other hand, the Android tablets seem to be geared towards productivity and more general computing tasks. Granted, many applications are available on both platforms so one device doesn’t necessarily have a huge advantage over the other. There are also apps on each platform that people with the other platform wish they had so it goes both ways.

Summary

Is there a clear “winner” here, the answer is “it depends”. I realize that this may be a cop-out to some people but as I have tried to outline here, both platforms have strengths and weaknesses. There are also other features that may be important to you such as the XOOM’s expandability with an SD Card slot and USB port for easy access to manage files, connect external devices or the iPad’s assortment of accessories. The iPad also has a more mature software base especially with Apple software such as iMovie and GarageBand being great examples.

If you have an iPhone and absolutely love it, than you will probably love the iPad. If you have an Android phone and you love it, then you will probably love an Android tablet. But, as even witnessed here at home, my wife has an Android phone but wanted an iPad and has absolutely no regrets about her choice.

If you are considering a tablet, I highly encourage you to fully investigate both platforms and try to make as informed of a decision as possible. It’s really hard to go wrong either way, its really a matter of features and abilities are important to you. Also keep in mind that an iPad is an iPad, there are no cheap crappy versions of iPads. There is only Apple made iPads.On the other hand, since the Android operating system is open source, virtually anyone can create an Android tablet and there are cheap, crappy Android tablets on the market, many under $150, there is even a cheap Android tablet available Big Lots (formerly Pic-N-Save). So if you are shopping for an Android tablet, be careful of those inexpensive devices as they are underpowered and usually do not even have access to the Android Market for you to install new apps.

“But Kerry…those triggers are listed on your shopping site at $64.95, so what do you mean $15?”

If you read the description of the triggers, you also get a $50 gift certificate for new members at Nations Photo Lab. If you factor in the $50 in prints, that brings the price of the triggers down to only $14.95!

Are they any good?

Of course I am going to tell you they are great! I use them on a daily basis for everything from products to weddings. Chris Diset has been using them on every shoot for months along with numerous other professionals.

But, if you want a really unbiased opinion of them, turn to one of the biggest names in the industry, David Ziser. In a recent Technique Tuesday, David talked about affordable off-camera lighting and not only mentioned our flash triggers, but did a complete video on how to use them. I never asked him to do a video on them, in fact, I was completely shocked that he took the time to not only try them out, but to use them at a recent wedding event.

Check out the video David did:

Trigger Happy Budget Flashes from David Ziser

So take it from a lighting master, the Blackbelt Wireless Triggers from Cameradojo.com not only work, but they can really allow you to use creative lighting, and on a budget. And don’t forget about the $50 gift certificate to Nations Photo Lab!

Check out these and other products in the BlackBelt Store.

Lighting Studio
[Android Market Link]
Price: FREE

When you want to do a quick layout of a lighting setup, Lighting Studio is a quick and simple way to lay out different components. From subjects, to lights, to background, to modifiers, Lighting Studio makes it very simple. Best of all, Lighting Studio is FREE!

Screen Shot

Photoshop Express
[Android Market Link]
Price: FREE

Edit and share photos virtually anywhere. Access them all on Photoshop.com

Edit and share photos virtually anywhere. Touch to crop, rotate, adjust color, and add artistic effects. Access all your photos and videos directly from your free Photoshop.com account. Quickly share with family and friends.

Screenshots

Vignette
Price: $4.05
[Market Link]

Add film and camera effects to your photos.

• 68 effects & 56 frames
• Retro/vintage styles
• LOMO/Diana/Holga toy camera styles
• Polaroid/instant camera styles
• Cross-process, tilt-shift, photobooth, double exposure and more.

• Supports the full resolution of your camera (3.1MP, 5MP or 8MP)
• Flash (if your phone has one) (not working on Dell Streak)
• Front-facing camera support (on some phones)
• Self-timer and time-lapse
• Digital zoom
• Geotagging

There is a free demo version of Vignette to allow you to try it out before you buy it. Click here to try it out.

Screenshot

Sundroid
Price: Free
[Market Link]

Worldwide sunrise, sunset, moonrise and moonset times.

The most downloaded sunrise and sunset times calculator for Android! Handy for photography, hunting, outdoor activites and holiday planning. Use your current location from wireless networks or GPS, select places on a map, or search by name or zip code.

Also calculates moon rise, set and phase.

Take a look at my paid app if you’d like 4 widgets, civil, nautical and astronomical twilight times, azimuths of rise and set, monthly calendars and saved locations.

Screenshots

Picsay Pro
Price:
[Market Link]

Award winning photo editor with all the tools you need to spice up your pictures

Spice up the pictures on your phone with this award winning photo editor!

New, initial Xoom support, Gritty and Redscale filter, and new mouth stickers!

Sharpen, remove red eye, crop & straighten, distort, insert cutouts of other pictures, paint, make color splash out of black-and-white pictures, add text, word balloons, apply effects like Cross Process, Lomo, Vignette, faux HDR, Tilt-shift, Pencil Sketch, and much more.

Screenshots

Easy Release – Model Releases
Price: $9.99
[Market Link]

Easy Release replaces inconvenient paper model release forms and contracts with a slick, streamlined application. Collect all data and signatures right on a touch sensitive Android device then email a PDF of the release right to you. Pre-bundled with industry standard (Getty Images) model and property releases in 13 langs.

- Approved for use by Getty Images and Alamy contributors!

Screentshot

For more information about the show, please check out http://www.bargaincamerashows.com/bcs_sd_map.htm

Build and Feature Comparison

Size is only one of the comparisons I will be making through this article because in the end that is what people are going to ask about.  The bare lenses are very similar in size with the Sigma just a hair longer than the Canon. For comparison we are using the previous Canon model and not the newer Mark II version in order to be on the same playing field price-wise.

The build quality of the Sigma is very nice. I have been a fan of Sigma lenses for a long time and shoot regularly with the 24-70 f/2.8 so I was not surprised that the Sigma had an excellent fit and finish to it.

One surprising difference is that the lens collar on the Sigma is actually better than the Canon one. I actually really dislike the lens collar on the Canon, it’s a pain to spin around when you are in a hurry.

I wasn’t about to take two expensive lens and pour water on them or subject them to a heavy dust storm, but the Canon lens is known for having really good weather sealing which may be a factor in some extreme locations. For the average wedding and portrait shooter, this may not justify the extra cost.

The Sigma has simpler controls for the autofocus controls which plays to Canon’s advantage since the Canon has a switch for two difference focus ranges that can help the Canon lens focus faster. Not that the Sigma is a slouch in the autofocus department but when used properly the Canon will outperform the Sigma is focusing times.

The Hypersonic motor in the Sigma is remarkably quiet and when tested on a Canon 50D the autofocus works quite well and very accurately.

The lens hood on the Sigma (included at no additional charge) is a little longer than the Canon with the two primary petals narrowing at the ends giving it a pretty aggressive look.

The zoom and the focus are arranged opposite differently from the Canon which isn’t an issue if you haven’t used the Canon lens much.

You could nit-pick the differences one way or the other but from a build and quality perspective the lenses are a pretty close match. Where the rubber hits the road is going to be how well does it shoot images.

Lens Tests

Shooting out in the field it was very difficult to tell a difference between the images from each lens so I needed to ramp it up a notch and pull out the LensAlign and see if we could get some actual results.

Sigma

Canon

The test shot here was taken at f/2.8, 200mm at 8’ from the front of the camera body (Canon 50D). At first glance the images look pretty much exactly the same with the exception of the image size. You may be wondering why the Canon image is physically smaller than the Sigma. The reason for this is that they were cropped from the top-left of the LensAlign to the bottom-right of the actual image and there is a focal length difference between the images. I don’t have the equipment here to tell you precisely what each lens is doing  but for the sake of example, let’s say that the Canon shoots a perfect 200mm on a full-frame sensor, so on the APS-C we are getting the equivalent of 320mm. With the Sigma, we are not getting the same maximum focal length, we are probably shy by about 20mm. I would be a little careful here slamming Sigma for being the same as the Canon since the crop/zoom factor on the smaller sensors can sometimes be an issue. Having the Sigma be a little wider than the Canon, in my book, is not necessarily a strike against it, especially with small sensor cameras. Certainly, if you need all the reach you can get, then the Canon may be a better choice.

In the next set of images I have done a 100% crop and cut out the same section for comparison.

Sigma Lens

Canon Lens

My initial take on these was that the Sigma actually seemed a little sharper at the edges of these images. Upon thinking about this for a little while it occurred to me that part of the reason the Sigma appears sharper is that we are not actually comparing apples to apples here. The longer your focal length, the shorter your depth of field, so since the Canon is actually shooting at a slightly longer focal length, as described above, the depth of field is going to be larger. If we narrow our focus just to the “0” location we find that the two lenses are virtually identical in sharpness.

Summary

I need to point out again that this comparison did not use the new model of the Canon 70-200 IS L II and instead used the previous model because I felt from a price point, the new Mark II version of the Canon lens was in a completely different price point. For people considering getting into the less expensive previous model, we wanted to see if the Sigma was a good enough value.

Current Prices (as of 4/3/11)

• Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 APO EX DG HSM OS FLD $1,399 Street Price
• Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM $1,549 Street Price
• Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L II IS USM $2,599 Street Price

* Street prices taken from Amazon.com

With the Sigma being $200 less than the Canon and, other than the focal length issue which may or may not be an issue for you, the only real difference could be the weather sealing on the Canon. I have shot all over the country in a variety of conditions with lenses that have never claimed to have any weather sealing and have never had an issue. However, if I was going to be doing an African safari or maybe shooting in a rain forest than I would opt for gear that has the best protection possible, which in my case would mean a new camera body as well.

For the vast majority of photographers, I have to give Sigma a win based on price here. I have been shooting Sigma lenses for years and have always been happy with their image quality and performance and I can certainly recommend the Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 APO EX DG HSM OS FLD as well know.

What is the AC3?

The PocketWizard AC3 ZoneController is an add-on to the ControlTL system that brings a new level of control to your lighting setups. Before we get to deep into this we need to take a step back and look at what the Canon system delivers so we can see how the AC3 ZoneController enhances the original functionality.

While I am not going to go deep into detail here as that would require an entire book, let’s break it down into two main types of control the Canon system has.

• eTTL Ratio Control
  With eTTL Ratio mode you have an A and a B channel that will provide automatic metering through the camera. You can provide more power to one channel while taking power away from the other. This is a very basic ratio control and the only override you have is a general flash exposure compensation. You can then add to that a C channel which operates independently and has its own power adjustment. The downside with this setup is that a simple ratio control sometimes isn’t enough.
• Manual Control
  In manual control you can simply adjust each of the three channels independently. This is generally my favorite mode but the main problem is still the line-of-site issue and that pesky third channel is often now in a good position to get a signal from the main flash.

While the PocketWizard ControlTL system solves the line-of-site issue, the problem has always been that if you still want all of the functionality of the Canon wireless system, you still had to put a 580 EX/EX II flash on top of the MiniTT1 module to enable the full range of controls. What I really wanted was to be able to use ALL of my speedlites off-camera and not have to sacrifice one just for the controls.

This is exactly where the AC3 ZoneController comes in. The AC3 provides you with three different channels to work work (make me now wish for 4 or 5 though) that can be managed in three different ways:

• Off
  Should be self-explanatory here, if not, this allows you to simply turn off each channel by itself.
• Auto
  Uses the Canon TTL system for automatic metering while provide a simple override dial giving you plus or minus three stops.
• Manual
  Provides manual control over each channel from 1/64th power to Full Power.

Using the AC3 ZoneController

I certainly have to admit that I don’t miss having to have a complete speedlite on top of the camera to give me the control of my lighting since this give me one more light at my disposal to use to light the scene. I also should admit that I shoot the vast majority of my work with manual flash. I find it to be more reliable and consistent than using eTTL. The ability to turn channels on/off and adjust the power without having to walk over to where the speedlite is can come in very handy.

For most portrait setups, the Automatic mode will work the vast majority of the time, its usually only when the subject has odd-reflective properties do things have a tendency to get a little wonky. Still, I shoot my camera in manual, and I generally keep my flash in manual.

One of the biggest advantages is the time savings in dialing in your lighting output power. I can start with all of the lights off to adjust for the ambient. Then turn on the accent light to get it’s power set, add the fill light, and then the key light and everything comes together very quickly without multiple trips to each light or having to have a VOLS handy.

Keep in mind that you are paying for this convenience. A three light ControlTL power system would consist of the following components:

• MiniTT1 Transmitter $199
• Three FlexTT5 Transceivers @  $229 each
• AC3 ZoneController $79

So a three light setup will set you back $955.00. While a cheap, manually only trigger kit will run less than $100. While this does sound like a staggering difference in cost, and it certainly is up front, you have to consider the time factor of being able to control everything from your camera. You simply do not always have the luxury of time to run around adjusting lights to get exactly what you want. The time factor can certainly pay for itself fairly quickly since you can dial in all three zones without having to waste your own time or have an assistant.

Putting the AC3 ZoneController to Use

The following sequence of images shows exactly what I described above from starting with ambient light and adding the three lights in order.

Get Exposure for Ambient Light	Setup Background Light
Add Fill Light	Add Key Light

The beauty of the PocketWizard AC3 ZoneController is that turning lights on and off and adjusting their power is all done without have to step away from the camera. If your lights are pointed in the right direction it should only take a few shots to get everything you need dialed in quickly and accurately.

If you have already made the investment in the PocketWizard ControlTL system, plunking down another $79 in order to have the AC3’s level of control should be a complete no-brainer.

Pockwizard Website: http://www.pocketwizard.com/
PocketWizard Blog: http://blog.pocketwizard.com/

Amazon Links

• MiniTTL Transmitter
• FlexTT5 Transceivers
• AC3 ZoneController