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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

But let’s step back in time a little, what about using an older vintage Canon AE-1. There are no scene modes, no automatic modes, no program modes, no eTTL flash, just shutter and aperture and whatever ISO film you have installed.

The Truth Be Told

Even the old AE-1’s had some basic metering and some automatic modes. If you pressed the shutter half-way down, the internal meter would tell you what the recommended aperture setting would be based on your ISO setting and current shutter speed. If you roll the aperture wheel on the lens (yes, on the lens, not on the camera body) from one of the available aperture settings to A, then the camera would set the lens to the recommended aperture setting before taking the shot, thus giving you somewhat of an shutter priority mode (you set the shutter, camera adjust the aperture). Keep in mind this is a reflective light meter so it can sometimes be inaccurate with brighter or lighter subjects.

Is it important that people know how to shoot film?

If you ask most any photography teacher they will tell you that learning film is extremely important in order to understand all of the dynamics of film and that learning the developing process will teach yo….oh man, I can’t even finish explaining it. I think the point that is often missing is not whether someone can shoot film or not, but whether or not someone has the skills and knowledge to get a good exposure without relying on all the modern conveniences of current cameras.

As I discussed this issue with fellow photographers, some felt that it really didn’t matter so long as the person can make good images with what they have. The problem I have with this is that you may be able to make good images, even on a regular basis, what you can’t do is to get a wide range of creative images.

The camera and your flash are going to try to give you a very neutral lit image. While this may be ok a good percentage of the time, when you really want to do some creative lighting your camera is simply not going to know what you want to do.

An example of this is with very dramatic lighting. The image shown here would be almost impossible with any automatic camera or TTL lighting modes. The camera would see the subject as underexposed and try to increase the exposure to give a brighter image. Of course you can usually correct that with flash exposure compensation, but that doesn’t work all the time and if you use most wireless flash triggers you won’t have automatic exposure features anyway.

It’s also fairly common that eventually a photographer decides they want more powerful studio lights, they make a big investment in gear, and then can’t figure out why they are not getting what they want out of them. Again, this is simply a lack of experience in understanding the correlation between aperture, shutter speed, ISO, and lighting power.

If I can help to teach anything, it would be that shooting in manual modes is not as difficult as it may seem at first. Learning how to really control your camera and your lighting will open you up to a whole new world of creativity.

Here are some past articles that will help you along your path:

• Getting Manual Flash Exposure Quickly
• The Exposure L – Understanding the Correlation Between Shutter and Aperture
• How to use a Light Meter
• Photography Basics: Beginners Guide to Aperture
• Photography Basics: Controlling Exposure
• Capturing a sense of motion with shutter speed
• Learning to shoot in manual mode
• Understanding Depth of Field

Some Kind of Bovine - 1/250th - f/4 - ISO 50 - 200mm

Outside of Blythe it was time to take another shot when we tried to get off the road to shoot some wrecked cars. Unfortunately we couldn’t get to the vehicles but the road ended at this small cow stable. In order to make it look bigger than it was, we decided to use a short depth of field by using a wider aperture and a long lens to maximize the effect.

For the complete story about the image, check out the post at:
http://photoproject24.com/2011/01/photo-5-some-kind-of-bovine/

The Image

The image I am starting off with is Sunrise on the Salton Sea which pretty much describes the image pretty well as it was taken just after sunrise on the west bank of the Salton Sea (specifically 20 minutes after sunrise). The sun casts a dramatic reflection all the way across the water while a dead palm tree and the shore line add some additional detail.

Sunrise at the Salton Sea

Making the image

The image itself is fairly simple as there are no extra lights used and virtually no post processing. The image is pretty much as it appeared in camera.

Of course, shooting into the Sun may not be the easiest task unless you have a neutral gradient filter but none was used on this shot. In fact, I didn’t even use optimal camera settings as I had changed them on accident and couldn’t see that I had changed the ISO setting in the viewfinder as I was trying not to go blind from looking at the Sun.

The ISO should have been at 100 but ended up being at 400 and the first attempt was at 1/1600th and f/5.6 and came out pretty overexposed.

1/1600th f/5.6 ISO 400

The second attempt was a little better as I adjusted the settings to f/11 at 1/1600th. This was a pretty good image but the rays on the Sun were not very pronounced and I was picking up too much detail in the foreground.

1/1600th f/11 ISO 400

In order to kill off the detail in the foreground a faster shutter speed was needed so I pushed it to 1/2000th. To pick up more detail from the Sun less aperture was needed so I closed it down to f/22. In Adobe Lightroom just a touch of Vibrance, Setting the Camera Calibration to Camera Standard, and adding a touch of Sharpness where all the post production that was done.

1/2000th f/22 ISO 400

Again the final image and settings show that you can actually shoot straight into the Sun and pull off a nice image without any additional hardware or heavy post processing.

Equipment Used

Camera: Canon 50D

onOne Software Announces Availability of Perfect Resize
for Adobe Photoshop, Photoshop Lightroom and Apple Aperture

The next generation of Genuine Fractals includes new features to optimize image enlargement quality and time saving interface enhancements to help photographers quickly create high quality images.

Portland, OR- December 9, 2010 – onOne Software, Inc., a leading developer of innovative, timesaving solutions for professional and advanced amateur photographers, today announced the immediate availability of Perfect Resize, one component of the Perfect Photo Suite 5.5 for Adobe® Photoshop®, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom® and Apple Aperture. The next generation of Genuine Fractals technology, Perfect Resize adds new features for achieving sharp detail when enlarging images, new gallery wrap and tiling options, and interface enhancements for photographers who want to make the highest quality prints. Perfect Resize supports Photoshop CS5, CS4 and CS3 and can now be used directly from within Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and Apple Aperture without the need for a separate host application.

“We are very pleased to introduce Perfect Resize and the new capabilities that build on Genuine Fractals, the industry standard for image resizing,” said Craig Keudell, president of onOne Software. “For photographers who print for themselves or their clients, continuing to improve image detail in their enlargements and to quickly create popular Gallery Wraps is critical for their business. We are dedicated to continually offering added value and improving on our best in class tools to help photographers achieve outstanding results quickly and easily.”

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NEW Loupe Tool: With the new Loupe feature, photographers can get an instant 1:1 or 100% magnified preview of enlargement quality while still seeing the entire image with the Loupe function of the Navigator.

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NEW Sharpening Methods: Two new sharpening methods allow photographers to sharpen small details without causing halos on larger, distinct edges. The first sharpening method targets out-of-focus images and the second method adapts the sharpening amount automatically to the size of image details.

Work Directly with Lightroom and Aperture: Perfect Resize now integrates directly with Photoshop Lightroom and Apple Aperture and no longer requires a host application to get amazing results when enlarging an image. Of course, it still works within Adobe Photoshop as well.

Improved Gallery Wrap: Photographers can now preview the Perfect Resize gallery wrap results in real time, allowing them to quickly fine tune their settings for the perfect gallery wrap. Additionally, gallery wrap corners are automatically filled in with matching image detail from the surrounding area. While it may not sound like much, the improvements to this feature alone will save photographers hours of time when assembling their gallery wraps.

Improved Tiling: The Tiling feature now automatically saves each tile as new file. This makes it much easier to save and print individual tiles especially when sending these tiles out to a print service provider. Additionally, because each tile is its own file, it is now easy to create canvas diptychs, triptychs or mosaics with the improved gallery wrap feature.

Batch Processing Enhancements: Easily work with images of mixed size, type and orientation with more batch-processing engine options. Save time by batch processing images from the Export dialog inside of Lightroom.
Misc Improvements: Additional enhancements include presets for common printer resolutions, improved progress indicators, improved film grain simulation, and the additional document size presets for panoramic and no-crop sizes.

Availability

Perfect Resize is available immediately as a standalone product and as a part of the new Perfect Photo Suite 5.5. Owners of Genuine Fractals 6 or earlier can upgrade to Perfect Resize for $99.95 or to the Perfect Photo Suite 5.5 for $349.95. Owners of Plug-In Suite 5 are eligible for a free upgrade to Perfect Photo Suite 5.5, which includes Perfect Resize 7, and can find the update at: http://www.ononesoftware.com/suite5update/.

Users who purchased Genuine Fractals 6 on or after September 27, 2010 will receive a free upgrade to Perfect Resize 7 and will receive an email from onOne Software with instructions for redeeming their free upgrade.

Owners of Plug-In Suite 1, 2, 3 or 4 can upgrade to the Perfect Photo Suite for $199.95. Perfect Photo Suite 5.5 is available to new customers for $499.95; purchased separately the 7 products would normally cost $1460. For more information on upgrade options visit http://www.ononesoftware.com/upgrade/.
For more information on the Perfect Photo Suite 5.5, visit http://www.ononesoftware.com/.

About onOne Software

onOne Software, Inc., a leading developer of innovative software tools for photographers, develops time-saving software solutions for professional and advanced amateur photographers. onOne Software solutions have been created to help photographers spend more of their time behind the camera taking pictures instead of the computer workstation. Such solutions include a wide range of easy-to-use applications and plug-in enhancements for Adobe® Photoshop®, Photoshop Elements, Photoshop Lightroom, Apple Aperture, iPhone and iPad applications. Founded in 2005, onOne Software is a privately held company located in Portland, Oregon. For additional information, visit http://www.ononesoftware.com/ or call 1-888-968-1468.

onOne Software Blog: www.ononesoftware.com/blog
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onOne Software Announces Availability of Perfect Photo Suite 5.5 for Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and Apple Aperture

Portland, OR- December 2, 2010 – onOne Software, Inc., a leading developer of innovative,
timesaving solutions for professional and advanced amateur photographers, today announced
availability of Perfect Photo Suite 5.5 for Adobe® Photoshop®, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom® and
Apple Aperture. Tackling specific problems within a photographer’s preferred workflow, the Perfect
Photo Suite 5.5 offers simple yet powerful solutions for color correction, image resizing, masking and
professional photographic effects in one affordable package. With support for Photoshop CS5, CS4
and CS3, the Perfect Photo Suite 5.5 includes FocalPoint 2, PhotoTune 3, PhotoFrame 4.6, PhotoTools
2.6, MaskPro 4.1 and Perfect Resize 7 (the next generation of Genuine Fractals). The Perfect Photo
Suite 5.5 will also include the recently announced Perfect Layers, which will be available in early
2011.

With this new version of the Perfect Photo Suite 5.5, photographers now have more options for where
they use many of the onOne products. For the first time photographers will be able to use FocalPoint 2,
PhotoTune 3, PhotoFrame 4.6 and Perfect Resize 7 directly within Lightroom and Aperture without
the need for a separate host application. In addition, owners of the Perfect Photo Suite 5.5 will receive
Perfect Layers when it becomes available next year. This completely new product provides
photographers with the ability to create layered files directly from within Lightroom and Aperture that
are fully compatible with Photoshop for later editing.

Perfect Photo Suite 5.5 continues to include full support for Photoshop CS5, CS4 and CS3. Mask Pro
4.1 which allows photographers to replace backgrounds and make selections and PhotoTools 2.6,
which allows photographers to leverage the power of Photoshop to enhance and stylize their images,
continue to function directly within Photoshop and do not run as stand-alone applications.

Perfect Photo Suite 5.5 includes full versions of the following onOne Software products:

Perfect Resize 7 – The next generation of Genuine Fractals – Based on the same proven and
patented algorithms as Genuine Fractals, the newest version of the industry standard for image
resizing introduces new Smoothness and Sharpening controls to achieve the highest quality results
when enlarging images. In addition, Perfect Resize adds features that make printing easier and faster
including the new Loupe Tool for an instant 1:1 magnified preview. The upgrade also adds the ability
to save custom Presets, a new Gallery Wrap preview with Auto Corner Fill, and Image Tiling
improvements. Perfect Resize 7 now enables those who prefer a Lightroom or Aperture only workflow
to resize a single or batch of images directly within those applications.

PhotoTools 2.6 – PhotoTools 2.6 adds a dozen new effects to the highly acclaimed Photoshop plug-in
that allows photographers of all skill levels to maximize the full power of Photoshop with its ability to
preview and combine Photoshop Actions in a single, intuitive interface. Designed by photographers
for photographers, PhotoTools 2.6 includes the MaskingBug control, based on the FocusBug control
from the award-winning FocalPoint plug-in, to selectively apply effects to images. PhotoTools 2.6
now has a total library of close to 300 effects that photographers can easily browse, preview and
combine to create images that truly stand out.

PhotoFrame 4.6 – With PhotoFrame 4.6, you can add the perfect finishing touch to your images and
layouts with new backgrounds, borders, layouts and adornments. With over one thousand design
elements like film edges, borders, textures, backgrounds and adornments, PhotoFrame 4.6 even has
complete layouts where users can simply drop an image in and they are done. It is the easiest and
fastest way to add an authentic darkroom touch with a film edge or to create beautiful albums or
scrapbook pages. Photographers can now use PhotoFrame 4.6 directly within Lightroom and Aperture.

FocalPoint 2 – Like bringing the camera lens inside Photoshop, FocalPoint 2 gives photographers the
best way to add realistic depth of field and selective focus control to any image. Photographers now
have an incredible amount of flexibility and control over the look of the blur with the new blur
algorithm, FocusBrush, Lens Presets and multiple FocusBug features. Photographers can now use
FocalPoint 2 directly within Lightroom and Aperture or on its own.

PhotoTune 3 – PhotoTune 3 uses patented technology to optimize the dynamic range, color and
sharpness of images so that they look more true-to-life. The Wizard offers fast color and tone
correction in as little as two steps while giving pro users direct access to advanced and innovative
controls. SkinTune, which represents two years of research and analysis of thousands of skin tones,
offers one-click color correction of portraits and the option to correct just the skin in an image.
Photographers can now use PhotoTune 3 directly within Lightroom and Aperture or on its own.

MaskPro 4.1 - When a subject needs to be quickly extracted from a photo, Mask Pro 4 provides a
color-based method that helps photographers easily remove unwanted backgrounds. Mask Pro’s unique
Color Decontamination technology allows users to get realistic results by maintaining transparency in
hard to mask objects like hair, smoke and glass in a fraction of the time using traditional tools.

Perfect Layers 1 (New!) – The newest product in the onOne Software line-up provides a fast and
easy way to bring a layered workflow to Photoshop Lightroom and Apple Aperture. For those using a
Lightroom or Aperture workflow, but not yet using Photoshop, Perfect Layers introduces the ability to
create and edit multi-layered Photoshop files. With Perfect Layers photographers can combine
multiple images into a layered Photoshop compatible file, adjust layer size, position, blending mode
and opacity and use the built-in masking tools to blend multiple layers together. Perfect Layers will be
made available at no cost to current owners of Perfect Photo Suite 5.5 as a free upgrade when it
becomes available in 2011.

Availability
The new Perfect Photo Suite 5.5 is available immediately to owners of Plug-In Suite 5 as a free
upgrade at http://www.ononesoftware.com/suite5update. New users may purchase Perfect Photo Suite
5.5 for $499.95. Purchased separately the products would normally cost $1,460. Existing owners of
Plug-In Suite version 1, 2, 3 or 4 can upgrade to the Perfect Photo Suite 5.5 for $199.95. Customers
who own one or more of the products in Perfect Photo Suite 5.5 can now upgrade as well by visiting http://www.ononesoftware.com/upgrade/. For more information on the Perfect Photo Suite 5.5, please
visit http://www.ononesoftware.com/.

About onOne Software
onOne Software, Inc. a leading developer of innovative software tools for photographers, develops
time-saving software solutions for professional and advanced amateur photographers. onOne Software
solutions have been created to help photographers spend more of their time behind the camera taking
pictures instead of the computer workstation. Such solutions include a wide range of easy-to-use
applications and plug-in enhancements for Adobe® Photoshop®, Photoshop Elements, Photoshop
Lightroom, Apple Aperture, iPhone and iPad applications. Founded in 2005, onOne Software is a
privately held company located in Portland, Oregon. For additional information, visit
http://www.ononesoftware.com/ or call 1-888-968-1468.

Stop the Madness
So…what is a stop exactly? Simply put, if you take a given amount of light and double it, you are moving up one stop, if you cut the amount of light in half then you have gone down a stop. So a stop isn’t a specific amount of light, instead it is a measure of difference between the amount of light. To be completely technical about it, the term “one f-stop” refers to a factor of √2 (approx. 1.41) change in f-number, which in turn corresponds to a factor of 2 change in light intensity. So how can we visualize this easily? If we have a single light bulb as a base light source, then two light bulbs would increase the light by 1 stop. Going to 4 light bulbs doubles the output again giving us 2 stops, to get to 3 stops we then need 8 light bulbs, etc.

So let’s take the sentence in the introduction, if we wanted to expose one side of the face 1 stop under the other side of the face, what we are saying is we want half the amount of light on the shadow side that we have on the lit side. Pretty simple concept huh?

For the most part, we are actually going to be doing a lot of guesswork unless we have good light meters and can measure each piece of the scene. Using our DSLRs we can zoom into each area of the scene and look at the exposure meter in the camera for a pretty good meter reading as well.

How aperture and shutter affect light
Ok, so now we have a basic understand of what a stop is, now we need to see how to control this using the two basic controls, shutter speed and aperture. To illustrate the effect of aperture, we have created this chart that shows the amount of light that is gathered at typical aperture settings. While each camera/lens may have slightly different available aperture numbers, they are typically in multiples of 1.4 (as described in the previous section). As you increase the f-stop number to the next 1.4 increment, you halve the amount of light.

The effect of shutter speed is the same concept. Every time you double the shutter speed, you decrease the amount of light in half. If you cut the shutter speed in half, you double the amount of light.

Again, you can see this represented by a similar chart.

Where this gets interesting in combining aperture and shutter speed, you can get the same exposure with different combinations of aperture and shutter speed. For example, a shot taken at 1/500 at f/2.8 and a shot taken at 1/60 at f/8 will have the same equivalent amount of brightness, what will change is the depth of field.

Let’s take a look at one of our favorite studio lights, the Westscott TD5 Spidelite. The light head has 5 bulds in it, you can control the center bulb, and two sets of two bulbs. To show how this affects stops we can use the different combinations to control how many stops of light we have:

If we only turn on the center bulb and use that as our base reference point, we can then use the different variations to come up with the following amounts of light changes:

How can we use this information?

If you have a light meter than putting this information to use is just a matter of measure-adjust-repeat until you get the desired light readings you want. With a modern DSLR, we can do this with the camera’s light meter with fairly good results.

Let’s say we want to use a two-light setup to light a subject’s face and we want one side 1 stop darker than the lit side. To begin with we zoom into the lit side of the face (or use the Photovision Digital Calibration target aimed at the light source , the small size works best for this) and adjust the lights until you get a good exposure reading. This is the time to make the camera adjustments to center the exposure in your camera’s meter.

Good Exposure Reading

The next step is to meter the shadow side of the face, using the same technique of zooming into the subject or a target to get a meter reading. This time however we want to underexpose by one stop.

-1 Stop Under Exposed

At this point we now have the camera setup for the right exposure on the lit side of the face and we checked to make sure the shadow side was one stop underexposed, we are now good to take our shots and be confident that the lighting will turn out good.

Summary
Hopefully this has helped to explain the concept of stops as it pertains to the relative amount of light and how we can use the tools we have available to make sure we have good lighting and exposures. To discuss this with others, please join us in our Camera Dojo Flickr Users Group.

• WPPI – http://www.wppionline.com
• ExpoAperture Discs – http://www.expoimaging.com
• DOFMaster.com – http://dofmaster.com
• Digital Pro Talk – http://digitalprotalk.com
• Digital Wakeup Call: http://digitalwakeupcall.com/
• David’s book
  • Captured by the Light: The Essential Guide to Creating Extraordinary Wedding Photography
  • $34.94 – Available on Amazon.com

Show Host

Kerry Garrison
http://kerrygarrison.com Twitter Facebook FriendFeed

This podcast is also available on iTunes.

Similar Articles

• Understanding Exposure with the Exposure Triangle
• Photography Basics: Beginners Guide to Aperture
• Photography Basics: Controlling Exposure
• How to Calculate Depth of Field

That Cheatin’ Histogram

Let’s look at what happens when we take a picture with our DSLRs. The exposure meter in the camera is using reflective light instead of incident light so a man’s tux will show a different meter reading than a bride’s dress even if the exposure for both of them was correct since the white dress will reflect more light than the tux, thus throwing the exposure meter out of whack. Secondly, when we press the shutter the camera creates a JPEG image with all of your picture settings and an S-Curve applied. Yes, this happens even if you are shooting in RAW mode since the display on the LCD is actually the JPEG image which is also the image the camera uses to calculate the histogram. I can’t count the times that my exposure meter was dead center, the preview looked great, and the histogram was good but when I brought up the RAW image in Lightroom, the image wasn’t quite exposed as well as I expected. Anyone who shoots a lot can attest to this issue. Yes, your LCD and histogram are usually accurate enough, but if you want to be accurate all the time then you need a reading from the point of few of the subject by measuring the actual amount of light hitting the subject and not the amount of light reflected by the subject.

What does a light meter tell you?

I asked a handful of photographers who had never used a light meter what they thought a light meter would tell them and surprisingly few actually knew even the basic functions of all light meters did with “Measure the light I guess” being the top answer. Even the most basic of light meters will allow you to set the ISO speed you want to use, then you set the shutter speed or aperture to what you want to use and the meter will give you the correct settings for a proper exposure. More fancy ones can also fire your flash equipment and some will even calculate the amount of flash versus ambient light.

Let’s say we have a nice bright sunny day and we set our ISO to 200, and our aperture to f/16, if we take a reading we will probably get something like 1/200th of a second as our shutter speed for a good exposure. With most digital light meters you can then make adjustments to the shutter or aperture and it will change the values on the screen to tell you what to change the other setting to.

If you aren’t familiar with the relationship between ISO, Shutter Speed, and Aperture, you should read the article we have about it (Link: The Exposure Triangle).

Testing the theory

Ok, I am sure many of you are skeptical that your camera, even a high end pro-series camera isn’t going to be dead-nuts accurate, but let’s take a few tests and see what our camera is telling us.

The following is a series of images of a product that has a black front and a light top, not something a camera’s meter is going to be good at so it will help illustrate the point well. Simply adjusting the camera’s settings to center the camera’s exposure meter at ISO 200, f/5.6 the camera gave us a setting of 1/400th shutter speed. Shooting the gray side of a WhiBal card it changed to 1/400th of a second, and shooting the gray/white/black side we got a setting of 1/640th of a second. By doing this test we can see that the camera’s exposure meter is going to change based on how reflective the subject is. In each image you can also see Photoshop’s histogram to see where the image’s exposure actually came in at.

Image 1 – ISO 200 f/5.6 1/400th – Slightly Underexposed (Based on WhiBal Gray)

Image 2 – ISO 200 f/5.6 1/640th – Underexposed (based on WhiBal White/Black/Gray)

Image 3 – ISO 200 f/5.6 1/200th – Showing good exposure (based on light meter)

Now some people may say that a perfect exposure should be centered in the histogram, however, digital sensors retain more detail in the highlights than they do in the shadows so you actually want your highlights to be fairly far to the right without going into the last little bit of the histogram which is exactly what we got with the final image.

But how does the meter know what the background is?

One of the most commonly asked questions is how does the meter know what the background of the subject is, since that should affect the exposure right? Well, let’s just try some experiments and see what we get. The following images were taken using the exposure settings provided by the light meter which were identical for both images, take a close look at the histogram for each image.

ISO 400 f/4.0 1/125th – Properly Exposed yet histogram says its underexposed

ISO 400 f/4.0 1/125th – Properly Exposed yet histogram says its overexposed

Of course the white paper is providing some bounce light that is providing more details around the edges and since I only metered for the center of center of the phone. So yes, the background can affect the exposure because you may not be metering for any reflected light, although this is typically only a problem with a situation like this. If I wanted to expose for the edges, then I could have metered at the edges. Does this mean the background affected the exposure? Yes, but only because the background in this situation actually is acting as a light source that is reflecting light into the edges around the product.

Will a light meter work properly in every situation?

So far we have looked at using a light meter for incident lighting, where this can break down is with highly reflective surfaces or in situation where the lighting is uneven, in this case a reflective meter is going to be more accurate. Most all light meters can do both types by adjusting or moving the light sensor dome. In reflective mode, the meter is going to act just like the meter on the camera.

Like anything else, a light meter is just another tool that is designed for a specific purpose. Used properly, it can dramatically improve your exposures and you camera setup time. The following image was taken in bright daylight with a large diffuser to the camera right and a large beauty dish flash to camera left. Combined with the ambient light, that is three different light values. With the light meter getting a reading taken at the subjects face, and the meter facing the camera, the settings provided were certainly dead on.

Model: Taylor Thorne

Ok, I want one, what do I do?

Light meters, especially used ones can be had for pretty reasonable prices. I see meters like the Sekonic L-358, which is a pretty nice meter with lots of functionality, often sell for $150-$200 on Craigslist. Cheaper models with less features, but still fully capable can be had for as little as $50-$60.

Model: Taylor Thorne

If you would like to see or hear more from Sara, be sure and check out her upcoming Aperture DVD that will be available for purchase from http://photographymentor.com.

Too see what Sara is up to, check out her websites at:

Sara’s Website

http://www.sarafrancephotography.com

Sara’s Blog

http://www.whereintheworldisfrance.com

Sara’s Store

http://shop.sarafrance.com

Go|Bee Bags
http://www.gobeebags.com

Show Hosts

Kerry Garrison (http://kerrygarrison.com)
David Esquire (http://esquirephotography.com)

This podcast is also available on iTunes.

Lensbaby Composer

In the beginning there was the original Lensbaby lens, a simple bellows system with push-pull focus and left/right and up/down sweet spot selection. Then c2ame the Lensbaby 3G that allowed you to fine tune the sweet spot after locking it down so that you can easily repeat the same shot and settings.

Now, the Lensbaby Composer promises a lens that is easier to use, better control over focusing, and a selection of different optic inserts to give you a variety of different effects.

Lensbaby 3G and Composer

Comparison to other Lensbaby Lenses

Looking at the difference between a Lensbaby 3G and a Composer, the older models have a flexible bellows that adjusts the focus by pushing it out or pulling it in, the Composer has a focus ring that moves the optic insert in and out. To adjust the sweet spot on an older model you move the lens around on the bellows, on the Composer the optics are held by a ball and socket that has an adjustment ring to adjust the amount of friction so you can have it move easily or even lock it in place and just about anything in between. The older models have a removable aperture disk, the larger the aperture (the smaller the f/stop number) the more dramatic the effect.

Optic System

The new Composer comes with double glass optics that can provide a very sharp image.  Also available are three other optic inserts that can be swapped out for the double glass optic. These other optics include:

• Single glass optic
  This is an update to the original Lensbabies lenses, with the single glass optic you get a subtle, soft, dreamy effect.
• Plastic lens optic
  With the plastic lens this optic has a very soft effect that creates very ethereal photos with abundant chromatic aberration.
• Pinhole/Zone Plate Optic
  In pinhole or zone plate mode, this optic insert achieves softer focus, dreamy images that are equally sharp from edge to edge.

You can see an interactive example of the different optics with different apertures by using Lenbabies’ Optic Comparison guide.

Using the Lensbaby Composer

Composer on Canon 30D

The Composer attaches to your camera like any other lens but there are no electronics in the lens so there is no Auto-Focus and no aperture control from the camera. The Composer is a completely manual lens and the aperture is controlled with different discs that are placed into the bottom of the optics.

Using the older Lensbaby 3G or the original Lensbaby 1.0/2.0 was an exercise in frustration for many people as just adjusting the lens, holding it in place, and holding the camera almost required three hands.  With the Composer, the easiest way to use it is to adjust the friction ring so the lens will move easily but is not too lose and simply shoot away, adjusting up/down/left/right as you see fit and adjusting for focus. If you are using a tripod and want to make sure the lens does not move at all between shots then you can lock the lens on place by tightening up the friction ring.  While this sounds like a lot of work, it is significantly easier than than trying to use two fingers from each hand to wrap around your camera body, look through the viewfinder, compose your images, and press the shutter at the same time.

The Lensbaby lenses are not lenses you will put on your camera and be firing shots off like a machine gun, you need to slow down, get your composure right, get your exposure dialed in, adjust the sweet spot, and make the image versus taking a snapshot. You have to think and work a little more, but the result is an image you made in-camera and got it right.

The Lensbaby Effect

What the lens does is to shift the focus into a “sweet spot” and the blur effect will radiate out from the sweet spot and increase in effect as it moves away from the spot.  In some images the effect can be rather subtle so I purposely chose an image that will show the effect quite well.

Here you can see the front of the car is where I set the sweet spot and the blurring effect increases as it goes away from the sweet spot. This is a very difficult look to do with software although some plugins are getting very close these days.

This differs from a true tilt-shift lens in that the Lensbaby lenses can’t correct perspective like a tilt-shift lens. The Lensbaby is more of a special effects lens which can create some very interesting images. While the car shot demonstrates what the Composer can do, that isn’t what you are typically going to do with it. Many still life shots are shot with Lensbaby lenses and I suspect we will even see some cool video from cameras like the new Canon 5D MkII.

The Lensbaby Composer is roughly a 50mm focal length so when it is used on an APS-C sized sensor it will become around an 85mm focal length, that’s something to keep in mind if you are trying to set a scene up for use with the lens.

The following are two images of the same scene, one with a standard lens and the other shot with a Lensbaby Composer.

Standard Lens

Lensbaby Composer

Sample Images

Here are a few shots I have taken recently with the Lensbaby Composer:

Walking Down The Alley

Soft Kiss

El Cortez Sign

Sassy Sally w/Plastic Lens

Picket Fence w/Super Wide Lens

Learning to Use The Lensbaby Composer

The Lensbaby Composer is not the most intuitive or user-friendly piece of glass you will have in your arsenal. It is most likely the only manual focus lens you will own, the aperture is set by physically changing rings in the lens instead of from the camera controls, and it takes practice to get really good shots out of it consistently. That being said, the Composer is FAR easier to use than previous Lensbaby lenses so it will take much less practice than before.

What I really like about the Composer is that I really feel that “I” am making an image. I have to slow down my thought process and get things right in-camera. If your composition is off, you can’t just crop it and get a better image since the effect will usually not allow for much latitude when it comes to post processing. If you feel you are stuck in a photographic slump, pull out your Lensbaby lens and start making some fresh new images, it will inspire you to think differently and try new things.

At the recent PMA 2009 show, Sam from Lensbaby walked us through the Composer and all of the available accessories.

Should I Get A Lensbaby Composer Now?

.6 Wide Angle / Macro Lens

Only if you like getting things for free!

With your purchase of a Lensbaby Composer we have arranged for you to get a Wide Angle/Macro Conversion lens with your order. It adds even more possibility to your images.

The Lensbaby 0.6X Wide Angle Macro Conversion lens converts your Lensbaby’s 50mm focal length to 30mm, while keeping the Sweet Spot the same size as a Lensbaby photo taken without a wide angle conversion lens. Other wide angle conversion lenses shrink the sweet spot. You can unscrew the rear lens element for use as a macro lens that focuses as close as 2″ to 3″ from your subjects.

The Lensbaby 0.6X Wide Angle/Macro Conversion Lens is fully compatible with all Lensbaby SLR lenses. L:earn more about this special offer (link).

The Bottom Line

The Composer is certainly a speciality lens that not everyone is going to find a use for. However, if you want to be able to add a dramatic effect to your images and do it all in-camera then a Lensbaby composer is a must-have for your gear bag and at only $269.95 it is probably going to be the least expensive lens you own.

I have been using the Lensbaby lenses for several years and the Composer is my favorite of them all with its easier to use design and now with all the accessories, it is a very versatile lens that adds to my creative process.

Website: http://lensbaby.com

Amazon Links

Lensbaby The Composer for Canon EF mount Digital SLR Cameras
Lensbaby The Composer for Nikon F mount Digital SLR Cameras
Lensbaby Optic Boxed Set
Lensbaby Creative Aperture Kit
Lensbaby Macro Kit (AMACK)

The widest tilt-shift lens in Canon’s lineup, the new TS-E 17mm f/4L lens expands shooting possibilities exponentially on EOS Digital cameras. Designed with UD glass to minimize and compensate for chromatic aberrations, with specially coated aspherical elements for the highest possible glare-free image quality, this tilt-shift lens offers an angle of view of 93°. New TS revolving lets users freely combine tilting and shifting within the range of +/- 90° in the direction of movement. The lens also has an improved tilt & shift knob with an enhanced range of movement of up to +/- 6.5° and revolving lenses for better operability, it uses a circular aperture for beautiful out-of-focus areas and has an SWC lens coating to control ghosting and flare to a far greater degree than with earlier coating technologies.

TS-E 17mm f/4L

TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II

Does scaling images have to suck?

The problem with scaling images up is that the software has to examine the image and guess what pixels need to be added to make the image look right and maintain quality, detail, and sharpness. Without a very sophisticated algorithm, you end up with blocky and blurry images when you are done. This is exactly what Genuine Fractals was designed to solve.

Photoshop CS4 vs Genuine Fractals 6

While Photoshop does an ok job at upsizing images, it most certainly does not do a terrific job. Let’s take a look at what Photoshop can do versus what Genuine Fractals can do on a small photo.  The original photo we are going to use is this photo that originally was at 640px wide. Let’s pit Photoshop CS4 vs. Genuine Fractals 6.

The following examples show the difference between the two programs:

Scaled with Photoshop

Scaled with Genuine Fractals

As you can see, the image scaled with Photoshop is much softer, looking out of focus than the one scaled with Genuine Fractals. This is a rather extreme example since we started with a pretty small image to scale up but it does prove the point. My normal use is for scaling screenshots up from 72dpi to 150dpi for use in the books I am writing and it does an awesome job of that.

Using Genuine Fractals

Genuine Fractals is a Photoshop plugin and when activated opens in its own interface with the toolbar on the right Besides just scaling images up or down, it can also add texturing and film grain which can help improve the perception of sharpness.

Another useful feature is a tool to create the data needed for gallery wrap images where the image continues off the edge of the frame and continues along the outside edge.

Key Features of Genuine Fractals 6

Genuine Fractals may seem like a pretty basic program but it does have an impressive list of features as well.

• Resize images up to 1000%
• Maintain sharp edges and minute detail
• Control texture for maximum quality with different image types
• Apply sharpening based on luminosity only
• Add simulated film grain for perceptual sharpening
• Includes document size presets for common photo and paper sizes
• Supports cropping and resizing in one step
• Supports resizing RGB images
• Supports resizing grayscale images
• Supports LAB images
• Supports layered Photoshop files
• Tiling feature – create tiled mosaics
• Batch process multiple files at once
• Supports resizing CMYK images  **
• Gallery Wrap feature – add extended margins for printing on canvas **
• Integrates with Photoshop Lightroom **
• Integrates with Apple Aperture **

** Only availale in the Professional Edition

System Requirements

Windows
Windows XP SP2 or Vista
Microsoft .Net 2.0 Framework or higher

Mac OS X
Mac OS X 10.4.11 or later
Universal Binary – Supports Intel Processors

Common
Photoshop CS2(v9.0.2), CS3, or CS4
Photoshop Elements 4 or later
512MB of RAM
25 MB of disk space
Adobe Flash Player 9
Internet connection for update checking & tutorial movies

Genuine Fractals Demo

In this video, Kerry shows how to use Genuine Fractals to scale up images.

It all adds up

If the visual references isn’t quite enough, then another way to think about it is to think of a perfect exposure as the combination of the right proportion of ingredients made up of ISO, Shutter Speed, and Aperture setting. If a perfect exposure = 9, and you have equal parts of Shutter, ISO, and Aperture, then you have a good mix (3+3+3 = 9). If you need to adjust one of the ingredients, then you have to adjust one of the others to come up with the same final number (2+4+3=9), subract from one, you have to add to another to make up the difference. If you have too much of one, without substracting from another, you end up with an overexposed image. Conversly, if you take away from one but don’t add another, you end up with an underexposed image.

The Sunny 16 Example

In a previous article we looked at the sunny 16 rule, this states that on a bright sunny day, a perfect exposure should be f/16, ISO 200, 1/200th of a second. (ISO and shutter are the reciprocal of each other). If we wanted a shallower depth of field and wanted a larger aperture like f/2.8, then since f/2.8 is 5 stops brighter than f/16, we would then need to compensate with either a lower ISO or a faster shutter. Increasing the shutter is the easiest in this example then we need 5 stops of shutter giving us a speed of 1/6400th of a second.

Low Light Adjustments

In low light we have the opposite issue, trying to get enough light into the camera. We only go so slow before we run into blurring issues with slow shutter speeds, and the aperture limit is going to be based on the lens we are using. If we still don’t have a bright enough exposure then we have to compensate by increasing the ISO speed.

Bringing it all together

While each setting can have an effect on the overall image quality, the sum of the three effect the overall exposure. For a refresher on the other settings, be sure and go back through these previous articles:

• Beginner’s Guide to Aperture
• Controlling Exposure
• The Sunny 16 Rule in Photography
• Capturing movement with shutter speed
• Understanding Depth of Field

Author: Kerry Garrison

What is a RAW image?

By RAW, I mean an image that is shot with your camera image quality set to RAW mode which stores the actual sensor data for the scene that was shot. This is different than a JPEG image that is a rendered image of the RAW data that has different effects applied to it by the camera such as sharpening, saturation, and contrast. A good quality JPEG image can look incredibly good and can be printed at large sizes and will look great. A RAW image will need some form of software program to convert the RAW data to something usable. The most popular programs for this today are Lightroom, Photoshop, Aperture, Capture One (Nikon), and Digital Photo Professional (Canon).

Is there a technical difference?

Anyone that tries to tell you there is no difference in image quality between a RAW image and a JPEG is simply mistaken or ill-informed. From a purely technical perspective, a RAW image will always give you a better image. A RAW image simply has more data, for each pixel there is at least twice as much data on older cameras like my 30D and as much as eight times as much data with newer cameras that have more bit depth. This means that a RAW image has the ability to have a greater tonal range than a JPEG. A RAW image will also then have greater latitude than a JPEG image, giving you the ability to process the image to recover shadows and highlights more than you can if you started with the JPEG. Since white balance settings are applied when an image is saved as a JPEG, shooting in RAW will allow you to adjust the white balance during post processing without sacrificing any image data.

This is not an opinion, it is a pure technical fact. So let’s accept that this is true and that RAW has a distinct technical advantage over a JPEG saved from the camera. I don’t think we need to debate that RAW has an inherent technical advantage and I think some people get caught up in this. I think the real issue is whether or not you need the advantages of RAW versus the negative reasons for using RAW that we will look at later.

Getting down with the downside of RAW

The big debate over RAW vs JPEG is whether or not the pros outweigh the cons so let’s look at the cons and see what the downside of using RAW images is:

• Increased file size
  This is probably the biggest issue there is. RAW images are considerably larger files than their corresponding JPEG images. With my 30D, a RAW file will typically be around 5mb while a fine quality JPEG will be around 1.5mb. As the megapixel count goes up, the files get downright huge with RAW images from a new Canon 5D MkII being around 22mb each. If you are shooting lots of images, at a wedding for example, then the larger size of RAW files will be a significant hit. Since the files are larger, they will require more horsepower from your computer to process. For the same number of images, you will need more flash card storage.
• Specialized software needed to process
  If you can call Photoshop, Lightroom, or Aperture specialized software, then yes, you will need something like this or use the software that came with your camera. If you use something other than these programs then you may have issues dealing with RAW files. For a brand new camera, you may have to wait for updated versions of these programs before they can recognize your files. This also means that if your camera is discontinued in the future, there is no guarantee that your camera’s format will always be supported (this is a good reason to use DNG files, but that’s for another article).
• RAW workflow is different than a JPEG workflow
  Is it? If you are already using Aperture, Lightroom, or Adobe Bridge for processing JPEG’s, then there is little to no change in your workflow. Two years ago, before tools like Lightroom and Aperture, working with RAW images was such a pain that RAW was said to mean “really awful workflow”. Since many of us are using Lightroom and Aperture now, there is little to no changes at all for working with RAW files other than they take longer per image to download off a CF card.
• RAW images in third party tools don’t look as good as the JPEGs
  This has been a real serious problem for a while as only the camera manufacturers really have the secret sauce for decoding their RAW images properly. Adobe has pretty much solved this issue with Lightroom 2.2 and the inclusion of camera profiles that setup the RAW processor to match the settings used to create the JPEG images in your camera.

Again, we are looking at facts here and not opinions, but it is important to understand that there is a downside to using RAW files even if I personally feel that the negatives are typically blown a bit out of proportion with the exception of the increased file size which can be a really significant issue for heavy shooters.

The non-destructive workflow

One of the biggest advantages of shooting RAW is that it inherently provides you today with a non-destructive workflow. What it means is that there is no image degradation between saves and any given step in the editing process can be removed. If we are using any of the three most popular tools today (Photoshop, Aperture, or Lightroom) then when we edit a JPEG, and make our changes, those changes are permenant, and because we just re-saved our image as a JPEG some compression has occured, every time we do this we lose some image quality. Sure you can make multiple copies along the way so you can go back to previous versions, but that negates the whole point of JPEG’s saving disk space. I personally work in Lightroom and I can take my RAW images and apply as many edits to them as I want but these changes are simply stored as a set of instructions to Lightroom, thus the original image is never modified. This also allows me to make virtual copies of an image so I can have a color, B&W, Sepia, or dozens of different versions of an image and take up only a trivial amount of disk space since it is only storing the steps to make the changes and isnt storing a new copy of the image itself and again, no matter what I do, there is no image quality lost at all during the post-production process.

Is anyone still using JPEG these days?

If nobody was shooting JPEG anymore than I wouldn’t have so many questions about it but are any real professionals shooting JPEG and the answer is yes.

Carlos Baez is a wedding photographer from Florida, this is someone who makes his living delivering top quality images to high paying clients and yet Carlos shoots JPEG because he can consistently deliver great images without the extra overhead of RAW files. Carlos is an expert at lighting and understanding exposure so he doesn’t rely on post processing to get his images right.

Ken Rockwell is a huge advocate for shooting in JPEG mostly because a lot of people use it as an excuse to not get the image right in camera. Although he has an article about this (http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/raw.htm). I have posted a link to his article because he does make a few valid points but I think he does go over the top a little on some of the negatives while I do agree that many people use RAW without either knowing why or using it to correct their mistakes from not knowing how to use their camera properly.

Pros against JPEG

It’s only fair that I point out a few pros who have made the switch to RAW and some of their reasons for doing so.

Scarlett Lillian from Florida has been shooting RAW since she started shooting weddings but then tried going to JPEF to save disk and CF card space. After really giving it a try, she finally switched back to RAW because she felt she just wasn’t getting the color and skin tones from the JPEG files that she was when she was using RAW. She uses Photoshop with Bridge as her workflow tool.

David Ziser is, without a doubt, one of the biggest names in wedding photography and recent convert to the RAW side. David’s big switch came when he started using Lightroom for his workflow and then discovered that the images he was getting with Lightroom and RAW files simply gave him a better image than starting with JPEG. David details his experience in a post on his site, although he also make a case for use JPEG for less critical shots that will never be printed at larger than 5×7. Anything destined for the album or enlargements he suggests shooting in RAW and the filler shots can safely be shot in JPEG to conserve space.

Rick Miller who is a Senior Solutions Engineer at Adobe does a segment when he is demoing Lightroom where he shows a picture of his girlfriends dog that is a white curly haired dog. Rick took a picture of the dog that when the rest of the scene is properly exposed, the dog is overexposed. Saved as a JPEG, the details in the dogs fur are completely lost and unrecoverable. The same image shot in RAW is able to use tools like recovery and exposure control to regain all of the detail in the dog’s fur. This demonstrates how even a shot that is technically correct for the rest of the scene may still suffer from being shot in JPEG.

RAW or JPEG – Which is for you?

Since I am far more likely to forget to change my camera from JPEG back to RAW when I need to, I simply leave it on RAW and take the disk space penalty. With a large wedding costing me around 10-12gb of space, it isn’t that big of an issue. If I upgrade this year to a 50D or 5D MkII and I move to having 30-40gb of space per wedding, I may have to rethink this strategy. What I like about shooting RAW for weddings is that in the thick of things, if you do make a small error in exposure or white balance, it is far easier to correct it afterwards. I don’t use this as a crunch, but it is a safety net.

To decide If you should stick with JPEG all you need to do is to take a close look at your images and compare them with what you can get from a product like Lightroom and then decide if your images are good enough or if any improvements that you get from using the RAW image are noticeable and worthwhile.

What do some other photographers say?

Mark Teskey “RAW only. Shooting JPEG is like working without backing up files or a second body/flash. There’s no safety net with JPEG.”

JE Images “RAW all the way. if I need to tweak anything then I have full access to all the info..”

Denise Clay “[I shoot] RAW – I used the best film I could that matched the job in film days, why not do the same now with the best digital file?”

MrsBoesch “I shoot JPG. It takes up less space on my hard drive, and I am of the opinion that you should try to “get it right” the 1st time”

So what are you to make of this?

There is certainly a case to be made that higher quality final images can be made from using RAW files and that shooting in RAW provides a technical safety net (even if you dont need it because you are wicked good). The main issues of working with RAW for me are the non-destructive workflow and the ability to have multiple virtual copies of an image without eating up more disk space. I do believe that almost all of the main complaints about RAW have been more than satisfied with current software leaving the issue of disk space and storage being the only real issue, albeit a signifigant issue for some people.

In the end, the only thing that matters is that you are happy with the images that you are delivering and if you are shooting for clients, that they are happy with the images you are delivering. If you are shooting in JPEG and are happy with your images and you see no compelling reason to switch, then don’t. If someone like Carlos Baez can shoot a wedding in JPEG and he makes a LOT more per wedding than I do, I am not going to tell him he is wrong for shooting in JPEG. On the flip side, if you are shooting in RAW and the disk space is killing you and you are good enough that your images require basically no tweaks for color, white balance, exposure, fill light, highlight recovery, or saturation, then you may be a good candidate for shooting in JPEG. It all comes down to a personal choice. There is no right or wrong answer to this debate, its just a question of what works for you in order for you to deliver the best quality images to your clients.

Author: Kerry Garrison

What is selective Focus?

We have talked about selective focus here numerous times using depth of field (here) (here) (here) and lenses such as the Lensbaby 3G. Selective focus simply means that the main subject of the image is in sharp focus while the rest of the image is blurred out, this forces the viewer’s eye to the section of the image that we want them to be looking at. This can have a dramatic effect on the image and give it a much more dramatic feel. The problem with simply using aperture settings to control the selective focus is it doesn’t allow you to control the shape, direction, direction, or opacity of the blur effect. With a Lensbaby lens you have more control over the sweet spot of the focus area but you are limited to a round pattern and you don’t have some of the other controls either, and you can’t do a true tilt-shift effect with a Lensbaby lens. With a tilt-shift lens you have more control in the different directions but you still can’t control some of the effect, a tilt-shift lens will also set you back over $1,000. This is where Focal Point comes in. You can use your high quality auto-focus glass to take a great picture, and then add a variety of selective focus effects to the image in post production.

Lensbaby Image

Comparison to using a specialty lens

Before jumping to conclusions, bear in mind that I am a fan of the Lensbaby lenses and I use them at different times to achieve a look that I know how to get in-camera. I have the new Lensbaby Composer and have a review of it coming as well. I know what that lens will do and I use it to create images like the one you can see here. You get a sweet spot where the lens is pointing and then there is a blurring effect that gets more intense the further away from the sweet spot you get. If you are a huge fan of doing things in-camera, then a Lensbaby is a great lens to use. However, the amount of effects that you can get is limited. If you have the time to swap lenses and get the image dialed in, the effect is very cool. If you don’t have a Lensbaby, or if you find later that you have a great shot that would have been even better with that effect, then you are out of luck without a re-shoot. With Focal Point, we can now add the effect in post production and get very similar results.

What can we get with Focal Point?

The best way to see what Focal Point can do is to take a look at several before and after images for comparison.

Original Shot		Focal Point Effect
Original Shot		Focal Point Effect

Using Focal Point

Focal Point installs as a Photoshop plug-in for Photoshop CS3 or CS4. Once launched you can move the “Focus Bug” around to select your sweet spot, and then grab on the handle to adjust the effect. You also have 3D effects that can control the focal plane by holding down the alt key on Windows or the Option key on the Mac and dragging within the focus bug.

Focal Point Plug-In Interface

On the right side of the interface are sliders for fine tuning the effect as well as adding a vignette effect and film grain into the blurred image. Any of the settings can then be saved as a preset for easy access at a later time.

Key Features of Focal Point

While we have mentioned most of them already, let’s take a quick look at the key features of the Focal Point plug-in:

• Focus Bug
  This unique control gives you very simple control over the effects. Just drag and click to move the sweet spot or to adjust the amount of effect.
• Aperture Shape
  While we have only looked at the round shape so far, you can also use a planer shape that simulates narrow depth of field that is often used with food or macro photography or for simulating the miniature effect that you can get with a tilt-shift lens.
• 3D Tilt
  As mentioned, you can adjust the tilt of the sweet spot to create the effect of a tilt-shift or view camera.
• Blur Types
  You can choose from a standard “defocused” look or add a bit of motion to the blur
• Add Layer Mask
  By default (you can turn this off if you want) a new layer is created in Photoshop containing the image with the effect applied. This allows you to change the opacity of the layer or paint out areas that you don’t want affected.
• Vignettes
  Focal Point allows you to add either a dark or light vignette effect to the image with the ability to adjust the amount of the vignette as well as the midpoint.
• Presets
  If you have created an effect that you like and may want to use again, you can save it as a preset within Focal Point so you can easily apply it to another image later.
• Film Grain
  While you may not think you want to add grain to an image, adding the film grain effect to the blurred image will help to maintain a realistic image as well as prevent posterization during printing.

System Requirements

Macintosh

• Mac OS X 10.4.10, 10.5 or Higher
• 1 GHz or faster G5 or Intel Core Processor(s)
• 1GB RAM (2GB+ recommended)
• 25 MB hard disk space for installation
• OpenGL 1.5 Compatible video card with 128MB VRAM at 1024×768 or higher.
• Adobe Photoshop CS2 (9.0.2) CS3 or Elements 4.0.1 and higher.
• Internet Connection & Flash 9 player
• Adobe Acrobat 6 Reader or higher

Windows

• Windows XP SP2, Vista or Higher
• 1 GHz or faster Pentium 4 processor(s) or equivalent
• 1GB RAM (2GB+ recommended)
• 25MB hard disk space for installation
• OpenGL 1.5 Compatible video card with 128MB VRAM at 1024×768 or higher.
• Adobe Photoshop CS2, CS3 or Elements 5 and higher
• Internet Connection & Flash 9 player
• Adobe Acrobat 6 Reader or higher
• Microsoft dotNET Framework 2.0 or higher

Focal Point Demo

Here is a video of Focal Point in action so you can get a feel for how it works.

Focal Point Demo from Kerry Garrison on Vimeo.

Results

Focal Point retails for $159.95 which puts it into the mid-range of prices for lenses from Lensbaby and is significantly cheaper than a tilt-shift lens.  Given that you have more control with Focal Point than you do with any type of lens, its hard to argue the value of Focal Point. There are certainly people like myself who enjoy using specialty lenses as they force you to slow down and really think about the image you are trying to make. Even for me though, there are times when I look at an image and wish I would have broke out the Lensbaby to take the shot and now I can get the effect that I want in post production. The effect that Focal Point creates may not be for everyone but if you shoot weddings, food, macro, still life, or nature shots, then Focal Point can add a new dimension to your images.

Product Review Scorecard

Product Page: http://www.ononesoftware.com/detail.php?prodLine_id=35
Company Page: http://ononesoftware.com

Author: Kerry Garrison

What is this aperture thingy anyway?

Inside each lens is a diaphragm that can open and close, the size of the opening at any given setting is what we refer to as the aperture setting. On our cameras we refer to specific size settings as f-stops such as f/2.8, f/5.6, f/11, etc. While the obvious value of adjusting the aperture is to control how much light enters the camera, there is a secret hidden world beneath the hood that we will need to get a grasp of as well, but let’s start at the basics first.

For a given ISO setting and shutter speed we can adjust the amount of light entering the camera by adjusting the aperture, a smaller diameter (higher f-stop value) will allow less light in, while a larger aperture (smaller f-stop number) will allow more light it. If we refer to the Sunny 16 rule, we know that on a bright sunny day, if we are using ISO 200 and a shutter speed of 1/200^th then we will get a good exposure at f/16. As the sun goes down and there is less light, we need to allow more light into the camera, we can do this by opening the aperture up (again, using a smaller number) to allow more light in. This sounds easy enough right?

Image showing relative sizes of aperture

If that is all there is to it, then this whole aperture thingy would be a piece of cake and life would be good. It is enough to get you going into how aperture plays a role in getting a good exposure, so it is certainly a lesson worth learning and understanding well.

Have you collimated your rays lately?

The opening of the diaphragm also will control cone angle of light coming into the camera and this is why adjusting the aperture can affect the depth of field. To see how this works use your thumb and pointer finger to make a big circle, with one eye closed look through that at a finger on your other hand held about 12″ away. This is going to simulate a large aperture, you will be able to focus on the finger but you will have far less focus on something across the room. Next, make the circle very small and look through it again (now simulating a small aperture), you will be able to focus on both your finger and something across the room equally well. The reason for this has to do with the angle of light coming into your eye, with the large circle, light is able to come in very straight which creates a shorter focal plane, with a smaller aperture opening the light comes in as a cone shape giving a longer focal plane. While this simple experiment has a very subtle effect (not everyone may even notice it working) in your camera it can have a dramatic effect on how your images look.

Factors that determine depth of field

There are three factors that will determine the amount of depth of field you will have in your image, and taking from a comment post from Photo Larry, this points out the different factors:

In a comment from an earlier post, Photo Larry provided this very simple guide:

• Distance from the subject (Close=shallow, Far=Deep)
• Focal Length (Short=Deep, Long=Shallow)
• Aperture (Small=Deep, Open=Shallow)

Aperture Setting
We have already covered this one, the larger the opening (smaller f-stop number) the shorter the depth of field will be.

Focal Length
The longer the focal length the shorter the depth of field will be. This is why you will get more blurring effect on telephoto lenses than you will with wide angle lenses. The most popular portrait lens is the 70-200 f /2.8 because as you back up from the subject and use the longer focal length with a large aperture the more the background will get blurred out.

Distance to Subject
The further you are away from the subject, the more depth of field you will have as well. This is much easier to see with a long telephoto lens, if you focus on something very close to you, much of the background will be blurry, as you focus on things further away less of the foreground and background will be blurry.

Two images with different aperture settings

Summary

Hopefully this will help you understand the basics of what your aperture setting can do for you and how to begin to use it to your advantage both in getting enough light into your camera and by being able to add some extra flair to your images using the depth of field.

Author: Kerry Garrison

• shooting from different angles
• changing your depth of field
• dissect other people’s work
• Look at EXIF data on people’s images
• Getting to understand what the client is all about
• Drag the shutter technique
• Bounce your flash
• Get the “guy with camera” to assist
• Using your camera in different modes
• Using aperture mode when the light is changing
• Using shutter priority to catch moving objects

Show Hosts

Kerry Garrison (http://kerrygarrison.com)

David Esquire (http://esquirephotography.com)

You can listen to this podcast now using our player widget in the right hand sidebar

This podcast is also available on iTunes.

Three new lenses – The Composer^TM, The Muse^TM, and

The Control Freak^TM – feature the Lensbaby Optic Swap System

On September 23, 2008, Lensbaby, LLC (formerly known as Lensbabies, LLC) is launching an entire new system of selective focus lenses at the Photokina tradeshow in Cologne, Germany (Hall 5.2 C021).

Three new Lensbaby lenses – The Composer^TM, The Muse^TM and The Control Freak^TM, – make up the new line of products.  Each features the new Lensbaby Optic Swap system. The new Muse and the new Control Freak replace the current Original, Lensbaby 2.0, and Lensbaby 3G lenses, which will be phased out immediately.  With the Composer, Lensbaby introduces a completely new lens, based on a ball and socket configuration that delivers smooth selective focus photography with unparalleled ease of use and greater precision.

All Lensbaby lenses provide photographers with a new way to control depth of field by bringing one area of a photo into sharpest focus with that Sweet Spot^TM surrounded by graduated blur. By bending the Lensbaby lens, the photographer moves the sharp area around the photo for customized creative effects.

The Composer

The new Composer retains its position after being bent and is easy to use even with one hand.  Photographers do not squeeze the lens to focus, but can simply tilt the lens to a desired angle and then focus with a barrel focusing ring.  The Composer stays in the desired bent position without requiring a locking mechanism and features the new Lensbaby Optic Swap System.  The Composer’s barrel focusing ring has a unique design that becomes more sensitive (requiring greater rotation to move the optic in and out) as you approach infinity, making it easer to focus on subjects from 10 feet to infinity.

“The Composer introduces a new level of ease and precision to selective focus photography,” said Craig Strong, Lensbaby president and co-founder.  “We developed the Composer because our photographers are interested above all in creating powerful, interesting photos. With its greatly enhanced ease of use and more reliable results, the Composer will make it more intuitive for photographers to realize their personal creative visions.”
The Muse replaces the Original Lensbaby and Lensbaby 2.0 lenses while being very similar in appearance and functionality. Photographers will still focus by compressing the lens and move the sweet spot by bending the flexible lens tubing.  The key update for the Muse is its new Lensbaby Optic Swap System.

The Control Freak

The Control Freak updates the Lensbaby 3G by adding the Lensbaby Optic Swap System.  With The Control Freak, photographers compress to focus, bend to move the sweet spot, and then push a button to lock the lens in place.  Once locked, photographers can adjust the fine focus with a barrel focusing ring and fine tune the tilt by rotating its three metal posts.

“While we expect the new Composer, with its smooth and precise operation, to be our most popular lens, we continue to offer the Muse and the Control Freak because each photographer has their own shooting style. The Muse is for photographers who shoot fast and loose and The Control Freak is best for shooters who have a step-by-step approach,” said Strong.

All three lenses – the Composer, Muse, and Control Freak – feature the Lensbaby Optic Swap System and will ship with one optic installed. Additional optics are available as optional accessories.  When a photographer wants to change the optic in their Lensbaby, they will simply pop the optic out and drop in a different optic using an Optic Swap Tool supplied with the new optic.  Each optic has different features and image qualities, allowing photographers to choose the look that fits their creative style.

Optic Swap System

At launch, the Lensbaby Optic Swap System will include four interchangeable optic options:

1)      Double Glass: A 50mm multi-coated optical glass doublet that is the same optic that was in the Lensbaby 2.0 and Lensbaby 3G lenses. Retail price: US$85.00

2)      Single Glass: a 50 mm, updated, uncoated optical glass singlet similar to the optic that was used in the Original Lensbaby. At f/2, the Single Glass Optic is one full stop brighter (2x as bright) than the previous Original Lensbaby Optic. Retail price: US$35.00

3)      Plastic: a 50 mm f/2 plastic singlet that maximizes blur and diffusion in a dreamy way that Holga^TM and Diana^TM camera lovers will especially appreciate. Retail price: US$35.00

4)      The Pinhole/Zone plate: an optic cup with an f/177 aperture hole to allow for pinhole photography and an f/19 Zone plate opening.  Users can slide a toggle inside the optic to change to back and forth between Pinhole and Zone plate mode, allowing further artistic exploration.  Retail price: US$35.00

The first three optics listed above are all 50mm fixed focal length.  They all feature magnetically levitating interchangeable aperture disks that allow aperture settings from f/2 to f/22.

The Single Glass, Plastic, and Pinhole/Zone plate optics will be sold individually as well as in an Optic Boxed Set to retail for $95.00.

Lensbaby President and Co-Founder, Craig Strong, stated, “Lensbaby photographers tend to be very creative. The new Lensbaby Optic Swap system will give photographers greater freedom to take photos that reflect their unique visions.”

Strong continued, “With the new Composer lens and the Lensbaby Optic Swap System, photographers will be able to choose a lens body that fits their bending style: fast and loose, smooth and precise, or step by step. Then photographers can choose an optic that expresses their individual artistic vision.”

Product Pricing and Specs:

The Composer – Smooth and Precise

• Priced at US$270
• Ships with the Double Glass optic installed (a multi-coated optical glass doublet)
• Features the Lensbaby Optic Swap system
• Focal Length: 50mm
• Focus Type: Manual
• Features a unique barrel focusing ring that becomes more sensitive (requiring greater rotation to move the optic in and out) as you approach infinity, making it easier to focus on subjects from 10 feet to infinity.
• Aperture Type: Interchangeable levitating aperture disks
• Apertures: f/2, f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11, f/16, f/22
• Minimum Focus: about 18″ (46cm) / Maximum Focus: Infinity
• Size/Weight: 2.5″ (6.35cm) high x 2.5″ (6.35cm)  wide  / 5.5 oz (155.9g)

The Muse – Fast and loose

• Priced at US $150 with the Double Glass optic installed; US $100 with the Plastic optic installed
• Ships with either the Double Glass optic installed or the Plastic optic installed.
• Features the Lensbaby Optic Swap system
• Focal Length: right around 50mm
• Focus Type: Manual…Fingertip, actually
• Aperture Type: Interchangeable levitating aperture disks
• Aperture: f/2, f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6, f/8
• Minimum Focus: approximately 12″ (30 cm) / Maximum Focus: Infinity and beyond
• Size/Weight: 2″ (5.08cm) high x 2.5″ (6.35cm) wide / 3.7 oz. (104.9g)

The Control Freak – Step-by-step

• Priced at US$270
• Ships with the Double Glass Optic installed
• Features the Lensbaby Optic Swap system
• Focal Length: 50mm
• Focus Type: Manual/Fingertip, with barrel fine focus
• Aperture Type: Interchangeable levitating aperture disks
• Aperture: f/2, f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11, f/16, f/22
• Minimum Focus: approximately 12″ (30 cm) / Maximum Focus: Infinity
• Size/Weight: 3″ (7.62cm) high x  3″ (7.62cm) wide / 5.7 oz. (161.6 grams)

About Lensbaby

Lensbaby, LLC (formerly Lensbabies, LLC) is a Portland, Oregon based manufacturer and marketer of award-winning selective focus SLR camera lenses.  Lensbaby was launched in February 2004 by Craig Strong, a professional photographer and the inventor of the patented Lensbaby selective focus SLR lens.  Lensbaby sells to photographers all over the world through its website, www.lensbaby.com, by calling 877-536-7222 / 971-223-5662, at tradeshows, in leading photo retailers and through a growing global network of international distributors.

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Press Release:

Canon brings HD moviemaking and 4fps shooting to its PowerShot super zoom series

United Kingdom / Republic of Ireland, 17 September 2008: Canon today supercharges its PowerShot digital compact camera range with two powerful new models: the 10 Megapixel PowerShot SX1 IS and PowerShot SX10 IS, which jointly replace the PowerShot S5 IS.

Both raise the benchmark for compact zooms with an outstanding 20x wide-angle (28mm) optical zoom, with USM and VCM for fast, silent, zooming. The  PowerShot SX1 IS offers a revolutionary series of features never seen before on a Canon compact camera – a 10 Megapixel Canon CMOS sensor, 4 frames per second continuous shooting, and full HD movie capture – while both cameras use Canon’s new DIGIC 4 processor for fast performance and richly detailed, clean images in a wide range of shooting situations.

Unbeatable reach
With a Canon 20x wide-angle (28mm) optical zoom lens, the PowerShot SX1 IS and PowerShot SX10 IS tackle everything from long-range telephoto shots to sweeping landscapes. Canon’s Ultrasonic Motor (USM) combines with Voice Coil Motor (VCM) technology for near-silent operation and the speed for sports or wildlife subjects. And thanks to Canon’s optical Image Stabilizer – which now offers a 4-stop advantage – camera shake blur is avoided even with the zoom fully extended.

10 Megapixel power
The PowerShot SX1 IS and PowerShot SX10 IS feature resolutions of 10 Megapixels, capturing all the necessary detail for poster-size prints or creative cropping in post processing. A Canon CMOS sensor allows the PowerShot SX1 IS to shoot full-resolution JPEGs at speeds of up to 4fps – making it a powerful, pocket-sized tool ideal for capturing fast-paced action sequences.

High Definition moviemaking
For the ultimate in visual quality, the PowerShot SX1 IS delivers 1080p (30fps) High Definition video – ready for instant playback on any HDTV via a built-in HDMI connection. The PowerShot SX10 IS offers fun, spontaneous VGA movie shooting. Movies on both cameras are enhanced with CD quality stereo sound, optical zooming and Face Detection Technology; and if extra reach is required, the PowerShot SX1 IS includes Canon’s Advanced Tele-Converter for an extra 2x zoom with no loss in movie quality.

DIGIC 4: intelligent processing for better photos
The PowerShot SX1 IS and PowerShot SX10 IS both feature Canon’s new DIGIC 4 image processor. As well as ensuring ultra-fast operation and superb, low-noise images, DIGIC 4 drives several intelligent technologies that make great photos easier than ever.

People shots benefit from improved Face Detection Technology, which even detects faces positioned at an angle to the camera, or in profile. Face Select & Track tracks a specific subject even more accurately, while a new FaceSelf-timer function – which automatically triggers the shutter shortly after a new face enters the frame – makes group shots and self-portraits easy.

Canon’s improved Motion Detection Technology delivers fantastic, sharp results by registering camera and subject movement, then automatically adjusting ISO to prevent image blur. Blur is further guarded against by new Servo AF, which continuously adjusts focus on subjects moving towards or away from the camera.

DIGIC 4 also powers Canon’s new i-Contrast feature, which brings out great, natural-looking detail in dark areas of pictures – without blowing out lighter areas.

Total Control
For the ultimate creative precision, the PowerShot SX1 IS and PowerShot SX10 IS offer full manual control over both aperture and shutter speed. A Multi Control Dial offers fingertip access to all key settings. Plus, compatibility with a range of accessories – including Canon’s professional Speedlite EX flash units – extends creative potential even further.

Also included with the PowerShot SX1 IS is Canon’s WC-DC300 controller, which allows wireless control of shooting and playback. This is ideal for tripod shots at slow shutter speeds, or any situation where keeping a distance from the camera is preferable.

“Both of these cameras offer exceptional imaging possibilities,” said Mogens Jensen, Head of Canon Consumer Imaging, Europe. “In particular, the PowerShot SX1 IS genuinely redefines what a compact digital camera can do. This kind of power and versatility must be experienced to be believed.”

Pricing & Availability
The PowerShot SX1 IS is available from December priced at £519.99 / €679.99 RRP inc VAT
The PowerShot SX10 IS is available from October priced at £359.99 / €469.99 RRP inc VAT

Features at a glance:

• 20x wide-angle (28mm, f/2.8) optical zoom with optical Image Stabilizer
• 10.0 Megapixels
• Canon CMOS sensor for full resolution continuous 4fps shooting (PowerShot SX1 IS)
• Full HD (1080p, 30fps) movies plus HDMI output (PowerShot SX1 IS)
• DIGIC 4 for outstanding images and fast response times
• Shooting modes include full manual control
• Great people shots with Face Detection AF/AE/FE/WB plus Face Select & Track and FaceSelf-Timer
• Targets every possible cause of blur with High ISO Auto, optical Image Stabilizer, Motion Detection Technology and Servo AF
• Auto Red-Eye Correction in shooting and playback
• i-Contrast boosts brightness and retains detail in dark areas
• 2.5” vari-angle LCD II with wide viewing angle plus electronic viewfinder (PowerShot SX10 IS)
• 2.8” widescreen vari-angle LCD II with wide viewing angle (PowerShot SX1 IS)
• Multi Control Dial and customizable My Menu
• Smooth, 30fps VGA movies (PowerShot SX10 IS)

• 21.1 Megapixel Full-frame CMOS sensor, 14-bit A/D conversion (16,384 colors/each of 3 primary color), wide range ISO setting of 100-6400 (expandable L: 50, H1: 12800 and H2: 25600).
• Full HD Video capture at 1920 x 1080 resolution for up to 4GB per clip with HDMI output for HD viewing of stills and video.
• Next generation DIGIC 4 Image Processor for faster processing of fine detail and color reproduction as well as reduced image noise.
• High performance with 3.9 fps continuous shooting, new shutter with a durability of 150,000 cycles and improved weather-resistant body.
• Live View Function for stills (Quick, Live and Face Detection AF modes) and video.
• 3.0-inch Clear View LCD (920,000 dots/VGA) monitor with anti-reflective and scratch-resistant coatings for improved viewing and smudge protection.
• Updated EOS Integrated Cleaning System specifically designed to work with a full-frame sensor.
• Compatible with over 60 Canon EF/EF-S lenses and most EOS System accessories.

The EOS 5D Mark II features a huge, full-frame sensor. A 21.1-megapixel CMOS sensor delivers images of up to 5616 x 3744 pixels. And since it is full-frame, all lenses will deliver the angle of view they would on a 35mm camera without a conversion factor. This comes in handy especially when shooting with wide-angle lenses. For the flexibility to shoot in even the most dimly lit situations, the EOS 5D Mark II offers Canon’s highest ISO sensitivity to date, ranging from 100-6400 (expandable to ISO L: 50, H1: 12800 and H2: 25600). Thanks to improved noise reduction technologies, images shot even at highest sensitivity will be remarkably smooth.

The Canon EOS 5D is slated to ship towards the end of November 2008 at an expected street price of US$2699 in the U.S.

First off you need to realize that studio flashes like the PhotoBasics StrobeLites are not automatic like the on-board or accessory flash on your camera. A studio light doesn’t know what you are trying to do and will not adjust itself for the camera settings you have dialed in. You also need a means of firing the lights off when you press the shutter, all that and more will be covered in this article.

Connecting the lights to your camera

PC Sync port on Canon 30D

The first thing we need to do is to connect the lights to your camera, for this we are going to need what is called a PC Sync port. On most Canon DSLR’s the PC Sync port is on the left side of the camera under a rubber flap. In the image here you can see the PC Sync port and the end of a PC Sync cable. In my typical setup I will have the main light plugged into the PC Sync port to fire it and the other lights will automatically fire at the same time because they have a built-in optical slave that will fire the flash when another flash is detected. Since this happens far faster then the mechanical shutter, the effect is that all of the lights fire at exactly the same. There is a limit of how fast the lights will sync to the camera but we will address that in a moment.

Weim Hot Shoe Adapter

If you are unlucky enough to not have a PC Sync port on your camera then you will need to purchase a hot shoe adapter. The recommended one is the Weim Hot Shoe Adapter which sells for about $50 at most places. This will got into your camera’s hot shoe (when an acessory flash plugs in) and has a PC Sync output port on it.

As I mentioned, the lights do have an optical slave so they will fire when another flash is used so you may think you can just use the flash that is built into your camera to fire off the big lights. While this will work to an extent, the problem is that unless you know how to adjust your flash’s output compensation, the flash is going to fire at a level that your camera expects will be correct for the given light, when the big lights fire along with the built-in flash, your subject will no be over-lit and the scene becomes overexposed.

Rear view of StrobeLite

The opposite end of the PC Sync cord plugs into the back of the light. In this image you can see the 1/8th inch mini plug port on the bottom right hand area of the strobe head. With the camera and the lights connected, you are all ready to take some amazing images right?

If ONLY it was that easy. Now actually comes the hard part, figuring out how to get the light set right for a proper exposure. Hang in there, it won’t hurt too much.

Getting the lighting right

Output Adjustment Dial

Nice, quality studio lights make your lighting easier right? I wish! In the last section I explained that your on-board or accessory flash will meter the scene and use the appropriate output for the exposure metering, not so with studio lights, at this point you are full manual.

On the flash will be an adjust dial to control the amount of light output. On the StrobeLites this goes from full power down to 1/4 power given you two stops of light output control. If you have a light meter and know how to use it, you have all the tools you need to get the shot right the first time. If you don’t have a light meter then you will need to continue reading.

Since I shoot with he same lights, in the same studio, with the same basic setup the vast majority of the time I know the basic light setup that will work without have to take too many test shots, I can usually get it dialed in within about three shots.  A key thing to note is that your meter in your camera is basically worthless at this point. You are going to want to shoot in manual mode otherwise the camera is going to try to adjust your settings for the metered light. In manual mode you have total control. So where should you start?

For most of my pictures I start with the following basic settings:

ISO: 200
f/Stop: 11
Shutter Speed: 1/200th second

In fact, those are the exact settings I used for the previous pictures in this article so far. Why these particular settings? For one, I like shooting at ISO 200, I like the results I get at that speed, f/11 is my normal aperture setting unless I am going for a particular depth of field effect. That leaves two ways to adjust the amount of light I need. I can either adjust the shutter speed or adjust the light output of the flash. You may think that you may want to go with a faster shutter speed to make sure you dont introduce any camera blur but in most cases you can’t shoot any faster than 1/200th or 1/250th depending on your lights/camera combination. With the PhotoBasics StrobeLites and a Canon 30D, I have never had an issue at 1/250th but I like the extra margin of safety of using 1/200th. Let’s take a look at what happens if you shoot faster.

Out of Sync Image

The image shown here was shot at 1/640th of a second, while this would be perfect safe if I was using the Canon 580 EX flash, the StrobeLites cannot sync with the camera at that speed so what happens is that the strobe went off too late causing the image to be partially cutoff by the closing of the shutter mechanism. Because of this issue we are limited to speeds of 1/200th or less so I usually will stick it at 1/200th and be done. That leaves adjust the light output higher if I need more light or using a lower output or a slower shutter speed if I need less light. Knowing that the only things I will need to adjust are my light output or shutter speed I have really reduced my possible settings from a handful down to basically one, and its either shutter speed or light output.

Since most of my shots are product shots, the lights are generally pretty close to the objects so I will start at a very low power output of the flash, if its too bright at the lowest setting and I am already at 1/200th of a second the only way to cut down on the light being captured is to move to a smaller aperture setting like f/22. If the light isn’t enough I can just reach up and dial in more light or use a slower shutter speed.

With a little practice and a handful of confidence, you will be getting your lighting dialed in within a few shots. Take your picture and then look at the histogram of the image on your LCD of your camera to double-check the exposure. If its too dark, bump up the light, if its clipped out, dial down the light. Nothing will beat just a bunch of practice with your own lights/camera/lenses/environment to get you familair with how your lighting setup will work the best and soon you too will be able to get it dialed in perfectly within just a few quick test shots.

Author: Kerry Garrison

New plug-in for Photoshop® and Aperture™ incorporates
U Point® technology for precise selective sharpening

Las Vegas, NV — September 4, 2008 (Photoshop World, Booth #321) — Nik Software today announced the latest version of its popular Sharpener Pro photographic plug-in for use with Adobe® Photoshop® and Apple® Aperture™. Designed for professionals and photo enthusiasts, Sharpener Pro 3.0 is the most advanced and powerful sharpening solution for photographers, eliminating the guesswork typically required for achieving superior and consistent results.

Now featuring Nik Software’s patented U Point technology, Sharpener Pro 3.0 enables photographers to selectively sharpen objects within their images. U Point powered Control Points are easy to use and offer precise control over sharpening intensity without the need to create complicated selections and layer masks.

“Sharpener Pro 3.0 has been dramatically improved with a range of new features, including powerful creative sharpening tools, a soft proofing option, and integrated U Point technology,” said Michael J. Slater president and CEO of Nik Software. “This new version of Sharpener Pro offers the most comprehensive tools for optimally sharpening images for any output device while also offering photographers the complete control they expect,” Slater concluded.

Key Features

• New U Point Powered Control Points—Enables precise, selective sharpening control
• Updated Output Sharpening—Provides the ultimate control to create perfectly sharpened images on all devices and media types such as display, inkjet, continuous tone, half tone, and hybrid tone
• New Creative Sharpening—Enhances fine details and textures with new structure, focus, and local contrast tools for drawing attention to desired areas within the image
• New Industry-First Sharpening Soft Proof—Allows detailed inspection of sharpening results on screen before printing, eliminating costly test prints
• New Output Presets—Enables custom settings to be saved for consistent, professional results
• Updated RAW Presharpener—Retains and enhances sharp details within images without amplifying noise and other artifacts
• Updated Powerful Selective Tool (Photoshop only)—Enables the use of Photoshop’s brush tools to paint in sharpening selectively
• New Smart Filter Support (Photoshop only)—Provides compatibility with Adobe Photoshop’s Smart Objects enabling adjustments to sharpening after Sharpener Pro has been applied
• New Multi-Image Support (Aperture only)—Provides compatibility with Aperture’s multi-image support, allowing photographers to easily copy and paste settings between images to maintain consistency

Pricing and Availability

Sharpener Pro 3.0 will be available in September for electronic delivery directly from Nik Software (www.niksoftware.com) in four languages (English, French, German, and Spanish) and will be available through specialty camera retailers in October of 2008. A complete list of resellers may be found at www.niksoftware.com/resellers.

The suggested retail price of Sharpener Pro 3.0 is $199.95. Upgrades from any previous version are available for $99.95. Sharpener Pro 3.0 installs as a plug-in for either Adobe Photoshop or Apple Aperture 2.1 and is available for Windows and Macintosh operating systems, including Vista and Leopard. For more information about Sharpener Pro 3.0, including video tutorials showing the software running within Photoshop and Aperture and a free 15-day fully functional trial version, please visit www.niksoftware.com/sharpenerpro.

About Nik Software

Nik Software, Inc. is a privately held company that develops software solutions for the growing digital imaging and photography markets. Established in 1995, Nik Software has become the recognized leader in digital photographic filter development and produces award-winning technology and software products for digital photography and imaging professionals including U Point® technology (www.upoint.com), Dfine®, Viveza™, Color Efex Pro™, Silver Efex Pro™, and Sharpener Pro™ software.

Do I need to know this?
If you are always using your flash in automatic modes, you may never need to know much about guide numbers but in manual modes, if you don’t have a flash meter, understanding how guide numbers work can be a powerful tool in helping you to get your lighting setup faster. Many older flashes even have built-in guides to help you calculate the aperture setting for a given distance.

Using the guide number to determine aperture
At the end of this article is a link to an Excel preadsheet that will do much of the work for you as well as containing the guide numbers for a handful of popular flash heads. First off you should understand the math behind it and how to read the guide number information for your own equipment.

Some flash devices will simply have a single guide number value while others may have different numbers at different ranges and even ISO settings so you need to pay attention when reading the guide number. Let’s take a look at a typical flash setup. A Canon 580 EX II flash has a listed guide number of 191, if we divide the guide number by the distance in feet we should get a good estimate of the aperture to use. In this example we will use a distance to the subject of 30 feet.

Guide Number / Distance = Aperture
191/ 30 = 6.3

The closest aperture setting on my Canon 30D to that is f5.6 so that would be an appropriate aperture to use if I was using ISO 100. If I was using a higher ISO number then I could use a smaller aperture. The following chart shows the multiple factor for common ISO speeds:

ISO Multiplier Table
ISO 100: 1.0
ISO 200: 1.44
ISO 400: 2.07
ISO 800: 2.99
ISO 1600: 4.30
ISO 3200: 6.19

To expand on the previous calculation, we can add in the ISO to give us more aperture options. Using the same guide number and distance while adding the ISO, let’s see how this affects our aperture setting:

(Guide Number / Distance) * ISO Multiplier = Aperture
(191/ 30) * 1.0 = 6.3
(191/ 30) * 1.44 = 9.1
(191 / 30) * 2.07 = 13.1
(191 / 30) * 2.99 =19.0

The most common question now is how to determine the distance to your subject without measuring it with a tape. Most lenses will have a distance readout that will show you the distance to your subject once you focus on it. Just press your shutter half way down while aiming at the subject, take your finger off the shutter, and then look at the distance readout. We aren’t aiming at hyper-accuracy here since the aperture settings in your camera aren’t going to exactly match the calculations but we are trying to get as close as possible and avoid a lot of trial and error. Using this information you should be able to get your light dialed in much faster than just by guessing.

Determining Maximum Flash Distance
Using a similar method we can also determine the maximum distance your flash can be effective at, this is extremely useful when trying to determine if you can light up a person on a stage from the back of an auditorium for example. The calculation for this is the guide number divided by the f/stop, and again the ISO value can be used here as well. In this example we will use the guide number of a Canon 580 EX II (58) and an f/stop of 5.6.

(Guide Number / f/stop) * ISO = Max Distance
(191/ 5.6) * 1.0 = 34′
(191 / 5.6) * 1.44 = 49′
(191 / 5.6) * 2.07= 70′
(191 / 5.6) * 2.99 = 102′

Since the f/stop and the ISO determine how much light enters the camera, you see how using a larger aperture (lower number) and a higher ISO can really affect the range of your flash. Let’s compare the difference between f/5.6 and f/2.8 as an example:

GN 191@ f/5.6 100 ISO = 34′
GN 191 @ f/5.6 200 ISO = 49′

GN 191 @ f/2.8 100 ISO = 68′
GN 191 @ f/2.8 200 ISO = 98′

These calculations will help you determine if a long distance shot is even possible or if you need to bring in additional light. If you are too far from the subject for your light to be effective, you could place your light closer to the subject and fire it with a wireless trigger, this would allow you to shoot from a distance but get the desired light effect.

Summary
I know this can seem a little intimidating at first but understanding these concepts will help you get your lighting technique under control much faster and help make sure you can get the shots you want. You can even use the calculations to build a custom “cheat sheet” for your particular flash that can print out and keep as a handy reference. The spreadsheet that we have made available for you has both the f/stop and maximum distance calculators but has a second worksheet that will create the cheat sheet for you by simply changing the guide number on the first line to match your flash device’s output.

Calculation Spreadsheet [ Download ]

Author: Kerry Garrison