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.

What exactly is this colorspace stuff anyway? Basically its the amount of color that is contained in the file when you save it. The three most common colorspaces are Adobe RGB, sRGB, and ProPhoto RGB.  As my friend Rick Miller puts it, you can relate gamut to containers of beer. With sRGB being a 12oz can of beer, Adobe RGB would be a pony keg, and ProPhoto RGB being a full kegger.

The image shown here (courtesy of Cpesacreta) shows the relative sizes of the different colorspaces.

The difficulty here is knowing when to use which colorspace. Who would take a 12 ouncer when they can have a whole keg right? You would think, but the problem is that not all devices can actually display the larger colorspace  which can cause even more problems when it comes to viewing the images, add to that the lack of color management in most applications (like web browsers) and you will often get dull or washed out colors when viewing the images.

Wait a second, huh? If you use a colorspace that allows MORE colors, than why would the images look WORSE when viewing them? The answer that since almost no devices can actually display Adobe RGB, you wind up with an intepretation of the image causing it to look dull.

Effects of Color Space

Does all of this really make a difference? Let’s take a look at some images that were shot in RAW (thus no colorspace recorded on capture) and then saved as both Adobe RGB and sRGB using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.

Adobe RGB

sRGB

Adobe RGB

sRGB

Adobe RGB

sRGB

Adobe RGB

sRGB

In all of these cases, the images saved as sRGB should appear more vibrant in Internet Explorer and Firefox since they are not color managed applications. Apple’s Safari browser is supposed to properly display Adobe RGB files and Firefox is supposed to have color management in upcoming versions. However, until everyone is using a browser you should avoid Adobe RGB in order to provide the best images to the widest audience.

What about ProPhoto?

ProPhoto offers the widest gamut of the available common color spaces so should have a place somewhere right? Well yes it does. The best use of the ProPhoto is to use it within your workflow to preserve the largest amount of color in your images and then only do a final conversion to sRGB when saving your images as jpegs.  This is quite easy with Photoshop and Camera Raw while Lightroom uses ProPhoto RGB internally (Geek Note: Actually, Lightroom uses Melissa RGB which uses ProPhoto RGB chromatisity values working in linear gamma, named after Melissa Gaul, one of the Lightroom engineers).

Should you shoot in Adobe RGB or sRGB?

This is another tough question that different people will answer differently. The simple answer is niether. Shoot in RAW and convert to the colorspace you want during your workflow process. If you want to shoot in JPEG then you have to make the choice. The best thing to do is actually experiment with your equipment and software to determine what gives you the best results. Some people think you should shoot in Adobe RGB and then convert to sRGB if the file is for the internet, while others think you should shoot in sRGB so no conversion or translation is applied, thus you should get more accurate color representation.

In the end, you have to make up you own mind as to what works best for you, but you do need to be aware of the differences and some of the issues you can run into based on your choice.

Author: Kerry Garrison

References used in this article

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/sRGB-AdobeRGB1998.htm
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/adobe-rgb.htm
http://www.steves-digicams.com/techcorner/October_2006.html
http://www.smugmug.com/help/srgb-versus-adobe-rgb-1998

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

Getting the Camera

Since I am not sponsored by Canon (any help here would be appreciated – wink wink) and I haven’t been able to justify the cost yet, I decided that another way to get one for a little while was to call up the good folks over at BorrowLenses.com. I hooked up with Max to get a weekend rental on the 5D Mk II so I could use it on a wedding shoot I had planned as well as to play around with the other features. If you have never rented equipment, you can’t go wrong by using BorrowLenses.com as their prices are great and you don’t get slapped with a huge deposit (no deposit in fact), but more about BorrowLenses.com in an upcoming article as I review their service.

I got the camera and couldn’t wait to slap in a card and start playing with it.

First Impressions

When picking up the body the first thing you notice is the surface has a much better texture on it than previous cameras making it easier to hold. The form factor is much like the 30D/40D/50D/5D. For users of those mentioned cameras, the control layout will be very familiar with the only noticeable exceptions being that the delete button has shifted due to the large screen and the top LCD illumination button has been moved to the right side of the display. For people moving up from a 30D/40D you will notice the lack of a pop-up flash and no preset modes on the mode dial (this is much more of a Pro camera than a consumer camera after all).

The large LCD on the back is just stunning with its much higher resolution display which enables you to better see if an image is sharp and in focus.

The new menu system is super clean and sharp looking on the big display although a little hunting around the first few times to find some of the features will be in order. The only thing that threw me for a loop for a minute was figuring out how to setup exposure bracketing. Not wanting to turn to the manual, I figured it out quickly enough. What I did have to crack the manual for was to figure out how to  use the video mode. Simple enough, go into Live View mode and press the Set button in the middle of the large dial on the back to start/stop recording.

First time setup

Before really being able to push the 5d Mk II to it’s limits, you will need to go into the menus and setup a few options first. Here are the things I did to get it ready for my tests.

C. Fn I : Exposure
Custom Function 3 changed to 1 to enable ISO expansion. This is needed to shoot at ISO ranges above 6400.

C. Fn II : Image
Custom Function 3 changed to 1 to enable Highlight Tone Priority. This enables Highlight Tone Priority which can help from overexposing important aspects of your image. Note however that when this is enabled, you will not be able to go over ISO 6400 regardless of the previous setting.

C. Fn III : Autofocus/Drive
Custom Function 3 changed to 1 to enable Multi-controller direct. This option enables you to select the autofocus point by using the multi-controller (mini joystick).

Live View Function Settings
LV Func. Setting set to Stills+movie, Screen Settings set to movie display

Image Quality
Image quality was set to RAW.

Finally, I made sure the date and time was correct, dropped in a compact flash card, formatted it and I was ready to go.

Shooting the 5D Mk II

Like many people getting the 5D Mark II, I have been shooting APS-C sized sensors for the past few years as I use a 30D as a primary and a 20D as a backup. Functionally, the 5D Mk II is virtually identical in how to operate the camera although the shutter sound is different and quieter. The big difference comes into play when using the same lenses you were using on the smaller sensor. If you aren’t familiar with this phenomenon, the smaller sensors in the 20D/30D/40D/50D are smaller APS-C size sensors versus the full frame sensor in the 5d Mk II. The smaller sensor size introduces an effect referred to as a zoom factor (also known as crop factor) which, in essence, magnifies the focal length of your lenses by 1.6.  To put it into simple terms, subjects on an APS-C sized sensor will appear closer (as if zoomed in by 1.6x) and the same lens on the 5D will give you an wider field of view. If we take a 50mm lens and put it on a camera with an APS-C sensor, what we get is basically an 80mm lens. A 70-200mm on the 50D becomes a 112-320mm lens on the APS-C sensor. This is interesting to note that a telephoto lens will get you more reach on a smaller sensor but you lose width at the smaller focal lengths. With my typical lenses, I now have to move closer to the subject to get the same effect as before, but I now have the added bonus of wide angle lenses being wider than before.

Image shot with 50mm on 30D (APS-C)

Image shot with 50mm on 5D Mk II (Full Frame)

Ok, so how about this ISO stuff, how good is it really? Yeah, well, its pretty damned good. On my 30D, it pained me to go up to 1600 ISO, on a 40D, 1600 would give you a very usable image but 3200 got to be a bit much, on the 5D Mk II, 3200 is a no-brainer and 6400 will give you very usable images. Moving up into 12,800 gets to be noisy but should be usable with a good noise reduction software while 25,600 ISO is basically unusable unless you convert the image to black and white and then you will get something looking like an older newspaper image.

Comparison of ISO settings from 5D Mk II

A feature that first appeared on the 40D is Highlight Tone Priority which can be a saving grace in numerous situations. Instead of going into how great this feature is, please refer to David Ziser’s post about Highlight Tone Priority.

What’s missing from the 5d Mk II?

Yes, the 5d Mk II is a huge leap forward for Canon, so much so that some shooters with the higher end 1Ds Mk III are actually “downgrading” to the 5D to get the improved sensor cleaning and higher ISO performance. But surely the 5D Mk II is not the Holy Grail of cameras, something must be missing right? Well, of course, otherwise it would be an $8000 camera. So what is it that we don’t have on the 5D Mk II that it’s big brother has?

• Dual memory card slots
  Many people think this is a major disappointment that the 5D wasn’t outfitted with dual memory slots to provide real-time redundancy when shooting.
• Built in battery grip/portrait grip
  The original 5D didn’t have one, and the 5D Mk II is aimed at the high end Pro-sumer market, not the professional market so this is an option. Unfortunately, the 5D Mk II uses a redesigned grip so existing ones will not work.
• Long life shutter
  The big gun 1Ds Mk III is rated as about double the shutter activations as the 5D Mk II (150,000 (5D) vs 300,000 (1Ds)).
• Dual Digic processors
  While the 5D Mk II does have the newer Digic IV processor, the 1Ds Mk III has dual processors for faster image processing.1

Granted, the higher ISO performance, larger, higher resolution LCD screen, improved dust reduction, 21 megapixel , full frame sensor, full HD video, and significantly cheaper price does make for a very compelling camera.

Focusing on Video

Yeah, the 5D Mk II is the Grand Poobah of DSLR’s that can shoot video with its full 1080p video capture. Being able to use all of the lenses at your disposal to shoot video is quite awesome indeed to achieve the same shallow depth of field that you can get in stills. So look out Sony, your days of being a video camera manufacturer have come to an end and the 5D Mk II is taking its rightful place of the King of all things video…..well….not exactly.

There is no question you can get stunning HiDef video out of the camera, there are plenty of examples online. But let’s look at the reality of shooting video with the 5D Mk II.

First off, abandon all hope of using autofocus when shooting video. If you are using the on-board microphone, you will hear constant whirrrr whirrrrrrrr whirrrrrrrr as the contrast-based autofocus “attempts” to focus. In some situations it may do alright, but the majority of the time you will end up with lots of times where the camera is trying to focus but tracks back and forth a few times before locking on. You really need to consider the camera as a manual focus camera when shooting video. Use autofocus in still mode to get your focus, then switch to video mode with autofocus off for best results. As for the built-in microphone (located just underneath the 5D logo), its alright for playing around, but anything serious will require an external mic plugged into the microphone jack on the side of the camera.

5D Mk II LowRez Video from Kerry Garrison on Vimeo.

Sample HiDef Video from 5D Mk II from Kerry Garrison on Vimeo.

Megapixels = Mega Storage

Oh sure, we all SAY we want more megapixels, but you really have to think of the ramifications of that. Here is a comparison of the same image taken with several of the different available image quality settings:

This means that a RAW file from the 5D Mk II is 4 times larger than a RAW from a 30D and even the 5D Mk II’s Fine JPEG is 2mb larger than the RAW file on the 30D. That’s 1/4 of the number of images I can fit on the same memory card and a typical wedding shoot for me will balloon from 10gb to 40gb. Add to that the additional disk space required to hold the images, and the addition computer horsepower (CPU and RAM) needed to process these huge files and you need some seriously beefy hardware to use this camera to its full potential.

For best results, UDMA Compact Flash cards are recommended, using these will speed up write times to the disc. Keep all of these things in mind if considering moving up to the 5D Mk II as it could turn out to be a bigger investment than just the camera itself.

Using the 5D Mk II

The first project I had was a small wedding reception, shooting out on a golf course at 11am presented some really harsh lighting conditions, the highlight tone priority system did a great job at keeping the subjects from getting blown out. One thing that I noticed was that the autofocus was really fast and super accurate. This is compared to the 30D that I normally shoot with. Normally I will get a handful of out of focus shots for no apparent reason, of almost 500 shots, there were only two that were out of focus, a significant improvement in the autofocus system over my camera.

The shutter noise is fairly quiet and doesn’t draw attention which is nice for quiet ceremonies and for catching candids without disturbing anyone.

For all your Shamu fans out there, here are some shots from Sea World.

5D Mark II - 70mm 1/640 f/9 ISO 200 Mode: Program sRAW1

5D Mark II - 70mm 1/5000 f/8 ISO 200 Mode: Program sRAW1

5D Mark II - 70mm 1/500 f/8 ISO 200 Mode: Program sRAW1

5D Mark II - 24mm 1/25 f/6.3 ISO 400 Mode: Manual sRAW1

5D Mark II - 42mm 1/60 f/2.8 ISO 400 Mode: Manual sRAW1

Is the 5D Mk II Right For You?

I only had the 5D Mk II available to me for a few days but I am completely impressed with it from a technology point of view. One of it’s biggest selling points is also one of its biggest problems, and that is the size of the images. A typical wedding will take up 30gb of space and just a simple day at an amusement park could easily eat up 6gb.  The ability to use the smaller sRAW sizes is a plus, but its painful to have to limit the camera, something I think I could get over easily enough but it remains to be seen if it is too limiting for doing paid wedding shoots in the reduced file format sizes.

Unless you already have a beefy uber-computer and have more compact flash cards than pairs of underwear, then there are going to be some hidden costs of getting into the 5D Mk II. I am probably fairly typical (or at least not abnormal) in that I am currently shooting with a 30D and put together some numbers as what it would take for me to purchase and use the 5D Mk II, and this is not upgrading the CPU or RAM in my machine as it isn’t that terrible to work on images with what I have.

That’s well over $4,000 with tax and shipping and isn’t counting having another as a backup. I would certainly recommend the 5D Mk II to anyone who can afford one, but, for myself, I need to take a look at the 50D before deciding to save up for the 5D.

Author: Kerry Garrison

Rental Equipment by: http://BorrowLenses.com

Links from the show

Roberto’s website (http://www.robertovalenzuelaphotography.com)
WPPI Master Class (http://www.wppionline.com/tradeshow/show2009/speakers.taf?pgm=master)
WPPI Article (http://www.wppionline.com/newsletter/Dec08/member-month.tml)

Show Hosts

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

This podcast is also available on iTunes.

While there are a number of other programs available to do HDR with, we are going to look at the three most common ones mentioned in most posts and blogs, these are:

• Adobe Photoshop CS4 – Merge to HDR Function
• Photomatix
• Enfuse

Photoshop CS4

To be completely fair, I am using the different HDR tools here with their default settings and am not doing any additional tweaking afterwards to make the images look better. That being said, the Photoshop result is certainly the worst of the batch. The dark areas are too dark, the bright areas are too bright and it just didn’t do anything to really impress me. I also cannot find any noticeable difference between Photoshop CS3 and Photoshop CS4 in the final output. Even though you could tweak this image in Photoshop, it would be quit a bit of work because you really need to darken the sky and brighten up the building and parking lot. There may be a particular type of image that Photoshop likes better, of perhaps it doesn’t like that the images covered a 4 stop range. If someone has some tips on working with the Photoshop HDR merge, please post them in the comments.

Photomatix

Photomatix is another commercial tool (http://www.hdrsoft.com) that many people consider to be the best HDR tool available. Comparing the images, the Photomatix output most certainly gave the most dynamic range, so much range that it is actually easy to get an image that doesn’t actually look natural. The way Photomatix works is a complete mystery as even in the overexposed image, you can’t see the detail in the windows and doorways of the building the way you can in this Photomatix output. From a “wow” perspective, it is most certainly the most vivid image and has an amazing amount of range, there is almost nothing in the image that is too bright or too dark. While this may be good for some images, if you are trying to replicate what you are seeing with your eye, this isn’t quite accurate. Is it stunning in it’s range? Absolutely, no question there, it wins hands down in that area.

Enfuse

Enfuse is a different type of tool that compares multiple images and chooses to keep the pixels it feels are the best exposed. Using Enfuse by itself can also be an exercise in frustration. To simply using Enfuse, I use LR/Enfuse from Timothy Armes (http://timothyarmes.com/lrenfuse.php) which integrates into Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. Using just the default settings, the result is an image that is much more natural and is truer to what you would see with your eye. A big advantage of using Enfuse (especially with LR/Enfuse) is that it is significantly faster than Photomatix, the downside is that you don’t get the amazing results that you can get from Photomatix. Enfuse is going to give you a far more natural look.

Summary

It’s not entirely clear if these is a real no-brainer choice between Photomatix and Enfuse as it is really dependant on what you are trying to accomplish with the final image. Photomatix can certainly deliver outstanding images that are virtually impossible to achieve any other way and can also create more natural looking results by toning down the resulting image making it a more versatile tool overall. Enfuse has its advantage in being fast and easy to use when integrated into Lightroom and will create very nice, natural looking results, and if that is your goal then sending a few bucks to Timothy for LR/Enfuse is well worth it. Personally, I have both installed and will choose when to use each tool based on what result I am looking for, and knowing the strengths and weaknesses of each option will make it easier for me to decide when to use which tool.

Author: Kerry Garrison

Certainly some people think that David has lost his marbles, but is he completely off-base here? Even Chase Jarvis has some thoughts on this idea. I do not believe this idea is anything really new here, and perhaps explaining it in the way David does may make it sound like something new and unique. The fact is, many of us have done free work for a variety of different reasons. Here are some examples of what I have done, and often continue to do with any money exchanging hands.

Work with models when I need subjects for lighting tutorials or to experiment with new products
Absolutely, I don’t get paid for writing articles for CameraDojo (any potential sponsors, please contact me) so when I need subjects for shoots to try out new lights, techniques, or for a subject of an article, I turn to craigslist or Model Mayhem to find someone that will work with me in exchange for some nice headshots, body shots, or whatever they need for their portfolio. Since I am not bound by any constraints during these shoots, some of my best work has come out of some of these collaborations.

Shooting with big names in the industry
My bread and butter is wedding photography and I have had the pleasure of shooting with a number of excellent photographers which is how I learned the ins and outs of the business. I did plenty of those shoots for free in order to learn that segment of the trade. I would still be willing to second for the likes of David Ziser, Dane Sanders, Mike Colon, Frank Salas, or a number of people who are vastly more successful than me in order to get the experience working with them.

Social Interaction with other like-minded people
Two weeks ago I got together with a number of other photographers up at Robert Evans’ studio in North Hollywood to do a trash the dress shoot for a couple. They probably ended up with hundreds of images from a dozen photographers, none of which charged a nickle. Robert opened his studio, I brought fog machines and dry ice, Candice supplied several dresses, and a dozen people worked together on a project that was for the betterment of all involved. This was so fun and worthwhile, we have decided to try to do it once a month.

I suggest you take a good read at David’s article as well as Chase’s response and think about what you are doing with your photography. This will actually tie in well with next week’s podcast with Dane Sanders about figuring out who you are as a photographer. In these tough times, we need ideas that are outside the box, those who survive and push through, those who do whatever it takes to weather the storm and find ways of improving themselves at the same time will flourish as things get better.

Author: Kerry Garrison

Real and fake SanDisk Ultra II CF cards

The first fake CF card I came across was pretty obvious, visually. I received it with a used camera I bought, so I really couldn’t complain. It was basically free and I was thrilled at the time (2006) to have a 2GB card thrown in with a camera. But it was the performance of the cart that tipped me off to the real problem. The card was significantly slower in the writes than my other SanDisk Ultra II cards; about half the write speed or worse. Here is a look at the fake card next to the real card (right):

Back of 2GB SanDisk Elite CF cards

It is pretty obvious here which is the fake card. Come on, counterfeiters, can’t you do a better fake label than that? As I read up more, it seems that the early cards were easier to detect. Not only were the front stickers obvious, but the rear stickers were missing a lot of telling information. There were no serial numbers on the fake card. This was the first give-away. There was really not much of anything specifically identifying the card on the back label of the fake card. Notice that the real card on the left had the SDCFH identifier, as well as the patent numbers. This would be easy enough to fake too, if they weren’t so lazy. (right):

Close-up of real & fake SanDisk Ultra II CF cards

When you zoom in close (these images were made on a cheapo flatbed scanner at 1200DPI), you can also see the difference in the grain of the plastic. The fake card has a rougher texture and surface on it than the real SanDisk card. On closer inspection, you can see that the grain in the printing is finer on the real SanDisk card also. But these differences alone are harder to distinguish with the naked eye. If the labels were better duplicated overall, you might not even notice such small details as those. You can click to enlarge the photos to the right and get a better, more detailed blow-up of these differences. (right):

Sides of SanDisk Ultra CF cards

But here is one place that they did get clever… the serial numbering. Notice how close the printing is on both of the cards? Without contacting SanDisk, there is no way to tell which one is real and which one is a fake. (right):

So, recently I decided that it was time to buy me a new, 8GB SanDisk Ultra IV compact Flash card as my Canon 1DS Mark III burns through a lot of space at around 25MB per image. 2GB and 4GB cards were just not enough for events. I decided again to test my luck with a new SanDisk Ultra Card, and thought I would try to save a few bucks on ebay. What the heck… if the owner says it comes new in the box, that’s a pretty good sign, right? And sellers in Hong Kong can have real product once in a while too, right? Especially if it is in the new, retail box? And since it is not from the U.S., it could be cheaper, right? Like half price?

O.K., I have to say that right off the bat the first signs of trouble are right here. Half price, easily duplicated product from Hong Kong is a sure sign of fake product on ebay these days. However, for $29.97 shipped, it was worth it to see how good they really are.

Fake SanDisk Extreme package

Here is what I received, in a padded envelope from Hong Kong, partially crushed (right). Surprisingly, the box looks very very real. The gold foils are vibrant and shiny, the texture of the box is identical. And inside the box was the card in a plastic holder, a SanDisk keychain card holder and an SanDIsk RescuePRO 4.0″ installation CD. Pretty much every detail of the real box and contents was duplicated here with extreme care, and with only minor differences. At first glance, I was fairly convinced that this was actually real, or was it just a really damn good knock-off. After closer inspection, it seems that the later was the case. How could someone afford to go to all of this trouble?  Was there really that much profit in selling a $70 card for $30 on eBay with all of these production costs?

Real and fake SanDisk Extreme CF boxes

Looking at the box itself side by side with the real thing, it is hard to see many differences. The boxes look identical from the front, outside of the print color being a little off at the bottom (which is much more apparent in these photos and to the eye). Producing boxes like this with the gold embossing is not cheap process. Either these are the real thing, or someone is mass producing these to keep the costs down. I fear at this point that the compact flash counterfeiting business is not a small one. Someone is investing a lot of money into fake product and fake packaging here.

Back of SanDisk boxes

The back of the box is a bit different too. That would be the next clue on first, unopened inspection of the box. The real SanDisk IV box is the one on the left with a lot more text on it.  I only have 4 SanDisk Extreme IV boxes in my office (real ones).  The boxes for my SanDisk Extreme III cards are in storage, so I cannot see how much the back of the boxes changed from the III series to the IV series, but I assume that all boxes of series IV cards are pretty much the same.  This makes these changes on the back of the card more suspicious.

Real SanDisk Exreme Box

Fake SanDisk Extreme box

Now let’s look at a real box and content next to the fake box and content. They both have the same sleeve and slide-out insert format. They both have the same inside plastic housing and clear cover. They both have manuals, a CF hard plastic case and mini CD with software on them. They even both have a keychain CF card holder, although the real one has red text on it and the fake one white text.  The only piece missing from the fake packaging is a small advertising insert.

Real and fake SanDisk manuals

The manuals/documentation are slightly different.  The fake manual (on the right) is printed on cheaper paper with a much yellower cast to it.  The print quality is slightly lower than the original, real documentation pamphlet.  Interestingly, my real documentation is in Spanish, even though it was bought right here in the U.S. from an authorized SanDisk dealer (samys.com),   Notice the difference in phone numbers? I tried calling the number on the fake document and it rings SanDisk.  The phone number on the real pamphlet… wrong number/disconnected.  Now that’s funny.

Bottom of SanDisk boxes

On closer look at the bottom of the boxes you can see a numeric difference with the 8.0GB box. The real 2.0GB box has a part number of SDCFX4-2048-901. I assume that the 2048 is for 2,048MB, or 2GB. The 8.0GB fake box has a part number of SDCFX4-4096-904. Would that not be the part number of a 4,096MB card, or a 4GB? In an internet search for SDCFX4-4096, it seems it is the part number for the SanDisk Ultra IV 4.0GB compact flash card. There is our first clue.

8GB Fake SanDisk Ultra IV CF card

But, once we take out the CF card and begin to examine it, the details start to appear. The first thing I noticed was that it looked very close in all aspects to a real card. “Hmmm… maybe this is a real SanDisk Extreme IV.” Even the bottom edge of the card has a full serial number and ‘Made in China’ perfectly stenciled onto the case.

In further examination, I started to notice that the label was on crooked. But hey, that could be an issue in assembly that could randomly happen, right? Then, as the light caught it right, I also noticed two bubbles in the front label sticker. “Hmmm… this is getting more suspicious. SanDisk usually doesn’t let these kind of flaws through. This must be a hand-applied label.” Also notice that the corners of the label are square and not slightly rounded. This is another sign of a shortcut in the die cutting process of the fake label. On even further examination, you can see that the outer plastic edged of the card is different – different plastic to metal widths in the edges of the card.

8GB real vs fake SanDisk Extreme IV CF cards

The next thing I noticed is an issue which began to appear in several other articles, is that the holographic background to the lettering scans as a blue tint, and not gold like all of my other SanDisk Extreme cards. In this image (right), you will see that the fake card on the right has a blue tint to the lettering and the real card on the left appears more gold. Some of the elements are a little different size (like the E.S.P. logo), but overall it’s a pretty decent copy label sticker copy.

8GB real vs fake SanDisk Ultra IV CF cards

Next, lets look at the back of the cards. Again, the card on the left is the real card and the one on the right is the fake. Notice how it is a little dingy looking? That’s about the only difference on the back side. Even the corners of this dingy white label are rounded. It is hard to tell from the back side what makes this one fake, outside of the off-white paper used in making the label.  Again, a lot of work to make a fake card.  We are almost seeing efforts on the level of paper money counterfeiting here with all of the attention to detail in the print work.  Isn’t that another scary issue we have been reading about these past few years coming from China?

6 different CF cards

O.K., looks aside, its time to get down to the real meat of this.  How does the fake card perform in comparison to the real SanDisk Extreme IV cards?  To start, I do not have a real 8GB SanDisk Extreme IV card to test against, but I do have many 2.0GB Extreme IV cards that I bought from an authorized dealer.  This should be fine for our tests as the complete series of SanDisk Extreme IV cards are expected to perform similar to each other, within a small margin of error.  I also decided to throw in a few other generic and non-generic cards for comparison, and I included 2 separate SanDisk Extreme IV 2.0GB cards in the test to make sure that the real SanDisk IV cards perform equally in all aspects. You can see all of the cards (except for a 4.0GB PhotoFast Super card that looks identical to the 2.0GB Fotofast Super card) all in the image to the right.  The results are absolutely fascinating.

The test machine is a Mac Pro tower, 8 Core 3.0GHz Intel Xenon processors, 12GB RAM, Seagate 750GB SATA drive, Mac OS X v10.5.5 and a DELL 30″ monitor with 9in1 USB2 card reader built into it.  These specs are really irrelevant as every read and write was done with the same hardware and data.  That part is equal throughout the test.

The read/write copies were done with a folder containing ~1,000 jpg image files, 500k to 4.5MB each in size, 1.83GB (1,949,350,680 kbytes) total in size. 2 identical reads and writes were performed with this folder of images on each cards to insure consistency. All results were rounded to the nearest second. Margin of error is +/- 1.0 second.

Sandisk cards compared

This first chart is of read and write times for this folder of information to just the SanDisk cards, both real and fake. Notice how the read times are all pretty close, with the real SanDisk Extreme III and IV cards being almost identical, and how far off the 8.0GB fake card is from the others.  This is your first solid confirmation that you did not get what you paid for.  When you buy a card of this class and price, you are paying for speed, quality of build and the reputation of the company standing behind it.  This card is dropping the ball on all of those factors.  Below are the actual numbers from the tests.

All CF cards compared

Now, let’s throw some other cheapo cards into the mix.  The first is a Kingston Elite Pro 50X CF card (not necessarily a cheapo) and the other two are FastFoto Super CF cards, 2.0GB and 4.0GB.  These cards were bought 2 years ago off of an online discount house having a sale.  The interesting thing here is that these cards are really out of whack when it comes to write speeds, but their read speeds are good.  These were really cheap at the time I purchased them, and now you can see why.  However, the fake SanDisk 8.0GB cards are not terrible by comparison to the 2 year old generic CF cards. Below are the actual numbers from the tests.

SanDisk and fake CF cards

So, taking the data from the test and calculating MB/sec, we can see the relative performance each of these cards attains.  Let’s start with just the SanDisk cards and the fake SanDisk card.  Below are the actual numbers from the tests.

Transfer rate of all cards

Here is a comparison of all of the cards for transfer rate in MB/sec.  Below are the actual numbers from the tests.

A note to SanDisk:  Please forgive me for straying from authorized dealers just this one time.  The economy is rough, especially for those of us in photography.  The price was just too tempting.  I have purchased over 10 authentic cards from authorized SanDisk dealers in the past.  I promise not to stray again.  I offer this article to help others not stray either as a peace offering to you.

Maurice Naragon
Digital Creations
Website Development and Marketing
Professional Photography in Orange County, CA

To get the code for your own site, go to:
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This is what the Camera Dojo widget is like:

Apple Releases Camera Raw 2.2
Adobe Releases Camera Raw 4.6 Release Candidate
Leica M8 Firmware 2.00
Sony Alpha Firmware

Lightroom 2.1 Available on Adobe Labs
http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Lightroom_2.1

Lightroom Web Gallery Module
http://cameradojo.com/2008/09/23/lightroom-web-gallery-modulelightroom-web-gallery-module/

Canon EOS 5D Mk II
http://cameradojo.com/2008/09/16/canon-announces-eos-5d-mark-ii/

Canon Powershot G10 IS
http://cameradojo.com/2008/09/16/canon-powershot-g10-is-camera-announced/

Canon Powershot SX1 IS
http://cameradojo.com/2008/09/17/canon-powershot-line-in-sx1-is-with-1080p-video/

Sunny 16 Rule
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Guest on the Digital Photography Show
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This podcast is also available on iTunes.

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

Photokina
http://www.photokina-cologne.com/

Nikon D-90
http://imaging.nikon.com/products/imaging/lineup/digitalcamera/slr/d90/index.htm

Canon 50D
http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelInfoAct&fcategoryid=139&modelid=17499

New Canon DSLR
http://www.canon.com/moon/en/

Nik Software Announces Sharpener Proâ„¢ 3.0
http://cameradojo.com/2008/09/04/nik-software-announces-sharpener-pro%E2%84%A2-30/

Wolverine ESP Digital Photo Album and Multimedia Player
http://cameradojo.com/2008/09/02/wolverine-esp-digital-photo-album-and-multimedia-player/

R-Strap Camera Strap Review
http://cameradojo.com/2008/09/04/r-strap-camera-strap-review/

Capturing a sense of motion
http://cameradojo.com/2008/08/31/capturing-a-sense-of-motion-with-shutter-speed/

Camera Dojo Lightroom Presets
http://cameradojo.com/lightroom-presets/

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This week I do some catching up in the news and let you know whats been going on with Camera Dojo. We have some really exciting things coming up with some interviews and tons of articles this month. In this episode I cover the latest news including:

Canon 50D Announcement
http://cameradojo.com/2008/08/26/canon-announces-eos-50d/
http://www.usa.canon.com/

Nikon D90 Announcement
http://imaging.nikon.com/products/imaging/lineup/digitalcamera/slr/d90/index.htm

http://imaging.nikon.com/products/imaging/lineup/d90/en/d-movie/ — Movie samples!

Maurice wins our local photowalk
http://cameradojo.com/2008/09/01/photowalk-winners-announced/

Wolverine ESP Digital Photo Album and Multimedia Player Review
http://cameradojo.com/2008/09/02/wolverine-esp-digital-photo-album-and-multimedia-player/

BlackRapid R-Strap Review
http://cameradojo.com/2008/09/04/r-strap-camera-strap-review/

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This podcast is also available on iTunes.

We knew when we sat down to write this review that many of your would be sitting there thinking that the guys at the Dojo had totally lost it if all they can come up with for a product review is a simple camera strap. In all seriousness, we have appealed to every company we know to come up with a better camera strap. The two main issues we have are comfort for shooting all day long and the security that your camera won’t fall off your shoulder. If someone could solve these two basic issues then it would surely rate a full blown product review article, BlackRapid has done exactly that with the new R-Strap.

David using the R-Strap

Overview
Take 10 pounds or more of camera equipment and hang it on your shoulder for 8-10 hours and you are simply going to be sore, this is just something we have come to expect over the years. Some manufacturers have tried to overcome this with thick padded sections so while this may help a little the fact that the weight is still pulling down on one shoulder cannot be overcome. The second main issue is security. Most straps have some kind of rubberized surface to help keep them from slipping off your shoulder. We have never found a strap that combines both comfort and gives you confidence that it’s not going to fall off. I often carry two cameras at a wedding and am in constant fear that one of them is going to take a header onto the pavement, so when I know I am not going to use one for a while I bring the strap up over my head to make sure it won’t fall off, but this makes it very difficult to shoot. BlackRapid took this simple idea and created the R-Strap.

Kerry wearing the R-Strap

How it works
Think of the R-Strap as an oversize camera strap, but instead of the strap attaching to the standard strap mounts on your camera, it is a continuous loop. The camera is attaches to the strap via a sliding ring so the camera can move around without the strap moving. The sliding ring attached to the D-Ring on the bottom your tripod mount or via at attachment piece that comes with the R-Strap.

Because the strap goes around one shoulder and the camera rests at your hip on the opposite side, the weight of the camera feels more like its down the middle of your body instead of one shoulder. This is significantly more comfortable and it completely eliminates the possibility of your camera slipping off your shoulder.

When I first saw the R-Strap and tried it on, my first reaction was something like DUH!!!! How is it that the greatest minds on the industry that have taken us into the digital age and into sensors that can push 60 megapixels haven’t improved on the single most important interface you have to the camera since the introduction of the SLR?

I’m really being serious here. The lowly camera strap hasn’t been improved virtually at all and it took BlackRapid to finally take the basic camera strap and make it comfortable and safer around your neck. I really hope this makes the big camera makers feel stupid for not addressing this most basic needs of ALL camera owners.

In Shooting Position

Setup
Since the R-Strap connects to the D-Ring on the bottom of your tripod mount plate, many of us who keep the plate on our cameras have only to connect the strap to the D-Ring, adjust the length and stopper and you are set to go. This is FAR easier than trying to connect any traditional strap to a camera.

Once you have it on, you will want to adjust the length, this is going to be personal opinion but you will find there is a certain “sweet spot” that gives you the best position when the camera is down and allows you to bring it up fast and get the camera into position easily. There is piece that you will want to adjust down to the camera when it is resting at your side, this will help you to quickly position the camera and keep it from sliding back.

Adjustment Point

Usage
You first want to get the R-Strap adjusted properly. For most people you want to be able to pull the camera up and be able to hold it 6-7 inches away from your face, this will give you plenty of freedom to move around.

I will certainly admit I was a little uneasy at first dangling a couple grand worth of hardware on a $49 strap that connects to the D-Ring on the tripod mount, but within a short period of time I became very comfortable with it and the ease of using the camera with the R-Strap paid for itself over and over again. After while it becomes very natural to place the camera at your side and then reach for it and sling it into shooting position.

R-Strap hanging at David's Side

Results
Ok, so you have a strap that won’t fall off your shoulder, feels very comfortable to use, and doesn’t cost a fortune, But wait! There’s more! Not only does the R-Strap keep your gear secure, there is a side benefit of not being nearly as sore after a long shoot. Both David and I have both been using the R-Strap for about a month now and have shot a handful of weddings and events, because the weight is distributed differently, the neck pain normally associated with long shoots is greatly reduced. While the security and comfort make the R-Strap worthwhile, the comfort level makes it priceless. Every camera should come standard with and R-Strap!!

With the R-Strap I can easily put my camera down at my side and walk up to people to pose them without poking them with a big lens.” – David (Esquire Photography)

Summary
I’m sold! I am not taking the R-Strap off my camera! I vow to never use a regular camera strap again. David (Esquire Photography) is also a convert and uses a R-Strap on every shoot.

Final results:

Website: http://www.blackrapid.com
Author: Kerry Garrison

Discussion Topics

The Moment it Clicks by Joe McNalley -[ Amazon Store Link ]
Using the Black Rapid R-Strap – [ http://blackrapid.com ]

Tips of The Week
David – Go with your gut
Kerry – Keep your calendar updated with Google Apps
Maurice – Don’t ever give out unedited photos

Hosts
Kerry Garrison – http://kerrygarrison.com
David Esquire – http://esquirephotography.com
Maurice Naragon – http://headcheese.com http://webscience.com

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Links from the podcast:

Apple iPhone
http://apple.com

Lightroom Enfuse
http://timothyarmes.com/lrenfuse.php

Think Tank Photo
http://thinktankphoto.com

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

This podcast is also available on iTunes.