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.

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

f/16 ISO 200 - Shutter 1/200th

f/16 ISO 400 - Shutter 1/400th

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

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

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.

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.

With an accessory flash like a Canon 580 EX II the top piece can rotate around to different angles, this will allow the flash to fire in a different angle than the camera is facing. If you then bounce that light off something like a wall or reflector you can then redirect the light back at your subject to create good directional light. The only thing you have to really watch for is that you are blocking and light directly from the flash to contaminate the scene which can completely diminish the look you are trying to get.

First let’s look at the flash configuration we are going to use. A 580 EX outfitted with Velco and then a Honl Photo Gobo to cover the bottom and right side of the flash head. This blocks direct light from the flash from hitting the subject but still allows some extra light to move up and left which will help add a little fill light. If we used a snoot, we wouldn’t have any extra fill light and the shadows would be much harsher.

The key to this working with such a simple setup is actually having things to bounce the light off of. Without walls and a ceiling that are close enough to effectively use as reflectors we might have to bring in our own reflectors to create the desired effect.

Let’s take another look at the lighting diagram.

The flash is mounted on the camera and is turned towards the wall aimed to hit a midpoint between the camera and the subject. This will illuminate the wall and act like new source of light angled back towards the subject giving us light that appears to come from the right side of the subject. Now let’s look at an example image to see exactly what this looks like.

As you can see, we have effectively created a short light setup by bouncing the light off the wall while also using a small amount of bounce light from surrounding walls and the ceiling to add a small amount of fill light to keep the right side of the subject from being completely black.

The point here is that learning how to use your on-camera flash to behave differently than simply blasting your subject with straight on lighting will open up your ability to create much better images. Experimenting will different distances, angles, and reflector surfaces and soon you will find that you can find useful locations and/or objects to use as your bounce target.

Kerry and Jules also announce their upcoming workshop on Jan 26th. For more information on the Light, Location, and Love workshop, please check out:
http://cameradojo.com/2009/12/09/light-location-love-workshop-with-jules-bianchi-and-kerry-garrison/

Be sure and check out Jules’ website at http://julescafe.com.

Don’t forget about our CameraDojo MediaSmart Server Giveaway

Show Host

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

This podcast is also available on iTunes.

In this video Kerry demonstrates using a simple light meter in a product shoot.

How to use a light meter from Kerry Garrison on Vimeo.

Related Articles:

• Using a Light Meter for Proper Exposure
• Podcast #53 – Using a Light Meter

How to get the lighting we want

By now we would hope you wouldn’t be asking how to get your lighting setup dialed in, but if you need a little refresher you should start off with the following articles:

• Lighting ratios for portraits
• Using a Light Meter for Proper Exposure
• Understanding Light Stops

For the rest of the article, different images will also be presented with lighting diagrams to help illustrate exactly how each look was obtained.

Broad Lighting

Broad lighting is certainly the easiest lighting style to use since the camera side of the face is lit brighter than the far side of the face. This look is easily obtained by simply bouncing your flash off a wall or reflector to the side of the camera back onto the subject. Broad lighting used to be taught as the “feminine lighting†but that is certainly not always the case.  Broad lighting will tend to make a face look wider which is not always a look that is the most flattering. With the right subject, broad lighting can certainly achieve very nice results.

With the subject facing to the camera right and a large light source to the camera left a broad light effect is created putting the side of the face furthest from the camera into shadow. With the tilt of her head it gave her face a more rounded appearance.

Short Lighting

Short lighting is considered by many to be the most flattering style and is certainly my personal favorite. Short lighting will tend to make a face look thinner. Short lighting is also harder to achieve because it virtually requires off-camera lighting since the light is coming from behind the subject.

With the shadow on the camera side of the face, the face looks thinner. Keep in mind, the examples so far have been achieved on the same location spot using only natural light and simply moving the subject and camera position to get the desired look.

Split Lighting

Split lighting is not very popular and is probably the least used of the different lighting styles. In split lighting the light is split down the middle of the subject’s face dividing it in half. The lighting setup is fairly simple with two lights on either side of the subject and one using less power than the other. I personally really like the split lighting effect to give someone some images that will have a different look than they are likely to get from other photographers.

As you can see, split lighting can be very effective and with just a slight turn of the head can look like a mix of split lighting and short lighting,

Summary

I hope this has given you a new set of tools to use to improve your portrait lighting techniques, done properly you can achieve a very classic, timeless look that your clients will love. The key to mastering any of these is to practice, practice, practice. Get some lights setup for one style, maybe get a model from a place like Model Mayhem, and work on each style until you really have it nailed down. Next time we will look at Rembrandt and Butterfly lighting.

Stop, Drop, and Roll

We we are talking about lighting ratios, we first need to understand a few key concepts. The first being what we mean when we refer to stops of light. For an in-depth article on this, please refer back to our article on Understanding Light Stops. To put it briefly, a stop is not a measurement of light output, it is the relative difference between two light values. If we double the output of a light source, we have increased our light by 1 stop, if we cut our light in half, we have decreased our light by one stop. This is an exponential increase or decrease since we have to again double, or half our output to change by a whole stop. For example, if we take the light output from a single light bulb, it will then take two light bulbs to increase by 1 stop. To increase by another stop we would then need four light bulbs, then eight, etc.

We we are setting up for doing portraits using light ratios, we typically want to have one side of the face lit properly and then the opposite side dropped by 2 or even more stops. Why do we want to purposely add shadows, because flat lighting (1:1 ratio) is actually unflattering. Using shadows will add depth, dimension, and realism to you portraits.

Be yee subtle or be yee dramatic – that is the question

Working with shadows can give you very dramatic differences in the mood of an image from being soft and feminine to being very hard and more masculine. While that is typically the case, there are excellent examples even when reversing the gender roles. One of my favorite recent images is of Hayley and uses some very dramatic lighting and yet because the transition areas between shadows and highlights are fairly soft, the feminine nature of the image is retained.

By making the transitions between the shadows and the highlights harsher, you can change the mood. In the following two images, the models were light with pretty hard side lighting with high ratios in order to achieve a more rough look that would really make all of the details on their bodies stand out more.

Notice in both images the shadow side of the image is almost completely dark and featureless adding to the dramatic feel of the images.

Sculpting with light

In this final section we are going to look at how we can actually appear to change the shape of someone’s face with the use of light and shadows. In the first image, Taylor is light with a 1:1 ratio which appears to make her face seem flatter and really shows her cheek and chin structure. In the second image we throw shadows into the cheek and chin which give her a different look altogether.

With the 1:1 ratio broad lighting, Taylor’s face looks more featureless and wider. With a 2:1 ratio short lighting setup her nose has more detail and her face looks thinner and taller.

Summary

Based on the recent poll here on Camera Dojo we know that many of you are struggling with lighting and we hope that this, and future articles on lighting will help take your images to a whole new level.

Later, the guys discuss the use of a light meter and how it can help you get your exposures fast and accurately in-camera and save you time in post-production.

Show Hosts

Kerry Garrison
http://kerrygarrison.com
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David Esquire
http://esquirephotography.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/esquirephoto Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=636655600

This podcast is also available on iTunes.

Presented by Camera Dojo publisher and podcast host Kerry Garrison, this should be a fun and educational workshop that will really help you improve your portraits.

For more information and to RSVP please visit the event page on Facebook at:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=116391356208

Canon’s new EOS Rebel T1i is packed with features, both refined and new. In addition to its admirable performance with an all-new 15.1 Megapixel Canon CMOS sensor, DIGIC 4 Image Processor, a 3.0-inch Clear View LCD with anti-reflective and scratch-resistant coating, and compatibility with the EOS System of lenses and Speedlites, the EOS Rebel T1i adds remarkable Full HD video capture at resolutions up to 1920 x 1080. An HDMI port allows for quick connections to high definition TVs and monitors for easy viewing of your stills and video. The entire operation is simple and easy even if you are a beginner. You’ll have uncompromised EOS Digital performance with power and flexibility right in the palm of your hand.

• New 15.1 Megapixel CMOS sensor with DIGIC 4 Image Processor for faster processing of fine detail and natural color reproduction, 14-bit A/D conversion for smooth color tones and gradations.
• Full HD video capture at 1920 x 1080 resolution with HDMI output for HD viewing of stills and video.
• 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.
• Auto Lighting Optimizer for superior highlight-shadow control.
• Wide range ISO setting 100-3200 (ISO expansion: 6400, 12800).
• Creative Auto goes a step beyond auto allowing control over frequently-changed settings.
• Compatible with over 60 Canon EF/EF-S lenses and most EOS System accessories.

Suggested Retail Price: $899.99

Website: http://www.usa.canon.com

Jim is a world reknowned photographer with an amazing carreer and is one of the few people granted the title of Explorer of Light by Canon.

Jim Divitale’s Websites

http://www.jimdivitale.com
http://www.divitalephotography.com

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.

Overview

I often see posts in different forums from people trying  to figure out how to provide remote power for on-location shooting. I have seen everything from picnic coolers full of electronics to generators with expensive inverters strapped on.  or the cost of building one of these picnic cooler power packs and your time to buy all the parts and assemble it, you are just as well off to spend the $349 for the Explorer XT and have a professionally built package that you know is going to work well.

Features

The Explorer XT is rated at 350 watts of continuous power and 1200watts peak power. For studio strobes this can handle up to 2400ws. The Explorer XT is designed as a portable power source for most flash and power pack units to be used on location, away from available power.

The Explorer XT is equipped with two (2) 12V, 7Ah sealed lead acid batteries, with an auto volt-charging feature which accepts 100-240V. It also has a 14V car battery charging where an internal circuit converts the 12V/14V source to a 24V. It also has an auxiliary battery port, allowing the user to connect another battery in case you need extended battery life. Battery power level indicators with beeper and charging indicators allow you to monitor power consumption and charging status.

The Explorer XT comes with a handy carrying bag to make hauling it around easier. The bag opens on both ends to allow access to all of the ports without removing it from the bag.

Specifications:

• Power Output: 350 watts (continuous)/ 1200watts (peak)
• Number of output sockets: 2
• Battery: Two (2) 12Vdc, 7AH SLA provision for external battery pack
• Charging Voltage Input: 100V-240V / 14Vdc (car battery charger)
• Charger: Built-in
• Weight: 8.5 kg (18 lbs)
• Dimensions: 14.5″ x 5.5″ x 7″
• Available Models: 115V/60Hz (North American, Japan) 230V/50 Hz (EU, Asia-Pacific, Middle East
  230V/60Hz (Philippines)

Setup

What setup? You take it out of the shipping container and its ready to go.  The only thing you need to do is keep it charged up. According to the instructions, you should keep in plugged in even when not in use, this will keep the lead acid batteries in optimum condition as well as always being ready for use.  This was a concern of mine since a fan is running and even though the instructions say it will use a trickle charge, I wanted to know how much power draw it was really taking. Using a Kill-A-Watt to measure to power draw I found that while the system is charging (charge light is blinking) was 80 watts, wow, that would be pricey to have plugged in all the time. However, as soon as the system hit a full charge (charging light went solid) then the power draw dropped to only 6 watts, now that’s more like it as I have numerous electronics around the house that use more than 6 watts when in standby mode so keeping the Explorer XT plugged in all the time.

Usage

The Explorer XT is designed to be dead-simple to use. Just turn it on and plug in your devices and use them like normal.  The Explorer XT has two outlets on the front that output clean power from the Explorer XT’s internal pure sine wave inverter.  Having a top-notch pure sine wave inverter is important as it helps protect the devices that you have plugged into it. Besides just being a portable battery solution, it can also be used in between your equipment and a low-cost gas generator. At first that may not make sense, why would you need the Explorer XT if you have a generator? The issue is that low-end generators can’t handle the peak demands that studio strobe lights require and they don’t have pure sine wave inverters. By using both a generator and the Explorer XT the Explorer XT will handle the load of the strobes while the generator will work to keep the batteries charged up.

Results

The only way to really test out the Explorer XT was to hook up some strobes and start shooting. While the unit is rated for up to 2400ws, I don’t have anything near that power, nor do I need it in my home studio. I hooked up two PhotoBasics Strobelites (150ws each) and one PhotoBasics StrobeLite Plus (200ws) for a total of 500ws and started shooting away with all three lights on full power.  The Explorer XT has three charge level indicator lights, High, Mid, Low, at 225 shots the light flickered between Hi and Mid and finally went solid on Mid at 250 shots. The only difference from being plugged into the wall socket is that the recycle time dropped from four seconds to five seconds, and if I was shooting as fast as they could recycle would creep up to about six seconds. A short pause in the shooting and the recycle rate would speed up again. At 250 shots and only having drained about 1/3 of the battery charge I finally ended the test since I don’t like putting unneeded wear and tear on my lights or camera but it did show me that I can easily do most any typical shoot that I do and still have plenty of power left to also run other accessories like a blower or laptop.

I am very impressed by the performance considering the small size and relatively light weight of the unit.

Top Ten Contest Entries

Nashville Train Station (link)
The Link (link)
Millenium Bridge (link)
Nicholson Viaduct (link)
The Road Goes on Forever (link)
Gothic Walkway (link)
Quase Infinito (link)
Golden Beach Dock (link)
DC Metro (link)
Her first day on the job (link)

And the winner is……

LShadrack's The Link

LShadrack’s entry, The Link is our contest winner. This killer shot of a bridge in Kansas City played well with the theme of the contest, nailed the symetry of structure, was exposed well, and made for an excellent image. Congrats!

Show Hosts

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

This podcast is also available on iTunes.

I have mentioned David Ziser’s upcoming seminar series several times and I will continue to until it is over as it is going to be the one big not-to-miss seminar this year. David is an expert on lighting and technique and presents these topics in very easy to understand ways so that you can go back and start implementing them immediately.

David Ziser’s Digital WakeUp Call 2009 Tour will get underway on March 30 and hits 58 cities across the country. I got a sneak peak at some of the material while at WPPI and it made my entire trip worthwhile so I am personally excited about the Digital WakeUp Call Tour.

I had asked David how I could help promote tour for him and he responded with a special discount code for Camera Dojo readers. The discount code ZKGDWC09 will get you into the seminar for only $59 (a $20 savings!).

Who Should Attend?

I have been asked this a lot, and while David is one of the best wedding photographers in the world and certainly many of the examples will be of wedding images, anybody that wants to shoot people, make their images better, and learn Lightroom, should most certainly attend. Even if you are not selling weddings or portraits, for $59 you will improve the quality of your images signifigantly by using the techniques that David will be teaching.

Is It Worth Attending?

Again, yes yes yes!! For $59, you will leave with materials worth $250 more than you paid to get in:

• Tour Handbook including: program notes, photography, marketing and more
• 2 Hour DVD with extended program content
• $100 Rebate from American Color Imaging
• 1 year membership to WPPI and Rangefinder magazine, a $99 value
• FREE 3 month membership to DigitalProTalkPlus.com, a $45 value
• FREE 3 month subscription to PPA Magazine, a $15 value
• FREE PPA Indemnification (no-fault) insurance for all new PPA members, a $50 value
• Over $2,500 in door prizes awarded each evening
• And a chance to win 1 of 4 Grand Prizes worth over $5,000

Where will it be held?

The answer is, almost everywhere. David (and his amazing model LaDawn) will bring DWC to 58 cities across the country. The the schedule and registration page lists all of the days and locations. I will be attending the one in Irvine, Ca on May 20th.

Links:

Digital WakeUp Call Tour
David’s Digital Pro Talk Blog

Please check out California Sunbounce at http://www.sunbounce.com

Want to make your shooting easier so you do less cropping in post production? CropLines has the answer with engraved focus screens for 8×10, Rue of thirds, school portrait, or other designs so that you can nail your image in-camera.

Many photographers use or are considering flash brackets so that you can keep your accessory flash above your camera regardless of whether or not you have your camera in its vertical or horizontal position. The Reporter Flash Ring is one of the simplest flash brackets I have ever seen Instead of a series of hinges and brackets, the Reporter Flash Ring has a rong around the lens that doesn’t move and the flash slides around on the ring on a set of rollers. The design is simple and effective.

While not everyone wants their own photobooth, if you are looking to make you own, check out the new photobooth software from TOFURIOS. Their photobooth software is the best I have seen so far.

Stay tuned, more to come!

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

Watsonville, CA (PRWEB) January 26, 2009 — ExpoImaging Inc. (www.ExpoImaging.net), developer and marketer of innovative camera accessories, including the Ray Flash Ring Light Adapter, ExpoDisc Digital White Balance Filter and the ExpoAperture2 Depth-of-Field Guide, today announced that it is now the exclusive U.S. distributor of Honl Photo Professional Products.

Developed by veteran photojournalist David Honl, The Honl Photo Speed System is a collection of lightweight, durable and affordable light modifiers for shoe-mount flashes including an assortment of grids, snoots, reflectors, gobos and gels. With retail prices ranging from $9.95 to $29.95, these practical tools were designed to universally fit all shoe-mount flashes without the use of annoying adhesives. As photographers increasingly take advantage of the power and flexibility of modern portable shoe-mount flashes, the Honl Photo Speed System allows them to affordably bring studio-style lighting effects into the field.

“With more than two decades of professional experience, David Honl’s work has been published worldwide,” said Erik Sowder, president of ExpoImaging. “David developed and field tested the Speed System while traveling on assignment under very challenging conditions. We firmly believe that there are no similar products available that are more practical or easy-to-use. And we are pleased that David recognized our sales and marketing success and chose ExpoImaging to be his exclusive U.S. distributor. We look forward to representing these innovative and unique lighting products.”

The Honl Photo Speed System consists of:
· The Honl Speed Strap: a simple, non-slip velcro strap that wraps around the flash head and attaches and removes in seconds. The Speed Strap avoids rubber bands, tape and sticky residue, and universally fits any shoe-mount flash. The Speed Strap provides a large wraparound surface area to quickly attach Speed Grids, Speed Gobos/Bounce Cards, Speed Snoots or Honl Gels. The Honl Speed Strap retails for $9.95.

· Honl Photo Speed Grids (patent pending): weighting just 3 oz and available in 1/4-inch and 1/8-inch grid, the honeycomb-like cells narrow the beam of light from a portable flash unit, producing a small circle of light on a subject. Perfect for dramatic lighting effects, Speed Grids fit any shoe-mount and most handle-mount portable strobes and attach quickly and easily to a Speed Strap. Honl Photo Speed Grids retail for $29.95.

· The Honl Photo Speed Gobo/Bounce Card: a versatile gobo made of black ballistic nylon on one side and white polymer on the other. The black side can be used to keep light from flaring into a lens when using a flash as a background or hair light. The white side can be used as a bounce card. Utilizing two gobos, photographers can create a barn door setup. The Honl Speed Gobo/Bounce Card attaches quickly with a Speed Strap. The Honl Photo Speed Gobo/Bounce Card retails for $14.95.

· The Honl Photo Speed Snoot/Reflector (patent pending): available as a 5-inch “Shorty” or 8-inch “Regular”, this snoot is constructed of black, ballistic nylon with a gray interior that produces a soft falloff. The snoot can be shaped to concentrate the light from a shoe-mount flash for dramatic cinematic lighting or opened-up to use as a flash bouncer/reflector. Ideal in a variety of settings, from basic portraits to dramatic background lighting, the Speed Snoot/Reflector attaches and removes in seconds using a Speed Strap. The Honl Photo Speed Snoot/Reflector retails for $29.95.

· The Honl Photo Gel Kit: colors strobes to correct for tungsten, fluorescent or daylight lighting environments or adds artistic color effects to images. These superior quality gels are pre-cut and have attached strips of velcro to secure quickly to a Speed Strap, and can be used in conjunction with Honl Snoots, Gobos and Grids. The usable gel area is 2.5 inches by 4 inches (approx. 64mm by 102mm) and can be trimmed to fit individual strobes. The Honl Photo Gel Kit retails for $29.95.

“We feel fortunate for the opportunity to partner with ExpoImaging,” said David Honl. “We chose to work with ExpoImaging because they’re good at marketing and they have a great reputation in the industry. We look forward to a long and mutually beneficial business relationship.”

The addition of the Honl Photo line further solidifies ExpoImaging’s position as a leading supplier of unique and exciting products that meet the needs of photographers at all levels.

Honl Photo Professional Speed System Products are now available at photo dealers nationwide and online by visiting www.ExpoImaging.net.

About ExpoImaging, Inc.

ExpoImaging Inc. markets and develops innovative camera accessories and is the pioneer in digital white balance filters. Ray Flash: The Ring Light Adapter, Honl Photo Speed System, ExpoDisc Digital White Balance Filters, and the ExpoAperture2 Depth-of-Field Guide are available at select photography dealers worldwide, or online at www.ExpoImaging.net.

###
David Griffin
Matter Communications — Providence
401-351-9504 (direct)
508-648-1176 (mobile)
dgriffinmatter (AIM)
david@matternow.com
www.matternow.com

Carlos lays down the challenge to Camera Dojo listeners to post images taken with a single light source. To submit your images, add them to the comments on this page.

Be sure and check out Carlos’ website at http://carlosbaez.com and check out his DVD at http://www.photographymentor.com/school/seethelight

Show Hosts

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

This podcast is also available on iTunes.

From Scarlett:
“I had so much fun last year shooting a sizzlin’ bride and groom session in the glamorous lights of Vegas with Ross of Flosites.com and his bride Leysa, and this year, I want to give you the same opportunity for some rockstar portfolio pieces too! For those attending WPPI this year, I’m hosting a stylish photoshoot in Vegas again. Lyndsay, who won my “I Want to Spend A Day With Scarlett” contest will be the model with her hot husband as we shoot around the city that never sleeps! ”

To join in on the photoshoot, the session fee is $199 and we’ll shoot on Monday, February 16 at 7pm. To sign up, send Scarlett an email at scarlett@scarlettlillian.com! This a FIRST COME, FIRST SERVE event, and WILL sell out, so by emailing, you are agreeing to reserve your spot by paying the registration fee!

One of the sponsors, Pocket Wizard, will be at the workshop filming an exclusive BEHIND THE SCENES video of Scarlett and all of you participating in the workshop! So bring your inner rock star and get ready to be on camera! Seriously, you won’t want to miss this!

One lucky winner will get a chance to win a FREE spot in the workshop, so let’s do another CONTEST! The winner will ALSO win a pair of Pocket Wizards, AND the 1st, 2nd, & 3rd place winners will all win a Trendy Camera Strap, and Camera Dojo Powertools & Dojo Wedding Tools Lightroom presets! Woo hoo!!

You guys got so creative with the “I Want To Spend A Day A With Scarlett” contest, but this time, let’s call it, “I Want To Shoot With Scarlett in Vegas!”

THE RULES:

1. You have to be in the pic. You are welcome to have others in the picture as well!
2. The pic has to say somewhere “I Want to Shoot With Scarlett In Vegas” whether holding a sign or photoshopped or whatever.
3. Get creative as you want, and try to tie in something Vegas into it! You can dress up like Elvis, or reenact Britney’s quickie Vegas wedding, or show me your winning hand at poker, or whatever you want!
4. Once voting is opened up, you will want to blog/Facebook/Twitter about your contest entry and direct people to come vote for you here on my blog!

Because WPPI is quickly approaching, the DEADLINE for contest entries is next Monday, February 2 when the Finale of my video blog premieres!! Then we’ll have my blog readers vote on the winning photo to award the winner! There is limited availability for the workshop to keep the group intimate for learning and getting the best shots, so for those interested, go ahead and sign up now, and if you win, I’ll refund your session fee!

Thanks to these amazing sponsors! Check them out!!!

Trendy Camera Straps (Scarlett will be hanging out at their booth, more details later on how you can come say hi!)
Pocket Wizard
Camera Dojo
Modern Photographers

“Hey Guys,

I got a question for ya. Sorry the answer to this might already be on your site somewhere but I’d just thought I would msg you instead. I was wondering if you had any suggestions for photography books either having to do w/ business or the technical side of things. I’ve read Professional Wedding Photography by damien lovegrove and am in the process of reading understanding exposure bryan peterson. I have fast track photography on order..

Maybe one to do w/ posing??? Its weird I study photography all day long everyday.. but when it comes down to being w/ the couple it’s like I forget everything I ever learned and freeze. Then i want to slap myself because I could have done this or this shot but was having a brief moment of anxiety. I suppose posing and things will come with practice and the more I do it but I really thought I would have the hang of it by now. Any suggestions? ”

Yes Heather, David and I both have a list of suggestions for you.

David’s Picks

• Jerry Ghionis’ Pic Pockets $80
  These are small reference cards that show a specific scene, then on the back it goes into detail as to how the shot was taken.
  https://www.theicesociety.com/?page=72
• Bambi Cantrell’s Cue Cards $100
  These are stacks of cards demonstrating different poses and ideas to give you recommendations for setups.
  http://cantrellportrait.com/extra/online_store.php
• John Mireles Look Book $75
  More like a paint swatch sampler, the look book contains a wide variety of common poses to help you from getting into a rut or just for inspiration if you need some.
  http://photographerstoolkit.com/lookbook

Kerry’s Picks

• Photographing People – Rotovision $26.00
  Excellent book on posing and lighting setups and each shot includes a 3D drawing showing exactly how the set was designed with the placement of lighting, subject, reflectors, camera, etc.
  Photographing People: Portraits, Fashion, Glamour
• Posing for Portrait Photography: A Head-to-Toe Guide by Jeff Smith – $21
  This is  great book that goes through the correct placement of each section of the body from head to toe with plenty of example images to help make the point.
  Posing for Portrait Photography
• Professional Portrait Posing: Techniques and Images from Master Photographers by Michelle Perkins $23.72
  This book goes through the particular styles of a handful of professional photographers to show their distinct styles for posing and lighting subjects.
  Professional Portrait Posing: Techniques and Images
• The Moment it Clicks – Joe McNally $39.59
  Joe is a master of lighting and this book, while designed as a book on lighting, uses almost exclusively human subjects so it also is an excellent book for posing.
  The Moment it Clicks

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

Overview

The VerteX is designed to give the ultimate in lighting control from a typical speedlight by allowing almost an infinite amount of adjustment. The VerteX is a mechanical device that can accept one or two panels on it to allow you to send the light in the specific direction(s) that you want.

The VerteX works by having a swinging arm that can have either one or two flaps attached to it that can rotate 360 degrees. Each flap has a mirrored side and a white diffusion side.  By adjusting the swing arm and the flaps you can split the light coming out of your accessory flash and send the light in different directions. Nothing else on the market today gives you this much control over your lighting.

Setup

Normally I would go into a real lengthy section and maybe even some step-by-step pics showing how to assemble a product. Bust seriously, the VerteX takes about 30 seconds to setup, you will spend more time reading this paragraph than you will spend setting the VerteX up. You take the two arms and snap them into place in the holes on the sides of the rubber band, push them together over the cross piece, and push the flaps into place, which are held there with magnets. That’s it. I find it easier to get onto the flash if you attach the rubber band to the flash head right after putting the two arms on and before attaching the cross bean and flaps. In under a minute you are ready to start taking pictures with the VerteX.

Usage

I am going to be really honest here, if you really don’t understand lighting, you may have trouble previsualizing what you can achieve with the VerteX. However, if you are the type of person who can look at a scene and know, for example,  that you want a slight shadow from one direction, a little fill up front, and some top lighting, then you will be able to use the VerteX to it’s full potential. Since you can split the light and send some forward, some up to bounce off the ceiling, some left to bounce off a wall, you can achieve lighting effects that otherwise would have required multiple strobes.

Results

Before getting into wedding photography I did mostly product photography so using multiple lights was second nature, getting into wedding photography felt very limiting as it really isn’t practical on most shoots to lug around multiple light sources, radio remotes, light stands, etc and the current light modifiers on the market work very well in specific situations, but there hasn’t been a product that could really give you the flexibility of multiple light sources from a single strobe head until the VerteX. Here are a few shots from a recent wedding where I used the VerteX to get some really nicely lit indoor shots.

Summary

While the VerteX may look like a homing beacon for an alien spacecraft, it does exactly what it is intended to do. I am thrilled with the control over the light that it gives me and enables lighting that simply wasn’t possible before.  For $49.95, it isn’t any more than other brand-name modifiers but it does give you a level of control that other products do not. I have used the VerteX at several weddings now and it has not come off my flash yet. The only real negative thing I can say is that if you happen to bump something and one of the flaps comes off, they are so light that you stand a good chance of not noticing since you usually wont hear it hit the ground. Most of the time I use it as pictured in the image to the right with only one flap, so if I actually lost one for good, I could get by for a while, so keep an eye on the panels wqhen you are moving your equipment around.

Here is a little video showing more about the VerteX and how I use it.

VerteX Light Modifer from Presslite from Kerry Garrison on Vimeo.

Product Review Scorecard

Product Page: http://www.presslite.com/vertexinfo.php
Company Page: http://www.presslite.com

Author: Kerry Garrison

1. DIY Photography
   (http://www.diyphotography.net)
   Udi does a terrific job at bringing alternative ways of lighting, shooting, and creating light modifiers to people without unlimited budgets.
2. John Nack’s Blog
   (http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/)
   John is the product manager for Photoshop and almost every day has a new blog entry with something interesting or cool to look at.
3. Photo Business News
   (http://photobusinessforum.blogspot.com/)
   John Harrington writes several times a week with news and information relevant to the business of photography. This is one of my must-read blogs every week.
4. Strobist
   (http://www.strobist.blogspot.com/)
   David Hobby has several posts a week that specialize in talking about working with small accessory flash units and getting the most out of them. This is definitely one of the best sites if you are into lighting.
5. Lightroom Journal
   (http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal/)
   This is the official blog from Adobe for Photoshop Lightroom. All official Lightroom news is posted here.
6. Lightroom Killer Tips
   (http://lightroomkillertips.com)
   Matt Kloskowski posts excellent tips and presets several times a week for Lightroom users.
7. Digital Pro Talk
   (http://digitalprotalk.blogspot.com/)
   This is the home of David Ziser, one of the top wedding photographers in the world. David is one of the most prolific bloggers around and posts awesome shooting and lighting tips virtually every day. He posts so much that its hard to keep up with all of his posts. This is another must-read site.
8. Flash Flavor
   (http://flashflavor.com/)
   Matt Adcock takes some of the most amazing photos you will see anywhere and is simply an inspiration to go through and see what he is doing and how he does it.
9. Digital Photography School
   (http://digital-photography-school.com/blog/)
   This site from Darren Rowse is chock full of good tips and tutorials with new content on a regular basis.
10. Rob Galbraith DPI
    (http://www.robgalbraith.com)
    Rob always has good information and is often the first with breaking news.
11. TWIP
    (http://twipphoto.com/)
    Although known more for their podcast than their blog, the This Week in Photography blog has a new post every day. Maybe someday CameraDojo will get mentioned on their show (hint hint) – wow, CameraDojo got mentioned on their site today!
12. Photoshop Insider
    (http://scottkelby.com)
    Another site with several new posts every week from Scott as well as regular guest bloggers.
13. 1001 Noisy Cameras
    (http://www.1001noisycameras.com)
    With new info more often than you change your underwear, 1001 Noisy Cameras may never win a design excellence award but certainly is at the top of most lists of useful and informative sites.
14. Pro Photo Life
    (http://www.prophotolife.com)
    This site from Jim Talkington amazes me that I don’t see it on most “top sites” lists like this. Jim does regular video tutorials and the wealth of content on his site is awesome. If you aren’t visiting this site every week, you are missing out on some fantastic stuff.
15. PhotoJojo
    (http://photojojo.com)
    You don’t even have to remember to go to PhotoJojo, this is a twice a week newsletter that is emailed to you with cool stuff in every email. Sign up and never miss it.
16. Photo Walk Pro
    (http://www.revellphotography.com/blog/)
    Jeff Revell’s site is another often-0verlooked site since many people think it is just about photo walking. Jeff also does a good amount of tips and tutorials for shooting and for working with Photoshop.
17. The Pioneer Woman
    (http://thepioneerwoman.com/photography/)
    Ree Drummond must be the most amazing woman on the planet, with multiple blogs about her life including photography, cooking, home and garden, and more she is a non-stop blogging phenomenon. While her sites appeal mostly to women, her photography stuff appeals to everyone.
18. Lighting Essentials
    (http://www.lighting-essentials.com)
    This is another excellent site for tutorials on lighting. Don Giannatti is an awesome photographer and is bringing his knowledge and experience into this website.
19. DPReview
    (http://dpreview.com)
    If you just have to know everything there is to know about camera bodies and lenses, DPReview is the encyclopedia of all camera knowledge when it comes to specs and unbiased technical reviews.
20. AllTop
    (http://photography.alltop.com/)
    Alltop.com is the brainchild of Guy Kawasaki and the photography section is filling up with a great list of photography sites. Bookmark this page there and never have a lack of reading material.

While there are dozens of other sites out there that are all worthy of being on any list like this, I decided I was going to stick to the top 20 sites that I personally use. Please add your own favorites into the comments.

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

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

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

With Extreme 24.5-Megapixel Resolution, Processed Image Files Exceeding 138 MB, Five Frame-per-Second Burst Speed and Nikon Core Technologies, the D3X Ushers in a New Level of Image Quality

MELVILLE, N.Y. (Nov. 30, 2008) - Nikon Inc. today announced the D3X, an FX-format digital SLR featuring extreme 24.5-megapixel resolution and superb low-noise capabilities, which provides professional photographers with commercial-quality image performance in a familiar and extraordinarily versatile D-SLR form factor. In conjunction with the groundbreaking Nikon FX-format D3, the D3X tops off a collection of flagship level, rugged, professional caliber digital single lens reflex cameras engineered to excel in all types of professional photographic disciplines from photojournalism and sideline sports, to commercial in-studio applications.

The foundation of the enhanced performance of the D3X is its FX-format, 24.5-megapixel (6048 x 4032) CMOS sensor providing commercial, high fashion, fine art and landscape photographers with the extreme resolution, dynamic range, color depth, detail and sharpness that clients demand. Whether creating catalogs, magazine covers, billboards or gallery prints, the large 5.49-micron pixel size and high signal to noise ratio produces vibrant images with breathtaking image fidelity while reducing lost highlights and shadows, and ensuring smoother tone reproduction with minimized noise. With full resolution shooting speeds of up to five frames-per-second (fps), and 14-bit files, that when processed are approximately 138 MB, the D3X offers today’s photographic artists an extreme level of performance and versatility ready for demanding assignments in the studio or on location.

“In 2007, the 12.1-megapixel FX-format D3 delivered groundbreaking digital SLR image quality, coupled with incomparable high ISO, low noise performance and high-speed handling. In doing so, the D3 broke photographic barriers, enabling photographers to work in ways never before possible,†said Edward Fasano, general manager for Marketing, SLR Systems Products at Nikon Inc. “Now, the new 24.5-megapixel FX-format D3X D-SLR provides the extreme resolution and high dynamic range capabilities needed to meet the extraordinary needs of photographic disciplines such as high fashion, commercial advertising and fine art. The D3X delivers this remarkable capability while fitting seamlessly within the Nikon system, taking full advantage of Nikon’s world-renowned collection of NIKKOR lenses and Speedlights.â€

Image Quality Takes Center Stage
To re-emphasize the importance of image quality above all else, the D3X delivers an incredible level of digital SLR performance to provide photographers with extremely high resolution, exceptional dynamic range, phenomenal total gradation and outstanding color reproduction. Image files can be recorded as TIFF, JPEG or NEF (RAW) formats in either 12- or 14-bit compressed or uncompressed formats, and recorded to UDMA compatible CompactFlashâ„¢ cards for optimum speed. Photographers can save image files directly to the dual card slots as overflow, backup, or as separate file formats to different cards. Building on the D3X’s flexibility, users have the creative option to shoot in the 5:4 crop mode with 20.4-megapixel resolution, the ideal format for creating 8 x 10-inch portraits. While using DX-format lenses, faster continuous shooting of up to seven frames per second can be achieved at a resolution of 10.5 megapixels.

The exceptionally low noise of the D3X is essential to any professional commercial application, and it provides photographers with an ISO range of 100 to 1600, expandable to 50 (Lo-1) and 6400 (Hi-2). The ultra smooth tones and lack of grain at ISO 1600 as well as at low sensitivity settings result in smooth, natural skin tones and exacting detail that, before the D3X, required larger and far costlier studio-bound camera systems.

Advanced Technologies, Meticulously Executed
In a commercial setting or on location, imaging professionals need high performance in both speed and processing. The Nikon D3X can shoot at up to five fps at full resolution or up to seven fps in DX crop mode, allowing photographers to catch the split-second difference in a model’s expression or capture all of the action in a sequence. Just like the D3, the D3X achieves a start-up time of a mere 0.12 seconds and a shutter release time lag of 0.04 seconds.

The D3X’s speed, as well as high levels of performance, leverages Nikon core technologies including a newly enhanced EXPEED™ Image Processing System, specially designed for the D3X to provide superior image quality, faster processing speeds and lower power consumption. This advanced system is able to achieve extremely precise color reproduction for a broad spectrum of hues, in addition to vivid saturation and smooth gradation. What’s more, Nikon’s advanced noise processing function is engineered to minimize noise at all sensitivities and operate seamlessly without interfering with other image color parameters.

The D3X also features Nikon’s exclusive Scene Recognition System, which continuously analyzes information from the 1,005-pixel RGB light sensor, to further refine auto exposure, auto white balance and autofocus calculations. This results in flattering portraits and awe-inspiring landscapes that portray accurate color and fine details. Nikon’s exclusive 3D Color Matrix Metering II helps ensure accurate exposures, even in the most challenging lighting conditions. Instantly evaluating each scene before capture, input data from the system’s sensor is automatically referenced against an internal database of more than 30,000 images derived from actual photographs to calculate correct exposure values. Active D-Lighting, used in combination with 3D Matrix Metering II, helps to determines proper exposure, and creates realistic contrast while compensating for lost shadows and highlights. Prior to shooting, users can choose from Extra High, High, Normal, Low or Off settings, as well as an Auto mode.

Additionally, the D3X features Nikon’s exclusive Multi-CAM 3500FX focus module, with 51 AF points, 15 cross type sensors and 36 horizontal sensors that easily track and lock onto moving subjects, delivering the same fast and accurate AF performance that helped make the D3 immediately successful. Users can select any of the AF points, making it easy to consistently attain accurate focus right on a subject’s eyes, frame after frame. Additionally, three AF-area modes – Single point, Dynamic-area AF and Auto-area AF – are available to maximize the use of the 51 focus points by selecting the most suitable one to match subject conditions. AF is also available in one of two Live View modes optimized for the studio, including a phase detection handheld mode and a tripod mode. This feature allows the user to zoom in up to 27x on the LCD screen to ensure critical focus. While in Live View, the graphic indication of a virtual horizon is also available, making it easier than ever to confirm camera orientation.

To further ensure each photographer’s ability to balance their personal style, Nikon’s Picture Control System enables users to adjust their images to pre-set parameters such as Standard, Neutral, Vivid and Monochrome that apply tweaks to image sharpening, tone compensation, brightness, overall tone and saturation. Photographers have creative control over these image parameters with the use of up to nine available customizable presets.

Synchronizing Both Form and Function
Engineered for real-world functionality, the D3X retains a rugged shell with moisture, dust and shock resistance that has become a hallmark of flagship Nikon D-SLRs, while preserving the usability and ergonomics that allow the camera to remain an extension of the photographer’s vision. Attention to detail goes so far as to include a self-diagnostic shutter system that is tested to exceed 300,000 cycles for maximum durability and longevity. The camera’s body also maintains the resilient magnesium alloy construction and form factor of the D3, promoting consistent Nikon system synergy.

A bright and accurate viewfinder offers 100 percent coverage with 0.7x magnification. The body also houses Nikon’s acclaimed 3.0-inch super density LCD screen, now relied upon by so many photographers. The high-resolution 920,000-dot screen is viewable at wide angles up to 170 degrees, and will allow photographers to quickly zoom in to confirm critical focus. Users can also output the video signal to an external display via HDMI to allow client viewing. Thanks to incredibly efficient internal circuitry, the D3X can capture up to 4400* shots per single charge of the camera’s Lithium ion battery.

System Strength Withstands the Test of Time
The D3X is fully compatible with Nikon’s Creative Lighting System (CLS) to give photographers a mobile lighting solution that is easy to manage. To further enhance mobility, the D3X is compatible with Nikon’s GP-1 GPS receiver to gather information such as latitude, longitude, altitude and date of shooting. Photographers can easily shoot tethered via USB, or use the WT-4a wireless transmitter to send images wirelessly when speed and mobility are essential. D3X users will also enjoy the system strength of more than 50 genuine NIKKOR lenses that provide outstanding sharpness and high resolution across a broad range of focal lengths.

Price and Availability
The Nikon D3X will be available at Nikon Authorized Professional Dealers starting December 2008, and will be available for an estimated selling price of $7999.95.**

* Based on CIPA Standards
** Estimated selling price listed is only an estimate. Actual prices are set by dealers and are subject to change at any time.

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

• 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)

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Kerry and David discuss the new features of Adobe Photoshop CS4 and give their impressions of Lightroom 2.1.

Kerry talks about OnOne Software’s Photoframe 4.0 and FocalPoint 1.0.

Before using FocalPoint

After using FocalPoint

Video Light Link
SUNPAK RL-20 Readylite 20 Video Light

Please feel free to send in your letters, questions, and comments to podcast@cameradojo.com, leave a message in the forums, or send us a message at twitter or facebook.

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• 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

I have been a fan of Wolverine products for almost four years now and my trusty Wolverine FlashPac was in need of an upgrade. Not that the FlashPac didn’t do it’s job, its just that it was pretty slow and didn’t have a display that could be used to view the images. Without hesitation I turned back to Wolverine to see what they had available and I found the new ESP Digital Photo Album and Multimedia Player. While the full name may be a bit long, it does convey a lot more of the ESP’s features as well as being a card reader, external hard drive, and FM radio.

Overview
The ESP is an incredible multimedia device that can handle most all of your portable multimedia needs from listening to MP3′s, watching videos, playing a photo slideshow, or listening to FM radio. While many people will love all of those features, from a photographers point of view the most important things to me are the ability to do backups of my compact flash cards in the field, review the pictures on the device, and to have a portable device to show potential clients a slideshow of my work. The ESP does all of these tasks quite well and at a price that won’t make you wonder why you didn’t just buy a nice laptop instead.

Top view of the ESP

Features
As already mentioned the ESP has a multi-function card reader that can either make backups to the internal hard drive of the ESP or when connected to your computer’s USB port your cards will appear of drives that you can access directly.

• Store and View Thousands of Photos

• • Download images directly from any digital camera without a computer
  • Use it to backup and carry all your digital images
  • Display JPEG, Bitmap, Tiff, Text and RAW images (most popular SLR Cameras)
  • Print directly to printers

• Store and Play Thousands of Songs

• • Supports five music Formats: MP3, WMA, OGG, WAV, AAC (MP4-audio) & CDA
  • Easy, drag and drop music files from your computer and play them instantly

• Store and Play Hundreds of Hours of Video

• • Supports: MPEG-1, MPEG-4, WMV9 and Xvid

• Built-in FM Radio

• • Listen and RECORD your favorite talk shows or music from any FM Radio Station
  • Scan and preset up to 18 different Radio Stations

• Plugs to TV and Stereo System

• • With the included Video/Audio cable connect the ESP directly to any TV or Projector
  • View a slide show of your favorite photos or watch recorded videos on the big screen
  • Connect to a stereo system to enjoy and share your music collection

Setup
The setup of the ESP is quite simple, it comes with both an AC adapter and a USB cable, be sure and plug it in until fully charged before using it the first time, after that the simple to navigate menu system walks you through everything you need to know.

“The ESP was a lifesaver for us at a fashion shoot when the assistant left the CF cards back in the car. With the ESP we would fill up a card, tell everyone to take a five minute break, dump the cards to the ESP and get right back to shooting.” – David , Esquire Photography

ESP Controls

Usage
The ESP’s operating system is very simple to use and works the way I would expect it to, when I insert a card it pops up and asks me what I want to do with it, I select backup and it just starts working. The main controls consist of the “joystick”, a menu button, and the ESC button.

Using just these three simple controls you can manage everything on the system. The “-” and “+” buttons control volume. The only other control is the power button on the right side as well as a lock control to keep the power from coming on accidentally.

At the bottom you can see a small mic port for doing audio notes and near the top are the LED indicator lights.

The has an optional docking station that can also be used for capturing video and audio from remote devices. Since I don’t have a use for that right now I didn’t get one yet to see how that works.

ESP Menu System

The menu system is an icon driven system with easy-to-read captions to help you navigate. Pushing left/right or up/down on the directional pad will move you from application to application and then pushing in will select the item. The Menu key will give you a list of available options from wherever you are while the ESC key will back you out one step at a time.

The main thing to keep in mind is that images that are backed up from a memory card are found in the Backup application instead of the Pictures application. You have to specifically copy images into the Pictures folder for them to be viewed there. This is a great way of having a photo slideshow of images without getting confused as to what images are from your current photo shoot.

What I actually like to do is to backup my images to the ESP and then if I have time, review them for focus issues or just for being a bad image, I can delete them right from the ESP and save time later when importing the images into my computer.

ESP playing video

For client meetings, I also created a couple of really nice slideshows using Proshow Gold and output them formatted properly for the ESP. Let me tell you, the image shown here does not do the ESP justice, the screen may only be 320×240 but the slideshows and pictures look fantastic on it. So far, everyone that has seen the slideshow videos on the ESP have been very impressed.

The ESP has a bunch of other features that I could spend a few more pages writing about but they really don’t have much appeal to me, these include the mp3 player, the FM radio, the audio recorder, and the Tetris-like game that is included. While those are nice add-ons, they really aren’t the main reason a photographer is going to want the ESP.

Tested Transfer Speeds (1gb of data)

Reader to Computer    3:31 minutes
Reader to ESP    3:43 minutes
ESP to Computer    1:44 minutes

Why the ESP?
Why would I choose the Wolverine ESP over the Epson P-5000? The simple answer is a cost/benefit analysis blows the Epson out of the running. For almost twice the price of the Wolverine ESP, the Epson P-5000 offers basically a nicer screen. When the folks at Wolverine decided to make a new device, they interviewed tons of photographers and asked them what they would like to see that would compete against the Epson units and the top answer was that they wanted a much more affordable device even if it meant having a lower resolution LCD display.  If I am going to spend $800 for a portable media device, its going to be a new laptop, not a small box I throw into my camera bag and use mostly as an external drive and card reader. Coming in at $329, the ESP is much more affordable and does it’s job exceptionally well. It’s a nice upgrade from my old FlashPac in terms of functions and download speeds which is a nice bonus as well.

What’s in the box
In the box you will find the ESP unit itself along with the nice quality carrying case along with the user documentation and CD, AC charger, USB cable, Audio/Video cable (to connect to TV), and Earphone.

Summary
The Wolverine ESP competes nicely against other units offering similar features and at a price that doesn’t give you sticker shock. The base features do exactly what they are supposed to do while there are enough extras to add even more value to the package. I don’t leave for a shoot without my ESP in my bag and often will be making my backups of my cards on the drive home. With my old Flashpac I would have to be quite far away to actually finish a large backup on the drive home but now it takes a fraction of the time.

Final results:

Website: Wolverine Data
Author: Kerry Garrison

Features

The official feature list is show here, we will dig into more of these later on:

• New 15.1 Megapixel CMOS sensor with improved noise reduction, wide range ISO 100-3200 (H1: 6400, H2: 12800), 14-bit conversion for smooth color tones and gradations.
• Next generation DIGIC 4 Image Processor for faster processing, 6.3 fps up to 90 JPEGS using UDMA CF cards; 60 consecutive JPEGS or 16 RAW using standard CF cards.
• 3.0-inch Clear View LCD (920,000 dots/VGA) with multiple coatings for improved viewing and smudge-resistant protection.
• Enhanced Live View shooting includes Face Detection Live mode.
• 9 cross-type high-precision sensors for accurate target subject acquisition and diagonal center cross-type AF point with f/2.8 and faster lenses.
• New Lens Peripheral Illumination Correction setting to automatically even the brightness across the image.
• Updated EOS Integrated Cleaning System with a fluorine coating for better resistance to dust.
• Creative Auto goes a step beyond full auto with on screen setting display.
• HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface) output for displaying full high-resolution images on a High Definition TV.
• Compatible with over 60 Canon EF/EF-S lenses and most EOS System accessories.

The new sensor

As expected, a new sensor is built into the 50D that improves the light gathering ability by using bigger micro lenses over each pixel. Effectivily this will give you 1 to 1.5 stop of better noise reduction allowing you to shoot at ISO 3200 and have images that have noise that is closer to what ISO 1600 looks like on the 40D. Like the previous 20,30,40, the 50D is an APS-C sized sensor giving is a 1.6x crop factor and delivers images at 4752w x 3168h pixels. The integrated cleaning system is also claimed to work better than the one built into the 40D.

The new processor
The next generation of the Digic processor, the Digic IV is debuted in the 50D. This new processor is claimed to be 30% faster than the Digic III and provides a plethora of new features.

• Full size RAW (15.06 megapixels), sRAW1 (7.12 megapixelss) and sRAW2 (3.76 megapixels)
• Three levels of High ISO Noise Reduction
• Three increments of Auto Lighting Optimizer
• Peripheral Illumination Correction – This is a vignette control based on profiles of Canon lenses
• ISO 100 – 3200 is standard along with extended ISO of 6400 and 12,800
  

Better Storage

Although many of us were hoping for dual card slots, the 50D still sports a single Compact Flash slot although support of UDMA makes for faster read/write speeds.

Better LCD

The LCD on the rear has been improved with more resolution giving you 920,000 pixels which now gives you even great clarity than previous models. The Live Mode provided through the read LCD has also been improved with two types of autofocus now available including a simple quick mode that toggles the Live View off while the camera performs the focus and Live autofocus that uses contrast detection like we saw possible when using DSLR Remote Pro for tethered shooting. Like many new point and shoots, the 50D now has face detection when using the Live Mode autofocusing.

Shipping and Price

The EOS 50D is supposed to be available sometime in October at $1,399. As the camera gets closer to the release date I am sure more information will become available, especially from some of the sites that get pre-production units to test.

For a detailed hands-on preview of the 50D, check out: http://www.dpreview.com/previews/canoneos50d/

Source: http://www.usa.canon.com

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

Are you too “Pro” to use a tripod? Think again as we discuss different tripods types and why you need to have a good tripod.

Assignment: Build a Portrait Cheat Sheet
Take images of someone rotating through 180 degrees to see how the light changes on the person’s face. Post your cheat sheets to our Flickr group.

Picks of the week

Kerry
The R-Strap camera strap
http://www.blackrapid.com

David
Drobo 2.0 Drive Enclosure
http://www.drobo.com

Your hosts this week are Kerry Garrison (http://kerrygarrison.com) and David Esquire (http://esquirephotography.com).

Notable Links:
Prophotolife.com
lensbabies.com
lensprotogo.com

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