Yosemite in Moonlight © Bill Shupp 2012

Visit Bill’s Flicker stream and leave him some comments!

~TEU

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Look at your lens in good light, ooh shit!

It has been a busy and LONG Holiday Season and your cameras are a little worse for the wear. Time to clean the mud splatters off those bodies and clean your lenses too. Curious as how to exactly one goes about the vaunted  clean your lenses rituals? Observe is the no frills PT cleaning crew:

Use this stuff to clean your lenses

1. Lens fluid
2. Lens tissue (very light and lint free) (Please do not use Kleenex for Pete’s sake)
3. One stubby oil paint brush from the art store discount bin (for dust in crannies)
4. Giottos dust and sensor blower (for dust on your sensor)
5. Similisan homeopathic eye drops for your eyes. (Will NOT sting like Visine)

It is simple:

First blow and then dust of your lenses with the brush. Moisten the tissue with the fluid and apply to your lenses, use a dry piece to follow up. Look at the surface it good light to see your work; reflecting the light source or window light in the glass of the lens or filter allows you to see parts you missed or remaining smudges or fingerprints. Some suggest the use of the microfiber cloth, and I find them great in the field for impromptu use. When I need a real squeaky cleaning, I use the paper. Repeat as necessary. Remember your viewfinder eyepiece and your iPhone lens while you have the stuff out.

Fear not your sensor

To clean your sensor refer to your manual for manual sensor cleaning, remove the lens and raise the mirror to open the camera as per your camera’s instructions. Doing this facing the camera down gives the dust only one place to go, down and out. Carefully blow onto the sensor twice from each corner.  Turn the camera off and check for dust by shooting the sky and checking the image on the computer. VOILA, vous et finis!

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Slow exposures can add drama to family action shots!

ISO raise it now judge it later
Don’t forget the WB
Prime Lens Nifty Fifty
Flash if needed (the camera version)

Get your camera out, don’t be afraid! I have holiday photo tips for family and friends.
You have four secret or not so secret weapons for improving your indoor photography of family and friends this year as the Holidays get into full swing.

1) Raise the ISO.
Pretend you are a news photographer and set your camera ISO to 1000 or higher. Yeah, or higher. If your photos are good no one is going to gripe about the noise. Honest.

2) Set your White Balance.
Prithee, Look at the light. Indoors you will most likely be looking at fluorescent light or tungsten light. Two choices, easy! If you own a Nikon tungsten light is known as “Incandescent” light. *

Fluorescent light is served green with a side of yellow. With compact fluorescents now the colors have more daylight and tungsten “nuances”. Your mileage may vary but by all means try it out.  Set your camera to the fluorescent icon. Nikon owners explore your WB flourescent menu!*

Tungsten Light is served heavy yellow with a side of red. Tungsten light makes you see orange people. It is very common mistake, so fix it. The difference between orange people and properly complected people need not be belabored here. Contrary to rumors regarding the Minority Speaker of the house, chain-smoking does not lead to orange-ishness.

3) Use a prime lens.
If you have a nifty 50mm or another prime lens with a wide aperture, and you have set the previous two items on your camera you are in great shape. You can bask in nice fast shutter speeds in normally challenging light and get good color quality and good moments with steam off the cups of hot chocolate. Remember dragging the shutter will let the motion of the activity tel the story, one does not need be devoted freezing action.

4) Use your flash.
If needed and thoughtfully…
In strong backlight go for flash right away; pop that little guy up into action. With strong natural light and strong shadows get Pro Style results by using the flash exposure compensation features on almost all digital DSLRs made. With a little thought and implementation you can preserve your natural light feeling and get just enough shadow fill to impress even your Mother-in-Law. The key here is to set the flash to under expose (reduce the flash power) by 2 or even three stops. Find this icon and use it to set the flash power. Try it, you’ll like it!

Camera meters do not see the way we do!

Sometimes they get along…

My parting shot
Do not be passive and reactive. Own the moments. Move your subjects around if need be, into the light of a window, to a more interesting place with and clean background. A little provocation can be useful. Be the director, take advantage of the liquor being served and have some fun with your camily and famera; er, family and camera. ~TEU

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Zoe the Spider preparing her web for Christmas feast

216 shots

Rejected: 92

Unrated: 64

1 Star: 8

2 Stars: 24

3 Stars: 19

4 Stars: 8

5 Stars: 1

38 minutes

There you have it, one good shot for special occasions…

Less is more. Amen.

I like Lightroom very much for editing.

For my first pass edit I can go quickly with my right hand index and second fingers on the left and right arrow keys. My left hand middle three fingers on the 2,3, and 4 keys. These apply star ratings of the same number. My thumb is available for the X key to reject mistakes. I do not assign 1 to an image very often. Rejects get tossed, some unrated images may get tossed too. I do the first pass as quickly as I can while checking shot data, gamut warnings, and the histograms. That is it.

For my second pass edit I see if twos threes and fours can be either upgraded or downgraded. I look at depth of filed in similars, I look at the shutter speeds in action images. I look for tight and wide treatments of the same subjects with an eye for cropping for the story. I see what I have in the fours and fives. They are my heroes.

~TEU

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Reset the camera time party; bring honor to your metadata. Ignore the musician.

Setting your camera time clock for the seasonal time change is made easy with some models by virtue of a little daylight time click box. The underlying importance I want to emphasize is that the time is recorded in your metadata. The more we use better programs to edit and organize (ahem, Lightroom, Aperture) the more time of capture (IE: properly set Camera Time) is very helpful, if not crucial, to know when we sit down to a serious editing session.

In the above iPhone photograph please ignore the Dr.Beat metronome. This happens all the time…upon hearing that the timekeepers were all gathering for a change, this fidgety gadget thought he could blend-in to the party and get some free food. Typical musician.

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Two Photobooks to kick your DSLR but.

Yes indeed, there is a unique opportunity to supercharge your photographic knowledge and craft. Put your camerra down for a little while and curl up with these two books, I know, I know, the world is full of photographers and photography books. What is a photographer to do? Cross train! Just like the concept has been applied to athletes to combine workouts to build strength working muscles in one program and then promote flexibility with stretching in another, I encourage you to consider this conceptual camera cardio.

The moment it Clicks

The Moment if Clicks, by Joe McNally and The Elements of Photography, by Angela Faris-Belt are two engaging and easy to read photography books from radically different points of view. We all know that in making photographs perspective is important, and these two will rock your boat just enough to shake your creative waves for a good soaking.

The Moment it Clicks gives you an in depth visit to the life of Mr. McNally –one of the worlds best editorial photographers. The photographs are keenly visioned with impeccable technique. Combined with McNally’s natural and blunt gift for storytelling, this book impossible to put down. Joe’s humor, passion for photography and enthusiasm for sharing his methods is inspiring to anyone who wants more out of their camera.

The Elements of Photography

The Elements of Photography is a thorough and captivating journey into the current state of Fine Art photography from a fresh academic point of view. This overdue book, created as a text, promotes the elements of photograph as a visual grammar. Helpful because the vernacular and literacy of our visual world is well, non verbal. Faris-Belt finds the Elements as The frame, Lenswork, Exposure Time, and the Physical Material manifestation of the image as her key components to the craft of serious image making. The careful illumination of these elements supports Faris-Belt’s mission to push us all to create more soulful and sophisticated images. To support this there are good images from other practitioners of the craft of Fine Art photography. Easy on the eyes, the book is easy to read, there are exercises even civilian workaday photographers can do and learn from.

Faris-Belt’s patrician and formal presentation sets up an invigorating cadence with McNally’s baptism by fire accounts of pleasing big time magazine editors. We can see deep into the formal  fundamentals of an evolved craft, and we can visit the world where photographs are service and commodity in the modern world we now call home. During a life where we admittedly love making photographs, we find we can make images with time and thought and there will be times we work in a frenzy of inspiration or abject fear. This serious postulation of Faris-Belt’s tome resonates very well with McNally’s Devil-May-Care go with your gut methods. Reading these books together can help you find your time and place in terms of what you like to shoot, this will help you develop your voice and style.

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©Elliott Erwitt/Magnum Photos

This man’s work has inspired me from the age of 10. A master of the human photograph, the Decisive Moment, what one can do with a camera a thought, and a little tongue in cheek.

In support of getting you all to practice  your dSLR chops,  look at his work here , and set your ISO to 400 for the rest of the week. It will be a good one!

TEU

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The cutest photo ever taken

This June headline in the Huffington Post –The cutest photo ever taken,  sure got a lot of attention. It was the cutest photograph ever made for about 15 to 20 seconds when someone took another photograph just as cute. Nevertheless, for the suspended time being, this photograph has a lot going for it, especially the purity of youth. Technically we could make noises regarding the sharpness, the busy background and so forth but this is simply not important. The key here is the Garfield Moment we get from the kitten’s eyes. It is all there. Words are not necessary.

The lesson here is that photographs do not need to be perfect to be great. Everyone with a camera gets to make a shot like this now and then, so get out your camera, crank up the ISO have at it. Every 20 seconds, you might be next! Do however make an effort to watermark or mark ownership of your image in some way; we searched and searched and were unable to find the creator of this photo. What a shame!
TEU
PhotoTrainer

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Rock your soul...

Practice, practice, practice!

A Google search on the words “How to Practice” yields 188 million links. Million. I read them all. The three top groups in the results are

• 1) Musical practice methods,
• 2) Meditation techniques, and finally
• 3) the many ways one can practice evidenced-based Psychiatry.

Practice holds the promise of a better result, a  and improved ability. Before I take a run at the dart board with my 16 year old son, I want a few practice throws. We are always learning, we all know that we can do better if we take time to concentrate, apply mindful attention, and…focus.

Well well well! It is interesting that musicians, yogis, and psychiatrists  regularly borrow this refined concept from photography, – the magic of the lens to clarify vision. The ability to focus is an enduring metaphor for the power of the mind. But we often give the lens too much credit.

One would think practicing photography is easy. No need to drill through odd time signatures with a metronome, No need to battle against the mind’s background noise , and no need for Board Certification. We get to wake up in the morning and grab the new lens and play, hell, We even have auto focus.

But it is not that easy is it?

We still have to quiet the mind, put in the time, and certify the images we want to keep. No one can sneak away. Here are some techniques I have used in the past.

• Write down your ideas. Resolve to turn off the phone, tell the family goodbye, and get away. Same time each day, or week. If it happens once a month consider yourself lucky.

• Set the camera on P and FORGET about settings for a half hour. OK 20 minutes. Move in and out instead of zooming.  Keep moving. When something captures your interest, apply the settings you know will help the shot. With a tripod if necessary.

• Keep shooting and moving. Control your breath, and keep breathing.

Later that evening…

• Back up files. Look at them in a good file browser. Rate them.

• Repeat.

TEU

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I want all of you in the PhotoTrainer sphere of influence to take a good look at the San Francisco Chronicle’s web showcase for their photographer’s out-takes. This is a veritable gold mine of information as the shot data is right there.  The exposure and ISO give you a little extra glimpse into the photographer’s mind set and approach. Mind you, these pros shoot three/four assignments a day thinking story and technique the way we think about driving down the block, or getting groceries. You can see how the constant photographing makes them really good at seeing color, details, use of foreground and elements to frame or off set subjects. I could go on and on but go look at these images instead, and tell us what you think.
TEU

Tom Upton

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