Get organized.

One of the most difficult parts of being a photographer has always been the organization of your images, post capture. Back in the film days it was easy to just chuck them in a shoebox and label them “pictures”. Once every few years you might pull it out and look through them with no rhyme or reason. Heaven forbid you try to find a specific one. If you shot slide film it was a little easier because you could put them into protective sleeves and then into binders or folders.  However, to label them was a challenge all its own.

Then the world of digital came around and you started shooting more and more images because “pixels are free”. You put them all in a folder on your hard dive labeled pictures and suddenly you realize that you have thousands of photos that might as well be in a shoebox. You could rename all the images to give you a better idea of the photograph but searching for something specific was difficult. Now, there are many programs out there to help you manage your photographic inventory. The two primary programs for professional photographs are Adobe’s Lightroom and Apple’s Aperture. There are others out there as well so please don’t send hate mail. Personally I use Lightroom 2 (Lightroom 3 has shipped!) and it is available for both Windows and Mac. Aperture on the other hand is only available for Mac. Both programs are good at managing image libraries and editing your photos. In fact, I rarely ever go into Photoshop any more as 99% of all my editing can be done in Lightroom 2.  I will not go into specifics for this post (more to come) but I will cover some of the library basics. The key really is to stay on top of your image library and not to let images pile up over months or even years. Here are some suggestions for you to ensure that you don’t lose control of you images.

1. Put all you images in one folder! You can have subfolders inside the main but ensure that you have that one main folder. Me? I use _Photos as my folder name. Using the “_” before the name places it at the top of the list on the hard drive.

2. Come up with some naming convention that works for you. Both Lightroom and Aperture can help with this upon import. I use the date followed by “_” followed by the original name given by the camera. They look like this: 100527_JEP5975

3. Key Word all your images. Inside Lightroom you can place key words on your images that will allow you to search the database later (they will also be in the metadata when you export them). This is a powerful feature so long as you code them correctly. You can do batch key wording to make life easy.

4. DELETE all the bad photos. If the photos are out of focus or hopelessly under/overexposed then just delete them. The more junk you have the harder it is to find what you are looking for and the more hard drive space it takes up.

5. Backup, Backup, Backup. I cannot stress this enough. If you do not have three copies of your images then you don’t have one copy of your images!

No matter what program you choose stay on top of your images.  That way you can spend more time in the field and less time behind the computer trying to make sense of the mess.

Change Your Perspective

When you first arrive at a photo location what do you do? Do you immediately take out your tripod, fully extend the legs, and put your camera on the head in the landscape position? If you do all these things (and I am guilty too) then you are limiting your creativity. I would suggest that you take your camera and walk around just a bit to find different angles and heights. Find what you are looking for THEN get your tripod. Most of my landscapes are all taken from a height that allows me to look into the viewfinder without having to bend over. This is something that I am working to change.  Why?  Because everyone does just that.  Believe it or not but just the change of a few feet can make a difference.  If you are taking some portraits try extending the tripod all the way and then hold it way above your subjects. This may take a few times to get it right but the perspective will be unique.

If you are photographing wildlife remember that it is important to be at eye level or lower.  The reasoning behind this is that it gives the subject a sense of power.  The image below of a wild turkey would have had a different feel if I had been on my feet.  It would have seemed smaller than it was and not nearly as commanding of its environment.  I had the tripod collapsed as far down as I could get it and I was down on my knees in the wet grass. 

There was one morning that I was in the Foothill Parkway overlooking the Great Smoky Mountains. While I was there a van full of photographers enjoying a workshop showed up and started the tripod extending process. By this time I had climbed to the top of the Ford Explorer I was driving and set up my tripod. As these photographers walked by I heard several of them laughing at me for standing on top of the vehicle. As the sun started coming up they quickly realized that the underbrush directly in front of them blocked a magnificent sunrise. One of the photographers that laughed at me quickly looked up and said “well, I guess you do have the best seat in the house”. I just smiled.

With the advent of digital everyone is a photographer. If you want to be different start my changing your perspective.

Rough day of Shooting

Sometimes you have the highest hopes for a day of shooting but it just doesn’t happen. Today was one of those days… I whet with a friend to a local park here in Miami early this morning. First, I woke up late which is a terrible start but I did get out the door in enough time to find good light. It was a bit on the humid side so I was a little concerned about the lenses fogging up but I had some anti-fog wipes for just such an occasion… I left them at home! I spent a good portion of the morning trying to clean off the lens. Almost all the shots that I took this morning ended up with fog on the lens and not usable. The humidity continued to haunt me the rest of the morning with the heat index reaching 101 by 9:00am. While at the first location we discovered tons of dewdrops hanging off multiple plants. In these dewdrops was the reflection of the trellis overhead. It was a good opportunity for some macro shots. I left all of my macro gear at home! In an effort to salvage something I shot 500+ photographs today. I think I kept TWO and I am not crazy about them.  See below.

HDR image

HDR image

What, if anything, could I take away from a day like this? TONS! First of all, I had a great time with a friend which cannot be overlooked. Second, we found some good locations with some unbelievable potential given the right light and lenses with no fog. Third, I know what not to forget next time. While there were not many visual pluses for today it was not completely unsuccessful.

Product Review: Really Right Stuff BH-55 Ballhead with B2 AS II clamp

The Really Right Stuff BH-55 Ballhead was a purchase that I debated for years. I had a good ballhead (Manfrotto 469RC) as it was but it was a bit on the heavy side and the operation was getting sluggish. There were several posts by some world famous photographers boasting about this particular item but I just wasn't buying it... After all, a ballhead is a ballhead right. Time past and I just kept looking at it over and over. Needless to say, I made the purchase along with an "L" bracket for my camera and custom plates for my lenses. Here are my basic findings:

Pros:

• Relatively lightweight
• Very sturdy
• Smooth/flawless Operation
• Liquid Level on the clamp (great for doing panoramics)
• Solid Quick Release Lever and custom quick release plates
• Low Profile
• Fast locking knobs to hold the camera where you want
• Good tension knob with a large amount of adjustments possible
• Stylish... and really cool looking

Cons:

• The quick release lever is long and sometimes gets in the way when removing or mounting the camera with a large lens attached (tripod colar mount on the lens). This however, was more me getting used to the equipment than an actual con. By the end of the first day I had it down pat.

Really, the only other con I can think of is the price tag. This product is only available through the Really Right Stuff website. You can check them out here http://www.reallyrightstuff.com/.

Conclusion:
So, why would you spend this much money on a tripod head?  The answer is simple; quality and reliability.  The very first day I used the BH-55 I took a good tumble down some wet rocks....it hit the rocks really hard (as did I) but the clamp held the camera firmly in place (saving the camera from a watery grave). The cosmetics of the ballhead were damaged but the functionality remains sound. At least now it looks used.... Overall, I wish that I had bought this product years ago. Really Right Stuff has a new and very pleased customer.

Having fun with Portraits

I am a nature photographer at heart. I love wildlife, streams of flowing water, majestic mountains, and wildflowers in bloom. Here lately I have been working on portrait photographs and trying to find ways to make it unique. One way I have found is to combine portrait work with the outdoors for "on-location" portraits... While I was in Tennessee I had some folks that wanted portrait work done so we found a few locations and off we went. Well, the only exception would be the baby of course. Having great subjects is always a plus as I am sure you can tell by the results below.  Take a look and let me know what you think.

Don’t get too hung up on the Technical

But don’t forget about it either...
When I first started in photography I was so focused on gear and making the right exposure that I completely missed the composition aspects. Sure, I had some good gear but my photographs lacked depth and substance...they were still “snap shots”. Okay, before we continue on there is a disclaimer: You have to master exposure in order for your vision to show at its fullest potential. At some point along the way I started really looking at the work of other photographers and attempted to understand what they were going for with their image. It was then that I started becoming a better photographer.

Think outside photography
There is an art form that has been around for thousands of years that can benefit most photographers if we would just take time to look. Painting….I recently became friends with a painter by the name of Angeline Martinez. I started really looking at her work and asking questions to try and understand how she created the image. We as photographers can learn a great deal from this form of art. Painters have to make so many choices. They have to choose the scene, the type of material that they will paint on, the colors, color mixtures, type of paint, mixed media, lighting dynamics, overall subject, and the type of emotional message that they want to produce. If we as photographers could just take the time to study the images that we take with this level of detail we would only improve our work. You can check out Angeline’s work (and I suggest you do) at http://www.angelinemarie.net/ and her blog at http://angeline-marie.blogspot.com/.  Both are well worth your time.

Ansel Adams used to say you don’t take photographs you “make” photographs. That is my point!

Understanding Exposure (Part 3 of 3)

ISO
ISO is the measure of a Camera's digital sensor's sensitivity to light just like the film speed in the old days. A high ISO means that it takes less light to make an exposure than a low ISO. As a general rule the lower the ISO the higher the image quality and vice versa. When the ISO is increased the noise (or grain if using film) increases degrading the image. The following is a quick list of the ISOs that most DSLRs have: 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600. 

The images below represent two different ISOs to give you an idea of the image quality you might see at different ISOs.

ISO 100

ISO 1600

So, why do you pick one ISO over another? Well, it depends on the light situation and what kind of shutter speed or aperture you want and what type of image quality you can live with...  Personally, even with noise reduction software I find it difficult to live with an ISO above 400.  Newer full frame cameras have incredible ISO performance so technology is changing the way we shoot.  Still you should always choose the lowest ISO you can get by with for greater image quality. For more information on exposure check out my previous blog posts on Shutter Speed and Aperture.