The Candid Frame

If like me, you love photography podcasts, I really recommend you check out The Candid Frame. I like my photo gear as much as the next technology hungry photographer, but it's very refreshing to hear people talk about the art of photography and like the theme of recent shows says "living the photographic life".

I've been listening to The Candid Frame for a while now and I get real inspiration from the wide variety of guests that appear on the show. Host Ibarionex Perello has a nice laid back style and a fantastic smooth voice for podcasts. Ibarionex really makes his guests feel at ease and you feel that you're almost eavesdropping on a couple of photographers having a conversation over a coffee in a hotel bar. If you haven't listened to The Candid Frame, you should check it out at iTunes and start from the earliest ones and work your way up to the latest one.

Adobe Lightroom 3 Beta

Adobe Lightroom 3 Beta is available for download here. You should also watch the three tutorial videos at AdobeTV while you are finding your way through the new version. This is a Beta version for testing, and not the official release. At first glance there doesn't look as though much has changed, but when you start to poke around, you can see that there's quite a lot of new features.

The Library Module: As soon as you click the import button you will see a full new section that can be set to full screen mode for initial set-up and then reduced to a thin bar for day to day imports. A great new feature here is the ability to save import settings as snapshots. Unfortunately the import page keeps causing Lightroom to freeze all the time (it is Beta). Another great new feature in the Library Module is the ability to upload directly from Lightroom to Flickr.

The Develop Module: The big changes here are in the sharpening and noise reduction. There is a new Effects panel that revamps the way that post crop vignetting is applied. The Grain slider is a very welcome feature too.

As I've only downloaded L3 Beta today, I haven't had time to go through the full application, but I like what I've seen so far.

Find Great Light

Photography is about light. The most mundane and boring scenes can be transformed into fantastic shots just by the time of day that you shoot them. Photographs taken in the middle of the day tend to be uninteresting and more like snapshots (although there are exceptions). But the best light tends to be the first and last hour of daylight (known as the golden hour). Now I'm not saying don't take pictures at any other time, just don't miss the very best light there is, get up early or head out late. Winter is upon us, so sunrise is not that early and sunset is not late at all.

I'm lucky enough to be able to see up to six sunrises and sunsets per week, which is probably more than a lot of people see in a year! The shot above was taken yesterday at 7am with a Canon G9. The photo is straight out of the camera, with no editing whatsoever. The G9's meter overexposed slightly because the scene was quite dark, but I couldn't be bothered fiddling in the the menu to adjust the exposure compensation. I switched the flash on to fool the camera into bringing the exposure down. The foreground was far enough away that the flash had no effect. Go on, get out of bed and see what you're missing!

Photoshop Snapshot Layers

Here's a tip for one of the quickest ways to edit in Photoshop. It's called Snapshot Layers and is based in the History Panel and uses the History Brush. Load a photo into Photoshop and make sure you have the History Panel displayed, if not, got to the Windows drop-down menu and make sure there's a tick next to History.

For the photo above, I went to Filter then Blur and then Radial Blur. Click Ok and the Radial Blur will be applied to the full image. Now click on the small Camera icon at the bottom of the History Panel to make a snapshot. Make sure the new Snapshot is highlighted (it's the one at the bottom). Now you need to select a source in the history that you want to brush back onto the image. Click the small box to the left of the original Snapshot and a History Brush icon will be displayed in it. Select the History Brush from the left hand Tools Panel. Now paint in a circular motion in the centre of the photo and if you have chosen the right source and destination, the original photo should start to show through the blurred image (like the image above.

To darken a sky, adjust the Levels or the Bightness/Contrast for the full image and then use the History Brush to bring back the foreground. Or why not change the image to Black & White and use the History Brush to bring back selective color (color popping).

The best way to see the full potential of Snapshot Layers is to mess around with it. It's a quick and easy way to do most jobs in Photoshop. Remember to click on the Camera icon each time you make a change to the image, that way, you can bring back pixels from any point in the history of your editing.

Two Websites For Great Photos

Photography Served is the place to go if you like project based photography. you can loose track of time going from one project to the next, each one different from the last. At the foot of every page you will find a link to three more projects and before you know it, it will be way past your bed time. Click here to go to the site.

The Big Picture is part of the Boston Globe's website which posts a collection of pictures from a different photographer every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The images are chosen from all around the world. Click on each photo to view the full set. Click here to go to the site.

New Nikon D3s Out In November, But Don't Buy It....Yet

The D3 has had it's 's' update and is now available for pre-order from the usual outlets. If you are in the market for the D3s, I strongly advise not buying one for at least two months. I pre-ordered a D300s as a back-up from Calumet and was very unhappy when the price dropped drastically within a few of weeks. It's sad when you get screwed for being the kind of loyal customer that the camera manufacturers want.

The D3s has had a similar make-over to the D300s. 720p HD video is the obvious big addition, but the on line photographic community are already saying "why no 1080p?". The dedicated Live View button is a handy new feature, not just for video (see my Live View/White Balance tip here). The D3s also gets the quiet mode and Integrated Dust Reduction System. For a full list of the new features go to the Nikon site here.

How To Shoot Video At Night On A DSLR

I was going to write a post on shooting video at night with a DSLR, but this video does it better than I ever could in this short space. Check out the other great videos from Eye Patch Productions on YouTube.

How To See Your White Balance Live

White balance is very important, especially if you're shooting in jpeg. But it tends to be a bit of guess work and you're never sure of exactly how it's going to look. Well guess what...you can see it in the screen on the back of your camera.

Just put your DSLR into live view mode and move through the various WB settings. You can use the usual suspects, like Cloudy, Tungsten, Florissant, but it's really helpful when you start to tweak the Kelvin settings to get exactly what you need. When you get what you want, switch off live view and you're good to go

The Best Camera:: iPhone App

I've been using 'The Best Camera' iPhone app for a couple of weeks now and I have to say that it's the best photography app that I've came across.

The app is by photographer Chase Jarvis, who is one of the online photographic communities most prolific contributors. Chase has also put out a book of his iPhone photos called 'The Best Camera Is The One That's With You', and put up a website that ties in with the app. Here's how it works:

You take a photo with your iPhone or use one that's already in your Camera Roll folder. Then you apply any of the cool filters that do things like - add saturation, desaturate, darken, warm-up, cool-down, add vignette....etc. You can also crop the photo into a square and add a white border. The filters can be moved into a different order to change how they effect the photo, or you can remove the ones you don't like.

After you're done with the editing side, you click on the Share button and you can save it back to your Camera Roll, send as an email, send to Facebook and Twitter (adding text to your tweet too) and even upload it to thebestcamera.com to be displayed on the site. Tap on the Globe icon and it will take you to a viewing wall (see the photo above). This is the view from the Best Camera website and is constantly changing. Now you can see your newly uploaded photo and you can click on a thumbs up icon if you like other peoples photos. Warning it's addictive...but it's cheap!

The UK:: More Afraid Of Photographers Than Terrorists?

I was in Aberdeen at the weekend and woke-up early with the sun projecting a nice orange glow on the hotel room wall. I got dressed quickly, grabbed my camera and headed out for the golden hour. After a session photographing down at the docks, I passed by The Mall on my way back to the hotel. The side entrance has lots of stairs that go from street level to shop level, which I thought might make some interesting black and white shots.

Ten shots later, and with no-one about, I was done. I headed up the stairs toward the shops, but before I reached the top, I was confronted by a security guard who asked why I was taking photographs. He told me that I needed permission and a permit to photograph in the mall. I pointed out that if it was for terrorism reasons, I don't think that terrorists would be standing their with a full sized pro body DSLR and a big Nikon 17-55mm lens. The security guard shrugged his shoulders and I left The Mall, never to return...ever!

How many people do you think take photographs in that mall every day with point and shoots and mobile phone cameras? I would think plenty, just like every-other shopping mall in the UK. I'm no terrorist, but if I was, I would use a point and shoot with a subject strategically placed so that I got whatever I wanted in the background. I would not walk in with a few kilo's worth of Nikon gear and a jacket that has derekclarkphotography.com embroidered on the front and back. The Mall does conveniently display a floor plan on their website for all your terrorist needs Click Here , but I didn't want to infringe on their copyright by posting the plan here.

Photographers are not the enemy! I personally don't even think the enemy are who we're told they are. I don't remember Afghanistan invading another country. I did notice that the UK and US did invade two countries lately though. I suppose it's different from when Hitler did it???

Sorry if this is a bit heavy for a photography blog, but we're losing all our rights, and worse than that, people are losing their lives! I'd rather be squeezing a shutter than squeezing a trigger!

New Home For This Blog

Over the last few month my blog has been getting more and more visitors, which is great, but bandwidth was limited. In August I just made it to the end of the month before the bandwidth ran out, but last month (September) it ran out in the second week, which meant that my blog has been suspended for a couple of weeks.

I've moved to Blogspot for greater bandwidth and because I can finally get my logo at the top of the blog and move things about easier. Due to the old host and the new one being incompatible, I've had to migrate all the old posts manually, which took some time.

I will be posting here three times a week (Mon, Wed & Fri), starting from this Monday 5th of Oct. I look forward to some feedback from you the reader

Rules Are Made To Be Broken

There are lots of rules in photography, like don’t have your horizon in the centre of the frame, don’t have converging verticals and use a telephoto, not a wide angle lens for portraits. All good advice and worth keeping in mind most of the time.

On the other hand; sometimes you can get fantastic results from bending or breaking the rules. Take the above photo. Mark is a fantastic piano player who comes across as a very serious guy when you first meet him. But under the serious exterior, he has a terrific sense of humour. A medium telephoto lens, say 80mm or 105mm would have been fine for this backstage shot, but the 10mm f2.8 fisheye really helps to show you that Mark isn’t so serious after all. If a rule’s worth breaking, it’s worth breaking to the extreme.

Nikon Speedlights:: Part 3 - The Nikon Creative Lighting System

To round off this week’s Speedlight posts, I thought I would recommend a great book to help you master the Nikon Creative Speedlight system (CLS). The book is from Nikonians Press and is written by Mike Hagen.

Although it comes in at 153 pages, Mike Hagen’s book is split into sixteen chapters, four of which are optional. These are the chapters on the individual models, SB-600, SB-800, SB-900 and one chapter on the SU-800 SB-R200 and R1C1. The former three are pretty much identical and take you through all the controls of each flashgun. You can read the chapter for your model and leave the rest out until the day when you splash out the cash for the other toys. The rest of the book is made up of examples, accessories, camera set-ups, flash theory, CLS background and much more.

If you are new to the CLS system or if you just picked-up enough from the first few pages of the manual to get you by, this is the book for you. In a very short time you will know your model of Speedlight inside-out and be ready to rock in a full blown wireless system. This is the book that you should read before moving on to The Hot Shoe Diaries by Joe McNally.

Nikon Speedlights:: Part 2 - High Speed Sync

Scenario 1: You’re taking someone’s photo outdoors with the sun behind them. Or maybe you’re subject is indoors, a window behind them with bright daylight outside. Easy, just pop a bit of fill flash in to light the subject. But the background is too bright; the sky is a washed out blue and too bright in general.

Scenario 2: You’re using flash outside, but want a nice shallow depth of field. You’re in aperture priority mode at ISO 200 and the widest aperture you can use is around f18 at 125sec), but you need f1.8 or f2.8 to get that blurred background you’re looking for.

Solution and Set-up: Use high speed sync! For this (the tip you never see in books), you will need to set-up your camera first. Go to your camera Custom Settings Menu > Bracketing & Flash > Flash Sync Speed. Now choose either1/320s (Auto FP) or 1/250s (Auto FP). I use the former, but any one will do (the important thing is the Auto FP). That’s it, you can leave it set that way forever.

Here comes the science bit: When you use a shutter speed of 250th or slower, the front curtain moves across to the end of the frame, and then the rear curtain follows. This leaves a point in the middle where the curtain is fully open allowing one big pop of flash light to expose the whole frame. If you use a very fast shutter speed though, the rear curtain follows the front one so soon that there is only a thin slit moving across the frame. But in high speed sync mode the flash will fire rapid bursts of light that will expose the full frame in stages.

Aperture priority mode will give you nice even results, but try using the camera’s manual mode and you can up the shutter speed as high as you like (8000th of a sec if you like) which will darken the background, still keeping your subject evenly exposed. You can almost change your background from day into night. Try experimenting with a combination of shutter speed, aperture, exposure compensation and flash compensation. You won’t always get the result you expect.

Nikon Speedlights:: Part 1 - Setting Up Wireless

In any wireless system you need a sender (commander) and a receiver (in this case a wireless flash). There are three options to use as a commander, camera pop-up flash, SU800 Wireless Commander or another hotshoe Speedlight.

Using the pop-up flash: When the pop-up flash on your camera is used as a commander, the flash fires before the photo is taken, sending rapid pulses of light that instruct the remote flash(s) how long the light should last and how much power to use. The downside to using the pop-up flash as a commander is that it could cause your subject to blink. I’ve never had this problem, but it is a possibility.

The SB900 is so simple to set-up and use. 1. Turn the selector switch (on/off switch) on the right hand side to Remote. 2. Use function buttons 1 & 2 to change the group and channel settings. If you’re only using one remote Speedlight, then set it to Group A, Channel 1, but as you add more Speedlights you will need to use different Groups. Make sure the Groups and Channels on the Speedlights match the ones on the commander.

The SB800 is a bit intimidating when you pick it up for the first time, but it’s easier to work than it looks. 1. Press and hold the centre SEL button for 2 seconds. 2. Move the cursor to the box with the squiggly lines (see above) and press SEL (the up and down arrows appear). 3. Scroll down to remote and press and hold select for 2sec. REMOTE is displayed on the LCD. Pressing the SEL button toggles between the group and channel sections and the up and down switches on the main selector increases or decreases them.

Controlling the wireless flashes from your camera: The great thing about wireless Speedlights is that they are controlled from the camera. So once your lights are set-up, you can stay behind the camera. Go to Custom Settings Menu > Bracketing/Flash > Flash cntrl for built-in flash > Commander Mode. To set the camera’s pop-up flash as a commander,change the Built in flash Mode from iTTL to – (two dashes). Group A and B adjust your Remote flash’s.

Nikon D300s Raw Files:: DNG Workaround

So, if like me, you have your new Nikon D300s and are out there shooting lots of photos to test it out. Maybe, like me, you have an important job coming up and you’re looking forward to putting it to work. But if you shoot in RAW and use Lightroom or Aperture, you have a problem, as the D300s is so new, neither Lightroom nor Aperture can handle the Nikon NEF RAW file format for the camera yet. So until they have been updated, you will either need to shoot JPEG or use Adobe’s DNG converter (*see bottom of this post about Camera Raw 5.5). I always shoot in RAW, so JPEG is not an option for me.

Using Adobe DNG converter, there are two ways to go. The first option is to convert NEF to DNG...job done. The downside is that you can’t extract the NEF file once the Lightroom/Aperture updates are available. The second option is to convert to DNG, and embed the original NEF file inside the DNG. The downside to this is that the converted DNG file will be around 25mb, double the size of your original NEF, but you will be able to extract the NEF at a later date.

*There is a 5.5 update for Camera Raw which covers the D300s, but it looks like it will only load on a 64bit machine. Photoshop CS4 will not work on a 64bit machine (according to the forums). Camera Raw 5.5 won’t work in Elements either...useless!

Download Adobe DNG converter at http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Camera_Raw_5.5

If you want to see previews of your DNG’s in Windows explorer, you will need to download the DNG Codec at http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/DNG_Codec

Media Storm

If you’re into photo journalism or documentaries, then head over to www.mediastorm.org. The site is photography based, but the images are interwoven with video and music to create fantastic pieces of multimedia. Subjects range from easy on the eyes to hard on the heart and mind. There are some fantastic films on a wide verity of topics. Some of the hardest hitting are, Bloodline, Rape of a Nation, Never Coming Home and The Marlboro Man.

My personal favourite is ‘Intended Consequences’ by photographer Jonathan Torgovnik. The film starts with a young Rwandan girl holding a photograph of a lot of skeletal remains, and pointing out which ones are her mother and her brother. It’s a powerful piece on Rwandan children that have been born through rape, and the mothers who say they don’t love their child.

Intended Consequences, like everything else on MS, is a first class piece of journalism. Don’t forget to watch the epilogue, where photographer Jonathan Torgovnik tells his story of having to interview these women. Jonathan tells the story so well, and you get a real sense of how much of a mark it has left on him.

www.mediastorm.org

www.jonathantorgovnik.com

Sigma 17-70mm f2.8-f4.5

I bought the Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-f/4.5 about six months ago when I was planning on buying a spare Nikon body as a back-up. I had a similar size Nikkor lens, but I wanted to keep that in my main camera bag. I bought the Sigma because it was an f/2.8 at the wide end. I payed £128 second-hand from eBay and didn't expect much. Six months on and I'm using this lens more than any other. The 17-70mm is one of the sharpest lens's I have used and it's not even one of Sigma,s high-end EX range (I have a new Sigma 10-20mm EX now too). If my gear got stolen tomorrow, this is the first lens I would buy again. The only downside is that it's not a fixed f/2.8 aperture.

I had a shoot last week for an album cover by Italian guitarist Will Barbero and the 17-70mm was the lens I used for 90% of the job (Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 made up the other 10%). The photo of Will bellow was taken by the Sigma and has been reduced from a 9.35mb raw file to a 43.3kb 640x425 blogable image. Taken at 40mm, f/5.6, 60th sec, 200 ISO on a Nikon D300 on manual.

Give Us A Decent Viewfinder On A Small Camera...Please!

So Olympus has released the E-P1 Pen Camera. I’d like to try it out, especially at higher ISO’s to check the noise levels. A smallish camera with interchangeable lenses is most welcome for a carry everywhere unit, but it has one very important thing missing...a viewfinder.

I know that Olympus has a hotshoe viewfinder available as an optional extra for the 17mm pancake lens, but what I’m looking for in a small camera (Canon G11, Olympus E-P2, Panasonic LX4, Nikon P7000) is the following...

I want a really nice viewfinder with all the usual shooting info on display - aperture, speed, ISO, exposure compensation... I don’t want to look at a 3” screen when I’m taking a photo, it doesn’t feel right. I’ve used Live View on my Nikon DSLR about twice since I bought it, and both times was for shooting at ground level. At the very least, I’d like a nice bright, wide viewfinder with good optics and I’d settle for the shooting info on the LCD.

DVD Review:: War Photographer

War Photographer is a powerful and fascinating documentary on DVD following photojournalist James Nachtwey through various countries and subjects. From war to famine, Nachtwey captures images that are not for those with a weak stomach. Using a micro movie camera mounted on the photographers SLR still camera, we see both the photographers point of view and a look back into the eyes of Nachtwey himself.

Nachtwey is probably the opposite to what you would expect a war photographer to be. He's a quiet, shy and caring guy who hasn't became hardened or indifferent to other peoples suffering. He does what he does to bring awareness and to try to change war and famine by showing the harsh truth. The music on the film is perfect for the images that it accompanies and is a big part of what makes this documentary so powerful. One of the best chapters on the DVD, and a great example of hi-impact imagery and a perfectly matched score, is the section on Rwanda http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMR1dTSR-lA . I highly recommend this DVD if you are interested in photojournalism, or war and everything that it brings.