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Created and Maintained by: The Photoimaging Information Council |
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| May 12, 2008 | |||
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Waiting for the light by Allen Birnbach  Just look at the difference between the image below, and the image above. Though taken just a couple of minutes apart, a cloud passing overhead creates more focus on the rocks in the image above, and makes for a more impactful image.  For more detailed information and additional examples from this shoot, and other tips on how to improve your photography, visit Allen's photoblog at A Better Photograph.com.
The Biggest Filter by Allen Birnbach  Often, I when I am teaching a workshop and ask why people are attending, someone will say “I take pictures, but I don’t seem to get in an image what I had in my mind at the time I did the shoot.” This person is not alone in their lament. The reality is that the brain does an amazing job of filtering what we see, and thus what we end up with may not match the vision we had when we were attracted to a situation. True, there are other things that influence the image you end up with, such as cropping, angle of view, and choice of lens, just to mention a few. But one of the biggest factors is how our brain edits the external and forces it into the box our desires have created for the fulfillment of our photographic ideals, whatever they may be. I’m amazed at how often I drive by a location, and see a wonderful opportunity, only to return and find out there were power lines disrupting the clean lines of a building. Or a fire hydrant marring the simple lines of a street scene. In this situation, I was driving on a one way street that had three lanes of traffic, and I was in the far left lane. I noticed a building on the right side of the street that had several fruit trees in bloom, and the contrast of the pink flowers against the rust colored exterior wall was striking. I decided I would return the next day when I could make some time to spend shooting. On my return, I parked my car on a side street, turned the corner and walked alongside the scene I was so enamored with. To my dismay, there were stakes holding the trees in place, so I could not shoot from the top to the bottom of the tree. There was even a utility box next to one of the trees. This is the point at which I remind myself of the big brain filter I carry around with me, and laugh at myself. And it is also the time where I think about what it was that brought me to this place to photograph in the first place, and see if I can synthesize that into a different image that still made the same point. Here's one of the images I think made the grade.  For more detailed information and additional examples from this shoot, and other tips on how to improve your photography, visit Allen's photoblog at A Better Photograph.com
Always Ready by Allen Birnbach  I always have a camera with me. At least, a good point and shoot is in my daybag. But most of the time, I have a DSLR in the car with me. Here’s a good example of why I do it. A late spring storm brought wet snow to our area, and beautiful coating of the white stuff on the branches of the trees. The look is completely different than that of mid winter, where the snow would not stick to the branches and just pile up below. I was headed to a meeting, but stopped, grabbed this image, and continued on my way. It’s always good to be ready. For more tips on how to improve your photography, visit Allen's photoblog at A Better Photograph.com.
 I was walking along a trail in the redrock country of Utah, surrounded on all sides by big, undulating stone shapes. By themselves, of course, they can be wonderful subjects. But when I saw this dead tree coming up from a group of rocks, the contrast in texture was stark, especially against the clouds that added yet a third texture. Another treat was that there were three distinct values of light and dark (white in the clouds, midtones in the rocks, and near black in the tree) so there was great contrast as well. You’ll also note that I am using the rule of thirds, both horizontally in how I place the tree off to the right, and vertically by having the tree top two-thirds up the image. The result is a nice convergence of simple elements where texture can be the hero of the image. For more tips on how to improve your photography, visit Allen's photoblog at A Better Photograph.com
Photoshop’s Recovery and Fill Tool by Allen Birnbach  Look at this example. The highlights are blown out, and the shadows plugged up. But by using the Fill slider, I was able to pull back information that seemed lost. And the Fill allowed me to pull a bunch of detail from the shadows. Yes, some of this could have been handled a couple of other ways. I could have used Curves once the image was in Photoshop to help the shadows. Or, I could have done two conversions, one for highlight contro, one for shadow control, and then blended them as two layers in one file. But with these new features, I can get a lot closer to where I want to be a lot faster, which means my workflow is improved. Just take a look at the difference between the image above and the image below that which is the straight conversion.  For more detailed information and additional examples from this shoot, and other tips on how to improve your photography, visit Allen's photoblog at A Better Photograph.com.
Travels with Charlie by Allen Birnbach  Getting a good exposure can be difficult if you shoot with direct sunlight (either front or side lit) on your pet. That’s because with the extreme contrast in that kind of lighting situation, either the shadows will be too dark, or the highlights will be blown out. The image below is exposed for highlight detail, and look how the shadows plug up.  The better solution is to have your subject backlit. That reduces the contrast so the film or digital sensor can handle the range of exposure from shadow to highlight. Also, it will create some nice highlights in the hair or fur at the back edges, separating your pet from the background and adding a sense of depth. The top photograph shows that approach. Just look at the difference in this portrait of Charlie. And just think how much happier he was without having to squint! For more tips on how to improve your photography, visit Allen's photoblog at A Better Photograph.com.
Assembling an image to get the picture you want by Allen Birnbach  I saw this wonderful contrast between old and new Las Vegas one afternoon, and wanted to capture it in as dramatic a way as possible. I decided that the most interesting way would be to shoot it at dawn, when the neon lights of the old Greek Isles would still be lit, but the advancing sunrise would start to illuminate the glass of the new Wynn Tower with warm light, since it faced northeast. Unfortunately, when I went there the following morning, I discovered an interesting problem. The timers on the neon lights were set to shut the lights off at 6:40 AM, but the sun did not put really great color into the glass until 7:27AM. That meant that the image could not be created in one exposure because if I exposed for the neon,the building would be nearly black, and if I shot when the sunlight was right on the building, the neon would be off, creating a flat, lifeless image.  The way I solved the problem was to make sure I got the perfect exposure for the neon in one exposure, and then continue shooting to capture the perfect reflection on the glass. Once I had those, I could merge them in two separate layers in Photoshop, and end up with the image I had in my mind when I first saw the opportunity. In the end, though, I found an exposure of the sky shot somewhere between these two key elements that I thought added more depth, and used that as the sky for the final photograph. So ultimately, I used three separate exposures to make the image. Here's what the layers looked like in the assembled file, showing the various files, and levels and curves adjustments to make the image pop.  For more detailed information and additional examples from this shoot, and other tips on how to improve your photography, visit Allen's photoblog at A Better Photograph.com
Look behind you by Allen Birnbach  I was reminded on my recent shoot in Las Vegas of a simple but valuable truth. It’s good to look behind you. Of course there is the obvious safety reasons when you might endanger yourself by stepping back and either losing your footing, or backing up into a barrel cactus (yes, I’ve done that). But in this case what I am talking about is looking for opportunities for images. Most times, we get absorbed in watching the light at sunrise as it illuminates the view to the west. Maybe it’s a snow covered mountain, or a reflective building. There’s magic going on, and we get hypnotized by the ever changing quality and color of the light as it progresses second by second. What I want to suggest to you, though, is that when there is amazing light out in front of the lens, often times there is equally exciting light behind you. Sure, you could be looking back at a beautiful sunrise and the way it illuminates the clouds. But if you look at an oblique angle, you may find unique opportunities by isolating objects. Here is an example of the view looking East North East from the same spot where I was shooting west to the building in the image shown above. So always remember this simple idea to look behind you. It will reward you with great images you did not expect.  For more tips on how to improve your photography, visit Allen's photoblog at A Better Photograph.com.
Photographing neon by Allen Birnbach  The key to a successful image is to strike a balance between the light emitted by the signs and the ambient daylight so you can maintain a sense of the environment the signs are in. The way to do that is to shoot close to dawn or dusk when both the exposure for the lights and the ambient light for the sky and surrounding structures match. That means that you want to get to your location right around sunrise or sunset (depending on the background environment), do your scout, and find the spot you want to shoot from. I’d suggest bringing a tripod, since the exposures can be from 1second to 5 seconds long, depending on the situation, with an ISO of 100. If you don’t have a tripod with you, you could hand hold, but be sure to use a high ISO so you keep your shutter speeds up above 1/60 second. Maybe look for a surface to brace your camera against, like a wall or tree. Because the window for when the two kinds of light are aligned to make a great exposure is small, you may have to return to the area to make images of other signs.  Notice how the detail is held in the neon and the sky  Neon is overexposed, and being washed out by daylight For more detailed information and additional examples from this shoot, and other tips on how to improve your photography, visit Allen's photoblog at A Better Photograph.com.
The value of image stabilization by Allen Birnbach  In the past, the rule of thumb was that the lowest shutter speed you could handhold a camera at and not have movement was the inverse of the focal length of the lens you were working with. For example, if you were shooting with a 50 mm lens, you could shoot at 1/50 second. And if you were shooting with a 100 mm lens, you would have to shoot at 1/100 or higher. The problem with that is you might have or go to a faster film (or raise the ISO setting if shooting digitally). The sacrifice you made was increased grain with film, or noise with digital. Well, with image stabilization a little gyro inside a lens, or mechanism inside the camera figures out how much shake you are introducing into the situation and compensates. The results are impressive, sometimes allowing you to shoot at shutter speeds four stops lower than without image stabilization. Here are some examples I shot with a Canon 24-105 ƒ4L IS USM lens. If I were shooting this handheld without image stabilization, I would probably use 1/100 or 1/125 as my shutter speed. It’s a bit hard to see online, but when I look at the example at 1/30 there is definitely some softness from camera shake (the image at the top of the article is an example of 1/30 with the stabilization turned on). At 1/8, it is quite noticeable. But with image stabilization turned on, the exposure at 1/8 sec. is tack sharp. I’ve gained full four stops!   So if you have the option in purchasing cameras or lenses with this technology, I highly recommend looking into it. For more detailed information and additional examples from this shoot, and other tips on how to improve your photography, visit Allen's photoblog at A Better Photograph.com
MacGurus Storage Solutions by Allen Birnbach One of the most important aspects of shooting digitally is making sure you have a good storage solution for your images. In the old days, of course, we just had to have a file cabinet, in a cool dry spot, with archival sleeves to put our negative and transparencies into.Now, with digital files, it's imperative to have a good method for storage, or you could lose the images forever should a hard drive crash. There are lots of options, like having two hard drives, one being a clone of the other, and just making sure you back up often from the primary to the clone. But if you have a large number of images, the issues and options increase. My solution was to work with a company called MacGurus. I do not have any affiliation with them other than being a satisfied customer. If you go their website, MacGurus.com, you can see a great article called "Building a Photo Database." It's a valuable, well written piece. And the nice part is that these guys really believe in customer service. I'm not talking about lip service. I had a problem a couple of days ago, and they were tenacious in helping me resolve it. Even after we figured out that the problem wasn't even with their equipment. That's why I am recommending them so highly. For more tips on how to improve your photography, visit Allen's photoblog at A Better Photograph.com
Analysis of a shoot-Part II The shoot day-by Allen Birnbach  Having done the scout, I called the actor and asked him to meet me at the location at 7:30AM, a little bit before the time when I think the light will be the most dramatic. When he arrives, we look at wardrobe, and we select something that feels casual, but elegant. Once he changes, we are in the window for light, and ready to go.  I start the shoot with him standing next to the edge of the building. Giving him a solid physical reference point is an easy way to get him warmed up since he has something he can lean against, and work off of. The beginning of the session is, in my opinion, the most interesting part of the whole shoot because it’s when you establish the way you will work together. Not unlike meeting someone socially for the first time, it takes a little bit of time to get comfortable with each other, and understand how you will communicate. To get great images, it’s important to create a positive, encouraging environment where the subject is willing to relax, open up to the camera, and be creative. I’ll generally start with things that don’t require a lot of the person, but are more about light and form. As we progress, I’ll encourage the subject, and compliment them on how they are performing. This invariably makes them more responsive, and as they soften, I’ll ask a bit more of them. “Smile. Make the expression more tender. Grit your teeth and make me feel like you are looking right through me.” Giving good direction makes your subject feel confident that they are good hands, so even if you are not sure of what you want, make a suggestion with confidence. And if it doesn’t work, go on to the next idea. The key is to keep moving, and create a rhythm that propels you forward. All the while, look for the lighting, expressions and camera angles that will fulfill the concept you started with.  For more detailed information and additional examples from this shoot, and other tips on how to improve your photography, visit Allen's photoblog at A Better Photograph.com
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