Time to Turn Cabin Fever Into Spring Fever!
Spring Fever
The weather is finally starting to shape-up! Talk about your long winters. I don’t know about the rest of you, but with all the bad weather, and no spring in sight, I’ve got cabin fever bad, so bad, I think I’ve put on 20 lbs over the winter. It’s time to get out and start moving. Time to take some pictures..
LightRoom Photo PitStop – Dead Horse Point
Welcome to our very first LightRoom Photo Pit-Stop. Each week we’ll select a user submitted photo, and show you how we would process the RAW image in LightRoom. If you would like to submit a photo for a LightRoom Pitstop, send us your photo via email to: photowalkingusa@gmail.com.
Shooting the Supermoon of 2011
“ Shoot The Moon by Len Erickson
Tonight, Saturday March 19th is the night of the Supermoon. The moon will be closer to Earth than it has been in more than 18 years; the biggest full moon of 2011. Depending on your location and weather conditions you could have a great photo opportunity. The best time to take a look at this full, perigee moon is when the moon is located near the horizon. Direct your eyes to the eastern horizon during the 7 and 8 o’clock hour. Low-hanging Moons have a tendency to look unnaturally large when framed through trees, buildings and other foreground objects. We’ve all seen the photos with an airplane passing in front of a full moon. Having an object in the foreground will make a more interesting photo and give a nice sense of scale with the moon in the background.
Here are a few tips when attempting to photograph a full moon. Set your camera on a nice sturdy tripod. Use a cable release if possible. If not , you can use your cameras self timer. Next turn your autofocus off. You heard me right, turn it off. Most cameras have a terrible time with low-light shooting. Low-light shooting can cause a cameras autofocus system to constantly hunt in the dark. Autofocus is simply not needed for shooting a full moon. Simply set your lens to infinity. As to setting up a proper exposure, believe it or not, shooting a full moon is very much like shooting on a bright sunny day. The light reflected on the full moon is almost the same as the sun during the day here on earth.. We all have heard of the sunny 16 rule from time to time, that would be my starting pointing. Set your camera to it’s lowest native ISO speed, that would be generally ISO 100 for Canon, or ISO 200 for Nikon SLR’s. Set your Shutter speed to 125 with a aperture of f16. That would be a good starting point.
Take a few test shots and adjust your exposure up or down a 1/2 stop or 2, ensuring the moon has some detail. the most common mistake is a over exposed moon that looks like a lifeless glowing ball, with no detail or surface shadows. Most of all, get out and have some fun. Remember, photos are made, not taken.
Want a Challenge? Try a 50/50 Photowalk
Want a Challenge? Challenge yourself with a 50/50 Photowalk. Arm yourself with a fast 50mm lens, and commit to taking a picture every 50 feet. It’s a challenging exercise for a photowalk, and you’ll learn a lot. A fixed focal length lens will cause you think and frame shots differently. Being forced to take a picture every 50 feet opens your eyes to see detail and really simulates your creative juices. You’ll be surprised at the results. So get out there and shoot, and remember, pictures are made, not taken.
Welcome to the Wonderful World of Photowalking
Photowalking has taken America by storm, and has become one of the fastest growing activities throughout the land. The introduction of the digital camera has brought photography to the masses, and made it affordable for everyone to enjoy. Digital cameras have literally changed the world. The digital camera has caused a revival with America’s love for photography.
Photowalking is the act of walking around with your camera and photographing your surroundings. The term photowalking, has recently become synonymously known as a social gathering of photographers, walking in predetermined locations and then sharing their imagery. Alone or with a group, the purpose is still the same and that is to go out and enjoy photography.
Photowalking is now photography’s hottest ticket! So let’s get started.
How to Understand a Histogram
The lowly histogram is one of the least understood tools in digital photography, and quite possibly, one of the most useful. Virtually every digital camera, from the simplest point-and-shoot to the most sophisticated digital SLR has the ability to display a histogram. So let’s start off explaining exactly what a histogram is.The simple definition is this: a histogram is a visual representation of the light and dark elements in your photograph. It helps you instantly determine whether your photos are being correctly exposed.
How to Read a Histogram
A histogram display is usually set up so that dark pixels are on the left and light pixels are on the right. Peaks in the histogram show you whether the photo is predominantly dark, light or somewhere in the middle. For example, if your photo includes a lot of shadows and dark areas, the peak of the histogram will be on the left side of the chart. If your photo includes a lot of bright areas, the peak will be toward the right side. If your photo is fairly evenly balanced (then the histogram will look like a bell curve, with the peak somewhere in the middle.
Using a Histogram to Determine a Properly Exposed Photo
Correctly Exposed
This first example shows you an image that is correctly exposed. Since the image is correctly exposed, the matching histogram is a bell curve, with the peak toward the middle.
The trick from an exposure standpoint is making sure that the bulk of the histogram falls in between the two endpoints. If the bulk of the histogram is over to the left your photo is under-exposed, and if it’s too far over to the right your photo is probably over-exposed.
Underexposed
Now that you know how to read a histogram, you can set up your camera to show you a histogram every time you take a photo. So if your camera by default isn’t showing you a histogram when you preview a picture, it’s time to get out your camera manual and lookup on how to turn on your histogram display. Histograms provide access to quick, easy to read valuable information with every photo you take.
Overexposed
Now that your able to read a histogram, you’ll now be able to instantly tell when:
Your entire photo is over-exposed.
Your entire photo is under-exposed.
Your photo is clipping Highlights or Shadows.
You can use this information to make adjustments to your camera settings in the field, so that you get a perfect exposure every time you take a photo. After all, nobody wants to take that once in a lifetime photo, only to find out that it’s underexposed and unusable when you get home on the computer.
How to Find Your Lens’ Sweet Spot
Ever wondered why your cameras sharpness seems to vary from shot to shot. One shot would be tack sharp, another shot just didn’t have the same sharpness and would be a little murky . While there are many factors that affect an image sharpness, you can increase your chances of a tack sharp shot by knowing your lens’ sweet spot.
That’s right, every lens has a sweet spot. The sweet spot refers to the aperture setting of a given lens that yields the best overall sharpness. The fact is, that lenses are not uniformly sharp at every aperture, nor at every focusing distance.
So how does one go about identifying a lens’ sweet spot?
Here’s what you’ll need:
1. DSLR Camera w/ a self timer
2. A Tripod
3. Newspaper or sheet of paper with printed text on it.
Now, tape the newspaper to a wall making sure that it’s as flat to the wall as possible. If the light is required then set it up and shine it on the newspaper. Next, set up your tripod with the camera on it at a distance that will allow you to fill the frame with the newspaper. Set your camera on aperture priority mode. Set your aperture to the maximum that the lens will allow. Depending on the lens that you are working with, the minimum and maximum aperture values will be different.
For the purpose of this article I will be using the Canon EF 50mm f1.8 II.The maximum aperture of this lens is f1.8 and the minimum aperture is f22. Next, focus the lens on the newspaper. For each shot we will us the cameras built-in 2 second self timer function to prevent any vibration caused from pressing the shutter . Next we want to take a series of images carefully adjusting the aperture down by one stop at a time (example – f1.8, f2.8, f4.0, f5.6, f8.0, f11, f16, f22). Once we have completed each of the exposures it’s time to download the images to our computer and have a look!
The above image shows 100% crop examples taken from the top left corner of each of the images.
- F1.8 is downright fussy & soft.
- F2.8 is better, but still soft.
- F4.0 is much better.
- F5.6 better still!
- F8.0 Now that’s sharp as a tack.
- F11 softening a bit.
- F16 still softer.
- F22 softer still.
Well based on results from the above examples, this particular lens offers the best overall sharpness at F8.0.
For the Canon 50mm f1.8 – The SWEET SPOT is F8!
Now go ahead and test all of your lenses, and identify the “sweet spot”, the results may surprise you!
Buying the Right Memory Card
So you got a brand new camera over the holidays, and you want to pickup a few extra memory cards to get you thru those long photowalks your planning to take. But which one to buy? There’s so many choices, and so many prices.
First thing you need to do is break open your camera’s owners manual that came with the camera. You know the paper manual none of us ever read and tossed back in the box. Trust me, this is the one time you actually need to read manual. Look up in the index for “memory” or “memory card”. This is where you’ll identify what type of memory card your camera supports.
Most Common Types of Digital Camera Memory
Secure Digital (SD) — the most popular format for the widest variety of cameras. Standard SD card capacity maxes at 2GB.
Secure Digital High Capacity (SDHC) — an extension of the SD standard and often used in many of today’s newer cameras and DSLR’s, as well as many of todays camcorders, it increases storage capacity up to 32GB. SDHC cards are the same physical size as SD cards, but are not backward compatible with older SD devices.
Compact Flash (CF) — the CF card is the standard for high-end DSLR cameras. Because of DSLR’s faster shooting capability (burst mode), you should look for high-speed CF cards to ensure top performance.
Well now we know what type of card we need and storage capacity we want, you think we would be ready to go shopping. Unfortunately there’s one more thing to consider. Speed. How fast of a card do you need. Memory cards come in different speed ratings.
Ever wonder why one SD memory cards sells for $15 dollars and other one sells for $30? chances are the price difference has to do with the speed rating of the card. Faster card, more money.. It’s time to break out that camera manual again. This time lookup which speed class your camera requires.
Naturally, the higher the class, the higher the data transfer. Devices that use a lot more memory will require a higher class than devices that use minimal memory. Let’s break it down class by class, class.
Class 2 - Class 2 SD cards operate at Normal Bus speed and are really only ideal for standard definition video recording and digital images.
Class 4 and 6 – Class 4 and 6 support Full HD (1920x 1080) video recording.
Class 10 – Not only does Class 10 tackle Full HD video recording, but it also offers HD still consecutive recording.
UHS-1 – This is a totally new Ultra High Speed class is designed for full higher recording and capturing large-size HD videos. This is such a new standard speed class, I know of no consumer product currently supporting it. But it’s coming…
Time to sum things up. Identify the type, and speed class, your camera requires. As to capacity, more is always better! As to what brand to buy? Today, most memory card manufacturers are pretty good on quality and reliability. I personally use Sandisk and Lexar, you can’t go wrong with either brand. Now get out there shoot!
Hands-On With the Nikon D7000
Let me make this is very simple, if your in the market for a new prosumer level DSLR camera, then stop reading this article and run out and buy this camera. With a street price of $1200 dollars, the Nikon D7000 is best in it’s class. It’s simply that good. This camera is brilliant to hold and to use. The D7000 offers a 16.2MP CMOS Sensor, 6 frames per second, full 1080p HD Video, and a 39 point Auto Focus system – which really is superb in this price bracket and which helps to generate superb image quality. The camera’s low light performance is clean at 1600 ISO and usable up to 6400. Being able to shoot in low light can open up a whole new world of photo opportunities..
In the past week I’ve shot about 300+ pictures with Nikon D7000 and and I am very impressed with the quality of the pictures, and the ease of use with the camera. You might be tempted to think it’s just a glorified D90, but you would wrong. It’s a much better than the D90, and in my opinion, better than the D300s which sells for hundreds of dollars more.
All in all, the Nikon D7000 is an excellent enthusiast’s DSLR. The camera produces great image quality, and really shines in low light. The Nikon D7000 is in a class by itself..Nikon is blurring the line between pro level and prosumer level cameras and the consumer is the winner.
