If you don’t know who Zack Arias is, then you’re missing out on quite a character in today’s commercial photography world. We’ve posted about him before, so go check it out.

For those who do recognise the name, you might want to know that he’s giving a 3-day workshop in Seattle this weekend…and it’s being broadcast live…for free. The title is Foundations of a Working Photographer, and it will run Friday through Sunday, pretty much all day long each day.

Attending a workshop with Zack generally costs you in the hundreds of dollars, but now you have the opportunity to e-attend for free thanks to the folks at Creative Live. Here’s how it works: They film and broadcast the workshops in real time, for free; up until the beginning of the workshop you can prepurchase the video for a fee; once the workshop begins, the fee increases by about 50%. Workshops are available as downloadable video files.

In Zack’s case, the 3-day workshop (over 24 hours worth of learning if Zack’s pst workshops are anything to go by) will be available for $99 until May 1^st at 20:00 PDT; after that it goes up to $149. In order to watch it you need to register with Creative Live and then enrol in the workshop here. Below is Zack, presenting his workshop with his usual humour.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fO0l2DIHps

The Workshop Outline

Session 1 (April 29, 2011)
#1 – Know Your Camera
#2 – Know Your Glass
#3 – Know Your Subject

Session 2 (April 30, 2011)
#4 – Know Your Light
#5 – Know Your Limits
#6 – Creativity
#7 – Vision & Style

Session 3 (May 1, 2011)
#8 – Courage
#9 – Business & Marketing
#10 – Service & Balance

The workshop starts at 10:00 PST tomorrow, April 29^th 2011. I’m excited to tell you that EtL has managed to infiltrate one of our agents who will be attending the workshop and writing about his experience once he gets back and decompresses. Stay tuned for that article in the upcoming weeks.

Now go make sure you have enough popcorn for the weekend and pull up a comfy chair to the computer. It’s going to be an interesting 3 days!

Good light and good luck,

    —Miserere

UPDATE

Creative Live has already put up a couple of videos from Day 1:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ai8DDUCsyao

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcbDeLtGw6M

Related posts:

1. Marc Langille: Fall 2009 Photography Workshop in Utah
2. Free Image and Photo Editing Software Resources
3. Which Online Photo Editor Is the Best?

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© Miserere for Enticing the Light, 2011. All rights reserved, do not reproduce without permission. | Read article with proper formatting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzD9pnOjIkE

We’ve seen many of these before but I’m wondering if you’ve given it a try? Creating a time-lapse video is very simple and doesn’t take exotic equipment. For the sunset time-lapse above, I used a wireless remote (available in a wired version as well) that allows interval timed shots programmed into the remote. You can find these for almost any recent DSLR on eBay for around $25 (wired) to $50 (wireless). Add a wide to mid length zoom, a tripod and you are ready to go take some interesting short videos.

To finish the work, you can use the Apple software, iMovie, or on a PC, use Windows Movie Maker. To polish the shots off a bit better before turning it into a movie, use a bulk editor like Lightroom. Software like this can apply edits that can be applied to all the shots in one action. For example, make sure your sensor is clean and if it isn’t, you can clone the spot out. A dust spot in one place that shows up while everything is moving will drive you and the viewer crazy. LR can take care of this for you fairly quickly.

Think of a fun or interesting subject. An example could be the meteor showers that happen at various times throughout the year (see this year’s most important showers). Go with longer exposures and let the camera shoot all night (in a secure location if you can’t stay awake!). Keep the interval to 1 second so the frames are one after the other. You can always delete frames after you get the full set. The Milky Way time lapse below was found on YouTube and was taken with a Nikon D90 and Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens using 25s exposures, ISO 3200, WB 5000k at 30s intervals. Next clear night, I’m going to try this but with a longer lens around 200mm to see what details I can get from the Milky Way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wj8n_95_yNc

Video by Harley Grady

A party could be a good choice or any other event with a larger group of people. Maybe secure the camera on the dash of the car and go for a drive. The ideas are endless. Spring is coming, I can see the camera in the garden at 4 AM capturing a flower opening at dawn.

The remote I used is shown below and made by Yongnuo, widely available on eBay:

Time lapse DSLR wireless remote control set-up

The small wired pod connected to the camera is the receiver. It offers 2 functions and can also fit on the hot shoe while in use. It’s a wired shutter release cable that works by simply pushing a button on the top. In combination with the transmitter, it also receives the signals at 2.4GHz via radio (not IR) and can “see” through walls or fire at a distance without much interference.

The transmitter unit is either wired or wireless and all program functions work the same either way. In the photo, you can see the red light on both the transmitter and the receiver; this is showing a connection between the two units. The shutter button is locked on the transmitter (Bulb Mode) to show you this, so you don’t have to hold the button down for long exposures. The cheaper package just contains this remote and the cord you see in the photo and does not have the receiver. Using it this way, you plug the remote directly into the camera and program the shooting sequence the way you want. Getting the wireless receiver version offers a lot more flexibility. You can fire the camera from a distance, maybe the family photos or the birds going to your feeder.

A few features offered by the remote control:

• Interval timer: Any time interval and as many shots as will fit in the card.
• Bulb exposures that are timed by the transmitter. Also not timed by just pushing the shutter release button (Lock/Unlock).
• Delay timer: You can set the time for the camera to wait until it starts shooting. Up to a 100 hour delay.
• Exposure counter: Set the number of shots you want the camera to take.
• Wireless or wired shutter release.

Either version you choose (wired or wireless) will provide a lot of fun with this set-up for a small investment. Just make sure you check that your camera has a remote control plug and order the correct remote cable end for your camera brand and model. There is no standard remote plug, and even within the same brand different camera models can have a different socket. The buyer I got mine from was good enough to sell me a few different cables for the different cameras I have instead of buying several complete sets to fit each camera.

Cheers and good shooting
-Peter Zack

Related posts:

1. Great Little Time-Lapse Video
2. Funny Time-Lapse Video
3. The Time Has Come for a New DSLR Paradigm

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Please consider purchasing through our affiliate stores. If you visit one of the stores through the links below and place an order, EtL will receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. We hope you don't mind these ads; revenue from commissions is how we keep EtL running. Thanks!

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© Peter Zack for Enticing the Light, 2011. All rights reserved, do not reproduce without permission. | Read article with proper formatting.

As photographers, we’re always looking for something different we haven’t tried before. In many places around North America and other regions, this is the season of summer fairs. They offer some interesting photo opportunities—many have the ladies at the bake tables, the big BBQ spot, candy apples and cotton candy. My home town is hosting one right now. It was fun to go out and see the kids of all ages, still enjoy going to these events. Then there’s the animals in the petting zoo, the farm displays and in the case of our fair, lots of harness racing which will test your high-speed shooting skills.

This shot was taken at 1/5th second, f/5.6 ISO 200. Note the kids shoes in the foreground.

What I wanted to do in this short article is suggest that you get out the tripod, a cable release, a wide-angle lens and prepare to shoot something a little different and a bit on the abstract side. It’s fairly simple and as long as your camera can shoot in manual mode (or a couple of tricks to get around the auto functions) you can get some very interesting results. The setup is fairly simple. Use the widest lens you have and try to frame the ride to get the entire motion in the frame. The great thing about this type of shooting is, there’s nearly no post processing involved. You’re either shooting it right, or you’re not. You are going to shoot at low ISO, partly to control noise and partly to get slow shutter speeds. At high ISO the lights on the ride can often be bright enough to get blown out and without an ND filter, your shutter speeds will be too fast to blur the motion. All the samples here were shot at ISO 200 at 12mm on a 24x36mm sensor. On a crop sensor, an ideal lens could be the Sigma 10-20mm or the Tamron 10-24mm. This might just be the excuse to get Sigma’s new 8-16mm ultra wide lens for APS-C cameras (like we really need an excuse to buy a new lens!). In any case, just pick a lens wide enough to get everything in, and don’t worry about the maximum aperture; the speed of the lens is not a concern because you’re likely to be around f/16 to f/22 for many shots.

Just like a wildlife shooter, watch and study your subject, see what the path and motion is so it doesn’t go outside the frame. Keep an eye on the sky. In the shot above, I think the sky adds quite a bit to the final image and might be better than just a black sky. Take a few test shots to see what length of time to leave the shutter open to give you the correct amount of blur or motion and the right exposure. You may decide that 1 second is right, and to keep the image from being over exposed, shoot at the lowest ISO available and stop the lens down to f/16 or more. It all depends how long you want the light trails to be. On average, I would say 0.5 to 3 seconds is about right. If your camera doesn’t have a manual setting, you may be limited in controlling the shutter speeds, but try to lock the exposure on something darker that will trick the camera into staying open long enough to give you the motion you want, or if you’re shooting a P&S with a “Night Scene” mode, use that. You have quite a bit of latitude in exposures as the night sky will stay fairly black. We just don’t want all the coloured lights to look white because they have been over exposed.

The Freakout from a different angle. f/22 and 0.5 sec

I will confess to not listening to my own advice. I hadn’t considered shooting the rides this way on my visit to the fair. So I had a monopod and no cable release as the harness racing was the intent of the visit. So with a tripod, you will get sharper details on stationary foreground subjects and that can make or break a shot. Without a cable release, you will have to gently hold the shutter down. Alternatively, if you can lock the exposure, you could use a setting like A (or Av). Gently squeeze and release the shutter, letting the camera close it when the shot is completed. Look for interesting angles to shoot from with few obstructions. In this case, the tripod is your friend and will keep a path clear. Just be prepared for the teenagers mugging for the camera! In 4 separate instances on this excursion, kids wanted their photos taken for Facebook.

Getting low and shooting nearly straight up can give you an interesting abstract. f/22 0.5 sec

So the equipment list is:

1. Camera (Duh).
2. Wide angle lens from fisheye to 16mm on DSLR’s. Wide adapter for a P&S.
3. Sturdy tripod with (recommended) quick release for multiple moves and setups.
4. Cable release.
5. Admission fees, water and some time.

This one looks like a flying saucer. f/18 3 sec

Technique:

1. Frame the entire ride path in the veiwfinder. Try to level the shot as much as possible with vertical or horizontal elements.
2. Test the exposure times to increase or decrease the motion captured.
3. Set the camera to as low an ISO as possible to reduce noise and slow the shutter speeds.
4. Adjust the f stop as needed to expose the image based on the shutter speed/ISO combination.
5. Look for unique angles that site staff won’t mind. Keep aware of where you are and that equipment can be flying around near your head.

Cheers and good shooting!
–Peter Zack

Note: Links in this article might be to one of our affiliate stores. Purchases made from our affiliates through these links will benefit Enticing the Light at no extra cost to you.

Related posts:

1. Time Lapse Photography with Your DSLR
2. The Time Has Come for a New DSLR Paradigm
3. Make a Little Time on May 2nd to Take a Photo of the World

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Please consider purchasing through our affiliate stores. If you visit one of the stores through the links below and place an order, EtL will receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. We hope you don't mind these ads; revenue from commissions is how we keep EtL running. Thanks!

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© Peter Zack for Enticing the Light, 2010. All rights reserved, do not reproduce without permission. | Read article with proper formatting.

Shooting weddings can be a challenging and rewarding aspect of photography. I hope from these articles, you get some inspiration and tips that will help you develop your own style and business. The funny thing with a blog publishing setup, the articles are posted by date and you may be seeing the most recent first. If so, go to Shooting Weddings Part 1 and then you can follow each section in the series.
If you have a question or idea for this or other articles, contact us here.

So you’re looking at the title of Part 3 and saying, he’s mixed it up. The client chooses me to be the photographer. Nope that’s completely wrong for a number of reasons. I mentioned this in an earlier article and didn’t elaborate. This is in my opinion, as important as anything else you will do with your business. You must make every effort to meet the clients a couple of times to discuss what they want and your style of shooting. I said earlier that, we have to be open to different shooting styles and what the client wants. As photographers, like painters, we are better at some things than others. You might be a great street shooter and can nail that candid type of photograph better than anyone in your market. I might be a great landscape shooter and have the ability to visualize and capture a great landscape with the couple. Sometimes it’s very tough to meet the couple because we live in the internet world. They may be in a distant city and trying to book you online. In that case you should send them a large sample of your work via an FTP transfer site or something similar. Then call them to discuss what they want and and what you do. Make sure everyone is clear on what you offer and can produce.

So if you meet the couple, bring a big sample of you work. A completed wedding album would also be good. Don’t just show them your best stuff. Let them see what a package will look like. There should be no surprises for the couple when it’s delivered. Remember that it’s 2-6 weeks + for delivery and they have been waiting for the most important memento of that great day. Meeting them offers you some very big hints as to whether you will work with them. One of the biggest mistakes for both you and the couple is taking every job you get because you know you can do it and you want the income. It’s not fair to the couple and a mistake for your business.

I like this image for a number of reasons. Her face shows the love she feels, expressed fully. They are clearly having fun by the ocean. Nice afternoon light. It has an air of romance.

I like shooting a romantic and fun couple that really like to try different things. A bride that doesn’t mind ‘kicking up her heels’ and getting the dress dirty. The more adventurous she is, the better the photos will work. You need to assess the couple at the first meeting. I look for a few cues. Do they touch each other a lot when you meet? Are they comfortable in front of a stranger? Do they disagree on aspects of the wedding? Is he involved in the planning with a genuine interest or just can’t wait for all this to be over? Does he have ideas about certain photos? Do they hold hands? Can you sense that they are not only in love but also best friends? Do they get each other and you?

If the answers to these questions are an overwhelming yes, then I want these people as my clients. I say this from experience. I’ve taken the wedding because I wanted the work and didn’t think these were important issues. Generally the work turned out fine and the customers were happy. But it was the most exhausting wedding work I’ve ever done and seemed like a mental battle to make each shot work the way I’d like. Why? We didn’t connect.

One good example is a couple I booked a few years ago. It was early in the season and bookings were slow. I had just moved to a new city and wanted to get established. At the meeting, I had noticed that she was doing all the talking. It felt like they were planning a funeral, not a wedding. There wasn’t much joy in the process. They sat in seperate chairs. I have 2 comfy chairs and a sofa in my office. I invite couple to come in and see where they choose to sit. There’s a table in front of the sofa and the chairs at one end. So if they go to the sofa, it’s a good start. If they sit apart in the chairs, I’m now looking at how close these 2 are. So this couple sit in the chairs. They never held hands or touched each other the whole time. I booked them anyway. Through all our discussions (they didn’t want engagement shots), they didn’t mention their comfort or lack of comfort with PDA (Public Displays of Affection). The entire wedding day was a workout for me. All the shots I had in my head were useless and I had to create a whole shot list based on very stiff and uncomfortable clients who wouldn’t kiss and didn’t like touching each other. If you were a street shooter as described above, you’d produce a better package for this customer than I would. They liked the finished product, but if all my customers were like this, I’d get a job flipping burgers and just take pictures of flowers.

Consider this. It’s not wrong to be this way. Some people are very shy and prefer their intimate moments at home. Others are not. It’s not for any of us to judge. The flamboyant clients may not last and the shy ones might celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. My point is, that you have to be able to work with them and get what they want. If you can’t, don’t take the job. It’s not fair to them and too hard on you.
I’ve said before that you need to be adaptable to their wishes and shoot in a style they like. But that doesn’t mean every wedding job is right for you or that you are right for them. Or that you have the skills and natural ability to shot the style they want. Consider your shooting style carefully and analyze your strengths and weaknesses. You might be a great candid shooter and can do a nice PJ style album. You might not feel comfortable creating and capturing good “classic” wedding shots. Those posed shots that you think look stiff and unnatural. We all excel at different styles.

This is an example of an adventurous couple who wanted to try different shots. We found an abandoned car that was unlocked for a fun shot.

Book the weddings that are appropriate to your comfort and skill levels. It does not mean that you can’t learn and practice other styles. How? Study other peoples work, study other portrait art forms and photography. Also when there is time, with the weddings you have booked, try a new idea for a few minutes. Go to a wedding every time with a new idea. Make each one a learning experience with a fresh approach to the work. Some couples want those close up shots that are really intimate. Maybe you’ve never tried this. So take some time with them and set up an idea. I’ve told couples that I’ve never done [this or that] and would like to try something different. If you have a good connection with the couple, they will agree and you might get a great series to give them and at the least, you have started to learn how to apply the lessons for the next time.

The other thing you can do is work with another pro on an off day. Volunteer your time to work with a respected pro once in awhile and watch his/her style. In fact work with someone of the opposite gender. If you are male, a female photographer is great to work with. They have a different and often more “romantic” eye. My assistant is female and I love the different look she can bring to a photo. But please do not book a couple that wants PJ style and you can’t do it. Taking the job for the money is a mistake. It could even land you in a courtroom. Reputations take years to build and seconds to wreck, never to be recovered.

This could ruffle some readers feathers but I hope more photographers would be in a courtroom when they can’t deliver what they promise.  Pushed out of the business  because they are incompetent. I don’t wish any photographer ill will but there are too many Cowboy shooters looking for a quick buck and not taking into consideration how important this day is to the couple and their family. They pass off a CD full of snap shots that your 10 year old could do.   I welcome competition in my market when the other shooters are all considerate and hard working pros. It makes me work harder and study the craft with more intensity. There’s a big difference between a shooter who studies and works this job every day, full time and those that take rent money every couple of Saturdays’ .

Consider this scenario. I have a photo of a grandmother that was a candid portrait at a wedding. I knew that she was the oldest member of the family and everything revolved around her. She was mentioned many times at meetings before the wedding day. I must have tried 40 times to get a nice shot of her not staring at the lens. Finally one series worked.  She loved the shot and so did the family. She said she hated having her photo taken (and it showed) and had never seen a good one till this.  Unfortunately, she’s no longer with us. The couple and members of her family wanted so many copies of the shot, I sold them the image and rights to it, to do as many reprints as they wanted.  If you are there just to make money and don’t care about the couple’s needs, then you deserve to be in front of a judge. Your work is far more important than you may ever know. If you mess it up, there’s no turning back the clock and a refund just doesn’t cut it.

Back to the article title,  you take your experience and use that to assess whether you will choose that couple to work with. If it’s doesn’t seem or feel right, or you can’t shoot it the way they want, be gracious and turn them down, recommend another photographer. Have a well reasoned explanation as to why you will not be able to take the job and hopefully you can get that from this article.  There’s nothing wrong with telling a customer that your style of work will not suit what they have told you they want in the album.

One further thought. Know your competition. How they shoot and how they work. Meet with them and look at their stuff. Have a relationship with them.

So the title is correct, you choose your customers, not the other way around.

Cheers and good shooting –Peter Zack

Pei Wedding Photography

Related posts:

1. Shooting Weddings Part 2 – Equipment
2. Shooting Weddings Part 1 – Getting Started
3. Weddings Can Be Funny Too! Wedding Photographer Fails

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Please consider purchasing through our affiliate stores. If you visit one of the stores through the links below and place an order, EtL will receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. We hope you don't mind these ads; revenue from commissions is how we keep EtL running. Thanks!

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© Peter Zack for Enticing the Light, 2010. All rights reserved, do not reproduce without permission. | Read article with proper formatting.

Landscape and wildlife photography Marc Langille, who you may remember from this interview, tells me that he has organised a couple of workshops during the month of September 2009. The first will take place from the 17th to the 20th of Sept. and has two spots left open. The second is still filling up and is planned for the following week, 24th to the 27th of Sept. All information can be found here.

The workshops will take place in Torrey, Utah, which is right beside Capitol Reef National Park, sandwiched between Dixie National Forest and Fishlake National Forest. If you followed those links, I dare you to not want to go. And Marc has timed the first workshop to coincide with the likeliest time for Fall Colours to be at their peak best.

For those not familiar with Marc, he is an award-winning photographer who excels at outdoor photography. You can browse his gallery here; I happen to love his hummingbirds, but couldn’t help posting further down his photo of two elk males fighting in the early morning mist.

The workshops will center around landscape photography, but there is likely to be plenty of local fauna around to satisfy those wildlife photographers out there. Luckily, Marc is an expert at both, so no matter what you find, Marc can provide you with knowledgeable advice on how to best photograph it.

I’m off to see how many air miles I have and whether they’ll take me all the way to Utah!

©Marc Langille

Related posts:

1. Shedding Light on Marc Langille
2. Don’t Miss Zack Arias’s FREE Online Workshop Tomorrow
3. F-BoM May 2009: Pixelated Image

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Please consider purchasing through our affiliate stores. If you visit one of the stores through the links below and place an order, EtL will receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. We hope you don't mind these ads; revenue from commissions is how we keep EtL running. Thanks!

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© Miserere for Enticing the Light, 2009. All rights reserved, do not reproduce without permission. | Read article with proper formatting.

In the United States this coming weekend marks the celebration of Independence Day on the 4^th of July. This immediately brings one thing to mind: BBQ! OK, so two things: BBQ! And, Fireworks!

Is there anything better than to be sitting on a lawn chair with a hotdog in one hand, a beer in another, watching a magnificent fireworks display? Yes there is: To be photographing the fireworks! In this tutorial I’ll tell you everything you need to know in order to take great shots of fireworks. But first, put down the hotdog and beer; you’ll find it a lot easier to handle the camera.

Equipment Required

• DSLR or SLR camera: While it is technically possible to shoot fireworks on a P&S, it is easier with a (D)SLR, and the results should look better too. In any case, most of the instructions will be the same, so if all you have is a P&S, use it, and report back with some pics!
• Tripod: You’ll be shooting long exposures, so a tripod is a must. In lieu of it, you could prop the camera on any surface that will keep it stable and pointing at the fireworks.
• Cable Release: This is optional, but I find it a lot easier to fire the camera with a cable release. And why not an infrared remote? Because with a cable release you have the ability to shoot in bulb mode, which I will discuss further down. In any case, whenever using a camera on a tripod, some way of triggering the shutter remotely is always preferable as it reduces camera shake. Note that bulb mode can be used by pressing the shutter release button, but like I just said, it’s not as stable as using a cable release.
• Zoom Lens: I recommend a zoom lens, and not a prime, because I’ve found fireworks vary in size, and it’s a lot quicker to zoom in and out than to change lenses. Also, because you’re likely going to be shooting at f/5.6-8, a zoom will have good enough image quality. What focal length zoom you use depends on how close to the fireworks you are going to be. When in doubt, shoot wide—you can always crop later.

Setting Up the Camera

A, B, C; easy as 1, 2, 3:

1. Just prop the camera on top of the tripod (stone, wall, fence…) and point it in the general direction of where you expect the fireworks to appear. Connect the remote cable release if you have it. Focus the camera on a building the same distance away as the fireworks will be.
2. Very important: Remove any filters you may have screwed onto your lens! If you don’t, you will get ghost images of the fireworks. If you’re worried about the front of your lens, use a lens hood. In fact, using a lens hood is probably a good idea anyway as it will keep out stray light that might creep into your lens from the sides. If you are out in a street with bright street lamps, a hood is a safe bet.
3. Set the shooting mode to B, for Bulb, if you have a cable release. If you don’t, set the mode to M, for Manual.

You are now ready to shoot. But first…

Choosing the Correct Settings

You’re either going to shoot in Manual mode (if you don’t have a cable remote) or in Bulb mode (if you do), which means you will be setting the aperture, shutter speed and ISO yourself, with no help from the camera. Some P&S’s and prosumer superzoom cameras have a ‘fireworks’ setting, but if you’re reading this tutorial it’s because you want to learn how to shoot on your own, right? Now let’s see how each of the 3 shooting parameters will affect your photos.

• Shutter speed: This is important, as it will determine how long the fireworks trails are. Earlier I recommended using a cable remote in order to shoot in bulb mode. The advantage here is that you open the shutter when you want, and close it when the rocket has exploded and produced the pattern you want to photograph. Because different fireworks with different patterns go off at different speeds, you will find yourself leaving the shutter open for varying times during the show. I also find that with a cable release I can just stand there enjoying the show without having to worry about the camera. I’m looking at the sky all the time while the release is in my hand. If not shooting in bulb mode, you’ll have to try out different speeds until you find the one you prefer. This can anywhere from 0.5s to 2s, or maybe even more if you want many trails in a single frame.
• Aperture: How wide you open your lens will determine how bright the streaks are. Unlike with regular photos, the shutter speed has (practically) no bearing on the brightness of the fireworks. You’ll find that you can easily shoot f/5.6-8, so there’s little need for an expensive, fast lens. Something to bear in mind is this: The closer you are to the fireworks, the more depth of field you will need, so you might have to close down the lens. I find shooting from far away is much easier. Having said that, there is little need for the firework streamers to be tack sharp, as it’s the shapes and colours that you are ultimately after. If you know how far away from the fireworks you’ll be, use this online calculator to figure out your ideal aperture.
• ISO: As with the aperture, it will control how bright you images are. The aim is to keep it as low as possible, so after having set the aperture to the value that gives you the required depth of field, set the ISO to the value that gives you bright fireworks, but as little noise as possible in the sky.

Comments

Try to have everything set up ahead of time, but know that the first few fireworks to go off will likely be losses as you’ll be figuring out exactly what focal length you need and how long to leave the shutter open for. That’s OK, don’t panic. These shows generally last 15 minutes or more, and patterns get repeated, so spending 1-2 minutes tinkering around until you find the right settings is no big deal.

So far I have only addressed the technical aspects of shooting fireworks. As for the artistic aspects, I will leave them mostly to you and your imagination. Try to pick a nice spot with an interesting foreground; if you can include a famous landmark in the frame, you get extra Flickr points. Shooting fireworks from across a lake or river is always a crowd pleaser as the reflections add impact to the image. While all this might seem boring and overdone, a photo of a firework burst, alone in the middle of the sky, is even more boring. Fireworks are easier to photograph than this slightly long tutorial might lead you to believe, and they’re fun too. After the first 1-2 minutes of frenzy you’ll find there’s nothing to it, and when you download the pictures to the computer you’ll see how simple it was to create stunning images.

Final Run-Down

1. Set up camera and tripod. Connect cable release if available.
2. Attach appropriate lens to camera and take any filter off the lens.
3. Set shooting mode to B or M.
4. Set appropriate aperture, or f/5.6 if you don’t know what it is.
5. Set ISO to 100.
6. Focus your camera on a landmark at about the same distance as where the fireworks will be.
7. When the fireworks start, make the first shot about 2s long and check the focus is correct (adjust by hand if necessary; do not try to autofous on the fireworks!).
8. Once the focus is correct, test shutter speeds of 1.5s, 1s and 0.5s. Find the one you like.
9. Now it’s time to set the image quality:
• If the fireworks are not bright enough, increase the ISO.
• If the fireworks are bright enough but the surroundings are not, increase the ISO (but make sure the fireworks retain colour).
• If the fireworks are bright enough but the surroundings are too bright, a) close down the aperture 1 stop while making sure the fireworks don’t dim too much, or b) shorten the shutter speed.
• If both fireworks and surroundings are too bright, close down the aperture 1 stop.
• If both fireworks and surroundings are too dim, a) increase the ISO, or b) if you are far away enough, you might be able to open up the aperture and still retain enough depth of field.
10. Now everything is set, sit back, relax, shoot each firework that goes up, and enjoy the show.

Questions

I’ve tried to be clear and not forget any step or detail, but if you find something missing or have any questions, use the comments section below and I will answer before the evening of July 4^th.

Article Photos – Technical Info

Shot on a 10.4MP DSLR with a Sigma APO 70-300mm f/4-5.6 at ISO 125. Further details:

#1: f/6.3, 0.6s
#2: f/6.3, 1.5s
#3: f/6.3, 1.1s
#4: f/7.1, 1.1s
#5: f/7.1, 1.8s

All photos: ©Miserere.

Related posts:

1. How to Photograph Fireworks Reminder
2. You Might not Be Photographing what You Think You’re Photographing

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A few months ago I published an interview with baby photographer extraordinaire, Carrie Sandoval. Her photography is stunning, and she makes it look so easy! While I had photographed plenty of young children, I had not tried my hand at babies, and after featuring Carrie’s photography on EtL I was itching to try it out. Plus, if I can shoot 4-year old kids that run around and don’t know what posing is, how difficult can a little baby be, right?

Hah! So wrong, so wrong…

Two friends from my home town were kind enough to have a baby during the time I was visiting my parents back in March-April. That’s how I know they’re good friends, see? I thought “I want to try some baby photography”, and they promptly had a baby a few weeks later. You can’t buy friends like that! Of course, they were all too happy to let me practice my skills on their little Simon, a mere 3 days after he was born.

Babies are cute, and I would have to be a bad photographer to mess that up. Turns out babies are cute over the medium or long term, say over a minute or so; but in 1/100s, they can look like scary aliens. No mother wants a photo of their child looking like a scary alien (or Winston Churchill, as my friend says). That must be Rule #1 of baby photography, surely. So as I stood there scrolling through the first pics of Simon on my camera’s rear LCD (and promptly deleting each one) I desperately tried to remember everything Carrie had said: Soft light, large windows, uncluttered background, cute props, make sure he’s fed, use 50mm-equiv lens… OK, OK, I have all that…now what?

In the end I figured out the missing ingredient was patience. While Simon had finished eating (drinking!) just before I arrived, he wasn’t quite ready to hang out butt-naked while some guy pointed a black box at him and made him lie in strange positions. It’s not his fault, and that’s something the photographer needs to understand: Sometimes it just isn’t the right moment to photograph the baby. Because I was flying back to Boston the next day, however, there were no other moments we could use. Eventually the there was a lot of daddy holding him until he calmed down, then 60 seconds of shooting in the basket until he grew restless, then mummy calming him…and just when things were on a roll, grandma and grandpa arrived for a surprise visit! I made the most of it and took some pictures of them with Simon. They were a bit suspicious of me to begin with, but the magic thing about babies is that everyone forgets the photographer when there is a baby in the room.

In the end I found that the best way to get good photos is to go with the flow. There is no point in forcing the baby to do something he doesn’t feel like because nobody wants photos of sad, crying babies (Rule #2, I believe). I took some photos of him lying down, but when he was being held by his parents I tried to capture that tender connection too. While the baby is important, we need to remember that he’s part of a family, and capturing that spirit of love and unity is just as important.

I hope Simon’s parents enjoy the photographs. As for me, I’m on the lookout for more babies; I reckon in 50 babies I’ll be able to show Carrie some of my work. And Simon? I told him I’d be back next April for the 1 year reunion, and I won’t be taking any monkey business from him this time!

Do you have any baby photos to share? Show them in the comments section! Extra points if there’s a funny story around them.

All photos: ©Miserere.

Related posts:

1. Photography: So Easy even a Monkey Can Do It
2. Have Sleeping Baby, Will Photograph
3. Top 15 Reasons You Might Be Obsessed with Photography

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If you’ve ever looked at EtL’s blogroll, you should have seen the link to What the Duck, an online cartoon of a photographer duck. No matter whether you’re a professional or an amateur, you will see yourself reflected in many of the situations born of Aaron Johnson’s fertile imagination. And let’s face it, at what other time in your life can you identify yourself with a duck?

Aaron Johnson did not ask me to write this post advertising the latest What the Duck book; I am simply happy to endorse a product I believe in. Do you have a photographer friend or relative who doesn’t spend much time on the internet? Then 128 pages of Duck photography adventures would make the perfect gift! Or maybe you should just buy it for your spouse/significant-other as a joke present…but then steal it for yourself!

The book, titled What the Duck: A W.T. Duck Collection, is now available for preorder here at Amazon (with a 20% discount off the release price!).

I will now end this post because I have to place my preorder.

PS: If you want Aaron’s first book, which includes all the strips from the first year of What the Duck, you can find it on Lulu: What the Duck, Rule of Nerds. And don’t forget to check out What the Duck’s YouTube channel.

Related posts:

1. What The Duck Giggles
2. What The Duck Giggles #2
3. Winner of the Hugh MacLeod Book Giveaway

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“American Youth”, published worldwide by contrasto, will be in stores and available online May 2009.

If you think this might be a simplistic, dogmatic representation of youths in America, think again. These images show the reality of young America, populated by single mothers, gays and lesbians as much as by “normal” youngsters and families.

A series of photographs depict New York kids asking God a question, scribbled on a large board. They range from the comical (Can you hear me?) to the heart-breaking (What would my life be like if my mother was still alike?), not forgetting the philosophical (You “LOVE” everyone in the world. HOW???).

In San Marcos, Texas, Taryn Davis, the 24 year old founder of The American Widow Project, keeps her late husband’s Iraq war boots by the entrance inside their house, silent custodians of the pain she bears.

In Brecksville, Ohiο, Mariam Khalil celebrates her 19^th birthday and ponders most of my friends choose to be friends with me for who I am, not because I’m Muslim.

20 year-old Pepper has been living on the streets for 5 years. She says she is just an alcoholic who was born on St. Patrick’s day. Elsewhere, New York highschool students drive luxurious cars to their prom.

While some girls travel to New York City in hopes of becoming successful models, others move to upper New York State to start farms. In Portland, Oregon, we find strippers making money in a different way.

But not all American Youth is in America. As the terse caption to this photo states: Soldiers fighting our war in Iraq.

And so it is that 18 to 20-somethings cohabit in the United States, laughing, crying, drinking, boxing, socialising, dancing, hurting, hoping… 25 photographers bring us almost 300 images as proof that while they Love, Live, Work and Play (the four categories the works are divided in) the only common link between American youths is their differences.

Such is America.

Find out more about the book, the photographers and Redux Pictures. If you are in New York on May 15, 2009, you might want to attend a panel discussion on the book to take place at The New York Photo Festival.

Related posts:

1. American Photo 2011 Top 10 Wedding Photographers

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The word Photography is based on two ancient Greek words: Photo, for “light,” and Graph, for “writing” or “drawing.” So essentially the word means “Drawing with light”. Often we will hear people refer to Photography as ‘painting with light’. So to do this you need to understand the controls and how each will effect the final resulting image.

This is an easy subject that can be incredibly technical and complex. When we are out shooting, we really don’t care about ANSI Exposure Standards in the laboratory or how a particular camera maker, determines the exact metering levels they calibrate their meters to. You will often read statements like: Canon’s render the image too bright or Pentax is underexposed looking. The reality is partly that the metering systems are set up differently. We all discuss gray cards as 18% gray but exposure meters actually vary from that ‘standard’. Nikon’s meter is set at 12.5% K and Pentax at 14% K. Not 18% gray.

Hand held spot meters also have slight differences as well. I’ll stop there as this will get very technical at this point but just understand that each system will have variances in exposure metering so perfectly direct comparisons between brands is not completely possible. There will be slight variations on how each camera sees a scene’s lighting. You need to understand the basics of this to get the most out of your particular camera.

Stops

First is the aperture scale in 1 stop per step:

This is the shutter speed scale in full stops (in seconds):

1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/15/ 1/30, 1/60, 1/125,
1/250, 1/500, 1/1000, 1/2000, 1/4000

Aperture

Quite simply the lens has a series of aperture blades inside that could be anywhere from 4 to more than 20 in some older models. There are a select few that use 2 sets of blades like the Sony (Minolta) 135 f/2.8 f/4.5. This lens was built with Bokeh (background blur) as the primary feature in mind. A feature considered de rigueur by many lens buyers.

For the purposes of exposure settings, aperture controls the amount of light that will pass through the lens to the film or sensor. Stopping down a lens refers to closing the aperture and the numbers don’t often seem intuitive. A larger number is a smaller aperture. The reason is, it is actually a ratio. 0 (theoretical) being no aperture or wide open and 1:8 being a middle aperture with 1:22 a small aperture. It is a critical control that aids the final image in a number of important reasons. Apertures are displayed as f/16 or f/1.4 etc.

Some lenses allow partial or half stops between each standard setting and allow finer control. These are usually 1/2 stop adjustments and electronically controlled lenses can have 1/3 stop adjustments. Aperture controls are directly related to shutter speeds and if camera meter recommends an exposure of 1/125th at f/8 on any lens, changing the aperture to f/5.6 (1 stop) would allow 1/250th to achieve the same exposure. The lens type or length does not factor into the equation and the same ratios will render the same exposure no matter the focal length.

Aperture stops are exponential. f/2 to f/2.8 is one stop and requires twice as much light. f/4 then requires 4 times as much light and f/5.6 needs 8 times as much light compared to f/2 to achieve the same exposure ratio. So if you were to set the camera at ISO 100, the lens at F4 and the shutter speed of 1/1000th. Then you decide you want a smaller aperture to achieve a greater Depth of Field (DOF). You stop the lens down to f5.6. If the shutter speed is not adjusted, the image will be underexposed. So to allow enough light to expose the sensor or film the same as the first settings, you would need to leave the shutter open longer by one stop (1/500th). You could also increase the ISO to 200 (1 stop) if you needed to keep the same high shutter speed.

These considerations are important in shooting wildlife or sports. Increasing the DOF could be important and high shutter speeds will freeze fast movement. So Aperture controls the amount of light coming in. Shutter speed controls how long that light is exposed to the sensor or film and ISO controls how sensitive the sensor or film is to that incoming light.

I will delve further into aperture controls and uses in a future article. Aperture controls the collimation of light, depth of field, relative sharpness and Bokeh to name a few aspects of this important feature of a lens.

ISO

Film (ASA) or sensor speed number that actually refers to the sensitivity to light. They can be expressed in 1/3, 1/2 and full stops. The numbers also relate to ‘stops’ and is also exponential. ISO 200 is 1 stop more sensitive than ISO 100 and ISO 800 is 4 times more light sensitive than ISO 100.

If a given scene showed a meter reading of ISO 100, f/8 and 1/250, you change the ISO to 200 and now the settings could be changed to f/11, 1/250 or f/8, 1/500. The exposure will remain the same. In the first adjustment, we have compensated for the 1 stop increase in sensitivity by closing the lens down 1 stop. In the second adjustment, we have adjusted for the higher light sensitivity by a one stop shutter speed adjustment. In both cases this keeps the exposure ratio between aperture, ISO and shutter speed the same to avoid over exposure.

Shutter speed

The speed at which the camera fires the shutter. The smaller the fraction, the less light allowed to expose the film or sensor. The metering ratio is directly connected to the aperture setting on the lens. Also raising the ISO will allow faster shutter speeds. Like the other 2 controls, the ratio is exponential. 1/60 allows double the light of 1/125 and 1/250 is 4 times less light. 2 primary factors in using a higher shutter speed are freezing fast action and using a shutter speed that equals the lens’s focal length. Action shots may require a speed of 1/2000 to stop the action where a landscape shot might be fine at 1/30.

Second, before the anti shake systems in most cameras, the rule was “shutter speed matches lens focal length”. So if you had a 100mm lens, your minimum shooting speed would be at least 1/100 to ensure a sharp image. It’s still a valid rule. I have taken sharp images at 1/60 on a 400mm lens using the SR of my camera but if I can take the same shot at 1/500th, the results will still be better. If using a DSLR with an APS-C sensor, then the crop factor needs to be taken into account for the rule of thumb, which then becomes “shutter speed matches lens focal length times the crop factor”. So for the same 100mm lens your minimum shooting speed would be at least 1/150.

Bracketing

A simple practice of taking 2 or more shots of the same scene at different settings. That does not mean shooting the scene at f/8, 1/250 and the bracket shot at f/11, 1/125. This is the same exposure result. There are generally 2 methods of bracketing. Either the camera has the feature and when activated, it will adjust the camera by the user selected exposure increases or decreases in exposure. The other method is understanding the ratios previously discussed and shooting in manual. Thus adjusting the shutter speed up or down by the required Ev change desired. You would not adjust the aperture to control this normally, because that will often change the DoF and how the shot looks.

The idea is you might take 5 different exposures of a scene at -1 Ev, – 1/2 Ev, 0, +1/2 Ev, +1 Ev. This will give you a large latitude of exposures to assist in getting the scene correctly captured.

0 EV	+2 EV	-2 EV

Above you can see the same scene shot at different EV settings.
Click on the thumbnails for a larger view.

Histogram

If your camera has this feature, use it. This is probably one of the most important aids that a modern digital camera has to help get a good exposure. I read all sorts of wild explanations on the perfect exposure and perfect histogram. There is no such thing. We are trying to get the best possible result out of a given scene but the camera sensor does not have enough dynamic range (ratio between dark and light areas) to expose a scene perfectly. There will always be compromises. The sky might be too bright against a subject in the foreground for example. What you are hoping to do is avoid clipping or peaks on the left or right of the histogram.

Too much light or exposure on lighter areas of a scene will ‘blow out’ that area and a white area of a shot has no data. There is nothing there to recover. Similarly with black areas, too little light renders these areas as black with little or no data.

If you look at some histograms and also your editing software, the histogram goes from 0 to 256. 0 being black and 256 being white. We want the histogram to be peaking right in the center if possible which also corresponds to the reading off an 18% gray card. But certain scenes just have too much dynamic range for this type of histogram. You eyes and brain combined have a dynamic range of around 20 stops (a very hotly debated number, which is often quoted higher). The average camera now has a dynamic range of 5-7 stops. So you will have scenes that just can’t have that center ‘hump’ in the reading.

You can bracket the shot as described above and if you used a tripod with cable release, the frames can be combined in software like HDR or Photoshop to get the most out of each region of the frame. You could use a graduated neutral density filter to balance out the exposure levels but that can be difficult if the scene does not have a relatively straight line, defining light from dark areas. Additional light from a flash or other source could fill the dark areas, allowing a more balanced light level to the scene for exposure. Also some methods of shadow or highlight recovery in software can give you a 1 or 2 stops of adjustment.

So try to get a balanced histogram, without clipped peaks at either end, that would tell you the whites or blacks are over or under exposed.

Cheers and good shooting –Peter Zack

Related posts:

1. Achieve the Exposure You Want, Part 2
2. Achieve the Exposure You Want, Part 1
3. Beautiful Photographs Made with a Long Exposure Lens

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© Peter Zack for Enticing the Light, 2009. All rights reserved, do not reproduce without permission. | Read article with proper formatting.