Just Got a New Camera?

With the advent of the dSLR, the landscape of photography has changed. Especially b/c of the dropping prices, everyone is getting in on the action. We definitely want to give you some food for thought through our posts and so we'll be discussing techniques and topics that range a whole lot just b/c we're interested in different aspects of photography.

But I know there are some guys - like a first year student at Berkeley - who just got a dSLR and has a ton of questions. And we don't want to re-invent the wheel when there are a whole lot of good resources out there already. So I thought I'd drop this simple primer.

For those interested in off-camera lighting, I'd like to point you to BootCamp II that Strobist is hosting. You definitely want to start on the Lighting101 and 102 before you dive into this one though.

A flash of sunlight

A quickie on using a flash/strobe: Daytime 'fill-flash.'

Have you ever had this situation? It's bright outside, so you figure your photo will look great. You aim, use auto, and fire - and, your subjects are dark, like in this test photo (taken at Pedernales Falls in Texas):

What's a day-time shooter to do? Surprise - flash use is not limited to the indoors! Whenever your background is brighter than your foreground, and you use auto-exposure, the foreground will end up darker than you would like. This type of situation is called being "back-lit." Sometimes the brightness contrast between fg/bg is too great, so you have to simply choose to expose for the foreground, and consequently "blow-out," or overexpose, the background (you could expose for the background as well, and "block-up," or underexpose, the foreground, but this is rarely what is wanted). But when the fg/bg contrast is more manageable, using the flash can help "fill in" the foreground enough to provide a usable photo. Here, I used the on-board flash on my Canon 300D, and while the background stayed the same, the foreground now is much better exposed:

The trees in the background are still kind of hot, but the people in the foreground are much better exposed. This still isn't a great example of flash photography, really, because (a) the foreground could still have used some more flash power (the on-board flash's Guide Number is only about 15 or so), and (b) there is noticeable glare/hotspots on some of the people's faces due to the flash being close to the lens. But given the situation, out in the hills of Pedernales, fill-flash made a photo with an unusable foreground, into a much more usable photo (aside from the horizon being skewed a little to the right =D ).

You can also do this with digicams; hit the flash button until you get the lightning bolt by itself (as opposed to lightning bolt w/ an 'A' on it, or the lightning bolt w/ the no-smoking sign on it) to force the flash. Try it out! Even if the subjects aren't completely in the shade, photographers often use fill-flash to get a little eye sparkle, or to fill in the slight shadows under people's noses, cheekbones, and chins. And if you have any comments or further tips please feel free to comment back. I think John will give a more in-depth treatment on flash in a future post, but I thought this might be a nice end-of-the-week post that could be useful for people's outings over the weekend. Happy shooting!

Affordable Macro

Nope, not the latest Apple rowboat (har, har), but macro-photography: shooting stuff from a close distance to make it look really big. Often used in nature close-ups of plants and insects, macro photography can be lots of fun, providing a different perspective on subjects, and is a nice addition to one's quiver of photographic tools.

To give a bit of the tech background: one characteristic of a lens is its 'minimum focusing distance' (MFD). Due to design constraints (cost, size, product marketing), a given lens is made in such a way that it cannot focus closer than a certain distance from the lens, i.e. MFD. (However, at the other end, all lenses are able to focus to infinity.) A lens' macro capability is described in terms of "reproduction ratio," which is (size of object image on 35mm film) : (actual size of object). . I.e., a 1:1 ratio means that if you are using 35mm film, a 1cm long beetle will have an image that is 1cm long on the physical negative. A 1:2 ratio means the will have an image .5cm long on the negative. The higher the reproduction ratio, the more detail available.

Macro photography for SLRs is a niche market, and macro lenses usually command much higher prices than their non-macro siblings at the same focal length. Canon has a 100/2.8 USM macro lens that retails at $509 from B&H, Nikon has one in a similar focal length (105mm) with VR, that goes nearly $900 - ouch. So, what's a fellow to do if he wants to try out macro? Luckily for us, there are two affordable alternatives:
1. Buy a 'macro body.'
- Pretty much all consumer point-and-shoots these days come with a macro setting. This is one of the most remarkable advantages of modern digicams, that one can switch to macro without having to change lenses. The image quality is not quite as good as on a dSLR of course, but with some of Canon's cheapest Digital Elphs (Amazon.com is a good source) going as low as the $100 range, this is a much cheaper way to play around with macro than the lens options above.
2. Go retro.
- One of the quirks of the Canon EOS system, is that a variety of other lenses can be used on EOS bodies, via use of adapters. One type of lens that can be used in this manner, are Nikon manual focus (MF) lenses. Yup, you can use Nikon lenses on Canon bodies! (the converse is not true, however). While this is a topic that probably deserves its own post, one of the benefits of this is that Nikon had several micro (Nikon's name for macro) lens offerings: 55/3.5, 55/2.8, 105/2.8, 200/4, to name a few, which now, since these lenses are manual focus only, are much cheaper than their AF counterparts. One such lens is the Micro-Nikkor P 55mm F3.5 here:


This lens cost me $25 on Craigslist, and it was in pristine condition. It can go to 1:2 normally, and 1:1 with use of an extension tube, which it came with. Taken right at around 1:1, this shot of a quarter I took captures what is possible with a macro lens:


Another thing you'll notice is the hair-thin depth of field. Since you are so close to your subject, the DoF becomes really narrow, thus macro photography generally requires larger apertures to get the entire object in focus. The high degree of magnification also exaggerates camera movement, so most macro applications also predicate use of a tripod.

There's more to explore about macro, but hopefully this intro discussion and two possible affordable solutions has been useful/interesting! Also, comment back with some neat macro shots you've taken.

End of the Week Post

At the end of the week, right before the long weekend, we all want some entertaining stuff, so here it is. At least what I've found. Figured I could share it with you and clue you in on what I've found interesting recently.

Ross Ching's a time lapse, stop motion, and live action camera kind of guy and has some amazing shots he's put together to a Death Cab for Cutie's song. Way cool video, and totally trendy.

I like the Black Rapids' R-Strap because it frees me up from carrying around a big camera bag, while also protecting the body and lens from swinging out and crashing into nearby objects (which often happens if you're using the standard Canon/Nikon strap that comes with your camera). The R-strap is a camera-fied version of a single point rifle sling that military folks use. I like it because the body and lens are pointed in into the small of your back, out of the way when you're moving through crowds and tight situations. I've seen other folks trying out their own DIY straps to get away from the clunky hanging-around-your-neck situation.

Mike gives some great tips about how to shop for camera gear on his new Petapixel blog. Although the shopping around on Craigslist is really time-consuming, his tips on what to look for and how to be prepared (e.g. looking through the lens, checking the camera sensor, etc.) are very smart. Definitely worth a read if you're purchasing used gear off Craigslist.

Everyone knows by now the (cool) Official White House Flickr Photostream. But I also really like The Big Picture, "News stories in photographs."

Lesson about VR/IS

Recently, i got a chance to compare a VR lens (IS for Canon) and a non-VR lens.  I was comparing the Nikon 80-200 AF-D (2-ring) 2.8 and the Nikon 70-200 AF-S (Ultrasonic for Canon) VR 2.8.  Granted that the 70-200 lens is the 2nd rev of the 80-200 AF-D (2-ring) lens.

2 different Sunday services.  Unfortunately i didn't have both lenses with me to compare the exact same situation.  In both cases the subject is reading his/her testimony. The lighting was the similar, with the first setting possibly having more lighting.  I was standing on a chair about 100ft away.   So here it goes:

80-200 AF-D

exif: iso1250 2.8 1/125  0ev 200mm 

70-200 VR

exif: iso500 2.8 1/60  0ev 200mm

Zooming in we can see some more noise detail:

I was personally shocked about the kind of noise difference that one can see.  This was largely due to the fact that I was able to decrease the iso (from 1250 to 500) b/c i was able to shoot at 1/60 versus 1/125.  why?  b/c of the VR.  otherwise there would have been too much shake. Thanks VR!

I still have a long way to go still but it was nice to try to see how these 2 kinds of lenses can produce such different results.  Of course with some more post-processing and some noise ninja i'm sure i could do better. =)

Are all Memory Cards Created Equal?

I used to think that I should just get the cheapest one out there.  Then I thought ok, what about the fastest one? And then I ran into another very "scientific" article.  I appreciate Rob Galbraith's work on this subject.  He took out a lot of the guess work for me.  He takes into account the speed of your camera bus and then the speed of your card.  Right now I'm using a Transcend 4GB 300x and my backup is an Sandisk Extreme III.  Usually I'm OK unless I decide to shoot RAW.  Then I really choose my shots more carefully or I end up doing a lot more deleting on the fly.  

UV Filter or Not to UV Filter - that's the question

Do I really need a filter? OK, if I do, then does it matter which one I get?  Is there a real difference?  Well, I suppose that you can answer this in a couple of ways.  I've asked friends, photographers and even went to the internet via forums and web searches and everyone has different opinions- just to protect your lens, just polarizer and ND, digital doesn't care about uv, lens flare, etc....  And I wanted a slightly more scientific approach. So i found this article.

They used a spectrophotometer to measure the quality of the filters.  Talk about scientific!  And of course, they did some real life testing with the various filters.  I thought it was a helpful/useful test.  I'm going to test one of their suggest filters.  I found one on ebay for $30, so not a bad investment/test since an el cheapo Tiffen costs about $10.

Here's what I look for mainly for UV filters:

Multiple coating - Why? Biggest practical reason is that my kids touch my filters and get their fingerprints all over it. yuck. but the multiple coating makes it easier to wipe away the fingerprints.

Mainly, i've been using it for lens protection.  From my basic experience, I've found the quality of the filter does affect your outdoor shooting as the article shows with the various pictures.