Photoshoot with Drew Rayann Young

While I was out in California, I did a little photoshoot at a cool spot in LA with an up and coming songwriter/musician named Drew. Friend of mine, lovely girl, and we had a lot of fun shooting. I am almost done editing the pics which I will post later but here is one from the camera that made me laugh.

Wow, it's been a while.

I haven't touched this blog in a long time now. I have so many plans for this blog, and need to promote it, but I have been so busy with my first career, which is dirt bikes. I was living in California for 4 months and got home just in time for halloween. Now I am home for the holidays relaxing and learning new tricks. I did show my brother how to use my camera and set it up so I could get some new photos of myself. Here is what I have really been up too.

Hopefully more things coming soon!

I have been so busy lately I haven't had time to write in this blog. Short summary. I am living in California riding my dirt bikes trying to learn some new things, took an awesome 5 day camping trip in the Grand Canyon, and now I am trying to work on a few new photo projects as soon as I am free. It's been so long since I took a photo I might of forgot how!

Strobist Flash Umbrella Mod

If you are shooting with umbrellas you may have noticed one issue or maybe you didn't, but the flash doesn't line up with the umbrella center and doesn't spread evenly, completely ruining what an umbrella should do. The pictures below are a simple mod I have done to my umbrella's to solve this issue. read on.

This is before the umbrella mod, I even had a stofen diffuser on the end. You can see it doesn't fill the entire umbrella well. The bottom is in the dark cause the flash sits so high up. 

I took my umbrella down to my local welder and for about 20 bucks he did 4 of them. Pretty simple, I just cut a spare umbrella into 4 pieces each about 5 inches. and he welded that steel flat piece on. 

Be careful to make sure it still closes

Basically, All I did was stick the umbrella in normally with my flash and I measured from the umbrella to the bottom of my flash head on my smallest flash(sb-600) and I had a about 4.5 inches. So my welder cut the plate 4 inches, lifting the umbrella up almost in line with my flash head.

And in the end you get this. Look how much more it's centered with a bare flash head

Then just flip your flash wide angle diffuser out and like magic, you get a great full spread, even on this 43" umbrella. 

Calibrating Your Monitor

Monitor Calibration is basically making your screen look like it would appear on paper. This is topic that comes up from time to time but it's not something you think about when getting into photography. Honestly it's tough, there are so many monitors out there, it's hard to make an image look great on everything. One monitor it'll be too blue, or colors are off, one it might be bright and one dark. You have to do the best you can and knowing your monitor isn't the one that's off gives you some confidence your images are they best the can be. When you start printing images for yourself or clients or anything else, you really see the difference if your monitor is not calibrated correctly. I see a difference going from my Macbook Pro to my Dell Desktop even though both are LCD's. My desktop was out of service for a while, but since I added some new parts, big ol' monitor, and Windows 7(which is really great), I have started to use it again along with my apple laptop. So I had to find a way to calibrate them.

So what can you do?

There are tons of sites out there that try to give you free general templates to view to calibrate on the fly. They are okay, especially if you are only sharing photos on the web or you aren't worried so much about them having that professional polish. But if you really want to step it up, you gotta get some software.

There are some calibrators out there that are well, expensive. They do there job well, but sometimes it's tough to shell out $200 bucks or more for a calibrator when you still are investing in equipment. The most popular is probably Datacolor's Spyder Series. X-Rite and Colortron is also out there. Basically you attached this device to your screen and with software you adjust your monitor and it reads everything till you have a perfectly calibrated monitor. Great stuff.

Well, here is the cheap but fairly efficient way to calibrate your monitor.

If you have a Windows machine, you are in luck because there is a free piece of software called QuickGamma for calibrating your monitor. Make sure you download the english version.

QUICKGAMMA

If your on a mac there is an excellent program called SuperCal. To enable full features, which you really need, you have to pay $19 bucks. Honestly, I am all for open software and think some programs overprice their software to ridiculous amounts but this is cheap and really worth the 19 bucks.

SUPERCAL

Quickgamma adjust on the fly and sits down in your menu bar, where SuperCal actually makes new profiles you save and choose in your display preferences. This is the best I have found so far, any suggestions would be welcomed.

What's in my Bags?

You know a lot people always question what you shoot with. A lot of times they have a misconception that a great photo has to come from a $5000 dollar camera body with a $2500 dollar lens. This is simply not true. I have slowly built up my equipment, and I still have far to go, you can only do what you can afford.

Camera bodies are the least of your worries in my opinion. There are full frame cameras and cropped frame cameras. I shoot with Nikon, so their full frames are the D3's and D700. Their cropped frame cameras are the D7000, D300, D90, D3100 and all the others. I won't go into the difference but generally people say cropped frame cameras are for "amateurs" and full frames are for "pro's". This is true in a way, you gotta know how to use iso, apertures and shutter speeds. But with the introduction of the D7000 they are blurring the lines, and sometimes I really like the extra zoom I get in cropped frames.

Your lens is very important, there are some cheap lenses out there that are amazing. I have a 50mm that was 200 bucks and it's great. But when it comes to zooms you start to see a bigger difference in quality. You want to read reviews and make you buy the best lens you can for your price range. You really get what you pay for when it comes to lenses.

Nikon vs. Canon. Oh boy. The fight continues. haha. It's crazy how people argue over what's better. Well I am here to tell you neither. They are both amazing cameras and offer slightly different things. I shoot Nikon and I like it. I think it depends more on what you start with. I have used Nikon since my first camera so the menus and way it works is familiar, so I may never change. They both offer almost identical lenses and camera bodies. I think it's great to have both because they constantly push to outdo each other, which means we end up with never ending technology gains.

Here is what I am shooting with.

Camera Bag:

Nikon D7000
Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 vr2
Nikon 35-70mm f/2.8
Nikon 10.5mm f2.8 Fisheye
Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8
Nikon 50mm f/2.8
Hoya HD UV Filters
Hoya HD Circular Polarizers
ColorRight Pro white balancer
Slik 4000x Tripod

Strobist Bag:

Nikon SB900
Nikon SB600 x2
Nikon SU-800 Controller
Orbis Ring flash
Lumodi 14" White Beauty Dish
Ephoto 22" Silver Beauty Dish
43" White Umbrella x2
33" Silver x1 and White x1 Umbrella
Rectangular 4 color reflector

Wish List: It's huge!

Nikon D700
Nikon 14mm or 16mm f/2.8 Fisheye
Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8
Nikon 105mm f/2.8 micro
Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8
Nikon 24mm or 45mm Tilt Shift Lens
Nikon 14E or 20E Tele Converter
2nd SB900
Boom Stand

Ross Lowell's Matters of Light & Depth Review

Who is Ross Lowell? Ross is a leading pioneer in the art of light. His main talents are still photography and cinematography. With director, teacher, producer, woodworker, writer, and even inventor to add to his list of achievements, the man has had quite a life. If you have ever been to the Lowel Lighting website, you will see his handy-work, he is the founder of it.

Matters of Light & Depth was a book he published in 1992 containing 224 pages. Considering that was almost 20 years ago, it's amazing this book is still relevant today. Some of it is a tad outdated due to the rise of digital photography, but the lessons and theory still applies exactly the same. It's interesting because this book is aimed at not just photographers, but video and film people too, hence the sub-title "creating memorable images for video, film, and stills through lighting." This was the first book on lighting I ever read, and I just started reading it a second time. The wealth of information available in this book is so vast, you can read it over and over for years and still learn something.

What's in the book? Simple. Lighting. Okay, so it's not that simple. The book covers a wide array of subjects. This is one of the most comprehensive books out there on this subject. He starts simple with his idea of lighting planes, hard and soft light, and descriptions of the basic light setups, key light, kicker light, and so on. Then as you move deeper, he gets in too more technique like composing, framing, dollying, and booming followed by things such as multi light set ups, night and day, formula lighting and some light philosophy. The end of this book is filled with lighting exercises to put your new knowledge to work.

Whether you are a student or professional of film, video, or photography, this is a must have book. If you are going to learn something, why not learn from someone who has been there, done that. While some things in the book only pertain to film or photography, most of it applies to all. If you are trying to take that next step in any of those three fields, I honestly think this book will give you guidance in the right direction. Overall I give this book a 5 of 5 stars.

Chapter 1:Light of Passage - Basic Theory & Practice
Chapter 2:Lighting by Numbers - Technique
Chapter 3:In Broad Daylight - Tools & Tactics
Chapter 4:Dynamic Lighting of Static Subjects - Technique
Chapter 5:Shedding Light - Practical Matters
Chapter 6:Hearing the Light - Light Philosophy
Chapter 7:Light On Lessons & Resources - Exercises for the Eye
Chapter 8:Terms of Enlightenment - Glossary

ISO, Shutter, Aperture. The Three Kings.

My first little tutorial is simply on shutter speed, aperture, and ISO. These are probably the three most important things you need to understand about your camera and all three can affect each other. If you want to take good photos and have control of your results, you need to get off that camera auto mode or scene modes and strictly use the manual modes.

Shutter speed is pretty simple, imagine your shutter is like a curtain on a stage and there is this amazing background(your photograph), it has to open and expose your stage with light to see it. Shutters expose the sensor with light, sort of like opening the curtain would the stage.  If you have a super fast shutter speed like 1/2000 of second, the shutter open and closes super fast and exposes the photo with very little light. A couple things happen here, one you need more light to expose the photo properly, and two, at this speed you can freeze movement or action of anything. At a 3 second shutter speed, your camera opens the shutter for that length of time, allowing light to flood in for a full 3 seconds. This way you need much less light to expose the photo properly but subjects will definitely blur if they move, You also need a tripod to prevent camera shake in those long shutter speeds.

Fast Shutter = Freezing action, less light hitting the sensor.
Slow Shutter = Motion Blur, collects more light on sensor

ISO is that number you might have seen on film before you had a digital camera, 100, 200, and 400 were all pretty standard. Your camera has the same thing. ISO is hard to describe, I would say it's kind of like a sponge, as you turn it up to say ISO 3200, your camera is going to soak up more light, but at the cost of quality, things like grain and noise start to be introduced at high ISO's. If you shoot at ISO 100, your image is gonna be much smoother and have lower noise like less porous sponge, that in mind, the sponge isn't going to soak up as much light.

Larger ISO = more exposure and light, more grain and noise
Smaller ISO = less exposure and light, less grain and noise

Aperture is that number you see on your lens. Some may say f/2.8 or f/3.5-5.6. Aperture is actually a function of your lens, but greatly affects your camera. You can see the aperture in many lenses just by looking inside. They almost look like blades overlapping to make a circle in the center and that is what your camera looks through to take the photograph. Now some people get confused at this point because you would think a larger aperture would be a bigger number but it's the exact opposite. The lower the number the larger the aperture, meaning the closer you get to zero, the bigger the hole which allows more light in. The larger the aperture number the smaller the aperture hole is open, smaller hole = less light in. Now when you have a lens that says f2.8, it means the aperture will open as large as 2.8, which will allow more light in than say a f/3.5. If this is a zoom lens it means you entire zoom range will be able to shoot at aperture 2.8. When a lens say something like f/3.5-5.6, it means that as you zoom your lens, the largest aperture available becomes smaller. So say you have a 18-200mm lens. At 18mm your biggest aperture is 3.5, but as you zoom out it gets smaller and smaller till you hit 200mm and your largest aperture is now 5.6 which means you need more light to properly expose the photo than you did at 18mm. So in short, shooting at f/2.8 will be a large aperture allowing more light into the camera, at f/18, the aperture will be much smaller and the light allowed inside with be significantly less. Aperture affects one more important factor of your photo, depth of field. When you shoot at f/2.8, a very large aperture, your photo will blur very quickly from your focused subject. As you zoom in, it intensifies it. At a small aperture like f/18, your overall photo will be much more in focus throughout the frame, and the blurring effect will be considerable diminished.

Larger Aperture = lower F number, shallow depth of field, frame blurs quickly from focus point
Smaller Aperture = higher F number, wide depth of field, more of the frame stays sharp from focus point

How does each affect the other. Let's say you are taking a photo of a street in broad daylight and it's very bright. You want to capture cars driving by. So you start with an ISO 100, shutter speed 1/50 of a second, and an aperture of 3.5. You take the pic and exposure is perfect but the car driving is blurred. So you need to up the shutter speed to say 1/500 of second cause the faster it is the better is freezes subjects. Now you are letting less light in, so to get the same exposure you need to either A) turn up your ISO or B)open your aperture larger. Maybe 3.5 is your biggest aperture, so you have to turn up your ISO to 800, take another pic and that should get it close to the original exposure but now your car isn't blurred.

A second example, let's say you got the same car shot at ISO 1600, shutter 1/500 of a second, and an aperture of 3.5. It's perfect exposure but maybe you want the car to blur this time to see movement. You know you got to slow the shutter speed. Let's try 1 second. Take the pic, now everything is overexposed.  It's cause you let more light in at one second than you did at 1/500. Again you can change the ISO or the aperture. So we change ISO and knock it down to 200. Now the image is clearer with less noise thanks to the lower ISO and it soaks up less light bringing the exposure back down to your original perfect photo. But wait, the background is also blurred a lot due to the 3.5 aperture. Let's say I want the building in the back to be in focus as well. I need a smaller aperture. So make the aperture smaller by going up in number. I set it at 13. Take the pic, now it's underexposed because the smaller aperture let's less light in on the sensor. So, we go back to the ISO and turn it back up to 1600 and now we have a properly expose photo, with a blurred car and an in focus building in the background.

These numbers are not exact, I didn't measure the stops or test any photos, it's just for reference so you get an idea of what you can do. The best thing is sit somewhere and take photos. Change these settings and look at the photo and you immediately start to see what effect it has on your picture.

Some general photography tips. If you are shooting action, I will use shutter priority a lot, and maybe turn the ISO up to 800. Not much noise will come from new cameras at this ISO and it allows my camera more flexibility when choosing an aperture. Then you can set your camera to say 1/1600 of a second, which is real fast and creates that frozen movement. In this mode your camera will adjust the aperture automatically with changing conditions. Sometimes full manual takes to much time and you might miss that great shot.

Aperture priority is great for landscape and city photography. Generally you want a smaller aperture so more of the picture stays in focus. At an aperture of f/2.8, basically only the point you focus on will be real sharp and the rest of the landscape or city will be blurred. Which is also okay if that's what you are going for. But normally if you want everything sharp and crisp, set it on aperture priority and bump it up to say f/18. Then your camera will adjust the shutter speed needed to properly expose the photo, and the small aperture will keep more things in focus.

Full Manual Mode. the best, you have full control over your depth of field via the aperture, your shutter speed, and ISO. You can fine tune your pics this way and make them exactly what you want. This is my most used setting but those other priority modes come in handy.

Photography Philosophy

I am gonna start this second post with a little philosophy 101 and a bio. So I started taking photos for an amateur motocross magazine back in 2008 because motocross is where I come from. Originally I was only a writer, but I had a camera and wanted to take some pics of things I was writing about. I have been racing motocross for 15 years or so now, and I am still fully active in the sport, photography comes second to that. Since 2008, I got the bug, and really started enjoying what photography offered me, and think it might be my calling in the future when I have been broken to many times to ride a dirt bike anymore.

I am not the kind of person who picks up something up and just learns as I go. When I wanna do something, I do it 110% and search out everything possible to help me. I think that goes well with photography cause there is so much to learn. I have come a long ways since 2008 and it's all due to the ambition and mindset I have to learn everything from everyone I can. Honestly, you can never stop learning if you want to reach the next the next level. Whether your jump is from beginner to novice or amateur to pro, or even pro to all time great, the learning never stops. As little as I have been in it, I know many photographers already who want to take great photos but lack the drive or interest of searching out information and learning from great photographers. Thanks to the internet, there is a wealth of information available. From YouTube, to online tutorials, even video sets you can order, your photography can always grow.

I don't know how much I covered any philosophy, but here is my belief. When it comes to photography, learn everything you can. Even the best photographers in the world learn something new every year. With anything else don't be held down by mediocrity, if you don't like your pictures, figure out why, and what you can do to enhance them. Is it your composition, use of lighting, subject, angle, color balance or whatever else. It's amazing how a change in one dimension of a photo can turn the dull into amazing. I try to follow these philosophy's and hope one day everyone will look at my work in a positive way.

Since I am just starting this blog I don't wanna jump too far ahead, so I am gonna start out simple, aimed more towards the beginner. From there I will move on up into more advanced advice. But I will give you an example of things I am gonna cover.

-Learning your camera. Having a full knowledge of exposure, depth of field, aperture,, shutter speed and how the changes will effect your photo.

-Photoshop tutorials ranging from simple use of tools to advanced featuring of layering and masks, polishing up images for a final product.

-HDR tutorials, to help you break the stigma of overdone and sometimes noisy HDR's.

-Lighting Techniques

-Reviews of lenses, umbrellas including flash mods, beauty dishes(Ephoto and Lumodi), flashes, Nikon cls, orbis ring flash, video tutorials from the strobist David Hobby, pro Karl Taylor, and probably a host of other things. See ya soon.

Welcome!

So, here is my first blog post. I am gonna give this blog thing a try. I have learned so much the last few years. It would never be possible without the ambition I have to be a great photographer, and the many photographers I have learned from. I want to use this blog as a tool to help people become better photographers and review some products I use or used in the past. Photography isn't my first job(more on that later), so sometimes I get real busy, so allow me some time between posts. thanks.