sperosphotography.com

Talk about selective focus…      

Shot on Kodak Black and White  Tri-X   Film ISO 400. Nikon FE 2

mounted with a 50MMFX 1.4 lens

This years Everyman Photo competition is now accepting entries. Click on the links for more information for contest rules.

 http://theeveryman.com/121.php

The Everyman believes that anyone who has ever taken pictures in their life, has taken good pictures. One of the primary differences between professionals and non-professionals is how reliably they can get the good shot. because, photography, like any art, is meant to capture a moment, convey a feeling, tell a story, it is erroneous to believe that in order for a photo to be effective or artistic it must have formal composition, ideal lighting or, and most importantly, be taken by a professional.

My Honorable Mention entry in the Everyman Photography competition from 2009 (see above). Click on the link below to see all of the winners and Honorable Mentions from 2009.

http://www.theeveryman.com/95a.php?cat=2 

My photo was shot in Hollywood, California using Tri-X B&W film ISO 400 pushed to 800 to add more contrast in processing. I used my dependable 35MM Pentax Spotmatic coupled with it’s 1.2  50mm Fx lens .

Some handy tips and reminders…
So how do you fill your frame?

You generally have four options:

1.Use your Optical Zoom – most point and shoot digital cameras these days come with a zoom lens and all DSLRs are able to be fitted with one. Use them.

2.Use your Legs – most photographers have a built in zoom in the form of their legs. Don’t just rely upon your cameras zoom but actually position yourself effectively for close in shots.

3.Crop your Shots – the other option is to zoom in manually at home after you’ve taken your shots. This is a handy option to have but I personally prefer to use one of the first two options where I can because cropping shots later means if you want a large image that you’ll find that it becomes more pixelated. This is a good option if you’re just trimming shots but any major cropping will result in a loss of quality of your image.

4.Digital Zooms – Another option that many digital camera owners use is to utilize their ‘digital zoom’. Most digital cameras these days have boast about having digital zooms but don’t tell you that to use them will decrease the quality of your shots in a similar way that cropping your shots can. In essence a digital zoom fills your frame by increasing the size of pixels in your shots when can leave you with a grainy impact. I would highly recommend switching off your digital zoom feature and relying upon option 1 and 2 above. If you still need to get in closer you can always crop your shots and achieve the same results as using your digital zoom.

Read more: <a href=”http://digital-photography-school.com/fill-your-frame#ixzz1s9lp2jeo”>http://digital-photography-school.com/fill-your-frame#ixzz1s9lp2jeo

Early March Wedding for my oldest nephew…I wasn’t the designated shooter but I sneaked in behind the hired gun for some  personal shots…

Spring is in the air…well, nearly. Some annuals made their first appearance this past week on our front patio. I gave them some help and punched up a dreamy look with my favorite Lightroom 3 “Dreamy” preset. Shot with a Nikon D300 using a Nikon 35MMDX lens…

I am not a Mac or Iphone or an “I” anything guy; however, when I found this photo app for the Iphone I had to share. It almost makes me want to go out and buy an Iphone… almost.
The app comes from our friends at the “Stuck In Customs” HDR site.

http://www.stuckincustoms.com/2011/01/12/100-cameras-in-1-new-version/

How to shoot portraits like a pro from NYIP. Handy tips for all of us on a shoestring equipment budget…read on

I used my on camera pop flash for this shot. It added a nice warm fill light to compensate for the mottled shade the tree’s canopy provided.
The following article is by NYI Student Adviser George Delgado

NYIP’s newest student adviser, George Delgado, is a professional photographer, and an NYIP graduate. In addition to running a portrait and wedding photography business here in New York City, George has a wide variety of experience in business and an extensive background in the aviation industry including stints as a pilot and aviation instructor. In this article for NYIP. com, George discusses the use of small flashes over studio strobes.
NYIP students and aspiring photographers often wonder; should they invest in studio strobes or is there another alternative? Powerful hot shoe flashes and new DSLR cameras able to produce better images at higher ISO settings have opened up new possibilities — “studio” results from small hot shoe flashes.
30 years ago, most commercial still photography was done with film rated at ISO 64. You needed a huge amount of light to get a good exposure at f8 and that’s what studio strobes provide — a huge amount of light. Today, high end DSLRs can produce clean, low-noise images at ISO 800. That means they need about 1/8th of the light to shoot at the same aperture, opening up the possibility of smaller, lower powered flashes doing just as well now as studio strobes did a few years back.
Studio strobes and hot shoe flashes use exactly the same technology with three principal differences; size, power, and energy source. So if you begin to think of a hot shoe flash as a small, battery-powered studio strobe you’re on the right track for getting studio results with your hot shoe flash.

The secret to producing studio quality light is to get your hot shoe flash off the camera, and to use light modifiers like umbrellas to produce that controlled, studio “look”. That can be accomplished with relatively little trouble and expense. The basic requirements are (1) a light stand to hold the flash (2) an umbrella or softbox to diffuse and soften the light (3) a bracket to mount the flash and umbrella on the light stand, and (4) a “trigger” to fire the flash when you click the shutter. The trigger can be a sync cord, a radio trigger such as Pocket Wizard or a dedicated system like Nikon’s “Commander” function, or Canon’s Speedlite Transmitter.
Apart from the power output, there is one other very important difference between studio and hot shoe flashes. Studio flash does not work with your camera’s “Automatic” or “TTL” (Through the Lens) flash settings like dedicated hot shoe flash does. Studio strobes are strictly “Manual” mode. But if you have a dedicated hot shoe flash setup you may be able to shoot in TTL mode and the flash output should automatically vary to produce an acceptable exposure. The two key words are “should” and “acceptable”. Studio lighting setups are intended to guarantee that every shot is exposed perfectly, and with complete consistency from one frame to the next. TTL is not likely to achieve that since it will vary flash output slightly with each minor change in camera angle, composition, or distance from camera to subject. You may take three consecutive shots and have one overexposed by a full stop, another perfect, and a third underexposed. To get results that are more consistent you need to put your flash in Manual Mode and adjust the output to the exact amount of light you want. You should do this using a flash meter, but with lots of practice and experience you may be able to “guesstimate” the correct settings for your flash and adjust after checking the exposure in a test shot. In the “olden days” before the digital era, commercial photographers used to shoot Polaroid test shots before putting film in the camera and photographing “for real”. Now we can achieve the same thing by looking at the digital “Polaroid” on the back of our camera, and the histogram which will reveal if we have overexposed highlights or are losing detail in shadows.
How do hot shoe flashes compare with studio strobes in terms of light output? There’s little doubt that even low end studio strobes are more powerful than high end hot shoe flashes, but how much more powerful? It’s remarkably difficult to get a straight and simple answer to that question since studio strobes are measured and marketed on the basis of “watt-seconds” and hot shoe flash output is rated by Guide Number. It’s incredible, but neither unit of measure actually tells you how much light (in lumens) is produced. And there’s no conversion factor or correlation between “watt-seconds” which measures the power consumed by the strobe and “Guide Number” which is a theoretical maximum distance for using a flash at a given ISO and focal length.
What really matters is whether you, as a photographer, can illuminate your subject adequately to produce a good exposure at an aperture setting that gives you the depth of field you need and an ISO that will not result in excessive “noise” or grain. From personal experience I know that shooting in a 20′x12′ room with white walls and ceiling, a single hot shoe flash with a reflector or shoot-through umbrella will probably provide enough light to shoot an individual headshot or small group portrait at f8 and ISO 200. For a group of 50 people in a large windowless ballroom with a 40 foot ceiling, you’ll want the studio strobe!
One of the secrets to success with less powerful hot shoe flashes is to keep the light as close as possible to the subject, since the amount of light decreases by the inverse square of the distance. An umbrella 2 feet from your subject may give you an f8 reading at ISO 100, but if you move it 4 feet away, the reading will drop to f5.6 or you’ll have to boost the ISO to 200. That’s one of the reasons I prefer to shoot through a white umbrella, rather than using a reflector umbrella. I can get the outward curving exterior of the umbrella within a foot or two of my subject, but if I turn it around, the concave inner surface of the umbrella in “bounce” mode needs to be at least three or four feet away, and the sharp end of the umbrella shaft would be pointed at my subject’s face.
In a typical photo studio, multiple lights are usually used to provide ideal balance of light, shadow and accent areas, with a main, fill, background and kicker or hair light. You can do exactly the same setups with multiple hot shoe flashes. And here’s a real “inside secret”. You can mix studio strobes and hot shoe flashes to achieve great results. When I do corporate headshots on location, I occasionally use my Photogenics 500 WS Powerlight with a 36″x24″ softbox as a main light, with three Canon hot shoe flashes as my fill, background and “kicker” lights. This combination gives me great quality and reliability. With the studio strobe doing the “heavy lifting” to provide the main source of illumination, the smaller strobes (with external battery packs to give them extra “juice”) can fire reliably all day long at 1/2 power or less. It’s much more portable than bringing 4 studio strobes, and there are fewer cords for subjects to trip over, since there’s just one unit that plugs into the wall.
So if you on the fence, and can’t decide on whether to go the hot shoe or studio strobe route, maybe the best answer is “both”!