Capturing…

MR Photography WorkshopPark Place Porsche in Dallas

August 23, 2014

2

General Guidelines for Capturing

There is a universal language to pictures. If you take the top photographers, museum curators, artists and other people skilled in the visual arts, you would be surprised how similar their judgments will be.

Most important are Emotions, then Composing, and lastly Technique. Art and Craft in that order! But the order of importance is not the order of execution; see below.

Anybody can learn to expose properly, especially w/ today’s automatic cameras; but if the photographer does not know how to recognize a good subject and the process of turning that subject into an outstanding picture, what is the point of taking a properly exposed snapshot? Selecting a subject is an Art!

When I go out to take photographs, I want the result to mean something to me; People, Nature, Animals, Cars, Old Buildings, etc. You may have different important subjects. If I have an emotional relation to what I photograph, my enthusiasm increases the chance that the viewer will also have an emotional reaction. I try to use my feelings to decide what I aim my camera at. (If I don't particularly care for the subject, why would I expect others to be affected positively by it?). At the same time, when my creativity kicks in, it gives me a better idea of how to make the results interesting for others.

3

There is a flip side: A subject can be disturbing. Some subjects evoke strong emotions. It’s difficult to stay calm and objective when photographing highly emotional events, but you should try. In these moments, its important to concentrate on the craft, not the overly emotional subject!

Contrary to my Art before Craft rule, when I first see the image in the viewfinder, the logical part of my brain takes charge. All that matters at first is to present the subject in the best possible way and possibly true to a particular style. It’s now vital to completely detach emotionally from what I’m photographing. All that matters is geometry and technique…and TIMING. After I have the camera adjusted and the scene framed, I must wait for the moment when I take a picture. How do I know when that moment arrives?

Unlike the technical, crafty parts of photography, which are handled by the left-brain, knowing when to push the shutter is a right-brain task. If you think about it, you will screw up the shot. Just relax and let your right-brain push the shutter in isolation! It won’t ask permission of the left-brain. It won’t ask for a conference. It won’t inform you why it pushed the shutter when it did. But the right-brain is what you should use to time shutter depressions. At first the right-brain may not do very well, but with practice, it gets better. It’s like hitting a baseball or driving around pylons. Timing a photograph is also an Art! Strive to keep your left-brain from being critical of the right-brain!

4

1. Selecting the Main Subject

The first step is to decide what the MAIN subject is. Many pictures are so crowded that it is impossible to guess what the photographer wants us to see. The more complexity you bring into the picture, the more difficult it will be for your viewer to find your “subject”. Try to remember: "Less is more".

2. Distracting Objects

Every part of the picture (other objects, the background, the sky, etc) must SUPPORT the main subject and not in any way distract the viewer from the main subject. An experienced viewer will spot distractions immediately. An uneducated viewer will notice them on a subconscious level and the distractions will interfere w/ their viewing of the picture.

When judging your own pictures, it’s VERY hard to spot these distractions. The reason: Your emotional attachment to the image. They are virtually impossible to see when taking or editing the picture without training.

5

There are several factors involved:

• It’s difficult to recognize distractions; the eye/brain will do all kind of things to "help" us overlook distractions if it’s OUR picture.

• Until it becomes second nature to look for distractions, you are probably still in the emotional realm. It’s like a family snapshot of a baby: Often only the parents see the beauty. Everything we aim our camera at becomes "our baby". We instantly get a personal relation to it and this keeps us in the emotional (right) part of the brain. This is very typical when we photograph our hobby or family members, but is in no way exclusive to that.

• You must FORCE your eye to examine every object in the viewfinder! A tripod is EXTREMELY helpful in this step, because it lets you slow down. Ask this question whenever your eyes identify another object or area: "Does this object help my picture or does it interfere?"

• When we view our images later, it’s also hard to detach from the personal relationship we have with them; they are OUR creations! Judging our own pictures is VERY hard. The Checklist I will present at the end may help w/ this.

6

Distractions can be:

• A too well defined [busy] background• High contrast spots or objects in the background• Objects with colors and shapes that steal attention from the main subject• Another story in the picture

Remember that the eye is drawn to contrast: Light Spots, Dark Spots, or Strong Colors. Be sure that YOUR subject is drawing attention. If the viewer’s eye is not initially drawn to what you intended the subject to be, you may have failed!

To eliminate the distracting objects:

• Change the camera position…up/down/right/left/closer/further away• Change the lens or the focal length• Move or remove objects (a chainsaw, a knife, a pair of scissors, and a trash

sack should be a part of any photographer’s tool kit)

Those are the most obvious, but we can also use these to reduce the distraction:

• Focus• Placement• Lighting

7

The reason for removing distractions is to define the main subject properly. It must stand out and not blend into other shapes. If it’s impossible to eliminate those other objects, we must use lighting to make the main object lighter than the surrounding objects. Use additional lights and gels. Or wait for the right time of day or the right weather.

The only option may be to use shallow DoF, as an object that is out of focus is (normally) less distracting than an object in focus, unless it’s very bright.

8

3. Supporting Objects

Supporting objects can be objects that help you tell the story: Objects that naturally belong with the main subject, like tools of the mechanic, the work table of a craftsman, the fisherman’s boat, etc. These will require careful considerations on placement, focus and lighting. They must not compete. You can make these the subject; if you do then the human in the frame must have a supporting role. Often we will make a Porsche the subject and the associated human will be the supporting actor.

Another type of supporting object is repetition in color and shape. The eye/brain loves this. This is like bread crumbs that the mind follows to the subject.

Simultaneously with Distracting and Supporting Objects, you should try to find a pleasing position of your main subject in the frame, while considering any other objects that you want to include (or eliminate). Don’t forget the rule of thirds, but place the objects where it looks good to you. Center the main subject if you want symmetry and calmness; place it towards the edges to create more tension and dynamics. More distance between objects creates tension. Ideally you want to lead the viewer’s eye around to see objects in the order you want. You do this by having a hierarchy of interest.

9

4. Timing

As they say, “Timing is everything!” This is especially true of sports photography. You want to capture the wheel in the air, the ball as it leaves the QB’s hand or just before it is caught, a dunk in process, etc.

Modern digital cameras make this easy with fast burst modes, but the down side is that you end up with thousands of images to sift through! I would suggest that you should limit the number of burst images to 3-5 and don’t set the burst rate too high; I find that 3/sec to 5/sec is plenty fast enough. You will still have to use your right-brain to turn the camera lose. Remember: You are not making a movie!

Even w/ portraits, you should watch for fleeting expressions. With some experience, this will become an instinctive, right-brain job. Practice…practice…practice!

10

5. Lighting

At this juncture you have framed the picture and you know what needs to be in focus. Now you must make sure that the lighting in the picture works. Great pictures all have very interesting and well organized lighting. Of all the technical aspects, this is by far the most important. “Photography is about Light!”

Certain parts of the scene should be used for exposure and other parts of the scene should be used to set the color balance.

Modern digital cameras make this easy, even automatic, but you can’t totally ignore lighting. If your camera has problems w/ a scene, you have to take charge.

11

6. Be Steady

There are many ways to achieve that goal.

• Learn how to hold and operate the camera such that motion/vibration is minimized

• Put the camera on a rigid tripod, set a delay after the mirror goes up [if it has a moving mirror], and trigger the shutter w/o touching the camera

• Use a monopod if you have to pan• Use a heavy camera or add weight to your light one• Use a lens or camera w/ motion compensation technology• Use a shorter focal length lens• Use a short exposure time• Use a flash

A very important skill to learn is how to hold a camera so that your body is coupled to the camera. When your body mass couples to the camera mass it slows down movements. Holding a small [light] camera at arm’s length is not a very good technique for minimizing motion blur. If your camera doesn’t have an eye-level viewfinder, you should support the camera on a table, chair, ledge, tree, wall, etc. If your camera has an eye-level viewfinder, press the camera firmly to your face; your head is rather heavy and will damp motion. Cradle a long lens with your left hand. Hold your breath. Place one foot at right angles to the other. Lean on a wall.

12

When you operate the shutter, do it smoothly; squeeze it instead of stab it! You should breathe before you take a shot [the same with a camera or a rifle].

A good, steady tripod is a basic piece of equipment for photography. Budget at least $200 for this. If you also want low weight, triple the cost. Just be aware that a light tripod is inherently less stable than a heavy one. The $600, carbon-fiber tripod will be as rigid as the $200 Alumium model, but you may have to add weight [there are hooks on tripods to allow you to hang something heavy from the center column].

A monopod will offer good support in two axis: Pitch and Roll. But it doesn’t offer any Yaw support [or rotation about the monopod axis]. This is good, if you are panning. If you want some Yaw support, add a shoulder brace to a monopod [note that it has to be one that restricts rotation…there are both kinds].

For a full-frame 35mm camera, either film or digital, there is a simple “rule” that the minimum exposure time should be the reciprocal of the focal length. Thus, if you had a 50mm lens, you could expect reasonably low motion blur down to 1/50 second. If your camera has a smaller sensor, then you have to modify this “rule” by using the 35mm equivalent focal length. For example, an APS-C camera [which many of you have], is 1.5X smaller than a FF camera. That 50mm lens works in many ways as if it was a 75mm lens [50mm x 1.5] . Thus, you can only use it down to 1/75 second. With a camera that has motion compensation you can get stable images at ½ to ¼ of these times.

13

As you can see, as the sensor-size gets smaller, shutter speeds have to go up. Going extreme, a camera phone [using an iPhone 5 as the example] has a tiny sensor, 7.61X smaller than a FF camera. Thus it is 7.61X more sensitive to motion blur. With a focal length of 4.1mm, it is equivalent to a 31mm FF lens and supports an exposure time down to 1/30 second. That seems good, but consider that 31mm is quite a wide angle; if you had a long, telephoto lens on an iPhone 5, you would have great difficulty holding it steady.

A flash has a short burst of light [less than 1/1000 second] that is good at stopping motion. But it only works well if the ambient light is low and the flash power is high. Flash doesn’t give attractive lighting w/o a LOT of equipment and skill. For a camera w/ a built-in flash, the results are typically stark; but it DOES stop motion blur.

Note that the “flash” on a smart phone is not a Xenon flash tube, but rather an LED. It has a long duration and does little to stop motion blur.

Today, many [if not most] cameras and lenses are available with motion compensation technology. There are many ways to accomplish this [I could write a book], but the end result is a 2-4 f-stop improvement. This means that using that 50mm lens on a FF camera again, instead of being limited to 1/50 second, the limit drops to 1/25 - 1/12 second.

14

But understand that motion compensation in a camera doesn’t help w/ subject motion [as w/ a moving car]. In fact, you normally can’t use the in-camera motion compensation if you pan with subject motion [because it gets “confused” and makes the blur worse!].

The weight of a camera/lens is a factor in stability; the heavier it is, the more stable it is. Modern designs are increasingly smaller and lighter, which makes them more prone to motion blur. So, if you want a camera setup that gives you sharp images, light weight is your enemy.

If you take “landscape” photographs, you should invest in a good, rigid tripod. None of the above technology and techniques will do as much as a steady tripod! Additionally, you should enable the “shutter delay” which most cameras w/ moving mirrors have; this inserts a several second delay between the mirror moving up and the shutter opening [to let any vibrations damp out]. Lastly, use a remote shutter release [or the self timer] to initiate the shutter sequence. This eliminates any vibrations produced by the photographer.

15

7. Random Hints

a. Set your mind to the task when you go out to photograph - and I mean with the intention of taking Great Photographs. In that mode, you do not bring wife, kids, friends, or other photographers [unless they are assisting you]. And you refrain from taking snap-shots, holiday, or memory pictures.

Your mind should be TOTALLY set on PHOTOGRAPHY.

b. If you like B&W, go out to do JUST that. Don't switch between color and B&W. These types of photography are so different that each requires a different way of thinking. When doing B&W, you need to think in greyscale.

c. Try going out with ONE prime lens only or tape a zoom lens so it cannot change FL: This will force you to think differently and you will find out what that particular focal length can do.

d. If you suddenly see a great subject, and there is the slightest risk that the moment will be gone soon, raise your camera and take a shot using whatever your camera is set to; THEN, start thinking and applying the “rules”. To make sure you are as ready as possible, anticipate: Check your camera settings every time the lighting changes (you enter a building, walk around a corner, clouds appear, etc) and adjust for that lighting.

16

e. If you are in conditions where you can’t move objects, use extra light, etc, just remember the principle that you CAN control lighting, via framing, focus, changing camera position and lens. Notice where the light is coming from. Notice what type of light it is. Is there more than one light source? Often there are just small differences between a good and a mediocre picture and light is very important.

f. There are two key requirements for becoming a better photographer:

• The desire to learn• Persistence

g. Many feel limited by a tripod. It’s heavy, cumbersome to set up, and difficult to adjust. However, after 50+ years of photography, I use a tripod (and a heavy one) whenever I can. One factor is the camera being vulnerable to shake, but more important is that it gives some freedom. I find it makes it much easier to control the framing, see distractions, and if the composition works. And my hands are free to hold reflectors, fill flash, etc.

If I see a scene and I think it’s too much hassle to set up the tripod, the picture is probably not worth taking!

17

h. Choice of subject: A camera gives an opportunity to capture what fascinates us.

Hopefully, our subjects also fascinate viewers. We can choose the audience, to insure a positive response. If you are into Model Trains, chances are that like-minded people will like your pictures, even if they are so-so. The real test is to choose an audience that is foreign to the subject; show your train pictures to the flower club! If you have taken a “good” picture, they will like it: A good photograph is universal.

There is one subject that has global appeal, comprising about 90% of all pictures used commercially and editorially: Humans. Concentrate on learning how to photograph humans!

18

k. Photographing humans: The safe way is to choose a long lens and "hide". The hard but most rewarding way, is to approach a total stranger and ask to take a photograph of them. Or even sneak in a few shots before you ask permission!

Most amateurs have great difficulty asking people in public places to allow photography. The list of excuses is endless:

• "I will go for lunch first, then come back later."• "I would have, but I discovered I had left my portrait lens at the hotel."• "I wouldn't waste time on it; I could miss another great photo opportunity."• "It would probably not be good anyway."• “They look mean!”

Of course, these fears are groundless. Yes, some people will say no, but most people will be flattered. Folks will often agree if you just tell why you want their picture:

“I am training to be a better photographer and out to photograph people today.”

This is scary to many because it brings them outside their comfort zone. To take good photographs of people, one has to make the decision to be involved. Texans are quite good at interacting w/ strangers. Use your native Texas friendliness to put strangers at ease and photograph them.

19

Photographing people is a meeting with another human being. To get a good picture you have to give something of yourself. They give their time and image; you should give them a nice experience. You need to be friendly and interested in them. If you ask people (or they ask you) to take their photograph, talk with them first, before starting to “hide” behind the camera; try to find out who they are; uncover their personality and then try to expose it in your photographs.

The biggest fault “portrait” photographers make is to be afraid of their subjects. Don’t let your subjects take control! Tell them what to do; they don’t have a clue. But do this in a nice, confident way. You should develop a rapport w/ each of your subjects; if you can’t, then go find another subject! Not all photographers can photograph every human subject.

This is especially true of candid portraits. Be sensitive to the body language of your subjects. If you notice any hostility, STOP! Approach them and explain that you noticed their concern; explain what you are doing. This won’t happen often at PCA events but it can.

20

At one Time Trial, I noticed a woman that I had not seen before. She was with a man that I hadn’t seen before. He was driving a Cayman, I think. Guessing that they were new or prospective members, I proceeded to photograph them. I noticed she was uneasy. I didn’t ask why [but I should have!].

When I posted a gallery of my photos on-line, I got an e-mail from the woman who was still concerned. The man was married to another woman, but was getting a divorce. She didn’t want the wife to see the pictures w/ the divorce pending! I pulled them down. Let your instincts guide you when a subject’s body language says “No”.

21

l. Use as low a sensitivity setting [ISO] as possible. Modern, high-end dSLRs have amazing sensitivity, so often image IQ isn’t reduced when you use moderate ISO sensitivities; still, any picture will look better if you don’t push the sensitivity too high. If you do, use a good Noise Reduction application.

m. Use as short an exposure time as possible. This freezes any movement in you or the subject. However, sometimes you will choose to use a long exposure time to make parts of the scene be blurred. This tip doesn’t work when using a flash for illumination, because on a dSLR, above some threshold exposure time [such as 1/250 second…it’s different for various cameras], the shutter is not fully open when the flash illuminates the subject.

n. Use quality glass. A medium FL prime lens is best for portraits [50-60mm on crop-sensor bodies and 85-120mm on FF sensor bodies]. Short telephoto zoom lenses are OK, but their DoF is not as shallow [which is useful in blurring the background] and their bokeh is not as nice [which makes OoF elements look creamy and smooth].

22

n. Give careful attention to focus point. When photographing 2 [or more] people, it’s really easy to focus on the background when you point the camera at the space between them! You should point at one of the subjects when you start the 4-step exposure process [see next Hint].

o. Take many pictures and choose the sharpest. Don’t use burst mode…do the standard point, half-squeeze, compose, snap process for each image. Practice this process until it’s second-nature!

p. Try continuous AF mode if you are having issues with focus. It will allow the camera to follow the initial subject and maintain focus there.

Why is Jean Francois the subject? Because he’s the “actor”; he’s talking and making hand gestures. That and his eyes are open.

23

q. Fill the frame with the face if you are taking people pictures. Faces are more important and more attractive than whole bodies. If a car happens to also be in the picture… fine…but the human is normally the subject, not the car. If part of the car falls out of the frame, that’s OK. If the car is slightly blurry, that’s OK. If a human is not in the scene, then you can focus [both literally and figuratively] on the car. If you get too much, crop!

I see two possibilities:

Which of these two doyou prefer?

How would you crop this picture ?

24

r. Use an external, off-axis flash. Using a flash on the camera [especially a little pop-up flash] makes the lighting very flat and is prone to creating “red-eye”. Use a cable to connect the external flash, because the communication scheme [that both Canon and Nikon use] introduces a delay between the initial flash and the final flash. People with fast eye reflexes will shut their eyes before the final capture. The cable reduces the incidence of shut-eye. [If you are not taking portraits of people, or if it’s a scene with cars and people, then the wireless schemes are good, as they allow 3 channels of flash to be independently controlled.] If you can afford it, get a set of RF flash triggers! Hold the external flash in your left hand. Using a prime lens is easier when using this setup because you don’t have to struggle to operate the zoom ring!

s. Hold camera still…use good posture…use a tripod/monopod when possible…use a shoulder brace in extreme conditions. When panning with a subject in motion, start panning before you start taking picture(s) and continue after you stop taking picture(s)… this makes the early/late images better.

25

t. Time the shutter actuation to coincide with something interesting happening. This is a skill that can’t be performed with your left-brain! You need to practice taking pictures of people until it becomes instinctive [which is just a way of saying your right-brain is doing it without asking permission from your left-brain]. The problem is that your left-brain is too slow to respond to people’s expressions and gestures; whereas your right-brain can anticipate what is going to happen [if you let it]. Note that the right-brain will make a few mistakes, but you can always delete those mistakes. And it will get better w/ practice.

u. Talk w/ the subject(s) to make them relax and be natural. All good portrait photographers, whether formal or casual do this.

v. Persist and take MANY pictures…most people seem to have short attention spans and soon they forget you are there! Talking can help distract them; find some subject that interests them and talk about it. Practice this at a party of mostly strangers; talk to each person and find out what interests them. Do it in less than 2-minutes per person! Then do the same thing with a camera pointed at them.

26

w. Expose the background differently than the foreground [this is mostly for shots where you use flash]. Here is how it’s done:

• Set an exposure in M-mode that is about 2 f-stops below “correct”. This assumes a relatively constant ambient illumination level in the room. If the illumination varies a lot, you will have to use P-mode and set a “correct” exposure and use an exposure compensation of -2.

• Then when you use TTL flash, the camera will control the flash output to make the subject properly exposed, but the light from the flash will have minimal affect on the background [assuming a big room]. If you set an exposure compensation of -2, you will have to set the flash compensation for +2.

• Take a few test shots and check to see if the balance between foreground and background is OK.

This technique makes the subject stand out nicely, but you can still tell what is going on in the background. Combine this w/ a wide aperture to blur the background a bit [see Hint aa]?

27

x. Avoid taking pictures w/ flash when the subject is near walls or near other objects that are in the shadow of the flash. This is difficult at times…some people are “wall-flowers” and naturally hang back instead of venturing into the open field. I think this is a genetic thing? Many animals do the same thing…like deer, who don’t feel safe out in the open and thus browse near trees and brush. I just skip taking these type pictures [of people, not deer], because they will be rejects. If you HAVE to capture the subjects, get them to move away from everything…often they resist, so be firm.

y. Focus on the human subject, even when a car is in the picture…it’s OK to have the car slightly OoF, but not OK to have the human subject slightly OoF. This is true even of pictures of MOVING cars…focus on the driver! When you can, focus on the nearest eye!

z. Don’t make EVERY picture level…spice things up by tilting the camera occasionally. I especially like to do this when a couple is of radically different height [like she’s 5’ 0” and he’s 6’ 3”] to make the difference less. If he was 5’ 0” and she was 6’ 3” I would tilt it the OTHER way to make the difference BIGGER … ;-) Some scenes naturally have a line of interest, where the viewer should scan; make this line a diagonal of your framing.

28

aa. Use a reasonably large aperture…f 2.4 seems good w/ a 50mm lens on a crop-sensor body…it makes the background blur w/o having the DoF so small that the subject is partly blurred….and good 50mm f/1.4 lenses are quite sharp at f2.4. When setting up M-mode, start by setting the aperture, then adjust the exposure time. If using flash, set the M-exposure about 2 f-stops low, to additionally make the background darker than the subject [see Hint w].

ab. Be confident! If you are shy and lack confidence, you will fail as a portrait photographer. If you have thoughts about “invading the space” of your subjects… get over it! If you think it’s not “right” to take candid portraits…you are wrong! The first thing is to get your mind right. Unless you believe that what you are doing is good, correct, and legal, you will project a weak, tentative personality to your subjects and they will not cooperate. Be assertive, but make it fun. If you find a subject that really doesn’t want their image captured, back away nicely; their pictures were not going to be good anyway with that negative attitude!

ac. Shoot RAW images as they have massive tolerance compared w/ JPEG images, so the exposure and color temperature can be changed later w/o affecting the image adversely. Yes, this means that you must edit 100% of your images, but you should do that anyway! Many newer cameras can simultaneously save both RAW and JPEG files.

29

ad. Forget about setting the color temp [white balance] in the camera [if you listen to me and save RAW images]. Set it to Auto WB…but then take occasional shots of neutral white/grey objects to use as a color reference. When the lighting changes, take a new reference shot. Easy to do; easy to forget. If you save JPEG images, then you must set the WB correctly and often. Either way, slip a white index card or blank white business card [or use the back of your business card] in your shirt pocket and have someone hold it up when you need to get a new white reference. A grey card works better if you tend to overexpose!

ae. Don’t worry about dust on your sensor [actually, any dust is on the IR/anti-alias filter, in front of the sensor]. If you think you have a sensor dust problem, take a properly exposed test shot of a cloudless sky with a very small aperture; if there is dust, you will see it in the image. Note that you can’t see sensor dust in your viewfinder! Note that you can’t easily see dust on the AA filter directly, even with a microscope. The only way is to image the shadows of the dust by using the sensor.

af. Learn how to clean your sensor. It’s easy and doesn’t damage it [if you do it correctly]. Or just open your lens aperture and you won’t see even big dust particles sitting on the AA filter! You should have your aperture open anyway, because, a lens has greater resolving ability and shallower depth-of-field when the aperture is large. In general, you should never use an aperture setting higher [smaller opening] than f8 and most of the time it should be below f5.6.

30

ag. Watch out for flash reflections! People wearing glasses should be asked to look in a direction where there will be no reflection. Since they don’t know what direction that is, you will have to examine the first shot and see if there are reflections of your flash and ask them to face another direction [or move the flash].

Windows and mirrors are also issues when using flash. You will have to position yourself where reflections don’t return to the camera.

31

8. Judging Checklist

To judge images, this checklist might be helpful:

• Does the image/subject affect me in any way (emotionally)?• Does the image have a main subject?• Is the main subject well defined?• Are there distracting objects?• Are there potential supporting objects that are not utilized?• Does the composition work to direct the eye to the subject?• Did I look at the main subject initially?• Does the lighting work to help see the subject as intended?• Is the focus suitable?• Is the exposure suitable?• On the basis of all this, is it a “good” picture?• Do I like the picture? Is this an emotional response?

Often, it helps to sleep before you make final judgments.