It’s again time to get drunk and watch explosions in the sky as we honor our country’s independence…. and with with this always comes tons of questions from friends and readers on tips for shooting fireworks. We’ve written about it before, so we aren’t gonna write about it again, but what I do have for you is a pretty comprehensive collection of links that should get you on the right track.

• Another Fireworks Post? WTF? via CameraPorn
• Secrets of Fireworks Photography via O’Reilly
• Fireworks photography in 5 easy steps via MSNBC Travel
• The Best Way to Photograph Fireworks via PC World
• Fireworks via Keith C. Roberts
• How to Photograph Fireworks Displays via Digital Photography School
• How To Shoot Fireworks via Photography Bay
• Videos How to Photograph Fireworks via Imaging Insider
• How to Shoot Fireworks via Photoshop Insider
• Get Better Fireworks Photos This Fourth of July via Life Hacker

I think that list should satisfy just about all the fireworks photography education anyone can absorb in one sitting, but I’ll leave you with the most important tip of all… Educate yourself on the methods and best practices, but don’t follow along like a lemming, put a little bit of your own creativity into your shots, and when you load them up Sunday morning, your happiness with your orignal shots will help ease your 5th of July hangover. Until next time…

It’s that time again, where we all get to enjoy lots of little explosions in the sky and celebrate our nation’s independence, all while drinking lots of beer, eating deliciously un-healthy food and enjoying time with out friends and family… For those of you planning to shoot tomorrow, and want some pointers, here’s a little revisit to a fireworks post I did last year that should get you ready to go. Check it out. As always, questions are welcome in the comments.

Was reorganizing some of my storage last night and came across this sunset shot from a trip to Grand Cayman a while back and decided to revisit it and focus on some of the new retouching methods I’ve learned since then. I still clearly remember the day as one of the best sunsets I’ve seen, because the sky looked like it was on fire. Caribbean sunsets really are the best. Here’s a brief step-by-step on how I did it:

Lightroom Adjustments

1. Straighten horizon
2. Reduce the ‘Blacks’ slider to eliminate any black clipping in the histogram.
3. Increase the ‘Recovery’ slider to recover some lost detail in the highlights, eliminating as much white clipping as possible.
4. Adjust white balance
5. Export to Photoshop

Photoshop CS3 Adjustments

1. Create a ‘Curves’ adjustment layer to increase overall contrast.
2. Create another ‘Curves’ adjustment layer only affecting the sky to add a bit more contrast to the clouds.
3. Added a ‘Photo Filter’ adjustment layer, with a warming filter, to warm up the scene a bit.
4. Dodged and burned a bit in the clouds and the suns rays to bring them out a bit more.
5. Flatten image, convert to LAB color.
6. Use the ‘Apply Image’ to give the color a bit more punch. Settings: Soft Light blending, ‘B’ channel. (The ‘B’ channel in LAB mode controls the yellow to blue spectrum)
7. Convert back to RGB
8. Duplicate background layer, use High-Pass Filter for sharpening (4px). For those not familiar with the high pass method, Leggnet has a great write-up.
9. From there I set the high-pass layer to soft light, flattened the image, save and brought back to Lightroom and VOILA.

Sorry I didn’t get the chance to do screenshot throughout the process, was kinda late last night when I did it and I was jamming to get through it. As always, if you have any questions, hit me up in the comments. Oh and if you like it, don’t forget to add to your faves on flickr

After a recent discussion with a fellow photographer who is just beginning to use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, I was inspired to do a quick run-through of my process. I use Lightroom as my organizational tool as well as for most post processing and have since its initial beta. Its hands-down my favorite photography related application. It contains nearly all the tools I need to get my images where they need to be in a very intuitive interface, making the sometimes arduous task of organizing and retouching much simpler.

The following is Part 1 in a 2 parter about my entire Lightroom workflow. I’m using Lightroom 2 Beta, but everything in this post applies to the 1.x version as well, so no worries. Full workflow for organization and tagging after the jump…

1. Importing

I begin by importing my RAW images within Lightroom from the CF card. I personally use a USB 2.0 CF Card reader for the job instead of tethering directly to the camera. The Lightroom importing tool contains several helpful options to begin the organization process:

A. Folder Organization

Choosing a folder name is the first step to your organizational process, and you should do it in a way that makes sense to you. Some people like to do it by date. Becasue I suck at recalling dates, I like to do it by shoot location and/or event. For example the images you will be seeing here are from a wonderful afternoon at the Standard Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles, and it happened to be my birthday so I called the folder ‘Standard Downtown – Birthday.’ I relaize this may seem weird to some, but it works great for me becasue its how I remember different shoots. Choose a folder organization structure that makes sense to you and stick with it.

B. Backups

A great option, which allows you to backup your files to a second location on import…a tool that I do not use as much as I should, partly because I am either traveling when I import or too lazy to go into my office and plugin one of my firewire drives, though I always import directly to my Macbook Pro’s local drive, then move the images to a storage drive after I’m done with all my processing.

A Note on Backups: Ideally you should have at a minimum one backup drive for every storage drive – meaning you backup whatever external drive you use for storage to a separate drive, and store it away, unplugged. Hard drives fail people! Generally its either impossible or cost prohibitive to recover any usable data from a fried drive and I know I would be devastated if I lost my orginal RAWS .

C. File Naming

Personally, I don’t rename my RAW files on import, though sometimes I suppose I should. I kinda like seeing where I was on that specific camera’s shutter count, but I’m weird… Do what makes you happy.

D. Information to Apply

Lightroom allows you to apply any Develop Presets you want on import, though I rarely do. What I use in this section are metadata presets and initial keywording/tagging. Metadata presets are useful because they will automatically apply your choice of metadata to the image. I have a standard preset that attaches Author, Copyright and other basic information to each image on import, which will carry through all the way to exports. Its like a hidden way of signing your work. Keywording is most easily described as tagging for all you flickrites out there. I’ll add initial tags on import such as location, camera, lens and anything else that applies to the whole import. These keywords persist and upon export using the right tool (I use the flickr uploadr) your flickr images will already be tagged on upload.

2. Filter out the crap

So we’ve just imported a whole bevy of shots and to organize them we should be in the ‘Library’ module of Lightroom.

If you’re like me and bracket exposures a lot or shoot in burst mode, there will be a lot of crap to filter through. For me this is a 2-step process.

A. Pick and Reject

Lightroom has a multitude of wonderful filtering tools. I use flags to start – also called Picking and Rejecting. I first do a quick pass through every image, either marking it as a ‘Pick’ or a ‘Reject’. This can be done quickly by pressing the ‘p’ key and the ‘x’ key. Depending on the amount of shots, I can get through this relatively quickly. Picks are usually any properly focused, framed, and exposed non-duplicate shots. Rejects are any shots that don’t meet those requirements, or usually any shots of myself At this point, some people like to delete the rejects to save space. I personally don’t like to delete anything… call me a photo packrat… Besides, storage is cheap and someday I might need that poorly framed, underexposed blurry shot… who knows. You do whatever makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. At this point I filter the images I’m being shown with Lightroom’s handy dandy filters. Usually only 15-20% make this first cut.

I

B. Its Rating Time

Now all I can see are the images I’ve flagged as ‘Picks.’ From here I do my second step of filtering, which consists of applying star ratings to my picks. These range from 1 to 5 stars. I generally only use 4 & 5 leaving everything else starless. Reason being that at this point, I really make an effort to only star the images I plan to use, mostly because the next step after importing/organizing is retouching. Why spend the time retouching an image you won’t use?

So we’re done with filtering… I know this seems like a long and tedious job, but i assure you as you do it and improve as a self-photo-editor, you will quickly blaze through this process. I can generally get through this process for 400+ images in under an hour.

From here, guess what? You use lightrooms filtering tools again! I set my filter to show only images that are 4 stars or higher.

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3. Keyword, Title, Describe.

The final step in my organizational workflow consists of just what the title describes. Why do this? There are a couple really good reasons: Firstly, you will at the end have a wonderfully organized catalog of titled, tagged, and described image that make up your best work. The second, and my favorite reason… when you export and upload to flickr, all the work is already done! No additional tagging or titling is required.

A. Keywording

(aka Tagging) Remember a little bit ago I mentioned adding general keywords on the import of the files? Now’s the time to get specific. Notice below, the shot of dan. I add the specific tags: portrait, dan, sunglasses, skyline and sky.

B. Titling

Come up with a title, the snarkier the better – unless you are all emo or something, then make it something dark, deep and emotional. You are on your own with this one… all depends on how you feel about the image.

C. Describing

Again, on your own here. What’s the story behind the picture?

And guess what, we’re done with the tedious part. Tedious, yes, but its really important to keep an organized collection of images. Create a workflow that works for you, none of this stuff is set in stone. The most important part of the organization of your photos is creating a workflow that feels natural to you. If it doesn’t work for you, you’re not gonna stick to it. So take what I’ve said above with a grain of salt, experiment and build a workflow that works for you.

Stay tuned for part 2 of this series where I’ll talk about the fun part… Retouching in Lightroom. I’ll cover the basic contrast adjustments that are necessary to bring a RAW back to life as well as a few of my favorite adjustments. I’ll also play with the new dodging and burning and brush tools in Lighroom 2 Beta. Until then, share your workflow with us in the comments.

For those of you that are familiar with our recent blog project “Revisit and Retouch” you’ll recognize this image. I provided CameraPorn readers with a set of three bracketed exposures to have a go at creating their own unique version by any means necessary. The image above is not only my entry to the project, but also an exercise in retouching that focuses on the common practice of compositing multiple, bracketed exposures to create a final image that better represents the scene as viewed by the human eye… In more ‘technical’ terms, an image with a higher dynamic range.

Before getting into the nitty-gritty of how I came to this final image, it’s important to understand what I mean by “higher dynamic range.” Many of you are probably thinking, oh yeah, he means ‘HDR’ imagery like what you create with a program such as Photomatix and see plastered all over flickr, but you’re wrong. As neato as those images can look, they are rarely executed in a way that brings the final image to appear as the scene actually looked to the human eye, which in my opinion, is where the true value lies in creating higher dynamic range images. Creating a tone-mapped HDR image in an HDR program usually leads to oversaturated, dream-like and haloed images which look pretty cool but can be created by almost anybody with Photomatix and some bracketed images with little to no skill involved in most cases. Now don’t get me wrong there are some incredibly talented HDR ‘artists’ out there whose work amazes me, but the general image you see on flickr looks too fake for my tastes, and besides today we’re talking about using good old Photoshop and Lightroom. To see how I did it and learn a bit more about dynamic range, read on…

What is Dynamic Range?

Put simply and in relation to photography, its the range of values between light and dark areas of a scene. To make this a bit more clear, its first important to understand that the human eye can pick up a much wider dynamic range than a digital camera. If you’ve ever been shooting a sunset into the sun while it is still above the horizon for example, and to your eye the scene looks perfect so you take the shot, more than likely one of two things will happen. Either the clouds will look amazing while the foreground looks dark, or the foreground will be exposed correctly and the sky will be completely overexposed. To put this into context take a look at these two unretouched shots taken in the Florida Keys.

Notice that the shot on the left, though overexposed as a whole, retains detail in the trees and lighthouse, yet the cloud detail in the sky is completely blown out, then the image on the right shows great cloud detail, but the tree and lighthouse detail is lost.

To my eye at the time, it looked like a gorgeous shot, but the camera did not pickup the scene as I saw it because it cannot capture the same dynamic range my eye sees in a single capture.

How Can I Create Higher Dynamic Range?

Aside from having absolute perfect light, which we all know is rare, to produce a shot that appears even close to the dynamic range as seen by your eye, you need some help. A shot like this should contain detail not only in midtones, but also in highlights and shadows, and in most cases, especially high-contrast scenes, it won’t happen without the right tools.

Working With Graduated ND Filters

The traditional method for keeping shadow detail without totally blowing out the sky is to use filters, and more specifically, graduated neutral density filters. Back in the film days before Photoshop and Lightroom, if you didn’t get the shot on the film, salvaging it in post-processing was not the possibility it is today, so graduated ND filters were a necessity for landscape photographers. Think about them as partial sunglasses for your camera, and check out the picture on the left (photo credit: Dave77459 via flickr {cc}) and you should get a pretty good idea. I’m not going to go into further detail about using Graduated ND’s as using them is not the point of this article, but I won’t leave you hanging. Check out these articles on Digital Photography School and Wikipedia for a more detailed explanation.
Getting back on topic, in the digital age of today, these filters are not the necessity they once were, because we can now use bracketed exposures and a little post processing magic to gain similar and even better results.

Working With Bracketed Images

First, for those of you who don’t know, I should explain what a bracketed image is. Most of today’s DSLRs have a function called Auto Exposure Bracketing (AEB). AEB in conjunction with high-speed shooting mode, takes three, five, or more images in quick succession at different exposure intervals. AEB is useful in tricky exposure situations where speed is key, to take multiple exposures of the same frame and be sure you got the right shot. In this case, we are using it to capture the same high-contrast scene in order to expose for highlights, shadows and midtones with the plan of compositing these shots together later to create an image with a higher dynamic range that better represents what your eyes saw when the shot was taken. Many of you are probably familiar with this concept after reading one of the many HDR tutorials floating around the web, and its the same method you would use when capturing an image you plan to drop into Photomatix, but in this case we are using Lightroom, Photoshop, and our retouching ability to build the best final image we can.

Revisit and Retouch: Grand Cayman Fuel Depot – How I Did It

The challenge posed to CameraPorn readers was to take the three bracketed exposures above and create the best final image they could. For me, the goal was to create something that not only represented the scene as I saw it, but to utilize the retouching skills I’ve learned in the year and half or so since I took the shot. Here are the steps I took:

1. RAW Processing in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom

I began with basic adjustments within Lightroom, my workflow tool of choice. The adjustments made here could also be completed withing Adobe Camera RAW (ACR). The adjustments consisted of:

A. Straightening the horizon, cropping and matching the white balance of each image.
This was accomplished quickly by adjusting just one of the images and using the ‘copy settings’ tool to apply the same changes to the 2 other images.

B. Adjusting Exposure and Contrast of Each image to reflect what I want out of each.
This step was a bit more time consuming. I first looked at the 0EV image, and adjusted it so the histogram showed as little clipping as possible. This way, when I brought it into Photoshop, I would have as much pixel data to work with as possible. I did this by making slight exposure and recovery adjustments. Notice that the histogram doesn’t touch the left or right side, meaning no black or white clipping.As you can see, the image isn’t looking that great yet, but thats ok. Read on….

For the -2EV and +2EV images, I wanted to adjust each only for the part of the image I expected to use when I composited the images together in Photoshop. For the -2EV image, this meant the sky and tanks. I adjusted exposure, blacks, and contrast until they looked as i wanted, ignoring how dark the water was looking because I knew the water would be coming from the other images after compositing. For the +2EV image, I adjusted so the water and rock shadows until they looked as I would want them to after compositing. I used the same methods, along with a bit of highlights and shadows to make the churning water pop a bit more.

C. Export To Photoshop CS3

I then used Lightroom’s integrated Photoshop editing launcher to send each of the images to Photoshop as 16-Bit Tiff files.

2. Stack in One File, Align Layers

So now I’m in Photoshop, with each of the three files open and I need to get them in one unified file. I drag the +2EV and -2EV images into the 0EV image and close the other two files. Next, I need to align the layers. The shots were not taken using a tripod so there is a slight variation in each image, but Photoshops’s CS3’s Align Layers tool makes it an nearly instant process.

3. Composite The Image

Here’s where the real work comes in. To begin, create layer masks for the +2EV and -2EV images.

Next, begin ‘painting’ with the layer mask active with a soft brush on each of the the masked layers to make them show what you want to see from each. For the -2EV layer, I paint over the sky and tanks with a white brush to make them visible. For the +2EV layer, I paint over parts of the water and rocks. Continue to do this until your image begins to look cohesive, and the different layers match. If necessarry, feel free to do some Levels or Curves adjustments to give everything a unified look.

4. Dodging and Burning

Before Dodging & Burning

Instead of using the typical built-in dodge and burn tools of Photoshop CS3, I used a non-destructive method that consists of creating a blank layer on the top of your layer stack. Set the blending mode to ’soft light.’ From there, you can use white and black soft brushes to do some non-destructive dodging and burning. I used this method to bring detail back to dark rocks, brighten the swirling water and tweak the cloud contrast slightly. My dodge and burn layer looked as follows:

And the result after dodging and burning:

5. Spot Removal

Yuck! First of all, to all of the participants in the project, I’m sorry!!!! I know this step must have been a big pain. There were big waves crashing up the seawall next to where I was shooting, and tons of sea spray got on the lens, but I have some good news for next time, there’s an easier way than atacking each spot with the healing brush! Next time, try using the Elliptical Selection tool to select each spot, feather your selection and use the Noise>Dust & Scratches Filter. All the spots, GONE!

6. LAB Color

This is a great method that I picked up from a variety of sources including Scott Kelby’s 7-Point System book as well as Brian Auer’s Epic Edits. For full details, click on Brian’s link, but basically goes like this:

• Flatten Image
• Convert your image to LAB (Image>Mode>LAB)
• Apply Image (Image>Apply Image)
• Play with the settings. I went with Soft Light Blending, Channel B, 70% Opacity.
  
• Once you get the result you want, convert your image back to RGB, and its time for some sharpening… the last step!

7. Sharpening

And we’ve hit the home stretch. You have your flattened image, now its time to sharpen. I used the Unsharp Mask, with the settings: Amount-70%, Radius-1px, Threshold-4 levels.But wait, not done yet. ANother nugget I picked up from the 7 Poitn System, sharpening can cause color halos and artifacts in color images, so directly after the sharpen, click Edit>Fade Unsharp Mask. Select the Luminosity option. This means the sharpening only occurs on the the Luminosity channel, leaving the color channels untouched.

And thats gonna do it.. we are finished and have completed an image with the appearance of higher dynamic range, without the use of HDR softwware cheating ! I hope this brief tutorial has been enough to help you bring more dynamic range and life into your images. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments. For all you project participants! Expect to see the final results posted soon, and have your work voted on by the readers. Thanks again for participating and here again is the final image.

Seeing that as I’m writing this I am mid-travel on my way to Trinidad, I felt it appropriate to talk a little bit about gear safety while traveling. As seasoned CameraPorn readers may know from previous posts, I from time-to-time travel to Trinidad (read here, here and here). This and a recent, horrible gear theft experience of a friend of mine (more on that later), got me thinking a little bit more about gear safety. Now I’m not talking about professional swimsuit photographers off to Bali, or insane conflict photographers to a war zone. I’m talking about you, and me and most of the readers of this blog… serious hobbyists, traveling for fun and shooting pleasure. For me these trips usually mean a hot, sweaty, foreign country, though the tips I’m going to share can apply to almost anything from a day trip to the desert or an adventure to remote villages in India.

And so we begin, 6 ways to keep your gear happy, safe and sound during your travels.

1. Don’t Be an Idiot…

…or use the common sense you have buried somewhere in that head of yours.

Seem vague? It is pretty broad and all-encompassing because most of the things I’m going to list are all common sense driven, but what I’m talking about here is that basic stuff that we all forget sometimes due to a momentary brain fart. I’m saying stuff like, if you are in a crowded cafe in a foreign place and you leave your bag on the back of your chair when you go take a leak, expect it to be gone when you get back or if you are going on a boat trip in rough waters, bring a big friggin plastic bag. Its really just a matter of being aware that you have thousands of dollars worth of gear on your person, and there are a million ways it can be lost, stolen or damaged. Now on to the specifics…

2. Take Only What you Need

If you are planning a trip, do a little critical thinking about what you want to shoot, and take only what is necessary. Bringing more than you need not only means you are lugging around a bunch of extra weight, it also exposes you to more risk of loss. For example, on this trip, I know I want to shoot a wide range of things.

I know I’m going to be doing some walkaround street shooting, so the 28-70 zoom is coming along for its versatility.

Wait, I might also trek through a bit of wilderness. Trinidad has lots of birds and lots of bugs. In comes the 80-200mm, 2x doubler and a 105mm Macro for the little stuff.

Looks like I’m only missing a bit on the wide end, so I’ll throw in the 10.5mm for some landscapes. It’s tiny and fits in a shoe in my carry-on.

Effectively, I’m covered from wide to long at 10.5mm all the way up to 400mm with the doubler. Pretty solid.

Yes, this is a decent amount of gear, but I’m really not doubling up on much across focal ranges except for the macro, but there is no substitute if thats what you want to shoot. The doubler is a great help because its small, and it keeps me from bringing a heavy, bulky, telephoto. If i decided I only wanted to shoot people and landscapes, I’d leave it all out except for the 28-70mm and I’d throw in a fast prime. The point here is, figure out what you want to shoot and bring the gear for it and thats it.

3. Don’t Check Unless ABSOLUTELY Necessary

First of all, how many times have you or a loved one flown somewhere only to arrive to have a lost bag? If you’re traveling to shoot, the day or two it takes to get your bag back could be devastating to your plans. Secondly, if you’ve ever looked out the window as they are tossing bags onto the plane’s conveyor, they aren’t using kid gloves. Now imagine how they toss it onto the baggage claim conveyor when no one is looking. A soft bag flying through the air onto a hard object is not the place for sensitive electronic equipment and optical glass. Thirdly, don’t think shady baggage handlers won’t get into your bag, locked or not and steal the goods. It’s happened, and it might just happen to you.

As i mentioned before, this post is not targeted towards pro-shooters with tons of gear, bet reagardless, if you do ever find yourself having to check some or all of your gear in, here are a couple tips:

• Spread The Love – Try to carry-on what you can if possible, even if its just the body and a versatile lens. If your bag gets lost, you’ll thank me. At least you’ll have some way to shoot.
• Get Hard – Check your gear in a lockable, hard-shelled travel case with lots of foam padding.
• Lock it up! – Don’t be lazy, either get a TSA certified lock or wait until they are done screening your bag and lock it. They generally let you.

So this will get you there. Since you are a traveling as a photo enthusiast and not a professional working in another country, you shouldn’t have to worry too much about customs.

4. Secure Your Gear

So you made it, now what? Depending on where you are visiting and your accomodations, your gear may or may not be safe in your room. I generally err on the side of caution no matter how nice my hotel is. You gotta figure, some less-developed places you visit, your kit may be worth a considerable amount more than those who have access to your room make in a year (housekeeping, bellman, etc), so keep that in mind. If there is an in-room safe, use it to store what fits. If there isn’t, and you can’t take it with you, get creative with hiding stuff if you feel uncomfortable with the security. Even in a private residence or at rest your gear isn’t always safe. When I interviewed Alex Smailes, a conflict photographer based in Trinidad, he mentioned that his kit gets decimated on average once of year due sometimes due to theft, which leads to the next point…

5. Keep Your Gear Close

Another aspect of keeping your gear safe is in transit and on location. I mentioned a “horrible gear theft” in the intro to this post. A friend of mine and ridiculously talented photographer, who will remain nameless for now, (i hope to get him to share his experience with you guys) took a recent trip to backpack around Central America, and here’s pretty much how his day went. Land, get on bus, have some seemingly nice gentleman help him put his bag on luggage rack, arrive at destination, open bag to find tin cans.

Yes, he lost his whole kit and it was a doozy, we’re talking 5D, L glass everywhere. It was a devastating loss. What could have been done to prevent this and thefts like it?

• Do not let a stranger handle your kit – Even seemingly helpful people sometimes have malicious intentions. In inhospitable places, its important to realize that if you leave your gear unattended for even the shortest time, it can disappear, be wary of this and try not to get too distracted.
• Watch your back – I know this is starting to sound like some james bond shit, but hear me out. Say you are carrying around your Lowepro full of shiny camera gear, you throw it in your rental car trunk, drive a bit down the road and stop for a beer. You are in the bar maybe 5 minutes, you come back out, and your windows busted, trunk popped and gear gone. This happens, and is another story of loss I heard from Alex. If someone pegs you as having something they want, don’t think they wont go to abnormal lengths to get it.

6. Insure, Insure, Insure

This is one that many of us have not done yet, but its absolutely necessary if you are traveling a lot. You would insure a $10,000 car wouldn’t you? Do the same for your camera equipment. There are reasonable plans out there, (of which I can’t recommend quite yet) so try to get one, and make sure it covers international travel. This way, even if you have a devastating loss, you can get your stuff back with as little financial hit as possible.

And that’s that, my tips for keeping your precious, beautiful gear safe when traveling. Do you have any tips to add? Any horrible experiences to share? Leave ‘em in the comments.

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I thought I would take a little time and whip up an article about some photography basics. Please, please note the use of the word “basics” in that last sentence. If you’re been shooting for any appreciable length of time then you’re probably not going to get too much out of this. But given that we’re smack in the middle of the present giving time of year, it’s likely that in a few days there’s going to be a glut of new DSLR owners out there. What I’m aiming for is the article I wish I’d found when I first got my camera, to help explain the relationship between three critically important parameters: the ISO speed, aperture (or f-stop number), and shutter speed.

To lead with, the easiest way I think to approach these three things is to understand physically what they mean inside your camera. So, here we go.

• ISO speed: A measurement of how quickly your camera’s sensor absorbs light.
• Shutter speed: A measurement of how long your camera’s shutter is open for when you take a shot.
• Aperture: A measurement of how wide the shutter on your camera’s lens opens up when you take a shot.

For completeness I should note that ISO speed is not specific to digital cameras with sensors. On film cameras, a particular roll of film will have a specific ISO speed that it is rated for. Fortunately for DSLR users like us, we can change the ISO speed without having to change film. All three of these parameters affect how light gets to your camera’s sensor to create an image, so let’s start looking at them in more detail.

ISO Speed

The ISO speed changes how quickly the sensor absorbs light. Lower numbers mean less quickly and higher numbers mean more quickly. Now, the thing to keep in mind is that at high ISO speeds, you will introduce some graininess into your image. Therefore, the basic rule of thumb is that you want to shoot at the lowest ISO speed that you can get away with given the environment you are in. For example, if you are outdoors in the middle of a sunny day, you can probably shoot at a very low ISO speed like 100 or 200. Conversely, if you are shooting indoors or at night (or both) you will probably need to shoot at a high ISO speed in order to properly expose your image.

Shutter Speed

This one is probably the easiest of the three to get your head around. It’s exactly what it sounds like: the length of time that the shutter is open and light can get in through the lens to your sensor. Shutter speeds on Canon cameras are displayed as inverse numbers against one second. So, if your camera’s shutter speed is set to 125, that means that the shutter will be open for 1/125th of a second. Therefore, higher numbers mean that the shutter is open for less time. The effect this has is on the sharpness of the image. If the shutter is open for a very short amount of time, then even if the thing you are shooting is moving you will be able to get a sharp image of it, because it won’t have time to move around before the shutter closes again. The downside is that if the shutter is only open for a instant, then not a lot of light can get in to the sensor.

Aperture (or F-Number)

The third and final member of our roster here is the aperture. This is a measurement of how wide the shutter opens up when you take the shot. In terms of the F-Number, it can be a little bit confusing at first. You’ll see lenses listed with specs that read like “35mm f/2″ which doesn’t mean too much at first, so let’s take a look at that. The “35mm” part is the focal length of the lens, in this case fixed at 35 millimeters. Now, the “f/2″ part means that the ratio of the focal length to the maximum width that the shutter can open up to is 2. Confused? Let’s use some real numbers. This is saying that on this 35mm focal length lens, the maximum diameter that the shutter can open up to is 17.5mm. So, the smaller the F-number is, the wider the lens can open up relative to its focal length.

Understanding the effect this has on your image is a little more complex than with the others because two different effects come into play. The first is the depth of field in your shot. I’ve personally always thought that the term “depth of field” is a bit, well, wrong for what it’s used to describe. In my opinion, a more accurate description would be “plane of focus” so I’m going to run with that. Here we go. Imagine you are taking a picture, and that there is a magical plane of glass somewhere in front of you that is parallel to the front of your lens. “Magical” because it can pass through other objects, like the ones you’re taking pictures of. Everything within the plane of glass will be in focus, and things that are in front of or behind the plane of glass will be blurred. Got that? Good. Now here’s the neat trick: the wider your lens opens up when you take the shot (low F-number), the thinner that plane of glass becomes. Conversely, if your lens opens up only a teeny amount (high F-number), then the plane of glass becomes very very thick. So, a very high F-number means that probably everything in your shot will be in focus. A very low F-number means that only a thin plane will be in focus in your shot.

Still not quite making sense? It’s a little hard to visualize at first. Fortunately, Ryan’s taken a great shot at a wide aperture that should help make things clearer.

Canon 100mm macro, f/4, ISO 400, 0.001s

As you can see, with a wide aperture, the caterpillar is in focus but the areas both in front of and behind it are a bit blurred out. This is often used to make objects in the foreground pop into sharp relief by blurring out the background, which is a standard portrait shooting technique shown here.

Canon 50mmL, f/2, ISO 1000, 0.013s

So the first of the two effects is related to which parts of your shot are in focus and which aren’t. The second again relates to light. The wider your lens opens up, the more light gets in to the sensor. So shooting with a wide open lens can help you in low-light situations. On the other hand, if you have tons of light, then you can shoot with much smaller apertures if you so choose.

Putting it Together

Now you should have a good understanding of what these three numbers are actually doing on your camera. Let’s talk a little bit about how the three are interrelated. All three of them share a common trait, namely that they affect how light gets into your camera to produce an image. This is one of the reasons that you’ll read over and over that lighting is the most important thing in photography. Let’s look at a few scenarios, starting with a situation in which you are doing social shooting in very low light. In this case, you will typically want to set your ISO speed very high at something like 1600, and you’ll want to open your lens up as wide as it will go (low F-number.) Then, you will set the shutter speed as fast as you can get away with while still getting a reasonable exposure. A good rule of thumb for the shutter speed is it’s the inverse of the focal length of your lens. Meaning, if you’re shooting with a 50mm lens, try to have the shutter speed 1/50th of a second or faster. Practically, I get away with a slightly slower shutter speed than this rule dictates all the time, but it’s a good thing to keep in mind.

Canon 50mmL, f/1.2, ISO 1600, 0.025s

You definitely see the grain here due to the high ISO setting of 1600. Also, you’ll note that while the subject’s left eye is right in focus, her hair over her right shoulder is a bit blurred. This is due to the very wide aperture of f/1.2. The shutter speed was 1/40th of a second, and fortunately she wasn’t moving very much so I was able to get a sharp shot. This was despite the fact that there were only a few tea light candles to illuminate this frame.

Let’s look at a more extreme kind of shot next. Low light, but where you want a low ISO to avoid the grain, and a reasonably small aperture so things are in focus. If that’s the situation you are in, then in order to get enough light into the camera to get the image, you have to have a very, very slow shutter speed.

Canon 17-85mm, f/8, ISO 100, 25s

In the shot above, taken by Ryan, the ISO speed is very low at 100, and the aperture is at f/8. In order to get the exposure correct, the shutter was open for 25 seconds. Obviously, in order to do this effectively, you need to be using a tripod or some sort of stabilizing device to keep the camera still so that the image comes out sharp.

Let’s look at one more that’s not in such an extreme low-light situation.

Canon 24-70mmL, f/2.8, ISO 100, 0.001s

This photo was taken in the late afternoon when there was a reasonable amount of ambient light out. The ISO speed is set very low at 100 so the image isn’t grainy. I have the aperture open quite wide at f/2.8, so Demian’s head is in focus but the background is nicely blurred out. The shutter speed was 1/1000th of a second in this shot, so I didn’t have to worry about movement from Demian or the camera affecting the sharpness of the shot.

Do I really have to worry about all of this?

At this point hopefully you have a better understanding of why these three magic numbers are important for your photography. Nonetheless, you may also be there thinking “Seriously? Do I have to worry about all of this stuff all the time?” The answer in this day and age is “no, you can make the camera do at least some of the work for you.”

If you’re just getting into your DSLR, you’ve probably noticed that it has a variety of different shooting modes. When I first started learning about all of this, my more experienced friends advised me to use Aperture Priority mode when taking pictures. I recommend that you do the same. In Aperture Priority mode on my Canon rig, you select an ISO speed and the aperture to use, and the camera will pick out the shutter speed for you. This is convenient because you don’t have to constantly readjust the shutter speed as you’re trying to get your shots. There’s also a Shutter Priority mode, which I’ve barely ever used, and it does more or less the opposite. In that mode, you pick the ISO speed and the shutter speed, and the camera will select the aperture for you. I know that on some cameras like the new Nikon D300 there are modes that will also select ISO speeds for you, but I don’t have a rig that has this functionality personally so I don’t know too much about how to use it.

At any rate, shooting in Aperture Priority mode is a great way to start out since it lowers the number of things you need to concern yourself with. And you can always see what the camera is recommending for you in the viewfinder, or by looking at the EXIF data later on when you’ve processed the image. I’ve personally been shooting in fully manual mode a great deal as of late, but that’s mostly because I keep finding myself in very dark situations and I’m generally insistent on getting a sufficiently fast shutter speed so that the shots are clear. That said, for normal daytime shooting, myself and many of my friends use Aperture Priority mode a great deal of the time.

In Conclusion

I hope this serves to clarify some of the jargon that you may be absorbing. There’s definitely a learning curve with photography, but once you get the basics down it’s an incredibly fun endeavor. If anybody has questions please ask them via comments and I’ll do my best to answer them. Happy Holidays!

Ryan has already written up some tips for taking concert shots. Over the second half of this year, I’ve had the opportunity to shoot at a bunch of shows so I thought I would also weigh in with some of the things that I’ve managed to figure out so far. I concur with him that it’s an interesting kind of challenge. You’re in very low light, and if you’re shooting rock shows as I have been, the subjects are typically moving pretty fast. So, without further delay, here are some pointers that you may find useful if you’re in a similar situation.

Number One: Put the camera in manual mode

It took me longer than it should have to realize how much this simple adjustment would impact the pictures. A lot of times I’ll put my Canon 30D in aperture priority mode to let it figure out what the various levels should be. I tell the camera what aperture I want, and it selects the shutter speed. In a concert though, this just won’t work. Why you ask? Well, just read what we noted already… the people on stage may well be running around like banshees, and that means you need a fast shutter if you want to get clear shots.

With this in mind, I will typically start out a show using my 24-70L f/2.8 lens opened up all the way to f/2.8, ISO 1600, and a shutter speed of 1/125th of a second. Depending on the lighting at the venue and the song, I may try and bring the shutter speed down a bit, or lower the ISO if I can get away with it. The result of this is that the images tend to come out dark. But, and I cannot stress this enough, that’s really just fine. Look around you when you’re at the club… it’s dark right? Of course it is. And so if your images are dark, that just means you’re doing what you’re supposed to do as a photographer, namely capture what’s really going on. Futhermore, you can get some really great high contrast images shooting this way that have a lot of impact.

Number Two: Stop and have a good look around before shooting

This one is just SO obvious, but truth be told I didn’t do it the first few shows I shot. Put the camera down, get back from the stage, and try to let things sink in a little bit. What kind of band is it? What kind of crowd is it? Is it a loud rock show or is it something more intimate? Are there big smoke blowers behind the drum kit or is it a small spotlight on the singer for an acoustic show? Taking note of these sorts of things will help give you some direction when you’re picking out which things to shoot. There’s music, there’s a crowd, there’s a certain energy, and you’re there to try and capture that all. So it’s worthwhile to have a look at it away from the shutter to really get a sense of what you’re going for.

Number Three: Beware the spotlights, they can be your enemy

This is one I learned the hard way. You’re looking up at your subject, he makes a big rockstar movement when the chorus kicks in, the spotlights flare up accordingly behind him, and you snap the frame. Sounds pretty much like the goal right?

Here’s where there can be a problem. You likely have your lens open as wide as it will go. In that state, if you get a bright point light behind your subject but in the frame, the intensity can basically burn a white area into your image, where by “burn” I mean that you can’t color correct it out. The luminance is so high that there’s no image information in that area, just “all white.” The sad result is that you end up with a perfectly good image except for the fact that there’s this seared white area next to the subject’s head that you can’t dim out in any way.

The best way around this of course is just to pay attention to how the lights are working, and make sure that you don’t have any beaming directly into your lens when you press the shutter. Additionally, if you see that you have a ton of backlighting, you can probably get away with tightening up the aperture which will keep the lights from burning white holes into your images. I’ve personally found that at f/4 and above I don’t have to worry too much. You still get a point light in the shot, but it’s not seared in so you can get it to look how you want afterwards in your post-processing software of choice.

Number Four: Love the spotlights, they can be your best friend

So tossing what I said in “Number Three” aside, the spotlights are ultimately a lot of the reason that concerts are so much fun. If you’re at a venue with good lighting, then you are basically taking pictures of things that have big, bright, multicolored lights pointing at them all the time. And honestly, that’s pretty hard to beat.

I could, and at some point probably will, write an entire post about just this topic. It’s like a photographer’s dream. Other people are sitting there illuminating your subjects with (hopefully) lots of light. All you have to do is pay attention and click away.

Remember that the lighting patterns are often cyclical. If you see the lights doing a certain thing during the first chorus of a given song, they’re probably going to do the exact same thing during the second chorus. You can use this to your advantage when composing shots. I’ve personally spent plenty of time trying to stay very still, aiming directly at somebody on stage, and just waiting for the lighting to turn on exactly the way I want it to. The lights are usually moving, so you’ll often only have about a second to capture the shot you want, but that’s usually enough if you’re there waiting for it.

Number Five: Try and get familiar with the band’s music before you shoot

This one really just goes hand in hand with everything else here. If you know the songs ahead of time, then you’ll know where the breaks are. You’ll know what the mellow tunes are, when they might not be moving so fast and you can get away with a slower shutter. You’ll know when the big breaks are in a song so you can track the singer’s movements. You’ll know what the big crowd favorites are so you can be ready to capture high energy moments.

The list goes on and on really, but the point is always the same. The better you know about the music the band is playing, the better you can anticipate what they’re going to do on stage. And in an environment when things are moving as quickly as they do in a concert setting, being able to anticipate well can have a huge impact on the number of good shots you have at the end of the night.

And finally: Have fun!

I’ve had an enormous amount of fun this year taking concert pictures. Now, I live in Los Angeles, and I have friends in bands, so my opportunities to take pictures like these are pretty ample. I realize that may not be the case for everybody, but if you can get in there and get up to that stage, the results can be very rewarding. I hope you all get the chance to enjoy it as much as I do.

In an effort to bring you guys more posts, this is the first of our new “Quick Tips” category, where we will briefly go through some tried and true methods for different types of photography and share some good old photo porn. Get the tips and photos after the jump…

Aquarium photography can pose some some unique challenges you won’t find pretty much anywhere else. The combination of the low-light without a tripod, thick & dirty glass, hyperactive kids, and floating debris can make getting a good shot a challenge. Here are a few tips to make sure you get the shot.

1. Start with a fast lens

   The low available light and restricted flash usage means you need a fast lens. Stick with f/2.8 or faster. If your lens has some sort of Image Stabilization and f/2.8 you are in even better shape. The other huge benefit to a lens with a wide aperture is that the shallow depth of field can make the dirty glass you are shooting through almost invisible. More on this later.

2. Bump your ISO

   Another fix for the low-light situation, bump your ISO up as high as you need to to get somewhere between 1/30th and 1/60th shutter speed. The places I’ve shot have usually required ISO 800 or higher, but experiment for best results. Worried about the noise of high ISO? Not sure what to tell you here. The noise all the way up to ISO 1600 is manageable on my 30D. Personally, I’d much rather have a grainy shot than a blurry one and use the nose reduction tools in Lightroom after the shoot.

3. Stabilize your camera

   Most aquariums prohibit tripod usage so its time to practice shooting hand-held at slower shutter speeds. The easiest way to add some stability is to press your lens right up against the aquarium glass (use a UV filter to protect from inadvertent bumps and scratches). This serves 2 purposes, the closer you are to the dirty glass with your lens, the more out of focus it will be, effectively making it invisible in the final shot. If you can’t get the right shot pressed up against the glass, use a friend’s shoulder, or if you have no friends, shoot short bursts of images and pray for a sharp one.

4. Be PATIENT

   I really can’t stress this one enough. Aquariums are like crack for little kids, so there is a good chance that on more than a few occasions they will be getting in the way of your shot, bumping into you and scaring the wildlife. Be patient, do some zen meditation, say goosfraba, whatever. Just wait for the kids to move along and the fishies to settle down. You’ll be rewarded with a solid shot.

5. Don’t just shoot the animals

   Along with cool fish and reptile, aquariums also have tons of awesome coral, anemones, and plants that can make for a good shot. Don’t get too focused on the fishies to see the other great shots in their surroundings.

6. Do the right thing in post-processing

   Retouching your aquarium shots when you get back to the laptop can feel a bit daunting, but if you know the basics you’ll get the results you are looking for. Retouching these shots could be a post on its own, but here are the basics. Tweak the white-balance to combat the fluorescent aquarium lights to bring the colors to life. Work with the contrast, especially in the midtones… in Lightroom I start by adjusting fill light, blacks and clarity. Break out the healing brush… floating debris can be a distraction so do your best to get rid of them. Lastly, don;t over-sharpen… shooting at high ISO brings noise and grain, over-sharpening can enhance the noise, so don’t go to crazy with it.

I hope these tips have been helpful. If you have anything to add, I’d love to hear about it in the comments. If you’ve shot recently at an aquarium, link it up, I’d love to see your results.

Photo Porn from the Shedd Aquarium, Chicago

If you are like me, and your camera comes with you nearly everywhere, and isn’t always in a soft cushy case, doing what you can to protect it is important. Though today’s DSLRs tend to be relatively rugged when it comes to build quality, with magnesium or aluminum alloy bodies coated with rubber, especially from the pro-sumer level up, The LCDs are the largest chink in the armor. LCDs are notoriously prone to scratches and dings, but can be protected very simply and inexpensively.

There are several options available for LCD protection, some cumbersome, some ridiculous and one that is ideal. Read about it after the jump…

Enter The InvisibleShield

I want to preface this post by saying I’m not being paid, endorsed, bribed or anything like that for this post, I really just love this product that much!

Notice anything about the LCD on the 30D in the image above? (other than the fingerprints of course ) Unless you know what you are looking for, probably not, but the LCD on Chris’s 30D is protected by an InvisibleShield. These things are basically magical pieces of plastic that you affix to your screen and you’re protected. The image below was taken so you can actually see the thing. As you can see, there’s a bit of a texture to it, though its invisible when looking at the screen.

How the hell can a little piece of plastic protect my LCD?

I asked the same thing when Chris turned me onto these things a few months back, but now I swear by them. Here’s what they say on their website:

The invisibleSHIELD is the premier name in handheld device protection. Made from a urethane film originally used to protect the leading edges of military helicopter blades, the invisibleSHIELD is clear, durable, and virtually scratch-proof. The invisibleSHIELD is precision cut to fit your Canon EOS 30D, giving it perfectly contoured protection that other screen protectors can’t match.

The protection provided by the invisibleSHIELD is unique, not only in the way it keeps your device from getting unsightly scratches, but also how it doesn’t add any bulk or obscure the sleek aesthetic design of your Canon EOS 30D.

Wait… what?!? Helicopter blades? Ya, apparently this material was developed for the military to be placed on top of metal helicopter blades to protect them… I think that means it’s good enough for my LCD… But seriously, I’ve seen these things in action, they are nearly impossible to damage, you can pull them off, re-apply, stretch, crumple, whatever and they go back to their original shape. Pretty amazing. At this point, if I buy a portable electronic device of any kind, I also order a shield for it. I use them for not only my camera, but also my MacBook, my cell phone, my PSP and my iPod. What actually inspired me to write this post was an incident with my phone this week. Somehow, my phone and my keys got in a fight in my pocket, and my phone lost, or so I thought.

Please forgive the rushed nature of these shots, but what this is illustrating is the deep gouge one of my keys put in the shield, and what the LCD on my Treo looked like after peeling back the shield. It was immaculate. Amazing.

Here’s a demo video put together by the manufacturer.

…and a link to their video page.

Why is this the best protection?

There are several types of LCD protection out there from those bulky snap on protectors included with Nikons and available to purchase for other DSLRs, to even bulkier camera armor. Personally, I like to keep the bulk low when shooting, and an LCD protector hanging from my camera by a string is only going to get in the way and hinder me from shooting. Also, if every time i want to review a shot I have to move an LCD cover it starts to get annoying real quick. Basically, the shields offer a layer of protection without hindering or affecting your shoot in any way whatsoever.

Where can I get mine?

I generally order mine directly from Zagg, the manufacturer but I realized today that in some cases, the prices on Amazon are a bit better. Click here to search Amazon for an InvisibleShield that is custom made for your gear or use this cool new widgety search thing.

What do you use to protect your LCD?

I think that’s gonna do it for this one, but I’m interested to hear any experiences you guys have had with these things and any other LCD protectors you might use so leave your experiences in the comments.