Jim Zuckerman’s
PH OTO I N S I G HTS
September 2016
1
On the cover: Mating pair of crowned cranes, Lake Nakuru National Park, Kenya. This page: Gdansk, Poland. This is where World War II began with aerial bombardment by Germany on September 1, 1939.
22
4. Exposing for the sun 8. What does exposure comp does 12. Photographing flat art 22. What’s wrong with this picture? 24. Short and sweet 25. Ask Jim 26. Photography tours 29. Student showcase 34. Back issues
B
uying a camera is a daunting challenge because there are so many choices. Cameras, like shoes, fit differently on different people. One size doesn’t fit all. The camera you decide to buy, or the one that represents an upgrade for you, must fit the types of subjects you like to shoot. A photographer whose passion is bird photography needs features in a camera that doesn’t apply to a person whose primary focus is landscapes or portraits, for example. Similarly, if the end use of your images is sharing them in social media, displaying them on a website, showing them on an iPad, and emailing them to friends and family, then you don’t need a camera with a gazillion megapixels. If you want to display your photographs as large, framed pieces in art galleries, or you intend to submit your work to stock photo agencies, then every megapixel you can afford counts. Besides cost, the major features you need to consider when buying a camera are: Resolution (the number of megapixels); frames per second (for action photography); the amount of digital noise at moderate and high ISO settings; the speed and accuracy of the autofocus; the speed and accuracy of focus tracking; weight of the camera; and the capacity of the buffer (when shooting many frames per second). These are the features that define the kind of camera you buy given the kind of picture taking you like to do. There are many other features that may be important to you as well, such as a tiltable LCD screen, built-in flash, whether the image stabilization is in the body or the lenses, full frame sensor versus cropped sensor, and the ability to connect to the Internet to immediately share pictures online. But for a serious photographer, it’s the list of features in the middle paragraph above that should be in the forefront of your thinking when you consider buying a new camera. Jim Zuckerman www.jimzuckerman.com 3
Exposing for the sun
D
uring my recent photo tour to Kenya, one of the participants -- Mel Geer -- asked me for my technique for exposing correctly for the sun. I thought about this for a moment and then answered: “It depends.” I know this wasn’t the answer Mel was looking for, but the truth is, that’s the correct response. If we were still shooting film, my answer would be very different, but in the digital realm the correct exposure when a composition includes the sun depends on the following factors: 1. The focal length of the lens. A long tele-
4
photo makes the sun large in the frame, as in the silhouette of the wildebeest, above, and to a lesser degree the sunrise shot below (I photographed the wildebeest with the equivalent of a 560mm lens, while I
5
used a 270mm focal length for the landscape). A larger sun means that the meter will be influenced to a greater degree than if the sun is small, typical of when a wide angle lens is used. The portrait of the Masai tribesman on the previous page is an example. Even though there is some lens flare, the size of the sun is small because I used a 16mm focal length. The small sun had a minimal affect on the meter reading. 2. Where the sun is placed in the composition. If the sun is composed in or near the center of the viewfinder like in the shot of Bryce Canyon, below, it will have a much larger impact on the meter reading than if it is positioned off to one side or in the corner of the frame. 3. How much haze, fog, thin clouds, or smog there is in the air. Obviously, if the sun is partially obscured, its intensity will be diminished and that will affect the exposure.
6
4. Your personal taste. Some photographers prefer shots of the sun to be a bit dark, and others like more detail in the shadows so they tend to lighten these kind of images. Usually, when it comes to shooting the sun, we don’t know exactly what we want until we see it. Some photo instructors teach that you should overexpose a certain amount -- say 1 1/3 f/stops -- to compensate for the bright sunlight which typically underexposes pictures. But how do you know exactly how much compensation the photos will need? Answer: you can’t know this until you see the results. You can guesstimate what the final image will look like, but it’s impossible to know for sure. There are too many variables. In the photo of Bryce Canyon, the centrally placed sun was partially hidden behind Thor’s Hammer (the name of the rock formation), yet it was centrally placed. So, how would this affect the meter reading?
In the picture of Dubrovnic, Croatia at sunset, below, the sun is slightly obscured by thin clouds, it is peaking over the ridge of the distant mountain, it’s positioned in the far upper right corner, and it is quite small in the frame because I used a 24-105mm lens set to 24mm. Considering these factors, how can a photographer quantity the effect on the exposure? Obviously it’s not possible to do that because of all the variables. That’s why I use the following technque to determine the correct exposure. I compose the image, take the shot using one of the automatic exposure modes (Program, Aperture Priority, or Shutter priority), and then I assess the results on the LCD monitor on the back of the camera. If the picture is too light or too dark for my taste, I simply tweak the expo
sure in 1/3 f/stop increments using the exposure compensation dial. I’ll take another shot and repeat this process until I like what I see. Manual exposure mode If you typically shoot in manual mode, then the exposure compensation feature won’t help you. It is disabled when the camera is set to manual mode, or ‘M’. It only works with the automatic exposure modes. When shooting in manual, simply adjust the shutter speed and lens aperture until you like the results. Using this technique for deriving a perfect exposure of the sun can be used for any type of challenging lighting situation. The fact that we can see our pictures immediately on the LCD screen makes this possible; it essentially takes all the guesswork out of getting perfect exposures. §
7
What Exactly Does Exposure Compensation Do?
T
he exposure compensation feature is one of the most important tools on the camera -- perhaps second only to autofocus -- and you should become intimately familiar with it. What is interesting about this particular feature is what happens when you use it. The camera responds differently depending on what exposure mode you’re using. When using Shutter priority Choosing this mode means that the shutter speed is selected and it remains fixed while the lens aperture varies. Therefore, as you adjust
8
the exposure compensation, it is the aperture that changes to make the picture lighter or darker. If you add more light -- + 2/3, for example -- the lens aperture becomes larger and therefore there is a decrease in depth of field. In a photograph like the landscape below in the Masai Mara Conservancy in Kenya, this loss of dof wouldn’t be noticed. When using a long lens, though, where the subject is close to the camera position, depth of field is a lot more critical. Lightening the exposure on shutter priority will definitely have an impact on focus. When using Aperture priority
Photographing with aperture priority means that you choose the lens aperture based on the depth of field you want and the camera’s metering system chooses the shutter speed to produce a correct exposure. Consequently, when you adjust the exposure compensation it is the shutter that varies based on the amount of exposure adjustment. If you opt for a darker picture, say minus 1 1/3 f/stops, the shutter speed becomes faster. If you want a lighter picture, the shutter becomes slower. This is important to consider when shooting in low light environments, for example, like the theater performance in China, below, where a slower shutter blurred the ribbons. In this case, the shutter speed was 1/30th of a second. Even though you use the automatic features on a camera doesn’t mean you leave your brain at
home. You still have to think about what the camera is doing and then override it if you want something different. Therefore, if you are using aperture priority and you need to lighten the images, watch very carefully what happens to the shutter speed as you adjust the exposure compensation. If the shutter becomes too slow, the only option, then, is to raise the ISO. When using Program mode Program mode is designed to adjust both the shutter speed and the lens aperture according to the ambient light and the ISO. How the camera decides which shutter speed and which f/stop to use is based on an algorithm that assumes you are hand holding the camera. That means that it is designed to give you the fastest shutter speed possible (less 1/3 f/stop) based on
9
w
UPCOMING PHOTO WORKSHOPS Carnival in Venice workshop Outrageous costumes in a medieval environment! Venice is great to visit and photograph any time, but during carnival it’s magical. There is nothing like it anywhere in the world.
Feb. 17 - 23, 2017
Frog & Reptile Workshop Close-up encounters with poison dart frogs and exotic reptiles such as chameleons, geckos, snakes, and more in St. Louis, Missouri.
Jan. 14-15, 2017
Wildlife in Autumn Colors Photograph beautiful North American animals -- wolves, bears, mountain lions, lynx, bobcat, skunks, etc. -- in the stunning colors of autumn.
Oct. 5 - 8, 2017
10
the light and the ISO. As the light gets brighter and brighter, the shutter reaches the maximum at around 1/750 or 1/1000. After that, with more light (like a bright sun at the beach) you start to get more and more depth of field because Program mode gives you a smaller lens aperture knowing that a faster shutter isn’t necessary. When you use exposure compensation and Program mode, both the shutter speed and the lens aperture vary. They actually ‘take turns, so to speak. First the shutter varies 1/3 f/stop, then the aperture adjusts by 1/3 f/stop to correspond to the change you are making in exposure. If you keep tweaking the exposure, the cycle repeats. If you are shooting in relatively low light, such as under deep overcast or before sunrise or after sunset, and you want to lighten the exposure -- and the f/stop is already wide open -- then the only way the camera can execute your command is to slow the shutter speed down. That means there is a risk of getting a blurred picture. With most subjects, like the mother and baby black bear, above, a less-than-sharp image is unacceptable. The antedote for that is to raise the ISO until the shutter speed is fast enough to insure a sharp image. Remember that the shutter should be the reciprocal of the focal length of your lens. I.e. if you are shooting with a 300mm telephoto, the shutter should be 1/300th of a second or faster. § 11
PHOTOGRAPHING FLAT ART
T
ravel photographers like myself appreciate the great art that we encounter in our travels in museums, ancient ruins, cathedrals, and palaces, and we love to capture it in photographs. There are challenges, though, and I wanted to look at the problems inherent in photographing flat art to help you capture beautiful paintings so they look their best in your pictures. First, all images of artwork should have complete depth of field. The images should be sharp from edge to edge. In order to do that, a small lens aperture is required such as f/22
12
or f/32. When possible, make the back of the camera -- i.e. the digital sensor -- as parallel as possible with the artwork. Second, many great works of art are high on a large wall or on the ceiling, and this complicates the situation. The painting below from the Paris opera house was three stories above the entry level, and the painting on the next page by Michaelangelo was on the top of a high wall way above eye level in the Vatican Museum. These two works of art present depth of field issues simply because of their location and the fact that the plane of the digital sensor
13
ESSENTIAL
KNOWLEDGE
Photoshop taps into your creative potential like nothing photographers have ever had in the past. Once you feel comfortable working in this program, the sky is the limit. You can do anything your mind can imagine. Pretty amazing, indeed! This eBook explains many of the techniques that Jim uses all the time. These include replacing the sky, compositing images, adding textures to photos, introducing natural looking streaks of light, realistic HDR, combining black and white with color, Jim’s favoritre plugins, using the blend modes, and more. Use this as an idea book as well as a reference. If you’ve limited yourself to Lightroom’s abilities, consider expanding your horizons and learn Photoshop. It’s about time.
Click the cover to see inside the ebook
14
has to be oblique to the plane of the paintings. In addition to the depth of field issue, you also get keystoning. When the plane of the sensor is not parallel to the plane of the painting, distortion occurs. The bottom of the artwork seems wider than the top of it as you can see in the Madonna I photographed in Vilnius, Lithuania, below. The rectangular frame looks skewed, and that’s not ideal. In order to correct this distortion, use a two step process in Photoshop: 1. Choose Select > all 2. Choose Edit > transform > distort
A box forms around the image and you can grab any of the corner handles to pull the angled edges of the frame so they are perfectly vertical. Third, color is an important consideration. You want to reproduce the art as accuratrely as possible, so the white balance in the camera must match the ambient light. You may have to fine tune the color balance in Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw, but the original photograph should be close to the correct color. If the standard white balance settings don’t give you correct color, try changing the Kelvin temperature. Digital cameras allow you to do this in 100 degree Kelvin increments. If the artwork you’re shooting happens to be in a mixed lighting situation -- for example, daylight plus tungsten -then you have to use some of the color adjusting tools in Photoshop to tweak the color to match how the art really looks. Fourth, glare can be a problem. Sometimes a painting is behind glass, and other times the sheen of light reflecting back from the surface of a painting is distracting. A polarizing filter can help sometimes, and other times you can have a traveling companion block the light source enough to deal with the problem. Another solution to the glare is to use HDR so the highlights are exposed in such a way that they are toned down while the shadows are exposed correctly. That’s what I did with the artwork on the next page from the Jasna Gora Monastery in Poland. The highlights on the metallic surface versus the deep shadows was a chalelnge.§ 15
16
Become a better photographer with
eBooks
Click on any ebook to see inside
18
17
Hand held HDR T
he ideal way to shoot HDR is from a tripod to make sure the bracketed images are aligned perfectly with no ghosting at all. But sometimes tripods are not allowed, such as in cathedrals, government buildings, museums, and so on. In these situations, HDR is still possible by hand holding the camera. Here is how you do it:
which I bracketed in 2-f/stop increments, the main meter reading had to be 1/250th of a second (1/60 is two f/stops slower than 1/250).
1. Raise the ISO enough so the longest exposure in the sequence of bracketed shots is fast enough to insure the pictures are sharp. For example, in the picture of the beautiful Orthodox Cathedral below in Podgorica, Montenegro, I used a 14mm wide angle. I figured the slowest shutter I could get away with was 1/60th of a second, so in a three-photo HDR sequence in
4. Squeeze the shutter very gently.
18
2. Set the drive to high speed continuous so the frames fire off as rapidly as possible. 3. Hold your breath when you shoot.
5. Align the center of the viewfinder on one feature or element in the picture, and when you think the camera is motionless, shoot. The slight mis-alignment due to the subtle movements the camera will be compensated by the software in the HDR program you use. ยง
LEARNING TO SEE
online course
by Jim Zuckerman
The ability to ‘see photographically’, to really grasp how your camera and lenses capture a subject or scene (which is different than how we see with our eyes) underlies successful picture taking. It is the bottom line that you’ve been looking for to take that quantum leap forward in your photography. The great thing about online courses is that they can fit into any schedule. Life gets in the way at times, and Jim puts no limit on the time you can submit your work for his critiques. CLICK THIS PAGE to read more about this course.
19
New eBook for beginning photographers I’ve not seen a book on beginning photography that I thought was clear, concise, and relevant to taking good pictures, so I wrote one. If you are insecure about your knowledge of how f/ stops, shutter speeds, and ISO interact, or what exactly the various exposure modes on a camera are for, this is the eBook for you. Or if you know someone who just bought a camera and is having a hard time understanding the manual that came with the camera, the information in this new publication is essential. It will take much of the frustration in learning photography out of the equation. Instruction
20
manuals for cameras do not teach photography. All of the basics of photography are covered including depth of field, the simple mathematical relationships between lens apertures and shutter speeds, the issues surrounding digital noise, basic fundamentals of composition, the features you should look for when choosing your next camera, the different kinds of lenses and how to use them, how shutter speeds and lens apertures allow you to express your artistic vision, and creative considerations that enable you to start taking photographs rather than mere snapshots.
THE PANTANAL, BRAZIL November 2 - 10, 2016
Jaguars in the wild
exotic birds
caiman
capybara
21
What’s wrong with this picture?
Z
ebras are beautiful animals and they don’t have to do much to look good. In a group, it’s all about how they are positioned relative to the other animals, whether their heads are up and alert, how their necks are turned, and so on. I like this arrangement, although one could argue that the second zebra from the right shouldn’t have it’s muzzle hidden by the rump of the foreground animal. That doesn’t bother me too much, but that’s not the real problem with this picture. The real problem is the white sky. It’s dull and terribly boring. Many times white skies are distracting, too, but here because of the thin cloud layer that toned down the brightness it isn’t distracting here. In order to save the shot, I had to replace the sky with clouds that would have produced this same kind of lighting -- soft and diffused -- that you see in this image.
22
I took the clouds above at the same time as I photographed the zebras but they were in a different part of the sky. Instead of using the pen tool or even the quick selection tool in Photoshop, I used a layer mask to add the clouds to the sky. In this way, I could blend the clouds with the zebras in a believable way without spending a long time making a precise selection. The procedure was: 1. Open the zebra photo and the cloud photo 2. Place the clouds in the clipboard (Select > all; edit > copy) 3. Click the zebra picture, paste the clouds over it (Edit > paste) 4. Make a layer mask (Layer > layer mask > reveal all) 5. With the foreground/background color boxes black/white respectively, choose the gradient tool and drag the cursor from the bottom of the picture to the top. The result will be what you see here. 6. To tweak the way the clouds blend into the zebra picture, change the length of the line when dragging the cursor and/or change the starting point where the dragging begins. ยง 23
SHORT AND SWEET 1.
I photographed this nuclear power plant through a large glass window of an airport terminal in Johannesburg. If you shoot through glass, get close to it and shoot such that the lens axis is perpendicular to the plane of the glass. This will produce the sharpest shots.
3. If you like displaying your work as prints or on a
website, or if you try to sell your work, don’t show images like this one -- animal predation. No one wants to see it. They love seeing the cute and cuddly pictures of wildlife as well as large and powerful animals, but people don’t want to see blood and gore.
24
2. While this picture of monkeys in Kenya is cute, it’s
not ideal because the background is lighter than the subjects. The background, therefore, is a bit distracting. It’s nicely out of focus, but because it’s light our eyes are drawn to it too often.
4.
Don’t forget to try wide angle portraits. They show the environment which gives context to the images, and in addition the wide angle lenses have extensive depth of field. I shot this in Ethiopia with a 24 -105mm lens set to 24mm. The key is getting close to the person -around 4 to 6 feet. §
ASK JIM
Every month Jim will answer a question from his online students, from people who participate in his tours and workshops, or from subscribers to this magazine. If you have a question you’d like Jim to answer, please drop him a note at photos@jimzuckerman.com.
Q: Jim . . .I was wondering what your thoughts are about signing photographic artwork. I recently
volunteered to help at a very large photo exhibit with pros’ and amateurs’ work on display, and I was struck by the wide variety of signatures and watermarks. Some folks signed their full names with very large script on the mat or on the white space on the print when the mat was cut larger than the photo; some signed on the photo; some signed the back and nothing on the front, etc. What do you think is correct? Peche Turner, Redwood City, California.
A:
In art, anything goes. How an artist signs a photograph (or painting) is entirely up to him or her. Personally, when I used to show fine art prints, I signed the white paper that bordered the image at the lower right corner and I usually signed only my last name. If there was no border and the frame came up against the edge of the image, then I’d sign in black ink on the lower right corner of the photograph itself. However, if that portion of the image was black or very dark and my signature wouldn’t show up very well, then I’d either sign in the lower left corner (if it wasn’t too dark) or use a gold pen and sign over the dark corner in the lower right. But that’s just me. There is no standard way of doing it, but I think everyone agrees that the signature should not detract from the artwork. If the prints are numbered, then of course the number can be added after the signature unless the artist wants to put that information on a certificate affixed to the back of the print, as some do. Every signature technique is valid.
25
Photography Tours 2016 - 2017
CARNIVAL IN VENICE Feb. 2017
AMERICAN SOUTHWEST Oct. 2016
THE PANTANAL, BRAZIL Nov. 2016
ICELAND Mar. 2017
NEPAL Mar. 2017
ECUADOR BIRDS Jul. 2017
KAZAKHSTAN Aug. 2017
EGYPT Oct. 2017
SOUTH AFRICA & NAMIBIA Nov. 2017
NEW ZEALAND Apr. 2018
THE BALKINS May 2018
26
MOROCCO May 2017
For a complete list of all the photo tours/workshops Jim conducts, go to his website: www.jimzuckerman.com.
South Africa & Namibia photo safari November 6 - 20, 2017
Awesome wildlife exotic birds huge dunes
Drinking leopard photographed in 2015 right in front of our lodge at Sabi Sabi, South Africa
27 29
AMERICAN SOUTHWEST photo tour October 7 - 16, 2016
28
Student Showcase Each month, Jim features one student who took beautiful and inspiring images on one or more of his photography tours or workshops. It’s really fascinating how photographers see and compose such different images even though we may go to the same places. Everyone gets great photographs on my trips.
Dan and Connie Schulz, Rockland, Ontario, Canada Scotland & Wales photo tour, Kenya photo
tour
Š 2016 Dan and Connie Schulz
29 29
Student Showcase, continued
Š 2016 Dan and Connie Schulz
30 30
Student Showcase, continued
Š 2016 Dan and Connie Schulz
37 31
Student Showcase, continued
Š 2016 Dan and Connie Schulz
32 34
PHOTOSHOP WORKSHOP in my home
Sat. & Sun., Oct. 29 - 30, 2016
Photoshop is a photographer’s best friend, and the creative possibilities are absolutely endless -- like replacing the background behind this 1947 Delahaye 135M. In a personal and ‘homey’ environment (I have a very cool classroom setup in my home), I start at the beginning -- assuming you know nothing -- but I quickly get into layers, cutting and pasting, plug-ins, using ‘grunge’ textures, modifying lighting, replacing backgrounds, using layer masks, blend modes, adding a moon, and a lot more. I promise to fill your head with so many great techniques that you won’t believe what you’ll be able to do. I go over each technique several times to make sure you understand it and can remember it. Photoshop instructors approach teaching this program from different points of view. My approach is to be as expansive in my thinking as possible in creating unique, artistic, and compelling images. In addition to showing you how to use the various tools,
pull down menus, layers, and so on, I spend a lot of time giving you creative ideas that will inspire you to produce amazing images with the pictures you’ve already taken. I live in the Nashville, Tennessee area, and if you fly into the airport (BNA) I will pick you up. If you drive, I’ll give you my address and you can find my home on Mapquest or with a GPS. For the $450 fee, I include one dinner in my home (prepared by my wife who is an amazing cook and hostess) and two lunches, plus shuttling you back and forth from my home to your nearby hotel. Contact me if you would like to participate in the workshop and I will tell you how to sign up (photos@jimzuckerman.com). All you need is a laptop and a lot of your pictures. If you don’t have a laptop, I have two Mac Book Pro laptops I can loan out for the duration of the workshop. §
33
Click on the past issues of
PH OTO I N S I G HTS you would like to read.
Nov. ‘12
Dec. ‘12
Apr. ‘13
May. ‘13
Sept. ‘13
Feb. ‘14
34
Oct. ‘13
Mar. ‘14
Jan. ‘13
Feb. ‘13
Mar. ‘13
Jun. ‘13
Jul. 13
Aug. ‘13
Nov. ‘13
Dec. ‘13
Jan. ‘14
May ‘14
Jun.‘14
Apr. ‘14
Click on the past issues of
PH OTO I N S I G HTS you would like to read.
Jul.‘14
Aug. ‘14
Sept. ‘14
Oct. ‘14
Nov. ‘14
Jan. ‘15
Feb. ‘15
Mar. ‘15
Apr. ‘15
Dec. ‘14 Jim Zuckerman’s
Jim Zuckerman’s
PH OTO I N S I G HTS
PH OTO I N S I G HTS
January 2015
February 2015
• Topaz Glow • A different approach to composition • Photographing puppies • Kaleidoscopic images • Online photo course • Student showcase • Photo tours
1
May ‘15
• White balance • When can highlights be blown • Abstractions in soap • Fisheye lenses • Online photo course • Student showcase • Photo tours 1
Jul.‘15
Jun ‘15
Aug.‘15
Sept.‘15
Jim Zuckerman’s
PH OTO I N S I G HTS June 2015
• Realistic HDR • Selective focus • Simulating bokeh • Sepia & Dark Contrast • Online photo courses • Student showcase • Photo tours 1
Oct.‘15
Nov. ‘15
Dec. ‘15
Jan. ‘16
Feb. ‘16
35
Click on the past issues of
PH OTO I N S I G HTS you would like to read.
Mar. ‘16
Aug. ‘16
36
Apr. ‘16
Sept. ‘16
May ‘16
Jun ‘16
Jul. ‘16
PHOTO INSIGHTS® published by Jim Zuckerman, all rights reserved © Jim Zuckerman 2016 email: photos@jimzuckerman.com mail address: P.O. Box 7, Arrington, TN 37014
38 37