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I’ve been seeing a lot more Continuous light modules and from what I hear they were all over PDN this year.

I can honestly say that I never thought they would catch on, but I can also see why they would.  Just like not having to worry about learning a Darkroom helped more people use Digital, I can see how someone may not want to learn lighting to use external lights.

You shoot what you see, you don’t have to worry about ratios blindly.  It’s Shoot what you see photography, which is good for some occasions but not all.

What is Continuous Light good for?

• One or two person Studio Sessions
• Product Shots
• Short duration photography as they generate a lot more heat
• Where power is not a concern
• Distance is not great.
• You don’t have to try to over power local illumination or the sun.
• Different LEDs can be used to provide different color lights without the use of gels

What Continuous will not work for

• Mobile situations — such as speedlights
• Where you have limited power.  Even power packs only have so much voltage.
• Large group of people
• Strobes are easier to Gel most of the time.
• Strobes generate less heat
• Small flashes with AA batteries can be mounted/moved just about anywhere.
• A small external battery can give you several hours of shooting capability with a speedlight.

These are just what popped in my head.  I’m sure I missed some in both camps.

Camera

Let’s start with the source, since as always GIGO applies (Garbage in, garbage out)

The camera’s color management is fairly easy to control. You have two questions, “Color Space” and “White Balance Kelvin”. Color balance refers to the range of colors that will be available, and how they will be defined.  Adobe RGB has more colors (wider gamut) than sRGB. However, Adobe RGB is usually used for commercial printing and if you’re not going to a lab, you will need to do more post processing to bring out the colors of your image. In camera they will look washed out and subdue.

The second question White Balance is the color of light. There are various pre-defined settings such as Auto, Sun, Shade, Cloudy, etc… but the best setting is Custom White Balance.

To combat white balance, the best option is to use a 18% gray shot and set your custom white balance several times during a shoot (unless the light does not change, i.e. Studio, short session).

One caveat, shooting in RAW would defer the entire argument above. With RAW all data is kept at 16-bit data points as the sensor captures it, so no matter what you have set for your color space or white balance, they can be changed without loss of data in Camera Raw Converter.

Recommendations: Use sRGB in Camera, use a 18% gray target and set your custom white balance and always shoot in RAW.

Work environment

In your work environment your monitor and video card are the most essential parts as this is how you see your image.  You are going to make decisions on color, contrast, vibrancy.  Sadly most environments are not a true representation of what your image looks like.  The “profile” of your monitor maybe (or I should say “is”) giving you a distorted color variation of what the photo actually looks like.

A “Color Profile” is simply a lookup table that tells reads in the color values of the most saturated colors available.  This means that it knows what the highest blue, red and green are where as if something is green, the question is always “how green?”  The profile defines the maximum and the rest fall below that as needed.

The best option is to use an external caliber to not only calibrate your monitor but build a specific profile for your monitor and your environment.

The following are important points to remember

1. It is by far the cheapest tool in photography.
2. It is by far the most important tool in color management.
3. Get a unit that not only does calibration but generates a specific color profile for your monitor
4. The unit should also remain attached to your computer and continuing adjust the monitor based on the light in the room.  The colors on your monitor will not look the same when being viewed while a warm glow of a sunrise is lighting the room, vs. a cloudy day, vs. Halogen bulbs at night.  The unit should determine the color of the light in the room and do slight adjustments to the monitor.

Recommendations: I, personally use the Spyder3 Pro from DataColor to calibrate, profile and keep an eye on the room ambient light.  It works for me, but your mileage as always will vary.  Please do a full due diligence before any purchase to make sure it’s the right tool.

Outputs

The output of a photograph can be:

• Printed
• Projected

1. Viewed on another monitor

However, we’ll discuss only printers for now.  Projectors and other monitors although important would take a lot longer.

With printers, and I’ll only discuss higher end printers, as with low end printers the color is going to shift no matter what you do.   Higher end printers, and even commercial printers, will always have a Printer Profile that you can use.

Just like with a monitor, a printer profile defines the most the most saturated R, G, B (or CMYK) color the printer can provide.  The rest of the colors are below those numbers as they need to be.

The profile for your commercial printers can usually be downloaded from them directly.   With most professional printers, they either provide updated profiles (every month or so), or they calibrated their printers back to a specific profile themselves so that they’re consistent even though the profile may have changed.

There are various tutorials on the web on how to do soft proofing and print matching and I will not go into that here.  If you have any questions please follow up in email or comments.

Let’s start with what color management is not. Color Management is not proper color, adjusted color, or anything to do with how an image looks in reality.

Color management refers to the transfer of a specific color from one device, to another. What does this mean? Let’s take an example of a head shot. Color management gives you the best shot at making sure that the color of the eye in the portrait in camera, on the monitor, printed, or displayed on a projected are all the same hue and luminosity (it’s the same color). That’s it. Now the question becomes why wouldn’t it the same? The answer is that there is very little chance (almost none) that two devices will produce the same color even close to each other.

I’ll try to make further posts on this subject and what you can do to make sure that you’re images are handled exactly as you want them to.

Which camera?

Right up there with “Why are we here?” and “Who am I?” are “What computer should I buy?” and “What camera should I get?”

There is no right answer, but the typical answer is: “The one that is right for what you want to use it for that fits in your budget.”  Here are some pointers to help you make that decision.

The initial question is Point and Shoot (P&S) or Single Reflective Lens (SLR).  Both camera types can give you fantastic images, and both are capable of producing absolutely trash worthy images.  The SLR camera just gives you more rope to hang yourself with.   So the range of the good and bad is even greater.  The first question you have to ask yourself is: “If I buy a SLR, will I use the Manual mode?”  If the answer is “Yes”, than an SLR is probably the right choice.   If the answer is “No, I rather use the automatic or pre-programmed modes” — than the P&S is the right camera for you.  An SLR on automatic mode is really just a fancy, expensive P&S – for the most part.  The second question is, “If I buy an SLR, will I spend more money on different lenses?  If the answer is: “Yes, I want better and different type lenses,” than SLR is probably a good choice.  Otherwise, P&S have gotten very good with the variety of lenses and modes that can go from 17mm to 300mm — both Landscape and Macro modes.

What SLR should I buy?

Ok so assuming you have made the choice to buy an SLR, which camera is the right one for what you want to do?  The first question is which manufacturer.   Canon, Nikon, Pantex and SONY are all good manufacturers.  Nobody can say that SONY does not make a good camera.  They’re all good and have a great line up.  The tricky part about the SLR world is lenses and accessories.  Canon and Nikon easily become the front runners because of their lens and accessory line of equipment.  They both have 20-50 lenses available for any specific type of photography you want to do.   For me the choice was an easy one.  The Canon lenses, in my opinion, are superior to the Nikon ones so far.  Nikon has taken the lead in the “body” category, but as anyone in photography will tell you, it’s all about the “glass”.  If you already have an investment with a company, go with that one, it’s far too costly to switch and the lead will switch back and forth.  DO NOT get caught up in the media wars.  If you have friends with good lenses go with whatever manufacturer they use, so you can “borrow” or “trade” lenses.

For me the choice was rather easy, my father was a Canon user, I had a Canon myself and the canon lenses have always impressed me.  Here are my recommendations of bodies + primary lenses for Canon.  These are not restrictive, almost any body and any lens can do anything, and these are my personal recommendations on what I would do if I were in that situation.  These are the minimums that I would start with.  A second body never hurts.

Recommendations

If you’re a fan of lightroom there are some absolutely great features, updates and add-ons to Lightroom 3.  It’ll continue to work until April 2010 which is a good time to check it out if you are not a fan.  Why would you be?!?

On the top of my list:

• Graphical watermarks (YAY!)
• Much improved import tool and display (YAY!)
• Highlight priority vignetting
• Much better sharpening (YAY! No more photoshop droplets)
• Show Mask Overlay in the developer module when you use the tools for local adjustments.

These are just the ones that I had been hoping for, there are various new speed enhancements as well to deal with the ever growing file and catalog sizes.

Head over to Adobe Labs for your own copy of Lightroom 3 Beta.

Well once again this little gem has come up, so I thought I would write do a short blog on it.

Should you have a UV(0) filter on your lens?

The two sites are:

1. Any extra piece of glass is going to reduce/manipulate/change the quality of the image.
2. The protection offers by the filter out ways any image quality images.

Here are my thoughts on the subject:

Both statements are true.  You just paid $500-$1200 for a nice lens on your SLR to get the absolutely best image you can.  Why introduce something that is going to take away from your image quality?  But also, you just paid $500-$1200 for a nice lens, do you really want to scratch the front element when a small piece of debris get blown into it?  Or while you’re cleaning it, you scratch it?

So what’s the answer?  The answer is to use a filter, but use the best filter possible to reduce the amount of disruption to an absolute minimum.  Multi-coated filters, good name brand filters are the best option.

I personally use Sunpack filters as they are actually made by the same manufacturers as other “name brand” filters but cost half.    When I get a new lens, after testing it and within the first 12 hours I have a sunpack UV(0) filter on there and it doesn’t come off until spring cleaning.   I do my very best not to have to remove the filter.   I have heard of “What about sunflares?”  USE your hood, that’s what it is for. Also, you can use a GND filter on top of the UV filter.  Most non-ultra-wide filtes (< 14mm) will not notice the extra lens.  You should check this on your lens before trying it though.   My Canon EF 24-105mm L f/4 is my main walk around lens and it has had UV(0), and 2 GND (-3 stop) filters on it without it doing any vignetting — so it depends on the lens.

Final word…. I rather break and chuck s $60 filter than have to send in my lens to Canon for a $400 repair anyday of the week.

Well as all know one of the most useful tools when editing is to see how much you’ve changed.  Sometimes you find it you’ve gone over the deep end on something and need to back off because whatever was, would work better.

In Lightroom, while under the “Developer” modeule (D) 2 has the (\) can be used to switch back and forth to the before and after image of your shot.  With or without any edits.

What is going on is that the image is shown as it stands, compared to the “Import” usually the initial view.   What if you had 12 changes, but only wanted to see the last 6 changes to a customer as before and after and not all of the other corrections?

The trick is to move the “before” stamp to a new spot on the history.   Select the step you want to be “before” and on the History item, right click and select “Copy History Step Settings to Before”.   Remember, that whatever history item you have selected is the “After”.  So select the next point of comparison and use the backslash key.

Well looks like we have the specs for the Canon 1D Mark IV to wet our appetites for a while.   Surprisingly the unit will be released around December in time for the superbowl most likely — starting street price body-only — $4,999.00!

Here are the specs:

• 10 FPS
• 16.1 MP APS-H CMOS censor
• ISO Range Native: 100 up to 12,800 in 1/3 or 1/2 stop increments, with ISO Expansion: 50 and 25,600, 51,200, and 102,400. [Editor: Native is really the only one that should be looked at]
• Dual DIGIC 4 Processors [Editor: 16x more processing power than the DIGIC 3 system]
• M-RAW and S-RAW [Editer: Medium and small sized RAW files]
• Better Noise control
• Enhanced Custom Functions [Editor: Ok, now they're just reaching for more points, really? how enhanced are they? ]
• [Editor: Something about 1080p and 720p video as well .... ]

What I’m really impresssed with so far are:

1. The new AF tracking system, here is a quote from the Canon website: “As an example, with an EF300mm f/2.8L IS USM lens, the EOS-1D Mark IV can track a subject approaching at 50 kph/31 mph up to about 8 meters/26.2 feet away. This is the same specification as the EOS-1D Mark III. However, with the 39 cross-type AF points, the Mark IV’s subject detection and tracking performance have improved substantially over the EOS-1D Mark III’s. This combination of hardware and software (AI Servo II AF algorithm) improvements enables a more stable AI Servo AF control.”   Which translates to locking and tracking a subject without having to keep the AF point on the subject.   The system will actually track the subject and select the proper AF point as it needs to.
2. Noise Control!  How molly it looks nice at ISO 2000.

Sample movie and images can be found on the Canon Japan site.

For more information please visit the Canon Digital Learning Center.

There are no magic bullets on getting a knife’s edge sharp picture.

Here are some steps that you need to get you 50% there, the rest you’ll have to do…

1. Use a tripod, monopod, or anything else.
   Before you even ask — YES, you need one.  The best one that you’ll actually carry with you.
   • Be it, a $450 carbon-fiber Manfrotto, or a $12 Walmart special.  Having it and using it better than having it and not using it.
   • This includes a ziplock full of rice that you can slap down and use as a bed to place your camera on, to using the side of a building to push your camera against.
   • A proper stance is the last part of this.  Left hand underneath against your chest, cradling the camera on your palm, your fingers spread out being parted by the lens.
2. Use a fast shutter speed.
   The general rule of thumb is that if you at 100mm focal length, you can hand hold up to 1/100th of a second or faster. I would not tell anyone to hand hold anything below 1/80th — as your blood pressure, heart beat, and simple act of breathing can introduce movement in the image.   This goes double for longer focal length.
3. Use good glass.
   You have to do your research before buying your glass.  Almost all main lens manufacturers have your “regular” or “consumer” lenses, and also a “professional” series.  The main difference is the construction and optics that are used in the lens.  Canon has the “L” series, Sigma has the “EX” series,  Tamron well they don’t but they claim all of their lenses are professional.
4. Use the proper depth of field — good focus
   A whole lot of images are in fact very sharp — you just don’t like where the sharpness is.  This is because of poor focus, because the subject moved, you moved or you just mis-focus.  This plus, a small depth of field puts all or some of your subject out of focus, and not very sharp.  Using manual focus is obviously idle, if possible.  Using a larger depth of field (smaller aperture) would also help.  If you camera has a “auto-keep-focus” such as the Canon AI Servo that will lock and keep focus will also help if the subject is moving.
5. Use a short focal length
   Now this one is my personal note, I think most people try to zoom too much.  Most your feet and get closer to your subject and fill the frame.   Use the shortest focal length you have (without going into the wide range [< 50mm]).
6. Proper post-processing
   Unlike film, almost all digital images need some post processing.  Specially USM (UnSharpen mark) — opposite to it’s name it’s actually a tool that sharpens your images.  It is not a tool to sharpen a blurry image, but if you have done everything else this last step will give you that extra pop of sharpness.

As always, there are dozen different answers to every question, but I am hoping that these small points help someone get a sharper image.

The prize winning, Nature and Wildlife Photographers of Long Island (NWPLI) has teamed yet again with Castello Di Borghese Winery for an Autumn Exhibition of Nature Photography.  The show runs from November 14th, 2009 until December 12th, 2009.   There is also a meet the artists reception at the Winery will be Saturday, November 21st from 12-3 PM.  Please come and see the amazing Nature and Wildlife photography at its very best.