Tag Archives: drb

Optimizing Photo Contrast for the Web: Creek and Fallen Leaves

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In my fairly early years of photography, I got caught with the ETTR bug.  Is that a fatal virus?  Nope.  ETTR is an acronym which stands for Expose To The Right.  This ideology is based on the idea that a bright exposure with a histogram pushed as for towards the right (brightness side of histo) is the path to maximum image quality in long run. When exposing to the right, a user wants to make sure the highlights are not clipped or blown out of gamut.  Lost highlights can’t be recovered much, there are no x’s and o’s on your memory card for your camera or computer to look at.  On the flip side, having a slight overexposure of your shadow areas DOES bring in extra information in the pixels.

RAW PhotoShop workflow

A side-by-side comparison of my post-processed file versus the SOOC shot.

The above illustration hopefully shows how I “season to taste” on a landscape photo that I took yesterday.  Setting the black level and white level can be a matter of personal preference, there are no hard-set rules.  I like my pictures to tell a believable tale by retaining the integrity of the scene but I also want plenty of contrast so that my upload or print will “pop”.  For this particular photo I used the Curves tool to bring the dark areas from a medium tonality to a darker tonality.  This provides greater separation between the highlights, midtones, and shadows.  I’ve also added a slight vignette which helped to “burn in” some bright corners from the original photo.

NJ Landscape Photographer

Optimized image, originally exposed to the right. Taken with my Tamron 18-270mm VC Lens and my Canon EOS M 18.0 MP Compact Systems Camera. Manfrotto tripod used for stability and a 3-stop Neutral Density filter was used to lengthen exposure time.

Finalized photo is above.  A landscape nature frame taken in Pennsylvania.  The equipment used includes a Tamron 18-270mm VC Lens, a Canon EOS M Camera, a 3-stop Neutral Density Filter, and a Manfrotto Tripod.  Metadata: 2.5s F/13 ISO 100, 27mm in Manual Mode.

American Rubyspot damsefly in NJ

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This a recent macro insect photo I took in the region of New Jersey known as the Pinelands National Reserve, home to ecosystems and wildlife not often seen in other parts of our state.  Photography equipment utilized: Tamron SP 90mm VC F/2.8 1:1 Macro Lens and the Canon EOS 7D DSLR.  Damselflies are generally smaller than dragonflies, but fall under the same order known as odonata.  Pictured below is a male American Rubyspot damselfly, its Latin name is Hetaerina americana.

NJ insect photo

One of New Jersey’s most vivid damselflies.

I actually ended up wading in standing water that was thigh high to take this photograph.  I saw several Rubyspots perched on vegetation in this pond.  I wasn’t thrilled to get to my cargo shorts soaking wet, but I had to decide to either walk away from a photo opportunity or “dive right into the scene”.

The sunlight was fairly overcast when I snapped this shot so a fast shutter speed was not possible.  Dragging a good tripod into a pond didn’t seem like a good idea, and a tripod is not really an asset when making a still capture of an insect perched on a piece of grass with forces like water ripples and a breeze causing motion.  Handheld and fairly large aperture was the only way this shot was going to happen.

I’ve had a few people tell me that they find a 300mm lens sufficient for shooting small insects, but the reality is you are not going to get this type of highly magnified photo without a 1:1 macro lens.  In this case the fast autofocus and Vibration Compensation were also needed.  Camera settings:  1/125 F/5.0 ISO 400, VC on, Auto White Balance, RAW file format, One Shot focus in continuous drive mode.

Wildlife Filming Equipment

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Wildlife Filming Equipment

Tamron 150-600mm VC Telephoto Lens
Canon EOS 60D
Rode VideoMic GO microphone (just purchased from Unique Photo in Fairfield NJ)

Equipment used for shot:
Canon EOS 7D DSLR Camera.
Tamron 90mm VC Macro Lens.
Cowboy Studio Fluorescent Light + Window Light

Macro flash and video LED setup

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Macro flash and video LED setup

Canon 7D + Tamron 180mm SP Macro lens. A straight flash bracket is attached to the camera body, my Canon Speedlite 270exII is mounted on top of a Giottos mini ballhead. The Speedlite head is covered by my homemade diffuser (actually a plastic coffee “tin”), and today I glued a cold shoe mount on top of the diffuser to mount a Manfrotto ML120 Pocket-12 LED Light for shooting macro videos at night.

Photography with Intent

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Photography with Intent

I did originally compose this shot (tripod mounted camera of course) putting the thick central line (gap in my exterior car panel) off-center as I find the compositional Rule of Thirds very effective. However, before pressing the shutter, I realized that the prominent diagonals (mud on my car), minimalistic subject matter, and a central divider would give this photo a “pop art” feel to it.

When I make photographs like this I know they will not be popular on my flickr page where “in your face” wildlife shots get me the most views. While I recognize that wildlife is still my bread and butter subject matter with my audience, I do my best to diversify at times without alienating my viewing audience.

Tamron 90mm VC macro lens, Canon EOS 7D DSLR, Manfrotto 190xProB tripod with 489rc2 Ballhead, F/22, ISO 100, 1.6s exposure, Aperture-priority mode, One-shot Auto-focus Mode near center of photo, 2 second timer, Mirror Lock-Up, RAW file format

Lies brand t-shirt photoshoot

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DRB Photo Gear

Dave Blinders Strobes, Camera, and Lens

I did a quick inpromptu photoshoot last night in Northern New Jersey for my friend Joe who runs his own small skateboarding T-shirt business in his spare time. Knowing in advance that I’d be working in close confines, I thought one Alien Bees AB800 Strobe with a stripbox style box, a Canon 580exII with Opteka grid, my Canon 60D dslr, and Tamron 18-270mm VC lens would allow me plenty of diversity and lighting and composing options.

rimlighting portraiture by drb

Joe in rim lighting

Tamron 18-270mm VC, Canon 60D, and gridded 580ExII off-camera to subject’s left

girls holding skateboard

Korynne and Carmela holding skateboard deck

Tamron 18-270mm, Canon 60D, and AB800 w/ stripbox angled slightly from camera right

man in skate tee

Joe wearing his own branded T-shirt

Tamron 18-270mm Lens, Canon 60D, Gridded Canon 580exII Speedlight angled from slightly above subject

girl in skateboard t-shirt

Korynne in navy blue Lies T-shirt

Tamron 18-270mm VC, Canon 60D, AB800 strobe slightly above and right of subject

man in skateboarding t-shirt

Joe wearing one of his designs in white

Tamron 18-270mm VC Lens, Canon 60D, Gridded 580exII Speedlight aimed towards subject’s chest, AB800 on minimum power from subject’s right

girl in skateboard t-shirt

Carmela wearing black Lies t-shirt

Tamron 18-270mm Lens, Canon 60D, AB800 in stripbox slightly above and right of subject

girl in skateboard tank top

Korynne wearing blue Lies tank top

Tamron 18-270mm VC Lens, Canon 60D, 580exII Speedlight w/ Opteka Grid coming in from camera left

If you have any questions about the equipment, techniques, clothing line, or contacting the models please leave your information in the comments section or contact me via facebook.

Self-Critique on a photo I took today

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Image

From a VERY quick walk in this frigid weather.

Instinctively, I critique all of my photos on a technical and compositional basis when I review them.

Sometimes I notice things I couldn’t see through the viewfinder. In this particular shot, the small brown blur towards to the top left is an “error” in my opinion. It’s probably a distant dead leaf, and I feel it detracts a bit from the photo.

I would have removed it physically if I had noticed through the viewfinder. However, I do not like to alter my nature shots in post-processing, and I prefer not to crop. I do my best to present the scene as it was. I did though, move the feather from a pricker bush on the ground, to an elevated and isolated branch to make the shot. It blew away seconds later and I’m lucky I got a shot at all.

I did shoot a few frames at an aperture of F/4 also (presented shot is F/2.8).  The increased aperture brought nice detail into the feather, however I did not like the background elements that starting coming into focus.

Minimalism in Nature

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Went for a walk in one of my favorite nature areas in New Jersey yesterday morning, Mahlon Dickerson Reservation in Jefferson.  Optimistically, I had a wildlife lens mounted, and my macro flash unit also ready to go for smaller critters.  However, no opportunities like that materialized for me.

I noticed a bare sapling near the mostly frozen stream’s edge, and originally thought I’d isolate the entire sapling against the simple background.  I shot a few broader frames, but felt they all lacked any prominent shapes or visual guidance.  I zoomed in a bit with my zoom lens and also my tripod to see how this small single branch with a nice diagonal orientation and prominent juttings could possibly fill the frame.

I liked the frame, but the remaining problem was one unsightly rock just barely jutting from the ice’s surface.  Next step was locating a leaf in decent shape, and using a stick to push it into position to mask the rock.  Little did I know, the now juxtaposed leaf would become my favorite part of the shot.  A polarizing filter was also necessary to remove glare, especially since a small layer of melt water was sitting on top of the ice and reflecting sunlight and the surrounding trees.

New Jersey Nature Photo

Branch, Ice, and Leaf

Tamron 18-270mm VC lens @ f/16, 1/20s, ISO 200 on a tripod mounted Canon 50D.  Mirror lock-up and camera timer used to maximize sharpness.

,,,

Julia

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We do get a decent variety of butterflies in the warmer months here in New Jersey, but I always get jealous of the vivid tropical butterflies that I see from the warmer states and tropical countries.  I was fairly successful in shooting some of my target species in Florida, and so here is a Julia, one of them:

 

Florida butterfly photograph

Julia

 

Photo taken handheld with the Tamron 90mm VC macro lens mounted on a Canon T2i Rebel camera.  An aperture of F/8 yielded very high sharpness, and acceptable depth of field for a fairly flat subject.