The missing link

I have been working for a while to solve a inscrutable problem, and it is not fixed. It cost me just $3 plus $3 shipping. I bought 2 for $10 delivered. Here's the problem, and how this $3 device fixed it.

For some time I've used studio strobes to light the background when I shoot weddings. My problem is that if I shot into the strobes to back-light the subject - usually the bride and veil, then the subject's face was in shadow so it took a lot of effort to bring out the detail in post processing.

My plan was to use an on-camera strobe set to minimal output so I could brighten the shadows, and leave the big strobes to handle the background. The problem was that my wireless trigger caused the strobe to lockup, as the Nikon SB-800 couldn't deal with the trigger. FYI, the SB-800 has a jack to facilitate using accessory strobes, but it doesn't work as advertised as once you switch the camera off the strobe will freeze powered up and you'd have to take the batteries out to reset it. During a wedding, you don't have time to mess around for this. Enter the solution...

I bought an accessory hot shoe which fitted between the strobe and the camera. In that way, when the shutter sends an electrical pulse to fire the on camera flash, it must pass through the $3 doo-dad. And that doo-dad has three accessory sockets to allow for multiple devices - a wireless trigger to be connected to one of them with two left over. Now I don't have any problems, although I have to shoot on manual which isn't a problem. The SB-800 works fine, as does my SB-600s. The wireless trigger works every time and nothing locks up. Problem solved.

Paper or plastic

No, I'm not recommending which type of bag to carry your groceries around, but I am making a change in my studio and will save you time and money if you follow these recommendations.

I recently attended an excellent fashion photography class. In addtion to learing some interesting lighting, and lighting ration techniques I paid close attention to the backgrounds used. For a long time I have used standard linen/muslins. While they allow nice graphics if you like that, they aren't that good in the standard plain flavors - white, black, grey, etc. While I just dealt with the wrinkle problem by moving the model well away from the background and using a large aperture to throw the background out of focus I never pursued an alternative until now.

I found that the class paper background were far superior to mine as they were clean, unwrinkled, fairly inexpensive and produced very nice unobtrsive results. So I plan to change soon. Take my advise, and don't bother with the plain muslins. They aren't worth the time and effort.

The V spread

When you photograph a wedding reception, particularly at this time of year it often gets dark very quickly. As such, it becomes more and more difficult to produce good images as the background soon turns black and the dancing and other events begin. You can use this to your advantage using what I call the V Spread. It's simply using two studio strobes on tall light stands in an approximate V surrounding the dance floor or where the garter or bouquet toss takes place.

If you position yourself between the V, you can take many fun images and produce great edgy shots. Focus on the newly married couple and you'll probably get one really good image out of every five clicks. You'll need a reliable wireless trigger' you'll need to turn off the strobes' optical senors or put some tape over them and you'll have to trustauto-focus. Other than that click away and blind everyone with the colossal flashes that emanate from the strobes. :) It gets to be like a disco from way back.

Wireless flash triggers

Other than discussing the merits of various wireless fash triggers, I thought I'd post a note as to why they are so valuable.

Imaging a situation that you want to add a little edginess, or separation of your subject to your background to your photograph. How do you do it?

The standard method is to have the subject face the camera with the sun over their shoulders. In this way the sun creates some nice rim lights. But if you're indoors or its cloudy, or the background doesn't work for you using this simple technique, you can use a remotely triggered flash to simulate this effect.

There are three methods to trigger the remote flash - one, use a long flash cable, two, use an optical trigger, and three, use a wireless trigger. I like the third option.

Although a physical wire works well, you always run the risk of falling over it, or it not being long enough as it has to be positioned where the lens can't see it.

An optical trigger also works well, but works best in a small room where your use an on camera flash to pulse light at the remote sensor and fire the remote flash. If the sensor is hidden or too far away, or outside it probably won't work.

Which brings me to the wireless triggers. They use a part of the wireless spectrum to send a fire command from the transmitter on the camera to the receiver attached to the flash. They are both reliable and have a very long range. An expensive trigger can fire a flash over 1/2 mile away. Don't ask me why you'd want to do that, but they do have the bragging rights.

Finally, you'll need to buy some adapters so that your flash can use a receiver and the camera, transmit assuming that neither have that factory installed feature. One word of warning. I've bought over 10 triggers through the years, and found that the cheap eBay Chinese products either don't work, only work within a few feet of the camera and are unreliable. You can get reliable triggers for $125 a pair and up. Stick with those.

Tales from the dark (underexposed) side

If you are shooting weddings, you're shooting the dress. Period. In order of importance, you have the bride, her dress and then her mother. If you get them right, you've done a nice job. Be sure to get a few of the groom, but don't worry. As long as he shows up, sober he's fine.

In all seriousness, shooting a bride and groom together is a problem. No sensor in daylight can accommodate both the white dress details and the black tux. So what to do?

Expose for the dress, use RAW files exclusively and sort it out in post-production. It's much better to have a solid black tux, than screw up and overexpose the dress so all of the expensive detail is lost. On occasion, that's fine but as a rule of thumb, the bride will examine your images for dress details, and that will be her make or break position on how well you did. If you err slightly to underexposure; you can tell from the histogram then you'll be okay.

I love to use big, studio strobes at weddings. I think that I'm the only one, but that's fine. Someone has to be right. As long as you have a white ceiling, preferably 12-15 feet high, and white walls if possible you can position a big strobe in the corner and shoot the light out towards the room ceiling center and you'll get very nice soft directional light. You can add a small 1/128th manual setting on the on-camera strobe for fill to taste and you'll do very well. If you shoot against the light, or farther down the room, just change the manual to 1/64th or similar and view the LCD for results. Of course, the strobe and wireless trigger must work together.

How to avoid the “Ooops”

I had the occasion a few days ago to take some open air bridal portraits of a wonderful woman, of whom her wedding I’ll be photographing in a few weeks.

As I am convinced that preperaton is key to a good night’s sleep I brought a variety of redundant equipment to the shoot. And I needed it.

All went well, except that my wireless flash trigger - the CyberSync trigger stopped working. I thought that it may have shorted, but I couldn’t open the transmitter case without damaging it. Having thought ahead, I hunted through my case and found not only a long cable to connect the studio flash to the camera, but also the camera adapter to make it work. It turned out that the transmitter just needed the battery removed and replaced, but the cable saved the day.

The moral of this story is to think through each shoot and bring enough equipment that you can bypass a disaster.

The strobe experiment

Here’s what you may be seeing in my previous post. First of all you need to know that the camera manufacturer states that the strobe’s maximum sync speed is 1/500th for this camera. That actually isn’t true as you can see. The full, underexposed frame, even at 1/4000th., is fully if somewhat underexposed. What is the truth about this experiment?

1 Well Nikon needs for it’s strobes, that are mounted atop the camera, time to communicate with the camera to set the exposure according to its processor. And any speed much faster than 1/500th of a second it is too brief a time for this to happen consistently. So they are very conservative. If you place the strobe atop the camera, you cannot even set the shutter speed faster that 1/500th. You can actually bypass this limitation if you put some Scotch tape over 2 pins on the flash thus stopping the camera from detecting the flash’s automatic system from working. It will then allow any manual setting you want to use but still trigger the flash when you press the shutter release.

2 You will see that when the shutter speed is slower than the correct exposure, 1/500th, the image actually becomes overexposed a little even though the pictures were taken in a very dark room. And you will easily see that very brief exposures severely underexpose the images. Why?

It depends on the strobe. I was using a studio strobe for these illustrations. By careful observation you can see that the flash does not instantly output all of its light, but takes time to discharge its energy. Only a fraction of its light was generated at 1/2000-1/4000th. And most available at 1/1000th and slower.

You can actually manipulate the power output of a flash by changing the shutter speed. If you want to increase the apparent power, set the shutter speed to 1/125th. If you want to severely limit it use 1/4000th. You just have to experiment. My Nikon SB-800 discharges it light must faster than the studion strobe so I has a bias to the correct manual exposure at 1/2000th.

In real life you can easily turn day into night. Just set the shutter speed to 1/4000th. Use your flash close to your subject so it will be exposed properly and play with your aperture to provide the right amount of illumination of the background. The higher the f/stop number, the darker the background. Atht he right combination, you can make mid-day at the beach like mid-night.

The key to getting better as a photographer is to experiment. With digital equipment, no cost photography is the rule. And you even get to see the results instantly and can takes a series of shots to get the result you want. Try it.

The myth of fast lenses

Lenses are expensive. They are expensive for various reasons, but the main one is because of what is known as the maximum aperture. Maximum aperture is the lens setting that lets the most light through in any given moment. By letting in relatively more light than a less expensive lens it allows for a faster or briefer shutter speed, and limited “depth of field”. And a limited or shallow depth of field means only the focal point and slightly in front and behind this point is in focus, and that can be attractive.

But there is a problem… and the problem is that the most popular types of lenses - zooms are one of compromise. And no manufacturer has been able to make a lens that’s tack sharp at all aperture settings, and all zoom settings. The truth is that the manufacturers build lenses that are sharpest at mid-zoom range, and at mid-apertures.

Here’s an example. Let’s say you don’t want to spend $2,000 on a f2.8 70-200mm zoom lens but are enamored with the idea of a lens that is wonderful to shoot “wide open” or at f2.8. Unfortunately, this lens will probably not be tack sharp until the aperture is reduced to f5.6 or f8, 1/4 to 1/8 of its maximum light transmitting capability. And then only when set to a medium magnification, let’s say 130mm.

All is not lost, just buy the next level down lens for about $600 which will have a maximum f4 aperture (1/2 the light gathering power) and use this lens at f8. You’ll get the same quality images, but save a huge amount of money.

So why spend $2,000 when you can spend $600. The old answer was that the extra light gathering power was really useful when shooting weddings in dark churches, or that the camera focused easier. But with new camera designs. that isn’t a big problem any more. The cameras can be set to a higher ISO or “speed” so that the shutter speed can be set to a non-shake setting, and the auto-focus mechanisms do a much better job than before.

It’s only going to get better.

Why you need a tripod or two... or three

I love tripods. No one else seems to but I love super sharp pictures. It’s odd, my fellow professional photographers will shoot images with 2-300mm expensive telephoto lenses and not get sharp results. Even with image stabilization and fast shutter speeds.

I’ll shoot the same subjects but use a tripod and the results are so sharp that I could almost shave myself with them. Almost.

The problem with tripods is that they are awkward and sometimes heavy. If you indoors with a group of people, you’re asking for trouble to have a tripod in the middle of the group. Not only is someone going to trip over it, and break your camera but they may break something as well. So if you want to use a tripod be very aware of where to place it to avoid problems. In the open, it usually isn’t a problem and having a stationary camera is a way to create discipline in camera usage. It will force you to think about what your want to photograph and why from that angle.

My favorite combination is a tripod with a pistol grip and quick release plate. The pistol grip is squeezed to release the position and release to lock the tripod head at whatever angle you want. This works for light weight camera/lens combination. If you have a big heavy lens, not only does the lens have its own mount to attach to the tripod but it will also have a tripod collar with a locking knurled screw The mount provides the best balancing point of the camera and lens combination to avoid stressing the camera by having a lens heavy combination. The tripod collar screw is released slightly to allow the lens and camera to rotate from horizontal to veritcal so it’s a snap to change the image format. If you changed the pistol grips position to the side it would likely sag with a heavy lens and be difficult to work with. A collar is clearly preferable.

The quick release plates are really useful. For example, if you’re shooting a wedding you’ll place the flash near the back of the church and run back to into for the recessional. You can quickly mount your telephoto camera to it and shoot the bride and groom as the leave the church. If you left a camera mounted, it could vanish! These plates are of a standard size on higher grade tripod heads so if you have two camers with plates attached to the cameras you can mount either in seconds.

Try an experiment. Get you favorite telephoto lens and take some test pictures at 1/30th to 1/125th of a second. Then repeat the pictures with a moderate cost tripod you can buy for $3o at Wal Mart. You’ll be suprised at how much sharper the tripod pictures are. Now, I not really recommending a $30 or $40 tripod but you can always take it with you as weight won’t be a problem. If you actually get a heavier tripod you’ll see better results as it will be more resistant to flexing.

I’ve tried monopods (a single legged “tripod”} but get iffy results. Tripods are much better, although the monopod does double duty as an off camera flash pole. You can attach your strobe to it and hold the combination high into the air for interesting results, but that’s another post.

Understanding strobes

1/120th

1/250th

1/500th

1/1000th

1/2000th

1/4000th

Halfway through a series of simple product shots, I stopped and thought I’d illustrate some points about strobes and correct exposure and turning day into night. I’ll just post the images now and let you think about what I was doing. Note that the f/stop was fixed at f/8, the ISO setting was constant at 200, and the only thing that changed was the shutter speed which varied from 1/125th to 1/4000th. The studio was dark so the only lighting was from the flash. The correct, flash meter, exposure was 1/500th.

In my next post, I’ll explain the lessons that the pictures illustrate, but I want you to think about them. If you think through the answers, they will mean a lot more to you than me telling you.

Some thoughts about cameras

The digital world as it applies to cameras is changing everything. Especially when it comes to your choice of camera, or camera system from the pros perspective. You see it isn’t about which is the best camera for your needs, its about the best camera system - camera bodies, lenses, flashes, accessories and so on that’s important.

I also look at it from the business point of view. Consumer camera models sell in the hundreds of thousands; professional cameras sell in the thousands. That’s a huge difference. My observation as there is so much competition at the low end - consumer point and shoot and lower end SLRs, is that these cameras get the most innovative features first as the manufacturers are always fighting competition, much more prevalent in the lower end markets. What the point and shoot cameras don’t get is a good size sensor to produce high quality, low noise images.

From the design perspective, the point and shoot camera market is the 5×7 inch print market. You don’t need that high a quality image for the typical 5×7 print. In the SLR market, you do. It’s not uncommon for a standard SLR user to print at 8×10 and commonly 20×24. For those sizes you much have higher quality and larger sensors, and that’s where the SLRs deliver. You just need to calculate the number of square inches of print real estate to find that a 20×24 print is nearly 14 times the size of a 5×7!

At the high end of the SLR market, manufacturers know that their isn’t much competition and that the photographer have specialized needs - the press photographer for example needs instant response in low light with a possibly fast moving subject, such as a basketball player. A point and shoot or low end SLR will not be a good choice, as the point and shoot images will be very noisy (rough looking) and have such a slow response, so slow that the player may have left the frame before the image will have been taken. The lower end SLR will work very quickly, but will likely produce a lower quality image in that scenario, and may have trouble focusing in very low light depending on the lens/focusing system used.

So high end SLR cameras do have a market, as do the low end SLRs and the point and shoots. Now here are my observations based on years of thinking about camera systems and why one is better from my perspective than another. Your mileage may vary depending on your needs and perspective.

The best bang for the buck is in the low end SLR camera marketplace. Forget the point and shoot for any type for professional grade shooting. That leaves the two big players - Nikon and Canon, although Sony, Sigma, Olympus and others are trying hard to get a foothold.

Look at the latest of the entry level products from these two players and you’ll find great value. In most circumstances you’ll not be able to tell the difference between these cameras output versus ones costing five times as much.

And the high volume entry level SLRs will always benefit for the rapidly changing digital marketplace feature sets versus the high end cameras being in the market for years without change. The manufacturers must recoup their investments and in low volume cameras that takes time.

Also, forget the pixel count. High pixel counts are only useful when you are a sloppy photographer and you have to extensively crop the image to get what you should have done in the camera in the first place. In other words, if you think about the final result before you press the button, you’ll fill the frame and won’t need to crop, perhaps at all. Interestingly you’ll find that a 6 megapixel sensor is fine for almost all of your shooting. The same camera with a high pixel count sensor can actually produce worse results as the pixel are more compressed to fit on the same size sensor, and that can enhand noise. And you don’t want that.

If you look at the new Nikon high end cameras you’ll see that they don’t have really high sensor pixel counts. The pro photographer know better than to fall for the numbers game.

What you need to know about tripods, next and why you need a sturdy one.

The truth about wedding photography

Having been in the business, on and off, for more years than I’d like to admit I have some observations about my primary love in this business - wedding photography.

What most people think is that the wedding photographer stands around in a church, takes pictures including cutting of the cake, the first dance, etc, and then magically produces an album or two followed by laughing all the way to the bank. None of that is actually true. We work hard in our profession.
From my observation the typical professional wedding photographer works very hard to produce excellent results the first time, of which 90% of the wedding iceberg is underwater. The casual observer doesn’t see any of that.

Here are the numbers -

50% of the wedding photographers’ time is spent marketing and showing his or her work.

35% of the time is spent working on the digital images, which can run easily into the thousands, processing, editing, modifying them, preparing an album design, creating slides shows and generally taking the raw product into a finished work of art. And then spending time with the client showing the work. The client sees only the end result.

The final 15% is spent taking the pictures and applying the many skills learned over years to take pictures with the correct exposure, using the correct lens aperture for the desired result, pressing the shutter release at the right moment, thinking about how that photography will be used, getting the right angle, applying knowledge and discipline, and so on.

Think of the car mechanic with all types of certifications. Based on experience, he can likely diagnose a problem very quickly, and know exactly what needs to be done and how to do it. He may be expensive, or not, but the job is done properly the first time.

And the first is the only time that the wedding photographer has to get it right. There is no second opportunity to shoot a wedding.

Is there light in the darkness, or darkness in the light?

I suppose it depends on your camera’s shutter speed and your type of lighting. If you’re using flash, and can flash sync over 1/1000th of a second you can actually turn day to night. Just disable your external flash automatic sync pins using scotch tape and set the flash manual output to max. Set the manual shutter speed to 1/1000th or shorter and start shooting so the flash illuminates the subject, but the background is exposed based on the shutter speed. and lens aperature. By working with the aperture and moving from f2 to f32 for example, you will be able to lighten or darken the background to the point it may be black in broad daylight. That’s the f32 at the end of the spectrum. Yes, you can create miracles or at least some dramatic images. Just experiment, and enjoy. Unfortunately only a few cameras can synch at anything faster (shorter) than 1/250th. The original Nikon D40 is the only one I know of in current production.

The chances are that you know that amount of light that gets to the sensor is governed by a number of factors, notably the lens aperture - the f-stop, and the shutter speed or how long the (usually) shutter curtain opens to allows the light past it to the sensor.

But I want to illustrate some quick points about why you’d used a very brief exposure such as 1/2000th of second verus a 1/125th or even 1/8th or even longer.

Other than correctly exposing the sensor to get good dynamic range, depending on the effect you want to create, the shutter speed does many things.

1 It can help create a sense of movement in a subject. If your shutter speed is slow, perhaps 1/15th of a second or longer then anything thats moves will blur slighty or a lot. You may like the effect. Also a lot of the image will be sharp as the lens aperture will be small.

2 It can limit movement to show every detail without bluring. If you want to photograph a motocross race, you may prefer a brief exposure to get the subject sharp. The byproduct is that your lens aperture, all things being equal, will be much wider than in example 1, meaning that parts of your image may not be in focus.

2 It works with the lens aperture to create a variety of effects, especially very limited or very deep depth of field, a term used to either show just a small amount of the image in sharp relief compared to the rest of the picture, or make (nearly) everything sharp.

3 Finally I’ll introduce dragging the shutter, an odd term used when you use a very slow shutter speed in a very dark location, such as a church to get a well exposed image. A wedding photographer will use this combination frequently during the ceremony as flash usually isn’t allowed. Dragging the shutter is very effetive, but you risk shaking the camera and blurring moving people. Lon live the tripod. With some flash you can get a well exposed foreground with a well exposed background that doesn’t get lit using the flash. The trick is to balance the flash with the shutter speed to get a natural image. It takes a lot of practice to get it right. The newer camera sensors which are much better in producing quality images when you set the ISO speed to a high number so the need to drag the shutter is lessened.

I’ll spend a lot more time on this later, but remember - a tripod is your friend. It allows you to experiment with long and short exposures without concern about camera shake that occurs when you typcially set your shutter for 1/60th of a second or longer.

Next, Trash the Dress or After Shots as I prefer to call it.

On location flash work

I had the occasion to photograph a number of people for a local business yesterday. To work efficiently, I had to spend some time setting up the lighting, background, etc. and then have the people line up, like in high school for their school photos. Here’s how I did it.

One of the secrets to good photography is to get it right in the camera. What I mean by that is that if you take care to make sure that all of your camera settings, and lighting is correct, you’ll breeze through post-processing and have first rate quality results. I’m not saying that the poses and expressions will be perfect, but the technical aspects will be.

To take the basic head and torso shots, I hung a white translucent, spring loaded background (to avoid the wrinkle problem) measuring 3×5 feet. I used a tripod with a horizontal extension to avoid tripod shadows. I pointed a strobe at the back of the white background and cranked it to full power. The idea was to wash out the background so that, in the finished product, it would be completely white.

I then setup the key, or main flash at 45 degrees to the subject position and about 8 feet high. The key light was a strobe with a 4 foot octagonal softbox which produces a nice, flattering soft light. Directly opposite, to the right of the background I pointed another strobe with just barn doors towards the back of the subjects head position. In this way I would have a nice soft lighting illuminating the subject and the other light providing some separation punch to the head, and the opposite side of the face. I added a piece of card to block the stray light from the barn door strobe, and a small reflector to bounce some light from the key light to the shadow side of the face.

I taped some duct tape on the floor so the subjects would know where to stand, took a few flash meter or incident lighting readings from the imaginary face position and was ready to go.

I set the Nikon to manual at 1/500th and f5.6, at ISO 200 and I was ready. A few test shots later 30 people lined up and under 45 minutes later I was done.

I kept an occasional eye on the histograms, or tonal range displayed on the camera LCD, and noticed that they were all over the place but I wasn’t concerned as all that mattered was to get the facial tones right. I knew that the overlit white background would show spikes on the right side of the histogram, and black clothing would show spikes on the left but as there was plenty of meat in the middle where facial tones reside, and that my meter was reliable, I was happy.

As I was, and always, shoot RAW I could have abeen a stop off either way and still got good results but when I examined the images they were spot on.

If you don’t have an incident flash meter, you could always take some images of just a person’s face and check the exposure that way. If you switch off the two non-key lights, you’d have a good exposure reading of the important part of the image - in this instance the faces and you could make some quick adjustments there to correct the exposure.

So by doing some setup work, I saved a dozen hours trying to fix problem images. I don’t have that kind of time. Do you?

Exercise number 1

This blog could be all about technique and equipment, but it won’t be. Why? Because you can visit numerous sites that talk about the hottest equipment and new toys to spend your money on.

So this is exercise one, where I will help you understand the art of photography so you’ll become better when you press the button. You don’t need the fanciest equipment to impress your friends with. They’ll be wowed with the images. That is not to say having a giant camera with a foot long lens isn’t nice. They are the equivalent of a BMW. It doesn’t mean that you’ll drive it any faster than a Honda, or that you’ll be a better driver. In fact, you’ll likely be worse because of all of the buttons you won’t know when and if to press, or what they do.

What I want to do is make you a better driver by helping you think about what you’re doing. So here goes -

This exercise is about light, the raw material of photography. Without it, you can toss your camera away as it will be useless. Just to be clear, you have to think about how light works; which is that it normally travels in straight lines and bounces around when it hits a reflective surface such as a wall and water vapor, a substance that you don’t normally think about unless its so humid that you’re miserable.

So I want to you start looking at TV and thinking about where the main or key light is coming from to light the actors. That’s all. Within a week, you’ll see the world in a completely new way. You’ll instinctively understand how to light subjects, and that’s an entire semester of learning. If you watch the NBC evening news interviews with an eye on the lighting, you’ll learn a lot. Forget the interview; focus on the lighting and why and how the cameraman setup the lighting. After a few interviews, you’ll be able to tell which photographer lit the scene. You’ll become that good.

You’ll quickly understand the difference between a large light source lighting your subject so that the person has very soft or no shadows, versus a single, constrasty light source which creates harsh shadows, well suited to male faces riddled with character. You’ll understand the concept of lighting the main subject, and lighting the background separately.

FYI, the biggest light source in the galaxy solar system is the sun. The reason it seems like a contrasty light source is that it’s a long, long way away. If you could drive there, you’d wear out 600 cars enroute.

At the other extreme you may think that a bare light bulb is also contrasty but it depends. It depends on where the light bulb is in relationship to the subject. Try this. Take the lampshade off a light and hold the light a few feet away from a small object, like a TV remote control. You’ll see a sharp shadow behind the remote. That’s a contrasty image.

Now start moving the light closer to the remote. When it gets within a few inches you’ll see that the shadow gets softer and softer. That will be a good lesson in light. And that will be lesson number one.

The f-stops here

Have you ever wondered where the concept of f-stops came from. For those of you that don’t know what f-stops are, they are markings on a lens that indicate the amount of light that can pass through it to the film or light sensor in any one moment. For example, f2 will let in 100 units of light in a given moment, f2.8 50 units, f4, 25 and so on.

This means that for a given film or digital sensor speed, or its light sensitivity a combination of shutter speed and f-stop determines the “correct” exposure. More on histograms in the future.

Now back to the f-stop. What confuses some people is where the number series came from, f1.4, f2, 2.8, f4. 5.6, f8, f11, f16 and so on. Let me explain…

If you were to have a point or tiny source of light and have determined that the correct exposure of a subject is when the light is exactly 8 feet from that subject, then by moving the light to 11 feet, the exposure will be exactly 1/2 of the correct amount. Notice the use of the 8 and 11 numbers. Now if you move the light closer to exactly 5.6 feet away, the light will be twice the correct exposure.

So, to put it simply as we are moving the light, and not increasing or decreasing its brightness, you must adjust the f-stop of your camera lens to compensate but not quite the way you think. It’s all based on the inverse square law, one that I think about every day to guess exposure and lighting ratios when I’m out and about.

Simply put, if the correct exposure is when the light is 8 feet from the subject, you must either double the exposure if your subject is 11 feet away or half it if it is 5.6 feet away. You do that by changing the shutter speed, by changing the f-stop (or lens opening), by changing the ISO sensor speed, or by actually changing the light source brightness.

And thereby hangs many tales. More later.

My single light source, or where I came from

The bad pun was intended. I grew up and was educated in London, England. After the equivalent of high school, I attended college in central London and studied photography. During that time, I photographed architecture, models, industrial machinery, car racing and a variety of subjects that I found interesting. Naturally, move love of view cameras - tripod mounted monsters that used 4×5 inch film plates and were well suited to architecural photography - did not lend themselves to fashion or car racing photography.

So I learned to love my first Nikon, the Nikon F which took a lickin’ and kept on ticking, in spite of once being used as a hammer. They were that strong. I still use Nikons. They have never let me down. They just work.

And then I came to this wondrous country, and wondrous it was, and is. It has never ceased to amaze me how wonderful this country is, in spite of its government and not because of it.

I have been a photographer for more years than I want to admit to. I will say that the Rolling Stones once played at a local theater near where I lived in London. And back then I couldn’t afford the $2 ticket. What does that tell you?

What this blog is about

I’m writing this to help other people understand the art of photography. With the advent of digital imaging, it’s getting easier to take pictures and produce prints. I’m not saying that the pictures will be any good, but at least it’s high tech.

I have a friend who does miracles with cars and motocycles. His garage is packed with fancy gadgets and the best equipment. It occurred to me that even with the most simple, and cheapest of tools he will still be an excellent mechanic. On the other hand, it you hand me a wrench and ask me to fix and engine problem, you would be well advised to be ready to call AAA for the tow.

It’s not the quality of the tools, its the person who uses them.

And this is so for the photography business. Many people lust after, and spend a lot of money of the latest and greatest but have little idea of what to do with it when the finally own the new toy.

On the other hand, give an experienced, talented photographer a point and shoot camera, and he’ll likely out photograph the amateur with the fancy photographic tool.

My job, is to teach you how to use the tools you have to take better pictures. Many things I’ll write about other people disagree with. Thanks okay, but I hope to make you think. And think you will about concepts and ideas you’ve never thought about - photographically before.

First the photographic bio …

Are photographers born or made?

It has been said that photographers are born and not made. Is that correct?

While photographers can have a natural eye towards composition and lighting, I suspect that with a little, or to be truthful, a great deal of effort a person with a disposition towards photography can achieve excellent results.

The difference? The natural born artist will just create great images without knowing why, but the non-artist has to work at it.

I suspect that we are all a combination of both. You just need to reach down and find the artist. It’s there somewhere.