Category: Photography

Lesson 104: Bird Photography Tips, or When Not to Use an iPhone

by dkrashb, posted in Featured, iPhoneography Tips, Photography, Photography Lessons

Double double-crested cormorants
Cormorant almost touching the water
Immature Bald Eagle
Sandhill Cranes flying through trees
Belted Kingfisher on an Osprey nest
Sandhill Cranes closer
Stream of Sandhill Cranes
Soaring into the sun against the bright blue sky

In Lesson 26, we looked at trying to get wildlife photographs with an iPhone.  Specifically of a Great Blue Heron hanging out by a bike path.  Today, I am sharing a few images from a recent river cruise in a wildlife preserve during Sandhill Crane migration.

All of the images in this post were taken with a DSLR.  In fact, I used two different DSLRs, each with a telephoto lens to take these images.  If your an iPhoneographer, I’m sorry, but here are the reasons why I left my iPhone in my pocket:

  1. Focusing while tracking a bird in flight with the iPhone may be possible, but if it is, I haven’t mastered it.  While I’ve gotten good images of a bird flying directly toward me with the iPhone, I’ve not been able to get images worth keeping of a bird flying across the field of view.
  2. The super-wide lens on the iPhone means that unless you can get within a few feet of a bird, you’ll end up with tiny bird spots instead of recognizable birds.
  3. The timing of when you click and when the image is made can be quite delayed in the iPhone–not ideal for a moving subject.
  4. Getting the exposure right for a small bird in a big sky is trickier than what can be accomplished quickly on the iPhone and speed is imperative when shooting moving birds from a moving boat.
  5. The resolution is too low to do a lot of cropping, which number 2 makes necessary.

So now you know why I didn’t use my iPhone.  Here are a few tips for photographing birds with a DSLR:

  1. Unless you’re going to be very close to large birds (like in our Raptography workshop), use the longest lens you own.
  2. If your lens has Image Stabilization, turn it on and select the type for panning (IS 2 for Canon, Active for Nikon).
  3. Use the continuous focusing setting on your camera (your camera will keep focusing as long as you keep the shutter button half pressed) in AI Servo mode for Canon or AF-C for Nikon.
  4. If you have tracking settings, set a choice that will stay with the subject and not refocus on new subjects entering the frame.
  5. If you can pick how many focus selection points are used, try using 8.  If you can’t keep up with a bird in flight or if you’re on a boat that’s bouncing a lot, you might want to expand to more.
  6. If your camera allows you to manually select one focus point but still uses the additional points when tracking motion, manually select the center focus point.  In all cameras, the center selection point has the best focusing sensitivity (although in some cameras, other selection points do as well).  For most people, using the center focus selection point also makes panning more intuitive.
  7. Panning with birds takes eye-hand coordination and becomes more difficult for your brain to adjust to when you’re on a moving vehicle (like a boat), so start practicing as soon as anything flies your way even if it’s not exciting.  Better to get bad shots of crows than when the elusive Whooping Crane suddenly appears on the scene.

Your Assignment:  For iPhoneographers, I’d love to see your bird images!  If you’ve managed to get a bird photo you’re proud of with your iPhone, please post it on our Facebook page:  facebook.com/snapgreatphotos!

For other shooters, get out and try these settings on robins and pigeons before you go on a birding excursion.  Everyone has different preferences and different camera features, so you may find different settings work better for you.

Lesson 102: DSLR Macro Photography

by dkrashb, posted in Featured, Photography, Photography Lessons

Passion Flower
Center of a Cone Flower
Tiny mushroom babies
A tired mushroom
Petals of a Dahlia
Another dahlia
Looking into a dahlia
Bubble wrap
Tiny little ferns going dormant for the winter
Colorful fungus–maybe Turkey Tail?
One of the brightest colors in the woods at the end of Dec
Water droplet hanging on the tiny “blooms” sticking out of moss
A water droplet falling from moss
An early spring flower from last January
Another January fungus
Tiny berries on a vine in the park last fall
Tiny grass seeds dried on the sidewalk
Milkweed about to take flight
Milk weed hanging out in the pod
water droplet clinging to a rail with an out-of-focus streetlight in the background
A hairpin on a fuzzy carpet

Since I answered a question about macro photography with the iPhone on our Facebook page yesterday, thought I’d do a more detailed follow up on macro with a DSLR version–my apologies for using the iPhoneography blog for a DSLR example.  For the iPhone version, check out Lesson 37:  Small Subjects.

Macro (in Canon terminology; micro if you’re a Nikon shooter) photography is probably best understood as getting really close-up to small subjects.  So close that the subject is life-sized or larger on your camera’s sensor.  It allows us to capture details that are often surprising to those of us who can’t see that well without our reading glasses.

The challenge is that all lenses have something called a minimum focusing distance.  Macro (or micro) lenses have short enough minimum focusing distances to allow you to get up close and personal with a 1:1 ratio, meaning if the subject is 10mm wide, it occupies 10mm on your sensor.

If you don’t have a macro lens, you can use extension tubes to make your minimum focusing distance much smaller, allowing you to get much closer.  Extension tubes can also be used with a macro lens to get larger than a 1:1 ratio.  Extension tube sets run from about $20-200 with the low-end being full manual and the high-end supporting the lens electronics.  With the low end version, you are likely to be stuck with a wide open aperture as the camera and lens won’t be talking to each other.

The full assembly of a 100mm macro lens and 3 stacked extension tubes
The stacked extension tubes off the camera.
The stack can be separated into 3 different sized tubes. They are truly tubes–no glass.

Since this blog is normally used to post simple lessons on photography you can do with your iPhone, I’m going to try to minimize the tech talk here.  But, depth of field is important in macro photography.  Depth of field refers to how much of the image is acceptably sharp in the 3rd dimension of your image–that is, front to back of the scene.

Getting up close to a subject means your depth of field is minimal even with the aperture stopped all the way down.  Sometimes backing up a bit and going more for a “close-up” shot vs a true macro image yields a more pleasing image as a result.  I frequently use a very small aperture opening (f/22ish) and opt to go “close-up” rather than true macro to increase depth of field.

Your Assignment:  I’ve included some examples of my own experiments.  There are many better examples out there from serious macro photographers.  Google macro photography in Google images and see what you get–it’s like a whole new universe living right under our lenses.  Check it out and see if this is a form of photography you’d like to experiment with.  If so, for iPhone shooters, consider getting a macro attachment lens (see Lesson 37).  For DSLR shooters, check out extension tubes as a cheap way to turn a lens you already have into a macro lens.  If you have an advanced point-and-shoot, you may also want to check out whether a macro attachment is available for your camera.

 

 

iPhoneography Lesson 101: Slow Shutter App and a Highway Bridge

by dkrashb, posted in Featured, iPhoneography Lessons, iPhoneography Tips, Photography, Photography Lessons, Simple Photography Lessons
This is not an iPhone shot, but it’s a better example of light trails.

I introduced the Slow Shutter app several posts ago, but this time, I dug out my iPhone tripod and found a view of a highway bridge over a river so I could demonstrate this app creating light trails.

3GSphoto of 5S

First and foremost, this requires a tripod.  Here is a shot taken with an iPhone 3GS of my iPhone 5S in its nice little tripod courtesy of Photojojo (they have crazy accessories for iPhoneography that will make you feel like you’re buying Barbie photography gear).  The one I have came with a telephoto attachment and works fine on flat surfaces, but if I had no interest in the telephoto attachment, I would go for the $15 Gorillapod.  Just something to keep in mind for the post-Christmas shopping frenzy.  🙂

If you decide to buy something, Photojojo is offering $5 off to both you (if it’s your first-time order) and me if you use this link to go to the website:  http://photojojo.com/r/afvu–a win-win deal!

To create the Slow Shutter images, I used an 8 sec exposure under the light trails settings.  Below, find the two steps required to set this up plus what to do after you shoot:

Once you get your camera set up and going, you can keep adding to the exposure.  In this example, I did a series of 4, 8-second exposures over top of each other before saving the final image.  The key is not to move the iPhone at all when you do this.  Any vibration from tapping the phone or in the tripod it’s sitting on shows up in the image.  The problem I experienced was that I couldn’t tap the screen firmly enough without moving it to get the camera to focus on the subject, leaving me with soft focus on the distant bridge.  Here are two images on the tripod, both with soft focus:

All-in-all, I’d have to say that Slow shutter is a great idea, but probably not a useful app if you just want to pull the camera out of your pocket and start shooting.  In case you’re curious what it would do if you just hand held the iPhone, here’s the best I could do hand-holding:

What repeated 8-second exposures look like without a tripod

Your Assignment:  Do you have an interest in being able to capture light trails at night?  Is it worth it to you to have a tripod for your iPhone to capture such images?  If so, Slow Shutter is a great app to experiment with.  We’ll also take a look at using Slow Shutter with panning in future lessons.  In the meantime, give it a try with cars driving by and see if you can get the results you’re seeking.

 

 

 

iPhoneography Lesson 100: Hipstamatic on Ice with iPhoto on the Side

by dkrashb, posted in Featured, iPhoneography Lessons, iPhoneography Tips, Photography, Photography Lessons, Simple Photography Lessons
Bright light reflects off the water
The patterns in the ice are more visible in B&W
Notice the bright edges where the ice is broken
The bright edges show up better as do the darker shadows
The foreground ice looks purple
The foreground ice looks gray
Less contrast has less impact to my eye in this high-contrast scene
The sheets of ice hanging from the fence more immediately grab my eye in B&W
This does very little for me in color
I like the way the bright edges of the ice jump out against the dark shadows

One of the great things about the iPhone as a camera is that it is virtually always with you.  Being able to pull out an iPhone versus missing a shot is a great option.  The only downside, for those of us who have invested heavily in prosumer DSLR equipment, sometimes we find ourselves opting for the more convenient iPhone, even when we could pull out the big guns with a little extra effort.

For example, today, I was wandering around a parking lot in a cold wind somewhere in Indiana or Kentucky, allowing my dog to stretch his legs after several hours of riding in the car.  A small drainage ditch ran around the parking lot, which bordered a farmer’s field.  It appeared the water had dropped several feet after freezing, leaving sheets of ice hanging from trees and fencing along the drainage ditch.

The bright afternoon sun glared off the ice, giving the whole scene less than ideal lighting, but interesting glare.  So, what did I do?  Did I return to my car, dig my camera bag out from its hiding place, unzip all the zippers required to get out my camera and a lens and then dig up my tripod and go back and shoot in the sub-freezing temperatures?  Well, I thought about it for a moment.  Then, I reached into my pocket, pulled out my iPhone, opened up the Hipstamatic app and grabbed as many shots as I found interesting.

Yes.  Sometimes I choose to be lazy.  Sometimes I choose to save time.  Sometimes I choose both.

To further complicate things, I didn’t have my glasses.  When I opened up Hipstamatic, I thought it was on the BlacKeys ultrachrome film.  It was actually Blanko film.  Blanko film is color film and I really wanted black and white.  So, it was iPhoto iOS to the rescue.  I did a quick auto-enhance + black and white effect to get the black and white look I’d envisioned.  These steps are covered in detail in Lesson 96 (I did not use the Sepia button in today’s examples, but otherwise the steps are the same).

Your Assignment:  Check out these earlier lessons on lighting:  Lessons 16, 17, and 67.  Sometimes, bright afternoon light can add interest to an image even though we normally think of it as being too harsh and creating strong shadows and contrasty images.  In the winter months in particular, the sun is lower to the South and the angle of the light gives it a very different look from a straight overhead sun in the summer.  Can you tell that the sun in these images is very bright?  Does the black and white version look more or less appealing to you?

Lesson 96: iPhoto Mobile and Sepia

by dkrashb, posted in Featured, iPhoneography Lessons, iPhoneography Tips, Photography, Photography Lessons, Simple Photography Lessons

The original version before editing in iPhoto
The sepia version of the image

iPhoto Mobile has become my favorite photo editing app on the iPhone.  I haven’t used them all, but it’s quick and easy and the editing capabilities are pretty impressive for a mobile app.  Plus, it’s free.  I first introduced iPhoto in Lesson 83 Metadata and also used it in Lessons 84 iPhone Mobile Editing, 85 iPhoto Con Tours, 86 My Silly Dog and the iPhoto Exposure Tool,  and 87 Adding Drama in iPhoto iOS.

Today, I am going to show you how to take a color photo and turn it into a more nostalgic looking black and white with sepia.  I am not frequently a fan of sepia, but this image called out for sepia to me.  There is something about the rustic looking wood planks in the bridge leading to the couple headed into the fog against the very modern looking building in the background that made me think “sepia.”

I originally took this image with my DSLR, but because it was in my Photo Stream, it was easy to open it from the iPhone without having to do anything fancy to get it there.

I love Photo Stream when it works.  Sometimes, however, images don’t show up when and where I expect them to, which can be annoying.  Most of the time, I happily discover all of my recent images on all of my devices just as advertised.

One of the things I wanted to accomplish with the adjustment was to make the couple in the background walking into the fog stand out more.  While the bridge and path lead the eye to the couple, in the original version, they were competing with the colors in the trees and the background building for attention.  By changing the image to B&W and using a vignette to darken all of the outer objects in the frame, the people in the background pop out more.

To my eye, adding the sepia coloring made the effect even stronger by causing the bridge and path to look brighter compared to the trees, leading the eye more directly to the couple in the distance.

Here are the step-by-step instructions for the adjustments I made in the iOS version of iPhoto on my iPhone 5S:

Your Assignment:  Sometimes sepia will perk up an image that otherwise seems rather dull.  This, like all artistic choices, is subjective.  If you don’t like it, that’s OK–knowing what you don’t like is a great step towards learning what you do like.  But give it a try in any case–you can always delete it.  Choose an image where the colors are not a key component in the impact of the image and there is enough contrast in the image that the subject will still stand out without color.  I find sepia to usually be more appealing when there are architectural features in the image, but I have also used it with owls and vultures and liked it.  How do you feel about sepia?

Lesson 95: A Change of Perspective

by dkrashb, posted in Featured, iPhoneography Lessons, iPhoneography Tips, iPhonography, Photography, Photography Lessons, Simple Photography Lessons

A little on the squat side
Big waterfall or small dog?
Paws
Half Dog
Relaxed Dog
Tisen Rolling
Tisen Sleeping
Surprised Dog

 

How many times have you seen or taken a picture of a dog that looks a lot like this?  (You could probably replace the word “dog” with “child” here as well.)

02 Tisen grateful for Jack

Now, I don’t mean that all dogs (or children) look alike.  Rather, I mean that our default way of looking at a dog is from a standing position looking down at them.  Most dog photos dog owners snap are taken very quickly, spur of the moment without time to think or plan how we want to shoot.

This is usually because each of our dogs is the cutest, most brilliant canine kid in the world and we want to capture that hilarious thing he or she is doing that makes him or her that much cuter.

However, sometimes changing the perspective just a little can make a big difference  For example, compare these two photos:

Surprised Dog
Relaxed Dog

In the first one, we have a funny expression that still cracks me up every time I look at it, but notice that the camera is above the dog’s head shooting down and the angle of his head to the camera makes it look considerably skinnier than it does in the photo on the right.  The one on the right was taken about level with the dog’s face, straight on to the nose.  If these were the only two pictures you’d ever seen of my dog, would you still feel certain these were both of the same dog?

Let’s compare a couple more:

Tisen Rolling
Tisen Sleeping

Notice how in the image on the left, we have a cute snapshot of a dog rolling in the grass.  The camera is held almost parallel to the dog, leaving us no sense of the height of his body relative to the ground (except perhaps because of the stray foot that snuck into the shot).  But look at the leash that starts at the lower left corner and creates a line down to the dog.  It looks like it could be 10 feet long!  (It’s only 4 ft.)

Now look at the length of my dog’s front legs.  The are folded and parallel to the camera.  Compare that to the front leg in the photo on the right.  Notice how the leg now forms a similar angle to the lens that draws the eye back to the dog.  But this time, it’s his leg that looks exceptionally long.

Next, let’s look at wide angle perspectives that create a sense of size.

Big waterfall or small dog?
A little on the squat side

In the photo on the left, you could argue that the dog (and man) look really small, or, if you imagine the dog and man to be average sized, you might see this more as the waterfall looking really big.  On the right, we have an example shot tighter, but again, it’s wide, the camera is further back, and it’s shot from a standing position angled downward.  This creates the impression that the bench, man, and dog are all a little shorter than they really are.

Finally, here’s a perspective that creates a little bit of an optical illusion:

Half Dog
Paws

Both images were shot from the floor looking up at my dog hanging over the edge of a sofa.  In the photo on the left, the back legs are not visually connected to the front end of the dog.  They visually look like either there is a second dog in the photo or the visible dog was cut in half with his back legs moved to the side.  I can assure you that no animals were harmed in any way in the making of this post.

In the photo on the right, I got up tight to my dog’s back paws and created more of a silhouette effect.  By changing the perspective so that I am both closer and looking up, the paws look huge!  Notice that the one on the right looks significantly bigger than the one on the left.  This is because it was closer to the camera and it’s turned at a slightly different angle that makes the full breadth of the pad visible, but angled to the camera.

Your Assignment:  Experiment with the visual effects you can create by changing where you’re angle to the subject.  Move up, move down, move all around.  Try shooting from above and shooting from down low.  Try head on, too.  None of these angels are right or wrong; they just create a different perspective that affects the way the eye perceives the shape of the subject.  Bonus Tip:  want to look taller and thinner?  Have the iPhotographer get down low and shoot at an upward angle.

Lesson 94: Choices, Choices

by dkrashb, posted in Featured, iPhoneography Lessons, iPhoneography Tips, Photography, Photography Lessons, Simple Photography Lessons

Let’s say you happen to be walking along a scenic riverfront at sunset.  There are interesting architectural features on the South side of the river and the sun, not having recently changed it’s course, is setting off to the West.  There are just enough clouds along the horizon to make for a decent sunset, but the sky above the horizon is clear, without much interesting going on.

You think, “Oh, what a nice sunset reflecting on the river,” and you pull out your iPhone.  But you quickly discover that taking a picture of the sunset doesn’t include the interesting buildings and taking a picture of the buildings misses the best part of the sunset.  To boot, the buildings are too dark.  What do you do?

Well, this is the joy of photography:  sometimes you have to choose.  You can’t always get what you want . . . so what do you need?

And that is the other joy of photography–you get to decide.

I’ve shared 6 of the images I took in the gallery above, each with the scene framed differently.  Below, I’ve taken these 6 images and pointed out the things that bug me about them.  There are many.  However, I think it’s useful to learn what other people look at and what bugs them in photographs when you’re trying to figure out what makes one photograph more appealing than another.  Remember, there are no rules, but part of photography is learning to see things differently.  Sometimes that includes your own photos.

 

Your Assignment:  Take a look at the comments I’ve made on my photos below.  I’ve color-coded them for things I think are positives (green), things that are less-than-ideal but tolerable (yellow), and things that are a deal-breaker for me (red).

20131219 Choices Choices.001

20131219 Choices Choices.002

Do you agree with my assessment?  Do you see other things that bother you (there are many more things that bother me than I included in the comments)?  Do you like things I don’t?  Did you notice the things I pointed out before you read my comments?

Why do you think two people look at the same photo and see it differently?

Lesson 92: Heavenly Bodies

by dkrashb, posted in Featured, iPhoneography Lessons, iPhoneography Tips, iPhonography, Photography, Photography Lessons, Simple Photography Lessons

 

Every once in a while, I take my dog out after dark (which happens a lot more often this time of year), look up, and am inspired to take some photos.  To be honest, the amount of noise in the iPhone night photos continues to frustrate me, even with the iPhone 5S.

But, recently, I was teaching a workshop and I asked if anyone had seen a creative use of noise (all the grainy speckles) in photography and a couple of folks commented that it could be used to create an antique effect.  I’m not sure I’ll ever get to where I make noise a goal, but it does open up some possibilities.

So, tonight, I looked up and saw Venus chasing the moon.  I immediately pulled out my iPhone and gave it a shot.  The images in the gallery were edited using the free, iOS version of iPhoto on my iPhone (see Lessons 84, 85, 86, and 87).  As you can see, they are noisy, but Venus and the moon are worth some noise.

Although the crescent moon turns into a blob, I’m pleased that Venus shows up in most of the images.

Your Assignment:  Don’t be afraid to go for broke on night images just because you’re using an iPhone.  Don’t let any Nokia Lumia-owning friends intimidate you!  However, as you may recall from Lesson 3, zooming on the iPhone is a digital zoom, which will make the noise factor that much bigger.  Instead of trying to zoom in to get a close-up of heavenly bodies at night, try artistically placing landscape features in the scene, giving the sky some perspective.

Lesson 91: Use a Tripod

by dkrashb, posted in Featured, iPhoneography Lessons, iPhoneography Tips, iPhonography, Photography, Photography Lessons, Simple Photography Lessons
15 second exposure with boats in the background sitting still while boats in the foreground go by
30 second exposure where foreground boats were very brightly lit
30 second exposure while 2 boats passed in the foreground and the boats in the background also moved
30 second exposure of distant boats circling

Long ago, in Lessons 25 and 34, we talked about holding your iPhone to maximize stability and even using a tripod, particularly for using a telephoto attachment lens with your iPhone.  Well, if ever there was a time to use a tripod with your iPhone, it’s with the Slow Shutter app.

Because I was on a shoot with my DSLR on a tripod, I was able to capture some cool light trails to share with you in the gallery.  However, I was without the tripod for my iPhone, so the best I could do was to prop the phone up on a rock wall and try to hold it still, resulting in this:

15 second exposure while trying to balance the iPhone on a rock
15 second exposure while trying to balance the iPhone on a rock

Let’s talk about what happens when you use a slow shutter.  “Slow” means the shutter will stay open for a long time (relatively speaking) before it closes again.  When we use a “fast” shutter, the shutter only stays open a fraction of a second.  The shorter the duration the shutter remains open, the less the subject can move in that fraction of time, so the less blur you will get.

When the shutter stays open for a very long time, like in these images (shot with 15 and 30 second shutter speeds), as the subject moves, the shutter is still open, so it records the moving image.  If you’re moving around, you get a complete mess.  Or, you can get some fun art if you’re particularly talented at moving your phone around.

I mentioned in lesson 90 that you can use Slow Shutter to get light trails, such as cars driving by at night.  Since I don’t have examples of that yet, thought I would go ahead and share the light trails from a lighted boat parade even though they were taken with my DSLR.  Don’t worry–I will eventually get light trails with the Slow Shutter app!

Your Assignment:  Find a location where you have a clear view of a street where cars drive by on a regular basis.  Go after dark–this is a great time of year for this assignment in the Northern hemisphere with the early sunset.

Either use an actual iPhone tripod or come up with a way to prop your iPhone so it will not move.  You need to be able to completely let go of the phone or your movement will jiggle it.  Set your exposure time for about 15 seconds–this depends on how much traffic is going by.  You can do 30 seconds if you have a long line of cars that keep passing or fewer seconds if all lights pass through the frame in less than 15 seconds.

Are you able to get a nice, sharp light trail from the headlights and tail lights of the cars?

 

Lesson 90: Slow Shutter

by dkrashb, posted in iPhoneography Lessons, iPhoneography Tips, iPhonography, Photography, Photography Lessons, Simple Photography Lessons

In Lesson 83, I showed you how to look at the shutter speed used when you took a photo by looking at the metadata in iPhoto iOS.  But, we didn’t have any choice about what shutter speed was used; it was picked by the camera app we used.  Today, I want to introduce you to an app that allows you to choose slow shutter speeds for fun effects.  It’s called SlowShutter and it’s available in the app store for $.99.

Using a slow shutter speed allows you to create interesting effects like light trails when cars drive by or to pan with a subject in motion, allowing the background to blur behind your subject.  For today’s example, I thought I’d start with something fun–drawing with a light source.

To do this, you need a light of some kind in darkness.  I have two examples.  For one, I found a healthy use for a lit cigarette–use it as your light source for a light trail.  For the other, I used a small light for a bicycle and handheld it.  In both cases, I set the SlowShutter app to a shutter speed of 8 seconds and then drew a heart shape in front of the camera.  I propped the camera on a steady base for both images, although a tripod would have been better–my hearts are a little shaky!

Because the light source is so much brighter than the rest of the scene, it registers in the image while the rest of the scene remains dark.  To change the shutter speed setting, tap the lens icon in the lower left corner of the SlowShutter app and then select the shutter speed you want.  I started with the “light trails” category to get to the 8 second shutter speed.

photo

Your Assignment:  Try downloading the SlowShutter app and then using a flashlight or other light source to see if you can capture words drawn with light.  Hint:  you’ll need a second person to draw the words or operation the camera so you can get enough distance between you and the light source to fit a word in the frame.