Jekyll Island, GA. 3-shot HDR processed in Photomatix Pro, Color effects Pro and Silver Effects Pro.
Using Stacks in Lightroom is a convenient way to group similar photos together in grid view and the filmstrip. This is especially helpful if you regularly end up with multiple images of the same subject. You may have multiple shots of the same pose from a portrait session, a string of images from shooting wildlife, or you can even group your bracketed shots together for your HDR work. Stacks are also a good way to manage virtual copies, or different treatments of the same image.
Two HDR treatments and the source files take up lots of space in the grid view…
To create a stack, select the images you want to group together in the grid view and go to Photo > Stacking > Group Into Stack. You can also right-click on one of the selected photos and choose Stacking > Group Into Stack, or press command(Cntrl)-G. The images will collapse into a stack, and the top photo will have an icon indicating how many photos are in the stack. To expand the stack, click on the stack icon or press S. Press S again to collapse the stack.
The first image you selected will be the top image in the stack. You can choose a new top photo by expanding the stack, right-clicking on the photo you want on top and choosing Stacking > Move to Top of Stack. You can also select a photo and press shift-S to move it to the top of the stack. To move a photo up or down within a stack, press shift-left bracket or shift-right bracket.
… but when they are stacked with the final image on top, the source files are out of the way unless I need them later.
Lightroom can also stack photos for you automatically by capture time. Select a folder in the Library and press G for the grid view. Go to Photo > Stacking > Auto-Stack by Capture Time. This will bring up the Auto-Stack dialog box where you can specify the duration between capture times from 0 seconds to 1 hour. You will see the results of the Auto-Stack dialog in the grid as you move the slider. The longer duration you specify the fewer stacks you will end up with.
To remove a photo or photos from a stack, select the photo or photos and go to Photo > Stacking > Remove from Stack. You can also select multiple photos and select Photo > Stacking > Split Stack to create a new stack with the selected photos. The photos in the new stack will be removed from the original stack. Ungroup a stack by selecting one of the photos in the stack and pressing Shift-Command(Cntrl)-G.
There are a couple of things to remember about stacks… The images in a stack must be in the same folder. You cannot stack images in a collection, even if they are in the same folder. You can add stacked photos to a collection by expanding the stack and selecting the photos to add, but the stack will not move into the collection. If you want to access photos in a collapsed stack in the Develop module, right-click on the top photo of the stack in the filmstrip and choose Stacking > Expand Stack.
Think back to a recent time when the weather was nice and you were in a pleasant park area. The sun was out, the clouds were fluffy, and the birds were singing (a rainbow and some happy skipping may have been involved too but we won't go there…). During this joyous day, recall how many people you saw making photographs. My guess would be quite a few. In general, people like making images when the weather is nice. Yet, when the weather becomes inclement, we tend to stay inside, and far fewer photographs are made.
The world doesn't stop when the weather is bad. As photographers, neither should we.
Now, I know many photographers (and I'm sure you do too) who are, shall we say, apprehensive about taking their beloved camera out shooting in inclement weather. They say "my camera is not environmentally sealed".
As photographers, we seek out images and scenes that are unique and tell a story. When applied to our weather discussion, we can get some unique images that tell a story which far fewer photographers tell. A wet street at night and its glow present wonderful options for us to photograph. Shooting falling snow and capturing it in mid air can also make an image that will resonate with others.
Human nature tells us to seek shelter when said weather is bad. As a photographer this means that less people will be out shooting and hence, the stories you can capture will be all your own.
Perhaps urban/cityscapes is not your thing. Maybe you're more of a wildlife photographer. The same rules apply. Wildlife photographers who shoot in rain, snow, etc. have the potential to get amazing images. We've all seen images of wildlife. The number of images rapidly decreases when you look for wildlife in rain, snow, etc. So if you brave the elements and capture, for instance, a mature bull elk exhaling in the cold morning air while some light snow is falling, you could have an amazing shot. Unique, thought provoking wildlife photographs are what separate the journeyman from the truly creative.
Extraordinary photographers make extraordinary photographs. Extraordinary photographers are the ones who do not scoff at the notion of inclement weather but rather embrace it. They are the ones who realized long ago that weather is not the enemy.
Would you rather be an ordinary photographer or an extraordinary one? That's what I thought. Get out there and shoot! (feel free do some happy skipping too if you’d like).
You can check out Ted's work on his website, and follow him on Twitter.
Since Chris Klapheke and I are heading down to Roma, Texas for one of my workshops, I thought it would be good time to post a few tips on using water drips to attract birds. In Roma, we put a water feature in front of every blind. Due to the dry climate and the sound of the water dripping, we get lots of different drinkers and bathers.
We dig out a water feature in the ground and line it with plastic to hold water. As most of the blinds are sunken in Roma, the water drip on the ground is still at eye level. You can also elevate a water drip as shown below.
Below is my set-up that I have been using during the Spring and Fall migration on the Upper Texas Coast. I have an elevated pond made out of a bucket with a 2 foot X 2 foot piece of plywood on top. I place a few rocks around the edges of the plywood and lay a piece of pond liner on top. The final touch is running a small drip hose to it so there is always fresh running water. The sound attracts the birds and lets them know the water is fresh. To fine tune the dripping you can purchase a small drip hose from a department store and attach it to your garden hose. Some models even come with a small spigot so that the drip rate and volume can be adjusted.
When there is no running water nearby, I use a five gallon jug that has an adjustable flow lever. A camping jug will last two days with a steady drip. I support the jug with a photographer's backdrop frame. A milk jug with a pin hole will also work.
Set up near trees so the birds feel safe. Use only a few perches, and you will be rewarded!
Look for more posts from our Roma workshop!
You can read more about Alan, browse his wonderful images and learn about his workshops here.
I have been a user of Gitzo tripods for many many years, and have been very fond of their carbon fiber models.
Carbon fiber is the preferred material to use for making durable yet lightweight tripods, however, they are typically very expensive. A few years ago Gitzo developed a new material that offers many of the same advantages of carbon fiber, but at a fraction of the cost.
Check out this video where I explain a bit about the tripods that I am using now made from Basalt, and why I now prefer them over the carbon fiber models.
You can see Gitzo's new line of basalt tripods in the store here: Gitzo Basalt
You may have heard me say that I shoot with a tripod 95% of the time. More accurately what I mean to say is that I shoot with some sort of support for my camera 95% of time.
This can be a tripod, a bean bag, or even a monopod. A monopod can be a very very effective as a support for your camera, but often people get frustrated when using a monopod.
In this short video I will give you a few tips on using a monopod effectively. If you'd like to see a selection of monopods and monopod accessories check them out at the OPG Store
Go on any photowalk, attend any workshop, or just put several photographers in the same room, and inevitably, what happens? Fanatical debate and banter on subjects such as gear (camera bodies, lenses, tripods), workflow (Lightroom vs Aperture, CS3 v. CS4), or philosophical topics (Is photography art?, to HDR or to not HDR, convergence between video and stills) and so on.
Now don’t get me wrong, there is a time and a place for all of these topics. Nevertheless, sometimes we as photographers become so entrenched in our position and defense thereof, that we lose focus (pun intended) of more important matters.
Although we may have entered photography for a variety of reasons, we all enjoy showing our work to others. Show your work long enough (and to enough people), and you begin selling your work. Those of you keeping score at home, those “people” just became your “customers”.
If you thought selling one image took work, remember that a business survives on repeat customers. This means now that you’ve shown your work and made a sale, you really need to target and market yourself to your customers. This is something that takes time, research, and most importantly, focus.
Understanding your customers, knowing your competition, knowing how your customers find you (website, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, yada, yada, yada) are important components to any photographer who is intent on selling images. Once you understand them, you then have to develop a plan to market yourself and your work (yes, those were intentionally separated) to your target audience.
You put time and effort in to selling your work, and you get a repeat customer (or a new customer, it really doesn’t matter) who is interested in purchasing your work. Hooray! Those of you seasoned folks know this, but for you new to the selling game, let me let you in on a secret… the aforementioned customer does not care what gear was used to make the image, what post processing steps/tools you utilized, or whether you think HDR is good or bad. Customers buy prints because of the emotional response they have to your work. Plain and simple.
Have you ever lost a sale because you didn’t shoot with a 5D Mark II or a D700? I didn’t think so. The gear and the process (and even the philosophy) are nothing more than tools you use to make your work. To put it another way, a hammer is a hammer is a hammer. What you use the hammer to create is what is important.
I am not trying to assert that these heated debates are not without merit, quite the contrary. However, I will take the position that too many in the photographic community spend too much time defending their position and attacking the other side. Countless hours are lost to the defense of topics, which from the customer’s perspective, do not matter.
Photography is not an easy business. There are more and more talented people picking up cameras every day. This means your competition is rising. As you find your niche and continue to market it, remember, that if you do not take care of and continually target your customers, someone else will.
Better to spend the discussion ferver on your customers and remained focused.
You can check out Ted's work on his website, follow him on Twitter, and purchase one of his wonderful calendars on Amazon.
Scott Wyden works for for Mack Camera & Video Service, and has seen his share of interesting repairs. Scott lends his repair perspective in this article about camera protection.
How should I store my camera? Is an expensive bag worth the money? What if I get caught in the rain?
All of these questions are things you may ask yourself after buying a new camera or going on a shooting trip. I'm here to speak from the point of view of the repair part of the photography industry. I believe that you get what you pay for! But, purchasing a high end digital camera with weather seals does not necessarily mean that your camera will be totally safe from the environment. A small amount of rubber here and there will not keep your baby protected from the sand and water. Protecting your camera from the environment is the first step in caring for your camera properly.
I’m going to start from the beginning: New Camera Day! Let’s say you walk into your camera store and purchase a brand new Nikon D5000 with the 18-105mm lens. The salesman sells you a memory card, an extra battery and gives you a great deal on a generic camera bag. After a couple of weeks of using the camera, you book a flight to Costa Rica. Who wouldn’t be excited to get away and visit a place that offers so many wonderful photographic locations? So you pack up your camera, batteries, charger, accessories and memory cards into your generic bag. During your trip you make your way into the rainforest to take some amazing photographs. When you return to your hotel, you look into your bag, and there is a small puddle of water in the bottom. This means your camera has been sitting in water for quite some time. You thought you were safe because you left your new camera in the bag while it was raining.
You may be thinking that this story is just silly and never happens, but you would be surprised at how many repairs I see come in for the same water damage issue. The photographer doesn’t have the camera out in the rain yet it somehow gets wet. When packed in a wet bag, the moisture and condensation inside will corrode your camera quickly. As I stated earlier, you get what you pay for. The Nikon D5000 is an amazing digital SLR camera, but it is not weather proof. Nikon doesn’t claim it is either, but I used it as an example in my story because it’s the first camera that came to mind. When first purchasing the camera, a better camera bag should have been purchased as well. When traveling, a good bag will physically protect your gear from possible impact and the environment. Most camera bags from companies like Think Tank, Tenba, Kata and some others all come with built-in rain covers. Ideally, a seamless built-in rain cover is perfect to ensure that no water is able to get through. The bag I use when traveling is the Think Tank Streetwalker HardDrive.
Let’s go back to my story and see what else is missing from the initial purchase. Hopefully, you are thinking “A UV FILTER!” A UV filter is a great way to protect your lens. One bump on a hard surface and the front lens element can break. I personally would prefer replacing a $30 filter then an expensive lens element. The filters I use are from Hoya, Promaster and B&W. ($20 and up).
But what else is missing? The one thing that so many photographers overlook is an extended warranty and/or insurance. For those that just want a simple solution to a possible problem the extended warranty works great. For a long time my employer only offered extended manufacturer defect warranties, but now offers extended warranties which covers impacts, sand/grit and liquid damage (not submerging). On the D5000 this warranty would have cost around $110. Note: This article is not so I can pitch the company I work for but to tell you what is available for photographers.
Another option to protect your camera and lens during a vacation is a very inexpensive device from Op/Tech USA called a Rain Sleeve. It costs around $6 or so and can be stuffed pretty much anywhere. The Rain Sleeve is a soft plastic bag shaped like a camera. This gives you rain protection at a low price and it doesn’t weigh much at all. Depending on your trip (and the amount of exposure to the environment) there are more heavyweight solutions from Think Tank, Storm Jacket & AquaTech, For my normal vacations I find that the Op/Tech USA is just fine!
There are a couple other products I’d like to mention which can further protect your equipment. A camera wrap like LensCoat's BodyBag when the camera is not in use is valuable because a lens should never be attached to a body when transporting. A lens wrap like LensCoat's TravelCoat is another choice because it adds a soft layer to the outside of a lens for more protection. There are also products available for your strobes that do very similar things. Every little bit helps!
I hope what I’ve written is taken seriously because I see so many impact and liquid related camera problems on a daily basis. If you have any questions please get in touch with me and I’d be more than happy to help!
Taking pictures in the snow is cool, literally and figuratively speaking. However, snow scenes present certain photographic challenges.
So let’s chill out with some cool shooting in the snow photo tips. To illustrate the tips, I’ll share some photographs that I took of polar bears in the Sub-Arctic. Brrrrrrrrrrrrr!
Don’t Be Fooled – All that white can fool a camera’s exposure meter into thinking that the scene is brighter than it actually is, therefore setting the camera for an underexposed picture. The remedy: Set your exposure compensation dial to +1. The increase should give you a better exposure, which, of course, you can fine-tune further with exposure compensation and in the digital darkroom.
Pack A Polarizing Filter – When the sun is shining, you do not – I repeat – do not want to go out on a snow shoot without a polarizing filter. A polarizing filter can continuously vary the amount of polarized light that passes through it. In doing so, it can darken a blue sky and make white clouds appear whiter and, most important in snow shooting, reduce glare on snow and ice. Finally, a polarizing filter can help you “see” through water by reducing reflections on the surface of the water.
A polarizing filter is most effective when the sun is off to your left or right. It’s ineffective when you’re shooting toward or away from the sun. When using a polarizing filter, remove your skylight or haze filter if you typically leave one on your lens. That will help prevent vignetting, especially when using wide-angle lenses.
Keep Gear Warm, Too - In addition to keeping your body warm, it’s essential to keep your camera and extra batteries warm. Cold temperatures can suck the life out of batteries faster than you can say, “I’m freezing.” Keep your camera inside your coat until you want to shoot, and keep plenty of extra batteries in your pants or shirt pockets, close to your body.
Watch For Washouts – When photographing snow, especially in bright light, you need to be very careful not to overexpose the highlights in a scene, the brightest part of a subject. After you take a shot, check your camera’s histogram and make sure you don’t have a spike on the right, which indicates a highlight washout. Also check your camera’s overexposure warning, which shows overexposed areas as flashing on-and-off zones.
Light Illuminates, Shadows Define – Snow pictures taken on overcast days look flat, while those taken on sunny days have more contrast and detail. Both kinds of photographs can be pleasing. It’s just that the weather conditions create different moods in your photographs. Remember: light illuminates; shadows define.
You’ll find more tips on shooting in tricky lighting situations in my book, Exploring the Light.
Explore the Light,
Rick
Make sure and check out Rick and Juan Pons at their informative blog and podcast, Digital Photo Experience!
Photo Copyright Scott Bourne 2004 – All Rights Reserved
It happens every time I lead an outdoor or nature photo workshop. One of the students comes to me and says something like,
“But I don’t know what to shoot?”
Sometimes, we’re overwhelmed by opportunity. Sometimes we’re just in a rut and nothing draws our attention.
Still other times we can’t see the forrest for the trees.
What’s the solution? Here are three tips for finding compelling photographic subjects.
1. Look inward. Ask yourself what YOU want to shoot. What story do you want to tell? In what way do you want to use your camera to express yourself? If you start from this authentic place, you increase the chances you’ll find something worth photographing.
2. Scout without a camera. Sometimes, the camera actually gets in the way of the creative process. We start to focus on the gear instead of the vision. Try leaving the camera behind next time. Instead, take a note book and scout an area where you think you might like to make some images. This approach will open your mind’s eye to new possibilities.
3. You’ve probably heard me say this before, but I’ll say it again. Look at lots and lots and lots of photographs. By studying other people’s work, you can brainstorm your own approach to their ideas. Great photographers have one thing in common. They look at lots of photos. If you start practicing this advice, it will become easier and easier for you to find your next photographic subject.
At a workshop I once taught, an older fellow in the back of the room raised his hand. He said, “I just bought me a new toy and she’s a beauty! But I can’t figure out how to make the hysterectomy work?” Fortunately, my student wasn’t describing a lady of the evening. He was talking about how to pull up the histogram on his new Nikon digital camera. His confusion is not unusual. One of the first things new digital cameras ask about is the histogram…what is it, and how should they use it.
In this article, I will detail the basics of working with histograms.
INTRODUCTION
At its simplest, a histogram is a graphical representation (such as a bar graph) of digital data (brightness values) in a given image. According to Adobe, a histogram:
“[I]llustrates how pixels in an image are distributed by graphing the number of pixels at each color intensity level. This can show you whether the image contains enough detail in the shadows (shown in the left part of the histogram), midtones (shown in the middle), and highlights (shown in the right part) to make a good correction.”
I like to think of a histogram as a very sophisticated light meter. It can help the digital photographer understand if an image is over or underexposed, and it can evaluate the quality of the light, for example, is the image flatly lit or is it a high contrast lighting situation? (Try doing that with your father’s old Soligar meter!)
Histograms illustrate how 256 possible levels of brightness are distributed in a digital image. The histogram’s horizontal axis represents the range of brightness from 0 (the shadows) on the left to 255 (the highlights) on the right. Think of it as a football field with 256 yard markers (0 to 255) upon which the team can stack pixels of the same brightness. Since these are the only values that can be captured by the camera, the horizontal line also represents the camera’s maximum potential dynamic range. In other words, the horizontal line (from left to right) represents increasing brightness in your image. The vertical axis represents the number of pixels that have one of the 256 brightness values. The higher the line goes (coming up from the horizontal axis,) the more pixels there are at that level of brightness. In other words, the vertical line represents an increasing amount of digital information from bottom to top.
Generally, if all you learn from this section of the article is that the histogram helps you to understand the tonal range of your image, you are ready to move on.
USING THE HISTOGRAM
Histograms come into play in two places: in capture and in image processing. If you use a digital camera, it probably has a menu or command function that allows you to see a histogram for each image that has been captured in the camera’s memory. For example, on many digital cameras, you get to the histogram by hitting the INFO button.
By evaluating the histogram in the field, you can determine whether or not you captured enough information to get a good image in post. For instance, if you look at the histogram and see that its graph has moved to the far right and beyond, it is likely that you have blown out the highlights and need to increase your shutter speed or close down your aperture to let in less light. With practice, you can learn to trust the histogram better than trusting the image displayed on your camera’s LCD screen.
You can also get a histogram after the capture on the post side of your digital workflow. If you scan film, most scanning software allows the display of image data including the histogram.
One very technical point to remember is that there is a slight difference in the way your digital camera and your computer will represent the histogram. These differences are accentuated if you capture in 16-bit rather than 8-bit mode and then transfer the image to Aperture or Photoshop using a linear mode. This is all techno-speak that leads us to the following point. After you have a digital image and you have moved it into post, that histogram more closely represents the true digital image than the one you saw on the back of your camera.
EVALUATING HISTOGRAMS
Just as a pilot must learn to trust his instruments, photographers can learn to trust the exposure information contained in histograms. If you know what you want to photograph, how you want it to look and what the histogram should look like when you have accomplished your goal, you will walk away with a winner every time.
I use histograms to determine if there is enough detail in the highlights, midtones and shadows of my image. As long as there is enough data to work with, I can correct the image in post to look great on paper or on the screen.
To get proper correction in post, you want to understand your image’s “black point” and “white point.” The black point is the darkest portion of your image and the white point is the brightest highlight of your image. (This is not the blackest black or whitest white your camera can record but the blackest black and the whitest white in a particular photograph.) The information between the black point and the white point is known as the dynamic (or tonal) range of your photograph.
For the purpose of this article, I’ll use Photoshop as an example. The Levels dialog box in Photoshop provides five paces where you can adjust the distribution of brightness in your image. These are represented by small triangles. There are three on the input side of the dialog box and two on the output side of the dialog box.
Most photographers use the three triangles located in the input side of the dialog box (located just below the histogram.) Here’s how they work. Dragging the left (all black) triangle to the right darkens the image. Dragging the right (clear) triangle to the left lightens the image. Dragging the middle triangle (gray) to the left or right lightens or darkens the image.
There are two additional triangles in the output side of the dialog box. They have nearly the opposite effect of the triangles located above. Dragging the left (all black) triangle to the right lightens the image shadows. Dragging the right (clear) triangle to the left darkens the image highlights.
CORRECTING THE IMAGE USING THE HISTOGRAM
Establishing a white and black point by dragging the image triangles is where a great portion of your color and contrast range correction will take place in Photoshop.
You can set the highlights and shadows in an image by moving the input sliders on both ends of the Levels histogram. This correction adjusts the affected pixels in each channel, increasing the tonal range of the image. The corresponding pixels in the other channels are adjusted proportionately to avoid altering the color balance.
You can also use the middle Input slider to change the intensity values of the middle range of gray tones without dramatically altering the highlights and shadows. While there are other slightly more precise ways to accomplish this in Photoshop, this method works well for 99% of images.
Go to IMAGE>ADJUSTMENTS>LEVELS and you will see the histogram for your picture appear on the screen. Drag the black and white input levels sliders to the edge of the first group of pixels on either end of the histogram. You can also enter values directly into the first and third input levels text boxes. Drag the black and white output levels sliders to define new shadow and highlight values. You can also enter values directly in the output levels text boxes.
You can automate this process in Photoshop by using the AUTO LEVELS command, but this is usually not the best way to make the correction.
You can refine this adjustment process by making a levels correction to each of the RED, GREEN and BLUE channels individually rather than to the combined RGB channel.
Once you have made your changes, you may see some COMBING. This effect occurs when you adjust levels and the histogram appears to have teeth like a hair comb. In most cases, this is not a problem unless you start with a very low pixel count to begin with.
CONCLUSION
Histograms are a basic component of digital imaging. Understanding their value and how they work will benefit even those photographers who intend to just send their images to the lab rather than print or upload them on their own.
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I’m going to start from the beginning: New Camera Day! Let’s say you walk into your camera store and purchase a brand new Nikon D5000 with the 18-105mm lens. The salesman sells you a memory card, an extra battery and gives you a great deal on a generic camera bag. After a couple of weeks of using the camera, you book a flight to Costa Rica. Who wouldn’t be excited to get away and visit a place that offers so many wonderful photographic locations? So you pack up your camera, batteries, charger, accessories and memory cards into your generic bag. During your trip you make your way into the rainforest to take some amazing photographs. When you return to your hotel, you look into your bag, and there is a small puddle of water in the bottom. This means your camera has been sitting in water for quite some time. You thought you were safe because you left your new camera in the bag while it was raining.
