OBSERVING AND WAITING FOR THE MOMENT IN PHOTOGRAPHY

While visiting with our sons in California this last summer we stayed with friends in route and they took us to Morrow Bay, on the Coast, for a marvelous seafood lunch. I had not been to Morro Bay in decades so, photographically it felt fresh—like I was seeing it for the first time. After lunch I suggested we drive out to Morro Rock so we could do a walk. I wanted to get out of the town and into the natural environment there at the coast; my camera beckoned me!

Parked near Morro Rock I knew that the huge landmark was not going to be a subject for me—it’s too big! Even being a hundred yards away it’s like a towering skyscraper dominating the landscape.  So, I put my 70-200mm lens on my camera and prepared to do what I do best (as I teach my students) and look for interesting slices of nature within the huge costal landscape.

While walking around Morro Rock looking back to the town the three huge stacks of the old Morro Bay Power Plant certainly dominated that landscape. That was not what I had in mind for a natural composition at the coast!

However, in the foreground this was what I saw happening in the ocean….

f10.0 @ 1/800 sec., ISO 400; Lens @ 102mm

This great scene was not just there waiting for me to show up—I hand to wait for it to develop. When I first walked up and put the viewfinder to my eye with my lens zoomed to its widest at 70mm this was the whole scene…

The Whole Ugly Scene; but look at that foreground!

Ten minutes later before the tour boat came into the bay the water was pretty smooth and the reflections of the smoke stacks were too literal a presentation for me. But, I loved that floating seaweed an the sea otter having his lunch was great as well.

So, I waited a bit and when I saw that boat approaching I thought that a boat that size should create a wake that would help me with this scene and the vision I had in my head.

That small wait really paid off.  Not only did I get some terrific ripples in the water, created by the boat’s wake, but the sea otter floated deeper into my frame and a bird landed in the water as well!

I just waited a few more seconds for that bird to paddle in-between the stacks before I started with the zoomed in image cropping out he top half of the whole scene.

I got what I wanted—a symbolic blending of nature and the abstract reflection of an abandoned man-made blight on the environment.

’Til next week…

Author: Jerry W. Venz, PPA Master Photographer, Craftsman

Training site: http://www.LightAtTheEdge.com

Client site: http://www.TheStorytellersUsa.com

PORTRAIT LENSES USED BY PROFESSIONALS

In professional portrait photography lens choice is the single most important factor in creating pleasing images that our clients will love and buy. It’s our job to make people look better than in real life not worse by using a lens that creates unattractive distortion. 

All lenses create distortion, so it’s our job to only use a focal length that distorts in a good way. That’s why I use the Most Telephoto I have at my disposal within a given environment. That will always give me the good distortion known as compression distortion.

The telephoto lens, especially at 200mm and beyond, will compress a scene, pushing your subject INTO the background and, coupled with a relatively wide aperture will, at the same time, SEPARATE them from the background with really nice out of focus bokeh as in this image…

f4.5 @ 1/200 sec., ISO 800; Lens @ 200mm

As you can see the out of focus specular highlights have been turned into nice soft bokeh mostly due to the 200mm focal length NOT A WIDE OPEN APERTURE as many photographers believe. I could have used f2.8, but that would create the possibility of an unsharp subject due to lack of depth-of-field. Besides, even the most expensive lenses are not their sharpest wide open. That why I use an aperture of f4.5 for individual portraits; I get good depth-of-field AND nice bokeh!

Don’t use wide angle lenses for portraits!

I don’t use wide angle lenses for portraits because for adequate head sizes, using a wide angle lens, you must move in close to the subject(s), which causes very unattractive extension distortion. All lenses distort in some way—but this type of distortion where the closest part of your subject to the lens becomes unnaturally larger happens naturally with ALL lenses, however Short Lenses will Amplify this effect.

The telephoto lens forces the photographer to Back-Up changing the scenes perspective—compressing the scene and making the subject look great.

Here’s a side-by-side example I took during a student one-on-one class showing these effects…

Notice how the 70mm lens is making her forehead, nose and chin larger—those parts of her face are being PULLED towards the camera. I choose to use 70mm as my wide example to make my point about wide angle (extension) distortion because most photographers probably would consider 70mm to be telephoto! Besides it would be too easy to show extension distortion using a 50mm or 35mm lens.

Looking at the image done at 200mm all those features of her face are pushed AWAY from the camera using Compression Distortion creating a much more pleasant portrait.

In addition the backgrounds look very different even though I used exactly the same aperture (f4.5) on each image. Because I used my lens at 200mm that background is much more defocused and less distracting than the image using the “wide-angel” lens. 

I apply this technique in ALL of my portrait photography. I always use the most telephoto I can use even in group portraits.

My Go-To focal lengths for Portraits:

Groups:  135mm to 150mm

Individuals:  200mm to 300mm

Have questions?  Don’t hesitate to ask…’Til next week

Author:  Jerry W. Venz, PPA Master Photographer, Craftsman

Training Site: http://www.LightAtTheEdge.com

Client Site: http://www.TheStorytellersUsa.com

TRAVEL PHOTOGRAPHY; PERSPECTIVE CORRECTION

When doing travel photography particularly in old cities we tend to use our wide angle lenses a lot on architectural subjects. The most common problem then is the perspective distortion of a building’s vertical lines, which is made worse using a wide angle lens in close, making the building appear to be falling away from the camera position. Since most photographers don’t use or even own a tilt-shift lens, out side of architectural specialists, to correct this distortion when on location, we can still correct this effect, in post, with software.

Here’s an example of the falling away effect…

f13.0 @ 1/350 sec., ISO 400; Lens @ 24mm

This is one of my favorite images I took on Palatine Hill in Rome, Italy. In order to capture the whole arch I had to use my short zoom at 24mm; I could not back-up enough to use my longer telephoto, which could have solved this type of distortion. In addition, if I had backed-up a lot that great tree would have been cut into by the arch. Obviously the placement of the tree was critical in this image!

There is a tool in Photoshop that fixes these issues with no problem. The Perspective Crop Tool…Take a look at how I corrected the distortion from that fantastic vacation in Italy….

With Correction

It worked like a charm and was easy to employ; look it up—there are several tutorials on YouTube. Note that you do lose some of the image because a crop is necessary. I was fine with it because I didn’t want any sky showing above the top of the arch anyway.

Not content to leave it alone…

Conversion

Because of the strong blacks in this image and the great texture of the stone work, I knew this would make an excellent Black & White fine art image. I converted my new color image using NIK’s Silver Efex Pro-2 using the Sepia Preset.

So, with the Perspective Crop Tool in good old Photoshop who needs a tilt-shift lens; those things are just really expensive!

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to leave me a message…’Til next week….

Author:  Jerry W. Venz, PPA Master Photographer, Craftsman

Training Site: http://www.LightAtTheEdge.com

Client Site: http://www.TheStorytellersUsa.com

QUICK ROADSIDE ART PHOTOGRAPHY

On our way to a funeral in Hailey, Idaho we passed by what looked like an old church in the little town of Corral, on the Camas Prairie, off of Highway 20. I noted it, but didn’t stop because the light in the late morning was not great relative to the building; in addition there were no clouds.  However, on our way back we hit that area at about 5pm. So, I stopped for a few minutes to see what I could get in that light. I discovered that this was an old school; the sign on the building indicating its operation from 1908 to 1953. What caught my eye was the old bell tower and the cross pattern with the diamond feature on that end of the building.

Here’s one of my wilder versions of that feature…

f14.0 @ 1/250sec., ISO 200; Lens @ 40mm

I wanted to really enhance that old wood and the clouds so, I used NIK’s, HDR Efex Pro 2, single image tone mapping using my version of their “late summer” preset.

Here’s the master shot of the school at 5pm.

f14.0 @ 1/250 sec., ISO 200; Lens @ 65mm

In the morning there was no light on the bell tower side of the school; it was all in shadow. Now we have nice hard light (for hard, textured, subjects I like a hard light) where earlier with it in shadow the light was too soft, which eliminates shadows and texture. In addition, now we have some clouds in the sky; I prefer clouds to an empty sky.

And rotating my view…

f14.0 @ 1/250 sec., ISO 200; Lens @ 73mm

You’ve gotta do this kind of subject in B&W as well!  I converted my RAW color image to B&W using NIK’s Silver Efex Pro2, using their Antique Plate 1 preset. A nice traditional B&W presentation for this subject.

And then clouds aligned over the bell tower…

f14.0 @ 1/250 sec., Iso 200; Lens @ 67mm

I really like this up angle with the “cloud piercer” look of that bell towers spike! The crossing, directional, light on the bell tower is picking up lots of detail in those old boards as well.

All told I spent 6 minutes taking the set of images and covered three angles, The wide view and the close-in crops before the wind blew away the clouds! Done.

Well almost—I spent a Lot more time in post doing these creative versions you see here!

Let me know if you have any questions…’Til next week…

Author: Jerry W. Venz, PPA Master Photographer, Craftsman

Training site: http://www.LightAtTheEdge.com

Client site: http://www.TheStorytellersUsa.com

OUTDOOR PORTRAITS OF AN ARTIST ON LOCATION IN FREAK ALLEY

Here in downtown Boise, Idaho, we have a rare gem called Freak Alley. it’s the largest outdoor art gallery in the Northwest. It spans two streets (a block long) in the alley and parking lots for several small businesses. Some of the work, by the 90 artists this year that were accepted, could be called artistic graffiti, but many of the paintings are true art and some are complex murals two stories high. 

This year my wife and I hosted one of the artists, visiting from Utah, while she worked on her art piece. Her name is Megan Utley and while going to college in Utah, she worked various jobs and does her art part time. While she was with us for just over a week, she worked a couple of construction jobs during the day and then worked waitressing at nights! Some how she managed to do her Freak Alley art piece around work and socializing—sometimes painting all night; camping out IN Freak Alley!

Here’s Megan with her art at the opening night event…

f4.5 @ 1/160 sec., ISO 800; Lens @ 100mm

I think her art piece is one of the best in this year’s Freak Alley exhibition. It’s definitely Not graffiti.

I had to work fast since it a was 8:30pm when Megan got there (after working all night and through the day to finish) when I started; the sun had already set so I was starting at 800 ISO and I wanted to give her multiple poses.

This is the poise I had pre-visualized doing after Megan had shown me the original of this art piece. It was her favorite in this set.

I finished with her turning her face to me with a smile and zooming out to show her tattoo. Looking good Megan!  It was a pleasure having you in our home and getting to know you and your dog Sam.

’Til next week….as usual ask if you have questions…

Author:  Jerry W. Venz, PPA Master Photographer, Craftsman

Training site: http://www.LightAtTheEdge.com

Client site: http://www.TheStorytellersUsa.com 

PHOTOGRAPHY IN LOW LIGHT AND DYNAMIC RANGE

The first time I photographed a Japanese Tea Ceremony was in 2004 at the Hakone Japanese Gardens in Saratoga, California. At the time I knew nothing about this ceremony, so I just photographed the moments that looked interesting. I had no idea it would take so long or could be so complex just to make some tea! 

At that time in my career, as a professional photographer, I was using the second generation of digital camera (the Fuji Fine Pix S-2 Pro). So, when I encountered scenes with very low light I used the camera in B&W mode to maintain quality images. Back then digital cameras were very noisy at any ISO’s 400 and beyond if even slightly under exposed. They were particularly ghastly in color due to “color noise”. This tea ceremony was in very low light and even at ISO 400 I used fill flash at 1/30 second. As the ceremony wound down I turned the flash off and went to ISO 800 and 1600 at 1/15 second. 

f6.7 @ 1/15 sec., ISO 800; Lens @ 153mm

When she turned to the audience and paused, at the end of the ceremony, the directional light on her hands was great. Quickly going to 800 ISO gave me a hand-holdable 1/15 sec. to capture this dramatic image. I don’t know that today I could have captured this scene any better using my 2018 DSLR.

Some more B&W jpegs straight out of the camera….

 f4.8 @ 1/30 se.c, ISO 400 with Flash Fill

I’m still amazed how good these B&W images look using my 2nd generation digital camera from 14 years ago.

f4.8 @ 1/30 sec., ISO 400 with Flash Fill

These fill flash images look this good because we were using the new (back then!) Gary Fong lightsphere flash diffusers on our on-camera flash. 

FLASH FORWARD FOUR YEARS (2008)

Four years later digital cameras have advanced significantly. I now have two of the Fuji FinePix S-3 Pros (we always bought two at a time; and since I was on the Fuji Talent Team, we got our cameras direct from Fuji USA at cost! The Fuji FinePix S-3 Pro had their unique Super CCD SR sensor that expanded the cameras’s dynamic range to 13.5 EVs; the highest scoring dynamic range of ANY camera, when it came out in 2004. In fact, to date (2018) it’s still one of the highest scoring cameras (DXOmark.com) for dynamic range; the top cameras are currently scoring around 14.5 EVS.

So, going back to the Hakone Japanese Gardens for one of their annual events (the Matsuri 2008) I was ready to try that Low Light Tea Ceremony again, this time using my Fuji S-3 Pro.

This time I kept my camera in color mode…

f2.8 @ 1/45 sec., ISO 800; No Flash

This scene would be difficult for a lot of todays digital cameras! The girl is in white in a dim environment and there’s that window with direct sun falling on greenery outside. This is a very high dynamic range scene.  With the Fuji Pro S-3 set to Wide Dynamic Range the girls white kimono has excellent detail and you can actually see detail in the outside greenery,. No other cameras in 2008 could do that; they would just record the window a pure white and clip the highlights in her kimono. In fact, most cameras today would do poorly with this type of scene.

Here’s another from that scene…

 f2.8 @ 1/45 sec., ISO 800; No Flash

These images were shot as JPEGS and because of the low light I used ISO 800 to be able to hand hold my camera. What makes the resulting image quality still more remarkable is that digital cameras have Less dynamic range as the ISO goes up (along with more noise). That’s why most professional photographers try to keep their ISO’s down to 100 to 200 ISO; that’s where most cameras have their highest dynamic range. Well the Fuji S-3 and later S-5 cameras had better dynamic range at 800 ISO (13 EVS!) than most cameras do at 100 ISO.

So, when evaluating your next camera purchase the camera does matter, the sensor size matters, how it handles dynamic range matters, along with ISO noise and your skill with analyzing your subject all matter. Have questions, don’t hesitate to ask…’Til next week.

Author: Jerry W. Venz, PPA Master Photographer, Craftsman 

Training Site: http://www.LightAtTheEdge.com

Client Site: http://www.TheStorytellersUsa.com

WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY IN LOW LIGHT; Part 2 RECEPTIONS

In Part 1 I stressed that I preferred to use natural light or the artificial ambient light on my wedding locations while denigrating photographers who used flash too much. That’s not to say that I do’t use flash at weddings; on the contrary I’ve always had a flash mounted on Both of the cameras around my neck when on the job. Even back in our medium format film days I had a sizable investment in flash rotating brackets and Metz 45 CL4’s on each camera. But if I had some nice directional natural light (say at a window) or a combination of natural and some artificial light, giving me contrasting color temperatures I jumped at it!

The area where we’re most often using flash is at the wedding reception—especially when the reception is at an indoor venue or a nighttime event outside. Under these conditions flash is vital when doing the various action events at the reception…

f2.8 @ 1/50 sec., ISO 800; Lens @ 50mm

In this image of our bride and groom rocking-out at their outdoor reception the lighting was typically worse than at an indoor venue. In this situation I would use my on camera flash equipped with a Gary Fong Lightsphere diffuser as my key and have a radio-controlled flash putting some light in the background. We used this same technique when doing the action images of the garter and bouquet toss. 

Our cake portraits were done very differently….

f5.6 @ 1/15 sec., SIO 800

Because our subject is static we can now be locked-down on a tripod. That means we can use whatever shutter speed and ISO combination to create dramatic lighting using the artificial reception lights or in this case that great window lighting from camera right. We waited until the sun had set giving us a nice exposure for the outdoor background while  the 800 ISO and 1/15 second shutter speed got me what I needed to record those candles.

Using a similar technique on a large interior…

f4.8 @ 1/45 sec., ISO 800; Lens @ 20mm

We always liked to get nice images of the decorated reception site before it was filled with people. Again, I used my ISO to get me to an exposure to balance the interior with the scene out those windows. When you’ve got a scene like that out those huge windows you must avoid blowing out (clipping) the outside part of the image!

Again, like the previous image timing is important in this type of image. Even though this was taken in the early evening because this wedding site (Nestledown, Los Gatos, California) is in the Santa Cruz mountains, surrounded by redwoods, the light fades quickly because it’s so sheltered.

Again, using my ISO to get the image….

f2.8 @ 1/80 sec., ISO 3200; Lens @ 22mm

The table decorations were always a priority at the reception as well. This was also an outdoor reception and I’ve always been a sucker for those little white lights placed in trees or gazebos, so I picked a table where I had those lights in the background. Because the only lights in this scene were those three votive candles and the lights in the background I had to go to ISO 3200 @ f2.8 to do this hand held.

Our bride and groom’s final image of the evening….

 f2.8 @ 1/15 sec., Iso 400; Lens @ 42mm

This couple’s reception was in a huge god-awful tent, so for their final portrait I took them outside dragging them over to these nice trees decorated with my favorite lights! However, these lights were not adequate to illuminate my couple (most of the lights are behind them) so I turned to my on-camera flash and equipped with my handy-dandy Gary Fong, Lightsphere, diffuser I got the soft, subtle, light I wanted to make this look like the only lights in the scene were those tree lights!

Oh, and by the way, I have Not been paid to endorse the Fong Lightsphere or any other equipment I’ve talked about in my blogs.  It’s just stuff I have found that works and I use.

As usual, don’t hesitate to ask questions or make comments related to this blog. ’Til next week…

Author: Jerry W. Venz, PPA Master Photographer, Craftsman

Training site: http://www.LightAtTheEdge.com

Client site: http://www.TheStorytellersUsa.com