2010 - Week 30, Catchlights

Master Bedroom South facing windows
July 23, 2010 4:24 & 4:29 pm
Nikon D90, 50mm
Manual, No Flash, ISO 200, f/2.2, SS 1/60 & 1/40
RAW, Spot Metering, AF-S, WB in Auto

Now that Alena has glasses I have the challenge of finding light sources that give beautiful catchlights and don't cause horrible glasses glare. I have not been very successful in getting one without the other so far so this is the challenge I gave myself this week.

It was definitely tricky, I'd have the composition pretty much the way I wanted it (except I kept chopping limbs because I couldn't back up anymore) and the window reflection would be cutting through the middle of her glasses. I shifted myself, the camera, the shutters (which is why the shutter speed for her photo is 2/3 stops slower, I closed off the light adjusting the shutters - which also caused the heavier shadows on her left), before finally finding a spot that only had a little glare on her right lens.

For Iva I was just concerned about getting nice catchlights.  I love looking at the catchlights in professional photos so I can determine the light source.   Catchlights definitely tell a little story about the photo.





post-processing
There wasn't anything that needed to be corrected on these, so they were just converted from RAW to JPEGs. I'm still fiddling around with my trial version of Lightroom, so far I find it more frustrating than useful, but I did figure out where to change my settings from ProPhoto to sRGB and 16 bit to 8 bit - two things that threw me for a loop last week.

2010 - Week 29, Panning to Show Motion

Living Room
July 18, 2010 8:17 AM & 11:22 AM
Nikon D90, 35mm
Shutter Priority, No Flash, ISO 320, SS 1/30, f/1.8 & f/2.0
RAW, Spot Metering, AF-S, WB in Auto

Panning to show motion is a great technique that is very hard (for me) to pull off.  It requires panning your camera with your subject so it stays in focus while the shutter is open which causes everything else that is not moving to blur.

Using a slow shutter speed to capture movement allows us to feel the movement more than a higher shutter speed that freezes the motion completely would, and the motion blur allows them to be isolated a little bit from the otherwise distracting background.

The technique is hard because it requires the camera to move only in the same plane that the subject is moving - so no wobbling which for me at 1/30 of a second is almost a given.

I got really lucky and the snapshot of Alena was the very first shot I took.  The one of Iva hours later (I didn't shoot for hours, but it was several hours later before she decided she wanted to play), took many more.  I kept trying to get one of her on her own, but I was not doing a good job of panning in sync with her.  And I actually like seeing Alena in the corner of this shot - it balances her a bit from being so centered.  I played with other focal points, but only had luck with the central focal point.

I don't know why I had my ISO at 320, it wasn't to push the f-stop down.  It may have helped if I had lowered it to 200 and gotten a slightly more closed aperture.  I picked 1/30 because I knew that it was slow enough to show motion, but not so long that I would be getting vertical blur because I was shaking the camera all over the place.





post-processing
Since these pictures were taken about 3 hours apart the lighting was different in the room. To the photo that was taken later in the day I added a selective color layer and masked the walls, adjusting the yellow to make the wall color appear more similar.

2010 - Week 28, Program Mode

Driveway
July 5, 2010 8:47 & 8:51 pm
Nikon D90, 50mm
Program Mode, No Flash, ISO 1600, SS 1/40, f/3.2
RAW,Pattern Metering, AF-C, WB in Auto

This winter when I finally wrapped my head around Aperture, Shutter Speed and ISO, I jumped straight from that little green Auto rectangle over to M (manual). I had learned enough to know how to use Aperture Priority and Shutter Priority, but didn't even know what that P even stood for.

Slowly, as I learned all the wonderful settings that I could control beyond the aperture, shutter speed and ISO (focal point, focusing mode, metering mode and white balance are the ones I adjust the most) I finally figured out what P was - it allowed me to have manual control over the focal point, focusing mode, metering mode, white balance and ISO, while the camera chose the aperture and shutter speed required for proper exposure.

With my prime lenses I really didn't have a need for that extra bit of photographing speed that Program mode might provide, but when I bought the used 18-105 VR, and then in June a refurbished 70-300 VR, Program mode became a real option for me.

Using P mode allows me to zoom in and out which changes the aperture and the camera automatically will pick the right shutter speed. This is especially handy on Nikons where the spot metering mode is engaged with the focal point so if your focal point is pointing at a face then you're metering for skin - which is what most portrait photographers are trying to expose perfectly every time.

This week, I was just tired after being gone from home two weeks and wanted to try and get some pictures of the girls playing with sparklers. I didn't even have the energy to drag out the tripod which real firework pictures demand because of the closed (f/11 or higher) apertures and long shutter speeds required.

So for these pictures I just set my ISO fairly high since was JUST before dark, and set the metering mode to pattern because I didn't want to have the light from the sparkler on their face determine the exposure.

The camera did pick a aperture/shutter speed combo that wasn't perfect for this situations of moving kids - golden rule for kids is never less than 1/125, but I would have had to move to manual for that and I wanted to play around with P mode a bit more after using it quite a bit on vacation. 1/40 of a second is pretty slow and there is some softness due to camera shake/kid movement.

I'm becoming more content in creating memories again instead of capturing a perfectly technical image. At the end of the year I'm going to have a book printed for each girl and while it will be my photography journey I also want it to capture the year 2010 for them as it really was. In this case, I really liked how the picture captures how smokey sparklers are and the glow of the sparks falling to the ground.





post-processing
I downloaded a trial version of Lightroom 3 to see if it was really so much better than Camera Raw. It's too early for me to tell, but I did use the Noise reduction Luminance slider and I could actually see some reduction in noise when I usually don't in Camera Raw.

2010 - Week 27, Perspective

Farm Tree Swing
July 1, 2010 4:38 pm
Nikon D90, 50mm 1.8
Manual, No Flash, ISO 250, SS 1/1250, f/4.5
RAW, Pattern Metering, AF-C, WB in Auto

One of the girls favorite things at the farm is the tree swing. The ropes are so long you can't swing yourself, you have to be pushed and my Dad has a special technique for getting kids high. I'll be writing about that on our family blog as I catch up with our vacation photos (hopefully this weekend!).

The blue sky and sycamore trees made such a beautiful backdrop for these shots. I could have knelt down for an even better perspective of them flying in the sky, but I love how it really seems as if they are flying, yet anchored to the earth somehow with the ropes are coming from the corner of the photo.

This was definitely a job for the 50mm, because it is super fast to focus, which makes AF-C so easy to use. Their skin was a bit overexposed in the sun using the pattern metering, so I had to adjust for that a bit in post-processing.





post-processing

SOOC	mask
		In ACR I lowered the exposure one stop to save the over-exposed skin areas in full sun. Then in Photoshop, I tried something new by creating a threshold layer, then used the magic wand tool to select all the white areas. I then used the refine edge tool to soften the edges more like a quick mask and soft brush. I added a levels adjustment layer using this selection as the mask, reversing it so I could lighten the image except for the skin (& a few other really bright areas that my threshold exposed).