2010 - Week 35, Manual Focus

Baseball USA
August 28, 2010 5:06 pm
Nikon D90, 70-300 70-300mm 4.5-5.6 VR @ 70mm
Aperture Priority, No Flash, ISO 2000, SS 1/30, f/4.5
RAW, Pattern Metering, Manual Focus, WB in Auto

We were invited to a baseball birthday party. The girls weren't for sure that they wanted to go since it was baseball, but I knew one other girl would be there and I wanted them to try it since they are learning how to hit golf balls.

Turns out baseball was a huge hit and they had lots of fun. I didn't know the layout of the facility and thought we would be farther away from the kids (but still in the same space as them) and only brought my 70-300mm lens as I really haven't had a chance to use it much.

I quickly saw that I was going to have to push the ISO all the way up and I was still going to get slow shutter speeds. Shooting through the netting caused all sorts of focus problems so I switched over to manual focus and picked a place where I wouldn't move so that I could take shots in continuous mode without the camera hunting for focus each shot.

With the slow shutter speeds I got motion blur because the girls were moving as they swung, and I was really happy to have the vibration reduction (image stabilization) even though I was shooting at the shortest end of the focal length.

There was no real reason for me to be in aperture priority, I think I started there because of the variable aperture zoom, but once I saw that I wouldn't need any of my focal length I could have switched back to manual.

I should have thought to go into another cage so I could get shots from the front instead of only the back - but that is 20/20 hindsight for sure.





post-processing
Adjusted the color & luminance sliders in ACR to temper the noise caused by the high ISO. I couldn't eliminate all the luminance noise without sacrificing a bit of sharpness so some noise is still present.

2010 - Week 34, Making the Best of a Foggy Shot

Front Entry
August 16, 2010 7:33 am
Nikon D90, 50mm 1.8
Manual, No Flash, ISO 200, SS 1/60, f/2.5
RAW, Pattern Metering, AF-S, WB in Auto

We were in a big rush to get out the door on the second day of school (and on the third, fourth, fifth and today the sixth as well).

But they looked SO cute in their casual uniform I had to snap a photo, so I made them come over to the front door the only place first thing in the morning that has a little light.

I dialed in my settings when I took a close up while I was just inside the doorway (why am I still on pattern metering?!?), but all I caught then was a girl yawning.

As soon as I stepped out into the Texas morning humidity my lens fogged up just as I framed the shot & pushed the shutter.

This was such a cute shot I had to use it anyway for their Project 52 book.

And I did learn a few things with this little exercise.

1. Don't forget about the Texas humidity. Even if we had had more than 1 minute to grab a few shots, my lens fogging up would have caused a 5-10 minute delay to get the lens dry and clean.

2. The more important lesson - I should have opened my aperture more or raised my ISO to get back to that rule of thumb of 1/125 with kids (& my shaky hand) - I can see motion blur zoomed in.

Before I even opened it in Camera Raw I was pretty sure the best solution would be to convert to B&W.

So I piddled a bit with it before just deciding to use an action from the Pioneer Woman. I don't use any actions as part of my normal workflow, but if you're looking for an entertaining read or want to try some free Photoshop or PSE actions you should take a look at her blog.



post-processing

<-- The SOOC shot. I was able to remove most of the fog by adjusting the exposure in Camera Raw - moving the black in to the edge of the histogram shifted the most of the colors back to normal, but the photo is still soft as a result of my slow-ish shutter speed and the foggy lens. I ran Pioneer Woman's B&W Beauty action and added a color fill layer in a ultra-soft pink at 30% opacity using a channel mask (only affected areas less than 50% gray) just to change the tone of the photo.

2010 - Week 33, Posing

Tutti Frutti Yogurt Shop - The First Day of Kindergarten
August 13, 2010 12:37 pm
Nikon D90, 50mm 1.8
Manual, No Flash, ISO 200, SS 1/640, f/1.8
RAW, Pattern Metering, AF-S, WB in Auto

After typing my data in for the photos I chose I realized that just changing lens on your camera and then throwing it in your purse, pulling it out in a hurry and dialing it to Manual and adjusting the shutter speed without thinking is NOT the best way to get the shot you want.

I would have probably not chosen to shoot at f/1.8 because its really hard (for me) to get both eyes in focus when I am that wide open. At f/1.8 and this close you don't even get both eyes & eyebrows in focus, so if you don't get the focal point right you just can't save it at f/1.8.

One of the things I struggle with - and maybe I shouldn't - is getting the "same" picture of both of them. Unless I am shooting them together I am inevitably taking a picture of one of them and then either standing up to shoot over the first one or trying to get girl #2 to be in the same spot as girl #1 was. Alena's glasses add a new dimension to that task.

You can tell I had to shoot over Alena because Iva is looking up at me which causes her eyes to be more open and you can see more of the lashes which is always beautiful if you get the focus. Both of these poses are very pleasing to me though and the wide open aperture and close range allowed the distracting background of the yogurt shop to just blend away - and this is why the 50mm is so popular for portrait photography.

Not noticing that my camera was in pattern metering is what I think caused a difference in white balance that I had to correct in Camera Raw. I almost always use spot metering so I have no idea what I was photographing the other day that I would have switched to pattern/evaluative metering.





post-processing
Adjusted white balance for Iva's photo. Did a level adjustment layer on their iris/pupil to pop the catch lights. Iva's allergies are causing her to have chapped lips right now so I used the healing brush to eliminate most of the dry, flaky skin.

2010 - Week 32, Depth of Field

Kitchen Table
August 7, 2010 8:15 pm
Nikon D90, 50mm 1.8
Manual, No Flash, ISO 1000, SS 1/250, f/1.8
RAW, Spot Metering, AF-S, WB in Auto

I'm so happy that my latest Project 52 photos are more everyday moments in their life, this night the girls were only one week away from starting Kindergarten and they wanted to practice their letters.

This low light situation was perfect for the 50mm 1.8. Even with the lens allowing as much light in as possible I had to crank up the ISO to 1000. With the shutter speed at 1/250 I had one stop of light I could have used. I'm slowly starting to learn that I have to "over-expose" my photos when manually metering to get them to be brighter, and occasionally I remember to meter +2/3 stops, but on this night I didn't, which when I fixed in Camera Raw, shows in the noise you can particularly see in the shadow on the 2nd photo.

Even though I used f/1.8 for both shots, you can see how the DOF varies based on angle and distance.  I had to be further away in the first photo to get both hands in the frame and it's easy to see where the focus starts and then falls off by looking at the letters.    It's harder to see the fall off on the 2nd photo, but I think it starts right after the pen which is a smaller DOF due to me being a couple inches closer.

I also LOVE how Iva is adding curly cues to her letters already.   It probably won't serve her well in Kindergarten to be artistic with her writing, but I love how it shows her creative ability and her free spirit.   She also signs her name Iva ♥ K, which is TOO cute, but not good in a school setting.





post-processing
Adjusted overall exposure in camera raw, and changed WB to Tungsten.

2010 - Week 30, Bounced Flash

Family Room
August 1, 2010 8:56 pm
Nikon D90, 18-105 3.5-5.6 VR @ 38mm
Manual, Bounced SB600 Flash, ISO 640, SS 1/40, f/4.5
RAW, Pattern Metering, AF-S, WB in B3

I just love it when the girls lay on the sofa watching TV in this pose. I know they won't fit this way much longer and I wanted to be sure to capture it for their book so they could look back and see more real moments of their lives. Iva has "green", her beloved blanket and we had been at the pool until 8 pm so this is more of how we look on a daily basis.

I decided to wait until nighttime to take a shot so I could try and bounce the flash. I haven't put the SB600 on the camera in months and had never tried bouncing the flash off the wall behind me. I made my sister get the SB600 when she bought her DSLR this spring and I was showing her how to use it when we were back home in June and got much better results bouncing it behind me than off her ceiling - and her walls are deep green.

I started off as close to the bounce flash rule of 4/4/4 guideline - ISO 400, f/4.0, 1/40 as possible, but with the variable aperture lens I wasn't able to get down to f/4.0. I wasn't bouncing off a solid surface either, but instead a bookshelf, so I didn't get as much light reflected back, so bump up my ISO 1/3 stop more than the 1/3 stop aperture difference from the guideline. I didn't check my histogram and was just basing it off the LCD and so I didn't bump it quite far enough (see post-processing note). The first shots were very warm so I adjusted my WB to B3 and got realistic color.

Bouncing the flash behind me allowed me to get larger catch lights than I would have bouncing off the ceiling, and since the light was bounced there are no harsh shadows.

I could have grabbed my 35mm to do this shot, but I like testing things with a kit lens, because its a good example of how the majority of moms with a camera could handle a situation.



post-processing
I had to adjust the exposure in Camera Raw which I could have fixed while shooting if I had been paying any attention to my histogram. Not really an issue with RAW files, but fixing the exposure caused just a hint of noise to come out of the photo - but the good news is that the noise was caused by a default setting in Camera Raw, not really anything to do with the photo itself.

I have been so frustrated by noise and how to fix it in Camera Raw and a post this week by Damien allowed the light bulbs to finally twinkle in my head. Damien lives in Australia, but offers one-on-one Photoshop training via Skype and it was SO wonderful. Sliding the color slider back to 0 cased the bit of graininess I saw to dissolve away. Now if I could just have the same light bulb moment with sharpening for print. I also did a quick level adjustments on just their iris/pupil to make the catchlight pop.