If you’re like a lot of photographers who have been in the business a while, you probably have a box of old slides somewhere. If you’re like me, you have cases and cases of old slides, negatives and prints stacked in a warehouse.
Maybe it’s time to move your old film and transparency legacy into the digital world. There are some options for doing it yourself, or sending them off to someone to do it for you.
You can send them to a place like Larsen Digital where it will generally run $0.25 to $0.35 to have them done for you. If you’re like me, you’d have to sell your car to pay that tab.
Doing it yourself means getting a slide scanner. There are two ways to go: Cheap or spend some money to get a decent scanner.
I tried a Pacific Image scanner with limited success. It’s adequate but painfully slow. The specs say 25-90 seconds per slide, depending on resolution, but mine seemed to take forever.
Like with many things in photography, you get what you pay for. A better option for me is the Plustek OpticFilm 7600 Ai. It’s only marginally faster, but it’s doing a 4-pass scan and averaging the values. The scans look fantastic as it’s using 48 bit color depth.
A scan of a slide I took at the Hanford Reservation in Washington State
The software that comes with the Plustek does an excellent job of dirt and scratch removal, which is fortunate because I can’t seem to work up the energy to make a couple passes with a static brush before putting them on the scanner.
Better than the average group photo - Next time break up the big group a little - by Walter Ching
You can always tell the holidays are coming when manufacturers scramble to stock shelves with the latest in point-and-shoot technology before everyone heads home for the holidays. Models like the Pentax Optio RZ18 and the Olympus Pen E-PM1 decorate store shelves before people travel thousands of miles for that most dreaded of all holiday activities, family photos.
People have been trained by both the process and results to give family photo time the kind of welcome usually reserved for a root canal.
So let’s all break the dysfunctional family photo trauma this year. Take these tips and come up with some family photos that are not only fun to shoot but tell a more intimate story. Instead of the usual group photo, let’s see if we can come up with a process that will help you find a better holiday moment.
Practice a Pose
You know there are going to be pictures, so job one will be finding a pose you can hit in two seconds that looks good. Something you can turn on anytime a camera swings your way.
One trick that almost always works is to turn your shoulders at a 45 degree angle to the camera, called “cheating to the camera” and then turn your head back to the lens, chin angled slightly. If you have problems with a double chin, this trick will avoid the horror of the drivers license photo look and will smooth out any wrinkles along the neck line.
If you’re going to cheat toward the camera, do keep the open side of the cheat toward the person you’re sitting next to or it will look awkward.
Another trick is not to look directly at the camera, which avoids red eye. Look just off to the left or right, but not so much it looks like you’re disconnected from the scene.
Get In Close
If you can see your subjects feet in a standing photo, you are way too far from them. Get in close, really close. When you think you’re in close enough, take another two steps in.
Crop out as much distracting background and foreground as possible.
Turn Off The Flash Indoors
I realize that sounds counter-intuitive but built-in camera flashes are terrible for indoor lighting. They’re harsh, flat and unflattering. Turn the flash off and get as much natural light as possible on the scene. Window lighting is the best, only station yourself so the window is behind you. You don’t want the window in the shot, you just want the light.
In some situations you can’t avoid using the camera flash, in which case spend $10 and get yourself an on-camera flash diffuser.
Now you think I’m deliberately trying to confuse you. Turn the flash off when you usually need it and on when you usually don’t!
Find some open shade, place your subject and then set the on-camera flash to mandatory. On camera flash units are usually terrible for lighting indoor scenes, but they’re fantastic for fills.
Get A Lot of Shots
Move in close and get a lot of shots and a few of them are bound to turn out. Most cameras these days, even the point-and-shoot models, have a burst mode. Use it. Storage space is cheap and you can always sort through the shots and pick out the winners later.
Shooting a lot of shots also gives people more time to relax and get comfortable with the camera around. On a professional studio shoot it’s not unusual for photographers to shoot 2,000 or more photos in a single shoot with both the model and photographer in nearly constant motion. There’s a reason for that. You never know what’s going to turn out, so you shoot everything. It’s surprising how many times the difference between a good shot and an amazing shot is a few millimeters.
Break Up Big Groups
So many group photos look like a police line up where a witness is identifying the killer and the people in the photo frequently look just as uncomfortable.
Avoid the police lineup. Group people and arrange the groups - by Mafue
It helps to break up big groups into smaller ones, arranged in some kind of order. Have husbands and wives stand together and arrange the groups instead of everyone in a line. Have some people sitting down, some standing up, try different arrangements. It will be much more interesting visually. Another oddity that happens when you break up the big groups is it seems to make everyone more comfortable.
9/11 transformed photographers into potential spies - By Andrea Booher
I remember exactly what I was doing and who told me about the planes hitting the towers. I’d be willing to bet most of us remember what we were doing on that day 10 years ago. Ironically, I was at a place where cameras weren’t allowed, so no one will get to see my shots of that day.
For photographers 9/11 changed the perception rather than the reality. All of a sudden, someone taking pictures was suspicious behavior. Security guards felt empowered to claim the sidewalks in front of their building, as if any public space was suddenly a terrorist target and photos were aiding the enemy. We were no longer merely hobbyists or professionals pursuing our craft, we were potential spies.
Restrictions on photography started getting crazy as authorities at every level decided they had an obligation to do something to make themselves feel safer, even if that was something as useless as hassling photographers. The world was paranoid on a massive scale and we were conveniently visible.
I was with a pool of photographers outside a court room one time shortly after the attack when one of several people complained to the police we were taking photos of the building. The police, who knew us, patiently explained we were photographers and it was alright. Not good enough for one older gentleman who continued to insist he should “check them out.” Even though we were together in a group and all had press passes to work in that area. Finally, the media rep from the city arrived and asked us to move out of the lobby to an area under the stairs, so we didn’t disturb people. We were regulated to the status of trolls under the bridge, which I guess is better than spies.
Fortunately, in the last 10 years sanity has largely returned, although the sight of a camera still throws some low-level people with the IQ of a grapefruit into a security awareness tizzy. It still can be problematic shooting at train stations and airports and the days of being able to camp at the end of the runway to shoot pictures of incoming planes are over in many places. Some security guards are still trying to claim the sidewalk, but by and large, there are fewer people lunging at camera lenses.
Still, every so often I still hear a cop or security guard remind me that “everything changed after 9/11”.
Do you have a post-9/11 photography paranoia story to share? Had your camera equipment confiscated or had the police try to make you delete pictures? Share it in the comments section.
Kodak teaches picture frames new tricks - photo Kodak
There’s an old saying you can’t teach a dog new tricks, but Kodak has taken the digital picture frame and taught it a few new neat tricks that have the potential to take photography another step up the evolutionary scale.
Two Kodak Pulse digital picture frames, released late last year, the W1030S 10 inch diagonal model and the W730S 7 inch diagonal model feature an aSi TFT active matrix screen with 800 x 600 resolution in 4:3 format with a 400:1 contrast ratio. The frames come stock with 512 MB of internal memory, plus two card slots and a USB port.
The frame is wi-fi enabled and features touch-screen control menus that are easy to use.
Probably the neatest trick is the integration with Kodak’s web site, which allows you to manage all your frames features from the web and gives your frame its own email address. Friends and relatives can email photos to your picture frame from anywhere in real time. You can also set up your frame to download pictures automatically from either Facebook or Kodak Gallery.
It’s a small step in technology, with some reports of inconsistent service from early models, but Kodak brings the price point down a notch from some of the other wi-fi enabled picture frames and makes the technology far more approachable for novice users. Prices have come down some this year from their introduction, making them all the more attractive.
I can imagine it won’t be long before some events are offering live photo previews and professional photographers start offering services like live wedding photos, as the ceremony is taking place, for friends and relatives who can’t be there. That’s a step beyond where even this frame puts us, but as the ubiquity of wi-fi enabled image display devices increases, the demand for complimentary services will increase.
Casual dress is not only accepted, it's required - photo by Mike
There are a few simple tricks that can make shooting on a beach a lot easier. If you’re going to need to set up lights, check to see if you’re going to need a permit. While it’s a good idea to check anyway, I’ve found that with small, portable gear I can be set up, get my shots, and be gone before anyone even notices.
For one, if you’re shooting in daylight, big flash units are not going to be necessary. A folding reflector and portable flash will usually be enough for fill. The great thing about the beach is when you need sand bags, all you have to carry are the bags. I use zip-lock storage bags filled with sand to ballast my reflector, and you can dig out the sand a little underneath to change the shape of the reflector and the angle.
Keep a couple extra bags and some gaffer tape in your bag in case the surf is up and the wind off the ocean. Salt spray will coat your optics and very few camera internals react well to exposure to salt water.
If you are worried about getting your camera wet you might consider investing in a waterproof camera, they are perfect for the beach, and you can even take them for a swim.
Grab three of these and cut a small hole for your tripod feet
For your tripod, grab three old tennis balls and cut a small hole in them. Fit the balls over the end of your tripod legs and use gaffer tape around the holes on top. That keeps your tripod from sinking in the sand and throwing off your level. It also keep sand out of the gears on the tripod feet.
Another trick I’ve used is taking a regular small beach umbrella and lining it with aluminum foil. It makes a perfect flash bounce and folds up in a blink.
Beach umbrella and some aluminum foil makes a great reflector - Photo by Molku Of course the best part about shooting on the beach is you can dress casual and blend right in. Use a beach bag instead of your usual camera bag and you mingle in with the tourist crowd without raising any eyebrows.
