Category: Tips

Photography In Cold Conditions

log cabin covered in snow
Working in cold conditions requires some pre-planning and spare batteries - By K3vin

Not all of us are lucky enough to live in a tropical paradise and winter brings with it the challenge of shooting in cold conditions. More specifically, going from the dry warmth inside to the sometimes frigged temperatures outside and then back in again can give your camera fits.

The most important consideration is condensation. Bringing a cold camera into a warm, moist environment will cause water in the air to condense on your expensive camera equipment and it will not make an improvement.

One facet of cold weather shooting is protecting your camera from rapid temperature changes in either direction. The easiest way to do that, is to seal your camera in a bag, trapping it with air at ambient temperatures. Then when you take it inside the condensation forms on the bag and not your camera internals and the temperature in the bag will adjust at a slower rate.

The dedicated photographers are the ones sitting in a freezing cold car waiting for their camera to equalize. Putting the bag on the hood of your car won’t work if you’re running the engine and leaving it on top of the car is an invitation to forget your camera is up there.

Another factor to consider shooting in cold conditions are your camera batteries. Cold temperatures will increase the internal resistance of your batteries. What was a marginal battery will quickly become useless in cold temps. Always have a spare battery in an inside pocket, close to your body where it is warm.

The other thing to consider is your own exposure. I don’t know about you, but when I’m taking pictures I lose track of everything else. I once saw a video of a wreck at an auto race when a car came over the rails and killed a pair of photographers near the wall. Someone near me asked how that could happen, and I said it was because they were trying to get the shot.

Pay attention to exposed skin, losing feeling and numb feet. Those are signals it’s time to go in for a while.

Boudoir Photography Basics

Boudoir photography can be rewarding but take time to learn the business first - By Kate Sharp

One of the first areas of photography that people outside the business tend to fantasize about is boudoir photography. I’ll admit there is a certain high five quality to the first time you get paid to take pictures of scantily clad women. The novelty wears off after the first few and you’ll be surprised how quickly it turns into just another location job. Although I still have to add the scenery is better than any cubicle job!

Boudoir photography is a trend that started 10 minutes after the first camera was invented. Once they figured out the photographic process worked, they started looking for some gal willing to take her clothes off. That’s pretty much the same feeling that’s evoked when a budding photographer gets a new camera. It’s a trend that ebbs and flows in popularity and lately it’s been making a come back.

Resist the temptation to run out and start advertising yourself as a boudoir photographer until you have a lot of experience shooting portraits and a good selection of lighting gear.

Lighting

Like with any other portrait, lighting will be key to getting quality results. The difficulty will be lighting the location, which will likely be outside the studio. If it’s possible, try to get photos of the room you’ll be working ahead of time, so you can adjust your lighting kit appropriately.

Also bring your own extension cords. Older homes may not have enough outlets for all your lighting gear. I use heavy duty cords, a power strip, and gaffer tape to make sure no one trips over them.

The key lighting features will be soft and warm. Soft boxes are a must and it’s good to have a selection of gels you can use to warm them up even more if necessary. I always carry half, quarter, and eighth straw gels because they’re particularly flattering for skin tones. You can also use the gold side of your reflector.

Nudity

I’ve found that some clothing or lingerie can actually be more alluring than being naked, but that will be dictated by your client’s comfort zone.

I encourage people to consider professional nudes when they’re at their youngest and hottest. You’ll be glad to have those shots in a few years after kids and life take a toll on your looks. But not everyone is comfortable with that thought, so let the client find their own comfort level. Sometimes I’ve had clients decide they were comfortable enough to try it after shooting started, so be adaptable.

Any time nudity is involved I have a nudity clause in the contract, get a copy of their photo identification, and give the client greater latitude over image rights. That doesn’t apply to commercial nudes, but boudoir clients are going to want to know their picture isn’t going to be hanging in a gallery somewhere.

Working Alone

I never work alone on boudoir shoots. I’ll almost always have my wife come along and prefer the client have a friend or relative on hand as well. I tend to err on the side of paranoia, but the last situation you ever want to get yourself into is a “he said, she said” about what happened on a boudoir shoot. On the flip side, if there are too many people running around it’s going to kill the mood and make the client nervous.

It’s sometimes requires a little tact and patience to balance the needs of a location shoot with a nervous client. I’ve found it’s actually better sometimes that I leave the room if the client is nervous and let my wife talk to them for a few minutes. When I hear them start laughing, I know it’s okay to get started again.

Just don’t jump into boudoir photography without learning the business first, at least start with some reading on the subject. You and your clients will have a much better experience.

Triage For A Dirty Camera Sensor

digital camera sensor
Your camera's sensor is the heart of your camera, treat it gently - By John Carney

The heart of any camera is the sensor. The computer is the brain but there isn’t a lot you can do as far as maintenance goes. Keep the firmware up to date and that’s about the extent of it.

But the sensor is another story. That’s where the images are being recorded and there’s a lot going on in the sensor bay. In most cameras there’s a mirror mechanism flipping up and down and those moving parts are lubricated at the factory. After that mirror flips up and down a couple thousands times, it sometimes happens that some of that sophisticated lubricant on the mirror mechanism ends up on your camera sensor.

Another way dust and dirt find their way on to your image sensor is changing lenses. No matter how careful you are changing lenses, short of a dust-free clean room protocol, sooner or later you’re going to get dust on your sensor. For some reason the most powerful attractive force in the universe for attracting dust is located in the sensor bay of your DSLR.

The day will dawn you start noticing spots in your photos. Little smudges that appear in the same spot photo to photo. The quickest way to check for grease and dirt is to go outside and shoot a patch of open sky at f/22. Then take the photo and jam the levels, you’ll see the smudges right away and clearly.

Sensor Triage

Okay, don’t panic. This happens to everyone sooner or later. You have several options for dealing with the problem, so just follow the protocol and you’ll be fine.

If you’re really worried, you can send your camera back to the manufacturer for cleaning. That will mean bouncing it across the country in a FedEx or UPS box and then the lab bounces it back to you. I’ve had cameras come back dirtier than they left, not because the factory guys did a poor job, but because of all the handling.

One gadget that’s indispensable is a lighted magnifier so you can see what you’re doing.

The other indispensable thing to have is a fully charged battery. If your battery dies in the middle of this operation, the mirror will drop back down, possibly on your cleaning tools. That will not make an improvement to the mirror mechanism. You will be sad.

Step 1 – Blower

The idea here is to see if you can dislodge the dust particle with a gentle puff of air. Do NOT get the tip of the blower too close to the sensor surface. Air at high enough pressure will mar the sensor cover. So just gently blow on the dust, it’s either going to come off or it isn’t.

Step 2 – Static brush

The next step is trying a specially made anti-static sensor brush. Do not use a lens brush! Sensor brushes are specially made.

Be really gentle. Anything that won’t come off with a gentle flick of the brush is probably lubricant.

Step 3 – Cleaning Kit

Lubricant is going to require a cleaning kit with methanol. Don’t mess around and try to cobble it together yourself. Spend the money and get a professional cleaning kit. There are detailed, step-by-step tutorials and instructions on their site. Follow them.

Take your time, don’t panic, and don’t try to cut corners and you’ll be fine.

Staying Motivated In Photography

photo walks
Photo walks and TFP shoots are great ways to network with other photographers

Staying motivated to take pictures is harder than it seems just sitting around thinking about it. When you first get a new camera, like many of you will this Christmas, taking pictures is easy. You’ll want to shoot everything in sight.

A month or two after the holidays, once the newness has worn off and the demands of daily life reassert themselves, your motivation will get worn down. It won’t happen all at once, it will be a gradual process that will sneak up on you. One day you’ll need your camera and the battery will be dead. It will dawn on you the camera has been in the closet for two years. That’s how it happens.

Whether you can keep your motivation for taking photos will determine if you make it as a photographer. There’s no better teacher than experience.

Here are some tips to maintain your motivation after the holidays.

Get Together With Other Photographers

Many local and regional photography professional associations have regular meetings where you can get together with professional photographers in your area and talk about equipment, technique, and the realities of the business. I would strongly encourage anyone thinking of going pro to do this. You will get a much more realistic idea of the realities of the business.

Many cities have photography clubs that meet regularly to take pictures.

Photo Walks

Photo walks are really just people getting together and walking around taking pictures. They can be free, group walks sponsored by a local club or the type you pay a guide to show you around.

Paid guides offer a lot of advantages, especially if you’re in a new city. They’ll know the best places to shoot and the right times to get the best looks. They’ll also sometimes know people and can get you into places you wouldn’t otherwise have access.

Photography Vacations

There are companies catering specifically to photographers for special events and photography vacations. Some combine the vacation with workshops to make it a learning experience.

Many times photography vacations can be had in exotic locations and come with accommodations and a local guide. Sure, it costs more but the peace of mind is invaluable. If I’m out taking pictures, that’s all I want to think about.

Take a Class

Another way to keep your motivation up is to take a class at a local university or community college. Many offer photography classes as adult education at night and on weekends. You’ll learn a lot and, in the process, meet other photographers in the area.

You might not need these tricks to keep your motivation up and, if you don’t, good for you. Otherwise, get out there and mingle with other photographers and you can help one another.

Understanding Exposure

exposure photo
Correct exposure in this instance is in the mind of the creator, not the firmware of the computer

At the most basic level exposure is the relationship between the ISO, aperture, and shutter speed. When you push the button on your camera in automatic mode, there are a fantastic number of calculations going on inside your camera’s computer. Besides autofocus, your camera is analyzing the lighting, scene type, the light reflecting off the subject, the dynamic range, the contrast, and boiling all that down to a single set of numbers by balancing a fantastic number of variables.

In the old days you did all those calculations with a light meter in one hand an exposure guide in the other and, even then, you bracketed just in case. When you nailed the exposure it was part art, part science and part pure, dumb luck.

Now all that’s over. The sensor and computer inside your Canon 5D MKII or Nikon D300 camera combine to create an imaging device that is, by historical standards, absolutely mind blowing. But, even today, exposure is part art. While your camera is incredibly good at the science, the art still has to come from you. Part of what makes photographers worth the money is knowing when to trust the computer and when to take over.

Take the scene above for instance, a father and son sweeping out the engine bay at our old fire station. That is a classic “meter cheater”, meaning the proper exposure does not yield the most artistic expression of the scene. The first thing the camera tried to do was activate the pop-up flash so it could light the foreground subjects. I had to override the computer and tell it to expose for the outside light and ignore the foreground.

My opinion is that full manual shooters are kind of an anachronism these days. Manual shooting is slow, even when you really know what you’re doing. Do it long enough and you can get amazingly good at dialing in the settings, but you’re missing out on a host of functionality the sophisticated programming in modern cameras affords you.  In controlled conditions, like a studio, you’ll be doing more manual shooting because the environment stays consistent.

More often these days, you’ll be telling the camera what you want to do either through soft menu settings or selectively managing certain components of the exposure. If you’re out shooting fast moving objects, you might tell the computer you need at least 1/500th of a second on the shutter speed and then let the computer manage the other settings.

You can tell the computer to make the exposure darker or lighter, to expose for a particular part of the picture while ignoring everything else, or to selectively change the contrast, color saturation, or sharpness. Knowing when to override the computer is one of the factors that go into becoming a great photographer.

In the old days that relationship was one way and dictatorial. You told the camera what to do all the time. Today it’s more of a cooperative relationship, more subtle. You and your camera work together. You do some things, the camera does some things. When you’re in a hurry, like chasing a story subject down the street outside the courthouse, or your camera is on the end of your monopod trying to get over the heads of the other reporters at a press conference, you trust the computer to do more because it can read a scene at the speed of light.

So, get out there and experiment with exposure and your camera menu settings. Use the AEB function (Automatic Exposure Bracketing) and compare the results. Experiment with aperture priority, shutter priority, and changing your camera’s presets. Do it until you can look at a scene and guess within an f-stop what settings your camera will choose.

Just because you don’t need to use all the manual settings all the time, doesn’t mean you don’t need to understand them.