No flash photography
I have to admit something to all of you. I don’t have a flash. I haven’t owned one in three years. I haven’t missed one in five years. I don’t expect I will ever own one or miss one again. Why? Because I find the combination of high ISO photography and the tricks and power of Lightroom have made flash unnecessary. It also helps to be wise and clever enough to find situations to photograph that don’t need flash. Let me explain. Most of my photography these days has been confined to an old dairy farm. (My book on the farm will be coming out in June) This means that I have been photographing inside a lot in pretty dark places. My results have been spectacular and I have never, ever used a flash. The trick is to use the highest viable ISO (the highest without too much noise) and find a situation with nice light. And then just fire away! This is a photo of Hugh, the 93 year old farmer. Notice the nice light on his face and the lack of shadows. This is because I waited to take his picture in a location where there was light bouncing off the floor of the barn on to his face. This is why there are no shadows under his hat. There is no flash that I know of that will be able to take this shot as easily as I did without flash. The little calf was lying in the darkest part of the barn. I didn’t have the option of using flash because I didn’t want to disturb the calf or the cows immediately to my side. So I waited for just a touch of light coming from a side window and with my ISO set at 1600 took this picture. I was also hand-holding my camera. How is that for breaking all the rules and still getting a nice shot? With Lightroom flash has become unnecessary because the program allows very precise selective lightening of areas. This effect is the same as using the flash in fill mode. Think about it- isn’t fill flash the same as throwing light into a dark area? So if you can selective lighten an area of your photograph in Lightroom why use fill flash? Got me!
Wintery Photography
This is the time of the year when our thoughts turn to the photographic possibilities of winter. For me that meant getting pictures that looked like a winter wonderland, whatever that meant. But it took me awhile to figure out why some of my pictures looked wintery yet others looked dull and, dare I say, depressing.
A Hoe for Roger
“The barn needs a new hoe.”
“You’re tellin’ me. What happened to the old hoe?”
“I couldn’t fix’r. Got all loose and then I broke’er.
ISO is the Way to Go!
Here is a quick way to tell a former film shooter from an only digital shooter. It doesn’t work all the time but it works much of the time and when it does work it opens a wonderful teachable moment. What is this identifier? It’s the ISO. Lots of former film shooters never change their ISO when they shoot digital and if they do they never go higher than what they were comfortable with in film. This behavior falls under the old dog/new tricks rubric. It is perfectly understandable. In the good old film days a photographer could change the f-stop and the shutter speed to get the desired result. In order to change the ISO one had to change the roll of film. Film shooters either carried an extra camera body with a different ISO film or learned how to roll the film back into the camera and then reload it back to the correct spot. And we all knew never to use film with an ISO higher than 200. Anything higher was grainy and basically unusable. Then along comes digital photography and along with the ability to change the f-stop and aperture on every shot it was now possible to change the ISO as well. Shooting in low light and can’t get enough shutter speed to stop that animal or child you are photographing in the fading light? Just increase your ISO a few stops to 640 or 800 or 1250 and shoot away! Or are you shooting in nice light but want to use a longer shutter speed to slow down the water in the stream to blur it or you want to soften waves as they break against the shore? Just lower your ISO to 200 or 160 or 100 and shoot away. Being possible and actually doing it are two different things. Many former film shooters still have in their celluloid brains the prohibition of shooting at ISOs higher than 200 no matter what the circumstances. I have learned through my workshops that when I suggest shooting at a higher ISO many digital shooters balk. Part of the problem is also that these shooters have heard that the highest quality ISO is the lowest ISO so they are reluctant to shoot any ISO that is much higher than 200. While this is true, it is also true that higher ISOs are plenty good enough. I shoot at 640 regularly and have no problem shooting at ISOs of 800, 1250 or 1600.All of these images are high quality, good enough to be published in calendars, books, magazines and to be used for prints and in my presentations. Now you have to know how high you can go with your ISO before the image begins to break down. When I got my D300 I tested the quality of the images at various ISOs. I learned that up to ISO 1250 the images were fine, at ISO 1600 there was some noise (colored graininess) but not bad and easily cleaned up in the computer but at ISO 2000 the images broke down and they looked awful. Every digital photographer should know where the ISO line in the sand is for his or her camera. Do a test and see at what ISO you get a little noise and at what ISO the noise is unacceptable. And then feel free to use any ISO below this threshold. ISO is a new third tool in the basic digital photographer’s bag. Use it with f-stop and shutter speed and you will extend your photographic possibilities. And that is a good thing.
These Days
What was interesting was comparing how things were back then, in the days of film, and how things are now, in the days of digital.
Pretty Picture
Taken in Acadia National Park between workshops. Looking south toward Otter Cliffs. Handheld because I was out for a wander. 16-85mm Nikon lens. Just after sunrise. Not bad. Not great. Okay. I guess I’ll have to go back and do it right!
I Don’t Get It
I don’t get it. I just don’t get it. Why would people pay to go on a workshop where the leader actively photographs? They are subsidizing the leader’s photography at THEIR expense!!
Acadia Sunrise
I know I never get sunrises on my workshops. That is true. But this wasn’t on my Acadia workshop, it was two days later.
4-Wheel blind
It really doesn’t get much easier than this. As soon as I got in the car robins started showing up. At times there were 5, 6 or 7 robins in the tree, moving around, gobbling up the berries, posing nice as can be. As soon as one or two left another one or two flew in. There was constant activity so there were constant opportunities for pictures
Playing on the dark (and white) side
Moe took us to a falls on McDonald Creek and I was playing with a little riffle in the big falls as a foreground element. I took a vertical and horizontal shot using the riffle to lead the viewer into the composition