Saving the World One Pixel at a Time

Dick Stolley who many consider to be Time-Life’s best Managing Editor once told People magazine’s photographers that a successful image elicited a “Gasp Factor” from the viewer. Stolley said  if the image stopped the reader, forced them to take a second look at it, read the story’s headline, and then perhaps the rest of the story, the photograph passed his test. Often the best photographs—those “Gasp Factor” ones—are made under less than ideal lighting conditions. These images are often made on dark cloudy stormy days, at the crack of dawn, at sunset, or in the dark of the night.

0.4 sec at f/3.5 and ISO 2000

There are few if any secrets about capturing images when light is low. The ingredients are a simple witches brew that include fast lenses, high ISO settings, and an appropriate camera support. What sets a successful image apart from a less successful one is how these ingredients are combined and what you did before the image was made. A sunset can happen rather quickly, so it’s important to have most of your work done ahead of time. Before snapping the shutter, you should already know which ISO setting and lenses you’re planning to use so that’s why it’s a good idea to scout the location and determined the best spot to place your camera. Knowing the exact time of sunset will let you be in position so that when that golden hour arrives (and quickly departs) you are free to concentrate on the proper exposure and properly framing the image.

Just as with sports cars, bullet trains, and Internet connections, being fast is great for camera lenses too. It’s much easier to take photographs in low light with an f/1.4 or f/2.0 lens than with a f/5.6 lens because it produces a bright viewfinder (or Live View image) and gives you more choices for a matching shutter speed. Lens companies don’t bury us with choices, usually selling just two or three similar lenses in the same focal length range and designed to work under normal lighting conditions. In photographic terms, “normal” means outdoors on sunny day. Out here in the real world where we all live and make photographs, “normal” lighting may be overcast weather, under the shade of trees or buildings, or in brightly lit rooms (one with skylights or maybe large and plentiful windows.) Basic zoom lenses supplied on point-and-shoot cameras and bundled with entry level SLRs have maximum apertures ranging from f/3.8 to f/4, f/4.5, and even f/5.6. Some point-and-shoots cameras only have an f/6.3 maximum aperture!

Not surprisingly, zoom lenses for SLRs come in fast or slow varieties. Many of the slower zoom lenses have a floating maximum f/stop. That means the maximum opening changes within the lens’ zoom range. A 24-105mm f/3.5-5.6 zoom lens is a good example. At the widest focal length of 24mm the maximum aperture is the f/3.5. As the lens is zoomed toward the telephoto end, that maximum aperture shifts to f/5.6. The downside is that fast lenses cost more and with digital SLR’s performance getting better and better at high ISO’s, is the fast lens going to go the way of the passenger pigeon? I don’t think so because; right now anyway, nothing can replace that big, bright image in the viewfinder.

Joe is the co-author of “Better Available Light Digital Photography” published by Focal Press.

To maximize image quality, correct exposure is critical and maybe more so for digital capture than for film. The exposure latitude (the ability to over or underexpose an image) is greater with color negative film than for any other type of media. Slide film, on the other hand, has the least latitude, especially on the overexposure side. In practice, digital sensors currently respond more like a hybrid of those two different kinds of color film. There is little latitude for overexposure because any image data is literally wiped out but underexposure has more latitude, almost as much as film. The downside of underexposure is the creation of noise or what you might see in a digital photograph that appears to be “grain.” The secret to obtaining the most image quality, as in all forms of photograph, is to properly expose the image.

Pianists practice their scales and photographers need to practice exposure. Sometime the best solution is to shoot a series of exposures of your subject varying exposures from what would normally be considered underexposure to overexposure. It’s called “bracketing” and most cameras offer an automatic bracket option as seen at right on a Pentax digital SLR. In the best of all possible worlds, I start by making an exposure using whatever manual or automatic mode I think is correct for the situation and then after evaluating its histogram adjust the camera’s exposure compensation control accordingly. When in doubt, I do what photographers have done since the invention of 35mm film—bracket like crazy.

Because the LCD preview screen on most digital cameras appears to exaggerate the image’s contrast it’s easy to get what you think is a well-exposed image but what is really slightly underexposed. Only the image’s histogram reveals the truth. Practice your bracketing and gradually you will learn how to evaluate the image on your LCD screen and make exposure adjustments without looking at the histogram.

While learning and refining their skills, most photographers progress through three distinct phases in their development.

The first phase occurs immediately after they get their first “good” camera and discover the medium’s potential for fun and creativity. During this time, novice shooters enthusiastically photographically explore their world and every memory card is chock full of files that contains images that look so much better than they could have ever imagined. That’s me at left in 1955, a Brownie Hawkeye in my camera bag while climbing the steps of the Washington Monument in DC.

Unfortunately, this blissful period doesn’t last long and is quickly replaced by the next and much longer phase. During phase two, the photographer’s level of enthusiasm is still high but is somewhat diminished when reviewing their latest images only to discover that these new photographs are much worse than they expected. Part of dealing with this phase has to do with managing expectations. One of the biggest influences on my photography is the movies. One of my earliest available light portraits was this (above) homage to François Truffaut’s 1971 film Two English Girls. It was made in a friend’s back yard using a Contax 137 MD Quartz with a Carl Zeiss 85mm f/1.4 lens and Kodak color negative film, exposure unrecorded. In those days, one of my reasons for using the Contax system was those superb Carl Zeiss lenses and their delightful bokeh effect they produce when used wide open.

Unfortunately, this phase can last a long time but as the photographer continues to improve their skills by reading magazines and books, and—most important of all—practicing their art, they eventually reach the third and final phase. At this point, the images the photographer sees in their viewfinder and what they actually capture is exactly what they expected. There are no surprises. While reaching this phase can be fulfilling, some of the magic is understandably lost.

Sometimes that right combination of lighting, subject, and photographer’s mood and inspiration will capture a magic moment and that’s why I like working with available light; you remove all the headaches of dealing with lighting equipment to focus on the subject. If you would like to experience some of that same thrill of discovery that occurred during that first phase of your photographic education, I’d like to suggest that you make a few photographs of your own when the available light may not be so available.

Guest Post by Jason Anderson, Canon Blogger

There’s an age old axiom that says you truly are not an expert or well-versed in any field until you’ve practiced it for 10,000 hours.  Think about that number.  Ten thousand!  That sounds pretty daunting.  It means taking a lot of photos to get to that level.  Let’s just assume for a minute that in photography, 10,000 hours = 10,000 photos.  That would still take a lot of time.

If you take one photo a day, it will take you 10,000 days to become fluent with photography, or 27 years!  One good photo a day means it will take you twenty seven years to become fluent in the field of photography.  Look at how that extrapolates out:

• Two photos/day = 5000 days (14 years)
• Four photos/day = 2500 days (6 years)
• Eight photos/day = 1250 days (3.5 years)
• Sixteen photos/day = 625 days (2 years)

I don’t know about you, but the last time I took sixteen good photos in one day was…well, um, never really!  I could go into a long soliloquy about learning the craft encompassing more than just taking good photos.  And it’s true.  You learn when you take bade photos, because you’ve eliminated a process that doesn’t work.  You also learn from reading articles, books, attending seminars and workshops.  Learning a craft is much more than just one photo, but the math still holds true.  So, even if you spend four hours a day learning about photography, it will be a long time before you are fluent (at least 6 years anyway, right?).

The caveat now is that learning a trade or craft is more than just study and reading – it’s also doing.  So, in all of this, let’s say it breaks down to about 25-25-50 in percentages.  I say this primarily because you learn so much more from doing than studying and reading.  In the field of photography, this means taking pictures.  You have to take pictures (both good and bad) to become a good photographer.  Now comes the stickler – the question that I was asked and is the title of this post:  which photos count?

When learning, and studying your craft, does the crappy iPhone photo count?  The stupid cheesy grin shot you did with your “bff” at the beach?  My answer (surprise surprise) starts with “It depends…”  That’s the first part…the second part is:

What did you learn from that photo?

If the answer is – “I learned that on camera flash works with a portrait and the sun setting behind you”, then yes, it counts!  If the photo is “Well, I learned that on camera flash in a studio shot of a digital telephone doesn’t work too well because of excessive specular highlights”, then hell yeah, it counts!  The converse also holds though too.  If you take a snapshot during your vacation with yourself and your s.o (significant other) at Plymouth Rock, and it never sees the light of day past your refrigerator, then no, it does not count!  If you learn or gain nothing from a photo you took, it doesn’t count. Sort or sift through your library of images with this frame of mind, and perhaps you can better answer the question of “Which photos count”!

Visit Jason Anderson at his blog “Canon Blogger” for more tutorials, articles and photo nuggets!

Whenever I travel for fun or business I always look to see what kind of automobile museums are in that area and along the way I’ve gotten to photograph some great private collections and museums. If you call or e-mail ahead of time to make arrangements to make photographs sometimes (and just sometimes) the people in charge of the collection or museum might just make arrangements for you to photograph the cars out-of-hours when there’s no people standing in your way, so getting great shots is a lot easier. If this happens, return the favor and offer to give the museum a CD of your images.

If you find yourself in the Albuquerque area, be sure to take the short trip to Los Ranchos and visit the Unser Racing Museum. Unlike a lot of car collections, the Unser Museum is actually a museum that uses  modern technologies to educate and immerse the visitor in the exciting world of racing. You can take a guided tour and learn about the Unser family history from the early days of racing from Pikes Peak and Indianapolis, including a racing simulator and interactive kiosks with details on many of the cars.

The museum staff is friendly and knowledgeable and I had a great time talking with them about the histories of the various cars on display—and display they are using state of the art lighting that creates dramatic lighting, so photographers will want to shoot at high ISO settings. (Flash will only produce ugly images.) After some experimentation I used ISO 6400, which was the highest for the Canon EOS Rebel T3 that I brought with me on that occasion. On of the treats of my visit was to actually get a chance to meet and talk with Al Unser Sr. who was visiting he museum that day. That’s the car he won his last Indy 500 behind us.

The museum was  expanded to include an  annex that contains  more racing history, cars, and memorabilia. The annex contains fully restored antiques, to Indy 500 pace cars along with some rare race cars. There’s also a trophy room filled with thousands of unique items, a  library spanning the history of racing, original artwork, and lots more!

The Unser Museum is located at 1776 Montaño Road NW Los Ranchos de Albuquerque, NM 87107. 505-341-1776

Winter Hours: Nov 1 to Apr 30 – Open Fri-Sun 10:00am to 4:00pm

Summer Hours: May 1 to Oct 31 – Open Daily 10:00am to 4:00pm

Admission: Adults $10, Seniors & Military $6, Kids under 16 are free

If you like cars and photographing cars, please visit my sister site and blog JoeFaraceShootsCars.com.