Saving the World One Pixel at a Time

As is all of photography there are no one right way to do things, although seminar speakers may disagree arguing that only their way is the one, true perfect road. I disagree. There is no “my way or the highway” in photography; In my world you get to choose the way that works for you. Even a road less traveled is OK; if it produces the results you want. If it doesn’t, its time to look at some alternatives and fine-tune them to your favored subject matter and preferred way of working.

If we have a hand-held or in-camera manual meter setting of 1/500 sec at f/11 and want to use a slower shutter speed allow for subject or camera motion and set choose 1/125 sec you will have to adjust the aperture (make it smaller) so that that the same (equivalent) amount of light will fall on the sensor. By selecting aperture (Av) or shutter priority (Tv) mode, your camera does the equivalent exposure for you, eliminating the all of the guesswork.

1/80 sec at f/4.9 at ISO 200

Fifty years ago, a group of investors led by Johnny Weissmuller created a hotel called Los Flamingos that was located on Acapulco’s high cliffs. Areas such as this lanai capture those feelings today and if the porch isn’t 18% gray it’s close enough for a substitute reading. ©2012 Joe Farace

When using the substitution method, you replace an object within the scene with an object of known reflectance, such as a Gray Card and take a reflected-light meter reading from this object. (See Metering Limitations below) You can substitute objects that match the light reflectance quality of the object in the scene. Don’t have a gray card? Back in the film days I used to take a meter reading of grass (if there was any in the scene) and open up one stop but I don’t remember the last time I tried this old “rule of green thumb.”

Metering Limitations. Reflected light meters are calibrated to give an accurate exposure when pointed at subject with reflectivity near 18%; the exact value varies and the details are complex with some handheld meters measuring 12% with other meters at 14%. By placing a Gray Card in the scene to be photographed and taking a reading off of it with a reflected light meter, you can expect consistent exposures but sure be sure to read the fine print instead of just accepting the reading as correct. The instructions packed with the Kodak grey card, for example,  contain the following advice about adjusting meter readings:

• Normal subjects: “Increase the indicated exposure by ½ stop.”
• Light subjects: “for very light subjects decrease exposure by 1/ stop”
• Dark subjects: “If the subjects is dark or very dark increase the indicated exposure by one to one and one-half stops.”

Back when everybody was shooting film, testing was an important part of improving your photography and most people wouldn’t dream of shooting an assignment or important image before testing both the concept or gear ahead of time. Medium and large format studio shooters used lots of expensive Polaroid film to test shots before clicking the shutter with “real film” while the rest of us would shoot test rolls before trying new technique or new pieces of equipment.

1/200 sec at f/9 and ISO 1600

Then along comes digital capture providing instant feedback though LCD screens on camera backs everybody thought testing was no longer required; you could just test as you went along. This created a secondary phenomenon in which some shooters thought they no longer needed a back up. After all any problems would be immediately visible but some shooters never thought it through about what would they do if there was a problem. And believe me it happens, even with new gear.

The first problem is that not all LCD preview screens are accurate as far as color and contrast and especially not the same quality as the color correct monitor that’s sitting on your desk that is used to process images in Photoshop, Lightroom, or aperture.  Surprises lurk, so you need to test. One upon a time, I did some testing at a car show in advance of going to shoot in New Mexico the following week. One of the things I was testing was a new extreme wide-angle lens that I thought I would love but in actual shooting it was so wide (how wide was it!) that it was impossible to shoot any of the cars without getting lots of extraneous detail, including people walking into the shot. The camera’s LCD screen also showed there was slight vignetting caused by the built-in lens hood but when I looked at one of the images on my monitor it was much bigger than I thought. This lens was not going to New Mexico but I found out now, not when I was in the Land of Enchantment.

Testing also helps you plan ahead for those inevitable moments of stupidity. In addition to the SLR and wide-angle lens, I planned to bring along a pinhole (film) camera that shot a wide aspect ratio. I was happily testing away right up until lunchtime, when Mary and I took a break and that’s also when I knocked the camera onto the floor. (I’ll admit it, I’m a klutz.) The camera’s back popped open! And yes it was loaded with film. As luck would have it landed with the back side down, so I slipped the back on and went into the Men’s room and turned off the lights to more securely fasten the back. What this unplanned test showed me was more than the exposure and camera’s the angle of coverage I could expect but that I needed to bring some gaffers tape to keep the back securely closed.

Good carpenters say that you should measure twice and cut once. I think that we should test twice and shoot once.  And remember, there are no perfect photographs but that shouldn’t keep us from trying to make them.

My favorite lenses for indoor available light photography are fast prime focus lenses but I still occasionally use zoom lenses because when traveling you rarely have the kind of choices for camera locations and positions you have under more controlled conditions. If you care about image quality, forget the digital zoom feature found on some cameras. It simply crops and saves a small portion of the sensor’s data, then interpolates this new, smaller amount of image data. I usually refer to this feature as “mostly useless” because it is.

When working under low light I prefer to use image stabilized lenses or a camera body that has IS built-in. I’m not getting any younger and my ability to hold 1/15th of a second consistently is not quite as good as it was a few years ago. This means I’m more than likely to use an image-stabilized lens/body to have this technology help me capture a sharp image.

This image was shot near midnight in Old San Juan in Puerto Rico using an Olympus E-3 a Digital Zuiko 12-60mm f/2.8-4.0 lens. At 12mm, where this zoom was set, the aperture is a fast f/2.8 and I had selected an ISO of 800. Aperture Priority mode exposure was one sec at f/11 with a plus 0.7 stop exposure compensation. The E-3’s in-body image stabilization kept the camera steady at the slow shutter speed and it was shot in AWB (Auto White balance Mode.) In the digital darkroom, I tried cleaning up the color of white car in the foreground but it made the rest of the colors look funny and this color balance just seems to better represent what my eyes were seeing when I made the photograph. © 2012 Joe Farace

Slow shutter speeds: The average photographer can typically hand hold a camera at a shutter speed ’s equal to the reciprocal of the focal length of the lens although I have a suspicion that this number changes as we get older. Factoid: With focal plane shutters, the effective speed of the curtains at 1/1000’th of a second is the same as it is at 1/30’th of a second. At higher shutter speeds, the only thing changing is a narrowing of the gap between the two curtains.

During WWII my Dad tried to visit as many historic churches in Europe as he could so I guess I inherited that interest from him. The Cathedral of San Juan Bautista in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico is the second oldest cathedral in the Americas having started construction in 1521. I placed an Olympus E-3 with Zuiko Digital ED 12-60mm f/2.8-4.0 lens (at 12mm) on the cathedral’s floor to make this shot. Exposure was 1/13 at f/2.8 and ISO 1600. I tried variations of this shot using the camera’s AWB (too warm) and Tungsten (too cool) color balance setting and ended up using the AWB shot and correcting it using PictoColor’s Correct EditLab Pro but then faded (Image > Fade) the correction by 50% to produce the Goldilocks color balance you see here. © Joe Farace

Joe  is co-author of “Better Available Light Digital Photography” that’s available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and your friendly neighborhood book or camera store.

It doesn’t matter what you call it—available light, unavailable light, available darkness, or low light photography—often the most rewarding photographs are produced when working under challenging lighting conditions. Why?

First, there’s the thrill of overcoming the ever-present technical obstacles that prevent you from producing a well-exposed image under challenging lighting conditions. Second, photographs made under lighting conditions different from the classic instruction sheet admonition of “f/16 and the sun over your right shoulder” have a more eye-catching look. Third, since most travel photographs are made during the middle of the day, taking the time to search out other times will let you produce photographs that are different from the rest of the pack’s.

1/50 sec at f/3.2 and ISO 2500

One of my favorite tips for photographers who are traveling is to make a different kind of photograph each day. When I’m home I take a three-mile walk around a nearby lake and always take a camera because I never know what I’ll encounter on my walk. When I’m traveling, I take a similar walk at night because scenes, like this one at a mall near my hotel in Albuquerque, which looks completely different at night than it does during the day. I captured this image handheld, assisted by the Olympus E-5’s in-body image stabilization. To make it look even more different, I used Oly’s Pop Art mode to punch up the color adding a touch of unreality. © 2012 Joe Farace

To make successful low light images you’ll want to start with a combination of fast lenses and ISO settings often combined with a slow shutter speed. Unlike using film, digital SLRs can be set to record images at a number of different ISO speeds at any time and there’s also no problem with color shifts caused by reciprocity failure as there is with film. While you can always shoot at ISO 200 speed for available light photography, especially when using a tripod, you’ll probably want to bump up your camera’s ISO settings when the light is low. How much will be determined by how much digital noise—that’s exacerbated by slow shutter speeds and high ISO settings— you can tolerate.

1/2000 sec at F/8 and ISO 400

While its long since a cliché that you should always have a camera with you, sometimes you just don’t feel like lugging a digital SLR and a tripod, no matter how lightweight they may be, around all day. When the sun gets low on the horizon, I swap my SLR for a point-and-shoot camera like the Leica D-Lux 2 that was used to make this image on the beach at Acapulco near sunset. And while this camera does produce a little noise at the ISO 400 used to make this photograph, it’s mostly noticeable only in the boy’s white shirt. Exposure was in Program mode at 1/2000 sec at F/8. © 2012 Joe Farace

Continued on Tuesday…

There will come a time when none of your camera’s preset white balance settings will work and that’s when you need to use the Manual option. Sure, it’s a little more labor intensive but after you try it once, you’ll be amazed how well it works under difficult and mixed lighting conditions such as indoor exhibits, conventions centers, and museums. Start by photographing a sheet of white paper under the lighting conditions you want to correct. Tip: Did you know that the flip side of the Kodak Gray card is white? That’s my favorite tool for setting Manual white balance and it’s easy to stick an 8×10 card in my camera bag. If your camera case is small, cut the card in half.

You might shift your focus setting to Manual as well since focusing on a blank white paper might confuse your camera’s AF settings. If your test image is extremely over or underexposed, proper white balance may not be achieved. If that happens, adjust the exposure accordingly and start over again. Select Custom WB or Manual that typically displays the images stored on the memory card. On many Canon models you then press the WB button but you have to read your User’s Guide to see how it works for your specific camera. It’s just a matter of making a photograph under the lighting conditions your working and pulling a few menus and pressing a button. No matter what kind of camera you use, it’s that easy.

There are some alternative to this method: ExpoImaging’s ExpoDisc is a custom white balance filter that lets you easily set a custom white balance without having to carry, hold, position, or  gray cards, white cards or targets. Using your camera’s built-in custom white balance capability, ExpoDisc turns your camera into an incident color-metering tool enabling it to receive, scramble, and transmit light from the front of the disc through to the camera’s image sensor. Simply place the ExpoDisc in front of your lens and capture the incident light while setting your camera’s custom white balance. ExpoDisc consists of multiple layers of matched optical grade materials and is  calibrated to strict tolerances of light transmission and color neutrality. Each ExpoDisc is guaranteed for neutrality (+/- 2%) for picky shooters. ExpoDisc Digital White Balance Filters are available in six standard sizes: 58mm, 62mm, 67mm, 72mm, 77mm and 82mm, and in flat versions for modular filter systems.