Tethered shooting is connecting a computer to the camera when you shoot so the pictures you take a downloaded to the computer rather than (or in addition) to a memory card.
Usually, the camera and computer are connected by cable, hence tethering.
In this tutorial, I am going to go over tethered shooting, why (or when) you should shoot tethered, how it is done and what is the gear involved.
There are a lot of misconceptions about photography and copyright. Some of the more common questions (and wrong answers - at least on the net) concern copyright ownership, photo usage, online usage, fair use and licensing.
Others concern model releases, invoicing & payments (and their relations to copyrights) and legal documents and wordings.
Jack Reznicki and Ed Greenberg A.K.A The Copyright Zone (and authors the Photographer's Survival Manual: A Legal Guide for Artists in the Digital Age) have a great lecture on B&H indepth blog.
It is a one hour and fifty minutes long lecture, but it clears a lot of the questions and misconceptions around the subject of copyrights and well worth the time watching it.
[The Copyright Zone Guys | BH Event Space Videos] Click to continue ›
Just because your production has a small crew does not mean you cannot make a kick axx movie.
Just like everything in life, physical constraints can be overcame with creativity.
Vimeo Video School (am awesome resource by its own) just released an entertaining clip with three tips on enhancing production value without actually adding any resources to the production mix aside creativity and creative effort.
In my previous post I walked through the concept and shoot of my portrait of Mairi. At this point all I've got are a bunch of RAW (and jpg) files of the shoot. I know that I forgot to mention it in the last post, but for goodness sake if you can shoot RAW - do it. (It saved my butt with this image, as you'll see below).
Also, you'll be able to download my RAW file, and JPG output from RawTherapee below.
This is a long post.Seriously, this is the longest post I've ever written.I'm walking through many of the things I had previously written tutorials for, and apply them to a process this time so you can see them as part of a workflow.So, here's a Table of Contents so you can jump to the section you need: Click to continue ›
As promised, I thought it might be fun/helpful to walk through a portrait shooting session from start to finish using only Free/Open Source Software (F/OSS). This is my personal workflow, and hopefully I can do the subject some justice.
A Model Idiot.
I'm going to walk through the creation of a portrait of my friend Mairi that I did not too long ago. I had been wanting to shoot with Mairi for a while, and only recently got a chance to sit down and actually do it quickly. For reference, here is one of the final results that I'll be walking through the process for: Click to continue ›
Hey all, Benjamin "Von Wong" Montreal Based photographer here.
As a photographer who does creative collaborations and who freely invites fans he has never met before to attend shoots, I often end up with large sets of people to manage. Many photographers I know prefer to keep groups small and tight knit because they find that things can quickly get out of control but I have found that with a little careful management you can keep things fun for everyone AND deliver awesome imagery at the end of it.
I think one of the things that became a signature for me is that attending one of my shoots if fun. In this post, I'll share my thoughts on what makes the shoot fun, while keeping it productive. Bare in mind that this article is written specifically for creative collaborations, not for professional work. While it's a good idea to keep always keep shoots fun getting the image becomes the first priority when it is a paid job. Click to continue ›
This is part two of Ming Thein's series on Understanding Metering.
In part one we examined why metering is important, and how the basics of how meters work. In today’s article, I’lltake a closer look at the different types of metering, how they differ, and under what situations they should be deployed.
A sample viewfinder – in this case, a rough representation of the Nikon D2H/ D2X finder.
With that background out of the way, let’s look at how the various metering options work, and what typical situations they might best be deployed under. Cameras typically have three options, or some variation upon that. Within these options, it’s also usually possible to fine tune various aspects of the meter’s operation. I’m going to leave out handheld meter operation since this is something that’s almost never encountered today. An important point to note is that all meters can be fooled by situations of uniform luminance, so don’t trust the readout blindly. Remember, meters function by averaging the entire evaluated area out to middle gray; this means if your evaluated area is meant to be black or white, you’re going to need to add or subtract some exposure compensation. For predominantly light/ white scenes, you need to add; for dark scenes, subtract. This holds true for every one of the different metering methods detailed below. Click to continue ›
Bokeh, as you must know by now if you are a regular reader is a Japanese word that means blur. In photography the quality of Bokeh usually means how creamy is the out of focus area in the photograph.
Sometimes tough, Bokeh refers to the highlighted circles that we see in nightscape photos. Those out of focus street lights and car lights that turn into beautiful blurry discs.
The folks at The Slanted Lens did a great Bokeh oriented shoot in Times square. But... before that they did their almost scientific analysis run down on what creates a good highlight Bokeh from specular lights, comparing different focal lengths, and camera-to-subject-to-background variations. Click to continue ›
This is part one of Ming Thein's series on Understanding Metering.
An image from my recent Introduction to Wildlife workshop, and a very tricky metering situation – more importantly, do you know why, and what to do in a situation like this to achieve the desired exposure outcome?
One of the more important – yet almost always overlooked – aspects of camera operation is metering. Simply put, the meter determines what your final exposure is, and how bright or dark your image looks relative to the scene. Unless you are shooting manual – and even then – the camera’s exposure is determined by the meter. Add the fact that the eyes of a viewer tend to go to the brightest and/ or highest contrast portions of an image first (i.e. this should be your subject) – and it’s clear to see why it’s absolutely critical to understand both how metering works as a fundamental concept and any camera-specific peccadilloes that might exist. The last thing you want is to find that your camera drastically underexposed a once-in-a-lifetime shot of some critically important event because you didn’t know (or forgot) that the meter was extremely affected by point light sources*. Click to continue ›
This post details Ming Thein's thoughts on aspect ratios and composition.
Round plate in a square frame. The composition is ostensibly balanced, but a little randomization is created by the uneven lighting. Leica D-Lux 5
Aspect ratio: image width/ image height, with the long dimension first.
There are six common aspect ratios for cameras today (and as many as you like if you use the crop tool, but that’s another subject for another day :) Click to continue ›
