Tyner's Photography

"Could I do it? Could I photograph a wedding?"

2008-09-16T19:26:00.033-05:00

I have been meaning to write a post on my first wedding photography experience for some time but for one reason or another I put it off. Well finally and mostly motivated by what I read in online forums I decided to write this post.

I'm not sure what it is like in other photography forums but if you hangout in Flickr groups, I'm looking at you Strobist, for any amount time you will see posts, like "Help, I'm shooting so-and-so's wedding next week". The poster is usually seeking advice on how to photograph a wedding that they are doing for a family or friend. Such posts get a range of responses but it seems about 90% of them are "don't do it", "leave it to a pro", "based on your questions you are in over your head" type statements interweaved with somewhat more useful (but not much) advice on lenses and gear to carry. This is ridiculous. Just because you have not photographed a wedding before does not mean you will fail horribly. If you are a competent photographer and have reasonable gear then just do it. Take lots of photos, rely on what you know, and learn on the fly. How can one expect to learn without trying?

Now that my rant is done here is my story. Like most photographers I have asked myself "Could I do it? Could I photograph a wedding?". In the past I have been asked to do weddings. This has happen after a person has view my photos, most of which are not of people, or sometimes based on nothing but that I have expensive camera gear. Most would agree that these are not the most sound reasons. Anyway, I had always declined up until my sister's wedding in August of 2008.

The ceremony: This where the action happens.

Keep it clean, keep it simple, and keep it slick. People move fast! You can talk to them all you want before hand about taking their time coming done the aisle but when the music starts all bets are off. Compounding the issue is the poor lighting usually found in churches and halls; focusing on a moving subject ~~can be~~ is hard enough in good light. If you are going to use a flash then consider bumping up your ISO up so your flash is not doing all the work. This will minimize the flash recycle time and help you get more properly exposed frames .

My approach gear wise was to carry two cameras, two lenses, two flashes and leave the umbrella/light modifiers, stands, tripods, and bulky bags at home or in the car.

	Canon 20D	Canon Rebel XT
Lens	Canon 70-200mm f2.8L	Canon 17-40mm f4 L
Flash	580ex	430ex

As you can see I carried a Canon 20D with a zoom telephoto and a Canon XT with a wide angle zoom lens. I kept the flashes on camera and left the off camera stuff to the reception. Two cameras are really a must as there is just not enough time to switch lenses between shots, plus you have a backup should one fail.

Group photos: Everyone is a photographer

After the ceremony it is time for group photos: couple with wedding party, couple with parents, friends, ~~llama~~ whoever and the list goes on. You may want to make a list before hand so you do not forget anyone. Get these photos done and out of the way first as guests tend to disappear or find the bar rather quickly. I also found this part of the day hard to control. Everyone wants to get in there or has a "great idea" for the next photo. As well, there will be people taking photos over your shoulder which just adds to the confusion of which camera the group needs to be looking at.

As always you are at the mercy of the weather. The day of my sister's wedding, it was raining in the morning but lucky it stopped after the ceremony. I used an on camera flash in ETTL mode for fill even though the light was well diffused by the overcast sky. Looking back, this was the best I could have hope for as far as reducing hard shadows. Had the sunlight been harsh there was no shaded areas near by to escape it.

Bride and Groom photos: Go with the flow.

For my sister's wedding we took about an hour taking bride and groom photos around the grounds where they got married. I was lucky enough to have Cynthia help me setup various poses and keep Carolyn and Shawn's enthusiasm up. With Cynthia talking to them I could focus on capturing the moments "between frames" that have a more natural feel to them.

The reception: Get the flash off camera.

The reception is no time to be shy; there are many great photo opportunities on the dance floor, at the bar, and among the crowd. For the reception I moved to one camera with a wide angle lens and use one flash off camera triggered by Canon's STE2. I kept the ISO high, a slower shutter and ETTL to control the flash. To get off axis light and prevent the "deer in the headlights" look, I held my flash at various angles in my left hand at an arms length.

Rings and other things: If you have time.

Once you are feeling better about the whole event with some standard "keeper" photos already taken be sure to grab photos of the simple stuff, like food.

Also in style these days is to have before wedding and ring photos.

Conclusion: It is not a walk in the park.

Photographing a wedding is a challenging job but not impossible. If you are already comfortable using a camera in a variety of (poor) lighting situations you will do fine. One more thing that will help ... repeat after me ... "Shoot in RAW". Yes, it going to add to your post wedding processing time but it will be worth it when tweaking white balance, exposure and sharpness.

Digital prints: Easy, right?

2008-04-29T14:00:00.012-05:00

It is fairly typical these days to post our digital images directly to a photo sharing site such as Flickr, Zoomer, pbase, (and the list goes on) and forgo the process of getting them printed. And why shouldn't you? It is the fast way to share your photography with the world. After all your photography is meant to be seen! At some point though every photographer will capture an image(s) that they want to display at home or perhaps at the local Starbucks as a large print. By large, I mean 11"x14" frame and up. Easy, right? Well maybe not.

I have been lucky enough to have my work displayed a few times and in doing so learned a few simple things along the way about prints and framing.

Aspect ratio:

Depending on your camera, digital or film, the resulting image will have a particular aspect ratio. For 35mm film and many DSLR (Canon's lineup anyway) the ratio of the length of the image to its height is 1.5. For example my Canon 20D is an 8.2 MP camera that records 3504 x 2336 pixels and doing the math yields an aspect ratio of 3504/2336=1.5. Of course, there is nothing special about 1.5 and many other cameras have different formats. Some are 1, 1.25, 1.33, and so on. That's great but so what? The aspect ratio becomes important for matting and framing.

Frames and mats:

Standard frames come with matting in 4x6, 5x7, 8x10, 11x14, and 16x20 with aspect ratios 6/4=1.5, 7/5=1.4, 10/8=1.25, 14/11=1.27, and 20/16=1.25 respectively. What's more, is that a 11x14 inch mat opening in a 16x20 inch frame is really 10.5 x 13.5 inches. Ugh, my 20D's sensor has an aspect ratio of 3504/2336=1.5.

Question: How much of the print will be lost by cropping to a 11x14 mat format in a 16 x 20 frame?

Suppose the height of 2336 pixel is maintained and the length is cropped to obtain a 11 x 14 aspect ratio. This means the new length L satisfies L/2336=14/11=1.27 or equivalently L=2966.72 pixels. If the cropped image is printed at 300 dots per inch (dpi)[1] then you have cropped (3504-2966.72)/300=1.79 inches! If you have already composed the photo to maximize the image area in the frame, as I try to do, this amount of cropping may not be desirable or even possible.

[1]Note that technically dots per inch and pixel per inch are two very different quantities.

After coming to grips with aspect ratios of standard frames/mats and your camera there are several options.

Buy a custom frame and custom mat from a framing store.
Buy a standard frame from any store and have a custom mat made at a framing store.
Buy a standard frame from any store and cut the existing mat yourself to the desired aspect ratio.
Buy a standard frame and cut new matting material yourself to the desired aspect ratio.

For a 16 x 20 frame a simplest custom mat will be around $25 dollars. A custom 16 x 20 frame (i.e. not a mass produced off the shelf model) can easily cost over $100 dollars. Then there are different types of glass and so on. Needless to say anything custom is going to be pricey. The first time I framed photos in a 16x20 frame, I printed them at 10 x 15 and I opted for option 2. The frames were about $30 dollars each, $25 dollars per custom mat (with a 3-4 day wait time), by four prints is $220 dollars. The second time around, after some thought, I printed my photos 11x16.5, maintaining their aspect ratio, and cut the mats that came with the frames so I had 1/8 inch overlap over the photo. To do this I bought a mat cutter which worked awesome and even allowed me to cut a 45 degree beveled edge.

Mat cutters:

Mat cutters are roughly divided into two categories, hand held and board mounted. The cost of course will depend on the type, size, and features. I opted for a simple board mounted cutter by Logan graphics which was on sale, less than the cost of four custom mats, at my local art supplies store . You may find the following article Matting: The Why & How of Matting Photographs helpful when deciding what route is right for you.

Shooting the moon

2008-02-21T15:49:00.009-05:00

With this past lunar eclipse flickr was saturated with moon photos. Some good and others ... well not so good. For the most part, the "not so good" photos suffered from motion blur. "I used a tripod and mirror lockup", a tripod and mirror lockup will only prevent motion due to camera shake and does not account for the relative motion of the moon with respect to an earth observer.

Back of the envelope calculation:

For the purposes of this calculation, to keep things simple and two dimensional, let's forget about facts like the orbits are elliptical, the moon's orbital plane rotates, the earth is tilted, the moon's center of rotation is not the center of the earth and so on.

Question: What shutter speed will ensure that the motion of the moon does not appear in a photo?

First lets list some facts about the earth's rotation and orbit of the moon:*

The earth makes a full counter clockwise rotation in 24 hours.

The moon has a linear velocity of 1.023 km/s relative to the stars (sun) and is about 385000 km from the earth.

The moon's radius is 1737 km.

*-numbers are not exact, it's a back of the envelope calculation after all.

Ok so what does this have to do with photography? Well suppose you are using a 400mm lens so that the moon appears to be roughly 600 pixels across on the camera's sensor. By the above calculations the moon has moved 600 pixels in 2 mins or 1 pixel in 1/5th of a second. So to freeze the motion of the moon you should use a shutter speed faster than 1/5th like 1/10 or better.

SX-70: Conclusion

2008-01-21T13:57:00.000-05:00

Just recently I modified the exposure RC-circuit in my sx-70 polaroid camera in hopes of giving it a new life. As cool as the original sx-70 looks as a museum piece, it is camera and cameras are for taking photos.

The conclusion:

The capacitor size modification from 1000pF to 220pF is an effective and clean solution to the new Polaroid 600 film being 2-stops (4 times) faster than the original sx-70 or Time Zero film. After running a 10 pack of Polaroid 600 film through my modified sx-70 I'm quite impressed with this camera. The lens, when focused properly, produces sharp and beautiful images. As well, I think I'm hooked on the Polaroid "look".

In natural light Polaroid 600 film preforms well in terms of colour reproduction. One of my first test shots with the sx-70 was of this red chair.

Hot seat

The sun was bright and I figured the white snow background would fool the sx-70's metering so I used the built in ND filter over the light sensor to compensate by setting it to almost full "darken". It fact by setting it to "darken" you are moving the ND filter out of the sensor's way to let in more light and thus forcing a faster shutter speed or smaller aperture.

These two photos were taken with the exposure compensation wheel in the center (neutral) position.

Kickin back

As with any camera indoor photography is challenging with the sx-70. This is compounded by the sx-70's slow f8 lens. As well, the Polaroid 600 film, as expected, has white balance issues when it comes to "unnatural" lightings such a tungsten bulbs. On the bright side, the capacitor modification makes use of the faster 600 film indoors and the viewfinder is not hindered by on lens ND filters.

Lemons

What is next? Perhaps a do-it-yourself tripod mount for long exposure night photography...who knows...

Update: It is possible that my Polaroid is still partially over exposing the 600 film but it is well within the darken/lighten wheel's adjustment range. Perhaps a 180pF or 150pF capacitor would be a better choice.

SX-70: A new life

2008-01-14T22:38:00.000-05:00

SX-70 land camera

Photo info: Both photos taken with a 17-40f4L, ISO 400, f/6.3, 1/30 and combined in Photoshop.
Lighting info:
1) 580ex, master, on camera, M 1/32, diffused through a paper towel, from left since the camera was vertical;
2) 430ex, slave,triggered by 580ex, M 1/16, bounced into a silver umbrella, above and to camera right.

I pulled my grandmother's sx-70 polaroid camera out of storage over the 2007 thanksgiving weekend while visiting my parents. There was a pack of sx-70 film with it but unfortunately it had expired in 1997 and was not any good. After some initial research I was disappointed to find that Time Zero and sx-70 film were discontinued in 2006 and the camera would require modification to work with the newer Polaroid 600 film. The first thought was to look on ebay for some Time Zero film although I suspect it would be expensive. Unfortunately I was right, most of the auctions I found were expired packages at ridiculous prices.

Time's up

A new life:

After a few months I found time to give the sx-70 problem another look and

Polaroid surgery

being determined to use this camera I started another online search for options. For the most part these involve using Polaroid 600 film with some kind of 2-stop filter over the lens to account for the film speed difference. However, since this sx-70 is a manual focus camera I did not like the idea of losing that much light in the view finder. Also, unless you buy a particular "stick on type" 2-stop plastic filter, from Japan, the filter would prevent the sx-70 from closing. In short I felt the filter solution was just a hack and this required a cleaner solution.

The clean solution involves modifying the sx-70's exposure circuit. Basically there are three main components: a 330K ohms resistor, a ~1000pF capacitor, and a photodiode. Anyway, to account for the fact that the 600 film is four times faster than the Time Zero film I replaced the capacitor with a smaller 220pF capacitor. 220pF is roughly four times smaller than 1000pF.

To replace the capacitor requires a bit of patience. The front lens section is held on by four Torx (T4) bolts. These are very small and it is unlikely that anyone actually has the tool to remove these. I ended up using a small flat headed screwdriver (maybe size 0) with just the right force..umm I mean finesse. The trick here is not to strip the Torx slots. Once the front housing is off it will only be connected by the power cables. The next step is to get at the capacitor, which is of course not visible, on the backside of the board. By unsoldering the flash pins I was able to flex the board enough so that I could pull the capacitor out after applying the soldering iron.

I picked up a pack of 600 film to test my modification and volia it worked. Of course being night the first photo I took was inside and in low light so it is pretty blurry from camera shake but it seems to be properly exposed. Once I have taken a couple test photos during the day I will post the conclusion.

For more info on disassembling the sx-70 click here.

Tamron 500mm f/8 SP: A tiny super-telephoto

2007-08-16T10:55:00.000-05:00

I was lucky enough to be given a mint Tamron 500mm f/8 SP by my girlfriend's boss; he was cleaning out his basement.

Tamron 500mm f/8 SP with lenshood

Adaptall2 to EOS:

The Tamron 500mm f/8 SP is an adaptall2 lens and thus requires an adapter to mount on a Canon EOS body. After looking for the original adaptall2 to EOS adapter (which is quite rare) and losing to two auctions on Ebay I decided to buy a third party adapter from China. It fit my cameras (20D, Elan II) snuggly but the fit to the 500mm lens was a little sloppy. I found this annoying when focusing. So I wrapped non-waxed dental floss around the adapter and volia a tight fit ( just like teflon tape on pipe threads). Also, the adapter is purely mechanical (i.e. has no electrical connection or optics) so the lens is alway at f/8.

Some thoughts:

After taking the 500mm out for a test shoot, I'm quite happy with the lens:

After work

Focusing ring is smooth.
The 500mm is light, small, and does not attract attention compared to my canon 70-200 f/2.8, making it great for street photography.
Manual focusing is not as hard as I thought it would be. Generally before I would take a photo I would preset the focus with my best guess on the distance scale and then fine tune once I brought the camera to my eye. Of course this only works for stationary or very slow moving objects.
The lens is f/8. During my test shoot it was overcast which meant ISO 1600 to get a shutter speed of 1/500 to 1/640 to prevent camera shake from becoming a big issue. For me ISO 1600 is not a big deal as a little noise does not bother me.
On a 20D (1.6x crop factor sensor) 500mm has the effective framing as a 800mm on a std. 35mm frame. The 500mm has a min focus distance of 1.7m which gives you the ability to fill the frame with some fairly small objects.

For a more in depth review of this lens checkout Bob Atkins Photography

A road to flash photography

2007-01-05T21:59:00.000-05:00

For the last year and a half I have been purely an available light photographer. In low light I was shooting at a high ISO with fast/large aperture lenses (also very expensive) and loving it. The only problem was my Canon 50 mm f/1.4 USM , Canon 70-200 f/2.8 L USM, Canon 100mm f/2.8 USM macro are all too long for general indoor use and my Canon 17-40mm f/4 L USM is not a low available light type lens even at ISO 1600. This was not a big problem, I just had to except, for wide angle poor light indoor photos, there would be noise/quality issues and I did for awhile.

My first flash:

At some point in August I took some photos for a friend's band, Dr Jelly, at an outdoor venue in Kingston. There was more then enough light and I had no trouble getting some frames I was happy with.

Fun with funk

1/640, f5, 200mm, ISO 100

A few weeks after the show Dr Jelly approached me to take a few more fun photos to use for band promotion and such. So we set a date in November which gave me lots of time to think/worry about how to produce another good set of photo for the band. Since this next shoot
would involve some indoor photos I was worried about noise/quality with a high ISO or whether I would be able to get a shot at all if the lighting was too poor. After much thought:

I realized that I would NEVER part with my Canon 17-40mm f/4 L USM. It was my first lens after all plus I can not afford the 16-35 f2.8 L USM;
I needed a flash to make my 17-40 f/4 an indoor (i.e. poor light) lens; and
The flash for me was the Canon 580ex speedlite.

How I came to the conclusion that the 580ex was right for me and not the 430ex is a story for another day. I will say after lots of ebay/web surfing and several lost auctions, I finally decided to buy the 580ex from B&H photo in NY. It is funny, even with USD to CDN exchange, taxes, and shipping it was still $100 cheaper to buy it from the US.

How do I use this thing?

My 580ex arrived the day of the November shoot! I picked up the flash from the post office one hour before I was to meet the band which gave me enough time to get batteries and read the manual. I decide I would first go with what I know, available light, to get some "safety frames" so I would have something at the end of the day. Then once I felt I had enough "safety frames" I would put the flash on, set it to ETTL and get some practice.

Court craziness (safety frames)

I guess I did ok because the band later asked me in December to photograph a jam session. What I learned in November came in handy, although I stilled used ETTL but with lots of different bounce angles.

Future stars

1/100, f6.3, 17mm, ISO 100, 580 ETTL bounced

In over my head?:

As it turns out I received a 430ex speedlite as a very generous present from my parents at Christmas time. How hard can using two flashes be? After all, I had read the best online off camera flash resources at www.strobist.blogspot.com/. It is going to take some practice. Seriously though, read www.strobist.blogspot.com/!

Beware of the Chicken

1/200, f5.6, 17mm, ISO 100, 580ex and 430 ex

Two flash portraits:

I decided to put some time into learning how to take photos with two flashes by doing a portrait. Since Cynthia was away I was left with only myself as a subject. This posed a problem, "How do I focus?". Without an IR remote and a shutter release with a really short cable (about 3 feet) decided to set the focus to 3m on the lens and then use a tape measure to mark the spot where I should stand. Then to help increase the depth of field I set the camera to f7.1 which puts the DOF at whopping 0.13 m.

As for flash settings ETTL seemed to get me nowhere. With ETTL set on both flashes the frame looked under exposed by at least 1 stop. I tried playing with each flash's exposure compensation but it did not seem to make too much of a difference. To be honest I was quite confused with this since I had used ETTL with great success with just one flash (the 580 on the camera). Anyway I switched to the manual settings where I would know exactly what the flash power was. Lots to learn...I played with the manual settings and after 10 frames or so I stayed with this photo.

Camera settings:

135mm, ISO 200, 1/200, f7.1 (exposes 5 stops below ambient levels),
Distance to subject is 3m;
Custom white balance used;

Two Flashes:

580ex (master) M, 1/32, zoom 105mm, 0 degrees, straight on, height 1.7m;
430ex (slave) M, 1/16, zoom 24mm, 45 degrees, bounced, height 1m; and
Flash locations click on diagram below.

The slave flash was positioned to bounce off the background to prevent shadows behind me and to get under my hat. So in the end I kept the above for a benchmark to gauge whether my future flash setups are improving. Any suggestions are welcome.

Update:

Stuff I will certainly need to try out. Thanks guys!

Gordon Perks says:

Try to have one flash falling on your face(or the subject's) on a 45 degree angle while having the 2nd flash zoomed in all the way at 105mm and on a 1/16 or 1/32 of a power. If you put the second flash so it is on the same angle as first but in the back of your head, you'll get a nice hair light. You have the right idea but reverse the setting on the flashes.

Having two flashed the possibilities are endless for setup ups.

stvkrn says:

I notice that with ettl things seem to underexpose a bit as well. If you drag the shutter a little more, your flashes won't have to work so hard. Did you try the same shot with ETTL around 1/20th - 1/60th? Then set your background light 2 stops hotter than your key light. This is the standard ratio that the fashon guys use for the high key background look you seem to be after.
Posted 9 minutes ago.

My reply:

Crag Spider says:

@stvkrn: Steve I combined your suggestion with Lars' (Gorden Perks, swap the zooms) and I got some good/similar results with ETTL. I first tried 1/20 but it was still looked too dark so I set the shutter to 1/5 (still ISO 200 f7.1). At 1/5 the camera meter reads a properly exposed frame (without flash). Is this the idea? I guess if I wanted a faster shutter speed I could open the aperture up and increase the ISO. Then I set the slave light to +2 as you suggested. I knew I left my gear setup for a reason. Thanks for all the help!

Point and shoot at night

2007-01-04T00:30:00.000-05:00

No manual setting?!?:

On the way to A&P tonight I experimented with my Sony DSCP10 (point and shoot) at night. Yes this camera is completely inferior to my 20D and can in no way compete against its smooth high ISOs together with a fast lens at night. However the P10 is not totally useless at night; it just takes a little more effort.

One way communication

Left: 1/13, f/2.8, 7.9 mm, ISO 400
Right: 1/4, f/2.8, 7.9 mm, ISO 400

The biggest obstacle is that the P10 lacks full manual settings. So you are left with what the camera thinks is right which usually results in a shutter speed too slow to prevent camera shake. This means you must out smart the camera and fool it into the settings that you want. I should say there is a "P" mode where you can set the ISO (auto,100,200,400), focus (center/multi), and metering (spot/multi) but not the aperture or shutter speed.

Fooling the camera:

In this case I wanted to keep the shutter speed high enough to prevent camera shake but low enough to "properly" expose the frame. To accomplish this on the "P" setting I picked:

a) ISO 400: the photo will be grainy/noisy but it is better to have a sharp noisy photo then a blurry low noise photo;

b) Focus to center AF: the camera will have an easier time focusing in lower light levels with center AF. Although since the focusing is IR, P&S can actually have an easier time focusing then a (D)SLR which use a passive focusing system but I digress...; and

c) Metering to spot: the spot metering allows you get very localized light levels. This will be important for fooling the camera into a particular shutter speed.

The next step is to zoom out to the lens' widest setting and then zoom with your feet to compose the photo. The lens on the P10 has a variable aperture over the zoom range , f/2.8 at 7.9mm to f/5.2 at 23.7mm, so you have the possibility to get more light in
at 7.9mm.

With the above setting I was now ready to attempt a flashless low light photo. First compose your shot, focus, and then check what the camera thinks is the right settings. In the case of the phone booth the camera suggested 1 sec shutter speed with and f-stop of 2.8. There is no way to handhold a 1 sec exposure and not get motion blur. So I focused on parts of the booth with different light levels, locking the exposure settings each time by holding the shutter button half way down, until I got shutter speed of about 1/8. Remember the focal length is 7.9mm so this is inline with the "1/(focal length) rule" to prevent camera shake. Click on the above photo to see notes for the approximate camera settings metered from different regions.

Notes:

Part of the reason this method works is because the sensor size of a point and shoot (2x crop factor or more) is such that the DOF is more or less infinite. That is everything is in "focus" (reasonably sharp). Have you ever seen point and shoot bokeh? Anyway this allows you to meter one area of the photo and recompose the frame completely, within reason of course, without worrying to much about the focus.

A love hate relationship with 2x extenders

2006-10-17T21:32:00.000-05:00

If you have ever seen the media area at a professional sporting event then you have seen Canon's super telephoto line up: the 400 f/2.8 L IS USM, 500 f/4 L IS USM, and 600 f/4 L IS USM. These big white guns retail around $9400, $8000, and $11000 (CDN) respectively. At these prices the amateur photographer can only dream, and I do, of owning such glass.

The "budget" super telephoto:

So what are the options when you need (err.. want) a 400mm reach and your lotto 6/49 ticket is a not winner? This depends on your current lens collection. When I first asked myself this question I had (and still do) a Canon 70-200 f/2.8 L USM, a 17-40 f/4 L USM, and a 50 f/1.4 USM.

70-200 + 2x-extender

At the time and solely for financial reasons I decided to go the 2x-extender route. This was getting the maximum reach for the minimum buck. Looking for the best deal I purchased a used Canon Mk I 2x-extender off ebay with large expectations given that my 70-200mm f2.8 L is tack sharp and produces excellent colour.

In the field:

It is not bad but not that good either to the point that I rarely use it now. The 2x-extender has a large impact on sharpness with the 70-200mm f2.8 L, even when you are stopped down to f8 to f11. This lack of edge contrast (sharpness) takes the "pop" out of the 70-200mm.

Lady lion
1/800, f/7.1, ISO 400, 400 mm
70-200mm +2x-extender, hand held

Chiriya III
1/640, f/9, ISO 400, 240 mm
70-200mm + 2x-extender + tripod

The above photos are definitely "acceptable" but required a fair amount of sharpening and post-processing. One advantage of the 70-200mm + 2x-extender combo is its minimum focal distance at 1.5m versus the typical 3m of the other 400mm options. This means that you can fill the frame and get tighter shots. For example this hummingbird was about 2 meters away.

Hummer
1/125, f/5.6, ISO 400, 400 mm
70-200mm + 2x-extender + tripod

Comparisons:

The luminous landscape has some posts on Canon 2x extenders as well:

400 Vs. 200 with x2 converter

100-400 vs 70-200 with 2x extender

100-400 vs 400 prime

mk I vs mk II canon 2x extender>

Canon 17-40mm f4 L USM

2006-09-28T20:01:00.000-05:00

The Canon 17-40mm f4 L USM provides the wide end to Canon's f4 L series lineup. Being an L it has full time manual focus, a superior build quality, comes with a hood, and of course a big price tag. Although the 17-40mm is "cheap" for an L. The 17-40mm also sports a rubber gasket that makes a seal between the mount and the camera body.

This was the first lens I bought to go with my Canon 20D and was followed by a Canon 70-200mm f2.8 L USM shortly after. Since the 70-200mm left me dazed and in awe over it's ablility to take tac sharp photos it took me some time to fully appreciate what the 17-40mm can do. So what is the 17-40mm good for?

Landscapes:

The most obivous use of any wide angle lens is perhaps landscapes or architecture. Since both these types of photography, when done seriously, involve using a tripod the relatively slow f4 aperture of the 17-40mm is a non-issue. This is also the case for night photography where the 17-40mm is my primary working lens.

Left to right: Setting sun, Just up

Getting up close:

The 17-40mm has a small minimal focal distance of 0.28 m (0.92 ft) and a magnifaction factor of 0.24 at 40mm. This means you can get up close and personal with your subject. For example on the left (photo by lovebottom) you can see my lens close to the minimal focal distance from a snake and on the right the resulting photo.

Left to right: Ready for your close-up Mr. Snake, Smelling the air

In fact, I used the 17-40mm for most of my closeups of bugs and flowers until I got a dedicated macro lens, the Canon 100mm f/2.8 USM macro.

Left to right: Ant wash, White admiral

Getting up close at 17 mm can also provide some interesting distortion and effects. Roughly speaking the objects closest to the lens will appear over sized and the objects on edges will exhibit some curvature.

Down the drain

The above effects are not desirable for classical portraits mostly because people do not like there noses to look huge or their head to have some strange curvature. Which do you think is the wide angle portrait?

Indoor Photography:

Indoor lighting is generally poor for photographic purposes. With the 17-40mm wide open at f4 you will be required to use ISO 1600 or 3200 to maintain a shutter speed high enough to prevent motion blur due to camera shake. This is not an available light lens, f4 is too slow.

Stuff to note:

Although the 17-40's overall length does not change while zooming, the end element does move back and forth inside the lens barrel. I would suggest getting a hoya super 77mm UV filter or some other multi-coated 77mm UV filter to completely seal the 17-40mm from dust and water.
The hood is big, wait, I mean massively wide compared to the lens barrel. The reason for this is to prevent the hood from causing vignetting at 17mm on a full frame camera. As a side effect the pop up flash on a 300D, 350D, 400D, 20D, or 30D is blocked by the hood.

The Canon 17-40mm f4 L USM has a slow aperture at f4 and is no where near a sharp as a Canon 50mm f1.4 USM or the Canon 50mm f1.8 for that matter but you should not expect it to be. It is also true that the 17-40mm as a macro lens is no match for the Canon 100mm f2.8 USM macro's 1x magnification but then the 100mm can not get that cool wide angle effect. Where am I going with this...no one lens has it all but what you get in the 17-40mm is pretty darn good.

Check out more 17-40mm shots here and the 17-40 flickr group here.

Canon 50 mm f1.8 Mk II (Pros and Cons)

2006-09-25T21:41:00.000-05:00

Disclaimer: I don't personal own a canon 50mm f1.8 MkII but do own a canon 50mm f1.4 USM. So please comment after reading this post and give me your take on the f1.8 Mk II.

I was asked by a friend to list the pros and cons of buying canon 50mm f1.8 MkII for a digital rebel xt (canon 350D). This is what I came up with.

The 50mm f1.8 MkII pros:

Price: the lens retails for around $120 CDN which is dirt cheap as far as camera lenses go. For comparison, the canon 50mm f1.4 USM is around $500 CDN.
Large aperture: this will give you the ability to experiment with bokeh, small DOF shots and is great for available light photography. At wide open the small DOF will help you learn to choose focal points in the photo you are framing.
Optics: this lens is sharp. It will blow your kit lens away but of course this is a general property of primes over zooms.
No zoom: it forces you to use your feet to zoom and frame the photo. I will admit I found this hard at first but in the long run I believe it will help your photography skills.
AF is not that great in low light: this can be a pro as it will force you to use manual focus. (Note I have nothing against autofocus, in fact I use autofocus 99% of the time)
Minimum focus distance: not bad at 42 cm.

The 50mm f1.8 MkII cons:

Build quality: plastic lens mount, focus ring is small and may feel sloppy relative to your other lenses.
Not USM: this lens is louder and the AF is slower.
No distance scale: only really a con if you are using tripod and want to focus at infinity.
Effectively 80mm on a 1.6x crop factor camera (300D, 350D, 400D, 20D, 30D): this is not a wide lens and will be difficult to use indoors. Try setting your zoom to 50mm and walk around your house to see what I mean.
Focus is not full time manual: you can not override AF without moving the switch to MF. This may not seem like a big deal but the ability to bring the lens to near focus in low light manually before applying autofocus can significantly reduce focus "hunting".

Most of the cons are build quality issues and I think they can be over looked because of the lens' good optics and price. The only factor that prevents me from yelling BUY IT is the question: is 50mm (effectively 80mm) is too long for the type of photography you like to do? Some wider primes lenses with good optics to consider (according to reviews at www.fredmiranda.com) are the 24mm f2.8, which is four times the cost or the 35mm f2 which is 3 times the cost.

One more suggestion, camera stores like Henry's usually have this lens in stock and will let you try it out in the store. So when/if you go take your camera and shoot some frames.

Canon 100mm f/2.8 USM macro

2006-09-09T16:47:00.000-05:00

In August 2006 I went on ebay looking for a Canon 400mm f/5.6 L USM and ended up with a Canon 100mm f/2.8 macro USM. After using the 100mm macro for a month it is clear that this lens is a performer. The build quality is excellent and it is capable of , even wide open, producing sharp photos. The AF does seems slow in low light conditions, it is on par or a bit better then the Canon 50mm f1.4 USM, but then again I have been spoiled by my 70-200 f2.8 L.

Nature's Detail

Looking on flickr many macro photos show the details of plants, flowers, bugs, watch gears and the list goes on. In other words, macro photography is about taking the time to look at the small things in life. If you are willing to be patient when setting up, focusing, and framing a particular photo the results can be surprising.

Macro Exposures:

The canon 100mm f/2.8 USM is able to produce closeups up to 1x magnification. This means an object which is, say 18mm long will appear 18mm long on your sensor. To put this in perspective the senosr of a 20D is only 15.0 X 22.5 mm, meaning you can fill the frame with a beer cap.

A watch assembly (18mm across)

When taking closeup photos it is important to note that f/2.8 at 1x (resp. 1:1.5, 1:2, 1:3, 1:5) magnification is effectively f/5.9 (resp. f/5, f/4.6, f/4.1, f/3.6). This means lighting can be an issue for upclose indoor shots. Instead of cranking up the ISO try using a tripod and shutter release which will also help with the very very small DOF at 1x magnification.

Normal Photography:

This lens is just not for macros as it can be used as a fast medium telephoto prime.

Check more photos from this lens here

Digital Blending

2006-09-07T16:55:00.000-05:00

My views on HDR and digital blending follow that of Michael Reichmann:

"In many ways, Photoshop CS2's HDR function is the holy grail of dynamic range. With properly shot and processed files it allows photographers to easily create images that were previously impossible, or at least very difficult to accomplish. But, good as it is, like a gun or nuclear power, it can be a force for evil as well as good."

In other words I'm not fond of the over done HDR photos that have clogged flickr explorer for the past few months. Just because you can over do HDR does not mean you should but if you must, I guess I can look the other way. Ok my rant is done and on to the point of this post.

This is a digital blend of two photos bracketted by 2-stops

I'm sure, like me, you have all taken pictures of a beautiful sunset or sunrise only to be disappointed with the results. Either the foreground shows detail and the sky is way over exposed, because of the setting sun, or the sky looks "right" but the foreground detail is lost in the darkness. With film or a "point and shoot" camera you are left to compromise between exposure settings (unless you are using a ND filter). However, with a digital camera that has some manual settings you have the ability to get photos, after some post processing, which are more like what your eyes see.

Note: This was my first attempt at digital blending, from a year ago, and is on the edge of being unnatural looking.

1/200 sec 1/2500 sec

Digital blend

The third picture is a digital blend of previous two different photos. With the camera on full manual I first set the following parameters: ISO 100, f/2.8, 70mm, and a shutter speed of 1/200 sec. With the low shutter speed the camera picks up the rocks in detail and the houses in the background but the sky, because of the sun setting, is way over exposed. The second settings were: ISO 100, f/2.8, 70mm, and shutter speed1/2500 sec. This results in a nice sky but a very dark foreground. Now, using the tutorial at www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/digital-blending.shtml on blending in photoshop I obtained the blended image on the bottom.

When I took these photos I used a tripod and a constant f stop so the depth of field would not change. Also, I used CR2 (canon raw 2) format instead of jpeg during the blending. The raw format is the uncompressed data captured by the camera and can make for some large files. If you digitally blend these photos using layers and masks as in the tutorial the file size grows again. I finished with about a 100 MB file if I saved it as a photoshop image (retains layer info), about 50 MB for uncompressed TIF, and 7 MB for JPEG.

The 20D has Auto Exposure Bracketing (AEB) which will change the shutter speed or aperture automatically as you shot three successive photos. In this fashion, the camera "brackets" the exposure up to +/- 2 stops in 1/3 increments. This can be handy but for large contrasts in lighting it may not give you a large enough dynamic range. You will notice that the shutter speeds of the two original photos are about 3.5 stops apart.

Here is a more recent digital blend:

Sports Photography

2006-09-07T15:54:00.000-05:00

Sports photography is not something I get too excite about although it is fun to do once in awhile.

Soccer:

The weather for the first football (soccer) match I photographed was cloudy and cold but I manage to get a couple "acceptable" shots. The lack of keepers was not the fault of my Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM but the fact that I was still learning how to use my camera at this time. Consider this photo,

with the follow properties:

Exposure:	1/800 sec,
Aperture:	f/3.2,
Focal Length:	93 mm,
ISO Speed:	200, and
Exposure Program:	Shutter priority.

If you view the larger version of the photo you will see it is a littled blurred. Looking back to freeze the action I should have up the ISO to 400 to gain a stop of shutter speed. Don't be afraid to up the ISO, a noisy sharp photo is better than a blurred photo.

Since my first attempt I have photographed several more games including a Canada vs. US men's under 20 game (on the left).

Hockey:

For my first hockey game shoot I attended the Golden Gaels (Queen's University) vs The Stingers (Concordia) at Jock Harty Arena in December 2005.

To photograph a hockey game you have to deal with fact action and poor overhead lighting on a white surface. The white ice surface can confuse the cameras metering even on partial meter. This is why you should use manual and not Tv or Av. According to the camera the above shot was 1.5 stops over exposed, I think not. When the metering is not reliable take a couple shots and use your histogram to pick the right settings. For most shots I set the camera to manual, ISO 1600, shutter speed 1000 and wide open f2.8.

Perhaps, the hardest part was getting the timing of the play right. This is an impossible task if you are zoomed in and looking through the viewfinder. So while the play is not around the net or area of interest, focus your camera there. Then holding the camera in place, stop looking through the viewfinder and watch the play normally. If you are watching the overall play you have a better chance at knowing when to hit the shutter. A tripod or monopod might help here if there is room to use it. Anyway it was a bit like shooting with a digi-cam again.

For more photos look at hockey.

Big steps and current gear

2006-09-06T23:18:00.000-05:00

In April 2005 I made the leap from a Sony DSC-P10 5-mega pixel camera to a Canon 20D. My kit also included the following lenses,

Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM and
Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM.

Yes, these are more professional lenses then one usually begins with. However, after paying out large sums of money to upgrade my P10 with extra lenses and adaptors to achieve only minimal gains in quality and utility I decide to buy what I wanted and what would make me happy with in the first place. Using this philosophy I have since added:

Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM
Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 USM macro
Manfrotto tripod (055proB) and ballhead (486RC2)
Canon 2x extender Mark I
Shutter release (rs80n3)
Numerous CF cards
Lowepro and various camera bags
Battery Grip and extra battery
A large credit card bill

Canon 50 mm f/1.4 USM

2006-09-06T23:00:00.000-05:00

In August 2005 I added a Canon 50mm f/1.4 USM to my glass collection. I bought this lens for indoor low light photography like one might encounter at a wedding. The fixed focal length lens was something new for me and framing a subject involves moving postions constantly. This may or may not be troublesome depending on the situation.

My first impression of the Canon 50mm USM f/1.4:

Out of the box the build quality seems less than desirable next to my "L" series lenses. The lense barrel is pastic and the zoom ring has some play in it but since the cost is $600 or $700 less than an "L" series lense this is to be expected. On the 20D the 50 mm is effectively a 80 mm lense because of the sensor size. A focal length of 80 mm is pushing the limits for a indoor lense unless you are in a big room like a church or hall. In small rooms it is portraits only. Also, I have notice that the 20D is very conservative at estimating the available light with this lense in low light conditions. So shooting with manual can be advantageous.

Depth of field (DOF):

One thing that caught me by surprise, at "short" to "normal" distances to the subject, was the extremely small DOF you encounter with an fstop near 1.4. Certainly the formulas to calculate the DOF predict this. However, I have never bothered to crunch the numbers until now. Try it here. If you are interested, checkout the DOF links here.

Checkout photos from this lens.

File storage and workflow

2006-09-06T22:42:00.000-05:00

I have an external 200Gb harddisk as my primary storage. It is partitioned into three drives "RAW" 20Gb, "PSD" 160Gb, and "JPEG" 20Gb. The sizes are different because an average CR2 file (20D RAW) is about 8MB and after post processing in photoshop (PS), using layers, one can obtain a 24-100 MB file in PSD format. After merging the layers this is a 5-8 MB JPEG.

Since post processing can take anywhere from 10 sec to infinity depending on the photo and what you are trying to accomplish I backup both the RAW and the PSD to DVD. I then store my DVDs at work so should I get robbed or my house burns down I still have a copy.

My workflow is as follows:

Make a dir, named with date, on the RAW drive and dump the CF to this dir.
Use the canon utility viewer to make a first run through to remove non-keepers.
Pull all (usually 15 at a time) RAW files into PS using camera RAW. In camera RAW I make WB, shadow and exposure changes.
Batch save PSD files to new dir, named as date, on PSD drive.
Edit photos, curves, saturation, etc
Make final decision on which to keep.
Batch convert/save PSD files to JPEG files in new dir, named as date, on the JPEG drive.

Note: I no longer use camera RAW because of improvements in Canon's DPP (Digital professional pro) software. So depending on the photo, step 5 is completed in DPP and if necessary exported as a TiFF for futher editing in PS .

Night Photography

2006-09-06T22:03:00.000-05:00

Night photography can mean long exposure tripod shots, hand held flash photography, or available light photography. Since I do not own a flash (speedlite) I will discuss available light and tripod type situations.

Available light (No tripod):

For low light conditions where you must use ISO 800 and up I tend to

Shoot in RAW format- in fact I always use RAW format. It just gives you more options later as far as white balance and exposure are concerned.

I sometimes process noisy RAW files using DPP (canon's software) instead of Camera RAW . Sometimes there is a world of difference in the quality. The output(saving to 16bit uncompressed tiff) of DPP seemed significantly less noisy then the output of Camera RAW. (IMHO, others may disagree)

Shoot manual (M)- Use a fast lens like a 50mm f1.4 or f1.8. Also, I find the 20D's ( I shoot with a 20D but it is mostly still true for the 350D) light metering is too conservative with a 50mm f1.4 . I will take a couple test shots and adjust shutter/aperture until the histogram looks "acceptable".

Use the middle focus point only. (the lens with "hunt" less)

Converting to B&W can improve the look of a photo since it removes colour noise. Also converting through the red channel can help with complexions. (You have to balance this with a loss of detail)

What can you take photos of at night anyway? Well everything you photograph during the day of course expect maybe the sun. Also with the lack of light during the evening it is easy to play with slow shutter effects like panning

Long exposures (You have a tripod):

I shoot most of my night photography around the full moon. Since we are now using a tripod a fast lens is not so important. I enjoy using a wide lenses at night like the 17-40 f/4 but sometimes fall back on the 50 f/1.4 depending on the available light. However, when the moon is in the frame I have found the 17-40 f/4 has less lens flare then the 50 f/1.4.

A solid tripod is a must for long exposures. I shoot in RAW format, auto white balance, ISO 100 and use manual for everything else. The lower the ISO the less noise you will have. The best nights are when the moon is (close to) full. With a full moon and a wide lens you can stop your lens down to f/10 ish for a more or less infinite DOF. For example at 17mm f/10 the hyperfocal distance is about 2.6 meters. So setting the focus to 2.6 m means everything from 1.3 meters to infinity is in focus. Although this can be difficult to achieve in practice with the scale on your lens. Another trick (I have heard) is to shine a laser pointer on the object and adjust your focus until the dot looks the sharpest. You could also bring a flashlight.

The exposure time depends on where you are. If there is little ambient light then I usually start with a 5-6 min exposure and then adjust accordingly. In the city you can get backlighting and ambient lighting issues. However, they can sometimes provide interesting shadows like the trees did in this photo.

I have not used canon's in camera noise reduction function. My longest exposures to date are about 14 mins. To get exposures longer then 30 sec use the bulb setting on your camera and it helps to use a remote to prevent camera shake. This shot is about 14 mins and since there was no moon I had the lens wide open at f/4.

In the above photo the star trails are of course caused by the rotation of the earth. A rough estimate at exposure time when star trail will become noticable in the photo is 600/(focal length) seconds.

One more thing that adds to nightshots is moving clouds. Over a long exposure their streaks provide texture to the sky like in this photo:

Now get out there and take some photos...

Camera Bags: You can not have just one

2006-09-06T21:12:00.000-05:00

There are more types of camera bags than hairs on your head. There are backpacks, waist packs, shoulder bags, soft cases, hard case, waterproof, all weather, big and little versions of all the previously stated, and the list goes on. Also, as you can imagine, the price range can vary from thirty to five hundred dollars or more. I can not tell you what bag is right for you because we all have different equipment needs. That is to say, a street-photographer will usually carry different, in both size and quantity, equipment from a sports or landscape-photographer. My advice is talk to people at your local and/or favorite camera store for there experiences and insights.

What about my experiences? When I was new to the DSLR crowd (still am really), I only owned two lenses

Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM and
Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM.

Believe it or not my first bag was a CCM lunch bag from Canadian Tire. The insulation provided some padding and it fit my camera body with either lense attached.

After a month of shooting I notice that my 70-200mm, although big, became my walk around/primary outdoor lense. I also like the shoulder bag idea vs the backpack. The shoulder bag allows you to pull out your camera quickly take the shot and then move on until the next photo opportunity. What about just keeping the camera around your neck you ask? Well, if you are shooting a sports event then yes around the neck is a must because the action is evolving fast. However, if you are out with no particular agenda the 70-200mm at 1.3 kg gets a little heavy around the neck. So whatever shoulder bag I would decide on must beable to transport this lense but more importantly transport this lense attached to the camera body. This criteria narrowed my section significantly. In the end, after a lot of internet surfing and visits to my local camera shop, I bought a Lowepro Toploader 75 AW with a size 4 lens case.

I have since added another tube lens case. I'm not going to go into the endless details of this bag but I will highlight the fact that it is compatible with the Lowepro sliplock system, has metal clips and D-rings, it fits a camera body with an attached 70-200mm f/2.8 lense (hood reversed) and I find the strap very comfortable. The size 4 lense case will accommodate the 70-200mm f/2.8 lense but most of the time carries my 17-40mm f/4.

The above setup is great for urban shooting and short hikes but it is not waterproof enought for my annual five day canoe trip in northern Ontario (see photos here) . Since this trip is not just a walk in the park I had to address the following questions:

Should I just take my point and shoot (Sony DSC-P10)?
What about rain?
What if the canoe flips or takes on water?
What will I do during portages?

In previous years I did take my Sony DSC-P10 in a yellow 1150 Pelican and got some great photos but just not the quality of the 20D with L-series lenses. This raises the question: Should I get a Pelican case for the 20D and two lenses? The yellow Pelican case stoodout no matter where I put it down, was waterproof, almost indestructible, and easy to portage because of its size. After looking into the matter it became clear very quickly that this was not the solution. The size of case required to carry my equipment was too big (needed to fit body with 70-200mm attached) and two hundred dollars to boot. Also, the cases size and shape would have made quick access to my camera, while in a fully loaded canoe, impossible. Meaning I would have missed shots. Another big problem with the Pelican case is that it lacks versatility, it great for putting in the trunk for long trips but that is about it. Next, I looked to the DryZone backpack by lowepro. There are no shape and size issues here. It is fully waterproof, so no rain or flipping issues, and I could wear it on my front with my main pack on my back during portages. This sound like a keeper but how much? Well, after tax I was looking at about four hundred canadian. There must be another option and there is. For about seventy dollars a got a dry bag, specifically a 35 liter vinyl portage pack by SealLine.

This bag is the prefect size to slide in Lowepro Toploader 75 AW with a size 4 lense case attached.

Since that bag adventure I have added two more lenses

Canon 100mm f2.8 USM macro; and
Canon 50mm f1.4 USM

which means I have trouble carrying all my gear again. What new bag is in the futrue? Who knows...