Flash sync speeds — Photography podcast #47

July 11, 2008 By 7 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #47 talks about flash sync speeds. We talk about what the flash sync speed is (it’s also called x-sync) and how very impor­tant it is espe­cially when you are tak­ing day­light por­traits out­doors. We also talk about high-speed flash sync as well as answer Sergey’s ques­tion about why the high speed flash sync is not work­ing with the trans­mit­ters that he is using.

Links/topics men­tioned in this pod­cast:
My sleepy dog pho­to­graph
Sunny 16 rule
ST-E2 trans­mit­ter
Canon 580 flash series with the OC-E3 off-camera shoe cord

Thanks as always to Benny, Mer­man, Tmat, Yowzah, Tim and Sergey for recent com­ments and sug­ges­tions. We LOVE com­ments and sug­ges­tions so please send more.

You can down­load this pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast directly by click­ing the pre­ced­ing link or lis­ten to it almost imme­di­ately with the embed­ded player below.

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Brightness problems — distracting elements in photographs — Photography podcast #46

June 29, 2008 By 8 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #46 talks about being really care­ful about NOT includ­ing dis­tract­ing ele­ments in your pho­tographs. The eye nat­u­rally wan­ders toward the bright ele­ments in pho­tographs so being aware of bright­ness prob­lems, unwanted high­lights and other dis­trac­tions will improve your photography.

Links men­tioned in this pod­cast:
Tran­script to pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #1 — being aware of the back­ground
His­tograms in dig­i­tal photography

The 2 images below show how bright­ness issues and dis­tract­ing ele­ments can take the viewer’s eye away from the sub­ject. Shot 1 is unma­nip­u­lated. Shot 2 has the brighter ele­ments burned in (dark­ened) very quickly just to illus­trate the point. Many thanks to mer­man from our pho­tog­ra­phy forum for allow­ing me to use his pho­to­graph as a teach­ing tool.

brightness problem in photographs

brightness problem corrected in photograph


Thanks as always to Cyba­sumo, Chris, Sergey and De3montecarlo for recent com­ments and sug­ges­tions. We LOVE com­ments and sug­ges­tions so please send more.

You can down­load this pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast directly by click­ing the pre­ced­ing link or lis­ten to it almost imme­di­ately with the embed­ded player below.

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

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Using backlighting outdoors — Photography Podcast #45

May 30, 2008 By 2 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #45 talks about how to use back­light­ing out­doors. We talk about tak­ing that clas­sic photo on the beach in front of a sun­set and doing it prop­erly. We also describe how to take a nice por­trait using back­light­ing and the whole pod­cast and is based some­what on an email from Cindy;

“This sum­mer my fam­ily is going to the beach. Of course, I want to take lots of pic­tures. What is the best time of day? I love sun­set pic­tures, but how do I take pic­tures of the peo­ple with their backs to the ocean (sun in back­ground etc.) and see their faces clearly? ”

The images below (done really quickly with almost no post pro­cess­ing) clearly show the dif­fer­ences you can obtain using back­light­ing and flash at dif­fer­ent set­tings. Per­son­ally I like the Minus 2 shot the best. You best see the dif­fer­ences in flash out­put by look­ing at the face.

using backlighting and flash outdoors

Pho­tog­ra­phy links men­tioned in this pod­cast:
Acces­sories that you can use to hold reflec­tors etc. — pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast 35
Pho­tog­ra­phy and the law

Thanks as always to Cindy, Jason and Alex Wil­son for recent com­ments and sug­ges­tions. We LOVE com­ments and sug­ges­tions so please send more.

You can down­load this pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast directly by click­ing the pre­ced­ing link or lis­ten to it almost imme­di­ately with the embed­ded player below.

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

Filed Under: Photographs, Photography blog entries, Photography podcasts, podcasting Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Directing and relaxing models — Photography podcast #44

April 30, 2008 By 2 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #44 talks about how to direct mod­els in pho­tog­ra­phy photo shoots. This pod­cast is based on a sug­ges­tion (thanks for the sug­ges­tion Bill!) by fel­low pod­cast lis­tener Bill who wrote an email asking;

“I’d love to hear a pod­cast in a bit more detail about “direct­ing” ordi­nary peo­ple in a por­trait ses­sion. I tend to start out ok, but some­times sort of, choke, I guess, and then for­get every­thing I know about tak­ing pho­tos, pos­ing peo­ple, and walk­ing while chew­ing gum :) “

Pho­tog­ra­phy links men­tioned in this pod­cast:
Pos­ing mod­els in pho­tog­ra­phy — pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast 28
Jeff Cur­tožs His­tory of Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast

Thanks as always to Bill, Andre_f, Michael, and Joseph for recent com­ments and sug­ges­tions. We LOVE com­ments and sug­ges­tions so please send more.

You can down­load this pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast directly by click­ing the pre­ced­ing link or lis­ten to it almost imme­di­ately with the embed­ded player below.

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

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Photographs — should we change the word — Photography podcast #43

April 14, 2008 By 4 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #43‚asks the ques­tion do we need to change the word pho­to­graph because it is not descrip­tive enough. With pho­tographs being so heav­ily edited in Pho­to­shop, do we need more spe­cific terms (or a new lex­i­con) to describe what kinds of pho­tographs we are look­ing at?‚

FYI — Next pod­cast will be less philo­soph­i­cal and more instructional/practical.

Pho­tog­ra­phy links men­tioned in this pod­cast:
Post pro­cess­ing thread

Thanks as always to Vlad,‚Andre_f,‚deb­bieT, ‚Elio and Alen for‚recent com­ments and sug­ges­tions. We LOVE com­ments and sug­ges­tions so please send more.

You can down­load this pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast directly by click­ing the pre­ced­ing link or lis­ten to it almost imme­di­ately with the embed­ded player below.

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

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Photographers don’t give your rights away — Photography podcast #42

March 27, 2008 By 3 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #42 is based on a post by our‚pho­tog­ra­phy forum‚mem­ber tegan, called Photo Con­tests: Pho­tog­ra­phers LOSE. This short pod­cast expands on that post and dis­cusses how pho­tog­ra­phers need to be aware of the rights that they are giv­ing away by join­ing photo con­tests, forums, social net­work­ing sites like Face­book etc.

Pho­tog­ra­phy links men­tioned in this pod­cast:
Mil­lion places on Earth — terms and con­di­tions
Face­book — terms of service

Thanks as always to photodog, deb­bie T and sorena for‚recent com­ments and sug­ges­tions. We LOVE com­ments and sug­ges­tions so please send more.

You can down­load this pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast directly by click­ing the pre­ced­ing link or lis­ten to it almost imme­di­ately with the embed­ded player below.

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

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Photographers don’t give your rights away — Photography podcast #42

March 27, 2008 By 3 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #42 is based on a post by our pho­tog­ra­phy forum mem­ber tegan, called Photo Con­tests: Pho­tog­ra­phers LOSE. This short pod­cast expands on that post and dis­cusses how pho­tog­ra­phers need to be aware of the rights that they are giv­ing away by join­ing photo con­tests, forums, social net­work­ing sites like Face­book etc.

Pho­tog­ra­phy links men­tioned in this pod­cast:
Mil­lion places on Earth — terms and con­di­tions
Face­book — terms of service

Thanks as always to photodog, deb­bie T and sorena for recent com­ments and sug­ges­tions. We LOVE com­ments and sug­ges­tions so please send more.

You can down­load this pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast directly by click­ing the pre­ced­ing link or lis­ten to it almost imme­di­ately with the embed­ded player below.

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

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Histograms in digital photography — Photography podcast #41

March 19, 2008 By 3 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #41 offers a primer on his­tograms in dig­i­tal pho­tog­ra­phy. A his­togram is just a graph show­ing the dis­tri­b­u­tion of tones in a pho­to­graph. We dis­cuss how to ‘read’ his­tograms and how much atten­tion we should pay to them.


Images cour­tesy of cambridgeincolour.com

The images above reveal the his­tograms asso­ci­ated with them. Notice how in the right pho­to­graph there is still tex­ture in the white in the dog’s face and in the sand. If the his­togram was closer to the right edge we’d lose detail in the dog’s face and start los­ing detail in the sand.

Pho­tog­ra­phy links men­tioned in this pod­cast:
More in depth his­togram expla­na­tions:
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/histograms1.htm
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/histograms2.htm
HDR Pho­tog­ra­phy

Thanks as always for the com­ments and sug­ges­tions. We LOVE com­ments and sug­ges­tions so please send more.

You can down­load this pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast directly by click­ing the pre­ced­ing link or lis­ten to it almost imme­di­ately with the embed­ded player below.

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

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Low light photography — Photography podcast #40

March 10, 2008 By 5 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #40 talks about low light pho­tog­ra­phy. We‚ try hard to answer the fol­low­ing ques­tion by Andre‚ from Brazil and‚I also add‚a few other‚low light pho­tog­ra­phy tips includ­ing using fast lenses, acces­sories in low light pho­tog­ra­phy and‚the reduced tonal range in low light pho­tog­ra­phy.
Here’s Andre’s orig­i­nal ques­tion:‚ “Hello there, Marko! I just would like to sug­gest a pod­cast on the topic “low light pho­tog­ra­phy”. I’m pretty inter­ested in this topic and related sub­jects, such as tips for tak­ing pho­tographs in bad light sit­u­a­tions, how to pre­serve ambi­ent light when using flash, high ISO vs. dig­i­tal noise, meter­ing modes, tak­ing pic­tures at music con­certs, and so forth.”

You can click all the‚photographs to make them tastier on the eyes.


Roman­tic Walk by Ara­leya


The Dim light of Dusk #2 by Wen­dine

‚ ‚
Images by Marko


Photo of the week
This week, the pho­to­graph is by‚Esther Her­nan­dez AKA Maguapho­tos and I com­ment in the pod­cast on why I think this pho­to­graph is fantastic.


‚

Thanks as always for the comments‚and suggestions.‚We LOVE com­ments and sug­ges­tions so please send more.

You can down­load this pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast directly by click­ing the pre­ced­ing link or lis­ten to it almost imme­di­ately with the embed­ded player below.

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

Filed Under: Photographs, Photography podcasts, Photography tips, podcasting Tagged With: ,

Lith printing in photography — Photography podcast #39

February 29, 2008 By 1 Comment

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #39 fea­tures an inter­view with fine art pho­tog­ra­pher Vicki Reed aka hol­ga­girl on Flickr. In this inter­view we talk about lith print­ing which is an alter­na­tive print­ing tech­nique using a tra­di­tional dark­room. For those that only want to try this dig­i­tally, see the links below.


Sumac and Sun — Vicki Reed

Pho­tog­ra­phy links men­tioned in this pod­cast:
‚ Vicki’s fea­ture on Photography.ca
‚ Holga cam­eras
‚ Foto­speed lith paper Do a search for lith on this site to get more lith prod­ucts
‚ Ken­tona paper
‚ 2 Tim Rud­man videos on Lith print­ing
‚ The World of Lith Print­ing
‚ Dig­i­tal lith print­ing
‚ Dig­i­tal lith print­ing action for pho­to­shop
‚ Dig­i­tal lith print­ing by Adobe

‚Is it still art — what is art — thread on photography.ca forum

Thanks as always for the com­ments by‚Gary H,‚‚seyDoggy, Yves Janse and Mikael. We LOVE com­ments and sug­ges­tions so please send more.

You can down­load this pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast directly by click­ing the pre­ced­ing link or lis­ten to it almost imme­di­ately with the embed­ded player below.

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

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One light portraits — Photography podcast #38

February 22, 2008 By 6 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #38 talks about cre­at­ing dra­matic por­traits using only 1 light. Using 1 light cre­ates very harsh shad­ows which is PERFECT for a dra­matic por­trait. The fol­low­ing 2 shots illus­trate this dra­matic effect. In the first shot Lorne and Boog are being lit by 1 light located 45 degrees toward the right. The sec­ond shot is side­light. Both these shots use no reflec­tor to bounce light back into the sub­jects’ faces. Note that the light in the sec­ond pho­to­graph reveals a lot of skin tex­ture, so this type of light­ing would not be good for a ‘fash­iony’ shot in most cases. Thanks to Lorne and Boog for being the mod­els. I Love how lit­tle Boog is star­ing me down in the first shot. You can click all the shots to make them tastier on the eyes.

One light portrait

1 light portrait - side lighting
‚
You can down­load this pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast directly by click­ing the pre­ced­ing link or lis­ten to it almost imme­di­ately with the embed­ded player below this image.

Photo of the week
This week, the pho­to­graph is by Zseike and I com­ment in the pod­cast on why I think this pho­to­graph is fantastic.

Photo by Zseike

Thanks as always for the com­ments by‚Gary H, ‚Andre, Tom, Yves Janse, David and Mikael. We LOVE com­ments and sug­ges­tions so please send more.

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

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Macro photography on the cheap — Photography podcast #37

February 13, 2008 By 13 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #37 focuses on cheap macro pho­tog­ra­phy setups. In this pod­cast we talk about using revers­ing rings, exten­sion tubes, close-up lenses and cheap macro lenses in order to achieve good macro results for lit­tle cash.‚Special thanks to ‚Yves Janse who sug­gested this podcast.

The fol­low­ing images describe the dif­fer­ent inex­pen­sive tech­niques used to cre­ate macro photographs

macro photography

1 — Shows my shot with a zoom lens only
2 — Shows shot with cheap close-up lens #1
3 — Shows shot with cheap close-up lens #2
4 — Shows shot with cheap close-up lens #4
5 — Shows what close-up lenses look like
6 — Shows what exten­sion tubes look like
7 -‚Shows what a lens mounted back­wards using a revers­ing ring looks like
8 — Photo by Yves janse (Thanks Yves) show­ing how you can stack close up lenses and tubes
9 — Shows a Plamp for hold­ing macro subjects

Links men­tioned in this pod­cast:
Revers­ing rings on Ebay
Close up lenses on Ebay
Exten­sion tubes on Ebay
Phoenix AF lens review (A cheap ded­i­cated macro lens)
Plamp clamp for hold­ing macro subjects

Thanks as always for the com­ments by‚Al, Tim and Yves Janse who also sug­gested this. We LOVE com­ments and sug­ges­tions so please send more.

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

Filed Under: Photography podcasts, Photography tips, podcasting Tagged With: , , , , ,
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