You will often hear experienced photographers talk about the JPG file format as a bad thing and RAW as the way to go. But I think there is a nuance to this: horses for courses.
It is true that JPGs are more “locked in” in terms of what you can do in post processing. Some have described RAW as the ingredients in a meal, and the JPG as the cooked food, and the comparison is not that bad. The RAW format gives more headroom in recovering details from bright highlights and dark shadows and you can also do much more editing if colors and white balance etc than JPG allows. And the quality of the JPG file is subject to the in camera processing of the image and hence the quality of the software in the camera.
But it comes with a price, and the price is disk space or storage space. RAW files store a lot more information per pixel than a JPG does, and this is why JPG files are so popular on the web where fast load times are a key factor. The resolution of a RAW image and a JPG image is the same, but the amount of information stored per pixel in the RAW format is much more than the JPG. Also, the JPG file will be subject to compression where a lot of information can also be lost.
So to say that RAW is good and JPG is bad is to simplified. Sometimes you just don’t need all the flexibility that a RAW file offers, and if you shoot a lot of images the amount of space saved can be significant. Also, if you plan to use the images as JPGs because they need to be small, shooting in JPG directly saves you the conversion from RAW to JPG in post processing. So you may save both time and storage.
I often shoot JPG when I have a very controlled environment like a studio with flashes in a tethered setup where the image is loaded directly into Lightroom for viewing large scale. Here I can quickly see if the colors and metering is spot on or not and adjust accordingly. Where I need the RAW file flexibility is when more variables are not under my control. Like when shooting in low light or shooting into the sun. Here I prefer the headroom in post processing that RAW files give.
So a softbox is a device that gives soft light, right? Well, yes and no. A soft box is a light modifier, intended to make the size of the light source bigger. And all things equal, when the light source gets bigger relative to the subject, the light gets softer. And then the softbox also helps making the best use of the light by redirecting the light that would otherwise not have hit the subject.
Softbox example
Softboxes can be used for both steady light and flash light, but in the following I will assume that we are talking flashlight.
A softbox from Godox. The front fabric is all lit up when the flash fires.
Bigger softboxes are often made as a umbrella like construction, where a set of wires defines the shape of the box. And just like an umbrella, the softbox can be folded to take up very little space when not in use. In my case the softbox is square, but many other shapes can be found.
The front fabric is half open so you can see the diffuser fabric inside and and all the reflective material on the sides of the inside of the softbox.
Inside the softbox the sides of the softbox is fitted with reflective material to make the best use of the light. On the front of the softbox a white fabric is mounted and this is all lit up when the flash fires.
A look inside the softbox. Notice the reflective material to the right. The metal pole in the middle is part of the umbrella like construction that defines the shape of the softbox.
My softbox from Godox is also fitted with a diffuser fabric in the middle so the flash fires straight into the first layer of fabric than then diffuses the light and makes sure the light is distributed evenly within the softbox to make the final light on the front as even as possible. The ideal softbox gives a evenly lit up surface on the front of the softbox – if your softbox does a bad job here, you will see that the light is stronger in the centre than in the corners.
Mounting the softbox to the stand.
The rear of the softbox typically has a Bowens interface that allows you to mount the softbox directly to most light systems. In my case I used the supplied holder shown above, that connects with the softbox via the 3 pins in the Bowens interface and to the stand via a locking mechanism. In the centre of the ring above, the flash is mounted and of course it needs to be radio controlled (or in optical slave mode).
Why a softbox
As mentioned the softbox is intended to make the lightsource bigger and hence give more soft light. Relative to shooting through an umbrella, the soft box gives much more direction to the light and the light is also more evenly distributed.
Most pro photographers will tell you that getting the flash off camera will be a much better option that having it on camera, as the options for positioning the flash grows to infinite. But to do so, you either need a cable between the flash and the camera (not recommended – limited reach + cumbersome) or you will need some sort of radio communication between camera and flash.
Many modern flashes like the Godox V860III comes with radio receivers, but you may not have a transmitter to put in the hot shoe of the flash, or you may want to use an older flash as fill light and don’t want to invest in a receiver. What to do?
Optical slave mode
To the rescue comes optical slave mode. Not all flashes have this feature, but many do: in the flash there is a small unit that looks for other flashes firing and when they see one firing, they follow suit. Of course, if you have set it up to do so.
You may ask how this is possible? Well, the time the shutter is open, say 1/100th of a second, is a barn door of time for a flash, so it is plenty of time for one flash to fire, another to see it and fire shortly after, and still stay within the time when the shutter is open. Flashes are unbelievably fast!
The optical slave mode on the Godox flash is found in manual mode. Notice the S2 to the right in the LCD: It will work with a TTL controlled flash and ignore the pre-flash.
Built in flash
If you have a camera with a built in flash like the Nikon D750, you can use the built in flash to trigger the off camera flash. If the camera shoots in TTL mode (the automated flash mode), it will fire a pre-flash to measure the light and immediately after fire the flash for exposing the image. It happens so fast you won’t notice the two flashes, but your slave flash will! Therefore, you need to tell the slave flash to ignore the pre-flash and only fire when the main flash fires.
The built in flash of the Nikon D750.
On my Godox V860III the flash has two slave modes: S1 – will fire every time a flash is seen, S2 – will fire at the second flash and hence ignore the pre-flash. So when I control the built in flash manually, I set the slave flash to S1, and when I shoot TTL, I set the slave flash to S2.
Limitations
Some say that the slave flash needs to have line of sight to the main flash, but I have been able to get the slave flash to fire even without direct line of sight. But you will need to try this out and see what works with your combination of flashes. I will say though that the slave flash will need to see a lot of light in order to be able to react, so direct line of sight is probably the safe way to go.
Another thing to notice is that the strength of the optical slave flash can only be set manually. There is no communication between the camera and the slave flash at all – only a visual signal saying: please fire! This is one of the main limitations of optical slave flashes relative to radio controlled flashes. On that note, if the camera with a built in flash is in TTL mode and the optical slave flash is set to S2, then the camera will not be able to factor in the optical slave when it meters the scene with the pre-flash, so remember to factor in the additional light using flash exposure compensation or set the strength of the optical slave flash low.
A flash in optical slave mode is hiding in the bowl!
Several flashes
If you have a trigger on the camera and a radio controlled (off camera) flash, it is still possible to use an additional flash in optical slave mode. It just reacts to the radio controlled flash. This way you can bring the radio controlled and the optical slave flashes closer to each other and hence be more sure the optical slave flash will fire.
You may have noticed that your eye works a bit differently at night than at daytime. Due to the way your eye is constructed, the colors red, yellow and orange will appear less bright relative to blue and green colors, when perceived in low light.
This can lead to some frustrations as a photographer, as your camera does not follow this logic and simply register the light as is. So what you remember to have seen at night may not be what you find when you open the image in your post processing software! The solution is to color edit the images to make the red, yellow and orange less intense so the image is better aligned to how you remember the scene.
At night your eyes will be better able to see green and blue relative to red and yellow.
Colors and emotions go hand in hand like horse and carriage from that famous song by Frank Sinatra. And as such it can be used as a tool for your photography and the emotions you want to induce.
Think of a midsummer morning where the sun is just rising, filling the room you are in with warm light and long shadows. What colors do you think of? Probably yellow, orange and red. If I had asked you to think of a frosty windless winters morning, what colors would then spring to mind? Probably more cool blue or white. Filmmakers are exceptionally good at using colors to underline or emphasize a mood using colors – I often notice the color coding they use (and the music of course) to create a certain mood. In dystopian movies like Blade Runner the blue and brown colors are often dominating to underline the unsettling look into the future.
The warm and golden colors of the beech leaves are a stark contrast against the dark background made up of the trees in the wood. The effect is achieved using a flash and the effect of light falloff.Blue and orange are complementary colors and gives a pleasing contrast.
Colors not only induce emotions, but can also be used to create patterns and connect objects that would otherwise seem without relation.
Green is often associated with nature and harmony which is probably why this image signals a calm atmosphere more than anything.Sometimes less is more. The cat here is by nature black and white, and the colors of the eyes hence makes a big contrast.The colors here are desaturated and underline the tranquil scene. The stronger the colors, the stronger the effect. Desaturated colors calm the mind.Here the color of the leaves help bring them together despite the more structural elements in the composition pull in the opposite direction.White and blue are often associated with calmness and clarity. Also sterile and purity, which is why these colors are often used in bathrooms!By altering the color temperature to a colder tone, the freezing cold winter day is emphasized.
Next step
One way to study the effect of colors using your own reaction as guide, is simply to make both a color and black and white version of an image and see how the different versions work for you. You can also try to alter the colors in post processing and play with saturation, hue and brightness.
The point with this post is not that there is a right and a wrong when it comes to colors. If you learn how to use the colors to achieve a certain effect, then your images will have a much bigger impact. And of all the tools in the photographers toolbox (composition, exposure, etc), color is the strongest of them all.
I often find that some of the most simple or fundamental techniques in photography are also the ones with the biggest impact. So when it comes to filling the frame, there really is not that much more to tell than: fill the frame with your subject.
A glass of wine. But where is it? A restaurant? At home? That for the viewer to figure out.
Filling the frame does not necessarily entail a macro shot, although you often will go very close to the subject to fill the frame. But the point with filling the frame is that the “stage” for the subject is lost and only the subject is left. So a lot of storytelling and the relationship between subject and surroundings is gone when you fill the frame.
The background here is so much out of focus that there is almost no information about how this leaf “sits” in its environment.
You can fill the frame when shooting, but if your camera has sufficient resolution, it is certainly also an option to crop the image in post processing and get the same effect.
The stark color contrast underlines the different stages of life these two leaves are at.
In the example above, I chose to frame the image with a lot of context information. I could have gone much closer to the withered leave in the center and gotten a very different expression, focusing more on the withered vs living leaf relative to the rainy day scene surrounding them.
Here cropped in post.
There is no right or wrong here – just different expressions. So it comes down to what story it is you want to tell and the expression you want to come across. Filling the frame is just one of many options for you to compose your image.
Before diving into the details of the focus system on the Ricoh GR3x camera, I just want to make sure you do not have the camera in macro mode.
The little flower on the screen (red arrow) tells that the camera is in macro mode. Push the button at the blue arrow to toggle in and out of macro mode.
In the image above, push the button shown with the blue arrow to toggle the camera in and out of macro mode. In macro mode, the camera will not focus to infinity, but on the other hand it can focus very close to the subject. I have many times been struggling to understand why it would not focus, only to find that macro was engaged.
Version 1.1 of the firmware.
Another thing to check is the firmware version. My copy of the Ricoh GRIIIx was sent with version 1.1 of the firmware, so I have never tried version 1.0 but the word on the street is that version 1.1 is much better and hence upgrading the firmware is worth the while.
Basics
The Ricoh GRIIIx works like many other cameras when it comes to focus: if you half press the shutter the camera focuses, and full press takes the image. You can touch the screen to select the area for the camera to focus on and this presents a little box that frames what the camera will focus on.
The square (red arrow) can be moved with the control wheel if the OK button (blue arrow) has been pushed and the little symbol at the green arrow is visible. Press OK to toggle in and out of this mode.
That little box can be moved around with the command wheel if you before that press the OK button.
If you long hold the “Disp” button bottom right on the rear of the camera, the LCD will zoom in, and again you can use the command wheel to select the area to view. Press “Disp” again to leave zoom mode.
Focus modes
The Ricoh GRIIIx comes with a series of focus modes that give different levels of control vs automation. You can go into the large menu system and select the focus mode, but I find that pushing the so called compensation lever top right on the rear of the camera is easier – it takes you into a smaller menu system where the image profile, focus, etc can be adjusted.
Push the compensation lever (blue arrow) to enter the menu where the focus options is the second item from the left. Here the auto-area autofocus option is selected.
The focus menu is the second from the left, where the first one is image control. Use the control dial to move the cursor in the menu system – the selected value is highlighted in yellow. Push the OK button in the center of the control dial to select an option, and press the Menu button to leave the menu system.
There are a total of 9 (!) different focus modes:
Auto-area AF is the most automated one and you have no control whatsoever. The camera chooses what to focus on. This is a good option if you want to use the camera in a “point and shoot” style. If you tab the LCD, a box will appear and the camera will focus here, but only for 1 image! After that, it is back to fully automated.
Auto-area AF (centre) is like the first option, but it prioritizes the center of the frame when choosing what to focus on.
Select AF gives you a little square on the LCD screen, and whatever is in that square is what the camera will focus on. You can move this square around with the control wheel as described above, or just tab the LCD to position the square where you have touched the LCD.
Pinpoint AF is the same as the 3rd option, but the area is smaller. Good if you have something very small that you want to focus on hiding behind other objects that are closer.
Tracing AF works like Select AF, but it keeps track of whatever you selected if either the subject moves or you move the camera – provided of course it stays within the frame. This is great if you have something moving within the frame or if you want to focus and then recompose. I use this option a lot.
Continuous AF adjusts the focus as you half press the shutter. This is great if your subject moves closer to or away from you, as the camera will adjust focus accordingly. For example someone walking towards you.
Manual Focus is where you select the position of the focal plane by turning the control wheel. I do not use this option a lot even though I usually like manual focus. The reason is that you have to turn the wheel a lot for the focal plane to move and this makes it very cumbersome to use.
Snap is where the camera focuses on a pre-set focus distance. If you hold the macro button in and at the same time turn the front dial, the value can be changed. The options are 1m, 1.5m, 2m, 2.5m, 3m, 5m and infinity. Notice that if you press the shutter fast (i.e. no pause half pressed) the camera will focus using snap focus.
Infinity is where the camera focuses to infinity and this can be useful if you don’t want the camera to “hunt” to find focus. But of course your subject then also has to be something where focus to infinity is meaningful.
Other options
If you hit the “Menu” button the full menu system of the Ricoh GRIIIx is displayed and in here many of the same options as in the control lever menu can be found.
In the menu system many of the same parameters as the ADJ lever menu can be found.
However, there are more options and details in the menu system. One useful option is to turn the face and eye detection on and off, you can control if the auto focus assist light is to turn on or not, if focus peaking is to be shown, etc.
Options in the customize control menu.
Also, if you scroll down to the customize controls menu, you can turn the touch sensitivity of the LCD on and off, and you can also control how much the camera does when the LCD is touched, and if you take the most elaborate option, the camera will both move the focus point to where you touch the screen, focus and shoot! Enjoy!
Some time back I made a video where I talked about micro variations in photography and recommended to try to take a lot of images of the same scene and subject, but with small changes to angle and framing. I have found that small variations sometimes is the difference between a really good picture and a “naaah” picture. Something as simple as turning the camera 90 degrees can also be the difference between great and average.
And I was very happy with this little “discovery” and thought that I for once had invented something new and fresh! Until I visited a museum and saw the work of the Danish painter Vilhelm Lundstrøm.
Same but different!
Apparently Vilhelm Lundstrøm also worked with variations over the same theme, and in the example below he has painted the same stilleben two times – one with more pale colors and viewed a bit further away than the other version that has more bang for the buck color wise but also has moved a bit closer to the subject.
Stilleben version 1: the colors here are pale and you can see the front of the table in the bottom of the image.Stilleben version 2: More colors and a bit closer to the subject.
It is probably subject to taste and personal preference which of the two paintings you like the best, but the point is that even small variations depicting the same subject can lead to vastly different results. So when you are out and about shooting, take some time to shoot several versions of the same scene using micro variations – I am sure that when you get back to the computer and open up the images for processing, you will be positively surprised how some images work and others don’t, even when they at first glance seem very similar.
It took several shots of this scene to get the result I was after.
If you have ever talked to a flower or macro photographer about their best tip for getting a good shot, you will often hear them talk about finding a good background for the subject rather than worrying about the subject so much. Don’t get me wrong, the subject is of course also important, but often the balance tilts to the favour of the subject at the expense of the background.
I don’t know why this focus on the background apparently is more important to macro and flower photographers, but I think it has to do with the nature of the subject – it is often very simple (= elegant, minimalistic, focused) and hence any distractions from the subject hits extra hard in this line of photography.
I think the rest of us (i.e. non flower / macro photographers) can learn from the focus they have on getting the background right. Often, when I review my images in Lightroom, the difference between a good shot and a bad one is determined by the background. As Joel Sartore says in his book Photo Basics: If there is something in your frame that is not working for you, then it is actually working against you!
I’ll leave you some examples below where I think the background works as it should.
A large aperture and some distance to the background helps bringing the right parts of the image out of focus.The large bokeh balls do steal some attention but also help create an atmosphere that emphasises the leaves.The red and green colors underline the birds lack of colors.The play between in focus and out of focus shows that the background can as important as the subject.A classic example of underlining the subject with a carefully selected background. Sun through trees on a winter’s day.Using a flash and the effect of light falloff, I was able to make these withered leaves stand out on a dark background. If you are thinking that it did not look like this IRL, then you are absolutely right!Here the balance between subject and background is almost reversed – the background takes the leading role.
Many years ago when I took my drivers license, my first thought after reading all the driving school theory was: this is not so complicated! I got this! And then I got wiser!
When you read this blog you may well think: Ok king obvious, haven’t you got something more interesting or challenging for us to read? But please remember that it is the appliance of the theory that makes photography so challenging (and fun!) whereas the theory itself may (sometime) seem so straightforward that it is pointless. But photography is often about making choices, not solving problems. So please read the following in that light: it is about making choices, not solving problems.
Portrait and landscape
Horizontal and vertical is amongst photographers often referred to as landscape and portrait. If the image is wider than tall, then it is landscape (horizontal), if it is taller than wide, then portrait (vertical). The sensor in a digital camera is not square, but typically 3:2 or 4:3, so when shooting with the camera horizontally, you will get a landscape image, turning it 90 degrees you’ll get a portrait mode image.
Choosing
In theory, the “right” way to choose between portrait and landscape is to consider the composition and how the subject and scene works together with the oriententation. So wide subjects like a coastline would suggest landscape mode, whereas a tall subject like a tree or a skyscraper or a Giacometti statue would suggest portrait mode. And then of course you can go against convention (or what most would do) and thereby create some tension. There is no right or wrong here, only choices that work with you or against you relative to what you want to achieve.
When out and about with my DSLR or ML camera, I shoot in landscape mode 99% of the time. I think most do, probably because the way our eyes sit in our head makes us see the world in landscape orientation. But recently with my new Ricoh GR3x camera, I’ve found that I more often shoot in portrait mode. Maybe because the camera is so small and handy, that turning it falls more natural now. So a mix of convenience and coincidence can also be a factor in the orientation of the image.
Here I went with landscape mode. The tree in the foreground could justify portrait, but that would have changed the dominance of the green and orange colors in the image.
Many images and video are shown on wide screens (TV and computer ) that typically are in a 16:9 format, and here obviously landscape images make a better fit to the format than portrait does. But if you read this blog on a smartphone, it is likely that the format is taller than wide. And in that case, portrait works better than landscape, unless you tilt your smartphone to become a wide screen. If you study people and how they use their smartphone, it is seldom the phone is tilted unless they play a computer game. So there is the use case to consider: in what format is the final image intended to be used? And that can drive your choice of orientation.
I was struggling to capture this scene. The landscape mode versions of the image somehow did not work. Turning the camera 90 degrees gave me the result I wanted.
The square alternative
The quare alternative created in post.
Post processing enables you to change the format into whatever you’d like and 1:1 is certainly also an option, especially if you post to Instagram, where 1:1 is the only format! And if you have made the shot sufficiently wide and with plenty of resolution, a portrait image can be changed into a landscape and vice versa. So post processing certainly gives a lot more options when the image is framed with this in mind.
To overcome the Instagram limitation of 1:1, I often post my images with a white frame that allows a landscape image in the square format.
Summary
It is my hope that you after reading this will give portrait mode a try more often than previously! And some “aha!” or “eureka!” experiences to accompany! There are plenty of blogs (including this one) that will tell you what the “correct” composition theory is relative to the image format, but if you ignore that for now and just go with your intuition and use portrait as you see fit, then I think you will find it rewarding. And if you also can muster the energy to think about the use case (is the image to be viewed on a smartphone or printed big for an exhibition) before you hit the shutter, well, then my day is made!
