Photographers often question their current gear and is constantly scanning the market for better options with more advanced features. There is often no need for that. Your good old trusty DSLR will do just fine!
Gear acquisition syndrome (GAS) is a common disease amongst photographers.
Yes, a more modern camera may have more megapixels and face recognition and the like, but I would suggest that you put these considerations to a side and focus on getting to know your camera. Not that you need to know and understand each and every detail about the deepest menu system, but more the basics related to focus and exposure. Here I will take you through some of the important aspects of your camera and gear.
Megapixels
How many megapixels do you need as a portrait photographer? Not many. I have shot with my trusty old Nikon D700, and it is a 12megapixel camera, and used the files to print in size 70 x 100 cm and the client was happy as can be. The thing is, the larger you print, the larger the viewing distance.
If you see a large print on a wall, your natural reaction is to take a step back to allow you to take it all in. Otherwise you will be viewing the image as you would a tennis match – your eyes would go back and forth, and most don’t do that, but take a step back. If you pass a billboard, try to go up close. You will see that the resolution is very low (= looks horrible!), as it is intended to be viewed from far away.
The most common reason for wanting a lot of megapixels is to be able to crop, but if you frame your images carefully, then cropping should not be necessary. When the first digital cameras came out, they had only about 8 megapixels, but it was still amazing images the pros could produce. So don’t worry about the number of megapixels. Worry about filling the frame with your subject, and you are good to go.
Sensor size
Another common worry amongst photographers is choosing between APS-C and full frame. There are differences, granted, and you need less light with a full frame camera. But modern sensors (i.e. produced within the last 15 years) are so good that I find the difference to be negligible. You can shoot amazing images also with APS-C. So I would not worry about the sensor size.
File format
Your camera most likely offers different file formats – the one with most information is RAW and that is the format I recommend. You will get the most flexibility and headroom if you shoot raw. But there is a downside of course, and that is the space it requires both on your memory card and your computer.
You can do fine with say a JPG file, but you cannot recover so many details from the shadows or highlights if you need to, when your exposure is a bit off or the dynamic range of the scene stresses the dynamic range of the camera. So it is a balance between the need for post processing flexibility and saving disc space. Your call. My suggestion is to go for the flexibility and then have sufficient storage to accommodate the raw format.
Exposure parameters
Exposure is obviously important. But with digital photography and raw file formats, I would say less so now than in the film days. You can do a lot of adjustments to exposure in post when you shoot raw, and also you can preview the images on the camera’s rear LCD, along with a histogram. So if your exposure is off, then the options for learning about this while shooting are many.
But, there are 3 vital parameters you need to work with when we are talking exposure: ISO, aperture and shutter speed.
Your camera comes with a base ISO value, typically 100 or 200. From here you can turn up the volume and the higher ISO, the less light the camera needs to expose correct, all things being equal. The down side is that you will pay a price in terms of grainy images and washed out colours if you go too high on the ISO.
You can test this with your specific camera model, but I would stay below or at ISO 2000 as the limit. Different cameras have different limits to when the images start to turn bad, so give it a try with your camera model and see where the pain point starts to set in and stay well below that.
Auto ISO can be a great help. It means that the camera sets the ISO automatically to give the correct exposure. Typically you can limit the ISO so the camera will not go over a certain value – I recommend that you set this limit so you are sure not to come home with grainy images. And then I recommend that you switch Auto ISO on – it gives a bit more headroom for the shutter speed and aperture.
Shutter speed
Speaking of shutter speed, the reciprocal rule says that you should not go slower than the reciprocal value of your focal length. So if you are shooting at 85mm, then 1/85th of a second is the slowest you can go. Modern cameras with vibration reduction in both lens and camera have moved these limits and allow much slower shutter speeds, but if you have a good old DSLR with no vibration reduction, then the reciprocal rule is a good guide.
Aperture
If you ask me, aperture is the most important parameter in the exposure settings, as it dictates the depth of field. The more closed down the aperture is (higher f-stop numbers) the more depth of field (DOF) you get. And depth of field can be a life saver if you don’t manage to get the focus just right – the DOF introduces a “forgiveness” factor that can save you from minor misses on focus.
Google a depth of field calculator app and load it into your smartphone. Put in the parameter from your camera and the settings you plan to use and see what DOF you get. I prefer to have a DOF of at least 30-40 cm, so that when I focus on the eyer, the person in focus is sharp front to back. Notice that even though the aperture has a big influence on the DOF, the distance to the subject has even more. So getting some space between you and the subject can be absolutely vital for getting the DOF you want.
Exposure modes
Your camera will have several exposure modes: PASM, meaning program, aperture priority, shutter priority and manual. To allow you to focus on the client and the shoot, I would stay clear of manual mode unless you are very comfortable with keeping an eye on the light meter. Aperture priority means that you are the boss when it comes to the aperture, and the camera selects the shutter speed. For shutter priority it is the other way around. Program mode means that the camera sets both the aperture and the shutter speed – this is the mode where you have less control.
Finally, many cameras also have a Auto mode. It is the same as program mode, but in addition the camera has pre-selected and locked a number of other values so it is in “point and shoot” mode.
I typically shoot in aperture priority to control the DOF, and the camera then selects the shutter speed. And in addition I switch on auto ISO, so the camera has to variables to play with to get the exposure right. But I always try to keep an eye on the shutter speed, to make sure it does not get too slow.
Compensation
Your camera probably has an exposure compensation button. It typically sits close to the shutter release button and has a +/- sign. If you push that button, your can use the front or rear command dials to set the exposure compensation in stops of light.
It can be very useful if you don’t agree to the cameras automated metering, i.e. you find that it systematically exposes to much or too little, or you just want to protect the highlights. The adjustment of the automated exposure can be really useful, but be careful when you have it activated – you may forget it is on! Keep an eye out for the metering scale – it will show if you have compensation turned on.
Metering modes
Your camera probably offers a number of metering modes. The most automated and advanced is named matrix or weighted metering. That is the one I would recommend you to use.
For portrait there is an alternative to consider and that is the center weighted mode. It will prioritize metering according to the amount of light in the center of the frame. This can be useful if you are shooting against a very bright background like at white backdrop.
No matter which mode you choose, it will not change the amount of ambient light- only the way the camera interprets the light.
Shake
You don’t want shake or movement. Camera shake is when the camera is moved while the shutter is pen. Movement is when the subject moves while the shutter is open. The slower the shutter speed, the bigger the risk of shake and movement there is.
Shake and movement is not what you want in portrait photography. You can use it creatively for some images, but my guess is that for the most part your client would like to have images that are not blurred. And shake and movement will look blurred. Many mistake images with blur for being out of focus, but the cause is different.
A tripod is a good way to mitigate camera shake. But it does take up space in your backpack, and although modern tripods comes in carbon versions, there is still a weight penalty to be paid. If you are to do 100 corporate headshots, then you definitely want the camera to be on a tripod to make sure you get exactly the same angle and position for each image (along with a cross on the floor to indicate where the employee is to stand).
When we are on the subject of tripods: consider to get an l-bracket. It makes shooting in portrait mode so much easier without tipping the balance of your camera on the tripod.
White balance
Your camera probably has a button named “WB” or a quick menu where you can set the white balance. The white balance is something camera producers generally try to make accessible easily.
Don’t mix light sources with different colour temperatures – it is a safe route to trouble, unless you shoot black and white!
You will probably find that your camera offers a lot of options for white balance settings. Don’t worry and put the camera in automatic mode. Modern cameras have an excellent white balance automatic system, and you can always tweak the white balance in post if you are not happy with the chosen Kelvin value!
However, be careful not to mix two colour temperatures! I once photographed a birthday where the party was held inside (candescent light) but there were some very big windows also that contributed with a lot of natural light (sun). When I shot people standing close to the window or even worse: with the window as a backdrop, I got two different colour temperatures mixed! The result: Either their skin tone looked absolutely horrible and the room colours looked ok, or their skin tone looked natural and the room had the most weird colours! That taught me to not mix colour temperatures!
Focus settings
Your camera probably has a lot of options for setting focus, and with mirrorless cameras it has gotten a bit more complicated adding face recognition and even recognition of animal faces! So many choices!
My advice is: shoot with a focus option where you control what the camera selects to focus on. In auto focus mode, you have no control of what the camera focuses on, and it will typically select whatever is the closest to the camera. But that my not be what you want it to focus on.
I prefer a low tech option that gives me control. So I usually shoot with a small focus point that I can move around with the command wheel on the rear of my camera. If you don’t have time to move the focus point around, then move the camera so the focus point is on the eye of your subject, half press the shutter to lock focus, recompose (i.e. move the camera so you get the framing you want) and then press the shutter fully to take the picture. When you’ve done this a few times, it quickly becomes second nature.
Portrait photography away from home is a brutal game if you ask me. Not only do you have to be ready with the gear and your skills lined up, but you also have to adjust to the lighting conditions and the physical location the client has chosen. The parameters in play are many more than if you ask the client to show up in your studio where you know exactly what backdrops to choose from and where the flashes are positioned.
This little checklist is intended for you if you are new to the task of shooting (digital) portraits away from home. A getting started guide, if you like. As your experience grows, you may find that you grow out of the advice given here, but that is as it should be. The intention is to get you going, not to limit you as your skills and experience grows.
You are not alone
If you are a photographer and not super comfortable with all the buttons and dials on your camera, then here is a little secret: you are not alone! Many photographers are not engineers but originate from a more creative line of business, and hence the many technical aspects of photography is either not of interest or not necessary to get the job done. The most important thing is that you are comfortable with the fact that you don’t need to know all corners of your camera. Or to say it another way: it is OK to be uncomfortable with the fact that your are uncomfortable with some buttons on the camera. You can get the job done still.
Respect your own role
You have been hired to do a job. To be successful in that job, you sometimes have to instruct and direct the client. Maybe they need to adjust the hairdo, bend an arm a little more, the dress folds in a way you don’t want it to, etc. Make sure you are the boss when it comes to the photography work.
The client may be tired and want to move on, they don’t want to do as you say, etc. Here you need to take charge and not cave in: Your success does not come randomly, but through carefully managing the shooting process, and that entails directing the client and being the boss when needed. Be polite and friendly of course, but do stand your ground. The better you are at this, the better results and the happier clients.
Take time to talk to the client during the shoot. Not everyone is comfortable in front of the camera, and then your job is the help them. You can try different approaches like asking an open ended question or cracking a joke – both helps them being less self aware. Or involve them in the shoot and ask them to hold a reflector, if that can stay out of the frame. But first and foremost: read the person you are photographing and adjust your instructions accordingly to create the best atmosphere possible.
Agreed
To define your role, an agreement in writing is a must. It does not have to be very long or in the shape of a formal contract, but an e-mail to agree terms and conditions along with the scope of the assignment is mandatory if you ask me. Many photographers are not comfortable with this part, but it will come back and bite you if you do not lock the scope of the assignment with some sort of written agreement. And define what you plan to charge.
The important is that you have a good understanding of what the client wants to achieve and that expectations are managed on both sides. So if you are hired to shoot Adam at his 18th year birthday, then that is the job. Not to shoot Adam’s girlfriend or his parents. Use the scope definition as a central tool in managing the expectations. And also define who owns the images and if example copies can be used in your marketing or not.
If you plan to deliver the images on a memory stick and this is defined in the agreement, then it should be clear to everyone that ordering 10 printed copies of one of the images will be charged separately. Having a list of prices for additional services (such as printing) can help manage expectations.
Pricing is very individual per country and hence difficult to be specific about, but make sure you don’t sell yourself cheap. Just because it is easy for you to shoot 10 additional images does not mean it is easy for anyone. When you hire someone to paint your living room, it may be easy for that person to do the job because they have the skills and the training. But the value add for you is that you get the painting done with a very capable person that can paint much better than you will ever be able to do. Or find the time to do it. And there is the value, right? Look at your own profession the same way – your skillset did not come easy and there is a lot of value add from hiring a pro photographer.
Work backwards
When I was new to photography, I never gave the end result a thought. I was more worried about framing, light, exposure, etc. And that is also important. But it can be valuable to know how the digital images are going to be applied. There is a huge difference if the image is going to be posted on instagram in a 1:1 format, shared on a UHD TV set in 16:9 format or printed huge in 3:2 format to hang in a hallway somewhere.
When I shoot images that I know are going to be cropped to 16:9, then I often go a bit wider in my framing to allow the top and the bottom of the image to be cropped in order to fit the 16:9 format that I often use. Had I not zoomed out a bit, then I would be facing some difficult cropping choices. So beginning with the end in mind is a good exercise.
When shooting portraits, you may find that to fill the frame the best way, you may need to turn your camera 90 degrees to – well – portrait mode. Hence the name, I guess. But it can make a huge difference how you frame the shot. And if you find that portrait mode works for you, and you shoot with a tripod, then maybe an L-bracket is something you need in your camera bag. This question only came up, because you started thinking the process though.
Mind the background
Your subject is the star or the main actor. You don’t want anything to steal the attention from the star. So mind the background, please. If you study flower portraits or portraits of insects, you will see that the best photographers are very good at selecting backgrounds that do not dominate the subject.
Some photographers love to give their subject props such as flowers, hats, umbrellas or glasses. I am a bit sceptical to this approach. If you think it is the right thing to do, the do it by all means, but please consider if the props start to take focus away from the subject.
One way to make the background less dominating is by making it blurred. This is a common technique amongst photographers, as it makes the subject pop: Razor sharp subject, super blurred background. And it does work. But the price is that you may need to shoot at a shallow depth of field, and then focusing can become more tricky. And in extreme cases, only parts of the subject is in focus. What you can do is to make sure there is much more distance between the subject and the background than there is between the camera and the subject. In this way you can shoot at a middle-of-the-road aperture as f/5.6 and still get a reasonably blurred background.
If you choose say a white wall as a background, be mindful that the light metering system in the camera can be a bit confused. Your camera probably has an option named something like “centre weighed metering” – try that for size and see if it gives better results.
Focal length
If you want to be REALLY bored (say, you can’t fall asleep), try this: Ask two portrait photographers which focal length they prefer. Chances are that they don’t agree and will debate for hours on end. We are in personal preference territory.
One thing is certain: a very wide lens (say 20mm) will not make the subject look attractive, especially if you put the camera right in front of their nose! Whatever is in the middle of the frame will take up a disproportionate size, which of course is funny if you want the clowns red nose to be extra big, but most buying a portrait photographer expects something a little more accommodating.
The classic focal length for portrait is 85mm. It is like buying a Volkswagen Golf – it can hardly go wrong. Others prefer a bit longer lenses like 105mm or 135mm. But it stays in that range. The reason is that 85-135mm gives a natural representation of proportions without compressing the image too much. In other words: it looks natural.
Zoom versus primes is a discussion that started when the earth cooled down. In the old days, it was probably true that primes were sharper than zooms, but a zoom lens today is very, very close to a prime. So close that I doubt you for any practical purposes (other than pixel peeping) will notice the difference. And I do find that my 70-200mm zoom gives me some options to vary the framing via zooming that my 85mm prime does not. But it is very much up to you and your personal preference.
Notice that when I talk focal length here, I refer to the full frame (35mm) focal lengths. If you are shooting with an APS-C camera with a cropped sensor, then you need to multiply the focal length with 1.5 approx. to get to the full frame equivalent. So a 70mm lens on a APS-C camera is the same as a 105mm lens on a full frame camera.
Home
My best advice? Make sure you come home with something. Anything but empty hands. Your clients have put trust in your ability to do the job, and if your memory card goes belly up for some reason, or your camera gets stolen on the train on the way back from the event, then you have zero. Zip. Nada.
It is not funny to tell the clients that the important event wasn’t documented, unfortunately. And how ever good a reason you have, it does not help much. So do everything you can to avoid ending up in that situation. That is my best advice. Even the best composition with wonderful lighting captured with just the right exposure does not help much, if it sits on a memory card you cannot read or in a camera you don’t know where is. So backup, backup and backup.
If you watch some YouTube videos with camera reviews, one of the things many reviewers talk about for hours on end is if the camera has one or two card slots. I did not understand the importance of this in the beginning, but now I do – it’s all about having no single point of failure to ruin your day. If your data is duplicated at the source (= two card slots) then that helps a lot.
But even if you only have one card slot, you can bring a laptop or a storage device to make backups during the shoot. Or even better: to some cloud solution. Even if you have a dual card camera, you may want to do a backup still.
Be mindful that theft is a risk if you e.g. go via transportation shared with others, such as a plane or a train. Many people store their backups the same place as the original and forget that fire and theft will potentially ruin both the original and the backup in one sweep. So be a bit paranoid: make backups during the shoot and split the original and the backup as best you can.
Some older DSLRs allow you to happily shoot away with no memory card installed! There is a little sign on the rear LCD notifying you of this, but in principle you can go all day and shoot without noticing this. Such a grim situation will also be mitigated if you make it a habit to do backups during the shoot.
Procedure
Photography is in the creative genre. Quite opposite to procedure. Agreed. But combining procedure and creativity in my experience is the best way forward. Having worked in procedures you follow loyally allow you to focus on the more creative and fun part, while the more dull and boring part runs on routine. Well worked in routine.
It is not funny to establish these procedures or routines. But it will help you produce the same high standard result on a consistent level. And the difference between a pro and an amateur is exactly the consistency. So establish routines that lay the foundation for success, such as:
Have a checklist for what needs to go in the camera bag and follow that list to the point.
Bring spare batteries fully charged + a charger and a power bank
Bring spare and formatted memory cards that you know work
Test your flashes from home and how they are set-up in groups and channels
The above are just examples. But work on your routines to make sure you take all the unnecessary variables out of the equation. That gives you comfort and surplus to focus on the more fun stuff about photography.
Light
Photography is writing with light, so obviously light is important. If you need to travel carrying as little as possible, chances are that you do not have flashes or video light as an option, let alone light diffusers and stands to hold it all. So you are left with ambient light.
For portrait photography soft light is the preference by most, unless you are doing something very specialised, which I assume is not the case.
Soft light makes the transition from light to dark areas happen gradually rather than the abrupt way that hard light does. If you are standing in the sun on a cloudless summers day around noon, then you will know what hard light looks like!
Soft light is produced with a large light source relative to the size of your subject. So this is why the sun on a cloudless day can produce brutally hard light: it is a very small light source, far far away from your subject. If a cloud obscures the sun, then the cloud serves as a diffuser (and increases the size of the light source) and all of a sudden the light is much softer.
One way to soften ambient light is to put a big white cloth between the light source and the subject. You can do this both outdoor and indoor. The biggest challenge is to find a way to mount the white cloth, but a few pieces of cord and a bit of ingenuity can get you a long way. If this gets to complicated, holding a shoot through umbrella between the light source and the subject is another way of softening the light. Get the umbrella as close to the subject as possible to maximise the effect.
Finally, as simple tool as a reflector can maximise the use of the ambient light. If the light enters from the left, hold the reflector to the right to make the two sides of the face more evenly lit. If it enters from the top, hold the reflector under the chin to balance the light more evenly. You will be surprised how big the effect of such a simple tool can be. If you don’t have a reflector, simply use a white piece of paper or cardboard. A bonus is here that you can ask the subject to hold the reflector and hence be more engaged in the shooting process, which may help some become more relaxed and less self aware.
Continued reading
In part two I talk more about camera settings and the like operational stuff. Thanks for reading this far!
Pinhole photography is simply that you take the lens off your DSLR or mirrorless camera, and instead block the light from entering where the lens would be mounted, except for a tiny, tiny hole where the light can seep through is very limited amounts.
But why?
Pinhole photography is a nerdy discipline in photography, and certainly not for everyone. It requires long exposures and the images are -due to diffraction – not particularly sharp. But it is a more engaging type of photography, where you will need to spend more time with your camera and you will feel more engaged in the process of shooting, relative to the point-and-shoot like style that most of know from our smartphones..
How?
You need a camera where it is possible to take the lens off. This can be a DSLR or a ML camera, but if you can choose, I would recommend a DSLR, as the sensor is bit better protected behind the mirror than what is the case for a ML camera. You are walking around with a camera with a hole in it after all!
A small hole drilled in the lid used to seal the camera when no lens is mounted.
There are a few different ways you can do this, but I prefer to take the lid you use to seal off the camera when no lens is mounted, and drill a small hole in the centre of the lid. This gives a relatively robust solution, should something hit the area where the lens is usually mounted.
A piece of tinfoil taped to the lid. and a small hole punched in the tinfoil.
Make sure the hole is free from any fragments from the drilling process, so the hole is clean and round. Next, mount a piece of tinfoil on the lid, using a bit of tape. Smart people use tape that is not transparent – from the image above you can see that I am not in that group! And finally, you simply need to take a needle and punch a hole in the tinfoil.
If you want to be very serious about it, you can take a black permanent marker and color the tinfoil black on the side that faces the camera. This way, you minimize reflections on the “inside” of the tinfoil. Needless to say, you need to do this before taping the tinfoil to the lid.
After that, it is simply a question of mounting the lid on the camera, and you are all set! One small thing missing: blocking the viewfinder!
The viewfinder on the Nikon D4 can be blocked by moving a switch to the left of the viewfinder. Here it is closed – no light will enter!
When you are shooting with long exposures, so called false light can enter the camera via the viewfinder, so you need to block it. On some cameras it can be done by flipping a switch next to the viewfinder, if that is not the case for your camera, then you need to block it manually – but please don’t use chewing gum! Yes, seriously, I have seen some photographers do that!
A tripod is (almost) mandatory
Not everyone likes a tripod, but it is necessary to hold the camera still during long exposures. If you don’t have a tripod, try putting the camera on a big stone or a solid fence or whatever is available to you, to secure the camera is still during the exposure.
In my experience, the exposure times for a small pinhole is something along these lines:
Shooting into the sun: 10 seconds
Shooting on an overcast day: 20-30 seconds
Shooting at dusk: around 2 minutes
Shooting at night: 4+ minutes
I always try to shoot at base ISO, typically 100, but it may vary subject to your camera. If you shoot at higher ISO, the result may be noisy. I will say though that shooting at night will require so long exposures that in those cases I shoot at ISO 400 or 800 simply because my patience does not suffice. But as a general rule, stay at base ISO.
The auto white balance (WB) will struggle to read the light as there is so little of it, and it may be a good idea to set the WB manually. If you shoot RAW, then you can fix this in post, but I try to get my images right in camera as much as possible, and if you like that as well, the manual WB is the way to go.
As there is no lens mounted, you don’t have to worry about the aperture! My guess is that you are shooting at around f/200 – you can do a lot of math to figure this out; I don’t really care. I don’t need to know the exact aperture, and I simply take a few test shots to figure out what a reasonably right exposure time is.
Bulb may be required
It differs from camera to camera, but when you need your shutter to be open for a long time, the camera may not have a pre-defined option for say keeping the shutter open for 1 or 2 minutes. My Nikon D4 stops at 30 seconds, after that, I need to use bulb mode. That means holding down the shutter while the exposure is going on, which I find to be a pain.
A cabled remote release for the Nikon D4.
So I have bought a remote release, that gives me more options for long exposures than what the camera does.
If you don’t have a remote release or don’t want one, a workaround is to use multiple exposures. Say you ask your camera to expose the same image 5 times. And you set it up to expose each image for 20 seconds. Then the totality of that is a 100 seconds exposure. Only downside is that you will need to hit the shutter 5 times, but it is better than holding it down for 100 seconds, if you ask me.
Is it for you?
In pinhole photography, you are running around with a camera with a hole in it, and that is an invite for dust and dirt to enter. So if you don’t like to clean your sensor, then you probably wanna stay clear of pinhole photography.
Pinhole photography is for long exposures. You cannot shoot anything that moves fast like a cat or a bird in flight. It is mainly for landscapes and stilleben and that kind of images.
Woodland. Notice the almost infinite DOF and that nothing is particularly sharp.
But it is a very engaging style of shooting, you cannot see in the viewfinder what the camera will capture prior to hitting the shutter, so there is a bit of guessing and trial-and-error when it comes to pinhole photography. And that has a charm. But it may not charm everyone!
You can learn a lot about photography watching YouTube videos. But granted, the number of channels and number of videos is overwhelming and being new to photography it can be difficult to know where to start and what to prioritise. That is the aim of this post: to give you some anchor points regarding photography and YouTube. It is just my list, and I don’t claim it is fair or comprehensive – my hope is that you can use it as a starting point and grow your own list from there.
Daniel Norton – portraits and light
If there is one photographer that really knows about portrait photography and especially all aspects of lightning (flash, fill, etc), then it is Daniel Norton. When it comes to lighting, he is my guru. Period.
Daniel is a NY based photographer who has been a very successful photographer in the fashion industry, but now is more focused on teaching, both via his YouTube channel and his podcast over at Avoice. He also co-operates with Adorama, so often his videos are published under the Adorama brand, but you can also find videos that he publishes on his own channel. And of course he has both his own homepage and is on Instagram. His podcast is different from the videos in the sense that it “discuss what it means to be a creator in today’s content rich world” (quote from the podcast).
Marten Heilbron – reviews
Marten Heilbron is a YouTuber proving that to be successful you don’t need to be young and make fast paced videos, as long as your content is competent and relevant. And his channel certainly is. He describes his own channel as “detailed hands-on reviews, explanations and demonstrations of cameras. Here you will find honest and detailed camera reviews, along with some how-to videos and the occasional travel review.” – and it is a very precise description of his channel and its contribution. And then Marten always has that bit of humor and twinkle in the eye that adds an extra dimension to watching his videos. So look no further if you want a camera review and a camera demonstration in one go.
Tech Gear Talk
If you want to watch some of the best produced and most “delicious” reviews on Youtube, the channel Tech Gear Talk is worth a visit. He reviews a lot of non-photography items as well, such as smartphones and the like, so the channel is wider than “just” photography gear. His motto is “Buy it Nice or Buy it Twice” and it may not always be good for your wallet, but he certainly has a point!
Kai W – reviews
The reviews from Kai W almost could not be further away from the ones Marten Heilbron gives. Kais’s videos are made by the same small team and have a crazy or desperate angle, as if he really really does not want to do the reviews at all. I get the impression that he finds it a bit boring and therefore he tries to escape out of the traditional frames for review videos using crazy ideas or storylines in the videos. I often find that his conclusions (the last 20-30 seconds of the video) is where he gets serious. So pay attention to the very last words in his videos – this is where the good and serious assess-ment of the gear under review is to be found.
Steve Perry – wildlife
If you want to know a thing or two about both wildlife photography and how to make the most of your Nikon camera, look no further than to Steve Perry’ channel. He talks fast and his videos are packed with information, but always relevant and based on facts and experience. And what I really like: he often presents evidence rather than just making a claim.
Sean Tucker – creative process
If you are looking for lens and camera reviews, then the channel from Sean Tucker is NOT for you. He has a very different focus, more aimed at the process of being creative and why we do it. He does have some videos that address the “how-to” side of photography, but he is never into the details of a certain camera or a certain lens; he’s channel is gear agnostic. His videos often start and ends with some very beautiful footage in slow motion with accompanying music, and in between he talks and debates on a certain subject. It is one of those channels that I return to again and again, maybe because I like the philosophical aura that seeps through each well made video.
Jamie Windsor – history
Jamie’s channel may to some be a bit in the same league as Sean Tucker, but I find him slightly less philosophical and a bit more towards the “how-to” side of photography. What I really like about his channel is that you can tell he has years and years of experience and he happily shares this with his viewers. Also, he often tells the story or the history behind a certain concept or hot topic.
Christopher Frost – Lenses
If you want a short focused lens review, this is the channel to go to. Christopher has specialized in lens reviews and often uses the same “template” for the videos so you know what to expect and secures that all the vitals are covered. And he has a calm voice and well paced way of presenting the lenses and their performance, which makes the videos a pleasure to watch relative to some of the more “noisy” channels.
Mike Browne – Learning photography
If you want to learn photography from a guy who you can tell loves to teach and share knowledge, then look no further than Mike Browne. This is probably one of the channels where I have learned the most about photography and basic concepts such as aperture and dept-of-field and how that impacts your images. If you listen carefully, you will find that he not only addresses the “how-to” part but also often talks about how to get “in the zone” of seeing great images long before you lift the camera.
Omar Gonzales – Fuji and entertainment
If you want to have a laugh and be entertained while still learning a lot about especially Fuji, look no further than the brilliant channel from Omar Gonzales. If you want to know him a bit better, paying a visit to his homepage is a way to do it. He claims to be camera agnostic, but I learned a lot about especially Fuji cameras and lenses from watching his videos. He is not a full time youtuber but has a portrait and event business.
James Popsys – Entertaining learning
James Popsys has a special relationship with sheep and that is one major reason to watch his channel! Another is that you learn a lot about photography and he has a great sense of humor and irony that makes watching his videos a true pleasure. And he puts a lot of thinking and perspective into his videos that you do not find with many other channels.
Normally you would expect a skilled photographer to deliver clean, well exposed images, but with intentional camera movement (ICM) the aim is to make the images look a bit more abstract by introducing a deliberate camera movement while the shutter is open.
There really are no rules when it comes to ICM and you can develop your own style and expression. The classic way of doing it however is to move the camera along lines in the subject, so that you emphasize these and blur details. For example, in a wood with tall trees you would move the camera up/down in a vertical movement, whereas a landscape image with a horizon, you want the movements to follow the horizon left to right or the other way round. You can also move the camera more freestyle, for example try to follow a wave as it comes to shore. The possibilities are infinite and you can really develop your own style and expression. In the example below I have moved the camera in circles to get the effect.
The way to do ICM is to make sure your shutter is open for say 1/2 to 2.0 seconds. You may want to go down to 1/10th or up to 5 seconds, but start with 1/2 to 2.0 second just to get you going.
You can do this by putting your camera in shutter priority mode and simply ask the camera to leave the shutter open as you see fit. The camera most likely will put the camera in base ISO (say 100) and minimize the aperture to whatever the lens allows, say f/22, but you may find that this will not do and the picture is over exposed. This could happen if your are shooting a sunset or a bright scene. In such cases an ND filter is needed. An ND filter is basically a pair of sunglasses you put in front of your lens to minimize the amount of light that gets through. I use a variable ND filter that takes between 3 and 11 (!) stops of light out of the equation.
Don’t be discouraged if you come home with a lot of images that are no good. This is only natural, also for experienced photographers. You may find that out of 2-300 images, there are only a few if any that works. Keep going and eventually you will succeed! Best of luck!
The answer is yes. However, there are a few things to be aware of, that can help your way into photography using YouTube as a teacher.
YouTube is a great pool of information about many things, also photography, but there is no guidance as how to use YouTube if you want to learn photography. In this blog post I share a few lessons learned from my own journey learning photography from scratch using YouTube. With a few awareness points, you can learn photography via YouTube both faster and more efficiently than what I did.
Know yourself
We all learn in different ways. Some like to read text, others to see pictures, yet others like practical exercises and hands-on experience. We learn in many different ways, and good school systems acknowledge this and make sure to cover different ways of learning.
YouTube obviously is a very visually oriented teacher, and only you know if this is a good way of learning in your case. If for example you know that your preferred way of taking in information is say via reading, you may want to vary the videos with blogs or other sources of information that presents the material in a different way. Many of the larger YouTube channels about photography also have a homepage with material and books available, often at a price, but it may be a good investment considering the time you may save .
Create your own structure
YouTube videos are often very specific. They compete with other videos about your attention, and to win that competition it is good to seek out a spot where others are not, and that tends to drive the content to be more and more specific. So overview and structure and helicopter view is not what you will find in the typical YouTube video. And it is difficult to know when you have covered all relevant ground to cover the basics of photography.
When you attend school there typically is a curriculum for the upcoming term. That tells you what you need to study, gives structure and also scopes what the final exam will be about. When you study on your own, you have to develop your own curriculum, otherwise you will be lost in the sea of information in the YouTube universe, and although you are making good progress, you lack some good yardsticks to measure your progress.
One way to make some structure is to narrow your searches for videos according to what type of photography has your interest. I know this is difficult when you are new to photography, but give it a shot still:
– Landscape photography
– Street photography
– Portrait photography
– Event photography (weddings etc)
– Product photography
– Abstract photography
– Architecture photography
– Wildlife photography, and so on…
Another dimension you can use bring some structure to your curriculum is to take the table of content from the manual of your camera! Yes, I know, this makes you want run away! But I am not asking you to read the manual (although it can be a good teacher), but just use the TOC as a guidance for your reading plan.
A third option is – yes I know it is old fashioned – to buy a book about the basics of photography. Joel Sartore has written a book that I find relatively easy to read: Photo Basics, published on National Geographic. Once you have read that book, you have a very good overview of the basics of photography and the TOC can be used to your YouTube searches to further deepen your knowledge.
Remember practice, practice and practice
It is tempting to binge watch YouTube videos in one long stream, and I did that as well. But remember to take a pause, to let the information sink in and for you to digest the information.
Secondly, it is important that you apply theory to practice and test what you have learned in real life. You think you know it when you understand it, but the practical appliance brings new dimensions to your knowledge and understanding. So don’t skip the “exercises” – apply what you have learned, and learn even more!
When you grow…
When you have been using YouTube for a while, you will find two things: (1) there are some YouTubers you like more than others and (2) suddenly you are thinking to yourself: I know this already! Both cases is a good sign that you have grown as a photographer and that you have learned a lot!
The few YouTubers that I enjoy may not be the same as those you have found or will find, but I share them anyhow to give you some search terms in case you are interested:
Jamie Windsor (very good perspective on things)
James Popsys (entertaining + you learn a lot)
Tony and Chelsea Northrup (basics and reviews)
Sean Tucker (street)
Steve Perry (wildlife)
Daniel Norton (flash especially)
Tech Gear Talk (reviews)
Omar Gonzales (Fuji + entertainment!)
These may not work for you, but then you will find others that do work for you.
Finally…
There will be good days and bad days. There will be days when you think “I shall never learn this!” – but don’t despair. Take a break. Go shoot some pictures instead, or do something else you enjoy.
Your brain needs time to relax and re-organize all the information you are feeding it, so see your down time as productive time in terms of processing and archiving all the useful information you are taking in.
With this, I wish you all the best on your journey to learn photography!
In order to use your vintage glass on the Fuji X-T20, the first thing you need is an adapter that enables you to mount the vintage glass on the Fuji body. I always go for a “dumb” adapter, meaning that there is no communication between the lens and the camera body which of course means the camera has no idea what focal length is mounted or what aperture is used, but I can live with that. What is probably worse is that you also loose the auto focus, but if you shoot mainly stills, portrait, landscape and street, then I think you will find the manual focus to be ok, some even start to like it more than auto focus, as they feel more involved in the process of taking a picture.
In my case, I have Nikkor (Nikon) vintage glass made for full frame cameras, and as the Fuji is a cropped APS-C camera, that means I will have to multiply the length of the lens with 1.5 due to the crop factor. However, you can get a so called speed booster to reverse this effect, and in addition it gives you a stop more light, i.e. makes your lens faster. I went for the Zhongyi Lens Turbo II:
Zhongyi Lens Turbo II adapter.
But there are many other good options to choose from. Here you can see what the Nikon 135mm f/2.8 looks like with the speed boost adapter mounted:
Zhongyi Lens Turbo II with the Nikon 135mm
And here is the camera with the 135mm lens mounted:
Zhongyi Lens Turbo II with the Nikon 135mm on the Fuji XT20
As you can see it is in this case a long lens for such a small camera body and it also makes the camera quite “front heavy”. Some don’t like this – I don’t mind, but as the X-T20 is quite a light camera, mounting fast FX glass will often give a dramatic weight increase to the total system. I have the Fujinon 27mm lens to the right, just to compare.
Shooting “blind”
As the camera has no communication with the lens, you need to tell the camera it is OK to release the shutter with no lens mounted. It will look that way to the camera! Go find the tool menu and in that menu look for “button/dial settings” and select that menu:
“button/dial settings” menu
In that menu, find the item “shoot without lens” and make sure it is set to “on”:
“shoot without lens” set to “on”.
Now your shutter should work with a vintage lens mounted!
Focus aid
The next thing is to select how you want the Fuji to help you focus. I prefer the focus peak option, where the camera highlights the areas in the picture with strong contrast, which is often also where you will have the focal plane. In the “AF/MF” menu (the second from the top), select the “MF assist item” (MF is Manual Focus):
Manual focus assist in the shape of peaking highlights.
In the sub menu that appears, the manual focus assist settings can be chosen. I go for the focus peak and select the color to help me find the area of focus:
Manual focus assist in the shape of peaking highlights.
Now we should be ready to shoot!
Final hurdle
When shooting in this setup, there is however no focus peak assistance! It is possible to shoot and focus, but you get no help with the manual focus! How come?
The solution to the problem is on the front left of the camera. Here you select drive mode by turning a little dial, i.e. if the camera is in (S)ingle frame mode, (C)ontinuous or (M)anual mode. Hence the letters S, C and M:
Dial on the front left of the camera
You need to turn this dial to “M” in order for the focus peak to start working. Then the high contrast areas area highlighted in the viewfinder and LCD screen. Enjoy! (Remember to flick the switch back to C or M when you mount a Fujinon lens – otherwise you will continue with manual focus…!)
Further aid
When you shoot, in addition to the focus peak, you have the focus magnification that helps you zoom in on details in the frame to see if they are sharp. Press the rear command dial (yes, it feels strange – you are used to turning it! But press as in push!):
Zooming in using the rear command dial
and the camera will show you a magnified area of the picture:
Zooming in using the rear command dial
If you then turn the rear command dial, you will see that the camera flicks between two levels of magnification. In the first example you can see the entire cow, but if you turn the rear command dial the zoom gets extended:
Zooming in using the rear command dial
Now you can only see parts of the cows head! Notice how the graphics (the two boxes – one white and one green (blue?)) show you the zoom level. When you turn the command dial again, the camera jumps back to first level of zoom. So turn the rear command dial to select between the two zoom levels. Press (push) the rear command dial go leave zoom again. And press it once more to get back in, etc.
You will notice that with a long lens and the extended zoom peek switched on as shown above, the picture gets very nervous if the camera is hand held! This is a good reminder to shot with a fast shutter speed to avoid camera shake and hence blurry pictures.
Finally
The Fuji X-T30 offers 3 different manual focus aids:
Standard (basically no aid!)
Digital split image
Focus peak highlight
In the examples in the previous sections, I have only used the focus peak highlight, as I find it to be the best aid for manual focus. However, some like no aid and some like digital split image (where you have to align two pictures so that the vertical lines in the intersection are exactly on top of each other).
If you want to switch fast between the 3 modes mentioned above, you can push the rear command dial for a few seconds (not a brief push – you need to push the button in for a few seconds) to change to the next mode (the button is hiding behind my thumb top right):
Fast switch between focus modes.
When you have kept the button in for a few seconds, the mode the camera is about to switch to will be shown in a bar in the lower part of the screen. If the camera is in standard mode, it will switch to split, if in split then it will shift to focus peak, if in focus peak back to standard and so on. So it is like a wheel turning: standard -> split -> focus peak -> back to standard. Remember to keep the button pushed in until you see the bar on the screen.
A panorama is typically a photo stitched together of a series of photos, either purely horizontally or vertically to produce a picture with dimensions out of the ordinary. Below is an example of a very wide photo created using the panorama function in the Sony RX100M3:
Lightroom panorama function
Lightroom enables you to stitch together a photo from a puzzle of photos provided that sufficient overlap is secured. Good news is that the photos can be combined horizontally and vertically at the same time, i.e. in the same photo, which enables you to increase both width and height in the same photo, much like you would see with a wide lens. Hereby the panorama function in Lightroom is more advanced than the panorama function you would typically find in a smartphone or the in camera function of the Sony RX100.
As far as I can tell, there is not requirement to have the photos in a certain order, but of course for your own administration it is probably useful to have some system in the order of the photos. In the example below, in total 8 photos have been stitched together via two columns of photos: The left hand side is built up of pictures moving the camera from bottom to top, and the right hand column follows the same logic but with a solid overlap to the left hand column. This is illustrated in the light blue graphics to the left where the darker areas are the overlap. You probably need more overlap than what the graphics indicate (1/3rd is a safe margin), but it also depends if there is some easily identifiable objects in the overlap zones:
The resulting photo looks like this:
Ease your administrative work
When you are in the field and shooting the photos, you can help your work back at the desktop stitching pictures together by following a few tips. When you are out and about it may seem very uncomplicated and straightforward when you shoot the photos, but not so much when you look a them in the Lightroom grid view. It can be difficult to figure out when your series start and stop and which pictures are “normal” pictures and which ones are part of a series. Therefore I recommend that you find a hand signal to start and stop the series, so that you via a scrap photo can easily identify the start and the top of the series. I usually point to the direction I will move the camera to open the series, and to end the series, I simply hold up an open hand:
These photos are of course not to be used as input to the combined picture but are simply for the benefit of easing your administration of the pictures in Lightroom. Here you an see the overwhelming view in Lightroom and how these pictures help you getting an overview – I think the two “handsignal” pictures gives some guidance:
In the field
In my experience you get the best results using a tripod. I know, they are a nuisance in terms of weight and size to carry around. But a tripod gives you the least variance between pictures – you want the height to be the same between photos and you want the pictures to be without camera shake. And a tripod is the most save route to those objectives. You can also give it a try to kneel down and use your knee to support your elbow and that way get a very solid foundation for the camera if the tripod is at home. In terms of camera settings, my recommendation is that you shoot in manual mode ideally, because you then have the least variance between shots in terms of ISO, Aperture and shutter speed. In automated modes, the camera will change the settings based on changing light conditions and any variance will complicate the merging process. Also, unless you have a specific plan with varying the focus across the shots, my recommendation is that you disengage the auto focus with the shutter half pressed and go for back-button focus, or instead that you shoot with a manual lens where you actively have to change the focus. You can, however, re-focus every photo and create some amazing pictures with a depth of field a single shot cannot deliver, but you may find that Lightroom is struggling to merge the pictures if the overlapping parts of the pictures are not sufficient similar. A varying focus may be a complicating factor that could make the picture merge process fail.
Post processing – how to
In lightroom, in the grid view (press “G”), simply select the photos to be stitched together by holding down the shift key and marking the photos in scope. You can either mark them individually or point to the first and the last photo – Lightroom will know you want to include all in between.
After selecting the pictures, right click, and a small window with a menu appears, select “Photo merge” and then menu item “Panorama”. You can also simply press ctrl-M to achieve the same effect, and a picture with a preview and some options appear:
You can try the different projection options, but I find that for landscapes the “perspective” option works best. If you remove the “auto crop” check mark, then you can see the full picture including the parts without coverage:
If you use the “boundary warp” slider, you can get Lightroom to stretch the existing pixels into the areas not covered, so you get a picture with no bare spots, but of course the dimensions may be seriously skewed.
After playing with the parameters, simply press the “merge” button at the bottom right of the screen and Lightroom starts a batch process to merge the pictures. You can follow the progress via the little bar in the screen top left. Unless you have a VERY powerful PC, I recommend that you leave the PC alone while this process is running, as it is demanding, both in terms of memory and CPU capacity. If you press Ctrl-Shift-Esc (Windows), you can monitor the “stress level” of your PC while the process is running.
Once the process is complete, Lightroom will add the picture to the current folder and name the file the same as the last photo in the merged series, with the addition of “-pano” to the file name for easy identification.
Pros and cons of this approach
Pros
More wide and tall pictures simulating a wide angle lens
Two dimensional stitching beats traditional panorama function
Great fun when the result surfaces in the panorama preview – more rewarding?
More resolution – I think…
Cons
Cannot be used for moving subjects or changing light conditions
More work, more pictures, more disk space, post processing, etc
No in-camera result
Best result requires a tripod
Straight lines may be ”fisheyed”, i.e. look strange
Very demanding on your PC if shooting in RAW
Access to picture processing in Lightroom or the like is a prerequisite
A few tips
As shown above, mark the start and end of a panorama series with scrap pictures to easily be identified in grid view
Keep all settings the same for all pictures
Ideally shoot manual mode, or try to keep the setting the same across all pictures
Use back button focus so your focus is the same (again, to keep settings the same)
Use a tripod and ideally also a L-bracket if shooting in portrait mode
Make sure you have solid overlap between pictures – best to have some easily identifiable objects in the areas that overlap.
Keep the number of pictures low if shooting in RAW – maybe start with JPG to see how your PC is dealing with the task
Questions and comments
Questions and comments are more than welcome – please post below. Hope you found this blog useful. Thank you for reading!
If your are new to photography like me, your first thought when you see a picture of a beautiful flower may well be: How difficult can it be to take a good picture of a flower? But I think that if you give it a try, you’ll find that there is more to it than just point-and-shoot. Not that it is complicated or anything fancy, but there are a number of things you can do to maximize your chances of a good picture. I’ll cover the basics here.
Taking flower pictures involves many hours out and about, so before moving into all the photo specifics: remember yourself first! I find that a rain coat, a cap, a bit of sunscreen, something to keep the mosquitoes at bay, a bottle of water, good walking boots (that supports your ankles) and a few biscuits are invaluable items when spending many hours in nature.
1. Bad weather is good weather!
Bad weather is your friend! Quite counter intuitive, bad weather is good weather for flower photography! A cloudy day, even a rainy day, is excellent: direct sunshine from a cloud free sky gives harsh light and strong shadows and can make it really difficult to get some appealing shots of flowers. And a few drops of water on a flowers petal almost always looks beautiful! I know that some use a spray bottle to add water but I find that mother nature is so much better at this, that I prefer not to, and instead shoot flowers after the rain has ended.
If the sun is beating down and there is no clouds in sight at all, you can diffuse the light with a thin white piece of cloth (like a piece of sheet wrapped around a hanger) or you can buy an umbrella designed to diffuse the light – you can get one for a very reasonable price, they wont take up much space in your camera bag and it doubles as a wind shield.
2. Stabilize your subject
Wind will push your subject around and make focus difficult. See if you can find a quiet corner if it is windy. Flowers sitting low are typically less prone to wind, and you can also try to see if a shield (yourself or a piece of cardboard) can help. Supporting the flower with a stick and a clothespin can also help, especially if in combination with some kind of shield. Finally, there tends to be less wind early in the morning or in the evening.
In the picture below (yes, I admit it is somewhat busy) you can see that I have a clamp around the stem of the little purple flower I am shooting. The clamp is not holding the stem as such (it would probably ruin the stem), instead it simply creates a tight space where the stem can only move very little and that is enough to stabilize the flower head also. The stand that I am using was too tall for this flower, so I had to tilt the stand 90 degrees to get it low enough. This is where more clever photographers buy one of these flexible arms with a clamp (also known as a plamp) to get the job done in a more elegant way!
The reason a stable subject is vital for flower photography is that you typically shoot with the lens very close to the flower, and hence the depth of field (how much of your picture that is in focus) becomes very shallow, so that even a very small movement of the flower can change it from in focus to out of focus. In other words, a stable subject is key to success.
3. Stabilize your camera
3.1 Tripods and monopods
Stabilizing your camera is as important as stabilizing your subject. You can get really great stabilization either via the lens or the camera body (IBIS – in body image stabilization), but you may not have access to such gear and anyway it can never be a bad thing to have a stable camera to avoid camera shake.
I am only too aware that not everyone likes a tripod, but if you don’t mind, get a heavy tripod like the Manfrotto 550 (no, not sponsored by Manfrotto). You can of course use a sand bag or something heavy to make the tripod more heavy and stable, but I find it is easier if it is simply born heavy. Also, if you can get a model that (as in the picture above) can go really low by spreading the legs almost parallel to the ground, this is a great aid when trying to capture a flower sitting low.
If a heavy tripod is not to your liking, then a lighter travel friendly tripod could work for you, like the Manfrotto Befree (no, still not sponsored by Manfrotto), and if that is to heavy for you or takes up to much space, a mono pod could be the answer.
A mono pod only stabilizes the up/downwards movements obviously, but it is better than no stabilization. If you wear a camera strap around your neck, you can push the camera away from you so that the strap is tight, further eliminating back and forth movement. A mono pod may seem like the least optimal solution, but if you go looking for flowers where the ground is covered by bushes or other stuff that makes it difficult for the tripod to get footing, the mono pod may simply be the only viable option for such locations.
If none of all this sounds appealing to you, then my best advice is to use your own body for stabilization. Squat down and let your elbow rest on your knee and hold the camera tight to your face to reduce movements and shake.
3.2 Remote triggers
In the best of worlds, you should also use a remote trigger. I seldom do, I must admit, but if you want to minimize all the factors that contribute to camera shake, there is no way around a remote trigger. Notice that with many cameras you can remotely trigger your camera via your smartphone and an app – no need to invest in a separate remote trigger.
A good compromise is to you can use the timer function so that your camera releases the shutter after 5 or 10 seconds – this is my preferred option, as it is almost as good as a remote trigger and it gives me one piece of gear less to remember when I pack my bag.
4. The gear
4.1 Use a reflector
A reflector is cheap, light, packs down easily and does a lot of good in terms of casting more light to your subject! I find it is one of the most overlooked or under-praised aids of photography! Even on an overcast day the reflector helps a lot and can remove unwanted shadows or simply give you more light to work with.
So always bring a pack able reflector! You can get smaller version that the one in the picture above (!). If you don’t have a reflector, use something reflective to add light to the flower – try using your smartphone or a piece of tin foil.
If you do decide to buy a reflector, no need to buy a big one. The one that I show here is 30 centimeters in diameter, and it does not need to be much larger than that to work for flower bud shooting. This version is a 5-in-one version that has both diffusor, reflector (white, silver, gold) and a black side. It serves me well.
If you find you don’t need the reflector, it can double as wind shield, so in my mind it always comes in handy. The biggest problem with a reflector (other than learning how to fold it down!) is to hold it in the right position and stay there! If you have someone with you, this is where an extra pair of hands really make a big difference. And if not, this is where you will be extra glad that your tripod holds your camera steady, so you have one moving part less to deal with!
4.2 Use an artificial background
Experienced flower shooters knows that a good part of a good flower picture is the background. Sometimes the background can be difficult to control – no matter how much you change your angle and try to be creative, the background is simply too busy or too bright. You can try to use the reflect as background (many reflectors have a black side and a white side in addition to the silver) and even better you can bring a piece of cloth or cardboard or whatever in the color of your liking:
Above I am using a green piece of cloth to isolate the rose, but you can try with many different colors. If you don’t have a piece of cloth, the reflector can be used as a background – here I am using the black side of the reflector to create a more “calm” background:
This enables you to – with a bit of post processing – to create a picture where the flower is the only subject of interest in the frame and hence no distracting elements.
If you instead use the reflector as background, you get a very different expression. Here I was so lucky that the sun lit up the diffusor that I held just behind the flower, and as you can see the expression in this picture is very different from the one above:
4.3. Use the lens you have
I suggest you to start out with the lens that you have available and see how you like flower photography, before you move on and invest in a lens. A kit lens or a 50mm nifty fifty can be used for starters. In my mind the most important for your lens is to go close to the subject. If you cannot help investing in a new lens, see if you can lend or borrow it and try it out, before you make the decision.
I know that some like to use a long lens and zoom in heavily, and if you have a long lens available, you should certainly give this a try. The advantage of using a long lens is that the background is more compressed and hence it is easier to compose the picture. Further, the increased distance between lens and subject also increases the depth of field, making it easier to get the entire flower in focus – when you are very close to the subject, even with very narrow aperture (high f-stop numbers), the depth of field is paper thin.
However, I find that the camera shakes in such setup simply make me seasick as the slightest move of the lens makes what I see in the viewfinder jump up and down vigorously! So I use a lens that can go close to the subject, i.e. where the minimal focal distance is 30-40 cm or so. If you have a long lens, give extension tubes a try – they are metal rings (extension tubes) that you put between the lens and the camera body to increase the distance between the two. The effect is a reduced minimum focus distance, i.e. your lens becomes more of a macro lens.
If you decide to invest in a lens, one way to save money is to go for a used vintage lens. I use the Nikon Nikkor 35-70 mm 2.8D that I think you can get on e-bay for 100 EUR or a little more, subject to the condition. The Nikon has a macro mode that enables you to really fill the frame with the flower.
Another classic lens for macro / close-up photography is the 100mm Tokina F2.8D, which is very fairly priced even from new. I think it comes with different mount systems, so with a bit of luck, there also is a version for your camera body. The Tokina is known to be a budget friendly lens that produces pictures with a sharpness you would expect only from much more expensive lenses.
4.4. Using a non-macro lens
Sometimes the scene or the setting is as important as the subject. With macro lenses or lenses that can go very close to the subject, you often want the subject to fill the frame and be the only start in the picture. However, sometimes the flower sits in a wonderful setting, where the scene or the setting is as big a star as the flower itself. In such cases you can use a short lens to capture this:
The above picture was shot with a Samyang 14mm f/2.8 which is a very short lens (manual focus, aperture control on the lens). You can also give a nifty-fifty lens a try in order to capture the setting.
In the examples above I used the 50mm Pentax Super Takumar f/1.4 vintage lens. As you can see I cannot get as close to the flower as with a macro lens (and cropping would yield a too low resolution result). So I have included more of the setting or the scene the flower sits in.
4.5 Add flash
Adding a flash may sound like a lot of complication for taking a simple picture of a flower, but you will find that adding a flash will raise the quality of your pictures. I have heard that most professional flower photographers shoot with flash maybe 95% of the time, so it is worth a try to see if it works for you. Rather than being frustrated with all the technical terms like TTL and other advanced flash features, simply set the flash in manual mode at say 1/64th for starters and see what it does to your pictures. If you can get the flash off camera so that you can control the angle of the flash independent of your camera angle, then that can really help getting those dark areas and shadows lit.
Try moving the flash closer to and further from the flower and also try to change the power of the flash output – start with say 1/64th and work your way up and down from there. You will quickly find a level that too much power makes your picture look artificial, too little will leave the shades too dark.
If you want to rely solely on the flash light, that is also possible. Simply set the ISO and shutter speed so that the ambient light alone gives a completely black picture. Then add flash and see what happens. The picture above of the yellow flower is made that way. It gives some great options for isolating the flower completely on a pitch black background. Notice that the flash will make the flower cast a shadow and reflect light from any objects close near by – make sure the flash light is reflected outside your frame.
4.6 Take care of yourself!
I think many of us photographers get so into the process of shooting pictures that we forget everything around us, including ourselves! If you plan to stay out for several hours, think about your own comfort and that you will need drink and food. A banana and a bottle of water cannot hurt – the weight penalty in the camera bag is small compared the benefit.
And in terms of comfort, I know that some bring a little fold-able chair along, others – like me – even bring a pillow of some sort to lie on when shooting flowers close to the ground.
When you lie flat on the ground face down, your elbows and body make up a very natural tripod, so if you know you are going to shoot some flowers close to the ground and only that, then you may find that you can do without your tripod.
5. The site
5.1. Start close to home at first
Before your run into the woods or up a mountain or whatever your plans are, my advice is to start close to your home or your base, so that it is easy to return to base. I often find that I forget something (like the SD card!) that I need for my flower photography, so test your setup in your own garden or in the yard where you live, so it is not too much of a pain if you have forgotten something. After a few shooting sessions close to home, you will know the gear you need. Make a checklist and follow it every time before you leave home. You will not regret it, although it not that exciting.
5.2 Location scouting
Obviously you need to find some beautiful flowers to shoot, and my guess is that you may already have some ideas as to where they can be found. If not, see if there is a public available flower garden near you, or simply take a walk in the woods or in the city. You will find that flowers are everywhere, especially if you look for small ones!
Once at your location my best advice is: take your time. Go look! Use your eyes! Wait at least 5 minutes before you start shooting pictures. Scouting the location will give you a good overview of what is available and what to expect. And you can start with some of the best flowers rather than the first flower you com across. So no stress. Take your time!
6. Plan the shot
6.1. Arrange!
I know this is a bit controversial, but I think we are allowed to intervene and arrange things to make it look as beautiful or pleasing as possible. I know some purists will say that this is cheating and that mother nature put that faded leave in your frame for a reason, but I suggest you arrange and compose as you see fit. It can be removing withered leaves, pushing some less-than- beautiful leaves to the side or whatever is required. Of course, all with moderation and in respect of the locations you are using (the gardener may not like it if you cut off some of his flowers!), but I think we are allowed to improve the composition. Take this example where a flower stands out from the crowd:
And you may think that mother nature has arranged this composition? Not quite:
6.2 Composition is important
Much has been said about composition, and it is a big subject, so I will refrain from diving into it extensively here. But it is always a good idea to have the subject a bit off center and have a beautiful background to go along with the flower. Many good flower pictures are ruined not so much because of the composition, but due to the wrong background.
The rule of odds says that we like uneven numbers like 1, 3, 5, 7 and so on. You can use this when making your composition, so that there are e.g. 5 flowers in your frame:
Balance and symmetry is another thing to look for when composing your picture – a nice balance between the elements in the picture makes it more appealing and easy to take in:
Framing, i.e. “boxing in” your subject to guide the viewer to find the subject is also a classic composition technique, and often nature itself provides the framing if you look for it:
Make it easy for the viewer to find the “star” in your picture. In this example, as beautiful as it may be, it is confusing who is the star and what the photographers point with the picture actually is:
So, keep it simple. Both for your own sake, and to help the viewer read your picture.
Finding a good balance in the picture, maybe even symmetrical, is also a good composition principle, so that your picture is not e.g. “too lefty” meaning that a lot of the visually heavy elements in your picture are to the left. Try to strike a good balance:
When shooting, simply to change your angle of view (move your camera a little bit up, to the side, etc) to see the effect in the viewfinder. I am often surprised how moving the camera just a little bit can take a messy ad confusing background and turn it into a nice balanced scene for the flower.
6.3 Help the viewer
Your eyes tend to search towards things that are bright and in focus. Dark and blurry things the opposite. When you work with your pictures in post or when you select your composition during the shoot, think about how you can guide the viewers eyes to the main subject (the star!).
In the example above, the two flowers to the right are out of focus whereas the dust prisoners on the flower to the left are in focus. So your eyes will naturally go to the sharp areas whereas the rest of the picture is perceived more as a scene or framing.
6.4 Flat, flat, flat
You can angle your lens towards the flower as you see fit, but one way of making the picture very simple is to shoot a flat flower where the lens front glass is 100% parallel to the flower: This way you get the focal plane and the flower to be aligned, so that the shallow depth of field does not stop you from getting the entire flower in focus.This way of shooting can give some very simple yet powerful pictures where the flower seems to be “floating” in mid air as the flower is sharp but the rest of the frame is blurry.Some photographers are so dedicated to this way if shooting, that they only go for “flat” flowers, i.e. with very limited depth.I don’t think you should limit yourself in such way, but “straight on” pictures like the one above is good to include in your photography toolbox.
6.5 Morning light is good light
Morning light is special. I don’t know why, but I guess it is because the sun is lower in the horizon and hence the light has to travel further through the atmosphere before it reaches the ground? Anyway, the light is very soft and even if the sun is shining from a cloudless sky, the morning effect softens the light so you don’t get the same problem with harsh shadows that I mentioned in the start of this post. So if you are up for it, set the alarm clock and shoot flowers in the morning!
6.6 Back lit is a good variation
If you can get the angle right, then a back lit flower gives a very different expression than the more traditional “front lit”. You see the structure and the composition of the flower so much better: Droplets of rain (or some you add yourself) is another good variation, so shooting just after the rain has stopped is another way to vary your flower photography.
7. When shooting
7.1 Think background first
The headline seems counter intuitive. Of course you want the subject to be beautiful and stunning, but a good subject deserves the right setting, so work with the angles when you shoot. A messy and confusing background can distract the viewer from the beauty of your subject.
The example above is not an award winning picture, I agree, but it serves to illustrated the point: I managed to get the red to contrast with the black background. As you can see, had I chosen an angle just a little different, then both green and brown would have joined the party and made the picture more messy. I have heard experienced photographers say that the background is almost more important than the subject – not sure that I completely follow, but the background is as important to bring out the best in your subject.
7.2 Work with the aperture
As you probably know, the more you open the aperture, the more light the lens lets in but it also makes the depth of field more shallow meaning that backgrounds will be blurred. This picture is shot at f/2, meaning very wide open and with a paper thin depth of field:
Whereas this picture of the same flower with the same camera and lens is shot at f/16, and you can see much more of the background:
You may find the first picture more attractive as it has a more dreamy feel to it, but the challenge with shooting with wide apertures is that you get a very shallow depth of field and keeping the subject in focus is more difficult. In this case the flower is flat so you can’t really see it, but had it been deeper, it is likely that not all of the flower would have been in focus.
If you can, see if you can get the subject close to you and the background far away. That will give a blurred background, also at narrow apertures (high f-stop numbers). That way you can get the flower in focus even if it is a “deep” one and still have the blurred background. This one is shot at f/16 and the background is blurred despite the brutal f-stop:
For flower photography I always shoot in aperture mode, so I can control the aperture “manually”. I leave the shutter speed and the ISO for the camera to select (sometimes I also control the ISO manually), but most of the time I shoot in aperture priority with auto-ISO in. I find it is the best way that allows me to use my focus on the aperture setting and leave the rest to the camera.
7.3 Shoot, shoot, shoot!
I find that even though I hit the shutter with a few seconds interval, the result that emerges in Lightroom can be very different. I don’t know why it is so, but I guess that one explanation can be the flower moving a bit, me moving the camera a bit, or both. It can also be due to changes in the ambient light that you do not notice. Whatever the reason, I find that of two pictures taken seconds apart can come out as brilliant and hopeless respectively. So maximize your chances for success and fire away. In a digital world, all it takes is a bit of space on the SD card and a bit of battery power. And you can always delete when you work with the pictures in post.
7.4 Try manual focus
Should you be so lucky to have auto focus, then it is of course a big comfort, provided you can get the camera to focus exactly where you want it to. The number of focus points in a modern camera has inflated over the last years, but I find that the only one that works for me is single point focus, where I can control the focus point completely.
If you are up for it, give manual focus a try. Be prepared to invest a bit of time before you you get the hang of it, but it is worth every minutes spent in my opinion, and it is a more engaging way of shooting.
When not shooting with a tripod, I zoom in all the way and throw the focus ring to the closest to the subject possible, and then instead of focusing, I rock back and forth with the camera until focus is obtained. That way I know I have filled the frame to the max.
7.5 Watch the shutter speed
When you shoot in daylight with a very open aperture, your camera will – in the automated or semi automated modes – compensate by reducing both the ISO and the shutter speed to the minimum. Your cameras max shutter speed (typically 1/4000th of a second or 1/8000th), will sometimes not be fast enough to get the picture exposed correct. The result is that your pictures are over exposed, so watch out for the shutter speed – it will typically be flashing (or in other ways try to get your attention!) when the max shutter speed is exceeded.
The fix is to close the aperture a bit – one or two stops usually does it. You will then not get the ultra thin and shallow depth of field that gives the “dreamy” pictures that so many find appealing, but better that than overexposed pictures. Alternatively you can start working with ND filters or see if an umbrella or the like can reduce the amount of light in your frame, but then I find that things become too cumbersome for me and I take the easy way out and reduce the aperture a bit.
7.6 Try underexposing just a little bit
If you dial down on the exposure compensation, this may help you make the background more dark and hence make your subject stand out more clearly and even contribute to a more “dreamy” expression. You can do a lot of “recovery” in post processing with an underexposed picture – in my experience it is far more difficult to work with and overexposed picture because the details in the high end of the spectrum have gone lost. As with so many other things in photography, there is a balance balance to be found, so try to dial down maybe 1/4 or 1/2 a stop for starters, and see how you like it. Then you can always go to more extreme settings if you like to underexpose.
8. After the shoot
8.1 Post processing
I think most photographers do some level of editing although some dislike it and find it to be a bit of cheating. I just want to bring the best out in my pictures, so I have no problems with post processing in Lightroom or Photoshop or whatever you prefer.
When editing I have a few ground rules:
For every edit done, be careful not to edit too much. Less is more.
Leave the picture for 5 minutes (coffee break) and come back and see if you still like the edits. If you edit for too long without a break, your sense of proportion gets skewed and it gets worse and worse the longer you edit. Take a break.
Take a few steps back from the screen and see if you still like the picture. Sometimes your are too close to the picture when sitting in front of the monitor. Assessing the composition is difficult when your nose is 30 centimeters or so from the subject. Take a step back!
Remember that what is sharp and bright gets attention. Dark and out of focus the opposite. Use this to help the viewer take in the picture and focus on the important parts.
8.2 Try black and white
Often flowers are about vivid colors and the beauty in that, but you can try to blend in a few black and white photographs, to put emphasis on the structure and the form rather than the color. It may also open your eyes to new dimensions in the flowers and thereby take your color flower photography to a new level. I prefer to shoot everything in color and then convert to black and white in post processing, that that is due to my lack of experience: I have a hard time forecasting if a subject will work better in color or monochrome. So taking everything in colors gives me options for both at the price of a little bit of post processing.
Questions and comments
Thank you for reading this far! Questions and comments are always welcome! Hope you will enjoy shooting flowers as much as I do!
Starting my “career” as a photographer on a Nikon D5600, I quickly built a portfolio of good and less-good glass. One of my favorite lenses was the Sigma 18-35 mm 1.8 DC, and must admit that this lens was one of the reasons why I hesitated to go full frame – it is that good!!
However, someone kind told me that not all is lost. The Nikon F-mount is still the Nikon F-mount and the lens will fit and you will get all the EXIF information still. So what happens if you use the DX lens on an FX camera body?
Limited coverage
As you probably have figured out, the DX lens for the cropped sensor is designed to cover a smaller area than the FX sensor, so when you shoot with the DX lens, you will get vignetting meaning that especially the corners of the picture are darker or pitch black. The lens throws a light intended to cover the DX area comfortably, but when challenged with the FX sensors larger area, the circle cannot cover, and especially the corners are cut off.
However, how much depends on the zoom. The wider you go, the bigger the problem becomes. The first example here is at 35mm, i.e. the most zoom that the Sigma 18-35 mm 1.8 DC can give and as you can see there is some vignetting in the corners:
If you widen the perspective to 22mm (this is not even the widest it will go), you will see that the problems have gotten worse and now more of the corners are cut off:
However, if you study the pictures carefully, you will see that the 22mm has a wider reach than the 35mm despite the vignetting. In the water, top left, there are two buoys and you can see that there is more of the horizon to the left of them in the bottom picture. So although you have to crop the picture in post processing to get something useful, you still get a fairly wide picture using the Sigma 18-35 mm 1.8 DC on a FX body.
So, don’t sell all your DX glass if you decide to go for full frame – you may find that the DX glass is useful on a FX body. But it varies a lot from lens to lens, so the best is if you can test your lenses with the camera body you plan to buy, so you know exactly how useful your DX glass is on the FX frame.
Nikkor AF-S 18-140mm 3.5-5.6 ED DX VR
One of Nikons classic kit lenses is the Nikkor AF-S 18-140mm, and as you can see the vignetting is bad both when zoomed out (18mm) as this shot of a window frame shows:
And it only gets a notch better when zoomed in close – here at 140mm of the same window frame:
If you compare this to the Nikkor AF-S 35mm 1.8G DX, you can see that the vignetting here is much less, actually – I think – hard to see unless you know it is a DX lens on a FX frame:
I think you have to compare it to the 50mm FX equivalent (Nikkor AF 50mm 1.4D) to notice the difference:
So the Nikkor AF-S 35mm 1.8G DX in my mind is highly usable on a FX frame whereas the Nikkor AF-S 35mm 1.8G DX is much less. Finally, lets take a look at another classic kit lens.
Nikkor AF-S 18-55mm 3.5-5.6 G II ED DX
This lens is probably one of the most common kit lenses, and at 18 mm it – not surprisingly – shows the same vignetting as the 18-140mm:
However, at 55 mm there is hardly any vignetting:
So I think this illustrates that you need to test the specific lens you want to put on a FX camera as it is hard to make a conclusion or a guide that applies to all lenses.
Questions and comments
Questions and comments are more than welcome – please post below. Hope you found this blog useful. Thank you for reading! Please share if you find this post useful.
