Photo insights july '15

Jim Zuckerman’s

PH OTO I N S I G HTS July 2015

• Safari strategies • Contrast vs. exposure • 1/3 focus law • Online photo courses • Student showcase • Photo tours 1

4. Safari strategies 17. Contrast vs. exposure 22. Whats wrong with this picture?

24. Short and sweet 26. 1/3 focus law 28. Ask Jim 31. Student showcase 35. Back issues 22

I

ntelligent self-critiques are perhaps the fastest way to grow in photography. Photographers at all levels of expertise and experience want other shooters, especially professionals of some stature, to give them feedback on their work. However, at some point, you need to be able to honestly critique your own pictures.

This does mean that you should be too hard on yourself, nor does it mean that you should accept obvious flaws. But after a few years of pursuing beautiful photography, you should be able to recognize poor exposure, distracting backgrounds, insufficient depth of field, a skewed color balance, boring subject matter, blown highlights, too much contrast, messy compositions, poor graphic design, unwanted lens flare, and pictures that lack sharpness.

Photography is an art form, and people can differ in what they like. Just because friends, family, and camera club judges don’t like one of your images, that doesn’t mean you can’t like it. Conversely, others may like a picture you took and yet it doesn’t please you. That’s fine. Ultimately, you are shooting to please yourself, not others. So many of my students and photo tour participants are constantly trying to please judges, and I think that’s unfortunate. If a shot you took doesn’t make you excited, examine it critically and determine the reason. If a picture does, in fact, make you proud, analyze it as well and determine what you did right. In this way, you will dramatically improve your picture taking.

Jim Zuckerman www.jimzuckerman.com 3

Safari Strategies M

y thinking has changed with respect to shooting on safari in Africa for several reasons, and I want to share my thoughts with you on this. Many of you have been to east or southern Africa already, and if you plan to go back I think you’ll find this information valuable. If you have never been there but an African safari is on your bucket list, this article will help you be better prepared when you finally make the trip. There is nothing more exciting in nature photog-

4

raphy than seeing and photographing Africa’s diverse wildlife in their natural environment, and you want to be sure you capture it with artistry.

Weight issues Many of the best game lodges are located in areas that are best reached by small planes. Roads are bad in most African countries, and this translates into time lost if it takes a half day or more to get somewhere. Small planes are the answer even though you may hate (and fear) these planes as I do. I handle the experience by using noise

5

cancelling headphones and very loud rock and roll music. That way I can sort of forget where I am.

I mention small planes because they have weight limits. The normal limit is 44 pounds or 20 kilograms . . . and this includes your camera equipment! This is not good news for photographers, especially those with very large and heavy super telephoto lenses. The small charter airline companies don’t limit your weight because they are trying to be difficult. It’s a safety issue. All planes have a specified payload, and if they go over that limit the plane can crash on takeoff. Therefore, take this very seriously.

Weigh your camera gear and then subtract that number from 44 pounds and you’ll know how much clothing and personal items you can carry. All lodges in Africa have laundry service, so you can bring a minimum of

6

clothing. On my two recent back-toback photo tours to Botswana/South Africa and Namibia where I was away for a month, I brought two pair of pants, five shirts, two pair of socks, one pair of shoes, and a light jacket. I used only a carryon piece of luggage, so that weighed only a small amount, too. I washed my clothes often, and the reduced weight enabled me to carry more camera equipment.

Telephoto lenses Due to the weight issues involved in flying with small planes as well as serious back pain I’ve experienced in recent years (from carrying very heavy photo backpacks, I’m sure), I’ve watched very carefully the development of less expensive and lighter super telephotos. Sigma has the 150-500mm as well as the 150-

600mm lens and Tamron makes the 150600mm. All of these are under $1100. Compared to the $10,000 to $12,000 (or more) price tag on long lenses from Canon and Nikon, the Sigma and Tamron lenses look very appealing especially if you can’t afford such a huge investment. In addition, the inexpensive glass is much lighter than the Canon and Nikon options. For example, the Canon 600mm lens weighs 8.64 pounds (3.92 kg) versus the Tamron which weighs 4.3 pounds (1.95 kg).

Yes, the Canon and Nikon lenses are faster, but with the ability to shoot higher ISO settings now, that is less significant.

There is another option that I think is the best way to go. The new Canon 100-400mm lens (and the 80-400mm Nikon telephoto) is sharp, light (3.5 pounds or 1.59 kg for the Canon and 3.45 pounds or 1.57 kg for the Nikon), and

gives you a zoom range which is invaluable.

Instead of being limited to a single focal length, you have tremendous flexibility to compose the subject or scene in a variety of ways.

When shooting animals and especially birds on safari, a 400mm focal length is good but it’s not great. I always recommend at least 500mm and more, if possible, simply because you may not be able to get as close as you want to fill the frame. The solution is either a 1.4x or 2x teleconverter on a full frame sensor camera or a cropped sensor camera.

On the safaris I just completed, I used the new Canon 7D Mark II which gave me a 1.6 crop factor. Therefore, my 100-400mm lens became a 160-640mm lens and it weighed just .3 ounces (8.5 grams) more than a 70200mm f/2.8 lens. It was easy to hand hold, the zoom range was incredible, and the price

7

w

UPCOMING PHOTO WORKSHOPS Carnival in Venice, Italy Two tour dates, Feb. 2016

Outrageous costumes in a medieval environment! Venice is beautiful any time, but during carnival it’s beyond amazing.

Frog & Reptile Workshop Close-up encounters with poison dart frogs and exotic reptiles in St. Louis, MO.

April 11 - 12, 2015

Home Photoshop workshop Learn amazing techniques to help you be more creative in photography.

October 16-17, 2015

8

tag is just $2200 (while the Nikon 80-400mm is around $2750). I use the word ‘just’ because the 600mm from Canon is $11,500.

mination, at least according to my taste, than on-camera flash. You can see what I’m talking about in the shot of the two lions, below.

Other lenses and equipment

Hierarchy of decisions

You need a wide angle lens on safari for landscapes and great sunrise or sunset skies. There are many choices, of course. I carry two with me -- the 24-105mm and the 14mm. These are fairly small and light lenses, and along with the long lens, focal lengths in this range are all you need on a safari. I leave my macro lens at home because that’s not my focus on a safari.

Photographers are constantly doing battle, so to speak, with ISO settings. On the one hand, a low ISO produces minimal digital noise and optimal picture quality. With a high ISO, you can use a fast enough shutter speed in low light situations to get a sharp picture, you can freeze the wings of birds and the legs of running animals, and you can have enough depth of field for subjects that require it.

I brought a flash with me, as I always do, but in four weeks I used it just once. On the night drives we did in Sabi Sabi, South Africa, our spotter had a powerful incandescant flashlight. That proved to be more attractive illu-

Every time you take a picture, there are three decisions that have to be made: what shutter speed should be used, what lens aperture is appropriate, and what is the best ISO. The exposure mode you choose -- Program, Shut-

9

ter priority, Aperture priority, or Manual -- is part of the decision making process, but these are simply methods by which the camera will choose the right shutter speed, aperture, and ISO appropriate for each photographic situation. More about these in a moment.

The first decision to be made is shutter speed.

If you are hand holding the camera, and in a safari vehicle that’s what you’re doing all the time, the shutter has to be fast enough to take sharp pictures.

It doesn’t matter how much depth of field you have if the pictures aren’t sharp. Similarly, it is irrelevant how noise-free the images are if they aren’t sharp.

Therefore, the shutter speed is the first decision. If you can also capture lots of depth of field and have a low ISO for minimum noise,

10

great. But if you have to sacrifice depth of field and the images end up somewhat noisy, that’s the compromise that must be made for sharp pictures.

If you are using a tripod for, say, landscapes, and nothing is moving in the composition, then the shutter becomes irrelevant. But this is true only when the camera is on a tripod.

When shooting wildlife from a land rover, tripods are never used. Some photographers use monopods, but I find them to be inhibiting to use while sitting in a vehicle. In addition, you can’t use slow shutter speeds with them and expect tack sharp pictures. Only use a monopod to take the weight of a long lens off your arms and shoulders. If you have the strength to hold the camera and lens fairly steady, then my recommendation is to forego the monopod.

The general rule for choosing a shutter speed when using a telephoto lens is the speed should be the reciprocal of the focal length.

In other words, if the focal length of the lens is 400mm, then the shutter should be 1/400th of a second or faster. Can you fudge on this a a bit . . . meaning can you use 1/320th and still get a sharp picture? ProbabIy. If you are very stready and the animal isn’t moving there is a good chance the image will be sharp. But the ideal is to stick with the rule.

Once the shutter is decided upon, you must choose an ISO that permits the fast shutter you need. This is the second decision. As I alluded to earlier, if you have to sacrifice on the noise factor, that’s the ‘necessary evil’ that has to be done. To capture the lilac breasted roller in flight, below, and maintain sharp wings, I had to use a shutter speed of 1/2000th of a second. I had enough light, though, that the

ISO didn’t’ have to be raised too much. I used 640 in this case. However, the lions I photographed at night with only a single spotlight on them (page 9) was very different. In order to use a shutter speed of 1/250th (with a wide open shutter of f/5.6), I had to raise the ISO to 6400. Obviously, the noise in this picture is undesirable, but my choices in this night shot were: 1. Don’t take the picture 2. Take the picture with a lower ISO and a slower shutter speed and get a blurred picture 3. Raise the ISO to 6400 and get a sharp picture and then minimize the noise with either Dfine 2.0 by Nik Software or DeNoise by Topaz Labs.

The third decision is the lens aperture and depth of field. In a situation like the lions at night, depth of field doesn’t come into play

11

12 12

at all simply because it’s a luxury that isn’t attainable in such a dark environment. However, when shooting landscapes in any kind of lighting or wildlife in bright light, you can have depth of field to satisfy your artristric preferences.

Exposure modes a There are four exposure modes as I’ve already mentioned. Specific to a safari -- and any other wildlife photography -- these are the options.

Program mode: I use this exposure mode almost all the time while on safari. It chooses the shutter speed and lens aperture. P mode assumes you are hand holding the camera, which you are for wildlife and birds in Africa, and it is programmed to give you the fastest shutter speed possible, given the light and the ISO, minus one third f//stop. As more and more light

is available, the shutter speed gets faster but at the same time, a little more depth of field is introduced.

In other words, in deep shade, P mode gives you the fastest shutter minus one third f/stop (for example, instead of 1/250 at f/4 P mode would give you 1/200 at f/4.5). But in bright sunlight, the shutter might be 1/500th of a second while the aperture is f/7.1 or f/8. s Program mode does not mean the camera controls everything. It doesn’t mean you stop using your brain to take pictures. What it does mean, however, is that you can concentrate on the subject, the composition, and the lighting, knowing that you are getting the best settings for wildlife.

Aperture priority: Another approach is to use this exposure mode with a large lens aperture

13

such as f/4.5 or f/5.6. If you want the fastest shutter possible given the light and the ISO, the largest aperture will give you that. But as the light gets brighter, the camera will not automatically give you more depth of field as you’d get in Program mode. You’d have to change the aperture manually, thus losing time.

If you use aperture priority specifically to get depth of field -- say you set the aperture to f/11 or f/16 -- this is a very dangerous approach because your shutter may be too slow for sharp pictures. This will especially be true if the light diminishes. So many times on my photo tours I hear the slow shutter of someone who did just that, and by the time they choose a different setting the animal or bird is gone and they’ve missed a golden opportunity.

Shutter priority: If you prefer this exposure mode, you can set the shutter to be what you

14

want, but at the same time you must use auto ISO. In this way, the ISO will change depending on the light to maintain the fast shutter speed you’ve selected. This is especially effective with flying birds where you define the very fast shutter to freeze the wings.

Manual mode: I never recommend this setting for wildlife photography. It is simply too slow.

While you are changing the aperture and shutter speed the subject will most likely be long gone. Great pictures of animals and animal behavior are often defined in split-second timing. Don’t listen to instructors who teach that if you don’t shoot in manual mode, you’re not a real photographer. I consider myself a ‘real’ photographer, and I assume you do, too, if you subscribe to this eMagazine. I only use manual exposure mode for very specific subjects and situations like lightning, off-camera flash, macro flash, and star photography. §

15

Become a better photographer with

eBooks

Click on any ebook to see inside

16

Contrast versus exposure I

t is easy to confuse the relationship between contrast and exposure, and many of my photo tour participants do exactly that. For example, the picture below of a fur seal on the Skeleton Coast of Namibia looks like a poor exposure. The shadows are black, the rock is too dark, the highlights on the seal’s body are blown out, and one could argue that the sea foam is too light.

Does this mean that the exposure is bad? No, it doesn’t. The exposure is perfect, actually.

The problem is that the sun was shining in a clear blue sky at 10am, and this produced strong contrast. The wet skin of the seal re-

flected the sun, and the shadows went very dark.

This is a failure of the digital sensor to reproduce what my eye/brain combination could see, although even to my eyes, the scene was very contrasty -- but not as contrasty as you see here.

How do you handle this problem? First, understand that this isn’t an exposure issue. There is no need to change the ISO, use the exposure compensation, or use manual exposure mode. There are two ways to address this issue. First, shoot when there is less contrast. That means on an overcast day or in fog (there happens to be a lot of fog on the Skeleton Coast in the early morning) or work on this image in post-processing. In

17

other words, lighten the shadows and darken the highlights in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) or Lightroom.

Regarding the blown out highlights, on the seal’s skin, these can’t be repaired by simply using the highlights slider. Those areas are solid white with no detail, and all the highlights slider would do is make the brilliant sheen gray. No detail would be recovered. Similarly, the shadows are so dense, so black, that the shadows slider will have minimal effect in recovering the detail that was lost.

The best I could do, below, is use the clone tool as well as the healing brush in Photoshop to replace the highlights on the seal’s skin.

My point in all of this, though, is that this is not an exposure issue. It’s a contrast issue.

18

The silhouette of the very graphic tree at Deadvlei in the Namib Desert of Namibia on the next page shows the same issue -- extreme contrast -- even though the sun was close to the horizon in the early morning. The tree is dark and so is the distant dune. In this case, however, most photographers recognize that a silhouette with long shadows makes an artistic picture in spite of the detail lost in the silhouetted shapes.

Sometimes contrast works. Most of the time, though, it’s a big problem and photographers try to fix the blown highlights and black shadows in post-processing. The best solution for stationary subjects is HDR, but for scenes where there is movement, such as the fur seal on the rock, the only way to address contrast is by shooting in RAW mode and using the tools in ACR or Lightroom. §

19

LEARNING TO SEE

online course

by Jim Zuckerman

The ability to ‘see photographically’, to really grasp how your camera and lenses capture a subject or scene (which is different than how we see with our eyes) underlies successful picture taking. It is the bottom line that you’ve been looking for to take that quantum leap forward in your photography.

The great thing about online courses is that they can fit into any schedule. Life gets in the way at times, and Jim puts no limit on the time you can submit your work for his critiques. CLICK THIS PAGE to read more about this course.

20

INDONESIA WILDLIFE & CULTURAL TOUR June 8 - 22, 2015

21

What’s wrong with this picture?

O

ne of the great advantages of going on safari in a private reserve like the one I use for my photo tours in South Africa, Sabi Sabi, is you can extend the day’s activities to a night game drive. It’s thrilling to see animals at night, and the pictures you take are obviously very different than in the day.

My photo tour group and I came upon this lone wild dog at an impala kill on our first night drive. In Sabi Sabi, you have a guide/driver as well as a spotter who sits on an elevated seat above the front grill of the land rover. The powerful flashlight the spotter used allowed me to focus, and for my first few shots I used a portable flash, the Canon 600 EX. After seeing a few frames on the LCD monitor on the back of the camera, I decided I didn’t like the on-camera light.

It was too dimensionless, too cold, and too uniform. Much better was the incandescent light from the spotter’s powerful flashlight.

Therefore, I switched the white balance from daylight to tungsten for correct 22

colors. The problem, of course, was that the flashlight, even though it was powerful, still required a very high ISO to insure a sharp picture. My artistic assessment, though, was that the unwanted noise would be better than on-camera flash with no noise.

The biggest factor in making this decision was that the spotter was sitting in a position such that the angle of the light was at about a 45 degree angle to the lens axis. That produced a much better type of lighting as you can see in comparing the two pictures of the wild dog. My settings for this shot were 1/80th at f/4.5 and 5000 ISO. I used the new Canon 100-400mm lens on the 7D Mark II, and the focal length setting for this picture was 124mm. To have this kind of off-camera lighting on a night game drive was exceptional -- you don’t see this often. Off-camera illumination means rich texture, increased depth, and drama.

In post-processing, I used Dfine 2.0 by Nik Software to mitigate the noise as much as technology allows. Just using the default settings, this program does a very good job. §

23

SHORT AND SWEET 1.

Tell stories with your pictures. Friends and family back home like to see what you saw -- not just art photos, like portraits of lions, but they enjoy seeing the totality of the situations you encountered. No one canimagine how close we get to predators in open vehicles.

2.

I rarely show slanted horizons because, in most cases, I think they are overdone. However, once in a while they work. In this instance, I feel the horizon looks good because the photo was taken from a boat.

Also, the diagonal horizon suggests movement.

3. I shoot all of my landscape images in HDR to in- 4. One of the most beautiful types of lighting for porsure I capture all of the detail in the shadows and the highlights. I use a 3-frame composite unless the contrast is extreme, and then I’ll use 5 frames for the HDR composite. Instead of using Photomatix or Nik, I now prefer the Photoshop method of combining the shots.

24

traits is window light. In this shot of a Bushmen girl, I used the doorway of the hut as my light source. Outside, the midday sun was way too contrasty, so shooting in the small hut was the best way to avoid the contrast.

I shot this with a 24-105mm lens set to 24mm. §

Photography Tours 2015 - 2016 VIETNAM, CAMBODIA, LAOS BURMA (MYANMAR) Sept, 2015 Sept, 2015

CARNIVAL IN VENICE Feb, 2016

WHITE HORSES, FRANCE April, 2016

SNOWY OWLS Feb. 2016

GALAPAGOS ISLANDS Mar, 2016

CROATIA, SLOVENIA, MONT. May, 2016

GREECE May, 2016

ARMENIA & GEORGIA June 2016

INDONESIA July 2016

KENYA migration Aug. 2016

CHINA Sept. 2016

For a complete list of all the photo tours/workshops Jim conducts, go to his website: www.jimzuckerman.com.

25

W

1/3 Focus Law

hen you want complete depth of field and you are using a wide angle lens, the question comes up where you should focus the lens. Some people think the answer is to focus one third of the way into the picture. So, in the case of the Paris Opera House interior, below, the distance from the camera position to the far wall is about 150 feet, and therefore that would mean the camera should focus to a point 50 feet from the shooting position according to this belief.

That’s not correct.

The correct approach is to take the focal length of the lens and divide it by 3. That’s where you focus in feet.

26

By way of example, if you are using an 18mm wide angle lens, dividing it by 3 gives you 6mm.

That means that to achieve maximum depth of field using the smallest lens aperture, such as f/32, you focus 6 feet (i.e. two meters) from the camera to the subject. Use manual focus to do this, not autofocus.

This is a simplification of hyperfocal distance.

The actual mathematical formula that defines the hyperfocal distance is complicated, but it refers to the closest distance at which a lens can be focused while keeping objects at infinity acceptably sharp. Using the 1/3 focus law is almost identical to the results you’d get when plugging in mathematical values in the hyperfocal distance formula. This works for any subject, from landscapes to architecture and more.§

PHOTO TOUR TO BURMA Sept. 29 to Oct. 13, 2015

• Amazing culture • Great people photography • Ancient temples • Landscapes • Long necked women • Intricately carved monasteries • Exotic art

27

ASK JIM

Every month Jim will answer a question from his online students, from people who participate in his tours and workshops, or from subscribers to this magazine. If you have a question you’d like Jim to answer, please drop him a note at photos@jimzuckerman.com.

Q: Jim . . .Are you ever tempted to crop a shot like the one below so the bird is larger?”

Rosemary Sheel, Camarillo, California

A:

This shot of an African white pelican in particular doesn’t need cropping, so no, I wouldn’t crop it.

However in many instances the bird is too small in the frame for visual impact. This is especially true with small birds, and in many cases the bird is just too far away and cropping is needed to produce a picture with impact. I don’t like cropping my images at all, but in some cases I find it necesary. For example, the lilac breasted roller on page 11 was cropped about 20% to make the bird larger in the frame.

28

Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos photo tour

September 13 - 28, 2015 Exotic cultures • Ancient ruins • Great people photography • Temples

29

SNOWY OWLS WORKSHOP February 14-17, 2016

30

Student Showcase

Each month, Jim features one student who took beautiful and inspiring images on one or more of his photography tours or workshops. It’s really fascinating how photographers see and compose such different images even though we may go to the same place. Everyone gets great images on my trips.

Patricia ‘Minou’ Wessant, Botswana/South Africa, American Southwest

© 2015 Patricia ‘Minou’ Wessant

31 31

Student Showcase, continued

© 2015 Patricia ‘Minou’ Wessant

32

32

Student Showcase, continued

© 2015 Patricia ‘Minou’ Wessant

37 33

PHOTOSHOP WORKSHOP in my home

Sat. & Sun., Oct. 17 - 18, 2015

Photoshop is a photographer’s best friend, and the creative possibilities are absolutely endless. In a personal and ‘homey’ environment (I have a very cool classroom setup in my home), I start at the beginning -- assuming you know nothing -- but I quickly get into layers, cutting and pasting, plug-ins, using ‘grunge’ textures, modifying lighting, replacing backgrounds, using layer masks, blend modes, adding a moon, and a lot more. I promise to fill your head with so many great techniques that you won’t believe what you’ll be able to do. I go over each technique several times to make sure you understand it and can remember it.

Photoshop instructors approach teaching this program from different points of view. My approach is to be as expansive in my thinking as possible in creating unique, artistic, and compelling images. In addition to showing you how to use the various tools, pull down menus, layers, and so on, I spend a lot of time giving you

34

creative ideas that will inspire you to produce amazing images with the pictures you’ve already taken.

I live in the Nashville, Tennessee area, and if you fly into the airport (BNA) I will pick you up. If you drive, I’ll give you my address and you can find my home on Mapquest or with a GPS. For the $450 fee, I include one dinner in my home (prepared by my wife who is an amazing cook and hostess) and two lunches, plus shuttling you back and forth from my home to your nearby hotel.

Contact me if you would like to participate in the workshop and I will tell you how to sign up (photos@jimzuckerman.com). All you need is a laptop and a lot of your pictures. If you don’t have a laptop, I have two Mac Book Pro laptops I can loan out for the duration of the workshop. §

Click on the past issues of

PH OTO I N S I G HTS you would like to read.

Nov. ‘12

Dec. ‘12

Apr. ‘13

May. ‘13

Sept. ‘13

Feb. ‘14

Oct. ‘13

Mar. ‘14

Jan. ‘13

Feb. ‘13

Mar. ‘13

Jun. ‘13

Jul. 13

Aug. ‘13

Nov. ‘13

Dec. ‘13

Jan. ‘14

May ‘14

Jun.‘14

Apr. ‘14

35

Click on the past issues of

PH OTO I N S I G HTS you would like to read.

Jul.‘14

Dec. ‘14

May ‘15

36

Aug. ‘14

Sept. ‘14

Oct. ‘14

Nov. ‘14

Jan. ‘15

Feb. ‘15

Mar. ‘15

Apr. ‘15

Jun ‘15

Jul.‘15

PHOTO INSIGHTS® published by Jim Zuckerman, all rights reserved © Jim Zuckerman 2015 email: photos@jimzuckerman.com mail address: P.O. Box 7, Arrington, TN 37014

37