Photo Insights May '14

Jim Zuckerman’s

PH OTO I N S I G HTS May 2014

• Aperture vs. Shutter speed • Two subject sharp rule • Shade • Student showcase • Photo tours 1

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Aperture vs shutter speed The two subject sharp rule Shade What’s wrong with this picture?

Short and sweet Ask Jim Student showcase Back issues

On the cover: Fisherman, Inle Lake, Burma (Myanmar)

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his issue is late because I was away from home for a month. I did two back to back photo tours -- the white horses of the Camargue in France, and then a photo tour to Burma (now Myanmar).

For the first time in my photo career, my photo backpack started hurting my back.

Like so many people, I have developed back pain. When I walk great distances in large airports, I normally carry a full complement lenses, bodies, etc., plus a laptop, iPad, and electronic necessities that are all carefully packed into my backpack. It is quite heavy, obviously. Since I often have to use commuter airlines (because I fly out of Nashville, which is not a major hub) that have so little overhead compartment storage, I’ve worked out how I can fit my equipment in these very small spaces, thus avoiding having to gate check my gear. No photographer is comfortable checking or gate checking valuable equipment, and up to now I’ve sidestepped this issue.

But now I have no choice, and I bought a rolling bag into which I place my backpack and computer. I gate checked the equipment with much trepidation, but with careful packing it was protected. I have to admit that it was a pleasure not to take all my equipment on board the small commerical plane, and now when I have to walk a half mile or more in an airport, I can roll my gear instead of carrying the weight on my back. How nice.

The least amount of time you compress your vertebrae and the discs that cushion them with a heavy backpack, the more years you’ll be able to deal with your gear in the field and enjoy photography without pain. Think about that. photos@jimzuckerman.com www.jimzuckerman.com

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Aperture vs

Shutter Speed

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very time you take a picture, you have to decide what is the best shutter speed and lens aperture for the situation. How do you choose these settings? What is the decision making process that you have to go through in your mind to get the best pictures?

If you are using program exposure mode, the camera decides for you. However, you have to monitor what the camera is doing so you can override it if you know the settings will not give you what you want. If you are using aperture priority or shutter priority, you choose the aperture or the shutter, respectively, and the camera chooses the other half of the equation. Again, you must pay attention to the settings so you maintain creative control.

On my photography tours, I am constantly asked by the participants what camera settings should be used, so I wanted to share with you my thought process as to how I approach this issue for various photographic situations.

Landscapes/architecture: With subjects that don’t move and that without exception require complete depth of field, I use aperture priority. This is predicated on the fact that I’m using a tripod. I select f/22 or f/32, and the shutter speed is irrelevant. As long as I’m on a tripod and the subject(s) isn’t moving, such as the sunrise scene below from Bagan, Burma, the shutter can be one half second or ten seconds. It doesn’t matter.

Action photography: For fast moving subjects, like the stallions on the previous page, shutter

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subjects that require a fast shutter, I almost always use program mode. For a picture like the nuns walking away from the camera in Burma, below, program was the best option because I didn’t have more than a second or two to grab the shot.

I didn’t have time to think about which shutter speed to use, how much depth of field I wanted, if any. I just had time to compose the shot and focus. Program mode gave me that freedom. It automatically chose a fast shutter speed, and I accepted the minimal depth of field that program Could I have used shutter priority or aperture mode produces. priority? Yes, I could have. When time is of the essence, though, and a fast shutter is re- If I used shutter priority, how would I know what quired, I prefer program mode for this reason: the maximum shutter speed could be? I wouldn’t unless I took a few test pictures to determine how Program mode is designed to give you the fast- fast I could go. That obviously would take a few est shutter speed possible, given the light and the extra moments, and with action subjects great photo opportunities will be lost for sure. ThereISO, plus a little depth of field. fore, I never use shutter priority when shooting When hand holding the camera and shooting action. speed is paramount. If I want the subjects to be sharp, I don’t have the luxury of complete depth of field plus a very fast shutter unless I raise the ISO extremely high. That introduces too much noise, so I opt for a reasonable ISO (in this case 400) and a lens aperture large enough to force the camera into giving a fast shutter. With the horses, I used program mode because that gave me f/6.3 and 1/2500th of a second for the shutter.

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Using aperture priority with action subjects is a reasonable solution. I could use the largest lens aperture, such as f/2.8 or f/4, and that would produce the fastest shutter given the lighting and the ISO. I would have no depth of field, but with a picture like the horses, that would have been fine.

What about the photo above? The famous leg rowers of Inle Lake in Burma were posing for my photography group at sunset, but they were in motion by definition since they were in boats. I was in another boat, and even though the water was calm, I was also moving a bit. In addition, I wanted complete depth of field. The net in the immediate foreground had to be sharp, and the two boatmen also needed to be tack sharp. I also wanted the sky to be sharp. In my opnion, shallow depth of field for this kind of shot wouldn’t produce the ideal photograph.

Therefore, I used 400 ISO. Since I was shoot-

ing into the sun, there was sufficient light to close the lens to f/18 and use a shutter speed of 1/160. In this case, I used aperture priority so I could determine the depth of field, and I raised the ISO until I liked the shutter speed.

My lens was a 24-105mm set to the widest focal length, and wide lenses have enormous depth of field. So, the 24mm lens plus the aperture of f/18 gave me the depth of field I wanted, and the shutter speed wasn’t ultra fast, but it was fast enough to freeze the movement of the boatmen.

Had the light level been lower -- let’s say the sun was behind a cloud -- then I would have raised the ISO higher until my shutter speed was fast enough to get a sharp picture.

Aerial photography: When shooting out of an airplane, I always use aperture priority with the lens wide open. This produces the fast7

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UPCOMING PHOTO WORKSHOPS Baby WildlifeWorkshop Hinckley, Minnesota June 13 - 15, 2014

Baby wolves, skunks, bobcats, lynx, foxes, bears, and more

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

Sept. 20 - 21, 2014

The Pantanal, Brazil: Jaguars at the river’s edge plus caiman, giant anteaters, monkeys, pink dolphins, and unbelievable birds.

November 8-20, 2014

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est shutter speed possible. Depth of field is irrelevant when photographing subjects from a great distance, and therefore only a fast shutter is required to prevent the vibration of the plane from causing blurred pictures. For the aerial photo below of sand dunes in Namibia at sunset, I used 1/800th at f/4 with 200 ISO. Outdoor portraits: For normal portraits of people, photographers usually don’t use a tripod. And since no one can be perfectly still, the shutter speed is the primary concern. Depth of field (i.e. lens aperture) is a distant secondary consideration. Therefore, I use program mode when shooting people because, as I’ve said, the camera chooses a fast shutter speed.

If the light is low, then the ISO must be raised to obtain a shutter fast enough for sharp pictures. For people, I like to use 1/125 or faster, although sometimes I’ll go down to 1/60th of a second in low light circumstances.

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When you shoot tight closeups of people, then depth of field becomes a consideration. For example, it’s not a good idea to fill the frame with a face and make the eyes sharp but the nose out of focus. Program mode won’t work in this case. Therefore, I switch to aperture priority and choose a lens aperture of f/8 or f/11.

I watch very carefully what the shutter speed is doing, of course, because it’s very easy to focus on the depth of field and forget about the speed of the shutter. (How many times have you used Av and selected a small lens aperture only to realize the shutter rspeed became too slow for a sharp picture?)

for a fast enough shutter. In post-processing, I can deal with the additional noise (with Nik Software’s Dfine 2.0, for example).

If I close the aperture down to f/11, for example, and the shutter becomes slower than 1/60th, I raise the ISO. First and foremost, a picture has to be sharp. Even if digital noise is increased, it’s something I have to live with in exchange

Macro: In my opinion, most macro photography requires as much depth of field as possible.

Therefore, I always use a tripod and I always use f/32. Aperture priority is my choice of exposure modes.

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If a subject is turned such that the eyes are not on the same plane, as in the portrait of a young Pao tribal girl in Burma, above, you have two choices. You can close the lens down until both eyes are sharp, or you can focus on the eye closest to the camera and let the other eye go soft.

For this picture, I elected to do the latter with camera settings of 1/320, f/4, and 400 ISO. I hand held the camera for this portrait, and the focal length was 200mm.

Motion blurs: If I specifically want to blur a moving subject, then I choose shutter priority. This gives me control over how abstracted I want the subject. For subjects like a galloping horse, I find that shutter speeds in the range of 1/15 to 1/30th work best, and for waterfalls I use between 1/4 and 2 full seconds. I used 2 seconds, f/22 and 100 ISO for the waterfall in Chile, right, and for the beautiful horse, above, I used 1/30th at f/22 and 250 ISO in sunset light.

Extreme low light: When the lighting conditions are dim, it’s difficult to obtain a fast enough shutter speed to freeze anything moving -- even people standing fairly still -- and depth of field is usually sacrificed simply because we don’t have the luxury of using a small lens aperture. The only two options we have are raising the ISO and using a tripod if the subjects are relatively still.

Sometimes we have to do both.

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When members of my photo tour group and I took pictures of the novice monks and the Buddha, above, we used tripods. I suggested the widest lens available (I used a 14mm) because this gave us excellent depth of field even at a large lens aperture, and the wide lenses showed less movement. I have good depth of field in this picture even though the aperture was f/3.5 because. The shutter speed was 1/50th of a second and I asked the boys (through my guide) to be as still as possible. I used program mode in this situation because I wanted a fast enough shutter to make sure the boys were sharp. I raised the ISO to 800.

frame with visual impact.

Two portraits closeup: When I photograph two people together, I try to position them on the same plane. If I can’t do that, as in the portrait of two costumed models in Venice (who were posing for other photographers), I choose aperture priority and a lens aperture to guarantee both subjects will be sharp. In this case, since I was using a medium telephoto lens (24-105mm set to 85mm), I selected an f/14 lens aperture and a shutter speed of 1/80. In order to do that in the shade of a building, I had to raise the ISO to 640.

This enabled me to get the depth of field I wanted, and since I was hand holding the camera, I Had this been taken with a telephoto lens re- wanted a shutter that would produce a sharp imsulting in shallow depth of field, I would have age. had to raise the ISO much more so that I could use a smaller lens aperture. Because I used the With the advanced digital cameras we now have, 14mm lens, the camera position was just a few I feel comfortable using ISO settings up to 800. I feet away from the subjects so I could fill the only go higher than that if absolutely necessary. § 12

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THE TWO-SUBJECT SHARP RULE

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here are a number of guidelines, rules and laws associated with photography with which you are probably familiar. Examples are the Rule of Thirds, the Inverse Square Law, and choosing non-distracting backgrounds behind subjects. You’ve probably never heard of the Two Subject Sharp Rule, though, but that’s perfectly understandable because I just made it up.

What this made-up rule refers to is that if you have two main subjects, both of them should be in focus. The picture of the black bear mother and cub, above, exemplifies what I’m talking about. Both of them are sharp, and that is as it should be. Had one of the bears been a few inches in front of or behind the other, the limited depth of field of the telephoto lens I was using wouldn’t have been sufficient to render both 14

of the animals sharp. In fact, I waited for the bears to move into the perfect position where they were equidistant to the camera. That would mean that even with the f/2.8 aperture I was using, they would both be sharp. I got lucky and they obliged.

With the flamingos I photographed in the sun’s reflection (next page), the foreground bird is sharp but I didn’t use a small enough lens aperture to make the background flamingo similarly sharp. That was a mistake. There are two subjects here, not just one, and consequently both need to be sharp. The bird furthest from the camera isn’t just a background element. It’s one of two subjects, and as such it needs to be sharply defined. It is so graphic that it draws the eye, and you never want attention drawn to an out of focus element. In my opinion, domi-

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nating elements (i.e. subjects) in a photograph that are out of focus are visually annoying. We instinctively want to see them sharp, but of course that’s not possible due to the shallow depth of field.

I would like to make clear that I’m not saying that out of focus backgrounds are bad. We all know they are desirable in many situations.

With a single subject, an out of focus background is often ideal. However, with two subjects, the soft background should begin behind the two sharp subjects.

In the picture of the dragon figures I shot at a temple in Burma, right, there are two subjects but only the foreground figure is sharp. This is what I object to because the out of focus dragon is visually annoying. On the other hand, the 16

picture of the Balinese dancer and the Barong, above, shows both subjects in focus. This is correct.

Rules and guidelines are made to be broken, and there may be instances where you prefer one of the subjects to be soft. In addition, I

Become a better photographer with Jim’s eBooks Click on any ebook to see inside

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know there are photographers who will disagree with me on the principle I am espousing here.

This is art, after all, and beauty – and the correct way to photograph subjects – varies depending on the individual. Try my ‘rule’, though, and see for yourself which approach you like.

depth of field.

How do you make sure two subjects are sharp?

You can do this in several ways:

When shooting subjects like wildlife, dancers, children at play, and sports, things happen very fast. It pays to watch the action through the viewfinder so you can be ready to shoot when two subjects are the same distance from the camera. Such was the case with the picture below. The two stallions were in constant motion, and whenever they came together on the same plane relative to the camera, I took the shots. In a picture like this, you wouldn’t want either horse to be even slightly out of focus. That would ruin the image. §

1. Use a smaller lens aperture, such as f/16 or smaller. This may require a higher ISO, especially in low light.

2. Move back from the subjects. This increases depth of field, although it also changes the composition.

3. Use a wider angle lens. This also increases

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4. Arrange the subjects (if possible) such that they are equidistant to the camera. This would mean that they will both be sharp at any lens aperture.

S H A D E

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e all know that sunrise and sunset lighting are called sweetlight for a reason. They’re beautiful. For wildlife, ancient ruins, landscapes, portraits, and many other subjects, low angled sunlight adds artistry and beauty to the photographs.

The other type of outdoor lighting that is beautiful is soft and diffused light like we get from an overcast sky. Contrast is minimal, exposure is simplified, and detail is easily revealed in both the highlights and the shadows.

So often, though, we are faced with a sunny day with harsh, contrasty lighting. When we travel, we usually don’t have the time to stay in a location and wait for diffused light, so the next best solution is to use shade.

The shade created by a building, a tree, or some other large object solves the problem of harsh, direct sunlight. It provides the exact same light we get from an overcast sky.

You can see an example of what I’m talking about in the shot I took on the previous page during my recent photo tour to Burma.

The sky was blue and the lighting was terribly harsh. This was mid-morning, and the sun was already high. To get the diffused light you see here, I used the shaded side of a huge temple (damaged by an 1838 earthquake) and posed the monks to take advantage of the perfect light.

For the portrait of the novice monk, above right, I used an alcove in another temple.

Again, the sun was shining brightly on the other side of the temple, so I used the shaded side to make this portrait. Note that had the sun been shining on the boy, he would be squinting from the brilliant light. This distorts the features of a face, creating a very unflattering picture.

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Macro subjects, with very few exceptions, should always be photographed in soft light instead of direct sunlight. If you are shooting on an overcast day or when the sun is so low to the horizon that it is no longer relevant, then you’ll automatically get good results in the diffused light. But if the sun is high in the sky and the light is harsh, you can create shade with your body. Just standing over a subject like the flowers below creates a

shaded environment. Even though the sunlight may be just a few inches away from the shaded subject, the picture will appear to have perfect lighting.

What you want to avoid is shooting a subject in the shade while the background is receiving direct sunlight. This sets up a tough exposure situation, but even if the exposure for the shaded subject is correct, the light background (you’ll end up with an overexposed background if you correctly expose for the subject) will be terribly distracting.

In the picture below, you can see that the upper right corner shows this. The mother cheetah took her cub into the shade of a thicket during mid-day in the Masai Mara in Kenya, but the shaded area was very small. The background was sunny, and even though I like this picture

a lot, the background has always been a problem for me. I shot as tightly as I could -- in this case I used a 500mm plus a 1.7x teleconverter -- but I couldn’t eliminate the blown out background.

When you shoot a subject in shade, the background has to be shaded as well. If it is not, you can change your shooting angle, use a tighter composition, or, if there is nothing you can do, the ultimate solution is to replace the background in Photoshop with something that was photographed in diffused light. In the case of the cheetahs, that would be a significant challenge because of all the fine detail of the cat’s hair as well as the complexity of the plant. In this particular situation, though, that’s the only option left. I saw the problem at the time of shooting, but there was nothing I could do to improve the situation. §

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OnLine Course:

LEARNING TO SEE

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.

When you register for this new course, you will be given download links to eight easy-to-understand lessons that look like beautiful mini ebooks. At your convenience, you can study the material and then upload your photos for a professional critique by Jim. Included in the course is a phone call once a week to discuss your submissions or any other aspect of photography you want -- what new equipment to buy, advice about airline travel, problems with flash, or anything else.

This course can be purchased directly from Jim’s website by clicking RIGHT HERE. 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.

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LEARNING TO SEE online course The 8 lessons that comprise this course are: Graphic design, Backgrounds, Depth of field, Patterns, Natural light, Color, Composition, and Motion. These lessons are beautifully illustrated in the style of my ebooks and they full of concrete steps to dramatically improve your photography.

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What’s wrong with this picture?

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took this shot of an elderly weaver in Burma because I was captivated by the serenity and kindness in the woman’s face. She had been working in this weaving factory for 42 years. The lighting on her face was window light, and I like the softness of the illuminatin as well as the catchlight in the eyes.

The problem, of course, is the background. It’s terribly distracting because horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines behind a subject that are not part of the subject itself are virtually always distracting. Even though the background is fairly muted, those pronounced and defined shapes draw the eye away from my subject.

On the next page, you can see what I did with it. It would have been challenging to replace the background entirely due to the fine wisps of hair around the periphery of this woman’s head. Therefore, I used the burn tool to darken the bamboo. However,

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what usually happens when the burn tool is applied is that the color being darkened becomes more saturated. That’s what happened here. Instead of becoming more muted and unobtrusive, the bamboo wall in the background continued to stand out due to the increased color saturation.

Therefore, I made a rough selection of the woman’s face with the quick selection tool (which hides under the magic wand tool in the tools palette in Photoshop). I feathered the edge with Select > modify > feather, and chose 20 pixels as the feather radius.

Then I chose Select > inverse, and this grabbed everything except the woman’s face. I then used the pull down menu command Image > adjustments > hue/saturation, and in the dialog box I clicked on the submenu and chose ‘red’. By moving the saturation slider to the left, I desaturated just the red color. That made the background much more neutral and less obtrusive, and now nothing detracts from my subject’s face. § 25

SHORT AND SWEET 1. When photographing a pattern, the image should

be sharp from edge to edge. If you are hand holding the camera, make the back of it precisely parallel with the pattern (silk ties rolled up in this case). That will help maintain complete depth of field.

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Don’t be lazy. When shooting landscapes, use a tripod so you can choose a small lens aperture for complete depth of field. This picture only works because I used f/32. Landscapes, without exception, require depth of field from the immediate foreground to the distant background.

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2. Fisheye lenses have limited use, but once in a while they enable you to take unique and visually compelling images. I used my 15mm Canon fisheye to photograph this temple in Bangkok. It is an HDR image because even in muted light, contrast can be an issue.

4. You can get pictures of famous places with no people

in them if you are the first in line to get a ticket. This is the Paris opera house, and it’s packed with people daily.

It opens at 10am, and I was in line at 9:15. I was first to buy a ticket, and I had 5 to 10 minutes of great shooting before the hordes flooded the interior. §

Photography Tours 2014 - 2015 INDONESIA August, 2014

POLAR BEARS October, 2014

THE PANTANAL, BRAZIL November, 2014

CHINA January, 2015

JAPAN February, 2015

CARNIVAL IN VENICE February, 2015

MOROCCO March, 2015

SCOTLAND/WALES April, 2015

BOTSWANA/SOUTH AFRICA June, 2015

NAMIBIA June, 2015

MADAGASCAR August, 2015

CUBA October, 2015

Check out the itineraries and photo galleries from these and other tours: www.jimzuckerman.com.

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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 ... Is this a good image to submit to a stock photo agency, and can you still make decent money in stock photography today? I know the business has changed a lot in the last few years, but can a nonprofessional expect to make money from one’s pictures?

Anne Johnson, Peoria, IL

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: Yes, this is a good picture to submit to an agency. I would clone out some of the blemishes in the floor signs, though, but the image is a conceptual one. For example, keywords that would be associated with it are: confusion, signage, directions, entrance, entry, movement, and transportation. Keywords are how clients find your images among the millions of pictures in an agency’s files.

You can still make money in stock photography today, but your expected return is much less than it was in the ‘good old days’. From my observation, photographers are making about 10% of what they were earning prior to 2009. The reasons for this are: lower sales prices, the proliferation of micro stock companies, reduced percentage the agencies are paying photographers, fewer accepted images by the agencies, and increased competition. When I first joined a stock agency in 1987, the average price for the usage of a picture was $500 and the photographer received 50% of that fee. Now the average price is $40 and the photographer gets 37% at the big agencies. §

© Anne Johnson 2014

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Indonesia Photo Tour August 17 - 30, 2014

Balinese dancers • active volcanos • fashion festival

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Get professionalcritiques critiques of yourof work Get professional your work with Jim’s online courses with Jim’s online courses Betterphoto.com betterphoto.com Learn composition, exposure, Photoshop, beginning fundamentals, techniques in low light photography, flash, making money in photography, and more at your convenience and on your schedule.

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Student Showcase

Each month, Jim features one student who took beautiful and inspiring images on one 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.

Janos Perenyi, Budapest, Hungary, White Horses of the Camargue, France

Š 2014 Janos Perenyi

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Janos Perenyi, Budapest, Hungary

Š 2014 Janos Perenyi

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Janos Perenyi, Budapest, Hungary

Š 2014 Janos Perenyi

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PHOTOSHOP WORKSHOP in my home

Sat. & Sun., December 6 - 7, 2014

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, 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.

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

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

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. §

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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. 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.

Click on the past issues of

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PHOTO INSIGHTS®

published by Jim Zuckerman, all rights reserved © Jim Zuckerman 2014 email: photos@jimzuckerman.com Snail mail address: P.O. Box 7, Arrington, TN 37014

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