BetterPhoto Instructor Insights

Tools & Creativity

By John Siskin

El Matador Beach The long exposure makes the waves disappear into a mist. © John H. Siskin All rights reserved

So I’ve been talking about how some designers build tools that provide a more creative approach to problems that we usually see. Today I want to discuss how better or different tools affect our creative process as photographers. I used to hear the phrase “a really great photographer can make great pictures with a 50mm lens”. Clearly, this was in the day of full frame 35mm film cameras; I’ve also heard the same idea expressed with a lousy camera rather than a 50mm lens. Regardless this is true, but you can also say a really great photographer can take more great photos if he/she has the tools most suited to their way of working. Why would you want to limit your seeing to just one, fixed focal length, lens?

Hand Made Superwide Camera This camera uses a Nikkor 28mm Perspective Contol Lens and shoots onto 120 film. Covers about 110º! © John H. Siskin All rights reserved

Back in the mid seventies and eighties I was selling cameras. The manufacturers of cameras would probably tell you this was a period of great innovation in camera design, but I don’t buy it. The cameras did get smaller and lighter, particularly the Olympus OM-1, but they all had the same basic architecture. They all had focusing on the lens, focal plane shutter, pentaprism, through the lens meter and a camera body with a right hand advance. Only one 35mm camera was introduced at this time with interchangeable backs. This was a big advantage for professional work because it provided a better way to shoot Polaroid proof images. There have been other innovations that are interesting to check out, one good one is the Olympus XA. When you look at the XA, you should also check out the Kodak Retina 2A.

Union Station #2 You can never know exactly what you will get with the Superwide camera. This negative is very dense and consequently tough to print. I should point out that the camera is tricky to hand hold, unless you have three hands. © John H. Siskin All rights reserved

I believe that a photographer should take responsibility for finding the tools he/she will be able to do the finest work with. My way of seeing often involves extreme wide-angle lenses. One of the tools I use for this way of seeing is a camera I built! It uses a very special lens - the Nikkor 28mm perspective control lens. Since this lens shifts to allow movements for architectural use, it has a much wider coverage than a regular 35mm lens - that is, it throws a larger image area behind the lens. This also means it could cover more film and thus give you a wider-angle perspective. The camera I built is crude, a box with a pneumatic (air driven) shutter. The back holds Graflok accessories, in this case a 120 film back. The camera has 110º angle of view, really really wide, and covers the 6X4.5cm. format. A unique tool for unique, creative imaging.

Singh-Ray's Gold'nBlue Polarizer

No Filter.

Singh Ray's Gold'nBlue polarizing filter made my day when photographing sunrise along Otter Cliffs in Acadia a few weeks ago. The light was clear, the sky void of clouds, and when dawn broke, there wasn't a whole lot of color to the sunrise. But there was some, and the Gold'nBlue filter enhanced what was there. It's a great filter and very powerful for enhancing colors in reflecting streams, for adding a hint more warmth or coolness to a scene, and for intensifying the cool and warm spectrum of colors.

Using filters like this can be tricky, but you see what you're going to get through the filter, just by holding it up to the scene and rotating it. For film, though, it might be too enhanced if using Velvia or Kodak's VS and you have to take that into consideration when deciding how much to turn the polarizer to enhance your colors.

I chose to use it carefully in this scene. You can see in the first image that the light was not as "sweet" as it can be. By using the filter, I was able to saturate colors a bit more and that helped alot, bringing up the pinks and warmer hues in the light.

With GoldnBlue Polarizer.

I don't use a lot of filters, but there are times like this that the filter saved the morning. After all, getting up at 3:30 to drive there for sunrise ought to be reason enough!

Have a great day, all.

STOCK SALES: INSECTS By Jim

STOCK SALES: INSECTS
By Jim Zuckerman

In my 'Making Money in Photography' course at Betterphoto®, many students submit pictures of insects and ask me if I feel the photos are marketable. The truth is that there is a very limited market for pictures of insects. Butterflies are the most saleable, of course, but after that most shots of these 6-legged creatures are used in textbooks.

The only way that you can make a transition from selling to the editorial market to advertising (where there is much bigger money paid per picture) is to do something outrageous with the insects. Either the subject itself has to be visually arresting or you must use another technique to create powerful images. One of the ways to do this is with shocking color.

Whether or not the photo is biologically correct is usually (but not always) irrelevant. In the photo below, for example, this jewel beetle does not belong on the Gerber daisy, but an advertiser wouldn’t care. A biology textbook publisher would care, but not someone who is looking for visual shock value.

Africa from the Air

By Jim Zuckerman

My second favorite thing to do, after breathing, is standing on the ground. I fly all over the world, usually several times a year, and on top of that I arrange for small planes, hot air balloons, helicopters, and even ultralights to shoot from aerial perspectives. I only do it for the pictures, because every second I’m not standing on terra firma I’m not a happy camper.

Having said that, the visuals from the air are compelling. It’s a point of view that we usually don’t see, and the graphic designs offer an artistic way of interpreting nature, cities, bodies of water, and many other subjects. The photo below was taken in Kenya from an ultralight aircraft, which is basically a large kite with a lawnmower engine attached. The pilot was sitting in front of me, and we were in seats with no sides, not even an armrest for a false sense of security. It took me five minutes before I could look down, and I finally forced myself to start taking pictures. It was, in despite of my terror, a spectacular experience. We’d cruise at about 400 feet and then swoop down to do a fly-by over a herd of animals at about 60 feet. Now I know how birds feel, minus the fear factor.

After about 15 minutes I started to enjoy the experience. I took this shot of the zebra herd at sunrise in 1994 when I was shooting film. The pilot wouldn’t let me change film during our flight. He said that if a roll of film slipped out of my hands and was blown into the prop, there could be enough damage that we might be forced to land and there would be a good possibility that there could be lions nearby. Not a good plan. So when I was at the end of the roll, we made a huge circle looking for lions and, seeing none, landed the ultralight. I changed film and we were airborne again within 3 minutes.

For Camera Stability - Use a Chainpod

It is a lot easier for me to talk about creativity with equipment than it is with images. There are reasons for that, if a person comes up with a really new way to shoot a bride and groom, it is tough to explain. If I want to show it I have to provide a picture of the usual ways a couple is shot and an example of this new way of shooting a couple. I don’t, at this point in my business, shoot weddings so I don’t have those samples sitting around. The other concern is that such a discussion would only affect wedding photographers. Equipment can affect almost anybody.

This week I want to talk about the chain-pod, a simple lightweight substitute for a monopod. I have successfully taken photos at a 1/15th of a second with this tool. This is the easiest and best piece of photo equipment you can build. You will need a 1/4 X 20 thumbscrew; you can get this at any hardware store. 1/4 X 20 is the size of the threads in the tripod socket in your camera. The threads on the thumbscrew should be about 1/2 inch long. You will also need about 6 feet of chain, more if you are very tall. Drill a hole through the flat part of the thumbscrew and attach the end of the chain into the hole

Chainpod detail Shows how the chain, thumbscrew and nut fit together at the end of the chainpod. © John Siskin All rights reserved

(You may want to glue a nut on the thumbscrew to prevent over tightening the thumbscrew into the camera. You have just made a chain-pod! Now in order to use this, attach it to the tripod socket of your camera, step on the chain, and pull up. The tension you create on the chain serves to stabilize your camera.

John using the Chainpod This image shows how to use the chainpod to make sharper pictures. © John Siskin All rights reserved

This project only requires a drill to complete.

The great thing about the chain pod is that it approaches the problem of camera stability not by putting something between the camera and the ground, but in a whole new way, by creating tension between the camera and the ground. A monopod is big enough to be used as a walking stick; a chain-pod will fit in your pocket. You can find a monopod in most camera stores, and there are no commercially produced chain-pods. Go figure. I guess creativity and self-reliance must be closely related.

Thanks,

John Siskin

Ps. if you have any stories about creative approaches to problems please share them with me. I’ll try to put some of them in this column!

Studio Lighting After-the-Fact

by Jim Zuckerman

It’s impossible to carry studio lighting with me as I travel, and yet there are many portraits I take that could benefit from the creative application of directional spotlights and other types of lighting that enhance and dramatize a subject. Photoshop has an excellent lighting effects dialog box that allows me to simulate studio lighting after-the-fact, and it’s quite realistic. In many cases, it is indistinguishable from lighting that would be used in a studio with thousands of dollars of equipment.

The pair of photos below shows what applying a spotlight on the model can do. This looks like the narrow beam of light when a snoot or barn doors is placed over a strobe head. Notice how the background has been darkened and how all the attention is focused on the model’s face. This young lady is a Javanese bride I photographed in Indonesia. The white flowers coming down from her headpiece are hand-woven live flowers.

Moonrise Landscape Photography

Full Moon over Bay, Port Clyde. © Brenda Tharp.

I just experienced a wonderful moonrise over the bay in Maine. My workshop was at Port Clyde, photographing the village and then Marshall Point Lighthouse for the last light and moonrise. It was a wonderful evening and the moon rose huge and pink on the horizon, thanks to some atmospheric haze.

If you haven't tried photographing moonrise before, with the land also showing in your picture, here's some simple steps to help:

1. The night before the moon is full is the best time to capture the moon rising while there is still light on the land. Not strong sunlight, but a glowing light from the western sky and setting sun that is in good balance with the light of moon. If you wait until the night of full moon, the land will be too dark and you won't get both exposed properly.

2. When at the horizon, the moon seems to move very fast, so you have to be in position and ready to photograph. How do you know where it's going to come up? By referring to the many software programs and on-line sites that tell you about moonrise. One great little program is Planetarium. I have it on my Palm Pilot and it's a great reference tool for the position of the moon, and the time, as well as the star positions, sunrise/set times, and more. Once you know the position it will rise, you can visit the site and take compass readings to know where it will show up. That helps you plan your foreground for the photograph.

3. You can't do too long an exposure with the moon, or you'll elongate it. How fast or slow depends upon your focal length, too; with a long lens, the moon will move through the frame faster in terms of the percentage of distance covered, so you'll need faster shutter speeds to "freeze" the moon. With wider angles, you can slow it down a little but you can't go too far.

This picture was made with a 200 mm lens plus a 2x tele converter, shot at f11 for 1.3 seconds. Much longer than that and I was going to have a blurred moon.

A few other tips:

• Think about water features when photographing moonrise and you'll get a great path of liquid light on the surface, or maybe a reflected moon in a still pool of water.

• Get your depth of field set up while it's still light for your hyper focal focusing, because when it gets darker it's much harder to focus critically.

• Make sure you expose for the moon's detail. Take a spot meter reading on the moon, and keeping your camera in manual exposure, recompose. You could hold the exposure lock button, but you'll then have to recompose and can't let go to get a filter or change position slightly or you'll have to do it all over again. I find manual exposure easier at times like this.

Above all, get out and experience the full moon rising. It's a magical time, and all too often we forget about that wonderful orb that rotates around our planet quietly doing it's thing. Whether we're there to see it or not, it's shining it's beautiful light down on us for many nights of the month.

Have a great day, Brenda

Creativity in your Photography!

It seems to me that one of the most important topics to talk about in photography is creativity. It is easy to say that we need to be more creative or that someone else is creative, but what is creativity? I think that it is a new way of approaching a problem whether it is a visual problem or an equipment problem. It is also a new way of seeing the obvious. I do not think that creativity is something that we can package, for instance if you do the same group of poses with bridal couples that may not be creativity. I often see an image that is very derivative of an image in a recent magazine, which I don’t think is creative. I think that it is very difficult to talk about creativity in images compared to talking about creativity in equipment design.

So let’s talk about a creative approach to equipment design. Many people have designed small camera support systems, little tripods and such. There are two basic designs, clamps for attaching to your car window and small tripods for use on a table, or on top of your car. You can buy these items at all the major photo retailers. Here’s something I haven’t seen at the photo retailers, a Vice Grip with a Tripod Socket.

Vice Grip with Tripod Socket © John Siskin All rights reserved

You can use this as a tabletop tripod, as it’s set-up in the picture. The vice grip jaw is holding a piece of sculpture wire (from the art supply store) that provides two legs of the tripod. You can use the jaws to attach to the car window, please be sure to cushion the vice grip jaws. You can even set-up the thing to brace against your chest.

I do not know where you can buy one of these. This is probably because they are made from pre-existing parts, vice grip, 1/4X20 bolts and a small ball head. I first heard of this in Nikon School more than 20 years ago. I don’t know who designed it. But I do know that it is a very creative use of existing parts. All you need to do to make one of these is to weld 1/4X20 bolts onto the vice grip. My welder says you should remove the spring before you try to weld this. This is a great piece of photo equipment you can make, or have made. I think it is better than what you can buy.

The best part is that someone thought of a new way to solve a problem. He or she applied creative thinking to a problem that others had solved by making two separate pieces of equipment. And you can always use the vice grip to fix your next plumbing problem!

Talk to you soon!
John Siskin

Shooting at Twilight

by Jim Zuckerman

In my Eight Steps course at Betterphoto, one of the lessons is devoted to shooting at twilight. This is the most beautiful time of day to photograph cities and architecture. I distinguish between night photography, which is characterized by a black sky, and twilight, where the deep cobalt blue sky is a beautiful backdrop to the illuminated buildings.

Obviously, the light level is very low at twilight, and many students increase their ISO to 1600 or so and hand-hold their shots. This is not the right approach. With the higher ISO rating the quality of the image suffers. The additional noise that accompanies the ISO increase is unattractive, and the reduction in resolution in never desirable. The color and contrast are also affected, and the result is just not very pleasing.

If you are going to shoot at twilight, do it right. Use a tripod. It seems to me that there ‘s no sense in spending a lot of money on good camera equipment, expensive computer hardware and software, and photo instruction if you’re not going to take the time to get high quality, sharp pictures. Everyone agrees that tripods are a burden to carry and they slow you down when shooting. But in some situations they are essential, and twilight is one of those times when they will make or break the picture.

The two photos below were both taken at twilight: the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and the Eiffel Tower in Paris. I used 100 ISO for both because of the superior quality, and a tripod gave me the luxury of using long exposure times due to the low light. If I find myself in a situation where I don’t have a tripod at twilight, I’ll rest my camera on my photo backpack or some other support that acts as a tripod, and I will still use the low ISO rating for maximum resolution.

New BP Features: Find a Fellow Member; Find the Right Course

Hi Everybody,

If you haven't already discovered the fantastic new features at BetterPhoto, you're in for a treat. Here's a quick rundown:

Find a Member ... Easily!
Tell all of your friends that you can now find each other easily! Just type in the member's name in the search box at the top right of any BP page. As long as that member has activated his/her free gallery or Premium Gallery, you'll find them!

Find the Right Course for You
Check out our cool new Course Calculator. Also, the main Courses page has been totally revamped, with classes divided up by category: i.e., Beginning, Composition, Light/Exposure, Digital, Pro, Photoshop, Specialty, and Camera. And be sure to check out our brand-new Guide to Skill Levels page.

That's it for now. Have fun with your photography!
Kerry Drager