Save Your Ass Software

If you are a digital photographer, you need to know about a MUST HAVE software.  No it doesn't help you with color balance or the focus your images for you but it can save your ass. Here is the story:

Last month I shot an event and was editing the thousands of images in Lightroom.  I came across a section that seemed to have some images missing. In fact under closer inspection about 140 images were missing.

I went through every card I had to see all the files and everything was uploaded.  Curious, I thought (actually, "curious" was not the word that immediately came to mind).  -  I knew I shot subjects that were not in my collection of images. I started to get desperate.

Most digital photographers will tell you that because of the technology we are quite often paranoid about our images.  Back-ups backing up back-ups, etc. When images that you KNOW you shot don't appear, it can be quite unsettling.

I downloaded a software from Lexar called: Image Rescue 4 Software and started going through all my cards.  Eventually I found the offending card, that would not even read on my computer - I ran the software on it and there were all my images, plus many more.

I didn't realize this but when you take digital photographs (on to your media card) and then format the card - they are not gone.  In fact, the images reside on that card until other images cover them up. If you take a card and fill it up with images on one camera, put that same card in a different camera and reformat it, and shoot only 50 images - you will have the fifty new images of course, but you will also have all those old images still there.  These old images can only be accessed by a recovery software like the Lexar version.

I encourage any digital photographer to get the software and know how to use it. It can save you a lot of grief.

Neutral Density

While traveling down the mountain from Lake Tahoe one day, I thought I would stop and get a few shots of the river that churns along side of Highway 50.  By the time I stopped - it was the wrong time of day.  There is an old adage that says that the worst light for photography is between 10am and 6pm - the absolute worst being 12 noon and 2 pm (funny how most weddings are this time of day...)  You guessed it - I stopped around 11:30 am.  The reason is the light is so bad is that it is only coming straight down, not from the sides like early morning and late afternoon where it can be filtered more by the atmosphere to create a softer feel to the light.  It's much less controllable in the middle of the day and most photographers find themselves looking for shadows to photograph in. However, like most people, I was there, not sure when I'd be back - the river was full and why not stop and take a few shots:

Here is the scene I started with. Fast moving rapids - broad sunlight. Even at a tiny apreture I was shooting at 60th of second.  Way too fast of a shutter speed to try to make the water appear to be smooth ( that needs to be shot about 1/4 sec or less).  I decided to use a Neutral Density filter.  The one I use is made by Singh-Ray. This is a clean toned filter that can darken the scene up to 8 stops if you have a good one.  Once I put the filter on I could shoot the same shot at a much slower shutter speed - thereby blurring the water.

OK, thats somewhat better.  To take a bad lighting scene and make it somewhat usable, I decided to shoot HDR. I used the Nik Software HDR Efex Pro Combining three or more images together in the computer to create a High Dynamic Range photograph. More detail in the shadows and the highlights.

Once I combined the three images, taking the best from each one - I went back into Photoshop and created a layer mask that would reveal some portions of the water that I wanted to add back some contrast and sharpness.

After that, I converted the entire image into black and white with Silver Efex Pro 2 (black and white conversion software)

New HD Wedding Site

I've just completed out new wedding site at www.imagelightweddings.com Please feel free to check it out.

Using some new technology I was able to make this site "scaleable".  This allows the viewer to see the images as big as their monitors can accommodate.  From a small laptop screen to a large 30 inch monitor the images are clear, clean and have impact!  Also they have quick links to facebook and to my twitter feed.

Check it out when you have time:  www.imagelightweddings.com

Hindu Wedding

Here are a few images from a traditional Hindu wedding I photographed last month. The ceremony lasted about two hours - full of color and sound - had a great time.

Check out my newly re-built web site for more HD wedding photographs from this wedding and more.  www.imagelightweddings.com

Spot Metering Photographs

Most good DLS's have a light meter built in.  They are default set to average light metering.  That means that through the lens that you are composing your photo though, the light meter is working inside, to create the settings that the camera will use to capture that scene.  In a scene such as this Yosemite shot below, the meter reads the whole scene and comes up with a setting that captures the mountain and the green grass, the sky and the trees.  One average reading for the shot.

Some situations can give your meter wrong information and you can end up with poorly exposed images, so you have to make changes in order to get better photographs.

If you know what the meter is doing, it will make this process a little easier.  The meter inside the camera is trying to expose the the scene so it reads as middle gray.  So if you have a shot that is average in tone throughout, then the meter will make a setting that will allow you to see detail in the shadow areas and in the highlight area. But you need to be careful when shooting at the beach, on snow, in the forest etc.  Anywhere the background is way different to the subject in its tonal range.

When it comes to unusual lighting situations, that is where the meter is fooled into thinking you want an "average of the scene" and it gives you a poor exposure.

Here is an example:

At the Colbie Caillat concert last week I was trying to get a photograph of her while she wearing white clothing, and she is set against a dark background.

This image is way over exposed because the light meter saw all the dark in the background and compensated the setting in order to get the background to represent middle gray on the tonal scale, thereby making the whites blow out and show no detail.

I order to get around this, I had to tell the meter to make a reading, and an exposure of what I WANTED to be middle gray on the tonal scale.

With the Nikon I use, it's pretty easy, I set it on "Spot Meter".

On top of the camera (your camera may be different) there is a dial that can set your meter on Average or Spot metering.  Just simply move the dial to "SPOT" and the meter will only use the tonal information  that is in the center of the viewfinder to make the reading.

Spot Meter reading

Here is an example of how it looked after I switched to spot metering. Yes, the background went dark, but I was more interested in exposing the subject properly and not so concerned with the tone of the background.

Using spot metering for a better exposure.

This will work most of the time.  However, when I went back and photographed Jonathan Butler a few days later, in the same lighting, same environment I couldn't use the spot meter.  The reason was that he was dark skinned, wearing dark clothing, against a dark background. So I set the camera back on average metering and shot away!