Extreme Black & White

Yesterday my friend and fellow photog Chris came by the studio for a photo session.  We had a blast.  These are a few of the black and white images I created using studio strobes. 

Canon G11 – The Little Camera the Rocks!!

If you want the versatility of a DSLR with the size and convenience of compact camera the Canon G11 is the perfect solution.  For years I only had DSLRs.  The problem is that they are big and bulky… great for shooting portraits and weddings, not exactly ideal for long backpacking trips or downhill skiing, two of my favorite activities.

When I found the G11, I found the answer to a lot of my problems (not THOSE types of problems).  Now I have a camera that gives me the creativity to shoot in manual mode, etc.  I can also attach an external flash such as the 580EXII (it also has a built in flash), and I can shoot at 800 ISO without much of a problem.

SHOOTING VIDEO WITH THE CANON G11

Another huge benefit is that it shoots video.  I’ve posted a short video clip that I shot while skiing with my daughter at Mnt Rose Ski Resort a couple of weeks ago.  The video is a little shaky because I am skiing and video taping my daughter snowboarding all at the same time… just take note of how high quality the video is coming out of the G11.

I love having the ability to carry such a versatile camera in my pocket while I’m enjoying the great outdoors.  You won’t find me skiing and taking pictures at the same time with my Canon 1D Mark III, that’s for sure!

TAKING GREAT CANDID SHOTS WITH THE CANON G11

I created several 24” x 36” posters for our local cub scout pack using photos that I shot with the G11.  Here’s one of them.  Note that the photos have not been adjusted in Photoshop or Lightroom in any way.  They are straight out of the camera!  I assembled the poster in Photoshop and had it mounted on foam core.  I photographed my son’s back (the shirt on his back I should say) to use as the poster backdrop and then added the photos that I took with my G11. 

RYAN’S PHOTOGBUZZ CHUCKLE!

“You wouldn’t worry so much about what people think of you… if you realized how little the do!”

Blogging with Windows Live Writer

I have been blogging a while now and I think I am finally starting to get my blog workflow a little under control.  When first started blogging I just typed my post directly into my blog.  Although this works, I am finding that it is not best solution.

I recently switched to Word for my word processing needs.  I used Word Perfect for years and was perfectly content.  It seems the rest of the world is using Word, however, and I got tired of being asked to convert my documents to Word every time I tried to send something to a client.  Tables, especially, seem to get really screwed up during the conversion process. 

Word, I discovered, gives me the option of creating a “blank document” or a “new blog post.”  I was stoked.  Using Word seemed so much better then typing directly into Blogger.  But when I tried writing my blog post using Word I found that the formatting seemed to get screwed up when I would try to publish it to my blog.

Today I learned about Windows Live Writer and so far it seems to be doing exactly what I need.  I was able to insert pictures and type multiple paragraphs without seeing any formatting problems.  If you are using a PC and want to try blogging check out Windows Live Writer. 

COMING UP NEXT: CANON G11 – THE LITTLE CAMERA THAT ROCKS!!

I have had some more time to use the Canon G11 that I got for Christmas and let me tell you folks… it is an awesome little camera!  It is small enough to fit in my pocket, has the control and flash features of a DSLR camera, and takes great video!  I have finally figured out how to take that video and,  through You Tube, post it on  my blog and Facebook account.  It’s very cool!  That’s what we’ll be discussing tomorrow so stop back by!

RYAN’S PHOTOGBUZZ CHUCKLE!

“Ever wonder who loves you more… your dog or your wife?  Stick em’ both in the trunk and see which one is happier to see you when you open it back up!”

Redford Photography and the Art of Marketing

Yesterday I watched a webinar featuring Redford Photography. It is easy to see why these guys have such a successful studio. They have marketing down to a science and they work really hard at it. They discussed their senior portrait program and how they go about generating business. If you ever get the chance to attend one of their seminars (or webinars) I would say that it is worth the money. These guys don't sit around waiting for client's to come to them, they actively go out and get them. Their Ambassador program is pretty amazing. Check out their website if you want some inspiration. Here's the link.

ONE MORE THING: THE ART OF BLOGGING
I am trying get more streamlined with my blog workflow. Instead of writing directly in Blogger I am starting to write my blogs using Microsoft Word. When you open a "New" document in Word it gives you the option of creating a new blog post. There seems to be a glitch when I try to save my documents and I have lost some of the information I've written. I will have to see if I can figure out a fix.

Shooting Tethered Through Lightroom… It’s So Easy!

Each weekend I try to learn something new about photograp and get some shooting practice in. This weekend I decided to learn how to shoot tethered (with my camera hooked up to my computer). I already know how to shoot tethered to my computer, but I wanted to learn how to shoot tethered using Lightroom.

I read a lot of Scott Kelby's books and I learn a lot about photography through Kelby Training. I have written about Kelby Training in previous blogs. It is an online program providing instructional videos on photography. It is a great deal. Here's the link.

For those of you who are not familiar with Scott Kelby, he is a big proponent of shooting tethered in the studio. That is, having your camera tethered to your computer so that you can see your shots "live" on the computer instead of having to check out your shots on that tiny screen on the back of your camera.

I shoot with Canon cameras, which come boxed with the software you need to shoot tethered. If you shoot Nikon, the software does not come with your camera but you can download if for free from the Nikon website. I have known how to shoot tethered for a while now. What I didn't know, was how to shoot tethered and have my photos open directly into Lightroom.

I have attended the Photoshop World Conference in Las Vegas for a couple of years now, and at every convention I would hear speakers talk about Lightroom. I finally broke down and bought it a few months ago and I've got to tell you folks… it's an awesome program. It makes my photos look dynamite and my workflow has become a whole lot easier.

What I didn't know, however, is that I can shoot tethered and have my photos open directly into Lightroom. This gives me a large image to look at and I have my histogram and a ton of control right there at my finger tips. And the REALLY cool thing is that is was so easy to set up. All you have to do is use the free software for your camera to select a destination folder on your computer for you images. Then you choose that folder to be "watched" in Lightroom. There are a couple of steps to complete the process but it is REALLY easy.

BACKUP EQUIPMENT NEEDED!

This week a friend of mine who happens to do some modeling work is going to come over to the studio for a session. We have been planning to do this for weeks. Wouldn't you know it, this weekend my 70-200mm IS lens decided to act up on me. Something is going on with the image stabilization. I press the shutter button on my camera to pre-focus and the thing whirs like a well-fed cat… and won't stop. That's fine for a well-fed cat, but not for my camera.

Today I have to call Canon and see what I need to do to get it fixed. I'll let you know how that goes. It reinforces the point that, if you want to get into wedding photography, make sure you have backup equipment. You never know when it will decide to go south on you! You don't want to be shooting someone's wedding and go, "oops, sorry, my equipment just broke down and I don't have a backup!" That would be very, very bad!

That's it for today. At 10:00AM I will be watching a webinar put on by Redford Studios. It should be a good one. I'll give you a short re-cap tomorrow.

Digital ProTalk: 12 Mistakes New Photographers Make When Starting Their Business – Part 1

I woke up to a foot of new snow today and it is still coming down hard.  The family decided to stay home from church since we live on the side of a hill and the roads are treacherous.  My eleven year old son just suggested that we go outside and play some catch with the football today.  That should be fun in the snow!!

I usually don't blog on the weekend but was checking out David Ziser's blog from earlier this week and really enjoyed his post about the 12 mistakes new photographers make.  As you know, I am one of those "new" photographers David is referring to.  The mistakes he lists seem to be common sense to me, but are certainly worth thinking about.  I have not linked to any of David's posts before so I thought I would give it a try.  Here goes... 

Digital ProTalk: 12 Mistakes New Photographers Make When Starting Their Business – Part 1

Have a great day and I'll see you Monday.  Now for some football!!

We are not alone in the universe... unfortunately.

I recently attended the Imaging USA conference in Nashville, TN... along with about 10,000 other photographers!  Although the Professional Photographer's  Association raved about the attendance numbers, I couldn't help but wonder if my decision to pursure photography might not be a mistake.  10,000 people!!  That tells me that photography is a highly competative business and you will have to be creative and set yourself apart from the crowd if you hope to establish a successful and lucrative career.

That's kind of the bad news... although needing to be creative and cutting edge is not really a bad thing.  The good news is that, of those 10,000 people attending the conference, I would guess that not all of them are willing to put in the hours and effort that being successful in any type of business requires. 

The late, great photographer Monte Zuker completed a book just before he died (it was published in 2008).  In his book Monte wrote, "I am continually asking professional photographers (and aspiring professionals), "to what extent are you willing to put yourself out in order to become the best photographer that you can be?  To what lengths are you willing to go to create the best portrait that you can make?"  The answer keeps coming back, "whatever it takes!  I'm ready to go all the way!"

Monte went on to write, "I don't believe it any more - not for the majority of people with whom I have come in contact.  People say that, but when push comes to shove, the answer really is, "Whatever it takes... as long as I don't have to put myself out too much." 

I don't know about you, but that makes me feel pretty good.  If you are one of the few (in Monte's opinion) who are willing to work hard and really go for it... then chances are, photography can be a great career!

I wrote about Colonel Sander's in yesterday's blog.  There's one guy that was willing to work hard and create a unique image for himself... at 65 years of age? 

The question I find myself asking is... what can I do to make my brand new studio and my photography different?  What can I do to set myself apart from the rediculously large group of photographers out there  peddleing their services? 

That's what I am going to think about over the weekend.  But right now it's Friday night and I'm about to head out to dinner with my wife.  Take care and I'll see you next week! 
   

The Colonel's Secret Recipe... Revealed!

Last week I watched the biography of Colonel Sanders on TV.  I recommend watching it if you get the chance.  I found it inspirational and motivating.  I did not realize that the  Colonel, whose real name was Harland David Sanders, was 65 years old and broke when he started Kentucky Fried Chicken.  He held numerous jobs over the course of his life before buying a gas station and going into business for himself.  He lost that business, and all his money, when he was 65.

That's when he decided to start KFC.  In an interview the Colonel said, "everyone talks about retiring at age 65.  People should stop thinking like that.  At 65 I was just getting started!"  What great advice.  Rather then focusing on retiring early, it seems like a better plan would be to try and find something we enjoy so much that we don't ever want to retire!  I believe that was the Colonel's true secret to success... not the 11 herbs and spices that he used to make his chicken.   

Another interesting thing about the Colonel is that he was a GREAT self promoter.  To be successful in business you need to set yourself apart from the competition.  This is especially true in photography.  The Colonel didn't always look like the Colonel.  He took on that persona, even changing his appearance, to set himself apart, and it worked like a charm. 

Today I am running short on time, but tomorrow I want to take a closer look at how I might be able to set my new photography studio apart from the competion.  There's a lot we can learn from the Colonel.  Hopefully you can stop back by.

What's all the Buzz about?

The Photog Buzz is an online diary (some might prefer to call it a journal... which certainly sounds more manly) that follows Ryan's day to day successes and/or screw ups as he strives to start a home-based photography studio in the basement of his house.  Ryan has never worked in  a studio or even as a professional photographer.  He has, however, taken a lot of pictures, absolutely loves photography, and has owned and operated a very successful non-photography business for twelve years.  If you want to learn more about Ryan check out "Ryan's Story."  There is a link to it under "Buzz Info."

Here's the deal.  Ryan has always loved photography and figured he would become a photographer after he retired from his "real" job.  Ryan still has his "real" job, but the economy sucks right now and as a result work is verrrrry slow, giving him a lot of extra time.  Rather then sit around, he decided to speed up his plans by about fifteen years and start a photography studio NOW.

There is an amazing amount of information available on the internet and that is Ryan's main source of knowledge.  He also follows several blogs, attends conventions, and studies photography through Kelby Training On-line.

So... you're probably wondering if this guy can really become a successful photographer.  Ryan believes he can.  After all, he already knows how to run a successful business and has a strong work ethic.  All he needs now is to apply that knowledge and drive to photography.  The only way you'll know if he's successful or not, though, is to follow this blog.

Here we go!

Making your basketball action photos shine using Lightroom

On Monday I wrote about how to take great basketball action photos in gyms where you are cursed with low light, fast moving subjects, and where flash is sometimes not allowed (I never use flash when shooting basketball).  Here are the main things to remember when shooting basktball indoors:

1. Set your ISO as high as you can and still get a clean picture.  I set my 1D Mark III to 1600 or 3200.  Remember that you can always clean up some noise using Noise Ninja, or whatever program you prefer.
2. Set your auto focus to AI Servo
3. Set your mode to shutter priority (tv) and select as fast a shutter speed as you can while maintaining proper exposure (1/250 sec is my norm.)
4. Position yourself as close as you can behind the basket on the offense side of the floor (depending on which team you are focusing your shots on).
5. Ideally you need a fast f/2.8 lens.
6. Basketball action shots are best when you can see the players face or number, the basketball and/or the basket, and fans in the background.

After you have done all that you should get some pretty good shots.  In fact, you may think they're great shots, but bringing them into Lightroom is where you can really make them shine.  Here is one of my favorite Lightroom workflows for basketball:

Step One

Follow the (6) tips outlined above and you should get some pretty decent shots straight out of the camera... like this one.  But like I said... you'll want to take it into Lightroom to make it really shine.  If you're like me a lot of shots won't turn out this good even if you follow the steps outlined above.

Step Two

In Lightroom go to Basic in the Develop module and adjust the exposure as needed.  If you calibrate your monitor you should be able to trust your monitor.  If not, keep a close eye on the histogram, making sure you don't start to blow highlights or lose detail in the shadows.  Typically I would crop and straighten a photo as needed.  This layup shot is fine right out of the camera with no cropping as far as I'm concerned.

Step Three

I like to adjust the Tone Curve (usually changing the Point Curve to Medium Contrast.  Another option is to select the General Punch Lightroom Preset.  This step will remove the fuzziness that is inherent with digital photos no matter how good a photo you take.

Step Four

Most of the time I like to add a quick, subtle vignette to my photos using Post-Crop... or another option I like is to paint around my subject using the Adjustment Brush (K) and then lower the exposure a little.  This can really pop a subject off the page.  You can move the slider to increase or decrease the exposure to your own liking.  Very Cool!

That brings this week to a close.  I'm catching a plane to Nashville tomorrow to attend the ImagingUSA photography conference.  This will be my first time to attend.  It will be interesting to see how it compares to the NAPP Photoshop World Conference which I have attended in Vegas a couple of times (and plan to attend every year... it's that good!).  I'll let you know how things go.  I am there until next Wednesday so hopefully I can get in a blog or two while I'm there.

Keep shooting!

Ryan

Calibrating your monitor with the Spyder 3 Elite... Can you say E.A.S.Y.

Before I get going on today's post I want to show you this picture I took Tuesday morning.  This is the view I saw when I glanced out my window.  It was pretty awesome so I grabbed my camera, dropped it on my tripod, and got off a shot.  I did very little in Lightroom except increase the contrast to eliminate the fuzziness that is inherent in digital photos.  I was amazed at how quickly the light changed.  A couple of minutes after I took this shot, literally, the sun had risen and the sky had lost it's color.  For a brief moment, however, the suns reflection off the clouds and the atmosphere was  spectacular.

On monday I wrote about how to take great basketball photos, and I said that on Wednesday I would talk about how you can make your sport photo really "shine" through post-processing in Lightroom.  Now it's Wednesday... and I really want to talk about the Spyder 3 Elite calibrator because I calibrated my monitors for the first time yesterday and was really impressed with the result.  So I have decided to bump the post-processing blog to Friday. 

Calibrating your monitor with the Spyder 3 Elite

I use two side by side computer monitors at the office and they have never matched colorwise.  I have tried manually adjusting the monitors to get them to match and have had no luck.  I finally bit the bullet and decided to purchase a display calibrator.  After doing some research I decided to buy the Spyder 3 Elite from B&H Photo.  Let me tell you... there are a lot of options out there. 

I joined the PPA and NAPP groups through my LinkedIn account and posted a question about whether or not it is important to calibrate your monitor, and if so... what calibrator would they recommend?  I recieved 24 comments from NAPP members and 5 comments from PPA members.  LinkedIn is a social networking site for professionals and I recommend checking it out if you haven't already.  I find it very helpful in that I can pose questions to other professionals and gain great information... for free!  Spyder was one of the recommended calibrators and, based on price point and those recommendations, I decided to give it a try.

To set up and run the calibration was amazingly simple and quick.  It only took me a few minutes to start calibrating the monitors.  After loading the program, you simply hang the calibrator over your screen and you are walked step by step through the process.

Before Calibration

After Calibration

I know this is not the best picture... but trust me the monitors are very closely matched now.  That's it for today.  I will provide more of a review as I use the Spyder 3 on some of my other monitors including my laptop.

Keep shooting!

Ryan

How to take great basketball shots

Have you ever taken pictures at a basketball game only to have them turn out blurry or dark?  Basketball is probably one of the harder sports to photograph because you are usually in a gym with lousy lighting.  I don't use flash (for sports photography) and at some basketball games it is not even allowed if you wanted to.  My brother is a high school coach in Washington state and here are a few pictures I took last week when I attended a couple of his games.

So what is the trick to getting great basketball photos?  It's pretty simple really, it's all in the equipment.  To take good photos of fast moving subjects in a poorly lit gym you need to use a high shutter speed of about 1/250 sec.  To achieve a fast shutter speed I usually have to set my ISO at 3200.  The problem with cheaper cameras is they tend to have a lot of noise (graininess) when you use a high ISO setting. 

I shoot in shutter priority (tv) which automatically adusts my apurture, usually to about f/2.8  You need a fast f/2.8 lens if you hope to achieve consistently good results.  I use a Canon 1D Mark III to shoot sports because it shoots 10 frames per second.  This is important if you hope to catch the action at it's peak.  Set your auto focus to AI Servo and your good to go.  This will adjust your focus as your subject moves.

Another trick to great basketball shots is to shoot from along the base line where you can get a clear shot of the action underneath the basket.  If you can get a shot of the packed stands with fans cheering in the background... all the better.

Does this mean you need an expensive camera to shoot sports?  I would say that you definately need a good DSLR.  The point-and-shoot cameras do not work at all for this type of photography.  They just can't shoot fast enough and the lag in shutter response results in missed action.

After the shot there is some post-processing work that needs to be done if you really want your photos to shine.  I will discuss that on Wednesday.

That's it for today.  I'm off to watch the Boise State Bronco's take on TCU in the Fiesta Bowl.  Both teams are undefeated.  Should be a great game!

Keep shooting!

Ryan