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.

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

Getting creative with the shutter speed

I took this photo of the sunrise yesterday (Sunday) morning.  I felt like playing around so I adjusted the coloring in Lightroom and came up with this image.  It kind of has that "Lion King" feel to it don't you think?  The sky was hazy over Reno this particular morning, but the sunrise created a thin band of dramatic color just above the ridgeline of the mountains.  I cropped the image down to display just that line of color.

Camera Specs for the shot were: Canon 1D Mark III with EF24-70mm lens at 68mm; 1/8 sec @ f/8.0; ISO 100.  I took the photo at 7:14AM.

Here is the photo I took a minute before, at 7:13AM.

I decided to slow the shutter speed down a little and wave my camera around to see what I could come up with.  I thought this image was kind of interesting.  It looks more like a forest fire then a sunrise.  The orange "flame" is the same orange that makes up the first image.  If you look closely you can see the trees (giant sequoias) through the haze.  I cropped all that haze out of the first image.

My camera specs for this shot were: Canon 1D Mark III with EF24-70mm lens at 68mm; 1 sec @ f/11.0; ISO 100.

A Video by David Ziser...

If you use Lightroom in your photography workflow, here's a video by David Ziser you might like.  He demonstrates how to "paint" with light to create a dynamite image.

It's only Monday, but if you're like me you're staring down the barrel of a short work week.  We close our business down between Christmas and New Years and I'm really looking forward to it.  It is a great time to hang out with family and friends.  Keep shooting!

Ryan