Astrophotography: Time Planning

Astrophotography is the most challenging type of all photography. It has the most hurdles to overcome. Photographing celestial objects is dependant on time, tools, weather and location. Time is a key factor for selecting the object that is going to be photographed. Some objects are visible during certain times of the year, while other objects rise and set at a specific time of night. The right type of tools is critical for yielding good results. While the proper equipment is important, the right planning tools are too! These are a must to achieve successful results and keep the astrophotographer’s sanity in tact.

Time Planning
Selecting the subject to photograph is often agonizing to astrophotographers. There is a fine balance between what is wanted to photograph and if it can be scheduled in. Astrophotography can be an all night process when photographing the night skies; it isn’t uncommon to take hundreds of images in one night when the subject lays in deep sky. Astrophotographers usually find themselves either selecting a subject that fits in their open time frame or the other way around; selecting and setting aside a time frame for their subject. In either situation, timing is the key! There are many software program tools available for planning and most of them can be installed on your laptop. The most notable and free software program is Sky Charts - Cartes du Ciel by Astrosurf. You also may find that your telescope came with free software to chart the skies. Sky charting programs are the astrophotographer’s best friend. These will assist in selection of the celestial objects and specify the best time to photograph (not to mention assisting in finding the object through your telescope).

Sky mapping charts are also used in planning for nightscapes and other types of photography as well. When you need to plan for either a full moon or a new moon these tools are a must. Knowing when the moon sets or the time of the new moon is essential for deep sky photography, as it will give optimal darkness. Sky charts will even give you perigee and apogee moon charts for you to achieve the most visually stunning full moon photography! Perhaps, you may find yourself wishing for morning twilight or evening twilight; with these sky maps you can plan for it!

When planning astrophotography shoots, you will soon discover that it is very seasonal. Some constellations and other celestial objects are more prominent in spring while others are more prominent in winter. Other celestial objects such as comets and eclipses occur yearly or even less often than that. Planning the timing for your astrophotography shoot is vital for subject visibility and preparation.

Why not Shoot RAW? Memory is cheap!

By shooting RAW you are making the most of your camera and bring out the best of your photos via PP(post processing). The myth for some novice SLR photographers is that RAW is big (file size wise) and harder / more time consuming to work with.

Well, let me bust that myth for you. First, the price of flash memory and storage space in general has drop significantly, so the large file sizes should not be an issue. Second, if you are clumsy with WB (white balance) and selecting the perfect exposure setting while shooting, why not have some flexibility to adjust them later? Its added insurance at zero extra cost. Think of raw meat and seasoned meat, raw meat can be flavored to taste where as seasoned meat already has its original flavor and hard to change. Think of RAW file format as the raw meat and JPEG as the seasoned meat. Best of all, Pixmantec offers a very spiffy and FREE RAW program that can perform batch processing. No need to spend an arm and leg on Photoshop CS that your photo buddies swear by. Personally, I have both Photoshop CS2 and Pixmantec Essentials 2006 (will upgrade to premium soon), but use Pixmantec almost 99% of the time due to the ease of use and efficiency. No fear of processing the 5GBs of wedding photos!

I hope that dispelled some the skeptics. Once you shoot RAW you wont go back! I’ll share my RAW workflow in future, but feel free to leave any comments or questions you might have.

Happy Shooting,

Ivan
ibw photography

How should I pose my subject for portraits?

Having trouble figuring out how to pose your subject/model for the photo shoot? Well fear no more because here is a PDF file showing all the various portrait poses for males, females, and couples (well at least common ones). I havent actually started taking portrait photography and would’nt know how handy it would come in as a printed cheat sheet, but its looks quite comprehensive. Anyway, I attached the file below as well as a screen shot.

File - 4 Meg Filesize -

Screenshot:

Download portrait poses.pdf (please right-click and save target as)

Peace,

Ivan
www.ibwphoto.com

Reconsider Focus then Recompose Technique

Being an avid user of the focus/recompose technique, I am glad I learned about its possible drawbacks early on as the distance of the focus point upon recomposing is no longer the same as the original pre-focused distance. Hence, the focus distance is incorrect and can make for some soft photos.

For those who don’t know what I mean about the focus/recompose technique, it’s a way of focusing on an object and then recomposing/repositioning your camera to properly frame the object. This is also a common technique in sports photography when the action is too quick for the cameras auto-focus and the photographer needs to resort to focusing on an area where he/she anticipates the athlete and then recomposing the shot. I attached a rough diagram below of two scenarios (first time Wacom user, be nice!  )

Example: Portrait – the camera is focused on the subject’s eye (usually the focus point you want). Then the camera is recomposed.
Mountain Biker Jumping – the camera is focused on an area where the photographer anticipates taking the shot of the rider. Then the camera is recomposed.
In both of these examples, the focusing point is skewed once the camera is recomposed as the focus distance has shifted. Just think about planes in geometry and parallel planes.

When the camera is tilted and focused on the eye of the subject, the camera focus distance is on parallel plane A with a distance 6.3ft. When the camera is recomposed the focus distance is now on a different plane say B with distance 6.25ft. The difference between the focus distance and actual shot distance can be the difference between tack sharp, fairly sharp, or horribly soft images. Typically, the further the subject is from the camera the less you have to worry about the focus/recompose issue. However, if you always want to get tack sharp photos plan on spending some time with the AF selection points and taking to account the focus distance shift when using the focus / recompose technique.

Cheers,

Ivan
www.ibwphoto.com

Controlling Depth of Field

The topic of depth of field (DOF) tends to give the shakes to many beginning photographers, but the concept is actually very simple. It is the range in a scene, from near to far, that is in sharp focus. The ability to control how much is in focus has an immense effect on your pictures. When shooting a landscape, for example, you’ll want as much of the photograph in sharp focus as possible, so a significant depth of field is required. In other situations, as in taking a portrait, a shallower area of sharp focus will isolate your subject from distracting backgrounds.

Three things control how great the depth of field will be in a photograph: lens focal length, aperture, and distance from the subject. Other things being equal, shorter-focal-length lenses, smaller apertures, and greater lens-to-subject distance all increase the range of sharp focus, while longer lenses, wider apertures, and a shorter distance to your subject shrink depth of field.

When you look through your lens, however, you will not be seeing what’s really sharp and what’s not. With point-and-shoot cameras, this is because you’re not looking through the lens–you’re looking through a separate viewfinder. With SLRs, you’re looking through the lens at its widest aperture; it closes to a smaller f/stop only at the instant you press the shutter button. This is a problem if you’re using a medium telephoto lens to take a portrait of Mom in gay Paree. As you look through the lens, it appears that the traffic and crowds in the background are out of focus. But because you have a small aperture set, when you get the picture back, zingo, Mom is lost in all that junk behind her.

The solution? Many SLRs have a depth-of-field preview button; when you press it, the lens briefly closes to the shooting aperture, showing you the real depth of field. Be aware that when you press this button, the image in the viewfinder will temporarily darken. If too much is in focus, simply open the aperture, put on a longer lens, or move closer. Or all three. If too little is sharp? Well, you can figure that out.

What is Dragging the Shutter?

"Dragging the shutter" refers to using a longer shutter speed to expose
more ambient light (typically to the background) while using a flash to freeze the subject action.? This technique is useful in clubs, or in photos where you want to bring out the ambient as well freeze the subject.?

Read More

Does anyone know how to calculate how far a f...

Sunny 16 is an approximation for ambient light exposure and is
unrelated to flash coverage. Flash coverage/distance is not affected by
levels of ambient lighting, only distance(inverse square law) and flash
Guide Number(power).

Distance = GN / f stop at ISO 100

at ISO 200 multiply by 1.4

at ISO 400 multiply by 2

So on a sunny day, the max distance of a 550EX, using f/16, is about 4 Meters at ISO 100.

Flash fill indicates that you are using ambient light as your
primary light source and flash to just fill in some shadows under the
eyes, etc. That means you should also be dialing in -FEC to the tune of
-1 to -1 and 2/3 as long as you stay within that max distance. Outside
that distance the flash will be maxing out and may give erratic
results.

Ron

Can I do Macro Photography with my point and ...

Most likely you can.? With the right filter attachment and less than $100 in accessories you can make your P&S camera Macro ready.? To learn more: Read here.
Ivan

Helpful Hints for Surfing Photography

Starting out, people will be either shooting from the shore or from a pier. Shooting from a pier gives you the advantage of being closer to the active part of the wave, but you will be shooting from an angle that is a little awkward, but still can result in intriguing shots. The other issue is that you will be shooting on a downward angle which will compress the size of the wave and the surfer. Typically, wave height is something you want to exploit. So pier shooting requires thinking about different compositions of which shots where the surfer is going "off the lip" or vertical on the top of the wave is a strong composition.

The advantage of shooting from a pier is that you can get pretty tight shots of the surfer filling the viewfinder with 200 to 300mm lenses. These lenses are typically affordable and are easy to carry and handhold which means you don’t have to carry a tripod.

Shooting from the shore provides the most common shooting angle which is both good and bad. It is good because this is what people are used to seeing. It is bad because this is what people are used to seeing. For most shore and point breaks, you will need somewhere around a 400mm or longer lens. This can be achieved with the use of teleconverters, but at the cost of some sharpness. When most people ask what lens they should buy when starting surfing photgraphy, the msot common answer is a 400mm F5.6 or equivalent like a 300mm F4 with a 1.4 teleconverter. Zooms can be used and are used, but in reality, you won’t be having much time to adjust the zoom while you are panning and following a surfer, so why not just go with a sharper prime lens? Obviously, the big gun lenses are the 500mm and 600mm F4s which are great for surfing but cost a pretty penny. They require heavy tripods and it is a lot of equipment to haul around, but the opportunity to get the best shots usually reside in the glass used.

Read more… http://www.photosig.com/articles/1458/article

-mm