My Workflow—Part 2

While attending his workshop, Jay Maisel said:  “If it does not add to the story then it takes away from the story.  Include only what is essential in your photos.” 

Jay believes in getting it right in the camera so almost all of his photos that you see are not cropped.  They are as he shot them.  I believe Jay is absolutely right but I lack his talent of “getting it right” in the camera.  Besides that, I think that some images just look best at ratios other than the normal 3:2 or 5:4 ratios that my camera allow me to capture.  So, I do crop my images to the format that I feel best suits them.

After I import the image, my first step is to crop the photo into the format that I believe shows only the things that “add to the story.”

In this photo, my subject is:  the details in the flower, the starburst and the bokeh.  I cropped the top, bottom and right sides of the image so that I had symmetry between the top and bottom right corners.  The corners are not important however I think including about the same amount of leaf in both corners helps anchor the flower.  I know some people will be bothered by me cutting off parts of the flower but do you know what it is even after I cut parts of it off and is there enough of the flower left to show-off the details in it.  I believe there is.  Finally, I cropped the right side of the photo so that the bottom leaf was complete.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D4, 70-200mm f/2.8 at 90mm, ISO 1600, f/19 at 1/60^th of a second on a tripod.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 4—see above.

My Workflow—Part 1

A few weeks ago, my friend, Doug, from the Bay Area Photo Club, asked me how I go about processing my photos.  Rather than try to tell him in words (the old problem of trying to accurately writing instructions of how you would go about sharpening a pencil), I decided to show him my basic processing on a given photo.

This photo, to me, is about three things:  the details in the flower, the starburst of the sun and the bokeh.  To get a good starburst, you must use a small aperture—here, I chose f/19.  This aperture would also make my bokeh-circles very small. I though that this combination would look pretty cool.

I shoot in RAW about 99.99999999999% of the time.  I do this because I feel that it provides me with the best file to develop the photos into the image that I want.  The image that you see on the back of your camera will not look like the one you open-up in your RAW processing program unless you do some basic processing of the file. 

Why is that?  Because what you see on the back of your camera is actually a JPEG image that is embedded within the RAW file.  The JPEG image that has been processed in accordance with the “Picture Control” (Nikon’s term; not sure what other manufacturers call it) that you selected in your camera.  Nikon has six Picture Control settings: Standard, Neutral, Vivid, Monochrome, Portrait and Vivid.  Based upon which one you select, the photo displayed on the back of your camera will show varying amounts of: sharpening, contrast, brightness, saturation and hue.

I do not believe in redoing things over and over.  I also like things to as consistent and easy as possible. As a result, I have developed a series of Lightroom presets for each of the Nikon Picture Control settings.  Before I start to shoot, I select the Nikon Picture Control Setting that I believe will produce images that are most consistent with what I want.  I rarely change this setting during any shooting session. 

As I import my photos into Lightroom, I apply the appropriate preset to the photos.  What does this do?  Well, it makes my photo look very much like what I was seeing on the back of my camera as I was shooting.

How did I develop the various presets?  First, I took photos that used the different Nikon Picture Control Settings in both JPEG and RAW.  I then imported the photos into Lightroom.  Next, I applied Lightroom’s Camera Profile (you will find it in the Develop Module under Camera Calibration tab) to the RAW file.  I then tweaked the sharpening, contrast and saturation of the RAW until it matched the JPEG file.  Finally, I saved the settings for sharpening, contrast, saturation and Camera profile as a preset for that Nikon Picture Control Settings.

The first photo today shows the RAW file as it would look without applying any preset to it.  The image is basically flat and definitely not what you were seeing on the back of your camera. 

The second photo shows what the image would look after applying my Nikon Camera Standard Control Setting preset.  Notice how the colors are richer and there is generally more details throughout the photo.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D4, 70-200mm f/2.8 at 90mm, ISO 1600, f/19 at 1/60^th of a second on a tripod.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 4—see above.

Nike Look

Several years ago, Nike had a series of advertisements in which they presented various athletes with a look somewhat similar to Joel Grimes work.   That look was what I wanted when I took this photo.

Casey’s look tells the whole story—I am an athlete and I love competing!

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D800, 24-70mm f/2.8 at 70mm, ISO 140, f/6.7 at 1/45^th of a second with an Elinchrom Ring flash to the right.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 4—set white and black point and increased contrast, increased clarity and added a vignette.

Photoshop CS5—applied nik Color Efex Pro Bleached By-Pass filter.

MIA Is Back

Several people have asked why I have not been posting to my blog.  One even labeled me as MIA.  Well, she was correct.  I was missing in action with absolutely no reason.

Yes, I was a little busy with my photographic business, my grandchildren, Bay Area Photo Club and this and that.  But, I did have the time; I just decided to do other things.

Today’s photo is a continuation of the session we had with Casey.  In this photo, I wanted to isolate on Casey’s face but still give the photos some context.  I deliberately placed Casey in the center of the frame—damn the rules!  I used a spot meter on her face for my meter-reading which because of the light hitting her face, slightly underexposed the rest of the frame.  The light on her face was from the setting sun and because the rest of the pool was in the shade gave me a warm Casey against a cool background.  I think this helps isolate her.  Finally, I used a very low camera angle (my camera was almost touching the water) so the lane dividers would stack in the background.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D4, 70-200mm at 200mm f/2.8, ISO 800, f/5.6 at 1/1500^th of a second.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 4—set white and black point and increased contrast, increased clarity, contrast and sharpness on Casey with the adjustment brush and added a vignette.

Casey—Doctor, Competitive Swimmer and Nice Lady

Meet Casey.  She is a medical doctor that swam competitively in college.  In addition, she is a really nice person.  But, I hope I never see her professionally—no offense, Casey.

Here, I was trying to be a Sports Illustrated photographer—I really had no idea how hard it was to time the shot, even at 1/6000^th of a second.  At the end of the shoot, I had lots of shots with nothing but water!  I guess this proves that every time you pick up the camera, something will be different.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D4, 70-200mm f/2.8, ISO 400, f/3.3 at 1/6000^th of a second.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 4—set white and black point and increased contrast, increased clarity, contrast and sharpness around Casey with the adjustment brush.

Inga

Although Inga had a great big smile and beautiful hair, I personally like her best with a slight smile and her hair put-up.  I think this way just set off her face much better.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3x, 85mm f/1.4, ISO 100, f/8 at 1/90^th of a second on a tripod with two Elinchrom strobes with umbrellas on each side.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 4—set white and black point and increased contrast, increased clarity, contrast and sharpness in his eyes with adjustment brush.

Inga and Omar

Inga is a very out-going young lady who loves to smile in contrast to her boyfriend, Omar.  She lights-up in front of a camera.  She wanted a few shots of the two of them.  I had to work quite hard to get Omar to get this close to Inga.  His idea of a portrait of a couple was each person about three feet from each other looking directly into the camera with no smile.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3x, 85mm f/1.4, ISO 100, f/8 at 1/90^th of a second on a tripod with two Elinchrom strobes with umbrellas on each side.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 4—set white and black point and increased contrast, increased clarity, contrast and sharpness in his eyes with adjustment brush and did some basic dodging and burning.

Omar

Omar was at this portrait session because his girlfriend told him that he would be there.  He had no desire to have his photo taken. 

He had a great smile but no matter what I did, he would not show it for the camera.  Omar is from Iceland and according to Inga, his girlfriend, men don’t smile for the camera in Iceland.  Don’t know if that is true or not, but I do know that Omar did not smile for my camera—I think he is a Canon guy!

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3x, 85mm f/1.4, ISO 100, f/8 at 1/45^th of a second on a tripod with two Elinchrom strobes with umbrellas on each side.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 4—set white and black point and increased contrast, increased clarity, contrast and sharpness in his eyes with adjustment brush and did some basic dodging and burning.

Brent—A C&W Singer and Songwriter

I recently had a portrait session with Brent, a country & western singer and songwriter.  Brent is originally from Alabama but recently moved here to promote his career.  He is very natural in front of a camera, but became even more so when he picked-up his guitar.

This photo is a natural light photo.  There was a very small spot in the lobby of the building where the light was streaming-in.  I wanted to use that light as a spotlight on his face, but was faced with a problem—it was right in front of a pole and so I would have pole coming-out of his head.  To me, it was a no brainer—light first!

If I were going to print this, I would probably try to remove the post.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3x, 85mm f/1.4, ISO 400, f/4 at 1/60^th of a second on a tripod.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 4—set white and black point and increased contrast, increased clarity, contrast and sharpness in his eyes with adjustment brush and did some basic dodging and burning.

Christina—A Serious Young Lady

Before I took Christian’s photos, I asked: “What type of photo do you want?”  She said:  “I am pretty serious and I look stupid with a big smile on my face.  I am not a super model.  I do not like that plastic-skin look that you see on so many portraits.  I want the photo to look like me.  As I am.”

I think this is impressive insight for a junior in high school!

In the photo I tried to follow her wishes.  The photo is a high key portrait of a serious young lady with a minimum amount of retouching.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3x, 85mm f/1.4, ISO 100, f/4.8 at 1/90^th of a second on a tripod with ring flash lighting her face and strobes lighting the background.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 4—set white and black point and increased contrast, increased clarity, contrast and sharpness in her eyes with adjustment brush and cloned out some temporary blemishes on her skin.

Nikon D4—A New Experience—Letting the Shutter Rip!

Today’s photo was also taken at Brazos Bend State Park.  I wanted to isolate the bird from the background so I did wait until he got in a good position on the log.  I then did something that I rarely do—I put my camera in high-speed continuous shooting mode and held the shutter down.  Do you know how many frames you can rip-off in about five seconds of shooting—a lot more than I am accustom to!  I shot 68 frames in a matter of seconds.  I can see how Tim Timmins (see his work here) fills up so many memory cards each week.

I almost forgot my normal disclaimer:  I am not a bird photographer!!!

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D4, 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6 at 300mm, ISO 800, f/5.6 at 1/180^th of a second on a tripod.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 4—set white and black point and increased contrast.

Nikon D4—What’s My Favorite Thing about the Nikon D4?

I did not receive many comments about my Tuesday’s post on my blog, however, I received many emails asking me questions about the Nikon D4.  I welcome communication with everyone but I would like to remind you that if you make a comment on my blog, everyone sees it; if you send me an email, only you and I see it.  Regardless which way you go, I do appreciate your comments.

Probably the biggest single question I received was:  what is the best thing about the Nikon D4? 

If I had to name one thing, I think it would be the sensor—images are just crisper and contain a wider dynamic range than those taken with my Nikon D3 or Nikon D3x.  I compared photos taken of the same subject and with the same lens (Nikon 85mm f/1.4—my sharpest lens) with the D4 and the D3x (which I think has a wider dynamic range than the D3), and looked at them on my computer.  To me, the D4 just outperformed the D3x.

Next, I would say high ISO performance.  The D4 has about two f-stops better performance than my D3.  The D3x is not made for high ISO use.

But, I am not sure that I would be as happy with the D4 if that were the only changes that Nikon made.  The “little refinements” in how the how the D4 operates makes it a real joy to use and easier to get the image that you want.

Today’s photo was taken at Brazos Bend State Park.  This alligator was near one of the piers.  There was a sliver of light that hit the alligator.  Although he (?) was not very active, I did wait until he moved so his eye was in that sliver of light.  In the photo, I wanted to show the texture of the alligator.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D4, 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6 at ISO 400, f/5.6 at 1/125^th of a second on a tripod.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 4—set white and black point and increased contrast.

Nikon D4—What’s with It?

At 4:17 PM on April 30, 2012, my UPS man delivered a package that I have been expecting for over three months.  Yet, no D4 photos have appeared on my blog.  What’s with that?

Well, the two of us have been getting to know each other.  Sound a little crazy.  Yep, that’s what my bride (of 45 years) thinks.  But, let me explain.

The first thing that I did (now hold your breathe) was read the manual.  I then started setting-up it the way that I thought would best fit my way of shooting.  Many people have said that the D4 is an evolution from the D3—well, that may be, but what an evolution.

So many of the D4’s controls have bee refined from the D3.  The D4 is much easier to shoot with because some critical controls have been moved from being buried within the menus to buttons on the camera.  To change image size, picture controls and autofocus mode and area-mode on the D4, you merely push a button.  No more searching menus.  Now this may not sound like much but all three of these controls were place in my menu on my D3 because I accessed them so often.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D4, 70-200mm f/2.8 at ISO 1600, f/5.6 at 1/350^th of a second.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 4—set white and black point and increased contrast.

Taylor #5

Obviously, today’s photo is a Joel Grimes rip-off.  Unlike Joel’s photos, this photo is not a composite with the background being an HDR photo. 

The lighting is pretty straight forward as you can see by the diagram.  The only difficult part of the lighting is making sure that the two rim lights (SB800s) are pointed at the same direction and are at the same power settings.  This required some fine tune adjusting to get it just right.  The Elinchrom Beauty Dish with a diffuser was attached to a pole and held in-front and above Taylor’s face

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3x on a tripod, Nikon 85mm f/1.4 at ISO 100, f/4 at 1/60^th of a second with two Elinchrom Quadra flashes—one positioned in front of her and the other behind her as a hair light.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 4—increased clarity and vibrance and did some basic dodging and burning various parts of the photo and used adjustment brush to cool temperature of background so that it would appear bluer than it actually was.

Photoshop CS5—ran nik Color Efex Pro glamour glow filter.

Taylor #4

Today’s photo was taken at the same location as last Tuesday’s photo.  Again, I wanted the photo to have both a lot of environment and an “after the race” look for Taylor.  Here, I had Taylor look at the camera to make a better connection between her and the viewer.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3x on a tripod, Nikon 85mm f/1.4 at ISO 100, f/4 at 1/250^th of a second with two Elinchrom Quadra flashes—one positioned in front of her and the other behind her as a hair light.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 4—increased clarity and vibrance and did some basic dodging and burning various parts of the photo.

Photoshop CS5—ran nik Color Efex Pro glamour glow filter.

Taylor #3

Today’s photo was taken at the same location as Tuesday’s photo.  Here I wanted to bring more of the environment into the scene and make it appear as if Taylor had just finished a race.

I do like how the shadows in the background seem to mirror her mood.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3x on a tripod, Nikon 85mm f/1.4 at ISO 100, f/4 at 1/250^th of a second with two Elinchrom Quadra flashes—one positioned in front of her and the other behind her as a hair light.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 4—increased clarity and vibrance and did some basic dodging and burning various parts of the photo.

Photoshop CS5—ran nik Color Efex Pro glamour glow filter.

Taylor #2

Before Taylor arrived, Steve and I walked around the area for the photo shoot.  When we walked behind the stands, I immediately thought of using the shadows as background.  I felt that the shadows would give the photo an added sense of depth.

Here, Taylor is setting on a support for the stands.  I wanted this photo to look more like a grab shot than a formal portrait. 

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3x on a tripod, Nikon 85mm f/1.4 at ISO 100, f/4 at 1/250^th of a second.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 4—increased clarity and vibrance and did some basic dodging and burning various parts of the photo.

Photoshop CS5—ran nik Color Efex Pro glamour glow filter only on Taylor.

Taylor #1

Meet Taylor—M.D., PhD., marathon runner and really nice lady.  I am sure there any many more things that you could say about here, but I think you get the idea—she is an accomplished young lady.

My buddy, Steve, and I had the pleasure of photographing her about a week ago.  Taylor’s only request was for us to get a good photograph of her running.  According to Taylor, a good photograph would be one in which both her feet were off the ground and she did not look like she was dreading the next step.

Steve and I had a few problems getting her good running photo—hard light, messy background and, in my case, not too much sports photography talent.

I think this photo qualifies.  But, as always, what do you think.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3 on a tripod, Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 at ISO 800, f/5.6 at 1/3000^th of a second.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 4—increased clarity and vibrance and did some basic dodging and burning various parts of the photo.

Fall Colors—Retake of Same Leaves

Today’s photo is a retake of Tuesday’s post.  In this photo, I repositioned the camera, set my white balance to 3,500K (which gave a blue look to everything), use a flash with a CTO gel and a snoot on it, and underexposed the background by about 1½ f-stops and the subject lighted by the flash by about ½ f-stop.   I think the changes gives the photo a totally different feel, but, what do you think?

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3 on a tripod, Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 at ISO 1600, f/8 at 1/250^th of a second.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 4—increased clarity and added vibrance to the leaves in the foreground using the adjustment brush.

Fall Colors

Over this past weekend, I was doing some clean-up on my computer’s photo files when I ran across this photo.  Houston is not blessed with spectacular fall colors so when I see colors like this, I sometimes go a little crazy trying to get my “fall colors” shot.

In this photo, I like the contrast between the bright colors and texture of the leaves in the foreground with those in the background.  I used an aperture of f/8 to achieve maximum sharpness in the foreground while also rendering a soft bokeh to the background.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3 on a tripod, Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 at ISO 1600, f/8 at 1/90^th of a second.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 4—increased clarity and added vibrance to the leaves in the foreground using the adjustment brush.

Visitor to Our Porch

Our house has a screened-in porch that runs along the back of the house.  The other day, I discovered this fellow (?) on the back of a chair on the porch.  I thought that our visitor would be a great study of depth-of-field so I attached my Nikon 105mm Macro lens and started to try different things with him.

There was not a lot of light on the porch so I was forced to use a high ISO and a slow shutter speed with the stopped-down apertures that I was using.  I also did not want to disturb the frog, so I set my camera to shoot in DX format, which had the effect of changing my 105mm lens to a 150mm lens and making the files smaller and did not use any flash.

The first photo shows the overall scene and was shot at f/27 and 1/15^th of s second.  The second photo was at f/36 and 1/4^th of a second.  You will notice that even at these stopped-down apertures, the depth of field is still quite small.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3 on a tripod, Nikon 105mm f/2.8 at ISO 6400, (top photo)  f/27 at 1/15^th of a second and (bottom photo) f/38 at 1/4^th of a second.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 4—increased clarity and added vibrance on the frog.

Playing-Around in JD’s Garden

I was thinking about that old photographic axiom that you can only get great landscape and nature photographs during the “golden hours.”  I decided to test that theory around noon a few days ago.  I saw this Iris and tried to do something with it.

Here, I overexposed the image by about 2 EVs.   The very top of the flower is blown-out but I think that helps add to the effect that I was trying to get.   To enhance the abstract feeling of the flower, I shot the flower slightly out of focus.
What do you think?

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3x, Nikon 24-70mm f/1.4 at ISO 100, f/2.8 and with shutter speeds 1/1000^th of second.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 4—cropped photo into a square, reduced clarity and added vibrance.

Emili and Jordon Shoot #5

Before I discuss today’s photo, I would like to answer my own question in the last post—“Can you guess what that one thing is?”  That one thing that I wished that I had done was to also shoot this in portrait mode.  I think such a shot would have made Emili more the subject of the photo while still giving the photo that high key look that I wanted.  I also think that both of Doug's suggestions are excellent ones and I would use them for my next bicycle rack photo.

Today’s photo of Jordon is one in which I wanted to show the richness of the colors and her famine side by surrounding her with soft floral.  The setting for this photo (see below) was less than 15 feet from the bicycle rack, but had the look and feel that I felt Jordon deserved.  I selected a near wide-open aperture of f/3.3 to soften everything except her face.  I felt that this aperture gave me the depth-of-field and sharpness that I needed for the portrait.

Because of Jordon’s white jacket, I had to point my flash above her head so that just a minimum amount of light would be on her white jacket.  I did not want the whites of her jacket to "blow-out."  The light’s orientation also contributed to the  softness of the light on her face.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, Nikon 85mm f/1.4 at ISO 200, f/3.3 and with shutter speeds 1/60^th of second with an Elinchrom Ranger Quadra flash with a 17” beauty dish attached.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 4—set white point, added clarity and vibrance, used adjustment brush to add details to eyes and hair and soften skin.

Emili and Jordon Shoot #4

I intended to post this photo on Friday, but, I must not be able to read a calendar so you are getting it today.

I took photos of Jordon before I took those of Emili.  When I was taking Jordon’s photos, I keep looking at this location of a bicycle rack with no bikes in it (first photo) and saying to myself that there was a photo here, but, even though I tried a few things with Jordon, nothing panned out.

This photo came about because Emili mentioned that she could do the splits.  Half joking, I suggested that she do it on the bike rack.  I do believe that she thought “this guy has a few screws loose.”  She is right, of course, but this "crazy talk" gave me the idea to have her lay on the rack.  I did it first to make sure that it was not too uncomfortable, and, it was not.

In this photo, I intentionally blew-out (over exposed the light portions so that there was no details left in the highlights) the background on the left.  I did this because I wanted the photo to have a light feeling to it and I did not have sufficient dynamic range to capture both the left side and the right side of the background.  I wanted to only get her face in focus so I selected an aperture of f/4.

I was laying flat on the ground and shooting her at a slight upward angle.  I positioned my light so that it came from the left and was sufficient just to open-up the shadows on the right side of her face.

Overall, I was please with the photo, but as I look at it, I wished that I done one thing.  Can you guess what that one thing is?

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, Nikon 85mm f/1.4 at ISO 200, f/4 and with shutter speeds 1/60^th of second with an Elinchrom Ranger Quadra flash with a 17” beauty dish attached.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 4—set white point, added clarity and vibrance, used adjustment brush to add details to eyes and hair and soften skin.