Category Archives: Photography

Related to Photography and taking or dealing with pictures.

Kim and Josh Engagement Photos

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We almost called this shoot off because it was raining and windy and cold. A couple of hours before we decided to go for it. A half hour before, the rain stopped, the clouds cleared, the sun came out at full force, and the wind picked up.

We took the pictures at the Millennium  Gardens in Plymouth. It is a nice setting. So nice in fact, that there was another wedding taking place there. A couple of the choice locations were not going to work.

We had full on sun, lots of wind, and no shade at 3:00. Not the best, but that is what worked with their schedules, so we made it work. I tried to find some shade, and use some fill flash, but there wasn’t much to be found at that time on that day. I tried to position them so the sun was like a hair light, then blast them with a SB900 to try to fill in the shadows as best I could. Only so much you can do with a little light in full sun.

Still, I think we got some good shots that I hope they will like.

The Jeffery Clamp

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Have you heard of the Justin Clamp? It is made by Manfrotto, and you can get it here from Adorama. It costs $54. Recently I saw a post via twitter on adapting it to work work with a SB900, because the clamp is for a SB800. I can’t find the article/pics, or I would link to it.

Anyway, I have put together my own clamp like this with parts from Adorama.

The above clamp is what it looks like put together. There are three parts that you need.

So, for $32.65 you get pretty much the same thing, but you get pieces that you can reuse for other purposes if needed. Also, this shoe mount will fit any flash, including the SB900.

Ok, why do I call this the Jeffery Clamp? Well, I order stuff through Jeff Snyder at Adorama, so that’s the name I gave it. Give him a shout if you need help ordering stuff from Adorama. (jsnyder@adorama.com)

So, what do I use it for? Well, it can be clamped onto anything, which makes is quite versatile, but here is one thing I used it for recently.

Look at the upper right of this image. See the light there? It is an SB900 on my Jeffery Clamp, connected to the background stand. No need for another pole. I used this like a hair light, or a side light depending on where I aimed the light. Here is a picture where the light was added to bring more light to the right side of her hair.

Seattle Skyline

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This is one from the archives. It has nothing to do with Memorial Day, other than the sky looks like this here right now.

I just like this picture. Nothing special, plain sky, skyline almost centered, but somehow I like it. I still think your eye travels around the image, from the down town to the Space Needle, to the little red boat in the middle (that would be easier to see without my signature in the way!).

Pictures from the Zoo

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I had intended to get to the zoo early, so see what kind of light I could get. I had Lily in the car and ready to go when I decided I should check the website for hours. Didn’t open till 9:00. We had over an hour to wait before we could go.

Oh well. At this time of year, the sun has been up for several hours at 9:00. The best light I got was probably this guy. He was in shade, but I had to shoot through glass. It doesn’t look that bad at this size. The water is really green, and a pain to color balance!

Prairie dog babies are just too cute.

Lily was practically crying, begging me to get going. Then the mother came out to join them.

Man, I rattled off a ton of pics of these guys. Lots of great brown on brown images 🙂

Then we walked up to the farm section. Lots of goats that you could feed. Lily was a little unsure about doing that. I bought her some food, and she just threw it them. Wish I had a picture of that.

These guys were laughing about it. Maybe because it is hard to tell the difference between food pellets and the other kind of goat pellets when they are on the ground.

What trip to the zoo wouldn’t be complete with out ice cream? Problem was, I promised it to her an hour before we finally got it. We passed five closed vendors where I thought we would be able to get it. Weekday morning might be good for avoiding crowds, but then you also can’t easily get ice cream.

Just Swinging Around

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Truth be told, I have hundreds of images of my kids on swings sitting on my hard drive. But most of them don’t really have any sense of movement or height. This time I was going for height.

I went with a wide’ish angle lens (18 is all I have right now) and got as close as I could without fear of getting hit. I gave her a big push, and then ran over to snap some pictures.

Cardinal in Front of my House

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This Cardinal keeps showing up in a tree near the road, right out our front window. I have been trying to catch this shot for a couple of days. I never seem to have my long lens on or ready.

The one time I was ready, I went out the front door, and the bird got spooked, and flew away. Then I got another idea. I removed a screen from one of the front windows, and had my lens at the ready. And then, when the kids yelled “He’s Back!”, I went over, slid the window open, and took this shot.

What is your Primary Lens for Shooting Landscapes?

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I got an email the other day asking about lenses I use for landscape photos. I appreciate that someone thought my opinion would be valuable, so I started to send a response, but then thought I might as well respond via a new post. Here is the actual question so we are all on the same page:

I noticed you posted your equipment list on your website and I’m hoping you can provide me with a little advice.  I recently purchased my fist DSLR (Canon Rebel Xsi) and use it primarily to photograph my 2-year old son.  The only lense I have is the kit lense that came with the camera (which is a Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6).

You take great photos and I really like the landscape photos in your Portfolio (http://www.cyberward.net/photography/).  We spend a lot of time outdoors so, if you don’t mind, what is your primary lense for shooting landscapes?  I’m looking for big, bright colors and crisp, clean images.

First of all, thanks Thomas for the compliment, and congrats on getting a Digital Rebel, so lets take a look at the two questions.

Now this may surprise you, but the bright colors and crisp, clean images can come from your camera. You don’t need another lens for that. The lens has very little to do with color. That has to do with the way your camera is set to convert the image to JPEG. I don’t have a Canon camera, but I am certain that there are picture settings of some sort like portrait, landscape, normal, vivid, etc. I am not talking about the ones on the top dials that modify the shutter and aperture, but settings that control how much color, contrast, and sharpening the camera does. I usually have mine set on vivid or landscape. Play around. Take one picture at each setting and see what you like.

If you don’t have the “Digital Photography Book” (vol 1, II, III) by Scott Kelby, you may want to check them out. Also see my books section.

The second part to this is post processing. Get to know iPhoto, Picasa, Lightroom, Photoshop (Elements), or what ever image editor you have access to. Play with your images. I usually bring up the blacks, maybe a little saturation or vibrancy, something that adds some contrast like clarity or definition, and probably some sharpening. I don’t go overboard, but a little can go a long way.

Again, check out my book section if you want some suggestions on books for image editing.

Ok, you mentioned sharpness. That’s a tough one, because there are so many variables. Your camera technique, your post production, the aperture you pick, and the lens all make a difference. There is more to it than just the lens. Each lens has an aperture sweet spot, and more expensive lenses have larger ones, but I don’t worry about it much. I pick the aperture I want, and let the pixel peepers worry which settings are the sharpest.

I shoot most of my landscapes and my kids with a 17-55 Nikkor. I moved up to it after owning a Tamron of similar focal length, and you can read about that here. Going to this lens over the kit lens gives me the ability to use larger apertures (f/2.8) and focus faster, which is important for kids, not so much for landscapes. I also use my 70-200mm VR Nikkor. I don’t have a wide angle lens, but it is likely the next on my list of things I would like to get. I have used some before, such as the 14-24 f/2.8 Nikkor on a D700 (wow!) and the 12-24 f/4 Nikkor on my D90. I really liked using them, but they take a different style of shooting to get good pictures from them.

I also wrote about the first gear, first lenses, and the first books you might buy in my first posts of this year.

Now, the gear that I wrote about here is Nikon, but Canon, Tamron, Sigma, Sony, etc. all have very similar products. What I suggest is that you rent a lens. We have a great store, West Photo in Minneapolis that rents lenses for a reasonable price.

I hope that answered your question. Fell free to leave comments if you have more questions.

More Portraits of Hanna’s Friends

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I don’t tend to mess with my photos too much. I will tweak them a bit to get better color, but I don’t play with presets and such very much. But this photos seemed to ask for something else to me. I didn’t use another preset, I made it my self. I actually started with a black and white, but it didn’t pop quite how I wanted, so I gave this faded, sharpened look a try. This was all done in light room.

I think I will do a post in the future about how this was lit and processed, but that is for another day.

I saved the settings from the other image and made a preset, so I thought I would see what it would look like on some of the other images from the day. I can’t decide for sure how much I like it in this setting. It seems pretty cool, but maybe the regular color images worked also.

It works pretty well with this image I think, and I learned something from this shoot. I need a light on each person, especially when they are this far apart. I like the light on the left, but it was pretty much gone by the right side of the image. I am thinking two lights, both on the same side (left) but with one directed at the right side of the image.

Anyway, here are a couple of more images from that day. Let me know what you think in the comments.

All the images were processed almost the same, with my new ‘fade’ preset. I will get to some images that are in a more normal color in a day or two. Just thought I would play with this look, and these images would be good for that.