That wasn’t really what I wanted though, so I decided to table the project as the holidays were rapidly approaching.  Then earlier tonight, while tucking away some Christmas presents in a place I know Tracy will never go, some video cables zip-tied neatly into a shoe tupperware fell out into my office.  I looked curiously at this one called the Diamond Multimedia VC500.

It had been purchased a while back to help convert some old VHS tapes to digital (circa 1998 and 1999), then put away indefinitely…until tonight.  I then went searching for the video cable to one of my EOS cameras…after all, I am a pack rat!  And sure enough, after ten minutes, found it and started kicking the tires.  With my rudimentary video editing skills, I was able to cobble this together:

This should work pretty much anywhere too…whether you are viewing on a computer, laptop, iPad, or phone…the vid has been made as cross-source supported as possible, so let me know if you can’t see it!  It’s, of course, a very cheesy first attempt, but suggests that there may be more of a library to come in explaining SLR settings to help demystify things!

Not much other news here – a few more projects in the final steps of review to put out this week, including the AluminArte from Image Wizards, another eBook, and a couple other nuggets as we inch closer to the holidays!  (Are you ready yet?)  Stay tuned, and if you have suggestions on how to clean up that video noise at the bottom of this test video, I am all ears!

Last but not least, the Holiday Giveaway Bonanza is getting pretty hefty, and ready for your entries – get a photo in for a chance to win an amazing package of prizes!  Submit your photo today!

Readability:  In my last book review, I indicated that there are some photography books out there written by people who really can’t write that well (no offense to Moose Peterson).  Granted, it’s a difficult task to master, because you have to be informative, but you also need to be able to communicate effectively.  A strong grasp of both written and verbal communication skills is important, and the ability to transition speaking skills to the written word is extremely difficult to master.  If you don’t believe me – look at some of the more popular blogs out there.  Nearly always, there is proof-reading, editing, and revisioning done to ensure everything is done correctly.  Meanwhile, other blogs and published content languish on the outskirts simply because of bad grammar, ineffective communication skills or (at worst) bad spelling!  Nicole is one of the few people I would trust to ensure all the T’s are crossed and I’s are dotted.  It flowed so well and seamlessly, that I can honestly say this is the first book I’ve ever reviewed that has not included at least some skimming of content.  I almost don’t want to pay this one forward, but in the interests of keeping some consistency, the book goes back on the giveaway rack!  4.0

Length:  At 270 pages, this is just about the perfect length for being both concise, and yet detailed at the same time.  You get a chance to really sink your teeth into it (pun intended) without being overwhelmed.  It’s also an easy read – that is to say I never found myself going back to try and let something sink in from a comprehension perspective.  I was able to get things the first time – and as I get older, that’s always a good thing!  So, kudos to Nicole(sy) for keeping the length about perfect.  There were enough examples, photos, and explanations to keep me both engaged and not bore me with being overly simplistic.  She did leave me wanting a little more, but I guess that’s the mark of a good book, right?  Nearly spot on here Nicole!  4.5

Writing Style:  As mentioned above, the content was quite well balanced.  There was some discussion of technical details, while also addressing things like post-production as well as  insider tips and tricks (i.e. how to quickly char a chicken, add grill marks, and even making a picnic table!).  Her use of both before and after pictures really were also helpful so that the full effect of prepping food properly could be seen.  That was quite an eye-opening experience to see that kind of attention to detail.  !  She even threw in some content that discussed compositional approaches, including angles, colors, lines and curves, while also giving her personal insights into other nuances like depth of field, use of the Rule of Thirds, and more!  I felt like I was having a conversation with her (albeit one-sided), which made it that much easier to digest!  4.5

Photography:  This is a tough one, because the shots of her end results were very tantilizing, but I found the setup shots more helpful here (the final ones just made me hungry).  The problem with that is the setup shots aren’t that “inspiring”, but rather informative and educational.  Much like a photo of a computer motherboard showing the hand inserting the RAM chips.  It was well-lit, clear and useful, but these would probably not be considered part of any portfolio.  3.5

Educational Value:  With some books, the read is an educational one (David DuChemin), while others are entertaining (i.e. Tom Clancy), and another genre I consider is that of reference material (think the O’Reiley series).  This book is an interesting blend of all three of these genres, because it was both educational and would serve as a great reference piece.  The entertainment factor wasn’t really there like some others have attempted to crowbar into their books (a la Kelby), but I didn’t really miss it.  Cheesy jokes are okay once and a while, but sometimes you just want to get into the meat and potatoes (again, pun intended).

A score of 4.2 on a scale of 5.0 is substantially impressive…making this almost a “must read” on my barometer.  If you’re at all interested in becoming a food photographer, that of course raises the bar another notch or two again, so consider that in your decision-making process.  Special thanks to Nicole for contributing the book, and if you’d like to own your own copy of this book, check out the December Giveaway Bonanza where you can get that plus a bunch of other cool photo books and gear.  More stuff is coming on that in short order here too, so be sure to share your images in Flickr!  If you can’t wait for this book to be given away, then I would also recommend picking up a copy from your own favorite retailer, whether it be B&N, Amazon, or from the publisher direct (Peachpit)!  It’s really one of the better books out there.  Don’t forget to tune in tomorrow for a few more book reviews…

Until then, happy shooting (and reading)…

So, how are we going to round things out this week?  By turning things around!  Yep, the tip is to use the shoot through umbrella as it’s own reflector!  Take a look at the results.  I took a picture of the world (okay, it was a globe in our spare bedroom) from the flash in two different setups:

While it’s always better to shoot with your flash off-camera, this is probably the best lesson in showing that just because your flash is off-camera doesn’t make it good light!  Yes, it’s better than on camera lighting, but look at that harsh specular highlight, and how…well, boring the photo on the left looks.  Then consider the photo on the right – the hottest part of the light is nowhere near as specular (bordering on not even becoming a specular highlight…), and the diffused, reflected light gives some nice character and a sense of depth lacking in the first.

Here’s the lighting setup for each shot:

So, as you can see (hopefully), this demonstrates that turning things around (not just your camera) can have a surprisingly good effect from time to time.  It really becomes subjective at this point, and some may prefer one style over another, but that’s part of what makes the craft so enticing – you are limited by nothing more than your vision!

Thanks for tuning in to this unique week-long series on off-camera lighting – I hope you enjoyed reading these tips as much as I enjoyed writing them!

On that note – I’d like to ask you for more ideas on some themes and topics in this vein.  This really seems to have resonated based on the traffic, email, and feedback I have gotten thus far, but I do want to keep content moving in directions you are interested in, so feel free to chime in the comments with ideas, thoughts, and feedback not only on existing content, but asl on ideas thoughts and feedback for new content down the road!

Have a great weekend (don’t forget, today is the last day to get your entries in for the November Flickr contest) and be sure to stop back next week for the year-end wrap up on a bunch of product reviews – and you know what that means!

Quite a bit already, and we’re almost done, so I’d like t round things out with a little bit of stabilizing.  You see, while light stands are great for moving your flash off-camera, they’re not the most stable things around.  Certainly not like a tripod for your camera!  Why is that?  The answer is in the physics – a light stand is typically a single pole that is extended into the air, whereas a tripod is three poles that converge at a point (your ball head or camera mount).  Whereas the former has each other to lean on and stabilize things, your light stand doesn’t have this benefit.  But, you can minimize the wiggle!  Here’s how…

Most light stands will have a three-legged base which collapses down to help with portability and to compact the size.  I’ve seen people take light stands out, and the first thing they extend all the way are those three legs.  Don’t!  When you take the three legs to their maximum height, yes, you are getting more height, but you are losing leverage and stability!  Don’t!  Instead, do this:

See how in the first example the legs are high, narrow and only have three points touching the floor – this invites a top-heavy rig, which is always more likely to topple over.  If you sacrifice those 3″ at the bottom, look what you can gain!  A wider stand base = more stability, a lower light stand = additional stability, and then the addition of the center point for even more stability!  The one on the left is how it’s supposed to be done.

For an added corollary, you can also bring sand or water bags to your shoot and fill them when you get there…then place the bags inside that little “pocket” that is formed for even more of a weighted base that will further reduce toppling risks!  (Consider it a Light Stand Tip 4A!)

Tomorrow we wrap up the week of lighting do’s and don’ts when using light stands and shoot-throughs!  I hope you’ve enjoyed these as much as I enjoyed writing them (it’s always fun to do a series like this, because it has a beginning, middle and end – which makes for nice writing projects!)

The bare flash

The results are not atypical of what one would expect.  We can see quite a bit more diffusion over a flash fired with no shoot through at all.  The light is cast much wider across the umbrella, and a certain amount of diffusion can be noted.  However, we can also see a hot spot of light in the top half of our umbrella.  Bad?  Not necessarily, considering either shooting with no umbrella, or worse – using the flash on camera!   But can we make it even better?  Let’s try!

Flash+Reflector

An interesting result!  We see the light now is carried through more of the umbrella bu looking at the center point as our frame of reference.  See the light expanding a little further down past that center point?  Cool!  But also, look what happened at the top – the reflector took light from the top and bounced it down to the bottom as we clearly have a shadow line going across there.  Hmmm, not sure I like that, so let’s try another improvement!

Flash+Diffuser

Now we’re talking!  Look at that light!  It’s clean and even throughout the umbrella!  No lines from a reflector, and nowhere near as much spill over the edges of the umbrella itself.  This is some nicely diffused light!  But wait – can we take it even further?  Let’s try one last thing, just to see what happens!

Flash+Diffuser+Reflector

Uh oh, we over-thought it!  The light is still pretty evenly diffused and spread across the umbrella, except for that one rectangle area across the top where apparently the reflector blocked the light from getting to – thus creating a shadow.  For me, it looks like #3 was the best choice of flash controls.  Here – take a look at all four side-by-side-by-side:

Flash Comparisons

I’ve circled the areas that caught my eye in terms of the quality of light – what I like and what I dislike about each – with labels under each setup.  As noted above – my preference is for #3.  The lesson learned here?

Use the built in diffuser when using a shoot through umbrella for a nice even light source!

As in all things though, it’s not a “my way or the highway” mentality – all thoughts and opinions are welcome!  So, which one(s) did you like best? #1? #2? #3? #4?  Sound off with your own thoughts in the comments or via email – feedback and discussion is always encouraged!

*****

Contest Reminder:  Only a few days left to enter the Image Wizards contest.  No fuss, no muss, just enter your image in the Flickr thread for a chance to win a 16×20″ print from them (as judged by yours truly!).

Be sure to stop back in tomorrow for the fourth installment of how to get the most out of a single light setup!

In yesterday’s post, I showed how light can spill over an improperly mounted umbrella. I got a few emails noting that light does seem to still spill over the top of even a properly mounted one.  While that’s right, there’s a couple things to keep in mind.  First off, the flash is mounted to a trigger, not to the light stand directly.  This does raise the flash a tad (about an inch), and while that may not sound like much, it can increase the spill.  Now there are some triggers that are extremely low profile or that can rotate to lower the height of the flash by angling it forward, but there are downsides here too.  If you think about the idea of moving the head of the flash closer to the umbrella, you are essentially decreasing the amount of fill that your shoot thru will get.  The light will be more concentrated, (a.k.a. hotter) the closer it gets to the umbrella.  Conversely, the further away from the umbrella, the more diffused it will be.  Take a look:

Now, again, the terms “wrong” and “right” are subjective, because you may want a hotter light from your shoot thru.  The only thing I would say to that though, is that if you want a hotter light – why use the umbrella in the first place?  A shoot thru is designed to reduce the “hot” factor of the light and make it more even and diffused.  You can best accomplish this by positioning the light as far back on the umbrella as possible.  How far?  I usually leave about a quarter of an inch to an inch just so I can grab the umbrella if needed from the back side.  You can position yours where ever you like – just remember the “hot factor”!

Don’t forget to come back tomorrow for Part 3!  I bet this is one a lot of you will likely say “Now, that is cool!”  In the meantime, keep sharing your own ideas, tips and tricks for getting the most out of your lighting gear!

*****

P.S.  A couple admin notes – the monthly giveaway is almost done (with a 16×20″ print from the folks at ImageWizards at stake), so get your shots in on the Flickr thread before Friday!  Next week is review week on the blog too, with books, gadgets, lenses, even a camera, and of course, the annual Holiday Gift Guide!

“Hi Jason, we received your order for printing, thanks so much for your continued patronage.  Before sending to print though, we wanted to check and make sure the image is as you wanted it because of some items near the corners that caught our eye.  Do you want these items in the frame?  let us know and we’ll proceed accordingly.  Thanks so much!

What an awesome email, and in fact, I did not want the edge distractions.  So, in getting a reminder myself, decided it would make a good blog post for the day.  Here’s the final image I sent out to the vendor for printing:

It’s a nice image, and I am testing a few shots in some frames to see how a series might look together, so this is one I wanted to add.  However, if they had proceeded before I made edits, this is what would have gone through:

See the distracting elements?  I missed them the first time!  The lesson here is that it helps to have a checklist before printing too, and to include “clean the edges” in your checklist.  I think I am going to put one together here soon.  With that in mind, what sorts of experiences have others had in pre-printing stages?  Do you use a checklist to make sure you’ve done everything you need to do?  What would you include?  What would you leave to the lab?  I know a lot of folks let the lab do final edits on things like color correcting, white balance, and even cropping, while others like to maintain end to end control over their imagery.

Sound off in the comments – would love to hear everyone’s thoughts!

1.  Avoid changing your lenses in the field – Let’s face it, dust enters from any uncontrolled area, and the area where you have the least control is in the field.  I’ve seen folks change out lenses in the field all the time, so it’s certainly not going to damage your camera or sensor unless you are completely reckless, but anything that opens your sensor to the ambient air also exposes it to ambient dust.  Wanna know how much dust is actually in the air?  Turn on a flashlight in the dark!  We oooh and ahhh over beautiful sunbeams in photos – what’s actually happening though is sunlight bouncing off dust particles in the air!

2.  Point it Down – If you have to change your lenses out in the field because you only have one camera body (like me), or for some other reason, don’t let gravity help!  Point the front end of your camera toward the ground when swapping out lenses.  In general, things fall down not up, so by pointing the sensor toward the ground, dust is less likely to settle in there.  It will take a bit of practice, because in essence, you are swapping a lens out blind, but this just speaks to the principle of knowing your gear!

3.  Be quick – So many times I’ll see photographers think of swapping that wide angle lens with a zoom, prime or some other lens.  The first place they go is the camera!  They take the lens off, cap the lens, put it in the camera bag, pull out the other lens, uncap it, and then mount it to the camera on their tripod.  Meanwhile, the camera sensor has been exposed for about 60 seconds.  That’s a long time to be exposed to the elements.

Cleaning a sensor is tricky, but cleaning a lens is a simple wipe from a microfiber cloth and a dab of lens cleaner.  I do it the opposite way.  I take the destination lens out, uncap it, and even position it right next to my camera.  Then in one fluid motion I unlock the lens on-camera, twist it off, and put the new lens on.  Cap the old lens, put in the camera bag, and the sensor was only exposed for about 3 seconds!  Which do you think lets more dust in: 3 seconds or 60?

4.  Use a dust bag – In some environments, there is dust everywhere.  I’ve shot on beaches in South Carolina, dusty conditions in Colorado and Mexico, and more places than I can count where the amount of dust in the air was just nasty.  For circumstances like that, it might be worthwhile to consider a dust bag.  The idea here is to insert your camera and the new lens into a bag where there is no dust, and swap out lenses inside that.  They are usually translucent s0 you can see what you’re doing,  and you don’t have to worry about keeping the sensor face down. The caveat to this is that by inserting a camera and lens inside one of these bags, you are already introducing dust, so the “clean” environment theory is blown right there.  Unless you are trying to change your lens in a sandstorm in the desert, this one is not as high on my recommendation list – but that’s not to say it is without merit whatsoever.

5. Cap the camera – A lot of people forget that their cameras come with a custom cap so that when there is no lens attached, you can put the camera cap in place to help protect it.  Sure, I usually have a lens mounted and at the ready, but if you are not deft enough with your hands to remove a lens and attach a new one, the camera cap can be a great interim step.  Also consider this – what if you send a camera in for cleaning?  Do you really want to send that 70-200 f2.8 lens in with it?  Extra weight, extra shipping, extra handling, all make for more possible damage and loss points – why put even more gear out there like that?  Cap your camera!

***

There ya have it – 5 ways to clean, 5 times to clean, and 5 methods to avoid sensor dust on your camera!  Whew!  What a week of sensor talk!  What are your thoughts on the topic?  Did I cover it in enough detail?  Too much?  How and when do you clean your lens?  What’s your best strategy to avoid the dust bunnies?  Sound off in the comments, or via email, as always!  You know I love to hear from the reading audience!

Anyway, that’s it for this week kiddos – have a good weekend and keep on shooting.  Just a teaser of a preview for ya…as next week is gonna be a fun one!  If I can get off my $%^& and finish some writing this weekend, there will be a couple book and lens reviews forthcoming, as well as a surprise release for all you newsletter subscribers (I’ve not forgotten you)!

I cleaned the camera sensor after getting back from this trip.

1.  When the built-in cleaning mechanism is unable to keep the sensor clean.  This tells me that there is something sticking in place that is not easily removed on its own.  Further, when the built-in mechanism removes dust from the sensor, it has to put it somewhere.  When that “somewhere” gets full, the mechanism just can’t do its job anymore.  It’s like a vacuum cleaner loses its cleaning ability when the tank is full.  When that happens, I will usually pull out my Rocket Blower to get stuff off the sensor.

2.  When the Rocket Blower no longer is able to clan the tough spots with its powerful puff of air, I generally tend to take one last ditch effort with my own Lens Pen or PecPad solution to swab the sensor clean with that special cleaning solution.  The theory here is that if something really is “stuck” on the sensor, I should be able to wipe it off with this Lens Pen solution.  When my own efforts to remove sensor dust at this level are ineffective, it’s time for me to consider a professional cleaning.

3.  Because I live in a suburb of a larger metropolitan area, getting a professional cleaning is my next “level” of cleaning.  When it goes past my ability to clean, the guys over at CamRen do a great job of getting all the nitty gritty off my sensor, and for a reasonable price ($50).  Plus, it’s done very quickly (usually same day service), so my down time is minimal.  The only thing I don’t get is the “certified” service from Canon.  I don’t know if Canon does anything extra or special in their maintenance procedures, but I’ve never had need to use their services.

4.  Annual maintenance: I try to maintain a cleaning schedule of at least annually…meaning that even if in the past 12 months my sensor hasn’t gotten “that” dirty, I’ll get it cleaned professionally anyway, just because I am a little OCD about keeping things clean.  For me, the investment in keeping gear clean just makes the equipment last longer (and easier to sell if I ever upgrade).

5.  When it gets dirty! – I know this sounds rather obvious, but it probably does need to be said, at least to point out particular scenarios.  My general rule of thumb is that I will get an extra cleaning cycle in if the camera gets a lot of heavy use in a short period of time.  For instance, my trip to the Adirondacks, the coast of southern Mexico, or the Wild Sand Dunes of Colorado all ended with a professional cleaning.  I tend to change lenses a lot so when I do that “in the field”, more dust tends to get in more often.  So just to stay ahead of the game, I have a professional service done after such events, because odds are – a lot of dust hit that sensor!

Those are my five times to clean my sensor – but as stated above, these “rules” are not carved in stone.  Merely my own guidelines for how to clean my sensor and when to clean it.  In giving these guidelines the light of day, it of course begs the question to the reading audience:  When do you clean your sensors?  Do you have any criteria?  Schedules? Levels of filth that are tolerable versus intolerable?  What does it take before you clean your own camera sensor (or get it cleaned)?  How many of you have ever cleaned or tried to clean your own camera sensor?  I know there’s a lot of trepidation out there on this topic, so have no fear if that describes you – you’re not alone!

Coming up tomorrow, the $64,000 question – how to avoid getting dust on your sensor!

Since we weren’t shooting in any sort of “official” capacity, i figured it’d be a good time to kick the tires on this new lens (sorry, can’t reveal it just yet).  Suffice to say, I was not thrilled with the shots.  As luck would have it, I had swapped out between my 70-200 Canon and this lens right before the race, and inadvertently left my 1.4 TC on.  The end result was that the shots were just “off”.  The entire ten second scene was exciting to watch, and a few great shots presented themselves to me, but because of the gear selection and conditions – I got nuthin’!

However, always with education in my mind, this was a great story for two reasons.  First and foremost – it’s a reminder that if you are shooting an important event, always shoot with tried and true gear you know, and have had positive results with before.  Second, it’s always a good idea when testing new gear to try it in various configurations to make sure you know what you are getting before your return period expires.  Imagine if you purchased a lens, had enjoyed it, then past the return window, you decided to then test it with accessory items like a TC, only to get less performance than you expected. Oh well, chalk it up to an expensive mistake (glass is never cheap, and even good glass can not work for your particular style of shooting!).

As sort of a bonus tip, I also learned that when shooting sports, always keep your aperture above the minimum for a couple reasons.  First, a deeper depth of field will give a better sense of place, and second, if your focus is even slightly off and you happen to be shooting at a higher number, the chances of getting at least part of the scene in focus is better than if you shoot like I did – at 1.4!  While I normally don’t share bad shots – in this case, it’s helping to serve as an example of what not to do:

As you can see, nothing is really in focus, and my suspicion is that it was due to the presence of the TC as further studio testing produced results consistent with what I would normally expect without the TC.  And with the TC, the oof results also continued in studio – with a lot of difficulty in even achieving focus on objects unless the contrast was especially evident.  Even then, it jiggled a lot betwenn two focusing points, so the lesson I got in all of this is that when using a __________ (thought I was gonna say it, didn’t ya?_, don’t use the TC!

Hope everyone else had a great weekend too.  What did you shoot and what were your lessons learned?  Sound off in the comments with your own thoughts, ideas, tips, and tricks!  Until tomorrow – happy shooting!

Most of the time, it involves answers that include explanations of pixel based editing versus parametric editing, and lots of other technical reasons as to why certain things can’t happen in LR.  But sometimes (and this is the best part), I find out they are adding to their work flow because it can be done in Lightroom!  One of the most common ones is masking effects.  When I show people this, I almost always get a “Holy Cow!” or some other variation on the “cow” part.

So, today I thought I’d share a quick tutorial on how to implement masking edits in Lightroom.  Let’s take a look at the base image I am using here – a boat dock on Raquette Lake in the Adirondacks of upstate NY:

So, the dock here is a significant portion of the subject, but it’s way darker than the rest of the image, and really could be increased by a stop or two relative to the sky.  So, rather than round trip to PS, let’s see what we can do here.  I’ll start off with making a general masking selection of the entire area.  So I check the Adjustment Brush (near the top of the Develop Module on the far right hand side), and then at the bottom of the image (over on the left), there’s a box that says “Show Selected Mask Overly”.  I check that box.  Then I just start painting!

It’s a prety broad brush I’ve used, so we need to clean it up, as some of the water got caught and that will leave an ugly halo effect if I don’t take care of it.  So, to get more detailed selections completed, I zoom in, and then switch to erase mode while still showing the mask.  This is in the lower options of the Adjustment Brush, on the right hand panel – see where it has “A”, “B”, and “Erase”?  Click the erase and start painting again to undo the mask:

You, of course, will have to adjust the size, feathering and opacity of your brush to taste, and to accommodate your brushing technique as needed (hint:  Wacom tablets work better than regular mice or trackballs).  Once you’re finished with your refining of the mask, go ahead and uncheck the option to display the mask and see your results.

At this point you can actually do something else kind of cool – hover your mouse over the dot that is on display and then slide it to the left or right as you see the exposure increase and decrease for the selected area!  Pretty cool, eh?  This same technique works with other features in the adjustment brush, whether you are working on eyes, teeth, dodging, burning, or even skin softening.  The scrubby slider is a nice feature in here.  Then, finally, one thing I’ll do is make a side-by-side comparison of the image in a before and after mode to make sure my changes aren’t too garish or over the top (you can do a side-by-side comparison, top and bottom comparison and even split the screen between the two for a more detailed look):

Looks pretty good for this quick tutorial…and here’s the final image after our masking edits are done:

Now I grant you that this is probably not a portfolio image, but it hopefully was helpful in illustrating how you can mask and edit your photos inside of Lightroom without having to do the round trip as often to Photoshop!

Like this tip/trick?  Got any other comments, questions, or curiosities of how to leverage Lightroom more in your own work flow?  Sound off in the comments!  Have a great weekend and we’ll see you here back on Monday!  Happy shooting!

*****

P.S.  This is the final weekend before the contest wraps up, so if you’d like a chance to win a copy of Photo Rescue and a cool Canon coffee mug (courtesy of the folks at Photojojo), then don’t forget to get your image in soon!  Tick tock, tick tock!  Clock is ticking! Submit your images here!

Suffice to say, there is something special about black and white photography.  There always seems to be some powerful emotional draw about it.  I’m not sure if it’s the contrast between the bright and dark parts of the imagery, or some other intangible, but many people have tried black and white with varying effects.  I’ve even seen some people take it to a very powerful extreme in the form of IR photography, modifying cameras to achieve the look or going for it in their post production.  For that reason, I’d encourage you to consider adding some black and white to your portfolio, just for a sense of counterpoint from time to time.

I was dabbling a little with it over the weekend, and came out with several striking images myself – just going through various post production techniques.  Here’s a sampling of those images:

The thing with sunsets and star trails is that they need conflicting environments to really work.  Sunsets work best with clouds to catch the colors of the sky as the sun drops behind the horizon.  Star trails, on the other hand, need clear skies to really work…otherwise you get these streaky clouds that can often just become a globulus mess.

So, when we went out to Jones Pass, I wasn’t sure which to wish for.  The group had about ten people and ironically, split about 50-50 between guys and gals.  The gals ended up staying at a lower elevation for some fields, fences, and the like for sunset, while the guys went further up.  Where we ended up the sunset was pretty cool, and after some decent shooting, headed back down to meet with the ladies for some beer  beverages, cheese, crackers, chips and salsa while waiting for the moon to rise.

Of course, the moon rising meant star trails were unlikely as well, so when we had clouds for both sunset and moonrise, it turned out to be a good thing all around.  While some left early due to the cloud cover, a few of us remained to see how things shook down, and it was good that we did.  The heavy clouds broke into small patches that the moon would peak through.  With the pine trees in the foreground, it made for some pretty interesting compositions.  These are tricky to expose correctly, so you really do need to just get out and experiment, as I found success (and failure) with a number of different settings.

Here’s a few of my keepers from the excursion:

The educational takeaway from this post was a good one too:  when a shoot takes you down an unexpected turn, the best thing isn’t necessarily to walk away and shoot another day, it could be to change your game plan.  Star trails clearly were not gonna happen, but that didn’t mean there weren’t opportunities for photos…we just changed our goal, and it worked!

Like the shots?  Share your thoughts?  Got your own plans for the end of summer heading into autumn?  Feel free to share plans and ideas there as well.  In the meantime, keep on shooting and we’ll see you back here next time!  Have a great week!

I get this question a lot too.  The problem with any ultimatum, is that it’s going to invite bias and subjectivity.  Whether it’s lenses, cameras, computers, software or even media cards, there is no objective and universal vendor or manufacturer of media cards that is head and shoulders above the others in the field.  What I can tell you is that there are some who are notably superior.  I’ve not ranked these in any specific sort of order, but from my own experiences, these are the vendors that deliver a stable, high quality product with a good focus on QA:

• Lexar
• Sandisk
• Hoodman
• Ridata

If you get your media from them, by and large, you will probably be happy with the results.  I’ve heard stories of amazing success and durability anecdotes ranging from going through the clothes washer, to getting pounded by a 2000 pound vehicle.  One of the most amazing ones I read was someone who took a swim in the ocean, sweated in a sauna, and cooled off at a pool bar before realizing the media card wallet was in his swim trunks pocket – and all survived!  So, you can really pick and choose from the above and likely get quality results.  For my own tastes, I have used all of the above, but will say that I’ve noticed Lexar cards can be found for slightly less, either through promotions or sales for equivalent capacities.  Of course in the interests of full disclosure, they have also contributed to the contest giveaway series here, so that in and of itself could introduce some subjective bias on my part again.

So, there you have it!  On On Monday I looked at capacity considerations in Megabytes vs Megapixels, then later an article looked at speed transfer rates in How Fast Can You Shoot, and today, the last in this series of articles – the vendor portion of the equation.  There are, of course, other factors that could go into any buying decision, but this wasn’t about being exhaustive, rather being informative and sharing my own thoughts, insights, and experiences with media cards in photography.

Just a couple final reminders as we go into the weekend:

First up, the LDP Contest Series is underway, and I’ve added a 70-200 Special Edition from the folks at Photojojo to the giveaway.  Expect a review forthcoming shortly!  Make sure you enter for your chance to win.  Already in the prize list is a license for Photo Rescue software.  Enter here!

A new newsletter is forthcoming shortly, as is a new eBook!  This time it’s free, but only going to subscribers, so be sure to get signed up before that is released!  Special promos and discounts may also be in the newsletter for other products too, so if not signed up, you can get in on the action here.

Have a great weekend everyone, happy shooting, and we’ll catch up again next week….”on the flip side”!

For today, July 4th, 2011 – be happy and celebrate our freedom to take pictures!  Were it not for the events that bring us to celebrate this holiday, that may not be a right we enjoy!  The best way to celebrate?  Stop reading this blog (or any blog for that matter), go out and take a picture!  Be proud!

After I do this, I simply look up at the top of Lightroom while in Library mode to filter my collection for either picks or rejects. From my approach, I do the rejects first, then CMD/CTRL A to select all and delete! Then from the picks, I’ll go through and make whatever edits I need, even including round trips to Photoshop, Photomatix, or whatever 3^rd party software I happen to need or be using at the time.  This is always so much easier with Auto Advance enabled. I can fly through a shoot of 500+ images in about 20 minutes both to clean up the catalog, and make the picks of what will likely be in the final published album. Give it a whirl and see if it improves your work flow!

Got your own tips or tricks for Lightroom, Photoshop, or simple camera techniques? Share the love and sound off in the comments! Either that or share your own thoughts on what you think of the techniques I share here. Regardless, tips tricks and techniques like these are always designed to help you get through post production and do what we all love to do – get out and shoot some more! Happy shooting and we’ll see you back here next time!

So, after years and years of advice and instruction on maintaining hard drive redundancy, and the benefits of upgrading from time to time, I finally am following my own advice and upgrading my venerable Macbook Pro.  After a screamingly good deal came out for laptop disk drives locally, I went out and snagged a 750GB 7200 RPM hard drive from MicroCenter and brought it home.  I also picked up a copy of Mac OS X.6 since my previous upgrade came through a friends DVD who was no longer living in the area.  All told, I am in for a little over $100 – not too shabby!  However, as they say, the Devil’s in the Details!

I’ve changed out lots of hard drives in my time…after all, it’s no secret that I am a working IT professional – that’s my day job.  I’ve been doing that for about 10 years now, so hardware upgrades are pretty routine for me by this point – and I’ve got lots of tools to do it with too…everything from magnets, to phillips heads, to flat heads, to Torx bits for unique screws, and even a pair of nylon pliers.  But all of this based on a Windows background.  I’d never done much with Macs.  The mentality I’ve always had though is that hardware is hardware, right?  I did check out a few tutorial videos on YouTube and all the tools sounded like ones I own, so I jumped right in and off I went – until I got inside the Mac and was presented with two teeny tiny screws that required a Torx bit T6.  I went to my trusty toolbelt and saw my Torx bits went from T30 all the way down to T4 – awesome!  Until I noticed that one slot was missing – and sure enough, it was the dreaded T6!

A trip to Wal-Mart yielded no dice (it was getting late), so this morning off to Lowe’s I went.  I did find the T6 bit – but it was in a package of other bits and a nut driver – for $20:

Suffice to say, I was a bit (if you’ll pardon the expression), a bit torqued to be missing what was likely a 50 cent bit and having to spend nearly $20 to reassemble the Mac.  However, the eternal optimist, I put the positive spin on it – this is a nice kit I bought and the rest will probably go to Good Will since they are showing their age a bit.  Finally, of course, the educational moment for me:  I finally got my Torx in Order!

So, with the Mac now flying on a 7200rpm drive with plenty of storage, my weekend will likely be spent performing a fresh install of all my favorite apps.  Which ones do you think will go on there first?  I’ll give you a hint – the company name starts with A and ends with dobe!  The takeaway from all this – make sure you have your Torx in order – it is definitely a good motto to add to your motto book!  Have a great weekend everyone – just because I wont be shooting doesn’t mean you can’t so be safe, be smart, and…(wait for it)…

Happy Shooting!

1.  Turn and Burn:  So many photogs want to get facial expressions but in doing so, forget that most of the time we never see someone’s full face toward us.  It’s usually more of an angled shot, and that’s why it’s often recommended to turn your model to one side.  Some models will swear that one side is better than the other, but when it comes to photography, my thought is not so much shooting their best side, rather shooting an expressive side!

2.  Breathe! – That’s right, so often when a model poses, the natural inclination is to “hold that pose” which subconsciously puts them in a state where they hold their breath.  Help them remember by even telling them to do so.  “Turn here, great, now chin up, awesome, and just a little to the right, excellent!  perfect!  Hold that pose….!  Oh, and don’t forget to breathe!  Take a deep breath and now exhale…fill those lungs with air!”  Not only will it surprise the model, but you may get a more natural smile – and if you’re lucky, even a laugh!

3.  Encourage the lean! – When people start to get in posing mode, there is a tendency to lean forward.  Leaning into the front shoulder is common, as is leaning to accentuate cleavage for a woman.  If you think about it though, the forward lean does make everything look a little bigger!  That’s not always a desirable thing, so encourage your models to lean back just a tad.  Not too much as you don’t want them to fall over, but at least make sure their weight is shifted to the back leg.

The other thing to remember, (kind of sneak tip for you), is that modeling rules work for both men and women, so even though the ones here are all women, many of the same rules apply!  There ya have it – 3 tips to get you started with subject posing and portraiture!  Got your own tips?  Share ‘em in the comments!  Have a great weekend and happy shooting!

A friend of mine is going on an extended backpacking trip, and space is already tight, so he approached me to see if I had any ideas on how he should go about running his SLR for an extended period of time without being able to charge or re-charge.  A couple ideas came to mind:

1.  First, just buy a battery for each day – not the cheapest route, but the easiest way to ensure power is had all along.

2.  Second, what about renting these accessories?  If he has two of his own, then renting 5 would run half the cost…

3.  Another option was to get a battery grip.  Here he could use his own for as long as possible, then switch to disposable AA batteries…

4.  Last but not least, solar power…I’ve considered these and even saw them in REI – they were a tad expensive and I am not even sure how one would go about connecting these to an AC charger.  You’d need the solar panel, then a male USB/AC converter, then the charger.  And the other factor would be how much of a charge you could get off that…in addition to weather concerns.  What if it’s not all that sunny?

Given the options, my final recommendation was to go with option 3.  It’d be a sound investment, would actually make the gear easier to hold on to, and often more stable than going w/out.  He agreed and will likely buy based on my recommendation.  It’s always a good feeling to be helpful to others, but before he does, I asked him to hold off for a day or two if possible, because I wanted to throw the question out to the readership…what ideas does the audience have for my friend?

Some of the rental outfits I’ve pointed him to include:

• Borrow Lenses
• Rent Glass
• Lens Proto Go
• Lens Rentals

I’ve not had the benefit of experience with any of these vendors as we have a local camera rental shop that gives pretty good rates, so I always rent local from them.  Anyone have any experience with the national rental outfits?  Would really be helpful to get some external input here as he is leaving soon on his trip and could use some direction.  Sound off with your ideas!

Today though, I thought I’d share a little-known (or at least not-often-discussed) tip about the Canon EOS camera line.  Did you know that there is a silent shooting mode?  To enable this mode of shooting, simply switch your camera to the live shooting mode (where you compose your image using the LCD instead of the viewfinder), and when pressing the shutter, it’s much quieter than when normally pressed!  I knew about this, but honestly had not used it in quite a while.  It’s one of those “Oh yeah…..!” moments and when reviewing some material, I came across this from the owner’s manual.  Here’s the page directly from the 40D guide:

This is a very handy feature to have if you don’t want to interrupt an emotional moment during an event (say a bride and groom kissing, a baby sleeping, or some other such occasion).Got your own unknown or not-often-mentioned feature to share about your own gear?  Sound off in the comments!  Have a great weekend all and we’ll see you back here next week!

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Over the weekend I had the distinct pleasure of joining my colleague and good friend Kerry Garrison (who you probably know from Camera Dojo) out “in the wild” as we traveled to the Breezy Point Resort north of Brainerd MN (about three hours west and north if the twin cities) and spoke at their Northern Lights conference.  Through the coordination of our sponsor, Nations Photo Lab, and the conference hosts, MNNPA, we had a wonderful time.  Not only did the coordinators treat us like Rock Stars (we did give some autographs though), the attendees were quite engaging too.

The pre-conference sessions were set to start at 12, and our gig started at 5.  After a few of the logistical things were addressed that always come up with hosting conferences (they even had a live wedding going on one room next to us – what a great opportunity for a bride to get a wide range of photographers applying their trade), we got rolling.  A mere five minutes into our introduction, we paused to add even more tables and chairs to the room as more and more people started filing in.  For a regional conference to have a crowd this big during a pre-conference tech talk was quite surprising, but also very enjoyable.  So, what did we talk about?

The topic was none other than Lightroom 3!  We talked about how to navigate around, some of the benefits and tips and tricks of LR to soon realize that we are very fortunate to be in the position that we are.  It was humbling to realize that we really are on the cutting edge as so many people are using Lightroom 1, LR 2, or even earlier generations of Photoshop for their workflow.  Our discussion quickly was adapted to both demonstrate why and answer questions on what makes Lightroom 3 such a useful tool for both established and emerging photographers.

The questions raised were just wonderful ranging from very broad-ranging ones like “Why should wedding and portrait photographers care about upgrading their work flow?” to ones as detailed as “Can Lightroom manage PSD files?” and “How can I keyword photos during import?”  By the time our two hour segment was up we had barely covered the import process, a little bit on the adjustment brush, and the nuts and bolts of things like cropping, selective color, and black and white conversions.

Ours was the last segment for the day and we were then invited to the after party over in one of the adjoining houses.  Food snacks, drinks and such were all available and in abundance.  With the abundance of spirits, everyone was in great spirits themselves as we laughed and talked further with lots of people about photography stuff until the wee hours of the morning.  By 1am we were done though and needed to head back to our respective cities (myself to Denver and Kerry to Anaheim, CA).  So, during our road trip back to Minneapolis for the return flight, we decided to record this show for you.  Answers to all the questions above and more are here, as well as a few photo opp stops!  Thanks for taking the time to listen, hope you enjoy it and we’ll be back again soon with more photo goodness!

Catch up with Kerry:

• Blog
• Website
• Facebook
• Twitter

Follow me on:

• Facebook
• Twitter

Learn more about the Northern Lights Conference and MNPPA here:

• Northern Lights Photography Convention
• MNPPA

1.  Slow down! – Your shutter speed is the best way to blur water…taking things down to at least 1/4 of a second, if not longer.

2.  Steady as she goes – Use your tripod!  When shooting at slower shutter speeds, it helps immensely to be solidly mounted on a good set of legs.  Without getting into the pros and cons of various features and qualities of various tripods, if you are shooting a 10 second exposure of a beach at sunrise, you need legs!

3.  Control the light – What a lot of people run into when slowing their shutter is an invariably brighter exposure…to combat extra ambient light in the scene use ND filters to prevent those extra rays of light from hitting your sensor.  Polarizers can work too, but they are less effective as they can have some downsides to them including elimination of reflections, casting a specific tone on your entire image, and more.  When in doubt, always use ND filters.

As always, there’s more than one way to skin a can (or blur water)!  More involve shutter dragging with fill flash, and lots of others.  What ways do you use to blur and control waters’ appearance in your images?  Sound off in the comments with tips and tricks of your own! Happy shooting all, and we’ll see you back here again next time with more photo goodness!

Did You Know…?

1.  Fog is about 1 stop brighter than what cameras detect as 18% gray?  To compensate for shots taken in foggy conditions, adjust your exposure settings up by about 1/2 – 1 1/2 stops to compensate, otherwise you’ll get underexposed shots.

2.  Cameras are designed for right-handed people…the ergonomics are made to grip and adjust controls with your right hand.  Left-handed shooters have it twice as hard as the rest of us so double kudos to you!

3.  Pentax was actually the first camera vendor slated to release a full-frame DSLR camera, not Canon or Nikon!

4.  As you move light away from your subject, the output drops off by a factor of almost 2 to 1?  (It’s actually technically “double the distance, 3/4ths the output…)  Which means if you move your subject away, you need twice as much light at double the distance to equal the same output…

5.   To shoot a picture of the moon, use the Moony 11 Rule, just like the Sunny 16, but use f/11 and match the ISO to shutter speed

And since I was in Tucson this past weekend, here’s a couple holiday photos to tickle your funny bone…Christmas Tucson-Style:

Santa Turtle

Cactus Cap

Got your own DYK tips or photo nuggets?  Share ‘em here on the blog.  I’ll likely start doing this as a monthly feature and would love to hear the ideas, tips and tricks that others have to share as well.  In the meantime, keep on shooting, and we’ll see you back here again tomorrow!

The TEN stop filter project

A common problem with shooting landscape photos is that we are limited by the hours of available shoot times.  We all know that the best times to shoot are morning and evening for the best light.  The overhead light in the middle of the day just does not allow you to drop your shutter speeds much to get flowing water, or a sense of motion in clouds without assistance.  Another possible use could be a kissing engagement couple with some blurred motion behind them (like a train, the clouds, or whatever – suggesting a really long kiss!)

The only way to address that is through stacking MANY neutral density filters (ND).  They are made in various stops (defined by the stops of light they block), and stacking can get pretty costly.  There are some though that you can get that address multiple stops of light in one filter, like the Lee 10-stop filter.  Problem?  Cost!  (It’s $160 at B&H).  I learned a while ago about a way to make one yourself for as little as $20.00 though.  Here’s the process I used (let me also apologize for the image quality – some of these were taken with the Droid in low light and studio level shots wasn’t where my attention was…but you can hopefully get the gist from these):

Step One – Find a cheap filter at your local camera store.  These can be found for a dollar or so.  The one I used was found at a camera store for 50 cents.  A Hoya 85B orange filter (77mm).

Step Two – Place it on a paper towel, and wrap a second one over the top (this is for your protection and easier cleanup)

Step Three – Get your favorite hammer out…

Step Four – Do not just go to town….whacking away crazily is not needed.  Just a couple firm taps until you hear the glass give way…

Step Five – Once the glass is broken, a few strategic taps around the edges should pop most of the glass out of the filter ring:

Step Six – Wrap up paper towels of broken glass and discard.  Then check the filter ring and make sure it  is free of any glass shards (I used canned air)…

Step Seven – Buy a welder’s replacement lens from your local hardware/tool store, or perhaps a local welder shop.  If you prefer, there are online retailers that sell this stuff too.  The problem there is that the cost of shipping quickly ratchets up the price.  I found some Hobart #9 at a local store for under $2.50 per pack and some Lincoln Electric #10 at Lowe’s for $5 a piece.

Steps 8a – I tried first to mark a circle with tape and use a Dremel with a regular cutting wheel to slowly cut to the ring dimension.  It resulted in a pretty bad crack through the center of the glass, rendering it unusable, so I had to start over.

Step 8b – I tried a second piece of glass with a scoring hand tool.  Since the welding glass is about 1/4” thick, it takes several score to make it weak enough at this breakage point to snip off cleanly.  My efforts did not result in clean snips, and ultimately, the glass cracked from my impatience (so, add patience to the list of materials needed!).

Step 8c- I went to purchase a 3rd piece of the cheap stuff.  This time, I called around and found a place willing to try to cut the glass (everyone will ask and believe the glass is tempered, when in my case – neither was).  I took a sheet of the cheap stuff into them and explained what I was trying to do, then asked what size they could cut to.  They had a 2 1/2” hole saw and a 3” whole saw with diamond tips for glass cutting.  We did the calculations and realized that 77mm is almost 3 inches exactly.  He warned me that the saw itself would take a portion out.  Thinking there was a lip on the interior of the filter, I said go ahead (after all, it’s only $2.50 here right? )

He was able to cut it into a nice circle.  I knew it would be close so thanked him and asked how much I owed.  He smiled and said “No charge – give me a plug or a print if it works out!”.  Since I am happy to either way, the name of the place is CNC Glassworks in Arvada CO! Super nice folks and great attitude toward customer service!  I am sad to admit though that the hole he cut out was just a shade too small.  I may possibly attempt to sand this down to the next filter size in my gear bag  glass and on testing, but it did prove to be too small.

Step 9 – I now knew that I needed to either find a diamond-tipped hole saw and cut it myself, or find someone that had a 3 1/2” hole saw that would be willing to use it on my glass.  A little bit of Google research showed that Bosh makes a Diamond Hole Saw in the 3 1/8” size.  Problem?  None, if you want to pay $60 or more for the tool itself  (the cheapest I found was around $60 at Ohio Power Tool, and locally through a company called Tool King for $70).  Even if it was half this price, the DIY cost saving approach is quickly ratcheting up.  So, a little more in-depth research was required.

Step 10 – Sure enough, after I did some more research via telephone and email, I found a manufacturer  online (THK Diamond Tools) that sold the equipment.  I was able to purchase the diamond coated hole saw bit for $10 (+ $10 shipping).  Since I don’t own a table drill, a quick trip back to CNC Glassworks with a 4th piece of the cheap stuff resulted in in a good cut.  I have a piece of the good welder’s glass (the #10 Hobart one for $5 at Lowe’s), but wanted to test the results first.  The end result of the cut now fit perfectly into the filter ring!

Step 11 – Now, I just took a little clear silicon glue applied to the inner circle of the filter ring and snugged the new “filter” into place.  After letting it dry for about a day, it is now ready to shoot!  (Unfortunately, my tripod is still pending repairs, so the final results will have to wait a while longer – but the project is officially complete!

Supplies/Tools Used:

• Filter Ring ($1-$10 depending on where you get them)
• Welder’s Replacement Glass (ranges in price from $2.50 – $5 depending on market – ymmv)
• Paper Towels (50 cents)
• Hammer (??? had this forever)
• Safety Glasses (required for any DIYer – but $3 from Lowes if you dont own a pair)
• Safety gloves (again, required for any DIYer – but $3-$5 from Lowes if you dont own a pair)
• Glass Cutter ($3)
• *Dremel with cutting bit (ETA – if you have the time and $, get the diamond cutting bit – you may have more success than I did… and sanding bit)
• Strong glue (to hold glass in filter ring after completion – $5)
• Masking tape ($2)
• *If you want to go the more “professional route” and have a table drill, or know someone who does, the cost for the$20 for the diamond tipped 3″ bit from THK is $20.)

*You don’t need both of these, but you should have either one or the other.

Project Time Frame – 1-4 hours total work time, 2-4 days total project time.

So, in totaling all the costs of the project, I probably invested $40.  This did involve multiple test cuts which you can avoid though, and if your area has a glass cutting shop with a 3″ diamond tipped bit, then another $20 can be saved.  This could drop your cost to less than $20 if you only need one cut and already have the materials.  Either way, considering the cost of a Lee 10 stop $160 filter, I’ve saved $120 in my project by going the DIY Route!!

Keep in mind that these filters will leave a green tint, so you’ll have to do a little bit of post processing, but if I spend ten minutes in post, that’s worth the savings to me – especially since this is an extremely unusual type of use piece of glass, and hard to justify that kind of expense.  Give it a whirl and share your own shots in the LDP Flickr pool!  Happy shooting and we’ll see you here again tomorrow!

So, for starters – I’d suggest that you educate yourself on how to shoot stock, which means reading resources like Rob’s book.  You also need to practice, and be aware of trends in the market place.  You also need to be prepared for something else, and that is rejection! Even the best photographers have images rejected from iStock.  It’s going to happen, so get used to it.  Images can be rejected for any one of a number of reasons.  By far, one of the most common ones I’ve seen is worded as follows:

“This image appears to be over-filtered/over-processed which has affected the image quality. This may include Photoshop filters & effects (over-sharpening, excessive adjustments to levels, curves, contrast, hues, gaussian blurs, saturation, added textures, noise reduction…) or other manipulations.”

What can be frustrating about this is that you may have applied very minimal processing, and applied no filters whatsoever, but your images are still rejected.  The reason?  The next part of the rejection description:

“Inspectors judge images based on quality, composition and usability.”

The key is not to worry if this happens – it can happen to anyone, and images can be rejected for any of many reasons.  Here’s a couple examples of photos I’ve had rejected from iStock during this test phase:

Blue Water Slide

Prescriptions

Beach Therapy

One thing I’ve always tried to do when assembling work for stock is to make sure there is negative space available.  This allows buyers to have their text or content overlay on the image.  Plus, it’s a pretty effective compositional technique – which I’ve talked about in the past…for more details, you can read that full article here.

Here are some other suggestions and approaches for shooting stock:

1. Try and avoid brand names.  If someone is wearing Nike shoes, a Champion sweatshirt, or other easily recognizable logos, forget it.  First off, you can’t use them without permission, second, the clean-up work required in post degrades the image quality, and third, it’s just not worth the time to remove when you consider that stock is not just about the quality of photos, but to make any decent revenue, it’s also about quantity of photos!
2. Incorporate people into your work.  This doesn’t mean having someone put on a headset and pretend to be a customer service rep (because this has been done too much already).  It does mean to be creative and use people to demonstrate things – like lifting weights, or singing into a microphone, or repairing a computer.  These are the types that typically will do well in sales.
3. Plan ahead.  If you are thinking of shooting your Halloween themed photos now and getting them online for sales possibilities, then expect the purchases to start happening around August or September of next year.  Buyers of stock work usually are working ahead of schedule to line up ad campaigns, and other uses well in advance, so you need to be publishing your work on their schedule, not in real time.
4. Make sure you get model releases if people are recognizable in the images.  Stock work requires it, and if you don’t have it – then forget even submitting.  For more details on what model releases are appropriate and what should be included, visit this location where iStock gives you one to use!

That’s just a couple tips for how to get started in stock photography.  For more information, go to the pros that already do it, and know the industry much better than I.  As mentioned at the beginning - Rob Sylvan is a great resource as an iStock reviewer and author.  Other people you may want to keep tabs on include Nicolesy (who I’ve talked to here on the podcast series!).

Got your own tips and ideas on how to shoot stock?  I’d love to hear what others think too, so sound off in the comments.  Happy shooting and we’ll see you back here again tomorrow!