- Senior portraits: finishing Mandy’s and then I’ll have a second shoot later in the summer with a high school senior. I’m working to further finesse my outdoor portrait technique, so you can expect some tips and pointers on lighting, posing, etc.

- Mandy’s Graduation Party: I’m listing this one here, but it’s by no means an official shoot.  This is going to be candid shots throughout the afternoon, until either the natives refuse to let me chronicle anymore of their antics, or I’m…um…unable to handle the camera anymore.

- Mid-Atlantic Air Museum’s WWII Weekend: I love airshows, but this will be the first one I’ve been to in years, and the first time I’ll really get to try my hand at aviation photography.  WWII warbirds are some of the most beautiful aircraft ever built, and the chance to photograph these living legends is thrilling.  I’m doing a lot of reading to get ready for this one – it’s gonna’ rock!

- Summer Vacation: taking a week this summer and heading off somewhere.  The destination is still vague.  It’ll most likely be Vermont, with the possibility of quick trips both around the state, and maybe even to neighboring regions.  (I’m itching to revisit Franconia Notch in New Hampshire, for instance.)  It’s an actual vacation, with the goal of getting away and relaxing.  But there’ll be photos, at at least one day dedicated purely to photography.

- NE Strobists GTG II: The first workshop back in February was a huge success and a ton of fun, and everybody said they’d like to do it again.  So I’m looking into options and am going to see if I can’t put something together for this Autumn.  Last time we booked a hotel conference room, which worked out, but wasn’t very inspiring (we ended up outside on a loading dock, shooting models atop dumpsters).  This time I’m going to find a much cooler setting that we can use for a more environmental portrait look.

- Specialist at the Park: I’ve accepted a position as the 2010-2011 Specialist at Salt Springs State Park.  Starting in June and running for a full year I’ll be hosting a series of 5-7 workshops at the park, where I’ll cover everything from basic camera use to more advanced/specific topics, such as landscape techniques.  I’ll also be photographing some of the Park’s events, and will be putting together a gallery collection to be displayed next Spring.

SUNRISE FROM THE FIELD AT SALT SPRINGS

• Review of my new Canon 17-35mm L lens
• Easter Sunday: some photos with the not-quite-in-laws
• More bird/wildlife photos with the spring migration
• Large family portrait session (the one that was put off last month)
• At least one new model session
• A senior portrait session
• Some insights on the business end of photography

SUNRISE FROM THE FIELD AT SALT SPRINGS

You know the one I mean.  The church hall, the school gym, the community center.  The name changes but the room is always the same, some variety of rent-a-space with a yellowed acoustic panel ceiling and flickering fluorescent tube lights (extra points if a third of the tubes are burnt out), where the decor consists of plastic tablecloths and battered folding chairs.  The place where, without fail, they turn the lights out at some point in the name of “atmosphere,” usually at the exact moment you’re trying to capture.

Birthday by candle light

In this case it was a fireman’s hall, and actually rather nice as such places go.  The walls were a bright off-white, the ceiling wasn’t 26′ above, and there were blinds on the windows.  Less than idea, but manageable, especially if you’re bringing in a couple of off-camera lights to beat the ambient into submission.  Get fancy with a gelled BG light and a regular key light, and it might even look pretty cool.

Suffice to say I wasn’t there to shoot the party officially.  This time I was just the guest-with-a-camera, figuring on shooting a few frames.  I had the 400D, the 50mm f/1.8 and the 70-210mm f/4, along with the 580EX.  The idea was to come prepared with low-light lenses, then use the Speedlite to kick a little extra punch into the scene.

The best laid plans…

As group shots go, this one isn’t portfolio material.  But it’s worlds better than what the birthday girl’s mom was going to get with her point & shoot.  The challenges here were twofold; getting everyone squeezed together so they’d fit in the 50mm, and getting enough light on them.

[As an aside, if you've ever tried to get a couple dozen teenagers into formation for a group shot, then you understand the urge to beat them over the heads with a folding chair, like you see on those wrestling commercials.  The little jerks are "too cool" to be shuffled into position by the directing mom, and respond only marginally better to the volunteering photographer.  This is why I hate group work...]

So short people sitting in the front, tall ones on chairs in the back, everyone packed tight, shoulder to shoulder.  Their attention span already expired, teenage rebellion about to flare, I climbed up on a chair as far from them as I could get, bounced the flash off the ceiling at full power, f/8 and be there.  Photo done, go back to being “cool,” kids.  (Wow, do I feel old now!)

Of the three frames there was one keeper.  The edges got real tight, at least one person blinked, but from an off-the-cuff photo that will end up posted on Facebook and maybe even printed as a 4×6, it’s more than enough.  Mom and the birthday girl think it looks great and love me for saving the day.  Everyone’s happy.  I can get some cake now.

Of course, being a photographer, I can’t just sit there and make small talk with the adults for the rest of the time.  I kept shooting as moments presented themselves, mostly frames of Mandy’s little sister trying to dance with the Big Kids.  This is the perfect time to play around and practice some different techniques.

Any of us can take this shot – dial the flash up to full, fast shutter speed to freeze the action, and POW:

The bounced Speedlite takes a folding chair of its own and beats the ambient senseless.  Full-motion stop, everyone is lit evenly, and the photo looks like a thousand other bounce-flash party shots.  Boring.  So let’s play…  What makes this dance floor scene interesting?  Well, the girls dancing, of course.  So let’s translate that.

Speedlite on second-curtain sync (where it lives anyway), drag the shutter speed down as slow as I can handhold the telephoto without camera shake, dial down the Flash Exposure Compensation (FEC) until it’s getting along with the ambient instead of killing it.  Now the photo depends entirely on the dancers, who’s moving and who stands still.  The ones in motion blur out, the ones standing out there stay sharp, and it’s that mix that gives us something interesting.

Same idea here, except we’re focusing on the contrast between the little sister and the Big Kids, so we only show the Big Kid’s legs, while little sister runs off to find a new dancing partner.  Still dragging the shutter, still flicking light instead of blasting it.

Are these phenomenal party photos?  Eh, not so much.  They’re fun, the birthday girl will enjoy them, but there’s nothing amazing happening here.  This is guest-turned-photog, advanced Uncle Bob stuff.  But it’s good practice and makes you stop and think about what you could have done if you had come to really shoot.

If I were going to come in to actually shoot this party, this is how I think I’d have done it.  For starters, I’d kick the ambient down about 2-stops, then add in two (maybe even three) Speedlites with bold, warm colored gels and grids.  The gels will give a colorful club-like look to the scene and the grids will keep the flash beams tight, like spotlights, as they come down from a high angle and cut through the crowd of dancers, who will be standing in a circle in the middle of the floor.  (Why teen girls always dance like this is beyond my understanding – but they always do, bunched up in a circle, barely room to move, like a group of penguins on an ice floe.)

Set aside another Speedlite, this time gelled dark blue and bounced off the ceiling over the dancing crowd.  This will add another layer of overall color and contrast for the gridded lights to cut through, enhancing the club-atmosphere.  Between the two layers of colored light, there should be enough photons bouncing around to provide the basic exposure.  Some on-camera fill will help highlight the subjects as you shoot them (with a 1/4 to 1/2 CTO gel preventing the fill light from looking washed out and dull).

The white balance will need to be set manually; daylight might work well.  (If you leave it on auto, it will try to compensate for the gels.)

Planning this one out, it sounds like a lot of fun – hopefully I’ll get the chance to try it soon!

Because you can’t really get great photos with one of those.

Yeah.  Right.

The fact of the matter is, today’s P&S cameras most certainly can take better photos than most people realize.  Especially if you’re able to get the camera off the Auto mode and do some of the thinking for it.  A few basic techniques and you can take all the memory photos that you want – photos that you can show people later on and actually see detail, as opposed to pointing to specks and saying that’s such-&-such a character.

The first step is to get the camera into a manual mode.  We’re dealing with a predominately dark arena here, illuminated only by theatrical/mood lights and spotlights.  The theatrical lights aren’t very bright, since their primary goal is to project color.  (If you ever worked with flash gels you know that the color becomes more saturated at lower power levels; higher power levels wash out color and simply go white.)

So when it comes to metering, the theatrical lights should fall 1-2 stops underexposed.  It’s the spotlights that you’re really aiming for.  These are the lights illuminating your subjects.  They are specially designed to track the character of the moment and draw your attention to the storyline.  So follow them – set your variables based on the reading off the spots.

To do this, you’re really looking at either M or Av modes.  Av could be helpful, since your minimum aperture will change as you zoom your P&S, and because the intensity of light will vary depending on the surface the spots are on, how they interact with the theatrical lights, and how they interact with each other.  If you are going to go for Av, however, you’ll need to program in a negative exposure compensation.  Remember, the camera is metering the entire scene for 18% gray, unless you have a spot meter.  18% gray will make the entire scene too bright; negative exposure compensation will maintain the blacks, the saturation in the theatrical lights, and will let you see the character within the beam of the spotlight.

Personally I prefer using Manual mode, with the aperture set for its widest value at the maximum zoom setting – setting it such assures that the balance isn’t thrown out when you zoom either way.  From there set the ISO, and be prepared to have it higher than you might want.  In this case, I had it set to 800.  Now I had plenty of shutter speed, I could have turned it down to 400, maybe even 200, and still hand-held the camera, especially with the IS built in.  But the problem is, this is a performance with quickly moving performers – a shutter speed less than 1/250 or so will start to show motion blur.  At ISO 200, the performers won’t be crisp – they’ll be soft and very blurred.

Two more things to assure some level of success.  First, turn off your flash.  You ever watch the Olympic Games and see the stands awash in flash-bulb explosions?  It’s quite a site, very impressive to watch, but all those flashes are completely and utterly useless to the people firing them off!  You go out and buy a Nikon SB-900 Speedlight, the most top-of-the-line hotshoe flash made by any of the camera manufacturers, and it’s maximum range is 200mm.  Guess what?  From the stands to the playing field is a lot more than 200mm.

The flash built into your P&S camera does not have a 200mm range.  You’re lucky if it’s range is 85mm worth of concentrated light.  These flashes are puny and underpowered, and are meant only to throw light on nearby objects.  So when your’e sitting in your arena seats blasting away with that flash, all you’re doing is draining your batteries and making the person next to you blind.  Not a single photon of that light is reaching the performance floor and doing anything to your exposure.  Turn if off!

And second, if your camera has the option for Manual Focus mode, use it.  Most P&S cameras suffer from slow auto-focus speed, even in strong sunlight.  In performance lighting conditions, your camera will struggle, grinding from one end of the range to the other before giving up.  Throw it in manual mode and set the focus for infinity.  P&S cameras have huge depth of field simply due to the physics of their sensors and lenses; at the ranges you’re going to be using in an arena, unless you’re in the front row, your focus will be at infinity.  And if you’re using one of the newer cameras that shows a magnified section of the screen to verify manual focus, you’ll be able to see for yourself that this is true in use.

So there you have it, some simple ways to “beat the man” and get decent photos at an event with your P&S.  They probably won’t be amazing shots, they certainly won’t be as good as you could do with a SLR and proper lighting – but they’ll be much better than you’d expect, and worlds better than the guy sitting next to you will get, shooting in Auto mode.

Photos shot with Canon Powershot SX120 IS, ISO 800, 1/250, f/4.9

The draw of this particular weekend in November, which is making this an annual pilgrimage, is the Remembrance Day Parade.  Although reenactors can nearly always be found somewhere in Gettysburg, this is one of the two weeks each year when the town is full of them (the other time being the anniversary of the battle itself).

The parade itself would be best shot with a full DSLR and a long lens; in fact, I spied one gentleman at the end of the parade route setup with just that gear, tripod mounted for ease of use over the hour or so that the parade lasts.  From my own experience, 200mm is probably the shortest length you want on the long end.  Unfortunately, this year I opted for ease of movement over quality of equipment and came armed with just the G10.  Let me blunt; great little camera that it is, the G10 is not suitable for this kind of work.

First off, the focus speed is far too slow and it is nearly impossible to pick a focus point on-the-fly.  Second, the max zoom is too short.  And third, the burst speed is far too slow.  I was able to get a handful of images that were good enough to bother posting on here, and a couple I’m even pleased with.  But the simple fact is, a full SLR and telephoto lens would have worked much, much better.

The trick, as I finally figured it out, is to more or less forget about the masses of men marching down the street and instead use a long lens to focus in on an individual at a time.  In each group there is at least one character, a reenactor who stands out from the others for his expression, costume, or attitude.  For the best images, I think I’d need to isolate that character, which was nearly impossible with the setup I had with me, although these start to come close:

The other tip I have to remember for next year is to stand on the other side of the street.  For the last two years, the group I’ve gone down with have insisted on standing so that we face the side of the street facing the McDonald’s and Chinese buffet, which make terrible backgrounds that I am constantly fighting to keep out of my shots.  Which is stupid, since I could have crossed the street and shot back the other way, where my backdrop would have been an empty field with some trees – a much more natural setting altogether.

Therein lies the problem with taking a trip and trying to play tourist and photographer at the same time; divided attentions and purpose result in weaker images.  I was luck with a few, but it frustrates me to know that I could have done better if I had been able to focus just on the images.  That’s why there’s next year.

On a final note, I stuck with B&W for all the parade images; it helps hide the backgrounds, and it appeals to my historical aesthetics.

General Lee at the head of the Confederate troops.

Whenever you do a gig, things are bound to fall apart somewhere. In this case, it was the portrait shoot. I was reminded of the comic “Garfield Minus Garfield,” where the lasanga-eating cat is removed from the comics, leaving his owner talking to himself like a depressed nut. Except in my case, it was “have your photo taken with the mascot…minus the mascot.” That’s right, the guy in the costume failed to show, so for an hour and a half I simply shot family portraits against the backdrop. When a stand-in guy finally showed up in costume, things picked up – and everybody looked less foolish.

You’ve got to roll with the punches at these things. Ask around and you’ll find plenty of stories about photographers who take charge and smooth over bumps in a wedding, or manage to re-plan a senior portrait shoot at the last minute, or find a way to recover from someone else’s mistake. That’s what seperates the good photogs from the paid-by-the-hour schmucks. I could have thrown up my hands and sat around until the mascot showed up, but that wouldn’t have helped me any, and more importantly, it wouldn’t have helped my client.

Not all of the alumni got their photo taken with the mascot – but at least those who came over wanting a photo got a nice portrait with their family or friends.

On the technical side, I shot these portraits using a single strobe again, continuing the trend I started with some senior portraits a while back. The strobe had a Sto-Fen diffusion over the head and a shoot-through umbrella, for maximum diffusion. (Both diffusers ate up light, so I had it at full power.) With the strobe positioned to my right, overhead and perhaps 30 degrees off-center, it was was able to light the people very nicely, while still letting the background fall off a little.

The rest of the day was straight-forward. I shot two receptions, both with the 430EX on-camera and bounced off the ceiling, with some + compensation dialed in. The first reception was in a dark, cave-like room, which required more patience. The second was in a very well lit room with lots of windows, which made the whole thing much easier.

I finished the day at a tailgate event, with nice late afternoon light coming down. A touch of fill flash on a couple of shots, and it all worked out well. Overall, the day went smoothly, and I’m always thankful for that. Even the debacle with the mascot wasn’t enough to really throw anything off track – photos got made and people should be happy.

I want to note here that I shot the whole day with my Canon 400D, an older model in the Digital Rebel series. All of the indoor shots were at ISO 400 (the outdoor shots at ISO 200). For a lower-series camera, I have always been impressed by the performance of the 400D – it goes to show that a correctly exposed scene, even at higher ISOs, can look good without using a 5D Mk II.

I’ve photographed Homecoming for the past three years, while I was still a student. I even covered many of the same events from year to year – people have started to look for me at some of them, assuming that I’m just part of it. This year, however, the schedule has been changed up (and may be changed yet again before go-time – that’s the nature of these things).

So here’s what I’m scheduled for:

- alumni photos with the mascot

- an afternoon reception

It’s a light schedule, especially compared to past years where I’ve spent the entire day running around campus. But that doesn’t mean it will be a milk run. The first part, alumni photos with the mascot, is slated to last for several hours. How that goes will depend on the logistics of it, and since I don’t yet know the details, I’ll plan for both possibilities.

Option 1 is that the mascot will be stationary, probably with some sort of background, and the alumni will come to me. This would be the ideal approach, as it will let me setup one, possibly two, strobes and work in a stationary space.

Option 2 is that the mascot and I will be roaming, taking photos as we come upon alumni. This transient nature eliminates the stationary strobe setup; now I’m looking at on-camera flash bounced off a ceiling or wall – or if all else fails, mixed with ambient for a bit of fill.

The afternoon reception pretty much equates to a grip-and-grin. The real trick at events like this is to take a scene that is not very visually interesting and make it interesting – or at the very least, capture interesting moments. What I’m likely looking at is a large group of people at several tables, milling about, socializing, and of course the obligatory series of speakers at a podium.

Lighting via on-camera flash, bounced off the ceiling, is the quick standard here. But if I’m going to have the strobes and stands with me already, it might be worth it to set one up in each corner, aim it inward at the ceiling, and do some major light bouncing.

So what will I be taking?

- DSLR body (hopefully the 7D, but it probably won’t be in yet)

- Canon 28-135mm lens

- Canon 17-40mm lens

- Speedlite 430EX (for on-camera use)

- 3x Nikon SB-25 Speedlights (for off-camera use)

- associated light stands, umbrellas, etc

- wireless transmitter system

- lots of extra batteries for everything

- notebook & pen (for the all-important cutline info)

As gigs go, this one won’t be very complicated. Which means it should be all that much easier to concentrate on making excellent images, without having to worry about bizarre conditions or complex mixes of gear. Photos to follow soon!

The pros: lots of people, lots of interesting candid moments, energy, activity, good cheer, interesting environment.

Cons: poor lighting, movement, shyness, and Uncle Bob with his new DSLR who wants to follow you around and ask a million questions.

It is definitely a challenging setting, but the potential for great images makes it worthwhile.  Here’s a gallery of shots I took last night, at a surprise birthday party for my girlfriend’s mother.  The party was outside under a tent in the backyard.  The party began in late afternoon and went well into the night.

I already listed general pros and cons above, but lets talk more specifically – it was a sunny day outside, so lots of good light.  Problem is, that good light bounced off the green grass and up under the tent, giving everything a green cast.  Also, the tent naturally kills most of that good sunlight, which is a mixed blessing, as it evens out the dramatic contrast.  I shot everything with my Canon 430EX Speedlite mounted on-camera, with a Sto-Fen diffuser dome on.  Now I’ve made it clear in the past that I hate on-camera lighting, but the circumstances called for it; I was there to enjoy the party, so I didn’t want to spend the whole time messing around with lightstands and umbrellas.  Also, the combination of the Sto-Fen dome and bounce light off the tent ceiling made for a diffused source that didn’t look too bad, and it canceled out the green cast on the subjects (the green cast remains in the BG of course, but who cares – that’s how it looked).

Of course, once the sun went down, and the dancing began outside of the tent, the Sto-Fen went out the window; at that point, I pulled down the wide angle adapter on the Speedlite, which gives me a 14mm spread of light, and switched to direct flash.  Still not my favorite, but I was out of options.  The direct light, with such a wide spread, in E-TTL mode with no exposure compensation is still a direct, on-axis source, but it’s a very wide & somewhat weak source.  Combined with a wide angle lens (Tokina 12-24), I was able to get very close to the subjects.  This means that they’re lit well, but the light falls off very fast, and the BG goes darker – as it should.

This was the perfect chance for me to try a techique that I read about in McNally’s book, and have seen done by National Geographic shooters many times.  To keep some ambient light in the photo (if only in the twilight sky), as well as to capture the energy in the scene, I slowed the shutter speed down to about 1/13 @ f/4, ISO 400.  Without a flash, this would result in a photo too dark to be useful.  Add in the flash, and the near subjects pop back up, and the BG still gets some extra light.  

The slow shutter speed means two things: camera shake (negated by the wide angle), and subject-motion.  In simple terms, as the people move they’re going to blur out.  Enter the flash, which not only lights things, but also freezes them.  The real trick here is to make it look natural.  On the default settings, the shutter opens & the flash fires at the same time – the subjects are frozen, and then for the rest of the exposure, if they move they’ll appear to ghost forward from their flashed position.  This look weird at best, and generally just bad.

Here’s the trick, and it’s pretty simple.  Get into your camera & flash settings, and switch them to “2nd Curtain” mode.  This means that instead of firing when the shutter opens, the flash will fire just before the shutter closes.  With fast shutter speeds, you’ll never notice the difference, but with slow ones, your subjects will ghost along until the flash freezes them at the end.  The resulting effect is much more natural looking, and can give you some very cool effects.

I could have titled this post “Making the Most of Direct Flash at Night.”  Or, for the general point-and-shoot party photographer, “How to make your Facebook photos suck less.”  

Low-light party photos are never going to look like they were shot in the studio.  And if you tried to, you’d ruin that unique party atmostphere.  Far, far better to preserve that atmostphere and struggle along with a single light (although you could move it off-camera if you had an assistant to shuffle it around for you).  Instead of trying to sterilize the scene, work with it – embrace some movement and make the direct flash work for you.

 * Wedding in an Orchard – a booking for a wedding gig in late May, to take place outdoors in an orchard.  I’m greatly looking forward to this one, as it ought to provide ample opportunity for great images, as well as a lot of fun.

 * Activity shots for a local college – the client wants shots of the students performing various tasks, and he wants them BIG!  We’re talking 16×20 prints to hang in the reception and admissions areas.  This is the sort of gig I love, where the action is genuine and interesting, but with more room for creativity than straight photojournalism.

 * 3rd Annual DPC Ricketts Glen GTG and BBQ: the local(ish) DPC crowd is gathering for their annual hike of Ricketts Glen State Park in June.  Having learned our lesson the first year, we leave cars at BOTH ends of the trail, so once we’ve hiked down the falls trail and eaten, we don’t have to hike back up!  Always a great time, and who doesn’t like shooting waterfalls, anyway?

 * Vermont in Summer – in July, a week-long trip back to the Green Mountain State (where I grew up) with a definite focus on photography time.  Revisiting some old places and breaking new ground when I head north to Mt. Mansfield and Smuggler’s Notch.  Be sure to check out www.therovingphotographer.com for detailed info on the different locations!