August 31st, 2008 , 2 Comments »
Adobe Lightroom quickly became a favorite fool among photographers. It’s easy to use interface, it’s features for the management of large amount of photographs and it’s powerful possibilities to work with Raw files from all important cameras (including all DSLRs from Nikon and Canon) dramatically improved the productive of many photographers.
A few weeks ago, Adobe Lightroom 2 was released and several books covering the new version have already been published or will be published soon.
The first one is The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Book: The Complete Guide for Photographers by Martin Evening. And it’s probably all you ever need to fully master Lightroom 2.
The book has about 600 pages full of information about Lightroom 2.
The author explains all the main modules of Lightroom 2 (Library, Develop, Printing, Slideshow and Web). The chapters are very detailed and explain everything you need to know. Many tips and notes on the sidebars contain keyboard shortcuts and other useful information.
After an introduction into Lightroom 2 and a chapter on how to import your pictures, the author explains in great detail how to use the Library module and how you can organize your photos. Martin gives many tips on how to best manage your images and also explains how he does it. But he never tells you that there is only one way and recognizes that every photographer will use it’s own system.
My favorite chapter is the one on the Develop module. In many books about Lightroom (or Adobe Camera Raw) you can either find explanations what all the controls do or how to apply them but rarely do you learn why you use a tool in a certain way. In this book, the author not only explains in detail what a tool does and how to use it but also why you would use the tool in a certain way (for example, the book contains the best explanation on how to set the Blacks in an Raw image that I’ve ever found in a book). All important parts of the Develop module are explained with step by step examples in which the author explains how and why he is applying the tools in the Develop module to improve an image.
A separate chapter covers black and white images and another how to apply sharpening and noise reduction. Again, I found the explanations in those chapters better than in most other books I’ve read.
Although Lightroom 2 is very powerful and you probably won’t need Photoshop as much as when you used to work with Lightroom 1, there are many situations when using Photoshop is still necessary. In a chapter of it’s own, Martin covers all you need to know about how to use Lightroom 2 and Photoshop together. It helps that the author is not only an expert in Lightroom but also in Photoshop.
The chapters on printing and presenting your work are equally good as the other chapters already mentioned.
Two appendixes cover the Lightroom 2 preferences and settings.
Beside all this, Martin also covers a lot of advanced topics like shooting tethered, using GPS or working with audio notes (if your camera supports it).
For those who also use Bridge regularly, the author also explains in detail how to use Bridge and Lightroom 2 together and how those two programs work together.
What’s not to like? The only thing that one could complain about is the fact that some screenshots of the Lightroom 2 dialog boxes or menus are not completely sharp. But this is the case only for a few screenshots and really no problem. Maybe this is just a printing problem in my specific specimen of the book.
This is one of the best technical books I’ve read in a long time (and I’ve read a lot!). The writing is easy to follow and always detailed. I read the book during one weekend and I learned a lot about Lightroom, even after I’ve been using version 1 for quite a while now.
If you want only one book on Lightroom 2 and want to understand what your are doing instead of just doing it, this is your book. This is the bible for every advanced user of Adobe Lightroom 2.
Highly recommended!
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August 30th, 2008 , No Comments »
Recently I did a lot of close-up photography with my Canon EF 300mm f/4L IS USM + 1.4x extender and a 25mm extension tube from Canon.
That’s not the most usual combination for close-up photography, but has several advantages:
1. Long working distance:
Due to the long focal length (420mm) I can work at a longer distance from your subject than with a macro lens like my Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro or my Canon EF 180mm f/3.5L Macro. This is very useful when working with shy insects or when working from a trail and I don’t want to leave the trail when photographing subjects that are a short distance away from the trail (I might want to do this in order not to destroy any flowers that are between me and the subject or because in some national parks and other protected areas it may be forbidden to leave the trail).
2. It’s easier to get a calm background:
Due to the narrower angle of view of the long focal length, it’s easier to isolate the subject against a calm background. Distracting subjects in the background (like other flowers, stems of plants or human made subjects) can often ruin an otherwise very good shot. See my articel Choosing a macro lens for a more detailed explanation of why a longer focal length is helpful when you want a clean and calm background.
Here is an image taken with the Canon EF 300mm f/4L IS USM + 1.4x extender and a 25mm extension tube:
EOS 40D, EF 4/300L IS, 1.4x, extension tube
The image was taken before sunset. The butterfly was still a little active and about 1.5 meters away from the trail. This was the perfect situation for the 4/300 + 1.4x + extension tube. I didn’t want to move closer to the butterfly in order not to disturb it and also not to trample down the vegetation that was close to the butterfly. There where a lot of stems behind the butterfly which could have ruined the background, but the narrow angle of view helped me to isolate the butterfly against a clean background. The background is still not perfect here, but had I taken the shot with a 2.8/100, it would have been much worse.
How to best use this combation?
If you put the extension tube between the extender and the lens, you can get a little closer than with the extension tube on the camera and the extender between the extension tube and the lens. The difference is not much but noticeable.
On my Canon EOS 40D, autofocus does not work with that combination. But when I switch autofocus off and focus manually, the red light around the focus point where the subject is sharp appears. That is, the cameras confirms my manual focusing, but is not able to find the focus itself when in AF mode.
I highly recommend using a tripod with this combination and to use mirror lock-up and a cable release if you are using a long shutter speed.
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August 29th, 2008 , No Comments »
If you own a Canon EOS 40D and want to see what the best settings for bird photography are, check out the this article by famous bird photographer Arthur Morris.
The article also includes some interesting comments on the EOS 40D and some great bird pictures.
The following follow up article includes one correction for the first article.
Arthur Morris is one of the best bird photographers in the world and I highly recommend reading his bulletin archives and subscribing to them. They contain many great images and useful tips on how to improve your bird photography.
The settings in the articles mentioned above apply not only for birds but for most other uses in nature and other types of photography.
August 28th, 2008 , No Comments »
Since the Nikon D90 was announced two days ago, the camera has generated quite a lot of attention and discussion. Interestingly many people only seem to talk about it’s new video feature which makes the D90 the first DSLR that can record video. Some love the new feature, other consider it pointless.
But I think there is much more to this camera, and video or not, it’s definitely worth looking at. So lets do this.
I won’t cover in detail all the new features, but as in my post about the Canon EOS 50D, I will write about what I think are the most interesting features of Nikon’s latest DSLR.
12.3 effective Megapixels: According to Nikon the D90 has the same image quality as the Nikon D300. Compared to the old D80 the increase from 10 MP to 12.3 is not too much, but the overall image quality, especially at high ISO is probably better with the D90.
Sensor cleaning: Similar to the D300 and D700, the D90 also has a sensor cleaning feature that should reduce the sensor dust problem drastically compared the D80.
4.5 frames per second:. This is 1.5 frames per second more than the D80 and a welcome feature for everyone shooting action like birds in flight and playing children.
3.0” LCD display: The larger display of the D300, D3 and D700 can now also be found in the D90, making the display much better than the one in the D80.
Video capability: The D90 is the first camera than can record videos. There are some limitations. For example there is no AF during video capture and the maximum length of videos is limited (only 5 minutes for a 1280 x 720 video and 20 minutes for smaller formats).
This won’t replace the need for a video camera for everyone who is serious about video capture. But it’s a nice feature if you want to capture short movies and I think the D90 is just the first camera to offer video capabilities. More cameras, not only from Nikon, will follow.
Conclusion:
I think the D90 is a wonderful new camera with an attractive price. If you are a D80 user and want to upgrade, I think there are many features in the D90 that justify an upgrade. On the other side, if you are still perfectly satisfied with your D80, I think it would be wiser to save the money or spend it on a good lens.
The D90 is a solid evolution of the D80 and I am sure, Nikon will sell a lot of them.
D90 or D300?
The D300 is definitely the better camera. It has faster AF, can shoot up to 8 frames per second and has a more robust body and weather sealing.
If you are doing a lot of action photography like sports or birds in flight, I highly recommend to get the D300.
If you shoot mostly landscapes, portraits or close-ups, the D90 will offer the same image quality as the D300 but at a much cheaper price.
See what your needs are and if the D90 has everything you want. If not, go for the D300.
If you already own a D300, the D90 will make a great backup camera.
This was a summary of my thoughts on Nikon’s new D90. If you have any questions, leave a comment.
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August 26th, 2008 , 4 Comments »
This morning, the new Canon EOS 50D was announced. I won’t cover all the details of the new camera in this post. If you are interested in those, check this article by Rob Galbraith about the EOS 50D.
In this post, I want to write about some of the new features and what I think of them.
15 Megapixels: Probably the feature many people are most excited about is the new sensor with 15 megapixels. Compared to the EOS 40D, this is an increase of about 50% which is pretty huge. The 15 MP give you are lot more flexibility when cropping.
When I first read about the 15 MP I was worried that this can only mean an increase in noise due to the much higher pixel density compared the the EOS 40D. But according to Canon, the 50D should actually be better than the EOS 40 at high ISO settings (between 1 and 1.5 stops).
There are no detailed reviews of the camera yet, but if this is true, then Canon has really made a huge step forward.
The new sensor will demand even better quality lenses due to the high pixel density.
ISO 12.800: The 50D supports ISO up to 3.200 in 1/3 step increments and also ISO 6.400 and 12.800. If the last two numbers are of any real value remains to be seen until the first tests are available. But I don’t think Canon would have included those options if the image quality was just awful.
AF up to f5.6: No change here compared to the EOS 40D. I was hoping that the EOS 50D would allow AF up to f8, at least with the central sensor. That would allow sport and nature photographers who own lenses like a 4/500 or 4/600 to use Canon’s 2x extender and still have AF. So far it seems that Canon will keep this feature to the EOS 1D cameras only.
Compact Flash Cards: Some people feared that Canon would abandon CF cards with the 50D and only support SD cards. But they stick to CF cards which is good for all people who already have spent a lot of money an CF cards.
New LCD with 920.000 pixels: This is a welcome increase and should allow better evaluation of the images after shooting. But this is, of course, no substitute for checking your files later on the computer.
Creative Auto:. Couldn’t car less. I only shoot in AV and M mode and image quality set to RAW. But this may be interesting to other people who like to give more control to the camera but still be able to change settings.
Direct Print Button: This is probably the most useless button on any EOS camera. It would be great if Canon would allow a CF-Function to change it to support Mirror Lock-Up. But after all I’ve read, this can still only be accessed via the Menu settings. I wonder why Canon does not fix this, even after many, many photographers have complained about this for many years.
EF-S 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6: This new zoom lens looks very interesting and the large zoom range will be of interest to many photographers. I think it’s sad that it’s an EF-S lens, which means it won’t work on the EOS 5D, EOS 1D Mark III and EOS 1Ds Mark III. Another thing that I don’t like about this lens is the fact that it does not have an USM motor for fast AF. Maybe it’s fast enough without it but Canon integrates USM in almost all it’s lenses (including the cheap ones). So I don’t understand why this new lens doesn’t have USM.
Conclusion:
I think the new Canon EOS 50D looks like a great camera. If the Camera is as good as Canon says, then I think it’s definitely worth upgrading if you still own a EOS 10D, 20D or 30D.
If you own a EOS 40D (like I do), it’s still a significant leap but I am not sure if an upgrade is always worth it. Right now, I have no plans to upgrade. I will definitely wait how the EOS 50D performs in the first tests and what else Canon will offer either for Photokina in September or after that event.
My EOS 40D is great and that doesn’t change a tiny little bit just because the 50D is out. If you are not sure if you should upgrade, maybe it’s wiser to spend the money on a good lens, some good photography books or a photography trip.
If I buy the 50D I won’t sell my 40D but will keep it as a backup and 2nd camera for those situations when I need two simultaneously.
August 26th, 2008 , 1 Comment »
I just came across two great videos by John Esberg showing how to work effectively with Lightroom 2 using keyboard shortcuts.
Lightroom 2 has a very good system of easy to use keyboard shortcuts that can drastically improve your speed while working with Lightroom. John shows many of the shortcuts in the following two posts with video tutorials. I highly recommend watching them, especially if you are new to Lightroom:
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.0 Shortcuts
Adobe Lightroom 2 Shortcuts - Ranking
August 25th, 2008 , 1 Comment »
I am constantly looking for new books that help me improve my photography. For me an inspirational book should either have great images or an interesting text. Concepts of Nature by famous British wildlife photographer Andy Rouse has both.
Although Andy sometimes mentions specific technical settings (like the AF mode used), this is not a purely technical book that only tells you what lens you should by or that a full frame camera has better high ISO performance than a non full frame camera. For those interesting in the equipment used for all the shots, Andy lists details like camera, lens, ISO, f-stop, shutter speed, etc at the end of the book.
As title of the book says, the book is about art. Good photography is art and so are Andy’s shot. But just describing them as good does not do the pictures justice. They are beyond good and I can’t remember any other book in what I’ve seen so many amazing wildlife shots.
Andy’s shots of gorillas, big cats like leopards and lions and his many great bird shots are simply stunning. The book contains the best shot of a Golden Eagle I’ve ever seen seen in a book. Andy’s shots of albatrosses are amazing, especially the one of the displaying Wandering Albatrosses on South Georgia.
Often Andy does not just show the animal, but also it’s habitat. In the case of the just mentioned shot of the Wandering Albatross, you can see dark clouds and a mountain in the background. The weather looks very harsh and perfectly shows in what tough conditions the albatrosses live.
Beside the stunning pictures, I really like the text that Andy has written. He is a very skilled writer and a great story teller.
The text describes his evolution as a wildlife photographer, how his style changed and what he prefers when designing a wildlife shot. He writes a lot about the importance of good light, especially what he calls “Red5″. These are the 5 minutes of really warm and red light after dawn and right before dusk.
In his images, Andy often breaks the rules of composition that are so often told in beginners books. Those rules are important, but great photographers know when to break them.
Beside the light he calls Red5, Andy also writes about shooting at home, how he likes to capture the relationship between predators and prey or how he likes to give his pictures a certain atmosphere that makes them special.
For many shots, Andy tells how he made them. He describes how he spend countless hours in a hide for several days to wait for a Golden Eagle or how he risked his life to get an unusual shot of a lion.
Andy cares more about being out in the wild and spending time with animals than about technical details of cameras or lenses. Sure, he uses good equipment, but unlike other photographers who think that having an awesome camera is more important than knowing your subject, Andy understands that his equipment is just a necessary tool to get his shot.
I myself am interested in good equipment and I am glad that I own the equipment I’ve always wanted. But when I am out and pressing the shutter button 10 meters away from a European Hare in Austria or 5 meters from an Arctic Tern in northern Germany, it doesn’t matter which camera I have. It’s the excitement of being close to an wild animal and capturing the moment.
Andy also cares deeply about the conservation of our ever more endangered wildlife and often encourages the reader to think about it.
Concepts of Nature has been the most inspirational book for me in a long time. The images are so good that I will take this book out of the shelf much more often than most other books I own.
This book makes me want to try even harder to constantly improve my skills and I think this is the best thing one can say about a photography book.
If you are interested in wildlife photography, then this book is a must read!
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August 24th, 2008 , No Comments »
Some photographers have pretty strong opinions about equipment. Some say that equipment does not matter at all and others tend to think that only with the newest and most expensive equipment can they get really god pictures. Both is nonsense!
Let’s say you own a Nikon D60 and a 4/300 mm lens and you are mostly interested in bird photography. You might be tempted to think that if you buy a Nikon D300 (which is much better than a D60) and a 4/500 mm lens you will automatically get better shots.
Success in photography, in that example in bird photography is influenced by many things, for example your knowledge of light and composition, how much you know about your subjects and it’s biology (very important in wildlife photography), your experience and how much time you devote to your hobby or profession.
If you have a Nikon D300 and a 4/500 mm lens and know nothing about birds and only go out shooting once a month you surely will not get as many good bird shots as a guy that owns a D60 and a 4/300 mm lens but knows a lot about birds, spends all his free time out in nature trying to get the best shots and has years of experience.
If you want to be good at photography, nothing comes easy. It’s hard and dedicated work that leads to success. That’s way more important than equipment.
That said, equipment does matter. Let’s take the example from above and let’s assume that the guy with the D60 and the 4/300 has saved some money and finally bought himself a D300 and a 4/500 mm lens. He devotes as much time to his passion as before, now with better equipment. The 500 mm lens will allow him to get more frame filling shots of birds. The much better autofocus of the D300 and the 8 frames per second will help him get more sharp flight shots. The D300 has full weather sealing, which allows him to get more shots during bad weather (which often can reward you with unusual and great images).
A hard working photographer who knows everything about his subject and has many years of experience will use the best equipment he can afford. This combined with all his knowledge will give him the best results.
There is a reason why, for example, most successful bird photographers own either a 4/500 mm or 4/600 mm lens and a good camera.
If you are currently not satisfied with your equipment and can’t afford something better, think about all the other areas you can improve your photography like improving your knowledge about your subjects, learning about the usage of light or studying the work of other photographers.
If you can afford better equipment and you are sure (after reading what I just wrote) that it will indeed improve your changes to get better shots, than it might be time to buy it.
After I got my EOS 40D and my EF 4/500L IS from Canon my bird photography improved compared to the shots I took before with my old EOS 10D and my 100-400mm lens. The 4/500L (+ 1.4x extender) allowes me to get the bird much bigger in the frame. The images were sharper and the AF of the 40D together with the fast 4/500 was much better than what I had with the 10D and the 100-400. The 6.5 frames per second of the 40D also helped me to get more good action shots than the only 3 frames per second of the 10D.
But if I hadn’t spent time out shooting, learned about my subjects or always tried to learn more about bird photography, my pictures wouldn’t have improved much.
It’s both, the photographer and the equipment that matter.
August 23rd, 2008 , No Comments »
This picture was shot today evening during heavy rain:
EOS 40D, EF 2.8/100 Macro, tripod, fill flash -2 stops with Speedlite 580EX II
It’s not my best close-up but I like it. If I had stayed at home because of the rain, I would have missed that shot (and several others).
Photographing during the rain is not without problems. I don’t mind if I get wet. I just have to pick proper clothes. But it’s more important to protect the camera and lenses from the rain.
Some rain drops probably won’t damage your camera. My Canon EOS 40D gets wet from time to time without any problems so far. But I don’t leave it out for hours in heavy rain. I always try to protect it. Many lenses from Canon and Nikon are weather sealed, but not all, especially not the cheaper ones. Check the manual of your lens. And most cameras (expect the professional bodies) are not fully weather sealed, either.
The most important thing is to keep the front lens dry. A drop of water won’t ruin your lens, but you will see the drop on your image and that will be ruined (or you will spend some time in Photoshop).
NEVER let water inside your camera when changing the lens. DSLRs are full of electronic stuff. If you get water into them, it might seriously damage the camera.
When I shoot in the rain, I always take an umbrella with me. I hold it over the camera when changing lenses or CF cards or when I am adding an extender. Some people take plastic bags with them and change lenses in there. Pick a method that suits your needs. The only important thing is to keep your camera dry inside.
You can also mount an umbrella on your tripod to protect your gear from the rain. There are several solutions available. See here for an example. Be very careful during wind when mounting an umbrella on your tripod. The wind might knock down the tripod and umbrella and your lens and camera can be ruined.
For some lenses and cameras, there are special water proof covers available, like those here in the Naturescapes.Net store.
Rain offers many possibilities for good photographs. You can include the rain in the image. This works especially when it’s very heavy rain or you can see raindrops falling on water.
Or you could find an animal that’s totally wet because of the rain (works very good with mammals when the fur gets wet).
In the case of the moth above, the rain let the temperatures fall so low that it was to cold for it to fly. So it rested on the flower where I could photograph it easily. During sunny weather, that would have been much more difficult.
You see, with a little preparation, there is no reason why you should stay inside during a little rain the next time you want to go shooting.
August 21st, 2008 , 1 Comment »
When you are new to photography and are looking for information about lenses, you might come across descriptions for lenses like this one:
Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS USM
This is the official name of my 500mm telephoto lens. The name contains a lot of terms that may sound strange at first. So lets break it down into small pieces and explain everything in detail (including some terms that do not occur in the description of the lens above):
Canon: Well, that’s pretty obvious. It’s the manufacturers name.
EF: EF means “electro-focus” and means that this is an autofocus lens. With a few exceptions (see below), all Canon lenses for EOS cameras contain the “EF” term.
500mm: The focal length.
f4: The largest possible f-stop.
L: L means “luxury”. This is Canon’s way of saying that this is a professional and especially good lens. L lenses contain the best glass, are normally weather proof and are built much more robust than other lenses. That does not mean that non L lenses are always bad. For example, the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM is not a L lens but is still a very good and very sharp lens. I use that lens very often.
IS: IS indicates image stabilization. Many of the new Canon lenses introduced during the last 10 years feature this technology. With IS you can hand hold a lens at longer shutter speeds and still get sharp pictures than without it. IS also works well on a tripod with most IS lenses.
USM: USM means “ultrasonic motor” and indicates a very fast and silent autofocus motor. Canon has integrated USM technology in most of it’s L lenses and also many others.
Macro: This indicates that the lens is a special macro lens, especially designed for working at close distances, often reaching a magnification ratio up to 1:1. This lenses also work as a normal lens and focus to infinity (except the Canon MP-E 65mm f/2.8 1-5x Macro Photo which only works for magnification ratios between 1:1 and 5:1).
EF-S: These are lenses designed only for EOS cameras with an APS-sized sensor like the EOS 40D or EOS 450D. They are not intended to work with full frame cameras like the EOS 1Ds Mark III.
MP-E: This is used only for one lens, the already mentioned Canon MP-E 65mm f/2.8 1-5x Macro Photo which is a special macro lens designed for extreme close-up work between a magnification ratio of 1:1 and 5:1. If you want to shoot portraits of insects, this is your lens. Nikon and other companies currently don’t offer something similar. It’s not an L lens but the image quality is of the highest standard nonetheless.
TS-E: Those lenses are called tilt-and-shift lenses. They are very popular among architecture photographers. Some photographers also use it for landscape work. They don’t have EF in there name as they don’t support autofocus.
DO: DO means “diffractive optics”. Those lenses are smaller and more compact than non DO lenses. Currently Canon offers only two DO lenses, including the EF 400mm f/4 DO IS USM. This lens is very small for a f4/400mm lens but also quite expensive. Currently it does not seem like Canon will introduce many more DO lenses, but in the future this may change. It would be great to hava a 4/500 or 4/600 with 30% less weight than the current models.
Zoom lenses are often described like this:
Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L IS USM
This means that it’s an 70-200mm lens with a fixed maximum aperture of f4 over the whole focal length range.
Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM
This means that the lens has a variable maximum aperture from f4.5 at 100mm to f5.6 at 400mm.
Now you should have an idea how to read a Canon lens description. The terms are not always written in the same order. So you may also find “EF 4/500L IS” or something similar.
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