• DateTimeOriginal: 2008:12:15 17:06:29
• ExposureProgram: Manual
• ExposureTime: 1/25 sec
• FNumber: f/5.6
• FocalLength35mmEquiv:
• ISOSpeedRatings: 400
• Model: NIKON D200

I’ve been tossing around the idea of posting a series of photography ‘how-to’ posts.

Instead of writing about random issues, I’d much rather be answering questions that you guys might have. It’s all fair game– composition, lighting, apps– anything at all

Post your photo questions in the comments and I’ll start answerin’

Thanks to digital camera’s LCD screens unexpected blurry pictures are a thing of the past. ‘Shoot, check, adjust’ (if necessary)– has become the mantra of many a photographer in the ‘digital age’.

The upshot of digital is that, thanks to the LCD preview, you can see right away when you’ve shot a blurry photo and that’s good. But do you know why the picture is blurry? Do you know what to do to prevent blur? If your answer is no– fear not, you will.

Pictures can be blurry due to 2 common issues, subject motion blur and camera shutter speed blur. (There are other resons, depth of field, intentional post processing effects– we can cover those another time, as they’re usually more ‘intentional’.)

• Subject motion blur is easy to understand, think: Formula 1 Race car screaming by you at 180MPH. Regardless of the shutter speed you use, you’re going to get a little blur simply because the subject is moving so fast.
• Camera shutter speed blur isn’t too difficult to figure out either, basically, the slower your shutter speed, the more likely your trembling hands are going to shake the camera. You shake the camera, your picture gets blurry.

So, to recap, fast subject = blurry, and slow camera = blurry. Simple right? How about a few examples?

First up, Subject motion blur, or the F1 race car shot:

The blurry car is a fast moving subject. Assuming that your intent was to have the vehicle sharp you have 2 pretty obvious options:

Shoot with a higher shutter speed to try to ‘freeze’ the car in place

Shoot with a lower shutter speed and ‘pan’ (follow the motion of the car with) your camera– by shooting at a lower shutter speed, you’ll blur the rest of the scene, but by panning at the same relative speed as the car, you’ll get the car in focus

Next, camera shutter speed/camera shake or the ’shaky hands’ shot:

The solution here is pretty simple

Shoot at a higher shutter speed, using your focal lenght as a bare minimum shutter speed. In other words, if you’re shooting with a 50mm lens, try to use a shutter speed of 1/50th or higher. If you’re shooting with a 200mm lens, then try 1/200th or higher– more zoom you use, the more shake you’ll see…

• Use a tripod to steady the camera
• Use a flash, to freeze the action

The higher shutter speed will help reduce visibility of the shake, as will the tripod. The flash (if you use one) will ‘freeze’ the lit part of the photo in place, as well as provide additional light to allow you to use a higher shutter speed. In the end, you have any number of options to address camera blur.

So there you have it, subject motion blur and camera shake blur. Neither issues are bad– you might even intentionally use them– but now you know the why they occur and how to address them.

We’ll cover depth of field blur, and post processing blur once we get a few more basics out of the way…

I’ll cover two of those features today, Metadata Views, and Metadata Presets. Ellen Anon covered the step by step over at the Inside Aperture Blog, so I’ll be sticking to an overview– and an explanation of why views and presets are important features to understand and use.

First off, Metadata Views are all about viewing metadata, whereas Metadata Presets are all about entering metadata.

(Take a minute and re-read that last sentence–Apple does a poor job of seperating the two, and that can make it a bit confusing. Don’t get scared, this stuff is crazy easy and crazy useful. Remember, viewing data vs. entering data )

I. Metadata Views filter in what’s relevant to you at the time, and prevent information overload by filtering out the rest. Aperture ships with a bunch of metadata views as you can see here (choose Window>Show Metadata if you don’t see the metadata side panel):

Each view displays some relevant group metadata and filters out the rest. Each preset shows you a different slice of the metadata for a given image.

Aperture’s built in Metadata views are a great starting point– and it’s easy to make a copy of one of the built in views, and then add whatever else you need by clicking the buttons (Keywords, EXIF, IPTC, Other) at the bottom of the screen, and checking the box next to the fields you want shown. You can save your custom view using the action pull-down menu (the one that looks like a cog).

So, see what you want, hide what you don’t. Moving on…

II. Metadata presets allow you to fill in some information as a preset that you can rubber stamp onto your images. The beauty is that when a tool makes something easy you’re more likely to use it.

To create a preset, you simply enter in some custom metadata and then click save as preset. That’s it! then any time you want to add that metadata to an image.

You don’t have to type the same thing over and over again for each image you import– just select append or replace with preset, and BAM! your preset info is entered for you.

Metadata Presets help ensure that you enter the bare minimum metadata into your images: your name, contact info, and copyright info. This stuff is easy, and important.

I’ll get into some workflow related stuff next time out.

*Metadata views can be helpful for data entry as well– a well crafted ‘data entry’ view will prevent you from getting bogged down in useless info, make good use of your limited screen space when importing, and make it easier to see what info needs entering.

After:

Today’s Collision– I would recommend them to anyone.

I have pretty good reasons today to be happy about these 2 things. Regarding #1, I was in fact paid by the Journal (don’t ask how much– it’s not the point) for the image that I shot of the Port of Providence fire.

Regarding #2, this is the current front page of NewBalance.com:

The silver w/ red logo shoe, and the green and white sole shoe are both my images.

]]> http://www.shootmatt.com/blog/photo/so2-things/139/feed/ 3 http://www.shootmatt.com/blog/photo/more-magazines/124/ http://www.shootmatt.com/blog/photo/more-magazines/124/#comments Sat, 22 Apr 2006 22:41:31 +0000 Matt http://www.shootmatt.com/blog/photo/more-magazines/124/ A small update regarding the shoe shots:

Magazines so far:

• 2 SI Issues
• Runners world
• ESPN Magazine

And soon:

• Maxim
• Oprah
• More SI

The blue shot is from ESPN magazine, and I have no idea where the green one is being used…

Though not ‘final final’, according to the team, I’ve found it more than usable.

Updates (that matter to me– there are many more) include:

• Better spam filtering
• Tweaked admin interface

It’s awesome to see better spam filtering as it’s really one of the only things that I feel still needed work. Now if only there was an update to the ‘wallpaper’ mod, so I could offer desktop sized and blog sized images in a post…

Since you can’t vary the output of the lamp (a dimmer maybe? would that work on these types of lamps? fire?) you have to get creative to vary to quantity of light, as well as the intensity.

Move the laps close up, you’ll get bright light, with harsh (hard edged shadows) move it far back and the light will be even– but more soft (no hard edges between light and dark).

Key lights, fill lights, and background lights are all touched on in the post. To add to their info, try some inventive hanging of white cardboard (as a reflector), tracing paper (or translucent shower curtains, white bed sheets, etc) as diffusers for your fill light(s), and some creative placement of your key light can help retain contrast and shadows. Move it around a bunch before you shoot and see really look at your subject and how it’s effected BEFORE you shoot.
Your background light can be used to reflect light onto the subject, or even to help minimise the amout of Photoshop work to be done to the subject, post shoot.

Give their post a read and pick up a few new tricks.

Seriously tho, when I was at the store the other day, I got a peek at a D200, and all I could think is, ‘well, it’s a Nikon body, but the images look like they came outta a Canon’.

For clarification, Canon images tend to look silky smooth, and are usually a bit more saturated when compared to similar images from a Nikon. Canon uses a CMOS sensor (and filters the image in camera to make it smoother and prevent moire patterns…no one ever tells you that!) and tends to warm up an image. Nikon on the other hand sorta tells it to ya’ straight. Warts and all.

The D200 has an increased dynamic range (the ability for the camera to record a range of tones from light to dark has increased to cover a larger amount– the camera ’sees’ more). It also has a better buffer, a larger sensor, and goes down to ISO 100.

All in all, it’s a huuuuuge step up from the D70.

Now I just need to find a bank to rob.

Saw a show at Paradise in Boston last Friday. Tally Hall, Contoller Controller, and OK GO.
I brought a camera and got a few shots. You can see some of them on Tally Hall’s Journal. Hopefully Controller Controller will post a few pix as well.

I’ll post up a few over the next few days.

(:Updated:)

I’ve just posted some of my shots from the show in the gallery page.

Too true. I’m not a sports person. But I am the type of person to feel good that his photography is in a national publication.

If you check out page 26 and 27 of the January 16th issue, you’ll understand.

So, I got’s me a few thanks to send out…

Mom and Dad, thanks for getting me that Pentax K1000, and paying/sending me to art school, and for not pressuring me too much about my job at Southwest, and for supporting me when I chose to leave. Thanks to my bro for being supportive of just about anything I try.

Chris, and Whitney, and TJ thanks for riding my ass about leaving Southwest and getting back into photography.

Chris, thanks for conning GoBig into taking a chance on a tech guy with a camera. And helping me shoot those images, and making them look so badass, and giving me a place to live, and listening to me freak out about my job on a regular basis, and and and…

Well…thank you guys.

Example. 2 days ago, I’m in the local coffee place, Perks (wassup Jeff!), sipping coffee, hanging out with Cornwell and cruising Digg.com on their WIFI. I come across this, Opacity. Opacity is a photo site of urban ruins.

Ever since Pink Floyd’s Momentary Lapse of Reason, and Depesche Mode’s Music for the Masses (check out the tracks One Slip, and Agent Orange respectively) I’ve had a connection to large industrial spaces, and associate the sound, musical themes, and the…well…’big-ness’ of these albums with ‘big’ types of spaces, industrial or natural. Opacity fit the bill, so I put it into my Flavor>Saver bookmarks folder to look at later.

Tonight, I peek at Opacity, and what do I find? This, which in turn linked to this

I remember the way it used to be.

I worked there in the summer of 94/5/6. I can remember the first summer there with Scott, and then the second with Ben Dunning and finally the third with Pete too.

I can still remember sitting on the hill behind the dining hall, longing to be out on Prudence on the 4th of July, wondering what I was missing. And the last night of the season when Scott and I (and some dude who’s name I can’t remember) walked around the park. And working at the arcade and giving away free games to little kids who’s parent’s were assholes. The night we helped Trevor pop the clutch on his Mustang. That dude Jameil who worked with Cris Peterson Martin. The way the dude on the music express loved to play Pink Floyd, and the last night…when everyone knew that it was really going to be the last night. The park had just done soooo poorly (mismanagement, bad timing, you name it, who knows?) we all knew there wouldn’t be a summer of 97 season.

The food was bad, the days were long, the pay was crappy, and the customers sucked.

I miss the hell out of the place.

I’m at a loss for words. It’s unbelievable to see that many images in a single day. So many memories… For a moment today, I thought of maybe setting up a completely new website just to go thru them one at a time, one a day. Someday, who knows?

Thru the night tonight, my laptop is going to chug away on over 2800 Nikon Raw (.nef) files, and convert them to Adobe’s DNG (Digital negative format)– and those are just from half of 2004! Then I’ll burn all my images, all 7 years worth, to 10 DVD’s. 10 DVD’s doesn’t seem like that much.

Meantime, I’ll get some shuteye, while my lappy does the heavy lifting for me. Just a few left…2737 to go.

Sized for your pleasure:
1024×768
1280×1024
1600×1200
1680×1050

The summer always seems like a flashback. Winter is so harsh that you can’t help but be present, conscious of how cold it is and intent of getting things done so you can get inside where it’s warm. In the summer, there’s time to daydream with the windows down and the iPod shuffling thru your music. Everything to me just seems more tolerable in the summer.

Anyway I was thinking how it would make a great desktop picture when I shot it…so, here you go, just give the thumbnail a click