Category: Techniques

Photographic techniques with a camera

Spring cleaning

 Gavin   Digital Darkroom, Equipment, Techniques, Tips, Workflow

This is one of those little jobs that I’ve been meaning to do for ages and as yet hadn’t managed to make time until now. It’s time to spring clean my hard disks by migrating my image data to the NAS. Especially for my QTImages files. The ones for QTPortraits and QTWeddings are already backed up and the repositories are smaller but growing at an alarming rate with each photoshoot.

My QTImages repository on the other hand is a different matter. It spans more than 5 years and 10’s thousands of images. All that adds up to a lot of gigabytes to move around.

Continue reading Spring cleaning »

Tip: Pleasing yourself

 Gavin   Tips

I was reminded recently of a discussion that came up on a course I took last year: that of making sure you please yourself when making your images. Doing so will keep you fresh, inspired and enthusiastic. This will reflect in your work and keep the job fun and enjoyable.

For example, for a full day’s wedding coverage it isn’t uncommon to shoot between 1500 and 2000 frames. When shooting say 20 weddings per year that’s a collosal 40000 images that need to be looked at. Allowing 3 minute per frame that’s the equivalent of about 3 months each year looking at images you don’t like. Motivation is now a major issue.

That doesn’t mean to say you can totally off piste. Don’t forget the client has hired you. You’re shooting to fulfil a brief and you need to deliver against it. Whatever else you do, make sure you get the “safe” shots in the bag but don’t be afraid to push the envelope to get the shots you want to make too. Time may not always be on your side but if it is, make sure you use it.

Taking stock of things

 Gavin   Business, Marketing, Tips

Funny business is the stock industry, and by that I mean photographic stock and not the city markets. The role of the stock library is very simple. Its a repository of images that a picture buyer can search to find and buy images for their projects. They supply an enormous range of clients and picture needs from newspapers to advertising to cards and calendars. Every time you flick through a book or a newspaper, or see an advert, card or calendar you’ll probably find the images they use were actually purchased from a stock library rather than being commissioned for the job. That isn’t true in every case but you’d be surprised how common and prolific it is.

If you’re interested in finding out a little more about this field, read on.

Continue reading Taking stock of things »

Lightroom 3 Noise Reduction w.r.t. 5DmkII?

 Gavin   Digital Darkroom, Lightroom, Techniques

There is a lot of chatter at the moment about the new noise reduction capabilities of Lightroom 3. I’ve not yet had a look at the Beta 2 version but according to the specs. they’ve added Luminance noise reduction and people are going wild about it, allegedly resurrecting images that would otherwise have been far too noisy to be of usable or marketable quality.

If anyone has some results for the 5DmkII I’d be very interested in hearing. I do a lot of work with natural light and low light in particular so I frequently shoot at ISO 1600. On occasion I have even pushed it to ISO 3200 and ISO 6400 but the images need a lot of TLC or can quickly evaporate in post. If LR3 is really as good as everyone is claiming, my working ISO range has just increased, possibly extending the life of the 5DmkII. If this truly is the case the upgrade would be worth the investment. For me at least.

Now, I wonder if Mrs. LightMatters would see it that way?