The fine art of patience…and lenses
04 April, 2008
You know, on the bit-tech photography forums, there is a lot of interesting reading on what lenses to buy. And why not? After all, it’s a pretty serious commitment to any amateur photographer.
In fact, there’s even a great saying (which I’ll paraphrase because I suck at quoting):
“The lens is what takes the picture. The body just holds it.”
Honestly, this seems so true in so many ways. New bodies come out every 18 months or so - new lenses? maybe every couple years there might be one lens updated significantly enough to warrant a new look. Many of the best lenses have been in production since the mid 1990’s, if that new. Sure, there have been updates and alterations, but the must-haves have been around for quite some time.
When I look back to some of the pictures I took at the start of this year during my annual Vegas trip for the Consumer Electronics Show, I can see a very noticeable improvement in my own images by a lens change. Same camera, but my very trusting friend Richard loaned me his awesome Canon 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 wide-angle lens for the trip.
The differences are astonishing. The extra range, fidelity and ease of use hooked me almost instantly. I wanted that lens. But did I actually need it?
I should interject here that I’m a chronic luster. I look at things longingly, planning out every purchase and wanting every toy there is. The problem is, I also work in finance, so I know that I can’t buy it all. So, that’s why I write this - to add my insight to the “most needed lenses” discussion for serious amateurs who are willing to spend but need a real value to do so.
There are many who will argue that primes (fixed focal-length) constitute ‘necessary.” Back ten or twenty years ago, I can understand - but the quality of zooms has improved immeasurably. With focal lengths from 17mm-200mm at a solid f/2.8 covered by just two lenses, it’s almost silly to carry a bunch of primes. That being said, a couple are very useful…but they don’t count as necessary in your pack anymore.
For most of us, there are three lengths that are truly necessary - and that means only three lenses. As an amateur, almost all shots can be pulled off between 10mm-200mm. Though one monster zoom can comfortably do 17-300, you’ll be shooting at a very small aperture most of the time, making it much less ideal for low light scenarios.
Inside shots are often low light and also not where you are likely to have or need the space for a huge tele lens (unless you’re in the press). However, lengths shorter than about 15mm will start to give slight distortion in the picture, increasing around the edges. So, for indoor shots, between 17-70mm (I find 50mm to be fine) becomes the “golden length” - and it just so happens that Tamron has a terrific 17-50mm f/2.8. The AF on it isn’t perfect - but it’s only $425 compared to the nearly $1000 of the equivalent Canon.
Outside shots come in two flavors generally - either you want them up close with some creamy bokeh (that funky blur, for those of you who don’t pay attention to names), or you want something nice and wide. If you have wide-angle on the mind, you want to get as small of a length as possible - which just so happens to be Canon’s fairly well-priced 10-22mm. Nikon users are a little more out in the cold on this, but there is a nice Tokina 12-24mm available. The same lens is available for Canons and can save you an extra couple hundred, but I personally prefer having full-time manual focusing available to me.
All of this leaves us with one thing needed - a good telephoto lens. I’ll tell you what - I don’t really have a “great” suggestion here. If you find you are always shooting fairly stationary targets at long distances in bright light, you’ve got a plethora to choose from - most apertures are f/3.5-5.6 and you’ll not really need image stabilization. If you’re shooting a lot of outdoor architecture, for example, this is golden. Pick yourself up something in whatever price range fits your feature ‘wants’ and get on with your life.
Or, you could be like me - my favorite things to shoot are storms and animals/people, which means low light is a given and anything that helps me keep the shutter open longer without blurring a somewhat moving target is a godsend. If I want animals, I want to make the background melt into a colorful smear. All of these mean I need a wider aperture and image stabilizing technology. Good news is, both Nikon and Canon have absolutely awesome lenses in this category. Bad news is, they both start at about $1,000 and go rapidly up from there.
I personally have a private love affair with a Canon 70-200mm f/4L IS, which means I’ll be choking on the around $1k when I finally invest in it. Unfortunately, Nikon users are a bit screwed here - the only 70-200 (or anywhere in that length) with a fixed aperture is the Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 VR, which will leave you crying under both its heavy price and its heavy weight. Honestly, it’s like shooting with a roll full of salad plates…monopod or tripod is very highly recommended, along with a lackey to carry it for you.
In the meantime, for those of you in a similar boat to myself, I’ve just discovered a new 55-250mm Image Stabilized lens from Canon that is actually getting some great reviews. It was released in August and is at the bargain basement price of $279 new on Amazon. Seriously, how did I miss this?!
So, that’s my “amateur’s lens kit” - three fields that cover anywhere from 10-200mm. They’re not the cheapest in the bunch, but they’re money well spent.
Which one to buy first? Honestly, that’s a “Take your kit lens and find out.” Watch what lengths you shoot at for a while - use a good selection of pictures, rather than run out to buy something you don’t really need. Some people alway shoot wide, others almost always shoot long, and then there are those who shoot in between. You’ll know what you need first by what you shoot.
Look at the focal length in the EXIF data of your recent shots - are they constantly at 18mm? You likely are dying for a wide angle. Are they always at 55mm? Sounds like someone is looking for the telephoto end. Regularly somewhere in between? Then replace the kit with a new 17-50mm.
And never, EVER forget rule #1:
The makings of a perfect shot:
Camera body: 1%;
Lens: 9%;
Monkey pressing the button: 90%.
Topics: Equipment | No Comments »
Striking skies
01 April, 2008
So, I think that I’ve figured out a couple great techniques for handling cloudy skies and making them pop. You can see it in tonight’s photos, a couple of which definitely took a little post-process love.
First, some background. I live in farm country out here in Ohio, on ten beautiful acres of land (thanks for the help, mom and dad!). I love the country - particularly in the spring and fall, when the thunderstorms boom or the leaves change. Obviously, we’re dealing with the former here - and last night a storm front rolled in right around sunset.
When you’re looking to capture color depth, you normally want to slightly overexpose your image (aka “shoot to the right” on a histogram). For pictures where the sky is a lot of the subject matter, this is doubly true. The gradients are usually along one color pattern - gray, blue, orange… so it’s very important to get as much of that bit depth as you can.
To do this, try using autofocus on your camera - focus up at the sky to let the exposure metering work, then adjust your shutter speed to about a full stop slower. Keep the button half pressed to maintain infinite focus if it’s a landscape shot. When you take your picture, it should look washed out, as you’d expect.
Now, to the dirty work. Bring your RAW file over in whatever manner you choose (I use Adobe Lightroom and convert to DNG format), and open the RAW up in Photomatix HDR. Tone map it as you see fit, but don’t worry so much about the sky. Focus on the subject matter in the foreground and make it look how you want it. This is mostly for the contrast - but I find Photomatix does in one step what I need about six steps to do in Photoshop. On images that can use all six of those steps (like anything with low contrast and uniform light), HDR is just a faster method to get the desired look.
Save the HDR image as a 16-bit TIFF file and open it up in Adobe Photoshop. Now, copy the background (it’s a locked layer) and apply any sharpening that you traditionally do to your new “bottom” editable layer. Once that’s done, it’s time to do the magic - copy the sharpened layer again.
To this second image layer, we’re going to apply a layer mask of “Hide all”. Take your gradient tool and paint a white gradient from the sky that should taper down nicely to the bottom of the foreground. We’ve now shown just the sky of this second layer (Anything covered by white on the layer mask is visible, black is hidden), vanishing as you hit the foreground.
At this point, you should see nothing unusual as compared to before…until you click on the picture layer that’s covered by the mask (the mask is handled separately and you’ll default to being on the mask and NOT your image). Change the blend mode to “Multiply”.
If you’ve done everything right, you should see a very highly contrasted sky where there was once just a mottled sea of very light gray. You can change the opacity of the layer to adjust how dramatic of an effect it has, or play around with other blending options.
There are, of course, other ways to achieve this effect with other skies - but this works faithfully with gray, overcast skies that are normally just “blah” to look at!
Topics: Photo Shoot, Post Processing, Technique | No Comments »
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