Just before Christmas my daughter Sarah stopped by for a visit before she was traveling east on her way to Savage Cove, Newfoundland for Christmas. With the photo opportunity presenting itself we took some pre Christmas photographs. As I have been experimenting with a one light set up with no fill and the photograph below is the result. The equipment used was the Olympus E-3 along with a medium chimera soft box 36″ x 48″ with a Prophoto 600 compact strobe. Note the soft light. Very little retouching was performed on this photograph.

Then just after Christmas my son Clarke and his wife Lisa and daughter Alexis came for a visit. As you can tell Deb and I spent Christmas without the kids but they have lives of their own now so they choose to spend this Christmas with the in-laws so we will have a houseful next Christmas.

Using the one light source, being a large Chimera soft box 54″ x 72″ with a Prophoto 600 compact strobe and resorting to fill with foam core opposite the light source revealed this photograph. The camera was the Canon 5D MarkII. We will have to talk about Canon and their picture styles and camera calibration in another post as I was rather disappointed with their flesh tone color with all the picture styles in Lightroom and Photoshop. But through a detailed camera calibration and some ingenuity I now have the flesh tones close where I want them.

So what happens when you have a photo shoot planned and the model comes down with the flu? Well you take the time to experiment with different lighting styles and techniques. But who is the model you are probably asking. Well some of the time it is me. My wife is beginning to get tired of all the photographs of me. I just smile and mention to her that she will have lots of photographs to choose from for my obituary announcement. The equipment used was the Olympus E-3 along with a medium chimera soft box 36″ x 48″ with a Prophoto 600 compact strobe and hair light. Hair light? Why would you call it a hair light when there is no hair and as you can tell I should have used side light as there is too much reflection off the top? No touch ups here as it wouldn’t make any difference. 

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On December 10th, Debby and I attended the Central Alberta Photographic Society awards night for the Winter print competition results. The society holds two print competitions each year one in December and one in May. The print competitions are comprised of four categories both for advanced and amateur photographers.  The 4 categories are color, black and white, the Doug Corrigan which is a wildlife print competition and the digitally enhanced print. Three independent judges are chosen from differing backgrounds such as art instructors and professional photographers to select the winners of the various categories in the print competitions.

There were many excellent prints at the awards night such that it almost looked like an art gallery. Much to my surprise I was successful at placing first in the advanced color category with the portrait Leah, first in the Doug Corrigan wildlife print competition with Searching for Sashimi, and placing second in the advanced black-and-white competition with Morning Mist. I didn’t place an entry into the digitally enhanced print competition. The print entries can only be manipulated as if they were created in a darkroom as we once knew it with burning and dodging, increasing the exposure an so on. The digitally enhanced is the print category where you can go wild in manipulating and enhancing the print. I prefer to get it right in the camera as this save so much more time than sitting in front of a computer trying to fix it in Photoshop.

Now you have a chance to be the judge as I have included the prints below. I’m always looking for constructive criticism so I can continue to improve my photography skills.

Leah

Morning Mist 

Searching for Sashimi

Some of you may be wondering about the word “Sashimi” that I used in the wildlife print category. Well as you know the White Pelican eats fresh fish so the Japanese word sashimi has been integrated into the English language which refers to uncooked fish. Most people think sushi is uncooked fish however sushi is vinegared rice, usually served with fish and other meats and vegetables.

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So now you are out shooting on the street or hiking in the mountains with continually changing light conditions. So how do you deal with establishing the correct white balance, you might ask?  I don’t carry along the Lastolite Ezybalance to set the white balance in my camera because it is too bulky but I do carry a small piece of foamcore (available at Michaels or any frame shop) that is quick and easy to use. Foamcore isn’t that rugged but the makeshift portable white reference card can be cut to a variety of sizes and the card I use is small enough to fit in my shirt pocket (2”x3.5”). If the card becomes bent or soiled I cut another one. For those of you that require a gray reference card to establish an in camera white balance you can purchase gray cards of varying sizes at your local camera shop or online. Because only with correct white balance can you be assured of accurate color in your photographs.

Shooting outside the studio just in case I don’t have time to set an in camera white balance I set my camera’s white balance to the lighting conditions I am shooting. But if I have time then upon starting to photograph I place the foamcore in the first photograph or set an in camera white balance. Then I shoot the photograph again without the foamcore card. By doing this I can establish a white balance for the series of photographs I take as the photographs can be batch processed with white balance correction. If the lighting changes I repeat the process with the foamcore. This way you will know your images can be color corrected quickly and easily without any fuss.

It might be prudent to explain a bit on why I match my white balance to the current lighting conditions. Sometimes I shoot both raw and jpg then I have the best of both however if you shoot in just jpg mode things are a little more complicated. With jpg’s the camera software will generate the settings which comprise the image. You can see how the image will be generated on the LCD display. No blank slate with jpg’s as in the raw images. Therefore, if you have your camera on one white balance setting such as daylight, cloudy etc. then you can batch process your jpg images as these images have the same white balance settings. I would “not” recommend setting your camera to auto white balance as this would make batch processing somewhat more time consuming as those images could have different white balance settings for each image.

So now the next question arises “What if I’m using flash?” When you are using flash the foamcore card must be shot from the same position and exposure as your final image. This is especially true when mixing ambient light and flash. If the flash is solely providing the lighting (no ambient or over powering the ambient) then the distance and exposure settings are less important as the color of the flash will remain relatively constant. For more detailed information on shooting with flash be sure to check out http://www.strobist.blogspot.com/.

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Its -5° and a strong southeast wind is blowing over the lake.  Ice had been forming along the shoreline of Sylvan Lake last night before the wind started to blow this morning.

The light was good so I grabbed my camera and headed down to the shoreline realizing I should have dressed considerably warmer. The wind cut through my jacket like a knife but it was too late to turn back now.

My lens of choice this morning was a 50-200mm (2.8-3.5). With the high wind I set the camera on shutter priority and boosted the ISO to 200.

I heard the Canada geese so I thought I might gather a few images before they headed out for their morning feed.

Arriving at what I thought would be a good location I had to move in low and slow.  Do you know what it is like crawling across the frost covered frozen ground just to be close enough to take a photograph of a Canada goose.  Exciting!

The Canada geese are somewhat difficult to photograph after they have been shot at by hunters all fall.  The geese have a watchful eye and spook to the safety of the air very quickly, even if suspicious of trouble.  Most of the geese have their heads tucked back so some of them are probably sleeping along the ice covered shoreline. A few sentinels keep a lookout for danger. I think those geese sleep with one eye open.

After crawling around on the icy ground for a while I couldn’t feel my hands and my legs were aching from the cold.  Although being cold, I was capturing some nice images and yes I was still having fun.  There were about 200 geese stretched out along the shoreline.  Then all at once they started to become restless with their heads popping up and the vocalizing increasing.  I know they hadn’t seen me so I was wondering what had spooked them. Then an old black raven drifted over.  But as the raven passed the geese startled and took to the air.  I wasn’t ready for this.

The noise was deafening and there were geese everywhere.  I was in the midst of flock shooting when I spotted a bald eagle circling high overhead looking for a meal of cold goose.  He was the culprit that spooked the geese from their slumber.  The eagle was too far away to take a nice photograph but I took a few images of the eagle just the same.

Wildlife photography is so dynamic that from one minute to the next you will have a whole new set of images.  With the geese this morning it went from geese sleeping on the ice to a cluster of birds in the air.

After spending over an hour by the shoreline my hands were just about numb not to mention the rest of my body.  The geese had begun to return to the shoreline after the disruption with the bald eagle. I noticed my battery meter blinking so I suspect the cold has also affected the battery.  So that signals time to get up off the frozen ground and begrudgingly head for home.

I left the geese as I found them, all huddled together facing the cold November wind and dreaming of warmer places.

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White balance correction either in your camera or through manipulation in Lightroom or Photoshop is the process of removing color casts, so that your image does not contain a specific color cast that could be any color such as blue, yellow, green or a magenta color cast. Sometimes these color casts are caused by the environment in which you are photographing. As an example, shooting in a leafy wooded area could create a green color cast or photographing in the mountains in winter will yield a blue color cast to the snow. I’m sure you have all seen this color cast on your images. A slight blue color cast can be hard to detect on the monitor. Some color casts can be pleasing and add to the image such as warm yellow morning light.

Your camera has white balance settings that you can select to simulate for the various lighting situations you may encounter throughout the day. The hue and intensity or the “color temperature” of the sun light is continually changing. But how many of us have just set our camera to “AUTO” white balance and left it there only to correct the color shift in the computer. Did I see a few hands go up. Under mixed lighting conditions, auto white balance usually calculates an average color temperature for the entire scene, and then uses this as the white balance.

One important thing I learned early on when I started photographing with my digital camera was to set a custom white balance in my camera whenever possible. I suspect that most DSLR’s will allow you to set a custom white balance and possibly some point and shoot cameras as well.

You will have to consult your cameras user manual regarding the setting of a custom in-camera preset for white balance as some cameras use the gray reference and some cameras like mine use the white reference. So be sure to check your manual for the correct reference to use. You may have to read the manual over a few times like I had to in order to learn how to set an in-camera preset for custom white balance in the camera’s menu. I actually had to re-write that section in the Olympus manual so if by some chance I ever had to go back to having to set the custom white balance again it would be easy to perform. I can’t help you with the settings for your custom white balance here as all cameras will have their own menu settings.

A custom white balance allows you to set a white or gray reference under the same lighting in which you are photographing, and then saves that setting as the white balance for those particular photos you are taking at the time. Depending upon your camera you may have multiple slots for custom white balance. My camera provides settings for 4 individual slots to save custom white balance settings. Remember that depending upon the time of day and location where you are photographing the temperature of the light is constantly changing. Changing light in the studio is the same as natural light. Whenever I adjust or move the strobes I perform a custom white balance in my camera to ensure the skin tones render the best possible color.

First I started using a rectangular piece of foam core about 16 inches in size that I purchased at Michaels. Cheap and it worked great. But carrying around the piece of foam core I found just gets in the way so I have invested in a Lastolite EZYBalance disc, which looks like a small reflector that is about 20 inches in diameter, which folds up neatly into a small bag. It only takes a few seconds to take a shot of the EZYBalance disc and then I’m good to go for the moment at least. Most of my photographs just look better, especially when it comes to skin tones either shot outside or in the studio.

Some of the photographers I know prefer to set their camera on auto white balance and blast away and fix it later in Lightroom or Photoshop. Why spend that extra time in front of your monitor when you can be out photographing. Another advantage for me at least by having to set a custom white balance makes me think, which is a good thing and to slow down and ward off that urge to blast away.

So if you have some extra time why not try experimenting by setting a custom white balance in your camera and see how it improves your images and will definitely save time in post processing.

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With all the photography blogs and photography web sites out there focused at helping folks improve their photography I’m wondering whether it would be worth while to add another blog.  I’m hoping this blog may be beneficial to both you and me.  With all the tips and tricks and software that is continually being updated I have to write down the new things I learn so I can remember them later on. So why not write the new things I learn in the blog so everyone can pick and choose as they see fit. I will probably interject with my photography exploits from time to time as I always enjoy seeing other photographers work for inspiration and new ideas.

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As this is my first blogging experience and having to learn the new blogging software has kept me busy working over this chilly November weekend on setting up the blog page layout. But everything seems to be coming together nicely. Having to learn the blog interface and where the various sections are and what happens by hitting the update button has and will continue to be a learning experience at least for awhile. Having to break ground with this new software and the trepidation of starting a blog has taken time away from photography.

I have been diligently working on the Brass Edge Photography web site as well so this is rather a double whammy working between both applications. But perseverance will pay off in the long run.

So without further ado let’s get started.

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