First snow in the valley 11/16/11
I love how the light on certain evenings after a snow storm bounces off the cloud layer above. This photo, similar to others I have made, is three exposures to capture the highlight and shadow detail and combine in post. This base photo represents a 2 minute exposure.
2011-2012 PAC cover scan - click for larger
I got a call “we need help! We are going to press next week with our catalog and we need a cover photo taken.” They got my name from previous client networking and were hoping I could help out. I had three possibilities that weekend to choose from. So I picked one and we setup the time of the shoot. We had one hour to pull off the cover.
I was not completely aware of what they had in mind for this shoot. I had photographed performances here several times and had used the stage for a senior shoot. But I had little details as to what they had plans for on this shoot. So I brought all my lighting gear just in case. We did not need any of it.
Crash Ketcham had recently won the 2010 We’ve got talent contest. He was the subject of the photo and the rest was to be determined.
I had a brief talk with the stage manager and found out we were going to use the stage lighting as part of the performance. That was cool. I gave Crash some direction, then found out what he would like to do. We dialed in the stage lighting, took a bunch of test shots and tweaked the lights so the direction and intensity from left to right matched better and the angles were better. We then worked together to direct Crash into some neat positions and were getting some great photos.
I chose not to use any strobes at all and just use the stage lighting, keep the ISO high so the shutter speed could capture the action and rock some nice photos.
Shoot started at 12:18pm on 6/18/11 and ended at 12:50pm. I shot 274 exposures and 148 were chosen as selects. I needed to get a model release signed for both myself and the PAC. I had one with me, but it was not for a minor. I had forgotten to put on in my camera bag (oops). But since his parents were not there anyway, it could not have been done at that time anyway. So when I got home I emailed my standard minor release to the PAC and they got the signatures from Crash and his parent. I chose to use the D700 and a 70-200 f/2.8 for this shoot. ISO was 3200, f/stop was 3.2 and shutter was 1/500. All photos were hand-held and timed by eye, usually in 3 image bursts as Crash maneuvered across the stage into pre-determined areas. Here are the two photos that were selected for delivery:
selects within Lightroom
Downloaded to the clients drive, duplicated to second client mirror drive. Then got to work. Loaded the shoot into Photo Mechanic and tagged each photo that was technically good. This omits the too blurry, missed focus, out of line shots and put all the good shots into a /selects/ folder within the shoot folder. Then I imported the selects into Lightroom. Set the camera calibration setting, applied it to all the rest of the photos.
I processed out the best shots, uploaded the proofs, had them look at the set and choose the photos. They chose one for the cover and one for the inside. I then output the photos, tweaked slightly as needed and sent them to the designer doing the layout. Processed all within Lightroom, the ISO 3200 files were very clean and printed extremely well.
This is the seasonal catalog, 20 pages, sent out to their entire mailing list and put on brochure racks all over the place. I could not share anything from the shoot for weeks. I needed to wait until the printed materials had arrived before I could share. Then I got busy, but making it available today to share the results. I also got my business logo and URL mentioned in the publication. Here is one of the interior pages with the second photo:
They were thrilled with the results and I now have a new client. Excited to sit down and talk to them about their needs and marketing.
I had not really planned on capturing video. But since I had a Mino Flip with me, so I put it on a light stand to see what I could get. Here is 20 minutes of the time he spent on stage sped up 1600%.
Fader ND Mk II 77mm arrival from Light Craft Workshop
The Fader ND Mark II is a high quality optic that will give you more control over your exposures, especially in certain situations. It is very much like the Singh-Ray Vari-ND filter, but costs less than half of the standard one and less than a third of the thin one. Vari-ND filters have notoriously been on back order for month after month in the past due to demand so people were begging for an alternative. This is a welcome sight to the photography/videography community. There are a lot of knock-offs now, under a plethora of names and I cannot vouch for any of those off brands sold on Amazon and eBay, so we will just talk about this one the “Authorized” one. Light Craft Workshop sells their Fader ND Mark II on Amazon as well, plus they do have an eBay store and a web site. I purchased mine from their Amazon store. I ordered mine on Sunday and it arrived Wednesday with standard shipping. Pretty fast! Here are worldwide distributors.
I don’t find changing my aperture gives me enough control over shutter speed. Plus you give up creative freedom and some technical issues come up. I prefer ND to slow things down and ISO to speed things when aperture and shutter speed are not changeable, or at least not very far for technical or aesthetic reasons. So what are these reasons?
HDSLR – shooting video, you cannot simply change aperture and shutter speed to your whim, at least not without compromising things. You lock down your desired aperture, set your appropriate shutter speed, and in many light situations you will have to stop down he lens in order to expose properly. Not very creative. If you are shooting at 24fps, you should be around 1/48 (1/50) shutter speed. If you are shooting at 30fps you should be around 1/60 of a second. Shooting at 60fps it should be around 1/120 (1/125). This is called the 180 degree rule. You can break this rule, but slower shutter speeds introduce more blur and faster shutter speeds make the resulting video look choppy and unnatural. The human eye can see when the shutter speed is off too far, so it is best to stay within a stop or so of the optimum shutter speed. Purists will tell you it has to be double the frame rate. ND to to the rescue. Dial in your aperture, shutter speed then apply the right amount of ND to gain a proper exposure.
Aperture is not enough – As you start shooting a lot, you realize that aperture really is pretty limiting when it comes to controlling a large range of desired shutter speeds. There is just not enough range, and the range you have has to many compromises to creativity. If you shoot long exposures a lot, then heavy ND is likely a great method. If you shoot a lot of ND in the range of needing 2 to 6 stops of light loss, then a variable ND can be very handy for you. Of course you can shoot both together and get even more creative control.
Panning – lock in a desired shutter speed and aperture, then dial in the exposure and rock those panning shots to your heart’s content.
Long exposures – I love long exposures and variable ND is so much more handy than a kit full of ND filters.
Wide-open mid-day – Want to shoot at f/1.4 in the middle of the day? Good luck without ND. I have used my ND400 on several occasions for such things like car shows in bright sunlight. Having a variable ND lets you get creative with ease like shooting with a 30mm f/1.4 wide open at 1/8000 becomes 1/125 with a maxed out Fader ND or 1/1000 dialed in at three stops of ND. Very handy!
Heavy ND – I have shot with a heavy ND (ND400) for years now and it is my favorite filter besides my B+W circular polarizer. Now I can shoot with the Fader ND, ND400 both depending on the needs of the day. They also make a Fader ND Ultra that gives you a range of 9 to 12 stops. 77mm is $225 and they call it “Lord of the Dark”. I might just have to pick up one of those too, as I do so much long exposure work. A three stop variable range can mean the difference between 4 seconds and 30 seconds or 4 minutes and 32 minutes!
Variable ND really is variable, in more than one way. This is something you have to get used to – and surprising to many, it depends on the focal length as to the strength of the ND that can be applied with the filter. The details in this chart show the degree of ND that can be applied at different focal lengths (on a cropped sensor DSLR represented in this chart):
| 12mm | ND4 to ND8 | 2 stop operating range |  |
| 15mm | ND4 to ND16 | 3 stop operating range |  |
| 18mm | ND4 to ND32 | 4 stop operating range |  |
| 24mm | ND4 to ND64 | 5 stop operating range |  |
| 35mm | ND4 to ND125 | 6 stop operating range |  |
| 40mm | ND4 to ND175 | 6.5 stop operating range |  |
| 50mm | ND4 to ND250 | 7 stop operating range |  |
| 70mm | ND4 to ND350 | 7.5 stop operating range |  |
| 100mm+ | ND4 to ND500 | 8 stop operating range |  |
Fader ND Min-Max Scale
I was a bit skeptical given the varying prices I found for “Fader ND” searches, but decided to pull the trigger on this one since they claim they are the authorized distributor, that the rest are knock offs, and the photography and cinema reviews were all positive.
The Official filter, and hologram to prove it.
I find it superb. Clarity, neutrality, smooth operation, no vignetting. Well made and should last a long, long time. It is easy to see the minimum and maximum effect in daylight. When working in darker areas, it is a little harder to see when you might have dialed it too far, so watch for that.
Pros
Cons
Conclusion
If you own a Singh-Ray, go use it. If you have had trouble saving for one, or getting your hands on one even when you do have the money, this is a viable option. The 77mm filter is wider at the front (82mm threads) to help with vignetting, so if you want to stack filters, you have to put the Fader ND on the front. You could buy three of these for what one Vari-ND thin will cost you and you can put them on three different lenses at once. Very handy for cinematography.
Options
You can get the Fader ND in different sizes from 52mm to 82mm:
I will be comparing the Fader ND Mk II to the Singh-Ray Vari-ND side by side.
I will also be putting it through use on location, at a wedding, a portrait session and some video work.
-Landon
Certain projects benefit from shooting straight, good JPG in-camera and outputting without any processing at all has its benefits. Shooting a birthday party for instance and handing the client a disc at the end of the session involves no more workflow than a quick edit and burn if that is your thing. If you can shoot a wedding as JPG files and output stunning prints and albums then so be it. Sporting events are also a very common JPG and deliver kind of workflow for very good reasons.
On the other side of the coin, not every project by every photographer wants to do that. Take printing for instance, just customizing the amount of sharpening for your print requires some post production before putting your image on paper, for each size printed. Good B&W is very seldom done in-camera now with products like Silver Efex Pro 2 in our kit.
Photography is Not Reality
Reality is reality. Standing in a scene we see it, feel it, smell it – it is a full sensory experience. Photography has always been an abstraction of reality – a flat representation of it. Lens choice, framing and a photographer’s eye separates it from reality. Might still be editorial, but it is not reality. Plus we all see the world differently. Abstraction from reality can make an image more engaging to the viewer. B&W for instance is a further abstraction from a color scene.
My Approach
I personally shoot both a JPG and a RAW workflow depending on the project. I love to nail the photo and make it *done* in camera, but that does not always happen, usually for good reason. I shoot RAW+JPG as I just find 8-bit JPG too limiting for my style, yet I like to refer to them for what I had in mind while I was there. All with the freedom to match a RAW file to a JPG as shot or to change my mind as need be. UDMA cameras and cards do not give me a performance hit for RAW+JPG so I do it. Other cameras I might use that do give a performance hit, or don’t offer that mode, I will just shoot RAW. I can always ignore the JPG if I wish, or delete them outright. Much faster than generating them if I do need them. Long-term storage I have made the decision to nuke them from many projects.
If I am shooting shots for something quick, editorial and not for art sake, I might switch to a JPG workflow and be done right out of camera. Most anything else though is a RAW workflow. My RAW workflow is a work flow, not a work slow. More on workflow in coming posts.
Not Losing Momentum
During a shoot, especially a portrait shoot, not ruining the momentum of a great portrait I will sometimes let little things go instead of disrupting the flow, fixing the little thing, then trying to pick up the energy again. You have to make judgment calls when to fix in-camera and when to fix in post. Photography is always a compromise. Just be aware of what those items are so you don’t get surprises.
Your Work Compared to the Masses
You have very few options in-camera for processing. If you are using a smartphone then you have lots of options on how to process it, but fewer options on how the photo was taken. I think now more than ever as a photographer you have to separate yourself from the masses. You need your style to be true to you and not look like every file that comes out of every body elses camera. When we shot film, we would buy film to achieve a certain image, often for technical and aesthetic reasons. Then we would hand it over to a lab and process it for more technical and aesthetic reasons. You can still do that today, but rarely on a production schedule people are accustomed to. So we shoot digital and we choose the “film” and we are the lab. Not saying everybody has to post process their images to have a style, but it certainly is common these days. But lighting, lens choice and your own approach certainly dictate much of your style as well.
Illustration vs. Photography
Maybe post work makes you more than a photographer. So what? If your style and vision extend beyond the shutter click then so be it. I personally don’t have an issue with more than a photographer. In many cases it can me more profitable to separate yourself from the shutter click. Ansel Adams did not print images directly from the camera. He shot with post in mind for each image and how he was going to print it to his mind’s eye. Be true to your vision and shoot for your workflow. I don’t get a big hangup about purist photography, illustration vs. photography, but I do understand the argument. For me editorial is one thing, but art is art. If your vision is being realized by your workflow then go for it. Just make it true to yourself, as good as you can, and don’t portray it untruthfully.
A Good Skillset
Moving beyond the shutter click, calling yourself more than a photographer, is all good I say. But fundamentals are still key. I still shoot assignments where it has to be right in-camera. No compositing and no removing big elements. It is fun and makes you think creatively. So having a foundation of how to get it done in-camera is very valuable, and can be profitable. A good skillset of knowing how to use your tools is still paramount. Even when shooting specifically for post, getting sloppy is never a good idea. Shooting sloppy green-screen for instance makes post work very difficult and time consuming. Shooting anything sloppy is never a good idea. Shoot with the final outcome in mind and do it to the best of your ability.
Signature Work
I have a hard time making my signature work in-camera. It is just too limiting for the certain work I like to do. Landscape work for me rarely is captured in a single shutter click. I even know now to do it all in-camera yet I still find that limiting. So I shoot with post in mind, and often post production is just a few minutes per image, not hours.
Then there are those ideas that do require a lot of extra work. Location scouting, location lighting, location logistics, intricate capture, post manipulation, careful compositing and possibly a handful of plugins too. That type of image might happen once a month for me, not daily.
-Landon
All images Copyright © 2004-2012 Landon Michaelson - All Rights Reserved
