Blog is moved

I would like to invite you to visit my new blog site. It is called The Photographers Code and can be found hear http://thephotographerscode.com.

I also invite you to visit my photography site, Grinke Creative Inc. and can be found here. http://grinkecreative.com.

The content here is still great so I also invite you to review it.

The X Factor

The following article was written for my Web site about 2 years ago. I am moving the articles on my Web site over to my blog so here is the first one.

Enjoy

The X Factor

Lens conversion factor came into play early in the digital imaging revolution. It was developed as a way for 35mm shooters to know how the perspective of their lens would look on a digital camera. To get an idea of how it works, imagine a 4x6 print. Now draw a box on the picture about 2cm in from the edges. The 4x6 print represents the full size sensor(or 35mm film) while the box inside represents the sensor in your camera, (or any other digital camera). Keep in mind that this is only a representation and not dimensionally accurate. If you were to enlarge the part of the picture inside the box that you drew to a 4x6 print, it would appear as though it was taken will a longer lens. The X factor is a ratio of the sensor size relative to the full size sensor (or 35mm film). There are many different size sensors out there so the x factor be different depending on the cameras that you are using.

On a digital SLR like the Canon Rebel XTi, the X factor is 1.6. I usually use 1.5 because the math is doable in my head and the difference is not significant. Therefore, a 50mm lens will give you the same perspective a 75mm lens on a 35mm camera (50 x 1.5 = 75), a 100mm lens will give you the same perspective as a 150mm lens on a 35mm (100 x 1.5 = 150), and so on. So, the X factor is really just a conversion to give lens magnification on a DSLR relative to a film SLR or Full Size sensor DSLR.
Interesting to note that photographers had this similar issue before digital as well. There are many other film formats out there besides 35 mm and each one requires different focal length lenses to achieve the same effect.

The zoom factor is a ratio of the longest focal length of a lens divided by the shortest focal length of a lens. It is not particularly relevant for a DSLR because the lenses are interchangeable and the zoom factor will be different depending upon the lens.

So lets do some calculations. The zoom factor for a 18mm - 55mm lens is 55mm/18mm=3 or 3x optical zoom. Calling it optical zoom is somewhat redundant because we are talking about a lens which is only optical but eh. The zoom factor for a 50mm - 200mm lens is 200/50= 4 or 4x optical zoom. The zoom factor for a 75mm - 300mm lens is 300/75=4x or 4x optical zoom. And on it goes. You can use the X factor to recalculate the relative focal lengths but it won't change the answer so why make life more confusing.
In the world of fixed lens cameras and point and shoot cameras this is great to know because you can get an intuitive idea of how a camera will respond. For example; a canon SD1000 has a 3x optical zoom with its widest angle being 38mm equivalent. Using the zoom factor ratio we can determine that when it is fully zoomed out it will have the equivalent of 38mm x 3 = 114mm lens on a 35mm camera. On a super zoom such as the Olympus 550UZ, the zoom is 18x and starts at a 35mm equivalent of 28mm. Therefore when zoomed fully out it will have a 35mm equivalent of 28mm x 18 = 504mm.

With a DSLR, the lens is interchangeable, and each lens will have its own zoom factor as shown earlier in some of the calculations. What happens when you have more than one lens in you camera kit? Do you have different lens with different focal ranges and different zoom factors or do you a series of lens that will take you through an expanded zoom range and a zoom factor that encompasses you entire kit? There is no definitive answer to this but I prefer to view my camera as a system and therefore would look at it as a zoom factor that encompasses the entire range of my lens. Using this logic then, lets recalculate the zoom factor for a DSLR kit.

Lets assume that you have an 18 - 55mm lens that comes with the camera. Then, as calculated above, you have a lens with a 3x optical zoom starting at 18mm. Now assume that you decide to purchase a 55 - 200mm lens. As calculated earlier, this lens is a 4x optical

zoom. But in your kit you now have lens ranging from 18 mm to 200mm, so effectively, you have the capability of 200mm/18mm=11 or 11x optical zoom starting at 27mm equivalent (18mmx1.5=27mm). Interesting huh?

Return from Hungary

I have been back from Hungary for over a week now and I am still sifting through images. Wow, what a great trip and such a wonderful place to visit. The photographic opportunities are amazing and the people are very warm and welcoming.

Gellert Hotel, Main Entrance
Canon 6D, 24-105@24mm, 1/20@f4, ISO 1600

The trip was built around a photographic master class led by David Ziser and Clay Blackmore. Two photographers that I have wanted to study with for years. It was fantastic to finally be able to spend some time with these guys and get to know them. There were about 14 other students in the class (I never stopped to actually count them). We were together for seven days, studying and photographing for about 12 hours each day. It was exhausting but well worth it.

This is the Gellert hotel where we called home for the duration of the trip. It is built in 1916 and contains the world famous Gellert Spa. The building is filled with history, being the home away from home for the leaders of the German army during WWII and then by the Soviet Union. The spa area was, during the Soviet occupation a public swimming pool for the people of Budapest however the hotel itself was off limits. As the story goes, only tourists and Russians were allowed in the hotel area.

The building itself is an incredible piece of architecture and the public areas a well maintained and have kept the original feel of the building. The rooms are comfortable but show signs of long term neglect and patch it so it works and that's good enough repairs. I suspect there are plans in place to bring the hotel back to its original glory. I very much enjoyed my stay there.

The indoor pool at the Gellert Spa.
Canon 6D, 24-205 @24mm,1/30 @ f4.0, ISO 2000

Originally, Budapest was two cities - Buda and Pest. When the Freedom bridge was built, the two cities were joined together and became Budapest, and the capital of Hungary. This image of the Freedom Bridge as it crosses over the Danube from the Pest side to the Buda side. At the Buda end of the bridge is, of course, the Gellert hotel. There were seven bridges that cross the Danube, all of which were bombed out during WWII. All the bridges were rebuilt to resemble there original forms except one, The Elizabeth Bridge, which was built between 1960 and 1964, nearly two decades after the destruction of the original bridge was destroyed and used cable suspension designs of the day. An 8th bridge, The Megyeri Bridge, was constructed between 2006 and 2008 and is a modern looking cable construction bridge.

The Freedom Bridge leading to the Gellert Hotel
Canon 6D, 25-105@45mm, 2.5 sec @f5.6, ISO 160

The Freedom Bridge
Canon 6D, 24-105 @ 55mm, 1400@ f5.6, ISO 160

The Chain Bridge
HDR Composite

That's it for today. More images from Budapest next post.

Len

Lifestyle portraits and teenagers

Some of my favourite people to work with are teenagers. There curiosity and willingness to try things make photographing them a delight. The images in this post are from a recent lifestyle portrait session that I did at Kates Park in North Vancouver. It was close to sunset, maybe an hour before, when these images where taken. Although they were done at about the same time and same place, two very different techniques were used to capture the images.

The first image was taken in direct sunlight. The subject was turned so that her back was facing the sun. When photographing a portrait in direct sunlight, I work at having the subject between the sun and the camera. This technique gives the beautiful rim light that I have in this portrait and allows me to control the light on the face.

When taking this portrait, the sun was low enough to cause flair in my image that I did not like. to correct this, I moved to be at a slight angle to the sun - correcting the flair problem.  A reflector was used to control the light back into the face.

Post production was in Lightroom. To soften the entire image, I used the clarity slider and then added some grain. I also wanted to have a lighter feel to the image so I used the split toning feature to create a look that appeared to be more of a morning light. I have also made some skin tonality adjustments using the luminosity sliders. finally a light vignette was added. I liked the effect so I made it into a Lightroom preset.

The second image was taken about 15 minutes later at a different area of the park. I am facing North East here and the sun is low in the sky - on the other side of the park. As a result, there is sun shining across the water lighting the boat and the opposite shoreline, but the beach we are on is being shaded by the trees.

To get this image, I set my exposure for the background. I wanted to show off the beauty of the setting so I needed to insure that it did not disappear. If I had exposed for the subject, the background would have become very overexposed. By exposing for the background, I put the subject in dark. This gives me the advantage of being able to control the exposure on the subject using Flash. I put two 580 EX 11 flashes in a 40" umbrella and balanced the exposure on the subject to the exposure on the background. The final exposure was F 5.0 @ 1/200th,  ISO 200 on a Canon 7D. Lens 10 - 22mm set at 21mm.

Final touches in Lightroom were minor skin tone adjustments and a vignette.

This session was a lot of fun and I know the client had a great time as well. We had a lot of time to try some different things and to just play, and the result were well worth it.

Lake time

It's lake time once again, and the first thing that gets packed into the truck is the camera gear. It's a force of habit I know, but I don't think I have ever gone to the cabin, our any place else, without it. It's a part of me and in many ways it is who I am. It's been this way for years now and it is likely to never change.

I always enjoy going to the cabin and one of my favourite things about it is that there is always something to tinker with. Something always needs fixing. This trip had a couple of minor issues, the door on the dishwasher was out of kilter and some general clean up of the property, but there was one larger issue to take care of. The effluent pump was not working!

When we arrived, my brother in law had already determined that the problem was not actually the pump but a problem with the power supply. We opened up the electrical box and discovered a corroded mess. All the wires had corroded to the point where the wire needed to be replaced all the way from the box in the cabin out to the sump area where the pump is.

As is the case at the lake, a major problem such as this requires a beer and consultations with the rest of the cabin community. As we were approaching the need for a second beer, our close friend Kent say "hang on, I think I get some BX cable at the cabin". 10 minutes later he's back with his son in law who happens to be an electrician, and guess what, he's got his tools with him and all the parts we need to do the job. An hour later, the pump is back in business and everyone is one again able to do their business.

Our electrician friend was a true professional. In his mind, there was no question that he would have his tools with him. They are what he does and they are a part of him. He also wanted to help. You could see that being able to use his craft gave him joy. What a wonderful gift.

As photographers, we need to see our cameras in the same light. They are the tools that we use to do our craft. I could not come up to the cabin and be comfortable without my camera. The interesting thing is that every time I come up, I have occasion to use it. And every time I come home with some different images.

Photographing in a Alley

When I am photographing a portrait, I often find the background I want to use, but the lighting on the subject just isn't there. In situations like these, the flashes need to come out.

The photograph attached to this post was taken in a very narrow lane in downtown Vancouver. Sometimes, if you work near the end of the lane, you can get directional lighting, however, this stretch of wall was in the middle of the lane, giving only top down lighting t work with. The existing lighting would have created very dark shadows under the eyes resulting in a generally unpleasing image. A quick solution would have been to pull out a reflector and shine some light back into the shadowed areas, however, this would have also light up under the nose and chin, a look that I am not particularly fond of. I felt that a better solution was to pull out the flashes.

My primary light source was 2-580EX2 flashes placed inside of a 2x2 Apollo soft box. The light source was placed to camera left. The exposure was set to balance the ambient light. Balancing the flash with the ambient minimized shadows on the wall and careful placement of the light and subject all but eliminated them. The net result was a portrait that looked natural yet still light the mask of the face.

This image was taken with a Canon D6, 70-200 IS f2.8 lens at 200mm, f 5, ISO 800, shutter speed 1/60. The image was finished in Lightroom with a vignette.

Five Lights and Two Reflectors

What I like about photographing in the studio is that it gives me total control, particularly in the way I light it. When you are on location, you need to be able to incorporate the light that exists and then add supplemental lighting to create the final image. In the studio, you start with black and add light where you want it.

Sometimes, what appears to be a simple image can prove to be quite complex from a lighting perspective. The image accompanying this post appears as a straight forward head shot. However, it took five lights and two reflectors to create the lighting that I wanted. Here's how I put this lighting together.

The primary light source, the one lighting the face, is a 3ft x 3ft soft box placed almost directly above the camera. The lighting pattern this gives on the subject is a butterfly style of lighting. Even though the light source was large, the shadows created on the face were still a little to deep. By using two reflectors below and on either side of the camera, I was able to direct light into the shadow areas that I wanted to open up. I have at times used a single reflector directly from underneath, but I found that I did not have as much control over the placement of the light.

To add depth to the image, I put a light on the background. It is very important to make this light as subtle as possible. Too bright and it becomes distractive, too dark and you will not get the separation.

This subject has very dark hair. The danger with very dark hair is that if it is not properly light, it will blend into the background and have no detail - it will just be a black, flat area in the image.. To light the hair properly took three lights - one directly from the top and one from each side. the lights were placed behind the subject with lighting controls that allowed me to carefully aim the light source and prevent the light from flaring the camera.

Five lights and two reflectors to create this head shot. But the results are well worth it.

More mixing Ambient light and flash

This image was done at a recent session in a clients home. We did a few shots using window light alone bit there was a very interesting piece of furniture that I wanted to use as the background. I had the client lye on the floor in front of the hutch  and began photographing.

The window light coming from the glass doors created a nice light on the subjects face but the hutch went into darkness and lacked the separation needed for the subject to stand out so I had the subject move more into the centre of the room with her back toward the the window. This made the subjects face very dark relative to the hutch but gave a nice light on the hutch. It also gave that beautiful rim light that you can see in her hair. I then put a speedlight into a 2x2 Apollo soft box and used it to light the subjects face. Now I had total exposure control and was able to adjust the relative exposure of my background over the subjects face and created this image.

Using this technique allows the photographer to separately control the exposure of what is light by the window light and what is light by the speedlight. I could have easily
chosen to have the background darker or lighter but I felt that this was the best balance for the image.

The final image was tweeked in Lightroom with some skin softening and a vignette. Lightroom 5 has a new tool called a radial filter that allows the user to centre the vignette anywhere in the image. I love this tool.

Mixing natural light and flash

Wedding portraits can prove to have very tricky lighting to work with. This wedding shoot was at the Brock House on  beautiful sunny afternoon. The location is spectacular - on old mansion right on the beach. But, the lighting proved to be tricky.

Being mid day and sunny, the light was very harsh and top down. The result was racoon eyes and really deep shadows. Here was our solution.

First thing was to look for an area with open shade. We used a giant tree. This gave us directional light coming off the water providing a nice portrait style light. Keeping the sun behind the subjects insured that there would be no mottling on the subjects and provided an interesting texture as it filtered through the trees.

At this point it looked good but the shadows on the subjects was still too deep. A gentle fill light was provided by a Speedlite to open up the shadows and the lighting was completed. The Speedlite was on TTL and set to expose 1 2/3 stops under.

The image was converted to a toned black and white in Lightroom and a texture overlay added in Photoshop to complete the image.

Flash exercise

Last weekend I held a two day workshop on using hand held flashes or Speedlites. By the end of the two days we had created some great images and everyone walked away with a better understanding of how to incorporate their speedlites into their photography.

One of the exercises that we did was to use the speedlites as accent lights only, using another light source as the primary light. In this example, we used a window as our main light. Window light can be a very beautiful and soft light source but very often the background can get too dark. If the subject has dark hair, then you run the risk of loosing the definition between the hair and the background, ultimately creating a not so nice portrait. this first image is a good example of how nice window light can go bad.

In the next image a speedlite has been incorporated to light the background. Notice how the subject now stands out from the background and the image has a greater sense of depth to it. Also notice that as the background comes closer to the tonality of the clothes that the model is wearing, the less the clothes dominate the image.

In the final image, we put a speedlite to camera right and behind the subject. This adds a little more sepeeration to the hair and picks up more detail. The image was then reframed to eliminate more of the dress and fill the image with the subject. To finish off, in Lightroom we did some minor skin softening and added a vignette.

Gallery Opening

Hi Folks

Many of you know that I have been working on putting together a gallery that will show the work of local artists. Well that gallery has now come together. The first opening is on October 12, 2012 and it promises to be a great evening. Here is some information on the show. Hope to see you all there.

Focal Point

I believe that education in photography is essential if we want to keep up with the ever changing technology and still maintain photography as a viable art form. Today there are many non traditional ways to learn about photography, particularly on line. A quick search on the internet will show literally millions of sites that are dedicated to teaching you how to photograph. Some of them, like the New York Institute of Photography, can prove to be a viable way to learn photography as an art. However, most of them fall well short.

The best way to get a photography education is to work with a instructor in a structured program that has well defined learning outcomes so that at the end of the process you walk away with a well rounded foundation in photography. Places that do this well are hard to find. 

Focal Point Visual Arts Centre has been providing this level of quality education in Vancouver for 39 years. This month, we will be loosing Focal Point. As an alumnae of Focal Point as well as one of its instructors, I know that it will be missed.

I want to take this opportunity to thank Focal Point for being a big part of my photography career and to wish all the best to my students and the staff.

Mid August Already

Wow, I can't believe that we are already in the middle of August. It's been a busy summer filled with weddings, portraits, and teaching. Starting to prepare for the fall season now. Here's what's happening.

Now is the time that I start photographing students who are graduating in 2013. I know it seems a bit early, but it is the best time. This way we can still catch the nice weather of summer or the fall colours in about 6 weeks. If you know anyone who is graduating in 2013, get them to call me now. Last year there were many who left it too late.

Wedding season is in full swing right now.It's been a great season and it has been a lot of fun. Mid September is when the wedding shooting will start dying down and the album production will be in full force. This is also the time when I start putting together next years promotional wedding materials. I looking forward to presenting some exciting new offerings including an album on an iPad.

There is 4 weeks left in the wedding photography class that I am teaching at Focal Point. The students have been doing some excellent work. The fall semester starts in September and I will be teaching wedding photography, flash photography, Commercial Portraiture, and practical studio lighting. The fall course schedule will be posted soon on the Focal Point web site. These course fill up fast so sign up early.

That's it for todays update.

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Flash For Accents

I am a huge fan of using speedlights. In fact, one of the courses I teach a course at a local school, Focal Point, is on speedlight and small flash photography. Uses flashes could to light the subject is the obvious use for these units. But flashes can also be used to highlight certain areas in the image or be used to place light where there actually was none.


The Image that I want to share today was taken a couple of weeks ago on a ranch. The weather was nice but it was still quite cold so we went into the barn to warm up. The light coming through the barn door created this beautiful light on the model. A little light reflected back onto her completed the lighting on the model.


The background was a different story. the background is a vacant horse stall that rendered almost black in the image. To compensate, I needed to bring in some artificial light. A single, off camera flash placed in the stall and to camera right was all that was needed to complete this image.

Photo Challenge #9

Create an image that has three definable layers - a foreground, background and subject or middle ground.

Forground

Composition of a photograph plays a crucial role in how successful the image is. I have talk about the rule of thirds and the golden rectangle in other posts. In this post I want to talk a little about adding depth to an image by adding a foreground.


Most images have a middle ground and a background.  The middle ground is typically the subject, and the background is what is behind the subject. we know that the eye will tend to move towards the sharpest part of the image, so to draw attention to the subject you can take the background slightly  out of focus using selective depth of field, causing the subject to become the main point of interest.


This technique works great when the subject is close, as in a head and shoulders shot, but what happens when you want to show more of the environment in the image. Does it all become background? Sometimes, but a more effective technique is to have a foreground in the image.


Having a foreground will create a space in which the subject resides. Effective use of the foreground will help give the image a more pictorial feel, giving the viewer more information about the subject and the environment it is in. It can also be helpful in directing the viewers attention toward the subject, helping it stand out even more inside the image. 


This image was designed to show the area in where this family liked to spend time together. It is a beautiful area in North Vancouver. with some of the family moving away, this image gave them a way to stay connected by showing them together as well is showing off the environment. Notice how the leading lines of the railing and the grate work in the foreground bring your attention to the group while the river gives your eye a chance to explore the rest of the image before bringing your eye back top the group.


Some techniques used in creating an effective foreground include depth of field, leading lines, repeating patterns and congruity with the background. The goal when deciding on your foreground is to make it add to your image without it being overpowering.

Photo challenge #8

Photograph a tree. It can be abstract - just photograph a tree.

Skateboarder

This image was taken during a lifestyle session that I did over spring break. This young man was in to all the high energy sports - skateboarding, snowboarding, BMX, mountain biking. We spent the day going to numerous locations to capture him "in action".

I captured this image right at the beginning of the session, before we really got into the action. It was captured with a 10mm lens so the skateboard was just inches from the lens. The perspective of the lens gave the image this interesting look. I had a single 580EX flash to camera right with it zoomed to 105mm to add an extra punch of light to the face. The balance of the image was lit by ambient light reflected off the building  Black and white conversion was done using Nik's Silver Effects Pro 2.

Photo Challenge #7

This weeks challenge is to photograph somebody doing their thing. It could be some kids skateboarding, snow skiing, bowling - whatever it is that they do for recreations. As an added challenge, try using a strobe to increase the impact of the image.