Photography Tips

  1. How to upload photos to Instagram from your PC or MAC

    One thing I've noticed lately, maybe in the last year especially, is many of my friends are no longer using Facebook but are instead using Instagram. I'll upload a photo to Instagram and it gets a lot of views and likes from my American friends, but they nearly ignore it on Facebook. Instead on Facebook a lot of my Japanese family and friends will like and view it. Since Japan is usually a year or two behind on internet fads and fashion, they still all use Facebook. 

    I imaging in a few more years Facebook will not be cool anymore and it will mostly be Instagram and other services that do directly what we want. So I've decided to invest more of my time uploading to Instagram since it's currently the thing.

    There are a few problems with Instagram though. First you can't upload from your computer. It only really is designed to be used with mobile technology. Second it only takes square photos. So here is how I've figured out how to very easily get my photos to Instagram from my PC or Mac using Dropbox.

    Read More

  2. Using your Camera's Custom Modes

    Using your Camera's Custom Modes - C1, C2, C3

    Using your Camera's Custom Modes

    There is one thing I started doing about a year ago that has really helped me with my photography. It allows me to spend less time messing with my camera settings and more time shooting. It's a real life saver when you need that split second reaction time to get the shot. This of course is using my camera's custom modes. (C1, C2, C3) The Canon 5D's have three functions you can use. They are labeled C1, C2, C3. The 6D has only two and I think many Nikon cameras have only two as well. But that's ok. 

    Here is a short list on how I've been using these Custom Modes.

    Custom Functions For HDR Photography

    Outdoor Landscape HDR Mode - C1

    I have two settings just for HDR photography. One is my landscape setting. The ISO defaults at 100, the aperture defaults at f/8 and the shutter is on auto. For the bracketing I use three shots at +/- two stops from center and a count down timer of two seconds. 

    This is mainly my outdoor bread and butter setting I can use when I'm shooting handheld, or on a tripod. Also works on a tripod at night.

    Here is an example of an HDR photo taken with C1. This was on a tripod at ISO 100 with the Samyang 14mm f2.8 lens. 

    Bali Local MarketThis place was awesome. Lots of rats, but I like rats, they remind me of my rabbit. There is so much color and texture and craftsmanship. Only an HDR photo could do this justice.

    Lowlight HDR Handheld Mode - C2

    This setting is the same as above but my ISO sits around 640. This is a great ISO on the 5D cameras. It's my HDR handheld setting when I'm maybe indoors or in an area that's not as well lit.

    It's really nice for when it's getting later in the day and in a dark environment where I don't want a really long shutter. Or for those moments when I don't feel like dealing with my tripod and want to get some alternate angles that would just be impossible, or very annoying with my tripod. And it's often those angles that come out looking the best. 

    Here is an example of a Handheld HDR photo taken later in the day with a higher ISO. This was with the Canon 16-35mm f2.8L II.

    The Pinocchio Whale of Disneyland. This is an HDR photo of the whale from Disney's Pinocchio. It's located at Disneyland in the Story Book World.

    All Handheld Mode - C3

    The last setting is my handheld mode. I use this for maybe street photography, or the zoo, or when I feel like a shot just doesn't need to be an HDR photo. I set the ISO to 320, the aperture is at f5.6 and the shutter is on automatic. And since I'm not shooting HDR, I turn all bracketing off with no count down timer. Instead I use a three shot burst. 

    This is also great for walking around the city or taking photos of friends and just using my camera to take those simple shots. I shoot probably half my photography this way.

    Here is an example of a shoot I took on this mode. It was all handheld with my Canon 70-200mm f2.8L IS II. I did switch the ISO to 100 on this one. What's nice about these custom modes, is you can adjust some settings, but then the camera will always return to the created custom mode after it goes into standby or is turned off. It's a nice benefit you get over using all manual or aperture priority. 

    The Great Monuments of Yosemite. A telephoto shoot of a few of the great monuments of Yosemite Valley in California.

    Other Custom Modes

    Video Custom Mode

    I use to have a mode for when I was shooting a lot more video. This mode would have a Cinestyle Picture Profile, a 1/50 shutter, ISO at 320, or 640 and the aperture I would set or control with lighting or an ND filters depending on what the scene called for. Usually around a f5.6.

    If you want to learn more about setting up your camera for video, check out Vincent Laforet. He's the man.

    JPEG Mode

    I use to have a mode that was for shooting Jpeg HDR photography. For those shots where I was getting concerned my card was getting full or when I wanted to shoot 9 exposures. Once you're shooting 9 exposures Jpeg or Raw stops really mattering as much.

    I no longer shoot JPEG anymore since it's very rare that I ever need 9 exposures. Usually three is just fine. And I have two cards now. 

    Conclusion

    These modes really come in handy. It's nice to be able to very quickly set your camera from doing HDR landscapes, to shooting some quick single exposures in lowlight. Next time Bigfoot walks by while you're out in the woods shooting HDR, you'll be able to pop your camera off your tripod, set it to C3 and capture his every move with out those three exposures of that count down timer driving you nuts.

  3. What does clean HDMI really mean for the 5Dmkiii?

     

    5Dmkiii Clean HDMI Out

    If you're like me you and your reading my site, chances are you're into cameras and read other camera blogs. So you've probably seen everyone blogging about this Canon 5Dmkiii and it's clean HDMI out firmware.

    But what does that really mean? Why is everyone so excited about it and why now? 

    A lot of times these camera manufactures release their dslrs with all these cool capabilities and slowly upgrade the software over time. This is one of those times. You see it happening with Blackmagic. They released their Cinema Camera and it was barely usable, from a user interface perspective. And we saw it with the Canon 5Dmkii when it released 24p. 

    What Clean HDMI out does for Cinematographers and Videographers

    Clean HDMI does a few things. One it allows cinematographers or camera nuts to record video onto external devices without having timecode or live view information burned into the image. Kind of a no brainer right? This was the problem before now it's gone. This means when you're recording video, you don't have to record to Canon's build in video codecs and you can now record to your own. (with an External HDMI recorder)This will help make post production quicker because you can record into a video codec that you can immediately start editing with. Like ProresHQ or DNxHD. 

    This also means you can run your HDMI out cable to a preview monitor so the director can actually see what's going on without burn-in data covering half the screen. 

    The other really cool thing about Clean HDMI out is the quality of the signal. When capturing to a CF card you're usually capturing in some form of an AVC MPEG-4 or H264 codec which are all heavily compressed giving you a chroma subsampling of something like a 4:2:0. Clean HDMI fixes this. Let me go into a little about the specs of the 5Dmkiii so there is a bit clearer of an understanding. 

    Canon 5Dmkiii Video and Codec Specs

    Currently the Canon 5Dmkiii shoots an AVC (Advanced Video Codec) H.264/MPEG-4 but with the option to shoot ALL-I Intraframe or IPB Interframe.

    What is IPB Interframe?

    IPB Interframe means you have keyframes in the compression. Say you have every 24th frame being a keyframe or I frame, then all the following frames are going to mathematically compare each pixel to the pixels of the previous frames up to the keyframe and render the image based on the difference in pixel information. So it looks at the pixels and says, did this pixel change, and by how much. A lot of times the pixels don't change so it doen't have to write ne data. Which is why this is a lighter codec.

    You'll see this a lot on old web video's where when you skip ahead the video is all jibber jabber for a second or two until it hits the keyframe, then suddenly everything is clear. The porn industry used this compression a lot. And I'm sure you hated it. 

    The benefit of this is a much smaller file size but not as accurate of color information when there are dramatic shifts in color and light between scenes. It also makes editing a bitch. 

    What is ALL-I Intraframe?

    ALL-I Intraframe is when every frame of video stands on its own. It does not require data from any other frame to create its compression. This is one of the main advantages of the Canon 5Dmkiii vs the 5Dmkii and it's great. 

    What is the AVC H.264/MPEG4 Codec in the Canon 5Dmkiii?

    The H.264 Codec is an MPEG 4 codec. What's the difference between H.264 and MPEG-4? They are the same kind of compression but H.264 is way better and about 2x as effecient. It allows for a higher compression rate allowing you to record more information with the same space. 

    The Canon 5Dmkiii shoots H.264 but at 8-bit with a chroma subsample of 4:2:0. I'm not going to get into chroma subsampling because it will never make any sense. But just know there are three variants that are very popular right now. 4:2:0 which is found in H.264 and MPEG4. So a lot of web videos. Then there is 4:2:2 which is a great editing codec that preserves a ton of information. Like Prores(HQ) is a 10 -bit 4:2:2. Or Avid's DNxHD. Then there is 4:4:4 this is an uncompressed chroma subsampling. Well it's not completely uncompressed but all the color information isn't a blended versions or estimated color like you get with 4:2:0. And it's 16-bit. 

    (By the way, if you're a PC guy, download the Avid Codecs and always work in DNxHD. I get so many weird codecs from our PC using clients at work. it's unbelievable. And stop using Animation. It's not the 90's anymore. :p )

    If you're a total video geek and have to know more about chroma sampling here you go: http://www.dvxuser.com/articles/colorspace/

    The new Canon 5Dmkiii Clean HDMI

    The new clean HDMI on the Canon now outputs a clean 4:2:2 10-bit signal. This means you can record on an external recorder straight into Prores(HQ) or DNxHD without any loss of information and you'll have a great 10-bit color sampling. This is a big deal. Prores(HQ) 4:2:2 is the industry standard, both for delivering finals to clients and for editing. Clients always ask for it. And if a client's not asking for it we make them take it. It's great. I always work in Prores(HQ). It's fast, efficient, creates great file sizes and is even good for greenscreens and effects.

    Hopefully our next gen cameras or maybe even another firmware upgrade will just give us 4:4:4. That would be something.

    So there it is, you should now have a clear understanding of clean HDMI out on the Canon 5Dmkiii. And now you can see why everyone is so excited. It was a feature that should have been in launch but wasn't. I guess Canon had bigger priorities at the time.

    Oh and while we're on the subject. Don't ever buy those $90 dollar gold coated HDMI cables from Bestbuy. You can get them on Amazon for $5-10 bucks. 

  4. Color Presets with Photoshop CS6

    Using Color Presets with Photoshop

    I've seen a few people mention this around the internet and thought it was pretty cool. Was going to make a tutorial for this but hey, Adobe already did it. This is something that Photoshop's been needing for awhile.

    With Lightroom we have our presets which are great but there was never an easy way to do it with Photoshop. There were ways to do it, but just not easy ways like there is now. Now there is a new Color Lookup Adjustment Layer where you can apply various  LUTS or Presets to your images. 

    Photoshop Presets Tutorial

  5. 3 Must Know Tips for Photographers using Smugmug Pro

    If you’re a photographer you’ve probably heard of Smugmug and know how great of a service it is. It’s pricey but pays for itself quickly. Mine did after only a few months. So here are some really cool SEO (search engine optimization) tricks you can do with Smugmug to help enhance your blog and increase those photography print sales.

    1. Use can use Smugmug to embed your photos directly into your blog

    This is great because it takes page load off your web server and increases your page load time which Google likes. This is because the photo is distributed from Smugmug's global content delivery network making your photos load super quick.

    Here’s a cool trick on how you can embed

    With Smugmug's share feature you can get a link which gives you access to embed links for your blog.

    Smugmug Pro Get A Link Feature

    Then you have several options to allow you to use your photo for Forums, Embeds, Feeds etc. I'm going to cover the 'embeddable links' tab for now since this topic is about using Smugmug to distribute your photos on your blog.

    Now you have three default sizes to choose from. Small, Medium and Large. 

    Smugmug Pro Embed Size Options

    You simply click the copy button then you can paste the code into your blog. You'll need to use either the html edit mode or the plain text editor mode on your blog to get it to display correctly. 

    How to Change the Embed Size with Smugmug Pro

    If these sizes aren't the droids you're looking for, there is a very simple technique to customize the size of your photo. After you paste the code, look for your image source line. It looks something like this

    "<img src="http://alikgriffin.smugmug.com/Portfolio/AlikGriffin/i-cCvk4QK/0/L/AlikGriffin-California-San-Diego-Solana-Beach-Low-Sunset-L.jpg" 

    This is an example using the Large Setting so where going to replace where you see the "L" with the appropriate dimensions we want for our site. For my blog I like to use 900x600, so I replace the 'L' with '900x600' so now it looks something like this:

    "<img src="http://alikgriffin.smugmug.com/Portfolio/AlikGriffin/i-cCvk4QK/0/900x600/AlikGriffin-California-San-Diego-Solana-Beach-Low-Sunset-900x600.jpg" 

    This will now fetch this photo size from Smugmug at this dimension. 

    2. Using the Buy Link

    In the same 'Get A Link' window there is a 'Photo Links' Tab and down at the very bottom there is a 'Buy Link.'

    Smugmug Pro Buy Link

    You can use this url as the hyperlink on your photo or on text next to your photo to drive people directly to the buy page on your Smugmug account. The benefits of this are pretty obvious. Less clicks to get someone to your sales page is always a plus, otherwise on the default Smugmug layout the 'Buy' button isn't the most obvious feature on the page and can be easily missed. 

    Smugmug Pro Buy Photo

    3. Use Smugmug for Backlinks

    One really cool thing about Smugmug is that it's page description is editable HTML. It's basically a Web 2.0 Blog built around pictures. So you can throw in all that good stuff, like h1 and bold tags as well as a links back to your site using Anchor Text which all help SEO (search engine optimization). It also allows you to sculpt the authority of your site by building your keywords into your descriptions and then linking back to your main site. Meaning, if your anchor text <a href="http://alikgriffin.com">HDR Photography at AlikGriffin.com</a>, google will now read this link back to my site an associate it with HDR Photography.

    So then you can build some of your backlinks to your Smugmug account instead of your main site and then both sites will benefit and be well indexed into Google's system.

    Editable HTML

    Smugmug + Your Blog + Pintrest

    One other really cool thing about this ability to edit caption on Smugmug, is when you embed your photo on your blog, this caption will show up as the photo's 'alt text' and 'title.' So when someone is on your blog and pins the image to Pintrest, the Pintrest description defaults to the Smugmug's photo caption that you built to have all your great keywords. So then all those keywords related to your photo get pinned and repinned and indexed by Google. Now you might be saying, "but pintrest links are all nofollow so they won't pass that magical link juice stuff." This is true, they may not pass link juice but they will tell google what your site and what your photos are about. 

    You can check out My Pintrest Page and see how I've been utilizing it with my Photography and Blog. 

    The Importants of One-Way Linking and the Nofollow tag

    If you're going to take complete advantage of this, make sure that any link on your blog that links back to Smugmug includes a rel="nofollow." That way your site will not pass link juice back to Smugmug. Link juice as I mentioned earlier is magical Google substance that gets passed from one site to another to help a site get page rank. If you link two sites together it can cancel out this effect.

    You can add a nofollow by editing this text on a link on your blog: 

    <a href="http://alikgriffin.smugmug.com/Portfolio/AlikGriffin/...

    And turning it into this:

    <a rel="nofollow" href="http://alikgriffin.smugmug.com/Portfolio/AlikGriffin/...

    This is obviously just one very small step in marketing your site and driving up those photo sales. But every little thing is important and every detail makes a difference over time. As a photographer trying to make a living with fine art photography it's important to really understand how Google works and make sure your site is properly built to maximize search reults.

    Hopefully this tip will help those of you using Smugmug Pro and I will continue to post new tips and techniques on SEO for you photographers as I go. My site is still young and I will try to post all the great successus and failures I make as I go.

    You can also check out my Smugmug Pro account to see how I've been doing things on there and don't forget to check out my other Photography Tips. It's all still in the works since my site is still fairly young and my time is limited but there will be great stuff to come.

  6. How to Shoot Better Handheld Photography

    How to Shoot Better Handheld Photography

    Shooting handheld photography has many benefits. You can get more angles quickly, it's lighter and more compact, and you can experiment more with various creative angles. The downside is you can't shoot HDR photography, long exposures or night photography. 

    When I first started out I insisted always staying handheld as I thought all those other forms of photography were just gimmicks. I wanted to be more of a walk around photographer, with exceptions of course. Like night photography. There is really no way around this one unless you have super fast lenses and an amazing sensor.

    For the several years shooting all handheld I got some amazing photos. A lot of my best images where even done this way and I learned a lot of great techniques for photography because of the freedom you have shooting handheld. 

    I always thought tripods were more for people who were just lazy or couldn’t hold their cameras still since a lot of people have very shaky hands.

    Here are some samples of my handheld photography

    Streets of Kyoto Japan

     

    Japanese Ema Shinto Shrine Prayer Kami

    Miyajima Temple of Japan

    You can get great results shooting all handheld. It allows you to get in and close and quickly capture very unique angles.

    I wanted to learn better and more advanced techniques for photography. I wanted my photos to be more like the fine art landscape prints I've seen in galleries, and a lot of times I just couldn't get there handheld. 

    Although handheld had been great but I noticed a lot of my landscape photographs were always a bit soft and didn't have that clarity seen in really high end fine art prints. I always followed the cardinal rule of shooting a minimum of 1/60sec shutter speed for handheld to avoid motion blur. But I noticed, on my big ol Canon EF 24-70mm f2.8 that front piece of glass was heavy and cause more movement. So when scaled in to a 100% crop, my photos were often softer than they should be. So then I began trying to shoot at a 1/100sec shutter minimum. And tried to close down my aperture when shallow depth was not needed. This helped.

    5 Photography Tips for Shooting Handheld

    • Shoot a minimum shutter speed of 1/60sec. I usually shoot 1/100sec to play it safe. 

    • Use faster lenses to keep your ISO low, while still keeping a minimum shutter of 1/60sec. 

    • Experiment with angles. Get in close, shoot from below, or from above. Try to take advantage of shots you could never get with a tripod.

    • Stabilize your body. Keep your elbows tucked in and braced against your torso to help minimize camera shake. Or stablize your body against a tree building, stable object.

    • Ditch your lens cap. Use a UV filter for protection instead. You don't want to miss the perfect shot because you left your cap on. 

    RECOMMENDED PRODUCTS

    For people who are new to photography or just want to know a little more about better gear for shooting handheld or with tripods here are some recommendations.

    C-Loop

    For the handheld shooter there are a few things I recommend. The first one which changed everything for me was the c-loop camera strap.

    C-Loop Camera Strap Mounting Solution, Tips for Photographers

    Here it is on Amazon: C-Loop Camera Strap Mount Solution

    It attaches to the tripod mount of your camera and allows you to attach your existing camera strap to it which hangs down to your side much making it much easier when walking around. I ordered this when it was just a Kickstarter and I absolutely love it. Especially for 30 bucks.

    The Black Rapid

    A photographer friend of mine who is amazing uses this one. The Black Rapid.

    The Black RapidThe Black Rapid Worn, Tips for Photographers

    Here it is on Amazon: The Black Rapid Camera Strap

    It’s the same idea just a bit more functional since it has more options. It’s probably a lot cooler than the c-loop but a bit more expensive because it comes with it’s own strap vs letting you use your stock strap. What’s nice about this strap is it has all these great pouches and add-ons. I’ll probably upgrade to this one soon. But for starters the c-loop should be fine.

    Hand Straps

    Another product my brother is super into is a hand strap. He doesn’t use a camera strap and prefers this thing.

    Hand Strap, Tips for Photographers

    Here are a bunch on Amazon: Camera Hand Strap They are kind of cool. Not really my thing though.

    Battery Grip

    The last Item that’s pretty cool and handy for Canon users is the Battery Grip. These are really great for portrait and wedding photographers that are constantly shooting different angles and need the extra grip and stability. The grips attach to the bottom of the camera and provide extra batteries and an extra grip. They also have intervalometer which will allow you to shoot time-lapse. The Canon version I hear is lot less janky than the knock offs. You pay for what you get in this case.

    Canon Power Battery Grip, Tips for Photographers

    Here is a list of them on Amazon: Canon Battery Grip

    Here is a list of the Nikon Versions: Nikon Battery Power Pack

  7. 05. Sharpening with the Find Edges Filter

    The Photoshop Find Edges Sharpening Tutorial when done correctly it will give you very sharp edges without effecting the rest of the image. Works really great on photos with clean lines such as architecture. 

    Tutorial Overview

    - Photoshop's Find Edges Filter
    - Channel Masks
    - Layer Masks

    Useful Hotkeys

    Duplicate Layer - Ctrl (Command) + j
    Invert Layer Mask - Ctrl (Command) + i

    Software Used
    Adobe Photoshop CS6

     

    Photoshop (Find Edges Filter) Sharpening Tutorial

    For more Digital Photography Tutorials be sure to check out the alikgriffin.com/photography-tips for the latest. 

     

  8. What is the Shutter in Digital Photography

    What is the Shutter in Digital Photography?

    Back in the old days on film cameras, the shutter was actually a mechanical device in front of the film that would open and close for a set time allowing the film to be exposed. Even in motion pictures you can notice the effect the shutter has on the picture. Typically a film is shot at 24 frames a second with a 1/48 second shutter. But if your remember the fight sequences in Gladiator, or even storming the beaches in Saving Private Ryan, they shot with a fast shutter to stop the motion so everything looked crisp and real vs having that soft motion blur you get with a 1/48 shutter.

    Now that film stock has been replaced by a digital sensor, you might be asking how does the shutter work In digital photography? Now days shutter is no longer controlled mechanically. The click-click you hear on DSLRs is actually the mirror folding up and down. The shutter is actually controlled digitally by the amount of time the camera's sensor is turned on to gather light. It's basically the sensor getting turned on and off. 

    What does the shutter do?

    The shutter is another system on the camera designed to control how much light gets passed to the film or the sensor. A slower shutter something like 1/10 or even 30 seconds will allow more light to be exposed on the sensor but if anything is moving, it will be distorted by motion blur. Something quicker like a 1/100 will allow less time and less light to be exposed on the camera's sensor so it will also do a better job in stopping any motion. 

    Say you were a sports photographer shooting a football game and wanted to get some nice crystal clear and still shots of the players in action. This would require a quicker shutter so nothing is distorted by motion blur. Something over 1/250 would be decent but 1/1000 would even be better. This is partly why football games look so crisp on TV. They're shooting with a faster shutter. 

    Now say you were at the beach and wanted to get a nice landscape photo with the water looking silky smooth in the foreground. Then you might want something like a 6 second shutter or even a 30 second shutter so that all the waves blend into a smooth misty surface.

    What does the Shutter do - Shoot with a slow shutter to get smooth water

    What shutter speed should I shoot at?

    The speed you set your shutter should depend on your situation and what you want out of the photo. If you want to 'stop time' and have everything be very still and crisp, aim for something over 1/250.

    If you're on a tripod and you want objects to streak by, then a shutter of a few seconds is great.

    Example of what a shutter does in Las Vegas

    If you're shooting street photography or handheld and maybe you're indoors or in a situation where there isn't a ton of light, try to keep the shutter over 1/60sec. When shooting handheld that's as low as you'll want to go, any slower and you'll start getting motion blur from camera shake with your hands. 

    A lot of lenses and cameras today have build in Image Stabilizers, if you have one of these you can probably get away with going as low as 1/30sec handheld.

    As for the question what is the shutter or what the shutter does in digital photography? That's about all there is to it really.

    When should I use Shutter Priority Mode?

    If you shoot with a dslr or a new mirrorless you might have noticed a few icons on your camera. AV, TV, M, B. These are settings to control what your camera prioritizes. The TV is the shutter priority. T representing Time. If you set your camera to this setting you can manually adjust your shutter speed and all other functions on the camera will work in auto mode to adjust for exposure. 

    I personally like to shoot in TV when I'm dealing with a lot of motion and I want my shots to be very crisp with no motion blur. This includes, Weddings, Sporting Events, like surfing, baseball, hockey. Nature photography where you need to capture birds, or animals that are always constantly moving. By having the camera set to TV I can control what shutter I want to control how crisp my images are. So for something like a wedding something like a 1/100 is usually fine if it's dark. If it's outside I go higher. Shooting animals at the zoo you'll want higher, at least 1/250. 

    The only other time I shoot in shutter priority is if I'm filming in movie mode and only when I'm not on full manual. In movie mode I keep my shutter typically around 1/48.

    So now next time someone asks you what does the shutter do in regards to digital photography? You should have a clear understanding of what it does and how it works and how you can even use it to improve your photography.

    As always I appreciate the likes and shares and be sure to check out my Photography Tips page for some video tutorials.

  9. What is ISO in Digital Photography

    What is ISO in Digital Photography?

    In Digital Photography the ISO is the setting that adjusts how sensitive your camera's sensor is to light. It usually ranges from 100-64,000+ on most cameras. The higher the number the less sensitive it is to light. Meaning, if your ISO was set to 64,000 you would be able to accurately expose a candle lit dinner. Where as if you were outside on a sunny day your ISO would only need to be set to about 100. So basically the ISO is what the camera uses to messure how much light is hitting the sensor. 

    You might be wondering what does ISO stands for? It's an abbreviation for International Organization for Standardization. I actually had to memorize that in college and was tested on it in my photography classes. Kind of sad hu?

    Also before the ISO you might have heard of ASA if you ever shot film. It stands for  American Standards Association. I was also tested on that. 

    I guess it's good that it is standardized so all cameras can have the same measurements for light. After all the shutter is standardized by time, the aperture is standardized by Trigonometry. So the ISO or film speed was the only wildcard and some organization decided to standardize what the numbers relate too. Now with the ISO each stop of light equals the ISO number.

    Also if you want to learn all the crazy nerd details of ISO be sure to check out Film Speed / ISO photography at Wikipedia. 

    What does the ISO do?

    Besides adjusting your cameras sensitivity to light it also controls how much digital noise you will have on your image. For example, if you set your ISO to 64,000 it's going to be very sensitive to light, but it's going to sacrifice sharpness and add a lot of digital noise. 

    If you were to shoot somewhere around an ISO 100 your images would almost have no noise and they would be very clean and sharp. This is how I shoot almost all of my landscapes. 

    A few examples of what the different ISO settings look like

    The first is an example of the ISO set really high. 

    HIGH ISO setting in Digital Photography

    You can see the noise and grain pattern of the sensor standing out. 

    Now lets look at a very low ISO setting. This is set at 100 for this particular photo.

    LOW ISO setting in Digital Photography

    You can see there is almost no noise or grain.

    How do you shoot at night or in the dark with a low ISO?

    What I usually like to do is use a tripod when shooting landscapes then slow the shutter down to somewhere around 1 to even 30 seconds. That way I don't sacrifice any image quality and can still soak up all the light with a slow shutter.

    The other technique (which usually won't work for landscape photography) is to use a flash. The flash will illuminate the scene so there is enough light for the camera to render images at a low ISO.

    Other Digital Photography Tips for using your ISO

    Always shoot RAW, and the reason for this is because you end up capturing a much larger dynamic range of light than you would with compressed Jpegs. So say you were shooting at a ISO 100 and all your photos came out too dark. You can adjust your exposure in a post processing program like Lightroom by simply moving the exposure slider to brighten everything up. This ultimately adjusts your cameras ISO in post or in the software. You'll get more noise the higher you go, but you'll at least have a workable photo. 

    Another good tip in playing it safe that I like to do, is shoot somewhere around an ISO of 320. This way if your photo is over exposed meaning the shots came out too bright, there is a chance that the camera's sensor was actually only exposed around the ISO rating of 100 so the information can still be recovered in Lightroom by moving the exposure slider to darker.

    I almost always shoot at an ISO of 320 when I'm shooting street photography for this very reason. 

    More Resources on ISO

    About ISO This is the actualy organizations website.

    Photography MAD This one is from Photography Mad. They go into a little history on where ISO came from, The Values, Exposure Time, Noise Etc.

    Digital-Photography-School Then of course there is the probloggers photo site Which has a nice simple explanation. I always like their stuff because it's very clean and straightfoward. 

    Great Youtube ISO video

    So next time someone asks you, hey Pat what does the ISO do? or hey Robin, What is ISO? You can now explain it all to them as I have done to you.

     

    As always, please like and share below, and if you're interested in more advanced photography tips you can check out my photography tips page.

  10. 03. Sharpen with the High Pass Filter

    The Photoshop High Pass Filter Sharpening Tutorial will help you sharpen the the edges of detail in your images with minimal effects on noise. So if done correctly it should give you really crisp sharp images without enhancing noise unlike the Unsharp Mask Filter.

    Tutorial Overview

    - Photoshop's High Pass Filter to Sharpen
    - Layer Masks for Control
    - Overlay and Softlight Blending Modes

    Useful Hotkeys

    Duplicate Layer - Ctrl (Command) + j
    Invert Layer Mask - Ctrl (Command) + i
    Cycle Through Blending Modes - Shift + '- or =''

    Software Used
    Photoshop CS6

     

    Photoshop (High Pass Filter) Sharpening Tutorial

    For more Photography Tutorials be sure to check out the alikgriffin.com/photography-tips for the latest. 

     

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