August 21, 2009 – High-rise condominium

1/320

f8

ISO 100

18mm

JPEG

A couple of days ago I mentioned how the part of Buckhead I work in has done a good job of keeping green space amidst all of the high-rises. Here is a good photo showing that. At the base of this condominium is a little half-acre park, complete with bronze statues of kids playing (one of which you can see in the bottom left corner) and two water fountains.

I had to shoot with my lens set as wide as possible in order to get all of the building. There was quite of bit of building lean, which resulted in a tall, skinny pyramid look. Thank goodness for computers and Photoshop Elements camera distortion tool.

Another way to avoid the building lean is to get inside an adjacent building, go halfway up, and shoot your intended building through a window.

RAW versus JPEG

In my last posting, Sheree asked what RAW is and how you can get your camera to use RAW instead of JPEG. Instead of answering in the comment section, I decided to make a new post on the matter.

RAW is the true image data captured by your camera's image ship. If you shoot in JPEG mode (which most camera's do automatically), you are compressing the image data down into the JPEG format.

A lot of point-and-shoot cameras don't give you the option to shoot RAW, and if you have a camera that does then you need software on your computer that can read the RAW data.

Fortunately, Photoshop Elements has a very good RAW editor. It's what I use most of the time. If you don't have Photoshop, then your camera may have come with RAW editing software.

RAW takes a little getting used to because the files are larger and they take your computer a few seconds longer to upload and process. But you have more options and get better results when working with a RAW file.

For a better explanation of what RAW is, how it can make your photos better, and some of the drawbacks of shooting RAW, see this article that I wrote about the subject.

As for how to get your camera to shoot RAW, you will have to refer to that dreaded manual that came with your camera. You know, that little booklet you have never really looked at, even though you probably have a little voice in the back of your head that keeps saying you should.

August 20, 2009 – Party on the deck

1/125

f11

ISO 200

18mm

JPEG

Our company (HowStuffWorks.com) just launched the first portion of our social networking platform, so we had a party out on the deck (15 floors up) to celebrate. The weather was nice, but really overcast.

I wanted to get a photo that would capture how beautiful the view of the other buildings can be, but also capture the fun everyone was having. That was hard, and here is what I thought was my bast effort.

I shot this at a small aperture (f11) in order to get the people in front (who were about 18 feet away) in focus along with all of the buildings in the back. I might have been able to use a wider aperture, but they were laughing and I didn't have much time to react. So I went with an aperture I knew would do the job.

I used Photoshop Elements to correct most of the distortion from the wide angle shot. I also cropped the photo in a way to leave out the large trash can that was by the table of food on the right.

There were a couple of things I think that could have made this photo better. First, I should have shot it in RAW mode for more post-processing control over the exposure, contrast, and color. But alas, I had left it in JPEG mode after shooting the bees the day before. Second, I wish there were another couple of people talking in the empty space where you can see the tower crane. Ideally, I would have liked them to have been 15-20 feet from the camera.

August 19, 2009 – Flowers and Bees

1/2500

f2.8

ISO 400

150mm

JPEG

I really work in a beautiful area. It's in the heart of Buckhead, a thriving live-work-and-play area of northern Atlanta. It is dominated by high rise hotels, office buildings, and condominiums. But despite all the concrete and steel, they have done a good job of preserving some green space, too.

I shot this honeybee among a large swath of flowers about 100 yards from my building. I used my 70-200 f2.8L lens to get a clear, sharp, and fast photo. The day was mostly cloudy and the sun was ducking in and out from behind clouds quite a bit. So I left the lens wide open and used ISO 400 to get a fast enough shutter speed for when the sun was blocked.

This shot was in the full sunlight, so it resulted in a really fast shutter speed. But it wasn't fast enough to stop the bee's wings. The blur really drives home that the bee is hovering over the tiny flowers.

This kind of shot is a lot of hard work, but the reward can be great. I shot about 300 photos in 30 minutes, trying to get just two or three like this one, where the bee is actually flying between flowers. You will probably agree, a photo of a bee flying will beat a one of a bee walking any day.

I had to shoot these as JPEGs instead of RAW because my camera will shoot 20 JPEGs in succession, but only 8 RAW images. I would start shooting when I thought the bee might jump off of the flowers and fly to the next batch. If I misjudged (and I did a lot), I would wait for my camera's memory buffer to empty and then shoot a bunch more.

August 18, 2009 – Breakfast for dinner

1/50

f5.6

ISO 800

50mm

RAW

We decided to have a simple dinner tonight, so we whipped up some pancakes. They were absolutely scrumptious – thanks, Rachel! – so I wanted to share them with you.

I shot this with my 50mm f1.8 lens, which is really sharp. By pumping up the ISO, I could close the aperture a little to get more depth of field (but not too much). This also allowed me to handhold the camera without risking camera shake. I shot RAW so I could tweak the color to the golden hue I wanted.

The color was harder than I thought it would be to get it just right. I can see why commercial food photographers use strobes and flashes because the natural lighting was too mixed up for me to easily find the right color.

August 17, 2009 – Suwanee City Hall

1/250

f8.0

ISO 200

35mm

RAW

I was driving home from a canceled Boy Scout training session and I noticed the beautiful bank of clouds being lit up by the early evening sun. It's the kind of setting where you want to find something nice to put in front of it, so I thought of the recently finished Suwanee City Hall.

As I was parking, I looked for where I thought would be the best perspective. I also noticed that the sun was dangerously close to going behind some clouds, so I knew I didn't have much time. I literally ran to a spot that, while not my choice for the best location, would let me get a good shot as soon as possible. I then went to the spot I had picked out initially and got some more photos.

When I got back home and looked at all of the shots, the first one turned out to have the best combination of clouds, color, and composition. It reminded me of something I read about how Ansel Adams got his Moonrise photo.

He was traveling down the highway when he noticed the moon rising over the mountain and the village in the evening light. He slammed on the brakes, pulled over, and hopped out with his gear. He feared there wasn't enough time to measure the light and determine the proper exposure, so he made his best guess and took the photo. Then he went through his normal process to take a photo, but before he was done the light was gone.

Adams probably drove away thinking he had missed a perfect opportunity for a wonderful photo, but we all know now that he didn't. One of his most famous photographs was a guess – a well-educated guess, mind you – but a guess all the same.

The main lesson to learn here is to pay attention to your surroundings and don't be afraid to snap off a quick shot at something that looks great. You never know when that moment may be the only chance you've got. Then take the time to make sure you have everything set for a great photo.

I shot this at f8 to get a really sharp photo, and then focused about two-thirds into the scene (around the water fountain in the front) to make sure everything was in focus, from front to back. I also shot it a little loose so I could crop it in the way I wanted once I got it loaded on the computer. Finally, I followed the rule of thirds by putting the building down in the lower third of the photo, which helps place more emphasis on the cloud formation above it.

In order to avoid a slanted effect (where the sides of the building seem to slant towards each other), I purposefully went up the slope in front of the building in order to be standing more on an equal elevation. You can see the camera level is just above the awning over the front doors. This way I was aiming the camera straight ahead instead of aiming it slightly upwards, which would have created the slanting sides of the building.

I really like this photo. Some of the impact is lost here in the small version, but the full-blown shot is fantastic. The only regret I have is something out of my control. I wish the clouds were more puffy and separated, instead of one massive cloudbank.

August 16, 2009 – Movie night

4 sec

f4.0

ISO 200

25mm

RAW

Last night the girls were crowded around the TV watching Coraline, a claymation movie that reminded me a lot of Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas. Thanks to the spooky nature of the film, my youngest snuggled up to her older sister, and my next youngest grabbed one of her favorite stuffed animals, Bedtime Bear.

I turned out all of the lights and set up the camera on a tripod right beside the TV. I took a bunch of shots (since the TV was putting out varying amounts of light, depending on what was being shown in the movie) in order to find a few goods one where the kids didn't move.

I used a low ISO to avoid noise/grainyness, and purposefully picked a shot that was a little underexposed to reinforce the idea of watching a movie in the dark. Finally, I cropped it to a wide 2 to 1 ratio to emphasize the kids and eliminate most of the distracting background.

In all, I like the photo. But others may think it could have been better if all the girls were sitting side by side. I wasn't going to pose them, however, because I wanted to capture more of their natural tendencies. Some may wonder why my 9-year-old is sitting off by herself on the right. To me, it fits here independent personality perfectly.