Dark conditions like this scene from Seward earlier this winter is one time I can be "fooled" by the back of the camera preview.
Samantha Orchard provided me this Ask Ron question:
Do you check the in-camera histogram and/or the overexposure warning
option (blinking pixels) after you take a photograph? Or do you just look
at the image on the screen to determine if you need to use exposure
compensation, take exposure-bracketed shots, or otherwise re-adjust your
camera settings when you try the shot again?
Great question. I set my camera to blink when there are flashing highlights – a camera setting available on many cameras. Looking for “blinkies” is one of the first things I will do when evaluating an exposure as this represents lost data. If I need to, I can usually recover detail in an underexposed area, but never in an overexposed “blinker”.
But, I try to always look at the histogram making sure the “mountain” of data isn’t getting cut off by being too far to the right (overexposed), or too far to the left (underexposed).
If I don’t look at the historgram and just judge exposure by how the image on the LCD looks, I find that I will often underexpose the photo when I’m working in dark conditions, presumably because the screen appears so bright compared to my dark surroundings. Likewise, if it is really bright out I have trouble seeing the image on the back of the camera unless it is overexposed – so I find I tend to overexpose. With the histogram I get a more objective measure of exposure – one that isn’t influenced by the viewing conditions.
If you have any questions about photography / locations etc., then you might want to check out Ask Ron.
by Ron on February 5, 2010
About a year ago I wrote a post on sensor cleaning for digital cameras. What I didn’t say at the time – I was really hoping I would be cleaning my sensor for the very last time because I was going to begin testing a prototype product that would protect the sensor from dust.
Well after one year I’m beginning to think I may never need to clean my sensor again! I love this product! Unfortunately, it hasn’t been available to the public until recently so I had to wait until now to write about it.
So the product is called Dust Shield and is made by Dust-Aid, the company that makes the great cleaning products I wrote about in my Sensor cleaning post. Effectively the product is a clear optic filter that is placed over the opening to the camera’s chamber sealing off the chamber and sensor. This product has a number of advantages – some not so obvious:
- The main advantage is clear – by sealing off the chamber I am able to prevent dust from ever reaching the sensor. I should add, before installing, I went to great lengths to completely clean the chamber including the sensor and mirror – otherwise every time the mirror flipped up and down I was afraid it would just reposition existing dust, possibly onto the sensor.
- When working in a dusty environment the camera is still going to pick up dust, but now it lands on the Dust Shield instead of the sensor. The selling point behind the Dust Shield - it is far easier to replace the shield then clean the sensor.
- But here is an advantage I didn’t anticipate. What I found is dust was far less likely to show when on the Dust Shield. I believe this is because the dust is now landing a fair distance away from the sensor, it just doesn’t create ugly black spots like it does when it lands on the sensor. I’m always surprised at how little spots or scratches on filters aren’t viable on the final image – I believe the same principle is at play.
- When it does get dusty, the Dust Shield is far easier to clean then the sensor – usually a couple of puffs from a hand held blower and I’m good to go.
Of course I know what everyone is thinking – what does it do to image quality? I gotta admit, I was skeptical. Having spent some $8,000 on one of the finest cameras available, and a bunch more on top quality lenses – I did not like the idea of now adding a piece of film to the image path. My photos are our sole source of income, I just can’t sacrifice quality no matter how convenient! I had to be sure image quality didn’t suffer – here is my review.
I felt the best way to really test this product is with my absolute sharpest combination of equipment. So I mounted what I think is my sharpest lens, my Canon 100 macro, on my best camera, a 21 mp Canon 1DsIII. I used the two second timer with mirror lockup with a f-stop of /8, – probably about as good of a combination as I could get. I then mounted the whole thing on a monstrous Gitzo 1548 tripod, placed a bean bag on the camera and photographed a dollar bill taped to the wall. If I couldn’t detect softness with my best setup, then I’m not going to see it with say a lessor camera or with a softer lens like the 100-400.
Full frame version of the dollar.
For reference, here is the full-frame version of dollar. The red represents the area in which I cropped a 400×600 area of the image with the results displayed below the jump. [click to continue…]
by Ron on December 17, 2009
Pedersen Glacier, Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska.
It has been awhile since I have answered any Ask Ron questions. As a reminder, I will answer any photography question as best I can.
A couple of weeks ago I received this question:
I love how you capture a foreground, middle ground background with such great depth.
Do you typically try to accomplish this with a 24 T/S or the 24 1.4L?
Thanks, Ray
To answer your question, yes I do use Canon’s tilt shift lenses a fair amount. By tilting the plane of focus I am better able to position the depth of field from near to far without sacrificing a lot of shutter speed. I go into more detail in this post on tilt with Canon’s tilt shift lenses. These lenses are especially valuable when you have something really close, say within a couple of feet, and still want to keep distant objects in focus.
But, I don’t use those lenses as much as I should. It is so much easier, faster and lighter to carry one 24-105 then three tilt shift lenses. In these circumstances, I use a small aperture to maximize depth of field – usually around f/16. I then focus about 1/4 to 1/3 of the way into the scene. I also almost always will use a tripod, mirror lock up and the 2 second self timer to minimize any movement as much as possible. This is about as good as it gets without tilt. If something still has to be a bit out of focus I would rather it be distant objects – I believe prominent foreground elements have to be sharp – distant objects like mountains can be more forgiving.
Tomorrow I will answer another recent question on depth of field – this one regarding bokeh.
by Ron on September 1, 2009
We have been fortunate enough to stay at some of the fanciest hotels in North America in places like Palm Springs, San Diego, Orange County, Los Angeles and Vancouver, and have almost always paid less then $100 per night, sometimes much less. So how do we do it? Easy, by naming our own price on Priceline.com [click to continue…]
A ferris wheel at night, Long Beach, California.
Well I hate to post the same photo twice, especially in the same week, but in response to my ”ask Ron” request, this was the most asked question. More specifically, Dennis Barton wanted to know how many tries it took to capture this image, while Sheri Lyons wondered how the photo came to look like this. [click to continue…]
Palm Trees at sunset, Newport Beach, California.
Let me start by saying, you shouldn’t get your legal advice from friends and fellow photographers. Having said that, let me offer some advice. 
The place I turn to when I have questions is the Photographer’s Legal Guide
by Carolyn Wright. The book covers most of the legal issues one might encounter when dealing with photo business and photography issues such as copyrights, model releases, insurance and paperwork. I think most photographers will find it very valuable.
I have known Carolyn for a number of years now and consider her a friend – she is a wonderful person, and as a fellow photographer, she understands the industry and issues photographers face. We have hired her on occasions when we needed large contracts reviewed, and also successfully used her for a copyright infringement suit – who better to hire then the person who wrote the book! [click to continue…]
Dry Lake Bed, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.
I have been a long time user of Singh-Ray filters, particularly their graduated neutral density filters. So I must say I was honored when they approached me recently and asked me to contribute to their blog. In fact, I already had the first post written in my head, as it was a tip I thought I would post here. Instead, I shared my discovery of the usefulness of using live-view in the positioning of graduated neutral density filters. Well I don’t want to spoil the whole post, you can check out the whole story at the Singh-Ray blog.
As far as my own blog goes, I still may do some fine tuning of the header, photo size etc., so if things look a bit funky from time to time, you will understand.
by Ron on December 9, 2008
A kayaker on Resurrection Bay enjoying a beautiful afternoon this past Sunday, Seward, Alaska.
A couple of months ago I wrote about a sensor cleaning liquid and wand product made by Dust-Aid. I really like the wands, they made it easy to get the moist swaps into the champer and allowed me to reach the corners of the sensor. But the real benefit to me was the fact this liquid could be shipped via air to places like Alaska.
Well I just tried another product that works even better! In fact, I was able to clean my sensor with just one try in just a matter of minutes! [click to continue…]
by Ron on September 10, 2008
Pictured is a quick release clamp on the top of a BH-55 Ballhead.
Trying to attach your camera onto the threaded post you find on top of many tripods, is a slow, awkward process that will have you leaving your tripod in the car. By using a quick release clamp on your ballhead (pictured above), makes attaching your camera, or lens a quick and easy process. All you need is the corresponding metal camera plate mounted to the bottom of your camera, or any lenses that may have a tripod mount. [click to continue…]
by Ron on September 3, 2008
This was from last Saturday in the Chugach National Forest, about 12 miles from Seward, Alaska. I used two graduated neutral density filters – one on the mountain, the other for the reflection.
Sensor dust can really show in images like this where you have a uniform color as you do with the sky, and when you are stopped down, because the increased depth of field helps to show your dust spots. [click to continue…]
When you are photographing wildlife, or pursuing fleeting light, it often seems that speed and efficiency are paramount. For this reason, I prefer to use a ball head for a tripod head. [click to continue…]
I figure there is no better place to start my nature photography lessons then with what I believe is the single most important piece of equipment; a tripod. I have written about this before, and at the risk of sounding repetitive and redundant, I would like to repeat the numerous advantages: [click to continue…]
by Ron on January 6, 2008
The road through Zion National Park, Utah.
Our eyes have the amazing ability to see details in the shadows of a scene, and the details in the highlights at the same time. Our cameras can’t begin to capture what our eyes can see. Photographers have been trying to replicate what our eyes can see with a camera for years – these techniques are usually referred as High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography. Fancy words for a simple concept – makes us sound smart. [click to continue…]
by Ron on January 4, 2008
Horseback riders this past fall in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming.
If you followed the link in yesterday’s post on saturation masks, you will realize Tony also offers actions for something called luminosity masks as well. This is another subtle, but powerful tool that frankly I haven’t mastered and rarely utilize, but I plan to spend more time trying to master them over the next month as we begin to adjust our autumn photos.
So why discuss it if I don’t use them yet? Well, I have recently discovered another use for these masks that make them much more valuable, but I will save that for the next post. Again, this is a relativly advanced topic that won’t interest everyone. [click to continue…]
by Ron on January 3, 2008
I recently discovered a wonderful new Photoshop tool – the use of saturation masks. This is somewhat of an advanced tool – if you don’t use layers and masks in Photoshop (you should), this won’t make much sense, but I do believe many subscribers here may find it useful. [click to continue…]
by Ron on August 16, 2007
I have received a number of emails lately asking for more of the details behind each photo. It is a good suggestion, and I have promised to do just that on occasion. What I thought might be interesting would be to share my detailed thought process behind a single image. I decided to do that with this photo from our spring trip. I think some people might be surprised all that goes into just one photo. [click to continue…]
by Ron on December 19, 2006
by Ron on December 18, 2006
I thought I would share some tips for photographing the aurora borealis, also known as northern lights. The hardest part of photographing the auroras is finding them – so today I thought I would write about finding them, tomorrow actually photographing them. [click to continue…]
by Ron on November 16, 2006
In my last post I wrote about using graduated neutral density filters to overcome scenes with extreme dynamic range. If there isn’t a nice straight division, filters aren’t much help. In these situations, I have started using a process referred to as high dynamic range photography, often called HDR photography. This is the process I used to capture this image of the Barber Forest Service Cabin at Lower Russian Lake, Alaska.
[click to continue…]
by Ron on November 14, 2006
This is how I saw Pedersen Glacier in Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska. But with out a graduated neutral density filter or a similar tool, my camera would have not been able to capture the photo.
[click to continue…]
by Ron on November 13, 2006
Winter is a wonderful time for photography. I thought I would provide a few tips to make photography in the cold more successful.
[click to continue…]
by Ron on August 15, 2006
Ever get back from a vacation and been frustrated with your pictures? It is a common complaint. Here are some general tips that I think can help many people take better pictures:
1. Use a tripod. I know, they are a pain – it is so much easier to just hand hold the camera. But not only does using a tripod give you better picture quality by stabilizing the camera - it also forces you to slow down which is the next tip.
2. Slow Down. Take your time and really think about your picture, the composition and all the elements. Instead of rattling off 5 mediocre pictures, spend the time to take one good picture. This is where a tripod can come in helpful. [click to continue…]
