© Forest Chaput de Saintonge

For todays article I want to try something a little different and talk about the way photographers should try and price their images. I am by no means an expert, but I have seen countless students pass through the doors of RMSP, so I do know how a lot of photographers have chosen to price for their own businesses.

Before we begin, I would like to say that, obviously, the way you price your own images is completely up to you. I’m simply trying to address some common themes and patterns that I have noticed over the years and share them with you. Instead of me telling you what to charge for your artistic expertise and experience, I’m going to talk about the factors that are good to consider when pricing your images.

Location:

Probably the most important factor to consider is location. A portrait and wedding photographer based out of Los Angeles is most likely going to charge a whole lot more than a photographer in Havre, MT (a very small town). This is simply in response to what clients expect to pay in the area around where they live, and more importantly what they are willing to pay.

Competition:

This is another major factor to consider when pricing your images. You need to be competitive with your pricing while still remaining fair to the other photographers in the area. Underselling your images is one of the biggest problems that we face these days because so many people are willing to practically give their images away, which steals business from other, potentially more qualified and experienced photographers. Especially in small communities this can be even more essential, as there may only be a couple of photographers in the area, each of which has their own individual style or specialty. I’m not telling you that you should charge extremely high prices for your services, simply that you charge a fair price that makes you money and doesn’t hurt other photographers.

Think About “What” You’re Selling:

Remember, as photographers we are never selling the actual “rights” to a photograph (or shouldn’t be). We are charging people to use (license) our photographs, and whether they end up in a photo album or on a billboard, we need to price them accordingly. The best way to figure out how much to charge is to talk to other photographers and see what they have been charging for similar jobs. By doing this you can get an idea how the market in your area works and what people are looking for. Of course, not all photographers will be willing to share this information, so use your best judgment when deciding who to ask. A good thing to consider on your own is how the client plans on using your images? Are they planning on using them for an advertising campaign, or are they simply looking for engagement pictures or family portraits? Every job is going to call for a different pricing strategy, so finding out exactly what the client wants is very important.

Know Your Clients:

Obviously this is pretty important, and you may be wondering “why is Forest telling us this?” I think that one thing many people neglect to do in business is make friends and meet new people. Inevitably you will meet people that are interested in working with you but find your prices way too high, but what’s more important is that you find a group of people that know you offer a quality product, at a fair price.

This is one of the best ways to identify whether you’re on track with your pricing. People will pay a higher price for photographs if they know they will actually get something much better out of it. Many people think that anyone with a good camera will take about the same quality images, so why pay twice as much for the same thing? The good news is that word travels fast. If you provide a client with something they’re happy with, they will tell others and your name will begin to move through the community. Clients lead to more clients, it’s a pretty awesome deal!

Bottom line is that there is no “right way” to price your images, you simply need to try different things and see where things go. Look around and see what your competition is charging and create competitive prices that don’t undersell your work, but also don’t push too many potential clients away. Try to find that magic number.

Helpful Links:

ASMP Pricing Guides: http://asmp.org/links/32
Useful Calculator for Estimating Prices: http://photographersindex.com/stockprice.htm

Forest Chaput de Saintonge does his latest bag reviews in a video. Forest walks through all the features, pros, and cons of Kata’s new photography backpack, the Pro-Light  Bug-203 PL. Its a great way to see how he uses the bag and the features first hand. Enjoy!

Every photographer has a unique set of requirements for what they need to get out of their image editing software. This can range from those people who are happy with simply brightening and darkening their photos to those of us who require the ability to composite multiple images together and use advanced filters for creative techniques. The good news is that the number of image editing programs has grown exponentially in the past few years. There is a piece of software to cover the needs of almost any photographer. For this article I will only be covering a few of the more popular programs for both MAC and PC.  These include:

Picasa
Apple iPhoto
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3
Adobe Photoshop CS5

These four programs span the range from basic (and easier to use) to something much more complex that can handle more powerful edits. Let’s start simple and slowly work up to the more complex programs.

Picasa/iPhoto

Picasa and iPhoto are around the same level in terms of complexity.  They both offer basic image manipulations, but beyond that they are quite limited. If you are using a Mac, I would recommend using iPhoto, as it runs very nicely and comes preloaded on your computer. For PC folks, Picasa works great and has many features that will make editing easier.

Both Picasa and iPhoto have similarities when it comes to image handling. Both programs use a catalog or library-based system. This means you never need to search through hundreds of folders on your computer to find the photo you’re looking for. Picasa references the folders and photos on your computer you want it to (much like Lightroom) and keeps the other folders out of the way to keep things much simpler. The whole topic of catalogs and libraries takes a lot of explanation to fully understand.  I even get confused occasionally. If this topic interests you, a great workshop to take a look at would be Lightroom for Photographers.

iPhoto goes a step further; it actually takes full control of your images by moving them into an iPhoto Library file that you cannot edit or change outside of iPhoto. This ensures that you don’t change anything outside of the program that might cause trouble.  Picasa groups its edits into three distinct categories or steps; Basic Fixes, Tuning and Effects. These same concepts are the foundation of iPhotos image editing as well.

Together these two programs make it possible for you to brighten, darken, saturate and apply basic effects to your images with little or no image editing knowledge. They are super easy to use and come at a great price; FREE. If you find yourself wanting something more, take a look at Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3.0

Since its launch around 2007, Lightroom has made its way into the hands of many professional photographers around the world. Before Lightroom, photographers had a quite limited selection of software designed just for them. Although Photoshop has the word “photo” in it, Photoshop is actually geared towards many areas of graphic design, with many extra tools that photographers will never use.

Lightroom was designed for the sole purpose of providing photographers with an easy to use, powerful and downright awesome editing program. Lightroom, like Picasa and iPhoto, is a catalog-based editor, meaning that it takes control of your images and references them wherever they live on your computer. This can make things very confusing for the beginner, however if you ensure you know what you’re doing before you begin you should end up fine. With that said, in Lightroom, proper setup is essential.

When it comes to organizing and editing, Lightroom gives you the ability to do almost anything you feel like doing. It has extensive sorting controls (similar to Adobe Bridge) and makes it an easy process to find the exact image you are hoping to work on. Once you have chosen the photo you wish to work on, Lightroom makes it easy to fine tune with many sliders to produce the look you want for your image.

Beyond the normal brightening, darkening and saturation, Lightroom gives you the ability to edit your images in creative ways, such as creating advanced black and white photos or choosing only the colors you wish to saturate (such as the greens, without effecting your reds). Lightroom also has some basic “local adjustments” (adjustments that only affect part of your photograph). These include: The adjustment brush which allows you to brighten, darken or saturate selective areas of your photograph (wherever you choose), the gradient tool allows you to closely mimic the effects of a split neutral density filter by letting you darken the sky in your images.

One of the biggest benefits of Lightroom is the absence of a “Save,” “Open,” or “Close” command when working with different photos. Because Lightroom is a catalog based image editing software, every click you make is recorded and written on your hard drive. For those of you with Photoshop experience, this is much like a History panel that remembers EVERYTHING. It doesn’t stop there.  If we were to choose another photo to work on (without the hassle of opening or saving) the history would stay with that photo.

This means that we could work on an image however we see fit, close Lightroom for 10 years, then come back to that image. If we want to undo a change we made 10 years ago it would be as simple as a click of the mouse because the history is STILL THERE, forever.

Lightroom does have its limitations. Although it’s great for doing really fast, effective edits to the whole image (global adjustments), it falls short in the local adjustments department. Additionally, Lightroom also has no ability to do compositing (putting more that one photo together) or creative filters.

Adobe Photoshop CS5

This is where Photoshop comes in. I would like to start by saying that Photoshop is a MONSTER program that contains many things we will never use as photographers. It does however allow us to make incredibly precise adjustments to our images with relative ease.

Photoshop allows the photographer to go beyond Lightroom’s capabilities and try things that may be new to you. It makes it possible to take the sky from one image and put it in another photograph, which lets us replace our boring white skies with beautiful skies from other images. Obviously this isn’t for everyone, but it can be useful for some images. This same concept can be used in other circumstances, such as moving people from photo to photo, which, if done right can have beautiful results.

Another tool in Photoshop that I find myself using frequently is the tool to blur backgrounds in images. It seems that in most of my photographs the f/2.8 lens simply had too much depth of field (amount of the photograph that’s sharp around your focal point). When this is the case, we can use Photoshop to simply blur out the background, mimicking the effect of less depth of field. I find this extremely useful, especially for portraits, sports and wildlife photography.

Photoshop can do many, many more things than what I have stated here, these are just the techniques that I use the most often. This program can handle anything you throw at it, from advanced compositing to using creative filters to giving your photos a new and edgy look.  If you are interested in learning what Photoshop can do for you as a photographer (without being overwhelmed by the features you will never use), consider Photoshop for Photographers.

I personally use Lightroom for 90% of the photos that I work on, but for the few that require something a little extra, they get the Photoshop treatment. Honestly, when I can, I stick to Lightroom -  it’s easier and much faster to use.

If you feel that you want to go father than the abilities of Lightroom, Photoshop is the program for you. If you want to keep things simple, Picasa or iPhoto might be the right image editing software for you.

For this reason, I like to always have at least one backup of my images on another device, in this case an external hard drive. I personally like to store all of my images on two separate external hard drives. This way, my internal hard drive won’t be bogged down with the tens of thousands of images I have taken. Each external drive acts as a backup for the other, if one fails, you still have the second one with all your photos on it. Great!

External hard drives come in many shapes, sizes and specifications. In this article, I will be going through the different features and abilities and whether or not they are useful to photographers.

Capacity: The first thing to look at is “how many photos can I store?” This is where capacity and the kind of camera that you own comes into play. If you own a 21 megapixel camera, your files are going to be a lot larger than those from an 8 megapixel camera. For most people, I would recommend something around 500GB or larger. Any smaller and you would be filling up your hard drives very fast. If you are a tough editor and delete a lot of your shots, a 500GB should last for years.

Portable or Desktop: There are two main types of hard drives out there: portable and desktop. Portable drives can run solely on power from your computer, which means they only need to be plugged into your computer (not the wall). They are also quite a bit smaller than desktop drives. A desktop hard drive is slightly bigger, and must be plugged into both your computer AND the wall for power. These drives are usually cheaper. I personally own both. I have a desktop drive that stays on my desk and a couple of portable drives that come with me wherever I go. Which drive you purchase is totally up to you and depends on your needs. If you primarily work on your images on a desktop, then a desktop drive would be perfect. If you travel with a laptop, you might want a more compact, portable drive to bring with you.

Speed (RPM’s): Yes, here is another device where speed is a concern. The way I like to think of it is, the higher rpm, the better. For the most part, hard drives come in two speeds: 5,400 rpm and 7,200 rpm. Most portable hard drives are 5,400 rpm, but there are nicer ones that are 7,200 rpm. Most desktop drives are 7,200 rpm, with some reaching 15,000 rpm! If you will be storing your images, not just backing them up on external hard drives, it is nice to have a hard drive with at least 7,200 rpm.

Connectivity: Another thing to consider when choosing an external hard drive is how you go about connecting it to your computer. This really depends on the computer you currently own or are planning to buy. If you own or plan to own a Mac, the Firewire 800 connection would be great. Mac’s new Thunderbolt connection, which is much faster, can be found in some very new external hard drives. If you own a PC, you really have two options, depending on whether or not your computer has an eSATA or USB 3.0 connection. If it does, you can buy an external with eSATA or USB 3.0 connection options.  If your computer does not have the eSATA option, then USB 2.0 would be your best bet. Many external hard drive manufacturers are adding these new connection types to their devices, but there is nothing wrong with going with the old USB 2.0 connection. Basically, buy the fastest connection type that you can afford and make sure your computer can use the connection type you decide to purchase.

These are main concerns when looking for an external hard drive. Remember, we live in an age in which all of our photographs can disappear in an instant, make sure you have a backup of everything!

It’s time for the second installment on shooting star trails. In Part II I explain how to take the group of images you captured in your camera (from Part I) and put them together into one complete image. Before we start, I would like to point out that while  this is the way I like to do this process, there are many methods out there and everyone has their own opinion on which works best. As I said earlier, you will need Photoshop CS5 and you will need to have your images in one folder on your computer desktop. Before I go any further, I’d like to state that this is a very technical article, and the technique explained requires some computer skills. I will try, however, to make it as basic as possible.

Loading the Action:

To begin, I need to teach you a little bit about a function we will be using in Photoshop called “actions.” If we were to do the process of creating a star trail by hand, we would need to click the very same buttons for all 400 of our images. With actions, we can have Photoshop apply those same changes to all our images for us…..AWESOME! An action is simply a little set of instructions that tells Photoshop what to do in a certain sequence of events.

We could build our own action, but a much easier way to go about this is to download one already made for this purpose. A very simple one that I have found is available here.

Once you get this action downloaded, you will need a place to put it. Photoshop really doesn’t care where this action lives, but if you plan on downloading different kinds of actions, you might want a place that you store all of them. To keep things simple, lets make a new folder in our “Documents” folder and store them there. I am going to call mine “My Photoshop Actions.” Once you have created that folder, simply drag the downloaded action into that folder for safe keeping.

So, let’s review what you should have right now. You should have a folder of star trail images (in JPEG) sitting on your desktop. If your images are in the RAW file format, you can run them through Photoshop or Lightroom to convert them to jpegs. You should also have a folder in your “Documents” folder that has your action that we just downloaded inside of it. Everyone up to speed?? Great.

Next we need to actually load that action into Photoshop. Open Photoshop and make sure that your “Actions” palette is opened. If it’s not, go Window —> Actions.

Next, click on the button in the upper right-hand corner of the Actions palette, choose “Load Actions…”  A browser window will pop up and you will need to go to your “Documents” folder, then find that action that we moved in there, hit the “Open” button. We have just loaded our action!

Running the Action:

We’re almost to the fun part!  First, we need to do a couple more steps before we can see the stars move before our eyes. In order for this to work, we will create a new document where the computer can place our star pictures. This blank image must be the same size as our original images that are in the folder on our desktop.

To determine the size of the images, take out a pencil (or pen) and a piece of paper (I know…..low tech) and open your first star image in Photoshop. We need to find the exact size of this image, go Image —> Image Size. Inside the Image Size dialog box, write down the pixel “Width”, “Height” and “Resolution”-  we will need this for later. Now close the image you just opened because you are done with it.

Next, go File —> New we need to create a new blank document to paste our star images onto. There is no need to name your new document at this point, but we must put our width, height and resolution setting into the box. Hit “OK” to create your new document. Now we need to fill this new blank document with black (the action only works with a black background). Go Edit —> Fill, where it says “Contents” choose “Black,” your new document should now be entirely black.

Now for the fun part!  Go File —> Automate —> Batch and in the top section of this box, choose the action that you just loaded into Photoshop (mine is called “Action 1”). Where it says “Source” hit the choose button and navigate to that folder of images sitting on your desktop. Leave “Destination” set to none. Hit “OK” and watch your computer do the work magically before your eyes.  After about an hour (on my computer) you should be left with a beautiful image of the night sky. You can now save that image or work on it a little more in Photoshop.

That’s all there is to it. Ok, I know that’s a lot of steps, but I have tried to provide you with enough detail to get you through it.  This might be a little hard if you are new to computers or Photoshop, in which case I encourage you to consider one our courses to help you become familiar. Anyway, I hope that this whole process goes smoothly for you!

Star Trails

Most photographers have seen an image in which the stars make beautiful arcs and patterns through the sky.

Capturing these images on film was a simple process with great results, one simply needed to point their camera to the sky, lock open their shutter (using a cable release) and wait for a few hours (depending on how much movement you wanted to show).

This same process can also be used with today’s digital cameras, however the results will not be nearly as clean and sharp as those on film. The biggest problem with using a digital camera to shoot star trails is that they are subject to producing an undesirable characteristic in the image known as  “noise.”

Digital Noise

Digital cameras depend upon an imaging sensor to capture and “see” light coming in from the lens. To capture this light, the camera sends power to the sensor which allows it to see the light. This power and energy in and on the sensor will cause it to heat up. When your sensor heats up, some pixels on the sensor will change color or not appear similar to the rest of the photograph. This effect is referred to as noise.

Noise

Two things that produce more heat buildup on the sensor and as a result more noise are long exposures and high ISO’s. During a long exposure, the power needed to capture light is needed throughout the exposure, this means that the longer your exposure is, the more heat is produced across the sensor and the more noise. A high ISO will also bring about more noise in your photograph. To put it simply, by raising your ISO, all you are doing is pumping more power into your sensor to make it more sensitive to light. Because of noise, the process of creating satisfactory star trails with a digital camera becomes much harder.

It is here that we need to turn to more alternative methods of creating these images with our digital cameras. This process that I explain below can be done in any newer versions of Adobe Photoshop. However, I will be giving the steps in Photoshop CS5.

The Process

The way we get around the problem of noise in the digital age requires us to combat the two things that cause noise. We do so by shooting at a low ISO and by avoiding long shutter speeds. Do you see a problem here? How are we going to see the movement of the stars through the sky if we can’t keep the shutter open for longer than 30 seconds? Simply put, we need to take multiple images and merge them into one.

I like to set my camera to ISO 100 or 200 for shooting star trails; this will minimize any noise that would be created using a high ISO. A good rule of thumb for shutter speed is to not go much longer than 30 seconds. I also set my camera to shoot compressed JPEG files so I can get more images on the card and it will take less time to process later on.

To capture a timed series of images, you will need a cable release to lock open the shutter and force your camera to keep photographing (even after you go to sleep). Once you have your camera set up on a tripod and your image has been composed, make sure that all your settings are in order (f-stop, shutter speed and ISO). Also make sure that your camera is set to “continuous” drive mode which will ensure that after each exposure is completed, the next will automatically begin. If you forget to do this, you will have large gaps between images as the stars move.

I leave my camera setup for about two or three hours to get a good amount of movement in the sky.

Once you return to your computer, download the images to a folder on your desktop. This makes it much easier to find them when you want to merge them together. The process for merging these images together is quite simple despite the number of JPEG files you end up with. To process or make global adjustments to this files you will use the “actions” function in Photoshop, a little set of instructions that tells the computer to batch process all 500 of your photos automatically and consistently. All we need to do now is load the appropriate action onto our computer and into Photoshop so that we can use it to create our final star trail composite image.

How to complete this process will be the topic of my next article (arriving in two weeks).

Through the years, my cameras, lenses, and tripod legs have been sold, traded and swapped for new or different gear. Through all these changes, one piece of gear has remained the same;  my tripod head. The Kirk Enterprises BH-3 has traveled with me across the country and across the world. It has been all around Montana, Georgia, Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, Utah, Vermont and New York as well as Canada, South Africa and two trips to New Zealand. Throughout all of these trips, this has been that one item in my camera bag that has remained rock-solid when it comes to both reliability and sharp photographs.

One of the main things I hear from students in our Career Training and Workshops programs is how many of them dislike their tripods.  In my opinion, they should not be blaming their tripod legs as much as they should be considering their inadequate tripod head.

Their are many different kinds of heads out there and all have their advantages and disadvantages. My personal favorite and the choice of most professional photographers is the ball head design.

The Kirk Enterprises BH-3 is one of the best ball heads out there. I have used it with lenses up to 400mm in length as well as  for large format photography. If you ever plan on using lenses in excess of 400mm, I would suggest you look at the Kirk Enterprises BH-1 which is a slightly bigger version of the BH-3.

The BH-3 is extremely simple to use. With only one knob, you are able to move the camera in any direction that you require. There is also a tension knob that stops your camera from falling down when you loosen the main knob. A third knob allows you to rotate the head and makes taking panoramic images easy.

Most of us own, or have owned,  a tripod head that uses a quick release plate system. If you are one of these people, you probably have been bothered by the fact that every so often your quick release plate, no matter how tight, ALWAYS comes loose. Kirk Enterprises makes custom plates for every type of camera that fit perfectly onto the bottom and stops the plate from spinning and loosening. To me, this is the biggest advantage of the Kirk (Arca-Swiss) system.

My recommendation is that you purchase the ball head and the plate designed specifically for your camera.  Kirk also offers a universal plate that will fit on any camera.  I like to use this plate for the few cameras they don’t make a plate for such as  my large format camera.

Even though this system is the most expensive option available on the market,  as I said earlier, this will be the one piece of gear you only need to buy once and is worth the investment.  It feels weird to do a review of a product that,  in my opinion, has no flaws.  I personally believe the Kirk Enterprises ball head is a perfectly designed piece of equipment that is simple, easy to use and built incredibly well.

You may ask: Forest, why are you posting this information in the middle of winter?

You’re right. Fewer people go into the backcountry in the winter months, but for some of us, this is the time of year when sleeping bags get warmer (and of course, heavier) and having snowshoes strapped to the outside of your pack becomes a necessity. This makes taking along any sort of extra camera gear much more difficult and cumbersome. This is why in the winter months planning and packing become two of the biggest issues when photographing in the wild.

I see my gear choices over the past few years as constantly evolving.  As the equipment evolves and gets smaller and lighter, so does my pack.  It really is a win-win situation!

I want to make it clear that this article is about taking an SLR (Single Lens Reflex) camera backpacking, not a point and shoot. This is if you want to bring some real photographic power with you on your adventures (not that point and shoots don’t result in good photos, because they do). If you are looking for some tips on making your bag a little lighter next time you head out, then read on.

There are really two SLR systems that I have taken with me when backpacking – a normal-sized Canon SLR and the Panasonic micro four-thirds system. I know what you’re thinking: you’re going to be advised to buy a new fancy smaller camera just to take with you when you go backpacking and hiking. You would be wrong, as both systems have their advantages.

Which Camera System?

The Canon, Nikon or other brand full-sized system is, by far, the heavier of the two, but you’ll get the best possible image quality in your photographs. This is not to say that the image quality of the micro four-thirds camera is lacking; they just won’t perform as well in low light situations. To me, this is a great advantage of a full-sized system over the smaller cameras, especially in winter.

For me, many of the shots that I take while I am backpacking (forgetting the fun shots along the trail) are after camp has been put up and the fire is roaring well enough to keep me, and whomever I’m with, warm. In winter, this usually takes right up until it’s dark outside and in summer, due to increased hiking time, it usually does the same.

This means that many of the shots that I take while backpacking are at night or when it is pretty dark outside. This is the exact time when the smaller of the two camera set-ups does not perform nearly as well as the other, due to noise. Noise occurs when the sensor heats up and you begin to see speckles in your image, much like film grain. The smaller cameras also have smaller sensors.  This means that the density of pixels is greater, generating more heat and more noise. For more information on noise, be sure to check out my next article “Photographing Star Trails”.

However, due to the fact that the micro four-thirds camera is much lighter and smaller, it allows you to bring more lenses with you for the same weight as a larger system. This means that you will be able to capture that entire mountain range in one wide shot, or zoom in on that bird in the distance by carrying the same weight you would with a single lens on the larger system.

Now we need to look at another element in your backpacking arsenal: the tripod.

Bringing Along a Tripod:

To some, this may sound like bringing along a 50 pound useless piece of rock, but really, carrying a tripod can be well worth the trouble.

As I said earlier, many of the shots I take are of the campfire, tents at night and other things that happen when light is not at a surplus. This lends itself beautifully to bringing along a tripod; it simply allows you many more opportunities to shoot.

They are heavy, and that of course is the biggest drawback. My rule is, if you have extra space in your back, bring it along.  If not, forget it. If you do decide to bring one along, the lightest and best backpacking tripod I have found so far is the Gitzo Series 1, 4 Section Traveller tripod. It is incredibly light and small, and comes almost up to my eye level (I’m 5’10”). If you want the ultimate backpacking tripod, this would be the one.

There are other options when it comes to supporting your camera however. I am a huge fan of a small company in Canada that makes something called the POD. All this really is, is a beanbag that has a mounting screw on it, allowing you to screw your camera to the top of it.

Once the bean-bag is attached to the bottom of your camera, it allows you to put your camera any number of places. The beanbag does a fantastic job of conforming to the ground and you can actually do a fair job composing and taking a shot with this thing in pretty low light.

Now, it won’t allow you to take a clear 30 second exposure by any means, but it does help a lot to stabilize your camera when you’re outside, and protects the camera from wet or frozen ground They make a few different models, each one a different color. The one that you are most likely to want for your SLR camera is the green one. The best thing about the POD, the price: the green one will set you back only $28, a fraction of a new Gitzo tripod.

What I Bring:

Now that I have discussed some of the different elements and things to think about when you go backpacking with your camera, I want to list what I bring along with me.

I have two setups, one for winter and one for summer.

Winter:
Panasonic GF1
Mountain Smith camera bag
20mm f/1.7 Pancake Lens
14-45mm f/3.5-5.6
Interval Timer (for Star Trails and Time Lapses)
Green POD

Summer:
Canon 5D Mark II
Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8
Canon 17-40mm L f/4
Interval Timer
Usually I just wrap my gear in the clothes that I pack to save the weight of bringing a camera bag.

Photographing on the trail can be easier than many people expect.  It’s a great opportunity to capture beautiful and exciting photos of your adventures.

To put it VERY simply, shifting the lens (either up, down, left or right) gives the photographer the ability to control perspective in a photograph. As I wrote in my last article, the ability to control perspective in your photograph is not a new concept. It’s been possible ever since view cameras were commonplace. The first lens that offered perspective control (shift movement) was a Nikon 35mm f/3.5, which was introduced around 1961. At the end of this article I will be talking about what lenses are available today.

Let’s begin with an example. Imagine that you are in a big city looking up at a tall building. What do you see? Do the two sides of the building appear to be parallel all the way to the top, or does the building look smaller at the top than it does at the bottom?…..Right, smaller at the top. The two sides of the building are converging and that’s why they’re called converging lines.  When I talk about “controlling perspective” I am talking about trying to reduce or remove converging lines in your image. I’m going to explain to you how a tilt-shift (TS) lens can help to reduce or remove these converging lines.  Now in extreme cases (when the building is REALLY tall) even the maximum shift that your lens has to offer will not be enough.

The whole trick to eliminating converging lines is to keep the film plane parallel to the side of the building.  This means that you need to keep the camera pointing straight at the building and not up at it.

If you point your camera directly at a tall building with a normal lens, or a TS lens set to “no shift”, you will notice that you cannot see the top of the building through the viewfinder (unless your lens is ultra-wide of course). This is where the shift movements come into play.  When you shift the lens up, you will notice that it seems as though you are changing the angle of the camera and pointing it up.  But in actuality, that’s not happening.   Your sensor still remains exactly parallel to the side of the building.  By shifting your lens, you are giving what you shoot a much greater sense of dominance in the photograph.

How to Duplicate the look of a Tilt-Shift lens on the Computer:

One of the questions that I get asked the most in reference to tilt-shift lenses, ironically enough, has nothing to do with the lens itself.  Rather, it is how to create the tilt-shift “look” using a computer.  (This might have something to do with the hefty price tag that usually accompanies a TS lens).  The quick answer I give people is, to a certain extent you can, but the results will in many cases be less than satisfactory. If you are on the edge about buying one of these wonderful tilt-shift lenses, and the only thing holding you back is the knowledge that you can do it on the computer, I would say BUY THE LENS.

Here I will briefly describe the process of duplicating these effects in Photoshop CS5.  If there is enough interest, I will do a more in-depth article on this later this year.

Lets start with the tilt movements that allow us to control our focus…..remember last week’s article?

Now, if you recall, tilting the lens can either give you unlimited depth of field (tilting the lens down towards the ground), or it can be used to create a sliver of focus in your photograph.

Photoshop for Unlimited Depth of Field:

So, can Photoshop create unlimited depth of field in a photograph? Nope. But, you can simulate that look by taking multiple photographs. You just take your tripod, set your camera up, compose your shot and shoot 3 to 4 photos moving the focus point each time ensuring that you get a photo focused on each part of your composition.

Now, back at home, you’ll have 3 to 4 photos that all look the same, with the focus point in a different area each time.  You just need to composite the photos together into one, creating masks on each and painting in the sharp areas of the photograph. When this is done, you should be left with one photo, that has essentially simulated unlimited depth of field.

Photoshop for “Sliver of Focus” Effect:

The process to duplicate this look on the computer is really easy, but getting satisfactory results is the hard part. Making it look like it was actually shot with a TS lens can be really difficult and time-consuming.

To start, choose a photograph that you want to kick out the focus on parts of the image. Now, you want to duplicate the background layer because we don’t want to blur the entire photograph. Next, we need to blur some areas in our photograph.  To do this, I like to use the “Gaussian Blur” under the Filter—-> Blur panel in Photoshop.

Choose the amount of blur that you think looks good. Next, create a mask and paint black on the areas that you want to remain sharp. I find it useful to vary the opacity and size of your brush to make this look more realistic. A good way to learn how to do this better is to look online at photographers who actually used a TS lens.  By doing this you can control the eye of the viewer, making them stay focused on the subject of your photograph.

Photoshop for Shift Movements:

This may be the easiest movement to duplicate on the computer, simply because the folks at Adobe have put in a tool that does a lot of the work for you.

All you need is a photograph that has severe converging lines (like a tall building).  In Photoshop just go Filter—-> Lens Correction. In the Lens Correction dialog box, there are multiple sliders that allow you to fix some common problems with distortion. You may need to click the “Custom” tab in the upper right corner of the box to see the sliders.

To fix converging lines simply drag the “Vertical Perspective” slider.  You will notice that this filter will distort the photograph and fix the distortion problems previously experienced.

The downside? You lose A LOT of your photograph.  The software needs to crop your image to correct it, so you end up with a much smaller file and a composition that is usually not what you wanted.

Now you can see that it is possible to duplicate some of the effects of a tilt-shift lens on the computer, but the results are usually not of the same quality you would get out of a real TS lens. As with everything in photography, it is always better if you can get it right in the camera rather than using editing software.

Equipment:

As for the equipment that is available for TS photography, I am mainly going to cover the two main brands that professional photographers use – Nikon and Canon.

There is a way to get the same selective focus that you can get with a TS lens without spending over $1000. Lensbaby have always prided themselves on creating a tool that gives photographers the ability to control the focus in their images. I would say that if you are interested in playing with these fun techniques, a Lensbaby would be a great choice.

If however, you want full control through both tilting and shifting your lens, you will want one of the more expensive lenses made by Canon and Nikon.

Canon makes four models:
Canon 17 mm TS-E f/4L
Canon 24 mm TS-E f/3.5L II
Canon 45 mm TS-E f/2.8
Canon 90 mm TS-E f/2.8

Nikon makes three models:
PC-E Nikkor 24 mm F3.5D ED
PC-E Nikkor 45 mm F2.8D ED
PC-E Nikkor 85 mm F2.8D ED

Although expensive, a Tilt-Shift lens gives you more control over your photographs through both focus and perspective control and really aids your creativity as a photographer. I would highly recommend that any photographer who has any interest in what I have talked about, try one of these lenses.

A quick note, I own the Canon 90mm TS lens, therefore it makes it quite hard to shoot architecture and demonstrate these techniques. My great friend, and wonderful photographer Forest Woodward on the other hand, has played quite a lot with the Canon 24mm lens and is letting me use one of his photos for the example image as shown below.

Needless to say, things have changed quite a bit since the time that these cameras were “cutting edge”. The new features of today’s digital cameras are vast.  Everyday, something new is released and unveiled to the general public, offering the consumer more megapixels and features than ever before.

There are, however, still a few things that the technologically advanced cameras of today could learn from the cameras that were popular, say, 100 years ago. One of the major advantages of the view camera is the ability to move both the front and back of the camera independently of each other. In this way the photographer is able to control both perspective and focus.

It is impossible to get this level of control in modern day digital cameras. It is possible, however, to come close and this is where the tilt-shift lens comes into play.

This will be a two-part article.  In this installment I will talk about how a tilt-shift lens works and go more in depth about the tilting aspect of these lenses. In my next article, I will talk about the other feature of the lens – the shift.

There is one governing factor that allows the manipulations of a tilt/shift lens. This factor is how large the circle of light coming in from the lens is.

Here we can see an estimation of the light circle on a normal (non-TS) lens. The red box represents the size of the sensor in the back of your camera. Notice how the circle of light falling on the sensor is just large enough to fully cover the sensor.

On the right, we have an estimation of the size of the circle of light on a tilt-shift lens. Notice how much larger the circle of light is, thus allowing the lens to move quite a bit in any direction while still keeping the entire sensor within the lit area.

Let’s quickly summarize the two elements of these lenses and how they work:

Tilt: Tilting the lens (described more in depth below) allows the photographer to adjust the plane of sharpest focus in the image. On all lenses that are not tilt-shift, the plane of focus is parallel to the film or sensor.

Shift: Shifting the lens will be our main topic in next week’s article. For a quick summary: shifting gives the photographer the power over perspective in the image.  One of the basic abilities shifting gives you is to make it possible to correct for converging lines on buildings by minimizing the need to shoot up your subject.

Tilt Movements:

Tilting the lens gives the photographer the power to manipulate the “plane of focus” in the photograph.

Normally the “plane of focus” in a photograph stays exactly parallel to the film or the sensor. This means that as we increase the depth of field, more comes into focus in front of and behind the subject.

With a tilt-shift lens, we are able to change this plane of focus, moving it from parallel to the sensor to nearly perpendicular. This allows the photographer to create a “sliver” of focus through any part of the image.

Using tilt movements to reposition the Depth of Field:

The maximum depth of field (smallest aperture such as f/22 or f/32) we can get out of our lenses is in many cases not enough to truly get from the foreground to the background perfectly sharp. Also, as most of us know, when we push our lenses to those smaller apertures, we are sacrificing sharpness in our photograph.

With a tilt-shift lens, however, we can shoot on a fairly large aperture, such as f/4 or f/5.6 and still be able to get front to back sharpness. This is done by tilting the front of the lens downward, which in turn moves the focus plane from parallel to the sensor or film, to almost parallel to the ground (see drawing below).

Here we can see a comparison between focus on a normal lens and a tilt-shift lens.

As I have shown, this technique can be used in a practical way to give the photographer virtually limitless depth of field.  It can also be used creatively.

Tilt-shift lenses have the ability to rotate, meaning that you don’t always have to tilt your lens up or down. You are also able to tilt it side-to-side, or along any diagonal in between. This allows you to do cool effects by kicking the focus out on both sides of your subject, leaving it tack sharp in the area you want to emphasize (see example photos).

When you buy a tilt-shift lens, you are buying the ability to have FULL control over what’s sharp in your photograph. This can be used to give you unlimited depth of field in your image, or to minimize what is sharp, leaving the rest simple and uncluttered.

Below, you will find some example images I have taken using these techniques.

Next time:  More info on Shifting!