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December 30, 2010
2010 – my favorite wedding images from Neil van Niekerk on Vimeo.
There seems to be a pattern here – 2010 was another crazy-busy year for me. Photographing weddings, portrait sessions, maintaining this website and writing another book … all this added up to a full calendar and not much sleep.
It is always a rewarding experience as a wedding photographer to work with wonderful brides and groom and their families. So, as a wrap-up of the year – and also to show off a bit – here is a slide show of some of my favorite wedding and engagement session images of 2010. (Oh, and you had better like House music. Soundtrack courtesy of TripleScoopMusic. )
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Comments (19)
December 27, 2010
why should you use a higher ISO?
The advice for optimal camera settings for best image quality are usually:
- use the lowest possible ISO:
- at an aperture about 3 stops down from maximum (the widest) aperture;
- at a shutter speed fast enough to avoid camera shake and unintentional subject movement.
Taking this general advice at face value, means using the camera at its base ISO, which would either be 100 ISO or 200 ISO. However, while this advice is sound in theory, in practice this doesn’t have direct consequence on my decision about my camera settings.
In terms of exposure settings, we obviously want correct exposure, even if ‘correct exposure’ is open to interpretation. Now if we are using only available light, then we have what we have for that specific scenario. If the ambient light is low, we would need a higher ISO / wider aperture / slower shutter speed. There’s no wriggle room here.
But if we’re using flash, why not use the flash to give us correct exposure at these optimal settings? Why would we even go to a higher ISO?
The reason: when using flash on location, I am mostly concerned about balancing my flash with the ambient light. Or somehow taking my ambient light into account to give some context. It just looks better!
Let’s get back to the photograph at the top:
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Comments (33)
December 25, 2010
an index for the Tangents blog
I have consistently added 2 or 3 new posts to the Tangents blog every week for the past few years, adding up to over 500 articles and posts at the moment. Most of them hopefully articles that will maintain some value, and be read and re-read.
Navigating this fairly prolific output meant a combination of using the search box; using the categories and back-links deeper into the blog … or the hard work of meticulously clicking through the chronologically ordered old entries via the link at the bottom. It isn’t always easy to find a relevant post. Serendipity also had to play it’s part in finding an older item. I’ve started a few index pages, but they haven’t been pulled together into an overall index page until now.
This overall index page leads to a set of index pages which will continually be added to, and finessed. They can be found via the navigation column on the right-hand side. Happy exploring!
If you find these articles interesting and of value, then you can help by using
these affiliate links to order equipment & other goodies. Thank you!
Stay informed of new articles via the monthly newsletter.
Also join us on the Tangents forum for further discussions.
Comments (3)
December 23, 2010
I always enjoy hearing from photographers who read the articles here. However, as this site has become more popular, and with my own increasingly busy schedule, it is now an impossible workload to reply to the 20+ emails per day, asking questions about photography. The main problem with directly replying to emails is that I am spending an inordinate amount of time on an audience of one. But I have stuff to do!
I do like to help others, and here it is - a photography forum as part of the Tangents blog. Anyone is welcome to post questions and reply to any questions. So please feel free to join in!
With this then, I am giving official notice that I will NOT be replying to any photography questions via email. They will have to go through the Tangents forum or the Tangents blog.
Now, about the photo at the top …
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Comments (12)
December 20, 2010
comparison between a softbox, a white shoot-through umbrella and a bounce umbrella
I’ve had several requests from readers of the Tangents blog about how the light from a softbox would differ from the light from an umbrella. Spurred on by that, and by my own curiosity, I met up a while ago with my favorite model, Anelisa, specifically to do comparison shots.
And here it is …
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Comments (20)
December 19, 2010
photographic composition – finding and framing your best shot
Strolling through Green Park in London, I saw these rows of winter-barren trees. The way the snow clung to the trees and branches from the morning’s snow storm, white against dark brown, gave a posterized effect already – the crazy patterns of the branches starkly etched against the white snow.
I took several photographs, finally liking this photo above the most of all. Aside from resizing, it is straight out of camera … my iPhone 4. And therein was a lesson for me that I mulled over the rest of the day, while further exploring the urban landscapes of London …
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Comments (10)
December 17, 2010
photography questions & answers
Continuing with the regular theme where I look at search engine queries that point to this site, and answer a selection of 10 questions more directly…
01) how do I take an exposure reading with my camera?
Taking an exposure reading with your camera is at one level as simple as pointing your camera at the scene, and zero-ing the needle, by using the shutter speed & aperture & ISO controls. But, it also gets more complex and interesting than that. The crucial factor to remember is that your camera’s meter reads the light reflected from the scene you are pointing it at.
Looking at the image at the top – my favorite model, Anelisa, again – you will see she is wearing a white top, and she is placed against a dark background. With the composition as above, the chanced are great that most modern cameras with evaluative metering / matrix metering, will get to an exposure reading that is pretty close. The white areas and darker areas will most likely balance each other out.
But the moment that you change the composition by including a lot more white or a lot more of the dark areas, then the exposure your camera sets, will be off. You need to control your exposure settings …
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Comments (12)
December 15, 2010
Melissa & Dennis – their wedding day from Neil van Niekerk on Vimeo.
review of the Nikon D3100 video capability
Nikon recently released two very interesting D-SLRs – the Nikon D3100 (B&H) and the Nikon D7000 (B&H). Improving on several of the entry-level Nikon D-SLRs, they also offer HD video capability (1080p at 24 fps), and even does so with full-time auto-focus capability.
So when B&H sent me a Nikon D3100 for review, I thought what better test than to start in the deep end, and use it during a wedding to shoot HD video. The intention was to use the HD video from the D3100 along with the still photographs from my usual set of Nikon D3 bodies … and compile this as a stills & video Fusion clip, shown at the top here. I shot the stills, and Jessica, my assistant with an attitude, shot & edited the D3100 video clips. A first attempt at stills/video Fusion for us.
So how did the Nikon D3100 fare? Quite impressively actually …
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Filed under: equipment review, fusion, Nikon, Nikon D-SLR, video clip, wedding photography — Tags: New Jersey wedding photographer, Nikon D3100 review, Nikon D3100 video, review Nikon D3100, wedding photographers in New Jersey, wedding photography — Neil vN @ 10:06 pm
December 13, 2010
My friend Chuck Arlund is a Fashion Photographer whose elegant photography is something I always admire. Chuck’s previous guest spots here have been well received. His article on simple on-location lighting techniques using a reflector & flash, was especially popular. Therefore I’m really glad that Chuck is graciously sharing with us how he came to shoot this stunning photograph for Parasuco.
Do check out Chuck’s website and blog for more of his stunning photography.
Fashion photo shoot, using multiple lights
Hey there everyone! I have been working with a celebrity stylist and we have shot a few fun projects together. Just for our books. She uses Parasuco a lot for her clients, like Bon Jovi. One of the images we shot was pretty cool of the model wearing some of their jeans. She sent it to them to show what she was doing. They loved it.
A few weeks later the MUA of the original shoot wanted to do some beauty shots. Parasuco had sent some stuff to the stylist for us to shoot and see how it looked. During the beauty shoot we did some shots for Parasuco. After I had processed a few we sent them to the company. They really loved them and ended up purchasing a year license to use this image. It will be a billboard in the airport in Berlin and trade show magazine adverts.
Here is the tutorial explaining the setup for this shot. I used multiple lights …
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Filed under: flash photography, guest spot, lighting, models, photo shoot, studio photography, style — Tags: fashion shoot, flash photography, lighting setup, multiple lighting setup, studio photography — Neil vN @ 9:03 am
December 12, 2010
using a variety of lighting techniques for wedding photography
I’ve had some questions about specific images posted to the Facebook page of my photography. Since I’d like to keep that page for my clients and potential clients, I don’t want to clutter it too much with photo-geek stuff. I therefore decided to select a few images to discuss here instead.
This recent post on lighting ideas for the romantic wedding portraits, showed that I like to mix it up a bit, and not rely on one specific technique. Not every situation we’re going to encounter can be solved with one specific approach only. Mixing it up in terms of lighting also helps to provide my clients with more variety in the look of the final selection of images. In addition, it also keeps it interesting and fresh for me. Constantly adapting to challenges is part of the process of growing to be a better photographer.
With the image at the top, I wanted something with a sense of the dramatic. I only had my assistant there with a softbox on a monopod. Just the one light. We were freezing, and had to move fast. So no time for more lights. To get this kind of separation between my subjects – the bride and groom – and still get even light on them, I simply made sure that my light was at an equal distance to both of them. This way there is no light fall off and one of them brighter or darker than the other …
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Comments (23)
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