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photography: direction of light & change in background

August 21, 2010 Neil vN 15 Comments

Positioning your subject - direction of light & choice of background

Taking cover from the rain under an awning during a photography workshop in New York, we ended up in this spot against a wall that was painted black.  However, looking along the wall at an angle, the black paint of the wall reflected the light from behind. This completely changed the character of the background.  Since the available light was low level, and not flattering, we added some light from an off-camera flash in a softbox. Shooting nearly completely in line with the flash, the light on Catherine was  Read more inside...

photography: direction of light & choice of background

August 20, 2010 Neil vN 7 Comments

posing your subject - direction of light & choice of background

Reinforcing the ideas from a few previous posts, we're going to look at that intersect where everything comes together: - direction of light, - choice of background, - posing your subject, - positioning yourself. When we work with our subject - whether a family member or a model or anyone we're photographing - then we have the opportunity to control at least a few aspects to make the final photograph more successful.  Read more inside...

best lenses for wedding photography

August 18, 2010 Neil vN 69 Comments

wedding photography - best lenses

With this recent review of the Nikon 24mm f1.4 the question came up about which lenses I use when photographing a wedding, and how I use them. How do you juggle the various lenses you have for weddings and decide which ones to bring to a wedding and when to use them? Do you carry them all and just use them when you feel, or do only take specific lenses knowing what the wedding/venue will be like and know in advance that you will certain lenses at various times during the day? Choosing which lens to use while photographing a wedding, is obviously an  Read more inside...

review: Nikon 24mm f/1.4G

August 16, 2010 Neil vN 27 Comments

review: Nikon 24mm f/1.4 G AF-S

For a long time the only wide-angle auto-focus prime lens that Nikon had available, was the remarkable 28mm f1.4D ... which caused the lens to reach astronomical prices eventually on the used market when it was discontinued.  I sold my copy of the 28mm f1.4 a few years ago - a move I still regret - but I couldn't pull the trigger on a $4000.00 wide-angle prime lens when Nikon's wide-angle zooms were so incredible.  The Nikon 14-24mm f2.8 AF-S (B&H), for example, set a new standard for how good a wide-angle zoom can be, surpassing pretty much ever  Read more inside...

recap: Presentation at B&H’s Event Space in NYC (2010)

August 13, 2010 Neil vN 17 Comments

recap: Presentation at B&H’s Event Space in NYC  (2010)

I presented the first of two lectures on flash photography, at the Event Space at B&H  ... and, wow! This was all very exciting to me. Some of the biggest names in the photography world have presented talks and seminars at B&H. So for me, this was quite A Big Deal to present a lecture there.Just as exciting was to see that the place was jam-packed. The venue has 65 seats, but in the end I think there were about 75 people inside, with some sitting on the floor in front of me, and some lining the door .. and some 20+  Read more inside...

Sandisk CF cards might be fire-resistant, but the Canon 7D not

August 12, 2010 Neil vN 34 Comments

Petra Hall, a pretty awesome wedding photographer in Sweden, first posted this incredible story on the Digital Wedding Forum, and she kindly gave me permission to re-post it here. the Canon 7D might be rugged, but it isn't entirely fire-proof ... Petra's fiance, Erkki, recently bought a new (used) car, just before a planned vacation. They had intended on cruising in the MG convertible and just enjoy the sports car in the summer. They were going to just drive around and take some photographs of the scenery. The weekend before their vacation started, Erkki was on his way home from work when  Read more inside...

reducing the blue color cast in white clothing

August 11, 2010 Neil vN 15 Comments

reducing the blue color cast in white clothing

Often when working in the shade, or anywhere we need Cloudy or Shade white balance, we'll often see a blue tint in the white clothing.  I suspect this might be due to detergents being used which give a blue-ish tint to white clothing to make them appear cleaner.  Or perhaps this is from UV light when we're working in cloudy conditions or in the shade.  However it might be, we will often get that blue tone in white clothing, as in this photo below ...  Read more inside...

On-camera TTL fill-flash

August 10, 2010 Neil vN 76 Comments

On-camera TTL fill-flash

With this recent photo session I didn't have an assistant with me to hold a softbox.  I therefore relied on on-camera fill-flash where necessary, and careful positioning of the couple, Renee and David, to control the light. With the two photos above I used different amounts of flash exposure compensation (FEC), for more pronounced, or for more subtle fill-flash.   In the photo on the left, I used FEC of -3 EV on the Nikon D3 and SB-900 combination.  This is about the same as -1EV with the Canon flash system. For the image on the right, I was  Read more inside...

Sequence of photos in posing a model

August 8, 2010 Neil vN 13 Comments

Sequence of photos in posing a model

The photo above is one of my favorite images. It was also subsequently chosen as the cover image for my book about off-camera flash photography. Oktavia is a professional dancer and we both wanted some photos to extend our portfolios. Of the number of places we used as a backdrop, I really liked this place - an art gallery in Manhattan where we were kindly allowed to use as a setting.  What I'd like to show, is some of the images leading up to this final choice - how a combination of positioning Oktavia and changing the light, culminated in this  Read more inside...

Digital noise reduction software: Neat Image

August 7, 2010 Neil vN 27 Comments

Digital noise reduction software: Neat Image

The best way to deal with digital noise in photographs is to start with having a correctly exposed photograph taken by a high-ISO capable camera. Then digital noise mostly isn't an issue unless you start pushing the upper limits of what the camera is capable of. But sometimes (hopefully only sometimes), you have to deal with an under-exposed photograph from an older camera ... and then the digital noise becomes apparent. Then we have to use software to clean the image up. For those times when I do have to deal with an image with  Read more inside...

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