LR Tips and Tricks centered on Automation by Ms. Juliane Kost

http://blogs.adobe.com/jkost/

Has a couple of good videos on automation in LightRoom

Cheers!
Steve

Properly Exposing your subjects....

In today's world of Auto every thing

Most photographers need reminded how
light meters are calibrated (what the heck does this have to do with proper exposure, keep reading).

All light meters are calibrated accurate based on light reflected off of 18% grey

So if you are photographing anything other than 18% grey, your images are going to be Under or Over exposed.  Unless you take control of the exposure by getting the camera set to Manual exposure
or use Exposure compensation.

For example if your are using auto exposure (AV, AT or Program) and you are photographing a white sweater, that white sweater is going to be under exposed and not look so pretty white
Because the light reflected back to the camera is going to be much brighter than the same light reflected of of an 18% grey card and the camera is going to think there is way too much light and make the aperture smaller and the shutter speed faster than need be.

So what does a person do to get accurate measurements of light:

    Get a hand held light meter and while you are at it get one that reads flash as well as ambient light
    I recommend a Sekonic L-308S for @ $202.00
    You will use this meter to meter the light at your subject and the light should be metered as it
    is falling with the white dome of the meter over the light sensor
    (This is called an Incident Light metering Technique)

OR

   Get an 18% Kodak grey card and make sure you meter the light at the subject that is bouncing off
  of  the grey card only, not part of the subject or the background
  the grey card.   An Expo Disc is also a good suitable substitute for use of the grey card (although a
  bit more pricey)

 Once you have metered the reflected light off of the grey card or metered the Incident light with your new light meter, you can switch to Manual setting versus Auto and set your shutter speed, aperture and ISO to that of what you metered and the subjects will be properly exposed.

An added benifit of metering the light (properly) reflected (without glare) off of the grey card
or using the Expo Disc is that you will also have the perfect image to use for White Balance (WB)
But WB is another topic for a thread later this year in this blog :)

Cheers!
Steve

Camera Bags...I was recently asked where I get my bags....Think Tank and they have a special on right now

I was recently asked where I get my bags....

Think Tank and they have a special on right now


1.       Save 25% on our CityWalker messenger bags – I’ve attached an image, and provided text below you can use.  The URL to point to is:  http://www.thinktankphoto.com/categories/shoulder-camera-bags/citywalker.aspx?code=WS-662


2.       Whenever they order one of our rolling camera bags they will receive our “Road Warriors Kit,” a $44.98 value, for free.   Here is the URL to share:  http://www.thinktankphoto.com/categories/rolling-camera-bags/airport-series.aspx?=WS-662

Cheers!
Steve 

How To FTP Using Windows 7 and Vista and XP @ Stephen R. Owens

How To FTP Using Windows 7 and Vista and XP @ Stephen R. Owens



Often enough I get asked how do we allow people access to our files via FTP
and I have to educate a customer on how to do this

So therefore here is the info in this post
easy for me to find later and send to a customer and now easy for you
to learn how to use as well.

Cheers!

steve

Histogram The Key To Understanding Exposure

Histogram The Key To Understanding Exposure



http://sceneinadifferentlight.com/histogram-the-key-to-understanding-exposure

Thinking in Stops of Light

getting used to thinking in Stops of light....

First we need to wrap our heads firmly around F stops as in aperture
Because that is how we measure the amount of light and set our camera to record the scene properly exposed.


Aperture in full nice round whole stops.....
f16 f11 f8 f5.6 f4.0 f 2.8 yes there are stops in between (halfs and even thirds and fourth)



Now here comes the curve ball...

if we choose a shutter speed of 1/120 second and we cut that in half
to a new setting of 1/60 shutter speed (making it half as fast) as in a
factor of 2
we have added One stop of light to our exposure
Because the shutter is staying open longer



If we double it (that shutter speed) from 1/120 to 1/240
then we have decreased the exposure by One Stop
Because the shutter is now open a shorter amount of time which equals less light into the camera



ISO


We can also adjust the sensitivity of the camera to light by changing
the ISO and if we double it we gain one stop, if we cut the ISO in
half we loose One full stop......example

we are at ISO 200 and we
decided we need to be able to shoot with two stops faster shutter speed
and we are currently at 1/30 of a second and an aperture of 5.6


from 1/30 to 1/60 is one stop, from 1/60 to 1/120 is our second stop we
want to gain in shutter speed, so the ISO needs to go to.....

800 ISO remember we started at ISO 200
double 200 to get 400 (a change of One stop) double it again to ISO 800
and we are at the second stop we needed to have the same exposure with a faster shutter speed



Here is an real world example....

If we are shooting at 1/60 of a second at an ISO of 200

at f4.0 and we are using a variable aperture lens and we need to zoom
towards the subject the lens just decreased the aperture (the nature of a
variable aperture lens) to lets say f5.6
Then we lost one stop of light and therefore must either slow down our shutter speed to 1/30 OR change our ISO to 400
To have the same exposure.

Meters Don't See 18% Gray by Thom Hogan

Meters Don't See 18% Gray by Thom Hogan



Make sure you read and understand The side bar
What should you do ?



Bottom line is understand reflected light versus Incident light metering



cheers!

steve