So, it’s time for me to make sure I turn the “that” into the “how” — time to put the techniques to use and actually master them.

I think that holds true for all of us who study photography. How many of us have attended a seminar only to “forget”, in a short time, what we’ve learned? Research tells us it’s a lot of us.

So, my mission is to use the techniques I’ve learned — and to write about them, here.

What I Learned in Class, Today

A. From the Amazing Russell Brown — Camera Raw and Smart Objects

1. Setting Workflow Options for Specific Cameras — Here’s something I did not know: The “Workflow Options” in Camera RAW are camera specific. Once you’ve set them for a camera, they will remember that camera and open up the image with the proper settings. Here is the window:

We get to the window by clicking on the line on the front page of the Camera RAW processor that starts “Adobe RGB …”.

We set this window to reflect how we want the images from a specific camera to be treated; once set up, all images from that camera will be handled with the set workflow options. These settings reflect how I treat the images from my Nikon D3. I always want them at 16 Bits and at the greatest resolution for the chip, 12.1MP.

Obviously, the trap here is that if, for some reason, we have not set the workflow options correctly, all of the images from a camera may be processed at less than optimum settings.

Lesson Learned: These settings carry over. Set them correctly and reap the benefit. Fail to do so, and we may be getting less from our cameras than they can produce.

2. Holding down the OPT/ALT key when opening an image from Bridge will hide Bridge. How cool is that? How many of us have a cluttered desktop when working with Photoshop and Bridge at the same time? No more.

3. A good reason to open a Camera RAW image as a Smart Object in Photoshop is that it will embed a copy of that image in the file. So, if we move the image to another computer, we will still have the original RAW image with us. Too cool for words.

B. From Dave Cuerdon

1. Here’s one I really like. When trying to place a drop shadow from the Layer Style window, most of us use the “Angle” circle with the little clock hand like dial. It’s really hard to get it just where we want it using that technique.

Dave showed us a better way. We can grab the shadow with our cursor and move it around so that we get it exactly where we want it. When we are moving it, the dial turns. Here’s a short screen-shot-video that demonstrates the point: Just click and watch.

But Wait! There Will Be More!!!

There are things that need to be done, before I can write about them.

One of my favorite teachers, Ben Willmore gave an amazing class on painting with light. Just as fine chefs carry around holsters full of knives, guys like Ben have gun belts full of flash lights and high powered, portable beams.

One tip from Ben — start with the face. Since your subject will have to be sitting still, get the face first. Once free to move facial muscles, most people can hold the rest of their bodies still.

I’m going to work a lot harder on mastering blending modes. Now that I’ve seen what they can do, I’ll pay more attention to them. I’m particularly interested in shooting a subject against a neutral gray wall and then using a blending mode to replace the backdrop. I’ll try it and if I can make it work, I’ll write about it.

And, I will do more self assignments. Once more, my favorite event at PSW was The Art of Digital presentation, moderated by good friend Jim DiVitale. Jim, Julianne Kost, Joe McNally, Joe Glyda, Vincent Versace, Jay Maisel, John Paul Coponigro, and Moose Peterson showed and discussed their work. Much of what was shown was shot on “self-assignments”. If the world’s best photographers take the time to do new things, to stretch, to scratch their creative itches, I will, too.

Final Thoughts

What an amazing conference! As I’ve mentioned  before, the only problem I had was choosing between very strong classes in competing time slots. My solution? I’ll probably go to both the East and West Coast versions next year. There’s no way to take it all in in one fell swoop.

Thank you to NAPP, Adobe, Kelby Training, and all of the incredible instructors who sent me home enthused about what I had learned and passionate about what I am about to do.

(Copyright: PrairieFire Productions/Stephen J. Herzberg — 2010)

If I could have run away from Joe, I would have.

Most people would pay to have Joe photograph them. Am I some form of ingrate? No, I think it is cultural. As an academic I taught Native American law. I wrote about Native American legal history. I studied the culture. Strongly admired and identified with it. At one point in my studies, I told some elders about my having run away from the camera. They understood. They told me that in some parts of the culture, it was/is believed that a camera captures a part of one’s soul. Those of us with that belief choose to avoid being in front of cameras. But, this morning, I couldn’t.

The Upside: Some Quick Lessons from Joe McNally

Trauma or not, I learned a lot from Joe, this morning. I always learn from Joe. I’ve read his books, bought his DVD’s, attended his seminars, seen him at conferences, watched everything he has on Kelby Training, and written a lot about him on this site. No one has had a greater influence on the way I approach the use of “small” lights than Joe. I admire him as a teacher and I admire him as a man. If you’ve not seen any of Joe’s materials or taken his classes, you should; in fact, if you’re in or around Houston, he’ll be in town on September 18-19 — check out the calendar on my site for details. From Joe, we get inspiration and learn some important technical stuff. Here are some quick hitters from this morning:

1. When explaining why it is often better to use additive light rather than simply boosting ISO (which on most modern cameras allows us to shoot with very little ambient light), Joe responded, “ISO addresses the quantity of the light, not the quality of the light.”

Yes, we can get an image by simply boosting the ISO. But, by adding light we can create direction and/or control the color and nature of the light. Direction gives depth and dimension. Important lesson number one from the morning.

2. When an off camera light did not fire, “If something goes wrong, shoot it again. It’s often pilot error.” Or, it’s some random quirk. From Joe, I’ve learned to stay calm. To try another time, and if there’s still a problem to run through the variables. In my experience, the most likely cause of the failure of a light to go off when shooting TTL is that it’s not in the line of sight of the command unit. In Joe’s case this morning, one of the lights was not set in TTL mode. There’s always an explanation — we simply need to stay calm and find it — as Joe did in front of a class of a few hundred people.

3. Many of us have had clients who tell us “I’m busy, you have 5 minutes. Get it quickly.” We all panic. And, so does Joe. Then we get the shot. I love Joe’s internal response.

“I’m on a daily rate. I only have to spend 5 minutes with this guy? Hmm. My rate just went up quite a bit.” But, actually, because of his strong personal skills, and the fact that he is constantly engaging his subjects, I’ll bet Joe is rarely held to that 5 minute time limit. Joe lives up to his teachings — he does his very bet to make his subjects enjoy the session. He almost got me to like it. Almost.

4. And, finally, some very practical tips:

a. Joe often shoots at ISO 400 and around f5.6. Why? Because, with the increased ISO and lower f/stop, the speedlights have less to do — the situation demands less power. They will recycle faster and run cooler;

b. A camera in Manual Mode will ignore changes in exposure compensation — but the speedlights will recognize the changes. In iTTL, exposure compensation ALWAYS affects the flash setting. In the Priority modes, exposure compensation affects both the camera and the flash.

a. Crossing lights can drive iTTL nuts. If you’re getting wacky results, and you have lights that are throwing crossing beams,  the system may be going wacky trying to interpret and control them. Some times, you have to revert to Manual mode. It’s not that hard.

d. Both Nikon and Canon claim sync speeds of 1/250 BUT that speed only applies to their own flash units. So, if you are trying to sync to studio lights, Quadras, or a combination of  different lights, you will have to shoot at 1/200. I really didn’t know this. I’ve never run into the problem because I shoot at much lower speeds in the studio or when using my Profoto 600BR. But, it’s a very good thing to know.

OK. Even though I had to model, I’m glad I attended both of Joe’s sessions. I learned a lot.

A Few Other Practical Tips From the Day

1. From Alan Hess‘ class on Concert and Event Photography — perhaps, the most practical tip of the week. Always carry extra ear plugs. Offer them to the security guards — the guys who determine how long you’ll be able to shoot and where you can go; this simple gesture often builds trust, friendship and respect — all of which can lead to your being allowed to stay a bit longer or stray a bit outside the boundaries. Plus, you’ll be doing them a public service by helping save their hearing.

2. From Calvin Hollywood – perhaps, the most exciting speaker I’ve seen this week. Calvin is so out-of-the box in his approach to all things Photoshop that I’ve seen many of the most respected PS teachers sitting in his audiences with their mouths open. This guys stuff rocks.

One tip I’m going to try as soon as I get home: Some times we shoot someone knowing that we are going to put their image over a new and different background. Most of us approach the task by using some sort of selection tool to lift them off the original background.

Calvin demonstrated an easier approach. Shoot the subject in front of a neutral gray background. To substitute backgrounds, put the new background on a layer above the original. Set the blending mode to Soft Light. The gray will disappear giving way to the new background. Why? Because the Soft Light blend mode replaces the neutral gray in an image with the new layer. Because there may be something close to neutral gray on the subject, we may have to add a white mask and paint over the subject in black, blocking the upper layer’s impact on the subject.

I’ve got to try this. I deliberately painted my studio walls neutral gray because I didn’t want them throwing any color casts. And, now, I find out that, out of pure luck, I may be able to really make my compositing easier by removing the need to extract subjects from the original photos. I’ll try and demo this, soon.

–30–

(Copyright: PrairieFire Productions/Stephen J. Herzberg — 2010)

Why, is a bit hard to say. I’ve learned amazing things at Imaging USA. And, Texas School gave me the base upon which to build everything I do. But, at this time in my career, PSW is the place where my vision is enhanced and my horizons are stretched.

Perhaps, it’s because here, I’m a fish half out of water. I know a lot about the technical side of photography. And, I’m not bad in post-production. But, “not bad” puts me at the back of the class at PSW. There are people here who are incredible — what they can do with Photoshop spins my head.

Lest anyone misunderstand, PSW is not only for people who can spin heads. PSW is for all of us. There are classes at every level taught by people at the top level of what they do. This is my third PSW. At my first, I took a lot of “beginner” courses. I learned a lot. More than I thought I could learn in 4 days. Now, I’m taking some tougher classes — but I feel fully prepared. Since my first PSW, I’ve taken seminars, lectures, and joined Kelby Training. I’ve read books and watched DVD’s. I’ve hosted seminars featuring Dave Cross, Jim DiVitale and Janice Wendt. I’ve worked hard and when I look back at what I was doing before my first PSW to what I can do now, I feel like the guy who went from driving an old John Deere in the fields to a guy who drives a Ferrari on the track.

To me, PSW strikes the perfect balance between “practical learning” and inspiration. And, that’s what I’m going to write about this week — the things that will improve both my technique and my vision. I’ll try to post something every day. And, when I get home, I’ll do some in depth posts tips and tutorials.

One of the things I like most about conferences is that I get to see and spend time with my friends who don’t live in Texas.

Today, I had lunch with Janice Wendt. Janice is known to most of us as the “Nik Diva”. She’s the woman at all of the trade shows and schools who shows us how to use Nik’s incredible suite of software. She’s the go-to- Nik-woman — the best Nik teacher I’ve seen and one of the best retouchers in the world.

Janice has recently been on the road teaching at photo and art schools. Many of my friends who have been on the road teaching at conferences and trade shows have reported back to me that in this great “sea change” in the world of photography, there are many of us entering the profession with very little training. The demand for knowledge is everywhere. One would think that the key to servicing this new group of photographers would be to focus on the “nuts and bolts” of the profession. So I asked Janice how she was reaching out to this group and what her goals were.

Her answer — “I teach them inspiration. That’s the most important thing I do. I teach them to see how much better things can be. That what is good can be great.”

I think that is the right message for the times.

All over this web site are articles and comments about the current market for professional photography. A few themes resonate:

With cameras getting better and better, and capable of taking very good images, technical mastery is becoming a thing of the past; another way of saying the same thing is to say that it is easier to enter the profession, today, than it was before.

However, it is harder to survive.

The more photographers, the more competition we all face. Competition can be good. Or, it can be destructive. No one wins in a “price war”. Lower prices. Lower profits. No profits. Out of business. That’s the risk when we choose to compete on price.

But, we can all win in a “quality war” because it will force us to grow and do our best work.

To succeed in a “quality war”, we have to be better. We have to differentiate our work. We have to sell that difference. Our clients have to see it. And, they have  to be educated to the point where they are willing to pay more for better images.

And, that’s why Janice is right on track when she says that she teaches “inspiration” and “vision”.

Yes, it is important that we master our tools like those in the Nik Suite. But, according to Janice, the woman who knows them best, until we expand our vision, until we see that “good enough” never is, until we challenge ourselves and our software to go beyond what seems OK, we will not be great. And, great is where we must be. To be satisfied. And, to survive.

And, that’s why I’m here at PSW. To challenge myself. To expand my vision. And, to share the experience with those of you who could not get here.

(Copyright: PrairieFire Productions/Stephen J. Herzberg — 2010)

Because, if my head is not in the right place, if it doesn’t see clearly, if it cannot execute — no matter how creative my vision, I will fall flat.
That’s why I love books, video’s, conferences and seminars. And, that’s why I bought a subscription to Kelby Training — a subscription that has proved to be a very worthy long term investment in my creative future.

Simply stated, Kelby Training is an online site that gives us access to world renowned instructors teaching lessons in the things they know best.

The Faculty: Kelby Training modestly proclaims that it has “The Best Teachers On the Planet — All In One Place”. Actually, I think that might be true. Of course you get the “Photoshop Guys” — Scott Kelby, Dave Cross, Matt Kloskowski, and Corey Barker — all of whom are different, both in approaches to the material and teaching styles. And, then you add in 25, or so, more greats like Rafael Concepcion, Vincent Versace, David Ziser, David Cuerdon, Lesa Snider, Julieanne Kost, Laurie Excell, Eddie Tapp, and, one of my all time favorite instructors and personalities, Joe McNally.

This is a very diverse group of people. What I like most is that their differences show. And, because they are teaching things they do and love, their enthusiasm is catching. I’ve watched at least 50 hours of lessons, from a vast number of teachers and have not had one that I found boring, too confusing or hard to understand.

The curriculum matches the diversity of the faculty. As one might expect, the classes are heavily weighted toward photography. And, many are rooted in the Adobe Creative Suite. But, there are classes on Nikon’s NX2, Apple’s Aperture, and some on video. Some classes deal with creating images in the camera and others on post-production. Some deal with Illustrator, In Design, and Dreamweaver. Then there are those that teach us how to disseminate our work, either in print or online. Will we all want to watch every lesson? Of course not. But, the curriculum is sufficiently broad that most people will find relevance in most of the classes and never run out of new things to learn.

The lessons are timely, too. As soon as CS5 was announced, a host of tutorials appeared on the site — some for beginners and some for those who are more advanced. I’ve been watching them this week and I feel prepared to take advantage of the new features in CS5 as soon as I get my hands on the final version.

The interface is simple (with one hidden “gotcha”) and the production quality very high. The “gotcha”? When we go to watch a lesson, there are two checkboxes under the video window. They are easy to overlook. One, “Continuous Play” does what it says. It plays one lesson after the other without stopping between them. Cool. The other, “Remember My Position” is the one that got me; it keeps track of where you are in a lesson; if you log out, and come back later, it will take you to the exact spot where you previously were. Great. Unless you don’t want to go there. And, that’s how it got me. I wanted to look at something else. Try as I might, I couldn’t change classes. Until, in unchecked that box. It really is a good feature so long as you know to turn it off when you want to move to a new starting point. I do, now, and so do you. Other than that, this interface is strong and simple.

Enough general talk — let’s go to some lessons.

Note: All of the video’s of  the class segments below are the sole property of Kelby Training which owns their copyright. I am including in this review pursuant to their gracious consent to do so. The actual production quality on their site is better than that which I’ve been able to reproduce, here. However, they will give you some idea of the scope of content and quality of the teaching.

Why is this post in 3 parts? Because, with so much video embedded, the pages may load a bit slowly; PLEASE BE PATIENT,  give them some time; it’s worth the wait.

So, what have I learned?

1. From Dave Cuerdon: The Beauty and Retouching Kit

By giving me a set of techniques and the tools to implement them, Dave Cuerdon allowed me to take a quantum leap in the quality of my portrait retouching. And, he did it in a way that was so simple to learn that I was able to implement his lessons the day I learned them.

What do I mean by “giving a set of tools?” I mean that Dave gives us a toolbox full of things we’d have to buy elsewhere or create ourselves. From within the lesson, we can download a folder that contains some very sophisticated stuff. We get Actions, Brushes, Color Swatches, Custom Shapes, Textures and Tools. Not sure what to do with them. No problem. Dave teaches us how to load them into Photoshop and then, in the lessons that follow, he shows us how to use them.

Here’s a look at what’s in the Cuerdon toolbox:

If you do a lot of portrait retouching, this free toolkit will more than cover the cost of the online subscription.

Dave’s lessons focus on the face and its components.

The Eyes

We’ve all been taught the importance of getting the eyes right. Ever notice how new born babies stare into their parents’ eyes? Psychologists tell us that eye contact is the cornerstone or our interpersonal connections and communications. When we meet people, we look them in the eye. So it makes sense that when most people look at portraits, they look into the subject’s eyes. If they can make a connection, they are drawn into the image. If they cannot, they move on.

For many of us, eye retouching is a struggle — it’s often hard to figure out exactly what the goals are and what tools to use to achieve them.

Dave, inspired by Fay Sirkis, has created a system and set of tools to make this an easy task.

Simply stated, Dave has produced an action that creates a layer for each task we face in retouching eyes.

For each layer, Dave has selected the appropriate tool and settings. For many, the tool is the “right brush” (often one he has created and given us), set to the “right opacity” so that one can paint on the effect or localize it on a mask.

We get a complete brush set — the one’s I like best allow us to remove catchlights and replace them with better ones; to really make things look cool, we can also create a moon — that little curved reflection opposite the catchlight. Lately, I’ve been putting a little “creative confusion” in my images by removing the original catchlights and replacing them with something more “artistic”; I particularly like taking images that were clearly shot in the studio and putting in large “window” catchlights and moons.

Here’s a look at the layer set that I’ve put in a folder called “Eyes”:

Starting at the bottom of the stack we can see the logic in the order of Dave’s approach.

The first step is to clean up the eyes.

Then, if we don’t like the catchlight, we remove it; it will be replaced, later.

Most often, we will want to brighten the eyes; we do this with a curves layer that lightens the entire image and then covers it with a black mask; we paint, in white, on the mask over the part of the eyes we want to be brighter.

We do the same thing with Redness removal — this time using a Hue/Saturation layer set to diminish the amount of red in the eyes.

The Pupil layer allows us to create a nice, dark pupil — and to change its size .

The Iris layer allows us to either boost (saturate) or change the color.

On the Iris Ring layer we use one of Dave’s custom brushes to create a dark ring around the outside of the iris; a little free transform work will get the placement spot on; this ring really makes the eye jump off the page.

In the last two steps, we use more of Dave’s custom brushes to paint in a new catchlight and moon; sometimes I’m pleased with what I’ve captured; in that case, I don’t use the catchlight and moon layers.

At first, I was a bit intimidated. Nine different layers, each with a distinct set of tools and task, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to remember what to do.

Dave was 10 steps ahead of me. Knowing that there would be a learning curve, he created two versions of the same actions — one for beginners and the other for those who have mastered the techniques.

The beginner version — the one I still use even though I could use the advanced — lets us run each layer as a separate step. Push the start button and up comes an instruction window telling us what we will be doing. Push another button and we do it. When done, we go back to the play action button to bring up the next layer. There is no way to make a mistake in this system. It is fool proof.

Here’s an example of how the “Action with Stops and Instructions” guides us through the process:

The tools are all set to the parameters in the box. Once we understand the task, we push the button and do the work. When we are done, we play the next step in the action, get a new layer complete with instruction box. This really could not be any easier.

The “advanced” set is a bit different. Push the Play button and all of the layers appear without the instruction boxes. Once we understand, we can just push through them. (Why do I still use the beginner version? I like the rhythm of reading, doing, and moving on.)

Eye retouching? With Dave’s instructions and actions — a piece of cake. I do it in almost every portrait I retouch.

The Rest of the Face

Dave gives us the tools and knowledge to work on eye brows, eyelashes and eyeliner, skin retouching, lip treatments, teeth whitening, and, as a special treat — the application of digital tattoos. To give you a sense of the nature and style of these lessons, here’s the one on “facial contouring”:

As taken as I am with Dave’s creativity and native teaching skill — I think I’m most impressed by his generosity. Not many instructors would GIVE us these tools — tools most of us are used to paying for. I look forward to taking Dave’s other Kelby Training class – Fantasy Portraits.

Please Access Part 2 from the Home Page

(Copyright: PrairieFire Productions/Stephen J. Herzberg — 2010)

The number one complaint I hear from my photographer friends is not about photography. It’s about web sites.

Web sites. The bane of our existence. Essential to our success but, until recently, frustrating to create and maintain.

For a couple of years, I struggled with a beautiful Dreamweaver site created by an artist friend. It looked great and worked well. But, I could not interact with it. If I wanted something done — the smallest thing like posting an article or image, I had to call the artist; and if he was busy, it didn’t get done. As much as I wanted to do it myself, to do so would have required learning Dreamweaver and probably some HTML. My head was too full. No more room at the inn. Didn’t want to do it.

And, then my web developer extraordinaire (who is also my cousin), Nina Sossen, told me about WordPress, and created this site. We bought a theme from Elegant Themes; but it did not look anything like what my site looks like. Nina skillfully designed and  implemented the look and feel of the site. I’m not sure any of us would be able to do what she did; it takes a real code jockey. If you want something unique — something that aesthetically expresses who you are, I strongly recommend that you contact Nina.

Once Nina got me up and running, WordPress has been a saviour. Today, I can do most anything that needs to be done to add content and maintain the site. When I get stumped, Nina is but a phone call away.

WordPress is FREE! I still pay for my domain names and for hosting, but the basic software is free.

Much like Photoshop, there are plugins that extend the functionality of WordPress. My calendar and galleries are controlled by plugins. So is my ability to embed my YouTube videos and other media.

I cannot tell you how happy I am with the switch to WordPress.

You don’t have a cousin Nina to teach you the basics? Don’t worry. Kelby Training has a great WordPress teacher.

R.C.’s Step-By-Step Tutorial — At the End, We Have a Web site

Want to create your own WordPress site? A total novice as to all things web site? No problem.

In two classes, in 31 easy lessons, R.C. Concepcion takes us, step by step, (and I mean small step by small step — there is no way to fall behind in these lessons) through the creation of our very own photographic sites. He starts with showing us how to get a domain name and set up a hosting account. Then he introduces us to FTP, the file transfer protocol we will use to send things to our site. From there we learn everything we need to create the look and feel of our site and load our pages with content.

These lessons are framed in a way that encourages us to build our own site as we watch them. Amazing, in a couple of hours, we can have a fully functional web site that we know how to run and modify.

Yes, WordPress is designed to be user friendly.

R.C. gives us the knowledge and confidence to take the first steps on the WordPress path. ALL new software is intimidating. But, not with R.C. guiding us through it.

He is an amazing teacher — well organized and calm. He just makes it seem simple. And, one of the nice things about creating the site while working through the lessons is that if we stub a toe, first aid is simply a button away — push “rewind” and watch again.

I first saw R.C. teach at a Photoshop world a few years ago. I so wanted to learn how to control my Dreamweaver web site that I took one of his classes. Although I soon realized that I did not want to make the investment in learning Dreamweaver, I watched a couple more — just because he was such a good teacher.

So, I was thrilled when I found the WordPress lessons on Kelby Training. This is the software for most of us who really don’t want to learn a new, difficult program. And, with R.C. leading us, we will get what we need, quickly and painlessly.

Want to go the full bore, hard core Dreamweaver route? R.C. has 5 different sets of lessons to guide you. And, he’s pulling a heavy oar in getting us up to speed on CS5 with courses on the new Camera RAW and Illustrator. R.C. is a rock solid, steady teacher — easy to follow, easy to like.

3. From Joe McNally: Perspective

Sometimes we get so focused on the technical aspects of photography that we lose sight of the fact that we are really in the “people” business. Joe McNally never lets us forget that:

I’ve written about Joe several times in my newsletters and on this site. He is an incredibly gifted teacher. Most see him as THE “off-camera-flash” guru of our time. He is that. But he is a lot more. Mingled in with the technical information in his DVD’s, seminars, books, and classes (there are nine of them on Kelby Training), are important philosophical and inspirational themes presented in the least pretentious way possible and in ways that make a great impact.

Want to learn everything there is to know about off camera flash? See Joe’s lessons on Kelby Training.

Want to learn things we need to know about being the kind of photographers who get the most out of their subjects and team? Look at those same lessons. Read his books. Watch his DVD’s and take his seminars. Joe McNally has made be a better photographer in all senses of the word.

Please Access Part 3 from the Home Page

(Copyright: PrairieFire Productions/Stephen J. Herzberg — 2010)

When I was an embryonic lawyer, my office had an IBM system that created templates for most legal forms and allowed the secretaries to fill in blanks rather than type long originals; the computer took up a full sized office.

Today, my D3 puts much more computing power in my hands.

The upside of all that computing power is that I have an almost infinite variety of settings with which to create and control my images. The downside of all that computing power is that I have an almost infinite variety of settings with which to create and control my images.

The bottom line — to get the most from our cameras, we have to know how to harness that power — we have to master the menu and setting choices that tell the camera what to do. For most of us, that means spending many hours in manuals that make little or no sense.

Fortunately, for those who learn better seeing than reading, Kelby Training has complete classes on many current cameras — including many Nikon and Canon models. There are even lessons on shooting video with the latest DSLR’s.

I really know my D3 — I’ve actually read the manual several times. I know, boring. But, hey,that’s who I am.

Even thought I knew my D3, I still took Laurie Excell’s class on it and learned some new things. Laurie is well organized, clear and concise. In 2 hours I learned as much from her as I had from many more hours in the manual.

Laurie goes one step further. In a separate class, Cleaning Your Digital SLR Sensor, she takes the fear out of sensor cleaning. Before watching this tape, I hesitated to clean my sensor; I knew that the slightest mistake could lead to an expensive repair. Laurie demystified the process, and took me through it in small, easy steps. (One lesson is aptly entitled “Dont Be Afraid”.)

Here’s Lesson 7 of the 10 in this class:

Conclusion:

I’m glad I subscribed to Kelby Training.

I  like the deep curriculum and the fact that it is expanding every week. I like the ability to “dabble” in a subject; I can try a topic and if I find it’s not for me — nothing is lost; I’ve not had to buy anything and nothing will sit and gather dust on my shelves.

Those who study the psychology of learning tell us that repetition is the key to retention. One of the strong points of online content is that we can watch it over and over and over — and then again, if need be.

And, so long as I can get an Internet connection, the lessons are always with me. I find them a good way to pass time in airports or hotel rooms.

Kelby Training is the real deal — and for those who want to up their games, a “continuing education” course well worth the price of admission.

(Copyright: PrairieFire Productions/Stephen J. Herzberg — 2010)

So, I’m going to try adding something new — something that will accommodate my Restless Mind, something that will let me write what I’m thinking while I’m thinking it.

And, something that might stimulate more contemporaneous feedback and help to create a sense of community.

Here’s the plan: I’m going to use this space to post  ”short” entries, random thoughts, whenever and wherever my restless mind takes me. Some will lead to longer articles, later. Some will just pass in the night. But, all will take a load off my mind.

[Special thanks to my very good friend Jim DiVitale for allowing me to use his brilliant creation as the logo for this column.]

16 Dec 2009: Seminar Manners — “Shooting Along” With the Teacher

Last month, I took my own “busman’s holiday”. I attended a seminar taught by a teacher and photographer for whom I have great respect. I won’t name him, here, because these thoughts are not related solely to his seminar but reflect both my experience and those of some of my friends.

These comments have nothing to do with the teacher and everything to do with the audience. He was perfect. The audience was not.

Throughout the two day seminar, a dozen or so of the two hundred students, without being invited to do so,  ”shot along” with the instructor. Some inadvertently set off his lights — right when he was getting ready to shoot. Others, shot bursts — hoping to catch the moment his lights would fire. Even when the instructor gently let it be known that he was not happy, they did not stop.

The rest of the students were not happy with their behavior, either. I sat one seat away from a woman who fired bursts throughout the seminar making it difficult to hear and follow the teacher.

I think this behavior was rude and disruptive — rude to the teacher and disruptive of the class.

At the time I could not imagine why there was so much shooting going on. I can fully understand if people were quietly and quickly shooting the “lighting set ups” for future reference. One click and done.

But, that’s not what they were doing. They were shooting the models. They were shooting the large screen upon which the instructor’s images were being displayed. They were taking pictures of his pictures!

To what end? I had no idea. To me, it seemed silly that someone would pay tuition to attend a class and then spend that class shooting instead of listening.

Then I got an email from a friend who had attended with me. He told me to go up on Flickr and search on the models’ names. Up came a bunch of the “bootleg” images taken at the seminar.

Perhaps, the students shooters do not understand that using those images is wrong.

It’s wrong because the images were the creation of the teacher — not the person who snapped them. Posing the model and lighting her were his creative work. Holding that work out as one’s own is intellectually dishonest.

And, using those pictures without a release from the model is wrong, too. (Some of the images of the models posted were taken when the models thought they were “off camera” or relaxing. They are less than flattering and it is wrong to post them.) The models have a legal right to control the use of their images; they gave the instructor a release; they did not do the same for the students.

Apparently, people do this at other seminars, too.

Sometimes I graze YouTube looking for good instructional videos. More than once I’ve come across low quality, bootleg videos of part of an instructor’s class — posted by someone who was obviously in the audience.

Perhaps, those student shooters don’t understand that this, too, is wrong.

These teachers make a living going around the country holding seminars. If people tape and “broadcast” those seminars, without the instructor’s permission, they destroy part of the market for the class. And, many of the teachers have their own DVD’s they are selling — again to make a living. I’m pretty sure that many of the YouTube videos were put up without the subjects approval, without a release; this, too, violates the legal rights of the teacher.

The better side of me wants to believe that the few students who disrupt seminars with their cameras are simply oblivious — they don’t understand that they are disrupting the class and that, if they use the stuff they shoot, they may be violating the law.

So, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and use this comment to remind them that unless a seminar is advertised and structured to allow us to “shoot along” with the instructor, we should not.

(Copyright: PrairieFire Productions/Stephen J. Herzberg — 2009)

More than 150 of you sent emails saying “yes” to my inquiry as to whether I ought to start “a survival stories” section on this web site. My web developer, Nina Sossen, who knows a lot more about web site interaction than I do,  tells me that statistically, the letters represent very strong support for the idea.

So, I’m going to do it. And, I’m going to do it now — even though I’m not sure whether the form will remain constant or whether it will morph into a separate but connected blog.

The basic idea is simple. This new area will be a place to talk about the “business” side of photography.

Those of you who have been reading my work for the last few years know that I’ve spent most of my time writing about the “artistic” and “technical” sides of the endeavor. That’s what I like to do. It’s probably what I do best. I’ll not stop doing that.

But, it’s clear to me, that in this funky economy we have to talk more about survival — and this will be the place where we do that.

We Have to Be Both Artists and Business People: We Cannot Be One Without the Other

The fence that separates “business” and “art” is artificial. There is no conflict between the two. It is a false dichotomy.

Because, without “art” there can be no business. And, as many are learning, without “business” one cannot continue to produce art.

I think that false dichotomy may be at the root of the problems many of us are facing.

We see ourselves as “artists” not “marketers” or “sales people.”. We love to create. We hate selling. We put our time into becoming better artists and ignore the need to become better business people. Why? Because we want to do what we love doing. And, most of us took up photography for the creative rush, not because we wanted to market and sell.

But, market and sell we must — especially in these tough times.

As money becomes tight, what we do is seen as “discretionary” spending. Photography gets the red pencil because it is not seen as a “necessity of life.”

Until, we need a picture of a loved one for a funeral. Or to remind us of special times. Or to brighten our homes and lives. Often, when we see the need, it is too late to create the image. Our loved ones are gone. The moments have passed. And, we realize that we really should have recorded them, for all time.

It is our job to make people understand the importance of what we do. In simple economic terms, we need to create “demand” for our products.

That’s what marketing and selling are all about.

It’s about getting ourselves in front of the right people and teaching them to value what we do. It’s about getting them to let us share and record those moments. And, it’s about selling them our work — closing the deal, getting paid, fairly, for what we have done — so that we can continue to do it.

I define marketing as the stuff we do to get customers. I see the shoot and post production as the “art” side. And, selling as the way we make sure we get paid, fairly, for what we have done. They are all one and the same thing — being a professional photographer.

We will talk about all of these things in this space.

Competing On The Right Playing Field

We will talk about how we can survive in this down market — a market which, increasingly, has spawned the worst type of competition — price competition.

As artists, we’d prefer to have decisions made by clients who compare our work to that of others — not by clients who don’t care about the quality of our work or don’t know how to evaluate it and, therefore, simply compare our rate cards to those of our competitors.

No one wins a price competition. Not the consumer who often gets a product of poor quality — because it costs more to do it right. And, not the photographers involved in the price fight who often make less on a shoot than they would if they were working at a McDonald’s.

How do we survive the black hole of price competition? Let’s talk about it here.

A Rising Tide Raises All Boats

That’s pretty much been my business philosophy for as long as I can remember.

What does that mean in this context?

It means that we are in this together. If we make the tide rise, we will all succeed. If we cannot, we will all run aground.

And, that’s why I don’t find it productive to have internal battles. There is a lot of anger out there. Hostility and jealousy. In general terms, it’s not productive.

Complaints about “moms with cameras,” in addition to being demeaning of many very good photographers who are also mothers, take us nowhere; they, too, want to work in an economic environment where they can flourish. And, where they are paid fairly.

Whether one who does not have a studio can be considered a “professional photographer” takes us nowhere. Unfortunately, in this economy many cannot carry the overhead of a studio space and are either shooting from their homes, on location, or renting studios when needed. They, too, want an environment where they can flourish.

I think the essence of these complaints is a belief that those who do the work “part time,” or don’t have the overhead that studio photographers have, are creating the price competition by offering their work for unreasonably low prices. (I have also seen the finger pointed at studio owners who, as the belief holds, desperate to hold onto a “dinosaur business model” are cutting their prices to get work to support their “bloated overhead”.) Neither set of allegations moves the ball forward.

Whether or not these allegations are true is an empirical question. I’ve not been able to find any numbers to support or deny them.

However, it is clear that the finger pointing is not productive. It does nothing to increase the demand for our work. It does nothing to make the tide rise. And, if the tide does not rise, we will all be left on high ground.

So let’s try to make the tide rise. And let’s discuss how to do it here.

In my eyes, for the tide to rise:

1. All photographers who sell their work must attain high standards of proficiency. Poor results sour the consumer base. Unfortunately, all professions suffer the stigma created by the least skilled in the trade. If our clients begin to believe that they can do better work than we do, they will not hire us. We must be noticeably better and we must differentiate our work from that achieved by consumers who own the same cameras we do. I’ve written extensively about differentiation — doing the things that our friends and neighbors cannot do — be it perfect lighting and posing or doing using tools they do not own or have not mastered, like the Lensbaby, or post-production software, like the stuff from onOne, Imagenomic, and Nik. To survive, we need to create images that don’t look like those that come out of their cameras.

2. We must educate the public to see the beauty in and appreciate good photography. If they cannot tell the difference between what we do and what they can get for free or for rock bottom prices, why will they pay more for our work?

3. We must price our work in ways that reflect our investment in time and materials; we must seek a fair return. I know it is tempting, in bad times, to cut our bids so low that we either barely make or lose money — just to get the job. But, we really have to wonder whether that job is worth getting. And, I firmly believe that we are only as good as our last quote. Once we underbid, it is hard to get back to fair pricing. After all, we are the ones who diminished the value of what we do; by cutting our prices to ridiculously low amounts, we are telling the consumers how little we value our work.

4. We must learn to adapt to the new paradigm — the one in which many consumers don’t care about “prints” and/or  have the ability to knock off our work. This is an odd time. My guess is that more people are looking at images in an electronic format than are printing and displaying them. Until we explain to people the value of prints, and the danger of “electronic” storage, we will not be selling a lot of prints. And, this is a time where, with scanners, it’s not all that hard to copy what we have done, we might question whether a model based on selling prints is viable. We may want to think about different economic models, like charging for our time as opposed to charging by the print. Either way, we have to explain the law of copyright to our clients in a non-threatening way; if they understand our rights, most will respect them. And, when they don’t, as an industry we have to enforce them.

5. We must market like it matters, because it does. Sitting back and waiting for business to come will not work, now, if it ever did.

6. And, we must sell. It does no good to book a client, do a great shoot, produce some incredible images, if we cannot get people to pay for them. Spending hours to sell a couple of 8×10′s won’t cut it.

I’ll continue to work hard on #1 in other sections of this site.

Numbers 2-6 will be the substance of “Survival Stories.”

How I Think It Will Work

I’m not sure exactly where this will go or how we will make it happen. But, for now, here’s what I’m thinking:

This will be a place where we speak to each other — through articles or comments.

I’ve already started contacting some of my friends and have been asking them if they’d write some articles on selling and marketing to stimulate discussion here.

Last week, I got an email from a reader who told me about a loan program that might be good for photographers. I’m going to follow up by interviewing her and reporting what I learn here.

If it is going to work, it has to be a dialogue. Some of you have offered to write short pieces for me to post. I know others will add depth by commenting.

In your recent emails, many of you have expressed frustration, pain and anger. I expect our dialogue here to be passionate. We are talking about things that cut to the bone — our ability to do what we love and to support ourselves doing it.

Passion is perfect. From discussions come answers. There is no “party line” or set answer here. For example, you may disagree with me about “part timers” or those without studios. That’s fine, state you point. Disagreements stimulate discussions. To move forward we have to make sure we are building on solid ground. Often, it takes some digging to find the bedrock.

There will be but one rule: Play Nice. Simply stated, if you disagree with someone, do it respectfully. That’s it. Let’s be vibrant and passionate in a respectful manner.

Let’s start the discussion with your comments on this post. Let me know whether this is what you want and where you think we should go. Have comments on what I wrote? Post them. Have ideas for future topics? Post them. Have other thoughts you want to share? Post them.  Want to add to something someone else has said? Use the “Reply” function. For this to work, it needs to be a dialogue. No one person has all the answers. The more who join in, the better this section will be.

I look forward to seeing where the discussion takes us.

Steve

P.S. The content here will probably be more dynamic than the normal substantive content. It might change on a daily basis. Some of you have figured out a way to get notifications when things here change; would someone please put up a comment teaching me, and others, how to do this?

We are going into the Holiday Season and I’ll be out of state for a while. I want to get this started now but expect it to really take off after the New Year.

(Copyright: PrairieFire Productions/Stephen J. Herzberg — 2009)

Simply stated, DSLR Remote Pro allows me to shoot tethered into my computer and to use my iPhone to  control several key camera functions. For many of us, it will replace the need to buy “tethering” software AND a wireless remote camera/shutter control. It’s an incredible bargain at $19.99. What do you need to use DSLR Remote Pro? A computer (Mac or Windows) with a wireless card, an iPhone 3G or 3GS, and one of the Canon or Nikon cameras from this list.

In this post: (1) I’ll discuss how and why I use DSLR Remote Pro ; and (2) show you how to set it up and get it running on your iPhone and computer.

Shooting Tethered:

When I can, I shoot tethered. There are lots of advantages and a few minor disadvantages — all of which I’ve discussed in a previous newsletter article.

The upside of shooting tethered is: (1) the ability to control the camera without having to work through the menus on the small LCD screen and turning the dials on the camera; (2) the ability to see a much more accurate display of the image on the computer screen; (3) the ability to focus and fire the camera without touching the camera or looking through the viewfinder; (4) the ability to view the actual image on a real screen, not the faux image on the camera’s LCD screen; and, (5) with live view, the ability to get feedback as to what the image will look like BEFORE the shot is taken.

The downside is the need to be near the computer to preview the image, make adjustments and fire the camera AND the fact that if one allows the “wow” of shooting tethered to break one’s focus, the shoot becomes about technology and not about using images to tell stories. Said another way, we can’t let shooting tethered lead us to become “large screen chimpers”. (“Chimping” is the name given to the process of shooting a frame or two and then looking at it on the LCD and going “OOOH, AHHH, OOOH OOOH”).

As you’ll see from the newsletter article, to shoot tethered you need software to allow your camera and computer to communicate with each other. (In writing this I realize that, in essence, DSLR Remote Pro creates one of those French things — what do they call it? A “menage a trois”? A three way relationship between the camera, the computer and the iPhone.)

Some camera companies give you the software to shoot tethered. Some don’t. Nikon is one of the “don’ts”.  You have to buy it. For my Nikon D3, I use their Camera Control Pro 2, a great program; but it costs $180.00 and that’s on top of what I paid for my D3.

OK, so now we know a bit about shooting tethered. Time to move on.

DSLR Remote Pro’s Feature Set:

So, what does DSLR Remote Pro bring to the table — for $19.99? A very versatile alternative to the factory software that allows us to do most all of what we want to do on a tethered shoot and then some.

DSLR Remote Pro iPhone Screen Shot

Above, is The Main Screen from my iPhone, showing the basic feature set. There’s more; that little wheel in the left hand corner brings up an “Options” menu that we’ll discuss in a moment.

Wireless Remote Trigger: Push the “FIRE” button on the lower right, and the camera takes a shot.

There are many times we want to fire the camera without touching it.

Most obvious are those times when the mere act of touching the camera may induce movement and ruin the exposure. Long exposures are particularly susceptible to movement. And there are times when we need perfect alignment between the frames we are shooting — like when we are shooting HDR. In the past, in these situations,  I’ve used a dedicated trigger system. All it did was fire the camera. But, now, because DSLR Remote Pro does so much more, it will be my go to triggering system (when I can shoot tethered, which is a prerequisite of using the iPhone application.)

But, perhaps the best use of triggers is when we are shooting people. For me, one of the key variables in getting the “story” out of the person I’m shooting is the rapport I create during the session. The key to good communication? Studies tell us that it is eye contact; the more eye contact we make with our subjects the more they trust us, relax and hear what we are saying. Don’t think so? Have someone look down or away from you and try to have a conversation. So what do most of us do in a shoot? We put the camera in front of our faces — making it impossible to have eye contact with our subjects. In my experience, and that of many of my friends, it is so much easier to get good results when we are using remote triggers that we rarely shoot any other way.

If this were all DSLR Remote Pro did, it would be a lot. And, it would be a very cost effective solution.

But, it does a lot more.

Control Over Aperture, Shutter Speed, ISO, White Balance and Image Quality:

As you can see from the remaining buttons on the screen, DSLR Remote Pro allows us to control the basic parameters of our shots — from the iPhone. Want to change or adjust WB, push the button and get a set of choices. Want to go from RAW to .jpeg or RAW + .jpeg (and all different levels of .jpeg), push the screen button. Light changing — need to up the ISO, push a screen button. You get the idea.

The grayed out buttons:

Some settings have to be made on the camera; but DSLR Remote Pro keeps track of them for you and lets you see them on your iPhone. I’m shooting in “Manual” mode and the screen tells me. The screen also tells me that I’m shooting in AutoFocus S mode, another function I have to set on the camera. The other grey symbols — the 0.0 — is for exposure compensation, something else that must be set on the camera but will be tracked on the iPhone.

The Screen Area:

The blank/black area above the buttons is where: (1) the picture shows up when I take it; and, (2) my Live View image shows up should I be shooting in LV mode (more on this later.) The cool thing about image playback is that we can zoom in to check on focus and we can flip between the images we’ve already taken.

So, DSLR Remote Pro isn’t just a trigger — it’s actually a fairly comprehensive camera control system. If all it did were to control those functions, that would be enough for most of our shoots. Sold?

But Wait. There’s More! The Options Menu is the gateway to several sophisticated and useful function controls.

Live Preview — I’m starting at the bottom of this menu because this is the feature that blows me away. If you have a camera that has a “live view” feature, you can turn LV on and you can see the live preview on your iPhone!

Big deal? Yes, very big deal.

Let’s talk about a product shoot where meticulous light placement and careful framing are the name of the game. Without the iPhone, you go to the set, make the change, and then come back to your computer screen to see the impact. With DSLR Remote Pro, you can make the change, stay where you are, view the result, in real time, and modify it if necessary. That is huge.

I’m excited about using it on model shoots, too. Not getting the expression you want? Show the model what he or she is doing without having them leave the set. I know that this ability to on-the-spot coach will enhance my ability to direct a subject to get the very most possible from each shot.

Once I get that immediate adjustment in the pose or attitude, I simply have to move out of the frame and push the “FIRE” button. Talk about creating an intimate conversation/collaboration, I can’t wait to use the iPhone in my next shoot.

Intervalometer — is a fancy phrase for what we used to call “timed exposures”. From my iPhone I can set:

This feature allows us to do both “delayed shutter” or “self-timer”  activation — if we want to get into the picture, or “time lapse” photography — taking a series of images over a defined time span. In either mode, the image taken comes up on the phone screen so that we can view it; if we’ve taken a sequence of images, we can flip through them.

Auto Bracket: Useful to guarantee proper exposure and a staple in HDR photography, it is great to be able to set this feature remotely. There are a couple of features that are very helpful here.

HDR photographers will see that everything we need to vary our captures can be controlled from this screen. [I've done a very complete discussion of High Dynamic Range (HDR)  photography here, so I won't go back into the specifics, again.]

First, we choose how many stops above and below our center exposure we need. Then we can decide how far apart they will be. The slider “Full Stop” will also allow us to go to 1/3 stops. When we do HDR, we never change the aperture setting; we don’t want to risk changing the depth of field. But, there are times, when bracketing, that we want to change the exposures by varying the aperture or the ISO setting — and the slider set to “Aperture” now can also be set to those other variables. Finally, we can choose whether we want a delay between firing or not.

When this is all set, to shoot a bracket, we simply push the “FIRE” button and the camera takes over. Very cool.

Summary: This is a full featured application that replaces some expensive hardware and software for a very reasonable price. (BTW– If all you want is a wireless remote trigger, onOne sells a “lite” version of the app for $1.99)

Setting It Up and Getting It Going:

This is really a simple process. You buy the App and load it on your phone. You download the free “server” application and put it on your computer. First, you make sure that your iPhone and Computer are on the same network. You hook your camera up to the computer by USB or FireWire. You start the server application on the computer and you turn on the camera. You will get this start up screen.

The screen is telling me that the computer is communicating with my D3.

The first thing we have to do is choose a “Download Location” a folder on our computers to receive the images we’ll be shooting. In my case, I chose a folder on my desktop called “Test”. I’ve also got the option to set up a copy to be imported into Lightroom. In my tethering tutorial that’s just what I did.

But, lately, I’ve been tethering into Bridge, instead. I find Bridge to be less complicated and less fussy than Lightroom. Just my personal choice. I then open Bridge and open the location folder — in this case “Test”. All of the images I shoot will be opened into Bridge.

The final step, turn on the iPhone DSLR Remote Pro application. It will let you pick your network and then immediately go to the start up screen.

You’re in business. That’s all it takes.

onOne’s Tutorials: Usually, I’d do an in depth tutorial on the steps I just laid out. But, with onOne’s stuff, I don’t have to. They are so deeply committed to making sure we learn how to use their products quickly and efficiently, that they’ve created a series of video tutorials that walk us through the steps.

Here are a couple of them:

How to Get Started:

Using the Ad Hoc Network Setting:

Just because you’re not near a WiFi network does not mean you can’t use DSLR Remote Pro. All you need to do is set up an “Ad Hoc” network, as the video below shows you.

One thing — I had trouble setting up an Ad Hoc network in an area where there was a WiFi network, but one I could not get on. Here’s a trick Mike Wong — an onOne technical guru and all around great guy — taught me. Put you iPhone in Airplane mode; that will lock out the competing WiFi networks. Then, set up your Ad Hoc network. Works like a charm.

That said, here’s a video on setting up the Ad Hoc. It’s really easy:

A couple of things to watch for: (1) Ad Hoc networks are volatile and not stored in your computer; each time you need one you will have to set it up — but that takes less than a minute; and (2) When you start the iPhone DSLR Remote Pro app, the server screen will come up and it will, most likely show the name of your computer — not the network you just created; no big deal, just select the computer and you are done.

One Last Video — A Location Shoot:

Funny, the guy shooting the hoop looks an awful like Brian Kraft, the VP of Sales for onOne. I’m not sure I’d hang my D3 up there while he’s shooting.

Bottom Line: A very cool tool!

(Copyright: PrairieFire Productions/Stephen J. Herzberg — 2009)

As I’ve mentioned before, I learned my lighting on film and television studio sets — which, for obvious reasons, used hot or continuous lights, exclusively. When I reentered the world of still photography, I set out to master the use of strobes and flash units.

Today, I use both — so I thought I might best answer this question by comparing the strengths that each brings to the table and the contexts in which each might best be used.

First, let’s make sure we don’t get hung up in terminology.

Traditionally, the term “strobe” has been used to describe the device that creates a “flash of light from an electrical discharge”. In the old days, strobes were also referred to as “studio lights”; however, that label no longer fits as there are now outstanding portable strobe units for use both in and out of doors — like the Profoto 600BR I’ve written about and use. And, don’t forget our hot shoe flash units which, too, can be used in and out of doors also fit the definition.

In the old days, “continuous” lights were called “hot lights”. For good reason. They generated a lot of heat, quickly making the space in which they were being used, tropical. And, they were very hot to the touch. So hot, that I’ve got a pair of asbestos grip gloves that I wear when I’m using the old lights in my studio. These were the lights used by my photography heroes, Clarence Bull, Yousuf Karsh and George Hurrell -- the pioneers of the Hollywood glamour photo movement. I bought a set of four so that I can try to emulate their work.

Things have changed. the new “hot lights” aren’t hot. And, they’re being called “continuous lights” so as to distinguish them from the hot tempered, power consuming beasts of the past. Actually, any light that stays on is a continuous light — and videographers and photographers with varying budgets are using everything from regular household light bulbs — be they tungsten or fluorescent — to those halogen construction lights you can get at Home Depot or Lowes. Want a more “dedicated light”? There is a new generation of top end, continuous lights for photography and videography priced in ways that don’t put deep dents in our budgets.

Now the Practical Stuff

So much for the history and theory — let’s talk about the important stuff:

Shooting Video: By definition, hot lights, or continuous lights have to be used for shooting video? Why? Because of the continuous action the camera is capturing. No way a strobe can do that. And, this is probably the only area in which there is a clear, inherent advantage between the types of lights we are discussing. In almost all other areas, one can use either continuous lights or strobes. There are some differences in how one uses them but both will get the job done.

Metering: Continuous lights are like “ambient” lights; they are always on; so we meter them using the “Ambient” setting on our meter (On Sekonic meters, that’s the mode represented by the “sun”).

Ambient/"Lonely"/Corded/Transmitter

We meter our strobes using the “Flash” settings (on the Sekonic one of the lightning bolts). To measure our flash units, they have to be triggered — either by the meter or some other device. The Sekonic meters have three modes for flash metering: (1) the lighting bolt with the “T” — indicates that the meter contains a transmitter that will fire any light that contains or is connected to a Pocket Wizard; (2) the lightning bolt with the “C” is for use when we use a cable connection between our meter and our lights; when we push the metering button, the light fires; and, (3) the lonely lightning bolt, the one without an initial, is used when one triggers the lights by some external means not connected to or caused by the meter; perhaps the best example is the way I fire my D1′s with Profoto’s new “Air” technology; I set my meter in the receiving mode, push the Air button to trigger the lights, and the meter grabs a reading.

White Balance: Most flash units are balanced to be close to “daylight” settings, which is usually somewhere between 5400-5600 Degrees Kelvin. The WB “Flash” setting on most cameras is in that range. In the old days, the hot lights all contained Tungsten (Incandescent) bulbs with a rough range between 2800-3200 Degrees Kelvin, often represented on camera WB screens as a light bulb. Today, we can get continuous lights balanced to most color temperatures and we set our cameras accordingly.

The Role of the Shutter Speed and the Aperture Setting: The general rule is that the shutter speed controls the ambient light to reach the sensor and the aperture controls how much of the flash is recorded. Let’s apply the general rule to our current discussion of the differences between lighting with continuous lights or strobes.

Let’s go into the studio first — and let’s assume we are lighting with strobes. In this situation, the speed of the shutter is almost irrelevant. Why? Because the flash duration, which will be the source of light on the subject, is so fast, and it is on and off so quickly, that it really does not matter how long the shutter stays open; there will be no meaningful difference between an exposure shot at 1/30 or 1/250. Think about it this way. Let’s assume we are in a completely dark room and that the only light that will hit the subject will be from the strobe. If the room is, indeed, light tight, we can set a 2 minute shutter speed; if the only light during that 2 minutes is from the strobe, the only light to hit the sensor will be from that strobe — no matter how long we hold he shutter open. OK, so most studios are not light tight; and sometimes, we use our overhead (tungsten) lights while we are shooting. My experiments have shown that the overhead lights have no impact on exposure in reasonable shutter speed ranges, like down to 1/15 second.

In the studio, with strobes, it is the aperture setting that determines how much of that fast burst of light will hit the sensor. The bigger the hole, the more of the flash that gets in. It’s that simple. That is why when we measure and set our strobes, we are always measuring aperture values and setting our cameras’ apertures accordingly.

The general rule does not apply when we are using ambient light AND continuous lights are ambient lights. So, in this case, both the shutter speed and the aperture are used, in conjunction, to control the light to the sensor. Longer exposure: more light. Bigger aperture opening: more light.

Shutter Speed Revisited — Lens Movement: With strobes, lens movement is not a problem — even when hand holding a long lens at a slower shutter speed. Once again, the light influencing the sensor is so quick that it is like shooting at a very fast shutter speed. However, just as it is outdoors in daylight (continuous or ambient light), shutter speed is important when hand holding lenses using hot lights. Is this a problem or reason to choose one form of lighting over the other? Absolutely not. Just adjust accordingly. Shots that might be hand held with strobes can be achieved with hot lights by using a tripod or upping the shutter speed.

Shutter Speed Revisited — Stopping Subject Motion: A corollary applies when we try to stop subject movement in a frame. Let’s say we have a model on a trampoline and we want to capture the “freedom moment” of flight. With strobes, we can use slow shutter speeds confident that the flash will freeze the subject, in air, at the moment we fire it. In fact, some strobes are so fast that they can stop bullets mid air. With continuous lighting, we have to use a fast shutter speed to stop the motion without blur.

Shutter Speed Summarized: The key is to simply be aware of when shutter speed matters and when it does not. In my shooting, I move back and forth between using strobes and continuous lights. It took a few gray moments — slow shutter speeds with continuous lights — before it sunk in: I have to make conscious choices and changes when I move from one light source to the other. Do I favor one light source because of this? No. Each has its place. Each brings a different artistic dynamic. I just have to adjust my head as well as my camera to get the most out of either.

Controlling the Quantity of Light: Most strobes allow finite adjustments of the quantity of light over a range of f/stops. The better the lights, the more precise the adjustments. And, the better the lights, the more range of adjustments. The range is often discussed in terms of how many f/stops of adjustment the light provides. For example, my new D1 500′s offer 7 ranges of stops. On a 500 watt light, that is: 500, 250, 125, 62, 31, 16 and 8 watts — and all places in between. I’ve written before that the greatest mistake most of us make is to buy lights with too much power and too little adjustment downward. An 800w light with 3 stop range gives us: 800, 400 and 200 watts. Why do we care? Because, with too much light, we cannot use the lower apertures like 2.8 or 4 to get the limited depth of field and out of focus backgrounds we often desire. More often than not, less is more.

To adjust the early hot lights, and some of the current version, you have a couple of choices. First, you can change the bulb to one with less or more power. And, second, you can throw a screen in front of the light as I wrote about in my article on the RoadRags. Some of the newer generation of continuous lights have included rheostats to dial the lights up or down. And, some use multi-bulb heads; pull a bulb out of a 3 light fixture and you’ve reduced the power by 1/3.

WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) — A Big Advantage of Continuous Lights: With continuous lights, the camera sees what you see. Well, almost. The human eye is so much more sophisticated than the best lens and sensor that it can see gradations that the camera cannot. But, by and large, you see where your light and shadows will fall. Yes, studio lights have “modeling lights” but even the best are not as accurate in terms of output predictability than is the continuous light. And, lest we forget, the modeling lights in most strobes are tungsten bulbs — a different WB temperature than the strobe itself; so if you are shooting live view, the modeling light will throw a color cast that will not reflect what the actual image will look like.

Most of the still life or product shooters I know use continuous lights most of the time. So do I when doing those kinds of shoots. However, as I will discuss, later, that does not mean that you cannot do this type of shooting with strobes — you simply use your strobes as continuous lights by shooting using the modeling lights. A strobe, with its modeling light on, is a continuous light so long as you don’t fire it. More on this, later.

Another question I get alot is: “Why don’t I just get a bunch of speedlights and use them as studio lights?” I’ve got 4 Nikon SB800′s and I’m about to buy an SB900. They can be used as “studio lights”, but there are a couple of caveats to consider. First, they don’t have the power of studio strobes or most continuous lights. And, when compared to most studio strobes, they do not recycle very quickly. But, the biggest disadvantage most of us face when using these lights is that they are the farthest thing we can get from WYSIWYG. Why? Because “hot shoe” flashes not have actual modeling lights; at best, my Nikons will throw a fizzle of light to let me know where they are aimed. How important is WYSISYG? To someone like Joe McNally, probably not very important. He can “see” with a bigger eye than most of us and will not miss the modeling light. Most of us will. But this, too, can be overcome by learning and experimentation.

Conclusion:

OK, you’re probably thinking “Almost 2,000 words — are you going to tell us which is best?” Yes I am. Strobes are best for some things and continuous lights for others. It’s that simple. And, that’s why I have both in my collection of lights.

What Do I Use and Why?

Profoto Strobes: All of my strobes are from the Profoto line.

I have a D4 Power Generator, 4 heads, and a Profoto Ringlight (which must be powered by a generator or battery pack.)  I’ve reviewed this set up, before. Main advantage — the heads are light, can be hung out of reach and turned on or adjusted from the pack or my laptop. This is a workhorse generator. It recycles quickly. It is the backbone of my lighting system. I’ve also got a Profoto 600BR — a battery  pack that will power both the Ringflash and the heads.

D1 Air

The new kids on the block are my 4 D1 500w Airs. These are “monoblocks” — each light is a self contained unit, power, controls and fan in one package. These units are truly portable; in fact, I bought them in a kit that includes stands, umbrellas and a rolling case. Some say the advantage of monoblock’s are that if one breaks, you still have the remainder working. If my generator breaks, I cannot use any of those lights. Fortunately, the D4 is a solid unit. I’ll be doing some in depth reviews of the D1′s as soon as I have more experience with them. Having shot with them twice, I am very impressed.

Why do I like my Profoto lights? Because they are consistent — across the lines — their color temperatures are all within 30 Degrees Kelvin. They are consistent in duration. Although the power pack recycles a little quicker than the mono’s, it isn’t that much quicker — the mono’s are fast.

I didn’t start out with these lights. Like most of us, I started out with less expensive lights. Good lights from a major manufacturer, but less expensive. Here are the mistakes I made. First, they were not consistent — the white balance for each head differed significantly from the others. And, they had a very narrow range of adjustment — not one was more than 3 stops. I had trouble mastering them from day one. Could I use them now? Sure. With all I’ve learned and all of my experience I am now almost good enough to work around their flaws. But, I was pretty frustrated when I first started out.

That’s why, in class, I recommend that the students start out with fewer very good lights instead of more average lights. There is a lot we can do with one or two lights and a reflector. I think it better to have 2 high quality lights than 4 moderate quality lights. The idea is to add more quality lights when we can afford them.

I made this same mistake with lenses, too. Bought more of the wrong ones only to sell them to get fewer of the right ones. But, that’s a story for another day.

Continuous Lights: I’ve got three different types of continuous lights in my collection.

Mole

My Homage to the Old Days: When I found a place in Burbank that was “restoring” the studio lights of yesteryear, I bought 4 of them — one Mole/Richardson 412 and 3 Strands. All are adjustable Fresnel lights. What that means is that I can dial in the size of the beam from one that is tightly contained to one that has a lot of spread. With the availability of the modern continuous lights, why did I buy them? Romance. Pure romance. And, a bit of nostalgia. I think they are cool. The Mole came from Disney studios. The Strands from a rental house. Just think of what they’ve probably seen. And, they are very functional. I’ve used them in many ways — from hard light portrait shots to background lights. They bring a very special energy to a shoot.

My Recognition of the New: Recently I’ve gone a bit more modern — I got a Photoflex Starlite QL OctoDome Kit. Much lighter, totally mobile, easier to use, less heat — the right way to do continuous lights. The kit comes with two bulbs, a 1000w and a 500 w, both of which screw in like regular light bulbs. I’ll do a full review of  these lights, soon.

My Third Set of Continuous Lights? My Profoto strobes. My strobes? Yes, my strobes. I just use the modeling lamps — continuous tungsten light. One smart thing Profoto did with the new D1′s was to include 300w modeling lamps. That’s a lot of light. And, I can use all of my Profoto LightShapers — soft boxes, grids, reflectors, snoots, barn doors, with them. No duplication needed. I’ve used my Profoto’s to light most of the video I’ve shot in my studio for the last couple of years.

The nice thing about having these choices is that because they are all different forms of the same tungsten light, I can mix and match them at will. And, I do.

(In fact, by using gels to correct for color temperature, I can mix and match the strobes, used as strobes, with the continuous lights — but that’s a story for another day.)

The Bottom Line: Light is light. Be it the sun, a hot light or a strobe, we can accomplish our goals if we understand the differences between the sources and how to control for them.

But Wait. There’s more!

Think you need a lot of lights to do a portrait? Here’s a video from Tony Corbell that shows us how to shoot  with one light.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDbRaBXsXco

Want to learn how to use continuous lights? Photoflex has a bunch of free lessons in their online Photoflex Lighting School. Try these out:

http://www.photoflexlightingschool.com/Equipment_Lessons/Starlite/Dramatic_Portrait_with_the_Starlite_OctoDome_nxt_Kit/index.html

http://www.photoflexlightingschool.com/Equipment_Lessons/Starlite/Basic_Portrait_with_Two_OctoDomes/index.html

(Copyright: PrairieFire Productions/Stephen J. Herzberg — 2009)