Plastic Bags! Don’t Leave Home Without One!

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Something as simple as a plastic bag can make or break a photo shoot! I am talking just the simple, free bags given with groceries and many other purchases.  A bag is easy to put in the back pocket, weighs next to nothing, and has a multitude of uses.  

Let’s examine the photo below.  I just happened to have a plastic bag in my back pocket, which was wonderful, because I spent 2 hours under the Sydney Harbor Bridge in Sydney, Australia waiting out a rainstorm.  I used the bag to sit on a damp piece of concrete keeping my bum nice and dry. It is not fun to have a wet bum!  Especially since I could see a nice cozy pub from my vantage point under the bridge. I knew if waited out the storm in the cozy pub my photo shoot dreams would go down as fast as the first four pints.

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Another great use for a plastic bag is to protect your expensive camera gear. I will tolerate a bit of rain on my camera and lens.  However, at some point it is time to protect your gear.  Sure there are many fancy pants, protective bags out there, but a free plastic bag works just fine.  Rip a hole in the end of the bag about the size or your lens and then place the bag around your gear.  I often use the bag’s handle to secure the bag to the back of the camera or tripod.  In the photo below it was raining like a cow pissing on a flat rock.  Using the technique above I was able to get the shot and my camera gear still works. If you really want to go first class use a rubber band or painter’s tape to customize your protective bag.  

If you read my last blog post. Which only my mom and drunk uncle did, you will know I always leave my knee pads in the car.  I plastic bag works great, well great might be an exaggeration, let’s say the bag will keep your knees dry. Of course the bag provides no padding, but hopefully it will keep you from walking around all day with wet, soggy pants.  In the shot below, of course my knee pads were nice and dry back in the car, so I used a plastic bag to keep my knees sand free! So I suppose your going to ask, how come I can remember a bag and not my knee pads? Read my last reason and you will understand why!

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Now I always advocate leaving nature exactly how you found it. One should never pick a flower or remove an object from it’s natural environment.  However, when a person can pick a flower, like in a garden or when no one is looking, a free plastic bag is perfect to haul the booty back to the macro studio.  In the photo below it was very windy on this particular day, which makes macro flower photography just about impossible.  I was in a garden, so I looked all directions and went ahead and placed the red hibiscus into my free plastic bag all nice and cozy right next to the water bottle that was soon going to create the fake raindrops on it’s petals!

The final reason I will offer for carrying a cheap, plastic bag and its the most important one, is that sometimes a person needs to go potty and there is not a restroom in site!  No photo to support this reason!

Next Topic: ALWAYS RETURN YOUR CAMERA TO NEUTRAL AFTER A SHOOT!

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6 Reasons Why Photography Is As Much Fun As A Person Can Have With Their Pants On!

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After last week’s whiney blog about how much photography sucks donkey balls, I need to explain why I go through all those horrors and play the photography game!

First off photography forces me to explore new places! I love getting in the car, on mass transit, or in an airplane for a destination I have found on a map that I have never explored! The photo below was taken at The Singapore Botanical Garden.

Before I became a photographer, a botanical garden would not be on my list of places to visit. As a photographer, a botanical garden offers an endless variety of beautiful things to click!

Photography offers a hobby/career that a person will never master. Well at least I never will, but I am not the sharpest peanut in the turd! There are always new technologies, new things to click, and new styles to try. Photography is a great cure for boredom!

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A third reason I love photography is that it is an active hobby/career. Photography gets a person’s ass off the couch, forces you to put down the smart phone, and start burning some calories. The photo below required a 2,000 mile hike in deep snow. O.K. maybe it was only 1/4 of mile, but it was at 7,000 ft. elevation and dammit it got the heart a pumping!

The sport of photography helps a person meet a lot of interesting people. While I was taking the photo below, there was a couple standing next to me also observing the amazing sky over Brisbane. After a bit of chatting the couple invited me to hoist a pint. I love beer and enjoy listening to Aussie’s speak, so I was in!

The fifth reason I love photography is because there is always lots of stuff to buy. A person can spend hours looking at photography equipment and dreaming about the amazing shots that could be captured using the newly purchased equipment. Who doesn’t like new toys?

The last reason I love photography is because it allows a person to create. We all love art as kids. For some reason we grow away from art. Early on it was obvious I would always suck at drawing or painting of any kind. My stick figures never got better. But with photography I can create something that is unique to me! The photo below is my creation and I am the only one in the world that has it! I love this thought!

Now I could go on and on about how awesome photography is as a hobby/career, but I think any of the 6 reasons above is enough for a person to have a blast with photography!

Next topic: WHY KNEE PADS ARE A PHOTOGRAPHER’S BEST FRIEND!

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Long Exposure Photography

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Long exposure photography is a lot of fun and a great way to achieve some amazing photos. You can make rushing, mountain stream water look soft and milky, make a lake look perfectly flat, and ocean waves look like surreal fog.

Long exposure photography is also a lot of fun at night. You can create streaking automobile lights, star trails, or cool light patterns from lights shimmering off of bodies of water.

Equipment Needed

Camera

You will need a camera that will let you adjust your shutter speed to control the amount of light that enters the camera. Basically you will need a DSLR camera.

Neutral Density Filter

Neutral Density (ND) filters are a must for long exposure photography. ND filters come in a variety of types, but adjustable filters work the best for long exposure work. With an adjustable filter you simply turn the filter and it gets darker or lighter depending on which way you turn the filter. Long exposure photography requires a lot of tinkering to get the timing just right. Adjustable ND filters will allow you to tinker without changing the filter. It would be a real pain in the butt to work with fixed darkness filters, because you would be constantly changing filters.

One word of caution when using adjustable ND filters. Make sure you stay within the parameters of your adjustable ND filter or you will get some strange looks. Normally adjustable ND filters have a series of marks on the side of them for reference. Just make sure you stay inside the marks to achieve the best results.

Tripod

A good, solid tripod is a must for long exposure photography. The camera can’t move at all while the shutter is open to keep from blurring the photo.

I learned this lesson the hard way when I was in Cairns, Australia trying to get a cool photo of lights shimmering off the harbor water at night from a pier. There were a lot of people walking on the pier at the time, which was shaking the pier just enough to blur my photos. After a frustrating hour trying to get the shot I finally realized that I would have to come back to the pier when all the tourists were in bed.

Timing Device

The jarring of pushing the click button is often enough to mess up a photograph. To achieve crystal clear photos you will need some help triggering the shutter hands free. Cameras generally have a timer built into them that will allow you to click the button, wait 5 seconds for the camera to stabilize, and then the shutter will move.

Although the camera timer works in a pinch, I prefer a remote device. With a remote device you can trigger your camera totally hands free eliminating the chance of any movement to mess up your photo.

Movement Emphasis vs. Movement Smoothing

Now that we have our gear figured out it is time to get to work. When we approach a subject we want to determine what effect we are going for to achieve a spectacular photo.

Movement Emphasis

Emphasis is normally used on subjects that are constantly moving like rushing water, clouds, or automobile lights. To create a look we normally don’t see we will use movement emphasis to make the water, clouds, or other moving subjects really pop.

Movement Smoothing

Sometimes movement in the subject is distracting and does not add to the overall look like waves on a lake. By smoothing the waves we can create a look that is different than what we normally see and allows us to focus on other subjects in the photo. For example if you want a lake in the bottom third of your photo and a beautiful mountain on the top 2/3 of the photo and the lake has waves, you may want to use long exposure techniques to smooth the lake and allow the viewer to focus on the mountains.

Finding The Right Shutter Speed

How can we find the right shutter speed? Basically the more aggressive the movement the more shutter time you will need. For example if you have ripples on a pond you want to smooth perhaps ¼ second is a good starting point. For a strong running stream or strong ocean waves you may need 10 seconds or more.

Setting Up For The Shoot

When using an ND filter you will want to focus the camera on the lightest setting. Dark settings will often make focusing impossible.

Next set your ND filter based on the amount of light. If it is a cloudy day perhaps a light ND setting will be a good starting point. If it is bright day start with your darkest ND filter setting.

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Next set your shutter speed based on how aggressive the movement of your subject and the desired effect you are trying to achieve. If you have a strong mountain stream you may want to start around 10 seconds.

Try a shot and see what you get. The goal is have your shot on the right side of the histogram to achieve the maximum amount of detail without blowing out of the histogram. You want to be slightly overexposed, but not too overexposed or the shot will be ruined.

Long exposure photography requires a bunch of tinkering. At least 90% of the shots you take will be deleted. Thank goodness we are in the digital age. Back in the film days long exposure could get very expensive.

If you don’t get the results you want move you shutter time either direction to get the look you are after. If the shutter time is not achieving the look you want try moving your ND filter either lighter or darker depending on what you are trying achieve.

If neither the shutter speed nor the ND filter is providing you with the look you are after try moving your exposure compensation up or down to get you the shot your after. The exposure compensation button on most cameras is labeled with a plus or minus sign.

The more experience you get with long exposure photography the faster you will find the desired combination of shutter speed and ND filter setting.

Summary

Long exposure is a lot of fun. It will take a bunch of tinkering and you will delete a lot of photos, but you will be able to create looks that a person normally does not see that will lead to amazing photos.

Next Article: Studio Lighting Basics On A Budget

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