Shooting On An Overcast Day

I love transitional light.  When a storm in moving in or out, there can be some very dramatic lighting.  But what do you do when it's just a completely overcast day with no definition in the clouds?


My suggestion is to look for images that work well without the sky being included.  That means tight images of trees, or the shoreline of a high mountain lake.  Maybe detail images of fall leaves on early season snow.


By doing so, you take advantage of the soft light that comes with overcast days, rather than fighting it.  That is to say that without the big contrast range of a bright sunny day, the actual saturation of the image can really pop without the highlights or shadows losing detail.

Taking Great Pictures at Concerts

  Many of us go to concerts, and want to shoot pictures while we are there.  Here are a few tips to get you started.

First, be sure taking pictures is allowed.  Some venues do not allow it, others allow picture taking as long as there is no flash, and others have no restrictions whatsoever.  Know the situation so you do not get into trouble.  And if possible, check to see if you can get access to the aisles, the area right in front of the stage, and even backstage.  Depending on the venue and the artist, you may get much better access than you expect.

Second, try to work with zoom lenses so you can respond quickly to what is happening on stage.  I like to work with one short zoom (24-70mm) on one camera, and telephoto (70-200mm) on another body.  You may choose to shoot with a zoom with a longer range (28-300), so you only have to take one camera and one lens.  I would recommend a lens that has image stabilization, so the pictures stay sharp even at slower shutter speeds.


Third, set up the camera before you go into the concert hall, in an area where you can see the menu with ease.  I recommend shooting at a high ISO, usually in the 1200-1600 range if your camera has that.  Also, be sure to set your white balance to Automatic (AWB).  Most newer digital cameras have a great ability to judge color in this kind of environment.


Finally, once the concert starts, think of the concert in a similar way to a sports event.  Watch for who the key players are, where the action is, and try to anticipate the situations so you are ready to make great images when they happen.


Here are a few images from a recent shoot with The Latin Giants at a concert they did at York College in New York.  The image below is right as the lead trumpet player took over from the previous soloist, a sax player.  Notice how the composition is such that you do not know who to focus on.

In the next image though, notice what happens when I moved to the right, zoomed in a longer focal length, and got lower in relation to the trumpet player.  Suddenly the whole picture is about this one player, and the intensity of how he is improvising.

Thinking outside the box

When I'm on the road in another country, I'm always looking for iconic images that tell a story about the place. Sure, we can take pictures of a museum, or a temple, or workers in a rice field. But what if you can tell the story without being so literal?

In this case, while walking down a small road in Bali, I saw the opportunity to say something about the agrarian culture, and give a feel for the architecture of the island as well. By shooting the reflection in the rice field, I was able to flatten the image and make it both graphic, and very two dimensional.

Subtle Changes in Composition Make Better Photographs

Watching for the small details when making a photograph is essential.  Just the slightest shift can dramatically affect the impact of the picture.

Here's a good example.  I had been watching the light on this barn for quite a while, and as it got close to sunset I decided to make a few exposures.  What intrigued me was the light on the barn, and the wonderful cloud up above.  At first, my concern was for the framing left to right, as there was a road just outside of frame to the left.  And a new orange gate to the right that I felt would spoil the feel was the other consideration.  So my whole focus was on nailing the composition left and right.  Here's the result.

But after I made the exposure above, I realized there was an equally important element that had to be considered.  Take a look at the peak of the roof, and how it tangents the treeline.  Not good, because it is hard to look at two elements converting like that. 

So I made another exposure.  This time I watched the framing left to right, but really concentrated on having the peak break into the sky.  The result is the eye is drawn to the structure even more.

So when you are shooting, look for the little details.  Attention to them will bring great results.

The Power of Raw

Final image from raw file

Many cameras these days have the option to shoot in both jpg and raw formats, and I'm often asked if it is worth it to shoot in raw. The downside is that that the files are larger, which means you can get less images on a memory card, and many people want to get as many pictures on each card as they can. The upside, however, is that the raw format gives you a lot capability in holding detail in an image when there is a large contrast range in the file, something the jpg cannot do. And with the cost of memory cards coming down, it is a worthwhile trade in my mind.

Here's a good example. I took this snapshot at 1PM in the desert. I was careful to position my subjects so that the sun was behind them so I did not have dark shadows under their eyes. But since the sun was still very high in the sky, it is hitting their shoulders; something that would not have happened if it was earlier or later in the day. The result is that although the overall exposure is quite good in terms of holding shadow detail, I've pushed the sensor capability to the limit with the extreme contrast from shadow to highlight. Fortunately, I always shoot in raw format, so I had some post exposure solutions to help me.

If you look at the jpg version, you can see there are significant areas on the shoulders and arms where all the detail has been lost. Like shooting with transparency film, once the detail is gone in a jpg, there is nothing you can do to bring it back.

From jpg file

First, look at the levels histogram, and you can see that we are hitting the far right side, which means a lot of detail is lost.

The eyedropper markers, 1, 2, and 3 are places where detail is lost.

Take a look at the threshold snapshot below. The area that is white is where the detail has been lost.

Now let's look at the raw file. Many people compare raw files to negative film, in that there is more latitude from the shadows to the highlights. By taking a couple of extra steps in processing the file, you can pull in detail that was lost in the jpg version. Unlike jpg, which is a universal file format any computer can open, raw files are proprietary file formats from the individual camera manufacturers, and as such have to be processed in either Abobe Photoshop or Lightroom. Take a look at this snapshot from Lightroom, where I processed this file. There are lots of things you can do to modify the file in the conversion process, but the feature that will help us here is the "Recovery" slider, which has the ability to pull in the detail in the extreme highlights. Notice that I've set it the slider at its maximum setting of 100.

Now compare the levels for the raw file to the levels for the jpg file above. Notice how the high values have shifted to the left, indicating there is more detail.

Now take a look at the resulting threshold levels for the file once the raw file has been converted.

Quite a difference from the jpg, it has has just one small area that has lost detail. And fortunately, that is an easy fix by using the healing brush tool to grab some skin texture from a close-by area and apply it in the area with no detail.  See the final file at the top of the entry.

So all things being equal, I would recommend going into your camera setup mode, and selecting raw as your file preference.