Saturday Link Lovin’ and Photo Highlights - Sept. 15, 2007
September 15th, 2007 by Tim Solley
Ah yes, another week has flown by and it’s Saturday again, which means it’s time for another round of cool stuff I found on the webernet this week. I thought I’d do something a little bit different this week and branch out a tad. So this weeks links aren’t 100% directly related to portrait photography, but still good reads.
- You don’t need a freakin light meter! - Is any explanation necessary?
- How to Create Glamour Model Photography - There are some really great tips in here for those of you who might want to dip your toes into glamour photography. There are also some great tips for everyone else in here too, even if glamour isn’t your thing.
- 11 Free Photo Editors At Your Choice - Let’s face it, Photoshop is expensive. So here are some really great alternatives for those of you who want to spend more on your camera than on the software.
- Get Down Low to Frame Out Ugly Backgrounds - I live in Austin, so there are no ugly backgrounds to be found. Yeah right, ugly backgrounds can be found anywhere. Here’s a technique for getting rid of it without any post processing work.
- Overcoming Shyness in Photographing People - For most people, photographing strangers on the street is a nerve wracking experience. Read this article and you might feel a little better about it.
- 5 Things Photographers Should Do When Confronted by Police - Many photographers have been confronted by police for simply taking pictures. It’s happened to me and I can tell you from personal experience that these tips are sure fire winners.
Reader Photo Highlights
Wow, the Sublime Light Flickr photo pool really went nuts this week. There are way too many great photos for me to highlight here this week, so I’m going to have to just pick a few. If you haven’t joined in yet, get crackin!
Great job to all the photographers who submitted photos to the pool this week. If you have a great article you read (or maybe you wrote one) and think it would be of interest to all readers, drop me a note and you might see it in a future edition of the Saturday Link Lovin’.
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September 16th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
Nice collection of photos and resources you’ve got here! Thank you for mentioning my site in such a select company. I’m new to photography, but I’m learning every day from people like you.
September 17th, 2007 at 8:57 am
You bet Simonne. It was a very useful article, and I appreciate having these kinds of resources to point my readers to every week!
September 17th, 2007 at 10:08 am
It’s good to read articles like “You don’t need a freakin light meter!”, as they help affirm my position on pre- and post- work. I’m of the camp that believes in a good [academic] foundation in photography basics and advanced techniques. With that foundation you can achieve marvelous results.
Once you’re well schooled you can effectively bend the rules a little, adjusting the tried and true with some experimental bravado. As a newcomer to photography, I’ve seen countless articles suggesting photographers (many of whom are probably as green as me, if not greener) to discard the meters, read the histograms, ETTR, fiddle in Photoshop, and things like that.
This may be great for the author who has developed the ability to push and pull as needed, but not such great advice for the newbie or those who aren’t so seasoned. I put a few quotes and comments below. Take a look!
“So what if the exposure is wrong? Shoot another picture, stupid! :+) If it’s too dark, adjust. Too light? Adjust! What’s the big freakin deal? Use the histogram as your meter. If that puppy is over too far to the right, stop down. If it’s over too far to the left, open up. Shoot, view, adjust. Repeat as needed.”
Based on the description alone, that’s gambling, much as the author discussed earlier in his article. There are at least three options mentioned: correct, under exposed, over exposed. If you nail it the first time, great. If you underexpose, well, shoot again and hope to get it. If you miss, well, shoot again and hope to get it. And so on. If it’s overexposed, shoot again, and hope to get it. If not, well, shoot again, and hope to get it. If not, well…
Let’s assume (yes, I know) you’re talking portraiture. In-camera reflected meters are sending back weakened, contaminated signals to the camera. It doesn’t compare to incident meters, which get the reading of the light falling on the subject. Those settings are [more] accurate because there is not contamination going on; it’s the reading of what is on the subject.
It makes more sense, to me, to get the proper readings up front, dial them into the camera, and nail the shot dead on like a marksman. End of story.
“Some people might argue, what about light ratios? How do I know what the light ratios are without a light meter? WHO CARES!? If the shadows are too dark, add some fill light! Too Flat, take some fill away. You don’t need a light meter, trust me.”
Some care, myself included, albeit in some instances. I hate doing post work. If I can get a clean file in camera without going to Photoshop, then great. Why do a [sloppy] job and have to fix it in post when I can get it right up front? Still, in the scenario that the author gives, there’s too much gamble. Too much uncertainty. There’s no way of knowing that you got it without fiddling around indefinitely.
“I don’t know a professional that uses a hand-held light meter anymore.”
Every one of the photographers that I work with use a handheld incident light meter and would be cremated with theirs. Sekonics, Minoltas, Gossens, you name it. And they use custom profiles, too. QP cards, Gretag Macbeth, Lastolite, all of those goodies.
Again, it’s good as a seasoned vet to put down the tools from time to time and eyeball it, but I find it dangerous for the new guys in the game. It could put a damper on our growth as photographers who will end up capturing the shot with sloppy technique and fiddleing around in post trying to fix their errors.
I’m probably the minority opinion on this, but, hey, discussions are healthy!
September 19th, 2007 at 10:41 am
Scott, I always know I can count on you to provide the flip side of the coin. Thanks for taking the time to provide your opinion on the subject.
I’m one of those guys who doesn’t own a meter. Does that mean I’m against them? Nope. In fact, I wish I had one. It would make life quicker and easier sometimes. But I don’t wish I had one bad enough to go out and spend the hundreds needed to get one. I’ll spend that money on more lighting.
I do everything in my power to get the exposure correct at the time I take the shot. Many tens of thousands of frames has given me that “gut instinct” as to when I need to adjust the in camera meter before the shot because I know it will be fooled by the light.
But I still get it wrong sometimes. And once in a while that shot that I got it wrong on was the one keeper in the whole bunch. Luckily there is software that can fix it. I can load up several hundred frames from a photo session into Lightroom and adjust all of them to have the same exposure in a matter of minutes. Some might call that sloppy, but I just say it’s another tool to get the job done. Again though, I do my best to ensure that I don’t have to make any adjustments. Usually I only have to make a tenth of a stop change here and there to make shots consistent with one another. This is especially true for shots that will go into an album where they’ll all be displayed in sequence and exposure differences are amplified.
Most of my post production work is done to add some artistic quality to photos. B&W, sepia, partially desaturated, vignettes, etc. These are things you can’t do in camera, nor would you want to. So I’m used to spending time in Photoshop, and don’t mind it.
Okay, I’ll stop there, before my comment becomes longer than yours! Cheers!