Here’s a shoot I did back in November, but couldn’t show you the pictures until now. Tim and Chris planned the shoot as a surprise Christmas gift for their mom. So thoughtful. Not wanting mom to get suspicious, we had to move quick. It didn’t help that it was drizzling rain and freezing cold. Thankfully we managed to get it knocked out in about half an hour. It helps that they both go to Buckhead Church. Same as Sarah and I.

They’re such a photogenic family. I’m convinced that JoAnna could have a future in modeling.

I know you’re probably wondering where yesterday and today’s videos are. Don’t worry, they’ll be back, even better than before. This was sort of a pilot program. If you’ve ever fallen in love with a great TV series only to go back and watch the first episode, you’ll notice some similarities to the videos on here. There was lots of good, but there was also a few areas of suck.

Why the pilot series? The longer I live, the more I believe in pushing ahead and correcting as you go, as opposed to waiting until everything is perfect before even trying. Things are never perfect. I appreciate all of the feedback over these last two weeks or so.

Here’s a behind the scenes look at a few of the changes:

• We’re building a new set.
• We may be changing the URL (After all, this is just my photography blog.)
• We’re cranking the “practical” knob all the way to eleven.
• We’re turning down the suck knob.
• We’re narrowing the target audience.
• Hopefully we’re taking out all my “ums” and “uhhs.”
• On the back end we’re streamlining the production process.

Basically I don’t want to make videos just for the sake of making videos. I want to create THE practical, definitive guide to photography on the web in video form. I want you–whoever “you” may be–to be able to take these videos and become a professional quality photographer even if you never do it for a living. I’ve more than put in my 10,000 hours, and if I could, I’d open my head and copy and paste it into yours, but that technology is still sketchy at the moment. That’s why I’m doing it in video form. I believe it’s the quickest way for you to learn and apply the skills that it takes to create outstanding images. It’s not about being smarter, it’s about taking better pictures. All that, and I want it to be free and entertaining. That’s not asking too much is it?

Stay tuned. The first episode of the new series will be premiering just after New Year’s Day. Ask for a DSLR for Christmas and follow along.

daniel

Today is another great photography tip that applies all the way down the camera food chain. Yes, there’s a camera food chain. You’ve got: large format, medium format, 35mm, APS sensors, point and shoot, and camera phones. Yes, this even applies to camera phones. I will say that if you’re using this technique for a large format camera, I’d like to see it.

daniel

Transcript:
Hey photographers. Daniel Roberts here for FreshEdgePhoto.com. I’ve got another tip for you today. Today is all about, ”Lean on me, when you’re not…” Nah, I’m not going to sing for you, but it is about leaning on things to get sharper photos. Now, sometimes we don’t have a tripod, we don’t have a monopod, and we don’t have any way to stabilize the camera to get the shot we need.

Always try to find a wall, a park bench, or anything that you can use that’s at least a little more sturdy. When I’m backpacking sometimes I’ll even take a walking stick or a dead branch and use that to prop my camera on. Anything that you can use to get that little bit more stability by bearing down on. Anything that will get you that extra stop of light that you need. Of course, you can always shoot in RAW files to extend your exposure. It’s not the best way.

Definitely lean on things when you’re out there shooting in the filed. As always, my name is Daniel Roberts. That’s another photo tip. You can find more of me at FreshEdgePhoto.com. Thanks.

Hey people. It’s Sunday and the last place I want to be is sitting at my computer blogging. So this is a prerecorded post. Yes, prerecorded, and anything interesting that I’ve found during the week is free game. I just thought this up on Thursday, so I don’t have much for this week, but I did come across some good stuff.

Funny:
The Internet Explained For Noobs
I know some people that seem to believe this about the internet.

Cool:
Seitz Cameras Be sure to check out the sample images.

Now go sit back and relax. It’s Sunday.
daniel

After yesterday’s long one, I’m keeping it short today. I’m going to try to break up the Camera Parts series since they’re pretty technical. Today’s tip can even be used by most of you point and shoot camera people. You know who you are.

daniel

Transcript:
Hey photographers. Daniel Roberts here for FreshEdgePhoto.com. Now, I love the new, big LCDs in cameras these days. I can remember my first D60 camera. It had this little postage-stamp size LCD on the back. Now I’ve got the 3-inch 5d Mkii, and it really helps you see sharpness, but only to a point. Even still today, I’ll look at the back of it and think “Oh that’s sharp.” Then get home and go, “Oh it wasn’t sharp.”

So here’s what you do. All the cameras just about, you can set a button to zoom in. Set that button. Do whatever you have to do. When you’re on location, zoom in and make sure you’ve got the shot, if it’s an important shot. If not, go back and take it again with different settings or different something. Make sure you get tack-sharp photos.

So there’s your tip for the day. Always check your focus in-camera. As always, my name is Daniel Roberts. You can find more of me at FreshEdgePhoto.com. Have a nice day.

I know this is long today, but there’s just so much to cover here. I could easily spend an hour talking about the aperture without repeating myself. It’s basically what makes photography possible. I’m sure I’ll return to it in the future, but this should get you started.

daniel

Transcript:
Hey photographers. Daniel Roberts here for FreshEdgePhoto.com. Wow! Today we have got a dusy. I’m going to try to explain apertures in just a couple of minutes. Call it the aperture, call it the iris, it’s that thing inside your lens that keeps light out or lets more light in.

Wow… There’s so much here to cover. Basically the aperture controls a lot of things. In a sense it’s an inverse relationship with your shutter speed. The more you shrink down that aperture and make it tight, the more you have to lower your shutter speed and vise versa. Raise your shutter speed, open the aperture.

Well, here’s the deal too. The reason that expensive lenses cost so gosh darn much is they have a lot of glass in them. They’re very big around. Now the length is obviously somewhat controlling the focal length (telephoto or wide-angle), but the diameter of the lens is how much light it’s letting in for that focal length. So, if the focal length is a 1:1 relationship to the width, then you have an f/1.0 lens. Now, Canon made one in the 50mm length a while back, and they’re really expensive because they don’t make them anymore. Now is there that much difference between an f/1.0 and an f/1.4? Not really to me, but at the same time, that’s also a lot more light.

Now, the way they multiply is very odd. This has something to do with pi and squared and all that math stuff. There’s f/1.0 because we have to start somewhere, then halfway between f/1.0 and f/2.0 is f/1.4. 1.4 is the square root of 2. Anyway, if you can remember f/1.0 and f/1.4 you’ve got the whole range covered more or less. So, there’s f/1.0 f/1.4 f/2.0 f/2.8 so on and so forth down the line. Now later on it gets rounded off with f/11 and f/22. Thankfully they don’t make us remember all the little “.” here and there.

Now that you’ve got that, it will let you know that every time it increases it doubles the amount of light or halves the amount of light when it decreases in number. Actually I just flipped that around. See, apertures are very confusing, even for me.

The wider you can get it, the nicer you get that bokeh, that shallow depth of field that lets you get this blurry background behind me. That’s also controlled by other factors that we’ll get into later.

That’s kind of the rundown for apertures for the day. I generally shoot as wide open as my lenses will let me because I love that blurry background. If you’re shooting landscapes, obviously you don’t want to do that because only part of it will be in focus. So, that’s basically what you have, and I hope that’s helpful. You can take that to the bank. My name is Daniel Roberts for FreshEdgePhoto.com. You can find more of me there. Thank you.

Transcript:
Hey photographers. Daniel Roberts here for freshedgephoto.com. I’ve got another quick tip here for you on how to get sharp photos. This is wrapping up the series, and today’s tip is about using the self-timer. Now, I do some crazy things with self-timers and off-camera flashes and multiple exposures. I’m going to cover that. That’ll be another show, but today we’re going to talk about how to use it to get sharper images.

When you have the camera sitting on a less than stable tripod, let’s say, or you’re taking a very long exposure, sometimes the movement from your finger is enough to vibrate the camera and give you a blurry picture. This is when it’s really good to use the self-timer. Self-timer can give you 2 seconds or 10 seconds, whatever you need to get away from the camera. It’ll give the vibrations enough time to settle out, and you don’t have to use a remote release cable or a digital remote release or whatever. It’s just built right into your camera. If you’ve got a little bit of patience and can take the time, I highly recommend it.

That’s your tip for the day. I’m photographer Daniel Roberts for FreshEdgePhoto.com. You can find more of me there. Thank you.

I’ll talk more about the multiple exposure stuff in a future video series. Maybe a workshop someday. The way I do it is basically a mix of Zack Arias with his “One Light” mentality and Dave Hill. It’s a strange combination, and I probably just offended both of them at the same time, but that’s the only way I know to describe it.

daniel

Transcript:
Hey photographers. Photographer Daniel Roberts here for FreshEdgePhoto.com. Well, we’re still continuing that series on how to get those tack sharp photos. Today’s lesson is all about how to stabilize the physical camera body itself. Basically it’s tripods, monopods, and various other affixing devices.

The first one is obviously the tripod. We’ve all seen them. We’ve probably all used them. Now, I don’t normally use tripods in my everyday shoots. The reason being, I like that freedom to move around and explore creative angles and that type of thing. There are certain situations though where you don’t have enough light. You’re in a wedding and the minister won’t let you use a flash. I’m ok with that. I think there’s times where a flash can be distracting. So always be prepared for that. Have a monopod, have a tripod, have a high-ISO camera. You need to be able to get those shots too.

The second one is a monopod. I do like monopods a lot more. They give you a lot of flexibility. Bogen Manfrotto actually has some that are made for video that are really cool because they have feet to them and a fluid head. So, if you’re ever going to get into the whole digital fusion kind of video/photography mix, it’s nice for that too. There’s also ball grip head that are really popular with some photographers. Especially sports photographers.

There’s just not a lot to say about monopods and tripods other than, “When you need them, use them.”

Ok, here’s another category. Tripods for really crazy effects can be handy. So, that might put you over the edge on spending the money to get a decent quality one that will hold perfectly still while you take multiple exposures, and in photoshop you can have fun with them afterwards.

So, use your tripod. Use your monopod. You can use them in those low-low light situations where you have to use an incredibly slow shutter speed, and it’ll save your tail. I’m photographer Daniel Roberts for FreshEdgePhoto.com. You can find more of me there. Have a great day.

Quick video today. What I meant to say in the video was… The reason I don’t currently own any IS lenses, is 1. My style of photography seldom has a need for it, and 2. For the money, I’d rather just use a good monopod. Anyway, hope you enjoy the show.

BTW, on Canon lenses it’s called IS or “Image Stabilization.” Nikon calls it VR or “Vibration Reduction.”

daniel

Transcript:
Hey photographers. Daniel Roberts here for FreshEdgePhoto.com. Got a quick tip for you today. We’re in the second part of our series on how to get really tack-sharp photos. Well, this one is about lens stabilization. It’s going to be quick because there’s just not that much to talk about.

It really is amazing though. I remember back in the day, one of the first stabilized lenses that I bought was this canon. It barely got you much more than a stop worth of light and stability. Now they’re up to four stops. I can’t wait. I’m thinking in a few years light’s not even going to be an issue for photographers with the higher ISO’s and stuff cameras are coming out with.

Anyway, you can really use that (lens stabilization) in dark places. I don’t personally have it on any of my current lenses. Call me cheap. Call me… I’d rather just light it well with my lights. I definitely have that artificial lighting background, that makes for very “real” looking photos, so I’m biased in that area.

It really is good for some people, and in some situations it’s definitely necessary to have that extra stop, two, three, or four stops worth of light. It can really save your tail in those situations.

Anyway, I’m Daniel Roberts, and you can find more of me at FreshEdgePhoto.com. Hope you have a great day.

A little while back I had the opportunity to do headshots for a guy that’s not only my friend, but also my SEO/SEM consultant. Charles Lumpkin is as good as they get in my opinion when it comes to paid search. If you’re looking for someone with that area of expertise, give him a call today. I don’t think I’ve ever been around him when I haven’t learned something.

Anyway, he came to me during the middle of a personal rebranding and asked for some headshots reflecting his new style. I knew exactly how I wanted to play this. With such a handsome subject, my job was a cakewalk.

Unfortunately the day we were shooting was also the main day of the Atlanta flooding. This sent us into his office for most of the day. Using a custom 6′ wide roll of seamless paper (and by “custom” I mean I ripped it off the end of a wider roll), I was able to grab these two high key images.

I especially like this next one. Maybe it’s the photo journalist in me, but I love shooting people while they’re working. He had some stuff to get done, so I just said “Work away while I shoot.” This is a shot of an actual expert in the wild.

Later that afternoon, the rain stopped. Sorry ladies, he’s taken.

This is one of my favorite locations. If you time it right, you can make it look like traffic stands still for your subject. Plus it’s always fun to stand precariously in the middle of the street waiting for the light to change.