On resolution

My friend Dave asked me a question about resolution the other day:

… picked up a little Canon SD1400 IS, which we're going to take on a trip soon.  I want the best images possible, which means roughly 2 - 3 MB per image for this camera.  I'm going with 2592 X 1944 pixels, which, according to the user manual, is good to print up to 8 X 10 pixels.  It also gives me almost 10,000 images on my 16GB SD card. Does this pass the common-sense test?

It got me to thinking about the high resolutions that most modern digital cameras can achieve, and whether or not shooting at the highest resolution is really necessary.

On the one hand, a 2 megapixel camera will yield good 4x6 images and acceptable 5x7 images, and a 4 megapixel camera will give fine 8x10 images.  The above image size works out to about 5 megapixels, so in theory, it would be fine for photos up to 8x10.

 

The sensor on Dave’s camera is a 1/2.3” charged coupled device – about the size of the square on the lower right of the image above.  That’s not a lot of space to capture a good image.  If Dave saves images at the smaller resolution, he’s giving up about two thirds of that sensor. 

Dave’s points about saving space on his memory card were fine, but I had to point out some facts I felt were important:

1. Saving at the lower resolution saves space, but I don’t think it’s a case where the savings is really necessary.  10,000 photos is a huge amount; between 2006 and 2009, I averaged 12,000 photos a year. 
2. Taking photos at higher resolution means you have more data to work with.  Dave can take a full-resolution, 14-megapixel image, crop it extensively, and still come out with a usable image he can print at a decent size.  If he limits himself to the smaller resolution, he loses the ability to crop afterward and still get a nice usable image.
3. SDHC cards are cheap.  It makes more sense to purchase a separate memory card or two, simply to have a backup in case of equipment failure, than to rely on one card to hold all of your digital images – especially if you’re backing them up to your computer like you should be.

In general, I always take photos at the highest resolution I can, and shrink them later when I need to.  It goes against my instincts to discard useful data when you don’t have to.  Case in point:

The top image is a photo of me taken by another friend.  I didn’t like the result, but was able to crop it (see second image), yet still print the cropped image large enough to send to my grandmother.  My camera is 15 megapixels; if I had set it to lower resolution, an image cropped this severely would have been pixilated at best, completely unusable at worst. 

In short:  Save large, save often, and back up everything.  You can discard data after you’ve taken your shot, but you can never recover data your camera doesn’t record. 

Portraiture – Engaging your Models

When making photos of people, photographers should strive to connect with their models.  That is to say, your interaction with the person you’re photographing should consist of more than instructions to smile and how to pose. 

For this photo shoot, the first interactions began two weeks prior, when I asked Emmy if I could photograph her with Hunter.  I explained that I would like to do this in order to expand my portfolio (thus, this was an unpaid assignment), and offered to share the photos with her on CD.  The low-key, friendly conversation set the tone for the shoot.  We worked out a mutually-convenient time, set a rain date, and it was done.

The day of the shoot, Emmy e-mailed me to ask what she should wear.  By setting the initial tone, she felt comfortable asking that question.  I explained to her that she should dress comfortably, because she would be on the ground with the dog.  Fortunately, that was all the direction she needed; Emmy is an elegant woman with a great fashion sense.

During the shoot, I had to engage both Emmy and Hunter.  When photographing people, I try to make them laugh and keep it deliberately casual.  People who are at ease look better in photographs.  There is a fine line you walk between keeping your banter light and remaining in control of the situation. 

Two-way communication is very important.  While you are the photographer and you need to remain in overall control, a model to whom you don’t pay attention quickly becomes frustrated.  Frustrated people do not look good in pictures.  Models often have good ideas that can improve a photo.  Listen to the person you’re photographing; it can make quite a difference in the final product.

Ultimately, keeping the people you photograph happy will help them, help you, and result in more opportunities to practice your craft.  Remember, practice makes perfect.

More photos from this shoot can be seen here.

Portraiture – Using Sunlight

Recently, I had a photo shoot with a lovely young lady named Emmy and her boxer, Hunter.  Taking a portrait is easy; taking a good portrait is difficult. 

Lighting is important in all photography.  I like doing informal portraits outdoors when possible.  With luck and a little time spent scouting locations, you can usually find a pretty background and take advantage of the sun, one of the best light sources around.

I found a comfortable spot for my models to sit, then set up my equipment.

I turned Emmy and Hunter toward me, positioned so the sun was behind them and slightly off to one side.  I used the sun as a key light; it provided most of my light.  By putting Emmy where the sun was over her head, it lit her pretty hair and added dimension to her face.

With the sun behind Emmy, however, her face was in shadow.  I used my external flash as a fill light; it filled in the shadows and lit her face without overpowering the nice sunlight lighting the background.

Alas, sunlight isn’t always available for your key light.  You can buy lighting kits that start in the low hundreds of dollars, or you can buy more complex studio lighting kits that can run thousands of dollars.  However, it’s still nice to know that you can take a flash, a pretty location, and a fortuitously sunny day, and make a little magic.

More photos from this shoot can be seen here.

On printing

What do you do with your photos after you take them?

Digital photography is wonderful, in that you can share photos online with many people simultaneously.  You can post your photos to Facebook or Twitter, or perhaps you have a Flickr or Photobucket account.  E-mailing attachments may seem quaintly old-fashioned, but it also does the job.

There is something magical, though, to the printed photo.  Looking at a print, be it in an album or a frame, is a tactile experience that can’t be reproduced online.  Printing is also a good way – and perhaps the only way – to share photos with people who aren’t computer-literate.  (My grandmother falls into that category).

Printing your photo at home

Photo printers are cheap and plentiful, and most will do a good job printing a basic 4x6 photo for your album.  When printing on your home printer, here are some items you should pay special attention to:

• The paper you choose.  A quick trip to an office supply store will reveal many different types and sizes of inkjet photo paper you can choose.  It usually comes in packs of 4x6 or letter size.  Choose dedicated inkjet photo paper; the store brand will likely be fine and you can save some coin on the purchase.  I choose letter size and trim my photos to fit; this gives me more flexibility in printing my images.  If you only want 4x6, buy the smaller paper and save both money and resources.
• Printer settings – your paper.  Your printer settings will have options such as “glossy photo paper,” “matte photo paper,” and “plain paper.”  Your printer lays down ink differently on glossy than on matte or plain paper; selecting the correct paper will deliver a better final result.
• Your print settings.  You should see options to print as draft, good quality, and high quality (sometimes more) when you set up your print job.  I always print at the highest quality; why bother making excellent photos if you’re not going to show them off at their best?

Printing your photos at a store

Unless it’s a one-off job, I prefer to print my photos at an online store.  It saves me time and money, in that printer ink is expensive and printing at home can be time-consuming.  You can upload photos to several services and have them mailed to you at home; alternatively, many places will let you upload photos, then you can go to a nearby store to pick up the images. 

• Snapfish – online service.  Mail to home.
• Ritz Camera – camera store chain.  Can pick up at local store or have mailed to you at home.
• CVS/Walgreens/Wal Mart – Pharmacy and big box store chains.  Can pick up at local store or have mailed to you at home.

My strong personal preference is for Ritz Camera.  Their printing is uniformly good and I enjoy the convenience of picking up prints an hour after they’re uploaded. 

Photo albums and photo books

Once you have your prints, you can put them in a photo album to keep them clean and safe.  This is the time-honored way of keeping most photos.  If you pick an album, try to purchase one with acid-free paper; it will last longer and won’t discolor your prints.  Albums sometimes have pockets to slip your photos into; these are fine.  Scrapbooks are an artsy way to display your work, and give you another creative outlet.

The printing services above also let you make photo books.  These are bound prints with your photos printed on the paper directly.  They’re durable, and when you take care to select your photos and layouts carefully, are attractive and unique.

Framing and displaying

You can also frame your prints and display them in your home.  My personal preference is to have a frame with a matte; this keeps your photo from touching the glass and protects it from damage.  The matte also sets off your photo, giving the resulting presentation a more finished look.  If framing and displaying several photos together, matching frames and mattes make for a nicely coordinated look – a decorator’s touch.

I choose plain frames and light-colored mattes for most of my photos.  Simpler frames are attractive, less expensive, and less distracting to the eye.  IKEA is a wonderful source for inexpensive frames and mattes.  Your local art store will likely have a wide and varied collection to choose from as well.

A carefully-selected, matted and framed photo also makes a lovely gift to a special person.  If you’re sharing your photo and want to add an artistic touch, you can sign the matte with a light pencil or pen for a “signature” piece of work.

The photo at the start of the entry cost less than $20 to print, matte, and frame.  It was a unique and wonderful keepsake for a good friend, and a memento of a fun afternoon in the sun.

Conclusion

Even though your photos may be digital, don’t overlook the satisfaction that can come from seeing your photos printed.  It’s the ultimate in portability and, when printed professionally, should stand the test of time.

When less is more

I went to New York this past weekend.  In addition to selling some old gear at Adorama, I was able to spend most of Sunday walking the streets of the city, visiting the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum, and shooting photos all along the way.  Selected photos are posted on my Flickr page.

When I select which photos I’m going to share, I use a short list of criteria to winnow the selection down to a workable number:

1. Identify obvious quality issues.  Anything that is out of focus, has incorrect focus, or is too under- or overexposed gets tossed. 
2. Eliminate obvious duplicates.  Most of the time, your viewers only need to see one shot of a particular item.  Six photos of your dog peeing on a fire hydrant, from three angles, is overkill.
3. Identify problems in your remaining photos.  If it’s something you can correct, do so.  If you can’t fix it, discard the image. 
4. Tell a story.  I then go through the remaining photos and put them in an order that helps to tell a story.  If you find your “story” dragging at points, you have too many similar photos and need to cull some more. 

My reasoning is pretty simple:  If people only see your best work, they won’t know you take bad photos.  Nobody has to know how often your photos are blurry.  Nobody has to see your finger in front of the lens. 

Which brings me to the point of this blog entry.  Repeat after me:  You should only show your best work.

This seems like a simple idea, but too many photographers dump all of their photos – either onto their computer, a USB drive, or directly to the Internet – without taking the time to really look at them and make decisions.  This is the digital equivalent of having to look at somebody’s vacation slides.  Usually there are too many of them, too much repetition, and the truly exceptional photos in the bunch are drowned in an ocean of mediocrity.

I took more than 160 photos when I was in New York on Sunday.  My online album contains the best 16 of those photos.  In choosing which photos to share, I ended up picking about one out of every 10 shots.  That’s a pretty good ratio. 

In general, the better your photographs, the more people want to see, and it’s always better to keep your fans wanting more than to give them more than they want.

Simplifying

I learned photography using a 1970’s vintage Canon SLR.  When the Base Newspaper Office where I worked upgraded to new Canon EOS bodies, it was like a quantum leap in photography for me. 

Even though most of my photography these days is done digitally with my DSLR, I’ve been keeping film cameras around.  I enjoy shooting a roll of film now and again; it teaches me to slow down, to concentrate on the process, and makes me think very hard how to capture the moment I want to capture – film definitely does not offer the instant gratification of digital, nor the chance to shoot several hundred images and cherry pick the best right away.

That having been said, I’ve collected a few vintage cameras over the years.  They’re gathering dust for the most part, stored in a bin, not being used.  And that’s a shame. 

My partner and I are going to New York this weekend, and I’m taking advantage of the opportunity to visit Adorama and divest myself of some of the little-used cameras.  I’ll keep a couple that I really like – my very nice Canonet GIII QL17 and my banged-up, well-used Nikomat FTN spring to mind – and see if I can recoup some money from the others that aren’t being used. 

I still intend to shoot a roll of film now and again, as the experience helps me remember that making a good photograph isn’t always so simple.  A little history lesson now and again can only benefit my work.

Back to Basics!

I’ve been shooting digital images for a while now, and I’m beginning to see how they make me a lazy photographer.  When you have instant feedback, can correct your stuff immediately, or even post-process it extensively, it’s difficult to really get into the process, using the craft, and taking the time to make every shot count.

Additionally, every professional photographer in the city uses digital, and people are learning to expect instant results.  Impatient people get inferior products.  With that in mind, I’ve decided that my niche needs to be a more sedate, studied process.

That’s why I’m returning to the basics:  I’m going to do daguerreotypes. 

The business model is sound.  There is not a single working daguerreotypist in New England, so there’s no competition.  People must be aching for a return to simpler times.  Imagine, if you will, the fascination in little children’s faces as you set up your large daguerreotype camera at their kid’s party.  The anticipation of waiting hours for the results, and only having the one chance to get it right, will undoubtedly add a new and exciting facet to the typical dog-and-pony show that young rich children call a birthday party.

Or theme weddings.  The thrill of being captured in your finery, being held stock-still by special neck clamps as you wait for the 45-second exposure to complete.  This is perfect for those special occasions when only a finely-crafted image on glass will do.

Daguerreotypes are permanent in a way that no film-based photography can be.  Film degrades, but daguerreotypes are glass; unless you break them, they will last for centuries.

I really think I’ve come up with a unique business idea that will make me rich!

Oh, and HAPPY APRIL FOOLS DAY!