Photography podcast – photography blog – Photography.ca

Photography projects – length of time

How long should photography projects last? Is there a time limit? Should there be a set amount of time? Can it span years, can it span a lifetime? Hmmmmmm.

I took this shot this past summer and it is part of a project that never seems to end.
Does it even matter?

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Photography transcript 5 – Nikon D80 VS Canon 30D – Photography.ca

[Camera clicks]

Please note that this is an audio transcription. Grammer and punctuation will not be perfect.

Hi there everyone and welcome to the Photography.ca podcast #5.  My name is Marko and we are coming to you from fantastic Montreal, Quebec, Canada, on this 22nd of November 2006.
So, for today’s show, we are going to go through a little bit of the journey that I just went through.  I was just in the market for a camera and it took me months and months and months and months to decide which camera I was going to get.  There were a lot of considerations for the camera and money being one of them, quality being another one, am I just ready to go completely digital at this point, all these factors just weighing on my mind day after day, month after month, but after squirreling away some peanuts for many months I decided to take the plunge and buy a camera.  So the question was, which one to buy?  That is really what we are going to talk about today, which camera did Marko buy?  Actually, the two choices were the D80 by Nikon and the Canon 30D.
Before we start, I should tell you that this is just my subjective opinion on it all.  There is no technical test.  I did not really measure anything.  All I did was compare the two cameras and used my eye to make the best decision possible.  It was a pretty difficult decision for me because I am a Nikon person.  I have always been a Nikon person and I have three lenses that are Nikon so part of the thing was, you cannot use your Nikon lenses in any effective way whatsoever with the Canon system and vice versa.  Naturally, my first instinct was to go with the D80.  It was in my price range.  I was looking at about 1100 to 1200 Canadian dollars and although that is a lot for a camera, for sure that is a lot, for something approaching professional grade or prosumer, those are just what the prices are and after squirreling away for months I was prepared to plunk down the cash.  I got to tell you, I bought that camera a few weeks ago and I really like that camera.  It really did it for me.  It was really easy to use.  It was very intuitive, especially since I am totally used to the Nikon system.  I love, love the auto focus on it.  I love the body.  I love the way the control works and I love the way that it worked until ISO 400.  I must confess that I am extremely, extremely critical and at the end of the day it was all about what was going to give me the best bang for my buck at the time I am going to buy it.  Obviously, in two months from now or three months from now things will change, but I know a lot of you are probably going through a similar dilemma, which one to buy, which one to buy.  If you want to learn from the benefit of my experience or take whatever I have to say with a grain of salt, yahoo.
Back to the Nikon D80, I really, really like this camera and I liked it until ISO 400.  I did some tests and I did these tests with a good friend of mine, Dominic Fuizzotto, who is an excellent photographer as well and he is kind of a gadget guy, even more so than I, and we compared everything at his place using his fantastic system, despite my own decent system, his is better, what can I say?  Anyway, we did it at his place and the D80 was absolutely fantastic until about 400.  Now, when I say absolutely fantastic until about 400, I am talking about enlargements.  What I am talking about is, taking a shot, printing the actual result at 8 x 10 or larger.  That was really the criteria for me.  If you are going to print at 4 x 5 or you are going to use it for your computer, there is no difference between the cameras, really.  You are going to get great results.  Both the Canon and the Nikon, the D80 and the 30D, are amazing, amazing, amazing at 4 x 5 or less.  You will never see grain, noise and grain, all these reviews that people are talking about.  You really will not notice it until you blow it up.  I really loved the camera until ISO 400 because even at 8 x 10 when I made my results and I printed my results, they were fab.  They were superb and they were great.  However, when I went to 800, I started to notice more noise than my eyes are comfortable seeing and I am a bit of a noise freak and I am a bit of a portrait freak, so I do portraits.  As I have mentioned before on the blog, I always focus on the eyes, I get the eyes tack, tack sharp and I love to see detail in the eyebrows, on the eye itself, in the eyelashes, and I must say that when I was making my enlargements at 800, ISO 800 or greater, I started to lose detail in the eyelashes, eyebrows and the eye and I started to see a lot of noise.  For those that do not know, noise are those little pixilation effects that you see and to anyone but a trained photographer, they will probably never notice, but once you get more into anything, when you get more into anything and you get more fuzzy.  So, at ISO 800 and plus at 8 x 10 enlargements, I found that the D80 was not acceptable to my crazy picky eye.
Other advantage that the Nikon has over the Canon is it is quieter.  I really like the fact that it was quiet, whisper quiet when you click the shutter.  Another little thing that I also liked about it, I liked the fact that it kind of had built in multiple exposure.  I do a lot of playing and somewhat creative photography and it is always just to play with a gadget from time to time.  I do not do it that often.  I shoot almost always on manual or aperture priority, but I was kind of into playing with the multiple exposure button just to see what kind of cool effects you can get.  The Canon does not have that feature.  Of course, you can do anything you want in Photoshop so it is not the hugest deal, but it is nice to do stuff in camera.  Okay, now on to the Canon D30.  The Canon D30 is — as you have probably guessed that the camera I ended up buying and although the motor is not as quiet as the Nikon and although the auto focus is not as amazing as the Nikon, I ultimately went with that camera because of the noise factor.  Once you hit ISO 800 or once you hit ISO 1600 and you compare the results side by side — and I am going to put up some photos on the blog so you could compare them yourself.  These are my photos.  Feel free to rip them apart.  Feel free to tell me that my tests were inaccurate, but at the end of the day when I compare the two side by side to my eye, I found there was considerably less noise in the Canon than the Nikon.  Again, this is at 8 x 10 enlargements only.  If you are at 4 x 5 or smaller, did not see the difference, both very pleasing, both very fine, but at 8 x 10 enlargements and greater, the Canon 30D wins out over the D80 in terms of noise.  At the end of the day, again, for me it is all about the sharpest, best picture I can make and the best portrait that I can produce and for the extra 100 dollars or 150 dollars — Canon is offering a superb rebate right now, but it still came out to be 100 or 150 dollars more for the Canon — I went with the Canon because I am a portrait freak and when I look at eyes I like them to have all the detail as possible.
That was my basic experience, actually.  One of the factors that made the experience a bit harder is, again, the Nikon glass.  If you are not going to make big enlargements, really, at 4 x 5, everything is equal.  There is really no need to go buy opposite the make that you already have.  Sure, I have Nikon lenses and now it is going to cost me a few extra bucks in Canon lenses, but it is because I am crazy picky and it is because of the enlargements.  Most people are not going to make enlargements.  Most even prosumers are going to keep their images small.  They are going to keep them for computer, for email, for their websites, in which case it just does not matter which camera you get because the results are going to be superb.  So, I would go with what the other reviewers are saying at dpreview.com.  They have an absolute, absolute, really thorough comparison on both cameras themselves and then between those cameras and other cameras.  That review is superbly technical and it was one of the sources I went to before I made my decision, but again it is only really about the enlargements as far as my experience tells me.  If you have glass from Canon or Nikon, stick with that system.  Do not cross over unless you are a little bit freakishly obsessed.
That sums up my review.  I hope it is helpful to people.  Again, take a look at the photos.  Compare them side by side, but the best test is going to be your own eye.  Buy it from a store that you can return it.  Test it first or buy some cards and go to the store and do some tests by yourself.  Take one shot with the Canon.  Take one shot with the Nikon.  Compare for yourself.  Everyone’s eye is different.  Everyone has different subject matter.  You really need to just compare for yourself to get the best test possible.
As always, we love to hear comments about this podcast or stuff you would like to hear in future podcasts.  I got a very nice comment on the bulletin board from a new member.  I think I may have my first groupie.  She loves the podcast.  She just wants me talk about more basic elements, which I am absolutely prepared to do in my very next podcast.  It is just I am so in the thick of this comparison right now, I wanted to make this comparison about the camera that I ultimately ended up choosing.  The next one will be for my new “groupie,” we will get back to some basics and do a show about more basic photography.
That is it for today, everyone.  Thanks very much for listening to the show.  As always, please leave comments on the blog or inside the bulletin board on Photography.ca and I will be more than happy to answer those comments.  Please post some pictures at the bulletin board or you can even post pictures as comments on the blog and I will be happy to review them as well.  Have a nice day, everyone.  Keep shooting and we will see you all again or hear you all again or speak to you all again in around two weeks.  Thanks everyone.  Bye now.
[Camera clicks]

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Nikon D80 versus Canon 30D – Photography Podcast 5

Photography podcast #5 is ready for downloading or subscribing. In this podcast we discuss the merits of both cameras and why I chose 1 over the other. Thanks to Dominic Fuizzotto for helping me with these tests. You can read seriously technical comparisons of these and other cameras at dpreview.com. The images below are from my test. I tried to be as consistent as possible. Note that there are some proportion differences but that is attributable to the fact that the Canon is an 8.2 mega pixel camera and the Nikon is a 10.2 mega pixel camera. These eyes in these images were cropped from the original ‘raw’ images at 100% magnification. They were saved as jpegs at 90% quality, the ISO was 800. At lower ISOs there was no difference.

Photography podcast transcript #5

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Fill flash – Photography podcast # 4

This podcast is dedicated to fill flash in portraiture. When do you want to use fill flash? You want to use fill flash whenever your subject’s face can use a bit of extra light. If you don’t see the player below, click here to learn how to use fill flash in photography. Pictures accompanying this podcast will be uploaded shortly.

Photography podcast transcript #4

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Photography transcript 4 – Fill flash – Photography.ca

[Camera clicks]

Please note that this is an audio transcription. Grammer and punctuation will not be perfect.

Hi there everyone and welcome to the Photography Podcast on Photography.ca.  My name is Marko and we are coming to you from Montreal, Quebec, Canada, on this November 2, 2006.
It is a beautiful sunny day in Montreal, albeit cold, and sunny days are a great time to talk about fill flash.  This whole podcast is actually inspired by a new member that posted some pretty interesting pictures on the Photography.ca bulletin board.  I quite like those pictures, but I thought that those pictures could be even better if they would have just used a little bit of fill flash.  In a nutshell, what fill flash is, is it fills the shadows of scenes and it is particularly useful in portraiture.  So even on a sunny day, which may seem counter-intuitive, a great thing to do is use a bit of fill flash.  What happens is the sun, especially when it is high above, will hit the subject’s head and cast like a shadow in their eyes and on their nose and it is not attractive at all.  So, you have this person with dark circles under their eyes and it is really not so flattering and sometimes it is really distracting.  What is a really good thing to use is fill flash.
Now, most modern SLRs and digital SLRs have the ability to use fill flash.  Sometimes you can use fill flash on the little flash that comes with the camera or if you have an actual camera that you mount on your flash via the hot shoe, you can definitely use fill flash there.  It is such a simple procedure.  All you have to do is turn on the flash and fire the camera and there you go, you have fill flash.  You should know what settings you are on.  You could be on a manual setting, you could be on a more automatic setting, but even in the sun, take a picture of a person and use the flash.  What is going to happen is that flash is going to fire at the person and it is going to fill their face with a bit of light and generally it will make the picture more attractive.  Actually, for this podcast, we are going to put up a couple of shots on the blog with and without fill flash and you can kind of see the differences.  Now the interesting thing about fill flash is that you can vary the amount of the fill flash.  What most people will do is they will put it on an automatic — they will put their camera rather on an automatic setting, turn on the flash and just shoot and although generally that is better than not using any fill flash at all, especially on a bright sunny day, it is not the best thing possible.  It has been my experience that the best shots or generally very good shots that use fill flash have the fill flash used at a strength that is less strong than the ambient light.  That is to say, the light that is lighting the subject, the natural light, let us say, well, the fill flash should be less strong than that light.  What happens is if the fill flash is at the same strength as the light that is naturally lighting the subject or the ambient light, it does not quite look as flattering as it could.  If the fill flash is stronger than the subject, well, then it is not even called fill flash anymore.  That is really the main light for the subject and that makes the subject.  Unless you are looking for a specific effect, it makes it look less pleasing than normal.
That said, for that special effect, I mean you will see this all the time in fashion or fashion magazines where the model is just blasted with light.  She is flawless generally and they will retouch her for hours afterwards and she will look good, but it is not generally the most natural look for general photography I would say.  A good thing to do is read the camera manual and figure out how to adjust the flash.  It is usually under something called flash compensation or fill flash, but it is generally really easy to do and what you want to do, again, is let us say you are using the little flash on the camera, you just want to lower that by one or two or three stops even and what that will do is it will just add a touch of light to your subject and light them in a very pleasing way.  If you were to use, let us say, minus one stop of light from the flash, what the flash is doing is it is calculating the amount of light in the scene that is naturally there and then it is giving you one stop less, minus two gives you two stops less, minus three gives you three stops less.  These flashes can work in different fashions, it could work by stops or other increments but what looks very natural or more pleasing, let us say, is when there is less light coming from the flash than the actual light that is lighting the subject.
Personally, when I use fill flash, I almost always choose, let us say, minus one and a half or minus two stops of light, so I am just giving the subject a little bit of light, but I am not accentuating the light from the flash so it tends to look more natural.  If you have a hot shoe mounted flash or a more professional flash that you mount on the camera, it will usually be really, really easy to figure out how to give less fill flash or negative flash, let us say.  There are some arrows or there is some button that allows you to do plus a third of a stop, plus two thirds of a stop, plus one stop, or minus a third, minus two thirds, minus one, minus two, minus three, etc., and you could just play with those and see the effect that you are going to get.  In fact, I highly recommend, especially if you are not so familiar with fill flash, is to just go ahead and experiment, as always.  Take a shot with the regular flash setting, just turn it on and shoot, see what you get.  Minus it by one stop of light, shoot it, see what you get.  Minus it by two stops of light shoot it, see what you get.  Compare all three and see which one is most pleasing for you.  It would be my guess that those shots that are minus one to minus two, they might well be the most pleasing shots, they certainly are to me, but everyone is different.  Of course, if you are going for the exact opposite effect, you could choose whatever you want, but then I would suggest to you it is not called fill flash at all.  If you go plus one or plus two stops of light from the flash, you are doing the opposite, you are getting a cool effect if that is what you want, but then it is not called fill flash.  That is your main light and the main light is lighting the subject and the ambient light is actually acting as a secondary light.  It is no longer the main light.  You can also, of course, use fill flash from secondary sources of light by either having a secondary flash somewhere or a secondary light somewhere, but if you are already at that level, then you pretty much already know what you are doing.  I guess this particular podcast is geared for just using your camera to add some extra light to the faces of someone.  We are talking in particular about portraits because it is really hard to fill flash or to use fill flash on a landscape scene.  Flash typically has a very short range or reasonably short range and if you are taking picture of a mountain or anything like that, well, your flash will just never hit the mountain, it will never make a difference.  That is why it is particularly useful for portraiture or even close up photography, but photography that is relatively close to the camera as opposed to landscape or scenic photography.
That covers it for today’s show.  It was a really short show.  I will be putting up some photographs on the blog that go along with the show notes and you could really see the difference by using minus one and minus two as opposed to the normal shot and as opposed to no flash at all.  I am going to put those up so people can see the differences and hopefully learn from them.  As always, if you are able to comment or choose to comment it is so appreciated and if you are interested in having your photographs critiqued, well, just join the bulletin board on Photography.ca, upload a couple of pictures and it is absolutely my pleasure to critique them.  In fact, I would like more members to critique them as well, but each and every shot that gets uploaded that people want critiqued, it gets critiqued by me.  I have a little bit of experience so I hope the tips that I have given other people thus far have been useful and appreciated.  Well, that is it for us again.  This was our fourth podcast on Photography.ca.  We hope you enjoyed it.  As always, you can leave comments on the blog or through the bulletin board and we will be back in two weeks’ time to do another podcast.  Thanks so much for listening everyone and happy shooting!
[Camera clicks]

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