Trial Gallery

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Is shooting in RAW really the best thing for a beginner?

“Did you shoot that in RAW?” This is one of the things that more experienced photographers typically ask a beginner who is getting into the business but are we causing more problems for them then we are helping them? Honestly, we just might be.

Over the weekend I helped someone out with some images that they were having issues with. The complaint was that they weren’t as sharp as she wanted them and that they appeared to have noise in them. I asked the usual questions, what ISO were you shooting at, what shutter speed, and were you shooting in RAW. Typical of what I usually ask but I didn’t’ think about the implications of that last question when I asked it.

RAW files are great and you should photograph in them when possible. The when possible though includes having the correct programs to process them in.

RAW files are different from JPEG in that they are what the sensor sees without any correction applied to them. This means that there is no serious color correction, no exposure adjustment but more importantly, no sharpening or noise correction. Whoa! Let’s step back and take a look at those last two comments. No sharpening or noise correction.

These are two things that I think both advanced photographers and beginning photographer don’t take time to think about when they are shooting RAW. The advanced photographer doesn’t think about them because we know that we add some level of noise reduction to all of our photos and we also sharpen them to our tastes. The beginning photographer doesn’t thin about them because when they shoot JPEG in camera, these items are taken care of and they don’t know that they need to be worked on.

When it comes to programs that beginners use I am typically seeing Photoshop, Photoshop Elements and even Picasa. The trouble is that while there are sharpening tools in the Photoshops, there is no noise reduction in any of the 3 programs. That means, if you are shooting at ISO 800 and there is some noise, you might not know that you need to take care of that and even if you do, you don’t have a tool to take care of it.

So what does that mean? It means that when we, as more advanced photographers, suggest to a beginner that they shoot in RAW, we are more than likely setting them up for problems that they are not equipped to deal with.I know that the reasons I shoot in RAW are that I can adjust exposure more and do more with color correction but perhaps, from a beginners standpoint, maybe we should suggest the JPEG format more often. Let them learn the exposure rules, basic color correction, framing and other things before we throw the big scary monsters of sharpening and noise reduction into the mix.

Local Man Files Charges against I-96 Corridor Shooter

One local Detroit Tigers fan has a beef with the I-96 Freeway shooter and has gone to the police in an attempt to see justice served.

Skip Opperman 45 of Potterville, Michgan has filed a complaint with the Brighton Post of the Michigan State Police stating while traveling along the I-96 corridor to Game 4 of the World Series at Comerica Park last night he was not shot at or wounded.

“It is a crime,” claims Mr. Opperman, “or if it isn’t it should be. Because this lunatic didn’t shot me when I drove through HIS territory I had to sit and watch that crap at Comerica Park last night. Mind you, I left my house at 7:30 in the morning just so I could drive back and forth a few times to give him a little extra chance and he still didn’t shoot. I didn’t even get so much as a stone chip in my windshield. If we can’t count on this nations criminal element to come through when we need them, then I don’t know where this nation is headed!”

State Trooper Stan Fike commented for the Brighton Post. “We have explained to Mr. Opperman that failure to commit a crime is not in itself a crime. At the moment he is still quite adamant that something should be done and has been screaming “Do you know what it is like to see Miggy take a called third strike to kill your dreams!!!”

Trooper Fike also mentions that Mr. Opperman is being temporarily detained although at this point it isn’t know if this is for psychiatric evaluation or to be used as a guinea pig.

Help a Brother Out! (No not me)

I typically try not to go totally off the board with my posts but tonight I’m going to talk about another subject that is very near and dear to my  heart and that is Community Theater.

As a member of the Hartland Players community theater, we believe in helping not only in our community but in other communities as well. Currently there is a group of us that is going around to various community theaters and putting on a show for charity. In today’s economy many of the theaters are hand to mouth and any help that they can get is much appreciated.

This weekend my little troupe is presenting the third show Jeff Daniel’s in the “Escanaba in da Moonlight” Trilogy, “Escanaba” at the Dearborn Heights Civic Theater. As I stated earlier this is a total charity fundraiser to help DHCT put a little extra money in their coffers and help improve the service that they can give their community. The show is quite possibly the best of the three ‘Escanaba’ shows that Mr. Daniels has written but is probably the least known. In it we go back to the beginning of the Soady family history and see how the World Famous Soady Deer Camp, the Sweet Sap Whiskey, and other Soady traditions came into being as Great Grandpa Alphonse (played by me) initiates the camp.

Tonight though I would have to say I was quite disappointed. I enjoy performing the show and would do it for a one person audience, I love it that much and believe in it that much but for it to be an effective fundraiser, there needs to be fanny’s in the seats.

DHCT had a capacity of around 80 – 90 this evening but there were no more than 15 there and I know for a fact that 4 of those were family.

In order to have a community theater, you need community support. Sure, I like playing to a full house but the reason that I do community theater isn’t for the rush of adoring fans (well, maybe a little) but for the satisfaction of helping the community.

Tomorrow night is the last night for this show. The cast performing it is the first cast other than the Purple Rose Theater to actually present this show and in my opinion a very good group. We would really like to help out the Dearborn Heights Civic Theater and give them the availability to do more for their community. In order to do that though, I need some help.

Please, if you are in the neighborhood (and by neighborhood I mean the Detroit Metro Area) consider swinging over and catching our final performance Saturday the 10th at 8:00pm. Information to find the theater can be found here http://www.dhctstage.org/ . Tickets are only $10 dollars and can be purchased in advance or at the door. I can’t promise an Tony Award winning performance but what I can promise you in a delightful showed penned by Michigan’s own Jeff Daniels, a night full of laughs and perhaps a bit of introspective into people as well. If you stop by I can almost promise you wont’ regret it.

If you can’t make it, I understand, but please pass this along to someone who you think may enjoy the greatest play in the Soady Trilogy.

Thanks 🙂

Tim (Alphonse Soady) Arrick

Detroit Redwings Camera Policy Behind the Times

Last week I was fortunate to be able to take my family to a Detroit Red Wings game. As usual I had brought my camera with me and was hoping to get some awesome shots. Since I knew we were going to be walking some, I just brought my Canon 7D with a 50mm lens attached and in a separate bag, I had my Sigma 70 – 200mm f2.8 lens. Then it happened. As I was walking into the tunnel, I saw the sign stating that no lenses longer than 80mm were allowed.

Now, fortunately we were not up to the line yet so my wife ran the lens back to the car and I proceeded to the game with the 7D and my 50mm lens but I had to chuckle to myself. What are the Wings hoping to accomplish with this lens ban?

In the past, if you were bringing an SLR camera into a game or even an ordinary film camera, the 80mm rule had some meaning. Film was based off of the 35mm standard which meant that an 80mm lens would give you almost 1.6X zoom. Obviously the Wings didn’t want anyone to get any “up close” professional style pictures that may be resold.

With today’s cameras though the 80mm rule doesn’t really man much. 

For instance, if I took my Canon 7D into a game with an 80mm lens and my friend took his Canon 5D Mark II into a game with an 80mm lens the results would not be the same. The 7D has a smaller sensor so when you put the 80mm lens on it you get the equivalent of a 128mm lens on the 5DMkII. Already I am ahead of the game. Now let’s say that I brought a tele-converter in my pocket. You still have your 80mm lens but now you are multiplying the effective focal length by another 1.6. So, on my 7D, the 80mm with a 1.6X tele-converter becomes an effective 205mm lens. I shoot High School Football games with an 200mm lens and believe me, it would be more than adequate to get some stunning pictures. The best my friend can do with his 5DMkII would be the 128mm.

Already the Red Wings Policy isn’t holding much water if they are trying to limit “good” photography.

Let’s go a step further and say that my son brings his point and shoot with him. The JLA is a fairly bright arena and a higher end point and shoot shouldn’t have much problem with light. For talking purposes my son has a Canon Powershot 1 G X which is a fairly high end point and shoot. 16 – 60mm lens on it so it is WELL below the JLA requirements for lens AND it has image stabilization so that means you can shoot in even lower light. Because it has a smaller sensor than the 7D yet, that 16 – 60mm lens actually becomes an effective 28 – 112mm lens. Once again, the 80mm lens rule doesn’t really stop anyone.

The last bit of the rule that I haven’t mentioned though is video. The rule also states that any camera which is capable of video is not allowed. So technically this would rule out most Smart Phones, Point and Shoot Cameras and DSLR’s that are coming on the market today. About the only cameras you would be able to take would be disposable film cameras.

All of this isn’t to say that I disagree with the Detroit Red Wings, or any other professional sports franchise for that matter, attempts to control how their product is presented I just wonder if there might be better ways.

New Explorations

Over the past few years I have been focusing primarily on Sports, Theater and High School Seniors from a photographic standpoint. I have done a few other smaller projects such as generating promotional shots for local schools as well as nature photography but my focus has been Sports, Theater, and High School.

I don’t want to give up on any of those three and I won’t but I do plan on exploring another avenue for my photography and the other avenue is Interior Photography.

Last October I started discussions with a local Interior Designer about the possibility of focusing on some of their work to develop a portfolio for Interior Photography. Unfortunately due to time constraints for both parties, that didn’t materialize but I was still very interested and started doing some research on different lighting and photographic techniques.

Now I am to the point where I want to start to do some hands on work to build my portfolio. I’m looking for perhaps two or three different Interior Designers who would agree to have some of their work photographed. For these initial shoots all of the typical fees would be waived. I seriously want to concentrate on building a body of work that I can move forward with in the future.

If you are an interior designer (or perhaps a real estate agent) who is looking for some interior photography, please contact me at 517-518-0786 or via my email at arrick@boxfirephotography.com . Additionally, if you know someone who may be interested in helping out please forward my information to them.

 

Thanks as always!

tim

Social Media To the Point of Distraction!

One of the things that a person very close to me has been talking a lot about is simplifying things from a Social Media standpoint and trying to get some of the ‘shiny things’ as she loves to call them under control. At first I basically ignored what she was saying but I’ll be honest, in the last couple of days, I’m starting to see what she is talking about.

As Fall turns into Winter here in Michigan I’m starting to evaluate 2011 from a business perspective and see how I can begin to get a grasp on where I have been, what I am currently doing, and where I want to go in the future. One of the things I’m looking at is how I interact with people.

I sat down and made a list of the Social Media that  I am currently using

1.  Facebook: Professional and Personal

2.  Twitter: Professional and 2 Personal Accounts

3.  Google +: Professional and Personal

4.  Website: Professional

5.  Blog: Professional and Personal

What I realized is that I’m doing a heck of a lot of time trying to keep people informed about what I’m doing and no where near enough doing what I’m supposed to be doing. The problem is that each of those different things holds something that I value and don’t necessarily get in other ways.

For me Facebook is an incredible connection place with friends from my past and has helped me gain exposure to High School Seniors for professional purposes. Both of those are invaluable to me and I really can’t see giving them up. Twitter is another valuable personal connection that I have made some professional connections through. The aforementioned friend is someone that I met through Twitter and I would not trade that friendship for the world. Still from a business side, I don’t fine that my Professional Twitter account is doing that much for me. Granted, I’m not on it as much but to be honest, I don’t see that even if I were on it more, I would see an appreciable change in how I benefit from it over what I get from my personal Twitter account.

Google + is the new kid on the block, the Facebook Killer, the way all Social Media will be, or maybe not. I have found it to be incredible in its depth from a photographer standpoint in helping me see other work and learning new things. There was a slight uptake in new people on there from a “normal person” standpoint when they opened everything up and Facebook decided to make some changes but realistically, it is 2 years away at a minimum from being a heavy hitter for the connections I need to grow my business. For the meantime I see myself keeping the personal page somewhat active and keeping the professional page merely as a placeholder. Something to direct people to other areas that I tend to keep more properly tended.

That brings me to my blogs. Again, neither one of them are kept up as much as they should be or perhaps I’m jaded in what I thought I would be doing with them originally. At first the thought was to update the professional blog at least 5 times a week and hopefully update the personal blog maybe 2 times a week. Honestly, that is going to be scaled back considerably. The professional blog (what you are reading now) I am looking to set a schedule up to update twice a week and the personal one (a weight loss blog) I’ll update weekly.

Finally the website. I have already changed the website from one that I created myself and maintained to one hosted by SmugMug where I can utilize their infrastructure geared towards photographers to my advantage. In the next few weeks as I begin to determine where my business will take me in 2012 and beyond, I’ll make modifications to this basic infrastructure to meet the style and direction of my business. As for a personal website? Honestly in the days of Facebook, there really isn’t a strong need for one.

Where does this leave me in the end. For one thing, within the next two weeks, I foresee only one Twitter account. It will be a renamed personal account that I use to cross promote the photography. On Facebook, I’ll keep the personal page and the professional page but instead of uploading as many pictures to the Facebook page, the thought is to link back to the website since it can do all the things Facebook can, people can use images from there to post on their profiles. This is subject to change but it will be helpful in updating.

Similarly with the Google +. The personal page stays, the professional page will stay dormant at this point. I will update the personal page occasionally but most stuff is going to run through the blog or the website.

Finally the blog. Your here right now although not many people read it I know. As I mentioned earlier, I’ll blog shoots and will try to keep this updated twice a week simply so you know what I’m going both personally and professionally. The hope is more consistent content here as well.

I know this has rambled a bit but it was good for me to work though and I hope you can utilize some of my thoughts if you are in a similar position.
Thanks 🙂

 

Tim

How I Shoot High School Football

Every now and then I get a question asking how to go about shooting a high school football game. There really isn’t one totally correct answer to this question but I’ll try to cover how I think things through and some of the settings and equipment that I use.

Equipment:

For me it all starts with equipment. High school fields are not, as a general rule, the best lit facilities and most games in the fall are played after sunset so light gathering capabilities are at a premium.

There are two ways that you can deal with this, the first is by using an off-camera flash such as a Canon Speedlite (most of my references will be to Canon equipment because that is what I use). This will allow you to add additional light into a scene and it gives you the ability to fully light a players face. I’ve played with this a couple of times but to be honest, I’m not entirely comfortable with it. My major concern is at some point, I’m going to hit the flash and distract a player. Now this may be an irrational fear. I’ve talked to various High School players and they tell me that they don’t even notice the camera flash. My fear then if probably just me thinking I’m more important to a situation than I really am. Still though on the off chance that an opposing player wants to use it as an excuse for dropping a pass or heaven forbid, it actually does impact a play, I can’t bring myself to use flash at high school sporting events. My other reasons for not using flash is more technical and esthetic. First I don’t prefer the uneven lighting that I was getting and the glow in the eyes. I’m sure that I could edit both of these out for my images but I just haven’t experimented enough. My second technical reason is flash recycle times. I currently shoot with a Canon 7D which is capable of 8 frames per second. My Speedlite isn’t capable of keeping up with that speed so if I am shooting a receiver hauling in a pass, I might get light on my first frame and then not get anything until my fifth frame. Since I like to shoot in an action sequence, this doesn’t really work for my shooting style. I know that there are photographers that have great success shooting with flash and I love their work, it just isn’t something I am comfortable doing.

So if I don’t use flash, how do I shoot high school football under the lights? For me it starts with a fast lens and a camera that has what in the past, was considered high ISO capability(my ISO range during a game can run from 800 at kickoff to 12,800 in the endzone late in the game, 4 full stops). The lens I am currently using is a 70 – 200mm Sigma f2.8. The 70 – 200mm gives me enough reach to get all the way across the field while the aperture of f2.8 allows enough light into the sensor that I can keep my shutter speeds up where I want them. If you are using a kit lens that comes with your DSLR then you typically have a maximum aperture of f4.0 or 5.6 so the shutter speeds of 1/500 that I typically shoot with becomes 1/250 or 1/125 which isn’t fast enough to stop all motion in either case. (NOTE: One thing that I am assuming here is that you are shooting with a DSLR, point and shoots won’t cut it in most cases.) One last lens consideration is Image Stabilization (VR in Nikon product). There are debates back and forth as to how much this feature will help you with football. Once school of thought is that if you are shooting at 1/500 shutter speeds than the IS/VR features really won’t help you and may through an in focus image out of focus.  The second school of thought is that with a longer lens, you will invariably have a small amount of shake as you hold the camera and that the IS/VR will overcome this shake. To this point, I have not shot with an IS/VR lens during a football game. I did use one for a portrait session and loved it for that however.

My Settings:

Again, what I use is not the only way to shoot a game, there are probably as many correct techniques as there are photographers. As I mentioned above, my equipment consists of a Canon 7D with a Sigma 70 – 200mm f2.8 non IS/VR lens. I utilize UDMA 6 compact flash cards that store 8GB. I could go with larger cards but the 8GB cards tend to give me 260 – 300 images per card so with my complement of 4 cards I am pretty well set. I have looked at 16GB cards but to be honest, I never seem to have the money to pull the trigger on one of those while I can almost always afford to throw another 8GB card into my pack.

So, which camera mode do I shoot in? Personally I choose Tv (Shutter Priority) on my Canon system. This allows me to set my preferred shutter speed of 1/500 and allows the camera to change the aperture based on the available light. Depending upon when kickoff of the game is I will usually start with my ISO set at 800 and then move that steadily upwards as the game progresses. By the time the game finishes, I have found recently at the Millington High School field that ISO 4000 tends to be my sweet spot. For shots where I am in the endzone shooting back at plays near the goal line I will bump this up to ISO 6400 and ISO 12,800 depending upon my what I am seeing in my images. (My one wish would be for a set of lights near the goal line so that endzones aren’t so dark.) As I mentioned before, my Canon 7D is capable of shooting at 8 frames per second so I like to take full advantage of that and shoot in the highest setting. A lot of times this will help me capture a shot where the ball is right on a players fingertips or a hand is pulling a facemask that I wouldn’t ordinarily get if I were not shooting with high speed.

One setting that I am still experimenting with and I will occasionally change during the game is the exposure meter. On the 7D I have the option of a spot meter, a full frame meter, and two center weighted features. Predominately I will use the spot meter but this can get me into trouble exposure wise if I am focusing on a white jersey or a black jersey. At times like that I will move to one of the center-weighted meters to help me balance out an overly dark or overly light shot.

For autofocus settings I am fortunate that the 7D has a very good tracking system. I set my autofocus on servo which will continually adjust the focus of an object as it moves. I also go into the customer functions an tweak some settings so that the tracking changes quickly. With the 7D (and other Canon models for that matter) I can adjust the sensitivity of the autofocus system so that if something quickly moves into the frame the autofocus will either quickly adjust or slowly adjust. I prefer to go with the quickly adjust myself as I tend to change where I am focusing rapidly depending upon how a play develops. For instance, if a quarterback is dropping back to pass I may start the play focusing on him but quickly pick up the intended receiver once the pass is thrown. I want to be able to focus the first shot, not the second or third shot when I swing the camera.

Another setting that I make sure is set is the type of format I am recording images in. Again, most DSLR’s give you the opportunity to shoot in JPEG or in what is called RAW. RAW format is essentially what the camera sees while a JPEG is what the camera gives you after it automatically corrects for exposure, white balance, noise and other factors. JPEG has advantages in that they are smaller file sizes and in my camera I can shoot burst of well over 121 images before I fill up the camera buffer. What I give up though is editing control. I personally like to be able to tweak my white balance, my exposure levels and noise levels on my own in Photoshop Lightroom. If I let the camera make those decisions, I don’t have as much control after the fact due to fact that a JPEG is a compressed file so not all of the original information is there. In my camera a JPEG is roughly 2MB file size while my RAW files can run up to 22MP. The downside for me is that because the file size is so much larger, I go through more hard disk, more compact flash and I fill my camera buffer up much quicker so I can only get 14 – 16 shots off before I have to wait on the camera.

The final setting that I use is a trick I have learned from a few photography blogs and that is back button focusing. When you pull your camera out of the box, pushing the shutter button down 1/2 way will focus on a subject as well as set your exposure for the image. When  you push the button the rest of the way down, an image is made. Back button focusing moves this feature of 1/2 way down off of the shutter button and moves it to one of the buttons on the back of the camera. On the 7D I move it to the button AF-ON. What this allows me to do is continually keep my focus moving while the shutter button is fully depressed. If I were to leave it on the shutter button, and fired a 14 image burst, the subject may start out in focus but because I never take my finger off the shutter and refocus (i.e. push the shutter 1/2 way down) I am still focusing where the player was 2 – 3 seconds ago and may not have him in focus any longer. With back button focus that same player is continually tracked while I am continually shooting.

Other odds and ends:

 

Positioning is another area where I tend to be a bit different than other high school football photographers. I like to shoot from my knees. It can cause some difficulties from time to time as officials tend to move in front of my regularly and I get blocked out from time to time but I simply like that angles that it produces. To me it is more representative of being in the action. Again, this is a personal preference. There are photographers who shoot standing up and I love their work too. This is just what works for me. Something that I just added last week and I think I am going to keep in the next few weeks is a monopod. This gives me a bit more camera stability when I am lower to the ground and I felt added to the shot quality but more importantly helped eliminate camera shake when I was shooting video.

 

The last thing is where do I set up to shoot. This all depends on the type of shot that I want and a bit on intuition. No matter how hard a team tries, there are occasionally subtle tip offs as to what play is going to be run (ok sometimes they aren’t so subtle). One team a few years ago, I picked up that line splits shifted depending on where they were going to run. I almost always knew where the ball was going. Most of the time it isn’t that easy and quite often on my guessing, I am wrong. Still, if it is 3rd and long, I might guess a pass and move downfield more than if I think it is going to be a run.

 

Conclusion:

 

In the end it comes down to knowing your equipment, knowing the game and experimenting. I have been shooting high school football for only 3 years so I have a lot to learn and I am still trying new things every week. Obviously I don’t just go in and try something new for an entire game. Even last week when I broke the monopod out for the game, I didn’t use it on all my shots until I felt comfortable with it and I knew it was going to work.

 

Remember, this is just an overview of what I do, it isn’t right and it isn’t wrong, it is me. If you have questions, feel free to drop me an email at arrick@boxfirephotography.com and I’ll be glad to talk to you and see if I can help out.

Here we go again!

The hope is that this time I actually understand how I got into my blog from work 🙂

Even though the blog doesn’t show it, this has been a busy if not financially rewarding summer for me photography wise. The new addition to the shooting line up has been Triathlons. I’ve shot one in the past but this summer I was actually able to shoot 4 different ones freelance and in a couple of weeks I will be the race photographer for the Shepherd of the Lakes Lutheran School 5k Storm Run in Brighton, MI.

In addition to the Triathlon events I am shooting football again this year and am branching out a bit. This week I will be shooting my first out of state game down in Ohio and I am thrilled about the possibilities with that. Here are a few images that I’ve taken this summer with many more to come now that I have figured this out again 🙂

 

The IT God’s have smiled upon me!

Well, it appears that the blog can begin regular posting again. Most recently I was taking a hiatus from blogging over my lunch hours (when I usually have time to blog) due to the fact that my day job’s IT department had effectively blocked a way for me to logon to my account. Either the defenses are down today OR I have finally managed to work around the blocking so I am back at least for a little bit.

The summer has been busy but unfortunately not shooting as much as I’d like to. Due to some things going on at home, I haven’t been able to market myself as effectively as I have wanted to so the Senior Sessions have been down. I am working on hooking up with 3 Disciplines Racing to shoot some of their Triathlon events and I have also shot some for the Hartland Players as I usually do.

Now that I’m back I’ll be going on vacation so I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to blog from there however High School Football season is starting so that will keep me busy as well when I get back. In parting, here are a couple of recent shots that I have done!