On the Cheap

Greetings and welcome to Hohenfels Volks, THE place for our place!

“Valor is strength, not of legs and arms, but of heart and soul; it consists not in the worth of our horse or our weapons, but in our own.” Michel de Montaigne, Cannibales

“The Master said, “A true gentleman is one who has set his heart upon the Way. A fellow who is ashamed merely of shabby clothing or modest meals is not even worth conversing with.” (Analects 4.9)” Confucius

Both the above quotes refer to the fact that expensive is not always the best, nor is it always necessary. That’s the topic of today’s post, inexpensive lighting mods.

Firstly, this is not to say good equipment isn’t worth the price. A good set of lighting modifiers can be worth their weight, if they’re used. For most of us, a reflector, flash, and maybe something like a Rogue Flashbender are more than enough. There are also times when having something like a soft box or snoot can add a little something to your photo, especially in portraits.


ISO 400, f/5.6, 1/30
This was shot in a local church. I used a Rogue Flashbender on my YN-560 flash wirelessly triggered. The flash was above and to the right of the camera. The soft light wraps, but still has direction to it, giving a nicely lit portrait of our Jesus' love for us!

When I first started out with homemade light mods, the first thing I built was an ice chest soft box. By cutting a hole in the bottom of a Styrofoam cooler the size of my flash head and covering the front with a white pillowcase, I had a soft box. The soft box softens the lights by giving us a larger light source, diffusing the lights internally to the box, and softening the light as it exits the box with a piece of diffusing fabric.

Take your ice chest, with the hole cut in it, and line it with aluminum foil, shiny side out. Tape of glue the foil to the inside of the chest. Let it crinkle up and have lots of texture, as this diffuses the light more. Once that’s done, tape, or glue a piece of white fabric to the inside of the ice chest to cover the opening. Taping it about 1 inch back from the edge gives you some spill control and allows for more directionality of the light. If you’re particularly ambitious, you can add some support to keep it from sagging, perhaps mounting it to a tripod.

Another great mod is a snoot. This allows a focused ray of light to be targeted to your application. One easy method is to cut both ends from a Pringles can. Using one end over your flash, and the other end open, you have a beam of light for a spot effect or hair light. Cover the flash end to prevent light leaks. You can even wrap the can with some colored paper and have a nice looking snoot. Placing the cap over the end of the can softens the spot a little, giving you a wider beam. A snoot can also be made from a rolled up cereal box, although you may want to line it with foil.

Another simple mod is a pie pan beauty dish. By taking a solid pie pan, or even some larger, a very nice light can be created. Cut an opening in the back for your flash, and drill 3 small holes. Place a 2-3 inch disk about 2-3 inches above the opening using stand offs or long screws, and voila, instant mod! Great for a more focused, glamorous light and ring like catch lights in your subject’s eyes, that adds drama to your scene.

For more advanced stuff, like large scrims or reflectors, PVC can be used as a frame with white sheets cut and sewn to fit. You can even make adjustable mods this way, and add legs or stands. Scrims are great for shooting in sunlight, as they soften the sun’s light and create nice shadows. You can even use a space blanket for extra large reflectors. They have a gold side and a silver side, like most commercial reflectors, and smaller sections can be used for fill light on product shots or close ups of flowers. When you’re making the larger sizes, it pays to measure everything out and have your fabric cut and sewn to match the several options you’ll have available. There are instructions online for making the larger PVC mods, and that’s a great way to build up your kit without breaking the bank.

With a little effort and ingenuity, a lot can be done. Even going back to Ansel Adams and many of the older era photographers, simple and cheap was a good thing. Ansel Adams was known to use the white side of his dark cloth for fill light when needed. Improvisation was often necessary, and following in that vein, we can get great shots without breaking the bank. A great place to start is DIY photography. They’re listed on our resources page!

We want you to share your photos with us on our Hohenfels Volks Facebook page. You can also e-mail questions, photos, or comments to HohenfelsVolks(at)tks-net.com, and we’ll get them posted!

Is there anything you’d like to see here? Do you have a question? Share your thoughts here or at the Hohenfels Volks Facebook page. Of course, commenting on both Facebook and here is always appreciated, too! Don't forget, we're on Google+, too!

Autumn Care

Greetings and welcome to Hohenfels Volks, THE place for our place! Here in Hohenfels, the Sun made a couple cameo appearances but wasn’t able to stir up any kind of significant warmth. The rain put a damper on the spirits, as did the fact that it’s a workday!

With autumn’s brutally chilled arrival, we’re nearing the time to shoot some real color! There’s always some excitement about the colors, shapes, textures, and patterns that accompany autumnal photography. As I mentioned in yesterday’s quote, now’s a great time to think about negative space and the use of color to create tension, balance, and harmony in your photos, and bring about the connection you’d like to make.


ISO 800, f/11, 1/60
These flowers were shot at the Hermitage in Bayreuth. A Wratten #8, yellow, filter was used. By using the filter, the green was brought up slightly, and the white flowers separated from both the red flowers and green leaves. By allowing a rich grey-black to fall on the leaves and red flowers, a velvety feeling of negative space results. While fragmented and carrying visual detail, it is by no means the subject, and yet becomes a subject of its own.

Along with the march of color into the dreariness ahead, comes other factors that photographers should take note of. First, is the rapid decrease in temperatures, the drop in temperature can take the starch out of an exciting day. Another factor is the rain, always something to be ready for in our Hohenfels area. Getting your camera wet can lead to issues that no one wants!

One of the biggies, I’ve found, is the increase in static. For the most part, photographers don’t have to worry about while photographing with digital cameras. It’s when the time comes to change cards or clean your sensor, or even change your lens that it becomes an issue. A typical “zap” can have as much as 30,000 volts jumping from one surface to another. Enough to ruin your day if it arcs over onto your sensor. Since most folks don’t clean their sensors beyond a squirt from a bulb blower, it’s pretty reasonable to say that the standard precautions are sufficient.

With film, though, static can be a big problem. Advancing film, rewinding film, activating the shutter, removing a dark slide, all these things can cause an arc that will ruin your shot. The can also damage your shutter curtains if your camera uses cloth. In the driest and coldest weather, it could damage your sensor, but that’s unlikely.

The biggest threat to digital cameras during this time of year is the condensation from thermal transitions. That’s a fancy way of saying going inside from outside. I’ve found one of the best ways to protect anything is a Ziploc bag and 30 minutes. Don’t plug your camera in, put your card in your reader, or power on your camera when you first come in. The temperature change can cause moisture, which we all know, doesn’t sit well with electronics! Think about glasses fogging over when you come in from the cold!

Another awesome tip- when you get in from the cold, make a big cup of hot cocoa, with extra chocolate. It’ll warm you up, and give time for your gear to reach a suitable temperature! It helps if you have someone to share it with. A nice cup of cocoa with my little princess makes for some fun talk time, and 30 minutes is gone before you know it!

Now’s the time get scouting and planning your autumn shots. Figure out where and when, the rest will follow. Then, make your shot and share it with us on our Hohenfels Volks Facebook page. We’d love to see your work.

Is there anything you’d like to see here? Do you have a question? Share your thoughts here or at the Hohenfels Volks Facebook page. Of course, commenting on both Facebook and here is always appreciated, too! Don't forget, Hohenfels Volks is on Google+, too!

Tech Talk: Rating Your Sensor

Greetings, volks. Welcome to Hohenfels Volks, THE place for our place! WOW! The annual Hohenfels Volksfest was a great time and the weather was perfect. Now the clouds are puffing up some, and that makes for great outdoor photos that include the sky!

Today we’re going to introduce rating and EI.

Your camera has a range of ISOs you can choose from, most likely running from ISO100 to ISO3200 in third stop increments. Camera and film manufacturers used the International Standards Organization methods to set the speed, or ISO, of your sensor or film. They generally are set to favor overexposure, as underexposure is harder to correct. Therefore, in test conditions ISO 100 performs at ISO 80-100 to get you exposed at the general target for the contrast and exposure standards set by the organization. This used to be referred to as a film’s “box speed.” For digital work, I’ve come to think of it as “nominal.” Therefore, when I say I shot it at ISO 125, that’s what I was set and exposed for.

The ISO recognized that most scenes deviated from test conditions, as did developing or processing. A film may be rated at ISO 100, when developed in a certain developer for a specific time, but not for any other combination. Film shooters would “rate” their film at different speeds for their methods, including exposure and development controls. For instance, some would shoot FP4+, which is ISO125 in Ilford’s ID11 developer, rated at EI80 developed in Kodak D-76 for their preferred method of exposing and developing a standard shot.

EI, or “exposure index,” is what you rate your film at for your methods, and usually refers to speed rating assigned that’s different from the film's actual speed. Generally, when you shoot with your digital SLR, you shoot maybe at ISO 100, and edit it in your manufacturer’s provided application and get decent results. You are shooting and making your shot at nominal speed, or box speed with film.

You may find that in high contrast scenes at nominal speed, you are getting shadows that are clipped to black and whites that are blown and have no detail. In that case, it’s time to change your EI, or rate your speed different. To do this correctly, you should test your camera, and we’re going to cover the procedures to do that for YOUR best results. Since this test is based on your equipment, metering, and editing, someone else will get different results using the same equipment. This test is based on your style and methods, which others may not follow. Keep that in mind when “rating” your gear, you can recommend your “rating” to others with the same camera, they will most likely appreciate the information, but each “rating” is subjective, and will work best in your hands.

This testing becomes especially important when shooting at extremes of lighting. In very low light, like that in most old buildings, noise is a real concern when trying to increase your image brightness during editing, and in bright daylight lit landscapes skies and clouds can become just blotches of white without any detail.

The procedures for setting your EI involved a gray card, meter, and your camera. You should be set up for this in light conditions that match your intended shooting conditions to effectively use this method.

Step 1, set up your gray card in lighting that matches your shooting conditions. Step 2, set your desired ISO reading on your camera, and select RAW mode. Step 3; set your camera to f/8 or f/11 and AV mode. Step 4, meter your gray card, use spot metering and fill as much of the frame as possible with the gray card. Note the shutter speed. Step 4, set your camera to manual mode, and enter the shutter speed metered in step3, which should give you an 18% gray image. Step 5: compose your test shot. You can pull back some, including other elements. I have a test screen that includes black and white pieces and collapses nicely into a camera bag, and prefer to use that to check contrast ranges while doing this test. Step 6, take the following series of shots- at the metered reading obtained previously, -1/3 stop, -2/3 stop, -1 stop, +1/3 stop, +2/3 stop, and +1 stop. Step 7, load the images onto your computer. Then open your image editing application. Step 8, Open each image in turn, and find the one that is MOST CLOSELY identical to the gray card in exposure for your set up. Make sure to perform absolutely no adjustments to the images, as we are looking for the most closely identical image. Take note of the settings used for this shot. Step 9, this is your EI for that type of scene with that ISO selected. For example if –1/3 stop produced the best rendition for ISO100, then your EI would be 125 or EI125. You will effectively be rating your ISO100 shots at 125, and removing 1/3 stop on all your shots in those conditions. To accomplish this, when shooting at ISO100 simply remove 1/3 stop exposure, either by increasing your shutter speed 1/3 stop or closing down your aperture 1/3 stop.

Rating your sensor or speed before shooting can save a lot of time editing and the heartbreak of a shot that doesn’t live up to your expectations. It’s not perfect, and varies based up taste, style, and personal preference, but it will bring you closer to achieving your vision. It’s definitely something to try in conjunction with this week’s exercise on contrast and contrast control. Combine it with M+ and M- exposure placement for even better results. By exposing properly, you can keep your contrast in the desired range, and make it easier to achieve your vision in your final processing stage.

For those interested in more information about film speed, Wikipedia has a great article. It includes formulae and details about how box speed and nominal are attained.

I’m looking forward to seeing your results and hearing from you. Let me know what you think and how you’re using your camera! Share your thoughts here or at the Hohenfels Volks Facebook page. Of course, commenting on both Facebook and here is always appreciated, too! Don't forget, we're on Google+, too!

Tech Talk- Print Resolution

Greetings and welcome to Hohenfels Volks, THE place for our place. Hohenfels was greeted with clear skies, which soon disappeared, as usual. However, Thursday brings us a new post, one that will get you thinking and warm things up.

Today we’re going to talk about printing and preparing your image for printing. It’s a technical issue, but we’re going to concentrate on the simplest way to get your images print shop perfect, or ready for web display. Break out your files and let’s get kicking.

First things, being by their nature, first; we’re going to assume that even though you know math, you don’t like to do too much when working on your pics. Of course, I’m basing that on a notion I pulled out of thin air, so forgive me if I’m wrong. You’re going to have to do some math, but we’ll keep it simple here.

The first question we need to address is how are we presenting our images.

For web based viewing, simple jpegs for your blog or Facebook, an image 800 on the long side should be sufficient. That’s going to take up a little less than half of a monitor running 1920x1080 in landscape mode, and or a little over ¾ when the image in portrait mode. Of course, monitors with smaller resolutions will be filled to a greater extent, based on their resolution. 72 dpi for web presentation or e-mail is sufficient and will allow most monitors or browsers to present the image as desired. Using greater dimensions or a greater than 72 dpi resolutions creates larger files and slower downloads, so if you do desire larger, keep that in mind. If you try to print an 800x600 image at 72 dpi, you can get a print size of 11.11x8.33 inches. For reasons you’ll soon see, that’s unacceptable. For e-mail, generally follow the same guidelines, unless you are e-mailing it for printing.

For print presentation, things get a little trickier. Time to get your calculator out; we’re going to do some simple math. Print resolution will generally be determined by size and viewing distance, which is a function of size. First, let’s say this now- billboard images look good at 5-10 dpi, mostly because we’re so far away and can’t make out the dots. If you want a great print that you can view from a foot away, you need 300 dpi. Let’s assume that the normal person puts an 8x10 on his wall, he probably doesn’t view it from more than 2 feet away. To get a good print at 8x10, with a viewing distance of 2 feet 180 dpi is more than adequate, with 150 dpi being acceptable to most people with normal vision. Here’s the math. To get the right file resolution, multiply the desired dpi by the desired length of that side. Then do the same for the other side. So 8x10 at 180 dpi gives us 1440 by 1800 at 180 dpi in your software.

Now, here’s another catch. When viewing in an album, whether your image is 4x6 or 8x10, print at 300 dpi, as the viewing distance will likely be about 1 foot, and not much more than 2 feet. That way the folks who move in closer than that won’t see the dots formed by the printer’s ink spray.

Another guideline is the viewing distance should be 1.5 to 2 times the diagonal of the print. For a 20x30 inch print, with a viewing distance of 54 inches 64 dpi is sufficient, although 100 is better. That allows for wiggle room. I’ve had prints made 20x30, printed at 103 dpi, and viewed them at 1-2 feet and been amazed by what a good printer can do. I use Mpix or MpixPro, others like Nations Photo Lab or Shutterfly.

For those who are interested, here is a good link to a print calculator that will help you in determining what size and resolution to go with. It's also a decent resource for more information about print resolution. B&H has a great chart by camera megapixels and print size that should be a good guideline, and save you having to enter numbers!

After you do your sizing, then apply sharpening. That way the sharpening is appropriate for your print. Next time in Tech Talk we’ll look at sharpening and how to apply it, and what those terms used when referring to sharpening mean.

Let’s hope we get everyone voting and taking their pics for this week’s theme, Knock Knock.

Enjoy the rest of your evening, and remember to cast your vote for next week’s theme. Don’t forget to get your pics posted at the Hohenfels Volks Facebook page. Of course, commenting on both Facebook and here is always appreciated, too!

Tech Talking

Greetings, Hohenfels, welcome to Hohenfels Volks, THE place for our place. Here’s hoping your week is off to a good start and Tuesday didn’t turn in to Monday part 2.

Today we’re going to introduce the concept of “Dynamic Range.” If you remember our introduction to the Zone System, there are 11 zones, 0-10. Ansel Adams considered this the full range, zones 1-9 were the dynamic range, and 2-8 the textural range. Zone 2 is the lowest value that retains discernable texture, and zone 8 is the highest value retaining usable texture, and in both cases the values where detail is preserved and recorded.

When we speak of dynamic range today, this still in some ways holds true. Metering from a gray card, it’s how many stops of exposure above and below middle gray that are usable. For instance, the EOS 7D has about 8 stops. Its range consists of 5 stops below gray before clipping to black or solid noise, and about 3 stops above middle before blowing to white. This means it runs from about zone 1 to zone 8, maybe a little higher. Each camera’s range is different; so don’t use one camera’s range to guess another’s. "Dynamic Range" determines the amount of contrast an image can have and how sharply that gets applied. It also can effect how you change the sides on your exposure triangle, based on your intention.

When you know your camera’s range, you can adjust your exposures appropriately. If you wish to increase middle gray, zone 5, to zone 6, you have to know your limits before the higher zones blow out. Taking 5 to 6 brings zone 7 to 8, and anything starting at or above 8 will be blown to solid, textureless white.

A camera’s range often times is limited by the size of the photocells or photosites. These are the individual receptors on the camera sensor. A larger frame sensor will usually have larger photocells, allowing more light to be received and detail retained. There are millions per most of today’s sensors.

Another way to expand your “Dynamic Range” is to always shoot RAW, as your camera records more information. You can add up to a stop and a half shooting RAW. Shooting automatically and in JPEG mode can cost you that latitude in your exposure. Keep that in mind when shooting in very bright or low light conditions.

Well, that about wraps up our discussion. Try to keep that in mind when you’re out capturing the beauty of Hohenfels, our area, and your holidays. The results will amaze you.

On to other things, I’d like to remind all of you to get your votes in and get working on your photos for this week’s theme, “Morning Moments.” I can’t wait to see what you amaze me with!

Shoot for the love, of photography, your subjects, and your art, it really will show! Get shooting and start posting at the Hohenfels Volks Facebook page. Of course, commenting here is always welcome, too!