Photography Tips from Club Members
Thanks to Teresa Jack, here is a list of links to several websites of parks and interesting sites in Cincinnati.
- http://www.lm.doe.gov/Fernald/Visitors_Center/Visitors_Center.pdf
- http://www.cincinnatiparks.com/
- http://greatparks.org/
- http://www.cincinnatiusa.com/Attractions/detail.asp?AttractionID=83
- http://cincinnatizoo.org/
- http://mlb.mlb.com/cin/ticketing/fireworks_fridays.jsp
- http://www.riverdowns.com
Miscellaneous tips
- Cable releases - made for specific cameras. Make sure the one you get is for the particular camera you have.
- Stitched panos & sky blending (by John Heckler) - Take the final image, lighten up the righthand side with a graduated mask. Duplicate the layer, flip it to screen mode, adjust opacity, and then apply a graduated mask.
- Create PDF files (Nancy Cristolear) - Primo PDF is free and very easy to use.
- Moon photography (Dave Lundy) - the Moony 11 exposure rule. Set aperture to f/11, then the shutter speed for proper exposure SHOULD be 1/ISO. So if you were shooting at ISO 400, 1/400th sec. should give a proper exposure. At ISO 100, you would use 1/100th sec. (Sunny 16 - same 1/ISO at F16 at noon.)
- Wood ducks (Laura James & Teresa Jack) - North Chagrin reservation outside of Cleveland - wood ducks migrate through there in the spring and fall and it is the only place I've seen them that they don't fly away before you can even get them in frame.
- Bob Coyle - uses Portrait Professional software to get skin flawless.
HDR (High dynamic Range)
- Terrry Orf - CS5 does a good job, but Photomatix is still the leader on this area.
- Josh Mayes - Some people also like Nik.
- Laura James - I have tried all three mentioned and have spoken to King Stid. He uses Photomatix and then pulls it into dynamic HDR as single photo. I like both Photomatix and Dynamic. Dynamic HDR is much less expensive and does a great job. I think this is a good place to start.
Fireworks
Daniel Borzynski - F11, ISO 100, prefocus before the fireworks start, with minor tweaks on the first couple of bursts and TURN OFF THE AUTOFOCUS, use bulb setting, holding the shutter open for 1 to 6 seconds.
Scott Kelby's instructions - F11, 4 sec, ISO 200
Tripods and ballhead discussion from Facebook
Really Right Stuff ball head and tripods are spectacular. Gimbal mount - It's a knockoff of a very popular one, and it's fantastic-a bit over a hundred dollars.
Art Fabian - I love my Manfrotto carbon fiber tripod (which is light) and the very flexible ballhead (which is heavy). Of course, the legs splay out so it will go down to ground level...carbon fiber is so smooth you don't need a crank. I chose my tripod based on its folded length in a suitcase, its height when fully extended, its weight, and its stability. Ballhead off when traveling - pack seperately.
Cristina Somerset - Gitzo...they are the best in my opinion - worth the money.
Josh Mayes - Vanguard makes some good relatively lightweight tripod/head combinations for less than $200 and they are in stock at Dodd's in Fairborn if you want to try them out. I recently got one that has a folding center column feature and ball head, with legs that fold out to about 15 degress from the gound (nearly flat), you can get a lot of angles. They also carry a "lifetime warranty".
http://www.vanguardworld.com/index.php/en/pv/products/photo-video/entry-1-4.html
Tim Highley - Try the Manfrotto (probably my choice) and the Really Right Stuff.
Tutorials
Lightroom tutorial to create web gallery
http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/lightroom/articles/lir1am_webgallery.html?PID=2294914#
Lightroom tutorials
http://www.photoshopsupport.com/lightroom/tutorials.html#Adobe_Lightroom_Tips_Tutorials
Lynda.com - PS tutorials ($25 per year)
Photoshop TV - FREE - http://www.photoshoptv.com
Good book - Adobe Photoshop for digital photographers by Scott Kelby
Watermarks
Adobe Photoshop - you will need to design your logo/design on a transparent background layer to start. I recommend creating one with the logo in white, and one with the logo in black (best to create it as vector art first then import into your photo, probably raster-based program). Once you have your logo in black or white on a transparent background, then drop the opacity down to around 30%, so that your photo will show through. So you should end up with two files that can be used to overlay on your photos. Choose the one that looks best, depending if you are placing it on a dark or light area of the photo.
Best advice - I would recommend enlisting a graphic designer's help if you are not experienced with logo design yourself. It will be worth it even if you have to pay a few hundred dollars. One bad photo here or there may not hurt your image as a photographer, but your logo will be on every image and it does affect people's perceptions about the quality of your work.
Enlarging Photos
Dave Lundy - Inkjet photo printers typically require 300 pixels / inch. There is software to significantly enlarge photos while avoiding pixelization. Probably, the best known is Genuine Fractals (now called Perfect Resize) at
http://www.ononesoftware.com/products/suite/perfect-resize/
They have a free trial. I just discovered a free program called SmillaEnlarger at
http://imageenlarger.sourceforge.net/
that's gotten good reviews. Another program I found is PhotoZoom Classic at
http://www.benvista.com/photozoomclassic
which also has a free trial. Exactly how much you can enlarge a photo depends on how much quality you're willing to sacrifice and from what distance you intend to view it.
Printing
Tim Highley - There are printers out there that will do 12x16 well. It just so happens that 12x16 fits on 16x20 boards with 2" border all around. 16x20 comes out of 32x40 mat boards. Which is a standard size.
Art Fabian - most medium size printers handle 13x19 paper (up to 13x44 for Epson). R3000 because of its B&W capabilities and ability to handle 13" roll paper. Google: "printer test image" - very good choices. Scroll over them to find ones that have large files/resolution. Sometimes they are smaller resolutions (say 300 to 500) but they link to a site that links to the full size image (say at least 1700 x 2000) for testing on 8.5 x 11 paper.
Richard Fox - Canon PIXMA Pro9000 Mark II. It will do 13 x 19. I've printed 3 photos at full 13" x 19", and I'm amazed at the quality.
Daniel Borzynski - For printing, White House (whcc) has an excellent reputation at the national level. Do follow their instructions on sending files.
Becky Lewis - I've used WHCC before and was very pleased with their prints and service.
John Heckler - I use WHCC a lot. Once you're calibrated, you should be pleased. They have different icc profiles you can download (depending on which printer/paper) to "soft proof" in Photoshop. In general prints will look darker than what you see on an illuminated screen since the light on a print is reflected, not illuminating.
Monitor calibration
Daniel Borzynski - The xrite i1Display 2 for monitor calibration is a fine product. It is one of the calibration devices I recommend.
John Flynn - I played with that Datacolor Spyder3Express. Worked pretty well, and reasonably priced.