My 4- week and 8-week on-Line courses began again in two days, on September 3.
Do you want to make money in photography? Want to feel more confident in exposure? Learn how to expose correctly when you shoot into the sun like the photo below. Interested in learning more about Photoshop (like putting fireworks in the sky or removing lens flare). Are you insecure about your compositional skills?
I teach several 8-week and 4-week courses on-line for Betterphoto.com
The way the courses work is this. Every Wednesday, you receive a lesson that consists of text and photos, explaining various principles in either photography or digitral manipulation. At the end of each lesson there is an assignment, and you have plenty of time to take pictures and upload them for my critique. You can use photos you did specifically for the assignment or images that you have taken previously.
On-line photo courses are like virtual classrooms but not in real time. Other students can see your pictures, read my critiques, and comment on your work. Similarly, you can comment on the pictures of other students.
One of the wonderful things about these on-line courses is that students participate from all over the world. In a single lesson's uploads, you may see pictures from Bryce Canyon or Brazil, or from Singapore or South Carolina. It's a very simulating environment as well as a learning experience, and it will help you become the photographer or digital artist that you want to be.
On the Betterphoto.com website, you can read the lesson outline of each course and see sample photos. In addition to going to Betterphoto.com, you can also access the courses I teach drectly by going to my website, jimzuckerman.com, and clicking on the link 'Courses'. at the top of the home page.
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HELICON FOCUS
This revolutionizes depth of field
Helicon Focus is a software program that allows you to have complete depth of field at any lens aperture! It will only work with subjects that are not moving and it requires a tripod, but aside from those minimum requirements this is a program that will have a dramatic impact on your macro work as well as landscape and architecture pictures taken with a telephoto lens.
I would like you to compare the two photos below.
 
The piranha was dried and mounted, and both shots were taken at f/22. The picture on the left shows good depth of field on the head, but the tail is soft because the lens (70mm) was placed just a couple of inches from the teeth. Even with a small lens aperture I couldn't hold detail on the tail. The photo on the right was done at the same lens opening but everything is tack sharp.
 
Now compare the two photos of a confederate cemetery in Tennessee (from the battle of Franklin, 1864). Both images were taken at f/8. Look closely and you can see that the one on the left shows the foreground marker to be soft, while the picture on the right has complete depth of field even though this was taken with a 200mm telephoto.
To get this kind of outrageous depth of field, I used a program called Helicon Focus. It works on a brilliant concept: You take several shots as you focus all through the scene, starting from the back, and then the program puts them together using only the sharpest part of each frame. In other words, you take 'slices', re-focusing in slight increments, shooting, and then shooting again and again until you've covered the entire image from back to front -- or you can choose as much of the area to be sharp as you want. There is no limit to the number of frames you can take. The more you shoot, the more accurate will be result. As you take images in the foreground for the final composite, you'll want to take more shots because the focus changes so quickly.
The giant katydid at right was placed on the thistle and I specifically left the distant foliage out of focus. I starting shooting
 from the back leg of the insect and ended
in the immediate foreground so the entire length of the insect and the complete roundness of the flower were tack sharp. This was also taken at f/8. With only one shot, this kind of depth of field would have been impossible. The distance from the front of the flower to the back of the katydid was about 5 inches. Since f/8 is usually considered the sharpest lens aperture to use, this is another advantage of using this software. You won't have the soft edges and chromatic aberration associated with very small lens apertures.
Another example of this kind of selective
focus on the background can be seen in the photo of the weevil below. I could have held the background in focus but
chose instead to start shooting with that
back leg on the right and I kept exposing frames until I focused on the bark at the bottom edge of the frame.
Yet another insect example is the amazing rhinoceros beetle below. By keeping the background soft, all the attention remains focused on the insect.
No matter how deep the subject is, or no matter how close you focus, you can use this technique with any subject assuming that it is perfectly motionless (these insects were dead) and your camera is on a sturdy tripod. I use the self-timer on my camera and the mirror-lockup feature to make these exposures to insure that all of them are as sharp as possible.
In the orchid photo, notice how the entire flower is sharp, even the protruding portion in the front. This is normally an impossible thing to do even with f/32. When you move in very close, the depth of field gets extremely shallow. I used f/8 for this picture. This was originally photographed against black, and I placed the out of focus foliage in the background with Photoshop.
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Self Critique
The frog and reptile workshop I conducted in St. Louis was a great success. The eight participants took phenomenal pictures, and they were amazed by the tremendous variety of creatures we had to photograph. The geckos below were among the intriguing subjects. I like this picture very much, and because many geckos are nocturnal the dark background works. If there were one thing I could change, though, I would have the bottom gecko move its head more toward the camera.
One of the things that I taught at the workshop was how to use a ring flash or a light source with two small flash units on either side of the lens. This allows complete illumination (unless the background was too far away, like it was behind the geckos) all around the animals, including their bellies. You can see in this picture how the lighting illuminated even the underside of the animals, thus preventing unwanted or harsh shadows. A normal on-camera flash like an SB-800 or a 580EX would place the light too high over the small subjects. I explained how to get as much depth of field as possible with f/32 (we couldn't use Helicon Focus because the animals wouldn't stay still for the time needed to make several exposures in an identical position). I like the depth of field I got in this picture because all parts of the animals are sharp.
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HEART OF EUROPE PHOTO TOUR 2008 WAS A LOT OF FUN AND WE HAD GREAT OPPORTUNITIES FOR PHOTOGRAPHY
We had a wonderful group of 10 people on the Europe photo tour at the end of July, and we all got amazing images. From cows to cathedrals and from twilight photography of beautiful villages to a medieval festival in a Luxembourg castle, we had a tremendous diversity of subject matter. See some of the photos below to get an idea of what we enjoyed shooting.
Before the next newsletter is sent to you, two new photo tours will be uploaded on my website: Portugal and Poland. Each will be 10 days, and each itinerary will be awesome. They are being planned now.
Rheinstein Castle and Rhine River, Germany. This is my second
favorite shot from the trip.
This is my favorite photograph from the trip -- a cow with a sense of humor! Swiss Alps above Wengen.
Colmar, France. This is a dusk shot, and I added the sky.
Matterhorn, Switzerland
Colmar, France
Lindau Island, Germany
Lindau Island, Germany
Medieval festival, Vianden Castle, Luxembourg
UPCOMING PHOTO TOURS
Photo Tour to Turkey, Oct. 9 to 21, 2009. Turkey is a fantastic destination to a country that loves Americans and every person you'll meet will be friendly and welcoming. You will photograph the history from several great civilizations, and at the same time learn a tremendous amount from our wonderful local guide. And -- you'll have the best view in the city of the Blue Mosque right from your hotel room!
Blue Mosque from our hotel rooms, Istanbul, India
Photo Tour to India, March 1 to 14, 2009. India has photo opportunities around every corner -- literally. This tour focuses on Rajasthan, famous for it's outrageous color, spectacular architecture, and remarkable faces. In India especially, I arrange to photograph models in exotic locations, and your images are guaranteed to be among the best you've ever taken. Send me a note (photos@jimzuckerman.com) if you are interested in this tour.
Models at the tombs of the concubines, Jaiselmer, Rajasthan, India
See my website for more photo tours: jimzuckerman.com
Another Frog workshop has been scheduled. Because of the success of the poison dart frog and reptile workshop last month, I will be doing another one in January. The location will be the same -- St. Louis, Missouri --and the date will be January 10, 11. If you would like to participate, contact me at photos@jimzuckerman.com. The price is $895 and includes more than 50 species of animals. The airfare and hotel are not included. You can see more pictures of frogs and reptiles at jimzuckermanworkshops.com.
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PHOTOSHOP WORKSHOP IN MY HOME
I recently finished the lower level of my home to be, in part, a place where I can conduct photo workshops. I have been asked by many students over the course of several years if I ever offered something like this, and up to now I haven't. Students have asked me to give these personal workshops on a variety of subjects, and I thought for the first one I would introduce Photoshop to those of you who are insecure about your knowledge base of the program and for people who have not started learning it yet. Photoshop is a photographer's best friend, and it can totally transform your ability to produce stunning, fine art imagery. If you want to make money with your pictures now or in the future, Photoshop is absolutely essential today.
On Feb 7, 8, 2009 I will be conducting this first workshop in my home. The fee of $450 will include two lunches and one wonderful dinner provided by my wife (who is an amazing cook), and I will give you a list of nearby hotels where you can stay. I will shuttle you back and forth to my home.
In the workshop, I will begin with the tools palette and explain how these tools can be used to make incredibly creative images. I will then go into layers and layer masks, selections, replacing the sky, adding lighting effects, an impressive list of awesome plug-ins, the relationship between the cloning tool and the healing brush, and much more. Photoshop isn't hard -- it's just that there is a lot to remember. By doing each of the techniques I discuss, you will be able to remember the steps and then this wonderful knowledge will be incorporated into your work flow. I will also discuss how to process RAW images.
You will need to bring your own laptop computer, and this will make it easier for you to concentrate on the techniques rather than fiddling with someone else's computer. I will demonstrate more creative ideas in these two days than you can imagine.
If you are interested, contact me at photos@jimzuckerman.com. The airport that you will fly into is Nashville, Tennessee.
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