ON-LINE PHOTO INSTRUCTION-- with detailed critiques of your work
My new 4-week and 8-week courses begin again at Betterphoto.com on January 4, 2012.
To improve your compositional skills, for example, click HERE to check out the outline of the Developing Your Creative Artistic Vision course to see if you feel this subject matter is exactly what you need.
I have a new photoshop course called Photoshop: Thinking Outside the Box.
You can click HERE to see the outline of this unique course that will introduce some intriguing techniques that you've probably not tried before -- like 3D, making a sketch, and more. It is very different from my other Photoshop courses, and it's a lot of fun.
Do you want to make money in photography? Want to feel more confident in using natural light outdoors? Interested in learning more about Photoshop (like putting fireworks in the sky or removing lens flare). Are you insecure about your exposure skills?
The way the courses work is this. Every Wednesday you receive a lesson that consists of text and photos, explaining various principles in photography, marketing your work, digital manipulation, or whatever subject you are studying. 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. It is a unique and wonderful learning experience.
One of the great 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 stimulating environment, and it will help you become the photographer or digital artist that you would like to be.
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Are Teleconverters Worth Using? A teleconverter multiplies the focal length of your lens. It is a tube with a lens in it, and it fits between the prime lens and the camera body. Canon's two teleconverters, the 1.4x and the 2x, would multiply a 200mm telephoto lens to 280mm and 400mm, respectively. Some people confuse teleconverters with extension tubes. The latter are hollow tubes that fit between the lens and the body, and they allow you to focus very closely -- closer than the prime lens could do on its own. Because extension tubes are hollow, they don't affect image quality. Teleconverters, on the other hand, have glass in them and that does affect image quality. The purpose of using a teleconverter is to increase the power of a telephoto lens to make distant objects seem closer than they really are. In other words, they multiply the power of the lens to fill the frame more with a distant subject. The question that many photographers ask is, "Are teleconverters sharp?" The reason for this question is that teleconverters have a reputation for being disappointingly unsharp. However, my experience is that the recent optical designs are very impressive, so much so that I don't hesitate to use them when I want extra power out of my telephoto lenses. They decrease the light that enters the lens, but that is the price you must pay for the extra magnification. When using the 1.4x teleconverter, you lose one f/stop; when using the 2x converter, you lose two f/stops. I photographed the white tiger, above, as a test. I had just purchased the Canon 500mm super telephoto as well as the 2x teleconverter and I wanted to see if this combination in particular was sharp. I went to the Nashville, Tennessee zoo and, using a tripod and a Wimberly ball head to make it easy to maneuver the big lens, I specifically chose the tiger as my subject because of the whiskers. I wanted to see how sharp they were with 1000mm of focal length (500mm plus the 2x) compared to using the 500mm lens alone. I was quite impressed. The photo turned out to be quite sharp. Was it as sharp as the picture I got with only the 500mm lens. No, it wasn't, but it was so close that I could easily sell this image for a poster, a magazine cover, or an advertisement. That was good enough for me. The picture you see above is straight out of the camera with no sharpening and no cropping. Similarly, the crowned crane at the top of this newsletter was taken with a 500mm lens plus the 2x teleconverter. This was taken from a land rover in Kenya, and I used a bean bag to steady the 1000mm of focal length. Again, the sharpness is impressive. 
Small birds require long lenses to fill the frame -- or much of the frame -- and this is where teleconverters are especially important. It seems that no matter how long your longest telephoto lens is, you always need it to be longer. I photographed the green honey creeper, above, in Costa Rica, and again you can see the impressive sharpness with the 500mm and 2x teleconverter combination. To capture the crimson bee eater from Ethiopia, below, I borrowed my guide's 600mm Canon lens and used a 1.4x teleconverter for 840mm. (I didn't have the 2x with me since I went on this trip primarily to shoot people. I should know by now that you should bring everything with you on a trip ... just in case.) There is virtually no difference in sharpness when the 1.4x converter is used with a long lens compared to using that lens alone. It's that good. 
Can you stack the 1.4x and the 2x teleconverters? Yes, you can. There is a slight amount of image degradation, but it's pretty impressive to photograph something like the moon with a 500mm and the 1.4x plus the 2x teleconveters. The combined focal length is 1400mm! I used the 10 second self-timer on the camera and the mirror lockup feature to minimize vibration, but to be honest it would have been better to have two tripods, not just one. The magnification was so great that any amount of movement degraded the image quality. Nevertheless, you can see that the image below is quite sharp. This is not cropped -- it's straight out of the camera with no sharpening. 
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NIGHT EXPOSURES
Is it possible to use a light meter -- hand held or built into your camera -- and expose correctly for the illuminated bridge, below, that I photographed in Riga, Latvia? Can you take a light reading and, without looking at the results, know it is accurate?
The answer is no, you can't. There is no middle tone in the image from which a meter can take accurate information. The deep blue color under the bridge is close, but it was shimmering in the night as the river flowed and I didn't trust it to give me an accurate light reading..
How, then, did I arrive at a good exposure on the bridge? I set my camera to Program mode, took a test shot, and evaluated the exposure on the LCD monitor. I then used the exposure compensation feature and adjusted the reading in 1/3 f/stop increments until I was satisfied.
I also could have used manual mode and done the same thing, but it would have taken a little longer.
When faced with contrasty night scenes, meters don't work. Therefore, you have use trial and error. In the past when we all shot film, photographers would use a Polaroid test print to evaluate exposure in tough situations. Now we have the LCD monitor on the back of our cameras that does the same thing, but it is quicker and without expense, and in this night scene it proved invaluable.
Also in Riga, I photographed this beautiful architecture. In this case, the in-camera meter would do an excellent job at assessing the light and the exposure. You might need to make a small adjustment, either lighter or darker (based on examining the image on the LCD screen), using the exposure compensation feature, but with Program, shutter priority, or aperture priority the meter would be very close to correct. In this case I used aperture priority because I wanted to choose a small enough f/stop to insure that both the lamppost on the right and the facade of the buildings were both sharp. I choose f/11 for this shot and the exposure time was 4 seconds.
Don't do night or twilight photography without a tripod. Raising the ISO high to deal with the low light conditions isn't the answer because you introduce too much digital noise.
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DISTRACTING BACKGROUNDS
Backgrounds are often underrated. In my opinion, they are virtually as important as the subject because a background can make or break a picture. If a background takes attention away from the subject, it is distracting and hurts the image.
It takes only a brief moment to notice what's going on behind a subject. Make a habit of doing this every time you take a picture, and your work will take a quantum leap forward and you'll appreciate the difference in the improvement in your photography.
There are three major things to watch out for with respect to distracting backgrounds:
1. Unwanted highlights, especially if they are lighter than the subject. The light sky seen through the foliage in the photo below of a Balinese starling, below, diverts our eyes from the bird. That's not good.
2. Bold, graphic lines behind a subject that are not part of the subject are almost always distracting. For example, the two vertical tree trunks behind the Amazonian Indian are visually annoying. They keep drawing our attention away from the subject.
3. Messy backgrounds with too many elements look busy, unattractive, and confusing, and they also divert attention away from a subject or subjects. The photo of the two little boys in China has usually made people smile, and it is indeed a cute picture, but artistically the background is basically a disaster. We could chalk this off to honest photojournalism -- street photography -- but the truth is that all that stuff in the background is pretty bad.
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| Self-critique
Photographers expend a lot of time and money to take sharp pictures. Sometimes, however, it is a refreshing change as well as a creative approach to capture an impression of a subject rather than a literal rendition of it.
The picture below was taken from a moving taxi in Varanasi, India. There was so much going on in the street and it was a remarkable sight, but at the same time it was tough to capture. I thought a long shutter speed would convey the impression of what it was like to be there, so I experimented with various speeds. Due to the density of pedestrians,
vehicles, animals, and vendors, the taxi was only going about 15 miles an hour so I had a little bit of time to make sensible compositions. I shot the picture you see here at 1/15th of a second, and I like it a lot. The image is abstracted enough to look impressionistic, like a painting, but it's not too abstract to lose definition in the subjects. That was important. I didn't want a complete blur of color (which I would have gotten had I used a shutter speed of 1/4 second or slower), so I was very happy with what I captured. I could assess the degree of abstraction simply by examining the LCD monitor on the back of the camera and then tweak the shutter speed to suit my taste. Shutter priority was my exposure mode so I could adjust the speed according to what I saw on the monitor.
I used daylight white balance which is why the image has a golden cast. I find that very attractive. Obviously I hand held the camera as I took the pictures of the passing scenes through the open window.
Not all images came out well, of course. This is a trial and error technique. It's impossible to thoughtfully compose a scene like this, so I didn't expect a high ratio of keepers. In this particular image, I like the sense of balance, the graphic design, and the mix of people, store fronts, and rickshaws. Note also that there is a small amount of concrete at the bottom of the frame. I like that there is very little street in the foreground. It's not an interesting or artistic element, so I keep concrete and asphalt (as well as dirt and gravel) at a minimum when possible.
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| eBOOKS
Click HERE to read about the contents and to see sample pages.
eBooks are great because they are much less expensive than conventional books, and you can carry them with you on an iPad, iPhone, or laptop. And trees don't have to be cut down to make the paper for the books. The colors in the images are dazzling, too -- much more so than in a conventional print book because the photographs seen on a computer or iPad are illuminated from behind. What a great time it is to be a photographer!
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PHOTOSHOP WORKSHOP in my
HOME Sat. & Sun., May 19, 20, 2012.
Photoshop is a photographer's best friend, and the creative possibilities are absolutely endless. In a personal and 'homey' environment (I have a very cool classroom setup in my home), I start at the beginning -- assuming you know nothing -- but I quickly get into layers, cutting and pasting, plug-ins, using 'grunge' textures, modifying lighting, and a lot more. I promise to fill your head with so many cool techniques that you won't believe what you'll be able to do.
Photoshop instructors approach teaching this program from different points of view. My approach is to be as expansive in my thinking as possible in creating unique, artistic, and compelling images. In addition to showing you how to use the various tools, pull down menus, layers, and so on, I spend a lot of time giving you creative ideas that will inspire you to produce amazing images with the pictures you've already taken.
A lot of people, once they learn what the tools and commands do, still need help in deciding what images to work with, what composites look good, and how to be artistic within Photoshop. This is one of the main things I address in this workshop.
I live in the Nashville, Tennessee area, and if you fly into the airport (BNA) I will pick you up. If you drive, I'll give you my address and you can find it on Mapquest. For the $450 fee, I include one dinner in my home (prepared by my wife who is an amazing cook and hostess) and two lunches, plus shuttling you back and forth from my home to your nearby hotel.
Contact me if you would like to participate in the workshop and I will tell you how to sign up (photos@jimzuckerman.com).
I will do my best to inspire you with all the great things Photoshop can do. All you need is a laptop. If you don't have one, I have two laptops (they are Macs) I can loan out.
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