ON-LINE PHOTO INSTRUCTION-- with detailed critiques of your work
My new 4-week courses begin again at Betterphoto.com on Wednesday, August 8, 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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HOW TO PHOTOGRAPH LIGHTNING  Lightning is one of the most dynamic natural events on earth, and it beckons photographers to freeze the captivating and intense electrical discharges. Yet, it's elusive and challenging to photograph because it happens so fast. Each bolt of lightning lasts about one to two microseconds, and when there are multiple bolts the delay between these is only around 50 microseconds. When lightning seems to last longer than this, it is the latent image on the retina of your eye that makes it seem relatively easy to capture. This is the same phenomenon that allows us to watch a movie projected at 24 frames per second. The image on the screen seems continuous without any flickering at all.
There are two ways to photograph lightning that insure consistently good results. First, you can shoot it at night, and second, you can use a lightning trigger to photograph it either during the day or at night.
Capturing lightning at night
The least expensive way to photograph lightning is at night. You don't need to purchase additional equipment, and what you already have - a camera body, a medium telephoto or even a 50mm normal lens, and a tripod - will enable you to take great pictures of individual or multiple bolts. Lightning at night is especially beautiful because of the dramatic contrast with the dark sky.
The focal length
The first decision you have to make when photographing lightning is which focal length to use. During an electrical storm, the lightning usually appears in a particular section of the sky. However, that area can be quite large. If you use a wide angle, such as a 24mm lens, you will encompass a huge portion of the sky and therefore you will capture most of the lightning for sure. The problem, though, is that the bolts will be very small. They will seem insignificant in the frame and that's not really what you want.
On the other hand, if you use a telephoto lens in the 200mm to 300mm range with the idea that filling the frame with the bolts is best because that will create maximum impact, you will get a dramatic picture if you happen to choose that portion of the sky where the electrical discharge takes place. The angle of view, though, is fairly narrow and it is very easy to miss the strike altogether or to cut off a large part of it. With a long lens, you could end up with no lightning pictures at all simply because you pointed the camera at the wrong place.
When I shoot lightning, the compromise focal length I usually use is between 135mm and 170mm. If the lightning is close and the bolts appear large in the sky, I will use the 135mm setting. If the storm is further away and the bolts are smaller, I use a longer focal length. Sometimes I'll zoom out to 200mm, but it's always a gamble to do so.
The image below was taken at 165mm. This is not a digital composite. It was taken from the balcony of my room at a B & B in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico during a thunderstorm.
The issue of focus
The next step is determining the point of critical focus. It's impossible to focus on a lightning bolt, so the next best thing you can do is focus on a distant object such as a street lamp, the moon, a distant tree silhouette, or a mountain ridge if you can see one.
Take the camera off autofocus - this is very important - and focus the old fashioned way, manually. There probably won't be enough light for the autofocus mechanism to work with dependability. All lenses focus to infinity, and this is the point you want when shooting lightning. However, the reason you shouldn't manually turn the focusing ring on the lens barrel all the way to the stopping point is because most lenses have a little 'slop' that allows them to go slightly past the infinity mark on the lens. It allows for variances that might exist in the camera's AF system or that might be introduced during manufacture. For critical focus purposes, you want to manually focus the lens.
Exposure
The exposure meter in your camera isn't capable of giving you an accurate reading on lightning. So, here are the settings I use:
If the bolts are very bright and therefore close to me, I use ISO 200 at f/11. If the bolts are further away and they are less brilliant, I use 200 ISO at f/8. Depth of field is obviously not relevant at all.
For the shutter speed, I use 30 seconds. I open the shutter, wait for one or more lightning strikes, and then the shutter closes in a half minute. If no electrical activity occurs, I simply open the shutter again for another 30 seconds, and I repeat this over and over until the storm is spent. During this long exposure time I hope to capture multiple strikes.
 The pictures must be taken from a tripod, of course, and I highly recommend turning the image stabilization feature (if your lens has this) off. Most IS or VR lenses will not produce sharp pictures when they are used on a tripod and this feature is switched to the 'on' position.
White balance
I always shoot lightning with a daylight white balance setting, and it usually photographs with a purple cast. You can use auto white balance or even a tungsten white balance setting if you want to experiment with various color hues, but you can alter the color balance using the temperature slider in Adobe Camera Raw or Lightroom during post-processing. If you want to remove the color altogether, use the Photoshop pull down menu command Image > adjustments > hue/saturation and move the saturation slider to the left.
Lightning triggers
A lightning trigger is a device that fits into the hot shoe of the camera and connects to one of the built-in ports with a cable. It is designed to trip the shutter in your camera when a lightning strike occurs either at night or during the day. Without a lightning trigger, it is extremely difficult to capture lightning during daylight hours because you can't leave the shutter open for a long time like you can at night. Therefore, you have to use a normal daylight exposure and that means the shutter must be relatively fast. The optimum shutter speed range for shooting lightning in the light of day is 1/4 to 1/15th of a second. This enables you to catch multiple bolts. I have tried many, many times to capture lightning in the day without a lightning trigger, and I've never been successful in getting a great shot.
When you use a lightning trigger, turn off any and all of the following: the IS feature (VR on a Nikon), live view, autofocus, mirror lockup, and auto rotate. These features will slow down the lag time of the shutter, and you want the shutter to be able to react as fast as possible to the electronic signal from the trigger to open during lightning strike. Click HERE to review the features of the best lightning trigger available. 
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HUMIDITY AND PHOTOGRAPHY
In hot and humid areas, going from an air conditioned room to the outdoors causes condensation to form on your camera and all of its glass surfaces -- the front and rear glass elements of the lens, the mirror, the viewfinder, the ground glass, and the LCD monitor. This means you can't take pictures for at least 10 or 20 minutes. Even if you have a microfiber cloth and diligently dry the glass surfaces, it won't matter. They will instantly fog up again.
The picture above was taken in Florida last week. I forgot to do what I'm telling you to do. My hotel room at the beach was cold, and the temperature outside was 85 with very high humidity. Instantly my gear was useless. This shot was taken 20 minutes after my equipment was exposed to the humid air. I should have left my backpack on the balcony overnight so it was the same temperature as the outside air.
The picture should have looked like the one below. After a half hour, all my glass surfaces were clear again. The greater the disparity in termperature between the air conditioning and the outdoors, the longer you have to wait for the condensation to evaporate.
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White Balance Choice for Deep Shade
The photo above is a Catholic church on the island of Bali in Indonesia. I photographed it when I led a photo tour to this island nation last summer. It was taken at 6 am, and the sun hadn't risen yet. The lighting was akin to deep shade, and instead of switching the white balance setting to cloudy to eliminate the blue color, I used daylight instead. This insured that I would capture a wonderful mood because I knew I'd get the blue tones, and of course I could see the results on the LCD monitor. I could always change the white balance in either Adobe Camera Raw or Lightroom because I only shoot in RAW mode, but I like what this saturated, blue color did to this scene. I think it makes this shot a lot more captivating that it otherwise would have been.
 I used the same approach in photographing this Alaskan tree stump that was exposed by the retreat of a glacier 4000 years ago. The interstadial stump was taken midday, but the sky was overcast and the ancient tree was in the deep shade giving me the blue tone typical of this kind of soft light in combination with a daylight white balance.
Don't be so fast in using the cloudy white balance setting when shooting in shade. I much prefer daylight because of the moody feeling that a rich blue or cyan color brings to certain images.
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COLLECT VISUAL COMPONENTS
 The composite photo above of the Alcazar in Segovia, Spain is comprised of four pictures -- the cobblestone, the wall of flowers, the castle, and the clouds. When I have a camera in my hands, I am always on the lookout for what I think of as pieces, i.e components that could somehow be used in a future composite. There are so many possibilities, from doors to cloud patterns to chipped paint and silhouettes of tree branches, that even though I probably don't know how I would use some of these pieces at the time I photograph them, an idea may strike me at some point in the future and then I'll be rewarded for taking the time to add new images to my component collection.
If you like to work in Photoshop, keep a folder filled with nothing but components. When you want to express your artistry in putting images together, you'll have a lot to choose from.
In the image below, I combined a photo of the ruins of Petra in Jordan with aquarium fish. I made the background blue to imply it was an underwater lost city, and the watery sky background comes from shooting the sky through the Plexiglas side of a large aquarium at Sea World.
 Sometimes you may not use a component for a year, or maybe you'll never use it. But looking at the various pieces may give you some great ideas to experiment with. It's a lot of fun, and you can produce some remarkable composites.
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| eBOOKS
I'm happy to announce my new ebook on travel photography. It is packed full of a lot of important information you need when you travel as a photographer, and it has dozens of beautiful pictures that support the points I make in the text.
Click HERE to review all of my ebooks and to see the table of contents and 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. In addition, 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 an iPad are illuminated from behind. What a great time it is to be a photographer!
The ebook on composition has been quite successful because so many photographers struggle with this fundamental part of photography (and art). The toughest subject in photography to teach and to learn is composition simply because the world is what I call a compositional mess. It's hard to make artistic and visual sense out of all the elements we must deal with in taking great pictures. I think this ebook will help you sort that out. I give you concrete things you can look for to significantly improve your photographic compositions. The ebook is generously illustrated with lots of pictures that will inspire you to be a better photographer.
I'm proud of my other ebooks, too. I've had tons of wonderful compliments on them regarding the images, the clarity of the instruction, and how much people appreciate learning important creative concepts in the ebook format. 
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PHOTOSHOP WORKSHOP in my
HOME Sat. & Sun., Sept. 8 -9, 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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