A few days ago, my new friend Sarah posted in one of our local photography group forums a question about Mac screens.  Her concern was regarding the quality of printed images that you get when using a glossy screen vs. Apple’s “upgrade” to a matte screen.  The question was curious to me, as I’d never heard someone make the correlation from screen type to print quality.  In discussing it with her further, I found the source of this concern.  Keep reading and I’ll share how Sarah came to this concern and the truth about glossy vs. matte.

So, in discussing this with Sarah further she pointed me to a photography blog that I’ve never heard of before.  To be honest, there are only a few content related photography blogs that I read on a regular basis (in hopes that my content will be different and fresh).  The blog was called Momtog.com.  Cute name aside, the owner’s idea was to create a resource specifically for mom’s with cameras.  A great idea if you ask me.  I haven’t read through much of the blog, but most of the post I saw seemed to have relevant content and suggestions I would make as well.  That is to say with the exception of THIS article regarding glossy vs. matte screens.

For an interesting, and mostly fact depleted article, please read her entire post.  As a synopses, the writer basically says that glossy screens preset color less accurately than matte screens.  She says the blacks are blacker and the color content is generally more rich or saturated when displayed on a glossy screen rather than displayed on a matte screen.  As a result, if you edit your images on a glossy screen then your prints will have poor color.  But, lets think about this for a moment.

The “upgrade” that Apple offers is basically a sticker that they install on your monitor to cancel out the glare that glossy screens can present in some environments.  The writer’s primis is that this sticker somehow changes the saturation of the color presented on the monitor, restores a lower black point, and general increases the quality of the monitor.  While there are a number of technical reasons why this isn’t entirely possible, I’ll just look at it more logically.  Mac’s are typically used by designers, artist, photographers, etc.  As such, why would Apple create a product that wouldn’t naturally provide their core customer base with an accurate usable screen out of the box?  The answer is, they wouldn’t.  Over the years I’ve used both 2 matte screen Macs and 2 glossy screen Macs.  I’ve never had an issue editing or printing on any of them.  Why is that?

The reason I’ve never had any trouble is because my display being either matte or glossy has nothing to do with how the the image is displayed on the screen.  Glossy vs. matte is just determined by the type of glass (or sticker) that they put in front of the LCD.  What really controls the “look” of the image is the monitor’s color profile.  I wrote a pretty detailed article explaining color profiles last year if you’d like to read about them more in depth.  The short answer is the color profile is what tells the LCD how black, saturated, what tones, and other variations in color to display.  The color profile is basically the LCD’s road map.  The color profile is created using a color calibrating tool like THIS or THIS.  It creates a color profile based on the brightness setting of your monitor when calibrated.  If you move the monitor to another environment where you have to increase or decrease the monitor brightness to see the screen better, then it will change how the calibrator would set the profile for the monitor.  In all likelihood a bright location isn’t the best place to edit anyway.  All that said, using a color calibrator is the ONLY way to make sure that a monitor is properly calibrated regardless if the display is glossy or matte.  Typically you need to calibrate every 2 weeks to one month to make sure there hasn’t been any color shift in the display.

So, now your screen looks nice and the color is presented properly.  What about printing?  Well, printers need the same type of road map as the monitor.  It tells the printer what colors to use in order to make your photos look like they do on the screen.  The specific inks and papers used in a printer can change how all those colors look.  Some papers are whiter than others, and some even have metallic bases.  To make sure that you image is printed correctly, you need to use the proper printer/paper color profile when you save that image.  Those profiles are created using similar calibrators to what is used on the screen, but they use reflected light and are a lot more expensive than the monitor calibrators listed above.  The nice thing is most online printers make their profiles available for download for free.  They usually just list them by the type of paper you order (glossy, matte, metallic, lustra, silk, etc.), but they are built specifically for that paper and the printer that company uses with that paper.  When saving your image, just apply the proper print profile to the image before you upload it.  If you ordered the same image on different paper, then you would need to save a second version of that image using the printer/paper profile for that paper.  If you print on your own printer, the manufacture should have profiles available for download and information on what papers are designed for those profiles.

None of that I’m saying is to discount the personal preference aspect of using a glossy or matte screen.  The link I posted earlier to Terry White’s blog is a great example.  People have their preferences, and there is nothing wrong with that.  As the image at the top shows, when the screen is off there can be a pretty massive glare.  When it’s on I don’t have much issue with it.  My photo editing monitor is in a low lit room in my home office to create the best editing environment possible.  So if you like the matte finish I’m not telling you not to get it.  If you like the glossy finish, that is OK too.  It’s totally personal preference on which you want to use, but know that you can use either successfully.

I hope this helps everyone understand the issues here.  I’ll say before I close that I have no personal issue with the Momtog owner or her content.  More power to her and her continued success.  I posted a comment on her blog hoping to explain this to her readers, but as of yet it’s not been approved (hopefully not due to me being a dad and not a mom).  I do find it interesting at the end of her article she mostly invalidates her point by saying that some people have no issues with this and some do.  Of course she also closes by saying if you have continued problems then you probably need to calibrate your monitor.  :)  I say EVERYONE calibrate, and calibrate often.  Properly managing your color process will allow you to view your images correctly and make fantastic prints regardless of your monitor type.

HDR, or High Dynamic Range, photography has been all the rage the last few years.  With the advent of digital photos and post processing software, this has become very easy to create these images.  There are a number of purpose built applications that do nothing but HDR, and do it very well.  LightCompressor falls into what I would call the “Entry Level” HDR apps.  It was develpoed by Tai Shimizu.  He is also the creator of one of my favorite iPad Apps, FilterStorm.  Keep reading and we’ll take a closer look at his newest work.

First of all, you can’t beat the price.  At $0.99 in the Mac App store, there is no reason everyone with a Mac shouldn’t own this program.  It is super simple to use.  You can tell the developer has worked a lot in iOS development.  The app has a very iOS look and feel.  This is nice because of it’s minimalist layout, but I don’t care for the fixed window size.  I’d like to be able to make it larger or zoom in on the image.

The app is strictly designed to combine the exposure of different images for you and to adjust the tone mapping & curve settings for the final output.  Once adjusted to taste, you can export the final image as a TIFF.  There are not options for other file types.  To add images to the app you can either click the Load button and select all your images in a Finder window, or you can just drag the images into the development window. Simple as that.

Final HDR image processed with LightCompressor. Created with 7 exposures taken with 2/3 stop bracketing..

Working with the Curves section or the tone mapping options is easy.  Learning how to make your image look the way you want can take a lot of tinkering however.  Not sure I would use this application for any professional work, but it was fun to tinker with.

On another note, the main screen of the app when first loaded says “Drag in Aligned Images”.  It’s important that your images already be aligned before you load them.  That means you need to use a tripod when shooting or align them in post before import to LightCompressor.  For my example image, I just used the bracketing feature on my camera and shot at a very high shutter speed.  Even that was too slow for it to be really sharp.  It looks OK in the web sized images, but not so nice when zoomed in.  A tripod is a must.  Some of the more advanced HDR apps will do this alignment for you, so just be aware LightCompressor does not.  The other option is to just play with the Tone Map function on just a single image to see what kind of latitude you can pull from a RAW file (which the application does support).

Over all it was a fun app to play with.  It’s very basic and easy to use.  I had to play with some images more than others to get the photos to look just the way I wanted them.  So like I said before, be prepared to tinker.  While I would enjoy some added feature set, it’s hard to complain for $0.99.  If Tai holds true to form with LightCompressor as he did with FilterStorm, I’d expect major functionality updates to be released down the road.  I’d recommend you grab it while it’s cheap and give it a go.  You can download LightCompressor here.

For reference, the 7 individual images used to create the HDR photo above.

Remember that Apple’s App Store for Mac went live today. As the name implies, it’s THE place to by applications for your Apple computer.  Just like the iOS App Store, it’s super easy to use.

Just click the App Store icon in your Dock to access the fun.  If you don’t have the icon in your dock yet, then click Apple Icon>Software Update to download & install it.

Once installed, you’ll find fantastic photography applications like CameraBag Desktop and Light Compressor (a fun little HDR app from the same dude that make the iPad app Filterstorm).  Side-note: Light Compressor is on sale today for $0.99.

As forewarning, this post isn’t about cameras.  This post is about how to get paid for what you do with your camera.  Specifically, how to take credit card payments.  For those not aware, accepting credit card payments through traditional methods hasn’t been super hard but it wasn’t super friendly either.  Businesses would typically sign up for a merchant account with a company that processes credit card payments for various credit companies. The usual arrangement is you pay a monthly fee to process payments, either buy or rent the equipment/terminal to run the payments, then you pay the credit card companies a base rate plus a certain percentage of each sale.  When I was running my own videography business I wasn’t doing the kind of turnaround required to warrant a merchant account.  I was booking about 15-20 gigs a year and it didn’t seem worth it to me to carry that monthly overhead. It seems like a lot of cost in my opinion to offer an extra service for my customers. As a last resort I accepted payment via PayPal, but that just never seemed as professional as I wanted it to.

The founders of Square had the same issue.  As their website outlines, they were struggling artist who wanted to be able to accept payments from a larger audience.  And like it or not, most of our world runs on plastic now.  So Square started with a simple principle. Let anyone with a smartphone accept credit card payments without all the overhead and hassle of creating a merchant account.  In my mind, they have exceeded.  In my opinion, their is no better way to get started.  Keep reading for more details.

So here is the deal.  With Square, there is no monthly fee.  There is no cost to buy special equipment.  You get to use the smartphone or mobile device you already own.  That includes all Apple iOS devices and Android devices.  They send you the Square dongle (pictured above) that plugs into your headphone jack and that is all the hardware you need.  The dongle works as a card reader so you can swipe cards where ever you have a data connection.  Square manages all the interaction with the credit card companies and so you don’t have to fool with the details.  They even provide you with the dongle at no charge and no shipping cost.  The only thing you pay is a $0.15 fee per transaction + 2.75% of the sale if you swipe the card using the dongle (or 3.5% of the sale if you enter the card info manually).  There really is no catch.

In testing the system it works flawlessly.  You just enter the amount you charge and swipe the card.  It tells you if the card is declined or if it is accepted.  If accepted the buyer uses their finger to sign to screen, and the you hit continue to process the payment.  Done with no fuss.

The account setup was super easy.  I installed the app on my iPad and iPhone.  Then I setup my new account.  Square will send you an email and ask you to complete a certain portion of the registration from a computer rather than the app. I was able to do it just fine from my iPad browser.  They can either send you the money you make via check or you can link up your bank account.  They use the standard banking process of making a few small deposits for you to verify your banking account. Within a few day your bank account is ready to go.  You can however start accept payments immediately after installing the app and completing account setup, even if you don’t have your dongle.  It took only a few days for the free card reading dongle to arrive via USPS and Square kept me in the loop via email the entire time.

It is important that you follow the rules setup by Square in order to process payments.  The big rule is offering receipts to your customers.  There rules are as follows (This is copied directly from the Square website.)….

Receipts

1. When your customer is present at the time of the transaction and signs the Square electronic receipt, you benefit from the Payment Network rules for card present transactions. You agree to request that your customer personally signs for all transactions greater than $25.00 when your customer is present.
2. If you operate a 501(c)(3) organization you may offer Square electronic receipts to your donors as a convenience, by completing the required fields in the “Tax and Reporting” section of our website. You acknowledge that not all payments made to your organization will be eligible for classification as “tax deductible to the extent allowed by law”, and you assume full responsibility for the classification of your transactions. Square specifically disclaims any liability in this regard.
3. You shall make a written receipt available to your customers for any transaction valued greater than fifteen dollars ($15.00). You may give your customers the option to receive or decline a written receipt. As a convenience, but not in lieu of a written receipt, you may also offer Square electronic receipts for delivery through SMS or email to your customers.

There are all kind of other details on their website about how they handle disputed charges, charge backs, holds, etc, but it’s all on the up and up.  You can read all the details in their TOS, but I doubt it will be an issue for anyone.  They will allow you to charge as much as you need per transaction, but they only deposit $1001 dollars at a time.  If you charge more than that, the remaining balance will be deposited to your account at some point over the following 30 days.  This makes a great solution for someone that makes a lot of small transactions or a few large transactions each month.  If you do more business than that or can’t wait for the cash to come to you, they do offer rates with a monthly fee to process more money after further credit checking.

Overall I was impressed with what they offer.  For someone just starting out, it would make a great solution.  I sell enough photography equipment and have enough small photography sessions that it will be extremely useful to me.  My experience has been nothing but positive so far, and I’d recommend it to any artist wanting to move their sales to the next level.  Check out the screenshots below from the iPhone app.
Missing Attachment Missing Attachment Missing Attachment Missing Attachment Missing Attachment Missing Attachment

Well, it’s almost a new year.  That means it’s time for parties and fireworks.  I wrote a post last year that keeps on coming in handy for everyone, so I like to bump it to the top about this time of year.

How To: Photograph Fireworks

This will give you everything you need to know to get started.  Follow it and your firework photos will look awesome!  I made this post a day early this year just so you would have an extra night to take out all your equipment, test, and make sure you had it ready for the big fireworks show.  If you know your fireworks show will last a long time, then you might want to play around a little after you get your standard photos and see what kind of creative results you can get.  One of my favorite things to do is zoom in/out during the exposure and get some pretty wild results.  Be creative and see what it yields for you.

Most importantly, have fun and stay safe.

It’s freezing outside! What better way to warm up than enjoying some beach photos?  Vicki and I took the baby on her first beach trip last March. It was just a quick weekend get-a-way, so I decided to leave the DSLRs at home and just take a few light film cameras. This is just a little excerpt from shots that I took with the Holga 120N. I was using Kodak Ektachrome E100G. It’s a very neutral film that produces more realistic color and skin tones. Although I’m a more than a little tardy sharing these with you, I was happy with the way they turned out. Click the link to see more.

The best thing about taking the Holga to the beach is not worrying about getting sand in all your expensive gear.  It always impresses me how sand manages to get into things that you don’t even take with your to the beach.  It’s like a virus.  Anyway, the Holga is light and fun to use.  Just a little focus adjustment, snap, and wind.  It still impresses me how sharp some of these images are when you nail the focus just right.  Also, remember it’s bright out there so it’s best to use a slow 100 or 50 ISO film.

It’s Christmas Day. Everything is crazy. Driving to visit family. Making sure everything is packed & all the gifts are ready to go. Add to that a sick baby, and you have a recipe for photographic disaster. In the middle of setting up lights & testing exposure at the grandparents house, I decided to reformat my CF card to clean the slate for the photos at their house. The only issue is that I hadn’t yet downloaded the photos from the last 2 days. That’s right. I potentially lost hundreds of photos from my child’s first real Christmas experience. Keep reading to find out how I fixed the situation.

Sadly, I didn’t realize what I had done right away.  I cleared the card right before we sat down for lunch.  I had food on the brain.  It was actually some time after we ate that I picked up the camera to take a few photos.  After snapping a couple, I realized what I had done.  That’s when the knot started to form in my stomach.   I looked at Vicki and said, “I think I just deleted all our Christmas photos”.  As info for all your married folk, I do not suggest this as the lead off line for your spouse.  I quickly followed up with, “There may be a way I can fix it”.

I’d recovered data for people in the past on corrupted memory cards, but I’d never tried to recover from a card that had been formated.  I wasn’t sure if I would be able to do it or not.  I did know one thing for sure.  If I was going to be able to recover anything I would have to stop writing data to the card.  I took the memory card out of my camera and replaced it with another card which has no images on it.

It had been some time since I’d had to recover any data from a memory card.  The last time I did this I was still on a Windows computer and I don’t even recall the software I used.  At first I wasn’t even sure what software I would use now that I had converted to Apple products.  In previous post I’ve made regarding Everything you ever wanted to know about memory cards, I advised that the manufacture of your memory card may actually be the best source for recovery software.  I decided to take my own advice.  I’d just recently bought a new set of 8 gig SanDisk Extreme SDHC cards for my soon to be delivered Nikon D7000.  In the packaging for the cards included a free one year licence offer for SanDisk’s recovery software called RescuePRO.  I figured that would be my best bet for the situation I put myself in.

I followed the instructions on the free offer info card on how to download the current version of the RescuePRO software (version 3.5.0.10 as of the post being published).  The software is offered through lc-tech.com  I just had to go to the website and download the install file.  I ran the installer and launched the app.  The software prompted me to chose one of two options.  The options were to get a licence key or to use a free trial.  Since I had the free coupon code for a one year licence, then I followed that route.  I’m assuming the free trial is a limited access setup, but this could be a good way to try the software without committing to buy.  After clicking the link to use a licence key, I was directed to a website to enter the coupon code included with the memory cards I bought.  I submitted my info, and within seconds I had an email with my licence number.  I copied it into the software, it accepted it, and I was ready to go.  That process was painless and took only a few minutes at the most.

Once the software was installed, the easy part started.  As the image shows, the software offers 6 options to choose from.  I chose the Recover Photos option.  The software asked me where I wanted to recover photos from.  I chose the affected memory card, and clicked Start.  The software scanned the card and said it found 300+ images in less than a minute.  I wasn’t sure if it would find my files as “photos” or as “files” since they were .NEF Nikon RAW image files and not a typical JPEG images.  I was pleased to see it found them with no issue.  It even put a little Nikon logo next to the files since they were a .NEF file type.  I then chose the Copy option to move them to my hard drive.  To software started copying the images to a new folder on my hard drive.  About 8-9 minutes later, everything I had on the card was recovered.  I breathed a big sigh of relief and immediately told my wife that I HADN’T destroyed all our Christmas memories.

I don’t know that I could have asked anything more of the software.  It did exactly what it said it would do.  Best of all, it was simple to use and delivered quickly.  The other options in the tool include recovering both Audio/Video content and the more generically named “files”.  It should work with any flash media that is corrupted or has received a low level format.

The other options offered by the software are to Backup Media or to Wipe Media.  While I don’t have much use for the backup option, as I already have automated software solutions for this, the Wipe Media option did intrigue me.  I quite ofter share data with clients, friends, and family.  Truly wiping media can be very useful.  I tried this option on one of my memory cards.  Like the other options, after you click Wipe Media, then it ask you what drive you want to wipe.  I chose the memory card and it warned me that the data would not be recoverable if I chose this option.  I clicked OK and it started to wipe the card.  The total process took about 5 minutes on my computer to wipe an 8gig 30Mb/s SDHC card.  Of course, after the wipe completed I tried to run the recovery option on the card I was not able to get any data back.  I can see this being a very useful option for anyone that passes physical media between clients or otherwise.

I don’t really have any major gripes with the software, as it really exceeded my expectations with it’s ease of use and functionality.  The only thing that bugged me a little was around how it recognized new media.  If you launch the software before you enter your memory card, then it will not automatically view the card when you insert it.  I had to choose the New Scan option in the File menu for the software to see it.  Nothing major, but considering how easy the software was to use I was a little surprised it didn’t manage this automatically.

The only other thing that was a little annoying was how it named the files while it was copying them.  Rather than keeping the original file names, it started numbering them at 00001 and moving up.  This wasn’t a huge concern, but it was a little annoying.  Looking at the files that it recovered, I understand why they build it this way.  The software recovered not only images from the past 2 days, but images all the way back to October.  Those images had been through multiple high level formats on the camera.  Since the possibility exist that images from October could have the same file name as more recent images, then I understand why they must apply new file names in the copy process.  The software also named them them from oldest to newest.  So even though I didn’t like the renaming, I understand the reason why it had to happen and appreciate that it managed to keep everything organized in the process.

Overall, I would highly recommend this to anyone that needs to recover content from flash media.  Although I used this app on OSX, they also make a Windows version of the software that works the same way.  SanDisk even offers some nice tutorial videos on the product if you would like a little more hand holding through the process.  SanDisk provides 2 versions of the software, the standard and deluxe versions.  The deluxe software will recover a greater range of image and video file types, as well as capacities up to 64gig vs. the 32gig limitation of the standard software.  For a more detailed info on the limitations of each software, check out this comparison PDF. If the file type you want to recover is on the list, then I wouldn’t hesitate to use RescuePRO to recover it.  The standard version of the software is normally $40 for a one year license and the Deluxe version is $60 for the same time frame.  That made the free offer from SanDisk a fantastic deal, but $40-$60 is more than worth the price for reliable data recovery.

To all my readers,
From my family to yours, we want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. I hope that everyone is able to spend time with their families and that you are surrounded by the ones you love. Most importantly, remember that today is a celebration of the birth of Jesus. I hope the love of Christ will fill your hearts and homes today and throughout the new year.

Sincerely,
Dan & family

Ah, the internet.  It helps me daily.  Earlier this week it helped me get a gig.  A friend needed new headshots for his company’s website, so I got the call.  I shot the original photos for his website a little over a year ago, but it was time for an update.  He had a new employee, a new hair cut, and was ready for an over all update.  I was happy to help.

We spoke on Sunday and agreed to meet at 10:30 Tuesday.  The last time we took his head shots we were outside.  At that time it was spring and there were leaves on the trees to use as a soft blurry green background.  Of course now it’s winter and there are no nice green leaves to take advantage of.  Plus, it was raining while I was driving to the office.  It became clear really fast that we would be shooting these photos inside.

I went up to the office to say hello to Dr. Shoap and to scope out the office for the best shooting locations.  Dr. Shoap owns & manages Shoap Technical Services, and is a mighty fine man to do business with.  I noticed 2 things about the shooting space right away.  First, it was bright inside due to an abundance of florescent lighting.  Second, there was only a little sunlight coming the windows.  I was hoping for more and to possibly use the window light.  We decided we would shoot Dr. Shoap’s photo in his office and the rest of his staff in the lobby.

I was originally thinking I could shoot this with one light.  A big umbrella up close to bounce nice even light and use a little of the sunlight from the windows to expose the rest of the room.  Maybe the sun would offer a little backlight as well.  To get a shallow depth of field I was shooting at f/2.8.  I took a test shot without flash to see how the ambiant light was going to affect my shot.  After the test shot I quickly realized a couple of issues I would need to address.

First, pay no attention to the fact that I’m out of focus.  It was a test shot, so I wasn’t thinking about that.  The first issue I noticed about the image was that it’s relatively well exposed at the settings I picked to use with the strobe.  Typically you want it a little under exposed so that your strobes are the most powerful light in the image.  I was already at 1/200th of a second shutter speed, so I had no more latitude to knock the ambiant down without increasing my depth of field by increasing my aperture.  Since most of the light in the test was all coming from the overhead florescent lights, there wasn’t much forward light for his eyes.  The overhead lights also created a strong set of shadows under his nose and chin.  Adding the main strobe should fix most of that issue.  Lastly, there were a couple of light sources fighting for the proper color temperature.  I’d set the white balance to auto for the test shot.  The light directly over Dr. Shoap’s head worked well with the setting the camera picked, but the rear light was a little orange and the window light was too blue (since it was so overcast outside and the Florescent WB setting is about 4K).

I decided that rather than turning off the overhead lights I’d let them offer me a little fill light, a little hair light, and I’d use the strobes to do the rest.  I set the white balance setting on the camera to florescent.  Then I put my green FL-G1 gel provided with my Nikon SB-900 on the main strobe to balance the color temperature of the flash with that of the ambiant light.  Then I realized I would also need to even out the back ground light.  I took a bare Nikon SB-900 and added the FL-G1 gel as well as the TN-A2 gel (similare to a 1/4 CTO gel) to add a little warmth to the back ground.  I wanted it to feel as if it were morning sunlight coming into the room.  The light was located behind Dr. Shoap to camera left, near the window, and shooting towards the background to make it look like window light.

Now it was time to get started.  I first shot with my 50mm f/1.4G set to f/2.8 as discussed earlier.  I was going for a classic corporate head shot.  I adjusted the light output a little and we shot a few more.  I was pleased with the way this turned out.

We fixed a lot of issues with the lighting setup.  First, it’s properly exposed now.  While the test shot was close, it was a little under exposed.  It didn’t take much power from the main light to get the proper exposure.  I think it was set to 1/64th power.  This filled the eyes and the rest of his face with enough light to kill the shadows we were fighting before.  Also, the background light was far more even now.  It was positioned a little further away from the wall than the main light was from the Dr. Shoap, but it didn’t have a modifier on the background light to absorbe any of it’s output.  For that reason I set it to the same 1/64th setting as the main light.  The location that I had Dr. Shoap pose caused a little spill from the background light on his collar and shoulder.  I could have flagged the light to prevent it, but I was OK with it for this shot.  It didn’t overly affect the quality of the image, and still presented the feel of sunlight coming into the room.  You can also tell a massive difference in color from the rear wall after it was gelled properly.  The light is much more even now since the strobe was over powering the ambiant light.

In the next shot, I wanted something that would scream Fortune 500 CEO.  I swapped out lenses to my 24-70mm for a little wider angle of view.  This is another reason I was setting up the over all exposure to f/2.8.  Even thought the 50mm can drop 2 stops faster than that, I knew if I were to swap to a zoom lens I would have to adjust the entire setup.  Since I setup at f/2.8 to begin with, I was able to swap to any lens in my bag and not change a thing.  I had Dr. Shoap sit on the edge of his desk for this one.  I didn’t even have to pose him.  He sat right down, and you knew right away who’s office you were in.  I grabbed the camera and decided I would shoot up just a little this time.  I wanted the image to convey who was boss but not have him looking down heavily at the camera..  He has a nice warm smile on his face, but you know that he’s the man in charge.

Once nice thing about moving him forward a little more for this second shot was that the spill from the back ground flash was not as strong.  You can still see it on his right shoulder and cheek, but it’s not as harsh as the first image.  This one came out to be my easy favorite for the day.  It was also the one Dr. Shoap used for his website.  What can I say?  The man has great taste.

………..

Holga 120N (Uses 120 film) or the Holga 135BC (uses 35mm film)

Westcott 40-Inch 5-in-1 Reflector

…………

Manfrotto Lite-Tite Umbrella Adapter with the Stroboframe Accessory Shoe

Lumiquest LQ-119 The Softbox III

………………..

HonlPhoto Speed Strap for Shoe Mount Flashes with a HonlPhoto 1/4 Honeycomb Grid

Plus, add the HonlPhoto Color Correction Filter Kit and or the HonlPhoto Color Effects Filter Kit for added creativity.

Also, get them some fun reading.

“Portraits” by Steve McMurry

“LIFE Guide to Digital Photography: Everything You Need to Shoot Like the Pros” by Joe McNally

“Understanding Exposure, 3rd Edition: How to Shoot Great Photographs with Any Camera” by Bryan Peterson