From: PictureCorrect Photography Tips <picturecorrect@gmail.com>

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Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2012 18:26:22 +0000

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Subject: Keeping Your Camera Functioning in Arctic and Sub-Zero Temperatures

Keeping Your Camera Functioning in Arctic and Sub-Zero Temperatures

Keeping Your Camera Functioning in Arctic and Sub-Zero Temperatures
Combining Speedlights & Studio Strobes for Portrait Lighting
Perspectives from a Photo Retoucher: Parasites of the Photography Industry?

Posted: 11 Nov 2012 04:35 PM PST

Most SLRs cope remarkably well with freezing temperatures. I’ve had no problem using Canon EOS SLR cameras below zero for weeks on end, often down to -20°C and in extreme down to -30°C. This article is for those trying to keep such a camera going under expedition conditions, such as an icecap crossing or mountaineering expedition in the arctic: ie no power sockets, adverse weather, sleeping in tents on the ice and for a period of weeks. However much of the advice also applies to using a camera in cold conditions generally.

“ten men on a natural wonder” captured by David Hobcote (Click Image to Find Photographer)

The two main technical problems to overcome are:

1. Condensation
Condensation forms when moving from a cold to a warmer environment, you don’t need to worry about damage to your camera moving from a warmer to a colder environment. Even in arctic conditions the temperature inside a tent is often well above zero yet well below zero in the shade. this means there is often a temperature gradient when bringing a camera into a tent which leads to condensation forming. Condensation on the front element or view finder is an inconvenience, but condensation on the electronics can give permanent malfunction, and condensation in the inside glass elements can write off the camera off for hours or days till the lens totally dries out.

2. Reduced Battery efficiency
Batteries are many times less efficient in cold weather due to the reduced speed of the chemical reaction that powers them.

“Into the Light” captured by David Hobcote (Click Image to Find Photographer)

Tips for Reducing Condensation

1. Place camera in plastic bag
The camera should be placed inside a polypropylene freezer bag, loosely knotted or twisted and then placed back inside the camera bag. You don’t want to put a waterproof bag around the entire camera bag as any moisture in the camera bag would then condense on the camera body. Ziploc bags, and Ortlieb style dry bags may sound better but often don’t fit neatly inside the camera bag and are much heavier and more expensive. The freezer bag also has the major advantage that you can stuff it below your camera in the bag when not in use, but you need to take spares for when it gets damaged.

2. Use camera bag insulation
The padding on most camera bags (especially the holster style common on expeditions) offers some insulation value which can reduce the dramatic temperature change, when moving from environments of different temperatures.

“On Into the Light” captured by David Hobcote (Click Image to Find Photographer)

3. Try and warm up slowly
If there are environments of differing temperatures try and make the warm up process for the camera as gradual as possible.

4. Avoid breathing on the lens
Obvious maybe, but If you need to clean the lens just use a camera cloth to avoid ice forming.

Tips for dealing with Reduced Battery Efficiency

1. Carry multiple batteries
As a rough guide plan to take 2/3 times the number of batteries you’d need for equivalent shooting in temperate climates. My personal strategy if to take multiple batteries for an extended trip in the wilderness rather than deal with the uncertainties of solar chargers. This makes planning easy as one can ration a battery to last a given amount of time.

“Mist and Ice” captured by David Hobcote (Click Image to Find Photographer)

2. Warm batteries by keeping close to skin
Carry your spare close to your skin so your body can warm then. An apparently dead battery can be given more life by warming in this way so on very cold days you may find yourself rotating batteries in this way.

3. Adjust shooting style to conserve power
Accept you will get less out of your batteries so adjust you shooting style to conserve power. The biggest thing you can do is turn off after shot preview and reduce to a minimum previewing your images later. Addition power saving tips to get the most out of your battery are to turn off image stabilisation, don’t use flash and minimise half-press pre-focus.

About the Author:
Quintin Lake (http://blog.quintinlake.com/) is an Architectural and Fine Art Photographer based in Cheltenham with strong links in London, available for work worldwide.

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Article from: PictureCorrect Photography Tips

Combining Speedlights & Studio Strobes for Portrait Lighting

Posted: 11 Nov 2012 03:07 PM PST

If you’ve ever attempted to get your speedlights working with studio strobes, chances are you you encountered some problems along the way. One of the biggest problems with doing so is getting both lights to sync without the speedlights preflash triggering the strobe too early. In the following video, Mark Wallace explains what causes this and offers up a couple simple solutions to get you your lights to work in unison. Take a look (for those of you reading this by email, the video can be seen here):

The first step in getting your lights working is to understand how they communicate. When you are using a trigger with your speedlight, the speedlight actually fires twice. The first flash is called the preflash and is used by your camera to gauge the proper exposure. This is commonly referred to as through the lens metering, or TTL. The second flash is the light that is used during exposure. The preflash and flash happen very quickly which means that you may not be able to notice them with the naked eye.

speedlight photography

The reason you may see your strobe fire but not appear in your photograph is because the strobe will most likely have fired at the same time as the speedlights preflash, when it needed to fire in conjunction with the speedlights second flash. There are a couple ways to fix this. First, you can try setting the trigger to fire the strobe manually. This will work in some instances; however, it is still hit or miss. If you plan on moving around often, the chances of the infrared beam making it to the strobe is greatly reduced.

Perhaps the simplest solution to the issue to ditch the infrared triggers altogether and use radio triggers instead. This will greatly expand your range of movement in addition to getting perfectly synced light bursts.

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Article from: PictureCorrect Photography Tips

Perspectives from a Photo Retoucher: Parasites of the Photography Industry?

Posted: 11 Nov 2012 12:01 PM PST

Describing her work as the creation of “moments that didn’t happen”, photo retoucher Amy Dresser speaks at Luminance 2012 about her thoughts and views on her profession. She discusses her process and techniques which “blur the line between photography and illustration” (for those of you reading this by email, the video can be seen here):

As far as portraits go, the key to Dresser’s Philosophy of Retouching is to not make it perfect, and to only get rid of what’s distracting. Focusing on evening out the tone and saturation of the skin will enhance the image while keeping the integrity of the person’s character.

In her method, the three things to work on in an image are:

Skin
Color
Mood

photo retouching

She shows composites in both realism and fantasy, laying out step-by-step explanations of how images are made, and for what purposes.

The start of a photo composite

Giving in-depth insight into the many, many types of problems that retouching resolves, she says,

“I see the marriage between photography and retouching as, like, kind of a limitless relationship; we can make anything happen between the two of us. And if I can give Weird Al’s horse Weird Al hair, then we can kinda do.. we can take over the universe, assuming the universe can be taken over by an image.”

For further training on professional photo editing:

Super Photo Editing Skills - get the skills you need to bring the best out of photos.
Understanding Post-Processing - a practical guide to post-processing photographs.
Photo Nuts and Post - a guide to getting started in post-processing.

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Article from: PictureCorrect Photography Tips