Access Digital Photography

There’s definitely a place in the pro photographer’s world for compact cameras. For one thing, it’s meant that you can always have a camera with you and, for sure, “some picture is better than no picture.”

Besides, compacts have other “indispensible” advantages: (1) You must have a second camera in case something happens to your DSLR…especially if you’re somewhere that can’t immediately repair or replace it. (2) They’re terrific for shooting close-up because their small sensors give them nearly infinite depth of field.

It’s been hard, though, to find the “right” compact camera for a pro to use. If it limits you to shooting JPEGs, it’s certainly better than nothing. Up until recently finding a digicam that shoots RAW has been a problem. If you’ve been shooting RAW for any time at all, especially if you also work with Lightroom, you know you have a LOT more interpretative flexibility when it comes to presenting what you’ve got. I took that into consideration a few years ago when I grabbed an Olympus SP 350…which still has a lot going for it. It shoots at a higher resolution than ISO 200 film and it shoots RAW and it gives you complete exposure control.

Trouble is, when you shoot RAW the Olympus takes several seconds to process it before you can shoot the next shot. Of course, you can always “switch back” to JPEG when timing is the most important consideration, but I’d much rather have both.

For that reason (and because prices were getting more and more competitive) compacts that shot RAW were beconing few and far-between. I learned to treasure my little Oly more and more. Then along came a few compacts, priced at entry DSLR level, that did shoot RAW. Trouble is, they are too big and it’s difficult to justify their price when there are now amazingly small and very useful. For that reason, I went with the most reasonable of the EVF (electronic view finder) EVIL (Electronic Viewfinder Interchangeable Lens) cameras. I invested in one of the first and I’ve taken some shots I could never have gotten with any other camera. Ready my earlier blogs on this site on the Panasonic G1 (which you can now buy for close to $500!). But it’s still a bit too physically big to put one in your shirt or pants (safer) pocket.

My buddy and colleague Doug Sahlin had an EVIL camera for a short time, but then went for the Canon G10 and G11. The G10 had way too many megapixels to produce a really clean result and the G11, with nearly 5MP less resolution was the result and produced image quality that was getting rave reviews. Several competitors have since dropped their resolution for “pro” compacts as well. Then, suddenly, the much smaller S90 was introduced. It shot Raw, image to image, with only about a 1-second gap…rarely a problem.

The S90 is just enough smaller (about the size of a pack of king-sized cigarettes, but a bit slimmer front-to-back) to make it “seriously pocketable”, has the same sensor as the G11, and some other advantages that make it even more of a winner: An F-2.0 lens which makes it possible to shoot in virtually any lighting (as long as you don’t zoom in too much). A very bright and detailed (460,000 dots) large (3”) that you can see at virtually any angle and in any but the very brightest and direct Sunlight (and even then, you can see well enough to see how the image will be framed).

Of course, wouldn’t you know that no sooner had I bought the camera, the competition seems even better because, with very little size difference, Samsung has produced a camera with the same sensor that features the most important shortcomings of the S-90 at very close to the same price, a tilt/swivel viewfinder, and a standard hot-shoe for external flash. Now, Panasonic has followed suite with the LX3 that has the advantage of an even faster lens (f/3.3 fully zoomed) and much higher range of movie options. It also has a bit higher price, but I’m pretty sure that will drop once it starts selling. Size-wise, it’s in between the Canon and Samsung offerings. The monitor isn’t tilt and swivel, but you can plug in an EVF(electronic viewfinder).

. ISO 160, 1 second at f/2.8. Do you think you could have shot this hand-held with your DSLR? No way, Jose!”]

Okay, folks, the next thing we need is a weather/smash-proof compact that shoots RAW. Now that would be something that no sane pro could possibly ignore. So why hasn’t anyone done something about it???

One of the things I like to do with photography is create artistic effects for gallery or illustrative purposes.

I just created everything you see here by “messing” with features that are already a part of Photoshop, by using Pre-sets in Lightroom, or by using third-party filters. Any combination of the types of techniques you see here could be used to give a unifying “effect” to a collection of photos for an exhibit or for a series of ads.

I often create several of these effects on different layers, then mix them by a combination of masking the layers, changing their blend modes, and choosing different layer effects.

I’m going to show you the “before and after” of a couple of examples. I will describe for you the “process” I used on each of them. Once you “get the idea” there will be no end to the variations you can make.

The picture on the left is straight out of the camera and Lightroom 3. I wanted it to have a bit more “pop and style” on its own, so the first thing I did in Lightroom 3 was to just click on the Direct Positive preset to give the base image a lot more “color pop.” There are hundreds of these presets available on the Web and quite a few more that come with the OnOne filter set.

Then, in Photoshop CS5,  I duplicated the image as a layer, made a Freehand Lasso selection to put a loose frame around the image, then used the Refine Edge command to show me a preview of how much feathering I wanted to use to blend the effects I was going to create on the new layer with the original image below. When I liked what I saw, I just clicked OK.

Next, I choose Filter > Artistic > Plastic Wrap. There was enough distortion in the bubbles that I though it would be fun to just stretch parts of that same layer using the Filters > Liquify filter. See if you can guess at what I did to get this next effect:

Hint: It’s all Alien Skin’s Color Efex fault.

There are so many significant new features in Lightroom 3 that I’ll say it right out: If you have to make a living from your pictures or if it’s a serious hobby, you’d be stupid not to spend the $99 it takes to upgrade. Why? Because it adds that much more efficiency to the process of keeping track of, processing, and distributing your images. You’re in a field in which time is money…especially when it comes to the quality of your work.

First, a disclaimer: Though I’ve tested all of these improvements, I haven’t had the experience I’ve had with older versions. This blog is about a “first look” and my personal opinions as to what they seem to me to be. I really want you to comment if you disagree because we’ll both learn from the “interchange.” In fact, I always want you opinion on anything you read in this blog.

In the “What’s New” document that’s sent to the press, Adobe mentions thirteen significant new features. Here they are, only I’ve re-arranged them in the order that I’ve found them to be most important to me:

Perspective Correction Accelerated from Shoot to Finish.
Lens Correction
Lower Noise and Better Sharpening.
Exportable Video Slideshows with Music
Smarter Imports
Multi-image Print Layouts.
Natural Appearance Vignetting
Next-generation Image Processing

I haven’t had the time to cover these new features yet, so look for a new post in the “near future.”
Drag and Drop Online Publish Services
Easily Import and Organize Video Files
Create and Control Natural Grain
Convenient Tethered Capture
Flexible Watermarks

Lens and Perspective Correction: I don’t have special calibrations to include for the lenses I have, but I’m pleasantly surprised by how well Lightroom 3 turns corrects barrel distortion and fringing. The image below shows, from left to right, the original photo with the perspective distortion that occurs when the camera is not in parallel with the center of the subject, the Lightroom result of simply going to the Lens Correction Panel in the Develop module, clicking Manual, and interactively dragging sliders until you like what you see. Often, that “tilts” a part of the picture so that there is space in the frame. You can then scale the image up to crop that space out or…as shown here…you can right click on the image and choose to Edit in…Photoshop CS5. Then just make a Quick Selection of the empty space, expand the selection and feather it a bit to make sure there’s no gap, and choose Edit > Fill and tell it to use Content Aware in the resulting dialog. What you see on the right is the result: Magic.

Better processing: It will leave the old ones just as you were used to them, but if you choose Develop > Process > Settings, you’ll see the year of the original process is checked and you can check 2010 and immediately see the difference. If you don’t like it, just press Cmnd/Ctrl + Z and you’re instantly back to the original. I can’t show you the difference here on the Web…it’s too subtle for 72dpi sRGB repro. Take my word for it: you get a bit more dynamic range and image sharpness. So from now on, if I’m going to re-submit or re-interpret an image, I’ll probably re-set the processing to 2010, just to be technically “more acceptable” to a prospective agency or client.

Smarter Imports: This one has taken me some getting used to. I’m so used to the “old way” that I found the new Import interface more confusing when downloading my camera cards. One thing I do like, though, is that it defaults to converting your RAW files to DNG…something I’ve often forgotten to do. LR2 allowed you to do that, but it wasn’t the obvious default. It should be done because this format is open and will outlive all the specific camera and model formats.

The reason I find it more confusing is the very thing that Adobe thinks makes it more useful: There’s no longer a dialog, but an Import Mode that occurs when you click the Import button or insert a memory card, camera, or DVD containing photos. Here’s the screen shot:

What I really do like is the way the photos you’re about to import are shown. You can also choose the destination in your library by clicking an existing folder in the library or by choosing the desitnation from a menu at the right that lets you create a new folder in your Library…just as before. It’s great, but it does take a little “getting used to.

More Exportable Video Slideshows with Music: Rather than having to settle for a PDF slideshow that may not be “includable” as a PDF when you’re making a presentation or emailing the slideshow to someone who doesn’t have Adobe Reader installed, you can now choose to export it as a movie and you can now designate any compatible music file that’s on your computer as background music. Makes it easy to put slideshows on my iPad or into a mass mailing. These slideshows are compatible with both Adobe and Windows Media Players and with QuickTime. Unfortunately, this version of WordPress wouldn’t let me upload an MP4 file here, regardless of whether I chose the Browser or Flash uploaders. But LR doesn’t make a Flash slideshow, which is good news for movies you might want to have seen on an iPad or iPhone.

Lower Noise and Better Sharpening: I really like shooting at night, but at times all I get are images in which I need to bring up the mid-tones because bright lights can “fool” the camera’s meter. I put up with it because otherwise, I simply wouldn’t have the picture. I was astonished, though at how well LR3 brought out the mid-tones in this shot. Sure enough, there was a fair amount of noise (this was only an 8MP image at ISO 200 with an Oly SP 350…not exactly “state of the art”). I usually fix it with Topaz DeNoise because Topaz Adjust has made me such a fan of Topaz filters. So imagine my amazement when all I had to do to eliminate it completely in Lightroom 3 was drag the Noise slider about 1/3d of the way to the right. Not a smidge of noise and the original had been quite dark, which really made the image unacceptably “grainy”. What really surprised me even more was that the edges were still relatively sharp, especially considering the shot was hand-held at 1/20th second. My goodness! It actually looked like the lens had been image stabilized…which it wasn’t (can’t wait to get my hands on a Canon S 90, though). Here’s a portion of the shot at 100% enlargement. You be the judge.

Multi-image Print Layouts: The lovely thing here, for me, is being able to print file numbers, captions, or titles under the images and then print them to a file that I can then open in Photoshop and size and crop for my iPad. Makes it much easier to let a client or prospective print buyer choose a particular image when they’re looking at their proofs on the iPad…or anything else, for that matter. Unfortunately, you can only choose to have one textfield printed underneath, because it would be great if you could have the file name, title, and caption. But if I settle for the title, I’ll be able to use lightroom to find each image the client chooses by searching for its title, so it’s nearly as good. I also rank all the “keepers” with three or more stars, so there’s no confusing which one of the files with that title is actually the chosen one, even if there are virtual copies with different interpretations. The caption you see on the image below was added in the Print Module:

In Photoshop, you could then put frames around them if you wanted or, if you wanted to get fancy, just re-type the names in another font of another color…even put them right on top of the images. Then just select and copy them into another file and save them in the catalog folder that you’re going to sync with your iPad.

PS: There may be another way to do this kind of thing that I’m going to cover in another blog if I can ever get Office for Mac installed (nearly impossible if you’ve ever run a trial version of the software): That is, just exporting the “winner” images to a separate catalog and putting them into PowerPoint. You could then add titles and commentary by hand and export the whole slide show as individual photos. I’ll try that once I get the program installed. Because I tried their trial version first, I couldn’t install the licensed version. I’m sure there’s a solution somewhere. I’ll try to keep you posted. Meantime, if you know or you’ve tried it, please let me know how you solved the problem.

Natural Image Vignetting:

When you go to the Effects Panel you find a few more sliders that let you make the vignette more square or round, feather it to the extent you like, and change the location of the midpoint. In the image below, the composition was really improved by having the vignette make us focus on the flower when I couldn’t show what I wanted to include in the picture and still pay strict attention to the “rule of thirds.

Next Generation Image Processing: The program defaults to keeping the images as they were originally processed, but the newer version seems to add a bit more punch and sharpness. If you like, you can preview the difference and update it. It’s a subtle change, though, that you couldn’t very well see here on the web.

I haven’t yet done much with the remaining features, so I’ll save them for later. This blog’s getting more than a little long anyway.

What’s Missing: I’d really like to see some pre-sets for tone-mapping (single-image HDR processing) so that you could apply and compare several different settings to several virtual images non-destructively in Lightroom. You could then give yourself and your clients some powerful interpretative options when it comes to lighting, color interpretation and color values that, so far, can only be accomplished in a highly destructive way in Photoshop. To be fair, though, I have to say that I have no idea what it would take to do this as a practical matter. But BOY!, wouldn’t it be cool? Maybe a plug-in for Topaz Adjust would do the job?
Please Make Comments on this and any other blog you read or see on AccessDigitalPhotography or any of my other sites. If you have questions, I’ll be happy to answer them. If you know something I don’t, please let me and our readers know about that, too. It’s all about me making this site as useful to you as possible.

Please Make Comments on this and any other blog you read or see on AccessDigitalPhotography or any of my other sites. If you have questions, I’ll be happy to answer them. If you know something I don’t, please let me and our readers know about that, too. It’s all about me making this site as useful to you as possible.

Thanks for being here and have a great day. You’re always welcome back.

Ken Milburn, photographer/author

This blog is about different types of digital cameras and new options that they offer for making us more flexible and creative. This information comes from a variety of press releases and on-line reviews…not hands on testing. These are just my ideas as to what’s worth having and doing it with what appears to me to be the best bargain it its category.

We’re beginning to see some important technological changes in digital cameras that I think will lead to their being more versatile, convenient, and have more creative possibilities. Before you read my observations, though, let me make it clear that I haven’t done any hands-on testing of any of the cameras I’m writing about. I’ll certainly do that, though, as soon as I can get my hands on one or all of them.

Pocket camera: Canon S90

It’s black, so less likely to be noticed and it’s very small size and lack of an electronic viewfinder make it look “amateurish.” The lens collapses into the body and there are no grips or bumps, so the camera fits really nicely into a shirt pocket.

But the fact that it has amazing software and a larger sensor than any other compact produces images that appear close in quality with some of the APS-C sized DSLRs. And it shoots RAW, so you get about 4 more stops of brightness data than if you were just shooting JPEG.

A compact camera is the best way to get great DoF in low light or macros. You can’t get great blurred backgrounds when you want to fix attention on the subject (as in most portraits and flower photos. However, Alien Skin’s Bokeh plug-in will fix that brilliantly in post when shallow is needed.

Despite the fact that you have to use the huge (3”), bright, hi-def (461,000 pixel) LCD to frame the photos, it works very well in even bright light. You could always put a Hoodman hood or Loupe on it, too…and they don’t cost all that much ($40-$80). With the high res screen, it would be about as good as it can get and be great for shooting movies. It even shoots 640×480 movie clips. Great for when you want to show people how to do something or to make little “stock movies” whilst running around shooting other things and don’t have time to do it with your larger camera.

Since one of the primary uses for a compact is “anonymous” reportage, the S90’s nearly unheard of f/2 lens and ISO 80-3200 sensitivity make it ideal. Since the second most important use comes from “spontaneous macros,” it’s also good to know that you can be in sharp focus as close as two inches from the subject.

I’d really like a camera just like this that was waterproof so I could shoot underwater and in really crappy weather. At least, this one has available an underwater housing. It has a settings ring around the lens, so you can change settings without taking your eyes from the screen. So you could “bracket” scene settings while shooting without taking your eye off the LCD . It also has a fill flash setting. Widest lens opening is f/2.0 zoomed all the way in (great for Sunset scenes). Largest sensor in a compact and CCD sensor and not “overpushed” resolution make for exceptional image quality for a compact…good enough for most commercial purposes. On line test shots at dpreview.com show very amazing noise levels at ISO settings up to 3,200 thanks to great in-camera noise reduction.

Cons: no external flash xcept w/ remote, no viewfinder, LCD doesn’t swing and tilt. Can’t zoom while shooting movies, no remote,

Suggestions: Get a Hoodman. Include HDR and panorama stitching.

Mirror-Free Interchangeable Lens Hybrid Camera

The leaders in this category have been using the 4/3 sensor, ostensibly in order to keep the size of the camera as small as possible. I have, in fact, a Panasonic Lumix G1 that I adore and its tilt and swivel LCD screen is something that every digital camera should have.

Then along comes Samsung with their NX10. Although it has a 60% larger APS-C sensor, it’s actually slightly smaller than the Panasonic EVF cameras and it’s half the price of the top of the line Panasonic and also shoots movies. It is about 40% smaller than the typical DSLR with a sensor of the same size. This makes them a total joy to “run around town” with…especially if you want to use two cameras, but with different lenses.

For $700 with the kit lens, this camera is a way better deal than the higher-end compacts that have SLR-styling with an electronic viewfinder. You do get to see most of the info that a conventional DSLR shows only on it’s LCD, including a choice of grid lines…including that for the Rule of Thirds. Can be had with an f/2 20mm pancake, and the two most common kit zoom focal lengths. There are also 18-200mm superzoom, a 20mm pancake and a 60mm primary on their way. on their way. There’s also an adapter that lets you use your APS-C Samsung and Pentax camera lenses, too.

This camera uses the same 14.6MP Pentax sensor as my favorite APS-C size DSLR, the Pentax K-7. These cameras are great for shooting movies because their large sensors allow for DoF control and they have live view, so you can see exactly what’s happening when the scene is running…and you can do that either through the viewfinder or the camera’s LCD. Big advantage in being able to see what you’re going to get before you shoot.

Cons: I want to see one of these with a full-frame sensor and a tilt/swivel LCD. The LCD isn’t articulated. That makes the camera slimmer, but what you loose is on-the-run image composition flexibility. Damn! No image stabilization in the sensor. No weather-proofing. Only brackets in ½ or 1/3 step increments. Wake up folks! We really need 2-stop steps these days. No option for an external mic.

I wish Pentax would do a 25MP full-frame (35mm) sensor camera with an electronic viewfinder and articulated backlit LCD screen.

APS-C DSLR Cameras

These are pretty much the industry standard for serious amateurs, and the majority of media, event, and stock pros. All the current models in this category act and behave better than 35mm film cameras and can easily give you good enough images for gallery prints of landscapes. If you’re “moving up” to a full frame camera, you’ll still find lots of advantage in keeping these as your second camera or to use in potentially “unsafe” situations. Most full frame cameras cost 2-4 times as much.

Picking the best camera in this category is largely a matter of personal preferences and prejudices. Nikon and Canon lead the pack in terms of sales and this alone gives them some real advantages: A broader range of models, assurance that they’ll keep up with or lead the technology, and dealers even in some of the more remote places on Earth. Besides, they’re what most of the pros have “voted on,” so they inspire confidence in a lot of clients.

If you’re on a budget, though, and want the most “bang for the buck,” my vote is for the Pentax K7. It’s the only camera anywhere near its approximately $950 kit price that has a magnesium alloy weather-sealed body. That can mean a lot when you’re traveling…as I always am these days. It’s also been upgraded to an outstanding Live View mode that features options for a grid, contrast autofocus detection, colored areas to show blown out highlights and shadows and a histogram. Those are all features that I’ve learned to crave because they give me lots more to go on when deciding how I want to shoot an image. There’s also a built-in electronic level function, so you can spend a lot less time in Lightroom “straightening” the horizon and loosing image definition in the process. There’s also automatic in-camera merging of multi-frame HDR images as well as a very nice setting for capturing highlights and shadows that would otherwise be blown out. Frankly, in many situations a single frame image may be the best way to do it anyway because you don’t have to worry about registering multiple images that you’ve hand-held or in which there’ve been moving objects (think traffic in city scapes and sports photography). There’s amazingly good tone-mapping software that can do the job quickly in post production (Photoshop CS5, Photomatix, Topaz Adjust) and you have a LOT more creative control than you’d ever have time to think about “in camera”.

Jumping back to bracketed HDR images: The K7 can shoot a 5 frames per second…nearly twice the sequence speed of all but the very most expensive cameras in this category. Not only are you more likely to “capture the moment” in an action sequence, you can shoot a bracketed sequence for HDR with much lower chance of moving the camera in the process. If HDR is your thing (as it is mine much of the time) here’s a really important thing to note: You can bracket up to 5 shots at up to two stops apart!

Finally, there’s a feature that only appears in three brands of cameras (Olympus, Pentax, and Sony) that I don’t want to have to do without if I can avoid it: In camera image stabilization. I’ve been very pleased with how well my Pentax K-7 handles that…and I work in a country where a tripod can be an invitation to theft if you’re working alone. Some manufacturers are reluctant to include this feature because they make a LOT of money charging extra for stabilization in individual lenses. With these cameras, you’ve got it no matter what lens you use. If you have image-stabilized lenses that fit the mount, you can turn it off in camera and on in the lens…or vice-versa, so there’s certainly nothing to loose.

Almost all the brands of DSLR cameras (and all the brands of hybrids) are including movie-making capabilities in their most recent models, but not all let you focus and zoom while shooting, include the highest resolution and wide-screen options, or have the capabiity of plugging in an external stereo mike. I’m really anxious to do some live podcasts…so that’s a big deal for me. I can’t wait to get my hands on one. Shooting movies with very long lenses with limited depth of field and with fish-eye lenses makes for creative imaging that just can’t be done with your everyday movie camera. Using a large sensor means getting incredible quality.

I wish this camera had a tilt/swivel LCD, but it does have a 3” super-hi res LCD that’s reported to be fairly easy to see in daylight. That’s really important when you’re using it to shoot movies because you can’t do it through the viewfinder (as you can with the hybrids mentioned above).

Pentax has also taken the lead in giving you the option to shoot RAW in either their own proprietary format or in Adobe DNG…a universal format that will never go out of style. Guess which one I chose.

APS-C size sensors don’t give you as much cropping leeway as full frame cameras and some advertising clients tend to look for a pro with a full frame camera because they want the self-assurance that image resolution can be more or less as good as possible. I remember “back in the old days” when I used to haul out a case of Hassleblads to give art directors confidence, then shot with my Nikon to make sure I captured the model’s spontaneity.

35mm Full Frame Camera

There are several things, IMHO, that make a modern full-frame camera an eventually must-have item: Way better low-light performance due to the larger sensor and the ability to make incredibly high-resolution movies. Besides, you usually get 50-100% more pixels and they don’t have to be nearly so close together. So you get higher definition and less noise. Clients like them because they’re “assured” of getting the highest quality image. There’s also a lot of appeal in the idea of being able to shop for a whole army of used lenses at incredibly low prices.

Trouble is, the full frame camera I want hasn’t appeared yet. Sony has one with higher resolution than any other full frame camera (25 vs. 21MP), but it’s low-noise performance isn’t rated much better than that of many APS-C sensor cameras. Furthermore, it doesn’t even shoot movies. It does have in-body IS…so far, a unique thing in the full frame field.

The best alternative, so far, is the Canon 5D Mark II. It gets a way better low-noise rating at high ISOs AND it shoots hi-def movies and has a microphone input.

But what I’m really waiting for is for Pentax to do a full-frame hybrid. Then I can have a hi-def camera that makes great movies and has built in IS and has full time live-view. But PLEASE , Pentax, put a tilt/swivel LCD on the back of it. Without the mirror and the prism, you can probably also beat Sony’s price and we won’t have to put up with that annoying flash hot-shoe, either. Or…Canon or Nikon will try to beat the other to the competitive punch by doing exactly that. IMHO, that will be the beginning of the end for conventional DSLR cameras. Bet I get a lot of “hate mail” for making that statement, though.

I’ve been working a lot at my desk lately, and every once in a while I just get a little sitr-crazy. Besides, I start feeling like I’ve got to get out and shoot. Sometimes, there’s just no place to go and no way to get there. Here’s the result of the last time that happened:

Trouble is, the neighborhood I’m renting my Panama City apartment in is a long way from most of the places I want to go. So lately I’ve been taking the local Diablo Rojo (Red Devil) buses. I’ll do another blog on them alone, soon. But they’re old school buses that only charge 25-cents to go anywhere they go. Beats the begonias out of cab fares. Trouble is, they tend to be full of underpaid people who’d love the chance to steal a camera. So I take along my trusty Olypus SP-350, which I’ve hung onto for years because it’s quite tiny, has all the right adjustments, and shoot RAW. And, it’s 8MP…enough definition to get me a nice 16×20 print…especially with a little help from Genuine Fractals and a good noise reduction filter. That’s if I don’t crank the ISO up over 200, mind you. Best of all, I can shove it into my front pants pocket where it’s invisible and I can protect it. Even when it can be seen, it doesn’t look nearly as valuable as a DSLR.

Lately, I’ve been discovering that, even in low light and with the help of some tone-mapping and artistic special effects, it can be a lot of fun to shoot strange things from strange angle, even when the ISO has to be cranked up, to “very grainy” and then turn them in to artsy abstracts that don’t look much like photographs at all. You saw one of those images at the top of this blog. That was made by just putting the shot through Topaz Adjusts’ “I feel Lucky” changes until I got something I liked.

The image below was made by I first combining two images using Photoshop’s Layer Blend Modes,  then experimenting with the Filter Gallery and combining artistic filters until I liked what I got.:

You don’t really need third-party filters to play with these ideas. I talk about them a lot because you can see the results quickly and the processes they employ would take a lot of time to do by hand. But don’t forget that there are lots of art filters and other effects built into Photoshop. Combine those with HDR techniques and layer Blend Modes and Lightroom presets and the possibilities become nearly endless.

The best part is, many times these treatments will create a mood or felling that’s much more like the experience of being there than what the more standard and literal techniques capture. After all, our minds are constantly “interpreting” what our eyes see.

Please feel free to leave comments and questions. I love to help and I love your help. Who knows, you may even give me an idea or two.

I just received my iPod here in Panama a few weeks ago and I’ve since been very busy teaching classes, putting together local exhibits and trying to get re-located from moving to an unfamiliar neighborhood. So I still haven’t spent nearly as much time with it as I’d like and certainly don’t consider myself an expert. So please take this blog from that perspective.

So far, I just LOVE it. Since it’s already won me three new exhibit spaces and an important assignment, I’ve already more than earned back my investment. It’s usefulness as a very effective means of showing portfolios and shoot results make it the best accessory a pro photographer can own. After all, it doesn’t even matter if you don’t have the equipment to shoot that you’d like to have if you can’t make it pay for itself.

Having an iPad means that you can show your portfolio or shooting proofs to anyone, anywhere. Thanks to a backlit LED screen with a non-diffused, “glossy” surface makes looking at images is much like viewing transparencies on a light box. It also has a much wider viewing angle than a computer screen if more than one person at a time needs to look at it.

But beyond the technical reasons, iPads (and other “slates” to come) can show a portfolio or review a shoot much more effectively than can a computer in the same way a portfolio in a book can: You can pass it around and each viewer can flip through photos or “turn pages” by sliding from one full screen photo to the next. For the viewer, it creates her own personal experience. She can take as much or as little time as she likes with each photo. At the swipe of a finger, she can go back to thumbnail view and instantly pick a photo from a whole different series or go to an “album” view to see an entirely different portfolio that can be either related or not.

There’s a huge advantage over using a book portfolio where the photographer’s concerned. You can make as many portfolios as you like just as fast as you can collect the images in Lightroom or Aperture and then export them as JPEGs perfectly sized to fill the iPad screen. You then just use iTunes to link the iPad to your computer and it automatically downloads whatever folder you’ve designated to hold your “photo albums.” You can then set it up so that whatever you’ve edited on your computer either replaces or adds to whatever’s in the Photos folder on your iPad.

I’ve even found a cure for the one thing I miss the most: The ability to put titles and captions or file numbers under the photos so that the people you’re showing them to can request specific images…or even just be able to know what the subject is and where it was shot. I just use the Image Processor (File > Automate > Image Processor) to resize the image onto a black background that leaves enough room under the photo for the text I want to put there. I put a stop on the Action that allows me to type in the text and I then just type away. I tend to put different information under each photo by cutting and pasting it from a list that I’ve created in a word processor to make sure that the whole list is complete and has the right number under it.  I create that list by looking through the Lightroom thumbnails and making the list in the same order that the thumbnails are in, since that’s how they’re exported as well. I’m sure that eventually, there’s going to be a better way to do this for the iPad, but the important thing is that it works right now…and very well.

The other reason the iPad’s a great tool for photographers is that it can be a fantastic reference tool to have in the field. I can put my entire library of photography books on even the basic 16GB version of the iPad. It will run not only all the iBooks in the Apple iTunes store, all the iPad apps (including, already, so interactive quick reference digital photography “text books”) but can run Amazon’s Kindle application (downloadable from the Apps Store) and the Adobe Reader for any PDF books from any of the eBooks sites. So, no matter where you are, there you be with all the info you need about anything you might want to shoot and experienced recommendations on how to do it.

What else does the iPad do?

Well, that’s a very long list, but here’s a quick rundown on what’s most likely to be of interest to photographers:

•    It can show movies, too…important if you have one of the new cameras
•    There’s even an iPhone app (which would probably work just fine on an iPad or iPod touch) for Photoshop World that lets you enter your personal schedule, tells you what’s available when you  don’t have anything else scheduled, and lets you track breaking news that is announced or happens during the event or trade show.
•    Can visit lots of photography web sites, such as www.photo.net, www.dpreview.com, or  while on the road, especially if you have 3G
•    Lots of other information when on the road, such as Google Maps (but you have to be someplace that’s mapped…will come with time), language translators for both Occidental and Oriental major languages. I want an app that will translate what I write into the language of the country I’m in. Haven’t found one yet, but that doesn’t mean that one won’t exist at some point.
•    Other things it can do: Watch movies, play games,
•    Best if you label photos in Photoshop while posting. I often label with subject type and number so that I can write better labels after showing the photos to people who know more about the subject.
•    Several good reference books and apps

The Downside (although most of these are actually advantages. If you want a computer, buy one for less):

•    Don’t even think about processing your photos on it. It just doesn’t have the memory capacity to make that practical. You need at least a heavy-duty laptop for that.
•    Not compatible with Flash (but most of the Windows “slates to come” will be)
•    Not a computer…it’s education and entertainment
•    Sucks for typing. You may want to get the keyboard if you have serious web work to do (such as teaching classes on line at Sessions).
•    No good for  downloading photos or editing them…use your laptop
•    150,000 apps isn’t enough yet
•    Not enough storage to be useful as a download device. Take along your laptop for that and processing.
•    Printers and other USB devices don’t work on the iPad

Please let me know your own thoughts on this by leaving your comments here.  Thanks.

There are some outstanding new features in Photoshop CS5 and I certainly wouldn’t be the first to report on them. Instead, I’m going to do a series of blogs on ways that I’ve found make certain aspects of the program creatively irresistible, IMHO. This one’s going to show you how I put a different background behind a couple of very complex subjects that, before CS5, would have been too much of a time investment to tackle.

The old Extract filter (and, for the time being, at least, most 3d party filters) are gone. Supposedly, one can run the most recent versions of the third-party filters by placing CS5 in 32-bit mode, though the version I currently have crashes when I try to do that. I’m sure there’s a solution, but I just haven’t taken the time to find it yet. So, when I need 3d party filters, I just do that part of the processing in CS4.

The new method of making extractions starts with making selections. You can then use the new Select > Refine Edges and Select > Refine Mask commands to make amazingly accurate selections. When you do this, the following dialog pops up.

Since I travel a lot and also shoot models a lot, it means I often wish I had access to a studio. Well, actually, I do, if I want to pay for it, but that’s usually either inconvenient or out-of-budget. So the idea of being able to shoot a model most anywhere and then put here onto almost any kind of background means that I can open up whole new markets for myself. I could always do that, but the example above is a particularly tough one. First the background is reflecting light onto Edith’s blonde hair, so it doesn’t always have the contrast that would make a knockout likely to be accurate. Second there are also all kinds of subtle variations in both the hair and the background.
Well, here’s the good news: I did the above knockout in less than five minutes…and with more experience, that will come down to three or four. All you do is make a selection that includes all or most everything you want to keep. Usually, you can do that “well enough” by just quickly dragging with the Quick Selection Tool. You can then either use the Refine Selection command or you can duplicate the layer and, while the selection is still active, click on the Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers palette and the selection for that layer automatically creates a mask of that layer. You can then use the Refine mask command

Both commands have essential the same dialog (except for it’s name) that gives you six sliders and five checkboxes that let you interactively control exactly how that selection is going to look. You’re also given a visual drop-down menu of different ways of previewing the selection. You can cycle through the views on the right by simply pressing F on your keyboard. I often find it handy to switch between the On Black (press B), which shows an immediate white space between transitions, and the On Layers (press L) view, which shows me the layer below with a white space between the under-layer and my foreground image.

To get to the even more important part of the Refine Edge/Mask dialog (both the same controls and functions, but the latter appears when you’ve made a mask from a selection) all you have to do is click on the dialog itself so the View Mode options disappear.

You’ll want to use the On Black or On Layer view modes. Then drag the Radius brush to   include as much area around the selection as it takes to include all the irregular or semi-transparent edges that you want to include. You’ll be able to see that radius increase and, as you do, your irregular edges will include more and more of what you want to keep. If you go too far, you’ll start to see things “creep into view” along some of the more geometric edges.

That’s easy to fix: Just check Smart Radius and the edge will become more narrow when it’s closer to smooth edges, so those edges are much less likely to show unexpected transparency in those areas of the image that are more geometric and need a smaller radius for that part of the selection. When you preview the radius, you know that  the Refinement Touch Up brushes will keep anything who’s colors and shapes are mostly in part of the image that you want to be the forground and will delete anything that’s mostly in the part you want to be the background.

Actually, there are two Touch Up brushes if you click on the tool’s pull-down arrow: Refine Radius and Erase Refinements. Refine radius brings the radius closer to including just what you want to keep. If you don’t like the immediate result that produces (and you see it instantly as it happens), just switch to the Erase Refinements Brush and squiggle over it. Then you can use the sliders to refine what your Refine Radius brush does.

Flying Hair Isn’t all You Can Select

Here’s another image that is complicated by the geometrics of nature in a way that’s much different from flying hair. I wanted to do a whole series of images of flowers in such a way that I could give them a less confusing background. You’ll see this blog followed by another blog that shows you four such images. When it came to doing the knockout, all were done by the following method.

Now, if you look closely at the selection dots, you’ll see that the selection is not yet very accurate. But, given the capabillities of the Refine Mask dialog, it’s “close enough.” All I had to do to make it was use the Quick Selection tool.

First, I selected all the big areas of flowers and leaves. Then I pressed Opt/Alt and clicked and “subtracted” the areas that I didn’t want to keep in the background. Alternatively, I could have just used Select All and then put the Quick Selection tool in Subtract mode to take out everything I wanted to loose.

Then, I used the Refine Mask dialog to make sure I was really getting the edge quality from all those fine little parts.

First, I saved the selection as Knockout Layer (that’s how I got to show the selection and the mask at the same time, BTW). It’s good insurance, in case you should decide to do the same thing to the same image with a different background later on because when you make that selection a mask by clicking the Mask Icon at the bottom of the layers palette, the selection “ants” evaporate. Because I’d saved the selection, all I had to do to show you the at the same time was to click the Mask icon at the bottom of the layers palette.

Now all I had to do was to use the Refine Mask dialog in exactly the same way that I used it to knock out Edith’s face. The finished result gives you a good idea of just how powerful and versatile this tool can be:

If you want to see some really good “movies” on some of the more outstanding Photoshop CS5 features, you might want to check out this link on the Adobe site:

http://tv.adobe.com/watch/learn-photoshop-cs5/using-improved-selecting-and-masking/

All these movies were made by the excellent talent at Lynda.com. I’m just here to get you even more excited by showing you some of the artistic possibilities that these new features can provide you with. Lots more to come, so stay tuned.

Speaking of future blogs, I’m also going to do a whole series of photo blogs that will show you 4-6 examples of using particular shooting techniques, new technologies, and processing software just to stimulate you as to what some of the creative possibilities might be. Of course, if it also stimulates to visit my gallery site: kenmilburn.smugmug.com, I won’t mind at all and would love to hear your feedback. I have to forewarn you, though, that there’s still lots of organizational work to do there. Pretty soon, however, you’ll be able to order images in a variety of sizes and print types.

Hasta luega and greetings from my photo-exploration of Panama City in a very digital way.

Significant new developments in digital cameras seem to be popping up by the minute lately. I’m looking forward to the day when all of the following features will be incorporated into one rock-solid but easy-tote-digicam. Actually, I’d like two versions: one a very compact-looking APS-C size sensor rangefinder-type “street camera,” the other a super-high resolution electronic viewfinder “DSLR” type camera…preferably full-screen. So here’s the list:

1. High def electronic live viewfinder–SLR is dead.

The Panasonic G1 and itís offspring introduced an electronic viewfinder with very high resolution. The definition is so fine that even the smallest details are clearly delineated. There are several benefits: (a) You see the preview of the exposure and depth of field before you shoot (b) The camera can be much smaller because you don’t need a mirror and pentaprism (c) The lens can be much smaller for the same reason–and it can be much closer to the sensor plane. (d) You always shoot in live view, so you see 100% of what youíre going to get and thereís no ìblackoutî at the precious moment. (d) You can put such a viewfinder into a very small housing  that can be attached to the cameraís hot-shoe. You can then tilt and swivel it so that you can see perfectly if you have to shoot  in a direction other than the one youíre facing in order to distract attention or to bend way down if you have to shoot a close-up. Yes, it takes some getting used to, but there are no read advantages to the ìold fashioned way.

2. Tilt & Swivel high definition live view LCD monitor.

All the advantages of the above, except you can clearly see what’s on the camera when you’re face is away from the camera. Then you can study the live scene at the same time youíre composing. With a 3″ screen and more than half a million pixels and a protective overlay that kills glare, you can even see what  you’re doing in fairly bright light. You can even “hood it” if need be–ask Hoodman. One of the really big benefits that few realize is that you can turn the monitor inward when you’re not using it, thus protecting it from cheek grease and shirt button scratches.

3. Universal Hot shoe.

That was SOP for ALL 35mm cameras and their offspring until Minolta tried to “improve” on the security of contacts for the hot shoe by re-designing it to be totally proprietary. Sony carried on that tradition when it bought Minolta. You can’t use any of the flash equipment made by competitors…and you probably already own several, right?  Other manufacturers have been very good about adding “privatized” contacts that will support extra features to a hot shoe that will let you attach and synchronize most anyone else’s flash gun, so you have your choice of which way to go and if you don’t need those special features you can use a generic flash that costs half as much.  There are also plenty of adapters that will allow you to plug a studio flashís pc connector into these hot shoes so that you can fire them as well. If you donít really appreciate how important this can be, read Joe McNally’s Hot Shoe Diaries.

4. Interchangeable lenses w/ large choice to grow with.

Look for ways to work around having to use proprietary lenses.  Why? Their extra cost doesn’t often bring extra benefits. In fact, most “proprietary” lenses are actually made by the big name independent lens makers because they have more expertise and more specialize and efficient production. So it’s cheaper for the camera makers (and most all do it) to buy a better lens from Tamron, Sigma, or Tokina and have them put their label and mount on it than to build it themselves.

Some big name manufacturers are even getting a bad rep for buying “kit” lenses that are so cheap they start falling apart in a few months. Also some camera makers don’t even make their cameras compatible with all their own lenses.

5. Interchangeable Sensors:

The day when you had to go buy a whole new camera every time you want to take advantage of a new sensor upgrade should have passed. It’s time for Panasonic, Pentax, Olympus, Sigma, and/or Sony to make a big inroad into the market by providing a camera that can change sensor size, resolution, and type. It’s going to become more and more true that different types of sensors will be better for different types of photography. Don’t worry, sensors will still be versatile, but a camera that can change sensors would let you choose between resolution and noise, for instance. Or switch to dedicated infrared or choose a sensor that’s especially designed for HDR.

6. 4/3d or larger sensor…bigger is better, even in smaller cameras.

That idea has been taken for granted for DSLRs, but now there are a growing number of “rangefinder” or “street” cameras that have larger sensors (including the new Leica M9, which has a full frame sensor.) Imagine what it would be like to have a Panasonic GH1 or GF1 with a full frame sensor. Even the 4/3ds sensors that those cameras have can easily produce and exhibition quality 20″ X 30″ print as long as the ISO is kept below 400.  The Leica M9, with  its full frame sensor, is said to be able to produce exhibition size quality prints at ISO 1600, so shooting nighttime city streets and nightclubs hand held with no flash shouldn’t be much of a problem. Maybe somebody else will make one that doesn’t cost $8,000?

7. 2-stop per step bracketing.

HDR is here, folks. The layer matching capabilities of Photoshop and Photomatix and some others has gotten good enough that (especially with image stabilization), it’s pretty easy to hand-hold an HDR shoot. You can do it if your camera brackets enough shots a half-stop or so apart, but why waste all that space on your card? Besides, the whole sequence happens faster if you’ve only three frames to shoot and that much less of the stuff in the picture is likely to move, too. Believe me, once you’ve done it, you’re addicted.

8. Fast sequence shooting (4+ fps).

It’s no news that the faster you can shoot sequences, the better your chances of capturing  “the moment” in a sport or other hi-speed situation…such as water splashes. The good news is that double and quadruple processors and faster circuitry is making it faster and cheaper.  So you can expect to see more and more of it at more affordable prices.

9. Spot, centered, many segment matrix metering thru lens.

This is pretty much de-rigueur these days amongst all but the cheapest DSLRs. But the matrix metering is getting progressively better with more cells in the matrix to be able to help determine the best overall exposure for very complex scenes with lots of hotspots and shadows.

10. Fast focusing and multiple focusing types — especially spot.

If your camera has spot focusing, you’re much more likely to get focused on what you want if you have to shoot through a busy foreground, such as tree branches and leaves or a chain-link fence.  There’s a bit of a conflict here, as EVF cameras wil eventuallly replace DSLRs, but have to use contrast-detection focusing, which is slower. ..though Panasonic and more and more other makers will keep improving on that as there are and more EVF-only cameras. Oh, and BTW, though some DSLRs give you a choice of live-view through the viewfinder, the EVF alternative on most of those cameras is, so far, very slow to focus and of much too low resolution. It is, however, full of future potential for users to whom weight and size isnít a main concern and versatility is. Itís especially going to be more welcomed as making movies with a still camera becomes more and more practical.

11. In-body Image Stabilization (3-way).

Now, I say this with some warning. First, the good part is that it works with every lens you put on the camera. I’ve been using it on two different brands of cameras for the better part of two years. It only comes on three different brands of cameras so far: Olympus, Sony, and Pentax. I’ve had all three brands with the feature because I love live music and love shooting rock stars while they perform and they hate having flashguns going off in their eyes while they’re performing. Besides, it makes them ugly, more often than not, and most know that. Frankly, the first time I tried shooting hand-held at a 10th of a second, I was amazed at the quality of the stage lighting and the fact that at least a third of the images were sharp. I then combined it with sequence shooting and almost never “missed the moment.” That was because I could hold the camera much steadier if I didnít have to punch the shutter button. I’d always stayed away from IS before because it was more financially practical to spend $150 on a good tripod than $300-1,000 more for a lens. I did have some problems with an older Sony whose sensor shook loose on bumpy roads, but have never had anything like that happen with my Pentax’s.  To Sony’s great credit, they did repair the camera under warranty and itís been great so far.

Canon and Nikon both have huge incomes from the sale of IS lenses, so I don’t think we’re likely to see in-body IS there any time RSN. It would be really desirable to have the choice of three-way (wiggle, pan, and tilt) stabilization, I suppose. I haven’t yet experienced it. Neither have I ever had a problem when I had the IS on and was panning or tilting to keep a subject sharp while wanting to blur the background. However, if I knew I had the option, it would be good to be able try it either way. Being a photographer really makes you appreciate flexibility.

12. Water/dust Proof (Weather Sealed) Body.

Now this is a really big deal. I travel a lot. You never know what’s going to happen next. Furthermore, if something does happen to your camera your chances of being able to replace it before you get home are “slim to none.” When are you ever going to be able to replace what you shot on that journey? Never. And, in fact, no matter who or where you are, you’re never going to be able to replace what you could have shot at any given moment. Of course, if you have to pay $3,000 to $8,000 more for a weather-sealed body, which has been the case up until Pentax started doing something about it, you’ll probably just buy a second body instead. I’d still rather be doing that just so I could have two different lenses mounted and ready to shoot at the same time.

13. PC connector for studio strobes.

All studio strobes and many external portable flash guns expect to connect to a PC connector on the camera body, rather than a hotshoe. The cost of including them is pretty minimal. Yet they seem to be showing up on fewer, rather than more cameras. True enough, you can put a hot-shoe adapter that has a pc-connector built into it onto everything. However, you end up with more “tangle” hanging off your camera and the danger that you could get voltage ‘kickback” from a flash that was more powerful than the camera was designed to handle.

14. Self timer.

A self timer lets you set a time delay (usually either 3 or 10 seconds) between pushing the shutter button and firing the camera. This is pretty commonplace. Ever since camera manufacturers gave up including a connection for a cable release, which costs them about 15 cents, in hopes that you’d pay for an electronic remote, it’s been difficult to fire the camera without wiggling it. Just a tiny wiggle can cause a “soft” enough image to make even the cheapest lens look good.

15. Cheap remote.

Electronic remotes have been made to be necessary because you can’t charge much more for a traditional cable release. Besides, they’re really great when you donít want to be near the camera when it fires.

16. Bulb setting.

The original (and still a good) reason for providing this setting was so that one could “light the night” from different positions without having to synchronize the flash. Itís still very handy for shooting photos in complete darkness using extremely long exposures. Won’t do you a bit of good if you don’t have a tripod or some other handy means of keeping the camera absolutely ìrock steady.

17. Grid on preview monitor.

My favorite is a “rule of thirds” grid, but any grid is better than none. Not only does it help remind you to use the rule of thirds when composing, it’s also a great way to make sure that the shot is level because one of the grid lines is parallel to a vertical or straight line.

18. Level indicator in viewfinder.

This is a very logical alternative to using a bubble level in your hot-shoe (which doesnít work at all if you’re using the hot shoe for connecting a flash. At least one of the new cameras that uses in-body IS will auto-level the image if it’s already almost level by tilting the sensor itself by a few degrees. Don’t know, though, if that would interfere with the image stabilization.

19. Great noise removal software for shooting at high ISO.

In camera noise removal is getting better and better. If you don’t have that, there’s also the noise removal in Lightroom/Camera Raw and some third-party noise removal programs. I hope to do a comparison of those here sometime in the near future.

20. High Definition Movies.

Now that processing is getting faster, definition higher, and memory is getting cheaper, it makes a lot more sense to shoot pro-quality movies with your pro-quality still camera. You never know when the motion in a scene will convey just the image that illustrates the point and makes a great web ad, QuickTime movie, podcast illustration, or hot-selling stock shot. But what good is it if you don’t have the right camera in your hands when that event happens?

Okay, now it’s your turn. How about giving me 5-20 more features you’d like to see widely adopted?

One of the most annoying problems in digital photography, especially if you intend to sell your work is noise in the image. In the old days, we used to call that “grain.” It originates for many of the same reasons. With film, we got grainy pictures when we used too small an image size, used very high speed film, or tried to “shoot in the dark”. To do those things we had to use high speed film, “over-develop” the film, and, often, enlarge it for publication.

Here’s how you can keep noise to a minimum when you’re shooting digital: Use as large a sensor as is practical and within your budget, shoot at the lowest possible ISO, expose for the shadows, keep your exposures as short as possible, and (if the subject isn’t in motion) shoot multiple exposures that you can combine into one “HDR” image.

If you memorize the above list, you’re way far ahead. I’m going to explain the “why’s and wherefore’s” of each of those things because there’s more to them than you might suspect.

Use a Large Sensor

The biggest difference in noise you’ll see in your shots is if you take one picture with a compact camera and another with a DSLR. DSLR sensors come in two sizes: 35mm and APS-C. APS-C size sensors generally “cram” more individual sensors into a given amount of space…even when the larger sensors have more individual sensors. The more individual sensors (a.k.a. sensor cells), the higher the image resolution. But the closer they’re crowded together, the more noise they make. If you have a compact camera with more than 10 megapixels, you’ll probably get lower actually resolution due to noise than if you had 10 or less megapixels. Now, it’s true that the further the technology advances, the more pixels it’s practical to put in a limited space. However, that’s all relative and it will always be true that larger sensor will give you less noise and much higher resolution.

One of the best ways to judge that is to look at the number of pixels in a square centimeter (pixel density) of a small compact, slightly larger sensor compact, typical APS-C 12MP sensor, and a full frame 35mm sensor of twice the resolution of the APS-C sensor:
Canon Power Shot A100 12MP = 43MP pixel density
Canon Power Shot G11 10MP   = 23MP pixel density
Canon Digital Rebel T1i 15MP  =  4.5MP pixel density
Sony Full Frame A850    25MP =  2.9MP pixel density
Think of it this way: A DSLR has about 10% of the pixels per square centimeter as its compact small- or large-frame counterpart! To put it another way, you get about the same amount of noise at about ISO 1200 from the highest resolution full-frame camera as at ISO 100 on the larger frame compact cameras.

Shoot in the RAW
Bet that caught your eye, but all kidding aside, a RAW file has about 10 stops of brightness range instead of the approximately 4 stops of a JPEG. So if you lighten your shadows in a RAW processor, you’ll see much less noise and more local area contrast.

So if you lighten your shadows in a RAW processor, you’ll see much less noise and more local area contrast. And when you do expose for the shadows (see below), you’ll have a lot more ability to recover detail from the over-exposed highlights (but not as much as if you’d shot RAW and underexposed for the highlights because they were more important to that particular shot than the shadows).

Shoot at a Low ISO

Just about any camera will keep noise low enough to get an decent 8 X 10-inch print if you’re shooting at ISO 100. Noise acceptability will “max out” on most compacts at about ISO 200 if they’re more than 10MP in resolution. If you have an APS-C or 4/3ds size DSLR, ISO 800 will probably be tops (give or take). Believe it or not, you can double that for a full frame camera. (I want one, dammit)

Expose for the Shadows

Much less of the dynamic range of a digital image is given to the shadows in an image than to the shades above medium (50%) brightness (“gray”), so if you’re shooting an image in which the areas of most interest are in the darker tones (and especially if the brighter highlights aren’t too important), simply over expose the shadows and then darken the image when it’s processed. You’ll be amazed at how much less noise and how much more detail you’ll see in the shadows. You do, however, have to expect that your highlights are going to blow-out, so best if they’re either not in the scene or simply not of any interest or can be cropped out.

Shoot Multiple Exposures

Scenics are often the big problem because we generally want to make larger prints and to stare at them for a long time to study all the details. So shooting for the shadows seldom works well. You should thank heavens for HDR technologies.

Keep Time Exposures Short

If you’re going out to shoot a 30 minute exposure between moonset and sunrise, best to rent a full frame camera if you’re not ready to make the 2-8 thousand dollar investment in one of these. Either that or accept the noise as part of the “artistic feel” of your shot. In fact, the longer your exposure times, the more noise you’ll get. If you’re using a DSLR, though, it’s not likely to be all that objectionable until the exposure gets to be several seconds long.

The longer we live with digital imagery, the more amazing the opportunities become to turn photographs into more abstract and subjective imagery than the “objectivity” of pure, untouched photography could ever provide. Now, we have more and more powerful stacking algorithms, layers and smart layers, automatically masked adjustment layers that can be painted, and can combine artistic effects…to mention only a fraction of the power in our hands.

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