Prepared by: Malcolm Kahn malcolm@malcolmkahn.com 201-615-5766 DUMBO Photo Shoot Adventures In Photography
Location & Site Info Friday October 30, 4:00 9:00 PM Site gathering place: Brooklyn Bridge Park at the corners of Old Fulton St & Furman St. Restrooms There are a number of restaurants on Old Fulton St where you can use the facilipes Food The group will be going to dinner aqer shoopng at one of the local 2
Schedule Training and Q&A: 4-9:00 PM Shoot schedule: Sunset: 5:33 PM Civil end: 6:23 PM NauPcal end (deep blue sky): 6:56 PM 3
Classic Shooting Locations Sunset 4
Before You Leave Home Camera and bag check Charge your bayeries and bring 1 or 2 extras; this is a very long shoot and the cold weather will drain you bayeries Bring a big memory card; reformayed and ready to go (How many Pme have you forgoyen to reformat before shoopng?) A small umbrella, it can be windy (large umbrellas will get in the way of fellow shooters) A sturdy tripod, hopefully with a hook to hang your backpack for stability (or a small bungee cord to hook between your tripod and a heavy backpack or the fence that s in front of us) 5
Before You Leave Home Cont d. A cable release or remote trigger will give your sharper pictures An intervalometer for Pme laps can be fun Appropriate clothing to stay warm, remember no complaining A small flash light or head-lamp (red filter desirable) Nothing too strong that would disturb others or confuse planes landing at La Guardia You can also bring a SMALL camping chair or stool to relax between shots Some gaffers tape to place on your lens once you fix the focus 6
Lenses Suggested lenses: City: Wide angle to about 100mm lenses are a good bet Other Gear: ND filters to create smooth water Circular Polarizer: somewhat useful but not cripcal with sun coming from the leq 7
Some Suggested Settings Manual sehngs are best Turn off lens and in-camera an9-shake features when on a tripod. If it is windy, adjust your shuyer speed accordingly. Using anp-shake can also somepmes help get sharper images in very windy condipons. Aperture priority is an alternapve for single shots or simple brackepng In-camera noise reduc9on is not recommended since it takes too much Pme and can result in missed shots Shoot in Live View if your camera has that capability 8
Some Suggested Settings Cont d. If not using live view, make sure your mirror is locked or delayed (2 second shuyer delay) before shoopng with longer shuyer speeds if your camera has that capability. Live View automapcally locks the mirror. Use focus peeking to achieve good focus if your camera has the capability Set your camera s LCD to display the Histogram Use the Histogram to set the proper shuyer speed aqer sehng the ideal F-stop and ISO A properly exposed shot will have a histogram that is not bunched to one side Note that the bright city lights will cause a spike in the Histogram to the right and the dark areas of the scene will cause an even bigger area on the leq side. Adjust your shuyer speed to prevent the highlights from bunching to the right (blown-out highlights) and use brackepng to offset for the loss of detail in the shadows. 9
Some Suggested Settings ISO Use the lowest na9ve ISO for your camera Canon and Sony = 100 Nikon = 64-200 My recommenda9on is to keep your ISO low as possible for as long as possible to beyer manage noise 10
Some Suggested Settings f-stop Modern lenses have peak sharpness between f5.6 & 11 Beyond f11 you get diffracpon and loose sharpness I like to keep my f-stop around f8, which is a good blend of depth-of-field and sharpness ShuKer Speed I use shuker speed as the variable to adjust for proper exposure You will have to reduce shuyer speed to 3-10 seconds as night falls This will give you some smooth water and car headlight streaks. If you don t want these features, adjust your ISO and f-stop accordingly If you want very smooth water, you need a ND filter and a shuyer speed of between 10 seconds and 1-2 minutes. Plan accordingly. NOTE: If it is windy, you will want to avoid show shuker speeds and adjust the other camera seqngs, including increasing ISO if necessary. Be careful to watch what s happening with ships on the river when you use long exposures. Those blurry ships are hard to effecpvely remove in Photoshop, especially at such close range. 11
Some Suggested Settings Focusing Manual focusing is strongly recommended; low-light auto focusing oqen has poor results and is parpcularly problemapc in a pano when one shot in the set gets out of focus. Because we are approximately.3 miles from ManhaYan, you can focus once and leave it there Focus on the city and don t worry about your hyper focus distance, unless you have foreground elements in the image If you re doing a moderately zoomed panorama, you can focus in the middle of the panorama and leave it there NOTE: You can place a piece of gaffers tape on your lens focus ring to prevent movement If you are doing a 100mm or more pano, I would focus every shot NOTE: Please do check your focus regularly since you could inadvertently hit the lens. The focus will also change as you zoom most lenses so get in the habit of refocusing regularly. 12
General Cityscape Concepts Panoramas: It s best to shoot your camera in verpcal mode when shoopng a pano A 3-shot pano in the verpcal mode will give you approximately the same dimensions as a regular 2x3 frame 13
General Cityscape Concepts HDR and Luminosity Blending Most modern cameras can produce 3, 5, 7 or even 9 shot bracketed exposures. Typically the camera takes 1 normal exposure plus 2, 4, 6 or 8 plus / minus frames in increments you choose. I like to modify what the camera will automapcally shoot in a bracket. My aim is to expose the brightest areas only 0.7 stops above the brightest specular highlight, since there is no usable informapon above that point. This strategy provides me with more informapon in the shadows. In a 3 shot bracket of the city I will shoot in 1 full stop increments for each shot with the brightest shot a +.7, then -.3 and -1.3. I do this by sehng the bracket increment for 1 full stop and dialing-in -.3 stops of exposure compensapon. In a 5 shot bracket sequence, I will expose in ¾ stop jumps and again being at +.7 by dialing in -.7 stops of exposure compensapon. This approach provide me with the greatest flexibility in post-processing. 14
Situational Settings Sunset: Depending on the cloud cover, the strength of the sehng sun, which will be to our leq at the Pp of ManhaYan, will create strong specular highlights. Check your histogram to make sure the graph is not too squeezed to the right and adjust the shuyer speed to create a well exposed photo NaPve ISO; f8 to f11 NOTE: if you are doing a pano, make the adjustments for the brightest panel in the panorama and then shoot all segments the same IN MANUAL MODE An ND filter and Circular Polarizer may be helpful with the direct and reflected light. DO NOT USE A CPL FOR A PANO! 15
Situational Settings Just before sundown: This is where you can get some very flat lighpng. It's also the Pme when you can get a burst of sunlight on the city that makes things magical. It all depends on the clouds around the sehng sun, so be ready. Use your histogram as always Suggested ShooPng CondiPons: If you re shoopng a bracketed set, I would not dial in as much exposure compensapon for this type of condipon if you re shoopng a bracketed set. Use either zero or a maximum of -.3 since the specular highlights are not as strong and the City lights are not yet too strong. Other condipons to taste. 16
Malcolm s List Of Useful Photo Apps The Photographer s Ephemeris (TPE) Shows you the direcpon of the sun and moon, and has many other useful features. It s the single best photo App for serious photographers. ND Timer Helps you calculate camera sehngs when using Neutral Density Filters DoF Calc This is a depth-of-field applicapon TideTrack Provides Pde informapon PhotoPills Another very useful App that provides star and Milky Way tracking Light Meter As it s name implies NOTE: You will not really need any of these Apps for our shoot but you may find them useful in the future. All of these apps should be available for iphone and Android and can be downloaded from those services. 17
18 If you haven t understood some of the items presented, don t worry, we re here to help. Please ask all of your questions before serious shooting begins, however. Enjoy!