One camera feature that is sometimes overlooked by photographers is Auto ISO! This is a mode where the ISO setting is adjusted by your camera to a setting that the camera predicts as a useful choice without you having to manually adjust the ISO all the time.

This is an especially perfect option when shooting handheld. When your camera is in Aperture Priority Exposure Mode, the camera is “thinking” about what ISO would be right to ensure the shutter speed is fast enough for handheld photography, minimizing the effect of motion blur caused by hand movement. It also takes into account the focal length you are using, and it does a great job at making a good choice for the ISO value to be used. It raises it automatically in lower light scenarios, but then brings it back down to lower values in brighter circumstances. That is exactly what you would want it to do!

One small distinction is with regard to Nikon cameras: Nikons have something called ISO Auto Sensitivity Mode. Rather than totally surrendering control of the ISO to the camera, as other brands do, Nikons allow you to still set the ISO value, and then when you enable ISO Auto Sensitivity Mode (in your menus), it will automatically will override your ISO choice if it thinks your choice is too low for handheld photography when in Aperture Priority Mode. That’s still a great feature! You could just set your camera to ISO 100 or 200 and just let the camera raise it automatically as needed.

Also, Auto ISO is quite useful in Manual Exposure Mode! In this mode, you then take control of both the aperture AND shutter speed, and the camera will try to choose the right ISO value that will work for that aperture/shutter combination (at least within the limits of your camera’s capabilities).

SO if you have never used Auto ISO before, I encourage you to check your user manual and try it out!

Dear photographer friends,

I encourage you, as a photographer, to purse the greatness within you. Your art can (and should) be distinctively your art! Sometimes we artists might find our creative selves sort of drifting between copying other’s styles or losing inspiration entirely.

I am a firm believer in embracing your individuality and don’t really worry about imitating others or even seeking the approval of others. Find the part of this art that motivates you to create more art, to improve in your skills and vision, which will lead to even better art!

Photography has been my life for a lot of years, and know first-hand how we artists can sometimes lose our inspiration. Or even if we do feel “inspired,” we still might feel like there must be something more we can do to expand our creativity.

Having taught countless photographers over many years, I have found many photographers think the key to better photography is just knowing their camera features better, and managing exposure modes, aperture, shutter speed, ISO, and all that. Yes of course those aspects are important. They are our “tools of the trade,” but they are just the starting point. The REAL journey in the art of photography begins when you get in touch with yourself and your creative vision.

I consider this SO important, I created a class for that called Photography: Finding Your Way – Creativity and Inspiration Workshop. The funny thing I’ve observed is that a lot of photographers think they don’t need that class but I sincerely believe every photographer would benefit from this workshop, so I can’t emphasize it enough.

Here’s one example comment from a class participant:

“It’s so easy as an amateur photographer to become overwhelmed with all the technical aspects of photography. And as a photographer at any level, there is often an expectation of working to get the best technical picture. Kevin does a wonderful job of teaching the technical aspects of photography, for sure, but his Finding Your Way class focuses instead on the joy of photography, on photography as an experience and way to express ourselves. We are all creative beings, an image of the great Creator, and it is healing to the soul to pursue that. In addition to revealing the depth of Kevin as an amazing person, this class gives permission and encouragement to explore our individual path of creativity using photography. We laughed, we cried, we learned, and we found the spark that drew us to photography in the first place. Thanks, Kevin.”

At times, I am tempted to say this class is required of any photographer who wants to take any of my other classes, but such a requirement just isn’t practical. So, I am left with just “urging” you to sign up, and see what you discover about you and your photography. (You can thank me later! 🙂 )

Whatever type of photographer you turn out to be, be a good one!

Here’s The Link to Learn More and Sign Up

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Some Insights to Consider:

“Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way.”

Edward de Bono

“There is no such thing as creative and non-creative people, only people who use their creativity and people who don’t.”

Brene Brown

Hey friends! I thought I should post a comment about this common misconception about the use of a flash diffuser in wildlife photography.

A few years ago, I took a quick snapshot with my iPhone of a photographer’s setup photographing elk over 50 yards away. In fact, he wasn’t just a photographer, he was a photography instructor leading a group of other photographers on a “wildlife photography workshop.” I have since seen numerous “photography experts” advising the use of this exact setup, with the claim that a flash diffuser like the one used above will “soften the light and blend it more naturally in wildlife scenes.”

I don’t want to embarrass anyone who may do this, but actually this advice is totally incorrect. Adding a flash diffuser on a speedlight/flash while shooting wildlife with a telephoto lens like this is totally pointless, so don’t bother following that advice from “experts” who claim it is so important to do so.

Let’s say you just put a flash on top of your camera, without a diffuser. Depending on whether your flash has a zoom capability, its light distribution will vary a bit, but the light will be projected outward like below.

The only portion of the light that illuminates the elk are the light rays in the red region. The light that goes above the elk, into the sky, has no effect on the photograph.

IF you use a flash when doing wildlife photography, really the only thing you need to make sure you do is to not have the flash be a dominant source of light. It should only be adding a small amount of light on the animal, otherwise the photograph will not look natural.

In this case, with the elk being 50 yards away, it is not likely the flash will even have that much effect on the photograph, given the inverse square law of light will result in only a small amount of light illuminating the animal. That’s ok since you don’t want much light contribution from the flash anyway.

Now, let’s say we add a diffuser on the front of the flash because so many “experts” say that will soften the light on the animal. Note below how the light rays are just scattered more broadly by the diffuser. Doing so, does not “soften” the light whatsoever. It only scatters the light.

Again, the only portion of the light that illuminates the elk are the light rays in the red region. The light that goes above the elk, into the sky, has no effect on the photograph. And the light rays are just as much coming from a pinpoint source of light, and the light on the animal will not be diffused any more than if you used a flash without a diffuser. The light actually illuminating the animal will look exactly the same either way.

What’s worse, adding a diffuser will cut down on the light output of the flash by maybe 2 stops or so, right when the flash is already limited in being able to have much effect on a subject 50 yards away.

What that means is the diffuser, at most, is really just causing you to burn through batteries much more quickly because the flash will most likely have to push out a full-power pulse of light to have any effect at all, AND the light isn’t diffused anyway. And harder you make the flash work, the slower the recycle times.

Some people have questioned me on this, saying they have noticed that when they use a diffuser, it does seem to “soften” the light and make it not look as much like a flash was used. Actually, when that happens, what is really occurring is the diffuser is inhibiting the light output, so the ambient light is more dominant and the flash is less dominant. It is not really softening the light from the flash. It is just diminishing its light output by a couple of stops. You could also reduce the light output by reducing the power level of the light, or if you are shooting with TTL, use the flash exposure compensation to reduce the light output, and save your batteries. No need for a diffuser, ever, for a scenario like this.

Of course, this is a bit ironic, considering that little white device you can attach to your flash is often called a “diffuser” and ads for those devices often boast how they soften and diffuse the light, but that really is for indoor use where it scatters the light more broadly so it will bounce off more surfaces like walls and ceilings. For outdoor use, you won’t be bouncing the light off the sky. Keep your diffuser for indoor use. 🙂

Happy picture taking!

Kevin

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I guess most of you have heard of the song “With a Little Help from My Friends.” Well this blog post really has nothing to do with that song. :-}

In this blog post, I am really am just briefly talking about how much a little help from electronic flashes / speedlights can enhance a portrait. They are my best friends for portraiture on location whether indoors or outdoors. The key is to use them to enhance and blend with the ambient light in the scene to make the image better.

I have seen so many people say they hate using speedlights because they just don’t like the results they get, the light is too harsh. Actually the trick is to use them in the right way. Of course, you sure don’t want to add bad light to a scene. Use speedlights to add good light, to a scene. By “good” I mean light that has attractive qualities, mixing in soft diffused light, or adding subtle highlights intermingling with the ambient light. You can do this with various light modifiers such as reflectors, photographic umbrellas, or softboxes.

So, this post is intended to just encourage you to not give up on speedlights. Just use them in the right way at the right time. They are your portable magic light sources if used in the right way. They are your friends.

Want to know about my next online class on using flashes/speedlights? Click here

Want to listen to the song by the Beatles? Click Here

🙂 Kevin

Here are a few photographs that were created with a little help from my friends.

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Here’s a famous quote by legendary photographer, Ansel Adams:

“The single most important component of a camera is the 12 inches behind it.”

There is so much truth in this! What matters more than the particular camera features, is the photographer who is using it! You simply must manage the critical setting choices such as aperture, shutter speed, ISO, exposure modes, focusing, depth of field, focal length, white balance, metering modes, etc. The camera can’t make those choices automatically on its own and always get it right. You, as the photographer, must make those choices, based on the artistic intent that only you know. (The camera is not the artist, you are!)

We photographers must make choices that go way beyond camera settings. If we’re shooting portraits, we must bring out the best in the person being photographed, help them feel comfortable in front of the camera, shoot their best angle, manage the best qualities of light, etc.

If you are a nature photographer, you have a wide array of other issues to consider, the weather, sun angle and light qualities, timing, location, wildlife patterns, the flora and fauna at different times of the year, what time you’re getting up in the morning, travel plans, etc.

Yes your choice of camera gear matters, camera features, lens features, tripod quality, and all that, but still these other factors beyond the camera often matter more. Whether you shot the photo with a 20 megapixel camera from 10 years ago, or a brand new 60 megapixel camera will affect various image qualities such as level of digital noise, resolution and fine details, but ultimately the creation of a great image is up to you more than the camera. Whether you shot the image with a Nikon, Canon, Pentax, Sony, Fuji, Olympus, etc. is secondary.

You are that important component that is “12 inches behind the camera.” Upgrade that component, and you’ll get better shots!

Practice, practice, learn, practice some more. Make mistakes, but learn from your mistakes, and you’ll be a better photographer!

Want to know more about the kinds of decisions photographers need to make to create better nature pictures? I have a Nature Essentials Photography Class happening on Tuesday August 25th!

Happy Picture Making!

Kevin Gourley

I hear this from so many photographers! In fact, I’d say this is the #1 issue people encounter. The solution is multi-faceted and I’ll touch on the key factors you, as the photographer, must keep in mind if you want consistently sharp images.

• Focus
  It is critically important to correctly focus on what is most important in your image. Whether it is an animal or bird in the trees in a wildlife shot, or someone’s eyes in a portrait. All current generation cameras offer automatic focus features, but you’ll need to make sure you really know how to use those features appropriately. A poor setting choice will lead to poor results.
  • WHERE to focus: You may not want the camera to simply automatically decide where to focus. Depending on your camera’s capabilities, that might even lead to terrible results. You might need to choose single point focus which allows you to point at exactly where you want the camera to automatically focus, or if you’re shooting portraits and your camera has an eye-detection feature, you could turn that on. Single point focus is pretty universal across all cameras, and that provides the greatest degree of control when automatic focusing.
  • WHEN to focus: Also, consider whether you want the camera to focus once, or continually focusing up until the shutter fires. For relatively static scenarios where there is not much movement, stick with One-Shot focusing (Canon) or AF-S (Nikon,Sony,…). For active scenes like an animal running or a bird in flight, use AI-Servo (Canon) or AF-C (Nikon,Sony,…)
    
• Aperture
  Your choice of aperture value affects the “depth of field” (range that appears in focus). While this is not a focus setting, it is still very important. The higher the f/number, the greater the depth of field. A poor choice for the aperture value could lead to problems with part of the image not being in focus. Let’s say you photograph a group of people. If they are not all the exact same distance from the camera, you need to make sure you choose a high f/number like f/8 or even higher (just depends on how far their distance varies). Photographers often forget about this, and this leads to serious problems.
  • Then there is one more issue related to depth of field and focusing. For higher depth-of-field shots, when you choose a higher f/stop you can also achieve better results by not focusing on the foreground or the background, but instead focus on something in between. This technique is called “hyper-focal focusing.”
    
• Shutter Speed
  Sometimes a blurry photograph has nothing to do with a focus or depth of field issue. It might be an issue where the shutter speed was simply too slow to freeze motion of the subject, or freeze any camera vibration that is problematic at slower shutter speeds.
  • Handheld Shots: A general rule of thumb is to keep the shutter speed at least 1 / focal length to ensure you minimize hand vibration blur. So if you are shooting at 200mm, make sure the shutter speeds are at least 1/200th or higher. Technically you would need to take into account your camera’s sensor crop factor that affects the effective focal length of the lens. At least this rule gets you in the ballpark of sufficient shutter speeds. When in doubt, err on the side of faster shutter speeds. It can really make a difference.
  • Action Shots: When there is movement of different elements within a scene, you might need to choose even faster shutter speeds. For example photographing birds in flight or an animal or person running, you might want shutter speeds in the 1/1000th or faster range.
    
• Image Stabilization
  This feature, offered by many different camera manufacturers under different names (Image Stabilization, Vibration Reduction, Vibration Compensation, Optical Steady Shot,…), is designed to help eliminate motion blur caused by movement in hand-held shots, allowing you to break that 1 / focal length rule by a bit. The features vary depending on the make and model of camera and lenses you are using, but are quite helpful. I most definitely highly recommend taking advantage of this feature in hand-held photography!
  
• Using a Tripod
  Another way you can stabilize your camera is to use a tripod. It won’t eliminate motion blur in moving subject, but at least it will eliminate or reduce blur caused by camera movement. There are still some situations you must be mindful of.
  • When Image Stabilization is a Problem
    Sometimes when your camera is mounted on a tripod that otherwise-wonderful image stabilization feature actual can cause a problem in some scenarios and actually introduce some vibration. So the general rule is to turn off image stabilization when using a tripod. Otherwise it could conceivably introduce a slight amount of motion blur.
  • Unstable Tripod
    There are several ways your tripod might not be as stable as you’d like. Let’s say you have the tripod on a wooden deck, that you are also standing on. You can introduce movement that might cause some motion blur, simply by moving around, so stay very still. Or if you accidentally bump the tripod when shooting, that can cause a problem. Or maybe one of the legs is not latched securely and the leg slides down ever so slowly while you are shooting, that could also cause a problem (hey, I’ve seen it happen).
  • DSLR’s Have Mirrors
    There is one other factor that is more rare but can cause a problem. It’s the mirror inside a DSLR. You mirrorless camera owners don’t have to worry about this. Inside a DSLR, when the shutter fires, the mirror slaps up very quickly to get out of the way, for the shutter to open. That action causes a very tiny amount of vibration right when the shutter fires. Even if you have the tripod on very secure ground, there is always a slight possibility that this tiny vibration can hurt image sharpness. Some DSLR’s support a “mirror lockup” or “mirror up” mode. Check your camera user manual for more information. This usually is only a problem in rare cases where you are using a long lens (400mm+) and a moderately slow shutter speed (1/4th – 1/60th ish).

I know this sounds like a lot to think about, because it is! With practice, this is not really all that hard. I cover these topics in my various Photography Essentials classes and in my book “30 Practical Tips for Better Photographs” available on Amazon.

I hope this helps. Now go out and create those sharp images you’ve been wanting to create!

Kevin