What kept me from shooting clean studio like portraits was the mistaken belief that I needed loads of expensive equipment.

One day a friend of mine approached me about photographing his band. He had just gotten new management and wanted to make the band band look pro. He started by showing me some photography he liked and we started talking about what could and could not be done. One of the shots he like was a clean shot with dramatic lighting again a black background. I told him that would be tough but I’d try, and so we did.

Not having a studio or lighting I started getting creative and went into the garage to see what I had. I had a couple of ladders, string, clamps, 8’ pole, a black bed sheet and some tape. I decided to shoot outside in my front yard and use sun light. I knew that I wanted to reflect light so I bought a couple of sheets of 2”x4” white foam-board from the local hardware store. After getting my things together I was ready to go try it out.

The equipment:

• Two fold-open ladders
• Two black bed sheets
• A 8’ pole
• String
• Two sheets of 2”x4” white foam board
• Tape
• Tripod
• Camera (Canon 10D)

The rigging:

I setup my two “fold-open” ladders opposite each other and tied the 8’ pole to the front edge of both. I tied a couple of weights to the bottom step of each ladder. I then taped the black bed sheet to the top of the pole across from one end to the other making sure to keep it as clean as I could. I found another black sheet to put on the grass in front of the backdrop.

Lighting:

Using the sun was going to be a challenge as it was one-directional, so I used the two sheets of foam-board to reflect the light onto the guys faces and add fill-in lighting. As I was shooting digital I was able to look at the results right away and change the angles right away.
Tip: If shooting outside have a small sheet you can pull over your head and camera when reviewing the shot on a digital camera, this will greatly help you see what you shot without the reflections and the sun light dimming your view.
I spent some time getting the look I wanted with and playing with angles. They had some black hats and clothing so I tried to create some trim lighting to make the hats and clothing pop from the black background.

The shoot:

I knew I was going to have to darken the background sheet in photoshop, so I made sure to keep it clean and smooth as much as possible. The creases could become a big job to fix in photoshop so I tried to keep them to an absolute minimum. During I took time to get the band guys to get comfortable and challenge them to try facial expressions and “looks” I wanted to make sure they would look like a band and not goofy. I had some sample photos that I would show them to see if they could duplicate. The funny thing was that within 30min a nice group of neighbors had come to see what we where doing. This was fun but also distracting, so I made sure that we stayed focused.

Tip: As the photographer take charge, remember you are going to get the best results by keeping things under control and minimizing distractions. Also keep checking your shots for bad reflections, shadows, expressions and wardrobe issues. Remember, it’s better to fix right there than afterward in photoshop.

One of the guys wanted Latin text painted on his chest, we shot some shots but I thought it was to strong so at the end I suggested trying to put a T-shirt on over it and wet the T-shirt “just to see what it would look like” That shot really turned out great. Be flexible and try out some stuff (after you are sure you have want you wanted) in this case, wetting him would have hindered other shots we wanted had i not shot them first.

The result:

The shoot turned out to be great and a load of fun! I was very happy with the results and to this day people think it was shot in a studio with lighting equipment. The band was ubber happy and I was too. For a no-budget shoot and not having any pro-equipment the results were very convincing and opened the door for me to do some other paid shoots and actually buy equipment. Years later I now shoot with lighting equipment, but have to say that, that shoot was one of the most fun and a great paradigm shift for me.
As a photographer the tools you have are just that; tools. You can make great looking shots with some creativity and some random stuff around your home. Money and equipment should not limit you from pushing the limits. So go have fun with it.

A Diagram to Show How it Was Done:

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Nowadays many photographers and digital artists use vignettes as a way to finish their images. There are lots of ways to add a vignette to an image and here are some of them. I’ve included methods that work with Lightroom, Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. The latter process will work with most photo editing programs.

Lightroom 2

To add a vignette in Lightroom, move to the Develop module and choose the Vignette options. Set the Post Crop Amount value in a negative value to darken the edges. Set the Roundness to a low value such as -70 to get a rectangular vignette and set the Feather to around 50 so it is soft but not too soft.

Photoshop #1

A simple way to add a vignette in Photoshop is to use the Lens Correction filter. Choose Filter > Distort > Lens Correction and adjust the Vignette amount to the Left to a negative value and the Midpoint to the left to bring the vignette into the image more.

Photoshop #2

Another way to add a vignette in Photoshop is to use a Layer style. This has some benefits and one is that the method works on just about any size image and it’s simple to do once you have the Style created.

Make the background layer a regular layer by double clicking it and click Ok. Select the Add Layer Style icon at the foot of the Layer palette and choose Inner Glow. Set the Color to Black, set the blend mode to Darken or Multiply and adjust the Size so you can see the edge. You can save this as a style preset and you can then record the process of adding the style to the layer as an action so that you have a one click vignette solution.

Almost any photo-editing software

If your software supports layers and layer opacity then this method should work just fine in most photo editing programs. I’ve used Photoshop Elements and you should check your program’s help if you are unsure how to perform these tasks in your software.
Add a new layer using Layer > New > Layer and use the Rectangular Marquee to select around the inside border of this layer leaving a small margin. Choose Select > Inverse to invert your selection so the border area is selected. Now use the Paint Bucket to fill the area with black or dark brown. Choose Select > Deselect.

Choose Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and use a high radius value to blur the edge and soften it. Adjust the Layer Opacity to blend this edge into the image underneath and, if desired, set the Blend Mode to Darken or Multiply.

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Tobi Troendle created the A.I.R reflector. Aside from having a cool name it also folds to nothing.

This is of course no problem, if you are working in the studio or transport your equipment in the trunk of your car, but I wanted a small reflector, that I can carry around in my camera bag or even the pockets of my pants, if I need to. After some heavy thinking, the “A.I.R” came to my mind, inspired by those foldable round reflectors you can get everywhere, but without the need to find that glass-fibre-something frame material and work with it. And here is how to build it:

Materials

• A bicycle tube of the desired size. Use a “Dunlop” type valve, if you want to inflate it by mouth.
• An emergency blanket or some reflective cloth (probably more stable…)
• Some tape (gaffer’s and double sided)
• Scissors
• Threat and needle, if working with cloth

Total cost: 0 – 10$, depending on what you already have at home

The building process

Inflate the tube, using the power of your lungs or a pump.

Cut out a rectangular piece of the blanket and crumple it. If you don’t do this, you will probably get strange patterns of reflected light on your subject, causes by the creases in the blanket!

Spread the blanket out and attach it to the floor/table with some tape at its corners. This will keep it flat right where you want it to be.

Carefully align the tube on the blanket and fix it with small pieces of double sided tape.

Cut the blanket to a round shape, which is big enough to allow wrapping of the exceeding material around the tube.

Wrap the blanket around the tube and glue it to itself with some tape. Gluing on the rubber probably won’t work, because the rubber will stretch and move too much.

Test drive

After deflating the tube, you can now fold the reflector down to about the size of a big hand.

To use it, just unfold, inflate it and reflect the light!

This image was taken with available window light

And this one was taken with A.I.R on the left side, reflecting with the silver side of A.I.R.

First impressions

The reflector is surprisingly stable, because the blanket works similar to the spokes on a wheel. Using a pump to inflate it, will probably give extra strength to the design, although I still would avoid heavy winds…

A rubber tube will not break like glass fibre or plastic does, so don’t worry about dropping or warping it.

You could use the “A.I.R” as a life raft for your camera, in case your plane crashes or boat sinks! (Just kidding…?)

The silver side seems to add a slight bluish tone to the reflected light, but that totally depends on the material you are using.

The shape of the tube has a nice size for easy handhold operation.

Possible improvements

Adding some slings, in order to attach it some kind of reflector holder (light stand, clamp, tree, whatever)

Using some cloth, thread and needle instead of foil and tape will definitely kick up the design to a more professional appearance and functionality.

You can design “A.I.R”s in all sizes, by using small tubes from bikes for children or huge tubes cut from old inflatable boats.

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Here is another fairly easy hack that if you like it, and use it, can save you goo-gobs of money. Build your own tilt-shift lens. I know there are people out there who would love to experiment with a PC Shift lens, but the cost of purchasing one is generally prohibitive unless you plan to shoot professionally with the lens. (A nikon shift lens with tilt functions cost over $1000, BTW: The Nikon guys once took a look over this and said, “why would you do that to such a nice camera? We sell that lens you know.” I know. That’s the point). There are companies out there that sell variations of this type of hack. Lensbabies in particular I am familiar with, and they look like they have a good product. This is the same thing, works on the same principle, except perhaps in some respects it might exceed the optical quality that you can get from commercially available PC lens hacks. The reason? The image quality here is determined by your lens, the lens that I use is an old Carl Zeiss 80mm prime lens intended for medium format. *Crisp* More than that however, they are also fairly inexpensive. Take a look for Pentacon Six lenss on ebay. They don’t run very much.

A word about the lens. In this hack the key element is the lens, and you need something pretty specific for the hack to work. The lens you use must be intended for a format larger than the format you intend to use the lens on. IE: In this example i use a lens intended for 6×6 image on a 35mm camera. If I wanted to build this for medium format I would not only need a larger plunger, but a lens that was capable of at least 6×8, with 6×9 being preferable. The reason is that the lens works by playing with the fact that we can take advantage of the format differences (once again) to give us a little extra space between the camera body and then lens to add some rubbery stuff . In this case, a plunger. So, lets get to it.

What you’ll need:

1. Lens – (see above)
2. Rubber Plunger – (any type will do, as long as it’s flexible and not too large.)
3. Cardboard – (something stiff and not corrugated)
4. Plastic Body cap

I you notice I use body caps a lot in my work. They are the perfect way to attach your camera to something else, something it probably was never intended to be attached to. Anyway, pick one up.

Then, using a hobby knife, hollow out the inside part, and smoothen it down so there are no rough spots or burs.

Now take your plunger:

And cut a hole in the top where the stick is, just large enough to fit your lens.

Then go ahead and stick your lens onto the plunger to see if it fits. At this point I wouldn’t really worry about gluing your lens down. In this particular construction the rubber will profile never provide decent enough support for you to feel comfortable letting your precious lens go without holding it as well. Just make the hole tight enough so that the lens is fairly snug. I even made groves so that I could ‘screw’ the lens into place. If you’re enterprising enough, you could go out and buy the actual bayonet adaptor for whatever lens your using and then just screw it on.

Then you need to build your backing. Here I cut out a ring from the cardboard. The inner circle is the circumference and diameter of the lens cap, while the outer part matches the bottom of the plunger. I hotglued the parts together. (For expediency’s sake. If you want to really use this lens set-up often, I recommend that you a: don’t use cardboard or hotglue b: use screws for everything.)

Okay, go ahead and hotglue it together.

With your lens attached, you’re all done and ready to shoot.

This lens works pretty well, surprisingly well actually. The image quality is awesome as the lens is a Zeiss and doesn’t have any optical interference between your CCD Chip and the lens itself. You can use this lens for art photography or architectural stuff where you’re trying to adjust for lens distortion. If you want to get serious about building something like this to use for something like architecture where you’ll need to be able to hold the lens in one place for a long time, and very still, consider using this article as a guide to how you might build this using an adjustable frame that would provide you with greater control over the range of motions. If you build this with a frame, consider using bellows instead of a plunger. I chose the plunger as I was looking for something flexible yet sturdy at the same time. Here focusing is a matter of squeezing the lens down, and twirling it around. Very practical. Here’s a shot I took with this lens.

Notice how I am able to keep the eyelashes crystal sharp in the picture, yet blur her body as the image gets closer to the bottom? It’s a very effective method of controlling the viewers gaze, and keeping it locked. You can do the same thing using gradient maps and Gaussian blur in photoshop, but in my opinion it never looks as good. Besides, you can do this on film. Enjoy!

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Capturing the Moment

The key to any photograph of human subjects is to capture the moment. This means conveying the emotions of the subjects and telling a story with a single snapshot. When it comes to maternity photos, there are several different angles you may choose to take in order to capture this special moment in a woman or in a couple’s life. These include:

• The Mother-Child Connection
• The Family Bond
• The Beautiful Female

By setting the pregnant woman or the woman and her significant other in certain poses and by using creative angles and backgrounds, you can better capture these special moments and tell a touching and memorable moment with a single photograph.

The Mother-Child Connection

Every mother is aware of the special connection a mother feels with her child. Even before the child is born, the pregnant woman begins to form this bond and to feel a deep and undying love for her child. This moment can be captured in many ways. For example, a simple photo of the mother laying down and holding her pregnant belly as she looks dreamily toward the camera can help communicate this special bond.

Of course, you should never feel obligated to have your subject look at the camera as you take her photo. In fact, photos with the mother looking away from the camera can create a more private and intimate feeling. In addition, creative use of color, such as in the photo below, can further express emotion. The use of black and white photography with the flower and its red petals being the only color helps to symbolize both new life and love.

Whether the mother looks toward the camera, away from the camera or toward her pregnant belly, keep in mind that the goal is to express the deep, heartfelt emotion a woman experiences as her child develops inside her.

The Family Bond

When taking maternity photos, another option is to take photos that include the father as well. These pictures should communicate the joy the couple feels as well as the bond that is created between mother, child and father. This doesn’t necessarily mean showing all of the mother and father, however, as simply showing their hands as they embrace each other and the mother’s pregnant belly can create an intimate and touching photo.

Of course, showing both the man and woman’s faces as they hold onto each other and the pregnant belly can also express a great deal of emotion and affection if you can get your subjects to show these emotions with their facial expressions.

Another option is to place the focus on the pregnant belly while conveying emotion through the father’s actions, such as the belly kissing photo shown below.

Regardless of the pose, focus on the love and affection the subjects feel for each other and for their unborn child in order to create a truly remarkable photograph.

The Beautiful Female

Many consider the form of the pregnant woman to be the most beautiful on earth, and you can highlight this beauty with the help of the proper lighting, poses and props. The lighting in the photo below, for example, focuses on the curves of the pregnant form.

Another option is to use soft and sheer fabrics to further create a sense of femininity.

If the pregnant woman is comfortable with it, you may also want to consider taking a nude photo of her and her pregnant belly. If she is not comfortable with being completely nude, have her cover key areas of her body so they are not exposed.

By focusing on the beauty of the female form, you can help the pregnant woman better understand and appreciate her beauty and just how special this time of her life truly is.

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In this post Gary Cosby Jr. shares some great tips on shooting with available light.

Shooting available light can be both liberating and enslaving.

Sounds like a contradiction doesn’t it? In fact, shooting available light frees you from all the encumbrances of dragging strobe equipment around with its stands, modifiers, strobes and possibly even power packs. On the other hand, shooting available light chains you to whatever the light is willing to do at a given time of day. So you see now how it can free you or chain you up. There are a few tips and techniques you can use to tame available light and bend it to your will in many circumstances. Best of all, you don’t have to purchase a thing to use this technique.

First of all and most obviously, try your best to avoid shooting in straight up, high noon daylight. We all know that is the worst light of the day and there is very little you can do to modify it other than just picking a shady spot to do your photography. Having said that, if you are shooting in the forest during a high noon, it may not be such a bad thing. If you can adapt your subject to a high contrast environment then you can shoot successfully even then. If you can avoid high, overhead direct sunlight and shoot either early or late you will be doing yourself a favor because the shadows that kill you at high noon can be your friend during other hours of the day. Remember this, light illuminates your subject but shadow defines it. The direction and quality of those shadows can really make a subject sing.

I work for a daily newspaper so most of what I am telling you comes from having to shoot in all hours of the day with little control over the time of day I get to shoot. Just last week I had an assignment to shoot a pottery workshop which was held outside. I was very fortunate because the lady teaching the class held it in an open breezeway between two buildings. The top was roofed so they were in shade but the ends were wide open providing me with soft, directional light in the middle of the day. I was glad to see that because I would not have attempted to move the people, of course. But there is a tip in it for anyone who has a choice of where to place your subject. Look for areas where the daylight is modified by the surroundings so you can actually shoot in directional light. Buildings are great light modifiers. In towns and cities, buildings cast shadows and act as reflectors. You can have many different colors of light depending on the building doing the reflecting. You can pose your subject in an alley or a common area between buildings using one to knock down the harsh daylight and the other to provide directional fill light. A white or light colored building can make an absolutely huge light source and give you light quality every bit as good as you could have from a softbox.

Angles are very important in photography in an condition but especially so in daylight. If I have no other option I will turn my subject back to the sun and shoot backlit. I can always use Photoshop to “save” the image as a last resort. What I do in these extreme cases is expose for the shadow side of the subject and let the background go high key. That’s a nice way of saying the background burns out due to overexposure. You can tweak this a little by doing a compromise exposure to save the background a little and then using your history brush tool or your dodge tool to bring up the face tones. Like I said, this is a last resort but it does work in a pinch. If I am using fill flash in harsh light this is the technique I use all the time but then the flash does the work I would have had to do in Photoshop saving me time and making the image pop much better.

You can use the sky as a huge soft light source if you have that classic high, thin overcast. The contrast of direct sunlight is knocked down without affecting the overall quantity of light very much at all. I love to shoot sports in that kind of light. Its like shooting action with a giant softbox. You can also do portraits in this light but it is difficult to include the sky in the photo until very late in the day. Just keep in mind, the sky is a fantastic light source all day but mind the color temp. In the early portion of the day the light tends toward yellow. In mid-day, the light gets really blue and in the evening the light goes more orange and eventually to an amazing shade of blue. Even the sky after all the color of sunset has faded is a tremendous source of illumination. The color of this light can be very nice and the contrast is very manageable. By adding existing available light to a post sunset environment you can get spectacular photos.

About the photos: The photos from the Delta Queen were shot after sunset along the river in Decatur, Alabama using a Canon EOS 5D and a 24-70mm f2.8 lens. The exposure was ISO 800 at about 1/4 second at f2.8. The same goes for the picture of my little girl “climbing” on the rocks. All these were done post sunset with nothing other than the available light. The photos from the pottery class were also shot with the 5D and 24-70 lens. There is really nothing going on but metering the image, do a quick chimp of the image to tweak what I metered and then shooting.

Photos copyright Gary Cosby Jr.

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There are many reasons to use Auto Focus – it is fast, accurate, and let you, the photographer concentrate on composition, lighting, framing and other technical and artistic factor of your picture.

However, there are still many situations when Manual focus can give better results than auto focus.

1. Macro

When taking a macro picture the lens is usually very close to the subject. In some cases less then an Inch. Depth of Field (DOF) can be as shallow as two or three millimeters. The Auto-focus mechanism can not always detect what is most important to you in a macro shot – if it is not the center, you are better off making the decision yourself.

This is true event if you go to your highest possible depth of field, say f/22 or f/32.one way of dealing with the needed accuracy is to use special railing that make it easy to move the camera one or two milliliters forward or backwards.

2. Action

The more expensive your camera body is the faster is the AF sensor it has. If you have a fast lens, your autofocus will be even faster. But even the fastest focus engine can not always compete with fast action shots.

Whether you are shooting your kid on a water slide, or a fast formula one race, if you know when the subject will be at the critical moment, set your focus there in advance and keep in on manual. When the subject enters the frame is positioned right, click the shutter release.

3. Old lenses

Sometime auto focus is not really an option at all. if you want to benefit some of the fine old lenses, you may find that they do not have auto focus capability at all or that they are not compatible with your SLR autofocus system.

For example, if you want to use the razor Nikkor 28mm f/2.8 lens you have no choice – you must go manual.

Ken Rockwell has a great compatibility chart for Nikon (and Nikonians have one too). It is easier for Canon users, any non EOS lens will not work with any new EOS camera – AF or no AF.

4. Low light

It is hard for the autofocus sensor to focus in low light. Even fast lenses with wide apertures can have a hard time in a dark room like a church or a cave.

If you shoot still life, you can use the auto assist bean, it is a beam that throes some light in front of the lens and helps the auto focus sensor. If you’re photographing people, it can be harder – using the AF assist beam can be annoying to some, break the feel of the moment it draws attention to you and ruin a shot.

5. Blurring a shot

Sometimes you want to have some artistic control over in a particular picture and create a blur effect for artistic reasons.

You may want to have the entire picture out of focus or have a negligible, almost off the frame object, in focus. In either case, moat auto focus mechanism will not allow you to perform the first and will give you a hard time achieving the second.

DPS has a nice tutorial on taking out of focus images.

6. Going Hyper Focal

Have you ever wondered how the take those stunning nature shots that have both the nice rocks at the close front and the water fall at the far back sharp. Hyper Focal Distance is a photography term used to note the point that if you set your focus to it, you will gain the most Depth of Field front to back.

Alex Wise (site) is one of my favorite photographers who makes it a habit to post lots of vertical hyper focal landscape images.

7. Shooting Fireworks / Stars

In light of the fact that we have just celebrated the forth of July we had a ton of great shooting fireworks tutorials (those are six of my favs). What’s common to taking pictures of both fireworks and stars it that you want to set your camera to manual focus and focus on infinity (that’s the weird “8″ that’s laying on the side). Honest! Look at all those tutorials – they all say it.

8. Panning

When taking a panning picture, you have to follow a moving subject. One way to deal with the movement is to set your focus mode to AF-C (continuous auto focus), another is to rapidly half-press the shutter release.

I would like to suggest a third way. If you know the route of your subject, you can set the focus to a pre-known location that your subject will go through. Now you know that your subject will be focused in the critical section of the pan.

9. Lens Babies

Lensbabies are lots of fun. they give a nice shallow focus effect.

Lensbabies do that by having a flexible mount which imitates tilt/shift lens.

Just like old lenses, Lensbabies are manual focus only. On the other hand, this is just what you’d expect from a lens baby – you make the artistic call, including setting the focus point.

10. Panorama Stitching

When Stitching a panorama it is important that all the pictures in the panorama will have the same parameters. Of course this include focal length and zoom; but you also need to place the following settings on manual: White balance; aperture, shutter, ISO and exposure in general.

11. Discrete street photography

once you are in the habit of manual focus, you’ll find out it can often be faster then autofocus. This alone is a reason to use manual focus in street photography, but it is also more quiet a valuable thing when taking discrete pictures

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The first project is a Foamcore softbox. We’ve had those before, even for small flashes. But this one comes complete with build and assembly instructions by Paul Both. To top sugar with cream (or light with diffusion) Paul also made a nice strip light – again complete with plans and chocolate syrup. (The designs were made for the 580EX2 and 430EX Canon flashes, but will fit any flash with minor adjustments).

Paul said the role of inspiring muse for this creation was Nick Wheeler who made the best softbox ever, just a little while ago.

Download the plans for the softbox here and for the striplight here. Read on for assembly instructions (flickr set here).

Items required to build/assemble:

• 3/16″ Black Foamcore Board (1 sheet required for Strip light, 2 sheets required for softbox)
• Shiny substance (mylar blanket, aluminum foil etc.)
• Ripstop nylon or Thin cotton fabric (thin cotton is considerably cheaper and lets just as much light through. $14.99 per yard compared to $3.99)
• Hot Melt Glue Gun
• 12″ hot glue sticks (easier that the 4″ ones – available at big box stores.)
• Spray adhesive/contact cement
• Black Gaffers Tape (black duct tape, black masking tape – all will work, and only black assuming you are using black foamcore board.)
  1/2″ wide adhesive tape (carpet tape works really well)
• Sharp Knife
• Nice clean area

Strip Light

1. Cut all parts according to plans, try to be as accurate as possible. To help with cutting, try not to cut all in one shot. Cut the top layer, cut through the foam, and then cut one last time through the remaining layer.

2. Prepare reflective material by cutting to size (slightly larger is better) for all parts.

3. Spray adhesive over one face of entire part (A for example.) Lay down one edge of reflective material and slowly wet out/pulling tightly reflective material until it is completely against/smooth with surface. Complete rest of part in the same manner.

4. On edges where two boards are going to meet, remove about 1/4″ of reflective material to help hot glue to bond (bonds better to foamcore board than to reflective material.)

5. Now prepare tape and put about half on one sheet and the other half off, now put the long face over top of the shorter face and rub tape down. Now take hot glue and run constant bead on inside corder of “V”.

6. Before the glue dries, you need to get one of the triangular shaped pieces in – to ensure a 90° angle on the to back boards. Do the same thing here, apply the tape first and then put the board into place, apply glue and then let dry. Finish rest of pieces in the same manner. Before proceeding, take a reflective tape (aluminum tape, mirror tape etc.) and cover up any exposed glue joints.

7. While your letting the Strip light dry, prepare the front diffusion material. I cut about an extra 1″ all around. Now is a perfect time to also steam/iron out any wrinkles the material may have.

8. Apply double sided adhesive tape all around the outside edge of the strip light. Make sure you leave the one backer on until your ready.

9. Start with one of the long edges (peel off entire backer) and lay down the diffusion material. On the first edge just ensure that your putting it down straight (or as straight as possible).

10. Do opposite long edge pulling a little (here is where the foamcore board shows it’s weekness – it will bow if pulled to hard) – so only put a little pressure (if you ironed before, you shouldn’t have any wrinkles to worry about.)

11. Close the top two edges in the same manner. In the meeting corner, just trim material and fold down. Use a blot of hot glue to make sure they don’t unravel.

12. Optional: take black tape again and cover exposed edges of diffusion material to help make it look more professional.

The softbox is basically the same thing, just a little more complex during the assembly process due to the compound angles. Hence – build the strip light first to practice and then move onto the softbox.

Now, I designed my strip light to sit on top of the small strobe. I mount my small strobes on light stands, which means I can change the elevation of the strip light very easily. Since the weight is so little – I haven’t had any issues in doing this (extra stress on the strobe.) One thing I found that helps, is to turn your flash head 90°. This allows the strip light to sit down on top of the strobe base, with the head protruding in about 2″.

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The following post on The Secrets to Ultra-Sharp Photos is by San Francisco based photographer Jim M. Goldstein. Learn more about him at the end of this post.

As previously noted the best photo tip I ever received had to do with sharpness and up until the time in which I received this tip I had little understanding of how to consistently get sharp photos. I’ll never forget when I was a teenager I borrowed my mothers film SLR and ventured out into Yosemite valley while on a family vacation to photograph flowers, the landscape, etc. A couple weeks later when I got the film back almost all my photos were out of focus. Young and easily frustrated I cast photography to the wind for several years. These days digital cameras simplify not only your ability to see what you’re focusing on, but they also give you an immediate view of your photo enabling you to move on to your next photo or to try again. As great as these features are consistently getting sharp photos can still be a challenge.

Whether you’re using film or digital cameras the optics of lenses hasn’t changed as optics are all about math and physics. Don’t worry I don’t want to talk math or physics any more than you want to read about it, but there is a key principle that every photographer should be aware of and that is hyperfocal distance.

“When the lens is focused on the hyperfocal distance, the depth of field extends from half the hyperfocal distance to infinity.” – Photography, Phil Davis, 1972.

The short and sweet tip for those using shorter focal length lenses is to focus 1/3 of the way into your photo with a smaller aperture setting to maximize your depth of field.

Note for longer focal length lenses like telephoto lenses this principle still applies, but it becomes less of a factor for most people given the types of subjects photographed with these lenses are generally less foreground-centric.

If your eyes haven’t glazed over yet there are more precise ways to calculate hyperfocal distance whether you use a point and shoot or an SLR. The best way to get an idea of what the hyperfocal distance is for your camera at different settings is to make use of a Depth of Field Calculator or chart. If you’re at home and interested in researching this then I recommend the following Depth of Field Calculator that covers a large number of cameras. If you’re looking for such information when in the field you can download a chart via Vividlight.com.

For most this is enough, but if you’re truly over the top you can purchase a laser rangefinder, do the math in the field and find out exactly how far ahead of your camera things will begin to be in sharp focus. The hyperfocal distance formula (via Wikipedia) is well known :

where

H is hyperfocal distance
f is focal length
N is f-number
c is the circle of confusion limit

Now that you’re armed with this key information hopefully the next outing you make with your camera will help you yield a greater number of images that are in sharp focus.

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Babies, babies everywhere! It seems like everyone around me is either pregnant or has a new born! I’m a total sucker for tiny people. I love the way they look, all pink and wrinkled. I love the way they smell, like baby powder, and well, let’s just face it, slightly like sour milk. I even love the way they sound, fire engine siren screams and all.

However sweet they may be, they are NOT the easiest of photographic subjects! Here are 6 tips to nailing your next newborn session with flying colors.

Plan ahead of time!

Here are some things you’ll want to discuss with Mom and Dad about a day or 2 prior to your scheduled shoot.

Talk to Mom and Dad about the baby’s schedule. They may or may not have one, but one way or another, 9 times out of 10 Baby’s parents will be able to tell you which time of day their baby tends to be at their best, most calm state.

If you’re shooting the baby at home, be sure to get specifics as far as where Mom and Dad would like to shoot. If you don’t have studio lighting (which I don’t) you’ll want to make sure you know which way the windows in the chosen room are facing at the time of day you’re shooting to be sure you’ll have adequate light.

You’ll also want to know how Mom and Dad feel about wardrobe (or lack there of) for the baby. I love a naked, pink, wrinkly baby booty, however, not all parents share my affinity. Be sure to discuss this with Mommy and Daddy before you get to a shoot, ask Mom to strip the baby down, and then have to deal with awkward tension when she says “no way!”

If the parents are comfortable with shooting baby in the buff, be sure to request that they remove all baby’s clothing at least an hour in advance of the scheduled shoot so that the baby won’t have any funky clothing lines on their skin. I even tell my clients to fasten the baby’s diaper loosely during this time as well. Those lines can be fixed in Photoshop, but I for one would MUCH rather be out shooting than spending hours using the healing tool in front of my computer.

Come PREPARED!

Make sure that you have EVERYTHING you need VERY well organized and easily accessible. Babies are fidgety, fussy and very impatient, and you’ve got to take the initiative to plan accordingly.

If you’re using studio lighting, you should be set up at least 10 min before you’re scheduled to start shooting. That will give you time to run a few test shots before the baby is brought into the room.

This next one is a given, but remember that sensors and lenses should be checked before the shoot and cleaned if necessary. You can’t afford to stop in the middle of a newborn shoot because you notice a spot on your sensor. Babies are not as forgiving as their adult counterparts. They’re like ticking time bombs, and I guarantee all you moms and dads out there are nodding in agreement!

Get a good night’s sleep! You have got to arrive a vision of patience and with energy to spare. Remember, you’re likely walking into a home where NO ONE has gotten more than an hour of consecutive sleep for days on end. The last thing everyone needs is another exhausted, grumpy adult, whose patience has run dry to add to the mix. YOU set the tone! Come with a full tummy and a good night’s rest. (The full tummy thing is PARTICULARLY important for me as I tend to have low blood sugar. My patience, not to mention my creativity, is out the window if I don’t have something in my belly).

Get the Details!

Don’t be afraid to get in close and focus on the details. Most images I shoot of babies are shot with very low apertures (wide open) to encourage very shallow depth of field. I’m not by ANY means saying that this is right for everyone, but this is my particular style, and I do this for many reasons.

They are only tiny tiny for a VERY short time. I like to focus in and capture little feet and toes for example, before they slip away into roller skates and ballet slippers. . . it happens sooner that you know!

Shallow depth of field creates a mood of tenderness and intimacy which are so very appropriate for a shoot of this nature.

The main reason that I shoot the majority of my infant sessions with such shallow depth of field is that shots like this, in my humble opinion, help depict how suddenly your whole world is about that little person. Though everything else around you may be out of focus, the one thing that matters is perfectly clear.

Bring a Hat!

My friend and fellow photographer/mentor, Nicole Hill, of Nicole Photo (nicolephoto.com) and A Little Sussy (nicolehill.blogspot.com), recently informed me that a little stocking cap (beanie) can be a solve all for the . . . (cough cough) alien looking infant! Well, she didn’t say the alien part. That’s all me, but we have to just be honest and admit that often tiny babies look a little like E.T. My 3 boys included. Yup, I said it. If you saw their baby pictures, you couldn’t deny it either! Nicole is right, a beanie can cover a misshapen head or just soften a face that hasn’t quite grown into it’s features. Enough said.

Establishing Shots!

Establishing shots are images that establish the feeling, location, etc of the time during which an event took place. In this case you’re trying to tell a story about the feelings surrounding the birth of a new child. The welcome of another little person into an already established family unit. Each family unit will be different than the next, but each is special and should be documented as such. For example:

If you’re shooting in a home, most likely you’ll be in a nursery. Grab a shot of that! Establish the environment. It will be a treasure for the family to remember what their home was like at the time that they welcomed their little sweet heart into their heart and home.

Whether in studio or on location, try to grab a shot that establishes the whole family as they were at the time of the birth.

For Heaven’s Sake: BE FLEXIBLE!!!!

You’ve got to be flexible. There are so many variables when shooting a tiny baby. They can be SO unpredictable. Remember to:

Handle each hiccup in a loving way. I am convinced that babies can sense our tension and frustration and that they will respond in kind. Likewise, if we can remain calm and collected, they will find it easier to relax as well.
If you have to stop, STOP! If the baby is on the brink of a full blown freak out, TAKE A BREAK! Let Mom and Dad pop in and calm baby down, feed, burp, change a messy diaper, whatever. NEVER push a baby to the point of no return. If you let a baby get to the point of total freak out. . . well, sorry sweetheart, you may just be plum out of luck. . . and with no one to blame but yourself. Be in tune to baby and let him/her run the show.
If baby is fussing just a bit, you may not be bothered by it. Mom on the other hand may be totally on edge. Part of your job is to be aware of that. Ask her if she’d feel more comfortable continuing after she’s had a chance for a little snuggle. The last thing you need is a Momma bear worried about her cub. I’d ellaborate, but something tells me, ‘nough said.
Give yourself plenty of time. I have never had an infant shoot that has lasted longer than 30min-1hour. Maybe I’ve just gotten lucky! Probably so!! But I ALWAYS schedule a 2 hour block so there is time to feed, change, soothe etc between shots if necessary.

There are SO MANY more things to remember when you’re running an infant shoot. Hopefully the few I’ve shared will be helpful. Feel free to add others in the comment section below! I also encourage you to make a checklist out of the information above to be sure you’re prepared in the future!!

Happy Shooting!

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