Wireless flash on Nikon DSLR – basic and advanced setup

You can use the SB-600, SB-800, or SB-900 as wireless flash, controlled through infrared (requires line of site of the sensor on the flash, or near a wall the signal can bounce off).

SINGLE REMOTRE FLASH SETUP

Switch the flash to remote (see the manual for the SB-600 menu).

Leave the default as group A. There can be multiple flashes in groups A, B and C. The purpose is you might want to set group B to +1EV to be twice as bright as group A.

Leave default as channel 1, of possible 4. I set to 3, so to not interfere with other photographers and their flashes.

On D7000 or D90

\Custom settings menu

\Flash settings

TTL is the default (refers to built-in flash or attached external flash).

Choose CMD (commander) mode.

Put group A as TTL and built-in flash as double dash — for off. Press OK button (pressing anything else to exit the menu doesn’t save the settings).
The built-in flash needs to be up for the wireless flash to work, since it acts as a pre-flash and does not appear in the photo.

Alternately, set group A remote to Manual. 1/1 is a good starting point, you can then figure “okay I am about one stop (1EV) too bright so I can go to 1/2 power, or move the flash further away, or set the aperture darker by one stop om f/4 to f/5.6.” Or that “1/1 power is too weak, so I must move the flash closer or double ISO from 200 to 400.
Again, press OK to save the change to power as 1/2 or 1/4 etc.

You can add an additional wireless flash to group A, B, so you have two wireless flashes triggered by the built-in flash.

MASTER AND REMOTE FLASH SETUP

In the above basic setup, the built-in flash of the camera can be a pre-flash, not in the photo. If it was On (as a strong/main or a as a weak/fill flash) then it would be the master while the wireless flash is the remote.

If you have two flashes, you can have the SB-900 or SB-800 as the master flash on the camera; plus SB-900, SB-800 or SB-600 as a remote flash. The advantage is that the master flash will not be limited by the sync speed of the camera (see end of article) and also you get to use the flash’s red AF light cross-hairs to focus in low light rather than the camera’s light bulb (which is obscured by the lens in the way). This cross-hair appears even when the external master flash is set to not fire with –.

Put the SB-900 or SB-800 in master mode. It does not matter whether the camera has been set to TTL or CMD mode, or what the numbers are in CMD – the settings on the master flash’s screen override this.

So on the flash’s menu, set the on-camera flash to TTL or — (off), or even MANUAL by using the Mode button. Press the top left button to go to the next line and set group A to TTL or MANUAL. The buttons of the menu take a while to get used to, so again, read the flashe’s manual if you are stuck.

How I use this set-up practical – I like to have the SB-900 on-screen menu as my master flash on TTL 0EV to balance with the the remote SB-600. Or maybe master as -1EV or -2EV, if I want it to fill in the remote main flash to light a group photo evenly . Or master flash off, if I want the harsher look of a lone remote flash.  I set the remote SB-600 to TTL 0EV. I sometimes to the diffuser dome on the SB-900 and a mini softbox on the SB-600.

CONTROLLING TWO EXTERNAL FLASHES MANUALLY

When using my flashes for a portrait shoot rather than a party, I put one or both flashes on stands with umbrellas or get an assistant to hold one. In this controlled situation, I set the main remote flash on MANUAL as 1/1 power on the camera’s menu. Then I see what I need to do regarding ISO, aperture, flash distance from the model, and diffusion (losing about 1 to 2 stops when shooting with an umbrella). I prefer to use the flash at 1/8 or 1/4 power, so that it recycles quickly, my batteries don’t run flash quickly and the flash doesn’t overheat (the SB-900 has a thermometer warning come up and it stops working).

Once the main remote flash is set, I introduce the second remote at maybe 1/4 power as a fill.

NOTE ON SYNC SPEED

Sync speed is the shortest possible shutter speed a camera can use with flash. For the D90 it is 1/200 (with Focal Plane FP high speed sync set on in the menu), D7000 1/320 (set as 320* in a menu for FP sync) and I believe it is 1/250 for D700 etc.

The built-in flash working alone means that the shutter can’t be set to 1/250 on the D90, even in shutter priority mode. In bright daylight, this means you aperture will be f/13 or similar – which means your small built-in flash will be very weak even lighting up something 2 metres away, and it also means you can’t do any artistic looks with the background blurred at f/2.8.

You can look up more details on high speed sync if you want, but it means that an external flash on your camera allows you to shoot as your camera’s limit (1/4000s on D90 and 1/8000 at D7000) by pulsing the light instead of doing a single burst (which is when the black bars appear from your shutter). This means you can shoot at apertures like f/2.8 with flash even in bright sunlight (since 1/200 f/2.8 would be severals stops too bright). The drawback is a loss of a few stops of flash power, depending on whether you are at 1/500, 1/1000, 1/4000 etc. If you can get the flash close to the subject, this is not really a problem.

If you put the built-in flash as a pre-flash as “–” with a remote on, you can use the remote flash with the FP sync option. If the built-in camera flash is on and you are shooting with remote flash again, you are limited to sync speed like 1/200. Anyway I don’t use the built-in flash as a or 3rd flash with my 2 wirelessflashes, since the quality of the light is still harsh and direct unless it’s used as a just noticeable weak fill.

Photo selection tips

I want to share some of my experiences in photo editing. Technically, editing photos has to do with choosing the best ones, not as in processing and adding effects. (A newspaper editor sifts through and selects content, rather than only fixing typos)

The first and the last photos of a sequence are usually the best

When I am taking a photo of unsual shapes such as a forest or broken buildings, my first shot is usually the best, since I usually capture the shapes I saw from that point of view which was the reason I lifted my camera to my eye. There may be some distracting or imperfect elements, but if these are not too obvious (or easy to crop out) then the photo is still a keeper. If the initial photo was good, it can be hard to walk away and come back and get the exact same striking composition and angle.

Unfortunately, my first photo of a sequence is often plagued with several issues.

1. It may not have been in focus (autof focus was confused or you were just unlucky)
2. blurred from handshake (urgency to take the photos), or have innappropriate aperture, or incorrectly exposed (due to sky or shadows).
3. there may be a better angle (crouching) or spot (on a hill) which could produce a better image of the subject or scene.

Sometimes I want to refine the photo if I am not happy with it, or I want to take a few in case the focus or metering is a bit off. It helps to make gradual changes from one photo to the next to deal with issues, which means the final photos will be immensely better than the first few at the start (particularly if those first few had no clear subject or purpose).

There may be some distracting items (bit of sky at the top, white car in the background) which can be removed, I like refine the composition by stepping to the side, looking up slightly, removing distracting items or clutter.

I have a good memory and eye for detail, so I like to make a lot lot changes in one go, if the initial photo was disappointing in several respects. Such as choose a warmer white balance, change focusing to spot instead of auto, compensate EV down by 1 stop, turn VR on (it might have been off for tripod work) and maybe zoom in or stand closer.

Don’t delete photos on the back of your camera.

• If you have the space on your memory card, you don’t have to delete photos. If you do delete something, it’s only saving you like 2 seconds when you choose to delete it on your computer rather (when you can retrieve from the recycle bin easily).
• The standard preview is not sharp, unless you press the zoom in button (magnifying glass with a plus sign), which zooms in slightly. Also pictures look different in sharpness and maybe even composition or business, when comparing the small LCD to a computer monitor.
• Colours are not reliable – my D90 has a magenta tint to the LCD and the D7000 has a green tint. This is noticeable when the D7000 photos seem a lot greener on the LCD than on a computer. And even when looking at the menus with the screen side by side of the two cameras, the D7000 is very green.

Over- or underexposure can be good

Don’t always disregard or delete a photo if it too dark or too brighter. Often a lot of detail can be recovered in processing a RAW file. They tend to capture more detail in the shadows than highlights, so if I want the sky and ground to be darker I will choose a photo that is underexposed by -0.3EV to or maybe -1EV, then brighten the ground will fill light or a gradient while keeping the sky a deep blue.

I like to use Lightroom3 for RAW processing by Adobe Camera RAW for Photoshop should be fine. I find that if photos of people are overexposed by 0.3EV or 0.6EV, you can decrease the Exposure value in the software and the colour will come back and the white shiny highlights on their face will disappear. Trying to correct for a whole stop (1EV) difference usually means the skin tones turn grey.

If a photo of people or a landscape is underexposed, increasing Exposiging in processing usually increases saturation (grass in the shadows becomes greener) and increased contrast. The contrast can be solved by decreasing Blacks value from 5 to say 3, or altering Contrast or Tone Curve.

Deliberately overexposing on your camera can work well for high key portraits on location or the studio. I find evening light or cloudy weather suitable for this, since the soft even lighting on the face suits balances with the naturally high contrast look of high key. The eyes and mouth have more emphasis, imperfections on the skin tend to disappear and the background goes light and dreamy.

ISO control tips for Nikon DSLRs

I have figured out two tips for making ISO adjustment easy on Nikon cameras. I have used this on D90 and D7000, I don’t know if it will work on others.

TIP 1: How to set ISO without pressing the ISO button

If helps to set the ISO with your right hand only if you need the other for focusing, supporting the lens, etc. So here is what you can do.

1. Custom Setting Menu
2. d Shooting/display
3. d3 ISO display and adjustment
4. select “Show ISO/easy ISO”

Now, if you are P or S mode, the aperture dial (scroller near the On switch) changes ISO. If you are in A mode, the shutter dial (thumb scroller) changes ISO.

TIP 2: How to switch to/from Auto-ISO quickly

Under My Menu, I have customised position 1 as “Auto ISO sensity control” and position 2 as “ISO sensitivity settings”.

That saves me having to go into the ordinary menu, but I wanted to do something even for efficient.

Press the Info button and go to “Assign Fn button”. Choose “Access top item in MY MENU”. Now, when you press the function button with your right hand 2nd finger, you will skip all menus and get an option on the screen to turn Auto-ISO On or Off. I find this invaluable when switching between high ISO ambient shots and flash (low ISO) photos.

LR3 Lesson – set the FB caption for photos, when you import them from your camera

When you upload photos to Facebook, is there an easy to set the captions of all them so your name, your link or the date is included? Yes there is and this lesson teaches you how to do just that, for existing photos in the Lightroom3 library photos. Then I show you how to set it up for future photos you import from your camera.

Below: the caption “Photo: www.michael.currin.co.za” is automatically replicated for all the photos when uploading to FB

To change the caption of existing photos, go to Library mode in LR3 and scroll down to Metadata. The dropdop menu says Default view, but I prefer Large Caption view since I am only changing the caption. I’ve put my website page link in the Caption, then saved it as a Preset called “Caption MichaelCurrin”. I could add something to the caption such as “2011-11-09 Magazine shoot. Model: …. Make-up: …. “. It seems pressing enter doesn’t create a new line in the final caption.

Library view, right column

To set caption that for all the photos in the folder (or your whole library if you want)

• select the photos in grid view (Ctrl-A for all in folder)
• the caption field will say <mixed> if some of the selected photos have different or missing captions
• type a caption / choose a caption preset
• you get this dialog.

(You could use Sync Metadata function instead.)

Now, when you export those photos as a JPGs from Lightroom3, the caption can be viewed in the EXIF data in a photoviewer or Windows Explorer. An especially useful part of setting the caption is that when you upload those exported photos to Facebook, the caption will be filled in already.

You could of course set the caption for a bunch of photos in Windows Explorer. But the advantage of Lightroom is you can apply your Caption Preset to photos automatically on import. When importing photos from your camera or hard drive, set the caption to your preset, as below.

Import dialog, bottom right

This will be applied to all the photos imported in this batch. It should hopefully become your default caption on each future import as well. It’s a good idea to save it as part of an Import Preset (below), which defaults to your last chosen Import Preset. This one below is for importing photos for my External hard drive (letter J). The develop setting includes a split toning I like to add to a lot of my photos.

Import dialog

Thanks for reading, let me know if the instructions are clear enough. Be sure to check out my other lessons on Lightroom and photography.

Slow shutter night landscapes

Here is my method for daytime landscapes which is also suited to long exposures of at night of cars.

1. Focus on something a third into the scene preferably a point that is well lit and has good contrast, like a point on the road. You could try aim at the grass, but if the grass is in the dark in your photos then you camera will probably struggle and decide to focus to infinity. (regarding contrast if you try to focus on a plain white ceiling and you’ll find the camera has nothing of contrast to focus on, so focus on a light on the ceiling in that situation)
2. Do trial exposures. No tripod necessary yet. Leave ISO on Auto and max of 3200 or higher is fine. Set your camera on Aperture priority at the brightest (f/3.5). Hold still, lean against something maybe and take a photo.You might get something like 1/8s or 3seconds, but the you will get an indication of exposure. If the camera sees a mostly dark sky, it will compensate by burning out the ground to bright highlights. If you have a street lamp in the middle of the photo, the camera could underexpose. Make adjustments to EV starting on 0, use positive numbers to brighten the photo and negative numbers to darken. Use hole numbers like +1, +2 and then refine further (+0.7, or +1.3 etc.). This process is easier with high ISOs and short exposures since you don’t have to wait 30 seconds to find out that your photo was 2 stops two bright.
3. Set up focus settings. Focus on the point you want, set the switch on the camera (or lens) to Manual, put the camera on the tripod, to Vibration Reduction off (since not handheld anymore),
4. Set exposure settings. set ISO on the lowest setting (such as ISO-200, and not on Auto) use Aperture priority at f/11 for maximum depth of field and lens sharpness.
5. Set timer settings. Set the timer on (among single, burst, remote, timer settings). Go into the menu and set Timer to 2, 5 or 10 seconds (depending on wind and how low stable tripod takes to stop shaking once you push the shutter button). Set mirror-up delay in the menu to On. (exposure starts a second after the mirror inside flips up, to reduce vibration)
6. Take a photo. The exposure will probably be 5 to 30 seconds. If you are really working in the dark or you are trying to get the stars in. Zoom in on the screen afterwards to check the sharpness.

Other tips:
Use manual white balance or choose one of the presets such as Tungsten for artifical lighting.
For the most flexiblity with adjusting brightness and white balance afterwards, take photos in RAW rather than JPG.

The reason for the aperture of f/11 other than having a long exposure, is that lenses are not their sharpest when wide open (f/3.5, f/5.6 etc.) and sharpness increases towards f/8, f/9 until a peak at f/11 is reached for most lenses. Then lenses suffer the diffraction effect as the aperture becomes a narrower circle. Image quality decreases from f/13 onwards and gets blurry at f/32.

If the scene is really dark and you need longer than 30 seconds at f/11 but the camera doesn’t go longer than 30 seconds, then rather set the aperture wider to f/5.6 or something. SLR cameras have a bulb setting where you hold the shutter down for as long as you want such as 5 minutes, but you would shake the camera unless you use a remote.

When editing in RAW, use fill light and lower contrast to make the black shadows not so dominating. Just don’t overdo it. Shadows make an image look solid and balanced, also grain and colour noise get bad when you brighten shadows too much.

First SLR?

I got a question from a friend about choosing a first DSLR camera. This is what I said.

Entry level cameras do lack features and more expensive cameras. But if you are looking at buying a cheaper camera and 2 or 3 lenses, or a more expensive one with only 1 lens, you’ll get more benefit out of more lenses.

For landscapes you’ll want an 18-55 (typical kit lens). About R1000.
landscapes and portraits 18-105mm R1500
portraits, sport, wildlife 55-200mm. R1800

Some of the Nikon cameras like the D90 or D7000 have a 18-105mm as a kit lens (of course you could buy a D3100 and instead of an 18-55mm, you could get camera body only and 18-105mm separately).

Also, if you want more freedom, the 18-200mm is a great range for about R3500. It’s a wide angle that zooms in over 10x, good for sport etc.

You can check prices on www.Orms.co.za as an indication
The latest range of cameras are as follows

Nikon
D3100 (entry level)
D5100
D7000 (semi-pro. replaces older D90)

Canon
1100d (entry level)
600d (very similar to slightly older 550d)
60d (semi-pro, replaces 50d)

Those are in the R4000 to R13000 price range approximately, body only.

A similar article of advice I did for someone else How to Choose your First DSLR

 

Lightroom 3 lesson – The Golden Spiral

The golden spiral is a mathematical concept and is a composition tool. A lot of the time, if you compose a photo into thirds (intentionally or instintively or by accident), I think there is a good chance of finding a golden spiral in there somewhere, since the two concepts are closely related. This is explained here and here.

In crop view in Lightroom 3, press O to cycle through overlays other than the grid. Shift + O will rotate the spiral. It use it to make minor or major adjustments to cropping a photo. For me, the spiral often fits more neatly in the photo at 4:3 ratio rather than 3:2.

Beow are examples from my photos.

Uriah Heep 2010

Roger Goode 2011

Black Market Riots

college students - UCT Radio

college students

Lightroom 3 lesson – lesser known tips

Black and white filter

Below is a photo taken at a club with flash and a long exposure, close to a second. When you choose Black and White in the top right near Basic develop settings, a filter is applied based on the strength of certain colours in the photo. In this situation, a straight colour conversion to -100 saturation seems to darken or hide the blue ambient light, while the auto B&W filter brightens the blue/purple channel.

Colour, saturation zero.

Colour, saturation -100 (or Black & White with filter zeroed).

Black & White with filter on auto.

Another way to change the brightness of certain areas is to leave saturation at -100 and then change the white balance. Skin tones become dark and unnatural at cold white balance settings. For photos of a band on stage, changing the white balance in black and white can even seem to change the direction of the lighting, such as having red lights from the left brightened and blue lights from the right darkened at a warm white balance, then the opposite at a cool white balance.

Shortcuts

• Press F twice for full screen view.
• Control + Tab to hide or show side bars.
• Press J to show clipping.
• Right click on the background past the edges of a photo and change the colour from white through black. I leave it on black with pinstripes.
• Control + Shift + Alt + E: exports the selected photo(s) with the same settings (size, folder, output sharpening etc.) as the previous export.
• Confirm cropping by pressing Enter on the keyboard. instead of clicking Done.
• Press X to rotate the cropping outline by 90 degrees.
• Press O to cycle through overlay modes. The default is the a big grid. The rule of thirds is very useful and there is a variation on the rule of thirds which can centre and strengthen compositions. The Golden Spiral is also great and I find it often more suitable when cropping 4:3 rather than 3:2 ratios.
• Press Shift O to rotate the overlay (there are many ways to display the Golden Spiral.

If you have tagged a photo, cropped it and edited it, then the picture and the bottom will look something like this, which each icon indicating the step was performed.

The bar at the bottom of the screen

If you are in Develop mode and click on the tag icon, you will be taken to Libary view and the tag section. Similarly, clicking the +/- button will take you back to Develop mode and the middle one goes to crop view.

A full list of keyboard shortcuts is viewable on the Lightroom 3 help website here.

Check out the lesson I wrote for automating lens corrections on import: here.

Lightroom 3 lesson – automating lens corrections on import

I take photos in RAW format almost all the time, which allows lens correction profiles to be applied in Lightroom 3. (If you apply it to a JPG, the profiles are very limited and apparently Nikon JPGs have CA corrected already).

Once I have imported a batch of RAW photos from my camera, I would filter view by the 18-105mm lens and apply my lens correction preset with the corresponding slider values, then do the same for the each lens that I used. This got tiring as I wanted this to happen automatically every time I import photos, so I figured something out.

[STEP 1] Under Library view, filter by a certain lens.

[STEP 2] Choose a file RAW that you have imported and not edited. Or make a virtual copy of an edited photo (right click, create virtual copy) and then under the Develop Tap, click Reset to put all the settings back on the photo back their defaults, typically with Lens Correction off.

[STEP 3] Go to Develop tab \ Correction \ Profile. Put a tick in the box for Lens Correction. Leave the Setup with the default slider values.

[STEP 4] Hold down Alt on the keyboard – the Reset button in the bottom right becomes Set Default. Click on it.

Click Update to Current Settings.

What we are doing now, is using the current settings for Lens Correction – On and Default – as the new settings for any new photos that are imported or have their settings reset (default will automatically recognise the lens from the metadata). We are also setting the defaults for other develop settings like White Balance (As Shot is fine), Exposure (zero), Clarity, Sharpening, etc. Under Camera Calibration, I set Camera Standard as a default since it usually yields better colours than Adobe Standard.

(Note: In Lightroom 3, Set Default is specific to a camera, so I had to do this process twice for Lens Corrections on both cameras, once on a photo taken by my D7000 and again for a photo from my D90. This gives the potential of setting something like my D7000 photos have a strong contrast curve and D90 photos to have stronger sharpening, but I choose to keep them the same overall.)

[STEP 5] Set the sliders under the lens profile. For my 18-105mm, I set it to (70, 100, 60), which becomes a Custom setup. Then click Save New Lens Profile Defaults from the dropdown menu.

[STEP 6] Reset an edited photo or import a new photo from your camera. Notice that Lens Correction is now On, the correct lens has been chosen and the Setup is Default, but includes the custom set of 3 numbers for that lens have been chosen by you for that lens.

[STEP 7] If you have another lens, repeat the process in Step 5. I changed the Library filter view to find a photo taken with my Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8, then set the numbers to (71, 100, 0) and saved it as the new default for that lens. I repeated for my other two lenses.

• You can’t cheat by staying on one photo and changing the Lens Profile to a different lens. For a photo taken with the 18-105mm, if I set the lens profile to 24-70mm f/2.8 under corrections, then specified the numbers and saved as a default, then the default for all photos taken with my 18-105mm would now be corrected based on the 24-70mm f/2.8 profile, which doesn’t make sense as each lens has different directions and strengths of the problems, depending on their build quality. Also, the 24-70mm would not know how to correct problems at focal lengths below 24mm or above 70mm.
• It seems I only had to save a new default of sliders for the 24-70mm f/2.8 on one photo from the D7000 camera and then it also applies to the D90 photos taken with the same lens.

- – -

Typical settings I use:

• Distortion: Choosing 100% is useful for correcting barrel distortion at 18mm, when you have straight lines in architecture, but in general Io keep it at 70% for the 18-105mm to avoid overly stretching objects and faces which are near the edge of the photo. Note that for photos at 105mm, the distortion is in the opposite direction (pincushion distortion) – manual distortion correction would be cumbersome for each focal length but the profile corrects appropriately. I set the distortion corrcetion to 90% for my 70-300m as it is hardly noticeable when turning it on and off, so I don’t worry about unnatural stretching.
• For panoramas, I find distortion control at zero is better.
• For perspective control tall buildings etc. set the profile control first and then correct perspective (Vertical, Horizontal) under Manual.
• C. Abberation: I haved checked at 1:1 view and foundthat the lens profiles are very good at correcting CA when set to 100%. Each lens has different colours, directions and strengths of the abberations and also at each focal length, so a profile takes pain out of doing this manually.
  

  CA uncorrected in photo taken at 18mm. Zoomed to 2:1 on screen.

  

  CA corrected by setting profile slider to 100.

• Vignetting: I often enjoy the natural vignetting effect (darkening around corners, sometimes I apply it myself in Effects. But with my 18-105mm I tend to take a lot of photosof landscapes or people where I want the lighting to be even rather than artistic, so I turn vignetting correction to 70%. Vignetting is particularly an issue for the 18-105mm at 18mm and at 105mm (you can even see it in the viewfinder at 105mm). Lens tests for it show that the problem is reduced by stopping down to around f/8. For some of my lenses, I leave vignette correction off at zero, as a matter of build quality and my taste for suitability at those apertures and focal lengths.

You can view a list of my lenses and other equipment here.

A lesson I wrote on lesser known tips and shortcuts in Lightroom 3 – here.

Photographing for print

I am one of the photographers at the University of Cape Town’s very own Varsity newspaper, which comes out every two weeks. I gained several tips from one of the design contributors today, based on his long experience of taking photos and finding what is suitable in the context of a printed newspaper. I have added in some tips I have discovered elsewhere as well.

Some of these tips may seem obvious, but it is easy to neglect them if you do not concentrate on them. Also, seeing a photo lacking one of these characteristics makes one aware of how important it is.

• Includes faces in your photo. Not of the back of heads or someone looking away. Don’t cut off the parts of someone’s face.
• The face or important element of the photo works well in the right third, as our eyes naturally look to that side of the photo. Also, this element should ideally be point to the centre of the photo, rather than past its near edge.
• Use the rule of thirds when composing photos.
• Single out a few elements instead of trying to get it all in. When taking photos of a crowd, focus on someone who is standing apart or above the crowd. Or zoom in on someone wearing bright clothes, an interest feature or emotional expressions.
• It is usuaully not a good idea to have a photo of sign or banner containing text, as accompanies a text article and the sign does not tell you much about what happened. Also, people’s faces are lost when around a banner.
• When you have photos of someone speaking, don’t choose the photos with awkward expressions or an open mouth.