Photo Tips and Stories (Page 14)

by Sean Setters

Very soon after we learned that we'd be having a baby, Alexis asked me to create a series of images showing her progression over the next 9 months. She doesn't ask me to take pictures of her often, so I took her request very seriously. After she showed me some examples of pregnancy progression photos she liked from Pinterest (no doubt the inspiration for this request), we decided a plain white background and strong rim lighting combined with a dark outfit would work well for the concept.

For this particular series of images, I used 3 studio lights and 1 shoe-mount flash for the lighting. One monolight was in a 4 x 6' (1.2 x 1.8m) softbox that served as the background and the other two were camera left/camera right slightly behind the subject, diffused by gridded strip boxes. The fill light was provided by a Canon Speedlite 580EX flash that was reflected into a white umbrella and boomed above my Canon 5D Mark III & Sigma 50mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art Lens which was mounted on a tripod.

Unfortunately, I was not terribly organized at the beginning of this endeavor. I remember thinking, "This is a pretty simple setup. I can recreate it without any problems." That thought proved to be quite inaccurate. As my mind was quickly bombarded with an overwhelming amount of information on raising a newborn, it apparently left little room for the details of the lighting setup I was certain I'd remember. As such, I found myself analyzing the first month's image on the second month and taking test shots to ensure consistency. After that, I decided to document the entire setup to streamline future sessions in the series.

So, here are a few things to keep in mind when creating a similar pregnancy progression photo:

• Choose a stretchy outfit that can grow with the subject, or choose plain clothing that can be duplicated in larger sizes as time progresses.
• Take time creating the first image to ensure it's exactly what you want. Choose a pose/hand placement that can remain consistent as your subject's belly begins to fill out.
• Choose a background that's plain and evenly lit so that compositing the final image is easier.
• Use a tripod and lighting equipment that you'll have continuous access to over the next 10 months (use studio lights or flashes; do not rely on window light which can vary).
• Record the following details after the first shoot:
• Camera/lens used and camera settings
• What your subject was looking at/exact direction of the subject's gaze
• Distance between the camera to the subject and height of the camera on the tripod
• Distance between the subject and the background
• Position/types of lights and modifiers in relation to your subject
• Power level of all lights utilized for the session (use manual power settings, not TTL)
• Use your records to recreate the photo setup each month.

If recording all the measurements above seems a bit too tedious, you maybe be able to simply mark subject/lighting/camera placement with gaffer tape on the floor (assuming the tape won't need to be removed within the required time period) and/or taking pictures of the setup from several angles with your smartphone for referring back to.

From a business standpoint, a series like this would require 10 separate sessions, generating constant revenue for the photographer over the gestational period. With the all the details well documented after the first session, future sessions could be relatively quick and easy to set up and capture.

My wife loved the final image so much that we had a matted 12x36" version of it printed. It now hangs over the changing table in the nursery.

Of course, a pregnancy progression series requires a long term commitment to achieve optimal results, but I think you'll find the final image created well worth the effort.

A larger version of Alexis's Pregnancy Progression image can be seen on Flickr.

by Sean Setters

Oatmeal raisin, white chocolate macadamia nut or classic chocolate chip? No, I'm not referring to one of those types of cookies. In lighting terms, a "cookie," or cucalorus, is a "...device for casting shadows or silhouettes to produce patterned illumination." [Wiki]

A cookie is placed between your light source and the subject or background and casts a desired pattern of highlight and shadow. What can be used as a cookie? Fabrics with interesting weaves, potted plants, venetian blinds and matte black cinefoil with custom cut-out designs are popular choices. In the example above, I used an old lace curtain suspended between my main flash (camera right) and the subject, producing the interesting effect (a flash positioned camera left/low provided fill light).

So the next time you're looking to create a unique portrait, look around your home or antique/fabric stores for items that can be used to cast an interesting pattern of light onto your scene.

by Sean Setters

I've been shooting a moderate amount of indoor studio portraits over the last couple of years and I am consistently impressed by the impact a fan has on the quality of my images. Take the shot above, for example. In it, I'm using six flashes to illuminate the subject and background (with various modifiers). Good lighting is a key to producing a high quality studio portrait. But the finishing touch, the element that makes this photo really interesting, is the hair movement provided by the fan placed just in front of the subject.

In this case, the fan is a oscillating, variable height/variable speed pedestal model that my dad gave me when he was moving [downsizing] a few years ago. He used it to minimize his home cooling expenses; I use it to get shots like this:

And this:

Note that a fan doesn't have to be motorized for it to be useful for portraiture. Anything that's flat and somewhat rigid will do the job if you have a photo assistant available (or the ability to operate the camera remotely). Things like collapsible reflectors and foam core boards can easily be used in place of a dedicated electric fan, again, assuming someone is available to operate the device. A nice thing about non-motorized fanning tools is that they can very easily be used outdoors to create a wind effect on an otherwise calm day.

Of course, for a fan to have an impact on portraiture, it must influence at least a part of the composed scene in some way. You can use the fan to introduce movement in hair, fabric/clothing or props (such as leaves). The opportunities for capturing dynamic, fan-induced movement in your portraits are too numerous to list.

If shopping for a fan for studio use, from my personal experience, a pedestal model with an adjustable height is ideal as you can easily set it to an optimal height for your subject. However, a pedestal-style fan certainly isn't a requirement. If you already have a floor model or tabletop fan, you can simply place it on a higher surface (table, apple boxes, etc.) if needed. While some may appreciate an oscillating feature (especially if the fan is doing double duty as a cooling device), I typically lock my fan into a static position so that it's always blowing air in the desired direction.

Note that constantly blowing air at a subject's face can cause uncomfortable dry eyes. To prevent this, tell your subject to keep his/her eyes closed right up until the moment a photo is taken and use an audible countdown to alert the subject of an impending shutter release.

A fan is an inexpensive tool that can have a big impact on the quality of images delivered to your clients, making it a must-have item for any studio photographer.

by Sean Setters

I was reading an article yesterday that stated the Canon EOS R had a "1.83x crop factor" when recording 4K video. However, while the EOS R certainly has a crop factor in 4K recording, it's actually a slightly lower crop factor of 1.75x.

I can understand the source of the confusion and, as such, I thought we'd take a minute to go over the math involved in determining a camera's sensor or video recording crop factor.

Before we dive into the crop factor calculations, it's important to understand why a crop factor is relevant. The crop factor determines the field of view we see in a given situation. For more information on the root of this phenomena and how it relates to sensor size, check out our Field of View Crop Factor explanation.

At the heart of it, the formula for determining crop factor is easy: you determine the ratio of the larger area's hypotenuse (diagonal) to the smaller area's hypotenuse measurement. For that, we'll need to use the tried-and-true Pythagorean theorem (a²+b²=c²). For example, to determine the crop factor of a Canon APS-C sensor, the math looks like this:

EOS-1-series Full-Frame Sensor Hypotenuse (mm)
36² + 24² = c²
1,296 + 576 = c²
1,872 = c²
√1,872 = c
43.27 = c

EOS 7D Mark II APS-C Sensor Hypotenuse (mm)
22.4² + 15² = c²
501.76 + 225.00 = c²
726.76 = c²
√726.76 = c
26.96 = c

Now the crop factor can be calculated by dividing the full-frame hypotenuse by the APS-C one:

APS-C Crop Factor
43.27 / 26.96 = 1.605

We know that APS-C sensor cameras feature a 1.6x crop factor, so with a little rounding, the calculation proves correct in determining the crop factor. The process for calculating video crop factor (when the video recorded is sampled via a 1-to-1 readout of the pixels in the center of the sensor which creates the video's resolution) is similar, but not exactly the same. The first difference involves our units of measure; we'll be using pixels to determine the hypotenuses for comparison. We can do this because the pixel size is the same (a standard) throughout the comparison. The second difference is that we'll need to normalize the aspect ratios to figure out the appropriate crop factor.

As I mentioned the EOS R above, we'll use it as an example of how to calculate the camera's (4K) video crop factor. First we need to determine what part of the sensor would be used if the video recording utilized the entire width of the sensor. To do that, we need to calculate the pixel area of a 16:9 (4K) ratio crop of the camera's 3:2 ratio frame. To do that, we simply divide the sensor's pixel width by 16 and then multiply by 9 to get the area utilized by an uncropped 16:9 video.

EOS R Video Pixel Height (Full Sensor WxH = 6720 x 4480 px)
6720 * 16 / 9 = 3780

So in a world where the EOS R captures "uncropped" 4K footage, the sensor would utilize an area of the frame that is 6720 x 3780 pixels and then downsample it to the lower 4K resolution. The video is technically cropped from a 3:2 ratio frame, but it's referred to as "uncropped" because the horizontal field of view remains the same (it's cropped at the top and bottom, not the sides).

Now that we know the portion of the frame that would be utilized for a 16:9 aspect ratio video, we need to compare it to the video size actually being recorded by the EOS R, or 3840 x 2160 pixels. Because of the rather large numbers, I'll shorten the following equations by eliminating some of the calculation steps.

"Uncropped" 16:9 Video Hypotenuse (px)
√(6720² + 3780²) = c
7710.175 = c

EOS R 4K Video Hypotenuse (px)
√(3840² + 2160²) = c
4405.814 = c

Crop factor of EOS R
7710.175 / 4405.814 = 1.75

So for practical purposes, the EOS R has a 4K crop factor of 1.75x, where a 20mm lens delivers a 16:9 field of view equivalent to a 35mm lens when recording in 4K. From a technical standpoint, saying that the EOS R has a 1.83x crop factor could be accurate if we also labeled the Sony a7 III as having a 1.05x crop factor in video mode. But when you call the a7 III's 4K video "uncropped," you necessitate normalizing the field of view captured in the EOS R's 4K 16:9 aspect ratio frame, resulting in the 1.75x result.

by Sean Setters

By now, she's actually a couple of weeks old. But at the time this image above was taken, Olivia Jane had been breathing air for only about an hour. My life has change a lot since September 11 at 4:50pm, but one thing remains the same – the importance of photography in documenting the world around me. Specific endeavors require specific gear, and lately I've been leaning heavily on certain lenses more than others. Specifically, I've been relying on wide-aperture prime lenses, with their ability to create subject isolation and freeze motion (using moderate ISOs) when second-chance opportunities are fleeting or non-existent.

A couple of years ago, I posted an article urging site visitors to prepare a Go-Bag packed with the photography gear necessary to accomplish a certain goal. With my wife nearing her due date, I took my own advice and packed a Lowepro backpack with the following:

• Canon EOS 5D Mark III
• Sigma 24mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art
• Canon EF 35mm f/2 IS USM
• Sigma 50mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art
• Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM
• Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro
• Canon EF 135mm f/2L USM
• BlackRapid Wrist Breathe Camera Strap
• Extra LP-E6 batteries & backup memory cards
• X-Rite ColorChecker Passport Photo
• Microfiber cloths

Sharp-eyed site visitors have likely noticed two aspects regarding the kit listed above. The first is that all the lenses I packed were prime lenses. I chose to pack a large assortment of wide aperture prime lenses because I wasn't sure how well lit the hospital would be and the max aperture of my general purpose lens, a Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM, seemed too narrow to rely on for the indoor event. As it turns out, the room where my wife gave birth was "softly lit for patient comfort" (hospital terminology for "relatively dark") with a couple of bright spot lights illuminating the delivery zone. The wide aperture primes proved essential for maximizing image quality while documenting the life-changing event. When packing the bag, I suspected the longest and shortest focal length primes would be too long/short for effective use in the areas I'd be shooting in during our 2-day hospital stay, and that largely proved to be true.

The second thing you might have noticed is the lack of a backup camera. Knowing the importance of the situation ahead, I packed a second very small shoulder bag with the following items:

• Canon EOS 7D Mark II
• Canon EF-S 24mm f/2.8 STM
• Canon EF 40mm f/2.8 STM

This kit in this bag had two purposes. One, it provided me with a backup camera should something happen to the primary camera in the other bag. Second, it gave me a couple of STM lenses that I could pair with the 7D II should I decided to capture video. Not knowing how much room I'd have to store things in the delivery and post-partum rooms, my plan was to leave this backup camera bag in our car parked in the parking lot and simply run out to the car if I wanted/needed it. Of course, a primary camera failure at a critical time would have left me without an easy-to-access backup, but... thankfully, that didn't happen. In fact, the backup camera bag never made it out of the car. Note: I don't recommend leaving your camera gear in an automobile for long periods of time because of prolonged heat/humidity and chance of theft. In this case, however, I prioritized a less-cluttered hospital room over my gear's safety (the bag was well hidden/out of view in the vehicle).

So which lenses did I utilize most during the big event?

Lens	Shots Captured
Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro	157
Canon EF 35mm f/2 IS USM	156
Sigma 50mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art	42
Sigma 24mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art	31
Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM	17
Canon EF 135mm f/2L USM	2
Rokinon 14mm f/2.8	2
Total	407

Unfortunately, the data is a bit misleading. I used the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro to capture lots of close-ups of Olivia's feet, hands, ears, etc. However, without stabilization (and not wanting to push ISOs too high), a lot of those images came out blurry. However, I was shooting the macros when I wasn't pressed for time and the baby was relatively content, so I often shot a large number of images for each framing I wanted. In other words, the macro lens was only used for a limited number of compositions, but I recorded many shots of each composition to ensure I got what I wanted.

The lens that was mounted to my camera for most of our hospital stay (and just before leaving for the hospital) was the Canon EF 35mm f/2 IS USM. The moderately wide focal length paired with image stabilization made it an extremely versatile lens, able to capture enough slightly-blurry background with the subject to tell a story while remaining easy to work with in relatively tight spaces. The lens' IS system meant that I could use even-slower-than-usual shutter speed when subject movement was minimal, while the wide f/2 aperture allowed me to freeze action even in dimly lit conditions.

The next most-used lens was the Sigma 50mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art. It was the lens I chose to mount as soon as Olivia saw light for the first time. At that point, I wanted to limit distractions in the composition by using a narrower field of view to focus on my wife and baby seeing each other for the first time. A wide-aperture 50mm prime lens gave me the composition I desired along with action-stopping shutter speeds and a relatively low ISO setting.

The rest of the lenses I brought were used sporadically, but looking back, I could have sufficed without them. That said, different hospitals may present different opportunities for various focal lengths, so having several available is nearly always a good idea. Could I have gotten away with using only a 24-70mm f/2.8 zoom lens? Maybe, but the max f/2.8 aperture would have required a 2-4x higher ISO to be used to achieve the same action-stopping shutter speeds compared to most of the primes I brought. Also, considering the amount of background distractions found in a typical hospital room, an f/2.8 aperture would not have allowed me to blur those elements quite as much. The downside to primes, of course, is the need to change lenses when a new focal length is desired for the optimal composition.

My backpack full of prime lenses proved equally useful after returning home from the hospital. I left it sitting just inside our dining room and would quickly grab the camera for capturing the various "awwww" moments that occurred in our home over following week.

It's been two weeks now, and that day is a bit of a blur in my memory. But thankfully, I have a wonderful set of images to look back on to remind me of the way during my child's first few days outside the womb. My photographic style is typically very deliberate, with lighting and/or tripod setups that slow down the capture process. While prime lenses fit well into that kind of workflow, they aren't absolutely necessary as lighting (either added to the scene or recorded via a slower shutter speed) isn't really a problem. But when documenting life as it happens, what a wide aperture prime lacks in focal length range, it more than makes up for in the versatility and aesthetic afforded by its max aperture.

by Sean Setters

My wife has two night-blooming cereus plants which were cut from her mother's decades old plant. In fact, the origin of this night-blooming cereus goes back four generations with mothers passing down cuttings to their daughters. If you're unfamiliar with this type of plant, an apt description can be found on Wikipedia:

Night-blooming cereus is the common name referring to a large number of flowering ceroid cacti that bloom at night. The flowers are short lived, and some of these species, such as Selenicereus grandiflorus, bloom only once a year, for a single night. Other names for one or more cacti with this habit are princess of the night, Honolulu queen (for Hylocereus undatus), Christ in the manger, dama de noche and queen of the night (which is also used for an unrelated plant species).

The night-blooming cereuses we have typically bloom once or twice a year, with the flowers appearing well after the sun goes down and wilting sometime around sunrise. Once you see the white petals just poking out of the ends of the nearly enclosed buds, you know the flowers will be blooming later that night.

Having noticed the imminent blooms, I photographed one of the buds earlier in the day. The leaf the bud was attached to was sticking out well beyond the railing of our back porch, giving me plenty of working room and few obstacles to shoot around if shooting from the side. To photograph the bud, I set up a tripod-mounted Canon EOS 5D Mark III and EF 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro and pointed the camera alongside the railing to get a nice side view. However, the background (a line of trees bordering our backyard) proved too distracting because a) the relatively narrow aperture I wanted to use did not diffuse it sufficiently for good separation and b) the colors of the background were too similar to the bud to create color separation.

To remedy the situation, I clamped a black foam core board behind the bud to eliminate the background. Here's what the setup looked like:

At this time of the day (approx. 12:30pm Eastern Time), sunlight was filtering through the trees, giving it a soft quality, but the bud was still relatively well lit. Therefore, I used the sunlight as my main light and simply held a white foam core board angled slightly below the bud to fill in the shadows caused by the high sun. Of course, the sunlight was also illuminating the background, making my very dark grey foam core board less dark, but... I liked the effect. Here's what the bud shot looked like after processing:

EXIF: f/10, 1/160 sec, ISO 200

Later that evening, the real show began. Around 10:00pm ET, we noticed that the flowers were starting to open up. I quickly grabbed the same tripod-mounted camera and lens and got to work. This time, I used a shoe-mount flash diffused by a 24" collapsible softbox with grid positioned behind the flowing plant (rather high) to create a diffused backlit glow and rim light. I used the same white foam core board that I had used for the bud shot positioned below the flower for fill. EXIF for the end result seen atop this post: f/8, 160 sec, ISO 400.

My mother-in-law questioned why I didn't shoot the flower from the front to show off its interesting structure, and many of you may be wondering the same thing. Truth is, I captured many shots of the blooming flower from the front but didn't like them nearly as much. Here were the challenges that made photographing the flowers from the front less ideal:

1. The position of the bloom (sticking through the railing) limited where I could place off-camera flashes and modifiers (no rim/back lighting possible), leading to a rather dull image.
2. Night-blooming cereus flowers are very deep. Front lighting the flower from anywhere except the camera's axis results in dark shadows in the deepest part of the blooms.
3. Getting the entire flower in focus from the front of the petals to the back (within the depth-of-field) is very challenging. As I was photographing the flower while still attached to the plant, small movements made focus stacking an impractical solution.

Sometimes you just have to accept the limitations of a given situation and figure out a solution that works best.

by Sean Setters

My wife and I would like to introduce the newest member of the The-Digital-Picture.com family. Pictured above is Olivia Jane, born yesterday at 4:50pm. She was 7 lb 13 oz (3.54 kg) and 20" (50.8 cm) long. She's healthy and, contrary to what last night's seemingly constant crying might indicate, probably very happy to be here. I'm running on very little sleep, so... I'll make this post short and sweet. I'm a father now, and it's a whole new world. :-)

Most higher-end image editing programs now feature automated panorama stitching, but if you don't rotate the lens on its nodal point while capturing the individual images for your spherical panorama, even the best image editing programs will find it challenging to stitch all of the images perfectly. Instead, portions of the stitched areas don't precisely line up, a result of parallax errors. Rotating the lens on its nodal point allows you to avoid those parallax errors, ultimately leading to a better panoramic image.

But how do you find the nodal point for your lens? The solution is probably easier than you think. Yesterday I determined the nodal points for eight lenses (one at two different focal lengths) using my pano rig.

To find your lens' nodal point:

1. Set up your camera along with aligned subjects.
Set up your tripod-mounted pano rig so that it is level and pointed at two objects that are perfectly lined up in the center of your viewfinder/frame using Live View at max magnification. For me, that was two light stands set up in my studio about 6' (1.83m) apart. The farthest light stand was extended just a little bit higher than the closest light stand to make aligning the two subjects easier.

2. Rotate the camera left or right and move the camera forward/backward to create an identical view.
Move your magnified live view frame all the way to the left or right, then rotate the camera so that the front object is within the magnified view. Now, move the camera forward or backward using the nodal rail until the two objects are lined up just as they had been in the center of the frame view.

3. Record your results.
Record the position of the nodal rail in your clamp, such as "Clamp centered on 49mm rail mark," the lens being used and (if using a zoom lens) the focal length setting of the lens. If using a zoom lens for your panos, you'll need to determine the nodal points for all focal lengths you intend on using for your panos. Typically speaking, I usually calculate the nodal points for the shortest and longest focal lengths of a zoom lens. I find it handy to record the measurements in a cloud-based document so that they can be accessed from any location where data services can be accessed. Also, keep in mind that your nodal point calculations may be different depending on whether your camera is in portrait orientation or landscape orientation. Typically, you'll want to orient your camera vertically to maximize your panorama's resolution. However, if shooting horizontally, the plates in your L-brackets may be offset from one another. For 5D Mark III L-bracket, the offset is 15.5mm, meaning I have to subtract 15.5mm from my vertical orientation measurement to get the landscape oriented one. If planning to travel to remote areas to capture panoramic images, storing the nodal point measurement values locally on your smartphone in a notepad app (or alternately in a traditional paper notepad) would be best.

My particular pano rig consists of a bidirectional clamp and a multi-purpose rail. Instead of moving the rail in the tripod's head, I move the bidirectional clamp that's connected to the camera. Therefore, I have to ensure that the rail is clamped into the index rotator's clamp at the exact same position each time if I ever entirely break down the setup. While that sounds a bit complicated, it's not in practice. I just make sure the first measurement mark on the rail is lined up with the front edge of the index rotator clamp, and all is well.

After calculating the nodal points for several of my lenses, I got the itch to create another 360-degree panorama. After a short time thinking about the possible locations to photograph, as you can see from above, our renovated second bedroom was the subject I chose. To capture the image, I used a Canon EOS 5D Mark III and Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 lens a 3-shot exposure bracket at each 20° interval. I then combined the exposure brackets in Lightroom (using identical settings for each HDR blend) and compiled the panoramic image with Hugin.

Want to step into our nursery? Download and install FSPViewer and open this high-resolution version of the image above in the app for a cool virtual experience.

by Sean Setters

I thoroughly enjoy lightning photography, but until recently, I had never seriously attempted to capture lightning during the day. Soon after receiving the MIOPS Camera Trigger, I tested the device during a daytime thunderstorm to see how well it worked. Site visitors interested in lightning photography are often curious if a triggering device will work in the daytime, and my test revealed that the MIOPS Camera Trigger worked perfectly under even relatively bright conditions. The same cannot be said about other lightning triggers I've tried.

Even with a good camera trigger, lightning photography during the daytime presents a problem. How do you balance the exposure so that the lightning bolt is visible in the bright sky while keeping the foreground details from being silhouetted?

The best answer I've come up with – a graduated ND filter and a covered shooting location.

The image above of the Savannah River was taken just before 7:00pm (an hour and 23 minutes before sunset). While it wasn't as bright at 7:00pm as it would be with midday sun, relatively few opportunities for lightning will be photographed in conditions that bright. The storm clouds that bring lightning typically block out the sun or at least darken the sky in the area being photographed to some degree. However, the darkening rarely lowers the sky's exposure to that of the ground beneath it. That's where the graduated ND filter comes in. For this shot, I mounted my 5D Mark III, EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM, MIOPS Camera Trigger on my tripod which was set up under the Savannah Belles Ferry Waving Girl Landing, adjacent the Marriott Hotel along the Savannah River. To the end of the lens, I attached a 100mm filter holder containing a Cokin NUANCES Z-Pro Soft-Edge 2-stop Grad ND. By positioning the filter in the holder so that it primarily covered the sky, I was able to better balance out the exposure between the ground/river elements and the sky.

Remember when I mentioned that a covered shooting location was an important part of this technique? While a lens hood will often prevent rain from accumulating on your front lens element or protective filter, the use of a 100mm filter holder and filters precludes the use of a lens hood. With a much larger surface area to gather water droplets and ultimately impacting image quality, a location that protects the entire camera rig from rain is ideal. Of course, if photographing a storm from a vantage point where it isn't raining, no covered location is necessary. Unfortunately, storms tend to move and photographing lightning is very much a waiting game. If it isn't raining in your location, the same may not be true 10 minutes later.

And while I'm on the subject of rain, here's some advice: invest in some type of waterproof camera backpack for transporting your gear to and from your shooting location. I recently picked up a used Lowepro DryZone 100 – predecessor to the now available Lowepro Dryzone 200 – and it's been perfect for these types of outings. The DZ100 and DZ200 are completely watertight, have plenty of room and are comfortable to wear for moderate distances even with a tripod strapped to the back (although the waist strap sits high on my 6'2" / 1.88m frame). If you're serious about photographing in extreme conditions, pick up a Lowepro DryZone 200 or similar bag.

Figuring out your desired exposure level for daytime lightning photography is easier than for nighttime lightning photography. At night, a lightning bolt becomes the primary light source for the sky – where it bounces off of nearby clouds – and, if not illuminated by artificial light, the ground. It usually takes a few test shots and a little bit of luck to determine the optimal exposure settings for a given nighttime storm. You can typically vary the shutter speed until the ground is sufficiently bright enough at your chosen aperture and ISO, but that aperture and ISO are keys to determining the brightness level of the sky that results from a lightning strike. That said, if your shutter speed is too long, you may record multiple lightning strikes within the same image which will cause a substantially over exposed sky. In other words, sufficient skill and a little bit of luck are important in getting properly exposed nighttime lightning shots.

On the contrary, lightning doesn't typically impact the brightness level of the surrounding sky to a consequential degree during the daytime, generally speaking, unless there is a significantly thick blanket of dark clouds overhead. Therefore, you can set usually set your exposure to slightly underexpose the sky and your lightning will simply pop out against the underexposed background, such as in the example above. The ease of setting an exposure really paid off in this case. The lightning bolt I captured is the only lightning that occurred within my camera's field of view while I was photographing on this particular evening.

In post processing, I darkened the sky a bit further by reducing the luminosity of the blue channel and increased the image's overall contrast and saturation.

The following day I photographed from the same location around 3:30pm and while I didn't catch any lightning, the retreating storm provided an inspiring view.

As you can see, one benefit of attempting to photograph lightning during the day is that, even if you are unsuccessful, the clouds may reward your effort. I used the Cokin NUANCES Z-Pro Soft-Edge 2-stop Grad ND for this image as well.

If you don't have a graduated ND filter in your kit, you can combine multiple exposures to arrive at a similar result (under-expose the sky in the lightning shot and combine that with a brighter ground exposure). However, any elements that move during the exposure that reside within the field between those two images (the part that simulates the graduated part of the ND filter) will have to be dealt with on an individual basis with specific masking. I've worked with exposure blending quite a bit over the last few years, and while some extreme exposure latitude situations can certainly benefit from the technique, I've really been enjoying the use of graduated NDs lately. I suppose I'd rather spend more time in the field setting up the camera to capture the image I want (or very close to it) as opposed to spending more time in front of my computer attempting to create a similar image.

by Sean Setters

Pictured above is my wife, Alexis, and as you can probably tell – in mid-September, assuming no unforeseen calamity arises – our life is going to change in a very dramatic way. We're expecting a girl.

Our preparations for the new arrival have been going on for months. A crib has replaced the bed in the second bedroom, new curtains adorn the windows and a matching rug ties it all together. And all those things would all look great if it weren't for the tons of boxes filling the room containing car seats, tiny clothes, baby wipes, diapers, a diaper bag and all the other things seemingly necessary for a child to survive infancy. Of course, we're very fortunate to be experiencing a clutter problem. Those boxes will help us through the challenging months ahead.

Even before my wife and I were actually expecting a child, we had started preparing in our own ways. For Alexis, that meant hand knitting baby accessories that would someday keep miniature hands and feet warm. Those handmade accessories came in handy for notifying close friends and family of the expected arrival.

As for me, I started preparing by purchasing used baby photography props from local photographers and stacking them in a pile in the corner of my studio. But that pile of baskets, ribbons, fuzzy blankets and knitted hats got me thinking – the images that I will look back on most fondly, the images that will be most dear to me, I haven't even taken yet. Bryan's been hammering this point home in many of his portrait lens reviews and in the captions of many of the pictures that he posts to the site; the most important pictures you will ever take will be of the ones you love. Birthday parties, sporting events, vacations, family get-togethers, graduations, and many more events are all great reasons to have a camera and an appropriate lens readily available. Increasing height, missing teeth and hairdos that will be well out of style in the next decade should all be documented formally on a monthly basis.

It's at this point in my life that I'm most happy to have a pretty well fleshed-out photography kit. I know that it's going to be well used over the next few years, and I look forward to looking back at the images created and wondering, "Where did the time go?"

For those residing in the USA, Independence Day (aka, the 4th of July) is often celebrated with freinds, family, grilled food and fireworks. With so many fireworks displays occurring this evening (either in a city center or in your own backyard), you may want to brush up on your fireworks photography techniques before the colorful bursts paint the night sky.

Fireworks Photography Tips

• Fireworks Photography Tips
• Creative Fireworks Photography
• CDLC Photographing Fireworks Quick Tips + Additional Tips from Us
• Fireworks on the Savannah River