Thanks to the Image Doctors podcast from Nikonians, I found an excellent source of information on the digital workflow process. George Mann is in the process of wrting 100 articles chock full of tips, tricks, and how-tos. This will keep me occupied for some time to come. Check them out at http://www.nikonians.org/html/resources/software/Adobe_digital_workflow/index.html
While shooting high school football last Friday night, I had a strobe lighting epiphany. The night before, I was talking to another photographer and he was helping me with using strobe to light a very poorly lit soccer field.
I do have an SB-800, so one would think I could just set it to full TTL and just fire away, getting perfect exposure everytime. Not the case, especially since I often need to fire a few consecutive shots to ensure I get the moment of contact. I don't have an external battery back, so I am severly limited in my ability to do this by the lack of power being provided to the flash and the long recycle times. The solution to this is to shoot with the flash on manual, at about 1/8th power.
I played around with this on Thursday night, but couldn't get a proper exposure, so I went back to TTL and just got what I could. Friday night was a football shoot, and I decided to try again. I set my flash for 1/8th power, set the camera to manual mode, 1/160 at about f/3.5, with an ISO of 200 and began firing away. I was able to get the full output of the flash with a very short recycle time, allowing me to fire off up to about 5 frames in succession, which is what I wanted. The epiphany came when I realized that by adjusting the aperture, I was adjusting the amount of reflected flash that was being recorded. By adjusting either the shutter speed or the ISO sensitivity, I could control the amount of ambient light being recorded. In essence, I picked an aperture that gave me a proper exposure for my subject, then set my shutter speed or ISO to give me a good, balanced, ambient exposure. As the sun went down, I had to adjust my shutter speed slower to let more light in. Problem with this is that I can't stop the action of a football game at a shutter speed below 1/160. This is where I figured out that I could adjust the ISO and would get the same effect.
The shutter speed has no effect on the amount of light being recorded from the flash as the flash is only illuminating the subject for about 1/10,000th of a second, much shorter than any shutter speed on any camera.
Lesson learned, and enjoyed!
While playing with my new Nikon D2Hs, I've been shooting in RAW mode and looking for the best way for me to post process these files. I personally run Linux on all of my machines, so Photoshop was not initially an option, nor was Nikon Capture, or any of the other Win/Mac programs.
My adventure began with GIMP and the RawPhoto GIMP plugin, which didn't strike me as very user friendly to begin with. I should specify, that I am talking about the RAW converter here. I don't like the UI at all, and feel it is very lacking in features, including a white balance adjuster with meaningful labels. For me, this is a must. I also did not find the auto adjust feature to work as well as I would have liked it. I end up with a magenta cast to my whites when using this. Nothing I can't adjust for, but I would think auto should get closer than that.
Gimp has also proven disappointing with their Curves tool, (the inability to see the changes to the image as I am adjusting the curve without unclicking), the lack of a free rotate tool, and just other general UI frustrations.
Luckily, my parents have a nice, fast AMD x2 that runs the Windows tools just fine. I started down this road with Nikon Capture 4.1, and saw a world of difference immediately. The curves tool had exactly the functionality I was expecting, the auto levels worked very well, and the UI was, I though, very user friendly.
My 30 day free trial quickly expired, so I figured I would try out Nikon Capture NX. Wow! Another vast difference. I really like this product. The auto levels and curves worked even better than with 4.1, and the UI was much improved. This will definately be on my purchase list.
I am also playing around with Adobe Lightroom Beta 3. I don't use it as a RAW converter, but rather as a photo management tool. I like the ability to split images up into shoots, keywords, and other topics just by draging them around. I also really like the built in print functionality that even allows me to print a "contact sheet", which I have used for clients already. I have not heard a definitive price yet, since this is still in Beta, but people are guessing around $200. Not sure I will shell that out if I'm not using the RAW converter, but I will have to see. One thing missing is the ability to add copyright data to the images in batch. I can do it individually, but not to multiple images. KIND of disappointing there.
Since getting my Nikon D2Hs, I've had a renewed (not that it ever died) interest in my photography, and looking for new things to play around with. One of the new things I'm getting excited about playing with and learning more about is off camera lighting. I found the Strobist weblog a month or so ago, and have gone through the Lighting 101 portion, reading only. I don't have the flash synch cord or the umbrella stand, although I do have an umbrella from my days enrolled in NYI.
My sister would like some portraits taken of her daughter, but can't justify the high price that a photographer near by charges for reprints or a shoot. I told her I would be more than happy to do some for her. My perfect opportunity to put to use some of what I have learned from my new reading.
David Hobby from the Baltimore Sun and Strobist website is putting on a half day lighting workshop down in Ellicott City, MD in January which I have signed up for. I have four months to practice what I've read before I have the opprotunity to see the techniques in action as it should be done by the pros and showcase some of my work. The great thing about this workshop, it's hands on with breakout sessions where we can practice/use what we've learned. Then of to the local pub for beer with David and chat all night. Should be a great learning and networking experience.
More info about the seminar can be found here.