Photo Tips Podcast: 6 Causes of Blurry Photos #18

Filter color cast. Is this a problem? When we were still shooting film, most of what happened in the field was permanent. In other words if you got it wrong when you shot it there was almost no going back. As a result of this, making sure that filters were exactly the color they said they would render was extremely important. This also made them very expensive. Take for instance a Kodak Wratten filter, which was literally a sheet of colored plastic about twice the thickness of sheet of paper. Even in the 90's they cost between $8 and $20 each even though they were extremely easy to scratch and easily damaged. What made them expensive was that they were optically correct and they were exactly the color they said they were. For instance 10 points of cyan or 2 points of yellow etc. If a filter had the wrong color or your used the wrong filter, it would be difficult or nearly impossible to fix in the darkroom. Of course this depended on how far off the filter was. With the advent of digital photography and the raw file, the conventional understanding is that you can correct out any color in post production. But is this really true? To put this notion to the test we bought some rather cheap plastic filters on ebay costing only a few dollars each.

Here’s what happened. (all images were produced using a Canon 5D Mark IV)

#1 Control – this is the image directly from the camera with no edits.

#2 -6 Color filters – these images were photographed using various color filters.

#7&8 Neutral Density Filters – These two images were photographed using a cheap plastic ND filter and a very expensive one.

The above images were then color corrected using the white balance sampler tool in Lightroom and a sample was simply taken from the white square on the bottom left. There was an attempt to manually correct the images but alas Lightroom had already gone as far as it could on both images (no attempts were made in Photoshop). As you can see, depending on the color and amount of color there is a point at which you cannot correct it back to neutral if that color is baked into the image, even if you are shooting raw. Please note, no adjustments were made for contrast or exposure in Lightroom. Sometimes filters can change the contrast of an image, and certainly the clarity as well. Although the red filter had as many points of red as the blue filter has of blue, it would seem that the sensor did not pick up very much red. Here are photos of some of the filters used. As you can see the red and blue filter have the same number of color points as the green filter and yet the green filter was more easily corrected for. There were fewer points of color in the magenta and orange filters which explains why they were mor easily corrected for.

It was very curious to find that if the camera was allowed to analyze the color via the custom white balance setting, it was much more capable of correcting out the color than Lightroom. In other words, red filter was placed in front of the camera and a white sheet of paper was placed in front of the color chart (see image #3 Red White card test). The camera was set to calibrate the white balance from that image. As it turns out the jpg image produced by the camera (#3 Red in camera correction jpg) is much closer to neutral than Lightroom was able to get to. Remember, when shooting raw the white balance setting is not baked into the image, this is why there is much more latitude to fix problems in post process with raw. However when we tried to correct the image above (#3Red -color corrected) was the best we could do. As you can see the camera was much more capable of correcting out the color. But alas that is a jpg image.

The conclusion is that although there is a lot of latitude in post, at this time Lightroom has limits. Further, although the latitude is fairly large you still need to pay attention to the color cast of your filter or your lights if there is a big color cast. At a certain point there is no turning back.

Photo Tips Podcast: The Best Way to Choose the Right Shutter Speed #17

As photographers are guilted into using Manual mode many have discovered a new cheat! They have found

Here are some popular photo tips you should definitely not follow.

1. Just shoot everything horizontal, then you can crop it vertical later. No! By doing that you have at the least lost 30% of your image. Why not just spend 5 more seconds to shoot the vertical?

2. Always use a monopod. NO! if you have a point and shoot camera do you really need a monopod? NO! Not all instances require a monopod.

3. Always use hand grips, they are better than neck straps! Obviously this one was written by a large man with large hands. Although hand straps can be great and many like the feeling of adhering their hand to their camera, if you only have a hand strap it means that your hand never gets a break. If you are shooting all day this is a lot of fatigue.

4. Always use Manual focus, it's the only way to attain critical focus. NO! The majority of Americans require some sort of glasses. If your glasses are out of date, you will never be able to focus manually. If your diopter is not set properly all manually focused images will be soft. In today's modern camera auto focus will in most cases render the sharpest image possible.

5. The rule of third works 99% of the time. no it doesn't. Simply putting things into the rule of thirds grid does not make or a great photo. You must still think through your composition and don’t forget centered images work great too!

This example of the rule of thirds definitely did not work!

6. Never over expose your image. NO! see below. Ostensibly this is an over exposed image. Why is this bad? (see image)

7. Never under expose an image, another bad piece of advice. (see image).

8. Lens flare is bad. If it's used properly there is nothing wrong with lens flare. (see image)

9. Lens flare is good. Wrong again, if you are not paying close attention to your images lens flare can be very very bad. See below:

10. Never shoot down on children. What about this?

11. Always use a polarizing filter. No, unless you actually need one, a polarizer will only serve to reduce the already limited amount of light you have.

12. Never use a protective filter. Sometimes you need a filter. No one person can speak to all situations or needs.

13. Always use a filter. No you don’t always need a filter. See above.

14. The more expensive the filter the better it is. Various tests have shown that although very cheap filters can be really bad, the most expensive filters don't always measure up to their price either. Often the middle of the road (price wise) is where you'll find the best filters and value. But only a test will tell you that.

15. If you think the weather causes you discomfort it's also bad for your camera. The operating temperature for your camera is generally: 32-104F (0-40 C) which means it's capable of operating well outside your comfort zone. Some of the best photos are taken in extreme conditions.

16. Shooting in Manual mode is the only way to get a great photo. Join us for a safari and we'll show you why this isn't true.

17. When photographing a landscape simply put your lens to infinity focus. No, always find focus. Decide what you want to focus on and make sure you get focus there!

18. Never use a flash? Then why do they sell flash equipment? And why do all professionals use flash (other than the landscape and wild life folks?).

19. Every photo needs to tell a story. No it doesn't. What story does this photo tell? And does that lack of a story mean it's not a nice photo?

20. Always have foreground middle ground and background. Always is a really long time. Here's an example of why that doesn't always work. Just like this one:

Many believe that the only way to get a truly sharp image is to use a monopod (aka unipod). Unfortunately this is not true

Chromatic aberrations: what is it and what causes it? For a scientific answer we asked Dr. Rebecca Theilmann at the University of California San Diego.

For many using a memory card is simply putting the card in your camera and then shooting away. If you

If you are a lanscape photographer and you have not discovered the joys of trekking poles, then you're missing out. When used properly trekking poles like