The Official Magazine of the Dapto Camera Club

The Official Magazine of the Dapto Camera Club Viewfinder. February2020 VIEWFINDER MENU What to Charge So what is the “best” ISO for shooting night skies When the spot removal tool is not good enough. Fireworks photography Sharpening images in post is often a touchy subject. How to Smartly Use Color in Your Compositions Cover Photo taken by Cartoons. Debbie Henderson What to Charge Amateurs and Hobbyists - Amateurs and hobbyists commonly charge $25-$75 an hour for images normally used on blogs, small websites, or for local advertising. The fee is generally under $100. However, they may not follow standard photography practices and have other lines of work. Student Photographers - Students typically have more experience than amateurs and hobbyists in that they've received some form of training. Their typical hourly rate is $50 - $100 per hour. Prices of student photographers can vary based several factors - the school that they are studying in, the stage of their education, whether they have worked with and assisted other professional photographers, and, last but not least, their photography portfolio. Students with brilliant student photography portfolios can command the same rates as professional photographers. Entry-Level Photographers - The entry-level or semi-professional photographers charge $50-$150 per hour or $25-$125 per image. They're not as committed and often have other lines of work that they rely on. Professional Photographers with experience - Professional, experienced photographers usually charge $75 - $250 per hour or per image. They rely solely on their photography work to make a living and typically have invested a lot in their equipment, and have more experience in both the pre-production and post-production stages of photography. Top Professional Photographers - Top professional photographers, known as high-end photographers, charge $250 - $500 per hour or $200 -$1200 per image. This elite group of photographers command top dollar for their work and can even be paid up to $10,000 per day depending on their area of specialty. They cover areas such as sports, fashion, entertainment, film, documentaries for TV, movies, billboards or magazines. By Gurpreet Singh – Excerpt taken from https://www.pixpa.com/blog/photography-pricing-guide So what is the “best” ISO for shooting night skies? Night skies are a tricky beast to photograph. If you crank the ISO too high, you’re going to get a night sky full of noise. Too low, and you’re not going to see any of those beautiful stars at all. Either of those and you’re simply not going to be able to capture the sky as you remember it. So what is the “best” ISO for shooting night skies? Well the pros usually combine the answer to that with the “500 rule.” Which is… If you want sharp stars with a full frame camera, then your shutter speed = 500/focal length. Eg If you’re shooting with a 50mm lens, then 500/50 = 10 second shutter speed. If you want sharp stars with a cropped sensor then your shutter speed = 500/(focal length*crop) Eg. If you’re shooting with a 50mm lens, then 500/(50*1.5) = 7 second shutter speed. In both cases, you would shoot wide open (f/2.8 or as wide as your lens goes). In both cases, you would start with ISO 3200. Obviously you’ll need a tripod. That should give you a good starter shot. Once you do a test shot, you should make adjustments to your ISO as necessary. Shoot raw so you have some room to move in post production (ie raw files capture more information so ad- justing them in post allows you to take the adjustments further than jpg). But I implore you, do NOT stop at just leaving it at what your camera captures. Your raw files can be SO MUCH BETTER with some post production. This goes 10x for night skies. Rob, Light Stalking. https://www.lightstalking.com/ When the spot removal tool is not good enough. Have you ever printed out a large print of one of your favourite photos? It is one of the best ways to enjoy photography in my humble opinion. One thing you will notice however, is EVERY single imperfection in your images. It is INFURIATING to get a large print and realise that there was a piece of dust on your sensor, or a smudge in the sky, or you forgot to remove the booger from a child (trust me, that is very common with toddlers). So what do you do? Most times for me, I go NUTS with the spot removal tool in Lightroom. I look at every part of the image at full resolution (sometimes even more than 100% if I am being really finicky) and I move the image around looking at parts for specs or unwanted dirt. I look especially hard at large smooth areas of images - skies, faces, walls. (If you watch some professional landscape photographers prepare for printing large prints, they literally find HUNDREDS of these imperfections). And as somebody who treats their gear pretty rough and takes it everywhere, I find a lot of these imperfections too. And 95% of the time (especially if I am not planning on displaying the image too big anyway), I can get away with using only the spot tool. It’s an amazing tool for using in post work. But what happens when the spot removal tool is not good enough? What if you need to remove a bigger imperfection? A plane from the sky? A large piece of food from a face? An unwanted person in the background? For those times I turn to masking in Photoshop. It is easily the simplest and most powerful way to do it. Tutorial on masking for beginners Fireworks photography It can be one of the most daunting types of photography! While the shows can be dazzling to the na- ked eye, making photos of fireworks can be quite the challenge. Here are some quick tips to make the most of it and capture great fireworks photos: Don’t Forget the Tripod Yes, I know… you’ve heard about how im- portant tripods are time and time again. Still, a solid tripod is one of the most effec- tive ways to make sure your firework photos really shine. Selecting Exposure Let's break down the basics of shutter speed, aperture, and ISO and how they should be used in order for you to get the best exposure possible. ISO The role ISO plays in photographing fireworks is the same as it plays in any other type of photography. Higher ISO settings are more sensitive to light and lower ISO settings are less sensitive. Generally speaking, a good starting point ISO settings will be somewhere around ISO 800. For most digital cameras, this strikes a good balance between sensitivity to light and image noise. Aperture The aperture selection for low light scenes such as fireworks can be dependant on a few things but in most cases a good rule of thumb is to shoot at or near the widest aperture of the lens you happen to be using. Shutter Speed Finding the right shutter speed is perhaps the most frustrating aspect of shooting fireworks. The shutter speed determines how long the camera’s shutter remains open so in turn controls whether a firework in flight appears to be frozen in mid air or looks like a streaking light. It might be better if you think of your shutter speed setting as a method for controlling the sense of motion of the fireworks rather than how bright they will seem in the photograph. If you are looking to have a finished product that sports silky and more abstract effects, it will be a good idea to set a relatively long shutter speed. Start off with one second and then adjust the time until you see the results you want. The longer you leave the shutter open the more pronounced the blurring and streaking will become. Let's do a quick recap! 1. Shoot using the lowest ISO you can while still getting the results you want. ISO 800 is a good starting point. 2. Set your lens at its largest aperture (smallest “f” number) to al- low maximum light into the camera. Adjust your aperture for prop- er focus if needed. 3. Longer shutter speeds will pro- duce more streaked and blurred firework photos. Begin with a one second exposure and tweak from there in order to give your images an abstract look. 4. Shorter shutter speeds will make those spectacular starbursts stand still. Start with a shutter speed of 1/25 and click the shutter button just as the firework explodes. Adjust your timing to get your desired result. To add more interest to your firework photos try adding in external elements to your compositions such as build- ings, boats, natural features, or even people.I hope you found those quick tips useful! https://contrastly.com/ Sharpening images in post is often a touchy subject. Today we have a tutorial for you about sharpening images in Lightroom Classic. I hope you like it! Sharpening images in post is often a touchy subject. I'm not talking about shooting sharp images, that's another topic all on its own! I'm talking about editing images in order to make them look sharper. Sharpening in Lightroom Classic or any other editing application, while it can be a useful technique, can have some adverse effects on your images. The truth is, you can never actually sharpen a photograph... there, I said it! Once it is made, the actual physical sharpness of an image remains the same.

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