Playing at Pacific Park

We went to Pacific Park at the Santa Monica Pier.  We got there mid-afternoon, and it was very sunny.   To manage the wide dynamic range, I figured I would need a little fill-in flash to lift the shadows.

Ideally I would like to use a very soft light source as fill, but bounce under these conditions (bright, with no obvious bouncing surfaces) would not be easy.  I decided to use the Propet handheld umbrella.  I used the SB-600 as my slave and the SB-800 on-camera as master flash (i.e., both as commander and as additional flash).

More after the jump.




Why an SB-800 as opposed to the popup flash?  At sync speed, I was shooting at ISO 200, f/10 or thereabouts.  I didn't think the popup would be powerful enough for those conditions (didn't try though).

I was approached by security when I used the handheld umbrella.  Commercial photography is prohibited.  I assured them I was only taking photos of our toddler.  The security guard went away.

I really like how the shots turned out:

This shot was from direct on-camera flash.  Not too bad.

A short while later, security showed up again.  I again explained that I wasn't a commercial photographer.  They acknowledged that I was taking personal photos but they said my handheld umbrella was "extra equipment" and that it's not allowed. For a moment, my wife thought she found a photography-free haven.  I didn't bother arguing and I put the umbrella away.  I continued to use the SB-600 for off-camera flash.

Have a great weekend!

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Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I don't get tired of backlight. :) Shot at sync speed to minimize ambient.  SB-600 camera right triggered via D70 popup flash as commander.

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Stella and Sophia

20110313-D300-_DSC0906.jpg a photo by mic_ty on Flickr.

Took this shot during one of those moments when we didn't look tired. :) Lighting was primarily from bounced flash with my hand as a flag, with the flash aimed to a wall on camera left. Postprocessed with Lightroom 3.

Nikon D300 + Tamron 17-50 VC + Nikon SB-800

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"Now what?" Options for a Hybrid Digital/Film Workflow

Nikon N90, Kodak Ultramax 400, scanned with Noritsu at Costco

 

Many of today's amateur photographers started out learning photography on a digital camera (like myself) and never got exposed as it were to film photography.  This post is part of a series where digital-only photographers such as myself can learn what's it like to shoot with film.  It's not a tutorial per se but more of an introduction.  (If you've shot with film, this will all seem incredibly basic but please chime in to share your knowledge in the comments.)

In a previous post, I discussed the shooting process: http://betterfamilyphotos.blogspot.com/2011/01/trying-out-film.html .  In this post, we'll talk about what happens afterward, and what you can expect in terms of output.

DEVELOPING

OK, so we just finished rewinding the film.  The film is now completely in the cartridge, sealed from light, ready to be developed.  In that form, the film is not yet stable and can be damaged or altered by X-rays or excessive heat for example.  Developing film is the chemical process for making the film somewhat permanent and no longer light-sensitive (I say "somewhat" permanent because colors can still fade over time with older films).

There are different development processes for different kinds of film.  The most common process for color negative film is C41.  For color reversal (slide) film, it's E6.  If you're having film developed at a lab, it's safe to assume they can do C41.  But for E6, you should check - many I checked with don't process E6.

It's certainly possible to develop film yourself and many film photographers do so, but it's by no means necessary.  Not counting intangibles such as greater sense of satisfaction or accomplishment, the practical benefit of developing film yourself is saving money, and also being able to control pull and push processing yourself, which means effectively decreasing or increasing (respectively) the film's sensitivity.  For example, ISO 200 film can be pulled to 100 or pushed to 400.

The disadvantage of developing film yourself is the time and hassle involved.  The chemicals are also not exactly great for your health: see http://photo.net/black-and-white-photo-film-processing-forum/00UIWu .  In my case, I have two young kids.  I don't want to do anything that would possibly harm them in an accident, no matter how remote that possibility, so I didn't even consider learning to develop film myself.  For me, it's just not worth the risk.  Besides, a lab can also be instructed to push or pull process.

PRINTING and SCANNING

After the film is developed, you can have it printed and/or scanned. 

The simplest option is to have a lab create prints for you.  However, this comes at a cost.  I'm not talking about the monetary cost of printing, but the cost in terms of losing control over the end result.  With traditional film photography, printing is an important part of the creative process.  During printing, the photographer can modify contrast, use dodging and burning to lighten or darken selective parts of the image, or add effects such as vignetting.

In my case, I didn't want to spend the time required for printing.  Fortunately, there's a digital alternative to chemical printing, which is to scan the film.  Purists scoff at this option.  One of their arguments is that if the film is merely being scanned, then the advantages that film has would be erased, and the photographer would be better off using a digital camera instead.

I'm not an expert in film photography, but I compared digital photos with scanned film photos and the results were quite different.  Qualitatively, the film photos (even merely scanned ones) had a certain richness and tonality that made them look more like cinema while the digital photos looked more like video.  The other difference was the dynamic range (even of scanned film) but I'm getting a little ahead of myself.

I had known that negative film has a wide dynamic range, and can preserve highlights very well, but I initially thought that such dynamic range would not be captured in scanning, unless perhaps through expensive drum scanning or through multiple scans that are recombined with HDR techniques.  Fortunately it appears that most of negative film's dynamic range can be captured in a scan, at least by the scanner at my local Costco (Noritsu QSS-3111).  See some comparisons here.

Scanning at my local Costco costs $2.99 for a roll of film (up to 40 frames).  It has cost, speed (1 hour) and dynamic range going for it.  On the other hand, the resolution appears limited.  Nominally, I got files with a resolution of 3087x2048 pixels (similar to a 6-megapixel camera).  However, when I zoom in the image, the actual resolution appears to be only about half of that.  Fortunately, I was able to get a decent 12x18 print but I'm not 100% sure if it's because they printed the 12x18 image from the negative or from the scanned file.

Note: At least one photographer has also been able to get 26-megapixel scans from Costco.  I tried to do that twice but all I got were the aforementioned 6-mp (3mp?) files.

Besides Costco, there are plenty of other options for scanning film but I haven't tried them yet.  Ken Rockwell loves Northcoast Photo Services in San Diego.  There's also a company called ScanCafe that scans at 10.5-megapixels (for slides or negatives) with 24-bit color (8-bits per RGB channel), but takes a while because they send the film to India for scanning.  There are many other options if you look around.

If you have a 5-star shot and you want the absolute best scan for it, the gold standard for scanning is a drum scan.  They aren't cheap at $20+ or more per frame of 35mm negative film.  That's not very surprising considering that a drum scanner costs up to $65,000 or even $300,000.  But you get what you pay for because the scanned file can be 140 megabytes with 48-bit color (16-bits per RGB channel) or more!

There are also DIY scanning options with scanners available for every budget.  But from what I've read, getting a good scan is an acquired skill.  I just don't have the time to learn that right now (besides the actual time it takes to scan the film).

POST-PROCESSING

After your film is scanned, the files can be adjusted with post-processing software.  These aren't raw files, so they don't have the same latitude for white balance adjustment for example, but you can use many of the darkroom techniques that were traditionally applied in the darkroom, such as dodging and burning, in addition to applying digital effects that are impossible or difficult to replicate in the darkroom (I'm pretty sure content-aware fill would be pretty difficult even for Ansel Adams =) ). 

Here's an example of a scanned film shot edited in Lightroom 3:

My flash was as eager as the subject on this shot

Attempting damage control

In this shot, my flash didn't function correctly and blasted the subject at almost full power.  Normally one would expect the subject to be overexposed, with no hope of recovery.  However, the highlights were preserved in both the film and in the scan, and no details were lost.

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Neil vN Tests Nikon's Boosted 1/320 Sync Speed

One of the cool things about the Nikon D300, D300S, D700 and D7000 is that they can boost the flash sync speed above their normal sync speed of 1/250 to a third of a stop higher to 1/320.  The manual (at least on my D300) cautions that using this 1/320 sync speed will cause a reduction in the effective flash output but it is still more efficient than high speed sync (which has a 2-stop penalty).  It was always a mystery to me as to how the boosted sync speed works, and what the power loss was.

 

Neil van Niekerk just posted an article that tests the 1/320 sync speed and compares the result with 1/320 high speed sync, all using manual flash at full power:

http://neilvn.com/tangents/2011/03/13/auto-fp-flash-setting-nikon-d300s-d700/

 

I'm amazed that the reduction in effective flash output with the boosted 1/320 sync speed is not as significant as I thought.  It's certainly far more efficient than high speed sync.

 

Neil does note the slight darkening along the edge of the frame and for that reason would prefer not to use 1/320 sync.  In my case, I usually use high sync speeds in bright ambient conditions, and the darkened area would normally be illuminated by ambient light anyway.  So for my purposes, I would definitely turn on the 1/320 boost option.

 

On a related note, David Hobby found out that the D7000 can fooled into syncing at 1/400 (up to 1/4 manual power) and 1/500 with some darkening of the frame: http://strobist.blogspot.com/2011/03/nikons-d7000-sync-dial-goes-to-eleven.html  (His rationale for going all the way to 1/500 despite darkening is the same rationale I have for turning on the boost option.)  I'll test out the 1/400 sync speed on the D300 as well -- it may just work.

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Tip: Using a Zoom Lens as a Compositional Aid

I am quite busy this week and behind the schedule for my next article, so until then, here's an extremely useful tip for everyone that I found a while ago on Digital Photography School. I hope you enjoy this article as much as I did.

NOTE: The illustration shown above is taken from Canon's EF Lens Work III, they have very useful material for everyone regardless of the camera/lens brand. I would really suggest you read it, and here is a direct link to the PDF with the illustration shown above.

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Latitude of Bounce Flash as Fill

We had a going-away party for one of our coworkers at a restaurant/bar with a wharf warehouse theme.  Weathered lumber was all over the place, along with barrels, crates and fishing nets.  It's how I imagine it would feel like being in an 18th century galleon.

Taking photos at this location was quite a challenge.  First, with dark wood everywhere and very high ceilings, there was no obvious place from which to bounce a flash.  Second, the dynamic range was quite high.  Most of the bar was kind of dark.  On the other hand, near the windows and under the lights, it was pretty bright.  Third, compounding the dynamic range issue, our group was having the party immediately beside the windows.  When balancing flash and ambient, having a dimly-lit subject against a bright background gives you a number of options.  In this case, when the subject is significantly brighter than the background, balancing flash and ambient is a little tricky.  Did I mention this place was dark?

We actually had a party at this same location last year.  At that time, I first tried using direct on-camera flash as fill and I didn't like how it looked.

Although the flash helped to reduce the dynamic range and illuminated the subjects while allowing the outside scenery to be visible, it did not look right (mainly because the light was coming from a direction that is different from where we would expect it to come from).  I gave up the flash and just went with ambient light only.

It certainly looked more natural, but the shadows were very dark, giving the images a very contrasty kind of look.  Nothing wrong with that per se, but it's not the kind of photo with mass appeal shall we say.

My primary objective this time was to improve from last year's shots by adding fill light, in a way that would complement the image.  I decided I would try bounce flash anyway, notwithstanding the less-than-ideal bouncing conditions.

It worked reasonably well.  I learned that conditions that would be impossible or difficult to use for bounce flash when using bounce as key can be feasible when using bounce flash as fill:

1. Power.  As a fill light, I'm using flash at -2 FEC or thereabouts.  Thus, using even a low ISO is possible (when bounce flash usually requires a higher ISO).  In these shots, I was using ISO 400.  That would be asking a lot from the flash in this kind of location if flash were the key light.  As the fill light though, I'm asking for only around 1/4th the amount of power I would otherwise require.  The power needed would be akin to shooting at ISO 1600 at 0 FEC, which is pretty realistic.

Bouncing from high ceilings at ISO 400

2. Bounce Direction.  As a key light, the direction that we're bouncing from is critical to the resulting image because it will determine the appearance of the shadows (and highlights).  When using bounce flash as fill, the amount of light the flash is contributing to the image is much dimmer, therefore the shadows that bounce flash produces are less noticeable (that's the whole point of fill light - you don't want fill light to cast its own shadows).  Bounce directions that I would normally avoid as unflattering may be usable when I'm using bounce flash as fill.

Bouncing straight up is usually not ideal but when it's only fill light, it looks ok.

3. Color.  Usually, I'm cautious about bouncing from non-neutral surfaces, like the dark wood at this location.  Once again, when bounce is only acting as fill, the color cast is less objectionable.

This is going to help me recognize bounce flash possibilities in seemingly impossible bounce conditions.

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