Organizing your memory cards

When using multiple memory cards on a photoshoot, its a good idea to have a system in place to keep track of used and unused cards so that you don't wind up accidentally erasing images.

We've standardized on using SanDisk Extreme Compact Flash and SDHC cards. For stills we use 8GB cards and for video we use 16GB and 32GB cards.

Using a Brother P-touch labeler, each card is labeled on one side alphabetically with the capacity of the card.

Cards are normally stored in a Think Tank Pixel Pocket Rocket. We also use the Gepe Card Safe Extreme when shooting near water or in a location with lots of sand/wind/dust.

All the cards are checked and formatted in-camera before every shoot and are stored in the memory card holder with the P-touch label facing out.  This lets us know at a glance that these cards are blank and what the capacity of each card is.

During the shoot, the cards are used in alphabetical order. When a card is filled up, it is put back into the cardholder with the P-touch label side facing down.  By organizing the cards in this manner, we know which card to use next and which cards are already used.

Setting up and implementing an easy to use system to help you keep track of your memory cards will greatly reduce the chances of making a mistake during a photoshoot.

Photography Workflow

My apologies for not posting in a while. A friend of mine recently asked me to share my photography workflow so that's what I've been working on.  Please keep in mind that I am by no means an expert in photographic workflows.  If you want to learn about really good workflows, Chase Jarvis has an excellent post about it.

Since I am on a much smaller scale, what I am describing here is not very elaborate.  Just a workflow that I have found that is simple and works for me.

Most of my editing is done on a dual quad-core Mac Pro.  I also use a 15" MacBook Pro when on location.

The software programs I mainly use are Adobe Lightroom 3 (soon to be 4), Adobe Photoshop CS5, and Carbon Copy Cloner.

There are 4 internal drives in the Mac Pro:

1. Main - an SSD drive that holds the OS and Application files
2. Work - all photo/video editing is done on this drive
3. Backup - used for backup copies of all current projects
4. Time Machine - uses the Time Machine feature of OSX to back up Main & Work drives

On my Work drive, I start with a template - which is simply a folder with a blank Lightroom catalog file in it.

To begin a new project, I duplicate the template folder and rename the copy with the job number using the following format: YEAR/MONTH/DAY/TYPEOFSHOOT/CLIENTNAME. The blank Lightroom catalog file within the folder is also renamed to the same format.

For example, I was recently part of a joint shoot with local artists Kahulani Davis and Ben Kikuyama. The model's name was Marissa and we shot on March 6, 2012, so the folder name and Lightroom catalog name would be labeled as: 20120306MS-Marissa

Some photographers like to use one main catalog in Lightroom that contains all their shoots.  I prefer to make a separate Lightroom catalog and folder for each particular job.  It's easier for me to keep track of shoots this way.

The RAW files from each card of the shoot are then copied into individual subfolders within this project folder. Each card gets it's own subfolder. I don't use any special software to do this, simply drag and drop on the desktop.

In Lightroom, the subfolders with the RAW files are dragged into the Library module so that I can see the thumbnails of each image before importing.

Images that don't need to be imported, such as lighting tests, shots where the flash didn't fire, etc. are deselected. After adding in the metadata of the shoot, copyright info, etc., a  Develop Preset is selected and the files are imported.

The Develop Preset applies the Lens Correction option and the Camera profile to each image.  The specific settings are based on a Lightroom Develop preset that I found which was originally created by photographer David Ziser.  You can learn more about this preset by going to his blog.

In the Develop module of Lightroom it is possible to apply the Lens Correction and Camera profiles to the images after they have been imported, but I have found that applying these via the Develop Preset during import saves a lot of time.

After importing, all the images are selected and renamed with the client name and a 3 or 4 digit sequence depending on how many shots were taken.

Once this is done, I exit out of Lightroom and backup the Project folder to the Backup Drive using a program called Carbon Copy Cloner. It's fast and verifies the transfer afterwards to insure file integrity.

This way I have the images in three locations - on the Work drive, Backup drive, and on the original cards.  Once the Compact Flash cards have been used on a shoot, they are not formatted again until just before the next shoot, and ONLY if they have already been backed up.

Once the folder has been backed up, I work only with the Lightroom catalog and Raw files that are on the Work Drive.

Back in Lightroom, I start going through the images using the 1-5 star rating in Lightroom to mark the ones to process (3 stars for "Like", 5 stars for "Really Like").

After the selects are marked, I set Lightroom to show me only the selected images.  These are then adjusted in Lightroom for basic exposure and color.

Retouching and major editing/compositing for each image is then done in Photoshop.

Once the editing is completed, the image is saved in Photoshop, which brings it back into Lightroom as a TIF file and appends "-Edit" to the end of the filename. This file appears next to the original Raw file in the Lightroom catalog, so that I can see the before and after.

When all the edits are done, I switch back to the Library module and select all the images that have "Edit" in the filename.

These are then exported out of Lightroom in 2 sizes - a hi resolution version for printing and a lower resolution version optimized for the web.  The web sized ones are then emailed to the client and the hi res versions are burned onto a CD for delivery.

One tip I recently learned is that when you are exporting a large amount of JPEGs, you can save time by doing multiple exports of smaller batches.  Since Lightroom is now 64-bit, it can handle multiple tasks at the same time.

Say for example you had to export 400 images.  Instead of selecting all of them and exporting them all at once, select 200 to export, and while those are exporting, select the other 200 and export them at the same time.  This might be even faster if you did 4 batches of 100, but it depends on the amount of CPU cores you have available in your machine.

For the final backup, I use Carbon Copy Cloner again to do an incremental backup.  This backs up just the edited TIFs and the updated Lightroom catalog to the Backup drive.  The RAW files remain untouched.

To archive the project, I also use Carbon Copy Cloner to copy the backup folder to a remote storage drive which is in a separate location from my work computer. A copy of the final images is also burned to a CD/DVD for filing as an additional backup.

Hope this gives you some ideas on how to setup your workflow.  The most important thing to remember is BACKUP YOUR IMAGES. A good rule of thumb is the 3x3x3 rule:

1. Make 3 separate copies of your images.
2. Use 3 different drives or types of media.
3. Store them in 3 separate locations.

If you have any questions or suggestions on how to improve this workflow (I'm ALWAYS looking for ways to improve my workflow) feel free to leave a comment on the blog or email me directly.

Dragging the shutter to control the background

In a previous post I mentioned using the shutter speed to control the exposure level of the background when shooting a sunset.  A recent wedding couple I photographed was kind enough to help me illustrate this idea.

The following series of images of Tamra and John were taken with a Canon 7D with a 24-105 f4 L IS lens.  I used a set of Pocket Wizards to trigger an off-camera Nikon SB-26 hotshoe flash set at 1/2 power.  The SB-26 was mounted on a lightstand to camera right about 10 feet away from the couple, and modified with a Lastolite Ezybox Hotshoe Softbox. A 1/4 CTO gel was added to the flash to warm the light up a little.

Everything on the camera was set manually - the iso was set to 400, and the aperture remained at f4.  The only thing that changed between shots was the shutter speed.  I started at a shutter speed of 1/30th and gradually increased the shutter speed until the sky darkened to my liking.  The total time it to make all these images was less than a minute.

Notice how the exposure level of the couple does not change throughout.  This is because the aperture, iso, distance of the light to the subject, and the power level of the flash do not change.  Only the shutter speed changes, which changes the exposure level of the sky.

1/30













1/60













1/100













1/125













1/160













1/250













The only limit to how dark I can make the sky is the flash sync speed of the camera.  In this case, the 7D has an upper limit of 1/250, which is pretty good (my 5D only goes to 1/160).  If I go higher than the sync speed, part of the image will be dark, because the shutter is moving too fast for the flash to expose every part of the subject/foreground. If I were to use a Canon flash, like the 580EX, I could go much higher using the high-speed sync mode.

Some people have asked why I use Nikon SB-26 strobes when I'm shooting with Canon gear.  Although I do have a couple of 580EX flashes that I use, I like using the Nikon flashes for a lot of manual flash work because:

a) They have PC sync ports which allow me to trigger them with Pocket Wizards.  Only Canon's newer flash has a PC sync port - the 580EXII.

b) The SB-26s have built in optical slaves so if I run out of Pocket Wizards, I can still trigger them with the pop of another flash.

c) They're durable and cheap enough that I don't have a cow if one breaks.  I've been able to find them in secondhand stores in Japan for around $100 each.  The Canon 580 EXIIs are about 4-5x the cost.

6 steps to shooting at sunset

Canon 5D mkII 24-105 f4L IS Lens iso 200  1/6@f5.6

Shooting a subject with flash against a sunset background using all manual settings on the camera is something that I struggled with learning for the longest time.  At first it kinda went like this:



When I first started shooting sunset portraits, I would usually put the camera in Program mode and set the on camera flash to ETTL mode.  Most of the time it would do a pretty good job, but there would always be the odd frame where the exposure went wacky and was either too dark or too bright. Usually it would be THAT frame where everything else was right - the model's pose, hair, expression, whatever.  It would have been the Perfect Shot.... if only the exposure didn't suck.

The main problem with shooting sunset portraits in Program mode with an on camera flash is that every time the camera angle or the distance to the subject changes, the camera and flash have to recalculate everything. Camera manufacturers love to say that the chips in the cameras are so powerful that they can instantly compare your image to hundreds of thousands of images in their databases in order to give you the correct exposure.  When you shoot a whole bunch of shots in a row however, you'll occasionally get a bad exposure because the camera isn't smart enough to know what exactly it is that you're shooting.  No matter how powerful the computer inside your camera is,  it will never be able to compete with the supercomputer that is between your ears.

Shooting on all manual settings can be daunting at first, but I've found that it actually makes it easier to get more consistent images and wastes less time in the long run.

When using flash as the main light on the subject at sunset, the aperture controls the exposure level of the subject and shutter speed controls the exposure level of the background.  This was the hardest concept for me to wrap my brain around when I first started learning how to use manual flash at sunset. What made things easier for me was learning to control or eliminate the variables that affect exposure (flash to subject distance, iso, aperture, shutter speed) in steps.

disclaimer - I am NOT an expert at this.  The following is just to show what I learned over the years so that I don't break out into a cold sweat whenever I am asked to do a sunset portrait.

Step 1 - Get the flash off of the camera, set it up on a lightstand and trigger it with a set of Pocket Wizards.  This gives me the freedom to move around while keeping the distance from the flash to the subject constant.  By keeping this distance constant, it eliminates one variable of the exposure I need to worry about. I'll usually set it up about 10 feet away from my subject at about a 45 degree angle off to one side.  I'll then use a 70-200 lens to zoom in and frame the lightstand out of the shot.  If I need a wide angle shot, I'll include the lightstand in the frame, but try to keep it on a "Photoshoppable" area of the frame (like against a clear sky) where it will be easier to take out in post production. Having the flash on a lightstand away from the camera position also eliminates the problem of "red-eye".

Step 2 - Keep the iso constant - usually for sunsets I'll keep it at iso 400.  This eliminates another exposure variable.

Step 3 - Wait for sunset light level to go down to where a shot of just the sunset sky looks good at camera settings of 1/125 @ f8.

Step 4 - Set the flash power settings to manual mode and set the power level to get a good exposure on the subject at f8.  Don't really need a super powerful flash to do this. At iso 400 I can easily get this with a small Nikon SB-26 set to 1/2 power at about 10 ft away.  Keeping this constant takes away another variable I have to worry about.

Step 5 - Start shooting at 1/125 @ f8.  If I want to make the sky darker, I change the shutter speed to 1/160 or 1/200, which is about the flash sync speed limit for my 5D mkII.  If I want to make the sky lighter, I'll slow the shutter speed down to 1/100 or slower.  As long as I keep the iso/aperture/flash power/distance from flash to subject the same, the exposure on the subject will remain the same and I only need to think about changing one thing - the shutter speed.  Having only one thing to worry about makes things hella easier for me and my Homer Simpson level brain.

Step 6 - Eventually it'll get dark enough where I can drop the flash power down to where I can get a good exposure on the subject at f4, then repeat Step 5 at this wider aperture setting.

The great thing about learning how to do it manually is that once you get used to it, you can have fun with it and experiment.  With the newer cameras that can handle much higher iso speeds and IS lenses that let you handhold at really slow shutter speeds, I've been able to do handheld shots like the one below at 1/4 of a second.

 Canon 5D mkII 24-105 f4L IS Lens iso 400  handheld at 1/4@f5.6

Light is from an AB800 on lowest power setting with a 5ft Octodome to camera left. This was long after the sun had set that day and I literally could not even see Skyler's face at this point (couldn't use the modeling light on the AB800 since I was running it off of battery power) and I had to guesstimate the focus distance.

Even at 1/4 of a second shutter speed, I don't have to worry too much about the subject being blurred since the flash freezes her movement.

Hope you found this post useful and that it will keep you from making the same mistakes I made when I first started learning this stuff.

Rescuing a Pocket Wizard

On my recent shoot with Rosanna, I ran into a slight mishap with one of my Pocket Wizard tranceivers.

We had just finished the shot with her at the edge of the cliff and were changing locations when Rosanna knelt down and fished something out of the water - my Pocket Wizard. She handed it to me and asked "is this yours?". My stomach kinda flipflopped right there 'cause I figured it was toast - and at 170 bucks a pop, a very expensive piece of toast. I opened the battery compartment to take out the batteries, and some water spilled out - yup, toast.

When I got back to Maui that evening, I went online to B&H to order another one when I remembered that I had a Sekonic light meter that went through the washing machine one time and still worked after drying it out. (I have a bad history with electronics....;-) )

I figured "what the heck". I loosened the screws on the Pocket Wizard to open it up a little and shook as much water as I could out of it. I then put it into a small Gladware container with a big pack of dessicant, sealed it up and left it alone for a couple of days.

Opened it up today, re-tightened the screws and inserted fresh batteries. Connected it to my SB26, turned it on and crossed my fingers. Whaddya know, it WORKED!!!! I just saved myself $170 + shipping. :-).

Now I just need to figure out a way to attach the Pocket Wizard to my flash more solidly so that this won't happen again. The industrial strength Velcro I had on it before didn't seem to work too well.

Taken just before my Pocket Wizard went for a swim.