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Thursday, February 03, 2011

Filed under: Market Served •Fine Art •Nature •Stock •Technique •

Slow Down the Water

Tom Bol | 02/03

Use the Singh-Ray Vari-ND filter to create silky water and surf.

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When I teach my photo workshops students often ask is there a right or wrong way to capture moving water.  My response is “it depends.”  The bigger question is what type of water will best contribute to the overall mood and atmosphere of the image?  If I am shooting a tranquil calm scene, then most likely I will want my water slow and silky.  If I am shooting a kayaker paddling off a waterfall, then this adrenaline shot requires water droplets frozen in the air for the right effect.

But what do you do if it is in the middle of the day under sunny skies.  Even with your ISO at 100 and aperture set to F22, you still can’t get exposures 1 second or longer.  You could add a polarizer which will help block out another stop or so of light, but still not slow enough.  The filter I use to accomplish this is the Singh-Ray Vari-ND.  This filter fits on 77mm lenses, and can block from 2-8 stops of light.  This enables me to shoot very long exposures in the middle of the day, even 30 seconds! 

Super slow exposures result in ‘cotton water’, while exposures closer to a second will have some stream detail.  The decision is yours, but photograph water that adds to the feel and mood of your image.  The best shots have design elements that compliment each other, not work against one another.

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Use gels on your flash for special effects.

Tom Bol | 05/11- 05:35 AM

Adding gels to your flash and changing white balance creates unique images.

I like to follow this principle.  “The more skills you have, the better your chances for success.”  I used to use this principle as a climbing instructor when teaching students rope systems.  Inevitably on some climb something wouldn’t go right, maybe a simple thing like getting a rope stuck.  The more rescue and climbing systems you knew, the better your chances of having a solution to fix the problem.
The same is true for photographers.  Every photographer has a story about a ‘photo shoot gone bad.’  Strobes don’t fire, talent doesn’t show up, permits aren’t in order.  What separates one photographer from another is how they deal with these situations.  Clients like photographers who have solutions, not problems.  Knowing more technical skills behind the camera also helps.  And one of my favorite things to do is add gels to flash to spice things up.

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Creative Use of High Speed Sync

Tom Bol | 04/29- 10:11 AM

Use high speed sync to add mood to your shot.

When most people think of high speed sync, they think fast shutter speeds and freezing the action.  True, shooting at 1/8000 with flash is going to freeze the action no matter what the main light source is illuminating the subject.  But what about other uses of high speed sync and flash.  Until the release of the Pocket Wizard Flex system and Hypersync (see my last post), I was often frustrated shooting in bright sun.  I needed an aperture of F16 to get the right exposure at 1/200, my fastest sync speed using my Elinchrom Rangers.  What if I wanted to use a wide open aperture like F2.8 to get soft focus and blur out the background?  The answer is use high speed sync for selective focus shots in bright, sunny conditions.  Maybe high speed sync should be called ‘soft focus sync.’

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