Read Your Camera Manual

A lot of people never really take the time to really get to know their cameras.

Your camera manual can be very enlightening, especially if you've never opened it.

Take a few minutes to browse through it. You never know... you just might learn something you didn't know.

Photographer's 5 Minute Workout

Professional photographers can have some pretty grueling days, and wedding photographers have some of the longest days of any photographer. Early morning starts that run the whole day into the reception in the evening can have us working 12, 13, and 14 hour days, and even longer with few if any breaks. Trekking around heavy camera bags, additional lighting equipment, and hanging heavy cameras and lenses combos off of our necks and shoulders takes its toll. Obviously this is harder to do if you're not in good shape.

I'm as guilty as the next photog of not sticking to an exercise program. Ten years back, I used to hit the gym at least 4 days a week and often 7. I fed off of working out. I was a workout fanatic and nothing felt better than getting pumped at the gym. These days, I don't even know what the inside of my closest gym looks like.

My saving grace is a new look on what I need to do to stay in shape. Going to the gym is great, but it isn't neccessary. You can do everything you need to do to stay in shape, right in your own home, with no equipment at all.

Don't believe me?

The "old marine workout" followed this kind of idea. It consisted of a lot of push-ups, sit-ups (although now a days we do crunches), chin-ups, stretches, jumping jacks, and running. No equipment needed, and who isn't in better shape than a marine?

I've taken the "old marine workout" and refined it for me. I needed a workout that was quick, easy to do, easy to do pretty much anywhere, and one that worked. Actually, I think a lot of people would like this type of workout, not just us photographers.

Here's my Photographer's 5 Minute Daily Workout:

Set of Squats *
Set of Push-ups ****
Set of Crunches
Set of Arm Curls (or Chin-ups) **
Set of Wrist Curls ***
Set of Leg Raises
Repeat All

You should be able to get through all the sets at least twice in 5 minutes. Don't fret if you can't at first, just do what you can and extend the workout by a minute or two if you need to.

As you get progress, try and get through all the sets three times. Once you can do all the sets three times, increase the number of reps in each set by 50%. You'll likely be back to just doing all the sets twice.

I recommend starting with sets of 10, but if this is too much for you, reduce it to what you can do. As you progress, slowly increase the number of reps. If 10 reps is too easy to start with, go higher.

If you want faster results, do the routine twice a day. Even faster, do it 3 times a day.

* We're doing squats with only your body weight. Stand with legs shoulder width apart, feet angled slightly out, and staying stationary, bend your legs (squat) until your thighs are parallel to the floor.

** Arm curls are done with no weight. Pretend your holding a curling bar, and contract your arm muscles as you curl as if you're lifting a heavy weight. Careful though, you can actually strain too much doing this. Chin-ups are an even better option if you have a chin-up bar available. If you don't consider adding one. I like the removable doorway ones like this one.



*** Wrist curls are done with no weight. Holding your arms out at your sides, make a fist and curl your wrist up like your flexing your forearm.

**** For push-ups, you can add a set of push-up bars like these.



Shake it up if you'd like. Add a new exercise like jumping jacks. Throw in a half hour walk on top. Increase it to 10 Minutes. Go crazy and do 15.

But start today! You'll feel better. Your gear won't feel so heavy. Your back won't hurt so much when you get home, and your knees won't ache so much the next day.

That's it! Now you have no excuse (and neither do I since I've gone public :).

Blue Sky Barn

Blue Sky Barn by Matt Ballard

The third print in the Sault Ste. Marie series. The play of the sun across the field leading up to the barn on the hill was beautiful. The tree to the right was an added bonus. .

Print type: archival pigment print

8"x12" - $35 - Limited Edition of 350

12"x18" - $350 - Limited Edition of 35

Available for purchase at 350art.org... Saving the Planet One Work of Art at a Time!

35% Of All Sales Go To 350.org

Doing the Impossible

“The person who says something is impossible should not interrupt the person who is doing it.” - an old Chinese proverb

I love it! I may have to frame this on my wall.

I read it in Chris Guillebeau's 279 Days to Overnight Success, which is a fantastic read for anyone who does business online or who is considering it. Kudos to Chris for making it FREE!



http://chrisguillebeau.com/3x5/

Uncle Bob Knew Good Lighting was Critical

Good lighting is critical.

There's nothing wrong with using flash, but how you use it is everything.

On camera flash, pointed straight at your subject, SUCKS.

(**EXCEPTION** On camera flash dialed down to -2 or lower and used outside for fill is ok, off camera is better)

Off camera flash can look great.

More is most often not better.

Less is most often best.

Subtle is wonderful.

Hard light can be nice.

(if you have no idea what I'm talking about, read this.)

Lightroom vs NikonViewNX Sample Images

Here's some sample images developed in Nikon's ViewNX and Adobe's Lightroom 2.

They are all from RAW files, developed as is with no adjustments (except a small exposure correction in the first image). The first pair of images and last pair of images have been cropped in Photoshop for esthetic presentation. The white tiger pair of images are the original frames, no crop.

Lightroom 2 develops were set to Camera Vivid as that is my default camera setting. ViewNX reads this automatically as the camera setting and does not need to be set in the software.

All the images have been saved at 800 pixels wide and compressed for web in Photoshop (save for web - high). The images are not intended for pixel-peeping of ultimate quality, but rather to show the differences between the two RAW developing softwares. Please don't email with complaints about pure testing methods and such... that's not why I posted these.

Lastly, I've used Nikon ViewNX and not CaptureNX, simply because it was easier. The results should be the same from a straight ooc conversion.


Nikon ViewNX


Lightroom 2

This first pair of images is not the usual result I see when I do these Lightroom vs ViewNX comparisons. I actually like the color and overall look of the Lightroom jpg better. Detail rendering is similar, but there are visual differences even with these jpgs compressed for web. The Nikon jpg has better detail in the hair and sides of the head.


Nikon ViewNX


Lightroom 2

The white tiger images show what I usually see between Nikon and Lightroom RAW develops. I prefer the color and overall look of the Nikon jpg. Again, they're both very close, but the ViewNX jpg just looks a little bit better. The ViewNX jpg also has more detail visible, especially around the eye and the bridge of the nose.


Nikon ViewNX


Lightroom 2

Like the white tiger, this pair of images show again what I usually see in Nikon versus Lightroom RAW develop comparisons. The Nikon jpg gets the nod. Detail, color and overall look is better in the ViewNX jpg.

Again, the differences are not huge, but they are there. You can see them clearly even in these web-size jpgs. The differences are even more visible in the full-size jpgs. Granted, color and overall look are subjective determinations, but detail is not. Could I tweak the detail in Lightroom using sharpening and clarity? Probably. I could probably get it close, but I doubt I could match it exactly. Remember, these are straight out of ViewNX with no adjustments. I didn't have to spend time tweaking.

Food for thought.

Lightroom versus Nikon Capture / Nikon View

Let me start off by saying, I love Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2. Over the years, I've tried pretty much every RAW processor out there, but Lightroom takes the cake. Lightroom makes a RAW workflow easier and more efficient than jpg. There is simply no faster way to get the most from your image files, and since Lightroom added camera profiles, I find I can match out of camera color pretty much exactly.


I say pretty much because occasionally I like the color of an out-of-camera (OOC) jpg better than the Lightroom version of the same image from RAW. This doesn't occur very often, so it's not a big deal. I just mentioned it because if I'm having a hard time with the RAW file, sometimes a quick conversion using Nikon ViewNX is the easiest solution.

Of course, if you are able to shoot perfectly so that you never need to touch an image in post-editing, then a jpg workflow is obviously the best for you. I say this tongue in cheek, because while I enjoy shooting RAW+jpg so that I have the jpg ready to use right way, there isn't very often that I don't want to work on an image in post, especially if I'm shooting for work (i.e. a wedding, a portrait shoot, commercial work, etc.).

I still see it said fairly frequently that the easiest solution to a fast efficient workflow is to shoot it right in camera and not have to work on it in post. While this is great in theory, it doesn't hold up in reality. Most of the time when I see someone espousing this type of thinking, I look at the images they're using as examples, and I immediately see how I would've worked on them in post. Maybe I'm just picky, but I want my work to look the best it can, and that usually means I want to work on it in post. It's not that an image doesn't look good straight out of camera, it's that it can look better.

Think of it in film terms from the "old" days. You'd have a negative or slide of a great shot, which, in the hands of a GREAT printer, makes a beautiful print (when I say printer, I'm talking about a artisan who has mastered the art of making a print... not a piece of hardware). The negative or slide was great, and the finished print is a masterpiece.

Same thing with jpg versus RAW. The jpg is like a print, where the RAW file is like the negative or slide. The jpg can be great, but what you see is pretty much what you get. There isn't a lot of latitude to work on it. A RAW file has MUCH more latitude for working it, and the therefore the print has more potential.

And that's where Lightroom shines. The power of RAW developing that Lightroom offers is hard to beat. You can even work on jpgs in Lightroom, although I've found that when I compare them head to head, the RAW file looks better about 99% of the time after editing in Lightroom. Jpg files just don't stand up as well when it comes to editing as RAW files dodoes.

But the title of this post is "Lightroom versus Nikon Capture or Nikon View", isn't it. :)



Well, periodically I open up Nikon CaptureNX or Nikon ViewNX and run a few conversions just to compare the results against Lightroom. Most of the time, it's a draw. Lightroom color is now pretty much the same as CaptureNX or ViewNX now that Lightroom has camera profiles. Once in a while though, I find an image that I just like better OOC or processed through Nikon software. Usually the color just looks a bit better, or the contrast or saturation just looks better.

What is interesting though, is that more often than not, the thing I do notice is the images out of Nikon ViewNX (I usually use ViewNX as it's faster and easier to do a quick RAW develop in ViewNX than it is in CaptureNX), have better fine detail. The Nikon software (whether in camera, or using Capture or View) just seems to have a slight edge in how it renders an image. This isn't surprising really when you think that Nikon should be able to get the most out of their image files... after all, they wrote the coding for them.

I'm not talking earth-shattering differences here. Most of the time it's subtle. Sometimes, it's more noticeable, but it's still not a drastic difference. Most of all, it's never enough of a difference that I would suffer the Nikon software workflow instead of using Lightroom.

That is the biggest difference between Lightroom and Nikon CaptureNX or Nikon ViewNX. The Nikon software is absolutely intolerable from a workflow standpoint. It's slow and sluggish, and whoever designed it obviously has never had to sit down and edit a thousand or more images from a wedding. Even working on a smaller shoot of a hundred or two images is painful with the Nikon software. Lightroom just blows it out of the water.

I honestly hope that Nikon eventually releases some imaging software that's capable of a decent workflow, but at the moment, that isn't the case. Add to that the fact that Lightroom just does so much more, and there is no question about the victor here.

Lightroom can catalogue, and since version 2, Lightroom does it VERY well. You need to let it ingest and build previews for new images (which is best done with you going to get a cup of coffee while LR does its thing), but once that stage is finished, Lightroom is FAST. I used to use PhotoMechanic for its speed in sorting and browsing RAW files, but not any more. Lightroom is just as fast, so there's no need.

The tweaks and edits you can perform to an image in Lightroom are almost unending. In fact, I rarely need to take an image into Photoshop now. Lightroom can do everything I need done, from vignettes to cloning out spots, from highlight recovery to curve adjustments.

Lightroom can also build very decent web galleries. It includes the popular Airtight Simpleviewer, Autoviewer, and Postcardviewer web gallery plug-ins. You can also find numerous other plug-ins on the web. My favourite is SlideShowPro.

The tweaks and customizing you can do to the look of Lightroom itself is cool too. You can edit the Lightroom Identity plate to show your studio logo instead of the Lightroom logo. This is fantastic for when you want to show a client some images. It just looks that much more professional.

Lightroom, like Photoshop, is incredibly powerful, and as such, requires some learning. Don't expect to just install it and know everything there is to know in ten minutes time. With great power, comes great responsibility... your responsibility to take some time to learn how to harness that power. I have to laugh when I hear people complain that Lightroom is too complicated, only to find out they've never given it more than a couple of minutes to learn it. Yes, it takes some time to get the full benefit from Lightroom, but trust me... its worth it!

As you can tell, I'm a big fan of Lightroom. Version 2 has brought HUGE improvements in almost every aspect, especially speed. One caveat I will note is that Lightroom is really designed to run on a more powerful computer. My dual core laptop with 4GB of RAM runs it OK, but not anywhere near as well as my Quad Core desktop with 6GB of RAM. I have friends with even faster systems that say they don't even see LR working, it's just that fast. So, you probably don't want to be running Lightroom on an older computer, especially if you're working on a lot of images on a regular basis.

If you have an image where you just can't seem to quite get the color or "look" that you want, try running it through Nikon ViewNX or CaptureNX. You may find that'll give you your fix. For the other 99.9% of the time though, Lightroom is the software to go to. It's fast, powerful, and intuitive. Best of all, if you take the time to learn it, you can refine your workflow to a level you didn't think possible.

Check out my other Lightroom Tutorials.

If you don't have Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2, Amazon usually has the best price.