Mountain Stream Hey Everyone! Hope you're having a great day! This week I want to talk about how you shoot.  When you either go out on a photo walk or have a planned shoot of some kind whether it be a portrait shoot or a travel destination.  Remember when we first got into photography and we saved up for that camera that was going to do it all for us.  It was shiny and new and all of the pro's were using it and if I use it I will shoot like a pro?  Then remember going out and shooting everything.  Hey look a bird, snap, Hey look a tree, snap.  Hey look a pretty girl, snap.  Then you got home and put these photo's on your big screen and noticed that the photo's were just as bad as they were with your cheep camera.  There is a reason for that. You can buy the best hammer but that doesn't make you a great carpenter.  It just makes you a guy with a great hammer.  The difference between great photographers and us mere mortals is preparation.  These "professional" photographers all do one thing better than we do and that is shoot with a purpose.  When they leave the house they already know what type of photograph that they want to get what it will look like.  In their minds eye they know what the light is going to be where the sun in coming from.  They know what look they want from a Linville RiverLooking down from Chimney outlook. model.  They have done the research.  They have google mapped the area and looked at simular photo's of what they will shoot.  Or they have looked at thousands of photo's of models .  Or they have got direction from who they are working for on what they want.  They Shoot with Purpose!  Think about some of your best photo's you have taken.  If your like me they were after doing some research maybe looking or googling the place you are visiting.

20170107_Brownie Memories_013-Edit The thing is you don't have to have the final photo in your minds eye either.  Lets say your going on a photo walk of a town that you have photographed before.  You know the area and in the back of your mind you already have the shot that you want to get.  While your on that quest you may even see something else that you like better.  And get a great shot.  But you still left the house with a purpose.  It could be something as small as only using one lens. Or trying out some new technique like focus stacking or shooting in brackets to merge into Dynamic Range Photo. Maybe the subject is your purpose.  Maybe your only going out to shoot barns, waterfalls or street portraits.  But your going with a purpose. I have shot the little town I live in maybe 50 or more times but I always find something new and interesting to shoot and its usually when I go out on some mission.  I'm trying out a new body or lens and I'm looking for interesting angles and views I don't usually see.  Maybe I go out t shoot long exposures at night and catch the tail lights of cars making interesting Fayetteville Station Bridge (Old)The old Bridge at New River Gorge National Park. patterns as I shoot.  But I always come home with something interesting. Not only will this improve your photography shots it will improve your skills as a photographer.  Shooting with purpose will make you more focused and take all of the confusion of everything around you and you can concentrate more on what ever purpose you have chosen to shoot that day.  When I go on workshops with my photography club I don't just blindly follow the crowd.  I usually have researched what photo's were taken at a particular spot or techniques we are using that day. If I am using new equipment like say a flash I get it out of the box before I get there and play with it learn how it works how it syncs to my camera, how to adjust it .  I do this all before I get to the workshop so I can concentrate on the workshop.  Say it was a one light portrait.  I don't have to fumble around with my equipment because I already know how to use and I can concentrate on the purpose. Creating a good portrait with one light.

Shooting with a purpose will separate you from the folks with a nice camera to a photographer who has a goal.  The photographer with a goal or Purpose will always have the better shot.  So until next week get outside and shoot! With a Purpose. LOL

_DSC4702 Hey Everyone! Hope everyone is doing fantastic today.  This week I want to talk about plug-in's and what I use with Lightroom Classic and Photoshop.  First of all, what are plug-ins?  For our purposes, a plug-in is a separate program that works in conjunction with Lightroom or Photoshop. Usually they do a specific job, like color enhancement.  There have been many plug-ins in the past that, as Photoshop and Lightroom have gotten better, make the plug-in obsolete.  For example, HDR.  I used to have a couple of HDR plug-ins before Lightroom could do an HDR, and now that Lightroom has that capability, the plug-in is no longer needed.  So I use plug-ins for things that Lightroom Classic doesn't do very well.  

Working with plug-ins from Lightroom Classic is very easy.  You right-click and go to "Edit In" and then go to the plug-in that you want to use.  You can also go to Photoshop from here also.  When you finish your edits in whatever plug-in you are using, when you save the photo or a copy of the photo, it comes up in Lightroom.  This is called Round Tripping.  It's very easy to do, and this is how I access my plug-ins.

ON1 No Noise AI.  ON1 No Noise AI intelligently removes all the image noise while intelligently recovering and enhancing the details. Even Arrows and blocksArrows and blocks. Correlation of the parts. Relations. though we have great cameras now with low-light capabilities and being able to shoot at high ISOs, noise can still creep in, especially if you're using a higher megapixel camera and really crop in. You're going to get noise.  Now Lightroom Classic does have a noise reduction feature in it, and I haven't really had much luck with it.  A couple of weeks ago a member of my camera club told me about this plug-in and how it was rated #1 of all the noise reduction plug-ins, and it was on sale!  So I went ahead and bought it on the spot.  I haven't used it much on newer photos, but I have played with it in older photos that I had a lot of noise in, and it on1-no-noise-ai LogoON1 NoNoise AI worked really good.  I think the regular price is around $70 and well worth it if it can make my shots look better.

Topaz Sharpen AI.  This is another new plug-in for me, and I caught it on sale also.  It also runs about $70.  I have lots of photos that need this, especially ones that were shot with cheaper lenses that weren't as sharp as I would like them to be.  There are all kinds of adjustments you can make with this plug-in, and it also has a masking feature that lets you mask the main subject.  That way your whole photo doesn't get sharp, just your main subject.  Nailing focus on moving subjects or in low light is sometimes hard to do even with modern cameras.  Its nice to know that I can go in and fix the focus with this plug-in.

Other plug-in's I have used that I really liked were Silver Effects Pro. This is a black-and-white program that really gives pop to your monochrome photos.  This company has changed hands a couple of times, but it is a fantastic plug-in if you can get your hands on it.  I did use Luminar 4 at the time, mainly for sky replacements. But now there is a sky replacement feature in Photoshop that I like, so I don't use Luminar anymore.  It has been updated a few time since I've used it, so it's probably a pretty good one to try.  Nik Tools has an array of plug-ins that have been great in the past.  They are a whole suite of tools from the Silver Effects Pro to all kinds of tools.  They have been bought and sold a couple of times and are owned by DXO, I believe, now.  

Plug-ins are a special way to put your touch on a photograph that maybe someone that is not using them can't.  They are a great way to improve your art and keep your creativity going.  So until next time, be creative and get out and shoot!
 

Bell & Howell /CannonHere is the new addition to my film cameras . 1961 Canon Canonet 19. Hey Everyone! Hope you are doing great today! This week I want to talk about old camera tools that still work today with our newer cameras that have all the technical advantages.  These two tools will help you get your settings right quickly and focus quicker.  These tools were made many years ago, almost 100 years.  The first tool or rule was invented by the Kodak company.  When they first started making consumer cameras, they wanted the everyday man to be able to use the camera without fumbling with settings on the camera. They spent millions of dollars back then on research to figure out this rule.  It's called the "Sunny 16" rule.  It tells you what settings to set your camera on when it's sunny or when it's cloudy, and it works! All of the time it works!  The rule states if it's sunny outside, you set your f stop to f16.  You then set your shutter speed to the same number as your ISO.  So if it's a sunny day and you set your camera to f16 and have an ISO of 400 and set your shutter to 400, your exposure will be correct.  So how does this old rule help you?  If you are in a hurry to shoot something and you're shooting in manual, you can set your camera to the sunny 16 rule and, bang, exposure is set, no thinking.  Then you could adjust from there. If you're riding in a car and come up on some elk, if your _MSP9733 camera is already set, all you have to do is focus and shoot.  There are some rules for when it's slightly overcast: use F11; heavy overcast: F5.6; shadow: f4.  Everything else stays the same.  So you could see back in the day that this was very useful, especially if you didn't have a light meter, which most people didn't.  When else?  How about shooting the moon.  Nothing is more frustrating than trying to shoot the full moon and your shot is overexposed and you can't see any detail on the moon.  But if you use the sunny 16 rule and remember the moon is just a reflection of the sun, you should have perfect exposure.  Pretty neat for a 100-year-old rule or tool.

The next 100-year-old rule will also help you when focusing.  You say, well I have the newest Sony, Canon, Nikon, Fuji camera, and it focuses super fast. And I would say, yes, it does in good light. But what about poor light?  Say you're shooting a wedding reception or a banquet of some sort, and the lights are turned down.  Your fancy camera (no matter what the make) will hunt and look for something to contrast against and then, depending on your aperture that you probably have set to 2.8, you will have a hard time getting anything in focus.  There is a rule or tool that is called Zone Focusing.  Everyone has seen it used before in photos that are famous by Ansel Adams.   This is where everything in the frame is in focus.  This is well before Photoshop where you can focus stack now and get the same result.  This was done during the time of manual focus lenses.  It deals with two things: depth of field and aperture.  Depth of field is the part of the photograph that is in focus.  Like I mentioned before, you have seen photographs where everything is in focus.  But you have also seen portraits where only the eyes are in focus.  The tip of the nose is out, and the ears and everything else is out of focus.  To do zone focusing, you have to know where that depth of field is. To do that, we must use a depth of field calculator.  They can be found anywhere. Just google "DOF calculator," and you'll get a bunch.  I have one on my phone.  You plug in the focal length of the lens you are using. I picked 35mm the fstop you're using. I picked 8 and it tells you where to set your lens at and then put it in manual. For me it was 5 meters or a little over 15 feet. So if you have an old lens that has all of the markings on it, you could just dial that into 15 feet or 5 meters.  Then everything from 2.5 meters to 162 meters will be in focus. If I don't have an older lens with the markings, I can find something that is about 15ish feet away, focus, and then put the lens in manual and shoot.  Everything 2.5 meters away and beyond will be in focus.  If I needed a fill flash, I could put that on and it would work great.  So if I am on the dance floor at a reception, I just have to make sure that the subject  2.5 meters away.  and shoot, shoot, shoot.  I can do it quickly because my camera will not have to focus.  Now the lens matters also and the size of the sensor.  The depth _MSP9571 of field calculator usually asks for what camera, lens, fstop, and it will tell you the rest. I use the one that comes with PhotoPills App. Changing the aperture will also affect the minimum distance that will be in focus.  A larger fstop number will make the minimum distance closer, and a smaller one will make the minimum distance further.  So I would say, in any event where the light is poor, this will help that big fancy camera take better photos.

So there you are, a couple of old tricks that can help your new camera work better.  So until next week Keep Shooting!