Preparing of a photo trip - make photo bag inventory

Going for a holidays where photography will be substantial part of it is exciting. It should be. On the other hand it is important (at least to me) that the excitement makes at the certain moment some place for the cool-headed preparation of the trip. It should be moment before holidays when one decides which camera body (or bodies), which lenses and accessories to take. It can be sometimes tough choice, limited by the size of carried baggage, its weight, comfort of travel on one side and the type of planned photography on the other. Making choices is probably a topic of another blog post.
It doesn't matter how big (or small) your photo bag would be, it is always very good idea to know what you carry. Why? Think about some scenarios:
- You get robbed. Exact description of stolen goods to the police and your insurance company will simplify the procedures,
- In all excitement you simply lose some accessoires. Knowing the types of it helps to find replacement quickly,
- Having everything organized in and outside your bag will help to make a critical decision about necessity of all kind of equipment.

Visual inventory

One of the most efficient methods of making an inventory is lay all equipment on a table and take a photo of it. I do it in two steps: first I take a photo of all equipment I have, then I remove the parts that I leave at home. An example of such photos could look something like this (parts of the images are blurred purposely):

Full equipment inventory 

Bag equipment inventory

Before taking the photo I group the items logically (keeping lenses separate from bodies, cleaning accessories in the separate group, cables clustered together, etc.)

Textual inventory

Even the best photo is not good enough in case of theft or damage. You'll need also a list of serial numbers of the lenses, bodies, speedlights and other valuable items that you carry. So next to the visual inventory I also make a spreadsheet containing names of the item, its serial number, insurance information (if any), additional information on warranty issuer and some photo numbers, if applicable.

Inventory storage

Since inventory is made "just in case" of unexpected things happen, it is important to store it properly and safely. I store both carbon and digital copies of them in several places:

- I take carbon copies with me when travelling. It is stored together with other travel documents. Another copy is stored at home,

- I make several digital copies: one is stored on my laptop, another on the external hard drive, yet another in my "cloud service" (I use Google drive for this purpose).

Experimenting and understanding polarizing filter

This post will not be about physical basics of polarized light or polarization in general. For this information look at other places on Internet, like: Wikipedia, Physics Classroom or tons of other sources.
Instead, I will try to explain when polarized light in combination with a polarizing filter can be efficiently used for photography. But knowing at least some physics is helpful for proper understanding and usage of polarized light.

Some physical background

The most important to understand is to realize that polarizing filter is able to regulate amount of polarized light which reaches the camera's lens, and consequently, the sensor. To regulate the amount of polarized light reaching the sensor one have to rotate the filter until the requested effect is achieved. 

Unpolarized light reaching the lens will be slightly reduced (due to the imperfectness of filter), but the effect will be the same for the whole scene, disregard the filter orientation.

Natural light generated by sun is unpolarized. Artificial light sources also produce unpolarized light.

So, the first question to answer is how the polarized light is created? There are two (sometimes three) important sources of such light for photographers:

- reflection of light

- scattering of light

- refraction of light

In other words with polarizing filter, one can regulate amount of reflected, scattered (or refracted) light reaching the camera's sensor. 

The problem is that it is too generic to make practical use of it. Not all kinds of reflection or scattering will create polarized light, hence an environment where polarizing filter could be applicable. Let's start by showing the situations where using of polarizing filter doesn't make sense at all.

Reflections - when a polarizing filter does not have effect

First of all, light reflected perpendicularly from the reflecting surface is not polarized. According to polarization physics, reflected perpendicular light is not polarized. So in the scenario shown in the picture below using polarizing filter will not work:

For the demonstration purposes I was photographing the interior of a room from outside, standing in front of the window. My silhouette (and the trees in the background) can be seen as a source of light. Since it is perpendicular to the reflecting surface (the window), the reflected light is not polarized and the filter will not have any effect.

Another case are the reflections from the metallic surfaces. Metal surfaces don't polarize light.

Maximize effect of polarizing filter

Another extreme is the situation when the reflected light is fully polarized. In such case we can use the filter to its full extent. It has been discovered by Scottish scientist, David Brewster, that for a given light reflected from non metallic, transparent surface, there is an angle of incidence that results in perfectly polarized reflected light. This angle, called Brewster's angle is dependent on the reflecting material.

For glass it is 53.6 degrees, for water 53.1 degrees.

Let's see what it means from the photographer's point of view:

When one places the camera as on the picture above and composes to have the central object in the middle of the scene, this object will be most visible. The other will be covered (at least partially) by reflected light. A more practical example. First, the pool has been photographed without polarizing filter. It reflects basically everything:

Now with the polarizing filter set to maximally reduce reflections.

 Note that the leaves in the pool (at the bottom and in the middle) became visible and reflection in this area is eliminated almost completely. However at the edges of the pool I still have the reflected clouds and trees. It is because the reflected light outside the Brewster angle is only partially polarized, hence partially eliminated by the filter.

This simple experiment shows another important aspect of using the polarizing filter. Typically, when using in landscape photography its effects will be limited to some elements of the scene only. 

Which surfaces cause polarization?

In general, all non-metalic surfaces reflecting light introduce some degree of polarization. So organic substances (leaves, wood, mushrooms, etc.) will 'produce' polarized light:

Scene photographed without polarizing filter

Scene with polarizing filter

Without polarizing filter

With polarizing filter

Note that using polarizing filter can result in more saturated colors.

Another source of polarization - scattered light

The light travelling through atmosphere gets scattered by the molecules the atmosphere consists of. Effect of scattering manifests to us in blue color of the sky during the day. It turns out that light scattered through atmosphere is also partially polarized. Which means we can reduce its amount by the polarizing filter. It results in the darker sky in the picture (and is by the way a 'selling feature' of many filter manufacturers):

First picture was taken without the filter, the other with it, set to maximum effect. The difference in the sky is obvious.

But 'darkening the sky' is just one application. We can see the polarizing filter in such scene as a 'compressor' of the scene dynamic range. Since sky gets darker, the exposure can be adjusted to let darker elements (like the trees in the above scene) to 'pop up':

The photo above was taken with polarizing filter set for maximal effect for the sky, but the exposure has been increased by 3 stops. Both trees are much lighter and sky has still pleasant, blue color. I lost some details in the clouds on the left side, but the contrast between the sky and the trees is reduced.

Final notes

Polarizing filter requires some practice. But knowing the physical basics of its work helps to master it quickly by avoiding unnecessary experiments. Here short summary:

- Light perpendicular to the reflecting surface is not polarized. So polarizing filter will not help there,

- There is a family of angles for the reflected light (around 53 degrees for water and glass), where the effect of polarizing filter is the strongest,

- For landscape photography the effect of filter will me most often local, limited to some elements of the scene,

- Due to the technical limitations polarizing filters reduce the light for the whole scene. Depending on the filter type the reduction varies between 1 and 3 stops.

- Polarizing filter can be used for 'darkening the sky' but also to compress the dynamic range of the scene involving the sky. 

Lightroom 5? No, thank you (at least for now)

A while ago the Lightroom 5 has been released by Adobe. Since it is my application of choice for my photography workflow I wanted to test the new version. It contains quite some nice features that would make the post-processing even more efficient and better, just to mention the most important to me:
- True healing brush (not only spot removal tool),
- Circular mask,
- Image skew correction tool

With the new versions of any software product one needs to be a bit cautious: it might not be the best software the developers were intend to deliver. That is why we have "minor" version upgrades over time of almost each software package nowadays.
So I downloaded the trial and started playing with it. Actually, since it was time of my family portrait assignment, I decided to use the new version for postprocessing them.

Unfortunately, Lightroom 5 does not deliver a quality I got used to it with this product. There is an obvious regression at two areas: stability and performance.
With Lightroom 5 I experienced crashing of the application during regular activities: something I have never seen in previous versions (Lightroom 3 and Lightroom 4). Luckily the results of my work were never lost, but it slowed down the processing a lot.

Then the performance: using spot removal tool or healing brush tool was practically impossible in my hardware configuration. I was unable to move the brush smoothly over the photo, effects of applying the brush were visible on the photo only after several seconds after the movement - really not workable scenario.

I admit, my hardware (Windows 7 64-bit, quad core i5 processor with 6MB RAM) and photos that I take (36 MPixels) are challenging for efficient processing, but Lightroom 4 is a lot faster and more stable than the new product of Adobe!

So I decided not to purchase the newest version. I'll wait till they address performance issues. Final note: I am not alone having such experience, check out this blog.

Landscape photography - my approach to increase the chances for a successful session

In the previous post I have written about my not so successful approach to photograph a specific landscape. It gave me some food for thoughts about the more systematic approach to the landscape photography that would increase my chances of taking a good picture (or pictures) during the session.
Here some of my findings so far, that have worked during my last two sessions and I will keep using them in the future.

Choose the theme, scout for a location

I found out that pre-selecting the theme in advance helps a lot to keep on focused during the whole process. For instance, for my last two sessions I took the river as a main theme. It limited my location scouting area to the banks of the rivers I wanted to photograph. But why is the scouting important at all? Isn't it just enough to select a point on a map, go there and try to take a shot? In my opinion, it does not work because it introduces too many uncertain factors during the actual shooting resulting in less time spent on actual photographing and composing the pictures.

I start scouting by determining a time of the day of the session. For instance, knowing it will be in the early morning I can start looking for a right place being in a radius of, say, 1 hour car driving. Once I know the approximate location, I start studying the maps of the area to determine the following aspects:

- is the terrain accessible for walking?

- how far from the location can I park the car?

- what would be a location of the sun at the location?

While first two questions are more technical, the third one requires some kind of pre-visualisation of the scenery I'd like to photograph. I wanted to take some photos where the sun would be directly visible on the picture, together with a river and its banks and a deep perspective. And I wanted to take photos at dawn. It determined the orientation of the river in the approximate direction of  east-west. 

To make it more accurate, I also checked the azimuth of the rising sun at the planned day of the session. To determine the azimuth of sun I use a smartphone application called Astroid which is simple to use and accurate (other applications, like Sundroid would also do the job). 

Having all those factors in mind I started studying the maps (by using Google Maps) looking for the proper location:

Don't forget to check if the Street View mode is available for a given location. It can give you a lot of information about the terrain.

Be on time, have a reserve location (plan "B")

It doesn't matter how well one prepares the location, the actual situation can be unattractive and disappointing for shooting. So it was in this case. On location I have found really flat, boring landscape:

Since I have planned my trip to be on location about 45 minutes before dawn, I had some time to take a corrective action. I knew by studying the maps that a few kilometers further there is another place with different landscape. So I took a quick decision to get into my car and go there. And there I have found the good spot:

Look around, think about future sessions

After the main shooting was done, I have taken a small round-trip ride in the neighbourhood of the location looking for the interesting places. And I have found enough places to plan another assignment:

Take notes after shooting

After successful session I take notes describing the places photographed, conditions on location, conditions in which a photo has been taken. I do it on the day of shooting, after coming home, while the memory is fresh and full of details.

Sometimes ideas just don't work. Or: good landscape photo starts with a good landscape

Every now and then I give a small photo assignments to myself, just to practice the technique or explore new areas of photography. One of my latest "challenges" was to photograph a lonely tree that would be good enough to be added to my portfolio. Why such theme? Well, it is a nice and can be used in practice, for instance to create a postcard.

Since I didn't have much time to do extensive preparations, I took a walk in my neighbourhood to find a candidate scene. It looked good enough to give it a try.

Few days later I organized a small session. The general scenery looked like on the photo below:

 

There were at least few problems with this photo: first of all the tree wasn't 'lonely'. Second, there is a lot of unnecessary noise in the background (like power lines). To make it more interesting I've first tried to incorporate more sky, making it more dramatic by using a polarizing filter.

Was it better? Not really. Now I have even less interesting picture than before. Last try was to go back to the first idea but take the photo from a bit lower angle of view:

Mhmm. Slightly better, but not something that I really wanted.

Then the moment of reflection came: It does not really matter what I would do, the scene I was trying to achieve was not the scene I envisioned: the tree was not 'lonely enough' to compose the picture.

So I packed my gear and went home. 

Disappointing, but one the other hand I took important lesson: good (great) landscape picture starts with the great landscape. 

First communion session part 4: summary and lessons learned

 This is the last entry of the series of posts (part 1, part 2 and part 3) about my first organized photo session. In a couple of days I'll hand the printed album over to my "customers". So it is time to look back and take some final notes.
First of all it was a lot of fun. Not only for me, but also for the photographed family. It was also the assignment that learned me a lot of new things and gave insights on how to make it better in the future.

What to keep

• The proposed timeline of the whole process was right (roughly 1 week from the session the photos were available on the Internet for review, 2 weeks from the session photos were chosen for the album, after 3 weeks the album layout was discussed and finalized, after 4 weeks the album was sent from the printing office). Note that I did the whole assignment in my free time. Full time photo professionals work (as they have to) much faster.
• Communication with the photographed people. I think they appreciated it much and we could organize everything very efficient and in a good atmosphere. 
• Planning and scouting the photo location in advance. I will be doing it in the future since it gives me more confidence. Besides knowing the location enables me to operate more professionally since I can concentrate on photographing and not on which scenery will emerge behind next corner.
• Planning the session flow in advance.
• Selection of the high quality printer and its materials. Solid, paper album made out of high quality paper just feels right. Blurb simply delivered good stuff.

What to improve (lessons learned)

• Variation of scenes could be better. I have chosen 6 different locations and I thought it would be enough. But during post processing I realized that it would be better to have 2-3 more. On the other hand the session took roughly 1 hour, so we spent 10 minutes per scene on average, which  means that the tempo was quite high. Probably the session could e longer to capture more locations.
• Watch depth of field (DOF). I have quite some shots where the DOF was not enough, so I didn't have all persons sharp in the picture. This is something to improve and keep in mind that adjusting the aperture is necessary.

• Work more on posing. Give more direction. I had quite some shots where people look in very different directions, leading to photos that are not appealing. To improve it some more direction would be necessary from my side (just letting people know where I am and that I am about to take a photo). On the other hand a balance must be kept between posing and natural look. I don't have clear answer how to achieve it. Next time I will try to direct people a little bit more (well, in amusing and funny way).

• Take more photos. It is slightly related to the previous bullet and is probably the only way of capturing the right moment when arranging the posing is not possible or practical. It works well with children that are active and very mobile.
• Don't spend too much time on something that does not work. I has some scenes in my mind and I wanted to try them all. But not all of them were working. It is tempting to pursue own vision, but if it does not work, just skip it and move on. After all, photographed people are not professional models and are supposed to have fun and good time during the session. How to judge if the concept works? It is difficult to generalize, but for me it was enough to look regularly at the participants and see how they react on my proposals and how do they interact with me.

I am looking forward for the next assignment. Let's hope it will come soon.

First communion session part 3: Post-processing and printing preparation

This is third article about photographing of first communion. In previous posts I wrote about different aspects of preparation and actual shooting.
In this part I will share some thoughts about my approach to post processing and I'll show some techniques that I have used.

Make the candidate photos available for selection as soon as possible

I have shared the photos with my client very soon after the session. Purposely. The idea was to let the family enjoy the photos and to start making a final selection at the moment when the session is still fresh in the memory of participants. And it payed off. I got a number of good questions about some photos that I initially skipped from the selection. They were technically not very good, but were liked by the participants. 

It is worth noting how the photos were shared. I have used my account on 500px for this purpose. I just created a set, uploaded the photos, protected the set with a password and shared with the client. 

Having short time for processing of the photos forced me to make some tradeoffs during image post-processing. There is simply no time for advanced processing. And at this moment I learned how important is to get photos "right in the camera". The less cropping, retouching, exposure compensation required, the less time is spent behind the computer's monitor.

Communicate about expected number of pictures to be selected

From the beginning I have specified the number of pictures I would like to have in the final paper album. I have chosen initially this number to be 1/5 of the published photos. It was a good compromise between a final price and the content of the album. Another purpose of the limitation was of a more psychological nature. I wanted the family to choose the best photos. Since the number was limited, they was forced to think and choose the really best photos. 

To be honest I am not sure if it is the right approach when dealing with a real customer, but in this case it worked.

Later on I got a request to add some more photos, since they liked them a lot. Of course, I agreed.

Think about album's composition. Let review it.

At the end there will be a paper version of an album, and it would be nice if the album is built as a book telling a story. So the composition is as important as when taking a single photo. In this case the story is relatively simple: preparation for the ceremony, sceneries in church with a communion reception as a climax, then a number of family portraits after the ceremony.

I have shared my thoughts and initial versions of the album with my wife, who has a very good eye for compositions consisting of more pictures. It helped me a lot to make right choices of the images on the album pages.

Plan a review meeting with the customer

When album was ready in a digital form, I made an appointment with mother of the girl to show her the work and the final proposal. We identified some mistakes in the selection of the photos (just wrong numbers of the photos), agreed to add two pages to the album with two important photos, finalized the agreement on the actual price. I think that it was important for both parties: for her to increase confidence, for me to confirm that the job was done right.

Technicalities. Tools used. Techniques applied

For album creation I have used Adobe Lightroom 5.0, Nik Software suite, onOne Software 7.5 (and Photoshop). My choice was driven by the fact that Lightroom is my photo collection organizer of choice. Nik Software I have used primarily for its RAW presharpener tool (which is in my opinion way better than Lightroom's sharpen tool) and Viveza tool which allows for selective applying simple image adjustments (color cast, exposure, contrast) to the parts of the image. I have used onOne software to improve the portraits photos with their Perfect Portrait tool. This tool performs a really nice job in whitening the eyes and mouth and has a very nice algorithm to correct the skin tone.

Every now and then I used some presets of Color Efex Pro 4 (Nik) and Perfect Effects Pro 4 (onOne) to quickly achieve cool effects offered by the presets implemented by those applications.

Using the plugins I have noticed that it is more comfortable to work with them via Photoshop than directly in Lightroom. So I opened the image to be edited in Photoshop, then I applied tools that I wanted to use and finally saved the modified .PSD file. I found it more comfortable because of fact that Nik and onOne integrates with Photoshop by using layers (each tool application adds a new layer). Which gives extra possibilities since I can apply layer masks, layer effects and all other goodies of Photoshop.

Finally the book. I decided to use Blurb for printing, because of their good quality and integration with Lightroom. I found however the possibilities of book editing in Lightroom (even in version 5.0) somewhat limited: positioning of texts on the page is quite limited, it is not possible (at least to my best knowledge) to create frames in the Book module of Lightroom. I had to use external applications to provide a frame to a photo. It delayed the whole production process for sure. Let's hope it will get better in future versions of Lightroom.

In the last part of this cycle I will describe some learnings I have taken from the whole process.