Werribee Open Plain Zoo

Had the wonderful pleasure of being on a special training program with Olympus Imaging last week. I was chosen by Olympus to do this training to be a brand ambassador for their cameras and lenses. First day was a trip to Werribee Zoo for a chance to shoot with some of their longer lenses. Olympus really push the quality of the lenses they make all the way from their budget kit lens right through to their Super Pro lenses. I was able to try out both their 50-200 /2.8-3.5 and the big gun 90-250 /2.8, a 180-500 /2.8 on their bodies. This later lens I also used with the 2x tele convertor making a 320-1000 /5.6.

Now if you have never been to Werribee Zoo then I'll explain a little about it. First of all if you just rock up and pay to get in you also get a safari in a big closed bus that drives around the open plain section. This bus follows a route around the zoo and that's it. If the animals are off

somewhere else that's bad luck.

A better option for a photographer is to go on a photographic tour in a open 4x4. These take you to the animals for up close and personal shots.

This first image of the Giraffe, who decided the 4x4 was something to stick its head into was shot with the E30 and 90-250/ 2.8. All images are hand held and show that the IS (image stabilizer) works very well in the camera bodies.

While we were here the animals feeder came along and I was able to hand feed this giraffe. Sort of a nice experience except the slobber left all over my hand. Imagine the Olympus add with the dog that slobbers all over the camera and times that slobber by 10. It was gross.

The problem with the feeder being around is the White Rino's decided to pay us a visit.

This was all well and good and gave me the opportunity to get in super close and shoot images like the one on the left.

Again it's with the 90-250 and 2x convertor. All the images with the 2x on are shot at f8 or f11. The insures maximum sharpness with the convertor and I have to say it is tack sharp with this configuration.

The whole tour took around 1 1/2hrs, much longer than the normal bus tour and we were able to drive right up to every animal.

Of course you just have to get a shot of the Zebra, and again for this image I tried to just shoot the patterns on them. I have many others of the faces but I liked this one better. You recognize straight away what they are without seeing the faces.

After the tour we didn't have a great deal of time but I did manage to snap on shot of the Meerkat.

They were all resting under a tree when I got there and I had the camera and lens pointing down, it's quite heavy the 90-250 lens. One Meerkat decided it would go look out and

scrambled up the rock to the look out post. I lifted the camera and lens and fired off one shot. The Meerkat was then gone. So at 1/320 @ f9 at 950mm I scored a take sharp image of the little guy. IS was definitely helping here.

So next time you visit Melbourne or maybe it will be you first time, book in a visit to Werribee Zoo, make sure you do a photographic tour and these do need to be pre-booked. Sometimes working in a camera store has it's blessings.

Photo Retouching

You know sometimes our photos just don't come out the way we thought they would. Maybe they are flat, lack sparkle or are just a little bit boring. A friend that I met through my favorite coffee shop in the city had just this problem. Her wedding photos, while ok, were straight shots from the camera. Some of these shots definitely needed some work on them. They were flat, often her face and that of her husbands were to dark, so through talking to her I offered to help out with retouching the photos.

Now this is just one of many I have touched up and I'll explain why I cropped it so harshly and what filters I used to create the overall effect.

Firstly I felt the photo had way to many distractions, the brick wall did nothing for me as did the open screen door, but the major distraction was the photographers own reflection in the window. This to me was a little funny, do you not look in the viewfinder before taking a shot?

Anyway I decided these distractions needed to be cropped out to centre the focus of the image on to the bride. So after some careful framing I decided it looked best in almost a square format.

If we look at this photo now we see it's not to bad but it still looks a little flat. So what did I do.

I use Photoshop CS4 and Nik software for my retouching. So first of all I took any blemishes off the skin. Then I used Nik software from then on, the reason for this is Nik software speeds up the retouching process and I prefer to not spend hours on a computer to retouch a photo.

The first thing I do is correct the highlight and shadows of an image. I can selectively do this with the Nik plugin, so with this image I selectively brightened her face and arms to make them stand out from the background. I then smoothed out her skin again using Nik software. I used to make masks and selections to do this but Nik makes it a one click process. I ran a contrast filter to boost that a little and then used one of the most common Nik filters. It's a bleach bypass filter and effectively copies what fashion photographers used to do with film. If you want to know more search the technique. I ran a small glamor glow after this and the image was basically done.

Again the effects that you can produce out of Nik software is huge and this is only one of many different versions I could have produced with the software. I have done many B&W's, Duo Toned, Sepia, and the list goes on.

Why I'm posting another article about Nik software is to show the speed and versatility you get from using it. It truly is a quick way of working in a digital workflow.

Well that's about it this time. I am avaliable for photo retouching so contact me if you would like to discuss what I can do for your photos.

Again just to show the difference about 10 minutes can make I have posted the two images side by side

Nik Software

Today I had the pleasure of attending a training session with one of Nik Software's Pro trainers. This was a big buzz, I knew of the software, in fact Nikon Capture NX2 is made by the same company. Now these guys know what they are doing when it comes to designing class leading Aperture, Lightroom & Photoshop plugins and through the training today I got to see exactly how these plugins work to speed up the editing process of images.

To start with they have 5 different plugins, Dfine, Viveza, Color Efex Pro, Silver Efex Pro and Sharpener Pro. So what do they all do.

Well simply Dfine is noise reduction software. It analyzes a image in continuos tones and applies noise reduction to that area, it try's to avoid areas of detail. It works extremely well and I have tried it on a few high ISO images with stunning results.

Viveza is their best selling piece of software, if you use Nikon Capture NX you would be familiar with Viveza. With this software you can use what

Nik call "U-Point" technology. This allows you to adjust just certain areas in the image by dropping control points on them. New in version 2 is a structure slider.

Color Efex Pro is a bunch of filters, and the image here has a couple of these applied to it. Midnight, Darken/Lighten Centre, Dynamic Skin Softener, Glamor Glow & Bleach Bypass, again using control points you can use the filters in selections on the image instead of the whole image. You could do this in Photoshop by itself but I would think a good 1/2hr would be used. With Nik Software these filters took less that 5 minutes and although a little rough gives a good idea of why these are such a time saver.

This second image used Silver Efex Pro, this plugin is for converting to B&W. It will emulate film grain and is the best B&W converter period.

It has a split tone added to the image in a Sepia tone.

The last one is Sharpener Pro, this is the best output sharpener I have ever used, selective sharpening is dead easy and it even helps for loss of depth of field.

All up the 5 plugins are a photographers dream, making some things that would take quite a while in Photoshop, just a couple of clicks with Nik Software

Scott & Tina

Starting out in wedding photography is sometimes a daunting task. I never thought I'd ever want to shoot weddings. After all I started as a landscape/wildlife photographer, but there was something about weddings that just made me want shoot them.

Now, I'm not the type of photographer that will just become a weekend warrior and advertise that I will shoot someone's wedding, I want to make sure I know what I am getting myself into and make sure I also know what I'm doing. So what did I do?

I became an assistant and second shooter for professional photographers. Now at Scott and Tina's wedding I was a second shooter/assistant for good friend Shelton Muller. Scott is my wife's cousin so that was easy. Becoming a second shooter helps to learn the basics of what you will need to know later when you go out on your own.

The whole experience was a blast, Shelton taught me real quick that unless you're relaxed, comfortable and confident then the bride and groom will sense this and they will not be relaxed, comfortable and confident either, this will show in the photos. So to start with, learn to show confidence on the outside even if the butterflies are going on inside.

Then start to watch how professionals pose the couple, how they use the light that's available and learn from it. Don't worry if you can't shoot to start with, carrying their bag and getting the gear they need in a hurry will earn you more points than trying to shoot your own images.

When you do get the opportunity to start to shoot your own images, don't shoot over your mentors shoulders, try to set up your own images and shoot your own style, you will need this when you start out on your own, and it helps you to develop your own style.

Look through the yellow pages for wedding photographers and send them a little portfolio if you have one and tell them what you would like to do. Don't expect payment for you helping them, do it to learn. If and when you really are an asset to them, then maybe they will pay you for your service.

Again it's a lot easier to learn when it's a family wedding to start with, the photographer will have already met the couple and organized his day, your just a helper that the couple already will feel very comfortable with and it will make the day a lot smoother. So if weddings are something you want to get into, hopefully these couple of little tips will get you started.

Until next time shoot the light.

Getting It Right In Camera

I started out my photographic life shooting landscape images on transparency film or in other words slide film. It taught me early on how to get the images I could see and transfer these onto the film I was using. It taught me to get it right in camera.

I guess now with the digital age somethings are easier, and I guess this has helped many people to become better photographers and this is a good thing, but with all the advancement has also come a big setback. What is it you say?

Well simply put I hear so many people say "I'll fix it in Photoshop" or afterwards using whatever post editing software they use. Certainly photoshop has many powerful tools to help with images but why do I have such a dislike for that saying.

Remember back I stated that in film days (which I still use by the way) we didn't have the choice of trying to fix the image later. Transparency film had a very narrow latitude to work with and it was either exposed correctly or it was in the trash.

I'm a firm believer that if the image isn't right then no amount of photoshop or any other program can or will fix it, as the old saying goes "garbage in garbage out".

So what's that got to do with the image of Craig's Hut. Well this is one of those images that setting up for a couple of minutes to take the shot has resulted in an image that basically went into lightroom has small adjustment to colour balance made and then was exported straight back out. This image is as shot in camera, and I'm going to explain how.

In landscape photography I carry a very bare minimum of filters, in fact I only have three different types of filters, I carry a Polariser, a couple of Neutral Density filters and a set of six Graduated Neutral Density filters, or ND Grads as they are known, and it's these last ones I will talk about with this image.

The image on the right shows what the filters look like. Typically half of the filter is of neutral density which transitions, either abruptly or gradually, into the other half which is clear. It is used to bring an overly-bright part of a scene into the dynamic range of film or sensor. For example, it can be used to darken a bright sky so that both the sky and subject can be properly exposed. And this is exactly what they were used for in the image of Craig's Hut.

When placed over the top portion of the sky they block the light coming through to the film or sensor. In this image I exposed for the foreground of the image but in doing so the sky that had this wonderful pink hue was over-exposed and had lost all detail and colour. A common practice these days is to take multiple images, exposing for the different parts and then blend these later in photoshop or do a HDR image. Both these take time at a computer and well I would prefer to be doing other things. HDR's can often look very fake. Using these filters to adjust in camera takes as long as the exposure and NO computer work later.

I used two filters stacked with this image, a 2stop and 3stop soft. The soft transition means the filter is not noticeable in the final image and another small trick I use is to wiggle the filters up and down during the exposure also. Simply something that has taken a few seconds in camera, can and has saved a lot of work later. The small tweaks I have done are no more than a couple of enhancements, I got it right in camera.

Learning to do this will improve your photography a hundred fold, learning to see the light and knowing the limitations of your film or sensor will teach you how to shoot the light and capture with the camera what you see.

Until next time, shoot the light.

Photography Should Be Fun

Saturday October the 19th I had the pleasure of attending one of good friend Shelton Muller's Wedding workshops. Shelton is a fantastic tutor and brings a lot of knowledge and experience to the workshops. He is a fun loving type of guy and a day with him is always a blast. This workshop had us a wonderful model, Natasha Humble, who just happens to be a very accomplished photographer herself.
Although all photography is about the light, learning to see that light and knowing how to use that light is what good photography is all about.

All the images you see are all natural light, no flash in anyway has been used, this to me is the nicest and most natural looking light for portrait and wedding photography. This first image was just a simple window, a portable backdrop and an Olympus E3 and a 50mm f2 lens. Natural light only.

This second image is a plain green wall. The lighting is simply two wall lights above Natasha.
Having her look up towards those lights has spilled the light onto her face, simple and effective and the wall colour has created a more funky style image. Again shot with the Olympus E3 and 50mm f2 lens.

Having a model that also shoots makes it a little easier to pose her as she already understands light and how to pose for it, but again my mate Shelton certainly knows how to get the best out of her for the workshops.

This last shot is a pretty typical situation we find ourselves shooting in, old architecture, soft light spilling in, and the bride makes for some easy, traditional style shots.

Shots that every bride will always be happy with and the sort of standard images we all need to achieve before getting creative.

I walked away with a number of very good portfolio images that I have added to my ever expanding files. I thank Shelton for a fantastic day, Natasha for being such a great model allowing me to get these images and also my beautiful logo image up top.

Thanks also to Olympus Imaging.

Welcome to Keith Anderson Photography

Well it seems everyone has entered the world of blogging, so here is the start of my venture into this world albeit a late one. I’ll be writing about where I am, where I’ve been, new images and tips and tricks to taking better pictures.

All the best

Keith Anderson