photo credit: Tarun K Photography

Then, there is only one solution: Be prepared!

• Explore the location: Know where you go, use Google Maps and Google Earth to discover the topography, the terrain, the location of monuments, roads and streets leading from one place to another.
• Orient yourself: the same tools will allow to see on what side you want to go to make the back-lit photos you want or to have the best angle at sun rise.
• Let inspiration come to you: There is nothing wrong in using Flickr to know what the other travelers have brought back from the place you don’t know yet. Discover the usual pictures that everybody gets and find some that are less common or more surprising : You’ll get the images that everybody expect back at home and a few good surprises too (even if you will not stay long enough to explore all aspects of a single subject).

But there is also a mean to speed preparation up and to go much further: Get a guide. It has many advantages:

• A guide knows every square meter of your destination: You will never be as prepared as he is.
• Choose a guide who knows what photography is. Most will only lead you to the place. This is even more important for difficult photo subjects like a safari photo trip: Your guide must be able to place himself (or place the car) at the right location, he will have to accept to stay longer in one location, near one animal; He should accept to leave early and stay late on the spot. You will avoid most of the tourist-run places. for this, the best is to find photo-oriented travel agents or to talk to the guide (even using Skype).

photo credit: SPM435
• You will be able to concentrate on photography without worrying too much about the rest (he’s not a body guard, but you shouldn’t have to keep an eye on your back and on your bag while you shoot).
• In some cases, the guide is the only mean to reach some locations: He’s the key to some religious ceremonies, to isolated places, to off-road tracks only accessible under precise conditions, etc.

Nevertheless, also think about keeping time to breathe, to think and to take the place in. Don’t stick to eye to the viewfinder all day long. Look around, widen your personal landscape. If your traveling with your family, also bring them into the photo business: I recommend making sure that everybody has a camera and you dispense some advice and make sure children participate (for example, a friend of mine had a real golden wooden frame that kids would use to frame themselves with monuments during specific photo games).

Three trees near the Merrimack River
Copyright Yves Roumazeilles

1. Color: Even if the leaves are already colored, shooting at sunrise or sunset will add a little bit more of colors and it is always more natural than blooming it with a saturation filter in Photoshop.
2. Color: Green is also a color, so watch for color oppositions.
3. Polarizing filter: Reducing the specular light reflexion, some of the colors will be enhanced by the use of a POL-C filter.

photo credit: samenstelling
4. Background: Like always, check your background and if it is not adequate be sure to open the aperture to blur it.
5. Speed: If there is wind, even a light one, be sure to push the shutter speed up to fix it.
6. Speed: If there is a river, a stream or some other moving object, be sure to push the shutter speed down to blur them.
7. Tripod: If you shoot pictures under the trees, you will probably not have enough light for fast speeds, so bring your tripod.
8. Water: Leaves look better when covered with some water (it could be rain or some water you brought).
9. HDR: Many forest pictures suffer from extreme dark areas and very bright areas (specially when the subject is back-lit). It’s the right moment to try and use HDR (High Dynamic Range) techniques.

You may have seen this photo somewhere else (I found it on an FTP dump site). Please, let me know who is the author.

Shanghai morning
Copyright Yves Roumazeilles

1. When? Fog does not appear in any weather conditions but it is relatively predictable. More or less, for a misty morning, you will need to have a relatively warm day before with a cold night without wind. Fog will tend to accumulate in the depressions (like a valley) which will favor night radiation fog and coastal areas will often have a good source of water vapor and a good potential for heat loss over ground.



2. How? Use the light histogram to “shoot at right” or “expose at right”. It’s a fact that the camera will tend to under-expose the picture to try and get a medium grey image while the reality that you want to catch is rather white. In some case, you will probably use a preset over-exposure of 1 EV or 1.5 EV.
3. Back-light: Even if you do not easily see the sun, favor the “back-lit” orientation.

photo credit: 1suisse
4. Silhouettes: Fog is the occasion to sharply cut the silhouettes on a clear background.
5. Surfaces: Mist will tend to draw clear-cut surfaces on the different planes of the picture.
6. Rays: As soon as the sun starts to be available and starts to pierce the last strands of mist, watch for the moment when light rays will appear in the landscape.

Is a UV filter harmful?

First, I would like to demonstrate once again the critical importance of having a very good quality filter rather than the usual plastic junk. Too often, we forget that the filter is degrading the image quality and that the better the lens, the worst the impact. To clearly show this impact, LensRentals tried to stack up to 50 filters on the same lens. the result is so immediately obvious that you don’t need to go pixel-peeping at 100% scale:

But even one filter will decrease image quality.

Of course, if you want to compare the impact of the impact difference between a pro filter and a cheap run-of-the-mill filter, you can stack just 5 pro UV filters and 5 cheap UV filters. Here again, you’ve got food for thought before you buy your next photo filter:

I insist! this last test does not use 50 filters, but only 5 UV filters and the result is immediately perceptible to the naked eye of the non-expert, even if you’re not looking for it. With only one filter, you can do the test by your own and decide that using filters is a matter of thoughtful choice.

How Polarizing Filters Work?

This is one of the best and simplest explanations and demonstrations of the operation of these basic filters: A Polarizing Filter on the left and the Neutral Grey Filter on the right.

Source: PetaPixel.

For a long time, we saw round and square filters, filter holders, gelatin or gel filters in colors or in grey hues, progressive graduated neutral density filters, stacks of filters, surprising little colored objects which were used to reinforce the sky, the clouds, the grass, the trees, the mountain glaciers, the lakes reflections, and which were used to smooth the sky, the clouds, the grass, the trees, the mountain glaciers, the lakes reflections. In short, apart from a few specialists as admired and as venerated as Mayans High Priests (apparently, without the need to practice human sacrifice to support their credibility, though), nobody really knew what all this was about. OK! I may be slightly off the board here (though I am sure I never heard of a photographer sacrificing live animals before shooting a landscape picture). Some people had learned a few tricks and recipes, but it was most incomprehensible to the masses like you and me.

With the advent of digital photography, everything changed: Photoshop or The Gimp or any other photographic software was able to replace all colored filters and the photographer could drop his collection of gelatins into the junk bin before going to simpler (or more complex) issues. We ran for the software manuals

But this was an error! If it stays true that the immense majority of filters are already in the first Photoshop-like software package, this is not a general rule. Colored filters are trivial to apply in Photoshop. Graduated filters are so easy that kids can use them. Color correction, exposure correction are but a click away in Photoshop and easier than a bunch of fragile gel filters attached to a complex holder. And if you do it wrong, just Undo it and try again.

But there are two optical filters that are still totally unavoidable even with the best software (and I am not speaking about the useless UV filter whose main application is protection against frontal shocks):

• Polarizing filter
• High-density neutral grey filter

Polarizing

A polarizing glass selectively filters light detecting its polarisation (a physical property quite difficult to perceive in most conditions but easily measurable on reflected light). The filter will reduce brightness of reflections without impact on the rest of the picture, an aspect that is inaccessible to Photoshop. It also plays a great role on slecting the desnity of the blue sky which varies in function of the sun light angle.

The effects of a polarizing filter on the sky in a photograph. The picture on the right uses the filter.

If you keep only one filter, this will be a polarizing filter.

Only one remark: If you find an old pola-filter from silver-analog-film times, check first if it is a linear pola. Films were not very regarding, but digital sensors can only react to circular pola filters. Note that this remark becomes less and less important since all current filters are actually circular polarizing filters.

High-density neutral grey

The other useful filter is a high-density neutral grey one. You can easily see through a low-density (pale) neutral grey filter but it is not very useful with the extreme range of sensitivity that our photo cameras exhibit today: Just rotate the sensitivity wheel a little or drop back to Photoshop. But, if you take a ND400, you’ll immediately notice that even if you can still see something through it, it nearly black now. The filter is so dense that it has the same effect as dropping the sensitivity though the floor a lot below the usual minimum of ISO 100. Consequence: Long exposures even at mid-day: Instead of 1/200s, you’ll need 5s exposures (1000 times more). Welcome to motion blur even on slow objects and under the mid-day sun.

The most common application (or the most commonly used) is landscape photography incorporating motion blur of sea water or white water river, as in the examples below.

photo credit: -Chiotas-

photo credit: ciccioetneo

photo credit: dahon©

Beware!

To answer a question from Sébastien, I will also remind you of some elementary precautions to apply when using a filter (any filter).

• Always buy a high-quality filter: You use a luxury pro lens with fluorite or ED glass optical elements; Don’t drop any plastic sheet in front of it if you want to avoid re-introducing ugly additional effects (like optical distortion and chromatic aberration). Unfortunately, the prices goes with this requirement.
• If you use a wide-angle lens (this is often the case for landscape photography, isn’t it?), select a low rim filter to avoid seeing it obstructing slightly the field of view (generating a small vignetting effect). Here, again, it comes with a price (all the more for the polarizing filters which are mechanically more complex).
• For neutral grey filters, beware of the chromatic shift introduced by the denser and cheaper filters. It is often easy to compensate in a software suite, but the filter may easily be slightly blue or orange (depending on brands).

So, what? Two filters in the bag, this is no problem.

Of course, with five lenses, you may have five different screwing diameters. But this is still much better than the whole collection of the past.

photo © 2009 Amaury | more info (via: Wylio)

1. Know the place: You may use maps or scout the location, but be prepared and since there will be a lot of people and moving around is less of an option when the show starts, be sure to know exactly where you want to be (and be there beforehand).
2. No flash: It won’t help for the fireworks, it could only light up some foreground elements in front of the show (and light balance will be difficult to obtain). It’s better/easier to use the shadow of these foreground objects, if it is easily recognizable.
3. Use a tripod: It’s night time, there is light, but not enough. Apertures will be wide and speed will be low. Get a heavy, sturdy one (Avoid being bumped into by people and limit exposure to the wind: All these make blurry photos).
4. No autofocus: You need to focus at the infinity and then go back to manual.
5. Use long shutter speeds: The longer speeds will allow filling the pictures with more light (But don’t over do it; Several light flowers are good, a bunch of colored streaks is probably not right).
6. Experiment with apertures: If there is more than the fireworks to be placed in the picture (a good idea), try experimenting with the aperture to choose the best depth-of-field.
7. Have a flashlight: At night, it will be difficult to find your way around.
8. Have replacement parts ready: Batteries or Flash cards must be in an easily accessible location (without light, it’s easy to reach for your pockets, right?)
9. Don’t check the pictures on the LCD: There is no time for this, shoot, you’ll look later. (Option: Check only 1 or 2 images at the beginning, nothing after that).
10. Frame: Think and try different compositions and frames (panoramic, vertical, etc.)

Happy shooting, now!

Howard Johnson
Copyright Yves Roumazeilles

1. There is no light: In most small concert venues, light is just not there. As a concert-goer, you make think that the stage is flooded in light. This is really not the case. While lighting techniques may be sophisticated, they are very expensive and even the biggest international-level stages are insufficiently lit. Bring a prime lens with a pro-level large-aperture: f/2.8 is OK, if you can get a f/2 or better, you will perceive the difference. We would recommend to start with a cheap second-hand 50mm or 80mm lens.
2. Always shoot in RAW: The processing software will allow to compensate for the wild color balance of lighting and to use the most sophisticated noise reduction algorithm (since you will use high ISO, you’ll get too much noise).
3. Use either Aperture priority mode (or manual if you feel comfortable with it): You want to use the widest aperture and you want to stick to it.
4. Use the fastest ISO that your camera allows while keeping noise level low enough for you. Anyway, you will feel that it’s not fast enough, so stick to this value.
5. Use central AF: This is the most efficient AF sensor and you will need that to cope with the weird contrasts and low lights that are trying to make your autofocus trip.

Etiquette

There is one little secret that concert photographers do not usually share with you: Live music photography is mostly all about etiquette. Or should I say rules? Or even regulations? It is not immediately apparent to the public, but there are rules to stick to. Know them, use them.

• Don’t be a burden on Security: The security guards are there for a purpose, they need to ensure safety both for the public and the artists. But you are going to be in the way. So, be polite and obedient. One of the worst things would be to continuously move around; Stick to your place an never leave the pit or the security people will perceive you as a pain in the neck.

JerkSystem at Elysée Montmartre
Copyright (C) Yves Roumazeilles
• Don’t be a pain to other photographers: Again, moving around is usually difficult and it will come as unpleasant to the other photographers. Even if they know you and like you, rushing around will get them annoyed (to say the least). Choose you spot and don’t move (mostly).
• Don’t piss off the fans: They paid for it; Don’t get in the way or make it very very short and move out. If there are times when music is very quiet, just don’t shoot. You don’t want your shutter to be heard (no problem during heavy metal live performance, a major issue for classical music and some jazz). It’s quite easy to be forcefully removed from the pit…
• One rule to rule them all: 3 songs, no flash. Some concert may accept exceptions to this universal rule, but NEVER break this one, without an explicit and repeated confirmation from the concert hall management. In most cases, security will come to you at the end of the third song. Just pack you gear and move out. Don’t complain, don’t argue, don’t try to steal one more shot. And be sure that your camera not even has a flash, to be sure not to break the “no flash” commandment.
• Your pit access badge is not a backstage badge. So, don’t try to piss off security walking in the wrong direction.

When you’re done, you may leave politely, but it is usually acceptable if you stay and I suggest you do so. 3 songs of intense shooting is too much for you to take the music in. Stay and share the concert with the fans. You may be one, you may become one.

1. Normal: Shutter pressed by the photographer’s digit
2. Remote shutter
3. Remote shutter and mirror lockup enabled

DSLR Mirror Vibration from Camera Technica on Vimeo.

Conclusion: Do like all the best landscape photographers obsessed with the finer details: Use a tripod, lock the mirror up before shooting and use a remote shutter (and beware of the wind, too).

Le Mans 2008 - Waiting
Copyright Yves Roumazeilles

Car racing (or motorcycle racing) is assuredly a favorite spot for photographing an exceptional subject: bright colors, shiny metal, technical expertise, intense concentration around competition, everything is present. So, here are a few tips to start motor race photography in the best possible conditions.

1. Gear: With or without accreditation, you will certainly be far from the track; So, you must get a long focal telephoto lens (200mm mini, 400mm is even better if you want to catch some details).
2. Advanced preparation: Ideally, you must go and visit the place to “take your bearings” (remember that it is often easier to move around the circuit during the officials tests a few days before the race), and you will be able to take advantage of it to shoot some more photos.
3. Competition: This is a race, so try and capture the spirit. Think about shooting not only one nice car, but several of them simultaneously (it’s easier in the curves) possibly during the overtaking phases.
4. Speed: Everything is fast, so you must choose a high shutter speed (at least 1/1000s when the car runs before you, maybe 1/250s when the car comes to you in a low speed curve).
5. Autofocus: Be sure to choose the continuous AF mode or AI-Servo mode ; The cars are fast and this is the most common trap even for fast AF systems.
6. Stands: Look around and don’t let the track keep all your attention. The stands are a place where a lot of things happen. Even better, on most race tracks, the arrival of a car in the pit is announced to the teams (and to the photographer) by a horn.
7. Podium: Of course, don’t forget to shoot the winner, either under the checkered flag or on the final podium.

One additional advice: Accreditation can be a real issue for all major car races. For example, if you are not a pro, with a large set of previous work in the automotive field, and the support of an influential press body, your chances to a photo accreditation is nil in Les 24 Heures du Mans. But it is always possible (maybe even good) to practice in the less restricted conditions offered by less prominent races on major tracks, races on small local circuits, or even kart racing competitions. And entrance fees are much lower, too.