By the way, lunar eclipses typically happen more often than solar eclipses. Photographing the moon is a very different process when compared to photographing the sun. See my how to photograph a lunar eclipse article for more details.

1) The Danger of Viewing and Photographing a Solar Eclipse

Before I talk about the process of photographing a solar eclipse, let me first talk about the dangers of doing it. First of all, you should never look directly at the sun with your eyes, especially through a DSLR viewfinder that shows the sun much more magnified. Remember Galileo or those crazy Indians that stared at the sun and went blind? You surely do not want the same faith. Looking at the sun through the viewfinder without blocking any light, especially UV can result in immediate blindness. See this article on Wikipedia for more details.

So what do you do? If you prefer to see the eclipse with your naked eyes, then get a pair of eclipse glasses. If you cannot find them or it is too late to get them now, then there are two things you can do:

1. Build a small pinhole camera/projector
2. Use the camera’s liveview/LCD for viewing the sun

Building a small pinhole camera/projector is very simple. Just grab two pieces of cards, make a small hole in one card, then hold the card above the other one and align them with the sun. The sun’s image will be projected through the hole into the second card. If you want something more advanced, check this tutorial out.

The second method to view the sun through the camera LCD is what I did. First, make sure to mount a very dense/strong neutral density filter in front of your lens. Then, use your camera’s LiveView function to look at the sun. It is ideal to have a camera that allows manual exposure control, so that you could stop down the lens and increase the shutter speed while looking at the sun through live view. Bear in mind that if the ND filter is not strong enough, viewing the sun through the LCD could actually damage your camera. Either way, I would not use LiveView for more than a minute or two, since it could overheat the image sensor. I only used LiveView when taking pictures and turned the camera off in between. When the sun is too bright during partial eclipse, unless you have something like Hoodman loupe, you might not see much when looking at the LCD though.

If you have a point and shoot camera with a relatively small lens, the same eclipse glasses you war could be used as neutral density filters. Just hold one in front of the lens and it should work great.

2) Photographing the Sequence

One thing you need to decide on, is whether you want to shoot the entire sequence of the solar eclipse, or just the middle of the process (period of totality) when the moon blocks most of the sun, creating a “ring of fire”. I would personally recommend to document the whole process from the beginning to the end, so that you have pictures of all the phases – from partial eclipse to totality and then back to partial eclipse. The nice thing about having the entire sequence in pictures, is that you can later combine images together, creating a nice sequence.

Bear in mind, you will have to be very patient though, as the process could take a while. If for whatever reason you cannot stay for the entire duration of the eclipse, then I would just stay for the total eclipse to capture the “ring of fire”.

3) Camera Equipment and Lenses

When it comes to photographing a solar eclipse, the type of equipment you are using plays a huge role. Using a camera with a bare lens is not going to work, because the sun is way too bright (especially during partial eclipse) – it will be totally blown out. Even stopping down to a very small aperture like f/22 and lowering ISO to the lowest value might result in an exposure faster than what your camera allows. Therefore, you need a very strong neutral density filter that would block most of the light from the sun, allowing you to use slower shutter speeds and larger apertures. If the neutral density filter is not strong enough, you might need a couple – in my case, I had a 6 stop ND filter stacked with a 3 stop ND filter together, but a 10 stop ND filter would be better. Stacking multiple filters is not a problem, because you will be shooting with your longest lens at its longest focal length anyway.

Talking about lenses, the longer the lens, the better. I used the Nikon 300mm f/4 AF-S with a 1.4x teleconverter, because I had it handy. Longer lenses are ideal, so if you have a 600mm lens with a teleconverter in your arsenal, then get them ready! My 300mm was already mounted to my Nikon D700, so I did not bother changing the camera body.

Camera does not matter, because you will be capturing the solar eclipse at the lowest ISO. Cropped-sensor/DX cameras would work great, because they provide better magnification on the pixel level.

4) Camera Settings

Camera settings are quite simple. Here is what I recommend:

1. Set your camera and lens on a tripod.
2. Set your ISO to the lowest value like 100.
3. Set your camera mode to Manual.
4. Start out at the fastest shutter speed your camera has to offer, such as 1/8000 and see if you need to lower it.
5. Start out at f/8 and stop down a little more if the shutter speed is too fast. If the sun comes out too bright and overexposed, it means that you are using a weak ND filter.

Depending on what ND filter you are using, your shutter speed should be fast enough to not cause any vibration issues. I was shooting between 1/500 to 1/8000, depending on the phase of the eclipse and how bright I wanted to sun to come out.

5) Focus Accuracy and Sharpness

No matter what lens you are using, getting a very accurate focus on the sun and moon is extremely important. I know that some photographers suggest to shoot at infinity using the lens marks, but since many lenses now allow focusing “beyond infinity”, getting a true infinity focus is not that easy – a slight inaccuracy in focus will make the sun and moon appear blurry. Forget about trying to acquire focus on the sun without an ND filter – it is too bright and could be too small in the frame for that. What I would do, is point your lens at a really far object and focus on that object (either through viewfinder or LiveView). Instead of dealing with refocusing every time you take a picture, I highly recommend to switch off autofocus once you get an accurate focus. Take a picture and use the LCD screen of the camera to see how sharp the sun is. Zoom in all the way and make sure that the sun appears sharp.

One more thing I would like to point out, is if you are using a lens with a teleconverter, or if you are using a consumer zoom lens, the optics are probably not very sharp when shooting at large apertures. Stopping down the lens aperture to f/8-f/11 should give you the sharpest results. Don’t use apertures larger than f/16 – diffraction will kick in and make the moon appear even softer.

6) Composition

Unless you are shooting at short focal lengths with a foreground object or some sort of a scene, don’t worry about composition – place the sun anywhere in your frame. The location does not matter, since you can easily crop the sun out in post-processing. If you have some thick clouds in your frame, then play with the exposure a little and see if you can use clouds as part of your composition. Here is an image that I captured with the clouds, when clouds opened up a little bit during the start of the eclipse:

7) Post-processing

As for post-processing, aside from cropping and playing with white balance and saturation levels, the only issue you might have is dealing with some noise that might show up even at the lowest ISO levels. Noise levels will increase if you underexpose and try to brighten up in post-processing, so try to expose the sun correctly (you can also bracket your shots). If noise is an issue, see my “noise reduction tutorial” that I posted a while ago – there are plenty of tips in that article on how to clean up noise in Photoshop and Lightroom.

Please let me know if you have any questions!

What Is It?

The Tone Curve represents all the tones of your image. The bottom axis of the Tone Curve is the Tone axis: the line starts with Shadows at the left-most end and ends with Highlights in the right-most end. In the middle you have Midtones, which are then further split into darker Midtones, called Darks in Lightroom, and brighter Midtones, called Lights. In other words, going left to right, the curve starts with Shadows, Darks, Lights and ends with Highlights. You can also see the corresponding range shown to you by Lightroom once you hover over a specific slider under the Tone Curve, in the Region section of the Panel. The Y axis represents lightness of a given tones. The tones get darker as you move lower and brighter as you move up the axis.

While all of this may sound very technical, it is in fact quite simple to adjust. All you need to decide on is which range of tones you want to alter, for example: if you want to make the Midtones of the image darker, just click on the middle portion of the Tone Curve and gently drag it downwards – you will notice your image getting darker as you drag it, similarly as it would if you were to decrease Exposure in the Basic Panel. If, on the other hand, you wanted to make your Shadows part of the image brighter, you should click on the left-most third of the Tone Curve which represents the Shadows and gently drag it upwards to see them brighten up. Simple, isn’t it?

Region Curve and Point Curve

Lightroom has two different Curves you can work with. The one that I’ve been showing you so far (the enlarged screenshot at the top) is the easiest to operate, especially for beginners – lets call it the Region Curve for simplicity sake. When you’re using this Curve, Lightroom basically helps you keep it as smooth in transition as possible, so that you don’t ruin your image by accidentally distorting the Curve too much. You can either adjust it by dragging the Curve itself or using the sliders bellow it, which will give you exactly the same flexibility. You can also adjust it using an automated Lighroom tool, which appears as a dot at the top left of the Tone Curve Panel, right next to the Tone Curve. All you have to do is click on it to turn the tool on and then click-and-drag on the particular tone range or area of the image to adjust it. Even if you tried hard, however, you could not make a, say, “N” shaped Curve using Region Curve simply because Lightroom is aiding you by keeping a smooth tonal transition – a very useful feature, really, it saves you from ending up with something like this:

But then there is another Curve you can use if you do need to make adjustments not possible with the Region Curve, and it is called Point Curve. You can activate it by clicking a small square button at the bottom right of the Tone Curve Panel. Once you do that, you will instantly notice sliders disappear only to be replaced with one control – Channel. This setting allows you to choose which color – Red, Green or Blue – you want to alter (the default is set to RGB, which includes all colors). Changing individual colors opens up a whole new range of editing possibilities, like simulation of film cross-processing (deliberately using wrong chemicals to develop film and get crazy cool colors), but we won’t be getting into that this time – that’s a whole new article. Lets leave the Channel setting at its default RGB mode.

The idea of Point Curve is that you can alter it whichever way you like and make a complete mess out of your image – Lightroom will not get in your way. It’s a great tool for some advanced B&W and color work, but is also very useful when used as a starting point to work with Region Curve afterwards, much like the tone curve your camera uses when you take photographs. Lightroom actually allows you to choose one of the default settings of the Point Curve to use as a starting point – you can choose it by clicking on the drop-down list at the bottom left of the Tone Curve panel in either Region Curve or Point Curve mode.

I plan to discuss the use of the Point Curve in greater detail in future tutorials as it offers a complete new range of creative editing. For now, lets focus on the simpler and more popular Range Curve (and simply call it Tone Curve further on before it gets too confusing).

The Easy Part

As I have already mentioned, working with the Tone Curve is actually very easy. Depending on what you want to achieve, there are basically only four things you need to remember.

1) How To Make Your Image Pop

Most of the time, this is the primary intention when using Tone Curve. Sometimes you may find that, after you’re done with the Basic Panel adjustments, while everything may technically be correct, there is still something missing, something to make that photograph look worlds better than it does. And you can see it in your head – it should look better, but why doesn’t it?

There are a few ways you can adjust the Tone Curve to give your picture that bit of magic it seems to lack initially, but by messing with it too much, you might as well end up with a horrible, unrecognizable image. The most dependable technique is adding a slight “S” curve by dragging the lower third of the curve down slightly, and the upper third of the curve slightly upwards. What this does is darken the shadows, which is the lower third of the Curve, and lightens the bright portions of the image, which are represented by the upper third of the Curve. You may just as well use the sliders under the Tone Curve to specifically change exactly what you want.

Lets take the above picture and try to add a little more contrast to it by playing with the Tone Curve. By setting the Lights slider to +29, I boosted the brighter portions of the image while still retaining enough tones to keep them from blowing out. By moving the Darks slider to -39, I’ve darkened the shadowy parts of the image, yet not enough to make them completely black. This is what I got (enlarge and use arrow keys to compare; note changes in the Panel):

Looks much better, doesn’t it? And with such a modest adjustment, too. You may notice color has changed somewhat as well – it’s a bit more saturated now, deeper, especially the cherries. While in this case I don’t mind extra punch in colors, it would be nice if I could set the effect to Luminance only – too bad Lightroom didn’t add such feature with the new version, Photoshop allows one to do that. Still, I can always bring those colors down by adjusting the Vibrance slider in the Basic Panel if needed.

2) And If You Want Less…

…all you need to do is set the curve to reverse “S” by bringing the Lights down and upping the Darks a little. You may want to do that when you find the image to be too contrasty as it is, or if you want to achieve a certain low contrast look. Setting the Tone Curve into reverse “S” will flatten the image, bring Lights and Highlights closer to Darks and Shadows in their tonality. This also helps if you have blown-out portions of image that you want to fix specifically with this tool, although you should always remember the Tone Curve works best in conjunction with the rest of the tools you can find in Lightroom.

Lets see what happens if you push the upper half of the Tone Curve slightly down (Lights at -50) and the lower half of it upwards (Darks at +50):

Looks much more flat, and the colors are less vibrant, too. This kind of Curve adjustment can often serve B&W photographs very well. Have you ever wondered why some of those black & white’s are so dreamy and moody? A low contrast Curve might just be one of the reasons, take a look:

3) Don’t Overcook It

Too much is usually not a good thing, and Tone Curve adjustments follow this rule. Altering the Curve too drastically may lead to blown-out highlights and pitch-black shadows, so unless this is what you’re after, play safe and adjust the Tone Curve along with Basic Panel settings to get the best result. Remember, while it is one of the most powerful tools in Lightroom, you may end up ruining your image just as easily as enhancing it.

4) Experiment!

You may find that you only need to alter Lights, or Highlights, or maybe turn that straight line into a zigzag. Experiment! It’s the best way you can learn quickly and find new techniques to enhance your images on your own and then, hopefully, share them with others.

Good luck!

1) Identity Plate

You can brand your copy of Lightroom for your photography business by inserting your logo to the top left corner of the software through the “Identity Plate” setup. You can get to the “Identity Plate Setup” by clicking on Edit -> Identity Plate Editor. Make sure to check the “Enable Identity Plate” checkbox, otherwise you will see the default Lightroom logo at the top left of the window. In the editor, you can either use a stylized text Identity Plate, or a graphical Identity Plate.

Stylized text Identity Plate allows you to input any text you want to show at the left side of your Modules Panel. Use the drop-down menus to set the font, style, size and color of any text (or a part of it). Using text makes it very easy and quick to change the Identity Plate at any time.

Using Graphical Identity Plate allows for more flexibility – you can turn any image into an Identity Plate. Using PNG instead of JPEG format offers transparency, which, again, helps you make your logo blend in better with the graphical interface of Lightroom. One thing you need to be aware of is the height of the image you want to use – keep it at about 50-60 px, otherwise Lightroom will not fit it in the narrow Modules Panel.

Tip – if you want to see the changes live as you make them, make sure to keep your Modules Panel (top-most panel in Lightroom) down before opening the Identity Plate Editor.

2) Changing Module Pick Buttons

While you cannot change the actual names of different Modules in Lightroom, you can change their font, size, style and color so that they compliment your Identity Plate. You can use the same font you use in your logo or pick any other font you like. Within the same Identity Plate window, navigate to the right side of the window where you see “Library | Develop | Map | Book | Slideshow” and change the font, style, size and colors. If the controls are not visible, click the “Show Detail” button at the bottom left corner of the Identity Plate Editor window:

3) Interface Preferences

If you go to Edit->Preferences… and click the Interface tab, you will find a number of other settings you can adjust to make Lightroom a better environment to work in.

“End Marks” are graphical elements you can find at the end of left and right Panels in Lightroom, as well as some other places throughout the Interface. You can either pick one from the drop down menu or disable them altogether. You can also change the Font Size used in the program, however you will need to restart Lightroom in order for the changes to take effect.

Next down are the “Lights Out” options. Lightroom allows you to dim or completely turn off all elements of the program except for the image itself for preview purposes (press “L” to go to “Lights Dim” or “Lights Off” modes). Choose the color you want the screen to go to from the drop down menu when you dim or turn off the interface (default is Black). You can also specify the percentage of “Lights Dim” mode (default is 80%). Along with that, in the next section of the Interface Preferences window, you can change the background color of Lightroom. You can even pick a “Pinstripes” texture if you like. Play around, see what fits you best.

Tip – I set my Lights Out color to white. This lets me preview the image in a black background when in normal working environment (Lights On) and see how it looks in a white one when I choose the “Lights Dim” or “Lights Off” viewing modes.

Although these customizations are rather small, they could make your work in Lightroom just a little more enjoyable. Plus, if you have a photography business, it is always nice to show off your branding in front of your clients when they review images with you.

Where to Find It

The Basic Panel can be found in the Develop Module right bellow the Histogram display at the top-right side of the screen. Expanding the panel will reveal a number of basic controls offered by Lightroom. These controls show you the most obvious benefits of shooting in RAW, such as White Balance and Exposure Compensation adjustments. Lightroom was developed with a left to right, top to bottom editing workflow in mind. While in some cases you will find yourself going back and forth between the settings, we will try to stick with that order at this time.

Tip – if you left-click the top of any Panel while holding down the Alt key (for Windows users) or the Option key (for Mac OS users), Lightroom will go into Solo Panel mode and only keep one Panel open at a given time (for example, if you had Tone Curve Panel open and then click on Detail Panel, the Tone Curve Panel will then close). This allows for a more tidy experience, especially if you often find yourself scrolling through the right-side Panel List. Clicking it again the same way will return Lightroom to previous state. If you want to open another panel without closing the previous one in Solo mode, Shift-click it. Ctrl(Command)-click a panel to open/close all.

The Settings

1) Treatment

The very first setting you can change in the Basic Panel is the Treatment of the image. You have two settings – “Color”, which is set by default and keeps your image in color, and “Black & White”, which, as I have mentioned in my B&W Portrait tutorial, is a great way to start working on a B&W look of your image if that is your intent.

2) White Balance

Sometimes the Auto WB setting on your camera may pick the wrong value, or you might choose a wrong one yourself. These settings are there to make sure that the color captured in your image is correct no matter how the camera was set when you took the picture, so if the image is too blue or too orange, you can easily correct it.

Tip – you can also tell Lightroom what the correct White Balance is by using the White Balance Selector tool (press either “W” key or click on the eyedropper next to the White Balance slider) on a white color on your image. Lightroom will adjust accordingly. This tool will work best if you have a picture of an 18% Gray Card (X-Rite Color Checker works magic for these things) taken in that light – use the tool on the picture of the Gray Card and apply the value on all pictures photographed in that light.

2.1) Temp

Here, you can either choose one of Lightroom’s presets in the drop-down menu and, if needed, tweak it further on, or simply set it to the value you think is best. Temperature tweaking is one of the most noticeable advantages offered by RAW image format over JPEG. It sets the warmth of color in your image. As you probably know, it differs greatly depending on the light source. Just move the slider until the color looks correct.

2.2) Tint

Sometimes setting correct Temperature may not be enough. Adjust this slider to the left if your image seems to have a purple tint, and to the right if it seems to have a green tint. The initial adjustment depends on what the camera was set to when the image was taken.

3) Tone

Tip – us the “Auto” feature to let Lightroom decide what Tone settings fit that particular photograph. While it might make a mess of things, sometimes you can find a good starting point in Lightroom’s automatic features that will only need a modest amount of tweaking.

3.1) Exposure

This setting allows you to, to an extent, artificially adjust the exposure of the image (for example, if you took the image at ISO 800, f/2.8, 1/125s and adjust the exposure to -1.00 stop, it will look as if the photograph was taken at 1/250s). The extent of the adjustment largely depends on the Dynamic range of the photograph (and, obviously, your camera). This setting is extremely useful in correcting any kind of over or underexposure that may have happened. Do note that it doesn’t really change camera settings, it just darkens or lightens the image, and so extremely dark shadows or blown-out highlights cannot always be saved. Brightening the image a lot will also increase the noise somewhat, especially in the shadows. Lightroom 4 lets you adjust the exposure by either +5 or -5 stops, while Lightroom 3 offers adjustments of up to +4 and down to -4 stops. Either is enough in most situations and often exceeds the Dynamic range of the image.

3.2) Contrast

Adjusting this setting will either make your image have more or less contrast. Move the slider to the left to make bright parts of the image less bright and dark parts less dark, or move it to the right to make shadows and highlights more distinguishable. This slider is good for making minor changes, but overall doesn’t offer much control over which tones should be considered as bright or dark. The Tone Curve is much better for that, but it’s also slightly more complicated.

3.3) Highlights, Shadows, Whites and Blacks

These tools are among the most powerful in Lightroom 4 and are real life savers, they let you individually adjust the dark and light parts of the image. If you find that, even after using the Exposure Compensation slider, some parts of your image don’t look good enough, use the Highlights and Whites sliders to bring back some of the seemingly blown out areas in the image, or Shadows and Blacks sliders to fill in those dark portions of the photograph and give the it more detail. With that in mind, you can also move the sliders to the other side to make the light parts of the image even lighter, or dark and shadowy parts darker. To make the light or dark parts darker, move the sliders to the left, and to make them lighter, move them to the right.

Tip – these tools work well in combination with the Contrast slider or, especially, the Tone Curve tool – they allow you to keep the image nice and contrasty while, at the same time, keeping those highlights and shadows at bay. These sliders don’t affect the mid-tones much, so your overall exposition will remain correct – just set it the way you like and then adjust the parts of the image that are either too bright or too dark to get exactly the look you want.

4) Presence

4.1) Clarity

This tool mostly affects the transition between light and dark portions of the image (makes it less or more sudden, defined) and visibly alters the micro-contrast of the photograph. If changed extremely, it can also have a slight effect on the overall contrast of the image and shift the color somewhat. When set to a high setting it will make any shapes or forms more defined, starting with small, like skin imperfections, and ending with much bigger ones, like highlights in the background (the circles of bokeh). If you move the slider to the left it will, on the contrary, make the image less defined, give it an almost soft-focus effect, which fits portraits well. For landscape photography, it is often better to move the slider to the right to give a more defined look to textures and shapes. Don’t overdo it though, as it will make your images look too fake and over-detailed.

4.2) Vibrance

If you want the colors in your image to be more saturated, this is the setting you change. Now, while I said “saturated”, the correct term would be “vibrant”. This slider, if moved to the right, will make the colors more intense, but only where needed – it will not shift them or give a color cast to the image. If you move it to the left, the colors will be much less intense, but the photograph won’t go completely black & white.

4.3) Saturation

Saturation is often wrongly used to make the colors of a particular image pop. While, if mildly changed, it can make a photograph more colorful, if pushed at least a little too much you will find your colors shifting, loosing detail and the whole image will have a sudden color cast to it. This is because this setting affects all the color in a particular subject, not just the one that dominates (faces, for example, will often become a mixture of red and orange). I recommend using this setting only if you want to desaturate your image for a B&W look. If you want your colors to pop, use the Vibrance setting, it will be a lot more flattering (neither should be pushed too hard, though).

Differences In Lightroom 3

The biggest visible differences between the older Lightroom 3 and newer Lightroom 4 are possibly found in the Basic Panel. The older version, instead of having separate Highlights/Shadows/Whites/Blacks sliders has Recovery/Fill Light/Blacks/Brightness sliders instead. While they are slightly inferior in flexibility to the new controls, they can still give you the desired effect. Use the Recovery slider to bring back the highlights and the Fill Light slider to make shadows brighter. While the Blacks control can not be moved to the left beyond the value of “0″, a combination of Recovery, Fill Light, Brightness and Exposure sliders can save you a lot of detail in both blown out parts of the image as well as the darker shadows. Experiment with these options to find the best balance for your image – even though the tools are slightly different from Lightroom 4, they are still very powerful. After you are done with all these settings your image should have perfectly fine colors as well as a correct exposure for both shadows and highlights so that you’re ready to move on to more advanced editing.

The Limitations of the JPEG Image Format

You will find that all the functions found in the Basic Panel will do their job when editing JPEGs, however they will have much less latitude (the Exposure slider, mostly) and will be much more intense. If you had a small error in your WB settings, for example, Lightroom might help you fix it, but only if it’s not too critical. With a more extreme adjustment, you will find your image losing quality rather quickly, simply because JPEGs limits the amount of information stored in the image, specifically color, shadows and highlights. Edit those JPEGs with care.

Before we start, I would also like to note that, despite the fact that our final image will be in black and white, it is important to understand how everything works in color during the conversion process. While sometimes a simple contrast slider and curves tool can lead to a good-enough conversion, usually it is better to spend some more time tweaking different color ranges and working with white balance to affect color, and thus the tone of the image in order to achieve the best result.

With that in mind, here is the image I will be working on:

Now, lets get to work!

1) Choosing the Starting Point

Lightroom offers three ways of changing your photographs into black & white. While in essence each way leaves you with a grayscale image, the results usually have subtle or sometimes even very noticeable differences – try going through each of the images by clicking on the first one and then moving to the next two by using arrow keys on your keyboard. Also note the change in histogram at the top right side of the screenshot.

You may find that each of these ways may fit different images better, and so it is usually a good idea to see how they all look before proceeding with more thorough conversion techniques. Sometimes, depending on what kind of look you are after, you may even find this first step to be sufficient already. You may also find you like the final conversion of a particular look most even though you chose the starting point which, at first, may have looked the worst. The best thing I can do is find the starting point that’s easiest to work with. In the end, we will compare all three of them.

Here are the three basic ways you can use as a starting point to convert your image to black & white:

a) Changing the Treatment to “Black & White”: You will find the Treatment options at the top of Basic Panel. Changing it to “Black & White” will convert your picture in one mouse click. Choosing “B&W” in the HSL panel (Hue/Saturation/Luminance) has the exact same effect, too. With this method, you can already see it doesn’t look too bad, but for my taste, the skin tones are too uneven and a little flat. It might work for some other picture better, or if I was trying to achieve a more dreamy look. Still, lets not forget this is just the starting point and things will look completely different once we’ve done some key adjustments. Lets move on and see what other way we can get our basic B&W image.

b) Setting the Saturation slider in the Basic Panel to “-100″: The second easiest way to turn your picture into a basic black & white, this one shows much better skin tones and gives the image a little lightness. You can find the Saturation slider in Develop module, bottom of the Basic Panel. Looks pretty good overall, I think – the low contrast is not always a bad thing and can create an interesting mood, also it’s easy to work on. However, there is one other way to do this, so lets move on.

c) Desaturating all colors separately in the HSL (Hue/Saturation/Luminance) Panel: To do this, you need to choose the Saturation column in your HSL panel ant pull all sliders to the left, the -100 mark. This does take the longest, but you can easily save it as a preset to make it a one-click action. How’s the result? I see it as a nice compromise between lightness and punch with also good skin tones. You may notice, if you take a look at the histogram, that the difference in comparison to the first conversion is very subtle, yet visible. The skin tones are smoother and slightly lighter, almost as light as the second variant, but with more punch. Again, it looks quite good. But we’re not satisfied with “quite good”, are we? Lets move on to tweaking all three of these.

A side note – you can also use standard Lightroom presets as starting points, which you can find on the left-side panel. Still, the goal of this advanced tutorial is to teach you how to create a particular look from scratch, so that when there’s a need for a certain B&W conversion, you would know what to alter for desired effect.

2) The Fun Part

Lightroom was developed with an intended left to right, top to bottom workflow, but of course, frequently going back and forth is necessary in order to achieve what you pre-visualized. What we are aiming for is a sort of a medium-to-low contrast, bright image with smooth, bright skin-tone of our wonderful model. We don’t want our shadows to be very dark, but the blacks shouldn’t be light grey, either. With that in mind, lets move on to the actual adjustments, starting with the Basic Panel.

2.1) Basic Panel adjustments

White Balance: While editing photographs in color, we generally try to set a pretty accurate value on this. This isn’t what I do with black & white, however. While dealing with B&W portraits, I understand that skin mostly contains orange, some red and sometimes a bit of yellow color, the exact proportions vary with light and model (note that, depending on other conditions, such as weather and light and if the subject is warm or cold, there might be a tad of purple and magenta color on the face of your model). With black & white, as we go on further, I will try to make the skin bright and smooth without having to blur it and make it look like plastic. I’ve had quite a bit of practice with this and know that, generally and depending on light, setting the White balance to around 6-7 thousand K degrees works best, so we will set it at 6600 K this time. You can play around with this, make it cooler or warmer and see what you like the most. Remember – it’s all based on choice and taste, and Lightroom has no limit on how many presets you have, so don’t hold off your experiments. While working further on you should sometimes go back to this setting and see if it needs readjusting.

You may find that the image already looks different, but we’re not stopping yet. Lets move on further down – I prefer to leave the Contrast, Black-White and Shadow-Highlight adjustment for much later as I like to alter certain color rather than just the tone at first. We can take a short stop at the Presence section of the Basic Panel and set Clarity to “-10″ – it’s smooth skin we’re after, and so we can be sure we don’t need this setting high.

2.2) Hue/Saturation/Luminance Panel Adjustment

Adjusting the Luminance of particular color ranges: If you chose to desaturate the image by sliding the Saturation slider left in the Basic Panel or desaturating separate colors in the HSL Saturation Panel, you will need to adjust the sliders in the HSL Luminance section. As I mentioned before, skin contains orange, redand some yellow, depending on light and subject. And we want skin light and smooth, which means we now have to move those sliders slightly to the right. As you start to move them you will see the image change right away – skin will get much lighter, yet the rest of the image won’t change that much (it will a bit due to warm white balance as it makes the colors a little more orange in the image, depending on the setting you chose). You may find that it’s, at first, rather hard to find the right balance between the two main colors – orange and red. Yellow is more forgiving and sometimes bears almost no visible effect on the lightness of the skin tone. I found that a slight “S” curve works nicely in a number of situations, and so it’s what I did now. In this particular case we want to make the skin tones lighter and then darken the rest slightly to create separation.

If you chose to desaturate your image by changing Treatment to “Black & White” in the Basic Panel or highlighting “B&W” in the HSL panel, you will be faced with that panel rather than Luminance adjustment, which you don’t need to touch or you will go back to color image. In the end they do the same alterations. In our case, I set the values just as I set them in the Luminance section of the HSL Panel.

A side note – if you ever find yourself not knowing which particular color combination to adjust to make your main subject darker or brighter, you can always use the automated Lightroom tool, which appears as a dot in the HSL Panels. All you have to do is click on it to turn the tool on and then click-and-drag on the particular color range or area of the image to adjust it’s Luminance, Saturation or Hue. As you drag you will see the color sliders relative to your subject move left or right changing the values. Very easy to use and gives great results.

Now, the photographs have again changed significantly. In some cases they may even look over- or underexposed, but that’s not what matters – it’s how the tones look. Are they smooth? If you find the skin to be blotchy, you may want to readjust the Luminance settings or the White balance at the top of Basic Panel – both ways work, both lead to different results. Do you like the difference in the lightness of the tones when comparing them? In our case, the tones are quite nice in all three variants with the HSL Desaturated and B&W Treatment conversions looking best, if slightly overexposed and bright, but that we can fix by going back to the Basic Panel and adjusting the remaining settings. Before we do that, have a look at where we stand:

Look good, don’t they? The first example is a little too bright, but I like the tones overall, the skin is very smooth. I also like the subtle contrast. The second one is slightly less bright, but still smooth with a lower contrast, which also looks good, yet different. The third variant is the punchiest, but retains smooth skin tonality. The slightly higher contrast makes it look rather nice, too, and the overall choice, again, depends on taste. We are nearly done and in some cases, this, coupled with some Exposure adjustment, could be enough. I want to, however, work with the tones a little bit more and show you what else can be done. It’s a personal choice when to stop, but knowing how to continue if needed is important because it gives you more options depending on your needs. Shall we go back to the Basic Panel?

2.3) The Basic Panel Again

Previously, we left off with just the White balance and Clarity sliders moved. That hasn’t changed. Why I like Lightroom 4 most is because it has much improved black-white and shadow-highlight tone adjustment, and we are about to use this feature. Up until now everything also applied to Lightroom 3 users. Starting now, Lightroom 3 users will need to adjust accordingly with their Contrast, Fill-light, Blacks and Restore sliders instead of the ones I mention further on.

Adjusting the whites, highlights, blacks and shadows: The extent of these adjustments will vary greatly depending on your photograph and what you want to do with it. We want to improve the tonal transition of light parts of the image to the dark parts of the image. They also look a little flat, and will look even more flat once we’re done with the following changes, but not to worry, we will fix that in the next step.

I’ve set the Highlights slider to -35 to bring back some of the details in parts of the image that may be too bright, so this saves me from having the brightest parts of the image being blown-out to a complete white. The skin is most important here. The change can be very subtle, but subtle and smooth is what we want. Moving on.

I’ve then set the Shadows slider to +54, which lightened the shadow parts of the image, the darker ones more so than the lighter ones. It gave the image even lower contrast, but what I want now is the quality of tones. I can tune them down later.

I’ve then set the Whites slider to +20 and the Blacks slider to +49.

What the screenshot doesn’t show is how I then altered the Exposure. Each conversion variant needed different adjustment in Exposure compensation, and so I set the HSL Desaturated image to -0.6, the Basic Panel Desaturated image to -0.3 and set the “Black & White” Treatment image to -0.8. You might be coming back to this adjustment depending on the photograph, but in our case it looks about right.

While all these steps may have looked like going back and forth between what we’ve already done, they actually allowed us to set the tonality of the image very precisely. I chose to lighten the image with the Shadow-Highlight, Black-White controls, but then tuned the image back down with Exposure compensation. Why did I do that? Why couldn’t have I just used the Exposure in the first place? Well, even though I brought the image back to the overall lightness I wanted (with future Tone Curve adjustments in mind), the Shadow-Highlight and Black-White adjustments still do their job of filling in the dark portions of the image and preserving those tones. Now we have plenty of detail in the shadows and the bright parts of the image, while being bright, are not blown-out, especially the skin tones, which are smooth and light. That is what we wanted in the first place, right? Having space to work with the Tone Curve later on was my intention here, and we now have that space. To give the images just the slightest initial punch, I set the Contrast slider to +5. I rarely use this slider as I prefer the greater control Tone Curve tool gives me, but your approach may vary – in some situations one doesn’t need greater control. So, lets move on to the last important adjustment.

2.4) The Magic of the Tone Curve Panel

Modifying the Tone Curve: I added a very gentle “S” curve in the Tone Curve Panel (Lights +28, Darks -33), and that was enough to do the magic. Suddenly, the image is not flat anymore, but has a very nice shadow-highlight transition to it. While there are brighter portions of the image and darker ones, and the overall contrast is about medium, we still have details where we need them. The hair looks great, with smooth gradation of light-to-dark tones. Exactly what we wanted. Also, look at the skin tone – it’s very smooth, yet has both gentle shadows and highlights to it, it’s bright and very complimenting to our gorgeous model. With that, it also has detail to it, her face isn’t a plastic mask.

3) Finishing Touches

Detail Panel: I set the Sharpening setting to 70 and the radius to 1.8. Setting the radius to a higher value would increase micro-contrast, which in this case I don’t really need – I want the eyelashes and eyes a little sharper, that’s all. For this reason I also set Masking to 70 and left Detail at it’s default setting of 25.

Effects Panel: A little bit of subtle vignetting might suit this photograph. I set the Style to Highlight Priority, changed the Amount to a value of 20 and then, to make it more similar to the natural vignetting produced by the lens, I set the Midpoint to 9 and both Feather and Roudness sliders to +/100. Not wanting to make the vignetting too apparent, I usually try to make it look very mild to subtly aid the viewers eye towards my subject and away from the border of the image.

Last but not least – save the preset!

4) The Result

That’s it! Have a look at the results:

Contrary to how I felt about this conversion at the beginning, I like it the most. Contrast is low-ish, but there’s plenty of tonal range – we have both shadows and highlights. The skin looks the smoothest of the bunch, the image is very light and compliments our model well. For me, this image resembles what I wanted to achieve in the first place the most. Still, it’s a close call and may vary depending on taste – it’s my personal choice at this time.

This one looks nice, as well. It’s even less contrasty, the skin is a little darker and less smooth overall. Even with that I like the dreaminess of the picture. It’s close to how I wanted it, too, and I might choose this another day, depending on my mood.

This one, just as I knew it would when I started the conversion, is the punchiest of the lot, and I’m sure plenty of people will prefer this look to the above two. Even though it has more contrast to it, the skin still has a very nice transition from dark to light, it’s very seamless and smooth, which looks nice. Really, whatever differences these images carry, it’s all about the taste and mood of the person choosing. I like them all.

5) Was It Worth the Effort?

While in some cases working with Tone Curve or Contrast slider might be enough, it often doesn’t look nearly as good. Good, but not as much. Also, having the B&W preset with more settings makes it much more flexible in terms of light. Look at it this way – you have a modular camera system and a point-and-shoot. The modular camera takes more time to set up and is not as easy to use, but if something brakes, you only need to replace that part. The point-and-shoot is very easy to use and simple, it also can give great results. But if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. Flexible and easy to adjust is the key here, and once you’ve saved yourself that preset, it also makes things just as quick.

But that’s theory. Lets see if it really makes any difference. Below I have two images compared. The one on the left side (“before”) is one of the results I showed you a little earlier, and it involves the above-mentioned color and Shadow-Highlight, Dark-White adjustments. The one on the right was done by simply tweaking the Tone Curve (which now looks much more complicated, too: Highlights 0, Lights +31, Darks +63, Shadows -27). Both were converted to basic B&W by changing the Treatment at the top of the Basic Panel to “Black & White”. I tried to make the second sample as similar to the first one as I could without using any advanced techniques. Which one has the better skin look? While it also depends on taste, I would say the left sample looks much better and smoother. I didn’t use the Contrast slider for the second sample as it made matters worse. The Detail settings are identical. Take a look:

In my opinion, it’s worth the time spent on learning and making the needed adjustments to achieve the best look possible for that B&W image. I hope this tutorial gave you a better understanding of how to control each step of the conversion. Try to experiment – you may find some very interesting looks to choose from for your portraits.

There are many other avenues for selling your equipment, but I happen to believe that eBay is one of the best structured market places to conduct business, offers quite a bit of protection to both buyers and sellers, and exposes you to an extremely broad market. This article will cover the selling side of eBay, while the next will focus on the buying process.

1) Focus On Legitimacy

Legitimacy is a simple concept – it is not only appearing, but actually “being” what you represent yourself to be. Keeping this simple, but powerful, concept in mind as you navigate through the auction process will help set you apart from other eBay sellers, ensure that you get a good price for your gear, and enable you to earn solid eBay feedback scores. Why do I emphasis legitimacy? Because in a world of slick advertising, fine print, numerous drug side effects that sound far worse than the illnesses they purport to treat, and occasional con artists, people are genuinely concerned about doing business with trustworthy people, feeling confident that they get exactly what they bargained for, and being treated fairly. On eBay, as in many other areas of life, “a little Golden Rule goes a long way.”

Your primary objective is to ensure that, throughout the sales cycle, every aspect of your communication and dealings with others projects and reinforces the notion that you are a credible person to buy from. People are always concerned when spending their money, particularly when the transaction is associated with equipment they cannot hold in their hands until after they have paid for it, from someone that they will likely never meet. As such, potential buyers have a significant number of concerns at the outset of an auction. You need to understand and reassure them at every step of the way.

Bear in mind, unless you have a very unique item such as some exotic Nikon fisheye lens no longer made, you will be competing with others selling their 50mm 1.8Ds or other gear. Your job is to make your item stand out, provide potential buyers with information that will help them make a decision, and set yourself apart by how you professionally handle the communications process and business transaction. And it is pretty easy to do if you follow a few simple guidelines.

2) Know Your Gear And Its Value

You should start out with realistic expectations for your equipment given its age, condition, and the cost of similar items. The first task is to thoroughly inspect your gear, make note of any particular conditions that should be communicated to potential buyers, and accurately classify the condition of your equipment according to the descriptions eBay provides. Never, ever let a buyer be the one to inform you that you failed to mention some aspect of your equipment’s condition, or that your notion of “like new” was more akin to “should have been donated to Goodwill!” Such situations can only end badly.

3) Take Great Pictures Of Your Gear!

One would think that this goes without saying, but a quick perusal of some of eBay’s higher end lenses and cameras will quickly prove how little thought some give to their gear’s photos. Photographers, of all people, should be able to take quality pictures of their gear, right? Too often, this turns out not to be the case. It is not unusual to see cameras or lenses selling for $800-$2,000 with photos that seriously detract from their stated value. I can understand seeing so-so photos from a mom or dad selling little Johnny’s aluminum baseball bat, but when someone is selling a Nikon D3, and its photos look like Polaroid snapshots from the 1970s, a red flag goes up in the minds of potential buyers.

What’s the big deal with taking poor quality photos of photo equipment? First, it shows a lack of consideration toward the buyer. Second, it conveys a bit of sloppiness on the part of the seller. Third, it introduces doubt in the minds of potential buyers. Fourth, there is simply no excuse for it. As a photographer, you should know and be capable of something better than others on eBay that don’t have your equipment or know-how.

Bad photos aren’t a great start to a transaction that may culminate in the exchange of hundreds of dollars (in some cases, thousands). Buyers want to know exactly what they are getting. And a few blurry, poorly lit photos of your Nikon D700 aren’t going to do much to inspire confidence in the buyer’s mind. I always bypass poorly photographed camera gear. If someone doesn’t understand the importance of displaying their equipment in its best possible light, I am always suspect regarding how honest they are and how well they will execute during the rest of the auction process. The only exception I make is when the equipment is part of an estate sale, or other situation where a non-photographer has inherited a myriad of photography gear.

It is pretty easy to take high quality photos of your gear. A nice white cardstock background, a bit of dusting with a lint-free cloth, a fine brush, and an air blower, some diffused flash, and a bit of very basic processing in Photoshop, and you can have photos worthy of a Nikon advertising brochure. There are probably hundreds of tutorials on the net for how to take high quality photos of your gear. Find one or two, master the associated techniques, and never put a poorly photographed item on eBay again!

Take photos from a variety of angles and ensure that any notable marks, dings, scratches, etc., are highlighted so people can clearly understand the extent of the issue. eBay charges for taking extra photos beyond the standard number. Pay the extra amount and provide others with the opportunity to get a good look at your equipment. Any borders or image accents that help your gear stand out from the crowd? Pay for those as well, as the extra attention is well worth it.

Great pictures may not guarantee you a hefty premium on eBay, but mediocre or poor quality photos will likely cause people to think twice about bidding and/or cause them to question the value of your equipment. Bear in mind that unless you have some extremely unique item (highly unlikely), you are competing with a variety of other sellers. Treat the photography of your gear as you would any paid assignment or highly respected photo contest, and you will be off to a good start.

4) Tell A Story And Make A Connection

Everyone can see that you are selling your 50mm AIS lens, but why? People want to know the story behind any piece of gear, particularly for higher priced items. Your reasons for selling the equipment could be one of many: upgrading to new model, accumulated a number of lenses with overlapping ranges, discovered that you don’t shoot as much macro as you originally thought you might, need a faster lens for low light shooting, your photography interests changed and the lens rarely comes out of the bag, you recently purchased a 500mm 2.8 lens that requires a heavy duty tripod/ball head combination, etc.

Whatever the reason, share it with potential buyers. It doesn’t have to be a narrative, but a paragraph or two can make a big difference with respect to helping people understand the story behind the equipment. If you are selling a lens, camera, tripod, or flash, share some of your best pictures taken with it via links to your website(s), such as flickr, smugmug, zenfolio, 500px, etc. People love to see what you have done with a given piece of gear, even if they could likely find many other photos taken with similar equipment. Showcasing your photos, your experiences using the equipment, and how it helped you in your photography journey makes both you and the item much more personal to potential buyers. It also earns you some instant credibility as someone that knows what they are doing, has some talent, and is likely someone they can trust. Again, you need to give people reasons to do business with you. Both a brief story regarding the equipment and the photos taken with it, assures potential buyers that they are getting a great piece of gear from a credible source that will enable them to take great photos as well.

5) Anticipate Questions And Be Upfront

Don’t wait for obvious questions to be asked. Anticipate and answer them in your description of the item. When did you purchase the item? Did you buy it new or used? Is it still under warranty? Has it had any repairs or maintenance? What is included with the gear? Do you have the original box and paperwork? Does the item show any obvious signs of wear? Does the lens have any fungus? Leave out no details. Provide a link to the product’s description on the vendor’s site. If someone is going to bid on your Nikon D300, they already know its flash sync speed, types of memory cards it takes, etc. Don’t waste space simply repeating what someone can easily read by navigating to the manufacturer’s site.

6) State Your Business Terms

If you will only wish to do business in certain countries, say so clearly. Whatever you do, don’t fail to leave out the fact that you won’t ship to Antarctica and then find out that “Penguin_Lover_22” has won the auction. State the number of days required for payment, before voiding the sale. Draw attention to any other rules for doing business, such as only accepting PayPal. Indicate that insurance costs extra. Know the size of the box and total weight, so that potential buyers can accurately estimate their shipping costs. List the maximum number of days someone has to pay you before you cancel the transaction and relist the item. Never take anything for granted, and remember how the common adage associated with the word, “assume”… I always start my items out at $1. This concept makes some people cringe, but I have never sold something below what I believed was a fair price.

7) Provide Your Shutter Actuation Count

Some may have different opinions on this one. I believe that if you are selling a medium-to-high end camera, you should anticipate that anyone worth their salt will ask for the shutter actuation count. Obtain a copy of Opanda EXIF viewing software (free), determine your camera’s count after taking a picture in JPEG format, and list the number of shutter actuations in the item’s description. This is not simply considerate, but it spares both you and potential buyers quite a bit of time by avoiding extensive emails regarding the issue.

8) Be Extremely Responsive

Once you have listed your item on eBay, count on checking your email a few times a day. Promptly responding to people demonstrates that you are considerate of others’ concerns and time. Under no circumstances should you take more than one day to get back to potential buyers, particularly when it is the final day of the sale. It helps if you put your item up for sale at a time when you are available and can respond in a timely manner the last day of the auction. This might mean posting your eBay item at 10:30 PM so that during the final hours, you can be at your computer to answer any last minute questions. And it is never wise to post your items on eBay the day or two before you go on a vacation to a remote Caribbean island with spotty internet connectivity.

Always be considerate in your response, even when the potential buyer asks questions that they should have known by reading your posting. It is simply a price of doing business. Post the questions and answers for others to view. This will save you some time since others will likely have some of the same concerns. Wish them well with the auction, and urge them to ask any other questions they may have.

9) Be Prepared To Ship Promptly

Don’t wait until someone buys your gear to find out that you don’t have a suitable box, sufficient bubble wrap, packing tape, etc. Get these supplies before the last day and make sure your gear will fit in the box with enough protection. As soon as you receive payment, ship your item the next day. If you cannot ship the item immediately, make sure you give the buyer a specific ship date. Send the FedEx or UPS tracking number to the buyers as soon as you can so they can keep tabs on the shipping process.

10) Be Appreciative And Show It

Take the time to write a thank you note. The buyer most likely had other opportunities to bid on items similar to yours. Appreciate the fact that he/she purchased your item and chose to do business with you. Let them know that you would like to see photos taken with your gear, in the case of cameras or lenses.

As photographers, we have a tendency to get attached to our gear (even if we turn it over on occasion!). There is something satisfying in finding that your gear has found a new home and is being well-taken care of. I have felt an odd sense of pride when people send me links to beautiful photos taken with cameras or lenses that I previously owned. Remind the person that you welcome their posting positive feedback regarding this transaction and that you will provide the same.

11) Feedback Is Everything

Accurate and timely feedback is the grease that keeps the eBay machinery working for all of us. Treasure positive feedback and do all you can throughout the auction process to earn it. Provide it liberally to others who treat you equally well and prove to be good buying partners. If someone forgets to provide feedback regarding the sale, send a gentle email reminder and ask how they are enjoying their new gear. Life happens, and sometimes people forget. Nearly everyone will quickly respond once they realize that they let it slip.

12) When Thing Go Astray

One of the best means to avoid issues is to follow the guidelines above. Of course, issues may still arise. Always attempt to be reasonable and resolve issues amicably. Over the last five years, I have sold a considerable number of lenses, cameras, flash units, and other gear. During one stretch, I sold off my entire Pentax kit, which was pretty extensive. I only ran into two issues during my years of selling gear on eBay.

The first involved dealing with a young man that wanted to link his payment for the lens to his cousin’s brother’s father-in-law sending him part of a rebate check…or something like that. In this case, I had to let him know politely, but firmly, that it was not acceptable for him to subordinate our transaction for the lens to any other transaction. I gave him a time and date by which, if I did not receive payment, I would notify eBay that the sale was cancelled due to lack of payment, and that this would not reflect well on him. By some stroke of luck, he was able to make the payment by the deadline and I shipped the lens.

The other issue involved someone that wanted to return an older 50mm lens he had purchased from me. He indicated that there was some dust in the lens. Considering that this lens was made in the early-to-mid 70s, I found it hard to believe someone might have thought that it did not have at least a few specs of dust in it. I interpreted this as the person in question simply changing his mind regarding the purchase. I allowed him to return it. I looked at it along with some of my newer lenses, and found that it had no more or less dust than the others. I could have made an issue of it with eBay considering that my description accurately indicated that given the age and condition of the lens, and that it had some normal wear and tear. As such, a few specs of dust inside the lens were pretty reasonable to expect. In this case however, I decided it simply wasn’t worth my time to argue about it.

13) Summary

eBay provides you with a tremendous opportunity to expose your used photography equipment to a huge potential market of buyers. The auction concept can work in your favor, as many get engrossed in the “bidding wars”, and in the process, provide you with the maximum value for your equipment. If you invest a bit of time and energy to present your equipment and yourself in a professional manner, are specific regarding your business terms, and treat people as you would want to be treated, you can quickly get the attention of buyers and stand out from the crowd. Soliciting and accumulating stellar eBay ratings can also provide buyers with the confidence that you are a solid business partner and that they are justified in trusting you with their hard-earned money.

Do you have some experiences regarding eBay that you want to share? People always appreciate the opportunity to learn from others. Let us know what you think below.

I use a Nikon 300mm f/4 paired with a Nikon D200 for my bird photography. While shooting, I notice that I do not get a clean background, which I would expect from a prime lens. I have got such a background in one image of mine, however, the subject is a little too soft for my liking (the picture is attached). Is there any way to get a clean background so as to help the viewers’ focus remain on the subject (the bird in this case)? Could you share a tutorial with us? I’m attaching sample images for this case study in JPEG format with full EXIF info.

And here are the two images Gaurav attached:

The first image above is cropped, showing a pleasant out of focus background (bokeh) with a slightly blurry bird.

The bird on the second image is sharp, but the background is busy.

So Gaurav’s question is why does the first image have a nice-looking background, but a blurry bird, while the second image has a sharp bird, but busy background?

Before I talk about the background blur, let’s first see why the first image is sharp and the second is not. Looking at the first image, the exposure is 1/350, f/4, ISO 100, while the second image is shot at 1/250, f/4, ISO 200. Both are shot in Aperture Priority Mode using Spot Metering. I am assuming that Gaurav was using a tripod or a monopod to get the above shots, because the shutter speeds are a little low to be hand-held for this lens and camera combo. As I explain in my “how to photograph birds” article, if you want to get sharp photographs when shooting hand-held, your shutter speed should be at least the total focal length of your lens multiplied by the sensor crop factor. So in this case, Gaurav would approximately need a shutter speed of 1/450 and above to get good results if he hand-held the camera + lens. But this is an approximate “suggested” value – with a good hand-holding technique, one could certainly get sharp results even at lower shutter speeds.

Why did I think that Gaurav used a monopod or a tripod to take the above images? Because the bird on the second photo, as well as the branches on the first photo appear sharp. The source of the problem on the first photo is focus – it is not on the bird, but a couple of inches off on the branch. Therefore, the only thing Gaurav could have done better, is reacquire focus and try taking another picture. If the lens he was shooting with has no front/back focus issues, he could have gotten good focus on the bird after several tries.

Let’s now talk about the background blur – the bokeh on both photographs. Why does the first image have a nice, clean bokeh, while the second photo has a busy bokeh? The explanation here is very simple – there was nothing close behind the bird on the first photo, while you can see leaves and branches of a tree behind the second bird. So the problem here is proximity of objects behind the birds. If you want to have a beautiful, creamy bokeh, you should pay attention to four things: focal length of the lens, aperture/depth of field, camera to subject distance and subject to background object distance. The longer the focal length of your lens, the larger the aperture, the closer you are to your subject and the further away your subject is from the background objects, the creamier your bokeh will be. Phew…that sounds too darn complex and too long! Basically, try to stay close to your subjects and move them away from the busy background. How could Gaurav have accomplished this on the second photograph? Aside from moving closer towards the bird and filling the frame (which would have probably spooked it), he could have changed the angle. If I see a busy background behind birds, I will move around the bird and try to find a spot that will have the least busy background. It is obviously not always practical, since the bird might not tolerate you walking around it, plus the environment you are in might not be suitable for circling like that. But you hopefully get the point.

The only other thing you can do, is try to fix the image in post-processing. Now this would require some advanced Photoshop skills, but if you have the time and patience in your hands, you can do it with pretty good results.

Here is my quick attempt to clear up the background on the second photo (took me 5 minutes):

And here is what I did in Photoshop:

1. Create a duplicate layer
2. Select the second duplicated layer
3. Select Filter->Blur->Gaussian Blur
4. Radius: 125 pixels, Click OK
5. Select the second layer and set it to “Overlay” in the Layers panel
6. Pick the eraser and start erasing the bird
7. Work on the edges with the eraser tool and get rid of extra branches
8. Set the second layer back to “Normal”
9. Merge both layers
10. Sharpen the image
11. Crop the image
12. Resize the image
13. Save for Web

I did it very quickly and obviously did not do a good job with feathers, but I hope this shows what you can do with the background in situations like this.

Hope this helps. Please let me know if you have any questions!

1) Why Watermark Your Images?

The first question you might ask yourself is – should you or should you not watermark your images? There are many opinions on this matter. Some photographers argue that watermarks prevent theft (which I and many others disagree with), allow self-promotion and help build brand recognition, while others argue that adding watermarks spoils the viewing experience and does more harm than good. Let me quickly point out what I think about watermarks and when they should and should not be used.

1. Unless your watermark visibly takes up the entire photo like in the image below, it can often be easily removed in Photoshop using standard tools. So if you are worried about theft and copyright infringement too much, either do not post your images online or post them in a small size with a gigantic watermark all over it. You will fend off all potential thieves for sure. I immediately close sites that show icon-sized images with huge watermarks. And I know that I am not the only one out there…
   
2. On a more serious note, if your objective is self-promotion and building brand recognition (which should be your primary goal when adding your watermarks), then come up with a good strategy to add watermarks without spoiling the viewing experience (see tips below). This means making your watermarks small, but recognizable and placing them in a good, open corner spot in photographs close to image borders.
3. Well-known photographers rarely put copyright information on their photographs, because they want to deliver the best (and unobtrusive) viewing experience. They also often post large images that occupy the whole screen. Why aren’t they worried about copyright? Because they are known and their images are recognized. If such photographs or “works of art” are stolen or reproduced elsewhere, the offenders would most likely be reported and caught quickly. Am I saying that unless you are a well-known photographer you should be adding watermarks to your photos? Of course not. I believe you should stop worrying about theft and focus more on creating better photographs.
4. If watermarks are used properly, they can help promote your work instead of doing harm. You are not a stock photo agency, so stay away from large watermarks that span across your photos.
5. And for all those right-click disabling folks out there – you are only spoiling the browsing experience of your visitors. I hate not being able to right-click and open links/images in new pages on websites and blogs. It is about time for you to understand, that if someone really needs to steal your image, they can just press the “Print Screen” button on their keyboards, then paste the screenshot in Photoshop and crop it to their liking. The same goes to all photographers that waste their quality time converting their JPEG images to Adobe Flash, just because they foolishly think their photographs will stay safer that way. Oh and what are you going to do with them iPhone/iPad users that can’t see your work?

Before I move on to specific instructions, I would like to provide some watermarking tips and best practices:

1. Try to use a graphic logo instead of plain text for watermarks. If you do not have a logo yet, use short text with your name and Copyright © symbol.
2. When using text watermarks, try not to add the word “photography” at the end of your name. If your name is not unique (just search Google), then either come up with a nickname or use your URL (below).
3. If you have a short URL, you can post your website address instead of your name.
4. When using text watermarks, use a standard and recognizable font rather than some gothic/italic/handwriting font that is hard to read.
5. Do not use multiple lines of text for watermarks.
6. Semi-transparent watermarks always look better and more professional than bold copyright imprints. If you decide to use a watermark, make it 50% or less transparent.
7. Another good watermarking method is to add some space underneath each photo and then put your copyright information there. But you would have to use Photoshop and record actions in order to do that.
8. Put your logo/text watermark in the corners of your photos. Top-left, top-right, bottom-left and bottom-right locations typically work the best.
9. If you do not feel like sharing your camera settings, remove your EXIF data from images, but only keep your copyright and contact information. This would just be additional copyright protection for you in case your image is posted elsewhere.

2) The Watermark Position Dilemma

Because of the nature of photographs and their colors and patterns, finding a good placement for your watermark can be a problem. Where should it be placed and how? As I have pointed out above, the best locations for standard watermarks are near the top and bottom corners of your photos (unless you chose to add extra space to the bottom or the side of your photographs in Photoshop or other third party software). So which corner should you use for watermarks? I would say all of them! Why? Because every photo will be different and while one corner might work for one photo, that same corner might not for another. A gray watermark will not be visible on a photo with a grey corner where the watermark is placed. So you have two options – either to use a different shade of color that is visible in the same corner, or move the watermark to a different location. I prefer the latter for consistency, but it is totally your choice.

Now moving your watermark in photos would be extremely inefficient if you had to change your watermark every time you need to move it. That’s why the best method is to create multiple watermarks in Lightroom 3 and put them in multiple locations. For example, I have 4 different Lightroom watermarks that I called “Top-Left Mansurovs Logo”, “Top-Right Mansurovs Logo”, “Bottom-Left Mansurovs Logo” and “Bottom-Right Mansurovs Logo”. All watermarks are the same (our graphic logo) – they are just positioned differently.

3) Creating a text watermark in Lightroom 3

Let’s go through the process of creating a text watermark in Lightroom 3. To access the watermark function in Lightroom, you can go to “Edit->Edit Watermarks…” (Lightroom->Edit Watermarks on Macs) or you can also access it from Lightroom’s Export window. I normally access it via the export window, which can be found in File->Export or pressing CTRL+SHIFT+E:

Once it comes up, scroll down and find “Watermarking”. Next, check the box in front of “Watermark:” and then select “Edit Watermarks…” from the drop-down menu. The “Watermark Editor” will come up that looks like this:

The watermark editor is very easy and intuitive to use. The left bottom section is where you type the text and you can change the layout on the right side of the window. Let’s get started with typing the text. Put the copyright symbol (copy-paste it from here – © or press ALT + 0169 on PC / OPT + G on Mac) first, then put your name afterwards. On the right side of the screen, choose your desired font under “Text Options”. I personally like the “Myriad Web Pro” font, but you can use whichever font you want, as long as it is legible. Choose the style and alignment, then pick the color of the text. I would recommend to keep the color white, since colors rarely look good in text watermarks. The default Shadow settings should work fine, so skip over that. Now scroll down till you see “Watermark Effects”:

As I have pointed out before, you do not want the copyright watermark to be 100% visible, so it is best to make it semi-transparent. I typically use 50% opacity, but you can play between 30-80% to see what works for you. Keep “Proportional” size instead of “Fit” or “Fill”, and 10% typically works great. If your copyright text looks too small, increase the value to a bigger number.

The next task is to pick an “Anchor” point, meaning where your copyright will be located. As I have pointed out above, it is best to keep it in the top left/right and bottom left/right corners. Start with the top-left corner. Remember, our objective is to create 4 watermarks with different locations. Next, click “Save” and the “New Preset” window will pop up:

Give it a meaningful name that will be make it easy to understand the location of the type of watermark. I called mine “Top-Left Nasim Mansurov”, as shown above. Click “Create” and you will be returned to the Export screen.

Now repeat the task three more times and create 3 other watermarks for “Top-Right”, “Bottom-Left” and “Bottom-Right”. At the end, your “Watermarking” drop-down should look something like this:

Now that you have the text watermarks created, how do you use them? Just select a bunch of photos in Lightroom, bring up the export window, then select one of the watermarks and click “Export”. That’s all!

Here is how I normally do it:

1. Select all photos to be extracted in Lightroom
2. Bring up the Lightroom Export window (CTRL+SHIFT+E)
3. Select the “Bottom-Right” watermark (works best for most images)
4. Click “Export”
5. Once images are extracted, go through each one and identify the ones where logo does not look good or is invisible
6. Select the images that need to have a different watermark placement, then bring up the export window once again and pick a watermark for a different location
7. Click “Export” again and then overwrite the existing photo

You might need to repeat the steps 5-7 multiple times until you get the watermarks placed well. That’s all there is to it. Now let’s talk about graphic watermarks with logos.

4) Creating a graphic/logo watermark in Lightroom 3

Now let’s move on to the cool stuff, which is adding a graphic watermark with your logo to your images in Lightroom. No matter how good you make the text watermark look, it will never match a good-looking graphic logo. But to accomplish this, you will need your company logo in a transparent format like PNG or GIF. Your logo cannot be in JPEG format, since JPEG has no support for transparency. If you had your logo developed professionally, you should have the original logo in vector/EPS format. You might also find a transparent PNG/GIF file in the same folder. If you cannot locate one, it is very easy to export your logo in a PNG format, as long as you have the source file. A transparent logo should look like this when opened in Photoshop:

Since we will be making your watermark semi-transparent, it is best to have the image in white rather than black. Actually, you can use black for images that might be very bright, but for now change it to be completely white, as shown in my example below:

Now export the image from Photoshop by going to “File->Save for Web & Devices” and then pick “PNG-8″ on the top drop-down. Make sure that “Transparency” is checked, as seen below:

Once you have the file ready, you are now ready to use it in Lightroom. Oh and by the way, make sure that you are using a large version of your logo (at least 250 pixels wide). If you make it too small, your watermark will not look good when exported out of Lightroom, since Lightroom will have to up-size it for large photographs.

Let’s now pick some photos and bring up the Export dialog box in Lightroom by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+E:

Make sure to check the box in front of “Watermark:” under “Watermarking”, then select “Edit Watermarks…” in the drop-down menu. A new window called “Watermark Editor” will come up:

Now select “Graphic” on the top right corner of the window. Under “Image Options”, click “Choose” and find the logo you exported earlier. Once the file is chosen, you will see the logo show up right away on your photo preview on the left. You will also notice that the “Text Options” are now grayed out. Scroll down till you get to “Watermark Effects”:

Just like with the text watermark, you have to pick the right opacity – I normally leave mine at 50%. The size should stay “Proportional” and 10-15% size works great for most situations. If your logo is too close to the border, you can move it up/down and left/right by changing the “Inset” values in “Horizontal” and “Vertical”. Pick one of the Anchor points again (start with Bottom-Right) and then save the Preset with a new name. I called mine “Bottom-Right Mansurovs Logo”.

Now open up the Watermark Editor again, change the Anchor to bottom-left, click Save again and give it a name like “Bottom-Left Mansurovs Logo”. Do the same for top-left and top-right. Once you are done, you should have four watermarks for different watermark locations.

Now try to export a couple of photos and see how you like the result. If any watermark is not visible, follow my steps shown above:

1. Select all photos to be extracted in Lightroom
2. Bring up the Lightroom Export window (CTRL+SHIFT+E)
3. Select the “Bottom-Right” graph watermark (works best for most images)
4. Click “Export”
5. Once images are extracted, go through each one and identify the ones where logo does not look good or is invisible
6. Select the images that need to have a different watermark placement, then bring up the export window once again and pick a watermark for a different location
7. Click “Export” again and then overwrite the existing photo

Here is how my image looks like with our “Mansurovs” logo watermark:

The good news, is that you can use the above method for both vertical and horizontal images, so you do not have to extract your verticals separately. If all four corners are very bright and the white logo does not work, make another transparent logo in black and create additional watermarks. When watermarking very bright photos, use the black logo with 50% transparency and it will work great.

That’s it! Let me know if you have any questions and I would love to see how your logo comes out!

Losing images from a long-planned and expensive trip can be very painful. After it happens, you realize that it is not the financial aspect of it, but the effort you put into creating those images instead that hurts the most. We as photographers have to work with the best light during the day, which happens at sunrise and sunset times, no matter where you are located. In Glacier National Park, the sunset times in summer can be as late as 10 PM and as early as 5 AM in the morning. Northern Canada and Alaska are even worse, with sunset times close to midnight in July and sunrise in less than 5 hours. Add +1 hour after sunset and -1 hour for sunrise to get back and to the location, and we are talking about less than 3 hours of sleep at night. In addition, those late hours are also the peak and active time for wildlife, making it dangerous to hike to get to a good spot. And I am not even talking about the weather, which can go against you in those twilight hours. In addition, you carry the heavy weight with you and spent a lot of time tweaking your equipment and composing your shots using different spots and angles. So with so much effort put into making those images, the last thing you want is to lose them. What’s worse is, if you have been shooting for a while, you know if you got a great photo right at the time you take it. You take a look at the camera LCD and you know it is a keeper, a potential for your showcase portfolio. Once you lose photographs, you start to remember those keepers and deep regret hurts even more. So, why even take the chance? Take all the steps you can to protect your photographs when traveling and working on the field.

1) Back Up Your Data

Whether you are a professional photographer or a photo enthusiast, it is critical to not only back up your existing data, but also the new data that has not hit your permanent storage yet. I always take my laptop with me and back up photos from memory cards on a daily basis. I did not take my laptop with me just once when space and weight were an issue, and of course, it was the time when I lost many “keepers” on a 16 GB compact flash card. It was painful to lose so many great images, but maybe it happened for the better – going forward, I will remember to always take a backup device with me. Now when I say “back up”, I do not mean back up photos and then delete them from memory cards. You should never keep data in a single location, because any data medium can fail. With hard drives, it is just a matter of time. So when I back up my photos, I keep the originals on memory cards, until I safely get back home. Only after copying all images to my home storage and backing them up, I then format the memory cards for my next assignments.

Backing up your data on the field can be done in several different ways. If your camera is equipped with dual memory card slots (like Nikon D7000, D300s, D3, D3S, D3X), you can configure your DLSR to write to both cards simultaneously. While this means wasting one card, it is a good idea, because two cards will contain the same images. If data is corrupted on one card or one of the cards is lost, you still have a backup on the second one. Memory cards are cheap, so if you do not need the speed for video or fast action photography, get multiple slower cards that you can use in parallel.

If your camera is not equipped with a dual memory card slot or if you want to still back up your data to a different location, another option is to use an external memory card reader with a hard drive. There are many different options available on the market with devices of different hard drives sizes and obviously the price also varies depending on size and features. Something like Sanho Hyperdrive, although expensive, would work great for this purpose. Backing up your photos to an external storage device is a good idea – what if you were to lose your camera, or if you dropped it somewhere you cannot recover from? And lastly, if you travel with a laptop, just backup your photos to your laptop’s hard drive. That way you do not need to worry about getting an external storage device.

2) Label Your Memory Cards

I typically label my memory cards and provide my contact information on the back of them. If your memory card does not have space to write on, just put some white tape on it (make sure to use thin tape and do not tape over contacts) and provide at least your phone number. If anybody finds your memory card, they will at least have your contact information to contact you.

3) Properly Store Your Memory Cards

Keep your memory cards organized and store them properly in your camera bag. There are many different memory card holders out there, but the one I personally like and use is the Pelican 0940 CF Memory Card Case that securely holds 4 Compact Flash Cards. If you shoot with SD cards, you will want the Pelican 0910 SD Memory Card Case that can hold up to 8 SD and 16 Mini SD memory cards. Both card cases are water-resistant and well-protected against occasional abuse. If you have been storing your memory cards in camera bag pockets, I highly recommend getting one of these. I have four 16 GB SanDisk Extreme Pro cards stored in the 0940 Pelican. When I lost one of my memory cards, it was because I temporarily put it into my pocket in rush. Storing memory cards in pockets or in camera bag pockets is not a good idea, since dirt, moisture and other factors could damage them. Dust can get into the holes in CF cards.

If you only have one or two cards and do not want to purchase a card case, at least store the memory cards in plastic cases that came with the cards. When you are home and you are done using the memory cards, store them in dry, cool space (room temperature).

4) Label Used Cards

I once formatted a used card with photos I needed, because I did not label it after it was used. While you can recover photos from formatted cards, if you happen to write anything over the formatted card, the images you had before will not be recoverable, especially if you fill up the card with new images. You can purchase small color labels from any local store (for example green labels for formatted and red labels for used cards) or you can just come up with a method to identify used cards. If you use a memory card case like above, you can come up with a storage method for formatted and used cards without having to use labels. For example, I always put the formatted cards that are ready to use with their front up, while used memory cards are stored with their backs up.

5) Format Cards on Your Camera

If you have a habit of moving your images from your memory cards and forgetting to format the cards afterwards, I highly recommend to stop doing that and get in the habit of formatting memory cards in your camera instead. I have seen people with corrupt images and all kinds of other problems, just because their memory cards were not formatted properly. Always remember to format memory cards in your camera and not in your PC. It takes several seconds to do it in camera and if you shoot Nikon, you do not even need to get into the camera menu to format memory cards – you can just push two buttons with red labels and hold them for two seconds and once you push them together again, the memory card will be formatted.

6) Don’t Delete Images From Your Camera

If you do not like an image, or if it comes out blurry, don’t rush and delete images from your camera. This is another mistake I made during my last trip – every night I deleted plenty of images from my first memory card when it got full and many images from my second week ended up in my first memory card instead of the second on my Nikon D3s. If I had not done that, I would not have lost so many good images and my images would have been sorted better. If you run out of storage periodically, just buy more memory cards – they are cheap.

The moment I found out about his purchasing fiasco (which was on a Friday, approximately after two weeks since he placed the order), I picked up the phone and started calling AjRichard. I wanted to cancel the order as soon as possible and hoped to be able to recover his money. It was around 4 PM Mountain Time, which was 6 PM Eastern Time – the phone rang and then an automated message said that the store was closed. Unfortunately, it was the Memorial day weekend, so the store was closed for an extended period of time. On Tuesday morning before calling AjRichard, we checked the order status and the item was marked as “shipped”. A tracking number from UPS was provided, which indicated arrival on the third of June, two weeks after the order was placed – and that’s with the item being “in stock” with a free three day shipping. I called AjRichard and asked if it was possible to cancel the order. I was told that cancelling the order was not possible since the item was already shipped. Bummer. Now we had to wait till the package arrived. Meanwhile, my friend called his credit card company only to get disappointing news, that he would have to resolve the dispute with the merchant first. The whole dispute process could take several months.

I then decided to give a call to AjRichard and explore the purchasing process myself to see what I would get sold on on a $2,500 5D Mark II (as it was listed as of that day on their website). Here is an audio of the last part of the conversation, after I gave a fake name, address, email and credit card info:

Recorded Conversation with Mark @ AjRichard – click to listen/download.

And the above audio in text:

Me: Is this a new camera?
Mark: Brand new, factory sealed. OK, sold you the camera, we’ll do the warranty, then what else do you need?
Me: That’s it.
Mark: And the battery, you want to get the battery as well?
Me: Uh, doesn’t it come with a battery?
Mark: It comes with one battery, which is only 35-40 minutes, so I would definitely recommend getting one of the extended life batteries.
Me: What do you mean by 30-40 minutes?
Mark: It is a short battery, it is not a long-life battery. You need to buy the extra one, the long one.
Me: So when you say 30-40 minutes, it is for taking pictures or video?
Mark: Both of them. When the screen is on or anything, it cuts down very short (yawns).
Me: Oh, so the one that comes with the camera only lasts for 30 minutes?
Mark: Yeah. Then you have the two hour which is $129 and a four hour which is $169.
Me: Wow, so if I take this camera and take pictures, it is only going to last for 4 hours?
Mark: If you do the bigger battery, yeah.
Me: Let’s go with a bigger battery then.
Mark: OK, I will put the charger as well.
Me: Wait, wait, what is a charger?
Mark: No, you get the charger as well I am saying.
Me: Oh, so the battery comes with a charger?
Mark: Correct.
Me: Doesn’t the camera come with a charger though?
Mark: That’s what I am saying, you get the charger with that! The camera comes already with a charger in the bag with the battery.
Me: OK, so the only thing I am buying then is the battery, no charger right?
Mark: Correct. If you want, there is a separate charger, which is faster, if you want the “rapid” charger. It charges the battery within an hour, instead of waiting for 8 hours, it charges your battery in an hour.
Me: Oh, well, I guess I travel a lot, so let’s add that too.
Mark: And do you want to get a memory card?
Me: No, I already have a compact flash memory card.
Mark: Now they have a special memory card if you are doing like video and stuff. They have a special card which is for high definition.
Me: Yeah, I just got the one from Best Buy the other day and they told me that it can record video.
Mark: I mean if you want, because we have the new ones which are “error free” and “ultra high speed”. They are the ones that when you take a picture you are not going to have a 3-5 second delay time, and they actually say on the packaging “1080p high definition video”.
Me: Uh…I think that’s what my packaging says – it says “for recording 1080p video”. It is the “Sandisk Ultra” or something like that.
Mark: Hmm yeah, those aren’t error free, but they’ll work, they’ll take pictures and stuff.
Me: So when you say “error free”, what does it mean?
Mark: Error free means you are not going to get any glitches if you do action shots and someone running, you are not going to get any blur in the picture or anything like that. And you are not going to lose any pictures.
Me: Ohh.
Mark: You know, I’ll do this deal for you. I have a kit you might be better off doing, like right now if you are doing the camera with the battery, charger and the warranty and your total price was $3149.88, I have a kit I could do for you. It is a little more like $3399 as a whole bundle, but you would actually first get instead of the 4 hour battery I would give you two of the 6 hour batteries, so you get two batteries and it would be the six hour ones. You get also the charger now, which is the the charger that charges your batteries within one hour and it works in the house and in the car, so it is both AC/DC and it charges your batteries within one hour. Also, if you ever travel overseas, it is going to work overseas as well. You’ll get the 5 year warranty and I will give you the “platinum” warranty, it is the warranty you could take to any local service center. It will cover the screen, cover everything on that full parts and labor and it also covers professional cleaning as well.
Me: And the warranty we are talking about is US warranty right?
Mark: Yes, this will give you 5 years that you could take local, so you don’t have to ship to them or anything. And also covers the screen and everything. You are going to get the 32GB memory card, the ultra high speed “error free”, which is the bigger card.
Me: What brand is it?
Mark: That’s “Digital Film”, that has the full 5 year warranty, it is made for high definition video 1080p and also when you take the stills you are not going to have the delay time or the errors or anything. It is ultra high speed and error free.
Me: What was the company name again? Digital Film?
Mark: Digital Film, uhum.
Me: I have never heard of them.
Mark: Oh they are very good. The make the special ones for video and stills as well. Also if you do that kit you will get the car reader, so you get the ultra high speed card reader and you get everything for $3,399, which is worth it, because it is like $200 more, but you are getting the memory card, which is usually like $300 by itself, you are getting an extra battery, and you are getting the 6 hour one, so you are getting 3 batteries total.
Me: Oh wow, that sounds like an overkill for me though.
Mark: Yeah, so I will do that for you.
Me: OK.
Mark: So everything together comes out to…let me give you the order number as well, do you have a pen and paper?
Me: Sure.
Mark: The order number will be 1152214 and the total with everything will be $3549.98. And that’s with shipping, insurance, everything in that.
Me: What kind of shipping do you guys have?
Mark: You will get that probably within 3 to 5 days.
Me: So on the website it says “free shipping”.
Mark: Yeah, that is free shipping I did for you. The insurance is extra, usually it is like 8 percent, I gave you a break on that as well, so this way it comes to you insured and everything.
Me: So insurance is 8 percent of the total dollar amount on top of that?
Mark: It usually is, but I gave you a break on that, I did not charge you the 8 percent.
Me: Got it, OK, sounds good. How much did you say it was for shipping?
Mark: Everything together was $3549, with insurance and everything.
Me: So that includes the shipping.
Mark: Yeah and everything. I put the express shipping and everything for you.
Me: When you said “express” shipping, is that like through Federal Express?
Mark: No, UPS. Instead of like 10 days, you will get it in like 5 days, so you will get it quicker.
Me: Oh, OK. Can I change that to 3 day shipping?
Mark: Yeah, you want to do that? I can do that for you.
Me: How much is that going to cost?
Mark: I will do it for the same price.
Me: So instead of 5 days I will get it in 3 business days then?
Mark: Yeah, you will get it by Friday.
Me: OK, that sounds good.
Mark: All right, so I will do that for you and I will process it right away.
Me: Sounds good, thank you very much. What was your name again?
Mark: My name is Mark, my extension here is 218.
Me: Thank you very much Mark.
Mark: Thank you Nick.
Me: Bye.

The camera that was $2,499 is now $3,549, thanks to Mark’s sales efforts. Wow. I can’t imagine what they are selling to other people that don’t know what they are doing. Everything was going so wrong, I don’t know how I did not just explode in laughter (which we did, as soon as I hung up). The best part is when he says “Error free means you are not going to get any glitches if you do action shots and someone running, you are not going to get any blur in the picture or anything like that”. A lesson for beginners – now you know where all that blur is coming from! Just buy the right card and your images will be sharp and you will catch all the action shots in the world. LOL. Did you notice how smooth he went from $3399 to $3549? And that was apparently for “insurance” that he gave me a break on. That’s $150 that I got screwed on for shipping on a $2,500 camera.

Wondering what happened to my friend’s order? He received an opened half-empty 5D Mark II + 24-120mm kit box with what looked like a new 5D Mark II, with no lens or warranty card. Everything else was in the box, including manuals and battery + charger. The second battery and charger he got were from some unknown brand. He also received a worthless $3 cleaning kit and some other junk he did not need. He called AjRichard and this time it was supposedly a different guy, but with the same voice as Mark. The sales person said that he shipped a brand new 5D Mark II and that the box was not open. When my friend told him that he wanted to return the order and get his money back, Mr. Mark said that he would have to charge a 15% restocking fee for the entire order. Plus, he would be responsible for shipping and insurance as well. My friend decided to keep the camera.

Lessons learned:

1. Never buy photography equipment from an unauthorized seller/dealer.
2. Never fully trust third party sites like Nextag.com for vendor ratings and trustworthiness.
3. Know that if anybody lists prices significantly lower than top sellers like B&H and Adorama, most likely they are scammers.
4. Do not assume that your credit card company will help you when you make stupid decisions.
5. Do not engage in phone conversations about your order with sales people, unless the company is calling to verify your payment/address information.
6. Do not believe in 8% insurance fees, there is no such thing.
7. Buy from reliable online and local sellers with a long history.
8. Always check your gear after buying it. Check for camera shutter actuations and check all lenses you receive.
9. Always be extra careful when buying from online merchants. Read seller reviews from multiple sources and Google for information on the seller.

These guys should be shut down for what they are doing. The good news is, they are probably not going to stay in business much longer. The bad news is, they will probably reopen another company under a different name and continue to rob people. If we as consumers do not learn how to differentiate good guys from bad guys, companies like AjRichard will thrive on new, often “not-so-knowledgeable” customers. Please spread this message to your friends and family and do not let it happen!

Let me know if you have experienced anything like this before – our community should know who to stay away from. I will soon create a list of sellers I fully trust in a separate post and provide some tips on purchasing camera gear.