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.

WARNING: Opening your lens will void your warranty if Nikon finds out you did it. This video is NOT for beginners. Do not attempt this if you have a couple of small dust specks in your lens. See my “what to do with dust inside lenses” article for more information.
DISCLAIMER: I take ZERO responsibility for any potential damage that you might cause as a result of opening the rear lens element. DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Now for the brave souls that decide to do this: the process is actually fairly simple. Start out in a clean, dust-free room. All you need to do is remove three screws from the rear wall of the lens mount, then gently lift the rear lens element and use a rocket blower to remove the dust from it. You can also remove the dust from the next lens element that sits inside the lens. Just zoom out to 24mm so that the element moves down towards the rear, then blow off the dust from it using the same rocket blower. Be very careful during the process and make sure not to touch any lens parts or lens elements from the inside. When using the blower, keep a safe distance, so that you do not accidentally hit anything. Do NOT try to blow off the dust with your breath or canned air – use Giotto’s Rocket Blower instead. When putting the screws back, don’t over-tighten them.

Here is the video with full details:

1) Why Clean Camera Lens?

Besides the obvious answer “because it is dirty”, keeping your lenses clean will ensure that you get the best and highest quality results from using your gear. During a Photo Walks that I led a couple of years ago, a novice approached me with a question about his camera. He told me that his images look cloudy and he had no idea why it was happening. I asked if I could take a look at his camera to see if I could find anything wrong with it. As soon as I opened the front lens cap, I knew exactly what the problem was. The front element of the lens was very dirty and had oily fingerprints and other stuff all over the place. I showed him the lens and asked if he knew about the problem. He told me that he had a toddler that likes his camera too much and apparently, that’s how the lens ended up getting all the stuff on it. He did not know how to clean the lens properly and after spending so much money on the camera gear, he was too scared to clean it himself. Gladly, I always carry my cleaning kit with me, so I took a picture before and then another after cleaning the lens. We compared the images and as expected, the first one indeed looked cloudy, while the second one was clear and sharp. This is one example of how dust, dirt and oil can affect your images.

Another important reason to clean your camera lens is keep your images free of particles that might show up in background highlights and other parts of the image. Take a look at my earlier post on “the effect of dust on lens bokeh” – you will see, that dust on the rear element of your lens will show up in your images, especially if you have large specks of dust there.

Dust is a normal part of a photographer’s life. While it is a good idea to prevent dust from landing on your gear, whether you like it or not, you will eventually end up in a dusty environment some day. So, it is not a matter of how, but when. If you see a beautiful sunset on a windy and dusty day, are you not going to take a picture? Some photographers say things like “do not get your gear dirty in first place”, which I consider to be a ridiculous statement. I would never want to miss an opportunity for a good picture, just because I wanted to keep my gear clean. Every time I go to places like Sand Dunes, I know beforehand that it is most likely going to be windy. Take a look at this shot:

I captured it on a very windy and cold day. The sand was all over the place and it ended up going into every hole in my camera and lens. It took me several hours to get everything cleaned and even after cleaning, the lens had some screeching noise when I moved the zoom and focus rings. If I worried too much about dust and sand, the above image would never have been captured.

2) Dangers of Improper Lens Cleaning

Most people end up with bad equipment because of their creative ways to clean it. Remember, camera lenses are very similar to glass lenses on eyeglasses, which means that they can be easily scratched. Lenses are generally made of tough optical glass, but if you attempt to clean it with cloth that might have sand particles on it, you will surely scratch the optical surface. That’s because sand is harder than glass. If you use a wrong type of chemical liquid on lenses, you might damage the lens coating. If you put too much of the liquid on the lens, some of it might get inside the lens and give you all kinds of trouble afterwards. The list goes on and on.

If you decide to clean your lenses yourself, it is very important that you choose the right tools for the job and use them properly.

3) Using Protective Filters

Every lens I own and use has a high quality protective filter in front of it. I also suggest protecting expensive lenses in my articles on purchasing camera gear and other gear-related articles I post on this blog. Why? Because filters make it easier not only to protect your lens, but also to clean it. Some lenses have threads or “steps” right by the front lens element (separate from filter threads), which attract dust and even cut off pieces from microfiber cloth. Overtime, it gets difficult to keep the front of the lens clean due to all the stuff that gets attached to those threads. A protective filter will go over those threads and you will spend much less time cleaning your lenses. If you are too worried about image quality, don’t be – take a look at my gallery and Lola’s weddings page. Every picture you see was taken with a lens that had a protective filter. Do you see any problems with image quality? Just use professional multi-coated filters from companies like B+W and Hoya. Those filters will have the least impact on image quality, because they are made of high quality glass. They are expensive, but definitely worth it. When you consider the amount of time you will be spending on cleaning your lenses and when you weigh in all potential problems such as scratching your lens, you will quickly realize the benefits of using filters. If you happen to scratch or break your filter, you just buy another one and your lens stays protected.

4) Tools to clean lenses

There are plenty of different tools available on the market today for taking care of your lenses. I have used many different solutions before and I found some products to be more effective than others. Here is the list of tools that I personally use and recommend for cleaning lenses:

1. Zeiss Liquid Lens Cleaner or Eclipse Optic Lens Cleaning Solution are the liquids I personally use and recommend for cleaning lenses
2. Visible Dust Magic Cleaner is a large piece of microfiber cloth for cleaning lenses. Grab a couple of these.
3. Tiffen Lens Cleaning Paper to clean the optical lens elements.
4. Giotto’s Rocket Blower to blow off the dust from lenses.
5. Giotto’s Hair Brush or any other soft & clean brush you can find for removing dust before cleaning lens elements.
6. A hard toothbrush or some other hard brush for cleaning the rubber focus/zoom rings.

There are many other types of liquids and tools you can find online or in a local camera shop that also work great. Giotto’s Lens Cleaning Kit is also great if you don’t want to spend much – just don’t buy the other kit that comes with a small blower, you will need the large one.

5) Lens Cleaning Process

My process of cleaning lenses is divided into three parts:

1. Cleaning the exterior of the lens, including the lens hood – I first start off by using wet microfiber cloth to remove any dust or dirt from lens exterior and lens hood. I apply the same optical formula that contains anti-static material on microfiber cloth or if the lens is too dirty, I start off by using regular water (distilled water would work best) and then finish off with using the solution. To clean the rubber zoom and focus rings, I use an ordinary toothbrush, which works great for removing particles in between the rubber lines.
2. Cleaning the lens mount – a very important part of the process that sometimes requires me to clean the mount several times due to oil and dirt. Apply the same lens cleaning solution on microfiber cloth and clean the mount thoroughly. Don’t forget to clean the round contacts on the lens as well.
3. Cleaning the rear and the front optical elements – I find microfiber cloth to be unsafe for cleaning optical lens elements, especially if you reuse the same microfiber cloth that you use to clean your lenses outside. Also, sometimes microfiber cloth will leave particles that are hard to remove with the rocket blower, so I rely on lens cleaning tissues instead. They clean glass very well and if they leave anything on the lens, it can be easily removed by the rocket blower.

The process is pretty straightforward and you can do it with ease yourself. Here is detailed video of the entire process:

Good luck and let me know if you have any questions!

1) AutoExposure-Lock / AutoFocus-Lock

The AE-L / AF-L button stands for “AutoExposure-Lock and AutoFocus-Lock” and its primary function is to lock camera exposure and/or focus. What does this exactly mean? If you are using any of the camera modes like Program, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority or other scene modes, the button could be used to force the camera to use a certain value for shutter speed, aperture, ISO and white balance. Since in any of the automatic modes the camera uses its metering sensor to determine the optimal exposure, instead of having your camera re-evaluate the light every time you recompose, you could lock the exposure to a value you are comfortable with – hence the term “AutoExposure-Lock”. There are many cases where using this feature is very helpful. One example is when you photograph panoramas. It is extremely important to use exactly the same exposure from frame to frame in panoramic photography. If one exposure differs from another, it is practically impossible for panoramic software to stitch images together in a consistent, continuous form. Another good example is if you are photographing a subject with a constantly changing background and you want to expose the subject exactly the same way from shot to shot. Basically, any time consistency of exposure is required and you do not want to switch to a full manual mode, the AE-L button can be very useful.

What about AutoFocus-Lock (AF-L)? Similar to exposure lock, autofocus lock can be used to stop the camera from making the lens reacquire focus when you recompose. For example, if you are photographing indoors in dim environment, you will find that using the center focus point is going to give you the most accurate results. This is because the center focus point is always the most accurate, especially on entry-level DSLRs that only have one cross-type sensor. So if you want to use the center focus point to acquire focus, it does not always mean that you want to position your subject in the center. As soon as you recompose your shot, the camera will see that the area the center focus point is on has changed and it will force the lens to reacquire focus on the new area (provided that your shutter button is set to acquire focus when half-pressed). To prevent this from happening, you could use the AutoFocus-Lock feature to lock the focus on your subject, then you could recompose the shot and take a picture. The focus will remain on your subject and the camera will let you take a picture even in “AF-S” or “Single Area Focus Mode“. Please note that you have to be careful when recomposing shots like this, because the focus plane that is parallel to camera sensor changes, which will often result in bad focus when using large apertures.

2) Default AE-L / AF-L Behavior

The default behavior of the AE-L / AF-L button is typically set to lock both camera exposure and focus. Entry-level DSLRs typically have a limited control over this button’s functionality, while pro-level DSLRs have many ways to control the behavior of the AE-L / AF-L button. For example, the Nikon D3100 only has 5 options for this button: AF / AE lock, AE lock only, AF lock only, AE lock (hold) and AF-ON (see more on these below), while Nikon D300s has all of these, plus 12 more ways to control the button’s behavior. So the number of ways to customize the AE-L / AF-L button will depend on the camera model.

3) Types of AutoExposure and AutoFocus Lock Modes

You might be confused when you see the different types of AE and AF options in the camera menu. Which one does what and what should you set yours to? Let’s go over each one, but first, go to your camera menu and Navigate “Custom Setting Menu”->”Controls”->”Assign AE-L/AF-L button” (on D5000, D5100, D90, D7000, D300s, D700, D3s and D3x) or to “Setup Menu”->”Buttons” on D3100:

You should see some or all of the below:

1. AE/AF lock – the default behavior of the AE-L/AF-L button. Will lock both camera exposure (shutter speed, aperture, ISO and white balance) and lens focus. The feature will only be active while you hold down the button. Once you release it, the lock will be released as well.
2. AE lock only – will only lock the camera exposure, so focus will be reacquired if you recompose the shot. Also only works while you hold down the AE-L/AF-L button.
3. AE lock (Reset on release) – exposure will be locked once you press the AE-L/AF-L button and will stay locked until you take a picture, even if you release it.
4. AE lock (Hold) – exposure will be locked when the button is pressed and will stay locked even if you take multiple pictures. The lock will be automatically removed if the camera is inactive for a time period set in the “Auto meter-off delay” menu setting, or can be also removed by pressing the AE-L/AF-L button again.
5. AF lock only – only focus will be locked while the button is depressed. The lock is removed as soon as you release the button.

Please note that when the AE-L / AF-L is depressed and the camera is set to any of the AE modes, you will see an “AE-L” indicator in your viewfinder. If you set it to “AF lock only”, the indicator will not light up.

You might also find many other options under “Assign AE-L/AF-L button” such as “FV Lock”, “Live View”, etc. I won’t go over these, since these options depend on your camera and will also change the functionality of the AE-L / AF-L button. The only option I will mention, is “AF-ON”, because it is a very useful feature on entry-level DSLRs like Nikon D3100 and D5100. Since entry-level DSLRs do not have a dedicated autofocus “AF-ON” button, you can set the AE-L / AF-L button to acquire focus instead (which will de-activate focus acquisition when you half-press the shutter release). That way, you can acquire focus with the AE-L / AF-L button and take pictures with the shutter release. Then, you don’t have to worry about locking your focus when you recompose, since half-pressing the shutter release button will do nothing.

So, which lock mode do I personally use and why? When I use an entry-level DSLR, I either choose “AE/AF lock”, so that both exposure and focus stay locked together, or I set the button to “AF-ON” and use manual mode to keep my exposure consistent. On higher end DSLRs with a dedicated “AF-ON” button, I always choose “AE lock (Hold)”, so that only the exposure is locked – the camera will not automatically reacquire focus when the “AF-ON” button is activated. I use this feature quite a bit when taking panoramic shots and I like the fact that the exposure stays locked while I take pictures. Once I am done, I either press the button again, or let the lock time out. Turning the camera off also releases the lock. Oh, and if you happen to change your camera mode from say Aperture Priority to Shutter Priority or to Program, the exposure values will stay locked.

4) Exposure lock and metering

You might wonder about how to properly meter your camera before even locking the exposure. If you are confused about metering, I highly recommend checking out my “understanding metering modes” article, where I go through different types of camera metering modes in detail. Determining the correct exposure is relatively easy nowadays with modern DSLRs, because cameras are equipped with complex metering systems that use various algorithms and preloaded templates to accurately set exposure values. On top of that, plenty of options to control and fine tune the exposure are provided to end users – different metering modes can control the way exposure is evaluated by the camera, while exposure compensation can be used to override the calculated exposure.

Let me give you an example on how you can combine camera modes, metering modes, autofocus modes and autoexposure lock to take a picture. Say I am photographing my son at sunset on a beach, with the sun behind him and me in front of him. I am in Aperture Priority mode, where I set the aperture and my camera automatically calculates the shutter speed. I normally use Matrix Metering” mode, so the camera most likely would expose the background correctly, while my son becomes a silhouette (because the background is much brighter):

So if I wanted to expose my son correctly without worrying about blowing out the background, I would switch to Spot Metering mode and position the focus point on his face. The camera would then meter off his face instead, exposing him properly and not paying attention to the background. If I take a picture and he is still underexposed, I would dial positive exposure compensation to further brighten him up or if he is overexposed, I would dial negative exposure compensation. Once my exposure looks good, I would press the “AE-L / AF-L” button on the camera (which is set to “AE lock hold”) to lock the exposure and continue taking pictures without worrying about setting the exposure again. If he constantly moves while I take pictures, I would pick Continuous Autofocus Mode (AF-C) to track his movement.

Remember, all these tools are given to us to simplify our photography, so that we can concentrate more on capturing great images, rather than worrying about properly calculating the exposure. Once you learn how to use these different modes and features, you will be able to capture images the way you want to with ease.

Hope you find the above article useful. Let me know if you have any questions!

This is probably the most known and most used method out there to help you achieve the radiant skin tone. Once you know all the steps, it gets pretty easy to utilize this method. I will use the following image as an example:

If there are many blemishes to get rid of, use the spot healing brush to clean them out and you can use below smoothening method to even out the skin tone.

Note: This method will not get rid of major skin blemishes. It is intended to even out the skin tone and give the skin a smooth look while preserving the natural pores of the skin. In order for this method to work effectively, you will need to use the healing brush to remove bigger and visible blemishes. You can also use the clone tool and the patch tool to effectively remove the blemishes.

Once you open the image in Photoshop your first step should be taking care of the blemishes.

After you are done with the above step, create a background copy by right clicking on the Background and choosing Duplicate Layer.

Change blend mode to Overlay and Invert the layer by pressing Ctrl+I.

Go to Filter->Other->High Pass.

When the High Pass window opens up, start increasing the radius until most skin blemishes are gone. Soft edges are not a problem at this stage as we will reverse the effect in a little bit. For this particular image, I settled it to 11.1 pixels and hit the OK button.

Now go to Filter->Blur->Gaussian Blur. This step will reveal how much of skin texture you are willing to preserve. Set a high radius this time, which will reverse the High Pass step. But by gradually going down on radius, visually you will be able to tell if you are comfortable with the combo of High Pass and Gaussian Blur; Smoothening and still preserving some skin texture.

For this particular image I ended up with 2.5 pixels. Visually I thought this was good enough for me to have a smooth, evenly toned skin with some skin texture I want to preserve without turning my model into a plastic doll. Next, hit the OK button.

The next step is to work with masks in order to blend all the previous steps. Make sure you are still on the Duplicate Layer, press Alt+Click on layer mask icon which will yield a black mask. You can see it on the Background Copy:

Choose a Soft Brush, set your foreground color to white and start painting over the blemishes and the skin. Remember that we want the skin to be soft and other parts of the body to be perfectly intact. While painting, be careful not to paint over the edges of the face, nostrils, lips, hair, eyes, eye brows and such.

Once you are satisfied with the result click Ctrl+E to merge the layers and Save the image. Here is our final result for this image:

I hope you will find this tutorial helpful. Once you get used to the entire process, it is going to be a breeze. Let me know if you have any questions!

1) Colors in Black and White Photography

As strange as it may sound, black and white photography is not about the tones of white, grey and black colors that we see in B&W images. Instead, it is all about the colors that are recorded by the camera and how those colors are converted to different shades of grey, whether in-camera or through post-processing. Back in the film days, photographers used color filters in front of their lenses while shooting B&W film, then would employ special darkroom processing techniques like dodging and burning on top of that to lighten or darken particular parts of a photograph (some landscape photographers still do it today with medium and large format film).

With modern digital cameras this cumbersome process is no longer necessary, since most of the effects, including the effects of color filters, can be simulated in post-processing software like Photoshop and Lightroom/Aperture. The nice thing about digital, is that you can non-destructively (meaning without damaging the original file) experiment with black and white as much as you want and get many different “looks” of B&W by playing with colors and adjusting some sliders. Before jumping to B&W techniques, let’s go over color filters and camera settings first.

2) Color Filters

When a specific color filter is used in front of a lens, it absorbs other colors and lets the same color as the filter pass through. For example, if you use a red color filter, it will let the red color through, while blocking green and blue colors. Since all colors are combinations of red, green and blue (RGB) colors, filters are capable of blocking certain colors from a color combination. For example, a green filter will make a yellow object (which is a combination of green and red) appear green, because the red portion of the color combination is blocked. Now that’s what would happen in a color photo. What if we are converting colors to black and white? One thing you need to remember, is that filters lighten their own color and darken the colors that get blocked. So if you were photographing a landscape with a blue sky using a blue filter, the sky would be very bright when converted to black and white. If you used a green or a red filter, on the other hand, the sky would appear much darker. Take a look at the following example with different filters:

Now pay attention to what happens here. When a blue filter is used, the sky looks very bright, but the green and the red colors are very dark because they are blocked. When a green filter is used, the green leaves on the tree appear lighter than the red and the blue colors. When a red filter is used, the red colors appear bright and green with blue are much darker. That’s how color filters affect images in B&W photography!

3) Camera Settings

Many of the current DSLR cameras allow you to switch from color to black and white/monochrome inside camera menu and some of the advanced DSLRs even allow you to pick different types of color filters for better black and white conversion (Nikon DSLRs have a “Monochrome” Picture Control to convert to B&W). While it is nice to be able to shoot in B&W from DSLRs directly, since you are stripping the colors from images, you are basically limiting your post-processing options if you shoot in JPEG format. Once colors are converted to B&W, there is no going back. On top of this, in-camera B&W processing is often poorly implemented and the camera gives you no control on how specific colors or regions of the image should be treated. Therefore, it is best to take pictures in color, then convert them to black and white in post-processing.

If you shoot in RAW, no matter what color profile you apply on your camera, the file will contain all information you possibly need from the camera for successful B&W conversion. If your intent is to shoot in B&W and see the effect on the camera, feel free to set the camera to B&W mode. During the import process, if you use software like Capture NX2, your images will be imported as black and white, although you can change them back to color any time later. If you use Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom, the images will be imported in color and the black and white settings you used on your camera will be lost. That’s because Adobe products do not have the capability to read the proprietary manufacturer information from RAW files. So shoot in RAW and you will be good to go.

Here is what I would use on my camera:

1. Image Quality/Format: RAW
2. RAW Bit Depth: 14-bit (if available)
3. ISO Sensitivity: Lowest ISO (base ISO)
4. White Balance: Auto

Similar to color photos, you want to shoot in RAW with the highest bit depth available in order to be able to pull as much data as possible for color filters, with a minimum amount of noise. As for White Balance, I personally set mine to “Auto”, since WB settings are not important when shooting in RAW. The only thing that you need to make sure, is that your White Balance is corrected after you import your photos to Lightroom/Photoshop – or you will have problems with colors during the B&W conversion process.

4) Methods to convert color images to B&W

When it comes to converting color photographs to black and white, there are many ways to skin the cat – from a very simple method of desaturating colors to rather complex methods of applying different shades of gray on particular colors. Let’s go through some of these methods in detail and see the type of results we can get from these different methods.

4.1) Simple Black and White Conversion

The simplest (and the worst) method to convert color photographs to black and white, is to simply desaturate or “discard” the colors. You can do this pretty much in any image editing software. If you use Lightroom, you can simply go to Develop Module, then click “Black & White” under the “Basic” tab. If you use Photoshop, you can achieve a similar result by going to “Image”->”Adjustments”->”Desaturate” or press Ctrl+Shift+U on the keyboard. Here is the color version of the first image on top of this page:

And here is how the image looks when I desaturate the colors:

The tree and the ground look fine, but the deep blue sky and the clouds are now mixed together and look very pale together. That’s what you get when you desaturate colors – you cannot control which colors you want to emphasize and how bright/dark they should come out in the final image. Let’s move on to better ways to convert color photographs to black and white.

4.2) Lightroom Black and White Mix

Lightroom has a much better method to convert color images to Black and White besides the method shown above. It is located in Develop Module, under the “Tone Curve” tab. You will find three different selections you can click on and one of them is “B & W”. Once you click on it, the information below will change to “Black & White Mix” with some color selections. Here is how it looks:

The initial look of the image will be similar to an image that was desaturated and you will have to play with the colors and tweak the image to get a better result. The above colors sliders (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Aqua, Blue, Purple and Magenta) allow you to control how dark or light each color will be in the final image. When I desaturated my sample image earlier, the sky and the clouds got mixed up in a very similar shade of gray. Let’s see what happens when I move the blue slider to the left to make it darker (-40 value):

Not bad, the sky is now darker than the clouds and I am getting a good separation between the two. I can do the same thing for other colors like orange and red and control how dark or light they will be in black and white.

One very powerful feature of Lightroom a lot of people do not know about, is the “Direct Adjust” functionality that can be found in some of the tabs, including B&W. Here is where it is:

What it allows you to do, is instead of moving the sliders on different colors, it allows you to click on any part of the image and change its brightness by moving the mouse up or down. Give it a try – once the little dot is clicked with your mouse and transformed to a dot with up/down arrows, left-click on any part of the image you want to brighten or darken and then move your mouse up and down to see what happens. Moving the mouse up will increase the brightness, while moving the mouse down will decrease it.

4.3) Photoshop Black and White

Photoshop has a very similar functionality as Lightroom that allows you to move sliders to control the different shades of gray in black and white images. You can access it through “Image”->”Adjustments”->”Black & White” or by pressing Alt+Shift+Ctrl+B shortcut on your keyboard. Here is how it looks:

The nice thing about this tool, is that it comes with different “Presets” to choose from. Before you move any sliders, I would start off with the presets and see if any of the particular presets looks good on your image. Once you pick a starting point, you can then adjust different colors to brighten/darken certain colors. I recommend experimenting with the tool to get the desired result.

4.4) Photoshop Channel Mixer

Another popular method to convert color images to black and white is using Photoshop’s Channel Mixer. You can access the Channel Mixer by going to “Image”->”Adjustments”->”Channel Mixer”. Compared to the Black and White method above, the Channel Mixer works more like the traditional method, where a color filter is used on the camera lens. Here are the available color filter presets:

You can pick Infrared, Blue, Green, Orange, Red and Yellow color filters with the Channel Mixer tool. As I have pointed out under “Color Filters”, different color filters affect how light/dark certain colors will be. So if you have a scene with a blue sky and you want the sky to appear dark, pick any color filter except blue and see which filter works best for you. The only caveat with using this tool, is that whatever changes you make to each source channel, the total of the three (Red, Green and Blue) should be 100, or the image will be either brighter (if over 100) or darker (if under 100):

Once again, I would encourage you to play with the Channel Mixer and see what settings work best for each individual photograph.

5) Adding Contrast and Clarity/Structure to B&W Images

No matter which conversion method you use, once the images is black and white, it will most likely look rather flat. For those situations, adding more contrast and structure to your black and white images will make them look more “punchy”. Let’s go back to my earlier example with the tree. Here is how it looks like after I used the Channel Mixer with a Red Filter:

Indeed, looks rather flat. The clouds are mixing with the sky and there is definitely a lack of contrast here. The first thing to do in situations like this, is the obvious – increase contrast. You can do it by sliding the “Contrast” to the right in Lightroom and by going to “Image”->”Adjustments”->”Brightness/Contrast” in Photoshop (you can also use “Curves” in Photoshop to increase contrast). Don’t add too much contrast, as it will add too much black to the photo. I would start with +20 and try not to exceed +50 contrast. Once the contrast is added, go back and compare before and after to see how the image was affected. Now you should see a little more punch and structure in your B&W image.

Next, we work on the image details or “structure”. If you use Lightroom, you have something called “Clarity” under the Basic tab in Develop Module. Slide that Clarity to +50 or more and see what happens – you should see more separation and structure in the photo, giving a 3-dimensional look to your B&W photo. In Photoshop, the best way to do this is by using the “Unsharp Mask” tool. Go to “Filter”->”Sharpen”->”Unsharp Mask”, which will bring up a new window. Normally, when you sharpen your images, you would use a very small radius of 1-2 pixels to bring out the edges. In this case, our purpose is not to bring out the edges only, but to make the photo look very detailed. We achieve this by using a very large radius, which will not touch the detail edges, but rather will make everything look more detailed. All features, including the clouds, will look more separated from the sky and other plain areas. Let’s take a look at this effect in action:

Not bad, the B&W image now looks even better. Compare it to the previous image and you will notice a big difference in detail/structure. Here are the settings I used for the above photo:

The amount and radius values you should use varies by photograph. In some cases, a larger radius with a 50% or more amount will yield better results, in others a smaller radius is sufficient. The radius will also depend on the size of the image you are working with. If you are working on the original image with large dimensions, a bigger radius will work better. For smaller resolution images, use a smaller radius.

6) Sharpening

The final step is now to sharpen just the edges of the photograph, so that the whole image looks sharp. In Lightroom, go to “Sharpening” under “Detail” in Develop Module and increase the amount of sharpening from the default value of 25 to 50 or higher. I personally use the following values as as default for my images:

1. Amount: 50
2. Radius: 1.0
3. Detail: 50
4. Masking: 0

When I export my images in smaller sizes to be published on my blog, I typically set “Output Sharpening” to Screen and Amount: Standard in the Export window.

If you use Photoshop, use the same “Unsharp Mask” tool, but we will have to drop the radius back to 1.0 or so. I recommend applying sharpening after resizing your images, not before. The “Amount” of sharpening depends on how much sharpening you have already applied before, but I typically pick between 50 to 75.

7) Photoshop/Lightroom Plugin – Silver Efex Pro

All of the above methods and steps I have shown are great, but they are somewhat limited in their functionality and require multiple steps to get the desired look. If you do not have the time to experiment with each individual photo and you are looking for simpler ways to instantly transform your color photos to beautiful black and white images, then I would recommend using specialized plugins that do the B&W conversion. My favorite tool for the job is Nik Software’s “Silver Efex Pro”. I have tried several different Photoshop plugins and Silver Efex is by far the best one on the market. Its power is not only in providing lots of different presets to choose from and using color filters, but also in selective conversion – a unique, yet very useful feature that is common to Nik Software’s plugins. You can place a control point (or multiple control points) on a particular spot or color within the image and you can adjust its brightness, contrast and structure. You can change the radius of the control point, which allows you to limit the affected area. For example, if you have a blue sky and another blue object on the ground, using any of the above methods would result in both the sky and the blue object to be converted to a similar shade of gray. With Silver Efex Pro, you can make the blue sky dark and the blue object on the ground lighter by using the control points. Here is a screenshot of Silver Efex Pro in action:

In the above screenshot, I selected the “High Structure” preset (I use it more than any other) and then added a control point to the sky. Next, I moved the “Brightness” slider on the control point to the left, which dramatically darkened the middle portion of the sky. Contrast and Structure were already set to +30 and +55, respectively (through the selected preset).

Silver Efex Pro has lots of different options to convert color photos to black and white. It even has the ability to give a different tone such as sepia to images through the “Stylizing” menu and can do other cool stuff like burning/darkening edges and vignetting.

The first image in this article was converted to black and white using Silver Efex Pro. Here are some more B&W images that were also converted in Silver Efex Pro:

The high-resolution versions of the above images can be found in the Wallpapers section of the website.

The last thing I wanted to point out, is that when it comes to black and white photography, there is no “magic template” or workflow that works for every single picture. While you can have a standard set of settings for color photographs, you cannot apply the same B&W techniques to all photographs, due to different colors and shades of gray in images. In addition, converting color landscapes to B&W is also not the same thing as converting color portraits to B&W. When you work with portraiture, you have to employ different conversion techniques and be more careful with color filters, contrast and structure settings.

I really need your help.

I own the Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70 f/2.8 + recently bought the Nikkor 16-35 f/4 after reading you review. I wanted the 14-24mm f/2.8, but without filter it is a big problem for me. Anyway, I have owned the camera for about 8 months and I am not satisfied with the results…

I mostly shoot in RAW with Active D Lighting set to “Auto”. My photos never seems as sharp as the samples you put on your site and they always looks too bright and flat. It’s like they are “dead” without contrast and color and I don’t know what’s wrong with my setup. Maybe it’s a problem with the camera sensor or I don’t know what… I am not a pro photographer and not even close, but I expert much better results from what I have. I mean I can always fix in post-processing software like Aperture 3 which I have, but i want great photos out of the camera without playing with it too much in post.

Please let me know if you see what the problem is and if there’s something wrong with what I am doing? I totally feel hopeless…

Thank you for your time.

Let’s go through each photo and see what is going on here (images are extracted out of RAW without any post-processing):

1. The first image (below) was shot at 48mm, f/6.3, 1/160, ISO 200 in “P” mode (Program/Auto Mode). When photographing such scenes, I always recommend to use f/8 and higher, because you are including close objects in your frame and you want to make sure that they stay sharp. At 48mm f/6.3, the sand sand on the low part of the frame simply looks very blurry. Composition also lacks here and the sky looks very pale and there is too much of it in the frame.

   

2. For the second image, the photographer once again used the “P” mode at 42mm, f/3.5, 1/80, ISO 200 and for some reason dialed +1 EV (Exposure Compensation). This image is a clear indication that the photographer lacks some technique – f/3.5 is too shallow for this shot and +1 EV resulted in the image getting overexposed. In fact, all of the photos, except for the first one, are overexposed by at least a full stop. Slightly overexposing images is actually good (expose-to-the-right technique), because you can recover a lot of data from those images. However, more than 1-1.5 full stops of overexposure can actually lead to loss of highlights and brighter tones. So you have to be careful when “exposing to the right”. Similar to the first photo, this one also lacks composition and I’m not sure what the photographer was trying to capture here.

   

3. This third image is grossly overexposed, by at least 2 full stops. Here is the EXIF data: 66m, f/10, ISO 200, +1 EV, also shot in “P” mode. While the aperture seems to be good, again, I don’t know why +1 EV was dialed on the camera. I’m guessing he simply forgot to turn it off after dialing it earlier. All four photographs were taken at noon (around 12 PM), again, not the best time to take pictures.

   

4. The last photograph is much better in all regards compared to the above three, but there is still too much of the pale-looking sky in the frame. Exposure settings are: 27mm, f/9.5, 1/45, ISO 200, shot in Aperture Priority mode. The sky is blown out, because the camera was trying to balance the dim ground and the bright sky. The sky is certainly recoverable, because you can see some blue colors. The camera was pointed almost towards the sun (it was on the right side of the frame), so the right side of the sky is irrecoverable. Again, technique is clearly a problem here – the aperture value of f/9.5 looks odd, I’m guessing a result of playing with camera settings earlier.

   

In terms of sharpness, all of the images look pretty good. Let’s take a look at a 100% crop from the above image:

Considering that there is no sharpening applied to the RAW image, there is plenty of sharpness and details in the above photos. So there is definitely nothing wrong with the camera or the lens that the photographer used here.

So, what is wrong with the above images? Here is a quick summary:

1. Camera technique – the photographer needs to learn how to properly expose images. I highly recommend starting from the exposure triangle and understanding what aperture, shutter speed, ISO and exposure compensation do in various camera modes. The images came out overexposed, because exposure was not set correctly on the camera and +1 EV was dialed in some of the photos. Due to difficult lighting conditions (sky being much brighter than the ground), I would also have used a Graduated Neutral Density filter for the sky. Next, I would read about camera to subject distance and depth of field and get a good grasp on how to properly control camera aperture.
2. Composition – I just don’t see anything interesting in the above photographs. Composition clearly lacks here and there is nothing that catches the eye. Simple things like rule of thirds could have helped here (see my examples below).
3. Post-processing – much of the “punchy colors” and sharpness you see in my images come from the way I post-process images. Whether you like it or not, post-processing is a big part of photography and every photographer must learn how to work with images in Photoshop/Lightroom, especially if they were shot in RAW.

So, what would I do with the above photos? Here is a result of 2 minutes of changes in Lightroom (no Photoshop):

The sky doesn’t look nice, but I do not know how else I can make it look good. Any suggestions?

And here is what I did in Lightroom:

1. Properly aligned, then cropped images.
2. I changed camera profile to “Camera Standard” (under Camera Calibration).
3. Added between 10-30% to “Blue Primary” (under Camera Calibration) to add more blue colors to the sky and water.
4. Dropped some Graduated Filters with -1 exposure with slight blue color to paint the sky.
5. Added some sharpness (Amount: 50, Radius 1.0, Detail: 50, Masking: 0).
6. For some of the images added some Fill Light and a little bit of Saturation.
7. Bumped up Clarity to +40-+60.

Thus, there is nothing wrong with the camera or the lenses our reader is using. In fact, he uses my favorite gear for travel and landscape photography – most of the images from my “Best of 2010” collection you have seen on our blog were shot with the Nikon D700 and Nikon 24-70mm lens. If good technique, along with proper alignment and composition were employed, the images would have looked much better right out of the camera.

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