One week away from the UCPAHI DESSERT FANTASY fundraiser! Two hours of all you can eat goodies for $25.00 ($20.00 tax deductible!!) Feast in decadence for a great cause! There is an an awesome silent auction for the SHOPPERS out there! Hit me up for tickets! Sunday November 6th at the Pacific Beach Hotel Grand Ballroom from 1 to 3 PM http://www.ucpahi.org/

New DSLR class starts in 2.5 hours! I’m excited to introduce 8 new people to the wonders of photography! Join us in November!

This is from a new series of lessons scheduled for a 2012 release! It is always great working with Angelika!

I recently had the pleasure of working with Tasha Johnson again. Tasha is one of my favorite people to work with. She is always so much fun and very professional. The images are always stunning too! These are from a new series of lessons scheduled for a 2012 release.

I just met one of the distributors of this very cool product at a Green Drinks Networking event put on by Pacific Edge Magazine! Check it out! (NOTE: I am not in anyway affiliated with Whoa! Fat)

https://www.facebook.com/pages/WHOA-FAT/112677512086513?sk=wall

Aloha! I want to once again focus on one topic for this entire newsletter. f-stops are, at the same time, the simplest, most basic part of photography AND, I believe, the most complicated idea to master. The notion of an f-stop is so critical to photography that I will explore this concept at beginner, intermediate and advanced levels.

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Please feel free to forward this on in it’s entirety to anybody who is interested in photography!

–Steve Dantzig

Beginner Tips:

Your lens allows light to enter your camera when your shutter is open. You can let a lot of light in or a little. It depends on how large the lens opening is. Another term for your lens opening is aperture. A large opening will let a lot of light into your camera while a small opening allows a little light. At the most basic level, your f-stop is simply a numerical value assigned to the size of the opening. Simple, right? Not so fast. The numbers assigned won’t make any sense at first: large numbers are assigned to small openings and small numbers are given to large openings. f4, for example, is much larger than f22. Confused? Well it would be easy if we were talking about fractions (1/4 is a larger piece of the pie than 1/22), but we aren’t. The f-numbers are ratios, not the actual size of the lens opening. Every lens has a focal length or distance that light travels from when it first hits the outer part of your lens to when it records an image on your sensor/film. The f-stop represents the ratio between the actual lens opening and the focal length. So, for example, I would have f4 if my diameter was 25mm on a 100mm lens (25/100=4). Why does this matter? The actual lens opening would be different on a different lens (12.5mm on a 50mm lens for example). Light travels a shorter distance down the 50mm lens so the opening is smaller in order to provide the same exposure at a set shutter speed and ISO. It is the ratio that determines the f-stop rather than the actual diameter of the lens opening. The ratio is what allows us to change lenses or change focal lengths with a zoom lens and maintain a consistent exposure. The size of the diameter increases as the focal length gets longer to compensate for the greater distance that light travels.

Intermediate Tips:

Have you ever wondered why the “kit lenses” that come bundled with camera bodies are relatively inexpensive while other lenses (the ones that you want!) are much more expensive? There are generally two reasons (aside from the quality of “glass” used to make them) for the dramatic difference in cost. One reason is related to the maximum f-stop available. The kit lenses max out at smaller openings, say f5.6 compared to f 2. The difference between these two lenses is huge–three “stops” (more on that later). The f2 lens is considered to be a “faster” lens because you can shoot at a faster shutter speed and get the same exposure. Faster lenses allow you to shoot in darker environments without a flash and without sacrificing motion blur (because you are shooting at the faster shutter speed). You can also create images with very shallow depth of field for an image with extremely selective focus with the lenses with the larger openings…but these benefits come at a cost. Large f-stop lens are pricey.

The other factor is that many of the more expensive zoom lenses are fixed f-stop lenses, meaning they maintain their maximum f-stop across the full range of focal lengths. “Kit” lenses are “variable” f-stop lenses. Many of us have something like a 3.5-5.6 lens. Don’t be fooled! The maximum lens opening in this case is 5.6, not 3.5! You only have the larger f-stops when you are shooting a shorter focal length. The lens manufacturers are playing with that ratio again. This time, however, the lens opening is fixed at the maximum size, but the focal length changes and therefore the ratio (f-stop) changes as a result. You’ll have f3.5 when shooting at the widest focal length, but this will change as you zoom out to a normal or telephoto length. The lens opening is not changing so you are losing light as the light travels the longer distance until you reach your “true” maximum f-stop. Be careful because you will underexpose your image if you are at your maximum f-stop and zoom out thinking you are shooting f3.5 across the full range of focal lengths. This is NOT a problem if you shoot at the larger number (5.6 on a 3.5-5.6 lens) and higher (i.e., f8 and above).

Advanced Tips:

All advanced topics in photography require an understanding of f-stops and how they relate to each other. The interplay of your shutter speed, ISO and f-stop determine your exposure. Let’s assume that we are not going to change either the shutter speed or the ISO. The important thing to understand is the relationship between adjacent f-stops. I am talking about adjacent whole f-stops here. For example, f8 and f11 are adjacent whole f-stops. Modern cameras show intermediate values as well–f9 and f10 in this case. There is a direct and exact relationship between the whole stops. f8, in this example, is exactly twice the size of f1 so it allows twice–or 100% more light into the camera. f11 is exactly half the size of f8 and allows half–or 100% less light in to expose your image. This relationship–100% more or less light–is what we call a “stop” of light. (The intermediate numbers noted above are 1/3 stops, so three clicks in either direction will equal a full stop if your camera is set that way–some cameras allow you to set the intermediate points as half-stops). This is a critical concept because it allows you to begin to understand the relationships between your shadows and your highlights. You can now meter for the different parts of your scene and know the relative light values across the set and know whether you need to add light to your shadows or tone down the highlights to maintain detail at each extreme. The latitude of exposures that we can capture with digital photography is still fairly limited. You’ll need to keep the shadow to highlight spread down to about 5 stops in order to show detail throughout the image. Yes, we can (and please do!) shoot RAW and process the image in different ways, but each processed image still holds only about 5 stops of light.

Learn more about the interplay of “stops” and multiple light sources in our advanced lighting seminars!

School Notes:Hawaii School of  Photography is now accepting all major credit cards! There is still time to register for the 4-day 12-hour Introduction to Digital Photography that begins Wednesday October 19 and continues on October 26, November 2, and November 9 from 6 to 9PM. Tuition is $345.00 plus tax but Kama’aina, Military, Alumni and DSLR course discounts are available.

The next 3-hour New DSLR seminars will be held on October 22nd and November 19 from 11AM to 2PM at the Queen Kapiolani Botanical (Rose) Garden.

Our Outdoor Lighting Workshop has been moved to November 13th.

Please see our schedule for more classes.

Email me today to hold your spot! steve@dantzigphotography.com

It’s been a crazy few months so here I am playing catch-up again. The last few posts had links to my Hawaii School of Photography Newsletters. I missed some so here is the series so far (up to #5–I’ll post #6 in its entirety next:

Hawaii School of Photography proudly announces our new newsletter! We will provide tips for beginner, intermediate and advanced level photographers as well as school updates. Here are the links:

http://mim.io/452c21

http://mim.io/f85231

http://mim.io/148d31

http://mim.io/576051

http://mim.io/ee7861

Aloha! I just published my new newsletter. This one deals with color issues that we face with digital photography! Please send emails with topics that you would like to see in future newsletters! Mahalo!

http://mim.io/576051

Check out the new newsletter!

http://mim.io/148d31

Greetings! Last week I had the pleasure of creating the first portfolio for a young lady with a great deal of potential. Yumi’s mom called me several weeks ago and mentioned her daughter wanted to give modeling/acting a shot. We met a few days later to talk about what she had in mind and go over some of the logistics/realities of embarking on a modeling endeavor. We met again in the studio a week or so later for what was Yumi’s first “real” shoot. She was SOOOOO easy to work with—if she had any first shoot jitters then she sure hid them well! Some of the outtakes are classics! Yumi’s mom hired Janalyn Hiramatsu for the hair and makeup. Jana is one of my favorite makeup artists. We always have a good time and her work is amazing. You can see some of her work/comments on her website (click here:) Makeup by Janalyn. We started by creating a beauty headshot for Yumi.

Jana quickly “restyled” Yumi’s hair for a more elegant look

I kept the lighting for this shot very simple to simulate the light coming from the window to Yumi’s right. There are times when you don’t want to “light” a scene, but rather use your strobes to enhance what is already there.

I wanted a harsher light source for this next shot without losing the shadows that a small light would create. We took a small stripdome and used it for a main light and used the large softbox–something usually used for a main light–as a fill source:

Now it was time for Jana to play! She straightened the hair that she had curled for the previous two shots. Yumi brought an outfit that reminded me of  a “post-grunge” look (OK, I just dated myself!). Jana took over and transformed Yumi into quite the punker!

The lighting was a variation of combination of a hard and a soft light source.

I’ve used this set-up before, but it is usually positioned about 45 degrees camera left. This time I wanted a harsher “fashion” look that would come from right behind the camera to go with the “edgier” makeup.

This was a tough look for a new/young model to pull off, but Yumi did a great job. Watch for her–you might be seeing a lot more from this young lady!