What A Silent Shutter Gives Me

As a lot of you know, along with portraits, events and weddings, I also shoot street photography. 

I wanted to talk today about a feature on some cameras that you might overlook.  That feature is the silent shutter.

Don't mistake this with the "Q" or quiet mode on some cameras.  It doesn't really make the camera any quieter, it just spreads the sound of the mirror box moving and the shutter over a longer period of time.

I'm referring more to the silent or electronic shutter mode or a camera with a leaf shutter.

Of these kinds of camera, I have my Olympus Micro Four Thirds and a Fuji X100T.

The Olympus shutter is by no means loud when compared to a DSLR camera, however, if you want to go dead silent, there is an option of doing so.  In the menu, pick the shutter option with the heart next to it.  This puts the camera into electronic shutter mode.  This disables the mechanical shutter and uses only the sensor readout.  You get bulb through 1/16000  of a second shutter speed.  So, why would you not use this all the time?  Sensor warping, a.k.a. the Jello effect.  The sensor scans each line individually and if you have a fast moving subject, then they might get distorted.
Another issue with electronic shutters are flash sync speed, or shall we say, a lack of ability to use flash in those modes.

The Fuji X100T is unique in that it has a leaf shutter as well as an all electronic shutter.  The leaf shutter is so quiet that you would hardly ever need to use the electronic, unless you are needing that 

extra bit of shutter speed in super bright light.

I was up on a balcony, quite a ways away, and even as quiet as the shutter on the EM5 Mk II is, the front desk staff at this museum was able to hear it.  As you can tell from the body language, they do not mind that I am taking their picture, but they are "working the camera".  Not exactly the candid, natural acting image I was looking for.

So, when would you want to use these kinds of camera/shutter devices?

I could see using then during a wedding ceremony that was small and intimate and discretion was wanted.  I've been to events where my Nikon D700 shutter sound actually made multiple tables of people turn around and look at me.  I've also used it on occasion to shoot street photography.  Now before anyone starts screaming, "perv" or creeper, let me explain my position on this.

I make no secret when I am out shooting street that I am there.  I don't hide in corners, I don't sneak up on people.  From my years of shooting, I've found that a lot of people act differently when they know they are being photographed.  When shooting street scenes, I want the people in that scene to be as honest and natural as they can be.  So there are times when I will shoot street with a long-ish telephoto or with a silent mode or leaf shutter camera.

Without that, I would not be able to get images like these.

There is no cropping to these and I was never more than 6 ft away.  The silent shutter made this possible without disrupting the subjects focus and without making a lot of noise within the museum itself.

Dealing With Those Nikon Reds - A Holiday Special

Here is a little quick tip for you this holiday season.   The bonus gift is that you'll get something that is useful all year long as well.

If you've ever shot with a Nikon camera before, you'll know that it is very easy to blow out the red channel in your images.  What that means is that the reds can tend to be over saturated and over luminated.  It gives you something like you'll see below:




Lovely image of this little boy telling Santa what he wants for Christmas, but you'll notice that Santa's suit is a little weird looking in the red parts.  Today, we are going to look at a quick way to rectify this in either Lightroom or Adobe Camera RAW.  Other post processing software may also be able to adapt to this process as well.

Shoot in RAW if you can.  You'll have more latitude in processing.  If not, you may still be able to get this to work quite well with your JPG files.

Your RAW image should look something like this when you first begin:


The colors are very muted and the image is low contrast.  So the first thing you'll want to do is start bumping up the contrast, exposure if necessary (hopefully you got the flashes at the proper power to make this a non-issue), vibrance, sharpening, etc.

Problem is, if you use the TONE controls, they work on an image in an overall way, affecting everything.  So in order to get the boys shirt/jeans and the background to a proper level, you end up having the blown out reds like you see in the first image we posted.  So, here is where the fix comes in.

Scroll down to the section HSL/Color/B&W.  Select the word Color.  You'll see a box like the one below.


After I got all the other colors the way I wanted them, I can now use this to fix Santa's suit color.

Each one the colored boxes isolates the color properties in the image.  It no longer will affect every color in the image.  So, I clicked the far left box, which is the Red box.  I bumped the Saturation down to -10 and the Luminance down to -40.  The real game changer here is Luminance.  Once you start sliding that down, you'll see the reds immediately start to lose that blown out look, the detail will return.

That gives us our finished image, which I've provided below:


There are other methods of dealing with this, but I found this one to be one of the quicker ways to do it.

My setup was 2 strobes (Alien Bee B400) one to camera right and above the subjects, and a fill/hair light to camera left parallel the where Santa was sitting.  Power on main light was 1/4, fill light was 1/16 power.

Nikon D700 and Nikkor 24-70/2.8G lens was used.  Settings were 1/60 @ f/5.6 ISO 200 WB set to flash in camera.

Here are the other settings I used in Lightroom.

How I Got The Shot #39 - Dragging the Shutter at the Mother/Son Halloween Dance

This is a companion piece to the previous, How I Got The Shot #38.

In that article, we covered the technique of dragging the shutter and using flash.  If you are unfamiliar with this concept, you might want to read that first, then come back here to follow up on the new stuff.

So what is the new stuff?  Well, we added a small "twist" to the formula we used in the previous dance.

We still are going to use slow shutter speeds in conjunction with flash, but the "twist" is actually literal.

These images above are your "standard" shots.  Fill flash used, as you would have expected.

Since we had been in this venue before, we already knew how to get to a place like in article #38.  However, this felt like it needed something additional.  Being it is a Halloween dance, we wanted to give it a different look.

The shutter speed was lengthened more from the previous times, usually running around 1/5 to 1/15 of a second.  What we did was setup the camera in manual and shot ISO 800, 1/5-1/15s, f/4.  The SB-600 was used in manual and power was set to 1/4 or 1/8 power depending on where were were in the room.  The flash was bounced almost directly upward, and no more than 45 degrees.

You compose your shot, trip the shutter and then immediately after, you twist the camera 90 degrees on it's axis.  This makes the ambient lighting streak in a circular motion around the subject.  The flash freezes the subject, so they are relatively sharp in comparison.

This is the result!  The 2 images directly above as well as the opening image.

Gear used:
Nikon D300
Nikon 24mm f/2.8
Nikon SB-600

And as with all the events like this, there are some portraits taken.

Gear used:
Nikon D700
Nikon 28-85/3.5-4.5
Radio Popper JRx
AB400 x 2
Flash1 was to camera left at 1/4 power (key)
Flash2 was to camera right at 1/16 power (fill)
Background was not illuminated on its own

Camera settings 1/250, ISO 200, f/5.6

Making The Best Of Some Short Downtime

Personal projects are very important.   Sometimes they can be pre-planned, other times they just appear when you least expect it.  Personal projects allow you to experiment in ways that you wouldn't normally.  They also give you full control over what you are doing.  A good refreshing for mind, body and soul.

On a recent trip to Dayton, OH there was some unexpected downtime between events, so the wife and I were able to take a bit of a rest.  We needed the break, weather being high humidity and in the mid to high 90F degrees.  Back at the house we were renting, I found some "target rich" still life.

Gear Used:
Olympus OMD EM5 Mk II
Olympus 25/1.8 prime lens
Ambient Light for "Zeke"
Olympus supplied external flash with the EM5 Mk II for some of the walnut shots.

Right inside the front door, we were greeted by "Zeke", the name my wife gave him.  :D

The property owners came up with creative ways to monitor the house, using "Zeke" to hold the camera as well as the microphone.

After Zeke gave me very little outside of his A/V look, I started wandering elsewhere.  This time in search of light.

Found a nice, big window with the setting sun illuminating the formal dining room.  I liked the size and quality of the light - now I just needed to find a suitable subject.   There were some flowers there, but I was not feeling them.  Wandering through the house, I found a bowl of walnuts and almonds.

Took an overall shot of the bowl.  Trying to use some things I'm learning about video production.   Here I am looking to set the scene with a wide shot.

Then we come in with a closeup.  A single subject, standing on it's own.  Side lighting.

Bringing in some extra subjects - and kicked the EM5 Mk II into hi res mode, which gives us a bit more tonal range as well as a 40mp jpg to work with.

So, now, I'm pulling in some extra shapes, with the almonds, and looking at a different angle.  Looks like I'm trying to create a nut Stonehenge or something.

Didn't want to continue on with adding more walnuts/almonds, so started looking at incorporating the nut cracker and picks.

Almost looks like a masonic symbol of some kind.

So what did we learn here in all this?

1)  If you really want to make an image, you can.  Don't let the location or circumstances inhibit your creativity.
2)  Doing this kind of project, regardless of how small, keeps the creative thoughts flowing.
3)  With minimal gear, you can create some great images just by working with the light you have.
4)  Use times like this to try and create a feeling or evoke emotion from something that doesn't usually get associated with it.

Technical growth goes only so far, and at the end of the day, the technical stuff is really all science.  The biggest place for growth in your personal photo journey is going to be in finding creative ways of expressing things that people see everyday.  It is also one of the most difficult.  That journey is often a very personal one, and means different things to different people.

That is also what makes it great, fun, and rewarding.