Photo insights july '17

Jim Zuckerman’s

PH OTO I N S I G HTS July 2017

Focus strategies Sharpness vs. Depth of field Shooting through glass Shooting Against a Bright Sky Photo tours Ask Jim Student showcase

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Focus strategies Focus versus depth of field Shooting through glass Shooting Against a Bright Sky What’s wrong with this picture?

Short and Sweet Ask Jim Photo tours Student showcase Back issues Subject index for Photo Insights

On the cover: Pigmy owl, Patagonia -- southern Chile. This page: Broad-billed hummingbird south of Tucson, Arizona.

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ne of the ways you can jump-start your photography if you happen to be in the creative doldrums is to think thematically. When I used to live in the Los Angeles area, I would think of this huge urban area as a photographic desert -nothing very exciting the shoot. It was the national parks that attracted me. But the truth is, once you start thinking thematically, the world opens up to you and you realize how much there is to explore visually. Focus on a particular area of interest and then pursue it with passion.

For example, here are some themes that may open your eyes and expand your horizons in photography: lighthouses, sailboats, classic cars, butterflies, cathedral ceilings, bridges, redheads, blue in nature, albino animals, puppies, eyes, frogs, aquariums, grafitti, abstracts in nature, vanishing cultures, horses, abandoned farm houses, barns, silhouettes, European castles, birds in flight, spiral staircases, Indian ruins, antique dolls, orchids, tattooed people, insects, ballroom dancers, ballet dancers, body builders, and shadows.

There are so many possibilities that when you think about tackling some of these themes you realize you need several lifetimes. But if your creativity is at a standstill, this would be a good place to start getting involved again. I have quite a few themes myself, and I’m always on the lookout for subject matter that adds to my collection of these images. One of them is albino animals; another is blue in nature. Except for the sky and bodies of water, blue animals and plants are quite unusual, and I find them to be quite compelling. Other themes I pursue are puppies, primitive tribes, primates, and carnivals.

The problem is once you discover how many things you’d love to photograph, you realize there isn’t enough time to do it all. What that means, though, is that it’s time to get started.

Jim Zuckerman www.jimzuckerman.com photos@jimzuckerman.com 3

FOCUS•STRATEGIES F

ocusing seems like a straight forward thing to do. If you focus manually, rotate the focusing ring until the subject is sharp. No big deal. If you use autofocus, which we do most of the time, our intelligent cameras lock onto the subject or scene and you take the picture. Again, a piece of cake.

Well, not really. There are many considerations, many types of subjects, and many types of situations that demand you think carefully about what you’re doing. If your pictures aren’t in focus and sharp, you can’t fix that in post-pro-

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cessing. No sharpening command can sharpen a soft image due to poor focus.

Let’s take a close look at issues affecting focusing and then decide what the best strategy is to take sharp pictures.

1. AI servo versus one shot focusing. AI servo is essentially continuous tracking. This is designed for action photography where the camera (hopefully and theoretically) tracks the subject and keeps it in focus. One shot focus is exactly that: When you press the shutter

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button or the back button to focus, the camera locks onto the subject and doesn’t change even if the subject moves.

I use AI servo for all subjects that move or might move, even if they move slowly. The white horses of the Camargue in southern France on page 4 were obviously moving very fast toward the lens, and AI servo is made for this kind of situation. The carnival participants in Sao Paulo, Brazil on page 5 were moving very slowly toward me, but I also used AI servo to track this movement.

2. Off-center subjects. Focusing algorithms assume the subject will be in the center of the frame. That’s a reasonable assumption because usually that’s how we compose pictures. Sometimes, though, we place a subject off-center, as in the portrait below of a model dressed as a

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13th century Mongolian queen.

If your camera is set up for the autofocus to funtion when the shutter button is depressed, there are two options to focus correctly:

a. Move the central focus point to the side and focus normally. This takes time, which is why I don’t ever use this option.

b. Point the camera at the subject, press halfway down on the shutter button and hold it there, then recompose and shoot. The focus is locked and doesn’t change as long as you keep pressure on the shutter button. Once you taken the picture, the focus is unlocked.

3. Back button focus. When you set up your camera to use back button focus, the shutter button no longer activates autofocus. I prefer

back button focus because I can focus and lock the focus in place simply by keeping the button depressed. For off-center subjects, this is ideal. I point the camera at the subject, press the back button and hold it down, re-compose and shoot. This is much faster than moving focus points around the viewfinder. So often time is of the essence, and this is the perfect focusing method to shoot fast with accurate focus.

4. The two subjects rule. When you are photographing in a situation with two subjects, such as the boudoir environment above with two carnival participants in Venice, both should be in focus. I know many photographers do otherwise -- they will focus on the foreground subject while the person or object more distant to the camera is soft because of limited depth of field -- but I feel this is incorrect. A back-

ground can be soft, but not a subject.

The way I handle this is to focus on the foreground subject and then I use sufficient depth of field so the second subject is also sharp. You can do this by: (a) choosing aperture priority and selecting a small f/stop [and raising the ISO if the shutter isn’t fast enough], (b) use a wider angle lens, or (c) increase the distance between the camera and the subjects.

In the photo above, the lens aperture was only f/5 but the depth of field came from the 1635mm wide angle lens.

On the next page is a very rare shot of black mambas mating. Even though their heads were close together, the lens I used was so long (500mm plus a 2x teleconverter) that depth 7

of field was extremely shallow. I didn’t want to use a wider angle lens and I couldn’t move further away. Therefore, the ony way I could achieve enough depth of field so both heads were sharp was to use a small aperture. I was using on-camera flash, and after taking a couple of test shots I determined that I could use f/14 if I raised the ISO to 1000. I assumed that the three inches or so separation between the snakes would be covered by that lens aperture.

Under no circumstances did I want one of the two heads ‘almost sharp’ but not quite. The shutter speed was 1/160, but in terms of exposure, this wasn’t part of the calculation. Usually you want the shutter speed to be much faster when using a long lens to guarantee a sharp picture, but the environment in the thicket was very dark and the only illumination used for this shot was from the flash. The short duration time of the flash (approximately 1/1000th 8

of a second) eclipsed the shutter speed and rendered it pretty much irrelvant in determining whether or not the image would be sharp.

5. Focus points. Most digital cameras today have many focus points (50 or 60 and even more) as seen in the array below, and they can be selected in various pre-programmed clusters starting from a single, central point to a central grouping of 4, 9, 15, etc. They can also be moved off-center (which I never do as I’ve

already mentioned). So, the question is, what is the most accurate focus point array to make sure your pictures are sharp? Here is what I do: -- For single subjects, such as people and animals, use one central point or a small cluster of 4 to 6 points -- For landscapes, use a central cluster of 15 or so points -- For architecture, use a central cluster of 15 or so points -- For birds in flight against the sky, use all the points -- For birds in flight against a forest background, use a central cluster of 15 or so points --For macro photography with significant mag-

nification as in the orchid shot, below, use manual focus. Take the camera off autofocus and, once the image is basically in focus, fine tune the focusing by moving the camera back and forth until the important part of the subject is sharp.

-- For subjects engulfed in a busy environment, such as cheetahs under a tree, a bird inside a mass of thick foliage, one person in a crowd, etc., use a single focus point ยง

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UPCOMING PHOTO WORKSHOPS Carnival in Venice workshop Outrageous costumes in a medieval environment! Venice is great to visit and photograph any time, but during carnival it’s magical. There is nothing like it anywhere in the world. Exotic masks, stunning colors, classic images.

Feb. 1 - 8, 2018

Frog & Reptile Workshop Close-up encounters with poison dart frogs and exotic reptiles such as chameleons, geckos, snakes, and more in St. Louis, Missouri. This is a macro workshop in which everyone consistently gets amazing pictures.

January 6 - 7, 2018

Photoshop workshop The setting is in my home, and in this two day workshop you’ll learn enough to be truly dangerous in Photoshop! How to replace a sky, how to fix all kinds of photographic problems in your pictures, how to handle blown highlights, how to be incredibly creative . . . and more.

Nov. 11 - 12, 2017 10 10

Sharpness vs.

Depth of Field T

here is much confusion between depth of field and sharpness. Here is an explanation of the differences.

All lenses have a sweet spot. This refers to the lens aperture that produces the sharpest image. It is typically one or two f/stops down from wide open. So, for an f/4 lens, the sweet spot is f/5.6 or f/8. For a 50mm f/1.4 lens, the sharpest aperture is f/2 to f/2.8.

This is not depth of field, of course. If you shoot a telephoto lens at f/5.6 with a lens-tosubject distance of, say, eight feet, the depth of field will be shallow but the photograph -- at

least the center part of the image that’s in focus -- will have maximum sharpness. Even if the periphery of the picture is soft, it’s the sharp center that’s being discussed.

If you close the lens down to a smaller aperture to increase depth of field, as I did in the shot from Patagonia, below, the peripheral elements become sharper compared to when they were soft due to shallow DOF, but the center loses sharpness as compared to the maximum resolution produced by the sweet spot with a larger lens aperture.

How to find the sweet spot

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You can find the sweet spot, or the sharpest aperture on a given lens, by taking a series of shots at various apertures. Use aperture priority, a tripod, and either a cable release or the self-timer built into the camera so all the comparison shots are identical except for aperture.

It’s easier to determine the sweet spot if you photograph something with writing, such as a page from a newspaper or magazine.

Take a picture starting at the largest aperture and go down the list by shooting in full f/stops (forget about thirds of a stop). I would turn off any sharpeinng software you might be using in-camera. The format you choose -- RAW, jpeg, etc. -- doesn’t matter.

When the series of images are complete, bring the images into your computer and examine each one at 100%. You are looking at the cen-

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ter of the image only. The depth of field will be different in each shot, and that means that the periphery will sharper in some images simply because you’ve closed the lens down. In this way, you can find out which aperture on the lens will give you the sharpest center. There may be variations in your lenses, so expect that.

One lens may be sharpest one f/stop down from wide open, while another may be sharpest two stops smaller than maximum aperture.

Sweet spots are not really relevant when it comes to landcapes because it’s the depth of field that allows us to see and enjoy all of the beautiful detail we can see with out eyes. Sweet spots are much more important when you shoot portraits, wildlife, birds, and many other subjects. For example, the superb starling from Kenya, below, should have maximum but the peripheral elements can be softer. §

Shooting Through

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GLASS

any times we are forced to shoot through glass, and even though we all recognize there could be a degradation in image quality, we simply have no choice. For example, if you are in a plane at 35,000 feet and want to capture a beautiful sunset, you can’t open a window or door. The same is true when capturing a cityscape from a modern high rise. The windows don’t open.

1. Make the lens axis as perpendicular as possible to the plane of the glass. This will give you the sharpest image. As the lens is tilted to the window such that its axis is oblique to the plane of the glass, sharpness is degraded. This is especially true when photographing through airplane windows. Sometimes you must angle the lens to take the composition you want, but realize that quality suffers.

Here are some things to keep in mind when shooting through a window that will give you maximum picture quality.

2. Be aware of unwanted reflections in the glass that emanate from behind you. This is particularly problematic at twilight or night when the

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lights in the room can be seen in the camera.

They can be very difficult to clone out, so it’s best to get rid of them in-camera.

The way you do that is to place the camera lens up against the glass. If you are shooting straight out the window with the lens axis perpendicular to the window, all reflections with be eliminated. But if you are shooting downward out a window in a highrise, as I did to take the shot of Chicago (on the previous page) from the 94th floor of the John Hancock Building, a small space is created between the rim of the lens and the glass. Believe it or not, this gap will allow reflections in the glass to bounce back into the lens and show up as blurred hot spots in the picture.

To prevent this problem, wrap a scarf, a microfiber cloth, or even a t-shirt around the lens and 14

up against the glass to block the room lights from reflecting. When I’ve found myself in this kind of situation and didn’t have any kind of cloth material, I’ve used my hat in conjunction with both hands to block the light.

In a hotel room, you have control over the lights so simply turn off every light in the room when shooting out of the window at night. The top

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photo on page 14 of Singapore was taken this way. I shot this from my hotel room on the 23rd floor with a 14mm lens. I used this lens because I wanted a sweeping panorama of the city, but the width of the angle meant that the room behind me had to be totally dark because any light -- even the LED on a clock -- would be seen by the lens reflecting in the window.

3. You don’t have any control over the cleanliness of the glass on the outside, but you can wipe the interior surface clean to make sure it is spotless. If there are any dirt spots on the glass, because they are so close to the lens, they will show up as a pale smudge.

4. A telephoto lens, like the 500mm lens I used for the blue grosbeak at a feeder on the prevoius page, will produce a better quality image because of its shallow depth of field. Any im-

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perfections on the surface of the glass will show up much more with a wide angle lens simply because of its inherent depth of field. Even if you shoot at f/2.8 or f/4, which one might think would provide shallow DOF and therefore blur out the dirt and smudges, this doesn’t happen. They will show up as fairly well defined imperfections in the picture. At night, this isn’t much of a factor, but in the daytime dirt shows up more.

5. If it’s been raining and there are water drops on the glass, there’s nothing you can do to make the photographs look good. Don’t shoot. Wait for the water to evaporate. When I spotted the bike rally in New York City on page 14, it was raining. Fortunately for me, though, the window on the 5th floor was on the side of the building protected from the wind and the rain so I was able to shoot through clean and dry glass. §

Expand your photographic artistry with

eBooks

Click on any ebook to see inside

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eBooks continued Click on any ebook to see inside

Fantasy Nudes is in production and is coming soon 18

Shooting Against a Bright Sky T

shop, then choose Select > all; followed by Edit > copy. The image is now in the clipboard.

There are three options you have to address this issue to make the pictures better.

c. In the layers palette, click on the submenu that begins with the word ‘Normal’.

These are the blend modes. Choose multiply.

The white sky disappears and the clouds photo replaces it perfectly. This is predicated on the fact that the silhouette photo is virtually black and white with very little or no detail in the subject.

here are so many times when you photograph an outdoors subject with a bright sky as the background, and the results are almost always disappointing.

The sky invariably blows out and looks solid white and/or the subject is underexposed, or it becomes a silhouette. You can see what I’m talking about in the unmanipulated picture of the orangutan I captured in Indonesian Borneo, below left.

1. Replace the white sky with another type of sky that has detail. In the photo at bottom right, you can see that I chose a photo of clouds at dusk as the new background. To make a precise selection of the branches and the orangutan would be very difficult to impossible because of all that ultra fine body hair of the primate, so I added the clouds using a blend mode. Here is the simple procedure:

a. Open the orangutan photo in Photo-

b. Open the sky picture and choose Edit > paste. Now the orangutan photo is floating as a layer over the clouds photo, but all you see is the top layer -- the orang photo.

2. You can accept the white background. In the picture of the Thai dancer on the next page, I positioned myself to place the mid-day sun right behind her head. By exposing correctly for the young girl, the sky became completely blown out, i.e. solid white. This kind of clean, white background doesn’t always work, but in this case I felt it looked fine.

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the black wings as well as in the beautiful tail feathers. The sky wasn’t white -- it was blue, in fact -- but it was much brighter than the underside of the bird. Therefore, I overexposed the image 2 2/3 f/stops based on what the meter originally wanted to give me to make sure the bird had detail. Of course, the sky became overexposed. Again, though, I feel this works.

I can always add a blue sky or clouds as I did with the orangutan if I want.

In the picture of the bird, below, returning to its next with building material, I wanted detail in

3. You can use HDR. If nothing in the composition is moving, then taking several bracketed frames (all with the same f/stop) allows you to capture color, texture, and detail in the sky. This is how I took the picture of Bryce Canyon on page 22. With significant contrast, the number of frames that comprise the HDR composite rises. For this image, I took 5 frames with one f/stop increments. I shot this about 45 minutes after sunrise, but if the picture had been taken near mid-day, then I would have used 7 frames. This expands the dynamic range to capture more detail in extreme shadows and highlights.

Yellowrumped cacique returning to the nest with building material.

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LEARNING TO SEE online course

by Jim Zuckerman

The ability to ‘see photographically’, to really grasp how your camera and lenses capture a subject or scene (which is different than how we see with our eyes) underlies successful picture taking. It is the bottom line that you’ve been looking for to take that quantum leap forward in your photography.

The great thing about online courses is that they can fit into any schedule. Life gets in the way at times, and Jim puts no limit on the time you can submit your work for his critiques. CLICK THIS PAGE to read more about this course.

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I used a 7-frame HDR composite for the photo of the glacial ice on the Ice Beach in Iceland on the next page. Because the sun created such brilliant highlights in the ice, and because the beach was black volcanic sand and rocks, I felt it necessary to expand the dynamic range to capture as much detail as I could in this incredibly contrasty situation.

sic principles and commands. To set up your camera to take several frames for an HDR composite, here are the steps that work for most cameras:

Some cameras, like the Canon 5D Mark III, offer automatic HDR in which the camera takes three bracketed exposures and then combines them to show you a jpeg image on the LCD monitor on the back of the camera.

As convenient as automation is, if you want more bracketed frames -- such as 5 or 7 -- you have to set the camera manually to do this.

-- Choose auto exposure bracketing, and then select the number of frames you want as well as the f/stop increments between each frame

While there is a lot of variation in camera controls when looking at Nikon, Canon, Fuji, Sony, etc., all of them operate on the same ba-

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-- Choose aperture priority -- Choose high speed continuous shooting

When you shoot, you must keep the shutter button depressed during the entire sequence of shots.

For the ice cave entrance at the bottom left of page 23, I also used a 7-frame HDR composite.

When I moved back into the cave and took another 7-frame HDR composite, bottom right,

the landscape outside the cave blew out. Why? Because the rear of the cave was so dark and the outside was so bright that 7 frames weren’t enough. Because of the extreme contrast, my guess is that I needed an 11-frame HDR composite. No camera that I know offers this kind of setting, so in this case you have to do HDR on manual exposure mode and change the shutter speeds manually. §

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PHOTO TOUR to BURMA Nov. 26 - Dec. 5, 2018

Awesome ruins Great portraiture Fascinating culture Super friendly people

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What’s wrong with this picture?

I

turned this classic scene of the gondolas in Venice, Italy into a painterly abstract using a combination of filters in Topaz Adjust. I happen to like wild colors, and the combination of purples, magentas, and blue tones appeal to me. But the one problem with this picture is the horizon line. It’s slanted down to the left.

I can accept angled compositions when it comes to fashion, architecture, flowers, face shots, and city scenes, but a slanted horizon with bodies of water doesn’t work. In fact, it really looks stupid. It suggests that either you weren’t paying attention to what you were shooting, and you didn’t notice the issue in post-processing.

It’s very easy, of course, to be shooting quickly and as you are directing your attention to the subject, the lighting, the composition, crtical focus, and the 25

exposure, and you overlook the orientation of the frame. This definitely needs to be fixed after the fact.

One way to level the horizon in Photoshop is to choose Select > all. Then use the pull down menu command Edit > transform > distort. This puts eight handles around the image, one at each corner and one midway between the corners, and you can drag any of them to stretch and distort the image. Sometimes the corners are hard to see because they blend in with the image, but look closely and you’ll see them.

In the photo of Venice, I pulled the upper left corner handle up a little and this brought the horizon line parallel with the top and bottom of the frame.§ 26

SHORT AND SWEET 1.

2. During the summer months in the U.S., there are

Standing at a height and shooting downward on a person creates a unique look. It’s great for fashion, kids, a wedding couple, and ethnic pictures when you travel. This shot was part of my annual carnival in Venice workshop.

many Civil War battle reinactments that offer unique and historically accurate photogenic subject matter.

You can find out where these take place by searching online for ‘Civil War battle reinactments.’

3. When photographing white subjects in bright sun- 4. light, like this albino wallaby, be very careful not to blow out the highlights. If you expose to the right in the histogram as many instructors suggest, you can very quickly lose detail in the highlights and it won’t be recoverable.

Super saturation of color is a powerful visual technique. It doesn’t work with every kind of subject matter, but for subjects that tend to be garish anyway, it can really enhance the image. This is a home in Del Rey Beach, Florida. South Florida is well known for brilliant colors like pink and orange. §

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ASK JIM

Every month Jim will answer a question from his online students, from people who participate in his tours and workshops, or from subscribers to this magazine. If you have a question you’d like Jim to answer, please drop him a note at photos@jimzuckerman.com.

Q: Jim . . I have a Manfrotto joystick head on my tripod and it works well with my entry level equipment, a

Canon Elan and 75-300mm zoom. But it is a pain to keep still when using any of my L lenses with a 5D Mark II. It always ‘slips’ from any angle between both horizontal and vertical. I’m seriously considering a gimbal head but remain hesitant to make any commitment. Any thoughts or suggestions for heads that truly work with a heavy DSLR and lens combo, especially when using super telephoto L lenses such as yours?

Donald Moore, Reno, Nevada

A: I highly recommend a ball head from reallyrightstuff.com. Their equipment is top notch, and their ball

heads don’t slip. I’ve had one for years and my wife has one as well, and they have never given us problems.

I have the BH 40 LR (‘LR’ means lever release, which I prefer over the knob tightener). For travel, the BH 30 LR is smaller and lighter, but I still perfer the 40 even though it’s heavier. It’s rock solid.

For super telephotos, such as the 400mm f/2.8, 500mm f/4, and 600mm f/4, a gimbal head is ideal. It allows you to move a very heavy lens with complete ease, and it’s great for following birds in flight such as the yellow-billed kite, below, from Ethiopia. I use a Wimberly head for my big lens. §

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KAZAKHSTAN Aug. 2017

Photography Tours 2017 - 2018

SNOWY OWLS Jan. 2018

WHITE HORSES, FRANCE May 2018

INDONESIA WILDLIFE Aug. 2018

CHINA WILDLIFE Sept. 2017

TUSCANY/CINQUE TERRA Oct. 2017

CARNIVAL IN VENICE Feb. 2018

NEW ZEALAND Apr. 2018

CROATIA, SLOVENIA, etc.

May 2018

GRIZZLIES in CANADA Sep. 2018

LAVENDER, FRANCE July. 2018

THE PANTANAL, BRAZIL Nov. 2018

For a complete list of all the photo tours/workshops Jim conducts, go to his website: www.jimzuckerman.com.

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South Africa & Namibia photo safari April 25 - May 9, 2018

Awesome wildlife exotic birds monster dunes

Lioness and cubs, Sabi Sabi, South Africa

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Student Showcase Each month, Jim features one student who took beautiful and inspiring images on one or more of his photography tours or workshops. It’s really fascinating how photographers see and compose such different images even though we may go to the same places. Everyone gets great photographs on Jim’s trips.

Robert Dickinson, Toronto, Ontario Snowy owl workshop, Newfoundland Photo Tour.

© 2017 Robert Dickinson

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Student Showcase, continued

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Š 2017 Robert Dickinson

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Student Showcase, continued

Š 2017 Robert Dickinson

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Student Showcase, continued

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Š 2017 Robert Dickinson

CHINA WILDLIFE PHOTO TOUR September 4 - 17, 2017

Mongolian horse round up, China

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PHOTOSHOP WORKSHOP in my home

Sat. & Sun., November 11 - 12, 2017

Photoshop is a photographer’s best friend, and the creative possibilities are absolutely endless -- like replacing the background behind this 1947 Delahaye 135M. In a personal and ‘homey’ environment (I have a very cool classroom setup in my home), I start at the beginning -- assuming you know nothing -- but I quickly get into layers, cutting and pasting, plug-ins, using ‘grunge’ textures, modifying lighting, replacing backgrounds, using layer masks, blend modes, adding a moon, and a lot more. I promise to fill your head with so many great techniques that you won’t believe what you’ll be able to do. I go over each technique several times to make sure you understand it and can remember it.

Photoshop instructors approach teaching this program from different points of view. My approach is to be as expansive in my thinking as possible in creating unique, artistic, and compelling images. In addition to showing you how to use the various tools,

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pull down menus, layers, and so on, I spend a lot of time giving you creative ideas that will inspire you to produce amazing images with the pictures you’ve already taken.

I live in the Nashville, Tennessee area, and if you fly into the airport (BNA) I will pick you up. If you drive, I’ll give you my address and you can find my home on Mapquest or with a GPS. For the $450 fee, I include one dinner in my home (prepared by my wife who is an amazing cook and hostess) and two lunches, plus shuttling you back and forth from my home to your nearby hotel.

Contact me if you would like to participate in the workshop and I will tell you how to sign up (photos@jimzuckerman.com). All you need is a laptop and a lot of your pictures. If you don’t have a laptop, I have two Mac Book Pro laptops I can loan out for the duration of the workshop. §

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• Topaz Glow • A different approach to composition • Photographing puppies • Kaleidoscopic images • Online photo course • Student showcase • Photo tours

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Subject index for past Photo Insight issues 1/3 focus law 3D sphere 90 degree finder Abstracts in soap Aerial photography African safari Airplane windows Alien landscapes Anatomy of 8 photographs Aperture vs. shutter speed Aperture priority Aurora Borealis Auto white balance Autofocus, when it fails Autofocus failure Autofocus failure

Jul. ‘15 Mar. ‘16 Mar. ‘13 Feb. ‘15 Jun. ‘13 May ‘16 Mar. ‘16 Jan. ‘13 Jan. ‘16 May ‘14 Sept. ‘14 Apr. ‘17 Dec. ‘13 Apr. ‘15 Aug. ‘15 Jan. ‘17

Backgrounds, wild Nov. ‘12 Backgrounds, busy Apr. ‘13 Backlighting Apr. ‘16 Birds in flight Aug. ‘13 Birds in flight Jan. ‘14 Birds in flight Mar. ‘16 Black velvet Mar. ‘14 Black and white conversions Mar. ‘17 Bokeh Jun. ‘15 Butterfly photography Jul. ‘14 Camera setting priorities Jun. ‘17 Capturing lightning Jun. ‘13 Catchlights Jul. ‘16 Cheap flash stand Apr. ‘13 Children photography Jun. ‘14 Chromatic aberration May ‘13 Cityscapes Aug. ‘14 Cityscapes May ‘16 Composition, different approach Jan. ‘15 Contrast vs. exposure Jul. ‘15 Creating a star field Jan. ‘14 Creative blurs Jan. ‘14 Dawn photography Dawn photography Dead center Dealing with smog Decay photography Depth of field

Jan. ‘17 Feb. ‘17 Jan. ‘13 Oct. ‘16 Sep. ‘15 Aug. ‘16

eBook, how to make Jan. ‘13 Energy saving bulbs Sep. ‘14 Exposing for the sun Sep. ‘16 Exposure, the sun Jul. ‘13 Exposure technique Sep. ‘13 Exposure, snow Jan. ‘14 Exposure triangle Nov. ‘14 Exposure, to the right Apr. ‘15 Exposure compensation Sep. ‘16 Extension tubes Dec. ‘13 Fill flash Sep. ‘13 Filter forge Feb. ‘13 Fireworks Jul. ‘13 Fisheye lenses May ‘13 Fisheye lenses Feb. ‘15

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Flash backlighting May ‘15 Flash, balancing exposure Oct. ‘15 Flat art Sep. ‘16 Flowers May ‘15 Flowers in harsh light Jul. ‘16 Focus points Mar. ‘15 Focus stacking Mar. ‘17 Focusing in the dark Oct. ‘16 Foreign models Jun. ‘13 Fractals, generating Sep. ‘13 Framing May ‘17 Freezing ultra action May ‘17 Fun with paint Oct. ‘16 Fundamental ingredients Apr. ‘13 Garish imagery Great subjects Green screen Grunge technique

Dec. ‘15 Apr. ‘15 Mar. ‘13 Feb. ‘13

HDR, one photo Apr. ‘13 HDR at twilight May ‘13 HDR, realistic Jun. ‘15 HDR, hand held Dec. ‘16 HDR panoramas Jun. ‘16 High wind Apr. ‘17 Highlights Apr. ‘14 Highlights, overexposed Feb. ‘15 Humidity Oct. ‘13 Hummingbird photography Apr. ‘13 Hyperfocal distance Jul. ‘13 Implying motion Sept. ‘14 Impossible DOF Feb. ‘16 Impossible DOF Jan. ‘17 Indestructible camera bag Dec. ‘14 Infrared photography Jul. ‘14 Interiors Oct. ‘15 Jungle photography

Dec. ‘14

Kaleidoscopic images Keystoning, correcting

Jan. ‘15 Aug. ‘15

Landscape photography Landscape photography Landscape photography Light fall-off Lighting a face

Dec. ‘12 Apr. ‘14 Nov. ‘16 Feb. ‘14 Oct. ‘13

Low light photography May ‘15 Macro flash

Nov. ‘12 Macro flash Sep. ‘14 Macro flash Aug. ‘15 Mannequin heads Apr. ‘16 Metering modes Nov. ‘16 Meters, when they fail Dec. ‘16 Middle gray Nov. ‘15 Model shoot Jan. ‘17 Moon glow Oct. ‘16 Mosaics Jun. ‘17 Museum photography Mar. ‘13

Subject index for past Photo Insight issues

continued

Negative space Neon edges on black Night photography Noise reduction

Jan. ‘16 Aug. ‘14 Feb. ‘14 Feb. ‘17

Optical infinity

Jun. ‘16

Paint abstracts May ‘13 Painting with light Sep. ‘15 Panning motion Dec. ‘16 Parades Sep. ‘13 Photoshop, content Aware Nov. ‘12 Photoshop, sketch technique

Apr. ‘13 Photoshop, replace background Apr. ‘13 Photoshop, actions palette Dec. ‘13 Photoshop, layer masks Feb. ‘13 Photoshop, the clone tool May ‘13 Photoshop, soft foliage Oct. ‘13 Photoshop, mixer brush tool Sept. ‘14 Photoshop, b & w with color Jun. ‘14 Photoshop, drop shadows Jul. ‘14 Photoshop, creating texture Feb. ‘14 Photoshop, face mirrors Feb. ‘14 Photoshop, liquify Mar. ‘14 Photoshop, face mirrors Aug. ‘14 Photoshop, digital spotlight Sep. ‘14 Photoshop, enlarge eyes Nov. ‘14 Photoshop, darken the periphery Dec. ‘14 Photoshop, mirror images Dec. ‘14 Photoshop, beam of light Apr. ‘15 Photoshop, polar coordinates Mar. ‘15 Photoshop, chrome May ‘15 Photoshop, actions palette Nov. ‘15 Photoshop, cut and paste Nov. ‘15 Photoshop, geometrics Oct. ‘15 Photoshop, plugins Oct. ‘15 Photoshop, multiple selections Apr. ‘16 Photoshop, sharpening Apr. ‘16 Photoshop, Flood plugin Apr. ‘16 Photoshop, Desaturation Aug. ‘16 Photoshop, making a composite Aug. ‘16 Photoshop, the pen tool Feb. ‘16 Photoshop, canvas size Jan. ‘16 Photoshop, using the earth Jun. ‘16 Photoshop, define patterns May ‘16 Photoshop, paste into Nov. ‘16 Photoshop, b & w with color Feb. ‘17 Photoshop, open a closed door Apr. ‘17 Photoshop, palettes May ‘17 Portrait techniques Nov. ‘15 Portraits Mar. ‘13 Portraits, mixed lighting Aug. ‘14 Portraits, window light Mar. ‘15 Portraits, outdoors May ‘17 Post-processing checklist Dec. ‘13 Problem/solution Apr. ‘17 Protecting highlights Dec. ‘12 Puppies Jan. ‘15

Seeing as the lens does Nov. ‘14 Selective focus Jun. ‘15 Self-critiques Jul. ‘13 Self-critiques Oct. ‘13 Sepia and dark contrast Jun. ‘15 Shade May ‘14 Sharpness problems Mar. ‘14 Shooting through wire mesh Sept. ‘14 Silhouettes Jun. ‘13 Soft light Jan. ‘13 Stained glass Mar. ‘17 Star photography Jul. ‘16 Stock photography Sep. ‘14 Tamron 150-600mm Topaz Simplify 4 Topaz simplify 4 Topaz glow Topaz Impression Travel photography Travel portraits Travel tips Travel photographer’s guide Two subject sharp rule

Apr. ‘14 Dec. ‘12 Jun. ‘14 Jan. ‘15 Sep. ‘15 Feb. ‘13 Mar. ‘14 Apr. ‘14 Jun. ‘17 May ‘14

Warm fingers in winter Nov. ‘15 White vignette Aug. ‘15 White balance Feb. ‘15 White balance, custom Mar. ‘16 Wide angle lenses Mar. ‘13 Wide angle portraits Nov. ‘14 Wide angle lenses Jun. ‘17 Wildlife photos with wide angles Mar. ‘15 Window light Dec. ‘15 Window frames Feb. ‘16 Winter photography Dec. ‘12 Winter bones May ‘13 Winter photography Dec. ‘15 Workflow May ‘13

Reflections Feb. ‘13 Safari May ‘13 Safari strategies Jul. ‘15

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A Cross from an Irish cathedral combined with a rainbow.

PHOTO INSIGHTS® published by Jim Zuckerman, all rights reserved © Jim Zuckerman 2017 email: photos@jimzuckerman.com mail address: P.O. Box 7, Arrington, TN 37014

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