Lessons

Lesson Info

Using the Equipment Part 1

We're gonna talk about lenses and how we can change perspectives with fish I sixteen thirty five millimeter wide angle etcetera uh I'm gonna show you show some background clips and within those background clips I'll show you this siri's of images that were created and on day I'll show you the final processed image and that is actually going to lead us into the final segment today, which ill will we'll look at all of those images that we kind of highlight here in the background footage and I'll show you some tips and tricks in light room that I use I'm not going to make it a light room class, but I think kind of some of the things that I do like room maybe a little different than some of the other ways that you guys do it, so maybe be advantageous for you. All right? So using the equipment stock about fish eye there is eight millimeter official okay, so notice how curved everything is this a shot with any two fifteen f four fish eye lens self portrait trying tio illustrate a point here?

I don't think it's, you know, world winning a war world award award winning photo, but I think the kind of concept here that I'm illustrating is notice how curved we are at the edges, right? Candy milner's this is all vignette ing right? Because the barrel is so wide open that we're seeing the actual black interior of the lens here uh and we have curvature but here looking where I am right kind of have a normal view of things right? All the trees are fairly straight so closer we get to the center of a fish eye lens the straighter things become and if you know this then you can kind of work around using a fish island so it doesn't look so fishy okay for lack of a better term ok, so here we are at eight millimeters with that fish eye and here we are at fifteen millimeters with that fish eye so I think it's actually fourteen because see there's a little bit of vignette in going on right there maybe just a touch of darkness is probably somewhere between fourteen and fifteen with a full frame sensor. So now look as we've zoomed out with that lens really cool we have more things that are fairly linear in our frame, right? Kind of interesting. So again what if this were the overhang to a cliff? Now it looks steeper. Correct? So think about those things when putting lenses on cameras fifteen million fish eyed full frame sensor okay, notice how we don't really see a lot of curvature going on here? I think the only thing that may give away the fish eyes probably that curve because it's pretty extreme the road kind of bending doesn't really make it become fish too too terribly so I will use a fish eye in a scenario like this why? Because I'm really tight okay here's my knees right there I'm really tight to the pilot in command here and the only way I can kind of get a really kind of unique perspective is to get that fish eye you get more information in my frame in this scenario because it's such a tight environment ok again snowshoeing with my daughter when she's three what do I do standing there? I hold the camera like this to my eye looking down she's right there a little bit of curvature to the fence line, but I don't think he would be like, oh my god that's fish right off the bat you if you really qualify, you may say, but notice how like my body doesn't look weird, right? I'm not like bent over like this uh, she doesn't look weird kind of cool, right? So officially just gives me a little bit more than I can get really with a sixteen millimeter wide angle now, but if we utilize the fish eye an environment that was crazy, curvy and spiral e I have no ideas fisheye but it really accentuates the lines of thiss gambles oak in colorado so I really like using it in entry environments you know, I talk about being the tree whore guy and I just when I see stuff like this I'm at home you know, I love being in that environment and the fish I really accentuates the movements of those trees and I think that's kind of cool same here so just trunks coming straight up over me right wide angle would have probably cropped me and somewhere in here sixteen millimeters because improve fairly close to her but you know, I want that kind of dramatic line the way these things were kind of going remember yesterday the question was asked you know what? Out of all of the elements or principles what are you? You know, line look at this trees right immediately you're getting line everywhere. Everywhere you go, you're countries another tree environment, different trees, opinions okay turn is right here he turns like this to this. Okay, so when he's right there and leaning to make that turn riding fast enough, he is in the right position. His body is in a position to get him around that corner immediately transitions to the next corner, okay, but I just love the way this the kind of root structure of these opinions, you know, they live in a very kind of high alpine desert environment and they don't get a lot of water so this route structure just fans out try and pick up a cz much moistures you can whenever it rains in here fish eye so I could incorporate some of these external trees uh ended up just driving down the road and grand teton national park and this girl was painting and asked if I could shoot some photos of her painting she's like yeah sure gave her my card and that was up but I love the color palette love the fact that she's very an abstract very abstract painter it's kind of cool stuff, right? So fish I gave me kind of some elements I couldn't get with sixteen millimeter based on trying to be close to her. Okay, yeah, I could have backed up. She would become smaller in the frame. Sixteen millimeter would have worked but I really wanted her prominent. Another thing is you can correct fisheye in uh light room just by the checking a little button in the lens corrections area and sometimes I'll do that too. You just got to think about how it's going to crop your image in the process of taking it uh one other thing notice there's a little bit of, uh, lens flare going on there, you know, lots of people freak out about it, I just leave it again the time it would take me to climb that out, it really doesn't become that big of a distraction for me their nature people really hate lens layer kind of adventure photographers really just leave it, try and use it to her manage sometimes too okay pocket wizard in my pocket attached to the camera his job just to hold the camera hold the camera out here in place of your ski pole ok as he makes a turn I am releasing the camera fish eye view notice the tree doesn't have a lot of bin to it, you know, kind of trying to figure out how where the camera placement is we do this for a couple turns I stop, I look at the shots I'm like ok, the camera needs to be here tried again to it over and over until I get the shot I'm looking for but kind of a unique perspective for a skier you know, there's where you're get this is this is what skiers love that blower powder in the face kind of thing. So a camera strapped to my chest with the the strap you saw uh you're you were released this right? Yeah, so you're he had the remote I'm riding to try and keep pace with this writer named rex who was unbelievably strong and it was really hard for me to do but again picking a shutter speed that blurs gives us that action but also shows us the bike enough of the bike sharp I want you to get the feel that we're riding fast, but I also want you to be able to understand what's going on I don't want everything in the frame blurry, right? And one thing you'll notice with the fish eye lens my bars don't really bend like that in real life, so it's to the lay person you may or may not notice, you know typically the bar drop like that, but they look like they're bent and that's that's where the fish eyes messing with things here, but I don't think that's such a big distraction as faras the composition works really well for me, okay? And this is me this time all I'm doing is releasing the shutter by pressing the button this way, holding the camera in my lens as I turn okay and again picking body position, making sure that arm is in the frame all that kind of stuff stopping reviewing, looking ok can change this that could make that happen. Sixteen thirty five zoom you know we talked about polarizer is, you know this lens always has polarized on it polarize the sky lay on the I'm laying in the dirt on the grounds he's walking out of the bar with the class it's a different perspective right? It's kind of cool the way the clouds in the sky we saw that and I was like and then try this from the ground how do we do this? Skier kick snow starts moving turns drops this was the coolest truck ever s o I'm standing up the truck doesn't have a top on it I'm standing up through the roll bar had rex stand up he's like all going up here that's going to be really crazy was really crazy there's like three rattlesnakes no two rattlesnakes complete darkness at the end of a ride that I've never done ridiculously steep super loose I'm kind of with an injured shoulder like what did I get myself into today but so you know it's about the moments getting to that stuff to you know this is just it's fun to me I mean, riding a diesel import truck that gets thirty miles to the gallon that has three seven inch tires on it that's like totally into, you know, into the truck think just like my son so sixteen thirty five this is a little closer now we know she's really going to hit the rock right things we find in wyoming so this is just a sign in the national park somebody has put the cowboy logo that kind of corresponds tio what wyoming license plate on the deer a little bit of the teeth of grand teton in there just to kind of give that highlight of where we are okay that I believe is my shadow looking up so lights the way the light's coming across I'm trying to control that minimize it as much as possible, right? If I just was standing straight up or didn't crop the camera you know, I could have probably cropped up a little bit more but I was trying to keep this thing kind of mainframe with not as much blue sky and I don't think you really would notice if I didn't point out to you so those you know, those are the types of things you look for when you're shooting shots yes so in this frame that upper right is really dark blue and die and so is there a way to compensate for that with your polarizer or impose? Yeah, I could have turned the polarizer a little less, but the other thing you can do is in light room you could click on that zone and just drag up with of illuminates of of the targeted adjustments will you could click here and just drag up and lighten that a little bit and that would make it more of a cascade across all of the blue color so it wouldn't look that unnatural that's an option to you you can control been getting you know the questions so I'm pretty much like kind of buried in these branches sixteen thirty five were sixteen were in the sixteen millimeter range with all of this stuff right now I think right up against the tree this photographer just walked into my shot without even paying attention to what I was doing and I was like, come on man, get out of my shot but then I was like, ok, I'll use it I use it it's kind of cool you know, sunrise over the towers and torrey still piney national park in patagonia this is here look at that route structure I mean talking about technical riding this is crazy. So for this shot I kind of turned it into black and white because I really liked that contrast the gritty made nature that that black and white gave me here so I'm not always shooting and in color and the beauty of digital is, you know, it's just a click to turn into black and white to see if you're going to like it and then you could further on or a preset you khun created black and white preset that you just apply and then you can see where it goes from there I apply a lot of presets to start with and then I kind of tweak the effects that I get from those presets based on the brush tool and the graduated or the things the graduated filter tool so the sweeping line out to the hikers at mount baker again the checks in on so we're probably more in in the thirty five zone right tighter shop with this one okay you know what it is underground parking e wasn't there for that this's unveil um this is the first day actually had a five d mark to I just remember it because my daughter was messing around in the parking lot and I did some shots where I was walking with her and some shots were they'll just the way the reflections in light we're coming off the cars in the parking garage is just kind of cool to pick a solution or speed walk through so more bob cited the olympics you know here I'm again panning better but notice how we're going this way with the camera right there screwing up because they're going this way I think they crashed and here we're definitely on thirty five millimeters she wanted really nothing to do with me but I like the way her tools and everything we're going dogs barking but you know it's just kind of this scene in china this roman through a village and then a sign for bicycling in china could rent bikes at this bike shop this kind of need you know it's a little bit of english and then chinese and I really love the way the asian writing I mean to me it's just got this really cool aesthetic design wise so any time I could find cool writing like this when I was in china I was taking shots of it mrs baker highway so I just like that barren road look, you know you get the cascades up there it's just kind of a cool environment twenty four one o five favorite lens right take it everywhere. So I am in china leading a group through there for seventeen days and one of my participants is actually walking right towards the edge of that and I see the shot I'm like stop I take the shot but then I'm like, yeah there's something it needs something more and it's kind of funny she's she was only like five feet tall and so that's how small the opening was it's just continuously getting down so I had her just do the kind of spread eagle thing in the opening just to give it something else you know? So twenty four one five, twenty four, twenty four one, five, twenty four ok about the snow blowing all that kind of stuff self portrait it's me skinning up the long afternoon shadow across the ridge line of snow there's my ski pole how do I get the shot without the camera? Just being read it eye level he held the camera, you know sideways here so put the camera in my shadow it's about my shadow bring the camera out becomes more about the camera in my shot of that right this's like my that right there is part of my jacket hanging off of me like I said, I sweat a time when I'm out there more is hot yesterday we talked about shooting something for like a contents page etcetera there you have it intentionally left this open ok, so that's probably mid range of the twenty four one five fifty millimeters you know fifty millimeters they essentially say that that's what kind of works with what we see? Our field division is like a fifty millimeter lens so in a thirty five millimeter format so think along those lines when you're out there picking lenses that's another thing that may help you decide which lens is going where fifty millimeters this guy's hair was really, really long and I just kind of stayed there is a you know, this is outside outside barbershop in china. So he's kind of talking this guy leans in, you know, like I think it looks good and you know, here's the guy cutting the hair so I just get back behind this guy and you don't see me in the mirror, right fifty millimeters, they take the shot really narrowed up the field, right? Where's my focus right at his face in the mirror as opposed to focusing on the back of the head we talked about the pbr can yesterday right well here two there would have changed the focal point of the image what it not here it's about the reflection of his face we connect with that if I shot the back of his head maybe when the barber had the clippers in there a pair of scissors in there then what does it become about about their cut right so think along those lines do you illustrate both hell yeah you're there this doesn't take this guy thirty seconds to do it right got a minute or two even with the clippers you know they're like burning like they did to my porcelain the other night um if you if you you know you have that time utilize it but if you're not thinking about it you're never going to utilize it so low in our weather we actually more snow on the ground in jackson right now than we did here and this was kind of in the beginning of january last year but low in the weather uh so it's not snowing out we have snow on the ground what do the kids like to do they like to go sledding my son is enamored with bicycles loves to ride uh so he's like I'm taking the bike out we're not we're not skiing today I'm taking the bike out so they grabbed the dog and they walk in. I just walked with him. I spent the entire morning just photographing them playing, you know? And I'm looking for those shots that kind of tell that story line of what's going on here, then the shot yesterday where we had the, uh, would when you call him the carpenter built houses before. Trust me. The carpenter who of builds fenders, right, he's standing at the door. Well, that light that was coming in through the doorway. Ok, here's, one of the fenders. I had him put his hand down there looking at how, you know, like, abused his hands are this guy works with his hands every day of his life. Kind of a unique perspective, right? Beat up tattered hands. Really pretty woodworking fender made for bicycles. You know, I found this figured out this way how to make handmade fenders for bikes I'm going to do that also builds custom cabinets and windows, but total he's totally in the cycling. So it's, kind of a cool, you know, these air kind of cool stories to tell people because they're everywhere doesn't always have to be about the hero shop what's this, yes, the windshield of my truck after a snowstorm. I just like you know the fda has three windshield wipers I think it's probably the only car out there that has three of them has got this really long squatty window and just enough snow fell that you could see the windshield wipers so I like that you know here's great texture here's white but here's this thing kind of interrupting were kind of generating horizontal line right we're horizontal person progression with similar shaped elements ok we'll leave it up for a second here's your what your first initial middle initial plus your last initial ok so I'm money lift bro that's a money lift bro pretty jin mei is well money of course money tio money and then jump on then money jump nube think this's the sign at at the exit of the lift on the top of steven's pass for mountain biking so this is your determine your downhill one liner it's kind of cool I think that could be on my wall at some point in the print okay so getting in we're still twenty four one five I'm getting closer you know to the the one o five zone here she's getting ready to roll her skin's up so I just going on a portrait if you go online there's a great kind of line drawing of a person I think if you if you googled crop photographers portrait crop or something and it's got kind of red lines and green lines as to where to crop a person cropping them up above their eyes on their forehead is totally acceptable okay cropping them in between their knees and their hips acceptable as well we don't want to cross him at the wrist right because we don't want it to me make them look you know we don't crop him here we don't want to crop um like right at right below your knee we don't crop from right above the feet so those are kind of zones that you know if you find that that little drawing is kind of a cool way of figuring out how to crop somebody in the camera frame and and it really works so again lens flare light comes out my over behind backlighting my wife okay I chose an exposure where I could pull out enough of the highlight in this kind of milky sky but also get details from detail in her face and that gives us that kind of glow shot it is a very kind of commercial type backlit shot that we're seeing a lot of today but so that's how you would achieve that you know son is back there make sure exposure is good here you're going to do a little bit of adjustment in post obviously but at least this skies not so blown out that all you focus on is that right my eyes kind of go here but that's something I'm looking for in that twenty for the cool thing about swimming for one of five, visit will focus really close that's got kind of macro capability to light macro capability very narrow dept the field now we're getting snowflakes on skis snowing so hard that as we flip skis to get them ready to put skins back on them, the hike back up. That amount of snow has started covering the basis keys so that in turn becomes the subject matter reflection in a hotel window in patagonia. So do with an iphone two of the one d x ok, here's me, I just love the shape of the mountains, you know, there's people out on the deck kind of this very layered photograph, something different. I see it, I'm going to take it. I don't. It doesn't matter. There's, no film going through the camera. I just spent the money on the camera body. Anything I see a take a, you know, that's kind of the rule because how hard is it to get back to patagonia, right? Think along those lines. How hard is it to get the perfect powder day again? Back with the pbr? Nothing like a pretty blue eyed blondes with the three fifty seven in pbr, so it's kind of funny, this is a hut in the alaska and in alaska outside of seward this is when my wife and I were sharing the mountain biking story we're riding up a trail we get to a lake there's a hut there it was kind of interesting we pull up and the people sitting there like I have the hunt for the night and we're like oh no I thought you did and they were just hanging out at the hut drinking pbr had horse that they came upon horses like I guys rode up on bikes and just started talking you know, actually the whole scenario her father was like this really historical guy in the keen eye valleys really well known total cowboy did this whole thing about the circle of life with us and it's based on a wagon wheel and just he's like it was almost clairvoyant he's like you're a capricorn in points of my wife and she is a capricorn and he's like you're capricorn you're over here and your perfect mate that's the cancer and he's over here and I'm like I'm a cancer and she was like you set this up I'm like I didn't do anything so it was like this weird like oh my god, there are people out there that can kind of pick those kind of things up it was just bizarre so he went to this whole spiel and it actually made it into the story but so they're hanging out drinking pbr fully decked with guns like rifles, sidearms. Every person I was there you're like, coming into an armory. And my life's like so start talking to her was like what's, you know, what's the deal like a lot of brown bear activity here at sunset, meanwhile, were, you know, kind of getting to the top of the ride before we have to ride down that sunset. My life doesn't like paris, so she just freaks out. We'll be fine, it's okay? We never even saw there. So my son is looking at my two page spread in powder magazine while on the toilet. Now, this is the only way I could get shots of my son with my real camera. I have to be two rooms away. Him going? Hey, dad, this is kind of cool. What's going on here. Where did you take this? You know, I'm like, oh, my god, I got to take that right. Ok, so yes. So those last few shots one of five. Kind of progress. Twenty four. Fifty zone to one o five.