Master Photography

Pre-Roll:  Squarespace

Topic 1: Holiday gift guide

Topic 2: Bo Drinkard

Jim Harmer I know you are busy but is there any chance you could provide a recap of the latest FAA rules and regs for drones? I imagine a lot of folks (myself included) are expecting a new arrival for Christmas and are unsure of what is required as of late. FAA 333 exemption or 107 or what. Notification to ATC, airports, helipads? It is all quite convoluted at the moment. Maybe a brief update on the next IP podcast? Really looking forward to adding this tool to the arsenal. Thanks and best of holiday wishes to the Harmer clan!

Topic 3:

* GoPros to Space

* ExtremeSpaceAdventures.com contact info was given to me as a Birthday present they have the skills to launch to space.

Can’t capture the Milky Way. Weight limits and stabilization challenge. Daytime launch instead and plan to just get 4K footage but it swung around the whole time instead!

The fear and frustration when we got our first blown out tire and reality set in that we had over $400 on that payload we weren’t sure we would ever see again.

Challenge of the mudflats and despair everyone felt after two weekends of searching and then telling them we should come back one more time. People were done but glad when someone else said it and all were excited to try ONE. LAST. TIME.

Midroll: Squarespace

Fracture

Topic 4: Diffraction

What it is

How to prevent it

Coma

Circle of confusion

Visual idea.  Aperture vs pixel size

Red diffracts quicker than blue

Topic 5:

Getting out there!

Families? Day jobs? Never had time before? Get OUT there. Build your portfolio, don’t wait for your portfolio to happen to you. It won’t.

Overcome the fear of doing it alone at night or at day.

It is amazing what happens when you have a buddy who can commit to get out there with you.

Doodads of the Week!

Jim:  SanDisk Extreme Pro 64 GB 

Aaron: Magnifying Loupe.  In Astrophotography once you get good at setting the scene for a good Milky Way shot you become a pixel peeper and wish you could get that focus even a little tighter. So on top of going in 10x magnification on the LCD screen, I use my loupe to get my eyes really on top of the star I am focusing on to watch that focus adjust and find my best focus. I find this cheap loupe my best option short of buying one of those Sharpstar filters that brings the light into an X shape with a vertical line when you are at the sharpest point. That costs $59+ when the loupe only cost me $x

Brent: Google Maps with account sign in. Invaluable for trip planning and finding your way.

Do Random

* Photo scan

Aaron King

PhotogAdventures.com

YouTube: https://goo.gl/apYafA

Instagram: @photogadventures

Facebook: /photogadventures

Twitter: @photogadventure

Pre-Roll:  Squarespace

Topic 1: Brent – Atmosphere Aerosol, using it, challenges, what I found works.

Topic 2: Interview Brent about BRL

Where did the idea come from?

So many out there already, what do you offer?

What is it like managing those orders?

What about insurance?  What is the damage rate?

Favorite lens in the world?

Mistakes clients make?  Advice from the back end?

Topic 3: Jim – Cinematic Lightroom Presets

* Share the post for details on how to win a trip to ICELAND!   

Topic 4:  Learning to Pose others and give more direction as a photographer

Growing the more you shoot the more you learn and the more you talk and take the lead.

Kids vs Adults

Midroll: Fracture

Squarespace

Topic 5: GoPro Karma Debacle

Falls spontaneously from the sky

Caused by camera too far forward causing vibration that loosened battery connection.

Giving a Hero 5 to those who return them

Topic 6: Brent – Peak Design Messenger 13, Used it for three weeks in Europe this summer. Worked great!

Doodads of the Week!

Jim:  

Laryssa : Lexar Professional 633x 128GB SDXC UHS-I/U3 Card (Up to 95MB/s Read) w/Image Rescue 5 Software – LSD128CBNL633 

Brent: Guess what Brent had said – send your entry to [email protected] to win your LR Presets for Free! First person to give the item he had mentioned during the podcast, will get their's free. 

Do Random

Silk iPhone 7 Plus Case

 

Pre-Roll:  BrentRentsLenses.com  Use offer code “IMPROVE”.  Selling off gear.

Topic 1: (Jim) Eye Tracking for Photography Composition

This week I did some testing with sophisticated software which tracks where on the screen someone is looking.  Records gaze location twice a second.

The best compositions keep the viewer’s eyes away from the edges, and move the viewer in a logical pattern around the photo

Viewers pay little attention to the frame itself and all of the attention to the area between the framing elements

If model looks into lens, viewer stays looking at eyes almost the entire time they see the photo.  If model looks off camera, then the viewer only briefly glances at face and looks more at environment.

LR Steal pre-orders available right now at improvephotography.com/presets.  Product to be launched on November 28 for 72 hours ONLY!  We will never ever ever have this sale again.  Period.

Topic 2 (Jeff): Being creative on finding leads for paid shoots.

In spite of trying through the school and through supporters/boosters of the school, was unable to get media credentials to shoot any football this season

Have a neighbor who has two sons playing on the basketball team, she helped me to get media credentials to shoot the varsity basketball team.  They had a student take the shots of the team last year, she only knew how to get the shots sent through text to the school and they were pretty terrible

Haven’t shot an actual game yet, only the rah-rah intro night they have where the have the team do some scrimmages for the school kids and some that we took for yearbook with flash lighting

Having a ton of fun creating “game day” images too with the kids looking tough with kind of a grunge preset in Lightroom and then adding the high school logo, a #gomustangs hashtag and simple words of “GAME DAY” on there

I am slowly posting an image a day from that and getting huge likes/shares/comments from students and parents.  Have had 2 inquiries about senior photos in less than a week.  Have had a 763% increase to my business Facebook page

Topic 3 (Brian): Not a day goes by when I don’t think about how photography has impacted my life.  I’ve seen and heard bits from Nick on how his life is different.  I see cool things happening for Jeff.  I want to know the impact that it’s had for you guys.  What opportunities?  What’s different?  Looking back, how would you compare it to your life today?  Grab a tissue!  Let’s get real!!!

Topic 4 (Jeff): Photo Taco on Exposure Lock

Who has used the auto-exposure lock feature?

Only available in automatic or semi-automatic modes like shutter or aperture priority

Useful if you want to use those modes and want to have a little more control over how your camera uses the metering information coming to it, normally it will constantly be changing the exposure settings it has control over until you take a picture

In the Photo Taco episode, which you can find by searching “photo taco auto exposure lock”, I go over the hands-on camera process to use the feature for both Nikon and Canon, so for the details about how to do that go check out the episode.

Mario Magallan: The most common time I use AEL is for stage performance shoots, where lighting is constantly changing or the stage I am shooting has hot spots that need to be adjusted in a split seconds to capture action on different parts of the stage. (shooting 5d mk iii, 7d mk ii or 70d)I will set my camera to * for AEL, AF-On to Back button focus, Aperture mode, spot metering and set desired ISO based on available stage light. I use the * button to lock in shutter speed on someones face for that section of the stage and will shoot a few captures under that light using back button focus and recompose as needed. I then select another part of the stage hit the * on another face and repeat.

Pre-Roll:  Squarespace  Use offer code “IMPROVE”

BrentRentsLenses.com  Use offer code “IMPROVE”

Topic 1: Jim – How to win photography competitions

Fundamentals must be absolutely perfect, because someone else will get them right

Techniques win!

No competitions with “likes”

Topic 2: Connor – Editing Practices: What do you guys do when you’re editing? Listen to music, watch a movie, listen to audiobooks/podcasts, work in silence? Have you tried to pay attention to speed and efficiency if you have tried multiple things?

Topic 3: Shooting “work for hire” vs freelancer

Topic 4: shooting everyday – how good is your phone?

Midroll: Squarespace

Fracture

Topic 5: Connor – What is a cheap item that is not directly photo gear that you wouldn’t want to go without and why? My examples would be clamps for holding things or foam core/poster board to use as makeshift reflectors, snoots, flags etc.

Topic 6:

12 Minute Skill:  Timelapse

Stack in Lightroom so it doesn’t make a mess

MOTION!

Fake motion with Photoshop

https://improvephotography.com/42456/syrp-genie-mini-review/

Mike Olbinski for inspiration

Shooting in manual

Doodads of the Week!

Jim – Lexar 128 GB Memory Card

Connor – Kupo Monitor Adapter 

Stephen – Loupedeck 

Doorandom of the Week:

 

* Washer on keychain as an always ready screwdriver

 

 

Nick has ONE last minute opening for Oregon Coast. Please e-mail him at [email protected] if you're interested.

Pre-Roll:  Squarespace  Use offer code “IMPROVE”

BrentRentsLenses.com  Use offer code “IMPROVE”

Topic 1:   The Traveling sports photographer

Nick spent the weekend on airplanes, and in airports, what do you do when you don’t get to sleep before your big shoot.  Shooting an NFL game with a fever.. A great time.  A quick discussion about travel tips.. And gear used to shoot pro sports

Images from the game for Jim   

Topic 2: Tips for Second Shooting a wedding

http://improvephotography.com/42468/16-wedding-photography-tips-second-shooters/

Topic 3: Learning something completely new and getting SUPER frustrated.

Topic 4: If someone is just starting out and want to get their first real professional lens, which do you recommend (that’s under $1,000, or even cheaper since they don’t have much)?

Midroll: Blurb

Squarespace

Topic 5: Popular pages sharing your work without tagging

Doug Baldwin of the Seattle seahawks shared one of my photos this week, he found it on facebook, downloaded it, and then shared it on instagram without tagging me… I got in touch with him and he added the tag.  That image now has over 22k likes. This image  on facebook as well

Topic 6: Photoshop 2017 Released Today

https://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/features.html?mv=product&mv2=accc#

No questions at the press conference.  I almost fell asleep.

Seems like Adobe is ONLY adding the ability to buy their fonts and stock photos in apps right now.  No meaningful improvements in quite some time.

 

Doodads of the Week!

Sandy – “The Photographer’s Pricing System” by Alicia Caine

Nick – Technet small keyboard

Jim – Tascam DR-10L http://tascam.com/product/dr-10l/

Why I quit using the Rode SmartLav