Start Making Photographs

How to Stop Taking “Snaps” and

Start Making “Photographs”

A primer on how to grow from snapping shots to making art

By Rick Colson, EcoVisualLab.com

rick@ecovisuallab.com • 508-358-8105

NOTE: EWW’s intent is not to endorse EcoVisualabs and Rick Olson, Eco Visual Communications/EcoVisualab but, we do think that this article offers some interesting advice for beginners.

Forget Everything Everyone Has Told You

You’ve probably been taking pictures for many years. Perhaps you even started as a child when “real film” was the popular medium. Perhaps you started more recently with a digital camera. Now you find yourself wondering how so many truly great photographs have emerged in recent years and wondered how you might join in the more creative action. Your eye has become a little more mature, a touch more sophisticated and you’re a little more educated on what makes a great image.

Or, maybe you’ve come to understand that there are no rules when it comes to making photographs with impact. You’ve discovered that a seemingly underexposed, scratched, “grunge” image with a black border can have a surprising effect on people. That a stereotypical subject can always be captured in a new and better light. That objects placed on the bed of a scanner can sometimes make more interesting images than objects placed in front of a camera. That the old Kodak Brownie you found in your mother’s closet can make some wonderful images.

If you’re like most people interested in photography, you probably know someone who owns a couple of state-of-the-art DSLRs, a half dozen or more lenses and who buys every new photographic gadget that enters the scene. He sure does look professional with all that gear hanging uselessly around his neck! Yet he can’t make a decent photo if his life depends on it. The fact is, that making great images doesn’t have to do with equipment. The best gear can help, but nothing beats creativity, imagination, practice, a trained eye and experience. I know a dozen photographers who you could lock into a room, any room, with a point-and-shoot camera and they’ll emerge 5 minutes later with a better image than you or I might take in a whole day of shooting with a DSLR in the “perfect location.”

Such is the wonder of photography. There’s a great image to match just about every photographic “sin” you can think of. A startling landscape in deep blacks and grays that’s underexposed and “too dark.” A delicate face covered in make up so overexposed and washed out that you can barely make out the features, pale lips and fragile eyes. An image so full of camera shake that the headlights of passing cars are a maze of zigs and zags. A blurred subject that is so out of focus that all you can see is soft abstraction and a delicious blend of colors. Such are the rules, made to be broken.

Start Looking Around – You Don’t Have to Go Far

You know that intersecting trio of lines where the floor meets the corner of the room. One vertical and two diagonal paths that meet at the perfect angle… the delicate play of light on each of the surfaces such that all three have their own subtle tonal difference? Maybe it’s where the walls meet the ceiling, where pools of light reflect from a table top to cast a multitude of cloudy shapes on the white paint. Perhaps it’s a place in your house where the kids have piled their cast-off shoes or draped their coats as they came in from the cold. It might be the face of someone you see every day, maybe even a hundred times a day, day after day until you can’t really see how unique they are.

Each of these things is right under your nose. All you have to do is look and keep looking. All you need do is be aware of what you are seeing, be conscious about what it is you’re looking at. Take it in and think about it a little bit. Let your eyes scan for your mind. Let your mind absorb for your eyes. Toss it around a little. Think about what it is that gives you visual pleasure or elicits an emotional response or helps you relax or stimulates a memory or tickles your fancy. Years ago, there was a Canadian Film Board film that showed extreme close-ups of what appeared to be body parts. Each was exquisite, intriguing and almost recognizable. One suggested a woman’s breast. Another the line between two bodies lying side by side. Another the fine down on a something completely different, perhaps a peach? As the camera slowly pulled back it revealed the surprising truth – these were all close ups of the same baby, barely a few months old, lovingly captured in exquisite detail. The film maker saw with new eyes, or shared with the love that filled the eyes of a new parent. He or she focused on what their eyes could see and brought attention, awareness and thought to the subject.

A vacationer awakens to an early sunrise, leaves her room for a morning walk and suddenly notices that the lake she’s staying on is dead-calm still. It’s become a mirror, reflecting a pale cloudy sky in absolute perfection. Slowly, she raises her camera in awe and capture this stunningly beautiful scene that she’s walked by a hundred or a thousand times before. On this day, she opened herself to something strikingly simple yet surprisingly beautiful.

A photographer walks down a city street and notices, across the street, a disheveled teen, alienated looking, perhaps a little angry at this world and unlike most of us who would look down and walk by hoping not to be noticed, he crosses the street, intercepts the youth and asks respectfully if a picture might be taken. The resulting portrait represents an entire generation of alienated teens, a world of misfits or, perhaps, a troubled neighborhood teen you might know and see every day.

A couple cruise the four lane beltway, hurrying to get where they’re going, a city place they’ve been to a hundred times before. The woman, camera resting in her lap, notices the side of an old brick building and in this late afternoon light realizes that there’s an old faded mural painted on the bricks that she never really noticed before and she asks her husband to take the next exit. They double back. She steps quickly from the car, raises the camera to her open eyes, focuses, checks her settings and clicks. With less than a few minutes lost they head on their way. The resulting image hangs large, a 40×60 on their condo wall and just about everyone who visits is struck by its beauty.

The Best Camera is the One You Have With You

It’s a simple fact that the camera you have with you, no matter what it is, will take a better picture than the one you don’t. Every time. These days, there are cameras in every price range that are small enough to fit in a pocket or hang unobtrusively from your shoulder or virtually disappear into a pocketbook or briefcase. There might even be a perfectly good one built into your cell phone, which, of course, you are virtually never without. Soon, there will be one that you can wear on your wrist that will tell the time until you raise it to your eye when it will switch to telling you the f-stop and shutter speed it’s set to. The real point is, you can’t make images when you’ve left your camera behind. Even a small consumer grade compact will make a decent 4×6 or 5×7 or even 8×12 print. Perfect? No, but good enough. If you can make a great picture with that old Brownie or plastic “Holga,” you can probably do the same with a simple point-and-shoot. Spend a little more and you can find a professional level compact that will produce images that rival those from an expensive DSLR. Just remember, it’s not the equipment that makes the picture. It’s you. After a while, you might even find that it’s worth schlepping along that bigger fancy camera you own even if it is heavy and its zoom lens bumps into things. All it might take to persuade you is that one large framed image on your wall that everyone oohs and aahs over.

Learn the Basics – The Rest Will Come

When I was in college pursuing my second degree there was a motorcade through a small Ohio town a few miles away called Garretsville. Richard Nixon was coming through a year after the Kent State shootings (just 15 miles away) and I wanted to be ready to grab a telling picture of him waving to the assembled crowds for the school paper. I arrived in town about 20 minutes ahead of time, staked out a position and yielded to the inevitable Secret Service search of camera and camera bag. Then his limo appeared, early, at the middle of a long parade of black vehicles and I raised the camera to my eye. But wait, the 200-mm telephoto lens I was using was too long, he was approaching too fast, and he was impossible to track. I swung my second manual Nikon body up to my eye and tried to focus the 50-mm lens on his vehicle now just feet in front of me. Just as I realized that a wide angle lens would have been better, Nixon ducked down inside the limousine and the only shot I could get was of a long, indistinct trail of black black vehicles from behind with a few heads in the way. I was crushed. What was I thinking? I knew the right exposure, f-stop, and shutter speed. I knew the right kind of film for the conditions that day and the effect I wanted to achieve. I knew what the best camera was for the job and I had two of them. Yet I chose the wrong lens, it all happened far faster than I expected and I didn’t even think to prefocus on the spot where his car would be. And I had a degree from RIT!

There’s more to taking images than the basics, though the more familiar you are with these, the more you understand what does what and which functions affect what part of an image, the more these basics become second nature and the more you can concentrate on the rest. Despite having been an avid photographer from 14 years of age I ignored certain basics and several more advanced concepts at that motorcade because I was rusty and the basics I thought I knew took too much thought and attention. Have you ever watched a musician playing an instrument and it appears effortless? Practice! If he

or she had to think of every note, every finger position change, every light or heavy touch, the music would be rough and unnatural. Instead, it all flows smoothly by instinct, the result of practice. The practiced, experienced musician thinks about the whole, the “gestalt” of the moment, not each individual element. Photography can be like this too. With practice, the technological obstacles can disappear. The aesthetics can take over and your natural innate talents – your sense of composition, color, emotional impact – all can be “released.”

So, What Do You Really Need to Make Great Prints?

Once you have the mechanics down pat, once you’re familiar with your equipment, its use and idiosyncrasies, you can start concentrating on the best ways to translate the images you’ve captured to printed (or online) images you can actually share. The same is true of images you’ll share via a tablet like an iPad or even a laptop computer.

Regardless of the technology you use to take pictures, these days it’s likely that the path to a fine print will be digital. Conventional wet-chemistry based printing is becoming less and less prevalent and, from an environmental standpoint (and a health standpoint) that’s definitely a good idea. So-called “conventional processing” uses large amounts of water, toxic chemicals and exposes workers to unnecessary health hazards. Having grown up in a conventional B&W darkroom I now have mild asthma – likely the result of exposure to glacial acetic acid found in “fixer,” a stabilizing chemical. Inkjet prints are potentially healthier and better for the environment with some notable exceptions. The use of plastic substrates, inks with volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and toxic over coats or laminates still prevails in many segments of the inkjet industry – particularly among large scale producers. These methods not only produce toxic waste products, they also produce indoor air pollution both from inks and substrates like plastic and vinyl that can “off-gas” fumes into the air. Many of these fumes are known neurological and respiratory toxins. In fact, printers who use “solvent inks,” the most prevalent in the graphics industry, are regulated by the EPA for ventilation and air exchange standards to protect their workers! There are far healthier ways to print and thankfully, most desktop inkjet printers use water based inks that will print on high quality papers. That’s the good news. The bad news is that many of these printers use dye based inks that are prone to rapid fading. Many available papers use optical brighteners that may also fade leaving a pronounced yellow cast to the paper. And, many wood-pulp-based papers use chlorine to bleach the paper’s cellulose fibers. What do you get when you mix wood pulp and elemental chlorine? Dioxins. Very nasty stuff – in fact the most carcinogenic group of chemicals known.

The better inkjet systems use “aqueous” pigment inks which are far more stable than most dyes and there are a variety of cotton-based papers available that are healthier and better for the environment. When I print for clients, I use VOC-free water-based pigment inks and papers that are made from the reclaimed fibers from cottonseed oil manufacturers (food grade) that happen to make the world’s best inkjet papers! The results are far healthier and better for the environment than any solvent-based, wood-pulp-based, or wet-chemical system. With a little research, you can probably find similar products. Last, our papers are sourced locally which greatly reduced the greenhouse gas emissions associated with transporting paper which is very heavy per unit of volume. Remember, a typical large cargo container vessel goes 37 FEET on a single gallon of highly polluting marine diesel. That translates to about 485,000 gallons of fuel for one transatlantic crossing.

Given All That, What Are The Most Important Steps?

1) Practice, Practice, Practice

2) Calibrate Your Monitor – Once you’ve thoroughly learned your equipment and practiced until it’s second nature, the most important single thing you can do is to use a calibrated monitor to look at your digital camera or scanned files. Why? Because this is the only way you can be certain that what you see on screen will look like what you print or have printed. This is one of those things I can’t emphasize enough. It’s critical to use a hardware based calibration system and not just a software solution. Many computers come with software that lets you “visually adjust” your monitor – all of which is absolutely worthless for even adequate color management. You must use a colorimeter (a hardware device that attaches to your computer screen) to create more objective color calibrations that will compensate for most defects in your system, and NO system is perfect, color wise, right out of the box. You might get lucky and have a system that will render certain colors accurately but it will likely be way off on other colors. LCD displays, the most popular “flat panel” display types, change the way they reproduce color over time and calibrating them is the only way to compensate for this behavior. It used to be that in order to obtain a high quality monitor you had to spend thousands of dollars (and many professionals still do). Now

there are very high quality monitors for a few hundred dollars. The key difference in what makes a monitor “successfully calibratable” is the type of flat panel it uses. Most inexpensive monitors use a kind of panel called TFT that has very narrow viewing angles. The better ones, the ones that don’t change as much as viewing angle changes are made with IPS panels. You can find out which ones use IPS panels by looking at their specifications or doing an online search. A good IPS panel display and hardware calibrator are the best investments you can make in order to start to create a color managed workflow for your imaging.

3) Shoot RAW, Scan Big - If you’re using a digital camera, chances are that it will allow you to save your files in different formats, the most common of which is JPEG. Most people shoot in JPEGs because the format “compresses” your files so that you can get many more images on your camera’s storage card. While this sounds good in theory, there is a problem with this approach. JPEG is a “lossy” format. That means that you lose data every time you save an image as a JPEG. That means that there is far less “head room” when an adjustment (color balance, contrast, brightness, saturation, etc.) is necessary. Most of the better cameras will also allow you to save your images in what’s called RAW formats. RAW formats simply record all of the image data without compression or interpolation. The downside is that RAW files take up more room on your media – your camera’s memory card and your computer’s hard drive – and they take longer for the camera to process. But, they allow a much greater range of corrections and enhancements than JPEG files do. Some RAW files require the use of the camera manufacturer’s software in order to “process” files or convert them to a format that can be viewed or printed. Some photographers prefer to use their favorite image editing application to convert RAW files instead, however not all software works with all RAW formats. If this is a problem for you, you can always convert your RAW files into a more universal RAW format developed jointly by Adobe and other software manufacturers, call DNG. All it takes is a free Mac and Windows application from Adobe called DNG Converter. Most image editing applications will work with DNGs, but even more importantly, archiving your files as DNGs will help ensure that they will be readable by future software. You can think of your RAW files or DNG files as being the equivalent of “digital negatives.”

If you’re scanning your film negatives or transparencies for digital use, be sure to capture them at high enough resolution, typically 300 pixels per inch (ppi) at the expected largest output size or larger. If you are expecting to output your files at very large sizes, say 20×30 inches or more, you can probably get good results with a scan of 150-200 ppi at output size. In any event, you should save your scanned files as TIFFs, which allows some compression but is “lossless.” It doesn’t cause deterioration of the image data when saved. It’s always best to scan at the highest possible resolution that will meet your output needs, but storage needs also have to be considered. Generally speaking, TIFFS of about 40-50MB from scanned files are high enough resolution for just about any need. Many people produce even smaller TIFF files and find them to be sufficient. If they need an even smaller file, the image can be saved, once, as a full resolution JPEG (12 on a JPEG compression scale from 1-12), which will be smaller and suitable for output. This should only be done after all image adjustments are made as working on and/or re-saving a JPEG file will result in image deterioration due to data loss.

4) Invest In Good, Industry-Standard Software - Most digital cameras come with software from the manufacturer that will allow at least basic image adjustments and manipulation and the ability to store images in standard formats such as JPEG and TIFF. However, there is still only one world-class software for image editing and its called Adobe Photoshop (and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom which is a separate topic). Photoshop has a very steep learning curve. In fact, though I’ve been using it for more than a dozen years I am still a relative novice. Photoshop offers several advantages. Being the de-facto industry standard it helps ensure that your files will be compatible with the software used by third party vendors such as digital labs. It is by far the most adaptable tool, letting you make the greatest range of adjustments to virtually any image. It offers excellent color management. Because it is ubiquitous, there are many add-ons and enhancements made for Photoshop by third-party software vendors that can make image adjustment, optimization and organization easier, faster and offer more automated processing. Some manufacturers, like On-One Software and Nik Software, make whole suites of add-ons to Photoshop to improve its functionality – yet they can also work as stand-alone software outside of Photoshop. This can have advantages for certain workflows.

Photoshop is, in my humble opinion, outrageously expensive, which, along with the steep learning curve, discourages many photographers. In fact, it can cost more than your monitor or camera! For many users, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, particularly with layer enhancements offered by On-One Software, will suffice for 99% of their needs at a far lower cost. Still industry standard, it offer modules for importing and organizing images as well as processing and enhancing them. Some photographers believe that using Lightroom to make adjustments is more analogous to working in the darkroom. That can help make it more “intuitive” for experienced darkroom photographers than working in Photoshop. If you simply

can’t afford to buy Photoshop you can look at some alternative ways to obtain it and a 30-day trial is free. It can also be licensed at a monthly fee which is probably the most initially affordable way to obtain it. If you’re a student in most art, design, architectural or photography classes you can obtain the “educational version” of Photoshop for a drastically reduced price. I just helped my daughter do so and it cost less than $200 vs. the nearly $650 license for the regular version. Hint: Many people find it worthwhile to enroll in a photo class just to obtain this benefit. The educational version of the software is exactly the same as the regular version but it’s ineligible for free upgrades and has a few more licensing restrictions.

5) Learn to “Softproof” - One of the best parts of having a well calibrated monitor and industry standard software is the ability to “soft proof.” Soft proofing is simply a way to look at your image on screen that simulates what it will look like on paper. Inkjet printing papers are calibrated using what are known as “icc profiles.” These are basically adjustment files created by the printer, paper manufacturer or ink supplier to create more accurate output using their supplies. Experienced photographers, artists and printers with color management training can also create their own icc profiles using color densitometers and standard test charts. (Though not for the casual or timid user, companies like Datacolor and X-Rite, leaders in color management, make excellent entry level systems for print calibration at a relatively reasonable cost. In fact, Datacolor makes a cost effective system they claim virtually anyone can use.) By “telling” your color correct monitor what these profiles look like, you can actually simulate output on profiled media on your computer screen. This simulation, or “softproof” takes into consideration such fundamental attributes as ink color range (gamut), base paper color, and the expected interaction of a given set of inks with a given paper. Softproofs, however, don’t just appear on your screen. You have to learn how to create them in your particular software – a subject worthy of its own explanations. Why is this important? It allows you to reduce or eliminate test prints resulting in ink and paper savings, which creates both environmental and personal/business cost benefits. If you don’t know how to softproof, there are excellent, free online tutorials for both Windows and Mac software.

6) Back up. Back up. Back up - It wasn’t very long ago that data storage was very expensive. Today you can buy terabyte drives from major retailers for as little as $50-60. Creating an effective back up strategy is not only simple, it’s vital. You can’t produce great photographs if your files are lost! It’s virtually inevitable that your main hard drive will fail some day. Maybe tomorrow, but certainly within a few years. Even new solid-state drives, though more reliable, can fail. That’s a sad fact and not having an adequate back up strategy is just another way of burying your head in the sand. So what exactly is an “adequate” back up strategy? It involves a few basic elements and some will tell you that there is no such thing as too many back ups! Here are a few basics, but I strongly recommend assessing your risks and creating your own strategy to accommodate these risks. Someone who lives in an earthquake, fire vulnerable, theft-likely or flood zone might have a different strategy than someone who lives a in a safer location. But remember, anyone can (and will) lose a hard drive – anyone, through natural events, mechanical failure, neglect, abuse or misuse. I had one taken out by a lightening strike nearly a quarter of a mile away!

The back-up basics:

Redundancy is important. The more drives your files are on, in more locations, the safer your files will be.

Multiple locations are important. A back up drive in your home near your primary drive will be just as dead if your house burns down or a flood occurs. Keep a recent copy off site. A bank safety deposit box is a good place to start. Some people keep two back up drives and rotate them off site every week or so depending on need. I know professionals who rotate drives to off-site daily.

RAID-1 is your friend. RAID is a software or hardware configurable combination of hard drives and a means of storing the same data across two or more drives simultaneously. In many RAID-1 systems, if one drive fails inserting a new drive will cause the system to “rebuild” the RAID by adding the data to the replacement drive automatically. In any RAID system if one drive fails it is highly likely that the data will still exist on the other drive. (This is not true of fire or mechanical damage or voltage spikes that can affect both drives. That’s why a third off-site drive is important.) RAID can be set up in several different configurations, some that address redundancy and some that address speed. RAID-1 is mirroring, the writing of data to two or more drives simultaneously and identically. In a RAID-1 system, you will find exactly the same data on both drives. If one fails, the other will still contain the data except in those situations noted previously. External RAID-1 drive enclosures, RAID internal controller boards and software RAID solutions such as that built into Mac OS-X can all be used. Some experts consider hardware RAID to be more secure

than software RAID, though RAID hardware does fail.

Frequent and regular back up is best to ensure that you have back up copies of the latest files. Some people even copy data from their memory cards to their main and back up drives simultaneously. For those worried about data loss in the camera, there are high end DSLRs that will write data to two memory cards simultaneously. There are also wireless and hardwired solutions to transfer files to your computer as you shoot. Some can even be used in remote locations via Internet connectivity. Software is also available for your computer that will schedule and perform back-ups automatically and unattended. If you’re forgetful or resistant to rigid scheduling these may be a great solution.

7) Understand Layers and “Side Cars” - Higher end imaging software offers the ability to “place” copies of images or parts (selections) of images onto different layers in a virtual stack. Whenever you work on a file, create a duplicate layer to work on leaving the base layer untouched. This will allow you to make changes while preserving your original image. You can think of layers as pieces of glass, one on top of the other, with your image on each. Some parts of layers can be transparent showing the layer below, or opaque, concealing the image or part of the image below. Adjustment layers are just that. Layers that contain specific adjustment information to the preceding or base layer. In most applications, a given layer can be turned on or off, so that, for instance, a single file can contain both color and black-and-white versions.

Some image adjustment software creates changes to your actual file. Others create a “side-car” or additional file that contains a set of instructions for modifications that are applied when you view the image or print it. These so-called side-car applications have the benefit of being non-destructive; they leave your original data intact and add additional data files to modify it when needed. However, if the side car files become “unattached” or dissociated from the original image file, the correcting data can be lost. The advantage of software that applies changes directly to your files is that there is no chance of losing the changes. The downside, though, is that these modified files are almost universally larger – sometimes a great deal larger than the original unmodified file. Neither is right or wrong and both are viable depending on your work style. Adobe Photoshop typically modifies your file while Lightroom creates a separate file that describes the desired changes. In my own work I preserve my original file as both a RAW or DNG back up and as a base layer by always working on a duplicate layer. Layered files can be saved as both PSD (native Photoshop) and TIFF files.

8) Use a Mac - I know, this one is controversial and requires an additional and probably unnecessary expense. But the real beauty of the Mac is that it’s also a Windows machine right out of the box. Just add the Windows OS and you’re in business. In fact, every new Mac will also run Windows just as well as a dedicated Windows computer. However Windows computers can’t (at least legally) run Mac software. Most people who are beginning with computers find Macs to be more intuitive, easier to learn and in most instances, more reliable than generic Windows hardware (PCs). They’re easier to add external devices to and the days of badly limited Mac software are long gone. Besides, if there’s a critical application that you need that’s Windows only (Outlook, for example) just boot up Windows and run it! You can expect a Mac to cost from 10% to 50% more than an equivalent Windows box but that generally gives you twice the software choices! (Macs run on a modified UNIX platform and so they will also run the UNIX operating system, as well.)

One type of Mac, though, is NOT good for photography without a separate, external monitor. iMacs come with glossy screens that are difficult to accurately profile and more difficult to use due to their reflectivity. To the lay person they look “gorgeous,” but one hour fiddling with monitor position to eliminate unwanted reflections and glare will have you cursing the day you bought an iMac. Guaranteed. That said, I use one professionally just about every day though the color-critical work I do involves a separate, well-calibrated IPS panel display that runs right alongside. The Mac OS, using the right calibration software, will allow you to calibrate each monitor individually. This has the added advantage of increased screen “real estate.” Palettes can be left open on one monitor while adjustment previews and image results are seen on the other. (Apple – What were you thinking when you created glossy screens?)

9) Grow a Third Leg - Yes, three legs are more stable than two. Using a sturdy, quality tripod is almost always a good idea unless you have to be able to change camera positions very quickly. When a tripod isn’t available, a monopod will do. Using both hands and a monopod actually simulates three legs offering far greater stability than hand holding alone. Though this runs counter to the “always have a camera with you” school of thought (who wants to schlep

around a tripod?) it’s one of the simplest and least expensive things you can do to improve your images. The reality is that much of what people complain about as being lens blur from inferior glass is actually motion blur from subtle vibrations your hand transmit to the camera. The longer the focal length lens you use the worse the effect of vibration. With anything longer than an 85-mm to 100-mm lens, a tripod can be a virtual necessity – especially when shooting in low light. If you’re skeptical about this you can test it yourself. Just take two identical shots, one hand held an one on a sturdy tripod with the same lens under the same low light conditions and then look at a 100% magnification of your image on screen. You will probably be surprised at the difference. Tripods are mechanical devices with few moving parts, and as such, they make excellent “used buys.” In fact, you should be able to find a good one, the sturdier the better, for around $25 on EBay or Craigslist. I have a cheap one I always keep in my car.

10) Buy Lightly Used - Recycling is a good thing. Buying lightly used gear will almost always save you considerable money in the long run. Why is this important in terms of making better images? Because it will free up some cash for lessons, better equipment, more prints, more training, more travel and more practice. Take the time to become knowledgeable about your equipment. These days it’s far easier using online resources. Learn about what is a good value and what isn’t. I make my living by creating and reproducing images and I buy virtually everything I use as demo or used equipment. Remember that guy we all know with the two DSLRs around his neck and the half dozen lenses he owns? The one thing that guy is good for is buying his cast-off equipment. That f2.8 lens not fast enough for him? Buy it when he springs for the new f2.0 lens. That one-generation-old camera body she’s dying to replace? Buy it from her when she gets the latest zillion megapixel replacement.

Megapixels!

A last word about the holy grail and the big lie. Don’t fall for it. There are megapixels and there are megapixels and they are NOT all equal. There is a world of difference between the output from a world class 12-megapixel medium format back and a file from the same resolution point-and-shoot. Yes, they’re both 12-megapixels but this tells you almost nothing about their respective image quality. Other factors are equally or more important. Dynamic range. Noise. Sharpness. The ability to tolerate broad adjustments to their output – so called “headroom.” The latest versions of high end DSLRs are in the 20- 30-megapixel range – staggering resolution that would have required a small fortune as little as five years ago. Even higher resolution models are coming. Point and shoots are available in the 16- 18-megapixel range, also amazing resolution for such small devices. Even cell phone cameras are now in 8-megapixel territory. But the output from a clean 4- 8-megapixel file will be better than the output from a poor, noisy 16-megapixel file in just about every instance. Manufacturers are starting to recognize this and some recent cameras have actually reversed the megapixel race reverting to cleaner, less noisy sensors that are fewer in megapixels than the ones they replace. One of the first really great digital cameras was the Olympus E10. It was 4-megapixels at a time when most were only 2. It caused quite a sensation because it was the first to allow a really good quality 8×10 print. It’s still a good camera though slow and at more than 10 years old, ancient by today’s standards. But here’s the thing – a good clean 4- 8-megapixels, as low resolution as that sounds today, will produce beautiful prints – and online or screen images that are completely indistinguishable from higher resolution files viewed the same way. I still have 12×18 and larger prints made from that early Olympus. Today’s 12-megapixel cameras are sufficient in resolution to produce excellent, exhibition quality prints at reasonable sizes under 20×30, and sometimes larger. When buying, take the following guidelines into consideration. Generally, larger sensors with bigger photo sites are better than smaller sensors. A full-frame DSLR will generally produce higher quality files than a smaller so-called cropped-sensor DSLR given the same resolution. Why? Because when electronic components are packaged tightly together, as in small sensors, their respective electronic fields create heat, and heat creates artifacts in the form of noise – multi-color pixels that look “grainy.” Blow up the darker less exposed areas of your digital files and you will see the noise. Newer cameras, particularly the better point-and shoots and cropped sensor DSLRs do an excellent job with smaller sensors – mostly through internal processors that reduce noise in camera. But excessive image processing also can degrade files, reducing their dynamic range and apparent sharpness. Most of us will never make a print bigger than 12×18 or maybe even 20×30, and more than 12-megapixels doesn’t buy you that much better output at these sizes. I make 40×60 prints from 12-megapixel files all the time and my clients have never once complained about their lack of resolution. The point is this, given a slightly lower resolution but better quality system, or a system with better glass, or a system with the accessories you need, or simply a system that feels better in your hand and that you’re more likely to use, go with the system you like – not the one with more megapixels. You’ll almost always be better off. Remember, the camera you love to use, the one you will have with you more often will always make better images than the more expensive one you left at home. Always.

© Rick Colson, EcoVisual Communications/EcoVisuaLab, Wayland MA USA, 8/2011, you can contact Rick at www.ecovisualcom.com 

EcoViusalLab, the merger of EcoVisual Communications and greenphotoprint.com, was established as the world’s first virtually 100% green, sustainable large format print making organization followed by the world’s first virtually 100% green, sustainable custom photo lab. We print on 100% cotton papers made from post-industrial reclaimed cotton fibers from cottonseed oil manufacturers (food grade). We source these papers locally to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions associated with transport. Our inks are VOC-free and far healthier than typical inks. We even mount using biodegradable adhesives on bio-based, biodegradable “foamcore” and a new mounting substrate made from 100% post consumer recycled paper. (We don’t recommend mounting archival images.) Our images are museum quality, archival, chlorine free, acid free, VOC-free and totally tree-free.  We actually cost less than many more traditional forms of printing and we specialize in exhibition, portfolio and edition printing, business graphics plus green interior decor imaging. Different from solvent and UV printers (the most common in our industry) our products are healthier and safer in the live/work environment.