Shutterfinger

Available-light Shootout: Pentax K-5 vs. Nikon D7000

Scenes like this exist for only fractions of a second. It takes a camera with quick and accurate AF, exposure, and white balance to get the job done. Low noise at high ISOs comes in handy too. This was shot at 1/100 second, f/6.3 with a Nikon D7000 and 35mm f/2 AF-D Nikkor. It could just as easily have been shot with a Pentax K-5.

By now it's well-known among most photo-enthusiasts that the Pentax K-5 and Nikon D-7000 share the same Sony image sensor. This doesn't mean they produce identical results. The raw data from the sensor still has to be processed, both by the camera and by you, the photographer. There's also a big difference in their respective menus, exposure metering and AF systems, and control layouts. The result is that there are often significant differences in the way these two cameras perform in a given situation. Whether one is "better" than the other will, of course, depend on the situation and your personal preferences. The purpose of this quick comparison is to give you some insights into how well they perform in a fast-paced available light situation.

In this case the situation I chose is a veritable torture chamber: Reading Terminal Market, a 78,000 square-foot indoor facility in Philadelphia's Center City. It houses more than 80 merchants who sell local produce, meats, poultry, seafood, handmade crafts, jewelry, clothing, and more. The lighting varies from fluorescents to incandescents to neon, often all within the same area. It can be bright in some places, dim in others.

To make things even more interesting, the market is jammed with hundreds upon hundred of shoppers, many of whom constantly walk in front of you as you try to frame and compose a photograph. You and your camera both need to be quick and accurate to get an acceptable photo in this environment, which is precisely why I chose it.

Set-up
I wanted the comparison to be as equal and fair as possible so I set up each camera the same way:

• 35mm lens (35mm f/2.8 DA Macro for Pentax, 35mm f/2 AF-D for Nikon)
• Matrix/Multi-segmented metering
• Program exposure mode
• ISO 1600
• Multi-point autofocus in one shot (AF-S) mode
• Automatic white balance
• RAW format (PEF for Pentax, NEF for Nikon)
• Noise reduction at minimum setting

This was a bit more automation than I would normally use under these circumstances. For example, I would normally select only one AF point (the center) rather than let the camera do the selecting. On the other hand, I didn’t want to apply so much manual control that the exercise would become more a test of my problem-solving skills than the camera's abilities.

My modus operandi was to walk up and down the aisles of the market with one camera on each shoulder. When I saw an interesting scene I would try to shoot it with both cameras. I couldn't get exactly the same shot with both cameras. What I could get was real-world information on how each camera handled the same scene, framed the same way and with the same lighting. What follows are my impressions of how well each camera handled each of the key factors listed below.

Autofocus
At the light levels I was shooting at (EV 6 to EV8), the Pentax K-5 felt a split-second faster at acquiring focus than the Nikon D7000. There was, however, a catch: Even with all AF sensors active, the K-5 almost always used the center focus point, even when there were larger, off-center objects closer to the camera. In the same situation the D7000 would almost always focus on the largest, closest object. There were, however, exceptions, as illustrated in the photos below.

In this example the Pentax-K5 focused on the oranges in the foreground. Click to enlarge.

Given the same scene, the Nikon D7000 focused on the background. Oddly enough, in both cases the girl picking fruit is acceptably in focus. Also note the similarity in color response.

Neither result is necessarily better than the other. What matters most is where you want to place the point of focus and how easy it is to achieve the result you want. Under these circumstances I would normally prefer to use the center AF point and re-frame or select an off-center point that coincides with the location of my subject. If, however, I was shooting a sporting event, the D7000's ability to quickly lock and maintain focus on off-center subjects would be a decided advantage.

Keep in mind that I used both cameras with a 35mm lens only. The results with a fast-aperture 50mm or telephoto lens could be quite different.

Exposure
In most cases both cameras produced exposures that were within a half-stop of each other. More importantly, the exposures were remarkably good and consistent given the high-contrast light conditions. In cases were the exposures were different, the K-5 had more of a tendency to overexposes. Even then, the difference was no more than a half-stop. This would be easy to correct for anyone shooting RAW and a minor problem even for JPEG shooters.

White Balance
Unless you plan to convert to black and white and therefore don't care about color casts, a camera that can produce a reasonably accurate and consistent white balance in mixed lighting is a must. It's valuable even if you're shooting RAW; first, because it saves time in post-production, and second because it provides a consistent reference point for any later adjustments. A camera that shifts the white balance slightly from one shot to the next, depending on the framing, requires you to manually adjust the balance of each shot rather than a group of shots at once.

Here's how this scene looked straight out of the camera, just as the Pentax K-5 rendered it and with no adjustments in Lightroom.

Here's the same scene shot with the Nikon D7000. Once again, the default contrast is higher than  the Pentax K-5 version. It should be apparent that with just a few small tweaks I could make the contrast of either image match the other.

Once again, the K-5 and D7000 were pretty evenly matched. Neither camera produced photos where the balance was obviously off. In some situations I preferred one camera's AWB more than other, but neither was superior and with some tweaking I could get a close match if I wanted to. Either camera also allows you to compensate for such shifts in-camera but I didn't feel the need and frankly wouldn't bother unless neutral whites and gray-tones were essential.

Image Noise
As I mentioned in the intro, I set both cameras to ISO 1600. I could have set them higher but I'm not a "bleeding edge photography" sort of guy. I'd rather push things only as far as necessary to get the results I want. In this case it was a reasonably fast shutter speed (averaging 1/125 second) to reduce motion blur and a moderate aperture (averaging f/4.5) to adequate depth-of-field. Both cameras allowed me to do this at ISO 1600 without a significant loss of contrast or color saturation and without shadow noise becoming intrusive.

Here's a crop of the Pentax K-5 image above. It's not quite 100% but close enough. Click to enlarge for a closer look at the image noise signature.

Here's the Nikon D7000 version. The foreground is slightly softer because the point of focus is further back, but what is in focus has plenty of detail, even at ISO 1600.

As you'll see from the accompanying photo examples, each one did this in a different way. The K-5 images have a smoother grain texture as compared the D7000 yet with a similar level of image detail. This is noticeable only on close inspection, meaning you'd barely see it even on a 16x20-inch print. It's also a matter of preference. Some may prefer the crisp B&W film-like grain of D7000 files to the slightly more color print film look of the K-5. Others may prefer the opposite. It's all good.

Dynamic Range
Here again there was little difference between the two. I was shooting RAW and as long as I was careful to avoid exposing by more than a stop there was plenty of image detail available if I needed. The fact is that more often than not I would increase the image contrast, especially when I was converting from color to B&W.

Handling & Responsiveness
The one area where the D7000 pulled ahead of the K-5, at least for me, was in handling and responsiveness. This was for one simple reason: When the K-5 goes into power-saving mode the only fast way to wake it up is to tap the shutter button. That’s fine if, like most photographers, you have the AF linked to the shutter button. If you’re a rear-button AF shooter like me you’ll discover that pressing the rear-AF button does nothing until you first tap the shutter button. I occasionally missed a shot because of this and, yes, it was annoying. I know I could increase the delay before sleep or turn off the auto-sleep feature entirely but this would decrease battery life. I prefer the D7000’s approach: Press either AF button—front or rear—and the D7000 instantly springs into action.

On the other hand, I greatly prefer the K-5's control placement over that of the D7000. The D7000's ISO button--a control I use often--is located along the left side of the rear display. On the K-5 it's just behind the shutter button. This position on the D7000 is occupied by the exposure metering option button, something I hardly ever use. I've devised a few work-arounds to reduce the need to press hard-to-reach buttons on the D7000. With the K-5 I don't have to.

Summary
If you're looking for me to announce a winner here, you're looking in the wrong place. You should be able to get practically identical and equally excellent images from either camera--and if you can't, you are most likely the limiting factor. I would give the edge to the Nikon D7000 only if you already own Nikon lenses or find the Nikon system, which is significantly larger than that of Pentax, more appealing. On the other hand, if you want a small but rugged camera that accepts a good selection of equally small but rugged and optically excellent lenses, you could do far worse than the Pentax K-5. Consider yourself lucky that you have such a choice and that you can't go wrong with either one.

My Feedback On Your Feedback

Thanks to all those who took the time to contribute such insightful comments on my previous post. They really helped me to crystallize my thoughts about where and how to move forward. Thanks also to those who contributed to the Tip Jar. Frankly, I'd rather have a few hundred devoted readers who contribute comments and occasional tips than thousands who consider Shutterfinger just another free read. (If anyone reading this feels insulted, don't. I'm not pointing fingers, you're not obliged to self-identify as a freeloader, and in any event I don't feel as if I'm entitled to your devotion. I've got to earn it.)

Anyway, my take-aways from this week of reflection are as follows:

1. I'm going to move ahead with my plan to move Shutterfinger to a different platform. It will save me money in the long run, I'll have more flexibility, and the blog will look a lot better. Ironically, visual appeal is purely a personal preference. Most people read blogs in RSS readers these days and never see all the elegant typography and design themes anyway.
2. I may use Shutterfinger to sell e-books. I'm currently working on an "Insider's Guide to the Pentax K-5." Others are in the works. If you're interested, let me know.
3. I won't use Shutterfinger as the primary means of marketing my photographs. The market for my photos is not necessarily the same as the audience for my blog posts. That said, if I'm offering photos for sale or mounting an exhibition you'll be among the first to know.
4. The frequency of my posts will stay pretty much the same for now. Even if I had dozens of affiliate ads, the meager income they would generate wouldn't make it worth my while to post more often. If my readership grows, it grows. If it shows a rapid decline, then maybe that's my sign it's time to move on.

That's it. Tomorrow keep your eyes open for Part 1 of my available-light shootout between the Pentax K-5 and Nikon D7000. I don't do this sort of thing often, but I had fun doing it and hope you'll have fun reading it.

Shutterfinger: Standing At the Crossroads

What I like about this photograph is the way the oversized windows and doors emphasize this woman's already diminuative stature. The fact that she's standing in a shaft of light doesn't hurt either. Unfortunately, this is the type of image that, because of the predominance of rich, subtlely textured dark tones, looks much better in print than it ever will on a screen. Give it a click if you'd like to "embiggen" it.

It's been three years since my first Shutterfinger post ("Fun in the Closet", April 4, 2008). I've written 235 more since then, with topics ranging from my favorite films, the pitfalls of digital imaging, equipment reviews, photo techniques, and my philosophical ramblings.

The pace of my postings has been leisurely, averaging one every five days or so. This isn't because of any lack of interest or inspiration on my part; it's more because, like most people, blogging isn't the only thing I do. I fit it in with working for a living, being a husband and father, and yes, taking pictures. There has been no financial incentive: no ads, no subscription fees, and few tips in the tip jar. I'm not begging or complaining--in fact, I planned it this way from the start. One has a lot more freedom and a lot less stress when profit is an option rather than a necessity.

Despite or perhaps because of my relaxed approach, Shutterfinger's readership has roughly doubled in size every year. It peaked at 1,500 when I wrote "What Your Camera Says About You," which went viral, and now hovers somewhere around 800. That tells me I'm probably doing something right. The steady growth of Shutterfinger has also brought me to a crossroads: Do I maintain the status quo, invest only the free time I have available, and let the readership rise or fall as it may, or do I invest time time and energy necessary to make Shutterfinger a profitable enterprise?

It's an important question. One of the things I remember most from my interview with Alain Briot is that there is no such thing as "breaking even" when you're trying to market your work. Whether the work is writing or photography (I do both), it takes time and money to pursue it. If you consistently spend more money than you take in then you're pursuing a hobby. That's fine, but there's a limit to how much you can spend on a hobby without jeopardizing your financial security. If, however, you wish to be paid for your investment of time, money, and materials then you need to approach what you're doing as a business. You have to earn a profit. The upside is that if you're good at it, the more time and energy you invest, the greater the profit. There are no value judgements here, just qualitative statements about the difference between a business and a hobby.

That's where I find myself. I would love to move Shutterfinger to a more full-featured blog platform with more sophisticated design features such as tabbed sections, give it its own web address, combine it with a gallery of my photographs, and use it to market my writing and fine-art prints. That would justify more frequent posts on a wider variety of topics, such as studio lighting, equipment reviews, fine-art printing, and photo techniques.

Another way to generate income from blogging is to publish adds from affiliate sponsors. Frankly, I'd rather have a model where all I'm selling is me; that is, my photographs, my writing (eBooks and the like), and maybe a few workshops. Those of you who enjoy window shopping could continue to do so. My primary motivation has not been and never will be money alone. I'd just like to afford to spend more time doing what I love instead of what I have to do to earn a living.

Which way will I go? Shutterfinger is as much yours as it is mine, so your thoughts, suggestions, and reactions are, as always, welcome. I'd love to know what you think.

Fun With the Pentax K-5

It was Thursday, I had caught up with all of my writing work, the sun was shining brightly, and I had a brand new Pentax K-5 ready for testing. It was time to catch a train into Center City Philadelphia (the urban center) and take some street photos. I packed the K-5 along with three DA lenses: the 21mm f/3.2, 35mm f/2.8 Macro, and 70mm f/2.4, into a small shoulder bag. By 9:00 a.m. I was in the city and taking pictures in the morning light.

I was already familiar with the K-5 by virtue of owning its predecessor, the K-7. The two are identical in size, control layout and operation. The main difference is that the K-5 has an upgraded sensor, AF module, and storage buffer. As a result, the K-5 performs a lot better in low light and when shooting action sequences with continuous focus.

I did neither. I was outdoors in direct sunlight, shooting high-contrast scenes with deep shadows. As it turns out, the K-5 has yet another advantage over the K-7: dynamic range--enough that I could rescue highlights that were as much as one stop overexposed. I could also pull detail out of shadows that were as much as three stops underexposed. (I was shooting raw, of course. This wouldn't work with JPEGs.)

A lot depended on my ISO setting. The lower the setting, the more room I had to play with and the less shadow noise I would have to deal with. Fortunately, the K-5 did a fine job of exposing scenes, even high-contrast ones. I seldom had to worry about blown out highlights, especially since I moved the exposure compensation at least 2/3-stop to the left (less exposure) when metering scenes dominated by large, dark shadow areas.

Adjusting exposure on the fly was easy with the K-5 because the controls are so well-placed, at least to my way of thinking. The exposure compensation and ISO buttons are just behind the shutter button, where they're very easy to reach and distinguish by touch. Exposure compensation is the left, ISO to the right. An AE-Lock button, if you like that sort of thing, falls just under the right thumb. In fact, practically all of the most often used controls are clustered on the right rear side of the camera. Although this can make the control area feel cramped at times it also means you can get a lot done with just your right thumb.

Focusing was remarkably fast and accurate; that is, as long as you remember that unlike many AF systems, the K-5 will place its focus priority on whatever is in the center of the frame rather than whatever object is closest to the camera. It's not that it won't ever use any of the focus points at the edges and corners, it will; just not often enough that you can take it for granted. If you switch to manual focus point selection, however, you can move the AF point anywhere you like.

My preferred method of shooting was aperture-preferred, auto ISO with a maximum of 400, center focusing point, center-weighted metering, and vibration reduction off. Even when I was shooting in shadow the shutter speed was fast enough that I didn't need VR and since VR takes a second or two before each shot to kick in anyway, shooting without it gave me one less thing to worry about.

What I loved most about my morning of shooting with the K-5 was using such a rugged, pro-quality camera in a compact and comfortable package. I felt as if I could do everything I wanted or needed to do without having to carry ten pounds of equipment on my shoulder. (The total, including shoulder bag, was closer to four.) Of the three lenses I carried, the 70mm f/2.4 was a particular: ridiculously small and lightweight, "stoopid sharp," low flare and distortion, and beautiful bokeh.

This shot was two stops underexposed but because I was shooting raw I could move the Adobe Lightroom exposure slider to the right until I got what you see here.

So far I've found only two minor traits I find irksome. The first is that the K-5 will occasionally go into a meditative state where the top panel display is on but won't respond to my turning the rear control dial, which I have set up as my aperture control. I have to resort to tapping the shutter button a few times or even turning the camera off and back on to get it to respond. This is a drag when I'm trying to get off a split-second shot. A second disappointment is although the shutter release is quiet and as smooth as butter, the longish mirror blackout time makes the camera feel a bit pokey to me.

All was forgiven when I got home and started sorting through the shoot. I've displayed some of my favorites here as examples. All have been adjusted to some extent in Adobe Lightroom. In some cases the changes were as minor as white balance, contrast adjustment and sharpening. In others I converted from color to B&W and used a combination of curves and color contrast to place the tones where I wanted them.

The point isn't that I felt obliged to make adjustments but rather that I could do them so effortlessly without the images falling apart. Anyone who's ever tried to massage digital files from as recently as four years ago will know what I mean. It's one thing to do this with files from a 35mm full-frame DSLR that costs $6,000 and weighs 2.6 pounds, body only. It's quite another to do it with a camera that weighs almost 50% less and sells for around $1400.

I have a feeling this won't be the last time I venture out with the Pentax K-5. Next time I'll make a point of shooting in low light and with flash, just to see how well it can hang with the big boys in that area. As always, I'll keep you posted.

My Interview With Alain Briot

I recently interviewed Alain Briot, the author of "Marketing Fine Art Photography," which is due to be published in early May by Rocky Nook. Alain is a financially and artistically successful landscape photographer who specializes in fine art images of the American Southwest. He's written numerous articles, both for Michael Reichmann's site, The Luminous Landscape, and his own, The Beautiful Landscape. He also teaches photography workshops in locations such as Death Valley, Antelope Canyon, and Joshua Tree. In short, he is eminently well-qualified to write on the subject of how to market fine art photography.

Alain was generous enough to speak to me for almost two hours. He also taped our conversation, which I plan to edit down to a more concise length and release as a podcast. In the meantime, here are a few highlights from our conversation, sometimes paraphrased for brevity. If you have any interest at all in learning what it takes to be successful at marketing your work then I suggest you not only follow the tips below, but also buy a copy of Alain's book. I'm already putting some of his suggestions into action. You may want to do the same.

Q: What is marketing?

A: Marketing is promotion. It's about letting people know who you are, what you do, and why they should be excited about it. Without excitement nothing happens.

Q: So is publishing a portfolio of your photographs on the web marketing?

A: It's not effective marketing unless you actually connect with an audience. Promoting yourself on a website that no one knows about and no one visits is like placing a sign on a road that no one travels. It's very easy for the photographer because it requires so little active involvement. You just put it up and you're done. But for the customer it's a poor substitute for meeting the artist and really understanding what they're doing. To be successful at marketing you have to make a deep and lasting connection with the customer.

Q: What's another frequent mistake you see?

A: Art is the only business I know of where we create the product before we find the audience. That's not necessarily the wrong approach. Most of us are more motivated by our passion to create than the desire to simply make money. Still, consider the implications. As much as what you are producing may appeal to you, you can't be successful unless there is market for it. It has to appeal to the customer.

Q: So what is the market for fine art photography?

A: The question you need to ask yourself is who would want to buy this to hang in their home and why? What does their taste in art say about them? Consider that most people will choose a photograph that is proportional in value to that of their home. The value of the photo is supposed to increase the value or the home, not bring it down. So the owner of a million-dollar home expects to pay in the thousands for an important piece of artwork. To the average person this might be considered a luxury. A customer like this considers it an investment. That's the type of customer I'm looking for.

Q: How do you attract this type of customer?

A: You need to be unique. The more money you ask, the more unique you need to be. Consider that in the world of painting there is only one Monet, only one Cezanne. Among the surrealist painters there were many, but only one Salvador Dali. In art, the only time you're going to start make real money is when you stop selling location [in Alain's case the American Southwest] and start selling yourself.

Q: It sounds like you're aiming for a very small audience.

A: Precisely. And by the way, the market for fine art photography is not very large to begin with. But you have to start narrowing the audience even more because it's the only way you can start asking the kinds of prices you want to ask.

Q: What kinds of prices do you ask?

A: My matted and framed prints sell for as much as $3900. But again, understand that I am selling much more than a print in a frame. I am selling my unique vision and style. I am selling prints of exceptional quality and beauty. I am selling luxury-level customer service combined with a one-year 100% money back guarantee, a lifetime fade-free warranty, and a lifetime framing warranty. And this is all an integral part of how I market my work.

Q: So aside from reading your book, how would you suggest that photographers learn more about marketing to the luxury customer?

A: Visit luxury stores. Visit a Lexus or Mercedes-Benz dealership. Visit a luxury jeweler or clothing store. Pay attention the quality of the goods, the quality of the service, and where and how they add value. Then think about where you can add similar value for your customers. The more that your customers feel they are buying something wonderful that is exclusive to you and your brand, the higher the price you can justify and the more successful you will be.
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There was more, much more, but I'll leave it at that for now. Let me also add that if it's not obvious from what Alain said above, success at marketing fine art photograph takes time, effort, and planning. There's no easy way out, but if you're looking for expert advice and you're willing to follow it, "Marketing Fine Art Photography" sounds like a great place to start. I encourage to you pre-order at Amazon or your favorite bookseller.

As for me, I've decided that I owe it to myself and those who appreciate my work to do a better job of marketing it. To that end you can look forward to changes and improvements at Shutterfinger. There are hundreds of mantlepieces around the world eagerly waiting for a Gordon Lewis photograph to be mounted above them. My plan is to reduce the wait.

More Cheatsheats Uploaded to Canon DLC

No picture for this post, folks. I just wanted to let you know that I completed six more "cheatsheets" for Canon's Digital Learning Center website. (They're actually called QuickGuides, but a rose by any other name...) The new titles are:

• QuickGuide to Speedlite 430EX II Modes & Functions
• QuickGuide to EOS Focusing Screens
• QuickGuide to Quick Control Screen Operation
• QuickGuide to Live View Features
• QuickGuide to EOS Macro Speedlites
• QuickGuide to Remote Operation with EOS Utility

By convention, a cheatsheet is a brief summary of instructions for a specific piece of equipment or, given how complex some types of equipment are these days, a specific set of functions. Canon's cheatsheets take up both sides of an 8.5 x 11-inch sheet of paper folded into thirds, including text and illustrations. That's not much space when you're trying to describe how to use Canon's EOS Utility application for tethered or remote operation of an EOS DSLR, but then again, that's both the challenge and the satisfaction of doing it.

I wrote them, took the example photos, laid them out in Adobe InDesign, and exported them as PDF files. If you like them I take all the credit. If not, I'm completely to blame. If you're interested in downloading any of them (they're free), just click this Canon DLC link. Enjoy!

And maybe now that the weather is finally starting to warm up here in Philadelphia and the sun is peeking out from behind the clouds, I can finally get in some serious shooting. It may reduce my word count but it may also increase the number and size of my photos. I certainly hope so.

Shooting In the Dark

Despite the bright lights from the neon, I wanted shadow detail, so I shot this handheld with a Pentax K-7, ISO 800, 1/10 second at f/2.8. This works out to approximately EV 3.5. Although the vibration reduction feature was on, this image is not perfectly sharp. The focus was on the lighthouse but should have been on the foreground. Still, it's not bad for handheld at 1/10 second and with a camera that's not reknowned for it's low-light abilities.

These days any reasonably alert person with an automatic camera can get a sharp, well-exposed photo outdoors in bright daylight. Take the same camera indoors under low light and things can get ugly. It will struggle to focus quickly and accurately, especially if it’s equipped with an f/3.5-5.6 zoom lens. Even if you do manage to focus you’ll discover that the limited maximum aperture forces you to use slow shutter speeds, high ISOs, or both, and even then subject motion can be a problem. Anyone who’s ever tried to photograph an active child indoors at night with normal room lighting knows exactly what I mean.

Those of you who own fast primes needn’t feel smug. True, you can use faster shutter speeds and/or lower ISOs, but fast apertures often result in narrower depth-of-field, increased aberrations, and reduced image contrast, not to mention the possibility of focus-shift. Perfect focus can be elusive at best.

And then there’s the issue of white balance. Mixed lighting is the norm in most interior spaces these days. You’ll find tungsten lights in some fixtures and fluorescent lights in others. Even the flourescent lights may have different color balances, with some being greenish, some yellow, and others more cyan. Shooting raw or attempting a custom white balance won’t necessarily solve this problem because correcting for one light source often exaggerates the effects of the other.

Here's a classic example of mixed lighting. I corrected the white balance for the sign in the foreground and the server's flesh tones and decided not to worry about the sickly yellow background. This was shot at ISO 800, 1/90 second at f/2.0, which is roughly EV 5.5. The guitar pick shaped highlights in the upper-right corner are the result of light entering the lens at an oblique angle.

Electronic flash can come to your rescue. It’s bright and its daylight balanced. Then again, direct flash can result in photos that have that “mug shot” lighting effect we know so well. If you’re lucky there will be a white or neutral-colored surface nearby that you can bounce the flash off of for softer, more indirect light. If you’re not, the walls will be green or magenta or some other color cast that’s hard to remove even if you’re shooting raw.

Tripods? They’re great if you don’t mind carrying one around, have the time and space to set it up, and you’re shooting a relatively stationary subject. On the other hand, if any one of these things isn’t true, your tripod is likely to stay at home, in the car, or in the studio—anywhere other than attached to your camera.

The situation isn’t quite as hopeless as it seems. In fact, if you can master the art of shooting in the dark, shooting in broad daylight becomes a breeze. Here are a few practical tips for improving your keeper-to-delete ratio.

1. Go for slow and steady.

You’re going to need to pay close attention to your technique and camera settings. Make sure your shutter speed is one at which you’re capable of holding your camera steady, with or without image stabilization. If there’s anything nearby that you can use to help brace your camera, by all means use it. You should also wait for your subject to be either at rest or at the peak of action. Maintain a relaxed state of alert preparedness, let the picture come to you, and you might be surprised what you can catch.

2. Observe the direction and quality of light.

Unless there's literally no light—in which case you’ll have to add your own—there’s a continuous light source somewhere that’s creating highlights and shadows that clearly visible to the naked eye. So take a good look at them. Are the highlights where you want them? Is the background free of bright areas that compete for attention with your subject? Remember that highlights are where most viewers will look first, so try to make them count for something, even if you have to move yourself, your subject, or the light source to do it.

3. Know your camera’s capabilities and limitations.

For example, a camera that focuses perfectly in bright daylight may back-focus when the light level drops to EV 4 or lower—unless you’re using a lens with a maximum aperture of f/2.8 or faster and use the center AF sensor, in which case everything is fine. Similarly, your camera may produce great ISO 1600 images when you shoot raw but look horrible if you shoot JPEGs. The best way to discover a camera’s limitations to push it to the edge—low light, dark subject, high ISO—until you discover the point at which it falls off. Back off from there and you’ll know the just how far you can go. By the way, I suggest you base “acceptability” on a print that’s as large as you’re likely to produce. For some this will be 4x6 inches. For others it will be 11x17. In either case, an image that looks horrible at 100% on your display can look surprisingly good in a print.

4. Use the fastest lens you’ve got.

Even if you have to sacrifice image-stabilization to do it, the faster aperture will give your camera a lot more light to work with than a kit zoom that maxes out at f/5.6. You may also see a substantial improvement in focusing accuracy: many cameras have higher-precision sensors in the center of the screen that produce more accurate results with lenses of f/2.8 or faster.

5. Try manual focusing.

You may discover that you can focus more reliably in low light than your camera’s AF system can. If your camera is mounted on a tripod and you’re using an intermediate aperture, you don’t even have to look through the viewfinder. You can use the distance scale on the focusing ring (assuming your lens has both), guesstimate, and let depth-of-field mask any slight inaccuracies.

6. Be willing to tolerate less than perfect results.

It's extremely difficult to capture low light photos that are perfectly in focus and have perfect white balance, high resolution from center to edge, and all the other attributes of technical perfection. You'll have a lot more fun if you aim instead for emotional perfection. Capture the mood. Let motion blur work to your advantage. Emphasize the often fantastic colors of artificial lights. Focus on the process instead of the goal and you may discover you've taken some fantastic photos.

You can thank me later.

Who Are You Going to Believe?

My son Clay is discovering that having to figure something out for yourself can actually be fun.

You’ve probably all heard the joke about the husband who, when his wife catches him in bed with another woman and accuses him of cheating on her, replies “Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?”

I find myself thinking of this joke when I get e-mail questions from photographers worried about postings they’ve read on various Internet forums that report horror stories about a camera they own. Stories like:

“It has dead pixels. Set the image magnification to 100% and you can see them rotting away. The stench is overwhelming.”

“The anti-aliasing filter is too strong. I had to resort to making my own out of poly-fissure substrate.”

“The AT system exhibits .25mm of front-focus at color temperatures below 2500 Kelvin. How do they expect anyone to take pictures under candlelight with this piece of junk?”

I’m sure you could add a few of your own examples to this list. Yet when I ask the questioner if he (it’s always a he) has personally experienced any of the problems he’s so concerned about, he always says, “No, but…”

“But what?”
“But the other guy sounds like he really knows what he’s talking about, so…”
“Does he own your camera?”
 “Yeah, it’s the same model.”
“No, I mean were these tests performed on your camera, the one you bought, the one you have in your possession?”
“Oh. Well no, of course not.”
“And you didn’t try duplicating them yourself?”
“I don’t have that kind of time. That’s why I’m asking you.”
“Thanks, I’m flattered. So were these tests performed under the conditions you normally use your camera?”
“Sort of. They were performed at sub-zero temperatures and I might take pictures of a polar bear at the zoo one of these days.”

Sigh.

Now I grant you that some problems you read about on the Internet are real. Some cameras aren’t particularly fast or accurate in low light. Some tend to clip highlights in high contrast situations. Others will blur the image at certain shutter speeds unless you lock up the mirror.

The thing to keep in mind about these and other examples is that they may have little or nothing to do with how you use your camera. In fact, it may be that for what you do, no other camera can perform better or as well. But you would never know that unless you had actually used it under the range of conditions in which you normally shoot, examined the results, and decided for yourself whether it was up to the task.

Of course, before you could reach this conclusion you’d have to be able to tell the difference between camera/lens defect and user error. You’d have have to have confidence in your own opinions and observations. You’d also have to have a sense for whether a tester was on to something or simply on drugs.

I understand that such confidence comes more naturally to some than others and that not all confidence is justified. On the other hand, until you learn to trust your own lying eyes, you’re likely to believe anything you hear, no matter how absurd.