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This video will be panned

Alan Schaller barely needs an intro if you’re into street photography, but this video? Let’s just say it’s absolutely panning out to be a classic. The pan puns are flying faster than a photographer chasing a pigeon with a slow shutter. Honestly, the comments section will be sizzling.

If you’re hungry for some motion in your shots (and maybe a side of wordplay), you’re in for a treat. Alan’s not just frying up tips on technique, he’s serving them with a dash of banter and a sprinkle of ND filter magic. So grab your camera, set your shutter to “sauté,” and get ready to whip up some shots that’ll have everyone flipping out. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself scrambling for more puns by the end. This one’s got all the right ingredients for a photo feast.

Tips from the video?

Plant yourself firmly on the ground.
Wrap your strap around your wrist.

(and then pan and curse and try again.)

Timing:

People Walking	1/4 second
People Cycling	1/30 second
Fast Car	1/60 second

I’ve done panning in the past but it’s harder than it seems and I don’t do it enough. I don’t think there are many examples of it here (plenty of long exposure shots), but this post on the Tour of Ireland in 2008 has some nice panning!

Wrong Side of the Lens

This is the trailer for a new street photography documentary series. I’ve only watched this trailer, but it looks very promising.

Found in the ever excellent “Photos, mostly” newsletter.

Dodge and Burn using Lightroom Masks

It occurred to me while watching a video by Nick Page on Photoshop’s Luminosity masks that Lightroom Classic can now do something similar with luminance range masks. It’s not quite the same and won’t be as powerful, but it saves jumping to Photoshop and creating a 100MB tiff file.

You could always dodge and burn with the brush tool in Lightroom Classic, and by using a Brush Mask you can still do the same:

Create a brush mask.
Brush where you want to dodge or burn.
Adjust exposure.
Repeat for different exposures.

By using a luminance range mask in Lightroom Classic I could select the shades of dark or bright that I want to apply the effect to. By subtracting with a brush, I could modify the shape of the dodge/burn mask to my taste.

Sure enough, someone had done what I wanted already and had made a video of it. For a global dodge/burn, a change of .50 exposure can be a little too much, but that depends on your image.

For extra points, make an inverted sky mask and intersect with a luminance range mask to apply the dodge/burn there only, leaving your sky untouched.

And finally, make a preset of it! Click on the “+” next to Presets while editing and then “Create Preset…”. Uncheck everything and name your preset. Click on your dodge/burn masks in Masking, and click on “Support Amount Slider” in case you’ve modified that and save your new preset. New masks will be created when you apply the preset to another image. You can modify the intensity of the change to suit the new image.

If you’ve added an inverted sky mask, your preset will find the sky in any photo you apply the preset to everything but that part of the image.

The new masking tools in Lightroom Classic are very powerful. They’re really worth learning!

Sony a7iii: compressed raw or not?

When I first used my Sony a7iii I wondered what the difference was between compressed and uncompressed raw. Some forum threads and blog posts suggested there was a difference, especially in dynamic range IIRC, and some people shot everything in uncompressed raw. Those files are gigantic* 47MB files however. Compressed files are always 24MB, a much more manageable size, especially when reading from an external drive.

Nowadays I shoot everything in compressed raw and even go so far as to convert many of my street photos into lossy DNG because there isn’t a huge dynamic range to be dealt with.

However, following Mike Smith’s advice in this video I’ll try uncompressed raw for astrophotography just so I can push the files that bit more in Lightroom.

I have noticed some other differences between any Sony .arw file and .dng conversions. The upright corrections work slightly differently. Clicking auto will create different looking images.

* if you’re reading this in 2030 when 200MB raw files are common please remember that large and fast drives are fairly cheap now but weren’t as cheap in 2019 as they are in your time!

Aperture	ƒ/8
Camera	ILCE-7M3
Focal length	31mm
ISO	1250
Shutter speed	1/500s

Aftershot Pro B&W Workflow

Martin, over at Photoakademie.eu created a workflow video showing how a photo was processed and eventually turned into a black and white image using Aftershot Pro.

Coming from a GIMP background I used layers and layer masks but never used adjustment layers to keep changes separate. Quite an eye opener for me!

Plus another demonstration of Aftershot Pro and a Google Plus account dedicated to sharing presets.

You can download a 30 day trial of Aftershot Pro here (I should be on commission for this..)

Aperture	ƒ/9
Camera	Canon EOS 40D
Focal length	18mm
ISO	100
Shutter speed	1/200s

Professional Myspace Photographer

You may have thought that a fashion photographer had an interesting life and job, but wait until you get a load of Sheffield Quigley. The one and only Myspace photographer in the whole world. I so want his job!

What The Duck flew away!

OMG! During a test flight of the What the Duck balloon for a parade it broke it’s tether and the wind blew it away! Yikes!

Hehe. Yes, yes. it’s fake. Good video though! Via TOP.

Video demonstration of the Canon 40D

The Canon 40D is expected in early September, and I know I said I wasn’t tempted but pictures speak a thousand words, and video shout loudest of all.

Video quality isn’t the best, and it’s a little dark, but it’s the first demonstration of the new camera! (via)

Street photography large format style

Choosing the right equipment for the job is half the battle. If you don’t choose carefully you could be making a lot of extra work for yourself as you battle with your tools.

Actually, I don’t think this is one of those situations because he handled that camera rather well and didn’t try to use classic street photo techniques. Loading the film on a busy street is a bit awkward looking however, and forget about shooting from the hip! (via auspiciousdragon.net)