Let’s get something out of the way right off the bat. If you’re looking for the absolute best in print quality, then you should look past the ET-8550 and head straight to the Epson SureColor pro-level printers. They’re fantastic. I own two high-end Epson printers, including the 17-inch-format Epson SureColor P800. There’s a major downside to printers like that, however. A full set of ink is $550, which is about half of what the printer cost brand new when it was released. I’m not a heavy-duty user, but I’ve gone through three sets of ink and a few maintenance cartridge replacements. The costs add up fast.

The Epson ET-8550 is $700, ships with a full set of ink tanks, and a full replacement set is under $100. Epson says you can expect to save up to 80% on ink. After using the ET-8550 for a few months, I believe it. I don’t anticipate needing any new ink for a while, and I’ve already made quite a few prints in a range of sizes, including about 50 11×14 prints.

This review has a lot of ground to cover, but it won’t be as in-depth as my SureColor P800 review since the ET-8550 isn’t a pro-level printer. My primary focus will be on features and performance relative to amateur photographers who want to print their photos at home without breaking the bank or sacrificing overall print quality.

Note: Believe me, I know that showing resized digital photos of real-life prints is not the ideal way to illustrate what a printer is capable of. However, my subjective analysis (hopefully) still holds water.

Epson EcoTank Photo ET-8550 key features & specifications

• Prints up to 13 x 19 borderless
• Uses 6-color refillable ink tanks (black, photo black, cyan, magenta, yellow and gray)
• Uses Claria ET photographic dye inks
• Prints up to 5,760 x 1,440 dpi resolution
• Can print borderless 4 x 6 photo in as little as 15 seconds
• Supports mobile and wireless printing, including Apple AirPrint, Android printing and Amazon Alexa
• Can photocopy and scan (full color, 4,800 dpi scanner)
• Has multiple media loading slots and can support thicker fine art paper (up to 1.3mm thick)
• Full-color 4.3-inch touchscreen
• Has an SD card slot
• Compatible with macOS and Windows
• Storage dimensions (W x D x H): 523 x 379 x 169mm (20.6 x 14.9 x 6.7 in.)
• Printing dimensions (W x D x H): 523 x 758 x 430mm (20.6 x 29.8 x 16.9 in.)
• Weighs 11.1 kg (24.5 lbs)
• $799 list price, can be found for $699

Design and usability: A nice-looking printer that’s simple to set up and easy to use

The Epson ET-8550 is an unassuming-looking printer. It’s mostly white with a black accent around its touchscreen and ink tank reservoir. It looks nice – it’s sleek and modern. It’s also not that large, considering it makes up to 13″ x 19″ prints. It’s 523mm (20.6 in.) wide, which fits on many desks and small tables. When printing, including an extended rear feed for larger or thicker paper, it’s 758mm (29.8 in.) deep. In storage, its depth is about half that.

Much of your interaction with the printer is done through its 4.3″ tilting touchscreen, which can close flush with the rest of the printer’s face. The touchscreen works quite well and is responsive. The menu design is also nice. The printer was easy to set up, and the app features illustrated step-by-step guides for initialization and using different paper types and sizes. It’s a breeze. There’s also an accompanying smartphone app that walks you through the setup process and allows you to make prints wirelessly. I primarily worked with the printer through Adobe Photoshop using a wired USB connection, but wireless printing from my phone worked well too.

As for the setup process, the hardest part was finding and removing all the tape and bits of packing materials. Once that was done, it was just a matter of following along with the smartphone app and getting the printer connected to a wireless network, which was easy. Once it’s connected, it’s time to fill the ink tanks. The printer ships with a full set of refills, which come in plastic bottles. The bottles have specific keys for each ink tank, so you can’t accidentally put the wrong ink in any tank. They also only slot it one way – the correct way. Once they’re slotted, you tip them upside down, and the ink automatically flows into the printer’s tanks. Once it’s full, the flow stops automatically. It’s a nifty system that makes topping off tanks easy.

After the tanks are full, the printer must initialize. The process takes about 10 minutes and will visibly reduce the ink tanks by about a quarter. Don’t worry, though, the ink doesn’t just vanish into thin air. The printer uses a bit of ink and a single sheet of paper for a requisite head alignment and nozzle check, but not much.

Once the printer is set up, regular use is quite straightforward. However, there are a few quirks and mild annoyances. The front paper feeds, which are for smaller or letter-sized paper, can sometimes be pushed too far into the printer, requiring some finesse to pull them back out. Sometimes the printer starts to feed paper before the tray is fully seated, which can cause a loud sound when the mechanical parts inside rub against each other.

The upright rear paper feed, used for larger paper, works perfectly well. However, a second rear paper feed requires you to take a piece off the printer’s rear to feed paper straight into the back. You’ll need ample space to feed the paper into the back of the printer. It’s a bit of a pain. I think someone could get used to it, but as a new user, it’s not a great experience. When inserting any paper, the touchscreen has available on-screen instructions. However, the instructions aren’t always clear. In any event, I happily printed on large paper sizes using the standard upright rear paper feed, so the irksome second rear feed didn’t affect my usage.

Print Quality

There’s no doubt that Epson’s professional SureColor printers deliver outstanding print quality with their large, archival ink sets and high-resolution, precise nozzles. However, as much as I like my SureColor P800 printer, I don’t always require that level of performance. I often don’t need archival quality or sharpness that stands up to super close inspection. Further, it’s expensive to run a printer like that, so I have long wanted a more affordable option.

Ultimately, the EcoTank ET-8550 doesn’t quite match the print quality of my P800. Still, it comes impressively close, and most people, myself included in some cases, would struggle to pick prints from each printer apart from a normal viewing distance. Not only are prints pretty sharp, but the ET-8550 also produces prints with nice, vibrant colors and smooth tonal transitions. With extreme colors, like bright green or dark purple, the printer fared a bit less well, but real-world images still looked great.

When printing in Adobe Photoshop using the appropriate printer and paper drivers, it was easy to make pleasing prints that nearly perfectly matched my display. My laptop display isn’t calibrated, although I do edit most of my images on a calibrated external monitor. However, even so, the prints looked pretty good next to my laptop screen. If you’ve printed photos at home, you’ve likely dealt with frustrations getting prints to match what you see on the screen, but the ET-8550 did well without any adjustments. It’s critical to use the correct printer driver and paper profiles, though, especially when printing colorful images or photos with expansive dynamic range.

I will briefly put on my “perfectionist cap” to comment further on colors from the ET-8550. They look good. But, and the size of the “but” here depends upon how tightly-fitted your own perfectionist cap is, the colors aren’t strictly accurate. Fortunately, the issue isn’t that greens don’t look green or anything like that, but rather that the saturation of any given color isn’t quite accurate. The ET-8550 seems to make colors a bit too punchy. You see this same sort of issue with nearly every digital camera. People like bright colors because they attract attention and generally look how we remember things looking. However, there is such a thing as being too saturated. For me, at my most critical, the ET-8550 is on the wrong side of saturation. However, color accuracy is still okay, and prints look good, which is ultimately what matters most for a printer in this price range.

Black and white photos are typically a bit of a challenge for most printers. It’s not unusual to get a bit of a color cast; sometimes prints come out somewhat yellow or a bit blue, or they lack contrast. However, this printer did a great job with Epson’s black-and-white printing mode enabled, available in the printer dialog in Photoshop. Blacks were inky, whites were white, and the variable gray tones were accurate. I didn’t have any issues losing detail in the shadows or highlights that I expected to be visible, except in one specific instance when I had to brighten up my digital file by +0.25 to achieve the results I wanted. That was a uniquely challenging shot, however.

As for speed, the printer is pretty quick. An 11×14 print at the highest quality takes about five minutes from start to finish. That’s not bad. You can print quite a bit faster at a lower quality, but I don’t want to sacrifice quality when making a print that size. On the other hand, 4×6 prints are a bit less demanding, and the ET-8550 can print a low-quality 4×6 on glossy paper in well under 30 seconds. A quick note about printing: the printer has an output tray that automatically comes out when you start a print job. For some reason, you can’t push the output tray back when you’re done. You must instead tap a button on the touchscreen, and the printer will retract the tray, allowing you to close the front of the printer. It’s a bit odd because with the output tray in the extended position, it’s hard to load additional paper in the front paper trays. It’s a small annoyance, but annoying nonetheless.

Overall, the ET-8550 produces outstanding print quality. For many users, myself included, most of the time, the print quality is more than good enough.

Efficiency and Cost

It’s great that the ET-8550 makes nice prints. However, what sets the printer apart from something like Epson’s SureColor printers is the efficiency of the EcoTank printer. For starters, the printer ships with a full set of ink. The six ink bottles that ship with the printer are good for up to 2,300 4×6 prints. Epson says the ink should last about two years, so gone are the days of constantly getting new ink cartridges, which are costly and pretty terrible for the environment.

Let’s suppose you want to make 8×10 prints. If you order a single 8×10 print from a lab on glossy, semi-gloss, or luster paper – typical photo paper – it’ll cost $3-4 per print. 100 sheets of US Letter-size Epson glossy photo paper cost about $0.22 per sheet. The ink cost of those 100 8×10 prints with the EcoTank ET-8550 is roughly half that per print. It’s easy to see the significant savings you can rack up in short order by printing at home on the EcoTank ET-8550. The savings become more apparent if you print at 11×14 or 13×19 sizes.

You need to print quite a bit to achieve these savings, though, because the ET-8550 has a fairly high upfront cost of $700-800, depending upon ongoing sales and the retailer. It’ll take quite a few prints to recoup your cost.

Summary

The Epson EcoTank ET-8550 is a great option for photographers who want to print at home. As long as you won’t regularly need to print 16×20, 16×24, or larger, the ET-8550 is an economical choice. The upfront cost is reasonably high, but the cost of ink is insanely low. You pay just $90 for a full set of refill bottles, and that’s good for more than 2,000 4×6 prints. Further, the printer comes with full ink bottles, which is great. Not all printers ship with a full set of ink.

Importantly, you don’t sacrifice much by way of print quality relative to Epson’s professional printers. While I could nitpick certain color tones or the overall sharpness, the ET-8550’s prints look great at normal viewing distances.

For situations when I’m not making large prints or require archival ink, I’m happy to print on Epson Ultra Premium Luster paper using the ET-8550.

What I like most:

• Pretty easy to set up with the accompanying mobile app
• Supports wireless printing
• Includes a scanner
• Useful touchscreen and good menu design
• Very good print quality
• Gray ink helps with black-and-white printing, plus overall detail
• Extremely affordable ink

What I dislike:

• The rear straight paper feed is obtuse, although it’s not necessary in most cases
• Paper feed instructions on the printer aren’t always clear
• Some trays require face-down paper while others require face-up paper, which can be confusing at first
• Colors can be a bit too saturated
• Fairly expensive

The Epson EcoTank ET-8550 is a great option for:

• Amateur and enthusiast photographers who want to print their photos at home
• Photographers who hate spending hundreds of dollars on new ink every few months
• Photographers who make many small to medium-sized prints

The printer isn’t a great choice for:

• Photographers who need to make prints larger than 13×19
• People who don’t print often, since the printer is pretty costly
• People who sell their work and require the best print quality and archival materials

The post Epson EcoTank ET-8550 Printer Review: A cost-effective, high-quality photo printer appeared first on Imaging Resource.

Sony ZV-E1 — First Impressions

Sony has announced its first full-frame ZV camera. The new flagship vlogging camera combines the flexibility of an interchangeable lens design with the image quality and video performance of a full-frame image sensor.

Purpose-built for content creators and designed for “crew of one” shooting, the Sony ZV-E1 is not a hybrid camera. It’s not intended to be equally useful for photos and videos. Sony has built the camera and designed its impressive features with video content creation in mind.

While we often focus on photography-oriented and hybrid cameras, the video content creation market is undoubtedly growing. Sony’s E-mount system is remarkably diverse and able to satisfy the needs of many users. We’ve had some hands-on time with the Sony ZV-E1 before today’s release, and the camera includes some interesting features that will excite any user interested in video content creation.

Sony ZV-E1 Key Features and Specs

• E-mount interchangeable lens camera designed for vlogging and video content creation
• World’s smallest and lightest full-frame ILC
• 12.1-megapixel full-frame Exmor R CMOS image sensor
• ISO up to 409,600
• 15+ stops of dynamic range
• Bionz XR image processing engine
• Dedicated AI processing unit
• AI-based Auto Framing
• AI-based Dynamic Active Mode stabilization
• AI-based autofocus
• Cinematic Vlog setting
• S-Cinetone
• User LUT handling
• Full-frame 4K video at up to 120p (with firmware update post-launch)
• FHD video at up to 240p
• Multiple Face Recognition
• Product Showcase setting
• In-camera timelapse
• Intelligent 3-capsule mic with AI audio
• Vari-angle LCD
• Tally lamp, video-friendly control layout, and self-timer
• Dust and moisture-resistant
• UVC/UAC USB streaming up to 4K/30p
• FINAL PRICE

Where does the Sony ZV-E1 fit into Sony’s ZV series?

The Sony ZV series is designed from the ground up to provide features and performance for video content creators. While each ZV camera, including the ZV-E1, can capture high-quality still photos, the camera is primarily built for video content. Accordingly, the cameras’ designs and features are engineered with video creation in mind.

Each ZV camera is targeted at different levels of content creation. While some people are just getting their feet wet and don’t require the best image quality or the flexibility of an interchangeable lens design, others demand more versatility and better video performance.

The ZV-1F is a fixed-lens camera with a type-1.0 image sensor designed for beginners. For a bit better performance but the same sensor size and a fixed lens, there’s also the ZV-1. For users who want the flexibility of an interchangeable lens design, enabling the creation of different types of content, the ZV-E10 sports an E-mount and a larger APS-C image sensor. The ZV-E10 is aimed at creators who are serious about video content creation and want to improve the quality of their work.

For those who want the best the ZV series has to offer, the new ZV-E1 is for you. It promises the highest-quality video thanks to its 12.1-megapixel full-frame image sensor. As we will learn throughout this hands-on preview, Sony has not just “promised” high-end performance for top creators but has seemingly delivered it in spades.

Sony ZV-E1 design and handling: Super compact and lightweight full-frame ILC

The Sony ZV-E1 is the smallest and lightest full-frame interchangeable lens camera on the market. Its dimensions (W x H x D) are 121 x 71.9 x 54.3mm (4.7 x 2.8 x 2.1 in.). The ZV-E1 weighs just 483g (17 oz) with its battery and memory card inserted.

The ZV-E1 is a bit smaller than the Sony A7C and much smaller than the Canon EOS R8, which lacks in-body image stabilization. Of course, the ZV-E1 lacks an eye-level viewfinder, so that’s part of the explanation for the size difference.

The camera’s control layout is designed for video. Examples include a physical tally lamp on the top and front of the camera, a switch for easily swapping between stills and video shooting, a zoom lever (works well with Sony’s PZ lenses, by the way), a prominent record button, physical controls for Product Showcase and Background Defocus modes, and a vari-angle LCD that allows for easy self-recording.

The ZV-E1 sports a large Z-battery, which promises up to 95 minutes of actual recording. The camera also plays nicely with Sony’s GP-VPT2BT grip, which includes useful on-grip controls for recording, zooming, and more.

Image sensor and image quality: Full-frame sensor offers numerous benefits for the ZV series

As the first full-frame ZV camera, users might wonder why now? What benefits does a full-frame image sensor offer video content creators?

The benefits are multi-faceted, but a major and immediately apparent consequence of a larger image sensor is better bokeh, all else equal. The larger sensor allows for shallower depth-of-field, meaning backgrounds are softer, and the video looks more cinematic.

The larger image sensor also allows for the native use of the nearly 50 full-frame Sony E-mount lenses. While you can use full-frame lenses on the APS-C ZV-E10, you don’t achieve the full benefit of them because they experience a 1.5x crop factor.

With a bigger sensor, especially in the case of the 12.1-megapixel sensor used in the ZV-E1, pixel size is increased. This results in improved low-light performance, as each pixel can capture greater light than the smaller pixels on the smaller sensors in the ZV-E10 and ZV-1 models. The ZV-E10’s ISO goes all the way up to ISO 409,600, which is almost like seeing in the dark.

It’s worth noting that full-frame sensors don’t always deliver better low-light performance than smaller sensors, but in the case of the ZV series and their respective resolutions, that’s the case for the ZV-E1.

Similarly, the ZV-E1 also promises impressive dynamic range. Sony claims 15+ stops of dynamic range, which is very impressive. This means that users can capture better-looking videos in situations with highly varied light.

It’s also worth pointing out that while the ZV-E1 and A7S III each feature a 12.1-megapixel full-frame Exmor RS image sensor, Sony stopped short of saying that the cameras use the same image sensor. The potential differences between the sensors weren’t expounded.

Special features for video content creation

As we’ve mentioned a few times, the Sony ZV-E1 is created for video content creation. Yes, the camera can capture images, just like other ZV cameras, but it’s designed for video. Accordingly, the ZV-E1 has distinct features that are useful for video recording and enable easier capture of high-quality video content.

One such feature is a built-in “Bokeh Switch.” For users who don’t understand or want to deal with manual aperture control, the ZV-E1’s Bokeh Switch automatically opens up the lens’ aperture to enable shallower depth of field and create video with a defocused background. Compared to the smaller sensors in the ZV-E10 and ZV-1(F), the ZV-E1 promises softer backgrounds. A blurred background can instantly make video appear more cinematic and professional. It can help the subject stand out, especially against a busy background.

The ZV-E1’s new AI-powered Multiple Face Recognition feature automatically adjusts bokeh and focus when multiple people are in the frame. The camera uses a wide-open aperture and narrower depth-of-field if a single person is in the frame. When someone else is in the frame, especially when they’re closer to or further from the camera, the lens automatically stops down to ensure that both people remain in focus. The camera automatically returns to a wider aperture if the person leaves the frame. This feature helps ensure that people are in focus and the background is as blurred as possible. It’s a fascinating use of AI and the first time a Sony camera has offered a feature like this.

While not unique to the ZV-E1, the camera’s Product Showcase setting is specially designed for content creators who do unboxing videos, product reviews, and tutorials. When a person is on camera and may hold a product up, the Product Showcase setting allows quick AF tracking from a person’s face to a featured object and back to the face.

LUTs, or look-up tables, are useful ways to give videos a specific, predetermined look and feel. LUTs tell a video editing application precisely how to edit color in video. It’s like a preset or filter, in a way. The ZV-E1 allows users to import LUTs directly into the camera, a first for Sony. This will further reduce the time users need to get the precise appearance they want for their video content.

In a similar spirit of “ease of use,” the ZV-E1 includes a new Cinematic Vlog setting. According to Sony, this is an “intuitive way” to create cinematic scenes. What makes a video “cinematic” differs a bit by the user. Still, there are certain settings that most agree deliver a cinematic look, including a 2.35:1 aspect ratio and 24p frame rate. The Cinematic Vlog setting allows users to pick between different looks, including S-Cinetone, and moods, including an intriguing “Auto” setting. Combining the five available “looks” and four “moods,” users can pick from 17 appearances for their Cinematic Vlog video.

The ZV-E1 also includes Creative Look for stills and movies, including 10 different types, each with eight user-selectable parameters. The ZV-E1 introduces a new “My Image Style” setting that allows the user to customize different style parameters while others are handled automatically.

Next generation image stabilization

The Sony ZV-E1 includes five-axis in-body image stabilization. The camera’s “Optical Active” image stabilization delivers up to five steps of stabilization in exchange for a minor crop. However, a brand new Dynamic Active Mode combines the optical image stabilization with electronic image stabilization to deliver up to 30% better performance. Unsurprisingly, this necessitates a noticeably larger crop factor.

However, the Dynamic Active Mode seems like a great option for fast-moving operation, casual shooting, and longer focal lengths. For shooting while walking, the Optical Active mode is a good choice.

Advanced, AI-powered autofocus

Thanks to its dedicated AI processing unit, first introduced in the recent Sony A7R V, the Sony ZV-E1 promises sophisticated, advanced autofocus performance.

The ZV-E1’s AI can perform human pose estimation, track subjects better when their face is covered, deal better with subjects whose backs are to the camera, track a target even if they’re temporarily obscured, and deliver more accurate autofocus when a subject’s face is very small in the frame.

Combining the dedicated AI processing unit with Sony’s Bionz XR processing engine, the ZV-E1 promises 40% higher precision autofocus performance when performing subject recognition and can even recognize more subjects. The camera has special subject-detection modes for animals, birds, cars and trains, airplanes, and insects.

The ZV-E1 utilizes its AI-powered autofocus and new Dynamic Active Mode to deliver AI-based Framing Stabilizer and Auto Framing. These features use in-camera processing to keep a subject in a pre-determined area of the frame through intelligent cropping. It’s quite impressive and should be useful for video content creators working alone. It can be hard to stay framed, so the ZV-E1’s assistance should prove helpful.

With AI-based Auto Framing, users can customize different crop levels and framing tracking speeds to achieve the desired results. Available crop levels include small, medium, and large. Framing Tracking speed ranges from 1 (slowest) to 5 (fastest). The feature also offers automatic modes that start recording when a subject is recognized in the frame, which is great for interviews, music performances, cooking shows, tutorials, etc., with a single fixed camera.

Audio and ports: Sony ZV-E1 sports an AI-enhanced 3-capsule mic

Video is only one part of the equation – audio matters too. While it’s easy to be swept up by resolutions and framerates, bad audio will sink even the highest-quality video.

The ZV-E1 has a built-in three-capsule mic. Thanks to AI, the mic can change directivity automatically, switching between front, rear, and all directional as needed. Users can also manually swap between these options.

The camera has a supplied windscreen, which easily attaches to the camera’s Multi Interface Shoe. The windscreen reduces wind noise when recording outside. The camera also works with Sony’s Multi Interface (MI) shoe accessories thanks to the camera’s digital audio interface.

Aimed at serious video work, the camera includes separate mic and headphone jacks. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have a full-size HDMI output, instead using mini HDMI.

Summary: Where does the Sony ZV-E1 fit into the landscape?

The Sony ZV-E1 offers many compelling features for video-focused content creators. While it’s not useless for still photography, that’s not its focus or strength. In that respect, it’s quite different from other hybrid-oriented full-frame cameras on the market, like the Panasonic S50.

One of the most notable omissions is an eye-level viewfinder. This severely limits the ZV-E1 for photography, especially compared to similarly-priced cameras.

However, what the ZV-E1 lacks in “photo” features, it more than makes up for concerning video. The camera is packed to the brim with impressive new AI-powered features that will make the life of a one-person-crew video creator significantly easier. AI-powered autofocus, framing, improved stabilization, and the list goes on…these features promise to make it easier to dramatically improve someone’s overall video and production quality.

The content creation market is booming, and Sony hopes its new ZV-E1 will appeal to the most ambitious creators. From our perspective, Sony’s hopes will be realized. The ZV-E1 is a very impressive video camera that goes far beyond being just a “vlogging” camera.

The post Sony ZV-E1 Review appeared first on Imaging Resource.

Portrait photographers know how challenging it can be to get sharp portraits. You have to consider a lot of aspects of an image in addition to sharpness, but some of these considerations are actually related to sharpness. Dzvonko Petrovski wrote an article, The 8 Immutable Laws of Sharp Portrait Photographs, that discusses what you need to do ensure that you get sharp portraits.

Light is critical for capturing sharp portraits. You need to have enough light, and it needs to be directed well. By having enough light for your desired shutter speed and aperture, you’ll be able to keep your ISO sensitivity low and therefore capture more details in your images.

The lens is also important. There are many excellent lenses available and different lenses serve different purposes. Using an 85mm f/1.4 lens at f/1.4 will provide a very shallow depth of field, but the same lens at f/11, for example, will allow more of the image to be sharp. Relatedly, you’ve got to get your focus correct to have a sharp image. There are many aspects of an image that post-processing allows you to fix or enhance the image, but focus is not one of them. If you don’t achieve correct focus in-camera, no amount of Photoshop will make your image sharp. Autofocus is very good with modern cameras, but it is not perfect, so don’t be afraid to manually focus to fine-tune your focus.

Michel Thierry Atangana, 2015

Shutter speed and aperture decisions both have an impact on sharpness. You must select a shutter speed that is high enough to eliminate any motion blur. People are always moving a little bit, so choosing a very slow shutter speed can mean a blurry image. Aperture affects more than just depth of field, it can also affect the optical qualities of a lens. Even the best and most expensive lenses don’t often perform their best completely wide open. An 85mm f/1.4 lens is not at its optical best at f/1.4, but will rather have vignetting and some softness. Stopping down your lens will typically reduce vignetting and improve sharpness throughout the image. Stopping down too far can lead to diffraction though, which will soften an image. Every lens performs differently, so read up on your particular lens.

Karolina, photoshop, 2015

To see the rest of Petrovski’s 8 immutable laws of sharp portraits, check out his full article here.

It’s not easy to get sharp portraits, but by taking into consideration these eight laws, you’ll be well on your way to capturing tack sharp portraits.

(Seen via Light Stalking. Index image, PUNK, 2014 from Flickr user Luis Alvarez Marra. Michel Thierry Atangana, 2015, from Flickr user Michel Thierry Atangana. Karolina, photoshop, 2015, from Flickr user Ada Vogel. All images modified and used under Creative Commons 2.0 license.)

The post Capture sharp portraits with these eight tips appeared first on Imaging Resource.

Adapt Network has 7 tips for great outdoor photography that will help take your outdoor photography to the next level and ensure that you take images that capture nature the way you remember seeing it.

Firstly, composition is key. Neville Elder, a guest writer at Adapt, says to not “point and shoot.” Although you may have a full day of hiking ahead of you and feel the need to rush, Elder says that you have to plan ahead for good photo opportunities to ensure that you are able to slow down out in the field and think about your composition. It’s better to slow down and come home with less images, but better ones, than to come home with a bunch of mediocre images. You can use Google Earth to scout out the terrain in advance for potential photo opportunities so that you don’t waste time on an average location when there is a great one further ahead.

The ambient light can make it tricky to tell how your images will really look when you’re out shooting. If you’re worried about getting the right exposure out in the field, use your camera’s automatic bracketing option. Most cameras have this option, don’t be afraid to use it. You can always delete the exposures you don’t want later on, or you could even use the bracketed exposures to make an HDR image.

Source: Fix.com

Again, it’s difficult to tell what your exposure situation is out in the field. There’s a lot going on, your camera’s display isn’t very big, and ambient light can mess with your eyes and your camera. Elder says to grab a light meter to do incident light readings. Incident light reading is measuring the amount of light before it bounces off of your subject. Different colors and materials react to light differently, which can make it difficult for your camera to meter an entire scene correctly, so you need to measure how much light is actually hitting the scene.

Source: Fix.com

To see the rest of Elder’s excellent tips for better outdoor photography, check out the full article.

(Seen via Adapt Network)

The post Take your outdoor captures from snapshots to photographs with these tips appeared first on Imaging Resource.

If you’ve ever been processing and editing images in Lightroom and thought, “Wow, this is taking forever…,” then photographer Viktor Elizarov has just the guide for you.

Elizarov starts out by describing that feeling of helplessness that many of us have experienced when faced with a massive backlog of images that need to be sorted and processed. After experiencing this with over 5,000 images from a trip to Hawaii, California, and the Southwest, Viktor started to analyze his editing habits in Lightroom. What he realized was that for all of his images, about 80% of the edits he does are identical.

By taking this 80% and automating it, he was able to dramatically reduce the amount of time he spent in front of his computer. Less time on the computer means more time for taking actual photos, something every photographer yearns for. Lightroom Presets out of the box are not quite what he was looking for, however, so he adopted a two-level editing approach. Level one involves using a style-based preset such as cool or warm, cross processed or natural, contrasted or soft, that defines the overall look of an image. The second level is adjustment presets that fine-tune an image without changing the style defined in the first level.

On the left is the Style preset that Viktor assigns first. In the case of a landscape image, he chooses ‘Natural.’ After that, he selects one of the 40 TOOLKIT presets on the right for changing specific parameters of an image.

After selecting his style, he has a collection of 40 presets to choose from that affect specific parameters of an image. These presets are stackable so he can apply multiple presets without overwriting any of his previous selections. When he’s done with this process, he saves the entire process as a snapshot in Lightroom and is free to try out alternative presets on the same image. By streamlining his editing process, he has more time to explore alternative ways to process images or capture new images.

All of Viktor’s Lightroom presets are available for free download here. For a guide on how to use these free Lightroom presets, see here.

I downloaded and tried out the presets for myself. Viktor has an installation guide that made the process very simple. After getting them installed, I decided to try them out on an image I took earlier this fall. I never quite decided on how to process the image earlier, so it seemed like a good candidate for trying out these presets.

Before

After

The entire edit took me less than half a minute by applying the ‘Natural’ style and then adding Exposure++, Clarity+, Vibrance++, Sky Blue Darker++ (to make the background trees darker), and Contrast+.

Be sure to visit Viktor Elizarov’s site for more tutorials and to see his work.

(Seen via Digital Photography School)

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Photographer Sheen Watkins argues that seeing iconic scenes (such as the Grand Canyon as seen below, for example) can impact our photographic eye, both intentionally and unintentionally, when we get to photograph it for ourselves. In an article discussing the pros and cons of photographing icons, Watkins offers tips for how to take unique images of scenes that many photographers have captured over the years.

There are some advantages to taking photos of known icons. Firstly, you get to travel to known locations. This means that there are a lot of resources available for you online to learn more about the location. Sure, many people have been there, but you can learn from these people and become a more efficient traveler and photographer. With these locations being iconic, they are also often accessible.

Some places are so iconic that people have seen them many times throughout their lives. This can actually be to your advantage with your own photos as people will easily relate to your work. Some viewers may even have been to the location themselves and your images a can bring back good memories for them.

There are cons as well, though. You can end up only capturing the easy or simple image of the iconic location, the one that everyone takes. You may be able to capture a beautiful image doing this, but it won’t be unique. Don’t let worrying about capturing the iconic image stop you from exploring and experimenting with different perspectives. Additionally, depending on the time of day and season, the iconic spot might be crowded. People might be going in and out of your frame or you may feel nervous about disrupting other photographers. In either case, your photography could suffer from working in a crowded location.

To see the rest of the pros and cons of photographing icons and Sheen Watkins’ four recommendations on how to photograph an icon, check out the full article. To see her work, be sure to visit her website.

(Seen via Light Stalking. Index image by Tiffany Nguyen.)

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Visual balance is crucial to making a good image. Photographer Eva Polak has written an article, 7 Quick Tips on How to Use Visual Balance to Make Better Photographs, for Digital Photography School that outlines ways to use visual balance to create well-composed and visually interesting images.

Of the seven factors you must consider when composing your visually-balanced image, Eva starts with color. There are a wide variety of properties associated with color that affect visual weight, such as “saturation, brightness, darkness, and hue.” Warm colors have more impact in an image than cool colors, and red has the most weight of all colors. The brighter a color, the more attention it’ll attract as well.

The color red is particularly impactful as it draws the attention of the viewer more than any other color. Image credit: Jeremy P. Gray

Another important factor of visual weight is texture. The more texture a subject has, the more visual weight that it will have and the more attention it’ll draw. In contrast, smoother objects are visually lighter and are more likely to recede in an image. Consider the image below, despite the bright clouds in the background, the tree in the foreground has such a strong texture that it draws a lot of attention and serves to balance the overall composition. Without the strong texture, the image would be heavily-weighted toward the upper left half. With that said, the sky does have some texture as well and is not entirely smooth. Ultimately, texture and value (the third factor that Eva discusses in her article) work together to create a balanced composition.

To see the rest of Eva Polak’s seven tips for using visual balance in your photography, check out the full article here.

Visit Eva’s website to see her work and to read more free resources.

(Seen via Digital Photography School)

The post Using visual balance to compose better images appeared first on Imaging Resource.

In a video for Adorama, photographer Daniel Norton covers the basics of using a handheld light meter. While camera’s are always improving their metering capabilities, they’re still unable to meter studio flash set-ups.

Using a Sekonic L-758DR, Norton covers the features of the light meter and how to use it. This meter has a spot meter and an incident dome. An incident dome meter measures the light falling on a subject. When you’re measuring for a particular light, like in a studio set-up or when using artificial lighting, you want to point the dome toward your light source.

Another great tip he has is that you should take an ambient light reading even when you’re using artificial light. After plugging in your parameters, such as shutter speed and ISO, the ambient light reading is to make sure that the ambient light won’t end up affecting your final shot captured using the lighting setup.

In another video for Adorama, photographer Mark Wallace uses a now discontinued Sekonic L-358 light meter to cover how to use a light meter for metering light ratios.

He covers a four-step process for metering light ratios. In trying to figure out the value of one light in relationship to another light, you first press meter, then memory, then delta EV, and then meter again. You want to meter your key light first, and Wallace goes so far as to wear a dark-colored shirt so that he isn’t reflecting additional light toward his meter. When metering the fill light, by holding down the measurement button on the light meter, the light meter gives us the difference in exposure value.

If you’re interested in buying the Sekonic L-758DR light meter used in the first video by Daniel Norton, please help support our site by purchasing it through either of our trusted affiliates, Adorama or B&H

The updated Sekonic L-478 light meter comparable to the Sekonic L-358 used in the second video by Mark Wallace is available from our trusted affiliate B&H.

(Seen via Digital Photography School)

The post How to use hand-held light meters for studio portraits appeared first on Imaging Resource.

Over at Photography Life, author and founder of the site, Nasim Mansurov, has written a guide on building a Skylake-powered PC for photography. Mansurov outlines builds for both a full tower PC and also a more compact and lightweight PC.

Mansurov gives suggestions for all the major components of a PC, including architecture, CPU, video card, storage, RAM, and more. The full tower set up, without monitors and additional optional storage, comes to slightly over $2000 USD. Whereas the compact configuration comes to a grand total of just over $1500. To see the full break-down of all the major components, be sure to check out Nasim’s guide.

Components and cost breakdown of Mansurov’s tower PC build. Credit: Nasim Mansurov

Although not intending to “flame Apple” with his guide, Nasim state that “even the best Mac Pros won’t stand a chance against” his full tower configuration despite costing thousands of dollars more. For those comfortable with configuring their own PC, Nasim’s guide should help you get the most bang for your buck and build a blazing fast computer for your photography workflow.

(Seen via Photography Life)

The post Look out Mac: Building the perfect PC for photography appeared first on Imaging Resource.

Portrait photographers know how difficult it can be to work with strobes in the studio and shoot at wide apertures. Patrick Hall has written an article and recorded a video that discusses some techniques for capturing portraits with a shallow depth of field inside of a studio environment. Hall is a South Carolina-based wedding photographer and the co-founder of Fstoppers.com.

The power of studio flash heads can be great, but it also forces you to shoot at smaller apertures such as f/8 and smaller. So what do you do when you want to capture portraits with a shallow depth of field? Hall says to shoot with modeling lamps rather than with studio strobes.

Modeling lamps are typically included in studio flash heads and used for setting up a shot before using your strobes for the actual image capture, but they can be much more useful than that. Modeling lamps pack a much smaller punch than studio flash heads, and this can be a good thing for certain situations.

Check out the video below to see how Hall uses modeling lamps in the studio and what some of the differences are between strobes and modelling lamps.

Hall discusses some alternatives to using modeling lamps as well. You can use neutral density filters on either your lens or on your strobes themselves. However, using them on your lens can make it difficult to focus and attaching them to strobes is not always a simple task. For additional alternatives to modeling lamps, check out Hall’s article.

Ultimately, there is more than one way to get studio portraits with a shallow depth of field. Whichever method allows you to capture the portraits that you desire is the ‘right’ way. With that said, Hall makes a strong case for utilizing the modeling lamps that come with studio strobes.

(Seen via Fstoppers)

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