Happy Monday Everyone,


Today I want to talk about the importance of being involved in organizations that have to do with your career choice.  After doing research for my business class, I have learned that there are so many different organizations that are either local or simply internet based that will help your business.  Many of us think that we have so much time to plan for this because we still have a lot of schooling left but the best time to start preparing for your future is now. 


Most of these organizations are a great resource for learning marketing tools and will also help you advertise your business to get you established.  You may think that everyone wants someone who has been in this business for years and has done it all already.  That is not always the case.  There is something to be said about a fresh mind right out of school.  If you want to add some guarantees that your business will succeed and you will have a prosperous career, you will want to start now. 


A lot of these organizations are not expensive to join and they are packed with benefits.  You always want to make sure that you are educated and keep up with what is going on even after you graduate.  There are always new things happening and new technology surfacing. 


One really great organization that I learned about last week first from my student leader and then from the research I did for my class is PPA which stands for Professional Photographers of America.  For students it is only $79 for the year and it is a wonderful resource.  The website is http://www.ppa.com/ .  You should really think about joining if you are not already a member. 


If you have any other questions about any of these organizations you can ask me or any of the other ambassadors.  We are always here to help each other out.  Have a great week everyone.


Barbara Ann

Keep Down the Noise!

This week I thought I’d write about another subject that I am frequently asked about, noise. First let’s take a look at noise as it pertains to photography. What is noise? Well, noise is the pixelation that happens in your images when you use too much ISO.

Many of the new cameras are capable of high ISO settings, some as high as 256,000 believe it or not. Increasing the ISO on your camera allows you to compensate for low light conditions but is not the ideal way to compensate for it. The ISO setting makes your cameras sensor more sensitive to lighting and your exposure. As you move the number higher, you camera is able to pull in more light from the available light in the conditions. The bad part is when you go too high in ISO, you start getting noise introduced into your images and they start to look sloppy instead of having a nice, fine quality.

Even though most modern cameras can go to large ISO settings, it’s not recommended to do so as the quality of your image will suffer. If you ask most any professional photographer, they will tell you that the maximum ISO that anyone should ever use is ISO 800, as once you get above ISO 800, noise really becomes an issue. Ideally, they will go on to tell you that ISO 50 or 100 is the best to use as it offers the finest quality to the final image. So, how do you keep down the noise if you are shooting in less than ideal lighting conditions? By using a better lens, capable of a wider aperture to allow more light to reach your sensor or by using artificial lighting, such as strobes or continuous, hot light kits.

This image shot at ISO 3200, notice all the noise?

The wide lens option is the best as a lens with a wider aperture will naturally allow more light in. Thins of the aperture of your lens as being the same as the pupil in your eye. When you are in low light conditions, your pupils enlarge so that your eyes can take in more light and allow you to see better. If it’s a bright, sunny day your pupils will become very small as you don’t need as much light allowed in to see. Aperture works the same way as your pupil, when you have a wide aperture lens, say an F/1.4 your lens is opened up allowing more ambient light into your sensor to make the exposure. The down side of wide aperture lenses is that they are generally expensive. Take the most popular lens from one of my earlier posts, the 70-200mm. As I mentioned in that earlier post the 70-200mm from Canon comes in two apertures, F/4 and F/2.8. The F/4, which I currently own is a fantastic lens and takes beautiful images with outdoor light, but if I needed to shoot indoors, say at a concert or indoor sports like basketball the F/2.8 will work better because it can open wider than the F/4 and let more of the natural light in that environment into my sensor. The difference in price is significant, with the 70-200mm F/4 L lens costing around $800 and the 70-200mm F/2.8 costing around $2,100.

Same image shot at ISO 100, notice the fine quality?

As I mentioned earlier in this post, the other option to prevent noise is to use artificial lighting such as a Speedlite external flash, or full blown strobes or even hot lights. These will allow you to keep your cameras ISO down really low if the lights are powerful enough to compensate for the poor natural lighting. Flash is not ideal in most low light conditions such as concerts or indoor sports as the flash is distracting, which is why if you are at a basketball game or watching one on TV you will notice that most all of the sports photographers there will have no flash but will instead be using that big fat F/2.8 70-200mm to get the shots they need for sports magazines and websites.

Now, since most of the AI family reading this post are students, I am assuming you are not rich enough to buy all your lenses at F/2.8 or wider as it is very costly. I would recommend to you that you invest in one expensive F/2.8 zoom such as the 70-200mm and buy the rest of your lenses in whatever aperture you can afford and use. If you do want to buy a good 70-200mm F/2.8, then you can always rent one from www.borrowlenses.com or from www.lumoid.com. I personally love Lumoid as they let you try before you buy and if you want to own that lens, they will split that cost up over three months to make it more affordable. I am not certain Borrow Lenses offers the same option as I have never used them but I know Reuben has and he can probably best answer that question.

Now get out there and make some great images.

Comments/Questions

What does it mean to Invest into your Internship?

We will continue the 2nd part of our Internship paperwork next week.  I wanted to confirm that nothing had changed in the process before we went on to part 2.

While my actual internship doesn't start til May 14th it was very important to me that I start to make good connections with my team.  Most of these players I have never met  before at the Silverhawks have almost a completely new team this year. Shooting early also gives me a chance to warm up my sports shooting skills that I haven't used for the last year.

Football Camp

Football camp was my first actual chance to see our players.  Camp was a 2 days.  The players were a bit weary of me as they really weren't sure what I was doing.  The players I did know from last year were excited to see me but in some ways, I had to prove to the team that I'm on their side.  A photographer could be there taking photos of their flaws to point out to the coaches.  My job is more the team cheerleader. I take photos that highlight the players skills.

                        Practice makes perfect for the player and the photographer 

In this shot it is a good action shot or is it?  The ball is just out of the shot the player has slipped on the grass so his feet have slipped out of the shot.  I like it. The player might like it but does it really show what a good player he is?  No.  Would I suggest he use it to show his skill? Maybe.  The point is he has better shots and not only do the players need practice but I need practice. If I had just had my lens a little farther back it would have been a better shot.  

I posted most of the Day 1 shots where the team could see them before Day 2.  It was still about getting them to trust me.  They now can see there maybe some opportunity shots like this one but there are many more shots that make them look good.  I went into Day 2 of the Football Camp with a more relaxed team. Did they all trust me yet?  Not yet but they were warming up.  This is one of the reasons I choose to shoot some before my internship started.

In many ways this shot is a much better shot.  While I still need to work on getting used to framing for sports again, clearly this plays caught this ball. The ball is in the shot and you can see the determined look on his face.

Good shot for both player and photographer but a closer cropping would have eliminated the guard rail.

Now that the team has started to get my purpose for photographing the games they can't wait to see the shots and I giggle about how many questions I get on when the newest shots will be posted.  At this point about half the team has added me on Facebook and part have liked my FB page.  We haven't yet decided where we will post all of our pictures so I posted some on my FB page and some on my regular page.  The team links to whatever place I post pictures.  These Camp Pictures were only posted on my actual FB photography page.

Going into our first pre-season game I had already decided to post all Pre-Season game pictures on my personal Facebook page.  One of the reasons that I had 5 teams ask me about shooting last year is I always share pictures with teams that we shoot.  The reality is while I'm shooting my team I'm also getting great shots of the other team. I don't care if the other team has a photographer or not I share my shots with the players on my personal Facebook page,   I then put any shots I love on my FB photography page and my website.  I had 5 teams ask me to shoot because they players asked the owners to try to get me as their team photographer because I did that last year.

Pre-Season Game 1

Our first pre-season game was with the Cleveland Patriots.  I didn't know very many members on that  team but there was at least one former Silverhawk on the team.  

Each time I shoot I am refreshing my skills getting me ready for the our first real games.  This field was a very small field where the goal posts were actually in the right location.  However the team made it work. Here is one shot I took of our team.

                                Warming up you get a glimpse of the new uniforms.

While I very carefully choose this angle so we could see the backs of several players uniforms and the woods behind us I will actually be cropping out the first player whose feet you only see.  I would rather have had the front of our really cool uniforms but sometimes shooting in the city you have to take the shot that looks the best.  The forward shot shows express way ramps and a comfort inn sign.

I also took action shots of both teams as they played. Here is a shot where my team wasn't winning but it was a great shot for the other player.

                    The Cleveland Patriots run with the ball but Our Hawks are close behind.

That shot while it shows the city which is a bit of a distraction is still a good shot for both teams. The Patriots have the ball but my Hawks are right on them. It is also a good shot of our new uniforms.

When this game was over I talked to one of the coaches and let her know that I would post all photos and the Patriots were welcome to tag or grab shots of their team.  They were surprised but they thanked me. She made sure my former Silverhawk player knew how to add me.

After these pictures were posted I added 30 or more new contacts and had a lot of players thanking me for giving them the shots.  My photos were added to my team and the other team's Facebook pages giving me a huge amount of exposure on each photograph.

The reality is your internship is going to be what you make of it.  What did it cost me to shoot these 3 days? A few hours each day with some very light editing for light only.  What did I gain. A team that knows they can trust me.  A new team that knows that not only am a I a good person and photographer but our team the Jackson Silverhawks also appreciate their hard work when they play us.  Plus I am filling my sports portfolio with a variety of teams not just my own.

You invest in yourself when you make sure your internship isn't just a way to get 3 credits!  

I hoped you enjoyed a glimpse into the coming weeks! 

Preserving your Work

Preserving your Work.

Preserving your work -- a guide to backing up your photos so you'll still have them when you graduate, and be able to find them for your portfolio

Hello everyone. A very good wednesday morning to you. I have a great topic for you this morning. I am sure many of you have your own way of saving files and may be very organized. That is just fantastic. I am here to show you what has worked for me over the past few years and how I am able to find all my files and images that I need especially when I started with my final year. It your system is great and you can find your files within 30 seconds of opening a location then that is a great method of organization.

You are going to need your information and photographs from previous years so get started now with some really great organization.

Let’s start with the easiest part of organization. Where should you store all your files and images that you use on a daily basis. Well, your Harddrive you would say is your best place to store all of it it correct? I would say yes, but now that I am 3 years into my course I have found that some courses require only a small amount of space, but others required much more space because of all the images that you have to save, edit and export. You never want to delete anything so for me I bought an external Hard Drive, WD 4TB USB drive and that was probably my best investment to-date for all my classes.

It frees up some space on your hard drive and it is just a good place to store files in the event that you have some computer malfunctions. Cloud backup is also recommended so that you always have a duplicate of all your work. I use Crashplan, but you can use anyone of the top rated companies out there. It is just $5 per month for unlimited file storage.

For storing my weekly files I created a filing system that is very easy to follow and I can always add and remove files when I need them. I made a simple weekly structure and a resources folder for all my work. As I create my files I store them under the appropriate week as well as create folders as I require them.

As I export images from Lightroom I also create folders from there and they are stored under the appropriate week as well.

Recently I moved the same structure to Dropbox for each course. I did this because I am always at work or on the road. I can access my work from my laptop or IPad and still be able to do assignments or post work and images to the appropriate folder for later use. You have to do what works for you. The basic structure remains the same but you are able to become mobile and manage your time so much better.

Lastly, I think one of the most important areas that needs to stay organized is your Lightroom catalog. You will be taking hundreds, if not thousands of photographs over the course of your degree. So make sure you have a great structure in place. I used the same naming principle in Lightroom that I use for all my other work. I created collections with course numbers for all my work making it so much easier to find when I did a search. Do not forget your keywords for all your images.

I can always go back and change the wording, just do what works for you best. Again the structure is the same, but the content will always vary.

Well, that is the simple structure that I work with. It has worked well for me in the past and whatever method you use, remember that you will be needing many of these files and photographs again during your final year courses.

Start well now and make your life so much simpler in the future.

As always please let me know if you have any questions and how I may be of assistance. I will answer all your questions and comments. If you have suggestions for post please pass them along.

Have a great wednesday.

Denzil

Monday

Good Monday Morning Everyone,


Just a few things about the resources that are available to you at AI.  Many students don't know that they have tutor's available or even counseling services if you are having personal problems that you need to talk about.  It is important to utilize these if you need them because they will help your grades in the long run.  The tutors are there to assist you academically if you are struggling with a certain class or assignment.  This will be great because you will get assistance and make sure you pass your classes.  If you are having personal problems and the stress is getting to you, this can also affect your grades in a big way.  Sometimes just talking to someone can make you feel so much better and that will alleviate some of your stress while then making school an easier task. 


It's also a great idea to let your classes know about PSPN because this can be another great resource in helping students to understand and be successful in their classes.  We are all here to help each other and we all want the next person to achieve their goals and do well in their classes. 


I hope this was a help and I hope everyone has a great week ahead.


Barbara Ann

Should I Only Buy Name Brand Lenses?

Another one of the questions I myself and many other photographers get from students is this one, “Should I only buy Name Brand lenses”, i.e. Canon, Nikon, Sony, etc.

To be honest there are no straight yes or no answer to this question. Some of it is personal preference, some of it is your budget. I am a Canon shooter and I love my Canon gear, but do I only buy Canon lenses? Absolutely not! Why, well for one thing, I have an I.Q. higher than 10 points and another, I am NOT rich!

In the past you would usually hear the old adage you get what you pay for but this is no longer the case. Over the last few years third party lens builders have gotten better and better at putting out quality equipment. Tamron, is in my humble opinion, the King of third party lenses, outside Carl Zeiss, who’s lenses are priced so ridiculously high, for manual only lenses, I will never own one.

I consider Tamron the King of third party lenses because I have personally never had a bad Tamron lens nor read any bad reviews on any of them. I have had Sigma lenses that threw all kinds of weird errors when I tried to use them and the image quality had been really weak on some of them I have used but I have read that lately Sigma is getter really good as well. Just like Canon or Nikon, both builders have their low end lenses and their high end lenses. For Tamron, their high end ones are the SP series, and many photographers compare Tamron’s SP series as being nearly as good if not sometimes better than Canon “L” series glass. Image quality, build quality, all on par or better than Canon’s “L” glass, the catch is, Tamron’s SP lenses cost WAY less money.

Monarch butterfly shot with Canon 70-200mm F/4 L USM

What is the most popular zoom lens in photography? The 70-200mm lens is by far used by more pros than any other zoom lens every made. Why, well it has what is known in the industry as the “sweet” focal lengths. 70-85mm is popular for portraits as is 135mm and having a max of 200mm is good for most all around shooting, sports, events, etc. Now Canon makes four versions of the 70-200mm “L” series lens. There’s the 70-200mm F/4 L with or without IS (Image Stabilizer) and the 70-200mm F/28. with or without IS. These four lenses vary in price from $800-$2,100 for the new F/2.8 IS II. As most people will tell you, if you want the best lens, go with the F/2.8 with or without IS depending on your wallet. The reason is the faster F/2.8 lets in more light so you can use it in lower light shooting, like if you specialize in shooting bands at concerts or bars as those are very low light situations.

Not everyone wants to spend $2,100 for a single lens, enter Tamron. Tamron offers the same 70-200mm F/2.8 Di VC (Di means fits full frame as well as crop bodies, VC means Vibration Compensation, same as Canon’s IS) for $999-$1,499 depending on who you buy it from. That is considerable savings for the most popular lens in one of the best apertures. I currently have the Canon 70-200mm F/4 USM but plan to pick up the Tamron 70-200mm F/2.8 Di VC as one of my near future purchase.

Hopefully, this article will help you decide where you want to put your money when it comes to lens purchases. Now get out there and make some great images!

Comments/Questions

Here we go! The steps to take to apply for an Internship! Part 1.

Welcome all it is finally Friday so we continue our series on Internship!   Tomorrow is my team's first pre-season game.  I'm hoping we don't get rain and as crazy as it is that we don't get snow! I promise I will start to share some photos of these early days once we get past the internship application process! So let's get back to it.

So you are almost there! This is the exciting part!  You have finally found the perfect internship and you can't wait to get started so how do you get it set up with school.

If you start to ask other students it becomes pretty clear that many of them will never do an internship so they aren't really sure what you do.  Some will start telling you it is a lot of paperwork or that the process takes a long time.

 At this point you are starting to feel like maybe you should just give up! It already took so long to find an internship and then making sure it was the right internship for you.  You may start to loose hope and think about just let the little voices of doubt take over and have a party.  But wait...

Don't give up yet, no matter how bleak the situation looks! Ambassador Friday is here to help!

Here is a secret and you have to promise to not tell a soul!  This is the easy part.  Finding the right internship was the hardest part of process. Really! I promise you that I am not lying. I'll give you all the steps involved so you are prepared for the process of getting that great internship approved.


Step 1 - Contact your Academic Adviser

You can actually contact your adviser before you find an internship! You let them know you have potential interest in getting an internship and they will send you the internship packet before you even start looking for an internship. This is a smart way to handle the situation. Why?  Because not every internship would qualify as an acceptable internship.  I did not personally do it this way because I attended on of our amazing webinars that had taught me what would be an acceptable internship.

Since you have already found what you believe to be an acceptable internship, the first thing you want to do is email or call your adviser to let them know about the internship offer.  Your adviser will send you the Photography Internship Packet along with an email of questions that needs to be filled out and sent over to the Photography Internship Coordinator, Effi Karkaidos.


Step 2 - Initial contact Email sent to the Photography Internship Coordinator

After you have read over the PDF Internship Packet you will copy the template email sent over by your adviser and sent it to Effi.  It first asks for your contact information as well as that of your adviser.  The email has some important questions you must answer about your current status with the school as well as the internship.  Here are a few of those important questions.

• Have you completed 75 credits worth of core Photography courses?

          This one is a biggie! You need to make sure with your adviser at some point that you are on 

           track to do this around the time that doing an internship will work for you. There will be more           discussion about time in another section.

• Have you discussed your eligibility to enroll in the Internship course with your Academic Adviser?

          While Effi is glad to answer questions you do need to work with your adviser to make sure 

           you are fully able to do your internship before submitting this email.

• Why are you interested in an Internship?

          This question actually has 7 different reasons why you want to have an internship you choose 

          between 1 - 7 on what is the most important reason to you.  A few of those topics are as  to  

          earn 3 credits towards my degree, to earn a wage, to build my portfolio.  None of this has a

          wrong or a right answer so be honest!

                              There are three important foot notes on this email as well.

                   1. You must find your own internship. It isn't Effi's place to find one for you.

                   2. You can't intern for your own business or that of a spouse or close family member.

                   3. You must gain approval for your internship if you want to receive credit for it!

Not to leave you in suspense but just like I had to wait for my reply email from Effi the rest of the steps to apply for your internship comes next week! (Yes Effi's return email was faster)!

As always I look forward to your questions and comments!!