New! Related Videos Appearing on Embeds

Does watching a YouTube video on another site leave you hungering for more like it? We just turned on a new embedded player with a scroll-through feature that shows related videos to your embeds. It's fun to play with and lets you discover new, related videos without leaving your site. Just hover over the video after pressing "play" and watch the magic unfold...







If for any reason you don't want this option turned on, you can modify the video URL by attaching a rel=0 parameter to the video. i.e. http://www.youtube.com/v/&rel=0



Here is an example of code with the parameter in place:










Enjoy!

YouTube Team

Take the Plunge with This DIY Background Stand

DIYPhotography.net is a site after my own heart. Their latest offering is a Home-Depot-sourced lightweight background stand modeled after the Bogen Autopole system.

How do they safely and temporarily connect it to your ceiling? Well, let's just say that if things ever get really bad around your house, you'll be able to unstop two toilets at once.

From up to 12 feet away.

(Thanks for the Flickr tip, Greg!)

:: Hardware Store Backdrop Stand ::

Sponsor Salad Toss, May '07

Just a quick shout out to to say thanks to the May sponsors, Midwest Photo Exchange, PhotoShelter and zenfolio, without whom this lighting blog thing would grind to a screeching halt. Show 'em some luv, y'all.

And if you want to reach the 114,950 different photographers that visited Strobist 827,360 times last month, you can learn more about it here.

'Cause Strobist is, like, so cheap and easy.

Lighting 102: Introduction

Welcome to Lighting 102.

If you were around for last summer's Lighting Boot Camp, you will find this a completely different experience. Boot Camp went for the instant gratification of a quickie series of assignments. L102 is designed to be a comprehensive course that starts from square one and is designed to build a broader and organic understanding of how to control light.

There will be full assignments and small exercises. But where Boot Camp skipped straight to dessert, this time we'll eat our veggies first.

We will start by exploring the different ways in which light can be controlled. Along the way we will be doing exercises to build a strong understanding of each of those variables. As we start to get some of the control factors under out belt, there will be assignments that make use of what we have learned so far.

With each new subject, exercise and assignment, there will be discussion threads created on Flickr so you can easily ask and answer questions.

Photo classes typically have class review sessions, where the students just stick their assignments up on the wall and learn from each other. This one will be no different, except for the class size and the far-flung nature of the students. And the more people participate, the more valuable the experience will be.

And if you are reading this post sometime much later than June 4th, 2007, no worries. All of the above will be archived it in such a way as to make it easy to start whenever you want and work at your own pace. You may catch up to us, or you may not. Makes no difference. You'll still have access to the course material and the students' photos will be archived.

Like most courses, you will get out of this exactly what you put into it. You are not required to do anything. There are no grades. There will be no tests.

I will only make you one promise:

If you study the lessons, do the exercises and complete the assignments, you will build a stronger understanding of how to control light.

Some of you are already doing some fantastic lighting work. You guys may find the beginnings of this class a little boring and/or remedial. But I am not structuring this course to make a few Rock Stars that much better. This class is designed so anyone, at any experience level, will be able to learn to light better.

Okay, let me back up on that just a bit. You'll want to already be comfy with exposure, as in f-stops and shutter speeds and such. Because we will be leaving your TTL flash comfort zone behind in search of more creative control.

That said, let's get started.


First Things First: Be Willing to Change Your Thinking

The first goal is for you to be open to thinking about light in a different way. Depending on whether you are experienced at using flash or a rank beginner, this will mean one of two things.

If you are an old hand at this stuff, be willing to learn to approach it from another different direction. No one is asking you to forget what you know, or to abandon your tried-and-true techniques. But looking at a well-known task from a different angle can serve to strengthen your understanding of it.

If you are a total newb, your job is a little more difficult: You'll need to put aside any fears you have of learning about a subject as nebulous and intimidating as lighting.

We will be breaking this down into little chunks that are easily digestible. And you'll have many, many people who will be able to answer your questions. All I ask is that you go into this process with the confidence that you can absolutely learn this stuff. Because you can.

Here's a little secret: There are only a few things you can do to control light. Once you learn those - and learn them well - you are off to the races.

Conversely, I find it to be an amazing thing that so few controls can yield such an huge variety of visual styles for lighting.

When I wrote Lighting 101, it was pretty much created on the fly. I was a newspaper shooter with a decent grasp of a few lighting principles and tricks, and I wanted to share them.

Fast forward a year or so, and I am a completely changed photographer. That's the biggest advantage of being in the position of running a lighting blog: It tends to make you to think about light pretty much non-stop.

And you also find yourself at a vortex of a continuous stream of ideas being flung at you by readers. Every day I get new threads and emails pointing me to neat photos, ideas and tecchniques. That rocks. And any long-time pro will tell you that ideas are the valuable commodity in this business.

I can easily teach you lighting techniques. But what do you do with them after you learn them? That's the real trick.

The goal is to get you to the point where your only limitation is your imagination. If you can visualize a look that can be created with light, you can almost certainly achieve it. But that assumes that you can visualize it to begin with.

Once you learn the techniques, some of you will be limited by them - or to merely reproducing them and other techniques that are demonstrated by other photographers.

But some among you will find that having the techniques under your belt will free you so that you are capable of doing just about anything you want to do with light.

I do not spend a lot of time dissecting technique when I shoot. I don't think of light in terms of f-stops and shutter speeds any more. Lighting ratios are gone, too. Inverse square rule - never much fun to begin with - is history.

Now, I think of light in the same way that I think about music: Genre. Style. Volume. Ensemble. Mood.

Or sometimes I think of light in terms more like food: Flavor, spice. complexity, simplicity. Do I follow the recipe, or do I ditch it and improvise?

Food, actually, is a very good analogy to light.

Science tells us that we can only taste five things: Sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami. Don't believe me? Check out the Wikipedia page for more info. (And I didn't know what "umami" was, either.)

Yet, even with only those five tastes, the possibilities are endless. And the concept of food and cooking still captivates millions - billions - of us. How many magazines, books, TV shows, etc., are devoted to food? How many restaurants are there? How many years are spent in search of the perfect Bar-B-Que? The perfect red wine?

Here's the analogy:

Try as I might, I cannot come up with more than seven things you can do to light.

Seven simple little controls. Each with its own effect. Each with associated advantages and disadvantages. Each infinitely variable.

You learn those seven controls, and you have the Rosetta Stone. You speak the language.

You get so comfortable with them as to be able to manipulate them effortlessly, and lighting becomes merely another method of creative expression. And that's the real goal.

Each of the seven controls is very simple in both concept and execution. We will discuss each one at length, discuss them in Flickr threads and do exercises to drive the concepts home.

We'll do assignments throughout the process that incorporate what we have learned so far. By the time we get through all seven controls, they'll seem like old friends.

Do you drive a car? Or maybe ride a bike? Can you walk?

If so, you are clearly capable of calculating and controlling a simultaneous stream of variables. Lighting is way easier than any of those activities when you think about it.

So for today, your only assignment is to clear your mind of any fear you may have associated with learning to light. You can get this stuff.

Only a jerk would assign homework on the first day of class. But if you do want to learn more (or review) I have moved all of the L101 posts and the On Assignments to drop-down menus on the sidebar. They will be good references throughout the course, and now you can get to any individual post in one click.

As we get to concepts that also are covered in the book Light: Science & Magic, I will be referencing sections you may wish to review. So if you are stuck on a point, this should help you to get past it.

And if that doesn't work, there's always those couple of thousand other photogs in the Flickr threads to ask.


Next on Lighting 102: Seven ways to control light - an overview.

Staff Picks of the Week

Startin' the week off right...





TheStoryboard:


Much of YouTube's glory lies in our collective ability to comment and respond to one another's videos. As we all know, YouTube is much more than just a video-sharing site. We're a creative community. One of my favorite video responses on the site, which I think is a shining example of our creative dialogue, is pappirus' “This ‘n’ That Animation,” a response to nicepaul's over four million view count video, "This 'n' That – You Can Learn it at WTFmagic.com." When magicians and animators are collaborating, you know you’re a part of something special!











MicheleKtel:


I love good shoes, but not the ones you keep in the closet or hurt your feet. These Good Shoes are from London and play upbeat British-accented power pop (in the spirit of the Buzzcocks and the Futureheads). Their new CD is called Think Before You Speak and already includes so many great videos that it's hard to pick between the one featuring the giant spinning record player flinging off band members, the comfortable-looking cardigans, or the captured-on-Polaroid-guitar-jumping. All those things are nice, but who can resist the one with the multicolored flock of animated birds set to an apologetic love song?










BigJoeSmith:



About a month ago in Amsterdam, a 400-pound gorilla named Bokito escaped from a zoo. In order to get out of his enclosure, Bokito had to climb a very high wall and then get across a moat. (Keep in mind that gorillas can't swim!) Well, after getting out, he ended up injuring four people, including a woman he captured caveman-style. We have a video of Bokito prior to this King Kong-ish event taking place - his innocent days.












Bye now,

YouTube Programming Team

What's Cooler than a Ninja? Lots of Ninjas.

Ok, how often do I get an excuse to put ninjas on a photo blog? Not very. So you know this one is going up.



A little insight into how "A-list" photographers think. Of Chase's video, bear the following thoughts in mind:

• This shoot was not assigned to him by anyone.
• He conceived it, executed it and fronted the costs himself. (With his team, of course.)
• The sole purpose of this job was to make some cool photos and keep the creative juices flowing.

While there is no immediate monetary benefit to doing a shoot like this, consider the downstream benefits for Chase:

• He and his team get the experience of a wonderfully creative afternoon.
• He gets photos that make his portfolio pop with current, cutting edge stuff.
• The photos yielded by the shoot also show his range and ability, meaning creative directors have confidence to hire him for the more traditional shoots.
• Whenever work is available that calls for creative, high-impact photos, Chase stands a better chance of getting those assignments, too.

Not a bad return for an afternoon's work, huh?
______________________

Learn more, and even ask Chase a question about ninjas on his blog.

Some of the photos are already integrated into his portfolio: See #'s 12 - 13 here, and #'s 15-17 here.

Other Chase Jarvis videos:

:: Hasselblad Masters Series ::
:: Laptop Uberbriefcase ::

Hacking Your Camera's Sync Speed, Pt. 2

NOTE: This is the second of a 2-part series. The first part, which was about exploiting electronic shutters, is here. Today's post is about gaining power through partial-frame syncing.
_______________________________________

We recently lucked into a good deal on a used Trek MT60 mountain bike for my son Ben. We are big believers in buying better quality used, rather than cheaper-made stuff new. And I am proud that my 6-year-old is already choosing quality and value over shiny, cheap and new.

But a new bike, even if it is not really new, means doing a picture of him on it to email down to Nana and Papa Ken.

I shot a typical, quickie two-light setup. The first light was the sun, from behind and over Ben's camera right shoulder. The second was an SB-26 on a stand at camera left. It's easy to balance with the sun when shooting with a small flash at close range. And even at 1/4 power on the SB-26 there was plenty of off-camera fill at 1/250th of a sec.

But to raise that shutter speed even more, you have to try a little partial-frame syncing. This is a technique in which you only have the flash lighting part of your frame, with the trade-off being higher sync speeds.

As with the electronic shutter trick, you'll have to fool your camera into not knowing that there is a flash up top. Check back on part one for the how-to info. (Basically, it means no on-camera flash unless you insulate the TTL contacts, and no use of a TTL off-camera cord. Anything else - PC cord, remotes, etc, is cool.)

To give you an idea of how it works I set up an SB-26 on a stand, aimed at the wall, and started playing with the shutter on my D2Xs, which nominally syncs at 1/250th of a sec.

Here we are at 1/250th. No surprises here. The camera is supposed to sync at 1/250th and it does, with no blocked areas.

But what happens as we take a walk up the shutter speed scale?

As you can see, 1/320th is almost totally synched. That's because there is a little margin for error built into the system. But as we go up higher, you can see that there is still some flash-lit compositional room in which to play. And I frequently make use of higher speed by composing so the lit part of my subject is in the band of the frame that gets the partial sync.

Interestingly, you'll note that in this test the 1/640th test frame shows more sync area than the 1/500th. There is some variability in this technique from frame to frame, and you should allow for a little bit of a fudge factor when composing.

On my camera, the good band is at the bottom of the frame when held in a normal, horizontal position. Your camera may be different, due to different shutter designs, so you'll wanna check.

With a little compositional planning, I can comfortably sync up to 1/1000th and still get some good, usable real estate for my flash. Mind you, the electronic shutter trick is better as it gives you full sync. And the focal plane flash thing rocks if your gear supports it. But to some degree, this trick works with most any camera and flash. So you can always fall back on it.

You might think that a half-frame of flash-lit area is useless. But remember that in a high-speed sync situation, you are almost certainly basing your exposure on the ambient (even if you have knocked it down a stop) and lighting your subject somewhere in the frame.

It is easier than you think to pull this off when you need to raise your shutter speed, open your aperture and make your flash more powerful. The ability to overpower the sun in mid-afternoon is a cool thing.

For instance, if I am shooting BMX bikers going over jumps, I would light the area where they hang in the air and shoot at 1/1000th of a sec with my camera held upside down. Remember, my sweet spot is on the bottom of the frame.

If that sounds too acrobatic for you, try it. If you have a vertical release, it is cake. Really.

As an example, here is Ben shot at a 500th of a sec, which is a full stop past my sync speed. I have the flash zoomed to just light him from up top. As you can see, he syncs fine in the right hand composition, but not when he is on the left.

I could easily reverse this by rotating the camera to the alternative vertical orientation, i.e. trigger finger on the bottom rather than the top. And note that you cannot see the sync line, as the exposure is based on the (underexposed) ambient light.

Sure, you may have to jump through some compositional hoops with this trick. But it gives you the ability to really nuke daylight when you have to. All you have to do is try a bit of planning with your composition.

And you do not have to spring for a focal-plane flash setup or a camera with an electronic shutter. Which leaves more money for used bikes.