ESFotoClix Blog

When I hear some photographers say dismissively that this or that camera gets you “just one more stop,” I get a little tweaked. They told me this when I decided to pick up a Nikon D90 so I could shoot at ISO 1600 in situations where my Nikon D80 would give me more noise than I wanted. Lately, after getting a couple of “fast” lenses, like a vintage AF 35-70 f/2.8 (a.k.a. “my Bryan Peterson special”), I’ve also been learning how much better life gets with “just one more stop.” Now my D80 can shoot at ISO 800 with “just one more stop” of aperture, and suddenly it’s performing nearly as well as my D90 at ISO 1600.

But it’s more than just noise performance that’s at stake since we shouldn’t, after all, obsess about noise, right? That one more stop may be the difference between a guitar player’s hand blurring in motion at 1/60 sec vs. being acceptably sharp at 1/125 sec. It may also be the difference between a blurred runner’s legs at 1/400 sec or perfectly still limbs at 1/800 sec. Or it might help you avoid taking a tripod-mounted exposure of 1/2 second instead of a full second in windy conditions.

To drive the point further, consider what that one stop really means in terms of light sensitivity and/or availability. “Just one more stop” translates to a doubling of light. Now, if we were talking about your bank account, wouldn’t you want to double it with just one click of a gadget? In photography, it’s all about the light. In a real sense for those making a living in the field, light is money. Double the light and you get the shot and the paycheck that comes with it. Keep the light where it’s at because you didn’t care to get “just one more stop,” and you may be looking into finding an alternate day job.

All of which brings me to a recurring daydream I’ve been having lately: should I try to get the reported “just 1 2/3 more stop” that the Nikon D700 would get me?

Today I had an interesting photographic day. I spent an hour or so, doing one more pass through my photo archives, searching for images whose potential I had missed before. All the while, I skipped over all the “snapshot” folders. You know the ones: the family birthdays and holiday get-togethers, gatherings with friends and acquaintances, and other sundry snap-now!-ask-questions-later occasions. I was looking for true photographs, artistic expressions, moving impactful images. If you’ve read any of the right books and magazine articles, you know those, too.

Frustrated after not finding many images worthy of further consideration, I pushed myself away from the computer, took care of a few chores around the house and got myself ready to attend the funeral of a friend’s dad.

During the funeral, a short slide show presentation told the story of a life well lived through the wonder of imagery. It just so happened that most of the photographs in display were “snapshots” of new babies in their grandpa’s arm, of family camping outings and long-ago celebrations, of old, nearly forgotten homes and fishing trips, and all those other things that will never win you a photo contest or land your work of art on National Geographics. Yet, though I didn’t know my friend’s dad personally, I found every image impactful – powerfully so.

I found myself thinking to myself, “that’s the power of photography.” It’s not the use of leading lines, proper exposure, depth of field, or any of the other turn-the-crank formulaic elements that make a photograph powerful or emotionally impactful. Rather, it’s happening to be in the right moment, finger on the shutter button, and managing to capture those precious instants in time that will let you and others relive and recount special slices of life. It also helps immensely if you click that shutter with love and are thankful when you happen to capture the real and the unvarnished.

So if you’re a snap-shooter, don’t let the artsy get in the way of the genuine. Keep taking snapshots for life.

By now you’ve probably heard about digital photo “keepers,” and heard various, usually low percentages quoted as to how many photos people keep or consider worth printing or displaying on the Web. I must say that my keeper rate stays pretty much at around 5%. Even as my photographic skills improve, the ratio of good to bad photos has remained fairly constant, probably because I am becoming increasingly self-critical as I learn to evaluate and work on photos.

Now the question: what to do with the remaining 95% of your photos?

Here I must confess that while I do delete many photos, they have to be horrid or complete duplicates in order for me to delete them. Since I shoot RAW, this means I have a lot of bits and bytes lying around. Yes, I am a digital photo packrat, and I must say I have often felt guilty about it. I mean, if I die, who is going to plow through Terabytes of photos?

Who cares. Over the past weeks I’ve come to the conclusion that digital photo packratting is good. Here’s one example of an image from two years ago that I had pretty much given up for unworkable. Its two problems: a blown sky and very soft lens performance, by my then walk-about wonder, the Nikkor 18-200 VR.

My recent exploration into B&W photography led me to re-examine some of my old photos, and after applying the techniques I described in a previous article, in addition to some chicanery with adding a wispy sky (borrowed from another photo I took 2 hours earlier at the same location) through layer masking and blending, I came up with this version. I think you’ll agree it’s a much stronger image. In addition to really using texture and shadow vs. light contrasts, it gets rid of the things that took away from the color version, not only the blah sky, but the pipe on the left and the attention-getting green canopy are now more harmoniously integrated into the overall scene.

One often hears that post-processing cannot save a poor photo. While I generally agree, this image shows me that the potential I saw when I originally framed and took this shot could only be realized through effective, purposeful post-processing. So if you believe in the original vision you had for a photograph, go ahead and packrat it away. Who knows what you’ll be able to do with it a couple of years down the line when you learn a new technique or a fresh idea strikes your fancy.