You’ve probably heard that the absolute best time for taking gorgeous portraits is before sunset at golden hour. I love the golden hour as much as the next photographer. But I’m also a mom, and I know the importance of being able to capture photographs of your kids throughout day-to-day life, not just when the lighting conditions are ideal.
Let’s face it – birthday parties, parades, celebrations, and field trips often happen in the middle of the day when the light is harsh and more difficult to work with. How do you capture those special midday moments?!
You can absolutely take amazing photos of your kids no matter the time of day! In this article, I’ll share three quick and easy tips for those times when you want to capture memories and are photographing kids in harsh lighting conditions.
1. Find or Make Some Shade
One of the easiest ways to approach photographing kids in harsh lighting conditions is to find or make some open shade.
If you’re outdoors, look for a group of trees, a small hill, a tall building, or even part of a play structure that can provide you with a bit of shade for your photo. When you’re looking at the shadows on the ground, try to find a patch of shade that doesn’t have “hot spots” of sunlight mixed in with the shade. Mottled light is generally not the most flattering type of light for photographs.
If you aren’t able to find open shade, you can also create it. I’ve used everything from a sun hat to a couple of friends holding a beach towel in the air to create a small patch of shade for a photo of my kiddos. Be creative!
2. Find Your Light
Unless you’re shooting right at high noon, the light from the sun will still have some direction to it. If you’re familiar with the circle trick, this is a great time to utilize it so that you can easily visualize the direction of the light.
Snapping photos without taking the direction of light into account often results in lackluster images with squinting subjects and uneven unflattering lighting.
This is an example of what NOT to do when shooting in harsh lighting conditions. See how the
girls are squinting and the light is uneven across their faces?
However, spending just a few seconds thinking about the direction of the source of light makes for a much better image in exactly the same location. One simple way that I often communicate this to kiddos is to ask them to stand with their feet pointing towards the head of their shadow.
Nine times out of ten, this simple instruction quickly orients kids so that the direction of light (backlit) is most flattering. You may still end up with some hot spots across their shoulders and the tops of their heads, but typically the light will be nice and even across their faces, which is really my goal when shooting in harsh light or full sun.
3. Try a Fill Flash
So, what if the background you’re trying to capture doesn’t allow you to orient your child in the best way given the direction of light?
Whether you’re taking photos of a historical landmark or a hometown parade, there is another trick you can utilize in harsh lighting conditions. That is to use your on-camera flash as a fill light to help diffuse any harsh shadows and brighten your subject’s face.
For example, the above image was taken at a local lake. Because of the location of the dock coupled with the time of day, I wasn’t quite able to get the sun all the way behind my daughter, resulting in a bit of a hot spot on the right edge of her face, while the rest of her face is just a bit dark.
If this effect bothers you, give fill flash a try!
This second image (above) was taken at the same time, in the same place. But this time I used my camera’s flash to soften some of the highlights near her face. You’ll notice that the coloring of the water is entirely different when using a fill flash versus without it. Additionally, her eyes seem to have more pop with the flash compared to without it.
Whether or not to use fill flash in harsh lighting conditions is really a matter of aesthetic preference. But it’s certainly worth a try if something feels a bit off when you’re shooting in harsh light.
In a nutshell, don’t be afraid of photographing kids in full sun – it’s easier than you may think. Give it a try, and chime in and share your best images with us below.
10 Things You Can Learn About Photography from Elliott Erwitt
I’ve always been a huge fan of the photographer Elliott Erwitt. His photography is sharp, often very funny and captures a sometimes silly, sometimes ridiculous part of our human experience.
His way of talking about photography is wonderful. He is a super pragmatic person who doesn’t go in for all fuss of talking about photography as if it’s some kind of sacred experience.
He does, though, have extraordinary photographic talent, which has been honed over a 60-year career. So I thought I’d share with you some of the many things we can learn from him. After you read this I encourage you to look up his work and investigate for yourself.
Finding a mentor
I make a point of learning from people I admire. It takes me out of my own little bubble of creative work, the hustle I do as a photographer and creative entrepreneur – and offers me interesting perspectives that are totally different to my own way of doing things.
There are always very cool and interesting ideas to be sparked, new ways to do things, new thoughts and inspirations to be gathered from some of the amazing creative talents in the world.
In this article, I’ve used some of my photos that are a little Elliott Erwitt inspired and paired them with some things you can also learn from this legendary photographer.
Lesson 1: Learning to use your camera is actually the easy bit
“There isn’t much to learn about photography,
everything you need to know you can find out by reading the instructions
in the box. The rest is practice.” – Elliott Erwitt
Okay, okay, I know this sounds flippant and probably frustrating if you are knee deep in confusion about how to use your camera. But even though it can be challenging and difficult, your camera is a machine with very clear and logical instructions. That’s the easy bit.
Learning how to compose interesting, unique photos, developing your eye for striking compositions, or bringing artistic and captivating elements into your images – those are the challenging parts!
So if you can trust that with some perseverance you will learn the mechanics of the camera, then you can dedicate yourself to the other part of photography that really makes the difference between an OK photograph and an amazing one. And that is…
Lesson 2: Photography is all about learning to see the world in new ways
“To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s
about finding something interesting in an ordinary place… I’ve found it
has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the
way you see them.” – Elliott Erwitt
I think one of the reasons Erwitt is so successful is that he is totally an observer. He watches the world from a state of complete presence. I cannot overstate the importance of becoming an observer.
You may think you are always observing the world, but I would counter that. What you likely do is see a little, but mostly you are lost in your mind, in your thoughts and ideas – usually about the past. “Why did I do that?! Why did he say that?!” Or in the future. “I have to remember to send an email about that meeting!”
We all do it! Then, with the small amount of attention we have left, we are looking at the world, but are so lost in ourselves that what we see is very limited, just tiny measures of what is actually there.
Our brain processes billions of pieces of visual information every second (crazy right?!) but in an effort to make sure we don’t get overwhelmed, we only ever see a few hundred segments.
So when we are lost in our own minds, our own thoughts, we are seeing even less.
But when you decide to stop paying attention to your never-ending rush of thoughts and ideas and to-do lists and decide to become fully present in the world, fully aware of what is happening right now – then you will be truly observing the world.
Notice the feeling of a light breeze on your skin, the harsh sunlight on your eyelids making you squint, the deep blue of the sky, the way the movement of undulating water is shimmering under the bright sun.
You may notice people laughing in a cafe, a dog barking in the distance, the people walking past you with a rhythmic thud. The rolling drone of cars passing.
This is what it is to observe the world – to step into the world of now. To step out of your mind and into the present moment.
Elliott Erwitt’s photography is such an amazing display of observing. It shows that when you are in a state of observation, particularly of human beings, you’ll find gems everywhere.
Lesson 3: Don’t stop taking photos – you’ll get a good one eventually
“The ratio of successful shots is one in
God-knows-how-many. Sometimes you’ll get several in one contact sheet,
and sometimes it’s none for days. But as long as you go on taking
pictures, you’re likely to get a good one at some point.” – Elliott Erwitt
I like to think of photography in terms of balance. It’s always good to keep learning and developing your skills, but without practice, without getting out there and doing it – all the learning means nothing.
You also don’t want to get stuck in the learning cycle where you never feel like you have enough information, or that you must learn more or upgrade your camera before you can take better photos.
No! Nothing – literally nothing – beats just going out and actually taking photos.
Lesson 4: Technical skill will only take you so far
“Good photography is not about ‘Zone Printing’ or any
other Ansel Adams nonsense. It’s just about seeing. You either see, or
you don’t see. The rest is academic. Photography is simply a function of
noticing things. Nothing more.” – Elliott Erwitt
When I was starting out in photography I bought all of Ansel Adams’ books about Zone printing. I studied them and used them in my work. Through them, I become an excellent printer, both from film and then digital. I am pretty into technology, and I’ve never met a camera manual I didn’t want to read.
But I do, however, have to agree with Elliott Erwitt here. Technical skill can help you capture the photo you see in your head. It can give you the tools to make a photo work, but it is not what makes a photo successful.
There are examples of many famous photographers who were completely untechnical.
Diane Arbus would say that if her camera stopped working she’d just press all the buttons until it started functioning again. Her portraits, though, are breathtaking. She used her ability to connect with people to draw out the most extraordinary expressions and portraits.
So, although I love to draw on strong technical skills as a background for my work – I know it’s not what creates the magical elements, the je ne sais quoi, that makes an image interesting or memorable.
I have seen more than my share of technically perfect, but instantly forgettable images, to know this to be true.
Again it comes back to balance. My ideal goal is to have enough technical skill to be able to execute to my standard, and then focus on that emotion, inspiration, observer part of myself that finds the arresting scenes and subjects to photograph.
Lesson 5: Passion never gets old
Elliott Erwitt is a very prolific photographer. As well as photographing hundreds of advertising and commercial campaigns, he has produced more than 80 books and countless exhibitions.
I love that he has done eight books just on dogs! Isn’t that cool? What that tells me is that you are only done with a subject when your passion for it fades. And Mr. Erwitt is currently 89 years old as of the date this article was published!
If you still get excited about a subject, if you still want to photograph it – then you still have something more to say about it. As you get more familiar with your subject, your narrative, your feeling and your observations about it change. Things are always changing and developing with you, the world, and your creativity.
I have been photographing London during the blue hour, sunrise hours, for almost 20 years – and I have never been bored in the city. Often I go to the same spots over and over (East London) and I always find something interesting, because it inspires me.
So always follow that excitement, that inspiration – because passion never gets old.
Lesson 6: People reveal a lot about themselves when they think nobody is watching
Elliott has taken some brilliantly absurd shots of people doing bizarre things. You would think that being in public would make people more self-conscious about their behavior. To an extent it does. But most of us aren’t as open as when we are alone.
And yet people are always revealing themselves. It seems impossible to hold onto our mask, our veneer, as humans for very long. Especially when we think no one’s paying attention.
This is one of the key tenets of street photography. Watch closely enough, and for long enough and someone will do something crazy or funny or weird. It’s just human nature.
Lesson 7: A good photograph is all about the emotions it invokes in the viewer
“I observe, I try to entertain, but above all I want
pictures that are emotional. Little else interests me in photography.
Today, so much is being done by unemotional people, or at least it looks
that way… I mean, work that’s fascinating and fun and clever and
technically brilliant. But if it’s not personal, then it misses what
interesting photography is about.” – Elliot Erwitt
This reminds me of a beautiful Maya Angelou quote, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
It’s the same with photography and all art. If someone feels something when looking at your photos, that creates much more of an impact and connection than a photo that simply looks beautiful or interesting, but doesn’t invoke any emotion.
That is easier said than done right?! How do you go about doing that? How do you create a feeling in your images?
The main thing is you, as the photographer, must be in a state of feeling first. If you are feeling bored by your subject, you will not translate an emotionally impactful sentiment into your photos.
If you are looking at your subject and feeling, for example, deeply calm, then you are more likely to convey that feeling in your images.
Like Henri Cartier-Bresson said, “To photograph: it is to put on the same line of sight the head, the eye and the heart.”
Now, I don’t want to say that happens automatically. Just because you feel something when you are taking the photo doesn’t mean it will immediately be translated into the image. It isn’t. It does require some technical abilities to be able to capture the image that you want – getting good exposures on your light, etc. But that is just learning and practice.
The state of feeling – of always putting yourself in front of things that make you feel something – that is the thing that elevates your images overall.
For example, I spent seven weeks in a castle in Tuscany over the winter and much of my time was spent wandering the hills and forests taking photos. One beautiful, crisply cold afternoon I came upon a deserted building. It was huge and looming, with a cold and scary facade. The gardens were overgrown, and nature had begun its reclamation of the stone statues and walls.
It was really eerie. Although terrified of exploring it, I pushed through my fear and went inside. The whole time I was there I was anxious – too many scary movies perhaps running through my mind – and my photos reflect that feeling of fear.
But that’s great because it works for the subject. The subject was scary and creepy. So my photos feel scary and creepy. A job well done, I’d say!
As I mentioned, I spend a lot of time photographing cities at dawn – particularly in summer when sunrise is so early in many places that there is no one around. You really get to observe the city as it is, without crowds of people.
So here’s the second example, above. I have hundreds of photos of sunrises, in beautiful places like Venice or Istanbul, that have filled me with awe. The combination of the sky breaking open from deep blue to explosions of pinks, purples, yellows and oranges and the incredible buildings and architecture in the cities is so exciting for me to experience.
The feeling you get from viewing these photos matches the epic feeling I experienced taking them. I had a feeling of total awe while I was taking the photos. I capture the images technically well – but the impact comes from that feeling.
In another example, I love finding peculiar things stuck on the ground or on walls. I love making funny compositions of odd shapes that you can find on pavement or the shapes created by torn posters.
There are so many ways to play with shape, form, and texture in these subjects.
To me the feeling I have when I find something like this is one of intrigue. I think that translates into the images I capture as well.
So there are many ways to approach this sense of feeling. The most important factor is finding the things that exhilarate, intrigue, or inspire awe within you.
Lesson 8: Interesting things happen all the time…you just have to wait
“I rarely stage pictures. I wait for them… let them
take their own time. Sometimes, you think something’s going to happen,
so you wait. It may pan out; it may not. That’s a wonderful thing about
pictures– things can happen.” – Elliot Erwitt
The world is magical, things will happen regardless of what you do. In fact, the less you do the better. I find that the less you try to control the world around you the more effort you make to observe and be in that state of awareness.
The world, and we humans, always do funny things.
Lesson 9: It’s easy to create something original if you don’t follow the crowd
“After following the crowd for a while, I’d then go
180 degrees in the exact opposite direction. It always worked for me,
but then again, I’m very lucky.” – Elliott Erwitt
I spend a lot of time photographing some of the most photographed places on earth – cities like Paris and London. You might think it’s hard to capture something original in such over-photographed places, but that’s not the case.
Most people are photographing the exact same things. A bit like how tourists are always to be found crowded around the same spots. The trick is to go (or shoot) in the opposite direction to everyone else.
One evening I was on Westminster Bridge in London. There was a gorgeous sunset setting behind the Houses of Parliament. It was really incredible – lots of purples and pinks.
On the bridge, hundreds of photographers had their cameras pointed at the scene. This is understandable, of course.
I grabbed that shot (above), which was pretty but not very original. Then I started to look around. The light wasn’t just the sunset, it was affecting everything around us. I turned 180 degrees and there was a really cool scene of almost metallic colors. I got a great shot of that scene, see below (and no one else seemed to have noticed.)
Almost everyone will shoot the obvious shot, and not look around to see what else there is to photograph.
Lesson 10: Stay curious!
“I don’t think you can create luck. You’re either
lucky or you’re not. I don’t know if it’s really luck or if it’s just
curiosity. I think the main ingredient, or a main ingredient for
photography is curiosity. If you’re curious enough and if you get up in
the morning and go out and take pictures, you’re likely to be more lucky
than if you just stay at home.” – Elliott Erwitt
Keep it simple.
This is another piece of Elliott’s simple advice that I love. Don’t overthink photography. Use your passion and instinct. Go out, take photos. Look at the world around you. Then shoot some more.
Last bonus tip – be yourself!
“The dedicated photographer works with his own
sensibility, instincts, and experience. He stays curious about
everything visible. He looks, looks some more, and then looks again,
because that is the fundamental basis of photography. And that’s all…
just looking and making your own unique connections.” – Elliott Erwitt
We each have totally different ways of seeing and capturing the world around us. I couldn’t emphasize enough the importance of not worrying about what everyone else is doing and just focusing on you!
Your photos, your passions, your personal curiosity. That’s how you’ll create something unique and interesting.
I hope this has inspired you to take a look at the work of one of my favorite photographers and given you some ideas for your photography.
I’d love to know what you think of these gems of wisdom from Mr. Erwitt and the lessons I have interpreted from them. Please share your thoughts below.
“The larger the light source and the closer it is to your subject, the softer the light,” says Beckta. He also prefers to use round softboxes, as it creates a round catchlight similar to that which you can expect from the sun.
For more on this topic read:
Moving your light source around and adjusting the angles and modifiers allows you to change the pattern of light. Some lighting patterns are more flattering for particular situations, but changing the lighting pattern throughout a shoot means that you have more options available to you back in the editing room.
Read 6 Portrait Lighting Patterns Every Photographer Should Know
#3 Direct Your Subjects
Even with experienced models, it is “important that you give them subtle directions.” After all, the model can’t see what you can see as the photographer. Keeping good direction over the shoot keeps you in control creatively, and dialogue between yourself and the model can only be a good thing to keep everyone comfortable.
Check out dPS printable posing guides for more ideas.
#4 Think About the Background
A wide aperture will allow you to blur the background, but be careful that there aren’t distracting objects intersecting your subject.
#5 Watch Your Exposure
Be careful with your exposure. There’s nothing worse than coming home from a shoot and finding the highlights are blown out or the shadows lost. Beckta runs through his entire process with regards to monitoring his exposure during a shoot.
Over to you
What do you think? Do you have any other tips for portrait photography?
It’s hard to evaluate photo-editing software without comparing it to Photoshop. You tend to have preconceptions about what it should be capable of and how it should behave – even how it should look. In terms of functionality, many programs will struggle to compete against Adobe. In this Polarr online photo editor review, you’ll find out what you can get for free. Or not much more than free.
The colorful interface of Polarr. You can create specific effects under “Toning” by setting the
hues of shadows and highlights.
Online photo editors work in your browser. They can be sophisticated, but the days of some of them (namely, flash-based programs) are numbered. Adobe will stop supporting flash in 2020, so anything that runs off it is likely to vanish or wither away.
Modern online editors are written in HTML5 code. They load quickly, but they also tend to be more basic than flash-based equivalents. Polarr is different. You can use Polarr online in a browser, or you can download it for offline use. There’s also an app for your phone.
Good first impressions
One of the best things about Polarr is its design. It doesn’t try to be Photoshop, and it’s intuitive to use. With filters on the left and most of the tonal and color tools on the right, there are shades of Lightroom about it, but it has a look of its own. You open Polarr, and you want to use it – or at least I did.
A favorite Polarr feature of mine is its histogram. It’s neater than any other I’ve seen in online editors. It shows a colors histogram by default, which you can expand into separate RGB histograms. In the absence of a clipping display, it’s useful to see what your edits are doing to the image. You can drag the semi-opaque histogram wherever you want in the frame.
Not-so-good things about Polarr
Like most browser editors I know of, you can’t open hefty 16-bit files in Polarr. You’re limited to editing 8-bit JPEGs. This isn’t bad as long as the quality of the JPEG is high and it hasn’t been saved many times before. However, theoretically, you must submit to a lower-quality workflow.
A more limiting aspect of Polarr is that it exports everything in an sRGB color space. This might be a constraint of its coding, but it’s less than ideal if you want to print your files on an inkjet. For the web and online photo labs, it’s fine. In mitigation, it does embed a profile when saving, which some rival products neglect to do. You do know where you stand with it.
Who’s it for?
Polarr has one or two shortcomings, but it’s still a program with a lot of depth. Who would use it? Anyone looking for the following:
Includes built-in special effects and retouching tools so you don’t have to learn complex editing methods or buy plug-ins
Auto image enhancer often a good quick fix for eye-catching web pictures
Intuitive to use, especially if you are familiar with sliders in other programs
No big downloads required and quick startup
Aesthetically pleasing user interface
Ideal for editing images for web or online labs
Backed up by an extensive library of online tutorials at Polarr Wiki
Option for more complex edits with the Pro version (subscription based, but low cost).
The Polarr Wiki website has had a lot of work put into it and includes many written and
video tutorials.
Editing with Polarr
Polarr is nice to look at – clean and colorful – but how is it in use? I set out to learn what it could do. If I couldn’t do things the same way I can in Photoshop, what workarounds could I find? Polarr is sophisticated, so I was confident I could perform the most basic processing tasks and more.
Auto Enhance
I never shy away from hitting “auto” or “auto enhance” buttons in editing programs, because sometimes they give you a better starting point. In Polarr, Auto Enhance is aggressive with the Dehaze slider, and that tends to block shadows. You can tweak the result, of course, with the shadows, blacks and contrast sliders for instance. Auto-enhance does work well with flat, hazy images and can create eye-catching results in a single click.
This was a flat-toned file that has been made quite dramatic by Polarr’s auto enhance feature.
The shadows have started to clip, but not anywhere important in this case.
Color and Tone Adjustments in Polarr
Leaving the auto settings and moving onto manual adjustments, Polarr offers Lightroom-style color and tonal controls (the latter called “Light”). It has Temp and Tint sliders for white balance, but no auto-white-balance tool to outrank your eyesight. A Vibrance slider boosts color without clipping.
When adjusting tone, Polarr offers highlights, shadows, whites and blacks sliders, which you move to achieve a full tonal range while watching the histogram(s). This replace a levels adjustment. Whites and blacks adjust large areas on either side of mid-tones. Highlights and shadows adjust only the brightest or darkest parts of the image.
Some basic editing in Polarr (original shown in inset – not part of software). Balancing the
exposure a little, warming the color temp and adding some vibrance.
Again, the controls in Polarr are neatly laid out and colored according to their function. The controls haven’t been arbitrarily renamed, so you quickly know what things do if you’ve used other editors. Being mildly obsessive about detail, I miss the clipping display and being able to correct color by numbers (which is what auto-white-balance tools basically do). However, Polarr still has much to offer.
Polarr Curves
Polarr’s curves are modishly minimalistic, and they’re useful for some basic color correction. You have a composite RGB curve for adding contrast, and then there are the separate red, green, and blue (RGB) curves.
Not the finished result, but you can see how the color neutralizes as the histograms align.
The left-hand picture is typical of artificial lighting. A blue histogram leaning to the left indicates
yellow.
Used in conjunction with the RGB histograms, you can use RGB curves to remove color casts. You do this by adjusting any necessary curves so that the histograms roughly align with each other.
You can place a point in the middle of the curve and pull it up or down, or for shadows and highlights, place a point in the bottom or top corner and pull it along the outer axis. Polarr gives you the input and output RGB values while you work.
Sharpening in Polarr
Sharpening always strikes me as a bit of a dark art in that; whatever method you use, there’ll always be experts out there espousing a better way. In Polarr, you get a clarity slider that sharpens mid-tones and generally adds punch to images (easy to overdo) and a very basic sharpening slider with no radius control. The sharpening might be smarter than I’m giving it credit for, but there aren’t numerous fancy ways to sharpen in Polarr. I’m doubtful that that matters.
Other features and effects
Other useful features I haven’t yet mentioned include an elegant crop tool, a spot-removal tool with heal and clone modes, and distortion correction. Spot removal was a bit frustrating at first with my laggy browser, but it works.
I made the inset darker so you can just about see the original dust spot, which has been
cloned over by the right-hand circle.
Polarr also includes film filters, a text tool with various graphics, and a face retouch tool with skin smoothing for flattering portraits. Plus, you’ll find grain, diffuse, pixelate and fringing effects. You can also add frames to your pictures.
One of Polarr’s film filters (M5) looks suspiciously like the teal-orange “movie” effect, which
you either love or hate. Once I latched onto that, I started seeing it everywhere (Outlander,
recently). Therapy is ongoing.
Pro Version
The Pro version of Polarr is subscription based, but it’s at a price you may not balk at. The Pro features are cleverly integrated into the free version, except you can’t save a photo that includes Pro edits. A pop-up appears asking if you want to upgrade or try the feature. What are the features?
Masks
The chief advantage of Polarr Pro is the inclusion of masks for localized adjustments. They include radial, gradient, color, brush, depth and luminance masking tools. These are all ways to select specific parts of the image for editing, and they work well.
Masking a bronze equestrian statue for some localized editing. Overlapping edges can be
tidied up later.
You can use the brush tool if you want to manually select an area for better control. This includes an optional “Edge Aware” aid that, if used carefully, helps avoid overlapping edges when you’re painting areas in for selection. Brush size, compare, hardness, flow, feathering, erase, view mask and invert options are also present with masks.
In this picture, I’ve brought detail out in a near-silhouetted statue. Of course, I can alter
shadows without masking, but other edits like clarity, contrast, exposure and saturation
are usually universal.
Overlays
Whether with a mask or separately, you have the option of inserting an overlay effect. That might be your own added background or one of the many included ones (e.g., clouds, sky, weather, backdrops). This is all good stuff for people that like to experiment and create digital composites. A choice of blending modes helps you achieve the effect you’re after.
The sky in this photo was a little washed out, so I’ve dropped one of the more subtle Polarr
skies in as an overlay.
Noise reduction
In Polarr, you can’t mask off sharpening in large single-tone areas. So, if your images are noisy and you think the noise will show in the final result, the Pro version offers color and luminance Denoise sliders. These are universal edits that don’t currently combine with masks.
The denoise tool is part of the Polarr Pro offering. Here you can see a before and
after with quite a lot of luminance noise reduction applied to the right.
Aside from the sRGB constraint and occasional lag (perhaps my sluggish PC), I enjoyed Polarr. The sRGB thing may be universal among browser editors, and if you think of Polarr as a way of prepping photos for online labs or the web, it’d be hard to beat. Polarr is uncommonly pretty, which seems superficial, but the attention paid to aesthetics invites use. I’d love to know what you think!
Are you interested in taking your photography to another level? Do you like the bokeh effect, or images that have a painterly look to them? Then perhaps you might want to give the Lensbaby lenses and optics a try.
Taken in the garden with using the macro converters, giving this image a very soft,
painterly look.
Lensbaby is a system that allows you to insert, and use, different optics to a base lens. The most common one is the Composer Pro which has a rotating ball so you can use different angles when taking photos. You can get interesting effects with them by using selective focus, great bokeh, and you can achieve very painterly style images.
The company, Lensbaby, makes the lenses for cameras with interchangeable lenses, like DSLRs and mirrorless bodies. They have been designed to help you photograph the world in a new way. You can achieve some amazing results and can very quickly become addicted.
How long has Lensbaby been around?
Their story began in 2004 when one of their founders, Craig Strong, “joined an old Speed Graphic lens with a short Shop-Vac hose to shoot images otherwise impossible with an DSLR lens, which inspired the original Lensbaby lens.” From there the company has continued to grow and develop the lens swap system.
What is a Lensbaby?
The idea behind Lensbaby is an optic swap system. You get one of the systems that can use various optics, such as the Composer Pro. This is the part that connects directly to your camera, like a lens. There are two components to it, which are joined via a metal ball, that allows the second part to rotate so you can change your point of focus.
The Lensbaby lenses I have, 1) The Composer Pro, 2) Edge 80 Optic, 3) Double Glass Optic
with f/4, 4) Macro Converters, 5) The containers they come in that are also tools, and 6)
lens cap.
You put the optics into the Composer Pro. There is a range of options available that allow you to use the lens as a normal lens, a fisheye, a macro lens, etc. Each of the optics give you different effects. For this article the optics used where the Edge 80, Fisheye Optic and the Double Glass optics.
There is also a range of optics available for the iPhone. You can put them on your phone to get similar results.
Lensbaby also has a new lens now, the Velvet series. They look like real lenses, but deliver a soft, glowing effect at larger apertures. They don’t have optics that you swap in and out, however, and are also manually focused.
What do the lenses do and what effects do you get?
With the different optics you can get a lot of different effects. You can create images that have a tilt-shift look, so the subject in the image looks miniature. You can isolate certain areas, or the subject. For example, if you want to photograph a flower that is in amongst many others, you could isolate it so only that one flower is in focus.
One thing it is great for is bokeh. That same flower can have a fantastic blurred background by using a large aperture. The out of focus areas often look like they were painted as well, which, again, depends on the optic and the aperture that you use.
You don’t really get what you expect with normal photography or lenses, meaning really sharp images. You have to take a different approach to using a Lensbaby. If you are the type of photographer who is very technical, where the light and sharp focus is very important, you may not like these. However, if you like to experiment, see what you can achieve, and like dreamy painterly images, then you will love the Lensbaby.
The Edge 80 Optic is also good for creating tilt shift images, to make your subject seem
miniature.
What do you need to use a Lensbaby?
When compared to normal lenses the price is not too bad. But it does depend on how addicted you become, and how many different ones you want to try. I was given quite a few different optics, but I still went and purchased more.
However when starting with the system, you can begin with something simple, such as the Spark. It comes with one optic, and you can just go out and use it. The Composer Pro can also be purchased with an optic, and is perhaps the easier of the two to use.
To decide which one is for you, take a look at the Lensbaby gallery on their website. See what looks appeal to you, and which products were used to create them. Start there.
Using the Double Glass Optic again, it has given focus to just a small part of the old car.
How easy are they to use?
They take a bit of getting used to, and there is a steep learning curve. You can’t simply put them on your camera and begin. To get the best results you need to do some research and learn how to use them. Once you have a good idea, then it is just a matter of getting out there to try it. You need to experiment a lot, and you will delete many photos, but as you gain experience you will get images that you are proud to show.
The focusing system seems to be the hardest to get used to, at least it was for me. Having to manually focus the lens is a task in itself. For some of the optics it is easy though. Once the focus is sorted at the start, you can just move the composer pro around on the ball, and get it to the point and look that you want.
As with anything new, there is some trial and error. So be prepared to mess up a lot. It isn’t a good idea to take your new Lensbaby somewhere really important the first time you use it, like a wedding. Get to know it first before using it for anything critical.
Focusing on just a small part of the shearing shed to emphasis where the viewer should look.
Why are they better than other similar effects?
The results you get with the lenses are quite unique to the system. You can try and emulate the effects in Photoshop, but they don’t quite work the same.
Who would use them?
Anyone who is interested in trying something different, and to test themselves, should give Lensbaby a try. If you are interested in trying new types of photography, then you will love the Lensbaby. The effects are different every time, especially when you use different angles.
Through the lens, you see a whole new world. As you find yourself succeeding at taking photos with them, you will become addicted. The softness of the blur is very different, and being able to concentrate attention exactly where you want in the scene is wonderful.
The Double Glass optic has helped to lessen the effect of the distracting foreground so you
focus only on the windmill.
Manual focus
All the lenses are manually focused. If you aren’t very good at doing that, then the Lensbaby may not be for you. However, if you don’t have an issue with it, you will have a lot of fun as you experiment.
One problem was the aperture rings. The further you close it down, the darker it gets in the camera viewfinder, and it can be hard to focus. This is especially the case when you are using the Edge 80 optic with the Composer Pro. When the aperture is wide open you can see through your viewfinder quite well. But as you start to close it down to around f/8, the light dims and it is harder to see, and therefore focus.
The farther away the subject is, the easier it is to focus. Anything up close is harder, and requires a lot of practice. If you have trouble focusing and holding the camera still, use a tripod. There is some literature out there that says you can’t use a tripod with a Lensbaby, but that is not true.
Perhaps using the lens straight on will also be of benefit at the beginning. Learn to use them in a basic way first, then you can start to see what is possible as you experiment.
A macro flower taken using the Double Glass Optic in the Composer Pro. The camera was
on a tripod to ensure sharp focus.
Are they for you?
If you have read this far, then you are probably interested in trying them out. The Lensbaby website has some great resources for helping you to learn about their products. There are also lots of tutorials on YouTube that help you to figure them out.
The Edge 80 Optic is ideal for doing straight parts of the image. I used it to help highlight the silo in the background.
The Lensbaby lenses and optics are a great addition to any kit bag. The effects that are created from them are unique, and can give your photography a whole new look. They will help the artist in you, achieve the artistic impressionist images that you haven’t been able to get, with regular photography lenses that are available.
Here is a video from Lensbaby to give you a quick overview of some of the options.
