Quick Tips
Lights and Lighting
Speedlights: Flash Extenders
Flash extenders are useful tools when you need to increase your flash’s reach, such as in wildlife or bird photography when using a super telephoto lens. However, they can be used in many other situations to limit and direct light from a flash.
Flash extenders are normally used when the subject is at long distances, even with a 400mm lens. At short distances, there is a good chance that due to the increased flash power, the camera won’t be able to drive the flash at a low enough power.
The standard zoom setting for most flash extenders is 50mm. Adjusting the flash’s zoom position will still change the size of the projected beam, but not necessarily in the way one would expect.
- Widening the zoom (i.e 28mm instead of 50mm) will produce a narrower beam with the extender attached.
- Increasing the zoom (i.e. 85mm instead of 50mm) will produce a wider beam with the extender attached.
Photoshop Lightroom
Rate and Advnace to the Next Image
In Lightroom 3 you can rate, flag, or label an image and advance to the next image automatically without having the “Auto Advance” mode enabled by holding the SHIFT key when you press the shortcut for the action you want to take.
For example, to reject an image you can hit X, to reject and advance you hit SHIFT+X.
This works with all the keys on the main keyboard but not the numpad.
Leveling the Horizon
When in crop mode (shortcut key R) you can quickly use the Straighten tool by holding the CTRL key (Command on a Mac).
Quick Tips
Depth of Field: Hyperfocal Distances for some Wide Angle Lenses
The following table provides a list of approximate hyperfocal distances for a verity of common landscape focal lengths on APS-C and full frame cameras.
| Hyperfocal Distances for Common Wide angle Focal Lengths (in feet) | ||||||
| Focal length | F/8 | F/11 | F/16 | |||
| Full Frame | APS-C/DX | Full Frame | APS-C/DX | Full Frame | APS-C/DX | |
| 10mm | 2.2 | 1.6 | 1.1 | |||
| 12mm | 3.2 | 2.2 | 1.6 | |||
| 16mm | 3.6 | 5.6 | 2.5 | 4 | 1.8 | 2.8 |
| 24mm | 8 | 12.5 | 5.7 | 8.87 | 4 | 6.30 |
| 28mm | 10.8 | 17.0 | 7.67 | 12.1 | 5.45 | 8.6 |
| 35mm | 16.9 | 26.6 | 12.0 | 18.8 | 8.5 | 13.3 |
Technique: Use Continious Release for Sharpness
Continuous release isn’t just useful for fast moving subjects, it’s also handy for times when you just barely have enough shutter speed to get a sharp image while hand holding.
Pressing or releasing the shutter button, regardless of how smooth you try to be or what technique you use, you will always move the camera a little bit. However, once you’re holding the shutter release down that motion is gone. In many cases this can make the difference between a sharp image and a slightly blurry soft one.
An example of how low you can go is evidenced here with sharp images being made at shutter speeds as low as 1/80th of a second with a 640mm effective focal length.
Lenses: Magnifications
There are two ways the magnification of the lens is generally described.
- The ratio form gives the ratio of image size to object size. In other words, if a lens has a maximum magnification of 1:4, then at that magnification the object will be 4 times larger than the image.
- The decimal form is simply the decimal representation of that ratio. For example, a 1:4 magnification can also be expressed as 0.25x.
To convert from the ratio form to the decimal form, divide the object size by the image size.
Some Common Magnifications
- 5:1 (5x) – The highest magnification of the Canon MP-E 65mm f/2.8
- 1:1 (1x) – True macro magnification, the image is the same size as the subject was. Most true macro lens support this magnification.
- 1:2 (0.5x) – Half macro magnification, the Canon EF 50mm f/2.5 compact macro and the Zeiss Macro Planar lenses reach this.
- 1:4 (0.25x) – “Consumer Macro”, most lenses that aren’t dedicated macro lenses but are branded as macro reach this magnification.
