Editing: Before & After!

I love how every photographer has a different way of editing photos. Straight out of camera (SOOC), images probably don't look all that different from photographer to photographer, yet the end result can and does vary so much. 

I personally like to enhance the colors and contrast (to name a few) of an image when editing, but strive to maintain an end product that doesn't look too "touched up." Yes, you can tell when comparing the edited image to the SOOC image that some work has been done, but I don't think the end result in itself is highly stylized or edited looking. I do 95% of my editing in Lightroom, and when I'm doing portraits (like these ones below of Rachel) I'll also open the image in Photoshop to do some light skin touch-ups. Sometime in the future I'll share a little more about the specific process- I have been sitting at my computer for entirely too long today and don't think I should go into too much more detail to avoid mental coma!

I'll admit, I'm a little nervous showing these! It's makes me feel vulnerable to reveal the image as it was SOOC, and then compare it to how I chose to edit it, because someone else could have done a number of things differently and ended up with an entirely different finished product. But, I'll be brave and post! I've found that the edits I do to images make for beautiful prints, especially when clients choose to print through me, because I have access to an amazing lab. AND, because I'm a STICKLER about things being in focus... they really come to life when they're made into larger prints (8x10 and up). Thanks for letting me use you as an example, Rachel! Enjoy :)

Shooting Secrets, Revealed!

Ok, so this isn't really a secret, or even anything spectacularly helpful! I've been meaning to do this for a while, but I keep forgetting. So here it is- the first official post where I share what lens and settings I used to take a particular photo. I've always been intrigued by the impact different focal lengths, apertures, and proximity to a subject have on the final image. I search Google images all the time when I get curious about what kind of "look" a certain focal length can produce, and I'm always curious what lens and settings a photographer used to get a particular shot!

Camera: Canon 5D Mark II
Lens: Canon 50mm f/1.4
Focal Length: 50mm
Aperture: f/2.2 (That says two point two. This font is hard to read!)
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 100

Maybe this will satisfy the curiosity of other photographers who are as interested in this stuff as I am, or give a new photographer insight into lenses and camera settings!

Now here's another little tid-bit of helpful advice for a beginner. It took me until about a year ago to even begin to understand this concept, so brace yourself for something important! The Canon 5D Mark II is a "full sensor" camera. What does this mean? I'll explain it by comparing it to a camera with a "crop sensor," which is almost every single digital camera on the market, except for very high end professional cameras. Basically, a 50mm lens on a crop sensor camera would be more telephoto, depending upon the camera and the sensor it has. For example, if I were using this same exact lens on a Canon 60D, it would probably be closer to an 85mm or so (and that is a shot in the dark- don't take my specific numbers as fact, just the general concept).  In other terms, to take this exact shot with a camera with a crop sensor, I would probably have to be about 5 feet FURTHER from the subject because a crop sensor makes a lens more "zoomed." Does that make sense? Maybe. I'm starting to confuse myself! But the subject is on the table, and perhaps when I learn how to explain it better and in more "photographically correct" terms, we can try again. In the meantime, feel free to email or comment with any questions :)