Copyright Law and the Internet

     Hello!  Todd here, it’s been a while since our last blog, and that’s mostly because we’ve been busy with pictures, baseball, and school, but recent events have hit home with us and we’d like to share the story of what happened.

     It was a couple weeks ago when we received a call from a professor at an area college.  She was asking us if a student of hers worked for us, to which Farrah responded with “No, it’s just the two of us.”  The next question was about a particular picture we had posted of a couple little boys playing with helmets in a dugout at a baseball game, and she asked who shot this.  Farrah’s response “Todd shot it”, and Farrah was asked “Was anyone else there?”, which she said “Nope, just Todd”.  The professor went on to say that a student had turned in this shot and claimed to have taken it, and that he worked for us which is why she was asking, as she had seen the photo on our Facebook page.  Farrah assured her that it was our shot, and no one else was involved.  She thanked us for our time, and stated she would take care of the situation.  We went on with our daily lives, not giving it much more thought.

     Yesterday, we got a voicemail from a gentleman asking us to call him back.  We we’re a little busy, so we didn’t call back right away.  Within about 10 minutes or so, we got another call that went to voicemail.  It was the same gentleman who was asking us to call him back as it was about his school.  Intrigued by what this could be about, I called him back.  After a couple minutes of polite formalities, you know the “How are you’s” that sort of stuff, the gentleman proceeds to explain that he went to the same area college that the professor had called us from, and he has been sick and in the hospital, he plays sports, but is a student first, and he has a family with four kids.  Since he had been sick, he hadn’t been to school in a while, and when he went back and checked his mailbox, he had a notice from the school stating he had been expelled for plagiarism.  He said that he had an assignment that involved taking a old picture and making it new, or a new picture and making it old.  He saw the picture on a mutual friends Facebook page and downloaded it.  This was the picture of the boys in the dugout.  Through out the conversation he went on about many different things, and that mainly he didn’t know it was copyrighted as he didn’t see any signs or markings, and it was just for his class project and he meant no harm.  Not at any time did he ever apologize for his actions, but was asking me to write a note or call the professor to say that I had helped him with the photograph, so that he wouldn’t be expelled.  

     I just couldn’t believe what was going no with this phone call.  I mean I felt sorry for the guy, but he was asking me to lie and give him credit for my work.  I told him that I was sorry, but I just couldn’t do this as it went against every bit of integrity that I had.  The gentleman went back to the copyright, saying he didn’t know it was copyrighted.  This is what I shared with him, that I want to share with everyone:

     Just because you see a picture on the internet, on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or any other social media site or webpage, it doesn’t mean that there isn’t a copyright associated with that image. It doesn’t matter if you are a pro photographer, an amature, or just a casual family snap shot shoot, from the moment you push that button on the camera, and the shutter opens and creates an image, you own the copyright to that image.  There are no forms to fill out, and you don’t have to publicly state that you own the copyright.  It is general copyright law, which means that the photo can not be used, duplicated, edited without the consent of the copyright holder. Being a college student myself, I know that at the beginning of each class, the syllabus covers the plagiarism policy of the school, which expressly states that using written or visual works of another person without proper credit or permission will result in expulsion.  After explaining copyright law, I expressed again that I was sorry he was in the situation and that I couldn’t help him.

     If you follow the photography world, I’m sure you’ve read about other situations like this, we have.  And we never thought we would be in a situation like this.  It was bittersweet to hear our work was being claimed by someone else, you know it was a little flattering that he thought highly enough of our work to use it, but at the same time we were a upset that he “stole” it.  In the end, we could have done things differently, like sued for copyright infringement, but that takes time, and time is money, and ultimately we would be suing a college student.  We all know that college students don’t have any money, so it would be pointless to win a case and not be able to collect. Plus that’s not what we are about.  Now, if one of our shots was being used and the person was making money off of it that would be a totally different story wouldn’t it.

     In closing, I wanted to share this story while it was on my mind to provide some educational value, and as GI Joe says “Now you know, and knowing is half the battle”. 

We hope that everyone has a safe and happy long weekend! Until next time,

Todd, Farrah & Tucker

It’s a digital era

A question has been asked recently that we thought we’d answer here on our blog. The question:

“Why don’t you include a CD of images with your sessions anymore?”

We’ll start answering this question with a fun analogy, that starts with a question.

What if the only way to see your grandparents wedding, or family photo’s was with theses?

Who has a floppy disk drive anymore?  Not many people do, so it would be really difficult to see or share those memories right?  Sure, floppy disks are antiquated technology that we’re not using anymore and everyone has a CD drive in their computer, it’s a different time, it’s the digital era. CD’s, DVD’s and Blu Ray’s are here to say right?  If your old enough to remember using floppy disks, did you ever think we would not have them?  How about vinyl records, 8 track and cassette tapes, no one thought they would ever not be around.

We will admit that making the comparison of CD’s to floppy disk is a stretch, but who knows what technology will be available in the future.  Maybe CD’s will one day be a thing of the past and we will no longer have CD drives in our PC’s or Mac’s.  It’s really not that big of a stretch with thumb drives gaining popularity and  having the ability to store gigabytes, and even terabytes of data, CD’s could quickly become antiquated technology, and we’ll be saying “Do you remember when we used to put this stuff on CD?”. 

Now, this is not really the reason that we are not including CD’s of the images (digital negatives) with our sessions anymore.  It’s more about the quality of our work and our desire to give you the best quality product we can give you, and printing at the drug store or super store isn’t going to give you the quality you deserve.  To ensure we give you a high quality product, we utilize the services of a professional lab, that uses high quality ink and paper which this combination provides you with a high quality print that will last for years to come.  Along with quality ink and paper, pro labs will also color correct the images so they print the way they were created, unlike the drug store printer who just prints the images. We could go on, but why “reinvent the wheel” we recently found a blog post that covers this topic quite well.

White Ivory Photography’s blog title “Before you run out to the drugstore to get your photos printed, please read!” has information, and the below image from this blog is an example of prints from various locations compared to pro prints.

You can also find White Ivory Photography on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/whiteivoryphotography

We also have a personal reason for wanting to provide you with high quality prints.   Six and a half years ago we were blessed with a beautiful baby boy, Tucker.  At the time we had a 35mm film camera, hadn’t started even thinking about a photography business, yet, and money was tight.  We took our new baby to the local super store for his first pictures, who can pass up $7.99 for a photo session and a print package right?  We ended up taking Tucker in every month to have pictures done for the 1st year of this life.  On a side note, it was during this time that we met a great photographer who was working at the super store. Mickey Webster was the reason we kept going back. Now, if you’ve been to our home you’ve seen the walls covered with these pictures. Maybe you have noticed, and maybe your haven’t, but that first picture of him is turning a nice shade of magenta.  It’s fading, they all are fading. As with anything the saying “You get what you pay for” is true with photo printing.  It’s disheartening to see them fade, which has become our motivation to make the switch to pro printing.  We don’t want you to watch our images fade over time. 

Along the same lines of not reinventing the wheel, we have below an excerpt from an article, “Digital Negitives vs Printing” written by Ty Fischer of Fischink Photography to other Photographers in the big debate on providing digital negatives (CD’s) over prints.  You can also find Ty and Shannon on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/fischink

“Does your customer know why they want a disc?

Any time a customer comes in asking for a disc, we ask them why they want one. For the most part they are not really sure or do not have a very good answer. So we ask them some key questions. Are they so you can share the images via web or social media? Are you looking to print your own images? Are you looking to have an archival disc of your images in case we would lose them? If the customer answers yes to all of these questions here is how we respond.

Social media and web images.

We do provide you with these images. Based on the session you select with us we will provide you with a web resolution image for every image you purchase. The images will be watermarked with our logo,  you will have to sign on our model release you will not crop, alter or remove the watermark from the image. We will upload the images to Facebook and tag you; from there you can use those images via web.

Looking to print your own images.

We ask our client what is the reason you came to see us. Honestly, most of the time it is because they like our style and the look of the images. So we explain that by allowing you to use a consumer printer, even from a retail store, the quality and look you are going for will be gone. The images are printed at a Professional Lab where the colors, tones and overall feel of the image are controlled. By allowing you to use a retail location to print your images it would damage our reputation for quality. Even show them images printed from your lab vs. a retail center to show the difference.

We want an archival disc of our images.

We back all of our images up and keep one set off-site to ensure we always have a copy of your images. After three years we will retire the images and offer you an archival disc at a price we will discuss at that time.

My point is. We give discs and people want discs because we are lazy, because we may not want to deal with opening an account at a lab or carrying the product necessary to please our customers, we feel it’s a hassle.  If this is how you may be feeling I encourage you to always revert back to the question. How would I want to be treated as their customer? Trust me, you can still make a very good living selling your art to your customers properly displayed on various print and product.”

We couldn’t have said it any better Ty, and to answer some of the questions in the article, we back up all of our images for at least 12 months, we upload images and tag them on Facebook for social media sharing, and with this blog, we’re hoping to provide some education on the benefits of pro printing over taking them to the drug store.

Wheeew…that was a lot.  Are you still with us? Sure hope so :-)

In closing, it is a digital era, and we want to keep up with the times.  So, we’re going to make little change to our beginning of the year announcement that we are not including CD’s of high quality images with our sessions.  What we are going to offer, sort of a meet in the middle deal, is a CD of web quality images that can be used to share in email, on your favorite social media site, or however you want to share them. 

We hope we’ve answered the question and provided some useful information at the same time. 

Thanks!

Farrah, Todd & Tucker 

Did we mention we love Spring?

Our last blog was about how we’re looking forward to spring, and everything that goes along with the change of seasons.  Along with baseball, and warmer weather we are looking forward to spending time with more families by capturing what we hope to be new family heirlooms, and memories they will cherish for years to come.  Maybe that’s a “grand” thought of creating heirlooms, but it’s what we like to think we do :-).

This spring will be our 4th spring as Family Stone Photography, while technically we weren’t officially in business until the Spring of 2009, we did start working “unofficially” well before we started the business.  The last three years certainly has been a roller coaster of ride, with what at the time seemed like lots of lows, but looking back they weren’t such bad times.  Every day we learn something new, and looking back, we’ve learned from mistakes, we’ve learned new techniques, and developed some new ideas. With daily learning adding up, we certainly can see how we have improved over the past three years, and we continue to work on becoming better.  It’s important to us, not only as a photographer, but in anything we do to continuously learn and improve ourselves.  We’ll be the first to admit we don’t know everything about photography, lol.

Let’s do a little time traveling and back in time and see where we were.

This was one of our first family shoots, it just so happens to be our family.  You see, that’s where you start as a photographer with your friends and family.  This one was from the spring of 2009 and was taken at Bogue Inlet Pier on Emerald Island, NC.  We had the camera on a tripod and set the timer. Todd was running back and forth, it was so funny. You see his hand, tucked behind his back. he’s holding his sunglasses that he would forget to take off.  What did we learn here? Self timers suck, and Todd needs to hide things better, lol

From 2009, we go to spring of 2010 and spent some time with the Dollinger/Terrell family.  It was a great time, and this is still one of our favorite family shots.  We learned the value of shooting in RAW with this shot, as well as having nice glass to give us a nice smooth bokeh (blurry background).  

We’ve gotten better right?  We like to think so :-)

Then after a year of continued learning, and more new gear, we had the pleasure of working with the Woods family.  This was Summer of 2011, and it was a hot one.  But this is another one of our favorites.  We also learned that we love our Sigma 70-300mm lens.  This was the first time we used it in a family session, and we love the depth of field we get from it.  

With our continued learning, we made the trip back to Bogue Inlet pier for another family shot.  Sure we had different equipment, and but the important thing was better skills.  Scroll back up and check out our 1st family picture, and then check out these.

This time, camera was on a tripod but instead of a self timer, we used our IR wireless remote.  You can see Todd holding it in his right hand in between Farrah and her mom, Julia.  Once thing we learned was that there is a 2 second delay option that would give use a little extra time to hide the remote better :-)

Can you see the improvements we’ve made from learning from our mistakes?  We sure can, and with all that being said, not only are we looking forward to spring pictures, we are also looking forward to continuing something that we started last year, and want to do more of, and that is helping everyone take better pictures. How do we plan on doing this? Well last year we hosted a mini workshop/photo walk that was a lot of fun, and we hope it was educational for those that attended.  We are planning more workshops, and more photo walks in the near future, so keep an eye out for those announcements. Along with the workshops, we will continue our “technical” series of blog posts with”how to’s” on using your camera.   

OK, so are you asking where these announcements will be?  We will be posting these here on our blog of course, but also on our Facebook page, and on Twitter.  If you aren’t already following us, be sure to like us on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/familystonephotograpy and follow us on Twitter @famstonephoto to keep up to date on what’s happening.

Until next time,

Farrah, Todd & Tucker

Sure feels like spring

Alright Ohioians, what do you think about this winter weather?  We’re certainly not complaining about it at all.  Today really felt like a nice spring day, but the sad part was Todd pinched a nerve in his back this morning and really couldn’t enjoy it. 

We did get out for a little bit and took advantage of the weather to capture a few shots, like this swan in the pond at Old Reid Park.

We are really looking forward to spring.  Not only for the consistent warm spring weather but for all that comes with the season.  Green grass, tree’s budding, and baseball.

This year we have singed Tucker up to play baseball, and we’re all a little excited about it.  A couple weekends ago, we went down to Louisville and made a stop at the Louisville Slugger factory and museum.  One of the things that you can do there is step into a batting cage and take some swings with a pro model bat which was really cool for Todd and being that Tucker has never swung a bat, he couldn’t wait to try it out.  They both had a great time, and Tucker had a new desire to play baseball.

Here’s Todd in the batting cage which is literally in the back of the factory warehouse.

And Tucker taking a few swings.

We’re not only excited about Spring because Tucker is playing baseball, but we also looking forward to spending some time on the field for the 2nd season in a row with the Springfield Angels Adult Mens team playing in the Dayton Roy Hobbs League.  We had a great time hang out with the guys and watching some baseball.  We hope the Angels have a great season.

The 2011 Springfield Angles team

Something new this year that we are excited about is working with the new formed league in Dublin Ohio, the Dublin Bats.  The Bats are team in the U8 & U10 age groups. The goal of the league is to provide a “middle tier” option for baseball players in the Dublin area — something between the rec league and travel, which focuses on building fundamental skills, teamwork and sportsmanship. 

We can’t wait to get out and take some pics of all the kids and watch some baseball. 

Not only does spring mean baseball, but it means with warmer weather which means with any luck we’ll be busier with doing family and other portrait work :-)

That’s what we’re exited about, what are you excited about with the up coming seasons change? We’d love to hear your thoughts, so feel free to leave you comments below, or on our Facebook Page.  

Until next time,

Todd, Farrah and Tucker

Wednesday night already?

What a week!  Hard to believe that it’s already Wednesday.  After a long three day weekend, thought for sure this would be a slow week.

Speaking of long weekends, what a trip we had.  It was good to get away, and find interesting things to shoot, and explore a new place. We’ve been to Louisville a few times, but never really got to explore the city.  The one thing we wanted to do, was get a shot of the Clark Memorial Bridge.  We’ve seen it from a far driving on the highway and have wanted to stop to get a shot, but it’s certainly not safe to stop on the highway and it was usually late night and we just wanted to get home. 

We arrived in Louisville about 4PM on Friday.  What a mistake that was, weekday downtown traffic is a nightmare.  Took us driving around a few blocks to finally get to a point where we could get to our hotel.  We stayed downtown, right across from the KFC Yum Center, and was on the corner of 2nd and Main.  The Clark Memorial bridge was only 2 blocks away.  Once we got settled in to the hotel, we waited until dark, which seemed like an eternity as we were so close to our subject.

As it got darker, we headed over out for dinner. It was pretty cool to be downtown, and within walking distance of so many places.  We headed over to Impellizzeri’s for some of the best pizza in Louisville.  After dinner, we headed out on the town.  Our first stop, the bridge.

A quick two block walk, which we needed after too much pizza and we were under the bridge and by the Ohio River.  Walking along the river, we found the right angle, set up the camera and click just like that, our mission was accomplished. Well almost, there was still some post processing :-)

After the bridge, we kept walking, looking to see what we could get into.  It was still early, and it was an beautiful winter evening in the upper 40’s.  We ended up on 4th street and headed up town over to 4th Street live.  

4th Street is really cool. They shut it down and have live music and all kinds of cool stuff.  Only problem, it’s 21 and up, and get this, No Professional Photography is aloud.  You know the whole “No Photography” thing takes me back to my younger days when skateboarding was banned most everywhere.  You would see no skating signs everyone.  You know what that meant as a kid?  It was a challenge, you just had to skate there.  This is how I feel with the “No Photography” signs.  We walked right in through the rope and “broke the rules”

Most of the weekend after that was family time, which was good but it seemed like Sunday came to fast and it was time to head back to Ohio.  

When your traveling on 75 north and coming into Cincinnati there is a point on the highway where we want to stop again and get a shot of the city, but you know it’s just not safe to do :-)  So we made a pit stop and headed down to the river, again.  It was a beautiful day and the river was calm and standing there looking at the skyline it certainly looked like a post card.  We found our spot, and click, it was done.  It turned out really good, and we’ve heard from a few people that they don’t believe that it’s Cincinnati.  We assure you it is, and there is no “Photoshop” magic :-)

Since we were in Cincinnati and it was another beautiful spring like day, we stopped at the zoo.  We didn’t expect to see much, since it was winter but it was more to just get out of the car and walk around.  We did get a few shots, and this one quickly became our favorite.  One lonely gorilla sitting on a fallen try, looking very sad. It was almost surreal as you could almost feel like it was just tired of people gawking and taking pictures.

This sad, lonely gorilla quickly became one of our favorite shots.  We posted it proudly and guess what?  This got picked and Popular Photography Magazine’s Photo of the day yesterday (2/7/12).  It certainly is an honor to have someone else see our work and post it like Pop Photo did. 

We also go more good news this week, we are going to be featured on Seven by Five Photography’s page in March.  It’s nice to be noticed by peers in the industry :-)

I’ll wrap things up by saying a few weeks ago, we wrote a technical blog about the exposure triangle and we’re working on a follow up on properly exposing a shot. So if you’re interested, keep an eye out for it.

Until next time,

Todd & Farrah

Our camera takes nice pictures :-)

I have plans to post another technical blog to take off from the previous “Exposure Triangle” post I wrote a couple weeks ago, but today I found myself being told “Your camera takes really nice pictures”.  I take it as a compliment and resist saying something like “Your mouth makes really nice compliments”, or “Your stove bakes really good cakes”. Well, my close friends have gotten these “wise” replies back, as a joke, when they make these statements, but I thought I’d take the opportunity to write about the camera in general as it’s not the camera, it’s how you use it.  The camera is a tool to be used to capture light, and for the most part all cameras work the same.  

Saying all cameras are the same is a broad statment, as there are may variables into what makes one camera better or worse than another, and the lenses used, and all that stuff, but humor me and just go with it it.  When used properly you can get great shots with just about any camera.  The thing to remember is to know what your camera is capable of.  Like if a camera isn’t capable of high ISO and large apertures, don’t expect it to do well in low light situations.  

When Farrah and I first got into the digital photography world, we had a Kodak Easy Share.  I think it was the z700 model, I don’t really remember but it was almost 7 years ago when we got it.  It was like 4 mega pixels and worked really well for what we needed it to do, and that was take snap shots.  You see at this point in our lives, we weren’t aspiring to be photographers we just wanted a digital camera to take pictures of Tucker.  It was this camera that we got started on what is now Family Stone Photography.  We learn the basics of digital photography and composition.  It’s composition that makes or breaks a shot. 

This is one of my favorite shots from the Kodak Easy share days.  

Of course I couldn’t leave that date on there, so I did a little editing. Yes, that’s selective coloring, and I did it 5 years ago.  I think every photographer at some point in their lives has done this :-)

As Tucker got bigger, and faster we quickly out grew the Kodak as it was very slow.  I mean it was like 1.5 second delay from the time you pressed the shutter release to the shutter actually opening.  We got lots pics of the back of his head until we got a FujiFix Pix s1000.  We checked the specs and it had a much faster reaction time.  

With the faster reaction time, we got better shots, but still it wasn’t fast enough for a toddler at times.  We got this shot with the Fuji a couple years ago.

We actually started the business with this camera, and at the time we only had a hand full of paying clients, but it got us started and got the job done.

After a few jobs, and out growing the Fuji, we upgraded to a DSLR.  I think I might have discussed this in a previous blog, but just a quick overview we went out and held lots of camera, and ultimatly decided on the Nikon D3000 because it felt right in our hand, the price was good as it was inexpensive and we could put money in lenses.  So we bout the D3000 kit, which came with the a 18-55mm and we purchased a Nikor 55-200mm at the same time.  It was nice to have a camera that reacted as fast as this did.  We certainly would have less shots of the back of Tucker’s head with this camera.  

Here’s a shot with the D3000 and the 18-55mm kit lens.  

After about a year or so of learning the D3000, we decided it was time to upgrade.  You see the D3000 is an entry level DSLR and is very easy to use.  It has limitations and we were starting to find those, especially with low light situations.

As we started to hit the limits of the kit lenses and the D3000 we upgraded to our Sigma lenses, a 17-70mm 2.8 and a 70-300mm.  From there we upgraded the body to a Nikon D90.

Nikon D90 with Sigma 17-70mm

Nikon D90 with Sigma 70-300mm

As you can see in with the few shots I posted, you probably wouldn’t have guess what kind of camera shot them. And it doesn’t always have to be a camera, with cell phone manufactures adding better cameras in the phones, you can even take great pics with your phone, like this one, yes there is a little creative editing, but you get the point right :-)

I hope you’ve enjoyed a little bit of time traveling and taking a look back at some of the shots that got us started.  And you can continue to say “Your camera take great pictures”, as we’ll continue to take it for what it is, a compliment :-)

Until next time,

Todd 

Saturday Stake Out

Yesterday, we were sitting around flipping channels when we found “Starsky & Hutch” was on.  Not the classic TV series but the Ben Stiller/Owen Wilson movie from a few years ago.  So we turned it on while working on processing some pictures and listening to the movie.  

If you’ve seen the movie there is a scene in with Stasky & Hutch are stacking out Reese Feldman and following him around taking pictures of him.  While most of the pictures are meant to be funny, there was one that really caught my attention.  Reese was in an ally walking and talking to another guy.  The shot they got I thought was great, it was a classic 70’s style stake out photo.  Reese in his plaid jacket, sunglasses and the classic 70’s mustache.  

Farrah didn’t see it so I rewound and said “I want to do a shot like this”.  Seems kind of funny to think about being inspired by a comedy/paradoy of a 70’s TV show, but the shot was nice.  It was a cool candid with a nice bokeh (the blurry background).  It just sounded fun to do a theme photo shoot. 

The plan was to do some “stake out” shots this spring or summer when we can be downtown in an ally and it not be freezing cold, and it would give us enough time to find some plaid jackets for Tucker and I.

While we were out today, I found a new Jerry Garcia tie.  I have about 5 other J Garcia ties that I’ve acquired over the years and have paid in excess of $50 for them, so when I found one for $3.60 it was a no brainer to buy one.  When we got home, I just felt the need to try it on and see how it looked.  Since I put on a shirt and tie, why not get into the character that I had thought about for most of the day.  So the suit jacket came out, and outside we went.

It was like 21 degrees out, so we didn’t want to stay out long. We put the Sigma 70-300mm on the camera, and I put on a fake mustache on my face.  Now, I left my hat on, because I just didn’t feel like “doing” my hair for a quick photo shoot.  

I went out to the parking lot and acted like I was up to no good, really got into the role of Reese Feldman.  Farrah totally got a kick out of it, and I was enjoying myself a bit too.  I can only imagine what it will be like to be fully dressed with the Kid.  It’s going to be so much fun.  Anyway, back to today.  Farrah snapped a few shots, and back in we came, but not before the neighbors came back and got to see the goings on, but I don’t care it was all for fun and I think they got a kick out of seeing me acting silly.

So without further ado, I give you the “Stake out” shot for todays Project 365 shot.  

In processing, I added a little film grain, to give it a printed look. I would have done it in black and white like the movie, but kept it in color to show off the new tie.

We’re always looking to do some theme shots, like from the movie “Up”, would love to do an engagement session with the couple dressed up like the movie couple.  Or do an elopement session that would involve ladders and windows and that sort of thing.  It’s a lot of fun to dress up and tell a story with non-moving pictures, which is what we plan to do with the “Stake out” this summer, have a few shots to tell a story of a bad guy.

I’ll close out by saying we hope you are enjoying our Project 365, and our blogs as much as we are, and if anyone is up for a theme shoot, or have a theme idea, let us know.  

Saturday Night Special

It’s Saturday night, and The Kid has control of the TV as usual. But that’s because Farrah and I are usually working on something, be it homework or pictures, The Kid tends to get to watch whatever he wants.  While I was sitting here, I got to thinking about something that I thought I’d share.

The other night we were at O’Conners Irish Pub in Springfield to celebrate my sister and I’s birthday’s.  I turned 41 on Tuesday, and Emily 21 on Thursday.  If you haven’t been to O’Conners and are in the Springfield Area, I must say it would be worth your time to go.  For one, you might see us in there, and two the food is awesome, they have 31 beers on draft and the staff is awesome!  

So, while we were waiting for our pizza and enjoying each other’s company, a nice guy stopped to chat with me about photography.  You see, I was wearing an “I Shoot Raw” shirt and with the camera seemed to have signled to this guy that I new what I was doing with the camera.  Anyway, this happens from time to time and I don’t mind the conversation as I always enjoy talking “shop”.

The one thing that was on my mind, which always seems to come up with these conversations is gear.  We, Farrah and I are Nikon people, and we became Nikon people because we went out and held all types of DSLR bodies.  So we considered Canon too when we were looking to buy our first DSLR.  It came down to Nikon only because of the feel of the body in our hand, it’s that simple.  It wasn’t Canon has better sensors or Nikon makes better glass, or any of that. Just we liked the way Nikon’s are set up and they just “feel right” in our hand. 

I also do keep up on gear, meaning I’m not reading gear guides, or browsing the internet to compare camera. So if  you say you have a Canon 1D or Sony A90, I won’t know what that means. You could even say you had a Nikon D3x, and I’d be like “OK”.  Ok, I’ll admit I know what a Nikon D3x, a D3s and the new D4 are, but that’s because that’s the gear that we hope to get in the future.  

The reason that I don’t know what Canon or any other brand models are available or their capabilities are is because I spend my time using the camera we have.  You see, the best camera is the one in your hand.  Being all consumed with the gear and trying to keep up the the Jones’ won’t help take better pictures.

It’s my opinion that the camera is just a tool, it should become an extension of your mind and your hand.  You use this tool take what’s in your mind, and put it on paper, well not literally paper, but you know what I mean :-)  So with that mind set it doesn’t matter what brand, or even what type of camera you have.  As long as you know how to use it, and you have good composition then it’ll take great pictures no matter how many megapixels it has, or how many frames per second it shoots.  

Our Nikon D90 is 12.3 megapixels at 4.5 frames per second.  Prior to this we shot a Nikon D3000 which was 10.2 megapixels at 3 frames per second.  If you look at or work from the past year the beginning of the year was shot with the D3000 and in July/August 2011 we switched to the D90.  The only thing that has changed is we’ve gotten better at composition and editing.  So why did we upgrade to the D90 if the D3000 took the same quality picture?  It was about what the D90 could do that the D3000 couldn’t.  The D90 has higher ISO capabilities.  The D3000 was limited to an ISO of 1600, and that was really grainy so to go to the expandable settings was out of the question.  The D90’s high ISO is 3200 and the expandable is 6400.  3200 is pretty clean, a little grainy but clean.  Even 6400 is better than the 1600 on the D3000. 

Why do we need higher ISO capabilities?  We’ll with higher ISO, we can shoot faster shutter speeds in lower light.  Without that we wouldn’t have been able to capture this shot as cleanly as we did.

This was shot at 1/30 sec at F2.8 ISO 3200 with no flash.  Looks pretty good, even if it’s just a snap shot of the family :-)

Alright, so if camera bodies are basically the same and just tool meant to capture light, what really matters then?  Well, the most important part of the camera, is the glass. The lens is what focuses the light, and without good glass you have difficulties with good shots.  This is why kit lens are one inexpensive and come with the camera at a kit.  They work, but they aren’t the best, which is why we upgraded our glass fairly soon after getting the D3000.

We are currently shooting a Sigma 17-70mm f2.8-4 and a Sigma 70-300mm f4-5.6 and they do great.  Sure they are more expensive lens out there, and Nikon makes the best glass, but Sigma, in our opinion, is a great lens and less costly that Nikon counter parts.  While a Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II AF-S is on the same dream list as the Nikon D4, we have a wish list that is more easily obtainable which has Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 EX DG HSM II and a Sigma 50mm f/1.4 EX DG HSM on it that we hope to add to the arsenal this year. 

In closing, as I’ve wrote a whole lot here’s a shot of my sister and I sharing her 1st drink at O’Conners.

This was shot RAW, at 1/50 sec f2.8 ISO 3200 with an SB700 on manual mode at 1/16 power.

Until next time, keep that camera handy!

Todd

Photographic Opportunities for Military Families

I thought I’d take a few minutes to write about something that we’ve mentioned a few times on our Facebook page that is near and dear to both Farrah and I’s hearts and want to share the information again.

In this day and age with our Military men and women being deployed all over the world, having family pictures before they deploy is something a lot of military want to have.  For some of them, they aren’t able to afford the cost of having professional pictures done.  This is where a very special organization comes in, that we are proud to be a part of. 

Operation Love:Reunited (OpLove) which is a non-profit, fully volunteer organization that offers professional photography sessions to military families and members who are getting ready to deploy, who are currently deployed, or those who are coming home, is a way for military families get a photo shoot for those all important pictures done at no cost to them.  The military member gets a 4x6 album of all the pictures to take with them on deployment, or if they are already deployed the album will sent to them. 

We want to share this information for two reasons.  One being that I am an Air Force Vet I understand the importance of having family pictures.  After boot camp, and while I was in Tech school, Operation Desert Shield was implemented and our Military was beginning to be deployed.  Being 19 yrs old, and fresh out of boot camp we were gun ho about the chance to get to go do what we were trained to do.  But after tech school, my 1st duty assignment  was with the 1st Combat Communications Group stationed at Lindsey Air Station in Germany.  This was when reality set in.  I was on leave before going to Germany, and I was newly engaged.  I was scared to death about the going to war, as at this time Operation Desert Shield, had become Operation Desert Storm.  I had no contact with my sponsor at Lindsey AS, because they were all deployed.  You see, 1st Combat Comm’s mission was “1st in, last out” to set up communications for the deployed airmen and soldiers.  As I got on the plane to Germany, leaving my family, and my fiancee I thought it could be the last time I see them.  The reality of war was making itself known in my head.  

As I look back on that time, even at 19 yrs old, I think I would have appreciated having pictures of my family, and they would have appreciated having pictures of me.  This is why we are proud to be a part of OpLove.  It gives us the opportunity to capture memories for the families for them to cherish.  While it’s a morbid thought, I get teary eyed thinking about what those families are going through, while it’s not ever been said out loud, I think, while thinking positively, have that thought in our heads during the photo shoot, this could be the last time they are all together. 

The second reason we want to continue to spread the word and share this information is because we don’t want the families to one, go with out pictures, and two, pay for something that they can get done at no cost.  

While we are a business, and businesses are built to make money. And as with any business, there are photographers that are all about the money and could take advantage of families during a very emotional time.  For us, it’s not about the money. We do it because we want to do it for them, and not for us.

Now, we don’t want any pats on the back or kudo’s for doing a good deed. And I’m not writing this as a marketing tool, because in our mind being a part of Operation love is the right thing to do.

While the major theme behind this blog may seem a little dark, and maybe morbid but OpLove is not just about taking pictures for deploying or deployed personal.  It is also about the joyful times of the homecomings.  These are times when the families are reunited, and probably aren’t thinking about taking pictures, but through OpLove, the families can have photographers like us with them to capture those moments of joy.  

In closing, please share the OpLove website or Facebook Page with anyone that you may know that could benefit from it, and check out a few shots from a couple pre-deployement sessions we did below.

New Technical Series

As you’re most likely aware, for 2012 we gave the Family Stone brand a facelift.  We’ve change the logo, the colors to match who we are.  Along with the visible changes, the plan is to write more blogs and posts on Facebook and Twitter to let you all get to know us a little better.  

Why you ask?  Well that’s sort of a tough question to answer but is start with our wanting to not only stand out from the competition with our photography, but also stand out with our personality.  With photography gear being easier to obtain, and less expensive, a lot of people are getting into the DSLR (Digitial Single Light Reflex) cameras, which then a lot of times leads to them starting a photography business. While not everyone has intentions of starting a business, they get DSLR to take better pictures.

This desire to take better pictures is where our Technical Series comes in.  We care about our clients, and we want to provide the best quality product to them.  For those that have had a session with us, most likely you’ve had Todd explaining some aspect of what was going on, like with our studio sessions when people instinctively stand with their back against the back drop, and we ask you to step forward and explain why.  Or  explain why we have a flash outdoors in the bright day light.  We hope that these little bits of info help when you get back home and are taking pictures.

For this first of the series, we want to talk about the Exposure Triangle, and how it works so you can get out of “Auto” mode on that new DSLR you just got for Christmas.   When you are in Auto you are letting the camera decide what is the best setting for a scene.  In a nut shell, the camera averages everything to come up with a well balanced shot.  This is fine an dandy, but the camera is not smarter than you.  Have you ever take a picture with windows behind a person and they we’re really dark?  This is because the camera decides to expose for the windows.  

Exposure is controlled by Shutter Speed, Aperture, and ISO.  As you can see below, they are all related.  Changing the shutter speed will effect the exposure if your aperture isn’t changed.  But just because you change one, doesn’t mean you need to change them all, just know they are related.  

Let’s talk for a second about what each of these are.  

Shutter Speed -  This is how much time the shutter is open. Slower speeds means the longer the shutter is open and the more light that comes into the camera. Faster speeds means less light, but an ability to stop motion.  

Aperture - The size of the hole that allows light into the camera.  Larger hole, means more light and shallower depth of field.  The thing to remember with Aperture settings, the smaller the number the larger the hole.  We’ll talk more about Aperture and depth of field in a future blog.

ISO - This is the digitial equivelant to film speed.  Remember buying 200, 400, or 800 speed film?  The higher the ISO number on a DSLR, the less light it needs to be exposed.  So, as your ISO increases you can get faster shutter speeds in lower light conditions.  An example of why you would need high ISO is your at a concert and even with the stage lights, it’s still a little dark and you AUTO setting has motion blur. You increase the ISO, so that you can have a faster shutter, which will stop the blur. 

Now with a little explanation of the parts of the Exposure triangle, we can get into how you can use this knowledge.  

In the Exposure triangle, we showed you that Ambient light is effected by the shutter speed and flash lighting is effected by Aperture and/or ISO settings.  We have an for you of what it looks like when you change the settings.  

In the below group of shots, the camera was on a tripod and we had our flash set up to camera right set at 1/16th power.  We started off changing the shutter speed from slower to faster. You can see the back ground light from the window getting darker.  Next we changed the aperture, making it smaller (larger number) the scene gets darker, then finally made ISO changes, without changing shutter or aperture to get you an idea of what is meant by how much light is needed.  We have a color dot on each shot to designate what was changed (Blue = Shutter - Red=Aperture - Green = ISO)

It’s amazing what little changes can do with the settings on you camera isn’t it. Now, to ask you a question.  Do you want the camera making these decisions for you?  Probably not, because you are smarter than the camera.

We hope this was helpful, and if you have any questions we’re always willing to answer them.   

Until next time, go out and take some pictures and have some fun while you doing it.