Thomas Pitera Photography

A Hands-on Guide to Creative Lighting is the latest in Nikon School educational DVDs. It’s mainly designed to show off the versatility of the Nikon Creative Lighting System (CLS), but also offers a lot of useful information about light and lighting for photographers of all skill levels.

Before the DVD goes into flash photography, host and National Geographic photographer Bob Krist starts with the basics of light: direction, color, and quality. This may seem rudimentary for some, but these concepts are applicable to any type of photography and very important in understanding flash photography. Krist then explains some of the benefits of using flash and how it differs from using available light. He does an excellent job of explaining some of the more technical aspects of flash photography, such as sync-speed, with animations to illustrate the point.

Once you have down some of the basic concepts, the DVD starts getting hands-on with some basic portrait setups using speedlights. The demos work one light at a time with Krist explaining the rationale behind light positions, additional lights, and how to overcome problems as they arise. You’ll see a three light setup and understand how to balance flash and ambient light using slow-sync and gels. There is even a brief demo of the R1 and R1-C1 close-up set. The best part of these demos is being able to see each shot as changes are made and the excellent diagrams to see the overall setup.

Once you’ve seen how easy it is to work with the CLS, you get an overview of how to set up the various components of the system in master and remote modes. Every aspect is covered from the speedlights to using certain cameras’ built-in flashes as a commander. You even get to see Bob Krist’s personal location kit, all of which fits nicely in a carry-on size Storm Case.

With the basics behind you, the second half of the DVD follows lighting expert Joe McNally in the field on three different on-location shoots: the Boston Ballet School, a bride preparing for a wedding, and a dock. McNally applies all of the concepts from the first half of the DVD and, as he puts it, “improvises endlessly.”

Just like Bob Krist did in the studio, McNally works in pieces when setting up for his shots. You get a clear explanation of why additional lights or diffusers are being added and get to see the results instantly. He also identifies problems as they arise and shows how to overcome them. Watching McNally connect and communicate with his subjects is a treat, and you can clearly see that connection translate into his pictures.

Joe McNally and Bob Krist make it a point of getting the light off the camera throughout the three on-location shoots. You see a lot of inventive uses of umbrellas, diffusers, reflectors, and gels. There’s a lot of great advice on filling in shadows and maintaining a balance between flash and natural light to make it look as if no flash was used at all. There are great examples of both slow and high-speed sync, indoor and outdoor shooting, and still and moving subjects. McNally goes by all the rules but also shows that some of them are meant to be bent or broken. This is evident in many shots, especially the finale at the dock that starts with nine Nikon speedlights and ends with a total of twelve.

The DVD is much more informative compared with Nikon’s last lighting DVD The Speed of Light, which showed what the system was capable of but gave little in the way of how to use it. It does still have its moments where you feel like you are watching an infomercial, but these are very tasteful and should be expected considering the DVD is put out by Nikon. Some people may balk at the price tag ($39.99), but it’s reasonable considering the length of the feature (over two hours) and amount of information presented.

Overall, A Hands-on Guide to Creative Lighting is an excellent guide to the Nikon CLS, as well as lighting in general. The DVD should appeal to just about all levels of photographers because it moves at a pace easy to follow for beginners, but also provides lots of useful tips and tricks for intermediate to advanced users. It even includes a handy cheat sheet with instructions for setting up all of the various CLS products, as well as some lighting terms mentioned throughout the DVD. Whether you’re new to Nikon’s speedlight system or have experience, A Hands-on Guide to Creative Lighting is definitely worth checking out.

Images Courtesy of Nikon USA.

Understanding exposure is an extremely vital part of photography but can often be very confusing for beginners. If you or someone you know is looking for a book to provide a little insight into understanding exposure, Rick Sammon’s Exploring the Light is an excellent resource.

Exploring the Light starts off with the basics: composition, shutter speed and aperture. There are also quite a few sections on camera settings, modes, metering and operation for digital SLRs. Once you have the basics down, the rest of the book relies on these principals in order to get a better understanding of light and exposure.

Rick Sammon provides a lot of excellent tips and insight into many common lighting situations. There’s a section about seeing the different types of light and making the most out of it, as well as one on overcoming difficult lighting conditions. There’s even an entire chapter dedicated to flash photography, which can be very intimidating for a lot of people.

Sammon does drive the point that “the more we know about getting the best possible exposure, the less time we have to spend in the digital darkroom rescuing our pictures, and therefore the more time we have to take pictures.”

At the same time, he does also realize how powerful programs like Photoshop can be and closes the book with some simple yet very effective Photoshop techniques for enhancing your photos, not completely transforming them.

Perhaps the best part of Exploring the Light is the fact that Rick Sammon provides examples of the photos that lead to the “keeper” shots – providing advice on seeing creatively.

He also supplies technical information on the majority of the shots in order for readers to better understand the camera settings.

Exploring the Light is an excellent guide to composition, exposure, and understanding the basics of light and lighting. Rick Sammon does a great job explaining the basics and uses his work to help illustrate the point.

I would definitely recommend this book to someone just getting into photography or intermediate users. The lessons in this book are fundamentals that every photographer should learn.

Rick Sammon’s Exploring the Light: Making the Very Best In-Camera Exposures is available at Amazon.com.

Leica has always been a highly regarded name in photography. The new D-Lux 4 certainly raised some eyebrows when it was announced by offering a short but fast zoom range of 24-60mm f/2.0-2.8. Also, instead of opting for more megapixels, the D-Lux 4 kept the same amount as its predecessor and improved on the quality of pixels.

I’ve had the chance to shoot with the D-Lux 4 for a couple of days, so continue reading to see if it is truly worthy of the Leica name.

Editor’s Note: Initial impressions are not meant of be an exhaustive review but rather my opinions and observations of a camera.

Body

The D-Lux 4 has the same sleek matte black finish of its predecessor, the D-Lux 3. In terms of size, the camera is slightly larger than most compact cameras on the market but definitely smaller than most other cameras in its class, like the Canon Powershot G10. I personally found the size to be absolutely perfect, but I can see it being a little awkward for someone with big hands. There’s also the welcome addition of a hot-shoe.

Front of the D-Lux 4

The back of the D-Lux 4 is dominated by the 3-inch LCD display. I know the lack of an optical viewfinder will be a turnoff for some; however, I didn’t have a problem seeing the LCD in bright sunlight or dark conditions.

Controls

The top of the camera has a traditional mode dial, which gives you access to the Automatic and Scene modes, PASM, movie mode, and the two custom user settings. The top also has a “focus” button next to the shutter release that allows you to select focus points on the fly.

The lens has two mode switches: one for the different focus modes (AF, AF Macro, and Manual) and another to select between the aspect ratios (4:3, 2:3, 16:9).

The back of the camera is where the bulk of your controls are, with a lot of them based around the joystick “quick selector.” At first I thought the quick selector would be a little awkward, but it becomes extremely intuitive after a little use. Moving the stick left or right toggles between your aperture and shutter (or exposure compensation), while moving the stick up and down adjusts those values. Pressing the stick in gives you access to the “Quick Menu,” where you can quickly change options such as film mode, metering, focus, white balance, ISO, Intelligent ISO, Intelligent Exposure, and image size.

Back of the D-Lux 4 with Controls

The traditional cross selector offers most of your other controls, including a function button that can be programmed to quick review (I recommend this function), Film Mode, ISO, white balance, metering, and Intelligent Exposure. There are a couple of quirks with the exposure compensation and flash buttons. Even though you have to manually pop up the flash to use it, it defaults to the auto mode.

Although it fired most of the time, there were situations where I wanted fill light but the camera felt there already was enough light. In order to make the flash fire when you pop it up, you have to make sure “Always Fire” is selected in the flash sub-menu.

The other quirk is that the exposure compensation button also gives you access to flash compensation, not the flash button. Since I was primarily using the quick selector to adjust exposure, it was very easy to overlook this. I personally found the flash a little overpowering by default so the flash compensation is a must.

Performance

To put it simply, the D-Lux 4 is unlike any other point and shoot camera I’ve ever used. The camera offers nine different color modes, plus two different user-defined color modes. There’s also a mode called Multi Film, which is essentially a color bracketing mode that allows you to take a burst of images in up to three different film modes. The colors straight out of the camera are absolutely wonderful – extremely vibrant without being overly saturated.

The lens range may seem short compared to most compact cameras on the market, but I found it to be versatile. Having a 24mm on a compact was a real treat and lends itself to some very interesting shots. Couple that with an extremely fast f/2.0-2.8 lens and Image Stabilization, and you’ve got an awesome little camera for low light photography.

I was completely blown away by just how sharp the lens is. Below are a few shots that demonstrate how much detail the lens captures. One is a studio shot (Editor’s Note: We had no problem using this camera with strobes via Pocketwizards, as silly as that may seem), and another is a very low shutter speed shot handheld demonstrating the Image Stabilization. Last, we have a shot of a swan (roll over for 100% crops).

1/250 sec @ f/8, ISO 100 (Photo by LeRoy Rosario)

1/5 sec @ f/2, ISO 400

1/1000 sec @ f/4, ISO 80 (Photo by LeRoy Rosario)

The camera does an excellent job up to ISO 400, and even produced useable results at 800 and 1600. The D-Lux does marginally better in this regard compared to most compact cameras due to its slightly larger sensor size, but still doesn’t yield results comparable to an APS-C DSLR. I will say even though there is a lot chroma noise, camera’s noise reduction seemed to do a excellent job of retaining detail.

I was a little disappointed to see Leica abandon the DNG RAW format for this camera. RAW files are a RWL that open with the provided Capture One 4 software. I did not play with the RAW files since I primarily use Lightroom and Adobe Camera RAW, but I’d imagine there will be Adobe support in the future.

Images

The biggest problem I had with the images for this review is narrowing down which ones to include. These are all JPEGs directly from the camera and resized for web. A few of them are courtesy of my fellow photographer LeRoy Rosario, who also had a chance to shoot with the camera. Editors Note: You can also find more images from the D-Lux 4 in the Images of the Week for 11/02/08.

1/8 sec @ f/2, ISO 400

1/80 sec @ f/8, ISO 125

1/30 sec @ f/8, ISO 200

1/10 sec @ f/4, ISO 80 (Photo by LeRoy Rosario)

1/400 sec @ f/4, ISO 400, 16:9 Ratio (Photo by LeRoy Rosario)

1/1000 sec @ f/4.5, ISO 80 (Photo by LeRoy Rosario)

Conclusion

Whenever Leica comes out with a camera, there are always comparisons with its Panasonic counterpart (in this case, the Lumix LX-3). Both cameras are in fact manufactured by Panasonic, and many people feel you are simply paying a “red-dot tax” to have the Leica version.

I have not used the Panasonic version of this camera, but Leica does in fact have their own color curves and profiles that are different from the Panasonic counterpart. Also, the three year warranty is a much better value over the 1 year parts, 90 days labor warranty from Panasonic.

Couple that with the provided Phase One Capture One 4 software, and you can justify the price. I’m not saying $849.99 isn’t steep for a point and shoot camera (because it is), but when comparing the two cameras, you have to look at the total value to make a fair comparison.

As I said earlier in my initial impressions, the Leica D-Lux 4 is unlike any other point and shoot camera I’ve ever used. If you can get past the price tag, it is an absolutely wonderful camera. I couldn’t believe that this little camera was able to capture the shots it did. The controls were intuitive, the colors were incredible, and it’s just about the perfect size to carry around. While it’s pricier than most of the cameras in its category, I think the D-Lux 4 is truly in a class of its own.

Special Thanks to LeRoy Rosario for providing select images from the D-Lux 4 in this review.