Your Questions Answered - HDR vs Exposure blending? Why do you Love landscape photography?

so today we're gonna be answering questions that came in over on the community tab this morning I asked for questions a whole bunch of them came in so we should probably jump into it Noah asked did you stop playing drums and wouldn't drums be a good compensation for bad days in photography greetings from Germany well Grady inoa yeah I haven't played drums in a long time I got my son an electronic drum set for Christmas last year and I probably play them more than he does but that's not very often my problem is I'm such an all-or-nothing type person that it's hard for me to see the point in playing music unless I'm actually going to do something with it and unless I'm in a band that's writing music and recording albums it's really hard for me to get motivated so no haven't been playing drums but yes I do miss it [Music] Morrow ass recommended starter camera and lens for landscape photography and what nd filters do I think is the best greetings from Vancouver Washington greetings so yeah starter camera this is kind of a little bit of a loaded question because when you buy that first camera you're buying into a camera system you know you're gonna buy some lenses and then if you ever want to upgrade your your camera more than likely you're gonna want to keep all your lenses when you do it which means that once you buy into a camera system you're kind of going to stick with it so for that reason you want to make sure that whatever camera system you're buying into for that first time makes sense long term so as far as camera systems that I have I don't know but I feel good about long-term I feel like Sony obviously is making really good cameras right now the other camera brands might catch up they might not but as Sony is looking pretty good right now Fuji is actually looking good right now any of the camera systems that adopted mirrorless pretty early are looking looking pretty good with the exception of maybe Olympus but that's another story so I would push you towards either a Fuji or a Sony between the two obviously I went with Sony so if I would look at like a 6400 and when it comes to lenses I would actually probably recommend taking a look at broken on or samyang whatever it is I think of they're broken on on the Sony system but for your first setup basically you just want to get some focal lengths covered quality isn't gonna be the best but it will get you started so look at Rokinon lenses on us a 6400 and that'll get you going Tony Reeves ass wide-angle photography what is too wide what would I consider the perfect focal length for landscapes me personally I prefer a lens that I can go super wide but does not have a bulbous front element because as soon as you get into a bulbous friend element you start getting into complex filter setups you start needing to have adapters and stuff and you can't just thread on a simple screw on filter for me it's as wide as I can go without the bulbous front element so that means 16 to 35 on full frame on a crop sensor that would be 10 to 22 something like that Timothy asks would you ever consider shooting in Trinidad or Tobago you know I haven't really researched to those areas very much uh honestly I don't know what all is there but I would always consider it yeah and there's so many places in the world that I'd like to see and you know I've I've traveled quite a bit because of photography but before photography I didn't travel at all you know I was a poor person stuck at home travelling was not something that was ever even on my radar so there's a lot of places in the world that I don't even I'm not aware of and I don't know about and Trinidad and Tobago I can't I don't know I don't know I would I'm interested I'll check it out maybe I am I don't know sorry Nath I'm interested in how much you focus on getting the shot right at location as far as exposure graduated filters or do I just plan to post process corrections when taking a shot I'm an old film photographer and I tried to do the former never depend on the ladder but then again I still pull out my four by five camera from time to time shoot film so when I shoot on location I'm trying to get the files that I need in order to put the photo together in post-processing because I know all the things that I can do in post processing it changes how I shoot I don't I'm not trying to get things to look perfect on the back of my camera I'm trying to collect the best data I can on location so what I mean by that is for example if I'm photographing a really flat scene you know and I'm shooting from a Vista and a landscape that is pretty flat not allied dynamic range rather than making it look good on the back of my camera I'll actually overexpose it and get that histogram exposed over to the right it's not going to look good on the back of my camera but that is going to give me a lot more color information and better information to work with in post-processing so on the other hand if we have a scene with a large dynamic range I'm always going to bracket my exposures in that situation because it's going to give me the the cleanest shadows possible so rather than trying to expose for my highlights and then boost up my shadows a whole bunch if I have that high dynamic range scene I'm always going to bracket my exposures and then blend in a darker sky with a brighter foreground that will give me the highest quality results problem becomes if I have anything moving on my horizon let's say we have trees breaking the horizon on a windy day I'm never gonna be able to line up two different exposures and blend them together because stuff is moving on that horizon line so that changes how I have to shoot I am either going to expose for my highlights and then have to and then be forced to brighten up my shadows or I will I'll do something even more complex where I'll bracket my shots at the time and then I'll take that shot that I've exposed for the brightest highlights I'll create a copy of that I'll brighten that one up to the same brightness as my brighter my brighter exposure bracket and then I'll blend in the horizon line from the faster shutter speed that matches the sky and then I will blend in that darker sky from the normal exposed sky frame and then I'll blend them all together it's way harder to explain and then I actually do but you get the idea I always shoot with post-processing in mind I don't try to get it right on the back of my camera because I know what is possible in post-processing a lot of times if you're trying to get things right on the back of your camera you're making sacrifices either you're going to not have very much shadow information in those darker shadows or you're going to purposely blow out some highlights or you're gonna have to use graduated filters that are a destructive workflow and can't be undone so yeah I try to shoot with post-processing in mind so mario asks which is better according to me bracketing iPhoto or HDR photo so they're two different kind of terms bracketing is the act of taking taking three different or however many different images at different exposures that is something that happens while operating your camera HDR is a process it's a high dynamic range photo so most often times we associate that with old plugins like photomatix or Aurora HDR or even inside of Lightroom there's an HDR feature and then what that does is it takes those bracketed and bracketed images that we took and squishes them together into one file that has the full dynamic range I think what Mario is asking here is is exposure blending better than blending to HDR I would say exposure blending most times is always going to be better because you're a full control over what's happening and you know what information goes where so for example if we take a dark sky image and a bright foreground image and blend them together at the horizon line in Photoshop we know that our shadow information is going to be 100% clean we know what files went into what part of the image but for example if we take those same two files open them up inside of Lightroom and then merge to HDR it's not always 100% that it's going to use the darker exposure for the sky and the brighter exposure for foreground area there's going to be the occasional anomaly and sometimes you're gonna run into ghosting artifacts and then you have to use the digo steam feature inside of the pop-up panel which often times creates little patches of noise inside the photo there's all kinds of problems that can arise so the answer the short answer is exposure blending is always going to be better than any automated plug-in because you're in flow control it's way more difficult and there's a lot more skill involved it's a better quality result in the end once you learn how to do it Wade asks when am i coming to shoot in the southern hemisphere such as Australia New Zealand or any of those locations on the radar yes New Zealand definitely want to Australia I'd like to see although you guys got lots of poisonous things there but yeah I definitely want to go to the southern hemisphere I'd love to see Tasmania there's a lot that I'd like to see you down there Australia New Zealand definitely on the radar Robert asks when am i coming to the Northeast to shoot every winter I want to go up to Maine I would love to see some of the the really beautiful iconic lighthouses you guys have up there and one of the things that you guys have in the Northeast that we don't have in the northwest is seascapes with ice it's such a unique combination of things that I would really like to see it rj asks do I ever sell prints if so is it only by request or do I have an online store our prints even worth the headache so that they can be worth the headache but you have to really dedicate a lot of time and energy into making sure that you you're set up really well for it for me I've gone so much that it creates a big problem and for that reason I mostly just turn people away when they when they ask for prints nowadays because I'm never home to actually fulfill them in order for me to properly fulfill stuff I would almost have to have somebody at home or somebody that I can send those orders to to fulfill them I'm just not set up for it I think it can definitely be worthwhile but it's not going to be as profitable as it once was because there are so many photographers also sewing prints Leonard asks have I used or considered using a tilt shift lens and if I plan to it might make for a good video so no I don't use a tilt shift lens never really have that the main advantages for tilt shift lenses are perspective Corrections so you you know you can have lines that are still vertical and not getting skewed by tilting down with the wide-angle lens also you get a basically a sharpness benefit where you can get things pretty much sharp from front to back and change the the sharpness plane so a little bit of post-processing knowledge actually negates the need for it tilt shift lens at least in landscape photography because can focus tack and get you things sharp from front to back and if I'm dealing with that really bad perspective distortion from tilting down or tilting up with a lens I can always just take a shot where I'm shooting horizontal to the ground and blend that in above the horizon and fix all those lines Alex asks do I put a lot of planning and before going to a location or do I like to physically find compositions then head back later when the light or the Milky Way is right I always try to make time for arriving to a location well before I want to shoot it find my find Mike have multiple compositions and then when the light is right or the Milky Way is out or whatever then I walk around and I actually take those shots so I always try to be there in person and physically find my compositions because there's a lot of little things that you just can't plan for alfredo asks what do I feel are the current trends and landscape photography there's kind of different trends depending on where you look like if you if you watch a lot of YouTube there's a lot of Thomas Heaton and Simon Baxter minions emulators whatever the word would be there's basically a lot of people emulating that the forest scenes and the seascape scenes that you see a lot in the UK I was actually quite shocked at just how many UK landscape photography vloggers there are that I didn't know about and I started watching it at all and it's all very very similar so if you watch a lot of YouTube it seems like there's definitely the trend for the the foggy low contrast for a scene landscape a lot of that on YouTube but on the other hand if you spend much time on Instagram you're going to be bombarded with the super epic super colourful landscape photography selfie with a little person standing on a little point and most likely the photo has been stretched vertically it's just the thing I think the reason it's a thing is because on Instagram all the photos are viewed about this big which means they have to be super epic to grab anyways anyone's attention so that on Instagram it's a completely different trend I think there's a lot of really good photography being done out there that doesn't get the attention that it deserves because you know they're not a youtuber so they don't get any attention on YouTube and they're not you know super prevalent on Instagram because they're not posting super oversaturated selfies so those seem to be the two biggest trends right now Steve asked do I print my own images if so what is my workflow I don't print my own images I want to but I'm just not home enough and the only way I would really set up a you know a print lab at home or you know a print station at home is if I had enough time to dedicate towards doing it right and if I spent enough money on a printer that I can print fairly large because I like to print a big and for that reason I've it's never been cost-effective for me to actually buy my own printer I always just send stuff off the places like Bay foto I'm gonna start trying out Nevada art printers yeah I always send stuff out if photography is my wife in - and do we ever go on photography outings together she is a portrait and wedding photographer she kind of specializes in like boudoir and babies and birth photography she's a lot of weddings she's all portraits all people and she doesn't care at all about landscape photography so we go on photography outings together but she never takes a camera she just like walks and reads a book next question is do I prefer to use graduated filters or do I adjust different exposure levels of the sky and foreground in post and if so why well physical graduated filters in my opinion are destructive workflow now the only time I will do them is if I have a flat horizon line and I'm only using like a two-stop soft graduated filter that's the only time that I can feel good about doing it because any more than that kind of horizon line where it's not a perfectly flat horizon which happens very little in most landscape photography it's a destructive workflow there's always going to be some problems that you can't fix or I can't go back and undo you're always better off in my opinion too exposure blend to take two different exposures and blend them together and a lot of people don't want to do it because it's a lot of work to learn but it's worth it the next question is from Skid chowder how hard is it to lead workshops in this day and age failures and triumphs you know I'm not sure that it's much different for me at least to lead workshops right now than it ever has been you know I've been leading them for three and a half four years probably now you know granted I'd like to think I'm getting a lot better at leading them but in the beginning you know I tried really hard and my my you know my heart was right I put the effort in but I was not as organized as I like to think I am now I'm still working on getting more organized all the time as you know time goes on I I've recognized the need to be you know very organized leading workshops and then working hard to get better at that there's definitely been failures you know a lot of times it's a lack of communication when there's a failure in a workshop you know sometimes if a person is quiet in a workshop it's because you were assuming that everything is going great and they don't have any questions for you only to learn after the workshop that they were there just a quiet shy person and they didn't get their questions answered and they you know they didn't get their money's worth because I didn't put in the effort to communicating for the person so there's a lot of times when there's failures it's it's due to poor communication and so that's one of the things that I've been working as well at getting better at I try to over communicate rather than just assume everything is fine when maybe it's not for me my favorite part of leading workshops is just feeling like people are going home with information that I know they didn't have before and seeing improvement just in that little span of time and that's definitely happened a lot of times where people come in and they have a lot of questions and they don't understand different techniques and by the time they go home you have them you know focus stacking and exposure blending and you actually see them go from you know light room only to like doing some pretty advanced stuff in Photoshop that's that's some of my favorite favorite stuff and you know the locations were going to the reason we lead workshops in in the places I like to lead them is because they're a photo rich environment but it's not so much about getting good photos at the time it's about going home with the knowledge of how to do it you know maybe in better conditions because a lot of times when we're leading workshops that they're not during the most perfect light because you're not gonna get that you can't plan for perfect light a year in advance but it's a perfect area to teach these different techniques that I teach you know a workshop so my favorite moments are when people go home and they're doing techniques that they were not doing before and they go home with so much more confidence and excitement about you know their next photo shoot because they have all these new tools available Ross McKenzie asks blade or mallet mallet because I'm a terrible putter next question is from Ken why do you love photography thanks for all your videos please keep doing what you're doing I love photography because it's a it's a way for me to get outside to spend time doing what I love and to be creative while doing what I love you know spending time outside and in the most beautiful places that I can think of you can't ask for a better a better way to spend an evening or a morning or a week you know that's in my opinion that's our natural habitat as a human is that be out in the great outdoors and to not only be able to go out and enjoy that time outside but to try to bring a piece of that back and to create that into art of some kind to hang on to that moment and to share with other people it's it's really cool it means that you know I'm not only outside when I'm outside but I'm also outside when I come home to post-process that and then I'm get to share that experience with everybody else it's also what I like about creating YouTube videos is that I'm talking about the things that I love doing and I'm you know kind of sharing a memory sometimes I get really hung up on playing the YouTube game you know my videos don't get a fraction of the reach as some of the you know my top five tips on how you can be a better photographer top five things that you are doing wrong for me creating videos is not about being popular it's about sharing my experience with the outdoors with you guys reliving it for myself and I need to need to stay in touch with that I think you know it's awesome that you guys can learn a thing or two or get a little nugget out of some of the videos I make but in the end I need to make videos from me rather than just trying to you know be the most popular youtuber on YouTube which I will never be and that's okay sometimes I lose track of that it's not about being super popular and getting picked up on every single photography news outlet because I shared my top 5 favorite plugins it's it's about just sharing what I love and trying to make you guys better in the process that's why I don't sit here and you know fill my youtube channel with a whole bunch of you know lightroom how-to videos I could do that all day long but it won't make you better because what you really need to hear is you'll be better if you learn Photoshop because Photoshop is better and if you want if you want to make good photos you should take more photos and practice because that's the truth of it that's what I got for you guys today hopefully this has been least semi entertaining and we'll catch you guys in the night video take it easy everybody I'll try to get through more questions next time bye bye [Music]

Channel: Nick Page

Views: 29,027

Keywords: photography, landscape photography, nick page, travel

Id: Si5wrL-5Wv4

Length: 23min 15sec (1395 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 13 2020