Imagine rummaging through shoebox after shoebox looking for photos like you did 10 years ago.

Imagine rummaging through stacks of CD cases looking for a particular song. In my case, most of my CDs are either out of the case (and thus scratched) or have been stored in the incorrect case (thanks MaryBeth!), making finding a particular CD a nightmare.  

Not a pretty picture, right? That's because you've long recognized the benefits of digitizing your media - photos and music.  The Amazon Kindle 2 is to books what iTunes is to music.  

Here's the Kindle 2.  As you can see, it's only slightly taller than your average paperback:

And it's about the same thickness as a magazine:

What's so great about the Kindle?

• Like the iPod, you can carry your entire library with you everywhere you go.  The Kindle 2 stores 1,500 books.
• Never lose a book again.  Ever spend an hour looking for a book in a box in your attic somewhere? Those days are gone.
• It's cheaper than buying books. Yes, the device costs $350.  But once you've purchased the device, buying books is much cheaper. You can get a book for $10 that's currently in hardcopy for $25.  And paperbacks are usually available for $6 or $7.
• It's much easier to read than a book. Unlike a hardcopy, you can adjust the font to any size you like. I read mine at the "old man" setting, the second largest font available. Regular books are now almost unreadable by comparison.
• The screen is very crisp, as crisp or crisper than most printed books.
• You never lose your place. When you turn the device off or switch to another book, it returns back to the page you were reading once you go back to it.
• It has a built in audio reader. No, it's not like having James Earl Jones read a book to you, but it does sound much better than most computer speech you're used to hearing.
• It has a built-in 3G wireless reader (no extra cost or subscription required) that let's you buy books anywhere and wirelessly download them to your kindle in one minute.
• You can read for about a week before needing to recharge the battery.
• If you lose your Kindle it's not a disaster. Sure, you'll have to buy a new device but you haven't lost your library. All the books you've purchased are archived by Amazon.
• You can subscribe to newspapers, magazines and blogs and have them automatically download to your Kindle.
• > 300,000 books available, with hundreds of new ones online every day. Amazon's stated goal is to have every book ever printed available on the Kindle.

1) I asked Bruce to sit down on a bench with Mabel standing behind him. Then told Mabel to put her arms around him and snuggle.  I stood back and shot this with my 70-200 @ 173mm. Pretty simple pose, simple shot. 

 2) A similar shot, except this time with Mabel in front. I just told them to lie on the grass in this position and asked Bruce to give Mabel a kiss.  I'm lying on my stomach to get this angle. This was direct 3 pm sun. Normally, I don't like to shoot with front light at this time of day, but you can make this light work. To avoid ugly shadows your subjects need to have their faces tilted upwards. Shot with my 70-200 at 170mm.  No actions used on this image, although I warmed up the white balance in LR to simulate early-evening (rather than mid-afternoon) sun. 

 3) Shot with my 24mm lens at f5.0 to get a big depth of field. For this image I wanted them both in focus. I asked Mabel to pull Bruce along the road. I was walking backwards right in front of them shooting continuously.  There's nothing like real movement to add life to an image. On a side note, shots like this are one of the few times that I wish I had a "pro" camera like the 1DmkIII, because of the faster shooting speed and larger buffer. On my 5D I have to take a few frames, then wait....and wait.... and wait...for the buffer to clear.

4) I asked Mabel and Bruce to be quiet, relaxed and contemplative for this shot. Even though it was extremely bright, I needed to bump my ISO to 800 because I was shooting at f22. Even so, my shutter speed was only 1/100. Remember, if you want sun stars you're going to have to shoot at tiny apertures.  

I was hired by a Udub (University of Washington) professor for an environmental portrait and head shot for her website and publications.  This tutorial reviews my thought process and setup for the shoot.

Step 1:  Analyzing the location

An environmental portrait shows a person in his or her surroundings. For example, showing a scientist in his laboratory. In this case, my client wanted a shot in front of her academic building. It was 1 pm on an extremely sunny day. So, how to set up the shot?

I decided to set up the shot so both the building and subject were in shade.  To do this, I used the shady side of the building as a backdrop and then placed my subject underneath the shade of a large tree.  By doing this, I was in total control of the contrast.

If either my background (the building) or the subject were in the sun and the other was in the shade, there would be too much contrast in the shot.  If, for example, I used the sunny side of the building as a backdrop it would be very bright and distracting from the main point of interest, which is always your subject.

Step 2:  set up your lighting

If this portrait was taken at a wedding, I wouldn't have bothered lighting it. I would have taken a natural light shot either in full shade or directly in the sun with the sun to my subject's back. However, this shoot was not for a wedding. I needed a totally different look, a professional, commercial look, which in my book means the shot should be lit.  

For lighting I used my 580exII flash on a stand with a shoot through umbrella. This setup is not powerful enough to overpower bright 1pm sun, and I didn't want sun in the shot anyway, so that's why I combined shooting both my background and subject in shade with the flash.

The flash was set on a stand just out of the frame of the camera, about 7 feet high, pointing slightly down on my subject from camera right.

Step 3: meter your background

My first step was to take a test shot without the strobe. I set my camera at my standard ISO 100, f8, 1/200 sec.  I was using my 5D with 70-200mm f2.8L IS lens.  Checking my histogram, this shot was about 2.5 stops underexposed:

This first test shot was too dark. I'm not talking about my subject here (since I hadn't even turned on my flash yet), I'm just referring to the background.  So I quickly just changed the ISO from 100 to 200 and the aperture from f8 to f7.1 and zoomed in on the background for this second test shot.  ISO 200, f7.1, 1/200 sec.:

Perfect!  I've now set up my camera metering so that my background is about 1 stop underexposed, which is the look I was going for.  My camera exposure has been set using only 2 test shots which took about 15 seconds total.

Step 4:  adjust flash power

Now that my background exposure has been set, it was time to turn on the flash and test the exposure of my subject.  I set my flash to manual mode at full power.  Looking at the shot and my histogram, my subject was clipping here, so I knew the flash power was too high.

Adjusting the power down about 1 stop gave me the right exposure on my subject. (yes, there is some shine on my subject's face, but that's not due to overexposure. I would take care of the shine in my retouching process) Here's my final test shot:

Step 5:  composition

Okay, now my location selection, shot setup, camera exposure and flash power are all set. Time to compose the shot.  Don't just point the camera and shoot! Ask yourself what message are you trying to convey with the shot.

In this case, I wanted to convey the message that my subject was a competent, confident, yet friendly academic.  I started by framing the shot with a fairly standard rule-of-thirds positioning of my subject.  The background establishes the fact that she's an academic. I asked her to cross her arms in a relaxed way and smile. Finally, I dropped down to a kneeling position so I could shoot slightly upwards. This did two things: first, it allowed me to get a better, bigger view of the academic building in the background rather than just the bushes at the base of the building. Second, it established my subject in a more powerful, confident position - one that conveys her professional expertise.

Lastly, the tree branches on the upper right and the bushes on the lower left create a kind of natural frame to the image.

So here's the final image. Remember, this was taken at 1 pm on a blindingly sunny day:

The headshot

My client also needed a tight headshot. A headshot has a completely different function than an environmental portrait. The background becomes unimportant. You're not trying to tell a story about your subject, you're just trying to capture their likeness in a favorable way. The background should be as distraction-free as possible.

Without moving my subject, all I did was to stand up and frame her head so that the dark bushes instead of the building were in the background. Camera position was about mouth-high, which is fairly standard for a headshot. I also zoomed in to about 150mm, which blurred the background nicely.

That's it!  The entire session from the moment I arrived at the scene to taking the final image took about 15 minutes.  Just remember the following steps:

(1)  Location: analyze your location and figure out how you're going to get the appropriate background with a manageable degree of contrast, especially if it's a sunny day.

(2)  Set your camera to manual mode and meter your background. Depending on the look you're going for, your background might be properly exposed, -1 stop or even -2 stops.  My default setting is to meter the background at minus 1.

(3)  Set up your strobe(s) and adjust them until you have the right exposure on your subject.

(4)  Compose your shot for the desired effect.

A note on sharpening:

I'm using a camera (the Canon 5D) that produces very crisp files. I'm using a lens (the Canon 70-200 f2.8L IS) that is tack sharp. I'm lighting my subject's face with perfect exposure. And finally, I'm using an aperture (f7.1) that maximizes the lens sharpness.  All this adds up a very sharp image so only minimal sharpening was required. I simply used Photoshop's Smartsharpen filter at very low power - amount 36%, radius 0.8.  This was plenty.

I'm a big fan of tack sharp images, but remember that your sharpening tool should be a scalpel, not a sledgehammer.

I receive emails every day from photographers around the world, and every single question I get is about gear!  That's kinda strange, since I rarely discuss gear on this blog.

Anyway, since that appears to be the topic of interest, I'll answer the most common question I receive: "What gear should I buy to start a wedding photography business?".  

Of course, there's no correct answer to this question. Some of you, for example, prefer primes while others prefer zooms. All I can say is what I'd buy for any given budget if I were buying today.

So here it is:

Questions:

What's the deal with the Panasonic LX3?

As I explained in this post, the Panasonic LX3 (or any other similar high quality point-n-shoot) is a superior tool for macro shots, especially rings.

For the middle budget Nikon option, why choose the D90 instead of the D300?

The D90 has identical image quality to the D300, it's lighter and it's half the price.

For the lowest budget option, you chose a used Canon 30D for the Canon version but still stuck with a new D90 for the Nikon version. Why?

Prior to the release of the newest Nikon bodies (D300/D90/D3/D700), Nikon's sensors were useless for anything above ISO 800. I would simply not shoot a wedding today with one of the older sensor Nikon bodies. While you can find some used D90 bodies on eBay, it's still too new for used bodies to be widely available from reputable dealers like Adorama or B&H. If you find one at your trusted local dealer, then go for it.

Why choose the 40D instead of the newer 50D?

Because the 50D was a backwards step in image quality at anything over ISO400.

Can I get in the business for less than $4,000?  

I suppose you can, but I wouldn't want to. About mid-way through shooting a wedding with a Rebel w/kit lens and hauling my gear around in a big backpack I'd probably want to pluck my eyeballs out. It's just not worth it.

If you had the money would you spend it on a pro body like a 1DsMkIII or D3?

No. Why spend double the money (or more) on a piece of equipment that won't make a bit of difference to your images and won't make you a dime more $$$?  If you're a rich amateur then go for it. If you're trying to run a business then don't.  Look at this example:  Today's Nikon D90 at $900 has superior image quality to the D2x, which up until a couple years ago was Nikon's top pro camera that cost well over $5k. 'Nuff said.

What about battery grips?

I don't use battery grips because (a) they cost money, (b) they make the camera bigger and heavier, and (c) I shoot most of my weddings on a single battery - battery power simply isn't an issue. I suppose they have an advantage for vertical shooting but I'm content to simply shoot vertical the old fashioned way.

What about pocket wizards and gear for off-camera lighting?

I didn't include it because I consider this gear to be "nice to have" but not absolutely essential. I shot a wedding yesterday without using any off camera lighting because I didn't need it.

For the big-budget option, why did you choose a 35mm prime lens for Canon but the 24-70 zoom lens for Nikon?

If Canon made a 24-70 zoom that was anywhere near as good as Nikon's then I'd probably use it. I chose the 35mm 1.4 because it's just such an awesome lens.  I shoot entire weddings using just this lens and the 70-200. Nikon's comparable lens (the venerable 28mm f1.4) is no longer available and costs $3k on eBay if you can find one.

What are you shooting with now?

Canon 5D and 30D bodies, 24mm 1.4L, 35mm 1.4L, 17-55mm f2.8 EFS (for the 30D) and 70-200mm f2.8L IS.  

Are you going to upgrade?

Not this year. The cameras I have, including my 4 year old 30D, still take beautiful pictures.  I'll probably retire the 30D next year and upgrade it to a 5dmkII, leaving my existing 5D as my backup.

As a general rule, when would you upgrade?

Today's best wedding cameras - the Canon 5dmkII and the Nikon D700 - are so good that I think the notion of "upgrading" has become obsolete. I'd simply replace them once every 4-5 years or so when they begin to wear out.  There are simply too many things I'd rather do with the money, like taking my family on a nice vacation, contributing the extra $3k to my retirement account or buying 350 more books for my Amazon Kindle.