Part I Article 5: On the Shoot

Now you’re finally on the way to go shoot pictures, what more use can your iPhone be?  Lots!  Besides navigating to your shooting location and ensuring an on-time arrival, there are a number of tools you will find handy to have as you are experimenting to get THE perfect shot.

All of this preparation work will be for nought if you’re late getting to your shoot location, so make sure you use a good navigation application that takes traffic into account to make sure you get there in time.  I use Navigon Mobile Navigator, which gives voice-guided navigation as good or better than any stand-alone GPS, plus it offers free traffic data for life.  If you’re looking for something cheaper, you can simply use Google Maps as this includes traffic data in most metropolitan areas, but if you get lost you’ll have to stop and re-navigate.  You can also check if there is a dedicated traffic map or application available for your area, Seattle has one called Seattle Freeways which shows both the WSDOT traffic map (with your location overlayed if you want) as well as the actual traffic cameras.

The first actual photography tool I’d like to talk about is the exposure calculator.  These calculators allow you to find different settings that will all result in a similar exposure, or calculate how much you’ll need to change your settings for a desired change in exposure.  While this calculation can often be done by the Auto functions of today’s DSLRs, most professionals prefer to find and set the correct settings in Manual mode, thus ensuring that all of their photos come out identically (and hopefully properly) exposed.  If you are new to photography and wondering what a good starting place for exposure settings are, the app DSLR Toolkit for Dummies has an extensive list of situations and subjects and recommended settings for each.  Once you have some ballpark numbers, you can use a calculator like that found in PhotoBuddy or Expositor to find other combinations that will give you the same amount of light.

The primary reason to want to change your exposure settings without changing the actual exposure of a shot is to adjust the depth of field of the photo.  Depth of field is a term that refers to the zone of sharp focus in a photograph, for instance many photos of flowers have shallow depth of field so that the background is blurry while the flower subject is sharp, while landscapes typically have a large depth of field so that trees fifty feet away and mountains miles are are all sharp.  If you want to know how wide your depth of field will be at given settings, you can use an app such as FoCalc or PhotoBuddy.  Both of these apps can also be used to find the ideal aperture setting for a given depth of field, which you can then plug into your exposure calculator to find out how long your exposure will need to be or how high your ISO.

Another handy thing you can use your iPhone for is to level your tripod.  Many tripods do come with a small bubble level built in, but some do not, so this can be extremely handy.  You can also use it to check that the tripod is plumb, to ensure that your pans will be smooth and level all the way around.  I just use the free iHandy Level, but any free leveling application should work.

Ever get tired of lugging your camera’s manual around with you?  Ever decide not to but wish you had?  There is an excellent chance that your user manual is available as a PDF which you can view on your iPhone, but these can be very clunky and hard to navigate.  Even better, some app developers have created tailored applications for specific camera makes and models with diagrams of the controls and video tutorials of their use.  The DSLR Toolkit for Dummies has excellent diagrams of many makes and models built into it, but if you search the App Store for your camera model you will almost certainly find dedicated apps with more information.

Another book I often wish I had with me is a glossary of photographic terms and abbreviations.  Many photographic apps have a glossary built into them such as the DSLR Toolkit for Dummies or Nikon’s Learn & Explore, but there are stand alone applications as well that may be easier to use.  Your mileage may vary depending on how familiar you are with the language of photography, but it’s a nice thing to have around especially if it’s built into an app you already own.

There is one more tool that may sound like an excellent idea to have on you, and that is a color calibration chart.  These are traditionally extremely expensive pieces of plastic or card stock printed with either a specific shade of grey or a smattering of carefully calibrated colors.  You place one near your subject and take a test photo, which you later use when post-processing your photos to correct the color balance.  These yield extremely accurate results and are essential tools for professional photographers, but any iPhone application promising to offer this functionality is the digital equivalent of snake oil.  First of all, the screen of the iPhone is reflective, which means that it captures reflections and these affect the color of whatever is displayed.  Secondly, the screen of the iPhone is not a precision calibrated and perfectly neutral screen.  In fact, if you compare two different versions of the iPhone to each other, you will likely notice that one has a slightly pink tint to the screen while the other may be yellowish or blue.  We don’t notice this unless there is something to compare it to, but this makes it completely useless as a precision color balance tool.  So, if you come across any such applications in your searches, don’t buy them!

With that one exception, I have to say that there are hundreds of other dedicated photography applications out there, each one designed to help you and make your life easier, and each one has proven to be of at least some use in some situations.  I highly recommend taking full advantage of them.  The primary skill a photographer needs is the ability to see a good photo opportunity and take advantage of it, but photography is, even in this day and age, a very technical and difficult hobby to master.  If these applications can help you even just a little along the way, they are well worth the usual $0.99 price tag.

Part I Article 4: Preparing Your Kit

Selecting the right gear for the day is the last step of preparation before heading out on your photo shoot.  What lenses will you need?  Will you need any filters?  Did you forget your backup batteries?  Did you check the lighting and weather?  The iPhone can ensure that you always bring the right equipment and knowledge with you.

The Viewfinder app will overlay rectangles on the iPhone’s camera output, demonstrating the field of view of selected lenses on a given camera.  It can store up to 4 camera profiles, each with it’s own selection of lenses, so you can quickly check which camera/lens combination will be best for a particular shot.  It’s most useful if you use it when scouting the location ahead of time, but I’ve found even at home it is useful to see the differences between the focal lengths in the “real world”.

All of this preparation work can be a lot to remember, and even if you know exactly what gear you’ll need, we’re all human and can make mistakes or forget things.  Again, the iPhone comes to the rescue, this time with customizable and reusable checklists to make sure nothing is overlooked.  For packing your gear, I recommend one of the many apps designed to help people pack their suitcases for travel.  I use one called Packing, it lets me create my own categories and items, and save multiple re-usable packing lists for different types of shoots or different weather conditions.

The final app that I use before actually going on a shoot is a checklist app.  I use one called ListWrangler, which lets me create checklist templates ahead of time that I can reuse over and over again.  If I'm planning for multiple shoots, I can build many different identical checklists from one template, giving each a unique name.  This lets me be sure that I've done all of my preparation work before I head out the door.

So now the iPhone has helped us plan our shoot, scout the location, and pack our gear for the event.  In the next article I’ll talk about ways to use the iPhone while you’re actually out snapping pictures!

Part I Article 3: Lighting and Weather Prediction

As you learn about photography, you will discover that the most important factor in producing a good photo is lighting.  This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone since by definition a camera is a tool that captures light, but if you browse public photo sites like Flickr you’ll be amazed by how many times a subject will be backlit or obscured by shadows and the photographer never even noticed.  The human eye is an amazing piece of optical engineering, able to adapt to a wide variety of lighting conditions, and because the eye is able to see the subject perfectly well, the photographer makes the (often incorrect) assumption that the camera can too.  Hopefully thanks to the first article in this series you are now paying much more attention to how your subject is lit, but how do you go from knowing when you should or shouldn’t take a photo to ensuring that when you need to take a photo the lighting will be good?  That requires planning, and planning where you will shoot from in advance is the number one thing you can do to ensure better photos and a more enjoyable day.

The first thing you’ll want to research is your subject, because you need to know what kind of lighting you want before you can start finding out when you should shoot and where you should shoot from.  Most of the time you will want the sun to be somewhere behind you while you are facing your subject, but sometimes you want light to shine “along” your subject to enhance details and texture, or sometimes you may even want your subject backlit.  You may also decide you want to shoot at sunrise or sunset (red/pink light), or during one of the “golden hours” (warm yellow light), in order to add a little color and interest.  Basically you want to try to visualize the photo that you want to get in advance, and then break down what it will take to get the shot.

If you need a particular tone of light, apps such as Golden Lite will show you exactly when you can expect it at any place on any date.  Always remember to set the location and date to where and when you will be shooting.  If you would like to take photos under moonlight or starlight, there are apps such as VisiMoon that will show you the phase of the Moon as well as it’s rise and set times for a given month.

Once you know what time of day you will be shooting, you need to find locations to shoot from that will have the lighting you desire.  Using an application like LightTrac you can see exactly where the sun’s rays will be coming from at a particular location at a particular time, which is very handy for on-location scouting.  For example, set the location to where your subject will be, and the slider for the time of day you will be shooting, and then you can see exactly where to stand if you want the sun directly behind you or off to one side or the other.  Sun Seeker will give you some of the same information, but presents it differently, it’s map shows how the sun’s light will lay across an entire area.  It also has a 3D view (what has come to be termed Augmented Reality) where it uses your camera to show you exactly where the sun will be in the sky at your chosen time.  It’s only as precise as your iPhone’s compass/gps, so your mileage may vary, but I’ve found it a much easier way of understanding how high the sun will be up in the sky, as opposed to the graphs/charts of other apps.

What if you know what angle you want the sun to be at, but you don’t know what day or time it will be there?  For that I use Light Finder, it allows me to choose either how I’d like the sun’s rays to lay or where in the sky I’d like the sun to be, and then it finds the date and time when it will be closest to that location within a given time period (a day, a month, a year, etc).

Finally, you need to know whether the sun will even be visible on your chosen day, or whether it will be overcast or raining/sleeting/snowing.  There are TONS of weather apps out there for the iPhone, and everyone probably has a favorite already, but there are a couple of supplemental apps I’d like to talk about.  The first isn’t an app at all, it’s a website called Forecast Advisor, and what it does is analyze all of the major website forecasts for your location and show you how much they have changed as the day draws nearer (so you’ll know how stable/reliable the forecast is).  It also shows you the statistical probability of forecasts from particular sources being correct.  The other app is called iCSC Clear Sky Chart.  These charts are generally aimed at astronomers so they will know whether they will have good observing conditions on any particular night, but they include data for the daytime as well.  It takes a little work to learn how to read them, but I’ve found them to be very accurate and useful for understanding exactly how much cloud cover, haze and humidity there will be, all of which affects aviation photography yet is rarely touched upon by traditional weather forecasts.

With these tools and some flexibility to pick your shooting location and time you can guarantee great photos.  If you aren’t able to choose where and when to shoot your subject, they will at least help you make the most of a tough situation, and get a higher percentage of “keepers” than you likely would have gotten without them.

Part I Article 2: Situational Awareness and Location Planning

When you are shooting a new subject or a new location for the first time, there are a lot of questions you should try to have answered before firing the shutter.  Where will the subject be and what angle do you want to view it from?  Where will you be able to take pictures from?  Will there be any obstacles (ugly buildings, power lines) or bonuses (snowy mountains, picturesque views) in the background?  What will the lighting be like?  If you can pick your time of day to go shooting, what will be the best time?  In this article I will deal with the general geography of the situation, the next article will focus on lighting.

The first questions you should answer are those about your subject.  Where will it be, what angle would you like to view it from, will it be mobile, will you be able to dictate where it is?  Since we often find ourselves shooting something we’ve never shot before, a good idea is to search for photos of your subject on Google Images or Flickr.  This way you can see some examples of both good and bad shots, and determine what made them good or bad.

Once you have an image in your head of what you want your shot to look like, you will need to scout the location of your shoot.  This usually requires a trip to the location of the shoot in advance, during which you will want to take note of exactly where the subject will be, where are the various places you could shoot from, are there any landscape elements you’d like to have in (or keep out of) your shots, etc.  In the olden-days you’d have to scribble notes in a notebook, or mark places on a paper map, or take photos and then try to remember what they were of.  Luckily the iPhone is almost custom-made for this sort of job.  Install an app like Walkabout and you can now type notes, create voice memos, take and caption photos, and all of them will be geotagged and automatically placed onto a satellite map of the area.

Even if you can’t make a trip to the actual location, the iPhone can still help you scout the area and answer most of the questions you may have.  Satellite maps of the area should give you some idea of where the subject will be and where you will be able to shoot from.  Topographical maps can show you whether a building or mountain is likely to be in your field of view.  Google Earth for iPhone can even combine the two, giving you the ability to virtually stand at the site of your shoot and look around.

Aviation photographers need to do a little bit of extra research in order to capture their subjects in the air.  A sectional map (available through apps like AeroCharts) of the airspace in the area will give you an idea of where your subject will or won’t be able to fly, and listening in to the local control tower (via apps like LiveATC) will let you know which runway is being used primarily or how much flexibility the tower is willing to give aircraft for photo passes.  And of course websites like FlightAware will tell you when a particular aircraft will be arriving at or departing any nearby airports, just sign up for a free account and setup flight alerts to be notified in advance (well, whenever possible).

It is never a bad thing to get in the habit of scouting your locations in advance, the payoff in saving time and taking better photos will be immediate, and the more you do it the faster and easier it will become.  But we still haven’t touched on the most important single factor that can make or break your photo.  Lighting.  That will be the subject of my next article.

Part I Article 1: The most basic use of all - Learning about photography

Introduction

In this series of articles I will be exploring all of the ways in which an iPhone (or iPod Touch) can assist photographers in general, and aviation photographers specifically. In Part I I will be focusing on ways the iPhone can be used as a tool to enhance standard digital or film photography. In Part II I will take a look at using the iPhone as a camera itself. Those of you who have some other type of smartphone may still want to read along as many of the apps and features that make the iPhone so useful can be found on multiple platforms.

Throughout this series I will make app recommendations, sometimes specific and sometimes not. Always remember that your mileage may vary, and to carefully check the App Store reviews before you buy. Also remember that there are thousands of new apps submitted every day, so even if I recommend a specific app there may be something better available now. It’s always a good idea to do a few searches for competing products before hitting that BUY button.

The most basic use of all - Learning about photography

Although cameras today are getting smarter all the time, the photographer behind the lens still needs to know where to position themselves, how to frame the shot, and what camera settings to use in order to get exactly the shot they want. But how do you learn what to look for, and how to translate what you see into a great photo? As any photographer can tell you, experience helps a lot, but first you need to learn a few basics. This is where the iPhone makes it’s first contribution as a photographer’s best friend.

World-class photographers, camera manufacturers, and professional photography instructors have all released iPhone apps to give you the tips, tricks, and the basic knowledge that you need to develop a good “photographic eye”. These resources can be broken down into 3 major catagories: samples of photos taken by talented photographers, books and reference materials for general photography techniques, and specific instructions for your particular camera.

A good selection of sample photographs is one of the most essential tools for a learning photographer. First, exploring all of the different subjects and techniques of photography that are out there will help you understand what you want to shoot, and what you really don’t care for. Second, the photos themselves can also serve as inspiration when you’re on a shoot, something I’ve found extremely valuable when I’m shooting “outside my comfort zone”. Finally, comparing your work to that of a professional is one of the quickest and easiest ways to improve your own technique. It’s hard to look at a really good photo and see how it was made, but it’s easy to compare that photo to one that isn’t as good and spot the differences. Many professional photographers have published portfolios in the App store, sometimes with tips or tricks accompanying each photo. In addition, most have websites that you can bookmark for viewing later. Some examples of non-aviation photographers who have inspired me are Art Wolfe and Vincent Laforet, but you can find many talented photographers listed at Canon’s Explorers of Light or Nikon’s Learn & Explore websites. Portfolios of good aviation photography are more rare, and you will probably have better luck browsing around Flickr and adding the shots that you like to your Favorites so that you can easily view them later through the iPhone Flickr app.

How-to guides for photography have always been essential for getting started, but they have also always been expensive and difficult to carry with you when you go shooting. Books and reference guides on the iPhone however tend to be cheaper and you always have them with you, plus the better ones have taken advantage of the iPhone itself to incorporate handy tools and calculators. Rather than having a book that tells you the formula to determine the depth of field of your lens, your photography handbook iPhone app may have a calculator to figure it out for you. Some of the better handbooks I’ve tried are the Digital SLR Photography Toolkit for Dummies and Nikon’s Learn and Explore app. Both include some very good basic information on how to take better photos as well as a few useful tools, but we’ll talk more about DSLR tools on the iPhone in a future article. For now, just focus on their advice for how to take better photographs.

The other book that is as essential to photography as it is hard to carry is your camera’s user manual. Although just about anyone can shoot a DSLR in automatic mode, remembering how to configure everything in manual mode to get exactly the shot you want is much more difficult. Luckily, most major manufacturers offer digital downloads of their user guides in PDF format, which the iPhone can read. Using an app like Downloads Lite you can even save the PDF manual locally to your iPhone, so that you won’t need an internet connection on location to reference it. In addition to these rather dry but accurate user manuals, many enterprising app developers have released tutorial guides for the major brands/models of camera. These can be very helpful in learning how an experienced photographer really uses their gear, rather than just reading the manufacturer’s instructions. Do a search in the app store for your camera make/model, I’ll bet you’ll be surprised at what you can find.

That wraps up the first article in this series, the next will cover using the iPhone to scout locations and plan your shoot, even if you’ve never been there before.