Outsourcing
I’m the type of person who likes to do everything myself. I’m a control freak. I want it my way or the highway. Especially with my business. But, there comes to be a point where you realize you can’t do it all. You’re not super mom (or at least I’m not). And you might just need some help.
With my photography business I like to outsource the things that I don’t like / don’t have time to do. And one of those things is RAW processing. It’s tedious and time consuming and I’m just not all that great at it to be totally honest. In the past I have just shot RAW for my weddings. I’ve used two of the big RAW processing companies and they’ve been okay. My biggest complaint is that it’s just not consistent. There are different people processing my images each time and it can be a bit frustrating. Especially for a control freak like me.
If you follow me on Facebook and Twitter you probably heard me talking about editing a lot this past Fall. Okay, fine. I was complaining. A lot. I was drowning in my editing all while still nursing a newborn and taking care of my crazy 3 year old. A very nice Mom*tog reader, Marissa Lynn, emailed me telling me that she wanted to help me. To offer her services so I could start spending more time with my family. See, Marissa is a Navy wife. She’s the mom to a little girl and loves photography, but because they move so often she’s not able to really establish her business. In the mean time she has started editing for other photographers just because she loves to do it. I decided to give her a try and I was so impressed. She’s FAST, super great and accommodating, and her prices are so reasonable. And she’s a mom. So she gets that you would rather be spending time with your kids rather than sitting in front of the computer. I’m so glad she reached out to me because her help has really freed up more time for me to spend with my family! Really.
Marissa is looking to take on a few more clients and if you are drowning in editing like I was, I would really suggest contacting her. Because she’s awesome. And you’ll be happy to have more time to do what you love.
Check out Marissa Lynn’s website to learn more about her services!
Lightroom 4 Beta Release!
Before Christmas I was invited to see a demo of the new Lighroom 4. I’ve been dying to unveil the new changes to you, but had to keep my mouth shut until today. There are some VERY excited changes that have been made, which I’m so excited to share with you!
Here are the highlights:
1) One thing I use Photoshop for that I haven’t been able to do in Lightroom previously is album design. If you like using Blurb to make albums, you’ll love that Lightroom has partnered with Blurb to make creating photo books that much easier. In just one click you can publish your book to Blurb.
Included in the book module are professionally designed templates. You can also add text. It would be awesome if in the near future templates for specific photo labs and album companies were added as well! But, the new book module will do for now!
2) Another feature I am super excited about is the ability to play and edit videos from DSLRs, point and shoots and even smart phones. Since I’ve been using my 5D Mark II more, I have been trying out video. The problem I’ve been having is that my pictures always look way better than my video. In Lightroom 4 you can make basic color corrections to the video including white balance, exposure, contrast among other things. Hello? How cool is that? You can also trim your videos as well. This is a feature I will be using a lot! And you can directly publish the videos to Facebook and Flickr as well!
3) Local editing adjustments have been added including the ability to do a local noise reduction and white balance, which is AWESOME! There have been changes made which should also simplify the develop module.
4) With a new map module you can now “geotag” your images and organize them by location. This makes searching your images that much easier!
5) Emailing images has been simplified. With Lightroom 4 you are able to email images directly in Lightroom using any email account that you’d like! It’s super easy.
There are many more improvements, but don’t take my word for it. You can download the beta version of Lightroom 4 here… for FREE! Go try it out for yourself and let me know what you think! Have fun!
Sleep Training
Earlier this week I started “sleep training” Kennedy. That sounds much more hardcore than it really is. I’m really just trying to get her to nap in her crib once a day. So I can actually get something done while she sleeps. On day one she screamed her head off for about half an hour. After going in and comforting her 10 times and turning on the white noise app on my iphone she fell asleep for about half an hour. Then she woke up. Pissed.
Yesterday was better. She actually fell asleep with no crying at all. And stayed asleep for 45 minutes. Begineers luck? I’m not sure. Keeping my fingers crossed that it works again tomorrow!
Canon 5D Mark II, 50 1.2
F 1.2, 1/125, ISO 1600
Some of my favorite images of my kids are when they are sleeping. I always ask myself, is the shot worth the risk of waking them up? If it is I:
1) Wait until it’s close to the end of nap time to attempt the shot. That way if they wake up it’s no big deal.
2) Try to determine what my settings should be before taking the shot. If they wake up or if their eyes open you can run out of the room really fast and hope they go back to sleep! :)
3) Turn off the flash! That’s a sure fire way to wake your baby up. You can see from my setting above that I had my aperture wide open and my ISO up super high. I’m a little shaky (especially when my aperture is wide open) so I don’t like to go below 1/100 in my shutter speed.
4) Turn the beep off! Another sure fire way to wake your kid up!
5) If they stay asleep during the first few clicks, they will probably keep sleeping. Try a few different angles and adjust your settings if necessary!
Canon Macro 100mm 2.8 L Review
In early December I bought myself an early Christmas / end of the year tax write off present. I had been coveting the Canon 100mm 2.8 L Series lens for a while and I finally took the plunge and bought it. Macro lenses are great for getting super, duper close up on your subject. You’ll see macro lenses used a lot in nature photography. It’s a prime lens, which means you can’t zoom in or out.
I’ve had the Canon 100mm 2.8 macro (the non L Series version) for a few years. The only time I ever used it was for ring shots at weddings and it did it’s job.
The big problem with that lens is you basically need to manually focus it, which is fine when you’re shooting objects that don’t move. It was a lot harder to use on things that moved, like my squirmy kids and the newborns that I’ve been shooting a lot more of in the past year.
The 100mm 2.8L is a totally unnecessary lens for most Mom*togs and even a lot of photographers. It’s pricey. But, I LOVE it. It’s really fun, super sharp, and the focus is great. My only complaint is that I wish it stopped down to 2.0.
I would highly recommend renting this lens if you have a new baby or even to capture the little details of older kids. You’ll have a lot of fun with it. The only problem is that you might not want to give it back!
PS If you were interested in buying the 100 2.8L, there is a $110 instant rebate that ends January 7th!
Canon 5D Mark II, 100mm 2.8 L
F 2.8, 1/160, ISO 800
F 2.8, 1/100, ISO 1000
Did You Know About ISO…
Whenever I talk about ISO I always suggest shooting at the lowest ISO possible to avoid noise (that yucky pixelation you get when shooting at too high of an ISO). But, there’s an exception to the rule. Sometimes shooting at a higher ISO can be better and lead to less grain. Take this situation for example:
I shot this picture on a really dark and rainy morning.
This image was shot at 2.0, 1/125, and 800 ISO. It was exposed properly according to my meter. This is straight out of camera.
*** All images shot with Canon 5D Mark II and 50 1.2
When I lighten it up in Photoshop (with a simple levels adjustment) it looks like this. Yucky, right?
Now, this image was shot at 2.0, 1/100, with an ISO of 1600. Again, straight out of camera.
Look at the difference! I overexposed this image in camera. You can see when I zoom in on it, there is a lot less noise than the image that had to be lighted up in Photoshop.
At 1600 ISO
At 800 ISO
There is still noise in the image that is 1600, but I think it looks a lot better than the image shot at 800 ISO.
Depending on what camera you have, you will get noiser images at lower ISOs. That’s why you pay so much for a camera like the 5D Mark II (among other features).
So, just remember, a low ISO isn’t always the best depending on your lighting situation!
PS Have you been thinking about purchasing an UNmanual or an UNposing Guide??? I highly suggest checking back here on Black Friday!!!
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