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Crossfit Shoot Nikon D-610

Lesson 15 from: Taking the Fear Out Of Low Light Photography

Jared Polin

Crossfit Shoot Nikon D-610

Lesson 15 from: Taking the Fear Out Of Low Light Photography

Jared Polin

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Lesson Info

15. Crossfit Shoot Nikon D-610

Next Lesson: Crossfit Q&A

Lesson Info

Crossfit Shoot Nikon D-610

All right, so what I'm going to do right now is I'm going to switch out to the nikon d six ten that's, a full frame body, which means it's more sensitive to, like, full frame, you're gonna let more light in, well, not going to let more light and but full frame cameras, you have the ability to shoot in lower light situations. Now, a lot of people have a d six ten or something similar that's, full frame, like a cannon six d those cameras give you the ability, teo, to shoot at hirai sos and still get cleaner images again. We don't want to be afraid of s o, because especially when we go black and white everything's going to be good, but the reason I want to switch is I want to get to shooting a lot more. I want these guys tio to use their warm ups that they've already done to actually start doing something, and so I'm going to try to focus in on shooting as much as possible, so I'm just going to switch up my cameras. I've got my hebrew trinity twenty four to seventy, fourteen to twenty fou...

r and seventy two, two hundred I don't need to switch that out, we already put that on the other thing so I could switch this on my black rapid I'm also going to switch the go pro so that you guys can watch my first person shooter camera angle. Put that camera down. Go right up on the here, lock that in and all right, I got my bag over here. Turn it on. Are we set to raw? Make sure we are on wrong that's where we want to be. All right, here we go. So what do we guys what do we have getting ready over here? You're going, you're gonna curl that, aren't you dead lifts so he's gonna stand up with it? Okay, go for it. I'm going to bump my eyes. So with this four thousand works, we'll be about three to let's get my settings right. That would help to remember lens cap off continuous focused going on right here got to make sure certain settings I'm still set toe white balance for when I'm shooting my videos. So this is a good opportunity before he issued to make sure everything is zeroed out. So where you needed to bay there we go, hold it right there, people. I'm actually in continuous, so you won't hear the beeping going on. Actually, I want to be good, you can relax for a second going into single focus, I don't want that to be an auto at all all right hold it right there actually yeah give me give me that from up top like you're you're just getting ready you're looking at me and smiling I love that composition what I'm doing right there is making sure that I have symmetry even left to right I've got the you call that the squat rack right you have a squat rack behind you so it's all even it looks pretty cool too nice looking shot boom I like that I mean actually going to go up to five hundredth of a second because I have the ability to do that with this camera all right go ahead give me that squad good when you get to the bottom of it just hold it hold that hold that hold that they can share my lines and levels of straight awesome all right go ahead you can do that yeah that looks strong you know good good good good good guys look great I like that I like that a lot chris do you want to start hitting this thing that's good so let me take a look at what we have here I can't wait to see that they can't wait to edit that that looks really good it looks really good really sharp so what's the point of this the warm up is it is a triceps can you know core can you show me how it works because I want to try it really is that are you supposed to put all your might into it? Was that all your mind and let me say all your might yeah that's right chris get angry at that tire hit the tire yeah that's right you guys should try this. I'm gonna do one more oh that's because I got a warm up for the photo I like to see what it's like what actions go through I'm just making that up right now but seriously yeah that's right? You take that tire all right, now that that's out of the way he's going to be moving he's going to be swinging this thing so now I have got to freeze that motion somehow or work with the non freezing of the motion what lends do I want to have on? I'm going to go to the fourteen to twenty four recommendation when you go on switch lenses, turn your camera off, keep it pointed down, put your lens cap back on the other body you can do that right there and then I'm coming up to this camera this lens all right? I'm going to shoot this way now you can stay right here. I'm working around you I'd like to leave the subjects where they are and I like to work around them if needed I'm more of a photojournalist let it happen where it's going to happen so I want to get my frame and get my composition I'm gonna shoot this around two a m because I don't need to worry about the background stuff um any what other uh what can you do that takes one hundred times to do you want to jump rope right there jump rope in the background that would be perfect all right that's fine we'll keep shooting here all right chris go ahead oh that's awesome wow you are taking your aggression out this I love this I love shooting wide and I love this lens for doing this so I need to freeze this motion better to fiftieth of a second is not gonna work so because we're not afraid of our eyes so especially in this camera what cameras this it is a d six ten I thought it went higher than sixty four hundred s so I didn't know that ok so we're at sixty four hundred five hundredth of a second a two three to just hold right there I like I like this you're fine chris was that sure oh that's really jump rope you're really jumping rope there this is good chris so what I'm going to do is that hold right there looking right at me all right and let it rip I am going to lock in focus right on chris his chest at this point I hold it hold it hold it I know sorry about that I just want to lock my focus and go ahead what am I looking for here I want to have the action at the very peak all right hold slow down so now I'm gonna get you go a little slower this time and you don't have to take your aggression out fully I'm going to try to get you at the peak action I hold hold hold on I just got a lock focus go ahead boom boom I got him with the peak action there but then it blocks his face so you keep going I only need seventy five more all right leave it like like it's right at the end I want it right at the end here on just hold it hold it right there yep that's exactly what I'm going to look for and I'm actually gonna switch lenses again I want to get the longer lens out turning my camera off breaking out the seventy two two hundred lens cap it off let's see what we've got from here oh that would not be a good photo yes I'm not going todo ah boy oh boy I hold it up over your shoulder like you're a bad ass but just let it rest in you're gonna look at me like that uh bunion what's that guy's name paul bunyan yet paul bunyan's I love this background I like that you had just let it actually do you take the shirt off this is for the ladies at home. We'll have opposed off later. You never take your shirt off. Do you not want to take your shirt off? It's already off. You might as well just go with it. What I want you to do is I want you to put that over your head. I know. I know if you want me to take my shirt off, see? Look at that. Look at look at the traps on you. Do you do a lot of these things? You just have natural traps. Wholly true. All this is good. This is like, this is good. No, this is this is oh, geez. You want to see this? You really want to be sure? We're that we like it. C keep keep doing it, though. Did can put your shirt on yet. So what I like about this framing? We've got the what of those called again squat rex we've got the squat racks. Chris is right in the middle and to get him in the middle, I'm moving just to see what's going on here. I love the symmetry that looks awesome. Keep doing that. I'm going to try and get this tire in here because it's part of the story, we know that the hammer is what hits the tire the tire needs to be in the frame for at least one of them to tell the story of what's going on does that all makes sense so we're trying to get that this is a cool this is awesome because the reason I ask you take your shirt off because you're in good shape and this shows the results from what you're doing you're doing all this and this is the payoff so for anybody that wants to do that toe look like you they could be part you know, they just need to do what you're doing that's good. Hold that right there so I'm just gonna get the bottom of the tire in here just a little bit of it I actually want to get a little lower angle myself it's all about angles here that works in this case I want you to just step to your right a little bit a half step there you go. This is really good. This is this is really good. Okay, I want to focus in on those headshot type things could put back over your shoulder you can let it rest over shoulder here you go. Yeah, that you've done this before never never again though, right? Okay, so with a seventy two two hundred leads I like to be out at the two hundred ish range if I have room because that's going to compress the background help it blowout at we're at two point eight and if you've noticed, I haven't been worrying about my settings too much because we lock them in, we've locked him in already I'm just focusing on getting these shots and that's a good thing that you can keep shooting really good, really good keep holding that I'm just gonna follow me that's good that's gonna look it but we also have the light like you asked earlier on this side of his face it's a little darker, but on this side of the face we've got some light bouncing off the wall so I like though this is much better, we'll show you so let's see what's going on here. What I did is I kept the hammer in there because that's part of the story. If I didn't have the hammer in there for context, then it would just be another photo of another head shot of the guy. And I say this all the time on my site that you could go to the eiffel tower, stand under it and take the tightest head shot ever and nobody would know what's the eiffel tower. You might as well have been in your basement in topeka, topeka, which I still have never been the topeka but that's, that's, that's what I'm saying here, it's all about context I focus in on the wide shot the medium shot the tight shot so that it all tells the story. I'm all about storytelling here. Okay, um, I want to get it. All right. Sit on. That. Sit on this for me. Yes, I'll actually like you without your shirt. I can take it. Ok, put your shirt on. It just it creates a nice contrast, but he's not comfortable with it. A part of it is making your guy while he's doing that. Do we have questions? We get the microphone over here. Anybody? Yes, let's get you the microphone. So, what I'm gonna end up having you do is just sit right here. I love this background. I love the brick wall you bring, bring that over and I know I'll have you do something shortly. Oh, you're fine. Okay, so I'll direct you in a second. Yes. So while you're bouncing all over the gym and we understand that lighting that's going to change for a newbie who might find themselves in a darker situation than what they would have anticipated, do you still take the moment and try to say that in post processing? Or are you trying to reset your settings? Well, the idea is that you don't want to be so far off if you are far off, you know how people get noise and they get grain aa lot of reason they get noise and grains because their settings are wrong in the first place or they're too far off with I say within a half a stop roughly you should be pretty good to save that in post sometimes your shutter speed drops too low uh well, let me let me think this out real quick in my brain sometimes I do what's called I cheat the system where the shutter speed would have to be too low say a thirtieth of a second, but I'm a shoot it at a fiftieth or or or so I'm cheating the system because I know I'm going to bring it back and I can bring it back and post I have some of that leeway but that's if you don't want to bump the eye so too far I think when you get to say sixty, four hundred and today's cameras that's going to be pretty much our limit but that's always changing you go back. Three years ago we were shooting eight hundred s o maybe four years ago eight to sixteen hundred so was about the max before you started the grain out, but now I don't worry about the noise in the grain so much in this situation this is a gritty situation to begin with, this is it's okay, if there's some noise and if there's some great, I'm not a big fan of post processing and taking out the noise because when you take out the noise, you're also taking out the sharpness from the image and it starts to look all blah, and I'm all about the images being what boom, there we g o you guys, you're on and I want them to go boom seven does that does that answer it good? All right, let's, get to doing this. So I'm going to put you off to the side a little bit. I want rules of third right there once your legs more out on this on that angle yet that works. Have this rest by your side. Right here. The hammer let's. Let's. Put it down on the ground to touch the thing. Now, that works. That works. A seventy two to hundreds. Not good here. I need something wider. All right. I'm going to go with the fourteen to twenty four. Now the point of shooting wide angle wide angle is about telling a story. You want to fill your frame? You want to get close to your subject. But you want everything in the background to kind of show up at times, that's important. It's all about the scene so when you're shooting wide you want to make sure that you don't have distractions in the background that would get in your way but you want to make sure that the background is pretty cool so I'm going to switch over here and just work through this process boom take that off the cameras off putting this on go like that say hello to the camp hello cameron all right, this is cool so you guys are fine I have a camera crew here and they're in my background so but you can stay I want you guys to stay because this is part of it if you have distractions in the background you have to figure out what to do in this case I'm going to rotate myself we still have this cool thing going on in the background what I like about this background the brick walls awesome it's a cement wall brick wall concrete whatever they call that stuff but what I like is the angles in the corner that creates dimension in the images right? What photography is two dimensional to d right? We want three d and if we can get different angles and intersections that's going to help the frame getsem dimension so I'm going to rotate this way now because that's flatter but also we've got all those people there and I don't want to do that mmm this is good actually my setting should be pretty much the same that's cool that's really cool plus he's not moving we don't have to worry about the shutter speed being too high so I was at five hundredth of a second at two point eight I want to go to three point two which is a little not even it's not a full stop when you drop down to four hundredth of a second I can drop my eyes so as well because he's not moving so why stay at sixty four hundred? If I don't have to when you drop it one stop so let's drop the ice so to thirty two hundred that's one stop! If my shutter speed is at four hundredth of a second where would it go? One stop less two hundred that's one stop we're taking from that area we dropped theis a one stop so to get the same exact exposure that we just had it the high rise so we have to cut the shutter speed down by one stop in this case in half four hundred to two hundred if we went one more stop what would it be? One hundred all right and if we went toe one hundredth there we would then have to drop the ice so to sixteen hundred to give us the same exact exposure and we could do that that would give us then we're not afraid of low light anymore because we're not maxing out our s o for no reason there is no reason to max it out in here that's all I have to say about that all right? Let's go I'm gonna I have to listen to what I just said so I have to go to two hundred right at thirty, two hundred cool boom ruled thirds throwing him off to the side. I like that because I like seeing the other stuff on the I love everything I love all the details that are in the background here I love all the details getting a little closer to fill the frame more. This is cool. Oh, that looks that looks cool. I'm going to show you just so you get a feel for you see what I'm doing it's cool, right? It shows the environment all right, why don't we switch and get you over here? And we'll do some of that. Thank you, chris, thank you for taking your shirt off is well, it makes for good stuff. Yeah, why don't you flip a tire? So get down like you're going to do that don't do it though get into position so there's a couple of things I just saw here there's a couple of ways that we can do images we can shoot from here straight across and have her eyes come up so then we have we have you see that look, we could shoot that, which I'm I should actually do, but I'll run through the process and then we'll wrap it up with that. We've got the wide angle shot right here of getting the tire ready to flip that's one thing that we have and then being that it's the tire, she could end up sitting on it at the end with the sweat coming down her face and being all like, boom, I've just done this, all right? You're good. All right? So we'll just start like this, but hold on, I was stopped at sixteen hundred. Now I'm going to clear you guys all chelsea, you could stay because you're part, you're part of the gym and you look good in the background I'm going to get my shoulders to beat back up I'm going to go back up to four hundredth of a second and we are at thirty two hundred so one stop higher. We're going up to sixty four hundred s, so, um, let me just get a look at this. All this is this is much better let me just get a test shot boom that looks that looks fantastic looks fantastic, so just look at me like that that's good one other thing before I keep shooting cause I keep getting these ideas is if the light was changing if we had lights changing, the sun was coming in or were outside in low light but with with clouds moving one of the first things that I like to change is the shutter speed it's the easiest thing to kind of do on any camera whether its the d thirty three hundred or a five d mark three you can just change the shutter speed if the if the sun comes out and becomes brighter which way do we want to go with our shutter speed higher bump it up higher because it's brighter out but as it gets darker you then tweak it down it's just it's just remembering in your mind it's not always about you know the numbers and figuring out what to do there but you just know that oh the light just got darker. Well in that case I need to lower my shutter speed first and foremost in the situation because that's going to let more light in but you also have to keep in mind if the subject is going to be action packed or moving that the shutter speed may not be the best one to move at that time you may want to then bump your eyes so because that gives you a higher shutter speed and all that does that all makes sense good it made sense didn't make sense to you and probably not right all right look right here like you're like I'm going to lift this thing and boom I'll see that's good. Hold that now that's good she's laughing this is part of it. All right, let me see this let's get this let's see what happens here? All right, all right, hold it, hold it, hold it, hold it, hold it! I also just realized something I probably want to be in continuous focus continuous dynamic that's where I'm going so you're going to flip it all there's other stuff here there's so many more images here is that to have it if you need good just making just looking like you're about to flip it I'm trying to figure out why my eyes my focus not beeping because I went from single to continuous and back again I want to get the whole thing in here boom oh, this is great with the tire all right, so I'm gonna lock in and go ahead give it a flip e go ahead, give it all the way to let it go so we've got that let me see do we get some motion in there? I don't know that I want to freeze the tire so what I want you to do is come back this way I'm going to sit here now we have the background we have all you guys in the background so we need to slip it flip it twice because I have to know where it's gonna land so I don't get crushed all right we'll go back good just doing angle and then we'll come on this angle yeah straightforward go ahead one more time I don't think you'll crush the stone right all right so so I don't kill myself I'm going to switch to the twenty four to seventy which makes more sense so I don't have to get too close but this is going to be cool maybe I'll freeze her but get the tire moving I think this is a place look what she's doing that's good let's get a portrait of that or not that's good she's like yeah right there that's good I gotta find my focus points single should be good same exposure same lighting again same lighting not much is changing here you're just focusing in on shooting that's good hold that there's a white hold that c I saw this in the background but actually that's not too distracting because it's part of the scene I just want to make sure it wasn't just like an emergency sticker or something but this is good but we have all that in the background you see this stance it's just like you know we only know what it's called it's a kipling stance that's it right here all right, now stand up, cross your arms yeah, this is this is called the bad ass but you put your foot down because I'm not really worried about the tire I like the background that's what I like blowing out so I'm gonna zoom in here a little bit what am I looking for when I do this? Guys, what am I looking for making sure that her arms are in the frame it's symmetrical because I didn't want to do this which if I took a picture like this that's technically well that's going to be bad no matter what I cut her fingers off I'm going to show you guys we see how we cut her fingers off that's not good, but that's something you want to see when you're shooting that's not a good frame but on the other side that's a better frame because I kept everything that's important in there make sense yes, good make sense to you now you're ready to flip the don't want to cut your fingers off. All right? So I have to think about what I'm going to do here. I want to be in continuous focus because she's going to be moving the tires also gonna be moving but I'm not going to focus in on the tire so we have to we have to play this out in our heads at four hundredth of a second, the tire falling is probably going to freeze. I kind of want to get some motion with the tire a lot of times and we'll let you think, well, I don't want to get that motion, but we know that we want to try and get that motion. So what do we need to do to get motion toe actually show some of that motion slower shutter speed? Exactly. So we are at right now four hundredth of a second of three two and the s o s sixty four hundred what do we what do we want to do? We wanted what's the first thing we want to drop because what we know we want to do, we want it, we want the shutters made the move because we know we want this thing to move so that's, what I'm going to I'm going to go to two hundredth of a second is one stop let's go toe one hundredth of a second cause that tire, I think, is going to show some motion at one hundredth of a second. What just happened to stops? So where we going to take the two stops running from a three to are we going toe take two stops of light from the aperture probably not because we only have we don't even have a full stop with this lens to go from three to two to eight isn't a full stop we have our eyes so we're at sixty four hundred what's two stops less sixteen hundred exactly see it's pretty simple right sixteen hundred one hundred three to let's get this tire get ready to flip I'm in continuous hold it, hold it, hold it, hold it, hold it, hold it looked right at me so we've got the story being told here let me just make my sure makes oh my god that's awesome don't move I like this holy shit I cursed put it put a dollar in the jar put a dollar in the jar this is just there I just saw something that is so awesome that you're not going to believe look at this it looks like a studio shot holy man, this is oh my god it looks so awesome keep looking right here because I can't I can't stop not shooting this this is I may even have to switch lenses real quick I'm switching lenses real quick you're going to hold that please say this always happens you always have an idea for something else and then something else happens that causes you to see an image I'm going to show you guys and you're going to be like holy wow it looks like I turn my camera off to take my lens off. See what? What what? Who knew that this was chris? Who knew that that was gonna happen, right? It will get the backward it's like we have a strobe set up that's good. Keep that going and now I'm going to zoom in and let's see if it's more the lens or just the settings here I'm going to get out of continuous back in the single because this is what we're doing. Boom! That looks good now I think it's going to be on the dark side not not star wars dark side so I'm going to go up to two thousand from sixteen hundred just for this that's good. I like this look, so make like you're about to lift it just to get some of that the muscles going bring the eyes and head up just a little bit I want to leave a little more headroom less are a little less head room in this case but I'm still getting the tire in here. That's awesome here now in post is going toe I'm going to clean this up nicely, but I'm sorry it went off, we see how the lighting's happening there it's really cool so let's let's get to this last shot that we were talking about and then we'll wrap it up so that they don't yell at me and say, jared, you're you're talking too much you're teaching your giving away the farm stop giving away the farm but they really want me to give away the farm so I switched to the wrong way and see what happens when you're talking and not paying attention you need to concentrate on stuff so you don't make mistakes stop brushing me people they're not rushing me they're not actually rushing me so the original idea here was to get the tire flipping before I sidetracked myself with a cool shot er setting wise we should be pretty good so hold it relax I'm going to just get just make sure the test is good don't want to forget to god that looks so good we'll just hold that cheese all right? I'll stop talking I want to get back into dynamic uh we want to get into continuous focus because we switched back in the single all right let's see and I'm going to be in continuous high in case I want to take multiple frames go for it. All right, well, that looks really cool and we do have it it's not as cool as I wanted to be from here there is some motion I want to try one more time, so just flip it back for me unless you want me to do it, I do want to try flipping it, and we're going to wrap up after this, but that angle is not so good to get the motion because you don't really get the feel for it, but if I'm shooting from the side, we're going to get more of that motion. One thing I want to talk about is spraying and praying people like to shoot in continuous mode and like rapid fire do it there's certain times to break out the rapid fire to do a quick success. Succession of two, three, four shots we're not talking about your friend. Your camera could do eight frames a second, so you shoot for sixteen straight frames over two seconds. That's just a waste. You have to remember you have to edit all this stuff, so being a selective shooter is really important, so I'm going to get to the side here because we saw that that frame didn't exactly work, but what happened out of that whole idea and set up is we got that awesome portrait that came out of nowhere because it just looked awesome, so I want to slow the shutter speed down again, let's, go to fiftieth of a second. And I met I s o two thousand, so we're going to go down one stop we goto one thousand we're just we're just playing with everything now fiftieth of a second means there should be some motion that's going to happen. Uh, ok, ok, um and go for it and there is some motion you can get the bounce and everything looks pretty cool in there. These air great shots to talk. All see, check this out. This is at the top, the peak of the action before you did it and then it goes looks good and there's some motion in there so we did get the desired effect that we're going for. Whether that's a good shot or not a good shot isn't really the point right now because this is about learning as much as possible on doing as many different scenarios. Any questions before we wrap this up from you guys? If not, I'm going to wrap it up so I'm going to write always wrap it up it's better to be safe than sorry, all right? Just that's a that's. A note from the creative life people I want to thank you guys chris, thank you for taking your shirt off. Did they turned out great the great shots, annie, thank you for doing everything that you did it's good that we have a report with your subjects. Thank them. They just took that. He didn't want to take a shirt off, but he did. I would have done it too if you asked me to take my shirt off. So this is a low light situation. We started with the d thirty, three hundred eighteen, the fifty five if you can shoot with that camera and that lends set up, you can get away with anything, because if you could do it with the basic year, then with the most expensive gear, you're better off. I like to say you could have the most expensive gear in the world, but not know what the hell you're doing and get terrible shots or you can hand somebody like you guys with an education and the understanding of the fundamentals. You can hand you a camera, the basic camera, and you can get better shots and somebody that spent ten thousand dollars on something that they don't know what they're doing with. So I know that's a lot of information. I hope you enjoyed what we did here. We're going to roll out on into the next situation and let's, let's, roll it up.

Ratings and Reviews

Rusty Shinault
 

I'm a huge fan of Jared Polin; love his humorous and relaxed style of teaching. I love that he's passionate about photography, and that he is willing to share his experiences, opinions, and knowledge. I really enjoy Creative Live classes, and really enjoyed watching Jared teach in front of a live class. Hope to see more of Jared teaching on your platform.

user cf5d2d
 

Jared did not disappoint! He shared his knowledge of composition, exposure, and capturing the moment - all while engaging his audience and keeping things light and fun. I absolutely LOVE when how he sets up his equipment so that we can see each snapshot he takes, and then tells us why it's a good shot or why it's not a keeper. It's so easy to learn that way. I'm a second grade teacher (a.k.a. an educator) who, thanks to Jared can call myself a photographer. Jared is a photographer who is also a great educator!

a Creativelive Student
 

I've seen a few CreativeLive sessions and this was one of the best. It was very unique and engaging I liked the onsite shooting and review and critique. I have done teaching and I know how hard it is to teach WHILE you are doing and I think Jared did a great job of balancing that. I'm quite familiar with his FroKnowsPhoto podcast and website so I knew what to expect and both HE and CreativeLive EXCEEDED my expectations. Thanks much also for letting him use use studio for Raw Talk on the Road (my suggested name for it), I could see a real opportunity for CL to provide access to their facilities for others wanting to record training, etc.

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