Amazon Cloud Storage Review

Backing up computer files and digital photos is an absolute must. Don't even try to argue against that point. Too many people lose their valuable data when their one and only hard drive fails. With the low costs for portable external drives and for cloud storage, there is no good excuse for not backing up your files.

I have used Dropbox pretty much since its inception, and I really like it. Dropbox just works. And once set up it works behind the scenes with no need to manually do anything. Dropbox offers 2 gb of free space, with ways for adding additional free space; and of course they offer additional space at a cost. If you only have a few gb of data, Dropbox might be your best bet. If you have terabytes of data though you might take a look at Amazon.

For the past few months I have been using the unlimited all data Amazon cloud storage. As of July 2015 I have close to 6 tb of data stored in my cloud storage. Most of this data is with photos, but I also have a large amount of documents, videos, large application specific files (i.e., iMovie libraries), and audio files. The unlimited cloud storage runs $60 a year. Amazon also offers unlimited storage for just photos at $12 a year (free if an Amazon Prime member).

By far what impresses me most about the Amazon Cloud is the browser organization. It is clean looking and extremely easy to move and rename files and folders once they have been uploaded. The Amazon Cloud Drive desktop app is also quite minimalist. Simply drag your files/folders into the app window and they instantly start uploading to your cloud storage. One improvement I would love to see is a dropbox style of sync with the Amazon Cloud Drive that would automatically keep folders in the cloud in sync with the folders on my hard drive.

The biggest fail with the Amazon Cloud is their iOS app. It seems to be geared just for their photo storage, and it is a mess. For the life of me I cannot figure out what the app does. Photos show up, but there is no rhyme or reason that I can decipher for their organization.

If you are not using online cloud storage, whether it is Apple's iCloud, dropbox, Amazon, or the dozens of other options out there . . I strongly recommend that you start using one of these right away. External drives are great for backup that you can keep on hand. I have dozens of these drives that I rely on daily, and there have been a number of times when my main hard drive failed and I was able to get back up and running with little relative ease. But when it comes to backup I tend to be pretty anal about it. I don't want to lose someone's wedding photos a day after taking them, so I back up the original files in multiple ways. Part of that backup process now involves immediately uploading the raw files to my Amazon cloud storage. If my house burns down or someone breaks in and steals my gear, I at least know that those files are safely stored off site, along with all of my other data.

Peace of mind. $60 a year seems like a small fee for that.

Amazon Cloud Drive

A Better Lightroom Workflow

I recently stumbled across a better and quicker workflow in Adobe Lightroom, at least for me. First a little background and some context. I typically shoot events and weddings with two cameras. One camera (Nikon d700) will usually have a 24-70 lens. The other camera (Nikon d800) will trade off with a 70-200 and a 14-24 lens. After an event I will transfer all the images to an event specific folder on my primary hard drive. I will then use a batch renaming program that will give filenames specific to that event, plus put the images in the order that they were taken (important to have both camera's clocks calibrated). I would then import the images into Lightroom.

Let me stop here and acknowledge that there are ways to import directly into Lightroom and do the file renaming while in Lightroom, but I prefer to do it the way I described above. I am not sure there is any real difference in the time it takes to do it either way, so I have stuck with the process that makes most sense to me.

At this point I go through and do "quick" edits on all the images in Lightroom. In the past I would work on each image in the order that they were taken. I found though that what was slowing me down was bouncing around between images taken with different cameras and lenses. So I started to experiment with filtering the images in Library mode to separate the images based on what lens (and camera) was used. This grouped just the photos taken with let's say the 14-24 lens. When it came to  applying the previous edits to the next photo, I was in a flow with just those images taken with the 14-24, providing more consistently between photos and less time editing.

With my previous workflow, bouncing back and forth between the 24-70 and the 70-200 images disrupted that consistency. In the same scene of a photo shoot, edits I made on an image using the 24-70 were different than ones using the 70-200, especially if I used a radial or graduated filter. I found myself searching backwards for a previous image taken with that lens that I could apply to the image currently before me. By filtering the library of images to just work on those taken with a specific lens, I was able to noticeably reduce my workflow time, and with less headaches.

Of course this workflow only applies if you are using more than one lens when photographing an event.

High ISO Low Light Photography

One of the biggest advancements in digital photography over the past 3-4 years has been the ability to shoot without flash in low light conditions. If you are new to photography and are mostly playing around with your aperture and shutter settings, that is great, but don't forget about the ISO settings. ISO refers to light sensitivity. The higher the number you set you ISO, effectively the more light the sensor can pick up. 8-10 years ago the best you could get away with was a setting of 1600 ISO. At that point and beyond, if available, images would start to break down with noise. Even 800 ISO was pushing it back then. Today those numbers are at 6400, and even 12,800; and on some cameras the number goes up beyond 100,000. In layman terms, this means that it can be dusk outside, or low light inside, and you can still get a decent hand held shot. But despite the great improvements with ISO and sensors, you still need to be careful with how you take high ISO images. Noise is still an issue, especially if you do not expose correctly. So below I offer some advice on high ISO images.

1. Regardless of your situation, just because you have high ISO capability on your camera, you should always lean toward the lowest ISO possible to still get the image. Lower ISO gives you better color and less noise, higher ISO gives you less color and more noise. So don't crank up your ISO just because your camera has it. Always default first to maximizing your aperture and shutter speeds to get the most light, then use the ISO to give you more latitude if you need it.

2. Proper exposure is imperative. If anything, you should compensate a bit toward over exposing your image. If you underexpose your image and then try to correct it in your favorite image editing software, you will end up with quite a lot of noise. Over exposing of course risks blowing out highlights, so you have to be careful there too, but I would rather error on that side than with underexposing the image.

3. Take multiple images at different exposures so you have choices afterwards.

4. Shoot raw, if your camera has it. Raw files give you a lot more latitude in correcting your images.

5. Use noise reduction software. Even though noise is not as bad as it used to be at lower ISO, it is still a problem as you reach your camera's ISO limitations. Noise reduction software can do a pretty good job of reducing that noise. You have to be careful with this software though because it can soften an image.

The image here was taken at 6400 in a very low lit church. I added some noise reduction to it. This shot would have been much harder to obtain 10 years ago, and even harder back in the film days when ISO film pretty much only went up to 1600. Click to enlarge.

Shooting In The Dark

This photo is by no means a great photo. It has its problems. I'm posting it here though because when you consider the conditions that it was taken, it is pretty impressive. It was dark. How dark? I was standing maybe 120 feet away, and while I could see the outline of the boat, I could not see the couple or anyone else on the boat. Those two big lights in the back were not all that bright. Between the darkness, distance and engine noise, the couple could not hear me or see me. To me it is pretty amazing that in near pitch darkness an image like this could be captured. Exposure details:  iso of 6400, f-stop of 2.8, 1/15 shutter speed hand held.

Trip Out West and WPPI

I just returned from a two week trip out to California and Las Vegas. The California side of the trip was spent with cousins in San Diego and L.A., and my brother in San Luis Obispo. The Las Vegas side was spent at the Wedding and Portrait Photographers International (WPPI) trade show. This was probably my 5th WPPI and I still seem to walk away with some new info on products and the business. I also seem to walk away a bit conflicted as well. Some of the best wedding photographers in the world are at the show talking about their work. It can be a bit intimidating because I realize there is still a lot of room for my photography to grow. That should motivate me, and it does; but it also frustrates me because I don't want to put myself in a position of trying to copy or imitate other photographers. So I am conflicted.

If asked whether I had any guidance for new photographers, I would offer this standard but true advice: stay true to yourself. Understand your style and how you like to shoot and capture images, and build on that. Perfect it. Make it your signature. That is what I should be practicing myself, rather than trying to recreate a style mastered by someone else. So much of photography, like so much of everything else in our lives, relies on confidence. Just like a pro athlete's performance can suffer when they are lacking confidence, I know my own photography suffers when I am losing confidence in my abilities. So yeah, I do have plenty of room to grow and expand my photography, and I want to continue to learn and experiment. But I also want to stay true to my own style. I know what I like and I know what I don't like. There are photos taken by some of these "rock star" photographers that are absolutely beautiful, and there are images that I really dislike. These photographers seem to see something wonderful in these images. I see cheese, or a weird stance, or blown out highlights. So why would I want to try and imitate their work if I don't like it?

I guess for any artist there is this conflict. We respect the work of other artists, and perhaps secretly wish we had their level of talent. At the same time we believe in our own work, proud of it in fact. I think the most successful artists, and probably the most respected ones, are those who have perfected their own style, and stayed true to it. In the end, that is what I want of myself.

A Better Finder Rename

One of my pet peeves with digital photography is the random filenames people use for their photos. Most people seem to do one of two things with their digital files: 1. they leave the filename as is from their camera (ie, dsc001), or 2. they rename the file with something like "Doug&Joanne_front_of_house". I guess for some people this all makes sense, but for me it does not. I like organization; and for me, with hundreds of thousands of photos on various hard drives, I need organization. I want my file names to make sense to me. So what do I do?

When I download images from my camera(s), the very first thing I do is batch rename all of the images. Now, I usually shoot with two cameras. That means at least two cards with photos taken trading off cameras throughout the day. When I bring all the images from all the cards onto my computer hard drive, I want to be able to organize all the photos by the time they were taken, and then rename all the files in a manner that makes sense to me for that particular photo shoot. Most people do not use two cameras, but those who do, here is the important step you need to take before shooting: be sure to sync the time clock between both cameras. You want to get them at least within maybe 3-4 seconds of each other. It does not matter if you are using two different kinds of cameras. Of course if you are shooting with only one camera, the time stamp does not matter, although I would strongly encourage you to set your camera time clock to the accurate time.

With all your images out of the camera and now on your hard drive, you want to be able to batch rename the files into a file name that makes sense. I use a very powerful program called A Better Finder Rename. To me it is the most intuitive program out there, with loads of options for all of your files, not just photos. Have 2000 images you want to change the file name . . piece of cake. Want to put all your images into chronological order AND rename them . . that is the whole idea of this program. So for something like a wedding, I will take the first initials of the bride and groom, add an underscore, then start the numbering with 0001. This will change my camera file name of "dsc6382", which means nothing to me, and changes it to "AB_0534". Or, as way of another example, photos taken on family vacation are changes from "_dsc3861" to "beach2011_0103". Like I mentioned before, there are loads of options: add text to the beginning of the file name, remove a couple digits in the middle, etc.

If you just have 3 or 4 files to rename, it is probably easier to do this manually; but if you have thousands or even hundreds to change, get A Better Finder Rename. There are other programs out there, some free, but this program is perfect at what it does. You can download a trial version that limits how many files you can batch rename, but it will give you a great experience with how well this program works.

Photography 101, Session 08

People all the time ask me for camera recommendations. It is usually a tough question to answer because there are so many variables involved: how you plan on using your camera, where you plan on using it, expectations on handling and results, how much you want to do with your photos after the capture. In this session I will try to  cover some of these key points you should consider before deciding on a camera.

There are basically two types of cameras: point and shoot, and d-slr. Point and shoot cameras are noticeably smaller, usually fitting inside your pocket. And typically they are one piece, possibly with a lens that opens and protrudes out. Point and shoot cameras are designed to be simple. Their electronics can be sophisticated, and they are capable of taking very nice images; but they are not particularly versatile, and they are slow. Take a picture, count to ten, then take another picture.  D-slr cameras, on the other hand, are designed for expansion and speed. Want to throw on a larger lens? No problem. Want to use an external flash or two? Go ahead. Want to take 10 photos in 10 seconds? Go ahead and take 20. But with these options comes size and bulk. So the question arises: what do you plan to do with your camera?

If you plan to use your camera mostly for travel, photographing sites, and you don't want to carry a load around with you . . get a point and shoot (or iphone 4). If you don't mind the extra weight, and you want more control and options for this once in a lifetime trip, then go with a d-slr. If you plan on photographing kids sports, particularly from the stands, then you will probably need something that can shoot longer and quicker, i.e., a d-slr. If you plan on photographing your family on the beach and just want some casual candids, then perhaps a point and shoot would be adequate.

So, are images coming from a point and shoot any different than images coming from a d-slr? Yes and no. Generally speaking, the sensor chips on point and shoot cameras are smaller than ones used on d-slr cameras. Smaller chips typically translates into more noise, but that can be greatly corrected by getting proper exposures during the capture. Also with point and shoot cameras, you don't have much control over depth of field. If you want to blur out the background for a portrait, there is nothing like using a long lens to narrow that depth of field. So taking the same photo with the two different styles of cameras will give you two different looks. When you  look at an image on your camera's screen, it can look great; but put that image on your computer and zoom in and you realize that it is out of focus, or the colors are not quite right, or there is a lot of digital noise in the image. Zooming in on a computer screen is where I can see the biggest differences between many point and shoot images and their d-slr counterparts. The d-slr ones just seem to hold up better. But for many people, they never look at their images close up. Their tolerance level is pretty high. They don't mind if it is slightly out of focus or if there is some noise in the image. So picture quality is not always the biggest concern for many people.

For those who like to play with their images after the capture, having the best quality to work with is very important. It is hard to rescue an image that is in bad shape to begin with. Your best bet for starting out with optimum quality is to use high res images captured with a d-slr. Even better is to start with a raw image, as discussed in Photography 101, session 07. Generally speaking, raw images are only possible in d-slr cameras (there are exceptions to this).

So what do I recommend? For point and shoot, you have two options: the very basic vs. ones that have a d-slr look and feel, but still basically function like a point and shoot. As of January 2011, for the basic, I have heard some great things about he Canon s95. If you want a point and shoot with more options, look at the Canon g12. I have the Canon g9 and it does very well (and it shoots raw images). For d-slr, I would say get the most you can afford. The Canon Rebel line have gotten great revues, and the Nikon D7000 likewise has been well received. I use the Nikon D700 and have been very happy with it. Within the major lines (like Canon and Nikon), they have consumer level cameras and then their pro line. As expected, the consumer line will produce better quality images than point and shoot cameras, but not necessarily as good as the pro line. Again, this is largely due to the kind of sensor chip used. Oftentimes though, what separates the consumer line from the pro line, beyond a few more bells and whistles, is the material used in construction of the body. The pro line is built to hold up longer and under more strenuous conditions.

Of course with d-slr cameras, it is not just the camera body. You have lenses and flash units to purchase as well, and particularly with lenses, they can be expensive. I will say that glass is important, so you want to buy the best lens that you can afford.

Bottom line: you need to decide what you will use your camera for before deciding on which camera to buy. I bought the Canon g9 several years ago so I would have something that I could carry with me on trips or take down to the beach without worrying about carrying it around or being exposed to the elements. For that purpose it works very well. There are times when I have both cameras (using the g9's great video mode while shooting stills with my Nikon D700). I'll shoot some stills with the g9 just to compare them with the D700. There is no comparison. Of course you are comparing a $500 camera with a $2700 camera with a $1500 lens on it, so sure, there better be a difference. But I don't want to always carry around the big stuff, so having the g9 fills the bill well in those situations. I would never photograph a wedding with it though.

You Have To Love Digital

This may only be of interest to my photo enthusiast friends, but you have to love what digital can do. This image was taken at this past Saturday's wedding. It is a nice photo, but what you need to appreciate is that the lighting was really poor when this was taken. It was late afternoon and there was a pretty heavy overcast. In film days I would have said "forget about it". Even Saturday I was lamenting the poor quality of light. I cranked up the ISO to 3200 and just hoped all would be well. I knew my camera (Nikon d700) was capable of good clean photos at 6400 ISO, but still get nervous with it, especially when photographing people. Anyhow, I'm impressed with how well this photo held up under the conditions. You would think this was taken under much better lighting conditions than what was really the case. No flash used. Digital rocks.

Dropbox - Use It

I've been using Dropbox for about a year and a half now. It is one of those computer add ons that just works, and what it does is great. If you are not familiar with Dropbox, it is basically an online backup tool, but it is much more than that. On the free side, you start out with 2 gb of online storage space. With referrals you can increase that up to 8 gb. If you need more space, they offer more storage for a fee.

So how does Dropbox work? When you open an account with Dropbox and download the application, a Dropbox folder is placed on your hard drive. Any folders or files that you place in that folder will automatically upload to your Dropbox storage space, assuming you are online (if not online, it will automatically upload when you do go online). So now you have that file in two places, on your hard drive and also off site in your Dropbox online space. If something happens to your hard drive, no worry, those Dropbox files are safely stored off site. It is all seamless. You do not need to do a thing. If you are away from your computer, but have access to another, you can access those files by logging on to your Dropbox account.

Now the good part. Let's say you have a second computer. On that computer you would log in to Dropbox and download Dropbox, which creates a Dropbox folder on that hard drive. Now whatever files/folders that were in your online storage will automatically download to that Dropbox folder on that second computer. In other words, whatever you do on one computer will automatically sync with the other computer (again, assuming they are all online). Every time you open a file to do some work, and then save that file, that updated file will upload to your online account. If your second computer is on and open (or the next time it is on and opened), that file will automatically download and replace the older one on the second computer. If this sounds confusing or too cool to be possible, just try it.

Now some more good stuff. Dropbox gives you the option to put files in your private space, or in a public space. With public spaces, your file is given a url address. If you have a large file, let's say a 50 mb movie file, that you want to share with someone, or have them download; put it in your public space, get the url address, and send that link to someone via email. In other words, Dropbox works great for sharing files too large to email. Or if you have a folder of images, you can put that in your private space and then invite someone to share that folder. Dropbox becomes an easy way for sharing files and folders.

There are other ways that I use Dropbox, but the basics cover a lot of ground and make Dropbox well worth using. I have not found one thing to dislike about the program. So give it a try. If you do sign up, please use my email (bobupdegrove@verizon.net) as a referral so I can get some extra space.

Photography 101: Session 07

One of the great things about digital photography is the Menu on your camera. Most point and shoot photographers don't want to mess with details. They just want to point and shoot. So the menu is more of a menace than a help. But inside the menu is a host of settings and preferences that can enhance your photo shooting experience. I'll try to cover some of more important items that you should pay attention to within your camera's menu, starting today with Image Quality. Your camera manufacturer might have a different name for this, but basically it is where you choose the compression level of jpg: usually something like Fine, Normal, and Basic; as well as whether you want to shoot jpg vs raw.

Most people have a familiarity with jpg files. Jpg is what we usually use for getting prints, posting photos online, or emailing to each other. A jpg file is a compressed file. In other words, you take a photo with your camera, your camera takes all the information associated with that image: the exposure, white balance, sharpness settings, saturations settings, etc; and then the camera's built in computer interprets that information, determining which information should be saved and which should be discarded. In the end you have a processed image. Now depending on what setting you had for image quality, your final image will either be lightly compressed (Fine) to heavily compressed (Basic). The primary difference between these settings is the physical size of the file. Depending on your camera, a Fine image file might be 3-5 mb in size, while a Basic might just be around 250-500 kb in size. These settings came in handy when memory cards were only 250 mb in size; but today with cards of 8-32 gb in size, there is no excuse for shooting anything less than Fine.

The "Fine" setting retains the most information your camera can give you with a jpg file. The more information you have (the less compression) translates into an image that you can than print larger. If you plan on bringing the image into Photoshop or some other image program to play with, you definitely want to use an image with the highest resolution, that being a Fine quality file. I always recommend that people set their image quality to the highest resolution possible. You can always resize an image downward if you need to, but if you shoot with the image quality of Basic, you end up with an image that has been severely compressed and degraded right out of the camera. There is very little you can do with this kind of image, other than email it or look at it on your iphone. If your photos ultimately don't mean anything to you, then set it at whatever image quality you want. But if you are shooting images with the intent to save and archive and possibly do something with them, then by all means shoot at the Fine image quality.

Now all the previous info had to do with jpg files. On most serious cameras you will also have the option to shoot a Raw file. A raw file is a data file. In a sense all images start as a raw file. When you have your camera set for jpg, you are telling your camera to take all the information, interpret it on its own, then spit out a compressed jpg file. With a raw file, you are asking the camera to just save all the captured data and not to process it. With a raw file you will end up with a great deal more information. In fact a raw file will end up being several times larger than a fine jpg file. Personally I like having all that information. If I am going to spend time composing important shots, I don't want to randomly lose important information from each image. Raw files not only keep all the information, but it keeps that information separate. A jpg file, when it gets compressed, basically mixes the exposure information with the white balance information and all the other information. So when you open the image in Photoshop to tweak it,  when you change the exposure, you are also affecting the white balance. With raw, when you change the exposure, that is all you are affecting.

So what do you do with a raw file, and why would I want to shoot raw files over jpg? I guess I should first of all say that there are many professional photographers who shoot only jpg, and they are fine with that, and that is fine with me. It seems though that there are more and more photographers who are shooting raw files. I think beyond having more information to work with, the main reasons people shoot raw is because it gives them more control in the processing decisions of an image, and they feel they can sort through and edit images quicker with a raw software program than they can with jpg files. Of course if your idea of shooting again is simply point and shoot, you probably don't want to mess with your photos after they have been captured. So jpg would make more sense. But if you want more control and plan on going through your images to edit anyway, then raw might make more sense.

There are several raw software programs on the market today. Probably the most widely used are either Adobe Camera Raw (found in Photoshop), Adobe Photoshop Lightroom or Apple Aperture. Adobe Camera Raw and Adobe Lightroom are essentially the same engine. Lightroom is specifically geared for photographers, is raw specific, and is not just a raw processor but also good for managing your images, composing slideshows, and printing. Aperture likewise is a full featured program. I personally use Lightroom. I find it the more intuitive program, with more flexibility to fine tune your images. There are plenty of places online where you can learn more about these programs. You can also download a 30 day demo to try it out.

I am a big fan of raw files. Raw processing has been the focus for many photographers today. Some are able to do all their image work within a raw program and never need to open it up in Photoshop. If your camera has the ability to save your image files as raw, give it a try. Most higher end cameras give you the ability to save your images as both raw and some form of jpg, so you can have both worlds. Don't be afraid of raw. Give it a try.

Photography 101: Session 06

I feel like I am constantly learning information that is new to me when it comes to photography. That is to be expected because, for one thing, I have never taken a photography course, so all of my photography knowledge has come from trial and error and reading. But I am also learning new things because modern cameras are able to do things today that they were not able to do years ago. Sure, the basics are all still there: shutter speeds, f-stops, exposure; but today's cameras are essentially very sophisticated dedicated computers. What they can capture, how they can capture it, and how you can pull and craft the image after capture is just amazing. So I am constantly learning how to best make all of that happen with my camera, and with my flash.

As I mentioned in Session 05, flash photography is probably one of the most frustrating aspects for photographers, and that includes me. Inconsistent and unsatisfactory results are my two biggest problems. Much of the reason for these problems is that locations and conditions change. What worked in one area of the room may not work in another area that is just 15 feet away. Or what I am shooting in one area may be different than what I am shooting 15 feet away. So it is difficult to give tips for shooting flash that will work in all circumstances. Below I will offer some techniques that I use when shooting flash. I would encourage you to try these out, shooting multiple times with different settings and flash position, all in an effort to see what works and what doesn't.

If you have not read Session 05 yet, or it has been awhile, I would encourage you to read it now and then come back to this. For now, I would recommend staying in TTL mode with your flash. If you only have a pop up or built in flash, you will be limited in what you can shoot with that flash, and might consider getting a good external flash. Some pop up flash units do have some flexibility in them. You can't move them, but you might be able to adjust how much flash power is coming out of the flash. Check your camera manual for more info on that. If you are limited to a pop up or built in flash, you will need to be no further than maybe 12-15 feet from your subject for that flash to have any affect. And because the flash is so close to the camera, you have a greater chance for redeye. Bottom line, don't expect super results from a pop up flash. I find them helpful for outdoor photography though when you need a bit of fill in flash (more on that in a later post). The tips below are geared for external flash units.

Probably the least flattering light you can use comes from placing the external flash on the camera and pointing the flash head straight toward your subject, so you want to find ways to provide additional light to the subject without pointing the flash directly toward the subject from the camera. One way to do that is to use a flash bracket. A bracket will elevate your flash a short distance above the camera. This separation gives a better result than having the flash directly on the camera, simply by putting the light on a different plane than the camera. But there are two problems with using a bracket: 1) they are cumbersome to carry around, and 2) they can still produce a shadow, depending on how far your subject is to a wall or other object behind them. I used to use a bracket all the time when shooting film. I just don't see the need for most cases anymore.

Probably the best way to modify your flash is to bounce it. There are basically two ways to bounce a flash that is attached to the flash shoe on your camera: 1) using some kind of flash modifier, or 2) aiming the flash toward a wall, ceiling, or some other kind of object. A flash modifier is a piece of equipment that attaches to your flash head. It could be as simple as a piece of paper, or a translucent molded plastic, or some kind of fabric. If you are not using a plastic "dome" of some kind, you usually want to use something that is white. Some people will use a white card, attached to the flash with a rubber band. The flash is pointed up toward the ceiling, with the card on one side of the flash (away from your subject). When the flash goes off, the light bounces off the ceiling and then back down toward your subject. Some of that light is also bounced off the white card and toward the subject. That is basically the whole concept of bounced flash: the light from the flash is bounced off a larger area and then back toward the subject, wrapping the subject with a softer light.

If I am in a room with a low white ceiling, I will usually bounce the flash toward the ceiling. If I am close to a white wall I might choose to bounce the flash off of that wall. Sometimes I might be in a room with pillars in the room, so I will stand near that pillar and try to bounce the flash off of it. If I am in a room with high ceilings or a dark ceiling, I will rely on some kind of modifier on the flash, usually a small plastic modifier.

Keep this in mind, anytime you use a modifier or bounce your flash you are diffusing the light; or in other words, you are throwing less light onto your subject. With TTL your camera and flash will try to throw out more light in order to illuminate your subject. This will potentially drain your flash batteries quicker or take longer for the batteries to bounce back between images. Or you might need to play around with your shutter speed and f-stop in order to pull in more ambient light so the flash is not carrying the full load. Or you can adjust the flash exposure compensation (see flash manual).

The whole point of this tutorial is not to give a full blown instruction manual on flash photography. My main objective to get you thinking about how to use your camera and your flash in ways that you maybe have not tried before. Most people throw a flash on their camera, point it straight ahead, and go at it. Others point their flash in all kinds of directions because they see other people doing it, but they have no idea where or why they are pointing the flash in that direction. To me it is amazing how much light gets transmitted toward the subject when you bounce the flash correctly. The best thing you can do is think it through, visualizing how the light will behave if you point it in one direction versus another direction.

I would recommend googling "flash modifiers" and looking through some of the other articles and products that are out there. One word of caution: I have a bag full of modifiers that I have bought over the years, thinking each one was THE one. In the end I end up not using any of them all that often, usually going back to the plastic dome that came with my flash (Nikon sb900). Generally speaking though, I like the Lumiquest products.

Photography 101: Session 05

Flash Photography

(Macworld must be reading my mind. This session is dealing with flash photography, and right in time Macworld online posted an article dealing with the same subject. I would encourage you to read it, but I will go over some of the things they mention in my own article below.)

Probably nothing is more confusing and frustrating for photographers, even the most seasoned ones, than flash photography. When to use it, how to use it, how to make it look natural, how to get the most out of your flash . . these are the things that fill volumes of books and pack expensive seminars and workshops. All of that to say that if you are looking for quick easy ways to master flash photography, that just won't happen. You have to experiment over and over again, in different environments and conditions, mindful of what you are doing each time. There is a big gap between reading and watching how to do it versus actually going out and putting it into practice. Nothing beats practice and just playing around. The nice thing with digital and on camera monitors is that you can instantly see what is happening with each shot, making adjustments as you go. So practice. I will give you a few hints below, some which are also covered in the Macworld article I mentioned above. But you will have to go out in the field and practice using some of these techniques in order to see for yourself what works and what doesn't.

First of all, when it comes to using flash indoors, I always shoot with the camera in manual mode (as opposed to aperture or shutter priority, or auto. Manual mode gives you much more control over the shutter and the aperture. Typically I will set the aperture somewhere between the largest aperture (2.8 on most of my lenses). I want the most light possible to come through the lens. Usually the smallest aperture I will use is 5.6. I'll opt for 5.6 over the 2.8 when I am shooting group shots or if I have the ISO cranked up.

Secondly, in most cases you will want your flash to be set to "ttl" or "i-ttl". TTL stands for "through the lens". Basically your camera is determining the proper exposure based on the light coming through the lens. This includes the light coming from the flash. With TTL, your camera will moderate how much light is being emitted from the flash. Generally speaking, TTL is pretty accurate, so in most cases that is what you want to use. There are occasions where it is best to set flash to manual for more control, but for introductory purposes, leave it at TTL.

Shutter speed is where you can really change the affect of flash photography. I will typically shoot with my shutter speed set at around 60 or 90 for my longer lenses, and at about 30 or 60 with my wider angle lenses. The slower your shutter speed, the more ambient light you are allowing to affect the image; but the slower the shutter speed, the more blur you will get in your image. With flash however, you can freeze movement within that blur. Without getting too technical, the light coming from your flash unit comes with a burst that lasts something like 1/100,000 of a second. That is a lot quicker than your shutter speed of let's say 1/15 of a second. So at 1/15 of a second, your image is pulling in ambient light (and possibly blur, depending on how much movement there is), but the flash will take place during only a fraction of that 1/15 time, freezing whatever movement was taking place in that 1/100,000 timeframe.

I know this might sound confusing, which is why you need to experiment for yourself to see how just changing your shutter speed will affect your flash images. Just keep this in mind: the slower your shutter speed, the more ambient light is being used. You know how your flash images can look really dark in the background, while everything close to you is brightly lit. If you shoot with a fast shutter speed, you are relying on your flash to completely light the scene. Your flash will only light so much. By using a slower shutter speed, you are letting more ambient light affect the scene, so your background will start to show up, not because it is being lit by the flash, but because of the ambient light.

So set your camera to manual mode, set your aperture to something like f4 or f5.6, then play with your shutter speed between 1/125 all the way down to maybe 1/10 of a second. Try it with subjects that are fairly stationary versus subjects that are moving. Maybe experiment as well with your ISO as well. Try it at 200, then 400, then 800, then at 1600.

On more setting your camera might have (see you camera manual for this) for flash photography is something called "rear curtain". By default your camera is usually set with this turned off. When off, when you shoot with flash, the flash goes off at the beginning of the exposure. That 1/100,000 flash will happen during the first part of the 1/60 of a second exposure, freezing any movement before the movement takes place. With rear curtain, the flash is emitted at the end of the exposure, or at the end of the movement. For most images, this is a more natural looking effect. I keep my setting at rear curtain all the time.

Next session will go over some techniques that will help give you more natural flash lighting.

Photography 101: Session 04

Before I go any further, I mentioned depth of field a couple times in previous sessions. Depth of field is another function of aperture, as well as the focal length of your lens. Macworld recently posted an excellent article that describes depth of field in a much better way than I ever could. I would highly recommend taking the time to read through it if you are interested in learning more about this important tool.

So before we leave the subject of exposure, which has been our subject for the first three sessions, we need to go over one more exposure function in your camera. By now you should know that your camera has a built in exposure meter. This meter will analyze the lighting within the scene as you point your camera toward your subject. Based on that light, your camera will determine what it believes to be the proper exposure (if you have it set to one of the auto exposure modes). It will also tell you in manual mode, but you have to manually make the aperture and shutter speed selections. But depending on your subject, the auto exposure can be fooled. There are ways to control how your exposure meter is reading the light.

Your camera might give you up to three different ways to meter a scene: 1) multi-segment, 2) center weighted, and 3) spot metering. Multi segment usually divides up your meter into 5 or 7 sections. When you point your camera toward your scene, the camera is actually making calculations based on the lighting it reads in each of those 5 or 7 sections, and then averages them out into a proper exposure. This, in most cases, is what I would recommend you set your meter to. It is probably the safest setting. Center weighted takes the exposure reading based on what is in the center circle of the viewfinder. Let's say you have a person in the shadows with brightness all around them. Since the person is the important part of the image, you might want to use center weighted metering, point your camera with the person in the center, and take your exposure based on the light that is falling just on that person. Your meter is ignoring all the other light in the scene. In this situation the person would then be more properly exposed, but all the bright area will get blown out. The third metering method, spot metering, refines the metering even further. The metering is based on a smaller "spot" in your viewfinder. If you wanted to meter the light falling right around a person's eyes, you could use spot metering to get your meter reading from that small of an area (depending on how close you are and what lens you are using), getting a more precise reading.

I shoot mostly in multi-segment metering, largely because I am always afraid that if I change it to spot I might forget to turn it back, potentially giving me exposure readings that I don't want. As I say this though, I keep thinking I don't utilize these other metering options as much as I should.

One more consideration that fits this discussion: most d-slr cameras have a button near the trigger button that allows you to lock in an exposure. If you are using spot metering or maybe even center-weighted, and the area you want to meter is not in the center of your viewfinder, you might want to point your camera so that the area you want to meter has the spot on it, and while you are taking your reading (by holding down the trigger button half way), you hold down this exposure lock button. That keeps your metered exposure reading locked in while you recompose your scene. You need to keep that button pressed while you shoot your image.

Next session will get into something different: indoor photography and flash.

Photography 101: Session 03

Summarizing Aperture Priority, you set the aperture you want and the camera will automatically determine the proper shutter speed for what the camera believes is the proper exposure. If you select the largest aperture your lens offers, you are optimizing your shutter speed relative to the available light. You are allowing the most light to come through the lens, which in turn means less light has to come in through the shutter, resulting in a faster shutter speed. In most cases that is what you want when shooting outdoors. Keep in mind that Program (Auto), Aperture and Shutter Priority modes are all auto exposure modes. If I go out on a fairly bright day and shoot in Program mode, that mode might automatically set my aperture to f8 and shutter to 1/500, and that might be fine for what I am shooting. But what if I want or need a faster shutter speed? Personally I would change my mode over to Aperture and set the aperture to the fastest (most open) I can get it, which for most consumer lenses would be either f4 (2 stop difference) or f5.6 (1 stop difference). That will automatically change my shutter speed to the fastest I can get under the circumstances, or in this case, either 1/2000 at f4, or 1/1000 at f5.6. I personally almost always shoot in Aperture Priority and leave my aperture wide open. So, what about Shutter Priority?

Shutter Priority: Shutter Priority behaves just like Aperture Priority, only now the shutter speed is being set by the user and the camera determines the aperture. Now let me say right up front that I cannot think of a time in my life when I shot in Shutter Priority. I have yet to come up with a need to do so, and my guess is you will not have a reason either; so I am not going to spend much time on it. The only reason I can come up with for why someone would want to shoot in Shutter Priority is if they wanted to shoot a series of images at the exact same shutter speed. Not sure why though. My feeling is if you want to control the shutter speed, do it within Aperture Priority. It will basically give you the same results. Remember, these are both auto-exposure modes, so the resulting exposure will be the same. In Aperture Priority, if you wanted to dial in a specific shutter speed, just adjust your aperture until you get that shutter speed reading. I have found that to be just as quick and easy to do than setting it over to the Shutter Priority mode. My advice: don't worry about this mode.

So that brings us to one last exposure mode: Manual.

Manual Mode:  When you point your camera toward what you are about to photograph, your camera's exposure meter will analyze the scene and determine what it believes to be the proper exposure. In most cases it will be pretty accurate. There are times however when your camera meter will be fooled. Usually it will happen in bright situations, like on the beach or in the snow, or when it reads the sun reflecting off of a window. The camera will read this as way more light than what is really there and will tell the shutter to close down quicker than it should, resulting in not enough light exposing the image. You end up with a dark image.

Let's say you are on the beach and it is really bright out. Now let's say that the proper exposure for these particular conditions would be f5.6 at 1/1000 of a second shutter speed. At the moment we don't know these numbers because we have no way of measuring them up front. We point our camera towards the water and white sand and the camera interprets the exposure as f5.6 at 1/2000 or maybe even 1/4000. In other words it believes there is a lot more light than there really is, so it is not letting as much light in through the shutter as the scene actually requires. The result will be a dark, underexposed image. This is often why snow looks dark blue or our beach pictures look overly contrasty. Not enough light was making it through the shutter to properly expose it. Since the camera is giving us a reading of let's say 1/2000, we need the shutter to stay open a bit longer. So let's try 1/1000. Now, if you bounce around between Program, Aperture or Shutter Priority modes, you will get the same exposure because they are all auto modes. So if you are in one of these modes and you go to set your shutter to 1/1000, you will unintentionally also be changing your aperture to f8. Effectively, nothing has changed in regards to your exposure. To gain control over your exposure settings, you have two options: 1) manual mode, or 2) exposure compensation dial.

If you set your exposure mode to Manual, you will have to set both your aperture and your shutter speed manually. If you know from looking at the monitor on the camera that the settings f5.6 and 1/2000 were too dark, you could then manually set it to f5.6 and 1/1000 and see what happens. For good measure you could even take another shot at f5.6 and 1/500.

Exposure Compensation (EC): Many cameras have some kind of exposure compensation dial. I use mine quite a bit. This dial allows you to stay in Aperture Priority and override what the camera is picking as the shutter speed. Oftentimes I will shoot in a situation where I know the camera is not reading the exposure correctly. It can be off by a full stop, either overexposing or underexposing the image. The EC dial lets me very quickly dial in a compensation for that, either up or down. If the camera is telling me to shoot it at 1/1000 but I want it to fire at 1/500, rather than switching over to Manual mode and dialing in everything manually, I can just turn this dial, basically fooling the camera to accept a 1/500 shutter speed.

I realize that all of this sounds like work, and if it is new to you it probably also sounds confusing. The best thing you can do is hold your camera, read through this and play with the settings. See how the different settings affect your exposure, or not. It's one of those things that the more you use it, the more natural it all feels. And you gain control over your camera, especially in difficult situations. I could tell you up front what to set your camera at in various locations, but that information might not entirely accurate, and you wouldn't understand why. Hopefully this will help.

Coming up next will be a wrap up of exposure, including the different ways your exposure meter works; followed by indoor photography with flash.

Photography 101: Session 02

A recap of Session 01: You want a photo that is properly exposed. To get that, many people set their camera to "program" (or "auto") mode. This lets the camera determine what the proper exposure should be, given what you are pointing your camera towards. The camera is automatically setting two things: aperture and shutter speed. In program mode the camera makes those choices for you, which in many cases might be fine. If you are happy with your photos in this setting, there might not be a reason for you to change it. But if you want to take a bit more control over your camera, understanding how controlling aperture and shutter speed will impact your images, you will be able to experiment with greater flexibility and get much more out of your camera. You can do this by simply using one of the other exposure modes your camera hopefully has: aperture priority, shutter priority, or manual. For more information on that, please refer to Session 01. So when and how should you use these other exposure modes?

Aperture Priority: As I mentioned in Session 01, I use Aperture Priority just about all the time when shooting outdoors. Aperture is controlling how much light is coming through the lens. The more light you have coming through the lens, the less light you need to come through the shutter on your camera. This of course is all relative to how much light is available, but the dynamics don't change . . more light through the lens = less light needed through the shutter. You control that light coming through the lens by opening and closing the aperture. I prefer to just keep my aperture as wide open as possible in most situations, so I set my aperture to 2.8. In Aperture Priority, once I set my aperture to what I want (usually 2.8 with my lenses), the camera will now determine the shutter speed for me to get the proper exposure. Because I am letting in the most light possible through the lens, I should be getting the faster shutter speed possible. A faster shutter speed lets less light in through the shutter than a slower shutter speed.

So why do I shoot in Aperture Priority? The main reason is that it optimizes my shutter speed. As long as I have my aperture wide open, I can relax a bit knowing that I am shooting at fast shutter speeds. In most cases a fast shutter speed is a good thing. If people are blinking or moving, a faster shutter speed gives me a better chance of getting a good photo. If I am having a difficult time holding my camera still, a faster speed will help counteract that. This is all especially true when the light is not that strong. If your aperture is not open all the way, you are working against yourself by not optimizing your settings.

Let's say you are outdoors and it is early evening. The sun is setting. Your camera is set in Aperture Priority with an aperture of 8.0 and you are getting a shutter speed reading of 1/30 of a second. That might work for you, but there is a chance that at that shutter speed, you might not be able to hold your camera still, resulting in blur. So now that you have control over your camera, change your aperture from 8.0 to 5.6 to 4.0. That is two stops. Remember those are fractions, 1/4 is a larger number than 1/8, or in other words, you are opening the aperture up, allowing more light to come through the lens. To compensate for that additional light, your shutter speed will need to change: from 1/30 of a second up to 1/60 and up to 1/125. Those are two stops to compensate for the two stops change you just made with your aperture. Because you are in Aperture Priority, as you change your aperture the camera will automatically adjust your shutter speed. Under these conditions you will have better chances of a good photo at 1/125 shutter speed than you would have at 1/30 of a second.

Let's say that 1/125 is still too slow for you considering what you are trying to photograph. Now what? Well your one last option (besides adding a flash) is to up your ISO. Let's say your ISO was set at 200. If you change that to 400 (or one stop), your camera will now adjust your shutter speed up to 1/250 of a second (a one stop change). Raise you ISO up to 800 and you gain another stop, or 1/500 of a second. You have to be careful though, because with each raise in ISO you are possibly introducing more digital noise to your image. Given the choice of a blurry bad image vs. a good one with some noise, I would opt for the noise. Sometimes that can be fixed with software after the fact.

Aperture also affects the depth of field in an image. I won't get into this much here except to say that this is largely affected by the focal length of your lens. Longer focal lengths coupled with a wide open aperture is how you achieve portrait images with a blurred out background. Wide angle lenses will give you a more even focus of foreground and background, good for group photos and landscapes.

Next session will pick up on Aperture Priority and then go into Shutter Priority. Please feel free to post comments or questions.

Photography 101: Session 01

Casual photographers usually put their cameras on "auto" or "program", relying on the camera to do the heavy lifting. Many times this is okay, but not always. Sometimes you will get better images when you take control over your camera. I find this mostly when it comes to indoor photography, especially when using flash. I thought I would offer a short tutorial here to help people understand some of the basics of the camera. Knowing the basics will help you a lot when it comes to taking control of your camera.

Most decent point and shoot and d-slr cameras give you a choice of shooting modes. The basic modes (the ones you want to learn) are aperture priority, shutter priority, program (or auto), and manual. Some cameras have additional modes, or scenes, that you can use, but I would recommend just learning and using the basic modes. So what are these modes, and when would you use them?

First of all, a few items you need to keep in mind. The main objective is to achieve the proper exposure. There are a number of ways to achieve the number "1". You can add 1/10 + 9/10, or you can add 3/10 + 7/10, or 5/10 + 5/10. If "1" represents your proper exposure, you need to juggle between the right combination of aperture and shutter speed to achieve that proper exposure. Aperture (aka f-stop) runs with numbers like 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, 11, 16; whereas shutter speed numbers run like 2/4/8/15/30/60/125/250/500, etc. Going from one number to the next is considered a "stop". Moving one stop in shutter speed has the same affect in terms of light as one stop in aperture. So using my number "1" analogy, if I change 1/10 to 3/10, then I have change my second number from 9/10 down to 7/10 in order to add up to "1". One more important thing here: the aperture and shutter speed numbers are fractions. You need to put a "1" above the number, so you have a shutter speed of 1/2 a second, or a shutter speed of 1/500 of a second. With apertures, 1/4 is a bigger number than 1/16.

Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority and Program modes are all auto-exposure modes. The camera is determining the proper exposure. All three of these modes should be giving you the same exposure. What varies between them is the combination of numbers.

Aperture Priority: Aperture deal with the lens. It controls the amount of light that comes through the lens. If it is bright out, you might want to reduce the amount of light coming through the lens by closing the aperture (setting it to one of the higher numbers). If it is dark, you would want to do the opposite. Apertures also control your depth of field, or in other words, how much of what you are shooting stays in focus. This also has a lot to do with the kind of lens you are using. In most cases it is best to open your aperture up as wide as possible, letting in as much light as possible through the lens. This allows you to shoot your image with a faster shutter speed. With Aperture Priority, you are setting the aperture where you want it, and then letting the camera determine the shutter speed.

Shutter Speed: Shutter speed deals with the camera. It controls how much light comes through the camera. A slower shutter speed allows more light to hit your sensor, but think about it, as long as the shutter is open, the camera is recording information. So if someone is moving, you will capture all the movement, which means blur. To eliminate blur you want to shoot at a high shutter speed. A higher shutter speed means that less light in coming through the shutter, so you very well may need to bolster the amount of light coming in through the lens by opening up the aperture. Remember, these two work together, and your ultimate goal is a proper exposure. Shutter Priority allows you to set the shutter speed you want, then the camera sets the aperture automatically.

Program Mode: Program mode basically lets the camera determine both the aperture and the shutter speed. Usually it tries to optimize both, which can be fine, especially when you are outside. But oftentimes you can optimize the aperture and/or shutter speed much better by using the shutter or aperture priorities modes. I personally use Aperture Priority almost all the time when shooting outdoor. I like opening up my aperture to the max, not only so I can blur out the background with my longer lens, but because it will give me the fastest shutter speed, which is usually what I want.

Manual Mode: Manual mode lets you set both the aperture and the shutter speed manually. This can be handy in difficult lighting situations when it appears that the in camera exposure meter might get fooled by the lighting, thereby giving you a wrong exposure. Manual mode also comes in handy when shooting indoor with flash. I shoot everything indoor in manual mode. More about that in another posting to come.

One more thing to keep in mind: there is a third element involved in affecting your exposure . . the iso setting. ISO is light sensitivity. Lower numbers like 100 or 200 means less sensitive to light than the higher numbers. In digital terms, higher iso numbers can result in more noise in your images, so you generally want to use lower iso numbers for cleaner images. One of the biggest breakthroughs in digital though is the advancement in iso quality. It used to be that shooting at 400 iso brought noise. Now, in the higher end cameras, you can easily shoot at 3200 or 6400 with minimal noise. Those higher numbers mean shooting in even lower light. ISO numbers jump in "stops" just like aperture and shutter speed, so raising the ISO means being able to compensate with higher shutter speeds.

Lots of info here that might be new to you. Read through it a couple times, maybe with your camera in hand. Some lower end point and shoot cameras don't have any of these settings on them, so you are stuck. A good reason to spend a few dollars more on a camera that has these settings.

Digital Photo Tip: Renaming Files

If you take a lot of digital photos, you probably are familiar with seeing file names that start with "img" or "dsc" or some other 3 letter code followed by some kind of number. This is what your particular camera names each file. The problem is a file name of "img_00003245" does not really tell us much of anything about the image. Wouldn't it be better if the file was named "beach2009_012"? We would then know just by looking at the file name that the image was taken while on a beach trip in 2009. With that in mind, let me offer a couple recommendations about renaming your digital photos.

Many cameras have the ability to change the default 3 letter code given to each image. You'll have to check your menu (or even better your manual) to see if your camera has this feature. I changed mine to my initials (RAU). By just doing that I am tagging the images coming from my camera with a file name associated with me. If my images were mixed in with other people's images from an event, the file name "RAU_006765" would indicate that image came from me. This is certainly better than having my images tagged with the generic "img_".

Even better though is to rename your image files with a name that corresponds with the event where the images were taken, like my "beach2009_012" example above. Here is my own workflow: I usually shoot with two cameras so I can always have lenses with two different focal lengths. I have the internal clocks of both cameras in sync. When I import onto my computer the images from the two memory cards, all those images are loaded into one folder. My desire is to rename all the images, and at the same time put them into the order in which they were taken. Because the two cameras' clocks are in sync, and because the time each image was taken is imbedded into each image, it is possible to put them in chronological order. I use a program called "A Better Rename Finder", a Mac only shareware program, that allows me to batch rename thousands of images automatically, all at one time. There are several renaming freeware and shareware programs out there that you could try. Because it can be done as a batch, and because it makes renaming files so easy, there really is no reason not to rename your digital photos. I highly recommend doing so. Let me know if you have any questions about this.

Nikon D'Town

It's been a rainy day today, and fortunately no wedding to shoot in the rain, so I caught up on some old podcasts I've been meaning to watch. For those of you who shoot with Nikon cameras, you might enjoy watching the Nikon D'Town video podcasts. These 30 minute shows are hosted by Scott Kelby and Matt Kloskowski, two guys best known for their Photoshop/Lightroom expertise. It's easy enough to skip through the podcast, just watching what you want. Probably not everything they talk about is relevant to your photography, but there are some good tips and explanations on camera and menu features. Good way to spend a rainy day. By the way, I subscribe to the podcasts through iTunes.

Digital is Way Cool

I went down to D.C. with a couple friends on Saturday evening to photograph some sites. This image was probably the last one taken: handheld at 1/125 second at f2.8. ISO? 6400! That's right, 6400 iso. For those who understand these kinds of things, you know that it had to be fairly dark to only get 1/125 shutter speed when working with f2.8 and iso of 6400. What is remarkable is how clean the image is. I did apply some noise reduction, but still. With film I doubt you would have ever gotten these results under these conditions. Shot with the NIkon D700. Very sweet. Be sure to double click on the image to enlarge it.

Digital Photography Can Sure Be Fun

One of the things I have really enjoyed with digital photography is being able to play around with photos after they have been captured. Both Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop are powerful tools for today's photographer. Personally I don't like manipulating my images too much. As much as possible I like to keep their original integrity. But there is still plenty of room in my mind to be creative, play with the colors, and alter the mood of the image. Here is one image from Jay and Jaime's April 4 wedding that demonstrates how one image can look different in five ways. My guess is that as you look at them your eye might be drawn to one particular style, while someone else might be drawn to another. I'm sure there is some psychological reason for that, maybe not.